Amsterdam

She is holding a map: AMSTERDAM. She is surrounded by five friends and they walk down the sidewalk. Every other shop offers sex, hash, or a combination of the two. She looks down at the map to find a landmark and when she looks back up one friend has crossed the street and taken down the HELP WANTED sign in a cafe. The rest cross the street but halfway across another friend is hit by a bus. The doors open and the four remaining get on. There are three dark figures sitting in the back, their faces indistinguishable.

In an instant it is a summers's night, the sun is setting, their bus seats are chairs in a restaurant. As they eat their food each friend peels away from the table to join a party of customers just leaving. She sits alone. The waiter comes to deliver the check but it is not the waiter, it is a dark figure from the bus. He turns the table over and throws the chairs aside. The customers calmly enjoy their meals, unaware of the violence around them. She turns to run but is confronted by another dark figure and he pushes her to the ground. The three creatures tower over her.

She opens her purse and dumps out the contents but all she has are maps of Amsterdam, dozens of them. She reaches into her pockets and feels cash but when she turns them inside out coffee grounds start spilling out. The flow does not stop. Her stomach turns and a surge of grounds explodes from her mouth like a never-ending handkerchief being pulled out by a magician. When the grounds stop she looks up. She thinks she sees her five friends at a table in the distance. But before she can be sure, before she can call for help, she is hit in the face with a gun.

Between the Smoke and Me

If I went to bed without getting high I'd never sleep at all. Cara asked me to stop and for a while I did. Or I tried. I would lie in bed, the unending posture of the awake. I would lie there wondering how time could possibly move so quickly one moment, and so interminably the next. They were the same seconds, were they not? I started smoking out back.

The beautiful thing about being together is that, after a while, you no longer feel forced to go to bed together. You may be your own people with your own bedtimes. I would crawl in later than her anyway, and the smoking pushed it back even more. I had a special jacket that I stashed in the tool shed. I ate a snack and then brushed my teeth, to get another degree between the smoke and me. I was smoking full joints and flopping into bed from another place. I was so high that I forgot to put my bowl away. I woke up to her holding it.

I don't sleep well. I worry. Cara thought talking about it would help, but talk about what? I can't sleep, what's there to talk about. I had my solution. She wants me to grow up. She wants to feel like she's enough to calm me down. But she isn't, and it's not her fault, and it's not mine. Can I help it if it's everything else?

How to Notice a Girl

Step 1: Notice the blonde down the block walking towards you. She's wearing a little black dress, black sandals, and looks hot.

Step 2: Play it cool. Where do you look? Should you smile? Can you smile at a girl without someone writing a Huffington Post article about it?

Step 3: Realize she looks a little familiar. Oh man, she is hot!

Step 4: Oh shit, that's Janelle. Look straight ahead and don't make eye contact and keep looking straight ahead and DO NOT LOOK AT HER.

Step 5: Did she even notice you? It was almost two years ago. Would you even occupy a space in her memory?

Step 6: She was looking down at her phone. That would explain if she didn't recognize you. She had her head down! She was taking a selfie! There are reasons!

Step 7: If you noticed her so far away, shouldn't she have noticed you? Two years isn't that long.

Step 8: Remember how you went two weeks without texting or calling. And how once you did you wondered why she never responded.

Step 9: Remember when you took it as a sign that you meant more to her than she did to you. That you were important.

Step 10: Realize that was never the case. Realize that she didn't recognize you down the block.

Step 11: Remember this next time.

Alone in the Dark

She asked if I would turn off all the electronics within fifteen feet of me. Turn off the lights, sit quietly in the dark for five minutes, and then tell her what I felt. I felt alone in the dark, and I felt that she had put me there. I told her I felt better, and she smiled. She turned on the light and there she was.

Portrait of a Composer

In his wallet was a picture. It measured one inch by three-quarters. He thought it was an illustration of Mozart but he never really knew. Maybe Haydn.

He took it from a frame. An arts and home kind of store. He was with his girlfriend for the weekend. They had lunch, she was looking at interesting coasters, she had to leave soon. The composer caught his eye and he felt he had to have it. He didn't even like Mozart.

That was ten years ago. The composer rests in front of his license, looking through the plastic. He has gotten wet and dried many times. One day the wallet will be open and he will be gone. It can be forgotten that something has still happened even when it has vanished.

Clear My Head

I've come to the park, the quiet garden inside the park to get away and clear my head but I end up texting and tweeting and trying to block out the sounds of making out from another bench. This is not what I wanted. The first vibration is a catalyst and suddenly I am talking to my sister, a girl, my mother, I am reading the jokes of an unknown comedian's unknown comedian friend.

People walking through with pizza and ice cream and goddamn children. They are trying to enjoy their summer, the fickle mistress it has been, before the great grand whore of winter comes to fuck us sideways. There is never enough time, and there is so much of it already. Feel the grass between your pale white toes while there's still hope!

Through tall grasses I see couples, over there are children playing. I sit between the birdbath and impatiens. I look them up. Common names include snapweed, jewelweed, and touch-me-not. They are lovely and easy to grow, and I can attest to the former. I've never had a plant or flower or anything I've had to keep alive besides myself.

I've come to the park to get away. I think what "get away" might actually entail. I am distracted by a buzzing disc in my pocket. I wonder if I am a family man. I have clothes I've forgotten in the wash. I look at the clouds and all I see is the approaching storm. And this is the quiet part of the park.

How Bad Ideas Begin

It doesn't always seem like a bad idea, a bad idea.

"Ugh," I said, "I feel terrible. I want to go home and throw up everything I just ate. Wouldn't that be great?"

"What? No," she said.

"Yeah," I insisted, "think about it. I ate all that food, had the pleasure of eating it, but now I could go home and throw it all up."

"You know that's bulimia, right...?"

And I guess it was. But in the moments before it has a half-joke, half-clever idea. Part of me wanted to go home and vomit, to stop feeling so gross, part of me thought it was great. And that's how bad ideas begin. They're not bad ideas at first, they're solutions. People trying their best to fix something, and fucking it up even more along the way.

Purge

I found your box while going through my things. Handwritten notes and hand-cut hearts. I will find a way to keep them all, I'll get rid of new shirts. I may not spend time with you but I always know you're there. If you're not there then you may never have happened. Besides, I have too many shirts anyway.

The Last of the Lights

Time changes more between 8:45 and 9:00 than at any other interval. This is where summer days turn to night. People become silhouettes, plans become action. Balloons marked FIESTA! are broken on rocks at the shore. Public radio opinions make it just outside the windows.

There is a party at the conservatory. People on the roof, donating for decent wine, fireflies camouflaged in their cigarettes. And all the while people run by me. How can they stand the energy? I have hardly any left and I'll be up for hours. The things I said today, I'll say them again tomorrow. I'll pretend they're new.

Fireflies and cigarettes. It's the changing of the guard. The sun getting split into a hundred million minions. First the planes, then the cars, then the boats outside the harbor. One by one everyone sits alone. But we can never allow ourselves to be in darkness. Everywhere you look there is tremendous light.

Halfway

She doesn't want me. That's fine. We can get along without that OK I guess. But she ignores it. What I said. Wants to pretend like it didn't happen. That's where I draw the line.

She wants to go back to how things were. I changed that, did a thing can't be undone. The point of doing it was to get out of where we were. And even if we can't go forward to where I want, we don't have to go back.

Why should she be comfortable? Why can't she meet me halfway? I never claimed to be a bigger man, a decent man. I am decent though, I'm different. I'm in pain and she can't feel any of it? Maybe this is the worst part of me talking. I can live with that.

I call her up. Leave messages. I'm making it worse. I can get through to her. All I need is time. We need time. There aren't enough hours, or days, there isn't enough air. I feel like I have half the muscles in my body, overexposed and under-appreciated. I sound like someone right before they do something terrible.

I don't. I get a drink. I sit. I read. I think about her. I go out with friends. They ask me if I'm lonely. I'm learning.

Devastations

It is possible for a rainstorm to destroy without some crazy cloud. Breaking outside, resonating in our past. Leaves can still scatter without much effort, branches hit your roof. The worst can happen without warning, and a lack of warning will always make things worse. A blinking message, an unlocked door, lipstick. These small devastations can be boats through trees. It is difficult to pick yourself up, it is difficult to keep walking, breathing can become an impossibility. No man is an island, to be sure. No, we are all on a bridge, suspended over the greatest ocean, untold distance from the nearest land, and no recollection of when or where it was we started walking.

A Few Houses Down

She didn't get up because she wanted to, she got up because she didn't want bedsores. She had watched her grandmother and mother succumb to them slowly, let them grow on their bodies like algae. That was not about to be her. But she, still, preferred staying in bed.

Days were long and mornings were worse. At the slightest hint of sunlight she would wake, legs numb, mind unrefreshed, scared and comfortable in her soft down comforter. It, her sheets, everything was white, she liked to surround herself in white. It was a way to make herself feel clean when everything else around her felt so dirty.

She wasn't lonely or depressed. Her figure was fine. She had no interest beyond her little room, what sat outside the walls was certainly not her business. Or maybe it was. She didn't care. Maybe that was it. She just didn't care.

They had gotten sick, both of them, at the same time. It was cruel, laughable almost. She watched the two of them fade away a few houses down from each other. She watched the blood pool, the skin split. She watched them each give up, say no, grow weaker. But still all she wanted way to stay in bed, to feel the cool swaddle of the hundreds and hundreds of threads. To let them in somehow, if she could. But when it hurt too much, she got up.

Our Terrible Afternoon

We try to get out of the sun. On the lake, sun is everywhere, reflecting. We wait. We look for a menu but a guy named Frank is lookin at it. He gives it to us when he's done. We order chips and salsa. She says the white chips are OK, but the red and black ones are dyed and bad for you. We end up not eating them, but then I eat them.

We order chicken wings, three orders, one pound each, barbecue and buffalo and Asian sesame. We finish them all, lick the sauce off our thumbs, dip the celery in our ranch, pick the flesh from our teeth. I spill ranch on the ground, it hits her foot and sandal and she is nice enough to tell me she doesn't care.

We wait. The sun is hot and I forgot sunscreen. We order beer. I spill some on her hand. She is so understanding and I'm such a klutz.

We look at the menu again and decide that tequila is just what the doctor ordered. It take interminably long for them to arrive. The rims are covered in salt, there is salt in thr bottom of the cup, and the shot is more of a double. We drink, and wince, and the lines are far too small.

We wait. We leave. We have to bike back. She is a slow cyclist but I don't mind. She wobbles and o try to tell her it's OK, but she wobbles even more and I bike into a fence. She falls over, slowly. The wind takes her hat away.

We're Old Now

We're old now. We can't remember the things we'd like, and remember the things we'd rather forget. Sometimes the best comes back, but then again it's over.

We're old now. Our knees hurt. They hurt when we go to bed, and slightly less when we get up. If we crouch, when we stand there is a cracking popping noise. It is unmissable.

We're old now. We smile and the creases never fade.

We're old now. People die. It becomes all too regular. It becomes a way of life. It gets dull after a while.

We're old now. We never understood. We never knew. We're sorry.

Road Beers

She filled small cups with beer and passed them out. We started leaving. I waited in the hall, pretended to check my phone. She was last, locked the door. Do you use these cups for anything else, I asked. No, just road beers. They're just the right size.

We walked, I was careful not to catch up. They held the elevator for us, thanks a lot. Everyone else was loud, I was quiet, I was nervous. I wouldn't have cared otherwise is the thing. When we got out she lagged, cue.

But I couldn't think of anything to say. We drank. It was a warm night, the beers were cold and refreshing. They knew what to do.

Where do you get them? What? The cups. The store. Oh.

We drank.

What do you again? I know you told me. Never say that, never admit brain malfunction. I'm a speech pathologist. Right, right, for a private school. No, at a couple public schools downtown. Oh, right, I remember now. She was clenching her little paper cup.

Rosie! Someone shouted, she ran up. I don't even drink that much.

One Night in Hollywood, II

"She's opened the chocolates! Dinner will have to wait."

"We should probably get out the shrimp we want to use. It will have to defrost overnight."

"Justine has canceled her plans to come! The gifts, they flow like water from a broken tap."

"I'll freshen your wine for you. The Beaujolais? It's a good year, don't ask me which one."

"No. No, I think it's pronounced Moose-lim."

"Someone once said that golf was like love, that you can do it until you're old. I think it's like love because you're alone."

"I can't imagine anyone not knowing with the knowledge that they know."

"You can't deny me that though, right, yeah, right?!"

"Who was in this bathroom? Who was in this bathroom? Carthy, no! No, Carthy! Not OK! Not OK!"

"I'm represented by Harmon Link. That boy has a stench about him."

"I'm in a Criss Angel cover band. We express his illusions through shredding guitar and double bass solos."

"I think Patty is hot. Patty is cute."

"You know what? If every cousin and best friend just minded their own business I'd have it made in the shade."

"You say tomato and I say fuck off."

"I'm unspeakably clever. No one ever speaks of it."

"Hey! She paid good money for me for that drink for you!"

"There comes a time when one must say—Please, sir, remove me from your list!"

"Wait, what? What do you mean there's no alcohol in the punch? I don't even know what that means."

"We have the technology, I don't know why someone doesn't move on this. We're chewing our meals like suckers."

"One day all of this will be yours. Well, not really."

"If you stop to think about what things actually are you'll never leave your room."

"Has anyone wrapped figs in anything other than bacon? If they have I don't want to know about it!"

"On a scale of one to chlamydia I'd say I'm about at two long showers."

"Kids! Kids? Kids?! Kids?! Hahaha, kids? Kids. Kids... No."

"Everywhere you look something is rotten."

Animals

In the parking lot of the old market is where it happened. That's how Mr. Waltz got his name, or his name change. Sammy was short, it had happened before, I guess this time was one time too many. There was a fight, I don't know much, I wasn't there. These things happen so fast. I know he wasn't short by much. I know that was the last straw. I know he was there with Hummer.

Wynn was not a man you upset. I say man like he was older than us, which he was, but not by much. He certainly seemed like a man though, the kind that maybe you wanted to be. Yeah, that's how little we knew about him. He sold the drugs, he drove a nice car, his girl was the one we all thought and talked about. He was something out of a movie, only he was real.

Sammy was short. Wynn went to his trunk, which is never good, good things rarely come from trunks during parking lot drug deals. He came back with a wrench. People stood back, oh yeah, there were people there. No one ever suspects a crowd. Two guys along in an abandoned parking lot might mean something, but a few friends means everything's OK.

So Sammy starts going no no no, no please don't. And Hummer was with him, little Hummer, mutt that he was. He followed Sammy everywhere, he was our mascot. Wynn took the wrench to his leg. There are things you're sad you missed and things you're not. I don't want to have been there to hear that howl. To hear Sammy pleading NO NO NO NO PLEASE! To hear Hummer shriek and cry, to hear the bone break, to see the disbelief on his face, the not knowing why he was being punished for his master's crimes. It's inhumane, the kind of thing an animal does. But at least the animal has the decency to eat its prey.

They had to remove the leg. He hobbled around, got used to the tripod, someone took to calling him Mr. Waltz (one-two-three, one-two-three...) and that was that. Sammy wasn't short again. It wasn't enough to make him clean, but it was enough to make him pay. On time, in full. The light around Wynn shone a little less brightly for us. Maybe the most upsetting thing was the fact that it still shone a little.

Speculator

A new bruise forms. What is it? Shape of an H, upside-down M. Pinpricks at each of its points. Pink, orange, purple.

It's this place, it's getting to me. Can't stop the oil on my forehead. Can't wash the stench from my shirts. Dirt under my shoe, embedded. Seems like everything's embedded.

Spots on the desk, veneer has worn away. Dust. Eventually even dust will scar. Something soft, small. All it needs is time.

She gave me this watch. Broken and used, gold on a silver chain, covered in the dust of the flea market. Someone else's memories, someone else's home, gone for forty dollars.

Something hits me in the eye. Even more bloodshot. I look like a victim.

There are men and women that go to outer space. That fly beyond our atmosphere, beyond our very knowledge. There are people who, given the chance, would never stop going. They would never come back. And they knew it when they were young.

I'm going to bruise again. I know I will. I know it.

Horizon

I was standing on the shore looking out at the horizon. There, somewhere, off in the distance, the edge of the world, the edge. There was no sand, only rocks, and they stretched out and back and to either side as far as I could see. But I couldn't see. I couldn't see a thing. But I could hear, and I could feel, the breeze from the water before me. A gentle breeze, cool, yet somehow warm. Salty. Persistent. And the soft whisper blew across my face.

Whooooo... Whooooo... Whooooo...

 But the breeze was drenched with saltwater, it dried out my skin and parched my tongue. My mouth was cracked and coarse, rough and painful, and as I tried to swallow I found I couldn't.

Whooooo... Whooooo... Whooooo...

For a moment the breeze stopped, the dryness subsided. I could feel the saliva coming through my cheeks and tongue. But still I could not swallow. The saliva began to build up in my mouth, unstoppably it built up in my mouth, this growing pool of spit. And then it vanished. In an instant. The breeze returned and it vanished.

Whooooo... Whooooo... Whooooo...

I grabbed my through, bit the sides of my tongue, tried to save myself from the complete and utter drought. Nothing worked. The breeze disappeared again. My mouth filled up with spit. I tried to spew it out, I tried to empty it all onto the rocks, but the more I spat the more it poured. The harder I tried the more it overwhelmed me and I began to choke. I grabbed my throat again as if to loosen it, to try and usher the liquid down into my stomach where I could rid myself of it, but nothing worked. I choked, I was choking, I'm choking to death and scratching my tongue and I wake up. Startled. Eerily calm. Lying on my bed and my eyes are wide open and I'm staring up at the ceiling. But there's a girl. I'm staring at a little girl. A little girl is standing over me, right over my head, looking at me but not in my eyes. She's staring at my mouth. I'm paralyzed; fear, sleep, something, perhaps I thought I was still dreaming. The girl stands there, watching. It's dark, I cannot make out her features, I cannot make out much of anything. But suddenly I can see something, something, suspended, dangling, and I realize it's coming from her mouth. It glistens and it grows, it grows slowly, and it grows longer, and longer, closer and closer it comes and grows to me. Until, finally, it rests on my tongue. Wet. And it comes, more and more, slowly and methodically it spirals itself on my tongue and coats my mouth and then it stops. It slides down my throat, I'm too scared to move, I'm too scared to close my mouth or swallow or help myself. The girl leans in, keeping her gaze. She bends down closer, closer, closer to my mouth, opening hers just slightly, and for a moment I think she's about to kiss me. But then, slowly, softly, she begins to blow. Cool. Warm.

Whooooo... Whooooo... Whooooo...

School Night

They are setting off fireworks days, more than a week, after the 4th. I don't hear any shouting or cheering, I don't hear any voices. Maybe it isn't fireworks, I think for a moment, maybe it's something... sinister? But it is late on a what I still call school night.

I am up. I cannot sleep. I am hungry. Is there food? It's not good, they say (them again), but I don't really have anything to snack on, which stresses me out, which makes me even hungrier. It is a vicious cycle. A delicious cycle. I wonder what a cycle would taste like? I assume it would be pleasurable, satiating. It sounds like I'm describe a sex act. I drink a glass of water to see if that helps. It does not.

I start signing petitions. Remove that politician, save that dying animal, send money to starving children so they can get a good education, what have you. I click button after button and I think I'm doing something. That's what we are now really, that's what the world does. A bunch of button clickers who think they're accomplishing things. Today we say our grandfather's fought in the Korean War. Our grandchildren will say we made internet videos.

It wasn't a lot of fireworks. It was only two. And if it wasn't fireworks, if it was tragedies, two is better in that case as well. But now I am up, hungry, annoyed, politically activated. I suck on frozen berries from the freezer. You know, where I keep my frozen things.

Should I call her? No, but should I text? Could I text. Well, yes, OK, obviously I could text, but should I? Oh, god, I'm a mess. How late is it, is it late, is it too late? "It is never too late," who said that, someone must have said that. I want to look it up but I power down my computer because I know if I go back on it now in this state with these questions in my head I will only end up looking at her stupid beautiful face until the sun crests the stupid hills and then I will finally get back to bed. Could that be what I need? Is she my sleeping pill? Is she a different kind of drug altogether? Do I dare find out?

I could ask myself and raid the pantries until the cows come home. I just have to get in bed, calm my mind, and lie here. Lay here? Lie. Lay. Another age-old problem. I seemed to be riddled with them. Another firework tragedy. Another second hand. Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it? Which is it?

Drummer

A man drums in the stall next to my urinal, he's drumming along to the British punk. He thinks he's alone. He thinks he's a star. And for a moment, I suppose, he is. I don't wash my hands, tiptoe out. We all should do our part to keep the dream alive.

Waiting Room

I cannot abide a mint cruncher, one who cannot let the mint simply melt away. And that's what he was doing, the little puke, when I opened the door on his tanned face. "Hi, Mr. Keller? I'm here to take Steph out." I remembered that tone, so I let him in.

She had given me the old line, "Tell him I'm not ready." I don't know why women insist on doing that. Do they all talk to each other, do they all send notes? Is it telepathy, something deeper, something in the blood? They all seem to know to keep us waiting. Probably because they know we will. "Have a seat, she'll be a few minutes." He chuckled as if, yes, of course she would, that's Steph (that's my Steph?). He sat on the sofa and I sat in my chair.

"Can I get you anything? Water?"

"No, that's OK, I'm fine, thanks." He smiled at me with that anxious dopey smile I'd seen in all the movies. That smile was never one I wore myself. I never saw the big deal in meeting the parents. Or, I recognized the bigness of the deal, but I wasn't affected by it. I wasn't a burnout and I wasn't a bullshitter, and the parents got that right away. Now, though, on the other side. Well, I guess it's like the Old Men always tell you: One day you'll know.

 "So," I said after a moment of silence too many, "what are you studying?"

"Well," he said, "it's not like college so we all pretty much study the same thing. Just, you know, general high school... stuff." You'll have to try harder than that, son. "But, you know, um, Pre-Calc, uh, bio and strength training and AP Euro, you know—"

"No, I don't."

He blinked. "What?"

"You said, 'you know,' but I don't know. What's AP Euro?"

"Oh, um," he was (relieved? terrified?), "Euro is short for European history and AP means Advanced Placement. It's like a college prep course. There's a big test at the end of the year and if you get a good score a lot of colleges will credit that toward your degree."

"Well, that's something. So what's a good score?"

"Depends," he informed me. "Most schools accept a four or five but some schools accept a three."

"You're only graded out of five points?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "I guess something five is all you need." I felt a sudden surge that he was absolutely right, although absolutely right about what I had no idea.

"And you met Steph in one of these classes?"

"Ha ha." Was-he-laughing-at-her-I-swear-to-God-I'll-slit-his-fucking-throat. "No. I, uh..." He drew back into his memory, and for a moment I thought it was to alter it, clean it up, make it PG. But then I realized that, no, he just liked being there inside it. "I saw her at lunch. Or, I see her. Every day. We sat at opposite ends of the room, you know, everyone has their self-designated table and whatever. And I... I just thought she was..." He glanced up, saw my face, my eyebrows, my hint of smirk. "I just knew she was really great. Out of my league, ha ha. But one day she was the last one at her table and I walked up to her and said I'd seen her around and we found out our favorite teacher is actually both Mrs. M—or Mrs. McDonnell—only we have her for different periods, and I said do you want to go out sometime and she... ha ha, she actually hesitated, you know. More than I would have liked... But she said yes." He laughed for real now. "They love to keep us waiting, don't they?" I'd be lying if I said I didn't burst out laughing, too.

"One second!" The female calls down from the bathroom on the second floor, signifying that the male should begin perspiring.

"You have your license... Oh my god, I don't remember your name, I'm sorry."

"Ha, that's OK." He extended his hand. "I should have said it at the door, sorry, I was nervous. Paul."

Meh, could do better, but could do worse I suppose. "Paul," I said, shaking his hand, "nice to formally meet you."

"You as well, sir." Sir. I don't care how old it makes me sound, I like it and I always will like it.

The upstairs door opened, footsteps machine-gunned down the staircase. Was this my girl, my baby girl, in lipstick and appropriate heels, a beautiful summer dress, so clearly a woman? Was this my baby girl before me? Was this the absolute years?

She gave me that look. The Dad Oh My God What Are You Even Doing Right Now Look. It was all I could muster, a small "Have fun." She hugged me. "Home by midnight." She rolled her eyes and kissed me on the cheek and was out the door before I had the chance to fall over. Paul was there, standing up in front of the sofa, eyes bugged out, as if he couldn't really believe this was happening.

"Paul!" from outside. "You coming?!"

He walked to me, hand outstretched again, and I took it. He shook and he shook and he shook until I pulled free. I put the hand on his shoulder. I looked him in the eye. He looked back. And maybe, for a moment, we shared that telepathy that all the girls have.

Paul went out the front door to his car, Steph was already texting in the passenger's seat. He drove away, steadily (a gold sedan, something common, something practical and used). I closed the door, went back to my chair, and stared at the clock on the wall.

You

There's a place where I can go where you are how I remember you. How I choose to remember you, you at your youest. I have that luxury, now that you're gone. Or perhaps it's more out of duty, that you should be defined by the best version of yourself, even if that was long ago, even if that's not the whole story. Most people don't know whole stories, they knows chapters, sections of chapters, sections of chapters recounted to them by someone who heard it from someone who heard it long ago. So, then, perhaps it is a disservice. That I sleep and dream and see only what I want to see. But I am not fully in control. Am I? How can I be? No, there must be more to it than that. It must be how you saw yourself, the mirror you finally get to look into, the one that reflects exactly what you want. Not luxurious, or dutiful, or boastful, or arrogant. But you. And perhaps you are all those things. Perhaps one day I will find out for myself, instead of waiting for you to come to me in the small dark hours of the night.

Obituary

I got the printer home and set it up on my desk. It wass large, heavy, grey thing, top of the line, end of an era. I wiped the dust off with a damp piece of a torn shirt. I plugged the wires into my computer, another relic. If things get things done then why invent a problem?

I pressed the power button. That sound, the hum of things starting, is one I have always liked. It needed to run a start-up test so I put in a stack of white paper. The old ink churned, the parts of the machine wheezed. Out spat an indecipherable sheet, filled with letters and numbers, different widths of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Nonsense telling me the printer was ready to use.

I did not use it until weeks later. I needed to copy my passport. I opened the top and saw a piece of paper already there, stuck in the corner. I picked it up, turned it over, and a face smiled at me.

DONALD "DONNIE" SCARLETTO

9/6/81 — 8/14/2006

"Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75." — Benjamin Franklin

And so it is with you, our devoted Son, Husband, Father, and Friend. Donald "Donnie" Scarletto, 24, was taken away from us suddenly on August 14th. Donnie, like all of us, was deeply human, but it was the very traits that gave him his humanity that led him down the path of Fate. For us, he will be remembered for his laugh, his practical jokes, and his personalized guitar songs. He caught fish in the Gulf of Mexico, helped Grandma with her lasagna, and could change a tire faster than his older brothers. He never had an unkind word to say to anybody. Maybe when he loved he loved too much.

Donnie is survived by his two children, Francis and Lauryn; his girlfriend of nine years, Kylie; mother, Florence, and father, Joseph; brothers, Joseph and Michael; grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends too many to name. He will be missed immeasurably.

Funeral at St. Paul's and a party at Duncan's Downtown with stories and tears until they kick us out. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be sent to St. Christopher's Youth Home for Substance Abuse.

Don't be so hard on yourself.

I trembled. I felt sad for this boy, for his family, that they already had been grieving for so many years. That his children would not hear his laugh, or have songs written about them. I held my passport in my other hand. I could not remember where I was going.

Bird of Paradise

Brigid goes to college. A forty-thousand-a-year-and-growing school, tuition not population. The population is somewhere shy of five thousand. Small enough to stand out, big enough to get lost in. Halcyon is the Accelerated English word she uses to describe it.

Her course load is heavy. She takes "Calculus II" and is taught by a man on a compact disc, the answers from whom she later verifies with the man in the classroom. There are focused classes such as "Political Thought: Machiavelli to Mill," and the broader "Making of the Modern World." She enjoys the latter; they discuss the sugar trades, globalization, her professor is difficult and expects a lot out of her.

In the nearly two years she has been at school Brigid hasn't had time to read for pleasure. She read half of The Da Vinci Code, she needed something to help turn her brain off at four in the morning. Otherwise she pores over political musings, logarithms, Heart of Darkness in a day. And it's not that the readings aren't enjoyable, that they don't teach her to think in a way she's never thought before. But they are assignments after all.

She works at the student union, at the front desk, signing for and delivering packages, answering phones, answering questions. She works in the dance building after class, cleaning the studio, general office work. She signs up for any psychology major's study that pays a little something. She has student loans, government loans, there's only so much awarded that she doesn't have to give back with interest. She is learning a lot.

Brigid strips some weekends at Bird of Paradise. It's one county over, easy enough to get to but not so easy that she might run into classmates. You might not know everyone on campus, but you recognize them. You know who belongs and who doesn't. She's good at dancing, at enticing. Perhaps it's because she removes herself, she is not there, she is out of her head, as far away as she can be while not spinning off the pole. She can just be free, exhausted and grabbed at in the beer-soaked booth of this underlit gentleman's club. It's the price she pays for going one county over.

On Sunday she wakes up at quarter to two, right before the dining hall closes. She rushes in time to get a plate of pancakes, bacon, fruit, coffee, fill up a large thermos with cereal and get a sandwich to go. She has a paper to write, she won't have time to leave the library, and she gets so hungry late at night.

Dentistry for Children

I see little plastic mallets, bright blue-colored drills. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hippopotamus, but I'm afraid we're going to have to pull the tooth." Ketchup blood, actual Chiclet teeth. Or perhaps made out of Play-Doh. Everything is something else.

I wanted to make the obvious joke: "Hey, Charlie, did your son fail out of make-believe medical school?" But I didn't get it in before Charlie said, "It's the only thing that keeps him focused anymore."

"Dentistry?"

"Looking for cavities, filling them in, gassing, pulling teeth. Seems a little sadistic maybe but I guess you can say that about any dentist." My Hippo's mouth was bleeding. "I got him the doctor's outfit to play in, white coat and everything. But he went straight to dentistry." Charlie's smile was faint but strong, the Proud Parent, the only one left. That boy, Michael, was flossing a monkey puppet. He was finally playing.

"Hey," I said, "you got one hell of a kid."

Small Sparks

I didn't get it til I did it. It was just noise. They were just kids in an alley, being stupid. I was stupid once. I'm stupid now.

Bang. They shot another off. Bang. It was well past the time one might find this acceptable. Bang. The laughter. The pop-fizzle of youth. Bang. I went outside.

Four boys. Did they all look like me? I walked up to them and told them to stop. They laughed, but not at me. Bang. Was I not older? Does that not matter anymore? Where were their parents? This was my alley. Bang. They were having precious fun.

One of them put a tube in my hand. He held up a match, and I took it. He held up his own explosive, small sparks spewing. I held up my fuse against his and the sparks doubled. The five of us stood, arms raised, and altogether BANG!

I went inside. The noises stopped. The night was quiet. It then occurred to me that his explosive could have gone off right in my face.

Blood, Sweat, Tears

I couldn't deal with it, right? I started making jokes, playing the big man, playing what I thought was a man at all. She warned me about opening up, but I wanted to open up. I wanted to be that guy, talking about the stuff I never could talk about when he was alive.

And so she started. She told me things. She said she felt him, even before she heard he was gone. He was there, talking, communicating. And she told him, "I'm sorry."

That was it. It wasn't anything more than that, it didn't have to be. "I'm sorry." Was that so hard? Would that have been so hard to say? Is that the most complicated thing in the world? I guess, ha, in a lot of ways, it is.

"He knows you're angry." I asked her to stop. "He knows you're angry."

"Stop!"

Everyone was talking. There was classic rock. Simple chord structures ran in and out of people's ears. An easy thing that they took for granted. So much work, Blood, Sweat, Tears, joy and loss and sorry, and they hardly ever knew it was there,

The Release

There's a feeling I get in my pack, a pain. A sensation I feel could only be relieved by the point of a knife. It's an odd thing to feel, a thought to have, that the only way to get the pain to stop is by someone sticking a knife in your back.

It goes away eventually, it has to. I cannot reach back there and would not ask someone to do it for me. Still, I wonder what it might be like. The tip and edge, the cutting through. What if the release was really there, what if it worked? And all these years I'm here, skin unbroken, blades sheathed. Wouldn't I look the foolish one.

Divorce

It's money. That's all it is. It's so. Much. Money. I knew there was a reason I didn't want to get married.

She makes more than me, but I'm gonna be paying out my ass. She's going to take them to steaks, I know it, she loves steaks, she loves seafood. And I'm going to have to pay for some of that. She's going to do this on purpose. That's what I would do.

Maybe this is what I need. A violent push into responsibility. Get a new job. Get that money, that cash money or whatever the fuck. The more I have the more I can spend on my kids, the more she has to pay. Sounds good to me.

Is this all part of some elaborate plan? Her way of getting me to Change and Grow? Would she put me through that? Our kids? I don't know if these ends would justify anything. These are our kids. There's a lot I would do. I don't know that I would do that.

Goddamn. I still love her.

Hamster House

They pretended to be hamsters. They had a running storyline they picked up every recess. They all had hamster names and hamster jobs, they'd play on the playground as if they were in hamster cages. The ones in charge, the inventors, Jake and Kara, were the husband and wife. He had a job while she stayed home (stayed cage?). Jake and Kara were a couple in real life, if the affection between two seven-year-olds could produce something which one would call a "couple." They hugged and kissed (on the cheek, as they thought hamsters might do) and ran around, they gave orders to their hamster children. They fought and broke up, and their friends couldn't tell if this was part of the game or if it was real life. Kara cried, Jake got mad. You could have sworn they were in love, that they were a couple. That somehow these two children, who had barely seen or done anything in their short little lives, felt and cared for each other so much. They loved. They played hamster house. They saw no distinction between the two.