SPE: "Better Than Us"

[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, kgwaite gave me this prompt: "Pick a four-syllable word you don't know out of the dictionary. Write a word around that prompt."
I gave Ankita this prompt: "My father's theory is: Listen, if someday you're going to tell someone to dig a ditch, you should know how to do it yourself." -Donald Trump Jr.]

(This prompt puzzled me a bit. It's almost metaphysical. I probably have a dictionary somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure where. More puzzling is the idea of it. There aren't a whole lot of words, in my experience, that I don't know, or haven't heard and have a general idea of the meaning of. Further, once I find the word and read the definition, I know it, thus negating the intent of the prompt. So I settled on "sequestration", mostly because it fit.)



Staff Sargeant Kelly poked her head through the door. That was unusual- we could go through a typical day without exchanging more than a dozen words, which suited us both just fine. Her hair was pulled back tight, and I could see the hint of makeup around her eyes.

"Colonel?," she asked. I wasn't doing anything of deep importance, but I was busy enough to be slightly annoyed by the interruption.

"Yes?"

"A Ms. Doreen Clarke is here to see you, sir."

"She doesn't have an appointment," I said uselessly. She knew that as well as I did.

"No, sir. Who is she, sir?"

I sighed. I knew Doreen would wait all day if she had to.

"I served with her late husband." I took a deep breath. "Show her in, would you?"

"Yes, sir," she said, her head ducking away. The door opened to reveal Doreen, the picture of middle aged health in a tan pencil skirt, flat black shoes, and a muted green blouse, all clean and pressed and neat looking. One thing military wives learn to do, I thought, is look put together.

"Doreen," I said warily. "How are you?"

She walked in and sat in my office chair without being invited. "Allen," she said evenly, "we need to talk."

I swallowed. "OK."

"Where is it?," she said. "I haven't gotten anything since August."

"I know," I said. I started to walk across my office. I had a Redskins calendar hanging on my olive drab file cabinet, with Sunday's Eagles game circled. I had two tickets down low that I had won in an office pool. "I had been meaning to call and explain."

"Explain?" Doreen said. "Explain what? What's to explain?"

"Sequestration." I stared out the window onto a parking lot, watching a bird come down and begin to wrestle with a discarded potato chip.

"What? You mean the budget crap that's on the news? That?" She uncrossed her legs and then recrossed them. She was leaning back now, her face skeptical and questioning.

"Yes," I said. "They're all over me, questioning every cent. I can't squeeze out overages like I used to. The cuts are coming, and we don't know how deep yet, so we are all down to skeletons. Bare bones on everything. I can't play fast and loose with numbers right now."

"Which means what?" Doreen said acidly. "Bottom line it. Am I just SOL? Or what?"

I smiled at the acronym. "Of course not," I said. I reached down for my briefcase, pulling it up onto my desk. "I told you I owe Robert my life," I said. "And I take care of people who take care of me."

"You did," Doreen said. "And I believed you."

"It's true, Dor," I said plaintively. "It is true."

"Don't call me that," she spat. I took out my checkbook and my Mont Blanc, one of the extravagances I allowed myself.

"A check, Allen?," she said in disbelief.

"I don't carry that kind of cash around, Dor," I said.

"Fine," she said.

I wrote the amount and signed it, noting it carefully in the register.

"What are you writing in there?," she said. "Bastard child?"

I swallowed again. "I use acronyms all the time. Marie is used to it by now. Besides, she never looks at the checkbook."

"Am I going to have to chase you every month now?"

"No, Dor," I said. "Doreen," I quickly added. "No. I'll make sure it is there on time next month."

"It better be," she added. "I don't want to have to go through channels."

"We discussed this, Doreen," I said, putting a little iron in my voice. "It's better she thinks Robert is her father. She ends up worse off if we do it that way. We all do."

"You do, certainly," she said, and then smiled grimly. "I know, Allen. You're right. I just hate lying to her."

"I do too." I tore out the check and came around the desk to give it to her. She stood up quickly, snatching it from my hand without ceremony. She folded it once and slid it into her purse.

"Just mail it next time," she said.

"OK," I said. She started to walk across the room. She still had the strutting, hip swinging walk of the young woman she was, all those years ago at 29 Palms. She stopped and looked back at me, her voice as cold as the onrushing autumn breeze.

"Aren't you even going to ask how she is?"

"How is she?"

"Elizabeth is fine," she said evenly. "She's going to be a better person than either one of us turned out to be," she said, opening the door and then letting it slam shut behind her.

TWC: "Chicken Little"

Those aficionados of Tex Winter's triangle offense at the Trifecta Writing Challenge made their weekend challenge another 33 worder, this time about the word "hyperbole". This is obviously inspired by very recent events in Russia, but partial credit goes to my brother in law @couchoud, who reminded me of Chicken Little this morning on Twitter. Appropriately, this is called "Chicken Little".







"Is it still hyperbole," she thought as her tea sloshed onto her bare thigh and the light streaked across the gentle blue sky and her walls rattled, "if the sky really is falling?"

SPE: "Inadequacy Theater"

[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Ankita gave me this prompt: "Friendships that went sour."
I gave Venus Moon this prompt: "Do not escape. Light up the road by being more intensely upon it." -Galway Kinnell ]




It's like a metaphor for my life, Dara thought. I never know where to stand.

Dara was meeting her older sister for lunch, the way they did every month, first Thursday, 12 noon, same Panera Bread that was equally inconvenient for both of them. Dara had placed her order carefully, balancing what she really wanted with what her sister would find acceptable, finally settling on a soup and salad that would leave her hallucinating about brownies by 3 o'clock. She had walked down the small corridor to the scrum by the pickup window, and she was standing, waiting for her name to be called.

It was an awkward little knot of people, a few young mothers holding tiny toddler hands, two college girls slouching against the wall in leggings and boots, a pair of overdressed salesmen, and Dara, shifting her weight from side to side, feeling her hips twinge as she leaned, waiting her turn. She watched the college girls pecking at their phones, one showing the other something on the phone's screen which provoked a stream of giggles.

Dara tried standing near the salesmen, the most adult seeming of the group, but the feeling of their eyes on her body caused her to turn away. She looked at one of the mothers, a mousy, nervous looking brunette. She tried a small smile at her toddler, who immediately ducked behind her mother's thighs. She didn't hate children, but children didn't seem to trust her one bit. She had no instincts around them, no sense of what they wanted. She didn't intend to broadcast anger, but her face seemed to do it anyway, and children could see it. She found a patch of wall and stood as still as her heels would let her, willing herself small and unnoticed, staring at the clock on the wall above the cooks' heads.

Dara could hear her sister's voice, chattering away behind her, probably already ensconced in a booth, laptop open, planning playdates or trips or fundraisers or some other child related task. No matter how early Dara left her office, Big Sister was already here, nibbling at a sandwich, making calls, silently judging. Sara was 18 months older, almost to the day, and she did everything first. The shining example of modern achievement, Dara's sister was smarter and taller and better looking and such an exemplar that Dara just started answering to "Sara" in school when the biology teacher couldn't get it right. She sometimes mused on the unfairness of that- their parents really couldn't make her a Beth or a Kate or a Maureen? Instead they took golden Sara's name and just changed one letter, hoping the magic would rub off? While Sara led the perfect life, Dara just bumped along, stubbing her toe as she went.

One of the college girls got her lunch, causing the other girl to fall silent without her partner in crime. The other girl had dark eyes, constantly flashing between her phone screen and the vaguely Hispanic looking cook that was putting up the orders. Dara watched her, rocking gently from side to side, quietly envying her freedom, having the world in front of you, having a multitude of paths and options and possibilities. One of the suited men on her other side moved forward when his name was called. She could smell a bit of his cologne as he moved past her. Dara remembered the yearning of being young, the neediness and the fear that you wouldn't find anyone, followed by the fear that you would. One of the mothers, a pretty Asian girl holding a dark haired baby with enormous eyes, stepped forward to get her meal.

Dara knew she was the constant discussion point among her mother, her aunts, and her sister. They tossed around the theories, that she was working too much, that she didn't socialize enough. They half wondered if she was gay, before assuring themselves that it wouldn't matter if she was. Dara didn't know why she was single as she approached 35, why every cousin and a couple of her older nieces were marrying and reproducing like mad. Dara saw her own branch of the family tree as one of those stubborn stumps, the kind that it takes a backhoe to dig out. While the flowers surround her, there is stupid old Dara, immobile and resolute.

She was straight, that much she was clear on. Like many women her age, she had some same sex adventures in college, but she knew her own head well enough to understand what she was. Dating and relationships were just trivia, things she couldn't be bothered to concern herself with. She was human, she had needs like anyone else, but when she thought of the enormity of the task involved in actually finding a mate, her brain just locked up. It was simpler not to- her simple, quiet life felt like home to her, and she couldn't imagine sharing a bed and a kitchen and vacations with someone else. .

Nobody believed her. There had to be something wrong. When you refuse to follow the herd, you question their choices. Or it implies that you do. Why don't you want what everybody else wants? Dara really didn't care what anybody else wanted. She just wanted to read her books, listen to her music, and watch her movies, by herself. She wanted to live life on her own terms. She knew they didn't approve, but they thought she was missing out, so it was long lunches filled with probing questions that all centered on the big one: why aren't you just like me? And what does that say about my choices, if you don't make the same ones?

The Hispanic looking man said her name and cocked his chin at her. Dara stepped forward, feeling the other salesman's eyes on her hips as she moved. She took the meal she didn't really want, along with her sugarless iced tea, safe purchases to prevent her sister's criticisms of her body, and made her way to her sister's table, ready for another episode of Inadequacy Theater.

SPE: "Slice"

{For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Kurt gave me this prompt: "When you cut into the present, the future leaks out." -William S. Burroughs. I gave Chelle this prompt: "If you have to decide, then the answer is don't do it. If you have a choice, then the answer is no." -Bruce Springsteen}

[Trigger warning: I have seen other blogs do this, and I think it's a non terrible idea. This story involves some pretty intense stuff. So if you're of a delicate constitution, you may want to look away.]










One of my earliest memories was of riding the subway with my mother. I think we were going to a museum. I remember how noisy the trains were, the squealing brakes, the mild electrical smell, the way the lights would flash off and on again as the train went around a curve, the enormous additional roar of a train passing going in the other direction, the constant rattling and groaning of the metal as it was pushed along. I remember all the people- men in suits, women in skirts and jackets with sneakers, students slouching in dirty jeans, all the adults looming around me, towering and enormous, as I held my mother's hand. I remember watching her engaging in a halting conversation with an huge woman in a patterned dress with a scarf on her head. They were talking, but I couldn't understand them. I remember thinking, with all the train noise and these nonsense words passing between them, that I might be dreaming, or maybe something was wrong with my ears.

I was crying by the time we emerged into the sun, my mother stopping and sitting me down and asking me what was wrong. I told her that I didn't understand what she was saying to the woman on the train, and I remember her explaining that she was speaking French, and that French was just another way for people to talk. I remember her telling me that little girls in France had kittens just like I did, only they called them a different word. It was such a shock to me, that the world that I knew was so malleable. I must have seen those Sesame Street sequences with Spanish in them, but for some reason this was the encounter that brought the idea home to me that my view of the world was not necessarily the only one. I spent the rest of the day, I was told later, torturing my mother with translation questions, learning about le chat and la voiture and la bibliotheque.

I think the horror of that idea, my experience being subjective and not objective, never really left me. I understood the idea soon enough, that a truth uttered in innocence can turn to ashes upon hearing, that my thought never made its way into another's head without being mangled beyond recognition. I knew especially that boys, those mysterious, rough, dirty creatures that so stirred my blood, would not respond to my urgent pleas, their thinking not aligning with mine no matter how urgently I wished it. . At least, the right ones wouldn't. And later, after my body betrayed me, I had the opposite issue, lecherous peers and pathetic, lusty old men receiving messages I was not sending. I understood this, but I never really accepted it.

As a miserable, mopey young adult, bumping along, failing at school and in life, my parents tried the usual attacks on the problem, calling specialists, asking friends, engaging in long, drawn out talks as I wailed and moaned, essentially asking, in so many words, "What IS it? What do you need? What do you want? What can we do to help you out of this misery and into a life that suits our need to brag at cocktail parties?" Drinking didn't help. The drugs didn't help, they just made everything foggy and distant, and the talk therapy was so many words, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I kept thinking of Eliza Dolittle- "Words words words/I'm so sick of words!"

I could never communicate it, because the dread, the marrow deep fear that tomorrow is going to come, and that it is going to be just as meaningless and as gray and as flat as today, was somehow beyond my capacity to explain. It was too large for my mind to contain it, never mind try to convey it. I could say it is "like" this, or it is "as if" that, but in the old phrase sometimes attributed to John Lennon, talking about it is like dancing about architecture. If you have felt it, you know. If you haven't, I couldn't possibly show you.

So my latest therapist, Dr. Fox, asked me to make a collage, to explain how I was feeling in pictorial form instead of trying to use words. It felt stupid and childish, but to humor her, a pleasant little woman with graying hair who wore long Western skirts, I went up to my room with scissors and an Exacto knife, a glue stick, and a pile of magazines from the recycling pile. I started cutting out pictures, whatever caught my eye, ridiculous high heels on starlets, desserts dripping with fat and sugar, mansions behind white pillars, airplane seats reclined on transatlantic flights.

I was trying to excise an image of a comically large artificial breast from a picture, some glossy mess from Vogue or some such, when the craft knife's yellow plastic handle slipped on the slick page and, to my shock, I buried it in the base of the thumb on my other hand. I guess I have the average tolerance for pain- not having any basis for comparison, I wouldn't know. I certainly didn't relish discomfort, but at first, it was really the surprise of the blade entering my skin more than the pain of its entry. I watched, horrified, as blood rose swiftly to the surface on either side of the hard angled metal, quickly beginning to drip onto the open magazine page below. An ad for maxi pads, I noted with amusement.

I got the idea all at once, like one of those movies where the frame dissolves and you can see what the character was thinking. I remembered seeing a painting, David's "The Death of Marat," the main character murdered, dead in the bathtub, stabbed by a conspirator, and suddenly I could picture myself, naked, my skin loose and flabby, the water tinged pink as my blood leaks away into it, my arms hacked open with my own fury. Like any depressive, I had considered self slaughter, but had never summoned the will. As sudden as a flash going off, I could see it as if it had already happened.

There was a comedian I saw once, really late at night on HBO, who said that suicide, in an adult, was like someone walking out of a movie halfway through. It was possible that the movie would suddenly get better, but if you have hated the first 45 minutes, what are the odds that the second 45 are going to be a lot better? I had given life a quarter century, and it had disappointed me at every single turn. I couldn't go on, and as my thumb started to throb, I looked at the silver blade, vibrating as my hand trembled, and I smiled.

SS: "Cold Turkey"

[Eric Storch, who is really a friend of all humankind, is holding Master Class again this week, featuring an opening sentence from Kelle Groom's "I Wore The Ocean In The Shape Of A Girl", "Morphine makes me weightless, airborne". This story is called "Cold Turkey"]





I was thinking about John Lennon's "Cold Turkey". Supposedly he had been through withdrawal before, and that was what made him write the song. Nothing is like withdrawal, exactly- it's like women who say that nothing can be compared to childbirth. I suppose nothing could. But withdrawal wasn't just pain, it was a terrible restlessness, pain along with itching and nausea and diarrhea and a general sense of your body not belonging to you. You started to understand why people would kill, or abandon children, or walk away from careers, in order to avoid the feeling. It is as close as I ever felt to wanting to die.

I stared at the inside of the closet, the mops and cleaning solutions all around me, the precious box clutched to my chest. I fumbled with the flap, and then screwed the needle on top. I flipped up my scrub, feeling around for a bare patch of skin. I sucked in a breath when the needle pierced my skin, pushing the plunger down, feeling the sting and picking up the gauze I had dropped on the cement floor.

I felt relief, even though I knew that the drug hadn't taken effect yet. My breathing slowed, and I felt the tension release in my shoulders. I knew I was going to get caught, and I knew I was going to be fired again, but for that moment, for those few minutes as it eased its way into my blood, unknotting my guts, slowing the sweat on my brow, relieving the rush of my thoughts, I was an addict, I knew that, but as much shame as that engendered, the relief of knowing that the awful suffering was almost over, made me feel like I was flying.

SPE: "Eyes Of A Stranger"

[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Jester Queen gave me this prompt: "When it grew cold, I shut the door. But I left the window open, hoping possibilities might pour in with the night air." I gave SAM this prompt: "People say they love a lot of things, but they really don't. It's just a word that's been overused." -Bob Dylan]






She piles her hair up every morning, an enormous cantilevered bun secured by pins and stays and clips, only releasing it when she was home with me and ready for bed. It seemed like an enormous amount of effort, but I certainly enjoyed the effect it had. It was like she saved a version of herself, a Jen only I got to see, a long haired, raven goddess with locks unkempt and matted with sweat and smoke and hairspray and whatever other smells she had encountered. If I sat on the bed while she brushed it out, it was like a summary of her day- the grease of the subway, the hickory of the steak place where they went to lunch, the tobacco of the group of outcasts outside the back door through which she dashes to catch her train. 

I came in and stood beside her as she sat there, fluffing and combing through her mane, releasing the codes of her day. 

"Shut the door," she said. I listened for the "please" that never came, then turned and closed the door. She was always cold, anywhere up to nearly 90 degrees causing her flesh to pimple and the fine hair on her arms to stand on end. It was a warm night, but not really a hot one, and I would have been comfortable to lay on the bed and let the occasional breeze dry our skin. But I didn't even ask. 

"What are you doing tomorrow?," she asked, getting up to wash her face. I watched her strip off her nightgown, to avoid getting it wet. I watched her bend over the sink, her breasts small and sad under her thin back as she cleansed and dried and moisturized. 

"I have some research to do," I said. "Some microfilm that isn't digitized." My historical novel was coming together, but I felt like I needed more period detail, which would require a few hours in the library. 

She sighed. "We haven't gone anywhere in a long time. Can't we go to the beach or something?"

I watched her straighten up, settling her nightgown over herself, tugging and adjusting, focusing her brown eyes on her reflection. I thought about the deadlines bearing down on me, the rewriting and the polishing, the days that were slipping away. I felt the yawning maw of failure behind me, one push and what passed for my career would slip away into nothing. I thought about the hard shoes she wore, the tight slimming pencil skirts, the two hundred dollar blouses, the late night phone calls and arguments that left her dinner congealing on the plate while I listened to half a conversation I couldn't understand. I thought about the power imbalance that I said never bothered me, her salary paying the bills, my occasional checks from articles and short stories sometimes buying dinner.
 
"Sure, if you want," I said softly. I didn't feel like I could refuse her. I never did. She came across the room and climbed into her side of the bed. She yawned and stretched.

"I'm exhausted," she said. She pulled the sheets up and pulled her hair together, then let it go, the flood of darkness blanketing the middle of the bed. I slid my arm around her trim waist, and brought my lips to her ear. 

I was about to say something, when she said sleepily, "Not tonight. I have an early meeting." 

"Good night," I said, and kissed her ear. I wasn't asking for sex. I was offended that she assumed I was. We used to click on every imaginable thing. More recently, I couldn't understand anything that was happening: it was like living with a stranger.

I turned away from her, staring at the closed window. I heard her slipping into sleep, her breath slackening and deepening. I felt hot already, but if I opened the window, she'd be awake in seconds. I thought about Paul Simon's lyric, "I like to sleep with the window open, and you keep the window closed, so goodbye, goodbye, goodbye."

100 Word Song: "Lunch Date"

(My friend Lance, who is really a friend to all, issues a 100 Word Song challenge this week from a group I had never heard of, Tame Impala, and a song, "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards", of which I was equally unaware but which recalls solo John Lennon for me, a description about which I can only say me gusta.)


She was eating a salad, while I had a sandwich. The cafe was half full with couples like us, pretty women with glasses and men who didn't deserve them. I sipped my beer, trying to make it last, not wishing to fight about ordering a second one.

"Are you happy?," she said.

"Yes," I said. I was.

"You don't think we are growing apart? It feels like we're stagnating. It feels like we only go backwards."

I didn't mind going backwards, I thought. I liked the past. I understood it.

"I don't think so. Do you?"

She didn't say anything.

Trifecta Writing Challenge: "Brake Job"

(My friends at the Trifecta Writing Challenge, who agree with Gary Cherone that there are Three Sides To Every Story, issued their usual challenge with a multipurpose word, "Bitch".)





She always smiled when she handed us the keys. She was a pert little blonde, with wide blue eyes and a trusting mouth. Everyone had a crush on her, I think, and fights nearly broke out to volunteer to drive her back to the huge house behind the iron gates. It wasn't her sporty little car this time, but instead his, the big muscular Audi, which needed new brakes.

I drove her home this time, taking her up the hill in a Chrysler that was nice enough, but looked out of place in front of her magnificent home. She frowned as she got closer to the front door, as if the house scared her. She never said it directly, but she certainly gave the impression she was unhappily married.

"You'll call when it's done?," she asked.

"Of course," I said. "And I'll come back and get you."

"I'd like that," she said, flashing some thigh as she got out of the car.

I drove back down the hill, wondering why someone so beautiful would stay in a bad relationship, musing about what a bitch brake jobs were and how easy it would be to do the job imperfectly.

SPE: "Electron Blue"

(For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Andrea gave me this prompt: Write something inspired by this quote by Marguerite Duras: "It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most.". I gave Kurt this prompt: "I don't think anger gets anything done." -Jeffrey Tambor)









He had a Chicago Blackhawks shirt on. I thought that was stupid, because he wasn't from Chicago and didn't even like hockey all that much. But it had become abundantly clear he didn't care what I thought any more. I didn't intend for it to end this way. I didn't intend for it to end at all, but I certainly didn't intend for it to end like this. He opened the bathroom door with my bag in his hands. He had yellow foil packets in his hands. "I knocked your purse off the table," he said grimly. "What are these?"

"Jesus!," he said. His face got red when he exerted himself, and his forehead was looking rosy and pink. He was standing inside the bathroom door, which was something that he hated when I did it. I was in the position one assumes in that room, looking up at him, a mixture of guilt, fear, and revulsion gnawing at my guts. Well, I thought ruefully, if I'm going to throw up, at least I'm in the right room.

"Do you even know what the truth is, Sherry? I mean, if that's even your name! Jesus! " He stormed out of the room again. He wasn't an angry person, generally. He had never blown up at anything like this before. I knew I had blown it, lost it forever like your keys falling into a storm drain. But I didn't see any good reason to get up, so I just stayed there. I had been caught in little white lies before, but I could tell this one had broken him. There wasnt any good reason for me to have those little packets from Planned Parenthood unless I wasn't what I had told him I was.

We met three months ago. I was genuinely in desperate straits at the time- that part was true. I was standing under an awning, an enormous red duffle bag at my feet. I didn't know where to go, so I was just standing there, staring at the rain that poured down all around, a hard, judgmental rain. I had three books, two REM CDs, and maybe 5 changes of clothes. That, plus what I was wearing and $37.21, was the sum total of what I had to my name. Stephen had changed the locks, throwing everything that he said was mine into the duffle bag and leaving it outside the door, and not answering no matter how much I pounded on the door.

So I wrestled the bag down to the street, and just decided to stand there until something occurred to me. I could call Maureen again, but I could tell she was getting tired of me. I didn't feel like listening to Jeff's lecturing, and Mom was, for lack of a better word, impossible. So I stood there. I guess I looked pretty pathetic, because Allan stopped dead in front of me about 10 minutes later.

He wasn't bad looking. Kind of dorky, with dark scruffy hair that curled, an uneven mass of facial hair. He was tall, with the kind of pot belly and pallor that writers and gamers get from spending too much time inside and inactive. It's not like I had anything to speak about as far as bodies go, but it's true- Allan was pasty and weak and sad, but very kind. I knew him in that way you know people in your neighborhood. I would see him at the pizza place, at the coffee shop, waiting in line at the post office. I knew he lived somewhere nearby- he had to, the amount I saw him. I never saw him with anyone, so I assumed he was single. Or gay.

Allan stopped and stared at me. I had a white band t shirt on, along with a purple bra that you could see when the shirt got wet, and some tan pants, and a pair of old sneakers that used to be pure white. Allan was dressed much more sensibly, a light jacket, some thick shoes that looked waterproof and warm, a black t shirt with the beginning of pi spelled out on it, and jeans. He stared at me for a moment.

"Hi," was all he could muster. "You look sad."

I probably did. That wasn't a lie either. "Yes."

"Waiting for someone?"

"Not really," I said. "No one is coming for me."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know," I said, and I started crying. The ability to cry almost instantly had served to short circuit awkward conversations with men before, but this was at least half genuine. I managed to sputter something about Stephen throwing me out and another woman and how I didn't know where to go, which was mostly the truth, and he gallantly offered his couch. I honestly didn't intend to work that angle, but once I saw that it was open, my instincts kicked in, and before I knew it, I was stripping inside his bathroom, taking a very hot shower while he washed and dried my clothes that I decorously handed out through the door.

The lies had accumulated gradually, little untruths that seemed harmless piling up like the stuff in a junk drawer you never clean out. A brother who died, a father in the Army, an abortion at 14, all little things that I slid into conversation to measure their impact in his soft blue eyes. I knew from the first moment I walked into his place that we were going to be lovers, but I let him do the work, pulling me out of my shell, establishing trust. I knew men like him needed a quest, a project they could work on and obsess over. Every time I lied, my stomach clenched, but I said it anyway, forgetting about the shame when his face softened and he embraced me.

I'm sure he probably thinks I don't love him any more. I would, if someone had done to me what I just did. But the thing was, I did. I cared about him. He was sweet, and so gentle, and his body wasn't perfect, but I had gotten used to it, the way it felt when he held me. I just couldn't stand my good fortune. I couldn't see how anyone could find me appealing, so I inflated and exaggerated and simply lied to make myself into the person I saw in his eyes. It was never a thoughtful matter- I didn't think about it, it just came out in a reflex like any other bodily function. I neverr had a plan, just a grifter's confidence that something would present itself to get me out of it.

When I heard him crying in the other room, I reassembled my pants and conspicuously washed my hands and face, staring into my reflection, drawn and thin with pain, wondering if I knew who was looking back. "Jesus," he kept saying. I came out of the bathroom, ringlets of hair near my face still holding droplets of water that refracted the light in the room. He was staring at the floor, his head in his hands, muttering "Jesus," to himself, over and over again. I was thinking about an REM song, the one on the CD that was going to end up in my bag again, the one where Michael Stipe sings, "you, you know where to run/you run electron blue."

I didn't know where to run.

SPE: "Sliced Carrots"

[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Dara gave me this prompt: "The heart has its reason which reason knows nothing of." -- Blaise Pascal. I gave SAM this prompt: "If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you're still in the [expletive] tunnel." -John Oates]

She was cutting carrots to put into a salad. I hated carrots, but I never told her that, a first stupid little betrayal, as it turned out. I could see the salad ingredients in the glass bowl on the counter, the bottle of oil she was about to dress them with, the expensive salad tongs sticking out of the pile of greens and reds and whites and yellows. I could smell the bread baking, and marinara sauce simmering away. The smell of the oregano made my mouth water, and I felt a pang of hunger. I kicked myself mentally, for the thousandth time, for taking something that was perfect and precise and lovely and shattering it on the sidewalk like a spoiled child.

I was behind her, coming from the living room into the kitchen. I liked to watch her when she didn't know she was being watched. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, her shirt still dark with sweat. Yoga, I thought, or the gym. She alternated, trying to keep her body as schoolgirl hard as when we met. I appreciated the effort, just like the way she always presented herself fully dressed at dinner. I was about to destroy her conception of the world, toss it aside like a subscription card for a magazine you'll never read, and I was noticing that she was chopping carrots on a dark black wood cutting board that I had bought her because some TV chef used it. It's funny, the things you notice.

I had lucked out, because Mozart was pouring from the Bose radio in the kitchen. I had prayed all the way home that she wasn't tuned in to NPR or one of those happy talk local news shows with the overdressed anchors. When I had confessed to the gaggle of reporters, sitting around my office, staring at me with mixed horror and fascination like I had just lost the World Series, I had begged them for a one hour embargo, which they mercifully agreed to, so I could be the one to tell her. I trusted them, but I knew how these things worked, too. Some bright intern puts two and two together, and puts it on Twitter, and before you know it, they are camped outside my door. That was coming, but I wanted to tell her first.

It was stupid, really. There wasn't anything I could do to cushion the news at all. It was what it was, and no amount of pretty speechifying would make it something else. Telling her first would allow her to have her meltdown here, in private, before facing the world. She could put herself back together, decide what her story was, figure out what to tell her friends, away from the eyes of the world. I had seen it happen before, to colleagues near and far, and what happened was the opposite of that. You were an instant punch line, subject to jabs everywhere from the talk show circuit to morning radio to the line at Starbucks. I had decided, since I had taken everything else, I could at least give her that small gift, a few moments to collect herself before I make her a spectacle.

I had been reading a book about the fall Imperial Japan, and how much they talked about saving face. Perhaps you had to be there, or maybe it is a peculiarity of that culture. But I never really understood the focus, the obsession, the single minded pursuit of appearance over reality. It was as if they believed that it appeared that they hadn't lost, then maybe they hadn't really lost? That seemed myopic to me. If you've lost, no amount of appearance mending will change the fact that you have been defeated.

I must have stepped on a creaky board, because she jumped and turned to face me. "Oh God! You're home. What are you doing home? I have to go shower! But you had that meeting today, didn't you? With the money guys from upstate?," she said, her words tumbling out like overeager puppies.

I did have that meeting, up until 3 hours ago. Robert, my chief of staff, had smartly stepped in and cancelled it the moment I told him of the firestorm that was coming. He looked at me, his eyes black and cool, and said calmly, "Did you love her?" I didn't know how to answer him. I stammered something, talked my way out of my other commitments, and was headed home in mid afternoon, 2 hours early.

I looked at her, her hand still on the knife, the pile of carrots ready to be scraped into the bowl. She was beautiful, I had to admit that. 30 years and four children left their marks, but she could still fill out an evening dress, talking the talk and walking the walk, that plastic smile now part of the outfit as surely as the understated pearls and the high heeled shoes. I had tossed it all away, everything that I knew, to chase a half remembered dream of a man I used to be. I looked at her face, a single strand of hair come loose and hanging in front of her eye, and I wanted to be anyplace else than where I was.

"Not that I'm not happy you're home," she continued gaily. "What happened?"

"It was cancelled," I said, my mouth dry.

"Oh," she said. She picked up the cutting board and scraped the carrots into the bowl. "Toss this, will you, while I grab a shower?"

"Sure," I said.

She left the room without another word. I set my attache case down and walked over to the salad. I picked up the tongs and began to mix the ingredients. There was too much, as usual- I would wind up taking a container full of it back to work, and throwing it out and buying a steak or a cheeseburger instead. I tried to form the words to tell her, to explain, to make sense of the haze of allegations and threats and innuendo and a young woman in a short dress that was about to sink its claws into my respectable little life. I tried to form the words, but instead I just jumbled the ingredients, carrots and cucumbers and lettuce and tomato and croutons, until they lay there, mixed and vulnerable and dry, under expensive lights in a home that suddenly felt very strange.

100 WS: "Prom Night"

{The busy ministrations of Leeroy and his human novelist pal Lance produce another 100 Word Song this week, the Afghan Whigs' "Debonair". This is called "Prom Night".}








"You're going to be careful?," she said for the seventh time.

"Yes, Mom," I said. She knew we would be careful, but she said it anyway. I was obsessively smoothing the front of the black jacket. Wendy was standing in front of me, her legs primly together, her eyes shining with promise.

"You look good. Handsome. Debonair," she said. "You both look perfect. Like you belong on a cake." Wendy smiled.

"Thanks, Mom," I said. I wasn't the sort of man the tuxedo would suggest.

We stepped outside, heading for my car, ready for some things, but not for this.

Master Class: "Stuck"

{The magical Eric Storch offers yet another Fiction Challenge, this one called the Master Class, which gives you a starter sentence and lets you go where you wilt. His sentence this week is from Dodie Smith's "I Capture The Castle", and the sentence is "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."}

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. I wasn't planning to do this- it is an uncomfortable place to sit. It's not designed for that. My life feels like that- like it was ill designed, poorly planned, intended for another. Living in a trailer was not part of the plan, having a baby in high school wasn't part of the plan, and having them take the baby because you couldn't take care of it wasn't part of the plan. None of this was as I intended.

"Failing to plan," my history teacher said, "is planning to fail." He said it so much he bought a frame and hung it on the classroom wall. Or maybe somebody got it for him. I don't know. I had stopped listening to anyone but myself and my hormones at that point. I had thought about him, Mr. Archibald, a lot recently. One day he stopped me as I was leaving class and said to me in a very solemn voice that some day, I was going to regret the path I had chosen.

I was thinking about him because, as much as I laughed at him that long ago afternoon, the old man was right. I did regret the choices I made. Or the choices i failed to make. All the lies I swallowed, the things I believed not because I thought they were true, but because I was too stubborn to admit that I could be wrong about him. Too stubborn to admit I didn't know everything.

He was lying on the floor in front of the sink. The blood was pooling on the floor, a giant purple mass that was already starting to make everything smell bad. I thought about running, of course. I guess everyone does. When your on again off again boyfriend insults your cooking and pushes you as your fat ass crosses in front of him to wash the dirty dish he made and you turn and bury the steak knife you had in your hand into the center of his beer belly, you think about running.

I couldn't think of any place to run to, no place that would take me in and let me explain, so eventually I just climbed up on the counter as the blood spread, inch after sickening inch, after he finally stopped moving and collapsed. Now I was trapped up here, in my nightgown and underwear, unwilling to step down into the blood that was soaking everything in its path. I hadn't planned to do any of this, but as surely as night follows day, I had, so I sit here in the sink, waiting.

I guess I can take out my phone and call the police. It seems unfair to make them chase me down, and I'm too tired to run. I look down at John, his head turned to the side, his eyes staring at nothing. I've known him longer than I've known anyone except my parents, and I've alternated loving and hating him for all that time. Sitting in the sink, looking at my lover, my tormentor, my batterer, my only friend, I tried to think of a reason to get down. But I just couldn't.

SPE: "OK"

For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Tara Roberts gave me this prompt: "Like it never even happened." I gave Melissa this prompt: "So much of how we live consists of making meaning out of a bewildering jumble of images, of attempting to move as seamlessly as we can from one stage of life to the next." -Nick Hornby







"Do you want to stay in the car?," my mother said. Ever since I had told her, her features had been covered with this mask. No matter what she said or did, I could see the disappointment etched there, as clear as the nose she had passed on to me alongside my pasty features and large thighs. She denied it, tried to pass it off as no big deal, but the more I looked at her, the more I saw it. Something had happened, I had incurred a debt I could never pay back.

"Sure," I said. She turned the key long enough to roll down the passenger side window and then got out. The air was warm, slightly humid but with a gentle breeze. It felt pleasant, the reality of the outside air flooding in to replace the artificial cool of the air conditioning. I was actually chilly as we drove, but I didn't feel entitled to complain.

She disappeared from beside the window without another word. I could hear her shoes tap as she walked, echoing weirdly as she got farther from me. It was nice to finally be alone. Mom had picked me up in school, and since then she had been disturbingly close, hovering like I was a toddler again.

I understood why- she had always given me my space, understanding that I need privacy at times, which I appreciated. Since I had told her, there was none of that. She would open my door when I had closed it, quiz me about every phone call, and insist I account for every moment. I wasn't sure I would trust me, either, but it was stifling. It felt like I couldn't breathe without her there, silent, judging, watching.

I saw a girl and a guy walking by in front of the car. She was long and shapely, tossing long black hair away from her face as she laughed. He had tattoos on his shoulder and looked rough and a little mean. I could catch fragments of what they were saying, but I couldn't pick up the words. They seemed happy with each other, walking close enough that they seemed to be a couple. Or they wanted to be.

I watched her listen as he mumbled something only she could hear, and then she laughed again, too loud this time. I knew that laugh. It was a love me laugh, a pay attention to me laugh, a don't you think I'm so charming laugh. It was a laugh of want, a flirtatious laugh. "No," I wanted to yell to her. "Don't listen to him! It's all lies!"

I didn't know that. i didn't know him, and I didn't know her. He could be a sweet, gentle guy despite the scowl. He could be her cousin from out of town, or her brother's best friend. As many books as I read, as many things as I tried to understand, I had to remind myself that I didn't know everything. My experience wasn't universal, even though it felt that way to me.

My phone buzzed, and I took it out of my purse and looked at it. It was him. I stared at his name, the four simple letters. I didn't put a picture there, even though my phone lets you do that. The more I looked at him, the less I wanted to say no. And right now, although it's far too late to do any good, I'm going to learn to start saying no. His face was kind, thin and soft with a tiny cleft in his chin, and his eyes entranced me. I was pleased that he wanted to call, to check on me, but the thought of actually talking to him revolted me slightly.

He was sweet, but when I told him, it was like he was paralyzed. He seemed to have no feelings at all, just saying "OK," and "I agree", and "whatever you want". Which you would think would be fine, except you wanted some feeling. Some emotion, some fire, some energy of some sort that seemed appropriate for the event. Something had happened, and now it was over, and I felt strongly that it should be commemorated with something important. But nobody talked about it. But he, even he, the only other person who could possibly understand, he didn't give me that. He just kept saying, "OK."

It wasn't OK. I was glad he wasn't opposing me on this. But it wasn't OK.

My mother got back into the car, handing me a paper bag, stapled at the top.

"All the instructions are inside. Do you remember what the doctor said?"

"Yes," I said softly.

"Good," my mother said, sliding her bare foot out of her shoe and onto the brake pedal as she started the engine. "Are you in any pain?"

"Some," I said. It wasn't that bad, just sort of a gnawing discomfort. I knew to expect it, and it certainly wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't anything I had never experienced before. "Not that bad."

"OK," she said. "Pretty soon this will all be over, honey, and it will be like it never happened."

No, I thought. No it won't.

SPE: "Tumbling Dice"

(For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Eric Storch gave me this prompt: "Cindy said that Mike was really a vampire, but I didn't believe her. Mike didn't sparkle.." I gave Julia Mae this prompt: "I'm on the edge".)

[Author's Note: I appear to be writing again. I guess art is the only defense against madness. Or maybe I'm just too dumb to know better.]



"I'm serious." Cindy said that a lot. It was dulled by her repeated usage, to the point where I nearly forgot what the words meant. She was looking at me now, her dark brown eyes wide and lined with glittering eyeshadow. I wasn't following her. It was a bad habit, not listening, but I couldn't help myself. She would repeat herself, she always did.

Cindy answered our phones, and she didn't even do that very well. Her main qualification seemed to be wearing tight clothes. Her blouse glowed faintly purple in the half light of the bar. Nick's was the closest place to work to get a drink or something that approximated food. It was a hole, but it felt like home. She talks, and I half listen, until she finds the part of the conversation I really need to hear, and she doubles back to it. I had known her for years, and it was always the same routine.

"He's a vampire," she said. That's what I thought she had said, but I assumed I hadn't heard her correctly. That was a strange sentence, even by her relaxed standards. Cindy was always certain, but rarely correct. Somewhere in the background, I could hear a Rolling Stones song.

"You're not serious," I said. "Vampires aren't real, Cin."

"I am serious," she insisted. "He's a vampire. My boyfriend Jake said he is."

I sighed, watching her earnest face. She was sweet, always meant well, but she wasn't the brightest person. She swore, as I prepared to leave for the day, standing by her desk, trying to sneak a peek at her cleavage, that she had something very important to tell me, something she couldn't say in the office, so we adjourned to Nick's to discuss it. I needed a drink anyway, and she had the sort of body you didn't mind spending extra time in the vicinity of.

The bartender slid a pair of beer bottles in front of us. The barkeep was a redhead, tiny and mean in tight pants and a half unbuttoned blouse.  I watched her walk away, somehow displaying disdain in her stride.

"What makes you...what makes Jake think so?" I could hear Charlie Watts, holding down the center of the song. Quiet, unassuming, absolutely essential. Subtle. It floated at the edge of my awareness, barely audible. "Tumbling Dice," I thought.

"He always comes in late and leaves early."

"That's when he is scheduled," I said. I was fighting a chuckle.

"He's always pale," she added. She looked at me, her eyes full of life.

"He doesn't get sun, working at night." Something caught her eye, and she half turned, like she expected him to jump her from behind.

"He never eats."

"He's a private person. Some people don't like eating in front of other people," I said.

"He talks with that accent." I nearly choked on my beer.

"He's Rumanian. You'd talk with an accent too if you learned English as an adult."

"He sparkles." She took a long, lingering drink.

"He what?," I asked. She had said a lot of things, and that was pretty close to the top.

"He sparkles," she insisted. "Yesterday, he walked by my desk and he sparkled."

"He sparkled."

"Yeah," she said. "On his arm."

"On his arm," I said flatly. "The arm that was resting on your desk? Next to the birthday card with the glitter on it? Is it impossible that had something to do with it?"
I knew as soon as I said it she wouldn't follow that sentence.
"Yes!," she said, exasperated. "Why won't anyone believe me?"

"Well," I said, "because it's nonsense, that's why. Vampires aren't real." I couldn't believe I was having this conversation with an adult human.

"Why would Jake say that, then?," she asked.

"I think Jake was having a little fun at your expense, Cindy." I couldn't say that I blamed him.

"I hate that," she said, her face hardening into a frown. "I hate it when people think I'm dumb."

"I don't think you're dumb," I said. That turned her head. It was a lie, but I let it sit, like the piece of bread nobody wants.

"You do," she said, but there was a hint of a smile at the edge of her mouth.

"I don't. Just because you know about different things, that doesn't make you smarter or dumber. Just different." I felt the click of something in her eyes. I had to watch carefully, but the odds were in my favor.

"Thanks," she said. Her eyes shone at me a little. Our beers were empty.

"Do you want another?," I asked.

"No, I better not," she said. I paid for the drinks, and we walked through the maze of tables to Nick's front door. She still had her work clothes on, a trim, clingy knee length skirt and black tights with knee length leather boots. It was cold outside as we walked to our cars. I watched her walk carefully.

We were parked two cars apart. I wondered what was going to happen. She was as dumb as a box of hair, but I didn't plan on asking her about Proust. There was hesitation in her walk, like she was waiting for me to ask.

"Where are you going?," she asked.

"Home," I said.

"Me too," she said. "Jake has to stay late tonight."

She stared at me for a long moment. I held her gaze. I had rules about pens and company ink, and rules about women who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. I had rules, and the wind blew. Her skirt flapped once when a breeze hit it. I looked at her face, open and honest, with her lips the color of ripe plums. I couldn't, and I shouldn't, but it had been a long time since any voice but my own was heard in my apartment.

"See you tomorrow?," she said, half a statement and half a question.

"Sure," I agreed, and she got into her car.

"Damn rules," I said to myself, my breath fogging in front of my face.

Gorging One's Self

Matt Potter, who should not be confused with his twin brother Glossy Potter, has announced that "Gorge," a novel in stories, is available for purchase here. It contains a story by yours truly, as does a previous compilation, "Slut". I need not add that these books make outstanding holiday gifts, assuming you can rent the Millennium Falcon in order to get them to your house in time. I also assume you can divine the fact that these are grownup books written by grownup people that talk about grownup themes. (The fact that one of them is called "Slut" was a clue.) There are also other books that do not include me, along with a forthcoming one that will, "Obit."


{On a personal note, I have not written any new fiction to post here since my last post. I'm starting to think that I may start again soon. You'll be the first (well, the second) to know.}