Geisha

Courtland glanced at the clock on the wall above the buzzing beer coolers.He should have been closed half an hour earlier, and at home relaxing in front of the television. Two regular customers, however, were still in the store.

He stood behind the counter with his arms folded. Already his chronic headache was beginning. Turning toward the entrance, he looked at Lyric, the stripper who stood at the lottery counter. She was leaned forward, rubbing a ticket with a fingernail.He fixed his gaze on the lower curves of her ass, visible beneath the hems of her Daisy-Dukes, and watched them jiggle.

Courtland turned away and looked past the potato chip display to his other customer. The man Courtland called “the Veteran” stood in front of the magazines. He’d gotten used to seeing the Veteran near closing time. If it had been anyone else flipping through the porn magazines, he would have enforced the “NO READING” sign, but the Veteran was turning out to be a good paying customer, someone who never left without first buying a six-pack of Cobra and at least one smut magazine.

***

Lyric blew ashy powder off the ticket she was scratching. Another loser. Why did she bother? When the bell above the door jangled, she glanced up and saw the woman enter the store. It must be some kind of joke, she thought. The new customer wore a red silk kimono patterned with winding streams and bending willows. The woman stood a moment just inside the door, and then she shuffled past Lyric toward the checkout. Her straw sandals hished against the tiles, her white-powdered face glowed under the lights.

Lyric kept her gaze on the geisha. She remembered her lottery tickets and turned to resume her scratching.

***

As soon as Courtland turned his head and saw the woman in the kimono, a wave of alarm bolted through him. “Uh, uh,” he said, shaking his head. “You can’t be in here.” He’d heard stories involving costumed criminals who robbed liquor stores and sometimes even murdered the proprietor. He considered himself careful and, not willing to take any chances, he reached beneath the counter and placed a finger above the button which would bring the police.

The woman in the kimono stopped several feet before reaching the counter. Her lips moved as if she was seeking the right word. Finally, the geisha said, “Me need call Japan. Like buy phone card, please.”

***

Lyric shot a look over her shoulder when she heard the woman speak. She smiled, thinking the clipped English sounded cute— sincere. She looked past the geisha and saw Court’s nervous reaction. “Come on, Court,” she said. “Woman just wants a phone card.”

When she noticed Court’s gray eyes fixed on her breasts, Lyric smiled, raised a hand and brushed a nipple with her fingers.

***

At the back of the store, the man whose friends called him “Apache” glanced up from the magazine he’d been skimming and into the security mirror. Something was going on at the front of the store, near the counter. The owner of the store was talking in an anxious tone. Apache wasted no time slipping a hand inside his green army jacket. He gripped the handle of his pistol. For over two weeks he’d been scoping out this place. Finally, the moment he’d been waiting for was at hand.

He started toward the counter.

***

Courtland sighed. His instincts were pinging, telling him to simply announce to everyone it was closing time.

“Come on, Court,” Lyric said. “Woman just wants a phone card.”

God damn Lyric. He watched her graze one of her breasts, watched the nipple harden beneath the thin blouse she wore. Then Court removed his finger from where it hovered above the emergency button beneath the counter. He whirled, scanned the phone cards hanging on the wall. “What do you need? Will a twenty-five dollar card do?”

He heard the little woman’s high-pitched voice. “Hai,“ she said. Courtland unclipped one of the phone cards. He turned back around just in time to catch sight of the Veteran hurrying toward him, one hand jammed inside his coat. Courtland dropped the card.

***

It was nice Court decided to help the little Japanese woman, Lyric thought. She scratched her ticket. Her heart raced as she saw a third one-hundred-dollar symbol come into view. She screamed, raising the winning ticket into the air and spinning around to show Court.

A deafening sound made her drop the ticket. She saw the Japanese woman crouched low, covering her mouth with both hands. Then she noticed the guy who always bought smut standing in front of the counter, a smoking pistol in his hand. Court, on the other side of the counter, was sliding down the wall.

***

Apache had not intended to fire, but when the bitch screamed, his finger reacted independently. Now the store owner was blasted back and slipping to the floor with his eyes wide open.

“Fuck,” Apache said.

***

Lyric opened her mouth to scream again, but stopped when the gunman turned to face her. A crazy expression fixed his face. “Shout again,” he said, “and I’ll make you dead.” Lyric raised her arms above her head and said nothing.

***

Think, Apache, think. He glanced from the lottery-player to the stupid-looking woman dressed in a kimono, who began to nod her head, again and again.

“Quit fucking moving!” Apache said.

The Japanese woman nodded again, and said, “Hai.”

“Move one more time I’ll kill you.” He thumbed the gun’s hammer back.

***

“Listen, please,” Lyric begged the woman in the kimono. She looked at the woman cowering on the floor, then she looked at the gunman, pleading. “Don’t hurt her. She doesn’t understand you.”

“Hai,” the woman replied.

Another resounding explosion brought Lyric’s hands to her ears. Canned food flew from a shelf, clanked onto the floor. The Japanese woman squeezed herself into a fetal position and laid with her head on the tiles.

“I told you not to fucking move,” the gunman said.

“Hai,” the Japanese woman answered from the floor where she lay.

***

Apache, out of breath, turned to Lyric and said, “I don’t want to hurt anyone else. I’m going around the counter and emptying the register. If anyone—” His grim stare went from Lyric to the woman in the kimono and back to Lyric. “—if anyone moves, I’ll kill you both. And I don‘t want to do that.”

When neither of the women replied, he went around the counter, stepped over the shop owner’s body, and punched the keys on the register until it opened.

***

The Japanese woman gazed directly at Lyric and smiled. Then she raised a finger to her lips, indicating to Lyric she should remain silent.

Lyric watched her slip a tiny hand under the wide Obi belt that secured her kimono. Still smiling at Lyric, the geisha withdrew a pistol.

While the gunman stuffed money into a plastic merchandise bag, the Japanese woman slipped off her sandals. She very slowly got to her feet and crept over to the counter.

The man stuffing the bag full of money glanced up. His eyes grew wide.

“Die, motherfucker,” the geisha said.

.

***

Apache looked up and saw the powdered face. He noticed the glint of her weapon. He never felt the bullet strike his forehead.

***

Lyric screamed. The Japanese woman turned to her and shouted, “Quiet!”

Lyric did as she was instructed and watched the little woman raise high the hem of her kimono and hop the counter. The geisha snatched the bag of money that the robber had filled. She climbed back onto Lyric’s side of the counter and headed for the door.

“What are you doing?” Lyric asked.

The geisha stopped. She pulled a wooden clip from her bunned hair and shook it out.

“What are you doing?” Lyric said again.

The geisha raised her pistol. “Did you win anything?”

Lyric nodded.

The Japanese woman smiled. “I’ll take that, too,” she said, and pressed the pistol against Lyric‘s throat.

Birthday Girl

He cannot focus on the television. Bursts of images and flashes of color only serve to illuminate the plate on the coffee table in front of him. There sits her wedge of uneaten cake, a slice of chocolate, one letter of her name ribboned in red glaze. Her fork sprouts up from a scarred yellow flower like a lilting weed. On the plate beside the cake is a shallow puddle of what earlier in the day had been a firm scoop of vanilla ice cream, her favorite. Now, crumbs of chocolate float on puddle’s creamy surface.



He shuts his eyes. In the colors that dance against his eyelids, he pictures her coming out of the hotel room.



How often during these last hours had he cursed himself for not having had more restraint? Too often; and now he curses himself again.



Her birthday only comes along once a year. They did not share this special day the previous year. In fact, during eleven years of marriage he can clearly recall two heartbreaking occasions in which she celebrated her birthday with another man.



She should have hurled the plate of cake and ice cream. It would have jerked him into the reality of where these arguments always lead, into the reality he finds himself in now, into a reality he still doesn’t know if he should accept. The only thing he is certain of is that if it were him, he would have flung the plate.



Pushing himself up from the sofa, he clicks the remote, shutting off the television. The gray of dusk seeps into the living room through the thin yellow curtains. In this dim quiet he stares at the curved legs of the coffee table, listening. The rain has stopped, but the wind continues its violent whip. Gust after lashing gust thrashes the broad-leafed banana trees planted near the windows, throwing their soft flesh and torn leaves against the glass.



He starts for the door, feeling the cold floor shudder beneath his feet with each labored step.



Having been conditioned to hide his feelings and hold back his words, he wishes now he hadn’t reacted so impulsively. But he was hurt. And this afternoon, her insensitive actions had been too much.



The phone had rung, and when she picked it up she began a conversation with one of her ex-lovers. He sat slowly chewing his cake while his ears burned. He could not believe she couldn’t just slam the receiver down into its cradle. All her promises and tears and begging. For what?



Having been there the moment they emerged from the hotel room together, having watched her fish for explanations, and then, after she’d been unable to find a convincing one, having watched her climb into her ex-lover’s car so that he could drive her home— well, until this afternoon none of that mattered anymore. The latest of her affairs was months behind them, old news, forgotten like all her other lovers.



The new life they’d promised to share, their fresh and faithful and forgiving life, was progressing fruitfully. That’s what he’d convinced himself every time the image of her and her lovers would materialize inside his head. Through tears, she’d explained to him that after having been swept away this last time for nearly a year, she’d come to realize, as the biblical saw states, after losing herself, she had found herself.



But he always wondered if she’d found herself with him— or had she found herself with the memories of her ex-lovers?



Still, she begged his forgiveness, and as he always had in the past, he gave it. Considering it simply another painful episode which would forever be seared into the walls of his mind. Like every episode before, it would only be a matter of time before one of them would bring the incident back up to the surface.



“Why?” he asks, weeks after her last affair.



“It just happened.”



“Sure,” he replies. “It always just happens.”



“Why won’t you let it go?”



“So you can do it again?”



“I only continue to do it because you refuse to let it go. You refuse to give us a chance.”



“I need to know. Is it me? Is it you?”



From where he sits across from her, he watches her flip through her magazine, avoiding his gaze and shaking her head.



“Why?” he persists.



Finally, she snaps. “You really need to know, do you?”



Now he is the one who sits silent, waiting.



“Here—” she begins to say, their eyes locked as he leans forward on the edge of the sofa. After taking a deep breath and wringing her hands, she continues, “Here was a man who willing to listen. How simple and special a thing it is to be listened to. How whole someone feels when another person actually hears you, when another person is actually interested in something you have to say. Can’t you understand?” She pauses, long, and when she resumes speaking her voice is hushed, breaking, “Can’t you somehow be that someone for me?”



And he thought he had become that someone for her. They began as young lovers did. Everything fresh, everything new, everything wonderful. Months of bliss. Two people in love.



Who could have possibly imagined how quickly, on a birthday, something so beautiful can grow into something so ugly?



Speaking to her ex-lover this afternoon on the telephone, she made no attempt to keep her voice hushed. It may have been emotionless and flat of tone, but it certainly wasn’t rude or arrogant like he would have liked it to be. She didn’t laugh, didn’t sound as if she longed or missed, didn’t say she loved her ex-lover. But she didn’t hang up on him either. After she gently replaced the receiver, she came to the sofa and snuggled beside him, her husband, and rested her head on his chest. When he asked, she insisted the call was nothing.



But she realized how bothered he was by the call, and she went on to defend herself by arguing that she had no control over her ex-lovers calling. How many times had she begged him to change the phone number? Hadn’t she even agreed to move away, somewhere far, anywhere in the world where she would never by choice or chance have the opportunity to cross paths with her ex-lovers again?



She ran her fingertips up his arm, whispered her apologies, and only when he didn’t respond to her affections did she finally sigh, straighten up and shake her head before leaning forward to pick up her wedge of birthday cake.



With her fingers inches from the plate, he spurted, “What the fuck did he want?”



She gazed at him, saying nothing.



He speared his slice of cake with his fork. “Did he remind you how the two of you spent your last birthday?”



Then, after a prolonged silence, he added, “Did he want some cake, too?”



She twisted to respond, flicks of anger distorting her face. “What is it I have to do to make things right?”



This is the point, he thinks now, when he would have hurled the cake.



It takes great effort to pull the front door shut behind him, with the wind blowing as hard as it is. He would have raised that plate and slammed it against the wall or the television or the person responsible for his pain. That’s what he would have done.



But she didn’t do that. Instead, she fell forward unto his lap, quivering and afraid, almost crying. She squeezed his thigh and when he continued to eat his cake she began to pound a fist against his thigh, again and again and again. All the while repeating the words, “I hate you . . . I hate you . . . I hate you.”



Now, while he stands on the porch staring up and down the dark street, the wind bites at his exposed face and ankles. It whips his bathrobe against his skin. He knots the belt, tugs the collar up and lets himself dip down onto the cold concrete steps. Across the pavement the streetlamp casts a halo of faint yellow light. Raindrops falling from the eaves, tap, tap, tap onto the banana leaves that bend in front of the windows. The grassy odors of nearby meadows blow in and curl around him as he tries to will his wife home.



Almost always after the arguments, this is the moment she comes out onto the porch and sits—as he sits now—on the top step.



Usually, he lets her stew, but never leaves her alone too long before he steps out the door to sit beside her. She never turns to look at him during that moment. She instead drops her forehead, presses it against her bouncing knees.



He apologizes then, and pulls her into him, promising he will let go of the past, promising to move forward. But today, her birthday, she is not here on the porch to receive his apologies.



He pats his bathrobe pockets, his hands starting at the right breast, then dropping to the sides, not even knowing what he’s looking for. He lets the wind ravage him while he waits on the porch listening to the banana leaves hiss as they try to resist the wind.



For a long time he gazes at the empty curb in front of the driveway where her car usually sits. He thinks perhaps it’s all for the better if she doesn’t come home.



But the truth is, sadly, she always comes home. And they always find a way to move past these episodes, step beyond these troubles. Always.



Once again he visualizes the wedge of cake. He would have hurled it.

The Temporary Now

We're spinning circles, Faith and I. Couple of nobodies going round and round, headed nowhere quick. I ain't sure how we've managed to make do these past few months. But today, standing in the cold and the wet, future don't look so bright. I know I ain't supposed to think on the future. I'm supposed to put my worry on getting through today. Last night we slept where we scored. Burned and crashed. We do that a lot. When we got up this morning the rain was already coming down. We haven't eaten yet. Way things are going might be a while before we do. Only a few generous arms have come out open car windows. Seven, eight bucks. Maybe. Lot of coin. Hardly no one with any extra to spare. While I hang back by the scrubweed and hold the cardboard sign up, Faith, she works the cars that wait on the light. She raps her knuckles against the wet windows. "Spare some change," she says.

Most folks ignore, stare straight ahead. Sometimes they'll scowl. Occasionally, a finger'll be raised. One guy, when the light went green, he rolled his window down and spat in Faith's face. Get a fucking job, fucking crack-slut, he shouted. Faith got her hands in the window, got hold of his collar, but she was thrown back when he jammed the gas and sped off. She's tough, though. Not easily bothered. Faith, see, she's all about the now. She believes today is the only mattering day. Folks who worry on the future, or dwell about the past, Faith says, got their heads wrapped around the world the wrong way.

When the light goes green again the lane clears. I make mention of how bad the rain's getting. I even stop holding the sign out in front of me. Use it instead to keep myself from getting too drenched. Faith, she palms her damp red hair off her face, shrugs, and says, We got much bread left? When I don't answer, she says, Yeah, that's what I thought. She looks down at herself, at her breasts, the tight pullover she's got on -- wet and clinging. She pulls the fabric out, then tugs downward, letting the shirt snap back, grabbing, forming. Flaunting the goods. That's what she calls it. Gets desperate like this sometimes. Desperate in an ugly kind of way.

A month or so back when we'd caught enough coin to get a room, I asked her why. Why she stoops. She got uptight, mad, said, Why do you give a shit? Besides, she went on, it's all temporary, anyway. All this shit's temporary. I said, Maybe I care about you. Maybe I wanna make life with you. Faith said, Talk that way again and you're on your own. Last thing I need, she said, is a bunch of happy-happy, joy-joy crap. But she didn't mean it. She was putting on a mask, playing tough. I knew that. She no more wanted to be alone than I did. That night I lay on the bed in the dark and listened to her struggle to keep her sobs inside. That's Faith for you. It's all temporary. So she claims. Love. Life. The things she has to do. In my arms in the morning, she whispered, Let's do it, Donny. Let's kick this shit and anchor down to a real address. Get real jobs. Live real lives.

I got out of bed. Parted the curtains and let the sunlight sweep over the room. Felt different for a minute. Warm and bright. Real and secure. Been a long time since I felt that way. But it didn't take long for those hopeful vibes to become temporary. Like always, there was the reality of the now to deal with.

Light changes again and the cars stop line up. Faith leans over the lead car, peers into the driver's side window. She gives the guy behind the wheel an eyeful of the goods. The window cranks down. Help a lady out, Faith says to the driver. The driver, older guy, suit and tie type, probably says back, What's in it for me? Cardboard sign I'm hefting above my head sags heavy with rain. Even before she glances back, I know Faith's getting into the car with the guy. It's warm in there. No rain. No wind. No past, no future. Some pretty music. The temporary now.

Glancing back at me, she nods. I nod back and watch her open the door. She hops in, shuts the door and gnaws on her bottom lip the way she does when she wants you to think she don't care about nothing. We'll hook up tonight. After. We always do. The car drives off, its tires send a splash of water off the pavement onto my jeans. Ankles to cuffs drenched. What's new? I move up alongside the lane, drop my sign in front of me, try and shake some of the water off. They ain't looking my way though. These drivers. It's like they know I ain't quite whole. Like they know something's missing. Like they know Faith ain't here. Later, if things go right, we'll eat good, maybe even get a room.

It guilts me sometimes, letting Faith do what she does to keep us going. I wish things could be different. I wish I could find a way to make all this crap disappear. But I really gotta stop dreaming. If I've learned anything from Faith, I've learned not to count on things being too different from one day to the next. Life don't work that way. Not unless through some miracle you strike it big. Hit the mother-lode. Sometimes I think that happened to me when Faith came along. But right here, right now, with cars splashing past and the rain pounding down, I can almost hear Faith's voice. She's saying, Don't dwell, don't hope. Most people's dreams don't pan out.

Still, I'm hopeful she's right about this all being one of those temporary things.

Spoons

Allison is up on her elbows, awake again. Her eyelids flicker and she feels the cool breeze blowing in through the open window. The full moon bleeds bright through the glass, throwing shadows of shuddering leaves onto her bedroom wall. But it’s the noise — the grinding from the kitchen — that has Allison shaking her head.

She scoots into a sitting position, presses her back against the headboard and carefully listens to the clinking. She tucks her hair behind her ears and concentrates. The sound from the kitchen becomes clearer. Tap, tap, tap. A spoon. She’s sure of it.

A moment later Allison hears another spoon join the first. This time it’s a tinkling against glass. Then another and another and another until it is clear a full blast session of musical noisemaking is taking place. Spoons rapping against glassware, creating different tones. Spoons banging beat after beat inside the porcelain sink. Spoons drumming out a soulful rhythm as they brush and clash against copper pots and steel pans.

Allison, this time more determined than ever to catch them in the act, quietly slips out from under the covers. She swings off the bed, throws a robe around her shoulders and tiptoes toward the kitchen. The musical discord is out of control — spoons knocking the windows, spoons snapping the wooden cabinetry, and spoons steel-slapping the dining room table. Advancing through the house, Allison remains as noiseless and stealthy as she possibly can.

When she reaches the fringe of the kitchen, she raises her hand and glides it along the wall until she feels the light switch under her palm. She keeps her breath in and flips the switch up.

But they are very clever, these spoons. As soon as light spills over them they freeze in mid-air. Allison, having stepped into the kitchen, stares in disbelief at the suspended spoons, which are angled this way and that, floating at different levels. In the reflective surfaces of all those spoons, Allison’s startled reflection stares back at her.

She takes a deep breath, tells herself to remain calm. She shuffles over the linoleum, this moment stooping, that moment up on her toe tips, but always she is snatching spoons out of the air. When all the spoons have been gathered, Allison stows them in the drawer they had sneaked out of. She fastens the plastic safety latch so they can’t escape again.

Relieved and ready for some real rest, Allison shuts the light off and starts back to her bedroom. Halfway across the house she hears the creak of a drawer opening. Then, the swelling up of a new noise from the kitchen. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickle up. As with the spoons, this sound is rhythmic. But it is not a tap, tap, tap. This time Allison hears a scrape, scrape, scrape. The knives?

Then suddenly the forks, those silly, trouble-making forks, begin to rattle noisily inside their confinement — as if daring Allison, daring her to return to the kitchen and collect the knives.

Cafe Lost

Three days of downpour has paused, although the wind still funnels down the boulevard. Noel makes his way along the sidewalk, his hands pocketed, his face damp from the warm drizzle, which trembles in the air like static on a screen. He’s been waiting for the weather to change, waiting for the skies to clear, so he can leave his apartment and visit her again.

The streets are filled with renewed activity. Shopkeepers once again tend to their shops, most of which have been shuttered during the storm.

Noel turns off the boulevard into a quiet alleyway. This is where he usually finds her. He steps over simmering puddles, his shoes scraping against wet gravel.

Halfway through the alley he spots her sitting at a table, shielded from the sprinkles by an awning, which writhes in the wind. This, Noel knows, is her favorite café. In fact, it’s the only café where Noel has ever seen her. His anxiety mounts; his shoes sink a little deeper into the ground as he increases his pace.

When he reaches the table, Noel slips into the chair opposite her. “Hello, you,” he says. “It’s been over a week since I’ve seen you.”

Of course she does not reply, but that doesn’t matter; Noel is still pleased to have found her again. “How is your day going?” he asks.

She stares across the table, fixing her gaze on something beyond where Noel sits with his back to the street. She tilts her head and manages a smile, although it’s there only for an instant.

“I knew I’d find you here,” Noel says. When she lowers her head, he pretends that her moist eyes, a deeper green than he remembers, simply can’t hold his gaze. While she looks down at her long fingers on the table, Noel wonders what thoughts dance through her mind, why it is she laments.

Noel leans forward, rests his elbows on the table, cups his chin in his hands. He wishes she could say something, anything.

“Last night,” Noel begins, “I couldn’t stop thinking of you while I listened to the rain.” When she doesn’t reply, Noel persuades himself his words are drowned, lost in the drizzle that raps against the awning, carried away by the sighing wind.

“I’m glad the rain stopped,” he says, reaching across the table, lightly brushing her hand with his. She sighs, a hush that slips from her throat. Her arms, Noel notices, begin to prickle. She closes her eyelids and pulls her hand out from under Noel’s, and then she slumps back in her chair.

Damp leaves skitter on the brick wall along the sidewalk behind her, becoming part of a whirling heap of orange gathering near the café entrance. Patrons push through the doors, in and out, their umbrellas rising, or collapsing. But they never pay attention to the couple seated out front in the rain. They never do.

From where he sits, Noel watches her open her eyes and gaze skyward where, for a long time, she searches for something Noel wishes he could identify . Finally, she straightens in her seat and lifts her glass to her lips. When she replaces the drink in front of her, Noel studies the smoothness of her fingers as they trace the rim of the glass. She raises a hand and runs a fingertip beneath her eyes. He can’t help wondering why she weeps.

Noel extends his arm to wipe her tears away and his fingers pass through her face, as through a vapor of breath.

“What happened?” he asks, settling back in his chair. “Why are you here?”

Of course she doesn’t answer.

Noel steeples his fingers in front of his face and tries to blow warmth onto his frigid hands. She reaches into her lap and raises her handbag onto the table. She snaps the bag open. Her hand disappears for an instant, before reappearing with a tissue. She uses the tissue to dab at the moisture beneath her eyes, smearing her mascara. She sniffs loudly and crumples the tissue, lets it fall onto the table next to her glass. Then, while she tries to force a smile, her thumb rises and brushes aside the loose strands of hair, which are pasted to her forehead.

After she finishes her drink, she stares through Noel and into the quiet street. He turns his head and follows her gaze. The rain begins to fall, again. Under the neon stabbing the street, puddles ripple and spill over onto the gravel alley.

When she buries her face in her hands, Noel says, “I have to go now, but I’ll be back. I promise I’ll be back.” He rises from his chair and moves past her to the café entrance. When he reaches the door, he stops to look at the reflections arrested in the plate glass window.

As is always the case, reflected in the glass there is only rain and an empty table, which shudders outside Café Lost.

Loss Amplified

Across the gravel alleyway outside my window my mother spends the nights forgetting. Chips are counted. I hear the clack of mahjong bricks being fingered and stacked and raked over the cluttered tops of padded tables. I listen for her voice: her laughter, her chronic cough, her occasional smoky sigh, and when these familiar sounds drift lazily into my bedroom through the torn mesh screen with the mosquitoes, I hold my pillow close. It's not difficult imagining her coin-calloused fingers fanning thick dust and smoke from her face. Captured in my mind is the image of a sweaty amber bottle of San Miguel beer, my mother's ragged fingers wrapped around it, raising it to her dry lips.

Come daybreak my mother staggers home across the alleyway, kicking up dust. Exhausted, she drops onto the straw mat beneath the electric fan, where she pretends to sleep, pretends she is alone. Her closed eyelids twitch to stay off the deep slumber that will surely bring my father back. In this state of half-awareness, the quickness of her hands startle houseflies that buzz her pasty skin and thread her uncombed hair.

Shadows lengthen along the floor and up the walls. My mother rises to prepare our meal. Over bowls of rice and vegetables we exchange emotionless glances, addressing without words one another's emptiness. The mask of loss and pain has never faded from her face. After showering and dressing, my mother's coarse lips press against my forehead, always followed by the whispered promise that tomorrow, always tomorrow – she will move from the hazy past into the future. She will find a way to heal herself. But not until tomorrow.

Spoon Face Julia

Because Julia Farley's face was concave we made her our buddy.

On Saturdays, after H.R. Puffnstuff, the guys and I would bang on the Farley's door and ask Julia's mother if her daughter could play outside for a couple hours. Of course, Mrs. Farley always agreed, even offered us brownies if we returned our spoon-faced friend by noon.

We laid Julia down on her back, lugged the garden hose over. One of the guys always poked a couple straws into her nostrils so she could breathe. Sometimes we released a dozen guppies, watched them swim the shallows of Julia's sunken face. Other times we whistled stray dogs over and encouraged them to lap up the water.

In the playground, we'd grip Julia by her ankles and use her face to shovel for treasure in the sand beneath the swings. Near noon we took turns, resting our elbows in Julia's sunken face while watching planes trail overhead.

But something sad happened about the time Julia's face filled out. Her breasts and butt filled out, too. Older boys began to drop by the Farley home.

We truly did miss Julia Farley's company; duck-lipped Donna Dixon was nowhere near as willing or fun.

Dragonfly

In the park, Jenny’s father used newspaper to make her a kite. I asked my mother to do the same. Instead, she stalked the hedges, walking alongside them until she spotted a blue dragonfly. She positioned her fingers above the insect while it rested. In one quick motion she snatched it by its wings.

I watched its tail curl and its spindly forelegs claw the air as my mother looped thread around its thick neck. Then she placed the wooden spool into my hand. “Here. Fly this.”

Jenny dropped her kite and stared in awe as my dragonfly buzzed skyward. She begged me to let her try. But since I have no father to craft old newspapers into boats or hats or kites, I ignored Jenny and maneuvered the dragonfly with pride.

Inevitably, though, the dragonfly’s head popped off and the thread slackened. Jenny laughed, picked her kite up off the grass, and ran with it across the lawn. I reeled the thread in and sat on the grass. While pinching apart the dragonfly’s tail, I listened to the paper tail of Jenny’s kite flap in the breeze and watched my mother laugh with yet another strange man.

Buckethead

Marty got home from work and found the Great Dane puppy inside the house with its snout stuck in a metal bucket. While the dog ran blindly around the living room, clanking against furniture and toppling flowerpots, Marty's two daughters sat cross legged on the carpet in front of the television playing their video games. Marty exploded. He told the children to shut the damn television off, get up off their butts and get the the pail off the poor dog's face. His eldest daughter, Rosemary, took hold of the dog's tail. Little Natalie wrapped her skinny arms around the silver pail attached to the dog's snout. At the same time, the two girls both held on tight, closed their eyes, and tugged.

And that, Marty explained to the Animal Control officer, is how Buckethead, the tailless Great Dane he was surrendering, got its name.

Finding Freddy

Freddy, the kid who lives in the house four doors from mine, has club hands. His fused fingers are folded inward into permanent fists.

Sometimes -- all the time, really -- we consider his oddity and allow special concessions. When we play Red Light, Green Light, we pretend not to see him or the extra step he sneaks when everyone else freezes. We make believe he’s invisible when playing Dodge Ball, never pelting him. And in Hide-n-Seek, we always ignore him.

Yesterday, on Freddy’s porch, we were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. Of course we always came up scissors, so his permanent rock could crush us.

Freddy’s mother noticed, and when he went to the bathroom, she confronted us. “It does more harm than good to treat him special.”

So today, playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, our paper palms shrouded his fist. After shuffling in Red Light, Green Light, he was sent to sit on the curb. Playing Dodge Ball, I hurled the ball so hard it blasted his head and left a purple bruise on his face.

It occurred to me while playing Hide-n-Seek that Freddy’s mother was right. Every time we dragged him from his hiding place, he screamed joyfully.

A Recurrent Dream

At the breakfast table, Nestor’s wife breaks the news, revealing to him that the company she works for has scheduled yet another business trip for her to attend. She claims the seminar, which will be held seven-hundred-miles away in New York City, is necessary for the advancement of her career.

From across the table, Nestor stares down at his eggs and says, “When?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Funny how these meetings always seem to pop up with little notice.”

“They were only able—” his wife begins to say, her voice trailing off when Nestor shakes his head.

Looking up from his plate, Nestor says in an anxious tone, “I dreamt it again last night.”

Once again he is referring to his recurrent dream, a fabricated nightmare in which his wife bends over him while he sleeps, and with a deceitful smile painted across her face, she uses a threaded needle to sew his eyelids shut.

Nestor’s wife doesn’t reply. Avoiding her husband’s glare, she picks at her eggs. In the silence, only the tines of the fork can be heard as they clink against her porcelain plate.

After several moments, Nestor says, “It’s true, isn’t it? My dream has meaning, doesn’t it?”

Nestor’s wife releases her fork, letting it fall onto the plate. Without replying, she climbs out of her seat and hurries from the room.

When her footsteps on the wooden floor have faded, Nestor smiles. He resumes eating his breakfast, satisfied that his ploy has put his wife on the defensive. As is always the case, Nestor knows she will be too upset during her trip to wonder what he is doing—and with whom.

Penny

Penny

In Sarah's Citrus Heights apartment, we are all very drunk when the girl I'm thinking
of breaking it off with, Penny, begins to rattle off her past experiences with some
of the boys who'd entered and left her life. There was, she says, Jacob, the boy
she met years earlier in church and who had cried when Rocky Balboa was defeated
by Apollo Creed in the first movie. "Such sentiment," Penny says, looking over
everyone in the room and raising her beer bottle in front of her face.

I try to get her to stop, to relax and enjoy this small gathering of old friends.
But from where she sits across the room from me, Penny just gives me a hard look
and goes on with her mantra.

Then, she says, there was Louis, the Spanish boy who wooed her in high school.
She remembers and describes his slick accent, how he had spoken when he called her
at home to apologize for coaxing her into the alleyway behind the movie theatre
which was next to what is now the big Sam's Club on Greenback. Louis had made rough
love to her on top of a flattened empty cardboard box. Penny opens her eyes wide
and tells everyone how the moon shone behind Louis's head and while he continually
thrust himself against her, she stared at the big RCA letters on a box leaning against
the brick theatre wall.

Our hostess, Sarah, gets and goes to the kitchen. She calls out, asking who wants
another beer. Penny raises her arm and I tell her she's had enough. When Sarah
returns with a tray full of bottles, Penny removes not one, but two beers from the
tray. She then raises her arm and gives me the finger. Everyone in the room gets
a good laugh out of that.

Penny then brings up Carl and Craig, the two brothers who lived behind Sunrise Mall,
how they'd sandwiched her in the back seat of their father's parked car and from
either side of her worked their hands -- all four of them -- over her body. But
Carl and Craig's mother came out of the house and crossed the lawn without any of
them hearing her to discover them in the back see of the car. She had stuck her
face close to Penny's and threatened that if she ever saw Penny around her sons
again, she would phone Penny's mother and let her know how slutty Penny was.

The way Penny uses her hands to demonstrate and the way her face crumples and tightens
and the way the words slur from her lips has everyone in the room roaring with laughter.
Everyone except for me. Then she looks across the coffee table at me and says out
loud that it won't be long before I am included in her litany of lost lovers.

This brings about another round of laughter in the room.

Even Penny can not keep herself from laughing. She laughs so hard she frequently
has to swipe at her moist eyes with the blooming sleeve of her pink blouse.

Wet Market

***

Wet Market

Across a flyblown plywood counter a young boy stands next to a flaming barrel. The boy reaches into a deep porcelain basin and removes a tiny green frog. He carefully threads the frog through its mouth onto a wooden skewer. As the frog is slid down the skewer, its webbed feet reach for something to cling to, its rear legs kick backward like a desperate swimmer. The boy glances at me and grins, showing me a mouth of small teeth. He wipes his hand on his frayed t-shirt and removes another frog from the basin. He repeats the skewering process. After four frogs have been impaled, the boy winks at me. And then he holds the skewer over the fire that dances above the barrel. As they blacken the frogs pop loudly. The boy skillfully spins the skewer with his fingers, setting off a scattering of black ash and red ember.

He takes the skewer off the flame and hands it over the counter to my mother.

"Anak, ko," my mother says, holding the frogs in front of my face. "Try this. It's crispy like pork skin."

I shake my head no. "But we are not so poor, are we?"

She laughs. When she tries to force me anyway, I turn my head to heave.

***
Possible Edits

Staring at me from its bed of ice

We reached the market, flyblown and teeming with traffic.

***

Original version published in elimae: http://www.elimae.com/2009/09/Lamplight.html

Underneath the Lamplight

***

Lamplight

That night I am riding in a jeepney with my mother, returning to the base from the Grandfather's house. When the jeepney stalls in a snarl of traffic, I glance out the window. There are two women underneath a flickering streetlamp. They are jabbing their hands into the glow of light, wrapping their fingers around something, and then quickly stuffing that same something into green-tinted Coca-Cola bottles.

I nudge my mother. "What are they doing?"

She follows my gaze and replies, "They are catching crickets drawn to the light."

"But why?"

"Anak, ko," my mother says, meaning 'My child'. "Of course it is because they are very poor."

***

Possible Edits

We reached MacArthur Boulevard, brightly lit and teeming with traffic.

***

Original version published in elimae: http://www.elimae.com/2009/09/Lamplight.html

Fried Plantain

Still humming, my father slices the plantains. He drops them into a hot skillet.
"I won't forgive her," I say.
My father says nothing. He transfers the browned slices onto a plate and asks me to flatten them.
I position the slices between sheets of wax paper and slide them under a drinking glass. Leaning hard against the glass's rim, I squash the fruit flat, squeeze the oil out.
My father stops humming. "Gentler, child."
"I hate plantain." My eyes burn. "First bitter, then rotten."
He shakes his head and sits beside me, touching my wrist. "Not rotten." He pulls me close, whispering, "More mature. Sweeter. Softer."

Shoeshine

I sat back in the bamboo chair and placed my boot on the young girl's ratty shoeshine box. She sat cross-legged on the sidewalk and without looking up, she began to brush the toe of the boot. I watched her dip a dirty cloth into a rusted can of black Kiwi polish, then carefully use the cloth to buff. When she was done she stared up at me and said in clipped English, "Finished. Other shoe please."

It was a poor job. Scuff marks were still present and there was virtually no shine whatsoever on the leather, so I told her so.

Her eyes welled up.

Later that evening I found a real shoeshine person who used spit and a light touch to bring my leather boots to a brilliant luster that caught the bright lights and the flashing colors of the surrounding neon.

"Ten pesos," the shoeshine guy said, holding out his hand. I gave it to him and shook my head. It was the first day I'd ever spent fifty pesos having my boots shined.

Nodder

While browsing a souvenir shop in the airport, the man who'd crossed an ocean to marry encouraged his new bride, a woman he'd selected from photographs in a catalog, to assist him in choosing a gift to bring home to his mother. Anyone paying attention to this couple could see they were not yet in sync with one another, nor were they completely comfortable in each other's presence. The man and the woman made their way along the souvenir-filled shelves. He led, she followed. Occasionally, he stopped and picked an item up, asking her what she thought. Because she always nodded, he very gently took her hands in his and told her that he did not expect her to agree with everything he said. Still, each time he asked her opinion regarding a snow globe or metal trinket replicating some well-known local landmark, she smiled and nodded. If he placed a printed t-shirt or baseball cap in her hands, she smiled and nodded.

Toward the rear of the shop they stopped in front of a display of wooden figurines. Most of them depicted native people in traditional attire. The man and his new wife stared a long time at one particular figurine—a carved native woman wrapped in a native dress. Held in front of the wooden woman was a straw basket filled with local fruit. When he took it from the shelf the figurine's head shivered on its coil and began to bob, up and down, up and down.

He turned to face his wife, and when he saw her staring down at the new shoes he'd bought her, he replaced the carving back on the shelf.

"No," he said. "I don't like it either. Let's see if we can't find a keychain instead."

Saving Angel

Bruce can’t quit laughing. It’s not that he thinks everything is funny, he just can’t control himself.

Sitting on the toilet, he leans forward, covers his eyes with his balls of his palms and squeezes his knees together. He laughs again. The serious faction of Bruce’s mind struggles with the silly side, which for the moment holds the strings to his emotions. Bruce, aware that this conflict takes place in his brain, doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want to laugh anymore, but he can’t help it.

When Bruce finally does manages to stop laughing, he slurs out, “This is serious shit.”

His cheeks expand, like some squirrel who'd gathered a cheekful of nuts. Behind Bruce's sealed lips a mouthful of suspended laughter whirls round, ready to spill out again.

Then it happens; Bruce opens his mouth and the laughter begins again.

Maybe it’s all a dream. This also crosses Bruce‘s mind. Maybe his wife, Angel, isn’t really lying dead in the living-room. Is she? Or is his mind offering up false possiblilities. Again, the serious side of his mind interjects into his thought train, telling Bruce to wake up, get a grip -- this is no fucking dream.

Bruce closes his eyes, thinking maybe he can shut reality out, or bring it back. His mind, though, spins reels of images: Angel, big, big Angel, shuffling along the sidewalk, complaining of her swollen aching ankles. Angel staring at her feet, trying to ignore the taunts of the neighborhood children. Angel begging Bruce to save her, take her away from all of this.

Then Angel slips away from Bruce’s thoughts, Maurice steps into them.

Maurice standing in the doorway. Maurice. White Maurice.

“Yo, Man,” Bruce says out loud, his voice hollow in the bathroom. “What it be, ma man?” This time when Bruce laughs, there is no interruption from his voice of reason. After all, pale-ass Maurice acting like some ghetto gangster really is funny.

Maurice hadn’t lied when he’d told Bruce the dope was high-grade, the best that could be had.

“This shit’ll take the pain away,” Maurice, slinging his black slang, had said. “You gonna know what heaven be all about when this shit starts swimmin’ through you veins.”

Bruce recalls snatching the bag of dried herb from Maurice’s hand and squeezing it.

He remembers working the kinks out of his neck while Maurice kept on. Bruce had gestured over his shoulder then, over to where Angel sat slumped on the sofa, looking at TV.

“But will it work on her?” Bruce had asked.

“Man . . . “ This is how Maurice had answered, peering past Bruce. “This shit don’t care how big you is.“

“But will it, though?”

Maurice raised an arm, touched his sunglasses for a moment before pushing them up on top of his stringy dreadlocks. He leaned in, Maurice did, putting his face close to Bruce’s, and said, “Maurice don’t peddle the cheap shit you fools be scorin’ out in the projects.”

“So her body, as large as it is, will absorb it then?”

Maurice smiled, flashing his gold tooth. “Maurice be all about quality. He gots himself a reputation to keep.”

“I’m not saying you don’t,“ Bruce replied. “I’m just saying not everything works for Angel. You know, on account of her being so --”

“You gets what you pays for, friend.” Maurice snatched the bag of weed from Bruce, flipped it into the air and caught it again when it came back down.

“It has to work.” Bruce said. “It has to be good enough to stop Angel’s pain.”

Maurice, lowering his shades back over his eyes, had replied. “You gots my guarantee.”

In the bathroom, Bruce shuts his eyes and laughs again. Fucking Maurice.

When he opens his eyes, Bruce tries to focus on the shower curtain ahead of him. The sharp smell of plastic materializes. Is the smell in his nostrils real, or is it his brain playing tricks again? Bruce likes that smell. He also likes how the blue flowers that decorate the shower curtain repeat, the pattern mottling the plastic. He used to sit on the toilet, when the curtain was new, and watch Angel shower behind those blue flowers.

But Bruce’s mind can’t sustain the sensation; the newness fades away, transforms in front of his eyes. He grimaces upon seeing how nasty and yellow the shower curtain really is. The only odor filling Bruce’s nostrils now is what he’s pushing out of himself into the toilet.

“My Angel in the garden on a rainy day.” When Bruce hears the words spill from his mouth, he starts to laugh again.

There are thick lines of mildew caked in the accordianed folds of the shower curtain. Bruce thinks they look like bars. He raises his arms in front of him, pretends to grip and shake the imaginary bars. He says, “Let me out. Let me out of here.“

Bruce becomes aware of a noise in the bathroom, and as he focuses on it, the noise amplifies. Click-hiss, CLICK-Hiss, CLICK-HISS. While he sits motionless on the toilet, Bruce stares up at the vent in the ceiling, wishing he could see the slow spinning fan. CLICK-HISS, CLICK-HISS, CLICK-HISS.

Angels go to heaven, don’t they? Is she in heaven now? She can’t be teased in heaven. She can’t be laughed at, treated like a freak. It’s not her fault she’s so large. Glands? Heredity? Her mother was big, too. As were her two sisters. Big and fat and sad and alone. At least Angel had Bruce, someone who loved her despite her size. Right? Of course he loved her. Didn’t he? He wasn’t ashamed of her. Was he? The fact that he'd lied to himself, told himself he could do much better -- that wasn't real. Was it? He loved her enough to help her pain go away, didn’t he? He loved her enough to save her, right?

Bruce turns his head and looks at the sink. On the counter, Angel’s pet goldfish floats in a bowl of green water. It gulps, gulps, gulps for air. Bruce opens and closes his mouth, rhythmically mimicking the dying fish.

He pats his shirt pocket, feeling for the remaining marijuana. He reaches into the pocket and pulls out the joint. It’s as thick as Angel’s thumb. Bruce jams the joint between his lips. This one is also laced with roach poison. “My ticket out.” Bruce says, still staring at the goldfish.

They’d smoked everything except the two laced fingers. Those they’d saved until Maurice's good stuff had kicked in.

When Angel told Bruce she was ready, he lit hers up for her. He watched her squeeze her eyelids shut as she drew on it. He watched the slow burning paper curl away between Angel’s trembling fingers. “My ticket out,” Bruce says again. He holds his gaze on the goldfish, as if waiting for a reply.

After wiping, after flushing, Bruce yanks up his sweatpants and starts for the closed bathroom door. His feet tingle, numb against the tiles. Bruce’s knees wobble and, to avoid crashing to the floor, he takes a giant stride and grasps the doorknob. The knob wriggles in his hand and the door flies open. Bruce glances at the goldfish again, wonders how long it’ll suffer before it dies.

Everything in the living-room has that frosted window distortion. Blurs - fuzzy splotches of color. He doesn’t look directly at Angel, doesn’t want to. Instead he sits with his back against the sofa, Angel's huge yellow dress in his peripheral vision. He doesn’t want to see her lying dead, sprawled out on the carpet.

While trying to grasp if this whole night has been some kind of joke, Bruce starts laughing again.

But this time the laughter is different - milder. Bruce sniffs up the moisture beneath his nostrils and rubs his red eyes. His eyes focus and he sees Angel’s drawing on the wall, a train sketched in grease. Lead car rushing, remaining cars slithering behind, snakelike, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking until the caboose is just a fleck of grease. Angel drew that for Bruce - two birthdays ago.

He tries to turn his head, tries to pull his gaze from the train. He can’t, though. Suddenly, tendrils of smoke rise from the train’s engine, Bruce presses his back against the sofa. The train bursts off the wall, spits from its frame, rushes directly toward him.

He raises an arm to shield his face. After a moment Bruce lowers his arm and starts to laugh. Damn Maurice. You weren’t lying about this shit.

“Toot-toot,” Bruce says, cocking a fisted hand up and down. “Chug-a-chug-a-toot-toot.”

The realization of the absurd mind-play taking place in his head keeps Bruce laughing. The awareness that Angel lies dead beside him makes Bruce question himself. He did it for her, right? Why does it all seem so funny?

His laughter mounts and Bruce feels his eyes leak. He rolls onto his side, right into Angel, where he suddenly sobers. He still refuses to look at her. Instead, Bruce squeezes his eyelids so tight that colors mottle against them. Then, laughing and weeping at the same time, Bruce plants a palm against the sharp pain stinging his side.

He wants to take control of himself. He hates this feeling of being half-aware, hates how he understands what’s happening. Fuck you Maurice.

Finally, Bruce, with his eyes still shut, raises a trembling hand and finds one of Angel’s thick thighs.

Angel stirs, a murmur escapes her throat.

Startled at this sudden movement, Bruce snaps his eyes snap open. He holds his breath, bites down on his lower lip, not realizing he’s drawn blood. He turns his head, slowly, and studies Angel’s motionless face. He shifts his stare, his gaze traveling all the way down Angel’s three-hundred-eighty pound body lying on the carpet beside him. Scanning up again, he notices the gentle rise and fall of her chest.

She’s not gone.

Everything except the final two joints; it should have been enough to drop an elephant. That’s what they’d smoked, that’s what Maurice staked his reputation on. Then, when she no longer felt pain, Bruce gave her the laced joint, watched her smoke it.

Damn you, Maurice. She’s not gone. The events of the night spin through Bruce’s mind. Snapshots, images. Bruce and Angel making love, twice. Angel wanting to wear her yellow dress, Bruce helping her into it. Nibbling on cold pizza, the TV running while they smoked, while they fucked, while they laughed, while they cried. Then, Angel falling onto the carpet where she lies now, unmoving, eyes open, lips slightly parted.

She was supposed to be gone.

“This is the last time you’ll cry,” he’d promised her. “Soon it’ll be over, the pain won’t be there anymore.”

Bruce, close against Angel now, pushes aside her blonde mess of hair. He rests his head on her heavy breasts.

Faster and longer. Fuck you, Maurice. This shit’ll get you there faster, keep you there longer. Faster and longer.

Bruce buries his face deeper into Angel’s breast, breathes her in. How long is longer? His fingers run through the dry nest of Angel’s hair. He presses down, feels her skull against the tips of his fingers.

Closing his eyes, Bruce hears every sound in the room. Everything. All to the beat of Angel’s heart. The wind chanting in through the cracks in the window. The fluorescent lights buzzing in the kitchen.

A comical pair. What a ridiculous pair. Look how fat she is. Fat ass. Tub-o-lard. Shame. Hey, hey, hey.

What the fuck do they know? They couldn’t even begin to be aware of how caring a person Angel was. It wasn’t her fault she was so large. He did love her. He really did, didn't he?

Bruce lowers his hand from Angel’s hair, blankets her nose, feels her shallow breaths warm against his palm. If he presses down hard enough, he knows, he could stop her breathing. He does press. But not able to maintain it, Bruce pulls his hand back.

Bruce whispers into Angel’s ear. “Don’t fight. Let it take you.”

His hand drifts automatically, a mind of its own, moving down from her mouth, over her breasts, her hips, before finally resting on one of Angel’s knees.

“I always love you,” Bruce whispers. He watches his hand crawl up Angel’s thigh, disappear. He feels the fabric of her yellow dress against his knuckles, the bumps of her thigh under his palm. Up, up, up until he finds what he’s searching for. Bruce works his fingers. But Angel’s so far gone, so teetering on the edge, she doesn’t stir.

Bruce’s finger's slip out of her, his hand slips out from under her dress. He scoots himself into a sitting position with his back against the sofa. He stares at the train on the wall. He raises his fingers in front of his face, wiggles them, and then brings them to his nostrils, lowers them to his mouth.

Make my pain go away. I don‘t want to live anymore. Make my pain go away. Show me you love me. Save me.

“You gets what you pays for,” Maurice had said. Longer faster reputation elephants Fuck you, Maurice. Fuck you.

The instants are all at once invading Bruce’s mind. Cheap wine, cold pizza, expensive dope, lovemaking on the floor, in the bed, music spilling from the stereo, TV blaring, the odor of the burning herb, the feel of Angel in his arms, dying goldfish, new curtain, roaring train.

Angel moans again.

Her eyelids flutter and a trickle of brown liquid leaks from her lips, rolling down her cheek. She begins to tremble, convulse violently. A choking noise escapes her throat.

Bruce buries his face in his hands. Fuck you, Maurice.

He climbs on top of Angel, positions himself below her breasts, feels the stretch in his groin as he straddles her immense body.

Make my pain go away. Save me.

Bruce stares up at the ceiling. He feels his thumbs touch and he leans all his weight forward into his hands, into his fingers. He presses down, harder, harder, harder, his shoulders rolling forward to add just a little bit more until finally her throat collapses in his hands.

Bruce rolls off Angel onto the floor. He gasps for air. His hand moves to touch Angel’s bosom. The pulse he feels is his own, racing from his heart to his fingertips.

Dawn is already spilling gray through the windows when Bruce finally leaves his wife‘s side.

Bruce closes the bathroom door behind him. The goldfish floats - lifeless. He picks up the bowl, cold in his hands, and pours its contents into the toilet. He flushes and watches the goldfish caught in the whirl before being sucked down the pipes.

Then Bruce pulls down his sweatpants and sits on the toilet. After digging his laced joint and his lighter out of his shirt pocket, Bruce stares at the shower curtain ahead of him and begins to laugh.

Secrets

One minute me and Bernie got our attentions on the game, next Bernie says to me, Watch this, man. He snaps his fingers and his old lady, Heidi, who’d been at the dining table reading, raises her head. Hey, baby girl, Bernie says. My buddy here’s been staring at your tits. Nah, man, I say, shaking my head. He’s playing.

Heidi, she frowns and says, Don’t do this, Bernie. He points the neck of his beer bottle her way and says, My buddy says you look good. I feel the blood rushing to my head. Heidi lays her book facedown on the table, weaves her fingers together and stares at them. Bernie says, Get undressed already. Show my buddy the goods. Heidi shakes her head. That’s mean, Bernie. Hurtful.

I empty my bottle and get up, brush my pants off. I should go, I say. Bernie takes hold my shirt sleeve, says, Ever have a secret you feel you can’t live with, man? Heidi starts up, but sits back down. How much longer you gonna torture me, Bernie? she says. I yank free of Bernie’s grip. Knock it off, I say. I didn’t do nothing with her.

Bernie gets on his feet, drives his palms into my chest, shoving me backward. Get the fuck out of my house, he says. I see you man, he says. Who you really are. Heidi screams from across the room, Leave him alone, Bernie. Bernie says, Was I talking to you, bitch!

Look, Bernie, I say. Calm down, man. Take it easy. Bernie shoves me again, Why the fuck are you still here? He grabs my collar. Heidi bolts across the room, pulls Bernie off me, screaming, Bernie, stop.

Then Bernie starts laughing. He swipes at his eyes and keeps laughing. Finally, he drops back onto the sofa. Me and Heidi exchange a quick look. Bernie, still laughing, says, You should see the look on your face, man.

The Specialist

After work, Charles usually finds himself drinking alone at the Pelican Club. Until the band begins playing just before nine, the place is pretty much blue-collar. Stiffs having one with friends after a shift at one of the nearby mills, factories, or warehouses. Charles tries to keep to himself, but once recognized, he becomes the subject of lewd jokes and curious queries, which continue until he finally pays his bill and leaves. What do they know, these men who either smell of sawdust, or have oil-stained hands. What do they understand of women's pains? Nothing. "There he is," one of them might say out loud, "the guy with all the pussy." Or else, after having had a few drinks, a group of burly, ball-capped machinists might come by and ask, "How about a sniff of them hands, buddy?" Charles smiles it off, nursing his rum and coke. The bartender, a fat, one-armed veteran named Higgs, will always intervene, saying, "Leave the man alone. Somebody has to do the job." How would they like it, Charles thinks, if they had to see women in pain day in, day out? They think its funny, doing what he does, having to see these poor women with either their knees up and apart, or their legs hanging over the edges of the paper-covered table while the technique is performed. Steady relationships don't come easy for Charles. Conversation always leans toward work, and inevitably, an explosive jealousy will consume the woman. Even this Charles finds difficult to understand. Can't these women see the importance of his work? Still, they sooner or later begin to question the physical characteristics of other women, and not only request, but demand comparison. "After a while," he'll say, "all vaginas look alike." He hates to see the clients he's treated in public. The discomfort of their relationship, no matter how professional, hangs over the chance meetings. Of course, despite the wonderful results, the pain still lingers in these women's minds. Sometimes they shut their eyes, pant their way through it. Other times they curse, screaming at him while the performs the delicate procedure. "Calm down. Breathe deeply. It'll all be over in no time." These are the stock lines he uses to appease them. Some women, mostly first-timers, stiffen up during the process. Embarrassing accidents have occurred, requiring paper changes in mid-procedure. But those who'd been through it before, they just close their eyes and let it happen. Charles hates the fear he witnesses in the women's eyes, hates how they put their trust in him, hates knowing that he can do little to reduce the pain that comes before the joyful finish. They alleviate their fears by laughing or gnawing their lower lip or staring at the spackling on the ceiling. They make faces, rolling their eyes or pouting their lips. Sometimes they request— and of course, Charles allows— a loved one to sit beside them and hold their hand. Sometimes they'll talk while he works, ramble on about unrelated subjects: some movie they've recently seen, a book they might be reading, why they are going to this extreme, doing this, and how they honestly believe that by having it removed their lives will improve. He used to lie to them, telling them the procedure was completely painless. But he could not sleep, sometimes for days, after seeing that look of betrayal glazed over their eyes when he finally snapped his gloves off. "Higgs," he says to the bartender, shaking the ice cubes round his glass. "Refill, hey." Higgs comes over, tops the glass off. "Must've been a rough one," the bartender says. Charles sips from his glass and shakes his head. When he sets his drink on the bar, he says, "This girl today couldn't have been more than sixteen." "Getting younger, are they?" "She screamed, cried. And when it was over she asked for her cell-phone and called her boyfriend. 'It's done,' she told him. 'Are you happy?' When she heard his reply she cried with joy." "Crazy world," Higgs says. "Not like when I was young. If a girl didn't like what she'd been dealt, too bad. She'd just have to live with it." Charles feels a tap on his shoulder, glances back to see a young man standing an arm's length away. The man clears his throat and says, "My girl wants... I mean, we want... I hear you do..." Charles nods, reaches into his pocket and removes a stack of business cards. "Call and make an appointment," he says, handing the young man one of the cards. "Is it painful? I mean, will she be able to deal with it?" Charles nods. "Both." He looks at the kid, thinking the boy can't be more than seventeen. They are coming in younger than ever. The kid smiles. "She wants me to do it to," he says. Charles nods. The trend is becoming more frequent. Over the past year, men too, have been desiring a full Brazilian waxing.

Entanglements

The rain fell and the spinning tires of passing cars threw spray from the pavement onto my jeans. A dark, low-to-the-ground vehicle sped past, then slowed ahead of me and veered onto the shoulder. Its trouble lights started to flash. I looped the straps of my backpack through my arms and shrugged it into place. Trotting across the gravel to the waiting car, I was thankful someone had finally stopped.

Chrome letters above the license plate spelled out the word SPYDER. It was a tiny two-seater, black, and when the passenger's side window slid down I peered inside and saw a woman about my age behind the wheel. Her face was lit up by the green glow of the instrument panel. The wipers groaned as they arced, continuing to scrape rain off the cracked windshield.

The driver tilted her head. She smiled and said, "You're drenched." When I didn't reply right away, she added, "Where you headed?"

I shoved a clump of wet hair out of my face and tried to blink the rain out of my eyes. "I guess I'm just on the move," I said.

"Running?" she asked.

I felt my stomach clench and looked the woman over. Her blonde hair was an uncombed mess of stringy silk and she had mascara stains under her eyes. She wore gray sweats, the shirt hooded and the pants baggy. "Yeah," I said. "I guess I'm running."

The automatic lock released. The woman said, "Hop in and we can run together. Maybe grab something to eat down the road."

When I tugged on the handle and opened the door, she bent over and used her right arm to sweep fast food wrappers and empty cigarette packs off the passenger's seat onto the floor. She straightened, glancing at me. There was something needy in the way she grinned. Alarm bells pounded in my head. It was too similar to the relationship I'd just escaped.

Just then, bright headlights from an oncoming car hit the cracked windshield and cast floating web patterns across the woman's face.

I slammed the door without getting in. Shaking my head, I smiled and said, "Hope you don't get offended if I pass on the ride."

She laughed. "You're not afraid of me, are you?"

While I backed away in the rain, I nodded and reminded myself the weather couldn't stay bad forever. The woman behind the wheel said nothing, only kept her eyes on me, never once blinking.

Winter Pride

Tanya Berdoff is trudging back and forth through the snow in front of my house. A straw hat shields her face and Christmas lights flash all over her body. Other than that she isn't wearing a thing.

When Tanya notices me watching, she stops pacing and faces my window. Her steaming breath rises skyward and she is shivering, almost convulsively. Her pale, puppy-dog-ear breasts, and her heavy thighs wobble beneath the myriad of colors and shapes coming off the lights strung around her.

Across the street, the Berdoff's porch light flicks on and the front door opens. Henry Berdoff steps outdoors and lights a cigarette.

"Beat that, you fucking pork chop!" Henry shouts from his porch.

I let the curtain fall and turn away from the window.

My wife, Myra, who'd been lying in bed, puts her magazine down and looks my way. "What's going on out there, Roy?"

"They're pissed," I reply.

Myra comes up on her elbows, her magazine drops onto the carpet. "What's their problem now?" When I don't answer, Myra climbs out of bed and joins me at the window.

I pull aside the curtain. Across the street, Tanya's broad blinking backside is moving past the life-sized, mechanical Santa Clause on the Berdoff's front lawn. When she reaches the porch, Henry kisses her.

Myra says, "That crazy woman just has to be freezing."

We watch Henry crouch, reach past his wife and unplug a cord. Tanya's lights flicker off. Under the blotchy porch light, Tanya slowly spins herself free of the cord she's wrapped in. Henry comes to his feet and flicks his cigarette toward our house. Both he and Tanya give me and Myra a not so neighborly gesture. Then they both disappear through their front door.

Myra and I stay standing at the window, silent, staring at the Berdoff's mechanical Santa as he waves his arm and bends at the waist. Finally, I let the curtain fall and put my arms around Myra, pull her close against me.

After a moment, I say softly into her ear, "Myra?"

She pulls her head off my chest, looks up, glaring. Her head moves side to side.

"Myra? Please, Myra?"

She jerks out of my arms, retreats, backing toward the bed. "Not a chance," she says, jabbing her finger in the air between us. "First thing in the morning your ass is on the roof and every one of those reindeer are coming down."

Just That Quick

I tell this guy sitting next to me at the bar that I'm all used up. I'm emptied out. Don't know if I wanna go on, I say. Don't know if I can. Like me, he claims to be rutted in ways he doesn't understand. He takes long moments to ponder what he wants to say. Finally, he claps me on the back and says, Buddy, not a damn thing lasts forever. Knowing he's right, I say, Well, I'm on the way out, anyway. Me too, he says. Me too. After taking a long sip from my glass, I say, Even the sun eventually burns out. He nods and we quit talking. In the silence that follows he plays with the olive floating on top of his drink. Then he stares at himself in the mirror behind the bar. He knocks back what's left of his drink, glances at his watch and says, Guess this is it, man. Gotta go. Don't go, I say. It's early yet. Stay. Let's try and drink off whatever's eating us up inside. Why? he says. What's the point? It don't work that way, buddy, he says, shaking his head. Wish it did. He slides off his stool and uses his unsteady hands to smooth the wrinkles from his shirt, his trousers. Really, he says, looking up, smiling, It's time to go. He puts a hand out. I take it, squeeze hard. See you there, I say. Doubt it, he says, gripping my hand back. Don't think it works that way, either. With his hands stuffed inside his coat pockets, he crosses the room to the exit. When the door shuts behind him something hits me. Just that quick.

Years earlier, my high school science teacher, Mr. Bolton, was found in his garage, dead behind the wheel of his Ford Escort, the engine still running. Day earlier he'd stood before the class in front of the chalkboard. He told us that some forty-three trillion miles away, maybe on the edge of the Centaurus constellation, or maybe in the center of some other cold dark spot in the vast emptiness of life, a star is dying, burning out. Hell, Mr. Bolton said, it might this very second be fizzling out. Might this very second be sputtering out the last of its fire. But of course we won't know this. Years will have to pass before anyone on this planet knows the star has died. Then one night the sky will have one less flicker. Even then, chances are the star's existence won't be missed.

I tried to think then about what Mr. Bolton was saying, but still had my sister's champagne-colored cat on my mind. That morning I found it lifeless on the road and tossed it into the trash. My sister thought it ran away. Gone is gone, right? Who needs to know how it left? Or why? When a few years later my father passed, we all saw that coming. The moment it happened my mother's own flame started to fizzle. I can still see her sitting on the living room carpet, listening while the needle rode the grooves of the Procul Harum record she played over and over. She once told me there was something meaningful in the lyrics of the haunting song 'A Whiter Shade of Pale.' The old man's gone, I told her. You don't gotta cry no more.

Like old picture slides flashing on a white screen, my world comes into focus in a discordant kind of way. Nothing lasts forever.

And now, while I trace the rim of my empty glass with a trembling finger, I think, What does it matter that I got no idea what life's all about? Every day stars flame out all around me. Other stars go on shining. So what? I raise my arm for another drink and while the bartender pours, I study the swirls and try real hard to pick the substance out, to push the fat aside, to grasp what it is -- exactly -- everyone, including myself, is trying to figure out.