y son Jonathan thrusts the paper in my face.  “Dragon!”  I nod, looking over the rustling paper at the TV.  Carol’s parents gave him a washable marker set at his birthday party today.  They also gave him flimsy-looking coloring paper.  A sneeze could probably tear the stack in two.

“ESPN Classic” is showing the 1991 game where Kevin Walker destroyed Bo Jackson’s hip and ended his football career.  The past few minutes I’ve watched Bo dragged down again and again.  I still can’t decipher the precise millisecond where things ended for Bo.

No one at the bar that day even realized he was hurt.  We just laughed at Bo getting caught from behind by “Walker”.

Four years later, Jonathan was born, ten weeks premature.  Later that afternoon, after both sets of grandparents had come and gone, a vein in Carol’s left leg clotted with blood, and while I was getting a cup of clam chowder from the hospital cafeteria, she lost consciousness. The official diagnosis was something called “pulmonary embolus”  Three days later, my mother sat in the passenger side, her hand on my shoulder, as I drove Jonathan home.

Now, “Eight years ago today” is the headline ESPN Classic runs across the top of the screen as Bo remains on the ground.

“Dad, the dragon!”

I pause the game.  The little dragon breathes red and yellow fire.  Its tail swings off the side of the page.  Its eyes are bigger than headlights.  The boy can draw.  I remember laughing the night Carol, early in her first trimester, dragged down a shoebox from the attic to show me pictures she had drawn in high school.  One had a tall, bug-eyed owl springing from a CD player while young girls on a couch pointed and pushed to get away.

“Great job,” I tell Jonathan.  He just stands there.  “It looks real.  Why don’t you draw another one.”  As soon as he's gone, I watch Bo get dragged down again, though there's no point.  It will always look like a routine tackle.

I turn the TV off.

Carol was so nervous showing me that shoebox, telling me it was no big deal.  She just wanted me to see.  I made a joke about the pregnancy doing weird things.  I said she better not cut off one of her ears.  She smiled and took the box back up to the attic.
 
In the play room, Jonathan sits at a table, his back to me.  His little chair looks on the verge of cracking.

I sneak up to the attic. He won't believe the things that his mom drew.

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The special needs bus is late.  Donnie is a creature of routine.  He wears a football helmet and begins banging his head against a utility pole.  Beryl hugs him to her chest.  He immediately quiets down.  It’s like petting an alligator’s stomach.  She asks me to go back into the apartment building and get him a scarf as well as her brown turtleneck.  There are three other mothers waiting with us.  They are all from Serbia and start talking to Beryl in her native language.  I don’t speak it that well, but gather they are congratulating her because, for the past month, she has had a man, an American no less, to share her bed.

Halfway to the front entrance, Beryl yells for me to bring back some Marlboros as well.  I’m glad to get out of the cold.  The crisp air has cleared my sinuses, but now that makes the building’s cooking smells that much stronger.  Why anyone would fry onions at 7:00 AM is beyond me.

I sprint up three flights and take a break.  I’m way out of shape.  Last April I ran the Boston marathon, but, since taking up with Beryl, I’ve let myself go.  Cambridge streets are dangerous for night jogging, especially in this neighborhood.  I keep promising to use the stairs as my personal exercise machine but never do.  Magda Coveliski lives on this floor.  Beryl hates her.  It has to do with something back in the Balkans.  Magda is from Montenegro which seems to be reason enough to have enemies.  As many times as Beryl has explained the political situation to me, I can’t remember why Serbs hate the Croats who, in turn, hate the Herzegovinans.  Everyone hates the Bosnians.  And don’t even get her started on religion.

“Look—for pancakes which I’m practicing making Vermont American way.  You want to sample now, no trouble?”

I take the bottle from her and study the label.  She cozies up next to me and re-emphasizes “Made in Vermont” on the label with several fingers of her French manicure.  Fresh from the shower, her bottle blonde hair combed straight back to air dry, she begins to shiver.  The cold air outlines her erect nipples.  She has two teenaged children.  God knows where the father is.  She has mentioned more than once that they are normal (a slap in Beryl’s face) and do well in school.  I hand the bottle back and suggest a pancake rain check.  She looks puzzled until I explain what the expression means.  I turn and go up the next few steps.  She yells after me that she’s taking an educational course with the H and R Block peoples.  If she does well, she can do income taxes for her countrymen living in Cambridge.  There is a suggestion that I might be able to help her out with some English words, a tutoring type of thing.  She would find a way to repay me, maybe in pancakes.  She says “pancakes” in a voluptuous way and cocks her head inviting a reply.

I tell her I’d be glad to help out a little bit, but stop in mid-sentence because I hear screams.  Magda thinks it’s probably someone’s TV or that new family from Skopje who beat their kids.  Her face twists in hate as if, back in the Balkans, they would be marked for extermination for such a crime.  I wave goodbye and zip up to the fifth floor.  When I open the door, I have trouble remembering what Beryl wanted so I grab mittens, scarves, hats and sweaters.  I’m about to shut the apartment door, hoping that Magda isn’t naked on all fours on the landing, when I hear more commotion outside.  I go back into the apartment and look out the front window.  Donnie is lying in the snow.  Beryl is bent over him.  About ten feet away another woman is on the ground.  A crowd has gathered.  I drop the clothes and head down the stairs two at a time.  When I get to them police cars are pulling up.  I kneel next to Beryl and ask what happened.  She screams “Where were you!” and then, while pushing me away, begins comforting Donnie in Serbian.

The super’s daughter speaks decent English and tells me that two black boys rode up on bicycles and fired their shiny guns into the crowd.  At first she thought they threw firecrackers, but people fell down and there was lots of blood.  More police arrive. I am pushed back until I tell them that I live with the boy on the ground.  One woman is probably dead and her little girl, no more than six, is bleeding from her mouth.  Donnie was grazed in the arm and head.  His helmet protected him so he just got stunned for a moment.  He’s thrashing around so it is probably a seizure that’s the main concern.  He is given a shot by an EMT to calm him down.  Beryl is out of control, lashing out at everyone.  The medic threatens to sedate her if she doesn’t stop.  She sees me and recommences her attack.  “Where were you?  What took you so long?”

I start to explain and see that Magda, an overcoat thrown over her bathrobe, has joined the bystanders.  Beryl sees me glancing at Magda and goes nuts, pounding on my chest with closed fists before launching an all-out Magda attack.  I put her in a bear hug and drop to the ground, hoping that my weight will eventually calm the struggle by tiring her out.  With everyone else attending to the dead and wounded, we are left alone to fight our private battle.  Magda stands over us like a wrestling referee.  Both women are shouting at each other in totally different languages.  Beryl seems to be losing energy although that could be a ruse to have me let up and then she will go all out.

Suddenly someone shouts that they see one of the shooters across the street on his bike.  The young black boy, no older than Donnie, drops the bag of chips he was eating and speeds off, slashing between buildings where he disappears among the rabbit warren of empty lots and alleys.

When the shooting first happened all represented Balkan countries were drawn together.  They formed a united front against the slow police response time and the ambulance crew which left the little girl untreated while they tended to another victim.  As things sorted themselves out, they looked for different targets.  The super’s daughter says this would never happen in her homeland.  “People are killed because they are hated, in America it is for fun.”

It is considered suspicious that, after I disappeared, the shooting began.  Perhaps, as the outsider, I’m involved.  Everyone at the bus stop is looking at me, wondering if I am part of a criminal plot or just a man out for a good time with their women.

Beryl promises to behave if I let her up.  She wants to go with Donnie in the ambulance.  I tell her I’ll stay here, lock up the apartment then come to the hospital.  I get off her and she runs toward Donnie on a gurney.  He’s been knocked out and strapped down.  His forearm flesh wound has been taken care of by a gauze pad and bandage.  Beryl asks for her sweater.

“I forgot it.”

“You were gone for fifteen minutes and came back empty handed!”

I offer no excuse, but Beryl glances at Magda and begins shouting at her in Serbian.  Magda shouts back, pointing to her breasts and grabbing her crotch as she delivers a verbal counterattack.  Hand gestures are made.  Both women make the universal throat slashing sign.  This cannot be good.  Fortunately Beryl and Donnie pull away in the ambulance.  Magda is quickly at my side, hoping that Beryl will see us close together.

A cop comes up and wants a statement.  I detail the bus stop events.  Then the personal questions begin.  I am Beryl’s boyfriend. I teach ESL at the Barnabus Center.  That’s how we met a month ago.  She’s on welfare.  I’m not.  Neither of us is on drugs although there is plenty of traffic in the building.  I’m asked for names but really don’t know who is involved.  I’m not aware of any gang activity in the building, but in this Cambridge neighborhood I suspect any one from the Balkans would be considered an intruder.  As the interview finishes white flakes float down.  It takes me a few minutes to decide it’s snow flurries and not industrial ash.  I’m sure I’m suspected of something by the police as well as the building residents.  I’m given Lt. Heffernan’s card.  I’m to call if I want to tell him anything.

I head to the building’s front door.  Magda is no longer around.  It would be easy to sleep with her now, but I’m not in the mood.  I wonder how I can get by her third floor lair, but there is no way.  I take my time on the first two flights.  Stealth is everything in defeating Magda’s radar and sonar.  I speculate as to why I’m doing this.  Couldn’t I just walk away as I usually do?  But I’d have to leave my laptop, clothes and some library books.  So it’s probably worth my effort to go upstairs.  Just before the third floor landing I begin a world-class sprint.  I’m almost make it.  She must spend hours by the peephole.  She is fully dressed—a tight green sweater, black skirt, no stockings and strapless high heels.  She wants to know what “fiduciary” means.  She has a textbook tucked under her arm.

“It’s someone who holds something in trust for another.”

“What is “trust” meaning?”

I yell over my shoulder that I’ll explain it tomorrow.  She begins to climb the stairs after me, but I’m much quicker to the apartment, let myself in and shut the door.  She knocks.  I lie and tell her I’ve got to pack things for Donnie and get to the hospital.  She wants to know if she can help me.  I thank her but say no.

I grab my backpack and toss clothes into it.  Some may be Carl’s.  He’s in jail for at least another six weeks, but I’ll sort out any mix-up later.  I find my library books and drop them into my laptop case.  All my worldly belongings can be carried in two hands.  This is either very sad or a good thing.  I slip my jacket on and check the peephole for Madga.  She’s either off to the side or gone back downstairs.  I debate whether I might quickly assuage both our sexual urges, but Beryl would have to live with the aftermath of Magda’s gloating.  Beryl deserves better than that.  No, it’s best to leave cold turkey, like ripping a bandage from an old wound.  I think about the boy on the bike, the supposed shooter, how he melted away.  Invisibility takes years of practice, I suspect.  Right now I’ll settle for a five block walk, and then hop on the Huron Avenue bus to any place where I, women notwithstanding, can live in peace.

                                                                                                        
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“Dad, you’ve known for years that smoking causes cancer,” I muttered during one of his rants.

“I wouldn’t have smoked then.”

“As a kid, I was always begging you to not smoke while we were eating.”

Dad laughed. “Remember how I’d always put the chicken necks on your plate?”

“I’ll probably never forget.  Remember how you’d use my plate as your ashtray?”

He laughed again, denying that he’d ever do such a thing.

Yeah, right.

We lived in separate states, so we usually spent a few days at each other’s homes during our visits.  Every visit, he warned my teenaged daughter and I that he’d probably never see us again.  My daughter would look at me, uncertain what she was supposed to say or do.  Then he’d talk about how his wife, my stepmother, wanted to be cremated because it was cheaper, but he didn’t want to be burned.  “Ain’t that what the Hindus do?” he asked my daughter because her father is Hindu.

“I think so,” she told him.

“Nothing wrong with that,” he said, but I sensed he thought there most definitely was something not quite right, and feared he’d say more.  “It’s definitely cheaper.  What do you want to do with your body when you’re dead?” he asked me.  Both my daughter and I were in the process of getting ready for school, not really prepared for this urgent farewell discussion.

“I’d be happy just left in the woods somewhere.”

“Your mom’s weird.  You know she’s serious, don’t you?” he asked my daughter, who looked sickened.

After a year of pondering what to do with his body, Dad decided to be cremated and pre-paid for the funeral and the food for the reception.  Dad seemed happy to know the ham sandwiches were paid for and he had two cemeteries prepared for his ashes.  He wanted half of his ashes next to my mother, who had been dead thirty years, and he wanted his wife to do the same with half her ashes when she died, the other half would be placed in a cemetery near where he lived and his wife’s family had been buried.

The hospice nurse thought she’d know when Dad was about three days from death, and I’ve been a hospice volunteer, so I knew guessing when one would actually die is a bit of a crapshoot, but my sister and I lived in separate states from my father, and were hoping we would have time to fly there so we could be with him once we got “that call.”  We got “that call” in the middle of the night, and I got on the phone to arrange airline tickets, but by morning, Dad was dead.

“Keep looking, you’ll find them,” I said.

His wife kept laughing remembering the good times when my dad was able to drink like a fish.  “Put that picture up there,” she said, “they’ll probably be there tomorrow.”

My sister and I discovered that there was a surprise awaiting us at the funeral home.  After all Dad’s talks about his funeral plans, and finally agreeing upon being cremated, we were led to this broom closet, and there was unembalmed Dad, three days dead, lying beneath a green sheet, looking absolutely dreadful.   “I wanted you girls to have a chance to see your dad,” his wife explained.

Neither of us said anything.

“Doesn’t he look good?” she asked.

I figured she was suffering from fatigue and stress.  Three days dead.  The green sheet.  The gurney shoved in a closet.  Ugh.

The funeral director had us sign legal papers regarding this viewing that he did not support.

Then she noticed my dad’s brothers and sisters and ushered them toward the closet.  The funeral home director intercepted her, and reminded her it was illegal to have an unembalmed body out for viewing.

“We paid a lot of money for this funeral,” my brother intervened, and started pushing our dad’s body to the room where the memorial was about to take place.  People were already seated.  The funeral director chased him with legal documents that needed to be signed and kept saying, “It’s illegal to do that in our state!”

Non-relatives were shaking their heads, laughing.  My brother continued pushing the gurney, and my aunts and uncles dutifully walked up to see my dad lying on the gurney, and declared that “he sure looks good,” and I wanted to point out he looked a whole lot better in most of those pictures lining up the wall.  The funeral director looked miserable.  I’m sure he wished we would push our dad’s body outside and just finish the service anywhere but inside his funeral home.

Finally everyone sat down, and I don’t know who the man was that got up so say a prayer, I think he was my brother’s fishing buddy slash preacher friend.  People stood up to tell drunken stories of my dad, except his brothers and sisters said more serious things because their other drunken brother had died the year before, and the remaining siblings were not drinkers, except for the one who kept saying weird things in the lobby and drinking out of a flask, but he didn’t get up to say anything, and our step-mother kept leaning over to my brother, sister, and I, pleading, “Don’t you want to say anything about your dad?”

For once, the three of us did the same thing.  We just stared straight ahead.

There was no more to be said.

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rofessor Nietzsche for one tried to kill God, as if He were an addiction like he himself  plowing his sister in the dark like a deranged father knocking up his daughter in a cell in his big house, saying religions were going to be slave masters out to control the poor inhabitants of "Aqua" by perpetuating their fear of death and the unknown to making minds become so warped that little or no thinking would go on to any depth; then, he added vehemently that greed would slaughter God in attempts to find a self worth and indeed become their mad-off god. 

The philosopher was countered by Professor Gilgamesh who said the womb was more powerful than the brain and wanted an "un-chosen" people to write a book of their beginnings—hanging gardens and all— to see if it would be stolen and then other fictions added—just for fun.   philosopher Pessimistic Shaupenhauer could not agree more saying Nietzsche was a mad man off his rocker trying to create supermen among self-haters!

 At this point others on the panel begin to interject some of their ideas like Benny Zoroaster insisting a Son of Light should be introduced with twelve apostles to see where that would lead while Doctor Agnostic said that since even they themselves did not know their origins it would be a sadistic game to play on inhabitants still living in caves or not very far from the ones they recently left conquering to some extent their fear of lightning and thunder.

Professor Heron, the machine guy genius, said he could make one thing that would have people visiting "holy places", his voice indicated the sarcasm of it all, to inject a coin into the machine and that weight would make a lever go down to produce just enough "holy water" to cleanse them of the dirt they felt which to their minds would become a miracle and then overwhelm them with huge doors opening to the tune of thunder—making the business of religion flourish until a real cure came along if indeed they had it in them to find real cures and not pseudo panaceas to lessen the fear in their hearts and take away the stain on their souls.

Doctor Shrub and his father Mister Cheeeny suggested to make many of the inhabitants be very very poor like childs dying of hunger yet able to work for the super rich like one percent and then see if they could survive in tents which could be called Shrub Tent Towns.   Mister Hoover Damn agreed vehemently by slamming his GOP on the table sighting a compassionate way that that would indeed test their mettle and make sure a great war could happen between a great leader wearing a mustache and doing a little freaky dance while a great city called Paris was burning with fire emanating from her genitalia and his pupil Mister Boner and Mister Turtle Face put their little Gops up on the table standing on their toes to show agreement, compliance and followship.           

And so the experiment on a new discovered planet began and all the scientists and super elite of the planet Control—a galaxy away— awaited excitedly like little children being presented with a new toy on the morning they called The New Fourth Order.

                                                                                                      
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