Day 7 - Countdown to Christmas

Annabelle’s mother sat at a drop-leaf table which was flush with the far wall of the small room. A ceiling fan moaned and buzzed as the motor, which had been in its death throes for the better part of a year, labored for one more revolution of its dusty, yellowed blades. Everything in the parlor, in the whole house for that matter, looked much older than it should. Even Annabelle's mother, Charlotte who at 36 should be in the prime of life, wore the weathered countenance and chalky pallor of a much older woman.

Charlotte smiled as Annabelle approached, and she placed her cigarette in the ashtray. “Come here.” Charlotte said, patting her skirt above her knee. Annabelle scooted onto her mother’s lap and wrapped her arms around her, resting her head on her shoulder. She closed her eyes as she squeezed her mother and as she opened them her gaze fell onto a wall calendar which hung in the laundry room. The picture for December depicted Santa clutching a bag Chesterfield cartons. His ripened cheeks glowed red and healthy and his teeth sparkled. Annabelle pulled back and looked at her mother’s face. Charlotte smiled, pulled a few strands of hair away from her daughters face. “You are so pretty,” Charlotte said. Annabelle just looked into her mother’s eyes. They were bloodshot, but not too bad. There were hundreds of tiny wrinkles around her lips that Annabelle hadn’t noticed before. She stared at them, wondering if she would have wrinkles like that when she gets old. “Mommy?” Annabelle said, “Does Santa Clause drink?” Charlotte took a breath that triggered a cough which turned into a deeper, throaty bellow. Annabelle slid off her lap and put her hand on her mom’s back as the coughing continued. When it finally stopped, Charlotte reached for her cigarette and took a long drag, blew the smoke toward the fan, then snuffed out the remainder in the ashtray. When she turned back to her daughter, Annabelle saw that her eyes were very red. “That’s a funny question. I don’t think he does.” Charlotte said, reaching for her wine glass on the table. “I saw him on the back of one of dad’s magazines and he was drinking a bottle like daddy drinks.” Charlotte was quiet for a moment. She sat back in her chair and took a sip of wine. Annabelle used that moment to walk into the laundry room and pluck the calendar off its nail. She walked it back to her mom and showed her the picture. “Does he smoke too?” Annabelle said, placing the calendar on the table. “Santa Clause doesn’t do either of those things honey, and neither should you.” And as she spoke, Charlotte looked down at the table, eyeing the evidence of her hypocrisy.

[to be continued. . .]

The Swindle

This story was originally published on 52stories.net

I was certain my eyes were deceiving me. Before me, nestled in the hand of this girl, was the one small item that could literally save my life. It was a pocket watch, but no ordinary pocket watch. I rested my elbows on the glass case and leaned over the far edge, marveling in the way the watch caught the light from my shop window; gazing in astonishment at how its 40 years had been so kind. As a collector of fine antiquities, I knew every detail about this watch. It was an 1890’s Waltham model 92; 21 jewel, Railroad Grade pocket watch with 14K solid gold hunting case, and a double sunk porcelain dial. I’d followed the value of this watch through the years as well, forever cursing myself for not taking the same model when I had my chance ten years previous.

There was no way I was prepared to let this gem slip through my hands a second time. I stood up straight and cleared my throat. “Well, what do you have here, a toy watch?” I said, nonchalantly. “No sir, it’s a real antique watch, an heirloom. It belonged to my grandfather.” I smiled and rubbed my chin. “Heirloom? That’s a pretty big word for a little girl.” “I’m twelve!” She blurted. “I stand corrected Miss, I mean young lady.” Her short stature and round face made her look much younger. I folded my left arm around my waste and gently bowed in her direction while at the same time glancing out the window. “And you’re here all by yourself are you?” “Yes.” She said. I lifted both hands off the display case and brought them together as to wring them, but caught myself and rested them once again on the glass. Experience and a keen sense of observation led me to surmise she was looking for, at most, thirteen dollars – a full week’s wages for most men. I was prepared to offer her sixteen, knowing full well that it was worth one hundred times that amount.

You see it is in my nature to make the most out of every situation. I’m an opportunist, an entrepreneur, and have risen from a life centered on nefarious concerns to that of a well-respected proprietor of an upscale resale establishment. My customers rely on me to stock the finest previously appreciated items and present them at a fair, pertinent price. The manner in which I acquire these items varies, but I have, until just recently, upheld scrupulous standards on both the buying and selling end of all my transactions. Only occasionally have I succumbed to the temptation of purchasing items of questionable origins. It was one of these questionable purchases of late which had gone awry and left me owing a sum of money to Carlo Rufrano, a very large fellow with very little patience.

I had dealt with men similar to Rufrano before. In my formative years, I was struck with a powerful desire to acquire wealth. During my first summer out of college I endeavored to find my fortune regardless of sacrifices of personal integrity or ethical precepts. Danger, I had found, made my heart beat furiously and fueled me with delightfully frightening sensations. And so, as I freely invited trouble into my word, so it came. Chicago during prohibition was as exhilarating as it was treacherous. Headlines of gang violence were commonplace, and the Chicago underground crime scene, with the likes of Hymie Weiss and Al Capone, was the most infamous hot bed of villainy in the nation. I retained a position working in a nightclub downtown, and hung out with members of the North Side Gang, headed up by Deanie O’Banion. It wasn’t long before the North Siders took me in, ostensibly due to my Irish heritage, but mostly, I suspect, because I was willing to do anything they asked. It was that brash attitude and appetite for danger that found me standing outside Schofield’s flower shop with a gun in my pocket one late evening in November of 1924. Schofield’s partner, Clarence McConnel fashioned a speakeasy within the renovated stock room of the flower shop and had stolen several items from O’Banion’s nightclub to furnish it. I was told to take out McConnel with a single shot to the forehead, lock the dead man in the stock room for someone to dispose of later, and clean out the register. I did as I was told, but as I was cleaning out the register I noticed a gold pocket watch behind the cash caddy. I fished it out and turned it in my hand. It was exquisite, undoubtedly the finest object I had ever held. A clatter from the street startled me, and so I slipped the watch back into the drawer, and left the shop.

The next day I felt a crushing guilt for my actions. My craving for danger had been replaced by an even stronger craving for self-preservation; so I packed and headed for Boston. Deanie had friends in Boston who could find me if they wanted, but I figured I owed them nothing. It was a clean hit and I left no unfinished business with the North Siders. I took a job in a mercantile shop and got a fresh start. I suppose you could say that the McConnel experience cured me of my reckless pursuits. There was still a strong desire to make money, but I decided to fly straight and make my fortune as honestly as I could. Within three years I had saved enough to purchase my own store.

So there I was, after ten years of leading a virtuous, law-abiding lifestyle, standing over this girl and entertaining the notion of swindling her out of a sum of money that could feed her family for two years. “May I see the watch?” I asked, smiling down at her. She said nothing, just stretched her arm in my direction, presenting me the watch. I immediately flipped it over to check my presumption of brand and quality. It was indeed a Waltham of the vintage I had predicted. I turned it face up and flipped it open. The jeweled dial shone with magnificent clarity. I knew I could easily sell this treasure with enough money to pay off my debt with Rufrano and eat six months of fine meals on the balance. I was smiling, practically laughing to myself when my eye caught something etched in script on the underside of the cover. I snatched my magnifying lens from the drawer and held it over the inscription. It was only one word, a person’s name – O’Banion. I snapped the lid closed and set the watch on the counter in such a manner as to nearly fracture the glass. “Child, er, young lady, where did you say you acquired this watch?” She gazed up at me with a different expression than she held moments ago. Suddenly she looked older, wiser. Her thin lips curled upwards at the corners forming an unsettling grin. “I told you. It belonged to my grandfather.” She said, stepping back sufficiently beyond my grasp. “I have no need for this item young Miss, so you will take it and be gone with you and your games. Good night.”

“It’s not that easy.” She said, plucking the watch from the counter and placing it into her satchel. “I’m sure you read it in the papers, but my grandfather, Deanie O’Banion was killed in that same flower shop only hours after you had presumably left. He went there to recover his favorite pocket watch, the most valuable and personal item that McConnel had stolen from the nightclub. Before he could find the watch, my grandfather and two of his men were gunned down. No rival gangs claimed the hit, and they started a city-wide manhunt for you.” I stood there quite stunned. I remember reading about O’Banion being shot, but I had expected that to happen eventually, so I didn’t study the details of the incident. I looked back outside and saw a black Pontiac idling at the curb. As I watched it for a moment it flashed its headlights twice. “So what is to happen now?” I said, looking back at the girl. “Now you wait.” She said. “We have paid off your debt to Rufrano, and we have some unfinished business we need taken care of in Pittsburg. That’s where you come in.” She started for the door. “We’ll be in touch.” And with that she opened the door and stepped through. I watched as the car pulled away, then walked to the window and drew the blinds.

I sat on a stool next to a clothing rack and took several deep breaths. Slits of light from the setting sun painted yellow stripes across the wall above the front counter. The corner of a silver frame glared back at me. Mounted in the frame was the first honest dollar I had made as a proprietor of my own shop. I looked around at the rest of the goods which ten years of honest living had provided. There were racks of faded clothing, shelves covered with dusty figurines and assorted worthless baubles. I thought about the business in Pittsburg, about repaying whatever debt might be owed to this new generation of O’Banions, and as I did, quite unexpectedly, my heart began to race.

The Killing Jar

This story was originally published on 52stories.net

There was the red shack – exactly as he described it in his letters. He warned me that time had not been kind to him. “The sea can be brutal.” He wrote. “You’re not going to recognize me as kin, I’m afraid. Maybe, if I shave by the time you see me, I might be mistaken as human.” There was the self-deprecating wit that my father spoke of. “But I doubt if I’ll be alive by the time you come. The hornets are after me.” And that was the end of his last letter.

From the gangway I could see a light from inside the hut, but no shadows or movement. The boats creaked and moaned as their shore lines worried the cleats anchored to the weathered planks. I walked toward the shack, slowly, deliberately, and for some reason quietly. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on him, but I also didn’t think that bounding up the dock at full speed was the right way to greet my uncle after thirty years. Especially if his paranoia was as bad as I expected. I knocked on the door. No answer or sound. I was startled by the rusty squeals of seagulls and looked up the dock, catching a flash of black fur darting behind a dock box. A dozen gulls dove toward the cat, reeled back into formation, cursed some more, then dove again. I looked back at the door and examined the two by four bracing it closed. It was new, unpainted and not yet warped by the damp air. I thought it odd to have such a crude and formidable barricade on the outside of the only door. It made me consider just how demented my poor uncle had become – maybe to the point of having to be locked in his own dwelling for fear of hurting himself. I lifted the board off its brackets and leaned it against the frame then turned the handle and stepped onto the threshold. I was consumed by an acrid emulsion of insecticide, rotten meat, and bodily fluids. I backed up a couple of steps and took a deep breath to clear my lungs. The odor shot me right back to my childhood, the summers spent on my uncle’s farm. There was a butterfly collection that hung in the farmhouse parlor which I contributed to. I used a pickle jar filled with my own recipe of random agents which I refined over the course of a couple of summers to be extremely toxic. In the beginning, a butterfly could live several hours in the jar, but once the formula was perfected, a few drops on a tissue placed in the bottom of the jar and death followed very swiftly. The butterfly would flutter frantically, bouncing off the inside walls of the jar, then almost immediately fall to the bottom, its wings quivering for only a moment. I was compelled to watch its final moments of life, contemplate the exact instant of death. After waiting a couple of minutes for the jar to air out, I would gently remove the butterfly with tweezers, and carefully pin it to the Styrofoam inside the display case. I suppose it’s no wonder that I chose insect abatement as a career.

Another clamor from up the dock as a tug boat pulled along side the far finger and two men dressed in foul weather gear jumped off. The gulls reeled away from the cat and followed the tug as it headed back out into the harbor. The two men stood and talked for several seconds. I couldn’t hear them over the roar of the tug’s diesels, but I saw one of them point at me and the other one nod. Even though they were clad head to toe in black and yellow latex, I could tell that neither of them could be my uncle. They both had the sturdy musculature of youth, and when they started walking toward me they took long, confident strides. “Hornets.” I said to myself, watching these hulking, black and yellow shapes come toward me. “Jesus, maybe the old fool wasn’t crazy.” I looked back inside the shack and caught a glimpse of what looked like a bare forearm under the cot. I could hear footsteps drumming on the planks to my left, but I fixed my eyes on that arm, held my breath and stepped inside. I closed the door behind. As it creaked closed, the footsteps shuffled to a stop. I knelt and looked under the bed. There, half covered by a blanket, was an old man. I stared at his face. He was right, I didn’t recognize him, but his description of himself was spot on, save for the grey-blue pallor and the half-inch hole in his forehead.

I could hear rustling and murmurs from outside. I stood and looked around the tiny room for something to defend myself. There was a small writing desk covered with a newspaper dated two days previous, some pens, a photo of a woman I didn’t recognize. A small pot-bellied stove sat in the corner. Along the opposite wall was a peg board lined with tools, and under that, a bait sink flanked by two wooden cutting boards clamped onto a rusty metal counter. I knelt down, looked under the counter, and found dozens of smoked glass bottles. I read one of the labels - Soda Lye. There was more, Chlorine, ammonium bicarbonate, hydrochloric acid, Malathion, methanol, ether. I didn’t know what my uncle had been up to, but couldn’t imagine an appropriate hobby for a 77-year-old that required ether.

A loud rapping on the door caused me to spin around and lose my balance. I steadied myself, jumped to my feet, and pushed the desk in front of the door, jamming it under the knob. More rustling from outside then a crash as one of the men slammed into the door. I grabbed a hammer from the peg board with one hand and threw open the window over the bunk with the other. Another crash as the legs of the desk buckled and the door opened. I leaned over and swung the hammer hard, smashing as many of the bottles as I could. I threw the hammer down then crawled out of the window, shutting it behind me. I glanced back through the glass and saw the vapors rise from the floor as the two men stumbled over the desk. I ran around to the front of the shack, pulled the door shut, and secured it with the two-by-four. I stepped backward to the far side of the dock, and through the window saw both men clawing at their throats, wrenching. The larger of the two started convulsing and throwing himself against the wall between the windows. As the fumes thickened, my view became obscured until the smaller man slammed against the glass and looked out at me through bulging crimson eyes. Bloody foam ran from his nostrils and mouth and he seemed to be trying to speak. I took one step closer and watched his purple tongue dance pathetically against the roof of his mouth. I stood there until his eyes rolled white and he fell to the floor. There was a part of me that wanted to walk closer to the window to see him take his final breath. But this time I denied myself that pleasure. My work was done.

Accident Under the Big Top

The confusion was clearing up as Tom's body processed the alcohol. He looked around. Something was wrong. Very wrong. His head throbbed and he recalled the blackout. A heavy weight in his right hand drew his attention and he looked down at a gun. That's when he noticed the blood on his sleeve. From behind him, a feminine voice called his name and he remembered the wind machine, the dwarf, the chunks of shredded clown, and the palpable breeze as the entire audience gasped in unison. Tom blinked hard then squinted toward the tent. Six feet away, a tattered red and white hat lay crumpled in the dirt. Closer to the main entrance, a bloody size 19 shoe was rung around one of the stakes like a hellish horseshoe. "Jesus!" Tom said while trying to sit upright. His ears were still ringing but he could make out sirens, cries, and disturbed murmurs from a large group of people somewhere behind him.

"Take is slow Tom." The female voice said. "You're going to want to let go of the gun. The police are on their way, and they won't know it's a prop." Tom glanced down at the Colt 45 replica in his hand then released it into the dirt. "What the hell happened?" He said. "It's Eddie Tom, he, he's dead." Tom pivoted to his left and was eye to eye with Brenda, one of the little people clowns. Her painted on frown and tears exaggerated her despair, and were particularly disturbing to the half-drunk Tom who fixated on the still wet droplets of arterial spray covering the left side of her face.

"You were working on the wind machine, remember Tom? Do you remember that?" Tom rubbed his eyes and shook his head then paused. "Yeah, Eddie and I took it apart to clean it right before the show." Tom looked blankly into the distance. He could see the reflection of the emergency vehicles' strobes on the side of the tent. "Then we, we took a break, broke out a bottle of scotch from Eddie's locker." Tom stood up and looked down at Brenda. "The Superman stunt! Christ Brenda! Eddie and I never put the grill back on the fan!" Tom shuddered, his eyes widened as he searched for some sign of understanding from this nightmarish, blood-splattered harlequin looking up at him. He could hear the sound of tires skidding on dirt as the vehicles sped around the back side of the tent and headed his way. "It happens." Brenda said, taking Tom by his hand and leading him into the crowd. "And we look out for our own."

The Gamble

This story was originally published on 52stories.net

Marco stared at the spinning roulette wheel then shifted focus to his four, five hundred dollar chips that were stacked neatly on double-zero. He came to Las Vegas with the unorthodox objective of losing all of his money. Now he was down to the final two grand. Hitting double zero wouldn’t only allow him to leave with twice what he brought to the table, but it would, quite literally, save his life.

Forty-six hours earlier, Marco walked into the casino with a suitcase filled with $30,000, his entire life savings, and hit the roulette table with the stoic confidence of an established high roller. In the end, precisely as planned, he left the table with two thousand dollars in his pocket. Nearly two solid days of gambling left him emaciated. He denied the casino doctor’s plea for him to spend the night under observation at the local hospital. Instead, aided by a stocky man in a plaid green sport coat and reeking of cheap cologne, he made his way to his room. Once inside, he followed his plan to the letter. He filled a glass with water and placed it on the nightstand, washed his face and hands, brushed his teeth, set the air conditioner to maximum, and then created a cocoon using the pillows and blankets from both beds. There, swathed in slippery nylon, Marco sank into the deepest of sleeps.

The black-out curtains and the A/C did an adequate job of keeping the room dark and cool, but the early risers in the room next door and the continual slamming of spring-loaded doors echoing from the hallway were slowly unraveling his cocoon and drawing him out of oblivion. It was the clink, clink, clink, shunk, thump of the Coke machine on the other side of the wall which shredded the remaining fabric of his slumber.

Marco threw back the covers and glanced at the alarm clock which read 6:22. He walked over to the window and opened the curtains. There, three stories below, the pool was waiting. Within a few hours hundreds of people would be swarming about, but for the moment, the pool area looked exactly as it had the morning he met her – quiet and serene. He closed his eyes and rocked his forehead back and forth slowly on the glass. It felt cool, soothing, but Marco didn’t think he deserved such comfort, so he pulled back and stood up straight. At 48, Marco felt he had experienced so much loss, accomplished so little, and influenced so few that he was ready to discover whatever awaited him on the other side. He didn’t even know that he believed in a higher power, but he had come to Vegas to find one or die trying. He was ready to make that final passage, and if there was a Savior of some sort, Marco was making sure there would be a prime opportunity for a miracle. Besides, to Marco, this was hell, or close to it. Anything that lies beyond has got to be an improvement. He was tired of being burdened by life and tired of forty years of testing his faith, looking for signs, and agonizing over possibilities. How many times had he pleaded to the heavens to provide guidance and comfort? How many unanswered prayers were still in queue, floating in the ether – wasted? How could it be that he was born to lead such a miserable life, devoid of meaning, purpose, any semblance of inner peace?

His eyes fixed the far cabana. It was there, exactly ten years ago, that he met Aimee. They spent the weekend together before heading their separate ways with promises to keep in touch. Marco called her several times, but she didn’t respond. He tried convincing himself that she meant nothing, but it was no use. Aimee was only the second girl that he had kissed, and the first one who kissed him back. Those two days constituted the longest relationship he has ever had.

His reverie was broken by a man walking out of the cabana. He was wearing a green bathing suit and sported a tattered, wide-brimmed straw hat. He took off his hat, tossed it onto a lounge chair, then canonballed into the pool. He surfaced after several seconds, and started treading water in the deep end. Marco was perturbed. He planned on the pool being empty this time of the morning. He needed enough time to sink below the surface and take as much water into his lungs as possible then lie undisturbed for at least three minutes. Marco turned away from the window to the alarm clock. It was time to go. He glanced back toward the pool and the man and his hat were gone. A trail of footsteps led toward the back gate. Marco pulled on his pants, slipped into his shoes and walked out of the room.

Once in the casino, Marco walked directly to the same roulette table. He pulled the chips out of his pocket and stacked them on double zero. The dealer called to the pit boss who was standing at the far table. He turned and Marco recognized him as the stocky man in the plaid coat who helped him to his room just a few hours ago. The pit boss nodded to the dealer then turned away. The wheel spun and Marco watched. If he won, he would keep the promise he made to himself to turn his life around; to somehow find purpose, hope, and serenity. If he lost, he would take this as the final confirmation of a wasted life. The wheel slowed and the ball dropped. Marco smiled for the first time in weeks. The test was finally over.

Happy Hour

I later found out her name was Barbara LeFang. I met her last week in, well you know, once of those bars. Business had been great and I wanted to celebrate. Honest, I had only a couple drinks when she walked by my table. Little did I know she had been watching me from the far side of the room. You'd think, as a private eye, I'd have some sort of acute awareness that sends an alert when someone is spying on me. Not so; but luckily this time, the prowler in the shadows was a tall blonde with painted on jeans and a hypnotic smile. She walked to the bar, and winked at me. Gary saw her too. "Look at that!" He said. I nodded. "Look at HER, Gary, not THAT – remember?" I said. Gary is the CPA in the next office over from mine. He's 55, single, good with numbers but lousy with the ladies. Last year he saved me over five grand on my taxes, but only had one date – my sister. He's asked me to help him understand women better, learn how to talk to girls. One of our first lessons involved learning to respect women, and treating them as people, not objects. "Now pull your hand away from the side of your mouth, pick up your drink and stop staring at her rear end." I said. "Right, sorry, but she winked at you!" Gary said, swiveling his chair back toward me. I, of course, as the teacher, was required to further study the object – err, the delicate beauty for which Gary was so obviously taken.

A dozen years as a P.I. had afforded me keen observational tactics which provided an advantage when approaching people, especially the ladies. But this one was special – no run-of-the-mill barfly here, that's for sure. Pure and simple, I was mesmerized. Gary pulled the red straws out of his drink and flicked them at my face. "Hey – how come you get to look at her?!?" A few drops of his Cuba Libre hit my cheek and eye brow, but I didn't even blink. It was right about then that she pivoted toward me. Her sinuous contours moved in silent symphony, and when she looked at me, she didn't look, she dove.

Aided by some cosmic anomaly that, at least temporarily, replaced both gravity and reason, I stood, then felt the distance between us disappear. It was as if I was standing still and gliding toward her as the universe folded upon itself to ensure our destiny. Only a breath away from her, she smiled again, and pointed at her name tag which came into focus: "Bacardi – Party All Night!" then in smaller letters beneath – "Barbara." The universe snapped back into shape with a resounding clap. I was going to say something, although I don't know what, when the bartender called from behind her, "LeFang – order up!" Startled, she turned toward him. I used the decoy to my advantage, and with great stealth, moved back into the shadows.

Enough

This story was originally published on 52stories.net

Dana hung up the phone and stood at the bedroom window. She looked out over the dock to her brother waiting next to the idling shore boat. Behind her, Stan lumbered up the stairs. He took one deliberately slow step after another, allowing the echo of each stomp to resound throughout the house.

Stan stopped at the landing and looked up the hall toward the bedroom. A pool of light bled into the hallway, and he watched for shadows. Inside the bedroom, Dana eyed her coat that was draped over the recliner, focusing on the pocket holding the gun. Another thump coming from the hallway, then another. Dana turned and met Stan’s eyes as he entered the room. He was an imposing figure - six feet four inches tall, but another inch or so with his work boots which he insisted wearing everywhere – even around the house. He had thinning black hair which was drawn back to a weak pony tail. An unkempt goatee punctuated an otherwise handsome face that, at one time, Dana mistook as kind. “Who was on the phone?” Stan asked, picking at his fingernails with a match book cover. This was how the attacks always started. Dana knew his questions held no more relevance than her answers. Two weeks prior Stan stormed into the room and asked “Who ate the last of the cereal?!?” That simple query was the spark of outburst that left Dana with a black eye and a dislocated shoulder. Over the years Dana had tried being sweet, tough, loving, even crazy, but each charade ended the same way. So now she just said whatever came to mind. This time she told the truth. “Peter.” Dana said. “It was Peter on the phone.” Stan’s brow narrowed as he spoke, “Did you tell your brother that he doesn’t need to call here everyday? Did you tell him I can take care of my own damn wife? Did ya?!? His bloodshot eyes drilled into Dana’s. She held his gaze. “The subject didn’t come up.” Dana said. “What did you say?!?” Stan said, leaning toward her. Dana backed up a half of a step, keeping herself in line with the recliner.

“You’re talking back to me, Dana.” Stan took a big step forward and Dana walked backward quickly until she felt her coat behind her and the heavy pocket bounce against her calf. “Jesus, you’re jumpy.” Stan giggled as he spoke. “Are you taking the medication that the doctor prescribed to calm your nerves, because I don’t think I’ve seen you move that fast in six months.” Stan took one more stop toward her. “I shouldn’t have to move at all you know.” Dana said, gripping her coat with her right hand. “Well, that’s true, my dear, that’s true. And we’ve talked about ways that we could work things out – arrangements that would make things a little less. . .” he paused, searching for the right word “. . . troublesome around here. But each time we agree on one of these arrangements, you seem to forget the rules; now isn’t that right little lady?” Stan took another step. “Don’t come any closer Stan!” Stan stood and smiled, combing his mustache with his thumb and index finger, then drawing them down to his goatee and scratching his chin as if deep in thought. “My, aren’t you feisty.” Stan brought both feet together, snapped his heels, and gave Dana a salute. “Okay, I won’t move, but I want you to do me a little favor – alright?” After hundreds of attacks, this was the part that Dana used to fear the most - the part where the predator toys with its prey before making the final, killing blow. This time, it was Dana’s turn. She blinked once and licked her lips.

Stan stood four feet from Dana, staring at her waist. He reached out his right hand and pointed at her with his index and middle finger held together in the shape of a gun. His eyes moved to Dana’s chest, then he swept his fingers inward, motioning for her to loosen her robe. Dana didn’t move. She did what she always did – stood perfectly still. But this time instead of quietly cursing herself for lacking the courage to leave him, she thought about the boat waiting, of life somewhere off this island.

Stan’s power over Dana had been waning for several months, and this enraged him even more. The beatings had gotten worse, but as they did, Dana gradually put up less and less of a fight. The terror and contempt she once harbored for Stan began migrating inward, infesting her like an unchecked virus. During the past several months she came to the baffling, disturbing conclusion that she had become her own worst enemy. More and more she regarded Stan as a mindless, faceless entity that roamed the house, beat her, raped her, and then moved back into the shadows. She knew she had to leave, but now it wasn’t because of what he did to her, it was because of what he had forced her to become. She remembers the first time she felt the crack of Stan’s knuckles against her cheek and thought she deserved the punch. The first time he sodomized her and she felt relieved that someone had the power to punish her properly for being so inadequate. She stood in the bedroom hundreds of times and listened for Stan to pound up the stairs. In the beginning she was petrified. Over time though, fear changed to anger which then, only recently, had turned into anticipation. Stan needed to be eliminated because he was no longer just an abusive husband; he had become the agent of Dana’s self-destruction. Even as she stared right at him, she didn’t see Stan at all; she saw that pathetic, weak bully in the back of the class who constantly flicked her ear; the cockroach on the kitchen floor scurrying for the shadows, just begging to be crushed.

Stan made the motion with his fingers again. Dana felt a chill pulse through her and a thin smile grow across her lips. She let go of the coat and slowly parted her robe revealing a white T-shirt. Sam grinned, pointed to the bottom of the shirt, and motioned upwards. Dana closed her eyes in a prolonged blink, swooned toward Stan, and felt herself succumbing to another attack. She felt the temptation to lean into the sweet sting of his first blow, to open herself to his brutish thrusting. Her body tingled with anticipation of the punishment she knew she deserved. She could almost taste the comforting warmth of blood in her mouth. She opened her eyes, stared at the hideous stranger in front of her and reached back for her coat. Not anymore. She would not allow this night to become another bad memory. Instead, she would remember this night as the one when the faceless, hulking entity she used to call her husband went through his final metamorphosis. The night when she flipped the switch, watched the cockroach scurry, and lowered her heal with a resounding crunch.

Remembering Summer

For twenty years, from the age of five to twenty-five, summer was to me a glorious celebration of liberation and independence punctuated by a State-certified and parent-ratified amnesty from school for three magnificent months. It’s 6:36 AM on this, the first day of summer vacation for my kids, and as I recall my own childhood memories of summer – the lingering afternoons spent at the beach, the carefree days and balmy nights, a truck’s air horn gently reminds me that I’m sitting in traffic on my way to work. I’m convinced there’s no worse way to start a day than being stuck in traffic before you even get to the office. The semi truck in front of me has moved nine inches in ten minutes. I’m not even sure if the driver is still in the cab. I was forced to stop short as I merged into the lane and came to rest with a generous three centimeters of clearance between my bumper and the iron lift gate on the back of the truck. I’m so close to the truck that it completely obscures my forward view. Every time I get up the nerve to step out of the car to peer around the edge of the truck, it releases a blast of pressurized air from its brakes, and jerks forward half an inch. I check my rear view mirror and see the guy behind me shaving with an electric razor while reading the OC Register which he has folded neatly against the steering wheel. He continues shaving with one hand while the other reaches toward the console and brings up his cup of Starbucks. He takes a casual sip, then slowly lowers the cup and turns the page. This guy has it down – definitely a professional commuter.

I look ahead again, let my eyes rest on the black diamond plate design of the lift gate, and my mind rolls into a reverie of a summer long ago. I was ten years old and lying on the sand at Alamitos Bay in Long Beach. My friend, Jonny and I had just finished a long swim along the buoy line, and beached ourselves in the cool sand at the water’s edge. There was a commotion behind us, and we looked back and saw several people standing and pointing over our heads toward the water. Six bottlenose dolphins skimmed the surface just outside the swim line some 100 yards offshore. Their dorsal fins sliced through the morning glass in rhythmic undulations. They swam past at a casual pace and then headed toward the 2nd Street Bridge. Jonny and I scrambled to our feet and ran to catch up with them. We ran as far as the bridge then watched them disappear into the next harbor. Several minutes later they returned, and for the rest of that day and most of the next, Jonny and I did little else besides swimming, laughing, and running up and down the beach chasing dolphins.

A car horn jolts me back to reality and I instinctively pop my car into gear and creep forward. I drum the steering wheel a few times and look to my right. A very large man in a mid-90s Tercel is bludgeoning the tiny buttons on his cell phone with his enormous index finger. He’s talking to himself too, no, yelling. Thick strands of greasy brown hair lay flat, plastered against his sweaty brow. He’s wearing a short sleeve shirt and a tie. A black suit coat is hanging from the hook over the passenger window behind him. I figure he’s late for a job interview, but then realize it’s too early for that, so I resign to the thought that this poor soul is probably a mess like this everyday. The semi lunges forward a few inches, but I stay put. I’m gonna need a couple of feet of clearance if I’m ever going to maneuver around him.

Once again I stare ahead and drift away. It’s the summer of 1981 and I’m 16 years old. The year before, for my birthday, my parents bought me SCUBA lessons. My friend Chuck and I dove mainly in the shallow waters of Alamitos Bay, sinking to the murky silt at the bottom and cruising along under the marina docks looking for whatever sea life or barnacle-encrusted jetsam we could find. This day we started the dive later than usual and raced daylight to get in a quick dive. It wasn’t long before Chuck and I got separated while cruising along the underside of the docks near his parents’ boat. I checked my air and compass, realized I had a few more minutes, and continued on my way. Finally, as my air tank began to empty I made a gradual ascent. At the surface, I pivoted toward the west and was greeted with the most perfect sunset I’d ever seen. I pulled my dive mask from around my eyes and rested it on my forehead. I just stayed there in the channel, treading water, and gazing at the reds and golds and the brilliant shafts of light shooting into the yellow clouds as they chased the sun into the horizon.

The air brakes blast and the truck moves another few inches. I click my turn signal and watch the mirror for a break in traffic. The big guy in the Tercel waves me in front of him. I’m surprised by that because I had pegged him as a frustrated, angry loner – someone incapable of such an altruistic gesture. I wave back at him, and he nods. I feel bad for stereotyping him. When did life get so complicated? Not that many summers ago I didn’t have a care in the world. I straighten the car out in the lane and feel my phone vibrating on my hip. It’s my ten-year-old son, Nick. “Hi Nick – what are you doing up so early?” I said. “I couldn’t sleep any more. I’m too excited because mom’s taking us to the beach today!” He says, exuberated. “That’s great pal!” I say, then begin rehearsing my checklist of obligatory parental caveats – wear sun block, shuffle your feet as you enter the water to scare away stingrays, stay right in front of a lifeguard. . . Nick speaks up, “Yeah – I can’t wait!” Reflexively, I take a deep breath in preparation for my lecture, “Don’t forget to. . .” I pause for a moment, bite my tongue, then Nick cuts in, “Don’t forget what?” He says. “Don’t forget to have fun.” I say. “I won’t dad, I’m gonna have the best day ever.” That resounding, innocent exclamation rattled around in my head for moment, then must have jarred something loose that had been too tight for too long. “I’m sure you will, buddy.” I said. “I’m gonna try to do the same.”

Sense of Direction

I have a horrible sense of direction. Late last month I got lost inside a clothing store fitting room. While driving, I constantly have to stop and ask for directions, so two weeks ago, by request of my wife, I drove to Best Buy and bought a GPS. I programmed it so that I’m given turn-by-turn directions from a very pleasant-sounding British girl named Jane. The GPS had several built-in voices to choose from, but Jane was far and above the best of the lot. I’ll do just about anything Jane asks me to. Turn left, merge, keep right, make a U-turn. Elizabeth, my wife, asked me why I listen to Jane and follow her every request, but won’t pick my socks off the closet floor no matter how loud she yells. She accused me of running unnecessary errands, of using any excuse to drive the car. I told her what all men tell their wives, “It’s nothing honey, really. There’s absolutely nothing going on between Jane and me.” Elizabeth knew better; they all do. She’s been married to me for too long, and can tell when I’m preoccupied by something or someone. I’ll admit that Jane had piqued my interests.

One day last week I left work and set the GPS for home, but purposely ignored all of Jane’s directions. She never got upset, never yelled nor cursed. She kept the same, composed, sensitive tone as she continually recalculated my route during the entire extended commute. When Elizabeth asked me why I was two and a half hours late from work, I was at a loss. I couldn’t lie to the woman I loved, the mother of my children, my best friend. “Honey, let’s talk.” I said, and led her by her hand into the living room, away from our darling children playing quietly in their room. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” Her face held a look of deep concern, and a thin, glossy sheen wetted her eyes as she blinked away the rudiments of tears. I pulled her close, then spoke. “Well, you know Jane, right?” There was an abrupt shift in her expression like someone had come up from behind and hit her hard on the rear with a canoe paddle. Her body shuddered; she pushed herself away from me and just stood there. I felt compelled to say something, anything. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.” I said. Nothing. She just stood before me, and I watched as her look turned quizzical, then perplexed, stumped, and finally flabbergasted. It was about then that rage set in. Those eyes, once heavy with tears, turned blood-red, and her brow migrated inwards forming a distinct ‘V’ over the bridge of her nose. Her lips tightened to a thin line, and I could hear the even pant of strained respirations from her flared nostrils. Something deep within the reptilian recesses of my brain screamed ‘run!’ but I couldn’t move. I had stumbled out of the jungle and found myself standing eleven inches from the nose of a hungry, snarling lioness who wanted nothing else than to tear me limb from limb then devour me with the help of her adorable cubs.

Then something quite unexpected happened. She turned, walked into the kitchen, plucked her purse off of the counter then walked out the front door. I followed, but not too close, and reached the patio as she was pulling her car out of the driveway. I watched as she disappeared down the street then I went inside. About an hour later she returned carrying a Best Buy bag. She said hello to me, cordially enough, then went into our bedroom. I stood silently just outside the doorway, out of her view, and relatively safe from airborne projectiles. A minute or so passed then I heard her cycle through the familiar GPS voices. Like the call from an estranged phantom, Jane’s voice echoed from our bedroom into the hall, “Voice one, Jane. In four hundred yards, turn left, then turn right.” My heart was beating like a rabbit. My wife and the ‘other woman’ were in my bedroom – together – talking to each other! A few seconds of unbearable silence passed, then another voice – a man’s voice “Voice two, Richard. You have reached your destination.” It repeated - the deep, tranquil, quasi-Mediterranean tones of his voice modulated with seduction. “You have reached your destination.” He spoke again, this time louder, “. . .reached your destination.” I saw a shadow moving toward the door so I backed up flat against the wall. The door shut, and I heard the click of the lock. “You have reached your destination. . . reached your destination.” I could listen no more.

I walked down the hall to the kids’ room and sat on the edge of my daughter’s bed. The two little ones were sitting on the floor in front of me, playing with Matchbox cars. My son skid a red Corvette into the bay of a plastic gas station. “Hey – How do I get to McDonald’s?!?” He said to my daughter who was playing the role of the reluctant attendant, “I’m not going to tell you! Get yourself a GPS like my daddy!” Then she looked up at me. “Right daddy?” I smiled at her, leaned forward, and brushed a few strands of hair from in front of her eyes. “Sometimes it’s better to ask for directions, honey. There’s certainly no disgrace in that.”

My full name is Sandra Fay Lipton, but my friends and customers call me Sandy. I’ve been a waitress at the Mexi Casa cafe in Franklin, Tennessee for 52 years. I don’t know if that’s some sort of world record, but people tend to be impressed by that. What surprises people the most though is that, at 70 years old, I still look forward to coming to work here nearly every day. Fact is, before my hip surgery last Spring, I hadn’t missed a single shift in more than thirty years. A lot of that has to do with the people I see here everyday – the regulars who come here for the best cup of coffee in town. They are family to me; and just as most people look forward to coming home to see their families, I look forward to coming to the café to see mine. But there’s another reason I’m still here, and that has to do with a conversation I had with someone, right here at the counter, nearly 50 years ago.

In late March of 1958 I was 21 years old, and had been waitressing at the Mexi Casa for almost three years. I didn’t go to college right out of high school. It wasn’t the normal thing for a young woman to do back then. Girls growing up in rural Tennessee in the 1950’s were burdened with many expectations, but the pursuit of quality education wasn’t one of them. I was expected to get married, raise a family, and provide grandchildren for my parents to dote over. At the time it seemed like my parents’ only concern was that I met these expectations. I’m sure that’s why my passions and plans were closely audited. They had to be in case I somehow became self-aware at any point in my life and decided to actually act in my own best interest. Heresy!
My plans did not include marrying a local boy and living in town with six children. My plans were to work at the cafe until I had enough money to move to California where I’d somehow become a movie star. I know that probably sounds corny now, but that dream was one of few things that I could truly call my own.

Of course a dream that delicious just had to be shared. I told it to anyone who would listen; and so, as I knew would be the case, this dream of mine became an unending source of arguments with my parents and siblings. After one particularly nasty fight with my mom and brother, I stormed off to work with the intention of quitting my job at the end of that evening’s shift, and catching the first bus to the west coast. I had felt that way on numerous occasions, but that night I went as far as to pack my things into a suitcase and hide it behind a hedge under my bedroom window to pick up later that night.

My six-hour shift started at 5:00PM, and around 10:00 I was standing behind the counter drying a stack of saucers and planning which streets I would have to take as to not attract any wondering eyes as I hurried toward the bus station with my suitcase. It was about then that I heard the bell on the door jingle and I turned to see two gentlemen walk in. The smaller, younger of the two walked up to the counter and sat down. The larger man looked around for a few seconds then walked back outside and got into his car.
I grabbed the coffee pot from the burner and walked over to the man. He was gazing at the menu, and from my angle, the brim of his hat covered his face. I flipped his cup over and poured the coffee. He looked up briefly, caught my eyes for only a moment, then tipped his hat and said “Thanks.” Now I’ve thought about this night thousands of times over the years, examined every detail of it until I can close my eyes and watch it like a movie, but I still can’t put into words the way that I felt the moment I realized I had just poured a cup of coffee for Elvis Presley.

I walked back to the coffee station, set the pot back on the burner, and looked around the café to see if anyone else had noticed. There were only two other customers, and they sat at a booth against the window. I looked through the order window into the kitchen. Jeff, the cook was out back smoking a cigarette. Pete, the manager sat behind the register reading a newspaper. Elvis was mine – all mine. I walked up to him. “What can I get you?” He took his hat off and set it on the stool next to him. “Is it too late or . . .” He paused, looked at his watch, and smiled. “. . .too early to order some breakfast?” I giggled. “No, you can have anything you’d like.” God! That must have sounded stupid. I waited for him to look away from me, laugh, shake his head, but he didn’t. He kept looking at me, and as he did, he smiled. I must have smiled too, because I still smile when I think of that moment. He looked down at his coffee then said, “Say, would you get in trouble if you were to join me for some coffee?” I’m not sure what my answer was or even if there was an answer. I remember grabbing the coffee pot, topping off his cup and pouring one for myself, then walking around the counter and sitting next to him.

I speak with strangers every day in the café, and know that most people are pretty private about their lives. I’ve come to respect people’s space, and I can usually tell from when I greet them whether they are the chatty type or not. Even when they are chatty, conversations usually start out shallow and become deeper with trust and time. On rare occasions though, I meet someone and somehow manage to avoid small talk completely. I begin rambling, without hesitation, like I’ve known them my whole life. That’s how it was with Elvis and me. I told him things that I couldn’t even tell my friends – heck that I hadn’t even admitted to myself. I told him about my plans to leave town that night, and as I did I became aware that, down deep, my dream of moving to Hollywood was more of a plot to make everyone in town jealous and infuriate my parents. I admitted that I was miserable about the fact that I didn’t have any real plans of my own, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to live according to the plans of other people. Elvis listened intently, and then shared with me that the next day he was reporting to the Army Draft Board. He said that several months prior he was offered special treatment if he had volunteered, but he took his chances with the draft. He said he was scared, more scared than he’d ever been. He was certain his career would be over when he returned in two years, but that didn’t seem to bother him as much as having to leave his mama for so long. He confided in me, leaned in close, and confessed so many fears and personal details that I felt overwhelmed; but I kept listening, and kept staring into those deep green eyes.

It’s as if, with all of the craziness and excitement in his life, he rarely had the chance to speak openly with someone. As if he came into this obscure, little café just to find someone like me to talk to. For me, he was the light in the storm – a stranger and a friend at the same time, who helped me more through the simple act of listening than any number of people could through offering their advice. By the end of our conversation things lightened up a little. He smiled and told me that if I really wanted to get back at my family and the busy-bodies in the town, moving to Hollywood wouldn’t do the trick. He was right, and I knew it the second he said it. He helped me realize that by staying here, and spending my money on going to college instead of Hollywood, I could really turn this sleepy town on end.

When he stood up to leave he reached in his pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill and laid it on the counter. I’d never seen a hundred dollar bill before, so after my initial shock, I looked up at him and said “I can’t keep this. It’s too much money; and . . . you didn’t even eat!” He gave me a crooked smile, “I wasn’t really hungry, darlin’. Plus, I’m not giving you this money as a tip.” Elvis leaned in toward me, plucked his hat from the seat, and then gave me a serious look. “This here money is part of a wager, and by taking it, you’re promising me that you’re gonna do whatever makes you the happiest in life, no matter what people think or say.” He smiled again, then leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Thanks for talking with me tonight.” He said. I picked the bill off the counter and turned toward the door as he walked through. “Goodnight.” I said. I finished my shift that night, then went home and brought my suitcase inside.

The following fall I started classes at Southern Tennessee Lutheran College, and eventually got my degree in English literature. I never did marry, but discovered I have a knack for writing. Over the years I’ve had four novels published. I took the money from my first book and bought the MexiCasa. That was in 1979, and I’m proud to say that we still serve the best coffee in Franklin.
Most evenings I leave the café around eight, but Tuesdays I stay until we close at eleven. I suppose it’s a silly ritual – staying late like that, but I still enjoy listening for the bell on the door, and summoning the wonder of a night long ago.

New Turf - Part Two

Listen to this.

Not surprisingly, there’s plenty of information on the web about how to create the perfect lawn, but very little on how to transform your neighbor’s lawn into something out of a Boris Karloff film. I thought about what mike said regarding ‘renegades’, and started looking into grass seeds. Turns out that the cheaper the grass seed, the higher the ‘other crop’ content per square foot of lawn. ‘Other crop’, as it turns out, means orchard grass or weeds, or anything else that grows by means of water and sunlight, but ISN’T grass. Also turns out that Home Depot was having a blow-out on the cheapest grass seed they sold. This stuff had such high ‘other crop’ content that they hid that label on the bottom, back of the bag. I bought three bags, and headed home with my seeds of destruction.

I placed the bags next to the garage door, and covered them with a towel. They were ready to go at the next night time rain. The cloak of darkness combined with the sound of the rain would provide the perfect cover for this operation. Turns out that the rain came about two weeks from the day of the last cat-kicking which was fine, and allowed Mike to calm down a little, and stop looking over his shoulder. At about 11:30pm it started raining, and I took the grass seed bags out and began throwing handfuls on Mike’s lawn. I tried distributing them as evenly as I could, but the front half of the yard facing the sidewalk received the bulk of them. Five minutes after I started, my work was done. I walked, soaking wet, into the garage, bagged up all the seed sacks so I could throw them away in a dumpster somewhere – hide the evidence, you know – and went to bed.

Mike and I didn’t have much interaction for a week or so. I glanced at the lawn daily, waiting to see the first sign of the renegade sprouts peaking up from his secret recipe soil. It took about seven days, but when it started sprouting, it came up really fast. Mike was bewildered, he roamed around the sidewalk that surrounded his lawn with a bottle of RoundUp in one hand and the funnel in the other. He didn’t know where to start! He was mumbling to himself, and pacing. The aggressive weeds sprouted first and tallest, they stood out like redwoods against the Technicolor green carpet Mike was so proud of, their delicate yellow flowers dotted his lawn and sprung up faster than he could spray the herbicide. Next, the off-color, lighter green, cheap grass sprouts took hold. They crawled up between the Kentucky Bluegrass and put a stranglehold on the Dwarf Samoan Fescue. Within a week, mike’s lawn looked like – well, to be honest, it looked like every other lawn along our street – a somewhat uneven plot of mixed grass types with the occasional weed. To mike though – well, he was ready to call in a priest. “Ever seen anything like this?” Mike said – wiping sweat from his brow, motioning to his new lawn. “What’s that, Mike? Looks fine to me.” “I didn’t pay $20,000 to a landscape architect to make my lawn look fine! Now look, I know we’ve had our differences, but I’d like to ask you a favor.” I’d never seen Mike like this. He was nervous, unsure of himself, vulnerable. . . “Veronica and I have to go up to Washington State – visit with her parents for a week. We’re leaving tomorrow. Can you kind of keep an eye on things for me?” He nodded toward his lawn, and I took that to mean that his house could burn to the ground, just as long as I made sure his lawn doesn’t get any worse. “You bet.” “Thanks neighbor. Just water the lawn on Wednesday and Friday if you could. Shouldn’t be any trouble to keep this mess alive.” He gave a half grin, then held out his hand – a kind gesture from this man was so rare, that I actually hesitated for a moment, making sure this was truly a handshake offering and not a karate jab to my ribs. We shook hands, and then Mike said “I know I can trust you.” Did he say water his lawn? Well this was a fine pickle. Now I was forced to tend to my garden of terror I had planted. I never was a strong believer in Karma, but at the moment of the handshake, somewhere out there the powers of the universe were having a grand old time at my expense.

With each passing day, mike’s lawn looked less like his old, perfect lawn, and more like mine, . . .and Steve’s on the other side, and . . .Dana’s across the street. I had a lot of time to reflect on the situation as I stood watering the ankle-high jungle I created. Why did I even bother watering? Half of me felt bad for Mike, I mean I did my best to quiet that voice, but, after all, I destroyed the one thing that Mike seemed to care about most in this world – jerk or not, that’s a fairly heavy burden to bare. But. . .The other half of me wanted the renegade grass and weeds to grow as fast and robust as they could before he came home. So to say I had an internal conflict would be a bit of an understatement. Don’t get me wrong, I felt justice was served – and I had no regrets about how I served it, I guess I was fighting with the fact that I wasn’t planning on having a week to ponder the outcome of the operation while tending to the one thing I was trying to destroy.

When Mike and Veronica returned, they were quiet for a few days and we didn’t see much of either of them. About a week later, I was working in the garage when I heard hammering coming from Mike’s yard. He was standing with a well-dressed man, planting a For Sale sign into the grass. Mike saw me, and walked over to the fence. “Well neighbor – looks like I won’t get to call you neighbor for too long.” “This is a surprise, Mike – I had no idea you were moving.” “Been thinking about it for a while, but our trip up to Veronica’s parents sealed the deal. Her dad isn’t doing well, and they’ve got a huge place up there in Tumwater – great trout fishing, clean air – heck I can’t wait to vacate these virons and motor north. Give me a chance to return to my real passion in life – fly fishing.” Those words reverberated in my head like balls in a pachinko machine. Mike continued “Ya see, the secret to catching a steelhead is to match the size and color of the corkies to the size and color of salmon eggs. Now, Salmon and Trout are fierce competitors who battle each other for the same spawning grounds. Salmon overrun rivers with the amount of eggs they lay and trout eat as many of the eggs as possible, so. . .” Mike kept talking, and I kept nodding, but my mind was drifting. I pictured him in his garage in Tumwater, sitting at his workbench late at night and tying flies under the fluorescent light built into a magnifying glass, content, secure, at peace with himself, and not a single cat in sight.

Back at the donut shop my reverie was broken by a familiar voice. “Hey neighbor – mind if I borrow the home and garden section?” I lowered the newspaper to see Mike smiling at me, his tiny eyes squinting into slits. “Mike – how’s it going man? What brings you to our neck of the woods?” We shook hands, “Veronica and I are moving back next door! . . .Just kiddin’ -came into town for my sisters wedding this weekend. How did the new neighbor work out?” Fine, fine. . .older couple – have their grandkids over on the weekends – pretty much keep to themselves. How’s the fly fishing?” “Caught 116 steelhead last season – go out practically every day it’s not raining, and some even when it is – absolutely love it! Well, I better get scootin’ – gotta get fit for a monkey suit this morning for the wedding. Nice talkin’ to ya neighbor!” “Me too, Mike – you take care now and say hi to Veronica.” That was the best conversation I had ever had with old Mike Glick – and a great way to start the day.

The following Monday I got a call from the vp of Human Resources with Dionelle Software in Irvine, and arranged an interview for the next day. Dionelle occupies the top six floors of a 26 floor office tower in the ever-expanding techno-industrial complex known as Irvine Ranch. Thirty years ago, the whole area was bean fields and orange groves, twenty years ago, a couple of ten story buildings took hold, they built a world-class shopping mall and people started migrating south from Los Angeles, filling in all the pockets of livable space in this new, quieter, cleaner alternative to what’s known as the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. Now, although still cleaner, it’s nearly as packed with people and businesses as any other point north.

The receptionist told me it would just be a few minutes, and I sat down, folded my arms on top of my portfolio, and waited. A few minutes passed, then a few minutes more and the thought occurred to me that finding a restroom might not be a bad idea. The restroom was at the end of a marble corridor lined with the kind of framed art you find mostly at swap meets – New England Seashores, lighthouses – a sculpture, a cross section of a giant conch shell sat in a lighted alcove at the end of the hall. I was beginning to pick up on a sea theme.

I entered the bathroom, and the lights flickered on, now this is the part of the Podcast where I talk about being in a bathroom stall, so if you’re embarrassed by that, or you’ve never been in a bathroom stall, and don’t want me to ruin the surprise for you, then please fast forward a minute or so. I sat down and a couple of minutes passed (see that wasn’t too bad), and then, all of the sudden, the lights went out. I was sitting in complete darkness – I mean, blackness – the cliché about not being able to see your hand in front of your face – well, I’m forced to use that here. I didn’t panic, just sat there thinking for a moment. Was this a stroke? I was a little nervous in light of the interview, did this stress dislodge a blood clot that shut down my visual cortex? I doubted that. Then I remembered that the lights were off when I entered, so that means they’re on a timer and they’re setup to a motion sensor. I started waving my arms around wildly, hoping that the sensor was high enough to cover the insides of the stalls – no luck. I calmed myself down, stopped flapping my arms and went into survival mode. I was certain that my interviewer was looking for me by this point, and knew that being late for an interview – even if I’m sixty feet away from the lobby and have the most legitimate excuse in the world – wasn’t going to leave a good first impression. I thought about my resources – what do I have that creates light – and remembered my cell phone. The backlight from that thing could warn ships away from rocky shores! I grappled for the phone, staring straight ahead into the blackness. I pulled the phone from my pocket, flipped it open, caught the momentary brilliant green luminance from the screen and then felt it slip from my hands. There was a split second where it spun as it fell, and the lighted screen created a dazzling light show on the stall walls, then I heard the sound of plastic hitting tile, and watched the phone scoot well out of reach, beyond the stall door. The light stayed on for a moment then the show was over. A few seconds later I heard the bathroom door open. All I could think was – this can’t look good. I was sitting, alone in a bathroom stall – in the dark – in the company to which I’m about to sell my services and a good chunk of my life in return for the ability feed my family and pay my mortgage. In my nearly 41 years on this planet, I’ve found my self in a few such compromising positions, but this one- well, if nothing else, this one was the most recent. The thought occurred to me to pull my feet up, stay quiet and wait for the person to leave, but then I remembered my cell phone sitting on the tile just outside the stall door. I watched the shadow of the person approach my door, and saw the cuff of a suit sleeve as he leaned down to pick up the phone. “Anyone in here?” I took a breath ... “Yup – got caught in the dark when the lights went out.” There was a bit of sympathetic laughter. “Ya know – that’s the third time that’s happened this month – gotta get maintenance to fix that timer. I put your phone on the sink here. I’ll see ya in the lobby.” Oh God – that was the VP of human resources! I recognized his voice. Well, it’s been nice workin’ for ya. I thought.

Turns out that the interview went fine, in fact, three weeks from the day of my layoff, I was offered the job, and started the following Monday. I beat my goal of finding a new job within one month - by two days. The Friday before I started, I had the whole day to myself. No job hunting, no frantic portfolio shuffling or resume rewriting – just a free day to do whatever I liked. So I did the only thing I really wanted to do. I put on my sneakers and started walking. Forty minutes later, I sat down at my little sunlit table, laid out the comics, and raised the glazed old-fashioned, ever so slowly, to my mouth.

New Turf - Part One

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About six months ago I was laid off from a job I had held for almost 4 years. This wasn’t easy news to swallow for neither myself nor my wife. Although I’ll admit, once I got her breathing again and poured her a glass of wine, she seemed more secure with the situation than I. I wasn’t going to take this lying down though, not because it’s against my nature – heck – I’d take just about anything lying down you wanted to throw at me, but because I’ve always had it in my head that in the event of a layoff, I’d really prove to my family and the world that I could land on my feet. So I made a rather aggressive goal of finding a new, better job within one month.

The night of my layoff I jumped into action. I updated my resume, setup accounts on all the internet job boards, and finally, late at night, sat down with a calculator to figure out just how much money we could, as a family of five, spend while being supported by unemployment insurance without having to dip into savings. It was almost 11pm, and I was physically tired, and emotionally exhausted. I’d been running on pure adrenaline since noon, working feverishly in full denial of my fate, and fending off the gnarling, gnashing jaws of reality that I had starved for nearly twelve hours and which now fought to seize hold of my ego and devour it.


Now, math was never my strong point, and that, combined with my mental fatigue may have contributed to the following calculation blunders. I sat staring at the screen in disbelief. The way I figured, we could make our mortgage payments for a period of three months if we made the following alterations to our lifestyle: Ate generic raisin bran for each meal; didn’t drive the cars; stopped bathing, didn’t use the phone, furnace, or any electricity, and allowed the cats and dog to fend for themselves. That sounded too restrictive, I mean I had to drive to job interviews, so I went back to the drawing board, and altered the plan slightly. OK, if we ate TWO bowls of cereal per day instead of three, sold our furniture and most of our clothing, we could probably afford six hours of electricity per day, two baths each per week, and enough gas to drive 40 miles per month. Man, I was a wreck. How could I tell my three kids that Santa couldn’t afford Christmas this year? How could we all stomach that much fiber? These numbers still seemed very wrong, so I decided to go to bed and re-visit them in the morning.

That next morning I realized the sole source of my errors was that I was doing the calculations instead of my wife. She made that clear to me, in so many words, and I decided to allow her the satisfaction of letting her think she had the upper hand. . .again.

I was proud of myself for waking up at my usual ‘work’ time, and diving right into the job hunt. I sat down at my computer, started it up and realized there was something missing – donuts! I mean how could I expect to think without food in my stomach, and what’s a more appropriate food for breakfast than donuts? I slipped on my shoes, grabbed my car keys and stepped outside. It was a beautiful late-fall morning, and I figured it would be a crime – no, worse than a crime - a show of disrespect to mother nature if I were to drive to the donut shop on such a lovely day, so I decided to walk. 40 minutes later I arrived. The donut shop was crowded. Lots of casually dressed people waiting in line, sitting and relaxing at tables with newspapers. . .Newspapers! I thought – I need a newspaper. I stepped outside and bought an Orange County Register. Now all I needed was a couple of donuts and coffee, and if I found a spot to eat here instead of carrying it all back home that would be more – resourceful and efficient – right? I found a table near the window, and sat down, prepared to scour the classifieds for positions awaiting my talents. I took a sip of coffee, then slowly raised the old-fashioned glazed to my mouth. That’s the absolute best part of eating a donut – the split second before the first bite where you breathe the sticky-sweetness into your nose and mouth simultaneously, and you can taste it before it ever makes contact with your tongue. Delicious. I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on, but I felt a little blue – I mean the sun was shining through the window, the donuts and coffee were perfect, but I needed something – laughter! I opened the paper to the comics section and began reading – ahhh good old Garfield – when will Odie ever learn. . .hehe. On my way back from the coffee refill station I spotted a familiar, but unwelcome face. My ex-neighbor - the only person in the world I’d consider my enemy was sitting at a booth on the opposite side of the dining area. His beady eyes were hidden in the shadow of his baseball cap, but I knew it was him – the same way a cobra can sense a nearby mongoose – pure reptilian instinct.

I sidestepped back to my table, and considered sitting in the other chair so that my back was to him – less chance of being seen; then I remembered something I heard about how you should never have your enemies at your back, so I sat facing him. I picked up the newspaper and flipped to the classified section – the good ol’ help wanted ads. This is the way I had to find my last job, and it worked just fine – who needs fancy internet job boards, unemployment forums and cyber-headhunters?!? The trusty newspaper would do just fine. My eyes were darting about the page and I was finding it hard to concentrate knowing that Mike Glick was sitting just a donut’s throw away from me. I remembered the whole episode so clearly.

The saying about how you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your neighbors is true. Five years ago when we moved to the OC, Mike Glick and his wife Veronica greeted us at our driveway with hearty handshakes and a plate full of freshly-baked oatmeal cookies. I was busy moving things into the house, and thought that was obvious, but Mike decided that was the right time to talk to me about some of the problems he had with the former owners of my house. “Yeah – I tried for six years to get them to install sprinklers for the front and back yards, but some people just don’t care about their lawns.” I looked over to the front lawn of my new house. It was dusk, but still bright enough for me to see that the grass was deeply, uniformly green and well-manicured. I looked back at Mike who was still talking. “And really, Bermuda is not the most attractive grass – at any price. Take my lawn for example” He waved his hand like a game show host in the direction of his yard. “Now that is a custom mixture of Northern Kentucky Bluegrass and Dwarf Samoan Fescue. I had my landscape architect dig down exactly 27 inches to lay a mixture of clay and soil that’s my own secret recipe, so I’d tell ya more, but I’d have to shoot ya!” He shot his elbow toward my ribs, but I blocked it with my forearm. I said “Well, I gotta get back to moving in now. Thanks again for the cookies.” “Wife baked them herself this afternoon – ummm only made two dozen and I got one – gave the rest to you.” “Would you like one more – the plate’s in the kitchen.” “Naw – that’s OK – I’ll let ya owe me one. By the way, I saw you have cats – are they indoor or outdoor?” “Outdoor mostly” I said. “Too bad. Cat urine is horrible for lawns.” We just stood looking at each other – I had no idea how to respond to that statement. “You see. . “ Oh God, here we go. . . “Cats are carnivores so they have a high concentration of protein in them. Well protein breaks down to nitrogen in the kidneys, and comes out as a type of concentrated nitrogen fertilizer in their urine.” “I thought fertilizer is good.” I said with a half smile. “Not pure nitrogen! Breaks down the grass’s ability to absorb other nutrients so what you get is a green-up effect followed by a brown-down.” “A brown-down?” “yeah – the opposite of a green-up - the patch of grass that got peed on dies within seven to ten days.” “Are those seven to ten working days or. . .” I was trying to get him to lighten up a little. “Huh – I . uhh. I don’t think that matters. Anyway, I’ve got that fence there which does a good job keeping the dogs out, but the cats just look at it as a challenge, and climb right over. I’ve got varmit deterrents like high frequency sound generators to keep the gophers out, but the cats – they’re not affected by that. OK – well, I better get back to what I was doin’ (like I was holding HIM up) nice meetin’ ya” Mike turned around and walked back over to Veronica who was talking with Elizabeth.

The next morning I got up at dawn to start unpacking all of my garage stuff, and as I stood looking out of our front window, I saw the silhouette of a person hunched over Mike’s lawn. I opened the garage door and walked outside to find Mike spraying RoundUp onto the grass through what looked like a funnel. He saw me and said “Early bird gets the worm – ehe?” “Yeah – what are you doing?” “Getting rid of renegades” he said. “Doesn’t matter how pure your grass seed mixture may be, there’s always going to be birds or the wind dropping seeds of one kind or another onto your lawn. Now I can take care of the birds” He made the universal shotgun in the air, skeet shooting gesture. “but the wind – well, haven’t learned how to control that yet.” Man, this guy was whacked. “Using an inverted funnel so that I can direct the RoundUp to kill only the patches I need to and not the surrounding grass.” “And then what?” I asked. “Then I wait seven days, pull up the dead patch and plant my seed in its place.” Did he just say ‘plant his seed?’ “Can’t you just pull up the weed?” I said. “May not get the entire root. RoundUp kills from the inside out – starves the plant of a vital amino acid so that they can’t photosynthesize – kills the whole damn thing on a cellular level.” Fascinating.
Living next to Mike was like living next to Bill Nye the science guy a week after going cold turkey off his thorozine.

A few days later Elizabeth and I were cooking dinner when we heard a horrible sound coming from the front of our house. We both scampered out to find Mike holding our older cat by the nape of his neck – arm outstretched and walking toward us. “If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your cats in your yard – don’t know how you’re going to do that, but that’s not my problem. Caught the critter peeing on my lawn!” I ran over to him and plucked the cat from his hand. Elizabeth and I were silent for a few seconds, then I said “There’s no way we are going to be able to keep our cats from ‘visiting’ your lawn. You’ll have to learn to live with that fact – and don’t ever mistreat my cat again.”

The next weekend Mike was sitting out in a lawn chair on his back patio when my son kicked the ball over his fence. Nick ran up to me and told me about it, so I walked into our backyard and peeked over. “Hey Mike – did you see a ball come over the fence?” Mike didn’t look up from his book. “Nope.” I glanced around the yard then back at Nick “Are you sure it went over?” “Yes – straight over right here.” Nick pointed at the place in the fence it passed over. “Mike – you mind if I come over there to take a look – my son said it came over right here.” Mike didn’t take his eyes away from the book. “Ahh now’s not a good time, neighbor – sorry.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I mean, I’d heard of people like this, but never met one. It was like I’d stepped over some imaginary boundary that separates our normal world from the exaggerated, stereotypes portrayed in bad fiction and any movie starring Steve Guttenburg.

My son and I went to the store to buy another ball and when we got back, I witnessed the event that broke down all walls of decency and forgiveness on my part. As we drove up to our house my son and I both watched as Mike kicked our younger cat about six feet into the air and off his yard. The cat scampered sideways then ran under a parked car. I calmly told Nick to take his ball and go into the house. I sat in the car for a second. Mike saw me there, and he turned, walked back toward his garage and picked up the garden hose. Mike seemed to me to be the kind of guy who would be fueled by conflict. I’d only known him a little over a week, but I guessed that Mike would take any aggressive behavior on my part and use it as ammunition to commit some other cruel act. He was really enjoying having this feud and I’ll bet he was sad when he found out the last owners were moving because he wasn’t sure if the new owner would be an easy target. This feud defined him just as much as his meticulous lawn care did – it was all starting to come together.

I got out of the car, smiled at Mike, and simply said “I saw that...” Mike just glared at me, but also looked somewhat relieved that I didn’t walk up and pummel him. I just kept walking - right past him and over to the cat who was wheezing under the car. I carefully picked him up and brought him into the house. One of my best friends from high school is a veterinarian so I took my son along, and we drove the cat to his office. He took some x-rays, and he didn’t charge me for extracting 20 cubic centimeters of air from the sack around the cat’s lungs – neumothorax I think they call it when air escapes into the chest cavity. Anyway, he said the cat probably would have died without treatment. The cat, by the way, recovered within a couple of days and is still doing just fine. The thought occurred to me to ask my friend to mock up a bill so I could hand it to Mike, but I realized that would just be fueling the fire. No one with a personality like Mike’s would gratefully accept the bill and pay for it. That would just turn into a mess and work against me. No – I had to be creative about how I handled Mike. On the way home from the vet, I thought about what I knew about the guy. I knew three things for sure: He thrived on conflict, he was extremely self-important, and he had an unnatural obsession for his lawn. Then I thought about the few necessary elements for my plan.
1. Fist and foremost it should be innocuous – no one could be hurt.
2. It had to not feed the feud, in fact if possible, it should deflate it.
3. Whatever I did should be as discrete as possible. He shouldn’t know I was to blame, but should suspect me without any way to prove it.
4. The outcome of the act would lesson the chances of either of my cats being hurt by him again.
5. And finally, whatever I did, it had to hit him where he lived so it would leave a lasting impact.

The pieces of the plan formed, and as they did, a smile, no – a grin grew on my face that I’m sure would have frightened me if I looked in the rear-view mirror. As soon as I got home I went to the computer, fired up Google and Wikipedia, and started learning everything I could about lawns.

Collateral Damage

There I was – laying down in the backseat of the Chevy Vega, being propelled at a ludicrous speed down highway 215 halfway between Las Vegas and LA. In the front seats, Brent and his wife Nancy screamed at each other – foul, hurtful messages fired back and forth between them like well-placed sniper shots. Brent still wore the tuxedo he and I rented in Seal Beach only 72 hours before, and which he wore to the chapel on the way out of town. I stared out of the open window, counted telephone poles, and listened to the newlyweds verbally sodomize each other.

The hot wind blew in from all the windows and whipped around inside the car like a localized, superheated cyclone. I had my sunglasses on, and Brent and Nancy might have mistaken me for asleep, but I’m guessing they were so caught up in their fury that they didn’t even remember I was there. I laid there thinking that if it wasn’t for their unborn daughter, this could have been their last fight, their final battle before the annulment and subsequent emotional aftermath.

But Brent and Nancy weren’t going to split; they were going to continue fighting just like they had been for the past two years. And because they were bound by principal and obligation to provide a good home for their daughter they would try to get along the best they knew how - inside the same small apartment in the government subsidized complex in Orange County.

It’s in that apartment that their daughter would take her first steps, read her first book, and whisper in her daddy’s ear about the new, cute boy in her class. It was in that apartment that she’d spend the first nine years of her life before the decade-long war between her parents eroded their resolve to the point of mutual surrender. In the span of one Friday night, Nancy would pack two suitcases and she and her daughter would leave – for good. Brent would spend the remainder of the month gathering the fragments of his life into cardboard boxes – pulling pictures off of the walls, sorting through ten years of memories, and trying to make sense of a suddenly senseless world.

We pulled into Baker to get gas. Brent and Nancy both got out of the car and Nancy went to the bathroom while Brent pumped. Through the rear window I could see what Baker claims as the world’s tallest thermometer. It read 102 degrees. I grabbed the cooler from the floor of the back seat, got out of the car and walked over to Brent who was leaning against the pump. “What’s up?” I said. “I’m sorry Tommy. You’re witnessing one of our worse fights. And you know the craziest thing?” “what?: I said, “I don’t even remember what the hell we’re fighting about, but I know it’s not over.”

Man, if Brent could have known just how prophetic that was. We both stared out at the highway that was laid out straight as a die into the distant hills. We didn’t say anything, just stood looking at the heat waves boil up from the horizon. I watched dust devils dance along the desert floor and carry brownish-red plumes of sand hundreds of feet into the air, but my eyes kept coming back to that road. I don’t know what Brent was thinking about – probably his future, maybe a little about the past, but I’m almost certain that somewhere in there he was thinking about his unborn daughter because with all the heat, the sand blowing in our faces, the recent and impending fight with his new bride, he was still able to let a thin smile grow across his face.

I was thinking about how the child was going to be born into a loving but very volatile home – that the most peace this child might know between that moment and the time she leaves the nest was right there in the womb. I had known Brent for twenty years, and knew that he would never leave Nancy no matter how bad it all got – he just didn’t have it in him to look after his own interests above anyone else’s – his low self esteem simply wouldn’t allow it. The decision to break up would have to be mutual, but in the meantime, their daughter would sustain the emotional scars, the collateral damage of their seemingly endless skirmishes. I saw all of this on that road, and Brent must have as well, but judging from the smile on his face he had somehow found an oasis out there, and at least for the moment, it didn’t matter that it was only a mirage, because the good thoughts were winning over the bad.

I glanced up at the thermometer –104 degrees. “Don’t worry about me man, I can’t even hear what you guys are saying.” I lied and Brent just kept smiling and then turned his attention back to the pump. I started walking in the direction of the bathrooms and noticed that my shoes felt sticky on the as fault and I realized my soles were melting. Nancy was walking out of the women’s room as I approached, and she didn’t raise her eyes to meet mine – just looked down onto the smoldering ground. The bottoms of her $1.99 supermarket flip flops were turning into molten black goo, to the point that she had to pull them up with each step and they slapped against her heels as she walked. I thought about how we were all being consumed by something. That there were troubles in our lives that ate us from the inside out if we let them, and now – now we were being consumed by the desert with only a thin layer of galvanized latex separating us and the percolating planet beneath our feet. The wind whipped up a screen of dust which blew between us so that when we passed each other both our eyes were closed tight, but I could hear her sticky sandals, and thought I heard her say ‘hey.’ I said ‘hey’ just in case, but I didn’t put much behind it and I’m sure it was lost in the wind.

When I walked out of the bathroom Brent and Nancy were standing in a patch of shade beneath the mini-mart’s awning. The two of them were some couple – Brent with his tuxedo shirt and pants, Nancy with her t-shirt, shorts and flip flops. I swung around to the far side of the pump island and grabbed a soda from the cooler. I looked over at the two of them - expecting to see them fighting, but they weren’t. Nancy was wiping tears from her eyes which I’d seen plenty of times, but this time it was different. Brent was standing with one hand on Nancy’s shoulder, the other on the underside of Nancy’s belly. They were smiling and laughing as they shared feeling their daughter’s kicks for the first time.

I looked over my left shoulder at the world’s tallest thermometer which now read 106 degrees. From there, my eyes moved to that highway. A big dust devil spun sideways toward it about a mile or so in the distance. It might get rough I thought – but then we all knew that, and after all,it’s the only road we’ve got.


Listen to this story as a podcast HERE.

For Burney

Perhaps you’ve had the opportunity to be the first person on your block to own a really cool item. Did this propel you to the level of popularity you had hoped? I’ll sure bet it did. I remember when my neighbor, Burney was the first person on our block to get a powered lawn mower. It was 1970, and back then, powered mowers were usually reserved for lawn care professionals, those wealthy enough to have a lawn larger than a welcome mat, or, in Burney’s case, someone with a delicate self image who believed that owning cool things would make him likeable. Anyway, Burney’s new mower fulfilled every desire he had for popularity, and made him an instant celebrity. I’m surprised the local paper didn’t stop by to take a picture of him proudly perched over his ½ horsepower gleaming green beauty. Not only could he now mow his 350 square foot plot of sod in less than 45 seconds, but he could effectively scare every cat within ear shot into the next county. Yep – Burney was sitting on top of the world.

One afternoon while I was hanging out with Burney on his front steps, he brought out his little baggie of tobacco and rolled up his cigarette like he always did. He said he had to smoke outside because his wife didn’t let him smoke in the house. I was five years old – what did I know from tobacco? All I know is that whatever kind of tobacco he was smoking, it sure smelled a lot different than the kind of tobacco in my parent’s cigarettes. He used to smoke his cigarettes differently too – taking long drags on them and holding the smoke in his lungs for a really long time. Sometimes he’d burst out in coughing fits and have to take a slug out of his can of Coors to quiet himself. He'd take a long pull on the can, then fling his head forward with a resounding Ahhhhh. "Don't drink beer, Tommy. But when you're old enough, make sure it's cold. Ice cold." Yeah, Burney was a really funny guy. One day after smoking a cigarette on the porch he decided to mow his lawn. I reminded him that he had just mowed it before lunch, but he didn’t seam to want to listen to me. He just laughed a little, pulled the rip cord on the mower and started her up. He started coughing again as the mower blew exhaust toward him, so he walked away from the mower to get his Coors. As soon as his back was turned, the mower started moving forward. It rolled straight off the lawn, over the sidewalk, off the curb and into the street right in front of a car. The car managed to stop with a skid and Burney looked toward the sound, dropped his Coors, and ran into the street. He was a fast runner for an old guy of 30 or so, but not fast enough to grab the mower before a car coming from the other direction smashed into it and sent it sailing 50 feet through the air and careening off a parked van.

Some of our neighbors heard the raucous, and came out to see what was happening. Both drivers from the cars ran over to Burney who was frantically trying to turn what was left of the mower off. I don’t know why, but it took three people two minutes or so to shut down that engine. I stayed on the curb, watching the whole incident go down. I remember the three men trying to yell above the noise of the mower, all the while black smoke billowed from the exhaust. They finally shut it down and lifted it onto the sidewalk. They talked for a while, exchanged their versions of what had just gone down. During the commotion my mom ran out of the house, thinking the car skid and resulting casualty may have been me. She stood next to me until things calmed down a little then took my hand and brought me back inside our apartment.

The next day I walked over to Burney’s house and found him working in his garage. He had several Coors lined up along his workbench, and was bent over the warped carcass of his mower, sweating and talking to himself. I didn’t say anything. I sat on a stool and watched him for about twenty minutes. He didn’t even know I was there. Finally he glanced toward me and blinked. “Hi Tommy.” He said. “Hi.” I replied. “Is it broken?” I asked. “Naw, just banged up a little.” Burney said, looking back down at the heap of twisted metal. “Heck of a wreck though yesterday, huh? Did you see how this thing flew when that car hit it?” “Yup.” I said. Burney paused, looked past me for a moment as if he was formulating a thought, then gave me a half smile. “You’ll probably tell this story to your kids someday.” He said. At that age I had no real concept of time or any notion that I’d ever be a father. “Uh huh.” I said. “Well, do me a favor if you do tell this to someone okay?” “Uh huh.” I said. “Tell them that I got the mower up and running the next day, and it worked just fine. Will ya do that for me?” “Sure.” I said. “Thanks Tommy. You’re a good boy.” And with that, Burney leaned back over the mower, tightened a couple of bolts and started it up. It looked and ran just like new; and Burney spent the rest of the afternoon mowing every lawn along our street; stopping only occasionally to take a sip of ice cold beer offered by his gracious neighbors.