Poison

Paddy saw him from afar on that steamy August afternoon in the Boboli Gardens, wearing low-cut jeans, a white t-shirt that showed off his slinky frame and sinewy arms, flip-flops highlighting the high arches of his tanned, olive Italian skin – and wearing aviator sunglasses on a face with a square jaw, luscious, full lips, a high forehead, and that Roman nose – Paddy, the freckled redhead from Dublin on holiday before the last year of university, was transfixed.

The boy walked past Paddy, peering down at him, smiling with a little twitch of that luscious mouth, and passed him. And as the young man walked away, he planted his legs just every so slightly forward – so as to pump his left glute, then his right, in a way that (Paddy was certain) was intended to entice Paddy to follow.

And so Paddy did follow.

The magical motion of the young man’s bubble butt had Paddy entranced. He followed him from one terrace to the next, past a Roman statue and then a Greek – one of the gods, Aries, Paddy was sure. When the young man came to a fountain with a statue of Poseidon, about to walk down the stairs to the next terrace, he looked back at Paddy. And smiled. Then disappeared down the stairs.

Paddy’s heart raced. He could feel his pulse just above both ears. The arousal he felt in his torso – which led to an arousal between his legs, overwhelmed him. He had to continue following that boy, that Eros who enticed him to fill a need he’d never felt, never experienced in his Dublin years – and then the boy with the swaying hips and the luscious glutes and that magical Roman nose crossed a street, and then Paddy followed him –

The last thing Paddy remembered was a loud, roaring sound coming toward him, as he turned his head to the left and saw the speeding Mercedes autobus –

Wishing you well

When Martha contemplating dying, she could feel the dry, chalky flakes as her fingers swept over "Alas, poor Yorick's" skull." She could see the limp head of her pet sheltie Heather flop down as she lifted her to her chest for one last hug. She could smell the pungent citrus flavor as she opened the door to her grandmother's apartment, five days after poor Grandma died.

She could hear her boss talking about poor, dear, sweet Ellen, "We wish her well in her new endeavors."

Martha couldn't believe her ears. Ellen, the most productive, the most engaging software engineer in the whole group - the mother of the team, the oldest member of the gang, the one who always got us going to lunch together, and the one who kept the product going forward - canned. Like death, like the flicking out of a candle.

All of a sudden, and without warning, Monday at 3:30 p.m. Kram the boss pinged us for a meeting in a conference room. Funny thing, everyone was there, sitting around the table. We looked at each other. Every pair of eyes said, "Why the hell are we here?" And then it became weird, where the hell is Ellen? She was upstairs, she's here today. And then Kram said, "As of today, Ellen is no longer with the company."

No longer with the company. The dreaded undiplomatic, idiotic, moronic phrase. No longer with the company. Well, fuck you too. The company is no longer with reality. We fired her, that's what you meant to say? Well, Ellen was worthy of a hell of a lot better than that. No longer with the company. Well, guess what? Neither am I.

No more direct deposit, close checking account, sell house, live on the street. Never mind.

Back to death. The end of all nuisance, the end of all pain. Maybe those dry flakes on the skull of that dead alas-poor-Yorick don't feel quite so bad.

Back in the day

“Oh, Ashley, how you do run on,” Scarlett said.

She and Ashley had not yet noticed Aaron peeking through the doorway. It must be late in the book. Scarlett wore a garish blue-and-white outfit with an ostentatious bonnet, and Ashley had gray hair and a worn flannel shirt.

Poor Ashley, never can figure out if it’s Melanie he loves or Scarlett. And poor Scarlett – oh, the hell with poor Scarlett.

“Things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to, did they Ashley?”

“No, but they never do. Ah, how I remember those moonlit nights at Twelve Oaks …”

On and on they went. From standing by the door to the office, eavesdropping, Aaron could see it coming – the hug. And, true to form, he looked out the main door. There they were, approaching – India Wilkes, Archie the convict, and Mrs. Elsing. Poor Mrs. Elsing, she never got enough scene time.

Aaron had to act fast and stop Scarlett and Ashley from hugging. India Wilkes would see it and tell Melanie. Aaron tried to step in the doorway to call out a warning, but some force above him reached down, slapped him in the face, and said, “Get out of my novel! You’re going to ruin the whole climax of my book.”

That was Margaret Mitchell. And before he knew it, he was back in the time machine heading home.

How dare you

With Aaron’s new-found knowledge he intended to make the most of it. But wait a second … if she knew that she’d win the presidency, then she wouldn’t work for it. And she needed to work for it … in order for it to happen. No, Aaron had to remain silent about what he’d seen.

But it didn’t matter right now, because Aaron was sitting in a metal chair in from of a metal table in a metal-walled room with a metal-door and no windows. His hands were locked behind the chair in metal handcuffs.

The consortium was really unhappy with what he’d done. And then the wall in front of him slid off to the side. There they were. Three judges in black jeans and black t-shirts and black boots.

“Mr. Aardvark,” said the man in the middle, a bald man with smooth, taut skin but with a salt-and-pepper goatee atop a muscular frame, “we are quite unhappy with you. How dare you disobey us.”

“You’ve violated Plenary Rule No. 3385,” the wrinkled woman with long gray hair and a narrow, long nose said. “Future time travel is expressly forbidden.”

“This hearing is convened,” said the third judge. He had soft eyes, white hair, and wore black-framed glasses. A big red nose. It was the late Spencer Tracy, brought back to life. “Order in the court for Case No. 47.”

“Forty-seven?” Aaron said.

“Quiet, Mr. Aardvark. It is rare that a client violates a rule. Yes, you are only our forty-seventh case,” Spencer Tracy said. “The charges have been laid before you. What is your plea?”

“No contest,” Aaron said.

The woman spoke up. “Do you have an explanation before we pass sentence?”

“This was a lapse in judgment. I intended traveling to a political rally in 1935 for Senator Huey Long of Louisiana. My time machine, as you well know from my documented repots, errs frequently and placed me at a rally for Donald Trump in 2015.”

“Horrors!” said the bald muscle-man. Aaron made a note to get his phone number.

“You poor, unfortunate soul,” the woman judge said, “to be subjected to that vitriol.”

“What did you do next?” Mr. Tracy said.

“When the mob started attacking a woman of Muslim faith, I ran for safety, fearing I’d be next. When I got to the time machine, I must’ve been in a state, because all I thought was, Hillary has to win, Hillary has to win. And then it occurred to me, I could find out, I could find out. So that’s when I dialed the chronometer all the way to the right. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

The three judges looked at each other and conferred with hands on their microphones. After a minute, they looked up.

“Mr. Aardvark,” Mr. Tracy said. “Would you stand, please.”

Aaron stood.

“It is the judgment of this court that you violated Plenary Rule No. 3385. However, given the extreme circumstances of the mortal danger in which you found yourself at the Trump rally, we’re taking possession of your time machine for six months and grounding you during that time.”

Aaron breathed out and felt his insides begin to relax.

“No human being,” Mr. Tracy said, “should be subjected to one of those political rallies.”

Flapping

“Phooey, those racist bigots kicked the Muslim woman out and sent her careening down an alley way.” Aaron had enough of the Donald Trump rally and decided to hit the road. He might’ve been just as pasty-white, blue-eyed, and red-headed as any of the pathetic drones at that rally, but somehow he thought they’d turn on him as soon as they were done with the brown people.

He found the time machine behind a range of bushes and jumped in, cranked on the ignition, pressed the pedal, and waited. He turned the dial to March 2016 and then positioned the pointer on his map for home – ah, San Francisco, so nice to go home, he thought. And then he had an idea. So he cranked the dial all the way to the right, all the way to January 2017. And he repositioned the pointer to Washington, DC.

He just had to know. Aaron knew it was against the rules. He could only go into the past, but what of it? What the consortium didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. He’d come back quickly to the present. And if the election turned out wrong, maybe he could help change the course of events. When he pressed on go, the machine sputtered, smoked, flapped its side panels up and down, jumped up and down, and then whooshed into the white light.

He landed in the middle of a blizzard wearing only jeans and his polo shirt. “Drats, it’s bloody freezing here. And where the hell am I? Can’t see a damned thing.”

He began to shiver, but could see a wide avenue in front of him. In the distance, there were people on either side, and then he saw lights coming toward him, slowly, very slowly. And then he could hear the cheers begin to rise. Yes – he’d made it to the presidential inauguration.

Had to get the time machine out of the way. It was right in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. But it wouldn’t budge. Too much snow and nice. The procession approached more closely. Aaron could now see the figures of a tall man and a much shorter woman with long hair approaching him. They were waving to the crowds on either side, walking in front of the limousine with all the lights. But who were they?

He couldn’t leave the time machine in the middle of the avenue. As soon as he started pushing it again, he felt a rumbling of the earth beneath him. A voice spoke from the sky, “Aaron Aardvark, you’ve violated Plenary Rule No. 3385. No future time travel. We’re taking you back to the consortium for a judgment.”

Just before he felt the machine whoosh him away, he took a look at the approaching procession. He could see the man and the woman now. He recognized the famous smile of the white-haired man and the wide-eyed excitement in the eyes of his wife.

“There is a god after all.”

Not on my watch

Aaron scampered down the stairs of Aunt Wilhelmina’s house to the garage, opened the door, and removed the cover to the time machine. He got in and started it up. The machine sputtered, jumped up and down. Fog spewed from both sides and the machine groaned its way to a start. Aaron turned the time dial back to 1935 and the location dial to Louisiana.

He hoped he’d land in Baton Rouge just in time. He was doing research for a political science class, and needed to speak to Huey Long. He knew the rules – he couldn’t tell these people what was going to happen to them. But he’d love to tell Long he’d be shot and killed because he was such a creepy demagogue.

After he interviewed Senator Long, he’d swoop over to the Senate floor in 1954 and meet with Joseph McCarthy – his second interview for the term paper at U.C.S.F.

The machine finally began to purr, then Aaron felt himself rise in it and get swooped into the clouds. Before he knew it, he saw the white light in front of him, blackness surrounded the white light. And then he landed with a thud that had him groaning.

He was surrounded by bushes and trees, but could see a small town’s buildings just beyond. Good – a rural, country town likely in the Deep South. He’d made it to Louisiana. Aaron crept out of the time machine – oh, his left hip to a beating at yet another rough landing.

He walked around the corner to Main Street. His heart sank when he saw a Chevrolet Camaro and a Toyota Prius. New models. Damn, he hadn’t made it back to the 1950s. He was still stuck in 2015. But he did get to another location – though it was Marietta, Georgia. Not Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Damn. He heard the political rally beyond. He could hear the threats and the insults from the microphone – a high-pitched voice spewing insults with bad grammar and a thick New York accent that always had Aaron thinking, “this guy has no class.” Aaron walked toward the rally and saw all the denim and polyester among the overweight people wearing old shoes and baseball caps.

There wasn’t a non-white in the crowd. Oh, well, Aaron thought – he needed to interview the third demagogue on his list for the term paper anyway. Might as well check Donald Trump off the list now as later.

No way!

Leila screamed, terrorized by the scene before her: Howard, face down in front of his apartment, dead as a door nail, a large kitchen knife protruding from under his body; Grace, white-faced, blood on her hands, splattered on her neck, down her cleavage, her eyes blazing and poring into Leila.

No way could this be happening. The hallway zoomed out like a mile-long tunnel and zoomed back in, hitting her direct in the face. Ceiling shadows menaced her like scampering tarantulas, a sudden itch in her back startled her into turning around, sure that a violent murderer would soon seize her, and Grace's eyes penetrated right to the bottom of her stomach. It lurched and seized her abdomen; she vomited her dinner. Spinach from the salad she'd eaten only forty minutes ago blew out her nose, landing on the white wall beside her.

Grace flexed her long, tenacious fingers -- claws that caused Leila to retch even more. "You bitch-whore!" Grace screamed, her blonde hair falling into her face, wet-streaked with perspiration falling down her blood-stained face. Before Leila even stopped vomiting, she was on Leila, grabbing her by her long, dark hair, pulling her head back. Leila choked on vomit, struggled, spit on Grace's legs. She looked above her, weeping for the impending doom she was so soon to reach. And then the fight came back into her.

With her free hands she clubbed Grace in the knees, pulled one of her legs in one direction, the other in the opposite. Grace fell forward on top of her, pulling hair out of Leila's head, falling on top of Howard's back. Leila kicked at Grace, pulled herself free, and with all her might slammed her fists into Grace's back. And then everything went black …

Put on more clothes!

Tommy stepped up to the stoop from the sand and peaked over the wall into the master bedroom. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter stood on opposite sides of the bed. Tommy didn’t like them because Mrs. Hunter yelled at her smarmy daughters and slapped Jeff that one time. Mr. Hunter had a heavy scratchy face and swayed from side to side every evening. Those evening he gave off a pungent sharp smell that made Tommy gag. Mommy and Daddy didn’t like them either. Mommy said they were probably going to get a divorce. Tommy didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded awful.

Mr. and Mrs. Hunter weren’t wearing any clothes. Mrs. Hunter had her backside to the window. She had a funny rear end, like the curdles of cottage cheese gone bad. Tommy gagged again. Her blonde hair wasn’t tied into a skin-tight ponytail like it usually was. She had it so tight, her eyes popped out of her head like that Martha Mitchell lady who was always yelling on TV. She looked like Martha Mitchell, too – except that Tommy liked Martha Mitchell.

Mr. Hunter faced Mrs. Hunter and he was naked, too – but he looked funny. His penis stood up all by itself, like it was Peter Pan or something. Tommy felt a wave of excitement come over him when Mr. Hunter put his leg up on the bed – and then Mr. Hunter looked out the window and saw Tommy staring at him.

Tommy ran and ran and ran back to their own cottage. “Mommy, I saw Mr. Hunter attacking Mrs. Hunter in their bedroom and then he saw me. I’m scared he’ll hurt me, Mommy!”

“I always knew they were trouble, Tommy. I think they’re headed for a divorce.”

Nobody is here

Grace cowered in the corner between the nightstand and the highback chair, the reflection of her blonde hair from the outdoor's twilight the only visible entity in the studio apartment. She felt Howard stomping across the courtyard, entering through the back utility door, galloping up the back stairwell three steps at a time, certain nobody’s be home. She'd turned out the lights, long before assuming her present position, a cat ready to pounce on its prey.

That afternoon, she'd witnessed what she'd long suspected: Howard having an affair with Leila, right under her nose, right across the courtyard at the Tarantella Inn. She couldn't believe her husband was stepping out on her, and with an easy divorcee so slatternly as Leila. Once, she could forgive, but she knew, from what she witnessed this afternoon, its duration, how long Howard stayed with her, how many times her binoculars betrayed the shadows bouncing back and forth like a misshapen pendulum -- all from the two narrow windows of her studio apartment.

So she'd retreated to the corner, like a cat, ready to pounce the moment Howard entered the apartment. She heard heavy footsteps approach, each step louder than the previous, the hard black leather soles of the man's shoes mocking her, daring her to confront him. The key made a staccato sound as he put it in the lock and he opened the door. He turned the light switch -- nothing, no light. She peeked at him from behind the highback chair, saw his 220 pound frame of muscle and ignorance confused as he called, "Grace? The light switch doesn't work!"

She attacked, jumped from behind the chair and landed the heavy steel knife right in the center of his chest. His voice croaked as he fell backward into the outer hallway, turning around in chaotic spasms and falling on his chest, the knife lodged ever deeper in his convulsing body. And before Grace knew it, the convulsions ceased as he lay in a pool of blood and the walls played out hallucinogenic patterns of dark red on the frozen white walls.

Grace, her eyes blazing with satiated desire, stood in the doorway, blood on her hands and her dress. She heard more footsteps -- lighter, more delicate, approach from around the corner. Leila turned the corner and came into Grace’s view, took in the scene. Grace met Leila’s eyes, wide, her mouth trembling as she looked down onto Howard.

Of course ...

“Of course I voted for George Bush, the father I mean, in 1988. That was back when Republicans were good.”

“They were never anything but evil.”

“Now, Charlotte, dear, you know that isn’t so. You used to rave about Betty Ford. You even liked Jerry.”

“Betty Ford wasn’t really a Republican. And Jerry governed to the left of Bill Clinton.”

“Tell that to New York City. Remember Ford telling the city to drop dead in ’75?”

“Back to the present day, Miranda. Who was the last Republican you voted for? Wasn’t it Bush Junior in 2004?”

“I voted for John Kerry. I voted for Al Gore in 2000 … of course. What sane person didn’t? I don’t know anyone who voted for that epic idiot, either time. No, the last Republican I voted for was John McCain.”

“But he ran in ’08, Miranda.”

“Not 2008, darling, in 2000. I registered as a Republican, just so I could vote for McCain. That was before he sold his soul to the right wing and put that other epic idiot on the ticket. Sarah Palin, bleah!”

“I can see Russia from my house.”

“I can see a bad Tiny Fey impression from where I’m standing.”

“Oh, ha ha, Miranda, what’ll happen if the Republicans win the White House this fall? Donald Trump as president?”

“I’ll never happen. Just as Carrie and Samantha.”

“Of course, why didn’t I think of it?”

Ticket

Jake walked from room to room, from the kitchen into the living room and then to the bedrooms, looking at drawers, cabinets, under sofas, behind televisions. He couldn’t find a single place to hide Grandma’s diamond ring. Where to put it? Oh, yes – in the empty socket box in the bathroom. The one that had a solid cover on it.

They’d never look there. Of course, Jake lived in Georgia, so “they” always meant a particularly pigmented class of people. Those kind of people. The kind of people everyone was taught to treat as inferior. The people the sick liberals from the Northeast and the West Coast always tried to force down Southerners throats. Jake rolled his eyes after hiding the ring. If the liberals had to live like he did, they’d change their merry tune.

Why, just the other day, he’d been talking to his neighbors. There’d been three burglaries in just the last couple of months. They’d gotten into one guy’s house and stolen a television. A computer and a microwave in the second. And a laptop in the third.

What did they think they were doing? Shouldn’t they be working, getting a job or something to earn their keep like everybody else, instead of mooching off solid, up-standing white people like Jake? And to make matters worse, it’d taken an outcry from the neighborhood to get the police to increase their drive-bys. But then again, most of the policemen were them. “Them,” of course.

Jake thought about all of this, getting ready for work one morning. He worried about his dog and the two cats. If someone burglarized the house, would they harm the animals? Or worse yet, would they leave the door open afterward? The animals would wander away and get lost. Idiots. They were always doing stupid things.

He drove out of his house and turned left at the corner onto the next street. A police car turned on its pig ears. Damn, Jake thought. He didn’t really stop at the sign.

And when the policeman got out, Jake knew he was screwed. It was one of them.

I'm over here

The disco pulsed with the beat of the Village People as flying arms morphed out its Y.M.C.A. refrain. Sweaty bodies of shirtless men with love beads, big-breasted women wearing hot pants and platform shoes – all danced with bounce and rhythm.

But for one woman standing against the wall by herself, in pointy black-framed glasses, straight black hair going half way down her back, a white blouse buttoned to the collar, and sky blue polyester bell bottoms that had no pockets. Emmy couldn’t figure what to do with her hands. So she just stood there – with her enormous paws hanging by their sides. I’m over here, guys, she wanted to say.

But the shirtless men and big-breasted women didn’t notice – though in her mind, they did. She’d rip off her blouse, stomp on her glasses, twinkle her hair into an Afro like Samantha on Bewitched, and jump out onto the dance floor and up onto a platform. She’d gyrate her hips to the beat of the Village People. And she’d find a guy to grind out a dance who had big shoulders, a narrow waist, and a round bulge in his jeans that pressed into her own midsection. Then they’d go off and smoke a little pot, get high, and make passionate love-not-war in the back of a beat-up VW bus. And after that, they’d go a coffee bar wearing psychedelic shirts and mood rings.

Mood rings? Coffee bar? What were they? Emmy surfaced out of her daydream. Maybe she was on to something here. She left the party to go do the market research.

These shoes hurt

Grandma was always persnickety with her shoes. Even when I was growing up and she was just an old lady somewhere in her mid-50s, she bitched and moaned about those orthopedic oxfords she wore. Comfortable shoes, my foot – she’d say to that nasty woman Gertrude she lived with after Granddad died.

I didn’t much mind that Grandma became a lesbian in her golden years, but did she have to shack up with Gertrude, that frowning prune of a square-shaped German woman?

But when Gertrude died, Grandma seemed kind of sad for a few days. And then she went out and found herself another woman, Genevieve the basketball coach with the giant schnauzers and the high-necked collars. One day, poor Genevieve unsuspecting, I walked into their room at the farm and saw Genevieve’s neck. Turkey city!

Meanwhile, let’s get back to those sensible shoes. I know it’s a stereotype, and even a cliché, but hey – Grandma wanted sensible shoes. But she still bitched and moaned about ‘em. They hurt her feet.

A couple of years ago, before Grandma kicked the bucket one August afternoon when she was watering the lawn and fell on the sprinkler, Grandma was sitting in one of those plaid high-backed chairs her generation seemed to love. She kept tilting to the right, and I’d push her back to the left. The she’d tilt to the left, and I’d push her back to the right. Finally she tilted forward, and I pushed her back in the chair.

“Oh, leave me be. Can’t you tell I’m trying to fart?”

I guess when you’re an 80-year-old lesbian making a third go of it at marriage, you can say and do whatever you like. So I took Grandma to Macy’s and got her the best shoes money could buy. I miss Grandma.

Where's the beef

I like being old enough to remember the presidential election of 1984. It was may first. And of course, of course I voted for Walter Mondale. I mean, really – the poor man lost every state except for Minnesota, his own, and he barely won that state with just 51% of the vote. I hated Ronald Reagan at the time. I thought he was such an extreme conservative.

Boy, did I have a lot to learn. If someone told me that today’s Republicans would make Reagan look like a bleeding-heart liberal, I’d probably have stayed in Munich, Germany in the early 1990s when I was there on temporary assignment and the boss had his eye on me for a permanent position. I said, another time perhaps. Aufgeschoben ist nicht aufgehoben (delayed is not cancelled).

Ah, how I miss those early years. When I was in my 20s and early 30s … I didn’t know what an achy back meant, what arthritic hips felt like, the effort it took to recover from a hip replacement, the vagaries of acid reflux-induced nausea, the dull pain after burying my second parent, of knowing I could never really be a child again.

Where’s the beef, indeed. I can hear Clara Peller saying it, I can hear Walter Monday saying it (for the record: about Gary Hart, that philandering polecat) … but I never really wanted to proof that “I got the beef.” I just wanted everything to stay the way it was.

The pilot

I saw a pilot checking into the Hyatt at the same time I reached the counter. He had a really tight behind and broad shoulders. But I wasn’t in the mood for a quickie in Orlando, Florida during an overnight on may way down to Fort Lauderdale for the cruise. So I got my room key and went upstairs to unpack.

I didn’t really need to unpack a week’s worth of clothing for an overnight, but I’m glad I did. I’d thrown everything into the suitcase this morning in Atlanta, eager to be on my way, so I knew my shirts would be wrinkled. But after I got everything straightened out, I realized something. I forgot to pack shorts. Can’t go to Florida, let alone a Carribean cruise without shorts. So I high-tailed it to the nearest mall, The Mall of the Millenia, and dropped $200 on four pair of Tommy Hilfiger shorts. Well, I’m set for the spring and summer.

I couldn’t believe the crowds at the mall. Packed like chickens at an unregulated Tysons’ farm in Arkansas. A Saturday evening, when fine music and fine wines are waiting to be experienced, and half the population of Florida is spending its time walking by Abercrombie, Fitch, the Gap, the Apple Store, and Blomingdale’s. I sighed, looking for a restaurant. All I found was a Cheesecake Factory.

The lowest of the low. Aside from the Ford Expedition, nothing is more indicative of what’s wrong with America that the Cheesecake Factory. Low-quality food, fattening, high on the refined carbohydrates, huge quantities not even a family of four (with growing children, no less) could complete in a sitting – and all those fake columns and Vegas trim. It’s not the Cheesecake Factory, it’s the Cheesy Factory.

I sighed again. On the drive from Atlanta, I listened to Beethoven. First the Missa Solemnis, then the Triple Concerto, and finally the Third Symphony. There was nothing Beethoven about this mall in Orlando, Florida.

Maybe that pilot would be in the hotel bar when I got back from my mall trip.

Forgetting

4:45 p.m. I looked outside the window of the break room. I-285 was jammed solid, a wall of trucks and autos. Southbound I-75 was also a parking lot. Damn, I’ll never make it to dinner in Roswell in time for Gary’s cocktails. Love his dirty martinis. Why couldn’t I have left the office a half hour ago? I’d have had plenty of time to go home, walk the dog, and high-tail it up to Roswell.

4:50 p.m. I filled my water bottle and went to the bathroom. Drives like this, I had to empty the bladder. No way would I ever again repeat the Florida Turnpike incident. Took me months to pay that fine, made me feel like a juvenile delinquent. I mean, really – like nobody ever took a whiz on the side of the road.

4:55 p.m. Okay, back at my desk. Laptop, notebook, water bottle, jacket, keys, reading glasses, headset. Got ‘em all. I could leave – finally. Anything I’m forgetting? Nope – let’s get out of here, I thought. Out the door I went to the elevators.

Tick tock, tick tock. Where was the damned elevator? Oh – there it is. Down ten floors, stopped at every one. People sauntered into the elevator like they had all the time in the day.

4:59 p.m. Finally, out the lobby entrance to my car and to the traffic.

5:06 p.m. I got onto I-75 south heading into Atlanta. I hit the wall of traffic, so I get off at Paces Ferry Road and head home on street roads. Whew. Traffic is fine, no trouble at all. Smooth sailing, I’d get home in twenty minutes. Then I could high-tail it up to Roswell after Chester goes to the bathroom.

Why was so much of life’s routine centered around urination?

5:30 p.m. I’m stuck at the Peachtree Street intersection. I decided to call Gary and tell him I’d be a half hour late. Traffic in Atlanta, you see. I reach for my phone in my backpack – damn. It’s not there.

5:31 p.m. I start heading back to the office. Had to have my cellphone. I couldn’t live without it.

Above the front door

I dreaded going to Herbert’s annual Christmas party. Herbert (mind you, not Herb, not Herbie … it’s Herbert) had an overbite like the grill of a 1950s Buick and smelled of Lysol disinfectant. His idea of cologne, I suppose. But I digress. Herbert always put mistletoe above the door to his dining room and stood there, beckoning guests to greet him from behind his black-framed coke-bottle glasses.

“If you want any food, you’ll have to kiss me first,” he’d say and then laugh a high-pitched hyena’s melody.

High incentive to stay on my no-carb, low-sugar, high-protein diet. Herbert always served the worst food. A vegetable platter with ranch dressing, pepperoni, potato chips (don’t forget the sour cream and onion dipping sauce), you name it – egg rolls, too, and (for some reason I haven’t figured out after all these years) jelly beans. The same spread every year.

“Herbert, Merry Christmas!” I said when I finally entered, an hour late on the hope that he’d be occupied with twenty other guests. No such luck. I was the second person there. Tiny little Ruthie Plezinsky sat on the sofa in the living room, all by herself, while Herbert lorded it over the dining room entrance.

“Come to Herbert for his holiday kiss,” he said, puckering up his lips.

“Can’t this year, Herbert, thanks. I’ve got a little head cold. I’ll just blow you a kiss as I pass –“

“Oh, no problem!” Herbert said, and took out his Zycam spray and squeezed a little into his mouth. “Kissy time!”

“No, Herbert,” I said, deciding to put my foot down.

“All right then, you know the rules. No kiss, no food.”

I turned and went into the living and joined poor Ruthie. It was then I noticed she didn’t have any food, either.

“So what was your excuse?” I said, sotte voce.

“None,” she said, also whispering. “He kissed me, and then I lost my appetite.”

Orange

“Hey guys,” I said to Steve, Mark, and Bruce when I walked up to them at the 244. Clones, every one of them – white t-shirt, tight Levi’s, black cowboy boots, 2-inch-thick black leather belt with am embossed silver buckle, handlebar moustache, buzzed hair. And a Corona in the right hand, thumb dangling out of the right pocket of the jeans. With a lime popping out the top.

Into their circle there I came – smooth-faced, long blonde hair. Khaki shorts. With pleats, for crying out loud.. And white tennis shoes with pink laces. Not to mention the shirt.

“How do you guys like my new black shirt?” I said. If only my voice would drop an octave when I was nervous. But no, Truman Capote saddled forth instead.

“What’re you talking about, buddy? Your shirt’s orange.” Steve, Mark, and Bruce looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.

The joke fell flat. Okay, damage control time.

“Sure … but isn’t orange the new black?”

Dead silence. They looked at each other, eyes wide.

“Okay, then,” Mark said, after fifteen seconds that seemed like an hour. “Over here, buddy. Lemme buy you a Corona. With a lime.”

At one point in time

At one point in time I would laugh when Charlotte blew out raspberries and extended her arms in front of her. At one point in time I would smile when Matthew rolled over on the carpet for the first time, and began to crawl across Grandma’s living room floor. At one point in time I could hear the soles of my Mary Janes on my mother’s hardwood floors, running to her midsection for a morning hug before breakfast. At one point in time I remember the rustling of the New York Times as my father sat in the kitchen room, after a pancake breakfast, absorbing the day’s news. At one point in time I remember Richard Nixon’s Watergate, Gerald Ford’s falls, Jimmy Carter’s mad rabbits, and Ronald Reagan’s astrologists. And at one point in time I walked down the aisle of St. James’s Episcopal Church on Geoffrey’s arm.

But at this point in time I live in a desert. Charlotte and Matthew have grown up, had their little rebellions (“don’t you know anything, Mom,” which was never a question). My own parents have gone to the great beyond after drawn-out illnesses that never seemed liked they’d end, but they ended all too quickly, and padded the coffers of the medical establishment. At this point in time Geoffrey is gone, too, but to a younger woman with firm breasts and a smartphone. My contact isn’t in it.

At this point in time I live alone, my ancient pug and rambunctious kitty keeping me company. At this point in time I’m not interested in settling down with a man, and barely interested in having one, even for a mad night. At this point in time I’d like to figure out my identity. By the way, my name is Guinevere and has been, at all points in time.