Rick Edelstein was born and ill-bred on the streets of the Bronx. His initial writing was stage plays off-Broadway in NYC. When he moved to the golden marshmallow (Hollywood) he cut his teeth writing and directing multi-TV episodes of “Starsky & Hutch,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Chicago,” “Alfred Hitchcock,” et al. He also wrote screenplays, including one with Richard Pryor, “The M’Butu Affair” and a book for a London musical, “Fernando’s Folly.” His latest evolution has been prose with many published short stories and novellas, including, “Bodega,” “Manchester Arms,” “America Speaks,” “Women Go on,” “This is Only Dangerous,” “Aggressive Ignorance,” “Buy the Noise,” and “The Morning After the Night.” He writes every day as he is imbued with the Judeo-Christian ethic, “A man has to earn his day.” Writing atones. INEFFABLE You’re leaving me! She said, no not said, sort of screeched twice, no three times, you’re leaving me, she redundantified, I left you long before you packed your bags. Nobody leaves me. If anybody’s doing any leaving you’re looking at her.
Wait a minute. I’m beginning to feel like an old comedy act, who’s on first. Who’s leaving, who stayed, who packed their bags? You never were a good listener. I’ll break it down. I, this dude sitting on a puffed up pillow because my hemorrhoids are acting up... That’s more information than I need. I packed my bag, singular, I don’t have all that much when you come down to it, and she, still in her ratty robe which she liked because it has character she said, reminding me, you should hear her voice, attitude dripping with what’s that word in German you taught me, when you get pleasure from someone else’s pain? Schadenfreude. Yeah, shaden...she smiled as if she was the snake who ate a live rat, talking very slowly like she was serving a rare salad dressed in venom... Mixed metaphors. Nevertheless she said that I was not, N-O-T, spelled it out in case I missed the first time. I was not her first choice. You were never my first choice, she repeated because I didn’t fall apart the first time. That’s cold. Let’s change the subject. She’s getting more air time than deserved. Yeah, okay, I read a piece I don’t remember where but it was heavy with a point of view that our nature, what we call human nature, is a direct evolution from animals who kill each other for territory, fucking rights... And if I wasn’t bleeding enough for her taste of retribution, she said loud and clear, you got me on a rebound, she said. The last guy Evander somebody... What kind of name is Evander? Tell me about it. Evander she described, as if I cared, was twenty two pounds over-weight and had the temerity, that’s the word she used, fat boy had the temerity to walk and now you think you’re the one leaving without even a note, no fucking way, if anybody is breaking up it’s yours truly, she ranted. I thought you wanted to change the subject. Good reminder. What were you saying about human nature and killing or something? The article said and it makes a lot sense, resonates truth it does. Run it by me again. What did it say? Talk about lousy listeners. Oh you’re going to start grading me like the self-appointed judge, jury and executioner when I forgot to go to Ralphs for some bread and shit. She got you by the short hairs. Every time I try and talk something else you bring the bitch back up. She ain’t a bitch. She has a good vocabulary. I have to look up some words like rectitude, ineffable, fatuous. No bitch uses such words. Fatuous. Does that mean somebody who has a propensity bordering on obese? No, I had to look it up...sorta’ means unintelligent if I remember. With such a vocabulary, I mean she’s many things unattractive and reprehensible... Talk about a vocabulary. Bu being a bitch ain’t one of ‘em. Hello! Anybody home? You’re the dude who was dissing her, you’re the one who split and now you’re protecting the b...oops, what do we call her? Can we change subject once and for all? Like I said and was saying beyond your recalcitrant self...look that up, bitch...built in to the human impulses is not love, not kindness and sharing unless you’re a mother maybe but the male animal is addicted to warlike impulses, ready to do major hurting on a perceived enemy which may be a nation or some motherfucker who still hasn’t repaid me twenty-two dollars he owes from the game, violence is a fundamental aspect of human nature unquote. Heavy. And I think I agree with you as I seriously considered violencing her righteous ass. Because frankly, I mean she kept the car and had the nerve, nerve, temerity is her favorite word, the fucking audacity to ask me to pay for the insurance until she gets up on her feet. What’s wrong with her feet? Just an expression. Until she gets a better paying job she says which may be never from the fact that she’s been working at Walgreens for three years, well, not as a clerk she says, I am assistant manager and handle the main register. I figure you straightened her out. In no uncertain terms. So you’re not carrying the insurance tab on the car. Just to the end of the insurance period, I think they call it a cycle. Which is when? A year and a half. Well, I’m glad you stood up for a man’s dignity and told her where she can put it. I mean come on, man, you can’t be carrying her for a year and a half, tell me it ain’t so. In a way...okay I gotta’ cop to the truth... when you come right down to it I will miss her. Miss her? After all you told me and more that you haven’t. Miss her? You’re like a junky kicking bad shit and yet yearning for another hit. We liked the same things and shared a kinda’ together fun-stuff, I mean show me a woman who will watch Russian car accidents with you and whoop and holler when they crash and burn. Or our favorite you can access it on YouTube which we did on a daily basis, sometimes twice. The World’s Most Shocking, and see crumbling cliffs smashing falling down on unsuspecting cars, total mayhem. We would scream and shout and holler at the cars with people in ‘em while the cliffs would give way and totally smother the unsuspecting cars. With people in ‘em for God’s sakes. It was like having sex watching those numbers together. Sounds like you two really had something going. Oh we did, we did. Then why’d you leave? She kept pissing me off. How so? She didn’t like the way I eat. What’s wrong with the way you eat? She said I should close my mouth when I eat which is ridiculous because how do you get food into it and then on top of that she says I don’t chew long enough and swallow too early and then I shouldn’t complain when my intestines are blocked up. She said I make too much noise when I get up and pee in the middle of night that I should close the bathroom door even though I’m mostly asleep stumbling to the toilet although I always, I mean never missed it, put the seat back down even at two a.m. But you think I’d get props for that? No way. Even shopping she was on my case. What’s wrong with your shopping? She said that she can’t trust me shopping as I forget sometimes to pick up something and when I do remember that I bring home tired fruit. Tired fruit? What can I tell you. She has a way of talking. I finally had enough when she got on my case for farting. Not in company mind you, just her and me, she said I was being inconsiderate. That cut it. I mean in the privacy of my own apartment, she said sometimes you fart so loud I’ll bet the neighbors could hear you. What the fuck should a man do with that excessive air demanding a voice? I got to remember that. What? Farting is excessive air demanding a voice. Deep. You should be a writer, a poet maybe. I’m lousy at rhyming. All poems don’t rhyme. I try and read some poems in the magazines or sometimes in the newspaper but they never make any sense ending a line without a period and the next word is the next line but why should it be separated from the word before it when they’re connected, you know what I mean? And why are you wearing shades? To keep from the glare. What glare. It’s cloudy, the sun isn’t doing it’s thing, we’re glare-less if you know what I’m saying. The metaphysical glare. The spillover from the corrupt corrupticians. If I could understand what you’re saying I might just agree with you. Listen, how long we been friends? For fucking-ever, why? I got your back right? No doubt. I still appreciate when you went with me to retrieve my TV from that repair dude who was holding it up for more money than he quoted. Yeah, I remember. You said bring a bat. Instead you brought your piece. Hey, one flash of my Glock and the dude melted like a piece ‘o butter in a frying pan. Got the TV and even twelve dollars he overcharged. Okay...so now it’s your turn. What do you need? Name it. That scram who owes me twenty-two dollars. I want to mess him up. How bad? Enough for him not to look at the mirror without groaning. Enough for him not rip me off or anybody else for that matter. You’re in, right? Well, I got your back but well you know. I know what? I mean...I show with you and flash a piece so no doubt he’ll cough up the bread faster than an orange peel caught in his throat. Your food metaphors are impressive. You’re into metas today, metaphysical, mataphor... Metakiss my ass...you in or out? Hey I got your back but I’m not actually into the muscle business of breaking somebody’s face for such a measly sum. That’s kind of picking at a scab with an ax. Okay...let it pass. I’m still your boy, right? I mean...we sometimes just have different approaches to roaches. Let it slide. It’s not crucial, right? Unless I make it so. What does that mean Meta-man? It’s not the twenty-two dollars. He’s challenging me as if don’t have balls as if I’m pussy. So it is crucial then? Nah, fuck it...I’m just enlarging a print while it’s still in the camera. I don’t like the dude on g-p. He could get a PhD in smart-assedness wearing a watch he says cost fourteen large. Get out of here. No watch costs fourteen thousand. That’s what I said but he contradicted telling me it’s not a watch it’s chronograph. What the fuck does a chronograph do? Tells time. So the bitch is watch. Zackly. Here, look at it? What the fuck! How’d you get it? I took it off his lame wrist. Twenty two dollars or this chronograph. Turns out he ripped it off himself while the clerk wasn’t looking at Nordstrom’s. But how’d you take it off his wrist, I mean didn’t he put up a fight or something? He did. He lost. You’re...I don’t know the word but... Ineffable? That too, okay...okay...I’m still trying to figure you out...like if someone asked you what’s your life about, what would you say? Are you asking? Yeah, what’s your life about? About 28 years plus. Not your age, I‘m talking about your life, your experiences, I mean every man is after something which is like a rotating propeller on his butt. You after something? Eternally. Like what? Good pussy. How’re you doing on that venture? Fair. Problem is despite all the sexual freedom and birth control women still want more than just dick. You? Me what? What are you after? The Bill of Rights guarantees the pursuit of happiness. What... Declaration of Independence, “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” How’d you know that? I was on a debating team in high school. The coach insisted I learn that and she was right because at the appropriate moment I was able to diss my opponent who said it was written by Tom Paine. We won hands down. Cool...so in your guaranteed pursuit of happiness... Pursuit of happiness, hmmm...I’m more into the happiness of pursuit. That’s deep. Like what? Meaningful moments. Your life has been about pursuing meaningful moments? Talk about a junky addicted to happy! No, not necessarily happy. Some have been dark. Like the time I shot someone. That was a meaningful moment. Did you really? Shoot someone? If I say it a second time does that make it any more real? Did you kill him, or her? Don’t tell me you offed a woman. No, a man. I don’t know if I killed him actually. How can you not know? I shot, he fell back a few feet, slammed into the hoop’s post and I split. Rapidly. Why’d you do it? What were the circumstance? Less than admirable. Come on, man, I need details, you can’t leave me hanging. It was a meaningful moment, let’s leave it at that. My boy shoots someone and closes the door on the five W’s. I’m not buying. The five W’s? Why, where, what, who, when? Let it pass. You are one recalcitrant mother. Recalcitrant. Good word. Not in this case. Hey man, if I indulge you with the W’s, the meaningful moment dissipates, loses it’s edge and is no longer as meaningful. Fuck meaningful. You can’t burn somebody... Did not kill him! Give me one W. Which one? W as in why? A basketball game in the schoolyard...you know pushing, shoving, elbow in the guts, whatever to score or stop someone...he was five inches taller and a gang ’o pounds bigger but he was a clumsy motherfucker as I faked him out almost broke his ankles trying to keep up with me and I accommodated him with a little push since he was out of balance anyway, I knocked him down and scored. What happened then? He got up, started to come at me like a cement truck gone amok...my team stepped in front of him saving my ass but he said don’t be coming back here. This court is out of bounds to your ass unless you want to lose your face! Was he talking reality or metaphorically? Both. What’d you say, do? I came back the next day. Carrying. Who carries a piece to the playground! Hey man, on a fair fight that scram would eliminate my face in perpetuity. My Glock was just an equalizer. How’d it go down? He saw me, grinned like he was about to feast on a rib-eye steak well done. Come on, don’t ruin a rib eye by making it well done. You’re losing the gist of the event. Okay, right, yeah, it’s just rib eye steak just a touch over rare makes me hard even as we speak. You wanna’ hear what happened or not? I do. Roll it. He growled I warned you. He stomped toward me, all two hundred plus pounds of him. I pulled out my piece, he laughed, you don’t have the balls he said. I shot him in his protuberant gut. He fell screaming like a little girl. I walked out of the yard as if I was a hero in a Western who just shot the bad guy. And then? No then...I chose not to partake of that court ever again. I chose. Got it? It was my choice. Nobody runs me off my home school yard. My choice. Whew...heavy. Whoda’ thunk. My boy’s bad to the bone. You still carrying? My Glock is sitting in a velvet enclosure in the back of the shelf of a dark closet. Just in case. Just in case? In case of what? Of somebody trying to mess with me. Right...some dude messing with my boy and he does what? I got it. He says hold on a sec you ugly specimen of a human being, I got to stop by my closet and retrieve my equalizer. That’s not how it will go down. Oh really? Yeah, I’ll fake him out as if he won, as if he’s the baddest ass on the planet talking to this coward number one. I slink off, get my Glock, run into him in a dark place and teach him not to mess with a messenger. Sounds like a movie I saw recently where an American punk made fun of a British soldier standing guard with the high hat. Movie was boring. You know those red coats that British soldiers used to wear? I guess he was wearing a red something along with his ancient armament maybe just an old kinda rifle I think they’d call it. Way back in those not-so-good-ole-days that red dye was produced by crushing tens of thousands of parasitic insects that live on cactuses. Where the fuck did that come from? Debating team. I never got the chance to use it. So how does it feel being a single man again. Frankly, not all that good. I kinda’ got used to company, you know, and the fact that she is such a damned good cook. I miss all that. And her laugh. Her laugh? Yeah, it was like those tiny chimes people hang out on the porch when a gentle wind does its thing. You’ll get over it. She called. When? A few hours ago. Wants you to pick up your shit? No. She misses me. She cried on the phone and apologized. What’d you say, do? I miss her, too. A lot. Don’t tell me. Tell you what? You know. Okay, all right, with all that I hate being single. I hate coming home to dumb little dusty apartment and for company I turn on the TV. I hate that. You’re going back aren’t you? It’ll be better this time, I know it. How do you know it? How do you know the same critical shit won’t come down on your ass again. She changed. I changed. In what way. Well, fuck it, I don’t have to have a reason to hate being alone. A man needs a companion. Not one who is always on his ass. Even that I sort of got used to. I even miss her dissing me. Sometimes you’re too weird for words. Ineffable.
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Josh Dale holds a BA in English from Temple University and has been previously published or forthcoming in 48th Street Press, Black Elephant Literary Magazine, SickLit, The Long Island Review, Your One Phone Call, and others. You may find him acquiring paper cuts at his small press, Thirty West Publishing House. By his side binding books, is his production assistant, Daisy, a rescue Bengal. SPEAKER OF TONGUES
Jack Simile walked across the stage to receive his high school diploma. He responded to the principal with a pompous smirk, for he knew that he had a once-in-a-lifetime gig all but officially sealed. Untitled Postage Inc., whom he interned as a senior, was willing to accept his full-time employment in lieu of post-secondary education. Jack took the offer, and as he wished his friends adieu as they packed up their parents’ station wagons, he was dutifully filling out his tax papers. He knew how to make them jealous: a new car in the driveway, fresh clothes, and a wallet full of banknotes. It was a perfect façade of achievement. However, Jack’s insurmountable riches were not easily acquired. Once he was awarded the position, the state of his morale dropped significantly. He toiled mercilessly. He wore a standard issue postal uniform now—a flamboyant neon yellow for “sake of visibility”—with increasing displeasure. From shipments as light as a feather, to upwards of eighty pounds, he had to sort, scan, label, and pack their way across the country. He was allotted only thirty minutes for lunch, which he acquired food from the closest fast-food joint around. Despite being on his feet for ten hours, he quickly gained weight; his designer clothes would no longer fit his once trim body. He punched the clock two times in the dark, hardly seeing the light of day in the lowly warehouse. During the most arduous of shifts, he would limp home and cry himself to sleep. No money in the world was worth the intensity of his position. His friends would call him, reporting on jovial keg parties and lewd sexual encounters, while Jack could only say, “Things are good, yeah.” His pessimism outweighed the tangible items he possessed, and as the months carried on so did his master plan. One innocuous Tuesday morning, Jack’s supervisor, Julia, came up to him and pulled him aside. “Hey, Jack, how’re you holding up? She said with a gleaming smile. He was unaware if this was a ruse or not; none of his peers knew how to smile. “Things are good, yeah.” He emitted. He was unaware of his conditioning. “Great! So, I’m here to give you a quarterly review. Judging by your output, divided by your input—“ Jack’s interest wavered. His eye contact broke occasionally with heavy eyelids. Within a few moments, her voice was white noise to his ears, until she said something that would change his outlook forever. “—and we are sending you out on a special parcel delivery, to Alphabetarius!” Jack’s stupor dissipated. “What? Me? Going to where?” “Yes! There is a parcel that a client requests to be hand-delivered. You must be ready tomorrow at 5 A.M. A concierge will pick you up and take you to the airport for your ten-hour flight. Go home and pack!” The realization of what was to come didn’t settle in until he heard the large steel doors shut behind him. The sun was kissing his face, birthing a rejuvenation. Jack skipped back home and quickly gathered his clothes. He was keen on strutting his ‘former’ self into this strange new city of Alphabetarius. ***** Jack strutted out of the terminal behind gold-trimmed sunglasses, a matching watch, and a navy blue suit. He carried the special parcel within a book bag. For once, he felt an importance that was unrivaled in his young life. However, as he removed the glasses to the people before him, he was shocked and appalled: their skin was covered in words! “What in the world?” Jack stammered. Everyone around him, from the smallest child to senior citizens, was seemingly tattooed. The older they were, the more frightful they became. It was as if their skin crawled with every second that passed. The sensory overload made Jack almost puke. However, he carried on his prominent task, navigating the gimmicky alphabet décor. Even the benches were shaped as letters. “This place is so weird.” Once outside the terminal, he phoned a cab and lit a cigarette. Occasionally, his hip appearance was returned with grins and cordiality by all who passed. Jack took each acknowledgment as a stroke of his ego. It wasn’t until a young boy carrying a small lunch pail down the street noticed Jack and stopped in his tracks. “Mister, do you not like to talk?” the boy said, inspecting his bare arms and face. “I do talk, yeah,” Jack murmured between puffs. The boy’s curiosity piqued. “But your skin has no words on it. Are you sick?” “I’m not from around here.” The boy rolled up his jacket sleeve. “Look at all of my words!” Jack glanced down and read a few sentences of juvenile proportions. He smothered the cigarette. “That’s cute, kid.” Jack lied. “Maybe one day I’ll be just like you.” His comment made the boy smile widely. He waved and took off running towards a finely-dressed couple. They all had blonde hair. It seemed uncanny, but the nurturing element was present and reinforced. Jack looked away. His taxi arrived and was off before he could watch them enter the terminal. The address on the parcel was in sight: ‘A.W. Homophone Enterprises. 232 Alpha Street’. The building was an architectural marvel, spanning dozens of stories high. It was shaped as a capital ‘A’ foregrounded by a lowercase ‘W’. Jack pondered on how a such a building could be constructed; the legs of the ‘W’ were at forty-five-degree angles. Upon entering, a young secretary greeted Jack. She was appealing to him, but her face was covered in complex jargon that he never saw before. She did not smile when they made eye contact. “I’m Jack Simile. Here to deliver to someone by the name of Al,” he said confidently. “Oh, you mean the Albert Wendell Homophone, the third?” the secretary snapped. “Uh, yeah. I was told I was to be expected.” “May I see the package first, sir?” Jack unzipped the bag and held out the rounded and puffy envelope. The secretary scanned it briefly. “I will send it up to him, thanks.” The secretary sent the package up through a dumbwaiter. She then resumed typing on the computer for a few moments. Once she realized Jack hadn’t left, she looked up disdainfully. “You can leave now, sir.” “Oh, that’s it? No receipt? No thank you? I came all this way when I could’ve just mailed it!” “Sir, I will call security if you do not cooperate!” Unexpectedly, a sharp beep emitted and a masculine voice spoke out. “Medina, please send Mr. Simile up to my office. Thank you.” Jack laughed as the secretary complied to the voice’s command. “Yes, sir.” Jack reached the office door and knocked. A voice issued him inside. A black leather chair, poised behind an oak desk, was facing the window and a fresh burning cigar rested upon an ashtray. A bald head crested the top like a sunrise. “Hello? I’m Jack Simile.” Jack said timidly. “Please, Mr. Simile, have a seat. Would you like a drink? Have you tried our ‘DeltaRum’ yet?” “No, sir. I am only eighteen,” Jack said. The sound of liquid pouring into a glass broke a brief silence. The chair swung around slowly. He was well-fed, and his suit was just tight enough to reveal it. A clean shaven face matched his receding hairline. To Jack’s surprise, though, his skin was not covered in words. “I am Al Homophone.” He slid the shot glass over to Jack. “Don’t worry, it’s not too strong.” “I really shouldn’t, sir. I just need to grab what I need and—“ “Please, call me Al,” Al said warmly. “Cheers!” Both men drank the shot. Jack sneezed afterward. Al guffawed. “It makes everyone sneeze the first time. Must be the pepper.” He relaxed into the chair. “So, do you think about our city? Very strange place, huh?” “To be honest, Al, it is. It’s too different.” “To most foreigners, it’s a culture shock, seeing the people with their ‘prose logs’.” “Where are yours?” Jack asked. “I choose not to show them. Here, watch.” Al snapped his fingers. A black orb manifested in his open palm. It was solid as obsidian, containing decades upon decades of words. Jack’s wide-eyed attention grew as did the orb until it was nearly a foot in diameter. Al snapped his fingers again, and it was gone. “Wow, that was startling!” Jack barked. “I am the architect of this city, descended from a long line of prestigious Homophones. At some point, everyone recognizes their prose logs, be it intentionally or accidentally.” Jack felt contempt and lowered his head. Al leaned closer, scrutinizing him. “So, you’re saying that I have a prose log too? Even though I’m not from around here?” “Yes. I, however, cannot reveal them for you; everyone is different. But, once you do, you will decide how to read yourself, Jack.” Al rose and obtained the package from across the room. He opened it to reveal a vinyl record. “Ah! Thank you so much for delivering this. It was my grandfather’s first album. Jazz quartet Saxophone maestro. I miss him dearly.” “Um, I’m going to leave. Thanks, Al.” Jack said apprehensively. “You’re always welcomed back, Jack.” Al nodded and shook his limp hand. Jack shut the door to a marvelous saxophone solo. He stood outside the office breathing heavily. A cold sweat trickled down his face. He made no contact with anyone aside from another emblazoned taxi driver. He remained in his motel room in solemnity. He stripped down into the nude and clench, trying any which way to summon his prose log. “Come on, damn it!” he shouted. His body was tense. His eyes were clenched. He grunted loudly until he heard a pop! He slowly unclosed his eyes, and to his amazement, his prose log appeared before him. He was marveled at the sight of the crawling words, yet aghast at the intensity of them. Scores of rank, derogatory words flooded his skin; a direct reflection of who he really was, beneath the façade. He scratched and clawed at his arms and legs, vying to remove them. After the savagery, he plummeted onto the floor weeping. His tears washed away the logs from his body. The evening was ill spent, yet he awoke to a new purpose. ***** A week had passed since Jack returned from Alphabetarius. He was back to the mundanity. Back to his typical uniform. Back to the false livelihood of material possessions. At the end of a surprisingly short shift, he approached his manager. “Hey, uh, Julia?” “Well isn’t it our little stud, Jack? What’s up? I was just thinking of giving you a gift card to—“ “Look. I appreciate all you’ve done for me, but I’m quitting as of tonight.” Julia’s jaw dropped. “What? That’s impossible!” “Personal reasons,” Jack said dryly. “I’m going to grab my stuff.” He began walking out of the office. Julia stammered behind him. Jack remained silent. He grabbed his sweatshirt, keys, and wallet and headed for the door. Julia was practically clawing at his shirt. “I’ll give you a raise, huh? Starting Monday. It’s yours.” Jack sighed, resting his foot between the door and the jamb. “No amount of money is going to keep me here. I made my decision final. Goodbye, Julia. Goodbye, Untitled Postage, Inc.” He shut his frivolous and hardworking life behind him forever. He then snapped his fingers, allowing his prose logs to return. Instantly, some obscenities were erased and replaced with respectable language. He pulled out Al Homophone’s card out of his pocket and drew in a gratuitous breath of fresh air. “I still have a few hours before my flight. Have a bit more work to do. Don’t want to leave a bad first impression.” Bill Schillaci has worked as a freelance environmental writer for 20 years. He was born in the Bronx, New York, and attended New York University. After college he worked as a technical writer for engineering firms in New York and San Francisco. His short stories have been published in 34th Parallel Magazine, East Bay Review, Prole, Palooka, and others. He is also an amateur cabinetmaker and has built most of the furniture in his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Artist Found Artistic creativity – better known among those who think they possess it as the impulse to humiliate oneself in front of as many people as possible – travels hand-in-hand with craziness. And so it should. What we know from eminent artists is that a strong shot of lunacy breathes life into art, everything from dreck to timeless masterpieces. Romance, tragedy, spectacle, divine grace. Words to live by and abandon reality for. The more unhinged you get, the better the chance your voice will sing, your hands procreate, your words astound.
Take Faulkner, his tweedy blazers, his haircut, his briar pipe, the persona presidents seek for ambassadors to western European nations or hospitals for their chiefs of neurosurgery. Rowan Oak, Faulkner’s plantation home, was just as patrician, as grave as the man who lived there. On the surface, Faulkner was spotless respectability, solemn accolades, university lectures and saddling up for Sunday morning equitations. Faulkner the artist was something else entirely. When the gentleman novelist sat down to write, a bottle of bourbon, or, when he had the patience to stir up one, a pitcher of mint julep was never more than an arm’s length away, and the more he imbibed, the closer to the surface his savage id crawled, the greater those titanic sentences became, many of which, when sober, he could not say what they might mean or even recall writing them. Sadly, Faulkner did not confine his drinking to Yoknapatawpha County. One day, fully inebriated, he mounted a willful steed. After a short trot through a nearby wood, the beast flung him into the air and onto his back. True to the spirit of madness, several years later, Faulkner, wholly sodden yet again, went for another trot and once more was thrown to the ground. He died shortly afterward. “Civilization begins with distillation,” Faulkner famously quipped, and certainly he walked the talk. And we can say the same about art and creation – it begins with distillation, distillation and dissolution of the borders of proper behavior and thought that serve no function except to drag down rapturous human imagination into replicating self-help slogans and plagiarizing hit HBO series and classic rock songs. That’s what aspiring artists are prone to becoming, flunkies to popular cultural, and to break free, they need to pursue obliteration, they need to forget what came before, they need to free their own savage id and start from the beginning. To be an artist you need to flee sanity like a house on fire. Raven Levy hummed, an ironic high C midway. The interviewer had asked her when she had decided to become a sculptor. “Do you mean when in terms of a date, like during the Cuban missile crisis or during my first menstruation or do you mean when in terms of a personal revelation, as in when I first began to understand that after being rendered immobile in front of Henry Moore’s Reclining Woman I could never go to back to what I was?” There followed several elongated seconds of dead air as the interviewer apparently wondered which of those two questions she had in fact asked Raven. “Well, um, how old were you?” I winced. Wrong question. “I would say that somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty two I decided to give up the goal of following my father’s footsteps and selling engagement rings on Forty Seventh Street and devote my life to sculpting plexiglass.” “Was it the material that attracted you.” “Plexiglass? Plexiglass is appalling stuff. Particularly when it’s sanded, which is pretty much how I spend my days, sanding. There’s nothing attractive about plastic in your lungs, in your hair and under your eyelids.” “So you were not attracted to plexiglass?” “Were the Aztecs attracted to volcanic rock when they carved their gods? I think not. They used it because it was nearby and soft for a rock. I got a good deal on plexiglass because my uncle Sol had a mold-making factory in Maspeth.” “Were others doing work in plexiglass.” “I don’t know.” “Your pieces are quite large. How long does it take to create one?” “I do different sculptures at the same time, so I can’t say how long any one takes.” “That must be difficult, switching from one piece to another, changing your frame of mind.” “Switching is not difficult. I do a drawing and then I build it. At some point, the work takes charge and I just follow its lead.” “So it’s instinctive?” “There’s nothing instinctive about it. If anything, it’s mathematical, in an anti-mathematical way. Imbalance and disproportion. If it looks like the elements are adding up, if they’re making mathematical sense, then I have to recalculate.” “How fascinating,” said the interviewer, her voice a lonely cry for mercy over the air. It was past one in the morning. I was alone, on my back in the bottom bunk in my double room on the seventeenth floor of the dorm on East 10th Street, a converted art deco luxury hotel. My portable Sony All Transistor radio was balanced on my sternum, the bar of faint red MHz on the dial the only light in the room. Helmut, my dorm mate, the son of a German shipbuilding magnate, was back in Bremen for the one-month winter break. The WBAI show, New York Arts Scene, was probably broadcast at some other, more reasonable hour during the week. But I loved tuning in in the middle of the night, the appropriate time to access a pipeline into the unruly core of the city where BAI thrived. On this particular Saturday I was also in luck because Raven Levy was a name on the assignment list for my Perception class. Perception was a dippy course the heads of the fledgling School of the Arts had dreamed up for first year students. Assignments involved walking around the West Village blindfolded – with the help of a seeing-eye classmate – and singing folk songs of our own composition in class. Our single research project was to learn as much as we could about ten local anarchist artists who had never been reviewed in the New York Times. After continuing to strike out with several more questions about Raven’s aesthetics, the interviewer fled to safer ground, the artists’ collective Raven had helped form. “Raven, what can you tell us about the collective?” “What do you want to know?” “I understand one of the ideas is to bring neighborhood high school kids into the artists’ studios.” “Yep, we show them our work. I heard most of them want to paint.” “Are they surprised to see your sculptures?” “Can’t say. Nobody’s shown up yet.” “Oh, would you like to say where your studio is?” “Eleven Greene Street.” “Do they need to make an appointment? “Nope, my door’s always open.” “Well, that’s unusual.” More dead air. The interviewer thanked Raven and BAI went dark. “Finally,” Raven Levy said when I walked unannounced into Eleven Greene Street as she had said to on the radio. Her studio occupied several thousand square feet of unrenovated space on the ground floor of the building, a nineteenth century six-floor cast iron structure still many years away from becoming world-class Soho real estate luring Japanese CEOs and Saudi princes into bidding wars. I blinked. “The placement office sent you, right?” she said. Cautiously I nodded, and then, in one of my more enlightened moments, with vigor. Raven was petite with a head of aggressive black curls encroaching on her face so that there wasn’t much more to see than her full and fully tightened lips and aqua green eyes sizing me up. She wore a full-length, artist’s apron of frayed duck canvas over a white wife beater and jeans cut off at the knees. Her thin arms and boney shoulders were ripped with tendons and vivid blue veins. She stood in the midst of a plexiglass wilderness, colorless, transparent forms precariously stacked on the floor and leaning against the walls like pieces of an ice palace waiting to be built or one that had been sloppily dismantled. Mid-floor was a seven-foot-tall Depression-era band saw I later learned Raven acquired at the bankruptcy sale of a window manufacturer in Jersey City. It was winter outside, but the studio was sultry, the consequence of an antiquated coal-burning furnace in the basement that refused to be regulated beyond on and off. “Have you ever used a belt sander?” Raven said. “No.” “An orbital sander?” “No.” “A palm sander?” I shook my head. “Sorry, no.” Annoyance flickered across the visible part of her face; then she laughed, mostly through her nose, a phlegmy, caustic snort. “Comere,” she said and led me around the plexiglass mounds to a long workbench against one of the studio’s walls, paint-splattered two-by-four planks on saw horses. On the bench was a plexiglass plus sign, each arm about a foot long, clamped in the jaw of a large pipe vise bolted to the bench. Parallel grooves from cuts made by the band saw fully rippled all sides of the form. She lifted the belt sander and squeezed the trigger switch. With a burst of white dust the machine roared and rotated into action. Raven attacked the grooves, her shoulders and forearms popping with lumpy little muscles as she bore down on the sander. Twenty minutes later I knew all I needed to about being a sculptor’s assistant. She told me she was part of a show in six months at the Park Avenue Armory and she needed every minute I could give. “What are you paying?” I said. “Paying? Didn’t they tell you?” I stared at her. It wasn’t that I needed a job, but Raven’s allure, which was growing by the minute, still went only so far. She snorted again and slapped me on the back. “Just kidding. Do a little work first, and we’ll come up with a number. Fair?” Not really, I thought, but it was becoming clear right away that Raven’s was not a shop that operated under union rules. A little while later she came out of her office wearing ironed slacks and a pink buttoned-down shirt. She told me she worked off and on as a substitute teacher and had gotten a call. “Here,” she said, handing me a key. “Work as long as you can and lock up when you leave. Leave the lights on.” She ran out to catch the bus, her shirt tail, untucked, bouncing off her ass. I hadn’t even told her my name. In the weeks ahead, I learned several things about Raven. One, she hadn’t lied when she said she worked on multiple pieces at the same time because every symbol, sign, chunk, oval, diamond, sunburst, spear, and non-representational form scattered throughout the studio and waiting under layers of frosty fairy dust was an element of an ongoing larger project, some started years before. Neither had she lied when she said she couldn’t say how long it took to complete a piece because since I began helping her prepare for her show, not a single one of her drawings had been converted into final form. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to bring a sculpture from concept to fruition. In her office, pinned on the walls among her hand sketches were photos of Raven standing near her finished work in indoor and outdoor settings. In the photos, she was younger, sunnier, her fabulous curls longer, swept away from her face and piled high, bold and Grecian, like the hair on the Roman statue of Aphrodite I had seen at the Met. Once I made the mistake of asking her what we needed to get done for the show. It was as if I had yanked her power cord out of the wall socket. She squeezed shut her eyes and her small body seemed wilt on the spot. That was the first day I found her sniffling in her office. It was also the first day I was there when she opened the lower drawer of her desk and pulled out her stash of Thai stick. Thai stick was still new to the city. I had only heard about it, that it was a world above local weed. “Seriously? Thai stick?” I said. “They’re not dealing that in the dorm yet.” “I get it from my ex,” she said. “It’s in the divorce settlement.” She told me to flip the wall switch that turned on an exhaust fan near the ceiling and kicked one of her retro vinyl kitchen chairs toward me. “Sit.” In the space of two prodigious hits, Raven went from morose to crinkly-eyed and chill. She nodded benevolently as I inhaled and coughed violently as sweat beaded on my forehead. “This is the real deal,” I gasped in a voice I did not recognize. I pulled myself together and hit it again. “You won’t need anymore,” Raven said, extinguishing the J between her fingertips and dropping it into a tiny clay urn with a top that went back into the drawer. “Where are from anyway?” she said. “Rye. It’s in Westchester.” “I know Rye. Playland, right?” “Un-huh, oldest amusement park in the country.” “Oh my god, we’ve got to go! Will you take me?” “Absolutely.” After that, we worked on assembly. More accurately, we found that nothing assembled the way Raven wanted it to, the way she had drawn it up. Her theme for the show was interlock. Parts were to lock onto each other to form a single sculpture, like a closed zipper or a belt buckled or a tractor snapping onto a trailer. Despite what she said in the interview, it was mathematical, and Raven’s work was indeed not adding up. The openings were too small, or the posts that were supposed to go through them too thick. A part intended to click onto another part slid slowly away like one hand dropping off another in an indifferent hand shake. Raven watched the pieces for minutes on end, occasionally shaking her head as if she could not understand why they had betrayed her. She consulted her drawings and used a felt marker to scribe new lines on the pieces, which we carried back to the band saw. She sawed and I sanded, endlessly, one week, two weeks, but the show’s theme just wasn’t happening. Crisis arrived the day I walked through a February pre-dawn, just me and the bread vans, so I could start sanding at six. By the time I had to leave for class, a half-dozen right-out-of-the-box eighty-grit sanding belts were gritless, smooth as peach fuzz all the way around, but the form I was working on, an S stretched at the ends into an eight-foot long wavy line, was still not ready for the hand sander. I would need to tell Raven that I didn’t finish as she asked me to, actually as she begged me to. I blew my nose for the twentieth or so time that morning. The bandana I had tied around my face fluttered uselessly against the hot blasts of plexiglass dust the sander spewed as I ground down the rough cuts. Several times Raven assured me she would get dust masks, but it never happened and I stopped asking. In the sudden quiet, I heard her on the phone in her office, her voice a tense octave above normal. At the slop sink I washed up, felt no less contaminated and washed again. Raven had gone silent. If I stuck my head in to tell her I was leaving, she would take out her stash. It had become routine, sharing a J with Raven. This was cool, getting buzzed with a downtown artist. But then my Modern European History professor told me if I walked into his class stoned one more time he’d report me to the dean. I had an option, sneak out of the studio. But then there was what Raven had blurted out a few days before when interlock failed to happen one more time, that she was going to burn down the studio and everything in it. It was just blowing steam, probably, but I had yet to figure out when Raven was simply venting or semi-serious or dead-serious. Her supply cabinet was packed with cans of flammable cleaning solvents. I didn’t know if plexiglass could catch fire. But if Raven conflagrated her studio and most likely herself, it would be me who could have stopped her and didn’t. “I’m off,” I said, peeking around the doorway. Raven was slouched in her chair, looking at her battered laborer’s hands upturned on her knees. “It’s over,” she said dully. “I’m out of the exhibit.” “How? It’s not for three months.” “That’s nothing for work like this. The organizer wanted to come over and take photos for her brochure. I said I needed another month, but she’s been at this too long. She knows when she’s being conned. She has backups.” Raven flexed her fingers, intently watching the movement like an infant who had just discovered her toes. She reached for the stash drawer, but I placed my hand over it. “Let’s go for a walk,” I said. “A walk?” “I need your help.” “Me? Not a good time, Teddy.” “This is important.” The corner of her mouth curled in resistance, but then she wagged her head in resignation. There was an oil-stained fisherman’s sweater on a wall hook that she pulled on, enraging her ringlets. The Madwoman of Chaillot popped into my head. I was reading it for Dramatic Lit. But I didn’t need to explain this to Raven. I just needed her to follow me out the front door, which, accompanied by a series of doleful sighs, she did. The temperature had dropped, the sky a delicate blue above the mud-colored low-rises flanking Greene Street. We headed north toward Houston, Raven dragging beside me, the sweater pulled up around her ears, commenting on how fucking cold it was. I had already told her about Perception and the loopy homework we got, but not, of course, the assignment where she was one of the topics. “I have to bring in a piece of found art,” I said. “You mean junk,” she said. “Right, but junk with a fresh outlook, a personal outlook. That’s how the teacher described it.” “I wouldn’t put it that way. But you have lots to choose from.” This was true under the city’s princely but maladroit mayor, who had yet to solve a two-week sanitation workers strike. Hills of overstuffed plastic trash bags, some as high as a basketball hoop, populated most city streets, many split open and fouling the sidewalks with their reeking discharges. Raven inhaled mightily and flung out her arms. “Ah, it’s good to get out,” she announced. “Here,” I said, stopping in front of a metal finishing shop. Pushed up against a heap of refuse was a discarded sheet-metal part, some kind of hood, probably for a plating bath, five-feet long and blotchy on the outside with decades of rust and peppered with BB-size holes. “SCRAP” had been printed in white paint on the reddish surface. I flipped it to show Raven the inside, a startling mosaic of plating metals, zinc, chromium, nickel, copper. Raven grunted. “Not bad,” she conceded. “You take the back,” I said. “You want me to carry this?” she said. “Can’t we just cut out a piece? I have a shears in the studio.” She tried a helpless look, which was a first, and of course I didn’t believe it. “Nope, found art is as it’s found. No tampering allowed. Come on, I don’t want to be late for class. It’s not heavy.” Trash bags that had rolled off their piles made progress difficult on the narrow SoHo sidewalks, and we switched to the bumpy cobblestone road, squeezing between parked vehicles and taxis and delivery trucks that slowed for us not at all, missing the hood by inches. We ran across the four wide lanes of Houston to beat the light, at different speeds, which put our grips on the hood at risk. “Slow down, sculptor’s assistant!” Raven laughed breathlessly. On LaGuardia Place, she started singing Ball ‘n Chain, keeping it up all the way to the park where we took a break on a bench. Even in the cold, dealers were in action, whispering “weed,” “grass,” “smoke” just loud enough for people passing by to hear. “Maybe I should switch careers,” Raven said. “Peddle my stash to tourists.” “In this market, you’ll end up floating in the river. These guys don’t like competition.” “Have you ever made a purchase?” “In high school. It’s all fake. The cops don’t even bother them anymore. You can’t bust somebody for selling oregano no matter what you call it.” Our Perception teacher’s bio in the school’s bulletin showed he had once edited a book of essays by Mao and included not a single other accomplishment in the arts, performing or otherwise. He had moved the class to a dance studio in arts building on Stuyvesant Street so all the found art could be displayed on the floor. The hood needed extra room, and Raven and I had to shift some of the articles, a pair of worn-out construction boots with mismatched laces, a cardboard box filled with old mercury thermometers, and a stunning pitchfork that looked as if it had been exhumed from a colonial archaeological site. “Oh, wow,” said our teacher, coming up behind us after we situated the hood to display its colors. In the first class, he said that we should call him by his first name, Boyd, and “oh, wow” were his favorite words. “Where did you find this?” “Greene Street,” I said. “And this is Raven Levy.” “The Raven Levy?” “Yes, sir, Boyd,” I said. Raven looked at me sharply, but Boyd was already squeezing both her hands in both of his. “I saw your exhibit at Clinton Castle,” he gushed. “Well, I saw it three times.” I sat in one of the folding chairs placed against the walls in the spaces between the found art, and tried not to stare at Raven and Boyd quietly talking. The remainder of the class trickled in and tried to place their contributions advantageously the early afternoon sunlight passing through the studio’s lofty windows. Boyd turned to us and introduced Raven who, he said, had kindly agreed to say something about her work and answer any questions. Raven blushed and talked about large-scale transparent sculpture and the differences in their aesthetic depending on what you saw when you looked through them. “Sometimes, in exhibitions, what I do, what people see and experience, depends entirely on the art that surrounds it.” Boyd nodded deeply and some in the class did so too. Raven got asked a few of the same questions the poor interviewer on the radio had posed, and this time she tried to answer them. She then sat and listened as each student said a few words about what they had brought in. I remember not a single thing I said about my hood except that Raven had helped me haul it across half the Village, which prompted a few laughs. Boyd gave us our next assignment – do something with paper, anything but write on it – and said we had to take our found art with us because the studio was needed for a movement class. Raven and I carried the hood back to the street and deposited it near a tower of garbage a few buildings down. “Seems a shame,” she said. “Art is fleeting,” I said. She turned to me, surprised. “No, it isn’t,” she said. She then wrapped me in those steely arms and parked her lips on my cheek. It wasn’t the longest kiss I’d ever gotten, or the hottest, but it was, with no near contender, the softest. END Canadian Chad Strong has lived in different parts of this magnificent country: from Victoria, BC on the west coast, to the Manitoba prairie, to southern Ontario. He grew up reading fiction and non-fiction of all sorts, from westerns to fantasies, from adventures to history. His writing has followed suit across multiple genres. High Stakes, his first novel, was short-listed for two distinct awards: The Western Fictioneers’ Peacemaker Award for Best First Western Novel, and in the RONE Awards for Best American Historical Novel. He has recently released Mixed Grazing, a collection of short stories from multiple genres. LEAVES OF AUTUMN Blue-grey clouds pressed in from the west, squeezing the sun’s fire between their great bulks and the distant mountain ridges, bringing twilight early. Matthew leaned against the frame of the open barn doors, his fleece vest unzipped over his sweatshirt, his mind’s eye following the sun’s track over and beyond the evergreen Malahat mountain range all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
A chilly autumn breeze swirled dry leaves around his feet and piled them in the damp grass along the walls of the barn. The rainy west coast winter was nearly upon them, but it wasn’t supposed to rain tomorrow. Matthew crossed his fingers that the forecast held true. He brought his attention back to the five-acre boarding stable where he lived with his father just outside Victoria, BC. Matthew cocked an ear toward the rhythmic, soothing sound of twelve horses munching feed in their stalls, content, safe, with no thoughts of tomorrow’s potential weather issues. Tomorrow morning Matthew’d be up to feed them early so he and his dad could take their two horses to the local horse show. It was their riding club’s last show of the season and, if Matthew did well in all his classes, he could win the junior rider’s high point trophy of the year. He reached for the light switch and scanned the barn one final time. Everything was as it should be. Flicking off the switch, he fastened the big doors and headed for the house. His father stood on the front porch, looking down the driveway at an approaching car, its one working headlight feeble in the misty dusk, its engine coughing and sputtering. Matthew threw his fourteen-year-old body into a sprint and leaped up onto the porch beside his dad. “Who is it?” Richard Kirkland paused, his thick, dark eyebrows low over his eyes. “Someone we haven't seen in a long time.” Matthew furrowed his own brow and remained on the porch as his dad stepped down to meet their visitors. A willowy, auburn-haired woman wearing heavy sandals and a green dress of coarse fabric emerged from the car, followed by a young girl. The girl wore a pink sweater with a big yellow duck on it, green pants of the same fabric as the woman’s dress, and similar sandals despite the weather. Small, pale, and fine-boned, she seemed a miniature version of the woman. Matthew stuck his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and frowned as his dad hugged the stranger. “Summer,” Richard said. “Welcome. And this must be Lilly.” He squatted down to shake the little girl’s hand. “Oh, Richard -- it's so good to see you. Yes, this is Lilly. Lilly, this is Richard – I told you about him.” “You’re my daddy,” she stated matter-of-factly. Stepping off the porch, Matthew nearly tripped as if his feet couldn’t decide whether to stop or back up or take off to the barn. His father motioned for him to come forward. Matthew walked toward the newcomers. He had barely come to a stop next to his dad when the woman bent down and smothered him in a perfume-soaked embrace. “Oh, Matty -- look how you've grown! You're twelve now, aren't you?” “Fourteen. And my name’s Matt.” He tried to step back from her and her frizzy hair that tickled his nose. “Oh, don't wiggle so much! Give your momma a real hug!” Stiffening, Matthew stared at his father, resisting her efforts to pull him in again. “Summer,” Richard said, “We discussed how we were going to tell him …” “Oh, don't be so uptight -- it just slipped out.” “She's -- Mother?” Matthew asked as a few scattered raindrops fell. “I heard you tell Uncle David she wanted her hippie friends on Saltspring Island more than she wanted us and the farm and she was never coming back.” His father looked pale. “I know this is a shock, Matthew --.” Lilly skipped up to Matthew, smiling. “I always wanted a big brother!” She flung her little arms around him. Matthew grasped her arms and tried to push her away. “She’s my sister?” “Of course she is, Matty,” the woman said. She flipped a hand at him. “Oh, don’t be such a boy and give her a hug!” Matthew’s eyes darted to hers then back to his father’s. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “I just found out the other day, Matthew -- Matt. I’ve been trying to figure out how. I didn’t know they were coming so soon …” “Your father always loved that about me – my spontaneity – don’t you, Richard?” She giggled girlishly. Little Lilly had finally managed to wrap her arms around Matthew’s waist as he stared dumbfounded at his father. He tried not to squirm as she mashed her cheek against his stomach. “Why don’t we go inside and I’ll make us some hot chocolate?” Richard suggested. “Matthew, will you help me carry in their bags?” “If she lets go,” Matthew replied with a sullen look down at Lilly. Richard held out his hand. “Come on, Lilly. Show me what you want to bring into the house.” Lilly released Matthew and skipped over to Richard. She took his hand and pulled him toward the car. “Want to see my teddy bear?” “I sure do,” Richard said. Matthew stared at his father and the girl, unable to move. Then the woman stepped toward him again. He dodged her and started grabbing battered suitcases and big green plastic bags out of the back seat of the car. He’d gotten everything piled into the guest room by the time his father had boiled the kettle for hot chocolate. Then they all sat around the kitchen table. Matthew twisted his fingers in his lap while he waited for his mug to cool. With both hands Lilly dragged her mug to the edge of the table, braced her elbows and tipped it toward her lips. Richard’s hand shot out protectively to slow her movement. “Careful, sweetie – it’s hot – you’ll burn yourself.” She giggled and let go of the steaming mug. Matthew watched silently. The girl’s mother hadn’t said a word, hadn’t moved a muscle, as if she hadn’t noticed the danger. Richard cleared his throat. With his fingertips he turned the handle of his mug back and forth. “Well, Matt … This isn’t exactly how I planned to tell you, and I’m sorry. But when Summer called me, I needed to … grasp it myself. I needed to check some facts. Summer is your mother and Lilly is indeed your sister. And my daughter.” “But how?” “I was pregnant when I left your dad,” Summer said. “But I didn’t know it. When I found out, I couldn’t tell him. He’d insist I come back. I couldn’t do that.” Matthew couldn’t keep his eyes on her face for more than a few seconds at a time. He looked up at the clock -- seven minutes to eight. Mantracker was coming on the TV; he loved Mantracker. His dad always watched it with him. Matthew wished he was old enough so they could go on it and try to outrun Terry Grant and his sidekick. “You left us. You didn’t want us. Why do you want us now?” “Matthew …” his father cautioned. “It’s okay,” she said. She reached for Matthew’s shoulder and ran her hand down to try to grasp his. He clenched his hand into a fist so she couldn’t get her skinny fingers between his. But she kept trying until he had to yank his hand away and shove back his chair. Standing, he shouted, “I don’t wanna talk to you!” “Matthew,” his father said in the same tone he’d use to calm a high strung colt. “Please sit down.” “Why do I have to listen to her? Why does she have to touch me? Tell her not to touch me!” “Matthew, settle down or you’ll go to your room. We have to talk about this.” At that instant Lilly tried to drink her hot chocolate again and spilled it down the front of her pink and yellow ducky sweater. Her eyes rounded in surprise, then squeezed shut as she began to cry. Both Richard and Summer went to her as her screams reverberated through the kitchen. Matthew spun on his heel and stalked up the stairs to his room, slamming the door behind him. In the morning he was up and out to the barn while it was still dark. The horses nickered and neighed to him the moment they heard his footsteps approaching. He flicked on the light, unlocked the feed room and gave each their portion of grain. The two horses going to the show got their hay in their stalls. For the rest, Matthew counted the correct number of flakes of hay into the wheelbarrow and was about to take it out to the paddocks when his father rounded the corner, followed by little Lilly. “Good morning, Matt.” Matthew wasn’t sure he wanted to answer. “Morning.” He hesitated before setting the wheelbarrow down. “You can put Blaze and Trooper out in their paddocks as well.” “But we’re going to the show --.” His father shook his head. “I’m afraid not, buddy. We have guests. It would be rude to leave them here alone.” “But –! Well – then they can come and watch.” “Your mother gets bored at horse shows.” “So what? She’s the one who barged in on us! Why do we have to suffer? It’s only one day!” “Just do as I ask, please.” “It’s not fair! I could win high points today!” “Maybe next year, buddy.” “But, Dad!” Richard crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Please! Can you take me and Blaze there and come back? We’ll be okay!” “No. We have to deal with this, son.” “Why can’t we deal with it tomorrow?” “Because I said so. Now just finish up here and come in for breakfast.” Matthew’s lips moved, but nothing came out. Inside, he felt like a spinning tornado. He noticed Lilly dragging armfuls of hay out of the feed room, clumps of it dropping to the floor as she went. “What are you doing?” “I’m helping,” she chirped as she dropped her load next to the wheelbarrow and went back into the hay room. She came out with another armful, scattering hay everywhere she went. “We don’t need any more!” Matthew shouted at her. She halted, puzzled, looking between him and Richard. Richard said, “Matt, Lilly doesn’t know anything about being around horses. Why don’t you teach her?” “Look at the mess she’s making!” “Then teach her how to do it right. I’m going back in to speak with your mother.” “She’s not my mother. If she was, she wouldn’t have left.” Richard gave him one of those looks that told him not to push it and then turned and walked back to the house. Matthew watched him go a minute, before turning his eyes to Lilly. She was just standing there, staring at him. What was he supposed to say to her? “You can’t make a mess like that. It wastes hay.” “Oh.” She clasped her hands behind her back and twisted her torso to and fro. “And makes me more work.” “Oh.” He bent, grasped the handles of the wheelbarrow, and lifted. “I guess you’d better come with me so I know what you’re up to. You get hurt and it’ll be my fault.” She jumped up and down, clapping her hands, squealing, “Goodie! Goodie!” All the horses’ heads came up, wondering what the fuss was about. “No screaming around the horses,” Matthew said, scrunching his neck down and wincing. “And no running. It upsets them.” Her eyes and mouth got big and round. “Oh, okay.” She followed along beside him as he wheeled the hay outside, stopping at each paddock to toss in a couple of flakes. After the first two paddocks, Lilly tried to grab an armful from the wheelbarrow and carry it inside the gate. Great clumps of hay fell from her grasp with every step, and she tromped right over it, oblivious. “I told you not to drop hay like that – now I have even more to clean up!” She blinked back at him, then stuck out her lower lip and started to cry. “Aw, c’mon,” Matthew said. “You don’t need to cry – just – just don’t help me anymore!” Sniffling, she put her hands behind her back and followed him silently as he made the trek out to each paddock and back to the barn. Normally, he would lead two horses out at once, but with her tagging along, he didn’t want to risk losing sight of her and having her end up underfoot at the wrong moment. Keeping the horse on his right, he pointed to his left side and told Lilly, “You walk right here beside me. All the time. No running, no yelling. Got it?” She nodded. “Yes.” Lilly did as he told her, much to his relief, and he turned all the horses out without incident. He left Blaze and Trooper to the end, just in case his dad changed his mind. They went back to the house together for breakfast. Matthew silently ate his fried eggs and toast and sipped his orange juice. Lilly chattered away to herself while Richard and Summer conversed about nothing in particular. Matthew vowed not to get upset like he had last night – he was a little embarrassed he’d lost it like that -- but he refused to engage in conversation. As soon as he’d finished eating, he excused himself to go out and start cleaning stalls. Lilly jumped up to accompany him. Matthew rolled his eyes and looked at his father. Richard said: “Mind Matthew out there, okay Lilly? “I will,” she promised. Matthew sighed heavily and let her traipse after him. She insisted on trying to help him. He bit his tongue and cleaned up after her, reminding himself she was just a little kid. When they were done cleaning stalls she grabbed the spare bamboo fan rake and dragged it along behind her, copying him as he raked the pathways to clean up the hay she’d dropped earlier. What hay was clean he swept under the fence for the nearest horse, while anything that had gotten mucky he dropped into the wheelbarrow. At the call of her mother’s voice, Lilly dropped the rake and ran. “No running --!” Matthew insisted, but she didn’t hear him. Shaking his head, he bent to pick up her rake. “And you can’t just leave stuff lying around,” he muttered. “A horse could get hurt on it.” He finished the chores himself, relieved at her absence. Instead of heading back to the house right away, he hung over the fence to watch his horse, Blaze, munch the remainder of his hay. Blaze was a bright red chestnut with a white blaze and four white socks. Right now, the way the sun angled on him, he shone like a brand new penny. All that bathing, brushing, and clipping yesterday, to get ready for a show that was going on without them. “We coulda won High Point today, Blaze – I know we coulda.” Matthew’s head turned to the sound of footsteps approaching. His father rounded the corner of the barn, called, and waved him in. “See ya later, buddy,” Matthew said to his horse. “I don’t figure Dad’s gonna even let us go for a ride today.” He laid the rakes in the wheelbarrow and pushed it back toward the barn with him. “All done?” Richard asked. “Yeah.” “Then I think you should come and spend some time getting to know your mother and sister.” Exactly what Matthew thought he’d say. But he couldn’t find it in him to argue right now. He put everything away and followed his dad back to the house. Lilly and Summer were in the living room, Lilly watching some silly cartoons and Summer alternating between watching them with her and staring off into space. Matthew plopped himself down into the stuffed armchair where there was no room for anybody else to fit. They both smiled at him so he forced a smile back. As long as they didn’t try to maul him, he’d be nice. Richard made them lunch and they all sat around the table again. Summer asked Matthew: “So what grade are you in at school, Matty?” “Matt. Nine.” “What are your favorite subjects?” “English and History.” “Good for you. Lilly likes Art class, don’t you, sweetie?” “Um-Hum,” the child replied, her mouth full of cheese sandwich. “You should draw Matty a picture, Lilly.” She nodded. “I could draw you and your horse,” she said, after swallowing. Matthew shrugged. “Summer and Lilly have offered to help you rake up all the leaves around the house this afternoon,” Richard began. “Isn’t that nice?” A frown creased Matthew’s brow and curled his mouth. That had been a chore planned for tomorrow – today was supposed to be the horse show. “It’s a great day to be outside,” Richard added, reaching over to squeeze Matthew’s shoulder. “I really need to make some phone calls this afternoon, Matt. I’m sure you can entertain our guests for a couple of hours without me.” Matthew felt his lip starting to curl. His father must have seen it, because he squeezed Matthew’s shoulder just a little bit harder. He looked at his father. Richard’s eyes were saying, ‘C’mon, buddy – help me out here.’ “Okay.” “Yippee!” both Lilly and Summer exclaimed. “Thanks, buddy,” said Richard. They went outside after cleaning up lunch. Matthew got them each a rake and they started out front beneath the massive spread of the ancient big leaf maple. Once they got a large pile, Matthew filled the wheelbarrow with the huge dry leaves and pushed it to the manure pile to dump them, where they’d get mixed in with the manure, making good fertilizer. He made several trips. Sometimes when he came back they were just standing there, talking or staring off at something. One time they were dancing around like fairies, flinging the big maple seeds into the air and watching them twirl to the earth like helicopters. They wouldn’t start raking again until after he did. He couldn’t really catch all they were saying, but Summer sounded as flighty and flakey as some of the girls at school. Didn’t they know there was only so much daylight left? They needed to get this done in time to get the barn ready and the horses in before dark. Then help with dinner. Matthew filled the wheelbarrow with more leaves and stalked back to the manure pile. The sight of Summer down on her knees in front of Lilly halted his marched return to the front yard. It appeared Lilly had fallen, her mother comforting her. Matthew watched as Lilly unwrapped her little arms from around Summer’s neck and dried her tears with the backs of her hands. Summer picked dried leaves and twigs out of Lilly’s hair and sweater. Lilly nodded, she was okay now. As if he’d been punched in the chest, Matthew suddenly couldn’t breathe. The wheelbarrow hit the lawn with a thud as he dropped the handles. A forgotten memory rushed over him and he was seven years old and had just fallen off his first pony. He had lain face down in the hog fuel footing of the riding ring, the wind knocked out of him. His mother had gotten to him before his father. She’d picked him up and held him close, her long frizzy hair tickling his nose. He hadn’t cried as she’d brushed the stringy hog fuel from his clothes and his hair, but even now the panic of being unable to breathe was palpable to him, as was the absolute safety he’d felt in her arms. She was warm and she was his mother. And then she was gone. That had been the last time she’d hugged him and told him she loved him and that everything would be all right. That evening she’d gone out with some friends and never come back. Until now. Gradually Matthew became aware of his rapid, shallow breathing. He stretched his spine and drew a long, deep breath. Lilly’s giggling drew him back to them. Hopping up and down like a bunny, she threw great armfuls of leaves into the air with every hop. Summer laughed, grabbed her daughter and rolled around in the leaf pile until they were both squealing hysterically and covered in leaves. A part of Matthew wanted to run and cast himself into the leaves with them, to throw leaves into the air like Lilly, to tumble and laugh and delight in the simplicity, in the fun of it. But his father was relying on him to do his part. Matthew couldn’t let him down. They saw him then. Summer waved at him. “Come on, Matty! Come and play!” “I’ve got work to do,” he replied, picking up the wheelbarrow and coming forward for more leaves. Summer flipped a hand at him. “Oh, don’t be so serious! You’re just like your father.” Matthew dropped the wheelbarrow. “If you don’t like us, why don’t you go back to Saltspring and all your toga-wearing, dope-smoking, helicopter-twirling Druid friends!” “Matthew!” Richard’s voice split the stunned silence between them. Matthew turned to see his father standing on the front porch. “That’s no way to speak to your mother.” “She doesn’t wanna be my mother, so who cares?” “I didn’t raise you to disrespect people like that, no matter who they are.” Summer’s voice sing-songed between them. “It’s okay, Richard.” She shrugged. “It’s actually pretty close to the truth – about my friends, I mean. It’s even pretty funny, the way he put it.” Matthew watched his father try not to smile. “I hope your Uncle David’s warped sense of humor isn’t rubbing off on you.” Matthew’s hands balled into fists at his sides. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.” “All the more reason to apologize.” Matthew fidgeted, casting brief glances at Summer. She waited silently, Lilly pressed to her side like a shy and delicate foal. Lilly’s face was flushed and bright from their play and her crying, yet Summer’s seemed pale, almost greyish, to Matthew. Perhaps it was the fading colours of twilight, perhaps the signs of approaching middle age. Still, Summer appeared as childlike and obliviously innocent as her daughter. His memories of her were scant, accented more by sensory impressions than recalled conversations. He grasped she existed blissfully disconnected from certain realities of life. She didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but she couldn’t help herself. “I’m sorry for what I said.” “It’s okay, sweetie.” She held out her arms to embrace him. “It’s gonna be dark soon. We gotta get finished here.” Richard stepped down off the porch and came and put his arm around Matthew’s shoulders. “The rest of the leaves can wait until tomorrow. Let’s get the horses in and get supper started. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.” “Okay.” Matthew and Richard got the evening barn chores done together while Summer kept Lilly at her side. Then they all pitched in to make dinner. Richard cooked the chicken and potatoes while Matthew and Lilly made the salad. Summer set the table. After the meal, Summer washed the dishes while Matthew dried them and put them away. He listened to her chatter on about the things she and her friends did together. She obviously cared very much for them. They joined Richard and Lilly in the living room when they were done, and they found things to watch on television. Lilly fell asleep leaning against Richard and didn’t waken even when he and Summer carried her upstairs to bed. The next afternoon the four of them finished raking up the leaves around the whole yard. When Summer and Lilly began to lose interest, Richard tackled Matthew and started a wrestling match in the nearest leaf pile. In moments Summer and Lilly jumped in and the leaf pile came alive with tickling and laughter and arms and legs everywhere. Even Matthew couldn’t hold back some chuckling. “Summer,” Richard said soberly, his hand reaching to support her. Matthew and Lilly stopped their thrashing. “I’m … fine. Just … out of breath,” Summer replied. On Monday, Richard called Matthew’s school to excuse him for the day so he could stay home with Lilly while Richard had Summer follow him into town with her car so they could get it checked out at the local garage. Matthew let Lilly help him around the barn in the morning. He saw that she was trying to do everything the way he showed her and would just need some practise. After they made some sandwiches for lunch, he played her favourite card games with her for a while. “Matthew,” she said at the end of the hand they were playing. “When do I get to ride your horse like you said maybe I could?” He had said something like that this morning, hadn’t he? “I guess we could do that now. If you’re sure you want to …” “I’m sure!” she cried with a clap of her hands. “Okay.” Out at the barn he saddled up Blaze and led him into the riding ring. Lilly skipped along beside him, remembering to stay on his left all the time and not bounce too much. Her excitement was palpable as she waited for him to help her get up in the saddle. He had to lift her. She grabbed onto the saddle horn with both hands, beaming with joy. Her feet couldn’t reach the stirrups, no matter how much he shortened them. “You hang on, okay?” he said, and led the horse forward at a walk. Lilly giggled and chattered as they circled the ring. “I love Blaze!” she cried. “He’s so beautiful and gentle! Can I have a horse, too?” “Maybe,” was all Matthew could think to say. “Wanna go faster?” She nodded emphatically. “Hang on tight!” He cued the horse to trot beside him and broke into a jog. Lilly squealed with delight even as she bounced up and down on the seat. Matthew kept an eye on her by turning his head, and stopped to catch her the instant it looked like she was going to fall. She laughed like she had no fear. “I wanna go faster!” Matthew mulled it over. “I can’t run as fast as a horse, so I’d have to get up there with you and you’d have to sit behind me and hang on.” “Okay!” Matthew lifted her to the top rail of the fence and got into the saddle. Cueing Blaze up close and parallel to the fence, he helped Lilly slip on behind him. She wrapped both her little arms around his waist. “Ready? Okay, here we go.” Matthew eased Blaze into a gentle trot at first, then when everything seemed okay, cued him into a slow canter. He kept one hand on Lilly’s arm at all times. He was glad Blaze was such a sensible, reliable horse, for Lilly screamed with delight. They cantered around the arena slow and easy a couple of times, and then saw Richard’s car coming up the driveway. “Mommy’s home!” Lilly cried. “Wait till she sees me riding!” Matthew slowed his horse to a walk and met his father at the arena gate. “Lilly likes to ride,” he announced. “Yeah!” she chimed in. “That’s good,” Richard said. Matthew cocked his head to one side. He thought his father would’ve been more excited than that. “Come on down for a minute, you guys.” Concerned, Matthew swung a leg over the front of the saddle, slipped down and then turned to lift Lilly to the ground. He held Blaze’s reins close to the bit as she ran toward the fence. “Where’s Mommy?” she asked. “I want her to see me ride!” Richard opened the gate and entered the ring. Matthew spotted an envelope the colour of old-fashioned linen protruding from his shirt pocket. He was able to make out ‘To Li’ in a large thready scrawl. The remainder was hidden beneath the pocket. Squatting down in front of Lilly, Richard took her hands in his. “Your mommy, Lilly...” She tilted her head and screwed up her face quizzically. “Can’t come watch you ride.” Matthew’s chest tightened. Summer was ditching Lilly now, too? Looks like at least she got a note. “Why not?” “I had to take her to the hospital this afternoon.” “Did she have an episode?” Matthew saw his father’s face wince with surprise. Blaze rubbed his head up and down the boy’s shoulder, nearly knocking him off balance. Matthew firmed up his grip on the reins and gently pushed the gelding’s head away. “Not now, buddy.” Richard nodded. “Yes. Yes, she did, sweetie.” “She needs to go see the healer in the log cabin. He always gives her something to make her feel better.” Richard swallowed, and Matthew sensed he was choosing words carefully. “She can’t, sweetie.” Lilly’s tone turned suddenly cross. “Are they making her stay in the hospital? Mommy doesn’t like hospitals!” Richard’s hands rubbed softly up and down the girl’s arms. “She let me take her. She was feeling so bad.” Moisture shimmered in his eyes. “She wanted me to tell you she’s gone to live with the fairies now, and she wants you to stay here with Matt and me.” “But … Why didn’t she tell me she was going…?” Lilly sniffled. “I don’t think she knew it would happen today, sweetie. So fast. Maybe she thought it would be easier for you …” Matthew heard the emotion catch in his father’s throat. As Lilly began to cry and collapsed into Richard’s arms, Matthew felt tears pressing at the backs of his own eyes. Tentatively, he reached with his free hand to touch her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Lilly. I bet she can watch you ride from Fairyland.” His father’s eyes rose to Matthew’s and the boy saw gratitude in them. “I’m sure she can,” Richard agreed. “She loves you and she wants you to be safe and happy.” “She knows Dad’ll always be here for you,” Matthew said, his throat tightening. “And I will, too. ’Cause I’m your big brother.” THE END CHRONICLES OF LOVES FOREWARNED “This book is fiction and many things have been changed in fact to try to make it a picture of a true time…”
“Writers are always selling somebody out…”
9: Due Date I remembered when I would be surrounded by friends this late at night in an office. Not anymore. Now not even colleagues stay past sundown. How times have changed. How I’ve changed. “How is he, Val?” “He who?” “Whoever you’re dating these days.” He smiled like Lucifer in the flesh. Only Teller could say such things. And he wasn’t Teller. “I’m not dating anyone these days.” “Wow. How do times change.” I remembered a time when Dawn worked here with us, too. Not anymore. That was before her breakdown and yuppie existential crisis. Now there were only the two of us. Even the janitor had left for the night. How times changed. “How are the wedding plans coming along?” Anything was a better topic than the fucking quarter report due in the morning. Even wedding talk. “They’re good. We have a venue. We have catering. We’re just missing a minister. Or judge.” “That’s good. I’m glad for the two of you.” If anyone in the world was meant to be together, those two were The One. They had always fit. Even in happiness. More so in sorrow. Definitely in their brokenness. I remembered when weddings and forever-afters were futuristic fantasies. Not anymore. Now they’re unsent RSVPs stuck on my fridge. How times changed. How friends have changed. “How come you’re not dating anyone nowadays?” “I’m getting a little distance. Perspective.” “I see.” I looked into Lucifer’s face again. Trickster. “Trying to find yourself, huh?” “No. Just taking care of myself.” “Sounds fair. Looking for something else too, maybe?” I knew the subtext. The thoughts racing through his head like pumping blood. I remembered when my friends and peers were just that. Not anymore. Now they were worse. Past tourists of my bedsheets. Eager suitors-to-be. Scorned girlfriends. Jealous wives. How times have changed. How my life has changed. “I’ll tell you what: let’s get out of here.” “What?” I knew that meant I would end up finishing the report myself. And worse. “Let’s leave. We’ve work hard. It’s late and we deserve a break.” “It’s still due in the morning.” “C’mon, a ‘date’ is due. The two of us. No harm. Just fun.” I couldn’t believe he was the wunderkind inventor and investor seducer everyone praised. “And that’s not even counting the dinner I’ll buy you.” Teller would have a blast with that. “Go home to Gloria, Matt.” How times have not changed. 10: Play It As You May Val, it’s your 25th birthday and there’s so much to say I may be writing these words but I wanna sing them away My song’s for you full of love and praise and all of it is true so play it as you may The masterpieces of the world fade in your presence No painting as colorful No sculpture as sublime No poem as beautiful No goddess as divine My song’s for you full of love and praise and all of it is true so play it as you may The geniuses of the past would envy your thinking From the soul of your wit to the pits of your mind You’re an endless sea rich of ideas to find My song’s for you full of love and praise and all of it is true so play it as you may The heights of heavens feel like your home Your spirit soars the sky while mere mortal remain below You can’t stay aground for your spirit belongs above My song’s for you full of love and praise and all of it is true so play it as you may All the freedom in the world would not be enough Reality can’t contain you Imagination can’t invent you You’re the mystery of life Free from all the universe My song’s for you full of love and praise and all of it is true all I meant to say so play it as you may 11: Parental Advisory “Val, meet Scott. He just had to see you.” Teller. Of course he did. Bringing Scott to dinner. With my parents in tow. “I feel like I know you already.” “Likewise.” With all the creepy gifts and letters. I had to get back at Teller. Somehow. “And nice to meet you as well, Mr. and Mrs. Cole.” Scott. Shaking hands with my parents. What in the world. I had stopped Teller from meeting my parents for years. Barely. Now Scott knew them, too. Dinner would have to be over soon. Then never again. Knowing my dad, there was no other way. Except that Teller brought up sports. He knew. Scott joined, eager and knowledgeable. My dad was hooked. My mom and I talked too, but it wasn’t a real conversation. Conversations had always belonged to my dad. That was a birthright. My birthright. “So, Teller, how did you and Scott become friends?” I wasn’t giving in without a fight. “Mutual interests, you could say. The usual tropes.” Teller had the audacity to wink. “I have to say, sir, that I know nothing but good things about your daughter Valerie.” Understatement of the year, Scott. My dad, my secret admirer, and Teller, all partaking in their favorite--me. For 44 minutes. I swear this things happen only to me. Someone had to bring the dessert already. My worlds colliding. And all I could do was watch. I had to act. Talk to dad. “OK. Mom, Dad, I think it’s time for us to call it a night. I bet Teller and Scott probably want to grab a drink on their own.” “Oh, so you won’t be joining us for that?” My smirk cursed Teller to hell and back. He knew. There was no dessert. Driving back home, mom feigned sleeping. My dad did what I feared most. He talked first. “Those fellas. Teller and Scott. I didn’t hate them one bit, you know.” Those words may never be uttered again by my dad. “Why do you say that, dad?” “Because Teller puts up with you. He cares.” Understatement of the decade, Dad. “I know. But Scott?” Dad grinned, all-knowing. That grin. “Just keep in mind I didn’t hate either of them. That’s all.” Of course you didn’t, Dad. Of course. 12: Bonds & Options Ugh. I hate dealing with bonds and options. Least favorite part. Who even understands these things? Ugh. Finance. Back to the problem, so that I can go to sleep. What’s the model for these assets? What’s the risk? I hate forgetting what model to follow. And I hate Matt more for being an ass. I could be taking care of this task at the office. With all the proper documents to do it fast. But Matt had to be himself. Ugh. At least the coffee’s good here. My little café doesn’t disappoint. What’s the risk again? “Working late again, I see.” How did Scott find me? Here, in my sanctuary of Java. Not even Teller knows. Ugh. “The life of a financial analyst, I suppose.” “If you want to call it life.” I can tell he’s been around Teller. For too long. “It’s my life. All me. And numbers.” Scott, my admirer, looking me straight in the eye. Weird. “What’s your life about tonight then? Stocks? Gold? Coffee?” “Bonds and options.” If he dares to ask what that means… Ugh. “Those sound more like life than finance.” I wish he were wrong. I hate when others are right. “As I said, my life.” “And you do risk analysis, right?” “Among other things. Yes.” The things Matt never wants to do. Whatever. “So your job is to answer the question ‘what’s the risk’? That’s it?” I can’t tell if he means the question. His eyes just gleam at me. “My job, in a nutshell. More less.” But with equations to solve. “That sounds more like everybody’s life than finance. I like it.” Scott doesn’t know how right he is. But I won’t tell him. “And I love the equations. Math always makes sense.” Is he reading my mind now? Ugh. “Well, that’s totally my life. Tonight.” “I can see how that goes.” Lies. He observes. He knows. Me. Ugh. “That being said, I better go, for the darkness of night is no friend of mine.” Interesting. I didn’t expect that from my song-writing worshipper. “Good luck figuring out the risk of your bonds and options.” “I’ll let you know.” “Please do. Good night. And sweet risk-less dreams.” Scott, talking to me about math, bonds, and options. Teller will love this. Too much. Dammit. Scott, my secret worshipper. Teller’s new pal. My dad’s approved acquaintance. And now also my fellow math lover. Ugh. Perhaps Teller is right. The odds of that are pretty high. Considering past chances. I’m sure the math is there. Perhaps I should give Scott a democratic chance, oddly enough. At the end of the day, what’s the risk? 13: Breaking Taunted by the blank page and the silent strangeness of my home, the siren call echoing in my idle mind led me to knock on Mallory’s door that night. Find what you love and let it kill you… She opened the door and a legion of vices, bad decisions, and ghosts of bygone times rushed behind me to crowd the apartment. I kissed her, tasting the ashes of fossilized love, embers of regret, and some cheap cabernet. I pinned Mallory against a wall while I tasted her—the place I knew she would feel most at home. She undressed me in a frenzy, ripping off shirt, shame, pants, pretense, dread, decency, and socks—she knew how I hated socks ruining the natural sight of instinct and emotion. Everything in the world is about sex except sex… I rushed for her nakedness too, fervently looking to touch again the crevices of her soul and the landscapes of her body that I had hardly forgotten. I craved for that nude familiarity in the wild strangeness of my so-called life. Moans made promises never to be fulfilled, friction felt close enough to caring, and agitated silence marked the war we were waging with ourselves. Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love… It was ironic how there could be so much heat between us, same as always, yet such awful absence of flaming passion to justify it. Mallory and I always consumed in a frozen fire that burnt with coldness and frost—a blaze of oblivion for her and a rush of release for me. Nothing more. We always scratched the vault of heaven together, just to drag each other through hell a moment after—and that night, my writing brought fire and brimstone upon us. “You’re leaving me again?” “I have to go write.” “But we’re not done.” “We were done ages ago, Mallory.” What’s a fuck when what I want is love..? Then came the fucking brimstone. “You’re a writer who no one reads.” “All great writers are like that before they’re great.” “But no one reads you because you don’t even write.” I felt the heat rising through my body, much different from the hot blood of minutes before. I felt the urge to escape, just as I had escaped from myself between the sheets and on the rug of the living room, twice. “You’re still the same fucking Teller: all story, no hero, no substance.” Mallory’s nakedness now seemed raw and rude. Everyone behaves badly, given the chance… I got dressed in haste and rushed to exit for good. “Because you inspire me nothing.” And I shut it behind me. 14: In ReverseOf course, Conroe would bump into Teller at my door. On his walk of shame. Of course. Dammit. Why do these things happen to me? Teller better not try to defend my honor. Or point at my lack of it. He knows better. I’ll be ready for Teller and I to go to Shakespeare at the Park in a blink. He has no reason to be bitter about Conroe. Or time to act on it. Conroe was more fun than I expected. And better in the bedroom than the boardroom, oddly enough. His marble-worthy physique was well worth the wait. Three years of waiting made that marshmallow all the better. So many late nights with Conroe. At the office. With Matt gone. Imagining what ladies don’t. I had to eat the marshmallow eventually. Why do these things occur to me? Conroe and me, going from Excel spreadsheets to spreading in my sheets. Excellent. Not even Teller could come up with that one. I could even give that marshmallow another bite. Or ten. Too bad there’s a Shakespeare play at noon. Conroe’s loss. The night, though. Last night. I doubt Conroe will be able to keep his mind chaste when looking at me in the office. Or at any company lanyard after what we did. He was so hesitant to give in. To let go. But my hex appeal won. Poor Conroe. I wonder if he liked it as much as I did. Maybe he would like to make a habit of it. It would be good, I think. At least convenient. He won’t resist. I always win. “You’re an idiot if you think this means something.” Dammit, Teller. Don’t say those things. Not to strangers. “I’m not an idiot. That’s why I took my shot. Val is a legend.” Dammit, Conroe. I feel naked with clothes on. “I guess that makes your shot a mere scratch in her legend.” Teller, stabbing scoundrels with his rapier wit. For me. Dammit. I was not alone waiting for marshmallows. Why do these things occur to me? So Conroe can exit. Stage left. Back to the boardroom where he belongs. Poor Conroe. “Ready for The Bard?” I didn’t need to thank Teller for our shared solitude. “You know. Always.” “Scott will not be joining us.” “I didn’t know that was a thing.” “Good. Because I didn’t know this was a thing either.” Dammit, Teller. Sheath your sarcasm. For once. “So, Taming of the Shrew, huh?” And we exited. Stage right, of course. 15: In the Mix You’re among the crowd as if nobody was there I see you looking around and you don’t see me there We’re worlds apart Is there even a fix? I wish that we could share a world if we were in the mix People talk but no one listens Music plays but no one dances You could cry but not one cares I care for you but you don’t see me there We’re worlds apart Is there even a fix? I wish that we could share a world if we were in the mix You’re surrounded by faces yet feel alone We’re standing together yet remain distant I speak to you honestly yet you don’t believe We could be good for each other yet you don’t see me there We’re worlds apart Is there even a fix? I wish that we could share a world if we were in the mix Others have touched you though never your heart Others have grasped you though never your mind Others have come to you though never your soul I understand you whole though you don’t see me there We’re worlds apart but there is a fix We will share a world when we’re in the mix 16: Mixed Up I had to break it. Again. Why can’t I make them last? Stupid phone. Smashed and cracked. Ugh. I hate these work mixers. They’re worse than online hook-ups. At least there’s an open bar. I better find Teller. He needs to know I broke my phone. Otherwise he might get hurt when I don’t reply to his text quips. Stupid phone. Why do I keep breaking them? I hate everyone in this crowd. All colleagues. Few friends. Too many past flames. Too much smoke. Good thing I brought Teller. And Scott. Did I just say that? Seriously? Dammit. Where’s Teller? “If you’re looking for Teller, he was heading to the bar for a refill.” “Of course. The writers’ watering hole.” Thanks Scott for reading my mind. Ugh. “You’re not enjoying yourself, are you?” His innocent grin. Not as annoying in this crowd. “It’s part of the job. Mostly.” “I guess this is part of the risk?” So punny… “Risk? Clear and present danger.” Scott better not make a big deal of sharing a laugh with me. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t noticed his eyes are hazel. Who knew… “So why are you not mingling?” “I have mingled with this crowd way too much already.” Mingled and then some. Teller would crack up at the understatement. “Why aren’t you, Scott?” “I don’t care about the crowd. I care about you.” Dammit. Sweet and flirty. Why now? Why here? “What happened to your phone?” “I dropped it and it cracked.” “That’s unfortunate.” “I’m used to it. It happens a lot.” “Notorious phone-breaker, huh?” “Yes. But only my own.” How do Scott and I end up talking like this? “Sounds like you need to pick your phone better.” No shit, Sherlock. “Well, at least when I break it I get a new one with better features to play with.” That’s so me. Preferring the new. Teller would call me out on it. “But getting a new one every time means you don’t learn how to use it.” “I’m good learning the features fast.” Don’t you dare condescend me. “You don’t get used to it. Then you break it again.” That’s not a truth I wanted to hear. Not even from Teller. “All I’m saying, I would pick the one that lasts next time. That keeps you connected.” His grin again. The true face of my worshipper. “Scott, did you really mean all those things you wrote me?” He doesn’t seem to be caught off-guard. Weird. “Of course I did. I could only have meant them more in a song, musical style.” His grin. My smirk. Ugh. Where’s Teller when I need him? Stupid phone. 17: Mirage Out of the crowd of unknown names and forgotten faces, she was someone I needed to know. The blue tips of her fiery hair and the flowery sundress in an October evening amidst the business casual décor framed her so out of place that I had to approach her. I could almost swear I knew her already pages ago. Zooey, in her twenties, fascinated by the world, yet too innocent to explore it… She scurried away from two finance guys that had accosted her as if in a strip club—giving me the setting for the meet-cute by the civilized watering hole of the open bar. “Are you new here?” “First time. How did you know?” She giggled and fidgeted with a strand of her hair. “Because otherwise I would have noticed you before.” She smiled. This was a meet-cute worthy of offbeat rom-coms, and I was OK with that as long as Val weren’t looking. New drinks in hand, we moved away from the bar, taking a stand by a nook that would allow for conversation and perhaps intimacy. Up close, the ruby of her lips and the sapphire of her eyes inspired awe and temptation in maddening and equal amounts. Marilyn, old enough to sin, but too young to repent… “I work for a nonprofit. What do you do?” It was inevitable to trigger that question at any mixer that involved Val and her colleagues. “I’m a writer.” “Cool.” No eyes wide open. No jaw dropped. No favorites follow-up. She was something. We talked about the terrible elevator music hissing in the background of the mixer, all the drunk ramblers already stumbling around, and other topics that may offend the intellect but not etiquette. She held her glass with private school poise, one that I had only seen in glorious Technicolor. Audrey, the wild dreamer doomed to a private purgatory of socialite life… Was she real? She must, for she was so close I could graze her arm with mine, while her scent of faint cigarettes and fancy Chanel made me forget all my other senses. I could already imagine caresses, kisses, and bedsheets to be shared. I didn’t even care if I left Val fending for herself in the mix. I had found what I was looking for—so I had to ask. “What’s your passion in life?” “I don’t believe in ‘passions.’ That’s so pretentious.” Suddenly the noise of the crowd and Kenny G existed in my world again, riddling and burdening me. She was something. “What’s your favorite book then?” “I hate reading. It’s the worst… Wanna get out of here?” There are riddles, and there are Gordian Knots. What would Alexander the Great do? “Yeah… I have to go back to the bar…” I disappeared into the crowd of aimless networkers and lonely social climbers, leaving her behind without any more words. How could I have believed the mirage? Of course I wouldn’t find what I was looking for in that scene. I did, however, find a couple in the coat-check booth in more need of my pocket condom, so I tossed it their way, certain that such kind gift would count as my good deed of the day and my contribution against the breeding of stupidity. I also finally found Val, donning her usual drink in hand and an unusual smile that expressed a level of joy we usually repress or sabotage. “That must be one hell of a drink.” “It’s been one hell of a night.” She smiled wider. Weird. “Tell me about it…” “Found another one of your mediocre muses, I take it.” “She was something.” Fucking redheads. “But at least you get to write about it, right?” Times like that made me wish there were boundaries between us. Some mystery at least. Katherine, lighting a match in the shadows as she whistles in the face of dread… Val knew I had found what I was truly looking for. Yet I wondered if she had done the same or even knew it herself. 18: Story-Teller He dribbles. He shoots. He misses. Teller, once again having an all-star disaster with his midnight muse. The story of Teller, always and wherever. A tragic, frustrating non-romance for the ages, written over and over again. A foul play in constant replay. I know one and I’ve seen them all. Teller will see a girl hurling his way and he will swing hard for the home run. Never hits the fences. All strikes and outs. No safety. No runs. No wins. He knows that. Yet he continues swinging, hoping for his historic grand-slam. The One to earn him the World. Teller won’t admit it, but we both know. He’ll bend and stretch and spin and throttle and flip and tiptoe and jump and flop and twirl if he thinks that might earn him a perfect ten with his golden girl at hand. Of course he always stumbles and face-plants when he realizes the girl is only ash and smoke. So he never sticks his romantic landing. Tonight, another loss for his record books. He definitely belongs to Guinness at this point. Of course, we’ll talk about it. Sports are only as entertaining as the commentary. His emotional boxing match certainly qualifies, bitten ear and all. “Another mystifying muse turned into a mirage?” I love twisting Teller’s words against him. “Shouldn’t you be biting Conroe’s head off somewhere?” “And miss your spectacular Waterloo?” We both would destroy anyone talking like this. Not us. Never us. We shoot looks, not venom. Not at each other, at least. “What was wrong with that one? I liked her Smurf hair. She wasn’t everything you imagined?” “What about Scott? Do you hate him yet for being everything you need?” “I don’t need anyone.” “If you want to stick to that story. Sure.” “How about another drink.” “Always.” I guess there are not solo sports. Not love, at least. And certainly not life. We dribble. We shoot. Perhaps next time we don’t miss. Ugh. I hate company mixers. TO BE CONTINUED
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