Algebra

We gather at the table. "Cream of Wheat again?" Junie asks. Daddy doesn't say anything, he just puts the bowl down in front of her. She's upset, but she knows better than to say anything out loud. I've come to like it. Or at least tolerate. Four spoonfuls of sugar will do that.

"What did you learn in school today?" Daddy asks us before disappearing behind the paper. I learned the quadratic formula in algebra, and the song that goes along with it. It's sung to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel," so it's easy to memorize. X equals negative b, plus or minus the square root... He asks what the formula is used for, and I say for a quadratic equation, and he asks what those are used for. "Well," I say, "algebra, I guess." He shakes his head and laughs.

Junie pushes her dinner around with her spoon like she always does. The trick works sometimes when you have a plate of food, separate items. But here there's no hiding the globby porridge. No under this or next to that. It's all the same. "Kyle got in trouble for pushing Mindy down at recess." "What did she do?" "Nothing!" Junie says. "And which one is Kyle?" Daddy asks. "He's the boy who killed our class hamster, his mom works at the hospital." "I never liked that kid," Daddy says, and he turns the page. He should be on the obituaries by now.

I don't know if Junie's ever noticed, but Daddy doesn't eat. Or at least not with us. He makes sure we have family dinner, that was important to him growing up, but I don't remember the last time I actually ate with him. He'll set down two bowls, or two plates, and go behind that paper. I assume he's reading. Sometimes it's late and oftentimes it's bad, but it's never not there. Junie's a picky eater, but she'll learn.

I spoon some sugar onto Junie's bowl. "Hurry up," I say. "It's no good when it's cold." "It's no good anyway." Daddy's right hand lets go of the paper and moves to his face for a second. When it comes back I see that it's a little wet. The soft grey of the paper gets smudged a little darker. I give her another spoonful of sugar.

16mm

It's not so glossy! Not so goddamned easy! There's less definition, and it feels like it's been pulled from the dreams of a ghost.

There's black, there's white, and that's all you get. The shaky intrusiveness of shadow and sunlight, reality hastily thrown upon the reel. Let us capture the now, the me, the you, the in between that we can no longer find.

It's become too easy. Too simple. Too clean. Too precise. Too nice. And nice will kill you.

I've seen life scored to Russian opera, the contours of thighs, the confusion of a woman's sweat. I've seen the elevation of the beauty of the everyday. I've seen true skin.

Dreams of a ghost. Why choose anything else.

The Sinner

I stopped talking only long enough for her to get those few simple words in. But those. They were were the ones I wasn't expecting, words that do so much. She just got them in.

"Where have you been going every Monday night?"

Steady stream of a day's events had not deterred her mind from its goal. It was going to find. Find out what I'm doing, these things that I have done. And then. MY hand went tight against my chest. I continued as if the words hadn't phased me. This wasn't a two-way conversation. Did somebody say something? I didn't feel anything. Then.

"Didn't you hear me?"

All too well.

"I asked where it is you've been going every Monday night."

Silence is the worst thing in the world. To me. It cannot be measured up to by any means by any thing. Nothing can come close to its unease, its uncomfortable setting in the pit of your stomach. I could feel it with my hand. My hand against my chest, revealing nothing. I wouldn't let her see. The room grows colder with each moment. I might pass out.

"I haven't been going anywhere."

Lies are easier than the truth. The truth takes too long to think about. You have to remember the truth. But a lie. A lie can flow freely from your mouth like cool running water. Nothing to remember. Nothing ever happened.

"You haven't been going anywhere."

I could feel the feeling in my stomach. Silence. Eyes attaching themselves to me, stripping the layers away. Away to the inside where some story could be found. An explanation. Anything, it didn't matter what. Somewhere. Nothing ever happened.

"I haven't been going anywhere."

The cold was reaching inside my coat, through the layers. It was the only thing that could get to me tonight. The only thing that could get past the lies. I won't let. I won't let. It's so cold. It grew inside. It was throbbing inside me, but I never moved it. I never faltered. I couldn't tell her what had happened to me. To them. She wouldn't understand. What had happened to me. She began to move around the room. She floated.

"There's something you're not telling me. What aren't you telling me?"

She was moving around so much. I wondered why she was moving around so much. It's so cold. I don't remember taking off my coat.

"Nothing. Why are you moving around so much?"

Everything was so confusing.

"I'm not moving."

Eyes squinted to try and make out the objects on the table. A glass. Newspaper. Bowl of oranges we had just bought just the other day just together. And out. And then. I fell from my chair, my hands were trying so hard not to show her. I am not going to show the weakness, not for anyone, not tonight, only the cold will win. Only the cold. It was all I could feel.

"And you're not getting away without telling me where you've been going!"

Eyes tried again to focus on objects in the room. I could not look at her any longer. Mirror. Clock on the wall. My chair, sideways, fallen on the floor. A knife.

"Answer me!"

Coldness was too much for me. She would not win. Only the cold would win tonight. And after this there will be no more struggles. And I let my hands fall to the floor. And the cold encloses my body. And nobody would ever know of the horrible things I have done. Please forgive me for my sins. I never meant to hurt. Anybody. Please.

Crevice

A large black garbage bag taped over the fireplace and every now and then it breathes. Air goes in and out, crinkled pulse turns this hearth into a mouth. I don't recognize it. I am sitting on the chaise with a book I cannot read and clothes I cannot forget. Wrapped in a robe, wearing a winter hat, the kind old men wear when they shovel their drives in the movies.

Four others were here but they've all gone. They've all moved on to families and promotions, finding their stability. The boxes have been filled and emptied so many times there hardly seems a point to keep the furniture around. There must be a word for a man who lives out of suitcases yet never travels.

I keep it cold as the pipes can stand and yes darkness is cheap but I don't like it. Darkness is what I've been dealt and I'm playing it the best I can. I wrap myself in robes and keep myself in hats and cover the colder crevices with bags meant for garbage. This place isn't meant for just one man.

When I wake up the brandy is spilled over the tile, dried, tacky. The curtains are drawn as always and the clock blinks twelve and I do not know whether I've slept through the night or day or which one it happens to be. But the air goes in and out, on and off, and the mouth tries to speak to me. But I'm tired, I'm drunk, and I refuse to listen.

Take Care

Mucils and laxes and gases and stools. The waiting area plops you right in front of every box and bottle bearing these words. Soften this and quicken that, fiber fiber how many times a day. By the time my appointment rolls around I almost forget why I'm there, and my bowels are ready for a tremendous movement.

She says her name is Jan and she's a nurse practitioner. I don't know what that is exactly but I'm guessing it's somewhere between nurse and doctor, otherwise why would there be a separate name for it? It's a small office, smaller than my bedroom. She probably only sees daylight when she pops her head out to get the next patient, or some Skittles.

My throat has been sore for weeks. Jan asks if I've been taking anything and I say the usual things. I'm drinking plenty of fluids (I don't say which ones), gargling saltwater, trying to only speak when absolutely necessary (which is something I could stand to do more of anyway). There's a rumbling inside me and I wish the office weren't so darn small.

It's been rough. It's been what one might call a bender. It's been late nights and even later mornings, turning my apartment into a recycling bin hour by hour. Raising my voice at friends, at family, at myself, at anyone who'll listen and mostly people who won't. This takes its toll, things turn red, get ripped up, swollen, worn, forgotten. I forget how to take care of myself sometimes.

I just can't help it any longer and I let a small, soft, quiet one squeak through. I think I'm in the clear, that it was small enough I shouldn't have to worry. But it eventually reaches my darn olfactories, the one sense that somehow hasn't been damaged by my recent debauchery. She chooses now to get the stethoscope out and have me breath, and I think I'm saved. I start sucking in air. She tells me to stop, that I only need to breath how I normally breath. I don't stop. She tells me to stop again, but stops her own self. Stops at the evidence. I shake it off. It's a small office, I'm sure she's been through far, far worse, and it's likely I'll never see her again.

She prescribes me some antibiotics, but tells me all I really need to do is knock everything off. Eat better, drink less, get sleep, rest voice. They are easy words muttered by a passerby. I tell her she's right. But I'm lying of course. It's hard not to when there's a discount on liquor right outside the door.

Pendulum

Turn out the light, she tells me.

But anything could happen when I turn out the light. I could get into bed. We could sleep. Someone might be lurking in the shadows. Some thing.

The great pendulum dangles before me. What started its movement? It counts down the moments, each one getting smaller, each one getting closer, each one right behind.

Anything could happen. If I turn out the light tomorrow will come. Tomorrow will come, I am hopeless, and hopelessly sure.

Then I'll do it, she tells me. She climbs over me.

Well Again

There is a man, behind my nose, holding a valve, flooding me and trying to escape. His feet are pressing on my nose and his back against my brain. Every minute or so he'll scratch my eyes with some extensions of his hands. Extra-long hands, with extra-long fingers, equipped with extra-long nails.

There is a man who drags me down. Sloshing around, pulling on my skin, sitting on my bones and organs and blood vessels. When the other isn't scratching, poking, blowing on my eyes, this one is sitting on them. He places stones on them, fills them with puss. He is quick to make me slow.

There is a man who makes me well again, who puts it right. Some scientists with chemicals and formulas, powders and whatnot. Tablets wrapped in paper, bubbles trapped in water. I don't know where he is and I probably never will, but I owe him a lot.

There is a man who is me. But who wants to hear about that?

Waste and the Wash

I watch the spots of grey water fly off my hands, and I think how strange it is that such a filthy room should be connected with cleanliness. I think about the order of my routine, the waste and the wash. I brush my teeth mere inches from my toilet. I'm sucking in that same air. And people wonder why I make a fuss over closing the lid. Why would they make it if they wanted us to leave it open?

Soap and dirt and waste and water, that's all it is. A natural, unsightly thing. More a part of us than we'd like to think. You know how filthy your handbag is, miss?

I still wash my hands. I'm good at it. I used to rub them until they bled, until the soap and scalding water made them so cracked and dry that they had no other choice but to heal.

Rat

We were sitting in the living room and it was like playing Whac-a-Mole in real life. The little bastard's head popped out of the back left burner, out of one of the burners. But he popped back down when my sister cried "Rat!"

It's funny at first. You laugh at the mouse, at the infestation. And even the fact that Mr. Yang hasn't gotten an exterminator in six weeks becomes funny. But it's a rat, and it's your home, and like sweet fuck Mr. Yang would pay $2100 a month to share an apartment with rats.

But we kept laughing. And we'll wait.

Nice and Ugly

"Daddy, there are a lot of ugly people in the airport."

My Jessie has a point. There are, in fact, a lot of ugly people at this airport. There are a lot of people, and so there are lots of all kinds, but an inordinate number of them seem to be ugly. Terrible haircuts, terrible sweaters, terrible makeup. Terrible blank stares, terrible turtlenecks, what I assume is a terrible high school girls' soccer team. Terrible children, the ghastliest children, with the most horrid blonde parents. Terrible camouflage, which are probably spritzed with the blood of some young animal or family of animals. Terrible plastic cups filled with beer, being carried around, like a cheap frat party.

But what can I say? "You're roghy, honey, look at all the ugly people." People would perceive me as insensitive. When really all I'm doing in encouraging my daughter's honesty. I wasn't the one who turned ugly into an insult, and it sure wasn't Jessie. Should she be punished? I'm sure these are all perfectly nice people. All perfectly, perfectly fine. I'm sure they think I'm ugly, too. "Honey, that's nlt a nice thing to say." Is that what I do? Nice. Please. Nice gets you nothing.

"Daddy, can I have ice cream?"

"Thank god," I tell her. "Yes."

Burritos

Most of my poor decision-making comes in the form of late-night burritos. The Venn diagram is as follows:

(Circle A) Burritos eaten at three AM or later.

(Circle B) Burritos filled with all sorts of nonsense that I shouldn't be adding.

It's the ones that meet in the middle that do the most damage. When it's four and the joint is still open and I think yes I know what I'll do is add guacamole and French fries and you call that a handful of cheese and maybe I better get the bigger one just to make sure I can always save half and eat it tomorrow. But I don't save half. I never save half. The closest I get is waking up at some untoward hour to half smeared on me. This is how I know I'm not secretly The Truman Show. No one would stand for it.

Each burrito is delicious and each burrito is the last. I tried to ween myself, get the frozen ones and have them at the ready. But it's not the same. There's no excitement, there's nothing that can really go wrong. And isn't that was burritos are about anyway?

Conjurer

The crumbs on my plate become bigger than me and I'll find a way to justify those donuts even if I walk to the store that's twice as far away. She thinks I don't have goals, and she emphasizes the word like it's something that ninety-nine out of every one hundred stupid people don't have. But maybe she's got a point. "Socks? You don't have socks?" Strikes a different chord than, "You don't have a solid gold pontoon?"

Crumbled up napkin, spots of Frank's, I'm trying to add the flavor. I read an article once about how it's chemical, you get hungry when you've been tying them on and on, but of course I can't remember any of the science. In one ear and out the other. So excited to learn so many things but really how many things do I know? Why bother knowing anything that's at your fingertips? And yeah I'm talking about your girl, too. I'm a regular conjurer.

Don't tell me what I know and don't know. Don't try to make me feel better. Don't butter me up with crass formalities and inside jokes, I don't have time for them. I would like, for once, someone to look me in the eye and tell me I'm a bad guy. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so crazy.

Eraser

I was sitting in the waiting room when I saw her. There she was, other side of the glass, plain as day, two years older. Had it really been two years? Almost. Time marches slowly on.

She looked good, which is to say she looked the same. And then I realized that I was looking, and shot my head down. Had she seen me? I pushed my gaze slightly forward, until I was staring at some banal patch of carpet a few inches from the wall. She was still there, talking with some unknown person in the hallway. She talked and talked, and I kept my eyes steady. She had a lot to say.

Should I say hello? Could I? Would she even want me to? Would she remember what she'd written, how I'd misinterpreted her wishes, how friends was never a possibility? Would time have clapped the dust from our erasers, would it have settled, would it still be lingering in the air, making us cough.

She turned and I sprang from my seat, startling the nice lady reading her monthly magazine, throwing the door open. She turned back, startled by me, but not the sight of me. She waited. I had thought so hard about whether or not I should say anything I forgot to think about anything to say at all. And she walked away.

Two years. I hadn't been able to give her what she wanted. I couldn't say the words. Those three little words can be the hardest things to say, but adding one more can be hardest of all. I lied. I made up some story. I said I had no idea, couldn't figure out why, she deserved an answer I couldn't give and how sorry was I. She took it well. I could have left. Should have. But I waited too long. Her sister came home. She broke down. I am always waiting.

Mariana

Without judgment or fear, I look on her as the hordes of memories invade my wall. I let the good overtake the bad. I decide it's fine that, if only for an afternoon, I focus on the sex and picnics rather than the front seat quarrels and meanings lost in translation. Is that the same green softball shirt she had back in high school? How much gloss am I coating here?

In situations like this I can't tell what's real and what's not. We laugh, we joke, we lightly touch and our feet are close. Coffee turns to walking turns to drinks turns to dinner and drinks and a moonlit stroll. Familiar, friendly, edited. What's wrong with that?

The stroll is long, there is a lot of alcohol to be burned out of our veins. I get her to her car. She asks me where she's driving. I say how should I know. I know what she means. I know where. I know. I let the silence fill the space between us like the Mariana Trench, too deep to know what's there or when to stop. And it only ends when she kisses my cheek and drives off into the depths of the highway, all flickering lights and broken curfews.

I walk home. I live a mile from town. I could make this journey with my eyes closed.

The Compliment

She makes some humming noise, like she's savoring. You're so attractive, she tells me. I laugh. And people tell you to follow your instincts.

It's not that I found it funny. Or maybe I did a little. I'm at the place now where I can say, OK, sure, I'm not a half-bad-looking sort of guy. But who just goes ahead and says that in bed? Disrobed and exhausted and you couldn't be any more vulnerable.

Her look was judgmental, her skin glistening. I said thank you. I couldn't say it back. There was no real reason for me not to, other than I just simply couldn't.

She turned away from me. Would rather look at a blank wall. Can't say I blamed her. I thought about what I could say, something else, something more than thank you, something about her, what she does well, something, anything. After a few minutes she said, you know what, she's got to go home. I told her she could stay. She just got dressed.

I hugged her at the door and she didn't move. She hugged me back, I guess. But she was stiff, solid, like I'd frozen her up. There's just no pleasing some people.

Toothsome

There's a string around my finger, one end around Will's tooth. "Just do it," he tells me. I'm gonna do it, I tell him.

I turn around to face Liam. "Yeah," he says, "do it." I tell him, yeah, I will.

I think how strange it is, think about my friends. Think about the things I've asked them to do. I think about when we met. Thrown together at a table through no will of our own. Playground compatriots.

I wind up and sock Liam in the mouth. Feel a tug. Will's tooth hits me in the back of the head, ticks against the floor. Liam reels back, looks at me smiling. Mouth of blood, he spits a tooth out next to Will's. And, one by one, the three of us just start laughing.

Cucumber Man

Some crashing comes from back in the kitchen. "Someone's gonna get fired," he says. He sips his African coffee, orange zest, tiny white cup. Four dollars. No one gets fired for stuff like that though. Repeat offenders I guess are another story. The ones who do it on purpose. The ones going out with a bang. "Let's go over it again," he says. Mitchell takes the elevator down a few minutes before five. He wants to stake out his favorite treadmill before the other employees. He's on for an hour and then does some free weights because he likes to look at himself in the mirror. He'll go to the parking garage between six-twenty and six-thirty. He always takes the stairs. That's when it's got to happen. "Car." Third level. It's sparse down there, Mitchell likes to protect his Lexus. Third level is the bottom. Underneath the stairs is a storage area, view of the door is completely blocked if you're in there. "Security cameras." There are no cameras in the wells. But if he makes it into the garage it's too late. Every inch of those floors is on tape somewhere. We sit for a time. He's what people call cool as a cucumber, he's a cucumber man. Everything he does, each little move, seems like he's done it before. Practiced, perfect. This is the guy you want doing your jobs for you. He smiles at me and sips his whatever-it-is, sniffs before each little sip, gets the last little rim dribble up with his lip. It's just that one thing though. Disgusting. "Why this... Mitchell?" Some people, I tell him, you just have to get rid of.

Ex-Uncle Paul

I almost drowned. My family was at the country club, congregating at the pool. Why I'd gotten away I do not know, but I had. Why I jumped into the pool, I don't know that either. Perhaps I fell. But I was four, and scared, and I could not swim.

Uncle Paul jumped in after me. I remember watching him, seeing the rippled faces of my relatives above the surface, their muffled cries through the water. And a man, Uncle Paul, diving in to save me. I don't think I was in the pool very long. I suppose that's a good thing.

Uncle Paul and my Aunt Viv were divorced years later. It was messy, and unpleasant, and no one took Paul's side. It's been years, nearly twenty, since I saw or spoke to him last. It is a shame that people are cut fron your life through no means of your own.

Hot Hot Coffee, Cold Cold Milk

That spoon knocks around her cup like it's trying to break free, and she just keeps adding sugar. So much milk it looks like the floor tiles. I look up at the ceiling fan and it's barely moving. Never understood why they have that lowest setting. A quick look around and I see nine out of ten people fanning themselves with something or other. And it's not until I think how queer it is she's drinking coffee.

"It cools you down."

"I've never known coffee to do that," I say.

"You don't know a lot of things." I'd like to think she said that with a wink in her voice, so I'll say she did.

She goes on to tell me that the body works on cooling itself off when it gets hot. So, natch, you drink a hot cup of joe and the brain gets the signal. She says something about receptors. It all sounds queer to me, but she seems pretty certain.

"But this lemonade. I drink it, I can feel it going down, I can feel my insides getting colder as I drink."

"That's fine," she says. That's her way of saying I'm wrong. But how can I be wrong about what I feel? I look down at my lemonade, wishing it was a beer, thinking maybe it should be a coffee. She sounds so damn sure of herself. But maybe anybody would be this happy with that much sugar and that much milk. I bet that milk was ice cold. I bet that coffee is room temperature at best.

I turn my cup over and the waitress is there in seconds, filling it up with boiling hot java. I thread my finger into the little loop. She's looking at me from behind her mug, sipping and drinking, hardly putting it down, keeping it right in front of her. Is it hiding a smile?

I drink. Boy, it sure is hot.

The Fear

I never thought I'd get the chance to find out, but the first reaction you have to a dead body is to poke it with a stick. It's the only thing you want to do. This is a person, this is someone's husband or wife or son or daughter or something, that all comes later. But at the moment of discovery, just like they said it would: I gotta get me a stick.

Now I had to decide where to place this poke. One choice—albeit one I got from a cartoon—is the eye. I imagined the squishy noise I hoped it would make, the person just staring blankly out. How often have I wanted to poke someone in the eye and I never could? This was my chance! The stomach is perhaps the most classic, either that or the shoulder. Nice, good areas to poke, soft or hard, you got a lot to work with there. Then there's the butt. Self-explanatory.

I chose the shoulder. I'm a chicken.

The body on its side, face toward the ground. I gave its left shoulder a poke, hard, but not too hard. I wasn't sure if I wanted it to fall back, see the face and everything. From this vantage point anything could have happened. It could have been cardiac arrest and that was it. But if the body fell back and I could see the face, and the eyes, and anything else that might be hiding. What if there was blood on the chest? I don't know what I would do.

I poked again. Definitely dead.

It was the body of a girl. The female equivalent of Tall, Dark, and Handsome. So maybe Tall, Dark, and Beautiful. Everything was black, black boots, tight black jeans, black leather motorcycle jacket. She had black hair, but it ended blonde before it hit the tips. It didn't look matted. It didn't look damaged. She was the kind of girl I would be afraid to talk to at a bar. She looked like it anyway.

There wasn't anything left to do really besides call the cops, which I didn't do. I thought about poking it some more, but I didn't see the point. I did think about calling the cops, but I wasn't sure how this would look. Some guy just randomly finds some dead girl and that's all folks? It never happens that way! I'm far too paranoid to think I wouldn't wind up in prison somehow. If I was scum I would have rifled through her pockets, touched her inappropriately, seen if she was still warm. I could have taken a picture but I didn't really want to remember her like this. It's not that I was sad. I wasn't sad. But I was a little upset that I wasn't sad. So I started to walk away, which is when she turned over.

That'll put the fear into a man.

I never turned around. I only heard her. I imagine that when I poked her shoulder that set off a slow chain of bodily events which merely took this entire time to knock her back. I didn't want to see if her lipstick matched her fingernails. If she looked like my sister. If she had black eyes and a broken nose. I didn't want to see her eyes at all. I didn't want to think she was alive, that she was struggling, that there would be soft streams of warm air on my cheek as I knelt over her. I didn't want to think there was something I could have done.

So I ran. I ran home, gripping the stick. I don't think I've ever run as fast or as hard in my life. I don't imagine I ever will again. It wasn't until I got home that I ever realized how many splinters I had in my hand.

I See You All Around

I think I see you. From time to time, I cannot be sure.

You were there at the market. I was smelling pineapples, squeezing, unsure of how to pick one just ripe. I saw you pondering nuts and dried up berries down the way. I thought to say hello, but thought against it. Perhaps someone who only looks like you.

You were driving beside me, I remember. But I wasn't going to take my eyes off the road. A girl with dark hair, a small white car, rusting over the back left wheel. I suppose it could have been any number of people.

I thought I saw you through the window. Just a pane and a world between us. I thought of ways to say hello, to see if it was actually you, to see how we actually were. But too much time had passed. And it did not seem right to encourage you.

Yes, I could swear I see you all around. But it never occurred to me until the middle of the night that perhaps you see me, too.

Sweetheart, I said, is that you? You said you didn't like to be called that anymore, not by me. I asked what time it was and you hazily replied. It felt like danger. I asked if you'd been following me. You were shocked, speechless. Following you, you said. But you're the one standing in my bedroom.

She was wrong. She asked me to leave. Our, I wanted to say. Our.

Beast Man

Today my friends and I saw some totally sweet dinosaur bones. It's so strange to think that dinosaurs once roamed around, and then they all died. They all just, like, totally died.  But then it got me thinking: What if dinosaurs were around today?

I know, I know, but bear with me, haha!

Do you think we'd have adapted to fend them off? Would we live in harmony? Or would we have killed them off ourselves? Would we have killed off some and not others? Domesticated the cute, little guys? Would it be exactly as it is today with animals, only dinosaurs would be in the mix?

All hypothetical questions I asked my friends, to which I got no real answers. Thanks, guys.

But I do think that's how it would be. That last thing, I think. Which is really a combination of everything that came before it. Some would have been killed off. Some would be in zoos. Some would be roaming around. Some would be in our homes. There would be countless news versions of all your favorites, and I guess least favorites, too.

We would have found a way to be on top, is what I'm saying. When man first realized he could outsmart the beast, it never really stopped. Sure, a beast or two has gotten the better of a man here and there. But, by and large, piss off a man and he'll wipe your entire species off the planet. And he'll throw your carcass in a ditch, and laugh while doing it.

Anyway, I was just thinking!

Churches and Cathedrals

All the pretty girls, they all got married this summer. Seems like all of them did, they all got together, said, "You know what? This is what we're gonna do." Then they all go out, they all get married, and they don't tell me.

Where are these guys? Where is it they get these men of theirs? Is it my fault I was never a high school sweetheart? That I skipped college and was bereft of the feminine persuasion?

Maybe I moved around too much. It gets to be seven months and I get antsy. But if I met a girl, I'd stay!

Seven months. That's about how long my relationships were back when I had relationships. Just about seven months and I'd start to get that feeling. Longest relationships I had were long distance. Time zones between us. What does that tell you. If I plug my ears and laugh will anybody hear me?

The summer must've been a beautiful thing. Tan suits, bare feet, beaches. Buffets and hangovers, churches and cathedrals. Dancing, reconciliation, cake, one night stands, hymns. It's one of the only times I like a hymn.

I have to figure out where to find me one of these girls. Get myself a sweetheart. Give her everything she wants. Pick out a beach of our very own. Book it years in advance. Braid flowers in her hair. For once in my life, stay.

Hylomorph

Matter and form. That's all any of us are, that's really all we've got. It's our first offense. Our senses take in the form of something, that's perception. That's all you are, for a time. And we go to it for judgment, more often than not. You and me both.

I didn't know anything about her, just that she was a friend of Gerri's. From work, new girl, newish to town. Went through a breakup not too long ago. I was told she was a nice girl. That doesn't mean a thing.

"Is she cute?"

"Yeah. Yes!" Gerri tells me. Suspicions abound.

The affirmation, followed by a more emphatic, more positive version. If a girl does this, red flag. Red flag, buddy. Girls are more forgiving. They're sick of being judged by their looks only, and they probably should be. But that doesn't change the fact that a "hot" from a girl means a "cute" from a guy, and a "cute" from a girl means "pass."

But I go. I say I'll meet her for drinks at Milo's after work Thursday. Nice but casual, easy for it to lead to nothing or lead to bed. I want to keep my options open. My mind the same.

I get there early so I can knock one back. Helps loosen me up a bit, nothing new. People are slowly filing in from work. Jeans, loose ties, heels, trousers, gym bags. I see one too many men in suits with no tie, my least favorite look in the entire world. Their day making money was so difficult they just have to take off the entire tie. There, that's better.

She walks in. Florence I'm told her name is. For a second I let her look around. I'm not as eager as I'd like to be. She cleans up nicely, there's that. Soft lipstick, form-fitting skirt. The form is where the trouble is. I order another drink as she spots me.

She orders a Kentucky Mule. She's a bourbon girl, picked it up from her grandfather. She taught herself guitar when she was thirteen. She doesn't understand how people can hate cats, even with allergies ("They have medicine for that, grow a pair" she says). She's funny, she's got real wit. She doesn't like how divided we've gotten, how people use their personal religion as a weapon, she doesn't like diet cola. She bites her lime. She is showing the best possible version of herself. And mostly I'm quiet and agreeing, and drinking bourbon alongside her.

When things are done she gives me her number. I don't ask for it. She smiles at me. It's a slow smile, after a silent judgment, like she's realizing there are still decent guys in the world. There are, I think, somewhere.

We exchange hugs outside the bar. She had a nice time, I did, too. She goes her way, I go mine. I pass so many people.

Years ago I started dating a beautiful girl. Not long after we got together she cut her hair. Pretty short. This was the start of all that, beautiful girls with long beautiful hair chopping it all off. It wasn't my favorite and she knew that. She let it grow for a few months, then cut it again. I asked her if she was testing me. She just laughed. I told her I liked long hair better.

"Excuse me?"

It was a simple fact. "I've just always been more attracted to long hair."

"If you really love someone," she teaches me, "it shouldn't matter what they look like."

"So if I weighed three hundred pounds, you'd still love me?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"You would."

"Yes!"

Maybe she was telling the truth. I don't know, she ended it a couple hours after that affirmation. We've all got our types. Every one of us has a list of things that turn us on, turn us off. And that's the guy I'm used to being. I like the world we live in. I like that we're more open, we're more accepting. More and more people are more and more free to do what they please with whom they please and I think it's beautiful. I really do. But change is hard, it's gradual. And I feel bad about the judgments I make. I feel bad that I can't separate things out, or see the big picture, or do whatever it is I'm supposed to do. I do think there's more to people than what you see. There's more to me. Despite what you've learned.

Get Back In

There are two knocks, quick, someone asking to be let in, I jolt up in bed. Pulls me from my dream. "Hello?" I ask. The knocks came from inside the room, I am sure. I hold my breath. I don't hear anything.

I get up, maybe something will move. Nothing does. I take my water glass to the kitchen, finish it on the way, pour in more. "Hello?" I ask the echoless hallway. Nothing says a word.

I go back to my room. My bedside lamp is on. Did I fall asleep with it on again? I cannot remember.

I turn out the light, listening to the chain, back and forth. Drink some more water and think of my dream, whether or not it's worth trying to get back in. It comes to me. Some lewd subconscious fantasy about a friend. I couldn't think of her now. "Hello?" I ask.

 

No Comfort

He spent the day spitting into cups and past his thighs. His feet were cold but his socks were colder. The blankets kept the chill in. He took some tablets and slept, feeling better, but it did not last long. His back ached. He sat with his legs crossed, thinking maybe if he made himself as small as possible, less of him would hurt.

His hood was up and it was never up. He took it down and bounced his palm on his oddly-creased hair. He felt the follicles moving. His scalp hurt, the kind of hurt where you keep on going. He drank cold water because he was too lazy to warm it up. He had no tea, no honey, no lemon. He wasn't sure if his eyes pained him more open or closed. No comfort lasted very long.

He fell asleep on the couch, his head on the armrest. When he woke he was in agony, his neck dented, head throbbing, unbelievable crust in his eyes.

He cried uncontrollably. His walls were down. He was hooted up on pills and tablets and the germs were attacking all his working good parts. He remembered relationships and deaths, insecurities and regrets. He worried about what the next sixty years would be like. Or, if doctors and scientists have their way, the next hundred. He cried himself to sleep, and woke feeling refreshed.
 

Waiting

He had a new haircut, and he smelled like cologne and grilled cheese. He knew tiny flecks of freshly-trimmed hair waiting in his ears, he couldn't feel them but he knew they were there. In a perfect world he would have showered, but he had no time. In a perfect world he would have made a proper dinner. But he was low on food, out of butter, and could only fry two pieces of honey wheat in some bacon fat, and throw some extra sharp cheddar between them. It was delicious, but it stunk the place up. Why did he change before cooking? He knew never to do that. He broke out his forgotten American Crew, the same eighth-grade bottle, sprayed here and there, and considered himself disguised.

Would she recognize him? That was a silly question, of course she would. But, no, physically, yes, in that way she would. But would she recognize the man, the person he'd become, what was waiting underneath? Or would the stench of grease and chemicals be too much for her to see anything new?

He dipped his nose into his open coat. There it was, that cooking-frying-bacon-poor smell. He hadn't wanted to bathe in the cologne, but now he couldn't sniff it out at all. How many sandwiches, he thought, had he fried up in that place? How many scents was this coat holding? Why, why, why did he change before cooking?

He woke up at six even when he didn't have to. He belonged to a gym and read at least one book a month. He kept the back of his neck clean and his bed made. He didn't wait for the collars of his shirts to get yellowed with the wear of his dirty skin. He had a plant, and he was keeping the plant alive. He was no longer groggy in the mornings, he was drinking better alcohol, buying marbled beef. He had a separate bank account for travel, and a percentage of every check went there. He was going to visit new places, see new things, maybe even learn a language. Every thing had a plan and every plan was in place.

His nose still burrowed. He breathed in deeply, the way he used to breathe in his own gas as a child. A smelly and disgusting thing, but still part of him, and oddly pleasant. She was several stops north. He had time to think.

Break like Objects

He told her what he learned about the Japanese. That when something breaks they think it becomes more beautiful, it has a history. Shouldn't they consider themselves in this way?

She said she saw that stupid article floating around, he shouldn't for a second think that he got away with it. And besides, she wasn't Japanese, she was American. She'd never been to Japan, didn't want to have anything to do with Japan. Have you see their television shows? No people in their collective right mind create something like that.

He had seen the article, yes. But that didn't mean that he didn't agree with it, that it wasn't true.

She said, OK, if she were to go along with this, what did he have in mind.

They mend it with gold, he told her.

Gold mends objects, not people.

Then what about jewelry.

This is not the time for fucking jokes.

Sorry.

She said no. She said if their relationship were a plate or bowl, some sort of vase, then maybe. Maybe they could put the pieces back together with gold and it would be more beautiful than they could ever have imagined. But they weren't. And gold is malleable. And people are not objects, however they may break like them.

He nodded in silence and left. He never told her of the locket he'd had made, small and gold, placed in a red velvet box, wrapped by him, resting in his coat pocket.