Author: jthomasstervenson

We Take a Wrong Turn in Reading, PA

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Wrong Turn in Reading-01I can’t remember the name of my first community college professor, and wouldn’t use it if I did, so I’ll call him Mr. Bork. He taught English at Reading Area Community College. His experience of life centered around keeping himself “fat, dumb, and happy.” He’d accomplished amazing things in fatness. He told stories of growing up in a single-parent home, never traveled any distance without a copy of the Portable Dorothy Parker, and talked a lot about Judy Garland.

His weight, thrift-store-button-up shirts, and community-college teaching job conspired to hide his homosexuality from me. I didn’t put it together until eight years later, as I told my wife about him. I heard myself quote him talking about the “divine Judy Garland” and felt my mind shed pounds of naiveté. I stopped my story and said, “Oh. He was gay.” My wife looked at me quizzically, clearly thinking, “How could there have been a question?”

He required revisions on papers, which I’d never experienced before. I handed everything in as a first-draft and late. Teachers in high-school had never penalized me for this, but in Bork’s class the revisions were built into the process and tardiness meant a full letter-grade demotion. Grades in humanities classes equaled a precise method of evaluating my self-worth. Mr. Bork was playing me against myself.

He set the last day he’d accept a revised paper on a Friday, and since I hadn’t finished by our Thursday class period, I had to drive to Reading on an off-day to hand it in. I still lived at home, so I asked Nathan, my thirteen-year-old brother, if he wanted to ride with me, and then get mall Chinese food. Of course he would. We were going to drive the Peugeot, the sportiest, Frenchest car we’d ever owned. It had a sun-roof. The day was hot.

As we drove we listened to Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds’ Live at Luther College. Dave Matthews asked, “Could I have been a parking lot attendant?” and I thought, “Good question, Dave Matthews.” Dave Matthews asked, “Could I have been your little brother?” and I thought “See, it’s about identity.”

Dave Matthews then got suddenly tired of this line of thought and mentioned that he felt dark sometimes, but then, we had to assume, Dave Matthews worried that this might sound too dark, and reassured us that he’d work it out. I felt reassured. “You will work it out, Dave Matthews,” I thought.

We dropped the paper off and got back on the freeway to drive to the mall.

We played CDs in the Peugeot through a Discman to tape-deck arrangement. Nathan held the Discman on his lap.

“What should we listen to next?” Nathan asked.

I kept an approximate eye on the road and looked through the CDs we had on hand. We had five Dave Matthews’ CDs. We had one Phish CD (Dave Matthews had opened for Phish). I couldn’t find the Rolling Stones’ Through the Past, Darkly CD. I looked up at the road again. A greatest hits collection, the Rolling Stones album had “She’s a Rainbow” which I’d been listening to a lot (Dave Matthews had opened for The Rolling Stones as well).

I looked up at the road. I kept one hand on the wheel, leaned forward a bit, and patted under my seat. I felt the edge of a CD case. As I brought it out, I saw a familiar looking offramp. I turned onto the offramp as I handed the CD to Nathan. As soon as the CD left my hand, my attention freed up, and I wondered if I’d taken the wrong offramp. We stopped at the sign at the end of the offramp. We realized that we’d taken the wrong offramp, and at the moment this dawned on both of us, the city of Reading heard the crack of the thought crystalizing in the space between our minds.

The offramp was a magic portal to Mexico. But not a portal to Secure Resort, Swim in the Ocean, Can’t Believe How Cheap the Liquor is Here, Mexico. It was a portal to I Found Six Human Heads in the Gutter in Front of My House, Mexico.

On at least one of those lists of the top-ten most dangerous cities in the US, Reading, Pennsylvania hovers fifth or sixth place for populations between 75,000 and 99,999. We didn’t know this, and we didn’t need to. We felt the danger, like Bambi’s mother. Residents had moved “not littering” way down their list of priorities. Trash papier mache’d the streets. Our tires didn’t touch pavement. This was an entire neighborhood you could feature on Hoarders.

It still impresses me that we just needed to see a high volume of trash to know that we shouldn’t be there. It tipped us off instantly.

When you’re trying to drive slowly and thoughtfully you feel that the car itself has taken on your attitude of concern and timidity. It feels like observers outside of the car don’t have to look at the operators of the vehicle to gauge their confidence. The car tucks its tail between its legs, and anyone can tell that.

We drove past two guys on the corner and they stared.

We’d taken a right onto the offramp. We’d now taken a right at the end of the offramp. If we took one more right, we’d be heading back where we’d come from. I turned right onto a one way street, going with the flow of traffic, incredibly. The buildings here were pure public-housing.

As soon as we turned, we saw three cars stopped up ahead of us. A van with its flashers going sat at the head of the bottle-neck. I don’t recall whether or not going around all three cars was impossible, but I reasoned from inference that it simply wasn’t done.

I hadn’t spoken since we’d taken the offramp. Neither had Nathan. We sat there in silence. I flicked the door locks, and Nathan shivered at the noise. He stared straight ahead.

I tried not to move much, out of the apparent belief that maybe this neighborhood’s inhabitants had vision that relied on movement. In my peripheral vision, I saw lots of kids. The kids weren’t paying attention to us.

We had no idea what was going on with the van. To the cars in front of us, nothing could have been more normal than what we were doing right then, sitting motionless in our cars in the heat, behind a maybe abandoned van.

After five minutes, a woman came out of one of the buildings on our right, ducked into the van, emerged with bags of groceries, and headed back into the building.

We were waiting for someone to unload their groceries. We were white kids in a predominately hispanic part of Reading, and a predominately terrifying part of Reading. I’m not saying that it’s right that we believed that the individual attributes of “hispanic” and “terrifying” were related, it’s just how we felt at the moment.

The kids began to move nearer to the car. We hadn’t put our windows up. Now I decided we needed to put our windows up. The kids watched as the windows went up. They came nearer.

I remember them pointing at us and laughing. I’m not saying it happened. It’s entirely possible that my memory just boiled the situation down into clichéd TV beats, but we felt like they were pointing at us and laughing.

At this point, we couldn’t conceive of this ending. We’d now sat motionless for ten minutes. Stopping here at all was unthinkable. Stopping here for ten minutes stretched the mind to its limits. We continued to sit.

And then the door to the building moved again. The woman came out, grabbed more grocery bags. The door to the van shut. The woman waved to the driver. The van’s flashers turned off. We were about to move.

Then—thwap—one of the kids’ hands slapped against Nathan’s window. Another hand slapped the trunk of the car. A kid popped up next to my window, his knuckles appeared, the skin flattened, the glass sounded. More noise from all around the car. Then the cars in front of us began to move. I drove forward. The noise stopped. We found our way out of the neighborhood. It was easy. We put on another Dave Matthews CD. We shuddered and breathed deep. We got mall Chinese food.

I don’t like that story, and I think I know why. I don’t like the idea of being that afraid about that little. I don’t like the idea of being as inherently xenophobic and pseudo-racist as that story makes me look. I don’t know what the active choice in that situation could have been, but I don’t like thinking about how I didn’t take it.

I had a dream about this happening again, several years ago. Nathan and I get stuck in the same bad spot in Reading. But this time, when they knock on the windows, we roll them down. They hoist us out. They drive the Peugeot off. They carry us over their heads like groups of mice carry bound cats in cartoons. They take us up into that woman’s apartment.  She helps them cut us into pieces. It gets better and it gets worse. They eat us. But our severed heads observe all of this, and observe all of it happily. We suffer the ordeal without fear. Our severed heads smile. When I have this dream, I snap awake. But I’m not sweating or screaming or worried. Even though it’s 4:30 AM I feel rested and energized.

I raise myself up out of bed and go make breakfast.

We Take a Wrong Turn in Reading, PA

Chalk and Lacey, Part III

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Chalk and Lacey-11Read Part I, here. Read Part II, here.

Lacey reacted when I told her the news. Her face softened and her eyebrows lifted and she smiled and turned her head, exposing her white teeth and her white neck. She kissed me.

I took the job. Two weeks later I moved into a cubicle. I began re-writing the new employee handbook, which they hadn’t updated in a decade. The waste basket under my desk took a scented liner and nauseated me all day long. Modern offices don’t use chalk.

On one of my first days in the office the day care in the building asked around to see if any background checked government employees could fill in for an hour or two due to some picnic-related injuries someone had suffered. I volunteered, and I admit I was thinking they might have chalk.

I watched six kids, ranging from an Iraqi girl who could recite most of “Who’s on First?” to a remarkable fat boy who fell during a game of tag and actually bounced. I kept one eye on the children and one eye on the supplies closet. At the first opportunity, under the pretense of finding a pink colored pencil for the Persian Vaudeville aficionado, I found the only chalk in the building: sidewalk chalk. I gestured toward my face with a blue piece and took a bite, back to the room. It tasted awful. This wasn’t chalk. Nothing pure and nothing clean about this substance. My heart grieved.

I eventually lifted my eyes to the fat boy. He glanced side to side with furtive eyes and slid something into his mouth. I hunched over towards him and peered. He had a chunk of play-dough in his hand and made good headway on it. I walked to him and he straightened up and swallowed. I took the playdough from him with a disapproving look. As I walked away, I fingered a bit of the stuff into a ball. I ate a small bite as I looked out the window at the cars in the parking lot. So much salt. A salt overload. I took another bite. But still a simple taste. Very direct.

I looked down as a new meter maid moved from car to car, chalking tires. I recalled the white weight of an unspoiled cylinder in memory. I felt the dense squish of the dough in my hand. It seemed like a good time for something new.

Chalk and Lacey, Part III

Chalk and Lacey, Part II

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Chalk and Lacey-10Read Part I, here.

My attempt to compensate my employer by writing one premature ticket every day worked better than I would have preferred. My overseers called me in to the office. They told me my performance was exemplary; I was making more rounds, bringing in more revenue, and using more chalk than any of the other maids. “That’s the key,” they said. “Getting as much chalk on as many tires as possible. You can’t ticket them if they haven’t been chalked.” I nodded with enthusiasm and felt a lump of chalk in my stomach. They told me we’d talk again in two weeks. When I put my chalker away in the supply room, feeling good, I stashed two white cylinders in my pockets.

I went to see Lacey. Lacey started doing freelance design and layout work while we were still in college, so she worked from home. She once got the job designing the Fudrucker’s Menus. That impressed me.

I kissed her when she answered the door. “My superior’s like my work,” I said. “Oh,” she said. All of Lacey’s emotions show directly on her face. She can’t feign interest if she doesn’t feel it. She’s preternaturally direct. She swung the door open to let me in. Kip ran up next to her and barked at me. “Screw you,” I said as I took off my shoes.

Kip, I’ve come to understand that I don’t want you hurt in any way. Lacey likes you. That counts. But I can’t imagine a way forward. How do we fix this?

I sat on the couch with Lacey, talking, and occasionally, as the flow of conversation allowed, I would kiss her or she would kiss me. After the fourth kiss she said, “What’s that weird taste?” I thought “Damn” to myself. I’d eaten a celebratory half piece of chalk on the way over. “I dunno.” My expression matched my shrug, probably straining at the edges of believable.

“What’s it like?” I asked her. “I have no idea,” she said. “But I don’t like it. Go brush your teeth.” “I don’t have a toothbrush,” I said. “If you’re willing to kiss me, you can use my toothbrush.” She pointed through the kitchen to the bathroom, but then she jumped up. “Actually, I want to brush my teeth first. I can’t stand this taste.”

She disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door. I decided to have another bite of chalk, since I was going to brush my teeth anyway. It couldn’t hurt. I plucked the chalk from my pocket and flipped it into the air so it did one perfect rotation and came down flat on my palm with a very satisfying “thunk.” Except it’s not just a “thunk.” Chalk rings faintly when struck. So it’s a “thunk-eeeee . . .”

I stood next to the door out of the line of sight of the kitchen. I looked the cylinder up and down. I took a bite. I marveled that it continued to be as good as I thought it was. I heard the bathroom door. I shot my hand to my side. Lacey was almost around the corner. I couldn’t get it back in my pocket. I looked down at my empty shoes. I dropped the chalk and heard it ring from the bottom of the shoe with Kip’s design bitten into it.

“Your turn,” Lacey said from the kitchen. “I will make you a Quesadilla, if you like.”
“You don’t mind cheese on my breath?” I said as I walked toward her.
“Okay, I’ll pour you a lemonade and whiskey.”

I enjoyed the intimacy of using Lacey’s toothbrush, but I brushed quickly. I came out into the kitchen and Lacey handed me my drink. I heard Kip making noise. I looked into the living room. He had my shoe in his teeth. I said, “Kip, let it go.” Kip continued to tear at it.

Lacey said “Be nice” to me and “Let it go” to Kip. Kip looked up at her, but did not let it go.

I stepped towards him, and he turned with the shoe, spilling it. Lacey and I watched as a large piece of chalk rolled onto the floor. Kip dragged his quarry behind the couch and left the chalk sitting there.

Lacey looked at it. “What’s that?” she asked. I said, “A piece of chalk.” She crossed the floor and picked it up. “It has bite marks in it,” she said. “Hm. Maybe Kip did that,” I said.

“Is this the weird taste?” she asked. “Probably not,” I said. She took a tiny bite of the chalk. “Yeah. That’s definitely it. Have you been eating chalk?” I looked past Lacey, hoping someone held a cue card with a good answer to this question. “From time to time,” I said.

Lacey went into the bathroom to brush her teeth again. When she came out I tried to hold her and kiss her. Maybe she doesn’t even care, I thought. But she cared.

“I don’t really care,” she said as she avoided embracing me, “but that’s a weird thing to do. It can’t be healthy.”  She looked at me from across the kitchen as though she didn’t quite recognize me. She poured another drink. “You probably have chalk deposits all over your gut.”

Even though she looked at me that way and wouldn’t let me hold her, her words warmed me. She was thinking about my health. That she felt like she could talk about chalk deposits in my gut — even if she spoke with a hint of malice — made me feel close to her.

“I’ll stop,” I said as I stepped toward her.

“Please do,” Lacey said and she put her hand up to my throat preventing a kiss.

I stopped eating chalk. My performance at work suffered. I shuffled without joy from car to car. I cited fewer perps out of laziness and mercy. I spared the blue Toyota that hated minivans. I felt I could sympathize with someone who couldn’t help themselves, or who couldn’t explain their behavior.

Regardless of my flagging enthusiasm my overseers wanted to move me. My English degree qualified me to work generating and editing internal documents, with the possibility of helping produce text for city mailers and newsletters and things as time went on. “You’re motivated,” they said. “We think we need to keep you interested, so you don’t move on.” I felt a pang.

“Where would I work?” I asked.

“At the Main Street building.” This cut me off from the chalk. I guess my face fell. “Think it over,” they said. “Let us know on Monday.”

Concluded in Part III, here.

Chalk and Lacey, Part II

Chalk and Lacey, Part I

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Chalk and Lacey, Part 1I started eating chalk after I got the job as a meter maid. I say meter maid, because meter man isn’t specific to someone who checks parking meters; I might have been a meter reader — a more masculine occupation — but I wasn’t. I checked parking meters. I scratched at tires with the chalker. I checked back. I ticketed. I started the summer after I finished college. When someone asked my girlfriend, Lacey, what I did she would say “He works for the city.” Lacey, your smile lies crooked across your straight, white teeth, and you did not lie when you said that I work for the city. Lacey was relieved when I eventually left the job.

The supply room contains six chalk boxes, twelve pieces of chalk in each, two boxes each of three different colors, white, red and yellow. I approach the box. I smell the chalk. It reminds me of perfect, clean stones under clear water. I open the box of white chalk and look in at the cylinders. They lie there like sardines in a tin looking somewhere else. I remove two of them and hold them. One for me, one for the chalker. I drop one in my pocket and turn to take up the chalker and notice dust on my fingers. I raise my hand to my mouth and then the door opens and I start in a small way. My chalky hand goes to the chalker. I smile at Dale as he enters the closet. Dale drives around emptying the public trash cans. He’s here for absurd, scented can liners. “I’ll tell you what,” says Dale, who usually tells me what, “I can’t wait till we kill this pack of liners and get unscented. I hate the smell.” I agree and I feel sorry for Dale, who has to work with physical objects he hates. There’s no pleasure in that kind of work. He leaves, I finish setting the chalk in the chalker. White dust in the whorls of my finger tips. I lick them clean.

One night over at Lacey’s place, we were having dinner and watching our shows. A commercial for hand sanitizer – set in a classroom – came on, and I followed the blackboard in the background, watching for the chalk. The teacher ended the commercial by writing the name of the sanitizer on the board, and I felt pleased. Chalk doesn’t make it on TV very often. I like to see it represented. My hand went to my pocket, and a nub of chalk I planned to eat on my walk home. I got lost looking forward to the walk home, when I would walk, listen to an Audiobook of “The Sun Also Rises”, and eat chalk, and then noticed too late as Lacey’s dog, Kip, chewed an obnoxious Scandanavian pattern into my leather shoes by the door. Kip, Lacey loves you, but I do not. I would feel no loss if you fell out of the window of Lacey’s third story bedroom and yelped at the sudden contact with cement. I would not waste the chalk necessary to outline your body on the ground.

Most people do not understand that chalk is a perfect taste. It boasts no complexity. It functions on one level of taste, a clean, flat taste. The complexity of chalk exists in its texture. The texture moves from crunch to dust to paste, and I love that transformation.

The first time I tried the chalk, I didn’t think I’d ever try it again. From my whole experience I’m convicted that you need to respect most social boundaries. Tiny transgressions lead to bigger. Once you lick chalk off your fingers, it’s easy to nibble a crumb, and once you’ve nibbled, you’re going to have to try chomping into a whole cylinder. You just shouldn’t ever start.

I didn’t like that I stole the chalk. That weighed on me. But no other product approached what I could get at work. So I stole it. But I found a way to compensate. I started writing one premature ticket every day, for someone who was within 15 minutes of their deadline. The tickets cost the perps 30 dollars a piece, and I don’t know how much chalk that buys, but I’m guessing a good amount, more than I was taking. 30 bucks a day, five days a week, 150 extra dollars a week. I picked this sad blue toyota pretty often. It had a bumper sticker that expressed a strong opinion about people who drive minivans, and which got at least a ticket a week anyway. The car didn’t seem to learn its lesson and I didn’t feel bad at all.

This idea worked better than I expected.

Continued in Part II, here. Concluded in Part III, here.

Chalk and Lacey, Part I

Dog Considering His Owner

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Dog Considering His OwnerThe truth is, I’m scared of the old lady. I’m still very scared, even after so many years. I’m aware that I’m not her first. She has pictures of my predecessors. Maybe they’re my betters. I don’t know. Currently, I have to be better than them, because I’m still alive. And they’re all dead. I’m not sure where they go, but there’s a canine scent and the salty tang of something dead in the corner of the backyard, underground. I usually don’t go over there when I’m out. She puts her precious things underground, which is an impulse I recognize. Stows them for later.

Reasoning by analogy, I will probably join them over there. I’ve seen a dead dog before. I know we’re not immortal. A sibling of mine, before our eight weeks with our mom were up, got thrown against a tree repeatedly by a child. It’s sad to see a puppy all still and free of this vale of tears before he even knew tears about stuff other than like not getting fed right when he wanted or our mom stepping on his foot a little as she got out of the box. He never had to spend the night on linoleum, lying in his own puddle of pee, whimpering for something familiar, like I did the first night I came here.

She’s fine. Don’t be mistaken, she’s nice. But we just don’t spark.

And she seems to have gone on forever. She’s had so many of us. She’ll be here after I’m gone. My lifespan is like a little parentheses in hers. Assuming she has a lifespan. Don’t laugh at me, but I’m not sure that she, or they, die. I mean it makes sense that they would, don’t misunderstand me. They’re flesh like us.

I’ve had talks with that flippin crazy Bouvier down the street who sunk a tooth or two into his master. It didn’t earn him any points. Then he told me he was going to before he went after that kid’s face and after that came home from the vet wrapped in an old Garfield beach towel, smelling not rotted but stopped. It makes you realize that living things have a propelled smell. It’s almost not a smell, somehow behind the smell.

The point is, even though they’re flesh too, they last, don’t they? Don’t blame me for imagining that there’s something special about them.

When she chunks the food bowl down and rattles out the bits, I always try to resist it, the way I try to stay away from my own grassy vomit piles, but I can’t. From wherever I am in the house I move myself there with speed. My tail goes. I wish I could stop it. They show it all in their faces, or that laughing. I’ve got a clipped tail with which to express myself. I think it’s unfortunate that I’m so limited, broad. Do you want to know if I’m happy? Is the tail going? Is it whipping back and forth like one of those springy stoppers behind a door after you give it a smack it with a paw? Yes? Then your question is answered.

It’s strange though that she has existed so long before me and will exist after me. They feel like that about what? About mountains? About bodies of water? They feel existentially dwarfed by what? By who? Probably nothing.

Image by Gabe Stevenson

Dog Considering His Owner

How About Now?

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How About Now?Cliff Mantz was looking past Dr. Saint at the picture behind him and wondering why a professional would have framed prints on his wall. The doctor continued to explain. Did this mean he was being treated by someone who couldn’t afford original art? Saint came highly recommended, but Cliff had never had occasion to talk with him in his actual office till now. Cliff preferred photorealism rendered in pencil — pictures of women sitting on car hoods, indifferent to whether or not their underwear was showing — to pictures of birds. Saint stopped talking.

“Nuts,” Cliff said.

“It’s not inoperable,” Saint continued. “But the lung is a tricky organ. So . . . surgery entails major risks.”

“Sure,” Cliff said, “I understand. Let me level with you. This is kind of a bummer, you telling me this.”

Saint tensed visibly in his seat and then relaxed, as though someone had pressed a button administering an short electric shock.

“I understand it’s a lot to deal with,” he said. He was about to continue. Cliff cut him off.

“I feel like there’s a way that this could have gone better.”

Saint appeared to suffer another shock.

“Listen, I’m sorry. I’m working on my manner. I’ve only broken the news to one other guy, and it was Hodgkins. Light Hodgkins.”

Cliff puckered his eyes and leaned forward, elbows on knees.

“That’s not what I mean,” he said. “I think there’s a whole different way this conversation should go.”

It took several seconds for the confusion to land fully on Saint’s face, like a moth.

“I don’t understand,” Saint said, almost in the cadence of a question.

Cliff shifted in his chair and put a hand back to his pocket.

“Maybe this will make it a little clearer.”

He brought his wallet out, and in a crisp gesture took two $20 bills out, placed them on the desk, and slid them toward the doctor.

“I’m just going to leave those there,” he said.

The moth of confusion again spread its wings across Saint’s face.

“That’s not really any clearer,” the doctor said.

“I’m just thinking maybe this conversation could go a different way,” Cliff said, eyebrows raised.

“Okay. Mr. Mantz, you have a tumor on your lung in a position that makes surgery particularly diffic . . . I don’t understand how the money plays into this.”
“I’m just saying what if there was something we could do about this diagnosis.”

He took two more twenties out of his wallet and placed them on the desk.

“Okay,” Saint said. “So you’re trying to bribe me, but . . .”

“Pooh-Bear’s honey-pot is about to get a whole lot sweeter,” Cliff said, and as he did he took a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet, gripped it at the edges between thumbs and index fingers, popped it in Saint’s face so he could absorb the amount, and slapped it down on the desk. He looked hard at the doctor, who stared back.

“Unless,” he said, as he reached forward for the money, pretending to take it back, “unless you’re skittish about taking a rich man’s money.

Dr. Saint raised his hands.

“I’m not opposed to the bribe. I worked in reproductive medicine before coming on here. But what do you want me to do?”

Cliff pointed a hard finger at the clipboard bearing the test results.

“What if this diagnosis just . . . I don’t know . . . disappeared?”

“But it’s right here. The biopsy has been checked. These are the results. You have cancer.”

Cliff stood up. He paced over to one of the pictures on the wall, ran a finger along the frame. He spoke to Saint over his shoulder.

“I’m just saying, sometimes, accidents happen, if you know what I mean. Papers get lost. Records get switched. Maybe something like that happened here.”

Saint shook his head.

“But it didn’t. You have cancer, and about 10 months to live if we don’t start chemo and operate.”

Cliff turned toward the doctor, and seemed to grow darker.

“Doctor, I feel like you’re not hearing me.”

Saint became more animated at this.

“I feel exactly the same,” he said, arms and hands growing incredulous. “I’m telling you that you have cancer, and you’re trying to dodge it.”

Cliff approached the desk and leaned over it. The smell of tanning oil wafted over to Saint.

“Let’s start over. What was it you wanted to tell me, Doctor?”

“You have cancer,” Saint said flatly.

Cliff nodded, stood up straight, looked at Saint, nodded again, and then plunged his hand into his pocket. He pulled  out a handful of something and slapped it down on the desk in front of the doctor. He pulled his hand back revealing a pile of shiny silver coins.

“Once more. What was it you wanted to tell me, Doctor?”

He inflated somewhat, and Saint did not look directly at him.

“You have cancer,” the doctor said.

Cliff put both hands on the desk and gripped it, fingernails biting at the wood. Saint stared at the hard fingers.

“I’m giving you one more chance,” Cliff said, and then shifted his voice into a higher, more pleasant range.

“What was it you wanted to tell me, Doctor?” he said.

Saint exhaled. He hadn’t realized he needed to exhale so much. He looked Cliff in the eye.

“You have cancer,” he said.

Cliff shook his head and started to reach for the money. Saint looked away.

“But,” he said, “it’s a light Hodgkins, not terribly far progressed, very treatable.”

Cliff slumped back in his seat and did not smile, but ceased to give the impression of darkness. His expression was mock-grave.

“Well, that’s not great news. But I guess it could have been a lot worse. Good thing we caught it early.”

Saint looked at the money.

“Yeah,” he said. “Good thing.”

How About Now?

The Advent of Wynona Berthoud

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Wynona BerthoudWhen the dust cleared, she approached. The rattling of the carriage speeding away, the tick tick tick sound of horse hooves on formica cobblestones, the high whine of the deaf coachman singing his a-tonal version of The Bolero — this cacophony might have grated lesser nerves. Not mine. I have the best nerves money can buy. Why shouldn’t I?

Continue reading “The Advent of Wynona Berthoud” →

The Advent of Wynona Berthoud

Two Short Sketches

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Two Sketches#1

Proll
How close can we actually get to the sun?

Roger
As close as we want.

Proll
Do we have some kind of special shield on the ship?

Roger
No. Do we need one?

Proll
Are you joking? Of course we need one. The surface of the sun burns at nearly 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Roger
It would have been helpful to know that before we were this close. My eyelashes are on fire.

Proll
You said “Do we need some kind of protection so we don’t burn up?” I said “yes.”

Roger
I meant like Coppertone. So I brought extra.

Proll
You brought extra sunblock.

Roger
Right for sunburn. I put two and two together. The Sun, and sunblock.

Proll
That’s impossible. No one’s that stupid.

Roger
I’ve got SPF 30 and SPF 45.

Proll
Hand me some 45.

Exeunt

#2

Paul
Don’t question my hard-rock credentials. I’m made of metal.

Robot
I too am made of metal.

Paul
Are you saying you’re as hardcore as I am? I listen to Anthrax like it’s a lullaby.

Robot
Upon analysis of your biochemical components I have discovered that you are not made of metal. I however, am made of metal.

Paul
That’s a enough of your lip, geekwad. I dream of bathing in the blood of innocents, and wake up screaming pagan incantations, PANTERA blaring, ON A GOOD NIGHT. I am MADE OF METAL.

Robot
You are not made of metal.

Paul
I am!

Robot
Please wait one second. My human misunderstanding circuits are engaged. I have located the source of the error. When I say that I am made of metal, I mean that my component parts are actually formed by pieces of metal. You are human, and made of flesh and bone. Does this make sense to you? You are not made of metal.

Paul
I am made of metal . . . I  . . .

Robot
Your position is untenable. I will allow you to punch me in the abdomen, at full capacity, and then you will allow me to punch you in the stomach at full capacity. When I have cleaned the intestine from my hand, I will be the victor. Does this appeal to you?

Paul
No, no. Fine.

Robot
Fine what? I want you to say it.

Paul
I am not made of metal.

Robot
Also, Pantera is for wusses. I listen, exclusively, to Norwegian Black Metal made by convicted murderers.

Exeunt

Image by Gabe Stevenson

Two Short Sketches

Pictures of Goats

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Pictures of Goats1: It was pigs for my dad. I can’t get on board with that. He spent his life staring at pigs. He was a research scientist. I’m just a guy with a computer and unlimited access to photos of goats to stare at. An hour spent staring at goats might sound like a waste. But day by day the hours accumulate, like hair gathering on a barbed wire fence. And a life spent staring at goats speaks for itself.

2: Here’s a favorite. I’ll describe it. The setting is a well-kept paddock, green fields visible in the background. The photographer and paddock apparently stand on top of a hill, the fields sprawl downhill. The upper right-hand corner of the picture contains the barn. The lighting is soft and gray, imported from Yorkshire.

Three goats occupy the center of the frame.

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Pictures of Goats

I Will Arise and Go Now

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I Will Arise and Go NowLacey invited me to go to Chincoteague Island with a group of her friends. The island where the wild Chincoteague ponies live. I accept her offer and mentally prepare for the trip. I dislike going places and doing things. I wouldn’t have agreed to go if Lacey weren’t beautiful in the same way that the cream in that Cadbury’s chocolate commercial is beautiful. Because she is, I agree to go to the island.

“Lacey, what’s your dog’s name again?” I ask. Lacey looks over at me from the driver’s seat. The small dog sits on the floor in front of me. I hold the dog’s shoulders. The dog has buried his teeth in my left hand, and his facial fur is streaked with a surprising amount of my blood. “His name is Kip,”she says. “Is he biting you?” “Yes.” I say. “Kip is biting me.”

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I Will Arise and Go Now