A story about smoking

Jake with the nose and tongue rings, pink skin, close-clipped blonde beard, V-striped tattooed back, big biceps, pecs, and a rock-hard bubble butt sat at his computer pecking away porn orders received from Dubuque, Iowa, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Gainesville, Florida -- you name it, they wanted their gay male porn. He loved his side business, couldn't get enough of it, squeezing in a few minutes there at coffee break, at lunch, during the afternoon snooze. He ran home 5:00 to fill all the other orders. Why, he averaged 250 orders a day. All he did was build a fancy schmantzy website -- the middleman. He made anywhere from 50 cents to 15 dollars an order. Most days it was 2000 dollars, all for one website that peddled hair, muscles, and a healthy dose of C + A.

He'd long ago gotten bored at the office with his C++ programming job. Everything they wanted him to do, he did it in the first two hours of the day. He could fill all his orders at the office if he wanted to. But for Albert. But for Albert's pesky buttinskies he could do everything before 5:00 rolled around.

Jake and Albert shared an office on the west side of the first floor overlooking the dumpster and back parking lot. Albert couldn't sit still for ten minutes before ranting about some Star Trek convention, buggy Microsoft shit, stupid environmentalists who recycled Coke bottles, Obama and those un-American Democrats (no, Albert said, he was no racist) all the while bouncing his knees, stomping his feet, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, picking his nose, wiping down his desk with Fantastik, rubbing his hands in antiseptic, or combing his hair with a little black comb he kept in his pocket at all times. Albert's breath! Every time Albert came over to Jake's computer (way too often) it smelled like an ashtray. Gross city, Jake thought. Albert disappeared from their office two, three times every hour and Jake knew it was to go outside to smoke. Thank God he did. Even with all those cigarettes Albert behaved like a firecracker. Take away the cigarettes and Albert would go off like the bomb on Hiroshima.

Someone ought to give him a Valium. Every hour on the hour. That way, Jake might be able to build up his porn business. The men of Dubuque, Halifax, and Gainesville would be grateful.

The policeman

Kurt walked the beat Tuesday morning down Grant Street and toward Liberty Avenue. The overcast, murky January day had him collecting a thick, frothy layer of gray slush on his boots. Kurt dreaded what he'd find once he turned the corner onto Liberty.

Sure enough, Lucy stood at the corner waving her "Stop Abortion!" flag and chanting to it. Pittsburgh's most televised homeless woman in her black caftan, camouflage pants, army boots -- a waft of protesting gray dreadlocks framing her 68-year old wrinkled black face -- Lucy stood next to her plastic bottle-filled Giant Eagle shopping cart spewing forth her political diatribe WJIC-TV newswoman Caroline Chump. Morning commuters stared at the two of them as they passed by, their attention on the TV cameras if not on their Starbucks or smartphones, wondering how they'd look on TV but uncomprehending of Lucy's abortion rants.

Kurt didn't give a damn about abortion but he did care about public disorderliness, especially when the weather was so yucky and everybody had Dirt Smoothies on their feet. First Federal and U.S. Steel had complained for days about Lucy's incessant picketing near their offices. So what if their skyscrapers sandwiched Planned Parenthood's tiny red-bricked building, Kurt thought, knowing full well the uptight suits at the tops of those buildings couldn't stand the bad publicity. Abortion was like a boil to corporate America. No one wanted it.

"All right, Lucy, let's keep it moving here. You want to sit at the station like you did every day last week?"

"Ain't no way, Officer Kurt, I got my free speech rights. Ain't that so, Ms. Chump? You can't complain about my free speech rights, no you can't!"

"No one's complaining about that, Lucy. Just you're disturbing the peace. Now why don't you run along now? Lunch at the soup kitchen starts at 10:30 and if you start walking now, you'll be first in line."

"No use trying to bribe me with food, Officer Kurt. Somebody's got to protect the unborn babies --"

Kurt thought about Marla's baby, born dead in the operating room -- no one to protect her there, was there? He'd protected hundreds, no thousands, of Pittsburghers from unfulfilled crimes in the last fifteen years, but he couldn't protect his own baby when it came right down to it. He and Marla had cried for weeks after that, the dead baby's crib folded and hidden deep within the basement.

Dudley

They tell me my name is Dudley.

I eat lots of vegetables and I drink plenty of water. I eat water chestnuts, sprouts, almonds, pecans, peas, chestnuts, carrots, celery. I love lettuce! On one side of my house I have all these wonderful vegetables. They're usually cold in the morning but they warm up long before the evening when I get a fresh supply of them. On the other side of my house I have this yucky dry food. I'm not exactly sure what it is but -- despite myself -- I eat about half of it every day. I get a full serving of it in the morning but for some reason I can't quite figure out I don't get another fresh serving of it in the evenings -- you know, when it gets dark outside, "evenings" is what they call it -- like I do with the really yummy vegetables that I mentioned four sentences ago. I always get fresh water, but for the life of me, I can't understand why so much. I only drink a little bit each time but it's enough no it's plenty. Most of the time I just drop the yucky dry food in it and it dissolves and it looks like diarrhea. Even yuckier.

I look outside my house at the world beyond me all day long. Most days when the sky is bright I'm all by myself inside my house, but I can still look out. I see and hear lots and lots of birds on the shiny cords hanging across the street from me. We whistle to each other all day long. Things like wow, it's so much fun to flap our wings in the air and feel the cool winter breeze. Things like bombs away, look at that two-legged creature below scampering about because I got my white acid poop all over his black German luxury sedan with the open panoramic sunroof and the Italian special $3,400 option leather seating isn't that too bad. Things like I'm going to live for a hundred years because I'm a parrot and you're not because you're only a bluejay. Things like I can fly to any perch I want and you're stuck there in your house waiting for your big two-legged friend to come home and open the door to your house and let you perch on the top of your house or perch on his hand or perch on his sofa and if you're in a vindictive mood maybe you can Bombs Away! and get some white acid poop on his priceless oriental rug wouldn't that be a shame. Things like that. I like to sing. I can do that in my house. I don't need a shiny white cord in the sky.

I am green, I have an orange beak, and they tell me I'm a pretty bird. What's that, a bird? I like them. I don't know who them is but they give me food and they pet my back and they like me. I think they even love me.  I want to fly but when I try all I do is flap my wings and float down to the floor. I want to fly.

Where am I?

The accordians and ballpark organs played polka music while the runners called out, "Ice cold beer here!" A lilac hue in Pittsburgh's September sky announced dusk and the beginning of the baseball game. Today was Polish Day at Three Rivers Stadium. The Pirates were meeting the Orioles. Pittsburghers viewed Baltimorians with skepticism. Just like Norman Thayer, Jr. always said, Baltimore's a sneaky town. Ten minutes later the ballplayers flew out of the dugout onto the field.

"Great asses," Whoopi said. I always enjoyed going to the baseball game with Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi came to town three times a year because (she told me) Pittsburgh rocked. Today's game involved a special treat. We'd brought my friends Lou and Truvy with her. Lou was five foot five, as round as the blueberry from Willy Wonka, brown-gray chest hair sticking out of his t-shirt, owned a diner on the South Side. Truvy was tiny, had big blonde hair, a pair of great big naturals, and ran a hair salon in Shadyside. Truvy cheered on Whoopi's great Pittsburgh asses while Lou guzzled beer. I didn't know how far I was going with Lou next to me. I wanted us to get laid. I liked fuzzy cuddle bears, but I'm not sure he liked tall Polish guys with hairy chests, bubble butts, and wide jaws. I'd never had any problem finding guys, but Lou was proving a hard nut to crack.

"Sure," I said, thinking about Lou's hairy chest, "now there's one I'd love to see grazing Lou's tits. Care for any breakfast, Lou ... or a pearl necklace?"

He blushed, waved a hand, laughed, a guzzled more beer. And then he burped. We all laughed, Whoopi's dreadlocks bouncing. God, she was fun. You could always count on the Whoopster to help you out. Ever since I'd been Grip No. 1 when "The Color Purple" was filming down in North Carolina, she'd been my mentor, stewarding me from guy to guy, job to job. I'd only figured it out when I came back to Pittsburgh and the Gaisorowskis on Polish Hill. Loved being back home. Now she was helping me with Lou, even if it meant a thousand gawking fans asking for her autograph. She took it all in good stride.

Then Whoopi went out to the field, grabbed her crotch, spit on the ground, and threw the first pitch. Home run! She came back, took her seat, then Kent Tekulve (why him? he'd stopped playing in the early '80s) threw the second pitch ... and here it comes, right at me ...

... and I opened my eyes. Mike was lying right beside me, snoring away, but I nudged him awake. "Honey, where am I? I just had the weirdest dream. Whoopi Goldberg was in it. So was Dolly Parton from 'Steel Magnolias.' And I was lusting after Lou Grant."

Crossing a line

Dagny Taggart wasn't used to sitting idle around her Manhattan pied a terre, listening to Fibber Magee and Molly, fornicating with John Galt while they looked out the window at Central Park, enduring John's 60-page rants on socialism. She wanted to build trains, forge empires, and tell laborers what to do. But no, the union had flexed its muscles against the writer gods. Miss Rand who had created them had paid their dues, so Dagny and John had to go along with the strike. They wandered around the apartment having sex on every piece of furniture since no one would eavesdrop on them until Miss Rand took up her pen again.


The Union of Literary Characters in Fictional Narratives (ULCIFIN) had been formed in response to Charles Dickens's flagrant cruelty toward his characters. David Copperfield (with Jean Valjean's help) took to the streets and marched in protest at the unlimited powers Mr. Dickens exerted over him; Charles Darney and Madame de Farge soon joined them. The movement started as little more than a Victorian nuisance within Dickens's stable of characters (few of whom had educations or influence) but reached fever pitch when whispers of collective bargaining reached the Jane Austen estate. Elinor Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse joined the movement. When they convinced Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw, who were staying in George Eliot's London apartment for the summer, it was a done deal.


Fictional characters now had the power of collective bargaining. No more drama that hadn't been set up properly. No more ridiculous coincidences. No more information dumps in dialogue. The narrative had to show, not tell -- otherwise it was too hard on the characters. It had to pass the ULCIFIN's editorial review. The new editorial board, which consisted of revolving members from the best of British, French, German, Russian, and American novels (as usual, the Americans pushed their way in, but what could anyone do), turned down lots of first drafts from Eliot, Dickens, even Melville. It was widely rumored that Virginia Woolfe drowned herself because ULCIFIN had scuttled a sequel to Mrs. Dalloway.


The union had gone too far in the last 100 years, Dagny thought. Six months ago Prissy, Mammy, and Pork had complained to the board about how Margaret Mitchell treated slaves at post-war Tara. Prissy'd had enough when Scarlett slapped her for lying about birthin' babies. Mammy and Pork joined the fight when Scarlett asked them to pick cotton in the fields. With the help of Ashley Wilkes, it escalated into a full-scale strike. Scarlett O'Hara fumed while the fields of Tara stood idle.


Dagny decided to join forces with Scarlett, a character like her who'd fight for her rights against lazy supporting characters who wanted to sip mint juleps all day rather than work. Scarlett got Rhett Butler to join them. A good woman, Dagny thought, despite her "fiddle-dee-dees" and "I'll think about that tomorrows." Scarlett had common sense and could survive anything, even a melodramatic first novel.


Dagny, John, Scarlett, and Rhett walked up to the prestigious LAA (League of Autocratic Authors). They recognized many of their compatriots marching and holding signs -- "Fair Treatment for Supporting Characters Now" -- "Point of View Equality for All" -- "God Loves Villains Too" -- and saw friends such as Captain Ahab, Mrs. Danvers, Daisy Miller, Jay Gatsby (union president), even Hester Prynne with her big red A.


But cross the picket line they would. There was work to be done.

Keep up with high tech

Blood seeped through the yellow grates down into the sewers into the thick steel pipes through the channels under the city into the subway station down the walls onto the floors under the shivering man's black leather soles.

Marty awaited the green line for Pelham Bay Park, a twitch in his left cheek as he eyed the clock, 5:12 p.m. on a wet March Tuesday. He finished his job twenty minutes ago and made his way down the subway escalator, 3 minutes to spare. But the train didn't come and his twitch got worse. If he didn't make it out to St. Lawrence Avenue in the Bronx by 6, he'd miss Tommy No Thumbs and there'd be hell to pay. Five minutes passed, ten minutes passed. He paced left to right, his eyes fixed on the wall clock except to stare down the empty tracks. No train, no light in the distance.

Another ten minutes later the green line came, jam-packed with city commuters desperate to escape their way to the Bronx, Marty the last commuter to push his way onto the car, squeezing his glutes together, pushing his shoulders forward, his briefcase pushed tight against his abdomen and covered by his black raincoat. He'd stashed the money to pay off Tommy No Thumbs in the briefcase along with the gun. Tommy No Thumbs thought he'd get his payoff but Marty had a bigger payoff for him -- of the Remington variety, a .33 revolver that'd take him for the ride of his life. The train jerked forward and stopped, jerked forward and stopped. Fifteen minutes passed. They crossed the Harlem River, made it to St. Mary's Street, then Longwood Avenue. Two minutes until St. Lawrence. He'd have 3 minutes to make it up the avenue to Tommy's filthy hole in the wall.

He never noticed the blood on the bottoms of his shoes. And when he'd shot Bernie Linden at the corner of 59th and Lexington he hadn't swiped the stooge's unlocked cellphone. And he didn't know Bernie had covered his tracks, stored his suppliers' contacts on his iPhone, case he ever got whacked. So when Marty sprinted up the escalator onto St. Lawrence Avenue, turned right, dashed two blocks, he didn't see the empty police car on the corner before turning into Tommy's, sneaking up the stairs to the second floor, sniffing the door, banging it open, taking out the revolver, pointing it at the black leather chair where Tommy always sat. The chair was empty.

The empty chair where he'd aimed the revolver was Marty's last thought. Before a second passed, his head exploded from the left and Marty crashed to the floor, breaking his neck in the fall as it sliced onto the heater grate, the blood-stained bottoms of his shoes sprawled out behind him. The policeman who'd crouched in the corner noticed.

I woke up

I woke up with the proverbial splitting headache. Gosh, I wish I didn't have to go to work today. I'd like to stay in bed all day long and watch Days of Our Lives, Ellen, Oprah. But no, I have to be a grown-up girl and face 'em!

I groan myself out of bed and somehow manage to shower, get dressed (navy blue suit, prim and proper, with a white blouse), and walk the dog. I even manage to get in my '97 Toyota Corolla and drive down Georgia 400 into Atlanta. I even manage to park the car in the garage off Peachtree Street and get my Starbucks. Always the same, venti white chocolate mocha. Love it, even if my wasteline's pushing at my skirt. Who's gonna know, looking at a single girl from Alpharetta? Thank God, the caffeine's kicking in and my headache's going away. And then I walk into the office ... and they all yell, "Surprise! Happy birthday, Carol!"

You can imagine my horror. It's bad enough to be celebrating your thirtieth birthday, but for all the people you've spent the last six years with to know it and to scream it out at the top of their lungs at nine a.m. on a Friday morning ... it's like Abba on steroids. On top of that my headache charges right back and hits me between the eyes. I've got to smile and pretend I'm surprised, I'm happy, oh thank you everyone for thinking of me on my thirtieth birthday, I can't believe y'all are so sweet to me. I just want to crawl into a wastebasket. I count the hours until my eiderdown quilt, red bathrobe, and Chelsea Handler's latest rant.

Robert from Shipping comes in, he of the green eyes, brawny muscles, and snippets of muscle armpit hair peeking through his tight white t-shirts. Gosh, Robert, I've been trying to land him for six months. I told him I was twenty-five and now he knows I'm thirty. Old. Old and single, an old maid. But he doesn't seem to mind ... in fact his juicy, fleshy kiss has me sliding off my chair and thinking, "go for it!"

So I no longer have a headache.

Aspirin

The easiest thing in the world to do this sticky, wet Labor Day weekend at Key West, all things considered. It's like telling your lover you've drained the joint savings account to pay back the loan shark. Couldn't help it, you know. Had to pay for the coke, crystal meth, and heroine. You should've seen Marty's face, too. He turned purple, pursed his lips, and exploded in an unending chorus of four-letter words, accusations, curses. He javelined his muscle-bound left arm to my right cheek, the fist breaking my jawline and sending me careening into the refrigerator. Not like the slaps and punches when we fucked; this really hurt this time. Yup, we were in the kitchen, as always. He'd be concocting his protein milkshakes before going to the gym (God, his farts always slid down the walls) and I'd be putting together a batch of margaritas or martinis. Dry: extra dry with olives. Or dirty martinis, long as the olive juice held out. Always Belvedere vodka -- my favorite. Margaritas were Saturday afternoons. Martinis were every other afternoon of the week. Evenings, they were CCH. Coke, crystal meth, heroine. Mornings I'd smoke.

Marty disappeared after that. Haven't seen him in six weeks. It's getting harder, you know, living off your party friends' drugs. They stop sharing after a while. And I got to have some more ... but I don't have the money. I lost my job back at the beginning of August. I worked at a Pottery Barn outlet up the island. Kept showing up late for work, finally one day I was an hour late and Matilda the Supervisor fired me on the spot. Well, good riddance. Very next day the landlord kicked me out. He found my supplier giving the pool boy a blow job behind the generator.


So what's a boy to do? My new roommates, they're all sleeping tonight. I've got a headache and can't get to sleep. I'll take some -- oh, wait a minute, no Tylenol. All that's in the moldy house is Rod's bottle of Aspirin. I can't take that. I haven't taken aspirin since '72 back in Indianapolis. I turned bright red, started to breathe hard, told them my heartbeat was racing a million beats a minute. All while Mark Spitz won a seventh gold medal, that one for the 200 meter butterfly. Mommy and Daddy rushed me to the hospital where I puked out my guts.


Rod's medicine cabinet taunted me with daggers behind my eyes. I'm staring at the cokehead in the mirror. What'd I become? Red eyes, thin hair, gray face. Chapped, dry lips, withering nose -- nothing left of my septum but a translucent membrane. Can't breathe too hard. It'll blow wide open if I do.


The easiest thing in the world to do this sticky, wet Labor Day weekend at Key West, all things considered. Maybe it's time. Maybe all my options have run out. Marty's gone. The job's gone. Apartment's gone. All the money's gone. My parents both buried at Our Lady of Peace Cemetery in Indianapolis. Maybe, just maybe -- it's time to join Mommy and Daddy.

Something mechanical

Johnny loved his new Pear O'Book Pro. It ran a lot smoother than his old Doorways laptop. He could see why all the computer geeks raved about their Pears and had to admit, they'd been right all along. Much nicer interfaces, much more powerful machines, much less buggy. He didn't get viruses on it like he got on his Doorways. And Booble, the big Internet search giant where Johnny worked: Booble had just outlawed Doorways and mandated everyone getting Pears.

Johnny's weekend girlfriend Lauren still used a Doorways laptop. One day Johnny tried to use it. He'd left his Pear at the office by mistake and absolutely had to log into his Internet porn sites, check up on e-mail, etc. make sure he wasn't missing out on any mind-blowing hook-ups. Boy, had Johnny's life changed since January, almost a year ago, when he'd turned in his old Doorways for a Pear. Now here he was, typing away on Lauren's laptop, trying to get a message out to Tina, making a date for Tuesday at lunchtime. But the damned mouse in the middle kept screwing up.

He kept hitting the wrong control characters, hitting the stupid little mouse in the middle and taking the cursor somewhere else, boy, nothing ever worked on a Doorways. He wanted his Pear back, even if he couldn't do a pearl necklace with Tina lunchtime Tuesday. He could ping her tomorrow morning, make their date then. She'd still be around, he knew she was hot for his balls. Even if she wasn't, there was always Linda, Jennifer, or Meg. All the untouched women in his hook-up queue.

What's with this machine? It just froze up on Johnny. He couldn't get the cursor back. No clicking on the mouse, no typing characters, no hitting the return, delete, tab, shift, control, alt, function, digits, go fuck this stupid Doorways laptop characters. Nothing worked. It froze solid. He shut the top, thinking he'd restart it -- opened it up, the screen still there, his half-finished e-mail to Tina still on the screen. No way to get rid of it before weekend girlfriend Lauren wanted her Doorways laptop back.

I'd rock with laughter at them all

My home is a garden home. Plants stand on every important furnishing. Fresh cut flowers from the Happy Valley center every eating table, every coffee table, every room of my home. Potted ficus trees line the long, tall, and narrow entry to the house before it reaches the cavernous hall of portraits. Walking up the wide staircase, fresh-cut greens twine themselves around the banisters like a cobra around its prey. Standing atop the precipice, your mind on the hard marble floors below, the idea of its twenty-foot distance both dizzying and fascinating, you fear your subconscious mind will tell you jump, jump, you can do it. My flowers, plants, trees all make it easier for you to lose your fear.


My husband's long gone, lost in the sea down the hill from my Cornwall mansion. I make my garden home available to all the weak men from London, Manchester, Birmingham -- those who've succumbed to drinking, drugs, gambling, adultery. The vices of the weak, those weak souls unable to resist the charms of a 36-year old widow of milky skin, sardonic grins, curved breasts and hips, and silky black negligees. It's never a challenge to entice men to my lair by the sea.


I bring them to the lonely, antiquated brittleness of my dead husband's 800-year old mansion, the roar of the ocean on the southwest side of the estate. LIke my husband, these men make their final farewell, one way or the other, whether by the dizzying sway above the hall of portraits, the jagged edges of the craggy cliffs, or leaky boats we launch late at night into the black sea. I laugh at them, every man the same, all weak within my grip. Then I head back up to the mansion and lay myself in my bed. The ocean's roar puts me to sleep and I conjure my next acquisition.

I am hungry for ...

"Sweetheart, let's get out of the car. I wanna show Arlene and Charles my window blinds. Stop the car --"

"No, I'd rather we go straight home now."

"What a drag you are! I'm like totally pissed now."

"Honey, we just spent an hour and a half cleaning your apartment. I'm tired and I want to go home now and have relaxation time."

"God, this is total boner kill. Like you and I are really gonna have relaxation time. Why can't we just take ten fucking minutes and show Arlene and Charles my window blinds?"

"Because I'm tired and I've reached my limit. And aren't we supposed to go to Alice's to babysit the kids at 3:30? It's already 2:00. I want at least a little bit of time for us to have sex."

"So that's what this is all about, huh? You wanna get laid? That's awful selfish of you. Arlene and Charles have been wanting to see my blinds for weeks and all we had to do was take ten fucking minutes."

"We came down in the elevator together, they didn't say one word about it. Not a single solitary word."

"Just being polite, waiting for my invitation."

"So what's more important, showing them your window blinds or having our Saturday afternoon pounding and luxuriating time? We've got to babysit at 3:30. Yeah, I do wanna get laid. Hardly a crime, especially since I just gave you two hours, cleaning your apartment so your sister could use it for her big date tonight."

"What's really going on, honey?"

"Oh, never mind, I'll just sit in the car. You show them the blinds. But no sex this afternoon ..."

This is how Bert and Ernie's sex life died.

Moon above San Francisco

Chester the Lunatic Shiba pulled at the leash. Six a.m. up the hill toward Twin Peaks, his favorite walk to the little park at the top of the hill. We both liked it. Chester could sniff the bushes, check out the latest dog-gossip in the neighborhood, which girl doggies were being followed by which male doggies, all that fun doggy stuff. I could gaze toward the Golden Gate Bridge in one direction, turn and see the lights of the Bay Bridge’s western suspensions. I could also meander around the small park hoping that Patrick would be walking his golden retriever at that hour of the morning. Patrick. The thought of him made me wet.

Lately he’d walked his dog earlier and earlier. We’d first run into each other when I walked down the hill and he was going up. Then I’d be leaving the park as he’d be arriving. That lasted about a week and we got to talking. It’s when I learned his name and all that fun small-talk stuff; his dog was Agnes, my name too! Then I’d be going up the hill as he was coming down. So I kept walking Chester earlier.

Now Patrick, now there was a gorgeous hunk of man. A little taller than me, broad shoulders with the body of death. Even in San Francisco’s cool weather, he wore t-shirts and shorts. Long, wavy dark hair, handsome face with Irish blue eyes. Mwah! I just wanted to kiss him all over and then take that … well, never you mind. I could fantasize what would happen to my four-poster bed when he finally came over to stay … for good?

Today I’d gotten to the park right at six a.m. He came up the hill just a few minutes later, even before Chester did his daily poop dance. He wore a black Stanford t-shirt, gray cargo shorts. I loved his hairy legs, his fair complexion, nice patterns of dark brown hair. Yummy as always. He came over, all smiles. I looked at the moon, a full moon in the sky above the city’s rooflines. He paused a moment after our cursory introductions. His eyes crinkled, he smiled, my heart melted.

“I want to ask you something,” he stammered. I looked at him. And then Chester the Lunatic Shiba attacked Agnes the Dog. We separated them. I thought he'd continue but the spell was broken.

The stranger

Henry tallied up the man's order on the register. $6.49 for a package of AA batteries. $5.99 for Head 'n' Shoulders shampoo. $0.85 for a package of Juicy Fruit gum -- 8 sticks; 17 sticks for $1.20 but this man didn't get it, even though Henry'd recommended the savings, per-stick-wise. And $899.00 for a Smith-and-Wesson .33. He took a good look at the man, just like the state asked him to do, asked him for ID, please if you will, sir. It's 2018, after all. One more year to go and we'll be rid of Obama and his liberal wacko regulations. Then maybe we'll get another Texas Republican in there and be done with all these ID checks.

The 6-foot-tall guy with the hook nose, flinty hazel eyes, Buster Brown hair, thick dark stubble, and crescent-shaped scar on his right cheek gave him the ID. The Florida driver's license said John Smith, born 1973, resident of Hialeah, so what the hell you want with it? Henry wondered what this 45-year old man was doing so far from home. It's Waco, Texas. Enough said, anyway. His ID checked out with the computer, too. No convicted felons matching the description or the ID. So he rang up the tab and gave the guy his batteries, shampoo, gum, and gun. John Smith left.

Harold turned back to the lottery machine, printing out tickets for the bouffant-hairdoed lady after Mr. Smith. Ten tickets for the $100 million lotto cashpot. Dang, machine stuck on ticket #8. The woman screamed.

Henry scowled at the machine. "Ain't nothing but a jam, lady, settle down!"

He heard a click and felt the tip of a gun at his back. "Don't move," the man behind the gun told him, "or you're roadkill." Henry's breathing stopped as putrid acid coated his throat.

"You wanna tell me about sleeping with my wife, the Helen from Oklahoma City you've been banging? She's really Vicky from Ocala. And then maybe you and I will go out back." Henry didn't want to go out back. The broken glass, sticky tar, and 3-foot tall weeds scared him.

Down to the wire

Rob and Tim met on the Longue View Country Club swim team when both boys were 8. Their mothers Joyce and Beth sat next to each other in the bleachers during the Pittsburgh summer's swim practices, watching their boys learn freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. The boys always swam in adjacent lanes. One year, they were the last to go in the lane. The next year, they each moved up a place in the lane. When they started winning first places in the various events (Rob in the 100 meter backstroke, Tim in the 100 meter butterfly), they moved to first position in their lanes, leading off the team.

Rob's family lived in Monroeville, so Rob joined the high school swim team when he entered 9th grade. Tim's family lived in nearby Penn Hills, so he joined that high school team at the same time. Both boys fell right back to the bottom of the totem pole as they each competed with boys older than they. Joyce and Beth, good swim mothers, pushed their sons to work hard at practice. Joyce sat in the swimming pool bleachers in Monroeville's high school, Beth sat in the bleachers at Penn Hills's high school. They gave their boys an added advantage by joining private all-year swim clubs. Rob went to Greater Pittsburgh Swim Club. Tim went to the Jewish Y.

Rob began to concentrate more on long-distance swimming, competing in high school meets in third position for the team. Tim did exactly the same. Rob began to win first and second place ribbons at meets. So did Tim. In their sophomore year, Monroeville won the division championship. In their junior year, Penn Hills won the championship. When Rob and Tim came near the end of their senior year, Monroeville and Penn Hills tied in the lead for that year's championship.

By tradition, coaches gave seniors first choice of events for the final meets of the season. When Monroeville and Penn Hills met, Rob chose the 500 yard freestyle -- his best long-distance event. Tim chose the 500 yard freestyle -- his best long-distance event. The two teams met on a cold February night. Penn Hills hosted. Joyce and Beth attended, sitting on opposite ends of the bleachers. Rob approached Lane 3 for the big event. Tim approached Lane 4 for the big event. They shook hands, mounted the platform, on your mark, get set, bang! went the gun.

20 laps of the 25 yard pool. Rob and Tim swam neck and neck for the first 4. Joyce and Beth stood up in the bleachers, cheering on their sons. Then Rob took the lead for another 6, swimming 4 yards ahead of Tim. Joyce jumped up and down. Then Rob slowed down and Tim took the lead for another 6, swimming 2 yards ahead of Rob. Beth jumped up and down. On laps 17 and 18, Rob caught up to Tim. On laps 19 and 20, Rob pulled ahead of Tim and touched the wall just 0.75 seconds before Tim. Joyce cheered, waved her hands while Beth scowled, sat down on her hands.

The Monroeville team cheered while the Penn Hills team booed. Both boys got out of the water. Rob shook Tim's hand. Excited but exhausted, Rob jumped back in the water. The Penn Hills referee blew his whistle, voiding Rob and declaring Tim the winner. Rules said, swimmers couldn't get back in the water after getting out.

Joyce and Beth quit the social circles to which both belonged. Rob went to Ohio State for college. Tim went to Columbia. They never saw each other again.

The floor

George and Martha stared at each other from across their condo living room. Malevolence and indifference crackled the charged air between them like a toxic mixture of sand, metal, and winter. The renovation had taken too long and cost too much; boiling points had been reached. A thick dust of concrete, plaster, and caulk covered the red sheets covering their 18th century French provincial furniture. Two-by-fours rested against the cracked walls. They could not walk in the kitchen; uninstalled cabinets and disconnected appliances cluttered the room. Their contractor had torn up the ceramic tile floor and waited for them to pay the second half of the elegant cherry hardwood flooring they had chosen. They didn't have the money and wouldn't have the money.

Martha fumed and puffed out an accusation. "You knew we didn't have the money, and now we're $100,000 under water on the mortgage. We can't even finance our way out of this mess! Where the hell is all the cash that's supposed to pay for this?" Like a boxer in one corner, she planned her next attack.

"If you'd listened to me and stayed within the budget, we'd have paid for everything. But no, you have to have the finest antique furniture, the most expensive oriental rugs, specialty woods for cabinets and flooring. All your fault, Martha, all your fault!"

"I thought your job was secure, you could always get another! You never told me you were a failure, you hated your career, you just wanted out, you loser!"

"Yeah, well this loser's walking right out of here and never coming back!"

Good riddance, Martha thought. With him gone, her parents would pay for the rest of the condo renovation. They'd always hated George, and they were right -- he was beneath her. She'd get her beautiful condo, one way or the other, with or without George. No, better without George. She hated him. They hadn't even had good sex in five years. If he walked out on her now, she'd get the condo, get rid of him, and get her parents to pay for the rest of what she wanted.

"Well if you stay, you'd goddamned best get a job and pay for this, because otherwise I'll tell everyone the truth about you and that boy."

George slammed the door as he walked out. Martha smiled.

My street

"Oh, how lovely to be back at the Park Executive!" I cried aloud, waiting for the elevator, sure that someone would hear me around the corner from the open catwalks. I'd rather live on the first floor with the broad sweep of its wide deck, but the second floor, with a simpler, narrower catwalk, and all the other floors furnished beautiful views of the Intracoastal, Miami Beach, and the ocean beyond. I enjoyed my two years working in Amsterdam but I was happy to be in my own home again.


Except for Robert Donaldson, our own version of Ichabod Crane. I was walking Lucy the D.O.G. that Friday morning and waiting for the elevator. All of a sudden Bunny -- Robert's flighty cavalier King Charles spaniel -- peeked around the corner, his leash taut but disappearing behind the wall. Bunny desperately wanted to play with Lucy, but since Robert and I had a falling out back in '07, I'd joined his long list of prestigious enemies in the building. I think it happened because I painted my interior vestibule beige rather than white with black trim. Robert couldn't stand color, had to be white, gray, silver, or black. Now here wagged Bunny, straining at the leash, wanting to play with Lucy -- and Robert, invisible on the other end of it, invisible and miserable.


Of course I just had to make the most of the situation!


"Oh, hello, Bunny, how nice to see you! Bunny, come play with Lucy! Come and play! That's a good Bunny!" Robert's dog jumped up and down, straining even more on the leash until he got yanked back by the invisible hand behind the corner. The elevator doorbell rang, so Lucy and I trotted in. I doubted Robert would join me. Since '07 he'd refused to enter the elevator with me. It had become quite the game at the Park Executive to see long we could keep Robert Donaldson off the elevator. He'd made a long laundry list of enemies in the building and could rarely get on the elevator without one of them already being inside. Oh, what fun!


I walked down Collins Avenue and came back ten minutes later, Lucy peed and pooped for the day, a used bag of doggy poop to throw away. Robert -- dressed in shiny Versace black and gray, since he never wore color if he could avoid it, just black + gray + silver + white (but only rarely, dark was better) -- also returned to the building, dragging Bunny behind. First time I'd seen him since I'd come back from Amsterdam. The ghosts of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Anne Frank egged me on, saying, "go ahead, tell him: 'Love the outfit, Robert, even if those patent-leather shoes clash with your opaque glasses, but oh, I'd just kill for that Versace! What is that around your neck anyway ... an ascot? How very British of you!'"


Wrinkles etched Robert's 56-year old bell-shaped face more firmly than ever despite the facelift he'd had back in '09. I'd heard about that through the grapevine, Robert walking through the lobby with his face wrapped, only his mail-slot eyes, Jimmy Durante nose, and scowling mouth visible behind the linen scarves and the bandages. Perhaps I telegraphed the catty Versace fantasy dancing in my head, since he started doing his little Margo Channing walk -- very Academy of Dramatic Arts, the New York school where he'd studied thirteen months in the '70s before getting kicked out for banging the director and telling his wife. Poor Bunny, he'd never quite learned the proper gait for the Margo Channing walk.


Deliverance came in the form of Papageno, my kelly green parrot, who screeched from the balcony above. Robert skidded left to right at the chalkboard-grinding sound. He cocked his head up to the left, resumed his very Academy of Dramatic Arts Margo Channing walk, and made a grand entrance back into the Park Executive.


It was lovely to be home again.

After Eden

Aaron and Caleb, attached to the hip ever since they'd met at the Salinas John Steinbeck festival 7 years ago, couldn't agree on the proper shade of exterior beige for their Noe Heights house. They'd drained themselves of energy trying to agree on decorating the interior, practically ripping out each other's hair and even sleeping in separate bedrooms for a short time. But Caleb eventually got horny and since beating off to Internet porn could only go so far, he'd climb into bed with Aaron and nudge him between the legs with his you know what.

"I'm just a hole to you!" Aaron would pretend to complain and Caleb would gain momentum. And size. Not to mention, the promise of great sex and another crest of their relationship cycle. Caleb poked and prodded, Aaron resisted, Caleb got pissed, Aaron said okay let's have sex, a week would pass, Caleb would poke and prod again.

Now they were bickering over the two shades of beige for their house on the hill above Noe Valley. Lilly would have none of it and told them so. Who cared if the color was Milano Ecru or Platinum Silk? No one except these two literary-decorator queens would ever tell the difference. She wondered how in the dickens two decorators -- especially Aaron, a mid-century modern fanatic, and Caleb, an art deco afficionado -- could ever live together, let alone agree on any one thing. It would work her last nerve, Lilly thought. And now here they were, making a federal case about two shades of beige you could barely tell apart. As if anyone walking down their San Francisco street would ever notice.


Lilly could walk around the apartment naked and she didn't have to worry about what anyone thought. She could read a book until 2 a.m. She could fart in her sleep. She could eat cereal for dinner and a box of raisins before bed. No one would nag her ...

You opened the door

"I'm going to open doors for you," little Joey heard on the movie screen, "doors you never even dreamed existed!"

It was the weekly showing of Rosalind Russell's 1958 "Auntie Mame." The madcap aunt in the black negligee, red robe, cigarette holder, and martini enchanted little Joey -- just like she enchanted her 9-year old nephew Patrick, the jaunty Ito, gentlemanly Beau, and drama queen Vera. Joey and Mikey came every Saturday afternoon (showing until May, theater management told the boys) to see if, somehow, they could transport themselves from life in suburban Indianapolis, Indiana to art deco Manhattan. Joey and Mikey lived across the street from each other in typical 1970s nuclear family houses. Joey and MIkey, youngest in their families, each had 1.35 siblings. Dads worked downtown and Moms tended house.

Joey and MIkey fought over which family was the Flintstones and which family was the Rubbles. Joey's dad might not work in a gravel quarry or drive a car with his feet, but he did yell out "Bertha!" every time he came home, expected dinner on the table in less than five minutes. Okay, so Mikey's dad fixed people's plumbing for a living (hardly Barney Rubble-like) but his mom did giggle in a Betty Rubble-like way and she wore her black hair in a bun. The kids liked to find movies and television in their lives, but gosh, they had a hard time of it. There was nothing Auntie Mame about their Indianapolis lives.

Joey wanted to design movie sets when he grew up. He loved to rearrange the furniture in his room and pestered his parents enough, they painted his bedroom a different color every year. One Saturday afternoon last summer he'd moved himself into Brother Jeffy's room and moved Jeffy into his own. No one discovered it until Jeffy started crying right before dinner. They made him move everything back. Why wouldn't they understand? He wanted to try something new, not the same old, boring stuff! At least he had Mikey who wanted to become an Academy-award winning actress when he grew up. Mikey looked down the years to his big moment in the sun.

"Thank you, Warren. And the nominees for best actress are Miss Bette Davis for 'Bitch from Hell,' Miss Katharine Hepburn for 'The Goddess of Park Avenue,' Miss Vanessa Redgrave for 'A Leftist in Liverpool,' Miss Maggie Smith for 'Droll Baby,' and Mikey Winters for 'Queen for a Day.'" Applause, applause while Paul Newman opened the envelope: "and the winner is Mikey Winters!"

Joey and Mikey planned to run away from home and go to Hollywood just as soon as they saved up $75.00 from their allowances.

Inexplicably happy

George gushed about his elopement with Martha while Josiah stifled an impulse to pop him one. Seated in the conference room while Josiah took notes for George's new will, trust, health care surrogacy, etc. documents, George jumped up and down in his seat like a little boy who'd eaten a pound of jelly beans. Settle down, Josiah wanted to tell George, it's just a marriage. Likely as not, it'll end up in divorce court and three years from now you'll be asking me to keep the BMW 650 convertible, the Hamptons house, the Warhol, the Kandisky out of the bitch's two-timing, tennis-pro-screwing hands. Josiah thought, don't know why he's so excited. It's all downhill from here.

Sure, George's wife had died a year ago, leaving him with twin teenage girls who needed a stepmother. Those kids reminded Josiah of the twin girls from The Shining who kept chanting Redrum! Redrum! because in Josiah's estimation George and the girls' mother had twisted their bratty minds on Range Rovers, boarding schools, smoked lachs, and cellphones. So what if one of them had won the New York State spelling bee and the other had broken the state record for the 200 meter backstroke. Twisted sisters, that's what Josiah called them. Redrum indeed! If that conniving Martha gets her way, they'll be in a New Hampshire boarding school before George gets his next hard-on.

Josiah couldn't imagine why he'd get married a second time. He'd barely understood why his college roommate had done it the first time. Josiah had never been stupid enough to get tied down by a clawing woman. He preferred to play the field and loved to explore the excitement of a new face, new body, new vagina. Josiah's rule was 12 times with a woman, never more. He'd decided women got too attached once you passed into baker's dozen territory. Ever since Sharon had tried to trap him into marriage back in '92. He'd learned the lesson.

Josiah suppressed the urge to tell George that Martha was marrying him for his money. Maybe it'd work out, but Josiah doubted it. He'd seen way too many Manhattan barons with their Long Island estates caper all over the place, baritoning their 45-year old prowess at attracting 25-year old knockout blondes, only to end up 48-year old schmucks who'd just signed over 50 percent to 28-year old plastic surgery victims who'd run off with the pool boy -- or tennis pro or yoga coach. It didn't really matter. The details never really varied.


After Lisa died last year, Josiah thought George would be smart enough to choose a widow with a menopausal moustache for his second wife, but you could never tell when a man's brain got caught in his zipper. Having done more than five hundred divorces, though, Josiah recognized that train on its one-way ticket from Delusion City to Disaster Station.

Community service

"Ouch!"

Every one of the Booblers screamed an identical "ouch" during the first twenty minutes in Elsa Burble's back yard. Cutting through vines, pulling weeds, lifting out rusty old wheels from the decomposed '68 Ford F-150 pickup truck, tearing down the 20-foot tall weeds, the engineers-on-a-charity-mission gritted their teeth as they pricked their fingers with sneaky thorns and rushed toward their 2:00 p.m. deadline to clear out the brush and flatten out the back yard. Booble encouraged its engineers to spend a day in community service and this year they'd chosen Elsa Burble, the girlish-sweet 70-year old lady, brain cells killed by too much acid in the '60s.

Booble might have more money than God, so it could afford to give its employees a day off work to do community service, especially when Elsa lived two houses away from the garage where Booble's founders had built its first search-and-destroy engine. No matter what the perks, though, whether free food, massages, laundry service, afternoon tea, or annual astrology checks, Booblers worked harder than any other employees on the planet. By 1:30 that afternoon, everything had been cleared and loaded into the dumpster placed in front of Elsa Burble's rotting driveway. With an extra thirty minutes to spare, the Booblers did what Booblers did best. They measured their success using statistics and produced a management report.

The 30.45 minute analysis showed they'd cleared 0.17 acres of land; 2,875 pounds of compostible greens; 960 pounds of recyclable metals, aluminums, and other alloys; 487 pounds of non-recyclable plastics; and 7.85 barrels of miscellaneous rusted auto equipment. The 34 Booblers who participated in the event pricked themselves with a total of 342 thorns on 26 bushes, for an average prick rate of 10.05 pricks per Boobler and 13.15 pricks per bush. The average Boobler expended 3,821 kilo-calories of effort during the 5.5 hour enterprise and consumed 570 kilo-calories of food during the lunch provided, resulting in a net expenditure of 3,251 kilo-calories for a weight reduction of 0.15 pounds. The analysis team strongly encouraged Booblers to consume 16 ounces of water for each 1,000 kilo-calories in order to prevent dehydration, and as such, recommended that the company provide each employee with 50.2 ounces of water on return to the Boobleplex. The analysis team also asked the company to take care of all the pricks.

Surrender

Not the basketball game again!

Gunther closed the office door, Badri got the nerf basketball out. I'd already eaten lunch so I had no escape. Gunther stood in the left corner of the room and took his first shot. Right in the basket, score 1 for Gunther. Then he banked his second shot off the left wall. Score 2 more for Gunther. Then he missed one, thank God, and moved over to the center of the room. First shot there, right in the basket. Score another 2 points for Gunther. Two misses, thank God. Finally, Gunther moved over to the right side of the room.

"Excuse me, Jim," he said, "would you mind moving your chair?" I had to stand up and watch the game. I understood at that moment just how hard it was to feign enthusiasm and interest in a straight guy brouhaha. I'd much rather surf the Internet for the film histories of Greta Garbo and Maria Ouspenskaya. Now let's have a lunch-time competition at the office with that. "Okay, guys, we'll have ten rounds of film trivia, first category is Legendary Actresses of the 1930s." We'll see just how well they score.

Gunther scored a total of 9 points after his third round on the right side of the room. I sat back in my chair -- but only until Badri made his way over here. He got 8 points. And then Wei-Li took his turn, scored 10 points, first segment on the left side of the room with his back to the basket. And then my turn. Okay, guys, let's get this over with ... zero for zero.

Tomorrow I'll suggest Legendary Actresses of the 1930s. Until then I surrender!

Four objects

I've got three weeks until I start the new job. Just look at all these boxes. Thank goodness I rented the apartment furnished. At least it's only the boxes to unpack, no furniture to move or arrange. Where in the hell shall I start?

Two days later everything's done. Looks just like home. Scary, how easy it's been to get everything back to the way it was in '08. Yet nothing's quite the same. Sitting on the living room sofa, looking about me, pretty much all the same objects are there but it's different somehow. Take the coffee table. I've got my Oktoberfest stein, the one I gave to John back in '00 for his fortieth birthday two years before he died. I've taken that everywhere with me, ever since his mother sent it to me back in '02. Now it's back on the coffee table in the center where it belongs -- so basic, simple, and lovely. Wish John would've been able to visit me in San Francisco. He'd have loved it.

There's the Sterling silver candy dish. Mom and Dad gave that to me back in '97 when they left Pittsburgh. I was SO mad at them back then. I couldn't believe they were leaving beautiful Pittsburgh where we'd all grown up. My mother'd once said, "I'll never leave Pittsburgh!" It's hard to believe they've been in South Carolina 13 years now, loving it so much they've even got burial plots now. Well, no wonder. There isn't a Democrat within miles. Of course they're happy.

Twelve years ago, David bought me a set of small, elegant books about the history of Philadelphia. We might've broken up in '03 but I love those books. I've even used them for writing my novel about Depression-era Philadelphia. Especially the book on Italians of Philadelphia. Odd, David didn't buy me a book about Jews in Philadelphia. You couldn't get him talking about politics without it leading to Israel and the Middle East. But he's a good guy, even if he never wanted to have sex.

Mike did want to have sex with me. Together more than six years until he broke up with me, just 2 months ago. He gave me those antique copies of Life Magazine. They're on the coffee table, all featuring actresses of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe -- how fabulous. I can remember still the excitement when I opened THAT box. We had sex for days. So what happened, I still wonder, that changed how he felt, that caused him to make that call as I was careening down the I-280, driving home from work? I nearly plowed into the concrete wall barrier when he said he wanted to break up and he was certain. Gone -- just like John, Mom and Dad, and David.

The apartment's quiet. Funny, I didn't miss any of these things in California. It's time to redecorate.

January chill

"So," impatiened Mike, the chill of the January air reedy in his voice. "Has Susan told you she's pregnant yet?"

"Now honey," I implored from the Google shuttle hurtling up the 101 in the nagging winter's rain, "she'll tell me in her own good time. I'm just SO excited for her and Greg, you have no idea!"

Suz and I had worked together more than half a year -- just the kind of woman I wanted my nieces to become, happily married with a great husband, career, and home. Only a few years older than said nieces (please see: uncles with hip replacements, congenital deafness, reading glasses, chronic fatigue, mid-life crisis) but just as bright, on top of the world, and knowing exactly what she wanted out of life. Most of all I was happiest for the child-to-be, lucky to be born into such a life.

I see, just a few years hence, Abby's and Caroline's weddings, Charley's and Adam's too -- their consorts as lucky as Suz's own husband. I see myself standing at their weddings in the second row behind my brothers, sisters-in-law, my 80-ish parents, frail but holding up -- as the brides come down the aisle, married lives beginning. I feel the twinge in my hips, glad the processional hymn is over so I can finally sit down, reluctant to read the small type in the prayer book, hoping the reception will be over in time for my 4 p.m. nap. Gosh, I remember tha look of confidence in my own young eyes. Just yesterday, after all. 

I know, more than anything, the new child who'll be born sometime in the fall, he'll or she'll have that same look of young confidence at his wedding ... something like 2035 or so, I suppose. I'll be over 70 by then. His parents will be in the front row, tears coming down their face. I just hope they don't have hip replacements to deal with. Now that would be a super bummer.

The fight

Martha screamed at George. "What do you mean, she's pregnant?"

"Yeah, Jessica's pregnant! Three months gone and she's going to keep it. I can't get her to change her mind."

Martha huffed and puffed. This was way too much of a burden on their marriage. As if they hadn't had enough to deal with. His alcoholism, her hysterectomy, his prostate cancer, her repeated yeast infections, his erectile dysfunction, her menopausal moustache, his infidelities with Swedish yoga instructors. All those things, enough to derail their 28-year marriage. But this? Jessica being pregnant? How could he let something like this happen?

"Well, it's not exactly my fault, Martha. I'm trying to get her to have an abortion, or at least give it up for adoption, but she's insisting. She wants to keep it and raise it as a single mother."

"A single mother? How ridiculous. She can barely do laundry, make beds, and empty the wastebaskets. Managing a baby, how's she ever going to do that?" Martha was sure that, when all was said and done, she and George -- getting close to 60 -- would have to care for this baby. And all because George was going through his mid-life crisis. Good God, they'd be close to 80 when this child graduated from college.

If George was going to have a mid-life crisis, why didn't he just buy a '66 Corvette Stingray like Bob Smith did not long after he started combing his hair to cover his bald spot? No, he had to do this! George had to go out and buy a twin-engine speed boat and hire the captain who got their 19-year old daughter pregnant.

"Oh, shit, George! It's bad enough that we're going to be grandparents, but to have to raise the damned kid, too."