After an Eon

A FTER AN E ON B Y J AMES P EELE

N Y W R I TE R S C OA L I T I ON P R E S S

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A FTER

AN

EON

B Y J AM E S P EEL E

NY W R ITER S C OALITI O N P RESS W INTER 3 2017

Copyright Š 2017 NY Writers Coalition, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-9964012-9-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017930304 A L L R I GH TS R E S E R V E D Upon publication, copyright to individual works returns to the authors.

Editor: Suzanne Wise and Aaron Zimmerman Layout: Daisy Flores Cover Image: Gerrit Vermulen via Unsplash

NY Writers Coalition Press 80 Hanson Place, Suite 604 Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 398-2883 info@nywriterscoalition.org www.nywriterscoalition.org

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CONTENTS FORWARD HOPES L E N OR E L U S CI OU S M OT HE R B E L L P R I N CE Z A MU N D A T HI S I S P OL I TR I CK S J U N E TE E N TH T HE E N D E A V OR S C OT T S PE CS C HA R GE S U R CHA R G E GARY T HR OU G H G R E E N E Y E S GMOS PHANTOM ZERO G N I N E T A L E S , O N E P R O MI S E T HE M A I N C OU R S E S TR A W BE R R Y M O ON F U L L M O ON H A R VE S T M O ON S E L E CTI ON C ON N I E H U N TE R M OON N E W M O ON B L O OD M OON F L OW E R M O ON T HU N D E R M O ON A D D I CTI ON T HE M I D N I GH T B A N D I T T HE C HA S E 5

19 11 12 17 20 23 27 31 34 46 47 50 54 59 63 66 68 72 74 78 80 84 87 91 94 100 105 108 112 116 118 121 123

J I M MY J E O PA R D Y

127 131

A CKN OW L E D G E ME N T S

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A B OU T NY W R I TE R S C OA L I TI ON

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F O RWA R D After one evening listening to the audio newsletter for the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, one listing caught my eye, classes for the NY Writers Coalition. I lit up but wasn’t sure if I heard correctly. They were offering free transcription. I couldn’t wait, it was a Sunday and I had to wait until Monday to call into the library’s office. They confirmed what I knew I heard and I was there day one when the classes began.

Since then I’ve participated in workshops, book releases, and other events that have literally changed my life. Before the workshop, I’d been recording stories at home for 10 years on audiotapes and had no way to get to this point. Through that time, it felt like an eon. The following stories were written during those workshops Someone once told me if you love what you do you never have to work-I plan on never working again.

J AMES P EELE

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HOPES As I sat at my kitchen table, my home attendant read me the letter, We have received your last submission and although you say we have accepted it, we have no record of that.

Probably because they never did. What I’m surprised about is that they haven’t picked up on the fact that I’ve been forging acceptance letters. I guess I’m trying to play mind tricks with them. My home attendant kept reading, but I tuned it out at this point. I figure sooner or later, this scheme to be published will somehow work itself out. Until then, I’m going to keep sending them letters that are basically saying they’ve promised to publish me until someone finally slips up and accepts my writing. If there’s an easier way to become a novelist, screenplay writer, and producer, I’d surely like to know.

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LENORE Joanne sat behind the counter in the record shop. She made believe she didn’t see the book Harris left behind as he went out to collect the numbers. She picked up the book and opened it, Daddy Cool by Donald Goings. She was sneaking a read of his book. If her parents knew, she would be in big trouble.

As she opened it and put it in front of her face, a hand grabbed it away real quick. The hand belonged to Razor Ray. With a mouth full of rotted teeth, and a murderous look in his eye, he held the book with one hand, and said to her, “Your momma know you’re reading this book?” as he lifted the razor in his other hand. Joanne sat up in bed panting, ready to scream with her hands over her mouth. She looked over and in the other twin bed Aija slept comfortably.

Later on that day, Joanne made her way out of the bathroom, walking stealthily down her hallway to the living room. On the record player, the Jackson 5 were singing, “ABC, 123.” She peeked around the corner in the living room. She saw her Aunt Peaches’ pocketbook resting on the couch. She made her way over to it, but it was zipped closed. She thought to herself, Damn. She heard her mother and Aunt Peaches talking in the kitchen, but she couldn’t be sure if they would come out at any moment. On the other hand, if they saw her, they would rush her off to her Uncle Williams’ record shop.

She made her way back down the hallway, trying to devise a plan. Aija peeked her head out of the bedroom and said, “It’s real rainy and dark outside, Joanne.”

Joanne replied, “So?” “You better be careful of Razor Ray,” Aija said, and stuck out her tongue at Joanne as she pulled her head back into the bedroom.

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Ravenair Bryant was a self-proclaimed pretty boy. And not too many people could dispute that. His mother named him Ravenair because of his shocking black hair, a full head of hair that he had since birth. He was terrible at basketball, but he was a great fighter, so it was easy for him to get his point across to his peers, as he was doing on this one particular night, bragging and boasting. He never noticed KG spiking his beer with Spanish Fly. It wasn’t the envy that made KG do this, it was because of KG’s sister. She had started liking Ravenair. She thought he was handsome.

He would hear her talk to her girlfriends about this guy that’s so sharp, but that’s not why they call him Razor Ray. One night, KG’s sister snuck out of the house to meet up with Ravenair. He took her to the roof of the building, where they made love passionately. At least she thought so, until when she went to leave, she saw some of his friends hiding in the corners, smiling and laughing. She had heard about this humiliation; she never thought it would be her.

Ravenair closed his eyes as he put the bottle to his mouth and swallowed deep. KG watched out of the corner of his eyes, trying not to be suspicious just in case his plan went wrong. Ravenair swallowed more beer and at that moment he heard it. He sat down and wondered why he never heard it before. He stood up fast; with almost nothing left in the bottle, he let it fall to the ground. The glass shattered.

He said, “Shut up, shut up! Do y’all hear that?” One of his friends kept laughing, “Hear what?” another said.

Ravenair yelled out, “Shut up, shut up! You hear that?”

One of his friends stepped up and said, “Ray, man, what’s wrong with you?”

Ray pushed him away, “They’re all around us!” he screamed, “They’re everywhere!”

What Ravenair was hearing, or what he thought he was hearing, was hundreds of thousands of insects marching 13

toward him. He was almost convinced he could see them on the ground now, trying to crawl up his legs. He started stomping his feet. And when one of his friends tried to get control of him, he caught him right on the chin with that famous left hand he was known for. He lifted the guy right off his feet.

He ran and his friends chased him for a while until they gave up. The only one that didn’t give up was KG. In fact, KG brought him home to Ray’s mother’s house. She just thought he was drunk. Upset, but she paid it little mind until the next day. When Ravenair woke up, he knew the damage was done. He felt that he had swallowed at least a hundred of the insects, and he could feel them crawling around inside of him. He went to the bathroom, got a razor, and tried to cut the insects out of his skin.

Joanne made another attempt into the living room. The bag was still zippered closed but it was almost time for her to go and she knew it. She was surprised to see a little pocket open on the side, and in it was just what she came to swipe, a cigarette. Kind of strange looking, though. No filter on this cigarette: white, and really thin. She had just started learning how to smoke, and she figured this would have to do. She walked quickly to the front door, opened it, and yelled, “I see you later, momma!” as the door slammed and she made her way down the hallway to the elevator. When she got outside she discovered Aija was right. The sky was really dark. It was still drizzling as she heard a fire engine roll by in the distance. She looked both ways for Razor Ray. Truth be told, Razor Ray was really harmless. By this time he had been living on the street for years, only because he refused to go home. He felt that the insects would find him there, and try to join up with the ones inside of him. He wore a dirty ripped up overcoat, and underneath that overcoat he would wrap his arms and legs in aluminum foil.

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He thought that this would keep the bugs out, and possibly kill the bugs within him, which he still felt crawling under his skin. The older people of the neighborhood began to tell their children to stay away from Razor Ray because if he gets you, he’ll take you somewhere and cut you, or hurt you.

His mother was hurt to hear this terrible rumor going around. Truthfully, the people in the community didn’t mean any harm, but sometimes you need to tell your children these types of things to keep them away from people. His mother’s friend tried to explain to his mother.

His mother said, “People? What people? We’re all people.”

When this was explained to Joanne, she didn’t know why.

She didn’t know what sex was, but she felt like somehow Razor Ray would violate her sexually, and anyone else that he would come in contact with.

When she walked into the record shop, Harris sat there, stone-faced. A smile came over his face real wide as he saw her, and Harris started to speak, “Hi, JoJo.” Harris had a speech impediment, and not too many people knew that. He was a number runner for Joanne’s uncle, and most days, most conversations consisted of him saying, “Yeah.” He stuttered as he walked and let Joanne know he’d be back in a while.

The sky got darker as Joanne looked for a 45’’ to put on the record player. She forgot all about the book she would eventually wind up reading over and over again as she put the needle to the wax. After some snaps, pops, and hisses, the music came on, as a singer began to sing, “You are my life/I have to go.” Joanne took a seat behind the counter, and she lit the strange cigarette. She pulled in like she saw a lot of people do, and she began to cough. The strange smell had her mind in a blur. When she looked outside, she saw Razor Ray in a way that she never saw him before. His hair was still messed up, but somehow looked just right that way.

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His overcoat took on a more leathery look to it, and the little pieces of aluminum foil that shined out from the cuts and holes in it looked like stars. He lip-synced the rest of the song, “You are my starship/come take me up tonight/and don’t be late/and don’t/you come/too soon.” She pulled on the cigarette again, and when she’s a much older woman, she will realize that this was the first time she had ever been aroused by a man.

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LUSCIOUS Click, click, click. The shiny police issued instruments cleaned and ready. Lester almost had everything in place now. He moved in a slow motion, still in pain from the surgeries, going through a checklist in his mind. He’d already put so much of the electrical tape across the windows in the front of the house. He considered himself the king of surprises. Ironically, he hated surprises at the same time. Was it because of all the foster homes he had visited? So many that he didn’t even know his own real name. Separated from a broken family, no doubt with some sort of a cult organization with a lot of letters in its name and obviously forgotten. Because if anyone would have remembered him, just maybe they could have stopped the abuse, just maybe they could have stopped the neglect, just maybe he wouldn’t feel like he was losing his mind. But God never left him. He started applying the black paint under his eyes, getting himself fully prepared now. He checked the instruments one more time. Click, click, click.

And now he ripped off one more piece of electric tape to put over the mouth.

Tom Ramhard sat in the front seat of the passenger side of his government-issued sedan. His partner drove. He was the senior officer in the car. And in the backseat the pastor was sitting. He thought to himself, This poor bastard has lost everything—his wife, his kids, and half of the people in his church over a Ponzi scheme. Federal officer Ramhard felt especially sensitive because not too long ago, he was handed divorce papers by his wife. Maybe he should have seen it coming.

Maybe he could have found the clues and the letters and poems that his wife left for him after long assignments and

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away from the home for so and away from the home for so long. He kept reciting to himself the poem, “Heart” by Sue Song. Especially the part about “knocking against my sternum.” He just didn’t get it. But Lester Childs was on his list for over a million dollars stolen in the Ponzi scheme. He knew that Lester was the real reason the Pastor lost his wife.

Lester was the reason he lost his wife. And although it went against protocol to have a victim in the car or at an arrest, he wasn’t going to stop now, he wasn’t going to turn around.

He, along with the pastor, would have his revenge.

The pastor took a deep breath and blew it out. He couldn’t believe his wife left him now. He had cheated a number of times and she caught him. But it was especially cruel and unfair for her to leave him now. She saw the messages that he sent to Lester’s secretary on a computer and he thinks that she even eavesdropped on the conversations. If she could only understand it was the way that this beautiful woman would address him every time—by calling him Beloved. And her name, Luscious. He never saw her.

He never met her personally. How could all this be happening? He lost his family, his money, respect in the community.

The local police slammed into the door and rushed into the house, guns prepared for anything. As the two federal officers and the pastor walked behind them, the shouts from each room, “– Clear! Clear! Clear!” As the fed officer thought to himself, the FBI always gets his man. One of the police officers yelled, “We have somebody here!” They proceeded to the back of the house. The two federal officers stood right in the doorway as the police officer said, “It’s a woman.” She had tears in her eyes and black mascara running down her cheeks, as the police officer ripped off the electrical tape and said, “Who are you?” The woman with the vermillion-colored hair said, “My name is Luscious.”

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The pastor’s heart thumped harder in his chest as he pushed past the two federal officers. He called to her in a deep voice. “Luscious!” And she said, “Yes, beloved, it’s me.” He pushed past the officer, grabbed her in his arms and kissed her deeply. Officer Ramhard rolled his eyes as the other federal officer shook his head.

At that moment they heard the sounds of the helicopter.

Ramhard’s partner said, “Damn, it’s the news.” At the same time the pastor said, “Get these handcuffs off her.” The next few minutes, the two federal officers stood in front of the pastor and pushed their way past the news cameras and the overheard news coverage from the helicopter. Luscious hid her face in the pastor’s neck with her hair draped over her exposed eye. The pastor handed her his silk handkerchief after he put her into the car.

Hello reader, I am the pastor’s wife now. He doesn’t know that he knew me as Lester but he loves me as Luscious. But this is not the beginning of the story and we are far from the end. Welcome to Luscious’s journals.

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MOTHER BELL I felt around the frame of the door. Standing outside it was a usual autumn day. But I found it special because it was Thanksgiving. I am at Bob and Fran’s house. I come here all the time, because we play music in Bob’s basement. We have an amateur band. But sometimes we play in churches. I think back to when I just asked the bus driver what time it was. He said 4:30. Then the dinner started at 5. My hand is still rubbing up and down the side of the door frame looking for the bell. Sometimes it takes me a long time to find the front of the house. But this time it was smooth sailing all the way. Not a missed step, not a wrong turn, not even a slight trip on uneven concrete. And now I found the bell. It chimes. In a few seconds later I hear Bob’s voice come through it.

I respond to him by saying, “It’s James.”

He says, “Okay, man”, in a very sophisticated Trinidadian accent.

When the large door swings open, you would never think to yourself that this man is 83 years old.

“Hey, man,” his voice booms. “Come on in, come on in.”

I step in the frame now. So much space to either side of me and above me. Bob is shorter than me. But his light from his body shines so bright he seems ten feet tall. He holds out his hands to me. As I grasp one, he pats me on the back with his other hand. He has a small muscular frame. But he has huge hands. As he releases me and ushers me through the doorway, the smell of the food washes over me. Just then I realized that this was a kind of chilly autumn day outside. I step into the huge living room as I am greeted

by Frances, Bob’s wife.

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“Hey, James,” as she gives me a big hug. At the same time the feelings in the room illuminate, as Mother Bell comes out of the kitchen, saying, “Is that you James?” She’s 92 years old and tonight she’s going tell a story that will inspire me for years to come.

Sooner than later all the guests arrived. And I was so glad. Because I was ready to eat. But before we got a chance to eat, Bob said to me, “Hey James, you want to go downstairs to the basement to do some practicing on the drum set?”

This is my passion. So I like to imagine myself down there before he said the last word of that sentence. Soon after Mother Bell came down, to use the bathroom. She came out of the bathroom, she sat with me for a little while.

She said to me, “James, you are in for a treat tonight. I’ve made my homemade apple pie. This is not just any apple pie, James.”

I asked her why it was not just any apple pie.

She told me this is the same recipe I used to win a contest. I set the drumsticks down. And listened to the story. She began to tell me, “When my four daughters were just young little girls, and me and my husband Frank were just starting out, we had an oven that sat up on legs. At the same time, the Brooklyn Union Gas company made strong efforts to change people’s ovens over to gas ovens. So they came up with a contest: the first prize was a gas stove with a glass oven door so you can see the food inside as it cooked.

My husband Frank had a funeral home business and he was a very good provider. But I was always an independent woman, always ready to do something to help him along, to help the family along in any way that I can. To win the contest you had to bake. It was a baking contest and I knew that everyone who entered the contest would be baking 21

cakes. So I decided to bake a pie, an apple pie. I decorated the crust in a very special way. Day after day I baked pies.

And your beautiful hostess Frances right now was indirectly my taster. It’s no wonder that she was able to eat apples, whole apples, without teeth in her mouth as a baby. The day of the competition came. Frank was at the business and so I had to call him from home. There were no cell phones then.

I said into the phone, ‘Frank, you have to get here. We have to take the pie to the competition.’ With a loving and assuring voice, he agreed. He didn’t want me to worry. He said he’d be here. At my haste to make sure that everything was perfect, I accidentally made a hole in a beautiful pie crust. I looked down at it, disappointed. But I’ve come too far to quit now. And so me and little baby Frances inside me waited on Frank’s car to pull up in front of the house.

Frank came in and saw the pie. He laughed a little. With a big smile on his face, he put the pie inside of the box. And off we went. Frank seemed to run into every red light on the way. And when we got to the place where they held the contest I was so nervous I couldn’t even go inside. Frank said, ‘Okay, just wait here.’ He took the box and walked in through the front door. When he returned, he said to me, ‘You should have seen all of those beautiful cakes in there, all kinds of cakes. Cakes everywhere.’ I thought about the a gash in my pie and the chance I was taking to enter a pie when I knew this would be a cake contest. A few days later I was told that I was one of the five runner-ups.”

Mother Bell went on to place second in the competition.

I went onto to finish three plates and two slices of pie. She won her new oven from Brooklyn Union gas and she appeared on TV. The story left a warm glow in the room and in my heart.

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P R I N C E Z A M U N DA Karen wrote, “Let me get this straight. You’re a prince.

Houston replied, “That’s right.”

Karen brushed off the dust on his shoulders, “And you live here? In Queens?”

Houston replied, “That’s Right.”

Karen typed, “With your brother, his wife and 3 children in a one bedroom apartment?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

Two and a half months; 36,000 dollars.

As Karen sat at the computer tapping and reading, she looked at the picture of Patrick Houston with a lustful smile.

She couldn’t believe how lucky she was her first time on eharmony.com.

Patrick stared into her camera with a brilliant smile from the deck of a large sailboat. She couldn’t wait for him to fulfill all the promises he was making her. Still, she was very concerned. She typed into the computer, “But are you feeling well enough after your accident there?”

He replied, “Yes and thank you, thank you, my Queen, for the money that you sent to the hospital. As soon as I leave Nigeria, we will wed and all of our dreams will come true.’

As Selena’s aunt pressed Send in an internet cafe in Nigeria, she had the screen flip over to the site of the terrorist group Boko Haram. They received her last deposit.

Although they promised her niece’s release, they instead told her she would be able to get to talk to her niece through a video chat to confirm that she was still alive.

Now that the t-shirts had been washed too many times with the logo on the front Bring Back Our Girls, the media

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and everyone else forgot that those girls were never returned. But that’s not exactly true, she thought. Now that the elections have started in Nigeria the girls were coming back but as suicide bombers for the terrorist organization.

“So you see”, Houston/PATRICK? wrote, “in Nigeria, I will be made King and at that time you will be my queen.

You see this small apartment you have here? Maybe—with a long b at the end—we can share it for now. But I will make you a queen. I’ve already started to buy properties here in America and homes. Look, I have the picture in my phone.”

Karen looked into the phone. She typed, “This is a diagram this isn’t even a house. Where’s the land? Where’s the deed?”

Houston replied, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it.”

Four months; 80,000 dollars.

Maria sits in front of the keyboard confused and a little upset. She types into the computer, “You mean the government wants more money for you to get your passport back?

I’ve already sent such a large amount. I’ve gone through my savings and to get the money that you asked for I’ll have to refinance my home.”

Patrick responds, “I know my love, corruption here is horrible. I have the estate in Manchester and also I can promise that I’ll sell my home in Australia. You will get your money back. Please don’t let them rob us of our love.”

As the last of the money was confirmed to the terrorists, they promised Selena’s aunt it would only be a few more days until Selena was delivered to her. The day had come.

And now Selena’s aunt was standing in the middle of the marketplace. She was told not to move from that spot.

When the rusty green pickup truck pulled up at the other 24

end of the marketplace, she saw a little girl climb out. She held her breath and bit the inside of her mouth to restrain herself from running to the little girl. Selena walked through the marketplace searching but moving very slowly with tears in her eyes. Her aunt couldn’t stand it anymore so she ran to Selena. She hugged her, kissed her, crying at the same time.

And then she felt it. The terrorist pushed the detonation button on his smartphone.

“Are you Houston?,” Jay said.

Houston was confused and said, “Ah, yeah, I’m Houston.”

“And is this the car that you wanted to sell my sister Karen?”

“You’re Karen’s brother,” Houston said, as Jay took out his smartphone and pressed the numbers of the car’s vent number into the phone.

Jay walked around the car as Houston tried to talk to him.

“It’s a good car. It’s a good car.”

It took less than five seconds for the report to come back that the car had electrical problems.

“This car,” Jay said, “is good for nothing. Whether you know that or not. But I will give you two for it.”

“Two thousand?” Houston said.

Jay said, “No. Two hundred bucks.”

“It’s a BMW,” Houston said, “2004.”

“It’s a piece of garbage,” Jay said. “Take it or leave it.”

Houston said, “No, no, I can’t take it.”

Jay said, “No problem. But take a little advice. Karen is my sister and if you ever try to rip her off again I will make you wish I had shoved this car up your royal ass.”

And Jay walked away saying, “Everyone wants to be Prince Zamunda.”

Maria sat on the PATH train after her humiliating 25

television debut on Dr. Phil. She still couldn’t figure out what was worse: Losing the $600,000 she sent to Nigeria over the course of nine months or having to come to terms that Patrick never actually existed. Now she thought she knew which was worse. Her selling her Long Island condo and having to move in with her daughter and her family in New Jersey and living in a guest room. She was 74 years old.

And today she was going for an interview at a coffee shop to get a job.

When she arrived, Karen didn’t seemed to recognize Maria’s face from the show and she was relieved. She told Karen who she was. Karen called out to one of the helpers named Ben to watch the register while Karen showed Maria back into the office. On the satellite radio the news reporter was saying, “Another suicide bombing in a Nigerian marketplace. The death toll has gone up to fifty-four people now.

The suicide bomber was a female. We think her age was”— as Karen turned off the radio.

Karen said, “I have a friend that got me interested in the Nigerian news.”

As they sat down to talk, Ben sold coffee and a brownie to a female patron. She found a seat in the cafe, opened up her laptop, pressed a few buttons. The screen read, Welcome to Match.com.

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THIS

IS

POLITRICKS

When the councilman was told the limo had arrived, he was amazed. He wasn’t even sworn into office yet. He won the election. But to be rubbing shoulders with a senator already, to be able to pass his ideas to somebody with so many political connections. On the way to the restaurant, he went over the various points in his mind. As he left his neighborhood he heard the loud base from the car.

“Nike told me we can’t give you royalties because you’re not a professional athlete. I told them I go to the Garden and play one on one with no one. I’m a performance athlete.”

The limousine made a smooth left turn. He thought to himself that he could really get used to this. And he went over the many points, the ways he came up with finding more money in the school budget to help the inner city schools.

When he got to the restaurant, the limousine door opened the same smooth way the restaurant doors opened to the five star restaurant. The senator was sitting alone when the maître d’ pulled out the chair. The senator said, “And there’s the new councilman.”

The senator had already started eating. And the councilman couldn’t help but notice that there were two more plates partially eaten from.

“It’s so wonderful to finally meet,” the senator said.

“Thank you so much,” the young councilman said, “I’ve been waiting for this opportunity to speak with someone.

And I believe you are just the person I need to speak to.”

The senator smiled, pleased with the confidence that the councilman was showing. The councilman began to speak

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again as a hand gripped his shoulder. The hand had a big diamond ring on it with a Rolex watch draped also in diamonds and a diamond bracelet. The rap mogul sat back down at his plate, after saying to the councilman, “Now this is the man that we need to see, this is the man with the plan.”

The councilman was surprised but tried to keep his composure. The senator spoke, “So many ideas, councilman. There’s something I would like to add to your agenda, something that’s very important to your community. It’s the young men—“ “And old,” the rap mogul said.

“With their pants hanging down.”

The councilman said, “Well, that is an issue. That really is an issue. But that’s an issue of fashion.”

The rap mogul interrupted again, “Yet it’s still a very important issue.”

The councilman felt taken aback. And showed a little frustration in his voice when he said, “Most of your artists, including you, are in your videos with your pants hanging down.”

The senator interrupted, “Be that as it may, we’re not here to make adversaries. We’re here to unite.”

As the rap mogul said, “And here I was about to offer you this gift.” And he slid a beautiful Rolex watch across the table to the councilman.

The maitre d’ slid a plate of food in front of the councilman at the same time as the cardinal came back and took his seat in front of the third plate. The cardinal spoke and said, “Oh, how wonderful it is to finally meet you.”

The councilman, a little confused, said thank you to the cardinal. He turned to the rap mogul and said, “I can’t accept any gifts from you.”

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“Nonsense,” the senator said, “You haven’t even been sworn in yet. And how about that plate of food in front of you, isn’t that a gift?”

The maitre d’ stepped behind the councilman and said, “Is everything okay here?”

The senator said, “Well, I don’t know. This gentleman’s money is no good here.”

The senator said to the maitre d’, “But he cannot accept this gift of food. Maybe you should tell him how much this food costs, Henri.”

The maitre d’ said, “Yes, this plate of food is 1,500 dollars.”

The cardinal spoke up. “Please, please stop teasing.” He slid an envelope across the table. “This is a check to help you on the campaign of these men, of these young—“ “And old”—the rap mogul interrupted again.

“—men to pick up their pants. It’s a real problem in your community. We understand and we sympathize.”

The senator said, “Open the envelope. Or don’t. There’s a cashier’s check for $20,000 inside.”

The councilman’s head was spinning. He tried to focus as he spoke to the senator, “Our community needs better schools. Our community needs computers. Our community needs—” As the senator said, “And look who’s here.”

Behind the councilman stood the Governor of the state.

The senator, the cardinal and the councilman all stood up.

As the councilman stood up, the Governor held out his hand. The Governor said, “I’m really proud of the work you’ve started to do with the young men picking up their pants.” At the same time photographers took a picture of the councilman and governor shaking hands. At that moment dinner was over. Everyone left in separate limousines. They called a town car to pick up the council29

man and take him home. The next day, just before he was sworn in, at his political office he received 6 huge boxes.

Inside the boxes were t-shirts. On the front was the rap mogul’s symbol. On the back the t-shirts read, Lift their minds and their pants will follow.

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JUNETEENTH The picture of Deborah Jenkins flashed on the screen as the news announcer spoke, “Deborah Jenkins, the head anchor of the network, has been reported by TMZ to have been suspended indefinitely. Also, her resignation has been requested.” Bernard was tired of this news story, and turned the channel. The television evangelist was yelling on the next station, “Don't you forget Matthews 22:36,” as Bernard tuned off the TV. He was ready to go so he started down from the 44th floor out on to the street. The doorman gave a cheerful “Good morning” as Bernard returned the gesture.

A young man walked in front of Bernard and said, “What up?”

Bernard said in a very slow and pronounced way, “Good morning.”

The young man said, “Every morning, you're going through this every morning?” Bernard said, “The correct way to say what you are trying to say is what's up with a t, not a d.”

The young man replied, “Do you know first John chapter 3 verse 15?”

Bernard said, “Do you accuse me of being a murderer?

You're the one who is killing the English language.”

Whatever the young man said as he turned to walk away.

Bernard got into a cab; the radio was playing. The newscaster on the radio reported that the language barrier with Deborah Jenkins is not an isolated case. There are many African Americans around the country reported to be speaking in this strange dialect.” As Bernard leapt from the car, two blocks away from the firm, he decided to walk the rest of the way because of the traffic. A man on the street

31

had a crowd surrounding him. He was yelling out, “And you know the time must come and the time may be near, you must be prepared.” As Bernard tried to make his way through the crowd, his eyes locked with the man as the man said, looking into Bernard's eyes, “Because we all know Revelations 1 verses 14 and 15.” They both stared at each other, waiting to see which one would turn first as they heard the yelling from down the street. “Uh uh, no she didn't, she don't know, she don't know.” Bernard saw someone he recognized as he took off in the direction of the person. He got between the two African American women and one of the partners of the firm’s executive secretary. He said, “I got this, chill, chill, I got this.” He made his way away from the two combatants with the secretary giving him much thanks. He said, “Don't worry about it, everything's okay.”

He had an appointment that evening to pick up his mom. When he made his way to her Brooklyn brownstone on Dean Street he was shocked to find out she wasn't there.

Her neighbor yelled out to Bernard, “Bernie, your mother’s over on Pacific and Nostrand.” Bernard hated to be called Bernie. He looked up at the sky as he made his way in that direction. Bernard paid for her to be a member at a mega church in Brooklyn. Why did she continue to go to the small church in the ghetto he'd never know. As he entered the sanctuary, the pastor was on the stage talking to the elders and the ladies of wisdom, the older women in the congregation. The pastor said you must never forget Deuteronomy 28 verse 64 as he looked up and said, “Bernard, is that you?” Bernard shook his head yes towards him, with a smile as his mother came up behind him and said, “I was just about to make my way home to meet you, Bernie.”

32

A few weeks later, Bernard was looking at himself in the mirror, the day before it was the worst day of his life, giving a presentation in a firm, when suddenly all of the board members and the partners of the firm he noticed were looking at him funny. He kept going with his presentation as he heard one of the partners say, “Can anybody understand what he's saying?” He knew he was speaking clearly. He knew he was up for promotion and even possibly to become partner. He became hysterical as he was escorted out of the building. As he splashed more water on his face, he knew he couldn't stay in this apartment in his depression. He decided to go for a walk. As he left the building, the doorman said, “Good Morning.” He opened his mouth to speak and the doorman looked at him in a very funny way as he opened the door. Outside the young man was waiting for him but now he was dressed differently, he had a white cap on his head, and a tan colored outfit. The young man spoke in this language, in the language that the African American community was speaking in now as Bernard tried as hard as he could to pronounce the words good morning he couldn't quite get it out as the young man smiled a wide smile.

Bernard walked away in anger. He made his way to Bryant Park. There, three children and a mother were playing in the park. He sat on a bench and thought about crime in the African American community which was at an all time low, practically nonexistent. Retail sales in the stock market had plummeted because the same community stopped buying unnecessary things. There was a change happening in the world and Bernard was in between it, not on one side or the other. One of the children, a little girl, came and sat beside Bernard. She opened a children's book. The book had a picture of a dog and above the dog there was the name, but not d-o-g. It was spelled a different way. She smiled at Bernard as she gave him his first lesson of his new language.

33

T H E E N D E AVO R The Endeavor loomed in the sky, 300 feet above the ground and held in place by magnetic fields. Below, the victims of the 7.8 earthquake found calm in its shadow. The craft was circular and the size of a football stadium. On board, doctors and nurses moved constantly, while on the ground, technicians examined would-be patients, separating the injured from those with life-threatening injuries.

The center of the Endeavor housed engines for hot air balloons. These engines were solar powered by panels located on the top and the sides of the endeavor.

Inside there were rooms for patients, surgeons, a dorm for doctors, nurses, nutritionists, even veterinarians, scientists from different vocations, a security crew, and a captain and ship’s staff. Patients with the most problems would be brought on board, given a room and whatever surgery they needed.

There were only two of these ships in existence. On four sides of the ships were retractable propellers that could direct the crafts in any direction, and also generate windmill energy. Below the ship, deer moved down the road like refugees. The ship was able to drop food and water, basic survival kits, and tents below. In the not so far distance a cat sat on the hood of a destroyed car. At the very edge of the earth’s atmosphere, a man stood in the doorway of a very powerful aircraft.

He prepared himself to dive, he called out from inside of his helmet, “Ready.” He held tight and pushed himself forward. No parachute. A very specially-designed suit.

Earth’s gravity pulled on him, his thrust accelerated toward the ground. His target was huge, he knew he couldn’t miss it.

34

He thought to himself, This is the easy part of my mission.

As his eventual nesting place came into view, he extended his arms and legs. The special diving suit caught the air and put his body into a gliding position. He was only a speck in the sky over the Endeavor. Once he landed on top of the huge airship, he would have to infiltrate it and hide among the crew as one of the staff and or doctors until he received further instructions.

The prime minister woke up aboard the Endeavor. As his assistant looked out of one of the great big windows, he asked, “What happened?”

“So much destruction,” the aide said without turning around.

The ship took seven years to build. It was never supposed to land on earth, but now it sat in the middle of the Arizona desert, a long cylinder as big as a small town with two antennae-like ears sticking up. Designed by Dr. Walter Morrison, the ship was designed for interstellar travel, to hover at closest, right outside of the earth’s atmosphere. The antennae functioned as positive and negative forces, one pulled the ship toward the Sun and the other pushed it away, using solar energy to push it into another galaxy. Dr. Morris had invented the world’s first and only anti-gravity machine using technology only available in the United States. He and the government closely guarded those secrets. Although seven countries still made big contributions to build the space ship, Dr. Morris promised he would never give out the secret to the anti-gravity machine, which at this time made the White House float 700 feet above the space ship. The international community was highly upset that they couldn't share in the benefits of 35

the anti-gravity machine, but the US government considered secrecy to be a top priority.

As President Inez Ortiz sat in the situation room monitoring the present state of affairs as the news channels buzzed. “This is Julia Hillman Craig… live from the news desk in London for the BBC Network…”

The president and the defense secretary, members of the FBI and CIA watched the screen in front of them closely. It showed twelve different angles of the ship that suddenly coalesced into one.

“Who did that?” asked President Ortiz, “Was that you Ivan?”

“No,” the defense secretary said, “No, Madam President, it wasn’t me.”

Worried, the secretary of defense asked if she could be excused. As she walked into the hallway, an image from the top of the ship came into view on a large screen. The image looked like it was getting closer and closer.

The FBI director yelled into his communication device, “Get to the windows! Are you seeing this?” Through his device he heard voices saying, “There’s nothing to see sir, there’s nothing out there.” As the image got closer and closer to the screen, as if it was walking in midair, they could make out it was a woman. The woman got right up on the screen, paused for one second, and then stepped through it.

Immediately the security jumped around the president. The image sat there for a second, and then began to speak, “I am the artificial intelligence image for the global government exploration, or as you know it, the GG explorer.”

The defense secretary got up, walked up to the image and reached his hand straight through. He turned back to the president and the guards and said, “It’s a hologram.”

The image reached up, grabbed his shoulder, spun him 36

back around, as she said, “No, I’m a little bit more than that.” He stumbled backward as the image manipulated the seat behind him to catch his fall.

The president said, “What exactly are you, and where is the crew, and all the members and Dr. Walter Morrison?”

As the president stopped speaking, she hoped she didn’t portray her feelings for him. The president began again, “There were hundreds of people aboard that ship, and we only detect—” as the image cut her off and said, “There were 822 members that includes crew and passengers. I’m well aware of how many members were aboard this ship, because in a manner of speaking, I am the ship.” But time now is of the essence as the secretary of state walked back in the room and looked at the image, and thought to herself, GG Mama, the image of her great-grandmother standing right in front of her. She can remember the bread that she used to make that her brother, Walter, used to love so much.

As the president entered the spaceship, under the reluctant opinion of the defense secretary, she was guarded by three squads of commandos, the image took her right into the laboratory, but not without losing the commandos inside the ship. At the back of the laboratory, which was immense, there sat a large figure, tremendously large. The skin didn’t look like any other skin the president had ever seen before. It was like pure space atmosphere, stars and everything twinkled out as the image looked up, it was a huge face, but still she could make it out. It was Dr. Morrison.

“Dr. Morrison, Walter,” the president said. The doctor said, “leave us,” in a gruff voice. As the image disappeared, stunned, the president called out, “Walter, where’s captain Taylor? The crew, the passengers, what’s going on here?

You have to tell me what’s going on.”

37

The doctor felt a fit of jealousy. Why did she mention the captain? He reached out. His hand became huge and wrapped around the president. He said to her in a voice as he lifted her, he looked her in the eyes, “Do you want to know what happened to them? This is what happened to them,” As his eyes rained down dark matter into her eyes, she began to scream.

The defense secretary yelled into his communicator, “Like the sword, the golden goose is cooked. It’s time for supper.” The commandos had their charge now. They had to figure how they would get through the steel walls. They blasted through, and at the same time, the defense secretary gave the order because basketball-sized meteors rained down on the desert and on top of the White House. As they became small insect, lizard-like aliens, they burrowed their way in the sand to the ship as the commandos made their way inside the steel reinforced walls, the lizards were already inside, seeking out their quarry. The dark matter turned into a great big black hole and sucked Dr. Walters and the president inside, not before 12 of the lizards jumped in after them, the commandos began shooting everything around them. The black hole opened up in the oval office as Dr. Walters and the president fell out. The president rolled to one side as Dr. Walters rose to his feet, and the lizards jumped on Dr. Walters, the dark matter surrounded his body, making it easy for him to propel them, to crush them.

He ran and jumped out the window of the oval office, the dark matter again turned to a black hole, swallowing him whole, and disappeared just as a fast as it appeared.

As the phone rang, Julia picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”

“Is this Julia?” the caller said, “the reporter for the BBC?” Julia responded, “Yes it is.”

38

“I need to tell you something, Dr. Walters is no more.”

“How do you know?”

“I was Dr. Walters.”

Julia said, “Who is this? Who are you?”

“I am…”

Pablo puts on his muddy boots. The dawn is just beginning. It’s his favorite part of the day. Because as the sun peaks up, he can’t see the pupil. The pupil is a mysterious celestial being. For the past two decades it has hung in the sky right before the sun. It makes the sun look like an eye staring down from space. As the sun rises just a little more, he hopes against hope not to see it in this day.

That will everything will go back to the way they were, centuries and centuries ago, before all the great cities of the world were destroyed, before the new united republic of the world was formed, before that overall government went to war with the people. And lost. The pupil’s appearance changed the atmosphere of the whole world. Scientists and physicists told the world that the sun was only able to give 75% of its capacity. And still they don’t know where it’s come from. And then there it is. This shiny black onyx creeping over the horizon reminding everyone of its omnipresence. Whirr. Click. Whirr. Click.

My instruments for translation hasn’t quite kicked in yet.

Outside my suit, I can see the small person trying to speak.

My visual has adjusted. Whirr. Click. This small person’s mouth moves again. Click. Click. I can understand him now.

I start to speak, “My name is Gabriel. I’m not here to harm you.”

The small person responds, “My name is Pablo. What are you?”

If I wasn’t so hurt inside of my suit, I would laugh 39

because my defense mechanisms were powerless. I guess I said I’m not here to harm you because I can’t move. I thought for a second, this person must be holding me down.

Pablo’s eyes kept searching the skies. The sun was setting and a pupil can’t be seen in the sky now. But he still searched the skies for the pupil’s minions, eight foot giants.

The people called them Skywalkers. They would step out of big lit doors that would appear anywhere in the sky. They would appear as male or female. And they would walk down as if there were invisible steps in the sky. They were the pupil’s judge, jury and executioner.

The funny thing about them they always appeared to be the most beautiful person that anyone has ever seen. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And to each person who saw these beings, they would see a different image of beauty.

Pablo has seen a being just once before. And when the skywalker reached the ground, everyone in its wake died horrible deaths. Each step in the sky and on the ground would set off an electrical charge like small bursts of lightening under their feet.

Gabriel said, “Where am I?” Pablo looked back at him again. He’s seen this image that this thing has taken on but only in books. It is the image of an angel with great big wings but completely metallic. A huge crest on the chest of this machine was shaped like a white rose.

Pablo didn’t answer Gabriel. He started to think, I must have hit the ground pretty hard. I have to figure out where I am and what time or age did I land in. Did I go so far back in time, he thought to himself, that men still jump from planes and parachutes? He could really use one, but he still couldn’t move. It was completely dark now. The sun has gone down. No one ever saw the skywalkers at night. The night belonged to the Majestics. If Pablo could just get this 40

machine to the elder of his village, he would know what to do. But how would he avoid the Majestics?

When the pupil took over the world, people with disabilities and birth defects disappeared suddenly. And when they reappeared, they were covered in a black onyx.

People with amputated legs were able to walk and run on air, fast, faster than anything. People who had no arms could reach out and grab things, lift things, and destroy things.

Blind people were able to read minds and thoughts. Since the war was over, the Majestics are not covered in that onyx anymore. They have different lines of it on their faces and on their necks. They wear long robes and hoods over their heads. And they have human thoughts again. They speak and interact with human beings. And now they’ve been given the right to police the world with the extraordinary powers that they’ve been given by the pupil.

Majestics travel in groups of seven. They don’t have any memory of the war. Or their participation in it. But they did know their responsibility. And everyone else can see contempt in the faces of the people that they’ve been given a right to police over. They can’t really return to everyday society. They live outside of it. And because of that, they draw closer to each other. Wednesday flashed past Pablo as he and an elder took a cart out of the village. She was late to meet with the rest of the Majestics.

Pablo began to tell the elder again, “I just came upon this thing. It can speak and it looks just like what you showed me in the books.” The elder gave Pablo a stern look. Pablo replied quickly in a whispered voice, “I know you told me never to talk about this outside the meetings.”

As the elder stretched his neck and looked around, he said, "But you simply have to see this,” as they walked toward Gabriel in the night.

41

The statuesque figure stood. The great winds blew all around. The facemask lit from each corner of where the eyes should be. Simultaneously the lights moved toward each other exploding in the middle of the forehead.

As the computer voice said, “I have delivered and now you owe 46 million parasites.”

The captain stood amongst his men with no face mask on his home planet. The rest of his soldiers packed the weapons away that they will use against the rebels. Although some might call them freedom fighters. The captain’s second in command said: “So you are the one they call the saint.”

The figure just stood in one place. The cape looked like wings as the lights repeated their same revolution on the breathing mask. The second in command spoke again.

“Aren’t these the same weapons that the rebel slaves used against us in our last battle captain?”

The captain told the soldier to stand down. The soldier replied, “No you need to stand up.” As two more soldiers moved behind the captain, the saint realized there was a mutiny taking place right here. The saint’s pony tail was held together by a leathery string. As three soldiers moved behind the saint, an eye opened up on the leathery tie.

The leader of the mutiny spoke up again and said, “These soldiers will take you into custody captain. I will take command of this unit now. I will charge you with treason.

As for you,” as he pointed to the saint, “I personally find you guilty, and I sentence you.”

Just then the saint’s cape flew off but instead of hitting the ground it flew straight into the air. The saint held both arms stretched out. And both hands were laser daggers. He threw one through the leader of the mutiny’s chest. Another one threw the chest of one of the three soldiers standing behind him. The wings appeared again flying fast through 42

the air slicing through the necks of the two other soldiers standing to the rear of the saint, decapitating the soldiers.

With a quick move, a boomerang was produced in the saint’s hands. When it was released, it flew towards the soldier standing to the right of the captain and sliced through him, made an arc and came back through the soldier standing to the left as the cape landed comfortably in place, just as it was before.

The only ones left alive were the saint and the captain.

The saint spoke as the wind blew even harder, “I shall take the fee for these weapons as an inconvenience fee.” And as one of the heads of one of the soldiers rolled between the captain and the saint, the saint said, “and next time while we’re negotiating, let’s hope cooler heads prevail.”

The ship approached deep space, the stars blazed around. The ship was entering into zone 6, known for asteroid showers. In this ship the cherub sat as a prisoner, not a fate he was used to, and to add insult to injury, he was being held by tasers, small lights, rolling up and down the extent of his body, not allowing him to move.

Rygaurd, the captain of this ship, approached. “My crew can’t believe,” he said, “that we’ve captured the great cherub so easily.”

The cherub gave a smug smile as he responded, “Yes, but there’s probably a reason for that. A reason you haven’t considered. You’re obviously going to hand me over to someone, have you any idea whom that may be? “ Rygaurd grunted, and said, “I’m not here to answer a prisoner’s question.” As the cherub’s smile grew larger, just then, a boom to the ship over the intercom, a voice rang out, “We’re being boarded, battle stations, we’re being boarded. “ The aliens fell through the ceiling, running through the 43

ship, crushing the crew members with their bare hands. The huge eyes looked into the cherub’s face as one of the alien’s mouths opened, “This is him,” it said to another alien in their language, “bring him with us, do not hurt him.”

The cherub was cool, not stunned at all, made no sound.

As he was taken into the next ship, he made a quick adjustment to his translator so he could understand now fully what the aliens were saying. The small attack ship flew into the cargo bay of a larger ship. When it landed, they brought the cherub out. He could understand what they were saying fully as alarms blared on this ship. He heard the great explosion outside as the first ship he was on exploded.

In this ship he was on now, an alert was going out, we’re being fired on, battle stations, battle stations. The cherub touched his belt again. A huge light balloon raised up around his body as he yelled into his communicator, “Get me out of here now!” The cargo bay doors blew open and approaching the ship was the cherub’s small cruiser. A tractor beam pulled the cherub inside of the force field, out of the ship. The cherub floated through space now as he yelled again into his communicator, “Go! Go! Go!” The ship flew away from the cherub’s would-be prison as it exploded.

The saint kicked and did strike moves in zero gravity inside the Raven, a huge fast battleship. When the communicator rang out, the saint made one gesture and began to float down to the floor and opened the link. “Well saint, a job well done,” came through the communicator, “There’s another job for you. We need you to find this person and bring him dead or alive.” It was a picture of the cherub. The saint knew this picture and agreed to the mission. It was a picture of her father, and since they’d never met before, this would be as good a time as any. She placed a dream cloth over her face and began to dream.

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She saw ten people around the table in her dream. The facilitator of the writing group at the table spoke, “...thank you James and Paris. And what do we remember about the story?�

45

SCOTT My breath is coming in and out very hard now. I haven’t run this fast in a long time. But I gotta run. I gotta run. You get caught when you turn around. When you look back. I’m not looking back. Maybe there’s one maybe there’s two maybe there’s three. But they can’t catch me now. I can see it now. It’s like a mirage. It’s like something shimmering.

Can anyone else see it? I can see it now. I’m almost there.

I’m almost there. No matter what they put on me now they can’t catch me. If I can just take a few more steps I can run straight through. But then what do I do? Do I go home? I got away. But isn’t that the first place they’ll look for me?

Maybe to friends and family? But I’m tired of hearing them telling me that trouble is always following me. Couldn’t I just keep running? Sure I can keep running. Just running straight. Four, five. However many is behind me are a sign that I made it through. There ain’t nothing they can do to me. I’m just going to keep running. It seems so natural to me. I’m no longer trying to catch my breath. Because now I am the wind. I’m don’t need to try to be free. I am.

Because I’m beyond those trifle games of men, I’m everywhere and nowhere. I see things and I’m beyond touch. I’m still running. I’m not looking back. Will they miss me? Would they admit it?

I’m running. Now the count behind me is at eight. I already made it through. They think the bullets caught me.

But I got away. They may have caught my flesh, but they’re still too late

46

SPECS The old man stepped out on to the roof of the building.

Surprisingly steady, though you wouldn’t think so if you could smell the alcohol on his breath. His hair and beard were in complete disarray, but it matched the clothes that he was wearing. The only thing that was out of place in his ensemble was the shiny wraparound glasses that looked like expensive Ray Bans on his face. They gleamed in the moonlight. He felt the gravel under his feet and he smiled.

He knew he was cornered now. He went to the edge of the roof and looked down the 12 stories below.

He glanced up into the sky and knew the drone was looking back at him, although he couldn’t pick out where it was. The glasses shone again.

The old man was mere a host to the alien that lived inside of the glasses on his face. The alien had survived on this planet for a number of years, and it thought back to the celebrities, the government officials, that it had possessed in the past. It could imagine itself flowing over the faces of men and women, young and old. The government had tried to trap the alien—and had actually caught it a number of times, but not this time.

The alien’s host body stepped up on the buildings ledge with expert balance and, without pausing backflipped as if he were on a balance beam. It came down as solid and steady as an Olympic champion on a balancing beam and began cartwheeling out the landing. The old bones of the body it occupied cracked. Ligaments tore. But the alien couldn’t feel a thing. Around the 3 edges that were exposed, the alien kept doing different balancing maneuvers. Until the door of the roof opened, as the alien knew it would. Three

47

men and one woman stepped out onto the roof. The men spread out, and the woman stepped forward and spoke.

“We don’t want to hurt you, but I know you know that,” she said. The alien inside of the old man’s body smiled a little bit.

“Take me to your leader,” he said in a mocking, robotic voice.

The woman was expressionless, “Very funny,” she said, “There are still things we want to know about you, and things you obviously want to know about us. But this is not the way to do it. You know the chaos you’ve caused around the world. Let us help you and you can help us. Just come with us. Don’t make this hard.”

The alien kneeled, realizing the moment that he was waiting for was near. Three men started to approach.

“Easy, easy…,” the woman said. The alien picked up gravel in his hands, straightened himself, stepped back on the edge of the building, jumped and did a spin in the air right off the side of the building. The three men and woman ran to the side and looked over, and saw the alien one floor beneath them, perched on the window sill. He looked up, but not towards his pursuers, and he found just what he was looking for. He made his next leap, one floor down and the drone appeared in clear view. Without losing balance in a perfect throw, he threw three rocks. One missed, one hit the drone’s camera, one flew into the propellers.

The drone spiraled out of control, making his four pursuers back on the roof step back for cover. He kept leaping forward and on the last jump, found purchase on a windowsill. Stopping, he snapped his neck unnaturally to the side, severing it from the spine. The glasses flew off his face and the body he inhabited fell to the ground. When the glasses hit the window, they liquefied and slid down the pane and then hardened on the ground as a fresh new pair.

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Above, the four pursuers saw the lifeless corpse on the grassy courtyard. Government agents circled it, and the women pulled out her cell phone.

“Did you find it?” she asked.

“We’re searching the grass,” a voice replied, “The glasses are no longer on his face.”

As Chad was getting ready for school the next day, he could overhear his mother speaking to the neighbors. He didn’t pay too much attention as the neighbor said to his mother. He was only 8 but knew that some people had found old Keith out there on the grass early in the morning.

From the little Chad knew about “troublemakers,” he supposed that Keith must have finally gotten drunk enough to fall off the building.

Chad looked out of his window to see if he could anything. The body was long gone, but he did notice a shiny pair of black glasses on his windowsill.

He opened his window and reached for them through the bars. Not bad. Chad went over to the mirror on top his dresser, gave the glasses one more look, and put them on.

49

C H A RG E The doctor spoke to the nurse on the other side of the surgical table, “Have his ears opened yet?”

In the corner the technician replied before the nurse did, in a gruff voice, “They’re open.”

The doctor and the nurse exchanged a glance with each other. The doctor said to the patient on the table, “Baxter, can you hear me?”

The patient stirred a little and started to open his eyes.

The nurse said to the doctor, “He hasn’t released yet.”

The doctor looked over his shoulder to where the technician sat and said to the technician, “Can we start the implants yet?”

The technician replied in a gruff voice, “His eyes aren’t on line yet.”

The nurse said, “His vital signs are normal. And he’s not one of the patients that was deceased before the cryogenics.”

The doctor spoke to the patient, “Baxter, you can hear me, I know.”

Baxter heard the doctor in a very slow voice as Baxter’s eyes started to adjust, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was told that things would be changed when he came out of the cryogenics but maybe his eyes hadn’t adjusted well yet. The doctor’s forehead was elongated and his eyes were extremely large and wide. When he turned and looked to the other side of the surgical table, the nurse had slightly the same features but more feminine.

Baxter as usual in a nervous state recited the words to “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”.

The nurse said, “His heart rate is starting to beat faster.”

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The doctor said in an aggravated tone to the technician, “Are his eyes online now?”

The technician said in a gruff voice again, “Yeah.”

The doctor said, “Why didn’t you tell me. I could have talked him through this.”

The technician said, “What’s the matter? The potato head is just a little nervous.”

The nurse said, “I’m going to go get the prosthetics now.” She leaned over to Baxter and said, “Don’t be nervous. Everything is going to be just fine.”

The doctor began to speak. As Baxter kept reciting the tune in his head, Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

“Baxter,” the doctor said. “Our appearances are a little bit different, but I’m sure they made you aware that there some differences when you woke up out of the cryogenics.

You were in a frozen state for 155 years. I know your estimated time to come out of cryogenics was 150. However some very unfortunate things have happened that made it impossible to take you out at that time.”

The technician made sort of a chuckling sound in the background, “I’m going to remove the tube from your throat now if you can speak from that point it would be a very good thing. So please, try.”

The tube came out without any resistance. Still Baxter coughed just a little bit. And said, “Am I okay?”

The doctor replied, “You’re doing just fine Baxter, you’re doing just fine.”

Baxter noticed that when the doctor spoke he barely moved his lips. And what he heard was more inside of his head than through his ears. When Baxter looked over to the corner, he was surprised to see a dog sitting in front of a floating ball. The dog raised his right paw. And the ball changed colors.

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it?”

Baxter said, “What kind of hospital is this with a dog in

The dog was a sizably huge Great Dane with a bronze fur coat. Not until Baxter said that did he turn in his direction. He started to walk over to Baxter on all fours.

When he got up to the table, he stood on his hind legs. The canine looked down at Baxter and began to speak, “Things have changed a lot, Potato Head.”

Baxter replied, “Is this a dream? What is going on here?

And why does he keep calling me a potato head?”

The dog leaned his two front paws onto the surgical table. And said, “Surely you remember. Children used to play with a toy called Mr. Potato Head. Most likely when you were a child you owned one. Because of your intelligence level and because the nurse will be bringing you back prosthetics that will covering your eyes, your mouth, nose and a least one of your ears we consider you a Mr. Potato Head toy. Of course my species will call you that to your face, whereas your own species will refer to you as that behind your back. You have a little while until you are ready to stand up on your own feet. So allow me to give you just a small history lesson. The ancestors of this country found it legal to do cryogenics on live tissue. Meaning you and whoever else could afford it at the time in the year 2020 as the doctor told you, and now you are in the year 2175. Sixty years into the period where you slept my species evolved tremendously.”

He growled as he saw the shock in Baxter’s face. The Great Dane continued, “Under some apprehension, we were given the right to learn and to grow our intelligence. Some time after that we became scientists, doctors, a stronger contributing factor to society at large. At the same time, the fault lines in California collapsed, causing huge atmospheric change. The place that you know called Florida is now 52

nothing but an ice mass. You can imagine the confusion.

The millions of people, canines, animals trying to find a safe place to be. There were walls erected around New York state and other major cities because of the capacity of so many people those places found it hard to sustain normal life as you know it. Somewhere in this time there was a virus created--highly infectious and airborne that killed off all the primates in the world. There is not one monkey and or guerilla alive today. And you’ll never guess who got the blame for that. But this country being in the turmoil that it was, a deal was struck. And this you should pay very careful attention to. Canines were given a sort of civic job and stripped of our scientific position in this world. So some of us had the job that you see me doing now. I am an administrator over this cryogenics department. This is why your dear doctor hasn’t said a thing since I started your history lesson. I am somewhat of his boss. But individuals like me also hold other positions, which will be very important in your life as you will know it now.”

The doctor interrupted and said, “Kranose.”

The canine looked at the doctor harshly. “You will address me as Technician,” he replied.

But his implants are ready, as the nurse stood by the doctor’s side.

“I’m almost finished,” the large dog said as he looked back down at Baxter.

You can only stay within the city limits if you maintain a certain amount of credits in your account. If you fail to do that you have three choices: One, you’ll have to use your remaining credits to be released into the expanse.

Two, you’ll have to use a lot more credits than that to be put back into cryogenics. But if you can’t afford those two expenses than you will be found and terminated.

Baxter started singing to himself, Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

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S U RC H A RG E The holographic announcer began to speak, “Welcome to Stratosphere Stadium. This is the first game of the season.

The national blassball league thanks you for coming out.

And the league would like to pay special thanks to its sponsors. We would also like to remind you not to forget about the 2177 AI vehicle of the year. The flight is supercharged and it can be purchased on personal or community leases. Driven Magazine says it’s the car of the year. And now the players are taking their positions on the field.”

“Keep up shorty,” my teammate yells back at me.

I’m the captain of the team. My name is Vance Holler. I did better than keep up two seasons ago but since the league has legalized the use of a drug called Charge which makes anabolic steroids look like children’s vitamins. All the players are moving faster, much stronger. And they all have a real shocking glow to their skins. I opted out and decided not to take this miracle drug. And I am paying the price now. As I breathe in and breathe out the smell of the natural grass under my feet seeps deeper in. As I said, I’m the captain of the team. I’ve been playing blassball all my life.

But it’s not all I know. But it’s definitely something I love.

In the league now I’m the only player that plays without the benefit of Charge. And up until recently you could barely tell. I’m almost 7 feet tall. My teammate is just exactly 7 feet.

On a blassball team there are 12 members. 8 of the members get to play on the field at one time. And the way we move is like a school of fish, with the very sharp synchronized turns that we take. I’m breathing even deeper now trying to keep up with the rest of the team.

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Some people believe this sport is derived from an ancient Aztec civilization. The ball that we use is a little bit bigger than a volleyball. It has to be carried down the field at very high rates of speed. But the only trick is you can’t use your hands or your feet to move the ball. And your opponents are trying to take the ball away at the same time.

I’m covered in sweat and the game has just begun. As I said my team members all have that yellow glow to their skin. And they’re all moving with the ease as if they’re walking through a park. And now I can feel the defensive line coming.

The announcer yells out, “This is a grudge match like no other. Two of the strongest teams in the league are about to clash. Vance Holler is control of the ball right now.”

The crowd starts to scream, “Holler, Holler, Holler.”

The announcer yells out, “Yes he’s the hometown favorite. And please don’t forget our sponsors the new XYK Digital Food Printer. When you press copy and print, what you get is great taste.”

Baxter sat in the stadium’s seat. This was his first blassball game. He supposed he had good seats. But wow were those athletes moving so fast. The drone-like flying machine made a stop in front of him. He knew what it was but he didn’t know what to order. Maybe I’ll try this one.

People in the crowd next to him were impatient. He could hear them murmuring. He ordered chipotle wings. The machine began to process it as the food appeared on top of it. He swiped his credit bracelet. The machine needed a retina ID to accept as it scanned his eye.

A voice from the machine blared out, “Sir can you put your prosthetic on?”

He heard people sigh in impatience. And he heard someone murmur, “Potato Head.”

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He responded to the machine, “Oh sure no Problem.”

He dug into his pocket and pulled out the prosthetic. He placed it over his left eye. He honestly forgot to put it on.

He had on the one that was used as a mouthpiece so that people could understand what he was saying. As he removed his food from the top of the machine he looked over at the crowd and wiped the corner of his eye with his middle finger, hoping that the right person would get his subliminal message as the crowd yelled, “Come on Holler!

Come on Holler!”

Holler can feel it more than he can see it. Two of the opposing team members had broken through the defensive line. And he knows they’re coming to grab him and take him down. He holds his two arms out to the sides, still in a full run with the ball bouncing off his chest, his abs and then he raises his hands above his head and claps them together.

Instantly the ball is passed to another one of his team members as he jumps straight up into the sky. The two opponents missed their tackle as he comes out of a front flip and back down to the ground, still at a full run. The crowd goes crazy screaming, “Holler! Holler!” And some just yelling out in screaming sounds, whistling and cheering.

This will be known as one of my greatest games, as a blassball champion. But I’ll only play two more seasons. I didn’t know that at the moment. Just like I didn’t know what an important role the man who just ordered the food in the stands would play in my life. I call out to my team members as the ball is passed back to me. We go into a strike position. although we’re not allowed to touch the ball we can touch each other. The strike position is an arrow-shaped position.

There is a point in the center. There’s a point and one man is in the center. Today I’ll be the point man. And I’ll feel the 56

full strength of my teammates, fully charged up. Maybe I didn’t take the Charge because it could be career ending.

Charge is a strange type of a drug. It has to coincide with your DNA. If it doesn’t, you may have one leg that’s stronger than your whole body, maybe one arm. But the league won’t accept you unless the Charge is totally compatible with your whole body.

As we cross the goal line and the first point of the game, I feel dizzy, but I just try to shake it off. My teammates are running around me celebrating. This is an important point that we just made. The crowd will choose how the game goes from here. To solidify our win, we also have an option to go into the center of the arena and to the blassball court.

The only 3 members of the team go into the blassball court.

The process then is a series of jumps, leaps, aggressive pushing until the blassball circle is lit. The team holding the ball places the ball inside of the lit circle. The blassball explodes high up into the air with huge sparkling lights.

These lights play off the retinas of the spectators in the stands.

When my career ends from a smashed shoulder and a crushed leg, I am given bionic prosthetics to replace them.

You’re not able to play blassball with machine parts.

One night after the surgery I snuck onto the field right out into the center of the court to my surprise the hologram announcer appeared in the center of the court where I was and began to speak, “It’s the great Vance Holler.”

He circled me as he read off my stats and all of my great accomplishments. I stood there with my head on my chest.

He made his way back around to the front of me and said, “Is there anything you’d like to say?”

I said through clenched teeth, “Yeah.”

His lapel lit up to signify that the stadium speakers were now on. As I yelled, “What am I gonna do now?”

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The echo broke through the night and had the birds flying in different directions from their nests at the top of the stadium. The holographic announcer appeared again on a huge screen above the stadium. “Well that’s all for now,� he said.

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G A RY I’m sitting in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity. I call out to the rifle, “target.” The rifle responds, “not yet.” I call out to the rifle, “identify.” The rifle responds, “mailman.” I take a deep breath, I let it out. I’m bored. My saddlebag is over my right knee. I call out again, “target.”

The rifle calls back, “approaching, not in range.” I scoot closer to the rifle. I hold it as if I’m looking down a scope, and now for some reason I whisper, “target.” The rifle replies, “in range.” The rifle is pointed up at a 70 degree angle.

As I squeeze the trigger, the projectile is to rise and fall with careful consideration for the wind and no sudden movements from me and or the target. The rifle calls out, “miss.”

I panic and say, “target,” through clinched teeth. “In range”, the rifle responds. I squeeze twice. Target has been acquired. Unfortunately, although I am miles away from the target because I had to let off those two extra shots, I’ve just triggered an NYPD tracing signal for gunfire. I fold the rifle and the stand and place them in the saddlebag. As I move toward the opposite end of this roof, I have on shoes that have been outlawed. They’re called Jumps. I use them to jump across to the next roof.

When I get to the other side, I put my hand in the saddlebag and take out my glove. The sensors are automatically activated. As I move across the roof using my hands, the glove shows me everything I need to see, and guides me like little antennas coming out of my hand. This process bores me. Down the elevator and out on the street a few minutes later, as I hear the police units moving into

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place, and if I’m lucky—“excuse me sir, stop right there!” I stop and don’t turn around.

As I reach for my next weapon, I point it. The computerized voice says, “officer. No compliance.” It refuses to fire.

I point the weapon up, as I quickly yell, “ATFE.” The computer responds, “Alternate target for escape acquired.” I pull the trigger. As the shots hit the scaffolding, that fall down conveniently between me and the police officer, I turn, click my heels, waking the Jumps, as I put my hand out in front of me to see what I cannot see with my own eyes.

As I take one step, the Jumps propel my body forward as if I took five. I’m flying down a block now, avoiding bypassers just by little inches. The biggest problem with Jumps is you have no brakes. As my glove signals to me that I am approaching the intersection, I bring my feet together and decide to jump straight over to the other side. Fortunately for me, in the future, where I’m living now, they have no need for light poles. This is my plan B, and although it seems very last minute and sloppy, there’s still a chance this just might work.

As I fly by people are saying, “Look out! Watch out!

Hey, is he wearing Jumps? I thought those were illegal?” I’m getting closer to my destination, so I deactivate the shoes and start a very quick walk. When I reach my destination I make a sharp right turn. I can hear the sirens following, and pretty soon they’ll probably be— “Good afternoon, can I help you?” the maître d’ says.

“Yes, can I use your restroom, please?”

He sighs as he gives the directions, not that I need them.

I step past him, still holding my hand out, my glove leading me the whole way, right into the bathroom. I reach into my saddlebag, pull out a jacket, regular shoes, and a hat. I put the jacket on over my saddlebag. I put the hat on. I put the 60

Jumps into my saddlebag as I put on my shoes. When I come out of the bathroom, I don’t go back to the front of the restaurant. I make a sharp left turn instead, and I walk out the back, into the alley behind the restaurant. I walk down the alley in the direction I just came from. When I hear a buzzing sound over my head, I press a button on my jacket that cloaks my coat and my jacket in the same color of the street. The drone can’t see me, but I need to stand completely still. It stops for a few minutes directly overhead, and then it moves further down the alley. I move onto the main street now, a block over from the street I just ran down, but now headed back up in the same direction. When I reach the subway station, I go down inside and I start from one end of the tunnel and exit at the other end. When I come out of the train station, and she’s not there, I think to myself: this is gunna be a helluva wait. Not only that, this was a big job to do for such low money, but that’s how it is sometimes when it’s not business, it’s personal.

Dee Lane had this coming for a long time. I’m just glad I was there to give it to him at the end. I can’t just stand out here, I’m a sitting duck now, and as I turn to walk away, here she comes.

“What took you so long?” I bark. The automated voice from the self-dropping car responds, “traffic.” It’s not easy having a community car lease, but it is a great cover. I get into the back of the car, which no one will think of as odd.

I slip one of the back seats down. I lay down in the back as the car pulls off from the curb. “How soon do you have to pick up the Thompsons?” I call out to the AI. “Twenty minutes,” the car responds. Since I’m the holder of the lease, I’ve leased this car to three families with only one condition: they have no access to the trunk. The seat that I slid down opens up into the trunk as I slide in. I slide the seat up. I’m a little crunched in here, and this is 61

going to be a very boring ride, but if everything goes right, I’ll still be free in the morning. But maybe you’re wondering why I had to do this. Well, I’ll tell you…

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T H RO U G H G R E E N E Y E S The samurai stood in the town square, as the sun set behind him. His long shadow draped over his last victim. As he sheathed his sword, he saw her just for a moment. Her green eyes like emeralds.

That night, an arrow hit the young woman’s door frame.

Her father opened the door and read the scroll attached.

Upset, distraught, he met with the elders of the town. The scroll was from the samurai. It had very direct instructions.

Although the townsmen had been conspiring against the samurai for years, trying to find a champion that would release the town from the samurai’s tyranny, all they had found was failure. They had decided once again, especially under the samurai’s new request, to find someone to kill their dictator. The young lady’s green eyes sparkled bright as she followed her father’s instructions. She had no idea where she was going, but she knew it was no sense to look behind her. She kept her head straight forward.

And then he appeared. His armor shining and glistening.

One half of his face was covered and the same metallic metal as his armor. Without saying a word, he gestured for her to follow him. They came upon a bunch of trees and a narrow path. Amidst the turns and twists they found a waterfall and a huge lake. The samurai walked to one side of the waterfall and stepped through the water. When he reappeared he stepped out the other side of the waterfall, in a complete white suit. No armor, only his sword. He gestured to the girl to do the same. When she stepped out the other side, her clothes too were all white. They spent hours together. And then he led her home. Not to her door, only to the town’s edge. Their meetings took place day after

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day, into weeks and soon months. Meanwhile the townspeople had found their champion. But they needed the girl to do something for them.

Now she didn’t need to be led back, and when she would leave the samurai, he would sleep. While in one of his deep slumbers, she left the samurai. Before she stepped onto the path into the trees, at the top of the waterfall, she saw five men dressed as ninjas. The ninjas leapt off of the waterfall, forming a perfect circle at the same time. They threw ropes in between them, that she could see formed a net. They descended upon the samurai. Without him ever opening his eyes, he jumped up, drew his sword at the same time and cut a hole through the net. With the same swing, he amputated one of the would-be trapper’s arms from the shoulder. Now he stood at the top of the waterfall as the five ninjas stood where he laid a few minutes before. He jumped down between them as four of them circled him, his eyes never opening. The ninjas attacked. The sounds of the swords, knives, daggers, all clashing, as the wounded ninja climbed back up the waterfall.

By the time he got to the top, with only one arm, he had found that he at least escaped with his life. The samurai stood in the middle of the slain ninjas, and not until the very last drop of blood left his sword did he blink, and wake up from his slumber. He looked in shock as the bodies laid around him. The ninja from the top of the waterfall made a gesture and disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and the green eyed girl and the samurai looked at each other from across the lake. Two men sat in a tea shop as one gave the other one the story.

The tea shop owner said, “I will not tolerate filth,” chasing one of the workers around the shop. A hooded man with a cape sat in the back of the shop.

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One of the two men said to the other, “That story can’t be true, maybe a myth or a legend.” The other one argued on, it had to be true.

From under the hood, the man at the back of the tea shop said, “It is no myth. Legend, possibly.” As he slammed his cup of sake to the table, and poured three pieces of silver from the same hand on to the table.

The hooded man stood up to walk out of the shop as the two men asked, “And how would you know such a thing?” At the same time from the doorway of the shop, a long shadow fell inside as the sound of a sword being drawn rang out. The caped man pulled a string from the neck piece of the cape and the hood. As he threw off the cape and the hood, with the same hand he drew a sword. The two men sat with their mouths open, as they looked at the one armed man.

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GMOS The general sat in the back of the hummer as the vehicle rolled down the street. The music was playing but he couldn’t concentrate on it because of all the bumps in the road. His uniform was pristine as always. And his shoes were shined and polished. His driver called to him, “General, we’ll have to walk from here.” He stopped the music as he waited for his driver to open the door. He stepped out on the street carefully. His driver’s eyes went from side to side, not knowing whether he should offer this man with so many medals on his jacket a hand or not.

The general put his hat on as he purveyed the street. He began to walk in the direction of the hospital. He stepped inside and there were two doctors to greet him. The first doctor introduced himself, and began to tell the general his credentials.

The general said to him, in a really gruff voice, “I don’t have time for your life story, son.” The doctor was caught off guard.

The other doctor stepped forward and said, “General, my name is…” and began to tell the general his credentials as a doctor of science. The general could gently hear the music coming back to his ears until he heard the doctor say science.

The general now said in an even gruffer voice, “I don’t have time for your life story, son. Show me what I came here to see.”

The two doctors immediately turned and walked quickly in front of the general as he followed with his chauffeur at his side. The music came back to the general’s ears now, as he thought to himself, what would the greatest world war

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look like? Smoke, rubble, bombs exploding, guns shooting, but that’s not what this war looks like at all. The general was thinking, They’ve turned this man’s army into a large landscaping company, as he looked at the two eggheads in front of him.

The doctors brought him to the morgue, and opened the body bag. Inside there was a man. Totally emaciated, but the general could still recognize him. A fine soldier and a trained killer. The general looked down and said, “You’ve brought me here to see a dead man?”

The two doctors looked at each other and said, “No, no, no.”

One of them spoke and said, “Look here by his ear, it was a smaller version of the same vines, tree limbs and roots that are growing on the streets, covering the building. These plants had figured out how to get inside of a man’s body and extract the water.” There was a few more words exchanged between the doctors and the general as they turned around and walked out. The door started to close behind them and the man in the body bag sat up.

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P HANTOM The loud banging of the headboard against the wall slowed down, slower and slower. As the two lovers fell apart briefly, faces covered with sweat, the woman waited for the man’s warm embrace, as she was used to this type of cuddling, and when she didn’t feel his arms, she turned to him.

She found herself staring at the last Hawaiian queen, Lili’uokalani She was forced from the throne in 1893 by U.S. colonialists. Deeper in the background, she saw the great volcano, where the goddess Pele lived. The queen danced a traditional hula to beg for vengeance against the people who made her suffer in hard labor and stripped her from her crown. The great goddess Pele released the phantoms into the world.

She saw her beloved husband dressed in his pristine uniform. He was not a native to her homeland. He was stationed at the military base in Pearl Harbor. She reached for him and she fell away.

As she woke up on the Long Island Railroad, her eyes were filled with tears. This was one of the most soothing things that she had felt in this dreadful place since she left Hawaii, the rocking back and forth of the train. As she returned to her small apartment in Alphabet City, she was assured that her child was taken care of by her roommate. It wasn’t strange to see an ambulance in front of her building.

But when she got to the door and the paramedics were rolling her roommate out, it hurt her so bad. Her teenage daughter was inside. She always found this child to be so strange, especially after the death of her father. This would be a mysterious death, except her family traditions told her

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exactly what really happened to him. Her daughter wasn’t crying, and she wasn’t upset.

She couldn’t help but yell out, “What happened?”

Her daughter, with almost no emotion, said, “I don’t know. I looked for her earlier, and when I didn’t get a response out of her room I went inside but she was already gone.”

That night she thought of her own mother, and the way that her mother exiled her to this place after her husband died. She told her, over a traditional meal of pomice that she would have to return and bury her husband properly, and she had to take her daughter with her. After her husband was found, lifeless and breathless, he had been taken by a phantom.

The next day as she left for work, she met her sister-inlaw Tami. Tami hadn’t been in good spirits since she lost her job. Nunu spoke to her.

Nunu said, “Thank you so much for coming at such short notice to watch your niece today.”

Tami said, “No problem. Do you ever stop by the family’s house that I used to work at?”

“No, they moved from the neighborhood now. They’re gone, after the baby was found in the crib the last day that you were there.” Nunu could see the pain come back to Tami’s face.

“Don’t worry about me. I know you can see how I feel.

But tonight when you come home, I’m going to a party.

You know, to cheer myself up. Why don’t you come?”

“No, I don’t feel much like that.”

“He was my brother, too. And he would want us to be happy and enjoy ourselves. Just think about it,” as she walked past her.

Nunu had to stay extra late at work that day. When she came into the house, she apologized to Tami. Her daughter 69

was nowhere in sight. Tami told her it was no problem. She brought her clothes to get dressed for the party. And she was all made up and ready to go when Nunu walked in the door. Tami left.

Nunu thought about Tami trying to get into good spirits and how broken hearted she was when the people who hired her to be a nanny to their child woke up to find the baby had suffered SIDS. How Tami sat on the steps of the house that morning when Nunu came to collect the newspaper from her employer’s front door. Nunu brought her daughter that day because her employer’s children and her daughter were about the same age. They set up tents in the backyard and played camp-out. Nunu thought her daughter would be afraid to sleep in a tent by herself but there was no room in the first tent with the other children.

Nunu’s daughter assured her she would be okay.

The next day Nunu went outside to pick up some food before her daughter woke up. As she walked to the grocery store, she couldn’t help but see fabric blowing up from the ground. There was something familiar about it. And when she walked over, to her shock, it was Tami lying on the ground. Her eyes open but there was nothing else that she could see in this world. When the police and ambulance arrived, they discerned because of the neighborhood that this was just some drug overdose probably. And she was covered up and taken away. But Nunu was broken inside.

She couldn’t take it anymore. She made a very expensive long distance phone call to her mother, telling her that she needed to come home, she needed to be back in Hawaii.

Her mother agreed. And her mother said, “I’m going to send your cousin to come and get you. He’s going to bring something very special for you.”

When her cousin arrived, he gave Nunu a very small box. Inside the box was a special hairpin. This hairpin was a 70

shell connected to a very long needle. When you stick this needle through the phantom’s grip, the phantom will die.

Nunu knew what it was immediately. That night on the roof of her building, Nunu’s cousin played the drums as Nunu did the traditional Hawaiian dance. She swayed back and forth, back and forth, knowing what was to come. Before long, a misty smoke came out from under the door of the building’s roof. It had purpose and moved with it. Like a cat.

It was a phantom. In the darkness a phantom will leave its body behind as it searches for its next victim.

Nunu kept dancing the traditional dance as the phantom circled her feet. A phantom moves in the darkness in a cloud of smoke. And if you look into the cloud you can see the image of the body that the phantom left behind. When Nunu looked down into the cloud, she saw her daughter looking back up at her. She removed the pin from her hair.

As the phantom prepared to grip her body, as her long hair fell down around her shoulders, her tears did too.

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Z E RO G Chino sat in front of the box with great anticipation, ready to open his new phone, the very latest iPhone. The iPhone had gone up to 9 and now they had released the 10G. He opened the box and followed all the instructions. It was charged now and ready to be activated.

When the phone rang he knew it was his carrier confirming all his information. The woman on the line said, “Is this still your number sir?” as she read the numbers off.

“They sound familiar…” He replied, “No,” and gave her the correct information.

He knew this number from somewhere but he just couldn’t think of where. As he fell into a pattern of deep concentration it suddenly came to him as he smelt the toast burning. It was the number to his first apartment!

He smiled to himself as the iPhone floated around his head because the 0G meant zero gravity. He disposed of the burnt toast and just for giggles, spoke the number and had the iPhone dial it.

To his surprise, the phone rang and then someone picked up. The person at the other end spoke in a very masculine voice, “Speak.” Chino sat down in shock. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing as the voice spoke again, “Speak.”

Chino could not believe it. He was hearing his own voice from thirty years ago! “Over-compensating as usual,” he said to himself. How can this be, he wondered, then he made a hand signal in the air and the iPhone disconnected.

He pictured himself all those many years ago wearing a fisherman’s hat that he had always been known for. Truth be told he had never gone fishing but it was the style of one of his favorite rap groups at the time. He signaled the

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iPhone to come close and it hovered in front of him as he called out various commands.

He checked all the search engines he could find for strange and weird phenomenon like this. He found nothing.

He decided to try the number one more time.

The phone started to ring and then he heard it again.

“Speak,” the voice said but Chino couldn’t speak. “Hello!” almost a yell into the phone as the voice spoke again.

Chino started to think about where he was living back then and how he looked. Then the voice yelled into the phone again, “Yo, what the fuck?” Quickly Chino did the hand signal to cut the line.

Chino thought about what happened in the hours and days afterwards. He was scared to tell anyone about this. He knew they would just think he was crazy. He was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t crazy. And then it came to him. The opportunity of a lifetime! Think how much he could tell his younger self! How many advantages it would give him, not just financial but truly meaningful.

He was sure he had the answers to the questions his younger self would not only want to know, but need to know.

He stood on the observation deck of the Empire State Building with his back to a beautiful pink sunset and called up the numbers on his floating cell phone.

As he waited for the line to open up, the phone rang twice and some disturbing but very familiar music began to play, followed by an automated voice. “We’re sorry but this number is no longer accepting calls. If you think you’ve reached this message in error, please try your call again.”

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N I N E T A L E S , O N E P RO M I S E Marcus sat by the huge bay window, looking out at the water on the lake, thinking about how many times he went back and forth, back and forth, pouring the water onto the road. It was night. And he decided it was as good a time as any to start out. He opened the cabin door and walked out into the night with no shoes on. He stepped into the snow.

And off in the not so far distance he heard a small branch crack. Reacting on pure instinct he ran in the direction at breakneck speed. His breathing got really deep but he was trying to still hold back for a little while longer. The animal had a little head-start but he was catching up very fast. This was not the prey he was after tonight. Still he loved to do this because animals never look back. He always found them to be amazing. And then he heard the screech. The tires spinning. He remembered that the water on the road turned into a beautiful sheet of ice. His trap had been sprung.

Tommy tried to speed up but was cautious because he had his lights off. He couldn’t believe that the bank robbery went so wrong and so quickly. He had the pearl-handled 45 laying on the passenger’s seat beside him. And instead of using the foot he used the hand break on the stolen vehicle.

He was sure that no one was following him at this point.

When the car started to spin out of control on the ice.

Marcus stopped in an instant, looked straight up into the sky and breathed in the darkness. Large gusts of steam rose out of his nose as he set off in the direction in which he heard the crack sound of the sign being hit. He stepped out from the woods, slowing his pace down, watching, looking, feeling his blood pulse harder and harder. His feet began to expand as his hands began to show the signs of the small

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hairs that would gradually grow longer and longer and cover him completely. He tramped through the whirling snow.

Tommy didn’t black out. Maybe he was too panicked when the car eventually crashed. He limped out of the car with a gun in his hand and into the woods. He had no idea where he was going. When he felt a presence behind him, before he could spin around and raise the gun, the beast was on top of him. It snarled and snapped in his face. And then the hairy animal started to sniff harder and harder. Tommy wanted to fight and he tried to. But it was too heavy and too strong. He was shocked as the beast started to speak to him.

The beast said, “There’s blood on your hands.”

As he took another deep breath in, the beast’s eyes blazed, as he said, “Murderer!”

Tommy screamed out, “Please don’t kill me, don’t kill me.”

The beast growled and said, “I won’t kill you. But you have to make a promise that you’ll never tell what you saw here tonight.”

Tommy screamed out, “I promise. I promise I’ll never tell what I saw here tonight.”

The beast stuck his claws into Tommy’s right shoulder and said, “And now we’ll see your promise in blood,” as he dragged his claws down Tommy’s chest all the way to his left hip.

Tommy screamed with his eyes shut tight, trying to shield his mind from the pain. When he opened them, he saw the back of the beast. He thought he was seeing double but he could have swore the beast had more than one tail as it disappeared into the woods. Tommy got up and ran in the other direction, stumbling, limping, until he came to a clearance where he saw a tent and a fire. He started to black out as the woman came out of her tent. Through several bouts in and out conscious he found himself inside of the tent and in the care of the woman.

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He kept asking her, “Do you have any weapons here?”

And each time he said that to her, she shook her head yes and pointed to her head.

As Tommy got better, the woman would help him down to the lake. She would help him bathe in the lake and over a few conversations, they became more than acquaintances, more than friends. The woman told him that her people roamed these Connecticut woods. They were native people and some still held the traditions. Tommy was familiar with all of the native people and he knew that the tribes were in control of Foxwoods, the gambling casino in CT, so he found none of this to be strange.

But when she told him that she was expecting, he knew they would have to come out of the woods then. They made their way back into the town by hitchhiking. Tommy grew a beard and a lot of hair. So he wasn’t recognizable to many people. He was still worried about the bank robbery that went wrong. When he got to his efficiency apartment his crude landlord yelled, “Tommy, do you know how late you are with the rent?”

Tommy said, “Don’t worry I’ll get it.” As he led the woman inside, he told her to stay there and locked the door.

He showed her how to put a chair up against the door in case the landlord tried to sneak in. Tommy set out for the city. He went to an old gambling place. When the boss saw him, he had to take three looks.

He called him by his alias, “Tommy Guns,” he said, “what are you doing here?”

Tommy said, “Just what everybody else is doing here.

Trying to make some money.”

The boss said, “You must have heard about the big poker game we’re having to night Don’t think you can just walk in here and get into the game Tommy.” Tommy’s scars on his chest started to burn and he rubbed them and he didn’t say anything.

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The boss looked at him and said, “OK, OK Tommy come into the back and you can get into the game.”

As Tommy played cards that night it was as if the scars led him in the right way. He won really big. When it came time to settle up, the boss said, “I don’t have the cash Tommy to pay everything to you tonight but here there’s a brand new Lexus outside,” he threw Tommy the keys, “You can take this until we settle up.”

The landlord slipped the master key into Tommy’s lock and turned it slowly. He listened to the door but he didn’t hear anything. He opened the door and it made just a creak sound, but there was nothing behind the door to stop him from opening it.

When Tommy got home that morning with all the money, he said to her, I am going to try to find the landlord but I think we should just try to move out of here and get a better place.

She agreed with him and told him where he could look for a place. He drove the car up to the place. And old lady with amber eyes stepped out. He told her that he was sent here by his woman. She nodded her head and said do you want the place now? It was beautiful cabin with big bay windows. He said, “Yes,” as he looked at her blueish gray hair at the side of her temples. “How much do you want,” Tommy said.

“How much do you have?”

Tommy and his woman were settled in the place. And although Tommy’s woman said that they would get a midwife to help deliver the baby he was surprised to see that the midwife never showed up. Tommy and her delivered the babies together. It was triplets. Tommy had gone back into the city a number of times and gambled and won lots of money. One night as he sat in front of the bay window, he said to his woman, “I want to tell you something. I want to tell you about the night that we met.”

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She said, “I don’t want to talk about the robbery again.

That’s behind us. That’s behind you.”

He said, “No, I want to tell you how I got these scars on my chest.” Tommy told the whole story looking out the bay window at the lake beyond it. And in the background he could hear her crying.

He said, “I know it’s unbelievable but it’s true. But you have to be afraid. I’ll protect you.”

She said, “You promised. You broke your promise, You said you’d never tell.”

The police officer said, “That’s all fine and good Tommy but there’s no house here, only that lake. When they found you here in the woods with that silver pistol laying behind you and that car on fire, there was no woman or children around. We’re still wondering what happened to your landlord. No one saw him again after he went into your house. We have a funny suspicion that you did something to him too. We can’t prove it yet.”

As he signaled the uniformed police officers over to put the handcuffs back on Tommy, “the tribe that you’re talking about hasn’t existed in these woods for 200 years and the beast that you described is one of their folk tale stories. I don’t know how you heard about it Tommy but you won’t see the light of day for along time for this.”

As the police officers dragged Tommy, the police officer couldn’t help but follow Tommy’s stare off into the woods on the other side of the lake. He saw three cubs but he couldn’t make out what kind of animals they were. And as they hopped into the woods, he saw a big beast that he couldn’t even describe. A beast with blue eyes.

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THE MAIN COURSE Billy Bob killed his first squirrel at seven years old.

Maybe that’s when the possible titles for his plaque first started. So when he was contacted by telephone for a free Caribbean cruise, leaving from South Beach, Florida, no one was surprised that he left his beloved Gainesville behind.

On the cruise ship, he earned his next possible title, Predawn Snacker. Unfortunately for him, his title of Keeper of a Cardtable in the Garage did not pay off on the ship’s casino. So he resolved to eat even more. On the next cruise they gave Billy Bob half off the price, but everyone was okay with his disappearance, and who wouldn’t be, for he was known as the Pisser-off of Porches, Misunderstander of Children, and Excessive Eater of Pork Rinds. But on the cruise he was known to eat much more than that, which gave him his next title, the taker of long trips to the bathroom.

For Billy Bob’s third cruise, he paid in full, but was bumped up to a more prestigious cabin, although back home he was known as the faker of injuries for the worker’s comp stunt he pulled for the money and time off. On this cruise, he was entitled the taker of aspirin for his many hangovers and forgetter of birthdays which isolated him more from family and friends. Still, the eating continued day and night, which brought on his next title, Emergency Exiter.

He found it easier to get to the buffet table if he used the emergency exit doors instead of standing in line like everyone else, which brought on his next title, Wearer of Blue and Red Robes. The ones that he wore sitting around the pool, never touching the water, but always twiddling his thick dry thumbs. On his fourth cruise, he was given a special upgrade. A beautiful suite, although he was 400 pounds and

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could barely fit through the door. He was especially looking forward to this next cruise to show off his new deck shoes that he bought off Ebay. There he gained his next title as he sat at the captain’s table, Reviser of Personal History. Maybe it would have been believable if he wasn’t already the master of the word, ain’t. As he retired to his small European-style suite, he would wish that he was in fact the owner of a gun in a locked closet, because after laying on the bed and it breaking under his pressure, and trying to use the bathroom and finding that the door was too small, the phone in the suite started to ring. When he picked up the phone, a voice said, “This will be your last trip with us, or anywhere, for you have eaten as much as we needed you to eat. On behalf of the ship and its crew, we would like to welcome you to the menu.”

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S T R AW B E R RY M O O N Stacy started a pot in the kitchen, smelling the overpowering curry seasoning in the pot, knowing that she would have to add water to the pot to loosen the gravy. And already feeling the pain in her chest from the scar that was left there. She said quietly to herself, Quentin. Her thoughts ran wild thinking about if Quentin was there. But at the same time she knew that if Quentin was never there, she wouldn’t have this scar on her chest. She could smell the rice and peas now. She said to herself, It’s time to add the coconut milk.

The restaurant was not crowded when Manigo walked in the door. She found a seat in the corner by the window.

And no one bothered to come over and take her order. A deliveryman walked in the door with a dolly and some cases of juice on it. One of the waitresses went in to bring Stacy from the kitchen. When Stacy emerged from the kitchen she couldn’t help but notice Manigo. Upon seeing Stacy, the deliveryman’s face lit up with a very wide smile. Stacy signaled to him to give her one second as she made her way over to Manigo’s table.

She sat down in front of Manigo and said, “Thank you so much for coming.”

Manigo grinned and responded in a heavy West Indian accent, “What goin’ on?”

Stacy instantly felt like she was back home. Stacy replied, “Please give me five minutes.”

Manigo sucked her teeth in a very loud way, and said to Stacy, “Go on, girl.” As Stacy rose from the table to complete her business with the deliveryman, Manigo breathed in deeply, catching the smells of the jerk chicken,

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the curried goat, and all of the island food that she loved so much. Stacy wrote out a check in a hurry for the deliveryman as he tried hard to flirt and smile with her. Stacy kept one eye on Manigo the whole time, trying to hide the nervous feeling that she was feeling. Stacy had one of her waitresses take a tall glass of sorrel to Manigo’s table.

After she finished her business with the deliveryman, Stacy disappeared into the kitchen and came back out with the tray with two different dishes on it. She brought it herself to Manigo’s table and sat down. Manigo began to eat with her hands and said to Stacy at the same time, “Speak, child.”

Stacy began her story, “I’ve had this restaurant for twelve years working it day and night. In the tenth year, I returned home and married my childhood sweetheart. I brought him back to the States and that’s when the trouble began.”

Stacy slipped the key into the lock that she had expertly stole from Quentin while he was sleeping. She snuck into the apartment. Just as she thought, The girl didn’t even know how to keep a good house. She moved and found what Manigo told her to bring. The girl’s hairbrush. She dropped it in the bag. And rubbed her chest again. The scar on her chest was still fresh from where the girl had slashed her with the razor.

Monique hollered into her cell phone, “Say that again, say it again.”

The person on the other end said, “You can hear me.”

Just before the cell phone clicked off.

She was in the gambling spot with Quentin hoping that his losing streak would break. As Neal said, “What’s going on Fever?”

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Everyone called her Fever because her curves were that hot.

Quentin stared from the card table, having a bad night and too many Heinekens. He threw down his cards, settled up, and went over to Fever and grabbed her by her arm.

“Let’s go,” he barked.

Fever said, “Wait a minute Quentin,” as he shoved her down the stairs and out the front door.

Fever got to the sidewalk and said, “Neal was—” Quentin cut her off and said, “Who the hell is Neal!”

A man yelled over his shoulder, “I’m Neal. “ As Quentin turned around, Neal hit him in the face with a Guinness Stout bottle.

Stacey looked both ways as she crossed the street over to the gold Sedan. The back window slid down as Stacey handed a bag. Inside was Fever’s hairbrush. Stacey turned and rubbed her scar again as the sedan pulled out from the curb.

The next day Fever called from the bathroom to her girlfriend, “Jeneva Diva do you see my brush in here?”

Her friend answered back, “Nah, I ain’t seen it.”

“Let me use your brush,” Fever yelled.

“I ain’t got mines with me,” Jeneva lied as she thought to herself, She knows where we come from; we don’t play games like that.

Neal pulled up in this brand new Lexus. He was giving Jeneva and Fever a ride to Macy’s on 34th street in Manhattan. There were going to boost. As they went to leave the store, Jeneva went through the doors first and Fever took her time to follow her, when security jumped out from every direction. The undercover security guards yelled, “Don’t move, don’t move.” But at the same time, they tackled her like NFL linebackers.

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She thought to herself, All of this for stealing a couple of dresses and shirts. As they slammed her body to the ground, she saw Neal’s car pulling around from the curb quick.

Another security guard slammed his knee into her back while she was on the ground. And while everything was turning black, she could swear she heard a voice laughing, a female voice.

When she got to Riker’s Island, she was feeling a little bit better. Her back was still sore, but she saw the correction officer that she messed with from time to time, especially when she was in trouble like this. She knew that he couldn’t show favoritism to her out in the open, but she could sense he was avoiding eye contact with her altogether.

When she turned away, he went over to a big stocky female correction officer and whispered something into her ear.

Fever went through the strip search process. She picked up her clothes and was moving towards the entrance to the jailhouse as the stocky correction officer said, “Don’t look at me like that.” Before Fever could say, “I wasn’t,” the female correction officer punched her in the face and knocked her out cold.

As she fell to the floor she thought to herself, This is the second time in one day that I have been knocked out. And at the same time she could hear the voice—the laughter, the grinning.

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FULL MOON Marissa felt the itching in her palm and she squeezed her fist tight. Mamood stood behind the counter, expertly typing the numbers into the lottery machine. Marissa spoke, “six hundred and twenty-five straight, eight hundred twenty -two box, a hundred and three fifty-fifty.” When she finished all of the numbers, Mamood told her the total is three hundred and fifty dollars. She passed him the money with her left hand as he passed back the lottery tickets at the same time. He said thank you, but he could’ve thanked her for more. Although she didn’t know it, she bought the daily fortune lottery scratch-off ticket and because she won at his store, he got a bonus of 5,000 dollars from the state lottery commission. He used the money to install the video cameras that were videotaping this transaction. If he’d had those cameras before, he would know Marissa was the one who won the daily fortune, although looking at her he couldn’t tell it.

Marissa left the store with plastic bags in hand on the way to see her ex-husband, Georgie, and their son, Thomas.

Georgie was a man twenty years Marissa’s senior, and truth be told, he was the one who introduced her to gambling.

But Marissa had her own way of improving her luck. She started to think back…as the birds chirped on an unpaved Caribbean road, the smell of grass wafted all around the car.

The driver up front did his best to avoid the small potholes and ditches without disturbing his passenger in the back as she ate out of a bowl mangoes covered in hot sauce, lightly salted, so sweet and ripe, Marissa found it to be a delicacy.

The driver pulled the car to a slow stop. He stepped out and walked over to a man who wore no shoes and raggedy

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clothes. He spoke in a quick patois. They both stepped to the back window where Marissa sat with her last piece of mango. The driver said, “He knows where you’re going, and he knows who you’re looking for.” Marissa took the last piece of mango out of her mouth as she said, “Ok.” The driver said, “This man wants something to eat.” Marissa said, “I only have this one last piece of mango, and I already started eating it.” The driver told her to give it to him. The man took the piece of mango and ate it in two bites. As the driver sat back down inside the car, the man pointed up the road and gave a few more instructions. When a car pulled up in front of the gate to the big house, the driver told Marissa, “This is as far as I go.”

Marissa made her way inside of the mansion and sat with Maningo. She told Maningo what she wanted. Maningo asked her, “But how much are you willing to give?” Marissa said, “However much it takes.” Marissa wrote her name in full on a piece of paper. Maningo burned the paper to ashes.

She placed the ashes in Marissa’s palm and at the same time, she put the biggest maggot Marissa had ever seen on top of it. She burnt a candle and let the candle wax pour over into the palm. She tied a string around Marissa’s wrist, and told Marissa, “Do not open your hand until tomorrow.” That night, Marissa slept and dreamed that she opened her hand, and when she did, an eye was looking back at her from her palm. Marissa woke up screaming. Her hand was open and there was nothing in it, and there was no string tied around her wrist. She was confused. When she flew back to the States, she was surprised to lose over and over again. But then her luck started to change. First she won a couple thousand dollars, then a couple hundred. She played scratch offs and she started winning more money. At the same time she found out she was pregnant with her son and before she went to have her son, she won the daily fortune game from 87

the state lottery that paid thousands of dollars a day for life.

But when Marissa laid in the hospital after having her son, she realized something was wrong. She knew it before, during her whole pregnancy, she felt separated from the child inside her, and now she felt numb toward the baby. As the days went on in the hospital, she found out her child rejected her milk. The nurses tried to soothe her pain and tell her, “This happens every so often,� but Marissa knew in her soul it was something else. As the hospital doors glided shut behind her, the baby kept crying and crying in her arms, and not until Georgie took his son from Marissa that he stopped crying.

As Marissa carried the bags to the apartment where Georgie and their son Thomas live now, she hoped and prayed that the little gifts that she bought for her son would make him happy, would make him smile for her. Georgie and Marissa are now divorced, and as Marissa pulled the small toys out of the bag, the little boy stood there with a frustrated expression.

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H A RV E S T M O O N The definition of a soul. Soul is an activity that people engage in to try and gain money. Twelve people get together. Each of the twelve people contribute a certain amount of money into a pot. For the twelve months of the year, this money is distributed to one person each month.

The definition of mama soul. Mama soul is a person who collects the money alongside of an elder, or older man in a group. The definition of a houngan. A houngan is a voodoo priest. The definition of a mambo. A mambo is a voodoo priestess. Power can only be measured through knowledge and wisdom, unless they both live on equal terms. Veronica waited humbly in the foyer of the high rise apartment, as her employee handed her an envelope. “Veronica, you simply have to take this child to the doctor. He is a specialist, he’ll figure out what’s wrong with it, I’m sure of it.”

Veronica had exactly seven hundred dollars including the pay that she just received for her work as a nanny today.

She nodded her head, opened the door and backed out. She got to the street and walked quickly to the train station. A few people said along the way, “What’s your rush? Slow down.” She had to get to the hospital. She rubbed her stomach and thought of Cedric. It wasn’t too long ago that he was safely inside of her, and they were just one, and all the time that he’s been outside of her he’s been sick.

When she reached the hospital, she sat down. Her son looked at her and said, “Mama, did you bring it?”

She playfully smiled and said, “What are you talking about?

He said, “Oh, ma.”

She reached down into her pocketbook and pulled out

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the two books. One was the, And Then and Then story. The other was The Midnight Bandit, by The Gumshoe Detectives.

She began to read, still wondering in all of this time she hadn’t dropped one tear, she hadn’t cried one time, for all of the pain he’s been through. As he dozed off to sleep her phone chimed. She reached into her pocketbook again and pulled out her phone. It was Tracy. Veronica said, “Hello.”

Tracy said, “How’s he doing?” Veronica told her, “the doctors haven’t told me anything different.”

Tracy said to her, “Why are you still there? I told you what you need to do. The gogin that I went to see when I had trouble conceiving, he helped me, he told me what to do. Now I have a beautiful daughter, you know that. This is the life we know, this is the way we live, you can’t turn your back on that.”

Veronica agreed but she still said, “I don’t know, are you sure he can help?”

Three hours later she rang the bell of the houngan. He let her up the four flight walkup into a room. There he had a desk. On top of the desk was a opened magazine. It displayed a picture of a snake. He stepped around the desk and said, “This snake is called the black mamba. I heard somewhere that if you are ever in the jungles of Africa there are three sure ways to die. One is if you ever see an elephant, two is if you ever see a lion, and three most certainly is if you ever see a black mamba. Tell me now, Veronica, what do you need from me?” as he closed the magazine and moved it off the desk.

She said, “My son is very sick, the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

The priest said to her, “I can help him. But I’ll need help from you. How much is your son worth to you?”

She said, “All I have in this world right now is seven hundred dollars. Please help my son.”

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The gogon laughed a little bit. He said, “Come now, mama soul, I know you have more than that.

Veronica answered, “If you know who I am, then you know that’s not my money. I can’t give you that money.

Besides, how do I know your powers are real?”

The voodoo priest replied, “If it is not, stand up and walk right now.” He locked eyes with her as she stared him back straight in the eyes. She tried to move her legs but they wouldn’t work. She tried to move her arms from the armrest but they failed her as well. She returned that night with twenty thousand dollars. The gogon took her to the roof of the apartment where he had his altar set. Three girls danced while the fire blazed and two men played the drums.

Immediately after, Veronica left and ran back to the hospital. When she got back to her son’s room, it was empty. The nurse walked up to her with tears in her eyes.

“He’s gone. We’ve been trying to call your cellphone all night. It’s going straight to voicemail.”

When Veronica got home and told her elder what happened to the soul money he told her to repeat the story to another person. The fake voodoo priest thought everything was over until he walked into his living room and saw the real mambo sitting there. She said to him, “You’re going to be very busy today.”

Tracy and her husband were playing with their little daughter when they heard a bang at the front door. She didn’t like her husband to wear his service revolver in the home but he just got back from work. When she opened the door, the fake priest stood there with tears in his eyes, screaming at the top of his lungs, “You must come with me now, you must take my daughter and come with me now, we have to go!”

She said, “What are you doing here, are you crazy? Get away from here. Go away!” She started screaming and so did he.

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Soon her husband the police officer walked up behind her shouting, “What’s going on?” He moved her out of the way of the door and opened it.

The fake priest said again, “I need to have my daughter and my woman out of the house now.”

For the first time, the puzzle that was his daughter’s became clear to him. He looked at his daughter’s face and saw the features of this man’s face clearly. He knew what happened instantly. In a split second he pulled his revolver, pointed it straight at the man’s chest and pulled the trigger.

The man took three steps backwards and never felt himself hit the ground. He looked up at the sky and he saw the silhouette of the mambo. She said to him, “You had so much to do today, and now the day is done, and so are you.”

Veronica left the funeral home after the small memorial service with the urn in her hand. The gold Sedan sat in front of her on the street, the back window came down and she placed the urn inside of the car and pulled her hands back empty. She walked down the street and finally the tears started falling from her eyes. She reached into her pocketbook for tissue, at the same time she held her stomach. Her pocketbook fell off her arms, the tears flowed and she started to scream.

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SELECTION The two men rode down the road in a red pickup truck.

The passenger said to the driver, “So that’s when I left the Navy Seals.” The passenger said to the driver, “Charlie, are you listening?” The driver didn’t respond. That was not his name. He knew his passenger’s name but his passenger didn’t have that same privilege. He also knew his passenger’s code name because the driver gave the passenger that name himself. The driver responded, “I’m ex-CIA.” The passenger answered, “So that’s why you’re telling me all these things. I still can’t believe it. You’re trying to tell me that the Federal Reserve is not a part of the government.” The driver said, “That’s right. That the agency we work for now, Dark Water, is a standing army.” Passenger says, “As strong as the US Army?” The driver said again, “That’s right.” And then the passenger said, “And every president has some blood relation to each other.” The driver said, “There are no elections in this country.” The driver said, “There is only a selection. The American people only get to chose between two people who directly or indirectly are blood related and their family relations can be traced back to the crowns of Europe.” The driver passed a folder to the passenger, “This is our target.” As the driver spoke, he speed up the truck just a little.

They were approaching Mercer Island as the passenger read through the file, yet again. He read the name at the top of the file out loud. “StacyAnn Dunnen,” he said, “Age whatever.” And then he said to the driver, “She was married but it’s not in here.” Charlie answered, “Because that kind of marriage is illegal in 15 states in this country.” The passenger says, “Okay, but there’s a child here, a son.” Charlie said,

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“That’s right. And these two targets have continued to elude us for quite some time now.” The passenger said, “Now this is the part I can never believe. Just explain this to me one more time, Charlie.” Charlie said, “Okay. I’ll try to give you the short version. There’s been four different teams that have tried to eliminate this target and they all have failed. To our agency a failure means death. There’s a guardian watching and protecting our target. Some people in some places believe this guardian can be found in the Old Testament of the Bible. The Israelite kings all have a date of birth and the date is also documented of their deaths. Except for one, King Melkasadi. He has worked this earth for centuries, as I said before, every president is blood related and in fifty years, this child may be in line for the presidency because of its bloodline. We have two jobs to do. One, we have to take out this target so this presidency will never happen; and two, we have to keep ourselves from being the next team that fails at doing it.”

The passenger yelled out, “Quick, did you see that?”

Charlie grabbed his gun from out of his holster and sat it on the seat between them. The passenger smiled a little bit and said, “This guy’s got you spooked a little bit. This is all a myth, a legend. It can’t be true.” But Charlie knew better.

He turned, without putting on his turn signal, onto a dirt road. The passenger asked him, “So is the team just me and you?” Charlie said, “No, there’s two snipers already set up around the house,” as he pulled out the radio from the glove compartment, “I’m gonna confirm now that they’re in place.” As Charlie leaned over a huge tree slammed into the cabin of the truck. Charlie was instantly killed and the passenger was almost crushed to death. A figure stepped onto the dirt road out of the shadows. He looked into the passenger’s eyes, and said, “I exist.”

Two miles up the dirt road, a sniper hung from a 94

manmade perch on a tree. Hanging lifeless by his left ankle.

Deep in the woods, on the other side, a man laid on the ground close to his sniper rifle with his neck snapped.

StacyAnn Dunnen made sure everything was prepared before she made her way into town. She cooed at her son as she lifted him up. She said, “Okay, Barry, it’s time to go now.”

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CONNIE Mr. Spotter moved in closer. He was following her from a block and a half away. When she turned into the building, he nonchalantly walked by like a bird passing overhead. She walked up to the elevator, stepped inside and pressed two.

When the doors opened on the second floor, she took two steps off the elevator and began greeting everyone in the group as she made her way to the table to find her seat. She couldn’t help but to speak of the street fair on 6th Avenue.

“I’m so relaxed,” she said. She spoke of a massage for ten dollars, and when the group began, it wasn’t too long before she took down his story. When she read back the piece, all ears were wide open, as she read the individual letters, D O P. At the end of class, she made small conversation and jokingly mentioned the massage one more time. “This is not something you want to do if you’re a germaphobe,” she said, smiling the whole time, and when the elevator door closed, you could still hear her hypnotic grin. When she stepped back on the street, she walked back into the street fair.

Spotter had tried this two times already. He thought to himself: You know what they say, one two, three strikes you’re out. Maybe the time lapsed for too long. Still he was willing to give it a try. He positioned himself in front of her, not too close, and said, “Kitty, hello Kitty.” He saw something in her eyes switch. He said again, “Hello Kitty.” She blinked rapidly and opened her eyes wide. She spoke, “Spotter?” He smiled inside. She said it one more time, “Spotter? The missile, the satellite, did we…?” Spotter looked in both directions, and then back at her. She said, “My team. I was captured.” Spotter could see it was all coming back to her. He stepped closer. “On the mountain,”

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she said, “Lilith’s transmission to Gaya.” Spotter knew the answers to all of this. And if we were talking a letter grade for her last mission, although she made a very hard attempt, the letter lied between E and G in the alphabet. She said again, “I was captured,” and now she can see it, beaten and handcuffed on the helicopter, over the ocean under gray skies. A soldier pulled the helicopter door open. Below, a submarine sat still with six men on the deck. The interrogator stood her up, pushed her toward the door from thirty feet in the air. She looked over her shoulder and said, “Won’t you at least take off the handcuffs?” The man said, “I have to give some sort of advantage to the men down there,” as he pushed her out of the helicopter. Five men in training stood on the deck. The sixth man was the instructor. He said, “This will be the final test.” They sized each other up, thinking they would have to fight each other to the death. Not here in the turning propellers of the black nighthawk helicopter above. When the woman came down on the deck, she managed to get her handcuffs in front of her and use one man’s shoulders to break her fall, at the same time kicking another man’s face, making it split like a melon. She jumped up without pause into her fighting position. The other three men moved in for the kill as the instructor made his way into the hatch. As he climbed down into the submarine, he wasn’t surprised that none of the men followed, but he didn’t anticipate her still having the strength to chase him. He pulled down the hatch as she struggled to lift it up. If he would have let go with one hand, she would have surely pulled the hatch open before he had a chance to grab for his gun. Instead, he yelled, “Dive! Dive!

Dive! Come help me pull this closed.” As the submarine went under the water, the woman held her breath and pulled as hard as she could. The hatch was sealed, locked, as she

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screamed in the darkness. She woke up out of the trance, standing there with Spotter. She looked at him hard, without a smile. He reached out toward her. To anyone watching it looked as if he brushed her hair behind her ear. He actually touched her temple with one finger and then slid it around to the back of her ear, and he could see it started to work as he explained to her, “We had to leave you with that memory for your own protection.” He looked into her eyes and observed her cheeks. He can see her skin starting to rejuvenate right before his eyes. In a week, she will look like she’s twenty-one years old. She reaches out and grabs Spotter’s arm, and says, “Malkazidak.” Spotter says, as he looks down, “Oh yeah, about him-.” She interrupts Spotter, and says, “No, Malkazidak,” as she points toward 23rd Street. A man stands in the middle of the street. As they both stare at him, he says, “As they look at me in shock, it should come as no surprise. If you saw a man that was over five thousand years old, it might take a while for you to take that in. A vampire, you might say, but this is no children’s story. Besides, it’s broad daylight. No, I am the last of the Israelite Kings. In the old testament of your Bible, you can find the birthdate and the death of my predecessors. You will find my birthdate, but I am alive and well. So while I fill you in on this story that you just heard, I’ll also tell you how it is I came to be.”

Malkazidak made his way down the F train station stairs.

A woman on the way up said, “The trains aren’t working.”

Malkazidak smiled and replied, “Just going down to put something on my MetroCcard.” I know I promised to tell you my story, how I came to be, but maybe this will help you understand where you are and how all of this came to be. Malkazidak pushed the station door and walked on to the platform. As he made his way to the end of the platform going into the tunnel, he looked around. Before I start this 98

story, you’ll need to know a few things: what you deem as right and wrong, good versus evil, just and unjust, is only an illusion. It’s been put here to keep your mind in total confusion. And if you feel some sort of awakening from it, the media and the mass consumption of their propaganda will make you look like a lunatic anyway. For example, all of the symbols you see on uniforms in every country are all the same, but you never ask yourself why. Since we’re on this platform, I will warn you, from this point, to stand clear from the closed mind. I’ll start two years ago. Malkazidak walks down a long hallway, well lit, to a door with two lights above it, one red, and the other green. The whole time he’s being watched by cameras that he cannot see. When he reaches the door, the light goes from red to green. He lightly pushes it open.

“Malkazidak, please, have a seat.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. President.”

“We have some objects here we want you to look at,” the Secretary of Defense says. Malkazidak scanned the papers, as the CIA director asked, “Do you know where we can find these objects?”

The Secretary of State whispered under her breath, “Of course he knows where we can find these objects.”

“Not only do I know where you can find these objects, but I also know why you seek them. Is this really something you think you want to do?”

The President sat in silence as the Secretary of Defense said, “This is not only something we want to do, this is something we need to do. The goddess’s time is upon us.

Although she is embodied, she has not reached her full strength that she desires It behooves us to strike out on this endeavor for her favor and enlightenment. Surely you understand that.”

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“What I understand is that I was told this story a long time ago, about what you call today the equinox, what was then known as the celebration of Ostara. When she fully embodied her soul, a boy in her earthly court witnessed her rip an arm off a man and swallow it whole. As the man fell to the ground, she lifted her head after consuming the whole arm and spit the bones out straight into the air. Her bloodlust has grown since then, all the many wars, all the bloodshed…”.

“We are approaching May 1st,” the secretary of defense interrupted, “And you know what that symbolizes.”

The Director of the CIA chimed in, “This little boy you speak of, did he grow into a man named Nimrod, possibly?

A man who is reincarnated so many times.”

As Kenny Washington sat in the huge office, a business man on the other side of the desk cocked his head to the side, his eyes glazed over, as Kenny saw the deity raise out of his neck. Kenny, who has just found out not so long ago that he is actually Nimrod, reincarnated, said words that he’d never heard before, guided by something deeper inside of him. The deity’s eyes opened wide and burned. Kenny spoke two more words in a whisper of Nimrod’s voice, and the deity disappeared. Kenny knew instantly this man was twoheaded. As his eyes cleared up, he started to blink. The businessman now asked, “I’m sorry, did you say something?” And Nimrod answered, “No, nothing at all.” The businessman said, “All the papers seem to be in order, and now you have signed all the papers to give all rights to sit on the executive board of what we will know now as the tallest building in the world, when it is complete. Thank you so very much for coming in.”

As Nimrod stepped out of the building, he heard people call to his seven-foot frame, “Hey, that’s Kenny Taylor, Kenny!” Some people took pictures. Ferguson, his chauf100

feur, opened the door on the blue Rolls Royce, as Nimrod slid into the seat. They pulled off from the curb, all the time being followed by a small sedan. When they got to the Lincoln Tunnel on the way into Manhattan, Nimrod pulled the curtains closed and ordered Ferguson to speed up. He went into a trance in the middle of the tunnel. Michael, following in the black sedan, did the same as he looked over at the sword in the passenger seat. Nimrod’s Rolls Royce swerved in front of the sedan, causing a little bit of confusion. Three cars stopped in front of Michael, separating Nimrod’s Rolls Royce. Michael grabbed the sword which was a Talisman, the spirit of it ran so deep into his soul, he ran up to the Rolls Royce as he grabbed the door handle, yelling, “Prepare to die, Nim!” He realized this was not the car. It was actually a minivan with a family inside, screaming at this point. Michael came back to his senses, ran back to his car and sped out of the tunnel. As he got to the end, the police were there, guns ready, ordering him to get out of the car. Nimrod at a distance watched from the Rolls Royce, “At least the man won’t be possessed by the Talisman’s spirit any longer,” as the police handcuffed Michael and took him into custody.

Deborah Jenkin’s face flashed across the TV screen. “In the top story today, a man jumped out of a car in the Lincoln Tunnel with a sword, a case of road rage.”

Gaga lay back in her seat on her private jet. A personal assistant was giving her all the concert dates. She seemed bored.

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HUNTER MOON I am looking at the barrel of a gun. Just a few minutes ago, I was riding in this great big coupe. The cost of the vehicle is more than I’ve ever had in my life, and more than I ever imagined to have. But like my friends and family say, the hometown kid has done well for himself. The ink is still wet on my NBA contract, as well as the paperwork on this vehicle. I should’ve known something was wrong, coming back to my old neighborhood in the middle of the night like that. The stylistic song “Hurry Up This Way Again” was just starting on the expensive sound system. When the kid stepped in front of my car at the red light, I wasn’t really paying attention. But as my eyes searched around, I could see he was actually the distraction as his partner moved toward the open driver-side window and put the gun in my face. Out of my peripheral, I look over at the passenger seat, and think, Tammy.

“Tammy,” Mrs. Picket said around all the mourners in the funeral home. Tammy turned around and said, “Miss Picket.” She was about to thank her for coming, when Mrs. Picket said, “How many men do you have to do this to?”

Tammy said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” as Mrs. Smith’s ears perked up.

“Tammy, this is not a coincidence. You know what happened to my son after his involvement with you, and here you are standing up over another young man’s casket.”

Tammy replied, “I cared very much for your son.” That stumped Mrs. Picket in a way, “But he was in a car accident.

I had nothing to do with that, you know that.”

Mrs. Picket said, “And what about the young man before him, the one that drowned, Tammy? Don’t you see

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what’s happening here?” Mrs. Smith thought about her son in the coffin. Him and Tammy were about to be engaged.

He was away on a business trip and took an early flight back to be with Tammy on the anniversary of their 1st date. If he would have just kept his regular flight, he would’ve never have died in a plane crash. Mrs. Smith secretly blamed Tammy for it, but she never let her feelings be known. Now Mrs. Smith took one step away from Tammy. Tammy noticed the gesture, and she looked back and forth between the two older women. Tammy said, “You know I did love them.”

But Mrs. Picket said, “But your love kills. Down South where I come from, we have a name for women like that.”

Tammy said, “Like what?”

“Women who kill with their love. Do you know what we call them?” Mrs. Picket said.

Tammy’s tears fell hard. She yelled out, “No!” and she covered her ears and said, “I don’t want to know.” She ran out of the funeral home. Although people tried to stop her, Tammy pulled herself away, and burst out of the funeral home doors onto the street. Of course she knew what they call the women like that. They call them “White Liver.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Kenny said, “That’s what she said it was, say it again.”

“It’s called a White Liver. It’s a woman,” Maningo said, “that can destroy you, or kill you.”

Kenny said, “Whoa whoa, I don’t know about all of that, all I know is, I’m playin’ ball for one of the top five schools in the country. I’m a shoo-in for the NBA draft, but I been fallin’ off my game lately, ever since I met this girl Tammy. I mean she’s everything. I can’t stop thinkin’ about her. My sisters told me that two women came and talked to her about Tammy, two old women.” Kenny was thinking maybe these women were about Maningo’s age. They told 103

her, “I need to come and see you about this. I don’t want no problems now. If this White Liver is some sort of disease that I can catch that can really hurt my chances going to the NBA.” Maningo grinned as she said, “A white liver is nothing a doctor could detect. And even though you have caught something from it, it can be cured and no one will ever know. Unfortunately for the young lady you speak of, she can never be cured. You see, a white liver is not so much a disease as it is a curse. The question is, do you want my help?”

Kenny thought for a moment, and said, “How much is it gunna cost me?”

“We’ll talk about price later,” she said, as she moved around the small apartment. She said, “If you want my help, the first thing you’ll have to do is drink this,” and she handed him a glass. Kenny looked at the glass and said, “Yeah OK.” He drank it down. He felt strange. Not drunk, not high, just really strange. He didn’t even see Maningo leave the room, but he heard water running, lots of it.

Maningo came back with another glass. He could not be sure but for some reason her skin all of a sudden appeared smoother. She said, “OK, now drink this.” He drank the second glass down, and she made him stand up and she started to take off his clothes. When he was fully undressed, she led him to a bath full of white liquid. He sat down in it and she began pouring water over his head, over and over again. He felt strange, but he was wondering if his eyes were deceiving him, because the little old lady started to look taller, her skin smoother. She scrubbed his back hard, and chest, and then she made him get out of the tub. Still naked, she made him lie down on a bed of rose petals. She covered him with more rose petals and then a huge blanket. She brought him his phone and activated a video chat app.

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Tammy said, “Hello baby.”

Kenny said, “Tammy we have to talk.”

Tammy said, “What’s wrong, why do you sound like that?” By the time he turned off the phone, he’d broken up with Tammy. No one told him to, he wasn’t sure how this was all happening. The room felt strange, sort of foggy as he watched, and he wasn’t sure this was what he was seeing, but he watched the little old lady disrobing. He thought to himself, this can’t be happening, but when he felt the warm naked female body slide into the bed next to him, he wanted to turn over quickly and say, “What’s going on here?” As he did that, he was shocked to see the face and the body of Tammy laying next to him when she opened her mouth, it was Maningo’s voice, saying, “You do want the cure, don’t you?”

The kid with the gun in his hand said, “You know what this is.” Since Kenny didn’t move fast enough in slow motion, he saw what was to be. The kid’s finger that was around the trigger squeezed, clicked, the gun jammed, his partner standing at the front of the car at the passenger didn’t notice as yet what happened. Kenny quickly sprung into action. He pressed the defensive mechanism that the car had on it. The windows slid up quickly as the exterior rearview mirrors sprayed tear gas, a loud ear-shattering noise came from the car as Kenny turned the car in the direction of the kid standing in front of it. He ran over his foot and knocked him down as he floored the accelerator. The car was going eighty miles per hour in about five seconds. When he looked back over to the passenger seat, he was alone.

Four years later, he was laying on his California king size bed in his mansion with an 80-inch screen television mounted in the ceiling above the bed when he saw a request on his smart television for a video chat. He didn’t recognize the number or the person, but he was looking at his two NBA 105

champion rings, and he thought to himself, Oh, what the hell, let the call through, initiating his voice control mechanism on the smart television. When Maningo’s face came into view, he was more than a little shocked. He said, “Hello.” Maningo replied, “Goodnight.” That made Kenny smile. He loved how West Indian people always said that in their greetings.

Kenny said, “What do I owe this pleasure?”

Maningo replied, “There is the little matter of the fee you owe me.”

Kenny laughed a little bit, and said, “I thought we settled up that same night.”

Now it was Maningo’s chance to grin, and she replied, “No, that was just a small deposit.” And then she looked at him very seriously and said, “But now it’s time to pay, and this is how you’ll pay.”

RIP to Kenny, a childhood bully who became a good friend. Where life is cruel, science fiction can be so merciful.

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NEW MOON As he watched his daughter get into the car, it became clear to him. When Miningo arrived at his door the next day, after his wife brought out tea, the three of them sat and talked.

Minigo spoke, “So Thomas, why you call me?” in a deep West Indian accent.

Thomas spoke, “My daughter Suki, she has been a straight A student, but now that she has turned a teenager she has gone wild. She don’t come home when she is supposed to.”

The mother spoke, “Sometimes not at all. She has run away again. She is with a man now.”

As Emery’s car pulled up in front of the club, he couldn’t help but notice the gold sedan sitting across the street. Emery stepped out of the car really slow because of an old gunshot wound that injured his hip and knee. But his eyes worked perfectly as he scanned up and down the street.

He was surrounded by five men. Except for two, the rest were a human shield for him. He didn’t even notice the woman standing across the street at the rear of the gold car.

He didn’t see her mouth move, but her words were in his head loudly. She said, “May I have a word with you?”

He didn’t think she could possibly be talking to him.

And no one in his entourage seemed to hear him or her say a thing.

He walked into his club; music was blaring inside. The bartender gave him the usual signal to let him know his table was set up in the back, in the VIP section.

Emery scanned the dance floor. There were a number of women there that he had been involved with, but his latest

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prize was under the spotlight by the DJ booth. Her eyes closed and she was grinding and winding her hips as if in a trance.

Emery leaned hard on the cane that he walked with. It was customized, carved with different emblems in it. Inside some of the emblems were faces of pictures, as if they were painted on or tattooed. As he looked at the seats — there the women was again dressed in gold. And again without her speaking, he heard a voice inside head say, “Can I have a word with you right now?”

He walked past to his booth in the VIP section and only two of his closest associates sat close to him in the booth.

He sat with his back to the wall and facing the door. As his companions pulled out their marijuana and their rolling paper, they started to roll up and as they did, the woman walked straight up to the table. She stood there dressed proudly in her cold fabrics and she said to him, “Now can I have a word with you?”

His two companions looked up and grinned a little bit as Emery put his cane on top of the table. Emery said in a West Indian accent, “Wha you want? I know who you must think you are, but look at my staff, do you know wha you’re dealing with? Look now at all these faces on the staff and look here, maybe it’s a place right here for you,” as he pointed to a spot of pictures of women’s faces, “And look here at an empty spot. Maybe this place is for you.”

Now his companions laughed out loudly, as Emery placed the marijuana into his mouth. Miningo came across the table fast and with one hand grabbed the marijuana out of Emery’s hand. She put the blunt into her left nostril and breathed in deeply as she closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes, she blew out smoke that circled around Emery’s head. Emery choked, gasped and then coughed.

Suki’s eyes opened at the same moment on the dance 108

floor. She stopped dancing. Emery’s bodyguards jumped up, one pulled out a knife and the other pulled out a gun. Emery coughed and gasped a little again. The one with the knife kept calling his name. The one with the gun just looked back and forth between the woman and Emery.

Three girls on the dance floor now fell to the floor.

They started to vomit and hold their stomachs. As Suki made her way to the VIP section holding her stomach, Suki stood at the threshold as Miningo took three steps backwards, the man with the knife started to run towards her fast. Miningo reached out her hand, and grabbed his collar, pulling him close into her. When she opened her eyes, they were completely red, no pupils, everything was colored in red. The man dropped his knife and came closer to her powerless. She pulled him in front of her as the other one pointed and aimed and shot the man in the back of his head, and in his back three times.

The gunman, after seeing what he had done, he was entranced by Miningo’s eyes and he began to scream, “NO, no, no”, as his arms flayed wildly. With the gun still in his hand, without any control of his own, he pointed the gun at his own head and pulled the trigger.

Suki screamed, and ran towards the table screaming Emery’s name, “Emery, Emery, Emery!” She fell on the table and vomited. When the putrid liquid touched the cane, the cane began to melt. Emery never saying a word, still gasping and coughing a little.

Suki passed out and all of the blood was all over the floor now.

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BLOOD MOON Tammy took a deep breath as she rode up on the elevator. She looked down at the four shopping bag she was carrying. She went to the store for only three items. How did it come to this, she thought. As the elevator locked into place and the door was about to slide open, Tammy bent down to pick up the four bags. She felt a small strain on her back as she righted herself. It caused her to take a deep breath as she stepped off the elevator. And then she smelled it immediately. She frowned as she said louder that she meant to, “Damn!” She walked past her neighbor’s door, sucking her teeth and saying under her breath, “Smells like a dead body in there.” Although she said it pretty low, Sharita could still hear her inside her apartment. As Sharita coughed, the mucous came out of her mouth with a tinge of blood in it. She said with a weak, sickly voice, “She don’t know how close to right she is.” Sharita went back to her task, not before catching a glance at herself in a hallway mirror. Around her eyes, her beautiful bedroom eyes, she thought she could see the yellow setting in, and now she had to make a sacrifice. It was so hard for to kill her mountain chickens. But there was only one way she was going to survive this. Sharita had been betrayed but she didn’t find it necessary to cry, and if she lived, it wouldn’t be the last. And she knew she wasn’t a saint and if she were really lucky, she may never have to be one. Now that the dead carcasses were dry, she started to grind them down into a powder. This simple task was hard for her but she smiled just a little bit as she noticed that her nails were as strong and beautiful as ever.

London circled his block three times before he parked

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his car and still he got out looking up and down the street.

Some people would call that scared or paranoid, he liked to think of himself as cautious. He walked through the lobby of his building and he opened the door to the elevator.

There was someone already in the elevator with a cap pulled down over their face. London thought to let the elevator go but whoever this was, he really didn’t care as the size of this person was much smaller than him and he really had to go to the bathroom and he wasn’t going to walk up twelve flights to get there. Besides, did she really think she could fool him? He knew who it was even with the cap pulled over her face. He pressed the button as the elevator door closed, Sharita coughed and with a raspy voice she said “London.” With his back to her, London looked up to the ceiling of the elevator and rolled his eyes. Sharita coughed again and said, “London you have to…” And London spun around fast before she could finish and yelled, “Bitch, I already told you it’s over. Now what the-” Sharita pulled her hands out of her pockets and threw the dust into his face, blinding him. As he tried to get the dust out of his eyes, she threw more and jumped on him.

With all the strength she had left she wrapped her legs around his waist as she used her nails to claw his face She needed to get the dust into his bloodstream. He couldn’t figure out what to do as he tried to get the dust out of his eyes and Sharita off of him at the same time. The elevator passed the fifth floor. Sharita began to chant to him in Creole in a heavy accent, “My will is your will...our will is my will. You will follow me now forever. Follow me forever.”

London became weaker. Sharita could feel it and although this was a curse on his soul, it was as well on hers. She knew now he was a zombie. That human thought, reasoning and feelings would soon be gone from him. Sharita’s grip started to weaken as she slid down his body to the floor. London 111

held on to the elevator walls with his hands frozen as they passed the eighth floor. Sharita started to black out but before she did she saw London looking at her as he lied on the floor. She coughed again, really hard this time. Her cap fell off her head as she said to London in a low voice, “Protect me.”

When she woke up, she was lying in London’s bed, in his mother’s apartment. London stood with his back to his closed bedroom door. Sharita could hear London’s mother in the hall, “What the hell is that smell?” She could hear the aerosol can spraying and spraying. London had foam at the sides of his mouth, Sharita knew soon she wouldn’t have to speak to him to get what she wanted. But time was of the essence. She said to London, “You have to get all the money you can. We have to go, and we have to go far. You have to take me back home.” London walked over to the rickety dresser and pushed it to the side. Behind it the dresser, where the floor and wall met was a big hole. He reached inside and took out three weapons, he placed the weapons on his body and went into the closet and got a coat. He walked out the room. Sharita could hear his mother complaining. London tried to speak back, Sharita could hear it but it barely came out. He was losing his ability to speak.

Between the growls and groans he was making he made it clear to his mother not to go into the room, not to touch the door. She could hear the sound of him leaving. Sharita passed out. Sharita woke up choking, trying to catch her breath. The smell from her body was stronger, it was decaying from the inside. She had no intention of seeking revenge, not now, only of staying alive, that was the only thing she could concentrate on. This all came about probably from her own doing. But still she had to stay focused.

And that’s not the thing she had to stay focused on now and she knew it. “Boom, boom, boom!” she heard the outside 112

the door. London’s mother screamed out, “Who’s that banging on my door like that?” She locked the door hard.

Before she had time to open it London, pushed his way past. When he opened the bedroom door where Sharita was lying he had a bullet wound in his right shoulder and his left leg, and he still had a pistol in his hand. But from the way he moved she could tell he felt no pain. She thought to herself, she loved this man at one time. She would have killed for him, but now she had to make him die for her. He dropped the bag in front of her on the floor. She reached down and unzipped the bag, it was full of money. She looked him up and down and said, “We got to go.” London nodded as a green tinge started to grow over his eyes. His mother screamed in the background, “London, London!” but he stood there as if he couldn’t hear her. And Sharita knew he probably couldn’t.

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F L OW E R M O O N Kyri and his aunt June entered the gateway after the gateman opened the large gates. They approached the house that was surrounded by beautiful green trees and flowers and stood in a circle driveway. The mistress of the house was waiting on the long steps. June stepped forward and said, “This is my nephew.” The woman spoke back in Creole.” Tell him to go today and come back tomorrow.

The gateman will show him the car.”

The next day Kyri arrived. The gateman opened the gate for him and took him to the large two-car garage. Inside it there was a gold Rolls Royce. The gateman told Kyri in very broken English, “Kyri, clean it and bring it to the mistress.”

Kyri followed the instructions and took the mistress where she wanted to go. She told him to stop right here. He got out of the car and rounded it in a second and opened the door. She stepped out. Pink and red rose petals fell to the curb. She proceeded alone into the small shop. But she once she returned, she stumbled in front of the car. Kyri couldn’t get a good look to see what happened because, at the same moment, a spasm cramped his neck making him look out the driver’s side window. When it wore off, she was leaning on the driver’s side of the car. He jumped out and opened the back door for her to get into as she sucked her teeth real hard.

The next day when he arrived at work, there were two huge bouquets of flowers sitting on the back seat, rose petals in the rear driver’s window and all over the floor. She handed Kyri a piece of paper. She said, “Take these roses to this first address, someone will be there to receive them.

Then take the other one to this address and put them on the

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doorstep.” He turned to walk and get into the car and she said, “One more thing. Keep the windows closed until you get to the first address.” Kyri nodded and got in and started the car and followed her instructions. As Kyri sat in the car, the smell of the roses overtook him. He glanced into the rearview mirror and he swore he saw the mistress behind him. He looked back fast and saw nothing. His eyes started to water, the streets started to blur, and he could barely breathe. He said, “Forget this. I’m opening the window.”

But for some reason he couldn’t take his hands off of the steering wheel. He got to the address and realized she never told him who to hand the flowers to.

Mya sat in the schoolyard with her class. She sat on a tree stump with a copper bell beside her, her long black hair in a bun, poised to ring the bell to signal the end of recess.

When she smelled something, it was something that she had smelled before but never like this. She had no control of herself as she walked in the direction of the smell. When she got to the gold sedan, a man stepped out and handed her the most beautiful bouquet of flowers she’d ever seen. She couldn’t help but bring her face right up to him. She couldn’t get close enough to the smell. The car mysteriously drove away. She looked around from side to side and all she thought to herself was, “Go home.” Her car was parked at the schoolhouse. But smelling the flowers, she passed right by it and walked smelling, touching, smelling and touching, as she took every step, the petals fell, again and again. When she reached her home, there were no more petals. She dropped it. She dropped what was left on the road. She walked into her yard. To her surprise, another bouquet was sitting at the doorstep. She picked it up and ran inside. She found a vase and put water inside and sat the beautiful flowers on the table. Her head started to spin and her mind 115

started to wander. She felt struck with a fever, took off all her clothes and lay down in the bed. The room became blurry. And at first she felt one wall pressing towards her.

Then the next. And then right, in the center, the ceiling pressing down towards her. She wanted to move from the room as the sweat ran down, but she couldn’t move. And then a hand touched her leg. She thought to herself to scream. But just like a dream she couldn’t open her mouth and when she did it made no noise. The hand rose up her leg. And then she began to see the shadow of the body that was rising up from the bottom of the bed.

When the shopkeeper returned home, he still had a smile on his face. He wasn’t going to close down his store.

They could send any kind of mambo they wanted, but he was an Ethiopian. He knew the laws. He knew the spirit world, and he knew it well. The woman who came to his shop the day before, she was impressive, and her power was great. But they would need more than that to intimidate him. He gave himself another good laugh, as he walked up his driveway not even noticing the rose petals that lined his driveway and street. He stepped inside and looked for his wife. And his demeanor automatically changed. No food, maid? Where is she? She knows he loves to have his dinner on the table at six. He walked to the bedroom and she lay on the bed naked, giving him a drunken stare. He barked and said, “What is the matter with you? What is going on here?” She simply shook her head from side to side. He came closer and looked at her. And then he knew. He left the room and ran back downstairs, looked around and he saw it—the huge bouquet of flowers. He ran to his front door and opened it and looked outside. He walked out to the street and looked down, and he saw the petals. When he looked back at his house, his wife stood in the doorway in a 116

robe, half-covered, with a very strange look on her face.

Behind her, he could see the silhouette of the demon that he knew he would never be able to get away from.

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THUNDER MOON The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. When the plane touched down, it was no surprise to Petra that her grandmother made a transition during the flight.

At the same time, the council was meeting. One of the members of the council spoke to another man and said, We can have no part of any outsiders within our council.

Whether Dougler or Madresse, we are Indian and we must have only Indian in our circle.

Ravole felt his soul shake as he thought of his love child.

A beautiful little girl given to this world by his indiscretions before his marriage.

Sending her to Florida with her grandmother would be far enough. But now he knew that would never be enough.

If he was put out of the circle now, he, his wife, his children and their children would be ostracized. He knew there was only one thing to do When Petra’s aunt was visiting back home, her uncle and his family all were very interested in how Petra was doing in America. The aunt told her, in her heavy accent, he girl’s going on good.”

One of Petra’s cousins said, “Someone left this here for her. Maybe you can carry it to her in Florida.”

When her aunt looked at the container, she saw it was a Lipton iced tea can. Her aunt said, “This will cost too much to put on the plane. Keep it and I can buy one just like it in Florida to give to Petra.

Her aunt departed a few days later. Petra’s father prayed and prayed for forgiveness for what he just put in motion When he got the phone call, a voice on the other end of the line said, “It’s been done.”

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Four weeks later, Petra’s uncle’s family were found dead in their home. The police had no idea who gave the poisoned container of tea to the family. Only Petra knew that it was meant for her. And she swore revenge.

As the father was receiving his rites of passage into the circle of power, the doors of the hall flew open. Petra took her first step inside. The men and everyone in celebration stopped. As they all whispered, “Madresse, Madresse, she’s a Madresse.”

Petra’s eyes blazed hot with tears. Her beautiful locks of hair fell down her back to her waist as she walked right up to Ravole and said, “Father!”

As the crowd around them began to scream, he looked around the hall knowing that it was over, knowing all the pain he had caused and he held her in his arms. He said, “Yes, my child.”

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ADDICTION Devin sat in the middle of the bed. He once heard a Radio DJ say cocaine is such a strong drug that after rehab years later you can dream about the high and wake up in a cold sweat with tears in your eyes, wanting it. Devin never used illegal drugs, he didn’t even like using aspirin, but tonight as he woke up with tears in his eyes and sweat running down his face he could understand the feeling.

The A train pulled into the Jay Street station. Devin is an engineer on the train. As the conductor announced, “Jay Street - Metro Tech.”

Devin locked the air brake into place, and gave the conductor a second to open the doors. He looked over at the other side of the platform. He could see the F train pulling out. He thought to himself, what a jerk. He had to know this train was pulling in, why would the F train engineer pull out before they had a chance to transfer. As he looked over with a stern look at the engineer in the F train, he could have swore he saw him flip him off.

At the last stop as he pulled out his gear from the train and walked through the train to make sure everything was okay, he met up with the conductor, John. Can you believe this guy just flipped me off on the F train? John laughed a little bit and said, “Are you sure?” Devin said, “I’m pretty sure, maybe I should talk to somebody about it before it’s a problem.” John said, “I’ve been on the job for twelve years.

And you just got here, Dev. I don’t really know who was driving the F train, but you know the old saying, don’t start nothing, there won’t be nothing.”

Devin was about to respond when his phone rang. He couldn’t wait to hear her voice; he knew from the chime that

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it was her. He moved away from John as he answered in a sexy voice, “Hello.” She responded in an equally sexy tone, “How long you gonna be?”

“How long can you wait?”

She said, “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Devin was almost through his probationary period with New York City Transit. Most people he knew as soon as they got on the job they went out and bought a new car but Devin’s obsession was his Aunt Helen and uncle Roy’s house on 223rd Street in Cambria Heights, Queens. It was a fixer-upper since they sold it so many years ago. It had changed hands a number of times and so Devin had a lot of work to do to restore it. But it was a labor of love for him because some of the best times in his childhood he spent there.

He went through the house, and he thought back to times when he would be covered in bugs from working in the yard. As many times as the house had been changed, he was amazed to find that some of his aunt’s and uncle’s things were still in the attic. Like his Uncle Roy’s gun. And some of his aunt’s personal belongings.

Devin got into Sarah’s truck on the passenger side.

Sarah said, “You only know how to drive trains, you can’t drive me?” He said, “I’m planning to do that later.” She laughed a little bit. And she said to Devin, “Is that all you think about?”

From Far Rockaway to Devin’s house, somehow this turned into an argument when she pulled off from the curb angrily. Devin stood there confused. She kept bringing up her past about the men that she’d dealt with, how much sex was on their minds, how they’d move in with her and never work. He tried to assure her that he wasn’t that type of person. He took a deep breath and decided to pour his 121

troubles into the work at hand. Today, he was stripping the floors pulling the carpets out of the dining room that his Aunt Helen used to keep so pristine. When he was totally exhausted he lay on the bed. And he was shocked to be woken up out of his sleep with the ringing of the side door bell. As he made his way to the door he could hear the rain pouring down. He opened the door and Sarah stood there in a trench coat. She was soaking wet. As she stepped inside, he asked her, “What are you doing here? You’re soaking wet, look at you.” They stood in the middle of the kitchen.

He said, “I have to get you out of this wet coat.”

As he pulled the trench coat off her shoulders, he noticed she had nothing on but a pink bra and pink high heeled shoes.

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THE MIDNIGHT BANDIT The little girl and her dad lugged their old suitcase through the airport. They both had cameras around their necks, but they kept everything else inside the suitcase decorated with the stamps of every place they had ever been. Throughout her travels with her dad, the little one kept a big secret that she was dying to let out. Later, after they had made it to their flight and were seated on the plane, smiled thinking about it as she looked out of the window.

On this trip to Italy, they’d be taking pictures of a very special dessert--a triple layer upside-down pineapple cake. It would be the premiere treat at the dessert show they were going to.

When they got to the hotel, the little girl tried to stay up as long as she could because she knew once she fell asleep, the midnight bandit would appear.

The next morning at the premiere of the dessert show she and her dad took pictures of all kinds of cakes, pies, and other desserts. And then it came time for the unveiling of the triple layer upside down pineapple cake. All the chefs had great big smiles as they removed the huge dome off of the top of the cake. To everyone’s surprise the cake had already been eaten. Everyone was surprised except the little girl. The chefs and the spectators were all angry and in an uproar. How could this happen? They all came to one conclusion. It was the midnight bandit.

Just then the Italian police and officials came marching in. The midnight bandit had struck again but this time they were prepared. The whole time the little girl noticed her dad’s camera in front of his face taking pictures. The

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officials said, “We have camera pictures and video now of the midnight bandit.” On big screens they showed the video played back. It was a man with crumbs on the side of his face and a little tiny mask over his eyes. Everyone looked at the picture and said they couldn't figure out who it was. It still was a big mystery to everyone except the little girl.

She stood up and said, “I know who the midnight bandit is.”

Just then all cameras pointed toward the little girl. The newscasters were yelling into their cameras. Soon they would know the true identity of the midnight bandit. As the little girl began to speak, another emergency newscast came across the television screens of everyone sitting at home.

The newscaster said, “This is breaking news. We take you live to where a mother duck and her four ducklings are holding up traffic while they cross the street.”

Once more in the airport, returning home from Italy with their old suitcases and their cameras hung around their necks, the little girl said, “I know it was you, Dad.” “No one knows the true identity of the midnight bandit,” her dad said.

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THE CHASE Charlie ran down the hallway as his Aunt Corinne yelled out, “The hotdogs are ready!”

When he came around the corner to the kitchen, his grandmother was sitting at the table cutting up potatoes for her world-famous potato salad.

She said to him, “You are a fast little boy.”

Charlie said, “I love hotdogs, Grandma.”

She said, “Me too.”

His Aunt Corinne said, “I remember another fast little boy,” as she and her mother started to laugh.

Charlie’s dad came and sat at the table. As Charlie swallowed the piece of hotdog he had in his mouth, he said, “Who, Grandma?”

“Your dad was a fast little boy. Why, I remember the day we were on our way to the meeting — your two aunts, your dad and me. Your dad went dashing out from the elevator to grab the front door and hold it for us.”

Charlie’s dad said, “Now, Mom, if you’re going to tell this story, you got to tell it right. I was holding the lobby door open for the three ladies to come out. I let go of the door and when I turned around, not five feet away, there it sat. Staring right at me.

This dog looked me straight into the eyes and, Son, although nobody said they heard this, I’m telling you, that dog looked at me and said, ‘Go!’” Charlie held his hotdog in his hand and, without disputing what his dad just said, over the laughter of his aunt and his grandmother, he yelled, “What happened?”

“Grandson, your dad did just that. He was gone! Faster than I’ve ever seen him move before. Before I can say, ‘Don’t run,’ he took off. And that dog was right after him. I

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began to yell to him, ‘Devin, Devin!’ The dog’s owner went running after the both of them.”

“I couldn’t hear your grandmother calling to me at first, Son. Instead I heard the huge claws attached to the paws on this beast. The claws sounded like tiger claws scraping on the concrete. There was a circular courtyard with a playground in the middle. And this ferocious animal was chasing me all around it. And then, I could hear its master calling for it. I think he was saying, ‘Killer — or Crusher —heel!’ And that made me run even faster.”

“Now all three of us were yelling: ‘Devin, Devin,’” said Aunt Corinne. “You should’ve saw his little legs moving.”

“When I was coming to the end of the courtyard, I could hear the beast behind me barking. But that wasn’t even the worst part. He was also growling like a bear ready to eat a steak. And guess who was going to be that steak — in little penny loafers?! And then I saw her.”

“Who?” Charlie said.

“Your grandmother. Standing at the end of the circle, with her arms stretched out. I took three more steps and I jumped. And she caught me right in her arms. She hugged me and spun me around, holding me close to her chest. I held onto her neck just as tight and shut my eyes, waiting for the disastrous impact that was to come. Your grandmother kissed me on the cheek and said, ‘You’re OK. Your heart is beating out your chest, Devin.’ And she rubbed her hand up and down my back. And now the wild animal was circling around your grandma’s legs.”

“What do they call those dogs again?” Charlie’s aunt said.

The grandmother said, “I think they’re called Chihuahuas.”

“No, no, I think they’re called toy poodles.”

“I don’t know. But I remember the dog’s owner finally 126

catching up and saying, ‘Candy! Shame on you for chasing this little boy around this circle like that. Bad girl!’” said the grandmother.

“As he slipped the little leash out of his pocket and put it on an even smaller dog collar, the dog’s owner said, ‘Sorry ma’am, but that’s a fast little boy you’ve got there,’” said Charlie’s aunt.

“Wait a minute,” Charlie’s dad said. “That dog was much bigger than that. Grandma let me down and held my hand tight as we rushed off to Bible class. And me being six and a half years old, how humiliating, walking down the street holding my mom’s hand. I was a big boy, after all.”

“Still, son, you gotta learn to choose your battles when it comes to women,” said Grandma.

“When we got to the bible class, we were right on time, without a moment to spare. Your grandmother passed me a pad and a pencil ‘cause she knew I loved to draw. But I thought she was still a little upset. Then she surprised me and kissed me on the forehead. She rubbed my head and looked into my eyes with a big smile and said, ‘You are a fast little boy.’”

Charlie asked to hear the story just one more time. But his dad had told him the story two times already while he lay in bed getting ready to go to sleep. So his dad said to him as he stood, ‘Maybe I will tell you again tomorrow. Why don’t you get some sleep now.’”

As he walked to the door to turn off the light, Charlie’s dad thought about the love and the safety that he felt in his mom’s arms. The worry that he heard in her voice that fateful day. How she was calling out to him and how he’ll always be a part of her. When he got to the door, he put his hand on the light switch.

Charlie said, “Dad.” As Charlie’s dad turned around and looked at his son, 127

their eyes met. And Charlie said, “Go!” I’d like to dedicate this story to Barbara Jean Peele, a happy mom because there’s not one day that can encompass the love that you have given, the love that you are. And on behalf of your children, grandchildren, and people who you love, babysat, and preached to, I’d like to say thank you, we love you, my cream puff.

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JIMMY The janitor put away the mop and duster that he used for the gym floor, checked his watch, and headed for the exit. He pushed the doors open where a man with a big smile stood outside. “Brother!” the other man greeted as the janitor held his hand out. The smiler eased his own hand out of his pocket and, instead of going for a handshake, gave the janitor a wad of bills. The janitor nodded and they walked inside the gym together.

The man walked across the room and through the gym doors to the lobby of the high school. He picked up a payphone in the hallway, put a nickel in the slot, and dialed slowly, waiting a few minutes before saying into the receiver, “Yeah, it’s me. …Yeah, everything is good. … Right on.”

He hung up. This is a story of the secret gyms of New York City.

The year was 1978. Jimmy was watching TV in his living room--a story about Marvelous Marvin Hagler--when he heard the three beeps from Greg’s car outside. He went to the window and waved from his third floor apartment. Greg sat his car and waved back.

From the bedroom, Jimmy’s wife Barbara yelled, “Take Devin with you!”

“Greg’s sons aren’t with him,” Jimmy replied, “Devin won’t have anyone to spend time with.”

Barbara yelled back, “Devin doesn’t need to spend time with Greg’s sons. He needs to spend time with his father.”

“Alright, alright, alright,” Jimmy said. Once he made his way to his son’s bedroom, he stood in the doorframe, and said, “Devin!”

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My father’s voice was a cold bucket of ice that splashed on me, bringing me out of my daydreams as I played with my Evel Knievel stunt set. “Come on, you’re coming with me,” he said.

When I stood up, my father asked if I had on my shoes.

I looked down before I answered. He noticed and said, “You don’t know if you have your shoes on?”

My mother had put them on for me while my dad was on the phone with Mr. Greg. I shrugged and ran off in front of him, he caught up and opened the door and I started to dash out until my mother called me back.

“Devin didn’t you forget something? Come give your mother a kiss,” she said. I kissed her cheek, “Now pay attention to what your dad tells you and be good.” As usual, she took her pointer finger, put it under my bottom lip and said, “Pick up your lip.”

As quick as the door closed, we were in Mr. Greg’s car. I sat in the back, so quiet and daydreaming that I hardly noticed when my father asked if I was “alright back there.”

When we got to Jefferson High School, all the players were there, and dad joined them while I took my seat in the bleachers. Players from the neighborhood sometimes would come back to play or just watch their friends in these secret pickup games. Some guys, like Earl “the Pearl” Monroe were from the NBA, but most were local celebrities, like The Lightning. He could jump so high and from so long people swore he walked on lightning. I sat still in the bleachers, daydreaming again—something I later learned disappointed my dad. He wanted me to love the game like he did, but I sat there as the balls boomed on the hardwood floor, imagining that I was driving a great, big car in a roller derby, getting smashed by other trucks.

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“Devin!” That bucket of ice again. My father motioned for me to come to him. I walked to where he was standing on the bleachers and a woman stepped out of the shadows.

I’d seen women before of course. Most of my teachers, if not all, were women and I spent time with my mother and sisters all day while my father was at work, and I would also classify them as female—but the person I was looking at right now was a Woman.

She had hazel, tiger-shaped eyes and the smooth features and complexion of a young Whitney Houston. She looked at me and said a few words to my father that I barely registered for staring at her. I stood in their shadow, knowing that at best I looked like a beaver, with my teeth sticking out through a great big grin. They could have been bargaining to slaughter me for my fur and it wouldn’t have taken the smile off my face. The woman turned and smiled at me, bent down to rub my shoulder, and looked in my eyes with the sweetest smelling breath.

“My wallet fell out of my pocket behind these bleachers,” she said. Around us, the crowd shouted Ooooh! as someone sank another shot into the basket. “Everybody here is too big to go under the bleachers and get it, but you look like a brave young man.”

It was the first time anyone had referred to me as a man. I would have done anything she asked me to at that point, but I paused, knowing that one of my sisters would have laughed at anyone calling me a man.

My father touched my shoulder and said, “You can do it. Go get it, son.”

Having received my orders from the general himself, I stepped under the bleachers, careful and slow. I imagined that I was on safari, wearing a hat to save me from the sun and watching all kinds of animals running around me. I crouched underneath the bleachers and did my best to look 131

around for her wallet.

“Do you see it yet?” the woman asked from above. I did; it was right at my feet. I grabbed it and climbed back out, right into her very warm embrace. Then she looked into her wallet and handed me $10. My lucky day.

“That’s too much,” my father said.

“It’s the smallest bill I have,” she said, shushing him.

“Besides, it’s just fine. Good work little man.” She took my hand and walked me over to where she and her husband, a player for the Boston Celtics, were sitting.

When my dad had finished playing and the gym was closing, he walked me back to Mr. Greg’s car. I sat in the back, quiet again, remembering the kiss on the cheek the woman had given me. Some boys went through a phase in life where they thought girls were nasty, ugly, disgusting. Not me. Mr. Greg and my father talked, and I fell asleep.

In loving memory of James A. Peele, October 8, 1947 - September 10, 2014.

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J E O PA R DY Jimmy leaned forward as he answered the stranger’s question, “You’re going the wrong way for 125th Street.”

“You’re kidding …” the stranger said.

“Mmhm,” Jimmy said, “It’s Harlem Day. You have to go uptown.” Himself? He couldn’t wait to get home.

Things there were just as he expected. After a nice hot meal, Barbara brought over their oversized mugs, to the reclining chairs in front of the television. She passed Jimmy one before he leaned back and turned to Jeopardy, his favorite show. Barbara sighed and Alex Trebek welcomed the audience. Jimmy got two answers right from the very beginning. He sat back with a real big smile. The next question was a science one. Barbara answered it quick.

Jimmy, a little surprised, just glanced over at her quickly. She got the next four questions right even before the contestants did. The contestant missed the fifth answer and Barbara gave a little sigh.

“Who is Louis the Fifteenth?” she said.

“Wow, you knew that?” Jimmy asked.

“Everybody knows that.” She sipped on the coffee in her mug. Jimmy tried to answer the next two questions and got them wrong. Barbara corrected him on those questions and got the next five right, too.

“That’s incredible!” Jimmy said.

“Come on honey,” Barbara laughed, “We graduated from the same high school. You must have known at least one of those.” She turned back to the television. “What is ‘Ave Maria,’” she said. “Who is ‘Frank O'Hara.’”

“You are an amazing woman,” Jimmy said.

Barbara laughed, “Oh sugar, you give the best compliments.”

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They got to Final Jeopardy and Jimmy picked things up.

“We could make a whole lot of money,” he said at the commercial. Barbara sipped her coffee but Jimmy barely touched his in all the excitement.

After the break, all three contestants answered the Final Jeopardy question wrong. Barbara answered with the correct answer before Alex Trebek said the answer aloud.

“I can’t believe this!” Jimmy said. “Look, I know just what we’re gonna do. This is my last year working. I’m retiring this year and we’re gonna get you on Jeopardy….”

He started counting out the money in his mind and stood up, pacing back and forth in front of the television. “We’re gonna be set.”

“That sounds like a really good plan, honey,” said Barbara, “All I’ll need is one of these little cheat sheets that I’ve been hiding on the side of my mug.” She laughed at his expression, “You know they air these episodes early in the day. I just wrote down all the answers.”

“I don’t believe you!” he said, “I been working hard all day, just to come home and have you trick me like this? My coffee’s cold, too…” He sat back in his recliner, “I just don’t believe you,” he said again as they both laughed.

“You’ve been playing these tricks on me since high school and more than forty later…” he said, drifting off. He held out his hand between the two reclining chairs and Barbara put her hand in his.

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A C K N OW L E D G M E N T S We share our belief that the world is a better place when everyone’s voice is listened to and respected.

Many thanks go to our foundation, government, and corporate supporters, without whom this writing community and publication would not exist: Allianz GI, Amazon Literary Partnership, Emmanuel Baptist Church Benevolence Fund, Kalliopeia Foundation, Meringoff Family Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. NYWC programming is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

We rely heavily on the support of individual NYWC members and attendees of our annual WriteA-Thon. In addition, members of our Board of Directors have kept this vital, rewarding work going year after year: Timothy Ballenger, Jonas Blank, Tamiko Beyer, Louise Crawford, Jenni Dickson, Atiba Edwards, Marian Fontana, Ben Groom, and NYWC Founder and Executive Director Aaron Zimmerman.

James would like to thank NY Writers Coalition for making this book possible. He would also like to thank the following people: Alice Gavin, “thank you for helping me to believe.” Rose Gorman, “because she said, ‘Write Now’.” Julia Hillman Craig, “thank you for being my muse.” John, “thank you for telling

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me to keep going...and I’m gone.” Connie Perry, “every time you came to the workshops, I could hear your smile and grin.” Suzanne Wise, “thank you for giving my words the proper space and teaching them to act right, and for the editing and all the calls.” Aaron Zimmerman, “because you never made me feel crazy for being the only one who took you up on this offer.” and to his sister, Corinne, “for knowing I could when I didn’t. I dedicate this book, as well as all my works to you.”

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NY Writers Coalition Inc. (NYWC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that creates opportunities for formerly voiceless members of society to be heard through the art of writing.

One of the largest community-based writing organizations in the country, we provide free, unique, and powerful creative writing workshops throughout New York City for people from groups that have been historically deprived of voice in our society, including at-risk, disconnected, and LGBT youth, homeless and formerly homeless people, those who are incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, war veterans, people living with disabilities, cancer, and other major illnesses, immigrants, seniors, and many others.

For more information about NYWC programs and NY Writers Coalition Press publications visit W W W . NY WRITERSCO AL ITION . O RG

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A FTER B Y J AMES P EELE

NY Writers Coalition Press is proud to present After an Eon, a collection of thirty-four short stories written by James Peele.

James Peele has been a dedicated workshop participant at our creative writing workshop at the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library for over three years. “...I’ve participated in workshops, book releases, and other events that have literally changed my life.”

-James Peele

Learn more about NYWC Programs and NYWC Press at WWW.NYWRITERSCOALITION.ORG

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