Xavier Lexicon: Spring 2011

LEXICON XAVIER HIGH SCHOOL SPRING 2011 CONTENTS Lawrence Schober

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“The Vagrant”

Andrew Peterson

9

“The Ban of Meat”

Jack Raisch

22

“Related”

Juan Martir

31

“Fratello”

Michael Sansevere

35

“A Man of Sales”

Alexander Green 43

“Standing in the Rain, Nothing Seems to Change”

Christopher Chavez

“Visitor at 23rd Street”

50

Brian Flanagan 58

“The Comedy of Ronald Higgins”

Frank Shanley

68

“Mr. Saturday Night”

Demetrios Sofides

78

“Sandstorm”

Michael N. Connors, III

86

“The Competitor”

BOARD OF EDITORS Chris Chavez ‘11 John Chiaia ‘13 Khalfani Coicou ‘12 Corwin Connor ‘11 Thomas Conroy ‘11 Vincent DiDonato ‘14 Christian Doyle ‘13 Frankie Fico ‘13

Jimy Higa ‘11 Juan Martir ‘11 Connor McLoughlin ‘11 Brandon McKenzie ‘12 Bryan Orbe ‘12 Gregory Pepe ‘13 Keven Perez ‘12 Dean Pillarella ‘11

MODERATOR: Mr. Matthew Thomas

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Jack Raisch ‘11 Adam Rivera ‘13 Jimmie Raleigh ‘14 Michael Sansevere ‘11 Demitri Sofides ‘14 Juan Arturo VillarOjito‘12 Joe Wasserman ‘11

THE VAGRANT ____________________

Lawrence Schober

The first time anybody spotted him was on the 116th Street station on

the 6 line. Each sighting of him was progressively farther downtown: after the 116th Street sighting, someone saw him at 96th; then 72nd Street on the C; then 50th Street on the A; then Chambers Street on the A. For a short time he stayed in the World Trade Center terminal of the PATH Train. But then he was spotted at Park Place on the 2; at Wall Street on the 2; at Whitehall Street on the R. Nobody ever saw him above ground. Exactly how he changed from each line so quickly became a subject of discussion for the riders. To pass the time in their commute they would look at the map and try to re-create what possible transfers he could have made to get from one station to another. It gave them something to do during the ride.

Every morning at 8:45AM, at some station in the subway system he would wake up from the bench on which he was sleeping.

He would take out his lighter, which read “PRAHA DRINKING TEAM”, put it up to the fine wool pea coat he wore and set his jacket on fire. Someone was guaranteed to scream every time he ignited himself. As the fire spread from the arm of his jacket to the whole jacket, then to his sweater, then his shirt, he would stay seated on the bench and grit his teeth in what some thought was pain and others thought was meditation. Ten minutes into the ordeal, finding himself rather thirsty, he would take a drink of water from a glass water bottle he carried around with him that read “Nikolai Construction Corp—572 Greenwich St”. The station would smell of charred, burnt flesh for a good five minutes after the combustion.

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Occasionally he would ignite himself again in the evening, either around 9PM on a weekend evening or around 6PM on a weeknight.

Men would jump back to make sure that their Charles Tyrwhitt suits and Calvin Klein overcoats would not somehow catch fire by being within a six foot radius of the man.

As soon as the fine wool pea coat burnt up entirely, the fire would go out. It never traveled to his shirt, which always managed to remain intact. It was a yellowing rag of a v-neck undershirt, obviously unwashed, obviously years old. He always managed, though, to get himself another brand-new fine wool pea coat every day. Some people thought it must have been some sort of publicity stunt, some sort of corporate show. After all, how else could he get the money for all these fine new wool pea coats?

On October 9, 1997, six men set out to prove him a hoax.

They carried with them a gallon of kerosene contained in a milk jug and entered the 3rd Avenue station on the L train where they knew he was going to be that night at 9PM. (Cryptographers had studied the timing and location of his appearances closely enough to discern a pattern.) They took his glass water bottle and threw it onto the subway tracks where it smashed into pieces. They told him that he was fooling the world and they were there to expose his lies. The third-tallest of the group, whose name was Jared, poured the gasoline onto his fine wool pea coat. Jared took out his own lighter—a Zippo—and ignited the man. The Man on Fire sat there, calmly, serenely, with this look of satisfaction in his eyes as his fine wool pea coat slowly caught fire until the fire reached his shirt and began eating away at his skin and you could smell burning human flesh throughout the entire station, and then the smell began to diffuse through the tunnels of the subway system and soon everyone in Union Square and 1st Avenue could smell the burning man as well and he still sat there with his teeth gritted. He couldn’t take a drink, but he did have a copy of the Wall Street Journal next to him, dated October 4th. He picked it up and began to read.

People went out of their way to see him. Couples with relationship problems would board the 2 train on a Saturday night in hopes of catching a glimpse of the man as he set himself on fire in order to find something to bond over, and so that they could talk 3

about something later on in the evening. When everybody at Tribeca Tavern heard that he was in the neighborhood, they all rushed out of the tavern to the Canal Street Station on 6th Avenue to see if they could see the Man on Fire go up in flames.

Then the summer came. On 4:53pm on August 12, 1998 the Man on Fire took the 4 train down to the Bowling Green station. He was seen for the first time in anybody’s memory outside the subway system: he walked right off the downtown platform up onto the street, walked up onto the steps of the American Indian Museum. He took out his lighter which read “PRAHA DRINKING TEAM” and set his coat ablaze as usual. A crowd gathered to watch. At first the crowd watching him was small. Maybe three dozen people were on the Bowling Green. But it got larger. Initially it was understandable; Whitehall Street and Broadway were clogged up, but they were on the border of the Bowling Green so it made sense because those streets were so close to the steps. But then Beaver Street began to crowd up too. Then State Street. Battery Place. The Northeastern tip of Battery Park. Morris Street. Stone Street. Greenwich Street.

Streets on which you couldn’t even see the Bowling Green were completely crowded because the Man on Fire was there.

Where did he learn to do it? That was the question everybody wanted to know. There was magic behind the ignition. Some said it was a technique he picked up after studying the works of G.I. Gurdjieff. Others said he went through a period of extreme meditation as a hermit on the abandoned 18th Street station on the 6 line to prepare himself for the stunt. They said he had to have eleven consecutive subway cars run over his torso to teach his body how to cope with pain. A minority of the population believed he was a crack cocaine addict who had gone completely numb in his upper body and was desperately trying to find a way to get the sensation back in his body.

It wasn’t long before he became a social sensation in Lower Manhattan. The Fire of Wall Street. Wizard of Battery Place. Mister Representative of the Praha Drinking Team. Subway Hermit. Child of the Subway. Big Nick. The Hunger Artist of Combustion. The Corporate Scam. The Hoax. The Villager would occasionally do pieces about him when he mostly appeared on stations in the East 4

and West Village. But as he moved further down to Battery Park, the coverage became more substantial. The New York Times picked up the story and he appeared in a 350-world article in the Metro Section. amNewYork followed suit. The Wall Street Journal. FOX 5 News. Then the A.P. picked it up and he was in papers all over the country—a true human interest story.

What was his cause? What was he fighting for? AIDS? Maybe gay rights. Geraldo was able to get close up to the man to interview him. He shoved a microphone in his face. “What’s your cause?” he asked the Man on Fire. “What are you fighting for? Is it AIDS? Gay rights?” The Man on Fire stared at Geraldo, teeth gritted, a charred smell coming off him. Then he finally opened his mouth, directing a quick expletive at the television host before resuming his silence.

Ever after the Geraldo interview, everybody was convinced the Man on Fire was staging a series of protests against AIDS and in support of gay rights. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center on 13th Street between 7th Avenue and Greenwich Avenue adopted him as their icon. People began donating to his cause. The Blackstone Group gave $25,000 to fund the Man on Fire’s fight for gay rights as part of a campaign to make The Blackstone Group be perceived as a more socially liberal institution.

Charles Tyrwhitt donated $4,000. American Eagle attempted to sign a contract with him to ensure that his supply of fine wool pea coats would come exclusively from American Eagle or one of its subsidiaries. The money was deposited straight into a bank account and each donation was tax-deductible.

Everybody around the city claimed to have known the Man on Fire before the stunts began. One man, whose name was Kevin, said the Man on Fire was named Daniel Autry and Daniel used to go to DeWitt Clinton High School and was in fact en route to attend Emerson College where he was going to major in Communication Sciences & Disorders until he got caught up in the underground crystal meth scene in the 60s and had been vagrant ever since.

Another individual from Riverdale said that the truth was that the Man on Fire was Michael Alig in disguise, undercover in blackface, and he was was trying to lay low and was paying one of the old Club Kids through the money he was making by setting himself on 5

fire to take his place in prison, and he would know because he (the man from Riverdale) used to be a close friend of James St. James and James St. James told him about Alig’s whole plan last year. One woman swore to God she had seen him at least once before at a restaurant in Five Points where they met at the restaurant’s bar and had an extremely laid-back conversation about the “Speaking in Tongues” album by Talking Heads.

The only time he’d smile is when he’d hear a crowd applauding his ignition, and then he’d sit back, comfortable in his nice flame, and close his eyes.

One morning, November 7th, 1998, he was not on the Bowling Green; nor was he in Battery Park. Nobody reported him to be in any subway station, PATH train station or commuter railroad station in New York City. Everyone walking along Madison Avenue that morning in a Charles Tyrwhitt suit and Calvin Klein overcoat was wondering why the Man on Fire had not been at the Bowling Green that morning. Maybe he needed to sleep in a warmer place last night.

After all, it had been extremely cold, the first cold night of Autumn.

Maybe he had overslept. He’d be back that night. He had to be back that night.

Again, everybody gathered at 6PM on the Bowling Green to find nobody on the steps of the American Indian Museum. Then 6:01 came. Still nobody was on the steps. A woman’s lone cry could be heard down Whitehall Street.

There seemed to be a darkness in the city that night, even though every street was perfectly illuminated by the street lamps and the office buildings lining it.

On November 8th, he came back. What would they have done if he had not come back? The thought was almost unbearable. The applause had never been stronger than when he set himself on fire that morning. But then he wasn’t there November 9th. People weren’t as nervous about his absence that time. He didn’t come back until four days later. This was the first time that the applause was substantially less than it had ever been. The man ignited himself that morning, but with no smile on his face, just a plain, black stare into the crowd: teeth gritted, water consumed.

One day, a thought occured to the director of marketing of The 6

Blackstone Group: how did this homeless man that set himself on fire for a living have a bank account? He thought about it for a second. The Man on Fire never endorsed the bank account that the Blackstone Group deposited $25,000 into, a deposit that the director of marketing of The Blackstone Group had authorized. He stopped in his tracks; sweat began collecting on the back of his Charles Tyrwhitt dress shirt. Could it be that the money from the deposit he authorized was not, in fact, keeping the Man on Fire well stocked in fine wool pea coats? If this was the case, he tried not to think or talk about it, because if he did, he certainly would lose his job.

In early 1999, a vibrant young man who was found often on mornings and evenings on the corner of 30th Street & Park Avenue South caught the attention of many older men in Charles Tyrwhitt suits and Calvin Klein overcoats as they took the 6 train from their homes in the Upper East Side to their offices on Park Avenue South. He was a man whose name was Ben and who they say was educated at Bennington College and had aspirations to become a writer. He spent each morning shaving his head completely bald with shears and then each evening taking the hair from his head and systematically placing it back on his head to create an entire new head of hair from scratch. It was quite a remarkable talent, and it got people looking for him in both the morning and the evening.

Everybody wondered where exactly he picked up such an intriguing technique. Did Bennington teach a course on this skill? The men in Charles Tyrwhitt suits and Calvin Klein overcoats certainly enjoyed wondering where he learned to shave his head and then reconstruct his hair in the manner he did. They wondered about it as they walked to and from the subway station and their offices. It gave them something to do.

On February 12th, 1999, the Man on Fire did not set himself on fire. Rather, he sat on the steps of the American Indian Museum with a cold stare on his face as an irritated crowd of one hundred and four stared him down. They groaned when they checked their watches and realized that it was 15 minutes past 8:45 AM and the man still had not set himself on fire. Everybody left. No matter; they were late for work.

The Man Who Shaved His Own Head and Then Reconstructed 7

His Own Hair, who was also known as Ben, took his act out of the subway system and onto the streets. He chose his home as the East Village. He’d shear himself every morning on 11th Street & Avenue B and then recreate his head of hair every evening in Tompkins Square Park. The men in Charles Tyrwhitt suits and Calvin Klein overcoats no longer came to watch him, but the citizens of the East Village lauded him as a staple of the neighborhood, as a manifestation of the values of New York City. A creative mind. An artist!

One day in April of 1999, the man who formerly set himself on fire stood on the steps of the American Indian Museum and took off his pea coat, then his undershirt, then his pants, then his underwear.

His naked, charred body was revealed to everybody who happened to be on the Bowling Green at that moment. He managed to turn many heads, as many recognized him as the Man who Once Set Himself on Fire. Few people stopped walking to stare and nobody stopped for very long. He stood there for half an hour until squad cars from the First Precinct of Manhattan came to take him away, arresting him on the charge of indecent exposure.

The story of the Man Who Shaved His Own Head and Then Reconstructed His Own Hair was picked up by local newspapers such as The Villager and amNewYork at the end of that month. He was very pleased by the exposure he was beginning to receive One month later in May, the man who used to set himself on fire returned to the steps of the American Indian Museum. He sat there in a fine wool pea coat and undershirt with a cup in his hand, begging for change. Nobody turned to look at him. Nobody recognized him as the Man on Fire. Occasionally he was a topic of conversation between the veteran citizens of Lower Manhattan.

But nobody really could recall what exactly happened to the man who used to set himself on fire. He was never killed. He was never officially deemed “out.” Nobody explicitly said his time was over.

He just stopped drawing a crowd.

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THE BAN OF MEAT ____________________

Andrew Peterson

Special Agent Miller crouched in the shadows near the warehouse

the other Feds called “Liverwurst Landing”. He’d gotten a tip from one of the vegetarian leaders who thought she had seen somebody walking in the area clutching a bottle of barbecue sauce. Possession of barbecue sauce wasn’t technically a crime, but where there was smoke, there was fire; epecially when it was barbecue smoke.

It was a brisk autumn night. Miller was part of a joint FBIUSDA strike force assigned to crack down on meat smuggling, in violation of the Meatless Mondays through Sundays Act of 2016.

Miller had scored some impressive arrests on the strike force. He’d stopped a shipment of sirloin in styrofoam tubs marked “carrots”.

He’d seized a shipment of hot dogs from the engine room of a commercial ship, where a sailor tried to convince him they were replacement levers for the ship’s controls. Once, working with Customs officials, he’d stopped a guy at the airport who’d followed a line from an old cartoon show and put bologna in his slacks.

Suddenly, his view of the warehouse was blocked. It was another cow, wandering down a street in lower Manhattan. After meat was banned, the vegetarians had forced most farmers to release their cattle herds. Now, wild cows wandered through city streets and countrysides alike. The cow looked at Agent Miller and let out a long, rumbling “Mooooo.” He would have liked to shoot it, but the animal rights activists had made that illegal. Poor dumb animal would probably get hit and killed by a truck carrying veggie burgers in a few hours, when the rush hour began. And rush hour began at the crack of dawn, thanks to all the liberated chickens that made a racket the moment the sun was up. Sometimes, it seemed that there 9

were more chickens running around Manhattan than pigeons.

Behind the cow, an SUV with tinted windows pulled up. Two men and a woman got out of the vehicle. One was Leo, the undercover vegetarian informant who was working with the FBI. He cast a furtive glance toward the alleyway where Miller was crouching, then looked away. He recognized the woman; she was a member of the Liverwurst Ladies Luncheon League of Lafayette, Louisiana, a group of older women who years ago had gathered once a month to eat liverwurst sandwiches and knit sweaters. Today, the League was a vicious, heavily armed resistance group.

There were times Miller wondered why Congress had banned meat. As a kid, he’d loved Kentucky Fried Chicken. Now, sometimes, he missed it. Wendy’s “asparagus nuggets” just weren’t the same. But the law was the law. Even so, spaghetti and kiwi fruit wasn’t the same as the dishes his mom used to cook. He remembered the smell of the hamburger patties on his father’s grill in the summer.

As a kid, even a whiff of the smell would make his mouth water.

Miller could remember when the local butcher was a friendly fellow, a pillar of the community. Now his old neighborhood butcher was working as a greeter at Wal-Mart, and anyone practicing the butcher’s craft was branded a felon -- unless they were surgeons, working incompetently on human patients. America’s priorities had gotten totally out of whack.

A slamming car door ended his daydreaming. Miller gasped.

The driver of the car was none other than “Mad Tom” Ceci, the leader of the Meatball Marauders, one of the deadliest resistance groups, and key point on the “Underground Railroad” that smuggled beef from Argentina, chicken from Canada, bratwurst from Germany, even goatburgers from secret meat-packing houses hidden somewhere near Sheboygan. His slogan was, “If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?”

It could be Miller’s biggest bust to date, and there was no time to wait for backup. He leaped from the alleyway, crouched behind the cow, drew his gun and pointed it toward the SUV, and hollered “Freeze, meatheads!”

Suddenly, everything went black. * 10

Miller’s arms were sore and his hands clammy. Something smelled funny. Using an old detective’s technique, he kept his eyes closed and quietly took stock of his body. All fingers and toes were there. Nothing seemed to be broken, but he could feel a lump rising on the back of his head where what he figured was a hard salami had struck him. He wiggled his fingers a bit, and felt something cool and smooth.

He’d been tied to a chair with sausage links.

Footsteps moved toward him. He opened his eyes a bit and squinted. It was an old, dark room. Shapes hung from hooks in the shadows at the far end. Bodies? Or sides of beef?

“Awake, huh, my fine Federal friend?” Fingers grabbed under Miller’s chin and jerked his head up. The agent looked into the crazed eyes of Mad Tom Ceci. Behind him, an old woman in a pink car coat sat in a rocking chair, knitting. Leo, the undercover vegetarian, paced nervously behind her, trying to look hard and mean.

“Who’s the dame, Tom?” Miller asked. “Another one of your meathead operatives?”

“You don’t need to know her name,” Mad Tom snapped.

“But I need to know something. How long have you been following us? What did you see?”

Miller’s eyes adjusted to the light. He was inside Liverwurst Landing. The place was literally a warehouse of illegal meats. There were slicing machines and cleavers and other, bigger machines whose purpose he could only guess at, and a long conveyor belt, with compact disc cases stacked atop it.

“CDs, Tom? You’re slicing cold cuts and shipping them in CD cases? Pretty slick,” Miller grunted.

“An old idea,” Ceci noted, looking toward the CD cases.

“Don’t worry, agent. This stuff will all be gone by morning. And so will you.” The calmness with which he said it made Miller shiver.

Stall him, Miller thought. Make him think, make him talk.

“What makes you think my colleagues won’t raid this place?” Miller asked.

Ceci smiled. “You tailed us, but we tailed you, copper.” He whacked Miller on the lump at the back of his head for effect. “You were alone. Nobody’s coming for you. But I don’t take chances. My 11

clients won’t let me.” He motioned toward the old lady in the rocking chair. She paused and looked up from her knitting, staring Miller in the eye.

It was the dead-eyed stare of a cold blooded killer. Miller felt sick to his stomach. Maybe the government should have let these ladies eat liverwurst for lunch after all. Perhaps Congress shouldn’t have listened to the Prohibitionists.

“You’re a sick man, Ceci. Anyone else would have said to heck with it, and eaten grilled cheese. Taken a Carnivore Cruise to a foreign port, where you could gorge yourself with enough meat to clog your arteries. But you, you start a criminal network. Over what? Meatballs?”

Mad Tom Ceci whirled around and smacked Miller across the mouth with a T-bone steak. The sharp point of the bone left a long bloody scratch on Miller’s cheek.

“Who are you to judge, agent? Did your mother lie to you?”

Ceci was wild-eyed. Miller had struck a nerve. “Did you get promised Thanksgiving, and get a tofu turkey? Were you betrayed that way?”

“Hey, we all have to live with it,” Miller said. Thanksgiving was coming, he remembered. That’s when the Meatheads went nuts, all over America. “I’m sure your folks meant to apologize, if they hurt your feelings”.

Ceci was trembling with rage. Miller noticed a tear streak down the criminal’s cheek. He leaned forward, menacingly, until his eyes were just inches from Miller’s. “Sorry?! Did you say sorry, Agent?! Do you know what happened the day after that Thanksgiving?” There was a pause, “WELL, DO YOU?!” Ceci roared. Miller said nothing. “ A nice family golf outing, they called it. Just the four of us, out for a round at the Richmond County Country Club. It’s the tenth hole. I go into the woods pretending to look for a ball. But really, I just have to take a leak. I’m up against the tree, and I hear a rumble.

Thunder, I think. Then the ground shakes, and I’m knocked to my knees. I turn around to the fairway, to my family. But I can’t see them. I can’t see anything but cows. Rushing, stampeding, storming cows. Stupid, stupid cows!”

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Miller winced. He didn’t have to say anything else. Ever since Prohibition, there had been occasional stampedes of free range urban cows; thousands had died.

“Cows don’t belong on a golf course. They belong on your dinner plate.”

Miller started to say something, but the salami came crashing down again, and the room spun until he lost consciousness.

Red liquid. He was covered in red liquid. Blood? He reached out with his tongue. Tenderizer! Miller was covered with meat tenderizer.

He was on a conveyor belt, which was moving right toward a huge, automatic meat grinder. His wrists were still bound in sausages. He jumped and wriggled and twisted around. Liverwurst Landing was empty. Outside, he could hear the sound of truck engines starting up. The Meatheads were getting away. He couldn’t work his wrists free. The grinder started stripping away the tip of his shoe.

He drew his foot back and curled into a ball.

Suddenly, Miller felt something pushing against his back.

The conveyor dropped out from under him, and he crashed to floor with a thud. The impact knocked his breath away.

Miller saw a figure looming over him. It was Leo, the undercover vegetarian.

“I gotta go,” Leo said. “I’ve gotta get in the truck with them, or they’ll be suspicious. I’ll call from wherever we’re going. Lafayette, Louisiana, I think. But I’m not sure.”

Miller nodded. “Can you untie me?”

“No time. But you can chew your way loose. The struggle continues!”

Which struggle, Agent Miller wondered, as Leo slipped outside and closed the door behind him.

Gumbo didn’t taste the same without sausage, Miller thought, as he put down his spoon. Celery and carrots didn’t cut it. In fact, the gumbo was awful.

Miller took a sip of his coffee and checked his watch. Almost two in the afternoon. The hot southern sun beat on the pavement, but 13

nobody had approached the warehouse across the street for the two hours Miller had been nursing Cokes at the sidewalk café.

Lafayette, Louisiana was a town with an attitude. Southern charm and hospitality had been replaced with a tough-guy swagger.

Shady looking men strutted down the street, thumbs in their belt loops, chests stuck out, as if daring bystanders to take a shot at them or say something. It looked out of place in Louisiana, but it was a familiar strut; the walk of the mob wiseguy. Lafayette held a secret; it was Meatlegging Central.

It had taken nearly a week for Miller to follow Mad Tom Ceci and his crew from Manhattan to the bayou. Tom and his gang had driven a zig-zag course out of New York, stopping in Green Bay, Wisconsin; Austin, Minnesota; and Memphis, Tennesee, on his way to Louisiana. Meat-packing towns. Miller had chased the gang as they went in and out of shut-down slaughterhouses and canneries.

Something was up; something big.

That morning, Miller’s boss had demanded extraordinary detail in the agent’s report. “The wires and internet sites are burning up here,” his supervisor told him. “The Meat Underground is planning something. Word is, they’re planning to use a WMD.” “ You mean—?” “ Yes, Miller. A Weapon of Meat Destruction”. “ Good heavens! What could it be?!” “ We can’t find out. Maybe something placed in a canned ham. Perhaps the world’s spiciest meatball. Maybe even . . . hash!

“Surely not! Where would they get hash!?”

“Desperate men use desperate measures. Anyway, Miller, a lot of the phone chatter focuses on the upcoming Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. The President’s planning to attend. The Secret Service is very, very worried.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“You’d better. The future of a vegetarian America may rest on your shoulders.”

A man had stopped in front of one of the padlocked warehouse doors. Miller recognized him as “Cutlets” Callahan, one of Mad Tom Ceci’s men. He looked furtively up and down the block.

He was carrying a package, wrapped in brown paper and string, un14

der his arm, like an old-time butcher shop parcel. Miller watched the man enter the warehouse and close the door behind him.

This was his chance. Hurriedly slapping some cash on the table to cover his check, Miller crossed the street and looked through the crack of the unlocked door. Ceci’s henchman had walked to the back of the warehouse into another room. Miller quickly stole inside the door, closed it behind him, and crouched behind a desk a few feet to the right of the door. A man was whistling in the back. Miller heard the squeak of a cell phone’s keys being pressed. There was a pause, then a low, growling voice.

“Tell the MG it’s done. It’s all ready. Just get it into the parade and we’ll take care of the rest.” A pause. “Yeah, they’ll all be medium rare. Just like a good steak. Ha ha ha . . . ! Yeah . . . you too.

See ya later.” The cell phone snapped shut.

Ceci’s man walked quickly to the front door of the warehouse, minus the package, and exited to the street. Miller could hear the padlock clicking back into place.

Had the man spoken about the “MG”? Could that mean the “Meat Godfather”? There was a rumor that there was a godfather of meat who controlled most of the meatlegging in the United States, but he was just a rumor, a legend. Could it be true? And could the Meat Godfather be here in Lafayette? And did he have anything to do with the Ladies Liverwurst Luncheon League of Lafayette Louisiana? Could it be that Lafayette was America’s capital of the illicit meat trade?

And what was Ceci’s man talking about? What parade?

Miller thought of his supervisor’s comment from this morning. The Mardi Gras!?

Whatever was in the back room of the warehouse, it was obviously important. After waiting a moment to make sure he was alone, Miller got up from behind the desk and walked quickly to the back room. It was windowless, and very dark. In the shadows, Miller could make out a shape. It was a large, long shape. It seemed somehow familiar. Miller smelled gunpowder.

He got a bit closer, but still couldn’t make out the shape. He waited a second for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. A little finger of light from the front of the warehouse provided the only illumina15

tion. The smell of gunpowder was very strong now.

Slowly, Miller started recognizing some details on the hulking dark shape in front of him. There were letters on the side, but he couldn’t read them. But the shadow was resolving into a shape, and Miller finally recognized it.

My God, he thought.

It was the Oscar Mayer Weiner Wagon.

Lafayette was crawling with FBI men. They were all undercover. The toilet bowl salesmen having a meeting at the Hilton, the folks visiting relatives and staying at the Day’s Inn, the construction crew working at demolishing a building that the FBI had secretly purchased. All agents. Operation Meathook was underway.

Mardi Gras was tomorrow, and everyone was tense. There had been no other visitors to the warehouse. An FBI Special Ops team had rigged an infrared camera and microphones in the warehouse. It was obvious that meatleggers meant to kill hundreds, including the President, by detonating an explosives-filled Oscar Mayer Weiner Wagon at Mardi Gras.

Only one criminal mastermind could have been so bold. The FBI men didn’t have a name for him, or even a description. But as the agency pulled its profiles together, it became clear that there really was a Meat Godfather, and he seemed to be working from Louisiana.

The President couldn’t cancel his trip. That would be letting the meatleggers win. But there was a WMD in that warehouse and when the bad guys came for it, the FBI was going to have to pounce before it could be detonated. It could still kill hundreds right here in Lafayette.

Miller was undercover, too, a bearded hippie posing as a dealer. He’s been skulking around the seedy parts of town, looking for wiseguys and hoping to make a connection to the inside of the mob. The inside of his jacket was lined with chops, loins and little packets of ground beef. But there had been nothing. Not even a message from Leo the undercover vegetarian.

As evening fell the night before the parade, Miller stumbled 16

into a young man walking into a bar called The Brahma Bull.

“Watch out, buddy”, the man said.

“Sorry” replied Miller. Then he held his jacket open to reveal some small tin objects. “Hey buddy, wanna buy some Spam?”

“You crazy? Meat’s illegal!’

“But Spam’s not really meat,” Miller offered weakly.

“Yeah, try telling that to the Feds when they come for you.”

“Hey, it’s all I can get my hands on. You want some?”

The man eyed Miller carefully for a minute. Finally, he put his arm on Miller’s shoulder. “You know where you are, man? Nobody’s gonna go for Spam here.”

Miller said nothing.

The man patted him again, but now it was clear he was being frisked. Fortunately, Miller had left his weapon in the hotel room.

Finally the man stepped back and looked at Miller again. “Come with me, buddy” he said, “I’ll help you get some of the real stuff.”

Mysteriously, he hadn’t found the loins and chops.

Miller was in!

He looked at his watch: it was nearly 10 PM. They didn’t have much time.

The Trunz Hotel had seen better days, Miller thought, as his new friend, name of “Smith”, motioned him up the steps and into the dining hall. Everyone in the FBI knew about the Trunz; it was the place where the Ladies Liverwurst Luncheon League of Lafayette, Louisiana had gathered monthly to gossip while enjoying their favorite delicacy. A long-unused slicing machine gathered dust in the corner. Smith motioned for Miller to stay in the dining room, and went through the swinging door leading to the kitchen.

Miller looked around the oak-paneled dining room with its tall brass chandeliers. Something outside the window caught his eye, and he suddenly realized the significance of the location; just behind the hotel was the warehouse where the Weiner Wagon was stored!

Smith was back. “Okay, Mr. . . . hey, I didn’t get your name.”

“Jones”, Miller offered a bit too hastily.

“John Jones, I bet”. The man cast a curious look at Miller.

“Uh, no, Fidel. Fidel Jones.” The man wrinkled his brow.

17

“Um . . . Mom was from Cuba. She admired Castro.”

Miller followed Smith through the door. They walked past a long kitchen counter, piled high with pots and utensils, including meat cleavers. They turned the corner, walked past some freezers, and finally came to a small room with a table and three chairs. A big brawny African-American man stood by the door, his muscular arms folded across his chest. A thick older man, with gray hair and bushy eyebrows, sat at the table, slicing an eggplant with a huge knife. He looked up at Miller but said nothing.

“Here’s the guy I told you about, boss”, Smith said, his hand on Miller’s shoulders, almost forcing the agent down into a seat.

“Name’s Fidel Jones.”

The older man looked Miller up and down, and from side to side, as if memorizing details. He flicked a chunk of eggplant into his mouth using the big knife. He chewed and swallowed.

“You tryin’ to sell Spam here in town, I unnerstan’”. The man had a light accent; Miller couldn’t place it.

“Uh, that’s right. I think people ought to be free to eat what they like.”

The man continued peeling the thick purple skin off the eggplant. “Eat Spam, youze could get sick. You like eating meat, kid?”

Miller shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Cheeseburger once in a while, if it’s good. Can’t get much good stuff, though, since Congress made it illegal. Selling Spam to pay the bills.”

The old man stopped peeling and was utterly still, his gaze fixed on Miller. The entire room was silent. “Never touch the stuff myself” he said. “Makes your armpits stink.”

“I guess.”

The old man pulled his chair closer to Miller. He leaned forward, until his nose was nearly touching Miller’s. He spoke very softly. “Somethin’ else stinks, my young friend. And that’s you dealing meat in my town. Nobody . . . and I mean nobody . . . sells meat in my town—my state—heck, my country—‘less I say so. You sell meat in my town without my O.K., you could wind up in a meatlocker, you understand?”

Miller nodded.

“YOU UNDERSTAND?!” the old man roared. “Now, you 18

wanna slice of the action, you come work for me, my terms, my way. Only you don’t ever try and sell meat in Louisiana unless I say so.”

“Yes sir, I understand.” Miller’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I didn’t mean . . . ” The old man leaned forward again, grabbed the Spam cans out of Miller’s jacket, and threw them to the ground.

“And you don’t ever sell Spam! You got me? There’s some things we don’t ever do in this organization. We don’t sell that junk. For heaven’s sake, you want some kid to eat that stuff? Nobody likes a spammer.” The old man stood up and walked over to Miller. “Discipline” he said in a low voice. “Without discipline, we got nothin’. Discipline is why this organization controls more than three-quarters of the meat distribution in this country.”

A shiver went up Miller’s spine. Good heavens, he realized.

This man is the Meat Godfather. He really exists.

“You wanna join our group, you take an oath of absolute discipline. You got that? Do what I tell you, you’ll do well. Eat sirloin.

You disobey, and . . . .” He tapped the big knife on the kitchen table.

He didn’t have to finish the sentence.

The old man picked another eggplant from a bowl, sat back down at the table, and began to slice. It was after midnight now.

Suddenly, the man guarding the door spoke up.

“Uh, boss, you don’t want to slice that one. It’s one of the ‘special’ eggplants. For the party, you know. The parade”.

The old man stopped carving and looked at the eggplant. “So it is”. Miller noticed a black powder spilling from the gash in the eggplant. And a fuse where the stem should be. “I thought these all went to Mardi Gras?”

“We kept a few. For fun. Stored the extras in the Wagon.”

The color drained from Miller’s face. The eggplants were filled with gunpowder. The Meatheads weren’t going to use the Oscar Mayer Weiner Wagon to blow up Mardi Gras. They had boobytrapped the Eggplant Float, the one sponsored by the Southern Eggplant Association. All of the agents had memorized the parade list, hoping to figure out how the meatheads would strike. But for the last day, everyone had assumed that the Weiner Wagon was going to 19

be heading to New Orleans. But no. The Meatheads were going to try and kill the President with booby-trapped eggplant. It was a bold plot, something that hadn’t been tried before. And it would make the assassination look like the work of vegetarians.

Miller had to get out and warn his colleagues. But how? The Meat Godfather was talking to “Smith”, something about Smith and Miller driving all night to deliver some pork chops to a man in Texas. That wouldn’t do.

Suddenly, the back door flew open. In walked Mad Tom Ceci and one of the Liverwurst Luncheon Ladies. Miller looked at Ceci, and realized immediately he’d been found out.

“Boss! That man is a Fed!” Mad Tom bellowed.

Everything happened in a matter of seconds. Miller dived to the floor as the bodyguard drew a gun. Miller disarmed the bodyguard by flinging a can of Spam at his hand. The gun clattered to the floor. Mad Tom lunged toward the gun, but “Smith” was heading toward the door, and they collided. Miller, Mad Tom, Smith and the bodyguard fell to the floor in a tangle of bodies.

The Meat Godfather was already out the door, followed by the Liverwurst Lady. Miller reached out in the sprawl on the floor, scrambling for the gun. He fumbled for something on to defend himself and came up with one of the “special” eggplants. “Nobody move or I light this thing!” Miller snarled, reaching for the lighter in his pocket. “I’ll light it right here, I swear I will! I’ll blow this whole place sky-high and the meat will be gone forever!

Mad Tom fell back in horror. “He’s crazy! He’ll do it! He’s Crazy! The sick sonofabitch will ignite the eggplant!” On hands and knees, Mad Tom edged to the door and tumbled down the stairs.

Smith had run out of the room. The bodyguard rushed past Miller, grabbing Mad Tom by the arm, and running toward the warehouse.

Miller heard the sound of a truck engine starting behind the building. They were getting away in the Weiner Wagon! Miller fished the gun out from under the table, and ran from the building.

The Oscar Mayer Weiner Wagon smashed through the front door of the warehouse, and started down the street. Miller could see the bodyguard and the Liverwurst Lady in the cab. He couldn’t tell 20

if the Godfather or Mad Tom were in it. The wagon roared down the street, scattering frightened passersby. “Get away from it! Get away!

Miller yelled as he ran after the wagon, waving his gun in the air.

The giant hot dog was accelerating away from him.

“For the last time, stop!” Miller shouted, but the wagon didn’t slow. Miller drew the gun and pointed it toward the back of the fast moving giant frankfurter on wheels. Another second, and the vehicle would be out of range. He aimed for the tire and squeezed off a single shot. He missed. The bullet struck the back of the hot dog. There was a thunderous explosion, and Miller was swept off his feet as windows shattered and a huge fireball erupted into the sky over Lafayette. His shot had ignited the eggplants.

An hour later, the scene was clogged with traffic. Police, FBI, EMTs, Department of Agriculture. The usual suspects. Miller had reported the eggplant plot to his fellow agents. The Southern Eggplant Association float, stuffed with explosive eggplants, had been pulled from the parade. Five meatheads, an arms dealer, and two eggplant farmers from New Mexico had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to assassinate the President.

Miller was walking away from the scene when his supervisor walked up and grabbed the arm of his jacket. He examined the 100-foot wide crater in the middle of the road and let out a low, involuntary whistle. “Miller, what in the world happened here?”

Miller looked at the smoking crater. Free range cows roamed around the edge. “Nothing much, boss” he said. “We just had a weenie roast.”

“Good heavens!” the supervisor exclaimed. “Look at that carnage! And over what? Meat?”

“Congress made these guys criminals when it banned meat.”

“This has to end. Prohibition’s got to be repealed, so this country can get back to normal. Miller, what are you gonna do if they legalize meat again?”

Miller considered the question carefully. “I think . . . I’ll have a hamburger.”

21

RELATED ____________________

Jack Raisch

Will paced his room, stopping two or three times to look at him-

self in the mirror. He pushed back his thick brown hair and looked closely. Each time, he examined one side of his face, then the other, to make sure that no bumps crept up on him during the night.

He cracked his neck, then his back, then each of his knuckles. He looked at his phone for what seemed the millionth time. It was still just noon. Finally, as he was looking at it, it vibrated in his hand and in its pixilation came a name: “Emily.” He fumbled to open it and find the message: “sure, sounds good.” He smiled and closed his eyes. “Sure, sounds good” became his favorite phrase that day.

It was a phrase that he used a lot that Friday, since it seemed as if his mother asked him to do an unending list of errands. He had off from school for some teacher’s meeting or something, but he worked just as hard as if it were a school day. “Would you just pick up some milk?” “Sure, sounds good.” “Would you just help me with the dishes?” “Sure, sounds good.” “Would you just help me clean out the living room?” “Sure, sounds good.” By eight that night, the house was in perfect condition, every room smelling of Lysol.

When Will and his mother finally had the chance to look for food, they settled for some Cup of Noodles, afraid that anything else would dirty the myriad pots and pans they had used to clean.

They sat at the gleaming kitchen table and finally had the chance to actually think about things that did not revolve around wiping down counters and cleaning bathtubs. His mother was a thin woman whose crow’s feet were getting deeper and whose hair was showing signs of grey.

“You look happy today,” she said.

22

“That’s because I am.”

He knew that she knew better than to question why he was happy; it was a silent rule of their relationship, fostered not of teenage angst, but of Will’s quiet nature. Silence was a rule not hard to follow, for there were only two people in the house, and Will liked to think of it as a refuge from school, where if you don’t speak up, you are not “participating.”

They finished their pasta in silence; the only sounds heard were the noises of forks on Styrofoam. Will’s mother threw away her cup and went to call a few friends. As she was walking towards the stairs to her bedroom, Will looked around the immaculate house, wondering what all the cleaning was for, anyway. His mother was a very neat person, but they had cleaned for nearly eight hours. He knew that when there were attempts to clean the stove, there were guests on their way.

He asked about it. She stood on the first step. “Bruce is coming tomorrow,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”

He did not know if it was the soup or the sudden reminder that made him feel so sick.

He pleaded with his mother the next morning over and over again. “I’ve been looking forward to this day for a while!” Four years, actually, he thought. “Can’t he just stay here and play video games or watch a movie or something?”

He hoped that every good deed he had ever done would come back just for this one moment. She exhaled as she grasped her coffee mug. There was silence. She looked up and shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I made a promise to your Aunt Barbara, and if she found out I just plopped him in front of the television, I would never hear the end of it.” Will looked past her shoulders and cleaned his teeth with his tongue as he held his arms. “Besides,” she continued, “He came here to see you.”

Will went to his room and threw one of his shoes at the wall.

As it hit with a thud, he heard the doorbell. He heard his mother open it and greet Bruce enthusiastically. Then he heard her call him.

“Get down here,” she said. “Your cousin just arrived!”

Will tried to dull the redness in his face by taking a few deep, 23

shaky breaths. He heard his mother call again. His face wasn’t his normal, pasty color but he didn’t want to risk a third shout. He walked slowly out of his room and down the stairs only to find the face of his cousin grinning from the bottom steps. As he reached the foot of the stairs, he noticed something terrible. He had to look up.

The introductions were awkward, partially because they hadn’t seen each other in almost a year and a half. But after Bruce took off his jacket and hat, Will inspected him and realized that time had changed him. Even though Bruce was only fifteen, his face was already angular. He was tall and lean, with signs of muscle that Will never had. Bruce’s dark brown hair swept his forehead and his sharp blue eyes were vibrant and playful. His braces were off and left a trail of perfectly white, straight teeth, the type that any toothpaste commercial would feature. There were signs of facial hair sprouting from under his chin. Will couldn’t help but to admit that his cousin almost looked like a twenty-first century, skinnier Superman.

After Will was ordered to help his cousin settle in, Bruce excused himself to go to the bathroom. Will ran down the stairs to once more ask his mother to release him that night.

“If you bring it up one more time,” she said, “I swear I’ll go crazy.”

She looked at him again. Will tried to convey his desperation with his eyes, widening them to show his dark green irises. His mother looked upstairs, then back at Will. She exhaled. “Fine, you can go” she said as she threw her hands up in the air as if fanning out a sheet, “…if you bring your cousin.”

Will’s quick smile turned into a scowl and his shoulders drooped. Why do I have to bring him? He mulled over just staying home, but the decision was almost made for him, since Bruce walked in and asked, “Hey, where are we going?” Will clenched his teeth, but realized that in the end, it was better than not going at all.

He told Bruce to get ready to go out for some dinner.

Will realized that even more awkwardness would occur if it were just the three of them, and did what he wished he would never have to do: he made it a group date. He texted Emily and she obliged. He was worried she pitied him. But, even if she thought of him pitifully, he smiled at the idea that she thought of him at all. For 24

him, her long dirty, blonde hair and thin figure lingered in his head every night before he went to sleep, so much so that she sometimes danced into his dreams, in which she would admit her intense feelings for him and was just waiting for the time he would ask her.

The plans were changed but they were to still meet at The Carriage, a restaurant a few miles away that was a welcome (and more expensive) alternative to the numerous fast food chains that plagued the suburban area. When his mother asked where he was going as she was pulling out money for him, she smiled and fished for another twenty dollar bill as she said, “That’s a pretty fancy place to meet friends.” Will blushed and fumbled for a reason why they were all meeting there (he could only settle for that they had the best breadsticks, and that he just loved breadsticks).

Will’s mother offered to drive, but Will sharply said, “No!” He did not want his mother to pull up in the old green minivan with him and his cousin. It would be just better if he walked. I will seem independent and active. He needed the fresh air, anyway.

“But, Will,” she said, “there are so many mugging reports and kidnaps lately. The neighborhood is not as safe as it used to be.”

“I’m almost a full-fledged adult,” he said. “Adults don’t need to worry about kidnappers.” She looked at him and smiled weakly.

There was pity in her eyes and she just hugged him and whispered, “Fine. Just watch over your cousin and don’t get home too late.” As she held him tightly, he noticed that the clock behind him said it was almost 5:40, and he promised Emily and now, well, her friends, that he would meet them at 6:30. They would already be late. He pushed away from his mother and got his coat.

Will and Bruce left the house when the sky was already dark.

Bruce was walking slowly and Will had to call on him several times to walk faster. All Bruce said was that “It’s just your friends…they’ll understand” but Will just muttered something about his friends hating late people. Finally, Bruce sped up and he decided to break the awkward silence that already labeled his trip to Chicago.

Will rolled his eyes. Wow, “How’s school?” I’m not in second grade. I’m the older one here, buddy. But, he answered that it was fine and out of politeness asked Bruce how his was. He answered that it was going “fantastically” and he started to talk about 25

his football team, school newspaper, wrestling, and yearbook, and his seemingly infinite number of friends.

There were no follow-up questions or commentaries so the silence had to do for the rest of the few miles. All they heard was the passing of cars, their light footsteps upon the concrete, and the occasional conversations of the neighboring residents. Every so often, Bruce would try to ask, “Have you talked to Grandpa Joe lately?” or “Have you seen that new movie, the one with Will Ferrell?” but Will answered with a short “yes” or “no.” Bruce would even try to ask Will what sports he did and what he liked to do, but Will would just give a courtesy-type laugh, which was just a short “tu” sound, and pull out his phone to check the time.

It was almost seven o’ clock and the illuminated sign for The Carriage appeared when they turned the corner. Bruce walked in with a grin and looked around as if he were at a museum exhibit.

Will, in turn, bypassed the coat check and searched around at the tables. Don’t seem too eager; easy now. He noticed Emily with two of her other friends, and they were giggling incessantly, as usual.

Will swallowed and tried to walk leisurely, thinking of Bruce’s slow walk. He walked with his back leaned just a little and his hands in his pocket. He must not have had this “swagger” down because as he approached the table the girls could not seem to hold their laughter in and tried to avert their eyes in order to stop. What a great way to start. Late and laughed at. Fantastic!

As he removed his puffy winter jacket, he said, “Hello, ladies…” Oh God, “ladies”…it sounded so much less sleazy in his head. His greeting allowed for a renewal of the laughs the girls had suppressed. He gave cold stares to Emily’s two friends—their names were something like Victoria and Marissa or Marcia or whatever.

When he saw Emily looking at him, though, he gave a more jocular look, and chuckled.

Emily looked like the picture of the perfect American girl.

Her dirty-blonde hair was straightened and her blue eyes sparkled like chandeliers as she smiled. He noticed how her light pink lipgloss shimmered and how her eyelids fluttered slowly. He started to bend his knees to sit down as he looked at her, but nearly missed the chair and let out a small gasp. When he finally secured his seat, he 26

looked up to see Bruce standing there, waiting for an introduction.

“Oh,” Will said as a side note, “this is my cousin, Bruce.” He said it quietly, hoping that the near silent introduction would frame Bruce’s actions that night. Instead, Bruce smiled that dazzling smile and the girls’ giggles somehow changed. They were not the harsh spouts of laughter Will heard earlier; they were the type of giggles that girls had when they saw a celebrity.

Will watched Emily as she chewed on the breadsticks. He noticed that she would chew in twos, pause, and then finish chewing. She took small bites and always kept her mouth closed. His mind began to whirl as he counted her chews. Is this even a date anymore? What does she think it is? Does the fact that she brought two friends mean that this is just a “hangout” now? I specifically told her I was bringing my one cousin.

It wasn’t remedied very much as the night progressed. The appetizers came, and Will realized he needed to say something, so he finally settled for, “What about that Calculus homework? I tried doing it Thursday night, but it was hard!” It was met with awkward nods and eyes that simply looked down at the table. Bruce spoke up, and endearingly said, “Yeah, math is probably my worst subject.”

He smiled at his cousin and his cousin just looked the other way.

Emily began to speak her light, airy voice, “Yeah, I hate math…like, when am I going to use it?” and after that, the table exploded into conversation with Bruce as the main contributor. He talked about his football victories and his “hi-larious” stories of him and his wrestling buddies. He babbled on about his trip to Mexico and how he taught one, underprivileged Mexican child to throw a football. The girls would laugh hysterically at his jokes and clench their hearts at his stories.

Will tried to pipe in a few times, saying things such as, “Well, that’s going to be the first Mexican to catch a football!” But, the table just looked at him. One of the girls, Marcy or Marcia or Maria or whatever, said that her father was Mexican and that she found that very offensive. Emily nodded her head in agreement and then they looked back at Bruce; each person in the table had a grin on their face that made Will feel like he was a kid that walked into a very funny adult conversation that he would never really under27

stand. Even their waitress seemed to share in their stupid grins.

It was like that until the check was paid. The waiter handed the check to Bruce, who handed it to Will. He put down the measly forty dollars that covered his portion; Bruce took the rest.

They walked outside after the girls got their coats from the check-in and Bruce got back his black pea coat. The air was cold and still and the girls gave Will weak hugs but almost tackled Bruce to the ground. They exchanged numbers and mentioned their new inside jokes that Will was too stubborn to hear. When he came time to hug Emily, he looked her in the eye and held tight so that he could feel the wool material on her sweater. She let go after about two seconds, and Will let go with a sigh of disappointment. She hugged Bruce for at least four seconds.

As the girls walked to Emily’s car, Will heard that say, “That actually turned out to be kind of fun” and he smiled slightly but it quickly faded away when he heard their loud voices say Bruce was “so hot” and “so funny.”

They started the trek home in their habitual silence. It was 9:30. Will looked down at the ground and was happy that the darkness covered his red cheeks. How embarrassing! To be upstaged by your fifteen year old cousin. They probably don’t even realize he is fifteen. He just stared at his shuffling feet.

Terror struck him: what if Bruce liked the girls? I mean, why wouldn’t he? They’re pretty and popular, just like him. Will always hated talking about relationships, even with his friends, but this fear took over him. He needed to know something. He needed to know where he stood.

“Yo,” he started, “you didn’t like the girls, did you?” Will said as he looked up Bruce moseying along.

Bruce slanted his eyes down at him and for a moment just snorted, which transformed into a chuckle.

Will’s face began to redden. “What?” he asked, trying to keep his voice down.

Bruce laugh began to dissipate and he said a quiet, “nothing” as he smiled.

Will’s control to keep down his voice didn’t work. He shouted, “What!?”

28

Bruce looked him right in the eyes and said, “You really don’t know, do you?”

“No…” Will shrugged, looking at Bruce more earnestly, hoping for the “obvious” answer to be written on his tan skin.

“Will…I’m gay” Bruce said, with a flash of his perfect smile.

Will breathed out in relief. Oh thank God. But, he straightened his back again. There was a new, unidentifiable tension. My cousin is gay! He tried to mutter safe words – words that would not offend him but words that would provoke answers that would satiate his new curiosity.

He thought a safe, “What?” would allow him more time.

“Yeah, I know. Crazy, right?” said Bruce. He seemed as calm as ever and kept his leisurely pace. Will waited for an explanation, but he realized he himself didn’t know what the explanation would be for. He fumbled.

He asked, “When did you know?”

Bruce laughed again. It was as if he always knew more than Will. He looked down and said, “When I came out of the womb.”

Will actually laughed, but quickly stopped. He couldn’t get it out of his head. My cousin is gay. The perfect cousin is gay. He started to walk with more buoyancy. Bruce wasn’t so perfect. Well, it’s not like taking drugs, but…his life won’t be easy. He will be discriminated against and people will call him names. Will knew these thoughts were wrong, but he couldn’t help that he became slightly more acceptable than Bruce in society.

He started laughing to himself. Bruce seemed fine and it was as if the conversation were about weather. He couldn’t, well, “do” Emily, really. I have nothing to worry about. They knew it and just saw him as a friend. Yeah, a friend. They were just nervous around me! It seemed to be all making sense.

Will grabbed Bruce’s back and said, “Thanks for telling me.

If you need help, you can call me anytime, really” He smiled a wide smile with the emphasized “really.”

Bruce said, “Thanks, cuz…that means a lot.”

Will simply said, “Anytime, anytime.”

He was about to ask if Bruce’s mother knew, when he looked around him.

29

Bruce noticed him taking note of the surroundings and said, “I like the detour you took us through. It’s nice and quiet.” Will fumbled and realized that he didn’t quite know where they were.

“Yeah,” he said, his neck making short, quick movements to find any sign of familiarity. Relief came over him when he saw a sign for St. Edward’s Grammar School. He realized that they had simply taken a right turn out of the restaurant instead of a left. It was always his instinct to go the opposite way when he parted with someone. But his heart started pounding again when he finally computed that the area was also the most popular place for drug-deals, even as early as eight as night.

An eerie feeling crept up on Will and he saw that only one of the lights on the isolated street next to the parking lot was working.

He started to walk faster, not saying a word to Bruce. The distance between the two was growing. He looked at Bruce and stopped for a moment. Bruce asked, “Why are you in such a hurry?”

It started with the rustle of the bushes. Will’s heart seem to beat louder and louder. “Bruce, let’s g—” was all he could mutter before he was tackled to the concrete.

Will’s nose gushed a warm, red stream. He thrashed. He screamed, but the man kept on him. He tried to see where Bruce was and screamed his name, but he felt a metal on the back of this head and he heard Bruce somewhere close saying, “Get off of me!” The scruffy voice that seemed to divide them said, “You got money, faggots…huh? Huh?” Will felt the man’s large hands grope his pockets and he continued to pound and scream.

Will heard Bruce scream again. It was not a scream for help but a battle cry. He felt the man roll off of him and he heard grunts and screams. His heart pounded. Tears ran down his face. His cries were low. He stayed on the ground until he heard a body pound on the pavement once more. He started to count the seconds. He wanted to know when it was safe to look again. He should have known where he was going. He should have looked out for his cousin. He should have listened to his mother.

He counted to five and looked up. There was Bruce—the streetlight illuminated his profile. He stretched out a hand, and at that moment, Will had never hated anyone so much.

30

FRATELLO ____________________

Juan Martir

Turning the stove on, I felt a refreshing warmth. It was nice; sooth-

ing, almost. I threw a few pieces of bacon on the pan and watched them sizzle. I needed a hearty breakfast that day. It was imperative; our livelihood depended on it.

I lived with my brother in a small apartment in midtown. I had always wanted to think of it as quaint, but that would be a lie.

It was, if I were to be course about, a shithole. The heat was nearly never on, and rats were a constant threat. There was a broken window in the kitchen boarded up with duct tape and cardboard, the only materials readily available. The landlord was too cheap and too inhumane to fix it. The worst part, of course, was the futility of the matter. We were too poor and too scared to move anywhere else.

Besides, the other apartments were either too expensive or just as bad. And we didn’t even think about reporting it to the city. They cared even less than our landlord and they would probably charge twice as more to rectify our situation.

“Time to eat, bro.” I said walking into the living room. I heard a cracking noise. I had just, unknowingly, stepped on and crushed a few cockroaches.

My brother was a quiet young man. He was my junior by eight years. He was short for his age and his hair was almost always unkempt. Certain debilities kept him from work. Our lifestyle, however, is wholly inadequate for him. That was why that day had such relevance; I was a candidate for promotion. It wouldn’t have been a big promotion, but it would have been a start. And anything, even a few pennies more per hour, would have been a welcome change.

I began to clean up after my brother. He was a messy eater, 31

barely able to get the food in his mouth. But I still loved him because he was my brother. His dispositions couldn’t be helped, anyway. If one were to live too long subjugated in a place such as ours, one would surely go insane.

I heard our neighbors yelling through our paper-thin walls.

There was a crash, more yelling, and finally an uneasy silence. We had to get out of here, and soon.

“Good-bye, wish me luck!” I said, embracing him. He muttered something incoherent. I knew he didn’t like to be hugged, and I usually respected that preference. That day, however, was extraordinarily important. He must have felt the emotional ambience—he acquiesced somewhat, passively condoning the action. I tried to smile as I left, trying to keep a stalwart face—it was always difficult for me to leave his needy side.

I walked outside the apartment and saw my next door neighbor. She had just thrown a trash bag aimlessly into a pile of trash that passed for a “trash bin.” She seemed troubled or disturbed. I couldn’t blame her; I knew how it was living in a place such as the apartment. I then noticed that she had a fresh bruise on her face, perhaps a product of the scuffle I had heard earlier. I felt like asking if she needed help, but she just stared at me, not moving a muscle.

“Good morning.” I said, waving. She continued to stare.

She hadn’t liked my brother. She had thought that he was “odd” or “strange.” She really didn’t understand him. She just feared him.

I ignored her and continued my commute. I presumed that she was still standing there, staring. I was worried about her. Standing too long in a neighborhood such as ours warranted a mugging.

I arrived at my job. To call it “dead-end” would not be an understatement, but not by much. I began to stack a row of canned goods into a pyramid. Management had declared that it would be “aesthetically” pleasing for the customers, imploring them to buy.

I, most certainly, scoffed. People who shopped at this food store were far more concerned with price rather than group arrangement.

“Cibus”, the company name written on my work uniform, was a run-down food store in a run-down neighborhood. In the last week alone, there had been six drive-by shootings and a drug-deal bust—a rare victory for the law—within a four block radius.

32

I scoffed once again, but this time at my situation. I was well-overqualified for this line of work. I had the credentials for a much more lucrative job, but for political and social reasons, they weren’t recognized in this country. Thus went the path of an immigrant in a nativist nation. Yet, I was fortunate to have this job. I could at least try to scrap out a something that grotesquely resembled a lifestyle for myself and my brother.

“You’re Mago Hamilcar, right son?” asked my boss. He was a nice man, but he usually forgot my name. He was wearing a whitecollar shirt and tie. It was an attempt, stimulated by pretension, to make a low-level manager in a backwater chain seem professional.

However, I couldn’t criticize it much. The promotion in question would have been the assistant-manager post, below even him.

“Yes, sir.” I responded.

“Drop the sir, son. We’re not in the military.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dillons.” The “sir” habit was an a vestige of my childhood. My father was a strict man, even to his children.

“I understand that you applied for a promotion, correct?” he questioned. He was flipping through a few pieces of paper on his clip board. It was obvious that he didn’t care.

“Yes, si...Mr. Dillons.”

“Well, son,” He always called a person “son” when he forgot the person’s name, “The position has already been filled.”

I had no words. My face fell. My shoulders drooped and I nearly cried. I gulped, trying to compose myself. I failed. I still felt the pain of disappointment. I cleared my throat and looked away.

“C’mon, don’t be sad.” Mr. Dillons said, taking pity. He patted me on the back in an attempt to lift my spirits. It didn’t work. A pat on the back wouldn’t pay the bills or buy food.

“There’s always next year.” he said, continuing about with his own business. His feigned optimism had been pessimism to my ears. He had no idea of the repercussions of his words: “next year.”

This meant another year of torture, uncertainty...hell.

I began to mop up a puddle of blood from a fight earlier in the day. Another year of this scared me. The failing economy and the danger of inflation frightened me. I didn’t know what to expect.

I was nearly paralyzed with fear.

33

Closing my apartment door, I returned home at a late hour.

I was usually tired after a day of work. That day, however, was worse. I was tired and melancholy.

“I didn’t get it.” I said quietly to my brother, averting my eyes.

“Aargh!” he cried out. My brother didn’t understand many things, yet somehow he understood this. In a fit of rage, he tried to attack me. His eyes were wild and drool was dripping down his open mouth. I was a safe distance away. The chains, fettered to the wall, kept him from touching me.

My brother was sick. He was born with a disease, if one could call it that. Our father was a scientist, a man obsessed with perfection. After he had grown discontented with my progress—I wasn’t a smart or athletic child—he decided to tinker with eugenics.

Since I was not even ten years old at the time, I simply thought of this as an opportunity for a new baby brother. I was so excited. For the first few years, he was a normal baby and I loved him.

However, as he matured, he began to exhibit violent tendencies. He would attack our nanny without provocation and bite other children if they came too close. His intelligence was also affected; he remained intellectually stunted at the age of two—most of the time only able to vocalize babble.

But I didn’t see that. I saw my baby brother, the miracle I had waited for when I was young. My mother felt the same way.

My father, however, felt differently. He was afraid of my younger sibling, wanted to kill him. Mother and I ran away with my wayward brother to this country, this city, to this apartment. She died a few years ago. That left me and my brother and a bunch of bills.

I looked at him. He looked back with a savage countenance, as if lustful for my blood. I sighed. I felt horrible because I couldn’t provide for him, my little brother. I had failed him.

A fetid odor then drew me from my depression. I followed the scent and realized that, for once, one of the rat traps had worked.

A rat, probably caught a few days ago and dead, lay motionless. It was caught on a sticky paper sheet. I picked up the inanimate rodent. There was no other food in the house.

“Bon appétit, bro...” Tears were streaming down my face.

34

A MAN OF SALES ____________________

Michael Sansevere

The man on TV predicted it would rain that day. FLASH FLOOD

ADVISORY ran across the screen. The next day would be cloudy with the sun peeking through in the late afternoon, no need for umbrellas; it would be sweatshirt weather; teens losing their innocence weather; parents having no idea weather. But that was a day away; that day it only rained, hard, like the newscaster’s hair, which was immobile as he prophesized. It obviously never rained wherever he lived—a two-story, 6 bedroom, 4 ½ bath, home, probably, with a backyard, green front lawn, and an underground swimming pool.

In this town, though, puddles of rainwater turned into streams in which food wrappers set sail and traveled to the sewers, there to permanently dock.

A man carrying an umbrella walked around the sewer and into a furniture store on the corner of 6th and Lyndhurst. The store never advertised. Mr. Derrickson, the owner, said they were too classy an establishment to be devalued by airing obnoxious radio and television commercials. “We let our service do the talking,” he said.

An older man wearing a mud-colored sports jacket greeted him at the door. It was before noon, and business was slow. The younger man twitched his stubby nose. The older one smelt like an Italian at a Juventus club. No soap, just cologne; no problem. He just stood there at attention, shoulders sagging. They always seemed to sag, as if he was born with sagging shoulders.

“Hello, sir. Umm. Welcome to Bed and… Bust and Bed Superworld Etc., how may I be of your … assistance?”

His voice lacked something. Huevos. Eggs. And although 35

deep, it quivered. The name Melvin was written in red sharpie on the left breast of his jacket. The i was not dotted.

“My friend told me you guys have good couches,” responded the younger man. No eye contact. He turned his head as he spoke, browsing the store, and left off in midsentence, as though to pause.

Pauses worried Melvin because all hope was lost in pauses.

Pauses were fond of him. Like the pause when he saw Sally from 36th and Park at the movies with football Jeff after she cancelled their date to the same movie theater. “I can’t go anymore. I’m sorry.

I really wish I could go, but yeah, I can’t. My Aunt Margaret died, and I just found out that her wake was tonight. Where is it? I don’t know, up somewhere. No, there’s no need for you to go.”

It wasn’t even a sad movie.

Tense, he scratched the back of his head. Flakes of dandruff fell to his shoulders like the confetti of ripped dreams. The younger man was relaxed and smirking, unaware of the tension in the conversation.

“I think I’ll just help myself.” And that was that. Finito.

“But, we… we have a vast se-selection of products. And some…times it can be difficult picking out what best suits your … needs. I am very knowledgeable on all the latest products and … can … get you the best value.”

Pause. Again.

“What size couch are you looking for?”

“Sshhhh.”

“Pardon?”

“Stop talking,” he said sternly, “I’m going to ask her about couches. She looks like an expert.”

The younger man accidentally brushed against the older’s arm as he walked past him. He looked down at his arm with disgust and wiped his sleeve.

Melvin watched the younger man walk over to one of the lovely sales assistants. They started chatting, the music from the P.A. drowning out their conversation. Melvin stared at the lovely sales assistant’s lips, which were soft and moist-looking. She closed and licked them periodically.

The lovely sales assistant was a woman of average height 36

with black hair down to about her shoulders. Her skin was warm and full, and on her left breast—so he had heard—was a birthmark the shape of Alaska.

“Character,” said Melvin aloud but to no one in particular, “is what Mr. Derrickson would call it. It adds character. Customers want something fresh, something unique. We give them that, and more.”

Men fantasized about these lovely sales assistants and what they would do with them—to them. The man was smiling. Melvin could only see the younger man’s back, but he knew he was smiling because everyone that shopped at Bust and Bed Superworld Etc. smiled.

The lovely sales assistant took the man’s hand and led him towards the mattress section. Wrong way. Detour. Melvin turned and once again faced the door, waiting.

Outside, it continued to rain. Melvin knew that, because he stood still for a long time gazing at the entrance. He stood upright and refused to slouch forward, shaking his head each time he entertained the thought of slouching. An upright man is a respectable man. A few customers walked in sporadically. They said they didn’t need help.

1:33 p.m.: the time on the digital clock above the store’s entrance. Melvin looked at clock, and then at his watch, and then back at the doors. As he did so, a white limousine drove up and parked outside. Melvin grabbed the two small umbrellas that were leaning against the small garbage can to the left of the door and made his way to the limousine. Melvin was aware that Mr. Derrickson was having company, so he made sure he was prepared. It was the perfect opportunity to impresses the boss.

Mr. Derrickson was an important, admirable man. He not only had money, he had MONEY. His girlfriends loved everything about him: his smile, his MONEY, his biceps, his MONEY, and oh, his MONEY.

The man accompaning Mr. Derrickson also looked like an important person—the type who throws away undershirts after wearing them one time. Plus, only a man of importance would wear nice shoes on a rainy day. Melvin never looked at the man’s 37

face, only his shoes. He had seen someone wearing the same shoes the previous day, but couldn’t match a face to the shoe.

The two men looked at each other oddly for a moment. Then they walked side by side as Melvin held the umbrellas over their heads, walking backwards and ahead of them so he could angle the umbrellas properly. The less rain that hit them, the better. No one spoke. He leaned back into one of the doors and with his foot held the door for them. As soon as they entered, he withdrew the umbrellas immediately. He couldn’t afford bad luck. He had broken a mirror ten years before and was still paying that off.

There was another pause.

“Thanks.”

“You are welcome sir. Sir, I’m Melvin O…Occery, sir.”

“Nice to meet you,” said important man # 2. “Here take my business card.”

As Melvin grabbed the card, one of the umbrellas fell from his hand. All three men looked at it. He scurried to pick it up. As he did so, they continued to talk.

“Let’s go to my office,” said Mr. Derrickson.

“Alright,” said important man # 2, “Have a good day.”

Before he could respond, he saw their shoes walking away.

Embarrassed, Melvin scurried to the storage room in the far corner of the mattress section. He laid the umbrellas on the floor and read the business card:

Vincent Goldenstein Entrepreneur Work/Cell: 555-232-1941 Only girls are allowed to text. All others must call. Thank you.

38

Melvin’s clothes, with the exception of his sports jacket, which was surprisingly dry, were soaked from the rain. It was unlikely that they would dry before the workday ended. Not that it really mattered; everyone was wet anyway. *

It was now much later and the store was soon to close. The P.A. had stopped playing music, and the rain sounded against the metal roof. With the exception of a few straggling customers and a few lovely sales assistants who were working the night shift, the store was empty. Melvin was still standing by the door, waiting.

An important conversation seemed to be heading his way. He could tell by the loudness of their voices. Important people were always louder. Naturally.

“Well, that was an experience and a half.”

“I’m glad you found the service here helpful.”

“More than helpful. You’d think they’d get tired.”

“Oh no, never that. I like to think of them as reliable cars.

They perform well, even with high mileage and a low tank of gas.

Yep, that’s how I like my employees—like a reliable car.”

“Haha. Rich, you’re a sick son of a gun if I ever did meet one.”

“You’re not much better than I am. We’ll talk soon.”

Melvin heard the masculine back taps both men gave each other. Then important man #2 walked past Melvin, out the door, and into the limousine waiting for him.

Melvin shook his head. How could he forget to have an umbrella ready? He knew that he would be leaving tonight. It was one of his jobs. Not only was he a salesman, but also Mr. Derrickson’s personal escort.

Melvin knew he would need to apologize to Mr. Derrickson.

His job was at risk.

He knocked at the door and hesitated before entering.

“Mr. Derrickson”

“Yes? What do you want?”

“Sir, I just came here to apologize,” said Melvin. He looked 39

down at his shoes. They were scuffed and the front of his left shoe was beginning to rip.

“Look. If you have a complaint about one of the lovely sales assistants, come back tomorrow. We’re closing.”

“I know that, sir,” he said, “I just came to apologize for not escorting your friend to his limousine.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It’s my job, sir.”

Pause. Sort of.

Melvin heard Mr. Derrickson laughing. He had really messed up this time.

“Are you on drugs, old man?”

“Pardon?”

“You don’t work here.”

“With all due respect, sir, I’ve worked here since your father owned the place.”

“Is this some kind of joke? Did Dave send you here, that bastard?”

“No, sir.”

“You got the wrong place. No men have worked here in over ten years.”

“I work here, sir.”

“Did I forget to fire you? No that’s not possible, I’ve never seen you on the payroll.”

Important people are always louder. That’s how I like my employees—like a reliable car. Be assertive.

“Listen, I’ve been your best employee. I’m like a car, I have good gas mileage. Why are you doubting that I work here?”

“Honestly, you’re a nutcase. But I’m a nice guy, so I’ll answer your question. When I inherited this business from my father, it was lacking something. And I knew what that something was. Girls.

I mean, come on, who doesn’t love girls? Girls are what our society orbits around. You’re not a girl; therefore you are bad business; therefore you can’t work here. Don’t work here. It’s simple.”

“Okay. I might not be a girl,” Melvin said, trying to summon up dignity. “But I am a man. And that should count for something.”

“So’s The Phantom of the Opera. I think you’re missing the 40

point. This whole thing is absurd anyway. Please leave.”

“Are you firing me?”

“No, to fire you, you would have to work here. I’m telling you to leave.”

“So I still have the job?”

“You never had the job. Fine. You know what? I give up.

You’re fired. Now leave immediately.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

*

Outside, the rain had not given up. The weatherman was right. Melvin walked a few blocks to the nearest bar to grab a drink.

It was nothing special; a common meeting ground, like a church, but for local alcoholics, deadbeats, terrible fathers, and the occasional hard-worker. A reading from the first letter of Sam Adams to the brewery. Amen. It was the closest place to home still open.

Melvin took a seat at the bar near a man wearing a grey peacoat. Behind them at a table, a man was passed out face-first in a plate of nachos.

Melvin ordered a drink, then turned to the man near him.

“Shitty weather,” Melvin said.

“Yeah, it’s really aggravating. Can’t even go outside without stepping into a puddle.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’m Eric,” the man said.

Melvin thought for a second. “Vincent,” he said, extending his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same here.”

“That’s a nice jacket,” Melvin said. “Where’d you get it?”

“The place on 56th and Jefferson. Sasso’s.”

“I love that place. Have a jacket from there. I thought that looked familiar. Don’t you think that store is a little pricey?”

“Depends. I bought this last year around the spring, so I got a good deal.”

The bartender brought over the drinks.

“What do you do?” Melvin asked. “If you don’t mind my 41

inquiring.”

“I’m a customer service rep down at the cable building,” the man said. “It’s not too bad of a job. I have off Fridays, which is nice.

How about you?”

“I have my feet in a bunch of different projects,” Vincent said. “Here, just take my card.”

“Take mine as well. Just in case you’re ever having any trouble.”

“Thanks.”

“Use it if you need to. You know?”

“I’m sure I will,” Melvin said.

He read the card as if divining the future in it. “Eric Kindsley,” it said. “Premium Cable. 705-3026.” He put it in his pocket, in his mind filling in the missing lines. “Shops at Sasso’s. Off on Fridays. Doesn’t like puddles.”

42

STANDING IN THE RAIN, NOTHING SEEMS TO CHANGE ____________________

Alexander Green

They say I’m not in a proper state of mind to drive, so I holler for

a taxi. When I get in with my box of personal belongings and the whiskey flask I stole from Tom’s desk, I tell the driver to take me to the school. We take off into the rainy night, and I’m feeling real lonesome, so I tell him, “Earlier today, I came into some unexpected news.” The cab is nearly silent, but both the driver and I can hear the beating of the windshield wipers with the splashing of rain, the respectfully low volume of the radio, and the quiet hum of the engine. I know he can’t see me, so through the hand mirror I stare at him, an Indian man in his late fifties with a balding plate and a jagged scar across his right eyebrow. I could wait, but this sort of thing you don’t talk about with your family. These problems are for men to talk about under the heavy rain. “Not the best news,” I say, “but I think that the words that we hear don’t affect us unless we let them.

Isn’t that right?” He grunts in acknowledgement of the fact that I’ve said something that sounds like conversation; his dull eyes point towards the road as he slows the car down ever so slightly and swings smoothly over to the next lane. This cabbie is a beautiful driver. I wonder if he hears that often, how well he drives? I should tell him, shouldn’t I? He stops at the stoplight, indicator set to make the turn down my street. Should I keep going? I keep quiet. The light turns green, and the dream comes back to me. We pull of in front of the school, he tells me $13.75, I give him a twenty and tell him to keep the change. I look at him in the eyes and see that I am nothing. He nods, I shut the door, and away he goes. That’s a man’s connection, 43

isn’t it? A silent bond formed through understanding of the common struggle of life. I think it would be interesting to talk to him, learn a little about his life and that scar.

It’s a Friday night in the middle of November. Trudging into P.S. 203, I stomp my boots to get the rain off and nod to the security guard. The guard, an old woman with a tightly knot bun like a librarian, nods with a smile. “How are you doing, Alan? Good to see you!” She grimaces for a split second and then smiles again.

“Well…you know what I mean.” I try to laugh and all that comes out is a strange groan, but I play it off with a cough. “Just trying my best, Liz.” Going up the main stairs, I get off at the third floor and head to classroom 3-15, end of the hall. I pause at the stop of the stairwell, reach into my jacket and take a sip of rum from the pocket flask that I keep inside. But you won’t judge me, because this is how I can live with it. The hallways are baby blue, and the floor, even though it’s white, feels like hardwood. Clomp, clomp, clomp, the sound my boots make as I head towards the classroom. I smile for a second when I realize that would be a funny way to teach my kids how to learn sounds. Clomp, clomp, clomp: I like that. Stuck on the doorsill with scotch tape is a piece of paper. On it is a yellow smiley face holding up a pair of red boxing gloves. Above the smiley are the words, Alcohol, Down for the Count! Never change, Molly. I open up the door and poke my head inside. Inside, there are around eighteen chairs in a circle, a couple of them filled up. On top of the teacher’s desk in the corner is a plate of donuts, bottle of orange juice, and little Dixie cups for kids. The woman sitting behind the teacher’s desk looks up and smiles. Her name is Molly Mignon, kindergarten teacher by day, saving alcoholics by night. Dressed in a grey pantsuit with a purple dress shirt underneath, she has the habit of bobbing her head as she talks. As much as I think she’s a nice woman, I want to ask her if subconsciously she just does this to feel good about herself. And when I think of that, I feel something dark, something primal, some sick hate in me that I have to boil down.

I can feel my heart start to beat in my chest, just like in the cab. I tap my fingers against the desk and say, “Hey.” She looks up, and laughs. “Hey Alan, How are you doing? Great, great, great. Take a seat, will you?”

44

I put my umbrella inside a little bucket by the door next to a couple others. Above the bucket is another printed out sheet of paper with a yellow smiley face holding an umbrella up with a white gloved hand. I look around and don’t see anyone I recognize, which I guess is a good thing. But it isn’t at all, because you’d think people would be nice enough to tell you at the very least that they wouldn’t come back. I’m a nice guy, aren’t I? I go up to Molly and murmur, “Lot of new people today, huh?” She looks at me and starts bobbing her blond head. “It’s just how it is, you know? When people get over their alcoholism, they go, eventually…” Then she points for me to sit down next to this sketchy looking guy, looking down at her Blackberry. As I reach into the breast pocket of my jacket, she whispers, “Oh yeah, Alan!” I hold back, feel the flask, and turn back around as she thrusts her Blackberry into my hands. “Amy just turned 3! We had a party last night.” Molly, her husband, and their older son are all standing around the little girl. Kneeling on a chair over a birthday cake, she has a smile that’d end world hunger. I look at her husband, an ugly balding man, and I hate him for it. What does he have that I don’t? It’s probably money; it’s definitely money.

Look at them all, probably have a nice house in the hills with a nice driveway and three cars and everything they could ever want, while I’m here by myself for no right reason. But I don’t say what I feel; I tell her, “That’s adorable, isn’t it? You know, I’ve always wanted a daughter.” I give her back the Blackberry and smile. “Sure, you’d have to deal with boys and everything when she’s gets older, but for those first ten years it’s like you can protect something so innocent and pure, it’s kind of nice.”

Molly looks at me and laughs, petting my arm. “I didn’t know you were such a romantic, Alan. But go sit down, will you?

Interact with a couple of the new people; they need someone like you who can make them feel at home.” I try and smile and tell her I have to make a quick phone call. Outside I walk down the hall taking out the pocket flask and take a couple quick sips. Liquid fire, but it’s power like in the Stone Age. I’m in control. Back inside I push some of the little chairs out of my way and squat down to sit in the seat next to the guy. He’s pretty young in a relative way so I pretend to fall into the seat. “Wow, these seats sure are tiny, aren’t 45

they?” I laugh and tell him. He grins a little, and goes back to his vacant stare. I’m trying to help the bastard and he goes and ignores me. “Listen buddy, like my dad always said, sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to put on a brave face when you know you’re in the shit.” The kid looks at me in a strange way and I feel a strange way as I look over to the rest of the people in the room, and then back at him. The kid couldn’t be any fresher out of college. He still looks like a teenager, dressed in hoodie and jeans in the middle of a rainstorm. Young enough to be my kid if I was that kind of man, but the moment I think that thought I feel frustrated. “Not much to say, that’s alright,” I tell him as I lean down to pick at the soles of my shoes and feel the weight of the flask pressing up against my chest.

“It sounds kind of terrible to say but we’re all in the same boat so we have to try, at least.” Look at those words, I sound so mature.

The kid draws up his nose and smiles back. “Yeah, I guess…. yeah…”, he looks at me, then looks around, rocks back and forth in his chair a little, then looks back to me. “So...dude, what’s your name?” I grin and pat his back, and I can feel the rain soaked into the black hoodie. Somehow, I feel contempt for him, but I smile and say, “No need to be nervous, dude. I’m Alan.”

He laughs and stops rocking back and forth. “Yeah…I’m Mike.” He looks around to the several other people in the room and mutters, “Hey, are there gonna be more…people here, like later?” I shrug. Molly puts her phone away, and starting plucking away at her jacket. I feel this burning jealousy towards her ugly husband, even though I’ve never met the guy. I look at Mike as he wipes his nose on his hoodie sleeve, and he asks me if I have any family. Like a wife, or kids. I shake my head. Why is it always like this? Why does everyone have to ask me questions like that? I pat Mike’s back and excuse myself outside, and I put my head down as I walk past Molly.

Back down that hallway, back to the Stone Age with the liquid fire and the times when big men were big men. I walk back down the hallway filled with life and vigor, stop at Molly, and tell her with a big voice, “Let’s get started.” I sit down in my seat next to Mike and stand strong.

Molly clears her throat to silence the room, “Just like a teach46

er!” I call out and elbow Mike, and she closes the classroom door shut. Mike grimaces and nods, I whisper, “You seemed like such a cool dude, hypocrite!” I like the look of confusion on his face. Ms. Mignon pulls the big chair from the teacher’s desk into the circle and sits down with a glance at me and then a smile. She sweeps her blond hair out of her face, and I can see the cold pinched eyes that I never noticed before. Ironic that it took the one thing keeping me here to realize what was wrong with me. I’m cured! That thought is like a shot of adrenaline to my soul. The grin on my face is like the sun; it pierces through the clouds of ignorance in this classroom.

“It looks like that’s all the people that are going to come today,” Molly starts as she bobs her head. “I think that Alan’s the only regular here tonight, so I guess we’ll have him start first with an introduction.” I stand sharply out of my seat and do a salute to her. Everyone in the class giggles a little. “Well, I don’t really know what to say, Alan; you’ve been here for so long, just helping—” “No! No need for introductions! I can handle it, can’t I? I’m a big kid now!”

I stare at Ms. Mignon with such intensity that she sits down in her seat.

“Now, you were here to hear a story, right? I’ve got a story for you to hear. My name is Alan Beams, and I’ve been here for a few months now.” I stop and survey the classroom. I see my little Mike, sitting there with his head bent down looking at the tessellated floor but I know he’s listening. I look at all of the other people in the classroom and don’t bother to describe them because it’s me on the spotlight; I’m the special one. I look at a guy in the crowd who’s about my age. I see a ring on his finger. I stare him in the face intensely, powerfully, and observe as he wrinkles his nose and looks down at his watch. I am the mighty caveman, leader of the hunt.

“Now when I was in college, I made a couple bad decisions, and one of the biggest mistakes of my life, alcohol. It cost me everything I had in life, and because it’s the one choice you can never take back, I want to make sure none of you end up like me.”

I pause for a moment.

“I wonder if that’s really true. Do any of you feel that way?

Do you really feel like alcohol ruined you? If anything, what ruined 47

me was the people who didn’t care about me. Family. That’s what we were all missing in those years when we leave home for the first time.”

Another pause. This chest of mine feels so heavy.

“Alcohol is just something that takes away pain, so why is bad to indulge if we have people to bear that pain with us? Doesn’t that make sense? We can all be drunk together as long as we don’t crash alone. Doesn’t that sound good, better than giving up everything?”

I’m breathing rapidly with pride, but as I scan the room I don’t see anyone feeling the same vibe. These are kids, all of them.

I’m standing up; when did I stand up? I feel you leaving me behind just like last time.

“Sorry, that was stupid of me. Just…please let me stay, okay?”

I hear my own voice getting louder.

“I got fired from my job at the bank, I just….I need this.”

Loud, like a lion. I guess I never needed you after all. Molly stands up as someone knocks on the door. I step towards her, and she stumbles back.

“You guys are like family to me! I don’t have anybody else, so it’s okay for me to get drunk here, isn’t it?”

I take out the flask, and the door opens. I open the cap and turn to Mike. “Mickey, hey Mickey! Don’t leave me behind like everybody else! C’mon, kiddo! Be a big kid! Drink with me, c’mon!”

And then she’s there, the security guard with her hand on her holster of pepper spray and one hand extended toward me. I laugh at her, and swig down what’s left in the flask. Liquid fire; the caveman comes back to me. I grunt and push my way out, stumbling down the stairs in laughter.

Outside, the rain keeps coming down. I feel different, better.

All of a sudden I realize that I forgot my box of personal attachments inside the cab I took here. But that’s right, right? My car is somewhere around here, I had left it here last Monday…didn’t I? I fumble through my pockets to find the keys, and with them in hand I stumble through the streets pressing the activate button over and over again. Here we go…I don’t remember the make or the model 48

but it’s my car alright. I’ve always kept it clean, but I reach underneath the passenger seat giggling to myself and pull out the bottle of Shasta. A little bit in the cap, and I take a drink. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. I don’t feel anything. Another capful and I’m still just as dead. But I’ve got life in me yet. I put the cap on and put the bottle back under the seat. It’s so dark…only the street lights in front of the school across the road are on. I’m so tired,. It’s a bad idea, but I turn on the engine and take off into the night. I’m not as smooth as that cab driver, but I can feel the rain under my tires and it feels wonderful as I struggle to control the car and my body. The streets are empty, even though the night is young. At a stoplight, anyone you want, I put my arm up against the window and cradle it against my head. Nothing in front of me, nothing behind me. As the light turns green I laugh to myself and say, “No, I don’t want to go home anymore.” I turn onto Coast Road, and let time pass by.

Maybe I’ll go to Outback Steakhouse: eating, thinking, drinking.

Maybe even apply for a job if I feel like it. I look smart enough to get a manager’s position, don’t I? Press on the gas a little more and I pass by the minivans and the SUVs filed with children sticking their tongues out at me and turn into the restaurant parking lot, which is nearly empty, save for a few cars littered here and there. Maybe employees, maybe customers. I pull into an empty space next to a Range Rover with a bumper that says Baby on Board. I turn off the engine; grip the wheel by 10 and 2, putting my forehead against it.

You’ll be my family.

49

VISITOR AT 23RD STREET ____________________

Christopher Chavez

He would get on the train at the same stop and off the train at the

same stop every morning. Same car, even. He wasn’t any regular beggar. He was a bit more creative and mysterious.

Typically a beggar would enter and ask for money. They always have a different story. One says that his five month old daughter was shot up in Harlem, while another says he’s simply out of luck in the world. The entertaining ones come in with music.

There are Latinos playing the guitars and little old women playing accordions. All of the acts are the same. Not this one, though. *

I had my coffee on one hand and the newspaper in the other. I was waiting for the F Train at Roosevelt Avenue in Queens.

When it came in, I found my regular seat next to the door. People on my train had gotten the hang of the way things worked every morning.

It was only a few stops before I got to Manhattan and I was greeted by a deluge of more people getting to work. But that only lasted a while until the train got to either 42nd Street/Bryant Park or 34th Street/Herald Square, where the majority depart. Once the middle of the train cleared out, the stage was set for the morning’s performer.

Each morning at 23rd Street, someone new came in. That day we had a clown. He had the rainbow wig, colorful clothes, and the red nose. He was not a funny clown, because he did not crack jokes. He was not the balloon-animal creator type either. He was 50

just a clown on his way to work.

The clown kept his head down and pulled a cup out. He needed money. Everyone else on the train was either asleep, getting ready to get off, or too caught up in their music or newspaper to even acknowledge him.

No words were spoken as I put a few coins in the cup. It was nothing strange; I always gave to the needy. I simply received a head nod from the clown. It kept its head down and continued to walk to the other side of the cart. He timed his walk perfectly; the doors opened when he reached the end, and he got off.

Before I got back to reading my newspaper, I asked myself why I chose to hand him money. There was no indication of evil in his character, so I chose to think he was innocent. What made him different than the rest of the poor people on trains? Nothing really.

He never did anything bad or said he did. He could have been buying crack with that money for all I knew, but it was an act of kindness on my part. What did it matter? The front page news of the paper mattered more to me. *

The next day an old woman with a cane entered the train at 23rd Street. She had a cup in her hand with the same design as that of the clown’s cup from the day before. Her clothes were dirty.

Her hair looked like it was originally white, but after several days of going through garbage or sleeping on the train, it turned into a disgusting brown.

She had no story. She walked at a slow pace to the other end of the cart. There was a slight jingle of coins coming from the cup. That was all the noise she made. In fact, the lady on my left blasting Taylor Swift on her iPod made more noise. I took out what could have been a dollar in change, after the newbie at Starbucks handed me my change with a ton of coins, and put it in the cup.

There was a slight head nod and she kept walking.

That morning at Starbucks, I paid for my coffee and there was an abnormally long line to pick up the order. I got my change, and before I could look back to ask for dollar bills, the cashier was 51

already serving the next customer. I was pressed on time and ran out as soon as I received my coffee. I can’t be late for work.

The train came to a halt in between the two stops. This was different. Usually the visitor would time it perfectly and the doors would open once the last set is reached. She stopped moving along with the train and coughed. It was a pretty deep sounding cough.

Within a matter of seconds, the problem on the tracks was fixed. The doors opened and she was on her way.

I remember this one specific day, when the visitor came in at 23rd Street and at the same time another beggar entered from the opposite end of the train. I put my newspaper down for a bit and stopped reading about a ponzi scheme in New York City. I braced myself to see an early morning fist fight over a train car, but there wasn’t any of that.

The regular visitor just stood at the door where he entered and watched the other beggar walk around. What was interesting was that the other beggar was dressed in such a weird manner that it could easily scare a rider. And he did that very same thing. He just walked slowly and stood in front of each person on the train and mumbled something. He was probably asking for food.

He got what he wanted when he stared at a teenage schoolboy, eating Doritos for breakfast, long enough that when he extended his arm the student knew what to do to get rid of him.

Talk about a scary early morning experience. The creep stayed on the train past 23rd and 14th. At 14th, the regular visitor got off at the doors he was standing at. I looked to see that he got off and when I turned my head back, the dirty beggar was in front of me mumbling. He stared. I stared back.

He had a nose piercing and dirty black hair. Simply put, he didn’t present himself well enough to have people feel bad for him.

He should take a page out of the 23rd Street visitor’s playbook. *

I did not have a newspaper on me on the next morning.

52

Patel at the kiosk was slacking and the best that they had was the New York Post. I wasn’t going to buy any of that junk. I pay for my newspaper with coins, so whoever the visitor was going to be that morning on 23rd Street was going to have more coins than usual. I had my change from Starbucks in my pocket, which wasn’t much.

I’d say thirty seven cents at best and now the newspaper money was added to their daily collection.

No stories to read quickly led to boredom, and by Lexington Avenue I was looking for something to do. Brick Breaker on my Blackberry seemed childish, but it was the best I had. I got frustrated pretty quickly and as I kept losing I started to lose my temper. The train neared 23rd Street and I was hoping to be saved from my boredom for at least a stop by the visitor.

Every morning I gave my money away to this stranger, but I never really put much thought into who it was. I stared at the screen on my Blackberry that morning and chose to finally put together all the clues that I had, because it was most likely always the same person taking my money.

I opened a blank email and listed all of the visitors that I remembered since the visits started. The first day was a while back.

It started with a man in a bright red poncho. Nothing was really out of the ordinary except the poncho, because it wasn’t raining.

The next few mornings that followed included a Muslim woman, a trucker, an EMT worker with a mask, and several more that I was unable to recollect. It was tough remembering things that happened each day for several months. I made the list as long as I could. It seemed so stupid, giving away money to people who might have had jobs. There really wasn’t any point in giving an EMT worker money. That was just carelessness on my part and being too focused on my newspaper to realize that I was being hustled.

The doors opened at 23rd Street and a skateboarder entered.

He had a skateboard in one hand and a cup in the other. I couldn’t see his face because of the hoodie he had on. The wheels of the board were worn out and the deck had several cracks on it. No coffee cup in the other hand. He walked in front of the passengers and just stared at him for a bit to examine his face. The skateboarder stopped for about a second and looked right back at me. I stuck 53

my hand in my pocket and jingled the coins. There was more than usual in my pocket and he stopped for a bit to listen. It might have been a crass move, but this time I didn’t give any money. He kept walking and exited. This time it was a “he”; sometimes I would be greeted with a “she”. Only they knew what lay in store for me tomorrow. *

The black woman that blasted Taylor Swift a few days later was at it again, but this time it was Rihanna. I’m pretty sure a woman in what looks to be her mid-thirties would have a better taste in music. This one was an exception. This time she was singing and it was getting loud. It was loud enough to be called a disturbance.

I decided that I would be the one to stand up for the rest of the passengers that looked to be getting restless.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but could you keep it down? There are a few people trying to sleep and I’m trying to read my newspaper. Could you be a little more considerate for us?”

“You want me to stop singing? Listen, I don’t give a damn what you people think about me. I can sing and I will sign. People would pay to hear me sing, because I’m going places.” When she finished speaking, she got up and started to sing louder at the middle of the train.

Then we came to 23rd Street.

“Alright, Ladies and Gentlemen. I have wrapped up my performance of Rihanna and will now move on to some rap. How about some Tupac?” The lady didn’t stop. She put her purse on the ground hoping to make a few coins and continued to sing.

A blind man boarded the train. I offered the open seat next to me that the woman left, but the man stuck his arm out and refused. Instead, he brought forth his other arm and opened his hand, expecting someone to put something there. I gave him a dollar bill.

As he walked away, I noticed that the sneakers that he wore were the same Nike shoes that the skateboarder wore the day before.

The woman saw that her seat was in danger of being lost 54

and quickly rushed near me. I handed him the dollar and he continued walking, but that didn’t sit well with the black lady.

“Is this some type of joke? I’m up here singing and looking to make some money and you give this fool your change?”

“He needs it more than you do. It’s my money. You shouldn’t be worrying about it.”

I don’t remember much of what was said after that, because she decided to swing her purse hard across my face. My head turned in time to see the blind man use his stick to exit the train. *

When I got to work I needed to ice my face a bit. The lady carried a lot of things with her to wherever it was she was going.

In a way, it was the visitor’s fault that I was hit across the face. My conscience decided that he may owe me an apology for the hit and that this whole adventure with the change giving was getting old.

It was time to finally see who the person at the other end of these monetary transactions was.

I did some math in my free time and started to calculate the numbers. If I was giving this beggar at least thirty five cents a day. In a month, he’s making at least $10.25. But sometimes the numbers changed and he’s making more than that. I have a swell job that has enough to support myself and my family, but adding another member to it is rough, especially when they receive money every day and you don’t know where it goes.

I was thinking of calling in sick but still commuting to work the next morning. I was going to follow the visitor, but then decided that would be odd and I wouldn’t know what I was getting myself into. I decided to switch up the original plan and just go with the flow.

The black woman that hit me decided not to take the seat next to me. We exchanged dirty looks. She usually stayed on the train all the way to Coney Island, while I got off a few stops earlier. I discovered that when I overslept on the train one day. It was a good thing she was taking it to Brooklyn alone this particular day, because blood may have been shed in the train if I had to stay on 55

with her for that long.

23rd Street arrived and the doors opened. I was greeted with the sight of a person with a boom box on his shoulder. Before the doors closed, the person turned off the boom box and began to walk through the crowd. I was dressed a bit differently too. I may have abused my power at the company by calling for a casual Friday that week. I had jeans on and sneakers with the laces tied tightly. I was ready to go in case he maked a run for it.

The person with the boom box walked around and played a cassette with some music that would be played during some commercial asking for donations to a fund. It sounded cheesy, but the person was playing their cards well. The boom box had a sticker asking cash. All it said was “I need $$$$.” The dude walked past me. I got up and tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a few dollars. It was casual Friday; I wasn’t my normal self. I stood up and headed to the penultimate set of doors. 14th Street was going to be different for me since I never got off here, but my curiosity reached its apex.

I couldn’t just follow the poor guy and then run after him to see what he was after. I wouldn’t have had any excuse if I got caught. I just had to sit and wait for the right moment for me to pounce on him for something suspicious.

There he was at the last set of doors, getting ready to exit.

He turned his back and started walking. I got off at 14th street also and decided to go up another flight of stairs to follow him but never lose sight of the target.

We both exited the train station, and as I reached the top step, I saw him shaking hands with a pretty shady figure and handing him money. He stuck his hand in his pocket and gave the man money. In return, there was something handed over to him; it had to be drugs, or at least that’s what I thought it was.

The beggar from the train started walking toward the nearest avenue with brand name clothing stores. If he didn’t spend the money on drugs, was he going to spend it on really expensive articles of clothing? I didn’t think so, and thus I crossed the street and followed on the opposite side.

He made a sharp turn and started to go up the steps of what 56

looked to be a church. I thought he was going to make a run for it or at least discover me, so I ran across the street and entered the church.

As I walked in, I stopped at the doors and saw the man ahead of me with the coins and bills that he probably collected on the train.

He deposited them in the charity box and kneeled on the nearest pew and bowed his head. He never turned around or acknowledged me.

I was standing at the doors; that would be the farthest I would go. I didn’t need to know who he was. I just wanted to know where the money was going. In the end, the whole time I had nothing to worry about. It was just strange. *

The visits continued on the train each morning after that day I followed him. I never bothered to chase the man down.

Whoever he was, I wasn’t going to bother. I just continued to give change.

The church fund that I must have been contributing to had an ad in the paper during the holiday season that followed. The advertisement read, “There are people that need your help every day in the world. Donate during the holiday season and better the season for a family in need.” A sub-caption had the words, “God works in mysterious ways.” That’s a pretty interesting way to look at things.

57

THE COMEDY OF RONALD HIGGINS ____________________

Brian Flanagan

It is just after noon and glimpses of sunlight make their way through

the blinds. It’s just bright enough to make out most of the room. The floor is covered in strewn-about clothing: socks, a pair of jeans, a pair of blue shoes (size 21), a blue pair of overalls, and some boxers.

The bedroom/TV room/dining room is the main room of the apartment. The kitchen and bathroom are an extension of it. A small TV on a stool about two yards from the foot of the bed is so small that it would be difficult to watch if it worked at all. The door separating the main room from the cramped bathroom is slightly ajar, and there is just enough light to see a small insect scurrying its way through the dirty rug between the clothing and beer cans. A pullout bed acts as the centerpiece of the room; its size is no match for the mass on top of it. The large clump on the bed does not move, but its snore resonates throughout the small apartment.

It’s 1:15 on a Friday. The alarm clock goes off. The figure hits the snooze button, but the button’s been broken for quite some time and the plug is just out of reach. It has no choice but to get up.

It rises and groggily makes its way to the bathroom. It’s wearing black fluffy slippers that drag across the floor. It’s wearing a green, undone robe that reveals a pair of snug boxers slightly covered by a protruding gut. It’s hairy everywhere. In the dim light its face has no distinct features and only the shape can be made out. The head’s an oval, furry on either end, while the rest seems bald. It makes its way into the bathroom; the sound of falling water hitting stagnant water echoes in that little space. It scratches itself, shuffles towards the mirror over the sink, and turns on the light.

58

He looks at himself in the mirror. He had been in such a stupor last night that he hadn’t washed off his makeup and still has his skin cap on. The white makeup is smeared. He notices he is breaking out at the blotches still on his face. His skin cap is barely hanging on and there are crumbs in the curly, orange hair extensions on either side of his head. He gives himself a long look and sighs. He washes the makeup off with an already soaked rag. It drips a mixture of dirty water and white makeup. He takes the skin cap off, throws it into a bin and puts his hand through what remains of his hair. He sighs again and begins to undress. He walks into the cramped shower and begins to bathe. He lathers his head with shampoo, and because the showerhead is too low, he has to cup the water in his hands and bring it to his head.

When he gets out of the shower, he puts his towel on and walks back to the dining room. As he walks towards his dresser, he bumps his knee into the little table that he uses to eat his TV dinners on. He hollers in pain and sits down on his bed as he rubs the bruise. After a few seconds of grimacing, he gets back up and limps to his dresser. Before he opens the drawer, he gazes at the placard above it. He rubs his hand across the actual certificate. The glass had smashed some time ago. He sighs again. It’s a bachelor’s degree in finance. Ronald Higgins is typed in bold black letters with gold trim and his hand moves extra slowly as he rubs over it. He opens the top drawer and pulls out his makeup kit. Without a mirror he applies the makeup, dabbing it in with a compact, first the skin colored pre-makeup, followed by white makeup over that. He pulls out what resembles lipstick and colors his lips red. He opens up the second drawer and puts on a t-shirt and leggings plagued with rips. Out of a pack he pulls another skin cap identical to the one he took off in the bathroom, but before he has a chance to pull it on tight he is interrupted by rapid, excessively loud knocks on his door.

“Higgins!”

The voice behind the door has a smoker’s rasp, but the Italian accent is still easily distinguished.

“Higgins! Get out here.”

The knocking’s pace doesn’t slow. Ronald opens the door.

On the other side is a short, balding man with black hair and a thick 59

mustache. He’s staring at the ground as he knocks. Even after Ronald opens the door for a moment the small man continues to knock open air. Ronald gives a sigh, “Yea?” The short, Italian man yells something indistinct. He looks up at Ronald and pauses for a second. His lowers his voice and loosens his scowl.

“The rent is due,” he says more calmly.

Ronald’s expression doesn’t change; he speaks in a monotone voice.

“I don’t have it right now.”

The brief moment of surprise is over and the Italian man’s scowl quickly returns.

“Tomorrow Higgins, Tomorrow.”

The bald man storms to the last room on the other end of the hall while muttering in his native tongue. The landlord slams his own door behind him. Ronald sighs as he gently closes his own door.

He walks back to his dresser and continues getting dressed.

First he puts on a short-sleeved shirt over his t-shirt and then a pair of basketball shorts over his leggings. Then he walks to his makeshift closet/locker and pulls out a white, polka dotted body suit. He struggles to zip it up in the back and becomes winded in the process.

As soon as its zipped all the way, he becomes uncomfortably warm.

He picks up an over-sized pair of red shoes with yellow laces and puts one on each foot. He walks back into the bathroom and with the mirror and some eyeliner draws a half oval around each eye and a border around his lips. He does a quick once-over of his face in the mirror, sighs, and begins to walk to the entrance of his apartment.

He picks up a small duffel bag just to the side of the door and begins to exit his apartment. Halfway between his apartment and the hall he suddenly stops, turns around back towards his TV room, and begins scanning the floor with his eyes. His face focuses in on one particular part of the floor and he walks to it. He moves aside a pair of his used boxers, picks up the red, felt ball underneath it and puts it in his pocket. He then walks to his refrigerator and pulls out a thermos.

He opens the cap and he gets a whiff of the foul-smelling beverage 60

inside. His stomach heaves briefly, and then he places the thermos into the duffel bag and leaves.

First he needs to take the subway. He walks into the station and immediately the stares and giggles begin. He doesn’t acknowledge them, but continues to stare down the dark, empty tunnel, waiting for his train. The station starts to get crowded and people are more frequently pointing and gawking at him. There are even a couple of flashes from cameras. He misses when he could drive into work. Regardless, he never once looks or acknowledges them and continues the periodic intervals of staring down the track for his train. As he waits he takes sips from his thermos. It is almost 2:30.

Finally the train comes and as usual it’s crowded. He walks on and the gawking and pointing continues with the change of venue. There are no seats open, so he stands, holding onto the hand railing over the chairs. He is standing there when he notices an old Asian women standing to his immediate left staring up at him. He looks back down at her. She keeps staring at him. Ronald looks back away when she doesn’t avert her gaze. Several moments later he looks back at her, this time with a smirk.

“My car’s at the shop,” he says.

The woman’s stare doesn’t waiver and Ronald’s smirk slowly dissipates. He looks back away and takes some more sips from his thermos. As the train makes its way past the heart of the city, it begins to open up. He eventually gets a seat. Once the train makes its way into the suburbs, most of the passengers have gotten off.

Even the Asian woman has left and there are only scattered pockets of people sitting.

As he takes a seat, Ronald notices a sobbing girl no older than five and her mother. They are only a few seats away and he can hear their voices clearly.

“Make him go away, mommy.”

The little girl has her head in her mother’s jacket and her sobs are muffled. The woman picks the girl’s head up and tries to console her.

“He’s not scary; he’s just a clown. You love the circus, remember?”

The little girl looks back towards Ronald and he smiles at 61

her. The little girl’s shriek takes the smile away. He sips more from his thermos.

He gets off the train at the next-to-last stop and takes an envelope out of his duffel bag. The envelope is torn open and empty, but there is an address written on it. He walks down the stairs, out of the station to get his bearings. He starts to walk up the block towards the address on the envelope. It’s a good neighborhood. All the houses are nice, the kind with well kept lawns and no sidewalks.

Ronald walks on the street and sees very little car traffic. The cars he does see slow down and a few even honk their horns as they pass.

After a short walk, he spots his client’s house before he even sees the actual address. It’s just like all the other houses, big, with a large front lawn and a big backyard. The outside of it is covered in ribbons and banners, and there is an excessive number of balloons in all different varieties. Some are your run-of the mill oval balloons; some are cakes; some are animals; there are even a few in the shape of the number seven.

As he nears the house, he can hear children and adult voices coming from the back. He walks up the stone path to the main door.

He pauses in front of it, sighs, takes a sip from his thermos, and rings the bell. After a moment of waiting, it opens and a skinny, brunette woman opens the door.

“Hello?”

She’s at first glance pretty, but her bird-like nose and overly skinny frame appear as he inspects her further. She’s wearing a brown, mid-cut dress and a pearl necklace. She gives Ronald an exaggerated smile and her face is slightly tilted. Her lipstick is red, almost redder than his own makeup.

“Sorry I’m late, ma’am. I had to take the subway to get here; you know how that can be.”

She doesn’t respond. She just keeps smiling. Ronald hesitates for a moment and then puts on a fake smile of his own and recites his lines in a voice not his own.

“I’m Jolly…” he pauses for a second to find the words. “…

The Clown, from Happy Birthday Clowns Inc., and I hear it’s someone’s birthday today.”

He gives a little cartoonish chuckle at the end for effect. The 62

woman cracks up at the little performance and begins to invite Ronald in.

“Come in, come in, the kids have been waiting for you.”

Her voice is high-pitched and overly dramatic. He follows her through the house. When she turns around he takes a large swig from his thermos. The smell of freshly baked cake is everywhere and Ronald’s mouth starts to salivate. Families never offer any cake.

She leads him through a sliding door into the backyard.

Immediately outside the door is a deck with two picnic tables completely covered in presents of all sizes. There isn’t even enough space for anyone to sit. He has difficulty going down the stairs and even stumbles at the bottom but no one seems to notice.

There’s an oak tree in the back. It’s surrounded with white folding chairs, but no one’s sitting in them. There’s a piñata on one of the oak’s branches and there’s about a dozen kids with sticks beating it for candy. The piñata bursts open and a frantic fight for its contents ensues. It’s madness. They’re all on the floor rolling, bumping heads, pushing, yelling for candy. All the boys seem to be wearing striped polo’s with khaki shorts. The girls are all wearing the same dress, only in different colors. The parents are on the other side of the yard at the bar. Once in a while one takes a quick glance back at their child. There’s a shed by the big oak, probably a tool shed. The mother leads him to the oak tree, in the epicenter of the chairs, and starts to try and settle down the children.

“The clown’s here, everybody.”

The kids look up at the clown unamused and uninterested.

They ignore the remark and go back to what they were doing. The woman puts her hands on her hips.

“David!”

One of the kids stands up, looks up at the women and starts to whine.

“Why did you get a clown? I didn’t want a clown.”

The woman smiles and hugs the boy.

“David, you love clowns.”

The boy continues to whine. “Clowns are stupid,” he says.

As he says “stupid”, he stomps a piece of candy into the dirt.

The woman turns back to Ronald.

63

“I’m so sorry! He gets like that sometimes, but I don’t want to inhibit his personality…”

Ronald is staring off toward the mothers and when she realizes Ronald’s not paying attention, she taps him on the shoulder.

He snaps out of his daydream and looks at that same huge smile that she had at the door. He wipes his brow.

“Is right here fine?”

She smiles and tilts her head. “Perfect,” she says.

She walks away and he stares at her bottom and she strides away. Suddenly, his face twists in pain and he grabs his stomach. It is a combination of the thermos and last night. He recovers and looks up. The kids are just staring at him. His smile gets no response. He opens his duffel bag and rifles through it. He starts getting dizzy and trips backwards, just barely catching himself before he stumbles. He looks at the kids. They’re still just sitting, staring at him. He looks at the adults. They’re paying no mind to him. He gives an awkward smile to the kids and walks back to the bag. He sifts through the bag and suddenly gets hit with something in the head. He looks at the kids. There still staring, motionless, like nothing has happened. He looks around, then up at the tree. He looks down for an acorn. He searches and only finds an errant rock. He bends down and picks it up. He rubs it with his fingers, “What the…”

He gets hit with another rock. This time it’s bigger and thrown much harder. It breaks the skin. He stumbles backward and hits the ground with a soft thump. He feels the blood start to come.

It flows from his forehead, past his nose, across his lips, down to his chin, and starts to drip onto his white jumpsuit. He looks up at the children. They all have stones in their hands. He looks at the adults.

They aren’t paying attention. He begins to breathe faster.

“Hey!” All the rocks are getting thrown now. He tries to get up while simultaneously blocking the rocks with his arms. A large rock gets past his arm guard and hits him right in the forehead. He blacks out and hits the ground hard.

He’s shifting into and out of consciousness. His face is covered in blood. It’s getting in his mouth. He tastes it. The taste sickens him 64

and he tries to spit it out, but it’s coming down too quickly. As soon as he spits some out, more comes in. He feels himself getting dragged. He turns his head and sees some kids coming out of the tool shed. Two of them are carrying a very long piece of plywood, longer than he is tall. Several of them have tools in their hands, but he can’t tell what. The black circles around his vision close and he drops out of consciousness again. He wakes up. His left wrist and forearm are tied to the left side of the plywood, his right wrist and forearm to the opposite side. The string is tied tight. He feels it bruising his skin. His arms aren’t completely taught, but are given some slack. They’re positioned so his upper body resembles a V. His feet are also tied together. His head is spinning. He can’t make out the figures around him. They’re small, grey blurs barely contrasting with their surroundings. Ronald moans. He hears giggling.

It makes him cry.

“Why?” He doesn’t know if he says it or thinks it. The taste of his blood becomes unbearable. He’s spinning. His head is throbbing and he’s gagging on his own blood. He tilts his head, but he’s so disoriented he doesn’t know which position it was in the first place. It’s too much. He vomits. He feels himself get lifted. There are dozens of bodies around him, but they’re just dark shadows of things. He gets hoisted up against the oak tree. A small body climbs up the tree, takes a tool, maybe a hammer, and nails the plywood into the tree.

His legs are dangling; he’s about eight feet off the ground. Ronald’s face has a confused look on it. The blood is flowing much faster, but not as much into his mouth. The quick raising of his body gets him even dizzier and he still feels like throwing up. He feels a sharp point on one of his wrists. He looks at it. There’s a figure, maybe standing on a ladder, he doesn’t know, and it’s swinging something towards his wrist. A tool, he can’t tell what, maybe a hammer.

The sharp, intense, searing pain from the nail going through his wrist jumps through his arm, down his spine, and across his left leg. He screams in pain and when his lungs release their last bits of air, he throws up all over himself. Things are no longer blurry.

Everything is crystal clear. He sees a boy, no older than 7, smiling at him—just smiling; standing on a ladder and staring. There are so 65

many kids, all standing in a semi-circle around him. Ronald begins to cry, and then he begins to sob.

“Why?” The boy has no reaction; he just keeps smiling. He looks to his other arm. There is another girl with the same smile. She is staring intently on the nail as she swings. It connects hard, solid. He shrieks in pain again. The pain shoots through his body. He looks down. Two girls position his legs, the left leg behind his right. Next to the girl is a boy with a mallet. It’s big and wooden. It looks like one of those hammers you’d see in old cartoons.

“Please, don’t,” he says.

His face is covered in a mixture of makeup, tears, and blood.

The boy cocks back and swings hard. Ronald throws up on himself again. It’s not even vomit anymore, just bile. The nail isn’t all the way through and the cute, little boy swings again. Ronald blacks out for a second.

He wakes up. His nerves are on fire. He can take in air but he can’t exhale. He tries to lift himself up. As soon as he does, the pain spikes and he is encompassed in pain. The kids are all playing around him. He looks over to the parents. One woman is staring at him in horror, her hand over her mouth, aghast. The man next to her turns around, covers her eyes, and moves her away into the house.

All of them are moving towards the house. Most of them look back towards Ronald, more than a few with tears in their eyes.

Blackness. Ronald wakes. He sees people inside but no one seems to notice him. The blood is dry on his forehead, but it’s still dripping from his wrists and ankles. He can’t breathe. He gasps for air. He keeps lifting himself up to free his lungs. He doesn’t know how long this goes on, but it feels like hours. It’s hard lifting himself up, and he trades his pain for air. Night comes. The automated lights shine on the oak tree. The tree is completely illuminated. The party has moved into the inside and he can see all the people and the children through the sliding door. They all look happy, blissful. The lights in the house suddenly go off but are replaced with a dull, orange glow. The candles give just enough light to that people’s silhouettes can be made out. It’s starts out low but he can hear it.

“Happy Birthday to you.”

66

He cries. He cries like he has never cried before. He’s wheezing, barely breathing.

“Happy Birthday to you.”

He’s barely conscious. He stops crying.

“Happy Birthday to David.”

He takes a deep breath and raises himself.

“Happy Birthday to you.”

He’s got his air, and he’s ready to use it.

“Fu…”

Before he can finish the word, pain shoots through his body; after a quick gasp, he has no air left.

David’s mom puts the cake in front of the birthday boy.

She’s smiling. David smiles too and blows out all of his candles.

67

MR. SATURDAY NIGHT ____________________

Frank Shanley

When I was thirteen years old, I fell in love with a girl named Em-

ily Wilson who drove me crazy. We were both in the eighth grade of a progressive school in Manhattan, but since Emily was in the “A” class and I was in the “B” class, there was little communication between us. I mooned at her in the lunchroom, to no avail. She was not a sensitive girl. I know that then, but it made no difference. She was beautiful and I wanted her.

At that time, there was a thing eighth-graders did called “Going out.” “Going out” was very red-hot stuff between a guy and girl. Mostly, it called for a lot of hand-holding and silent sitting together. If that doesn’t sound too exciting, believe me, it wasn’t. But it seemed to be the only thing I could do besides mooning. I resolved to ask Emily Wilson to go out with me.

How I made trouble for myself! I knew her only by sight, and yet I resolved to have her for my own. My plan was simple. I would find her when she was alone and ask her the big question, the question of eighth grade social life.

The day after I had made up my mind, I started following her. Right away, though, things got complicated. She was always surrounded by friends. The wearying weeks went by without a single opening. Emily must never been have lonely.

Despite all the setbacks, my passion for her did not cool at all. I began to suspect that she had guessed my feelings about her and had taken steps to make my life impossible. This put me in a real state. I mean, I was really angry—but not discouraged! If, in fact, a conspiracy was at the bottom of my ruined love life, why then, 68

I would just march right in and put a stop to it. The question was, where I exactly would I march in?

The time had come to ask advice, so I turned to my trusty and knowledge able friend, Matthew Murphy. Now, Matty was only eleven years old and looked even younger, but when it came to solving problems, he was a regular Solomon. He had a look about him, a craftiness that could be positively unsetting. One night, I met Matty in a cave we used to hang out in—not a cave, really; rather, a hole underneath the Westbeth Building in the West Village. We lit our flashlights and settled back against some piled up bricks.

“Matty,” I said. “ it’s lunacy.”

“Lunacy? What’s lunacy?” he asked.

“Girls,” I replied.

“Oh,” Matty said, pausing for a moment, and then continuing. “You mean, they’re lunacy.”

See what I mean? Matty got right to the heart of a thing. I knew I’d come to the right guy.

“Matty.” I said. “I wanna ask you something.”

He gave me the go-ahead with a nod.

“If you wanted to talk with a girl, alone, I mean, and she always had her friends around, what would you do?”

“Why,” Matty looked at me curiously, “would I want to talk to a girl alone?”

“Well,” I said, squirming a little, “You know, if I wanted to ask her something, you know, private.”

“You mean,” he sctratched his chin and shot me that crafty look out of his brown eyes, “You’re gonna ask some girl out.”

There was no question in his voice. He had his finger on the thing now, and he knew it. I didn’t see any sense in denying the obvious truth. But Matty was a good friend, and after a moment’s pause, he silently offered me a caramel. I took it, and we both did nothing but chew for a few minutes. Then he asked me who the girl was.

“Emily Wilson,” I answered.

A look of real pain came over his face.

“Why?” he said, “do you want to get complicated with that?”

But of course, I had no answer.

69

Matty would discuss the matter no further. He felt I had wasted his time, so I went home that night without the advice I had hoped for. Lying in bed, I looked out my window at the orange streetlight as it blared down onto the empty streets. I became annoyed at the kind of presentation this light gave. I felt alone, and sleep wasn’t possible with the constant glare of this unforgiving brightness.

“Oh, love,” I thought. God, I was moony. I decided that the next day would be the day, no matter what.

Again, my plan was simple. (So I thought.) I would walk up to Emily in the middle of her horde of her protectors and coolly say, “Pardon me, but may I talk to you for a minute?” And it would be as easy as that—no complications.

The next morning was Saturday, so finding her was no trouble. She and her army hung out on the handball courts by school every Saturday. Don’t ask me why; they didn’t play handball. When I got there, I couldn’t do it. There were too many girls around and I was embarrassed to approach such an uneasy conglomerate. I just stood near the courts, out of sight, and mooned. I felt trapped and helpless.

I might have spent the whole day like that, except for this girl, Rachel Ski. Rachel’s last name wasn’t really Ski, but it was long and Polish and the very end of it was “—Ski.” She’d been in my class since the second grade. She came over to me and said hello and how’s this and that and isn’t the homework hard; the usual routine. Finally, she asked me what I was doing by myself.

I said I was just hanging out, nothing special, but she wouldn’t let it go like that. She was digging, you know, the kind that is personal, but I didn’t realize it. After a while, I began to feel like a yo-yo telling her I was just standing there doing nothing, and suddenly I found myself telling her I was just standing there doing nothing, and suddenly I found myself telling Rachel that I was waiting because I wanted to ask Emily Wilson a question! Well, that was just what Rachel was waiting for.

“Oh,” she said as she brushed her golden blonde hair behind her ears. “Emily’s over there with all the girls. Do you want me to get her?”

I said I didn’t want to bother her.

70

“Well, do you want me to ask her something for you?”

“It could wait.” I looked down at my dirty old shoes and rubbed the tips of them together. “And besides, it was something personal. Rachel’s face lighted up with excitement and immediately looked down at me.

“What is it? Do you want to ask her out?”

I tried to say no as my face turned bright red, but I guess I just wasn’t very convincing.

Rachel said, “Don’t worry. I’ll handle this matter. You stay here and I’ll be right back.” And she was gone before I could say a word. She headed straight for Emily, and a crowd of nosey-looking girls closed in behind her. There was nothing I could do but stand and wait alone. I figured that Rachel was telling Emily that I wanted to talk to her. It wouldn’t have looked good to run away, so I decided not to yet.

Five minutes went by, ten minutes. I rehearsed the question over and over: Will you go out with me? Will you go out with me? But what if she didn’t answer either “yes” or “no” but just said “where?” I began to sweat a little.

Rachel Ski left the girls and started to leave the park, just as if I weren’t still standing there. I ran over and pulled her to one side.

“Hey,” I announced. I was getting pretty upset. “What did you say to Emily?”

“What do you think I said?” Mary replied indignantly. “I asked her if she wanted to go out with you.”

My heart sank to my stomach and I became right red again.

“What!” God, I was mad.

“Listen boy, do a person a favor and see what it gets you.”

I felt like every girl on the handball court had the screen rights to the comedy of my life. Trying not to look around, or to do anything to give anybody one more chuckle on me, I questioned Rachel.

“So…what’d you say?” putting it as cool as possible.

She threw an on-the-spot fit, right out of the blue. She jumped up and down and made noises like she had never been so exasperated with anybody before in her life, and then she shouted about how there were some things I’d have to do for myself. I can tell you, 71

I’ve had better days. Once I broke my leg. That was a better day.

So I went home. I hadn’t given up, oh no; love will find a way. But it does need some short rests. I took Sunday and Monday off , telling my mom that I was sick. On Tuesday, I was off on the hunt again, at least, I thought I was.

Tuesday at noon, when Emily Wilson joined the lunch line, I was waiting.

“Hello,” I said in a smooth voice. I was cool now. I was premeditated.

“I would like to introduce myself. My name is Martin Fisk.”

She reddened, but said nothing. So I took her part, too.

“And your name is Emily Wilson.”

She nodded cautiously.

Right when I had her there like putty in my hands, this little guy jumped ahead of me on the line and plopped himself between Emily and me. Was there no end to my bad luck? I was about to say something when, to my surprise, Emily spoke up.

“Joe,” she said to this guy. I guess he was in her class, “I want you to meet Martin, uh, Fisk.”

I managed to say hello. Then without any warning, Emily took my hand. I was so happy I felt nuts. I felt like my arms were on fire. She was touching my hand!

“Martin,” she said, “I’d like you to meet Joe. He’s the guy I go out with.”

I went home for lunch.

That was not the end of it, though. Not for me. If this guy Joe had been taller, I might’ve been willing to forget the whole thing.

But he was shorter than I was, significantly shorter. He was shorter than all the people in the lunchroom. I decided Emily was having a brief fling. It couldn’t last. I decided to wait because these things took a while.

For six months, I waited. I went for long walks. I practiced being melancholy. At night, I would stand in the shadow of a tree across from Emily’s house and gaze longingly at a warm lighted window I had for no reason at all decided was hers. At least it was better than staring at that orange light out my window. I grew silent, and often hummed bits of sad old tunes. I was bittersweet and bored 72

to death.

Much to my amusement, Emily and Joe seemed to get on famously. They didn’t argue. In fact, they didn’t do much of anything.

They sat with their arms around each other’s waists; sometimes they walked. This lack of action really bothered me. I didn’t see how much they could ever get up the momentum to call it quits.

At the end of six months, I stopped my waiting. It obviously had no effect on Emily. For two weeks, I racked my brain for a new scheme. There had to be a way! I was determined.

Then came the solution, not from me, but from Providence.

In this case, Providence was a small invitation. It read: Mr. & Mrs. Ralph Wilson Request The Pleasure Of Your Attendance At a BIRTHDAY PARTY! For Their daughter Emily Wilson This was the answer! What a sweet opportunity to prove myself the better man! And from the look of that practice wedding invitation, it had come not a moment too soon.

The invitation had been sent to me. I mean, Emily Wilson wanted old Number One at her birthday. This was the turning of the tide I had waited for. I was going to win.

But of course, how should I handle such things? I went for a walk to ponder the question. I couldn’t dance into her heart, because I couldn’t dance. I couldn’t stand around all night and run this guy Joe down either. That would be sour for everyone. No, I had to do something that would make me look big-hearted, and at the same time, leave my rival out in the cold. I was so busy scheming that I walked dead into a parking meter. Pain rushed through my body. I slid to the ground, holding my head. Things just weren’t working out. I started to get up, and somebody grabbed my arm to help me.

It was Rachel Ski. 73

“Rachel.” I said. “I walked into a pole.”

“Yeah, I saw.” She put her hands over her pink lips to mask her giggling. I remember I was mad at her.

“Stay away, you creep,” I said. “You’re nothing but bad luck to me. You ruined me. You ruined my stickin’ life.”

“Aww,” Rachel said, letting go of my arm. “Poor Martin.

Doesn’t want anybody messing around with his smelly old feelings.”

I said nothing in response to her amusement in embarrassing me once again.

Rachel said, “Are you going to the party?”

My heart sank. “What party?” I asked, hoping that somewhere in the crummy neighborhood someone else was giving a party.

“To Emily Wilson’s birthday, silly. She invited the whole eighth grade.”

So much for Old Number One. I punched Rachel in the arm.

“Hey Martin,” she said, rubbing her arm.

“What’d you do that for?”

“For ruining my stinking life,” I shouted. Then I ran away down the block. It was a bad year for me losing control.

After walking around for a while, though, quite a long while, I started to buck up. So what if Emily Wilson hadn’t invited me specifically? She hadn’t left me out. I still had a chance. Despite my continual rotten luck and that lousy meaningless invitation, I would make a go for it.

And what’s more, I got a pretty good idea. What if I gave Emily Wilson a really nice present? I mean, a really nice present.

Something a lot nicer than whatever Joe got her. That would put me in solid. I’d been stockpiling some cash in my drawer at home, enough to get something impressive.

I headed home at top speed.

Fifty-four dollars and seventy three cents, exactly. That’s how much I had, all together. Now, I know a certain amount of money never means the same thing two days in a row, so let me just say this: Fifty-four dollars and seventy three cents was big bucks. Very much more money than one eighth-grader spent on another. But it 74

was love, and it was war.

I went to Macy’s and I went to stores I didn’t know how to pronounce. I went to a million little stores and got mothered by a million old salesladies that were too distracted in my “cute” cause than my important task at hand. My expedition was a complete washout. I had to get the right thing, but the right thing was not to be had. I hobbled home on my sore and tender feet.

All the rest of the week, I spent my free time looking for the present. I couldn’t get Emily Wilson out of my head. It wasn’t allowed for me at the time. Then came Friday, it was the night of the party, so it was my last chance. But that didn’t really shake me. I am one of the great last minute shoppers. You’ll see me out there wandering through department stores on Christmas Eve. That’s when I do my best shopping. I don’t know, I guess I’m just inspired by panic.

Sure enough, it was Friday, just before I had to be home for dinner, that I found it. It was in a shop called White’s Religious Articles. A thin little cross on a fire chain is all I saw. Beautiful, elegant, yet pious. Just the thing. It came in both silver and gold, and even though the silver was the right price, I just had to have the gold.

Love and Emily Wilson had driven me crazy.

I ran home to beg another dollar and fifteen cents from my mother, which wasn’t easy, believe me. I then ran back to the store, but I still didn’t have enough. I had forgotten about the tax. Stupid tax. I ran home again to scrape through all my drawers and pockets until thankfully I came up with the needed change. Asking my mother for more money again wouldn’t have been an option. Then I rushed back to the store. No one had sneaked in ahead of me. I bought the gold cross. They packed it up in a nice little box for me and wrapped it in fine tissue that smelt so perfect.

My mother was pretty grouchy when I got home, because first I’d borrowed all that money, and then I held up dinner. But she didn’t stay grouchy for long. I think she spotted me for the demented Romeo that I was. She wasn’t going to get in the middle of it. Later, I got ready for the party, and my mother always got a big kick out of seeing me all dressed up in a suit with hair gel hardening in my hair.

She said I looked like, “Mr. Saturday Night.” I pointed out that it 75

was Friday, but didn’t pay any attention. And then I and my perfect present for the perfect situation stepped dapperly off to victory.

It was a boring party, the kind where all the girls teach each other new dances and the boys just stand around in huddles and lie to each other about things they haven’t done. About the only exciting that that happened was that Rachel Ski tripped and fell down some steps, but she didn’t have the decency to cry. I just sat around and waited for Emily to open her presents.

After about a million years, somebody said, “Time to open the presents!” and Emily said she would. Everybody gathered around the table. As she opened each present, she passed it around, and all the girls made “ooooo and awww” noises. I started to get a little scared, you know. I mean, everybody was going to see what I got Emily, not just Emily Wilson, and the idea made me a little uncomfortable. After all, it was sort of personal.

Then I saw it. She had my present in her hand. I felt my heart start to pound. She undid the wrapping and opened the box. Her face lit up. I could tell already, even before she said anything, she loved it. She looked at the card, and smiled a little smile to herself that I noticed. I felt warm all over and prepared to receive her thanks, maybe a little kiss even! And then, before I knew what was going on, she was hugging that guy Joe who is shorter than me and Emily and they were passing around the present. I grabbed the box from the girl next to and looked at the gift. It was a little cross, the same as mine, except in silver.

All I could think was, what a dope. Blowing all that money and going into debt was the only outcome of this. Joe shopped at White’s Religious Articles too!? Luck like mine is rare. I began to feel embarrassed at myself.

Now Emily started to pick up my present. When she opened the box and saw what it contained, her face clouded. Joe’s face clouded. I, of course, had clouded my face in advance from exposing my red face.

The party broke up shortly afterwards since the “important” part was over. I began my walk home alone. I wasn’t terribly popular. A lot of people told me they thought I’d ruined Emily’s party.

Somebody told me that you’re not supposed to give a girl a cross un76

less you are Going Out with her, a rule. I’ve never heard that before in my life. Who makes these rules anyways?

I hadn’t walked more than half a block towards home when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. It was Rachel Ski, and her brown eyes were filled with tears.

“What’s wrong, Rachel? Are you okay?”

“I thought it was a lovely present,” she said.

It was nice of her to say that to me.

77

SANDSTORM ____________________

Demetrios Sofides

Arkenan ambassador Ko Growanu sauntered slowly through the

dusty streets of Causa, a human outpost in the desert. Causa was a new settlement, and while its human inhabitants would still need some time to get used to living in such harsh conditions, Growanu felt perfectly at home.

Then again, in a sense, he was at home.

These lands had once belonged to the arkena, a race of short, brown hominids who cherished their elders and praised their gods.

However, about a hundred and fifty years ago, a young ruler had seized the throne and cast out the old values of honor and trust, replacing them instead with a burning desire to simply stay alive—by any means necessary. Rebellion broke out, and slowly but surely the arkena fell from whatever glory they had once possessed as their territory rapidly shrank in size.

All but one of the various races of Panmondus respected the “holiness” of this lost territory, opting not to build on it so as to preserve the memory of the Old Arkena’s struggle. The one exception, of course, was the vain and foolish humans, who felt it would be perfectly acceptable to drive their hulking, sinful machines across these sandy plains of former glory, and build a city: Causa.

Beneath the long, violet scarf that concealed most of his face, Growanu muttered a prayer to Ureya, the goddess of justice. In this mission of retribution, he’d certainly need her blessing to succeed.

Soon thereafter, the ambassador stopped and looked up at the building that stood before him. A sign above the door read, in two human languages as well as arkenan, “CENTRAL DEFENSE FA78

CILITY.”

Growanu raised his leathery arm to the door and knocked four times, a traditional arkenan herald of trouble to come.

But the humans wouldn’t know that, he chuckled to himself.

In a few seconds, a static crackle burst through an intercom module next to the door, startling Growanu. Following this cacophony came a more understandable noise: a human’s voice.

“Central Defense Facility of the human outpost of Causa,” the invisible speaker droned. “State your business.”

“It is I, the ambassador Ko Growanu,” the ambassador replied. After a few seconds of pause, he added, “By the power vested in me by the Old Arkena who once traversed these sands, I wish to…investigate your facilities.”

“Oh! Right, right,” the human laughed. “My apologies, ambassador! I, um…I hadn’t been made aware of your arrival.” There was a click, and the main doors slid open. “You can come right in.

I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

Without a word more, Growanu stepped through the doors, which closed behind him. After a bit of walking, he entered a grand circular room—and from beneath his darkened goggles, his eyes widened. Lining the walls were all manner of arkenan artifacts: ancient carvings, ancient tools, and- to Growanu’s great interest- a rack filled with ancient weapons. The ambassador gravitated towards the latter exhibit, running his fingers along the glass restricting the weapons from reaching his hands.

It was only the topmost weapon, however, that really caught his attention. The Old Arkena had called it garu gro’maweho— “weapon of the wicked”—because its capacities were so destructive that any man who chose to wield it must have had a soul blacker than pitch. Working similarly to an ancient rendition of a chainsaw, the garu gro’maweho featured a massive wheel that was covered in spikes. When the nearby crank was turned, the wheel spun with a deadly speed. All of this was attached onto a wooden sleeve padded with fur, for maximum comfort.

As Growanu studied all the exhibits in the lobby, he heard footsteps pounding quickly towards him. He turned, his hand instinctually reaching down to a pouch on his leg that held his knife.

When he saw that his visitor was a harmless human—presumably 79

the human who’d spoken to him earlier—the ambassador moved his hand down further, bending over to scratch his calf. Smoothness had always been Growanu’s forte—so why not use it now? He didn’t want anyone thinking that his intents were bad.

“Hello, ambassador!” the human announced, shaking his hand. “My name is Sergeant Brunswick, I’ve…been appointed here to make sure that nothing goes wrong until we’re all done with construction and we’ve elected a mayor to take my place.”

“Mm,” Growanu muttered. “You’re quite a busy people, aren’t you?”

“I’d say so. We’ve been working very diligently recently… you know…setting everything up, getting everyone together…it’s hard work.”

“Uh-huh…” While the sergeant was very serious about what he was saying, Growanu’s mind was obviously elsewhere. “This is a very nice collection you have arranged here,” he stated at last.

“Thank you, ambassador,” Brunswick replied, turning around and beginning to walk deeper into the building, with Growanu soon following behind. “We tried to preserve some of the Old Arkenan memory of this place by building that…little sanctuary back there in the lobby.”

“Oh? Preservation was your motive?”

“Yes…um…do you see a problem with that?”

Growanu laughed. “No! No, no, there’s no problem, it’s just that…if your motive had been to preserve, then would it not have made sense to build your city elsewhere?”

“I…I beg your pardon, ambassador?”

“Come now, sergeant, you look like an intelligible man.

Surely you know what ever so important event in Old Arkenan culture occurred on the very ground we stand upon?”

“I can’t say I do. In fact, I can’t recall anyone at all mentioning it.” By then, the duo had entered an elevator. The sergeant pulled out a keycard from somewhere on his person, punched it into a slot, and then pressed a button. The doors slid closed.

“Well, then,” Growanu growled. “Let me educate you: in the general area of this city is where Hahna, our glorious mother goddess, planted the seeds of creation that created the arkena. I wouldn’t 80

hold you to that, though- you humans don’t partake in our faith, anyway—but even still, you should know that there once stood here a great and fortified temple to the gods of one of our nation’s former enemies.”

“A temple, you say? Wow…how did they leave that out? I apologize, I was not made aware—” Growanu waved his hand, dismissing Brunswick. “Please, hold your empathy until the end, sergeant. The complete and total destruction of this temple—and our foes that dwelled within- was a great, great moment in our people’s history. It proved to all that our mother goddess smiled upon us. And so we declared that this ground should never be desecrated, for it would displease great Hahna to do so.”

A worried look crept across Brunswick’s face, and he looked down at the floor. “Oh, my…I can see why your people would be disappointed with our project,” Brunswick uttered, “but I assure you, there’s nothing that can be done to stop it! It’s already been built, it’s done, it’s over!”

The elevator doors opened, and the two continued forward in their walk. At the end of the hall was the one window the ambassador had seen in the entire facility. It cast a grim light on their equally grim conversation.

“We called the site of this victory Kanto’kan K’gwakto‘greatest triumph,’” Growanu boomed on, ignoring the sergeant’s apologies. “Are you sure you can understand why my people might be upset at what you humans have done?”

“Yes!” the sergeant exclaimed, taking out his keycard. “Look, the only form of compensation I can offer you is purely monetary. If you’re not going to accept that, then you’ll have to accept that I’ve done all I can!”

“You’ve done nothing!” Growanu roared. “And you offer us your money, your mere scraps of metal. We cannot be moved like you foolish humans…you lust for money and power but ignore the ancient pride of those who came before you.” The sergeant replied wordlessly: quickly sliding his keycard through a slot in the nearest door, he pushed Growanu to the floor, ran inside, and sealed the entrance.

81

The ambassador was disgusted. Just like a human, he thought.

He tried to see through some of the thick glass on the door, but all detail had been reduced to a pale haze of fuzziness. Then, suddenly, something pierced the fog—a red light, blinking on and off.

Before Growanu had any time to think about what it was, a loud siren slashed through the silence, a siren that could mean only one thing: something is here that wants to kill us!

“Eh’ i’mah!” Growanu cursed. “You idiot!” On second thought, however, perhaps the ambassador had been a little aggressive. If he could get into that room, which was obviously some seat of control to the city, then he could still salvage the mission!

The only problem was that, as far as he could see, Growanu had absolutely no means of getting through the door.

As he thought of a way, the elevator opened on the other end of the hall, releasing a squad of armored humans. They each carried a shield and a large, strange gun of some sort that eerily glowed neon-blue.

Growanu wasn’t sure what the guns were, but he figured that they could easily take down the door. For now, though, he was more focused on what the guns could do to him if he wasn’t careful.

“Freeze!” one of the guards said in the imperious, swaggering manner that only humans could successfully accomplish. “Put your hands over your head right now!”

Growanu refused to comply. When the guard saw that the ambassador hadn’t reacted, he raised his strange-looking gun and squeezed the trigger. A blue ball of energy hummed to life in the barrel. A second later, it ripped through the air, manifesting as a crackling bolt of lightning that burned the floor at Growanu’s feet.

The ambassador looked down in shock.

“Yeah,” the guard smirked. “These babies are called Tesla rifles. And if you don’t listen to us, you’re gonna end up like that little patch on the floor there by your feet.” It was a legitimate threat; where the bolt had hit, the tiled floor cracked into burnt powder for about a foot and a half in all directions. Growanu quickly put his hands over his head. But then, he had an idea.

“You cannot truly threaten me with your weapons,” he said.

“I sure can, you dirty animal,” the guard stabbed, walking 82

closer to Growanu. “We just did.”

“But think about the reverberations that would occur from the fulfillment of your plan. Striking down an ambassador is an insult in my culture. If I die, or if I’m even hurt, my people will react in a way that will not be…favorable to you.”

The guards were stunned. They hadn’t considered this. However, rather that think about it, one of the shorter guards came to the front, laughingly shoving Growanu down to the floor. He landed with a thud.

“What are you doing?” Growanu asked as he got up.

“Well, I ’aint gonna kill ya,” the short guard chuckled, his accent reeking of apparent stupidity, “but I might play around wit’ ya a bit.” He extended his arms to push Growanu again- but this time, the ambassador wasn’t going to be insulted. He grabbed the short guard’s right arm and pulled it behind him. As the short guard grunted out a “Huh?” of confusion, the ambassador unsheathed his knife and slashed, creating a wide scarlet arc that spread diagonally across his victim’s chest.

As the short guard looked down, screaming at Growanu’s handiwork, the other three guards pointed their humming weapons at the ambassador. Quickly, without thinking, he raised up the body of the short guard. As the other guards fired, the three bolts from their weapons met on their compatriot, irrevocably scorching the poor fellow. Growanu dropped the guard’s body; he had no use for it anymore. However, his corpse was not the only thing he had with defensive potential.

As blood and ash spread out onto the floor, Growanu took the guard’s rifle and pointed it forward, pressing hard on the trigger. He hadn’t expected the recoil it gave, and so he flew backwards about two feet. The bolt his weapon generated flew with him, cutting out chunks of the ceiling that formed a small wall of rubble between him and the guards.

Growanu held his feet firmly in the floor this time, and pulled the trigger again, but there was nothing but a weak puff of smoke.

That wasn’t good- he had no idea how to reload a Tesla rifle! As he scoured the gun for some sort of ammunition cartridge, the other three guards charged ahead, easily vaulting the wall, and fired three 83

bolts from their Tesla rifles in unison at Growanu. Dropping the hopeless gun, the ambassador ran ahead, breaking into a slide and barely avoiding the attack. He kept running, grabbing a metal pole that had fallen from his first unsuccessful attempt at an attack, and stopped at the door that Sergeant Brunswick had disappeared into.

The red light was still blinking from beyond the glass.

Growanu heard a loud, threefold hum from behind him.

He turned around—the guards were ready to fire once again- and stabbed the pole into the door. As the guards attacked again, their guns spitting out electricity, Growanu ducked. The lightning hit the pole- and, as we all know, metals conduct electricity. In this case, the electricity was so powerful that it blew down the door, finally revealing the sergeant.

Brunswick turned around, screaming. Growanu ran towards him, swerving around to his back and pressing the blade of his knife against the sergeant’s neck Just then, in came the guards. When they saw the grappled Sergeant Brunswick, they stopped dead in their tracks. For a good seven or eight seconds, there was no noise but the ever-present siren.

Finally, Growanu spoke: “Drop your weapons now, or the sergeant meets his end.” The guards were so shocked that they obeyed, placing their Tesla rifles neatly before them. Growanu may have been rough, but he was true to his word: as soon as the guns hit the floor, he removed the knife from Brunswick’s neck. Panting in disbelief, the stupefied sergeant walked over to the guards. Before they could even try to escape, Growanu picked up one of the Tesla rifles on the floor, pointing it in their general direction. “Don’t move,” he instructed them. “I shall require but a minute or so of your time…after that, you are free to enjoy what remains of your burning city.”

The ambassador chuckled, a stark contrast to the panicking murmurs of the foursome in the doorway. After searching the sergeant’s control board, he found a radio. Putting the headphones on, he heard screams, worried cries, and a raspy voice that screamed, “Brunswick! Damn it, Brunswick, can you read me? What the hell is going on in there?” Growanu ignored them all, switching the frequency until he heard the slow beating of drums.

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“Hermeho’regh eh an’yto hah?” Growanu asked, grinning. “<Can you hear me?>” “Growanu! Eh kana!” a voice boomed back. “Eh nah’regh truono? <Are you ready?>” “Hah nah truono. Eh’nehe ne? <I’m ready. Are you?>” “Ahuh! <Yes!>” “Ni’kanam!” Growanu screamed, raising his fist in the air.

“Eh’nehe nahawio ha’meh gro’menomae! Ver’k’gwakto!”

“Ver’k’gwakto!” the other voice agreed. There was a ripping noise, and contact was disconnected. Growanu took off the headphones, turned around, and walked outside. His frightened audience cowered as he passed them, saying casually, “That would be all.

Enjoy your day.” Within a minute or so, he’d vanished from the top floor of the building.

“Men,” the sergeant asked nervously, “does anyone speak Arkenan?”

“I took it for a bit in college,” one of the guards sheepishly answered.

“Could you understand any of that last bit? I can’t say for sure, but I think that’s where most of the juice of the conversation was.”

“Oh, sure…well…” the guard stuttered. He drew graphs in the air with his fingers, trying to recall precious bits of language from whatever part of his mind they’d been buried in. Finally, he answered: “I think it went something along the lines of, ‘Burn down’… city of…wait, no…right! Sorry, ‘burn down the humans’ city in the name of victory.’” The guard smiled, proud of his translation. Then, he realized that what he’d said was going to happen, and the smile was replaced with a ghastly countenance.

“Oh, my…” Brunswick muttered. “That isn’t good at all…”

And though the sergeant couldn’t have seen it, a group of twenty rugged, black arkenan tanks had rolled up to the walls of Causa. With a giant, powerful scream from the ambassador, who was on his way to the exit of the distraught outpost, they fired in unison twenty seeds of death that hit the ground and blossomed with a fiery force that ate up half the town.

The war had begun.

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THE COMPETITOR ____________________

Michael N. Connors, III

“Toil and risk are the price of glory; but it is a lovely thing to live with courage and die leaving an everlasting fame.”

—Alexander the Great

When I set off for a walk, I hear my praises sung through every

street and alleyway in the city. My name carries from the markets to the forum to the houses and generates with its mention an awe and respect unparalleled among all the other competitors of my most sacred sport. There are those who worship me as a god; there are those who say I am invincible, indomitable. There are even those who say I have no fear. As for this, there is no greater lie.

In youth, I was cursed with the worst of nightmares. They made me dread the dark; they haunted me yet in the light. They pursued me, always and everywhere, inescapable, pervading my thoughts—hideous shadows that would not abandon me to my sanity.

These dreams stayed with me for a reason. They all concerned my deepest fear, that specter which loomed over me at all times. They concerned the cessation of existence—the death I so longed to avoid. My greatest terror was manifested in a nightly torment.

To the boy, the young man, who often believes himself to be invincible—as I was and as all healthy men have been—death is not a typical worry, all the less so a consuming paranoia. For what youth, dreaming of his aspirations and his endeavors to come, even allows that pall to enter into his consciousness? Who would desire 86

it to?

It was my experience that catalyzed this torturous aberration from the norm of the psyche. The murder of my father was the affecting factor. Looking at his corpse, formerly so full of strength and vitality, drained of blood and life and lying on the pyre, transformed me in unfathomable ways. He had been slain in a robbery—bandits who had chosen to ransack our home had killed him when he stood for my mother’s honor. It was so pointless, so seemingly random.

We weren’t a wealthy family, or a powerful family, or a family that put on either semblance; we weren’t even, on the other end of the pendulum’s course, a family that would appear an easy target. Yet it had happened; the fickleness of the Fates, who had heretofore acted toward us with goodwill, was now made evident to me.

That corpse, that formerly great man, lying there defeated, left me disturbed. Was he in an afterlife of sorts? There was no way to know, and the conscious, distressing truth lurking in my mind was that the underworld was naught but a fairy tale. At that moment, for me, he was dead—gone. There was no doubting it, no hoping for something grand and mysterious and spiritual.

And no one would remember his name.

In less than a century, he would be wholly and truly reduced to nothing, not even a legacy. I imagined the same happening to myself... and was unavoidably driven mad. I had hopes for myself, goals for myself, desires for myself, before that day—and all these things I now knew rested on that thinnest of icy surfaces which was the favor of Fortune. Thus the nightmares ensued. And my temperament swung from one extreme to another, back and forth like an oar cutting through the water, from the exceedingly happy, in those moments when I made up my mind to enjoy life as it endures, to the most oppressively morose, in those moments when I determined that nothing mattered and nothing would matter, as all would be ash by the end.

It was out of that period of uncertainty, and the immense reflections which took place during, that I decided what I would do.

I could not become immortal—but I could take my destiny into my own hands. I could fight that my name might live on forever and ever. At least then, even if I failed in my quest, I would not have 87

resigned myself so utterly to that end which had been allotted me.

What was to happen to my legacy in years to come was to be under my own supervision.

Such was the reason I decided to compete. Beginning wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t easy. First, in a personally driven regimen, I pushed myself to the very limits of my physical capacity, fighting and running and performing heavy labor for the sheer purposes of augmenting my own powers. When I deemed myself ready enough so as to not be an embarrassment to my own name, I arranged to meet and associate myself with the right individuals to enter the world I now looked forward to. Before long, I had found someone who could well and truly bring me into the gamesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;someone who would assist me diligently, and in the end give me the ability to join in at the very highest level of the sport. He was a former centurion named Marcus, who had left the legions for a more lucrative profession: he was now a career trainer, with the reputation of producing the toughest contenders in all of Italy. He was the man who was going to make me a true gladiator.

I thought what I had done to prepare beforehand had been adequate, but it was nothing compared to what Marcus put us new recruits through. I stated previously that I pushed myself to the limits of my physical capacity; he smashed those limits, hurled me past them and pushed me yet further. The next half-year, during which I underwent the readying for my first venture before the crowd, was, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll wager, among the most grueling voluntary trials-by-fire of human history, to rival the upbringing of a Spartan of old. I will not go into the details in this telling, but let it suffice to say that by the end, I was a new man. I had been entirely battered and hardened, molded into something new, as happens to molten steel in its shaping.

Upon what might be called my graduation, I was sent to the house of Quintus Cornelius Blasio, a rich patrician with a taste for the games. Although he owned or paid all of us, a local knight named Manius Vitruvius managed our quarters and made certain that we stayed in shape. He, like my former trainer, Marcus, had been in the military, having served as a Quaestor for the Emperor.

Vitruvius was a hard man, and a practical man; and while he lacked the flair or panache of Blasio, he nonetheless garnered the more re88

spect from us gladiators for his character, as he also lacked Blasio’s excesses—many preferred to call themselves Vitruvius’ men, rather than to be thought of as those of the licentious Blasio. Vitruvius, of course, as a man of antique honor who held the order set by the ancestors above all else, would hear none of it, and went so far as to give lashings to those men who persisted in acknowledging a wrongful master.

It was with my stay in the camp on the outskirts of the Blasio villa, which was well-ordered as any military garrison thanks to Vitruvius’ management, that my friendship with Vercingetorix the Gaul originated. We were assigned as sparring partners in practice, and that was where the tremendous, bearded, well-muscled barbarian told me that Vercingetorix was not, in fact, his real name—instead, he had been forced to drop that designation given him by birth, and refer to himself rather by that of the famed king whom the immortal Caesar had brought back in chains. Vercingetorix took it as a point of pride that he was a fine enough gladiator that Romans would associate him with such a hero of his people, and thus refused to tell me his actual name (for fear that it might subordinate, by adherence, his adopted persona). I, personally, would have been indignant had someone tried to strip me of my identity in such a fashion; but, alas, I am a free man, a proud Roman citizen—a Gallic slave’s take would naturally be far separated from my own.

During my term under Blasio, I began to grow quite fond of Vercingetorix. He was, first and foremost, an immensely talented gladiator, capable of matching me in all aspects but speed, and surpassing me in strength due to his physique—in fact, we were considered and later referred to officially as the foremost sparring pair in the house. Aside from this obvious benefit of maintaining him as a companion was the question of his nature, which was irrefutably noble. Although he was of poor intelligence, he was modest and of good humor, and understood his place in a world under Roman dominion—for although he wielded a base physical superiority over me due to size, he nonetheless yielded to me as the more dominant partner in our friendship due to my status in society, something which I appreciated greatly. * 89

After roughly a month of waiting in the Blasio house, the time finally came to present my prowess to the crowds. I already had a great deal of favor going my way—a Roman gladiatorial volunteer was the standard hero for any audience of citizens. I simply had to prove that I had the talent to vindicate the crowd in its support.

My first match was a dual match, with me fighting alongside Vercingetorix to claim victory over two Thracian slaves of the tremendously successful Samnite businessman Gnaeus Pontius Cominius. The Thracians were supposed to be good—very good—and had garnered a reputation for unrivalled celerity of foot. We knew they’d be tough to beat—so did our master—and that was why it was me and Vercingetorix taking them on.

As we waited in the folds for the gates to be open, and I drew lines in the sand to clear my mind for what was to come, Vercingetorix touched me lightly on the shoulder. I turned to him, and saw for the first time a hint of doubt in his eyes. It was for him, as it was for me, the first real competition.

“Yes, Gaul?”

He looked at me for a moment, seemingly searching for words, before finally choking out, through what seemed to be tears, “They’re like us.”

My initial reaction was to stare dully at him, and I was tempted to dismiss him as a buffoon. But somehow a chord was struck in me, and I felt a pang of real sympathy—not for the Thracians and what I planned to do to them, but rather, for Vercingetorix and the conflict he was now facing. After all, it occurred to me in that moment that while I had signed on for this and had no moral qualms, Vercingetorix had been offered no choice. He was being forced, in essence, to commit murder—not because, as with me, he wanted to attain greatness and glory, but simply because, as he had told me time and time again, he wanted to be free, to return to his family.

Sheathing my short-sword for a moment, I turned to my comrade. Dropping the usual pretext of appropriate formality and rigidity while in the company of others, I embraced him. I knew that there was nothing to be said that would ameliorate his concerns, and I knew that I could not disprove by logic or even rhetoric what he had said—they were, indeed, like us. I simply hoped that his 90

remembrance that I was out there with him, at once at his back and reliant on him for support, would help dissuade his concerns.

After letting go, I turned my eyes to his. “For that wife and child of yours,” I said forcefully. He nodded, a fresh resolve in his heart, and my worries for him—purely based on the grounds that he might falter, of course—were dissuaded.

A moment later, the time had come. The gate opened, and into the glaring sunlight we stepped, immediately bombarded by the thousand cries and jeers of the crowd. I was at first intimidated, and Vercingetorix looked fully traumatized, but neither of us gave noticeable pause as we moved to the center. From the other side of the stadium, I saw the seasoned Thracians advancing, clearly unfazed by the preliminary attack on the senses.

When the magistrate gave word to begin, the Thracians immediately set upon us—and I do not contest that their skill was great. They moved quickly as lightning, and did not lack in strength what they displayed in speed. However, they were missing an element possessed by myself and Vercingetorix—they did not act as two men become one, fully immersed in one another in spirit and joined in action, fighting methodically and in perfect unison. They made mistake after mistake, and soon I had found several openings to inflict relatively minor wounds on our opponents, with Vercingetorix acting perpetually as the impenetrable defensive aspect of the equation. As seconds passed, I left more and more marks on their flesh. One of the Thracians, believing that it would be better to act boldly than to let this game go on and die of sheer loss of blood, lunged – and was cut down by a massive blow from Vercingetorix’s broadsword. The other I pursued in a red cloud of battle-inspired rage across the sands, before finally, brutally hacking him to pieces against the wall.

The crowd, which had gone deathly silent during the bladeplay, as though in religious reverence, now erupted into exuberant delight. Steeped in gore, I raised my hands up and let loose a guttural howl. The men, women and children shrieked in savage ecstasy.

Fates be damned, I thought to myself, drunk on the victory, I’ll conquer death yet.

Only after my indulgence of my own exhilaration did I turn 91

back to the barbarian, standing silently over the body of the Thracian he had slain, water running down his cheeks. * I was eventually transported by my growing fame away from the house of Blasio, and from my friend, Vercingetorix, to the city of Rome itself. I was to fight the very best of the best in the greatest arena ever built—the Coliseum. What pride I felt! What glory I would attain! To move the crowds, to manipulate them with every stroke of my blade—and to revel in their reveling after—I could only imagine!

Upon arrival at the Coliseum, I was put through yet another training course, although this one, I must confess, was inferior to that which my old trainer Marcus had designed, and I completed it with the greatest of ease. Looking about at the youngsters before me, all of whom possessed the flair to entertain but lacked the skill and discipline to truly do battle, I was dismayed. If this was what material I was to be set against, I had faced tougher under Blasio’s dominion.

To my great relief, I realized that these soft youngsters were brought in for the great staged battles, and never actually marred that holy ground of single and dual combat, that category of fighting that broke free of the label of entertainment and declared itself art.

Those who partook in my event were truly the best of the best, and at the Coliseum I encountered the fiercest and most varied opponents conceivable, from Africans to Spaniards to Parthians to Britons, I encountered contenders from every race and creed and of every color and style imaginable. Some fought because they excelled in it; some fought for glory; some fought simply to break away from their chains.

The latter was the case, I was told after defeating the reigning champion, with the new contender I was to be placed opposite in defense of my title. He had never competed in the Coliseum before, but he had established himself a reputation in the arenas of the north of Italy second only to my own. Knowing that this full well could be the most difficult fight of my life, the night before it was to transpire 92

I put myself to sleep early. There would be no risking a mistake on the morrow. * When I awoke, I found an ornately dressed slave hovering over my bed. The slave said I had been summoned by the widow Numeria Claudia. I dressed myself promptly, knowing that neglecting to meet with a Roman noblewoman, even before such a gravely important match, and even despite my status as a Roman citizen, could have serious repercussions.

I was led to a large house near the Forum, and escorted into the main atrium. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait long before I was ushered in a most irregular fashion into her bedroom and told to wait a moment.

I sat nervously praying that I would not be placed in a situation requiring that I demand leave in order to be back in time for my predestined bout. After a few moments, to my relief, she entered.

The shock which hit me upon seeing the widow Numeria must have registered in my features, for when her dark eyes locked with my own, she flashed me a wicked smile. She was not, as I had envisioned, an older woman seeking to impart luck and wisdom onto me and my endeavors in the arena that day. She was no older than thirty, and voluptuous; her skin radiated, glowing with all the vibrancy of lustful youth; her long, dark hair flowed in strands down and around her shoulders; her chest pressed out against the folds of her garments, as though struggling to break free. I felt myself, slayer of half a hundred men and more, trembling in an utter lack of control of my impulses. I had been with women before, and had lovers before, but those times were different. My affairs were often of a sordid nature, and the women I had been involved had all been prostitutes, cheap and low-class.

Here was a true Roman woman, as beautiful as any Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d ever seen, standing before me with desire in her eyes, in her own bedroom.

She stepped closer to me, and I felt a chill run down my spine. She lifted her hand and touched her fingers to my chest, pressing, feeling, and leaned in to whisper in my ear.

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“I’ve seen every fight you’ve fought in the Coliseum, Gladiator.” A statement, nothing else, and yet so much more. I turned my eyes once again to hers, and she focused on me intently.

“You called me here,” I gasped, my throat dry. It was a fool thing to say—but then, the words didn’t matter anyway.

“Hold your title today,” I watched her lips move, dreaming, “And have me for your wife.”

Her hand removed itself from my person, and suddenly an air of stately grace appeared around her, as though that previous moment of animal-like longing had never taken place. With all the cordiality of the professional hostess, she showed me to the door of the villa, and sent me on my way. * Standing in the cave-like chamber from which I would soon emerge to take on my new opponent, I could hear and feel the mighty roar of the whipped-up crowd. This was going to be, they all knew, a fight to be savored—I, the recent defeater of the former champion, was to take on an undefeated upstart from the countryside. The energy was almost tangible, moving through the air like lightning cast by Jupiter, their voices the thunder it sent forth. I felt myself trembling just a tiny bit. This could well be the defining moment in my career.

The time came… For my name. For my legacy. For immortality.

I strode out into the sunlight confidently, waving to the crowd. I was their favorite, their beloved—one of their own, a Roman. I was greeted with admiring cheers and supportive chants as I made my way to the center.

The announcer bellowed from his post: “Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, the untouchable conqueror of a thousand foes, the Caesar of the arena!”

The crowd set itself to a fresh round of cries and calls. When they had quieted a bit, the portal across the sands was opened, and my contender—a man whose features I could not make out, emerged.

He grew closer and closer, and I felt uneasy. There was something far too familiar about his gait.

94

The announcer resumed: “And for our Caesar, his very own archrival—his very own Vercingetorix!”

I felt sick. This couldn’t be happening. As he drew closer, I knew for certain it was him—the same walk, the same features, although his beard and hair were gone, making him appear more Roman. He made it to our place, and his face was the picture of the same horror which I felt.

“Friend,” I whispered, not sure how else to greet him.

“Friend,” he returned the reply.

We stared for a long moment. He was the next to speak.

“You don’t have to do this.”

My insides twisted about. Yes, I did. I had to. I had to, or my name would die—forever. I would not escape my father’s fate.

Not even this man, whom I loved, was worth such a sacrifice.

“You don’t have to do this,” I echoed, knowing how empty the words were.

His expression transformed into that of the strictest stoic, and he answered, his voice hollow, “Then let it be so.” In each syllable, I could hear in him the burning desire to be reunited with his family. We were going to fight. One of us was likely going to die.

The announcer called for the match to begin, and instantly, instinctively, I assumed my fighting stance. Vercingetorix did the same, and the duel was on. It was the classic match of speed versus strength, the fierce Roman wolf facing off against the great Gallic bull. He swung, and I evaded, over and over, breaking down his stamina and his resolve. I could see sweat dripping down off of him; I could see his would-be blows decreasing in force.

I made my move, and lunged for his unprotected legs – and in that dramatic action, realized that I had been deceived. Shrugging off all semblance of weariness, he raised up his blade to end my life. I doubled back, praying that I would be quick enough to avoid a certain death. There was a moment of fool’s hesitation in him, and I escaped. He brought down the swing into empty air and lifeless sand, his own weight thrown off balance by the tremendous force. I seized the moment, and brought my sword to bear against his left leg. He yelped in pain, and I struck once again, this time at his left arm. His grip on his weapon loosened, and I knocked it from 95

his grasp. He dove for it, and I plunged my blade into the space between his shoulder blades. He collapsed in a heap on the ground.

The fight was over; Vercingetorix was dead. Like him the day of our first fight, I did not celebrate. I simply hung my head, and allowed my tears to flow. *

I told myself, in the time following that hideous match, that I had slain my comrade for the sake of any number of self-centric goals. I quieted myself by saying that it was for the sake of continuing to earn the money associated with being the champion of the arena—that it was for the sake of enhancing my own reputation and popularity—that it was for the sake of bedding the widow Numeria, to the home of whom I left after the ordeal, and to whom I am now bound in a marriage superfluous in lust and lacking in love. All these things were crass motivations, and did not have to do with my true reason for not backing out of the fight—but it was better in my mind to consider myself a hedonistic, pragmatic cretin than to bear the label of coward.

For it was not for any of these things that I could not let the match go to Vercingetorix by my own choice. It was out of fear— the purest fear I have ever felt, the same fear that seized me after my father’s death—the fear that my name would die with me, left buried by the wayside for all history. And while the vain nightmares of old no longer taunt me, and the fire of glory no longer sets my soul aflame, I am set upon by a new set of terrors in my sleep.

In these terrors, I see not visions of my own death. I see but three people—a strong man, his body covered in wounds, set across a great chasm from his wife and child—all of them damning my name.

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