The Short Writings of a Tall Man

Moleskin

2012-02-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

"BRIAN!?"

"Yes Grandma?"

"Do you need anything up there?"

"Uhm. No. I should be okay. I have most of it cleaned up already. That last box I brought down was full of old baseball cards."

"Oh. Well okay. You let me know if you need anything to drink or a snack. I have apples and peanut butter? Or chips?"

"Really Gramma I'm fine. I'll be down soon. Only a few more boxes."

"Okay. Be careful up there Alex. I'll be out back."

"Okay. Thanks Gramma."

Alex heard the soft foot steps of the ninety-year-old woman as she headed outdoors. He was in the surprising large attic whose access ladder descended into his Grandmother's kitchen. He had been up there for the last day and a half of his vacation. Sorting, moving, repacking, resorting and making an inventory of everything that was left up there by his recently deceased Grandfather. This wasn't exactly what he had in mind when he had made the trip to the small Oregon coastal town. He had originally intended to bring his girlfriend too. But that hadn't worked out either.

He picked up a box marked "Old". The bottom of the old cardboard box gave and the heavy contents escaped onto the floor.

"Well fuck."

Alex put the now empty cardboard on top of the rest of boxes in the stuffed attic that was now swirling with dust and old air.

"So what is all of this hmmm?"

He kneeled next to the pile of papers. The single incandescent light above the entrance to the attic was barely bright enough for him to make out the title of papers.

"The Hattiesburg American?"

There were hundreds of these papers. Some yellowing with age but most were well preserved. Alex thought that these hadn't been opened in years. The dates of the newspapers all seemed to be within the same three year period and were accompanied by other small notebooks, loose papers, and generic manilla folders. Alex gathered it all, gently, and walked down the steep retractable ladder.

The stack slapped against the plaid table lining in the dining room.

Alex went to the backdoor of the house.

"Hey Gramma?!"

Grandma Silas was kneeling by the lettuce and looked up.

"Come see what I found."

Local Boy Found Dead in Lake Hennington

April 3, 1951

The body of Hattiesburg resident Leroy Akers, 15, was found in Lake Hennington near Oak Grove. The authorities were called onto the scene after Thomas and James Luck had found the body while out fishing. He was identified by the car keys in his left trouser pocket.

In a statement made earlier today Chief of Police Ed Hasting said that a full investigation into the death will be made, but the death at this time is being ruled as a suicide and that any information on the case should be brought to the police station.

"The Hattiesburg police force take all cases filed very seriously. There is no evidence at this time to convince us that this is anything other than a tragic day for the Akers family, and for the Hattiesburg community. We will continue to do our absolute best to keep our homes safe." said Chief Hasting.

The body was found on the southern edge of the lake near the man made bridge.

"We were just finishing our morning fishing, like we always do, and I was tying up our canoe when Tom yells from behind me 'Look!" So I looked. We thought it was a dead coon, or a dead deer. Didn't expect to find a dead negro." said James Luck.

A memorial service will be held for Leroy Akers at Dunbar High gymnasium on Saturday April 5th at nine O'clock

-Greg Silas

"Greg Sil- GRANDPA wrote this!"

"Yes. He sure did."

"When- Where- I didn't know he was a journalist, or reporter. When was this, 1951? That's 60 years ago? He must have been, like, my age. I didn't know you lived in Hattiesburg. Where is that"

"Southern Mississippi. Only lived there for 3 years as Greg was writing. After that we moved to the northwest."

"Why didn't I know that?"

"It never really came up I guess-"

"Does mom know?"

"Yes. Your mother knows of course."

"Oh. Great, she just never told me."

"She had her reasons I'm sure Alex."

"Yeah sure she did. Why do you think this article was the one cut out of the paper?"

"Oh. I'm not sure. He always kept everything. Such a pack rat. But you know that don't you? With all of those boxes full of his thing. I never messed with it."

Alex didn't hear the last words of his grandmother. He was too busy searching through the newspapers, trying to find the next cut out article.

"I wonder why these... Where... Ah-Ha."

Case Closed on Dead Child

April 7, 1951

Chief of Police Ed Hasting announced in front of the downtown police station that they were officially closing the case of Leroy Akers. The announcement was interrupted by the outraged father of Akers, Percy Jackson. He was held back by a police officer and then later brought into the station to get booked, but after He had given her piece of mind to Mr. Hasting. He was charged with disrupting the peace and fined.

The coroners office declared the cause of death to be drowning, confirming the suspicion of suicide. Hasting said the official story was the victim, Akers, drove his car into the water with the windows down. His car was found at the bottom of the lake. Registered to him.

It was at this point in the speech that Jackson's outburst silenced the crowd of reporters and the Chief.

"Liar! You know my boy didn't kill himself. You know who really killed my boy Mr. Hastings! You know. You are a sick man. If that was your son sir you would be investigating this murder and you know it!"

The accusation was denied by the Chief. Who claimed once again that all of the evidence that has been brought to the attention of the police department leads to suicide. He apologized to Jackson for his loss and assured him he knew nothing on the situation.

Jackson did not calm down but only continued to insult Chief Hasting. At this point other officers got involved removing Mr. Jackson.

- Greg Silas

"Huh. I don't get it. Why these stories?"

Alex placed the papers down on his desk.

"Grandma?"

Frail Nancy Silas poked her head around the corner from the kitchen.

"Hmmm?"

"Why did you leave?"

"What?"

"Why did you leave Hattiesburg?"

"We drove."

"No. Gramma. Why? Why did you leave? If Grampa had a job writing and stuff why'd you leave?"

"It was too hot."

"So you moved to the northwest?"

"Exactly."

"Ok. Well thanks."

Alex went and sat down back at the dining room table now covered in yellowing white and black paper. He saw a hand written note poking out from behind a headline.

Greg,

We just got a notification from the higher ups to stop running the story on the Leroy Akers. They don't like all that controversy surrounding their paper.

- E.D.

"Grandma! Who's E.D?"

"What?"

He went to her.

"Who is E.D? I found a note here that is to Grampa from an E.D?"

"Oh. E.D? Hmmm. Uh. Eddie... No. What's it say?"

"Something about not writing about Leroy anymore."

"Ah... E.D. was his editor at the newspaper. A good friend to your Grandfather. He was nice to us."

"Huh. Okay. Do you remember the story about the Akers kid?

"Oh of course. That was big deal then."

"Why?"

"The south is different than here hun. Especially in those days. Why don't we instead go get some dinner. Let me reward my favorite grandson for all the hard work he has been doing. I haven't even properly thanked you for coming up to visit me."

"No, Grandma. I should be the one taking you out. Thank you so much for letting me stay. I didn't want to spend all spring break at school. Thank you."

The fast food diner was small. There were only three tables, six chairs. It smelled like butter and burger.

"I don't want to-"

"No no no, I won't hear any of that. I'm paying. You are a growing boy. You have as much as you want."

After the order was placed for a bacon swiss burger and a chocolate shake, and fries for Gramma, they sat down.

"I brought this..."

Alex withdrew a small black notebook from his coat. The same notebook that fell onto the floor with the rest of the papers in the attic.

"This is Grandpa's reporting notebook."

"I vaguely recognize it. What about it?"

"Well. I read it."

"Oh. Hmm... Anything interesting?"

"Well... Yes! Grandma. I know. It's okay."

"What?"

"I know what happened? I know what grandpa did. I know why you left the Mississippi. I get it. There is nothing to hide from. You are heroes. Both of you."

"I... I. I don't- I have no clue what on earth you are babbling about Alex. Look. Here come our burgers. "

The waitress in a striped skirt placed the basket with fries and burger in front of the two.

"Enjoy."

Alex looked at his grandmother as she squirted a little ketchup on the side of the fries basket. There was more to this little old lady than met the eye.

In Remembrance

2012-02-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

I remember that last sunny day in November we stood face to face on that patch of grass near the shade of that ponderosa pine tree on the point where the sand and rocks steep into the salty Pacific giving the wide waves white wigs your brown hair was blown from somewhere behind me, and then you told my opal oval eyes I think I love you

I remember cause your perm solar flared and framed your face where I could see the freckles by your ear and I kissed them.

I remember the ocean was to my left where the sun shine was shown for the last time before it set in the west which must mean you were facing, south.

I remember your mouth.

I remember you looked cold so I gave you my coat even though I had said you'd get chilled in that frilled sundress but you looked like Breakfast at Tiffany's and when a woman looks Hepburn you never say no, so, I gave you my coat. I'd even give up smoking if you asked.

I still remember that wet day in May when we writhed naked in the faded sheets of my bedroom, I let you slither into my ears and became blind to the outside world like the thick plane of glass that kept the rain from touching you the way I was. Your forked tongue poached my brain and hissed I fucking love you.

I remember because your sharpened nails branded my sternum and shoulder blades before bleeding my hips and lips.

I remember my one hand grabbing both your wrists and I held them above your martyred naked body for god and everyone else to see that this was who we really were, and we really were kinda kinky like that.

I remember we would go to the bathroom together, then do it on the sink.

I remember the sweat collect on your back and forehead and how if I stroked your hair just right I could see that little bald spot on your head that one that you got from your sister when she pulled your pig tail too hard and you bled for like two days and you didn't want anyone else to see but me and when I would run my palm down to the small of your back I could see steam come off like 1940's fog in an air plane hanger and I'm Bogart and you're Bergman and in all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world you walk into mine.

I also remember that hot August night when we hadn't speaked in two weeks. You called and asked if we could meet on the path by the same tree by the same ocean whose waves lapped at the slightly smaller stones and boulders all a little less closer together like you and me as we sat on that bench and you mentioned I don't love you anymore.

I remember you said something about a Marc and I couldn't see your eyes cause you looked away and mumbled, and it was getting late and dark and

I remember how your feet couldn't quite reach the pebbles on the loose concrete as you declined to meet my gaze, hands wrestling with no clear winner in your lap listening to me listing reasons and ways why you should take me back.

I remember you standing and leaving,

and I remember me kneeling and pleading.

I remember that you were Desire and I was Brando screaming "Stella! Stella! Stella!" but you still walked away, into the upstairs apartment.

Now I drink down my disgrace in Daniels and paint your face on the sidewalk with my stomach bile. Writing romantic love poems
hoping that the more that I remember the more I forget.
Hoping with each rereading i lose more meaning and feeling to the point where you're only an ink blot forgotten in mind's margins.
Take this as the eulogy of our relationship
And I will always remember that I have seen your shit.

It did not take her very long to die

2012-01-22T23:21:00.000-08:00

The new white 1999 Accord laid dormant in a parking space near the pay phone outside of a 7/11 halfway between the Jacksonville International Airport and the Atlantic coast. A woman sat in the passenger seat with the window rolled halfway down. Her short black hair was curlier than normal. Florida is more humid than Pennsylvania. She sat in a black sundress. The white flats on her feet rested on the bleached-clean floor mat, her hands on the hardcover book in her lap. Her gold watch, a twenty-fifth anniversary present, said 5:15.

"Jesus Roj."

The man closed the men's bathroom door of the gas station and locked it. Turned on the lights. The mirror above the sink was grimy with water stains and fingerprints. He watched himself draw a steel cigarette case from the left pocket of his white khakis. He took out a small bag. With one of his laminated business cards he straightened the line of cocaine that poured onto the lid of the case. His nose used a short straw to snort it. His eyes rolled back reading the veins in his skull before refocusing on the old mirror. He wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve and washed his hands.

The car door slammed, waking the woman from her short nap.
"Hey. Sorry."

"What took you so long?"

"There was a line and I needed to get a coffee. Being cooped up in that plane for two hours. It gets to me."

"Ahh okay. Did you get me my water?"

Roger put the small coffee in the unused cup-holder.
"Oh. Shoot. I'm sorry Karen-"

"It's fine. How long until we get to, uh, where we're going?

"Villano Beach. Not much farther. 15 minutes."

He started the car. She fastened her seat belt.

+++

Karen followed Roger to the light green door of apartment 114 on the first floor of El Hijo Perdido Motel near the white sand beach of, what airport pamphlets described as, 'picturesque' Villano Beach, Florida. He propped open the screen door with his hip, the keys rattled trying to find their function. A 'click' and Karen stepped into the recently cleaned apartment.

It was a dark room. Roger walked past the queen-sized bed and turned on a lamp that was stationed on a circular table in the corner. A wicker chair was next to it. There was a small dresser, two bedside tables and a standing lamp between the bed and the closed curtains of their window. Near the bathroom door was a small closet which Karen rolled her orange suitcase into. She placed her book, which was still in her hands, on the circular table and sat in the wicker chair.

The wallpaper was old. Seventies. Over-saturated flowers, birds, butterflies, branches, and leaves. She stared at the cobalt blue flower that speckled the wall every few feet.

"Carnation..."

"What was that?"

Roger Darling had just clicked open his red Samsonite suitcase. His initials, RCD, on the handle. His black loafers bounced as they dropped onto the teal bedspread. Roger was aging fast. His skin was hanging loose on his deteriorating skeleton and drying at the edges. Around his nose. Around his mouth. His hands were sand. He always seemed to have a cold or something. His greying black hair that had been as thick as the Florida humidity was now starting to thin. The color starting to fade from his tree-trunk brown eyes. Karen thought it might be his job. Roger wrinkled his nose.

"It smells like the pool in here. Did you forget somethin' or what're you staring at?"

"Hm? Wh- Oh, no. No. I'm not sure exactly. I guess I was just-"

"Grabbing your bag? Because you should. We need to get unpacked. Get some of that famous Florida sunshine you’re always goin' on about. Get our feet in the sand. The beach isn’t even that far from the motel and it's almost 5:30 as is. If it wasn’t for the Jacksonville airport and their fucking baggage cla-"

"Blood pressure Roger.”

“Well those assholes have a lot of nerve to tell me-“

“Li-listen, I'll grab my bag. Don't get all worked up. You know what your doctor said. Just give me, like, 15 minutes to get ready, and we'll go outside."

"15 minutes? So like an hour? Ya know we didn't come down here just to sit around in the hotel room Karen. We're leaving in two days? That's not much time before we hit the road and head north."
Roger was hurriedly unpacking. No order. Scattering clothes about the bed. Never making direct eye contact. Searching for something in his suitcase. He took off the tan business shirt with a stained sleeve and threw it to the head of the bed.

"Well fine. I'll get ready. I don't know what you think this whole road trip is supposed to accomplish anyways. I still think we should've just flown into Raleigh and had Rachel meet us there. That way at least we could've just stay in the same room the whole trip, ya know, not get in a hurry, not have to pack up everything every night. We could just relax and-"

"I didn't get two weeks off work to go see my daughter in 90 degree weather and not see the beach. If we had flown into Raleigh and just stayed in Durham the whole time we wouldn't have even seen the ocean. Okay? Just... Give me this Karen. Try and act happy. I mean Jesus. I did this for you."

“What- For me?"

“Well you said you wanted to see Rachel-“

“Yes! I did. I do. But Rachel isn’t here Roj! She’s seven hours north of here. Which is exactly what I've been trying to say this whole time, I... I don’t-”

“Just listen.”

Roger stopped her and walked to the front of the bed.

By this point Karen was sitting in the wicker chair next to the small circular table that had an old lamp with a thick shade. The room was dimly lit. The old incandescent bulb of the standing lamp near the door back lit Roger who was now sitting on the bed, now covered in clothes unfolded. He continued.

“I want this to be a good week. I promise we’ll see Rachel soon but I mean when was the last time we did a trip together huh? Just me and you? It’s been a while. Since before- A-a long time ago. I just thought this might be a way to do- Or to make up for something, or something...”

Karen looked down at her hands that were wrestling in her lap. Her fragile fingers fumbling around the too-tight wedding band. Karen had just turned 45. Before they left for Florida the couple had a birthday dinner at the Callaghan's, the neighbors. Nothing big. Just a few families that had known each other for years. The way that couples with the same age kids do. Joe Callaghan was Rachel's age. They were best friends until seventh grade, when worlds changed. The same time Chris had been flung from his friends four-wheeler and broke his spine on a perfectly placed rock.

“I get it Roger. I do. I get that your trying… I just…Shit. I just don't really want to talk about this now either. I guess. We have all that driving still and... yeah. I don't know. I mean we just got here. Let me settle in first. I'm sure I'll be fine soon. I'll just see you on the beach, okay?”

He kissed her. On the forehead. Then grabbed a floral shirt and a yellow something as he began to change. Men change when they lose their son.

When Chris had died Karen was at one of Rachel's junior high softball games and Roger was at work. The time of death, about 4:00 p.m, May 3, 1995. Which was about when Chris's eye's glazed over. When his last breath flew over his mouth and lips. When Rachel threw the ball from south of her hips to first base mitt for the double play. When Karen cheered she heard her cell phone ring. When Roger sat with peers diligently working. When Rachel watched her mother's body collapse in the grandstand still clutching the black bulky bearer of bad news. When Chris's limp neck was braced by medics lifting him into the ambulance. When Roger wouldn't pick up his phone at work. When Rachel kept playing. When Karen eye's opened. When Chris's closed. When Roger finally got home Rachel ran from the front step of their house. Her trachea coughing through tweenage tears "Dad! Chris died!"

Roger, now in the bathroom, yelled:

"Okay! Well look, I'll be out on the beach. You come find me. I'm gonna head... Shit... Uh. Left? I don't know. You'll see me."

Flip flops, yellow shorts with a lump in its pocket, a Tommy Bahama button-up t-shirt, and Ray Ban sunglasses. Roger looked at Karen with hollow conch shells. Ones you could hear the ocean in. Karen could hear the kids in the pool.

"I look stupid don't I?"

Roger shook off his shirt. Threw it on his side of the bed, near the bedside table bearing Stuart Kaminsky's "Murder in the Sunshine State" and key's to their rented Honda. The least suspecting vehicle in the history of the world. His skin was Pennsylvania pale. His stomach non-existent. Karen noticed Roger had been losing weight lately. She thought it was his job. He used to be so big.

"It's fucking 92 out anyways. Come find me will ya?"

Karen wheeled her small orange rolling suitcase to her side of the queen bed, sat down and kicked off her too-tight shoes. There was a green stain on her heel from the sole of the shoe that wouldn't rub off. She leaned back, laying her head on the fresh sheets. Roger's mess of clothes was beneath her and a lump underneath the small of her back. As she looked at the mess her matronly reflex kicked in. She stood and went to Roger's side of the bed to clear the clutter. She picked up the stained shirt of Roger's and saw the half-blood half-snot spill she knew she would clean.

"Jesus..."

Roger had been working more and more hours for Fed-Ex. Late nights. More business trips to New York and Boston. On those trips Karen would have their whole suburban house to herself. Alone for the weekend. It had been years since she could say that. She used to have softball games, ballet recitals, dances, sleepovers or whatever else Rachel was doing. Chris had wrestled and manned second base in the spring. His fathers son. Thick black hair. First kiss at 15. And smart. Six years older than Rachel. Had been about to graduate and go to a good school, like Penn state, one that would've made Roger proud, when the spinal fluid in his back started leaking out of hole that was made as his 8th spinal vertebrae was smashed by the small pointed boulder. An accident. He had just gone too fast around a corner. He was racing Jordan who could only watch his best friend scream in paralyzed pain as the last gasp of his 18-year-old life left his lungs. Jordan ran home and rung Karen. Who was at the softball game. Roger spread his ashes with Rachel and Karen at an old cabin that Roger's family owned. Two hours north of Philly. Outside of Pottsville. Where Chris and Roger would go on getaways. Karen didn't like those trips but was glad to have the house alone with Rachel. Before Rachel left for Duke, and before she got her driver's license the two would go to the mall and shop, watch movies all weekend, order pizza, wake up late and read all day. Karen missed that. Rachel had told her mom to "get a dog." But that wasn't the same.

Roger grabbed the keys and left again through the apartment doors. Looking back at his wife of 26 years piling his clothes back into his suitcase.

"Hey. I love you Karen Darling."

Karen shuddered and responded:

"See you out there."

The screen door of the El Hijo Perdido Resort room slam shut along with the wooden one. The drone of cicada, splashing children's arms in the pool and the seconds from the wall mounted clock whose numbers were replaced with red dots filled Karen's mind as she contemplated every decision she made in her shit life that had brought her to this shit hotel room in Villano Beach, Florida.

Karen wondered if she had actually even really loved Roger once. She probably had. Once. In high school. Or just after Chris was born. Maybe. Or when Rachel was. Neither Roger nor Karen had cried at their wedding. Her mother did. But that didn't really count because she cried when Karen told her they were engaged, and at Chris and Rachel's birth, at graduations, and at the wake. She cried like clouds. Karen was her father's child and never cried. Not even when Chris was born. Or conceived. She knew she wouldn't cry when she asked Roger for a divorce either. No. That would be easy for her. She'd told herself every reason in the mirror a thousand times. Practicing. "I'm sorry Roger. But I just don't love you anymore. It's obvious now. Ever since Rachel left for school it's been more and more obvious. We just do not belong together. I think it probably even started before that. Deep down. If we're honest, we both knew it wouldn't work at the wedding." She'd planned to tell him a month before. The night when he told her they'd be going on a road trip from Jacksonville, Florida to Raleigh, North Carolina to visit their daughter, now a junior at Duke. He'd redeemed his Fed-Ex miles for the plane tickets. Karen wanted to see her child so she kept her tongue still. If it wasn't for Rachel they wouldn't still be together. Though Karen had used that excuse for years.

From her bag she heard her Nokia cellphone ring. The shrill electronic Fur Elise ringtone vibrated her bag. Replaying the same six second segment over and over again until she unzipped and withdrew it.

"Ok. I get it. Christ…"

She flipped open the phone and static spewed onto Karen's ear.

"He-Hello?... Hello?"

She looked down at the fluorescent green screen. One bar.

"Stupid thing. Hello?"

"Mom? Hello?... Mom?"

"Rachel?"

"Mom. Yes. Do you - service? - hear me ok? How's the phone?"

"I can barely hear you honey. Where are you? You scared me when you called. I forgot I even had this thing."

"Well this - why you bought it right? I tried to - late getting in and I saw that your flight - so now I headed - see you so soon! I can't wait. I've missed - How's dad?

"You're cutting out Raych but I think I know what you're saying. We got in late and will be headed up to see you soon! I've missed you too. It's not easy being in that big house without you there. Still feels empty. Your father is out on the beach already. "

"I love you too mo- Where are you guys staying?"

"Tonight and tomorrow we're at the La Hejo Pertitos resort or something like that? It's just out of Jacksonville in Villano Beach. I don't know why your father came up with this-"

"Where?"

Karen shouted into the mouthpiece:

"LA HIJO PERTITOS RESORT."

"Jesus Mom!"

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes. God. I'll be - see you soon. I love - Bye!"

"Oh. Okay. Ba-Bye Rachel. See you in a few days honey. We love you."

Karen folded up her daughter's voice and put it on the bedside table.

"What time is- Only 5:50?"

Karen laid back upon the ocean of bed. Head heavy on the down pillow. She stared at the ceiling. The old wallpaper coated it too. A revolving fan erected out of one of the bright blue carnations. It matched the wallpaper. Slowly circling like drain water. She’d seen that flower before.

With her eyes she traced around the edge of a cold, pink carnation. Tracing the petals inwards toward its hidden stigma. Down its stem, then traced the fingers of branches splitting and slithering in different directions unfurling into more hands of flowers. She traced yellow and orange and purple ones. She traced the branches, leaves, and a butterfly until she was stopped by a rip in the wallpaper halving a cobalt blue carnation. The flower looked like the fire that comes out of the stove when you turn it up high. The blue flames licked at the split in the wallpaper and nearly melted the frozen wings of the nearby butterfly. Perpetually hovering above. She traced the edge of a silent starling. Dark green wings like moss. Its eyes black and stood expressionless on its golden body. Perched on a branch calling to its deaf mate who was merely a foot away. The bird heard nothing. Its head was cocked, looking away, towards the flame of flower. The whole wall was on fire with blue flame. Her eyes closed.

"How curious..."

+++

"Hi. Is... Uh. Karen here? I'm her date. Uh, Roger. How're you Mr. McCallister? You have a very nice house."

Karen stood motionless next to the door in the bathroom of her childhood home in Bryn Athn, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Only a few blocks from where she now lives with Roger. In a red brick house. Karen stood and watched her 18-year-old-self listen to the conversation at the front door via the air vent. A childhood secret she'd used to find out who Santa was. She watched herself pull up her gloves looking into the mirror. They went past her elbow. Karen remembered she had felt elegant. She looked like a Bond girl. Her mom had done her hair. In a big bun behind her head. Her cream dress was cinched above her hip. Her teenage bust covered by an ivy pattern stitched in green. A white innocent shoulder held an oversized bow. The young woman awkwardly smiled at herself in the bathroom mirror. Baring her braced teeth. Which hung as awkwardly off of her gums as her bare breasts did from her skinny chest. The girl took a deep breath. Pimple free. All she needed to do now was to get through Roger giving her a corsage and her parents taking pictures and they could get to the prom. Roger told her earlier that day at school that he was going to borrow his dad’s bright blue Dodge Viper and maybe bring a flask of rum to sip on before the dance. Roger is two years older than her.

“Raaaaachelll. There’s a boy here for you. He’s saying something about a prom or something? Do you know this guy?”

“Shut up dad! I’ll be right down. Almost ready.”

She opened up the window of the bathroom. Lit a cigarette. Calming her hands that had clenched into fists. The tabacco calming her trembling hands. Karen watched her 18-year-old self sit on the toilet gently ashing a cigarette out of the cracked window.

"Listen." Karen stepped forward form the shadow of the door.

The girl continued to smoke. Undisturbed.

"I know you might think that you love him. But you don't. You've known him for three months. Three!"

She blew smoke through Karen.

"Please. I'm warning you. Please don't go down those stairs. You will regret it. Everyday of your life you will regret it. God damn it. Fucking listen to me!"Karen tried to grab her young hands. Tan. Soft. No wrinkles. No green stain around her finger that wouldn't wash off. Full of life. Karen's hand went through the girl.
"Fuck. Please. Listen. Don't-"

+++

Karen opened her eyes. It was dimly lit and smelled like hot sweat and bad cologne. Around her uncomfortable children swayed back and forth in fifty dollar misfitting suits, occasionally bumping into one another making the incredibly awkward moment worse. She noticed a cream dress sitting on a chair near a clean table with a clear glass filled with fruit punch, ice, and a small bit of rum which Karen remember Kevin O'Donell had gotten past Mrs. Orlansky who was now a few tables over with a flashlight patrolling distances in-between couples. She went and sat down next to young Karen McCallister who was now a little buzzed.
"Okay. Look. I get it. He's handsome. I remember that his powder blue tux and his Dustin Hoffman haircut are almost an unbeatable combination but please, tonight, overlook it. He's an idiot. He's a not a bad person, he's just, not right, he's Roger. Yes, he plays football, which is great in high school but he only gets worse looking and is a terribly unloving man. You-"

"Hey baby. How're you? Time to dance?"
Roger extended one of his large hands to the youth. He stared at her young blue eyes which were so enamored by the cheap cologne and bright colors. A courting technique that has worked across different species for millennia.

Karen tried to stop herself
"Don't-"

"I was waiting for you to get over here already." The 18-year-old said. Placing her hand on his.

Karen didn't remember herself being so easy.
"You little slut."

It was then when she noticed the corsage on her hand. A blue carnation the size of a small pumpkin. Huge. Cobalt blue petals zapped with color. It stood like the worlds largest sapphire on her white stem wrist. Karen remembered it weighed a ton.

"Jesus Christ... It was my corsage."

"Well? Are you coming?"

"Of course. Hold on." Karen put down her fruit punch and got out of her chair in the 3 inch white heels that her mom had let her borrow.

"Please just don't sleep with him!" She shouted after herself.

The couple got lost in the throng of high schoolers jiving to ABBA.

"Fuck..."

+++

"What?"

"I said 'I brought a condom. Do you want to fuck?"

More dim lighting. This time it came the front seat of the Dodge Viper. From the radio panel. Karen Darling was in the backseat watching her 18-year-old self make the first big mistake of her life.

"Oh I didn't know-"

"No!" Karen interrupted her self. "She will Not! Fuck you you fucking pig piece of shit!"

Karen tried to grab Roger's throat and punched through his head. She hit the pillow as hard as she could. Again. And Again. Her arm pistoning through his head. Fueled by years of bullshit sex and bullshit marriage.

"Fuck you! Don't fucking touch her!"

"-I don't know if I'm ready for-"

"Oh come on baby. We've been going steady for like three months now. It'd be so bitchin'. I swear you'd love it."

"I promise. You won't. You really won't. He's a shitty fuck."

"I'm really not sure..."

He grabbed her waist and pulled the scared virgin's hips to his. Her black bra and panties made her porcelain skin glow. She still wore the flame on her wrist. It was crumpled and smashed and a few of the petals had fallen off. Karen tried to pull him off her but her hands slipped through him as he slipped two fingers into her.

"Fucking get off of her you-"

"Oaahh.. Roj, please that-"

"Shhh. I promise it will feel good."

"But-"

"Get the fuck off of her!"

He put his rough hand on Karen's satin stomach and slid it down her leg, slipping off her silk underwear. Opening her legs.

"Roj. I really don't-"

"Shhh. Baby... It will feel so good. I promise."

"No. I really don't-"

"We fucking don't want to goddamn it! Get off of her you pig!"

He was on his kneels between her legs now. Talking to her. Naked. His chest was broad. Not like a high school boys, but like a man. She remembered how useless she felt. How helpless. How she thought this was love. He loved her. Right? His hands were big. Like slabs of meat. He held down both of her hands above her head under one hand.

"Roj. Are you sure-"

"No! You fucking stop it you fucking pig! You are a disgusting asshole!"

"I'm sure..."

Karen cried as her screams fell on deaf ears and every punch she rained fell through the beast, unnoticed, as he mounted and proceeded to fuck the prostrate princess whose pinned arms and body gave in to the peer and pubic pressure. The condom broke. Or he didn't use it. Karen covered her eyes. Sobbing to the rythme that the bed frame made against the wallpaper of her room.

Clacka. Clacka . Ca-Clack. Clacka Clacka Ca-Clack.

+++

Clacka Clacka. Ca-Clack.

Karen's eyelids opened. A slit of setting sun stunned her pupils from the open window blinds.

Clacka Clacka. Ca Clack.

Karen looked to her bedside table and the clock spelled 7:35.

"Oh Jesus. Great. I'm sorry Roger! Did you forget your key? Just come in."

Clacka Clacka. Ca Clack.

"Well. Fuck. Ok. Hold on please."

Clacka Clacka.

"I get it! I'm coming!"

Karen opened the wood door. Through the screen two rat eyes stared at her. One rat claw scratched it's rat chest as the other rat hand held a small pistol at Karen. One of the rat's ears had a bite out of it. He wore a white tank top and cargo shorts. A bit of white gold surrounding his nostrils.

"Why don't you shut the fuck up and let me in."

Karen's eyes fell on the metal object he grasped.

"Yes. It is loaded. And yes. I will not hesitate to shoot you right in that pretty face of yours."

Karen still not finding words started to back away from the door. The man opened the screen door and took a few steps in. Quietly closing, and locking, the doors behind him.

"Where is he?"

"Wh-a-who?"

"Roger! Where the fuck is Roger?"

"I- I don't. I don't know. He left two hours ago."

"Shut up. You fucking tell me where he is. Or I shoot you. Hear that Roger? I willshoot her!"

"He's not here! I promise! I swear. He left to go for a walk hours ago. I thought you were him when I opened the door. I promise. Wh-What do you want"

Karen was now in the wicker chair. Her hands trembling like it was prom night.

"Then where the fuck is he huh?"

"I told you I don't know. He just left. I don't know where he went to. How did you know where he was? Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"Look lady. I want nothing from you. Except to shut the fuck up. Sit there. And tell me where your husband is with my cocaine."

It took a while for it to register in Karen's mind. What exactly had been said.

"Co-"

"Cocaine. Yes. Cocaine. He was supposed to be bringing me a large quantity of cocaine. Or a large quantity of money. I really would been fine with either at this point."

The man remained standing. His arm sweat gleamed in the dim light. He walked backwards keeping the gun on her. Peeking out of the eyehole in the door.

"Now do you have the money or does your husband?"

Insomniatic,

2012-01-20T11:52:00.000-08:00

It's 4:04 in the morning and I'm still stuck staring at my spinning ceiling fan. Restlessly wrestling my comforter questing for that holy temperature that will bless my head to rest easy. I'm a mess with out Lunesta, an insomniaddict who just needs to sleep.

I snore obnoxiously on a mattress made of boxes that I bought on Craig's List from a Agnostic preaching prophecies of un-godness as he reached for profit. See, I was satisfied cause it was cheap like Chinese food, and he seemed like a good dude even with that glass eye. I shake the man's hand for the black market transaction. He hopped in his trans-am smoke and steam scream from the black rubber searching for traction. The car coughed a cloud of coal crunching and collapsing my cancerous lungs. I can't breathe.

And I shake awake. Again caked to bed springs. Staked prostrate on a cold creaky queen cot where I make myself make believe things. It seemed like an hour. Only 4:06? Shit. Forcing slumber like I'm forcing summer, seasons will change when I close my eyelids and just fucking sleep.

Now I snore unconciously often in blue boxers, I got these from a doctors office or a mosh pit of monsters who don scrubs and sneaks to conceal squamous(scaly) claws and feet, prescribe pills to eat and caustic cough syrup slurped to coat my esophagus, please, your making it so hard I can't breathe.

Back flat, I lie eyes wide, draped in a sweat cape. The wet clings to my naked skins I remember the MD sing things to me like take more medicines, the capsule crunching creates more medicated dreams, son, and that's what you need, a way to cure is this corrosive disease. One way is with drugs, the other- Please! It's 4:08, and I hate to be awake this late, all I really need to do doc is sleep.

Now snore in my subconcious through these thoughts that toxins concocted. I got locked in a rotting coffin. Lost and forgotten underground and I pound and I pound on the lid without making a sound using deep gasps of air the last gasps of air until there is no more air to be found. And my lungs try to fill and my heart tries to stop and my head starts to break and my blood starts to clot and i feel every clot inside of my veins to the point where its gotten to my brains I try to open my eyes and breathe in air but nothing's there. nothing there. never there. and I hear that sound in the back of my mind it sounds a woman telling her broken baby don't cry. the man behind her sings a hymn one he would hum on patrol with his men in Vietnam the mom hushes the broken baby boy as he rattles the crib he screams I want to leave this pain the mother says baby, just breathe it away.

i slept.

Bill

2012-01-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

Bill

Bill was filthy. Face freckled tan, weathered from a life time of wind. A perpetual scruff of grey hair losing the last of its hue stitched to his jowls. He was overweight. But not by much. His robin egg eyes sunken in deep sockets. I wanted to save them with a spoon. His nose was a potato. A fat Idaho spud. Dirty and deformed. He always wore a baseball hat. Kind of. It looked like one that conductors of trains in movies wear. The tired old man with jean overalls and a striped hat. Red bandana tied around the neck. Soot covered face. They’d shout things like “Alllll aboard!” Well, Bill would wear those overalls sometimes, the jackass. I knew he did it just to piss me off. He looked like a cartoon character. I liked working with him though. We worked well together. He was one of my many bosses and had been here for 15 'goddamn' years never once giving a shit. He hired me. Let me wear what I wanted. Usually a sweat and sealant stained tank top and a pair of cracked Carharts ruined by chainsaws, logs, mud, asphalt, wood, sand, concrete, hay, or whatever else the United States Forest Service needed mules for that day. My red mop kept out of my eyes by a purple bandana. Nearly broken sunglasses that I had found in a parking lot. I lived three miles from the Ranger Station. Had since I was six. Past the Deschutes Memorial Gardens if your headed out of Bend on the 97. Kinda by Izzy's Pizza. Past the barn, and past the library. Turn by baseball field and head up that one steep hill. A mile and a long dirt driveway later and you'll be at my house. Well, my parents house. Well, the bank's house.

I loved Bend since I moved there. Eastern Oregon pine trees are so tall. I remember trees on the East Coast weren't. They were breakable. They would always fall down in wind storms and crack in the mornings as their bloody sap froze. Every year their leaves would burst into flames as winter approached. Evergreens never sway, or seem affected by seasons, weather, or time. They just continue to grow, every now and then shaking the extra weight that is dead needles and pine-cones. You can never see the top of an evergreen.

One day Bill and I were sanding and painting new kiosks. End of August, three weeks straight in the parking lot of the Ranger Station which was like two miles northeast of Bend, just past that really great old milkshake place, 'Boulder Creek Diner', out on Hwy. 20. Well the last 5 days of my final summer working for the government, it was over 100 degrees and I spent half my paycheck on milkshakes from Boulder Creek. Dave would drink Heinekens with his Oxycodone. He had worked there so long, doing a damn good job too, that he could do just about anything he wanted. Co-workers had started to stare more, true, but that didn’t stop him. He knew those kinds don’t ask questions. Ted Rohrer from the Trails department was crossing the parking lot. Keeping his eye on the two vagabonds standing above the unfinished posterboard. The red head, gangly and out of place, had long arms that grasped to a too-big paint brush, weighing down his hand. The other an aging overall-clad nose with bushy eyebrows.

“Fucking pussy.” Bill hissed.

Bill had caught the eye of the passing co-worker who then ducked into one of the hundred white Ford F-150 USFS trucks parked in front of the Station. Baking in the heat. Bill popped open his pill bottle, on which he had sharpie'd 'Arsenic'. He shoveled two lumps of coal into his train engine. Swallowed. Then doused the flames with the cool burn of alcohol.

"spp.. AAAaaahh. Well, sex me kindly, that was nice." He looked to the sky and shielded his face from the sun. "Another Fucking hot day! Oh. God. Jesus. Lord Almighty. Christ. Will you please fucking turn it down? It's so goddam hot already. You have proved your point. It's summer. We get it."

"Cock fighting the gods again huh Grandpa? Seems pointless. There are like four million Africans ahead of you on that prayer. Now are you just going to stand there, like the Scrooge you are, and hog them all, or, are you going to share like your mother taught you? I'm the only one doing any of the fucking painting anyways an-"

"Listen boy!" He cut me off. "My moma didn't teach me shit."

The snarl on Bill's lip slipped a dose into his hand then tossed it to me.

"I hate that bitch and you're a cheap little asshole." Barked the beast.

"Fuck off..."

I reached for the Boulder Creek milkshake I had stashed in the shadows underneath the beam of kiosk that morning. Since then it had been warming and watching the motions of the blurry bigger figures. It was still a little cold though. A little.

"Well. Bottoms up. Gracias Jefe."

He stared at me with wells. The impossibly deep eyes. I threw the pill at the back of my throat. Gulping for air then gulping banana shake. The straw would collapse on itself, fucking typical.

"Shit. That does taste good. Cheers Billy Boy." Obligatory clink between drinks, signaling camaraderie amongst American male human beings in the late 20th through early 21st century."Thanks for that. Gonna be a fucking wacky day from here on out."

"You're damn right it will. Lunch Rod?"

Look, just to clear things up. My name is not Rod. It's Robby actually. Well, Robert, and he knew it. Everyone did. Just liked calling me Rod. Well, usually Ram-Rod. God dammit. And Bill really wasn't as abrasive as this sounds. He was a like-able man. Not a racist, homophobe or anti-Semite. Not lazy, a slob, or stupid at all. He told me he watched the History Channel, South Park, and Mythbusters all night because he didn't sleep. Even watched C-SPAN, CNN, and even FOX from time to time. As we would gas up our trucks in the morning he would tell me what chores he did for his delusional, havoc-wreaking, car-wrecking, alcoholic mother. Some days he comes in praying that Jesus takes her soon. Yes, he's callous, but realistic. Bill hates the public, people that take things too seriously, and people that don't laugh at farts. Since it has and always will be a strict policy of mine to snicker or guffaw at any anal flapping that produces an audible noise, we got along swimmingly. We would get breakfast, lunch and even dinner together if we worked late. Did it for the three summers of my high school.

We started smelling like each other. If we were women our cycles would sync, we would chat on the phone at night while complaining about past relationships, arrive at work on time, be more productive, and drive safer. White American male human beings often had an inexplicable sense of grandeur and importance. Origins: unknown.

Bill was not a father.

"I want the responsibility of fucking up only one life thank you very much." He once twanged. "So fuck kids."

The truth is he had wanted kids. He was just scared he would be like his own dad. Absent and resentful. See, Bill would tell me the truth. He did that sometimes. On days when he was almost dead. He'd tell me real things. On days when we finished work after dark. On days when our hands bled. Days when it hurt to sit. Once we mixed cement for eight hours straight and finished paving the pathway at half past seven. Packed up and left the pass in the pitch black. Those nights Bill would check the wipers in anticipation of precipitation. Blinkers too. He always did.

"I ain't gonna fucking die cause I can't see the road. I'm stupid not dumb."

"There's a difference?"

"Not to you because you're a dumb ass."

"Ah well fuck you. Old prick with an old dick."

"Your mother didn't call it old last night."

"Hey. I've been meaning to tell you man. Enough with the mother's jokes. If you met Diane you'd come to realize she's really a sweet caring lady. Not capable of doing the animal cruelties you claim she does. I'm pretty sure any woman that could find it in the deep dark places in their minds to sleep with a goat like you must be into bestiality. At least a bit." He snorted and coughed. I loved when I could make Bill laugh. Or even smile. He had the most perverse sense of humor of any human being I would ever meet. A big kid with a potato nose and hollow eyes.

He had grown up in San Francisco. He told me about him and his friends. He told me about everything. Meeting the Ramones. Doing sheets of acid. Mountains of cocaine. Selling more of both. He told me about why he was the chosen one to win the lottery. Every week. Told me how he was going to spend his money. He told me why he hated his mom. Told me how his wife died. Told me how much he loved his dogs and how he thought aliens were real.

"Hey Ram-Rod. You got a girlfriend?"

"Uhh. No. Well. Not really. I mean I'm fucking this girl. But I don't want to limit my options cause I'm only 17, so.... shit. No. No I don't have a girlfriend. I mean it's high school ya-"

"Yeah. I wanted kids once too."

"What? No- Look if you just wanted to talk about your-"

"Lillian said she never wanted kids though. I told her everything would be 'just fine. Lil', We'll be fine!' But it just didn't work out that way you know? Doc Lucy, over at St. Joe's, told us that Lil' wasn't able to have kids anymore. There were a few other options, but out of our price range." He didn't blink. His Elmer eyes glued to the road ahead. "If I had fucking won the lottery when I was fucking supposed to this wouldn't have happened. It all wouldn't have fucking happened."

"Oh come on. Listen, Bill, You can't try and blame yourself for..."
Bill's meaty hands wrung the steering wheel. It began to rain outside. Bill flicked on the wipers. They worked.

"One hundred and four fucking degrees out!? Mother fucker!"
Bill pissed on our asshole-of-a-boss, Allen's, truck tires in the parking lot of the Ranger Station reading the temperature gauge nailed to the wall next to the door that you have to slam shut with the handle twisted to keep all the cool air in the office. Where Allen works when he's not out eating. I had just come back with yet another Banana Hot Fudge shake. Dave zipped up and brought the rest of his 12-pack and a portable radio. He opened a beer in his teeth. A show of male human dominance. The older male human being will often do feats of strength or toughness in front of the younger weaker less-capable male human being to show him who really wears the pants in the relationship, so to speak. He turned on the old radio with a bent antenna that looked like a broken, petal-less metal flower. Or a twisted little metal pole thing. Tuned it to 98.5 KOZI FM the station that plays all your favorite classic country songs, with no repeats!

"Oh. For fucksake. Really? Do we have to?" I could feel my ears begin to bleed. With each predictable twanged steel string and every fake Kentuckian drawl I could feel another droplet of blood pooling in my ear. Pressing against my eardrums. Growing and pouring out onto my shirt and arms. Then onto the signs, where I would paint with it. I would usually plug two cotton swabs of head phones into my ears to stop the loss of blood. But of course I had forgotten them. Bill would always make fun of me for listening to 'negro' music.

"When you can open a bottle in your teeth, then you can choose the radio station. Until then, you will paint. And breath in the wisdom of Sir Toby Keith and Allan Jackson. Inhale them." If I could open a bottle in my teeth we would listen to NPR. Fresh air, or maybe Wait, Wait, Don't tell me, the NPR news quiz.

"All I am inhaling is the fumes of this fucking varnish. Makes all of my lunch want to come right back up. And turkey does not taste as good the second time."

"You're being a pussy, son. What did I tell you about breathing in Mr. Keith? Are you breathing? Huh Rod?"

"I'm breathing! I'm breathing. Dammit. Oh. God. Uchk, you smell so bad when you stand so close. Be decent. Step back and maybe, if you put that beer down you will have an extra hand for a brush. Ta-Da."

He laughed and took a sip of his beer. He looked back at Allen's truck.

"That's the smell of man, Rod. One day your testicles will smell this way too. Don't worry."

"That's really not what I was-"

"Let's go for a drive Rod. You go tell the Mighty Douche we're going to clear the Patterson Mtn. trail and we'll head up into the 'chutes. It's too hot to be doing this bullshit. 15 goddamn years and I'm still out here babysitting a mentally retarded kid as he huffs paint fumes."

"Excuse me! I believe the correct phrase is 'person with mental disabilities' Thank you very much!"

My heel kicked dirt at the laughing old man as I turned towards the office door. I heard him have the last sips of his Heineken and open another. I felt the bottle cap scrape against his molars.

Bill rested his head on the wheel as the truck came to a rest in an abandoned alcove on the highway.

Though it was dark I recognized this place. It was on the old bike path that I used to take when I would go to my best friend Brian's house. The dirt was red and brown. It formed to the weight of the truck burdened with chainsaws, gas cans, cement bags, a small Bobcat tractor, one poor high school student already working a full-time job during his summer's in high school to pay for the looming debt of state college, and a broken man with more on his mind than the rain outside. Bill's stared blankly at the thick stand of Ponderosa pine trees.His eyes wet with mourning dew.

"Bill it's not your fault at all. Come on man. You fucking know that. There's nothing you could have done. Nothing anyone fucking could have fucking done in that situation. Who-"

"Nothing anyone could have done? That is not-" His face was the whitest I'd ever seen. The snow of the mountains had finally taken the last of the California sun out of Bill's burlap skin. His beard, snow. Sweat beads clung to his pores like tiny translucent stalactites- or is it -lagmites - until crashing onto the steering wheel, or wiped on his cuff. His scarred hands shook. Voice deep. But soft. Cracking. "It was fucking five months ago today that my Lady found my dead wife. I had been watching the history channel. She laid next to me and read her book. It was for her book club meeting the next night and she hadn't started at all. Lil would always do shit like that. Procrastinating bitch. I told her I was gonna take Lady out. Let her piss.' My wife said 'fine'. That night I saw every star. You know? And it was so fucking cold. I felt like, like I could feel heat from each little pinprick in that big black blanket. I saw Lady pee on her tree after thoroughly sniffing it of course. 'Lady, Heel. Come here pup.' We go back inside. Lady runs right into my room. Dogs are smart like that. Then Lady screams. I rush in. Lil is dead. Just fucking dead. I didn't even check. I could just tell. The room didn't have air. Or sound. Or taste. Or smell. Just fucking dead. They would later tell me it was a fucking seizure. It was random. She actually fucking suffocated on the foam in her throat. She started tensing up and shaking, which produced foam in her esophagus, which in turn made it harder to breath, raising her heartbeat, making her tense up more, killing her faster. They say she didn't suffer. How do you die choking on fucking foam in your throat and not suffer? That part of being a doctor is weird ya know? Telling a family how someone they loved died. What they were feeling at that moment. They don't fucking know! I'm almost 57, she was 49. Still fucking beautiful. They told me if she had slept on her side she might've lived. But she always read on her back... The psychiatrist prescribed me a mixture of pain killers and anti-depressants which, when also adding alcohol makes it easy to forget just about anything. And just stay awake all fucking night and fucking. just fucking... .oh jesus fuck...."

Bill reached into his coat pocket and pulled the pills out again. He steadied the speeding Ford F-350 donning government tags with his left knee. I chewed on sunflower seeds and spit unsalted shells out the open window. Sunglasses on. He poured six tabs into his hand.

"Three for you, three for me." He makes a gesture like he's doing the breaststroke and sucks in his cheeks like a fish. "A very wacky day is right my ginger friend."

I didn't always do drugs. But then my best friend died. Life lost purpose. Time did too. Dreams dominated by death, and I don't dream when I'm high. I just fall asleep watching Netflix on my old macbook computer. Lately I had been watching Lost. The triplets rolled in my hand. Two small white symmetrical beans. The other oblong. Half yellow like a lego. I place them all onto my tongue and slid them into my throat as I reached for milkshake. The banana sludge slipped up the straw as I sucked. Soaking my throat and forcing the wrong medication down my neck.

I looked at Bill, pretended to do the breast stroke and sucked in my cheeks to look like a fish.

"We'll pull off up here and go for a little hike." He said. "Sound good?"

I nodded. He turned on the radio. Now too far from town to pick up KOZI, the truck antenna only got an crackling oldies station. They play The Mills Brothers. Mr. Sandman.

When Allen was at the office we'd take our afternoons off, like this, and go joy-driving up seldom used forest service roads high on prescription medication. We would say that we were clearing debris off the road, going to clean a campground, or build a fence somewhere to keep something in. Allen didn't give a fuck. He was just a giant government fund sucking leech. And I mean giant. A walrus with clipped tusks. He had a mustache like one too, that is to say you couldn't see his mouth as he talked through the thick, seldom-moving wires.

Bill swatted at flies that had escaped into the sanctity of our truck's cab and were now determined to taste his Heineken.

"Well, fuck. Goddam Obama and his goddam nigger air force coming to attack the hard working-"

I cut him off with my laughter. "Hard working my testicle. Come on old man. Who you lying to?"

"Well jeeesus christ! E tu Rod-e?

"A Julius Caesar refer-There! That spot looks perfect. That trail on the right...Wow. What mountain is that?" I ask.

"Lewis Butte. Should take about 30 minutes to hike to the top. About the time the drugs should start to kick in."

"And what exactly am I about to experience?"

"I dunno. Guess we'll know afterward huh?."

"Well what type of-"

"So many questions... Jesus help him. Just relax Ram-Rod. Relax."

"Relax?! That was my fucking wife, kid. My fucking wife! When you see your dead wife on the bed that you still sleep on, then you can tell me to relax. When her eyes are branded on your brain to the point you can’t sleep at night because you can only see that burn. Burning forever... Her fucking dead eyes. God dammit. Her eyes. She could’ve just laid on her side. Fuck… And now, now I have to literally overdose on medication to fall asleep. To the point where I’m scared I won’t be able to stop taking them. I mean I fucking did black tar heroin in Sacramento, stopped in a day. But these fucking pills… I don’t know how…fuck. Her eyes. I... jesus. I… at least…I…I know. I will see her soon. " Bill didn’t cry but his swollen red lids hid his bloody marble eyes. His face rested in the soft muscle of his hands.

It was starting to get colder. Bill started the V-6 engine. Kept the lights off though. Through the rain clouds you could still see the near-full moon. Back lighting the woods. The protruding pines on the skyline looked like limbs. Legs, arms, feet, hands, elbows, knees. All sopping wet from the sudden shower. Bend didn't usually get much rain. Especially in the summer.

"Just fucking beautiful... Where we're going is." His faced still laid baptized in his palms.

My friend from high school said Bill went to his church every Sunday. Devout presbyterian. He believed in a heaven. Not clouds, harps, angels, and that shit. But an afterlife.

"Well what do you think happens? Where are we going?"

"What?"

"Like... Where do you think your wife is?"

"Oh. In heaven."

"And you think you're going there?"

He didn't laugh but breathed. A deep sigh. From the bottom part of his lungs. From the deep pit that pressed against his heart.

"Look. I know I may seem like some awful man. Cussing and shitting all over. The drugs. I know what people see. I also know I'll be in heaven with them after this piece of shit life."

"Well ya. The world is going to end in a few years. Obviously. But what do you think heaven is. Obviously not just fucking clouds and wings and stuff but-"

"No. No. Ya. You're right. It's not like that, it’s like. Shit. It’s impossible to describe. I’ve read studies and even seen TV specials that go into what people have experienced when their brains stop and they come back to life. People that have been deemed dead by doctors, who miraculously cling back to life. What they claim to see. All different people. Ya know? Like old men, black women, and little girls, Jews, Muslims. Tons of people. Well most of them tell a similar story. It's like...Fuck. Like imagine the most beautiful place you've ever been then...no. Shit. It's like. Like. It's like I said, hard to describe. It's just amazing, and beautiful, and Lillian is there. and Lady is there..."

Bill closed his eyes, keeping the storms behind a quarter inch slab of his animal skin.

"Jesus Christ! It is beautiful up here" I bellowed my thoughts down the steep slopes of bitterbrush and arrowleaf balsamroot. "Fuckkking aaaamazingg! Are you seeing this Bill?"

The yellow flowers were everywhere in every direction. Fading into the sky which never stopped. The clouds ran with each other. Pushing one another. The wind nearly picked me off of my feet and into the air. The flowers bent. The Indian Paintbrush. The purple velvet of the Alpine Lupin. The greens and yellows and purples and blues and reds melting together like a chili.

I heard no sound from Bill who, last I had checked, was a minute behind me on the trail to the summit of Lewis Butte, a vast meadow. The miniature town of Bend could be still seen down the valley. Hugging to the small river and valley floor. The towering evergreens of the city now seemed like models painted by the worlds steadiest painter.

Near the edge of the meadow a Douglas Fir stood sentinel. Set apart from the rest of the forest. A enticingly low branch stuck out from the dark amber bark of the trunk. I ran to it. The trunk was wide. At least 60 years old. The branch was thick and supported my weight without wavering.

Branches came easily to my hands as I quickly ascended the behemoth. The sun was still high and it was still fucking hot. I made sure not to look down much and was suddenly to branches that waned under my weight. I felt the breeze on my face and swayed with the rocking tree top. The branches were scarcer and thinner that high. The painting of the meadow sprawled out beneath me. The acrylic flowers waving back.

"Jesus. It's so- Fuuuckkkkk. Just amazing. Bill! Where are you buddy?" I scanned the horizon line and didn't see my friend. The trail and was also bare. I hadn't seen him in a while.

“Bill!”

I waited.

“Bill? Bill!”

“I’m here.”

“Thank god... You were out there pissing for a long time.”

"Ram-Rod, when you grow up you'll realize that it becomes increasingly harder to pee and will hate little brats like yourself that have properly functioning, young, perky penises."

"So you're saying your-"

"No. Not at all. I'm saying that yours won't work. I just took awhile because it's raining and dark and I couldn't see anything."

"Oh..."

He got back into the driver's seat. The green digital numbers above the CD slot on the center console read 7:36. Two hours, six minutes since work was supposed to end. Bill had calmed down. His eyes clearing up. The cabin of the truck was dark except for the dim lights from the gas gauge. I couldn't see his eyes.

"Your parents gonna worry about you Rod?"

"Nope. Never do. Plus, I'm always okay with overtime."

"Hmm..."

"Yup. I don't spend too much time at home anyways. Mostly just at the school."

"Wh-"

"You know what I think happens?"

"What?"

"What happens when you die. Do you know what I think happens?"

"No obiv-"

"I think that you go to sleep. Not like. Sleep. Sleep. But, like, deep sleep. Like, have you ever been put under? For a surgery? Or been knocked out? Or in a coma?"

"Yes."

"Well it's like that, only deeper. I remember when I awoke after they fixed my broken nose. I had no idea where I was or what had just happened. I couldn't remember any dream. I didn't think about anything or feel anything. Just out. For good. It's just like this car when you turn it off."

I reached over his jeaned leg and pulled the key from the ignition. The steady rumbling stopped. The circulating air stilled. The only noise was made by the softening rain on the hood and roof of the American truck.

"See. Done. There's nothing happening. It has all the right parts. Every ingredient capable to be alive, to work, to perform actions, but missing one small piece. The key. That little bit of metal is the soul of the truck. Well were just like that. When we die our soul is just taken from our bodies. And left to its own devices."

"I don't like that."

"Well that's because your Christian."

"No...It's because I want to see Lillian again."

I looked at the dirty old man hunched over the steering wheel of his truck. The rain didn' t quit. The truck was silent. The moon had gone behind a thick cloud and it was even darker.

"Oh, but thanks Rod, I always forget do that, turn things off. Lets log a few more overtime hours"

Before I could say anything else he had his eyes closed, head leaned back, and was snoring like the chainsaw the was four feet behind us in the bed of the truck. His left hand remained on the wheel, maintaing a symbol of control. His right hand laid limp, palm up on the seat. I followed his lead.

Bill was three hundred feet back down the trail. His right hand lay face up in the dirt and pine needles. His left in the pocket of his jean overalls. The sun shined through the branches of the fir that his back was slumped against. His eyes were clouded. Dull. Opaque. Dead.

His mouth had foam around the edges. Not much to the point it was noticeable at first glance but when I got down on my knees and grabbed the pills from the front pocket of his overalls I could see it. There weren't any pills left in the orange tube. Instead inside was a note.

Robert,

I'm sorry to do this to you but it was just time. Tell my mom I'm sorry.

I ran down the mountain to the truck and sped the twenty minutes to town to get help but I knew it wouldn't matter.

Bill slammed his door shut waking me from my sleep. The clock now said 10:15. Bill had driven us back to the Ranger Station. I got out of the truck. It had stopped raining but still smelt wet. In the faint light I saw Bill's submerged eyes and gourd nose. He stared at me. Then grinned. From one ear to the other.

"Go home Rod."

Lady in White

2012-01-09T12:18:00.000-08:00

She breathed him in. His scent. His jeans. His height. His plain white T-shirt. His age. His slicked hair, parted cleanly to the left. His dark, Greek eyebrows. His dick size. His wallet size. His lips. His amber eyes. She thought his eyes were so bright. Impossibly vivid. She imagined he played football in high school, years ago. His hands seemed small for such a tall kid. She wished that his hands were bigger. She was from every movie he'd ever seen, every book he'd ever read. She was Juliet. She was Sally, Sandy, Isolde or Cleopatra. She wore a white dress. Sculpted to her figure. Her eyes shown an intense green. Emerald moss around an impossibly deep well. He loved them. Got lost in them. He stared at her. Unashamed, unwavering. He took deep breaths, swelling his small frame. A cock to a hen. He strutted towards her. Every step a new scent. She smelt like his mom's garden. Ginger. Mint. Paprika. Cabbage. Tomatoes. Carrots. Squash. Dirt. Worms. Compost. Life. He drank her in. He loved it. Loved her. The ancient PA of the small grocery store crackled to life. She recognized the song. Duke Ellington's Five O'Clock Drag. Big band music. The type her dad used to have on 45's. She would dance with her sister. Dad would watch from his red recliner. Mom from the kitchen. Now she played those songs for her daughter. While she did homework. While she slept. She played the music while he would hit her. She would turn it up then. She didn't want to wake her daughter. The boy wouldn't hit her. He stood behind her now. Eyes nailed to the nape of her neck. He noticed her shiver. He watched her skin become braille. She dragged her left hand through her hair. The red gold waterfall cascades and crashes on, through and between her branches of fingers. Twirling, curling, and corkscrewing around her ring-less fingers. It ran over her wrinkled knuckles. Over the dry skin at the crotch of her thumb. Over the chewed nails and green stain on her ring finger. Over the web of veins becoming more evident with each heartbeat. He loved those wrinkles. He loved the dry skin, the chewed nails and the life in her hands. He loved her. The hair pooled on her shoulders. At the ends it curled into a mist. He felt the spray. She reached for a can of Campbell's tomato soup. The same can she'd reached for a thousand times. She would make dinner that night. Hopefully he wouldn't be drunk. Doubtful. She sensed the boys stare. She didn't give a shit. She dropped the can. He watched her family slip out of the mother's hand. She relaxed her wrinkled knuckles. He watched the Andy Warhol fall and splatter in a Pollock. The blood exploded onto the floor, her shoe and her calf. He knelt. Instinctively took off his shirt and started mopping up the soup. First the floor then he took off her shoe. Wiped the flat clean and set it aside. He held her foot in his hand as he started to wipe off her leg. The blood clung to her leg like a wet red dress. The one she used to wear out dancing. Centuries ago. She noticed his hands seemed bigger now with her small foot softly cupped. She felt the sweat of his palm soak her sole. She liked the top of his head. His shoulders. He threw the shirt aside and stood as quickly as he had knelt. She knew what would happen. She knew she didn't want to get hit anymore. He looked into her grass eyes. She stared into his suns. An unknown breeze blew against his neck, moving any stray hair out of her face. He closed his eyes. She closed hers. He grabbed her. Drew her close. His hands were gigantic. Gripping her whole arm. She felt her leg instinctively kick backwards. She was lifted off her feet. She felt warm. She pursed her fire red lips. She waited.

Nothing.

She opened her eyes. Nothing. No man. No boy. No tomato soup. No Pollock. No Duke Ellington. No white T-shirt. No tight jeans. No slick hair. No Greek eyebrows. No hands. No lips. No aisles. No dick. No wallet. No grocery store. Nothing. Instead she was standing by a barred window. There was lawn beyond. Fed by the chk-chking of sprinklers. There were oak trees, park benches, people walking around and a gate with a sign above it that read "Quaking Aspen Psychiatric Hospital". She was wearing a white dress that force folded her arms in front of her. Strapped tightly to her body. They were worried about another suicide attempt. Her red gold grey hair hair flowed onto her withering shoulders. Pooling on her arms. A reprint of an Andy Warhol monoprint of Campbell's tomato soup hung above her bed. She layed down. She began to cry.

Rat. (in progress...)

2012-01-06T10:29:00.000-08:00

Rat (Characters: Mendle Mandell, Clarese Thatcher, A.J. Schniers)

(This is a work in progress for an English Class. Prompt: Magical Realism. It deals with a lab rat and its lab tester. Both slowly turning into each other and sharing experiences through the drug testing. I think...)

The last thing Subject #3498-01 saw were two white gloves and one giant needle. It felt the hot plunge into its back. Between its ribs and its right hind leg. It felt the toxin invade its body. Slowly taking it over. Pulverizing Subject #3498-01. As its eyes rolled back it saw two human hands press on its skull.

---

Mendle fell onto the floor. His head hit the knob on a cabinet as he fell backwards. He felt the imprint of a steel riveted bulb no larger than one of the walnuts that he had been eating earlier in the break room. His head made the same crack as the nut in the tall red nutcracker's jaw. He fell to the floor. Passed out.

Clarese held a wet cloth on Mendle’s forehead. There was a crude bandage on his wound hurriedly made from the "In Case of Emergency" kit the lab was forced to contain. It hadn't been used or stocked since the 80's. He awoke suddenly, shivering. Rabidly scratching his left ear and gnawing on his upper lip. He bit it until it bled. His vision came back but blurry. Clarese’s perfume at such close contact was overwhelming. "It's Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker," she had told him at the gift exchange after she had noticed his nose wrinkle as she hugged him for a $50 sweater-type-thing from the women’s section at Macy’s. The female employee who had recommended it to Mendle was brunette. Wearing the same sweater. He scooted away from Clarese who was wearing the light blue top now drenched in "Lovely". She'd ruined it. To Mendle it smelled like rat shit.

He finally stood. The cloth had fallen to the ground in front of the drawer with the bloody knob. Mendle bent over to pick it up and a rush of pain came back to his head. He grabbed the handle to steady himself as he collapsed to his knees. In his left hand he felt the blood stick to his sweaty palm. He saw the purple gelatin stain. Nausea overcame him and he threw up on the ground.

"Jesus Christ Holy Shit." gasped Charlene.

Mendle spewed again. He could see a few of the less digested walnuts. He used the rag in his hand to start wiping the floor.

"Would you, please, grab me a paper towel, or two? Thank you Clarese." He stumbled through his sentence as he tried to swallow and cleanse his mouth. His hands were trembling like they always did. The stench of the vomit made him cough and cover his face with his arm. Withholding another mouthful of bile.

---

Subject #3498-01 stared at its food pellets. It had just awoken but was not hungry. Instead it vomited into its bowl. It knew it was thirsty but the water was gone. It looked at its feet. They were the same feet. It felt its hair which was the same. Matted, dirty and grey, like an over used mop. The usual two wires were connected to its head through pads located next to its ears. Subject #3498-01 looked at the small clasp that held its cage open. It could almost reach it if it stood on its water bowl. So it did. Its small paw clung like death to the cage supporting all of its weight. The other paw slowly unlatched the lock.

---

"Here I got you this," Charlene handed Mendle, who laid flat on his back, a handful of paper towels and a Dixie cup of water. "You look awful Doctor. Should I call someone for you? I'll get your coat and suitcase. And I can close up the office. Don't even worry about anything. Take the day off. Or I could-

"Doctor. You have to come. Quick." An intern had appeared in the door and stood staring at the weakened man. Mendle drank the water and threw the paper towels on the ground. Using his foot to wipe up the rest of the floor. He walked towards the door. Throwing away the paper and rag in the process. He looked to Charlene.

"I'll be fine. Let's just keep working. Everything will be fine." Mendle said. "If you could please just clean up this room. I'll be right back."

Charlene got a wet rag and started cleaning the blood from the handle. Mendle's head spun as he walked down the hallway with the intern who was two sizes too small for his lab coat. His shoulders had not widened completely yet and it hung on him like an awkward hug.

"Why don't you tell me what's wrong A.J."

"Doctor. The rats. I don't know what the hell is happening."

"What do you mean?"

"Well sir. After you gave them their doses everything seemed normal until they started coming out of their hibernautic states. Multiple subjects experienced nausea and shortness of breath. Dizziness and no appetite. A few subjects started running around in circles in their cage."

"Ok. We'll up the dosage level. But these all seem like nor-"

"It got out."

Mendle's nausea came flooding back. It swelled in his throat. Then spilt over, and onto, everything.

"Oh Shit!" The intern jumped back. The weakened doctor had collapsed to one knee clutching and scratching at his head wound. He saw the something green in the something yellow on the ground. Feeling his own stomach drop he looked back to the doctor who had wiped his mouth and stood up.

"Don't worry about this A.J. We need to find that rat."

---

Subject #3498-01 listened to the human's beneath it. Their voices muffled and hurried. It opened the grate in the air vent ever so slightly. It placed its ear to the grate. Its hearing had recently started to diminish. Ever since the pain that it felt in its skull. It felt like his brain was swelling. Too big for its rat skull. A trickle of blood came out of its ear. Staying beaded on the surface of its coat. Subject #3498-01 carefully closed the grate. Knowing only to head away from the noise.

---

Dr. Mandell held his finger to his mouth and signaled to A.J. to be silent.

"Where do you thi-"

"Please."

He silenced the boy. Pointed to the air conditioning unit mumbled

"Did you hear that? It's in the vents."

Mendle climbed onto the desk beneath the vent and sniffed the grate. It smelled like rat shit. As he reached above his head he got a sharp pain. The head wound had reopened surgical scarring from years ago. From the first day Docter Mandell came stepped foot onto the institute.

---

She stepped out of her white unsuspecting Honda Accord. Coffee slapped the ground and splashed over her right shoe and calf.

"Oh Jesus. I'm so sorry. Christ I'm so sorry. Here. Let me -"

"It's perfectly fine."

"No. No no. Of course its not. Here." The young Doctor Mendle Mandell reached back into the car, which was parallel to the Accord which had just produced the most beautiful woman the thin doctor had ever seen in his entire life, and grabbed an old blanket."Here. Shit. Of course this would happen." Looking up at the woman. "Again, I am so sorry miss I promi-."

"What did you mean 'of course this would happen'?"

"I really am so- what? I didn't say that."

"Yes you did. Just a moment ago. 'Shit. Of course this would happen'. What did that mean? 'Of course' this would happen because 'of course' gravity pulls objects towards the ground? Or 'of course' because you area hapless klutz of a man who has notoriously clumsy hands?" She said in a breath. "Well?"

"Um. Well. Be-Because its. Its my first day of work actually."

"Oh. Then that makes you Dr. Mandell." She pistoned forward her steel hand towards Mendle. "I'm Marie Bronte. It is a pleasure to meet you."

---

Der Magier und die Psychologin

2011-12-24T15:04:00.001-08:00

By: T.S. Childs

Modern era psychologist’s office.

A 30 something magician, in casual magicians garb, think

David Copperfield on a Sunday, is

reclining in the cliché sofa that adorns every therapists

office in history. He has slick hair, and dabs his forehead

with a white hand kerchief. He is obviously anxious and

uncertain about his setting. Across from him behind

an unassuming clipboard is the face and grey beard of

a slightly older psychologist. He sits in an arm chair

with a standing lamp to his right and end table to his left.

Der Magier is looking down at his hands, counting the years

of his life in every wrinkle. He wrings his hands in nervousness.

Psychologin sits and simply stares at Magier

Magier: So... How exactly does this work? Do I just start talking? Or.. urr... Should I wait for you to ask a question? (Long Pause. He looks to Psychologin for a sign.) What, well, where should I-

Psychologin: Sir, you are already on the clock. 5 minutes now.

Magier: Oh... Shit... I just don’t-

Psychologin: You scheduled this appointment correct? 2:30. Friday morning. Correct?

Magier: Well. Yes. But I guess I was hoping that-

Psychologin: Why?

Magier: What? Why?...Why what? (He looks to Psychologin again for a repsponse but finds none) You mean why did I schedule the appointment?

Psychologin: Yes.

Magier: Oh...Urr... I guess the simple answer is that I’ve started to doubt everything about myself.

Psychologin: How so?

Magier: Well... God. This sounds so cliché but I guess it starts with my mother. (He forces a laugh as he eyes the stoic psychologist again.) I bet you get that a lot from us huh? The whole Oedipus thing right?

Psychologin: I don’t treat many magicians.

Magier looks at Psychologin again and his smile immediately fades. The Psychologin is obviously impervious to any humour.

Magier: Right... Well. Shit. This all sounds so stupid now that I am saying it out loud. I guess when it’s in your head you can justify it and make problems seem less crazy, you know? (Pauses and looks to Psychologin who jots down random short notes.) But I guess this is why I scheduled the appointment, right? To get things out in the open because that is what has been driving me crazy these last few weeks. I haven’t been able to sleep, or eat anything of real substance. Not even cereal or coffee. I can’t keep anything down. My stomach feels like it’s stuck on a tilt a whirl and I haven’t been able to get off since my son was born.

Psychologin: Son?

Magier: Ya. My son.

Psychologin: Whats his name?

Magier: Jason. Three weeks old now and healthy too. 12 pounds, 9 ounces.

Psychologin: And he is the reason you aren’t sleeping?

Magier: Well... Yes. And No. I mean he cries all the time. And right when you think that must have been the last one. He shits and pisses himself and starts crying harder then ever. Like monsoon crying. Flooding Atlantis crying. But I love that stuff. I live for it. Being a father is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. I mean, Jesus, those tiny little baby terds are even starting to smell good to me now.

Psychologin: And this is what you are scared to talk about?

Magier: No. God no... My mother... Well. Okay. Look. I’m a magician. I’ve been performing for at least 25 years now. Toured the U.S. Six times. Once even getting over to Europe as an opener for David Copperfield. I mean I got my first set when I was five-years-old. FIVE! Ya know? I-I-It’s been my career, my passion, my life. And.. shit. And to have that taken from me.. That’s why I came... I guess.

Psychologin shows his first sign of emotion. His eyebrows raise in a flash of confusion and personal intrigue before returning to their trained position.

Psychologin: So that is why you came? You’ve lost this connection?

Magier: No... No. Not at all. I just.. Shit. This is going to sound so stupid for a grown man to be saying. Jesus.

Psychologin: Nothing is too stupid not to say in this office Sir.

Magier: Okay. Look... Shit. (Magier’s hand wringing hastens.) I always thought I was born, CHOSEN, to be a Magician-

Psychologin: That is a perfectly normal feeling to have-

Magier: Because, shit, (quickly) my mom said that a burst of confetti came out of her vagina instead of her water breaking.

Psychologin sits back, for the first time shifting positions. He is now visibly stunned. He swallows, hard, trying to clear his throat and barely is able to let out a few words.

Psychologin: Your mother told you-

Magier: YES! See. It’s absurd. I know. I’m a lunatic for ever believing her stories. I’m a freak. I know. Okay. I know.

Carrvagio's Sheep

2011-07-24T10:51:00.001-07:00

The reds and golds hold black cold steel.

The beaten foal’s dry throat then feels

his father’s intent in each squeeze.
Palm forces son to knobbed knees.

A forehead set to an angle

front facing a winged angel.
Clench’d fists. Held wrists. A virgin saved.
Honest Abe displayed he’d obey.

So God speaks:
Kill the sheep.

A Response on May, 3 2011

2011-07-24T10:49:00.001-07:00

“Obama’s dead.” Osama said.

No,

I meant.

“Osama’s dead.” Obama said.

The murder of a muddy madman

Feeds feet to pound pavement

as exclamation to this statement.

But rags run red in Bag-Dead,

the red rag in Baghdad is the

bandage on the eye of the late dead

leaden head.

Fed to the ocean.

The snowflake of a carcass sinks in slow motion.

S.E.A.L.S. six did the trick, a potion

for the disaster of the burning two sticks.

Our toothpicks broken by a bastard dic-

tator.

Later

The loneliest drunk, I,

to Thelonious Monk jives

or Brubeck’s Take Five,

inspire words to paper.

Mad at the capers of heads of staters,

The bad decision makers. And still

our nation sings the anthem of America.

Masturbation to sooth periodic hysteria.

Tupac said fuck shit up and start some trouble.

Now he’s dead. Another day, Another struggle.

Dandy Lying

2011-07-24T10:43:00.001-07:00

Death stalks me down family trees,

an incurable hereditary disease.

The dandelion sits

on stalks and

sees yellows fall

as summer

succumbs to autumn.

The fellow grasps his doom

and wastes no gasps to bloom

into a wish made

on the whisper of the winds.

A kiss laid

from lips that have sinned.

I dare to be dandelion brave,

to rot atop stalks eyeing fate.

So I’ll sit patiently waiting

and wishing on dead

flowers.

A Thursday

2011-04-26T13:44:00.001-07:00

In public places people always seem to stare. Behind me giggling girls cover their wandering eyes with over-sized Gucci sunglasses. The man on the neighboring park bench thuds his foot to the beat of a silent song. It’s too hot outside. I gather my fiction writing papers and put them in my backpack. Same one I’ve had since elementary school. God Bless Jansport. As I stand, the girls try unsuccessfully to stifle their laughter. Whether it’s an inside joke or about me I won’t know so I assume probably both. I judge these books by their covers. Not because I’m always right but because it’s faster. I see the bus pulling into the bus stop that I should have been at a minute earlier. Screw running. I’ll just wait. I get to the empty stop and sit in the shade on the cool cement bench. I put my hand in my sweater pocket and realize I forgot my red turtle-shell glasses. I’m far sighted and my eyesight is pathetic. Imprisoning me in the immediate surrounding world. Incarcerated in filth. Bus stops are repulsive. Too much gum. Too many people. I consider leaving my seat to see what time the next bus will come but that won’t make it arrive earlier. Instead I sit still, imagining that if I don’t move I might be able to blend in to the blue color scheme of the bus shelter. People walk past me, though it’s more of a march. Eyes stuck to the scum on the sidewalks, careful not to look side to side in case they notice a friend. God forbid having to say hello. That would be too awkward. As I sit and wait for the bus, forty two people walk past me. Most of them heading to cars to be picked up by friends or eat lunch. All of them not saying a word to me. I take that to mean I did a good job. I don’t like strangers.

The next bus arrives. It reads, “90A – Last stop 21^st street.” My stop. I swipe my card and say “thank you,” to the bus driver. I always say “thank you” to drivers when I get on and off buses. I wonder if they hate their jobs, and what they do to keep from being bored. I would get bored. Every driver seems to have their own device for fending off tedium. Books usually. Thick ones. With the female drivers it’s normally a romantic book. One with a really corny cover of a heroic man in a bearskin vest and a woman with unrealistically perky breasts wearing only a deer-hide top. In all of these romances I never see saggy breasts on the cover. They’re always perky without support. I wish I could meet these women. Or at least their breasts. The men tend to read mystery or action books, like the Da Vinci Code. Secretly hoping they could be whisked away to the Vatican for an emergency of Robert Langdon-like magnitude. A mission only they, the Whatcom Transportation Authority bus driver, could solve to save the world and the woman of their dreams. Probably a porn star also with perky breasts. Also without support. If the bus driver happens to not read at all then they will have a newspaper in their cup holder opened to the crossword and Sudoku sections. I admire these drivers. I wouldn’t have that kind of dedication so I make sure to say “thank you”. Especially loud, to ensure they hear me. The nice ones say, “Have a nice day” back. This bus driver, however, is strange. After saying “thank you” I look behind his seat for a book and see nothing. The cup holder clenches a liter of Pepsi not a newspaper. I notice his shirt pocket. The outline of a box of cigarettes in his official WTA green vest sticks tightly to his right breast. Showing his job requires more sitting and eating than exercise. He smells like Marlboro. These rare smoking bus drivers are my favorite because they’ve stopped caring. All they want to do is get to the station and inhale tar. I once impatiently sat in a parked bus downtown for ten minutes. The whole time watching our driver power-smoke five Marlboro Lights. One right after another. That’s dedication. Dedication to not giving a shit about your job or lungs. I’m not sure why I respect that.

I put my student I.D, which is now my bus pass, back into my wallet. The 2008 version of myself smiles at me. Smiles only because his mother is standing outside the photography room waiting patiently for a portrait of her baby’s first day of college. Tan, shaven and clean looking. Only three years ago and I don’t recognize him, myself. There he sat, sans beard, sans glasses, sans beanie, sans weed, sans alcohol, sans sex and sans death. An innocent virgin from a school of one hundred and fifty. Looking at pictures like this makes you acknowledge time. I wonder what my bus driver looks like in his old I.D. I bet he had long hair. Like Robert Langdon. Maybe I should grow my hair out.

I put the wallet in my back left pocket (the usual back right has a hole in it) and look up. Fuck. Standing room only. I hate crowded buses. I’m not claustrophobic or anything but there is a suffocating feeling about a packed bus. It always smells and feels warmer than a normal vehicle, which doesn’t seem like a big deal but it is. You can see the other riders sweat hang in the stagnant air as easily as their private conversations. The couple in the seat I’m stuck facing starts arguing. Which is why you always remember headphones. She was yelling at him about a text from a Kristie (Christy?) and he was trying gallantly to defend himself.

“She doesn’t mean anything. Seriously. Lets just go to your room and we can talk about it.” He puts her hand in his and she didn’t take it back. She will cave I’m sure. It’s hard for me to watch these arguments. I’ve never cared enough to fight with a girl. Except when Mom found my weed stash a few years ago. I hadn’t tried that hard to hide it though.

I always get the same feeling standing in a packed bus as I do in a pool at a hotel. That too many people have peed in both. I stand looking backwards waiting for the inevitable awkward jerk of the bus lurching forward. I stumble into the guy five inches in front of me, chest bumping his backpack and accidentally flat-tiring his ratty Vans. The arguing couple doesn’t break their conversation but gently sway back and forth as the bus rolls forward. The eight other people forced to watch our interaction from the bleachers stare. They expect something.

“My bad,” I say under my breath. Almost erotically because I’m speaking softly to the back of his neck. I get shivers up my spine and arms when people breathe on the back of my neck. A good shiver though. One of my friends from last year passes out when you touch her neck. I think it’s hilarious actually. It doesn’t matter where she is, but if you touch her neck with your hand she’ll collapse. Right where she’s standing. This made her a pretty entertaining party guest. We don’t seem to talk much anymore though. Unless I need Adderol.

“No worries,” he mutters back to me. With a tone that is demeaning in two words. The conversation can end there. Well played stranger.

Last weekend I was on a bus and got kicked off for swearing. Drunk at 1:00 a.m. on a Saturday night I sloshily asked my friend “Scott, how the fuck are you?” This was too much for the driver because she pulled the bus over and told me to get out. Right on the side of the highway. Forcing me to walk the 3 miles home in the dark. It was cold and luckily I had a coat of alcohol or I might not have made it home. Now, every time I get on a bus I check to see if the driver is the woman who kicked me off. I tell myself that when I see her I will give her a piece of my mind. Tell her that late night shuttles are meant for drunken college students to get home safe, and that swear words in this case have to be tolerated. That she is uptight and abusive of her limited authority over powerless drunks. I imagine myself asking her who she thought she was for forcing a youth to walk home alone at night. “What if I had died?” I would say. “What if I had been mugged? Why’re you such a bitch!” I always use strong language in hypothetical conversations. I’m fearless. Sadly in reality I will just swipe my card and walk past her, silently judging her for reading a book with He-Man and a pornographic elf woman on the cover. If she did crossword puzzles I would not even say “thank you”, the most I could ever do. I’m spineless.

I think about pulling the cord but know that the bus will stop anyways so decide against it.

“21^st street. This is the last stop before the Lincoln Creek park and ride.” Crackles the cancer-filled lungs of the driver, barely audible over the buses seldom-used speakers. The bus stops.

“Thank you,” I shout to the graying man as I exit. Freeing myself from the odors I start walking back to my apartment, following a shorthaired blonde girl. She walks the same way as me as girls with short blonde hair always seem to do. I hope I don’t smell weird. I forgot to put on deodorant this morning. Okay, this week. As my apartment approaches I try to think of something I could say to her to invite her inside. “Hey! Would you want to come into my apartment with me? We could watch a movie? I make great popcorn.” Too creepy. Instead I walk to my apartment door. As I watch her walk down the street from my kitchen window I wonder if she reads romance novels or smokes.

I bet she smokes. Not enough college girls read. Not enough college boys read for that matter either. I know I don’t. Or I try not to. If I’m assigned reading for class I might glance at it if I’m not too stoned the night before, or if it seems important. Girls smoke cigarettes though, especially when they’re drunk. I think that’s gross. My roommate smokes cigarettes too and his teeth look like yellowing Chiclets. The brown stains on his incisors and bottom lip help make smoking look a lot less cool. I open the door and notice Peter sitting at the dining table. He’s the smoker.

“Hey Pete. Know if Chris’ home? I finally got the money he’s been bugging me about.” Chris, short for Christopher, is another one of my roommates. Pete is rolling a cigarette at our cheap dining room table. I say cheap because one of the legs has been splinted with electrical tape and a Garfield comic book. One of my more inspired inventions. His bag of tobacco from the Fairhaven Smokeshop reads “Bay Blend”. He looks up at me with his sad eyes. Well, less sad, more tired-looking. Like he had multiple sets of lower eyelids. Made me want to smoke cigarettes even less.

“No. Over at his girlfriends I think... I haven’t seen him yet.” He grumbled at me. Refusing or too stoned to look up through his thick curly hair. As he brought the half rolled cigarette to his tongue to wet he spilt some tobacco on his tattered, white-turning-to-brown “Boulder Beach 10K, June 1998” T-shirt. I think it’s his dads. The doctor. He used to smoke but drinks diet Pepsi as a habit now. Smokers don’t run 10k’s. Pepsi drinkers do.

“Well if you haven’t seen him how do you know he’s at Lisa’s?”

Chris has been spending a lot more time at his girlfriends and a lot less time at our apartment lately. I don’t blame him though. I’d probably do the same thing. Everyone does eventually. Our apartment is pretty dirty too, but that’s mostly Pete’s fault, which is why Chris never is here. Unless it’s to have sex. I’m happy for Chris though.

Seriously. I am.

“Jus’ figured I guess,” said Peter.

“You’re probably right... Lookin’ to smoke a bowl? I got a class in like forty five.” I offered.

“Cig first?”

I nod

It still looks sunny and warm outside, so we go out on our porch. It’s bright so I head back inside to my room to grab the sunglasses I had stolen a few days earlier, a new pair of aviators from Value Village. My room is shit, but I don’t care. Not that I enjoy living in filth, I just don’t mind it one way or another. I can live in any condition like a cockroach or Twinkie. I have clothes everywhere and trash from late night snacking on my desk. Arizona ice teas, Edaleen chocolate milk containers, a rainbow of Starburst wrappers mingling with last term’s school papers, Pokémon cards and an old bank statement about overdrawing my account. Which I should figure out soon. Lately, I have been craving a lot of milk and cheese. I wish I could explain it.

My room’s walls have seventeen pieces of art hung on them. Fourteen by my high-school art teacher Sean McCabe. He died in November of my freshman year. Two years ago. I still remember the day he told me he had cancer. It was my eighteenth birthday party and after dinner when his kids were playing with my old Beanie Babies and Lego’s he told us that the lump in his neck was thyroid cancer. That he also had cancer in his lungs. That he had two months to live. He lived eight. His daughter, Novi, asked if we could have ice cream. We did.

I wade through the mess to my desk and grab my sunglasses underneath an old Journalism 190 test. I put them on and feel more badass immediately. Black lenses and gold rims tend to have that effect. The sliding glass door is open and I feel the spring sunshine warm me, even before stepping outside. The first sunny days seem special. Pete had found a corner of the deck, his cigarette a little less than half smoked.

“Can I get a drag?” I say holding out my peace sign, indicating where to put the cigarette.

It tastes like shit but numbs my tongue. I exhale the smoke and look over the balcony. I try and lick my teeth clean as I stare at an ugly parking lot. More chewed gum in the parking spaces than cars. It’s almost the weekend so most people have left to go south. Flocks of birds returning home. I don’t understand those Seattle kids who go home every other weekend. If you like Seattle so much stay there, Bellingham doesn’t need you. I hand back the cigarette.

“Thanks.” I say.

“No problem. What are you doing today?”

“Class then I don’t know. Tryin’ to take advantage of this sun or something. Did you make it to class this morning?”

“No.”

“Tired?”

“No. Just didn’t go. It’s such an easy class.”

I’m sure the class is easy but he hasn’t been in the last three weeks. I don’t like to get involved so I’ll just keep quiet. Careful not to voice my opinion.

He keeps talking. Explaining how he gets B’s on his tests without studying, as if he was accepting some golden award for slacking. I think Pete is about to drop out of class, and college, and go live at home with his parents. He doesn’t have a job. Neither do I, but at least I go to classes.

The summit of Mt. Baker peeks above the top of the arboretum. During sunny days he always checks in and says hello, tempting me to explore his shiny white slopes with $200 sticks on my feet. Sunny days always seem to make it hard to go to school in Bellingham. Good thing it rains.

The cigarette passes between us a few more times and Pete finishes it with a flick off of the porch onto the dirty pavement below, most likely coming to rest on a flattened piece of gum. Trident I’d wager. I check my hand-me-down Nike watch my dad gave me for Christmas last year. It reads: 1:37

“Shit. I gotta be at the CF at 2.” I said. “Quick smoke?”

I finish squirting the Visine Redness Relief eye drops into my eyes and go get my shoes and bag from my room. I say squirting because I always drop too many drips in and end up having to blink a lot. The new Asics that I got from Goodwill are already dirty because I wore them out last night. It rained yesterday and when I was walking home I stepped in a puddle and soaked my shoes in the muddy liquid. Karma for leaving the party at only 10:30. Even if it was boring.

My Jansport still sat where I left it, on my computer chair. Next to a cross-hatched ink drawing of an ancient Asian woman. It clung to my wall, attached by only a red thumbtack. Frames are expensive. It’s my dads and he drew it when he was serving in Vietnam at my age. I couldn’t even handle being a tourist in Vietnam, let alone an Army Ranger. Within an hour I would go missing and they would find me in the fetal position in the middle of a park. Assuming they have parks in Vietnam. Assuming they could find me. I check my swoosh-embedded watch again: 1:51. Enough time to make it to class. As I leave the room I touch the neon purple and lime green ski suit that hangs on my wall. Still unwashed since the day Sean gave it to me. It hung with empty sleeves and legs pinned, outstretched, waiting for the late artist. I stand, my hand feeling the thickness of the spandex, weighing it, waiting for the same. I stare, convinced that if I put it on I will receive super powers. Or at least his advice.

I open my front door. Still bright. Thank god for Aviators. It only takes a minute to walk to the bus stop headed back to campus. I stand next to it. I would sit but there is a girl on the bench taking up two seats and it’s nice outside. I don’t like it when people do that, even if they’re overweight. Just like I don’t like when vans take up two parking spaces. Being oversized is no excuse for lack of manners. But I stand in silence. I don’t say anything because I don’t need conflict with strangers. Instead I scowl silently. Still spineless. Down the sidewalk I notice my friend Casey walking towards me. I can tell it’s him because he looks exactly like Lance Armstrong even from a distance and without glasses. The bicyclist not astronaut. I realize my mouth is dry as I yell to him.

“Lance! How you doing!? Enjoying the weather huh?”

He’s wearing his usual clothing. Old Levi’s with holes, some shoes that are worn from skateboarding and a striped tank top. As he gets closer I noticed that the hole on the knee of his pants was actually patched. Can he sew?

He chuckles a little as he walks towards me. “You know me. Where you headed?”

“Class. You?”

I give him a high five and pound it as he gets to me. I’d rather do a real handshake, but that would be awkward. Though the truth is I don’t really know why I pound or high five. I think I just saw some black guys do it in movie or an athlete or someone and they made it look cool. Nevertheless. We pound it.

“Class? On a day like this?” he said, indicating the brightness with a gesture towards the sun. I follow his arm and burn my retinas. “We should go climbing! Trev just told me about this spot on the beach by the train tracks. It’s hidden out past Larrabee where no one ever goes. I know you want to.”

“Fuck man. I just missed this class on Tuesday, I shouldn’t skip.” It really is perfect conditions and if my retinas can recover, I’m sure I can climb.

“You’re going to say no to beach climbing? Honestly?” He seems puzzled.

I look down at my dirty Asics that needed to get dirtier. I look to Mount Baker. I look over at the bigger girl on the bench. She looks at me and then away. Back to her pink iPod. By her surprisingly small feet I noticed some gum stuck to the ground. There was gum on the edge of the bus stop too. Thank GOD for the people who clean up gum. I look back to Baker, whose head was barely visible over the trees, giving me his Cheshire like smile, daring me to take advantage of the day. As I ponder five more nameless bodies walk past. Three have headphones in. None of them look up. I think about the over-crowded bus I’m waiting for and the importance of the class after. Underneath my corduroy pants, second-hand t-shirt and sweater I feel the rub and added warmth of Sean’s purple ski suit telling me to go. Advice that doesn’t need repeating. I pull at my sleeves to hide the spandex peeking out. I feel invincible. And still a little stoned.

“Let’s go climbing Lancey.”

“It’s Casey.”

“Whatever buddy.”

The End

Untitled

2011-04-19T19:04:00.001-07:00

Mammals taught to mingle.
Wild animals trained to not stop once you pop the top of the Pringles.
The woman fishes for singles
as man sits stoned
with medusa syndrome, the dumb drone.
Then nostrils flare as
danger appear.
A great trait shared through ancestors of late.
Without conscience
the man stares unconscious,
muted into stupidity by the models fluidty.
Saliva pools, hardness in the south.
Tries to touch.
“SECURITY!”
Gets kicked out.
Banished to the curb a lit stick stuck
in his thin lipped mouth.
cab comes, takes the man home alone.
To contemplate life,
a Catholic priest on hi holy throne.
Whose dreamt of women,
but never known.

As I, the Maniacal Tyrant Look Down Upon My Pathetic Subjects. I Reflect on How Their Puny Lives Mean Nothing to Me Except as the Brute Labor Necessary to Execute My Mad Designs

2011-04-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

I am just another ant or termite

Simply burrowing tunnels,

burrowing tunnels,

burrowing

into dirt mounds fed by lines of dump trucks.

A buzzing hive of mindless pilgrims.

But these tunnels,

these tunnels,

tunnels

with distant inspection,

are as complex and mundane as

a Mondrain.

Then

Boy Genius, Hope of Mankind,

Doctor Dynasty Sir,

stands perplexed above the tireless ants.

Stuffed tiger in hand

he puts lives under foot.

Spilling homes,

killing the drones.

Life’s work being scuffed aside in a stride.

A devilish smirk upon the curled lips

of the blonde brat who hears no cries.

References to “These Days are Just Packed” by Bil Watterson

The Inside Joke

2011-04-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

I am
Chameleon.
That reptilian of ever changing skin.
Evident to myself
but when skimmed,
I stay hidden.
Blend in.

Wherever these feet land
I act completely natural.
Master of this craft,
I then stand completely still
a sentient surveying the landscapes of the distant hills.
Or calmly I camouflage to calico on a cat’s back.
Or perch upon a rose a horned blood-red fly trap,
a gyroscopic sighted bull at war
eyeing the flying teasing matadors.

I am
Comedian.
A plastered on grin
on my mastodon chin.
Adapted to the act
of withdrawing behind masks
and fake skins.
Lips part; speak sins

On the blank stage I appear.
Calmly take the mic,
fears concealed
behind droll cyan eyes.
Crack a joke, the crowd laughs uproariously.
The Faces, how they snicker so gloriously.
Judge me by the hue of my flesh,
the ease with which I speak and smile.
For I feed upon the frantic flies,
those fooled by fanfare of my fiendish guise
and garish guile.

The Nothing New

2011-04-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the Nothing New. An awful name for a lifeboat Thomas thought, I would have chosen something more hopeful. The Nothing New truly was that too, not new. It was in fact completely ancient. It hadn't been used or tested since the U.S.S. Rainier had it's last round of inspections, port of San Francisco in '68. The ship itself had been remodeled and renovated, but the life boats had been glanced over, an eventually fatal mistake. Thomas had noticed the paint chipping on the outside of the Nothing New as Pvt. Harris and himself quickly lowered it into the icy water 6 days ago. He hadn't notice the paint at the time though, his gaze was on the small hole near the bow of the boat. Six days later and he was still looking at the hole as Pvt. Decker was holding the seal that the team had fashioned together. A collection of all the absorbent material they had on the craft. Decker wiped sweat from his forehead onto his already sweaty forearm, doing nothing collect into drips which then ran down his face, neck, onto his shirtless chest. He switched hands, letting off the pressure ever so slightly and brief, but still allowed some water to get into the boat. Thomas watched as the new water streamed down the wall of the life vessel and into the 2 inches of sea already filling the bottom. As the ocean water met the stagnant pool there was a small splash and a paint chip fell in. Thomas watched this chip float on the surface, for only a moment, before it slowly started to fall to the bottom. A turquoise blue snowflake falling on a windless winter afternoon. One that you would want to catch on your tongue. As the color fell so too did Thomas’ stomach.

Nothing new had happened for six days. The Nothing New was still stuck in the doldrums somewhere in the South Pacific and the now bearded Sgt. Thomas Delmont looked at the sunken faces around him. Decker was still at the helm of the boat, his shift plugging the hole wouldn't be over until later that night, when it finally cooled down. Pvt. Brandon Moe and Pvt. Edmund Harris were sitting in the middle of the 18 foot life vessel. Moe, a high-school drop out from Alaska was leaning over the boat. Lifting up and down a small string from the water, his makeshift fishing line. Baited only with bent zipper sharpened into a hook. Hopeless. Harris was singing an old show tune. He was the eldest of the group, 22 years Thomas' senior, so 55. Moe was 26, and Decker, 24. Thomas felt odd giving orders to a man older than himself. Harris was had a knack for remember entire show tunes. Especially old one. He had once told Thomas that he only needed to hear a song once and he could sing the whole thing. He watched Harris whistle to him self. Cutting a face into the bulb of a passing kelp plant with his military-issue standard 4-in. hunting knife. The only knife on board after Decker had lost his, along with the rest of the provisions during the storm on Day 2. Thomas knew full well that there was only one knife, and what job that knife would have to take. One the knife didn’t sign up for. One none of them had signed up for.

The horizon looked the same as it had the mornings previous. Nothing new happens on horizons. he thought. The sun rises, and it sets. Sometimes there are clouds, but the horizon always stays constant. Nothing changes. Nothing new. Thomas was now on the bow of adrift lifeboat. It was his watch aboard the tiny ship. He held the small plugged and eyed the ocean for any ship movement. Any at all. As he scanned the night had set in. The night of the sixth day. Thomas knew full well what happened after a week of no food. In fact they all knew. That was part of their Navy training. “U.S.A. Navy Field Manual: Emergency Situations” had clearly told them that seven days is the average amount of time a man can go without food, It never told them what to do once 6 days have passed on the sea though. He knew the book would never want to think about THAT emergency situation. They had already caught a break that Pvt. Moe had set up a device using evaporation to get salt out of the ocean water in order to have drinking water. A trick learned from his 6th grade science teacher, Mr. Dixon. Moe told them that Mr. Dixon was a 60 something that always kept a toothpick in his mouth because he used to smoke. Had a beard the exact color of rust on an old truck tailgate and he liked to grow it out. Thanks to Mr. Dixon the four man crew had been able to drink limited quantities of warm water for the last five days. But no food, and Thomas knew that Mr. Dixon didn’t have a device for that... though Moe damn well thought the hook would work.

The last words spoken on the ship had been Decker’s. He now sat along in the stern of the boat resting his head on a cupped palm. His closed eyes twitched, the emptiness of his stomach making him cringe. He sat in the back pretending to sleep, as were Moe and Harris.

“I’M FUCKING STARVING.”

Thomas remembered the what Decker had yelled clearly. The 3 little words now having a completely different meaning than in the backseat of his parents car on a road trip back to his uncle’s in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York. His dad had told a 5-year-old Thomas to watch his tongue if he wanted eat at all. Thomas couldn’t think of anything to say to Decker though. He just stared at him. They all had. Not saying anything. This had happened only hours earlier. Decker interrupting the fifth or sixth rendition of Harris’ ‘Gary, Indiana” with:

“I’m Fucking Starving.”

These words still rattled and banged off the walls inside Thomas’ head. A migraine that hurt his head and stomach. He tried to wish the words away but they stayed.

“I’m fucking starving.”

Thomas knew that what would need to be done. He used the military-issue knife and cut four identical pieces of wood off of the Nothing New, then made a half inch shorter. He wouldn’t wake them for this. Thomas would wait.

2011-02-15T12:27:00.001-08:00

Essay Prompt #4: Women’s roles in Shakespeare

    The writings of William Shakespeare are known for many things, the language, death, friendships, witty comedy, deceit, betrayal, love, greed and power. One often overlooked aspect of his writing is the role of women characters. The women in his plays represent the culture of this time, as well as adding in his own beliefs and morals. Shakespeare portrays females in many different ways throughout his plays, often contrasting weak and strong willed females. Having multiple leading female roles is important in that it shows us that Shakespeare was more liberal in thinking when it came to the rights of women, and the roles they play in society.
    Women in Shakespeare’s time seemed to be subservient and have little to no power, even when born into wealth. If a woman did not have money then she would typically work a traditional female job: a nurse, maid, or nanny. We know this by the types of women we see in his plays. But how these women act represent Shakespeare’s opinion towards females and their roles. For example the women that are in high society, wealthy, and old all seem to share the same characteristics. They are easily persuaded, self-indulgent and want to fulfill traditional roles, as seen with Anne and Gertrude’s eagerness to marry and their naiveté towards love. Or Lady Capulet urging Juliet to forget love, and marry Paris. The contrast are the strong female characters who show bravery, smarts, cunning, and ability to make their own decisions. Perfect examples are of course Viola who gets the job and the man she wants by using cunning and guile or Juliet and Ophelia’s choice, which was as fatal as it was completely their own decision, of love over family. All of these characters also had the common factors of being young and in lower status, which Shakespeare may have identified with. Even Maria showed her cunning by helping to outwit Malvolio.
    This many strong willed heroines in that time period is unusual and shows us that Shakespeare thought highly of women and was not happy with their role in society at that time. Therefore he portrayed the working class and young females as freethinking, self-righteous, and equal to men.

Essay Prompt #3: Deceptions in Appearance and Reality.
    I’ve always believed that the reason that Shakespeare plays have survived and become the classics they are, is because they capture the human condition and show it back to us from different perspectives that highlight the irony that is life. In order to show this irony the audience needs to know more about the situation than the characters who are involved. The differences between appearances and reality we are made aware of and seeing them react to what they know, and not the whole story, shows the irony.
    Deception has always been a part of Shakespeare’s stories, continuing to use it where it is most common in human life, that is when love is involved or when power is at stake. These deceptions often draw upon what characters in the play think to be reality, but is truly just an appearance. It is important to note that the audience for the most part is aware of this false thinking the entire time, thus showing the irony in every wrong decision. Such as when we witness Olivia falling in love with Cesario, who we know all along to be Viola, or how Hamlet and the audience are the only ones who truly know that Claudius is a murderer. Knowing these things completely changes how we view the characters, both the deceiver and the deceived. When Richard has Clarence executed and puts the guilt on his brother Edward, we understand the fraud and feel for Edward and his impending downfall, and begin to detest Richard even more.
    I think that by including all of this deceit, backstabbing, and lying Shakespeare was trying to evoke emotion towards certain characters, and to use it as a mirror to show us that in reality when love or power is on the line, and those aren’t mutually exclusive, there will undoubtedly be some deception in appearance and reality. And you cant know the reality unless you’re in the proverbial audience, which is the biggest irony of all.

Happy ending?

2011-02-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

They stood next to each other on that edge. Like they had so many times before.

'Just jump.
'I'm going to.
'No you're not. You say this everyday. But here you are still. Come on David, lets just go home.
'No. Today's different. It's time.

David knew that it was different today. He didn't feel different. Or look different. But somehow he knew today was the day.

'I'M SICK OF BEING THE JOKE! I'M TIRED OF EVERYONE TELLING ME I CAN'T DO IT, AND THAT I WON'T BE ANYTHING! THAT I'M NOTHING! I'M ENDING THIS NOW!
'THEN JUST FUCKING DO IT!

He took six steps back and ran.

He stopped a foot short. David was wrong. He wasn't ready yet.

'Fucking knew it.
'I... fuck. I just can't Trev.. It's too... shit...

His words were drowned out. By his tears and his brother's cackle. Trevor patted him on the back. Then laughed some more and left. David was still sitting with his head in his hands next to the edge. He looked over.

'It's such a long fucking way.

He shook his head and a few more tears loosely rolled down his cheeks.

'Fuck...

Then David really started to bawl. This was deeper than this one misfire. These were the tears of a person who had nothing to lose. In his head every insult, slur, and mockery rang out 10 times louder than ever before. He heard everyone telling him he couldn't. That we wasn't strong enough. Or good enough. All of these voices started to silence the reasoning part of David's brain. He couldn't think. Then he stood up and the voices stopped. It was silent.

'It's time.

He took a step back, then jumped.

It felt like he jumped higher and farther than he had ever jumped in his entire life. He felt free, and he made sure to keep his eyes closed as the ground neared.

David opened his eyes. It was bright. Brighter than he expected that is. He looked down, and there it was. Between his webbed feet was the beautiful dark green color of a lilypad.Wide-eyed he looked over his shoulder to where he just jumped from. The other lilypad was slowly bobbing up and down in the pond water, still shuddering from the momentum of David's jump.

'I... I made... it. I made it. I Made it. I MADE IT!!!! I MADE IT!!!!!!!!

His shouts of joy rang through the pond and Trevor jumped onto the pad from between a few reeds.
He had a huge smile on his face and gave David a hug.

'Congratulations little bro. It's about time.

Shortly after another 20 frogs had gathered on the lilypad to celebrate David's leap which is the rite of passage for frogs from childhood to adulthood. They chanted his name. Brought him gifts and showered him in praise. They put him on their shoulders and lifted him about the crowd, as was customary.

'David. David. David...

David laid back and felt the all the webbed hands supporting him and an uncontrollable smile came over his face. He thought that this was without a doubt the best moment of his short life.

The Maple

2011-01-31T19:24:00.000-08:00

He went to the trunk of the tree. Knocked on the base. Smelt it.

'Think it's a maple.
'Yup.

His dad continued the biopsy of the tree.

'Nice tall one.
'Yup.

He stands up and walks back to Steven. Pauses, then looks at him.

'Stand by the tree.
'What? Why?
'C'mon Stevey. You knew this was coming.
'I don't get why you can't just take a picture of the tree by itself.
'Then you couldn't compare it to anything. How will people be able to tell how tall it is?
'What people are looking at these pictures? Will you please just let me take it of you.
'No! I'm your father. And this is what fathers do.
'This is what YOU do.

Steven reluctantly walked to the tree. Leaned against it.

'Smile!

Steven fake smiled

.Click.

'Ah. Perfect. You'll thank me one day for this
'Doubtful

His father ignored that. Or didn't actually hear it, for he was too busy scoping out there ne-

'Holy Shit! Look at that Oak!
'Dad! No!
'Those LEAVES! Oh Steven we got lucky today. Its a Rhode Island Oak. I'd know it anywhere. But what is it doing here? This is Pennsylvania Oak country. I mean occasionally you'll see a Red Longspur but never a Rhode Island Oak. How curious... THOSE LEAVES! Just look at those leaves son!

His voice trailed off as he ran towards the tree. Steven couldn't catch up with the 6 yr old in his fathers body.

'Wow look at this trunk. That's the thickest trunk Ive ever seen!
'Ya... It's a great tree dad. But no picture okay? You already got your one picture.
'No. Seriously. With your short little arms there is now way you can reach around this.
'They're not that -
'Yes they are. Ever since you were a boy. Tiny little arms. You've got your mother to thank for that no doubt. My side has always had long arms. Just look at these.

With this he reaches Up, Out, In Front, and Down to this toes. Each time looking to his son, smiling and saying:
'Real impressive right? your old man with arms this long.This is all natural too. No steroids. Hard to believe I'm sure for a kid without normal person arms.

With that last joke his dad laughed to himself, probably too hard for being the only one laughing. Steven walked over to the tree. He waited til his dad had turned away then tried to reach around the Rhode Island Oak.

.Click.

'Dammit Dad!!
'Oh WOW! Look at that! Is that a birch?