It's all a blur

"What stinks?" Miles remembers having asked Giles, when all the trouble started. He doesn’t remember exactly what happened after that, but I do.

"It sounds like the Beef Bourguignon is burning!" Giles said.

"Oh my stars, what have we done?" Miles said, as the three of us rushed into the kitchen. Giles slipped on their shiny white tiles of their nouveau-riche kitchen. His 300-pound tub of a body fell flat on its face. Miles jumped over the pile of blubber and ran to the stove, opened it, and grabbed the roasting pan with his bare hands.

"O O O O U U U U C C C C H H H H !!!!"

Miles turned around, jumped back over Giles, struggling to get to his feet ... ran over to the sink, put my burned fingers under cold water.

"There is a God!"

"It serves you right, you weasel!" Giles stood up, glared at Miles, limped over to the stove, pulled the oven mitts off their hooks, and pulled the beef out of the oven.

Giles groaned at the site of their entrée. “It looks like Wiley Coyote after a bomb's exploded."

So what would Miles and Giles do now, I asked myself, as I ran out of the kitchen and into the living room? They had the Contessa Louisa de Pretenza in the salon, holding court with Letitia Cosgrove, Cornelius Armstrong, Bunny Havers, the Underwoods, de Gooches, and Huntingdon-Worthingtons. And here they were, Miles and Giles, trying to impress the haut polloi with an overcooked Beef Bourguignon, Miles’s fingers about to blister, 300-pound Giles limping, and smoke billowing out from the stove.

After a minute, Bunny Havers opened the kitchen door. "Giles, Miles, come right away! Whizzer has urinated on Contessa Louisa!"

"Oh, no!"

"Saints preserve us!"

They waddled out to the salon, Miles’s hands wrapped in wet rags, Giles limping, and found me baring my teeth at the contessa ,with her Hedda Hopper hat, her full-length dress. And my personalized signature, a Rorschach-blotted wet stain just below the contessa’s knees.

"Dear Contessa, are you wet?” I heard Miles say, as Giles grabbed me by the collar and pulled me toward the back hallway. “I’m soooooooo sorry about this. How can I ever apologize enough?”

"It is no problem, my dear man, though this is merely the dress I wore to my debut ball after marrying my dear, departed husband, the Earl of Pretenza," she intoned, raised eyebrows that broadcast her disgust to Letitia Cosgrove. Letitia, that small-minded bigot who wrote the gossip column for Bar Harbor’s A-listers.

Miles and Giles were finished. Now, perhaps, they might pay more attention to me.

In the rain

That pesky maroon Corolla, it was the fourth time he’d sped around Marvin on 595. Passing on right, too, just to beat the traffic. But somehow, three times he’d made the wrong lane choice and landed way behind Marvin’s black C250. The prize of Google stock options, Marvin thought that afternoon, on his way to his monthly massage.

He chose a new guy this month, someone he found in the back pages of the SFGN, the South Florida Gay News. Some young Czech man, handsome with tons of glowing reviews, promising a transcendant experience. His address seemed odd, though – an area Marvin had never known.

Marvin got off at State Road 7 and headed north – and just before reaching Broward, where he’d turn right, the skies opened up. Not again, Marvin thought – every day for the past two weeks, right at four o’clock. These torrential downpours flooding out the streets, palm trees blowing with the wind, windshield wipers going super fast. Somehow, Marvin was always driving at this time of day.

So, Marvin thought, driving past 38th Avenue, 37th Avenue, 36th, 35th … where was 3690? Must’ve missed it in this rain. U-turn to the next stoplight, wait three minutes, look across four lanes to the opposite side, no, doesn’t exist. Cross the major intersection, maybe on the other side. Call the massage therapist – no, Marvin, it’s 3960, not 3690 – drive across the highway another time, found 38th Avenue, woops – went too far, another U-turn and across the major intersection, ten minutes have passed now, why’s Marvin’s heart racing? Ah – there it is, opposite side of the road.

I’ll park in this lot and walk across the intersection, Marvin said to himself, too late to be battling the red lights yet again, it’ll take another ten minutes and the time for massage will be half over by then. So he pushed his umbrella out of the C250, stepped out into a puddle of water, began crossing the intersection … and then the maroon Corolla made a sweeping right turn and flattened Marvin dead.

I haven't got time

Hey buddy, the prompt's ironic, ain't it?

Got to the 7-11 two hours late this morning, all 'cause Mama and Roy was up till dawn fightin' and drinkin' whiskey, couldn't sleep none 'til after they done made up and stopped having sex and bangin' the headboard 'gainst the wall. Didn't they know, that kept me and Melissa up, 'cause we slept in the next room?

So Mama done jiggled me awake 10:30 this morning' and I said, shit, get me to work, so I put my uniform on and Mama brung me to the 7-11 in the '72 Monte Carlo. Saw her drive off, wondering, would she and Roy stay together? Last step-daddy, he stayed seven months. But this one, he'd outlasted 'em all -- couldn't keep no count, about eight of them. Roy had been there eleven months. Maybe he'd make a year. Anniversary, shit anyways, that was July 4th ... Independence Day, got to say that's ironic too.

So Charley, get this, he walked into the 7-11 and told me, he'd be going down to the high school and scoring a hit, would have some great stuff for us, would I like to party after work. I says to him, Charley, when you got Mama and Roy at home, and Melissa come home from the ninth grade, I got to be there, look after my baby sister, never know whether Mama and Roy would be kissy-facin' or hurlin' axes at each other.

Got to pick up Melissa, anyways, Charley, can't party tonight. Melissa's at Cousin Carlin, playin' dominoes, waitin' for my shift to be over. So I ain't got time, not even a hit, Charley. Enjoy the ride on my count - no hard feelings, this time at least.

Alien

It was in the U-bahn that Paine first noticed the pale young beauty with the piercing blue eyes, jet black hair, and muscular physique well displayed, even under the brocade coat.

“The movie lacked the intense mood of the book, and I’d have reversed the casting for Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise,” Michael said. They’d found a seat after a wrinkled old prune of a hausfrau had gotten off at Sendlingertor, and Michael launched into critique of the movie. And the hunky actors.

All while Paine responded to Michael’s review of Neil Jordan’s film, which they’d seen at Munich’s English language theatre, with “how interesting” and “I didn’t realize that” remarks, Paine was focused on the black-haired gentleman staring at me. And Paine stared back, feeling the familiar excitement that came with the allure and seduction, the fantasy of just what would happen between them. When the brocade coat would come off and Paine would see the man’s milky smooth skin, the contours of his muscles, and those eyes ... those eyes.

“Paine, you’re not listening to a word I’ve said,” Michael added. “What’s with you tonight?”

“Don’t look now, Michael,” Paine replied, deciding he could confide in his best girlfriend, “but there’s a young man on the other side –“

“That one,” Michael said, laughing. “He’s been eyeing me ever since we got on the subway. Boy, what I’d like to do with him when I take him home –“

“I saw him first.”

“No, he’s mine.”

“No, he wants me.”

“What if we share him?”

“A three-way? That would be gross.”

The piercing eyes never left Paine’s face. Paine was sure the man was for him.

Out of the corner of his eye

Out of the corner of his eye, Mark saw the question mark of a tail moving across the coffee table – outside, on the terrace.

“Honey, I really don’t want Puddles on the balcony,” Mark said to John. “It’s way too dangerous.”

“Oh, twaddle,” John replied. “Let the kitty have some fun. It’s only when I’m out there cleaning the bird cage. Puddles is fine out there. He won’t jump up off the ledge like Honeybun.”

“And how, pray tell, do you know that?” Mark’s temper was rising, as it always did when John played court expert. “Do you have psychic powers with the cats?”

“He never has jumped up there.”

Mark didn’t know how to proceed – just ignore the argument, like he always had in the past? But this was different. Puddles wouldn’t survive a fall off that balcony.

“Puddles is only six months old, John. And ‘never’ is a lot longer than six months,” Mark said. And he noticed Puddles jump onto the ledge. “Oh my God –“

“Lighten up, Mark, everything will be –“

Mark screamed. The question mark of a tail disappeared off the edge of the balcony.

A race to the finish

Aunt Dot introduced us to power walking thirty years ago, long before it became trendoidish. That Tuesday evening, we all walked down the steps of the rented beach house, a woodsy retreat that the mosquitoes liked even better than we did. It had been a scorching day at the Delaware beach, but miracle of miracles, it had cooled off by the time we’d finished the last of Mom’s meatloaf, potato salad, baked beans, and cole slaw.

Mom, Dad, Gary, Jody, Uncle Bob, Aunt Dot and I began our walk, the sound of loose gravel under our tennis shoes. And off she went – Aunt Dot, all sixty years of her, raced forward, leaving the rest of us behind. She reached the main road, a hundred feet off, long before we did.

“Keep up, children,” she said, turning her head back to us without slowing down, “we need to work off those calories. Chocolate chip ice cream to the winner!”

My mother grunted, but of course. She’d never exercised a day in her life, poor thing, too many cigarettes and martinis. But Dad and Uncle Bob picked up their pace, a bit competitive with each other. Gary and I did the same – just like Dad and his brother, the two of us had to compete. Rush, rush, rush.

So we walked around the neighborhood, or raced around, if the truth be told – Aunt Dot always in the lead, even ahead of us twenty-somethings. Oh, wait a minute – I wasn’t even twenty. But Gary and Jody, frisky newlyweds that they were, late twenties – and just as fast as me. Mom gave up and went back to the house, eager for another gin martini. Dad and Uncle Bob got to reminiscing about Andover, Boston, and vinegar on their baked beans.

That left the four of us, Gary and I going at it – but ouch, I got a cramp. And then came the dark horse. Jody marshaled on forward, picking up her pace rather than losing steam, and then she caught up with Aunt Dot.

We all enjoyed our chocolate chip ice cream that night.

Let's talk potatoes

Mother pointed her index finger at me.

“No, Jim,” she said, her eyebrows arching downward like the grille on the ’59 Buick Electra. “You need to chop the carrots finely, here, like this – see how it’s supposed to be done. Look, I’ll do this. You mash the potatoes.”

I walked to the other side of the kitchen. Mike was sautéing the ground beef and onions – oh, that smelled savory tangy. Why’d he get the fun job? I was stuck with vegetables while Mother lorded over all of us.

Dad busied himself with setting the table, and when he was done, he turned on Fox News. Their favorite, but of course – they lived in South Carolina. It would be their favorite. R.W.N., the Right Wing News channel.

“Jim!” Mother said, coming over to me and the potato masher. “You’re going to get lumpy potatoes. Mash in smooth circles, not all choppy like that! Here, let me show you the right way to do it. See? Okay, good.”

That evening, after the shepherd’s pie had been consumed, I looked around the table at our family and the neighbors we’d invited. There were John and Mark, Joni, my parents, and Mike’s mother Judy. We sat all the older people at the dining room table. We younger ones – if you thought 50 was young – Mike and I sat around the nearby kitchen table with Mike’s sister and her husband.

And now, five years later, I look back at that table in my mind, a snapshot of time in these older people’s lives. Who’d have thought, in these five years, that John and Mark would both die, Mother would be disabled by a cerebral hemorrhage, Dad would be far gone into the cloud of Alzheimer’s, and Joni would become wheelchair-bound by her degenerative back ailments? Oh, to have caught that memory in a bottle, and to bring it into the present, whenever I wanted to feel the life around that table …

Later that evening from five years ago, I scrubbed the remnants of our shepherd’s pie from the serving pan. At the time, I was glad the evening had come to an end.

The artist as a mummy

“I can’t stand this painting,” Martha said, sniffling from that nasty cold she’d thought had gone away. “With or without that new frame, why does it have to hang in our hallway, for the whole world to see?”

“Ah, come on, honey,” George said, ignoring her sniffles. “This was Uncle Henry’s favorite painting. It’s called ‘The Artist as a Mummy.’ He bought it in Soho back in ’69, right after going to Woodstock.”

“Can’t you put it in your study, where no one will have to see it?”

George stuck his tongue out at Martha. Thank goodness, they’d never had children together. “But darling, the whole point of fine art is to share it with your family and friends. And this was Uncle Henry’s favorite …”

“Your Uncle Henry,” Martha said, blowing her nose and sounding like a trombone, “was married and divorced four times, had six children out of wedlock that are scattered all over Oklahoma somewhere, and he died of cirrhosis of the liver. From drinking all that tequila and smoking all those joints back in the ‘60s.”

“He was a kind man! And very generous to you and me, Martha.” George had a heavy post-nasal drip from the cold. He was sure Martha had given it to him. On purpose.

Urgent: this needs to change

The phone clicked on the other end of the receiver. He’d hung up on me.

“That damned William,” I said to Peter. “You’d think he’d at least say goodbye. Shall we continue without him? We can make this decision.”

“No,” Peter said. “He’s their son, just as much as we are. He’s got a say in the matter, Everett. And he did say he needed to ring off. This debate has gone on much longer than we planned. Two hours –“

“This is urgent, Peter! We have to move Dad away from Mom now. She’s driving him into the ground. This can’t wait –“

“But Everett, the nursing administrator said there was no deadline for moving Dad. It can wait a few more days.”

“No, it can’t. I’m right about this, Peter. His condition is fading every day, more and more.”

“What about our mother? Shouldn’t she have a say in the matter?”

“Of course not! She has no part in this decision about Dad’s welfare. She’ll only keep him there to control him, asking him to give her Kleenex ten times a day, asking him to give her water when the nurses aren’t there. Who does she think –“

“It’s not your place to decide that for them. I think she should be part of this decision. He can’t because of his Alzheimer’s, but she can –“

“No, I’m right on this! Mom has no say in this decision. All she’ll do is try to control him and drive him into the ground. I’m right! I’m right! I’m right!”

Cutting

Jonathan walked up the steps to the front entrance, stepping carefully over the patches of ice remaining from Wednesday’s storm. The door had never seemed quite so talk to him, but then, Martin had always been here at the door, waiting for him. Tonight he was not.

Jonathan knocked – but after minutes, no answer. He turned the nob. Unlocked. Walked in, slowly, calling Martin, where are you? He turned on the light in the hallway, looked up the stairs – so silent, so dark, those shadows at the top of the stairs from the candelabra on the upper hallway table – Jonathan’s pulse raced even further.

Martin was playing a game. He’d be lying in bed, ready for him, on his stomach, his thighs pulsing. He wouldn’t say a word, he’d submit himself to Jonathan. Normally, Jonathan would discard his clothing before even reaching the door. Not tonight – on this night, he’d be taking off his clothes after he’d finished, burning them in the basement furnace, donning the travel suit he’d planted in Martin’s closet weeks ago.

He walked up the stairs, making barely a noise. The door remained ajar, and through it Jonathan could see Martin’s legs on the bed. Just as he’d imagined – on his stomach, waiting for Jonathan to enter. Jonathan felt the rush of blood to his center, but ignored the thrill. Tonight, he needed the focus.

He touched the door, opening it further, and screamed. Martin lay on the bed, a pool of blood surrounding his head, his torso, blood coming out of his mouth still. And as he screamed, he felt a burning weight of a thousand pounds pour into his back, and as he fell to the floor, the pain jittering from his back, into his stomach, tasting blood in his mouth, he saw Martin, lying there in blood, and remembered their love.

Burgundy

Jonathan wept at the final scene when Tosca hurled herself over the edge of the building. The audience at the Paris l’Opera stood to attention as soon as the curtain came down, offering rousing applause to the singers. Five curtain calls – Jonathan thought, it could have easily gone to ten or twelve.

Nothing compared to Tosca at the l’Opera, sitting in the burgundy velour seats with gold trim, looking up at the rows and rows of balconies, the deep red curtains that draped the stage. The crystal chandeliers that descended from the ceiling, a maze of tapestries, harkened to a time more real than these years of smartphones, texting, and tweeting – when had life become so trivial?

He moved out into the aisle, a strange thrill of depressed anticipation careening through his body. He bumped into this gentleman, he Je m’excused himself to that lady, he stepped ever forward to the grand lobby of the Paris l’Opera. His heart began to race, his hands became clammy, for he knew the time had come. The time had come to exact his judgment, his final judgment –

Once he got outside, he hailed a Peugeot taxicab. “51 Rue de la Marchez, s’il vous plait.”

Martin would be waiting for him, as he always had been. But instead of feasting on her body, losing themselves in the passion of skin on skin, tongue on tongue, their bodies becoming one conjoined tremor after another – tonight, it would end very differently for Martin. And then Jonathan would be free of him.

Jonathan’s pulse beat loud in his head. He had arrived. The taxicab had reached 51 Rue de la Marchez. The light to Martin’s bedroom remained on. The rest of the house lay in darkness.

The dark side

Byron played dodge ball better than anyone I knew in the third grade, always the last man standing. Or boy, I suppose. He seemed like a man to me, tall and muscular for a ten-year old boy. He’d been kept back a year by his mother, so he was taller and more developed than any of us nine-year olds. Since his last name was White, Byron sat next to me.

We laughed when Mrs. Spence went over the grammar lesson, punching out prepositional phrases, adjectives, and adverbs like they were kittens in a box. I’d make funny noises with my hand under my armpits and he’d laugh. He’d turn up his nose and lower his eyelids to make goofy faces at me and I’d laugh. I liked Byron because he didn’t call me “Pecker” or “Woody” just like all the other kids did. And I liked him because he didn’t pick me last for the kickball team. He didn’t pick me first but he didn’t pick me last.

Half way through the year, Byron had to move and I cried. I cried because my friend was leaving the third grade and moving to East Liberty. Had to go to another school, he told me. After he left I felt very lonely. And the class wasn’t nearly as interesting. The only black boy had left and all that remained were thirty pasty-white boys and girls. Nowhere near as interesting without Byron.

I wonder where Byron is today.

Mission accomplished

Four years it had taken to finish this novel, four years of endless drafts, workshops every week with three different groups, dozens of women critiquing my heroine’s tale of overcoming repression in the Depression and World War II, so much hard work, crafting the plot and creating the characters that tried to keep her down and, at the same time, forced her out of her cocoon – all done now, the manuscript frozen, the next step being to shop the book around, maybe self-publish if I lost patience with agents and publishers’ rejections – who cares about going that route, isn’t it only ego?

And now what? What would I do, now that I’d put Agnes, Norman, Brian, Cristina, Victoria, Siobhan, Uncle Collin, Siobhan, and Gracie to rest? Perhaps a sequel for the children, Grace and Harold? Perhaps a prequel, delving into Agnes’s father and Brian, and answering the burning question, did their friendship turn romantic? Nah, the reader likes to guess, the reader likes to fill in the blanks himself (or herself, let’s be honest – my readers will be predominantly women). But what now?

All I knew is that I couldn’t put the pen down now, now that I’d gotten it going. I had to create characters that wanted to grow but somehow stood in each others’ way. I had to make twisted plot points that somehow created seemingly insurmountable barriers for these people – who somehow became real to me. And I had to create historical settings for them, places with interesting pasts that were worth depicting. I had to write … but what now?

I opened a new Word document and stared at the blank page. I closed my eyes, and then I began typing.

The package

The cellphone rang at the same time my laptop beeped. Unless I guessed wrong, this meant a package was waiting for me at the front desk. Oh, goodie – but I wondered what it might be. I wasn’t expecting any packages.

So I put on some clothes (all right, I was masturbating, what’s it to you?) and ran downstairs. I saw Rachel on the catwalk, walking Coco, Estee, Passion, and Taylor, her four little Chihuahuas. Ever since Mark had died, it seemed like the dogs and cats in her apartment had just multiplied. But then again, so had mine – we now had Chester, Agnes, Patrick, and Dudley. A dog, two cats, and a bird.

“Thanks, Sean,” I said at the front desk when he handed me the package from Amazon. Amazon? I wasn’t expecting anything. And then I saw it was for Bill – but what’d he ordered from Amazon? Oh, well, I sighed, taking the package upstairs and back into the apartment.

Chester greeted me as if I’d been gone for four years, off to fight the wars and finally back from my grand mission.

“Enough, Chester,” I said, placing the package on the kitchen counter and diverting my attention to the dog – but what could it be, I said, looking back at the package. Bill had been awfully secretive in recent months, ever since he’d had the affair, even though he’d promised to stop it. What could it be?

That phrase that kept running through my head, whenever his cellphone rang, when he received a text message, when he excused himself quickly to send an e-mail, when he got any unusual letters, no return address, in the daily mail. What could it be? I asked myself, every time, unable to stop the little voice in the back part of my head, the part where danger lurks, the part where curiosity takes hold and spreads through the brain like wildfire. What could it be?

I looked at the package again, and then I decided.

Face in the tree

“I see Alaska,” Jim said, keeping both hands on the steering wheel even though looking up at the sky.

Augustine laughed. “Well, I see Laurence Olivier as King Lear in that ‘80s PBS movie.”

“And what about that cloud?” Randy asked. “That looks like David after a really bad bowel movement.”

“Hey, that’s not funny!” David said, grunting and giggling.

I howled at that, practically kissing the shoulder of the road. “Hey guys, don’t be too funny, I’ll have an accident.”

We were on our way to see Cher, live in concert, her umpteenth retirement tour. And David sat in the back, miffed at Randy’s comment.

“Oh, David, come on. You know I was fooling with you.”

“And that one over there – Randy, that looks like your face. Before you had the nose job.” And with that, David whooped up, louder than the rest of us. He looked like the image in that tree we’d seen the day before. In the John Muir Woods – you know, that 350 year old sequoia.

Mother's Day

I heard the sucking sound of the ventilator, in and out like a snoring hyena, the beep of the heart rate monitor, the same tone as those hearing tests I was forced to have every year growing up, and the gurgling sound of the IV pack, dripping its last drops of glucogen and protein into her veins. This is how I decided to spend my mother’s fifty-ninth Mother’s Day, sitting by her hospital bed, holding her fat white hand, looking at the U-shaped stitches of her bald scalp where they’d operated, three days earlier, after her cerebral hemorrhage.

She hadn’t opened her eyes yet, but they said she would in about a week. And then, a week after that, she’d be able to breath without the ventilator, so she’d be able to talk. Oh, how Mama liked to talk – an endless streak of gossip, politics, and family history, always the last to finish her meal, long after everyone else had ate their final morsel. She’d be going at it, her non-stop monologue, bitchy and intimate all at the same time, self-centered and generous in every sentence.

At least the stroke had affected her right side, so she’d be able to talk. The left side controls verbal capabilities and logic, they’d told us – but the right side, massively damaged, controlled her imagination and her emotions. Well, maybe that’d be a blessing, this woman who’d never gotten over her mother’s death when she was only seven – perhaps she might no longer feel that pain ...

Happy Mother’s Day, Mama ... if you can hear me in there. Show me a sign, let me know that you understand. And then – as if God had willed it himself, she lifted her right hand, and then patted my own, three times. And then it rested, once again.

Beach, sand, ocean, tide

How I remember our trips to the beach, ten years ago, those secluded spots at the edge of the rocky shoal where we laid our towels, in parallel, and soaked in the warm winter sun, even on that one day when the temperature dipped to 55 and the wink picked up so much, our skin was tarred and feathered by blowing sand on HPV 15 sunscreen! And how I remember swimming in the ocean with you those fun, romantic times, even when the water was only 75 degrees, we could detect a mild but otherwise prohibitive undercurrent. The magic of those days, the vibrant blues and greens and yellows and reds of the land, sea, and sky, and how it gave me hope that, in the middle of life, we might recapture the distilled energy of our youth, and engage in one last thread of impetuosity, before the sagging weight of gravity and time pulled our bodies, minds, and souls into psychosocial menopause –

Until that point, two years ago, when I found the e-mails from your lover, the one you’d been screwing six months, those six months just after our long-delayed wedding, the wedding that took place in the witness of all your family, all my family, all your friends, all my friends – but I err, for you had no friends at that wedding. I used to wonder why, why it was, that all your friends kept their distance, visited you never, called you rarely, why you never called them, sent birthday cards, gifts, inquired after their families and their own friends. And that got me wondering,, why the alcohol, why the prescription drugs, why the flirtations, why the spending, why the gambling, why the risk-taking, why the … why the hell?

And so this is goodbye. I’ve packed up my suitcases and I’m heading to points unknown, to a place where I can find myself again, after all these years, where I can lick my wounds and figure out how it is, how it is that I shall spend the twenty, thirty, maybe forty years that are left to me. But I know that if I were to stay, I would be lost, and forced by the all-powerful pull, I’d end up following you down that sucking vortex of self-destruction.

It's time

“Norman’s voice rose. “What the hell was that?”

Agnes gawked out the back window. The cat’s paws flailed about, its body seized up, and then went limp.

“You ran over a cat. Stop the car.”

He looked in the rear-view mirror, his profile as hard as bronze. “No. It’s only a cat.”

“Don’t be cruel. I said stop right now – or I will make you stop.” She grabbed him by the arm and the car swayed from left to right.

Norman brought the car to a halt. “Are you crazy, woman?”

Her heart pulsing strong in her head, she got out of the car and waddled over to the animal, feeling the weight of the baby every step. Agnes sat down next to the cat. Her voice broke like glass on a cement floor. “Poor, innocent animal. I’m so sorry, little baby. We didn’t mean to do this.” She picked up the cat, cradled him in her arms, and poured her heart out in a bath of tears.

She heard Norman approach, slow and steady. He spoke to her in velvet tones.

“How dare you,” she mumbled. “You murderer. You killed this poor cat, all because you had to be in a hurry to get home.”

“Agnes, you’re beside yourself. Calm down, or –”

But Something was happening. “Be quiet,” she ordered. Her abdomen clutched her like a vise and she lurched forward. For an eternity, her body tensed up in the spasm, but finally it relaxed.

They stared at each other for a long time, silent and breathing hard. Then, just as Victoria had warned, she felt a warm liquid escape from between her legs.

“My God, a contraction, and the amniotic sac broke. The baby’s coming.”

Norman paced about, at a loss for once. “But it’s not due for two months.”

Agnes rocked back and forth once again. “The baby isn’t waiting. What shall we do?”

And what would they do, out here in the middle of nowhere?

Right in front of her

Sheila juggled her cellphone in her right hand – that call from Mother, she was sure it was about those shirts she had to buy for Dad, should Sheila take the call or let it go to voicemail – and trying to put her lipstick on with the left hand, but she was right-handed and knew it’d go on badly, like that clown with the single teardrop – so she steered the wheel with her left knee, and then dialed that number, the one that always made her blood freeze because it always presaged that chalkboard-scratching “It’s about time you called your mother” –

Bamm. With the crash, Sheila’s head jerked forward, the cellphone flew out of her hand, she painted a criss-cross pattern of lipstick on her cheeks, nose, and upper lip, and her purse flew onto the floor by her feet. And then Sheila’s head came to a stop, just inches before hitting the steering wheel (a dark bruise on her forehead would’ve been hard to explain to Mrs. Findlay when she got to work), and smoke started to come out from the engine.

“Sheila! Sheila! You pick up this phone now! I know this is you calling!”

Sheila ignored the cellphone. She looked up at the car right in front of her. A brand-new Mercedes-Benz sedan, all black, a man with a crisp haircut in the driver’s seat, all alone, wearing a crisp shirt and dark jacket. He got out of the car slowly, and so did she. What to do? Easy enough … she remembered what Judy Winchell had told her for such occasions as this.

But when she opened the door, Sheila burst into tears. “My god,” she said to the man as he approached, “I don’t know what happened. How could this be happening to me when I’m just trying to go to work? How –“

“Sheila?” the man said. “Sheila Burnside, is that you? Are you all right?”

“Oh my god,” Sheila said, “it’s Harry Peters. Of all people –“

“It’s Henry Peters now. Sheila, you need to sit down, your face is all white –“

“And I’m Sheila Pembroke now, though I am divorced,” she said, flashing him an ever-so-slight smile. “I do think I need to sit down. May I sit in your car? Oh, dear, is there much damage?”

He escorted her to the back seat of his car – oh, what legroom, Sheila thought.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Peters said. “We’ll just send both cars over to my insurance carrier. I throw all my business over to him anyway, so he owes me one. And about you, Sheila, where are you living now?”

Ice

Settling into the Hampton Inn in Kearney, Nebraska. Jessica sighed. It was only seven, she’d finished her audit presentation to the gasket manufacturers, she’d already had dinner – chicken fried steak and canned broccoli, she was sure it was canned even though the dragon-tattooed waitress had said, no ma’am it’s fresh, and why did all the young ones have dragon tattoos now? – and nothing to do on the Tuesday evening but sit in the room and read her book.

Not even interesting, “The Seven Veils of Mata Hari,” a plodding graduate-student novel that was all about feminist rage. Jessica had had enough of being mad at stupid men running the world. Like the whole world didn’t already know that stupid men had screwed up the world? And why’d she think of Dick Cheney all of a sudden.

Jessica sighed again. She hated taupe, and they always painted the walls taupe at Hampton Inns. All her cheap-assed boss would pay for on trips like these. And she went out of town two, maybe three, times every month. Why’d their clients always live in places like Kearney or Dubuque? The most glamorous city she’d visted was Denver, and they all wore cowboy hats and tried to act like Brad Pitt in “Thelma and Louise."

She had to have a martini. The refrigerator bar had the mini-bottles of gin and vodka to buy, so all she had to get was ice.. So she took the empty bucket and went out into the hallway. Down at the end, she saw – so she went there, and then she saw a young blonde man, a boy really, a teenager … no, college-age … athletic, short shorts, tight t-shirt, hairy for his age … hmm, Jessica thought.

Lucky she was wearing a short skirt and no bra. The evening needn’t be boring.

Yesterday

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. She told me yesterday.”

Martha huffed and puffed. Well, he'd have to try. 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 hairy upper lip, 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 her laundry, make her bed, and empty her 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 -- at their age, getting close to 60 -- would have to care for this baby. And all because George was going through his mid-life crisis. Good God, she thought, this child would graduate from college when they were close to 80.

If George was going to have a mid-life crisis, why didn't he just buy a 1966 Corvette Stingray like Bob Smith did not long after he started combing all his hair over one side to cover his bald spot? No, he had to do this! And now Jessica was pregnant and they were in a fix. George had to go out and buy a twin-engine speed boat and hire the captain who got their 19-year old daughter pregnant.

"Shit, George, wait just a minute. She told you yesterday? You kept this to yourself for a whole day?”

Brimming over

“How do I hack that code to get it working with my Chrome browser?” Jerry said, staring into the workstation screen from the desk in his home office. His eyes felt like lasers. He just had to get this bug fixed before dinner, before Tom came home from the gym. He’d just put the linguini in the pot, leaving it simmering. He’d get back to it in seven minutes, and sure enough, he’d have his bug fixed before then.

Jerry tapped his index finger against his chin, but he closed his mouth tight shut. If he started chewing his fingernails now, searching every corner of his brain for a solution to that array out-of-bounds bug he’d been getting for three days running, he’d never stop, and he’d end up eating dinner with Tom and bleeding fingers. He sat on his fingers. Got it!

Figured out something new to try in that other module, all he’d have to do was put a memory check in the code, compile it, and run it. Damn, why does Windows software run so slowly, he thought. But there it compiled, he clicked on the command to run the test. He saw the little dots appear across the screen. It always crashed before the fourth dot, but this time, it made it to five, six, seven –

Seven!

He’d completely forgotten about the linguini on the stove. Jerry looked at the computer clock – eleven minutes had passed! He ran down the stairs from the office, around the corner into the kitchen. The pot was boiling over, steaming mad over being left alone while its owner hacked away at unreadable code. Jerry dashed over to it, but the water had oozed onto the stove top, down onto the tile floor. Jerry slipped before reaching it, he reached for the oven arm, missed and knocked the stewing tomato sauce off the stove and all over the kitchen cabinets and floor, and then his legs went up in the air, his back hit the floor, and he went down with an Ugh.

Later that evening, after Tom had come home and picked Jerry up off the floor and given him a back massage after Chinese take-out, Jerry checked his computer. The damned program had crashed on the eighth dot.

Children playing, city alley

“Oh, Kelly, don’t pick your nose on the street!” Marcie said, screwing up her nose into the stinker face her mommy always kidded her about. But this stinker face was deserved. Kelly looked really gross and ugly with that snot just hanging out of her nostril like a bird’s claw.

Kelly stuck her tongue out at Marcie and then pushed her left shoulder back. “Tag! You’re it.” And she ran over behind the garbage can, scrouching down as if playing hide and seek. But Marcie wasn’t fooled at all. Shoo, Marcie thought, Kelly didn’t have anywhere close by to escape to. Just that brick wall, that rusty gray fence, and the cement floor behind the garbage cans.

Too bad Marcie didn’t have a grass backyard like some of her friends at school. And neither did Kelly. Kelly’s daddy had died last year when she was in the first grade, and Marcie, well, she and Mommy moved out of the Larchmont house and to the Bronx when Daddy went up to prison. And she got a divorce, too, and was now spending nights with that hairy man with the snake tattoo on his behind that he kept jiggling on his way to the bathroom after drinking too much beer. Marcie wished he’d leave them be, but he kept staying overnight in Mommy’s bedroom with her.

So Kelly decided to put up with Marcie’s snotty face. Even if it was really gross.

Cheese and crackers

A Ford Explorer, Chevy Suburban, and a Dodge Durango,

The microcosm of where we are and how we got here.

The family, father, mother, and children, always inside,

Protected by its gas-thirsty frame from baseless threat,

Jailed by its prosaic shell from enlightened thought.

Our American family journeys to its evening fare.

...

Our father drives, one hand on the steering wheel,

The other pressing his smartphone to his ear.

Man’s costly toy, salve to his bruised ego,

Surrounds his life with marketed mindlessness,

Smothers his identity with mindless marketing.

Our father is consentingly happy.

...

Our mother rides, one hand covering her left ear,

The other pressing her smartphone to her right ear.

Her family and home, the products of her longings,

Surround her life with mind-numbing noise bytes

That stave off her soul’s vast emptiness.

Our mother is consentingly happy.

...

Child the older, both hands embracing his Nintendo,

His music’s earphones pressed securely to his ears,

Electronic sedation draining his brain of bits and bytes.

Child the younger, listening to Britney and to Jaylo,

Her music’s earphones pressed securely to her ears,

Pop, rock, and rap oozing into her.

The gift of dimness proscribing their destinies,

Our children are consentingly happy.

...

Our family journeys to the cheese and crackers of life.

Dinner at Applebee’s, shopping at Home Depot,

Browsing at Toys R Us, scouring Wal-Mart,

The zeal for economic growth, the curse of the chain store,

They pin their hopes on these sources of enlightenment.

Books cast aside, conversation tweeted, discussion thwarted,

Relationships kept afar, intimacies avoided.

...

Driving the SUV down the American road,

Always yielding to the thrill of suburban myopia,

Always serving the will of the mighty dollar,

Always embracing the drill of conformity.

Our humanity consentingly vanishes.

The dispute escalates

Frank called this morning at 5:00 a.m. Mama had fallen out of bed and they rushed her to the hospital. I fumed and felt my heart race, sitting there on the edge of the bed, Saul’s spotty snoring poking at me like rubber bands.

“I could’ve told you this would happen,” I said. “Not even two days since you moved Dad to the other facility, and we’ve got an incident.”

“Totally unrelated, Jean. They said she was asleep. It could’ve happened any time.”

“But this proves my point. Mama should be living with us, not in Maine where she doesn’t have a single family member.”

“But Dad needs the familiarity of their town where they’ve spent their retirement years.”

“How would he know? He has Alzheimer’s Disease! Every place is just like any other.”

“Besides, Mother is probably over-dramatizing. She probably fell out of bed on purpose, just to get attention.”

“That’s absurd,” I said, goaded on by his obtuseness. “How dare you make such remarks about our mother.”

“She’s a manipulator, you know I’m right.”

“She’s also lying in bed, disabled by that stroke. Except for her one index finger.”

“And that bitchy mouth she used to control our father.”

“Go jump in a lake. I’m bringing Mama to New York.”

“Not without my consent, you’re not. Maybe she should be with me in Baltimore.”

“And have you ignore her? Not a chance in the world, you cold fish.”

“You irrational harpie.”

I hung up the phone and lay back down in bed, Saul still snoring. It had gone better than expected.

It's still going strong

The hairy V-shape of his bush, still light brown after all these decades, the smooth contours of his abdominal muscles, wrapped tightly around his stomach, the line of curly hair leading up the belly button to his pectorals, the gray in his chest hair, emanating outward from the concave center to the mauve nipples on either side, his rounded shoulders and the veiny biceps, the long dark hair, ever so slightly receding, ever so slightly gray, the goatee, mostly gray but who cares? And the scent of him above me, licking him in the center, the familiar texture with its veins, the two pillows that it rests on – the scent of him, as familiar to me as my grandmother’s white silk negligee. Like the pajamas I wear to bed every Saturday evening for our weekly ritual, I’ve worn him around my heart these thirty-two years.

“Martha, where’s dinner?”

“Coming, George,” I’d answer, taking my time, knowing he’ll be impatient even if I bring it to the table in thirty seconds, ergo taking my own time.

“Martha, rub my feet for me, honey.”

“In a moment, George, after I finish folding the laundry,” I’d reply, my heart folding at the edges, knowing that my boy needed me, the chores of the day enveloping me in warm coziness. And loving those little disagreements, the bossiness, and the arguments that have all led up to that weekly ritual of his scent, staring up at him from that place between his legs, as only I can do.

I found the silver lining

“When is he coming back, Frank. I made your brother promise me he’d be coming back.”

My mother never asked questions, but of course not. It was not her place to request favors of her children. But this was as close as she could get, I suppose, lying there in bed, able to move nothing more than the index finger of her right hand.

I remember that index finger well. She’d shake it at me when I was little and bad, like when I ate half my brother’s birthday cake before dinner, like when I threw ants on the red-hot Corning glass stove top. That wagging index finger was the terror of my childhood.

And now that’s all that remained of her, that and a scratchy, throaty voice. That damned stroke, bad enough to disable her. And she didn’t even have Dad anymore – that funny, gentle father who giggled, laughed, and made everyone feel good – even her, even bossy, recalcitrant her and that wagging index finger. Yesterday he went to the Alzheimer’s unit, miles away, probably never to see her again, or at least never to live with her, to share those intimate moments that only they knew.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her, Dad would never be coming back. In a year, he probably wouldn’t even remember who she was. And, if there were any silver lining in this long cloud of goodbyes, she would one day have a peaceful rest, too.

A bad habit

“There’s nothing like sitting out on my dock, watching the sun set over the stream, with Oscar and a glass of red wine,” Carlotta said. She got out the clippers and set up the moisturizing liquid. Nice and warm on my hands, always felt smooth.

“It sounds lovely,” I said, as if savoring a holiday meal after dieting on a deserted island for a month. Since I’d given up drinking in September, my own guilty pleasures revolved around ritual visits to manhunt or bigmuscle websites.

“Ever since Charlie left, geez – how many years was that? Oscar’s been my pride and joy. Much better than having a man in the house. But he’s getting a little old now, and can’t jump up on the kitchen counter anymore –“

“Be thankful for life’s blessings,” I said, thinking of Peebles and the broken Wedgewood china. “You’re safe from broken antiques now.”

“Every time you come in here, your nails are always cut real close,” Carlotta said. “I never have to trim them. Those yellow toenails, however –“

“I can’t control them, they grow like wildfire. Like my hair.”

She gave me a hearty, throaty laugh. “You do have a bird’s nest on top of your head there. But you never tell me why you come to a manicurist when your nails are always microscope short.”

Did I know Carlotta well enough to tell her? I could just say, I play the piano, always cut them short so I don’t clickety-clack on the keys. But I could tell her the truth, when I get nervous, I pick at my lips until they bleed. Geeeerrrrrrroooooooooooossssssss.

“Maybe you can get a second cat for Oscar. Call him Felix.”

An illicit substance

I heard the L.T.D. whizz up Fairhills Drive. Mom and Dad were on their way to church for a choral rehearsal. Heather was at band practice. Lucy was spending the evening with her boyfriend, Bob Smith.

I lifted the mattress a little bit at a time, panting like a dog. But I don’t think our little spaniel ever panted in quite this way.

There they were, my precious pile of pictures. Very neatly torn from Mom’s Time magazines, her Newsweeks, and Dad’s U.S. Business Weekly issues. And my very own favorite, those back pages from the comics I’d buy from the drug store. Every week, every month.

I never once read Time Magazine, Newsweek, or U.S. Business Weekly. I never once even looked at a comic. But I collected pages from them like they were irreplaceable stamps from the Austria-Hungarian Empire, fine silver pieces from the Romanov Dynasty, the crown jewels of the British Royal Family.

I took the stack from under the bed, darting my eyes to the bedroom window, looking out, making sure no green ‘74 Ford L.T.D. was headed back to the house. I placed the stack on the pillow, pulled the sheet and bedspread back, smoothed out the mattress sheet.

One page at a time, I lay them out on the bed in three rows, six columns – my favorite eighteen. There was the bodybuilder with the tidal wave biceps and Superman shoulders. There was Tom Selleck, shirt open halfway down his chest, advertising a cigarette. There was the hairy-chested man in a Speedo with the layered haircut, holding up an isometric resistance machine. All my favorites, laid out one at a time.

I looked out the window, no car – good, five minutes had passed, safe to proceed. I took off my shirt, my sneakers, my white socks with the dual red stripes on top, my Levis. I folded them neatly and placed them on my red chair, and then – down to my underwear, I took off the Hanes. I climbed onto the bed, sat on my knees, looked at my pictures …

I heard the door downstairs slam shut, my mother’s familiar rapid steps racing to the bottom of the stairs. I dove down, grabbed the bed covers, arranged myself on top of all my precious pictures, the blanket up to my chin –

“Get up out of that bed, Johnny Williams, you’re coming to church with us now,” my mother said. “Father Don will have a word with you about those water balloons.”