Had it been anyone else but you I’m not sure what I would have done. I remember it very clearly. See, I really wanted a girl, a daughter that I could raise to be a strong independent woman. What did I know of boys. I came from a family of women. My dad died off when I was 8 and we tried our best to shed the men in the family. But the uncles came around and sometimes stayed too long. Still for the most part it was me, my mom and my sisters. So what did I know of boys? I knew that I didn’t like a lot of men. Most of them really, I didn’t understand the obsession with sports, fart humor, boobs and meat. And the aversion for introspection, nurturing, genuine kindness and gratitude. Sure the drive to breed made them more interesting as I grew older, but for the most part I’d rather be with my girl friends. So when I decided to get pregnant, I was pretty convinced I was going to have a girl. We would ride horses together, she’d travel across Europe in a baby back pack, I’d teach her how to make her way in life in a board room and on a mountain, and how to make a croque monsier but without the ham. She’d be independent, smart, funny, she’d run for office.
But once I found out I was having a boy, well I had to make a promise to myself that I wouldn’t leave you in the shopping cart at the grocery store and just walk away. I tried to find ways to cope. I secretly hoped that you’d be gay. You know how I get along with gay men, always have. Even little Bucky Parr in kindergarten who always had to be the wicked witch of the west when we played wizard of oz, but that’s another story. Anyway at some point, I realized I had an opportunity to raise a sensitive thoughtful young man. He didn’t have to turn out to be a frat boy. I reconciled with the situation, bought books, surrounded our home with stuffed animals and games and did my best to keep the guns and swords at bay.
But once you were here, it all changed. You became the center of my universe. Your wants and needs were more important than my own. I became a mother of a boy and with it all the trappings. I learned to appreciate sports. Spent more time at the ball park and little league fields that I’d ever had guessed. Even went to spring training, a few times. One of my most favorite moments in my life was when you and I were sitting in the bleachers in a light rain at spring training. I was blissful, just being there with you taking it all in. You were probably 8 or 9. You put your arm on my shoulder and said “just think mom, if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be here.” And you were so right. Yes I changed and all for the better. And yes I live with a frat boy who falls asleep to ESPN, loves a good fart joke, keeps a sports illustrated swimsuit edition next to his bed and even while living in a vegetarian household doesn’t count chicken satay or unagi as meat. And yes, I cannot imagine loving anyone else more than you.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Anyone Else But You - Kate Bueler
Anyone else but you might have been okay with your mom pregnant sitting next to you in your child sized desk and asking the girl next to you-will you be my daughter’s friend. No probably not. No one would bask in the glory of the embarrassment of a 3rd grader wearing the perfume of the anxious for the first day at school at a new school. Anyone else but you might have figured out a way to turn an awful shade of purple from embarrassment. In my head I thought- mom back off I can handle this. A mom trying her best to make sure I had friends. But anyone else probably would have let me fly solo on the first day. She wore her protective barrier around me, my wings not to ready to go, go at it alone.
So this girl, girl next to me did become my friend. Actually my best friend. We had a lot in common. Both our moms were pregnant, we were only children, so we were excited for another sibling to throw into the mix. Being an only child for 8 years is a long time to bear childhood alone. We both had bowl cuts and very 80 like fashion such as bright button down collared shirts, losts of gummy like bracelets, coolots, and probably keds without the laces. We were neighbors in class and in life. She lived down the street from my duplex home in her duplex home. We lived in F section me on Fall her on Francis. She lived 4 minutes from my house biking. Biking on my pink banana seat with a basket to carry books and the like. She lived 11 minutes away walking. And running running was about 6 minutes.
We basked in the glow of friendship. We both were in brownies or girl scouts. We both had a crush on the same guy. We were just the friendship, the beginning, the end. The embarrassment of my mother I found would be her’s too. Her mom did things that no one else would be okay with either.
We lived in friendship bliss until one day. Anyone else but you might not think the worst. The worst when you saw two girls you think are friends whispering and laughing about you. Anyone else but you might not had thought the worst. But I thought the worst. My mom had purchased me a green turtleneck cotton with embedded stripes in the fabric and matching leggings from the expensive boutique we couldn’t afford anything from. I was so excited to get an outfit from izzy kids- it was the talk of Rohnert park 3rd graders at Hahn school.
I thought it was beautiful and I wore it at Christmas and then school. Then the whispering. My green lily pad of outfit was only cool on my pond. I thought the girls including my bf were whispering about my parents. My parents getting a divorce. I was crushed. Crushed because I had told her in the secrecy of my scared 8-year-old ass. As I smiled wearing that suit of acceptance. They just whispered that I looked like an alien. She hadn’t outed me. But I didn’t know that then. Anyone else but you might not have thought the worst. Alienated from my friends in losing my family was all I could think. Really it was the stupid outfit. But our own fears, fears are stronger than the bond of a budding friendship and are stronger than the cool outfit we think we have on.
So this girl, girl next to me did become my friend. Actually my best friend. We had a lot in common. Both our moms were pregnant, we were only children, so we were excited for another sibling to throw into the mix. Being an only child for 8 years is a long time to bear childhood alone. We both had bowl cuts and very 80 like fashion such as bright button down collared shirts, losts of gummy like bracelets, coolots, and probably keds without the laces. We were neighbors in class and in life. She lived down the street from my duplex home in her duplex home. We lived in F section me on Fall her on Francis. She lived 4 minutes from my house biking. Biking on my pink banana seat with a basket to carry books and the like. She lived 11 minutes away walking. And running running was about 6 minutes.
We basked in the glow of friendship. We both were in brownies or girl scouts. We both had a crush on the same guy. We were just the friendship, the beginning, the end. The embarrassment of my mother I found would be her’s too. Her mom did things that no one else would be okay with either.
We lived in friendship bliss until one day. Anyone else but you might not think the worst. The worst when you saw two girls you think are friends whispering and laughing about you. Anyone else but you might not had thought the worst. But I thought the worst. My mom had purchased me a green turtleneck cotton with embedded stripes in the fabric and matching leggings from the expensive boutique we couldn’t afford anything from. I was so excited to get an outfit from izzy kids- it was the talk of Rohnert park 3rd graders at Hahn school.
I thought it was beautiful and I wore it at Christmas and then school. Then the whispering. My green lily pad of outfit was only cool on my pond. I thought the girls including my bf were whispering about my parents. My parents getting a divorce. I was crushed. Crushed because I had told her in the secrecy of my scared 8-year-old ass. As I smiled wearing that suit of acceptance. They just whispered that I looked like an alien. She hadn’t outed me. But I didn’t know that then. Anyone else but you might not have thought the worst. Alienated from my friends in losing my family was all I could think. Really it was the stupid outfit. But our own fears, fears are stronger than the bond of a budding friendship and are stronger than the cool outfit we think we have on.
Anyone Else But You - Melody Cryns
"I just can’t do anymore!” Megan flung herself onto the ground dramatically in front of the apartment building we’d just been thrown out of in Mountain View. She lay in the soft green grass. “I’m just too tired!”
“I’m tired too,” I shouted back as I walked down the flight of steps for about the millionth time with yet another box of something or other – an endless sea of boxes. “Hey, I know we’ve all been working really hard, but the job has gotta get done.”
“But I can’t DO anything, please Mom…” Josh and Pyke, who’d been like supermen just the day before when we moved all the furniture out and a bunch of boxes as well, lounged by the curb and smoked cigarettes.
“C’mon, just a few more boxes…we’ve gotta get everything out…” I was sore too, in places I didn’t even know existed. It’s your fault we have to move, so everyone get up and get going.
I’d just picked up my niece, Merehuka, from San Francisco International Airport, driving around in circles several times looking for my beautiful niece whom my brother had just decided out of the blue to send to me for an undisclosed amount of time. The timing couldn’t be worse, but who knew we’d have to move yet again? Merehuka said she traveled for around 24 hours straight and hadn’t slept at all, so she fell asleep in the car while all this craziness happened. My good friend Emily was cleaning and Debby’s truck was all ready to go.
“C’mon, let’s go.” I felt like a drill sergeant or something – I really wanted to get it done…all we’d done for the past week is pack and move and I was tired, dead tired, and I didn’t want to do it anymore than those kids did.
Finally, they all started moving, Josh, Pyke and Megan, trudging up the steps looking lost and forlorn as if I was ending them on a perilous journey.
No one said a word this time – no excitement like the day before when both Pyke and Josh made it down the stairs with three or four boxes of books at a time.
“You’re mean Mom! Josh’s knees hurt and Pyke has a sprained ankle!” War wounds from moving, yes I knew those all too well. It was hard to explain the grief I felt at having to move out of our apartment, even if it wasn’t the best apartment in the world. There’s something disconcerting about being forced to move out of one’s homes, for whatever reason. Sometimes I felt sorry for myself – if it was just me and I didn’t have to live with a teenager who had so many friends, I’d probably get to stay here as long as I wanted to, or not, whatever worked.
But, then again, I wouldn’t have it any other way…we were moving to a house in San Jose which also had its issues. The commute to work was only around 20 minutes, which isn’t too bad. And, well, it is what it is…
“I’m tired too,” I shouted back as I walked down the flight of steps for about the millionth time with yet another box of something or other – an endless sea of boxes. “Hey, I know we’ve all been working really hard, but the job has gotta get done.”
“But I can’t DO anything, please Mom…” Josh and Pyke, who’d been like supermen just the day before when we moved all the furniture out and a bunch of boxes as well, lounged by the curb and smoked cigarettes.
“C’mon, just a few more boxes…we’ve gotta get everything out…” I was sore too, in places I didn’t even know existed. It’s your fault we have to move, so everyone get up and get going.
I’d just picked up my niece, Merehuka, from San Francisco International Airport, driving around in circles several times looking for my beautiful niece whom my brother had just decided out of the blue to send to me for an undisclosed amount of time. The timing couldn’t be worse, but who knew we’d have to move yet again? Merehuka said she traveled for around 24 hours straight and hadn’t slept at all, so she fell asleep in the car while all this craziness happened. My good friend Emily was cleaning and Debby’s truck was all ready to go.
“C’mon, let’s go.” I felt like a drill sergeant or something – I really wanted to get it done…all we’d done for the past week is pack and move and I was tired, dead tired, and I didn’t want to do it anymore than those kids did.
Finally, they all started moving, Josh, Pyke and Megan, trudging up the steps looking lost and forlorn as if I was ending them on a perilous journey.
No one said a word this time – no excitement like the day before when both Pyke and Josh made it down the stairs with three or four boxes of books at a time.
“You’re mean Mom! Josh’s knees hurt and Pyke has a sprained ankle!” War wounds from moving, yes I knew those all too well. It was hard to explain the grief I felt at having to move out of our apartment, even if it wasn’t the best apartment in the world. There’s something disconcerting about being forced to move out of one’s homes, for whatever reason. Sometimes I felt sorry for myself – if it was just me and I didn’t have to live with a teenager who had so many friends, I’d probably get to stay here as long as I wanted to, or not, whatever worked.
But, then again, I wouldn’t have it any other way…we were moving to a house in San Jose which also had its issues. The commute to work was only around 20 minutes, which isn’t too bad. And, well, it is what it is…
Black Coffee in Bed - Maria Robinson
Ben made the black liqueur that he and Elizabeth called coffee on Saturday mornings at 9:23 am. The morning after the weekly crash into each other after the week's absence. The morning after the long night of chattering at high speed at the Moroccan restaurant, and then whispering gently after they'd made the frantic love of catching up. The morning after always held the ritual of Turkish coffee with cane sugar and croissants from Marly Patisserie on Harvard Square.
They sipped and slowly swallowed the nutty bitterness of the brew every Saturday knowing that only 28 hours remained of their reunion.
They sipped and slowly swallowed the nutty bitterness of the brew every Saturday knowing that only 28 hours remained of their reunion.
Black Coffee in Bed - Kent Wright
She would never even consider it; not Barbara. She had to keep to her “routine.” It is the rule she always told me when I tried to pull her back into bed. “No,” You know the rule,” she’d snap without even a tiny attempt to be nice about it. Off she would go always in the same awful get-up, gross unbrushed teeth and hair. Off to the desk which she never failed to reach precisely at 7am and where she kept her ample ass until 10am. She was a dedicated writer, and it was her mission, her attempt to honor faithfully that great ART. She was full of fear of the load she carried trying to live up the shrine, the calling, to the Lord she had sworn duty to at some ridiculously young age. Six days a week the routine was carried out during all the years I lived with her.
My needs are different, and have been since long before I met Barbara and her writing rules. I don’t go to my desk or tool bench before I have my coffee, and if I can get it in bed so much the better. Who brings me that strong, black brew is all the same to me – the neighbor’s wife, an internet hook-up, the kid out there mowing my lawn. I don’t care so long as they have two Bett cells that work and the strength to push down on my French press. I can even tolerate small talk while I sip.
My needs are different, and have been since long before I met Barbara and her writing rules. I don’t go to my desk or tool bench before I have my coffee, and if I can get it in bed so much the better. Who brings me that strong, black brew is all the same to me – the neighbor’s wife, an internet hook-up, the kid out there mowing my lawn. I don’t care so long as they have two Bett cells that work and the strength to push down on my French press. I can even tolerate small talk while I sip.
Black Coffee in Bed - Elizabeth Weld Nolan
After Reading P.G. Wodehouse
I hear the discreet knock on the door, tap, tap, tap. He enters my bedroom bearing a silver tray high with one hand. He sets it on the table beside the door put there for that very purpose and proceeds to the windows, covered with floor-length drapes of blue velvet, and pulls them open with one powerful swish of his black-clad arms.
``Good morning, Miss,’’ he intones with deep respect riding above an undertone of reproach. What had I done? I can’t remember, until I see one silver-strapped sandal lying by the dressing table and my green shawl tossed on the chair. Ah. I hadn’t called for Anna, my dresser, to help me to bed last night when I came in at 3 a.m., and my clothes were now in disarray that would require extra attention to restore them to order.
Where had I been?
``Where have I been, Wilcox? And where is Anna?’’ I ask. Wilcox is small and wiry, shorter than I am in my silver-strapped sandals, but strong and wears a twinkle. He sports a toupee in brilliant black. When he wishes to go incognito, he takes it off and passes out of the realm of recognition until he dons it again.
``I expect you went to the ball at Ombershire House, Miss, with Lord Bumbershoot’s nephew just in from America.’’
``No, wait, Willcox. I need my morning elixir.’’
``Right here, Miss.’’ He put the tray beside me on the bed and turned over the thin, china cup handpainted with red and pink roses and a gold band encircling the rim. It flared out in exactly the soothing line one wishes for in early morning after social exertions.
``Thank you, Wilcox.’’ I sat up and accepted the cup and saucer from him, allowed the fragrant steam to warm to bathe my nasal tissues and sipped. The hot restorative ran down my gullet like a mare streaming to the finish line four lengths ahead of the pack.
``Ah. That’s better. Now you can tell me.’’ I beamed at his kindly face that had been beaming back at me since I was a little girl.
``There’s nothing, Wilcox, nothing at all, like black morning coffee in bed.’’
I hear the discreet knock on the door, tap, tap, tap. He enters my bedroom bearing a silver tray high with one hand. He sets it on the table beside the door put there for that very purpose and proceeds to the windows, covered with floor-length drapes of blue velvet, and pulls them open with one powerful swish of his black-clad arms.
``Good morning, Miss,’’ he intones with deep respect riding above an undertone of reproach. What had I done? I can’t remember, until I see one silver-strapped sandal lying by the dressing table and my green shawl tossed on the chair. Ah. I hadn’t called for Anna, my dresser, to help me to bed last night when I came in at 3 a.m., and my clothes were now in disarray that would require extra attention to restore them to order.
Where had I been?
``Where have I been, Wilcox? And where is Anna?’’ I ask. Wilcox is small and wiry, shorter than I am in my silver-strapped sandals, but strong and wears a twinkle. He sports a toupee in brilliant black. When he wishes to go incognito, he takes it off and passes out of the realm of recognition until he dons it again.
``I expect you went to the ball at Ombershire House, Miss, with Lord Bumbershoot’s nephew just in from America.’’
``No, wait, Willcox. I need my morning elixir.’’
``Right here, Miss.’’ He put the tray beside me on the bed and turned over the thin, china cup handpainted with red and pink roses and a gold band encircling the rim. It flared out in exactly the soothing line one wishes for in early morning after social exertions.
``Thank you, Wilcox.’’ I sat up and accepted the cup and saucer from him, allowed the fragrant steam to warm to bathe my nasal tissues and sipped. The hot restorative ran down my gullet like a mare streaming to the finish line four lengths ahead of the pack.
``Ah. That’s better. Now you can tell me.’’ I beamed at his kindly face that had been beaming back at me since I was a little girl.
``There’s nothing, Wilcox, nothing at all, like black morning coffee in bed.’’
Black Coffee in Bed - Lisa Faulkner
Coffee in bed, breakfast in bed, romantic escapes for sexcapades are all better in the movies, in fantasy and dreams than reality. At least for me. Brian and I received bed trays for our engagement or shower. Two different sets, one white wicker and less romantic pair. We used them a couple times. But sparks never flew. Crumbs in bed really aren’t that romantic. And I eventually figured out that Brian isn’t really a fan of sticky foods in bed. And now I don’t eat any of that anyway.
Just like picnics. I love the nostalgia and romance of it all We received romantic, impractical versions of those picnic baskets too. Those got sold in yard sales. We still have a softsided cooler and one of those backpack picnic coolers. Weve used them. Carted one all the way to Hawaii, twice to be able to stock and take too the beach for a sunset picnic. And we have managed some romantic sunset picnics. Valentine’s day on Treasure Island once. We brought lobster burritos from Baja. The problem with some of the outdoor picnics is the weather and the bugs don’t always cooperate. Bees are Brian’s Krpytonite, so if they come along, the picnic will move indoors. We had a nice BBQ dinner outdoors Sat night. That was a success. cool, traffic not too bad. I wish we had a lush backyard. Maybe someday. I wonder if my dream came true with a gorgeous view of ocean or lake or even pool if the same would happen. Would the fantasy be better than the reality. I don’t know. Sometimes the fantasy is better or different but good. We watched a Sturgis documentary last night. I pulled out the scrapbook of our drive across the country. Brought back memories and smiles. The emerald green and red dirt of pictured rocks
Just like picnics. I love the nostalgia and romance of it all We received romantic, impractical versions of those picnic baskets too. Those got sold in yard sales. We still have a softsided cooler and one of those backpack picnic coolers. Weve used them. Carted one all the way to Hawaii, twice to be able to stock and take too the beach for a sunset picnic. And we have managed some romantic sunset picnics. Valentine’s day on Treasure Island once. We brought lobster burritos from Baja. The problem with some of the outdoor picnics is the weather and the bugs don’t always cooperate. Bees are Brian’s Krpytonite, so if they come along, the picnic will move indoors. We had a nice BBQ dinner outdoors Sat night. That was a success. cool, traffic not too bad. I wish we had a lush backyard. Maybe someday. I wonder if my dream came true with a gorgeous view of ocean or lake or even pool if the same would happen. Would the fantasy be better than the reality. I don’t know. Sometimes the fantasy is better or different but good. We watched a Sturgis documentary last night. I pulled out the scrapbook of our drive across the country. Brought back memories and smiles. The emerald green and red dirt of pictured rocks
Imagine - Bud Pfohl
Imagine a hospital entrance.
The Emergency room was sheltered by two sliding doors. The doors were automatic; the first door slid closed after I crossed the threshold, but before I could step close enough to the second door to activate its slide open. In this tiny enclosure I feel trapped. It’s 106 outside and I shiver under a green wool blanket draped over my shoulders.
I watch as two orderlies wheel a gurney toward the doors I’m facing. The white sheet, streaked with blood, does not lie flat against the gurney. The cold air streams from inside the hospital as the orderlies move through the first door without acknowledging me. The outside door slides open, the heat and cold collide around me, and I wonder how far the drive to the morgue is, how long before my dad is off that gurney.
A nurse follows the gurney with a wheelchair. I wonder why they need a wheelchair for a person who’s just died when the nurse stops and says, “Sit down, we need to get you into one of the exam rooms.”
“No thanks,” I say as I walk toward the curtained room where I hear Matty and Glenn.
“Don’t let them do it Matty,” Glenn says.
“It’s alright Glenn, I won’t let them do anything,” Matty replies.
As I pull the curtain back the nurse glides the wheelchair against the back of my knees and a doctor pulls me into the chair by the shoulders.
Before the pull me back and begin to wheel me to the X-Ray room I hear another doctor explaining that the catheter has to be inserted so they can be certain Glenn’s not bleeding internally.
For the second time in the last two hours Matty becomes enraged at an adult. Before anyone can react my fourteen-year-old brother has got the doctor by the forearms and is crying, “Leave him alone, can’t you fucking tell he’s been through enough already.”
For thirty-five years I’ve cried over the laugh, my tentative, nervous laugh, as I looked over my shoulder and watched a nurse and two doctors pulling Matty away from the doctor with the catheter.
The Emergency room was sheltered by two sliding doors. The doors were automatic; the first door slid closed after I crossed the threshold, but before I could step close enough to the second door to activate its slide open. In this tiny enclosure I feel trapped. It’s 106 outside and I shiver under a green wool blanket draped over my shoulders.
I watch as two orderlies wheel a gurney toward the doors I’m facing. The white sheet, streaked with blood, does not lie flat against the gurney. The cold air streams from inside the hospital as the orderlies move through the first door without acknowledging me. The outside door slides open, the heat and cold collide around me, and I wonder how far the drive to the morgue is, how long before my dad is off that gurney.
A nurse follows the gurney with a wheelchair. I wonder why they need a wheelchair for a person who’s just died when the nurse stops and says, “Sit down, we need to get you into one of the exam rooms.”
“No thanks,” I say as I walk toward the curtained room where I hear Matty and Glenn.
“Don’t let them do it Matty,” Glenn says.
“It’s alright Glenn, I won’t let them do anything,” Matty replies.
As I pull the curtain back the nurse glides the wheelchair against the back of my knees and a doctor pulls me into the chair by the shoulders.
Before the pull me back and begin to wheel me to the X-Ray room I hear another doctor explaining that the catheter has to be inserted so they can be certain Glenn’s not bleeding internally.
For the second time in the last two hours Matty becomes enraged at an adult. Before anyone can react my fourteen-year-old brother has got the doctor by the forearms and is crying, “Leave him alone, can’t you fucking tell he’s been through enough already.”
For thirty-five years I’ve cried over the laugh, my tentative, nervous laugh, as I looked over my shoulder and watched a nurse and two doctors pulling Matty away from the doctor with the catheter.
Stairway to Heaven - Camilla Basham
I am told of a man
Who says words so beautifully
That if he only whispers their name
Women fall at his feet
If I lie dumbstruck upon my pillow in the dark
While my silence spreads like cancer on parched lips
It is because I hear footsteps in my stairway
And a man clears his throat outside my bedroom door.
That if he only whispers their name
Women fall at his feet
If I lie dumbstruck upon my pillow in the dark
While my silence spreads like cancer on parched lips
It is because I hear footsteps in my stairway
And a man clears his throat outside my bedroom door.
Stairway to Heaven - Anne Wright
He drove his long burgundy Lincoln down interstate 5 to Bakersfield, his short sleeve shirts hanging from a rod in the back seat. The air conditioning didn’t work, but that was fine with him because he liked to drive with one hand, his other arm resting out the open window, feeling the dry heat ruffling the hair on his arm. On the seat beside him Blanche sat asleep, her head wrapped in a scarf to keep her hair flying all over the place, drowsing and snoring. They were on the way to a family reunion of Jack’s relatives. There had never been a reunion before, but his great-aunt Eunice had decided to invite everybody because the oldest member of the clan, old Great-Pa, was ready to kick the bucket. Actually he had one foot in the grave, great-aunt Eunice had put it in the letter, and we better not wait because he won’t be here next time. She couldn’t have picked a hotter summer, and Jack was happy. In a way he wished he still lived in Bakersfield but he had ended up in Livermore when the company decided to give him the northern territory. He put thousands of miles on the old Lincoln, selling milking equipment to the dairy farmers, though Jack had retired five years ago which was a good thing because gasoline was taking a big bite out of his commission. So now he was here on the I-5 and he liked nothing better than that smell of cattle. The fat black cows standing on top of the hills of fertilizer, looking at him and Blanche, as they drove past in the slow lane on their way to Bakersfield.
Hungry Heart - E. D. James
The trains rolled smoothly that day, the rhythm of the stations and the patrons falling into place from the start. Alan had always thought that the system was like a living organism in that way. There were times when it seemed that nothing would go right. Trains broke down, people threw themselves on the tracks, passengers were fighting and angry and he wondered if the thing could even keep running. If maybe the chaos would overcome the energy of the system and they would just have to give up on it. Walk away and let the tracks and tunnels grow in with weeds and become shelters for the homeless. Then there were times when everything was tight. The trains were strong and the stations sparkled and the team and it’s passengers all seemed in harmony, like Snow White with the birds and the animals and dwarves before the wicked witch ruined it all with that tasty apple. It was on those days that the song came to him most strongly, surging through the tunnels and filling him with a feeling that the life force ran through every molecule in a way that he could tap into and ride like a surfer on an endless cresting blue wave of clear warm water.
Standing in the open window at the Embarcadero station watching the passengers file in for the ride east, he suddenly admitted to himself that she made him feel that way too. When he had come home the night before and she was still there in his bed, and in the morning when she’d come dancing into the kitchen in those goofy clothes he’d bought her, he felt a clarity and easiness that had eluded him since he was a child. He tried to separate that feeling from her. To find it in himself as basic force that he could harness to bring his life meaning and energy. He knew deep down that there was no future for them. That even if he could pull off this scheme to free her from Vinokurov they could never be together. She might love him in a way. She might even have let him feel that love in her body. But he was a fifty-two year old BART train operator and she was a beautiful creature at the beginning of her life. For the first time he knew that he had to find in himself the courage to love and be loved. He knew that he hungered at his very core to be with a woman who knew all of him and would accept him unconditionally. He knew that the drinking and the depression were weak ways to hide from exposing himself in a way that might allow him to find the love his heart desired. And suddenly he knew that risking his life to free this woman would free him too. Then he closed the window and the song filled him and he slammed his palm on the big red button that sent the train humming through the tube and out under the bay and he had a clear vision of his destiny for the first time in his life.
Standing in the open window at the Embarcadero station watching the passengers file in for the ride east, he suddenly admitted to himself that she made him feel that way too. When he had come home the night before and she was still there in his bed, and in the morning when she’d come dancing into the kitchen in those goofy clothes he’d bought her, he felt a clarity and easiness that had eluded him since he was a child. He tried to separate that feeling from her. To find it in himself as basic force that he could harness to bring his life meaning and energy. He knew deep down that there was no future for them. That even if he could pull off this scheme to free her from Vinokurov they could never be together. She might love him in a way. She might even have let him feel that love in her body. But he was a fifty-two year old BART train operator and she was a beautiful creature at the beginning of her life. For the first time he knew that he had to find in himself the courage to love and be loved. He knew that he hungered at his very core to be with a woman who knew all of him and would accept him unconditionally. He knew that the drinking and the depression were weak ways to hide from exposing himself in a way that might allow him to find the love his heart desired. And suddenly he knew that risking his life to free this woman would free him too. Then he closed the window and the song filled him and he slammed his palm on the big red button that sent the train humming through the tube and out under the bay and he had a clear vision of his destiny for the first time in his life.
Hungry Heart - Judy Albietz
I am her heart and this morning I’ve taken matters in my own hand, so to speak. After last night, all those tears, anguish, etc., I made a decision. Don’t tell me it’s not mine to make. Because I just can’t take anymore of that chocolate-coated-strawberry-cheesecake-love-then-break-up-pain. That’s right. Too much feast or famine. Not good for me, anyway. I’m not going down that path again. Not healthy. That sweet stuff, that giddy stupid stuff. Only leaves scars.
I am going on a diet. I can teach myself not to be hungry. It might take a few days to get used to it. But when I think I am hungry, I’ll just tell myself I’m not. Easy as that. No more sampling, no more “just one taste.” I don’t need anything more than what I/we have. We will survive quite nicely on what we already have. I have a 100% monopoly on me/her and I don’t have to share myself/her with anyone. Where did I get the idea that I need anything or anyone else?
I’ve watched hearts of other people who have gone on this diet. They don’t even miss it. They aren’t hungry anymore. They report that old scars finally heal. No more fattening ripping heartbreak for them. Over the years, these hearts have built protective layers which harden into shells, totally encasing them. Some weren’t even called hearts anymore; they had taken a more practical name, such as “bodily organ.”
I am going on a diet. I can teach myself not to be hungry. It might take a few days to get used to it. But when I think I am hungry, I’ll just tell myself I’m not. Easy as that. No more sampling, no more “just one taste.” I don’t need anything more than what I/we have. We will survive quite nicely on what we already have. I have a 100% monopoly on me/her and I don’t have to share myself/her with anyone. Where did I get the idea that I need anything or anyone else?
I’ve watched hearts of other people who have gone on this diet. They don’t even miss it. They aren’t hungry anymore. They report that old scars finally heal. No more fattening ripping heartbreak for them. Over the years, these hearts have built protective layers which harden into shells, totally encasing them. Some weren’t even called hearts anymore; they had taken a more practical name, such as “bodily organ.”
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Humor Me - Judy Albietz
What do you think of the draft I sent you? Those hundred pages. Tell me the truth. I can take it. I have thick skin. It’s just a first draft, so I won’t be hurt by anything you say. What do you think of the characters? The story? Does it flow? Is it imaginative? Creative? Does it suck? Are you so repulsed you couldn’t even finish? Don’t hold back.
What? What do you mean you want me to change the plot? I asked you to review the writing, not the story. I know it’s rough, but what do you expect from a first draft. Of course it needs revision. What’s wrong with the plot? I’ve always thought my story was great.
You think the main character needs more depth, more conflict up front, more tension. What? How can I do that with my story?
I’m not trying to argue with you, but you know all this is just your opinion. If I ask three people, I’ll probably get three opinions. We wouldn’t want a world where everybody likes the same thing.
What … oh … you say you liked it. You enjoyed reading it. But I thought you said to change the whole thing, the arc, the plot, the characters.
You say you’re just making suggestions. Sorry, sorry I’m being so sensitive. I really appreciate the time you took to read this draft. After I make changes do you think you could take another look?
What? What do you mean you want me to change the plot? I asked you to review the writing, not the story. I know it’s rough, but what do you expect from a first draft. Of course it needs revision. What’s wrong with the plot? I’ve always thought my story was great.
You think the main character needs more depth, more conflict up front, more tension. What? How can I do that with my story?
I’m not trying to argue with you, but you know all this is just your opinion. If I ask three people, I’ll probably get three opinions. We wouldn’t want a world where everybody likes the same thing.
What … oh … you say you liked it. You enjoyed reading it. But I thought you said to change the whole thing, the arc, the plot, the characters.
You say you’re just making suggestions. Sorry, sorry I’m being so sensitive. I really appreciate the time you took to read this draft. After I make changes do you think you could take another look?
Humor Me - Lisa Faulkner
It’s time to stop avoiding this. I made the mistake of letting my curiosity compel me to open and read the prompt last night. Part of me knew better. I almost closed it after the quote. But that cat inside of me kept going. I sighed. Oh it will be easy Brian is so funny, naturally, makes me laugh. Laughter and humor have been critical to our marriage. But then my brain kept on with the ideas. Composing in my head. There was the time 6 months after he ran into the imaginary brick wall and kissed me. We’d both chickened out in face of the puppy dog eyes a few times. After that first kiss, we was smitten. Before him I was more serious. I almost dated a guy who looked down on silly stuff. I remember a time we walked back from dinner to the dorm with a groups of friends. A couple of the seniors started walking on the curb as if it were a balance beam and cracking jokes. I was about to join in when Pat said something derogatory and complimented me on my adultness. Fast forward to the end of the following semester (8 months maybe), actually it was Christmas break. I’d come back early to spend time with Brian. We’d just spent hours exploring and playing at the Franklin Institute and we walking back to Penn up Chestnut Street. I couldn’t contain my new love and joy and did a silly little dance in a circle around him. He laughed with me then asked, “What was that for?” I replied, “I don’t know. You just bring out the kid in me.” He pulled me into his arms and I kissed him. Another time we explored South Philly together and after sharing a loaf of bread from a little deli, we shared a passionate kiss on the street. We were interrupted as a car drove by and a 5 yr old shouted outside the window: “Kissy, kissy.” We made the mistake of telling his parents later that day. For years afterwards anytime we kissed in front of his Dad we heard “kissy, kissy”
Little Widow (God Only Knows) - Anne Wright
She got to the restaurant early and ordered a cup of coffee. She put half a packet of fake sugar in it and stirred, making little scraping sounds with her spoon. She was there to meet a man she had been corresponding with through the online dating service. Her name was Belinda, but the name she used for the service was Kimberly, Kim for short, because she had always hated her name.
She was dressed in a new blouse and skirt. They went with a pair of shoes that she found in the back of her closet. Earlier when she was dressing in front of the mirror she buttoned up the blouse -- it had gold buttons shaped like small knots -- she turned and looked over her shoulder and gave herself a sly, sexy glance and smoothed her hands over her breasts. Then she fumbled with the buttons the way she imagined a man might do, a man who was nervous about unbuttoning them and worried if she might slap his hand away.
After she had drunk half the cup of coffee she looked down at her blouse. It was black with a pattern of red and gold squiggles. The gold in the blouse went with the buttons. She had spilled a drop of coffee on the front of her blouse, right on one of the gold squiggles, just over her left breast. The coffee had made her shaky but she was already fearful of meeting this man whom she had only seen three pictures of on her computer screen. The pictures were small and kind of blurry and it was hard to get a good idea of what he looked like, but Belinda wasn’t one to be fussy about the way men looked, except that she didn’t like men with beards or ear hair. Now she was even more nervous about what he might think of her, with a spotted breast. She wrapped her finger in her white cloth napkin and dipped it into her ice water. It was polyester so it didn’t absorb the water very well but she figured that was all right because all she needed was a big wet spot on her front. She dabbed at the spot, putting her other finger on the inside of the blouse through the space between the buttons.
While she was doing this, rubbing and dabbing and trying not to make more of a mess than she already had, she became aware of a sound, like a man talking nearby. He was saying something. Over and over. What was he saying, and who is he talking to, she thought. She realized he was saying Kimberly. That was supposed to be her name and she wasn’t even responding to it. She looked up slowly, so as not to let him know that she was Kimberly which was a good thing, too, because he was very short and had an uneven beard, the kind that was not trimmed from his cheeks and which grew low on his neck like some kind of religious person
She was dressed in a new blouse and skirt. They went with a pair of shoes that she found in the back of her closet. Earlier when she was dressing in front of the mirror she buttoned up the blouse -- it had gold buttons shaped like small knots -- she turned and looked over her shoulder and gave herself a sly, sexy glance and smoothed her hands over her breasts. Then she fumbled with the buttons the way she imagined a man might do, a man who was nervous about unbuttoning them and worried if she might slap his hand away.
After she had drunk half the cup of coffee she looked down at her blouse. It was black with a pattern of red and gold squiggles. The gold in the blouse went with the buttons. She had spilled a drop of coffee on the front of her blouse, right on one of the gold squiggles, just over her left breast. The coffee had made her shaky but she was already fearful of meeting this man whom she had only seen three pictures of on her computer screen. The pictures were small and kind of blurry and it was hard to get a good idea of what he looked like, but Belinda wasn’t one to be fussy about the way men looked, except that she didn’t like men with beards or ear hair. Now she was even more nervous about what he might think of her, with a spotted breast. She wrapped her finger in her white cloth napkin and dipped it into her ice water. It was polyester so it didn’t absorb the water very well but she figured that was all right because all she needed was a big wet spot on her front. She dabbed at the spot, putting her other finger on the inside of the blouse through the space between the buttons.
While she was doing this, rubbing and dabbing and trying not to make more of a mess than she already had, she became aware of a sound, like a man talking nearby. He was saying something. Over and over. What was he saying, and who is he talking to, she thought. She realized he was saying Kimberly. That was supposed to be her name and she wasn’t even responding to it. She looked up slowly, so as not to let him know that she was Kimberly which was a good thing, too, because he was very short and had an uneven beard, the kind that was not trimmed from his cheeks and which grew low on his neck like some kind of religious person
Cleaning-Up - E. D. James
She stirred when the bright lights of the toll plaza lit up the dash of the Crown Vic. He laid his hand on her shoulder.
“Where are you taking me?”
“My apartment.”
“I need to get clean.”
He quickly scrubbed the grime from the last few months out of the tub and got the hot water running and then went and gently shook her awake on the couch. She sat up, slung her bare feet around to the floor, and ran her hands through her hair and shook it out. Her bloody stockings lay crumpled next to her shoes. Then stood and started down the hall with one hand on the wall for support.
“Will you be alright?”
She stopped for a second and turned her head down and to the left, keeping her back towards him, “Do you have anything I could wear?”
“Yea, I’ll get you a tee shirt or something. Maybe we can get you some clothes tomorrow.”
“That would be nice.”
The water ran for a long time and he began to worry that maybe she had fallen asleep and the tub would overflow. Just as he got up to check she shut it off and he could hear the last drips falling into the water and some sloshing that sounded like the washcloth being used. He picked up her coat, the fake fur collar matted on the right with a bit of blood, and carried it to the front closet and hung it. Then he picked up the shoes and the stockings and carried them into the bedroom and set them on the chair he kept by the bed.
He sat in the flickering light of the television. The sound was off and he listened for signs that she had finished her bath. He’d sat a tie-dyed tee shirt on the floor outside the bathroom door for her. He wondered what to do next. He couldn’t imagine how she had come to be on his train in the condition she was in without someone at the station or in the car noticing something and notifying somebody. Of course, he’d seen enough in those cars to know that people pretty much kept to themselves unless someone was threatening or actually dying. He tried to think of scenarios about what had happened to her. She seemed so frail and innocent. Her jacket and shoes were nice, not something someone living on the street would be wearing. He was worried that someone might be looking for her.
It had been quiet for two cycles of commercials. He couldn’t hear any movement in the tub. He thought the water would be getting cold by now. He needed to get her up and settled so that he could get the car back to Johnny. He got up and walked down the hall and tapped on the door.
“You ok?”
There was no response so he pushed open the door. She lay with her head against the back of the tub. He’d lit the candles that were left over from a short-lived romance last year. In the soft light her face seemed so young. Her nipples just poked through the still surface of the water.
“You ok?” he asked again, a bit louder.
She stirred and started to sit up, sliding her hands along the side of the tub for support.
“Can you dry me?”
He picked up the towel from the toilet seat and bent down and lifted the lever on the drain. Then he shook the towel out, tucked it under his arm, and stood behind her to help her stand. The wet skin under her arms was still slightly soapy. Her body glistened in the candlelight as she stood. As he wrapped the towel around her could see bruises along her ribs. As she stood she sagged and he grabbed her with the towel and wrapped it around her and picked her up. Before she was covered he could see bruises, fresh and dark, across her back and along the sides of her ribcage. She felt light as she put her wet arms around him and buried her face in his neck. He turned her feet sideways and maneuvered through the door and down the hallway to the bedroom.
He pulled back the sheets and lay her down, trying not to let his eyes linger on her breasts and the smooth, shaved area between her legs as he quickly dried her. The bruises extended down onto her thighs. When he covered her up she rolled onto her side and curled into a fetal position.
“I’ve got to take the car back,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll be gone about two hours. We can have some breakfast when I get back.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“My apartment.”
“I need to get clean.”
He quickly scrubbed the grime from the last few months out of the tub and got the hot water running and then went and gently shook her awake on the couch. She sat up, slung her bare feet around to the floor, and ran her hands through her hair and shook it out. Her bloody stockings lay crumpled next to her shoes. Then stood and started down the hall with one hand on the wall for support.
“Will you be alright?”
She stopped for a second and turned her head down and to the left, keeping her back towards him, “Do you have anything I could wear?”
“Yea, I’ll get you a tee shirt or something. Maybe we can get you some clothes tomorrow.”
“That would be nice.”
The water ran for a long time and he began to worry that maybe she had fallen asleep and the tub would overflow. Just as he got up to check she shut it off and he could hear the last drips falling into the water and some sloshing that sounded like the washcloth being used. He picked up her coat, the fake fur collar matted on the right with a bit of blood, and carried it to the front closet and hung it. Then he picked up the shoes and the stockings and carried them into the bedroom and set them on the chair he kept by the bed.
He sat in the flickering light of the television. The sound was off and he listened for signs that she had finished her bath. He’d sat a tie-dyed tee shirt on the floor outside the bathroom door for her. He wondered what to do next. He couldn’t imagine how she had come to be on his train in the condition she was in without someone at the station or in the car noticing something and notifying somebody. Of course, he’d seen enough in those cars to know that people pretty much kept to themselves unless someone was threatening or actually dying. He tried to think of scenarios about what had happened to her. She seemed so frail and innocent. Her jacket and shoes were nice, not something someone living on the street would be wearing. He was worried that someone might be looking for her.
It had been quiet for two cycles of commercials. He couldn’t hear any movement in the tub. He thought the water would be getting cold by now. He needed to get her up and settled so that he could get the car back to Johnny. He got up and walked down the hall and tapped on the door.
“You ok?”
There was no response so he pushed open the door. She lay with her head against the back of the tub. He’d lit the candles that were left over from a short-lived romance last year. In the soft light her face seemed so young. Her nipples just poked through the still surface of the water.
“You ok?” he asked again, a bit louder.
She stirred and started to sit up, sliding her hands along the side of the tub for support.
“Can you dry me?”
He picked up the towel from the toilet seat and bent down and lifted the lever on the drain. Then he shook the towel out, tucked it under his arm, and stood behind her to help her stand. The wet skin under her arms was still slightly soapy. Her body glistened in the candlelight as she stood. As he wrapped the towel around her could see bruises along her ribs. As she stood she sagged and he grabbed her with the towel and wrapped it around her and picked her up. Before she was covered he could see bruises, fresh and dark, across her back and along the sides of her ribcage. She felt light as she put her wet arms around him and buried her face in his neck. He turned her feet sideways and maneuvered through the door and down the hallway to the bedroom.
He pulled back the sheets and lay her down, trying not to let his eyes linger on her breasts and the smooth, shaved area between her legs as he quickly dried her. The bruises extended down onto her thighs. When he covered her up she rolled onto her side and curled into a fetal position.
“I’ve got to take the car back,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll be gone about two hours. We can have some breakfast when I get back.”
Cleaning-Up - Elizabeth Weld Nolan
How fine the line between chaos
and order. This chair, placed there,
invites. Placed otherwhere, is all
alone, and bare. A comb and brush
askew, necklaces strewn, towels
flung, confuse. Straightened, they
comfort, ask to be used. Spots
on the rug are only wine flung
from goblets raised when songs are sung.
and order. This chair, placed there,
invites. Placed otherwhere, is all
alone, and bare. A comb and brush
askew, necklaces strewn, towels
flung, confuse. Straightened, they
comfort, ask to be used. Spots
on the rug are only wine flung
from goblets raised when songs are sung.
Cleaning-Up - Karen Cassey
I’m an Air Force Brat, someone whose parent/s served in the Armed Forces. My childhood was filled with adventure and it seemed like we were always moving. It wasn’t until I was five or six that I clearly understood why we were constantly on a new adventure. My dad was in the Air Force and we (my three siblings and mom) were following him from one adventure to another.
Japan, was one of my favorite adventures. There home’s were adorned with decorative roofs, where tassel’s with chimes blew with the breeze and it was always like music to my ears. My adventure had its very own sound effects. The Japanese women wore these beautiful, colorful Kimonos (means things to wear) with Geta Sandals (any sandal with separate heel) and Tabi socks (socks that have a split in them for the big toe).
During the work week, the women would wear these less glamorous blue and white kimonos. You would see the mother’s with their baby wrapped up tightly on her back, as she went along cleaning up her surroundings.
Japan, was one of my favorite adventures. There home’s were adorned with decorative roofs, where tassel’s with chimes blew with the breeze and it was always like music to my ears. My adventure had its very own sound effects. The Japanese women wore these beautiful, colorful Kimonos (means things to wear) with Geta Sandals (any sandal with separate heel) and Tabi socks (socks that have a split in them for the big toe).
During the work week, the women would wear these less glamorous blue and white kimonos. You would see the mother’s with their baby wrapped up tightly on her back, as she went along cleaning up her surroundings.
Cleaning-Up - Camilla Basham
I celebrate the dawn of my thirty fifth birthday nude, disoriented, gagged and duck taped to a mid eighteenth century Queen Anne arm chair under a crystal chandelier, and the impression that I should have left much earlier the previous night at the first site of cocaine and firearms.
It wouldn’t be so bad, except I’m due at a noon PTA meeting where I’m expected to pass out homemade brownies, copies of a revised fourth grade parent’s phone tree in case of a national emergency, and loving pats on the little tikes’ malformed brains; my own brain so soar I can’t even remember the name of the school. I can’t even remember the fucking date.
This doesn’t happen to me often: the memory loss, that is. The duct tape is another story. It’s all part of the test. Part of proving I won’t break, won’t divulge our purpose, won’t sabotage our cause. It’s obvious I didn’t break, as I’m still breathing, and assume that being left in this ridiculous position is Aaban’s idea of a joke.
I look around for signs of life to discover turned over chairs, remnants of cocktails, ammunition, golden damask curtains blowing in the wind, discarded brown glass vials and the slightly plastic smell of cut cocaine.
I hear footsteps in the near distance and see a young Latino woman cleaning up the mess. I murmur and stomp my taped feet together in unison. The sight of me causes her to drop her broom and run from the room.
My cell phone rings from somewhere behind me. It must be Tim, home with the kids thinking my ladies night out with the Oprah book club ran late and I spent the night on Janine Abernathy’s sofa in the suburbs afraid to drive home after one and a half glasses of Zinfandel. What a shmuck!
It wouldn’t be so bad, except I’m due at a noon PTA meeting where I’m expected to pass out homemade brownies, copies of a revised fourth grade parent’s phone tree in case of a national emergency, and loving pats on the little tikes’ malformed brains; my own brain so soar I can’t even remember the name of the school. I can’t even remember the fucking date.
This doesn’t happen to me often: the memory loss, that is. The duct tape is another story. It’s all part of the test. Part of proving I won’t break, won’t divulge our purpose, won’t sabotage our cause. It’s obvious I didn’t break, as I’m still breathing, and assume that being left in this ridiculous position is Aaban’s idea of a joke.
I look around for signs of life to discover turned over chairs, remnants of cocktails, ammunition, golden damask curtains blowing in the wind, discarded brown glass vials and the slightly plastic smell of cut cocaine.
I hear footsteps in the near distance and see a young Latino woman cleaning up the mess. I murmur and stomp my taped feet together in unison. The sight of me causes her to drop her broom and run from the room.
My cell phone rings from somewhere behind me. It must be Tim, home with the kids thinking my ladies night out with the Oprah book club ran late and I spent the night on Janine Abernathy’s sofa in the suburbs afraid to drive home after one and a half glasses of Zinfandel. What a shmuck!
Cleaning-Up - Bud Pfohl
The blender perched next to the kitchen sink the silver-stepped base graduated to a narrow collar where the mixer rested on the gears that spun the blades. Looking up it seemed enormous in potential as well as size. I dropped to my knees and crawled to the family room door. I looked around the corner and heard the Saturday night extravaganza of Ed Sullivan. Topo Gigio would keep my great-grandma enthralled for the immediate future.
I crawled to the kitchen table and drug a chair to the kitchen counter. The chalky scratch of the wooden legs on the linoleum floor didn’t stand a chance against the television laughter and applause bleeding from the family room. So far I was safe. Both feet on the chair I rose above the kitchen counter and stared at the buttons: Mix, Chop, Puree, Blend and Liquefy. I pushed Liquefy and flipped the power on and watched as the blades whirred into action. I imagined vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, malted mix and milk being churned into a malt.
I flipped the switch back to off and peered into the family room assessing my gram’s level of inattention to everything outside Ed Sullivan. Before I scrambled down the chair and to the freezer I looked at the various settings and wondered if Mix was slow enough for me to stop it from spinning if I held the blades before I turned the switch on.
I reached into the blender and rested my fingers against the cold blades. They didn’t feel sharp. I moved the switch from off to on and watched as a perfect line of red painted itself around the glass container. The blades were still spinning as I watched my fingers rain drops of blood into the kitchen sink.
I leapt from the chair and ran to the family room. I held my hand out to gram thinking words were unnecessary. She looked at my fingers and her eighty-year-old mind decided that I would need more than one band-aid. I knew the futility of band-aids and ran to our neighbors who hadn’t yet left for the New Year’s Eve party my parents were already at.
Fourteen stitches later I sat in Mr. Chapin’s car on the way home and wondered if I could get the kitchen cleaned up before mom and dad got home and found out what I’d done.
I crawled to the kitchen table and drug a chair to the kitchen counter. The chalky scratch of the wooden legs on the linoleum floor didn’t stand a chance against the television laughter and applause bleeding from the family room. So far I was safe. Both feet on the chair I rose above the kitchen counter and stared at the buttons: Mix, Chop, Puree, Blend and Liquefy. I pushed Liquefy and flipped the power on and watched as the blades whirred into action. I imagined vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, malted mix and milk being churned into a malt.
I flipped the switch back to off and peered into the family room assessing my gram’s level of inattention to everything outside Ed Sullivan. Before I scrambled down the chair and to the freezer I looked at the various settings and wondered if Mix was slow enough for me to stop it from spinning if I held the blades before I turned the switch on.
I reached into the blender and rested my fingers against the cold blades. They didn’t feel sharp. I moved the switch from off to on and watched as a perfect line of red painted itself around the glass container. The blades were still spinning as I watched my fingers rain drops of blood into the kitchen sink.
I leapt from the chair and ran to the family room. I held my hand out to gram thinking words were unnecessary. She looked at my fingers and her eighty-year-old mind decided that I would need more than one band-aid. I knew the futility of band-aids and ran to our neighbors who hadn’t yet left for the New Year’s Eve party my parents were already at.
Fourteen stitches later I sat in Mr. Chapin’s car on the way home and wondered if I could get the kitchen cleaned up before mom and dad got home and found out what I’d done.
Cleaning-Up - Kent Wright
The den smelled like the same sour mix of the perfumes, which Leanne had tried to dilute in the two back bedrooms by opening all the windows to the light November frost. Picking up wine glasses, coke cans and beer bottles had a made nice dent in cleaning up the leavings left about by the six couples that had been there. She let the familiar pleasure of bringing order back push aside the inevitable sorting through of the weekend’s event that Ray would want to do. She knew that she had not been thrilled with the couples she and Ray had drawn for the Private Home Event lottery down at their swinger’s clubhouse. The past two days had felt more like the slow grind of a two-day college exam with room rotations announced buzzer blast than the unique intimate swinger experience envisioned by the events committee.
Cleaning-Up - Maria Robinson
Martha on Dr. Bergman's couch:
Dr. B: So. Martha. We're here.
M: Not that I want to be here. But finding myself here again makes me feel like a failure.
B: You're to continue becoming who you really want to be.
M: But. Dead end again. Married 7 years, the twins, a career in art and I'm back at my mother's. At my eternally monumental mother's house. For God's sake, we're staying in the next door apartment and that and Daddy bought 20 years ago. She came all the way to London to get me and the boys.
B: How did London happen?
M: Impossibly handsome Brit, a real comer in the art world. In fact, a brilliant success.
We clicked at first, like two alphas, bent on conquering it all. I moved to London to work with him. Mother,of course, owned an a two flat in Chelsea, so we took the entire house.
Sean loved Mother for making his life so easy and making it seem like he got a good "deal" with me.
B; When did you know it wasn't working?
M: I guess at the wedding. All he talked about were his upcoming sales and the receptions that I would need to host. I guess, I thought I was going to become a famous art maven/wife. A step up from my Art History degree. working in the ever so devilish New York Art market.
B: What do you miss?
M: Isn't my time up? I just can't handle the clean up right now.
Dr. B: So. Martha. We're here.
M: Not that I want to be here. But finding myself here again makes me feel like a failure.
B: You're to continue becoming who you really want to be.
M: But. Dead end again. Married 7 years, the twins, a career in art and I'm back at my mother's. At my eternally monumental mother's house. For God's sake, we're staying in the next door apartment and that and Daddy bought 20 years ago. She came all the way to London to get me and the boys.
B: How did London happen?
M: Impossibly handsome Brit, a real comer in the art world. In fact, a brilliant success.
We clicked at first, like two alphas, bent on conquering it all. I moved to London to work with him. Mother,of course, owned an a two flat in Chelsea, so we took the entire house.
Sean loved Mother for making his life so easy and making it seem like he got a good "deal" with me.
B; When did you know it wasn't working?
M: I guess at the wedding. All he talked about were his upcoming sales and the receptions that I would need to host. I guess, I thought I was going to become a famous art maven/wife. A step up from my Art History degree. working in the ever so devilish New York Art market.
B: What do you miss?
M: Isn't my time up? I just can't handle the clean up right now.
Cleaning-Up - Kate Bueler
Cleaning up. I have always felt the need to clean up. Clean up before visiting my family, my mother’s family. Clean up not just in the showering, the washing, the brushing, the toning, the hydrating, but the importance of looking good. Looking good and pretty- with the right outfit of something that is nice enough but not too nice. Somewhere between the proms of my past and future and my track shorts and yoga gear. But I have to look nice. I have to. My makeup should be done in a way that highlights my eyes- shadow of sparkly colors and the eyeliner smudged just right. I worry or I did used to worry incessantly that I wouldn’t look right. Look right. Seeing my mother’s family meant that my game face must be on. On. Because I must be deemed the normal. I must be deemed the successful. I must be deemed beautiful like my mother- all her good traits mine- her eyes and hair and intelligence and spunk and wittiness and humor- but the bad- the bad recycled away, composted away forgotten. Not me. At all. For I am clean. I am different. I don’t want the traits of the up and downs of the yo-yo disease or the incessant calling or the disappearing acts or the best friend devil two play. No I can’t be those. So I clean up. I clean up in away that I can still be my mother. The good one. I clean up so no one will think I am like her. But I am like her. Not in the extremity. But her anxiety she did pass along through her blood, and pulse, and womb in birthing me. Re-enforced through me not knowing who she would be. Who she would be? Exacerbated through the early wake up calls of screaming and yelling. A light sleeper always.
My mother taught me long ago to clean up. To look good and accessorize. Always. So no one would know about her. From the outside much didn’t know. She taught me the importance of cleaning up so no one would question me. Question me. I took it to heart and tattooed it on my chest and kept looking down at it. Look clean. Look normal. So no one will know. It was more than the exterior of my dress and face but I transformed it to success. Being a success. So no one would question me. Ask me. Who I was. Who she was. She taught me. To run so fast and hard and do it well that no one would know.
Know about our family. About her. And eventually about me. About my own battles. Not like hers. But battles all the same. I used to feel the need to always clean up before seeing my mother’s family so they wouldn’t think I was her. Her entirely. But know there might be freedom in coming clean. About who I really am with them. I have the luxury of years of absence of me knowing them as a child and then again as a adult. That I can be myself. I can read my work around the circle of them. In ways I can’t with my other family. I can come clean about me. Who I really am. Not who I want them to think I am. Cleaning up for me. Isn’t about pretending anymore. I am clean. Clean in a way I didn’t know I could be. My mother didn’t teach me this way. She still lives in the cloud and island of denial. No I learned this one on my own. I am clean. Now. I am clean.
My mother taught me long ago to clean up. To look good and accessorize. Always. So no one would know about her. From the outside much didn’t know. She taught me the importance of cleaning up so no one would question me. Question me. I took it to heart and tattooed it on my chest and kept looking down at it. Look clean. Look normal. So no one will know. It was more than the exterior of my dress and face but I transformed it to success. Being a success. So no one would question me. Ask me. Who I was. Who she was. She taught me. To run so fast and hard and do it well that no one would know.
Know about our family. About her. And eventually about me. About my own battles. Not like hers. But battles all the same. I used to feel the need to always clean up before seeing my mother’s family so they wouldn’t think I was her. Her entirely. But know there might be freedom in coming clean. About who I really am with them. I have the luxury of years of absence of me knowing them as a child and then again as a adult. That I can be myself. I can read my work around the circle of them. In ways I can’t with my other family. I can come clean about me. Who I really am. Not who I want them to think I am. Cleaning up for me. Isn’t about pretending anymore. I am clean. Clean in a way I didn’t know I could be. My mother didn’t teach me this way. She still lives in the cloud and island of denial. No I learned this one on my own. I am clean. Now. I am clean.
I Am Love - Melody Cryns
I still remember watching the twirlers dance at the Greens in Golden Gate Park when I was a kid, round and round, twirling their long, colorful skirts and waving their beautiful, thin scarves around while the rhythmic music played, the beat of the drums and the thumping of the bass and the lovely sounds of the guitar filling the air as the twirlers danced making their way through the crowd among the hippies, all wearing the colorful tie-dye shirts. We ran in and around the midst of it, me and my brother and sister and the kids in the neighborhood, playing our own imaginary games to the beat of the music. Sometimes my brother Michael would say these colorful people were like aliens from another planet, and we all agreed. But they weren’t bad aliens, they were good ones, filled with peace and love.
I remember the twirler who sat down and made chains with the small wild daisies that grew in and among the grass – and she showed me how to make a chain as well, such an intricate process of making a tiny hole in the stem right below the flower itself. She helped me make a daisy crown and then put it on my head, and I wore it all day even though the kids all laughed at me – “I’m a flower child!” I said. “That’s what she called me, and I pointed at the twirler who also had a crown of daisies on her head and was back to twirling round and round to the music.
We were so innocent then. We had no idea that there was anything bad about the smells of patchouli oil and the unmistakable smell of marijuana – we didn’t even really know what it was – just that the smell was everywhere then. The police from the park police station intermingled with the crowds and didn’t care – they just made sure that everything was peaceful and all right, and everyone lived together in harmony back then.
Or so we thought. It’s what we saw.
Last night, I somehow made it to JJ’s Blues Club even though I’d only intended to go over to Neto’s for the Bluesday Tuesday jam night – because it was the first anniversary of the Dan Gogh’s existence, a band that consisted of various musicians – with Dan Powers, a drummer, the guy who set up the band. You never knew which talented musicians in the local area would be there. Last night there was Gypsy Jack and Mike Sult on guitar, Kenny on bass and Dan on drums of course, and the jammers, yes the pro jammers were all there, reelin’ and rockin’!!!
Everyone said they were heading over to JJ’s after the Neto’s jam ended at 9pm, and I decided to follow. As I drove down Stevens Creek Blvd., I realized that soon I would be living right down the street from here, in what’s called the Burbank area of San Jose, off San Carlos Avenue which turns into Stevens Creek Blvd.
And when I pulled up right down the road from JJ’s Blues Club, I noticed the woman with the long flowing dress with a hoola hoop that glowed and lit up all different colors of the rainbow – she was hula hoping to the loud, rhythmic music that floated outside JJ’s Blues Club.
I remember the twirler who sat down and made chains with the small wild daisies that grew in and among the grass – and she showed me how to make a chain as well, such an intricate process of making a tiny hole in the stem right below the flower itself. She helped me make a daisy crown and then put it on my head, and I wore it all day even though the kids all laughed at me – “I’m a flower child!” I said. “That’s what she called me, and I pointed at the twirler who also had a crown of daisies on her head and was back to twirling round and round to the music.
We were so innocent then. We had no idea that there was anything bad about the smells of patchouli oil and the unmistakable smell of marijuana – we didn’t even really know what it was – just that the smell was everywhere then. The police from the park police station intermingled with the crowds and didn’t care – they just made sure that everything was peaceful and all right, and everyone lived together in harmony back then.
Or so we thought. It’s what we saw.
Last night, I somehow made it to JJ’s Blues Club even though I’d only intended to go over to Neto’s for the Bluesday Tuesday jam night – because it was the first anniversary of the Dan Gogh’s existence, a band that consisted of various musicians – with Dan Powers, a drummer, the guy who set up the band. You never knew which talented musicians in the local area would be there. Last night there was Gypsy Jack and Mike Sult on guitar, Kenny on bass and Dan on drums of course, and the jammers, yes the pro jammers were all there, reelin’ and rockin’!!!
Everyone said they were heading over to JJ’s after the Neto’s jam ended at 9pm, and I decided to follow. As I drove down Stevens Creek Blvd., I realized that soon I would be living right down the street from here, in what’s called the Burbank area of San Jose, off San Carlos Avenue which turns into Stevens Creek Blvd.
And when I pulled up right down the road from JJ’s Blues Club, I noticed the woman with the long flowing dress with a hoola hoop that glowed and lit up all different colors of the rainbow – she was hula hoping to the loud, rhythmic music that floated outside JJ’s Blues Club.
The Kitchen Sink - Nancy Cech
Years in the making. Hours pondering over door pulls. The debate of top or bottom freezer. A kitchen remodel can take its toll.
It all started when my son and I pulled up to the house and there on the sidewalk was our little apartment stove. Yep, four burners over 20 inches, nobody even has a TV that small anymore. But there it was kicked to the side of the curb. “Whets going on?” my son asks. “Looks like dad started remodeling the kitchen.” I say. Yes we had talked about it for years. Yes there was a gigantic Viking Range in my dining room that has just been waiting for this very day for over a year, draped in a tarp in the effort to pretend there wasn’t a giant stove sitting in the living room for over a year. My son started to cry, he’s only 4 and something is going on with his nest. “Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” I look over and think. Yes, why didn’t we know, but I smile and say “lets go see what daddy’s up to.”
We step inside to a house that is gutted; plastic tarps are stapled to the ceiling creating walls of plastic in an effort to keep the dust in one area of the house. The refrigerator is in the hall; there is no stove, no counter tops, and no kitchen sink. What is there is a kitchen made of foam core. That’s right. A foam core kitchen. Music is blaring and there the boys are, Herb and Bill, creating a fashion mansion kitchen out of cardboard.
The design takes weeks. Bill realizes that the floor isn’t strong enough to handle the weight of the stove so they build a platform for the kitchen. The kitchen is now on a stage, but it works, it sets it off from the rest of the room. I pick out pavers at the tile store. I love the look of old worn Mexican pavers. The clerk says “You know they won’t look like this at first. They don’t have any character out of the box, this takes years of wear. Well unless you’re a bad housekeeper, then they can get like this in months.” Don’t worry I smile. We shop for drawer pulls. How can there be so many choices. There are stores that carry nothing but drawer pulls. Singles are purchased to bring home to mount on the foam core kitchen - trying to imagine what it would be like to open the cabinet every day for the rest of your life using this object. Trips to ikea for cabinet doors, discussions over dishwashers. A fight over me not wanting to spend extra money to have a freezer on the bottom. My desire for a big farm sink despite the fact this kitchen is the size of most peoples bathrooms. This goes on for weeks, months. Bill is doing this job when he has the time. A year goes by. I cook on a camp stove, wash dishes in the bathtub, zap the microwave in the hall.
But when it’s all said and done it is amazing. Every inch well utilized. The drawer pulls just right. I should have gone with the bottom freezer though, I stoop a lot to look into the fridge. My sister comes to visit and asks my son “So what do you think of your new kitchen?” “Well, it’s a step up” he says. She glances over at me with this look on her face that says what a little snot, such a snobby thing to say. And I say “Yes it is a step up, at least 8 inches.” And I step up into the kitchen to turn the stove on for tea.
It all started when my son and I pulled up to the house and there on the sidewalk was our little apartment stove. Yep, four burners over 20 inches, nobody even has a TV that small anymore. But there it was kicked to the side of the curb. “Whets going on?” my son asks. “Looks like dad started remodeling the kitchen.” I say. Yes we had talked about it for years. Yes there was a gigantic Viking Range in my dining room that has just been waiting for this very day for over a year, draped in a tarp in the effort to pretend there wasn’t a giant stove sitting in the living room for over a year. My son started to cry, he’s only 4 and something is going on with his nest. “Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” I look over and think. Yes, why didn’t we know, but I smile and say “lets go see what daddy’s up to.”
We step inside to a house that is gutted; plastic tarps are stapled to the ceiling creating walls of plastic in an effort to keep the dust in one area of the house. The refrigerator is in the hall; there is no stove, no counter tops, and no kitchen sink. What is there is a kitchen made of foam core. That’s right. A foam core kitchen. Music is blaring and there the boys are, Herb and Bill, creating a fashion mansion kitchen out of cardboard.
The design takes weeks. Bill realizes that the floor isn’t strong enough to handle the weight of the stove so they build a platform for the kitchen. The kitchen is now on a stage, but it works, it sets it off from the rest of the room. I pick out pavers at the tile store. I love the look of old worn Mexican pavers. The clerk says “You know they won’t look like this at first. They don’t have any character out of the box, this takes years of wear. Well unless you’re a bad housekeeper, then they can get like this in months.” Don’t worry I smile. We shop for drawer pulls. How can there be so many choices. There are stores that carry nothing but drawer pulls. Singles are purchased to bring home to mount on the foam core kitchen - trying to imagine what it would be like to open the cabinet every day for the rest of your life using this object. Trips to ikea for cabinet doors, discussions over dishwashers. A fight over me not wanting to spend extra money to have a freezer on the bottom. My desire for a big farm sink despite the fact this kitchen is the size of most peoples bathrooms. This goes on for weeks, months. Bill is doing this job when he has the time. A year goes by. I cook on a camp stove, wash dishes in the bathtub, zap the microwave in the hall.
But when it’s all said and done it is amazing. Every inch well utilized. The drawer pulls just right. I should have gone with the bottom freezer though, I stoop a lot to look into the fridge. My sister comes to visit and asks my son “So what do you think of your new kitchen?” “Well, it’s a step up” he says. She glances over at me with this look on her face that says what a little snot, such a snobby thing to say. And I say “Yes it is a step up, at least 8 inches.” And I step up into the kitchen to turn the stove on for tea.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Singing - Kate Bueler
Singing. We are signing loudly against the prius exterior songs from the past. A type of singing where are almost yelling, yelling and old school classic that gets to the gut of the screaming sing and the hand motions and the sphere of friendship. We are there. Singing our hearts our heads, our throats off while at the stop at Turk and some small cross street next to USF. It is the kind of stop that the other car across the way-our monetarily neighbor-can see in through the window a tv a real life. We don’t care we keep going. Singing and the hand motions Of years past when you learned hand motions. Now are in freestyle. The feelings of the prius can’t contain the singing as if no one is looking with someone you love. We really need to karaoke she says. We do. We will suck. Who cares. True. Our stage of the prius and turk street is ours.
Singing. Later when I had the luxury of the BMW instead of the usual nannymobile of the corolla- I took her. Her on a drive. I wanted to. But instead we ended up at the UPS station to pick up her green shoes. I scroll through the ipod of my employer to find the right one. The right one that will touch that nerve of the combination of I haven’t heard this in years, I know almost all the words, time to sing and yell again. I’m scrolling until I reach- Eternal Flame. She walks back in with her box of anticipation of green shoes- will they fit. Will they fit? In all serious with a smile in the backdrop- I say this song is for you. Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling. Then we begin the belting out. The belting out of the lyrics you only know when the song is on. The windows are down and the sunroof is open and the music blasting in the system and we are singing in a bmw outside the ups station. We don’t care. We keep going. Our stage moves locations like our cars. Like our cars. There is no talking. Just singing. Burning and eternal flame. And laughing. And moving our hands as if we have forgotten we aren’t alone.
Singing. We make up songs to old school ones all the time. Me and the kids. Yesterday, Y began. Hold me now. Please pick me up and spin my around. I continue turn around. Every now then I want to. I can’t turn her down. She loves it when I pick her up and do some type of tricks we come up in the fly. I don’t care about my back. I can’t turn her down. Look how strong Kate is- she says to her parents at each of their respective houses. Don’t hurt her they say. I keep picking her up because one day I can’t or won’t be able to.
We continue coming up with lines back and forth as I pick her up and spin her around the room. Singing and spinning and making up lyrics to the old songs. She used to say Kate can we sing a song in this decade tone of a tween. But now. Now we all take turns singing the lines, made up through the tools of creatively or real, all taking a line, a line and singing to each other in our musical. In our musical. Called this is my life. I sing. Horribly. But have so much fun doing it.
Singing. Later when I had the luxury of the BMW instead of the usual nannymobile of the corolla- I took her. Her on a drive. I wanted to. But instead we ended up at the UPS station to pick up her green shoes. I scroll through the ipod of my employer to find the right one. The right one that will touch that nerve of the combination of I haven’t heard this in years, I know almost all the words, time to sing and yell again. I’m scrolling until I reach- Eternal Flame. She walks back in with her box of anticipation of green shoes- will they fit. Will they fit? In all serious with a smile in the backdrop- I say this song is for you. Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling. Then we begin the belting out. The belting out of the lyrics you only know when the song is on. The windows are down and the sunroof is open and the music blasting in the system and we are singing in a bmw outside the ups station. We don’t care. We keep going. Our stage moves locations like our cars. Like our cars. There is no talking. Just singing. Burning and eternal flame. And laughing. And moving our hands as if we have forgotten we aren’t alone.
Singing. We make up songs to old school ones all the time. Me and the kids. Yesterday, Y began. Hold me now. Please pick me up and spin my around. I continue turn around. Every now then I want to. I can’t turn her down. She loves it when I pick her up and do some type of tricks we come up in the fly. I don’t care about my back. I can’t turn her down. Look how strong Kate is- she says to her parents at each of their respective houses. Don’t hurt her they say. I keep picking her up because one day I can’t or won’t be able to.
We continue coming up with lines back and forth as I pick her up and spin her around the room. Singing and spinning and making up lyrics to the old songs. She used to say Kate can we sing a song in this decade tone of a tween. But now. Now we all take turns singing the lines, made up through the tools of creatively or real, all taking a line, a line and singing to each other in our musical. In our musical. Called this is my life. I sing. Horribly. But have so much fun doing it.
Making It Up As I Go Along - Melody Cryns
After a wild night at the Ponderosa Hotel, Emily and I collapsed in our hotel room at the Gold Hill Hotel, the oldest operating hotel in the State of Nevada. I played my ukulele, strumming a few chords, and Emily was out while I sat on the bed for a few more minutes strumming the newly learned chords on the ukulele which my guy friend Mike Halloran had given me. In the dim light of our room with the two double beds with old-fashioned bed frames and the wallpaper with the flower and deer design, I played music and thought of my life – where will we be in another month? It’s another life upheaval once again, having to move in 30 days. I wondered what it would be like to settle down and stay in one place for a long time – if it would ever happen for me or if I’d forever be like a gypsy moving about, even in the same town. What if I could stay right here at the Gold Hill Hotel outside Virginia City in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where you can see millions of stars at night and there’s no traffic on the main drag in the middle of the night, so you can dance in the streets?
No, life has to go on. We’ll find another place to live and it’ll somehow work out – and the story of our lives will continue because it always does.
I put my ukulele down, leaning it carefully against the wall close to my bed and prepared to go to sleep, but it took me a while to fall asleep. Emily snored softly in the other bed. We’d both agreed that it was weird that the ceiling fan was moving backwards on its own and it wasn’t even on – that it was kind of creepy even. I’d heard the ghost stories, and the very hotel and room we were in had its own set of stories, spirits, memories even.
As I lay in the semi-darkness with the light of the half-moon casting a slight glow in the room because I’d opened the shades and the curtains, I thought of all the memories and the ghosts of the past – feeling them all around me. It took a while for me to fall asleep.
The next morning, Emily was awake before me, getting ready to go downstairs for the continental breakfast, and then we’d head off to the Hippie Parade which we heard was more of a “blink and you miss it” parade.
I’d been so excited to read of a Hippie Parade when I visited Virginia City two months earlier with my daughter Megan and her boyfriend. I made reservations to return right away for the weekend of what I thought would be a huge parade with festivities afterwards.
But the spunky lady at the first of many saloons we’d visited the night before had shouted, “Last year, the hippies forgot to show up for their own parade! Guess they were too stoned!” A bunch of people sitting at the bar started to laugh as we ate our hot dogs and I drank my diet coke at the bar – the best place to sit.
Oh well – I’m sure somebody would remember the Hippie Days parade – we also found out that just because it was supposed to start at noon, that didn’t mean anything. Things happened in their own time in and around Virginia City. That was all right with me.
No, life has to go on. We’ll find another place to live and it’ll somehow work out – and the story of our lives will continue because it always does.
I put my ukulele down, leaning it carefully against the wall close to my bed and prepared to go to sleep, but it took me a while to fall asleep. Emily snored softly in the other bed. We’d both agreed that it was weird that the ceiling fan was moving backwards on its own and it wasn’t even on – that it was kind of creepy even. I’d heard the ghost stories, and the very hotel and room we were in had its own set of stories, spirits, memories even.
As I lay in the semi-darkness with the light of the half-moon casting a slight glow in the room because I’d opened the shades and the curtains, I thought of all the memories and the ghosts of the past – feeling them all around me. It took a while for me to fall asleep.
The next morning, Emily was awake before me, getting ready to go downstairs for the continental breakfast, and then we’d head off to the Hippie Parade which we heard was more of a “blink and you miss it” parade.
I’d been so excited to read of a Hippie Parade when I visited Virginia City two months earlier with my daughter Megan and her boyfriend. I made reservations to return right away for the weekend of what I thought would be a huge parade with festivities afterwards.
But the spunky lady at the first of many saloons we’d visited the night before had shouted, “Last year, the hippies forgot to show up for their own parade! Guess they were too stoned!” A bunch of people sitting at the bar started to laugh as we ate our hot dogs and I drank my diet coke at the bar – the best place to sit.
Oh well – I’m sure somebody would remember the Hippie Days parade – we also found out that just because it was supposed to start at noon, that didn’t mean anything. Things happened in their own time in and around Virginia City. That was all right with me.
Making It Up As I Go Along - Bud Pfohl
“He’s leaving. Aren’t you gonna say goodbye?” Glenn asked as he let his bat fall to his shoulder.
“He’s not going anywhere. Pick up your bat and hit,” I replied as the wet tennis ball dripped from my right hand.
Glenn lowered the bat from his shoulder. The wood echoed hollowly as it hit the driveway. “I think you need to say goodbye.”
“Come on and play,” I continued, “How far can he go, it’s El Cajon? Besides, he’ll be back.”
I never turned around as Glenn turned and walked to his garden hose. He threw the bat on the grass and turned on his garden hose. The water splashed into the wispy ferns as he began to slurp water from the hose.
I threw the ball and admired the wet splotch inside the taped strike zone, “Strike One,” I said as I bent to catch the tennis ball as it left wet tracks on its rebound.
I dipped the ball in the bucket and stood up to pitch again. The drops fought against the hot driveway, drying almost as quickly as they hit the pavement. “Pick up your bat or you’re gonna be down two strikes before you even swing,” I said.
“Buddy, come here for a second son,” my dad called from across the street.
I wound up and threw the ball inside the tape again, “Strike two,” I yelled over my shoulder as I ran across the street.
“Where you going,” I asked as I stopped at the bottom of our driveway.
“I’m going to Aunt Sis and Uncle Tony’s for tonight,” my dad replied as he dropped his overnight bag in the bed of his yellow truck.
“OK. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Probably not tomorrow Buddy, but I’ll call.”
“So, you’re divorcing me too,” I asked as I saw my mom looking through the kitchen window.
“He’s not going anywhere. Pick up your bat and hit,” I replied as the wet tennis ball dripped from my right hand.
Glenn lowered the bat from his shoulder. The wood echoed hollowly as it hit the driveway. “I think you need to say goodbye.”
“Come on and play,” I continued, “How far can he go, it’s El Cajon? Besides, he’ll be back.”
I never turned around as Glenn turned and walked to his garden hose. He threw the bat on the grass and turned on his garden hose. The water splashed into the wispy ferns as he began to slurp water from the hose.
I threw the ball and admired the wet splotch inside the taped strike zone, “Strike One,” I said as I bent to catch the tennis ball as it left wet tracks on its rebound.
I dipped the ball in the bucket and stood up to pitch again. The drops fought against the hot driveway, drying almost as quickly as they hit the pavement. “Pick up your bat or you’re gonna be down two strikes before you even swing,” I said.
“Buddy, come here for a second son,” my dad called from across the street.
I wound up and threw the ball inside the tape again, “Strike two,” I yelled over my shoulder as I ran across the street.
“Where you going,” I asked as I stopped at the bottom of our driveway.
“I’m going to Aunt Sis and Uncle Tony’s for tonight,” my dad replied as he dropped his overnight bag in the bed of his yellow truck.
“OK. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Probably not tomorrow Buddy, but I’ll call.”
“So, you’re divorcing me too,” I asked as I saw my mom looking through the kitchen window.
Heat - Karen Cassey
I hear music coming from my bedroom. Music I’ve heard nearly 40 times in a day in the past month. It’s my phone and the ring tone “You & Me “By “Lifehouse”. This is one of my favorite songs to listen to, when I’m really missing my boyfriend, Richard. It’s the first song he shared with me on his way to a medical appointment and somewhere along the drive; it became “our” song.
Richard lives in Lake Arthur, Louisiana and I live in Blythewood, South Carolina, quite the distance and test to see how this relationship will grow. He phones me every chance he gets (over 40 times) during the day and night. I so look forward to hearing “You & Me” ring out from the distance. I feel like a little teenage girl who has a crush on a boy and I can feel the heat from my heart beating my blood through my body, start at my toes and working its way up to my blushing face and stopping in my head.
Richard lives in Lake Arthur, Louisiana and I live in Blythewood, South Carolina, quite the distance and test to see how this relationship will grow. He phones me every chance he gets (over 40 times) during the day and night. I so look forward to hearing “You & Me” ring out from the distance. I feel like a little teenage girl who has a crush on a boy and I can feel the heat from my heart beating my blood through my body, start at my toes and working its way up to my blushing face and stopping in my head.
Heat - Maria Robinson
For the first time in over thirty years, Martha decided to stay in Manhattan for the summer. Her mother had left for Florida and Sean, her ex, now based in London, had taken the boys to Patagonia for a bonding trip. The heat of the summer induced madness in many including making interminable weekend drives to the Atlantic shore just for 24 hours. For Martha, it meant the freedom to explore Brooklyn alone and begin her search for an apartment, having cocktails night after night in different bars to check out vibe of the neighborhoods. She gravited towards a "micro-hood" near her friend's clothing store. There was a cheese store with surprising finds from spai, a wine bar with fair trade wine from South Africa and a tapas bar with swirling tiles a la Barcelona. It felt more Berkley than Brooklyn, But maybe they were really one in the same. She wanted to feel as she felt in London, part of something that was unique and real time, someplace she could really say that she was from at the next art gallery opening.
Frozen, Blizzard of ’78, Massachusetts - Elizabeth Weld Nolan
Inside ski gloves and a woollen liner, my hands clamped around the shovel with decreasing feeling. Lean, scoop, lift, toss. I was clearing the driveway in case the roads got cleared in case we wanted to drive somewhere which we couldn’t. It seemed like the thing to do.
The neighborhood had turned into a sculpture of every size of mound, the snow, light and fluffy in the cold, turned the railings alongside the steps up to the the Donnellys’ house into thick, long lumps. Our car was a round, curved heap that looked like a kiva or a beehive. The street was framed by a low, clumsy fence where the snowplow had made a pass early in the storm, left a riffle of snow where more piled on, and more, and more.
I wasn’t making much progress. I had nowhere to dump the snow once I got it on the shovel, except in the street where I would have to drive over it. Ordinary life was stopped. No school, no traffic, no work. I stood up, stuck the shovel into the heap I’d made and gave in to the day.
The sun was out, the landscape glowing brilliant white, the air brisk and bracing and exhilarating. It hurt to bring the air through my nostrils. I retied my fluffy, blue scarf around my neck, ran up the front steps and opened the door to the house. It took half an hour of unlacing boots, stamping snow off my snow pants, rousting out the girls, hunting down the cross-country skis, relacing us all into our gear. But finally, breakfast finished, dishes thrown into the sink, we set out on our skis down the magic, silent street, lined with trees plumed and enveloped in white, past Betty’s, then the new neighbors across the street, our skis making a soft whoosh in the powdery snow that had not one drop of melting anywhere, not one little rivulet or rush of water emerging from the great, smooth surface of the blizzard’s layered snow, because, although we were warm inside our clothes from the exercise, our breaths floating past our cheeks, the town of Beverly, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the whole world, was frozen.
The neighborhood had turned into a sculpture of every size of mound, the snow, light and fluffy in the cold, turned the railings alongside the steps up to the the Donnellys’ house into thick, long lumps. Our car was a round, curved heap that looked like a kiva or a beehive. The street was framed by a low, clumsy fence where the snowplow had made a pass early in the storm, left a riffle of snow where more piled on, and more, and more.
I wasn’t making much progress. I had nowhere to dump the snow once I got it on the shovel, except in the street where I would have to drive over it. Ordinary life was stopped. No school, no traffic, no work. I stood up, stuck the shovel into the heap I’d made and gave in to the day.
The sun was out, the landscape glowing brilliant white, the air brisk and bracing and exhilarating. It hurt to bring the air through my nostrils. I retied my fluffy, blue scarf around my neck, ran up the front steps and opened the door to the house. It took half an hour of unlacing boots, stamping snow off my snow pants, rousting out the girls, hunting down the cross-country skis, relacing us all into our gear. But finally, breakfast finished, dishes thrown into the sink, we set out on our skis down the magic, silent street, lined with trees plumed and enveloped in white, past Betty’s, then the new neighbors across the street, our skis making a soft whoosh in the powdery snow that had not one drop of melting anywhere, not one little rivulet or rush of water emerging from the great, smooth surface of the blizzard’s layered snow, because, although we were warm inside our clothes from the exercise, our breaths floating past our cheeks, the town of Beverly, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the whole world, was frozen.
Frozen - Judy Albietz
Shoving through the hot sweaty bodies in the hall to get to her 10:00 class, Lily felt she had been there before. But she couldn’t have, since she had just started high school today and she had never before been in this hall with all these kids, changing classes. She needed to stop at her locker in the next corridor to get her Spanish book. All this felt way too familiar. No. The only time she had ever in her whole life gone to her locker was this morning, when she got her locker assignment and threw some books in. This crowd wasn’t there this morning.
Then images began forming in her mind. She saw herself almost bumping into a short pudgy girl dressed in yellow—a girl, running, falling and then dropping a couple of books—Lily helping the girl before going to her locker.
A minute went by. Lily froze when she rounded the corner and saw the running girl, wearing a yellow scarf. The girl had tripped and dropped her math and history books. Lily leaned down and picked up the books for her. The girl, who was a good 4 inches shorter than Lily, smiled up at her. “I’m new,“ she said in a cheerful tone. “I don’t know anyone here. I just moved from Detroit. Thanks for helping me. See ya later.” Then she ran off.
Lily felt a wave of nausea like she was getting seasick. Now at her locker, she opened it slowly. She was glad to see her Spanish book was right where she left it.
Then images began forming in her mind. She saw herself almost bumping into a short pudgy girl dressed in yellow—a girl, running, falling and then dropping a couple of books—Lily helping the girl before going to her locker.
A minute went by. Lily froze when she rounded the corner and saw the running girl, wearing a yellow scarf. The girl had tripped and dropped her math and history books. Lily leaned down and picked up the books for her. The girl, who was a good 4 inches shorter than Lily, smiled up at her. “I’m new,“ she said in a cheerful tone. “I don’t know anyone here. I just moved from Detroit. Thanks for helping me. See ya later.” Then she ran off.
Lily felt a wave of nausea like she was getting seasick. Now at her locker, she opened it slowly. She was glad to see her Spanish book was right where she left it.
Frozen - E. D. James
It floated through the tunnels like the first wisp of fog that slides under the Golden Gate signaling the end of a heat wave. And like that finger of fog sliding along the top of the water, the song seemed undaunted by any obstacles it encountered, bending and twisting through the tunnels. Delicate, but insistent, as if testing to see if the time was right for it to return, or perhaps sounding a warning, a harbinger of changes ahead.
Alan stood with his head out the window of the train watching the passengers load at Embarcadero station. It was always at this station in that moment that the train was loaded and the platform empty but the doors were still open that he heard the song. Usually in the middle of the evening when the trains were spaced pretty widely in response to the lull in the crowds between the commute hours and the end of the night rush. It sounded like the aria from Delibes’ Lakme, the haunted twisting voices of two woman who were at once both the saddest and most hopeful creatures Alan had ever heard. He looked quickly up the tunnel as he always did when he heard it and saw nothing. Then he punched the button and the doors of the trains squeaked shut and the electric motors whirred back to life and he closed the window and headed for the next station.
“You ever hear singing at the Embarcadero station?”
Johnny raised his eyebrows and slid the ice around in his glass of gin for a second, “Those panhandlers up in the hallways?”
“No, I mean down on the platform when you’re stopped at the station.”
“Like kids waiting for a train?”
“More like floating up the tube from under the bay.”
“Man, you better lay off the boilermakers for a while.”
The yard was lit up by the impossibly tall lights that beamed down like something from an alien spaceship in an abduction movie. Alan took the train off the computer and eased it into the cleaning line. He was the last one in tonight. The run from SFO had been slowed by the big Eastbay crowd loading out of downtown from all the gay pride events going on. It was always a bit tense on these evenings when the clubbers mingled with the revelers and tonight had been no exception. Security had their hands full and held Alan up at 24th Street for about twenty minutes dealing with some pushing and shoving in one of the cars.
Alan slowed and stopped before the packed platform. He’d have to use the ladder. He tidied up the cab, folding up the Guardian he grabbed to pass time during the hold at 24th Street cruising the sex ads, shook the dregs of his cup of coffee out the window and screwed it back on the top of the silver Thermos, and then tucked it all into the Google bag he’d found empty and without I.D. at the end of a run a couple of weeks ago, slung it over his shoulders, and pushed through the door to make his final inspection.
He punched through the doors between the cars one by one till he came to nine. Then he peered through the windows thinking that he’d be able to skip actually going in until he saw a pair legs sticking out from the rear-facing seat just in front of him on the right.
He turned away from the door, “Shit!” A drunk. The bane of the mid-night run. He’d have to call security and get them and the paramedics up to haul the guy out and fill out all the paper work. Fuck. The U.S. game against Algeria was on at 3 a.m. and he’d have to hustle to make it now.
Alan took a deep breath and pushed through the doors ready to breath through his mouth if it was one of the stinkers.
A woman. White. Twenties. Covered by a coat. A bit of dried blood lay just beneath her right nostril. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing so he reached down and gently shook her on the shoulder.
She stirred and tried to sit up, pushing his hand away, “No, no more.”
The coat fell away and Alan could see that her dress was torn at the hem, her right knee bloody. He reached for his radio and began to pull it from his belt but her hand shot up and stopped him.
“Please.”
“Listen, you look like you’re hurt. I need to get you some help.”
“They’ll send me back, I can’t go.”
Her accent was eastern European to Alan’s ear, “Listen lady, you’re hurt, you need to see a doctor.”
“They raped me.”
“I’m sorry, that’s why you need to see a doctor.”
“They have to report a rape. The police.”
“Well, I need to get you off this train. We’re at the yard,” Alan gestured out the window at the bright lights.
“Help me.”
The song from the tube floated through Alan’s ears, that sad haunting melody. If he could put a face to that melody it would have been the one on the bench in front of him. He put his radio back into it’s holster. Took a deep breath. Walked over to the window at the next isle and looked out.
“Can you walk?”
He opened the door of the car and put down the ladder. Standing at the bottom he watched as she turned unsteadily, holding the handrail, turned and stuck her right leg out to catch the first step. As she stuck her left leg out he could see she didn’t have any underwear on and his gaze was drawn for a moment in spite of himself, then he tried to look away as he reached his hands up and felt the smooth skin of her calves. He steadied her as she descended, grabbing under her arms when she reached the last step before the long drop to the ground. His thumb gripped the solid muscle over her shoulder blades while the tips of his fingers sunk into the soft flesh at the sides of her breasts. She turned and leaned into him for a moment and he wrapped his arms around her and felt her heart beating hard and felt the warmth of her against his chest and heard that song again.
Alan stood with his head out the window of the train watching the passengers load at Embarcadero station. It was always at this station in that moment that the train was loaded and the platform empty but the doors were still open that he heard the song. Usually in the middle of the evening when the trains were spaced pretty widely in response to the lull in the crowds between the commute hours and the end of the night rush. It sounded like the aria from Delibes’ Lakme, the haunted twisting voices of two woman who were at once both the saddest and most hopeful creatures Alan had ever heard. He looked quickly up the tunnel as he always did when he heard it and saw nothing. Then he punched the button and the doors of the trains squeaked shut and the electric motors whirred back to life and he closed the window and headed for the next station.
“You ever hear singing at the Embarcadero station?”
Johnny raised his eyebrows and slid the ice around in his glass of gin for a second, “Those panhandlers up in the hallways?”
“No, I mean down on the platform when you’re stopped at the station.”
“Like kids waiting for a train?”
“More like floating up the tube from under the bay.”
“Man, you better lay off the boilermakers for a while.”
The yard was lit up by the impossibly tall lights that beamed down like something from an alien spaceship in an abduction movie. Alan took the train off the computer and eased it into the cleaning line. He was the last one in tonight. The run from SFO had been slowed by the big Eastbay crowd loading out of downtown from all the gay pride events going on. It was always a bit tense on these evenings when the clubbers mingled with the revelers and tonight had been no exception. Security had their hands full and held Alan up at 24th Street for about twenty minutes dealing with some pushing and shoving in one of the cars.
Alan slowed and stopped before the packed platform. He’d have to use the ladder. He tidied up the cab, folding up the Guardian he grabbed to pass time during the hold at 24th Street cruising the sex ads, shook the dregs of his cup of coffee out the window and screwed it back on the top of the silver Thermos, and then tucked it all into the Google bag he’d found empty and without I.D. at the end of a run a couple of weeks ago, slung it over his shoulders, and pushed through the door to make his final inspection.
He punched through the doors between the cars one by one till he came to nine. Then he peered through the windows thinking that he’d be able to skip actually going in until he saw a pair legs sticking out from the rear-facing seat just in front of him on the right.
He turned away from the door, “Shit!” A drunk. The bane of the mid-night run. He’d have to call security and get them and the paramedics up to haul the guy out and fill out all the paper work. Fuck. The U.S. game against Algeria was on at 3 a.m. and he’d have to hustle to make it now.
Alan took a deep breath and pushed through the doors ready to breath through his mouth if it was one of the stinkers.
A woman. White. Twenties. Covered by a coat. A bit of dried blood lay just beneath her right nostril. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing so he reached down and gently shook her on the shoulder.
She stirred and tried to sit up, pushing his hand away, “No, no more.”
The coat fell away and Alan could see that her dress was torn at the hem, her right knee bloody. He reached for his radio and began to pull it from his belt but her hand shot up and stopped him.
“Please.”
“Listen, you look like you’re hurt. I need to get you some help.”
“They’ll send me back, I can’t go.”
Her accent was eastern European to Alan’s ear, “Listen lady, you’re hurt, you need to see a doctor.”
“They raped me.”
“I’m sorry, that’s why you need to see a doctor.”
“They have to report a rape. The police.”
“Well, I need to get you off this train. We’re at the yard,” Alan gestured out the window at the bright lights.
“Help me.”
The song from the tube floated through Alan’s ears, that sad haunting melody. If he could put a face to that melody it would have been the one on the bench in front of him. He put his radio back into it’s holster. Took a deep breath. Walked over to the window at the next isle and looked out.
“Can you walk?”
He opened the door of the car and put down the ladder. Standing at the bottom he watched as she turned unsteadily, holding the handrail, turned and stuck her right leg out to catch the first step. As she stuck her left leg out he could see she didn’t have any underwear on and his gaze was drawn for a moment in spite of himself, then he tried to look away as he reached his hands up and felt the smooth skin of her calves. He steadied her as she descended, grabbing under her arms when she reached the last step before the long drop to the ground. His thumb gripped the solid muscle over her shoulder blades while the tips of his fingers sunk into the soft flesh at the sides of her breasts. She turned and leaned into him for a moment and he wrapped his arms around her and felt her heart beating hard and felt the warmth of her against his chest and heard that song again.
Taking Care of It - Camilla Basham
At the age of six I had my first taste of alcohol: a room temperature Budweiser as I stand forgotten beside my brother and mother staring at an LSU game playing out on the Zenith.
At thirteen I had my first taste of cardboard and grapes in the guise of boxed wine as we honored my deceased grandmother with a wake in our living room.
At sixteen I had my first mixed drink: Bacardi and coke, in a drive through bar off of a gravel road with a guy named Vince.
At eighteen I had a joint passed to me in a college dorm room. I puffed it. Hated it. My tongue turned to cotton. Never again, I thought.
At nineteen, after a Black Flag concert, someone gave me a sticker with a strange design on it and dared me to put it under my tongue. I laughed and did so, thinking they were mad. For the next three days aliens chased me, traffic lights melted down the windshield of my car, every Pink Floyd song seemed to hold the answer to the universe. Unfortunately, these revelations came with days, no, weeks, of recovery and plenty of missed college lectures.
At twenty-one someone at a party took a razor and began chopping madly at powder on a mirrored coffee table the way a chef would attack an onion on a chopping board. House music blared in the background. Whatever you do, don’t sneeze, someone said. I pressed my index finger to one nostril and inhaled through a rolled up twenty with the other as instructed. It burned like hell for a split second, until someone dipped their fingers into their champagne glass and held them to my nose to inhale. The champagne drops washed down the nostril clinging residue, cooling my nose, my throat my lungs. It was as if someone flipped a switch in me. I could fly. I was sure of it. I could write the worlds greatest novel in a day if my hands would stop shaking, no doubt about it, I was on top of the world. I was in fucking heaven, well for twenty minutes away. MORE, I begged, and more I’d get. Each time I’d fly but not quite as high as the time before. And so it went. I tried and tried, God knows I tried to fly as high as I did the first time, but I never again got close to the sun.
At twenty-five a doctor gave me Prozac to forget about the sun.
At thirteen I had my first taste of cardboard and grapes in the guise of boxed wine as we honored my deceased grandmother with a wake in our living room.
At sixteen I had my first mixed drink: Bacardi and coke, in a drive through bar off of a gravel road with a guy named Vince.
At eighteen I had a joint passed to me in a college dorm room. I puffed it. Hated it. My tongue turned to cotton. Never again, I thought.
At nineteen, after a Black Flag concert, someone gave me a sticker with a strange design on it and dared me to put it under my tongue. I laughed and did so, thinking they were mad. For the next three days aliens chased me, traffic lights melted down the windshield of my car, every Pink Floyd song seemed to hold the answer to the universe. Unfortunately, these revelations came with days, no, weeks, of recovery and plenty of missed college lectures.
At twenty-one someone at a party took a razor and began chopping madly at powder on a mirrored coffee table the way a chef would attack an onion on a chopping board. House music blared in the background. Whatever you do, don’t sneeze, someone said. I pressed my index finger to one nostril and inhaled through a rolled up twenty with the other as instructed. It burned like hell for a split second, until someone dipped their fingers into their champagne glass and held them to my nose to inhale. The champagne drops washed down the nostril clinging residue, cooling my nose, my throat my lungs. It was as if someone flipped a switch in me. I could fly. I was sure of it. I could write the worlds greatest novel in a day if my hands would stop shaking, no doubt about it, I was on top of the world. I was in fucking heaven, well for twenty minutes away. MORE, I begged, and more I’d get. Each time I’d fly but not quite as high as the time before. And so it went. I tried and tried, God knows I tried to fly as high as I did the first time, but I never again got close to the sun.
At twenty-five a doctor gave me Prozac to forget about the sun.
Taking Care of It - Anne Wright
“I’ll take care of it,” he said. Nobody else was around so he was talking to himself. He liked the confident sound of his voice. It had a loveable rough growl when he ended his sentences and he felt a little sad that no one was there to hear it. If only, he thought, then stopped himself. It was one of those dreams that would never happen, no matter what he wished. He had already been more fortunate in his life than any of his friends. He had had a wonderful wife and family, and a fulfilling career. The children were grown up now, but his wife had died in a terrible accident and he missed her every day. If only he could go back and change one day, one little thing, maybe she would be alive. Maybe he would have met another woman who wasn’t so wonderful. It could have been that his son had turned out to be bad, and his daughter stupid. He might have not graduated from college and had to join the army and kill snipers that were hiding around the corner, and he might have gotten gassed with Agent Orange and end up in a veteran’s hospital for a few years. And the nurse, who he thought was so beautiful, and fell in love with and married, cheated on him with the man next door. The nurse was a blonde but she let her black roots show, until they were an inch long, before she bleached them. Plus she had long toenails that scratched him in the middle of the night, and when he woke from his nightmares of the enemy getting ready to stab him with a bayonet, he thought her nails were dipped in poisonous juice from a tree only found in the jungles.
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