Trickster

A fanfic story I wrote was listed as one of this person's favorites.

I'm flattered, but part of me feels like I tricked this person.

I know I didn't, but still.

Fiction Friday #32

NPR's holding a contest to write Three-Minute Fiction. (Although it's over Saturday night.)

To make sure I had an entry, earlier this week I edited this down and submitted it, but I wanted to do more, if I could.

Wednesday I wrote a love story:

Trust

Teri heard Ellen pound the front door, hard. Each thump of her patchy white fist reverberated down the entry hall where Teri stood.

Tears dribbled down Teri's cheeks as she hefted the heavy, scratched-up hatchet from the woodstove, the woodstove that warmed their home almost as well as Ellen's laugh. A laugh Teri would never hear. Tears fell faster.

She couldn't think like that, though. No time. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and took a breath that tried to get caught in her throat.

After a movie one night, Ellen told Teri, "I love you more than anything, but if you came home a zombie, I'll kill you. And I expect you to do the same thing. Promise me?" Teri had promised and they both laughed.

It even became a game for them. One would walk through the house asking for "Brains. Braaaaaains." The other would pounce to kill the infected. They'd fall to the floor together, arms and legs tangled, laughing.

When the infected started popping up, they talked again, but this time it was serious. Again, Teri promised, but she wasn't sure it was one she could keep.

The pounding stopped and so did Teri's heart. Counting to three, she raised the hatchet, blunt side forward, over her head and reached out toward the door. She held the knob with just the tips of her fingers and, ever so carefully, turned it and gave a gentle pull, not enough to open the door, but enough that it wasn't really closed, so that even a little breeze could push it open.

She took several steps back and waited at the end of the hall.

She heard nothing. No pounding. Not a creak from the porch.

She wanted to run and hide in the basement, but she couldn't. She'd only be found and then infected. And she wanted to be strong, like Ellen. For Ellen.

She took a deep breath and let it out. She took another and said, voice cracking, "Ellen? Are you there?"

With a roar, Ellen burst through the door and stumbled and fell, face first, onto the tile. Teri flinched at the crack made when Ellen's skull hit.

Terri pounced, just like she did when they had been playing, except she also swung the hatchet at the back of Ellen's head. This time the sound was crunch. She started crying again.

She lifted the hatchet and swung again and again.

When her arm got tired, she stopped and stood up. Ellen was gone. She wiped her eyes again, pulled the body farther down the hall, and shut the door.

Fiction Friday #31

"Okay, Sonya," I said, not feeling comfortable with her name in my mouth. She'd been Mrs. Mayreux for as long as I could remember. Other kids may have been introduced to her as Sonya by their parents, but not mine. They believed that children had to show great respect to adults, especially coworkers and their spouses.

"Thank you," she said, picking up the menu in front of her.

I hadn't looked at mine since the waitress had dropped them on the table. I knew what I was getting. The Killer Burger. It was a one pound hunk of ground beef, twelve strips of bacon, and four different cheeses: cheddar, mozzarella, provolone, and swiss. "Western" style came piled with onion rings and was slathered in an "authentic" Kansas City sauce. "Veggie" style had avocado and sprouts. Me, I liked mine "classic," but with the onions caramelized and piled high. The Killer was so large, that it couldn't be held whole; it collapsed under its own weight. That didn't bother me, though.

The only question that went through my head was whether I was going to save half of it, or eat the whole thing. And that was a problem. I knew that saving some was the smart thing to do; I'd have a meal that I wouldn't have to worry about, but burgers are never as sublime as they are in the minutes after they came from the kitchen. Never again would the bun be absorbing the juices from the patty, mingling the meaty flavor with the slight wheaty sweetness. The bacon would never be as crisp. And the onions were never quite as slimy.

My stomach growled.

Sonya looked up and smiled, "Hungry?"

"I didn't eat this morning," I said.

"Why?"

"Preparing for lunch."

Her smile crinkled up and her brow furrowed.

"Just wait," I said. "You'll understand."

She looked down at her menu.

I dusted the sugar, that I had played with earlier, off the table and on to the bench beside me. I wondered how I'd get out of the booth without getting my butt all sugary.

After a bit, the waitress came back, pulling purple off her lips with her tongue and carrying a glass of water. She put the water down and asked, after her lips were pink again, "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Iced tea," said Sonya, without looking up, "three lemons, on the side, and some of that raw sugar you have back there for the people who order espresso."

"'Kay," said the waitress, looking at me. "And you?"

"A Coke," I said.

She frowned, "We have Pepsi."

"Didn't you used to have Coke?" I asked. "I could have sworn I got a Coke in here before."

She looked like she wanted to shove her gum in my ears and push it in as far as she could. She knew I was being an ass. At the beginning of the school year, the university went and signed a deal with the Pepsi people to only serve Pepsi products on campus and at campus events. People were upset. Not because they like Coke's stuff so much or hated Pepsi's, but because they lost that choice. It was stupid, but that’s what we did there, make big deals over little things that we couldn't change but thought that maybe we could. It was easier than trying to change big things and being ignored when we knew we couldn't do a thing.

I took a deep breath and sighed. "I suppose Pepsi will do," I said, "but I'd rather have a Coke."

"Yeah," she said rolling her eyes and turning away, "wouldn't we all."

She left and Sonya was still looking at her menu, so I looked out the window and wondered, again, what was going through the head of the people who choose the design of the history department's building. It was a giant cube of concrete flanked on either side by two smaller cubes of concrete, connected by breezeways. Horribly, hideous buildings. Sometimes, though, when I pulled an all-nighter and was exhausted I imagined a giant robot made up of buildings around campus. The main history building was the body and the little ones, shoulders, with two of the silos making up arm; the tall, thin, silvery physics building made up the head, while the rec center and the main dining hall, turned on their ends, were the legs and feet.

Ah, the things that exhaustion and too much coffee caused one to see.

Fiction Friday #30

Tuesday came too fast after I talked to Karen's mother. It was like after I spoke with her on the phone I sneezed and suddenly I found myself outside of the campus pub. It sat off near a field of wheat or corn or whatever crop was being studied at that. I guess the builder wanted to be able to pretend that it was a pub in some country village because it was built to look like those house in the pictures of Stratford-Upon-Avon, all support beams showing through plaster with a high peaked roof. It was pretty nice, until you turned around to see the giant block of concrete that was the history department or got hit by some jackass on a bicycle. That was life on campus, though.

The Pub, which was the name some clever student or alumni named it thirty or forty years ago after a drunken trip to England or Scotland or Ireland gave it, was the place to eat on campus, if you had money. Most of the staff went there if they didn't brown bag it or didn't want to go out into the town. There were always small groups of teacher gathering for lunch or an early dinner or a drink after a meeting, whispering about how they were going to rise up in revolt and destroy the dean of their college. It was also where all the students who were totally funded from home ate when they lived in the dorms. Those people used their meal plans to get water, soda, and chips from the dining hall then used their "emergency" credit cards to take their friends and themselves out for all meals and many of them headed down to The Pub.

Inside the place was clean, but a little dark, for my taste. There was a long, polished, wood bar to the back, tables set up for two or four on the floor, and booths that were comfortable for six but could cram in ten or twelve were along the walls. Spread out around the floor were, what I assumed were, support beams that were sometimes hard to dodge sober, and were nearly impossible to miss drunk. Behind the bar and on any part of the wall that wasn't a window were pictures of famous people who had come to campus; any that were taken after The Pub was built were taken inside. My favorites were the candid pictures of people drinking, talking, laughing, smoking, writing, or staring wistfully out the window; too many of them were posed to make the bar and the subject look good, but they all struck me as unreal.

The Tuesday I met Karen's mom was a warm and sunny one after a weeks worth of wind, clouds, and rain, and we were meeting at eleven, so there weren't many people in there. I saw some professors huddled around a table whispering. Some guy sat at the bar with some really dark drink, wearing spectacles, and writing in a note book. And the bored bar tender stared out the windows probably wondering if heading out to toss a Frisbee around was worth getting fired over. And there was a waitress standing in the door to the kitchen blowing purple bubbles.

The waitress spotted me and started to come over. I mouthed to her, and flailed my arms a bit, that I was meeting someone and wanted to take a quick look. She shrugged, but still walked toward where I stood. I poked around the place and saw that there wasn't anyone else there. She asked me how many and then told me to pick where I wanted to sit. I choose a booth with a window.

She left me with two menus then brought me some water and left. I fiddled with my fork and knife, remembering how I used to use them as an airplane when I was a kid. I unfolded then refolded the paper napkin the fork and knife had been rolled in, and then sort of pushed it around the table. I wished that I brought my backpack with me; at least then the waiting wouldn't have been wasted time.

After dividing the contents of a sugar packet five times, I a woman clear her throat. I looked up to see Karen's mom looking a lot like I remembered her. She was pretty, but not beautiful, like Karen was. She was strong, built like a fortress. She was tall, taller than me. She had wide shoulders and comparatively narrow hips. She stood like she was waiting for someone to try to push her over just so she could prove she couldn't be. Her hair was cut short and she always seemed to have a little frown around her lips, but she may have just disapproved of me.

I tried to stand and caught my gut on the table. I sat down, hard, gasping for breath.

"Leopold," she said sitting down.

"Mrs. Mayreux." I nodded and offered my hand. "Can you call me Leo?" I asked. "My mom only introduces me as Leopold because it makes me blush."

"Only if you call me Sonya, Leo." She said, shaking my hand. "You're old enough to call me Sonya now."

Fiction Friday #29

The laugh felt good. Sort of like we were when we were in junior high. Just friends out to have a good time. The feeling didn't last long, though. It vanished and we both sort of turned to the TV and focused on the movie.

We watched the rest of it without talking to each other. Occasionally, I'd talk to the characters, a bad habit I have when I watch anything I've seen before, and Karen, who hadn't seen the move, would turn to me and look like she might want to cut out my voice box. As the movie ended, with Mumford listening to the police officer talk about his problems, there was a knock at the door. It was Jer with some Indian food.

There was lots of food, but it wasn't for me. Indian never sat well with me. I'd eat and enjoy as I ate, but twenty minutes later my stomach would start to roll around on my intestines and the rest of the night would be miserable. So, when they started to pick and choose their first dishes, I slipped away and into my room.

From then on things around the apartment were a little better. Karen and I didn't go out of our way to hang out together, but we also didn't play silent treatment with on another. When I needed a glass and she was in the way, I'd ask instead of squeezing around her to get it myself. In the hall, neither of us ducked out of the way when we saw the other. "Nice day," I'd say and she'd say "I suppose. How's school?" "Oh, you know," I'd say, "sometimes good and sometimes bad." "Yeah," she'd say, "kind of like the rest of life." and we'd go about our business.

Jer seemed happier about all this. Karen stayed over more and I could tell he wanted to give her a key so she could come all the time. Maybe he even wanted to know if she could move in with us. From what I over heard, life in her house wasn't getting any easier. Some of the girls, I heard, had started bringing over guys and then they'd try to get Karen drunk enough so she'd forget about Jer and jump in the guys' laps and then into bed. I doubt it worked because I don't think Karen would have told Jer about it if it had. Jer didn't ask me about Karen moving in, though. She still had her room at the house and we had our apartment.

About four weeks after Karen and I had our pissing contest, I got a phone call from her mother asking me to go to meet her for lunch the next Tuesday, on campus. Apparently, Karen's dad was touring some lecture about his new book and had been invited to the university to give it. She said me that it'd just be her, not him, at lunch and it'd be her treat.

I said I'd be there, of course. I had to. She was friends with my parents. If I didn't, I'd never hear the end of it.

Fiction Friday #28

I couldn't sleep when I got back to my room. I was too wound up. The way Jer blamed me for the yelling really upset me. It wasn't my fault. I wasn't the one being stubborn. Is it really too much for a guy to want to pee in the toilette in his bathroom in the apartment where he pays for half the rent? I didn't think so.

I couldn't sleep, but I couldn't leave my room, either, they hadn't left yet. I wasn't going out there where I'd have to put up with smug looks from Karen because Jer was on her side. So I stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling and obsessing until I heard the front door close.

Immediately, I poked my head out of my door and heard the deadbolt lock.

I was alone. Not that it meant anything. It wasn't even eight o'clock yet. On a Sunday. I should have been sleeping. All normal people would still be asleep and I would have been one of them if everything had gone right.

I threw myself down on the couch and turned the TV on. I flipped through the channels. Lots of church guys asking people to send in money, a few news shows, and a rerun of everyone's favorite Borrowers rip-off, The Littles. That's where I left it.

Eventually, I got up and got some breakfast, a couple of Jer's Hot Pockets, then into the shower. I left for work after noon and Jer still hadn't come back from church.

Work was all about me shelving books at the main branch of the county library. We opened at two and I kept shelving through my whole shift. I was lucky to have the job, though. It's not many students, especially undergrad students, to get a paying job where they want to end up. Yes, I was one of the few and the insane who planned to go into the library sciences as an undergrad. I wanted to spend my days surrounded by books and help people find something worth reading. And I couldn't wait to get my degree and gain a section of a library to rule over like a despot. Not a book out of place, not a penny from my budget unspent, not an unsatisfied member of the public. Those were my goals.

My shift ended at five and I got back to the apartment the door was locked and the lights were off. It didn't look like Jer had been back at all. I settled myself down on the couch and turned on the TV. After a bit of flipping, I stopped on Mumford, slumped low, put my feet on the coffee table, and settled myself for the rest of the movie.

Fifteen minutes later, I heard the door rattle. The deadbolt snapped open. I muted the TV and turned to watch, ready to really apologize to Jer for being an ass that morning. The door was pushed open as soon as the knob was unlocked and in stepped Karen, wearing the dress that, I assumed, she wore to church and carrying her heeled shoes in her hand.

"Oh," I said.

"Yeah," she said, closing the door.

"You should really knock," I said.

"Jer gave me his keys," she said, jingling them. "I figured it'd be okay. I wasn't going to stand outside while he went to pick up some food."

"Still should have knocked." I frowned.

"Sure, yeah. Next time. I will."

I turned back to the TV and was about to turn up the sound when Karen asked, "What's that?"

"A movie," I said.

"I know that." She sat down on the other end of the couch. "What's the movie?"

"Mumford."

"The one with that guy from Chasing Amy?"

"He's one of the guys," I said and hit mute so I could hear it.

Karen put her shoes on the coffee table and leaned back into the couch. She always reminded me of a cat when she relaxed. First she pushed her back into the couch and stretched it. Then she stretched her arms out to her fingers. Next came her legs out to her toes. Finally, her body went limp. She'd relaxed like this since we were both little kids being dragged by our parents to annoying dinner parties put on by the stuffy people at the university where they worked.

I laughed a little when she finally settled.

"What?" she asked.

"It's just... Well, you still stretch like you used to," I said.

She smiled, "Some things never change, huh?"

I watched her watch the TV. "Karen, why'd you go to church this morning?"

"What?"

"Church, why'd you go? You used to hate it. You used to be proud at how much you pissed your grandma off when you wouldn't go with her on holidays. What's up? Do you believe in that stuff now?"

She looked toward me, but not at me, and frowned, "It's the girls I live with."

I waited.

"There all Afro American Studies, right?"

I nodded.

"Well, and it's nuts, I know, they don't like me dating a white guy."

"Shit," I said.

"I know," she said, shaking her head. "I over heard a couple of the girls talking and one said that the only good thing she had to say about Jer was that he wasn't Mexican."

"Shit," I said, again.

"Yeah, that's why I Jer doesn't spend the night at my place." She sighed, "So, I go to their church to make them happier and make living there easier. I thought they were all going to shit themselves when they saw Jer with me this morning."

We both laughed.

Fiction Friday #27

"Ewww," I said.

"That's disgusting," Karen said through the door.

"She's right," I said, nodding toward her voice.

"Stay out of this, Karen," Said Jer. "Unless you're going to let him in to use the toilette."

She snorted, "He's not coming in here."

"Then keep out of this," he said. He turned to me, I couldn't see his face clearly in the dark of the hall, and said, "Go and use the sink in the kitchen."

"Man, we put dishes in there," I said, giving the door a little push to see if I could catch Karen off guard. The door didn't move.

"It's all pipes, man. Haven't you ever peed in the shower?"

"That's different," I said. The shower washes everything down it."

"We wash dishes in there."

I scoffed, "We?"

"You. Fine," he said.

"That's right."

"I'll do dishes later. And make sure to clean out the sink, okay?"

"Fine," I said, taking my weight off of the door so it could slam shut with a surprised Karen on the other side.

"Son of a bitch," she said.

I smiled and let go of the door knob. "How do I get up high enough to aim for the sink?" I asked Jer. "I don't want to get the counter or anything."

He sighed, "You get a chair. And if you don't like that idea you grab one of the dirty glasses or a bowl or a pot or something. Jesus, just go."

He gave me a little push and I left. As I walked down the hall toward the living room, I heard a tapping. I turned and saw him knocking on the door, probably talking to Karen, trying to settle her down, telling her that I was the one who was wrong. He was on her side, I just knew it. He was telling her that everything was my fault, that I should have been more sensitive to her needs rather than my over stuffed bladder.

I hated Jer the entire time I pissed in the pot he boiled pasta in the night before, which I promised myself I'd never use again. At least Karen had an excuse for acting the way she had; she was a bitch. She couldn't help being the person she was. Jer, on the other hand, had been my friend since we were both freshmen trapped in rooms with shithead roommates. Jer's thought it was his right to kick Jer out at two in the morning so he could have sex. Mine was a freak who had night terrors. We had been united in our misery and turned it into a long friendship. The best friendship I'd ever had. The best he'd had, too.

I finished up in the pot and though about "accidentally" spilling some on the counter so he'd be stuck with the smell while he cleaned up. I thought better of that idea, though, because I knew I'd be smelling it all day long because if, and that was quite an if, Jer did the dishes he wasn't going to get to them until much later in the day. I poured my piss carefully into the sink then took the spray thing and rinsed the sink the best I could and did the same to the pot I used, which I then filled with hot water and added some soap so it could have a nice, long soak.

Jer came around the corner into the kitchen as I finished up. He wore slacks, a white button shirt and had a tie hanging loosely around his neck. He sat on one of the chairs around the table to put on his shoes.

"Leo," he said, setting one shoe on the table, "what you did this morning really sucked."

"It wasn't my fault," I said, sounding more whiney than I wanted.

"I know," he said, "but it wasn't all her fault."

"It was, too." I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall.

"No, it wasn't." He finished tying the first shoe and picked the other up off the table and pointed it at me. "You didn't have to be such an asshole. You could have waited. You could have figured out the sink thing for yourself."

"Yeah, but--"

"I'm not saying that she was right." He finished the second shoe and stood up to tie his tie. "She could have let you in and waited a minute for you to go and be done with it. Hell, she should have. You didn't have to turn it into some third grade yelling match at six on a Sunday morning. You should have been the mature one and waited."

I stood there, my mouth opening and closing like a landed trout and thought, bros before hoes, man, bros before hoes. Jer didn't see me, though. He was having trouble with his tie.

"I'm going with Karen to church," he said, looping the tail around and around the rest of the tie. "After, we're going to breakfast. She might come back with me after. I don't know."

"Give it to me," I said. He handed it over and I put it around my neck. "How long do you want it?"

He showed me and I started tying.

"You guys can't go around ignoring each other," he said. "It just screws everything up, makes it worse. I'd rather you guys have lots of little arguments than blow up early in the morning once a month."

I finished up, yanked the tie over my head, and handed it to him.

"Thanks," he said.

"Yeah," I said and headed around the corner. The bathroom door was still closed.

Fiction Friday #26

After that, there was hardly a day that I didn't see Karen. At first, we were... pleasant to each other, pleasant in only the way two people who won't speak can be. I acknowledged her existence, but wouldn't talk. I'd go around her in the kitchen to grab a plate or a glass rather than ask her to hand me one. If I saw her in the hall, I'd duck into my room or the bathroom until she was safely in Jer's room. She'd do the same, carefully dodging me so we wouldn't have to speak.

The pleasantness disintegrated early one Sunday morning, about six weeks after the first night. I had to pee, but she was in the bathroom. I had to go, really go. I drank an entire ultra-huge Slurpee before I went to bed and I'd held off as long as possible. I tapped on the door. (To this day I swear I was gentle, but when Karen tells the story it's like I swung a sledgehammer and tried to break the door down.)

She hollered through the door, "I getting ready for church."

"Why?" I asked, trying to stay polite. I still had to pee, but bothering her seemed more important. "You never believed in that bullshit before. What changed?"

"Fuck you, Leo," she said.

"How much longer?" I asked.

"As long as it takes."

"I'm not just gonna stand here and piss myself, you know."

"Yeah, what are you gonna do?"

I twisted the knob and gave the door a little push. She slammed into it, forcing the door shut. She couldn't lock it, though; I still had the knob turned. I pushed back.

"Let me in," I yelled, holding the knob with both hands, "I have to pee."

"Wait until I'm through," she yelled back.

"Who knows how long you'll be. I'll only be a minute."

"Yeah, and then the whole place will smell like piss."

"Fuck you!" I shouted.

"You had your chance, but your gun went off before you even got a look at the target!"

I nearly pissed myself at that. My ears got hot and I wanted to kick the door down, push her into the tub, and use the goddamn toilette. I didn't, though. I kept my hands firmly on the door knob and started taking deep breaths. I counted them. At fifteen I felt calm enough to speak again.

"Karen," I said, "please let me in so I can use the bathroom."

"No."

"Please? I've been waited a long time before I knocked on the door."

"No!"

"Karen!"

"NO!"

I pushed, the door opened a crack. She pushed back, the crack started to close. I pushed again and the crack sort of wavered. Nothing was gained and nothing was lost when she started to push back again.

"KAREN!"

"NOOOOOOO!"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" asked Jer from behind me.

"She's hogging the bathroom," I said, pushing.

"He's a shithead who won't leave me alone," she said, pushing back.

"I have to pee," I said pushing again.

"Tell him he'll get the bathroom when I'm done," she said, pushing back again.

"Leo, if you break that door, you're paying for it," Jer said.

"HA!" we heard Karen say through the door.

"You're paying for it, too, Karen," he said.

"HA! HA!" I said.

"Leo, can't you use the sink in the kitchen?" he asked.

Fiction Friday #25

"When?" he asked.

"High school," I said.

Jer looked over at Karen. She nodded again.

"High school?" he said to himself. Then he spoke to me, "Does that mean she's..." He let it drift off.

I pushed my hair off my forehead and said, "Yeah. This is her. This is Karen."

"Oh," he said, looking at her again, this time not so cow-eyed.

"What," she said to me, "have you told him?"

"The truth," I said, leveling my eyes to hers.

"'The truth,'" she said, mocking me by making her voice higher. "You wouldn't know the truth if it crawled out of your belly button and said, 'Fuck me, I'm the truth!'"

"Yeah, sure," I said and turned to walk to my room. I wanted to let them handle whatever was going on between them.

Jer grabbed my arm, "Where're you going?"

"To my room. I don't have to deal with this." I shook his hand off of me.

Karen leaned her butt onto the back of the chair she had been sitting on and let out a long sigh. "What now?" she asked.

Jer sat on the floor, looked at me, then at her. He shrugged and looked down at his arms, which were crossed on his chest. I wondered if he was about to cry.

"What, 'What now?'" I asked Karen. "I don't get it."

"You," she pointed to me. "Him," she pointed to Jer. "Me," she pointed to herself.

"Fuck me," I said.

She grinned an evil grin at me, "Only with a chainsaw."

"Look," I said, ignoring her as best I could, "this doesn't have anything to do with me. Jer," -- He looked up at me, tears in his eyes. -- "we were bullshitting, bitching about exes. We were playing, one upping each other. How'd I know three years later you'd see her and bring her home with you?"

He looked away from me.

"And you," I turned back to Karen, "give him a fucking chance. He's not me." I paused. She didn't say anything; she just frowned. "Hell, I'm not who I was. I'm a totally new kind of jackass."

Karen smiled a little.

That's when I left. I didn't go to my room. I walked back the way I came in and out. I hurried down the stairs after I pulled the door shut and hopped on the first bus that came around the corner. It didn't matter where I was going, just as long as I was gone.

Nearly four years after we spent hours screaming at each other, almost four since I'd even seen her, and when I saw her all those old emotions came back. All the pain I felt because of what she said and because of what I wanted to do. As if no time had passed at all. If I'd stayed, I would have started again. Maybe she would have been mature enough to not fight back, but I doubted it. She always had a quicker temper than I did, than most people did. Her temper was one of the things that made her so much fun to be around; it made her more unpredictable and exciting.

So, we probably would have fought. This time in front of an audience, Jer. He didn't need to see that anymore than I needed to go through it. Besides, he'd been building her up for so long, it would have been awful to just show him her worst side. Besides, I knew, deep down, that she wasn't the horrible bitch I'd made her out to be. I didn't know who she was at all anymore.

She was, though, even more beautiful than she had been in high school. She was rounder, fuller, still dark and glistening. When she smiled when we were kids, it dazzled me, now it would probably knock me unconscious. I could see how she caught his eye. Couple her looks with the deadly sharp wit she's always had, and Jer had no chance.

I rode the bus for long enough to lose track of time. I thought about what had happened at my apartment. I thought about what happened between me and Karen then and now. I thought about who I was now compared to then. It all just rolled around and around in my head always looping back on itself.

Eventually, I wanted off. I didn't want to go back home, but I knew I couldn't sit on the bus all night long, it's run had to come to an end some time. A bar seemed like the right place to go for the night. Who wouldn't want to get drunk after seeing someone like Karen again? Bars have to close sometime. They may stay open late, but late wasn't all night long. Denny's, though, stayed open all night long.

I transferred twice to get onto the line to Denny’s; I wouldn't have had to transfer at all if I went to a bar. Still, Denny's was a better place. I hadn't dropped off my backpack, so I still had all the books I'd taken to school. Unfortunately, they weren't the books for the next day's classes; still it was something else to focus on.

I bought a never ending coffee and slowly, through the night, bought food and worked my way through a few weeks worth of homework. I left around five so I could get to the first bus of the morning. Once again I transferred twice and, in time, ended up across the street in front of my apartment.

I stood there wondering if I really wanted to go in. Did I want to know what Jer and Karen had decided? Which outcome would make me happiest? I knew what would make my life easiest, at least after Jer settled down to his normal routine.

I stood there wondering and the door opened and Karen came down the stairs. I don't think she saw me, but if she had, she would have seen me clutching my stomach, as if I'd just been punched.

Fiction Friday #24

The first time it was real weird between Karen and me was when we sort of met in college.

Jer, my then roommate and best friend who I met my first year, his second, of college, was all excited when he got home the first day of the new semester. The only thing he talked about all night was some brilliant, dark eyed, dark haired, mahogany skinned beauty he'd met in his American lit class. Unlike most students, she was already asking the professor tough questions. She asked questions about the syllabus, pressing the prof for specifics instead of putting up with his vague outline of exactly what the required reading for the course was; who in their right mind wanted to buy a copy of Moby-Dick only to have to read select passages so they could compare and contrast those passages with a short story, "Bartleby, the Schr1vner," from the class reader.

For five weeks, each day he had that class, he came home talking about her. She said this about the story we read today. She busted the teacher when he mixed up something Emerson wrote with something Thoreau wrote. She flicks her hair back with a quick motion of her head. She makes the air around her smell like vanilla. Of course, in all that time, he never spoke to her. He just listened and pined.

Then they read Huck Finn, a book that Jer had hated since he was in junior high because of the ending. All the time he was reading it at home he bitched about the book to me, but he read it from beginning to end anyway. On the day the class talked about the ending, the prof talked about how it was a brilliant portrayal of how the reconstruction of the South failed after the Civil War and how Twain was pulling the book back from the serious place it had reached to the comedy it began with to show how the USA achieved no change at all after Reconstruction had ended. Jer, in his mild way, flipped out at the teacher and said that the ending sucked. Out of the whole class the only the Dark Girl, as we'd come to call her around our apartment, sided with Jer, the rest either rehashed what the prof said or sat silent.

After that class, and pretty much being called dumb by the prof, full of rage and adrenaline, Jer and the Dark Girl finally spoke. She even came home with them so they could keep talking. When I got there, I heard the muffled voices and didn't want to get in the way so I tried to sneak off to my room. It didn't work. The voices had stopped and Jer was in the entry way before I could lock up.

"Guess who I have here?" Jer asked, smiling.

"Jesus, the guy who sells stolen hubcaps," I said.

"No," he said. "She's here."

"Who?"

"The girl from my lit class."

"Her?" I paused. "How?"

"Come and meet her." He pulled my arm so I was in front of him and then pushed me into the living room.

She was sitting in a chair so her back was to me. Her hair was impossibly black, Jer was right about that.

"I want you two to meet."

She stood up, turned around, the smile she had turned to a look of horror.

"This is Karen," Jer said to me. "Karen, this is--"

"Leo," she said with disgust.

"Shit," I said my heart trying to fall into my scrotum while my balls tried to climb up to my throat.

Karen had dated in high school during our junior year and most of our senior year, then stupid happened. I wouldn't lie to her, but she didn't want the truth about certain thing (even though she'd ask about them). So I told her something that hurt her and she said something that hurt me and it went back and forth and back and forth for a while until she was crying to hard she couldn't talk anymore and I was so angry that I wanted to throw her through a window and started to cry at that thought. Soon after, I couldn't remember who started what or even when, but I was tired of her and she was tired of me and things just ended. From then on, we just didn't speak. Our friends sort of ignored us for a while and then she seemed to recover faster and started to be fun Karen before I became fun Leo, so they drifted off toward her more than to me. Not that I blamed them, she always was more fun than I was.

She was also the first person who I almost had sex with, but didn't quite make it. She was the first girl, besides family or medical people, to see me naked. She was the first girl who was naked with me. We must have looked odd, her in her beautiful, deep brown skin gleaming in the light, and me standing there in my earthworm colored flesh, blotchy with red as my body flushed. She was the first who really let me explore her body and she was the first who explored mine. But when she stroked me as I was kissing and touching her and I burst in her hand, the experiment was over. After that, we fooled around and worked on each other until we came, but we never got that close to actual sex again.

Before we broke up, we had both chosen to go to the same college, thinking we'd be in love forever. Afterward, I know I seriously thought about not going to school at all, but I figured the odds of me running into her on a campus with twenty thousand people seemed low, so I wasn't going to stop my plans because of her. I never saw her until there, until the day my roommate invited her over to our apartment, where she just glared at me.

As she looked me over, with a deep frown on her face, she was probably remembering every horrible thing I had ever said to her or done to her and trying to figure out if anyone who was a friend of mine was worth anything at all.

"You know each other?" Jer asked, looking between us.

"We went to high school together," I said, trying to look like I wasn't looking at Karen.

She frowned deeper.

"And we sort of dated. For a while," I said.

"Is that true?" he asked her.

She nodded.

"Shit," he said.

Fiction Friday #23

OJ

Shani was up front, out in the lobby, talking to her friend, what's-her-name, again. I sat watching her and her friend talk, tapping the first button on my waist when the phone rang, "Russo, Taggart, Godwin & Rose, how can I help you?" I looked at the bottle the bottle of orange juice. It wasn't dripping anymore. I doubted it was even cold.

"Uhh, yeah," said some guys voice, "I want to talk to my lawyer."

Shani and her friend were laughing.

"And you attorney is?" I asked, rolling my eyes at Shani.

"It's Ed, darlin'," he said. "My lawyer's Ed."

Shani put her hand on her friend's arm and leaned.

"Sir, we have three attorneys here who could be called 'Ed,' can you give me a last name?" I hoped that I wasn't starting to sound irritated, but to me, my voice sounded high and pinched.

"I can't remember. Do you think you can read me their names?"

I tapped the first button to turn him off and sighed before I pressed it again and said, "Klein. Harstead. Wallace."

"No," said the guy. I pictured him in ratty red flannel over a greased up t-shirt and missing teeth grimacing and slowly shaking his head from side to side. "I don't think any of those are my lawyer, honey. Got anymore?"

Shani finished up with her friend and turned toward me. She upped her smile from genuine happy to beaming when her eyes met mine. She wanted something.

"Those are the only attorneys we have here who go by 'Ed,' sir. Maybe if I got your name?"

Shani stopped in front of my desk and leaned in. Her friend hadn't left the lobby, yet.

I cycled through the computer so I could enter the guys name.

"Joey," said the voice on the phone, "Joey Cal. What's yours?"

"Hold on,"I said, "let me check." I pressed the first button, looked up into Shani's broad smile and vacant eyes, and said, "Yeah?"

I typed his name and Shani said, "Look, I know I just got back from my break and all, and I'm sort of..." -- Her smile widened and she winked. -- "But, well, I was sort of wondering--" I cut her off with a raise of my hand. I knew what she wanted.

I hit the first button again, "Mr. Cal, we don't have you in our system. Are you sure your calling the right office?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I was just in court with Ed yesterday."

"And it was about?"

"That hit and run thing they're blaming me for," he whispered.

Shani turned away from me and sort of waggled her head at her friend. The phone rang.

"I think you want the Public Defender's office."

"Isn't--" he said as the phone rang again, I pressed the first button and then the second one and said, "Russo, Taggart, Godwin & Rose, please hold."

"I will no--" I heard as I hit the second and then the first.

"--got?"

"I'm afraid not. You've dialed 578-1683, but the Public Defender's office is 575-1683."

"Oh," he said.

Shani turned toward me and moved her hands in the "hurry up" motion.

"Lots of people make that mistake. It's okay."

"Darlin', what was that number again?" he asked.

I told him and he thanked me. After I said good-bye to him, Shani said, "Look, Cleo's here and I wanted to--"

I cut her off with my hand again and glared as tapped the second button and I said, "Thank you for holding, how can I help you."

And guy on the end of this line started swearing at me. It was almost musical, the way he did it. It reminded me of the way that Ludacris or 50 Cent got when they were on a role, all the normal curse words peppered with careful helpings of misogyny. He'd make millions.

"Sir," I said, trying to get anything in when he took a breath, "I can help you, now."

He kept going. Shani leaned over and frowned at me. I rolled my eyes at her.

"Sir, please call back when you're calmer," I said and hung up.

"Finally," said Shani.

I stood up, pulled off my headset, and unclipped the button box from my pants pocket.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

I picked up my orange juice and said, "On my break?"

"But..." she said.

The phone rang.

"Better get that," I said, waving to what's-her-name as I slipped out the front door.

At the bus bench on the corner, I opened the juice and took a long drink. It was warm and it was sour, but it was perfect.

Fiction Friday #16

World's End: Training Wheels

After The End of the World, the people in Shame just sort of stopped worrying about what day it was. And I don't just mean whether it was the 4th or the 29th, but a lot of them quit saying it was Thursday or Monday.

When people started moving into the gym at Meredith Willson High School, the Rileys, a couple who had retired to Shame a few years ago, started a new calendar. They counted the days since The End happened. (I counted their days, once. Seemed to me that they figure the end came when we lost power. I figure it happened a few days before, but I wasn't the one in charge.) They called it AC and said it stood for After the Coming. No one in the gym argued with them and no one in the gym seemed to use the calendar, but there were a few kids who earned a smack or two for asking who it was that came to town.

At the time, I wasn't really worried about the date. I was more concerned with the rising and the setting of the sun and how much could be done before it got too dark. Although, soon after we left town, I wished that I knew the date. Was it just an ordinary day or was it an important day? I never did check the calendar at my place while I was picking up my hiking boots.

There wasn't much else there that I wanted. I grabbed a couple of long sleeve shirts and more clean underwear and I already had my old pocket knife with me, but nothing else would have helped on the trip.

I shouldered the sack and headed out.

Abbot's Sports was a few streets over and one up from where my apartment was, just like everything else within the city limits. The building had been there for as long as anyone could remember and it showed the way the ivy had spread up one wall and anywhere the brick was showing it was crumbling. The Abbots didn't even run the place anymore. The last one in the county had moved out onto a farm to cash in on Ethanol. I guess that didn't quite work out for him.

The store was sort of a catch all for anything that wasn't food. Everything that was sold there could also be rented. Tents and rafts and bikes and sleeping bags for those folks who wanted to see the river or spend some time on it and pretend they were Huck Finn, without the huge black guy, of course.

Trista and Roy weren't there when I looked throughout the shattered windows, but I knew they'd be along soon enough. I headed in and scouted around for the things I thought we'd need.

First were bikes. They seemed like the best way for us to travel. Smallish and pretty damn light, we could ride around any cars and wouldn't have to worry about gas. If we kept up the basic maintenance, we probably wouldn't get much worse than a popped tire or a broken chain, and those were small enough that we could carry lots of extras, and if something worse happened, there were pretty good odds would could find the right tools and stuff in any town we came across. Best of all were the baby carriage things that people used to drag their little kids around in. I figured those things would be great for dragging around extra food and gear for those days we didn't roll on into town.

By the time Roy and Trista showed up, I had already picked out the three bikes we were going to be using and had just finished bolting on the last baby carriage thing.

"Supposed to be using scooters," said Trista, pulling a wad of gum out of her mouth and throwing it over her shoulder. She always was one to care about her community.

"Why's that?" I asked, standing up and stretching.

"Didn't you never read The Stand, Crete?" she asked, coming in close to me. "That's what they all rode into Vegas. Well, that or motorcycles."

"Stephen King must have lived in a place where the gas fell from the sky and all you needed was a funnel to fill a tank." I poked her in the shoulder.

Roy laughed. If his voice had been deeper, I would have called it booming, but it was more like tapping on a snare drum than pounding on a bass drum. To the best of my knowledge, Roy was the only black man who lived in Shame. There were a couple of colored families who owned farms, but Roy actually lived in the city. How he started teaching here instead of some other place, I didn't know, but here he was. He was also gorgeous. Short cut hair. Solid jaw. Huge shoulders and arms. Dark brown eyes that a person could fall into. It was hard to believe he taught math.

"This is how we're going," I said. "Deal with it."

"Fine," she said, dropping her stuff on the ground. "What do you want us to do?"

"We each need a sleeping bags and tents and stuff," I said.

Roy grabbed my arm as I started to head in. "Go on in, honey," he said to Trista. "I want to talk to Crete for a minute."

"'Kay," she said and headed off.

"What do you want?" I asked Roy.

"Uh," he turned away from me, "I don't know how to ride a bike?"

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah. Never learned."

"Well," I said, "I'm sure we can find some training wheels in there some where. We just have look."

Fiction Friday #15

The Machine

"So, the first step was to find a way that could squeeze every moment of time to one point without also pulling all the matter to the same point." The Professor changed the slide to one showing an animation on the universe collapsing in on itself. "That would probably cause a big crunch which would, of course, kill us all, destroy the universe, and quite possibly turning all that existed into one black hole."

"But you found some way around this, right?" asked some guy in a dark suit.

"Yes, of course we did," said The Professor, smiling like he would to a four year-old who was worried he wouldn't get pizza on his birthday. "It all had to do with gravity," he said, switching the slide again, this time to an animation of a guy standing on the earth jumping up and coming back down, "and an incredible discovery my team made."

Jim turned away from the presentation. The truth was it was all bullshit. No one understood how the machine worked, they just knew it did. Thousands of different objects had gone through and come out okay. About ninety different animals had gone through and come back with nothing wrong, that the team could tell. And one human went through and claimed that nothing happened, until she saw the way her puppy had grown in the two months she was gone.

Time travel. It had always been a thing of science fiction, Jim thought. It couldn't really exist. But it did.

He turned a corner heading for the stairs to get down to the machine. He wished that the facility was more like it would have been in the movies--gleaming walls, shining steel equipment, no mice--but the place they were working in was a gutted hospital that was built in the '60s and then abandoned sometime in the '90s and was only halfway cleaned up before The Professor was forced to move his team here.

The stairway smelled like old wet wood; it wasn't a smell that Jim liked, but it was better than the basement. The Machine was kept on the top floor because it seemed to work better away from the ground. Some members of the team said it had to do with being farther away from the closest large source of gravity. Others said it was the Earth's magnetic fields. Others claimed it was none of these things, but some mysterious different force, like dark energy. Jim didn't know and he didn't care. It just seemed to work better a hundred or so feet above the ground than it did on the ground. And that's what pissed so many of the team off. There was just too much they didn't know.

The room that held the machine wasn't built large enough to house all the equipment The Professor wanted to monitor it, so walls had been knocked down to make it larger. It also made it dustier, which Jim's nose didn't like.

He was alone with the machine, a doorway of twisted greenish/orangish metal that made Jim's fillings taste tangy. Everyone else was downstairs with The Professor listening to him lie to the men and women who thought they were funding breakthrough, original research. They weren't, really, though. The Professor was trying to learn how the machine worked, but didn't really care about the whys. He didn't want to know what new technologies could be born from the machine; he just wanted to replicate it.

All Jim wanted to do was to step through into the past. See what it was like. See what could be changed. Jim wanted to find out if time was just one straight shot that no one could change or if there were infinite possible universes that existed out there. Unfortunately, everything they'd send through had only gone into the future, or the present, depending on how you look at it.

There was nothing coming from the machine to show that it was on. No shimmering in the door. No burning smell. No hum. Sometimes some thing would go through and just come out the other side. Other times things would go in and not come out for hours or days or weeks.

Jim thought he'd take a chance and stepped into the machine himself.

Fiction Friday #14

The Balance

Ten years ago, I sit in the darkness, in awe, as I watch the words "Star Wars" scroll up the movie screen. Up to this point in my life, I've only ever seen the words on TV, smaller than me. Today, the words are taller than my dad and he's tall. I watch the action unfold on the screen, action I've seen a thousand times, but never like this. And once again, I dream of being a Jedi, of having the power of the force and feeling the pull of Ben Kenobi and Darth Vadar, of doing the dangerous dance between the dark and the light, trying to be a hero.

I opened my eyes. It was cold, so I pulled the bag up over my head.

Five years ago, I wake, naked, under the Creeping Tree, the oldest tree on campus, my whole body in pain. It's dark and quiet. I can smell the moist dirt and redwood bark around me. I'm cold, but not shivering. Branches rustle. It's just the wind, I tell myself as I curl into a tight ball. I feel a voice, deep and gravely, like rocks grinding together deep in the earth, course through my bones, "You will serve us." Now I shiver. "You will be the Balance," the wind whispers in my ear. Dark flames erupt around my body, pulling what little warmth there was from the air. "You will preserve the choice," I feel the first voice say. The flames rise and cover my body. "You want this," whispers the other voice. Into my body the flames plunge. I scream. The flames burn cold in my body. I scream. When I wake again I find a black staff twisted and gnarled like a branch on the Creeping Tree, but smooth and cold like glass, in my hand. I close my fingers around the staff and close my eyes. I remember that I want this, that I asked for this, that this is my choice.

I kept my eyes closed this time. Still cold and dark. I rolled over and closed my eyes again.

Years from now, or months, or days, or hours, I run through the dark warehouse. As I run, I turn and swing my staff freezing the air and sending it flying toward my enemies, the small black balls that are all teeth and feet. I hear it crash into them and then into the wall far across the warehouse. I don't stop, though, I run. The only thing that matters is the door and getting out. As I near the door, I don't slow; instead I swing the staff and send a wall of solid air crashing into it, ripping it away from its hinges and throwing it across the parking lot. And I run harder, freedom in only steps away. I pass through the hole I made and feel the coolness of the fresh air on my cheeks. A burst of blinding white light flares in front of me. I stumble and stop. It's standing in front of me casting the light. It raises its eagle wings and hundreds of black shadow teeth things charge from behind it. I set me feet, hold my staff in front of me, and brace myself for what's coming.

I woke in the same drainage ditch I curled up in last night. Thank God it's not a rainy time of year. If it was, I'd have to find actual shelter that isn't already being used by bums. For now, though, dry ditches work well enough when the lights are down. I rolled and stuffed my back and then clipped it to my backpack which I tossed out of the ditch. I dropped my pants and squatted down, thinking about how I was peeing in pretty much the place that I had just been sleeping. It's an odd world.

I don't usually focus on my dreams anymore; they haven't changed much since the war started. Before the war my dreams were as random as anyone else’s, just my brain trying to make sense of my day. After the war, though I always dreamed of Star Wars and that night under the tree. I assumed that it was to remind me of the choice I made and the reason I made it, but last night was the first time I dreamed of the future. The first time I'd seen my enemy.

I stood up, pulled my pants up, grabbed my staff, and climbed out. I put the pack over my shoulders, locked it around my waist, and wondered where I was going to find the angel I'd seen in my dream.

Fiction Friday #13

Thirst

"Ahh! Jesus. Dave! Christ!"

Jorge woke with a jolt, hitting his head on the wall, his heart beating hard against his ribs. He couldn't see anything the way he faces so he rolled over to look at his clock. It was just after two in the morning. His alarm would be blaring in a little more than four hours. He rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling.

"Dave, shit. No. Lower. Lower!"

Jorge's bed was against the wall across from the wall his room shared with Dave's room, but the walls were so thin and Anna, Dave's whatever, was so loud that he'd been woken up like this four out of the last five nights.

"Let me. Here. I'll... There. Yeah, there. Now, Dave. Now!"

That's when the squeaking and the groaning started.

Dave had to be drunk, Jorge thought. Nights Dave was sober things got off to a quicker, and quieter, start and usually ended faster too. What did Shakespeare say? That alcohol gives us the desire but takes away the ability? He obviously wasn't writing about guys like Dave. Guys like Dave get all fired up when they're drunk and go longer than usual after they get started, which was an annoyance to any roommates who had to get sleep.

Jorge had three choices: 1. Roll over, put his pillow over his head, and try to sleep. 2. Jerk off and hope Dave and Anna finished before he did so he could sleep. Or 3. Get up and watch some TV until they fell asleep.

None of the choices seemed appetizing. The first was going to lead to frustration and anger. The second would only work on a night when he was drunk or Dave was sober. And the third was just annoying. Still, the third was the best option.

He climbed out of his bed and wiggled his toes around the carpet, searching for the clothes he'd tossed down there since the last time he washed anything. First, he found a t-shirt which he grabbed with his toes and lifted to his hand. As he pulled it on, his feet searched for something to cover his lower half -- boxers, jeans, shorts, anything would do. A pair of pajama bottoms was what he found. Jorge couldn't remember the last time he wore pajama bottoms, but they'd cover him just as well as anything else. He pulled them on and headed toward the door, shuffling his feet so he wouldn't crush any of the crap that was on the floor.

The hallway was a little quieter than his room was, but the sounds of hot, sweaty lovin' were still there. Jorge stumbled his way to the stairs and headed down. It was much quieter down there and the light from the parking lot was streaming through the windows, making it a lot easier to move around without worrying about stepping on the silverware randomly thrown around the room.

Jorge grabbed the remote off the couch, trying to ignore the plates left there, and clicked the TV on. He stuffed the control in his pocket and headed to the kitchen and flicked on the light.

The kitchen was a mess. A pan of sauce and a pile of drying pasta sat on the stove. The counter had cheese sprinkled on it. Dirty glasses sat in and around the sink. Dave and Anna had also finished off Jorge's bottle of Baileys.

Jorge sighed, opened the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of Dave's beer. Dave'd never notice, and if he did he'd probably just assume he drank it himself, especially if Jorge left the bottle sitting out. He popped the top and took a pull. It was dark and bitter and cool and felt heavy as he swallowed the mouthful. He took another drink and lurched toward the couch, pulling the remote free.

He sat and flipped through a few channels. Nothing really interesting was on. He settled on an infomercial about some smokeless grill that was still supposed to give the meat a smoky flavor. The whole idea didn't make any sense to Jorge, but sitting on the couch, with crusty dishes, watching crappy TV while his drunk roommate was upstairs having sex didn't make sense to Jorge either. He put his feet up on the coffee table and put the beer between his legs.

"George?"

Jorge's head jerked around. Anna was standing at the bottom of the stairs wearing a t-shirt, probably one of Dave's since Jorge had never seen her in anything so loose before. She knew how much he hated being called "George" and did it when ever she saw him.

"Finished already?" he asked. "I thought you guys were in it for the long haul tonight."

"Yeah," she said, walking to the couch and pulling the shirt down lower around her thighs.

"Odd," said Jorge, sipping from the bottle, "I didn't hear Dave shout 'Kimota!' like he usually does, tonight."

"Yeah," said Anna, sitting at the other end of the couch. "He sort of fell asleep."

"Maybe Shakespeare was right," said Jorge, turning back to the TV.

"What?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

"'Kay," she said. "What are we watching?"

"This." He pointed to the TV with the bottle.

"Oh."

Her eyes were on him. He could tell, even though he was looking at the TV. He wanted to look, but he didn't want to see her. He knew who she was and what she was like. She was a predator and, as much as he might enjoy their time together, he didn't want to be her prey.

She moved the dishes off the couch over to the coffee table and slid closer to him, so close he could feel her warmth.

"George," she said.

"Yeah?" he asked, trying hard to watch the TV.

"Can I have a sip of you're beer, George." She touched his arm.

"There's plenty in the fridge. You can get your own."

"But," she reached for the bottle, "George, I want a sip of yours."

He pulled the bottle away from her.

"Please," she said, putting her hand on his thigh. Jorge immediatly felt blood rushing down below his waist. "Just a sip."

He looked at her.

She bit her lip and said, "I only want a little sip, George." She slid her hand up his thigh and felt how hard he was.

"You have to say my name right, fist," he said, looking into her eyes.

"What?" She blinked and looked away and bit her lip.

He put his hand under he chin and turned her back. "Say my name right and we'll go from there."

Her eyes darted around. She didn't want to look at him. Jorge knew that she didn't like having to give anything up to get what she wanted.

Jorge moved his lips close to her ear and whispered, "You know what it is. Just say it."

"Okay," she whispered, "Jorge."

He put the bottle in her hand.

Fiction Friday #12

Rented

There wasn't anything odd about the phone call Ned had received. It was just the voice of a young man on the other end asking about the room above the garage. Ned assumed that he was just another new student going to the arts college in the fall, at least twenty had called since he'd put the add in the paper two weeks ago. A couple had seemed okay when they came to check the place out, but they both said they couldn't afford the deposit until they got their financial aid in two months and Ned wouldn't rent without deposit in hand. The kid on the phone swore that he had the money, now. Ned shrugged to himself and they set up an appointment for the next day.

Noon, the next day, on his lunch hour, Ned pulled into his driveway and saw someone in a black hooded sweatshirt, with the hood pulled up, sitting on the porch.

Must be the kid, he thought. Nice to have one that actually shows up on time.

Ned opened the door and climbed out of the car, using the top of the door to help pull him up. The door groaned and the suspension tilted as he gave it his whole weight. It was getting close to the time he needed a new car, this one just wasn't running the way he thought it should. And the tires on the driver's side kept losing air faster than the passenger's side, giving the car an annoying tilt. That was something the renter was supposed to help provided, a new car.

"Uh, Jasper?" he called to the porch. "Is that you?"

"Yeah," said the kid in a pleasant but bored sounding voice, standing up, hands in the kangaroo pouch. He was wearing black pants and sneakers to go with his sweatshirt.

Ned stared. Maybe it was because he was under the porch, but Jasper's clothes were so black it was hard to see where the sweatshirt ended and the pants began, same at the shoes, like the black of the clothes just ate the shadows. Oddly enough, the sneakers had white tread that looked like it glowed.

"Okay," said Ned, walking to the porch. When he got there, he put out his clammy hand. "I'm Ned. We talked on the phone last night."

"Yeah," said the kid, "I figured." He took a breath, sighed, and said, "Jasper." He pulled a hand from the pocket. It was all white and looked like bones.

Freaky art school kids, thought Ned, taking Jasper's hand.

The hand was cold and hard. Ned wasn't feeling a painted hand or a hand in a glove. No, he was feeling bones. Hard, cold bones. A chill shot up his spine and Ned felt his balls climb up into his stomach to stay safe.

"Uh," said Ned, shaking Jasper's bones. "It's nice to meet you."

"Sure," said Jasper. "You can let go of my hand now."

Ned let go and shook his hand a little, hoping the kid didn't notice. It had to be some trick. He thought that the kid must have slipped a fake hand up his sleeve. Jasper just wanted to freak him out.

"So, the place is back here," said Ned, pointing to the breezeway between the house and the garage. "It's over the garage."

"And it's furnished, right?" asked Jasper, putting his hand back in the pocket.

"Yeah, said Ned, looking into the hood. There was nothing there. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No hood cast a shadow like that. No hood that he'd ever heard of. Maybe something an astronaut wore so he wouldn't be blinded in space, but there was nothing on earth that could explain the darkness under that hood. Too dark. Dark as those pictures of space. He wondered if it was cold under there. Cold like space. That's what it looked like. A spot of space with nothing in it. Nothing.

"Can I see it?"

"What!" Ned shook his head and blinked his eyes, hard.

"The room," said Jasper, "can I see it?"

"Oh, uh, sure," said Ned, walking away. He didn't hear the kid following him, but he also didn't want to turn around and check. "The first door here," he said, waving his hand, "goes into the garage. This one," he stopped and groped his coat, "goes up to the apartment. I'll show you as soon as I find the... Ah! Here it is." He pulled a key, and a peppermint, from the inside pocket, and unlocked the door.

Ned flicked a switch inside the door way, stepped back, holding the door, and said, "The door at the top is unlocked. Go ahead and go in when you get up there. After you." He bowed a little.

Jasper took the stairs with ease. Ned didn't. He firmly believed that when the contractor built the garage the stairs were built steeper than normal stairs. Every time he took them, by the time he got to the top, Ned was gasping like a fish on the deck of a boat. This climb was no different.

When he got to the landing on the top, Ned put one hand on the wall, leaned into, started breathing deep, and cursed the contractor he hired. Through the open door, he could see Jasper looking around the apartment.

It was basically one long room over the three car garage. the kitchen -- complete with a fridge, a full range, and a split sink -- was separated from the rest of the apartment by a counter and a vinyl floor that also went around the corner into the bathroom, no tub in there, but it didn't feel cramped, even to Ned. The rest of the room was covered in muddy brown carpet and painted in a ivory. Along the long walls, there were two windows, with curtains, not blinds. The far wall, across from the kitchen, had a sliding glass door, with blinds for privacy, that led onto a small, but usable, porch, which was mostly covered by the roof. The room was furnished with the family's old cherry colored couch (Ned thought it had been defective because his normal spot was squishier and lower than the rest of the couch.), his wife's mother's old and stained coffee table, a secondhand cabinet with their old TV on it, the queen-sized be he and Liz used to share (The springs of which had never worked properly, his side was always lower than Liz's side, even when no one was on the mattress.) before they got the king, and the dining room table and chairs, actually made out of cherry, that Ned and Liz got from his parents as a wedding gift. The small closet was near the bathroom.

In many ways, it reminded Ned of the first place he and Liz had lived together. He half sighed and half gasped, remembering their first years together. He wondered, for a second, what happened to the woman he had married.

"So," wheezed Ned, finally stepping into the room, "What do you think?"

"This work?" asked Jasper, pointing at the TV.

"It's a little old, but it works. We had to get a new clicker, though. I wrote the code to the TV on some tape and put the tape in with the batteries so we couldn't rub them off." Ned shrugged, "You probably don't care about that, though."

"Just curious," said Jasper, turning toward the porch.

"So, you going to school out here this fall?" asked Ned, using great care as he sat on one of the dining room chairs.

"No."

"Oh. But you have a job, right?"

"Yeah, I have a job," said Jasper, opening and closing one set of curtains.

"Then you wouldn't have, uh, any trouble paying the rent?"

"No. No trouble paying." Jasper sat on the bed and bounced a little. "You know one side of the bed is lower than the other?"

"Yeah. I think the springs on that side were defective," said Ned.

"Defective," said Jasper, getting up.

"It started slumping like that a few months after we bought it. We didn't mistreat it or anything, though."

"Right. There a dresser?" Jasper asked, opening the closet door and taking a look inside.

"We have a couple in the garage. You could choose one and we could haul it up here before you moved in."

"Parking?"

"You'd have to park on the street. Sorry," said Ned, adding quickly, "but I have all the forms and everything ready to go so you can get a permit so you won't get ticketed."

Jasper nodded.

"What do you think?" asked Ned.

"It'll do."

Jasper pulled his eerie hands out of the large pocket and was holding a large wad of bills. "First." He counted some bills. "Last." He counted some more. "And deposit." He counted a third time and dropped the stack on the table.

Ned searched through his pockets, again, and found the lease and a pen. "It's through next June," he said. "I thought we'd be getting a student."

"Fine," said Jasper, taking the pen from Ned, who shivered when the odd bone like fingers grazed his hand.

Ned counted the cash while Jasper signed. "You can move in on the first, okay?"

"Fine," said Jasper, finishing up.

Ned pulled the copy of the back and handed it and the key to the bottom door over. "The key to the top door is in the drawer by the oven," he said, offering his hand to Jasper.

Jasper took the hand, but didn't shake it, just sort of held it. Ned's balls jumped back up into his stomach and tried to even climb higher.

After a minute that felt like forever to Ned, Jasper let go, grabbed the other key from the drawer, and left. Ned let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding, pushed himself up, and headed down the stairs to his car. Outside, Jasper was no where to be seen, and the hand Ned used to shake with was cold, freezing cold.

As he drove away, Ned groped through the hamburger wrappers on the passenger seat for his phone to call Liz at her job.

"This is Liz," she said after he fought his way through the maze of people who answered the phone.

Ned moved the phone from his right ear to the left and said, "Liz, honey, it's me."

"Uh huh," she said.

"I, uh, I... Well, I rented the apartment?"

"What?"

"The, uh, the apartment. Above the garage?" Ned said. "I rented it to a--"

"You rented it?" asked Liz in her I'm-not-mad voice she used when she was angry. "You rented it, without talking to me first?"

"Yeah, well, I sort of had to."

"You had to?"

"Well, he was... odd. He was dressed all in black. And his hood. And the white on his shoes. And the cold hands."

"His shoes? His hands? Ned," said Liz, "I don't understand."

"He paid in cash, Liz," said Ned, moving the phone from hand, and ear, to the other. "Cash. Who carries that much cash?"

"Ned, we live in a state in the middle of nowhere. Are you trying to tell me that some mobster's kid has come here to learn how to prance around on stage like some San Francisco fairy?"

"What? No. He said he wasn't going to school here."

"Then what's he doing here."

"I don't know, honey. I don't know."

Liz sighed, "Ned, I have to get back to work. We'll talk about this evening."

"But Liz," Ned said into the phone.

"This evening, Ned." And she hung up the phone.

Ned hung up his phone, too, and wondered how he was going to explain to his wife that, starting Sunday, the Grim Reaper was going to be living above their garage.

Fiction Friday #11

Wade's World

We've been on this Earth for eighteen weeks now.

It's the longest we've been on one Earth since we started sliding.

It's almost like being home again. There's no plague killing massive numbers of people, no asteroid plunging toward the planet, no giant killer bee/spider things, and no Kromaggs. The world is peaceful enough. No one's chasing us. No one's aiming or firing any guns at us. No trouble of any kind, other than the usual political problems, but those don't effect me or the others.

The biggest difference I've noticed about this San Francisco is that there isn't a Golden Gate Bridge. It seems that when it was first being built, there was an earthquake that destroyed the early work. The state's tried to build a bridge there three more times since then and each time there was another quake. People here think the Gate's cursed. That makes everything more cramped in the city. Back home there were neighborhoods in the city with yards that circled the entire house. There aren't any homes like that here. Each building is built so close to the one next to it that they may as well be connected.

When we first got here, it was exciting. Finally we'd be able to live normal lives. We could get jobs. We could borrow books from the library and take our time reading them. We could take our time living because there was nothing to run from, nothing to frighten us.

Rembrandt found a gig singing at a nostalgia bar out in North Beach. Six nights a week he's on stage. Some times solo, sometimes with a three other guys, always singing the hits of Motown. He says he can't stand singing all those songs, but can't sing anything that he got famous for, if you believe one top fifty song while you're part of a singing group makes you famous; I think he really misses that world where he was the king of rock and role. I know he loves this job, though. He was born to sing and he'll do it on any world, especially the ones that haven't heard of The Crying Man because it gives him a chance to find fame again.

The Professor hasn't had the same sort of luck as Rembrandt has had. He thinks he should be able to walk up to any university, shout out his credential, and be handed tenure. So far, it hasn't worked out. He's been fired from two bookstores, a Wallgreens, the zoo, and a hot dog cart. (To be fair, he was fired from the last one for eating the profits.) He comes back to the hotel each night complaining about the idiots in this world, but I think he enjoys the complaining and if he couldn't complain he'd be frustrated and angry at us instead of the nameless multitudes.

Quinn got hired at a little fixit shop out in the Sunset. It's stuffy and dirty, but he has all sorts of things that he use so he can tinker with the timer. Early on, he spent a lot of time searching for his double here hoping that there'd be a complete sliding machine he could use to get us home. When his visited his address, he didn't found his house or his mom, but more squeezed buildings. Eventually, he tracked his double to an apartment in Berkeley. Apparently, this world's Quinn moved into an apartment with Conrad Bennish where they became so stoned they were eventually dropped out. The Quinn of this world could talk about alternate dimensions, but only in the way that burned people can, in that pseudo philosophical verbal babbling.

To say Quinn was disappoint would be like saying it's a long walk to Mars. He tries to hide it from us, his guilt. He smiles and he jokes, but whenever someone talks about home, his eyes tighten. He blames himself for our... predicament and he thinks he's the only one who can solve it. I wish he'd talk to me about it. I'm afraid that one day he'll break and we won't be able to put him back together.

Me? I found a job working as a techie for small architecture firm. They're just starting to move from all paper to a CAD system. Mostly, my job consisted of opening boxes, putting computers on desks, and installing the programs. My supervisor promised me that things would get more interesting once they got their network online--probably in the next six months--but for now, this was all I was going to do. I wasn't happy, though.

We've been to so many worlds where we didn't have time to meet people and make friends. We leave when we start to get to know people. The few, that we've brought through with us, leave at the next world. I wasn't sure I could stay at a job for several weeks, get to know, and like, the people I work with, and then leave, again.

Rembrandt saw how sad I was getting and understood. He told me to quit. He bought me charcoal and paint and brushes and paper and told me to capture moments in the city.

And that's what I've been doing for the last twelve weeks. I pick a spot in the city each day and draw or paint what I see. And I'm always sure to put in a person, or an animal--something that's in motion because that moving thing takes a still picture and turns it into the story. The ferry crossing from Marin, a woman chasing after the bus, or the sad buffalos in the park all tell a story about the city.

Tomorrow, we slide. I have to leave everything I've done here. It's okay, though. I feel like I'm leaving stories of this world behind. I just hope that the person who finds them takes a look before they throw them away. I'd like to think that they want some more tales about the city.

Fiction Friday #8

World's End: Moving

As much as everyone in Shame would deny it, we don't really know when The End of the World happened. We can make some guesses, but no one knows for sure because there wasn't any giant explosion, or flying saucer, or Jesus Christ to announce that The End was here.

The best I can guess is that it happened Thursday night or Friday morning about four and a half weeks ago. I figure it happened then because when I got home Thursday night after drinking with Trista and some of her friends, Sanford and Son was on Nick at Night. I know enough to know that the shows are on some sort of automatic rotation, so they don't have to have someone there to handle everything, but when I came back to my place for lunch on Thursday, just about every channel was dead. Some must have had longer schedules laid out in advance, others, not so much.

When school let out, some parents sort of panicked because their kids couldn't just plop down in front of the TV. Their kids were bored. What were parents to do without TV? Drive to the video store and rent something?

The real panic didn't start until a few days later, when the power and phones cut out. That's when people started heading over to the high school. The insanity didn't set in for about a month, but it came and that's when I knew it was time to leave.

First thing I did was head to my tent and pack up. I stuffed some of the clothes that I brought with me into the knapsack I'd taken from Abbot's Sports. The things I left I left because I thought I could get them newer and better by hitting a few stores on my way out of town. Food and how to carry it was a big problem.

And where was I going to go?

Rumor had it that St. Paul and Minneapolis were okay, and people were still living there, but who in their right mind want's to live there? Maybe a stop over would be okay. Just to check things out.

I grabbed my knapsack and hitched it over my shoulder. I was ready to leave the high school. I left the tent, because it was a cheapie, along with all the blankets and the pillows where they were. I knew that there were plenty of better things I could take with me. After all, I was the first one who went into Abbot's when we all moved in here.

During the fight, I hadn't seen my sister, or Roy, so I walked over to his tent hoping to catch them there. When I walked up, I could hear some rustling and some thrashing, and I smiled. These were the noises I'd heard every night my sister brought a guy back with her before I moved into my own place. Funny how something that drove me crazy when it woke me up two or three times a week sort of made me happy now. Not all the time living with my sister was bad. And during those weeks when she had a steady guy, it was like living by myself, but only paying half the rent.

"Trista," I said as I got closer, "I need to talk to you." I started to hear panting. "Trista, God dammit, I need to talk to you!"

"Shit," I heard her say.

"Who is it?" I heard Roy ask.

"My brother," she said. "Now get off of me."

A little grunting and heavy breathing later, she unzipped the top of their tent, poked her head out, and asked, "The fuck do you want, Crete?"

She wasn't really beautiful, sort of cute with her sort of upturned nose and roundish face, but not beautiful. The rest of her was more round than trim and she was lucky that she wasn't old enough to start drooping. She wasn't one to dress sexy, either. She mostly wore loose shirts and long skirts in miss-matched colors. The reason so many guys liked her was because she liked sex, a lot, and she preferred it sober. She was a cheap, easy lay. Our father never liked that about her, but he didn't like a lot of things about a lot of people.

"Leaving," I said. "You and Roy want to come with, meet me at Abbot's Sports in about an hour and we'll all start there."

"Why an hour?"

"You two'll want to finish up," I said, grinning at her with all my power, "and then you'll want to pack and I gotta go get some stuff from my place."

She looked at me like I was nuts.

"We gotta get out of her, Tris," I said, squatting down so our faces were level. "They're going crazy in there. I just saw Mrs. Harding beat the shit out of Mrs. Greeling over Band-Aids. I don't want to be here when that shit," I pointed at the gym, "explodes and I don't want you here, neither."

"And Roy?"

"He'll keep you happy." I winked at her.

"You shit," she said. "Fine, we'll be there."

"Good," I said as she zipped the tent up.

I stood up and heard Roy ask, "What's going on?"

"First," said Trista, "I'm going to cum. Second, we're going to pack. Third, we're going shopping."

"What?" he asked.

"Shut up," she said and I walked away.

I needed to get to my apartment. I needed my hiking boots because, like everyone knows, you never go on a long hike with new boots, and I figured that there'd more hiking on this trip than I ever wanted to do.

Fiction Friday #7

Gunner Kerndus: After the Trip

I limped to the nearest bathroom, the one in the gym, to clean up. If I showed up in class with blood or massive bruises showing, questions would be asked. I knew that the teachers were only trying to help, but not one of them knew how to actually help.

If a teacher saw bruises, asked me where I got them, and I told the truth they'd make me confront Lloyd or Carter or one of the other. The idea behind the meetings was that we were supposed to talk things out, understand each other's point of view, and end up friends. Usually, the meetings ended up with me getting pounded on harder and longer after school or the next morning. Most of the times that a teacher found out about Lloyd and the others, they didn't give him a detention or anything. They said they couldn't since they didn't see it happen. Not that a detention would have helped much. What kind of a punishment is making a kid sit for an hour after school anyway?

I pulled the door open and limped to the only sink with an intact mirror to look at myself. I saw my father's weak chin, my mother's up-turned nose, my grandpa's springy hair, and my sad, dark brown eyes, but I didn't see any blood or bruises. Which was good. My neck and back and arms and legs were sore and were probably starting to bruise, but as long as I kept my hoodie on, the teachers wouldn't see them. My face was dirty and streaked where the tears fell when I sobbed into the grass, so I turned on the water, rolled up my sleeves, and started washing up.

If a teacher saw bruises, asked me where I got them, and I lied and said I fell or crashed my bike, they'd get suspicious. Someone would call my parent and we'd all have to talk because the school can't be too careful when it comes to child abuse. Going through that once was one time to many. My dad's never hit me or my little sister and neither has my mom. And even if they were the sort of people who'd hit a kid for doing something wrong at home, I'm not that sort of kid. Then I told the truth and guess who I got to speak with in front of the vice principal and the school councilor? Right.

Dad's advice was stupid. "Just turn around and pop him one in the face," he said. "Just stand up to him and he'll leave you alone. He's more scared of that than anything else."

Obviously, Dad never had a bully while he was growing up.

Once, earlier in the school year, after Leon took a swing at me and missed, I balled up my fist and swung back. I got him in his already twisted nose and hit him hard enough that he took several steps back. When he turned back toward me, blood was drooling off his chin. He just wiped his face, smearing blood all over his cheek, smiled, and kicked me in the balls. When I fell down, he jumped on top of me and started pounding my face, smiling a huge and drizzling blood all over me. Lloyd and the other just stood there laughing.

That was the first time that crying didn't get them to stop.

I stopped scrubbing and looked up just as the first bell rang. Five minutes until class started.

Fiction Friday #6

Gunner Kerndus: Face First

The dew on the grass tasted sweet. That seemed odd. Shouldn't the dew taste more like water? Where would the sugar come from? Sure, grass, like all plants, make sugars while doing the whole photosynthesis thing, but why would a plant secrete its energy source as water condenses during the night? Or was the water from the air just naturally sweeter than the water that's been processed and filtered and then fed to us through drinking fountains and bottles?

I didn't know anything I realized as one of Lloyd's guys--Cory, Leon, or Carter--kicked me in the side. It hurt, but not much. The best thing about falling face first is that you can't be kicked in the stomach, that hurt more. When that second kick came, I started to roll into a ball. I couldn't help it. Instinct. And in the second my stomach wasn't covered, Lloyd got me, hard. I kept curling, but I'd lost my breath and started coughing and they started kicking.

When they ganged up on me last year and years before, they wanted to see me cry. When I learned that, I'd give it to them after a few punches or kicks. Now, I had no idea what they wanted anymore. So I just lay there and let them do it to me. I think about something, anything, to distract me from what's going on outside. Anything to keep me from crying because it didn't help anymore.

I was kicked in the back.

Photosynthesis is how plants make food.

A kick to the butt.

Plants use the air they breath and the water they drink to make sugar for energy so they can grow.

Someone kicked my shin.

I don't know exactly how they do it, but it has something to do with chlorophyll.

My arm, which was wrapped around my head, was kicked and I started breathing heavy.

Chlorophyll is why leaves are green. It helps collect sunlight.

Another kick to my arms. I wanted to get up and run. My breathing came in quick gasps. I was not going to cry.

If chlorophyll makes leave green, what makes flower petals red or purple or yellow?

Then a kick to the back of my neck. I clenched my jaw and tried to take longer breaths through my nose.

Do the petals on blossoms help the plant to grow?

There was another kick to my neck and Lloyd started to laugh his high, piercing, laugh.

No, they attract insects and bird to knock the pollen down. Petals are for reproduction, not growth.

I felt a kick to my shin and one in the center of my back at almost the same time.

Bees get pollen stuck on their furry little bodies and carry it from flower to flower.

Lloyd laughed, "Okay, that's enough guys." The others stopped kicking me. "It's time to go. See you tomorrow, shithead," he said, kicking me in the butt.

I heard them walk away, but I wasn't about to move until I was sure they were gone. I didn't want to give any of them a free shot at me.

I counted to 300 before I uncurled and rolled onto my stomach and sobbed into the grass. I don't know how long I was on my stomach for, but I had to get everything out of my system before I got up. Crying didn't help anything.

When I finished I slowly thought my way up my body, starting with my toes, to make sure nothing hurt so much that I wouldn't be able to get up. Everything seemed okay, sore, but the hurt parts would work just fine.

With a deep breath, I pushed myself up to my knees and then gritted my teeth and stood up. I limped to my backpack, scooped it up, and limped to the nearest bathroom to clean myself up. All I could think as I walked was that middle school sucked.