Critique on Alyssa Duran’s “Involved”

“Involved” is written in the imperative mode, which is interesting given the content of the story: it reads like a handbook of how to handle the situation of bailing a friend out of an abusive relationship. On the one hand, the effect is a little “drying” at times- at points in the story, particularly the moments of heightened action or possibility (when the narrator is considering what to do when she gets to the scene of the confrontation between the couple, for instance), the story tends to read like an actual violence prevention manual. This sterility could maybe be helped if the characters were made more unique, had more details to them then just roles as the abused, the abuser, and the friend. Would the boyfriend’s job as an auto mechanic make the narrator envision terrible scenarios of him beating her friend with a tire iron? How exactly would the friend (names would help, too) kill herself, when she was threatening to do so? Unique details like this would make the dramatic moments more interesting, and the interest would draw the reader in and involve them, making them more nervous about what was going to happen. Likewise, in getting these details, we would get to know who the characters are and therefore be invested in their destiny, care about what was going to happen to them. On that note, the best part of the story was when the narrator was describing the boyfriend as a little dog, for all these reasons- it was a moment of unique detail, where we really got to spend some time with these specific characters. It was funny and really nice.
On the other hand, that the story is written in the imperative is at times very effective, for the obvious reason- the reader feels they are the narrator going through this exhausting trial. For instance, the part about the narrator and her friend on the bed together in the dorm, “being girls”- everyone has had moments of carefree friendship like this, so when the narrative is directed at the reader, they automatically relate the story to an instance in their life when they had this connection. In this way, we as readers do feel more involved in the story, and it is more affecting because of it.
All in all, the story was really intriguing- I was hooked from the first sentence, wondering what was going to happen. I do wonder, though, if more could have happened? For such a bad chain of events, everything actually went fairly well; there are a lot of really anti-climatic moments that have a lot of potential to be really fascinating, especially toward the end. What if the boyfriend had put up a battle when his girlfriend tried to leave, and the two girls had to fight to narrowly escape him? What if he and the brother did fight after all? What if the friend did attempt suicide, or spiral really far out of control with her drinking? This story could go in so many different directions, and be interesting in every one.

The Wailer

Caridad lay in bed and did not listen to her husband’s breath beside her, a dry same thing over and over. Once in a while Ruben snorted, but she didn’t hear. She listened instead to the sound of the stream through the open window- a little stream that ran over their land, a thousand feet from the house maybe, but big enough to hear when things were like this: midnight quiet, blue dark.
Caridad had listened to it when she got ready for sleep, putting on the same nightgown as the bedtime before, worn-thin and printed with flowers that had forgotten what color they were. She had listened to it while Ruben rocked on top of her, hot and salty like a roast beef that said her name.
When she was a little girl, her mother and aunts used to tell all the cousins about La Llorna, who spent the nighttimes of eternity wandering creek beds and pond sides in a white dress, howling for her drowned children. Sometimes, her sounds were the wails of regret, because her children’s deaths were her fault; other times, they were told to be yowls of defeat, because she had tried to stop it and couldn’t. When Caridad was a teenager, boys in the backseats of cars had made La Llorna’s shrieks into the battle cry of a murderess, hoping to scare away the idea of personal space.
Caridad in the dark listened hard, past the stream, trying to hear the ghost lady singing her terrible song to the water. There was nothing. Caridad in her nightgown knew what the trouble was: La Llorna was a woman who screamed so loud, no one could hear it.

Two People Fucking

She slides her hands beneath me, firmly placing them on my shoulder blades and pressing her mouth deeply into mine. I kiss back, feeling her tongue slide up and down in my mouth. She smiles slightly and bites my lower lip. I bite hers back. She smiles again, this time wider, wrapping her arms around me. Her soft breasts pressing against my chest and I hear the hair slide around against my skin.
“This doesn’t bother you?” I ask.
“The hair? she smiles”
“Yeah, the hair.”
“That’s a silly question.
I smile and kiss her. Her chest rises and falls. I hear a thin slit of air blow out between her lips. I breathe too and she giggles. She kisses me again and shifts her body off of me. Clumps of hair fall in her face in thick brown sheets. One of her hands slides down, across my underwear, while her other hand is pressed against my forehead. Her mouth slides across my ear, her tongue working in circles. I smile a bit. My heart pumps hard. And I feel the hairs on my neck stand up. “I love you she whispers.” I say it back, in the moment. The words hanging empty in the air With her foot, she slides off my underwear and places her hand on me. She kisses my chest, my neck and my arms, before sucking on my fingers.
“You mean it.” she says.
“Yes,” I say, wanting her to continue. She does. Running her mouth across my stomach, kissing my belly button, before bringing her mouth to my genitals. I smile a bit. Feeling her tongue work on me. She comes up, smiling and kisses me on the lips. “Good,” she says. I say nothing after that. Kissing her breasts, her stomach and her arms, before slipping my fingers inside her. She moans slightly bighting her lip. Her chest rises and falls, as my fingers slide inside of her. Moving up to her clitoris. We do not talk after that. I just breathe and listen to her moan. She does, loudly, before her hands slide to my temples, taking grasp of hair and she whispers, “fuck me.” I reach for a condom and slide it on. She lays on her back and spreads her legs. I place my self inside her and move back and forth. She monas slightly. With my other hand, I rub her clit. She moans again, louder. Between moans she asks,
“how much do you love me?”
“A lot,” I say, trying to keep my mind focused.
“Ooh. Good.” She says, smiling. I smile too, a little bit.
We switch positions after that. Her body grinds into mine. Her hands caught between the hairs of my chest and for a moment, I think I do love her. If I know what it is. Everything feels so good, so natural and I don’t want it to end. In this moment, as she rides me, I feel as if I am floating in a universe, created just for us. Inside, I feel mounting pressure. I grab her hair. She slides up and down faster. I clutch wildly at her breasts.
“I like it when you’re a little rough with me.”
“Good,” I say.
I grunt, slightly, feeling a string of drool slide out between my lips. I grunt again. She smiles, kissing me on my lips. We change positions again. I push hard inside her. Her hair spreads out across the pillow in a vast sheet. Her breasts fly back and forth and, she moans,
“This feels so fucking good.”
“I, uh, love you too.” I say. She laughs lightly and it turns into a moan. I feel, like in a minute I am going to come. Not knowing what to do, I say it again. The words hang dark and ominous in the air.
“I love you.” She says it back.
“I love you.”
“ Ah, I love you.”
She laughs and moans a little. I grasp hold of her breasts again with one hand and mash my other palm into her face. Blocking her mouth. Hoping I can stop her, or myself from saying it again. Inside I feel more pressure mounting. I kiss her chest and her neck. I kiss her ribs, while her arms snap shut around me and pull me down onto her. I moan a bit after that, taking my hands off of her and thrusting them into the dark circle of her hair. “God, Chris,” she says. I thrust hard. Harder and keep thrusting, thrusting, thrusting, my heart pounding hard against my ribs. Sweat drips from my forehead, while I mouth the words just another minute. I don’t last. I explode inside of her. My body goes slack. I stop moving.
“Did you come?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, placing my head on her chest.
“Good,” she says. Rubbing my head. Her legs still wrapped around me.
“Yeah.” I say. We lay still after that, while she runs her hand through my hair. I listen to her breathe and breathe her in. She smells like sweat and deodorant. I just smell like sweat.
“Do you really love me?” She asks. Digging her legs deeper into my back.
“Yes,” I say, feeling an awful void fill my chest, trapped, unable to do anything but lay here and listen to her breathe.

Denial. Exercise 19 in What If?

The couple sat at the table, staring at their hands for a while, not saying anything. Finally after a moment, she spoke.

“How have you been.”
“Alright I guess” sips his water.
“So...”
“So?
“Sew..buttons?”
So what couldn’t you tell me over the phone?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said there was something you had to tell me over the phone..what is it?
“How long have you and I been together?
“Six months I guess?” he un-flexes his hands and then flexes them again. His hands were pail, stained with fragments of paint.
“Yeah...six months more or less”
“And you trust me?”
“I trust you.”
“Oh.”
“Is there something I should know?”
“No.”
“I have a feeling there is.”
“Why?” Her shoulders tense a bit. Her thin hands scrape across the table and make complex patterns on the wood
“There isn’t.”
“Then why did you ask me if I trusted you.”
“I love you.”
“Ok...back at you...why did you ask me?”
“I just wanted to know.”
“I have a feeling there is more to it..is there.”
“Not really.”
“Ok.”

Long pause

“Why did you ask me to meet you here.”
I thought it would be nice if we went out.”
“Cool, we have been going out a lot lately”
“Yeah.”
“We haven’t done much else.”
“We talk.”
“And that’s about it.”
“You love me right?”
“Yeah.”
You love me, I don’t think so.”

Men?

We were invincible, or so we felt. Running through the parking structure, with its high ceiling, rows of cars, watched over by halogen lights and the night watchman, with his khaki suit and badge. Sitting in his office, watching his television screen. Silence buzzed, like the hum of lights, interrupted by our footsteps, the crunch of distant tires and the sound of our jangling pockets,.
“This way,” Abdul said, waving with his hand, and hooking a right around the corner. In the distance the sound of rats echoed off night time walls, while long shadows spread from our feet. “You have done this before?”
“Chill man, Me, n’ Hector were here a week ago, its legit.” In the distance a car horn sounded. “Relax man.” Abdul said, pulling his hood over his head and calming his walk down. Its right around here somewhere. We passed by tall concrete columns, large deep cracks and traffic cones. The kind we would steal if we had time, or the balls.
Beneath us, the ground was hard and hollow and caused are footsteps to sound through darkness and artificial light. Our pockets rattled loudly, as we carried our entire lives, or how we chose to define ourselves. Sounding like glass, small change, crinkled money and our wallets. Each containing our drivers licenses, with the words provisional in small black lettering. Faint drops of water were not far off, intensified by the whir of an elevator and the start of a motor that could have been near by but might have been above us. Every now and then, Abdul would smile back at me through his bricks of stubble that he grew out, because he said it made him look older. “Real men don’t get carded,” he said, in late night conversations, before we went to bed.
We glided through lines of parked cars that smelled like gasoline, air freshener and stale exhaust, while two old women strolling by saw us and gave us dirty looks. “Fuckin’ bitches” said Abdul, while the women turned away whispering something. I stood with my hands in my pockets, not saying anything, hoping I looked intimidating, while he waved us on. Down a narrow stairway that smelled like piss and motor oil, crouched on stairs that Abdul said were too dark for anyone to ever see. While silence was deep and ominous, obscured only by the sounds of our lighter, deep exhaling and quiet conversation.
“So did you hear about Trisha Callahan?” Abdul said in his quietest voice.
“Nah, man, what happened.”
“Fucking, Kirk Muldoon left her out by the mall naked man.”
“Hah, that sucks dude, Trisha is kind of a slut though.
“Yah I know.” Abdul said, taking another hit, letting long trails of smoke waft out of his mouth.
“Kirk’s an asshole too man”
“He’s kind of cool.”
“No man, he sells eighths of shwaggy shit for like sixty.”
“What a dick.” I said, choking on smoke.
“Yah, don’t pick your shit up from him.”
“Where’d you get this.”
“Him.” We both laughed, I eased against the wall, drifting off inside myself, while conversation became quiet. In the distance footsteps echoed.“Relax man, you are too high strung.” Said Abdul snatching the pipe from me. He smiled a bit, I smiled back at him, thinking about my sleeping parents. The feet passed over us, and Abdul took another hit. “I told you this place was legit.” I nodded, grabbing my hood, tucking myself away. “Hey!” a voice called, not far off. We looked up and saw the outline of a man. “Shit!” I said grabbing the pipe, away, still lit, while glowing red ash scattered on the floor. The man began to walk down the steps, his badge bouncing with light. Both of charged upward, with nowhere else to go. Running like hell past him, while his fingers managed to snatch hold of my arm with the pipe dangling loosely in my hands. I turned, quick and broke free, as the pipe fell to the floor and shards of glass scattered everywhere. The sound of feet pounded behind us, as we raced through vast emptiness, breathing hard. The man called out behind us. His body thick and too slow to catch us. We kept running until we were outside and down the block.
“That was some shit, that was some real shit.” Abdul panted.
“Jesus man, that guy was nuts.” I gasped, clutching my chest. We walked for a while after that, not saying anything. Watching as rows of houses passed us by, with their pastel siding and manicured lawns. Before long, we were in front of my house. Inside the den light was on. We stared at each other for a while, not saying anbything.
“You broke my pipe homey, you know my brother is going to kill me.”
“You almost got us busted dude.” Abdul smiled, and rubbed his hand over his beard.
“That’d be some shit if we did, huh. That, that was some man stuff right there. The stuff legends are made of.”
“I guess,” He smiled and looked down at his watch, “Shit man its twelve-thirty, I better get my ass inside.”
“It’s the weekend.”
“Yeah, but I was supposed to be back like an hour ago.”
“ oh ok.”
“ Shut up, dude. Asian parents.”
“Fuck your Asian parents.”
“Fuck you, man.”
“Fuck you, punk assed bitch.” We both laughed.
“Crazy night, huh.”
“Word, it was definitely some real shit right there. We are men tonight”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling his words vibrate in my chest.
“Yo man, I seriously got to roll. Give me a call tomorrow, we will chill or something.”
“I will dude.” Abdul waved goodbye, and walked quickly down the street. I walked up the steps and quietly turned the knob of my front door. The inside of my house smelled like stale dinner, potted plants and cigarettes. From the den, I heard the television. I hoped my father had fallen asleep watching it. I crept around the corner and saw the top of his bald head. If I get away with this, I am invincible, I am perfect, I thought.
“Chris?” my father said, in his deep low voice. Shit.
“ Yeah?”
“Come in here.” I did, listening to the sounds of the floorboards and my own fate. My mother sat next to him, saying nothing. Tight lipped, her eyes focused on the television screen. On the screen was footage of the twin towers burning, while stock reports rushed across the bottom. This was interrupted by footage of a woman in tears, followed by a news reporter straining not to cry. “What’s up?” I said, turning to my mother, hoping my eyes weren’t red. Her face was streaked with tears.
“Your aunt called tonight.” my father said in a flat voice.
“Oh?”
“She was very upset Chris. She was crying.”
“Why, what happened?” I said, feeling the muscles in my face tighten.
“Your cousin was killed today.” My mother said.
“Jesus,” I said. My mother nodded.
“From now on things are going to be very different. Very different indeed.

Story #11 Tulip Bulbs and Huckleberries (Small Workshop)

Danielle Orner
Story # 11
March 26, 2007
Tulip Bulbs and Huckleberries
The Rose Valley Senior Assisted Living Community is surrounded by a tall fence. It is made of metal bars and painted a cheer turquoise color to compliments the beige stucco buildings. From the parking lot, I can see a few white haired people moving in staggered slow steps about the courtyard with their clunky walkers.
“What’s the fence for?” I nod toward the seniors and the turquoise barrier while questioning my grandma. I have to look down to address her because she is so short. I usually make conversation with her salt and pepper boy-cut hair.
“Some of them try to get out.” My grandma knows all the procedures and the gossip at Rose Valley because she is my great grandmother’s primary caregiver. She comes every other day with treats, news, and the offer of company. She used to take her out to the store but my great grandmother is so bent over that getting in and out of the Volvo is too epic a task for one afternoon. “See that man there in the black hat and brown cardigan,” my grandma points to a dark figure leaning against the turquoise bars. “He always tries to sneak out through the lobby when visitors are buzzed out by the front desk. He is very lucid and charming so when he asks new people who have never visited before to kindly hold the door for him, they do. The nurses found him once wandering down the street with his walker in the sunshine.” I study the man dressed all in shabby browns and leaning against the fence with a slight hunch. The brim of his camel felt suit hat shades his face but I imagine it is wrinkled with a hint of a mischievous grin and clear blue eyes sharp with longing.
“You know your great grandma got out once too. It happened about a month or two after she first started living here. She didn’t get far at all before they caught up to her. They asked her where she was going and she told them she was walking home.” My grandma sighs. I wonder what my great grandmother remembered as home. Did she think of the senior apartments she lived in with her own kitchen before she almost burnt the place down because she forgot to turn off the stove? Did she think of the regular apartment just down the street from the supermarket? Or did she think back to the cabin in Idaho where she left all her handmade quilts, her garden, her bird feeders, and her dead husband?
The family moved her away from her two story cabin with its wrap around deck the winter she fell in the snow. She fell between the garage and the backdoor. Unable to stand back up, she lay in pile of snow as more icy flakes covered her small body and melted through her periwinkle down coat, the one with the pinecones and cardinals stitched on it. Many of the neighboring cabins were only occupied in the summer so she was alone. She called out to her big black dog, Bailey, in desperation. He bounded through the snow playful and came to lick her face. While his warm wet tongue cleaned the snowflakes from her wrinkles, my great grandmother grabbed on to his collar. He eventually pulled her to safety. When she told the story to the family, she only meant for them to note Bailey’s valor. She had no idea that the fall would tip the argument everyone was having about her. The cabin on the lake was sold and my great grandmother was moved into a northern California apartment complex.
A nurse with half-rim glasses dangling on a gold chain glances up when we walk into the lobby. The room is decorated with replica impressionist visions of rivers and meadows. Everything from the carpets to the wall paper is a pastel version of pink, salmon, green, and grey. The room is unnaturally childish and cheery.
“Hey Sissy, I am sure Marjory will be happy to have some visitors. And who might this beautiful woman be?” The nurse adjusts her glasses across her plump flesh nose to examine me. I hate that people call my grandma Sissy instead of Hazel or Mrs. Crowley but she insists on it. The name reminds her of her country hippy days when she raised her own livestock as well as eight children.
“Oh this is my oldest granddaughter. She goes to college down in Los Angeles and has come to see her sweet GG while she is on spring break,” my grandma keeps talking but I zone out until the nurse looks directly at me.
“You must be Katy then. You know she still talks about you sometimes.”
“Yah, I know. My grandma calls me when she does.” I had heard plenty of stories about my GG awaking from the fog of memory loss to ask a family member if they knew her great granddaughter. She would then proceed to tell anyone who would listen all about me. Sometimes she even knew how old I was.
The chatty nurse finally buzzes us through to the courtyard. My grandma and I make our way between the slow-motion walkers who were all concentrating on the red-brick tiled ground. I think about the nature films in which they speed up the footage of a flower blooming and wonder what patterns these withered grey creatures dressed in hanging knit cardigans and orthopedic shoes would make visible in the fast forward mode.
The buildings are set up like dormitories. Grandma leads us to a door that says Marjory Crowley in cursive. There is a little glass display case by the door and in it someone has placed a black and white photograph of my great grandfather leaning against a plow, a miniature quilt hanging on a doll house chair, and a doll with a spool body and tons of buttons strung together for limbs. We let ourselves in. The residents are not permitted to lock their doors.
“Hello, hello GG I have brought a special visitor for you.” My grandma calls into the tiny room.
“We will be out in a bit. We are just cleaning up in here.” A young woman’s voice calls from behind the bathroom door. I can hear my GG’s voice mumbling something and the young woman speaking words of comfort as if to a troubled child. I examine my GG’s room as my grandma tells me a story about what GG did last week. The bed is a narrow twin with one of my GG’s handmade quilts folded three times across it to keep from dragging on the floor. A glass gnome with a tall red hat sits on a swing above a music box. My GG’s illustrated book of gnomes rest on the table beside it. I remember reading it on storm summer afternoons at her cabin. There is a pot of dirt with flaking brown bulbs sticking out of it. Two green sprouts peek from each bulb. This is all that is left of my GG’s garden. My grandmother finishes her story about another female resident who walked into my GG’s room and started trying on her clothes. GG found her and somehow the ended up sitting on the bed and holding hands as if they had been dear friends for years. Grandma found them this way, both wearing one of my GG’s sweaters with little robins flying about on the front and clasping hands in silence.
A tiny bent woman with tousled grey hair and a lemon-yellow sweater comes hobbling out of the bathroom. A young woman with long blond hair and blue scrubs holds both of her twisted hands to support her. My GG’s hands have thick blue veins protruding through the transparent wrinkled skin. I hold my breath until the nurse has guided her to the bed and propped her up on the edge. My GG’s body looks like a C. Her back is curved into a hunch covered in lemon-yellow fabric. She cranes her neck to look up at us like a turtle carefully poking its head out of a shell. Her eyes are blank. She doesn’t recognize us. The nurse edges back to a corner to give us privacy but she doesn’t leave the room. The high pitched whine of GG’s hearing aids masks the silence of the room.
“Hey GG, I have come to visit you.” I sit beside her on the bed careful not to disturb her balance. She looks at me like a confused child. I trace the delicate stitches in around the blue quilt squares until I reach her hand resting in a white square with a bluebell print. I run my fingertips across her thin skin, which is as soft as the worn silk edges of a favorite baby blanket. She doesn’t move.
Holding her hand, I remember lounging on her wooden porch swing with her when I was eight years old. We watched the sun transform the lake into a gold gleaming disk and the sky into a quite explosion of orange, pink, and red. I ate vanilla ice cream covered with her deep purple huckleberry sauce. The whole family picked the berries in the midday heat and filled plastic buckets for huckleberry pancakes, pies, jellies, and sauce. My chapped lips were stained purple. My brown bob of hair was tangled and sweat from climbing trees all evening and it smelled of lake water. My knees boasted red scabbing cuts decorated with grass stains and dirt. My GG held my momentarily still body against her despite the sweat and stains. The ice cream melted into a dull grey stick pool at the bottom of the bowl. The sun retreated below the surface of the lake and was followed by a black curtain studded with stars. The crickets strung up their orchestra for the day’s exit music and still my GG and I sat on the porch like two lovers in a movie theater unaware that the credits had started to roll.
“Do you know that I have the most beautiful great granddaughter with the greenest eyes and a full-face smile?” GG asked the question to the room.
“Yes. I know her, GG. I know her.”

Story #10 Crossing Boundries (Class Workshop)

Danielle Orner
Story # 10
3/26/07
Crossing Boundaries
I don’t know if it was the way his fingertips lingered on the palm of my hand after he returned my pen or my sudden realization that his room was only one flight of stairs above mine that infected me with the wild desire to push boundaries. Or maybe it was the sweaty sheet-tangled dream in which his big brown eyes looked meaningfully into mine causing a deep sense of connection that only dreams can produce. It was the kind of dream that made my cheeks flushed when I saw him the next afternoon as if he somehow knew about my nocturnal visions or as if they were true, as if we had shared that moment. It is the kind of dream that makes you think you’re in love with a stranger.
But he is not a stranger. Now, standing outside his dorm room door wondering whether or not to knock, I am trying to sort out what he is. A friend. A colleague. A fellow history major.
We have been resident advisors together in the same building for three years patrolling halls, hanging tacky decorations for Christmas programs, and swapping stories during staff meetings about drunken vomiting residents who had to be transported to the hospital over the weekend. After all this, it is only now occurring to me that he lives right up stairs from me. In his own room. Without a roommate. And I thought, as his fingertips rested a minute too long on my hand, that I could just walk up there one night and knock on the door and walk into his room and close the door behind me. So here I am staring at the blue resident advisor name plate on his door.
I have always known he likes me. I can feel it when he gives me a cocky crocked grin after a joke as if something more has been communicated between us. I know it by the way our casual flirting suddenly turns serious with a single comment and I have to look away. I know it but I am happy with Jeff. Jeff and I have been together since the first month of freshman year and there is no reason to change that. He is sweet, handsome, smart, and the best player on the water polo team. There is no reason to ruin a good thing. No reason but a lingering touch, a realization, and a dream. I want to know if I can. If I have the courage to knock on his door and alter everything.
Jeff kissed me goodnight at ten o’clock. I waited a half an hour to see if he would call or come back to get something he left behind. Then, I put my books back on my shelf and filed my homework away in the correct folders. I shut down my computer and placed my pens back in their cup. I brushed my teeth, spritzed perfume on my neck, ran a brush through my hair, and smeared peach flavored gloss across my lips. Shutting the door to my room, I jiggled the handle to make sure it was locked and pocketed the keys. I walked up the stairs as if I were going to ask another RA for a favor or to meet a resident for a study session. It was so easy. No one was lingering in the hall or the sub-lounge.
I think of his eyes, large and gentle, close to my face as he brushes my cheek with his nose, moving closer to my mouth. I think of his accented whisper slowly speaking my name as his lips trace the word against my ear. My body flushes warm. I tremble knowing I am about to cross a line. I knock. This is the wrong thing to do but all the boundaries are mine to bend. I hear him shuffling around inside the room. He opens the door. His face is bored like he expects a resident wanting to be keyed into their room. But I am standing there in a white tank top and low cut jeans. One red bra strap hangs on my shoulder threatening to slide down my arm and a long strand of dark brown hair falls across my left eye. These aren’t accidents. His face changes. I smile and it’s not my usual lets-be-a-peppy-res-life-staff smile. It’s a smile that says something more is being communicated between us.
His curly hair is rumpled like he has been running his hands through it while studying. It is exciting to think he has been having an ordinary night.
“Uh, hey Meredith.” He looks like he is about to ask what I need or if everything is going alright on first floor. But he doesn’t.
“Hey James.” I say his name like I am whispering it his ear. “Can I come in?”
He steps back clearing the doorway. I step in and close the door behind me without turning around. He stares not wanting to do anything to easy the electric prickling sensation in the air. I pause soaking in the uncomfortable heat and feeling the pull both towards and away from James body. I don’t want to rush this sensation because it will never be this intense again. After this, the line is blurred. I close my eyes and lean back against James’ door. My body is in chaos. My blood pounds through every inch of me trying to propel me in both directions. I open my eyes and look directly into James’ eyes. He is still standing in the middle of the room staring at me.
I slowly and deliberately close the distance between our bodies. He smells faintly of sweat and faintly of Lever 2000 from his morning shower. His breath is warm. I lift my arms and rest them on his shoulders while tracing the muscles in his neck up to the nape with lazy fingertips. I gentle twist my fingers in the ends of his hair. I look directly into his bewildered eyes and bite my lower lip tasting the gloss. Tilt my face upward towards his, I place my open lips on his mouth before pushing up to his body in a kiss. His hands come up strong on the small of my back pulling me in. We are in his room. The door is closed. The decision is made. And the whole night stretches out before us as I pull him down onto his sheets ready for dreams to begin.

Story #9 How to Become Your Mother (Class Workshop)

Danielle Orner
Story # 9
3/20/07
How to Become Your Mother
Start off by swearing you will never become your mother. Make sure you notice everything that is wrong with her while you are young. Middle school and the preteen years are the best time to do this because you are already angry at the world. Use those hormones now to fuel a my-mother-is-the most- pathetic-human-being-on-the-planet campaign. You will need this chemical energy to overpower all the memories of your mother reading to you before bedtime while your long hair is still wet from the bath and of her making chocolate chip cookies for breakfast just because.
Notice the soft strip of fat that hangs over her jeans when her boxy t-shirt is askew. Notice the glob of black mascara goop clinging to the corner of her eye. Notice the scar stretched across her sagging belly when you accidentally see her naked in the bathroom. Notice the nights that she doesn’t manage to make dinner and has to scrounge through the huge freezer in the garage for something that isn’t covered in freezer burn. Notice how she destroys your social life by giving you the earliest curfew in the neighborhood and not allowing you to shave your legs until you are fourteen.
Tell all your girlfriends at school that you will never be like her. Tell them that you will have a fancy professional job as a magazine editor and still manage to make homemade apple pies from scratch. Tell them that, even though you’re a bit awkward now, when you are a mom you will be prettier than Katy Sharp, the most popular girl in school, and have more outfits than her too. Tell them you will never let yourself go the way your mom has after having five children.
Listen when she tells you that she could have been an actress or a writer. Note that she is just an elementary school teacher. Ignore the surge of excitement and belonging you feel when you walk through the school halls to her classroom. Don’t think about how you would arrange your classroom. You’re not going to be a teacher. You’re going to be a lawyer, a news anchor, an executive, a singer, an actor, a writer, a world traveler. Don’t notice how her students love her. Don’t notice how good she is at dressing up like a colonist and telling stories of the passage to America.
Look away when you notice the beautiful grey blue of her eyes or the light freckles on her cheek. Look away when your father spontaneously embraces her in the kitchen, squeezing her butt when he thinks no one is looking. Don’t be tempted to listen when she reads to your brothers in the living room with her variety of character voices. Ignore the way people smile when they see her. Don’t hear her laugh and easy chatting.
Forget the way she sat beside your hospital bed and called you “Dani” like you were five years old again. Forget the way she quits everything to be by your side.
Whatever you do don’t sneak a read of her journal. The intimate way she speaks to God will scare you. The way she pleads for your life will cloud your view of her as nothing but a dumpy mom.
Move away for college. Threaten to go far away to New York but end up an hour away from home in Los Angeles. Miss her. Long for the joking way she eases all your worries by reminding you how silly you are to worry so much. Long for her to read your stories but be too afraid of what she will think of them. Hear her words coming out of your mouth when you tease and flirt with friends. Remember her advising you to start dating the boy who is turning out to be the man you will marry. Remember how she pushed you to try out for mock trial. See her in the front row of all your college plays. See how beautiful she is. Call her hyperventilating when you have stressed yourself to the point that your fiancé can’t sort you out. Let her calm you down.
Try to get super-prestigious jobs in major metropolises. Fail. Move back to your hometown after marrying and apply to a teaching credential program. Think of publishing and dedicating your first book to her. Think of publishing with her. Celebrate the way you laugh and mingle easily with a group and credit these talents to your mother. Realize that becoming your mother is not the worst thing in the world. Be prepared to repeat process with your daughter.

Alyssa Duran- Story 11

There was a man who had lived his teenage years sprouting pimples and now had a pock-marked nose. It looked, in areas, as it was quite large, to be gouged out by a child’s spoon as if for breakfast. This could generally explain why he was never very confident with himself and always self-conscious about the way he looked. Every morning he would wake to grease back his hair and shine his shoes, and go to work with a brightly colored tie that drew eyes away from his bulbous, crater-ridden nose.
His wife had always lived under the shadow of the nose. “Leonard,” she would say, “if you hate it so much, chop it off.” He had never responded, nor had he taken her word into consideration until one brightly sunny morning. Before that morning, her tired eyes and sagging bosom had always kept him a little wary of his wife’s advice for physical attractiveness.
“You know, Cheryl, that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.” He perked up a little. She eyed him suspiciously.
“What are you thinking, you old coot?” She set down her cigarette into the tray next to her and leaned further over the kitchen table, curiously. The edges of her frayed grey bathrobe made a strange swiping noise as the hit the wood. Leonard peered over in reaction to the robe and gave a sneer, not intending to see his wife’s wrinkles underneath.
“We have money saved.” He answered tightly. Cheryl scoffed and sat back, resuming her place with her cigarette and lazy stance. Leonard scratched the little bald spot on the top of his head and wheezed a little cough. The cigarette smoke was getting to him. “It’s not so terrible. We have plenty of money.”
“We’ve been saving that money for a new house. We’ve wanted to get out of this place for twenty years. You’re not touching that money.”
“We could both use the work, you know. We could use the money and get our physical selves brand new, like we were young again. They have technology for that now. We’ll go the best surgeons and we’ll splurge. Hell, we need something new around here anyway.”
“So, get yourself a new girlfriend. It’ll make you feel better. There’s no way I’m going to a place to spend our money on something that’s going to be buried in fifteen years anyway.”
“Aw, Cheryl, you can’t think that way. If you get this done, I won’t need a new girlfriend, and I won’t need any more expensive green ties either.” Cheryl raised her eyebrow, obviously thinking about this. His ties had become her loathing hatred for about the last two years. She remembered the tie that did her in, too. It was nearly two years ago, a Christmas Eve, and he had come home with a tie for his office party that lit up and sang jingle bells. Nevertheless, her mind was set.
“No, you’re not touching that money, Leonard, or so help me I’ll fix your nose myself!” She had become rustled up in her chair, like an angry bird and Leonard was a little intimidated. Yet, her words had gotten him thinking.
“Cheryl, do you think the hospital would make us pay everything if say… I broke my nose on accident and I had to get it fixed? The insurance would cover most of it and then we’d only pay a little bit. I’d be happy and I’d stop complaining, so you’d be, well, happier. What do you think? If we rig it up just right and you broke my nose, I could go to the hospital?” Cheryl slouched back into her chair, clearly contemplating her possibilities of this situation. Leonard waited across the table on the tips of his toes, his long legs quivering under him.
Cheryl took a puff of her cigarette and smiled. “Alright, you have yourself a deal. You rig it up and I’ll help you with the break. It’ll hurt, but if you think it’ll be worth it, then fine, I’ll help.”
For the next three days Leonard spent his time imagining and planning. If he fell off a chair and hit his nose just right, would it work? No, that would simply be too hard. If Cheryl took a bat to his nose just once, a task which he was sure she wouldn’t mind doing, would it hit his nose? That was far too risky. It could ruin his face! Perhaps he could concentrate his mathematical skills into having something the right weight fall and hit his nose directly? He could support it by a string and Cheryl could let it drop. He could make it look like he had been doing some sort of housework in the process too, should any one choose to ask. That sounded like a fine idea, a metal wrench perhaps, from plumbing? That was most likely too heavy. The sink was far too low for an accident that required a heightened drop anyway. Perhaps he could be working in the backyard, yes, on the roof! Thus, Leonard set his entire plan into motion.
That Friday night he rigged the pulley system together measuring where to position his nose right underneath a string above a couple of bushes, which he carefully parted to make it look like he had broken his fall with them. He marked where his nose would go. The object would be a little hammer, not quite as heavy as an original hammer, but workable against a nose. He would shield his eyes with a padded scarf should it rebound against another part of his face. Cheryl came out, crossing her arms, a cigarette limply situated between her lips. “You done yet, Leonard?” She looked up at the whole system and grinned. “Got yourself something mighty complex for breaking your nose.”
“Yes, I’m done, and now I’m going to explain it to you. You wrap me up in this scarf, make it real padded.” He handed her a thick piece of cloth. “Stuff some socks under it and then place my nose parallel with this mark.” He pointed the sharpie-penned mark out on the branch. “Then you pull that string off its place, you see? And that’ll fall straight down.” He made a swooping motion with his hands. “It’ll most likely break my nose. It should, the way I have everything placed. If it doesn’t, punch me one to get the break in bad enough so that they’ll need to fix it. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind doing that. Then, you take the string off and take the cloth from my head and throw that away and call the ambulance. Be in a panic when they get here, act like you care and explain the situation, you get it?” Cheryl nodded. “I’ll ask for reconstructive surgery and our insurance will cover it. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds like you lost your mind.” Cheryl smirked and she inhaled more smoke. “If you think it’ll work, and not just hurt, then I’ll do it, if it’s going to get you to shut up.”
“It’s going to get me to shut up.” Leonard smiled and walked away, leaving Cheryl staring thoughtfully at the contraption in front of her. That night Leonard couldn’t sleep, but he lay awake, waiting for his wife to come to bed. She had not been able to sleep either, but had felt constructive, unlike the excited fellow who simply lay in bed. She went to pay some bills, a task which Leonard had designated to her years before when he thought it would be good for a woman to know how to do such a thing.
That morning he dressed in his yard work clothes, a white dirt-stained short-sleeve shirt and sagging overalls, and told Cheryl to come outside. He mussed up his hair and delicately placed dirt, twigs, and leaves around his body. Cheryl wrapped his head and stuffed the area around his eyes with plush socks to keep from injury. “Now remember, I was working on the roof because the shingles are old and I wanted to cover them with some metal sheets before rain season, for some good protection. Those sheets are up there further so it looks like I really was working, you understand? That’s a good enough lie, isn’t it?”
“Sure is good enough for me.” Cheryl sighed and finished up the last tightening pull of his wrapping. She led him to his designated bush and placed him in it, his head directly in line with the mark on the big branch. He sprawled out his arms and legs, feigning a fall, and Cheryl laughed a bit at the silliness of it. “You look ridiculous she said.” Leonard mumbled something, but the wrapping had covered his mouth. “What’d you say?”
“Rull da koid.” Leonard responded in a yell under garbled cloth. Cheryl sighed, understanding her husband’s words, and made her way to the cord, which she pulled without hesitation.
“Here it comes!” She yelped into the air as a sharp metal sheet fell straight down onto her husband’s neck, slicing his throat in the action. Cheryl looked in horror as the blood ran down his throat and spattered against the bush. She wasn’t sure whether she should rush to him or not, or to run back in and call the police as she watched his writhing and obviously surprised body.
Instead, she walked over and moved the pulley string from the tough metal sheet, sharpened in the dead of night by a depressed housewife. “This is some accident.” She quipped to herself as she began to remove the wrapping from his face, which was now deathly pale and eerily calm. “You got your blood all over my bush, you old fool.” She whispered to his pale corpse.

A Friend

Not a single day goes by that I don’t remember my good friend Arthur. Of course, no one ever called him that for his name was Art’s biggest weak spot. It really was. And it resulted in him spending most elementary school at home weeping. Artie’s antics as m mother later called them were nothing new to me. Matter of fact, the guy grew up 3 blocks away from me until the end of high school. Things got so bad at one point in 5th grade that one day while getting made fun of on the playground good old Artie just plain gave in and shit his pants right there on the playground if front of every one in our grade. He spent the rest of that year nervously shuffling his feet beneath his desk as our teacher taught lessons. After his incident Art’s social life at school seemed doomed. He kept to himself and surrounded himself with stacks of Herge’s TinTin comics. He drew his own comics during class. After his parents realized their son was a little off, they pulled him out of public school and sent him off to who knows where. Although Art left school we continued to play in the neighborhood together when it was simply convenient. As we grew older we saw less and less of each other. We lived in different universes. Kids at school occasionally gossiped about what had happened to Art. Some kids said he had been in and out of institutions throughout middle school. I lived across the street from him, but throughout most of our middle school years, Art was a ghost.
I didn’t see Art again until the first day of 9th grade. The first time I spotted the guy, he was getting chewed out by a concerned parent for smoking across the street before the bell wailed. This was seen from behind the windows of the sputtering school bus, driven by the exact same bastard that drove me in middle school. The driver was a quiet type who’d probably came from a dull family line of bus drivers. As I saw him that first day, he stood tall like a roman soldier in the face of an intimidating late model Volvo wagon.
For the next four years of high school Art and I occasionally spoke or crossed paths or bummed a cigarette of one another. But other than that, our relationship stood more as a memory. The type of memory you would put in a tight mason jar with a stick on label and put away to age. Sometime after college I was working in New York City. I wasn’t exactly raking in piles of cash but I had enough to live in a small studio apartment a few blocks off Canal Street. I was a commuter like so many other lost souls in this dirty city.
One night after staying late after work I walked slowly down to the 22nd st station in Gramercy Park. I stood alone on the yellow bordered stone platform staring off into the tunnels that led into oblivion. A city worker rustled behind me sweeping up bits and pieces of rat shit. As I stopped to zone out and decipher the silence that now surrounded me, the man approached me from behind. I recognized him immediately as Art. He asked me for a cigarette and I obliged. We spoke for the next five minutes about everything that needed clarification. His life, his career, His family. All had gone to shit. A failed marriage and a lack of a high school diploma were just the beginning of his problems. I listened attentively although I didn’t seem to care about his failures. I saw the boy I had grown up and imagined the loud fun times we had together. I felt sorry for him that he’d probably miss out on his kids entire childhood. A loud whistle and a sudden screech indicated my train was here. I said goodbye to Art and entered the train looking at him directly through the automatic doors. I would miss him.

Melisa Miller, Week Seven, Story 10

Inside the Box; changed version

Wanda slammed the front door with such vigor her whole family tree rattled on the living room wall. All her cousin’s faces shook like they were reenacting the last family reunion. She threw her backpack down on top of the shoes she flung off her feet and ran upstairs skipping every other step and into her room. With another slam of her bedroom door, she dove under her bed off the diving board in her head and pulled out a small black metal box. The box was rusting around the edges and had scribbled writing circling the sides; writing resembling cursive that if you stared at long enough, was obviously in a different language. Just as Wanda started opening the lid a knocking came at her door and she slid the box under her bed again. Her mother opened the door with Wanda’s baby brother Joshua bouncing in her arms.
“Well hello to you too, sweetie. What’s got you all in a flurry?” Thankfully, before Wanda could answer, her mother noticed a ketchup stain on Wanda’s shirt. “Oh Wanda, every day.” With a frustrated sigh, she let out her troubles, kissed Wanda on the forehead and bounced Joshua out of the room. “I’m going to need that shirt” her voice faded as she closed the door behind herself.
Wanda shifted gears so quickly all she needed was a NASCAR jacket. Reaching back under the bed and pulling out the box, she opened the lid and pulled out a sloppily folded little piece of notebook paper. She carefully unfolded the paper and read a message scribbled in pencil. The note read; This is not true. I am but a box, a box with no virtue.
Wanda sat for a minute and stared at the writing, intent the words would suddenly change or jump off the page and run away. Such an event could not be missed. But after a good minute she threw down the paper like she’d never touched it at all, leapt off the floor like a world class gymnast and went to her desk, where she yanked out a piece of paper from a little pink notebook that said My Little Pony with little purple and blue ponies frolicking across the cover. After giving the matter some good thought, Wanda wrote on the paper; Do you have secret compartments where little tiny people live? After folding the paper up and setting it delicately into the bottom of the box, Wanda closed it, shoved it back under her bed and galloped downstairs to watch the afternoon cartoons.
The next day at school Wanda spent half of the math lesson daydreaming about her magic box filled with little dinosaurs or maybe ancient jewels that once belonged to Cleopatra. Her eyes would drag to a close and her head would drag to a tilt until she’d jolt herself up, electrocuted by consciousness every other minute. In fact, ever since Wanda had found the box in her attic she’d been having these magnificent day dreams. Only at school of course, daydreams know when they’re needed.

About five days ago, give or take a few, Wanda’s lifelong desire to explore the great unknown led her up to the dusty attack where she crawled around the creaky wooden floor boards and sneezed on all the cobwebs. After digging through mountains of ugly lamps, funny looking purple dress coats with matching bell bottom pants, three blenders, four toasters and several varieties of dipping platters, Wanda discovered a large wooden chest with a key still in the lock. After unlocking the chest and creaking it open with all the strength she had in her little monkey bar-toned arms, Wanda peeked inside. To her astonishment the box was filled with fine linens that looked like they could have been a hundred years old. These pieces of cloth were finely beaded with rich aquas and deep purples. Wanda gently pulled the pieces of cloth out of the box and laid them on the floor like she was cradling a newborn. She picked up a cloth and wrapped it around her shoulders.
After serving at least twenty minutes as the princess of Arabia she bumped into a heavy stack of paper that scattered every which way as she sprawled out to reverse her mishap. In attempts to replace everything as she’d found it Wanda found herself in a dark angled corner of the attic, crawling on all fours smothered in cobwebs. Underneath a piece of paper was a small black mysterious looking box. Something drew Wanda to this box. She wasn’t even sure what yet, but somehow she felt akin with it, small and simple, a little worn, but peculiar none-the-less. Wanda caressed her fingers along the scrawl wrapping the box and held it tight in her fingers.
It wasn’t until she decided to keep her rock collection in the box that she realized its true magic. A day after she put the rocks in the box Wanda opened it only to find the rocks replaced by a small piece of folded notebook paper that read; Is this some kind of joke? I don’t fill you with rocks. Please have a little courtesy next time.

When Wanda’s teacher yelled her name for not giving the answer to four times seven, she jerked out of her trance and her cheeks went pink. The laughter from her classmates haunted her all the way home on the school bus. Her only distraction was the anticipation for today’s discovery from the mysterious black box. This time her hands shook as she opened it. Half expecting to see little tiny people smiling and waving up at her, her heart sank when all she saw was another small piece of paper, sloppily folded in the bottom of the box. What do you take me for? I am but a box, just like any other. Wanda decided to wait until the evening to respond this time. She needed time to think.
Wanda moped down to dinner where she found Joshua in his high chair making funny squeaking noises and slapping his mashed potatoes with a spoon. Wanda went into the powder room and washed her hands. When she came back Wanda’s mother was in the dining room, looking a little flushed. After wiping Joshua’s face, she asked Wanda how her day at school was.
“Fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing… Mom, what makes someone special?” Wanda’s mother put her fork down and gave Wanda a perplexed look. Wanda knew her mother would probably attempt to give her some overanalyzed answer designed just to make her feel good, but she couldn’t keep all these thoughts inside any longer. It took Wanda’s mother a minute to respond. Before she could answer however, Joshua threw his spoon at the table and it landed in the bowl of peas sitting on the table right between Wanda and her mother. Peas exploded out of the bowl in every direction. There were peas in Wanda’s mashed potatoes and in her iced tea. There was even a pea in her hair. Joshua started screaming and Wanda’s mother spent the next five minutes attempting to calm him down and clean up the peas at the same time.
“Everyone is special in their own way.” Wanda’s mother finally let out, half in a sigh. “Did someone say you weren’t special? Because-”
“-No,” Wanda cut in, and before her mother could fathom any kind of response Wanda leapt off her chair and dashed upstairs to her room. She tore a piece of paper out of her notebook and wrote- But you must be special. My mom calls my brother special all the time and he can’t even talk.
Wanda spent the entire next day in a state of perpetual peace. She didn’t fill her head with any silly ideas about boxes full of ice cream or limitless cotton candy. She greeted all her classmates with a pleasant dignity and sat in her desk with her back straight and her hands crossed. Wanda answered three multiplication problems by choice and didn’t get a single wrong. As she rode the bus home she thought about how much she appreciated the box regardless of its abilities. And when it came time to do her usual explosion into the house, she merely turned the knob gently and closed the door with a quiet “click” behind her. She set her shoes down neatly next to her backpack on the foyer rug. Wanda walked upstairs without skipping a single step. When it came time to open up the box and behold what message was in store for the day, she took a deep satisfied breath and read- What’s wrong with your brother? Any old bloke can talk. Sounds to me like you come from a family of cretins. Wanda’s content expression slipped right down her face like a mud slide. And with that she threw the box into the river behind her house and watched it float away into the sunset. Sadly, Wanda was wrong. Some boxes are just mean.

Melisa Miller, Week Seven, Story 11

Casting Shadows

My mother’s bedroom window stays closed far more often than it should. The chiffon curtains are always drawn and the fluorescent light from the ceiling radiates glare on everything. When I was little I wouldn’t have given it a second thought but now that the child is removed from me I can’t stand to bear that much light. Sometimes when I get up in the morning I keep the lights off while I’m drying my hair in the bathroom. I’ve even done my make-up in the dark. You don’t need much light to see. In comes my mother with a look on her face edging on disgusted that I would ever do something as crazy as put my make-up on in the dark.
“It wasn’t really that dark” I tell her. The argument already useless now that she’s turned the light on and wouldn’t hear my argument if I sent a subliminal message to her head. I turn to look in the mirror and every imperfection on my face, every split end in my frizzy my hair can be seen in that grotesque neon light. I head off to school flattening my hair down every ten minutes.
It’s such a calming sensation looking into the mirror and only seeing the contour of your cheek and the lashes of your eye. The delicate pale light that rests on the side of your face, carried in by the morning mist outside, it’s affirmed by the deep sense of content in your half asleep body at six o’clock in the morning. But some people turn on the lights before they even see themselves.
The problem carried into college. I’d fill my room with twinkling little string lights, they’d adorn my desk and hang from my bed and with all the rest of the lights off they would illuminate the contours of my room, until my roommate would barge in a flip on that damned fluorescent light on in the ceiling. Her sloppy pile of clothing-homework-knick knack soup would appear before me and I’d have to leave the room to study. She was so eager to see everything in that room; she couldn’t see anything my lights made it into. Sure, some people would call me a born decorator or else a strange night owl. It’s not the night I crave, it’s not the darkness. It’s the reality of not knowing. The contradiction of light and dark, how they adapt to your needs and shroud your circumstances in color.

Labors of Love

Shabeg Singh Sekhon
Labors of Love
In Ancient times, there was a man walking on a cliff along the coast. He did not choose to be there rather he found himself there that morning staring into the sun out of the entrance of a cave. As he was walking along this cliff he tried to figure out the situation he had become involved with but as he was walking he noticed a bright glow in a crevice by the canyon. He walked into the trail until he reached a dead end and he saw a large red orb with what looked to be the beginnings of a child inside. Its eyes were still closed and it looked as if it was warm and asleep. When the man approached the orb a voice boomed around him and asked him what his intentions were with the child. He responded by asking first who’s care the child was under and the answer he received was more than disheartening. The voice around him told him it was no one’s and that as soon as it would be born it would walk to the edge of the cliff and die like the others before it. The man, terrified from this asked what could be done to save the child and the voice, in a whisper told him what was necessary.
For two months before the child was born the man never stopped working. He made continual trips to the town and worked as many jobs he could to gather supplies. But on one fateful morning, as the man watched the orb the child came out. She looked beautiful to him with healthy skin and bright brown eyes. Her head had a dirty patch of black hair and her little limbs took her a while to get used to. But once she came to her own senses she walked toward the edge of the canyon. The man, as she was walking got her attention with a plate of food and stopped her motion. She looked up at him and let him take her into his arms so that he could feed her. Once she was done eating she tried to walk again to the edge but the man showed her a blanket and she once again let him take her and put her to sleep. It never ended with the man and his labors. Every day people only saw flashes of him here and there gathering things and selling them to get other things until one day one of the townsmen stopped him and asked him why he did so many tedious and troublesome things. Upon hearing this, the man peered into the townsmen’s eyes and said
“Until the child is not completely helpless, I must help her.” And after saying this he pulled his large bag of items over his back and walked the two miles back to the canyon to care for his daughter.

How to Solve Your Child's ADHD Behavior

It is important to first confirm that your child actually suffers from ADHD. Before assuming that your son's constant knee shaking and inappropriate interruptions are a sign of Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, you should get a professional opinion.
After setting up a 4:00 PM appointment on a Wednesday afternoon with a local child psychiatrist, escort your squirming son to the backseat of your family's red Volvo station wagon. To avoid the aggravation that comes with listening to twenty five minutes of constant chatter as you weave in and out of afternoon traffic, be sure to turn the radio up load enough to drown out any noise from the back seat. Since the child will have just been released from a long day of Elementary School, it is likely that his stomach will be rumbling with hunger. A stop at the drive-through of a fast food joint is a smart solution to this dilemma and will likely put the child in a better mood for his appointment.
When entering the office building in which your doctor of choice is located, be sure to cover you hands with your shirt as you touch the door handle. It is a known fact that the majority incidents involving static electricity take place in psychiatrist offices, and it is best to avoid any chance of being stung. As you guide your son down down the carpeted hallways of the building, keep a hand on him to prevent him from doing anything unpredictable such as banging his right hand against the office door labeled as "Law Office of Sam Redding". If the psychiatrist awaiting you seems rather shady, with his greased back hair and cabinet full of prescription medication samples, ignore your doubts. The doctor in front of you has years of schooling behind him and is completely knowledgeable on what is good for your child. The large sums of money he is being paid for giving his unbiased opinion is completely uninfluenced by any outside factors such as payoffs from pharmaceutical corporations.
As you recline on the leather couch placed in the waiting room for your relaxation, be sure to sift through the numerous magazines resting on the table to your right. These reading supplements have been generously paid for by the doctor in the hope that they will distract your mind from the conversation taking place in the adjacent room. It is only hospitable to indulge yourself in the gossip of Hollywood starlets and pointless, badly written columns talking about the shows that will be making their television debut in the upcoming weeks. If you find your heart beating faster than normal, your feet unable to remain still, your mind clouded with uncertainty over whether bringing your child to this particular office was the proper parenting decision, I would recommend zoning out to the soothing elevator music emitting from the cheap stereo system that the psychiatrist has tactfully added to his waiting room.
When an hour has passed and your child bounces into the waiting room you are patiently sitting in, the psychiatrist will finally be informed enough to diagnose the ailment that your child is so obviously suffering from. He will likely pull you into the office your son has recently exited from and tell your fidgeting child to take a seat in the waiting room for a moment. When you are alone with him, he will look at you directly in the eyes while caressing the facial hair covering his chin.
"I'm sorry to say", he will begin, "that your child obviously suffers from Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder." No doubt, you will be rather concerned by such a diagnoses. Your eyes will probably grow slightly larger, and if you are like me when I am nervous, you will likely drag your tongue over your lips several times before asking:
"What exactly does that mean?"
"ADHD is a neurological disorder characterized by a persistent pattern of impulsiveness and hyperactivity as well as the inability to stay focused on the task at hand. In the case of your son, his symptoms can be seen in his tendency to get easily distracted, his forgetfulness in daily activities, his inability to remain calm or stay seated in class, and his excessive talking."
"But what does that imply?" you'll probably find yourself wondering after being told the devastating news of your son's disorder.
"In other words, if you don't take care of your son's ailment at a young age, he will likely wind up alienating his peers, flunking out of school, and joining gangs or winding up in prison" the psychiatrist will elaborate.
This harsh warning will send a shiver down your spine as your mind calculates exactly what the doctor's words imply.
"What can I do to help my child?" you will ask the doctor. Your question will be exactly what the psychiatrist has been waiting for. He will immediately rise from his bright red chair and calmly move towards the cabinet in the back right corner of the room. Carefully removing several small boxes from the cabinet, he will begin enlightening you on the possible solutions to your child's disorder. The solutions are basically all one and the same: a daily dose of pills to numb your kids problematic behavior into non-existence. Being that you consider yourself a caring parent who will do anything for the well being of your beloved son, you will follow the doctor's advice and agree to the recommended prescription of Wellbutrin and Ritalin.
As the years go by, you will watch with sadness as your child suffers from numerous side effects created by the unnatural drugs contaminating your child's body. You will turn a blind eye to your son's drastic and constant weight fluctuations, to his stomach problems, to his inability to stay awake in class. You will spend thousands of dollars on medication for your son's disorder while allowing yourself to remain convinced that you are making the best possible decision. After all, the aim of your intentions is what matters.

Noah's Ark

It’s good to be clean again. It’s been awhile. When I get clean I can focus better. My head seems clearer. I can actually think straight, and when I’m not actively thinking my mind keeps going. My memory comes back to me in tangents now, I’m remembering things from the past that I haven’t thought about in years. Just now I was thinking about that one time at the Metrodome.

My mother’s business had rented out the entire Metrodome, where the Minnesota Twins play, for a family work function. They had all sorts of entertainment for kids, huge brightly colored county fair stuff. I brought my friend Noah with me, and he brought a bottle of vodka. We were rollerblading around the outside of the stadium, where all the concession stands stood, closed for now. I don’t know about Noah, but I was drunk. I was swerving on my skates, crashing into walls. We overturned trashcans and destroyed condiment stands. The usual stuff kids my age did. We rolled in circles always coming back to the same spots, the same dark concession stands.

After a while Noah slowed his— our pace. It was not out of fatigue but from interest. It was a kind of interest I had yet to grow accustomed to. The girls were dressed in low cut shirts of pale pastels, which seemed sort of off compared to the matching black makeup they wore. I don’t really remember their names, they both started with M though, Mary or Maggie or something.

I usually avoided girls. They didn’t relate to anything in my life really, except maybe alcohol, because everyone drank. In the narrow world of adolescence I lived in then, girls didn’t really have a place. But Noah lived in an increasingly different world, one that my father would warn me about, or threaten me, depending on how late it was. He always would give me these long diatribes against people who smoked cigarettes, and stayed out late, against people who wore or were black.

Noah flirted with them as we rolled slowly along, less destructive now. He smiled, asked them questions, and looked them in the eyes. I stayed stiff, my fingers fidgeting. I would catch the occasional glance from one of the two girls, but would always quickly look away. I answered questions and picked up on Noah’s queues, but otherwise remained in the background.

I was happy when Noah suggested we stop skating and move into the dome. The air was always strangely fresh and perfectly calm, trapped under the whiteness of the canvas covering. Noah and I were always fiercely competitive, especially when it came to drinking or basketball, but everything else as well. One of the blow-up structures was an obstacle course. There were two identical paths for two different people. You dove through a tube, climbed over a tangle of nets, swung by a rope over a pit of multicolored squishy squares, climbed a wall and claimed victory with the push of a button.

In competition with Noah, I felt more in my element. I waved at the girls, promising them victory, and winked at the smaller one who had taken a liking to me. Noah and I prepared to race. I was readying myself to dive through the tube; I had to get off to a quick start if I wanted to win against Noah. I imagined we were on the field and it was October 27^th, 1991; Game Seven of the World Series against the Atlanta Braves. The entire stadium was packed and cheering. They were all watching us.

My dad and I watched Game Six together. I still remember John Gordon announcing the final score: “Puckett swings and hits a blast! Deep left center! Way back! Way back! IT'S GONE!!! The Twins go to the seventh game! Touch 'em all Kirby Puckett! Touch 'em all Kirby Pucket!” My dad was overexcited and overturned the plate of snacks my mom had arranged so nicely on the table. He opened two beers and handed me one, it was the first drink I ever had. Somehow he got us tickets to the next game and we witnessed history as two of the myriad of fans filling the stands for Game Seven.

And as the attendant blew her whistle, I imagined that crowd cheering me on as I dove through the first tube. However this is where things changed. The tube was designed for smaller children, I guess I was getting too old for these kinds of things, and as I dove through the rubbery tube it grabbed my pants and boxers, pulling them to my ankles. When I scrambled to my feet there was a brief moment of recognition before I was able to pull up my garments. The air seemed cold instead of fresh, and I could feel a breeze where earlier there was none. The two girls laughed hysterically. Once I got my pants up the race was already over, Noah was too far ahead to catch up to. But I finished the race anyway, struggling to get over and thru the obstacles with one hand holding up my pants. Noah didn’t realize what had happened until the two girls told him. The smaller of the two, made a remark about the size of my recently exposed parts. I felt a pang of pride rise from the embarrassment and defeat I was feeling. I smiled and blushed, looking down. She gave me a kiss on the cheek.

All four of us snuck away after that, I was embarrassed and didn’t want to look at anybody and they just didn’t want anybody looking at them. We explored storage areas beneath bleachers and took turns taking slugs of vodka. We found an unlocked door, and roamed the private hallways of the player’s facilities. Eventually we made our way to the Twin’s locker room, finding refuge from the distant guards patrolling outside. We drank more, inspecting the contents of the player’s lockers. We found Kirby Puckett’s honorary locker, the same locker he used when they won the World Series. Years later I learned that they replaced his locker with another, the image of a great man with one case of sexual harassment on his record too much for the franchise to handle. Noah’s father had had similar trouble, but he didn’t face up to the law but to a marriage.

As I picked through lockers, looking for something of worth or interest, I smelled the sweet fragrance of burning flowers. I turned around and Noah and the girls were lighting a joint. This was the first time I had seen weed being smoked. Noah had once shown me his parents stash and I was unimpressed by the pile of dark green. My first instinct was to think of my fathers threats. Then I thought of the relatively new feeling of being noticed by girls, of myself standing exposed atop a giant blown up bubble, and of the kiss on my cheek.

Without words I took the burning paper and plant that was handed to me and took several drags, passing the joint to the left. I managed to not cough the first time, the girls didn’t even know I had never smoked before. Noah smiled at me knowingly. As we passed around the joint, the smoke rising and expanding, my head spun in circles as well, as if I was rollerblading around my brain, overturning trashcans and destroying condiment stands.

That’s when it all started. People say weed is a gateway drug, but that’s bullshit. People are the gateway. I was introduced, more often then not by Noah, to various circles of people whose daily activities were centered around drugs. Every one of these groups had their own personality, most of the time characteristic of the drugs they used. The kids who ate prescription uppers, and later the methheads, were always on top of everything, falling apart physically while their minds raced, along with their mouths, spouting off facts and stories that somehow seemed to hold significance in the aura that surrounded them.

Once I stayed awake for over a week. I had to take five Ambien and drink a blended fruit smoothie with half a bottle of Zanax before I could stop trembling and fall asleep.

The people that liked hallucinagens were an unpredictable bunch. You never really knew where they were, or what they saw when they looked into your eyes. Some were so far gone that their bodies had begun to hate their minds. Some were still holding onto reality, even if their perspectives were twisted, often lost in the depths of their minds or in the middle of conversation. These people never lasted too long, they either got out or took the plunge down the rabbit hole. The group was more a composite of individuals, while they occupied the same physical space, their minds were often in different dimensions entirely.

One time I tripped shrooms so hard I couldn’t piss because I thought my dick was a monster.

Another time I hooked up with some older guys, who fed me reds and blues, artifacts of a previous drug generation, along with too many tabs of acid. I was driving them across the country, and the road began to pulse with my breathing, expanding and contracting with the rhythm of my lungs. When I dropped them off we smoked a bowl of some crystalline substance they called DHT, which was like nothing I had ever experienced, I became the room and looked down at myself and the others from every perspective imaginable. Later they told me this particular drug mimicked a chemical that is only released in the brain when you are born, when you die, and when you give childbirth.

Every time I met a new group of people and shared with them their drug of choice and the experiences that resulted, I felt I was becoming more aware of myself. All these circles of people brought out different part of my personality. Noah always seemed to be one step ahead of me though, he always knew everyone I was just meeting, and he already had tried all the drugs I was being introduced to.

One time I woke up, found my entire bottle of pills, an extensive collection, gone with my memory of the previous night. My nose and throat were coated with crushed chemicals, and my mind reeled.

One month I snorted so much ecstasy that I got two black eyes from all the abuse to my nasal passageways. From what I remember it was the best month of my life.

I tried a lot of drugs and developed my tastes. I tried more pharmaceuticals than I could name, found out which ones worked in what situations. I moved from weed to hash oil, coke to crack, Adderol to meth, Vicaden to Oxycotin, and opium to heroin. But I was never a fiend; I cooked my own crack from pure, always washed my crystal, and always smoked black tar while everyone else mainlined. I knew I never had a serious problem because I never had trouble quitting when I had to. For example, every spring while I was in high school, baseball season, I would quit everything for the team. Mental clarity was necessary in this game, especially because I never wore a cup; sometimes I thought it was more out of fear more than commitment.

I remember the regional championship of my freshman year in high school. Through a series of flukes I was starting. It took a torn ligament, an academic probation and a last minute car accident, for me to be playing in that game. I was in way over my head. Varsity baseball was a completely different game. They told me I was playing as I lackadaisically dressed in the back of the locker room, that our first baseman had been in an accident on the way to the game and that I would have to take his place. Fortunately I hadn’t yet partaken in the usual flask Noah and I shared before each game where we sat on the bench after warm-ups.

The whole game I played well, without errors, although I struck out every time I went to the plate. The game came down to the last inning, we were up one and had to hold our lead. There was one out, a man on third and on deck the best slugger in our conference. He had already hit a home run this game, and I could see from where he was warming up that he was itching for another.

I was in a situation where I knew I was the most inexperienced player on the field, my mind raced as I thought of every possible situation that could occur, what my responsibilities would be. I had a heightened sense of clarity, both mental and physical, as I pounded my fist into my glove. It was almost like a drug, an altered state of mind, the importance of the game and my unproven position among my senior teammates that I imagined were just waiting for me to mess up.

When the ball came to me, I was ready for anything. The curveball came in unusually slow, the batter waited and at the last minute swung. At the crack of the bat I dove to my right. The ball was not much more than a streak of white in my mind when I made the decision to throw myself in the air. It was one of those picturesque moments when the body hangs suspended just above the ground, completely outstretched. The ball slammed into the back of my glove, two outs. The man on third thought he saw the ball go through, as did everyone else, and took off for home. When he realized his mistake he turned back in a flurry of dirt. I don’t remember exactly how I got to my feet, but I did, and fast, fast enough that when I threw the ball as hard as I could, it beat the runner sliding back into third. Third out, game over. Everyone cheered, watching me as I ran off the field, followed by the entire team. That was the best moment of my entire life.

It’s good to be clean again, to be able to think back on my life in this way. Usually my head is never clear enough to remember anything. My thoughts, when altered, seemed to focus on the future; whatever drugs I was on steering my thoughts to the present and beyond. When I think about the past it’s usually a past that didn’t happen, but could have. When I smoked a lot of weed I thought about the past in this way, then I switched to hash oil.

But thinking back, all these drugs have really structured my life, how I interact with people, how I judge them, I would even go as far to say who I know as well. For example the only person from my high school baseball team that I am still in contact with is Noah, and coincidentally he was the only one on the team who dabbled besides me. Another example would be the love of my life, who I met through some people I know who distributed weed.

Noah and I were hanging in a back alley, waiting. Lynn, who I didn’t really know at the time, was waiting as well, mediating a meeting between Noah and I and some friends of hers. We were just sitting in the alley on the hood of my car, looking at the stars, smoking bowls. Noah and I were often a good theatrical team and we started a conversation about weed and how much we smoked. We told her that we only smoked about a half eight between the two of us every week.

“Damn, that’s crazy,” She said, I still remember the exact words, “I smoke like a half eighth a day.”

Which was really nothing, we probably smoked a quarter or more between the two of us every day. We let the joke run for a while though, until after Lynn’s friends came and went. When we finally told her she was in disbelief, she kept laughing and saying how everything made more sense now. Before she left, at Noah’s urging, I walked up to the window of her car and asked her for her number.

After a while, once I got into harder circles and Lynn pulled herself out of them altogether, I would always have to come back to that first joke Noah and I played on her. When I would come back to our apartment all fucked up I would usually lie to her about what and how much I did. When she would find out what actually happened, and she always did, I would pass it off as a joke. “Just like how we met,” I would say.

Thinking back on all this is really a lot to handle. Now I find myself pulling up Lynn’s number on the phone, staring at it. Sometimes I’ll press ‘call’, but then ‘cancel’ before it actually goes through. I’ve been drinking pretty heavily lately.

Memory is a tricky thing, it attacks you when you least expect it, it sooths only when you don’t really need it. Clarity and cleanliness only makes it worse sometimes, forcing memories of the past when I could be giving in to instant gratification, losing myself in the present. Now I can’t stop these thoughts from assaulting my mind. I can’t stop my mind as it searches for memories, and I definitely can’t change my memories as they have already happened.

But it’s okay, as I fiddle with my phone, pulling up Lynn’s number again and again, Noah calls. He’s on his way here right now. He just made the trip up north we used to make together. His trunk was full of every drug you could imagine, pairs of each for each of us to try, a veritable ark of altered thoughts. Enough of this sobriety, I’ve had enough of the past for a lifetime.

Trying Not to Remember

Look, I know you don't know me and that you probably think I'm already nuts for coming up to you like this and just jib-jabbering away without even introducing myself, but right now I just need to you listen to what just happened to me because I need to tell someone this.
So I was in line at the bank and there's this woman to the right of me and she's saying something about parrots to her daughter who was wearing these little pink sneakers - sneakers. I can't believe I remembered the freaking sneakers. I mean, who does that? There were little silver stars on the toes of them and she was so quiet, even when everyone started screaming. And quiet before the screaming, during the tense, humid silence that practically drowned everyone together.
I was watching some cashier argue quietly with an elderly man when there was a really loud snapping sound, or maybe it was more of a popping sound, but it was loud and everyone got really quiet and turned to the door and there he was, this man with a mask and a small but heavy-looking gun. And then there were more snapping and popping noises and he blew out all the cameras he could see, sending little glass bits everywhere in the air and on people. And he told everyone to shut up and listen but we all were doing that anyway, and he jogged over to the tellers and told them to get him his money, but they were already doing that too.
So it all was smooth, you know? The man, he got his money, and all of us inside were shut up and listening, and it was good. Clean, successful robbery. Nobody was hurt. But then the guy, he just, he just, he just like flipped or something, man. He looked and looked and looked at all that money he had in his hands and then he looked up at the cameras and looked at every single freaking person in the bank, right into their eyes, and something turned heavy. Like, the silence, I said it was humid, right? Well, that's what I mean. Thick, tangible quiet.
And he threw the bag into the air all wild-like but then sat down like, like as calm and sacred as a monk, all cross-legged. Then he opened his mouth real wide and shoved the barrel inside and I heard it click against his teeth but not for long because then his finger tensed around the trigger and the bullet - it went right through the top of his head, man. I mean, there was blood everywhere. Brain bits, too. If you've never seen watery brain bits before, you should feel pretty good about that. I don't think that's something we're really meant to see.
And all I wanted to do was go home, but right after it happened sirens got loud and people started acting hysterical and they kept us there for way too long because we didn't know anything or do anything wrong. So we had to stare at this man's slumped body with flesh draping his neck area and we really had time, you know, to ingest it all and remember it. Because I do.
I also remember the little girl in line, who was so quiet and good and listened to her mother rant about parrots, and I think about how she'll remember the robber too, and what it felt like to get splattered with death. And remembering's something not hard to do. I can't stop remembering it, myself.

Steady Burn

The alarm clock ripped into my lunch date with Tracy Chapman, warping her smooth voice and sending globs of catsup everywhere. The wicker chairs that supported our weight gave way, and when I opened my eyes, Matthew's right hand was on my thigh, and I felt him sigh his dreams away.
In the shower we coated our bodies in soap and clutched on to each other, sliding our skin together to make little bubbles and fond morning memories. We made noises to each other about coffee and pillows. I stripped the die from my eyelashes with my fingers, the mid-slumber sweat, the lunch date with Tracy. The water was hot. It cleansed our bodies of yesterday's grease.
After we had dressed and I had poured both of us coffee, we stood on the patio and watched little feathers of steam curl into the air and disappear. Matthew was wearing his work jeans and a very flattering polo. He reached into the front pocket and took out a pack of Camel Lights. He opened the box, took out a cigarette, and gently placed it between my lips. They were in the middle of making words, but that doesn't matter.
I leaned forward and he struck a match with a dominance that made me shiver. It was control I saw - that ability to make fire and put it somewhere. It was self-assurance. It was making something work.
I lit the cigarette with my inhalation, and the nicotine swam through my veins. Sweet, sweet substance. I took another drag, and passed it to him with my eyes closed. His finger brushed mine as he swept in, silently, and reclaimed the cigarette. When he inhaled, I felt a piece of me sucked in with the smoke, into his lungs, through his body.
By the time Matthew gave it back to me, about a third had been consumed.
"I love smoking with you in the morning," I said. He smiled at me, sadly, almost.
I inhaled my second drag and passed the cigarette over to him again. Even though it was only half-smoked, I knew it was gone. I knew before I passed him the cigarette. Before he even had a chance to breathe in and say, "I don't know what time I'll be home tonight. The boss has got me running all these errands for him, things I didn't use to do. Anyway, I'll probably get off a little late." He took a second drag. "Oh, shoot! I almost forgot. I have a few friends coming in from out of town that I really ought to see."
He hurriedly handed me what was left of the cigarette. "So I'll probably hit up a bar or something with them before coming home, too." I filled my lungs with smoke in silence. "So maybe a late dinner tonight?"
I looked at the cigarette and wondered if it was worth milking for another drag. I put it up to my lips, changed my mind, and flicked the butt onto the ground. The sweet tobacco smell still lounged in the air.
Matthew glanced at his watch. "Oh, man. I gotta run." He kissed my lips. He placed down the coffee mug, hoisted his laptop case across his shoulder and walked through the door.
"I wish these damn cigarettes lasted long---"
The door shut behind him before I could finish my sentence.

How to tell a Story

A good story can have a turn, or an unusual character, or a strong human theme.

But.

What really matters s the env ronment. Not the place of the story, the place you are wr t ng n. Everyth ng around you when you are wr t ng, take an nterest ng aspect of the room and place t nto the story. Put a m rror n front of you wh le you’re wr t ng, wr te n an att c, use an old broken typewr ter, do all three.

f the s tuat on s unusual t w ll wr te tself. t w ll even bu ld ts own theme, character, story, everyth ng. Don’t bu ld a story, f nd one and work w th t. All the good words have been sa d already, you just have to get t out to that reader. ’m just copy ng the story about the prev ous owner of th s typewr ter. He would s t up n th s same dusty room, stare at a m rror, and wr te about h mself, wr t ng about h mself. The problem that occurred to h m was that talk ng about yourself gets repet t ve; you tend to start us ng only certa n keys, espec ally the letter “eye.”

You can grasp a lot about the guy just from that. Maybe he had a w fe, a k d, he had to have a l fe somet me. He had to have lost t all though, thrown h mself ent rely nto h s wr t ng. Stayed up here typ ng the same story over and over. At one po nt, he must have cracked, sat h mself down and just h t the same key over and over. Me me me me me me me me e, unt l t broke.

How To Travel; In Specific

Outside the Country:

First, decide to make your summer vacation one you will remember. This will take some planning. Ask your boss if you can pick up some extra hours and pester your co-workers if you can take some of their shifts; this summer will also require a good deal of money. Make a budget. Check the internet for ticket prices to get a ballpark for cost, factor in emergency expenses for the unavoidable and unforeseeable, think about where you can stay for anywhere from one night to three days, make sure you bring enough for souvenirs. Look at the trivial things you throw money away on and exclude them from your budget so to trim the fat off the total cost of travel expenses. When your ex-girlfriend points out that both of you are planning to travel this summer, ask her where and why. She will tell you that she is accompanying her father on a business trip to Germany and will be there for three weeks. She will propose that you come with them. At this, you should feel both anxiety at spending an extended period of time with your ex-lover and her stone-faced mathematician father and giddy at the notion of not having to spend upwards of a thousand dollars on room, board, and food. Your parents will be wholeheartedly behind the idea and even offer to pay for some of your expenses. However, this is not out of the goodness of their hearts, it is only so you do not mooch off of your soon-to-be travel companions; they will tell you this.

Two months before you travel make sure to break your promise to yourself to not spend money unwisely. If there’s a party one weekend offer to buy people beers or throw twenty to thirty dollars down on drugs. Maybe do both. This is all so you can have days where you do not sleep. Between going to school full time, your job, homework, family strife, and losing your mind you won’t have much time for that sleep stuff. Don’t worry, though. This period of time is so you can fully appreciate your break.

The day of your flight, make sure you are thoroughly hungover from the previous night’s party. This will make the twelve hour flight go much faster. And so will the sleeping pills you will buy in your terminal’s kiosk. You will have arrived too early for your flight and in the terminal set up a miniature campsite. Have greasy, transparent McDonald’s breakfast sandwich wrappers strewn out in a crescent around your laptop on the floor next to the wall outlet. You won’t want to talk to anyone; your nicotine cravings, by now, will be driving you mad. Keep your massive DJ headphones glued to your head at all times, the constant soundtrack of fusion bebop and Bob Dylan will keep you from killing everyone in terminals C through F. On the plane, make sure you hit a few people with your backpack and computer case; especially if they’re in first class. Settle into your seat next to the metrosexual guy who looks like every Los Angeles cliché rolled into one and avoid small talk; again, keep those headphones on at all costs. After you feign attentiveness at the standard safety and emergency evacuation procedures, reach between your legs into your bag and take out your box of sleeping pills. Put your oversized sunglasses on, chase your sleeping pills down with your water bottle filled with watermelon vodka (leftovers from last night), ignore the half-disgusted expression on Mr. LA’s face as he gets a whiff of your drink, and wait to wake up in London; where you will transfer onto another plane to Bonn, Germany.


“The weather reports for Bonn, Germany expect showers and high winds which may delay your travel.”
As you exit the plane, make sure to steal a couple airplane-standard blankets and pillows, curse the calm, steady British female voice coming over the intercom under your breath, and glare at the monitors displaying the weather forecast from behind your sunglasses. Thank GOD that the British don’t give a shit if you smoke in their airport and smoke half a pack of cigarettes in the smoking section. Find your terminal and make note of how fast you can get there if you run, you will want to stay in the smoking section listening to music and eavesdropping on the conversations conducted between long drags from even longer Dunhill cigarettes. When it is time to board your next plane, repeat the same process you performed when you boarded your first plane sans the sleeping pills; alcohol is free on this next flight. When you arrive in Germany, stumble over yourself as you get your bags and try to play it off as though you have a limp; the other passengers might pity you instead of thinking you’re some stupid drunk American kid. Wander around the airport for a while as you wait for your checked luggage to get taken off the plane. Sit down in the smoking section again and brush up on your German. If all broken English and body language fails just say “ich spracht nicht deuch”, people should leave you alone at this utterance.

For the next three weeks try to be as cordial and unconfrontational as possible to your ex, her father, and every German person you meet. You will get the impression quickly that German people have the potential to be smiling and helping you out as they dig a chunk out of your leg with a switchblade. Make sure you bring your I-pod with you everywhere, it will keep the drunks in the town squares from talking to you too much. Make sure to get drunk every night and have at least three nights where you nearly end up in your ex’s bed. This is important because it will keep the tension high and your need to get high just as imperative. Get caught smoking after the first week by her father. Tell him you haven’t touched cigarettes until you got to Europe, which is a lie, and implore him not to tell his mother and father. He says he won’t but you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you are smacked instead of hugged by your mother when you return home.

On your return flight, it is wash-rinse-repeat. Do everything outlined here and smoke two packs in between Germany and the US instead of just one. Be prepared to go back to work immediately because you won’t have any money left and you, in fact, now owe money. You will have to spend the rest of your summer paying back your ex and her father for feeding you when you ran out of Euros two weeks into the trip. It will be worth it in the end, though. And if anything you can blame the rest of your wasted summer on Europe and their exchange rate.

~~~

Station to Station:

When you are sick of sitting in front of the computer, walking the dogs, being pestered by your family about how you never take out the trash, or generally need a change of scenery or pace, take a drive. Pick up your friend and go to the local diner, one of the few remaining outposts where you can still smoke indoors. Talk back and forth about how boring it is in New Jersey. How there’s never anything to do and even less women to do; you should want to change your situation. Your ex-girlfriend is going to school in New York and you mention this to your friend in passing. Now, the conversation could go in two possible ways: either you both continue the conversation, just complaining, or you can “get off the pot” and call your ex up. Ask what she’s doing. It’s a Friday night and she, too, has nothing to do. Ask if you and your friend can come up and crash on her floor for the night. If she is apprehensive about the idea, drop hints that you will be bringing drugs with you. She won’t be, though. She left for college nine months ago and she will say that she misses you and would love so see the both of you.Your train leaves in an hour and a half. The drugs will only take an hour to round up and it is fifteen minutes drive to the train station. After three phone calls, two drug deals, one stop at Rite Aid, four cigarettes, and six minutes trying to find a parking spot, you and your friend will make a mad dash to make the 9:27 train to New York City.

Don’t make eye contact with anyone and take a seat near the back of the car. In your bag you should have the following: a half ounce of mushrooms (for fun), an eighth ounce of marijuana (for balance), one bottle of gin (for bribery),one flask of whiskey (for warmth), two bags of pills (one containing amphetamines, the other pharmaceutical-grade, over-the-counter downers), your I-pod (for a soundtrack), and fifty dollars. Make small talk with your friend and gaze out the window in between swigs from the flask. If anyone else in the car looks you over try to fake a shiver and sink into your thick winter coat. Call your ex when you pass the Elizabeth station and ask her which subways to take to get to her place. The directions will be straightforward enough: take the number 4 train downtown bound to 72nd and transfer to the number 6 going uptown to 52nd street. Navigate Penn Station so you don’t get on the LIRR and end up in some Guinea neighborhood where you’re liable to get more shot full of holes than if you walked through your old Black neighborhood of Brooklyn wearing a shirt with “Hang Niggers” written across the back.

Hannah will meet you at the top of the steps at the 52nd street subway station and walk you back to her dormitory room. Ask her how she’s been and whether or not she knew if any of her college friends would want to hang out. She will tell you that she has been good but bored. And, no, that all the parties had already started and that her dorm is essentially vacant. Once in her room, open your bag and show her the things you brought with you. She will want to eat the mushrooms and smoke the marijuana. Explain to her what will happen to her while she is on them and let her know that both you and your friend will take care of her. Each of you will eat three quarters of the half ounce and she will lead you up to the roof to smoke. She assures you that the police and the campus security will not catch you. As you get halfway through your joint, you will begin to feel the first wave of the hallucinogen take hold of you. Try to keep your wits about you, there will be three more of these throughout the course of the night.

After this you should climb back down from the roof, gather some money and your scarves, and begin walking the streets. Watch out for Hannah, she will be unsure of herself under the influence of the new drugs. Tell her to relax, that the “breathing” buildings and swaying ground are normal, that no one is staring at any of you, and to enjoy the feeling. Your individual trips will wear off as you make the three mile walk back from no place in particular. Stop in at a 24 hour Japanese soba noodle bar and eat some soup before you get back to her room. Under the table, pass each of them a pill of Aderrall. Each of you will take them and chase them with the tall, sweet Japanese beers and finish eating. Let Hannah take you both on a tour of the neighboring college afterwards, and finish your night by watching reruns of [adult swim] in the lounge until five in the morning. Pass out in the lounge and ignore the women walking by casting suspicious, sidelong stares at the three of you.

When you wake up at 10:00, realize that you have to be back home in time for work at 2:00. Shake your companions and tell them that you have to leave. Thank Hannah for her hospitality and leave the gin on her desk as a parting gift as she sleeps in her bed. Gather your things and, through the lingering haze of drugs and alcohol, navigate your way through the streets and subways, half-dragging your friend along, until you get to Penn Station again. Find the first seats available on the 12:45 train back to New Jersey and collapse in them. Pass out, you will need the sleep. You will be heading back to be on your feet for eight hours at the video store. Get off the train at your stop and find your car. After a quick and silent car ride, divide what is leftover from the night, drop your friend off and take yourself back home. Take a bird-bath in the bathroom. Only wash your face, armpits, and hands. Brush your teeth and hair and throw on your work uniform of just a blue polo shirt. Do only the bare minimum, you do not have time to be perfect. Before walking out the door and back into the car, which you should have left running in the broken gravel driveway so to save time, pop another tablet of speed to ward off the impending hangover. Speed through two stop signs and still get to work fifteen minutes late. It is Saturday and it is busy. After checking out five customers reach into your back pocket and look at your pack of cigarettes. You should only have three. Look at the clock and see that you still have seven and a half hours left. At this point, your hangover should be in full effect.

~~~

By Car:

First, check your wallet to see how much money you have. Check the time. Try to remember whether or not you have more than half a tank of gas in the car. If you have more than ten dollars in your wallet and more than half a tank, then grab your warmest coat and keys from the hooks downstairs by the door. Before you walk out, grab your CD case. Make sure that Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, Coltrane’s Lush Life, and Simone’s Finest Hour are among them. Driving music is essential. Also, make sure you have your notebook with you. These late night drives always end at the same place. Pull out onto the streets and make your way slowly toward the convenience store in town. The police station is a block from your house and you only have your provisional license. This means that if you are caught driving after midnight your license gets cut up and suspended and your car gets towed. Keep the windows rolled down and the fans blasting heat so the car doesn’t smell like smoke when you return. You share the car with your father, who has quit smoking, and if it smells like cigarettes he will tell you in his slight Midwestern drawl, again, that “it doesn’t make it easier for me to stay quit.”

Stop by WaWa and pick up a fresh pack of Marlboros. Then, head towards Interstate 1 and take the exit south towards Trenton. Avoid the jughandles near the Quaker Bridge Mall and Mercer Mall. You often get turned around in that area and tonight you do not have enough gas to afford that kind of mistake. Slow down as you approach the large yellow and orange hexagonal sign that reads “Denny’s”. Park your car where you can see it from the smoking section window. When you walk in say hello to Dielia, your next door neighbor. Ask for a table for one, smoking. She will set down a menu in front of you just in case that tonight you will order more than just coffee and water; though this almost never happens. You should thank her like always as she comes back again with the brimming cup of hot coffee and creamer.

Pull your cigarettes from you jacket pocket, place one between your lips, and light it. Close your eyes. Listen to Simone’s sultry cover of Lady Day’s “Summertime” echo in your mind. Exhale. Sip your coffee. Take another drag. Set your cigarette in the ashtray and push your coffee mug aside as you place your notebook in front of you. Take your pen from your pants pocket and put it to the paper.

If you have had an eventful day, one filled with friends and work and you haven’t had much time to think, then nothing will come from this exercise. If you have been alone for most of the day, idling and reading, napping and eating, then a story or a piece of a poem, random images, colors, will spill onto the page. You have had the latter. You will pause before you start, picking up your cigarette again and dragging deeply on it. Sip your coffee as you exhale again. Consider everything you have done in this year. The drugs. The sex and lack thereof. The murky nights of drinking. The things and places you’ve seen and done. Begin to write. Write from your experiences though this will only produce bland and half-true recollections that make no sense to anyone else except you. Then write outside of your experience. Make it all up. Dream of the romantic lives you wish you could have and put it down on paper. Try to capture the nonsense mucking up your mind and express it. Create for yourself a world that you can live in for those few lines of fiction or poetry, one that is dynamic and different and nothing like the world you experience. It is all you can do to feel sane, make yourself feel like you aren’t wasting time.

In three hours, leave Dielia the remainder of your money for the bill and the tip. Get in your car and take the unlit backroads to get back home. Avoid the main drag and pull into the drive quietly. Smoke one last cigarette on the back steps and quietly creep up the stairs to your room. Peel off your shoes, jeans, and jacket and leave them in a clump on the floor. Bend down to lay in your bed on the floor and climb under the sheets. Try to sleep. Close your eyes. Try to focus on the story you wrote earlier; the one about a snowstorm in a desert. Try to transport yourself, your mind, there. To that place. Try to imagine and convince yourself that your waking life is the dream, and that the world on the page is your reality.





~Alexander Johnson