Joan Taber

Day 365: The Robbery

2011-02-11T13:58:00.003-05:00

Bloodroot

Had Mrs. Dawkins' windows been open all the way, she would have heard the slight rustling of leaves lifting and settling in the evening breeze of early May. Had her periwinkle drapes not been drawn, she would have been able to admire the crescent moon rocking in the night sky, which was never so black as it seemed, after all; she would have delighted at the sight of a trillion blinking stars, each one pointing to the beginning of another time, another galaxy too far away for the imagination to comprehend.

Had she stood by her window, she might have recognized the two young men sitting in a black Ford in front of her house and wondered where she had seen them before. She might even have smelled the stink of beer and nicotine emanating from their pores. Indeed, she would have stepped back at the sight of those handcuffs and that duct tape, both lying in plain view, in the littered back seat of the sedan. She might also have caught bits of their conversation and called police before it was too late.

“You sure that back door isn't locked.”

“She never locks it. I shoveled her snow all winter, and she never locked it, not once. ”

“That her bedroom light?”

“Yeah. Wait till we're sure she's sleeping. I don't want any screaming old ladies on my hands.”

“I'm tired of waiting.”

“Yeah, well, it won't be long now. We're going to get us some money, my man.”

“You should'a seen the tip she gave me at the car wash last week. Twenty bucks! 'Here, dear, this is for you.' Who the hell does she think she is giving out a tip like that? It's like she's asking to get herself robbed.”

“Yeah, when I told her 50 bucks to shovel her walk, she didn't even blink. 'Okay.' That's what she said. 'Okay, young man.' Yeah, she's probably got money stashed in every corner of the house.”

“What the hell. She don't need all that money anyway.”

“Yeah, what's she going to do with it? Go to a club? Twenty bucks. Fifty bucks. Screw that. I'll be she's got at least a few thousand in there.”

“What if she wakes up?”

“Look, dickhead, don't get all girly on me. She's old. Who the hell cares if she wakes up?”

“It's not like I care, man. I just don't want no problems, like you said, with screaming old ladies.”

“Look, if we have to knock her off, we'll knock her off.”

“Yeah. She'll probably beg us. 'Oh, please don't hurt me.' That's what they all do.”

Their laughter startles a neighbor's dog. The animal lifts his ears and sniffs. Sensing something isn't right, he growls and paces the edge of his fence until he's called inside. “Get in here, Buddy” the neighbor hisses. “I said get in here. You'll wake the whole neighborhood up. Bad dog.”

An hour after the lights turn off, the men leave their car in the street and tiptoe along the winding brick path to the back of Mrs. Dawkins' small brick house.

Had they not been so intent on laying their hands on Mrs. Dawkins' perceived fortune, they would have noticed the sweet scent of bloodroot and ghost flower planted throughout her small garden; they might have noticed the care with which Mrs. Dawkins tends her yard—the freshly turned richness of the soil around the white irises, the row of tenderly trimmed azaleas, bursting with red and pink flowers even at night, along the stone driveway. They certainly would have noticed the welcoming aromas of basil and mint hanging in the kitchen window, left open no more than a sliver to let in the fresh night air.

If they hadn't been so careful about silencing their own footsteps, they would have heard the creaking of stairs inside the house. They would have heard the opening and closing of a cabinet and the releasing of a trigger lock. Had they not been concentrating on the justifiable nature of an old woman's possible death at their hands, they might have seen her raise her shotgun to her thin 83-year-old shoulder; they might have noticed how purposefully she aimed it, with her one good eye, toward the kitchen door as they turned the doorknob and let themselves inside. At last, they might have noticed the familiar sound of a trigger pulled back and released into that infinitesimal universe between consciousness and nothingness.

Had they not been in that very spot at that precise moment, by the time the sun rose on them the following morning, one of them would have gone to work, as usual, at the car wash and the other would have knocked on Mrs. Dawkins' kitchen door and asked her if she needed any help around the yard.

Day 364: Thoughts Interrupted by a Poem

2011-02-10T17:54:00.004-05:00

Here I am just about at the finish line, or starting line, depending how I want to look at it. So, if nothing else can be said about me, at least I keep my word, at least most of the time. It can also be said that writing every day for a year emboldens the writer, gives him/her the coglioni (uova?) to take literary chances, that is, to write without giving a damn what anyone thinks. At times I've written pieces that I know aren't worth much more than the exercise they've afforded my fingers; some of my writing has been a concerted effort to tend to every rule; some of it has been experimental, like this little snapshot taken on a subway:

She wears his arm

around her shoulders

like a dead stole

like a flannel drape

whose weight

shortens her

by at least two inches.

“It didn't mean anything,” he says.

Some of my blog entries have involved a lot more work than others. But no matter how much or how little work each story/poem/blog has entailed, I haven't had many comments, which is both a blessing and a disappointment. A blessing because I haven't felt the need to write for anyone's approval; a disappointment because, well, I have no reason to write for anyone's approval. After all, when I was a student, I used to write my best papers when the professor was handsome and/or brilliant. And now that all the handsome and/or brilliant professors have shuffled off the mortal coil of my life, I've had to learn to to do what I should have been doing all along, that is, to write for no one but myself.

He, in turn, wears her arm

around his back

like a fanny pack,

like an iron weight

that pulls his waist band

down to his thighs

making him feel

like a man.

But sometimes I wonder what Peter thinks (it doesn't matter which one) about my work. And on occasion I wish my friend Giuseppe weren't so dicklessly indifferent about my writing. More than anything, I think it would be helpful if another writer would jump in and commiserate—not to advise me that I used a trendy word (oh dear, I hope not) or could have been far more effective had I left out that semi-colon or taken an opportunity to explore the scent of honeysuckle or the harbor at low tide—I mean, Joan, “rank” is telling; you really ought to “show.” None of that would have helped, which was probably a good enough reason for everyone to remain silent.

The sudden lurch of the subway car

breaks their embrace

causing each to

tumble

—one forward, the other backward—

into clusters

of commuters,

tired gloomy dazed commuters,

lost in their Blackberries

nodding their heads

to the beat of

Ipods, hoping

for an evening of peace.

“What's the matter with you?”

“Watch what you're doing!”

“Get the hell off me.”

The woman pulls herself up

and finds that she is taller

than the rest of the world,

like Alice in Wonderland

after she ate that mushroom,

like Gulliver in Lilliput

without the strings.

“Wow, that arm was sure weighing me down,”

she said to the people below

causing them to laugh and laugh.

But the man had trouble getting up again

for his pants were down to his knees

like Cinema de Merde

like Theater of the Ridiculous.

(How Charles Ludlum would have
applauded and grinned.)

And so tomorrow I'll make a last visit here on this stage to post one more piece of work. I hope it's funny; I hope it's a little strange; I hope no one cares; I hope everyone cares.

Hoping is my way of making it through until tomorrow. And in this—good writing or bad—I'm just like everyone else.

Day 363: The Pastor and the Working Girl

2011-02-09T18:57:00.002-05:00

I'm still reading Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver. He suggests writing a short story about a priest and a prostitute. However, if I title a piece "The Priest and the Prostitute," I'll get all sorts of sordid spam from escort services throughout the world and will have to spend an inordinate amount of time deleting it from my email accounts. Therefore I decided to do a prosaic poem about a Pastor and a Working Girl. I don't even know if "working girl" is still a euphemism for prostitute. It matters not, as long as I don't get inundated with garbage mail. Yes, I know this is not really a poem; nor is it a short story. It's whatever you want to call it. It's a little creation.

For ten years, the Pastor and the Working Girl

met every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

in the rectory of St. Michael's Church

for a quick prayer and chorus of Halleluiah.

Although Pastor Dixon

tried his best to infuse

the fear of God into his “Charge,”

—for that's how he referred to Violet

aka Vi aka Vixen aka VaVoom—

Violet always insisted that Pastor Dixon

wore godliness

like a turtle wears a shell,

like a penguin wears a tuxedo.

“It's so you,” she would say.

As she left the rectory

each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,

the secretary would look up from her keyboard:

“You converted yet?”

“Not yet, Mrs. J.

But I feel it coming on.”

As the pastor left the rectory

each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,

the secretary would look up from her keyboard:

“She converted yet?”

“Who? Oh you mean my Charge.

Not yet. A sad state of affairs, indeed.”

“Indeed,” repeated Mrs. J. to the choir.

“Indeed,” repeated the choir to the congregation.

“Indeed,” repeated the congregation to the town
at large.

One Friday, Violet

didn't come to the rectory

for her usual prayer,

for her usual chorus of Halleluiah.

Pastor Dixon grabbed his coat

and rushed to her house

only to find it empty.

“She's moved away,” said the neighbor to the right.

“Yup, that's right,” said the neighbor to the left.

Pastor Dixon threw himself

on the cold hard ground

and sobbed until he could no longer sob.

He was quickly divested of his collar

position, equilibrium,

turned out into the street;

and forced to become a Working Boy

in order to survive.

Times were tough, but he didn't care.

His Violet, his Charge, his Working Girl

seemed to have disappeared.

For years he toiled

in the down dirty street

earning more than enough to survive.

One day, on a whim,

he walked into his old church

and asked to speak with the pastor.

“Pastor Violet will be right with you,
Mr. Dixon, sir,”

the secretary smiled.

“But I'm afraid she only has time for

a quick prayer and a chorus of Hallelujah as

her schedule is really quite full.”

“That's all the time I need,” said he,

That's all the time I have.”

Day 362: The Company Instrument

2011-02-08T17:51:00.007-05:00

DATE: ___________________

To Whom It May Not Concern:

It has come to our Company's attention that NAME was overheard using Language of an Unacceptable grade and quality in various Cubicles and Washrooms throughout the Building. In addition, NAME is alleged to have made Complaints of a Personal as well as Professional nature during both working and nonworking hours within the Building and in various Locations throughout the City. These Complaints and their accompanying bursts of Emotionality have been reported by Reliable Sources, including our Company's prestigious Investigative Team, "Eyes 'n Ears Everywhere" (EEE).

Our Legal Team politely asks that NAME review the following RULES as per his/her Contract. Upon reading and understanding said RULES, the Team asks that NAME sign where indicated at the Bottom of this Instrument. The Matter will then be Considered Closed (CC) until or unless Further Violations (FVs) come to the the Team's Attention, in which case, NAME will be asked to Terminate his/her Employment (TE).

To wit:

RULE 55 A: No Employee shall make references to Bodily Functions (BFs). These include all Activities one might Execute in the Washroom. In other words, one “Visits” said Washroom; one does not “have to pee”; nor does one “have to take a crap.” Furthermore, Female Employees (FEs) must be Attentive regarding any Reference to their Monthly Visitor (MV). One does not exclaim, “Oh, shit; I just got my period! Anyone got a tampon?” Instead, one Plans For and Takes Care Of said matters without Ceremony or Comment (CC).

RULE 102 C: No Employee shall register Verbal Dissatisfaction (VD) regarding our Company or the Working Conditions herein. Therefore, one does not exclaim, “This place sucks big time” or “My Manager is a Dickhead.” Instead, one fills out one of our Company Happiness Cards and inserts it into the Suggestion Box located next to said Manager's Cubicle. What's more, when asked to work late, one does not open one's eyes widely, lift one's eyebrows, and declare, “You're kidding, right?” Instead, one smiles, nods, and acquiesces with a polite, “Of course.” On Fridays, one may agree to working late with a more casual, “No problem.”

RULE 443 P: When out and about in Public during Nonworking Hours, our Company expects Employees to guard their Tongues as well as Refrain from Activities that might be Deemed Inappropriate (DI). Therefore, one does not visit places known to condone activities of a Lewd or Lascivious nature (LLs). Thus, if an acquaintance suggests an evening at Hunp-A-Rama or Boobies Galore, Company Employees should just say, “Sorry, but I have other plans” or “Thanks, but no thanks.” Similarly, when our Exit Security Guards are checking Employees' briefcases when they leave work on Friday night, Employees should not mutter, “Let me out of this f*ing place”; nor should Employees do war whoops and cartwheels all the way to the Subway Station (SS). One simply smiles and says, “Good night. Have a nice weekend.”

RULE 502 A: Crying, laughing, and joke telling as well as other Expressions of an Emotional Nature (EENs) shall be restricted to Friday afternoons from 3 to 3:20 PM in H.R.'s Snack Room. Emoticon Stickers and Coffee will be provided. Our H.R. Generalist and Counselor will be on hand to give Encouragement and to Update your Personnel File.

We Sincerely Hope that NAME will Regard this Instrument as seriously as the Company does and that no Further Infractions (FIs) or Alleged Infractions (AIs) will be Reported.

NAME is asked to Indicate that she/he understands aforesaid RULES by signing this Instrument below as Indicated by the Straight Line (SL):

_______________________________________.

Day 361: Rino

2011-02-07T18:30:00.010-05:00

He sped right by you

leaving a trail

of bladed lights

and distant drumrolls

on the grainy doorsill

of yesterday's horizon.

No matter,

you'll catch him

next time;

you turn to

the choke weed

of your own garden

for no more than

a moment, maybe two;

then 40 years later

there's the obituary

you find when you type

his name into Google

and remember, at last,

the rhythmic aria of his accent,

the crinkly brown eyes of his smile,

the gentle good morning

of his early summer tide

when he called you

The Blue-Eyed Girl.

You read the abridged version

of a lifetime since

you waved that last goodbye:

Divorced, re-married, widowed,

grandchild, companion,

patents, papers, awards,

funeral mass;

you see you've missed

the graying of his hair,

the filling out of his cheeks,

the speeding clock of his time

on Earth;

you've even missed

his memorial service

in the Mudd Building

at Columbia U.

No more tomorrows

no more yesterdays

no dashing lights

or crescendo drumroll

on anyone's horizon;

no more chance

to say you
remembered

no more crystal mornings
no more next time around;

just this endless chill
of winter
just this slow and halting

Good night.

Vittorio "Rino" Castelli

Day 360: What To Write Instead

2011-02-06T12:56:00.002-05:00

Here's the trick: In order to write a good story, you have to create at least one character with whom the reader can identify. That character must want something very dramatic—to survive, to find love, to get from desperate point A to point sweet B. For each dramatic want there must be an equally dramatic opposing want from the baddy, the meanie, the villain. They spar and clash throughout the story until one of them wins. Everything in the story must lead to that particular and inevitable resolution, which is decided by the actions of the characters. I know all this from reading a book by Jerry Cleaver titled Immediate Fiction. I recommend the book. I also recommend that I start life all over again, maybe as a writer.

It's all so easy, it's hard.

So, for now, I'll write this prosaic poem instead:

Each morning

for 20 years now

the man shuffles

to the end of his driveway

looks to his left, looks to his right,

picks up his newspaper,

turns around, shuffles back

into the house, and closes the door

for the rest of the day.

This morning there was no paper,

just the man

hands resting on hips,

slight forward thrust

of narrow shoulders,

tiny puckering of his brush-stroke mouth,

occasional blinking of his ink-dot eyes,

constant cascading of his long face

into the blue soles of his cloth slippers.

Because there was no newspaper

he had not read the headline

concerning the red-haired paperboy,

the one he called Sonny,

the one he always forgot to tip,

who had been killed by a car

just yesterday

after tossing the morning news

from his bike

and turning to watch it land

at the foot of

the man's driveway.

With nothing there for the man

to pick up,

he waits all day

in the hot sun,

causing him to puff up

like soufflé or popovers,

causing him to implode

at last

in the aftermath

of one boy's tragic
and untimely death.

Day 359: Eat Your Vegetables

2011-02-05T19:33:00.001-05:00

The problem with keeping food in a canister at the bottom of your T-shirt drawer is twofold. First, you simply forget it's there, especially if you're only eight or nine years old. Second, because you forget you've forgotten all about them, you're always surprised and delighted when you find said canister.

“Oooooh. A surprise!” You think it's Christmas or your birthday; maybe there's a treasure inside; maybe something better than a treasure. Chocolate? A handful of quarters?

With anticipation tickling the base of your spine, you open it up with nervous glee only to discover there's nothing in there but three-month-old food stuffs, each in a varying and disturbing state of rot. The stench is so strong it knocks you over, and the slimy, hairy greenish-orange-ish hills of mold growing within actually give you bad dreams.

How extraordinary to discover that those horrid boiled Brussels sprouts and slimy little lima beans from dinners long past could transmogrify into something even more repulsive than they were in their allegedly edible state.

“Argh!”

You stare at the now bearded foods, turned quite green with specks of brown, and clap your hand over your face to block the stink—a stink so powerful it would scare a skunk.

This, for a nine-year-old, is glorious science, for it teaches, quite graphically, that nothing lasts and nothing actually disappears; rather, it changes form, and sometimes in the most unpleasant way.

I was always a little disappointed that I couldn't share my scientific discoveries with anyone, except, of course, my dog Rebel. In fact, Rebel was usually good enough to eat all the food I didn't want. He'd sit under the table with his mouth open, waiting for me to give him whatever it was I didn't want. He could make a hotdog or potato skin disappear in one silent gulp. All gone. But the moment I'd sneak a soggy green bean or pungent turnip stub under the table, his mouth would clamp shut and he'd lie down and pretend he was sleeping.

Rebel hated Brussels sprouts, too.

So, into my pocket it would go and remain there until I could get to my room and cram it into one of my Lone Ranger bullet tins or an empty candy tin (no plastic in those days). Then, ever so quietly, I'd open the bottom drawer of my bureau and stash the tin under a stack of neatly folded T-shirts. Voilá! Gone and forgotten for at least three months.

When you're nine, keeping food in a canister at the bottom of your T-shirt drawer makes perfect sense. But it's the sort of thing you give up entirely when you're ten and don't take up again until you're maybe around 93. But by then the science has lost its thrill. By then there's really no one left to tell.

Day 358: The Dropped Euphemism

2011-02-04T19:11:00.001-05:00

While brushing my teeth,

I dropped a euphemism into the bathroom sink

and watched in horror as it rolled down the drain into the sewer

where it mixed in with a wrongful crowd.

“Come back here, you dwong,” I bellowed. “You're not the real thing; they'll find you out!”

It lifted its lip and sneered like a teenager,

flared its nostrils and snorted like a rocker,

bent over and blammoed like that girl who sat next to me in seventh grade.

So, down the drain I slid to remind it of its roots,

to drag its sorry ashbun back into the pipe,

back into the clean durdle of the sink,

back into my toothpastey mouth.

“Go to H-E-double hockey sticks,”

it flaxoned when it saw me.

“I'm not fronking going anywhere wit-chew.”

Then all the bad words laughed and laughed

causing smeg-muck

and scharg-womp

to gurgle and gush into the streets.

Crestfallen and shag-monked, my euphemism

crawled into my stangish waiting pocket

where it furdled and thrashed about

very sorry for its single, but dwongful descent

into the sewer below.

Day 357: Facebook Video Message

2011-02-03T17:43:00.001-05:00

I'm like so hyped because eight minutes ago I left a video message on Facebook for Trevor. Trevor's my Boyfriend slash Fiancé. Even though at first everyone said it wasn't going to last more than a week, we've been together for almost a year. A year!

Anyway, I posted a video for him and like a hundred friends have already “liked” it. I can't wait until Trevor sees it and videos me back.

He's like a video nut. One night I showed up at his house, you know, as a surprise, and he was making a webcam video for some guy in Hollywood. He didn't want to show it to me because he said he had a contract with the guy, and the video really belonged to the studio. Weird, huh? I wish I could have seen it, but I didn't. I think he was naked in the video, because he was only wearing a bathrobe when I came in. But he said he wasn't naked at all. He said, “What are you, crazy?”

Okay, it's like fifteen minutes, and Trevor still hasn't videoed me back. I texted him like 50 times already: “trev chk FB lv u.” Maybe he lost his Blackberry again. He's always doing that. Like a month ago, he didn't answer his cell all night, and then finally the next day I went to his job—he works for some sort of theater thing over in Manhattan; you know, where people learn how to act—and I said, “Trevor, I was calling you all night. Why didn't you answer your cell?”

“My cell? Oh, my cell,” he said, and he hit himself on the forehead. “Doink! I forgot to tell you, Babe. I think I left it in a taxi.”

I could tell he felt bad because he got all red and said “sorry” like five times. He's so forgetful. He's lost his Blackberry like six times in the last two weeks alone. I bought him a walkie-talkie so we could talk whenever, but he lost that, too.

Wow. It's like almost a half hour since I videoed Trevor on Facebook. He's got to know about it because his friend Bruno wrote “cool” and his brother Dude wrote “lol.”

Oh, I feel better. Manny from where Trevor works just Facebooked me and said, “Trevor's in a meeting right now.”

Trevor has a very prestigious position in whatever his job is so he always has to be at some meeting. That's why we can't always be together even though we want to be. So lots of times I make him chocolate chip cookies from the Toll House box, because they're his favorite, and I drop them off at his job. Usually someone like Julie, the receptionist, says, “Oh, Trevor. Let's see.” And she checks the computer screen. “Trevor, Trevor, Trevor. Uhmmmmm. Oh, here it is. Trevor's in a meeting.” That's how I know he's in a meeting all the time.

I really love Trevor—OMG, it's been like an hour since I videoed him. He's so nice to me and he's got these sexy blue eyes with long black lashes. Whenever I touch his lashes, he pulls back, like he's pretending not to like it when I touch them. So I tease him: “Why do guys always get the nice long eyelashes? I wish I had your eyelashes.”

Then he teases me back, “Yeah? What would you do, put a ribbon on them?”

That's what he says, and I laugh. “You always make me laugh,” I say.

“Yeah, I'm a funny guy,” he says and looks a little embarrassed.

Trevor doesn't really like compliments, which is why I guess he doesn't give me any. It's okay, though. I can tell he loves me because he always says he's sorry after he pushes me away.

And sometimes he says he loves me when we're, you know, doing it in the car or in the elevator or in the stairwell in my building. Those are the only times he says he loves me. He never says he loves me when we're doing it in a regular place like his bed.

It's been two hours and 17 minutes since I videoed Trevor on Facebook, and he still hasn't videoed me back. I feel a little queasy in my stomach right now, and I have sort of nervous jitters in my throat.

My mother thinks Trevor's bad news, and so do some of my friends. But I think they're just jealous. My friend Tanya—I mean my ex-friend Tanya— called me one day and told me she saw Trevor making out with Katie Lynn on New Year's Eve. Now she's not my friend any more, because that was such a lie. Trevor said, “Huh? I don't even know Katie Lynn.”

Well, he does know her, but I guess he forgot who she is. It's been almost three hours since I videoed Trevor on Facebook. I guess he's still in the meeting.

Once I got into a big fight with my mom after she called Trevor a player. I bet my mom doesn't even know what a player is, because she's like 45. She probably thinks it's some kind of piano or sports guy. Anyway, we had a terrible argument and the next day she said she was sorry she had gotten me so upset. Ever since then she tries to be nice to Trevor, but you can still tell that she doesn't like him because her mouth gets all thin and tight when she talks to him, even when she's saying something nice like, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

Trevor's way too busy to stay for dinner anyway. Oh, wow. Trevor just Facebooked me.

“Hey. S'up?”

Well, at least he answered. I guess he doesn't have time to video me. I hope my ex-friend Tanya sees how he Facebooked me back. I'm going to show it to my mom. I bet she'll be glad when she sees that he treats me pretty nice after all.

Day 356: Barge Pole

2011-02-02T19:58:00.002-05:00

My mother used to say,

“In 20 years you won't touch him with a barge pole.”

I wasn't quite sure

what a barge pole was,

so 50 years later

I looked it up

and found

it is a British/Australian expression.

Had my mother spoken

American English

she would have said,

“In 20 years you won't touch him with a ten-foot pole.”

So I went to the marina,

bought a barge pole

from Sea-Worthy Supplies
and carried it around
like a spear.

Although the barge pole

was ten feet long,

beautifully lacquered,

and plum,

I didn't touch him with it

because

I couldn't remember

who he was.

Somehow,

I think
my mother

would be pleased

to know

she had been right

all along.

Day 355: Old John

2011-02-01T13:56:00.003-05:00

Although his callused hands, thick and polished, said he had been a carpenter, his ruddy cheeks, drawn and weathered, insisted he had been a sailor. His green eyes, starlike and halcyon, revealed he was somewhat of a dreamer. His clothes, plaid flannel shirt and matching peek hat on the hottest day of summer or iciest day of winter, affirmed he was a man of simple means and taste. But his lips, thin and moving, proved he was a storyteller.

As he walked each day along that narrow band of sidewalk between the stony retaining walls and shiny row of parked cars along Woodbine Avenue, he told the story of his life. He spoke about the honeysuckle and how its sweet scent recalled mid-May mornings of his boyhood when he and Howard Godfrey would suck the nectar from its orange blossoms, “to get energy,” they said, before playing stickball in Scudder Park. He talked about the reek of low tide and bedraggled lazy afternoons waiting for a breeze. He talked about the hurricane of '08 that had carried his mother out to sea, and the utter futility of screaming in the face of any storm.

He talked about winters of long ago when you could drive your Tin Lizzie clear across Northport Harbor or cross-country ski through the hushed woods above Waterside Avenue with its countless families of deer, fox, raccoons, and birds of every sort.

He talked about Betty Jones, the way she tossed her long dark hair as she skipped through piles of fallen yellow leaves, the way she beamed at him with those great blue eyes all full of love and expectation, the way she would touch his arm, ever so lightly and surreptitiously, when she sat next to him in algebra class, the way she felt in his arms—like a feather— the day he carried her across the threshold and how she felt in his arms —like a feather — when he layed her in her coffin.

People called him Old John not so much because he was old, but because of the way he walked, stoop-shouldered and gingerly, along narrow paths between this memory and that. They called him Old John because he never returned their “Good morning, John” until long after they had passed on the street. They called him Old John because of the way he studied the sidewalk in front of him, touching the stony holding walls and row of parked cars for balance. They called him Old John because that's what they remembered—his gait, his clothes, his tentative reaching for something long departed.

Day 354: Drapes

2011-01-31T21:01:00.001-05:00

In conversation

with the open window

it did not mention

its nakedness.

Of course

I did my best

not to look

through it,

not to appear

so damned eager.

Shutting my eyes

for prudence sake,

I hung a lovely

pair of curtains

—drapes, really—

(peach taffeta)

whose skirts

ballooned

naughtily

in the evening

breeze.

Day 353: Some Of Them Wrote Poetry

2011-01-30T19:42:00.005-05:00

The old-time smokers have gone away.

Huffing and puffing

amid whirligigs and smoke rings,
they've drawn the final breath.

Some of them wrote poetry,

recited it on corners, like Bleeker Street and 4th,

in the Dark Dragon Cafe,

under sparking wheels of the Third-Avenue El,

in the chatty waters of Bethesda Fountain.

The old-time boozers are also gone.

Slurring their words in the crapulence

of glugging it down with a chaser,
they've taken the final swig.

Some of them wrote poetry,

published it on yellow flyers,

on discarded napkins,

in bathroom stalls,

in cold running sweat on Jack Daniel's neck.

Old-time angry people have also taken leave.

Shadowboxing and tongue-lashing
phantom and entia alike,

they've broken the final straw.

Some of them wrote poetry,

whooped and yammered it on Avenue D,

in precinct holding cells,

on the Brooklyn Bridge,

in the very last pew of St. Mark's Church.

It's quiet now and poetless

since all these poets are gone.

The swooshing brooms

and snoozy humdrum

of day after day

have shushed

at last

their tuneful furor

and the pregnant silence

that once gave them voice

on the snaggy rock of poetry's precipice.

Day 352: Local TV News: NYC

2011-01-29T16:40:00.001-05:00

troubled teen star out of rehab

troubled TV star going to rehab

snow advisory

shots fired

it's going to snow

troubled rock star arrested

here comes the snow

dead bodies turn up

troubled rap star going to rehab

troubled porn star finds religion

it's snowing hard

troubled child star arrested AGAIN

troubled recording artist no show at concert

see the snow come down

mutilated body turns up

people are shoveling snow

gruesome discovery in luxury high rise

troubled movie star turned troubled TV star going to rehab

lots of slushly stuff: ewe, you guys

troubled former child star turned troubled actor dies of overdose

lots of puddles, you guys

people are tired of snow

more snow on its way

troubled star in rehab for third time in two weeks

back to you guys in the studio, yeah

I didn't bother with capitals and punctuation, because TV News doesn't bother with the news.

Day 351: Cave Dwellers and the La-La's

2011-01-28T20:13:00.004-05:00

Sure, everyone puts down old-time cave dwellers—grunting, bat wielding, hirsute, stenchy fellows with little to do but kill mammoths, suck on berries, and scrawl childish paintings on cave walls. No Da Vinci genes among that lot; no Mozarts or Lincolns or Dylan Thomases—that is, none that we're aware of.

Nonetheless, they are our ancestral parents, which means, we should grant them the same respect we grant any of our relatives, even the most poignantly unfortunate. After all, the story of the human intellect is not always a rags-to-[intellectual]-riches story. I mean, it doesn't take much to realize how enormously stupid most of humanity still is. So, there are a few gems among the moderns, and there were certainly a few gems among the ancient, or pre-ancients, if you will.

So, let me introduce Zack and Zill. Zack and Zill were cave dwellers, second or third cousins of old, who grew up around 150,000 years ago, at least 50,000 years after people started developing language. So, while they hadn't figured out how to write—that wouldn't happen for another 120,000 years—they had figured out how to leave “notes” for each other on rocks and walls.

Zack and Zill, you see, were one of Earth's original lovers, an infirmity that cave people used to call "the la-la's." Adam and Eve, who get credit from many for being Earth's original lovers, hardly count as bona fide sufferers of the la-la's, for their attachment was strictly carnal. As proof, when they got caught in all their glistening nudity, each one blamed the other for their incontinence. Indeed, if I remember correctly, Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, the serpent blamed the apple, the apple blamed God, and whoever wrote the story blamed Eve.

Zack and Zill, however, were truly in love, each with an acute case of the la-la's. Zack thought Zill's matted red hair was the most beautifully matted red hair in the world. He loved the way it smelled of cave—dank, musky, earthy. He loved her fine teeth, sharp and polished from chewing on mammoth bones; he also loved her wondrously large feet, wide, flat, and blackened with years of running barefoot through the marshes. Zill recognized Zack's manly beauty in his thick black curls, also matted, also carrying the scent of cave. She loved the powerful animal smell of his armpits, his deep voice with its sexy grunt, and his dreamy brown eyes, which made her flushed and weak.

Since no human had ever been so deeply in love before, Zack and Zill were oddities among the clan of cave dwellers. “Look at those two; they have the la-la's,” noted Mother Zongie, a wise woman who could skin a mammoth and make a stew of it in under a day. Aunt Zarris agreed. She and Mother Zongie decided to bring Zack and Zill to Uncle X-Alon, who acted as He Who Frees Clan Members From What Is Not Normal.

“State your complaint, Mother Zongie” said Uncle X-Alon with a sympathetic glance at Zack and Zill.

Mother Zongie was no dope. That sympathetic glance did not go unnoticed, and Mother Zongie was in no mood to be dismissed so easily. She knew she had a reputation for being a complainer—always running to Uncle X-Alon for every little ailment; but she was secure in the knowledge that she never complained without cause. So she stood up to her full four-foot height and knitted her brows to show intensity and determination. “Zack and Zill have some serious la-la's. They are joined at the hip, and I mean joined at the hip. They cry when they have to be separated; they draw pictures of hearts on rocks and send them to each other. It's not normal. It's not productive. Neither of them contributes anything to the clan anymore—no work, no berry hunting, no nothing. All they do is sneak off into the brush and come back smiling like idiots. If that's not the la-la's, well, I don't know what is.”

Aunt Zarris nodded all the while. “It's true, Uncle. It's horrible and true. Every word. Things can't go on like this.”

While the senior folks were conversing in this way, Zack and Zill sat shoulder to shoulder, each leaning into the other, each gazing into the other's eyes, which shined like flames, stars, and all sorts of shiny things that had yet to be imagined and invented.

“You are my fire goddess,” moaned Zack.

“You are my horseless rider,” whispered Zill.

And they giggled. Zill buried her lips in Zack's brand new beard, which smelled of smoke and mammoth dung. “I've never been so happy,” Zack smiled and kissed Zill's sun-browned cheek.

Mother Zongie and Aunt Zarris each gave Uncle X-Alon a significant look as if to say, “Take a look for yourself, oh Freer of What Is Not Normal.” Aunt Zarris leaned closer to Uncle X and said, “We think we should separate them. That'll cure the la-la's for good.”

“Yes,” agreed Mother Zongie. “This sort of behavior is certainly not healthy. Should we send one of them to another clan?”

Uncle X-Alon wasn't an early medicine man/psychologist for nothing; that is, he had a gift for understanding human behavior even before there was such a science as human behavior. “Leave it to me,” he said. “I think I have a cure for the la-la's, which might seem counter-intuitive to you, but just let me try this.”

With the ladies' assurance of complete compliance, he turned to Zack and Zill. “Young people,” he said in a gentle voice. “Your behavior toward one another is perplexing to say the least. You're exhibiting serious signs of the la-la's, which is affecting your duties as functioning members of your clan. Mother and Aunt think you ought to be separated.”

Zack and Zill began to cry. They clung to each other and created a wailing and thrashing about that would have frightened away a herd of wolves. Uncle X-Alon allowed them to continue as such until they each fell, exhausted, to the ground in front of his fire.

“However, I believe we should do the opposite.”

Aunt Zarris and Mother Zongie started to protest but were silenced by one stern look from Uncle X-Alon. “From this day forward, you are to do everything together—live, sleep, eat, hunt, talk, fire watch, baby watch, food cook. Yes, well give your union a name; we'll call it marriage.”

Zack and Zill rose to their feet, ecstatic grateful, tear-stained. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Uncle X-Alon. You are the best old guy in the world.”

Six moons later, Aunt Zarris and Mother Zongie prepared a special feast for Uncle X-Alon and invited all the clans in the neighborhood. “What's the occasion?” everyone asked.

“Oh, we think he's a wonder man.” said Mother Zongie. “He cured Zack and Zill of the la-la's.”

“Oooooooh my,” exclaimed many who remembered the terrible days of six moons past.

Mother Zongie looked lovingly at Zill, who was happily tending the fire at the entrance to the cave. “Zill, where's Zack?” she asked.

Zill glanced around the cave. “Beats me,” she responded with a shrug.

“Looks like Zack and Zill are all cured of the la-la's.”

“That's right,” laughed Aunt Zarris. “Nothing like marriage to cure the la-la's.”

Day 350: Christy

2011-01-27T19:18:00.005-05:00

On the anniversary of her death she skips through green green fields of memory, her dark hair swishing against young shoulders, her dark eyes dancing, smiling across the universe. Her little dog runs alongside, and her laughter causes a million startled moons to turn around and look. This is what I like to believe.

Clever girl that she is, she has no trouble finding Mother, Father, Sister, who now reside at great distances from one another, but not nearly so great as they have imagined. For each one still trembles from her loss; each one swan dives into their dreams hoping to find her again. And on a clear night, one or the other will awaken, certain they've heard her footsteps outside the door. They push open the drapes and search for her essence among the stars, among the rustling leaves, or in the rhythmic splashing of waves along a distant shore.

On the anniversary of her death, she taps each one on the shoulder, surprising them with her mischievous giggle and with that faint scent of peppermint from her favorite chewing gum. After all these years, she's still only seventeen. Her voice, however, is beyond all years, rich with the music of a hundred thousand songs, gleeful as a child's somersault, honest and ancient as the wisest sage. Her voice wraps itself around their shoulders, pulling each one to her in the time it takes to blink an eye. “Don't worry; all is well,” she whispers and grabs onto the tail of a passing star. That's what I like to believe.

On the anniversary of her death, there are always reports of starbursts somewhere in the Galaxy. Scientists are baffled by what they see, so they call it “unusual activity.” On the anniversary of her death, flowers push mysteriously through layers of snow and ice, if only for an instant; orchestral music rises from the oceans accompanied by an ethereal chorus of angelic souls. And all the while, she skips across the green green fields of memory, her little dog running beside her, her laughter, like music, filling empty spaces between raindrops, which causes the sun to shine and rainbows to cartwheel across the sky. This is what I like to believe.

Day 349: Waiting

2011-01-26T18:28:00.003-05:00

While I was at work this morning, one of my dogs ate a container of organic peanut butter. Eating a huge gob of peanut butter—organic or not—would have been bad enough; but when I say one of my dogs ate a container of peanut butter, I mean that he or she ate the peanut butter along with the container. I searched all over the house—not for the peanut butter, which I knew was gone—for the plastic container, but all I found was a mangled, tooth-pocked portion of the lid.

Now I have to wait for the inevitable, which I'm not looking forward to. I think Chula is the culprit because I had left the peanut butter on the counter so I wouldn't have to hunt for it when I came home for lunch. She's a wonderful jumper, part cat, part pogo stick, part crazy dog who also loves peanut butter.

So far, the dogs all seem fine. No stomach aches, no moaning, no aromatic evidence of overindulgence. Although Juno would have enjoyed the peanut butter, she wouldn't have taken the time to eat the plastic container; Saki might have eaten the peanut butter and then thrown the plastic container around and run after it; only Chula would have eaten it. However, I can't be certain. As I said, before I begin pointing an accusatory finger at the guilty canine, I'll just have to wait for the evidence.

Saki: "I didn't do it."

Juno: "I wasn't even awake."

Chula: "What peanut butter?"

Waiting—I used to watch my mother, who didn't have a car, waiting by the window. She was waiting for a ride to the store, to a party, to the theater, to the doctor. She didn't like to keep other people waiting, so she allowed them to keep her waiting. In the winter, she would stand by the window all bundled up in her wool coat and scarf, her gloves on, her purse in the crook of her left arm. In the summer, she'd wait by the open window or stand on the front porch, fanning herself, keeping her eyes on the road so she could hasten down the front steps to meet her ride the moment they pulled up.

Sometimes she'd wait there for a good half hour before anyone showed up. And sometimes the phone would ring; the caller was terribly sorry, but she wouldn't be able to pick her up after all. Of course if it was an emergency, the caller would try to make arrangements, cancel their own emergency, and come anyway. Naturally, my mother would tell the caller not to worry about it. Truly, it was no inconvenience at all. She would just as well stay at home. Yes, indeed, terrible weather. Not a day to be traipsing about.

She never complained about the cancellations, the no-shows, or the wait time. She was nothing like me. I seethe, as inwardly as possible, when people don't show up when they say they're going to show up. Every now and then I, too, accept the offer of a ride somewhere. And damned if I don't do the same thing my mother did. I stand by the window, coat zipped up, scarf tossed across my neck, pocket book slung over my shoulder. The dogs hate it when I do that. They know they're not going with me; they know they're going to be left behind, and they just want to get the whole thing over with, so they can anticipate my return. Or so they can hunt around for some peanut butter to eat before I get home.

I guess tomorrow morning, when everything has been properly digested, and the dogs go outside to slip and slide in the morning snow, my wait will be over. The culprit, or culprits, will be discovered. Saki? Juno? Chula? The only thing I know for certain is that it wasn't me.

Day 348: A Fake Story that Didn't Happen

2011-01-25T18:15:00.003-05:00

The Bridge to Nowhere is the main tourist attraction in Speedy Bump Falls. Constructed of recycled steel, painted pink, and thick composite-wood planks, also painted pink, it rises like a great tongue from the earth's crust and extends to the middle of a crater—one of those 20-mile-wide craters caused, no doubt, by a meteorite maybe a million years ago. People born and raised in Speedy Bump Falls are proud of their bridge, proud that it doesn't pretend to lead anywhere, proud that it doesn't attract suicides or muggers.

Last year, the town board voted to allow garbage trucks to dump local garbage off the end of the bridge. Of course, ordinary citizens protested like crazy. “You'll kill the tourist trade,” businesspeople yelled. “You'll destroy the ecology,” environmentalists screamed. “You'll attract diseases, flies, vermin, and god knows what,” protested the doctors.

But the town board was made up of a few wealthy citizens who didn't care about any of these potential problems. They had received lovely leather-bound suitcases filled with money from Harry's Hauling, Inc., and they weren't about to disappoint their spouses and children by giving the money back. Indeed not. So it was decreed that all the garbage created by the citizens of Speedy Bump Falls would be dumped off the end of the Bridge to Nowhere.

“What will we do,” cried the people.

“A petition! We'll start a petition on Facebook.”

And so they did. But it didn't change anything.

“How about writing to our Congresspeople?”

And so they did. But the new law remained.

The citizens held meeting after meeting trying to find a way to stop the ruination of their beloved town and its tongue-like bridge. And during each meeting, they screamed and yelled and cursed, but nothing changed. Then one evening, Mrs. Dorothy Dann took up her cane and walked gingerly up to the podium.

“The solution, my friends, is really quite simple. First, we must ask the town board to pass a law stating that the only garbage allowed in the basin is garbage created by the citizens of Speedy Bump.”

“What the hell good will that do?” yelled Mr. Morey.

“Well,” explained Dorothy Dann. The town board will want to pass such a law to keep up quiet. They'll think we'll shut up if they make this single concession.”

“That's true,” agreed a few people in the crowd.

“But what about our garbage?” asked Maggie Horton.

Dorothy Dann looked each citizen in the eye. “It's revolutionary, really,” she said with a smile. “We simply won't make any garbage.”

The room filled with booing and shouts of “Sit down!”

“You had us going for a minute,” snorted Mr. Drivecorn.

Dorothy Dann stood her ground. “At least give it a try. One month. One month without making garbage. One month of making your own meals. One month of recycling everything you use. One month of refusing to buy anything that comes in a plastic wrapper or styrofoam cup.”

And so it was. In the month following the passage of the law, no one, except of course the wealthy board members, produced any garbage at all. The people liked not producing garbage; even better, their new thrifty ways were making them rich, even richer than the rich board members.

When election time came around, the people of Speedy Bump Falls got rid of the board members and voted in a brand new board, which quickly made it illegal for anyone to dump garbage off the Bridge to Nowhere. They needn't have bothered, because the people were now used to not creating garbage. No one wasted anything, the environment thrived, the people were healthy, wealthy, and wise. Oh, yes, and they lived happily ever after in their town at the foot of the Bridge to Nowhere.

Day 347: Buffalo

2011-01-24T20:15:00.001-05:00

The old man crouches down, puts his ear to the ground, his index finger to his lips with a “Shush,” and listens listens listens with the intensity of an athlete. “Buffalo,” he whispers. “Twenty miles away. Headed northwest.”

The nurses at Happy Trails used to humor him when he did this: “Let's go inside and wait for them” or “I'll get my hunting rifle and we'll have buffalo burgers for dinner. How about that, Sam?”

“Don't like it at all,” Sam would retort. “Besides, I told you they were heading northwest, not due east.”

Sam would drop to his knees and hold his ear to the ground once again. “Now what do you hear?” the nurse would ask.

“Shush. Someone's coming up the driveway. Visitor from the city.”

“How do you know he's from the city?” the nurse would ask.

“No snow tires. Only city folk don't bother with snow tires this time of year,” he'd answer.

Sam usually puts his ear to the ground at least 15 or 20 times a day. And even when the nurses get tired of asking him what he's hearing, he tells them anyway. Each story is a little more outlandish than the other, so no one has ever checked to see if he's telling the truth, if he has a gift, if he can understand the rhythms and drumbeats of Earth.

Sam puts his ear to the ground again and tells about rumblings far beneath the earth's surface. “Convection zone,” he whispers. “Earthquake on its way.” The nurse smiles as she usually does, but she decides to check with the head nurse to see if his medication needs a little boost.

People are going about their business as usual. The nurses wheel their charges along the brick path that winds softly through Memory Garden. Now and then they stop before a bench and look at a polished plaque that bears the donor's information. “In Memory of Hugh Wiles, 1889 – 1990.” “In Loving Memory: Clara Knight 1925 – 1954 and her father Stanley G. Knight 1900 – 1982.” Some of the plaques also contain photographs of the remembered. Some of them are inscribed with messages: “Amore”; “Until We Meet Again” “Always with Us.”

It's a beautiful peaceful day in the garden. The path is wide enough to allow two wheelchairs to pass without the danger of bumping into one another. There are geraniums and tiny pansies planted along the path, and azaleas and rhododendrons mark each curve. The tall oaks, planted well over a hundred years ago, tremble ever so slightly in the afternoon breeze. The art therapist has already noted that the sky is a rich, unusual shade of blue today, and the clouds are streaked with the subtlest hues of pink and violet. This will be a wonderful day to give her patients a nice thick piece of paper and a tin of watercolors. What fun they'll have painting such colors on such a perfect day.

Except for Sam. Sam is ruining it for everyone. He's no longer whispering. Instead, he is yelling, “Earthquake! Earthquake coming!” People are getting annoyed. His nurse has left him unaccompanied.

"Enough is enough," snaps a nursing' aide.

“Oh, crap. Someone get security to bring him back inside,” groans the art therapist.

The aide tries to calm Sam with the promise of a treat: “You stop scaring everyone and you'll get a nice icecream after dinner tonight.”

Sam's eyes are wide with fear. His chin quivers under a three-day growth of gray beard, and he begins to gasp for breath. One of the nurses signals security on her walkie-talkie. “Better bring a syringe,” she advises.

Sam is on a stretcher. He is quiet, almost sleeping, a smile on his lips now that the tranquilizer has done its drastic work. “Thank goodness for Thorazine,” notes the art therapist. She is content for now her pupils can work in peace. She smiles as security wheels Sam back toward the residence. “Convection zone, indeed. This is hardly earthquake country.”

A few people notice that the birds have shot en masse from the tall oaks. In the distance, they hear howling dogs, something that sounds like the snapping of metal, a siren that screeches through the air like a train whose breaks are locked. There is no mistaking the tremor under their feet or the angry blackening of the sky. A sudden explosion under the winding brick path rips a hole through the center of Memory Garden, swallowing its pretty flowers, polished plaques, promises of everlasting love, and all the people into its newly formed chasm of boiling rock. Sam, abandoned by security, sleeps the paralyzing sleep of the tranquilized. He will awaken and stretch tomorrow at dawn. Alone and still unheeded, he will put his ear to the ground and listen. “Shhhh,” he will say to no one at all. “Buffalo," he will whisper. "Twenty miles away; headed this way. Buffalo.”

Day 346: Lost a Poem that Wasn't

2011-01-23T15:37:00.005-05:00

Today I lost a tiny poem that wasn't a poem at all.

If I were more

savvy, literate, wise, or working for the FBI,

I'd readily discover its whereabouts

defragmented, quivering, sullen, denuded

among dark secret nooks in the dantesque bolgia

lurking under the Paradiso of my Apple keyboard.

The poem was about rounded corners versus

the sharply pointed marriage of outside corners.

It included balloons, soap bubbles, and even

organza curtains,

which billowed and sank against open windows

on cool breezy nights.

My mistake, however, is clear,

for my poem laughed at Destiny,

called it a bully and a wimp.

It even took a cheap shot at the people

who believe in its power,

calling them doormats and worse.

First the cursor froze up. I cursed, of course;

then the screen flickered and faded to black.

I implored it to stop its nonsense,

to listen to reason,

to stay the course and all that.

Finally, in a fit of exasperation,

I pressed the off button with a force

that would squash an army of ants.

Within two minutes everything returned,

everything, that is, except my

tiny poem that wasn't a poem at all.

“I know you're there,” I yelled.

“If you hide any longer,

I'll walk away; I'll go home without you.

You'll see. Okay. I'm going.”

Of course, I'm still waiting, but don't tell on me.

Shhhh. It's my secret.

Sometimes you just have to let a poem know

there's a time for playing around

and there's a time for showing

a little respect. This is especially true

when a poem is a tiny poem,

and the poem isn't a poem at all.

Day 345: The Semi-Centennial River

2011-01-22T15:18:00.002-05:00

The river rushes for 200 miles, gushing at last into the delta basin, where it branches into seven fingers, each one stretching into the sea. Its banks, thick with wild flora 10,000 years in the making, rise softly into the arid plains, desert-like except for the brown grasses whose stubborn roots cling to an equally stubborn centimeter of black soil, runoff from the rare and wondrous flooding of the river, which occurs every few years and spreads across 20 miles to both east and west.

People have given the river names—Marrone, Siena, Red Chrystal, Nethermost, Rojo, Blood, Jubilee—but none of them has stuck. This is because the river disappears every 50 years and doesn't return for another 50 years; no one knows whether the river keeps returning from the dead or if it's nothing short of an inexplicable semi-centennial phenomenon. Whatever the reason for its regular appearance and disappearance, people who know the river believe it's a personal gift from whichever god is their god. They erect shrines to it where they pray for forgiveness, ask for bounty, health, peace.

Once upon a time, the river disappeared, as was its wont, and a few hundred city dwellers scurried to its dry banks and laid claim to plots of land. There, they built huge homes, each with many bathrooms, bedrooms, and shining oak staircases; each home boasted a large entertainment room, indoor and outdoor kitchens, a family room, a family breakfast nook, an exercise room, and of course an expansive living room, off limits to all but special guests and the maid. The community of new arrivals thrived, and the people loved it so much that they built a village, a post office, and even hired a police force. Indeed, it was a proper town, not just a weekend retreat. They elected a mayor, who petitioned the federal government to re-draw the electoral map so townspeople could have proper representation in the Capitol Building. Soon, new communities sprang up along the entire stretch of the riverbed.

And when the river returned some ten or 15 years later, the people were overjoyed, for now they had a place to catch fish and ride their jet skis. Upriver, some enterprising folks built an amusement park on both sides of the river, which attracted enthusiastic crowds from all over the country. They called the river Bountiful and invited representatives from every religion in the land come and bless it. For five years, the rich became richer still, hauling in buckets of money, and expanding their homes into palaces.

Then came the flood, the inevitable flood. “This isn't right!” shrieked the people, who saw their prized homes and possessions crash into the river and float downstream into the delta, into the sea. They demanded that the Government pay for their losses and help them rebuild when the floods receded. And the Government acquiesced.

But three years after the rebuilding, the floods returned; again the river carried away homes and new possessions and dumped them into the delta, into the sea. The people then demanded that the Government form an Exploratory Committee to find ways to stop the river from flooding. And so the Government did. As a result, taxpayers spent trillions of gold coins erecting a giant mahogany wall high above the river banks. And the rich people rebuilt their homes, this time bigger and more palatial than ever before.

The next time the river rose, it did not flood, and the people cheered. Their excellent homes were saved; their towns would go on forever. However, without the floods, the ground dried up and the soil blew into the horizon. So the people demanded that the Government irrigate the land. Again, trillions of taxpayers' coins were spent installing irrigation systems to provide each town with water for their lush green parks, weekend amusements, and personal hygiene.

Everyone rejoiced until the walls began to rot and crumble. Again the people demanded that the Government repair the walls. “What will happen to the economy if our communities fail? Why, the entire country will fail.” And so taxpayers coughed up trillions of gold coins so the rich folks' homes would be protected from the floods, the inevitable floods.

The river disappeared when it was due to disappear, so the people petitioned the Government to tear down the walls along the riverbank. After all, they were ugly walls, indeed. And now that the river was gone, they had nothing to worry about. And so the taxpayers funded the tearing down of the walls.

And when the work was done, the taxpayers had emptied their pockets and their bank accounts for good. Nothing was left. There was no money to cart away the debris from the walls. There was no money to refill the river, which seemed the only sensible thing to do to keep the communities solvent and whole.

The rich folks who lived along the riverbank returned to their city homes. Who wanted to live in such a barren spot anyway? Why there was nothing there but a dried up river bed and what looked like the beginning of a dessert. And if the Government wasn't going to help them by carting away debris and re-filling the river, then they weren't about to help the Government. They set fire to their abandoned homes, to the theme park, and to the torn-down walls that had protected them from the floods. And they felt happy and free. Surely there were better places to built a weekend getaway home.

The next time the river flooded, it washed across the burned-out homes and carried them into the delta, into the sea. On its following visit, it carried away the debris from the walls, the amusement park, the post offices, the landfills. When it had done with its third flood, the river scattered soil and seed throughout the land, causing grasses to return and wild flowers to bloom once again. A great sigh rippled across the universe as the river resumed its journey into the delta, into the sea.

Day 344: Knit One, Pearl Two

2011-01-21T18:34:00.003-05:00

As I drive across the flatland, the trees that rise like willowy giants at the foot of Mustard Mountain come into focus. I hear suddenly the stern bass voice of my first-year English professor critiquing my essay on color as metaphor, “The trouble with you is you can't see the forest for the trees.”

“Huh?”

“But I do see the forest,” I protested in my private journal at the end of the day. “It's just that trees are always so insistent, so clever at grabbing my attention. They throw out their arms and wave to and fro and side to side framing every color the sky splashes across its own silver canvas. Trees have so many secrets running through their woody veins they can barely contain them; so they're forced to camouflage them in a hundred shades of green among leaves of summer and freeze them between their knobby tendril-like toes during icy months of winter.

A year or so later, I heard the tree/forest accusation again, only this time it was the other way around: “You can't see the trees for the forest.”

That probably came from a poet or a drunk. Oh, yes, I remember now. He wasn't a drunk; he was a drinker who sometimes drank too much; and, yes, he was a poet—a proper poet whose sprigs of curly gray hair cork-screwed around the rim of his blue skull cap, making his big blue eyes seem bluer than they really were. Around his long thin neck, he sported an ascot, even on the hottest days, even when he made love or took a leak or ate spaghetti. His handsome manly nose, a graceful and gentle aquiline, sniffed the world around him with a self-assurance that would have made Narcissus blush. I used to think, however, that by the time he turned 90, that perfect nose would have completed its downward journey right into the pale pen stroke of his upper lip. I loved him so much I thought he was probably right about my tree/forest problem and accepted it with graciousness and promises to do better in the future.

I left him to go in search of trees and to forget about the damned forests. But during my time alone, I often forgot which problem I had. Was it the forest or the trees that I couldn't see for the other? I probably should have called him to ask for guidance, but this was before cell phones and instant messaging, so I didn't. Believe me, it's easy to get confused when people insist that you suffer from contrary intellectual and artistic deficits.

It took many years and lots of growing up before I decided to forget about the forest and the trees. Instead, I would grow pretty flowers in my garden. So I tilled the earth—no easy task—and stretched green mesh around the freshly turned soil so the dogs wouldn't dig in it; then I opened ten or 20 packets of seeds and cast them over the soil. In two months, flowers began to grow and I delighted in their painty hues and sweet huckleberry scents. Then one day, an old man wearing a hippie bandana around his head and huge Jackie-O sunglasses stopped his car right in the middle of my driveway and glowered at me. “You can't see the garden for the flowers,” he barked.

“Huh?” I asked.

He gunned the engine, backed out of the driveway, and tore down the road. I took down the green mesh and let the dogs play in the flower garden until they were tired. It was no use. I had no talent for gardens or flowers, and I couldn't get people to stop pointing out where I had missed a spot or where I had fallen off the cliff.

Many more years passed before it became clear that we all miss just about all the trees in any given forest and all the forests in any given universe. Thus, I felt much better about the whole mess that was my life and took up knitting.

As of today, I have knitted the longest scarf in the world. If I had the energy to measure it, I'm sure it would be at least 50 miles long. I know this because the Guinness people, who are fond of publishing world records, contacted me and asked me to send a picture of the scarf for their next issue. But I'm not going to send them anything, because some old professor or lover or crazy driver might see it and tell me I can't see the stitching for the scarf or I can't see the scarf for the stitching. The publicity I'd get from being in the Book of Records just isn't worth the pronouncements and discouragement that would follow.

Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two.

Did you say something? Sorry, I've got to concentrate. I can't hear you.

Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two. Knit one, pearl two.

Day 343: Saki on My Keyboard

2011-01-20T17:58:00.002-05:00

It's awkward, at best, to type on my laptop when my laptop is competing with a sleeping dog, a sleeping dog with his head on my lap. Every now and then, the dog—Saki—lifts his head from my lap and lays it on the mouse pad, causing the cursor to skip to the next line. I gently push his muzzle off the laptop, but his nose remains pressed against the side, and his breathing rocks the laptop, making me feel as though I'm typing on a boat—a rickety boat crossing the English Channel, making me feel just a little queasy. Saki also does a good deal of acting out in his dreams. He must have been chasing something in his dream just now, because he lifted his left paw from the couch and slapped it over the CAPS LOCK key. Trying not to wake him, I slid his paw from the CAPS LOCK key and typed in half a row of qwwqwqwqwqww's by mistake, of course.

Even though I would perhaps concentrate a little better on today's blog and even write something worthwhile, I don't want him to move. He makes me feel as though I'm worth something, which is way better than writing a blog. He's such a gentle soul, unless the mail truck clamors down the block; then he's monster dog, ready to defend the fence from foreign invasion. He also has a bit of a food issue. But most of the time, he's my darling, my defender. When I curl into a ball of frazzled nerves at the end of a particularly difficult day, especially one that follows a sleep-deprived night, he lies down next to me, pushes his body next to mine, and waits quietly until I'm sane again. If I open one eye, he studies it for a split second and then plants a huge dog lick on my nose, making me laugh. What frazzled nerves? Because of this, I think so what if he's hogging the keyboard; he has far more to say to the world than I do. And his message is always one of peace and love—unless, of course, you're a mail truck, oil truck, UPS truck, cesspool truck, or school bus. And if you happen to be a dog, please don't mess with his food.

I think this is a great time to sign off and watch Midsomer Murders. John Nettles is almost as beautiful as Colin Firth, and he's far closer to me in age. So just forget about it, Colin. Shhhh. Don't wake Saki up.

Day 343: More About That Nurse

2011-01-19T18:17:00.001-05:00

It's not that I didn't try to run away. It's not like I secretly wanted to get caught. Really. Knocking over that vase was an accident. The so-called nurse came running out from her bedroom so fast I didn't have time to ask her what she was doing in my house in the middle of the night. You should have seen her all dressed up in her plaid flannel nightie like she was living in Maine or Siberia. I tried to tell her about the central heating, but all she did was try to pull me up from the floor.

“I told you to call me if you....” Then she looked at me closer and her voice went up in a kind of night-creature scream. “What are you doing in your coat?”

I couldn't help it. I stuck my tongue out at her. I usually only stick my tongue out at her when her back is turned, and she only caught me one time when I made the mistake of doing it when she was looking in the mirror in the living room.

The mirror was a wedding present from my brother, but that's another story, since he's long gone now and I don't talk to his wife. Never really did only to be polite. I guess the feeling was mutual, because she never did talk to me only to say a few niceties like “How's the weather up there?” or “Gee the kids must be just about all growed up.” Growed up. That's not good English.

Anyway, as I was telling you, the mirror was a present. And it's not as thought I get presents like that anymore. Corinna and her grump of a husband gave me vibrating slippers for Mother's Day. You put your feet in them and they actually vibrate. Not very pleasant, and probably the last thing I'd ever buy for myself. I guess they were on sale at one of the shopping networks. I'm just saying that because all Corinna's husband does is watch those shows. One time, I could have sworn I recognized his voice on a customer call. He said his name was Jack and he lived in some city in Texas, but I didn't believe it for a minute. Men don't call in to shows like HRN or QXC. Those are for women. But this supposed “Jack” sounded more like lazy-bones Edward than lazy-bones Edward.

So, when the so-called nurse saw my overnight bag, which I had tripped over in the first place, she started laughing. “You're going out in the middle of the night? Wearing those slippers?”

I don't know if I did something like push a button when I fell, but the slippers were vibrating. I hate that feeling. I didn't answer the so-called nurse because I was trying to figure out how to stop the slippers from vibrating. “Oh, Mary,” she said. “Come one. Let me help you back to bed.”

She called me Mary. She called me by my first name, and that's not polite at all. It's not like we're friends. You can say what you want about society getting more casual, but I don't like it. I'm Mrs. Grayson. Mrs. Grayson. There's a dignity to that name. Mary. Anyone can be a Mary. Mrs. Grayson is a name that tells a person I used to be someone—a wife, a mother, a homemaker. I contributed in my small way to the world. That name says I used to have a reason to get up in the morning. I used to be tired when I went to bed. Now I'm just the same all day long, all night long. But I'm still Mrs. Grayson.

That's why I stuck my tongue out at her. She shouldn't have presumed to call me by my first name. I'm not a child.

When I stuck out my tongue she stopped smiling and looked really sad. Oh dear. I might be a washed up old biddie, but I don't like to make people sad. So I quickly said, “Sorry, nurse.”

Then she smiled again and said, “Come on. Would you like some tea?”

And I thought about Mrs. Bentley, because she always asked me if I wanted some tea when I was feeling kind of down. We went into the kitchen together and she made me a nice cup of tea. She looked a little surprised that I remembered her.

“It's so nice to have you back,” I said.

“Why, it's nice to be back,” she said.

“You do remember me?” I asked, because she looked so confused.

And it turned out I was right, because she asked, “Who do you think I am?”

See that? The poor thing was confused. She didn't even remember her own name. I patted her hand and told her not to worry. “I forget who I am sometimes, too, dear. So don't you worry a thread about forgetting. I'm Mrs. Grayson, and you're Mrs. Bentley. We're friends. We go shopping together. We also have a good laugh or two once in a while.”

Mrs. Bentley, poor thing, nodded and showed me a big smile. I felt it was only fair to warn her about the so-called nurse in the other room. I lowered my voice to a whisper, you know, to keep it between us. “That woman calls herself a nurse, but I think she's a thief.”

Mrs. Bentley was surprised because she made this gasping sound like, “Ahhh.”

“Yes,” I continued. “Every time she comes around, I lose something. Why just yesterday, I was hunting for my silver tennis bracelet and I couldn't find it anywhere.”

“What do you suppose a nurse would want with a tennis bracelet?” she asked. “It's not as though she could wear it with all out in public.”

I leaned really close to her and whispered, “I think she sold it.”

“Tsk tsk,” remarked Mrs. Bentley. “Listen, I'm going to wash up our dishes and then we'll go on a hunt for that bracelet. And what do you know? I'll be we find it.”

I watched Mrs. Bentley go to the sink with the cups and saucers. But the most terrible thing happened. As soon as she got done washing the dishes, she turned around and turned into the so-called nurse. Naturally, I screamed. I mean anyone would have screamed. “What have you done with nice Mrs. Bentley?”

Well, if she thought she was pulling the wool over my eyes, she wasn't. “Mrs. Bentley had to go out. She'll be back later,” the so-called nurse lied bald-faced right in my face.

I started crying. “I want to call Corinna. Let me call Corinna.” But the so-called nurse wouldn't let me get to the phone. I swear I have bruises on my arms to prove it. She took me to my room and put me in bed. Then she said, “Do you have to use the bathroom?”

Imagine the indignity! So I really had a good comeback to that one: “No. Do you?” Then she looked all sad again. I'm so confused. I hate her, so I'm really mean to her. Then she looks sad, and I almost love her. That never happened when Mrs. Bentley was alive. Never.

The next day Corinna came over and said she thought it was time to look into some nursing facilities. That's how she said it: “nursing facilities.” I know very well what a “facility” is. My mother used to think “bathroom” was a common word not to be said in public; so when we kids were little and we were out at a store or restaurant and had to used the bathroom, my mother used to ask the proprietor, “May we use your facilities?” And the proprietor would always point to where the bathroom was. So don't try any of your fancy words on me. I know what a facility is.

“Mom, don't cry. I think it's the best thing. You can't stay here by yourself, and you're too much for the nurse to handle all by herself.”

“What about Mrs. Bentley? Why can't she come around like she used to?”

“Mom, Mrs. Bentley died.”

“Well, that's not possible,” I retorted. “She was here last night. She made me tea.”

Corinna just sighed. “Yes, I heard something about that.”

“Then don't say such terrible things about her dying.”

Corinna looked very flushed. Not angry. Just flushed. Like she wanted to say something but didn't want to say something. She sat down on the couch and pulled the throw around her shoulders. She looked like a little girl with those big brown eyes of hers all filled with tears and her pretty little lips kind of pursed up under her nose. Suddenly, I wasn't confused anymore.

“You're so beautiful,” I said.

Corinna started to cry, so I explained, “That shouldn't make you cry. It's a compliment. Come on. Wipe your eyes. We'll go out and have a nice ice-cream. Would you like that?” I tried to get up from my chair, and she could see I was having trouble.

“We'll go for ice-cream, Mom. We'll go.” And she picked up my overnight bag. “In fact, we're going to eat so much ice-cream, we might have to spend the night in the Sweet Shoppe.”

I had a good laugh at that one. “Okay, I'm game. Let's go.”

“What kind are you going to get?” she asked.

“Chocolate. You know I love my chocolate. What about you?”

Corinna stood there for a moment with my overnight bag hanging from her shoulder. “I'm going to have whatever you have.”

Right now, I'm waiting in the car. Corinna's in the house getting another suitcase for me. She said we might buy the Sweet Shoppe and move in. Imagine that! We'd have ice-cream every day! And maybe Mrs. Bentley will come, too. Corinna said she's giving that one some thought.

Day 342: Talking About that Nurse

2011-01-18T19:30:00.000-05:00

No one believes me when I say it, but I was a lot better off before that nurse knocked at my door in her white dress and white stockings, even if I don't think she's a real nurse anyway. The fact is I used to manage very nicely getting around the house and even, on occasion, around the neighborhood. It's true that Mrs. Bentley used to come round once or twice a week and give me a hand. I'm not saying that I don't miss her, because Mrs. Bentley was more like a friend than a helper.

I mean we had a lot of laughs together. “Oh forget the work,” I used to say to her. “Come and sit down for a while.” One of us would fix the coffee and we'd talk or watch one of our programs; sometimes, we'd go down to the market or we'd both get our hair done at the Cut and Go. Of course, I understood it when she stopped coming after her son died. He was all she had, you know. But if I've learned one thing, it's that life will catch up with you, and after all those years of smoking and drinking—never holding a job for more than a few months—well, it just killed him. She outlasted him no more than a month. They said she had a heart attack. I say she died of a broken heart. We had some good laughs, though.

Well, after that, Corinna—that's my daughter—started getting all worried about me, you know, living here alone without any help. There was that little business with the kitchen fire, but it was only some sausage grease that caught fire; it's not like the house burned down. The firemen were really nice. The older one—name's Nate, which I remember because he went to school with my son Rick—asked me if I had someone who could come over and help me. Well, I told him about Mrs. Bentley, which I didn't really have to do, because he knew very well who she was. It's a small town. Anyway, I told Nate I didn't need anyone, and I didn't say it for any reason other than the fact that it's the truth. I really don't need anyone.

Anyway, it's not like Corinna ever asked me to come and stay with her even though she only lives three minutes away. Besides, I wouldn't want to live there anyway, because her husband's a grouch. He lost his job last May and all he does is sit in front of the television. Corinna's got a good job over at First National, and she still does all the cooking and whatnot while he's sitting around doing nothing at all. Anyway, there's too much noise over there what with the television and the kids. Besides, it's not like she invited me. “I'll pay for someone to come in,” she said. Can you imagine? She'll pay for someone—a stranger—to come in. My son lives in the city. And it's not like he invited me to live with him either. Not that I'd expect him to. After all, he's got his own life. Also, it's different with sons. They go off and have lives. Daughters stay close. Not that it makes much difference.

Oh, dear. What was I saying? I'm always drifting off the subject. That's what Corinna says, and I know it's true. Now Mrs. Bentley used to get a kick out of it when I lost my train of thinking. I'd start telling her how to make a cheese souffle and suddenly we'd be talking about the traffic coming off the Interstate. How we'd laugh. Now it's a major catastrophe when I lose my way in a conversation. Everyone wants to take me for a checkup.

“Mom, at least get a CAT scan." Like she'd know. What's a scan going to do? I know what. A scan will get me to spend a month's rent only to have some doctor tell me I'm having trouble conducting a conversation. So then I say to Corinna, “You pay me and I'll do my own scan and tell you what's wrong with me.” I even imitate the doctor, you know, and lower my voice and look very serious: "Well, Mrs. Grayson. You seem to have trouble completing a thought or carrying on a conversation. That's be 2000 dollars, please."

She doesn't think that's very funny, but you'd better bet that Mrs. Barley would think it was funny. I meant to say Mrs. Bentley. That's right, like the car. Barley's a grain. I don't know anyone called Barley, and I'm glad Corinna's not around to hear that mistake because all hell would break lose.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes, I was talking about that nurse, who isn't really a nurse at all. Look, I'm going to have to finish this tomorrow because it's a doosey of a story and I've run out of energy. I made cookies today and burned them. What a mess I made. I cleaned it all up before the "nurse" got here, but she could smell the smoke. I guess I should have opened a window.

If I don't finish this tomorrow, it means that I've run away, which I might do. Don't think that I'm too old to run away. Because I'm not.

Day 341: Presse-Photo

2011-01-17T20:17:00.005-05:00

If reason serves me,

which it rarely does,

your beard is still black

your eyes soft with love

your lips mouthing promises

you'll never take back.

If memory is a fair measure,

which it hasn't been so far,

then I remember you as master

conquerer of the tender heart.

Fair young Mädchen

and their mothers, too,

fat, thin,

tall, short,

plain, beautiful,

every one of them

calling after you:

“Presse-photo, presse-photo,

look how I've fixed

myself up for you.

My hair is smooth,

my lips glossed with dew,

you said you'd take

a portrait of me with you.”

But so many years have passed,

the Mädchen—it occurs to me—

must now be 55 or 62,

and their mothers, god knows,

must've hit 75 or 83.

Thus, I begin to realize

you must be crumbling, too.

Yet in my mind, which I admit

likes to play tricks on me,

you remain quite the same:
polishing your lenses

—your Leica lenses—

with your soft cloth,

your gentle rub,

your breath still

warm after an hour of love.

Then suddenly you frown:

“Mein Leica ist nicht mehr ein Hobby,

Mein Leica ist mein Arbeit, mein Lieb.”

And off you go,

leaving the Mädchen

and their mothers, too,

wringing their hands, feeling ever so blue:

“Presse-photo, Presse-photo,”

they call out anew.

“Look how I've fixed

myself up for you.

My hair is smooth,

my lips glossed with dew,

you said you'd take

a portrait of me with you.”

I have to wonder if you—

now 64 or more—

float in the teary detritus
of all those broken hearts.

Those Mädchen, old and gray

like you,

must have found other loves

far more sincere and true.

Or do they still lament and moan,

when their grandchildren aren't around,

when they're sitting all alone?

“Presse-photo, presse-photo,

Come back to me.

Look how I've fixed

myself up for you.

My hair is smooth,

my lips glossed with dew,

you said you'd take

a portrait of me with you.”

Day 340: Words to Dust

2011-01-16T18:29:00.003-05:00

My new project will be to watch/read every story that comes my way in film or book and write one sentence describing its essentials. I tend to make things far more complicated than they have to be; so my short stories turn into dwarf novelettes, and my novels—I should say, my attempts at novels—turn into a series of short stories that have a great deal of trouble meeting one another. In truth, there's also that voice inside telling me that it's too late for become a “real” writer. This is the time of life when one's creativity begins to pale:

“Well, his latest novel isn't up to the old standard.”

“She had something when she was young; but, come on, she's not what she used to be.”

I hear it all the time. And the observation is usually about writers/authors. Everyone else gets better, more mature, more profound. They give master classes and command great sums of money just for saying hello. Not so authors. It's a good thing I don't know how to listen to anyone. However, I do hear them.

What the hell is she writing?

What happened to her?

She used to have a way with words.

What the hell. Look at her age.

You can't spend your entire life living off your potential and then think you have any left, for god's sake.

Besides, she doesn't have the most exciting life.

She works, goes to bed early, eats vegan foods.

Can't even handle a half glass of wine.

About five years before my father became a full-blown Alzheimer's patient, he stopped seeing what he was drawing. “I'm changing my style,” he said. “You get bored with drawing the same way for 50 years. You have to take a chance and try something new.”

“Geez, it's horrible,” everyone said, only not to his face.

His once gorgeous, clean lines became thick, muddied, dark, so very very dark. Suddenly, his lines reminded me of alligator teeth, wood saws, and hatchet cuts; his plump and comical characters took on a menacing sort of ghoulishness cluttered with the debris of too much ink, too many particulars.

It wasn't until it was clear that his mind was shutting down that I understood the transmogrification. “The market's dried up,” he would lament. “They're not buying cartoons anymore.” The truth was they weren't buying his cartoons anymore, because his cartoons were, in fact, no more.

I can't help but think I'm next in line. My writing makes sense to me, but I write in a vacuum, so it's hard to tell if it makes sense to anyone else. However, when I'm feeling sane, I note that the important point is not whether my writing makes sense or whether it's good or bad. The point is I'm writing. It's not even important that my father's dreadful mind-eating ailment turned his clever comics into a nightmare. At least he kept drawing, and that kept him alive for a few extra years. Now he can barely manage to run a crayon across a page and has no real reason to live.

So as long as I'm writing, it shouldn't matter whether I'm good or terrible or, worse, dull and muddied. This process of putting one word in front of another, erasing it, replacing it, and evaluating it, is all that matters. For in the end, you leave it all behind where it has plenty of leisure to turn to dust without anyone's help or judgement.

Day 339: Reclusiveness vs Reason

2011-01-15T17:32:00.002-05:00

Reason, my erstwhile friend,

comes to warn me:

Reclusiveness is the final bow

after the final performance

on a collapsing stage;

it leads, alas, says she,

to the snapping shut of coffins

and other positive signs

that nothing new will begin.

No, I argue gently, when possible;

reclusiveness is that

elusive breath—the one

you never quite manage to complete

before the exhalation and dissipation

of your fondest dreams.

Don't blow my cover, I say;

don't scatter my ashes in the street.

Thundering footsteps and pounded pavements

of everyday life

have nothing more to offer me.

I prefer the insistent buzz of the hornet

looking for something to poke

under the eaves

at the end of day;

at least I know enough to keep the windows closed.

And besides,

there's nothing left to say.

Day 337: Sacrifice

2011-01-13T18:00:00.006-05:00

When bees started
to die and two-headed frogs
barked like dogs

and red needles rained from conifer trees,

the people of Honey Corners

took a vote

and decided these were acts of God,

nothing to do with factory runoff.

They met in Pastor Thumb's Church

where heavy musk air

trapped spiders and other critters,

sucking them in
the way a snake

sucks in mice, frogs, and other

tiny creatures

at night.

People of Honey Corners, said Pastor Thumb,

God has spoken.

Amen, responded the flock.

Pastor Thumb looked around the room.

I have heard Him speak.

Amen, responded the flock.

God has commanded that we send Him a token

of our love and devotion.

Amen, responded the flock.

Pastor Thumb cleared his throat:

God wants us to send Him the most

beautiful and deserving child

among us.

Now the parents were in a quandary,

for each one thought his child, her child

was the most beautiful and deserving child

among them.

All right, said Pastor Thumb,

then line up your children before

this assembly

and let God decide

who is the most

beautiful and deserving child

among us.

And so they did. One hundred children

stood, wide-eyed, before the throng.

Pastor Thumb allowed himself

to be blindfolded. Then,

pistol in hand,

he rose before the children
and announced,

God will guide my hand;

God will send my bullet

into the heart of the

child who is the

most beautiful and deserving

among us.

Pastor Thumb raised his pistol and

pulled the trigger.

As promised,
God

guided the bullet directly

into the heart of a single child.

Everyone applauded when the child fell dead,

for they felt that God had chosen well.

But as weeks turned into months,

bees continued to die,

two-headed frogs still barked like dogs,

and red needles rained, as before, from conifer trees.

Pastor Thumb and the people of Honey Corners

offered more and more

beautiful and deserving children

to God

until

at last

it was determined

that God must have been
heartily displeased,

for He spared not a single child.

And when all the children were dead

the Pastor put down his gun

and declared,

Our God is a cruel god indeed.

Day 336: Passing

2011-01-12T19:03:00.001-05:00

Toward the end of summer, Mr. Thor

began to till a garden,

leaving his wife

fuming, sitting for

hours on the back porch,

her crocheted blanket

draped over her lap.

Those who read Dickens,

that is, those who knew Mrs. Thor

and read Dickens,

would think of her whenever

Miss Havisham or Mrs. Clennam

appeared upon the page,

for she had nothing to live for

but the tangy succulence of disappointment.

When she died, as all bitter Dickensian women

must die,

Mr. Thor had just plunged his long fingers

into the black soil, hot

from from the sun's visit,

so rare

since the Ice Age had frozen

rivers and ponds.

He was glad, at last,

to be alone

and would allow a silent

hour or two
to pass

before calling
her name
and the proper authorities.

Day 335: The Undie Bin

2011-01-11T17:56:00.000-05:00

It might have been Bloomingdale's

or Alexander's

on Third Avenue

where a curtain of heat

whooshed across the entrance,

keeping everyone shopping happily inside

where it was warm.

Terribly wasteful, we Americans.

The pterodactyl knew how to fly

and we can't even install a door.

I said this under my breath,

my favorite place of expression;

but the old woman

corrected me anyway.

One thing has nothing to do

with the other, she said.

Well I guess we've all won

a beauty contest or two,

she added.

In those days, no one worried

about germs.

She ran her fingers,

long and smooth,

through the heaps

of cotton

in the underwear bin.

Bikini, high-rise, low rise, high leg, boxer leg.

So many choices,

I don't know how to begin.

She was too clean

too nicely put together

too groomed

to be crazy.

Wealth never produces crazy old women

Only poverty does that.

Metaphors are not daiquiris,

she noted. And so,

you should never mix them.

I know precisely what I mean

by what I say,

and, by the way,

you have never seen

a pterodactyl fly;

this, my dear, is fact.

She scooped up a handful

—five, six, seven, eight—

of underpants

and headed to the checkout.

Day 334

2011-01-10T17:54:00.003-05:00

I've been noticing that projects such as writing a story or poem a month is becoming a sort of trend. I've always hated trends, but I like this one. It means that people are writing once again. It doesn't have to be great writing; it's just the fact that people care enough to put words on paper. Interesting idea given the fact that writing is no longer taught in school.

Oh, please don't tell me it is taught. Okay, it's not taught competently; it's not taught by people who know how to write. How's that?

The good part about writing every day is that it cultivates discipline and hones writing skills; that bad part is that one starts writing the way I'm writing now—rather superficially. Yes, I'm bored with beautiful images and clever syntactical maneuvers. During the past few weeks, I've fallen off a good three days out of seven. My excuses are work, chores, obligations, exhaustion. Today, my excuse is disc 2 of PBS's Little Dorrit.

Alas. Maybe I'm not much of a writer after all.

Day 333: Prattle

2011-01-09T17:48:00.002-05:00

On a freezing Sunday morning when no one else is up and about, you have the chance to see the aftermath of your neighbors' Saturday night. Beer cans, little drug envelopes, broken glass, even used condoms filled with the frozen froth of sexual spillage—ah, I think, at least they're using protection. This morning, I had to stop as I rounded the bend, for there they were—two pieces of telephone pole, a few chunks of evergreen branches lying in the street, and a wire (hot?) stretched across the two sides of the street, a sagging clothesline flapping in the morning breeze. Busy night, I thought. So I turned around with the dogs, disappointed to have their morning walk cut short, and called 911.

“Hi. I'd like to report a downed telephone poll and an electric wire that might or might not be hot.”

“What is your name?”

“Address?”

“Phone number?”

“Hey, don't you have caller ID at 911?”

“Do you wish to remain anonymous?”

“Anonymous? I don't care; I'm just concerned that someone will get hurt if it's not taken care of.”

They came and took care of the problem three hours later.

My hand still ache from this morning's cold and yesterday's hours chiseling wood to repair the mailbox post. As I type I'm listening to Don Pasquale, one of the most charmingly funny operas ever (directed by James Levine on PBS). The hell with telling stories, writing poems, and studying languages. I need this opera today. Then I'll turn to Roku and finish watching the old movie version of Little Dorrit, even though I really sort of hate it. No offense, Derek Jacobi, but you shouldn't have played that part. You were way too old for the part. Wouldn't you have enjoyed playing Flintwinch ever so much better? Sorry, but the film pales in comparison to the PBS version.

Enough for today. I kept my promise, but I'm struggling toward the finish line.

Day 332: Great Names and Mean Girls: I'll Never Write Again

2011-01-08T17:32:00.002-05:00

Pendergast is a wonderful word, should be someone's name. I don't want the name, however. Not at all. It belongs to a character in a play or story. Real people are not named Pendergast. Oh, no, that's not true. But it's a heavy burden of a name. Other names I like are Finch, Fingle, and Dreadform; Calamny, Crustaceon, and Porkstuff. I'm fond of Rudeworthy, Whistlenot, Sansjoie, and Dourish. They all remind me of Dickens' characters, although his are so much better than mine.

Today I made the mistake of looking in on an online poetry forum. Just for the hell of it, I wanted to see if the same mean people were still lurking in the wings, pouncing on newcomers or experimenters or writers on their way up. What am I doing? Looking for discouragement? Yikes. The same people are still there. Six years ago, I stopped writing for an entire year because of those people. And today, after scanning three of four poems and comments, er, “critiques,” I wanted to quit again. The “mean girls” of poetry forums are male and female, I guess, with nothing else to do.

Between yesterday and today, I spent at least three or four hours repairing the damage done to my mailbox by a couple of neighborhood idiots. And as I was reading the mean-girl remarks, I was thinking how much kinder it would have been—for me, for the entire world—if the mean girls had come over to help me put in the next mailbox.

They didn't come over. But I stopped writing anyway. Until tomorrow.

Day 331: Second Snow

2011-01-07T18:56:00.003-05:00

By the second snow of winter, all of us have really had it up to here

with the white romantic innocence of softly falling powder

sweeping across field and valley

settling on rooftops

on frozen lakes

on puddles,

muffling

every

sound

like earmuffs

like thick insulation:

Pretty enough for maybe five minutes

but then the heaviness sets in, making our

roofs sag, causing slush to gush right through our galoshes,

freezing our toes, encouraging sniffles and wishes that spring were here.

Day 330: Interview

2011-01-06T17:45:00.002-05:00

As much as I'd like to admit you,

ah, Sen-yor,

there's something amiss

with your paperwork.

You were born where exactly?

Oh, so terribly sorry...

No, if you'll just

stop talking...

just

listen.

I'll explain.

Only humans who were born

within the confines

of this great

chunk of land

may live within the confines

of this great

chunk of land.

Yes

of course it's unfair;

life is unfair, after all.

Why just a year ago

my dishwasher broke.

It wasn't fair at all.

I had to hand wash my dishes.

My manicurist was

furious with me.

Oh, and ten years ago

I broke my leg

in a skiing accident.

Now, was that fair?

I had to stay home for

two weeks!

And nothing but reruns on television.

It was an ordeal.

So, don't tell me

about fair.

Just go back to your country

and fill out this paperwork.

We'll contact you.

Soon.

Yes, soon is a relative concept.

Indeed.

Hungry?

Don't tell me about hungry.

I haven't eaten at bite

since breakfast.

And the snack-cart lady,

well, she's late again.

Work? Yes we have jobs,

but they belong to those

of us

who have been born within

the confines

of this great chunk of land.

You wouldn't want to take our jobs

away; would you?

Sure, today, you're only

sweeping our floors

and picking our apples.

But what about tomorrow?

You might work too hard;

you might steal my job

because you work too hard.

That would be a mean trick.

Well I can't help it

if my grandparents were immigrants.

That's not my fault.

It's nothing to do with me.

Nothing to do with me

at all,

Sen-yor.

Day 329: Now It's a Slump

2011-01-05T19:14:00.000-05:00

One day off, it's a dip; two days off, it's a slump.
But I have a choice to make—write something long, which no one will read anyway; or watch Little Dorrit, which is absolutely wonderful
In my next life, I'd like to be a Dickens heroine. I'd be horribly poor, abused, hardworking, and go for weeks without a bath; but, all the bad people in my life would conveniently die and I'd end up quite rich and very happy.
I love Dickens. Justice and goodness always triumph.
Just like real life, right?
That's enough; I really must watch the next two episodes of Little Dorrit.

Here's a great article on the matter: http://www.pbs.org/remotelyconnected/2009/03/little_dorrit.html

Day 328: Dippy Day

2011-01-04T17:57:00.002-05:00

I can barely keep my eyes open, but a promise is a promise, so I write.

My poems are not really poems

my stories are not really stories;

but my life is really a life.

And sometimes it dips.

Today it dipped.

Also, I don't know about submitting stories, even though I said I would. As soon as I think about making something salable, I envision some editor tossing it aside after reading the first sentence, which causes my brain to stop. I don't know what they want. I read the stories they do publish, and they're really good—well, many are really good; just as many make me yawn. “I can't sound like that,” I say.

Damn these promises. You make them, and then you think you have to keep them.

Good night. I have a fever.

Day 327: Dead Dog in the Curve

2011-01-03T18:14:00.004-05:00

There's a curve in the road where I walk my dogs.

If no cars are zooming around it, it's a pleasant walk

despite the garbage

despite the parkway noise

because the trees act as though they're majestic.

They're so confident in in their beauty,

which, in truth, is scraggly at best,

they have me convinced of their utter perfection.
It's a sort of magic they weave
in that very spot where the road curves.

For the past week, a little brown dog

has been lying, dead, at the side of the road.

I know most of the neighborhood dogs

and this one doesn't look familiar.

Someone must have dumped him there

before, or after, he died.

I would like to bury the little brown dog,

give him a headstone,

a token of respect,

but the ground is frozen, iced over, rock hard,

so I don't.

His eyes are half shut

his pink tongue peeking between his teeth.

His body doesn't decay in this cold.

I say, “Okay, God, if you exist,

do something to make this dog happy.

Fix him or take him away with you.”

But nothing happens.

I call the town, but no one answers.

I call the police.

They come and look

at the little brown dog,
shake their heads,
and drive away

from that very spot where the road curves.

I would like to cry the little dog back to life,

if only for a moment.

I'd tell him what a good dog he is,

scratch his cute little stand-up ears,

ask him if he'd like some dinner,

invite him to live at my house

if only for a lifetime or moment.

So, I'm writing these few words

just in case someone reads them

and thinks kind thoughts

about the little brown dog.

Knowing very well that I'm

as wrong as wrong can be,
I think if I can believe
the way the trees believe
then something like magic might happen;
some colorful and gentle shroud
will wrap itself around the dog,
comfort the dog,
the little brown dog,
despite the utter
finality
of that thin little body
frozen in the ice
in that very spot where the road curves.

Day 326: Mots Justes vs Moon

2011-01-02T14:08:00.001-05:00

I'm Mario Ruoppolo of Il postino,

pencil—well, keyboard—in hand

gazing at the moon with furrowed brow,

waiting for les mots justes

(yes, the right words, only better)

to paint, depict, describe

precisely ineffably unforgettably

what no one has seen, but seen all along.

It's a long long wait

so I prepare dinner,

wash up the dishes,

take a shower,

go to bed.

When I awaken tomorrow at dawn

of course the moon will be gone
(as they say, everything passes).

So I'll gaze at the sun

through fancy dark glasses

pencil—no, keyboard—in hand

and wait for les mots justes to come.

Day 325: Fleeting

2011-01-01T14:06:00.017-05:00

Oh, to be a potted plant

now that winter's there.

A potted plant, from its perch inside,

sees, every morning, unaware,

how the sun's rays and the freezing flies

round the covered ground can nothing spy.

Pampered and spoiled, my indoor plants primp and preen

On the window sill, remaining quite green.

But after winter, when spring follows

and snow melts and garden sheds

Open! my indoor plants, yanked from the window ledge,

lie helpless in the yard under the spirea hedge.

Now past their glory, their drooping, soon-dead

blossoms wilt into compost after a week of neglect.

Alas, the same old story—of love or of plants—

told over and over and over again:

A season of beauty; then, poof—it's swarming with ants.

Tongue-in-cheek apology to Mr. Browning.

Day 324: Crosses

2010-12-31T09:35:00.008-05:00

Refrigerator humming

keeping me company

or the silence

would kill

and here I sit

cross-legged

crosschecked

cross-fired

at a crossroads

crossing out words that spill

across my mind

Red Cross

a cross to bear

acrostic (this one's puzzling)

cross purpose

cross encounter

(no, cross this last one out)

A man I used to love

a cro-magnon man

(double-crosser)

caught in my crosshairs

across the crowded room

cross-eyed

crosschecked

cross-legged

on a pale green sofa

digesting

the yellow morning light

that spills across the carpet, also pale green,

despite the heavy purple drapes

of winter

flapping crossly in the cross breeze.

Day 323: Pillows On Laps

2010-12-30T12:44:00.002-05:00

You never see a man

with a pillow on his lap.

Maybe that's something a man will do in private,

but never in public.

In public a man spreads his legs

wide wide open,

airing his testicles, I suppose.

It's kind of rude

especially on a subway

during rush hour

or in a crowded theater

or during a group photo

and you're sitting next to him.

A woman is different.

A woman sits down and grabs the nearest throw pillow

hugs it in her lap

caresses it

like a baby bulge

like a baby

like flowers.

In public a woman never spreads her legs

never airs anything but an occasional grievance
or laundry.

It's a little unfair

especially on a subway

during rush hour

or in a crowded theater

or during a group photo

when she's got your pillow

on her lap

not yours.

Day 322: Sleeping Philosopher

2010-12-29T17:37:00.006-05:00

"Life is a stopover," you declare as you yawn,

"ein Zwischenlanden, das ist alles."

I don't understand German,

but I can guess what you mean.

You blend into the Queen Ann lace

of your easy chair to sleep the sleep

of the philosopher.

Then mumbling on the crest of a snore,

"Life is a bagatelle, a goose egg,

Un nonnulla, niente di piú."

I don't understand Italian,

but think I know what you mean.

Your lips curl down to your ankles,

raw after years of treading through mud:

“Up to my ears in the stuff,” you declare in the trough of a snore.

“Life can be juicy when it's ripe,” you sigh.

“Quel pièce de théâtre ridicule.”

I don't understand French

but the gist of your pronouncement is ever clear.

Your breathing slows to a tremble

“Are you still asleep?” I ask.

You shake your head as if to agree, or disagree—

I can't tell which.

“La vida. ¿Qué es la vida?” you cry.

I don't understand Spanish, so I cover you with a blanket

and skip out the door.

Day 321: Lava

2010-12-28T19:28:00.004-05:00

Dearest:

I have strewn so many words, big and small, simple and complex,

across your beaten path

you have become a master at ignoring them.

Alas. I don't know how to shut myself up.

I know only how to talk up a storm

about nothing

in particular.

It is my cross to bear.

And yours from time to time.

So, tell you what I'll do for you.

I'll stop talking, stop forming these curiously shaped noises we call words,

stop whipping up gabby desserts too rich to taste,

stop swinging across prairie and jungle,

and say, at last, what I was going to say

before that river of lava

oozed down the mountainside,

snuck up

behind your back;

and all the while,
oh dear,
I was saying all these words about nothing.

Oh, yes, now I remember:

Watch out for the lava flow.

That's what I wanted to say all along.

Day 320: Real (whatever that is)

2010-12-27T19:02:00.000-05:00

On reflection, I realize now that my characters are always metaphors rather than people. I'm going to try to stop doing that.

I'm working on a story now—but, no more postings of my stories (and so what)—about a man looking for help in the middle of what we might call nowhere. It's easy enough to give him a face, a complexion, a walk; but I have trouble making him real. Good. I've identified a key problem with my writing. Now, what the hell should I do about it?

Well, does it really matter? If you think about most characters in literature, very few bear more than a passing resemblance to real. Maybe I'm just too tired to consider this right now. I've done so much shoveling of snow today, I guess I've had enough of my day.

Day 319: Wind

2010-12-26T17:19:00.000-05:00

Tonight's wind knows its way through the tiniest cracks in the house, sees itself in without the slightest nod to propriety, makes itself at home as though this were its birthright. I turn my back on it, but it remains determinedly, haughtily, coldly indifferent to my comfort as it slithers—yes, slithers like a snake or a worm or even Tartuffe—over my shivering shoulders and chucks me under the chin.

"Hello there; I'm baaaaack," it hisses.

I pull my heavy black sweater around my stomach and cross my arms. Outside these frosted windows, the wind is completely unchecked; it howls and whistles, threatening to knock everything down that tries to resist it—tree branches, people, stop signs, and the like. Inside, it's far better behaved; but good behavior is a matter of culture and taste, isn't it?

Today's wind has brought snow and ice, scattered it thickly over the streets and houses and yards. The air chokes, giving up in exhaustion at last. “Fine,” it thinks, “let the snow have its way; let the wind do its worst.” It has lost the battle but knows that spring always seems to turn up. That's the way things have been.

No one ventures forth in this weather, which makes me welcome the wind even as I turn away from it. I'm sure it understands that it's nothing personal. We need the wind. Without it, we wouldn't survive. That's true, isn't it? The earth would prosper without us humans, but it would die without the wind. Of course, it would also die without termites and ants. Just think about that the next time you pay a few thousand dollars to an exterminator. Just consider that the next time you do what we all do—the next time you turn your back on the wind and expect it to care that your black sweater has no power to stop the trembling of your limbs or the quiet palpitation of your heart.

Day 318 (47): Shoelaces

2010-12-25T20:39:00.004-05:00

A man on a mission is a man who walks with a certain stride, his knees slightly bent, his arms swinging, his eyes unblinking. His name? He didn't stop to tell me, so I'll have to give him a name. How about Aaron? It's a good strong name. Aaron Stone. Yes, stone is a strong word, but it's kind of weighty and suggests sinking to the bottom of something bleak and dark. So, how about Windermere? No, too frilly, and GB Shaw owns that name. Aaron Mann, perhaps? But that's so German. He can't be German. Aaron Kyle. There it is, Aaron Kyle.

Aaron Kyle never stops to tell me about his mission, so I'll have to find one for him. Oh, sure. He wants world peace and a copse of trees on ever corner, but he's also a realist and knows these will never happen. No, his mission is a personal one. His mission is to get through one day without tripping on his shoelaces. Never mind that he doesn't have shoelaces in his shoes. The fact is he carries shoelaces with him wherever he goes. Because if he didn't carry them, he would not be on a mission. (This last sentence is not a sentence; it's a clause. I know this, but Aaron Kyle does not know it.)

The only reason we've met Aaron today is to set him aside until we can find a proper story for him. I certainly wouldn't use the shoelace idea in a real story; however, it's a funny idea—at least to me—that a person would carry something he clearly does not need just for the sake of having something to do. Damn if there isn't a metaphor in there somewhere.

It's Christmas. Let's not get carried away with creativity, especially after a huge meal and lots of good company.

Day 317 (48) Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T17:26:00.003-05:00

On Christmas Eve, from around four in the afternoon until around 11 PM, my house is silent. The phone doesn't ring, no one knocks at the door, no appliances are running, and all I hear is the train whistle in the distance. It's this way every year. Oh, yes, an occasional car passes the house, a dog barks in one of the neighboring yards, and, yes, I can hear the keyboard keys, tap, tap, tap as I type.

Silence is profoundly enriching; and there is so little silence, so I must be poor. Today I started reading a book on the short story. It's not a good day to begin such a book—cooking for tomorrow, cleaning for today. I also had to shop for last-minute food items and finish installing a temporary fence so the dogs won't roll in the freshly turned earth left behind by the cesspool installers.

The point is the author says students of the short story should get ten index cards and, on each card, write at least a sentence about something we're passionate about. I hate that word "passionate." It's such a cliche, and I truly would not have bought the book had I known the writer would use such absurd words. What the hell does "passionate" mean anyway? If it means dedicated, concerned about, or interested in, then why not say it? Or am I passionate about meaningless words?

Ari suggested that I act more like Tony Robbins; specifically, instead of stating that the living room looks like the town dump, I should say “It's a little disordered.” I tried, really I did. But it was a lie. The living room looks like a dump, and I'm going to clean it up now.

Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate. Yes, tonight, I remember Al and his Christmas Eve fish dinners. I don't eat flesh anymore, which would really annoy him. But he's not here to be annoyed anymore. So, to Al, who is now younger, by almost three years, than I am, I hope you're at peace. And to all the other friends, relatives, and old flames I once knew on a cold and not so silent Christmas Eve, I wish you good tidings.

Day 316 (49): Cesspool As Metaphor

2010-12-23T20:40:00.000-05:00

New cesspool day at my house. A new cesspool means carting away the old crap. Cesspool is a metaphor-supreme in every social and intellectual strata; so is sump, crapper, septic, dump, dumpster. So, in honor of sucking out old crap, filling in dangerous and antiquated cesspools, and creating something brand new, I give this day a W for watershed, another beloved metaphor.

Let's begin the countdown.

Day 315: Fifty Days To Go

2010-12-22T17:50:00.002-05:00

Does anyone care if I just stop at 315? No one cares.; however, when you make a promise, you have to keep it. Right? (What if you've made the wrong promise?)

I'm too tired to write anything today. I'm just stopping in to keep my promise. I could talk about last night's huge solstice moon—tell how I went out in my car looking for it, but decided it was too cold to sit in my care looking at it. Besides, everyone who sits in a car in my neighborhood is either drugged or waiting to buy drugs. Yes, lots of people around here love to support drug lords. They also support many fast food establishment and lots of plastic factories. Besides the plastic baggies they use for their drugs, they also buy lots of plastic Santa Clauses and plastic reindeer and plastic wrappers for their junk food and plastic bottles for their drinks. When I pick up their garbage, I silently curse them. Then I laugh because I realize that they're killing themselves with their sugar and preservative diets. “They'll all die soon,” I think. And then I feel a little guilty for having thought such an unkind thought.

Now I'm going to take a shower and settle down with my latest Midsomer Murders episode, this one titled, “Orchis Fatalis.” Can't wait to figure out who done the murderous deed.

By the way, I'm really working on a story, but I don't think I'll be posting any more stories here. It's time to be a grownup; it's time to face the dubious glory of rejection that comes after taking huge tracts of time to craft a story. Rejection—I open my arms to you. You will be my new teacher, and I will pay you with a smile.

Day 314: Almost Ending/Beginning

2010-12-21T18:32:00.001-05:00

The new year will mark, for me, the end of a story a day (although I still owe a blog a day until February). January will be the beginning of a more serious, indepth writing endeavor. With the click of an icon, I half-willingly, and completely unwittingly, signed up with a group of writers who will write one new story each week and submit a story a week for the entire year of 2011.

Oh dear. I hate the idea of submitting stories. Rejection rejection rejection. It seems so silly to submit stories when I'm certain they'll be rejected by just about everyone. But, in some strange way, perhaps this will be good for me. I haven't figured out why it will be helpful—perhaps by thickening my skin, perhaps by further challenging my writing skills, perhaps by underscoring the absurdity of fretting over other people's opinions. After all, I'm lucky enough to have a career already. I don't have to rely on story sales to pay the mortgage, eat, and pay my monstrous gas and oil bills. Yikes.

Indeed, I will now have to pay far more attention to the elements of fiction. No more excuses about time. Okay. I accept the challenge. Only the new stories won't be posted on this blog. In fact, after February, the blog should really come down. No, no. Don't start crying over it. It hasn't happened yet.

That's quite enough for today. I'm working on a story that's going to take more than one day. My first submission? It's about this guy.....

Day 313: The Hire

2010-12-20T19:58:00.002-05:00

Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs always dressed for dinner, which was served promptly at seven in the evening, usually by their man, Mr. Dennis, who also worked as cook, house cleaner, and grocery shopper for the elderly couple. Except for the occasional sound of water boiling or the vacuum humming, it was a house where silence ruled. A mere tinkling of one's silver fork against the bone china would earn a raised eyebrow. The squeaking of a dinning room chair would induce Mr. Hobbs to take his tiny spiral notebook and make a note for Mr. Dennis with his Mont Blanc pen: “Oil dining room chairs, and see to the squeak in the rungs under Mrs. Hobbs' chair.” The only forgivable noise was the constant tick-tock of the miniature gold clock in the downstairs hallway.

Mr. Dennis had worked for the Hobbs family for over 50 years. In the beginning, he was one of ten staff members; but times had changed. People weren't all that interested in domestic work. Factory work and office work offered better pay for fewer hours worked. Little by little, the butler left, the maids, the groundskeeper, the housekeeper. Since the four Hobbs children were all grown up and on their own, there didn't seem any reason to hire more help. Mr. Dennis like it that way. He liked the quiet, the privacy, and the freedom to do things his way.

So, the night Mrs. Dahlia Pratt appeared in the kitchen announcing that she would be doing the cooking form now on shocked him.

“Says who?” Mr. Dennis almost shouted.

“Says Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs,” Mrs. Pratt glared at him with her great dark eyes and pressed her heavy chin into her neck, reminding Mr. Dennis of an ox.

Despite his uneasiness, he felt the need to make some response. “Don't raise your voice to me, young woman. Who do you think you are?”

Mrs. Pratt couldn't resist a smile, “I think I'm the new cook. That's what I think. Young woman, indeed. I'm old enough to have three grown children, that's how old I am.”

Mr. Dennis left the kitchen in a huff and went directly to Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs, who were reading in the living room. They didn't look up when he entered, so he was obliged to clear his throat.

“Yes, Mr. Dennis?” asked Mr. Hobbs.

“It's about the lady you hired.”

“What about her?” Mr. Hobbs looked up from his book.

“Is it true then? You'e hired a cook?”

Mr. Hobbs seemed surprised. “A cook? Mrs. Hobbs, did you hire a cook?”

Mrs. Hobbs thought for a moment. “Well, I remember that we hired a lady, but I'm certain it wasn't to do the cooking.” She smiled at Mr. Dennis. “I'm sure our Mr. Dennis does very nicely as a cook.”

Mr. Dennis smiled back. “Thank you, Mrs. Hobbs. But, if you don't mind my asking. I mean to say... Well, what have you hired Mrs. Pratt to do?”

Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs looked at each other. Mr. Hobbs spoke first, “Well, Mrs. Hobbs?”

Mrs. Hobbs closed her book and set it on the table beside her chair. “Well, I'm sure I don't know. Don't you know?”

“Of course I don't know. How would I know?”

The clock ticked, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.... Mr. Dennis folded his arms behind his back, waiting for some direction. Mr. Hobbs rubbed his fingers along the dust jacket of his book. Mrs. Hobbs studied her short polished fingernails until she broke the silence. “I used to have beautiful hands.”

“I'm sure they're still beautiful, Mrs. Hobbs,” responded Mr. Hobbs. In company, they always referred to each other as Mr. and Mrs., which they considered proper. Reggie and May were stricktly reserved for moments of privacy and intimacy.

Mr. Dennis cleared his throat again. Mr. Hobbs cleared his as well. “I'm sure all this standing about is getting us nowhere,” he finally announced.

“Shall I send the lady in to see you, then?” asked Mr. Dennis.

“What on earth for?” asked Mrs. Hobbs, obviously shocked by the suggestion. “Really, Mr. Dennis. You're usually so practical.”

“If you don't mind my asking,” said Mr. Dennis. “When did the original interview with Mrs. Pratt take place?”

“Well, what sort of a question is that?” asked Mr. Hobbs. “Mrs. Hobbs? When did you interview Mrs. Pratt?”

“I'm sure I did no such thing!” she responded, smoothing the creases in her blue print skirt. “The housekeeper takes care of such responsibilities.”

“My dear, we haven't had a housekeeper in five years,” said Mr. Hobbs.

Mr. Dennis cleared his throat again. “That would be closer to 20 years, sir.”

Mr. Hobbs snapped, “Five years or 20 years. At our age, that's a blink of the eyes.”

Again, the three players fell silent, each listening to the tick, tick, tick of the hallway clock. A sudden thud shocked everyone out of their reverie. It was coming from the kitchen. Thump, thump, thump.

“What on earth is that noise?” declared Mr. Hobbs putting his hands over his long loose ears. “Mr. Dennis, go see to it, will you?”

Mr. Dennis hastened to the kitchen and found Mrs. Pratt banging the dent out of one of his best cooking pots. “What on earth are you doing?” he yelled. “Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs aren't used to this sort of noise.”

“I'm just trying to help,” declared Mrs. Pratt, wiping her cheek with her sleeve. “You've got dents in all your pots. That don't look so nice.”

“They look fine to me, young woman. Furthermore, there's been some sort of misunderstanding here. You were not hired to do the cooking.”

Mrs. Pratt's small mouth opened into a perfect little oval. Her dark eyes glistened, and Mr. Dennis was sure he could hear her heart pounding. “What do you mean, not hired to do the cooking?”

Now it was Mr. Dennis's turn to gloat. “No one seems to remember hiring you for anything. I'm sure there was some sort of miscommunication, and, at any rate, whatever conversation may have taken place between you and the home ownders must have taken place in my absense. Indeed, no one ever mentioned you before today.” He let out a long sigh.

“Well, I'll admit it was some time ago that I was interviewed. But I was hired. I'll assure you of that. And it wasn't by no homeowner. It was the housekeeper I saw.”

“How long ago was that, Mrs. Pratt?”

“Well, I'm not sure. Maybe a five or so.”

“We haven't had a housekeeper on the premises for 20 years, Mrs. Pratt.”

Mrs. Pratt put her hands on her wide hips and snorted, “Five years or 20 years. What difference doesn it make? I was hired.”

Mr. Dennis smiled in spite of himself. “I'll have a word with Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs.”

They were reading their books as though nothing had happened. Mr. Dennis cleared his throat. “Yes, Mr. Dennis?” asked Mr. Hobbs.

Mr. Dennis explained that Mrs. Pratt had been hired some twenty years earlier by the housekeeper, Mrs. Daniels. “Well, we'll have to keep her then, won't we? It's a matter of keeping one's word.”

“Quite right, Mr. Hobbs,” said Mrs. Hobbs, looking up from her book. “We must always keep our word.”

And so, Mrs. Pratt became a member of the household. As it turned out, she was a dreadful cook, so Mr. Dennis resumed the cooking, and Mrs. Pratt took over the vaccuming and dusting. She was quite happy with the work, and, best of all, it gave her a sense of security. It was such a comfort knowing that she belonged somewhere in the world. Oh, Mr. Dennis could be a little too critical for her liking, and the way he spoke, so formal and stiff, well, she was getting used to it. She was even learning to love the silence and the sound of the clock tick, tick, ticking.

For two or three years, everything went smoothly. And then one night, Mr. Brambles arrived at the kitchen door and announced that he was the new groundskeeper. Rather than discuss the matter with Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs, Mr. Dennis welcomed him in and showed him where to hang his coat.

Day 312: Funny Thing About Words

2010-12-19T19:57:00.003-05:00

Next summer, I'm going to stay at the Hotel Taber in Barcelona. The word “taber,” or “taberna” before it got itself shortened, comes from the Etruscan language. It means, or meant, tavern—nothing very lofty. And as a variation of “tabor,” it means a small drum that resembles a tambourine. But, I'm not going to give the latter definition much weight. The only reason I booked the hotel was because it stole name is my name. Well, it also had good reviews on hotels.com, and the price was reasonable; but the greatest attraction was the name. Maybe I'll feel the spirits of my ancestors in my little single-bed room. They'll ask me what I'm doing in Barcelona at long last, perhaps reprimand me for not having come sooner. I wonder if they'll speak to me in Spanish or Etruscan. Just forget about it if it's Etruscan, because I'll have to tell them that no one speaks Etruscan anymore. That might depress the hell out of them.

I think it's sort of counterintuitively funny that the only languages that last are the dead ones like Latin and Etruscan and Ancient Greek. It's revealing that it's possible to read, let's say, Dante in the original Italian and have no trouble understanding the language; but it's impossible to read Chaucer's English even though he wrote his text about a century later than Dante's. “That's because Italian's a dead language,” quipped my linguistics professor at Stony Brook. Everyone thought that was pretty funny.

So now google books has this wonderful search tool alled Google Ngrams: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/. You can plug in any word or words and find out how often it's been used in literature over the past 1511 years. I see immediately that “taber” has lost popularity almost steadily since around 1820. Why? The only explanation is that it no longer means anything. However, taberna, it's Spanish-language twin, never enjoyed the popularity that taber enjoyed. Go figure.

Research made simple. It's astounding. Remember the olden days when no one could write anything worth reading unless half of it had been written and the New York Public Library. Now, we just google the hell out of everything, and, poof, there are 11,260,754 answers just waiting to be scooped up and plopped into a research paper or historical novel.

All this is clearly sidestepping the fact that I have not written a story today. Or yesterday. I think that's okay now. Even though the year isn't officially up, I'm getting a bit tired of producing a story a day, or five a week, whatever it's been. There's no such thing as good writing; there's only good rewriting. I always give proper credit to people whose ideas I steal. That one's from Paul Dolan, a man who sends Christmas cards to the entire world.

So, that's it. I'm done for the day. It's been properly productive, even if I came up shy of a story. Good night.

Day 311: Undone

2010-12-18T18:49:00.000-05:00

I continue to ascend these magnificent green hills, always in first gear, climbing slowly slowly lest I fail to notice a rose, shrub, a scurrying animal, lest I loose my grip and fall off the incline. It's astounding, at least to me, that all these hills have no descent, no way down; they only rise and rise and rise again, right up to the clouds, which they torment with their sharp and insolent peaks.

This is a surprise, for the laws of logic and physics state that what goes up must come down. Or maybe there's no such law at all. Maybe it's just a song title from the seventies. Unless my eyes deceive me in the tricky ways that eyes deceive, I count at least 50 or 1000 hills—not all of which are magnificent and green—that I have climbed by car, by rail, and by grasping jagged rocks with my bare and bleeding hands. (No wonder I have arthritis! Ah, now I understand.)

I can look down at all the tiny dots of events long past, but that's it. Something viscous, something forbidding, something glasslike allows me to hop from hill to hill, but refuses to let me descend, refuses to let me rest, not for a moment. And, no, I can't prove any of this. Even so, it's not a lie, and my mind is still intact. Surely I'd know if it weren't; surely I'd be aware of my own mental slippage.

So, that old saying about life having its ups and downs—it's a load of crap. Life is has no downs; life is a succession of ascensions. And when you step into the viscosity surrounding the final peak, well, that's when it all stops.

Day 310: Uncaring & Gapping

2010-12-17T17:58:00.003-05:00

A gap wider than a football field, and whatever other cliché you can think of, exists between my characters and the pages they (sort of) live on. Part of me wants to remedy that; part of me says so what. Even when there's a first-person POV, something is not being said, some essential element, or elements, of the story is not being told. I'm beginning to wonder whether this is my style or my failure to evolve as a storyteller over the past 300-plus days.

The only reason I thought of this was that I started today's story today with, “No matter what people said about Henry Barth and his Saturday night drinking and fisticuffing over at the Whahhoo Basin, they had to admit he was a hard working man most every other day.”

It was going to be a light-hearted story that included some silly scenes in the bar following a description of Henry's typical work day.

“If you could get yourself up early enough—say 5 AM—and trained your eyes on his little ranch-style house over on Parkway Drive, you'd see him backing out of the driveway and racing to the station to catch the 5:16 express to the city. You'd see him sitting in the last car of the train, pouring over the financial pages, typing into his mini-laptop, giving terse instructions to his secretary's answering machine. You'd be impressed with his finely cut suit and perfectly knotted tie—heart-shape to match the shape of his face. Oh, yes, and his hair, his thick white hair, gently sprayed to keep it in slicked back from his high forehead. If you were a woman over, say 40, you'd agree that there's nothing so attractive as a man with thick white hair. If you were a man of any age, you'd give anything for a head of hair like that.”

But, upon reading this, I realize that this is not at all the style of the day. Well, so what? Yes, so what. I'm not submitting these stories. Yes, but we live in an age of naked emotion, emotional me, emotionally in touch and in synch with one's self, self-involved, self-loving, self-serving servitude. No one will read or buy stories without these elements. So I try to focus my lens on Henry. No, I don't want him to be having an affair. I don't want him to hate his boss. I don't want to analyze him. I just want to paint a picture. Oh, great. Literary paintings are dismissed as vignettes, which really annoys me. Oh, but I'm getting off track.

The point is I can't get close to Henry, don't want to get close to him, don't see why I feel I should.

“Henry was, by choice, a background man. He didn't like the attention of his peers or his bosses. And in this respect, he was quite unlike any of his colleagues, who knew quite well that there was no getting anywhere in one's professional life without the approbation of one's colleagues and, above all, one's bosses.” (Damn, I've changed the POV's tone, haven't I?)

Well, I like that idea of the story. Here we have a man who, during the workweek, is quiet as a mouse or a cloud or the morning after a party, and who explodes with drink and childish madness each and every Saturday night. That's the pattern of his life. A good storyteller must break the pattern, create tension, in short, throw a spanner in the works.

“This particular Saturday night began, as usual, with an order of light Bud with a Jack Daniels chaser. No sooner had Henry lifted the beer to his thin lips when he heard an explosion so deafening that he dropped his glass and covered his ears with his hands. No one else seemed to have heard the explosion.”

See? Big deal. The explosion turns out to be in his head. But since I haven't told you enough about Henry's inner life or gotten you to care about him in any way, you certainly won't care where the hell the explosion takes place. So, of course, I have to wonder if I, too, don't care. It's a dilemma.

Once again, I think I have the bones of a story. But this is no story at all. It's not even the exact truth, and it has nothing much to do with fiction.

Day 309: I Left A Holiday

2010-12-16T20:22:00.000-05:00

I used to live with this guy who liked to watch me work. And his favorite expression whether I was painting the house or vaccuming the rug or just cleaning the kitchen table was “You left a holiday.” I knew what he meant, because he would point to the spot I had holidayed, and I'd go back and take care of it. For some reason, I was never put off by his interference, never told him to got to hell or do the damn work himself. I think that was because the expression was so quaint, so old-fashioned, so out of place in late twentieth century American-English speech. I didn't even bother to look it up until years later when he was no longer around to point out my “holidays.” Dictionary.com's sixth meaning of the word holiday is, “an unintentional gap left on a plated, coated, or painted surface.” Yup. He was right. I had left many holidays in my work.

This is my lead in to today's announcement that I am leaving a holiday, or an unintentional gap in the painted surface of my year of storytelling. If that guy I lived with were still alive, I'd ask him to take over for me today. Alas. I'll have to make things right tomorrow.

Day 308: Just Another Lifetime

2010-12-15T18:35:00.000-05:00

On her ninetieth birthday, she put on her brown winter coat and white wool scarf and sat in the vestibule waiting for her gentleman to call. His name was Arthur; however, in public or in conversation with others, she referred to him as Mr. Sargent Her name was Agnes. Agnes is a very old name, so she had always called herself Aggie. Mr. Sargent called her Aggie in private, that is, when he came for afternoon tea and sandwiches; however, in public or in conversation, he called her Mrs. R.

They had been keeping company, as they quaintly summarized their friendship, for a little over a decade; and in that time, he had never forgotten her birthday. And today was a very special birthday, indeed, different from all her other birthdays. She didn't know why it was different, but she could feel it in the air.

The vestibule of her small frame house received the afternoon sun with open arms, which, in winter, provided welcome relief from the bitter cold of late afternoon. Summer, of course, was another story. In summer, she covered the front door window as well as her south-facing living room windows with thick velvet drapes, which kept out the heat and cast walls and furniture in purple. Her favorite color.

On her tenth birthday, her father had gotten angry at her. She could never remember why, but she suspected it had something to do with her eyes, dark, brooding, often downcast. “Look at me when I talk to you!” he would shout.

Dutifully, she would lift her enormous hazel eyes to meet his eyes. And she would marvel at the rage frothing at the corners of his own hazel eyes and thin-lipped mouth. “Don't look at me like that!” he would shout again. “You look like your mother.”

Her mother had died when she was three and remained quietly in Aggie's memory as the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Her father was right; she did look like her mother.

On her twentieth birthday, she married her first husband, Allan. He was far taller than her five-feet- four-inch frame. Sandy-haired and soft spoken, he had been the sweetest, most attentive suitor Aggie had ever known. She didn't witness his temper until a month after the wedding when he broke her nose because of the way she looked at him. “Don't look at me!” he shouted.

And when she looked away, he screamed, “Look at me when I'm taking to you!”

After he broke her nose, she packed a bag and left Milltown for New York City where she knew she'd be safe. She never contacted him or her father again, and she certainly didn't let anyone know about the baby, whom she named Jesse after her mother. She never lied to Jesse about his father or grandfather. The only thing she asked of him was that he refrain from contacting his father until he was eighteen and beyond his legal reach.

Jesse grew up, went to NYU, and became a public defender. When he was 22, he wrote to his father, who was shocked and delighted to hear that he had a son. Jesse made a number of trips to Milltown to see his father, whom he called Allan. Allan had never remarried. He asked after Aggie more than once. “She's doing really well,” Jesse would say. “She went back to school and became a teacher.”

“A teacher? Imagine that. Little Aggie became a teacher.”

Allan died on Aggie's fiftieth birthday. A month later, Aggie married again. Frank Rathbone had been a fighter pilot during World War II. During the sixties, he became an old pot-smoking hippie and moved to a commune in New Mexico. Fortunately, he was independently wealthy, so when he got tired of tilling the earth and following rules, he simply hired a driver to take him back to New York City where his Fifth-Avenue apartment awaited his return. Aggie retired from teaching on her sixtieth birthday. She and Frank then spent an adventurous ten years traveling the globe and raising money for Frank's various charities. On her seventieth birthday, Frank gave Aggie a diamond necklace that must have cost the price of a house. So when he died two months later, she was shocked to find out that there was nothing left but debts. She sold everything, including the necklace, and went to work as an events organizer.

Her son and his wife begged her to move in with them, but she refused as politely as possible. She never spoke badly of Frank Rathbone, at least not in public. Two weeks after her eightieth birthday, she paid off her little house in Queens and retired. That's about the time that she met Mr. Sargent.

On this day, that is, on her ninetieth birthday, she squinted into the sun, waiting for Mr. Sargent to come for her. They were going to have an early dinner at Thai World and catch a movie. They would be back by seven. Jesse and his wife Sarah were coming over with a cake. Her four grandchildren had already called her to wish her a happy birthday. Any day now, she would be a great-grandmother for the third time.

“It's been a good life,” she said out loud, surprising herself. “Not extraordinary. But good.”

She heard Mr. Sargent's car pull into the driveway and smiled. Her grandchildren often teased her about her “boyfriend,” which gave her a big kick.

She had once overheard Laney and Manny talking about it.

“Do you think Grandma does it?” Laney had asked.

“Huh?”

“You know. With Mr. Sargent.”

“Eeeewww. That's disgusting,” Manny shrieked and threw a pillow at his sister.

When Aggie told Mr. Sargent about it, they both laughed.

She heard Mr. Sargent's footsteps coming up the walk. He knocked on the door. She couldn't understand why he didn't just come in the way he always did.

Finally, after a lot of banging on the door and calling her name, “Aggie! Aggie!” Mr. Sargent came inside.

Aggie couldn't understand why he kept shaking her shoulder and calling her name. She tried to tell him she could hear him and there was no need to yell. “Aggie, look at me!” he shouted.

“Oh, dear. Not again,” thought Aggie. “I'm not falling for that one again.”

She tried to focus on Mr. Sargent's eyes. They were kind eyes. They were crying eyes. They were asking her to say something, but she couldn't. They were asking her to wake up, but she would never wake up again.

Day 307: The Diary (Part I)

2010-12-14T19:21:00.000-05:00

If you asked Mary Smythe what was most important to her in life, she would assure you that her family—her two darling children and devoted husband—was her world, her very life breath. You would believe her, too, for her brown eyes glistened when she spoke of them. She called them, “my loves”; she chauffeured them all over town; she dressed them in the latest names. She also came to all the school events, often raising eyebrows for her elegance of style, as though her beautiful figure and finely tailored clothing were designed to detract attention from her children's performances on stage.

Men and women often stole glances at her while she sat smiling as six-year-old Eva sang her solo or 8-year-old Robbie kicked the soccer ball between the goalie's legs with astonishing swiftness. Men were captivated by her wide eyes and gorgeous full lips. Women studied her long dark hair, wishing to detect a flaw, a few hair extentions, a wave out of place. At last, they would shrug their shoulders and assure themselves that while they might not have Mrs. Smythe's physical beauty, they were good cooks, great moms, or disciplined scrapbookers.

She kept her four-bedroom ranch house spotless, and if you had asked her about it, she would tell you that a tidy house makes life so much easier, so much more bearable. “After all, you know where everything is. What's more important than that?”

The flowers from Main Street Flowers, the gold and silver trinkets from Main Street Jewelers, and the surprise gift certificates from Main Street Spa were all the evidence they needed that her husband adored her. When she spoke, people noticed how he looked only at her; when they entered a house or building together, he always held the door for her; when she was off on one of her trips to the city, he would sigh and tell people how he missed her.

Their names were mentioned every time a couple argued:

“Why can't you treat me the way Mr. Smythe treats his wife?”

“Why can't you keep yourself in shape the way Mary does?”

“Mary? Oh, so now you're on a firstname basis?”

“What of it? I see how you look at that husband of hers.”

“Well, why not? At least he has a good job. And speaking of staying in shape....” The wife's eyes would scan the husand's belly, and that would be the end of the argument.

What a shock it was when Mary Smythe suddenly found herself in jail for shoplifting in Walmart. Walmart! After all, she certainly wasn't the sort of person you would normally find in Walmart. Women smiled imagining Mary Smythe's mugshot photo—her hair tangled, makeup smudged, maybe a cigarette hanging out of her lipstick-smeared mouth. Men daydreamed about befriending her, perhaps saving her from whatever misery had driven her to do something so blatently stupid. At last, the unapproachable Mrs. Smythe had a achilles heel, a crack in her beautiful armor.

Mrs. Smythe, her jewelry, and $100,000 disappeared about a week after the shoplifting incident. The children were spending the month of July at their paternal grandmother's up in Massachusettes. Mr. Smythe told police that he his wife had been dispondent after the “unfortunate incident,” as he called it. She had told him she was going out for a walk. “No, officer, she often went out for a walk at 5 AM; she enjoyed the solitude and the exercise.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No, damnit. I was asleep. How would I know?”

“I have to ask these questions, sir.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I'm just so worried.”

“And the missing jewelry?”

“How would I know? There must have been a break in.”

But police found no sign of a break in, and a week after her disappearance, they found her body dumped in the poison ivy that grows thickly on the land side of the sand dunes, not three miles from her home. Not a mark on her body. No sign of trauma. Toxicology tests revealed nothing out of the ordinary in her system. The cause of death was listed as “unknown.”

Everyone in town remembered her as the lovliest of women. “She'd do anything for you,” Mrs. Oswald sobbed in front of the television camera.

“Oh, yes. Very kind. Very lovely. Everbody loved her.”

Now that she was no longer a threat, the women didn't mind at all reminding their husbands what a beautiful woman she had been. And the husbands were too smart to make any remarks about Mr. Smythe's ability to come back from the loss when a new woman moved into his house a month after Mrs. Smythe's body was found. From a distance, you could have sworn that she was Mary Smythe—tall and shapely, dark hair falling in waves to the middle of her back, wide brown eyes, and full lips.

“My goodness if I didn't do a double take,” declared their neighbor, Sandy Lazzo.

“Double take?” said Danny Roe from across the street. “I almost crashed me car. I thought I'd seen a ghost.”

Mr. Smythe and his new girlfriend were married six months later. The children moved back to the house and went back to school as though nothing had happened. Now, instead of their mother appearing at school functions and turning heads, their stepmother filled that role. On the surface, the family appeared quite contented and well adjusted. The children did well in school, and the new Mrs. Smythe began referring to them as her “darlings.”

For ten years, no one mentioned Mary Smythe. When her daughter Eva turned 18, she and her brother Robbie received a special delivery letter from her mother's lawyer, Kent Ryceck. The letter explained that their mother had left him in charge of a key to a safety-deposit box in the bank on Main Street and instructed him to send it to her children when they were both of age.

The children were confused by their father's anger. “That's just like her, reaching out from the grave to cause trouble.”

“What the hell, Dad,” Robbie snapped. “She's our mom.”

“You have a mom. Jennifer's your mom.”

“No, she's not,” said Eva. “You can get as mad as you want, but we're going to the bank.”

“Aren't you even curious?” Robbie asked him.

Jennifer was quick to defend her him. “Why should he be curious? Your mom's been gone for over ten years. I don't see what the fuss is all about.”

The bank manager had already received notification from Kent Rycek to expect Eva and Robbie Smythe. He led them into the safety-deposit room and took down Box Number 32.

Inside, they found her missing jewelry, $100,000 in 20-dollar bills, and a diary. They're world was about to be shook for a second time.

Is this a good place to leave off? I'm not sure if this is the stuff of short stories. Once again, I've dug a hole and don't know if I can get out in under 200 pages. It's okay. I'm learning. My friend David says he hates that word. I don't care. I'm learning. If anyone were reading this, I would aske you if you think this is the begininng of a novel or the bones of a short story.

Day 306: Not a Contender, and So What

2010-12-13T20:03:00.000-05:00

One of my dogs is leaning on my right arm, making typing very difficult. I let her do it because she had a pretty horrible life before she came to live with me. Screw all that alpha talk, you know, I'm supposed to be top dog in the household and she should cater to me. I look at her and think of all the horrors she's experienced, and I say, what the hell, she's hindering me from typing. So what.

Besides, it's a very good reason not to write a story today. I've got pink eye, a slight fever, and I'm very tired on top of that. And when I consider the fact that I'm really only writing to and for myself, it's not such a big deal to fail to come up with a complete story a few days a year.

So today I heard about a group of writers who are going to start writing and submitting a story a week for a year. Very intriguing, I thought. Then it occurred to me that when you start submitting, you start getting discouraged at the rejections. My ego isn't all that great. I'm not the best. I'm not brilliant. I'm not rare. So if my work is rejected, I think that's okay. So I'll think about it before committing to doing it.

The big problem for me is doing all that research to find the "right" market. Hell, every single publication wants potential submitters to read two of three of their issues. That's a full-time job, and I already have a full-time job. Maybe I'm too thin-skinned to submit work. I picture it being read by a college kid or a recent grad in journalism or creative writing, and it just makes me want to keep on blogging.

Oh crap. I should have been someone else. If I hadn't been me, maybe I could have been a contender. However, if I had been someone else, my dog wouldn't be my dog, and she certainly wouldn't be leaning against my arm right now. She doesn't care whether I'm a contender or not. She's just happy.

Day 305: Cyber School

2010-12-12T15:57:00.001-05:00

This is one of those stories that's whipped up in a few hours, so it's not particularly good. However, it's also one of those short stories that's supposed to be a novel, play (I hear musical?), or film. It reminds me of a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney film from the 40s. Anyway, it's just a little story, and I'll probably forget about it after I post it.

If you go out in public with a case of pinkeye, people will back away from you, and rightly so. Aside from being highly contagious, it looks quite disgusting, especially on women who wear eye makeup, especially on men who haven’t shaved in a few days. Fortunately, for those who have instant access to a doctor, there are prescription eye drops that promise to eradicate all signs of the hideous inflammation within a day.

Mr. Greeley, our seventh-grade science teacher, didn’t know about pinkeye medicine. So, the day he came to school with pinkeye turned into a disaster for school lovers and a bonus for school haters, because everyone got pinkeye. I mean everyone. Teachers, custodians, lunch ladies, and, of course, us kids. Barntown Middle School was shut down for three whole days. Whoopee! Most of us loved Mr. Greeley for that.

The problem was that all our parents were out working, you know, to keep us in new cars and tennis lessons, so we were sort of at a loss as to what to do. As a joke, we decided to play school. A different kid would be the superintendant each day, because they’re the ones who have special powers and get the huge salaries. We also needed three principals, one for each school in the district; they would stick to their jobs just for the sake of continuity, but they also got pretty huge salaries and got to live in the nice homes. We got 100 kids to play the teacher, and everyone else was a student. The only difference was that each kid could change grades every day, that is, if they wanted. You might be wondering how we did this without a building; no problem. Everyone is equipped with a webcam—hey, we’re rich—and conference calling. So each teacher had to teach one lesson a day and then turn back into a student. Also, each kid teacher kid had a specialty. Like Don Roman taught science because he’s a whiz at science; Julie Riddle taught reading because that’s her thing. Oh, and to be a teacher, you had to be in at least the eighth grade. Well, the only exception was Madison Woolcott who’s in the second grade, but she’s a genius at just about everything. She taught music.

Our first mistake was to let Bambi Marran play superintendant, because all she did the first day was demand a salary increase. We had to get together a school board panel to vote her down. Geez. She said each household would have to pay extra property taxes to pay for her. That was nuts. Can you imagine how stupid it would be to pay for school with property taxes? That would mean some districts would have lots of money and others wouldn’t have anything. That’s not fair, especially if you want the country to have educated people.

After the school board volunteers voted down Bambi’s salary, she got mad and went back to bed for the day. So the next day, Richie Peccadillo became superintendant and decided to fire all the principals. Richie’s in the tenth grade and the principals were all seniors, so I think there was some sort of power play going on. In the meantime, the kid teachers were really doing a great job, and the students were having such a good time, they forgot to eat lunch.

“This is so cool,” said Brian Cox. “Who knew that the number one was an invention?”

“Wow. So if we practice good handwriting it’ll make us more organized and better students? I never knew that,” announced Cindi Rawls.

“This is way better than going to regular school,” said just about everyone except the new principals and the superintendant.

By the third day, all the kids fired the superintendant and principals and became either teachers or students. We all sat in front of our webcams in our pajamas and did schoolwork. We were like this huge learning community, and everyone loved it. Eddy Hayes, who was always goofing around in seventh grade, went back to fifth grade. “Wow. I learned so much. I don’t want to go back to school and get in trouble. What a waste!”

A lot of kids felt that way. The “bad” kids learned to love learning, and the kids who were already good in school learned even more by teaching. And then we all got over our pinkeye and had to go back to real school. What a drag.

We told our real teachers, and they sort of laughed. We told the principals, and they just said, “That’s nice.” We didn’t tell the superintendant because she was on vacation in Hawaii. We didn’t tell the school board because we figured out that no one would believe us. For a while, we tried to keep up the cyber school in the evenings, but everyone had to go to tennis, swimming, dancing, piano lessons, etc. So, within a month, everyone went back to their old ways.

Now, whenever I see Mr. Greeley, I check his eyes, and say, “Mr. Greeley, you don’t look so well again. Your eyes are all red.”

He just smiles and says, “Nice try.”

Day 304: A Stacks in the Year

2010-12-11T18:18:00.000-05:00

I sometimes wonder how life would improve if we simply switched around subject nouns with object and prepositional nouns. Or, in keeping with this idea, how subject nouns would improve if we simply switched around object and prepositional nouns with life. Well, I’ll be damned; it doesn’t improve things at all.

No, I wasn’t wondering that at all, but my friend who lives across the plaza in Building 8 makes it his business to switch subjects and objects. His new "switching language," as he calls it, causes his therapists sweat as they struggle to keep up with his lexical somersaults, even when they’ve got him on tape. They’re fond of videotaping people around here, but it’s more than irksome for us because they hide everything. Why, I could probably find five or six nanny cams in this room alone. Let's see. Yes, see that plant? You see the potted plant on the table by the window; I see a camera. Smile! Now look at that mirror. You see a mirror; I see a bank of monitors recording my every move. Hi, in there. Is my makeup smudged? That’s the way it is around here. MGM has nothing on this place—more cameras, more actors, more lights. We even have some musical comedy. Yes, something for everyone.

They leave the televisions on all day mostly to distract us. They think we’re not capable of enjoying moments of silent reflection; they think that after a lifetime of perfectly sane and industrious professional and personal maneuvering, we must be entertained by singsong and claptrap every bleeding second of every bleeding eternal day. How little they know us.

I love the word claptrap. Even if you’ve never heard it before, you know it’s not a pleasant thing. Words like scum, snot, phlegm, and quagmire have the same wondrous transparency for their very sounds suggest things disagreeable and unpalatable. Yet these words aren't really onomatopoeias, are they? Instead they’re onomatopoeic and even Germanic. And that brings me back to my friend in Building 8.

He escaped from here about ten years ago and hid out for a year in the stacks at SUNY Stony Brook. Don’t even ask me how he did it, because he explained it to me in his switching language, something he picked up after extensive reading in the linguistics section. I did manage to figure out that he had no trouble finding food to eat because people were always eating in there, even if they weren't supposed to, and they always left half-eaten sandwiches and pieces of crumb cake behind. Also, don’t forget that he also had the luxury of a bathroom. Except for comfortable sleeping accommodations and toothpaste, he had it made. At least at the beginning.

Students and library workers, who were usually also students, just assumed he was one of the staff. He seemed, at least to them, a little eccentric, especially since he never came to the holiday parties; however, none of that mattered since he was extremely helpful whenever book hunters got lost or needed information about the whereabouts of a book.

For a while, he even had a girlfriend, a young woman named Chu-Chu who was majoring in Comparative Literature. Chu-Chu must have known that he was an escapee from some sort of institution because she often brought him survival supplies like a blanket, a blow-up mattress, toothpaste, and shampoo. If she hadn’t been living with three roommates, she certainly would have allowed my friend to stay at her place. Indeed, it would have been a feather in her cap, as they say, for I heard from several reliable sources that she was one of those “mama women” who collect men with big problems—murderers, stoners, womanizers, and jailbirds. But it would have been too risky, because someone would have blabbed. Or, as my friend in Building 8 explained, “Risky would have been too it or my place could have stayed in her. Blabbed would have someoned, for sure”

You can certainly discern from the above quotation the difficulty I had in understanding everything that my friend related to me regarding his “adventure in absence,” as he called it. One thing was clear; that is, he read everything the stacks had to offer, even dusty old texts that no one ever read, even Master’s theses, which are already dead, even before their proud authors send them to the bookbinders. He read everything, and he remembered everything, right down to the page and paragraph number, and could quote entire passages verbatim.

At first Chu-Chu was impressed, which caused her to fall hopelessly in love with my friend. Oh, I guess, hopelessly is an overstatement. More precisely, she fell hopelessly in love with him until his brilliant memory became old news. Besides, even though he could quote with the skill of a god, he didn’t understand what he was reading. Chu-Chu began telling people that her secret boyfriend was like an encyclopedia—full of information and completely useless unless someone was around to read and interpret it. And when she began complaining about this secret boyfriend, people began to ask question.

"Who is this guy?"

"Where’s he from?"

"He lives in the stacks at Stony Brook?"

"What the hell. That’s whacked."

People started going into the stacks just to get a look at him. “Good grief. What does Chu-Chu see in this nerd?"

"Beats me. She likes the weird ones, I guess."

"Yeah, remember the time she was going to marry the guy on death row?"

"She did marry him, didn’t she?"

"Oh, yeah. She did."

"He dead yet?"

"Nah. He’s got another 20 years worth of appeals."

Of course, these chatterers didn’t bother to keep their voices down, so my friend heard everything. And that’s when he started speak in his switch-language, you know, to try and fool them when they asked questions.

“Excuse me. Can you tell me where I can find anything by Landolfi in English?”

“Did a computer search try you?” (Get it? Did you try a computer search?)

Huh?

“Anyway, to question your answer. No. There are no Landolfi’s of translations. Of you I can assure that.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Word spread very quickly that a crazy guy was blathering in the stacks, which alerted library officials, who in turn alerted university officials, who in turn called security. Long story short, my friend’s cover was blown, and they brought him back to Building 8.

“Well just as it’s,” he sighed.

“Why is it just as well?” I asked, trying to show him I understood.

“Words many so; meaning so little,” he said, blinking back tears.

“I know,” I said patting him on the shoulder. “So many words; so little meaning. I know.”

We still meet every day in the middle of the exercise yard, and walk the perimeter together. We don’t talk very much, especially since it’s a bit difficult for me to learn his new language; besides, when we do talk, the therapists get worried, especially since they don't know I'm here yet. Sometimes we forget the high fences and pretend we’re the people we were before we began to see things as they really are rather than they way they ought to be. We know that’s why we’re in here. Chu-Chu comes to visit when she needs to feel needed. The truth is, we don’t need her anymore, but we're too polite to tell her to go away.

Day 303: Moon Power

2010-12-10T18:34:00.002-05:00

There was a time when I thought the moon shined only on me. I couldn’t conceive of its distance or its ability to throw light across continents, for my mind was small and young, and the moon seemed so close to me. On full-moon nights, its rays poured through my bedroom window and stretched right across my tiny bed, spilling onto the floor and even into the closet. Imagine that! It picked my window–not my neighbors' windows, not my teacher's windows, not even the President's windows. My window!

However, with every ordinary and extraordinary intrusion of reality on my childhood and on all the childhoods around me, the idea that I was somehow the moon’s particular friend quivered and crumbled, until it was dust at last.

All the same, the realization didn't stop me from asking the moon for small favors—make me smart, make me pretty, make me rich, make good luck come my way—until I was old enough to figure out that millions of others were asking for the same miracles, and I wasn’t all that special after all. Poor moon. It was bombarded with wishes, commands, and pleas, as were all the gods, saints, angels, Padre Pio, and the North Star, too. Too many wishes rushing in on the same wavelength must have had a deafening and murderous effect. So I quit wishing. I quit wishing, and the moon still hovered over the earth with the same perplexed, yet satisfied, smile.

It was a surprise when I read, years later, a theory that the moon had once been part of the earth and broke off not so long after the atmosphere had begun to cool. Had it not been for gravity, the moon would have spun off into space, into another part of the Milky Way or, who knows, into a neighboring galaxy. And here I had always assumed that the moon was just a ball of debris that had drifted, quite unintentionally, into Earth’s gravitational field and got caught, like so many of us get caught, in a relationship from which there was no turning back.

We all have those relationships—with one another, with objects, and even with time—and I wouldn’t turn my back on the idea that the moon plays, unintentionally of course, a very real part in maintaining the power of these, shall I say, attractions. That’s why people have not only bugged the hell out of the moon by asking it for favors, we have also, and perhaps not so paradoxically, worshipped it like a god since our eyes began to see, since we first raised our gaze from the mud between our toes to the stars in the sky.

I no longer ask the moon for favors it can’t give, and I certainly don’t worship it; but it still has a certain power over me. Its beauty sometimes makes me forget to breathe, especially on clear nights when I’m out alone, walking the dogs, or just getting a bit of air. And yet, if I get all analytical about it, the moon is nothing but an organic ball of methane, ice, and god only knows what else, which happens to reflect sunlight. However, this is no time for analysis. After all, we are all organic balls of matter that happen to reflect sunlight and other sources of brightness. Yes, I guess we're all little moons, and perhaps that's the reason it still holds our gaze.

Day 302: Questions

2010-12-09T19:21:00.004-05:00

The hour before dawn was the old man’s favorite time of day, because there was no one around to tell him to move over, sit up, lie down, or turn around. It was that gentlest of hours before the day nurse clocked in, flicked on the television, and banged open the closet doors demanding that he rise and shine for breakfast.

“You’re going to the common room today. We’ll have music and cookies, but only if you eat all your scrambled eggs and toast.”

He would tell her to leave him in peace, but she was determined to help him live out just one more day under the ebullience of her command. “Here, we’ll put on these nice blue pull-ups and your non-skid socks. No, you don’t need shoes. They just get in the way. Are we wheeling to the cafeteria or are we walking?”

“What’s the difference,” he asks without expectation, without inflection. “The corridors lead nowhere.”

Before dawn was his time, his time for questions that did have inflections. “Where is the moon? Still hidden? Or is it shining somewhere else tonight? What are my options? Why must the earth spin so slowly?” He didn’t dare to move in his tight little bed lest the night nurse burst into the room. “What is it now?” she would ask without any intention of waiting for an answer.

And she would shine her flashlight right in his drooping blue eyes—blue eyes once clear and penetrating. Ah, yes, how the women blushed when they looked in those eyes. “Stop looking at me like that,” they would laugh. “You make me feel….”

“Vulnerable?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. You make me feel….”

“Imposed upon?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure. You make me feel….”

“Beautiful?”

“Yes. Beautiful. That’s it. Beautiful, free, unadorned.”

“Really? Shall I keep looking?”

“I’m not sure. Do you want to?”

And now, this woman with her flashlight couldn’t see him at all, although she had the advantage of youth and a flashlight. “Don’t you know I hate this job, old man?”

He gazed at the light until his eyes caught fire. “I can see your hatred, even in the dark.”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” she asked in that wordless way she had of speaking without saying anything.

“How do you do that?” asked the old man.

“Do what?”

“Say so much crap with your silly flashlight and uni-brow.” He was not joking. He wanted to know.

But she was offended. “What uni-brow? I don’t have a uni-brow.”

Now it was his turn to scowl, for he was trying to mimic her expression. “Only when you frown.”

“Who asked you?”

“I did.”

“Why don’t you go to sleep like all the other patients?”

“Why don’t you turn off the flashlight?”

She stormed out of the room and closed the door, leaving him in the dark. “That’ll teach you, old man.”

He was grateful.

This moon became a sliver, for it had decided to appear after all. Or perhaps it had been there all the time. He tucked his hand under his head and gazeed through the window. “Are you the North Star that I’ve heard so much about?” he asked in a whisper, hoping to avoid another visit from the night nurse.

“I am if you think I am.”

“Where have you been all these years? I’ve looked and looked.”

“I’ve been here all along. But you had too many answers.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m better now that I know nothing.”

“And so you are,” answered the North Star.

“Can I go now?”

“Go? What do you mean, go? The North Star ducked behind a cloud and reappeared with a giggle.

“I have no answer for that,” sighed the man.

“Then, by all means, come.”

When questioned by the day nurse and investigating doctor, the night nurse was clearly annoyed. “I checked him at three. He was fine. I offered him a glass of water, but he said he wasn’t thirsty. How was I to know he was about to die? How was I I supposed to figure it out if he didn’t say anything?”

Day 301: 301 East 38th

2010-12-08T19:44:00.009-05:00

Do take note of the rent: yes, that's $57. 50 per month! Oh, but Mrs. McFarland was a tough cookie.

Our apartment, as you can see by the floor plan, was not large, especially by today’s standards, especially for a family of five, especially since both parents worked at home. The tightness of the living quarters made it very difficult for us kids to get away with anything. So, other than the few times when we set the garbage can on fire, we reserved our evildoing for the outside world—the street, the park, or the roof. Nonetheless, word often got back to our parents, and then there was hell to pay—that is, unless we scared them enough.

My brother and I once spent a happy afternoon throwing pieces of cardboard boxes off the building’s roof. Since we couldn’t see over the ledge, my brother helped me climb up to it so I could tell him what the cardboard looked like when it landed. Yes, indeed, it was beautiful to watch jagged pieces of cardboard flit from one tiny gust of wind to another before they landed, ever so gently, on the street below. Therefore, it was somewhat shocking when the building manager, Mrs. McFarland, came up to the roof and tip-toed toward me with a strange mixture of controlled anger and raw quaking fear. Her voice was firm, but there was a clear undertone of horror when she commanded, “Joan, I want you to come down from that ledge right this instant, and be careful about it.”

“Okay,” I responded with a smile. When you’re three, a 17-story drop is simply the fastest way to get to the ground. I jumped down on the roof side, and she told my brother and me to get back downstairs to our apartment.

“Oh great. Now we’re in real trouble,” my brother fretted. “I knew you shouldn’t have thrown that stuff off the roof.”

But as it turned out, our parents were far more upset to find out I had been crawling along the ledge, and all we got was a lecture and a coerced promise from me not to climb up on the ledge again.

It’s strange to have spent eight years in this apartment and to recollect only snippets of my permanence—tiny moments that are as clear as yesterday; yet, they present themselves as mere punctuation marks in a story that is otherwise invisible, or perhaps un-visible, if I may make a distinction.

My mother was a dressmaker by trade and a frustrated Shakespearean player and poet by intellect and sensibility. She sewed in the living room closet, banishing us all to the bedroom when her wealthy clients came for a fitting. My father was a cartoonist by trade and a hardworking ladies’ man by temperament. He drew cartoons at the desk in the living room. I don’t know how the hell they did it; I don’t know where we kids fit into the scheme of things. It couldn’t have been a thrill for any of us.

I do remember that my father slept in the bedroom with us kids, where we each had a foldout cot. And every once in a while—I really don’t remember how often—we would all play board games or poker. On occasion, he also gave us German lessons: eins zwei drei vier…. Was haben Sie gefunden, mein Herr? Augenbraugen.

On weekends he would walk us up to Central Park or the Museum of Natural History. And when I think of that, I realize that he couldn’t have been as terrible as I remember him. But his moods would swing wildly and unpredictably from a comical good-natured dad to a belt-wielding infuriated father, and this is the father that still thrashes about in my psyche.

My mother often reminded me that whenever my father went out, I would listen for the elevator doors to close, and then I’d jump up and down, shrieking, “He’s gone! He’s gone!” I was so horrible, so loud and uncontrollable, that she usually resorted to spanking my butt with her wooden tailor’s ruler. But she always felt bad afterwards, surprised that she had been so deftly unnerved by someone so terribly small and fearless.

Once the evil ghosts begin to dissipate, I recall moments of peace—baking cakes in the tiny kitchenette, cooling off in the bathtub on stifling summer afternoons, reading stories to my mother while she ironed, lazy mornings watching her cigarette smoke stretch into a hazy, sun-dappled cloud right across the entire living room.

Thin slices of activity on pages that remain more margin than text. I supposed my life at 301 East 38^th Street, apartment 8C, was not very different from millions of other lives at similar addresses throughout the world. That particular mixture of harmony and chaos isn’t mine alone; it’s almost everybody’s. And if I really worked at it for a while, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to make a very long list under “Horrific” and “Ah, the Peace.” Yes, there was peace, after all.

Scott, Joan, Tony. There must have been something familial in this moment.

Day 300: Number Three

2010-12-07T19:46:00.000-05:00

This is probably one of the silliest stories I've written. But, so what. It's a story, and it's Day 300. Besides, I worked all day while battling a headache and fever. Yeah.

The number three had followed Tres Drykof thoughout his life. Like a shadow, like a ball and chain, like and over-anxious parent, it slithered on the ground behind him, giving him no respite, no peace. He was born at exactly three minutes after three on the morning of March 3, 1913 at Trinity Hospital. His parents named him Tres, pronounced tray, because they wanted his name to sound French, which it didn’t; but of course there was no escaping the Spanish word for three. One begins to wonder about coincidence when one realized that Tres Drykof grew up at Number 3 Third Street in a town called Three Forks in the Road. After graduating from Three Forks School District 3, he went on to study at Trinity College.

There he developed an interest in Dante’s Commedia and the role the number three plays in its structure and theme. He was keenly aware that good and bad always arrive in threes; he knew that three was a crowd and that two in the bush is worth three in the hand. Three was everywhere—three-legged races, three-ring circuses, three times and you’re out, baby makes three, and the most famous trio in the western world, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The number three began to determine his life, his moods, his willingness to stay home or leave the house. On a hunch he played the number every single week, twice a week, and always played variations of the number three. And he always bought 3 dollars worth of tickets. However, he never won and was convinced that was because he hadn’t figured out the ratio of three to number of lottery tickets bought.

Tres had a genius for ruining relationships with women because he was convinced that he could never be happy with any woman who hadn’t been born on the third day of the third month, preferably in a year that included a three. As he often said, “I’ll date anyone; but I’ll never marry a woman who doesn’t have a connection with the number three.”

His friends told him he was nuts, but Tres had grown up in the culture of three, and if no one understood his worldview, then to hell with them. It wasn’t until Tres reached middle age that he began to go, shall we say, a little overboard. First he built a little shrine to the number three in his living room—a card table covered with a red plastic tablecloth and a small collection of numbers three, some brass, some plastic, which had had bought at the local hardware store.

That was fine for a while, but then came the candles—three candles, of course—the three mirrors, the three crucifixes, the three talismans etched with the number three. He began to pray and genuflect before the shrine three times a day. He started doing all his activities three times a day—he got out of bed three times each morning, brushed his teeth three times after each meal, got dressed three times before leaving the house, yes, three times. You can imagine how difficult this must have been for him, how time consuming, how draining of his energy. His nerves were getting frazzled, he was losing sleep because he had to force himself awake every night so he could get up and start to fall asleep three times a night.

After a few months of living what he determined was “some sort of insanity,” Tres decided he needed some professional help. He cover his shrine in black cloth, stopped praying, and found a therapist who took his insurance. He called Dr. Pinchbot’s office three times and hung up because he didn’t like his name. He went back to the Yellow Pages and found another doctor who took his insurance and who guaranteed a complete cure within three sessions!

Dr. Dreimeister welcomed Tres into her office at three o’clock sharp. She apologized for her cluttered desk and assured him that she was usually better organized. “Now tell me why you think you need help.”

She let Tres talk for 15 minutes while she took notes and nodded. When Tres finished his story, she said, “There’s nothing wrong with believing in the number three, or in any number for that matter.”

Tres sat upright in his chair. “Really?”

“Really. But you’ve turned the number three into a god.”

“Yes. Yes, I have. I’ve never thought about it that way.”

“Precisely.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Tres began to feel a little uncomfortable. “Is that all?”

Dr. Dreimeister adjusted her rimless glasses on her long nose and looked at Tres. “Isn’t that enough?”

“I don’t know. Am I cured?”

“No. You’ll have to come back two more times before you’re cured.”

And that’s what happened. Tres was cured, just as promised, by the end of his third session. He took down his shrine, threw out his tattered copy of the Commedia, and began to lead a normal life—the kind of life he had always wanted. He married a woman who hadn’t been born on the third day of the third month; indeed, she had been born on the fifth day of the fifth month in the year 1925; they moved, quite coincidentally, into a house on 55 Fifth Street in the town of Five Corners. They had five children, five dogs, five cats, and five rabbits. Tres used to joke that he had been cured of his obsession with the number three and then hit over the head with the number five. Everything had turned out rather splendidly. In fact, Tres often claimed that he was the luckiest man in the world.

On his 85^rd birthday, he decided, for old time’s sake, to spend 3 dollars on three scratch-off lottery tickets. The hand of fate was extremely kind that day, for Tres won 3 million dollars with the first card, another 3 million dollars with the second card, and, you guessed it, 5 million dollars with the third card.

Fortunately, he no longer had the energy to build any more shrines or get in and out of bed three times each morning and night. His wife took care of all money matters and they lived happily ever after for another five years, when Tres died after suffering his third heart attack. That was March 3, 2003—the third day of the third month of the third year of the third millennium. And just before he took his last breath, he could help but smile about that one.

Day 299: Poof, Gone

2010-12-06T19:30:00.001-05:00

Who are these people I write about? The people called Mandy and Martin and Roosevelt and Daniel? Who are they? Characters in a story? Personaggi, as Pirandello would call them? I often start to hate them because they flit in and out of words on a page like impish poltergeists. Then they stop in midair and stare at my fingers on the keyboard until I include them in a paragraph. Inevitably, one of them will protest, “A paragraph? That’s all I get is a paragraph?”

So I ask them what sort of life they were living before I came along and put them in a story. With all their hollering and complaining, you’d think at least one of them would have an answer. Nothing. No one ever tells me anything. For this reason, I usually have to make up a character’s past. And don’t think they don’t complain about that, too.

I can’t win. They make me doubt everything I know about writing. They make me break rules. Write incomplete sentences like this one. (Okay, technically it’s not incomplete if you think of it as a command or exclamation. Oh, but then you’d need an exclamation point. [See how they steer me away from topic?])

So I've got to put up with characters who complain that I don't write enough about them. Then I've got the ones who shy away from the spotlight, and even from life itself. Today I started writing about a woman named Mandy. No last name. At least not yet. She is taking a shower, thinking that the only two things that mean anything to her are steaming showers and dark chocolate. If she had allowed me, I would have gotten her out of the shower and into some sort of adventure that would have made her lighten up. But she cut me off before I had a chance to help her. Characters like her make me want to quit writing. Like recalcitrant children or angry old people, they show absolutely no appreciation for a writer’s best efforts. They remind me of people who run away from the camera lens because their hair isn’t done or they’ve gained five pounds.

Mandy isn’t the only one who’s cut out on one of my stories. There was that guy Henry—the one shadowboxing with the television and drinking all that beer. Just as I was about to get him to answer the door, which, by the way, would have changed his life, he sent me into the kitchen for a beer, and when I came back—you guessed it—he was gone. Poof. Yes, and there was that woman on the beach who suddenly got hit by a wave. If she had waited for me, I was going to find a way out. See? Sometimes, it’s a matter of life and death, but they don’t give a damn.

I used to argue with a man in Italy. I used to argue with him all the time, because he believed, to the core of his being, in destino. He thought destiny determined absolutely every aspect of life; I think it determines nothing more than the practical aspects—like where you’re born, what language or languages you speak before you go to school, what sort of nose you have, what sort of parents you have. All the rest is up to you. He had a friend named Arturo who had never worked. “Why has he never worked?” I asked. “Destino. Destiny have him bad luck.” No wonder we didn’t get along. The point is I think some of my characters also believe in this silly idea of destiny, or fate, or providence, or luck whatever word you use as an excuse for not trying. If I had no success in convincing my Italian friend that he was wrong, there’s no way in hell I can convince these elusive characters. I turn around and they’re just gone. Poof.

Day 298: Sleeping on the Bowery

2010-12-05T19:20:00.002-05:00

Sleeping on the Bowery is not what it used to be. It’s like all of a sudden no one leaves you alone; everyone wants either to help you or to kick you in the ass. Yes, that’s right. Kick you in the ass. Like last night. I final settled down with my very own pint of Thunderbird and some guy walked by me and gave me this kick! I jerked around really fast and almost yelled, “Huh? What’d you do that for?”

And the guy just grinned. “Just wanted to see if you were dead.”

So I snarled my meanest drunk snarl and hissed, “Go to hell.”

And the guy says, “I am in hell. I’m already there, bro.”

Bro? No one in New York says bro. It’s a California thing for sure. And no one ever says bro to people like me who sit on the Bowery and drink Thunderbird, aka gutter alcohol, aka bagwine, aka alky juice.

People look down on Thunderbird, but if they’d just give it a chance, they’d see that it’s got a nice grape-like nuance. Sure, the barky undertones and high sugar content leave a definite film on the tongue, but they’re soon washed away by the headstrong middle notes—a blend of flower petal and freshly turned earth. I agree that it’s lacking in high notes, but if we’re going to be frank about the whole thing, no one claims Thunderbird is a palate pleaser. All I’m saying is it’s better than what people make out.

So as I was saying, in the old days, a person could drink in peace down on the Bowery. On a balmy night in summer, you could nurse your brew and enjoy the light breeze drifting across the avenue, I guess, from the East River over to the Hudson. All the tourists avoided the Bowery in those days, because it had such a seedy reputation, and no one wanted to do anything seedy. Nowadays, doing something seedy is like a rite of passage. But there was a time when the only people venturing down there were heading home to Little Italy or Chinatown. I mean, there was nothing there except people like me who liked to drink and a whole row of hotels where you could get a room for the night for the price of a drink.

Oh, right. I was going to talk about last night. Okay. Since I had been fortunate enough to procure a nice long piece of corrugated cardboard, I decided to get a little shuteye, and I set up my bed next to a building. It wasn’t very cushiony, but it was good enough for the time being, so I lay down on my side with my back to the sidewalk. I mean, I have some pride, after all. I don’t really care if people see me sleeping on the sidewalk, as long as they only see my back.

So there I was just minding my own business, thoroughly enjoying that nice warm, drowsy feeling you get just before you slip into a peaceful and dreamless sleep. Ah, it’s such an ineffable and delicious moment on the cusp between here and nowhere that you don’t give a rat’s whisker if it’s your very last sleep. Potter’s Field, here I come! That’s what I was thinking.

Just then, I heard this voice, a man’s voice—one of those honey-laded, gooey, overly sincere male voices that makes you want to punch a guy right in the mouth. He said, “Hey man. You need a place to stay.” Mind you, he’s not asking if I need a place to stay; he’s telling me I need one.

So I said, “Get lost. I don’t need nothing.” Yes, that’s a double negative, but I try very hard to talk like everyone else down here or else they’ll think I’m a snob. And I’m not a snob.

But he didn’t get lost. He bent over me and shook my shoulder like he was my father waking me up for school. “Man, I just want to help you. You know Jesus loves you. Jesus wants you to get better.”

So I turned around and sat up and glared at him with my meanest red-eyed, wet-lipped smirk. “Get better from what?”

The guy looked surprised, like maybe no one had ever asked him that before. But he came up with an answer after a second or two. He pointed to my bed and said very slowly–too slowly, “You’re sleeping on a piece of cardboard on a sidewalk.”

“Yeah. So where do you sleep?” I asked.

He stammered a little and looked away. “I got a place. And it’s not on a sidewalk.”

“Big deal,” I said really loudly, which made him jump a little. I liked seeing him jump so I did it again, only louder. “Big deal! Big stinking deal!”

So the guy started praying over me, mumbling some words and clasping his hands and kind of rocking back and forth. I let him drone on for a minute or so, and then I said, “I think maybe Jesus wants you to get better.”

He stopped praying and said, “Get better from what?”

“You’re a freaking nut case. Look at you. You’re praying over a drunk guy on the Bowery.” And I started laughing and laughing. I laughed so much I almost pissed on myself.

And just like that, he turned around and stormed away from me. So, do you understand what I’m talking about? Things like that never happed back in the old days, like maybe 20, 30 years ago. People had more respect. They didn’t kick you to see if you were dead. They checked your pulse. And if they wanted to pray over you, they did it quietly; they didn’t breathe all over you and point out your deficiencies. Things were quieter, less intrusive.

Anyway, last night wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it had been the first or even the second time it happened. But it wasn’t. It was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. So now I’m thinking of going on the wagon, maybe going upstate and staying with my friend Dana. He’s got a real nice trailer in back of his house, which he said I could use anytime I want. Maybe I’ll take him up on it.

All I want is to be left in peace, and I’m sure not getting any peace down here on the Bowery. Yeah, maybe I’ll write that novel I started to write before I got hooked on the Thunderbird. It was about a guy who drank cheap wine and slept on a piece of cardboard down on the Bowery. One day, this guy starts to pray over him, and…. Oh, wait. I don’t want to give it all away. You’ll have to wait till the book comes out.

Day 297: House Tour

2010-12-04T16:46:00.003-05:00

When you’re stuck in a waiting very cold waiting room, you have options that can un-stick you. You can leave. Screw it. Who wants to go to the dentist anyway? You can cover your freezing legs with you jacket, as I have done, and leaf through the latest copies of Family Circle and Sports News (yawn), which I clearly have not done. You could try to nap in the chair. You could even tell the receptionist behind the sliding glass window that you’re going to wait in your car, which is a lot warmer than the waiting room. Or you can write a story, because this is Day 297 of your 365-Day Blog Project.

So, let’s go into someone’s house—a stranger’s house—and take a little tour. No one will mind. No one will even notice that we’re there.

How about this house? Number 33 Elm Street, which is generic-American speech for typical house in a quiet suburb where crime and noise are almost non-existent and where grand trees sway over nicely tamed shrubbery and grass that’s greener than green all year round. On this particular Elm Street, however, there are no elms; in fact, there are no trees at all. The real estate developer cut them all down to make room for these extremely large houses. Oh, excuse me; I believe the developer prefers to call them residences. Many residents, including our new friends at Number 33, have chosen to keep their property treeless. Shrubbery and flower beds are the order of the day here. Other homeowners have chosen to plant Japanese maples and dogwoods. They’re so pretty, don’t you think?

Let’s walk up the pretty brick walkway. Lovely, isn’t it? The owners had it put in just last spring, so it still has its patina. You should see how it shines when it rains! Do you like the new front door? That’s new, too. The owners picked it out all by themselves and were very pleased with the cost, which came in under $2000 for the door and installation. Their decorator was miffed, which I’m sure you can understand, but, as they say, a dollar saved is a dollar earned. If you look carefully, you’ll note that the door is not quite square. But other than that, it looks extremely attractive and rich with its faux mahogany veneer and etched glass window. It’s so much better looking than the old wooden door, which let in an awful lot of cold air in winter. It faces north, you see. All the sunshine falls in the backyard, which, I can assure you, is quite large and boasts a grand olymic-size swimming pool.

Oh good. The door isn’t locked. No one locks their doors around here. In fact, neighbors feel free to walk in without even knocking. The polite thing to do is to open the front door and call, “Yoo hoo? Is anyone home?” If someone is home, you’ll hear, “Hey, come on it!”

Yes, I know we didn’t call, “Yoo hoo”; but we’re not one of the neighbors. We’re just passing through.

Can you smell that slight lemon scent? The cleaning woman uses real lemon when she scrubs the floors. She’s quite a find—very thorough and quite reasonable. All the neighbors are jealous, because their cleaning ladies use store-bought cleaner, which doesn’t always get the job done. Also, some of them swear that their cleaning ladies go through their drawers. It’s terribly unnerving, but someone has to clean these big houses, er..., residences.

And would you take a look at this marble floor in the foyer? Oh, yes; that’s real Italian marble. Notice how it matches the bust of Venus de Milo. The owners were very fortunate to have found a floor contractor who also does copies of old Roman statures. I might add that his rates are extremely reasonable and his workmanship is suburb. He put every piece of flooring in himself. Indeed, until last week, he used to come to the house almost every day to make sure it wasn’t too heavy for the subfloor.

Please don’t step into the formal living room on your left. The cleaning lady took such care to vacuum the blue carpeting to fluff up the nap. See the pattern? She’s very careful to polish and shine everything in the room before using the vacuum. That way, she leaves no footprints whatsoever. This particular room is reserved for special guests. Or perhaps I should say formal guests—certainly not the neighbors. These would include colleagues from work, clients, and potential clients. The man of the house works in advertising, but he also dabbles in real estate and bonds. Therefore, he finds it necessary to keep up appearances. Don’t worry about the expense, for his accountants assure him that all expenses related to business are deductable. The lady of the house sells real estate. Oh, she’s not your average real estate lady. Please don’t think such a thing. If you asked her to sell your little house, she would laugh right out loud, for she never touches a property selling for less than a million, even in today’s economy.

Ah, the dining-room table is set for a dinner party. How lovely! As you see, they’re using their best china dinner set. The gold trim is stunning against the bone-white china. And that flower centerpiece is simply gorgeous. They must be expecting some very important people tonight. My, the flatware is real gold! I believe they send it out to be cleaned. What a wonderful idea, indeed. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen gold pick up and reflect candlelight like this. It gives the room such a warm and happy glow.

I smell something delicious cooking. If I’m not mistaken, that’s fresh bread baking in the oven. Shall we go and have a peek? I’m sure no one will notice us. The cooks will be far too occupied with their preparations. And the homeowners are probably upstairs getting ready.

Well, I must say I’m quite out of sorts. It seems we’ve walked in at a most inopportune time. Oh, dear. I suppose we had better call the police. But then how will we explain our appearance here? No, of course we weren’t snooping. We were simply interested in looking at the house. Oh, dear. Perhaps it would be better if we just left. After all, they’re expecting guests. Someone will surely check the kitchen and find the bodies. Yes, I think that’s best. After all, they’ll have every reason to be here; the police will understand that. Do you think we should turn off the oven? I mean the bread will be burned to a crisp if we don’t. No, I’m not going to step over the bodies. You do it, okay? You don’t mind. Listen, by the time they find the bodies, the bread will be all dried out. Be a darling and take it out of the oven. We can wrap it in this lovely linen towel and take it home. Please don't worry. No one will notice that it's gone, and wasting it would be such a sin. Two loaves? All the better.

Take care to check the bottom of your shoes for blood. It would be such a shame to make a mess on the way out. Also, it would confuse the crime-scene investigators. I’ve seen enough CSI programs to assure you that I’m right on that account, too.

Day 296: Ranting in the Streets

2010-12-03T19:41:00.000-05:00

For three years, we watched this woman march through town carrying a rolled-up magazine close to her face, her eyes on the sidewalk before her. As she marched, she yelled. She cursed. She ranted about the government, the sky, the fathomless minds of the stupid and smart alike; she yelled about spies in the woods, birds in the trees, flowers choking under the asphalt. Although none of it made sense, it all made sense.

She was so determined and serious, and the world was often in such a mess—politically and otherwise—she convinced most of us that she might just have had the solution to getting through a difficult day or lifetime. She kept dark her hair cut—perhaps hacked is a better word—very short, up around her ears, and she always wore Bermuda shorts, even in the dead of winter. People said she was married and had children who went to our school, but we never tried to find out who her children or husband were; we never asked anyone where she lived. The only thing we wondered about was whether she ranted in the house or in her sleep.

Once one of our neighbors yelled at her as she marched up the street yelling about the miserable trees that would fall across the moral chasm that our town had become. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” screamed the neighbor from her front door. “Go do your ranting in a mental ward!”

The woman stopped in her tracks and turned toward the offending neighbor, who folded her arms across her chest to let her know she was ready for battle.

The stared at each other for a full five minutes whereupon the woman unrolled her magazine and buried her head in it. “Too many words, too many long and tedious words. And, don’t you worry; I’ll yell in the mental ward; I’ll yell on top of an ocean wave. Put that in your dingy and uncross those arms or everyone will think you’re in your coffin and kiss you goodbye.”

She turned on her heals and marched up the street in silence. She stayed away from our block for at least two weeks after that. And then she started again. The neighbor never yelled at her again, but we suspected that she finally called the police and demanded that they do something, for one day we realized we hadn’t seen her in weeks, then months. Just like that. She was gone.

I still think of her when I see people yelling in the street. I still wonder if they have quiet moment or if they even have moments of humor in which they laugh at themselves or at the people they disturb.

One day, I was sitting at a fountain in Rome when an old man sat down on the other side of the fountain and started talking, very loudly, to himself. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, but during a lull in the yelling, I asked, “Why are you talking to yourself?”

And he answered, “Because I’m here.”

Day 295: Caleb & the Coma

2010-12-02T18:46:00.002-05:00

Caleb’s last-ditch effort to have one good day before he died was on January 20, 1954. It turned out to be a miserable day for the ice storm knocked out the electricity, which shut down the central heating in his home, which caused the pipes to freeze. Caleb tried to repair the swollen pipe before it burst, but his cut his hand and fell off the ladder, hitting his head on the basement steps. After that he gave up. Life hated him. God made fun of him. Destiny was out to sabotage everything he would ever do. In short, it was over.

In complete and utter despair, he climbed to the peak of his two-story house and threw himself to the ground where he landed with a horrible thud and fell into a coma from which he has never recovered. But thanks to modern medicine and the wonders of respirators, miracle drugs, and a staff of people who did nothing but reposition his body every two hours around the clock, Caleb outlived, or out slept, if you will, everyone he had grown up with. He slept though the rise and fall of a hundred kings and queens, countless wars, famines, bombings, plane and car crashes, government upheavals, the home computer, television, countless troubled movie stars trips in and out of rehab, the birth and sickening growth of the drug culture, recessions, and boom times. He even had a FaceBook page, although he had nothing to do with creating it.

Because of Caleb, hundreds of people enjoyed gainful employment—body turners, IV nurses, doctors, catheter manufacturers and catheter inserters, body washers, launderers, laundry detergent manufacturers… Need I go on? For a while back in the sensible late 20^th century, a group of people tried to force the hospital to stop taking what they called heroic measures to keep Caleb alive. But the hospital would have lost millions of dollars if Caleb had died; so they hired a battery of lawyers for a few million dollars—I guess, other dollars—and won the right to keep him alive. “God will take him when He’s ready,” declared hospital chaplains from all over the world.

They were right about that. But no one—at least, no one on Earth—realized that God didn’t want anything to do with him. “He’s such a depressing guy,” said God. “I mean, what does he want from me? I give him a perfectly good brain, good looks, a middle-class family, and he’s not satisfied.”

Padre Pio nodded. “You don’t have to tell me. All I heard from him before the jump was complaint after complaint. ‘Padre Pio, fix this. Padre Pio, fix that.’ Jesus. Oh, excuse me. Yikes.”

“Well I don’t want him up here,” added his ex-wife, who had left him after ten years of marriage. “All he did was complain. ‘You’re getting fat. You don’t love me. You’re not cleaning the kitchen properly. You don’t give me enough attention.’ It was hell, I’m telling you. Well, maybe not hell the way you know it,” she said to God. “But, I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“Thank goodness for modern medicine and a screwed-up value system,” observed St. Peter, who was swinging back and forth on the Pearly Gates. “He’ll be on Earth forever.”

“Can’t we at least let him go to Purgatory?” asked Pope John Paul II. “Maybe he’d learn not to complain so much if he were down there for a few millennia.”

God thought about it for a moment. “It’s a possibility, but let’s leave well enough alone for now.”

It was a shock, therefore, for everyone when Caleb came out of his coma at the age of 89. Very gingerly, the nurses removed him from the respirator and helped him sit up and dangle. Caleb yawned and stretched his arms up over his head. “What a great sleep I’ve had.”

God shuddered. He was hoping Caleb would do something really horrible, something horrible enough to keep him out of Heaven. Maybe another suicide attempt? But, he didn’t. Caleb was moved into a nursing home where he never complained about anything. He smiled and told the nurses they were beautiful. So when he died ten years later, St. Peter had no choice but to open the Pearly Gates and let him in.

His ex-wife was waiting for him just inside the gates. She didn’t really want to see him again, but God had ordered her to see him. “In my eyes you’re still married. Sorry, but he’s yours for all eternity.”

Fortunately, Caleb had completely forgotten her. At first she was a little startled, “What do you mean you don’t know me? You jumped off the roof and tried to kill yourself when I left you.”

Caleb shook his head. “You must be mistaken, my dear.”

His ex-wife followed him around for the 3000 years trying to convince him that he had wanted to die for her. But Caleb always laughed at the idea. As for God, he finally caved in and released her from him by sending him back to earth to do it all over again. “Get it right this time,” advised St. Peter as he closed the Gate.

Caleb just laughed. “I did it right the first time, didn’t I?”

Ah, what a silly little story. But I got a little kick out of writing it. Now to sleep.

Day 294: The Mountain Peak

2010-12-01T20:38:00.001-05:00

It seems that every few days, I hit a brick wall and want nothing more than to sit in front of my TV or laptop and watch a film. Today’s one of those days. God, it was long. Up at 5, out the door with the dogs, half-assed exercise until 6, feed dogs, breakfast, wash dishes, get dressed, go to work, go to meeting, teach 6 classes, go to meeting, go home, feed the dogs, eat up all the Multi-Grain chips, eat last night’s leftovers (pasta, vegan sausage, Trader Joe’s sauce: so good). And here I sit with a dog on my lap, another dog on the other side of me, another dog sleeping nearby, a movie review on the telly. Yes, the dishes. I have to wash the dinner dishes, take a shower, walk the dogs—not necessarily in that order—throw the laundry in, get clothes ready for tomorrow. See? Oh, yes, and there are the languages I’m studying. God. Why write a story? Because I promised. Okay:

As he stumbled, sweating and cursing, up the side of Woody’s Mountain, Markus Florsham promised himself that he would never fall in love again, especially with a miserable, conniving, underhanded, self-serving, ugly bitch like Sherry Pinto. Three months earlier, he would have died for her, for she was, at that point, the most special, sensitive, smart, honest, endearing, beautiful woman in the world. Even Markus was astounded at how suddenly she had tumbled—dropped, dove, slumped—from his finely crafted bronze pedestal. This run up the mountain was to be the last thing he would ever do for her. He hadn't wanted to go in the first place, but she had begged and cried and begged again until he finally agreed to make the trek to the top of the mountain, where her new boyfriend had left his cell phone the night before.

“Please get it for him. Randy's so tired and you’d be doing me such a favor. I won’t forget it, Markus. Really I won’t.”

“Fine. I’ll go,” Markus said, just in case she might love him again.

“Thanks, sweetie,” Sherry smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek, which Markus impetuously wiped off with his shoulder.

“Oh, honey. Don’t be like that,” Sherry pleaded. “We’ll always be friends.”

At 11 that morning, Markus began to hike up the side of Woody Mountain to retrieve Sherry’s new boyfriend’s cell phone. He hadn’t bothered to ask her why or how Randy ("Jesus, what a god-awful name," he thought with a smile) had left it there. He just wanted to do this one last favor for her. Maybe, just maybe, Sherry would see what a good and generous person he was. Maybe she would realize that he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Maybe she would toss the Randy Pandy aside and go back to Markus. Maybe.

On a good day, it took only two hours to hike to the top of the mountain. It wasn’t a good day, however. It was scorching and miserably humid. Markus started sweating the second he got out of his air-conditioned car, which he left parked in the small parking lot at the foot of the mountain. He was determined to get to the top by one and get back home and into the shower by three. He would call Sherry at four and arrange to meet her with the cell phone. They would meet and he would look deeply into her blue eyes. She would smell his aftershave and see his nice tan; he would wear a blue shirt to bring out the blue in his eyes; perhaps for the first time she would see how blue they were, and she would love him. That was his plan.

But four hours later, he still hadn’t reached the top, and Sherry had been transformed in his estimation from the most beautiful girl in the entire world to the meanest, ugliest bitch that had ever walked the face of the earth.

Nonetheless, he was so close to the top, he figured he might as well keep going. Now you might be wondering at least two things: First, why would someone leave a cell phone on top of a mountain—even a relatively short mountain like Woody Mountain? Second, who in his right mind would climb a mountain to retrieve a cell phone left there by the new boyfriend of a girl who just dumped him?

The answer to the first question is no one. The answer to the second question is anyone. Being in love involves lots of madness, I’m sure you’ll agree. As for that cell phone, well, it wasn’t there at all. Mean Sherry and her new boyfriend were just playing a very nasty and moronic trick.

Now a terrible accident could occur at this point. Markus could fall and break his neck; he could die of heat stroke; he could get attacked by a wild bear. This would be wonderful, for Sherry would never forget him. She would live with a terrible sense of guilt for the rest of her life, especially when she grew older and wiser and realized what a stupidly vain and ugly young woman she had been. She might even have become a pariah of sorts, the queen of mean, the ultimate bitch witch of Woody Mountain. But nothing of the sort is destined to happen.

Markus reached the top of the mountain and found no cell phone. He checked under every possible rock; he combed the thin brown grass of late summer; he even reached into the narrow black crevices between the gray boulders that rested precariously just below the peak. Nothing. He found nothing. He had been had, and he knew it.

He sat on a rock in the blazing sun for a long time, for such a long time that he felt his face begin to blister under the unrelenting rays. He sat there long into the evening, into the night, and deep into the next morning. He sat without thought; he sat like a dead man or a wise man; he sat like one of the boulders, still, unblinking, unseeing. At noon of the following day, he walked down the mountain trail. But he didn’t go home. He walked for a week; he crossed the Dappled Prairies into the cornfields of the Flaming Crescent; he walked until he reached Cranberry Row on the Great Western River. There he washed himself, for he was filthy indeed. He washed his ragged clothes and laid them out to dry on the riverbank. When they were dry, he put them back on and walked to the nearest town. There, he told his story to anyone who would listen.

But no one would listen, so he shut up and walked back to Woody Mountain and got his car. It wasn’t easy to start it after two weeks of sitting in the sun, but he managed at last and made the ten-minute ride to his house. As it turned out, no one had missed him; no one had bothered to look for him; no one had even wondered why his car had been left for so long at the foot of Woody Mountain.

Sherry never gave him another thought. She married her boyfriend and had five children. They turned out very well indeed and she was happy for the rest of her life.

This might be a most unsatisfying story, but it’s just the way things are. Eventually, Woody got over Sherry. He sold his house and moved to New York City where he became an angry poet who drank too much wine. But in his own way he was happy, too. People came to listen to him read his angry poems in dark coffee houses in the West Village. They often passed around a paper tip bag, and some evenings he’d make as much as 20 dollars.

He never wrote about Sherry, because he had forgotten her, too. But he always wrote about jagged mountain peaks and cleansing rivers; he always wrote about narrow black crevices found in surprising places like people’s hearts and riverbanks.

Oh, yes, and he changed his name to Marcus Rantonius, because he did have a sense of humor after all.

Day 293: The Ugly Son

2010-11-30T16:55:00.002-05:00

Today, I flipped through a book of folktales looking for titles. I found one from Japan titled “The Ugly Son” and asked my students to write a story with that title. Of course, I gave the assignment to myself as well, which is as it should be.

Once a magnificently handsome prince and his beautiful princess got married in a rich and sumptuous palace in the land of Ogreville. All the people of Ogreville cheered with joy, not because of the marriage, but because everyone got the day off. The prince, whose name was Halfberry, and his bride Dominasta had three gorgeous sons. They were called Little Halfberry, Magnifico, and Bel-Bello. They were so breathtakingly gorgeous that everyone loved them even though they were spoiled, silly, vain, and dull.

During the tenth year of her marriage, Dominasta gave birth to a fourth son. Everyone was shocked by how ugly the boy was, so they didn’t name him. They just called him Ugly. No one loved him except the barn animals and yard dogs. In fact, Ugly was so ugly that he was not allowed to come out of his room when there was company; all the servants of the castle were ordered, on penalty of death, to ignore Ugly. As Prince Halfberry said, “Anyone that ugly has no right to have servants.”

Dominasta often cried about her ugly child. “Maybe the gods are punishing us,” she said to her husband.

“Why would they do that? We’re perfect,” laughed the Prince.

“Yes, I know we are. But then how did we give birth to such a deformed child? Why couldn’t he have an eye in the middle of his forehead like all the other children?”

“Yes, dear. Quite right. Just be happy that our other children are beautiful. Think of Little Halfberry with all that thick hair growing out of his nose.”

Dominasta smiled through her tears. “Yes,” she said. “He’s got his daddy’s nose hair alright.”

The Prince puffed up with pride. “And our little Magnifico has such a perfectly pointed head, just like his Mama.” He lovingly patted his wife’s large pointed head. “And he’s just as bald as you are.”

Princess Dominasta blushed. “I guess it’s true. We have more than enough to be happy for. Even Bel-Bello is stunning looking. Everyone in Ogreville so admires his long ears. Why, they practically touch his shoulders.”

Prince Halfberry and Princess Dominasta hugged. The prince and princess decided the best thing to do with Ugly would be to banish him from Ogreville. “Let him go out into the world and find his own way,” said the Prince’s advisor, Killmore Koch.

“But he’ll frighten people with that monstrous face,” objected the Princess.

“It must be so,” said the Prince.

In great sadness and despair, Ugly bid goodbye to the barnyard animals and the yard dogs and left the castle gates. He didn’t understand why everyone thought he was so ugly. “After all, the animals love me,” he reasoned. “Animals never love really ugly people. They run from my brothers; they cower when they see my parents; they snarl when they see the servants. But they all come running to me when they see me. I just don’t understand. Not only that, but everyone in Ochre is always walking into things because they only have one eye instead of two like me. Two makes more sense. And they’re always tripping over their long nose hairs. Nose hairs just get in the way.”

Indeed, considering that he had spent his short ten years of life as an outcast, Ugly had a pretty good opinion of himself. “I’m a very cool guy,” he said while looking at his reflection in Lake Pyle’s mirror-like surface.

Suddenly he heard a giggle. He turned around and saw a girl with two eyes, a round head with hair growing from it, and a little turned-up nose with no nose hairs. “Wow,” he said. “You look like me.”

The girl made a silly face. “I do?”

Ugly laughed. “Not when you make that silly face.

“I heard you talking to your reflection in the lake.”

Ugly shrugged. “Well, I have to talk to someone. I don’t have my animal friends now that my parents kicked me out of the castle.”

The girl was horrified. “Your parents kicked you out? Why?”

“They said I was too ugly to look at.”

The girl put her hands on her hips and pretended to be mad. “Oh, thanks a lot. And you think I look like you?”

“No. I mean. You have two eyes and you have hair on your head. And no nose hairs. And your ears don’t touch your shoulders.”

“So?”

“Well, no one in Ogreville looks like us.”

“Ogreville? Isn’t that a scary place where all the ugly people live?”

“They don’t think they’re ugly. They think I’m ugly.”

“Well, where I come from, we think they’re ugly.”

“Well, I think you’re really nice and beautiful,” blurted Ugly.

“Thanks. I’m Samantha. What’s your name?”

“Ugly.”

“I’ll be friends with you, and then when we grow up, I’ll marry you. But you have to change your name.”

“I’d like to be friends with you, Samantha. I might not want to get married, but if you have any suggestions for a name, I’ll go along with it.”

Samantha thought for a moment. “How about Jack?”

“Okay. My name is Jack. Now will you please invite me to lunch? I’m really hungry.”

Samantha and Jack became good friends. When they grew up they made a pilgrimage to Ogreville and told the Prince and Princess that no one outside of Ogreville looks like the citizens of Ogreville. The Prince and Princess felt sorry for anyone who didn’t look like them; and the people in the rest of the world felt sorry for the ugly people of Ogreville. In the end, everyone in the universe felt very happy because when they had a bad hair day or just felt out of sorts, they could always think about someone who was more unfortunate than they were.

Oh, Jack and Samantha dated in high school, broke up during their college years, and then fell in love in a more mature manner when they were each 28. They’re still living happily ever after.

Day 292: Leak away, WikiLeaks

2010-11-29T19:38:00.000-05:00

Dear presidents, diplomats, political liaisons, and other people who supposedly represent my interests and those of the USA:

My mother always said that one should not send write or record anything that one would not want to read in a courtroom. Had she lived long enough to know about emails and secret recordings, she would have added that people in power should not send emails or record themselves making statements they would not want to see quoted in news media.

Now, I agree that Kim Jon Ill is indeed a very flabby chap; I agree that Berlusconi is feckless and vain (come on, he’s ridiculous). I don’t know if Sarkozy is really thin-skinned; he just doesn’t like American reporters asking him personal questions about his love life. And as for Putin being an alpha dog, well, yes. Aren’t all political types alpha dogs? By the way, who is that Dmitry Medvedev guy who’s always lurking about in Putin’s shadow? Oh, yes, and I have no doubt that some Saudi politicos have pressed American politicos for an attack on Iran.

“Attack?” Hilary, did you really say WikiLeaks launched an attack against our national security. I know you know better than that, but have you nothing to say about the dopey people who started this by opening their mouths and sending those emails in the first place?

So, is this my story for today? Yes.