Dr. Barten sighed and dropped the patient's file on the counter.

The patient looked up hesitantly at the man of science.

"What is it?" He asked, prepared for the worst.

"What you have, Mr. James, is a case of Smug."

"What?" The patient was incredulous. They always were.

Dr. Barten looked at the white metal heating vent on the floor and nodded. Mr. James bluffed and squirmed, denied and argued. Those actions further clinched the diagnosis. The doctor picked up the file once again, flicking little points with his fingernail as he spoke. His eyes went elsewhere in the room, anywhere but Mr. James,

"Compulsive being right, fact checking to prove a point, excessive celery intake, and Trophy Wife syndrome. It all points to only one thing, sir."

"B-but I contribute to charity!" The man blustered, angry now, "I coach Little League for my son!"

"Mm-hmm. All signs."

"Well!" The man got up and began to button his shirt, "I will just have to go get a second opinion!"

"Please do so, Mr. James." The doctor's answer was dry and barely interested. Once the patient became combative, there was little to be done.

Mr. James fumbled with his tie and wallet, got up from the examination table and strode roughly towards the door. As his hand touched the knob, however, his shoulders slumped ever so slightly and he half-turned to his old family GP,

"If-if it really is, what's the cure?"

"Oh, well, not too complicated, really..." the doctor's voice was now warmer, just a bit compassionate, actually. "You just need to volunteer at a soup kitchen, give up the second home, buy generic clothes for a month or two. Shop the clearance aisle, maybe. It's different for different people, but I think you'd do well to drop Little League for a few weeks, maybe spend some time cleaning your mom's garage out. You said she'd been putting pressure on you-"

"I will definitely be getting that second opinion!" The man snapped. He tried to slam the door behind him, but the hydraulics prevented a hard close, and he wound up looking foolish. A passing nurse bit her lip to keep from smiling. She knew the diagnosis the moment the man set foot in the waiting room, and she knew the hydraulic doors were just a small part of the cure.

Dr. Barten had little time to think of Mr. James, for next was a woman patient, a Miss Angela Vourhagen. She had been prepped by Jo, one of Mr. Barten's newer nurses. On the chart was that bubbly handwriting so vexing to look at, and her notes seemed to indicate an auto-immune disorder of some sort. With raised eyebrows, the doctor knocked on the gray door and entered.

"Hello!" He always tried to be cheerful right from the start. It helped somewhat.

Miss Vourhagen, however, was having none of it. She turned a pitiful face to the doctor and merely bent her mouth a bit at the corners.

"How are we today?" Dr. Barten sang out, snapping a cover on the otoscope. The patient began to list her ailments alphabetically. This generally meant that they had done some internet research before coming in.

He peered inside her right ear, noting the perfect health inside and the little metal ring through her cartilage. Looking inside her left ear, he commented on the lack of earwax buildup.

"Oh, that's because I'm a vegan." The patient responded, with that little edge of tone to her voice that he was becoming so familiar with lately. The doctor felt his insides turn over a bit. It was spreading faster than he had thought.

"Ms. Vourhagen," asked the doctor, "what do you do for recreation?"

The patient put her head on one side, her ailments temporarily subsided,

"Well, I hike the trail twice a week," she answered, "and I volunteer at a shelter. I'm active in PETA and Greenpeace and I place survey calls for the Green Party."

"Sounds like quite the full schedule, there." He observed dryly, making a tiny mark on her chart. Some of the prescriptions he gave to others became the symptoms of the next. It was odd.

"Well, Doctor," she leaned forward and hugged her knees, "one has to give back to their world, you know. So many people go through life consuming, there has to be a group of people keeping this planet safe." She looked at him meaningfully.

The doctor nodded and stood up. His swivel chair make a squeaking sound and spun softly into the exam table.

"There's been a virus going around, Angela. I'm pretty sure you've got it. I'm going to prescribe some different volunteer work for bit- how about you visit the retirement home down the road, spend some time talking to patients there about the Great Depression, ask them how they survived the War. Then I want you to-"

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?!" Miss Vourhagen interrupted him furiously.

"Ah, ahem, yes." He nodded, "You have a case of Smug."

"I do not!" She shouted, "I am healthy! I am-"

"I'll see you next week for a followup, Ms. Vourhagen."

The doctor was becoming immune to their protestations. It wasn't that much of a complication, this epidemic. It came on slowly, almost below notice. He walked out while she argued, and let the door shut gently behind him. He rubbed his forehead, flicked his eyes over the patient charts hanging neatly above his desk, and plumped down in his chair. Jo walked by and patted his shoulder.

"Stupid people," Dr. Barten grumbled at her, "that guy with the tie, and that guy before him with the church, and that lady yesterday with her non-vaccinated kids... it's spreading so fast but they all think they're immune, that it's someone else who has it. I just can't stand even looking at them anymore! I think-" he stopped and put his hand on his heart, "I think they're making me sick!"

"Hmm," Jo frowned, "you should get that checked out. I've heard there's somethign going around..."

Labels: diagnosis, short story, smug, smugness

It’s all your fault, you know. You did this to me. Yes, you, with your altruism and do-goodmanship. Don’t tell me that’s not a word, what with all the idiot technical jargon people make up these days, one can say pretty much whatever one wants.

But it was really you who started it all. Don’t you remember, that day in the grocery store two years ago?
Of course you don’t, because you didn’t see me.
I saw you, though.
You were standing there in the wine aisle, carefully studying a gold and purple label. Your hair was a mess- wispy curls stuck out from one side of your head while the other side lay flat down over your ear. Your very perfect ear.
Do you remember what you were wearing that day? You can’t possibly, because it was so obvious that you dressed with no care whatsoever. A thin artsy tee shirt under a ratty track jacket, long skirt clinging to your ample thighs, and mismatched socks. Not so mismatched that it was stylish or mod or anything, not you. One dark blue sock with tiny pink flowers, and one deep purple sock with tiny brown curly designs. At first glance I’m sure they looked similar to you, and if you noticed the irregularity after you were out, I doubt as you would have cared.
I watched you, transfixed, while you read and frowned, lips forming words almost imperceptibly. Watching that movement made me tingle just a little bit in the back of my neck, I’ll bet you didn’t know that your soft pale mouth is incredibly sensuous.
You stooped and set the bottle back in its little slot, and I watched a fingernail (complete with chipped orange nail polish- marvelous!) tap along the tags on the shelf until you located a clearance tag.
Silly girl, didn’t you ever learn that clearance sale wine is marked down for a damn good reason?

A sharp poke in the ribs brought me back to reality. Diane, my girlfriend at the time, wanted me to make a judgment on the vodka that she would undoubtedly use to get smashed with that night.
“Grey goose, or Absolut?”
“I don’t care, Diane, its for you. You pick.”
She frowned and huffed a bit.
“I want you to express opinions more, we’ve talked about this, Von.”
“I already expressed my opinion- I think we shouldn’t drink anything hard tonight. Just a few beers.”
“I want a vodka tonic.”
“Diane…”
My attention was wandering back to you, though. You’d dropped a bottle of Shiraz into your cart and were now standing two feet closer to me, perusing the Riesling. I could have recommended a good vint and year, but I wasn’t sure if you’d want to be approached by some random jerk in the booze aisle. It would have to be more perfect than that…
Diane poked me again.
“Grey Goose.” I stammered, wanting desperately to flee.
“Mm…” she put her head on one side and fingered the frosted bottles, “I think I like Stoli. Why don’t you like Stoli?”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead, glancing once more at the vision that was you. You stopped your browse, yanked a hairpin out of your jacket pocket, and twisted the unruly part of hair up into an odd little lump, pinning it on top of your head. I wanted to kiss it. When your hand dug further in the pocket, the material of your shirt stretched across your torso and revealed a sumptuously round belly. I had never seen anything quite so alluring in my life. After years of dating hard, toned women, seeing that softness jarred me, reminded me just why women are women.
Diane picked her way down to the end of the aisle, demurring over tonic and grenadine, while I stole a moment to peek inside your shopping cart. You looked like one of those girls, at first glance, who might be a freaky vegetarian or something, but I was reassured by an incredibly thick (and expensive) steak lying on the green plastic cart webbing. There’s something powerful about a woman who can eat a steak the size of her head.
Diane called to me, and I barely caught a glimpse of the rest of your groceries: soy milk, jasmine rice, chocolate chips, raw spinach, red pears. The diet of a sensuous person. Your voice came to me then as I turned the corner, you were singing something old sounding, off-key, of course.

I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, but fortune smiled upon me in the checkout. I turned to one side to avoid staring at the Cosmo magazine covers (Diane had a hawk eye for that weakness), and spotted you next to us, in checkout lane 8. Your little stash of food had been supplemented by a teetering stack of vivid Jello boxes. Of course. What kind of free-spirited soul could exist without that existential kid’s food?
You shrugged off your jacket, revealing round, white arms and a tiny vine tattoo that trailed around your elbow and down your forearm. I watched as you set each item from your cart onto the conveyor belt, arranging them in some sort of geometric pattern that must have made sense inside your head. You chatted amiably with the cashier while Diane snipped at ours. You paid in cash, pulled haphazardly from a woven green bag, dropping nickels on the floor. Diane swiped her debit card and cursed when it didn’t work the first time through.
We parted ways after paying, you headed right and we to the left, but we met again in the parking lot. I suppose I can’t say we ‘met’, since you had no idea of my presence, but I saw you. The same curiosity that got me to look in your cart compelled me to scoot around the backside of your car, reading bumper stickers. There weren’t as many as I would have thought, just the Tolkien quote about not all who wander are lost, a little art piece of a fairy or something, and a bright yellow sticker that screamed: KILL YOUR TELEVISION.
I slammed our cart into the roundup and trudged back to my car, feeling a void in my soul as you peeled out of the lot, music blaring raucously. Where would I ever see you again? I had to meet you, talk to you, tell you everything I have ever felt and seen and known…

Would you care? Would you listen? Or would you smile and nod and wander off, call the cops, ignore me, possibly even ridicule me? I’ve never taken well to rejection, have even set up a falsely jaunty air about me to ward off anything that could be construed as a brush-off.
But for you, that was going to change.
Right away.
I drove home from the supermarket that night with a new resolve. I was going to be a different man, a better man, a man that could be worthy of someone like yourself. I would use less electricity, eat less meat, recycle, exercise more, be more conscious of my environment and my fellow man… you know the kind of stuff. I didn’t know how that could bring me closer to you, but somehow it felt right. Seeing you made me instantly want to be a better person, and I didn’t care if you never noticed or appreciated. It was for you, no matter what.

The first thing that I did could have been he beginning of my descent, or maybe the first act of emancipation. That garish bumper sticker kept running through my head, like one of those banners that a plane drags around at a baseball game.
I poured Diane her vodka tonic (Grey Goose after all) and left her in the living room to drink herself into the stupor I had come to resent. The tv was heavy, but it was on a wheeled stand, and I lived on the fifth floor. It just fit through the sliding glass door, gave it a little push to get those casters over the aluminum track and all was well.
Diane’s voice came from the couch, tinny and distant,
“Are we watching it outside tonight, Von?”
“You could say that.” I grunted, trying to get the bloody thing up and off its stand. It took some doing, but I managed somehow, your image still bright in my mind. It wobbled there on the edge for a tiny moment in space, and Diane’s voice called again from the couch,
“Von?”
Von wasn’t going to answer her anymore. The one-eyed monster teetered backwards, forwards, then tumbled gracefully down to earth.
It took seven minutes to fall.
Or so it seemed.

When the earth reached up to embrace the thing, they met in a sparkling kiss devoid of sound or clumsiness. It was like an ice storm, a ballet, a war. I didn’t hear it explode, nor did I hear Diane’s outraged shrieks. I felt them, distantly, but they did not penetrate my mind. That was you, you know. You had opened this space in my mind where I could retreat from the ugliness of the world. The only thing that I could hear was your slightly tuneless singing.

That might have been the night that Diane left me. I’m a bit fuzzy on details now, but I have a vague memory of vodka, lime, and vomit. Maybe some bar should make a drink inspired by that. It didn’t bother me all that much, our relationship had become characterized by nothing more than ennui and discord. Mine was a new world, and she did not belong in it.

I thought about you every day, wondering when and if and how I would meet you again. I became a quieter person, decidedly a better person. My job began to grate on me, corporate finance never had seemed like a thrilling career, now I saw it for the true drudge it is. Possibly sensing my disillusionment, my boss put me on increasingly challenging projects. Nothing helped. I quit drinking altogether, hoping it would sharpen my brain. It only served to sharpen my desire to see you once more.
I told no one of my growing obsession, but friends began to look at me askance. I grew weary with scanning every crowd, every subway train, every packed diner for your face. I reminded myself that, in a city as big as ours, it would be virtually impossible to find you again.

And then Tom Simmons died. He was the head of one of the larger steelworks corporations that our company was trying to acquire, and my boss thought it would be good form to represent our company with a personal interest. I was dispatched to attend the funeral.
I don’t remember much about the liturgy, other than the fact that it was cold and fairly wet that day. I gave proper condolences to the family and friends, eliciting not a little disgust at my company’s wanton display of kowtow. When it was over, I stepped out onto Washington St. and headed for the carpark. The rain had stopped by then, leaving only sodden, reeking masses of fall leaves in the streets.
Through this mess shuffled a bum, muttering under his breath and staggering in that way that they have when they’re a bit over the rainbow. I watched him count off building numbers, then yank at a door handle of the church kitty-corner from me. Warm yellow light spilled out into the gathering dusk, and from the opposite direction came another figure, bent against the wind.
My heart knew it was you before my eyes did. Although you were bundled almost beyond recognition, I somehow recognized the bend of your back, the line of your shoulders, the tangled hair. You slipped into a side doorway of the same building the bum had gone into.

My chest could scarce contain my heart. After all this time, here you were, not three miles from my office! There was nothing else to do but walk into that yellow pool of light and seek my destiny.

Inside, I blinked a bit while my eyes adjusted to the brightness. There was a tremendous clatter coming from one room, while I found myself standing at the far end of a soup line. Of course. Someone like you would have to spend the odd Thursday evening feeding the homeless.
And there you were, snapping on rubber gloves, cutting a huge sheet cake into tiny squares, making sure each piece got one of the tiny red splurts of frosting. Dishing the cake slices out onto plates as the ragged men and women made their way through the line, adding to the sugar with your own bit of pleasantry,
“And how are you today, Mr. Carter? Same as always, huh? Nice to see you here… Jennifer, have you found that other glove? No, I haven’t seen it either. I will certainly tell you if I find it… John May, John May, you make my day!”
Your face was flushed from the harsh autumn wind, your hair drooped over one eye, obscuring it from my view. You greeted every person in that line with maternal warmth. I knew that I had to make a move. As the last straggling bag lady stumped off with her plate of food (two pieces of cake, with a wink from you!) I took my place in front of your station.
“Can I help you?” your voice was sharp, your eye flicked over my neat three piece. I tried to answer, but found that I had suddenly lost my voice. It was the first time ever that you had spoken to me.
“I- uh,”
“Do you need a meal?”
“No!” I almost shouted, desperate not to be grouped with the wretched masses surrounding me, some of whom were beginning to stare, “No, I just- just…”
“Church office is down the hall and to the right.” You tipped your head in the direction indicated, then went back to cutting apart perfect little squares of cake.

And that’s when it hit me. In order to get your attention, in order to win your heart, I would have to be one of the people you smiled so kindly at. If your affection belonged to the underdog, I would have to become the lowest of underdogs.
I stumbled out of the church blindly, my mind whirling with my newfound discovery. Everything that I knew would have to be turned backwards. Everything, that is, except for my love for you.
That night is hazy in my memory, but the next day is burned bright. I arrived at work late, disheveled, and determined. My boss questioned me about the funeral of the previous day, how had it gone.
So I told him. I told him exactly how people had looked askance at me, how they had been insulted by the presence of a vulture’s emissary. I told him about the yellow pool of light on the sidewalk across the street from the Catholic church, about the homeless men inside. And then I told him just where his capitalism belonged, and where he could put it. I screamed my disdain to him, to the world in general, a world that can allow these broken people to wander the streets hungrily in the cold November gloom. I was still shouting when they escorted me out of the building.

That took care of one of the steps to becoming free, free for you. Now on to the high-rise apartment, the car, the suits. A lot of it I gave away, some I destroyed. It was in one of these destructive episodes that I violated the terms of my lease (Section 12: No burning allowed in the building) and was summarily booted out. My life’s savings- tainted money, obviously- I gave to people that were guaranteed to squander it, thereby ensuring it would not enter a useful capitalistic money stream. Within a few months I was out on the streets, scrounging dumpsters for my dinner (have you ever seen how much perfectly good food gets tossed in this city?) drinking away the cold March days, keeping warm with little trash fires under a bridge.
It’s a great life, really, one I would never trade now that I’m here. There is so much freedom to be had- no clock, no mortgage, no rules. It’s a filthy life, sometimes, degrading at others. I wanted to make sure I was good and ready before I visited the Presbyterian church on a Thursday night again. My beard had to be full, matted, and slightly burned on the edges. My clothes had to have that not-often-washed shine, that smell. It took a while, and it all would have worked out for the best if it hadn’t been for the little twerps who put a Phillips screwdriver through my eardrum one night on 35th St.
You have to understand- I have always been a fighter. I cannot, will not, take abuse lying down. Any punk who shoves a Phillips screwdriver through my eardrum is going to wind up with the same tool in their jugular vein. It’s as simple as that. So of course they had to go and make a big deal about it, call the press, build a sham of a trial, scream the murder conviction at the top of their lungs. Damn kid had it coming.

So now I can never visit you on a Thursday night. I’ll never get one of those little slices of cake with the red frosting on top, the little swirly piles of frosting. I would have kissed that cake, since it touched your hand. They do give me cake here in the pen, but it doesn’t have the red. Sometimes it has crushed walnuts on top, usually just a tiny smear of some greasy white stuff. You would never serve me that, would you? I don’t belong here, its too sterile and harsh, I need to be out there, on the streets, where I can step into that pool of yellow light, pull open that door, and enter the warmth of your presence. I’ll never do that, not in this life.
And it’s all your fault.

Labels: short story

"But I cannot write these words- not anymore."

"Why not?" said the man, "Just tell me why."

"Because some of them will fall onto deaf ears- perhaps all of them."

"What is the matter of that?" The man shrugged. He lit a cigarette and thumbed through the scant pages of her past month's work.

"The matter of that," she explained, very gently, as if to a child, "is that if they fall on deaf ears- worse yet, if they fall on no ears- the words will tumble down and hit the ground and be broken. That will not do, not do at all."

The man glanced sidelong at the woman, sucked at his cigarette, and squinted at the watery winter sunlight outside. He thought for a long time.

The woman fretted nervously with her typewriter, wiped dust from the backside, rubbed a spot of tarnish on the platen. She picked up her blank paper, stacked it neatly by rapping the edges against the table, and set it back down, ever so gently. She glared at the cigarette between his fingers, not from resentment, but jealousy.

"Write words on that paper." He commanded, his voice sharp and hard in the stillness of the room.

"Words?"

"You heard what I said, words."

"A-any words?" The woman faltered.

"Any words at all. Just write them on the paper. Big or small, no matter."

"Very well," her voice was almost a whisper. She draw the stack towards her and uncapped a marker. Her hand hovered over the page for one insecure moment, she glanced at him from under a mass of hair.

"Write!" He barked, stubbing his cigarette out violently in the crimson ashtray.

The marker made just the slightest squeak as it moved across the paper, forming letters. TRUTH. The word stood two inches high, neat and square and centered. No sooner had she finished than he snatched the paper away and pointed to the next blank sheet,

"Again."

This time she hesitated less. LOVE. The word was a little bit bigger, a little less restrained. The man snatched the paper and indicated, again, the blank sheets. Her head bent over the stack and words began to appear on the white: DEATH, BIRTH, PASSION. Faster the words came now, some tiny in the corners of the paper, some large and scrawling across the page: LIES, TORMENT, BEAUTY, KISS, HATE, MELT, SWEETNESS, SUMMER, SWEAT...

As each page was done, the man wrenched it from her fingers. The sun, so weak in winter anyhow, edged lower on the horizon, sending little rays skittering across the room, lighting the woman's eyes and casting red shadows from the now-full ashtray. Still the words came, only one per page ever, more and more: CHILD, HOPE, SOUL, DEPRAVITY, LOSS, ONE, ALONE, GLEE, SONG, FREEDOM, ABANDONMENT, FULFILL, WINE... the man's face softened and he stooped to kiss her hair, but she not cease her scribbling: TRAVEL, DREAMS, VISIONARY, HEAVEN, PEACE, WAR, BLOOD... after some minutes her hand slowed and the words became less abstract: AUTOMOBILE, OCEAN, CLOUD, DIRT, GYPSY, GREEN...

At last her stack of paper disappeared. She glanced up, just missing eye contact with the man. He was slouched in a chair, his fingers pressed to his temples. At her slight murmur, he leapt up and snatched the entire sheaf of papers,

"Here are your words!" He cried. The window flew open under his hand, and all of the pieces of paper fluttered down into the street below with a soft whiffling sound.

An inarticulate cry sounded in her throat, and she ran to the window in time to see her words descend, helpless, into the traffic and crowds of the evening commute. Twilight was settling around the city, and the paper gleamed blue in the remaining shafts of light. The first word to land on a person was VERDANT. It settled softly on the hat of a middle-aged man. He brushed it off of his head like one would a large clump of snow, then startled as the letters came into view. Next to him, the word IMMACULATE landed gently in the crook of a woman's arm. She raised the paper to her eyes, looked around, and threw the paper to the ground, where it quickly got trod upon.

Words were falling now, all around. A gust of wind caught some errant verbs and swirled them across the street, where three people began to discuss the words that they had found. The middle-aged man had caught sight of the original distributors and was waving at them. A transient had found the word ANGELIC and was showing it to everyone who passed. Someone threw him a five dollar bill.

Many words landed upside down in the slush and mud, never to be regarded by human eyes. Several were thrown to the ground by disinterested or disillusioned passer-by, but at least a dozen were topics of discussion amongst perfect strangers on the street. The woman watched this all with a new light in her eye, and as the sun set, her gaze fell on two words immediately beneath her window, five stories down. Her breath caught in her throat as she read them, over and over:

MAYBE. WORDS.

Labels: short story, words, write, writing

The family that pulls in next to us has a nice new RV. There is an older man driving it, a woman about his age sitting beside him, and a dark-haired child peering through the windshield. As they attempt to angle into the very tight camping spot, the door on the side flies open and a trim middle aged woman jumps out. She has hair that is a pretty shade of deep auburn, either gloriously natural or expensively painted on.

She stands beside the RV, grimly directing the complicated parking. We offer to move our own car, since our tent takes up barely a camp space, but the offer is politely refused. We turn back to our meal preparation.

Minutes later, the door once again bursts open and the dark-haired boy comes out, followed by a girl. Both children are young, no more than nine or ten. They have dark eyes and slight frames and better clothing than I can buy for my children. The boy wears glasses and orange Crocs, the girl is dressed in hot pink and drags a worn My Little Pony beach towel.

The children stand for a moment, observing the State park with serious faces. The older woman emerges from the vehicle, shooing them off to play. The boy wants to know if he can go anywhere. His mother begins outlining specific places, but the grandmother has answered already,

"You can go anywhere in the park you want, as long as you can still see the camper."

I smile, for practicality always appeals to me.

The auburn-haired woman is busy about the camper- setting up rugs, emptying trash, pulling plates out of a red bin. The boy wanders back to the camper and whines that he is bored and there is nothing to do. I cannot hear his mother's response, but he drags his feet off in a different direction, being teased mercilessly by his little sister.

We are asked by our neighbors where the water is, and Michael answers that he doesn't know either. A nearby camper hears our plight and points it out- the spigot just happens to be in her space, so she has people walking by all of the time. Michael and I head out to explore the waterfalls, forgetting the faces around us. When we return much later, the campground has filled to capacity and people are bundling into warmer clothes and applying liberal amounts of DEET.

The campers near the water spigot break out beer and marshmallows, and their conversation gets rowdy. I try desperately hard not to notice the comings and goings of the people next to us, but the campsites are so close together, they may as well be in my living room. The grandfather of the dark-haired children putters with a wood fire and the children trail in and out of the RV. Throughout the evening I do not see the auburn-haired woman touch her children or smile, not once. She is like person living within the shell of herself. When I get up to find the bathroom, I try to smile at her but she studiously avoids my gaze.

As I walk back from the bathrooms, I see an older man sitting near his campfire. He is very heavy and is occupied with alternately poking the campfire and eating a hamburger. There are a few women nearby him, speaking of the various minutiae of campgrounds and travel. He responds when spoken to but otherwise ignores them. By the few movements he makes, I can see that he is in physical pain, and I pity him. There is a black cane propped against his oversize folding chair, and their RV is in a handicap accessible spot.

I curl up again in my own folding campchair, retrieve my mystery novel, and drape my fingers casually through those of my husband. He smiles at me through a week's worth of beard and whispers that he loves me. I echo the sentiment, although both of us have exchanged these few words so many times that we are bound to never forget. Comfortable, fed, and warm, I turn to my Hamish MacBeth novel, and lose myself in the delightfully prosaic formula fiction of M.C. Beaton.

Dusk falls softly over the campground, bringing a slightly more sober tone to the striped beach blankets and varying tent colors. The children beside us disappear into the camper, and within moments I hear familiar Pixar sounds. Movies inside the RV- roughing it American style.

I am about to turn away again to my book when I hear the swish of water. The auburn-haired woman has filled a bucket and is washing her childrens' Crocs. Overpriced garish colored shoes that are made to be abused, they are being washed in a bucket in a campground at dusk. She performs her chore with neither relish nor distaste- she just does in order to do. Wiping a sponge inside each little ugly hole, her hands are almost independent of her body. I have noticed already the absence of a wedding ring or a husband, and I wonder if this characteristic is a result of singleness or the reason for it.

Some time later, when darkness has blanketed the campground and voices are dying off into the night, a wonderful smell assails my nostrils. I sniff around and find that my other neighbor, the heavy man with the cane, is roasting a keilbasa on a stick. He is speaking to another man, voice garrulous with stories of his travels. He has a difficult time adjusting his body to hold the spit for long, and an equally heavy woman comes out of the camper to help him. After some time the voices trail off and the man is left to munch on his keilbasa.

I retire to my comfortable air mattress, snuggling deeply into Michael's chest. He smells of hardwood smoke and pine trees and sweat, and I am asleep before I even center my head on my pillow. Past midnight my bladder wakes me up. I fight it for a while, but the silly little thing always wins, so I drag my weary body out of the tent and bob my flashlight over the campground while picking my way around pine trees. The only people that I can hear are two loud, drunken women, discussing movies and alcohol. But my flashlight picks out a silent figure hunched over a smoldering campfire. It is the heavy man, still awake. He stares into the campfire, his keilbasa spit empty and clean beside the fire. I mumble an apology for crossing his campsite so often, and he shrugs it off with a small grunt. I wonder if his body is too painful for him to even sleep properly. I deliberately do not shine the flashlight near my other neighbors, and sleep comes quickly again once I am in the tent.

In the small hours of the morning I am once again awakened. Cursing the iced tea from the evening before, I struggle out of the tent and make my way once more through the campground to the bathrooms. It is gray outside, barely light. The heavy man is gone, but the campfire still pulsates a bit of red on the edges of the embers. An empty Hillcrest Farms sausage package flutters gently on the picnic table. I wonder vaguely when he finally moved his tired frame off to bed.

Beside my tent, on the picnic table outside the camper, stands a single blue plastic wineglass, also empty. I do not know if it belonged to the auburn-haired woman or one of her parents, but it looks awfully lonely outside all by itself. I shiver a bit in the early morning mist, and crawl back inside beside my snoring husband.

Labels: alone, camping, lonliness, overweight, people, pity, RV, short story, single, vignette

She was my first 'real' doll. We were very, very poor and until then I'd owned only used or homemade pillow dolls. This one came from a surprise Christmas gift, and I vowed I'd never lose her.

Seventeen inches tall, molded of finely colored peachy plastic, with flowing blond hair and rooted eyelashes and beautiful blue eyes, this doll was everything I'd ever dreamed of. She came with a pair of pajamas, an undershirt with a tiny bow, and a red cheerleader outfit.

I loved that doll. I loved that red and white cheer outfit, too. It embodied everything that I was not- peppy, coordinated, popular. I named the doll Kimberly and I cherished her.

One day I was brave enough to bring her to school for show and tell. Things went fine until the bus ride home through the rolling hills of Tustin. I had changed Kimberly into her pajamas and had stored her little cheerleader outfit in the plastic baggie that had held my corn chips for lunch. I held my doll and looked out the window, content in the fact that I'd be home within ninety minutes (it was a long bus ride!).

For absolutely no reason whatsoever, David Campbell, that red-haired child of discord that was in my class, suddenly snatched the little baggie out of my hands and tossed it from the open bus window. I screamed once, flailing wildly at the window in futile desperation.

"Why did you do that?!?" I shouted at him through my tears. He merely grinned through his freckles and plopped back down in his seat. I implored the bus driver to stop so that I could find my little bag of clothes, but she was an evil woman and ignored me, rattling down the dirt roads at a good clip of 55mph. Not only did she ignore me, she punished me for yelling instead of David for stealing my belongings. Welcome to my life.

***

I can not remember how many times our bus was stopped by the side of the road while a driver waited for David to stop making trouble. For the second-to-last kid on the bus route, and one acutely subject to motion sickness, each day's ride was a grueling affair. Kids who got off on early stops did not care how much trouble they made for others. I only wish he could have experienced getting home so late in the winter that it was actually dark in the Northern Michigan afternoon. Maybe he wouldn't have been subject to as many half hour delays. Knowing David, however, he probably wouldn't have cared.

David ruined field trips and class visits and playground equipment and lunch outings. He tripped people doing the three-legged race on the last day of school, and he was waiting to steal your cookies on the first day of school. David Campbell was a menace.

***

We had a little biology lesson going on in sixth grade class. A terrarium had found a worthy occupant in a small painted turtle. As time went on, we added a frog for company and some random bugs for food. At some point in time a Mason jar appeared with a single frog egg. This was watched curiously every day- sixth graders, for all of their apparent aloofness, are very inquisitive creatures.

The egg grew and became a tadpole. I missed some of these stages due to illness, but I remember returning to school and heading right for that Mason jar. There he was, swimming placidly in the water, utterly unaware of his impending doom.

We did our studies and were released for lunch hour. I remember cruising out of the classroom and hearing a ruckus behind me, but ignoring it. Partway down the hall, two boys from my class passed me, headed back from the cafeteria, pounding the floor in their rush. These were not boys who ever skipped a lunch, so their urgent need to be in the classroom disturbed me. Could something be wrong? I turned my steps back to the classroom and popped my head around the doorframe just in time to see David Campbell's red head flung back and the Mason jar in his hand, empty.

He had eaten the tadpole.

After lunch recess, we shuffled back into the classroom, ready to finish our studies. David sat smugly in his chair, cutting notches into his desk.

The entire terrarium was gone. Our teacher stood before the class with a grave look on his face.

"I have an announcement." He said simply, "Due to people's lack of respect for the animals in our classroom, we will no longer have any animals in this class. People interested in animals may study them in books, in the library."

David did not get punished, to the best of my knowledge. Turns out, there were no actual rules about kids eating classroom experiments. He did, however, get salmonella. He disappeared from school after vomiting on the schoolbus one day, and was not seen again for two months. I suppose being an idiot does occasionally pay back.

Labels: childhood, kids, school, short story

It’s all your fault, you know. You did this to me. Yes, you, with your altruism and do-goodmanship. Don’t tell me that’s not a word, what with all the idiot technical jargon people make up these days, one can say pretty much whatever one wants.

But it was really you who started it all. Don’t you remember, that day in the grocery store two years ago?
Of course you don’t, because you didn’t see me.
I saw you, though.
You were standing there in the wine aisle, carefully studying a gold and purple label. Your hair was a mess- wispy curls stuck out from one side of your head while the other side lay flat down over your ear. Your very perfect ear.
Do you remember what you were wearing that day? You can’t possibly, because it was so obvious that you dressed with no care whatsoever. A thin artsy tee shirt under a ratty track jacket, long skirt clinging to your ample thighs, and mismatched socks. Not so mismatched that it was stylish or mod or anything, not you. One dark blue sock with tiny pink flowers, and one deep purple sock with tiny brown curly designs. At first glance I’m sure they looked similar to you, and if you noticed the irregularity after you were out, I doubt as you would have cared.
I watched you, transfixed, while you read and frowned, lips forming words almost imperceptibly. Watching that movement made me tingle just a little bit in the back of my neck, I’ll bet you didn’t know that your soft pale mouth is incredibly sensuous.
You stooped and set the bottle back in its little slot, and I watched a fingernail (complete with chipped orange nail polish, marvelous!) tap along the tags on the shelf until you located a clearance tag.
Silly girl, didn’t you ever learn that clearance sale wine is marked down for a damn good reason?

A sharp poke in the ribs brought me back to reality. Diane, my girlfriend at the time, wanted me to make a judgment on the vodka that she would undoubtedly use to get smashed with that night.
“Grey goose, or Absolut?”
“I don’t care, Diane, its for you. You pick.”
She frowned and huffed a bit.
“I want you to express opinions more, we’ve talked about this, Von.”
“I already expressed my opinion- I think we shouldn’t drink anything hard tonight. Just a few beers.”
“I want a vodka tonic.”
“Diane…”
My attention was wandering back to you, though. You’d dropped a bottle of Shiraz into your cart and were now standing two feet closer to me, perusing the Riesling. I could have recommended a good vint and year, but I wasn’t sure if you’d want to be approached by some random jerk in the booze aisle. It would have to be more perfect than that…
Diane poked me again.
“Grey Goose.” I stammered, wanting desperately to flee.
“Mm…” she put her head on one side and fingered the frosted bottles, “I think I like Stoli. Why don’t you like Stoli?”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead, glancing once more at the vision that was you. You stopped your browse, yanked a hairpin out of your jacket pocket, and twisted the unruly part of hair up into an odd little lump, pinning it on top of your head. I wanted to kiss it. When your hand dug further in the pocket, the material of your shirt stretched across your torso and revealed a sumptuously round belly. I had never seen anything quite so alluring in my life. After years of dating hard, toned women, seeing that softness reminded me just why women are women.
Diane picked her way down to the end of the aisle, demurring over tonic and grenadine, while I stole a moment to peek inside your shopping cart. You looked like one of those girls, at first glance, who might be a freaky vegetarian or something, but I was reassured by an incredibly thick (and expensive) steak lying on the green plastic cart webbing. There’s something powerful about a woman who can eat a steak the size of her head.
Diane called to me, and I barely caught a glimpse of the rest of your groceries: soy milk, jasmine rice, chocolate chips, raw spinach, red pears. The diet of a sensuous person. Your voice came to me then as I turned the corner, you were singing something old sounding, off-key, of course.

I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, but fortune smiled upon me in the checkout. I turned to one side to avoid staring at the Cosmo magazine covers (Diane had a hawk eye for that weakness), and spotted you next to us, in checkout lane 8. Your little stash of food had been supplemented by a teetering stack of vivid Jello boxes. Of course. What kind of free-spirited soul could exist without that existential kid’s food?
You shrugged off your jacket, revealing round, white arms and a tiny vine tattoo that trailed around your elbow and down your forearm. I watched as you set each item from your cart onto the conveyor belt, arranging them in some sort of geometric pattern that must have made sense inside your head. You chatted amiably with the cashier while Diane snipped at ours. You paid in cash, pulled haphazardly from a woven green bag, dropping nickels on the floor. Diane swiped her debit card and cursed when it didn’t work the first time through.
We parted ways after paying, you headed right and we to the left, but we met again in the parking lot. I suppose I can’t say we ‘met’, since you had no idea of my presence, but I saw you. The same curiosity that got me to look in your cart compelled me to scoot around the backside of your car, reading bumper stickers. There weren’t as many as I would have thought, just the Tolkien quote about not all who wander are lost, a little art piece of a fairy or something, and a bright yellow sticker that screamed: KILL YOUR TELEVISION.
I slammed our cart into the roundup and trudged back to my car, feeling a void in my soul as you peeled out of the lot, music blaring raucously. Where would I ever see you again? I had to meet you, talk to you, tell you everything I have ever felt and seen and known…

Would you care? Would you listen? Or would you smile and nod and wander off, call the cops, ignore me, possibly even ridicule me? I’ve never taken well to rejection, have even set up a falsely jaunty air about me to ward off anything that could be construed as a brush-off.
But for you, that was going to change.
Right away.
I drove home from the supermarket that night with a new resolve. I was going to be a different man, a better man, a man that could be worthy of someone like yourself. I would use less electricity, eat less meat, recycle, exercise more, be more conscious of my environment and my fellow man… you know the kind of stuff. I didn’t know how that could bring me closer to you, but somehow it felt right. Seeing you made me instantly want to be a better person, and I didn’t care if you never noticed or appreciated. It was for you, no matter what.

The first thing that I did could have been he beginning of my descent, or maybe the first act of emancipation. That garish bumper sticker kept running through my head, like one of those banners that a plane drags around at a baseball game.
I poured Diane her vodka tonic (Grey Goose after all) and left her in the living room to drink herself into the stupor I had come to resent. The tv was heavy, but it was on a wheeled stand, and I lived on the fifth floor. It just fit through the sliding glass door, gave it a little push to get those casters over the aluminum track and all was well.
Diane’s voice came from the couch, tinny and distant,
“Are we watching it outside tonight, Von?”
“You could say that.” I grunted, trying to get the bloody thing up and off its stand. It took some doing, but I managed somehow, your image still bright in my mind. It wobbled there on the edge for a tiny moment in space, and Diane’s voice called again from the couch,
“Von?”
Von wasn’t going to answer her anymore. The one-eyed monster teetered backwards, forwards, then tumbled gracefully down to earth.
It took seven minutes to fall.
Or so it seemed.

When the earth reached up to embrace the thing, they met in a sparkling kiss devoid of sound or clumsiness. It was like an ice storm, a ballet, a war. I didn’t hear it explode, nor did I hear Diane’s outraged shrieks. I felt them, distantly, but they did not penetrate my mind. That was you, you know. You had opened this space in my mind where I could retreat from the ugliness of the world. The only thing that I could hear was your slightly tuneless singing.

That might have been the night that Diane left me. I’m a bit fuzzy on details now, but I have a vague memory of vodka, lime, and vomit. Maybe some bar should make a drink inspired by that. It didn’t bother me all that much, our relationship had become characterized by nothing more than ennui and discord. Mine was a new world, and she did not belong in it.

I thought about you every day, wondering when and if and how I would meet you again. I became a quieter person, decidedly a better person. My job began to grate on me, corporate finance never had seemed like a thrilling career, now I saw it for the true drudge it is. Possibly sensing my disillusionment, my boss put me on increasingly challenging projects. Nothing helped. I quit drinking altogether, hoping it would sharpen my brain. It only served to sharpen my desire to see you once more.
I told no one of my growing obsession, but friends began to look at me askance. I grew weary with scanning every crowd, every subway train, every packed diner for your face. I reminded myself that, in a city as big as ours, it would be virtually impossible to find you again.

And then Tom Simmons died. He was the head of one of the larger steelworks corporations that our company was trying to acquire, and my boss thought it would be good form to represent our company with a personal interest. I was dispatched to attend the funeral.
I don’t remember much about the liturgy, other than the fact that it was cold and fairly wet that day. I gave proper condolences to the family and friends, eliciting not a little disgust at my company’s wanton display of kowtow. When it was over, I stepped out onto Washington St. and headed for the carpark. The rain had stopped by then, leaving only sodden, reeking masses of fall leaves in the streets.
Through this mess shuffled a bum, muttering under his breath and staggering in that way that they have when they’re a bit over the rainbow. I watched him count off building numbers, then yank at a door handle of the church kitty corner from me. Warm yellow light spilled out into the gathering dusk, and from the opposite direction came another figure, bent against the wind.
My heart knew it was you before my eyes did. Although you were bundled almost beyond recognition, I somehow recognized the bend of your back, the line of your shoulders, the tangled hair. You slipped into a side doorway of the same building the bum had gone into.

My chest could scarce contain my heart. After all this time, here you were, not three miles from my office! There was nothing else to do but walk into that yellow pool of light and seek my destiny.

Inside, I blinked a bit while my eyes adjusted to the brightness. There was a tremendous clatter coming from one room, while I found myself standing at the far end of a soup line. Of course. Someone like you would have to spend the odd Thursday evening feeding the homeless.
And there you were, snapping on rubber gloves, cutting a huge sheet cake into tiny squares, making sure each piece got one of the tiny red splurts of frosting. Dishing the cake slices out onto plates as the ragged men and women made their way through the line, adding to the sugar with your own bit of pleasantry,
“And how are you today, Mr. Carter? Same as always, huh? Nice to see you here… Jennifer, have you found that other glove? No, I haven’t seen it either. I will certainly tell you if I find it… John May, John May, you make my day!”
Your face was flushed from the harsh autumn wind, your hair drooped over one eye, obscuring it from my view. You greeted every person in that line with maternal warmth. I knew that I had to make a move. As the last straggling bag lady stumped off with her plate of food (two pieces of cake, with a wink from you!) I took my place in front of your station.
“Can I help you?” your voice was sharp, your eye flicked over my neat three piece. I tried to answer, but found that I had suddenly lost my voice. It was the first time ever that you had spoken to me.
“I- uh,”
“Do you need a meal?”
“No!” I almost shouted, desperate not to be grouped with the wretched masses surrounding me, some of whom were beginning to stare, “No, I just- just…”
“Church office is down the hall and to the right.” You tipped your head in the direction indicated, then went back to cutting apart perfect little squares of cake.

And that’s when it hit me. In order to get your attention, in order to win your heart, I would have to be one of the people you smiled so kindly at. If your affection belonged to the underdog, I would have to become the lowest of underdogs.
I stumbled out of the church blindly, my mind whirling with my newfound discovery. Everything that I knew would have to be turned backwards. Everything, that is, except for my love for you.
That night is hazy in my memory, but the next day is burned bright. I arrived at work late, disheveled, and determined. My boss questioned me about the funeral of the previous day, how had it gone.
So I told him. I told him exactly how people had looked askance at me, how they had been insulted by the presence of a vulture’s emissary. I told him about the yellow pool of light on the sidewalk across the street from the Catholic church, about the homeless men inside. And then I told him just where his capitalism belonged, and where he could put it. I screamed my disdain to him, to the world in general, a world that can allow these broken people to wander the streets hungrily in the cold November gloom. I was still shouting when they escorted me out of the building.

That took care of one of the steps to becoming free, free for you. Now on to the high-rise apartment, the car, the suits. A lot of it I gave away, some I destroyed. It was in one of these destructive episodes that I violated the terms of my lease (Section 12: No burning allowed in the building) and was summarily booted out. My life’s savings- tainted money, obviously- I gave to people that were guaranteed to squander it, thereby ensuring it would not enter a useful capitalistic money stream. Within a few months I was out on the streets, scrounging dumpsters for my dinner (have you ever seen how much perfectly good food gets tossed in this city?) drinking away the cold March days, keeping warm with little trash fires under a bridge.
It’s a great life, really, one I would never trade now that I’m here. There is so much freedom to be had- no clock, no mortgage, no rules. It’s a filthy life, sometimes, degrading at others. I wanted to make sure I was good and ready before I visited the Presbyterian church on a Thursday night again. My beard had to be full, matted, and slightly burned on the edges. My clothes had to have that not-often-washed shine, that smell. It took a while, and it all would have worked out for the best if it hadn’t been for the little twerps who put a Phillips screwdriver through my eardrum one night on 35th St.
You have to understand- I have always been a fighter. I cannot, will not, take abuse lying down. Any punk who shoves a Phillips screwdriver through my eardrum is going to wind up with the same tool in their jugular vein. It’s as simple as that. So of course they had to go and make a big deal about it, call the press, build a sham of a trial, scream the murder conviction at the top of their lungs. Damn kid had it coming.

So now I can never visit you on a Thursday night. I’ll never get one of those little slices of cake with the red frosting on top, the little swirly piles of frosting. I would have kissed that cake, since it touched your hand. They do give me cake here in the pen, but it doesn’t have the red. Sometimes it has crushed walnuts on top, usually just a tiny smear of some greasy white stuff. You would never serve me that, would you? I don’t belong here, its too sterile and harsh, I need to be out there, on the streets, where I can step into that pool of yellow light, pull open that door, and enter the warmth of your presence. I’ll never do that, not in this life.
And it’s all your fault.

Labels: first person, homeless, murder, obsession, short story