K.J. Stevens's Blog, page 28

holiday cheer

holiday cheer

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I visit him because he’s a crazy fucker and he needs me. If I don’t go there, he’ll louse up big time. And that will be that. He’ll make toast in the bathtub. Jump off the roof. Hang himself with Christmas lights. Which would  be fitting, since it is Christmas and all.

 

He’s not answering his phone. It rings and rings and rings. This isn’t a surprise. He doesn’t always answer it. Not right away. He lets it ring, watches it ring, and if the ring sounds different than he thinks it should, he answers it. It’s hit or miss with this guy. More often than not, I’m a hit, but today it’s Christmas Day, the only day when I actually plan on seeing the damned loony, and I’m a miss.

 

Or he is.

 

I’m not sure.

 

What I am sure of is that I have twelve miles to drive through a snowstorm to spread some holiday cheer, and he's got me worried.

 

         He says awful things sometimes. Like earlier today, when the crazy ass did answer the phone and I had to hang up on him. I couldn’t help it. I had to. He said that all he wanted for Christmas was a gun. He sang that damned song, the one that goes “¼all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth¼” but he changed the words to “¼all I want for Christmas is a real big gun, a real big gun.” He kept singing it and singing it, over and over, so I hung up the phone. I had to. It was pretty scary. Really.

And now I'm calling him back, and he won’t answer the

phone. Not even on Christmas. So, I load up what I got for

him. Six-foot-tall, fake tree. Two dozen Christmas bulbs. Twenty-five feet of silver garland. He’s already got lights. The day after Thanksgiving he somehow managed to get to a store, and buy lights.

Or maybe he stole them. I don’t know. 

 

Of course, I got him what he wanted. A gun. It's a toy, but Catchey won't know the difference. He's wrecked. Not all there, if you know what I mean.

 

It's a lever-action, black steel, Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. Without the BB’s. I kept those. The last thing I want him doing is loading the sonofabitch and putting an eye out. Especially mine. 

 

I don’t wrap the gun because I know if I do, he’ll have a fit. He’s got an issue with Christmas wrap. Years ago, his baby brother, Jeffery, choked on a wad of it and died. He was only four. Catchey was eight. When his parents came into the living room, they couldn’t tell if Catchey was shoving the wad of paper in, or trying to get it out. That

morning, before the Christmas wrap incident, Catchey had threatened to kill his little brother because he had received more toys than he did. So you see, even as a kid, Catchey had issues. A mean streak. Extreme highs and extreme lows. But when a kid’s eight years old, and his baby brother dies, you give him the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately, since that gift of doubt, it’s all been downhill.

 

 

His parents are dead too.

                

His dad died in a fire. Fell asleep in his hunting blind because of the fumes from his heater. Was cooked up when his pant leg got too close to the flame. Catchey was sixteen.

 

Two years later, his mom whacked herself out. Took a bottle of Tylenol PM and washed it down with a bottle of Absolut. Catchey found her, but didn’t report it. Didn't call for help. Didn't do anything. He ordered Chinese food and stayed in his room for days. Watched the Yankees in the World Series. Finally, Yang, from Bin Bin’s House of Dong, noticed the stink of the body as he delivered half a dozen crab cheese wontons and a pepper-steak entrée. When Yang returned to the House of Dong, he called the cops.

 

When they arrived, they knew something was afoot. Catchey had draped a large Yankees pennant over his mother’s body. He had his pants down, was sitting in his own shit, crying on the floor next to her.

 

Surrounded by empty Chinese food cartons.   

 

         I pass Bin Bin’s House of Dong as I drive through the snow. I get stuck at a stoplight, but some tis-the-season-to-be-jolly Samaritan stops and pushes me out. I keep right on going once he’s pushed me out, and I feel sort of bad for not saying thank you, or for giving a friendly wave, but I got my hands on the wheel at ten and two, and I know God will be proud of me for running to see if Catchey’s okay. Especially on baby Jesus’ birthday.

The push out of the snow was all I needed. An angel. A Samaritan. Somebody looking to make a few bucks. Whatever the case, I get through the snow all right and before I know it, I’m standing at Catchey’s door with my arms full of Christmas.

 

“Merry Christmas, Catchey!”

 

He doesn’t come to the door.

 

“Open up, Catchey! It’s Santee Claus and he’s got presents!”

 

Still no answer.

 

I stand waiting for as long as I can. I think about turning back. I could decorate my own place. Whip up the tree, wrap it in garland, drink a few beers, put up some lights and then sit in my living room shooting them out with the BB gun. But no, I think. Poor Catchey. That dumb sonofabitch could have his head in the oven, or be lighting himself on fire. Like he’s done before.

 

         That was another scary one. 

“I’m going to light me on fire!” he'd screamed through the phone line one morning.

 

“No, Catchey. Don’t do it. You’ll get in trouble. You’ll hurt yourself.”

 

“I’m going to! Come watch! On the corner!”

 

When I got to the corner outside Catchey’s place, he was there all right. Holding a picture of himself with family. Dousing it with lighter fluid.

“Time to go!” he screamed.

 

“Catchey, don’t burn that picture! It’s the only one you got!”

 

He burned it anyway, or at least part of it. Sparked a match, and held it to the picture until he burned his fingers. When the picture hit to the ground, still flaming, Catchey fell on top of it and smothered it with his body.

 

“I save! I save!” he yelled. 

 

And I guess, in his own way, he did.

 

The picture, burned to a crisp, hangs on his kitchen wall.

 

I know I have to go into the apartment. I have to because I'll feel guilty if I don't. 

 

As usual, the door's unlocked.

 

Inside, Catchey’s under the kitchen table with a silver colander on his head. He’s flat on the floor with pillows stacked in front of him, aiming a wooden spoon at me as I bend over to look at him.

 

“Catchey, what are you doing?”

 

“You're dead! You talk no more! Shut up! You're dead!”

 

“Catchey, listen. I'm sorry I hung up on you. I’m here to celebrate. It’s Christmas!”

 

By now, Rucks, Catchey’s big, fat calico, has appeared from the bathroom. He’s rubbing his ass on my leg.

 

“Rucks get you! Rucks get you!” Catchey yells, as he clangs the spoon against the colander on his head. “Rucks kill bad!”

 

I make like I'm going to swat the cat and it runs into the bathroom. I set the Christmas goodies on the kitchen table.

        

Catchey reaches up and grabs my leg.

 

“You Santee?”

 

I smack Catchey in the noggin. The colander rings like a Christmas bell. 

 

“Get out from under there!”

 

Catchey lets go of my leg. He scrambles out from under the table and stands next to me. He puts his head on my shoulder, whimpers as tears swell up in his eyes.

 

I walk away from him and take the tree into the living room. He’s got his recliner turned facing the window. Covered in Christmas lights. The television is face down on the floor. There’s dried cat puke everywhere. 

 

Catchey sobs in the kitchen. It bothers me because all he wants for Christmas is a gun, and the gun is sitting right there on the kitchen table. All he’s got to do is stop crying and open his eyes.

 

I try not to think about it as I get the tree out of the box. It’s in three pieces. The branches all folded up, but it’s a breeze to put together, and I’m surprised at how real it looks, even up close. I sniff the needles for the hell of it, and I swear I can smell pine. I pick up the box and read it. It says nothing about being a scented tree.

 

“Catchey, stop crying! Come smell this tree!”

 

He doesn’t come, but Rucks does. Comes purring alongside me. Rubbing my leg. I kick the little bastard and he slides across the floor into the wall. He stops and wretches and wretches and hacks up a milky gob of hair.

 

I walk away, into the kitchen, because I need the bulbs and garland to decorate the tree. When I get to the table, I notice that the gun's gone. It's gone and so is Catchey. I listen and can hear him in the bathroom. He cocks and fires, cocks and fires. Squeals with joy.

 

It almost makes me smile.  

 

         I put the garland and the bulbs on the tree and I’m wrapping the final loop of lights around it when Catchey comes into the room holding the gun.

“A gun!” he shouts, delighted like a child.

 

The moment might be perfect, a real instance of Christmas spirit, but Catchey’s naked from the waist down.

 

He does this all the time.

 

“Where are your pants?”

 

“I shit!” he yells, still absolutely tickled that he’s holding a gun.

 

What can I do?

 

I walk over and plug in the lights. The phony tree looks great.

 

“Catchey, come smell the tree.”

 

“A gun! A gun! A gun!”

 

He cocks the gun, points the barrel into my face, and pulls the trigger. A blast of air whops me in the eye. 

 

“I kill!” he shouts, ecstatically, “I kill!”

 

Rucks is behind Catchey with his front paws on the back of Catchey’s thigh, nosing his ass.

 

I turn the recliner around and take a seat. Catchey moves toward the tree. He bends over and puts the gun under it. Rucks is behind him, sniffing away. 

 

I stare into the lights.

 

“I leave the gun for Santee,” Catchey whispers. Then he stands up and walks toward me. Stands right in front of me. His cock and balls dangling in my face.

 

“Catchey, turn around.”

 

He does, and there’s shit and bits of toilet paper smeared around his crack.

 

I stand up and put my hands on Catchey’s shoulders. Poor Catchey. I just want to hug him, to hold the crazy bastard and let him know that things will be okay, but I can’t because they probably won’t be. He’s too far gone, and all I can do is pretend that things have not come to this.

 

“I give Santee gun,” he whispers.

 

Rucks is back. Sniffing and rubbing, so I boot him once more. He slides into the base of the tree, casually rights himself, then lifts his leg and licks himself. When he's satisfied, he stretches out onto his side and paws at something I cannot see. His tail whisks back and forth like a pendulum. 

 

“Catchey, Santee doesn’t come to little boys who can’t wipe their own asses.”

 

         I know I shouldn’t say things like that, but it’s ridiculous. Nonsense. He’s a grown man.

Some days he can get out and walk to the store himself. Some days he can cook for himself. I’ve seen him come out of the bathroom clean and shaven, fresh and new. And I can’t believe him today. Why can’t he make it through today without shitting himself?

 

I make him stand in the tub and I get the water started. 

 

He breathes deeply. Wrings his hands.

 

“Sit,” I say.

 

He does, and then he rocks back and forth as I fill the tub. I use as much cold water as I can because I’m afraid of what might happen. And then, it does happen. I try not to look, but I do, I always do, and there it is. Catchey’s throbbing dick, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. He reaches for it, and I do what any civilized being would do. I pop him in the back of the head. Hard.

 

I shove a bar of soap into his hands and order him to scrub. He bawls and wails, but sometimes you gotta be tough. With kids. With cats. With people you love.

 

I push him over, grab the shower head, and spray his ass as clean as I can.

 

“Stand up and dry off,” I say, as sternly as possible. “When I come back, I want you spic and span!”

 

As I walk out, I pick up his pants. There’s shit all over them, so I put them in the tree box and head outside into the snow, so that I can throw everything away into the dumpster.

 

How does it happen?

 

How does any of this happen?

A couple of bad shakes. A stacked deck. A bad deal. Turds in the gene pool.

 

There are layers of meaning to sift through, but I don’t have the time. I don’t want the time. I’m afraid of what I might find.

 

All around me snow, lights, and holiday cheer. Families getting together. Bundled up and driving by. They'll suck down eggnog. Share presents. Make memories. Carve the Christmas beast. All of them living better than Catchey and me.

 

I throw the shitty Christmas tree box into the dumpster. I look up into the sky toward Catchey’s apartment window, expecting to see a burst of flames. A dangling rope. Or Catchey on the edge, getting ready to jump. But from the sidewalk, through huge, whirling snowflakes, all I can see is one thing. Catchey dripping wet and butt-naked, yanking lights off the tree. 

 

 

stark morning reality

December 10, 2011

8:06 am

 

Woke with fright. A jolt of stark morning reality. I’m a writer that’s not been writing. It makes me sick. Ashamed. Sad. I know that it’s what I’m to do. That’ I’m to be doing it every day. But instead of pushing myself and doing it, I’m making excuses. Not putting in the time. And I think, on the day I leave this world—if I have time to think at all—writing will be on my list of regrets if I do not buck up and get moving.

 

So, I got up. Stretched. Left my warm, sleeping wife. Set my tired feet to the hardwood floor. Had nothing but solid intentions to write this morning. To dig deep. Unearth some good. And distill it so that it could move from the place it comes, through my brain, back down through the gut, and then to the pen—or in this case, the computer. And I as I walked into the bathroom to empty bad ideas and wash my face, Oogie came running—like she does every morning—out of her bedroom and down the hallway. Filled with morning joy that only a two-year can have.

 

“Good morning, Daddy!”

 

And so, for half an hour, we visited. Ate breakfast. Had fun Daddy and daughter chat.

 

When I put on my sweater to let the dogs out and take out the trash, she said, “I no want you to go work.”

 

“I’m not going to work today, Oogie. I’m staying home.”

 

She smiled. Ate more banana.

 

I took care of the dogs. Tossed the trash. Came back in and she was waiting at the door.

 

“You no leave me, Daddy.”

 

“I’m not leaving you, buddy. I was just doing chores.”

 

“Oh-tay, Daddy.”

 

And then, as we walked to the living room to turn on cartoons, Little Man came out of his room.

 

“Hi, Dad.”

 

“Morning, buddy.”

 

He was clutching a photo album to his chest. I’d given it to him last night after I’d found it during a visit to my folks’ house. The album is filled with my 7th grade glory. Junior high football. Little Man was amazed. Intrigued. When he asked if he could keep the album in his room, I told him “sure.” You would have thought I’d given him the world.

 

“Morning. I still have your book.”

 

He opened it up and began gazing at the pictures again.

 

“You were a big kid,” he said. “Well, not big like now, but a kid bigger than me.”

 

“You’ll get bigger too,” I said. “And what might help that would be breakfast. So what would you like? A banana?”

 

No answer.

 

“Waffles?”

 

No answer.

 

“An orange?”

 

I stood there a full minute while he stared at the book and said nothing.

 

“Or, you can think about it for a while,” I said.

 

“I’ll think about it.”

 

“Kids, listen. I’m going to be in the office working. Writing. If you need me that’s where I’ll be. Don’t wake Mommy. Let her sleep.”

 

By now, they were both fully engaged in Elmo.

 

Time to get to the writing, I thought. The excitement—and I’m not kidding—was overwhelming. I wasn’t sure where I’d start. Would I finish the final edit of CUTTING TEETH? Would I work on the new short story book? What about the sequel to PILGRIM’S BAY?

 

“Dad,” said Little Man.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Can I please have a banana?”

 

“Yep. A banana it is, sir. I’ll be right back.”

 

And when I got back, he wanted to show me pictures of myself when I was just a kid. And Oogie wanted a hug. And both of them wanted their vitamins. And juice. And for the TV to be louder. And …

 

And so it went and so it goes. Priorities are not something I can regret. And S.B. and the kids come first. Writing is a not-as-close-as-it-should-be second. Work has fallen to a distant third or fourth. Maybe fifth. The holidays are coming round. There are projects that I want to finish before the end of the year. There are things I want to do and even though I’m not trying to make any excuses, it makes me feel better to know that not getting things done isn’t because I’m not doing anything, but because I’m taking care of the most important things in this life. And I think, if we are able to do at least that—to take care, to help, to make the lives of those we love just a little better—that it helps us through those spells when we are not able to do what we want to do.

 

I woke to a jolt of stark morning reality. The writer that’s not been writing. But if it weren’t for all these things that family brings, I don’t know what I’d have that’s meaningful to write about. Today there are no regrets. It’s up and at it and moving.

 

~ K.J.

 

hope for miles

December 1st, 2011

5:53 am

 

The big sky is holding out. Heavy and gray two days ago. So low, I could touch it. Then, last night, walking home, it was clear. Blue. Easing to soft pink and orange, as the sun slipped over the edge of the earth, leaving the last signs of hope for the day.

 

And this morning, I wait.

 

For the sky to break and move us from this season in between. So there is clarity.

 

In the fall, I know what to do. It is about preparation. Caulk and plastic sheets. Chainsaw and the ax. Preserving food. Stocking the shelves. Loading the freezer with meat.

 

But now, we are here. Slugging through these strange days. Preparation complete. The sky a great thing of suspense and intrigue. And it’s getting harder to recognize and reach for the simple things. And I wonder sometimes if everything I’ve been saying for years is shit. That maybe, all of the things we have convinced ourselves to do—work, earn, marry, pay bills, reproduce, pray, create, and love unconditionally—are not for our benefit, but for the well-being of those around us.

 

But you cannot understand this when you are alone. Doing those things to prepare for a life better lived. When you are not in it. When you are drunk as much as sober. In the dark more than the light. When life is a steady buzz of selfishness, great highs and great lows, and acts of self-destruction bring you just enough of the things you need to be happy, even if only for a little while. Pretty, willing girls. Nights on the town. More drinks—round after round—and recognition for everything you do. Pay raises at work. Pats on the back for a job well done. Handshakes and hugs all around for stories published in magazines or books that you knew would never matter. Because all of the things you do when you are egotistical and fighting fights not worth fighting are important and true. And when you are living so freely, but with so much hollow space inside of you, you are able to see those simple, perfect things.

 

Because you don’t have them.

 

Like I do. Now. In this strange season that I know will not last.

 

A bumble bee sticker on the door of my writing room. Placed at the height of my two-year old. And all I want to do is hug her. Hold her. Try to imagine what it must be like to be so small and happy and sure.

 

And my boy last night, as I tucked him in.

 

“Dad, I have something to ask you,” he said.

 

“Sure, buddy. What’s up?”

 

He smiled. Pulled the covers up to his chin.

 

“Tomorrow, after you get home from work, can we have some boy time?”

 

“Yes, we sure can.”

 

And I kissed his cheek. Gave him a hug. And went into the living room feeling pretty goddamned good.

 

There was the fire, warm and comforting. And there was S.B., so pretty on the couch that it shot lightning through my veins and it hurt. And I marveled at the fact that she and I made vows to last and last, and somehow we keep it going, on the right path.

 

The night went as well as it can for any man. We drank wine. Talked. Watched some senseless television show. Then went to bed, side-by-side. Another day gone, but another one too, waiting just over the horizon.

 

And here it is. The beginning of another in this in-between season. And I’m waiting for the big sky to give it up. So that there is less of the gray. More oranges. Pinks. The clear blue. So that I can build up the reserves and be thankful for all I’ve got.

 

The ability to work and earn.

A solid, growing marriage.

A roof over our heads.

Healthy kids.

And all around me—no matter what I say or do—three people love me most. And it’s the unconditional kind that does exactly what it’s supposed to.

 

Keep a man balanced.

 

And moving.

 

One foot in front of the other.

 

From one season to another.

 

Head up. Heart in the right place.

 

And nothing but hope for miles.

 

~ K.J.

 

The Horn

The Horn

The snow had been coming all day, first in flurries, then in steady, heavy wet flakes. It was good packing snow, so I was making snowballs and throwing them at the cows. Not throwing to hit them, but to see how they’d react. The only one that paid any attention was Cybil, the old white cow. She stared at me as the snowballs landed all around her. Her eyes dark and unblinking. She wouldn’t move, and it looked liked someone had walked out into the field and made a cow out of snow.

The other cows had their heads buried in hay. Each of them were wearing white blankets of snow on their backs. At five, when Tom’s Chevette came sliding into the driveway, Cybil put her head down and walked over to the others.

I got in the car and stomped off my feet.

“Why ya gotta bring all that shit in here?” Tom asked.

“The snow? Well, if you haven’t noticed, it’s a goddamned blizzard out there.”

“So, you coulda stomped off outside.”

“In the snow? What good would that do?”

            Tom’s face was windburned. He was wearing a red and black checkered, wool hunting hat. It had long hanging earflaps and a drooping brim. He had the strings of the earflaps tied up under his orange beard.

            “You owe two bucks.”

“For what?” I asked.

            “Beer.”

            “What beer?"

            Tom reached over the seat and came away with two bottles of Pabst. We popped off the tops with our seatbelts and clanked the bottles together.

            “A cheer,” Tom said.

I looked out the window at Cybil the cow. She was chewing and watching us go.

“To Cybil,” I said.

            “I’m not drinking to a cow.”

            “Why not?”

            “Cause she’ll probably be steak before too long.”

            “No, Cybil’s not an eater, she’s a milker.”

            Tom shook his head, spun us around in a donut then headed us out of the driveway. The snow was piling up like mad, coming down so heavily that Tom had us slowed to a crawl.

            “Fucking snow,” he said.

            “Where’d you get the beer?”

            “From Stan.”

            “Stan Kowalski?”

            “Yep, Stan the man.”

            “Stan, what a dope. How’d you convince him to buy for us?”

            “I gave him Emily Thompson’s number.”

            “You even got her number?”

            “What do you think?”

            “I think you don’t.”

            Tom turned on the headlights and cranked up the heat. The Chevette’s engine sputtered.

            “Kowalski’s a dick. He’ll think he wrote down the wrong number or something.” Tom chugged down the beer.

            “So what are you gonna tell him when finds out it’s not hers? When he gets his big Pollack paws on you and is ready to beat your ass?”

            “I told him I got the number from you.”

            “You asshole! What am I gonna do?”

            “I don’t know. You’re a goddamned Pollack, he ain’t gonna hurt you. You dumb bastards all stick together.”

            “Oh blow it out your ass! What are you? A goddamned German? I’m suprised this fuckin’ heater ain’t cranked up to 350 degrees, like an oven.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “Nevermind.”

            “You talkin’ about the Jews?”

            “Nevermind.”

            “Man, that’s bogus. An oven. You’re one sick bastard, Kausabowski.”

            I put the Pabst to my lips and sucked it dry.

            “Where do you want the empties?” I asked.

            “Save em’ for the horn.”

            He turned us left onto Oldfield Street. We fishtailed around the corner. I opened another beer.

           

Tom and I had always traveled the horn. Weekend, weeknight. Summer, spring, winter, fall. We’d hop in his Chevette and drive the horn, a rough stretch of road that ran off behind the Clifton Cement Plant and alongside Misery Bay.  The going was slow no matter what, but since it was winter and snowing like hell, the going was even slower.

The road was really named Northpoint Road, but we called it the horn because about halfway into our trip there was this driveway with a big, red ship horn at the end of it. When we neared it, I’d take whatever empties were handy, lean out the window and see if I could throw them into the opening. It wasn’t easy because Tom would either speed up or slow down and swerve all over so I couldn’t get my timing right. More often than not, the bottle ended up shattering against the horn, and the pieces fell into the driveway. It didn’t matter, Tom said, because the place at the end of the driveway was just a summer cottage anyway. Owned by some software engineer from Farmington Hills.  

            Tom and I drank a lot for a couple of kids. It wasn’t a big deal for each of us to drink ten or twelve beers while cruising the horn. I never drove; Tom always did. The fact that his dad was an ex-lawyer turned mayor, and that my dad worked at the cement plant had a bit to do with that. Tom’s Dad would bail him out if he got busted for drunk driving, whereas mine would have beat my ass. Dad didn’t care so much that I drank, but he swore to God he’d kill me if I ever got caught drunk driving, and I never argued the point because Dad had his reason.    

            It was two days before Christmas when Mom was on her way home from Fishers Big Wheel with a carload of gifts and Willie Lunker hit her head on. From what the papers had said, Willie had worked the midnight shift and five hours of overtime, then stopped at Kramer’s Pub for a half dozen beers or so. He killed my mom with his Dodge in the early afternoon as she waited at a stoplight. I’ve seen the newspaper clipping. Our blue Plymouth station wagon crumpled up into a wad of metal. Fisher Big Wheel bags, new toys and clothing, spread over the pavement. The only thing that makes Mom’s death real, besides the color of the car, is the caption - Scene of the crash, which claimed the life of 24 year old Alpena woman, Tabitha Kausabowski.       

            I grabbed two more beers out of the backseat.

            “Let’s see if we can finish a few more of these before we get to the horn,” Tom said.

            I opened the beers and handed him one. 

            “What’s the hurry?” I asked.

            “This fuckin’ weather’s a bitch. If we get stranded, out here it’d be nice to have a good buzz on.”

            The shoreline of Lake Huron was white. The sky was white. The Chevette trudged along, pushing snow like a miniature plow. I could hear the car’s bottom scraping along the road and feel the snow pounding against the floorboards. Tom steered with his knees. I reached down to turn on the radio.

            "Don't turn that on."

            "Why not?"

            "Because, the less we got going, the less likely this thing will stall. I got the heat on and that's plenty. In fact..."

            Tom reached down and turned down the heat.

            "Now can we turn on the radio?" I asked.

            "No, we got the headlights on, and I didn't turn the heat off, I just turned it down."

            "That's crazy. The radio's not gonna stall the car."

            "Bullshit! I've been driving this car for two years! I know what I can and can't do!"

            I sipped at my beer.

            The road, its shoulders, and the ditches were gone. Everything was lost beneath the snow. The windshield was beginning to fog, so Tom switched the blower from heat to defrost. 

            "Aren't you afraid that sudden change in power is gonna stall us?"

            "Go to hell, smartass."

            "You're the one that's gonna go to hell, Tom. Lying to Stan. And then when Emily finds out that you gave out her number, she'll hate you too."

            "Emily...what a dame, hey?"

            "She's all right."

            "What happened when you two went out?"

            "Nothing."

            "Don't give me that shit. What happened?"

            I drank some more of my beer, and held it up to Tom in the gesture of a toast, so that he would shut up and drink. 

            "Fine. You don't want to talk. I pick you up everyday. I get us beer. I drive us around. I take all your verbal abuse, and still you can't tell me what happened with Emily Thompson?"

            "A gentleman never tells."

            "Tells what? You said nothing happened."

            I tried to look out over Misery Bay, but I couldn't see. I wondered if anyone had put their shanties out yet, and if they had, I wondered if the ice would be thick enough to hold a man, his shanty, and all of the snow.

            "Your old man put his shanty out yet?" I asked.

            "I know you're trying to change the subject. And I know you know that I love fishing and you're hoping to get me talking about fishing instead of what did or didn't happen between you and Emily."

            Tom reached over the seat, still steering with his knees, and grabbed two more beers. The Chevette kept moving forward, pushing snow.

            The horn was hardly ever plowed. The people who lived on Misery Bay and other parts of Lake Huron owned summer and winter cars. Acuras and Cadillacs for the steady, warm months. Land Rovers, Suburbans, and Cherokees for the cold, unpredictable months. Some of these folks even owned an extra truck, an old Dodge Ram or a Chevy Silverado. They were full-size and four-wheel-drive, with tires bigger than they needed to be, and usually, they were outfitted with a winch and a plow. These trucks were used for “knocking around”, as I’d heard them say. For towing fishing boats and motorbikes, for going to camp, and for keeping the pavement of their wide, winding driveways clear.

            I thought of my Dad driving home in his old Ford F-150, the only vehicle he’d owned since the Plymouth he and Mom shared, and I knew that with all the snow it wouldn’t be long before he’d be out there. He’d come home to eat, then head out into the night to plow. Dad had his regulars that called. Old people who lived on the outskirts of town that didn’t want to slip and fall while walking to the mailbox. Or sometimes, single, divorced women with a brood of children. Women that were afraid of being snowed in because they could never tell when one of their kids was going to get sick, or fall down. Dad told me that they’d invite him in for coffee, or cocoa and on occasion, even dinner. Most of all, he figured, people called for plowing because they were lonely.   

            Yes, Dad would be home now, eating the stew I'd made. Beef stew with carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms. I'd left it on the woodstove, covered, so that it would be warm when he got home. I had made mashed potatoes too, because I knew Dad liked to pour the stew over them. But I was disappointed because as me and Tom trudged along, I remembered that on the note I'd left him that said, ‘Went riding the horn with Tom. Checking for shanties’, I had forgotten to tell him that the mashed potatoes were on the second shelf, behind the milk, in a foil-wrapped green dish. I wished then, that one night he’d be lonely too, and that when I got home there’d be a message telling me that he’d be staying the night at one of the divorced womens’ houses because his truck had broken down.

            Tom stopped the car. He shut off the wipers, the defrosters, and started to get out.

            "What are you doing?" I asked.

            "I gotta piss."

            "You just gonna leave the car here in the middle of the road?"

            "Christ, ain't nobody coming! Nobody'll be down this road for another half hour. Not in this weather, anyway."

            Tom slammed the door and jogged off the road into a stand of pines. I watched him until he vanished into the sagging, snow covered boughs. 

            I reached down and turned on the radio. There was nothing but static, so I shut if off again and thought of the Saturday that Emily and I shared. 

            It had been a Saturday. It was cold, but nice and clear, and Emily had said she wanted to have a picnic, but it was the end of December and snow was on the ground, so I didn’t believe it until I pulled into her driveway and she walked out of her house with a cooler and a backpack. It was hard pretending I wasn’t surprised.

            "What's in the cooler?"

            I tried to take it from her, and offered to take the pack, but she refused. 

            "It's a surprise, mister! You just keep your hands off!"

            I went around and opened the trunk. I shoved aside my hunting rifle, my ice fishing rigs, and made room for the cooler by the spare tire.

            "You hunt?" she asked.

            "Yeah, but not much. I just like being outside, I guess."

            "Sure, that's what they all say. Killing poor, helpless animals. You’re all brutes, as far as I’m concerned." She smiled and got in the passenger side as I closed the trunk.

            Emily looked classy. Her form fitting, gray wool coat. Her black hair hanging down and tucked around her neck like a scarf. She looked like a catalogue girl. Some fresh faced actress, crossing a busy city street, stopping traffic with her Herbal Essence hair. Me, well I’d been fishing the Pike run that morning and hadn’t had time to shave or shower. I was wearing Sorels, a quilted flannel, and a knitted hat. And as we rode out into the sunny, fresh, snow covered country, and she talked about moving to Chicago to go to medical school, I wondered how it was that I had managed to land a date with her.

            We had been in the car driving and talking for about an hour before we stopped.

            “This is good,” she said. “I like this place. It’s pretty. What do you call it?”

            “We call it Trumbull’s Mill.”

            “Why’s it called that?”

            “It’s the name of the guy that used to own the property. I’m not sure why they call it Mill though. I think it used to be a wood mill. You know, logging and stuff. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, this path we’re on is an old logging trail. See how it dips down there to the stream?”

            Emily unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned foward. She stared down to the place where the stream bubbled through the ice. My heater didn’t work and she looked cold, so I was suprised when she untucked her hair from around her neck and began to unbutton her coat. She shrugged the coat off then tossed it into the backseat. Something fell from a pocket and onto the floor.

            “What’s that?” I asked.

            “It’s my cell phone. Never know when I’m going to need it, especially when parked in the woods with strange boys.”

            She giggled and smiled as she leaned down to pick up the phone. She put her hand on my leg and pulled herself back up into the seat.

            “Use it much?”

            “Not really. Only in emergencies.”     

            She glanced back at the stream.      

            “It’s an awfully small stream for logging.”

            “It used to be bigger. Wider. Since the cement plant put up their hunting club back in the woods, the water’s slowed to a trickle here. Rumor has it that they’ve redirected the stream so that it flows through their property.”

            “Oh, it’s not a rumor. It’s true. I’ve seen it. I’ve stood in it. Up to my knees, trying to catch crayfish. My Dad and his buddies are always out there drinking beer and playing cards. Sometimes I go back there to play with them. I’m suprised you’ve never been back there. Your dad does work at the plant, doesn’t he?”

            I pictured her Dad and the rest of the Cement Plant execs. Wearing their khakis and their weekend hikers, drinking imported beer, and talking about how they would head out at the crack of nine and make a killing, trolling Lake Huron with downriggers, depthfinders, and navigational systems on their boats named Money Talks or Dollar’s Wake. And right then I knew that I wanted nothing to do with Emily Thompson. Not a picnic, not a conversation, not anything. And that’s how I worked up the nerve to lean into her and give her pink, fleshy lips a try.

 

            Tom jumped into the car and it rocked from the weight of his body. Snow fell off him onto the steering wheel, onto the dashboard, and onto me.

            “You’re not going to believe what I just fuckin’ saw!”

            “What?”

            “A big, fat, hound!”

            “Bullshit! You’re either getting drunk or going snow crazy.”         

            “Man, I know what I saw! A hunting hound wearing a bright, red collar! And it had a bell around its neck or something because I could hear it jingling! We should go out and find him!”

            “What for?”

            “We could probably stick one of these rich fucks for a reward, that’s why! We could probably get fifty bucks for fat boy like him!”

            “Tom, you’re losing it. It’s a hound. It’s probably halfway home by now. You probably scared the shit out of it, stomping into the woods to take a piss.”

            “Come on, let’s go!”

            “No way! I thought we were gonna just drive the horn and drink, and that’s what I came to do. Besides, it’s cold out, and the wind’s really starting to blow shit around. It’s starting to drift, and if we go trapsing through the woods we might end up lost. And I’m not freezing my ass off for some hound.”

            Tom shook his head.

            “That’s just it. You always got your head up your ass. Anytime some great opportunity comes along like this, you shirk it off. Like Emily. I bet you didn’t even kiss her, did you?”

            Both of us were quiet for a minute. We drank and listened to the wind as it blew up off the lake and screamed around the car. I could feel the Chevette rocking in the gusts.

            “It’s not letting up any. Maybe we should head back.” I suggested.

            “No, we’re almost to the horn. Besides I gotta get the Emily scoop outta you yet.”

            “There’s nothing to tell.”

            Tom leaned back in his seat and steered with his knees.       “You should’ve seen that hound. A good hunting hound like that...I know we could get a reward. He had his damned face buried right in the snow. His nose stuck to the ground, pushing through snowdrifts! The bell ringing through all that snow. It was the prettiest thing I ever saw.”          

            We drank more and moved alongside Misery Bay. I tried to look out my window and see shanties, but the glass was steamed up and I thought again of Emily.

           

            My heart pounded against the seatbelt. The strap felt like it was burning through my clothes and into my chest. The air was stinking of sweat and dirty floorboards. The car was warm with our heat. The radio had been kicked on by a stray foot or leg and was buzzing a staticky song. Emily’s body was pressed hard against mine. Her mouth was hot. Everything - the windows, the steering wheel, our bodies - was steamy. Her hand was fighting my zipper, and I wondered if she realized that I still had my seatbelt on.

            One of her wild legs pounded the radio again and the staticky song buzzed louder. The heat, the stinking floorboards, Emily’s hands pulling flesh and hair - all of it was suffocating. Finally, I unbuckled my seatbelt and eased the seat back to get enough distance from her so that I could take off my coat. By the time I had one arm out of its sleeve, Emily had unbuttoned her shirt and was shoving her naked breasts into my face. Their smell, something like a cross between oranges and baby powder was suffocating. I lifted her away from me to catch my breath, and she stopped.

            “What’s wrong?” she asked.

            “I couldn’t breathe.”

            She leaned back against the steering wheel and covered herself with her arms.

            “Is it me?”

            I sat upright and tried to hug her. She shoved me back against the seat.

            “You think I’m a whore, don’t you?”

            “What? No. I couldn’t breathe is all.”

            “All you fucking guys think I’m a whore! That’s why you ask me out! That’s why you all drive me out to some fucking trail in the woods!”

            She reached for her shirt and hit her head hard on the rearview mirror. Tears flooded her eyes. She scrambled to her seat, snatched up her phone and began to dial.

            “What are you doing?”

            “If you don’t get us out of here and take me home this instant, I’m calling my father!”

            Without another word between us, I started the car, backed us out of Trumbull’s Mill, and raced us back toward her house.

            I can’t remember if we said anything during the drive back, but I remember wanting to ask if she had any beer in the cooler, partly as an ice breaker, but partly because I was serious and thought both of us could us a drink. In the end, we got to her place and she was out of the car and heading into her house before I was even able to remind her to take her backpack and cooler.

            I thought about keeping her stuff, but I knew better. Eventually, I would have to see her again, and the date had been bad enough already. So I grabbed her pack, her cooler, and set them inside her old man’s Land Rover. I made sure to open the bag first, so that he could see her stash of condoms, then I left the cooler open too, so that he would know who had been stealing the Dewar’s from his liquor cabinet. With all that done, I looked at the sky and was thankful that it was still clear and light because that meant there was still plenty of time to go fishing. 

 

            Tom tossed his empy bottle into my lap and it startled me. 

            “We’re almost there dipshit. Get ready.”

            I stuck a bottle on each finger of my left hand and held another one in my right. I turned sideways in the seat and opened the window. When I leaned out into the snow, the wind felt like it was cutting my face and I could hardly breathe as snow rushed in all around me. 

            “Can’t you block some of that shit from getting in?” Tom yelled.

            “Just keep her steady!”

            My eyes were watering like crazy and I blinked again and again to keep them from freezing. I could hardly see the big, red horn through the swirling snow.

            “How many bottles you got?” Tom asked.

            “One in the barrel and five in the chamber!”

            I dangled out the window and readied my aim. I could feel the cold in the bones of my hands and my skin felt like it was being pelted with rock salt. I could hear Tom yelling something, but it was drowned by the sound of wind howling.

            We were about 15 yards from the horn when I let the first bottle go. It veered off to the right and was sucked away into the white. I reloaded quickly and threw two more. Both of them sailed over the horn and disappeared. Tom was yelling something to me again, it sounded like he was calling me “HOUND DOG!”, and suddenly the car was swerving all over the road. I dropped two of the bottles down the side of the car, and as I struggled to get the last one off my thumb, Tom slammed on the brakes. My head slammed into the door frame as the Chevette jumped over something hard and spun sideways. Tom was yelling, “Hound! Hound!” and wrestling with the steering wheel as bottles, tools, and Tom’s fishing gear went airborne all around me. My body lunged forward into the windshield and when I heard glass shattering I closed my eyes.

            Tom started screaming and pounding his fists on the steering wheel. “Oh my God! It can’t be! It can’t be!”

            I was still, slumped against the dashboard, thinking of Mom, Dad, and Emily. What if it all had been different? If Mom hadn’t died? If I hadn’t forgotten to tell Dad about the mashed potatoes? If I had just gone and done it with Emily? I opened my eyes and could see blood on my hand. This was what it was like, I thought, to be dying. Then, I felt Tom punch me in the arm. 

            “Hey dumbass, get up! It’s just a scratch!”

            I sat up and looked around. Red and white fishing jigs stuck in the seat and carpet, the air stinking like beer. Tom was out of the car, running down the road, back toward the horn. I looked at my hand. Part of the bottle neck was still stuck on my thumb and blood was leaking from a small  cut on my index finger. I felt the side of my head with my fingers and I could tell that by the time it was all said and done, I’d have a good sized knot to contend with.

            I got out of the car and started walking toward Tom. I could see the outline of his body like a shadow in the snow. He was knelt down in the middle of the road like he was praying. Ahead of him a ways I could see the headlights of a car shining fuzzy, like flashlights through a cotton sheet.

            “What are you doing? There’s a car coming! Get outta the road!”

            Tom remained still, hunched over in the road. I looked back at the Chevette. It was sitting lopsided, up to the middle of its wheels in snow. I shoved my hands into my armpits for warmth and dragged my feet through the heavy drifts. Inside I felt something had happened, and that something had been happening since I’d been standing at home, throwing snowballs at Cybil, waiting for Tom to show.

            By the time I got to Tom I was numb, so seeing him there, crying and touching the dead hound was strange. The dog’s body was stretched out in the snow. Its eyes were closed and one long ear was flipped back over its head filling up with snow. Tom was fingering the shiny, golden bell on the hound’s collar.

            “She won’t be running no more,” he said.

            I knelt down beside him and the wind blew up all around us. Snow fluttered down the back of my neck and the chill of it felt good.

            “I don’t think that car is gonna see us, Tom. We better get her out of the road.”

            As Tom brushed the snow away from the hound’s ear, I slid my arms under her and lifted her from the road. Besides a single spot of blood on the snow, all that remained was the imprint of her body. I watched Tom kick snow into it, then we walked off the road together. The dog was heavy and warm in my arms. 

            Tom came over to me and we watched the headlights come near. Three white faces peered through the windshield of a  high-riding, black four wheel drive Dodge. It was a woman of about thirty with two small children. A boy and a girl. When I saw the woman’s head drop and I saw the children’s mouths gape open at the sight of us, I knew that they must have been out looking in the storm for a long time. My eyes squinted and watered as the wind blew up into my face. My nose and lungs filled with snow and cold and I could hardly breathe as I wondered how I’d got there. I could’ve waited at home for Dad, then hopped in the plow truck with him. We could’ve been plowing driveways. Ones that belonged to old folks and divorced women. I could have went through it all with Emily, and maybe I could’ve been at her house, watching a movie on her big screen T.V., drinking the Dewar’s she’d stolen from her old man. Or if there weren’t such things as Christmas, Willy Lunker, or Fishers Big Wheel, I might be home with Mom. I tried to imagine her carrying a steaming kettle of mashed potatoes to the kitchen table, but it didn’t work because I couldn’t remember her. 

   

           

 

             

Big Fish for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day, 2011

7:53 am

 

I am thankful for frost on rooftops. Unraked leaves. Ten yellow apples hanging on the tree. That’s one more than last year on this day. And this is our second Thanksgiving in Alpena. The town we left as young adults, but came back to with our kids so that they would be grounded. Humbled. Always within reach of nature. Because these things that you learn in a small town, surrounded by family and friends, are things that last. The lessons are subtle. Often silent. And brutality—because there is less of it—is more profound.

 

Theft.

Vandalism.

Violence.

Car accidents.  

 

These things are still news. And although we don’t have as many conveniences or thrills as other places, what we have seems to work. There could be more investment in the town. More opportunity could be created. Jobs can be made. This little town could be bigger, healthier, more in tune with the outside world, but the longer I’m here the more I realize that this is not what the people want.

 

Not yet.

 

Once the old money dies or is passed on to younger hands, things will change because that money will disappear. It will leave town or be consumed by the mouths and desires connected to those hands. It will not be shared. Saved. Doled out over time. And even though I know that the money, investment, and opportunity really doesn’t matter, I fear that my desire to have my kids grounded, connected, thoughtful, and resourceful may jeopardize opportunities they may have. That my desire to have them firmly rooted in a small town that I loved, hated, and loved again will be a handicap, a roadblock, their eventual undoing. That even though the schools are good, the people care, and that a few people are trying to step up and make change for the good, unless we are vigil about aiming our kids away from Alpena, they may never reach their heights.

 

Is there any good in being a Big Fish in a small pond?

 

I see Big Fish washing up every day. Frustrated men with ruddy complexions that have hard hands and even harder souls because at one time they were on top of their game. High school big shots. Athletes. And they were loved and fun and got away with all sorts of things because they were everybody’s All-American. Not bad guys, but Big Fish in this little pond, and now they are rotting from the inside out because they drink too much, care too little, and spend their lives working factory jobs, doing construction work, or sliding by on odd job after odd job after odd job, hating everyone else for the life they’ve made.

 

A general description. An easy—and some will say—inaccurate insight. But I know more men like this and the women that are affected by them than I do any other kind. This town, even if I’m off a few degrees here and there in words of description, is full of these Big Fish. And now, on Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I’m not one of them. That I never was or will be a Big Fish anywhere. And I am thankful that we came back. Made sacrifices so that our kids could start out on a stable foundation that has been years and years in the making. Because it isn’t about conveniences and having more things to do. More buildings and more people do not equal more opportunity. What it’s about is starting small and never losing sight of the simple things.

 

And being thankful.

 

For frost on rooftops. Unraked leaves. Ten yellow apples hanging on the tree. One more than last year. And this is our second Turkey Day in Alpena. The town that has somehow kept us grounded. Humbled. Always within reach of nature. Surrounded by the things that last.

 

Best,

 

~ K.J.

 

FLAG DAY (a short story)

From the short story book, Dead Bunnies

 

flag day

            In a stinking bar - ashtrays and cigarettes, hands holding dirty glasses, puddles of beer on the floor and on the table, the jukebox pounding the stale sweaty air - but I can smell her. Just showered, Ivory skin. Clean, strawberry smelling hair. Our elbows touching and energy

shooting from pore to pore, rifling through our layers, pushing deep inside to places that feel familiar because it feels like they've never been touched before.

            We sit with co-workers at four long tables that have been joined together to celebrate. Ricky is leaving. The six foot six, hunk of business man who makes more than most of us combined, is leaving us to be an executive for Ford Motor Company in Battle Creek. All I know about Battle Creek is that they make cereal there.

            The people surrounding the table are misfits like me. College graduates who work because we need to so that we can do what we love. At the table I'm at there's a guitar player, an artist, and the sculptor, Eileen. She, like the rest of us, has been working at Cheney's Design Inc.

for a year and a half because that's how long the company's been around. We came aboard because of promises. Two weeks of vacation, 401k, a casual dress code, and the possibility of stock options. Ricky had said that coming in on the ground floor of a new company meant one thing - that all of us would be moving up. So far, he's the only one to go, and he's been running the company. I wonder about he loyalty and dedication that Ricky spoke of when he recruited us, and even though I think he's a heartless asshole, I'm sad to see he's leaving because we need people like him to run companies while the rest of us are running the world.

            I can't believe how good Eileen smells in all of this. Her scent grounds me and as our legs find each other under the table, I keep fighting myself. She's married, I think. Married and has a kid. I can't decide what it is about her that gets me, but something does. It isn't her body, I think, because frankly she's bigger than any other girl I've ever liked. So maybe it's her long, blonde hair and the way her bangs curl and sweep down in front of her eyes. She looks at me a lot through that wispy hair and she knows that her blue eyes are an advantage. If she works at it,

like she usually does, we'll end up calling a cab and heading to my apartment. From there, she'll call her husband. I'm staying in the city tonight, she'll say. Because I'm too drunk to drive. Make sure you get up early enough to get Billy off to school.

            I'll watch her talk and lie and I'll wonder at the foolishness of trust, the boundaries of vows and commitment, but I soon forget them because those are things that do not belong to me. And when the phone's back in its cradle, we'll go right to it. We'll be up and down and all around

the apartment, from room to room, chair to floor, carpet to linoleum. When it's all over I'll feel like shit because I can't feel as good as I want to knowing that everything we've just done might be solidifying two advanced tickets to hell. Everything goes away in the darkness though, when she snuggles up and drapes her arms around me, when I feel her breathing.

            I'm talking to Chuck, the guitar player, about Hemingway and fishing when Eileen puts her head on my shoulder.

            I say to her, like I always do, “People are going to start talking, you know.” And she whispers in my ear, “I don't care.”

            “You guys aren't hiding anything,” Chuck says. “It's obvious you two have been fucking for a while now.”

            The free beer, courtesy of the cigar-puffing, suit-wearing, Ricky, is starting to kick in. Some have heard what Chuck's said, but thankfully Ricky's busy running his mouth about the Mercedes he's going to buy so not everyone has heard.

            I lean over the table.

            “Jesus Christ. You want to get us fired?”

            The artist, Jennifer, has two cents to put in.

            “Fired for what? For taking some pleasure in this miserable fucking world? This goddamned company...they ought to give everyone a fucking sex slave as a bonus. Wasn't that in our contract?”

            We laugh and drink and pour more beer. I see a light come on in the apartment across the street. There's a woman pacing back and forth in front of the window talking on a telephone. She's wearing a white robe and has a towel on her head. The woman has a nice, dark tan, or she

might be Mexican. I think about the word Mexican and I wonder if there's a word that's more politically correct. It's hard to tell with all the rightness in the world. All I know for sure is that she's very attractive from what I can see of her. I look for a wedding ring shining through the window glass, or for photographs of children on the wall.       

            “Hemingway could kick Ricky's ass,” Chuck says.

            Chuck's an African American, but he's told me it's okay to call him black even though he's a brown chubby man. He's been playing guitar since he was eight years old. He's attended Interlochen, made and sold his own CDs, and plays on Saturdays at the Music Café down the street.

            “Ricky's pretty big...” I say, but Jennifer jumps in.

            “Before you two start talking about Hemingway and all the asses he could kick, I have something that I've been wanting to ask you, Chuck.”

            “Sure, go ahead.”

            “It's of a personal nature.”

            “Nothing's personal anymore. You know that.”

            “Okay then. My question is this...In this world of so-called equality, I still think that the reason I haven't made it yet is because I'm a woman. Do you think that the reason you haven't made it yet is because you're an African American?”

            “Because I'm black? That's bullshit. I'm making it now. And so are you. To hell with all that. What is making it? Is being like Ricky making it? Because if so, I don't want any part of it. Look at him...what an asshole. Not only could Hemingway kick his ass, I think he would do it for fun.”

            Miraculously, there's a moment of silence in the bar. The jukebox is changing songs, conversation has lulled, and Ricky's heard what Chuck has said about Hemingway kicking his ass.

            “You talking about that fucking writer?”

            “You can read, Ricky?” Jennifer asks. Everyone laughs.

            “Fuck all of you. I could kick any writer's ass.”

            “Not Hemingway,” I say, and there's more laughter.

            Ricky stands up and smiles.

            “That's right. You're a writer, aren't you?”

            I nod my head and sip my beer. I see that the woman from the lighted apartment is gone. I think maybe she's getting dressed to go out. And I think that it's too bad her bedroom window isn't facing the bar because it would really drum up business. I feel Eileen's hand on my arm. I can tell she doesn't want me to start anything with Ricky because she knows that I won't back down.

            My silence and the laughter of others have hurt Ricky. He's getting red in the face and I notice that his big hands are clenched into fists.

            “Don't worry about it, Ricky. Hemingway's dead.”

            “Because someone like me probably kicked his ass.”

            “Actually, it was something like that.”

            Across the street, the woman is in her window. She's on the phone again, wearing a black bra and unraveling the towel from around her head. She's bent over to let it all out and for a second I lose sight of her. When she pops up again, I feel warm. From the beer, from Ricky's

bullshit, and from the sight of her with that long, dark hair.

            “A toast!” Chuck shouts, “To Ricky and to Flag Day!”

            “Flag Day?” Ricky says, “Fuck that! To Ricky! And it's no wonder I'm leaving after working with a bunch of freaks and queers for so long. You fuckers really weird me out the way you talk about queer shit all the time. Maybe you are all queer, but it doesn't matter. Let the queers sing their songs, write their stories, and play with clay. In a month I'll be driving by in my new Mercedes, and if you're lucky I'll slow down long enough to wave!”

            Everyone laughs and drinks. I turn and look at Chuck.

            “Is it really Flag Day?”

            “That’s what my calendar told me this morning.”

            Chuck looks over at Ricky. Shakes his head.

            “I thought it would be a good idea to try and change the subject. Ricky's pretty loaded.”

            “Yeah, but Hemingway could still kick his ass.”

            Eileen pushes her body against mine.

            “We ought to go soon,” she says.

            “What do you mean? The beer's on Ricky and we're just getting started.”

            “I know, but I'm tired.”

            I think about the woman in her lighted apartment, slipping a white blouse over her black bra. I imagine she's probably in the bathroom, finishing up her hair, spreading on scented body lotion for someone to inhale.

            “Can we hang just a little while longer? I like talking about this shit.”

            “What shit?”

            “Hemingway and stuff.”

            She rolls her eyes and smiles.

            “You boys and your talk. Hemingway's dead and his time is up.

            He's out and Nicholas Sparks is in. But I don't want to get into this.

            Maybe Ricky's right. Maybe you boys are a little queer. Do you really like each other?”

            “We love each other!” Chuck shouts, as he raises his glass.

            All of us clink glasses, except Eileen. She gets up and goes to the bathroom. I imagine that when she gets back it'll be time to go.

            “You two are fucking, aren't you?” Jennifer asks.

            “Leave him alone,” Chuck says.

            “Why should I?”

            “Because you're just jealous that he's the one giving her cock and

not you.”

            “I don't like cock, remember?”

            We forget sometimes that Jennifer is a lesbian because she is amazingly beautiful. She is a tall, shapely, red head. Besides being an artist, she's a lifeguard and she runs in marathons. The woman is a glorious physical specimen.

            “That's what I mean. You want to be the one giving it to her.”

            Chuck smiles. Jennifer pauses to sip her drink, and I can tell she's thinking of something to say. It's a nice break in the action because I like the way her lips touch the glass.

            “Very funny, Charlie, but I'm afraid she's not worthy of my cock.”

            “You mean the plastic one in your dresser drawer?”

            Chuck laughs and so do I because all of us are getting drunk and I'm thinking that if Hemingway was alive I bet he wouldn't mind being right here with us. Drinking, laughing, and talking shit - especially on Flag Day.

            Ricky's drinking shots. There's a busty waitress making him keep his hands off her and the glass. He's told he has to keep his head tilted back and remain still so that she can pour the shot down his throat. Ricky tells her that he'll sit still if she pours the drink from her tits. He says that there's a big tip in it for her, so the girl straddles him, puts the shot glass between her tits and pours it down his throat beautifully. It doesn't look like it could be done better in a movie. The shot, however, is too much for him. He gags and coughs and cusses out the waitress as he stuffs a five-dollar bill deep into her cleavage. He puts his hand over his mouth and heads toward the bathroom.

            “I hope he pukes his guts out,” Jennifer says.

            “Do you think Hemingway puked?” Chuck asks.

            “Sure, that's how you build stamina, isn't it?”

            “You two shouldn't idolize Hemingway so much,” Jennifer says.

            “Sure we should. We're in our twenties. Isn't that right, Chuck?”

            “In our time that's what we need. We need another Hemingway.”

            I fill all of our glasses, including Eileen's, and I hope that when she's done in the bathroom she'll want to sit and drink some more. I glance at the apartment window across the street and the light is off. The woman is gone.

            “I don't know why we talk about him like we do,” I say. “I like his writing because it's brutal and honest. It’s about natural things.”

            “I think you boys love him because he's a symbol of masculinity and because it makes you feel tough. I mean, do you really think he could survive in our world today?”

            “No, he isn't a symbol and he couldn't live in our time. We don't give a shit about anything but making money, buying things, and creating walls to call home. We're a bunch of soulless assholes. Look at us. The only reason we're here is to drink for free. We sit and bitch about the weight of a politically correct world. And all I really want to do is get drunk, go home, fuck, and fall asleep.”

            “That's good to know,” Eileen says, as she comes up from behind and puts her arms around me.

            Jennifer drains her beer then gets up to leave.

            “Okay kids. The shit's getting deep, so I think I'll be going. I'm supposed to go running tomorrow morning.”

            Chuck stands and stretches.

            “Yeah, I better get moving too. I have to be at the Café early tomorrow to set up. You guys coming down to listen?”

            We tell him that we'll be there because we will. We have to stick together in all of this because there aren't many of us left. If there are, they're silent and living alone in apartments across the street from bars. They're coming home late from work, dressing up, putting on something new, so that they can go out and dance, and drink, and look for something that's missing so that they'll have meaning.

            Eileen sits next to me.

            “Maybe I should go home tonight. You know?”

            I wonder what’s happened in the bathroom to change her mind. If it is Flag Day and the fourteenth of June, I know her period's about two weeks away. So it must be something else. Guilt, perhaps. Or maybe she just wants to go home. To make that long drive in the dark night. Alone. To their house on the hill. Where she will undress. Get into bed. And hold him. So that he will smell it. The beer. The smoke. An unknown scent. And finally, she will have shown him her infidelity.

            Outside the window, the woman from the apartment is walking across the street. Under the lights, in her white blouse and black skirt, she's looking like some Dark Lady Shakespeare would write about. When she reaches our side of the street, a man on a bicycle nearly plows into

her. He has a long, scraggly beard and is wearing a backpack against his naked back. Sticking out of the pack, wavering through the night air is an American Flag. The woman is shocked and scared, and in an instant dictated by nothing but invisible fate, our eyes meet through the window

glass. I can see she's rethinking everything.

            “Yeah, maybe sleeping alone will be good,” I say to Eileen as I take another drink.

I hear the door open and some of the bar goes out into the night.

            I wonder if the shirtless man with the flag has heard anything. I wonder if

anyone else along the street outside is awake. If they are, what are they doing? Are they drinking? Watching television? Surfing the Internet? Does anyone read anymore?

            Eileen eyes the Dark Lady as she walks into the bar then looks back at me.

            “I could stay a little while longer,” she says.

            “No, that's all right. I want to get out of here before Ricky gets back from the bathroom anyway. I don't even want to say goodbye to that sonofabitch.”

            All of us walk out together, through smoke, music, and laughter. I watch the Dark Lady take a stool at the bar and by the way she moves and sits I can tell she's someplace familiar. I catch sight of Ricky coming out of the darkness. He's wiping his mouth. Making his way to the bar. And I know that once I'm outside, he'll be there. At her side. Promising to buy the next round.

 

Copyright © 2000 by KJ Stevens.

Dah, dah

It’s best not to think about it. To somehow dig deeper. Pray for rest. And hold fast to the reality that one day it stops. You’ve made vows. Created obligations. And fulfilling them has nothing to do with appreciation, recognition, or reward. Your thanks comes in knowing that your wife and kids have what they need, and that when needs are met, they have some of what they want. It is not about you. What you thought you might be. It is not about what you believe. It is about what you know. And you know you must wake when they cry. Pick them up when they fall. Stay silent when they make you scream. Take the backseat. And be strong. This is a great feat that sometimes requires guts you do not have, so mostly you run on hope that is fueled by blind courage made up from equal parts lack of sleep, alcohol, and trial-and-error. It used to be you kept balance by writing, sleep, sex, and exercise. But now, the only balance you can be sure of is imbalance. The constant rising and falling of the familial wave.

 

It is not a bad gig being married. Having children. And although family creates temporary bouts of weakness, in the long run, it makes you stronger. And the long run is what we’re aiming for. Right now, it’s work and raising kids. Keeping up the house. Daily chores. A nonstop cycle of the same thing every single day with the only solace being that it is the constant change that makes these days different, challenging, and provides the simple bright spots that keep us going.

 

My wife, dancing with the kids. Her curly shock of brown hair bouncing as she twists and bounces. Laughs and smiles. And all I want is for us to being able to hold each other for a long, long while. To get to that place only we can get at when we are alone. 

 

Making supper and watching my four year old son from the kitchen window as he bounces his basketball in the driveway. Practices hard. Launches shots. Over and over again. Until finally, he hits the hoop. Sinks one. Smiles to himself, but only a moment, and then tries again.

 

My eight month old daughter. Sad because she cannot yet walk and only crawls. She has fallen and bumped her head.

 

“Dah-dah, dah-dah,” she says, as she buries her face in my shoulder. Hugs me. And we walk awhile and I kiss her cheek and tickle her belly until she laughs. And I laugh. And all is right with the world again. 

 

It is hard being a husband and a father. Especially if you take these roles seriously. When you put everyone else first, there is little time for yourself. No time to write. To tinker in the garage. To read. To talk with friends. To fish. Life, when you choose to make such serious decisions, can become too serious. It’s easy to get caught up in bills, groceries, diapers, and making ends meet. Easy to lose sight of the reason you got yourself into this. Which was, after all, love. But you must keep sight. Stay on track. Keep the aim. Because it is not only you, anymore. You are a trusted husband. A Daddy. An important cog in someone else's wheel. Each day, you must be stronger, more patient, and more forgiving than the day before. You cannot falter, shatter, or fall apart. You must dig deeper. Pray for rest. And hold fast to the reality that one day it stops.