Theme music
NARRATOR: Once again it's time for THE ADVENTURES OF NICK STRONG: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. Brought to you by Absorbine Jr. and the fine folks at S & H Greenstamps. Stay tuned for another exciting case from the files of Nick Strong
Commercials
NARRATOR: Welcome back to THE ADVENTURES OF NICK STRONG: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. Today's gripping episode, titled The Forgotten File finds Nick sprawled on the sidewalk in front of a downtown skyscraper. Luckily, the sun is just rising – no one has seen him. Yet.
Sound of whistling
IRISH COP: Well now, what have we here? Sleepin' it off are we?
NICK: grumbles
IRISH COP: Musta been one fancy shindig – look at those duds. Ought to have a top hat to go with that tux. Now wake up and get along with you...
NICK: What? What the? Where am I?
Sounds of Nick standing up
NICK: My head! Ohhhhh.
IRISH COP: Oh. So it's you Strong. You should know better – you old dog. Had a rough one last night eh? Well I hope you had a good time.
NICK: What? I...I
IRISH COP: Get on home now, Nick. You don't want folks to see you like this. And if the Lootenant found you in this condition. Mother of Mercy!
NICK: Oh. Well I'll just be going then officer. (walks off)
IRISH COP: Officer now is it. Put on a tuxedo and you're all of a sudden to good to call me by my name are you? Ah, go on with you. (resumes whistling, walks off)
NICK (walking – street sounds): Ooooh my head. I must have done something last night... but I can't remember much... of anything. I...I'm really woozy.
Sound of collision
EVELYN STOATLY: Well! Pardon Me!
NICK weakly : I'm terribly sorry, I..I
Nick collapses
EVELYN: My goodness! What happened. Are you all right.
NICK: I'm just a little dizzy – my head hurts.
EVELYN: Can you stand up? Let me help you.
NICK: I think so. Let me lean on the wall here.
EVELYN: Hold my arm. Come along, we'll go to my office – you can lie down there – It's just around this corner.
NICK: Thank you.
Walking, then door opening
RECEPTIONIST: Good morning and welcome to the Stoatly Foundation
EVELYN: It's me, Phyllis.
RECEPTIONIST: OH! Sorry Miss Stoatly. Who is that ?
EVELYN: I'm not sure. Help me get him onto the couch.
NICK: I'll be myself in just a minute.
EVELYN: Just be quiet and lie down. Phyllis, go wet a cloth and there are some aspirin in my desk.
RECEPTIONIST: Yest Miss Stoatly.
EVELYN: How did this happen to you Mr...
NICK: I'm not sure?
EVELYN: Of what?
NICK: Of anything.
EVELYN: Is there someone I could call for you?
NICK: I can't think of anyone.
EVELYN: How about your tuxedo? At the opera last night?
NICK: Sorry, don't know that either.
EVELYN: Let's just start simple. What's your name?
NICK: I'm ... I'm... I mean, my name is ....
EVELYN: Yes...
NICK: I can't seem to come up with at the moment.
EVELYN: Oh dear. Well, at least I can introduce myself. I'm Evelyn Stoatly.
NICK: You say that like I should know who it is. Should I?
EVELYN: Read a gossip column in the past 10 years?
NICK: I forget.
EVELYN: You're doing quite a bit of that lately.
RECEPTIONIST: Here's a wet towel and the aspirins.
EVELYN: Thank you. Here, just let me wipe your head.... My goodness, that's quite a bump you have there! That explains a little. Well then, Mr. X, is there anything you do remember?
NICK: I'm trying, but it's all coming up fuzzy. Maybe if I took a little nap.
EVELYN: I don't think that's a good idea – you could have concussion. I think we should get you to a doctor.
NICK: I don't know...
EVELYN: I won't hear any argument – I'll take you to my doctor right away. Phyllis, help me get him outside and into a cab, then call Dr. Smuckles and let him know we're coming.
RECEPTIONIST: Yes Miss Stoatly.
Walking sounds, door opening, street sounds
EVELYN: TAXI!
Car stops, car door opening.
EVELYN: Just help me get him in.... Thank you Phyllis. I'll be back as soon as I can.
RECEPTIONIST: Yes Miss Stoatly.
EVELYN: Driver, 14th street and Oak – Dr. Smuckles's office, please.
DRIVER: Yes ma'am.
NICK: Why are you doing all this for me.
EVELYN: Why, taking care of the needy and endangered is what we do at the Stoatly Foundation.
NICK: But I'm...
EVELYN: Hush. Just relax until we see the doctor.
EVELYN: Hmmm. Why are we... Driver!
DRIVER: Yes ma'am?
EVELYN: 14th street is the other direction.
DRIVER: No ma'am, there's construction...
EVELYN: Don't be silly -- 14th street is in the exact opposite direction. Now turn around and take this cab where to Dr. Smuckles's office – this is a very sick man.
Clunk of car doors locking
DRIVER: That will be quite enough madam. Mr. Strong, I don't know who your lovely companion is, but is she values her safety, I'd suggest you instruct her to control herself.
EVELYN: slight scream
NICK: He's got a gun!
NICK: I think you must have made a mistake, friend. I don't know what you're talking about.
DRIVER: Don't play stupid, Strong. You have something that belongs to me and I intend to have it back.
NICK: I really don't know what you're talking about.
EVELYN: He doesn't! He's lost his memory.
DRIVER: Really? What a unique story. Well let us say that I intend to help him recover it.
EVELYN: But it's true, he really.
DRIVER: Please do not insult me with these juvenile stories. We shall discuss it further when we arrive. I have a lovely, secluded place in the country where we won't be disturbed.
Door handle sound
EVELYN: The door won't open. It's locked from the outside!
DRIVER: Well of course it is. Please do not make difficulties.
NARRATOR: Who is the mysterious driver? What is Nick hiding? Will Nick regain his memory? To find out, tune in next week for another exciting episode of THE ADVENTURES OF NICK STRONG: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.
Showing posts with label author 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label author 1. Show all posts
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
How Fred Got His Groove Back
To look at me you’d never guess. Hell yes, I’m wearing a thong right now. It’s all I ever wear anymore.
I know, I know. I’m a 45 year old, 280 pound stodgy white guy. Me in a thong is not an image you want to think much about. But the thong changed my life.
It all started when I lost a bet. Me and Jimmy Cheese were talking about movies and I said it was George Kennedy who played Omar Bradley in “Patton”. He said it was Karl Malden, which was right of course, only I didn’t remember it until after I’d made the bet that the loser would wear thong underwear to work the next day.
What! So we make weird bets like that all the time. You don’t?
So I lost, of course. Jimmy holds me to it (just like I would have done to him) and nothing will do but we have to stop by Target after work and pick up the thong I will be wearing the next day. We had a little trouble finding one in my size, but we did finally.
Next morning I was a little reluctant, but I put it on. I’m not the kind of guy to back down, even when it is a little embarrassing. So the guys at the office laugh. Next time it’ll be their ass and I’ll be laughing. Hell, it’s something to talk about. You try entertaining yourself while processing life insurance premium refund claims all day.
So anyway, I put it on and put my pants on over it. It was a different feeling, or really several different feelings. My cheeks were rubbing against the fabric of my pants. I was lifted and supported in an entirely new way. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
In fact, after the initial round of hilarity at the office (I had to stretch my waistband to prove I was in fact wearing the thong) and things calmed down a little, I realized I really liked the feeling. It felt free and a little bit dangerous. It was also like something I vaguely remembered, but I wasn’t sure what at the time (later on I figured out it reminded me of wearing a jock strap in high school). By the end of the day I was really digging on my thong.
I went back to my regular boxer-briefs the next day, but they were unsatisfying. The day after that I wore the thong again. I liked so much I went back to Target and bought 5 more. They’re all I wear anymore.
I think they’ve changed my attitude about life. I walk a little differently – it’s subtle, but I think people notice on some level. I started talking long walks with Tina (my wife) after work and I lost 10 pounds. I thought she would make fun of me (OK, she did a little at first) but now she likes me in my thongs and she likes me new attitude. It’s improved things for us, if you know what I mean.
So yeah, I’m a thong guy.
I know, I know. I’m a 45 year old, 280 pound stodgy white guy. Me in a thong is not an image you want to think much about. But the thong changed my life.
It all started when I lost a bet. Me and Jimmy Cheese were talking about movies and I said it was George Kennedy who played Omar Bradley in “Patton”. He said it was Karl Malden, which was right of course, only I didn’t remember it until after I’d made the bet that the loser would wear thong underwear to work the next day.
What! So we make weird bets like that all the time. You don’t?
So I lost, of course. Jimmy holds me to it (just like I would have done to him) and nothing will do but we have to stop by Target after work and pick up the thong I will be wearing the next day. We had a little trouble finding one in my size, but we did finally.
Next morning I was a little reluctant, but I put it on. I’m not the kind of guy to back down, even when it is a little embarrassing. So the guys at the office laugh. Next time it’ll be their ass and I’ll be laughing. Hell, it’s something to talk about. You try entertaining yourself while processing life insurance premium refund claims all day.
So anyway, I put it on and put my pants on over it. It was a different feeling, or really several different feelings. My cheeks were rubbing against the fabric of my pants. I was lifted and supported in an entirely new way. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
In fact, after the initial round of hilarity at the office (I had to stretch my waistband to prove I was in fact wearing the thong) and things calmed down a little, I realized I really liked the feeling. It felt free and a little bit dangerous. It was also like something I vaguely remembered, but I wasn’t sure what at the time (later on I figured out it reminded me of wearing a jock strap in high school). By the end of the day I was really digging on my thong.
I went back to my regular boxer-briefs the next day, but they were unsatisfying. The day after that I wore the thong again. I liked so much I went back to Target and bought 5 more. They’re all I wear anymore.
I think they’ve changed my attitude about life. I walk a little differently – it’s subtle, but I think people notice on some level. I started talking long walks with Tina (my wife) after work and I lost 10 pounds. I thought she would make fun of me (OK, she did a little at first) but now she likes me in my thongs and she likes me new attitude. It’s improved things for us, if you know what I mean.
So yeah, I’m a thong guy.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
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?
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?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
And The Rest...
AND THE REST…
I had already checked out and had my bags loaded into the cab when the desk clerk came running out of the hotel lobby. “Dr. Hinckley! A courier just delivered this for you,” she said and handed me a manila envelope. I thanked her, got into the cab and read the dock number from the charter boat brochure my travel agent had included with my itinerary.
I hadn’t been expecting the news quite this soon, but this message was expected. Confirmation that on my return I would be named the T.M. Howell Professor of Applied Bio-physical Chemistry – a final validation of the past 15 years spent toiling in the groves of academe. I wasn’t keen on leaving the day after my interview by the selection panel, but the Provost had assured me that I had it “in the bag” and my selection was a foregone conclusion. My travel arrangements had been made months in advance; changing the dates for my trip would be prohibitively expensive.
So off I went on my first vacation since I was a child – first two days on the beach in Hawaii, then a short boat ride to the tiny isolated resort island of Mi’illwaw Kea for some botanizing (perhaps even an encounter with the rare Mantis Khani). A week of rare tropical plants, birds and insects!
I had caught my jacket pocket on the door handle as I entered the cab, ripping it and spilling the contents over the back seat. By the time I had gathered my things and rearranged them in other pockets we had reached the dock. So was unable to find an opportunity to open the Provost’s envelope until all my things had been loaded on the boat. Once my dunnage had been stowed and I had been given a tour of the vessel and met my fellow passengers I was finally able to sit near the stern and read the letter – almost half an hour later. I was barely conscious of the harbor slipping away so pre-occupied was I with my long-anticipated professional triumph.
At first I thought there must have been a mistake – a one paragraph letter from the university “Thank you for your interest, but unfortunately…” How could they possibly have turned me down? My credentials are impeccable – no one has my background, my publications, my accolades. They didn’t even interview anyone else. It was just to be a formality! How on earth… Then I noticed the handwritten note from the Provost.
Roy,
I am so terribly sorry this has happened. I’ve tried to telephone and hope I will reach you before this is delivered. Just after you left we had a call from one of the U.’s most important donors. He was livid that you were even being considered for the chair that he had funded and would never give the U another cent if you weren’t dismissed immediately. I think we were able to dissuade him from the latter, but the Chair is quite out of the question at this point. Apparently a paper you wrote caused the Federal government to amend a regulation which cost his company a great deal of money. In any case, I am so very sorry about this. We will do all we can to salvage the situation and find a suitable spot for you when you return. If we haven’t spoken, please call when you receive this.
Fred
I sank back into the deck chair, utterly stunned. Everything I had worked for since I was an undergraduate. Every hour in the library. Every day in the laboratory. All the papers read and written. Almost twenty years of my life devoted to a single goal – All gone. All snatched away by some businessman. And what did “find a suitable spot for you” mean?
A wave of despair swept over me such as I’d never felt before. I cannot describe the sense of utter futility, frustration and hopelessness that crushed me, other than to say that I hope that I never experience it again. For a short while I understood on a visceral level as I never had before why suicide might be an attractive option.
I suppose my distress must have been obvious. Someone laid a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?” It was one of my fellow passengers.
“Oh. Yes. Or, rather not really. It’s Miss Summers, isn’t it?” I stammered. Flirtatious banter has never been a strength, much less at a time like this.
“That’s right,” she said and smiled. “I saw you read your letter and you just went white. Then you were sitting so still that I knew something had to be wrong. Is there anything I can do?”
“Oh no. I’ll be fine. Just a little, er, setback,” I tried to give her a confident smile, but I could tell from her reaction that it was feeble at best and closer to sickly. She smiled again. Or rather she SMILED. Her smile was unique in my experience. It was a thing of radiance, purity and joy. Things could not be all bad if that smile was in the world.
“Would you like to talk about it?” she asked and SMILED.
“Oh no, I couldn’t burden you…” and I really didn’t intend to, as I am really a very reticent person. But somehow I found myself unburdening myself to her – my personal and professional history, how I had utterly devoted myself to my research, how my hopes had crystallized into a single goal and how that goal had been denied me just minutes before.
“Dr. Hinckley, you mustn’t despair. This must be the first time you’ve ever faced disappointment. I’m sure it’s bad now, but it gets better,” she said, while patting my arm in a touchingly encouraging manner. “And just consider all the good you’ve done so far. And you’ll still get to do the work you love – sounds exciting to me. Maybe you won’t get the prestige or recognition you deserve. But that’s just what other people think. You’re really a very lucky man.” And she SMILED at me again.
She had really made me feel much better and I told her so. I was looking forward to spending the next few days getting to know this wonderful creature better. I stood and we walked to the rail to watch the early evening shadows form over the waves. “I’m terribly sorry to bore you like this. Very inconsiderate of me. Please tell me about yourself.” I asked.
“About me? There’s not much to tell,” she said and went on to describe her life on a Kansas corn farm. Her days were divided between caring for her parents, working in the local feed mill and endless farm chores. The nearest town, a thriving metropolis of 4,000 was 20 minutes away. Topeka was two hours away. She had won this trip in a contest by submitting the best coconut cream pie recipe to the Coco-Pure Coconut Company. “This is a once in lifetime thing for me. I can’t imagine I’ll ever get to take a trip like this again.”
I was struck by the self-imposed limitation on her world and was preparing to encourage her to raise her aspirations. I was interrupted by a strikingly beautiful sight – two Megaptera novaeangliae leapt from the sea. They faced each other and their trajectories met at the peak of their arc. They were no more than 50 meters from the boat. Truly an astounding exhibition of cetacean behavior. But I was even more touched by Miss Summers’ reaction. When I turned to her after the two humpbacks had submerged back to the depths I noticed that tears were running down her cheeks. I felt an extreme affection for the young lady at that moment. Perhaps it was the sea air – more likely the clash of strong emotions I’d experienced in such a short time. But I overcame my normal reserve and placed my hand on top of hers on the rail.
We had stood like that for only a short while when were interrupted by the ship’s First (and only) Mate. A tall, awkward young man named Willy; he seemed highly good-natured and likely. “I just wanted to warn you folks that we might see a little rough weather,” he said and pointed over the opposite site of the boat. We could see a dark line of clouds in the distance. “Captain says nothing to worry about. We’ll be going around the bad part of the storm. But we might get some rain and a few waves,” with that he gave us a sheepish grin and ambled back toward the bow.
We crossed to the other side to look at the storm. Even from several miles away it was obvious that it was quite severe, with impressive bouts of lightning and cresting waves. The boat was beginning to pitch more noticeably as the waves reached us and we moved along the length of the well defined storm. As I watched I noticed some distinctively shaped clouds along the leading edge of the storm front – pale green in a distinct chevron shape.
“Why those are Schwartz-Sherwood cirro-nimbus clouds,” I said. “And look at the ratio of cloud height to the length of the storm!” I made a few quick mental calculations. “That must be a Scotti-Wells osmotic anti-cyclone. I read a paper about it just last month!”
“What does that mean?” Miss Summers asked.
“We’re doing exactly the wrong thing. That storm is only about a quarter-mile wide. But the most violent winds and turbulence are directly in front of it. We could be blown miles out of way.”
“Goodness!” she said, “You have to tell the captain.”
“I will,” I said, and left her there at the rail. I wasn’t sure how I would convince him. He seemed an amiable enough fellow, but had no reason to accept advice from me. The Scotti-Wells was a newly observed phenomenon and it was unlikely he would have heard of it. I took a second to compose my thoughts. As I leaned over the starboard rail, the two Megaptera repeated their unlikely performance. As the closer of the two leapt into the sky, meeting his companion at their mutual apogee, his eye met mine. In hindsight I am sure I had only fallen victim to the anthropomorphic fallacy, but at the time I was certain that I had had a split-second’s shared understanding with the cetacean.
I do not know how long I stood there transfixed. It may have been as long as five minutes. I do not know, but I was awakened from my reverie by the increased violence of the sea – the ship had acquired a pronounced lateral roll. I scanned the waves for the whales one last time. It began to rain.
I may never fully understand exactly why I did what I did next. At the time I was convinced it was the right thing to do. While the ensuing events and the difficulties of the past few years have engendered some doubts, I have never regretted my decision.
I turned and walked carefully back to the stern and Miss Summers. “Did you tell him?” she asked. She was still smiling, but I was able to detect an overtone of concern in her voice. It was raining hard now and the wind was blowing the drops into painful little pellets.
“I did,” I lied, “but it may have been too late.” I took her hand and led her below decks.
I had already checked out and had my bags loaded into the cab when the desk clerk came running out of the hotel lobby. “Dr. Hinckley! A courier just delivered this for you,” she said and handed me a manila envelope. I thanked her, got into the cab and read the dock number from the charter boat brochure my travel agent had included with my itinerary.
I hadn’t been expecting the news quite this soon, but this message was expected. Confirmation that on my return I would be named the T.M. Howell Professor of Applied Bio-physical Chemistry – a final validation of the past 15 years spent toiling in the groves of academe. I wasn’t keen on leaving the day after my interview by the selection panel, but the Provost had assured me that I had it “in the bag” and my selection was a foregone conclusion. My travel arrangements had been made months in advance; changing the dates for my trip would be prohibitively expensive.
So off I went on my first vacation since I was a child – first two days on the beach in Hawaii, then a short boat ride to the tiny isolated resort island of Mi’illwaw Kea for some botanizing (perhaps even an encounter with the rare Mantis Khani). A week of rare tropical plants, birds and insects!
I had caught my jacket pocket on the door handle as I entered the cab, ripping it and spilling the contents over the back seat. By the time I had gathered my things and rearranged them in other pockets we had reached the dock. So was unable to find an opportunity to open the Provost’s envelope until all my things had been loaded on the boat. Once my dunnage had been stowed and I had been given a tour of the vessel and met my fellow passengers I was finally able to sit near the stern and read the letter – almost half an hour later. I was barely conscious of the harbor slipping away so pre-occupied was I with my long-anticipated professional triumph.
At first I thought there must have been a mistake – a one paragraph letter from the university “Thank you for your interest, but unfortunately…” How could they possibly have turned me down? My credentials are impeccable – no one has my background, my publications, my accolades. They didn’t even interview anyone else. It was just to be a formality! How on earth… Then I noticed the handwritten note from the Provost.
Roy,
I am so terribly sorry this has happened. I’ve tried to telephone and hope I will reach you before this is delivered. Just after you left we had a call from one of the U.’s most important donors. He was livid that you were even being considered for the chair that he had funded and would never give the U another cent if you weren’t dismissed immediately. I think we were able to dissuade him from the latter, but the Chair is quite out of the question at this point. Apparently a paper you wrote caused the Federal government to amend a regulation which cost his company a great deal of money. In any case, I am so very sorry about this. We will do all we can to salvage the situation and find a suitable spot for you when you return. If we haven’t spoken, please call when you receive this.
Fred
I sank back into the deck chair, utterly stunned. Everything I had worked for since I was an undergraduate. Every hour in the library. Every day in the laboratory. All the papers read and written. Almost twenty years of my life devoted to a single goal – All gone. All snatched away by some businessman. And what did “find a suitable spot for you” mean?
A wave of despair swept over me such as I’d never felt before. I cannot describe the sense of utter futility, frustration and hopelessness that crushed me, other than to say that I hope that I never experience it again. For a short while I understood on a visceral level as I never had before why suicide might be an attractive option.
I suppose my distress must have been obvious. Someone laid a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?” It was one of my fellow passengers.
“Oh. Yes. Or, rather not really. It’s Miss Summers, isn’t it?” I stammered. Flirtatious banter has never been a strength, much less at a time like this.
“That’s right,” she said and smiled. “I saw you read your letter and you just went white. Then you were sitting so still that I knew something had to be wrong. Is there anything I can do?”
“Oh no. I’ll be fine. Just a little, er, setback,” I tried to give her a confident smile, but I could tell from her reaction that it was feeble at best and closer to sickly. She smiled again. Or rather she SMILED. Her smile was unique in my experience. It was a thing of radiance, purity and joy. Things could not be all bad if that smile was in the world.
“Would you like to talk about it?” she asked and SMILED.
“Oh no, I couldn’t burden you…” and I really didn’t intend to, as I am really a very reticent person. But somehow I found myself unburdening myself to her – my personal and professional history, how I had utterly devoted myself to my research, how my hopes had crystallized into a single goal and how that goal had been denied me just minutes before.
“Dr. Hinckley, you mustn’t despair. This must be the first time you’ve ever faced disappointment. I’m sure it’s bad now, but it gets better,” she said, while patting my arm in a touchingly encouraging manner. “And just consider all the good you’ve done so far. And you’ll still get to do the work you love – sounds exciting to me. Maybe you won’t get the prestige or recognition you deserve. But that’s just what other people think. You’re really a very lucky man.” And she SMILED at me again.
She had really made me feel much better and I told her so. I was looking forward to spending the next few days getting to know this wonderful creature better. I stood and we walked to the rail to watch the early evening shadows form over the waves. “I’m terribly sorry to bore you like this. Very inconsiderate of me. Please tell me about yourself.” I asked.
“About me? There’s not much to tell,” she said and went on to describe her life on a Kansas corn farm. Her days were divided between caring for her parents, working in the local feed mill and endless farm chores. The nearest town, a thriving metropolis of 4,000 was 20 minutes away. Topeka was two hours away. She had won this trip in a contest by submitting the best coconut cream pie recipe to the Coco-Pure Coconut Company. “This is a once in lifetime thing for me. I can’t imagine I’ll ever get to take a trip like this again.”
I was struck by the self-imposed limitation on her world and was preparing to encourage her to raise her aspirations. I was interrupted by a strikingly beautiful sight – two Megaptera novaeangliae leapt from the sea. They faced each other and their trajectories met at the peak of their arc. They were no more than 50 meters from the boat. Truly an astounding exhibition of cetacean behavior. But I was even more touched by Miss Summers’ reaction. When I turned to her after the two humpbacks had submerged back to the depths I noticed that tears were running down her cheeks. I felt an extreme affection for the young lady at that moment. Perhaps it was the sea air – more likely the clash of strong emotions I’d experienced in such a short time. But I overcame my normal reserve and placed my hand on top of hers on the rail.
We had stood like that for only a short while when were interrupted by the ship’s First (and only) Mate. A tall, awkward young man named Willy; he seemed highly good-natured and likely. “I just wanted to warn you folks that we might see a little rough weather,” he said and pointed over the opposite site of the boat. We could see a dark line of clouds in the distance. “Captain says nothing to worry about. We’ll be going around the bad part of the storm. But we might get some rain and a few waves,” with that he gave us a sheepish grin and ambled back toward the bow.
We crossed to the other side to look at the storm. Even from several miles away it was obvious that it was quite severe, with impressive bouts of lightning and cresting waves. The boat was beginning to pitch more noticeably as the waves reached us and we moved along the length of the well defined storm. As I watched I noticed some distinctively shaped clouds along the leading edge of the storm front – pale green in a distinct chevron shape.
“Why those are Schwartz-Sherwood cirro-nimbus clouds,” I said. “And look at the ratio of cloud height to the length of the storm!” I made a few quick mental calculations. “That must be a Scotti-Wells osmotic anti-cyclone. I read a paper about it just last month!”
“What does that mean?” Miss Summers asked.
“We’re doing exactly the wrong thing. That storm is only about a quarter-mile wide. But the most violent winds and turbulence are directly in front of it. We could be blown miles out of way.”
“Goodness!” she said, “You have to tell the captain.”
“I will,” I said, and left her there at the rail. I wasn’t sure how I would convince him. He seemed an amiable enough fellow, but had no reason to accept advice from me. The Scotti-Wells was a newly observed phenomenon and it was unlikely he would have heard of it. I took a second to compose my thoughts. As I leaned over the starboard rail, the two Megaptera repeated their unlikely performance. As the closer of the two leapt into the sky, meeting his companion at their mutual apogee, his eye met mine. In hindsight I am sure I had only fallen victim to the anthropomorphic fallacy, but at the time I was certain that I had had a split-second’s shared understanding with the cetacean.
I do not know how long I stood there transfixed. It may have been as long as five minutes. I do not know, but I was awakened from my reverie by the increased violence of the sea – the ship had acquired a pronounced lateral roll. I scanned the waves for the whales one last time. It began to rain.
I may never fully understand exactly why I did what I did next. At the time I was convinced it was the right thing to do. While the ensuing events and the difficulties of the past few years have engendered some doubts, I have never regretted my decision.
I turned and walked carefully back to the stern and Miss Summers. “Did you tell him?” she asked. She was still smiling, but I was able to detect an overtone of concern in her voice. It was raining hard now and the wind was blowing the drops into painful little pellets.
“I did,” I lied, “but it may have been too late.” I took her hand and led her below decks.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)