Potato

It was a really bad day today.

First of all I was late getting up, so I was late getting dressed and I had to run out the door while I was still buttoning up my shirt so Mr. Butts (who is the meanest bus driver we've ever had) wouldn't drive off and leave me. And of course I buttoned it up wrong, so when I got on the bus Jimmy and Stacey the fifth grader (not Stacy W., who is OK) laughed and made fun of me for a long time. It was worse because I had to unbutton the shirt so I could button it back up right and of course they made a big deal about that. But the bus wasn't so bad, because Jimmy and Stacey are always like that and they are like that to everybody, so you get kind of used to it.

It got really bad when we got to school. After the morning stuff -- the pledge and the roll and the principle doing the announcements over the intercom -- we have reading. They put us into reading groups today. School just started last week. Well, really it started the week before that, but it was on a Thursday and we only had a half-day on Friday, so really last week was the first real week of school. Anyway.

So Miss Porter is announcing the reading groups. And I'm in the PURPLE group. The purple group is like the third group. It goes red, white, purple, blue then green.

Sometimes I think adults think we are all stupid. We aren't stupid you know. Miss Porter gives us this big long speech about how one group isn't better than another group and it what group you are in doesn't mean you are smarter or dumber or anything. Which is a bunch of bullcrap and everybody knows it. All the smart kids (except me) are in the red or white group and the dumb kids are in the blue group. Green is for the really bad kids, they just sit around and fart off during reading. Purple is for the people who are not good or bad.

But I am a good reader. I am a very good reader. I think I am the best reader in our class. I read all the time, even when I don't have to. I go to the library – not the school library, the public library. Reading is important to me.

I got so mad because it was so unfair. Mark B. and Tina were in the red group. I can read better than both of them and Mark was looking at me and smiling. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to cry, I think. It was hard not to. I think my face got real red.

It was really hard to pay attention after that. I wanted to go ask Miss Porter why I got put into the purple group because I thought she knew about me and reading. Then I figured it out. It wasn't because I'm not a good reader, it's because I'm not a good talker. I have speech twice a week to help me learn to say my “R's” properly. I hate it and I hate not being able to talk right. I sound like a baby sometimes, and that makes me not want to read out loud sometimes and sometimes I take extra time to sound things out to make sure my tongue is in the right place and I'm am making the sounds properly like Mrs. Lyle the speech teacher wants me to. So I think that makes it sound like I am not a good reader, when I really am a very good reader.

This made me even madder. It was not fair to punish me for something I didn't do wrong and I was working to fix my speech. I couldn't go ask Miss Porter now because there wasn't a good time, plus I probably wouldn't be able to talk right when I asked her. She wouldn't listen anyway.

So I got really mad and I ended up doing something bad that I knew I shouldn't do even when I was doing it. But I did it anyway. I don't know why I did. I felt bad about it right after I did it, and I still do feel bad that I did it.

I didn't listen to much of Social Studies because I was making my plan. I guess I got the idea about the potato because I was looking out the window while I was thinking. The class has potato plant in a jar sitting on the shelf by the window that looks out on the little kids' playground. We started it on the first day of school. It's in water in a glass jar and it just has some short green vines coming out of it because we just started it on the first day of school. Miss Porter was real proud of it and talked about how it would be our earth sciences project for the whole year.

Here was my plan – I was going to poison that damn potato. Even though I shouldn't have done it, I think I made a pretty cool plan. On our way back from music class we always take a bathroom break. I was going to smuggle some pee back and pour it in the potato jar, which should kill it because pee has acid in it. Here's what I did. I took a cap off one of my magic markers (the pink one, who cares if it dries up. Dang.) and slipped in into my pocket. It is in the shape of a hollow cylinder.

After music was over and we went to the restroom, I hung back a little bit so I would be one of the last ones. I was real careful so nobody would notice what I was doing, and I was real nervous while I was sneaking the cap out of my pocket and peeing into it. It would be bad enough if somebody saw me, but I didn't want to spill pee on myself either. But I pulled it off and I hid it in my hand the way I learned to do with a quarter from my magic book.

Luckily when we go back to the classroom we kind of move around a lot, so I could go over to the window next to the potato jar. It was just as bad as filling the cap, trying to make sure nobody notice what I was doing. Also, I still didn't want to get pee on me. But I did it, and nobody said anything. I'm pretty sure nobody saw. I threw the cap in the wastebasket under the pencil sharpener by the door.

We had spelling next, then lunch. All during that time I felt pretty good about it. Mostly good. Mostly good that I had been able to pull it off but still a little bad about it. But mostly good.

Until we got back from lunch. When we walked into the room, we could tell something was wrong. Miss Porter was sitting at her desk and she was real quiet and she was frowning. That is not how she usually is. So it seemed like something was wrong, but we didn't know what yet. And she told us all to sit down at our desks which we did.

She stood up in the front of the room and told us something bad had happened and that she wanted to give the person who had done it a chance to make things right. Right then I got a really bad feeling in my stomach. I was busted.

She told us all to put our heads on our desks and close our eyes. Then she started talking. She talked very slow and very serious. She said we all make mistakes sometimes and do things that we should not do. She said the important thing was to take responsibility for our mistakes. She said she wanted to give the person who had done this the opportunity to take responsibility. She said they would not be punished and nobody but the person had to know about it.

This whole time I'm feeling worse and worse. Part of me is remembering the rule that you never ever confess to anything. But she's so serious. And I started to thing that killing the potato with pee is kind of a stupid thing to do anyway and it doesn't have anything to do with the purple reading group and it would make things any better. So I know what I've got to do. I take a couple of real deep breaths to get ready for the bad stuff that is coming and get ready to raise my hand.

Then Miss Porter says that this is the time and that the person who took Ramelle Nevins' plastic pencil sharpener in the shape of a pig out of her jacket pocket while it was hanging up on the coat rack in the back of the room should do the right thing and hold their hand up now.

I think I breathed out really loud. I heard some other people breathing too. But I put my hand back down. We sat that for a long time like that. I don't think anybody ever put their hand up, but I'm not sure. I did start feeling really bad about the potato though. It seemed like a really dumb thing to do now and the potato did not deserve to die and it was the whole class's project.

So I'm thinking about it all through math and I decide I've got to do something about it. The only thing I can come up with (beside telling Miss Porter, which I don't want to do because it would only get me in trouble and what good would that do?) is to spill the water so it will have to be replaced and hope that it is not too late.

And that's what I did. During afternoon break I went over to the potato. I used the same skills I did before to make it look natural. I made sure I was looking in a different direction from the potato jar and kind of swept my arm across the shelf a little bit, just hard enough to knock the jar over, but not hard enough to break the jar.

I guess I hit it too low or something, because it didn't just fall over. It kind of fell over my arm and spilled the water back towards me. Some got on my pants. There was a wet spot the size of my hand just below my pocket. Of course everybody laughed at me. Which did not bother me too much because if it had happened to somebody else I would laugh too. And the guys said I had peed on myself even though they knew it was only the potato water. I was really glad they did not know that in a way I had peed on myself. But it wasn't too bad and there was only 30 minutes until we got on the buses.

Miss Porter came over, and she was not mad, just kind of tired acting. She gave me a kind of funny look, then told me to dry my pants off with some paper towels. She took some too and cleaned up the potato water, stuck the potato back in the jar then took it over to sink and filled it up with water again. She put it back on the shelf, but closer to the window this time. She told us to sit back down (which I was glad to do because it would hide my wet pants) and we worked on a fractions worksheet until the first bell rang and the car-riders and walkers went to the gym.

When the second bell rang, we all got up to go. Miss Porter put her hand on my shoulder when I was walking out the door, and asked me to hold on a minute. When everybody else was out of the room she said she could tell I was upset about being in the purple reading group. I did not know what to say and I just kind of nodded. My face got red again. She said she knew I was a very good reader and I wasn't in the purple group because I wasn't a good reader. She said that sometimes the best way to get better at something when you are already good at it is to teach somebody else. She said she put me into the purple group so I could help the other purples with their reading. She said I would be a good example and I could help with some of the harder words. She smiled at me in a very nice way and said I should promise not to tell anybody else about it which I said I would not. Then she told me to hurry up or I would miss the bus, which was good because Mr. Butts was still mean and would leave me if he could.

When I was walking to the bus, I was not sure what to think. I felt good about what Miss Porter had said, but I still felt bad about what I had done. I was glad that I had spilled the potato jar, but it was dumb to have done it at all when I knew it was wrong to begin with. It was a weird day.

School Days

School Days

"Here it is!"

I picked my way carefully among chunks of drywall. The floor tiles were loose as well. It was one thing to do a little trespassing to take a picture for a friend, but breaking a leg was another.

I looked through the doorway that his voice had come from.

"This was my old classroom," Jake said. "This is so cool. I've never done this in a building that I knew before it was abandoned."

He was looking around with wonder in his eyes. I looked around with nothing more than mild interest. There was still a blackboard, half hanging off the wall, and a few overturned desks. Otherwise the room was mostly empty. Many of the windows were broken, with vines and tree branches poking through. If I'd had more imagination I'm sure I could have entertained myself by thinking of the many generations of children who'd gazed out these windows. Instead the main thing I had in common with them is that I was pretty bored.

"So this is where you want the picture?" I prompted. Let's do it and get out of here, I thought.

"Yeah."

He stood in front of the blackboard, wearing his special purple jacket. This was his thing, collecting pictures of himself in the jacket on all his adventures. In the past I'd only seen the resulting photos. But all his urban-exploration friends were off on a trip to an abandoned amusement park when he heard that the demolition of our old elementary school would start on Monday.

"Great," I said after clicking the shutter a few times.

"Let me have it," he said. "We should take some more. It's the last record of the place."

I gave up the camera. I should have seen this coming, of course, even if just from seeing the dozens of photos of decaying factories, hospitals and whatnot. He'd made it sound like this would be a quick trip, but it had been foolish of me to believe him.

Jake had disappeared out the door, clicking the camera at everything he passed. I followed without enthusiasm. Returning to our old school didn't thrill me nearly as much as it did him. Not only was I uninterested in decaying buildings, I had no fond memories of grade school.

He was far down the hall when I smelled something. Something like burning.

"Jake?" I called. OK, this really crossed the line. I had not signed on for dying in a fire. They wouldn't think to look for anyone to rescue, because there shouldn't be anyone in here.

He had disappeared into another doorway. I walked after him faster, slipping on the loose tiles. Dammit, this wasn't funny anymore.

I glanced in the classroom doors as I passed, more peeling paint, more half-mast blackboards. The smell was getting stronger.

"Jake!" I said to his back, just inside the door of the last room in the hallway.

He didn't turn, and I saw what he was looking at. A man – a hobo, you might even say – was sitting by the window. He'd built a fire, and he was cutting the last of a potato into a dented pot hanging over the fire.

I'd have thought it was a ghost or a hallucination, if the man hadn't spoken to us. And if I hadn't recognized his voice.

"Have a seat. This should be done in twenty minutes or so," he gestured at the pot.

"Mr Dell?" Jake said, before I found my voice.

The man peered at us as we walked closer.

"Jake Carter. Oh, and Roy Griffin."

I was sure his tone had changed when he said my name. But surely he couldn't remember me that well. He'd tormented plenty of children in his years as a teacher. I wasn't anything special.

"Yeah," Jake said. "Wow." To him, this was obviously the coolest thing. Almost as good as really seeing a ghost.

"Well, fancy meeting you boys here," Mr Dell said.

I supposed that to him we were still boys. Jake remembered it all so well, he might as well have been. He was off and running, reminiscing about elementary school, about a trip we'd taken to a historic recreation site of some kind, another to some museum, all the kinds of old buildings he'd grown up to be crazy about. I just watched. Mr Dell hadn't shaved or washed in a long time. I wanted to know what had happened that he was homeless, living in an abandoned building, cooking over a fire like a hobo. But Jake had taken hold of the conversation, and he was more interested in the distant past.

After a while Jake ran out of breath and paused for a second. Mr Dell said to me, "So I guess you don't remember so much about second grade, Roy."

"Oh, sure," I said. "Like that time you gave me an F for drawing those birds."

Stupid thing to pop into my mind. Stupider to mention it. No way he could remember the lesson where we were supposed to show we knew our numbers by drawing one bird, two birds, three birds. He'd drawn the birds as those abstract curved W shapes. I'd drawn whole birds with feet and wings and heads. I liked to draw, and the assignment was less boring that way. He didn't even give me a chance to redo it.

"Those fancy birds, with patterns on the wings," he said.

I stared at him. He remembered? Impossible. It was just that plenty of children had been given Fs for doing the same thing, I thought. But did they all draw patterns on the wings?

"Yeah," I said. "Boy, I felt terrible about that."

I meant for it to sound casual. How could I still hold a grudge about something so stupid?

I waited for him to apologize. To say that now he realized that that was no way to treat small children. That he'd been too hard on them, and he was sorry.

"Well, it's important to learn to follow instructions carefully," he said.

"Oh no," Jake interrupted. "I have to go. I have a job to get to."

Right. This was why Jake hadn't gone off to see the abandoned amusement park on the Jersey shore with his friends. He was a photographer, and he had a wedding to get to. And he couldn't go in those dirty clothes and that purple jacket.

"Cool to see you," Jake called over his shoulder as he turned to leave.

He trotted down the hall, as fast as you could with all the debris scattered around. I struggled to keep up. I wondered, did Mr Dell know he only had another day to live in his old school building? That the wreckers were coming on Monday?

As we squeezed out the gap between the chained-together exit doors, Jake stopped and turned to me.

"Wait," he said. "Do you think he knows that the building's coming down?"

"He must," I said.

"We should go back and make sure," he said, uncertainly.

"You don't have time."

He looked at his watch again. "Oh god, you're right. You go?"

"OK," I said. "Go ahead."

"Oh, that's great. I really have to go. Thanks for coming. I'll show you the pictures tomorrow," he said as he pushed his way through the overgrown weeds and grass to the gap in the chain-link fence around the site.

I watched till he disappeared down the street. Then I pulled the doors shut behind me and headed home.

Practical Joke

Practical Joke

Tonight:
Keith slouched through the school's empty carpark. He could barely believe how little had changed since he had left: handrails still the same dark green, strips torn off by kids with brand new compass sets or dissection kits to expose the multicolored layers of paint jobs past. He couldn't be sure in the fading light but he thought he could even see the oil stain that marked Mr. Ainsley's parking space right near the front doors, a space reserved by years of persistent griping and cheap mechanics. A chill ran down Keith's spine as he passed, as if the old teacher was about to step out of the building right now and dress him down for trespassing. Shrugging off the feeling he hurried on towards the main building.

Before:
"Check it out man, this is gonna be great." Johnny laughed has showed the Keith the contraband smuggled in the bottom of his schoolbag: a dirty potato. As they hurried down the stairs and through the car park Johnny appeared to trip and fall, only Keith saw him jam the potato hard into the exhaust of a parked car as he pushed himself up. Walking on as if nothing had happened Johnny slowed and pulled Keith to the side as they passed out the school gates. Circling the fence that surrounded the school grounds they found a point where they could see the sabotaged car while being well hidden by the flowering frangipani trees.
They weren't waiting long when Miss Drover, an english teacher who avoided any and all extra-curricular commitments and was always the first out of the building after the students practically ran down the stone steps and threw her meager paperwork into the passenger seat of the potatoed car. The two boys could read her body language from across the grounds: first relief as she turned the ignition the first time, then growing frustration as the motor turned and spluttered but wouldn't catch. Keith couldn't help himself, his laugh rang out across the parking lot, Miss Drover's head turned automatically with that sixth sense granted to anyone who has to deal with young boys for any length of time but the boys were well away, running first and then slouching slowly toward home with the feigned innocence that only the truly blameless use to cover their guilt.

Tonight:
The window's latch, it's teeth worn down by years and use and decreased funding gave way with a sharp snap and the window swung gently open. Keith paused for a moment, sure that someone in the nearby houses must have heard him, but there were no shouts, no lights flicked on: the good people of Wilbury slept on. After a couple of minutes he breathed a sigh of relief and eased himself through the library window and dropped gently to the floor, choosing to jump rather than risk one of the shelves taking his weight. Things really hadn't changed if they never even bothered to fix that latch he mused. Not that Keith was complaining, if he'd had to break the glass to get the window open he almost surely would have attracted attention and he needed time if he was going to do this properly. It made him feel better somehow, justified: If the school board could be allowed to forget this place then he should too.
Not daring a flashlight he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark of the moonlit room, walking through the shelves of books he slowly began to make out the signs at the ends of the rows: T... U...V... W.. and there it was.

Before:
"The color purple," Keith stammered at the front of his english class, "is about uh.. a woman named Kelly..." after a couple of minutes of stutters and improvisations Mr Ainsley cut him off, "That will be quite enough Keith. Now you've obviously read some of the book, or at least the Cliff's Notes. Unfortunately it also seems you weren't able to tell the difference between copying other people's reports on the assigned book and let's see," he consulted his notes, " 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'A Tale of two cities' and I think there was a reference to 'Purple Haze' somewhere at the end there but I can't be sure because I don't think you actually understood what the song was about. Luckily you'll have plenty of time to catch up on your reading in detention with me this afternoon and for the rest of the week."
"But sir..."
"Don't try it. Now, next... uh, Emily...."
Keith returned to his desk muttering angrily.
"Sucks man," muttered Johnny, "Could be worse though, I got two weeks."
"You? What for? You're not even giving your report until tomorrow."
Johnny looked bashful.
"Oh... potato?"
"Yeah... Drover was on the look out for me after the other afternoon, totally busted."
"Hey!" Shouted Mr. Ainsley, "Keep quiet unless you both want another week."

Tonight:
Keith was almost through shelves K through X. At first he'd tried stacking the books in an orderly rectangle but it had started to look worryingly coffin-shaped and was starting to tip over anyway so in the end he'd settled for just keeping them all in a largish pile with all the copies of the 'The Color Purple' he could find on top. He tried not to think about where he'd put the pile, pretending to himself he'd chosen at random. Pretending he wasn't terrified of seeing a stain he knew wasn't there anymore.
He heaved one last armful onto the pile. That should be enough.

Before:
As the library clock ticked past 3:25 Johnny caught Keith's eye and sighed dramatically for probably the fifth time in the last two minutes.
"This sucks." Johnny muttered behind his book.
"Yeah, I guess." Keith replied without looking up.
"I can't wait till he lets us out of here."
"Yeah, I guess."
"What's with you?" asked Johnny more loudly, disgusted at his friend's apparent apathy to their predicament.
"Nothing man, I'm peachy," Keith drawled out of the corner of his mouth, he'd been watching a prison movie the other night and been practicing his gangster accent ever since, "looking forward to going home. 'Specially looking forward to Ainsley trying to go home."
Johnny frowned with confusion, "Wha..."
"Quit the chatter you two, get back to your reports." Mr. Ainsley called from the chair behind the loans desk.
Johnny and Keith settled down and joined their fellow detainees in making their best pretence at hard work, trying to emit an aura of intense scholarship that suggested a boy should be rewarded by, say, the reprieve of an unjust sentence. Mr. Ainsley was tragically unreceptive to their plight though, his attention was divided between the racing pages and fidgeting with the box of Pall Malls in his coat pocket. After another ten minutes of shared tedium he stood up and announced, "I'm going to step outside for a moment to uh, get some air. I'll be right outside the door so don't insult me by trying to sneak off. I'll be checking your work when I get back so I expect to see progress from all of you."

Without a teacher's shadow darkening the room the detainee's moods lifted immediately.
"So what were you saying before about Ainsley?" Johnny asked, dumping his pencil on the desk.
"I gave him a little present for putting me in here," said Keith, now deep in his own jailbird fantasy, "thought I'd show him what happens to snitches."
"What?"
"That potato trick," Keith sighed, dropping the accent in the face of an unappreciative audience, "I did it to his car this morning on my way to class. Shoved it in with a stick too, real deep. Even if he figures it out I bet he won't get it out for ages, maybe ever."
"Heh, sweet."
"Yeah I thought so." Keith smiled basking in the glow of having someone admire his daring and cunning.
"I'm not going to hang around for it though," Johnny continued, not one to be outdone, "I'm out of here before Ainsley comes back."
"How're you going to do that dumbass? He's right outside the door."
"That window up there, the catch never locks properly. Higgins showed it to me, he said he snuck in her last month and nicked some stuff the librarian confiscated off him."
"Higgins is full of it."
"Nah, straight up. Anyway, I'm out of here. I figure no way Ainsley's going to give me more detention if it means he has to explain that he lost me in the first place. It's a thing, Catch 42."
"You're an idiot, he's going to completely nail you."
"Yeah, well, whatever. Enjoy detention."
Without another word Johnny pushed his chair out and moved over to the window with exaggerated sneaky steps. Gripping the upper shelves he slowly eased his weight onto the lower shelves and tried to scramble quietly to the top. As he reached for the window latch Keith swore he saw the shelf detach from it's bracing and leave Johnny's foot hovered in the air for a moment. Then, too quickly to see it happen, Johnny was on the floor. Blood smeared the deadly sharp corner of the opposite shelf and a dark stain was spreading across the floor from a gash in his head.
Mr. Ainsley had rushed back in at the sound of the crash, a still lit cigarette falling from his fingers. The world turned to a blur around Keith as the teacher interrogated the boys and gave out orders: What had happened? No it didn't matter. The school nurse would have gone home but he could drive to the hospital, it would be quicker than an ambulance. Someone should call emergency and let them know they were coming. Two of you come and help me carry him to my car, hold his head gently.

Tonight:
They had cremated Johnny, Keith could still remember the funeral. They'd given him a seat up the front with family, Johnny's mother said it was only right since they were such close friends.
It was what she had said after that haunted him though, the Brownian motion of family and mourning meant they were alone together for a moment as they left the church and all she could talk about was how she just wished she could stop being angry at Johnny. She said she just couldn't understand why he would be so stupid to vandalize Mr. Ainsley's car after he was already given detention for doing it once, why did he have to vandalize the car that could have saved his life if it had started, if he had got to the hospital sooner.
That was the word she used, 'vandalize'. In a distant way Keith thought it seemed extreme to describe a practical joke but that was what she kept saying: "Why did Johnny vandalize that car?". Keith didn't correct her.
Keith stared down at the pile of books, his own little funeral pyre. Stared through it at the stain that wasn't there anymore. He took the box of matches from his pocket.

Later:
"Keith are you even listening to me?"
"What Mom?"
"I said... oh never mind. What are you gawking at anyway?" squinting through the SUV's side window Barbara realized without thinking she had taken the route to her son's old primary school, what was left of it at least. Her mother's intuition told her to tread carefully. Keith had was nearly at the end of high school when the fire had claimed the aging buildings but it had hit him hard just the same. She'd tried to bring it up a couple of times, the story and a half hearted hunt for the arsonist had made the rounds in the nightly news and had a bit of life in the local paper for a week or two afterwards but Keith had always retreated into himself and not wanted to speak about it. It was a sign that her little boy was growing up she decided, he was trying to be a man and deal with having to leave his past behind. She decided to try and reach out and acknowledge what he was feeling.
"It's such a shame, a lot of memories went up with that place."
"Yes," replied Keith, "They did."

Blackbird

You can call me Ed.

I am a professional killer. I want to tell you a story. Have another drink.

Don't worry. You have nothing to worry about. You'd never be able to identify me. It's dark in here and you're half drunk. Plus, I've been blessed with the worlds most nondescript face – my most important professional asset. I look like everybody and nobody. I look like the regional manager for a plumbing fixture distributor. I look like fourteen guys you went to high school with. I look like the third guy on the couch in a lite beer commercial. Medium height, medium weight, medium brown hair, medium long. Not old, not young. I walk to the can and you'll have forgotten my face by the time I'm unzipped.

So I'm not worried about telling you my story. You couldn't do anything about it. Plus you already think I'm full of shit and I haven't even started yet.

Anyway, I'm a contract killer. At last count I had successfully executed 61 such contracts – heh,executed. A minimum of $100,000 per job, plus expenses. I have never been arrested. My fingerprints aren't on file anywhere. I've never been as much as suspected. I do things right. I fuck up once and I'm dead – literally. So I don't fuck up. Ever.

So my last job. You don't need to know where it was. Not here. Let's say ... Cincinnati. It wasn't there either, but let's say Cincinnati. The job was to kill a guy named Leonard. I don't know why. I don't know who for. Not my job. My job is how.

What? Oh. I have a guy who deals with the customers. Call him an agent. Whatever. That's not important.

Yeah. So anyway. I do my research and I find out this Leonard guy has a mistress he visits once every week. Could be Tuesday, could be Wednesday, could be Thursday. But at least once a week, he goes to his girlfriend's apartment, spends a few hours leaves and walks down the street to his car. So I do a little checking and I can get an office almost directly across the street from his girlfriend's building. Third floor. So I rent it for six months and I get another office three floors up on the other side of the building.

First and last months up front in cash. Expenses. What? Yeah, they'll pay what I tell 'em. I have credibility.

So the plan is I wait in the first office till I see the guy go in, then set up for the shot. When he comes back, I take the shot, walk out of the first office, go upstairs to the second office and lay low until everything quiets down. Maybe a day. It works. Nobody expects you to stay put.

Ends up I'm there for four days before Leonard shows up. I'm doing it right, coming and going, nothing I'm doing stands out. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I'm sitting in front of that window looking at the street watching for Leonard. Eight, nine hours at time, I sit there waiting for him. No big deal – patience is part of the job.

So finally, about eleven on Thursday night, Leonard shows up. I get everything set up, and right on schedule two hours later, Leonard comes out. It's lined up clean and I take the shot. Another job done.

I drop everything, make one last scan to make sure nothing identifiable is left. Nothing there, so I walk out, lock up and walk up the fire stairs to my other office. I've got some groceries, an air mattress and such up there so I'm looking forward to getting up there and relaxing. I get there, nobody sees me (not that it would matter much if they did...) get in and get settled. I've got a little LED light to read with, and I'm easing back onto my air mattress when I get this weird feeling that somebody else is in the room.

The LED doesn't give me much light, but it's enough. I swing it around the room and sure enough, there it is. Sitting on the built-in bookshelves is this big-ass black bird. It was bigger than a crow and solid solid black. It looked at me and I looked at it. I could hear sirens coming. The bird cocked its head and held my eye with his. We stood there like that for a long time. The sirens got here. Nothing moved.

Then all of sudden the bird lets out a noise like nothing I ever heard out of any living creature. First of all, it was LOUD. I know it seemed louder because of the situation and because it was so quiet otherwise, but I swear it made my ears hurt. And it sounded like something from a science fiction movie – there was reverb and weird effects. It was like an alien spaceship. That noise should not have come out of a bird.

It was not a good thing. My plan depended on quiet and here's this space-bird calling for ET. I took a swipe at it, but just side-steps and swoops just out my reach, then settles back down on its shelf. It lets out another weird croak and give me the eye. I know better, I really do know better, but I could swear the bird is giving me the hairy eyeball. The look it gives me can only be described as reproachful. I'm just frozen at this point.

Another two minutes go by and he lets out another squawk. I'm seriously considering whether it would be worse to let him go on making noise or risk taking a shot at him. I decide against it – my backup gun is clean and a shot would be a lot more suspicious than a bird squawking, no matter how weird the damn squawk is. So I take another swing at him, and he dodges it like nothing. I feel like throwing something, but I don't need to be crashing around.

So I have a problem.

I pull my chair over in front of the bird and sit down. It squawks again and I look it in the eye. I don't think it ever took its eye off me. So I glare back at him. He stays quiet so long as our eyes are locked. I glance away, even a little, and he lets out his freaky noise.

So I did what I had to, I spent the rest of the night staring into this freaky bird's eyes. Only four more screeches over the next six hours.

But there was something about that freaky bird. Spending six straight hours playing staredown with a space bird is not a normal activity, I guess. I'm used to sitting still for long periods of time – part of the job. My mind raced and wandered and went places I didn't want to let it go. I don't remember all of it, but I know I was thinking the whole time, you know. It was a trip.

Outside the sun was rising and it sounded like the cops were wrapping it up and heading out. I decided to risk a look out the window. He squawked as soon as I turned away, but I had to look. It was the other side of the building, so I couldn't see much, but at least there weren't cops swarming everywhere.

When I turned around, the bird was gone.

I stayed in the office until early that afternoon. I fell asleep for a little while and paced the rest of the time. Then, about 2:30, I straightened myself up, took a deep breath and walked out the door. Nobody in the hallway, nobody in the lobby. Nobody noticed me leaving the building. Ten minutes later I was miles away, not a thing left in the offices that could possibly be traced to me. Number 61 complete, nothing left to do but collect the check.

That was, well, let's say that was three months ago. Longer than I usually go between jobs. Every time I go to call my agent, I just find a reason not to. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it has something to do with the bird or what. I will say that's the weirdest thing that ever happened to me on a job. I don't have to work. I've made plenty of money and when I'm not working I'm fooling with my investments. I do like the challenge and the adrenalin. But I've been thinking about finding some other source of excitement these past few weeks.

So what do you think? You think that bird did something to me or what?

Unfinished

This piece is unfinished. You may not want to read it if you have issues with reading half of a story.


<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

My dad was at my last birthday party. I remember it really well because it was my 14th birthday and he gave me a nice buck knife which I slept with every night. I don’t know where it is, now, though because everything changed so much since that day. My dad went to work one day and never came home. My mom seems like she is someone else now. Home doesn’t feel like home anymore. I don’t know how else to explain it, but I think about that birthday because that’s how I remember my Dad.

My dog looks up at me with his sad eyes. “You should think about something else,” he said. “Whenever you think about your Dad you get sad.”

He hasn’t always talked. In fact, he used to never talk.

I don’t like it very much when he talks.

I try to ignore him but he always goes on. “It’s important for you to grow up and be tough and stop being sad”.

I don’t really believe that’s true so I go on ignoring him and pretty soon my Mom comes in to talk to me and she always has M&Ms and she always gives me some. He never talks to me when Mom is in the room and he almost never talks to me for the rest of the night after she leaves. “Are you OK? I thought I heard you talking” she says, and I always tell her, “I’m fine, Mom, I wasn’t talking.” I have to say that because I know she thinks that Dad dying had some kind of effect on me.

“It’s 10:30. That’s lights out, time to sleep”. She left. I turn off the TV and the light and turn over. The dog stays on the bed, too but now he just looks at me. Sometimes I think he’s mad because I don’t like to talk to him. I don’t care. I just turn over and go to sleep.

<><><><><>

My Mom always gives me vitamins in the morning. I take them because I know she gives them to me because she cares. I don’t think I really need to take them, though. Today I played checkers with this neighbor kid Bill for hours I think, and he’s terrible. After lunch I was sitting there playing with him and the dog talked to me. “This guy sucks” he said. Bill didn’t hear him, and I was glad because Bill is kind of big. “You’re thinking about your Dad again, and how you used to play games”. I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to talk to him in front of Bill and besides, I didn’t want to call attention to the fact that he was talking. Every once in awhile, I’ll be talking to a friend or sitting in a class or whatever and that dog starts in to talking. As long as I ignore him, no one seems to care very much either way. They are real good at ignoring him too, I guess. I hate that he follows me everywhere, but he’s family, just like my Mom and Dad. He’s in the picture, too.

I went back to my room after playing with Bill. Naturally the dog was his old chatty self. I tried to read some but I couldn’t concentrate because of the dog. I finally looked right at him. “What do you want?” I asked him. He looked at me for a moment before saying “What happened to that knife your Dad gave you?”

I hadn’t thought about that for a while. Both Mom and Dad would yell at me if they came in to wake me up and found me holding it in my sleep. Sometimes they said it would be open. “Did they take it from me?” I asked the dog.

“Wouldn’t you?” he replied.
I started to feel bad about that conversation. I missed my Dad more than I thought. I never really think about the knife except that the dog keeps bringing it up. He brings up my Dad a lot too. I looked at the picture for a long while, Mom, Dad, the dog, and me.

My Mom came in the room just then and reminded me that I had to go to this group.

<><><><><><>

My mom signed me up for this group on account of she felt like I was acting different than other kids, which I can’t really deny given that the dog keeps talking to me and forcing me to ignore him in company. And, naturally, he goes with me to group, and that consists of a circle of chairs and 5 other people, most of which have real problems. And, of course, Dr. Dan who is this guy that pretty much just makes sure everyone has a turn.

I really hate going to group because I never really feel like I have anything much to say and besides, the dog is talking all the time. This time he started harassing me about how I should talk about missing my Dad, and why I don’t have that knife anymore and I just stared down because I know the others are just being polite and ignoring him just like I do. Dr. Dan is fairly insistent that I say something today. He keeps saying “Keith, how are you doing today” and most days I mutter something about being sad and kind of lonely, because it’s hard for me to make friends because this dog won’t shut up.

I looked up at Dr. Dan and said “I miss my Dad today”. And do you know Dr. Dan looked genuinely shocked which surprised me.

“What do you miss about him?” he asked.

“We used to play games, and he gave me this great knife for my birthday” I said.

“He gave you a knife?” he asked and it seemed like he emphasized that word.

“Yes”, I said, “a beautiful knife with antler inlay but I don’t know what happened to it”.

“What do you think happened to it?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. The dog looked at me and quizzically cocked his head. “I think they took it from you” he said. I couldn’t answer him on account of the group and Dr. Dan being right there, dutifully ignoring him along with me, and I couldn’t tell Dr. Dan they took it from me because I didn’t know for sure, and because Hell is for liars. I kept quiet for the rest of group because the dog kept looking at me, and it was hard to keep ignoring him.

<><><><><>

Everything keeps changing. I don’t know why I sit and think so much. I didn’t used to. But the dog didn’t always talk to me either. I remember when he first started talking to me – it was right before my Dad got killed. I don’t remember much about what he said; I remember that he just bugged me all the time. He talked so much more back then. It was real hard to have a conversation or study or do anything. It was so bad but then my Dad was killed and everything changed. That’s when we moved and Mom made me go to group and everything and she changed a lot too. I just go along with stuff now because I don’t know what else to do anymore. I don’t go to school now. I look at the picture of me and my Mom and Dad and the dog and I’m just struggling because I feel like something huge is missing.

“What is missing?” said a voice. It’s the dog again. I’m starting to wonder if this is a normal thing, to have this dog talking to me. I noticed that people didn’t act right if I spoke to him and they generally ignore him so I do to, in company.

“Why am I the only person that pays attention to you?” I asked him, and he does that thing again, just looks at me.

“Do you think something is wrong with you?” he says, and funny, I was just starting to wonder that because I don’t remember always going to these group meetings, and staying inside all the time.

Untitled

I stumbled towards the glass doors that led to the yard. The stumbling was partly the usual this morning, the result of two pugs scrambing around my feet, acting like they couldn't hold it in one second longer. They fooled me every morning and then I'd watch, half asleep, as they sniffed the ground for ten minutes before finding the perfect place to go.

I slid the door open. It had somehow gained weight in the night. The pugs tumbled into the weedy yard and commenced their detailed inspection. I had no idea what about its smell could possibly have changed so much from yesterday, but my opinion carried no weight in the matter – they were the experts.

I yawned. It was hard to wake up in this apartment at the best of times. What they called a "garden apartment" around here, meaning it opened right onto this tiny backyard, to distract you from the fact that it was a basement with no windows. There was no morning light to ease you into conciousness before fat pugs started walking on your full bladder.

But this morning there was another reason I was only half awake. I'd been up all night tossing and turning. Today I had to decide.

"Come on," I moaned at the pugs. I needed some coffee, so bad it was like a physical pain. I really didn't want to wait ten minutes this morning.

They didn't even look up. I didn't have the strength to argue. I sunk down to the ground and sat leaning against the glass doors. I glanced back into the apartment, at the phone, lying there like some malignant sleeping creature.

Whichever way I decided, one part was going to be easy. I wouldn't need to use the phone - I could just get on the computer, and either register for classes or drop out.
There would be no one to ask me if I was sure, no one to remind me that I was throwing away a chance at a respectable career in a clean office, one where the worst injury I was likely to get was a paper cut. That I was crazy to give all this up so I could clean up animal poop for almost no money.

Which was what everyone had been saying in one way or another, of course. And which was what made the whole thing so hard. I was sure I wanted to drop out. I was sure I wanted to stay in my job at the zoo. I was insanely lucky that they offered me the chance to stay on past the summer. It was the coolest thing I had ever done, maybe that anyone had ever done, even if everyone else I knew couldn't see it.

And it wasn't just the animals, the chance to hand-feed a sloth an orange slice, watch its alien pinprick eyes as it took the fruit awkwardly with its long, curved, immobile claws, better suited to hanging from branches. It was also how it had made me realize how painful it was for me to sit still all the time, cooped up at a lecture or stuck at a desk. All my restless energy – it was an asset instead of a liability when I had to run up and down the stairs, climbs around on rock walls, scrub and hose things and chop vegetables all day.

The whole thing suited my nature. It was the niche I belonged in. But the thing is, I also knew another thing about my nature, that it was stubborn and contrary. The more people pushed, the more I pushed back. Was I sure I wasn't doing this just to show them?

Gus finally lifted his leg and peed. Rose waddled over and sniffed, then added a second opinion.

"Breakfast!" I called.

That was of course one of the words the pugs knew. In a more challenging situation I'd have to call "cookie" or "cheese" or "peanut butter," but first thing in the morning "breakfast" was enough.

They both turned and started to hurtle towards me, as aerodynamic as a couple of flying meatloaves. I got up and trudged back into the apartment toward the tiny kitchen, leaving the doors open behind us. If we couldn't have light at least we could have fresh air. It might help wake me up enough to remember how to make the coffee.

As I passed the desk I reached over and turned the computer on. It had to be on, either way. Whichever way I decided. But that would only be half of it. For the other half, I had to pick up the phone, to either quit or say I was staying in the job I'd had all summer. And I had to say it to Chris.

Did I forget to mention that I had a little bit of a crush on my boss? I had been trying to put that aside in the decision making process. He was always careful to remind me that he wasn't really my boss, that he didn't supervise people and that he had no personnel authority. But he was in charge of all the animal stuff, which was more important. He knew everything about animals, which was part of what made him so crushable. Really, that was most of it, I swear, but he also had the most amazing blue eyes –

Oh god. I really had to not think about that part of it. I was maybe about to throw away a whole year in graduate school to do something that everyone else I knew said was crazy. My boss's blue eyes could not enter into this.

I filled the bowls with kibble, my thoughts momentarily drowned out by excited barking. It was nice that they were so enthusiastic, I reminded myself as the noise reverberated in my skull, I hated the kind of animal you had to coax to eat.

I watched them contendedly hoovering up the kibble without any evidence of chewing. Where was I? Oh, right. Blue eyes. Not a factor. Really, not a part of the decision-making process. But also, it was just as stupid for what other people thought to be part of it. They didn't have to live my life. They didn't have to sit in classrooms and lecture halls feeling like they were about to explode with impatience. They didn't have to spend the rest of their life thinking they had thrown away the best thing they ever did just because other people said it was crazy. No, I was ready. I knew what was right for me.

"OK, it's time," I said to the pugs.

I always talked to them, I couldn't help it, as a primate, I naturally never shut the hell up for one second. The monkeys I took care of were just the same, always chattering and screaming whether there was a reason to or not. It didn't seem to inconvenience them, but in my case, it meant that the pugs had learned all kinds of words it was a problem for them to know, because I was unable to stop myself from announcing things like "I need to cut your nails" which, of course, sent them flying in the opposite direction.

They looked up, cocking their heads. Oh, right. "Time" usually was followed by "time to go outside and pee" at the end of the day. But they'd just been out, and it wasn't the end of the day. Now they were terribly confused. Yeah, welcome to the club.

"Sorry," I said. "I meant, now I'm doing it. I'm going over to that computer and withdrawing."

"No way."

I nearly jumped out of my pajama bottoms. "What the – "

There was a great commotion from the open door to the backyard. It took my sleep-deprived, stressed-out brain a moment to process the totally unexpected sight. A large bird had just flown in and settled on the back of a chair.

The pugs exploded in a frenzy of high-pitched barking. Justified, at least, for a change. They'd bark like mad at recycling bins or overly large strollers – perhaps they were offended at the ostentation of pushing a child around in something large enough to have its own cup holders – but I was never sure if I'd be able to trust them to announce the presence of an actual intruder. Nice to know.

I peered at the visitor. I didn't know a damn thing about birds, I was a mammal person. But even I knew that this was an African grey parrot.

It cocked its head at me.

"No way," it repeated.

"Who asked for your opinion." I knew, it had no idea what it was saying. But I was so used to talking to animals. I talked to the zoo animals whether they responded or not. In fact, just the other day, I'd found a tree shrew dead at the end of my shift, and had to stay late to bring it up to pathology. I was glad no one was around to hear when I exclaimed to it, "If you weren't dead I could go home now!"

But the worse influence was the years of talking to the pugs, who actually responded most of the time – not always cooperatively, of course, like when they ran away when nail-trims were announced – but intelligently.

And I knew these were really intelligent birds.Everyone knew about the late Alex, the famous grey who a psychology researcher had taught to answer questions about numbers and colors. She'd proven through careful experimentation that he really understood the words he was using.

But even in my sleepless, pre-caffeinated state, I knew that this bird's intelligence didn't extend to having an opinion on my career situation. The real problem was whose bird he was. It was the same deal as whenever I saw a loose dog. I had to do something because it was karma. What if my pugs got loose someday? The thought was too horrible to contemplate. If they managed not to get hit by cars, they were of course completely unsuited to life in the wild. Their highly evolved skill at being cute enough to make people want to feed them was all they had to rely on. And what if those people thought they were so cute that they wanted to keep them?

So I always had to fall all over myself to catch a loose dog and find its owner, because I hoped that someone would do the same for me. But I had no idea what to do about a bird.

"Look," I said, gesturing at the door. "I know you're smart enough to find your way home. Why don't you just go back the way you came?"

"No way."

We looked at each other. It was clearly a standoff. The bird didn't want to leave. I didn't want it in my house. It would poop everywhere, for one thing. And though the pugs had calmed down for now, I suspected that they'd go wild again the minute it moved.

OK, I had no bird experience. But, I had seen how people had them walk onto their arms. If I could get it to do that, then I could put it outside.

"Here you go,' I said, holding out my arm, nudging its toes a little the way I'd seen make birds lift their feet and step onto someone's arm. Not this time, unfortunately. The parrot scooted sideways on the back of the chair to avoid me instead.

"No way." I swore it laughed this time.

"Look. I have important business here, today. I can't be distracted by a bird. Can we be reasonable here? I need you to go home."

"No way."

Oh, for Pete's sake. I could have seen that coming. I was just getting myself in ridiculously deeper. But I couldn't help it.

"Fine," I said. "Make yourself at home. I'm just going over to that computer to get on with my life."

I waited a moment for the predictable comment, but this time, the bird just cocked his head.

Whatever, I thought, managing to keep it to myself this time. I walked over to the desk and sat down at the computer. I got so involved in beating my head against the university's recalcitrant computer system that I'd forgotten about the bird's presence by the time I got to the last thing I had to click to complete the withdrawal process.

Which meant that I almost had a heart attack when, just as I was about to click, a huge flurry of feathers landed on the back of my chair.

"No way! No way!" The shriek blended with my own as I jumped up and with the immediate addition of a duet of hysterical yapping.

"You little shit," I gasped as the parrot as the racket died down.

The bird looked quite pleased with himself. No doubt all the action was entertaining. And as my heart slowed, I had to admit it was kind of funny. Especially because if the bird really had been trying to stop me, he didn't know my nature. Now, bird or no bird, I was going to click on that last thing if it took me all morning.

However, I didn't really want to sit back down with him on the back of the chair. I wouldn't say I was frightened. It just seemed prudent. That was a sharp, pointy hooked beak he had. The claws were nothing to sniff at either. There was no need to have them so close to the back of my neck. Or any other part of me.

So I just reached out slowly toward the computer mouse.

"No way," said the bird, but this time in a much smaller voice.

I reached further, all the way, and clicked.

I felt an absurd surge of triumph. Take that, bird! Take that, office-working, classroom-sitting world!

The parrot turned and flapped back to the chair he had started on. It was an obvious admission of defeat. I decided that I could be big enough not to rub it in. So without further comment, I picked up the phone and dialed.

I kept my eye on the bird. One ring. He glanced over at me, saw I was watching, and looked away. Two rings.

"Small Mammals, this is Chris."

I was momentarily speechless. Not because it was a surprise, since he usually answered, and he was the one I needed to talk to. But because he always affected me this way.

"Um," I said.

"Hannah," he said, easily.

Oh, I thought, he recognized my voice just from 'um.' I was overcome with that feeling like my insides had turned to armadillo gruel, including my brain.

"Yeah. Uh," I said, brilliantly.

He waited patiently. This was another part of the thing about him. He was like the still center of chaos in the building. All the rest of us talky monkeys, never shutting up or sitting still and always panicking about the least little thing, running out of peanut butter or some animal looking at us cross-eyed in a way that surely meant that it was at death's door with some ailment we hadn't noticed till it was too late. But he always took a moment to think before he opened his mouth, or managed not to open it at all just for the sake of filling the silence. It was calming, usually, but not so much right now. It meant I had to step up.

"Uh, OK, so, I'm going to stay."

"No way," the shriek came from behind me, one last hopeless objection thrown to the wind.

"I'm glad – what was that?"

"Uh, yeah, I have kind of a problem here, do you know anything about parrots?"

"What do need to know? Gwen at the bird house is best for that. I'll give you her number."

I was pretty sure he knew anything I needed to know, but that was another of the reasons he was so crushable. He would always defer to someone else's expertise, even, sometimes, mine, when he knew damn well I didn't really have any. But it was the only way I'd learn the job, to have to make my own decisions.

I wrote down the number. "Thanks."

"I'm glad you're staying," he said.

"Uh me too." Oh, so articulate. It was a good thing they'd hired me to pick up poop. Yeah, that was only part of it, but you could always fall back on that part of it when someone's blue eyes meant you couldn't think straight enough to form a coherent English sentence.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," he said.

"Yeah." As I hung up, I swear my heart went pitter-pat. Oh god. I'd solved one problem, but now I was going to have to deal with this other one for the long term.

"Way!"

Oh right. There was this other other problem, even before that.

But wait a minute. "What did you say?"

"Way!" The bird flapped its wings with enthusiasm. Yeah, that is an anthropomorphic description. So sue me.

"Well, thanks for the vote of approval. So can you leave now so I can go back to bed?"

"No way," the bird cackled.

I sighed.

"Fine. I may not know how to catch a parrot, but I know people who do. I am picking up this phone. I am calling Gwen, and she is going to lend me a cage. She is going to come over and catch you, and then we'll take you to the animal shelter or the parrot rescue or whatever. You can just wait right there."

I reached for the phone.

"No way," the bird laughed again. Then it turned, spread its wings, and flew out of the apartment.

I ran to the glass doors – followed by the pugs, as usual - and pushed them shut. I sunk to the floor with all kinds of relief and watched as the bird disappeared, the pugs whining beside me.

The Tourist

LATE ENTRY FROM A WESTERN TIME ZONE!

The thing was, no one doubted him. He stood with the other men, and they had trusted him.

It had happened so quickly – the explosion, the rubble and the dust. The embassy was reduced to nothing. There were bodies, or parts of them, all around him. In the way that happens after big, definite disasters, everything seemed oddly quiet. He looked around, somehow not surprised that he had survived. He listened to himself breathing for a moment, almost as if to check that he was actually, in fact, alive. He was. He saw one of the guards, laying dead, and took the gun from the corpse’s holster, tucking it into his waist band, while untucking his shirt to conceal it He felt vaguely disturbed at how calm he was. Maybe it was because he was a stranger here. He had never been to this town, this country before. Everything was once removed in its way, and in the same sense, everything, anything, was possible. That he had survived fit within the old rules of being a stranger in an unknown land. It was the grand adventure of being anonymous, and therefore witness to infinite possibility, like how the women in the market had instantly assumed he was wealthy (no) and American (also no) and followed him down every isle, using their broken English to try and entice him. He felt at home with the strange, tilted perspective people had of him as an unknown foreigner, and didn’t bother to resist their random assumptions of him.

Now he heard a sound, looked down, and saw a serving woman, pinned under a large hunk of concrete. Much like the sellers who had dogged him in the market place, she wore a vibrant, draped sarong, only her clothing had been torn away some how, and one of her breasts was exposed. It was covered in dust, making it look cold, almost like stone. Her expressionless face, unfocused eyes, and faint, whistling breath indicated she was about to die. She spoke a few words in a language he could not speak. He nodded, not because he cared, but because it seemed like the thing to do at the time. He stood and watched her as she died. He felt nothing. Everything – everything about this world was alien to him, so why not exploding government buildings?

As the woman lay there, dying, partially nude, yet strangely inhuman to him, he couldn’t help but think of the ambassador’s wife. She had been so very human to him. It turned him on that she was one of the broken people. Her drinking had not been apparent to him at first. He had taken her bold honesty and bawdy laughter as flirtation until he saw her interacting with the other guests at the embassy dinner. When he saw that she was that way with everybody – the business men, the political types, and the helping staff – then he knew. That kind of freedom is too dangerous, too vulnerable for someone who’s lived in the world, and is only bought with liquid courage. He looked at her more closely then, saw that her hair had come unpinned on one side, not for style, but because she too was unfurling. Her eye make-up was ever so slightly smeared, not because it was fashionable, but because she had been unaware of herself, maybe crying, and smeared it without knowing. The ambassador coldly ignored his wife, smoothed the napkin in his lap, and spoke of some imaginary future that would never come to be. The staff continually replaced the wife’s drink just as she emptied it, and it seemed obvious that this was how she operated. He wondered what had caused her to collapse into this life. Was it being so far away from home? The loneliness? Her marriage to this asshole? He found her impossibly, irresistibly sexy. Not because he wanted to save her, but because he knew he couldn’t. The messiness of her, her finite, fatal flaw was something he could see his way into.

“We have a botanical garden behind the residency. Would you like to see it?” she asked. Her tone, the obvious underlying implications, shocked him. He glanced at the ambassador, who had either not noticed or not been bothered by his wife’s nearly blatant sexual invitation to a virtual stranger. None of the guests acknowledged it. The dignitaries, the business men… Had they really not noticed her? The way they all ignored this beautiful, tragic woman, made him hate them all intensely.

“I would be happy to join you in the garden, madam, thank you.” Their eyes locked, she smiled at him like a satisfied cat, he felt his cock stir, and was shocked again by her openness in such a public, formal forum. He felt like a stranger to himself. Who accepts a public invitation to fuck a total stranger, in front of her husband and the upper crust? Certainly he didn’t know anyone who would do such a thing, and would have never imagined himself in such a position. But here he was, and he was so far away from not only his home, but who he was when in it, that he saw no reason to resist.

The air was heavy, and perfumed with flowers as he stepped out into the garden. It was thickly humid, the moisture of it fell like a cloak over him. He stood, waiting for her to come out, when he heard the animal screeches and caws before he saw them. He stepped out further and saw how the garden was filled with cages, and was in fact, a make shift zoo. A cage full of parrots, another with a few monkeys, and a large enclosure made up to look like a rock cliff that contained a bear. Further off were other cages, and he was about to walk out further to explore when he felt her arm slip around his waist and grasp his cock firmly in her hand. Their lips locked, she pulled him with her toward a wall covered with vines. His pants were undone, her dress was lifted, and he was fucking her. She had pulled open the front of her dreass and he pressed his lips to her breast – it was incredibly soft and delicious in an entirely perfect way. Then their eyes were locked on one and other , and the intensity of the moment was written across both their faces as they thrust and sweated together. He heard a noise, thought maybe someone was coming, and jerked away as if to go. She grabbed at him, chanting urgently in his ear “don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.” So he didn’t. He hadn’t so much as touched another human being since his arrival several months ago, and giving way to his hunger was easy. He fucked her and fucked her, until the heat of the night and their bodies grinding made it impossible to continue. He looked at her as her head reeled backward: she was coming and drunk and impossible to look away from as she arced backward in ecstasy. Then he came too, so long and hard that his head was reeling and he couldn’t help by cry out. She smiled that smile again, and somehow he felt like she had won more than he had in this exchange, but he didn’t care.

He said “you’re so beautiful. Do you know that your beautiful?”

“Of course I do.” She said with absolute certainty as she stood, let her dress slide back down over her hips and legs, took out a cigarette, lit it, turned her back and walked away from him, back into the embassy. He watched her go, uncertain what to do next. Certainly it would be improper to go back in now. But had anything been proper since he got here in the first place? He waited, gazed up at the sky and the strange now unfamiliar stars, and all around him at the flowers whose names he did not know and the animals in their enclosures. The bear made a soft snuffling noise as it shifted in its sleep, and he took this as his cue to re-enter the embassy. One of the serving staff almost immediately appeared beside him with an intensely, almost impossibly cold local beer, which he drank down greedily while he stood back aloofly, scanning the party for her. Other than her, there were only a few women in the embassy, and they were all locals, and part of the staff. And she was no where in sight.

The bomb went off at exactly 11 pm. At first he thought everyone was dead, but as he stood there, after the serving woman had quietly died at his feet, four of the other men from the party emerged. He knew from earlier introductions that they were all strangers to each other.

“The ambassador is dead,” said one.

“The Minister is dead” said another.

“Who the hell did this?” asked another. All the other men looked at each other dumbfounded.

“Hey… does anyone know where the safe is?” asked the first.

“And what about his whore wife? If she’s still around, we should have some fun with her.” All the other men looked at each other with hunger painted across their faces. How had he come to this place where disaster instantly turned to greedy opportunism in a heartbeat? The men were all waiting for someone to decide.

“I know where the ambassador’s safe is,” he said with an easy confidence. All the men looked at him. Not a flicker of resistance on any of their faces. He thought of all the logical places a safe might be, and how to get to them with all the rubble. What an adventure it would be to find it, like a treasure chest in a book, and grab fistfuls of the imaginary gold he could dream might be inside.

“Alright, take us to it. I can get it opened if you can find it, and we’ll split what’s there among us” said a man with an accent that he couldn’t place.

“Follow me,” he said. He started walking, looking at the ruin around him. It looked like the apocalypse, like another planet, and he realised there was no chance in hell he would find the imaginary safe he had claimed he knew of. He was a tourist though, so any adventure would do. No point stopping. The men were following him, blindly as he searched the rubble. He stepped over piles of debris, broken furniture, pools of blood, and the men followed him. Then he saw her and he stopped. She was lying there, eyes opened, dead. Her face, without the animation of life and alcohol, looked haggard and ugly. He knew then that she too was another attraction, something he had experienced, but would not need to hold on to.

“Look at that bitch” said one of the men “too bad we lost our chance.”

He nodded, because it seemed like the thing to do, and stepped over her because he had spotted a stairwell, leading down into the basement.

“Is it down there?” asked one.

“Yes,” he said “follow me.”

So they did. Two of the men had had the forethought to find sources of light, which they carried with them. He had his own useful tool. And down the stairs they went.

The thing was, no one doubted him. He stood with the other men, and they had trusted him. He pulled out the gun and shot them, one by one, by one, by one. He saw them each fall, recorded each of their expressions in his memory: shock, fear, anger, fear. He was surprised at the amount of blood, but pleased that he had managed to avoid getting any notable amount on himself. As he walked away, out of the rubble and off into the streets beyond, he wondered who the ambassador and the other men were, who the ambassador’s wife was, if anyone would miss them all apart from the animals in the garden, and if it mattered. After all he was a tourist, and there were some things he would never know. He wondered about when he might buy a ticket home, but then day dreamed about what Southern Italy might be like at harvest time. It was too late at night for any travel plans, so instead he wondered where the closest hotel he could check into for the night was. He would worry about new clothes in the morning.

Charlie's Business Trip

Charlie stepped off the plane clutching his briefcase in his left hand and a gray trenchcoat in his right.  He walked quickly, trying to put some distance between himself and Howard, who was drunk. 
 
Howard caught up to him.  “Hay, Charlie,” he slurred, “Shomebuddy’s lookin’ fer ya.”  Charlie looked around and noticed a well-dressed chauffeur holding a placard inscribed with the words “Mr. Babbage.” 
 
Charlie walked up to the chauffeur.  His gilded name tag read “Albert Hopping.”  “Are you looking for me?” Charlie inquired hesitantly. 
 
“Are you Babbage?”  Albert was brusque, businesslike. 
 
“Um, yes…” Charlie couldn’t believe the salesmen’s conference would send a shuttle.  In past years, they had always had to split a cab.
 
“Then I’m your driver.  Let’s do hurry, we’re late.  I presume your…associate…will be riding as well?”  Albert wrinkled his nose in Howard’s general direction. 
 
“Uh, yes, sir,” Charlie stammered.  Albert looked at him, shook his head inscrutably, and strode off at an incredible pace.  By the time they reached the car, Charlie and Howard were both too breathless to speak.  They collapsed into the limousine and Howard immediately checked the minibar. 
 
By this time, Charlie was beginning to think that something wasn’t quite right.  A shuttle would be one thing, but a limo seemed a bit much.  Granted, he had been Swain and Clintock’s top salesman of the year, but somehow he couldn’t picture the Vice President of Sales Management Personnel shelling out for a stretch.  No, Charlie thought.  This must be some kind of mistake. 
 
But it was his name on the sign, and how many Babbages could there be in the airport that day?  At any rate, Charles rested his head on the back of the seat and closed his eyes, listening to Howard curse under his breath and try to uncork a bottle of wine with his house key. 
 
Meanwhile, David Babbage was standing near the baggage claim, clutching his briefcase, silently cursing the idiot driver who jilted him and the whole damn limo company. 

***

The limo door opened and Albert’s head appeared.  “Mr. Babbage, your staff is waiting.” 
 
Charles emerged into the sunlight and squinted at a tall blonde woman in a blue suit holding a clipboard.  “Mr. Babbage, you…merciful heavens, you look…younger…in person.  Did you get a hair cut?  Look, never mind.  You’ve got to get in there.  I heard your flight was delayed, so I took the liberty of preparing your remarks…your office back East emailed them this afternoon.  Here you go.”  She stuffed a sheaf of papers into his hands and half-shoved, half-dragged him towards an impressive-looking building with a large imprint of the state seal on each of its six glass doors.  His briefcase -- and Howard -- were still in the limo.  He hoped they would both still be there when all this was over, whatever “this” turned out to be. 
 
Charlie was good at taking orders.  He did what he was told and tried not to say too much as he struggled to understand what exactly was going on.  The blonde woman led him through the one of the big glass doors with the state seal.  He looked at the seal as he shuffled through.  He had never paid much attention before, but now he noticed a grizzly bear in the foreground, just in front of the shield.  It seemed to turn and growl accusingly at him. 

The blonde waved nonchalantly at the security guard, who nodded back as he was patting down a guy in a brown sport coat whose car keys had set off the metal detector.  She led him though another door that she accessed with a keycard and down a long, long hallway with big oak doors on both sides.  She stopped in front of a doors on the right about two-thirds of the way down, fished a key out of her cleavage, and opened it.  She strode to the podium in the center, draped with red and blue crepe and yet another imprint of the state seal, and whispered in the ear of the man who was speaking to a small crowd of cameras and men with microphones.  The man who was speaking stopped, looked towards Charlie, smiled, and turned back to the cameras.  “Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Assemblyman David Babbage!” 
 
Charlie staggered to the podium, still clutching the sheaf of papers.  He leaned towards the microphone.  He looked at his papers.  He leaned in again.  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.  He looked back at his papers.  He leaned towards the mic.  “I…I have a speech prepared…” he began.  The press corp chuckled, a monolithic media.  He cleared his throat.  His resolve strengthened.  “I have a speech prepared, but I’m not going to deliver it.”  The tall blonde woman and the man who had been speaking both gasped.  “I’m not going to deliver it,” he continued, “because I’m not the man you think I am.” 
 
A murmur overtook the gaggle of reporters, and a few flash bulbs went off.  Charlie looked around, unsure how to continue.  He searched the pages in his hand for clues.  Isolated phrases spun together.  Ten years in our state’s General assembly…pleased to announce my candidacy…United States House of Representatives…my opponent, the Incumbent…
 
Charlie stared into the cold, dead eye of the television camera, set his jaw, and announced, “I’m the new David Babbage, and I’d like to be your next Congressman.” 
 
At the airport, David Babbage’s jaw dropped.  He stood gaping at the television, which was muted, and read the scrolling text beneath the live feed of a younger, handsomer version of himself: Babbage announces candidacy, promises reform. 
 
***
 
Charlie strode out of the room feeling taller than ever.  He led the way now, back down the long corridor with solemn oak doors like sentries, through the keycard-access door, past the metal detectors and the brown-suited security detail, and out the tall glass doors with the state seal emblazoned upon them.  The seal was in reverse from this side, and Charlie nodded at the grizzly bear as he passed.  From this angle, it seemed to be smiling. 
 
Reporters were already outside, pressing close to Charlie and tossing questions like rice at a wedding.  “No comment, no comment,” barked the tall blonde, and held an outstretched palm between the cameras and Charlie.  In truth, there were not as many reporters as it seemed, but to Charlie, who had never been on television before, it felt like the whole world was watching, and he enjoyed it. 
 
They reached the limo and he piled in.  His briefcase was still on the seat, and Howard was snoring loudly.  “Take him to headquarters,” the blonde told the driver.  “I’ll meet him there.”  The limousine lurched and zoomed into the heavy downtown traffic of the state capital. 
 
“Howard, wake up,” Charlie shook him.  “You’re not going to believe what just happened.” 
 
David Babbage yelled into his cell phone.  “Get Allison on the phone.  Get her now.  I don’t care where she is; I need to talk to her.  I’m glad you liked the speech.  No, I didn’t get a haircut.  Could you just get Allison on the line, please?” 
 
***
 
“Ms. Janney, telephone for you.” 
 
“I’ll take it later, Sarah.”  The tall blonde was introducing Charlie to the staff members who would be working for his -- his! -- Congressional campaign.  There was Sarah, the receptionist, and the man who had been speaking to the press in the other building.  He was apparently the press secretary, and his name was Jim Dienes.  Ms. Janney -- Charlie hadn’t been able to divine her first name yet -- was his campaign manager, and he had a graphics guy, a legal guy, a money guy, and a get-coffee-for-everybody guy.  Charlie’s office had a copier and a neat machine that folded regular sheets of printer paper into thirds for mailing, and there were a couple of student volunteers sitting at folding tables stuffing envelopes. 
 
Charlie looked around the two small rooms on the third floor of a building owned by the state Party and asked, “Is this it?” 
 
The graphics guy stopped flirting with Sarah.  The money guy looked up from his desk.  The legal guy stood by the copier with a staple remover poised in mid-air.  Jim put his hand over the telephone’s mouthpiece, and the coffee guy dripped steaming latte foam onto the carpet.  The students stopped shuffling envelopes and all eyes turned towards Charlie.  He felt his cheeks grow warm. 
 
Ms. Janney started to explain, and he noticed that her cheeks were red, too.  “Well, Mr. Babbage, Sir.  We are…that is, your campaign has just begun recently, and we…um, well, we are waiting on…additional funding.  From, that is, um.  Non-Party sources.” 
 
“This is all the Party will pay for?” Charlie’s voice rose; he couldn’t help it.  “Isn’t this a national office we’re running for here?  How do they expect us to win without more staff than this?” 
 
The uncomfortable silence was broken by Howard’s emergence from the restroom.  Inspiration came to Charlie like the final blaze of a dying light bulb, and he raised an outstretched hand towards his inebriated friend.  “Today, ladies and gentlemen, we turn this campaign around.  I’d like you to meet our newest staff member, speech writer Howard Shaw.” 
 
A smattering of applause and a few nervous chuckles rose from the relieved staff, and Howard bowed awkwardly, stabilizing himself on a nearby coat rack.  The telephone rang at Sarah’s desk, and the staff resumed their previous engagements, each pleased to avoid Charlie's gaze and hoping that somehow Ms. Janney would sort things out. 
 
“Allison,” Sarah addressed Ms. Janney; aha! Charlie thought.  “It’s Gladys, from the Eastern office.  She says it’s urgent, and she won’t take no for an answer.” 
 
Allison sighed, walked to her desk, and picked up the telephone.  “Yes, Gladys?  What?”  She turned pale.  “Are you sure?  Yes.  Yes.  Put him through.”  She turned away from Charlie.  “Yes.  Yes.  Yes, sir.   Yes, sir.  He’s right here, sir.”  She turned back towards Charlie and held the phone out to him with a shaking hand.  “It’s for you.” 

Charlie blanched.  “Who is it?” he croaked.  Allison lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper.  “It’s…Mr. Babbage.” 
 
***
 
"What exactly do you think you're up to?"  David Babbage was more curious than accusatory, but Charlie was still speechless and terrified.  "Are you there?  Who is this?" 

"It's...I'm...Charlie.  Charles Gordon Babbage, sir.  And I'm...I...apologize for the, uh, confusion."  

"Confusion?" David's laugh roared in the receiver, and Charlie pulled it away from his ear.  "Son, do you realize you could go to jail for what you did today?"  

Charlie began to sweat.  "Sir, I...I didn't mean any harm.  I just..."

"No, no.  I'm not going to call my lawyers just yet.  So you're a Babbage.  What's your father's name?"

"Benjamin, sir."  Charlie's throat was dry. 

"Benjamin, Benjamin..." David thought hard.  "Is that...Frank's boy?"

"Frank's grandson.  My father's a junior."

"Ah, yes.  That makes more sense.  By my calculations that makes us..." David counted up an invisible bracket.  "Fourth cousins, once removed." 

"How's that, sir?"  Charles wasn't sure what David was getting at. 

"Fourth cousins, once removed."  David's mother had been rabid for geneology, and she had passed much of her knowledge (though not here interest) on to him.  For once, he was glad.

"Oh, yes sir.  I heard you.  I just don't know how it works."

"Oh yes.  Most people don't.  But that's no matter now.  Seems you and I have enough DNA in common that so long as nobody pays too much attention you can do a pretty nice job of passing for me.  What are you, about thirty-five?"

"Thirty-seven, sir."

"Yeah, that's about right.  Change the hair and update the clothes and you could be me fourteen years ago.  I suppose everyone will think I dyed my hair, got Botox, whatever the kids do these days, when they think about it at all."  David had stopped addressing Charlie and was now merely thinking aloud. 

"Think about what, sir?" 

"Why I look younger all of a sudden.  When you take over my job." 

"W..when I what?" Charles stammered. 

“Do you have a family, son?”  

“No, I…”

“Well, that’s fine.  I’ll arrange for some actors to stand in when you have to make public appearances.” 

"When I..no.  Sir, with all due respect, sir, I...this is ludicrous.  You have...you're a politician.  You do things.  You have a fantastic career.  You have my dream life.  Why would you give it to me?"  Charlie pounded his fist on the desk in confused frustration.  "What are you playing at?" 

David took a deep breath.  He hadn't been fair to the boy.  Charlie was uninitiated, he couldn't know how such things work.  "Charlie, listen.  I have been a state assemblyman for over ten years.  I'm sixteen months from the end of my term, and I can't complete it.  I have cancer, Charlie, and I'm getting sicker.  I want to spend my last year with my family, privately.  Heaven knows I owe it to them, after ten years of forsaking them to pursue this 'fantastic career.'  I accepted the nomination for a race that everybody knows I can't win so that I could resign from the assembly without telling the public about my illness.  Have you ever heard the term, 'sacrificial lamb?'" 

Charlie shook his head slowly, realized that David couldn't see him, and whispered, "No." 

"When a people expect a politician to win by a really big margin -- seventy five percent or more -- sometimes the opposing party runs someone against him just for the sake of having a name on the ballot.  They don't expect the other guy to win, so they don't give him much funding or a lot of support."  As David spoke, Charlie looked with new eyes at the meager two-room office suite, the minimal staff, Howard snoring head-down at the table with the college students.  "He's just there for the sake of the Party, like a lamb being led to slaughter.  That's what this campaign is, Charlie."  Charlie felt a sob rising in his chest as his illusions about democracy slipped away.  But David continued.  "You can turn this around, Charlie.  You can change this from a runner to a winner.  I saw you on television this morning, Charlie, and I believe you really are the new David Babbage."

“But, Mr. Babbage, sir.  I don't know anything about politics!  I mean...I’m just a salesman!” 

David chuckled before responding.  “Well, son," he laughed, "you'd better start selling." 

Smoke on the Water

JEFF

Jeff Maltby picked up a guitar for the first time at summer camp during the summer after fourth grade. It was church camp, 1975 and his first encounter with an actual real live musical instrument other than the upright piano from the music room at school or the organ at church. Three of the counselors had brought them – big blond Martins and Yamahas – and, this being a liberal Protestant sort of place and it being the mid-70s, used them mainly for strumming John Denver, Dan Fogelburg and the occasional round of “Kum-ba-yah” at vespers.

When given the opportunity to hold one of the guitars during small group time on Tuesday, Jeff held it on his lap and made a few tenative exploratory strums. He pressed his other fingers on the strings, which hurt. His cabin-mate, John Hamm, who was a sixth-grader, took the guitar away from him after a really short time. Hamm showed him how to play “Smoke on the Water” on the top string. Jeff watched carefully – seemed simple enough. For the rest of the week, Jeff took every opportunity to play with the guitars, and by Friday evening was plunking out a passable, one-string version of “Smoke on the Water” for the talent show. Jeff knew it wasn’t great, but it certainly beat “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

Jeff didn’t become a guitar player, really, although he did maintain his relationship with “Smoke on the Water.” For the next fifteen years, through a series of suburban bedrooms, rec-rooms, basements, cabins, tents, dorm-rooms, campsites, crappy apartments and slightly less crappy apartments, whenever a guitar showed up Jeff would unobtrusively pick up and play “Smoke on the Water.” It wasn’t that he really liked the song – he wasn’t a Deep Purple fan. It was just an odd little habit he’d picked up. He was barely even conscious of it anymore. Guitars and real guitar players were ubiquitous enough in his world that he’d eventually gotten rather good at it, with the help of various friends, roommates and passersby showing him exactly how to hold his hands so that his reproduction gradually became more accurate and complex. He never tried to play anything else and considered his odd ability as akin to bar bet fodder or being double jointed.

DMITRY

Dmitry Medvedev was a bear. A Russian brown bear trapped as a cub after his mother had been killed by hunters. Dmitry was trained to be one of the very last dancing bears. He was sold to a hairy fat man in a red coat. He was kept in a little shed. The man punched a hole through his muzzle and attached a chain to it. The man jerked on the chain and made him stand on two legs, over and over again. The man beat him with a stick. The man would beat on a bucket with his stick which made a noise that hurt Dmitry's ears. The man made him stand on hot iron plates. The man would yell at him. When the burning got bad, Dmitry would lift his feet. The man would yell some more. He would beat on the bucket some more. Dmitry did not like the man.

The yelling and clanging and beating and burning would go on for a long time, then the man would leave. A different smaller man would come and give Dmitry food. Dmitry like the little man. The little man carried a tiny box that made music. Dmitry liked to hear the music. The music sounded like his mother's heart beating. It made him feel better because it meant the clanging and beating and burning was over. He would rock his body back and forth with the music.

Dmitry joined the circus. The big man sold Dmitry to Sasha Yurikov. Sasha took Dmitry to many different places. Dmitry would stand up on two legs and move his feet the way he had when the big man was beating and burning him. Sasha did not beat him or burn him. Sasha did not hurt him and gave him food, but Dmitry had to stand on two legs and move his feet for many hours every day.

Dmitry and Sasha went many places with the circus. Every few days, Sasha would put Dmitry in his cage in the truck. They would drive to a new place and Sasha would let Dmitry out to dance for the people. Once, Dmitry had to stay in his cage for many days. Sasha only let him out of the cage for a short time every day. When he came out of the cage he was in a strange place with water all around. After many days of this they left the water place and Dmitry began to dance again.

MICKEY

Mickey Morris was just one of those guys. He could get you to do stuff you didn’t want to do. Anything from another round of tequila shots to driving the gang across the state to see a concert that you personally didn’t give a shit about seeing to “investing” the rent money in his plan to sell screen printed panties to college girls, Mickey could convince you to do it. Even if you knew you shouldn’t and you really didn’t want to and you really REALLY shouldn’t. It was something about how he was always smiling and about he always seemed to need your agreement on a deeply personal level and that turning him down would be a soul crushing blow and he was so sincere. So you usually ended up going along with a sigh, internally reassuring yourself that it wouldn’t end up so bad this time, despite the fact that giving in to Mickey’s wishes had resulted in a long string of blackouts, arrests, skin parasites and evictions or narrow escapes therefrom.

Mickey was the singer in a band called “Cougar Medicine”. Cougar Medicine played Post New-Wave Southern Techno-Funk well enough to fill the bigger bars in town, but not to go much farther. Mickey was excited because he had gotten the band a gig at The Santa Slam, which was a music festival over Labor Day weekend at Santa Claus Land. Santa Claus Land was a declining amusement park 150 miles away whose owners had hit upon the idea of a musical festival as a way to squeeze one more profitable weekend out of the season. The other members of Cougar Medicine thought it sounded cheesy and were dubious whether it would be truly rockin’ to play their unique brand of Post New-Wave Southern Techno-Funk at a place called “Santa Claus Land”. In the end, of course, Mickey convinced them.

Cougar Medicine practiced at the rented house shared by Fred, the lead guitarist and Jimmy O, who played the bass. Jeff’s girlfriend Carla, who was Jimmy O’s cousin, had the third bedroom, so it was there at the house that Jeff first met Mickey, about two weeks before Labor Day. Jeff was waiting for Carla to get ready – Jeff was taking her to a movie (her choice) and Tumbleweed for their three-month anniversary. Jeff was sitting on the couch finishing the last dozen or so bars of “Smoke on the Water” (Fred didn’t mind) when Mickey opened the front door, walked in and flumped down on the couch beside Jeff, who finished up the song with an odd little hammering-on flourish that Fred had showed him the week before.
Mickey said Jeff’s playing was “amaaazing” and introduced himself. Jeff was doing his best to tactfully demur and explain that he couldn’t really play when Carla came down the stairs, hungry and ready to go. Carla greeted Mickey with a smirk and a raised eyebrow and Jeff told him goodbye. Before they left, Mickey managed to extract a commitment that the two of them would be attending the Santa Slam.

APRIL

April Love (yes that was her real name, thank you very fucking much mom for a pole-dancing destiny) glared over her keyboard at D.K. the drummer, raising her palms and eyebrows in a gesture of exasperation and mock submission. Fucking Mickey had fucking done it again. It was bad enough to be playing at an amusement park, but now he was pulling yaps up onto the stage.

Not that it had turned out to be a bad gig. There were at least a couple hundred people in the audience, which was more than most of their bar shows. It just looked like less cause this fucking amphitheater (The North Pole Playhouse!) would hold ten times that many.

But Mickey was just so fucking impulsive. They had just finished “Plaid Flannel Blues” which went over pretty well, considering, when he starts jumping and flopping all over the place, pointing and hollering out into the crowd. Then he jumps down off the stage and is dragging this guy back up with him. Turns out to be Carla's boyfriend, Josh or Jeff or somefucking thing like that. She'd only met him a couple of times – didn't seem like a bad guy, maybe a little stiff.

None of which was so bad. But then Mickey and Jeff/Josh/Whatever stand there on the stage arguing for like five minutes. Fucking Mickey wants him to play guitar and he won't or can't. And they're going back and forth, Mickey pushing and pleading and the guy shaking his head. All this time the crowd's getting restless, so D.K., never one to miss a chance, starts out on a drum solo. This goes on for at least two and a half minutes, during which time all she and the rest of the band can do is smile and act like this is supposed to be happening. April swore that she would crack D.K.'s fucking skull with that crash cymbal after the show.

Finally Jeff/Josh shrugs and gives up, which seems to be how people usually end up reacting to Mickey. “Honest to God, it's the only thing I know,” April heard him say. So the guy comes over and grabs Fred's guitar and gets ready to play, which is a good thing because about this time not only is the crowd getting pretty damn restless and looking to see if there's a clear route to the nearest aisle, but all of a sudden there's some kind of disturbance at the very back of the hall. It looks like a guy in a bear suit is beating up Santa Claus, but she can't tell for sure. Anyway, Mickey comes over then and tells them they were going to play “Smoke on the Water” with Jeff/Josh.

Which just pissed April way the hell off because what was this some kind of 8th grade backyard three chord operation? What was next, Journey? But the crowd was really starting to lean toward the exits and she thought she saw rent-a-cops in the distance. Plus it was fucking pointless to argue with fucking Mickey.

And it turned out to be OK anyway, because Jeff/Josh could actually play, so he rocks out on some Deep Purple for five minutes or so, gives Fred his guitar back and sits back down. The audience likes it, cause he's one of theirs or something and he played a song they all knew which gets them back into the show. Santa Claus and the rent-a-cops seem to have disappeared – but the guy in the bear suit was still there doing some goofy-assed shuffling dance, which he continues to do for the rest of their set.

SASHA

Sasha and Dmitry stood where Andrei Alexey had told them to stand, near the stage where the rock bands played. It was not a good place for them to be. They could still see the Kharakov Brothers to their left, juggling in the entrance courtyard. And Boris Boris was swallowing flames just around the corner to his right. But Sasha was not comfortable, even with the close proximity of his friends. Sasha could tell that Dmitry did not like it there either. After 15 years traveling, living and working together, day after day, Dmitry was the closest thing Sasha had to a wife. Sasha cared about Dmitry. Plus, Dmitry was the last dancing bear there was. Without him Sasha had no way to make a living, much less travel away from the Soviet Union.

Dmitry didn't seem to like the some of the music, which was odd for a dancing bear. But this music was loud and discordant. Sasha didn't like it and neither did Dmitry. It drowned out their little cassette player with Dmitry's usual music on it. But Dmitry, bless him, was doing his best to dance to the music the rock bands played. He was a good bear.

What really disturbed Dmitry was the Santa Claus statue. It was big – taller than Dmitry. Every few minutes it would move back and forth, brandishing a stiff whip over the backs of eight little deers that floated in front of him. Every time it did this it emitted a spectral guffaw. Dmitry would flinch and jump. It was hot, and as the day wore on Sasha and Dmitry both became more and more uncomfortable in the unaccustomed heat. Dmitry kept edging away from the statue, but Andrei Alexey had said it was important to stay where he was. It was not good to trifle with Andrei Alexey.

Then the dog came and barked at Dmitry. Dmitry did not like dogs, but he was very well trained and the dog was only a little one. The dog stayed and barked at Dmitry for a long time though. It was very hot for Sasha and he knew that Dmitry was very hot too. He had the tired look in his eyes and he hung his shoulders. Sasha patted him and gave him his water bottle, but it did not help much.

Then the drums started. Dmitry did NOT like the drums. It was drums and only drums and they seemed to go playing by themselves forever. Dmitry became agitated and then more agitated. He growled and then bellowed and then roared. Still the drums played on. Sasha tried his best to soothe Dmitry and began trying to lead him away to a shady spot away from the drums, Andrei Alexey or no.

But just as he started to lead Dmitry away, the accursed Santa Claus statue started up. Dmitry froze. He was perfectly still for a long moment. Sasha did not recognize the look in his eyes. Then Dmitry roared again, reached up to the chain attached to his collar and snapped in two like a twig. He fell upon the statue in a frenzy, first battering it with swipes of his paws then lifting it bodily from it perch and dashing it to the ground, whereupon he wrenched Santa Claus's head from his body with a deft twist.

Sasha rushed to restrain Dmitry, but Dmitry gently brushed him aside, flinging Sasha to the pavement eight feet away. Sasha lifted himself from the ground in a panic and began edging around Dmitry toward his bag. There were hundred of people and many little children around. Dmitry began pounding the headless statue into the ground.

Sasha reached his bag and sadly opened the bottom compartment where he kept his revolver. He shook and wept as his hands closed around it. He could hear shouts and see uniformed men approaching.

Just then the drums stopped. Dmitry stopped too. The music started again. It was loud with a thumping beat. Dmitry dropped the statue and looked up. Sasha slid the pistol back into his bag. Dmitry stood and began dancing, heavily at first and then with a lightness and grace that Sasha had not seen for many years. He could swear that Dmitry was smiling.