Snakes and Ladders                                                                                                                            

by Karen Lethlean

p on the eighteenth floor of this city office building, the lifts were infrequent visitors. Gathered by the doors waiting were two or three workers. If you were at these elevators you worked here. Social callers were a rare occurrence, there simply wasn’t such a thing as a causal drop-in from a very best pal, or sister, or long lost cousin. Other than workers escaping for lunch or cigarette any one else were clients or sales representatives. Their major concerns would be things like the amount of letter-head stationery someone had ordered, or payment of third party insurance premiums; perhaps someone might be investigating web-sites visited or inappropriate use of emails. No-one was calling in for a quick chat, gossip fix, or social interaction.

Etiquette demanded blank stares whilst awaiting lifts. Avoid eye contact. When a line of sight error was made apologetic body language should be quickly adopted. Part of this game was to prevent conversation. What was there to talk about, anyway? Once past the obligatory, ‘busy isn’t it?’ Response: ‘Yer sure is.’ (Had to answer that in the affirmative.) What then?  No point talking about the weather in these air conditioned surrounds. If someone dared to brave small-talk it must be terminated upon lift arrival. How repulsive to continue with so many strangers eavesdropping!

She did inadvertently gaze at the stocky man, dressed in jeans, beer belly curling over his belt. A grey half-grown beard spread about his chin that seemed compensation for a receding hair line. His returned gawk was an undressing look, right from neckline to groin. Causing her a core tingling flow of embarrassment. She turned away. But the heat of him looking drew her back. This time as she peered into his face, doing her best - don’t piss me off, you arsehole – expression. But his tongue flicked out and he slowly licked his parted lips.

My God! He thinks he knows me. She remembered his shape, solid but not this overweight and the paunch was new. She recalled his scratchy skin, scaly against hers. She heard those grunts, that slobbery jowl, hot breath passing her ear. She dredged up the very stench of his sweat from some corner of her psyche. Must have been very early, only just after she’d run away from that bastard of a step father.
When was that? Must have been the early 80s, Leanne was pregnant then. Had to be her second trimester, after up-chucks were over, she certainly didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Kept frowning like it had been all my fault, but Leanne was keen to try for a baby, so excited when pregnancy was confirmed, who’d have thought she would be so sick. She was just beginning to get that expectant mother glow, and look wonderful when my dreaded psoriasis started. The doctor said, ‘it was stresses’. Heck I wasn’t the one having a baby! I’d done my bit, only had to sit back and wait for the fat lady, melon tummy thing. No way was I going to get my leg over with that damn itchy, patchy rashed-out skin. Yer, Gordie found that girl, Rosie, like the flower, said she’d do it, and reasonable price too, felt so good to finally take the pressure off.

What should she do now? Certainly not talk to him. Ignore him; he’ll have to do the same. What else can I do?

She faced him; to stare him down; adopting a strong persona; wasn’t that part of what she should do? A mantra spun inside her head; that was then— this is now! How dare you use my past against me! Sparks flew; she charged up a force field air space with what she felt would be greater electricity than his. Grasping for control - let the power suit speak of authority and manufacture distance. Her face astutely made up with a formality to strengthen her buzz. The past of vivid, childish, even garish face-paint in an attempt to hide sins or injuries was far away. She told herself; make barriers, be sure, be capable.

Standing there with her professional aura, declaring: I earn good money and can afford the best hair-dos, wear those chick-suits. But deep down she was still that scared little girl, lipstick a tad blurred at the edges, spaced out on something to get enough courage for what was about to come; and he did. Just now remembering the deep, shuddering pleasure he couldn’t help but smile. Nothing wrong with his memory, it might have been more than 20 years ago but he still recalled her glancing about that cheap motel room, wide eyed like a rabbit looking for a bolt hole. Her hair was changed; shorter, darker. Bet her boobs aren’t quite so perky now, hard to tell in that less than shapely jacket. She’d been wearing red then, one of those lacy body suit numbers, as if some form of seductive lingerie was required rig-out. When all he wanted was to have her naked, feel how tight she was. Probably wouldn’t be after the thrashing he’d given it. What about those times when she’d doubled up with that other chick, what was her name? Jill; that’s right - she was the one with the leather strap outfit, like they were leather and lace, God what a night that had been! Still like to go there again.

Regrets about the past trickled in like flow from a cracked dam, threatening structural integrity.  She thanked her luck, or stars, Anna, or what-ever force had gotten her breaks that assisted her escape from that downward spiral. The money she’d spent on those secretarial courses, her schizophrenic existence while shifting from one life toward another. Being away from the streets; violence; drugs was like being reborn. The bed-sitter was a sanctuary after those cesspools. Grimy hotel rooms, dingy shared flats that always seemed unclean, smelt of wet boy and cheap aftershave. All those other places that had a musty odour, vomit stained carpets and a stench that flowed into her nasal senses even now. How could a smell smoulder like the aftermath of a fire and stay in your brain all this time? Suddenly everything was sharp again as if freshly torched. It was like stepping back in time, spotting someone you had a neighbourhood dispute with years later. It made her realize everything was stored; nothing was forgotten; like a cancer in remission, but always there, ready for a new abscess to grow. She remembered, how she’d felt in those rooms. No matter how bad the need, she’d always been too frightened to ask where the toilet was. Claustrophobic from constant night time phone calls, even if none came she was never really alone on those sleepless nights and constant reminders still crept into her dreams. Reincarnated now were visits to smoke laden, noisy parties with tinny music pounding out of cheap speakers, a drunken breath hot in her ear, a hairy groin, a salty burn in the back of her throat. All alive again and bouncing out from memory like giggling ghouls that never quite left her and now seemed to be enjoying their loosening.

This man, the catalyst, strutted about like some kind of rooster, his body language saying—I’ve had her—she was mine. Her grip failing, she looked down. She had lost. All she wanted now was for the lift bell to ring so she could escape. But he drove home deeper. ‘You’re a friend of Jill’s aren’t you?’

Had to be sure, didn’t he. Shit! Jill—the girl she used to team up with. He probably wants to know where she is working now. Listen, mate you don’t want to know, and don’t really care. But the words froze in her mouth. They weren’t a double act for that long. The extra paid for two girls had been part of her breaking free. She’d made a clean get away, left all that behind, these haunting ghosts weren’t fair. Hell, he’s not doing this to me! Fixing her eyes straight at him with as much defiance as she could muster, as if intending to slap his face, ‘No, you must be mistaken.’

He looked her up and down again, grin on his lips. She waited for his next attack, meeting his stares with eyes as black as the night, and giving less away.

‘Perhaps I am wrong,’ he said over a microwave like ping.

But as she departed into the safety of the lift, ‘see you later, Rosie,’ rang like a rifle shot in her ears. 

The Wolf and the Lamb                                                                                                            

by David R. Morgan

he wolf and the lamb, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. The lamb was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour a day to drain the fluids from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The wolf had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The two talked for hours on end. They spoke of their families, their homes, their jobs, where they had been on holiday. Every afternoon when the lamb in the bed next to the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The wolf would live for those one-hour periods where  his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and  colour of the outside world.
  
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake, the lamb had said. Ducks and swans played on the water while elves  sailed their model boats. Princes and princesses walked arm in arm amid flowers of every colour of the rainbow. Grand old Ents graced the landscape, and a fine view of the castle skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the lamb by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the wolf on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the lamb by the window described a parade passing by.  Although the wolf could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind's eye as the lamb by the window made it come alive with vibrant description. Unexpectedly, an alien thought entered the wolf’s head: Why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never get to see  anything? It didn't seem fair. As thoughts fermented, the wolf felt ashamed at first. But as days passed and he missed seeing more sights, his envy eroded into resentment and soon turned him sour. He  began to brood and found himself unable to sleep. His teeth dripped saliva. He should be by that window— and that thought now controlled his life.

Late one night, as he lay staring at the ceiling, the lamb by the window began to cough. He was choking on the fluid in his lungs. The wolf  watched in the dimly lit room as the struggling  lamb by the window groped for the button to call for help. Listening from across the room, the wolf never moved, never pushed his own button which would have brought the nurse running. In less than five minutes, the coughing and choking stopped, along with the sound of breathing. Now, there was only silence—deathly silence.

The following morning, the  goat day nurse arrived to bring water for their dips. When she found the lifeless body of the lamb by the window, she was saddened and called the hospital attendant to take it away—no words, no fuss. As  soon as it seemed appropriate, the wolf asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one paw to take his  first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out of the window beside the bed.
 
It faced a blank wall.
 
 

Winchester the Cat                                                                         

by Quentin Poulsen

or some weeks the upstairs room remained empty. When I asked Abraham about this he explained he hadn’t advertised. He’d been too busy. That’s when I had this stroke of genius. If I offered to do the looking for him, I’d be able to choose whoever I wanted. Abraham accepted my offer gratefully.

Calling the newspaper the following day I placed an advertisement in the Female Flatmate Wanted column. That column, I noticed, was about twenty times as long as the Male Flatmate Wanted column, and at least three times as long as the Flatmate Wanted column which did not specify gender. I wondered if anyone would even call, with so much competition.

Saturday morning I was awoken around eight by the sound of the telephone, and it rang at least ten more times before noon. I began to fantasize about a Brooke Shields-lookalike showing up, accepting the room and falling in love with me. But few of the callers actually came, and none of those who did seemed particularly interested in the place—except for a middleaged lady who I promised to call without any intention of doing so. Call me a cruel bastard, for it occurred to me the middleaged lady might have been a good companion for Abraham, but I had my heart set on finding the woman of my dreams.

I grew increasingly frustrated. How difficult it had been to find a place when I was the one looking, yet how difficult now to find someone who wanted to move in with me. I couldn’t help thinking it was just ‘me’ that people didn’t want to live with. By the end of the second weekend I would’ve accepted just about anyone, if only for the company, but no one showed any interest.

I was in the process of calling the newspaper again to advertise for the third time, when Alan’s head poked out of its bedroom and actually spoke to me.

“Someone called about the room. She’s been calling all week but you’re never here. I told ‘er to come roun’ at eight. Name’s Rebecca.”

That head, which I’d only seen half a dozen times since it had moved in the month before, then disappeared back into its bedroom. I got the impression Alan was a little excited about this Rebecca coming around at eight, though I couldn’t see why. Even if she did move in, he’d be lucky to ever meet her.

Answering the door shortly before eight I was astounded to see two quite presentable young women standing there, one blonde, the other dark, both of them dolled-up for the occasion. As I breathed in the sweet fragrance of their perfume, a series of thoughts occurred to me in rapid succession: Whichever one of the two she was, she would never move in. If she did move in, she would already have a boyfriend. If she didn’t already have a boyfriend, she would never be interested in me.

The blonde, it turned out, was Rebecca. As we sat drinking coffee in the living room she explained she’d only recently arrived in the city from some little South Island town I’d never heard of, and she would like to move in right away, if that was okay. It was a few awkward seconds before I could get my mouth into motion.

“So yull be moving in then?”

“Well, if it’s okay with you. I mean, this is so much nicer than any a the other places we looked at. Some a them were rully grotty.”

“Course— “ My voice came out a little squeaky, and I had to pause to clear my throat. “Course it’s alright. I’ll get you the spare keys an’ ya can move in straight away.”

When I was a kid we’d had this cat called Winchester, who used to sit out on the fence and try to swat down the gulls as they flew in from the bay. Then finally one day he had succeeded, winging one of those big black gulls, and it was about three times his size. He’d just sat there on the fence, staring at it with big yellow eyes, a sort of bewildered expression on his face, while it had hopped about in the grass with its broken wing.

I supposed I was a bit like Winchester after Rebecca moved in. The first day I spent the entire evening just sitting on the couch secretly gazing at her, while she sat in the armchair watching TV. It wasn’t that she was super attractive or anything. Only the women on TV ever really were. She was a little overweight and bore the early signs of a double chin. But she seemed like a Goddess to me.

“It’s gunna be so nice to have someone roun’ here to talk to,” I blurted out. “Abraham's always busy, and Alan's always in his room.”

Rebecca looked at me as though I’d just grinned at her with a mouthful of maggots or something. I realised I’d probably sounded a little pathetic, carrying on like that to someone who’d just moved in. Of course, it was true about them, but there were some things best unsaid, and I never seemed to know which until I’d already said them and it was too late to take them back.

***

I was giddy with excitement as I jumped off the bus and sprinted up the driveway after work next day. The thought of spending another evening with Rebecca, and of the indefinite procession of such evenings to come, somehow seemed way too good to be true for the likes of me.

Suspecting she’d be in the living room already, I went into the kitchen to make coffee first, deeming it best not to appear too eager. I could hear the muffled burble of the TV through the wall, so I knew Rebecca was in the living room, since neither Abraham nor Alan ever watched it.

As I was making the coffee, however, I became conscious of two voices which were clearer than the ones from the TV. One was Rebecca’s. The other was a man’s voice which I couldn’t recognise. My spirits plummeted at the realisation she had a guy in there with her; undoubtedly the boyfriend. I’d known from the start it was too good to be true. She was way out of my class.

For a few minutes I stood at the doorway eavesdropping, desperately hoping for something to be said that would tell me it was merely a friend, or perhaps a door-to-door salesman—anything but a boyfriend—and slowly I began to detect something vaguely familiar about the male voice. Poking my head around the corner I was startled to see Alan sitting in the other armchair.

My relief at it not being the boyfriend was tempered by the fact it was ‘him.’ Why had he suddenly come out of hibernation? I was even a little offended. But mostly I was jealous. The delight of Rebecca’s company was no longer exclusively mine, it appeared.

Alan gave me this chummy greeting when I walked in with my coffee, like we were best mates or something. I knew he was only trying to show Rebecca what a super-friendly guy he was. I stared down at his big false-looking smile and resolved to tell Rebecca what an unsociable bastard he really was, the moment he returned to his bedroom.

They had pulled the armchairs closer to the TV, and a little closer together as well, I noticed, so that I was left sort of excluded on the couch behind them. And they were having one of those discussions people always had about the economy, which might as well have been Chinese to me, and which I really didn’t care to learn about it. But I couldn’t have felt more inadequate, sitting back there on the couch, not knowing what in hell they were going on about. Much worse still were my feelings of exclusion and envy.

Then ‘COPS’ came on and there had been a big shoot-out in an alley. A couple of bystanders had been caught in the crossfire.

“God, America’s a sick society,” Rebecca said to Alan.

“Everybody’s got a gun there, y’know,” he naturally concurred. “Can’t walk down the street without being shot at.”

“You been there, Alan?” I asked, feeling like I was interrupting. “I mean, you must a been there an’ had people shooting at you while you were walking down the street.”

I’d tried to make it sound like a sincere question, but they both ignored me and continued gazing at the TV.

“They’re all idiots!” Alan scoffed. “Did you see ‘em during the Olympics. So bluddy patriotic. It was sickening.”

Rebecca hummed in accord. “I’d be rully embarrassed if New Zullundas behaved like that.”

“Nah.” Alan dismissed the notion. “We’re much more down to earth than the bluddy Yanks.”

I leapt to my feet and began goose-stepping around the room, thrusting my right arm out in front of me. “Heil Kiwis!”

Rebecca frowned curiously at me as I reigned in my limbs and returned to the couch. “What on earth’s got into him?”

Alan shook his head and replied in a murmur: “Lost his marbles, I’d say.”

She seemed satisfied with his explanation, so I didn’t bother offering one of my own. Actually, I wasn’t sure mine would have been any different. But suddenly I felt too depressed to care. There were two distinct entities in the room now; Them and Me. Them sitting in their armchairs together. Me the insignificant clown in the background.

***

I knew it was hopeless, but I did it anyway. I wrote a love poem and slipped it under her door. I didn’t even want to think about the consequences. Much as I tried, I could not picture myself with a woman like her. I wasn’t sure I could picture myself with anyone at all. Whenever I thought of my future, I saw myself alone, though it wasn’t what I wanted to be. Sometimes I imagined that if I met the woman of my dreams and fell madly in love with her, she would die.

Rebecca didn’t say anything about the poem when next I saw her, and the lack of any kind of expression on her face might have led me to suspect she hadn’t found it at all. But when Alan twisted his big-eared head around and smirked at me over his shoulder, I knew she had read it—and either told him or shown him.

So I sat there on the couch, contemplating all this with a mixture of anxiety, humiliation and despair. One emotion rolled into another, over and over, while I bided my time for more than an hour. At last Rebecca got up from her armchair. The ad’s were on and this suave young couple were sipping coffee on a patio. She collected the empty mugs from between the chairs, along with the empty wrapper and tray from the chocolate biscuits they had shared in front of me, and went through to the kitchen. I stood up and followed, and as I did Alan glanced over his shoulder at me again.

I shut the kitchen door behind us. “Did ya like my poem?”

“It was cute,” she said, without looking up while she made the coffee.

I didn’t like the sound of that too much. ‘Cute’ meant you weren’t being taken seriously. I stared down at the coffee jar and thought of the suave young couple on the patio. Yes, they could have been Rebecca and Alan; but never me. It was true, of course. I was way out of my class.

Rebecca opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment Alan came through the door behind me. He moved in between us and looked first at her, then at me.

“She’s not interested, okay.”

I could see he thought he was a genuine super hero for telling me that, as though I were some crazed stalker who refused to take no for an answer.

“This is between me an’ Rebecca! Now get out a the kitchen before I throw you out!”

He took a step backward when I said that, and for an instant he actually looked afraid. He was a skinny guy of average height; the type who’d probably never been in a fight in his life. I hovered menacingly over him, raising my arms, sensing the advantage. Now Rebecca would see who the ‘real’ man around this place was.

“Oh, don’t be so childish!” she scolded me.

The mocking tone in her voice succeeded in shaming me, and I lowered my arms to my side. The hostility returned to Alan’s features as he saw that the threat was gone.

“You’re just a thug!” he sneered into my face, rising up onto the balls of his feet to do so. “A check-out operator in a supermarket! What kind a future can you offer anyone, eh? Hell, ya can’t even hold a normal conversation with people.”

I glanced across at Rebecca, hoping she might dismiss all this as so much nonsense; perhaps even scold him, the way she had scolded me. But her eyes remained fixed on the electric jug, which was now coming to the boil. Her double-chin was prominent when she looked down like that, though she was no less beautiful to me. I turned back to Alan, seeing him up close for the first time, his receding hairline, pale blue eyes and narrow chin. He was younger than I’d initially thought; probably no older than me.

“This is nunna ya business,” I told him forcefully.

“Actually it is,” Rebecca said quietly.

“I was the one who found your pathetic li’l poem!” Alan snickered into my ear.

I remained paralyzed on the spot for a moment, not wanting to comprehend what I was hearing.

Rebecca poured the coffee and the pair of them returned to the living room, steaming mugs of coffee in their hands.

For at least twenty minutes afterward I stayed in the kitchen, gazing through the window at the raw timber fence separating our property from the neighbours.’ I didn’t want to take my pain and humiliation back into the living room where its source lay. Nor did I want to take it into the solitude of my bedroom. It were as though I were floating somewhere on the perimeter of the universe, rejected and alone, not good enough, a weirdo who was incapable of holding normal conversations with people. And my despair was intense. I’d known from the start she was too good for me. I had nothing to offer; no money, no assets, no prospects. That’s why I had never been able to picture it.

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Damaged Goods                                                                                           

by Barnali Saha

ou sit at a crowded bar sticky with perspiration and midtown excitement wondering about the numbers that come in the printed rectangular boxes on items that are on sale. You know you come with a moderate price tag, but you are unsure, you wonder if there is a clearance sale or an overstock disposal thing going on. Surely you are moderately priced, your skin sags, you have seen wrinkles, and you are over used. You sit with your glass of gin and the voice in your head reminds you, again, that the drink costs ten bucks. You could have spent the ten dollars to buy a couple of boxes of Hamburger Helpers or to buy the ingredients for the pork chops your husband has been yapping about for weeks. You know he hates frozen meals, but you are always late to get back home, and by the time you are there your children are already asleep and your husband has finished watching Jon Stewart. Still, you want to cook for them, but your legs hurt and you know the eggs in the freezer are about to turn black. You give up and sit at the green Formica kitchen table and listen to the next days plan as reiterated to you by the little voice in your head that always talks when you are alone. You stuff yourself with frozen pizza -- the leftover your husband has left for you in the microwave oven. You know the oven needs to be cleaned, the sauce stains on the revolving plate look gross; you decide you are going to do it tomorrow, after you make the pork chops and eat a real dinner with your family. But when the next day comes you are overloaded with stuff you need to do before you give yourself even a smoke break.

Your husband has developed another active hobby. He now builds model airplanes and flies them in the backyard with the kids. Your husband started the new hobby after he got sacked from his job three months ago, and you had to give him some time off and find a second and a third job for yourself. You want to think you have a great working life; you work as a medical assistant at the Centennial Hospital, as a checkout lady at the international market and, in the weekends, you work as a cook at the diner next door cooking turkey burgers. They all pay you back for your effort, but there is the mortgage and the back-to-school list, your husband's beer bottles and the weekend barbeque parties where you are mostly unavailable because of the questions the wives of your husband's friends ask you. They know you work three jobs, and they are all full of misty-eyed sympathy when they see you. You know they talk about you behind your back, about how you don’t shave your legs and how your double chin shows. You say you don’t care, but you know you do, and you avoid them. Sometimes you think you need to take a break and hitchhike. But you leave your summer musings at bay and get back to work.

The hospital where you work always smells of pine oil. You hate the oxygen mask infused odor, the beeping monitor sounds, but you are awed at the same time. You check the weight and blood pressure of the patients, you ask them about their health problems, and while some of them lie, some smile and say what is actually going on. You see their faces and examine their measurements, you make your own deductions, but you never say that, you know your limits. The women who work with you always talk about the doctors as if they come from another planet. They are awed by the rich platinum wedding bands their ring fingers display, or the pictures of their handsome spouses, also doctors, smiling atop their office desks. You don’t think you envy the doctors, but sometimes you fantasize about their lives. You have always wanted a grand life, a nine roomed Parthenon style house complete with luxurious leather and sleek kitchen appliances. You have it all planned in your head, the measurements, the color of the linen, the fifties pink bathtub, and the lazy boy sofa your husband just can't live without. But, for the time being, you do with what you have. Your savings account desperately needs a stimulus package and so, for the time being, you keep the grand plan for a future date when you know you will custom build it for yourself. But when you go to bed beside a snoring man, the meta-voice in your head narrates the sweetest fiction which you just can't stop playing; and so, you listen to it, and add new touches that the house in your head needs. You have recently had a Rothko installed in your living room. You didn’t know what a Rothko was when you mounted it; you had picked it up somewhere in the hospital, someone was talking about it a month ago, and you had to have it.

Back in the bar you sit alone. The alcohol calms your toxic veins; the jellied brain cells catch all the fleeting sights and sounds and interpret them for you. The TV set on the wall is playing Jerseylicious and you hate the drama; you know you need to get back home and that it is nine already, but the waitress has just supplied you with another glass of slosh. Today you feel you want to sign your Declaration of Independence; you smile at your smartness. You have been eying a man who is sitting across from you in another table reading the evening paper and sipping from a glass of whiskey and soda. You want him to look at you. He is younger than you and is missing the wedding band. You quickly slip yours in the purse and make a tapping noise with your heels. He looks up and raises his eyebrows. You drop your head. You think you feel bold today; you feel you want to have some stupid fun. You bet with your mind and offer to pay it a million if that man has sex with you. You haven’t had sex in a long time, but now you do. You crave for it. You demand it. You want to feel the man on your skin. You know you are a little tipsy, but you say you give a damn to the world and get up. You walk past him brushing the side of your left thigh against his coat sleeve. You lick the smell of his cologne from the air, but you don’t wait for him to look at you and walk straight up to the ladies restroom. You search in your purse for the concealer stick and roll it under your eyes and tap your skin with a wad of tissue. You spray your Dream Angel perfume generously from the travel sized bottle which you have been using sparingly for over three months. You dab some glittering teenage lip gloss on your parched lips and you look at your reflection. The love handles bulge under your T-shirt; you raise your jeans up your waist, tuck the hanging flesh and belt tight. You remember the lady posture your grandma taught you once that never fails a woman. "Boobs out, butts out, stomach in," you remember the woman tilting her head at you and narrating on some midsummer drunken afternoon party. You decide to use her suggestion and play on. You feel like one of those actresses in the reality television. Bang on, you think as you march outside the restroom. You walk down the maze of rounded iron tables and make sure your jeans brush against his coat sleeve, again. Even though it might seem rather kenspcekle, you just want to do it, badly. This time he looks at you, directly. He looks like Achilles, the brown-haired Greek dude you saw at some History Channel documentary your husband had been watching. He looks just like him: strong jaws, big baby blue eyes, brown hair slightly curly. He raises his eyebrows. "I am sorry," you say, feeling a hint of shame in you. You go back to your table and ask the waitress to give you your check. You think you need to leave the place.

"Can I offer you a drink?"

You hear a voice behind you. You turn around and even before you do that you know it is him. Your heart races and you smile. You bite your lips and reply in the affirmative. He orders you a Bloody Mary and a whiskey for him. He asks you what you do, but you don’t say the truth. You tell him you work for a publishing company editing manuscripts. He raises his eyebrows again. You think he has seen through your lie, but he doesn’t show any signs. He tells you that he has never met a woman like you; you wonder what he meant by that. He tells you that he is in town for some business meeting and that he will head back to Philly tomorrow morning. You don’t ask him what business he is in, but from his crisp pinstripes you know he is rich. The bar is seething with college grads and downtown hippies; you want to go somewhere else. You don’t see a familiar face, yet, but you know your hands are cold. He doesn’t ask you anymore questions, simply sits with fingertips pressed together and eyes examining your gestures. You feel self-conscious and begin to talk. You measure your words; calculate your expressions before you deliver them. You talk to him about the beautiful summer days you experience in this part of the country; you never knew you had in the compost heaps of your mind recollections of the drifting seasons. You tell him about the rains, the recent floods, and about the pubs and bars he needs to see before he leaves town. "There is a sub place just outside of the door that you should go to before you leave." You tell him its name. His eyebrows knit together for a moment and the corners of his lips tighten. Your drinks arrive and he thanks the waitress. He grabs his glass and makes gentle circular motions, the ice cubes jingle. His finger marks make strange islands on the moist outside of the icy goblet. You grab the stem of your glass and wonder if you should squeeze the pickled lime or just leave it. You sip anyway. The highball glass is covered on the rim with sea salt and you taste the salty smoothness. He asks you if you enjoy your drink. You never tasted a Bloody Mary before, and you do not like it very much; but you do not let on. You tell him you like it. You take two or three hurried sips, and he asks you if you are free to show him around the city. He reaches across the table and grabs your hand and presses it. You tell him you need to be home in an hour, that your roommate needs to go out, that you live with your girlfriend, that she has a boyfriend, and that the apartment is a long way from downtown and that you need to hurry. But despite all that you follow him to his car and it is a Mercedes-Benz E-class. You have never seen the insides of a real Mercedes, you give in. Fifteen minutes later you are in a Marriott hotel room marked 406. You remember the number because they form the last three digits of your husband's social. You remember haven’t switched off your cell phone, and before you see the lights, you press the key of the Motorola set and lower the master volume to all-sounds-off and shove it inside the purse. Then you feel yourself drifting. You don’t exactly as much as feel like feeling, rather you experience sinking; he touches and kisses you and takes off your ruffled T-shirt. You start multiplying numbers in your head and counting the objects in the room, but the Tempur-Pedic mattress sucks you in, and you let go of everything, the numbers jumble and are lost, the little voice in your head shuts off, and all the things that you have seen, experienced, or felt throughout the day, vanish from your view, and you feel you are stuck in some wonderful memory where everything, even yourself, are figments of some mirage like reality that is so gentle, so fragile that if you deliberately move one muscle in your body, the whole aura would be broken, and you would find yourself back in the grovel, once more, with the magic gone forever. You don’t talk, you close your eyes in excitement; yes, yes it is all you want; you know you are happy, you tell your mind you are.

When he tells you that he is done you get up and move aside in the bed. He gets up, too and lights a cigarette, even though it is a nonsmoking room. He tells you that you were nice; he tells how beautiful you are. He sits next to you blowing clouds of smoke on your face, and you get the smell of tobacco mixed with mint. He tells you that an hour is over and reminds you about your friend. You have already forgotten about her. You ask what friend is he talking about and he tells you about the one who needs to leave at eleven. You remember and feel a little embarrassed. You know there are already fifteen hundred messages in your cell phone from your husband. You tell him you need to use the restroom. He sits on the bed, his back resting against the cushiony headboard, his legs straightened; the cigarette hanging from the corner of his lips, the glass he uses as an ashtray sits on his lap. He watches your moves, but he doesn’t talk. He sees you dart across the room, and you sense the wry amusement in his eyes. You dress and comb your hair. You don’t switch on the phone, you don’t want to hear the messages, you wonder what your husband is doing. You feel a rush; you need to get home as quickly as possible. You walk out and tell him your goodbyes. He gets up and walks to you and hands you your purse about which you have forgotten. You look at your watch, eleven fifteen you see. He tells you he has already called a cab for you. He kisses you goodbye and asks for your number. You hesitate first, but then you give it to him. He tells you he will call you the next time he will be in town and folds the little sheet of Post-it. You don’t want him to call, but you say you do anyway. You smile and tell him to take care and he says he will. Then he asks you something you haven’t been expecting. "Why did you lie to me?" "What?" you say, but you know perfectly well what he is talking about. He smiles and fingers your moist lips. "You told me about the restaurant 'outside of'' the store, no editor would do that unless it is a bad publishing house," he says with a derisive smile across his lips. Shit, you think. "You don’t work at a publishing house, do you?" he asks. You say you don’t, and tell him that you really need to go. He opens the door for you, and you don’t wait for another kiss.

Back in the house you see your husband and your children sitting at the green Formica table playing Monopoly. The children run to you when they see you. Your husband asks you where you have been. You tell him somebody at work was having a party and you decided to go. He tells you about the phone calls he made and the voicemails he left. You tell him you are sorry. He tells you that they haven’t eaten and that he made pasta for dinner. You feel hungry. You tell him to set the table for dinner and that you will be back after a quick shower. He asks you about the eye drop he wanted you to bring for his dry eyes. You remember you got have it, and tell him it is in your purse, inside the zipper. You walk to your closet and take off your clothes; you see a couple of little bite marks on your chest. You hear your husband call. "Yes, honey" you say. "Why are there five hundred dollars in your purse?" You say, "What?" and draping your nightgown, hurriedly walk to the dining room. You see him holding up with a questionable look in his eyes five crisp hundred-dollar bills neatly folded in a stack. Your children are looking at you, too. You wish you knew the art of vanishing from public view. You say, "Oh, that money. I got a bonus today." "A bonus! But it's not even holiday season," he says. "Yeah, but they gave it to me anyway. I have been working too hard lately, I guess I deserve it," you say trying best to sound as convincing as possible. You see your husband struggling for a moment, but he gets over it fast and decides to believe you. He knows you work hard. "Okay," he says, and licks the tip of his forefinger and counts the cash. "It is always good to have some cash at home."

You get back to your closet and shed your clothes once again. You look at your face — the freckles, the wrinkles, the under-eye bags — and you notice that the nuances of middle age are becoming piercing and flagrant. You note you are getting old, you have gone past the expiration date and you are worth nothing, a shilling perhaps, or a quarter if the weather is clement, but not a dollar, not one, not five hundred, not a thousand, not a million. You wish you could go ahead and tell all; you have the courage, but not the initiative. You are as apathetic as the donors in a charity promising millions and handing out a piggy bank to a cause instead; people who live to forget, people who take life by chapters, one good followed by one bad. You observe the marks on your chest, red and alive, crawling and spouting disgust more than ever. You are afraid of them, they can bring you down, you want to bury them and think no more. You remember you have a concealer stick in your purse. You sag and bend to exhume it. You roll it on your chest, on the sprawling skin covering by gallons the tiny, red-faced minions of hell; natural beige smooth away diseased skin. One by one the marks disappear hidden underneath coats of rolling pigment. You smooth and pat the tincture. You check for a demarcation line, there isn’t any. You are clean. You heave a sigh, relief mixed with cold scare. You hear your husband say dinner is served. You throw away the concealer stick in your laundry bin and cover it with your used clothing.

At dinner to talk too much, your bonhomie makes the salty food taste appetizing. You chest itches, the pigment steeps the filaments of your nightgown, ribboned tight. You scratch, absentmindedly, sliding your left hand inside the gown. "What happened to your neck, mom?" your son asks. Your husband rushes to you and unfastens the tight knot. Tiny bumps cover your torso, itchy, red and scaly. You cannot stop scratching. "Contact dermatitis," your doctor says "triggered by the use of cheap makeup on irritated skin." He gives you lotions and ointments which you apply liberally. The rashes fade in a week, but the teeth marks remain, one, two and three. You never wear exposing neck lines, you never talk to men. One day your husband sees them, little blotches unhidden when you are asleep. You wake up bewildered and find him staring at your chest. "You should use vitamin E on these rash scars," he says.

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Buddies                                                                                                       

by Wayne Scheer

on heard the sound of shattered glass soon after Joey went to the back of the house.  Now Joey opened the front door and motioned him to enter the neatly landscaped suburban home.  Ron hesitated.
 
"You said you had a key to the back door."
 
"It's okay," Joey said.  "She'll just put a new window on my bill."
 
"We shouldn't be here."  Ron looked behind him as if expecting a police car to pull up.
 
"Yeah, yeah.  Come in.  It'll just take a minute."
 
Ron entered, regretting it as soon as he saw Joey drop himself onto the living room sofa like a bag of dirty laundry.
 
"What are you doing, Joey?  Get what you need, and let's get out of here."  Ron began to pace.  "Jeannie could come home any minute."
 
"Don't be such a wuss, man." Joey stretched out on the white couch, shoes and all.  "She won't be back till at least seven.  Believe me, Jeannie lives by the clock.."  He jumped off the couch in one sudden motion.  "We should have a drink first." 
 
"I don't want a drink.  I want to get out of here.  You said you just needed a couple of things."  Ron heard himself whine.
 
Joey stood at the cherry wood liquor cabinet, a bottle of Dewar's in his hand.  "My mama taught me to share with my buddies."  He laughed through his nose, an annoying habit Ron remembered from childhood.  "Besides, Jeannie doesn't like scotch.  This must be her new friend's drink of choice."
 
"I should never have come here with you.  You know this is crazy, don't you?"
 
"Sure, it's crazy.  Breaking into your own house and drinking your wife's lover's booze is crazy."
 
"Ex-wife.  It's not your house anymore."
 
"Yeah, ex-wife.  But with the money she sucked from me, this should still be my house."  He held up the bottle.  "And my booze."  He surveyed the living room like an auditor calculating a company's assets.  "This furniture is new.  That lamp.  And that picture of whatever the hell it is, it looks expensive."
 
"It probably is.  Jeannie's doing well for herself."
 
Joey shrugged.  Ron knew the shrug well.  It meant Joey was going to do whatever he pleased. 
 
He had followed Joey around since elementary school.  Ron was the skinny kid with glasses who got picked on.  To make matters worse, back in middle school he stuttered so badly his face would contort until his glasses slipped down his nose.  Joey, the biggest kid in their class, defended him, just for kicks, telling the other kids he was his brother. 
 
"I'm hungry," Joey shouted, again moving so suddenly Ron looked to the front door.  "Let's go see what she keeps in her refrigerator." 
 
"No, Joey.  Enough is enough.  Let's go." 
 
Ron knew Joey wasn't listening.  He also knew he should leave, but they had come in Joey's car. 
 
"I'm calling Rachel," Ron said.  "I'm telling her to pick me up."  He turned towards the phone, but didn't move.  Instead, he imagined the conversation he'd have with his wife.
 
—What are you doing at Jeannie's house? 
 
—Joey needed to pick up a few things.
 
—What kind of things?  They've been divorced for more than a year.
 
—Yeah, well, that's what he told me.
 
—And you believed him?
 
— He needed a friend.  I thought Jeannie would be home.
 
—You mean she isn't home?  How'd Joey get in?
 
He'd have to tell her that Joey broke in.
 
Rachel would be screaming now. 
 
—You're twenty-five years old.  You're married and your wife is pregnant.   What's wrong with you?  You and Joey aren't even friends anymore.
 
No way he could explain how guilty he had felt since he and Rachel had been spending time with Jeannie and her fiancé, Austin.  He had kept in touch with Joey secretly because Rachel disliked him with a passion.  They'd meet for drinks after work and laugh about the old days.  Ron never mentioned he kept in touch with Jeannie and Austin. 
 
Instead of calling Rachel, Ron turned to see what his friend was doing.  He was piling meat—it looked like the remains of last night's turkey—onto a hoagie roll.  Joey ran around the kitchen like a madman pulling out mayonnaise and mustard, lettuce and tomatoes, olives and pickles from the refrigerator and cupboards. "Where's the damn olive oil?" he muttered, looking like he did when he was twelve. 
 
Ron knew Joey was more than a little insane, but there was something exciting about Joey's impulsiveness.  He wished he could loosen up.  Be more spontaneous.
 
"Joey, make me one of those sandwiches.   I'm having whatever you're having."
 
"I knew you were cool."  Joey laughed.  "Here.  Finish this bottle, buddy.  Let's see what else she's got here."  He ran back to the living room, leaving mayonnaise and turkey fingerprints on the cabinet.  He rattled around until he found another bottle. This time it was bourbon.  Returning to the kitchen, Joey made the sandwiches, while they passed the bottle back and forth.
 
"You ever see Jeannie?" Joey asked.  "I hear she 's going with someone, a stockbroker."
 
"Oh yeah?"  Ron acted surprised. "Rachel calls Jeannie every once in a while.  We've had dinner with her once or twice."  He looked away.  "I never heard anything about a stockbroker."
 
"I miss her," Joey said, wiping his nose, which had turned red.  He took a long swig from the bottle.  "But she screwed me royally."
 
Ron nodded, trying to be sympathetic and non-committal at the same time.
 
"Hey, speaking of royal screwing."  Joey's voice grew loud.  "You remember Louise Turner?  I ran into her last week.  Fat as a fucking house.  I hardly recognized her."
 
"Louise Turner."  Ron smiled. "How could I forget her?  She was my first.  What was it, our sophomore year in high school?  You hooked us up.  I'll always be grateful to you for that."  Ron saluted Joey with the bottle, and took a drink.
 
"Cured your damn stuttering," Joey said.  "She fucked it right out of you."  
 
The two friends laughed like adolescents drinking under the bleachers during a high school dance. 
 
Even in their drunken stupor, they heard a key turn at the front door.  Joey stood up.  Ron tried, but the room tilted and he sat back down.  Austin stood in the doorway. 
 
"Oh shit," Ron muttered.
 
"Who the hell are you?"  Austin shouted at Joey.  He wore a gray suit and a florescent green tie. 
 
"That is one ugly tie, man. "  Joey laughed through his nose.  "Jeannie pick it out for you?"   
 
Austin looked past Joey.  "What the hell is going on?  Ron, what are you doing here?"
 
Joey turned to his buddy and stared for a moment before turning back to Austin. 
 
Ron tried again to stand, but the sandwich and alcohol got the best of him.  He sat back down, afraid he'd vomit
 
"You must be Mr. Snot Broker.  I see you got your own key."
 
"And who are you?"
 
Austin walked to within inches of Joey.  He was taller, but Joey stood his ground.  Ron could see the veins in Joey's neck bulge.
 
"Let's get out of here," Ron said, getting between the two men and pulling at Joey.  Joey pushed him away.  Ron lost his balance, grabbing Austin's leg as he fell.   Austin tried shaking Ron off like a naughty puppy, but slipped and fell to his knees.  Ron laughed, but then he saw Joey's two hands, locked together, come down hard on the back of Austin's neck, causing his head to hit the floor with a thud. 
 
Austin groaned a few seconds, and then went silent.  And still.
 
"Oh, man," Joey said, looking down at Austin and then at Ron.
 
"What the hell did you do that for, Joey?  Why'd you hit him like that?" 
 
Ron saw the bloodshot slits that had become Joey's eyes.  "I thought you said you didn't know him."   He fully expected his friend to punch him in the face. 
 
Ron looked away.  He wanted to apologize, but then he remembered what Joey had just done.
 
Blood dripped from a gash on Austin's forehead, creating a small red puddle on the white tiled kitchen floor. 
 
"Joey, I'm calling an ambulance."
 
"Wait."  Joey bent over Austin, grabbing his wrist.  "Where the hell's the pulse, man?"
 
"I don't know.  Is he breathing?"
 
"Oh shit, man.  He's dead!"  Joey was shaking.  He made short, loud gasps.  "We killed him."
 
"What do you mean we?  You…"
 
Joey grabbed Ron by the shirt color.   "Let's think.  We gotta think."
 
"About what?  I'm calling the…"
 
"NO!"  Joey pushed Ron away and he fell onto Austin.  He broke his fall by putting his hand in the puddle of blood.  He threw up.
 
"He's your friend."  Tears streamed down Joey's red face. "He's your goddamn friend.  I'm getting the hell out of here."
 
"You can't, Joey.  We can't just leave him.  We'll say it was an accident.  He tripped.  I won't say anything about you hitting him, I promise.  But we gotta see if he's okay."  He bent over Austin, trying to check if he was still breathing.  A choking sound came from deep within Austin's chest
 
With that, Joey dashed for the door, not looking back.  
 
Ron stood up, wobbled for a few seconds, and wiped blood and vomit from his hands onto his pants.  His first impulse was to run after Joey the way he always did.  Instead, he went to the phone and called 911.  His hands shook.
He gave the operator the address, saying only that a man was hurt in a fall and needed an ambulance.
 
Austin began to stir, slowly rising to a sitting position.
 
"Take it easy," Ron told him.  "Stay where you are."  He steadied him by putting his hand on his shoulder.
 
Ron wet a dishtowel and placed it on Austin's forehead.  The bleeding had already stopped.
 
"What happened?" Austin asked.  "What am I doing on the floor?  All this blood and…did you throw up or did I?"
 
"An ambulance is on the way," Ron said.  He told Austin the full story, including the details of the break-in, but leaving out the part about Joey hitting him in the back of his neck.   "You slipped on my vomit and hit your head."   Ron got another wet towel and handed it to him to clean off his suit.   "Joey took off."
 
Austin stared at Ron, dazed.  After a while, he said, "Thanks for not leaving me here."  He held out his hand and the two men shook.  "I've heard a lot about Joey.  A real loser, Jeannie tells me.  You might want to take off before the police get here and see the back door broken into."
 
"No," Ron said.  "I'll wait with you." 

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They're Just Jealous of Your Spirit                                                      

by Joshua Willey

1

 heckmate” Bean said, lifting his hand gingerly from the black queen set down in the white space. Osian sat motionless starring at the board, his mind traveling backward through the endgame, looking for the mistake. He found it, and held out his hand.

 “Well played.” They shook, and Osian rolled the board up and slid it into its cardboard tube, dropped the weighty pieces down the middle.

 “May I have your attention please” the PA boomed. “The library will be closing in twenty minutes. Please finish all photocopying, printing, and reference queries at this time.”

 “Perfect timing” Bean said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms above his head until his vision blurred with the intense comfort of it.

 “Are you going to the park?” Osian asked.

 “Affirmative. Wanna walk that way?”

 “I’ve got no other way to walk.”

 “Still bad at the crib?”

 “Don’t ask.”

 “OK.”

 The library closed at eight and though it was still light out the long corridors between the sections of shelves were empty. An old woman shuffled through the DVD documentaries, in the lobby a young father was ushering his daughters out of the children’s room.

 “You want a Red Bull?” Bean asked.

 “Too rich for my blood.”

 “On the house, my girl works at the Double D.

 “In that case…” Bean ran into the corner store and Osian looked down the road. The streetlights came on. An Escalade with chrome spinners rolled by bumping Big Boi. Bean emerged still talking to someone in the store over his shoulder. He handed Osian a Red Bull. One of the sixteen ounce cans.

 “Cheers.”

 “Here’s mud in the eye.”

 They walked past the courthouse where the Mormon soup trailer was set up and some bums were milling around.

 “Hey Osian, you started smoking yet?” one called out. Osian winked at him, walked on. The bums always had a bunch of dogs and the dogs were always playing happily, happier than your average housedog Osian thought.

 “I can tell just by looking at you who won” said Camille, a half Sinhalese half Welsh harp prodigy and all around wunderkind. She was the best chess player of the bunch, two time state champion.

 “Hearts on sleeves as always” Osian said.

 “Say, Jeremiah has some acid. It’s in a vial so you’d have to dose here, unless you wanna go get a sugar cube or something.” Camille was truly prolific in every walk of life.

 “Can’t you just drop it on a piece of paper?” Bean asked.

 “I suppose so.”

 “Did you dose?”

 “Yeah. Alana too.” Alana walked up from the river to the grassy knoll where they stood, looking at the last of the light slipping over the mountains. She was smoking a Parliament.

 “Well” Osian said to Bean. Bean raised his eyebrows and smiled, then laughed, steam pouring from his mouth into the crisp, early spring air.

2

Osian rode his bike around the side of the house and leaned it against the splintery wooden siding. The air smelled like snow and he was glad to get into the radiator’s warmth. Tenney was on the living room floor in front of a Rodney Yee yoga video. She moved fluidly from downward dog to lunge to warrior, plank, upward dog, cobra, child’s pose. He looked at the outline of her vulva through her Lycra shorts as she did a standing forward bend. She starred back at him, her face upside down between her legs, her hair falling all over the mat.

Bean pulled his Pinto up to his Airstream and killed the engine. The desert stars were bright, bright in a different way than his high beams had been, flashing jackrabbits and mule deer on the drive out through Alfalfa to Powell Butte. He heard Taylor Swift echoing out of the studio (“she wears short skirts I wear t-shirts she’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers”) and walked across the gravel and down a path between sage and juniper to see his mother. She was in the middle of a big painting, a big box of white wine, and a sweet smelling clove with a long ash as though she hadn’t moved in a while, lost in contemplation of her next brush stroke.

 “Babycakes” she said.

 “Mum.” He kissed her cheek, held an ashtray under her clove, looked at the painting, and grimaced.

 “I know. I’m stuck” she said, tapping the ash of into the little metal bowl.

 “Is it a commission?”

 “Yeah.” He took a clove from the box and lit it with her big, antique table lighter, downed the wine in her glass and filled it back up from the spout on the bottom of the box in the mini-fridge.

 “Where’s dad?”

 “In the shop.”

He walked slowly by the barn up to the shop, smoking, his hands in his pockets. He looked through the window at his father, varnishing a desktop, the Christian Radio Network on softly in the background. He finished the clove and sighed before opening the door and stepping in.

Camille’s father owned a little Cessna and three fine bicycles but no car. Her mother taught piano and singing lessons and sometimes played in a jazz quartet at some local bars. She smiled at her parents who sat on their sofa watching something, a movie with Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric, on their big Apple computer. They were a family of few words, something Camille appreciated more and more as time went by and she was mired ever deeper in the myriad words of the world. There was a big pot of tea in the kitchen and she poured a steaming mug before walking to her practice room. She played for an hour and then worked on her fantasy novel (a project she’d revealed to no one) until she was too tired. Then she got on Gchat. Alana was on too.

“How’s tricks?” she asked.

“Home alone” Alana wrote, but then they went to video mode and stopped typing.

Alana was from Edmonton. Her parents were doctors and they were rarely home. Their daughter assumed they spent most nights in the arms of their respective resident or intern lovers. She liked the emptiness though. The space. Outside, it started snowing.

3

The chess club met regularly at the library or sometimes at the High Desert  Book Company, which sponsored the club with chess books and boards and clocks, so the players all wore company shirts at meets and around town. The coach, a PhD mathematician and golf pro, had a cherry vintage Suburban on which he’d stenciled the company and team logos. After the meetings, the kids often played the bums in the park or if it was snowing in the dinner where the bums escaped the cold over bottomless coffee and spacious restrooms. These were always interesting matches. The club’s more advanced players were well studied in game theory and history, but the bums had such vast experience and intuition, only Camille was undefeated. Likewise, only Camille had ever beat the coach.

“Today, in honor of this spring storm, we’re playing monster chess” coach said, his trademark Mountain Dew in his hand. In monster chess, white has all her pieces and observes standard rules. Black has but four pawns occupying the middle of the second row, but, moves twice each turn. Either two different pieces once or twice one piece. It is very rare that some bearded Beowulf can defeat those four Grendel pawns. Even Camille has never beat the monster.

Bean and Osian were big swimmers and often they took a game in the sauna after laps, sweat stinging their eyes, drops shimmering atop the king’s cross.

Alana decided to have a party, as nobody was there to tell her not to.

“This weather is crazy” Camille said, “it’s like the opposite of Indian Summer.”

“What would that be anyway?”

“I dunno. White Man Winter?”

“Sounds about right.”

They were running down the road in the dark. Bean thought the cops were right behind them but they weren’t, who knows if they were ever there at all. Up at the house, Alana was bumping Robyn. A sad song.

“I’m still dancing on my own.”

By day those parts were thick with action. Birds. Bees. But late at night there nothing. Nobody.

It’s weird. They was raised in the 90s, I mean that’s when they came of age, but their soundtrack, the soundtrack of their youth, is 80s through and through. “Age of Consent” was like their anthem. That is, Osian and his friends, was back in the chess club.

For years I wanted to tell the story of the chess club but I didn’t know how. Then, one spring, I realized the how would reveal itself, it would be there automatically, I just had to do it.

I don’t know if it’s a sad story. It might be. Then again, it might be joyful.

On 9/11 I was a senior in high school and I knew these kids…

Chess is actually a version of an older Indian or Persian game called Shatranj. The Russian Garry Kasparov is widely considered to be the greatest chessman of all time, although in the United States the equally mysterious Bobby Fischer, also a world champion, is the closest any player has come to enjoying celebrity status. In the mid nineties, Kasparov was defeated by IBM’s Deep Blue, an event which effected a great psychological and spiritual shift in the world of chess. However, Kasparov showed he was also able to beat the machines, and subsequent matches against computers often ended in draws. In 2003 he tied a program capable of evaluating three million positions per second. John Henry.
Sometimes they would drive out to the desert on play on the rock. Or beside bonfires in the snow.

4

Osian had a dream, which he described to Bean one day as they were eating their lunch.
“The voyage lasted an eternity. I could have lived nine lives in the span of that voyage. Really, it lasted a week, and the seas were calm, but my traveling companions, two girls from Tel Aviv, got sick anyway. They were too stoned, stoned all the time. I got stoned just being around them. Someday they’d go back to Tel Aviv and be nurses. I wasn’t going back anywhere, and I’d never be anything.

I caught a train southbound out of the city and woke up in a town the wind had swept clean. I walked down a canal to the esplanade, the promenade, the seafront. It looked a little like Cherbourg I thought. Too windy to read or smoke even. I watched some hand seiners beyond the breakers and then got a room. The room had a television set. I watched the fashion station, runway shows from Milan. It was dark and hot and on the roof there was a party. Tamil party. Singing and dancing. I went up to have a smoke and they offered me food, drink, jubilation. I thanked them and went to bed. They were very kind.

Mosquitoes are something to be afraid of. The pounding of ocean waves on rock. The ghost of cobblestone streets lit in amber, footsteps echoing around a blind corner.

Cold samosas and a stolen Ipod. Ashram junkies in droves. I starred at the sea. That’s all. Until it was dark. Then I starred at the television. Not sleeping, sometimes I’d stare at the ceiling, a bit of moon glow seeping in through the heats vents. I wasn’t sad. My step was light, my eyes were sharp. Still I felt existentially persecuted. All over the world people were making me feel like I was guilty, undeserving. But then I met a man you told me not to worry, told me they were just jealous of my spirit. His face is the last thing I see before I wake up.”

5

After graduation Bean went onto culinary school on Turk Street in San Francisco. He played a lot of street ball and became a seafood specialist, odd for a kid raised in ranching country, two mountain ranges from the Pacific. He bounced around, a job at the Old faithful Lodge in Yellowstone, a job at the MGM Grand in Vegas, one freezing winter on the south side of Chicago. Then he landed a gig at an exclusive resort on Molokai. The pay was excellent and he had no expenses, meals and lodging were both part of the deal. It was something to see the ghostly lights of Honolulu at night across the Kaiwi Channel. His room was small but it was his own, with an ocean view. In fact the dimensions of his quarters were similar to those of his old Airstream, he’d just traded the desert for the sea. Sitting on the beach with friends from the staff or floating alone on his back in the calm waves of sundown, he was overwhelmingly thankful that such a life belonged to him.

And he still played chess. He’d lost touch with the old gang but monitored their movements on the Internet. Osian was in law school in Atlanta. Camille lived in London and had published three fantasy novels. Of Alana however, there wasn’t a trace.

Alana sat in the library on Friday evening. Everyone was going out to dinner, to the bar, dancing. Movies theaters were packed, house parties in every neighborhood. But this was her favorite time to hit the books. Being on a hill in the center of town the library was to her a sort of metaphysical lookout tower. She could keep her finger on the pulse of the town, watching the cars go by, observing the lights of the strand downriver. At the same time, she could monitor history with the library’s intellectual resources at her command. Sometimes she didn’t have any specific work to do but would go and sit in the vacant reading room listening to the hum of the heating system, hearing the echoed activities behind the circulation desk, a phone ringing, the creak of the re-shelving cart. Sometimes a bum would come in and they’d have a game. Alana played everyday, never ceasing to make new discoveries in the world of chess which, for her, was a portal to the infinite realities which lie beneath and above our own.

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Cait III

Laurey Lebenson

 

 

Ann II

Laurey Lebenson

 

 

Pamela's Hands

Laurey Lebenson

 

 

Jiri's Stride

Laurey Lebenson

 

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Below (4):  Farm Photos

Elinore Brown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Republicans Begin Search for New War

by Bill Britton                                            

uoyed by the Republican Party’s victories in the mid-term elections, likely House Speaker John (“Weepy”) Boehner (R-Ohio) pledged to find a new war for America: “Let’s face it,” said Boehner, “The American people became totally bored by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to rouse them out of their lethargy.”

When reminded that those two wars were still ongoing, Boehner replied, “What happened to ‘Mission Accomplished’? I must be spending too much time on the golf course. I’ll have to have a TV screen installed in my tanning bed so I can catch up during cocktail hour. I’m a multitasker, you know.”

Although Iran seems an obvious choice, neocon Richard Perle, who did such a superb job fabricating an excuse to invade Iraq, has a short list that includes Iceland and Grenada. Perle justified both choices by saying, “Iceland has no standing army, so it would be easy pickings. And what an emotional lift it would be for the U.S. public to see our Marines once again storming the beaches of Grenada.”

A GAO report confirmed that both operations would add only $30 to $40 billion to the budget. These funds could be offset easily by cutting the food stamp budget. Tea Party senator-elect Rand Paul (KY) agreed: “Cutting the food stamp program makes sense. The beneficiaries of the program are too fat anyway. The overall health of the country would definitely improve.”

In a related story, Tea Party rising star Christine O’Donnell, who lost in the Delaware Senate race, is early favorite to be Sarah Palin’s choice as Secretary of State after Palin wins the presidency in 2012. Said Palin, “Chrissie is highly qualified. She just needs to sign up for a few political science courses at Delaware County Community College.”