Bad Tooth

Like holding it in too long or staving off sleep, eventually my tooth stopped hurting. Every step sent a tiny sharp pain from the top to the bottom. Then to the gums and through the gums, then eventually I found myself sitting more. Did I really need to go to the store today? Did I really need to go to the bathroom? Nope. I'd hold it in too long.

Then eventually it stopped (pain has a way of doing this). But here's the thing. If it goes away on its own, if you don't address it full on, it's not really gone. It's still there even if you can't feel it, and believe me there will come a time when you feel it again. So it was with this old tooth. Sitting there and minding my own business and a dull roar starts somewhere inside. Can hardly eat or drink or move around. And I know what the doctor'll say, he'll say we have to get it out. And here I am, thinking maybe it'll all go away this time if I sit here and wait it out.

Disparity

She told me it was a boy even though I told her not to. It was her last great act of cruelty against me. Now I saw the future clearer than the morning air. I saw blue and baseball, suits and shaving, questions I'd forgot the answers to and words on girls a generation late. I saw myself and not myself, what I wanted him to be. And in that I saw what I wasn't. All the places I went wrong, all the ways is mucked it up. I saw her, as I saw her first. What I turned her into in my own mind, what was never there. I saw my own retaliation. And so she told me that it was a boy, so I could see him and myself, the great disparity between us, a past and future unlike any other.

Navigator

You are not evil. You are good. You do the best you can. Usually it turns out fine.

You are not alert. You are sluggish. You barely get by but the key is that you do get by.

You are not lonely. You are alone. Those are very different things.

You are not necessary. You are important. They, too, are different things.

You don't have money but you are not poor. Perhaps you loosen your purse strings a little too easily.

You should quit. You should start over. You shouldn't worry about it. You worry too much.

You think too much about your place. In your life, in others, in the world, and in the universe. There are events that have been set in motion and there is no avoiding them. Wherever you will be you are already there.

You will find out nearly everything when it is too late. Yet, somehow, you will make it out OK.

What are you?

Moments

I woke up to bacon, coffee. In walked Julie with a tray for for a king. She set it across my lap as I sat up on the couch.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Birthday breakfast in bed"

"Yeah, but..." I eyed around to remind her of my previous night's arrangements.

"The fight has nothing to do with this. It's your birthday and I love you. Eat your breakfast. Eat your bacon." And with that she left the house, left me to feed myself on meat and dough and fresh squeezed juice, surrounded by so many twisted moments of our love.

Palatine

I passed the trains at Union Station and wanted to see smoke. Trains don't smoke anymore, they are cold and calculated. I'd like to travel with my love across these plains trailing a thick black cloud of toxic smoke, smearing the earth and claiming it for ourselves. But for now I am to Palatine to see a judge, only stopping briefly at the station to wonder at what might have been had I been born inside a decade more of me. Nature versus nurture doesn't matter much when you consider we are all alone. And so why not travel by train, to take your time, to see the countryside, to hold hands. But for another day, another me. This one is off to Palatine. This one is off to plead his case. And let us hope this judge is one who enjoys a story.

Sure Thing

EXT. "L" TRAIN STATION

A BOY and a GIRL are walking on the sidewalk. Four young male KIDS pass in the opposite direction, making quiet but obvious comments to themselves about the appearance of GIRL.

KID 1

Man...!

BOY walks quickly and passes GIRL. He gets to the station, opens the door, sees that the girl is still behind him, and holds it for her.

GIRL

Thanks!

BOY

Sure thing.

BOY walks to a turnstile but sees GIRL behind him heading for the same one. He goes to the other turnstile. He doesn't want to slow her down.

GIRL pays and goes through. BOY tries to do the same but his card doesn't work. He tries again. It doesn't work. He tries again and this time it works.

GIRL

(waiting for him)

I was going to say!

BOY

Haha, thanks.

They wait. Do they wait? They walk up the stairs and cross each other. He goes north. She goes south.

Top Button

Leave the top button buttoned and the tie tied. Leave the belt on and keep it buckled. Keep the pants zippered shut. Keep the air conditioning off and open a window. Put on a sweater, put on a hat, put on an extra pair of socks. Wear an undershirt, shine your shoes. Carry a handkerchief and use it. Wear a watch, have a pen, take pride in your billfold. Have a good selection of jackets, a scarf, a hat. Don't let them see you shiver or sweat, always be comfortable, be steadfast, be the ship in the storm, be a beacon, be a leader, set an example, set the table, set goals. Set a course for knowledge and the unknown, for rest and relaxation. Realize this is all you have and it isn't much but it is tremendous. Be better.

Foot Note

You have to rub your wife's feet, she wrote.

I know, I wrote back. Of course I would rub my wife's feet. She's my wife.

I handed her the note and her lips parted, as if to let in an unknown truth of me. She slid her feet under her chair, slowly, as I'm sure she didn't want me to notice. And I'm sure I wasn't supposed to notice how she crumpled the note up and stuffed it in her pocket. But I did.

Hands and feet. The longer you look at them the stranger they are. And I think of one as being so clean and the other so dirty, and that bringing the two of them together is some intimate act. Which I think I like. There is so much blurred in the world, I'd prefer to keep my little intimacies. If I can.

Only Villains

I watched him as he watched out the window, the city lights emblazoning him, a movie still. He watched like a creator watches, a man with grand plans.

"What are you thinking?"

Sirens swelled as if to silence me. I wondered if he summoned them. I ask silly questions and I want immediate answers. One rarely happens and the other happens all too often. Red and blue flashed on the buildings below.

"I always thought I would be the villain," he said.

My heart started racing. My breath was short, I was lightheaded, I floated and spun. And all those lights faded like lens flares, bled together into beaded lines, necklaces my mother might wear. I wanted clarification, answers, I wanted my lights back.

"What?"

"I thought," he said, "it would be me."

He refused to play by my rules, he refused the game itself. And it came to me suddenly that it wasn't a game he was playing at all. A game implies chance, it implies opponents, and while I was certain there were those against him I was also certain that they had no weight. That he could not be stopped. And that whatever chance was present was only by his will.

The lights were bleeding out. The sirens, they returned. And right before I went to sleep I heard him hit the floor.

Small Black Slash

It reached an inch above her jeans and dangled there upon her hipbone. Whatever greater picture this small black slash was part of—a flower, a symbol, a tribal tattoo—the fantasy was ruined by the entrance of a clod and his mate.

"Welcome to the sliding metal tube!" he announced as he scratched the fly of his jeans. His friend looked up and around as if he'd never been in a badly-lit room with strangers before.

They obscured the woman from me, in her black shirt and Japanese novel. I saw the mark again through the elbows of these animals. They coughed and laughed and had the frat-washed odor of light beer and extreme cologne. The woman eyed them through her dark cuts of hair so that with even this slight glance a world of "are these guys serious" was heard. Or, at least, heard by me, and I fell in love.

"Choo-choo! Choo-choo" our village idiot cried, his drunken friend laughing, the two of them drunkeningly laughing together. And then I saw her laugh, saw her smile, saw her shake her head and those bangs in a "boys will be charming boys" kind of way.

I turned away from the scene and came face-to-face with myself in the window, and I waited for my reflection to tell me what exactly was going on, and how.

Crosshatch

Divots in my eyes fill up with tears, not the sad kind, the air kind, air being blown down on me from the ceiling fan. I want to blink but don't, I let myself cry, let the small pains on me get washed over. And when the flood is come and gone I get up.

They feel crosshatched but the mirror says no, the mirror says I'm making it up. I feel crosshatched all over, worn and torn and lived in, like somebody checked me out and ran me ragged. I've been feeling that way a lot lately. That what I'm doing is someone else, nothing is my own but the outside, I'm a vessel. No, vessel's too good. I'm a shell.

I get back in bed. I look up. There are no tiles to count, no images painted or wallpapered on. Faintly I see the outlines of stars, and I know come sunset they will glow. So I keep looking, and I cry, and wait.

Hypothermia

It was something like a cold, lonely night, but not all the way, something like it, a version of it mixed with white, light blue to its blue. I looked around and expected to see someone I knew but instead I saw only people knowing each other. Hundreds of years of friendships connecting and reconnecting right in front of me. I thought that one, one, would have crossed my path before, or I his or hers. Actors and celebrities and people with guitars, people with green hair and red hair and no hair and women with hair under their arms and rings in their noses. The floor was sticky, the shirts were unbuttoned. I was frozen on the inside, trying to keep from shaking, sipping graciously from my flask kept poorly hidden in my chinos. No one cares, everyone's doing the same, nobody notices. And with a room filled with so much personality and so many smiles, you'd think just one would turn to warm my way.

Get In

He went running to his crib. "I get in?"

"No," I said.

He went running to his mommy. "I get in?" He was so hopeful.

"No." I'd never seen a crestfallen toddler. "You're going to have a little brother or sister."

"I'm little."

"But you'll be the big brother."

"But I'm little."

"Yes, but they'll be littler."

He looked at his mommy and back at his crib. He walked toward it, studying it, took its bars in his big brother hands, and turned to me.

"No," he said. "I get in." And he left the room. His mother and I are there now, hands against her belly, listening to our eldest plot and play, wondering if we should repaint.

Local Sandwiches

It would have been nice if he had said hello. After a ten-hour shift, and him sitting there on his ass all day playing video games. A simple hello, stand up and walk over to me and a nice hug. Not a lot, not moving heaven and earth. Instead of why didn't I get his text over an hour ago and he wanted me to bring him food. Not like he's a grown man or anything who can get his own damn food. I get my own damn food every day of my life. Sorry that he had beasts to slay or whatever the hell and couldn't be bothered to make a sandwich or use the computer in his pocket to have some system assign a driver to bring him any number of local sandwiches. Yes, after this long and hard day of work there is nothing I'd like better than to feel bad about not buying and bringing you dinner, so let me make that sandwich for you now. I'll make your sandwich with my hands and pleasure you with my mouth, and since my feet won't be of any use to you let's chop them off. Please, sir, save me some crumbs.

Cutouts and Castaways, 7

Back at my apartment I dropped one bag and set down the other and rushed to the bathroom to relieve myself. Didn't even bother to close the door and that's saying something. But even with that open door the room was hotter than outside. In the living room what dirty light shone through my unwashed windows made it seem hours later than what it was. I opened all that weren't painted shut and still the air stood. Dust rested in the corners I could never be bothered to clean, five years sneaks up on a man. In the bedroom I switched out the pillows. In the kitchen cabinet I placed the bottles. In the alley I threw out the old pillows, the old bottles, the old stuff. I squinted and sweat though I wasn't out for very long. And when I went back inside and closed the door it seemed so dark. When my eyes adjusted I realized it really wasn't that much brighter.

Cutouts and Castaways, 6

Ten minutes was enough to make me forget the sun, I went from one kind of squinting to another. It was a beautiful day, in fact. I passed a man sitting on a milk grate, an old one I'd seen going in. "Got anything this time?" I shook my head and apologized and wondered if he heard the pillow change in my pocket as I walked away. Crossing the street I felt worse and worse. We're all dealt a hand and a lot of us have to play it as is. We do the best with what we're given. We try, and that's not always enough. But I had things to do today, and I was on my way home, my arms weighted unevenly by the easy bags in my hands.

Cutouts and Castaways, 5

"Sandy" smiled at me and pointed at my bag. "Got a treat in there for me?" I'd gone to the liquor store first thing. "Sorry," I said, "maybe next time." I imagined a little nip of something strong might help her get through the day down here. No matter if it's cloudy or bright because in here it's only and always one time and that's lights on. After a while it must start to change a person, affect their brain, their mood, to the point where the job becomes one big trick after another. She rung up my pillows and I handed her my coupon, trying for the life of me to remember what it was I'd forgotten. She said I could always come back, that she'd be here, and I saw her smile fall and rise again. Gotta put on that brave face. I took my receipt and thanked her, walked to the escalator and stepped. "Sleep well," she told me, and the stairs took me up and out of sight.

Cutouts and Castaways, 4

It takes a certain kind of person to work underground. Kept in a windowless, halogen cave next to a crummy gymnasium with a dozen sweating cheapskates. Behind the counter some wallflower with "Brian" pinned to the middle of his T-shirt struggled to ring up a woman's nearly grand-worth of purchases. He asked for the help of a quiet and slight gay man, "Dave," a man who I assumed went home to his mother after most shifts. One register over was an older woman, or rather a man dressed as such. He had had no surgeries, his voice still had a low and gravelly timber. But his nails were long and painted, his bra weighted with stuffing, and his wig a short silver bob. His glasses even reminded me of my grandmother's. And I thought it how cruel, how unbelievably sad it must be to be one thing deep inside but only able to afford the accoutrements. She was old. It was who she'd be forever. And it took her three tries to get my attention and call me over.

Cutouts and Castaways, 3

You can't keep looking and looking, eventually you have to choose and choose I did. Protecting against allergens, protecting my face, felt soft enough and I could remove their covers. I could stack them, if things got desperate. It never occurred to me the science that goes into pillows. I always assume the cool side was something that just happened. But things rarely ever just happen, they are spurned on by something, there is a chain reaction, cause and effect, and I wondered what cause led to the inclusion of movie box candy in such quantities near checkout. I looked at them curiously while trying to remember what else it was I needed. I needed something, but these places are like mazes and the something could easily have turn into anything, and so I pushed it away and got in line.

Cutouts and Castaways, 2

I needed a standard, beyond that I was lost. Down and faux down, soft and medium and hard and you'd think I was ordering eggs. Sample pillows sat out with tags and little signs instructing me to try, to "FEEL HOW SOFT!" I thought about a hundred strangers' skin, a hundred drops of drool. I poked and prodded with my fingers, that was as much as they were getting out of me. This one for back sleepers, this one for stomach, this for both. Another for side, another unmarked. How did I usually sleep? Not well, I thought. Every morning I woke up with the covers in disarray. The only nights I truly didn't move were the ones when the drink put me down. It sings a halting lullaby. But maybe some new pillows would stop me, too, soft and gentle like they're supposed to. I looked around for oncoming traffic, saw none, and buried my face in one.

Cutouts and Castaways, 1

I weaved around aisles of home goods holding in piss, because I had to get that second iced coffee, the heat index being too severe to not and wallets be damned. Sometimes there are larger things at play than whatever's in your bank account and usually they have to do with comfort. Money comes and money goes but I have to live in myself year-round, and so it was that it came to pass that I had to go something awful. But I needed pillows.

The Hill

I needed a new bookshelf, stacks of books were piling up everywhere. He said that's what happens when you get older. I loved staying up late but couldn't do it anymore. He used to not be able to imagine going to bed before one. But that's what happens when you get older, he said. The creaks in your body and gaps in your mind, they all happen, too. Life is a hill, he said, and sooner or later you start going down it. You pick up speed. It's how it works. And by the time you're at the bottom hopefully you're going so fast you don't even realize you're there.

Why Are You Hitting Yourself?

I'd get into a bottle and take it out on him. Guess he reminded me of the better parts of myself. I didn't see him, I saw me, twenty-some years ago, waiting to take my place in the world. Maybe it was the part of me that always wanted to fight. I wanted him to hit me back. He never did.

And probably it was that he could see himself. Every glare and glance and punch I threw his way he saw him in me. Saw a taller, bigger, stronger, weaker, broken, balding him, looming in the darkness, lurking in pain. And every swing and contact and cut and drop of blood brought back the old childhood taunt: Why are you hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself?

My Heart

Your heart is small. Your heart is big. Your heart is breaking. Your heart beats blood. Your heart feels too much. It feels too little. It feels though, and isn't that something. Your heart hunts alone, it hunts in packs, your heart is starving for love and attention and grief and other things. There is a hole in your heart. You put it there. I put it there. A loved one, someone you've never met, put it there. You fill your heart with food and sex and links. You fill it with little pictures of hearts. You fill it with pictures of thumbs and pictures of faces. You fill it any which way you can. Your heart is your child. It's hers. It's a dog. It's something someone said. No, not him, the other person, yes. Your heart belongs where anyone can access it, especially you, any time, day or night, rain or shine. You heart should become as your nose in its plainness and obviousness. Your heart is a quest. A mantra. A punchline. Your heart is everything, it is anything, it is nothing.

What Eyes Are For

I said I hadn't been sleeping well and she said neither had she. I could see her looking at me even though I wasn't looking at her. And I turned to her and she looked away. But I could still feel her looking, us looking at each other. I knew we were there together. I knew that we were saying all the little things we could never say, I know what eyes are for. But when we spoke we chalked it up to heat and stress at work, we said our diets were to blame, we called it too much sugar. Put the screens and chips away and everything will be better, she said. I looked at her and there she was. Yeah, I said, we'll be fine.

Even More Special

People get married. People make meals. The Olympics happen ever couple of years. Dogs exist. Haircuts occur. People have bodies and they either take care of them or they don't. Life is hard and people work hard in it. Getting by can be a chore. Thriving can seem impassible. It isn't.

"Work was difficult today. Please send positive vibes and puppy pictures!" Go jump off a bridge.

Traveler

I keep a note in my wallet. It tells me not to do certain things, bad things, a helpful hint from my past to future self. Even though in truth it is my future self sent to my future self, because my past had been my future once and he knew that future would be repeated. A time traveler, able to go back and forth within my own disappointing ways. Stunned to hear the news and never eager to heed it, as if I didn't k know what I was talking about. As if it wasn't a doomed history lesson. I have the answer key, I know exactly how this goes and exactly what I must do to pass with flying colors. But I can't, I won't, and damn that man for even trying, whoever he is, or was.

White Light

It's enough when we're on our own. It's a lie, and I'll never know. But never is enough for me. I shouldn't care, because it shouldn't be, though I tried to be enough. And out of line, out of sight and mind, it's so light I cannot see.

The Midnight Note

I rolled over and jotted something down, I snickered at my cleverness. When I got up I checked the note to see what brilliance my mid-sleep work had fortuned me. Your name, and all around it little hearts with arrows shot through. And then the phrase "but not," followed by the most knowing and telling of phrases: "hahahahahahaha..."

Addict

My desk was crowded and mounted with papers. I looked up paper addiction and found it was real. Every day I added to it and pushed parts here and pieces there. I carved out places for my forearms, I built upwards.

A push too many one day and a landslide of pages. Newspapers and cab receipts, grocery lists and doodles, bills for this and that and the other, magazines I didn't and will never read. And as I stopped to pick them up I saw your name, etched faintly and finely into this fake wood. Every addiction starts as something we teach ourselves.

Advise

"You will have bad days," she told me. "You will have bad months. You will have bad years. You will have a bad life."

"Hey, wait a second!" I said as she walked away. "Get back here!"