A Stranger

A strange man came into my bar last night. He was old, probably late sixties or early seventies. I didn’t see any lights pulling into the parking lot, so I guessed he’d been walking. That’s not unusual; we get a lot of folks from the nearby apartments walking in, wanting to hedge their bets against the cops. The story he told though, now that was unusual. I’m getting a little ahead of myself though.

The bar was empty both before and after he came in. We’re not exactly a booming place here in El Paso anyways, but this close to the holidays we’re pretty much always dead – everyone wants to save their money for presents, not spend it on beer.

I heard the door jingle – the stupid little decorations the bartenders put up when I’m not around – and looked up to see this old man walk in, covered in jackets and looking like he’d never met a razor before in his life. My first thought, of course, was that he was a bum; we get a few of those around every once in a while, and I’m more than willing to buy them a beer or two for doing odd jobs around the place.

Something about him told me that he was different though. Maybe it was the way that he walked, or something in his eyes, but he wasn’t a regular, run-of-the-mill bum. He sat down at the bar and I walked over to him.

“What can I get you?” I asked as I finished drying the glass I’d been washing.

His accent was strange; not quite British, definitely not American, but it was clear enough to where I could tell he’d at least grown up speaking English.

“I’ll have a … oh, what do you people call it … oh, that’s right. I’ll have a ‘beer’.” His voice was pleasant, happy, not the near-bitter tone that most of our patrons have. I gave him his beer, and he paid me from a large wad of bills that I wouldn’t have expected given his appearance. He put a twenty in the tip jar, and sipped his beer with a sigh of relief.

I went back to my cleaning, letting him drink in peace while I washed glasses and mopped behind the bar. It was mostly busy work; there wasn’t much to clean up, since there hadn’t been any customers earlier in the day or the night before. He called me over for another beer, and I poured it for him. This time, when he offered to pay, I waved him off.

“Don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house,” I told him, and he smiled. He paused for a moment, as if trying to find the right words, and then his expression brightened.

“That’s right,” he said, “‘Thank you’. I knew I’d remember.”

I wiped the bar off to one side of him – again, just busy work. “So, where you from?” I asked. It was obvious that he wasn’t from here, or from any country I could guess. That didn’t mean much; around here, the only two languages I ever heard were English and Spanish, and it’s not like I’ve toured the world or anything.

He smiled, a warm, knowing smile, and sipped from his mug before he spoke again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, and something in his voice made me think he was right.

“Well,” I said, setting my rag down on a shelf behind the bar. “Try me. I hear a lot of crazy stories in this place; I’m sure one more won’t hurt.”

He laughed. “No, no. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt. But…”

I laughed a little. Truth was I was dead bored, and he could’ve told me he was from the moon and I would’ve probably listened intently. “Well, try me anyways,” I repeated. He sighed, and was silent long enough that I almost thought he’d fallen asleep. Eventually, though, he looked up, a smile still lighting his face and an intensity in his eyes that almost scared me.

“I am,” he began, “a refugee, as your people would call it.” Great, I thought. We’re going to have immigration beating down the door now. I almost kicked him out right then, but he raised his hand before I could say anything.

“Not quite the right word, but close enough,” he said, and I relaxed a little bit. At least I could hear him out.

“I come from a place that isn’t unlike this one, or, at least, it used to be quite similar. Better, actually, but I won’t get into that. It … it doesn’t matter any more anyways.” He said this last part with a distant hurt, and was silent again for a brief moment before continuing.

“My ‘country’,” he said, with the same excitement he’d had earlier over finding the right words, “is currently in the middle of a … ‘revolution’, I believe you call it. I have been lucky enough to … escape. To find my way to your land, one I’d heard of many times but only recently truly believed existed. I must say, I’m quite pleased I made it, too. This place is … nice.”

“You obviously haven’t been here very long,” I said. He laughed.

“No, not long at all. Only a few … ‘hours’,” he said.

I didn’t know what to make of his story. I’ve never paid much attention to the news, so I didn’t know what countries were fighting at the moment. There was something about him that sounded reliable though (and yes, that’s gotten me into trouble before, too), and I figured I’d at least give him the benefit of the doubt. I was going to ask him some questions, but he continued before I could start.

“The place I come from is … scarred, you could say. I’ve come here seeking refuge, to finish out my life in what peace I may be able to find.” He took a sip from his beer, and a look of surprised anguish came over his face. I almost laughed; it was terribly melodramatic, but he took me by the arm with a grip that seemed unnaturally strong for such an old man.

“They’re coming,” he gasped. I stifled a laugh; it was like something out of a bad movie, but the fear in his eyes could only have been real. He stood up and threw a wad of bills on the counter.

“Tell no one I was here,” he said, his voice strained. Before I could say anything, he walked out the door.

I looked at the money he left on the counter – at least two hundred dollars, just from what I could tell at a quick glance. I had to catch him; I could keep my mouth shut for free, he didn’t need to give me a month’s worth of profits for that, especially this close to Christmas.

Even as fast as I ran out the door though, he was gone. I looked up and down the street, and couldn’t see him anywhere. I even ran up to one corner, didn’t see him down that street, and ran back to the other corner. Nothing.

I went back inside and counted the money, which I’d foolishly left on the counter. Thankfully no one had come in during my search, as he’d left a total of three hundred, forty-five dollars to pay for a two-dollar mug of beer. Nice tip…

Roughly a minute after I’d put the cash in my pocket (there was no way I was letting that much money slip into the tax man’s hands), two GI’s came in. They were dressed in civilian clothes, but this is a military town as much as it’s a border town; you can spot a military man a mile away once you’ve been here for a while. They both sat down at the bar and ordered a soda each.

They didn’t say much to me, but they eyed the place much more carefully than a normal customer would. One went to the restroom as soon as I set their drinks down; he returned a few moments later looking a little strange. Disappointed? Relieved? I couldn’t tell.

I couldn’t really get anything from their conversation, either. They talked about Iraq, about UTEP’s football team, about the Dallas Cowboys. It was a little forced, like they were putting up a front, but it was also well practiced. Had I not had such a strange visitor earlier in the night, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed. As it was though, my nerves were a little on edge, and I probably paid them more attention than necessary.

They didn’t stay but for the one soda, and left me a two dollar tip. When they were leaving, though, I heard – maybe just my imagination, I won’t deny it – one of them whisper “Not here; he’s probably back already.” Then he grunted something, and they got into their car (a plain civilian make) and took off.

Never saw the GI’s or that stranger again.

I did hear on the news later that night about a homeless man they’d found dead on a park bench downtown though, and it made me think of him. Hope it wasn’t; he seemed like a decent guy. Maybe a little too loose with his cash, but I ain’t complaining.

Want to find out what happens next? Go to http://matthewcory.com/2008/12/13/the-note/.

Coffee

It was warm for a winter day, even in El Paso, where the temperatures were often over fifty degrees in December.  The sun was shining brightly, and the soft breeze was cold enough to remind me that it was still winter, whatever the temperature may be

I sat, staring out the window of Denny’s, my usual haunt, looking at the dusting of snow on the mountains and sipping my coffee.  For a Saturday afternoon, there was little else I could wish for between the beautiful weather, the gorgeous scenery, and the bottomless cup of absurdly strong coffee.  That’s what I thought at that moment, at least, right before she walked in the door.

From her uniform, it was obvious she was a waitress.  Between never having seen her in there before, and the cautious look in her eyes, it was also obvious that she was a new employee starting one of her first days on the job.  She smiled at me as she walked past to go to the kitchen; dazed, I only stared at her.  By the time I got my mouth to form itself into a smile, only the door she’d walked through was there to see it, still swinging gently from her passing.

Even from that brief glance as she walked past, she was fixed firmly in my mind: long, dark hair, tied back in a pony tail that, though beautiful, did her little justice; a warm and slender face, eyes lit brightly from that quick smile; a slight figure with enough curves to be seductive, but still the light frame of a runner or dancer.

She returned through the door, and stood behind the counter, trying to figure out what to do first.  As she looked at me, I raised my coffee mug to her, even though it was still half full.  She turned to get the coffee pot for a refill, and I quickly downed what was left in my mug, unmindful of the scalding temperature as it scorched my throat.

Now’s your chance, I thought to myself as she poured my coffee.  Unfortunately, my mouth was still in excruciating pain from draining the coffee so quickly, and all I could stammer out was something akin to “Mmmph ahhgh glurrrrg.”  She laughed, a light and playful laugh that made me smile in spite of myself, probably making me look further as though I were mentally challenged than I already did.

“Are you okay?” she asked.  I took a second to make sure my toungue was working properly, thankful that she waited for me to speak.

“Yeah, just … that last cup was a little warm.  Are you new?” I asked, though I knew full well that she was; I was simply trying to keep her at my table as long as possible, though I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why.

“Yeah, second day.  That obvious?”

“No, just never seen you before.  You’re doing good so far.”

“Thanks, but I just came on the clock.  Let’s see if I break more dishes today than yesterday before we say anything though.”  We both laughed, and I knew I’d be drinking more than my fair share of coffee that day.

And I did.  I drank my share, and her share, and your share.  And I came in the next day after work and did the same thing, and every day after that.  It surprised me; most waitresses would’ve thought I was stalking them, and grown quite leary of me within a couple of days.  She was different, and seemed to enjoy my company (for some reason) more and more as time passed.

It was some time later that things changed, as they normally do in spring time.  The leaves were turning green, the wind was picking up, the rains were starting, and the temperatures rose higher and higher.  I came in one day as I always did, and waited patiently for her to arrive.  Much to my disappointment, she didn’t — another waitress came in her spot, an older woman who, though somewhat attractive, was also about as cuddly as steel wool.  I drank a single cup of coffee and left, wondering what had happened to the woman I’d grown quite fond of over the period of a few months.

Of course I’d never gotten her phone number, nor did I learn her last name.  And why should I?  She was a constant; she was always there at the restaurant at a given time, on specific days of the week.  Eventually, I found out she’d left for a different job, with better pay and better hours.  I was happy for her, though I missed her greatly.  I also stopped going to that restaurant as frequently, and my stomach was thankful I’d stopped the constant onslaught of their bitter coffee.

Quite by accident — literally — things changed yet again with the season.  As summer brought it’s triple-digit days and nights of monsoon rains, I found myself at a red light one evening in a torrential downpour.  I could hardly see the lines in the road, and though initially shocked by the impact, I wasn’t terribly surprised when I got rear-ended.  It was not good driving weather, and it was only because I’d run out of (of all things) coffee for the mornings that I’d been out.

Though the accident itself wasn’t much of a surprise, the beautiful, slender face in the car that had hit me was.  It was my waitress, and her expression changed from a grimace of fear and regret to a bright smile when she realized who it was she’d run into.  Finally, I had the nerve and the chance to find out her phone number, and found many excuses over the next couple of days to call her — an extra fee for this, another ding here that I’d pay for anyways, just wanted to let her know, so on and so forth.

That was two years ago, this summer, and there wasn’t a chance I’d let her get away this time.  I invited her out to coffee for the first date, and by the third date we’d decided that we would do much better as husband and wife than as customer and waitress.  Now, every morning as we get up for work — of all things, she’d quit her job as a waitress for a job as an auto insurance claims adjuster — I pour her cup of coffee for her, and she tips me with a kiss.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

After watching another hour and a half of television, Janet fell silent and a soft, whispering snore came from her side of the couch.  He couldn’t help but smile.  Earlier, he’d found her more than attractive, beautiful and graceful, and after it was “out in the open” he could admit to himself that he had found her as sexually appealing as she knew she was.

Now, she looked like a little kid who’d tried to tay up all night just to see the sun rise.

He shook her foot gently.

“Janet.  Janet.  Wake up.”  She mumbled incoherently and opened her eyes, absently wiping a thin trickle of drool from the corner of her mouth and he held back a soft wave of laughter.

“Wha…Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“I’m sorry Rob.”

“Not a problem.  Here, I’ll help you to bed.”

“Yeah, thanks.”  He helped her to her feet, holding her arm as she struggled to find her balance.

“Where to?”

“Just down the hall there.  Gimme a second here.”  She eyed the couch sleepily for a moment and finally noticed the remote sitting on the coffee table.  She turned off the television and the lamp, and then started haltingly down the hall, making sure Rob was with her.

They reached her bedroom, and she looked up at him, eyeing him with playful suspicion for a moment.  “If I invite you in for a second, you’re not going to think I’m going back on what I said earlier, are you?”

“No, of course not,” he lied.

“Liar.”  She smiled though.  “It’s okay; I’m not going back on what I said, but if you can keep that in mind, you can come and tuck me in.”  She turned towards the door, paused, and turned back.  “I almost forgot,” she said as she looked up at him again.

In that brief moment, looking into eyes that he could now see were as deep a green as any pine forest had ever been, he felt a quick, nauseating vertigo, as though looking down from a great height into a sea of emeralds, though much clearer and darker than any gemstones his twenty-one years had shown him.  She grabbed his hand lightly, pulling him from the sea he was happily drowning in, and placed her other hand gently behind his head.  Before he knew what was happening, their lips were touching gently, firmly and lovingly, in a kiss he would measure all future kisses by.

“That’s for a wonderful date, Rob.  I had a great time tonight.”  He briefly wondered where the words were coming from before realizing that she had pulled away.  His mind raced, searching hundreds of great movie quotes for the perfect line to seal this night with.  Finally it had one, but his mouth betrayed him.

“Me too.”  Idiot, he thought.  Surely, out of all the movies where a beautiful woman surprises a guy with a kiss, there had to be one-just one-line that was a little better than “Me too.”

Janet didn’t seem to care though; she smiled up at him again, and gave him another, quick and light kiss.  “I’m still not going back on what I said though,” she said as she turned back towards her bedroom door.

Part of him hoped she was lying, just being coy.  He found the rest of him hoped it too.

“Wait here a second while I change.”  She shut the door gently.

“Sure,” he said, as though there were really much of a choice in the matter.

He looked at the walls of the hallway, sparsely decorated but with a couple of pictures hanging slightly off-center.  He adjusted one of a happy, older couple he assumed were her parents, sitting in front of a tree, holding each other comfortably.  Another he left crooked, one of a girl that looked like a slightly older version of Janet sat smiling peacefully in a swing at some park he didn’t recognize.  Lisa, that’s her name, he reminded himself, assuming that the girl in the picture was Janet’s sister.

There were other pictures and hangings adorning the walls, but none of guys, other than whom he had figured was her father.  At least he didn’t have to worry about an overly protective brother assaulting him.

The door clicked open behind him, and Janet peeked her head into the hallway modestly.

“One more second.”  She ducked back into her room, and he could hear her climbing into bed.  “Okay, come on in,” she called, and he went through the still-open door.

The room was mostly what he’d expected: some clothes lying on the floor and over the back of a chair, a few crystal unicorns and similar novelties, a light floral patterned bed set, standard post-teenage fare.  No posters of teen idols or the male equivalents of unrealistically proportioned females adorned the walls; a calendar of puppies hanging over an aging white metal and wood desk was about the closest to “girly” decorations as she seemed interested in.

She reached over and turned on the bedside lamp.  “Could you hit that switch?”  She indicated the light switch behind him, and he turned and flipped it off.  “Okay, thanks.  Come here.”  He sat down next to her, mildly nervous and yet completely comfortable at the same time.

He wanted to say something, anything to keep the night from dying the painful, awkward death of a first kiss.  Instead, he studied his shoes.  He wanted to kiss her again, and while he had to admit that it was at least partly to make her rethink her early assurances against an intimate encounter, he also wanted it solely for the sake of the kiss.  He realized she was humming, an old song that wasn’t that far from his mind either.

“That’s a pretty song,” he said.  He looked up and saw that she was staring at him intently, a placid, knowing smile on her face.  “If you ask me nicely, I might play it for you some time.”

“Only if I can call you Sam when I ask.”

“Only when you ask me to play it again.”

“Of all the coffee shops, in all the towns, in all the world, you had to walk into mine.”  He was silent for a moment.

“You’re wrong though.  The song, I mean.  That wasn’t just a kiss.”  The words came out more seriously than he’d intended, but still she looked at him peacefully.

“Wasn’t it?”  He only looked at her in response, not trusting his mouth to keep from ruining the moment.  She took his hand and gently pulled him closer.  “I don’t think it was either.”  Her voice was soft, seductive, and driving him crazy with a desire he’d never felt before, not of that magnitude.

He looked in her eyes and saw a sudden fragility, a vulnerable ripple in the deep green sea as she leaned in closer to him.  Janet put her arms around his neck and kissed him again, more patiently but more affectionately as well.

After what seemed both hours and only seconds, she ended the kiss and rested her head on his shoulder.  He held her, enjoying the soft, warm feathers of her breath on his neck.

“Rob?” she whispered into his ear.

“Yes, Janet?”  She pulled away, and he looked into her eyes again, eyes still filled with heartbreaking vulnerability.

“You’re still not getting any.”  He laughed in spite of himself, and she smiled.  The frailty had left her eyes now, and he was thankful.  He didn’t know if he could stand to see it much longer.

“But,” she continued, placing a hand on his forearm, “I’d appreciate it if you would hold me for a while until I go to sleep.”

“I would be honored to,” he replied with a light hearted formality.  He took off his shoes as she edged over to the other side of the bed.

“By the way,” she said as he lay down next to her.  “You were wrong too.”  He looked at her curiously.  “No one ever asks Sam to ‘play it again,’ Ilsa just asks him to play it.”  He smiled at her.  She laid her head on his shoulder, and it fit as though they were two halves finally combined.  He stroked her hair gently as they lay in comfortable silence.

“Sleep well, Janet,”

“Goodnight, Rob.”  He could tell by her muffled tone she was already mostly asleep, and he lay there, running his hand gently through her soft, black hair until he too fell asleep not long after.

He woke in darkness, not realizing he’d been asleep.  A certainty that the night had been a dream struck him with almost painful force.  Janet stirred softly, warm at his side, assuring him that she had been real at least.  At some point in the night, she had merely woken and shut off the lamp, not wanting to disturb him, let alone make him leave.

He smiled in the darkness and pulled her closer.<–>

Like Glass: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Between thoughts of Janet’s hair dancing in the streetlights (entirely imagined; he’d paid rather little attention to her hair once they’d started walking) and his incessant self-cursing for not even asking for her phone number, it was quite some time before Rob’s mind had let him rest that night.  He woke the next morning around noon, and went straight to the TV, flipping through the handful of channels he actually received on the cheap television’s built-in antenna.  He turned it off after hour, worked up the nerve to open his political science book, closed it, and turned the TV back on.  He repeated this process several times before giving up.

It just wasn’t any use; he had a hard enough time focusing on the books as it was, let alone with his new distraction dancing gracefully in the back of his mind.  Not that he had any idea how Janet danced, but he didn’t let that stop his imagination.  Knowing that sitting in front of the television with his books in front of him was pointless, he changed into some mostly-clean jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed some of the music Dr. Bishop had assigned him, and headed to the practice rooms on campus.

Regardless of his lack of study habits in other academic areas, he practiced regularly, almost religiously.  Although much of the time he hardly considered it “practice”-he just liked to play-his near constant desire to “hit the rooms” had placed him head and shoulders above much of the fellow pianists at the school.

He considered himself fairly lucky, living only a half mile from the college, saving him worries about parking (as well as much of the necessity for a car).  He walked under the warm spring sky, mostly overcast but bright and unthreatening, humming softly to himself and letting his mind wander.

It was a walk he took often, so he was able to make the short journey in the mindless motions of habit, his feet tracing the same steps they’d made countless times.  Oblivious to the world around him, his mind bounced back and forth between trying to decide what he’d work on in practice, the tests he was supposed to be studying for, and Janet, never staying on one subject or the other for too long.

Without realizing he’d finished the short walk, he opened the door to the large, single story faux-adobe building that housed most of the fine arts departments and traced the familiar path through the maze of offices and lecture rooms to the handful of small, soundproof nooks that housed the pianos.  Finding all of them unoccupied-entirely normal for a Saturday, as most of the other students were tending to their own weekend business-he chose one with a fairly well-kept baby grand and shut the door behind him.  After an obligatory flourish of scales and arpeggios for a pretense of warming up, he played.

As he played, his mind let go of Janet and studying.  With the echoes of the piano strings bouncing off the acoustic tiling and his arms and fingers racing like mad up and down the keys, his head cleared and nothing existed but the music.  He paused only long enough in between pieces to decide the next one to play, sometimes from the music he’d brought, sometimes from memory, sometimes entirely improvised.

When he finished, he smiled at the keys and gently pulled the cover shut.  He knew he’d probably never make a dime as a pianist-a fact his mother constantly reminded him of-but he didn’t care.  Part of him even looked forward to living the starving-artist lifestyle, the romanced version shown in movies where the artist is always penniless but somehow able to buy food and pay rent.

“I thought that was you,” a woman said from behind him, startling him.  Caught up in the music, he hadn’t heard Dr. Bishop open the door.  He turned to see her smiling in the doorway.

“Hi professor.  I didn’t think you’d be here today.”

“Ah, how easily they forget,” she said in mock exasperation.  He said nothing, just looked at her curiously.  “The concert?  Tomorrow night?  I figured you’d forgotten, since you weren’t playing your ballade.  Either that or you were trying to forget.”

“No, I’d forgotten about it.  Had some…other things on my mind.”

“I see.  Well, now you can remember.  The Rachmaninoff is sounding good, by the way.  You’re still running your triplets together a little, but it’s better than it was last month.”  He blushed slightly at her praise.  “How is the ballade going, anyways?  Are you still having problems with the end?”

“A little.”

“Well, I’m not supposed to do this ‘after hours’, but I need a break-I’m getting tired of going over the scholarship applications.  Run through it once and let me see how it’s going.”

He played the ballade for her once, his arms already tired from his earlier practice but able to keep it going until the last notes bounced dully off the acoustic paneling.  When he finished, she smiled and nodded at him.

“Robert, that was excellent.  You’ll do fine.”

“The ending?”

“You hit one bad note; that’s it.  It’s one of Chopin’s most challenging pieces-I know concert pianists who wouldn’t have gotten it quite that well.  You’re going to do great tomorrow.  In fact…no, I better not tell you.”  She gave him a sly smile.  He looked at her, puzzled.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything, especially when you were already worried about the piece, but…”  She sighed, resigning herself to say what she’d apparently thought better to hold in.  “You remember meeting Roger Smolenska, from the symphony?”

Rob nodded cautiously; Smolenska was the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.  Dr. Bishop had introduced the two of them in September, before the orchestra had started its season and was visiting the music department to offer lessons and advice.

“Well, Mr. Smolenska is going to be there tomorrow night, looking for bright young musicians-pianists in this case-for an internship next year.  I’d specifically suggested he come tomorrow night, instead of sending Blankenship-their keyboard chair-to watch you.”  She laughed as his eyes grew large.  “No pressure Robert, you’ll do great.”

“Yeah, no pressure at all.”

After a few moments of trying to be responsible and ignoring whoever might be trying to sell him new phone service or refinance his house, he grabbed the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Hey, you sorry son of a bitch.”

“Hi Bill.”  Rob struggled to remember why he’d once thought it a good idea to give his brother his phone number.  He knew there must’ve been a good reason at some time, but he was at a loss.

“Hey, sorry about your date last night.”

“Yeah, what happened?”

“She got tied up.  You wouldn’t have liked her anyways; she’s terrible in the sack.”

“Well, why’d you bother?”

“I didn’t know until last night.  Anyways, where were you?  I tried to call you after she left, about nine.”

He started to answer and stopped himself.  For some reason, it didn’t seem like a good idea to tell his brother about his new friend.

“Out.”

“Who was she?”

“Am I that transparent?”

“Like glass.  The only reason you won’t tell me what’s up is if it involves a girl.  So what happened?  You bang her?”

“No, I didn’t.  Just a girl I met at the coffee shop while I was being stood up by what’s her name.”

“Christy.  Why didn’t you bang her?”  That was Bill, the hopeless romantic.

“Man, I just met her last night.”

“So?  Is she a dyke or something?”

“No, just…”

“Relax, I’m just busting your sack man.  Anyways, what do you got going on tonight?”  Rob looked around at his room, his eyes catching the poorly stacked pile of textbooks on his desk.

“I need to study; I’ve got four tests this week.  Big ones.”

“Whatever bitch.  C’mon, let’s go out.  Get drunk, get some chicks, pass out.  Maybe even in that order this time.”

“Sorry Bill, I can’t.”

“Whatever man.  I’ll be over there in an hour.”

“Not tonight, I really can’t.  We’ll hang out some other time.  I really need to study tonight.”

“Alright, whatever.  I’ll call you later.”  Bill hung up before he had a chance to mention the concert.

He did need to study, but, as earlier, was having a hard time concentrating.  His mind kept drifting past the books and the impending concert to a certain girl behind the coffee shop counter.  He eyed his text books.

This is the stupidest excuse in the world.  You know that, right? And he did know that.  He kept that thought planted firmly in his mind as he dressed, grabbed his books, and started out the door.

By the time he arrived at the coffee shop it was still early enough in the evening for a fair amount of daylight, though the spring air was starting to chill.  Before much longer, he knew this time of day would be miserably hot, but for now it was pleasant as he sat on the patio outside.

He’d ordered his coffee, passing behind Janet as she helped a customer at one of the tables.  The man at the counter-probably a nice and interesting guy but nowhere near as pretty as Janet-gave him his coffee and took his money before Rob walked back out to sit down and enjoy a cigarette in the light April breeze.  Because that’s all he was there for: just a smoke and some coffee while he studied.  Like any other customer.  Of course.

He gazed intently at his political science book, going back and forth from one meaningless column of text to another as he sat, sipping his coffee and smoking.  After half an hour of carrying on this charade, a familiar laugh came from behind him like an old friend.

“This is quite interesting.  Fancy seeing you around these parts again, stranger.  Refill?”  Janet stood over him suddenly, a knowing smile on her face and a pot of coffee in her hand.

“Sure, I think I’d like that.  On the coffee too, if you don’t mind.”  As soon as he spoke, he thought there was little else he could’ve said that would have been quite so stupid, but she laughed coyly at him.

“Well, we’ll work on the coffee for now.  Find your way home okay last night?”

“Yeah, I managed.”

“I’ll bet.”  She filled his coffee cup again and he thanked her.

“Listen, uh, Janet, I was wondering…”  She stopped and looked at him expectantly, still smiling.  “Um, do you have any plans tonight?”

“Well, I don’t know…I guess it depends on why you’re asking.”

“I…uh…I wanted to see if you wanted to do something, maybe catch a movie or something like that.”

“Hmmmm…  I don’t know.  I have that dinner with the governor, and I am about to go on tour to promote my new CD and fashion line, but I think I can fit you in somewhere.”  He laughed softly.

“When could I pick you up?”

“I get off in fifteen minutes-Raoul’s closing up tonight.  I think City of Angels is playing down the street, if you want to see it.”

“Sounds great.”  She could’ve suggested they spend the evening slowly removing layers of his skin and rinsing him in battery acid; it still would’ve sounded great at the moment.

“Are we walking?  It’s not a problem if we are,” she added quickly, placing a reassuring hand on his arm as a brief flush came over his face.  “I just want to know so I know whether to put on heels or flats.”

“Yeah, I think we’ll probably be walking tonight.”

“Great.  So, give me about an hour, maybe?  So I can change.  Just meet me at my house.”

“Sounds great.  I’ll see you then.”  She smiled at him, a warm, deep smile that seemed to come straight from the heart.

“Great.  I need to get back to work.”  As if to enforce this point, Raoul (or at least who Rob assumed was Raoul) started yelling at her from inside.  She rolled her eyes, gave him another quick flash of that deep smile, and rushed back inside.

Rob left his half-finished coffee steaming on the table and hurried home.  He showered quickly, changed back into his slacks from the night before, and found a different slightly-wrinkled shirt.

He searched wildly for enough cash to make the night at least somewhat decent, and finally found a total of twenty-three dollars and seventy-two cents.  They wouldn’t be making a big night of it-probably have to get the cheap limo and only two bottles of Dom Perignon.  But they’d at least get into the show and have enough cash for some snacks and a soda.  With just enough time to make it to her house as she finished getting ready, he started out the door.

The movie had been decent, what little of it Rob remembered.  He’d spent most of the night in an embarrassing school-boy daze, wondering if he should grab her hand or put his arm around her.  In the end, he had merely spent the movie sitting there thinking.

Walking home with her was more comfortable by far than sitting next to her in the theater.  He was quite thankful he’d paid some attention to the movie, as Janet had thought it quite worth talking about.  While he wasn’t giving a review worthy of Siskel and Ebert, he managed to hold up his end as they walked under the few stars and the streetlights of the city.  Before long though, the moment he’d dreaded had come, and they found themselves in front of her house again.

“Seems shorter from the movies.”

She smiled; he was starting to love that smile.  “Yeah, well, I figured I couldn’t pull that one on you two nights in a row.”

“You should have.  It was nice.”

She looked up at him, the gravity in her eyes contrasting with the friendly smile below.  “Yes, it was.”  They stared at each other for a moment, neither wishing to speak, both wanting to say something.

Finally, Rob broke the silence with the only thing that came to mind.  “It’s getting late, I should be going.”

“Well, wait.  Would you like to come in?  Maybe for some coffee or something?”

“I think I’ve had a bit too much coffee for a couple of days now.”  She laughed.  He was starting to love that laugh too.

“Well, maybe not coffee, but just come in, hang out?”

“Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

“Me too.”  She took his hand and led him inside.

The inside of chez Edwards was far from spotless, but it still made his humble abode seem like the work of an abstract sculptor working in laundry and used pizza boxes.  Rob found it to be quite comfortable; a few plates left on the coffee table, some pots piled up in the kitchen sink, a few jackets scattered on the floor.  For some reason he’d been sure the place would be fresh from a Home and Garden photo shoot, and a bit of clutter relaxed him.

At least, as relaxed as he could have been after an attractive young woman invited him into her home after their first date.  If she saw through him now, saw that his mind was racing with many potential (and very adolescent) scenarios of what would happen next, he’d be explaining the red, hand-shaped mark on his face for months to come.

If she saw through him, though, she gave no sign.  Neither did she seem very nervous about having a strange young man in her house and apparently alone with her.  She also didn’t jump on him and start ripping off his clothes either, which was somewhat unfortunate-his adolescent fantasies would have to wait a little longer.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink?  I can make some coffee; I think we have tea, or soda.”  She stood just outside the kitchen, the overhead light behind her turning her into a graceful silhouette.  He didn’t realize he was speechless until he heard her speak again, the smile evident in her voice, with a slight touch of concern coloring it.

“Rob?  You okay?”

“Yeah, uh, tea will be fine.”

“Okay.  Go ahead and have a seat.”  Her silhouetted hand motioned behind him, and he turned and sat down on the couch.  Moments later she returned with two glasses of iced tea, turned on the lamp, and sat at the opposite end of the couch, her knees up to her chest and her feet towards him.  “Could you hand me the remote?”  She pointed towards the coffee table, near where he was sitting.  After a moment’s searching, he found it right in front of him and handed it to her.  She turned on the television.

“Never anything good on,” she said after flipping through the channels for a few moments.  Rob sipped nervously at his tea-it was good, not the best he’d ever had, but still good.  Not that he’d complain anyways.

His mind struggled for something to say and drew a blank.  Finally she found a halfway decent comedy and set the remote down.  He soon found himself laughing with her, feeling more at home in less than a half hour at her house than he had in the months since he’d moved into his own place.

After a few moments, he noticed something wrong, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.  Then it dawned on him:  Janet wasn’t laughing anymore.  He glanced over at her, meeting a somewhat shocked stare.

As he realized he’d been rubbing her feet and stopped, he also realized that her surprised expression wasn’t one of disgust, but that of one who just found a letter in the mail from a nearly forgotten but well loved friend.

“No, no, don’t stop!  My feet were killing me.”  He blushed slightly, but smiled and resumed his work.

“My mom used to be a waitress for a while,” he said in a feeble attempt at playing it off.  “I know it’s a little tough on the feet.”

“Well, you do a great job.  If you can do windows, you’re hired.  If you can do the dishes and you look good in a Speedo while you’re doing them, we might even let you have some table scraps every once in a while.”  He squeezed her foot harder and she let out a squealing laugh he found almost as beautiful as her normal laughter.  “Okay, table scraps every night.”  He squeezed again, and she squealed louder.  “No Speedo, either!  Okay?  No Speedo!”

“Deal,” he agreed, both of them laughing now.  Once they calmed down, he asked one of the questions that had been burning in the back of his mind since she invited him inside.

“So, where’s…?”  He couldn’t think of the name, but Janet finished for him.

“Lisa?  She’s at a party.  So to answer the question I know you’ll ask next and the one I know you won’t: yes, we’re alone, and no, you’re not getting any.”  He blushed fiercely at this, although he hadn’t thought he had planned to ask either of those.  She laughed again; from anyone else he would have found that laugh at that time to be mocking, but from her it was still beautiful.  “Relax tiger; I know you’re a guy and the thought has probably crossed your mind quite a bit since we came in.”

Rob said nothing, but smiled a thin, sheepish smile.

“I wanted to say something earlier and get it out of the way, but there wasn’t a chance without sounding like a bitch.  So, now that’s out in the open, do you think we can relax a little?”

He found that they could.<-->

Like Glass: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Rarely was Bill one to try and set Rob up with a date.  Occasionally he’d find a girl that might be interested in his younger brother, or that he thought Rob would like, but it invariably became another conquest of his own.  Knowing that made this blind date seem all the more interesting as Rob walked in the late April evening to a coffee shop on Los Valles Avenue, tucked away in one of the lower-rent areas of town and only a few blocks from his apartment.

He knew the coffee shop somewhat well; he’d spent a handful of evenings there on the patio outside, sipping the cheapest special they had at the time and smoking while other students came and went.  Sometimes he’d sit there with a book or two studying for a test when he got tired of staring at the walls of his apartment; sometimes it was just somewhere to go.

Had it not been for Bill’s insistence that this girl was Absolutely Perfect for Rob he wouldn’t have gone; blind dates were not exactly his idea of how to best spend a Friday night.  However, knowing that Bill was hardly one to exaggerate when it came to issues of the fairer sex, Rob set aside his books for the night.  He put on the single pair of dress pants he owned and a shirt that was only slightly wrinkled, and made his way in a mixture of curiosity, anticipation, and the God-I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this self consciousness that stems from blind dates.

While he walked, he tried picturing the “devilishly hot” girl that would be waiting.  It was difficult, as “devilishly hot” had been all that Bill had given him to work with.  He tried for a moment to think of past girls that Bill had so designated, and knew it was pointless at the size of the list he made with only a moment’s thought: one-hundred pound brunette waifs, athletic blondes, and even a redhead that had been at least twice Rob’s size had all fit that description from his brother at one time or another.  He gave up trying and left Ms. Absolutely Perfect to the fates.

He opened the door to the coffee shop, the aroma of cappuccinos and lattes filling the air, suddenly aware that he couldn’t remember the girl’s name-Missy, Trixie, Kristy, something like that.  He wasn’t terribly worried though; he knew he could play it off by looking around stupidly and making it obvious that he didn’t know who he was looking for.  She’d come up to him and say “Rob?  Hi, I’m…” and fill in the blank for him.

The interior of the shop was deserted, save for one rather large guy about Rob’s own age, staring intently at a text book as though it held the secret to the universe.  If the guy in the corner was Bill’s idea of an Absolutely Perfect girl, this would most likely be a fairly short-lived blind date.

Seeing no other patrons and no specials marked on the black board above the counter, he ordered a regular coffee from the barista, and briefly considered between the fancy glass ashtrays with the coffee shop’s logo on it and the plain, disposable tinfoil ashtrays.  Knowing he’d do best to keep his risks for embarrassment to a minimum, he chose one of the disposable ones.  If he did happen to drop it when she arrived (as of course he would, always the lady killer), he figured the tinfoil was less apt to shatter on the concrete than the glass ones.  With his smoking paraphernalia decided on, he took a seat outside to begin what he hoped was a short wait.

After about an hour, as twilight inched onward to full night, he started to realize that Absolutely Perfect was standing him up.  He’d already sipped his way through two coffees and was halfway through his third as this thought started to announce its presence more frequently and with a little more insistence.  By the time the barista had come out to bring him a fourth one, he’d accepted the fact that this Friday night was better suited to just enjoying his coffee and cigarettes out in the cool April air.

Of course, this acceptance served the fates well, as it gave them an excuse to make him realize he’d only brought half a pack of cigarettes, of which he’d smoked the last one.  The barista saw him shaking his pack hopelessly as she sat down his fourth cup.

“Here,” she said, tossing a couple of 100’s-length cigarettes on the table.  She grabbed the disposable ashtray and replaced it with one of the glass ones.  He didn’t argue; with the chances of his date showing up growing slimmer by the moment, he was no longer worried about it shattering at the most inopportune time.

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

“Not a problem.”

He looked up at her; she was far from unattractive.  The runways of Paris wouldn’t see her any time soon, but she would likewise never be left wanting for a date.  Her hair was almost shoulder-length, dark brown or black-the streetlamps didn’t provide enough light to allow him to distinguish-and with a slight wave.  She was thin, but not anorexic.  He doubted she’d beat him in arm wrestling, but she looked like she could probably take him in a foot race (even ignoring the effects five years of smoking assuredly had wrought on his potential for a spot on the Olympics).

The lighting in the coffee shop did her no justice at all, with the stark fluorescent white stealing all trace of life from her face.  While the street lights did little better, they at least gave more shadows, gently highlighting the soft curves and angles of her face.

“So, has it sunk in yet?” she asked, breaking his reverie as she cleaned the table next to his.

“What do you mean?”

She smiled at him, playfully, and not unkindly.  “You’re obviously waiting for someone who hasn’t shown up yet.  I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I don’t think she’s coming.”

“Yeah, it was starting to.  Blind date.”  He lit one of the cigarettes she’d given him.  Much too light for his taste, but he hadn’t even had to ask her for one.

“Ahh…I always hated those.”

“Me too.”  She laughed.

“Obviously.  Why else would you be here?”  He chuckled a little; she somehow put him at ease, regardless of the comments at his expense.

“Well, I hate to tell you this, but I think your wait’s going to have to end pretty quickly here.  We’re about to close up for the night.”

“That’s fine.  I was going to leave after this one anyways,” he said, indicating his coffee with the cigarette.  “You guys are closing up awfully early for a Friday though, aren’t you?”  It was only a little after nine; he’d never been here this late on a Friday before, but it seemed strange to him.  She shrugged.

“That’s just when we close.  Here,” she tossed a couple more cigarettes on the table for him.  “For kicking you out early.”  She walked off before he could refuse or thank her.  He sipped his coffee as quickly as its temperature would allow, placed the last couple of dollar bills he’d set aside for the night’s entertainment on the table as a tip, and walked out.

Rob had only gotten so far as the next block when he heard a female voice call after him.

“Hey!  Stranger!  Wait up!”  He turned around, curious but cautious-he knew this wasn’t the greatest area of town, although he doubted a woman would be calling at him to take a couple of shots at him.

Instead of a semi-automatic pistol though, the woman calling after him had nothing more powerful than her purse.  While it could serve as a handy blunt instrument in the right hands, he doubted she was calling after him to bludgeon him with it for leaving a lousy tip.  He waited patiently for a few seconds as she caught up to him, jogging slightly.

“Hey,” she said again as she neared him, panting slightly from the short run.  “This’ll sound stupid as I stand here trying to catch my breath, but you know those smokes I gave you?”  He nodded, though she continued before she could’ve noticed.  “Those were my last ones.  Can I get one of them back from you?  I hate to ask, but it’s a decent walk home and I could really go for a cigarette on the way.”

“Sure,” he said as he fished his pack from his pocket.  The cigarettes hadn’t fit very well, being longer than his normal brand, and so the box had crumpled them slightly when he’d forced it in his pocket.  She laughed at the slightly curved cigarette he held out to her, but took it anyways.

“Cute.”  She lit it and took a deep drag, then sighed as she exhaled.  “Nothing like a good smoke after a long day at work.”

“Very true.”  She started walking, and he hesitated.

“Mind walking a girl home through a bad neighborhood?  You can think of it as earning the cigarettes if you’d like.”  He considered the piles of clothes in his apartment that he needed to carry to the laundromat, the dishes in the sink, the four tests he had next week that he hadn’t even started to study for, and countless other things he should be doing with his newly-opened Friday night.  This consideration took all of half a second.

“Sure, I’d be glad to.”

“Do you have a name?  Or should I just call you ‘hey you’?”

“Rob.  Robert.  Or Rob.”

“Okay, Rob-Robert-Or-Rob.  I’m Janet.”  She put her cigarette in her left hand and stuck her right hand out.  He took it and shook it gently.

“Nice to meet you Janet.  How about we leave it at ‘Rob’?”

“Works for me.”  He lit a cigarette of his own and they started walking.  “So, Rob, what do you do when you aren’t waiting patiently for a girl who doesn’t show up?”

“School.  Music.  You?  I mean, other than the coffee shop.”

“School.  History major.  Why music?”

“Just seemed like the thing to do at the time.”  She laughed.

“Sounds like a nice philosophy to base your future on.”

“Well, I’ve played piano for a long time.  Never really thought about doing much else.  What about you?  Why history?”

“The stories.  Wars, politics, murder, incest, adultery.  Hollywood has nothing on real life.”  He laughed again.

They walked in amicable silence for a short while, and he found it both natural and strange that the silence wasn’t awkward.  It was a contented silence, the silence of old friends who had long since found the spot where they could be comfortable not saying anything.

This was a part of town he was only vaguely familiar with, and he could understand why she probably wasn’t crazy about walking home alone if she had to.  The houses were all low-income rentals, maybe “handy-man specials” to a real estate agent spinning them for a sale.  As if reading his thoughts, she spoke again.

“I hate walking through here.  It’s just…I don’t know…it’s just ugly.”

“You think so?”  She looked at him, surprised, as if he’d just announced his undying affection for all things unholy.

“Well, yeah.  Just look at it.”

“Ah, but there’s a beauty to be found in every darkness.”  He said this more suavely than he’d ever thought possible, as though he were quoting an old classic movie or book.

“Is that Shakespeare?”

“Maybe; I thought I made it up.  I think this is beautiful though,” he said, indicating the worn out houses.  Again, she looked at him as though discovering a resident insanity he’d hidden quite well until that moment.  He smiled at her.  “Well, look at it.  That yard over there?  It’s freshly cut, even though most of the grass is dead and most of the yard is dirt.  There’s some toys laying there-they’ve got kids.  The house is falling apart, but you can see where they’re trying to piece it back together, even paint it a little.  I’ll bet that car in the driveway wouldn’t make it even just to Riverside, but it’s clean, looks like they might even have waxed it.  They probably take better care of it than most people with a car straight off the lot.”

“Okay, and how is that beautiful?”

“Well, in this whole neighborhood, no one gives a damn.  No one cares about their house, their cars, nothing.  You can tell by the way everything looks.  But that house,” he indicated his earlier example again, “they care.  They’re trying.  While the rest of the neighborhood is a wasteland, they’re trying to pull themselves up, trying to bring a little life to a desert.  It’s beautiful.”  They walked silently for a few minutes, and Rob started to think it was stupid of him to get preachy, or philosophical, or whatever he’d just done.

“You’re right,” she said finally, confusing him by using the one phrase he hadn’t expected.  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it would’ve been closer to “Okay, I need to turn here and you’re freaking me out so bye-bye” than “You’re right.”

“What?”

“I said you’re right.  It is beautiful.  In a weird, non-beautiful kind of way.”  She added the last almost hurriedly.  In later years, amid the countless times he relived that night, he would realize that it was her way of trying to maintain a front he’d somehow sneaked through.  Of course he didn’t realize it at the time, and took it as an attempt at another joke.  He laughed quietly.

They turned another corner, and right as Rob was thanking God for letting Janet live so far away as to ensure this night would never end, she stopped.

“Well, this is it.  Chez Edwards.”  He looked up at the small house and almost laughed again; it was in only slightly better shape than those she had found so disturbing only moments ago.  He noticed a slight anxiety in her that hadn’t been there before, and realized she might be thinking the exact same thing.

“It’s nice, just you?”

“And Lisa, my sister.  You going to be alright walking home?”

“Yeah, just a couple of blocks away,” he lied.

“Liar.  You have no clue where you are, do you?”  He laughed; she seemed more at ease now at least.

“No, I don’t, but I’ll manage.”

“Well, thank you for walking a girl home,” Janet said demurely, then stepped over and kissed him gently on the corner of his mouth.  He stared blankly at her for a moment and she laughed.  “Okay, this is when you say ‘you’re welcome.’”  He smiled.

“You’re welcome.”  She started up the walk to her house, and he called after her.  “Hey, wait, how do I get home?”  She turned to him.

“Los Valles is only a block that way,” she pointed behind him.  “Can’t miss it.”  He waved sheepishly at her back as she stepped inside, then turned around and started walking.

As he reached the corner where the street he was on intersected Los Valles, he found that their half-hour walk through the neighborhood had ended less than five minutes away from the coffee shop.<-->

The Dishes

The Dishes

The tavern was deserted, which was perfectly fine by me.  Lisa was in one of her moods again, and I needed to get away from it all.  I walked to the counter and waited for the barkeep to show from wherever he might be.  He came out from the restroom a few minutes later, wiping his age-worn face with a brown paper towel that he threw into an unseen garbage can behind the bar.

Well into his sixties, maybe even seventies, he still had the rugged good looks and the fire and charm he must’ve had at my age.  Even now, he could be quite the lady killer if he wanted, but behind his hey-there-glad-to-see-ya veneer, he still silently mourned his wife Chrissie.  She’d now been a resident of Stillwater Pines cemetery for the past five years.

“Hey Mike, the usual?” he asked, his gravelly voice oddly making the cheerful tone seem more sincere.

“Same flavor, but not a bottle tonight.  Gimme one of those mugs.”

He smiled a little.  “Ah, one of those nights, eh?”

“Yeah.  Let me have five in quarters and some ones with that.”  I handed him a twenty, and gave him two singles for a tip after he gave me my mug.  I found a pool table in the corner and grabbed a cue stick from the rack on the wall.

The thunder of the balls rolling down to the end of the table as I put the quarters in was teasingly cathartic, and I knew I was going to be shooting good for the night.  I set up one rack, broke and ran the solids first, then the stripes.  I set up another, missed one shot, and ran the rest.  If Lisa could get mad at me before a money game, I might be able to make something of myself.

I finished my mug after the third game and Joey responded to my wave with a fresh one.

“So what’s the story?”  He’d been a bartender long enough to know when someone felt like talking and when they didn’t.  Between the beer and the game, I felt a little better and he could see it.

“Lisa’s having one of her days again.”

“Oh really?  What’s going on?  If you don’t mind me asking, that is…”

“Nah, no big deal.  She’s just getting on to me about little things, doing the dishes, the garbage.  Nag, nag, nag.  Just needed to get away for a bit.”

He gave me a sad but almost condescending smile.  “Ah, youth.  You get so fired up so easily.  I was like that too, a long time ago.  Well, not that long, only about forty years, but it feels like an eternity some time.  Hey, why doncha sit at the bar, I’ll break out an ashtray, and lemme tell you a story.  It’s a little on the crazy side, and I know you won’t believe it, but it’s a good listen at least and you’ll get a couple of beers on the house for your troubles.  Sound good?”

I looked at the table, with the remnants of my last break scattered on the green.  It could wait.  I put the cue stick back on the rack and followed him to the bar.

He pulled himself a mug from the taps, and tossed a plastic ashtray on the bar in front of me.  I grabbed my pack out of my pocket and set it on the bar.

“Not worried about the cops tonight?”

“Nah, no one’s here, they’ll skip us.  Hate that damned law anyways.  Almost killed this place when they started it.”  We each lit a cigarette and took that first, deep drag normally indicative of a long day at some hard, physical work.  He took almost half his mug at a swallow, and I took a couple of good drinks from mine.  We sat for a moment or two in silence while he tried (I assume) to find a good starting point.  Finally he did.

“You know, Chrissie was a lot like Lisa.  I see that when you guys come in here together.  Same energy, same level of intensity.  Had that same no-nonsense, git-er-done-now mentality.  Used to bug the hell out of me.

“I was a lot like you.  Stubborn, a bit too much pride, almost arrogant.  Not trying to get on to you or anything, just want to let you know where this starts.”  I nodded to assure him no harm was done, and took a drink from my mug.

“Anyways, one night-this was when we first got married, only a couple of weeks after the honeymoon-we got into it over who was going to do the dishes.  I’d had a hard day at work, and it was my turn but I didn’t want to.  I just wanted to sit back, have a beer or two, and watch a bit of TV before bed.

“One thing led to another, and before you know it I’m red in the face, screaming at her, she’s screaming back at me, just on and on.  I walked out of the house and slammed the door behind me.  Didn’t know where I was going, didn’t care.  Just needed to get away from it before I said something stupid.

“So I walked.  It was a nice night, middle of August when it starts to cool down in the evenings, with about a half moon giving a decent amount of light where the street lights didn’t catch.  About an hour later, I was a good distance from the house, ended up by the forests out there by Johnson road, over where the Chevron station is now.

“Now here’s where it starts to get crazy.  I need a refill before I go on; you want one too?”  I still had barely touched mine, while he finished his while waiting for an answer.  I shook my head, and pulled out another cigarette.  He poured me another one from the taps anyways, and set it down beside my current mug.

“Here, this way I might not have to get up, and if it gets warm I’ll just get you another one anyways.  Draft’s cheap-that glass you’re drinking from cost more than a case worth of beer out of the keg.

“Anyways, like I said, I was out by the forests, walking along, still mad.  I don’t know…”

…exactly what it was that made me look up across the road at that part of the forest right then, but something did.  A sound, maybe just a weird feeling.  But I looked up into the underbrush, and there was this…this thing there, about halfway hidden by the brush and the shadows the moon cast, and it was looking at me.

I didn’t know what to think it was at the time, hadn’t seen anything like it before.  But since then it’s been all over the place.  Movies, tee shirts, posters they sell in the mall.  Everywhere.  Only they aren’t quite the same as what I saw, close, but not quite.  You know, like a police sketch is close to what the suspect looks like, but maybe the nose is a little too wide, or the eyebrows are a bit lower.

It was short, maybe would’ve been able to look over this bar, but not by too much.  It didn’t look like it had any clothes on, but I wouldn’t swear to it.  It was about half in the brush anyways, so I wouldn’t have seen a belt or a shirt tail or anything like that.  It had a hand on a branch, and I could only see maybe three fingers at the end of an arm that was way too long, like a monkey’s arms or something.  The head looked like it was too big for what I could see of its neck, like it shouldn’t have been able to hold it up, but it did.  Couldn’t see a nose, and it had a thin little black line where its mouth should’ve been.

Its eyes were what got me the most I think.  It had two big, black eyes, which were more oval than round.  It looked almost oriental, but when I think about them, I think the eyes were really that shape, not the skin around them.  But they were empty.  I mean, absolutely nothing there.  Not mean, not happy, not curious or afraid.  It was like looking at rocks or an eight ball or something.  And they were just looking at me.

Mind you, I’ve been thinking about this for some forty-odd years now.  It didn’t all dawn at me at once, it’s not like I stood there thinking “wow, it only has three fingers and its eyes are oval.”  It stuck in my head pretty well though, and I’ve been rolling the memories around for a long time.  I might have changed things around in that time, like the way your childhood home always seems a lot smaller than the big castle you remember growing up in, but I think I’m still pretty close to the money.

Anyways, we stood there looking at each other for a few minutes.  I don’t know what it was thinking, but I was too scared to move.  I’d probably still be standing there if the car hadn’t driven by, and scared my new “friend” deeper into the forest.  Even then, I still just stood there for a second or two, trying to think of what to do next.  Then I decided to do the stupidest thing I think I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ve done some pretty stupid things.  I followed it.

I don’t know why, but I was both scared to death and utterly fearless, if that makes any sense.  I ran across the street and into the brush without thinking about it any more than if I was just going to the bank or something, but at the same time I wanted to run in the other direction.  Still don’t know why I went in, but I did.

You know that running in the forests around here isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do, especially at night when you can’t see a branch in your way or some blackberry bushes ready to trip you up.  I ended up doing little more than a slow jog, and after a minute or so I realized that I didn’t know where I was going-I might even have already passed the little bugger and maybe it was following me now.  So I stopped and listened for a bit.  Nothing at all.  I looked around and couldn’t see anything, but somehow I knew I couldn’t just walk out of the forest now.  I kept on in the direction I’d been going, at a fast walk and going as quietly as I could.

It wasn’t too long before I came up to a little patch that had been logged a year or so before that, still a few stumps they hadn’t cleared out but otherwise empty.  I walked out from the forest to almost the middle of the clearing and looked around, couldn’t see anything.  I finally decided whatever that thing had been was either gone for good, or more likely just some branches that caught the light funny and when the car drove past I just looked at that spot a little differently and couldn’t see it.  I turned around and took a couple of steps towards the road before I saw three of the stumps that I had passed coming into the clearing stand up.

One of them was surely my new friend, but all three of them looked exactly the same so I couldn’t tell which one it was.  They all stood there, looking at me, with those same empty eyes reflecting the moon.  They were standing almost at attention, like a squad of soldiers ready for inspection.  A bit more relaxed than that, but that’s close enough for government work.  I don’t know how long we stood there, staring at each other.  Maybe a minute, maybe an hour, probably closer to ten or fifteen minutes but I don’t know.  Then they started walking.

They walked with an eerie grace, like dancers almost, or cats or something.  Not quite synchronized, which killed the military image they almost had, but pretty close, and rhythmic, like they were each walking to a different drum that was part of the same song.  They walked towards me, and I couldn’t do anything but watch them get closer and closer.  They stopped a couple of feet from me, close enough to where I had to look down to see them.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about people getting abducted, or waking up and seeing these guys in the middle of the night, and they always talk about these things talking to them with their minds.  Telepathy, they call it I think.  I don’t know about that, but these guys didn’t say anything to me, either with their mouths or with their minds.  They just stood there, like they were waiting for me to introduce myself or something.

I wanted to say something, wanted to do anything except just stand there like an idiot, but I couldn’t.  Couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, nothing.  I think I must’ve bored them, or something, because they started walking again, and walked right past me.

I turned around and watched them walk for a few moments, and then they stopped in the middle of the clearing and turned back towards me.  Then they were gone.  No sounds, no bright light, no ship or anything that I could see.  They just disappeared from that clearing, like someone flipped a switch or something, no fade or nothing.  Just gone.

His silence stretched out until I realized that he was finished.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“What happened next?”

“I went home and did the dishes.  You ready for another one?”

I couldn’t believe it.  “What do you mean you went home to do the dishes?  Why didn’t you call someone, the cops or the army or something?”

“What did I have to show for it?  No one would’ve believed it.  Even if they did, what could they have done?”

“Something, anything.  At least someone could’ve been keeping an eye out or something.”

“You just don’t ge­t it, do you kid?  We get so caught up in our little lives, our jobs, our hobbies, our petty he-said-she-said arguments.  We’re arrogant, all of us, we all think we’re the end-all-and-be-all of creation, but we’re not.

“Even on this chunk of rock, do you think it’s going to matter if you did the dishes or not?  Do you think standing your ground on that will keep Mt. St. Helens from erupting when it decides to blow again?  Do you think they’re going to have a national holiday for you because you made Lisa do housework?  Our little arguments about taking the garbage out or cleaning up the cat box are so much less than insignificant in the bigger picture that it’s almost funny to think about them.

“I’m not saying you need to believe my story-half the time I don’t even believe it myself.  But let’s just say I’m not making it up, and I’m not crazy.  Let’s say there are ET’s out there.  Could be hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of other civilizations out there, not just the one whose ambassadors I met that night.

“Take how petty doing the laundry is compared to just the problems of the six billion other people on this planet, and hold that in comparison with a thousand other planets.  Is it worth fighting over?”  I said nothing; it seemed rhetorical.  “How old are you Mike, twenty-four?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Twenty-three.  I remember being that young.  You think you’re the cream of the crop.  Thirty’s still old and forty’s ancient.  You can’t even imagine a world before you yet.  You know how old I am, right?”

“No.”  I had my guesses, but figured it’d be best to keep quiet rather than guess wrong.

“Seventy-two.  I’ve been around for more than three of you.  Think about that.  I’m not trying to be condescending, but think about how your experience measures to a seven year old.  When you’re seven, you can’t imagine being twenty-three.  When you’re twenty-three, you can’t imagine being seventy-two.  Believe me, I’ve been all three.”  I took a drink from my almost-empty mug, waiting for him to get to his point.

“For forty-two of those seventy-two years, Chrissie and I were together, married for forty-one of those years.  In that time we still fought-you can’t completely stop being human, I don’t care what happens to you-but that night, seeing those three things in that clearing put everything in a different perspective.  I started to see what mattered.

“It wasn’t the dishes.  It wasn’t that the bathroom needed to be cleaned or the bed needed to be made.  It wasn’t even that bills needed to get paid and we needed a roof over our heads.

“What mattered was that, in this universe that may be filled with life-hell, even just this planet if you don’t want to believe me-I had a person that I loved more than anything else.  And she loved me.  One person out of billions.  That’s all that matters.”  I said nothing, just sat there, smoking the last of my cigarette.  The jingle of the bell on the door announced a visitor.

“Aw crap, I got a customer.”  He stood up and greeted a middle aged man carrying a leather cue case.  I downed the last of my beer and put a five on the bar as I walked towards the door.

“Think about what I said Mike,” he called after me from behind the bar.  I turned and nodded and walked out the door.

Then I went home and did the dishes.

The Naming Ceremony

The Naming Ceremony

The arrival of a new puppy brings many rituals that the new pet owner must perform, but these are always done with love and a near-holy reverence.  There’s the ritual of the New Toy, where the owner purchases various plastic bones or stuffed animals that the puppy will chew on briefly and then ignore.  There’s the ritual of the New Bed, where the owner will purchase adorable bedding that the puppy will sniff occasionally before deciding the owner’s favorite chair to be the most comfortable spot in the house.  There’s the ritual of the New Food, the purchase of multitudes of bags of kibble in hopes that it will like one (and rarely does it choose any but the most expensive brand).

One ritual undertaken with each new pet – the most important one of all – is the Naming Ceremony.  This ceremony is the beginning of the bond between pet and owner, a bond cherished for the lifetime of both, and it must never be taken lightly.  With luck, the owner will instantly know the perfect name for the animal, a name found through instinct or divine intervention, a name that fits both of them like a well tailored glove.

If the Fates don’t directly hand the perfect name, it may come through intense planning and several hours spent scouring books and web sites of names.  The owner will sit at a desk or table with lists several pages long, crossing out names as they compare them to the new animal.  They’ll speak the names softly, with differing inflections and tones, trying each name until they find one that rolls off the tongue perfectly, the name created specifically for their animal.  With solemn adoration they ordain their new puppy, and life continues.

There is the Personal Naming Ceremony, and as any pet owner will tell you, it is a good thing.  The owner and the pet begin their bond together, and are destined for a happy life of drool and backyard landmines.

More often, however, the unfortunate owner becomes party to the Public Naming Ceremony.  This is an unplanned and dreadful event, forced upon the unwitting owner by friends and relatives who don’t have pets, and therefore fail to understand the importance of the animal’s name.

It starts innocently enough, a phone call, or perhaps a chance meeting in the supermarket.  “Hey, we just got a new puppy,” the owner states, beaming with pride, hope, and lack of sleep.  (This is part of another ritual, known as the Display, where the proud owner wishes to share their joy with all who are willing or unable to get away quickly enough.)

The invitee is excited, as baby animals are enthralling to those uninvolved in the animals training, the purchase of its necessities, and the disposal of its waste.

“Oh really? When can I come over and see it?” they ask with a vicious excitement.

This is where the horror of the Public Naming Ceremony begins.  The owner cheerfully tells the invitee that anytime would be great, bring the kids, we’ll have drinks, I’ll set out some finger sandwiches, and make a day of it.  Occasionally, the original invitee will invite others as well: mutual friends or coworkers, community religious figures, political appointees.  With a voraciousness that only arises with new found wealth or a new puppy, friends and family come out of the woodwork to join in the new owner’s delight.

At the time of the Display, the Ceremony will lurk in the shadows for an indefinite duration.  People will coo over the new puppy as it staggers around the rooms playfully.  They’ll force upon it toys that it’s already tired of.  They’ll try to get it to sit or roll over (because, as any pet owner will attest, all puppies are born with those commands genetically ingrained; it is obviously through a lack of pressure in these vital first days that it loses these abilities and must be re-taught).

Then it begins.

The Ceremony starts innocently enough, and always with variations of the exact same question: “So, what have you decided to name it?” The wise pet owner will smile graciously at their guests and proceed to end the Ceremony at this point, before it has truly begun.  It is possible to end the Ceremony politely, but social graces are immaterial when someone asks this question.  In extreme cases, murder is not entirely unwarranted; most judges with a full understanding of the situation will show some lenience.  However, most new pet owners, still in the daze of adoration and affection, make the mistake of responding to the question: “We haven’t come up with anything yet.”

From that point forward, the room is filled with a barrage of names, most offensively cute, some exceedingly pointless, and many quite cliché.  Names such as “Rover,” “Buttons,” “Baby Girl,” “Flower Patch,” and similarly disastrous choices are thrown carelessly in every direction.

The pet owner who already has one or two other pets, especially animals of the same species and breed, fares much worse.  It becomes a matching game, where the new animal’s name must coincide with or play off of the existing animal’s name; to do otherwise would be sacrilege.

Animals that are closely associated with a certain stereotype – an ethnicity, for example – often face the toughest hardships during the Ceremony: Chihuahuas are inevitably bombarded with poor attempts at Spanish; Pugs have vaguely oriental words and syllables thrown dangerously close to them.

The owner will watch in horror as the group finds the name the unknowing animal feels it wants.  This is a very noticeable event: the puppy, previously occupied with a shoe or other delicious article of clothing, jerks its head up at the sound of its new name and runs over to the vile fiend who had spouted the words.  This is irreversible; once the puppy finds the name it wants, it will never answer to anything else.  The owner is stuck calling it “Hotdog,” “Whippy,” “Mrs.  Flugelhorn,” or whatever foolish words were chosen.

It was not long ago that I found myself caught in this ritual, though I had sworn to avoid it at all costs.  I had promised – even before my wife and I decided our house needed a new puppy – that I would give any pet I would own the respect it deserved by avoiding the embarrassment and brutality of the Public Naming Ceremony.  After seeing the ritual performed on many others (and, I am afraid I must admit, taking part in it as well), I pledged to take it upon myself to find the perfect name for a new pet before it could know such horrors.

Soon after John, our son, moved away for college, my wife and I found the house quite empty.  Only months before, the noises of a teenager filled it at all hours – loud music, obnoxious but well meaning boys laughing, the sounds of his mother and me chiding him for keeping his room only marginally cleaner than the set of a disaster movie.  After he left, we found ourselves staring at each other in expectation, waiting for the sound of cars to pull up, brakes squealing and engines revving.

It did not take long for us to see that we needed something extra to fill the void, and we decided a new puppy would be a delightful addition.  We knew better than to merely go to any breeder at random, or to just walk into a pet store and take the first one we saw.  A dog is a special addition to the family, and we knew we needed to find one that would suit us perfectly.

We scoured the internet for many minutes looking for the right breed.  We needed something that was neither too big nor too small, eliminating many breeds immediately – the Great Dane, the Chihuahua, the Pug, the St.  Bernard.  All beautiful animals in their own rights, but we wanted neither an animal capable of towing small cars, nor one we might accidentally vacuum when we cleaned the house.

Soon we found the animal that suited us perfectly: the Beagle.  The web sites we visited assured us that the Beagle was an excellent hunter, quite playful, and a loyal pet to a good master.  The animal’s temperament was irrelevant though; my wife’s heart audibly broke when the first images of Beagle puppies came on the screen.  There was no need to search further: the Beagle was the breed for us.

A week later, an ad in the paper directed us to a local breeder with new puppies.  A small, whining box greeted us as we arrived.  We held each adorable pup in turn, my wife inspecting them carefully to determine how their coloring would match the carpeting and furniture.  My wife picked up the last one in the box, a mostly black and tan female with a strip of white down her nose, who stared at us with her big, pleading hound-dog eyes.  The mother Beagle came and went, and each of the puppies cried out for her except the one, who kept staring at us, wagging her tail when she noticed we were looking at her.  My wife saw this, and knew that we had been chosen (luckily by one who would complement our living room perfectly).  Moments later, we had written the owner a check and were driving home with our new puppy.

As I said, I had sworn to avoid the Public Naming Ceremony at all costs.  I reiterated this pledge to myself as we drove from the breeders, trying diligently to find a suitable name as soon as I could.  My wife, however, had made no such pledge, for (bless her heart!) she had never understood the embarrassment the Ceremony holds for both animal and owner.  To a mild degree, I hold myself accountable for not informing her.  I can, however, only take so much of the blame; she must be held responsible for some of her actions.  We had traveled less than a mile from the breeders before I heard her talking to her sister on her cell phone.

“It’s just the most adorable thing, Tracy! You and George just have to come see it! Today? Yes, that would be perfect.  No, I’m sure Jack wouldn’t mind, would you honey?” She glanced at me, but continued before I could say anything.  “No, Jack doesn’t mind.  Yes, of course! I’m sure the kids would love it.  No, if you think Pastor Williams would like to come, bring him along too.  Maybe I’ll put out snacks, you know, finger sandwiches or something.  We’ll just make a day out of it.  Okay, we’ll see you then Trace.  Buh-bye.”

My own, dear wife had betrayed me.  I knew there was relatively little time, nowhere near the days I’d expected to have to name the puppy at my leisure, and my mind raced.  It was no use though.  As we pulled into the driveway, I still had yet to find a suitable name for the beautiful little pup that sat peacefully in the lap of my traitorous wife.

To further aggravate my mood, my neighbor was standing in his yard, waving at us cheerfully.  By most other accounts, Richard Jameson was probably a great guy.  Probably a loving father, devoted husband.  Maybe even the kind of friend you could count on to change your tire at three in the morning.  I give him the benefit of the doubt in those instances.

Personally, I despise him.

For the past fifteen years he succeeded in antagonizing me at every possible opportunity.  I’d plant a new tree; he’d plant two.  I built a small deck in my back yard; he built a bigger one, with a roof and mosquito netting.  Every year, my family and I would have a small fireworks show on the Fourth of July.  His were always bigger, more dramatic.

One year, he hired a live band to drown out the large stereo system we had set up during our barbecue.  Half of the friends and coworkers I had invited had eaten their ribs, hamburgers, and hot dogs, and walked over casually, “out of curiosity” they claimed.  By night fall they had yet to return, and the fireworks display I had purchased – one of the bigger sets of rockets, fountains, and roman candles we’d ever bought from the nearby Indian reservation – was ooo’ed and ahh’ed over by only my wife and my son.  Of course, until Jameson started setting his off.  Then, even my dear family turned their attention away from the best fireworks display our house would have ever seen.

If you have never had such a neighbor, I’m sure you find my distaste for him petty and childish.  At one point, I would have agreed with you.  But fifteen years of succumbing to incessant one-upmanship puts even the slightest detail into a different perspective.

I smiled and waved back it him, however, because for once I was actually ahead of him.  Not the puppy – a pet is too dear an item to use in such childish games.  No, I had something that I knew he would never attain, something he could never best.

A close friend of mine happened to own a small nursery not far outside of town.  Days before the arrival of the puppy, I was visiting the nursery and I happened upon a beautiful, elegant rose bush.  Its petals were such a delicate pink-red, with slight veins of lavender and violet, so soft and fragile that it nearly broke my heart to touch it.  I asked my friend about it, as I had never seen such a wonderful work of nature’s art before.

“Ah yes,” he responded, setting down three large pots he’d been moving.  “That’s a very rare rose from Africa.  Only grows natively on one side of a mountain in Kenya.  I was very lucky to get that one bush – they aren’t exported much nowadays.”

I had to have it.  It was beautiful, yes, but it was also something that Jameson couldn’t have.  He would just die of jealousy! I purchased it, and my friend offered to have it delivered due to its fragility and rarity.  I declined, not wanting to waste his staff’s time for a single rose bush.  I drove it carefully to my house, and planted it proudly in the center of my yard that very day.

So I waved back at Jameson as my wife and I exited the car with our new puppy, then hurried inside to avoid any of his attempts at neighborly small talk.  I had much more important matters at hand: I had a puppy I needed to name, and time was growing short.

Quite short indeed, as it turned out.  No sooner had I set my keys on the kitchen counter when a knock came at the door.  I grimaced.  This was too soon! The poor darling had barely gotten her feet on the kitchen floor, and my family was going to pelt her with obscene attempts at a name.  There was nothing I could do about it however, only brace myself and hope for the best.

“Watch her while I get the door honey,” my wife said.  The little puppy looked up at me, wagging its tail as though knowing of the coming travesty and hoping I could prevent it.  It stumbled towards me, stepping on its long, Beagle ears and tripping itself.  I pledged right then I would not allow anyone else to name it but myself.  Perhaps my wife, as it was hers as well, but most certainly it would not fall prey to the Ceremony at hand.

No sooner had I made my promise than the sound of children filled the house.

“Puppy? Puppy!” High-pitched voices rang through the living room.  The puppy cringed, but still wagged its tail, frightened but trying hard to be brave.  The children found us and fell to the ground in playful admiration.  Their parents and my wife joined us shortly.  Unfortunately, the Pastor had been unable to attend; his presence would have been useful as a reminder that avenging any name chosen for the darling animal would have eternal consequences.

After my wife had served drinks and forced me to ensure our grill was in working order, the Display began with its usual questions: When did you get her (though my wife had told them over the phone)? How old is she? What breed is she? Is she full blood or mix? They circled close around the question I knew was coming, but like vultures they bided their time.  We talked weather and work, sports and celebrities, politics and other crimes, waiting for the question to arise.  The children played with the puppy, tugging its ears and its tail, laughing as it tried to chase them and stumbled or walked on its ears.  They told it to sit, roll over, and lie down, disappointed to see the puppy wag its tail and stare at them, the commands already faded from instinct.

Nearly an hour of distracting them had passed, and I was starting to gain hope that the dreaded question would die before it was born.  Then one of the children spoke.

“So, what are you gonna call it?”

Never before has the murder of a child seemed like such a pleasant idea.  I grimaced, but no one seemed to notice; the Ceremony had begun, and all of them, my dear wife included, were beginning their parts.

“Call him Fluffy!” one of the other children cried out, much in character with the Ceremony: as anyone who has suffered through it will affirm, the first few names suggested are clichés like “Fluffy”, “Rover”, “Rex”, etc., and most often the gender is wrong, as the puppy has yet to establish itself as male or female in the common eye.

“She isn’t very fluffy though,” I corrected, trying to sound patient and calm, knowing I failed miserably at it.

“How about Princess?” one of the other children said.  The child looked at the dog and bellowed: “Princess! Are you ‘Princess’?” The dog did not reply, other than sniffing at the ground and wagging her tail.

Thus it began.  Someone suggested “Cookie,” which started a barrage of food names – “Cream,” “Milk,” “Candy,” “Cookie” again for some reason.  My wife’s sister saw a CD of classical music lying on the table and that started a short battery of composers names, with the prefix “Ms.” thrown in front when they remembered it was a female puppy: “Ms.  Beethoven,” “Ms.  Mozart,” “Ms.  Bach.” Similarly they approached the names of past political leaders, with the same prefix thrown in where appropriate: “Victoria,” “Ms.  Churchill,” “Cleopatra,” “Elizabeth,” “Ms.  Lincoln.” There was no true logic behind the name choices, as there never is during the Ceremony.  Someone would find a subject that might suggest several words to name a puppy, and the group would exhaust the list as it came to mind.

I had nearly given in to homicidal urges when there came a knock on the door.  I hurried to answer it, hoping that the Ceremony would dwindle before I would find myself in need of legal counsel.  They continued as I walked, now harassing the animal with floral names: “Rose,” “Violet,” “Blossom.” I opened the door with hope that it would be someone able to engage me in a more pleasant situation, perhaps an IRS agent or door-to-door salesman.

A young man stood at the door, wearing a light green uniform and a name tag indicating his name as “Chip”.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“I’m Chip, from the nursery.  I have…” He looked at a pad of paper in his hand.  “Eight rose bushes for a Mr.  Richard Jameson.”

My heart stopped.

No, I thought.  He couldn’t have.  He wouldn’t have.

I knew better though; he likely could have, and he most certainly would have.  I took a deep breath to steady myself.

“I’m sorry, Chip.  He lives next door.” The boy stepped back, looked at the number on the side of the door, and then smiled apologetically.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he said.  “They gave me the wrong address.”

“Not a problem,” I said, then watched him walk down the side walk.  I stepped outside the door, hearing the ceremony continue from inside – “Jewel,” “Ruby,” “Emerald.” Even shutting the door behind me I could hear them bludgeoning the dog with names.

Perhaps he bought regular roses, I told myself, hoping against all hope that it was true.  Chip climbed in his truck, drove it forward the short distance to Jameson’s house, and stopped it as Jameson walked out to greet him.  I watched impatiently as they discussed something I couldn’t hear, and my impatience turned to horror as Chip pulled out a rather large rose bush from the back of his truck.  The delicate pink-red of the blooms and the lines of lavender and violet that I could only barely see from my porch told me what I already expected.

Jameson waved at me as Chip unloaded more of the “one-of-a-kind” rose bushes.  I forced a smile and a slight wave, then walked back into the house.  The sounds of the Ceremony greeted me like the buzzing of a mosquito that will not die.

“That bastard Jameson! He’s done it again!” I shouted, forgetting the presence of children in my anger.  I started back to where I had left the poor puppy with our family, and took only a couple of steps before I realized that the Ceremony had stopped.  I looked up, and my eyes fell on the puppy.

It was running to me.  Its tail was wagging, and though it was still tripping on its ears as it came, it was showing more excitement than it had since we’d gotten it.  My family looked at me, stunned, and I shook my head in disbelief.

No, it can’t be, I thought to myself.  It must be a mistake.  The puppy looked up at me, wagging its tail with fierce happiness.  Someone had finally stumbled across the collection of syllables the puppy had decided was its name.  I looked at my wife, she looked at me, and I looked back down at the puppy.  The room was utterly silent, save for the swishing of the puppy’s tail on the carpet.  I tried random words from my previous sentences again, hoping that the puppy would not react to any of them in particular.

“He’s? Done?” The puppy sniffed my shoe.  “Again? It?” Nothing.  I started to sigh in relief, and my wife stopped me.

“No, dear, you said something that caught her attention.  Say it all again.”

“That-bastard-Jameson-he’s-?” The puppy’s head jerked.  I looked at my wife and shook my head again, as though I could negate what that simple motion declared.  “You try it honey,” I said, hoping it was my voice and not my words that she responded to.

“That Bastard Jameson? Come here That Bastard Jameson.” The puppy turned and ran to my wife.  My wife’s sister tried with the same result.  Her husband tried, and the puppy ran straight to him.  One of the children started to try, but a stern look from his mother reminded him that the name was hardly polite.

I could not believe it.  Had the puppy been a boy, the name could be considered humorous.  I would still despise such light heartedness in the naming of the animal, but I would have felt somewhat more at ease.  For a female puppy, however, it was far from ladylike.

It was decided though.  A name that is forced upon an animal can be changed at an owner’s whim, but when a new puppy decides for itself what word or collection of words it will answer to, that is what it will ever be named.

The Naming Ceremony thus complete, my family left my wife and me with our new puppy.  Life continued on much as we expected (save the name, of course) with all the trimmings of life with a new puppy: midnight bathroom walks, shoes and valuables discovered half-chewed, bags of food discarded after a single bowl served and left sitting for hours.  My wife, That Bastard Jameson, and I are well on our way to a happy, pet-filled life.

If you are of a curious heart, you may be wondering what happened to the rare, “one-of-a-kind” rose bush I planted with such pride in the center of my yard.  It died.  In spite of daily watering, trimming the dead blooms and branches as necessary, even giving it top-of-the-line rose food, it has become little more than a collection of thorny sticks decorating the grass.

That bastard Jameson – the human one – has had no such luck.  His are blooming beautifully, all eight of them.  I can see them perfectly out my window, every day, and if the breeze is right I can even smell them as I take my That Bastard Jameson out for her morning routine.

Solitaire

We played solitaire that night, her mother and I, as she lay dying only a breath away from us. It sounds bad now, insensitive, but it was all we could find to distract ourselves from the grief at hand: that stupid little video game that our daughter used to carry around with her everywhere she went, much to our annoyance, was now our only hope for sanity.

My wife slipped over an Ace before I could say anything. I almost snapped at her, but my daughter’s breathing stuttered for a moment, stopping me. It steadied again, and again I was torn — it was more time with her, the little girl with my wife’s eyes and my laugh; but it wasn’t, really. She was gone, and every breath was less a fight to survive than a mockery of the life she’d been given.

We’d given up any hope that there’d be a miraculous recovery, with glowing sunbeams, handsome doctors, triumphant music coming from nowhere. She was dead, breathing only out of sheer habit, while my wife and I played solitaire waiting for the end.

I watched it happen, too, the fall that brought her to that hospital bed. It was almost trivial, the kind of fall that just about everyone’s had at one time or another. The stairs were slick, freshly polished, and perhaps a little too steep, but nothing different from any other day for the twelve years she’d been able to walk down them herself. She wasn’t clumsy, but she had all the grace of your average, lanky fourteen year old, and she happened to run a little too fast when I called her down for dinner.

What had excited her I’ll never know. A guy asked her to a dance? Maybe; though she probably knew we’d be hard pressed to let her go. Probably wasn’t joy over a good grade on a test — she was a smart girl, and got plenty of A’s and high B’s, so that wouldn’t have impressed her too much. Odds are it was just standard, school girl giddiness over some bit of gossip she was anxious to share with her mother (probably not her father — dad was never very good at a girl-to-girl chat). I’ve wondered what she was so excited about many times since she fell, and wished she’d held back a little, at least until she sat down.

She came to the landing and most of her stopped, but her feet betrayed her, continuing on out from under the frame they were supposed to support. It took me almost a full minute to realize that something was wrong with the dull thunk I’d heard. Half an hour later, my wife and I walked into the emergency room as she arrived in the ambulance. Two days later we were told she was all but gone, and, still mostly in shock, we agreed to have her taken off the machines that were breathing for her.

I’d like to think it’s because my wife and I both knew for certain that she would rather have died than stay on the machine; in honesty though, I think it was because the word “yes” comes out easier when you’re scared to death. We held her hand and brushed her hair and hugged her and talked to her for several hours. Then we played solitaire, not wanting to stay and watch her die, but not wanting to leave her.

It’s strange to say “we” played, but that’s what it was. We’d point to which card to play when the other was about to miss it. We’d suggest playing one red nine over the other red nine when there was a choice.  Not that there’s any real strategy to the game, or that either of us knows what to do better than the other. It just makes it seem a little easier when we both play together, even though it’s still just as difficult as when you go it alone.

My wife gasped silently with modest delight, and I could see she’d finally beaten it. I smiled and kissed her head and placed my hand on her shoulder. She started to sob, silently though it shook her body, and I started to try and calm her — emotions were running high, and though I couldn’t explain it to anyone, I could understand how beating a simple game might cause her to break down. Before I could say anything though, and without really knowing why, I glanced briefly at the equipment attached to our daughter. I did a double take as I saw the green lines on the monitor give a short leap, then fall still.

Later that night, as my wife lay next to me in bed after crying herself to sleep (I’ll admit I wanted to do the same, though I couldn’t break down when she needed some kind of a rock), I crept out to my daughter’s former room. I pulled the chair from her desk and faced it towards the window, overlooking the beautiful rose bushes at our neighbor’s house, now gray with night. I grabbed the solitaire game from her bed, where we’d set it with an aching despair when we returned from the hospital. I played it, letting tears I didn’t know I was crying hit it freely.

After some time, I wiped it dry, intent on trying to steady myself. Another tear landed on it, and I looked over my shoulder to see my wife standing above me. “You missed an Ace,” she said, her voice thick and trembling. She reached down and I hugged her, closer than I knew possible, and after a moment she sat on the bed next to me. My wife and I played solitaire that night, in the walls of the room our daughter had called her own, walls that would never echo back the sound of her voice again.

An Old Love

We were great together once. I see that now, years after I turned my back on her. I needed her more than I knew, and as is too often the case, I took her for granted. I disregarded the importance of the long days together and th longer nights, the soft whispers and thunderous, cathartic outpourings. The times she’d echo my joy, or hold my heart as I wept.

Not once in the many years we were together did she turn from me, though not always did I run to her either. But, when I did, she was there. Sometimes graceful and elegant, sometimes tired and haggard, but there nonetheless.

It was in the splendor of youth’s ignorance we first met, the playful days of summer at the time in life with no cares or worries of what others may think. Had it been later, when image becomes everything and the slightest mistake is shunned, our romance would likely have never bloomed. As it was, I cared nothing for every misplaced step (and there were countless), and we flourished.

It was in high school where our romance took hold, with the irregularities of hormonal emotions pushed us together as no other force could. The highs and lows of teenage angst, where the smallest event is either a crises or pure ecstasy, drove the fires of our passion.

As with so many high school sweethearts, college brought our downfall. In the later years of high school, I’d grown insecure, felt unworthy of her, not good enough to make it last. Everyone assured me this was groundless, but how can you uproot those seeds once they’re sown?

We tried to make it work in college, though the new sights and distractions proved too much for me. We didn’t grow apart; I grew away from her. On several occasions I tried to go back, but it was never the same. I’d changed too much to speak with her as I once had.

I see her often now, in movies or television, or hear her on the radio. She still makes me laugh or cry, but, most of the time, I find myself unable to open to her as I did back in the carefree days of yesteryear. I’ll see her sometimes in a store, or a friend house, and I’m torn between the desire to touch her again, to open my heart like it opened so many years ago; and the knowledge that it could never be the same.

Tonight I whispered to her though, softly, as my wife lay in bed and I didn’t want to wake her. There was the same, undying battle: let everything pour out as it may, or hold it back for fear of … well, just fear. Perhaps of feeling unworthy again. Perhaps fear of getting too wrapped up in something I can’t have now, at least not as I once did.

The fear won out tonight, though it was a tough battle.  I dusted off her nameplate — she’s had several names since we first met, this  time it’s Kimball — and I slid the polished wood cover back over her keys, keeping the pedal held down to let the last whisper hold out a little longer.

About a Publisher

You’ve probably heard me mention a few times (most likely at the “original” Chocolate for Dogs blog) about having Like Glass “professionally” published — i.e. through an actual publishing house. I wish I could say I was posting now to say it was finally accepted (or even rejected; as I’m sure any author will agree, waiting to hear back is almost as bad as hearing “Sorry, not for us”).

Alas, I’m not, though I wanted to just post a … what’s the phrase … “shout out”? Yeah, that’s as good as any I guess — a shout out to the company, Rager Media. They’re based in Akron, Ohio, and they have a blog I wanted to introduce you to, The Akrocentric. There’s a lot of posts there about publishing (of course), and a lot of stuff about Akron itself — if, like me, you come from an area where the locals look on the city with high levels of contempt, it’s quite a strange and refreshing experience. I honestly never heard of an “Akronism” (not to be confused with an anachronism, a word I more closely relate with my current locale).

The company is quite new for the publishing industry — roughly a year old — but they’re already starting to make a few (albeit small) waves, with Jonathan Baumbach and Gary D. Wilson both getting good reviews — Baumbach’s You, or the Invention of Memory in the LA Times, and Wilson’s Sing, Ronnie Blue reviewed in the Chicago Sun-Times and on Kansas.com (unfortunately, both of those reviews are older than either site allows access to — if you can find a link, by all means let me know).

Rager Media’s “official” website (i.e. .com) is a little … well, under the weather. Which is strange, because when I first made my acquaintance with the company (~ June 2007) it was quite nice — nothing spectacular, but attractive and friendly. As a web developer I admit I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to websites, even though the design aspect (read: the pretty stuff) of web development was always a little beyond me. There is a lot of good information there, though, and a lot more info on their authors than I can put here, so be sure to check it out.

As I said, they’re still quite new to the business, so they’re swamped with submissions at the moment, and they don’t have the staff yet to keep up with it. I was speaking with the editor-in-chief, Christopher White, today, and he was saying that one of the main reasons they haven’t gotten to my novel yet was that they’re trying to give the authors personal attention, and there’s still a few of their “earliest” authors they haven’t gotten to.

That’s the way it should be — I’d much rather know that my work was accepted (or rejected) by someone who was giving it a serious effort, instead of just glancing through it and tossing it out because they just weren’t in the mood to read it. Even if it means having to wait a little longer to hear anything about it, it’s definitely worth it.

Be sure to check out the sites though, and take a look at the two books I’d linked to above (though I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that your primary interest should lay with my book, of course — which, for the time being, is still in my hands).

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