

THE VOICES IN MY HEAD

By Thom Whalen

Copyright (c) 2019 Thom Whalen

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, either in whole or in part, in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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CONTENTS

Forward

The Tale of the Bitty Green Frog

Three in the Morning

Cupid's Arrow

The Gulf

Fair Ball

Late

A New Friend of Bill

Opening Statement

Lew's Fantastical Zoo

Nothing Happened

Costco Shoppers

My Dinner with Mandy

The Great Trinity River Gun Battle

The Recruiter

Giving Thanks

The Case of the Nervous Bricklayer

The Cabbie

Christmas Dinner

Snow Good

The Long Island Gunslinger

My Ex Ghost

Wedding Toast

Grocery Shopping

Saigon, Sixty-Nine

Short Order

The Trouble with Sky

The Case of the Blonde in the Rolls

Tea for One

The Woman in the Snow

Full Moon

The Death Insurance Escrow System

Kolath's Revenge

The Redemption of Corporal Ritchie

Old Bones in the Hills

Raine Lake

Simple Arithmetic

Space Aliens from the Milky Way

The Way Home

God's Lawn

The Midsummer Edenport Rock and Roll Festival

Lucky Man

Deliberate Accidents

Conroy's Girl

The Case of the Blonde Firecracker

Tulsa Honeymoon

Back from Death Valley

My Father's War on Evil

The Arrest

The Pizza Delivery Guy

War Is Hell

The Halloween Costume

A Perfect Gift

Forward

These stories were written to be read aloud in various writers' groups. To serve that purpose, they were written as first person narrations with a minimal amount of direct dialog. The narrators speak with different voices – a homeless man, a defense lawyer, a high school student, an itinerant short-order cook, and many others. When I wrote these, I saw myself as an actor, but typing on a keyboard rather than orating from a stage. I was striving for the same result as an actor: to put myself into a role and do my best to see the world through strange eyes and tell it in the appropriate voice. Sometimes the story is deliberately exaggerated , sometimes stereotyped, and sometimes told sincerely and realistically; the same way an actor sometimes plays the clown and sometimes strives for gritty authenticity. My preference is for light-hearted whimsy, so you will find that more often than heavy drama. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Yours, Thom Whalen, 2019

The Tale of the Bitty Green Frog

So back about twenty years ago, I was hitching for a ride up in the bush country and I saw this bitty green frog sitting by the road.

It was a secondary highway, so there wasn't much traffic and what traffic there was was in a rush to get where they was going, so I wasn't getting any rides for a long time.

I had nothing better to do while I was sticking out my thumb than to watch this bitty green frog.

He was just sitting there, enjoying the day. It was a frog kind of day, cool and damp, like a swamp in the springtime. I think if it was a hot summer day, with the sun baking down, that little frog would of had to flop back to his pond or he would have been cooked there on the edge of the blacktop. Blacktop gets hot as an iron stove on a sunny day. But not on that cool, cloudy day. I was shivering a bit, but he was making out just fine.

With nothing better to do, I got to thinking on that frog. He had a fine life, I'm sure. Probably had a girlfriend back in the pond. Maybe a bunch of eggs hanging on a weed stem in the water, growing and soon to hatch into a bunch of wriggly little tadpoles.

But he didn't have any care about that. Frogs is free. They don't have to fret about whether their kids got food and clothes. They don't have to wait on phone calls to find out if their kids is all right. There's plenty of bugs in the swamp for the little tads to eat and a nice pond to keep them comfortable whether daddy is around or not.

So a daddy frog can just swim away, take his ease on the edge of the highway, and not spend a moment fussing about where his next feed is coming from or how he's going to earn his next dollar. There's always going to be a fly or two buzzing along his way and there's always going to be a new pond to explore.

Ain't no law looking for him to pay his alimony, calling him a deadbeat and a bum.

He don't need to show no ID card to the sheriff or spend no nights in the tank for being vagrant. He can loiter all he wants and nobody gives him no mind. Nobody yells at him to get a job when they drive on by. His only job is just to live his life however he wants.

So I was sticking my thumb out and contemplating on this bitty green frog and how good life is and – glory be! – I get a ride. A big old Plymouth, black as midnight, pulls up alongside and the guy inside pops the door open and asks where I'm going, and I say west is all. Anywhere west. And he says that's the way he's going, so hop in and I do.

Lucky for me wasn't lucky for that bitty frog. When that Plymouth pulled over, he squashed it under his big old whitewall. As I was getting in, I looked down and saw there wasn't but one green leg sticking out from under his treads where that frog tried too late to leap.

So the frog's life wasn't without a sad end. Like all of us, I guess. But the thing of it is that that frog didn't waste his time fretting about the hazards of the road, he just got on with his life for as best as he could and lived as happy as he could while he could.

And, too, when we drove off of him, that frog left behind a tasty morsel that'll please the first crow that comes along.

There it is. We got a tasty morsel for a crow to carry off and a little tale left behind for me to tell for on twenty years. That little frog did some good after all, even if he never got a job and never did a lick of good for his little tads back in the pond.

Three in the Morning

Why should I care what my mother and father think about Sarah? I'm going to marry her whether they like her or not. Why am I awake at... What time is it? Three-eleven according to the clock. But the clock is wrong. It's been six minutes fast for more than a month. I should set the time properly. But the last time that I tried to set the time, I got it wrong and I was late for work every morning for a week. It's easier to remember that it's six minutes fast than to try to figure out which buttons to press together and which buttons to hold down until the numbers blink. So the clock says that it's three-eleven but it's really five after three and that doesn't matter at all because it's still the middle of the night and I have to get up at seven because we have a meeting with the lawyer from Barton-Finchley at nine about whether we're going to get sued for eight point six million over their contract but I'm more worried about Sarah meeting my parents on Sunday and I don't know why. I'm going to marry her no matter what my parents say. Unless they are so awful to her that she runs out of the house in tears and never wants to see me again. Like that's going to happen? They aren't monsters, my parents. They're nice people. Kind of. I mean, I moved out as soon as I could. Blew town when I turned eighteen. Moved to the other side of the country so that I didn't have to spend all my Sundays at their house, eating Mom's insipid, over-cooked Sunday dinners. But that wasn't because they were so bad to me, that was... What? Why did I have to move so far away to go to university? I could have stayed in San Diego and gone to San Diego State. I didn't have to move to Michigan. I could have stayed where it was warm all year around. Except that it wasn't so warm in Mom and Dad's house. It was cold. That's the problem. Mom and Dad are cold. That's why I moved away. Because Michigan winters are warmer than Mom and Dad's dinner table. Are they going to freeze Sarah out? Are they going to be polite and distant and make vague statements about how inadequate she is? Or how inadequate I am? Wouldn't that make us the perfect couple, if we're both inadequate? If neither one of us can meet my parents' lofty expectations. Sarah's going to hate them. And she'll see them in me. The more she gets to know them, the more she's going to see that I have their mannerisms and attitudes and... Oh, God. She's going to realize that she's marrying a man who's going to turn out to be just like his father. Especially if I blow the Barton-Finchley deal and get us sued for eight point six. I've got to be at my best tomorrow. I've got to get some sleep. And it's already three-fifteen. No. The clock is fast. It's only three-oh-nine. I can still get four hours if I can get to sleep right now. My eyes are aching, they're so tired. They're going to be red as the devil tomorrow. How am I going to convince the Barton-Finchley lawyers to approve the renegotiated contract if they look into my eyes and see the devil? How am I going to convince Sarah that I'm not like Dad if she looks at my eyes and sees red? Why are Dad's eyes so red all the time? Is he awake at three in the morning, too? Does he spend half of every night worrying about stuff, too? Is he awake right now, worrying about if Sarah is going to like him? Maybe that's not what he should worry about. Maybe I'm going to announce that I've been fired over Sunday dinner. That's what he should worry about. That I'm going to get McRay Holdings sued for eight point six million and Peterson is going to chuck me out the door and I'll be destitute and have to move back to San Diego and move in with Mom and Dad until I can find another job. God. I should have saved more money. I get a good salary. Why am I living from paycheck to paycheck? I should have savings. I should have saved enough to put a down payment on a house. Where are Sarah and I going to live after we get married? In this apartment? Maybe I shouldn't marry her until I can afford to buy a house for us to live in. What happens if she gets pregnant? I can't bring up a kid in a two-bedroom apartment. I've got to get my credit cards paid off and save money for a down payment on a house. A nice little bungalow in the suburbs. That's where Sarah's going to want to live. In the suburbs; not in in a high-rise in downtown Chicago. And for sure, not in my parents' spare bedroom after I get fired for blowing the Barton-Finchley contract. Which isn't my fault, anyway. I didn't negotiate the original contract and agree to the ridiculous deadline for the deliverables. Hoyte who did that. Hoyte promised the moon then bailed as soon as Barton-Finchley signed the damned thing and left me holding the bag. I hope Hoyte gets fired from Keller, Young, and Turner. But that won't do me any good if I can't get their lawyers to agree to the new deadlines that I negotiated. Of course they're going to agree. Underhill agreed in principle to every point. The lawyers are just approving the final wording. They won't want to go back to their boss and tell him that he got suckered into a bad deal. That would make him look bad. Besides, it's not a bad deal. Barton-Finchley are going to get exactly what they want, just a couple of weeks later than they thought they would. We're going to have no problem delivering on the revised contract with the new deadlines. It's all going to be fine. Sarah and Mom and Dad are going to get along fine, too. I'll pick them up from the airport on Saturday and they'll be happy to see me. And Sunday dinner will be good and everyone will get along. They all want to be friends because they know that I'm going to marry her, no matter what, so they're going to have to get along for the rest of their lives. And the bonus that Irene promised to me for getting the Barton-Finchley renegotiation signed is going to be enough to pay off my credit cards. And I'm going to start saving for a house. Everything is going to be fine. If only I can get some sleep. It's only three-twenty-one – three fifteen, actually; can't forget that the clock is fast – so I can get almost four hours if I can get to sleep now. Four hours will be enough. I can get by on four hours. And everything is going to be fine. Life will be great. If only I can get some sleep.

Cupid's Arrow

Cupid is real. He's not some kind of metaphor or fable. He's a real, living creature. A fat little fairy with wings and a bow and arrows. I know, because I saw the little bastard once.

I was in a bar back east, not New York but Newark. I had business in Manhattan, but who can afford to stay there? Hell, who can afford to drink there? Not an insurance agent from Grand Junction, Colorado, that's for sure.

So, I was in this bar, knocking back a couple after spending a day meeting with corporate execs who were never going to sign with me when this fat little fairy comes flying in.

In all the paintings that I've seen, Cupid is this cute little baby. Don't you believe it. He's little and fat, like in the paintings, but that's all. He's no baby. He's got a face like a nightmare grandfather, all wrinkled and liver spotted with three day's growth of beard, gray and grizzled. That blonde hair ain't. It's a mop of dirty white, greasy curls that's never seen shampoo.

The worst is his eyes. You've never seen such cynical eyes. They look right down into your heart to see all the evil secrets that you got hidden away. Those eyes see your darkest dreams and laugh at them.

So, we got this flabby old fairy flapping his stubby little wings– Did I mention that they're like bat wings, but white and scaly? In those old paintings, the Cupids got feathers, but you'd have to be half blind to mistake those raggedy white scales for feathers.

Anyway, this ugly old-man Cupid is flapping in front of me, looking down and grinning like he's got me dead to rights, and I knock back the rest of my shot and signal for the bartender to hit me again. I'm figuring that a third shot will clear my head and kill this bad dream.

The bartender is this young woman, must have been twenty-five or twenty-six, who's as beautiful as Cupid is ugly. Way out of my league. This was back in the summer of ninety-seven and I was young, too – still in my twenties because my birthday is in November – but I was never much of a ladies' man. That summer I was between girlfriends – long between – so I noticed the bartender, but didn't pay her any mind because, like I said, she was way out of my league and I would have just been wasting my time.

She came over and poured me another shot – another single because I was never a big drinker – and gave me a sweet smile.

I didn't give any credence to that, either, because that was just the tip-me-big smile that she was giving every guy at the bar. Let me give you a bit of advice, here. Don't read too much into waitresses' smiles. That smile is right there in their job description along with pushing drinks and not screwing up the orders too bad.

So, she gave me her sweetest smile and I paid for the drink and left a buck on the bar because the tip-me-big smile works.

Only this time, fat old Cupid is hanging up there in the air and he whips a gold arrow out of his quiver and draws a bead on her. That's one thing that those old paintings got right. Cupid's bow and arrows are solid gold.

When I see that he'd going to nail the bartender, I yell at her to watch out. She whips around to see what I'm yelling about, but all she sees is me shouting crazy.

I don't know why she can't see Cupid because he's right there, plain as day and as real as a flying monkey. Which makes me wonder if that guy who wrote the Wizard of Oz maybe once saw Cupid, too, because he looks a little like those flying monkeys, except that he's fatter and whiter and naked. Of course, they had to put clothes on the monkeys because that was a movie for kids and the Hollywood censors wouldn't allow any nude monkeys in a kids' movie. Maybe the monkeys were naked in the original script. I don't know.

Anyway, back to my story. I yell at the bartender to watch out and she whips around and Cupid's arrow nails her square in the middle of her chest. It sinks in deep, more than halfway up the shaft. It must have gone clean through her breast bone to her heart, no question.

She flinches and staggers a bit like anyone would if they took an arrow through the heart. Don't kid yourself. Cupid's arrows hurt like a bitch. I know because that little flying bastard, flapped around, whipped another arrow out of his quiver, and nailed me right in the chest, next.

It felt like my heart was on fire and I couldn't draw a breath. I looked down and saw that golden shaft sticking out of my shirt just like that other arrow was sticking out of the bartender's blouse. I knew for a fact that that both she and me were already good as dead and we were about to drop to the floor, a pair of stone-cold corpses, her lying on her side of the bar and me on mine, because no one can live with that much damage to his heart.

Cupid was still hanging up there, flapping away, laughing like a hyena. He figured that he'd just pulled the funniest prank ever.

And maybe he had, because we didn't die. In fact, I didn't see any blood on my shirt or on the waitress's blouse like there should have been from someone heart shot.

She gasped and looked at me and asked me what I did to her, and I said that I didn't do nothing, that Cupid just shot us both in the heart. And you know what she did? She laughed at me and said that she'd heard a lot of pickup lines, and that was the corniest of all.

Well, I told her that it wasn't no pickup line. That there was an evil fairy right up there flying around and that he was trying to curse us by making us fall in love; and she said that love wasn't a curse; and I said that shows how much you know about love.

While we were talking, our chests kept on puffing in and out with every breath, like is natural, and I could see that golden arrow working its way farther into her. The same was happening to me, and my heart was hurting more every minute. I don't know how I carried on through the pain.

I won't bore you with all the details of our conversation. We talked a bit about love and then she said that she had to go – other customers needed drinks – but that we should talk more about love, so for some reason that I never been able to explain, I asked if she wanted to go out to dinner and tell me why she thought that love wasn't a curse, and she said that she'd love that.

By the time I left the bar, Cupid was gone off to find some other suckers. Last I saw of him, he was looking over his shoulder, still laughing like hell at me, as he flapped away. When I looked down, his golden arrow had worked itself all the way into my heart and I couldn't see none of it sticking out any more. But it ached like hell in there. Still does, twenty years later on.

So, that's how Linda and me were cursed by Cupid and she moved out to Colorado and, against all odds, we're still together, today.

I don't think that Linda should ever forgive that fat little flying bastard, for sticking her with me because she's still way out of my league.

And me? Every day for twenty years, I been scared stiff that she's going to pluck Cupid's cursed arrow out of her heart and realize that she's too good for me. I do try to keep her in the dark by being as good to her as I can, but this can't last forever.

I'm pretty sure that when the day comes that she shucks that arrow and dumps me, Cupid will show up and be there watching and he'll get his best laugh of all. That's his nature.

The Gulf

I've got to get my dissertation finished. It's due in a month because the committee has to have it for six weeks before my oral and then I've got to have at least two weeks for revisions before I go to Ohio. The revisions better be minor. Tenure-track jobs are as rare as diamonds. If I miss my deadline and can't get to Ohio in time to prepare my classes for the fall semester, I'll lose the position and I'll never get another offer.

So what am I doing out here on a shrimp boat in the Gulf? I must be insane. I don't have a weekend to spare to go fishing with Pop. I don't get days off. I've got to work on my dissertation every day.

But he practically begged me to come. Said that he was desperate. He needed a hand with the nets and his best man was out with a broken wrist. Just this once, he promised. Just this one last time. The season is almost over. He needs one last haul to make enough to pay off the bank. He might not make the loan payment if he can't get one last good catch.

He knows that he can do it. The shrimp are back. The oil from the last big spill is about gone and there's plenty of shrimp in the gulf. He knows where he can find them. If only I can come down and give him a weekend of good work, he'll be in the black for the year.

It's all bullshit. I've been hearing the same story for as long as I can remember. He's always on the edge of bankruptcy. Always needs to get a lucky break to survive. Always needs my help. And then he buys a new pickup with cash. He takes long vacations at the cottage during the off season. Puts a new kitchen in the house. He never lacks for money to spend. Until the next time he needs something from me, and then it's the same old tragedy all over again. The banks are after him and he needs me desperately.

He never thinks that maybe I'm desperate, too. That I need to get my dissertation finished or my career will crash and burn before it even gets off the ground.

But how can I refuse? He paid for all my undergraduate education. I got a full ride from the scholarship of Pop. Not that I didn't work for it. This isn't the first time I've been out shrimping. Or the tenth. More likely the hundredth. But I still owe him. According to him.

The work is hard. We don't talk much during the day. I'm too busy managing the winches and guiding the nets while he's in the wheelhouse chasing the shrimp. He was right about one thing. He does know where the shrimp are. By the end of the day, we've taken a record catch. It's time to turn home, but he doesn't. He kills the engine and joins me on deck.

We sit dead in the water, rocking gently, smelling the salt air, and watch the sun setting over the ocean. It's pretty out here, all right. A perfect end to the day.

I can tell that he wants to talk, but he doesn't know what to say.

I see if I can get him started. I tell him that this is the last time that I'll be able to help out. I'm moving north in a couple of months. I've got a job in Ohio.

He nods. He knows. He says that it's good that I have a job. Then he falls silent again.

In that silence I hear everything that he's not saying. His silence says that he's going to miss me. Since Mom died three years ago, he's missed me more than he can say. So he doesn't say anything.

In that silence, he's saying that he wishes that he could have done a better job raising me. He made mistakes. He knows that and he keeps a mental catalogue of every one of them. He remembers every time he criticized me unjustly. Every time he put me down. Every time he told me that I'd never amount to anything.

In that silence, he's saying that he wishes that I'd never gone to graduate school in Georgia. He wishes that I'd stayed in Mississippi and followed in his footsteps. That I'd become a shrimper with him. That I'd take over the boat when he gets too old and then I'd support him like he supported me when I was young.

But also in that silence, he's saying that he understands that I have to make my own life. He knows that my destiny is to be a university professor far away in the Midwest, not a shrimper in the gulf. He doesn't know what that means, to be a professor. He has no idea how tough an academic career is. He has no clue how hard it is to be a success in a university department. But he knows that I'm tough. Tough enough to be a shrimper if I wanted. He knows that I never backed down from a challenge. So he accepts that I can't be taking the easy road, even if it looks like I just sit in an office and think all day.

I hear all that in his silence.

And I return his silence with my own. In my silence, he hears my gratitude. He hears that I know that he always did his best and that I forgive any errors. He hears that I am as proud of him as he is of me.

As the sun slips below the horizon, we both hear each other's love in the sound of the waves slapping against the hull.

When it's finally dark, he says that it's time to go home.

I agree. It's been a good day, but it's time to get back to my dissertation.

Fair Ball

A couple of hours ago, I was in my front room, watching my boy play ball. It wasn't like Little League or anything – in my family, we ain't big on joining stuff – so he and a few other kids was just goofing around in the street, pitching and batting over the manhole cover like it was home plate and running to the fire hydrant and back. It was pretty much a one-base game. Maybe they was keeping score, or maybe it was just for fun. I don't know. I wasn't paying much attention. I got my own problems.

The cops are after me. The other day, I heard from Mick down at the gravel pit that a cop came around with a warrant for me. I can figure what it's about. Sometimes I take some private jobs off the books for a little extra income. Last month, I borrowed a backhoe from the company, you know, on a Sunday when nobody was around to see it drive away. I was doing a bit of excavation for a buddy who's building a new extension on his house, and I had to get in the back of his place by going through a school yard and the bucket snagged on a playground structure and brought one end of the thing down. It was an accident, you know, but fixing it'd cost thousands – maybe even ten thousand, I don't know. But I do know I don't got that kind of money. Now it looks like they found out that it was me that did it and they want to arrest me. Because of that, I called in sick at work for a couple of days, in case the cops come around again.

They probably would have been out here to the house to get me already, but they don't know where I live. We moved down here last year and I didn't get around to telling my boss about my new address. I'm paying my buddy, Phil, cash rent so he don't have to pay taxes, so he's not telling anyone about us living here.

It's a nice place we got now. Quiet. No traffic to speak of, so the boy can play as much ball in the street as he likes and Mandy gets along good with the neighbors.

So, the cops don't know that I'm here, but they're going to get me, sooner or later, because I can't keep ditching work forever. I gotta earn my paychecks.

It's a problem.

So, I was thinking that maybe it's time to move up north. We could stay with my brother in Oregon for a while and I could get a job up there. There's always someone looking for a heavy equipment operator.

And what happens right then when I was thinking that? My boy gets a nice easy pitch right across the manhole cover and he gets perfect contact and that old softball goes flying like it grew wings. It was a beautiful thing. If he'd a been out on a proper baseball diamond, he would have cleared the left field fence, for sure. Would have driven everyone on base home.

But he wasn't on a baseball diamond, he was standing over the manhole cover on the street outside our house and that old softball went soaring down the street, past two other houses, and then over Fred Jackson's new-mowed lawn and right through Fred's front room window. That's the big picture window where he put his tree last Christmas so everyone on the street could admire it.

The whole glass disintegrated. I doubt there was hardly a shard left in the frame.

That ball was really travelling.

So were my boy's friends. Even before the last bits of glass hit Fred's floor, all the boys was running for cover, ducking through bushes and into backyards.

All except my boy. He just stood there for a minute, bat dangling from his hand, staring at the empty window frame in Jackson's house.

I wanted to yell at him to run away, too, but he couldn't have heard with me in the house and him out on the street. I don't think that he would have run, anyway. He isn't that kind of kid. Nope. He set the bat down and walked down the street, right up to Fred Jackson's front door and rang the bell.

Mae Jackson opened the door right away. She was holding the softball in her hand and looking unhappy.

I could have gone down and talked to her with my boy, but I got enough problems of my own so I just stood back and watched what was going to happen.

My boy and Mae talked for a bit and, after a while, he held out his hand and she shook it, and then she gave him back his ball and he came on home.

I was curious to know what had happened, of course, but I didn't want to make a deal out of it, so I waited until the boy came into the house and then, casual like, I asked how things were going.

He didn't mention the broken window; he just said that he'd be helping with yard work at the Jackson's for a while. Said it was like his job, now, but I didn't have to worry, because he'd still be doing his chores at home, too. Then he went off to his room to catch up on his homework.

Mandy came out of the kitchen and asked what that was about. I guess she'd overheard that the boy was going to be doing chores for the Jackson's and thought that was strange. I told her that the boy broke Fred Jackson's window, so he's going to pay it off by working for Fred.

She thought that was fine.

Then I told her that I was going down to the police station and have a talk with them and get my warrant situation cleared up. I didn't know when I'd be back, but I figured I wouldn't be too late. Even so, she shouldn't hold supper for me.

Mandy said she was happy to hear that, and I guess she was, because I don't keep my problems secret from her and the warrant must have been a worry for her, too.

But, you know, it's something that I have to do, because my boy's got big ears and, if we moved to Oregon, he'd soon figure out that it was because I was running from the law. He wouldn't do something like that that and I can't let him be a better man than me.

A boy's got to have a father that he can respect. That's only proper.

Late

I should have left earlier. The traffic is terrible. Where did all these cars come from?

The clock on the dash says that it's already two-ten. Maybe the clock is wrong. When did I last adjust it? Maybe it's twenty minutes fast. Maybe it's ten to two, not ten after. Maybe I still have ten minutes to get downtown. Dashboard clocks are notorious for being wrong, aren't they?

No. Not twenty minutes wrong. Not my clock.

There's no avoiding the truth. I'm late. I'm already late and I'm not even there yet. I'm still stuck in traffic on the freeway. At least it's moving. It's not a traffic jam, just heavy traffic. Wasn't there a movie back in the seventies called Heavy Traffic? Some kind of x-rated cartoon?

I don't know. Why would I care about that now? I have more important things to worry about. Like this truck in front of me. It doesn't have to drive this slowly. The guy could at least try to drive at something close to the speed limit. It wouldn't kill him to stomp on it a little. Maybe there's another car in front of him. I can't see around the truck. I should pass him but there's too much traffic in the other lane and I can't get a break. Besides, my exit is coming up and I don't want to get stuck in the wrong lane and miss it. If there's cars in front of the truck, then I might not be able to get back into the exit lane. But this guy is driving so damned slow.

Two-fifteen. I'm now fifteen minutes late. A quarter hour. Five minutes, you can say that clocks aren't all that accurate. Ten minutes, you can blame bad luck. Say that you hit too many red lights. Fifteen minutes, though? That's your fault, no question. You should have left earlier.

But I'm not going to be fifteen minutes late. By the time I get downtown, find parking, walk to the meeting, I'm going to be so late that I don't want to think about it.

I could lie. I could claim that there was an accident on the freeway. Nothing I could do. The traffic was stopped up for miles.

Bad idea. Someone else might have come to the meeting from the west end, too. They'd know that there was no traffic jam on the freeway. That kind of thing doesn't happen instantly. Right after an accident, people can still get around the stopped cars. It takes time for enough cars to slow down and gawk and jam the freeway. Unless it was a major accident that blocked multiple lanes. An accident that was serious enough to make the news.

I better not lie. Better to be late than to be caught in a lie.

Even if I'm desperately late.

The exit is clear. Finally, I sail off the freeway. And hit the red light at the bottom of the exit. How come you never hit a green light when you get off a freeway? The timing of your exit from a freeway is random. There should be a fifty-fifty chance of the light being green, so why is it always red?

I wait and fume and wait. There's no cross traffic. Not a car to be seen in either direction. So why am I waiting at a red light? I could just drive across the intersection. Nothing is physically stopping me. No one would see. Except for the pickup that's pulling up behind me and he's not a cop. Unmarked cop cars are always big American sedans, not pickup trucks.

I stay put, not from fear of arrest nor from physics, but from years of habit. I could no more force myself to drive against a red light than I could sprout wings and fly to the meeting.

How long is this light going to stay red, anyway?

No longer. Green at last. I race through the intersection, down a block, and get stopped by the next red light. It just turned. I saw it turn. Now I'm going to have to wait for a full cycle. How long? A minute? Two? It seems like forever and it's already two-twenty. Twenty minutes late and I'm barely a block off the freeway.

I'm sweating like a pig. Do pigs sweat? Dogs don't. I know that. Not cats, either. They're too cool. But pigs? I don't know. I should look that up some time.

Green at last. I floor the gas – almost – and race through the next two lights – both green by luck. Well, that last one was kind of yellow, actually red by the time I was halfway through the intersection, but green enough for me. The next half dozen lights are green, yellow, red, whatever. A blur. I stop, I go, I stop again.

The clock on the dash says two-twenty-five when I get close enough to start looking for parking.

Of course there's nothing on the street. Nothing close to the building at all. I waste another five minutes cruising around the block. Wasting time. Why didn't I leave home earlier? Why didn't I give myself plenty of time? I could have parked an hour ago, grabbed a coffee at Starbucks, relaxed and been calm and ready for the meeting.

Maybe I have a subconscious self-destructive streak. Maybe I don't want this contract. Maybe I want to be bankrupt, starving, and living on the street.

Maybe that's why I'm still cruising around yet another block, looking desperately for a parking space instead of driving over to the multi-level parking garage in the Maydown Centre. It might be a five-block walk back to the Pankhurst Tower, but I'd be there by now instead of driving in circles.

I wish I'd remembered my cell phone. If I had my phone, I could call and apologize and explain. But I'd rushed out of the house, terrified that I was going to be late. I'd barely had time to grab my wallet and keys. Never gave a thought to grabbing my phone, too. I could visualize it sitting on the desk next to my computer. If only I had it now, I'd at least be able to call and tell them that I'm on my way, even though I'm already forty-five minutes late.

But if wishes came true, I'd be rolling in dough and wouldn't be scrambling for yet another contract.

A three-year contract this time. That was a boon. If I won this one, I wouldn't have to beat the bushes, looking for another contract for more than two blessed years. I'd been lurching from one six-month contract to another for so long now that I'd forgotten what it was like not to have to spend most of my weekends writing proposals for the next one.

Why didn't I leave home an hour earlier? Am I really this self-destructive?

It's time to give up a search for street parking. I bite the bullet and turn toward the parking garage.

More red lights. Streets blocked by pedestrians jaywalking. Another five minutes lost. I get to the parking garage and the gate is shut. A lighted sign says that the lot is full.

How can the Maydown Centre be full? It's a big parking garage. It's four stories high. It fills the whole end of the block. It must hold a thousand cars. What is everybody doing downtown at three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon?

I keep driving straight, through another green light and – glory be! – I'm going to get a parking spot on the street. Someone just got into his car, his brake lights flash when he starts his engine.

I put on my turn signal and stop, leaving plenty of room for him to leave.

I can see him fiddling with his shoulder belt. Adjusting his mirrors. For Pete's sake, just pull out of the spot, already.

Cars are backing up behind me, but I don't care. I'm not budging until I've got a parking space to pull into.

Finally, the man puts on his blinker. I see his eyes peering into his side mirror, looking to see what I'm doing. Idiot. I'm not doing anything. I'm waiting for you to get out of my parking space.

He does. Slowly, carefully, he eases his car out of the spot, staring at me in his mirror all the while.

As soon as he's clear of the car in front of him, I pull forward to back into his spot.

The car behind me, annoyed at having to wait, follows me forward. Maybe he's an hour late for his critical, life-altering meeting, too.

Tough.

I back up into the parking space, barely squeezing past the corner of the idiot's bumper, glaring at him in my side mirror.

He's too oblivious to know that he's oblivious.

Finally parked, I have to waste another couple of precious minutes racing to the ticket machine, using my credit card to buy two hours of parking – the maximum allowed here, I hope this meeting doesn't take that long – and racing back to put the ticket on my dashboard.

Sweat is pouring off my hair as I half-jog the seven blocks back to Pankhurst Tower.

My watch says that it's three o'clock when I get off the elevator. A full hour late. A full hour. Maybe I'll tell them that I thought the meeting was for three, not two. Is it better to look too stupid to know what time the meeting was held, or to look too stupid to make it to the meeting on time?

If there's a meeting at all any more. More likely everyone left after waiting for ten minutes and I didn't show up. By now, they've given the contract to someone else and made a note never again to consider any proposal that I submit for anything.

I couldn't blame them for that. It's what I would do if I were them.

"I'm here to see Doug Parkhill." I don't tell the receptionist that I'm an hour late.

"And you are?"

"Cantley. Del Cantley."

"One minute, Mr. Cantley."

It's more like five minutes before a middle-aged woman emerges from the door to the offices. "Mr. Cantley?"

"Yes. I'm here to see Doug Parkhill." I try to grin apologetically. "I'm a little late. Traffic."

"I'm Mr. Parkhill's executive assistant. You didn't get his message? I left a message for you."

"No, sorry. I was stuck in traffic."

"Mr. Parkhill had an urgent matter that needed his attention. He had to cancel your meeting."

"Oh." I am shocked.

"Yes. I left a message for you. He said that the group didn't need to meet with you. He had senior management approve your contract this morning. I put it in the mail for you. It hasn't gone out yet. Now that you're here, I guess we can save the stamp. If you want to wait for a minute, I'll retrieve it from his out basket and give it to you."

"That would be great."

She disappeared.

While I wait, my panic subsides, replaced with relief that I hadn't blown it by leaving the house too late. It takes but a moment for that brief relief to twist in the direction of irritation. There had been no reason for me to race down here after all. They could've called a little earlier and caught me at home. They could have saved me from that terrible trip downtown.

Nurtured by indignation, my irritation grows as I wait for my contract. Clearly if Parkhill had the contract approved in the morning, then he had had ample time to call me and let me know that I didn't have to meet them.

They could have been a little more considerate. It wouldn't have killed them to think of me racing down here, fighting traffic, searching frantically for parking.

I wasn't sure that I wanted to work with these people any more. I should tell them where to stuff their contract and storm right out of here.

That would show them.

The assistant returns, bearing a manila envelope, and holds it out to me.

I fight the urge to snatch it and throw it back in her face in a fit of fury.

I hope that she doesn't notice that my hand is sweating when I take the envelope from her. "Thanks." My single curt word of gratitude is barely civil.

I stalk out of the office without saying anything more.

I don't open the envelope and glance at the contract until I'm riding down the elevator. It looks good. A guaranteed three years of work at a decent rate of compensation.

This is a cause for celebration.

I'll eat a steak tonight.

A New Friend of Bill

My name is Peter and I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for – what time is it now? Seven o'clock? – for six hours. Well, maybe not six hours. That was my last drink, six hours ago, so it would have took a little bit to sober up after that. So maybe I been sober for four hours. That ain't long, I know. Some of you must have been sober for a lot longer than that. Years, I bet, from the looks of you. But this is my first meeting so you can understand that I ain't been sober for so long as you old timers.

So here I am, sober as a judge – at least, sober as a judge that ain't had a drink in six hours – and Quinn here said I ought to tell you all something about myself, so I will.

I was born out on the West Coast from what my birth certificate says, but I got taken out of Seattle when I was still little, and brought to Canada, so mostly I remember growing up in Calgary. I was left with Mom's friends when she was up in the oil patch, which was most of the time, though she wasn't the one doing the drilling, if you know what I mean. So she wasn't around much but she came down for special occasions, like when she needed to dry out a bit. Which wasn't often.

I'm just telling you this so you see that I come by my boozing honestly, so to speak. I'm not making any excuses. I never figured that I needed an excuse to drink. I just thought you might like to know how it all came about.

I won't bore you with all the sad details of being a kid, I'll just jump ahead to when I was eighteen and back in the states, 'cause that's important. I never went to school much and don't think I ever passed an exam in my life. At least not when I was a kid. I took off from Mom when I was fifteen and never saw her again. Never wanted to. I spent three years kicking around out east, getting by on stealing a bit, and panhandling a bit, and dealing a bit, and crashing with my buddies a lot.

When I got to be eighteen, I got down to the States by hitching a ride on a boat with a guy who was bootlegging cigarettes though Akwesasne, so I wasn't exactly there legally, but I had a right to be in the States, being born in Seattle and being an American citizen and all.

I was panhandling in a supermarket parking lot – that's a good place to bum a buck because you can tell folks that you need to buy some food and you're short a buck and they're more likely to believe you than if you're panhandling outside a liquor store – and a marine in his sharp blue uniform with the shiny gold buttons and the red stripe on the pants asks if I want to be a real American and fight for my country.

This was when we was going into Iraq to stop Saddam from giving his nuclear bombs to terrorists and they was calling up reserves and recruiting anyone who could walk on two legs.

So I looked at that guy's shiny shoes and funny white hat and medals on his chest and said that I sure would. I figured that I was more Canadian than American, but I didn't tell him that. I saluted the flag and they gave me a sharp new uniform of my own.

Well, I figured I'd be marching through the desert, shooting anything that wasn't wearing the right uniform, but Lordy be, they gave me an aptitude test and said I got to be a helicopter pilot. So I spent three tours flying over the desert, shooting anything that wasn't wearing the right uniform.

Now you all might think that would make me sober, being a military pilot, because they got rules and regulations out the kazoo, but you'd be wrong. My buddies in the marines drank more than my homeless buddies on the street. Had more money, you see, and booze was cheap at the ex and it's not like there was a lot of cops giving us sobriety tests.

Now, you got to understand that I wasn't blotto all the time. I just kept putting enough under my belt to keep me mellow and casual. Truth was, I was pretty functional that way. I didn't get too upset when the bad guys shot back at me and I always managed to set my chopper back on the pad without crunching the landing gear.

After a while, I got tired of shooting the terrorists and carrying brass in and out of the Green Zone, so I mustered out.

I came back up here to the oil patch and got a job flying choppers for the oil companies. 'Cause, you know, all my paperwork was in order and I got all those hours in the air. Turns out, the regulators up here ain't much more of a problem than they was in Iraq. It's not like I'm flying passenger jets. As long as I can keep getting the chopper out and back without dinging up the cargo, I'm good to go.

Except now I got this wife in Edmonton who's ragging fierce on me to get myself straight. My other wife in Prince George is mellow with it, she's a worse boozer than me, but the one in Calgary is being a bit of a bitch about it.

So here I am, at my first meeting, and I'm set to get along with the program.

Who knows, if it works out for me, then maybe I'll get the Prince George wife to come to a few meetings and sober up, too.

Wish me luck.

Opening Statement

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am here to represent Mr. Gerald Pitthorn. As the prosecutor just explained, Mr. Pitthorn has been accused of second degree murder in the death of his wife. We will not dispute the facts that the prosecutor presented. It is true that Mrs. Amanda Pitthorn died of strangulation, that this happened in her dining room, and that Mr. Pitthorn was the only other person in the house. You might well conclude that Mr. Pitthorn was the person who strangled Mrs. Pitthorn.

However, you cannot find him guilty of murder for the following reason: he did not get a good nights' sleep. Not the night before Mrs. Pitthorn's death, not two nights before her death, nor three nights. In fact, we will show indisputable evidence that Mr. Pitthorn did not get a good nights' sleep for a full month before that date. A full month. Thirty consecutive nights, during which Mr. Pitthorn never slept for more than two hours. We will show that he never had an opportunity to nap during the day, was never allowed to fall asleep in front of the television set, never went to bed before three in the morning, and always was awakened at five in the morning. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. For thirty days, the only time that Mr. Pitthorn was permitted to sleep was between three and five AM.

We will bring experts here: psychologists who have conducted extensive research on sleep deprivation, neuroscientists who will explain how the chemistry of the brain changes when a man is not permitted to sleep, and medical doctors who specialize in insomnia and have treated thousands of patients who are suffering from prolonged sleep deprivation.

We will explain the science in meticulous detail, but that's not why you will find Mr. Pitthorn innocent of murder. You will find him not guilty because you know from your own experience what happens when you lack sleep.

We've all had nights when we couldn't sleep for one reason or another. I have, you have, we all have. You or I complain if we get only four hours of sleep in a night and have to work the next day. We feel miserable, we can't think clearly, and we make bad decisions. But Mr. Pitthorn had only half of that much sleep. Only two hours per night. And you or I complain if we can't get enough sleep for a second or third night in a row. For good reason. Fatigue – mental and emotional fatigue – accumulates. It gets worse and worse every night that passes without you being able to catch up on your sleep. That's something that psychologists call a sleep debt. But Mr. Pitthorn didn't have two or three nights of sleep debt. He had thirty days of it.

How did it happen that Mr. Pitthorn was so badly sleep deprived for so long? I hesitate to blame poor Mrs. Pitthorn. She did not deserve to be strangled in her dining room. We all agree on that point. But she was the reason for Mr. Pitthorn's sleep deprivation. That is a fact that you cannot deny when you hear the evidence.

We will present witnesses that will explain Mrs. Pitthorn's behavior to you. Her sister will tell you how, from her earliest childhood, Mrs. Pitthorn was driven to control the behavior of everyone around her. She would do anything to get her way. Many tried, but no one could convince her to modify her extreme behavior.

Her bullying was so persistent, so determined, that no one could endure it. Sleep would be impossible for Mr. Pitthorn when Mrs. Pitthorn was throwing one of her legendary fits.

Her best friend, Nancy Yuille, will come to court and explain to you that Mrs. Pitthorn decided to renovate her house. She discussed her plans in detail with her friends. Specifically, she decided that Mr. Pitthorn would renovate her house. Yes, I say her house because Mrs. Pitthorn did not see the house as community property. Though Mr. Pitthorn had worked hard for his whole life to earn a decent wage and had paid the entire mortgage out of those wages, his wife saw herself as the sole owner of their marital residence.

Mr. Pitthorn's boss will come to court and show you the timesheets that prove Mr. Pitthorn was working more than forty hours every week at the same time that he was renovating the house every evening and on weekends.

Mr. Pitthorn's neighbors will come here and explain to you how their sleep was disturbed late into the night and early in the morning by the whine and growl of power tools. That's right. After working more than eight hours at his job, Mr. Pitthorn was forced to come home and work on his house until three o'clock in the morning, every morning, and then get up at five in order to be at his job by seven, an hour's commute by car.

The police will testify that they were sent repeatedly to the Pitthorn house to warn Mr. and Mrs. Pitthorn that they could not use power tools so late into the night. In fact, they issued a dozen tickets that month charging the Pitthorns with violating the city bylaws against producing excessive noise after midnight.

Finally, we will bring experts here who will explain that Mr. Pitthorn was not just tired, not just exhausted, but had become clinically insane, psychotic, from the sleep deprivation that Mrs. Pitthorn forced him to endure.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is why you will find Mr. Pitthorn not guilty by reason of insanity. After a full month of sleep deprivation, he was no longer aware of what he was doing and was no longer able to distinguish right from wrong.

The only option available to him was to silence Mrs. Pitthorn so that he could finally get a decent night's sleep.

When you remember what it feels like when you have been deprived of sleep, you will have no problem returning the just and correct verdict of not guilty.

Thank you.

Lew's Fantastical Zoo

Back in the day, there was this fella that I knew named Lew Osmond. Lew was a good guy, but his thinking didn't always proceed along a straight and narrow path like yours and mine. To put it plain, he was the odd sock in the drawer.

Lew lived in an old cabin on land that his folks left him up on Wilders Mountain. You probably never heard of it because it's not much of a mountain, more of a hill, and it's a ways back from the highway. It's isolated.

The Osmonds have owned most of Wilder Mountain as long as anyone can remember, but it's a lot of rocky scrub that isn't much good for farming. The property taxes are like ten dollars a year.

Lew got by mostly by trapping small game, but he also worked as a handyman for a lot of the rural folk around those parts. They couldn't pay much, but he didn't need much, so he did okay.

One day, Lew decided that he needed a woman. A wife and helpmate to come live in his cabin and complete his life.

Now, you or me would do the conventional thing. We'd ask our friends to set us up on a blind date, or we'd hit on a few of the girls at church, or now days, we'd look on the Internet. But the Internet wasn't much of a thing back then and Lew didn't have a computer any how. He could only barely keep a phone paid up and his TV got snowy reception from an antenna tied to the top of an old pine tree. He wasn't much on church-going, so that was out. And those of us who counted ourselves as friends weren't crazy enough to suggest to any woman that she go on a date with Lew. Everyone within a fifty mile radius that Lew was a guy with weird ideas. If one of us told a woman that she should go on a date with him, she'd spit in our face and never talk to us again.

So what Lew did; he went down to the highway and put up a sign that said, "Lew's Fantastical Zoo, Most Exotic Collection in the World, Admission Free." An arrow pointed up Wilders Road. Then, he put another sign just the same at the end of the lane that led up to his field. That's the field that his grand-pappy cleared to plant corn a century ago. The soil is so bad there that, not only did the corn not grow, but the scrub never managed to grow back over it, neither, so it's stayed an open field to this day.

Both of Lew's Zoo signs had a littler sign hanging from chains on the bottom that said "Open" on one side and "Closed" on the other.

All that summer, on every sunny day, he went out and turned the signs to show, "Open" and then went back and sat on a chair under a shade tree for a couple of hours, reading a book — he'd read about every book in the public library. Or he'd pick away at mountain tunes on his daddy's banjo.

You got to give Lew credit for one thing — he was a pretty good banjo player. Though he did kind of remind people of that kid in the Deliverance movie because he had to concentrate so hard on his tunes that he got this weird vacant look on his face.

Us locals knew that there was no zoo up at Lew's place. When we heard about the signs he put up, most of us figured that he'd gone full squirrelly from being up there on the mountain all by his lonesome. We'd all been predicting that for some time.

But every so often, sometimes two or three times a day, some tourist would see that sign claiming The Most Exotic Collection in the World and get curious. They didn't expect to see jungle animals on Wilder Mountain — even tourists aren't that crazy — but they'd get to wondering about what might justify such a claim and get a powerful urge to go see for themselves.

When a car pulled up to the end of the lane, Lew'd put down his book or banjo, hop out of his chair, and wave the tourist to park in a spot that he'd marked out on the ground.

He'd coax the tourists out of their car and walk them around the field, pointing to imaginary cages and telling them tall tales about invisible pink unicorns, jungle yaks with perfect camouflage that only the most perceptive people in the world could see, space aliens from the eighth dimension that barely had any presence in ours, elephants so small that you needed a magnifying glass to see them — too bad the tourists didn't think to bring one. He'd show them the phantom kennel where the ghost of Rin Tin Tin lived, and the gopher hole to Hades where they could see the three-headed Cerberus if only their eyes could penetrate the stygian darkness.

For each of these fabulous creatures, he told a whole adventure story about how he'd single-handedly hunted it down and brought it back. He explained how people who'd never seen them and were too ignorant to know any better thought that they were only fables. And he'd explain how difficult it was to feed them and minister to them when they got sick from terrible, fantastic diseases. But he always did save them, because he was a fabulous healer.

He got all of his medical training from Dr. Seuss, who used to be a frequent visitor and got the idea for most of his stories from Lew's Zoo. In fact, few people realize that Dr. Seuss's book, If I Ran the Zoo, is a documentary about Lew.

Lew claimed that the government is still looking for the space alien that had he'd stolen from Area Fifty-One. He wouldn't show that cage until his visitors swore that they weren't secret government agents come to investigate him and take their space alien back to Roswell.

Lew claimed that some fella named Randi who'd offered a reward for a demonstration of any supernatural phenomenon heard about his zoo. He'd come and promised him a million bucks after he'd seen the invisible unicorn but then welched on the deal.

Lew had a lot of stories.

Some people were amused, some annoyed, and plenty just plain mystified, but Lew didn't care if folks thought that he'd gone off his meds. He was a patient man.

It took a few weeks, but one day, a couple of young women drove up the lane in a red convertible. They were both fresh out of college, and were rambling around the country, trying to figure out what to do next with their lives. One of them, a young lady named Royal McDougall, or Roy for short, got the joke better than anyone else who'd come to Lew's Zoo. She opined that his zoo was about the best thing she'd ever seen, even though there was nothing to see but Lew standing in an empty field, talking his fool head off.

If that was the best that she'd ever seen, then I figure that she couldn't have seen much in her young life, but who am I to judge?

The bottom line is that she and Lew hit it off like nobody's business. She stuck around and, six months later, she married Lew in the Baptist Church over in the valley. When I moved to the city a few years later, they was still married and had a couple of kids. I haven't been back to Wilders Mountain since, but I expect that they're married to this day and probably have grandchildren.

She was the right woman for Lew.

See, Lew was a trapper and he figured that the way to get the woman that he wanted was to lay out a trap with just the right bait for just the right kind of woman. So that's exactly what he did, and it worked, so more power to him.

Nothing Happened

Jeez, Mom, why do you ask me the same thing every day? I'll tell you what happened at school. Nothing happened. Just like nothing happened yesterday or the day before that. Nothing ever happens in high school.

Yeah, I know the prom is next month. No, I'm not going to go. It's not cool if a guy doesn't have a date. That'd be so weird, a guy going alone. What would I do? Hang around with the other losers who couldn't get a date?

I asked a girl, okay. I asked Cindy McLean before class this morning, but she's not going to go with me. I found out that she was waiting for Kyle to ask her.

No, she didn't tell me that. Not when I asked her in the morning. She didn't give me an answer. She just told me that she wanted to think about it.

It was her best friend, Bella, that told me that Cindy wouldn't go with me. Bella sits beside me in Algebra. She talks to me after class sometimes. Bella said that after I asked Cindy to the prom, Cindy told Bella that she wanted Kyle to take her and that's why Cindy was going to turn me down, but Cindy didn't want to do it right away. First, Cindy wanted to tell Kyle that I'd asked her to the prom and that she was thinking about it because she thought that might make Kyle tell her to forget about me and go with him instead.

Why does Cindy want to go with Kyle instead of me? Because he's way cooler than me; that's why. He's a varsity quarterback — only second string, but that's still a quarterback. And he was the president of the student body association all year. Right up until today. Also, he has a car. His own car; he doesn't have to borrow his parents' car.

No, he's not the student body president any more. He resigned at lunchtime. He got called to the principal's office and they talked, and in the end, he got told that he couldn't be the president any more and that it would be best for him if he resigned voluntarily.

Yeah. You remember that car wash we did a few weeks ago? The one to raise money for the prom committee? Well, Kyle was there with the cash box, collecting the money like usual, while the rest of us were washing the cars, but afterward, he didn't hand all the money over to the treasurer. We found out that he kept some of it to get new tires for his car.

See, Bella is the treasurer for the student body association and she was suspicious of Kyle after the winter bake sale. She thought that we should have made more money from all of the stuff that we sold, but she didn't have any proof that Kyle came up short, so at the car wash, Bella asked me to help her keep track of the number of cars that we were washing so that she could calculate how much money we were raising.

So this morning, when Bella was telling me me about Cindy wanting to go to the prom with Kyle, I asked her about the car wash and she told me that Kyle only gave her half as much money as he should have. She asked him about it and he said that there were other expenses. He said that he had to pay half to Mr. Murchey who owns the gas station to pay for the water and space and stuff. That was the deal he made for us to use the gas station parking lot.

That didn't sound right to me, so I cut gym class to go ask Mr. Murchey about the deal.

Yeah, I know, but I don't cut class much and it was just gym. Coach Hilton is cool. I told him that I didn't feel good, and I wanted to see the nurse and he let me go.

Well, I didn't feel good. Not after I heard about Cindy and Kyle and the car wash. All that made me feel sick to my stomach for real.

It doesn't matter. I've already got my college acceptance. They're not going to take it back unless I flunk out of something and I'm not going to flunk out of gym. Not because I missed one class. Trust me.

So during third period, I went over to Mr. Murchey's on Broadway and asked him about expenses for the car wash. He said that he donated everything. He never wanted to get paid and nobody gave him any money. Except for some money that Kyle gave him for some new tires, but that didn't have anything to do with the car wash.

When I got back, Bella and me went to talk to Principal Bascom about Kyle and the missing money. That's why he called Kyle into his office at lunch and made him confess and resign. Kyle's going to have to pay the money back, too, so the prom won't come out short.

So now, Randy Davis, who was the vice president, is the new president. They needed a new vice president and it's only a month until graduation so there's no time for an election so Bella told Principal Bascom that he should make me the acting vice president so he did.

Yeah. That's right. So now I'm the vice president of the student body association, but that's no big deal. The vice president doesn't have to do anything. I don't even have to make any speeches. I asked.

I figured that after Kyle confessed, Cindy wouldn't want to go to the prom with a guy who stole a bunch of money, but I was wrong. After school, she told me that she was real mad that I'd been a rat and turned in Kyle and that Kyle had asked her to go to the prom as soon as he got back from the principal's office and she said that she'd love to go with him. She told me that even if Kyle didn't ask her, she'd never go to the prom with me because I was a rat now. She's real mad at me.

So, you see, nothing happened today. I didn't get a date for the prom and now I've got to go to a couple of boring old student body association meetings before the end of the year and nothing will happen there, either.

Yeah, I guess Bella likes me all right. She talks to me more than most girls. Sometimes she even sits with me at lunch if the guys that I usually hang with aren't there.

Of course, she's pretty. Cindy wouldn't hang out with anyone who wasn't pretty.

Ask Bella to the prom? No way. She's Cindy's best friend. What would Cindy think if I asked her best friend to go to the prom? Cindy would think that I was even worse than a rat.

I can't wait to graduate. There's got to be more happening in college than in dumb old high school.

Costco Shoppers

The other day I had to go over to Costco to get some toilet paper because, you know, we ran out, and you can't live without TP, and it's cheapest at Costco, even though one package fills your whole shopping cart, but that's all right because, if it's a big package, you don't run out very often, which is good because, like I said, you can't live without TP.

So I was going to Costco, but it was late in the evening, so it was almost closing time, and I had to hurry. You know how Costcos are. They always build them a long ways away because it's cheaper for them if they don't have to buy a lot of land in the middle of the city, and that way, they can afford to sell stuff like toilet paper cheaper than a grocery store that's right close to home.

So I get to Costco ten minutes before its supposed to close, but that's all right because I'm just buying toilet paper and that's only going to take a minute. I grab a cart because, even if you're only going to buy one thing, it's Costco and all the packages are so big that you're going to need a whole cart to carry it through the store and back out to your car.

It takes a while to get into the store because there's an old couple ahead of me, not that old, maybe only ten years older than me, now that I think about it, but they act like old people, and the woman is searching through her purse and can't find her card because her purse is huge and it's got all kinds of junk in it that she's never going to need, like sunscreen and hand sanitizer and a paperback novel and other stuff that she's handing to her husband and saying over and over that she can't find her card. Like what? Like she didn't know that she was going to have to show her card to get into the store? Like she was surprised when the guy at the door wanted to see her card before he let her in?

I can't get into the store because the old couple's got a cart and the husband's standing on one side and the wife on the other so they block the whole doorway even though the doors on Costco are really big.

The husband noticed me and he's looking embarrassed because he knows that I can't get past them, but he's not so embarrassed that he'll step aside and get out of my way. But after a while, his hands are full of stuff and he can't hold any more and the wife still has too much stuff in her purse to find her card, so he shoves her junk back at her and says that they'll just use his card.

For God's sake! He had a card right there in his wallet all the time. Why in hell didn't he grab his wallet and flip it open right at the start, instead of letting his wife go through this whole huge thing about half emptying her purse? Some people! I don't know.

So they finally get into the store and so do I, except that I'm down to five minutes to get my toilet paper. But the toilet paper is way in the back and I'm walking past the snacks that they put up front and I didn't get time to eat dinner because I had to rush out to get to Costco before it closed, so I'm hungry, so I have to stop and get some mixed nuts. Costco is great because they don't put a lot of peanuts like filler in the mixed nuts, they just have good nuts like cashews, but they put a lot of salt on them, so when I get the nuts in my cart, I get real thirsty just looking at them, so I make a mental note to grab a case of Coke when I get to the back of the store. It's all good because Costco keeps the pop and the toilet paper close together.

But to get back there, I got to walk past the clothes. They got a new shipment of shirts in and they don't always have my size, so it takes a few minutes to sort through the piles. Costco pretty much piles their clothes up in random stacks, so you have to sort through the whole stack to find a seventeen and a half thirty-four, but it's worth it because their shirts only cost a third as much as at Eddie Bauer. They're probably made by little kids in Asian sweatshops, but so are Eddie Bauer's shirts, so it's a wash in the human rights department.

They announce that the store is now closed, but that's just a bluff. I'm not the only person who's still shopping in here. They should stay open later.

I find two shirts in a red check pattern that I like but I can't find any more red ones in my size, so I buy a blue striped one that looks like pyjama tops. It's still worth it because it's only twenty-two dollars and, for that price, I don't care if people think that I'm wearing pyjamas to work.

I add a pair of blue jeans, too, because you can never have too many blue jeans.

Now, that the store has been officially closed for a while, there aren't many people left in here, but that's okay because I'm inside already and the staff isn't going to tackle me and wrestle me to the ground and physically drag me out of the store. They're not an airline. I haven't paid for anything yet. If airlines didn't get paid until after you arrived where you were going, they wouldn't kick you out of your seat, either.

Back in the meat section, I grab a package of three chickens and a package of ribs. The side ribs are cheaper and have more meat on them, but you have to chew around the cartilage at the ends of the ribs and my wife doesn't like that, so I splurge on the back ribs. I toss a sirloin tip into the cart, too. It's about time that I made another pot of Texas-style chilie.

I finally get back to the beverages section and grab a flat of Coke.

They're turning the lights out now so it's getting hard to see, but it's not completely dark. They always have to keep some emergency lights on for emergency shoppers like me.

I get the toilet paper. I buy the Kirkland brand because it's the cheapest. There's no room in the basket, but it goes underneath, so there's no problem.

Some young guy with a Costco badge is walking around in the back and he tells me that I have to leave now because the store is closed. I tell him that it's okay, I'm on my way out, and he tells me to have a nice night. I think he's being sarcastic.

I'm all alone as I walk back down the dark aisles toward the cash, but I can take a minute to stop and look at the books. Costco always has the best sellers, but I can't find one I want. It's too dark to read the blurbs on the back

At the front, there's only one register still open and no line. That's the best part about shopping after the store closes. You don't have to wait in line.

I wave at the cashier and she waves back, but before I check out, I have to nip back and grab a box of multi-grain crackers. I love those crackers. They're even saltier than the mixed nuts, and they're right there on the end of the aisle. I don't have to go looking for them.

Anyway, that was a mistake. When I get back, that old couple who couldn't find their card at the front door is at the cash. They've got a cart full and two staff members are helping them unload all their stuff while the wife is searching through her purse for her card. That's right. She still hasn't found her card and her husband still isn't getting his out of his wallet. This time, he doesn't have to hold her junk; she's piling it up on the counter by the cash, one item at a time, swearing that her card is in there somewhere.

I swear that the pile on the counter is three times the size of her purse. That purse must be like a tardis, bigger on the inside than on the outside.

It takes her like ten minutes to get every last thing out of there, including a package of chewing gum that must be left over from World War Two. Finally, a light dawns in her eyes. She grins and says that she remembers now. She put her card in her other purse. It's still at home.

When she starts repacking, her husband nods and says that he thought so. Then he finally gets his card out and gives it to the cashier.

I wish this pair had gone to Walmart instead. Some people have no consideration for other people at all.

The guy at the front door has to unlock it so that I can get out and then lock it again behind me. He tells me to have a good night, too. I know that he's being sarcastic, but I don't care. I got my cheap toilet paper. It only cost me two hundred and twenty-three dollars and took forty-five minutes of my life, not counting the time and gas that it took to drive out here.

I love Costco.

My Dinner with Mandy

When I was a child, Mandy was my favorite cousin. Uncle Ray and Aunt Betsy lived in Kingston, about an hour and a half away, so on every holiday and sometimes for dinner between holidays, either we drove down there or they drove up to Ottawa.

Being three years older than me, Mandy was far more worldly and sophisticated than I was. She considered it an act of charity to educate me on the ways of the world. I was grateful for each and every pearl of wisdom that she imparted.

I didn't see her after she entered her third year of high school. She stopped coming to our house and, when we went to hers, she was out and about with her friends. That Labour Day, riding in the back seat coming home, I overheard my mother mention to my father that Mandy was going steady now.

I was devastated, not because I had any romantic designs on her – we weren't that kind of cousins – but because she had grown away from me.

I heard that she went to university in Halifax after high school. Three years later, I moved to Vancouver. She married. I married. I divorced. I moved back to Toronto. I didn't see her for three decades.

Not until last night. Yesterday, she called me at the office and said that she was in town for a few days. Would I like to have a drink with her? I upped the ante to dinner at Pete's Metropolitan Bistro, my latest favorite restaurant.

Intellectually, I knew that Mandy was fifty years old now, but in my mind, she was still eighteen and beautiful.

When she came through the doors, I saw that I got one part right. She was still a beauty. At fifty, she had more pronounced curves and life had etched a few lines in her face. Her hair was more silver than gold and was cut short to be cute rather than grown long to be luxurious, but the cut suited her pixie smile and the twinkle in her eye.

She hugged me tight and told me how happy she was to see me again.

I told her how much I was looking forward catching up with her.

While we were waiting for our food, we spoke of our families – our parents, our children, other cousins, but not our spouses. My ex wasn't a topic that I wanted to dwell upon, but she was still married, so I asked about her husband over a bowl of vichyssoise.

That opened the door to the heart of her tale.

She took a breath and launched into the story.

"Andy is a good guy. He's a great father and a good provider. But he's a little on the boring side. Until now, our love has been a lethargic habit rather than a great passion. There's no fire. There never was. When I married him, I was settling for the safe, conservative choice. You can hear it in our names. Mandy and Andy. What could be triter that rhyming names?

"I can't help but compare my married life to my last year of high school. When I was a senior, I was going hot and heavy with a guy who was the exact opposite of Andy. Curtis was a star on both the hockey and lacrosse teams, on the honour roll, and president of the school council. He was handsome, glib, and self-assured. He was the man's man that all the other guys want to be like and all the girls want to be with. And I was the lucky girl who was with him. We were the king and queen of the prom, the couple voted most likely to succeed, everyone's ideal of young people in love."

Mandy leaned close to me and lowered her voice. "I didn't wait until prom to give him my virginity. By the time prom rolled around, we'd been rolling in the hay for a good, long time." Her eyes twinkled. "I was a naughty girl. Does that shock you?"

I shook my head mutely.

She leaned back and grinned. "I still am. Want to know how naughty?"

I nodded and waited, wide-eyed, holding my breath.

"Let's start with what happened to me and Curtis. At the end of the summer after graduation, I flew off to Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Curtis drove in the other direction, down the Four-oh-One to the University of Toronto. I figured that our passion could survive a year of separation while I arranged to transfer to the U of T. I was wrong. We were supposed to get together in Kingston at Thanksgiving. Instead, Curtis sent me a letter telling me that he'd hooked up with a hotter woman. He invited me to get lost. He didn't use quite those words, but I could read between the lines and that was the message.

"I phoned him, but he wouldn't take my call. I wanted to fly to Toronto and beg him to take me back. I didn't care that he'd cheated on me. I'd forgive him. I'd make an offer that he couldn't refuse. I'd quit school and move to Toronto immediately. I'd sleep on his dorm room floor. I'd get a job as a waitress. I'd do anything to get him back.

"But I didn't do it. I had just barely enough self-respect to stay in Halifax and fall to my knees and weep in my dorm instead of falling to my knees in front of Curtis and begging for another chance.

"Soon enough, I pulled my life back together and applied myself to my studies, but I never really got over Curtis. I always wondered what was wrong with me. Why didn't I stack up against women in Toronto? What was my shortcoming that made him dump me? Was I not pretty enough? Smart enough? Good enough in bed? What?

"In my senior year of university, I met Andy. We dated for a few months; he proposed after graduation; and I settled for him. But Curtis was always there, in the back closet of my mind. I'd take out those rainbow memories and dust them off every so often. More often that I care to admit, if the truth be known.

"That was my life until last month. After decades of radio silence, Curtis sent me an email. He wanted to know how I was doing. Fine, I told him. Just fine. How about him?

"He wrote that he'd been married a couple of times, but was currently divorced. He blamed me. He said that every woman that he'd ever met seemed like a pale shadow compared to me. He never should have broken up with me. He'd been foolish. Moving away to start university was stressful and he hadn't been thinking clearly. He'd loved me in high school and his love had never faded during all those years when he'd been searching for another woman like me and failing to find one. I was one of a kind.

"His apologies and profession of undying love sang sweet in my ears. I wasn't the failure that I'd thought. Instead, I'd been the standard that no other woman had ever matched.

"Andy knew that I'd dated Curtis in high school, but I never told him how deeply I'd loved him, nor how devastated I'd been when Curtis dumped me. And I certainly haven't told him that I've begun corresponding with Curtis again.

"When Curtis wrote that he was living in Toronto and that he'd like to see me again, I arranged a business trip out here immediately, and here I am. I arrived in Toronto last Wednesday morning and went to dinner with Curtis that very evening.

"I'll be honest with you. From the beginning, I intended to spend the night with Curtis. In fact, I intended to spend all my nights with him. I never cheated on Andy before. I thought that I never would. But this is Curtis. Golden, perfect Curtis. My first love. The man who has a prior claim on my heart. My true soul mate.

"And Curtis did ask that first night. He practically begged me to come back to his place for a nightcap. Which I did.

"But before I tell you about that, I should tell you that Curtis is old now. I know, I'm old, you're old, we're all old. But you and I aren't old like Curtis. His muscle has gone to flab. His knees are shot. He limps and wheezes.

"I'm not that shallow. I could overlook a bit of physical deterioration, because Curtis is still Curtis inside. He still has that killer grin and that way of speaking like he knows that the world is waiting to hear his wisdom.

"Except, his words don't sound so wise now. He dropped out of university in second year and got a job selling cars. His understanding of economics and social issues is... How do I say this? Let me be specific. He thinks that Trump has been unfairly maligned. He thinks that foreigners are destroying the country. He thinks that the government has no right to regulate corporations. And so forth.

"And he trumpets all this at great length to a woman that he wants to seduce.

"I made excuses for him. I told myself that it's just a political opinion. He just needs to be exposed to someone outside the right-wing bubble for a while and he'll gain perspective. He's Curtis who was on the honor roll. He's smart enough to figure it all out if I just nudge him to read a book or two. I don't think that he's read a whole book since he dropped out of university.

"Anyway, like I said, after desert, he asked me back to his place for a nightcap. At first, I demurred. We both know that a nightcap is code for something more and I was a little less sure about him than I'd been before I'd had dinner with him.

"Then the old Curtis came out. He talked about high school. He recalled the games that he'd played. The goals that he scored. The dances that we shared. The music that we loved. Those were the days, my friend. And they don't have to end. He asked me back to his place again and I assented. I wanted to taste the love of my youth one more time.

"Now, I know that Toronto is an expensive city and that even a rich rent won't buy much of an apartment. But Curtis's place is best described as a hovel. He lives in someone's basement. It's damp, moldy, and infested with vermin. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating about the vermin. But not about the mold. There was definitely more than just water damage around his shower.

"I let him pour me a glass of wine and drank it, even though I had to turn it a bit to sip from the part of the rim that didn't have old lipstick prints. His dishwashing technique lacked rigor and I was not the first woman who'd come here for a nightcap. Though I suspect that I was the classiest.

"By that point, you can certainly understand that, nightcap wasn't code for anything but a glass of wine, a polite kiss goodnight, and a cab ride back to my hotel.

"He asked to take me out again for a second dinner on Thursday night and I agreed, but the conversation was no better and I was firm in my refusal for a second nightcap."

She grinned again and held her palms up in a gesture of submission, not to me, but to fate. "This is the third night, and I'm much happier having dinner here with you than wasting another evening with Curtis. Curtis at fifty is not the Curtis that I loved at eighteen. Tomorrow, I'll be flying back to Andy, bringing a new truth home. Andy is the love of my life. Andy is my only soul mate. He and I are going to be so happy together that he's going to think that he died and went to heaven."

Mandy and I spent the next half hour chatting about less consequential matters, then I walked her back to her hotel. She gave me a warm hug on the sidewalk, told me to give her best to my parents, and disappeared through the big glass doors.

She didn't look back as she strolled across the lobby.

I was left alone to wonder why she'd bared the most intimate corner of her heart to me, to a cousin that she hadn't seen for decades. I don't know. Maybe she needed to unburden herself with a confession that she couldn't tell to her husband. Or maybe she thought that I could benefit, as I had in my youth, from wisdom that she'd acquired through her own painful trials and errors. Or maybe she has a lower threshold of embarrassment than the rest of us and was just making casual conversation.

I do know this, though. I won't be reaching out to my ex-wife or any of my old lovers. I expect that none of them has aged any better than Curtis. Once again, I am grateful to Mandy for sharing a pearl of wisdom with me.

The Great Trinity River Gun Battle

Back when I was a young man of eighteen years, I was a Forty-Niner. I heard tell of piles of gold out in California, laying on the ground, just waiting for someone to pick it up. No son of a Pennsylvania dairy farmer could resist heading out there and making himself a rich man.

Going west was an adventure in itself, but I'll tell you about sailing around the Horn and jumping ship in San Francisco some other time. Today, you came to hear about the time that I shot Betty Lou MacGinty.

You got to understand that there was no law in the California gold fields except what we made for ourselves. When I got there, it was just a chunk of land that we took from Mexico in forty-seven. The Mexican federales were gone and America didn't have any lawmen to replace them, so if someone did you wrong, like jumped your claim, you shot them and that was justice, pure and simple.

It wasn't like we was killing each other all the time — most of the miners didn't even have a gun — but we knew where to get one if we needed it, so mostly we was particular to treat each other polite.

Turned out that finding gold wasn't as easy as the tales said when they got told back east. There wasn't much by way of nuggets — I only heard of a handful being found. We had to separate gold dust from river sand, one pan-full at a time. I bought a pan and learned what I had to learn and then I staked a claim on a promising spot on the Trinity River.

Now, gold is rare and precious, even in California, but the one thing that was even rarer and more precious was women. There wasn't but one woman for every hundred men in the gold fields and those few women ended up with most of the gold that was panned by selling a little affection to any man with a full poke.

Betty Lou MacGinty was not one of those women. She was barely a woman at all. You had to look real close to find her feminine charms.

When she came along, she was having nothing to do with us crusty miners, much to our everlasting disappointment. She was there for the gold, just like us. She was the only miner I knew who packed a pistol all the time — a big shiny-new Navy Colt that made us desperate men think twice about crossing her. Not that it was as much of a problem as you might think. Any miner who looked like he was going to get out of line with a woman was going to have to answer to a dozen other men before he got anywhere close to her.

From the moment she arrived, we was all damned protective of our Betty Lou. If we couldn't stake a claim on her, nobody else was going to, either. That was only fair.

When she arrived and it all went to hell, I'd been working my claim for three months, so I was one of the old timers.

Truth was, I wasn't much good as a miner. I worked at it hard enough, all day, every day, my hands getting waterlogged and growing callouses from the pan, but I found barely enough dust to keep myself fed, considering that store-bought food was dear. Mostly we just bought coffee and flour to make hardtack. We found the rest. We snared what game we could, and there was a few weeds and berries that we had to eat to keep from getting scurvy or rickets, but it was tough because all the nearby land was pretty much picked clean. I got by on a couple of rabbits a month and a ration of hardtack every day.

It didn't seem fair that I was getting so little dust when the fellas to the north and south of me was filling their pokes. How could the gold have settled on their claims and not on mine? My bit of river was no different than theirs.

But luck is luck and panning for gold is all about luck. Theirs was good and mine was bad, and that's the way it was.

Then my luck got worse. Betty Lou showed up and staked a claim on a rocky stretch on the bank right opposite to me. There wasn't much competition for her claim. The river had a bend right there and she was on the wrong side. Gold is heavy, it falls on the inside of the bends where we were, not the outside where Betty Lou was panning.

So for a week, I spent all day at the river without looking down at my pan any more than absolutely necessary. I was spending my time watching Betty Lou on the far side of the river.

Like I said, Betty Lou looked more manly than most of us. She had broad shoulders, a fair gut, and big feet, all covered in shapeless canvas and leather. But she didn't have a beard and that was enough to make her look like a real woman to me.

By the end of the week, though, I wasn't staring at her beardless face, but at her pan. Damned if she wasn't finding gold. She kept pouring dust into her poke from every pan she scooped. Her poke was getting fat.

I can't explain it. I figure it must have been God's joke to pick up all that gold from my side of the river and move it over to her side every night when I was tucked into my bedroll.

In three days, she found more gold than I had in three months, and, by the end of the week, she had more than I was going to find in a lifetime unless my luck miraculously changed for the better, which was hardly likely.

The fella downstream from me, Charlie Weston, saw me looking at Betty Lou all day and he got the wrong idea. He thought that I was having lustful thoughts about the lady, not realizing that I was only lusting after her gold. The fella upstream, Jack Jackson was thinking the same thing.

Unbeknownst to me, Charlie and Jack and a few of the other guys set to talking behind my back. They all agreed that I needed watching. And maybe more than watching. Maybe I needed my priorities adjusted.

They figured that Sunday morning should be my come-to-Jesus moment.

Saturday night, Charlie borrowed an old Colt Paterson. This was before we had modern bullets. In those days, revolvers had to be loaded, one chamber at a time with a ball, loose powder, and a percussion cap. Guns like that were the reason that miners mostly didn't bother carrying them. It was quicker and easier to beat a man to death with a rock than to go to the trouble of loading a cap and ball revolver to shoot him.

But a gun has a certain cachet that concentrates a man's attention better than a rock. If a man goes to the trouble of bringing a gun and loading it, he's got to mean business.

So I woke at dawn on Sunday morning to find a dozen men standing in a circle, looking down on me. Troubling, it was, but not as troubling as looking up the bore of Charlie's borrowed revolver.

"What's up fellas?" I ask.

"We all seen the way you been looking at Betty Lou," Charlie says.

He brought the gun, but he's not keen to shoot me; he just wants me to take him serious when he's talking to me. And talk to me, he does. Him and Jack and all the rest make their concerns known. They want me to keep my grubby hands and dirty thoughts away from Betty Lou.

I tell them that I got no designs on her. But I don't tell them how much dust she's been taking out of the river. That's nobody's business but hers. We don't talk about that because we don't want to encourage any claim jumping. The only reason I noticed how well Betty Lou was doing was because I was working the spot directly across from her.

Well, after a bit, push comes to shove. The fellas don't believe in my good intentions with respect to Betty Lou, but they don't want to shoot me dead, either. They figure that a judicious beating will keep me in my place.

When one man tries to beat me, I'm going to beat him back, and he'll get as good as he gives. Two or three men are going to be more successful. A dozen men, though is another matter, entirely. There was so many fists flying in all directions that they was beating each other more than they was beating me. They had a few grudges with each other that needed working out.

They was still waling on each other when I managed to slip out of the brawl. Almost. I ducked through the flying fists and made it to edge, but Charlie was waiting there. Having the pistol, Charlie figured he didn't have to charge in with fists flying and take any licks; he could stand back and supervise. When he saw me making my escape, he raised that pistol at me.

But he couldn't shoot me with all his compadres thrashing about behind me. If he shot one of them, the rest wouldn't be quick to forgive him.

He paused and I took advantage of his hesitation to grab for the gun.

The Paterson didn't have any safety and Charlie was holding it cocked. When I tried to twist it out of Charlie's hand, someone's finger — his or mine, I don't know whose, for sure — hit the trigger. It discharged.

The report boomed off the hills like thunder and every man froze on the spot, looking around to see who got shot.

In the silence that followed, an ungodly howl ripped across the water.

We all turned to see Betty Lou scrambling out of her bedroll on the other side of the river. She was holding her behind with one hand, blood dripping through her fingers, and waving her big Colt with the other.

She looked at us and raised her bloody fingers high. "You shot me! You shot me in the ass!"

We stared in horror as she raised her gun, pointed it in our general direction, and started blasting away.

We all hit the ground and crawled for cover like rats.

A revolver isn't too accurate and she didn't bother to aim. She unloaded at us, but she didn't hit anyone. When she had to stop to reload, we ran for the hills.

She was the only casualty in the Great Trinity River Gun Battle, as our fracas came to be known in Forty-Niner legend.

She recovered just fine, but I know that only from the stories that spread afterward. I didn't stick around to see for myself. When I started running from Betty Lou's wrath that morning, I didn't stop. I ran all the way back to Pennsylvania.

According to the legends, I was the man who shot Betty Lou MacGinty while everyone else was trying to stop me. The tale that spread is that I was in love with the beautiful Betty Lou and was angered when she rejected my amorous advances. I never heard anyone tell that Charlie brought the gun and was holding it when it discharged.

They got it wrong, I don't mind. That bit of fame is the only treasure that I brought back from the California Gold Rush.

The Recruiter

When a young guy walks into my storefront, I always give him my most sincere smile. My smile belies that I want him to make a life and death decision. I can't talk about the possibility that he'll come home in a body bag, but I can't say that I'm just offering him a job, either. I've got to offer him more than a job if I want to hook him.

When this couple comes in, I shake their hands right off — the young man first, then the girlfriend. You can't ignore the girlfriend; she'll be your best ally if you approach her right. I watch her eyes. She's looking at my chest. My ribbons impress her. That's great. I tell her that I've served all over the world. I point to the ribbons for Germany and Japan. The boy's eyes light up, so I tell him that Germany has the best beer in the world. He likes beer a lot. I can spot a fellow imbiber.

I tell about sampling single malt scotches at distilleries in the Highlands when I was on leave in Scotland. He can be as sophisticated as me if he signs up.

He nods eagerly when I tell him about foreign countries, so I push that harder. I tell him that, during my lifetime, American soldiers have been sent to most of the countries in the world — a slight exaggeration, but not an outright lie. A soldier never knows where he'll go next. I tell the boy that he might see the Egyptian pyramids or the Panama Canal or Mount Fuji on his tour of duty.

I don't mention how many American soldiers have died on foreign soil in some of those countries. He ought to figure out for himself that we don't send young men to tourist spots to take pretty pictures; we send them around the world to kill and be killed. Some young men like that idea, but you have to let your mark raise the issue first, and then tread carefully around the details.

This young man asks about fighting. I hoist the flag. I tell him that we are defending freedom and democracy around the world. Keeping America safe requires a strong response against our enemies. We have the best training and equipment. Soldiers drive tanks and fly helicopters. We move fast, strike hard, and win.

He gloms onto the thought that he could become a helicopter pilot. I tell him that if he is determined and works hard, anything is possible. He can even graduate from college while he's in the Army. No student loans, the government will pay all the costs.

He looks less interested in that, so I don't push it. I can tell by the way he talks that he's not a scholar. But his girlfriend is nodding happily. She'd like to be married to a college graduate. I'll let her talk to him about that later, after he's signed up.

Instead, I talk about flying choppers. He wants to fly. Who knows. Maybe he will. I think he's going to be packing a rifle through the sand and mud, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he'll do better on the aptitude tests than I expect. Sometimes the slow ones surprise you. I let him believe that he'll get to choose any specialty that he wants. That's my job — to give him the fantasy. There'll be plenty of others who will be happy to ground him in reality after basic training.

All I care about is that he can pass the basic IQ test and that's not going to be a problem. The volunteer army has to fill its ranks with just about any able body who isn't rocking and drooling in the corner.

The boy is hooked. He's ready to sign. His girlfriend is clinging to his arm and nodding her head against his shoulder. I'm delighted. I'm going to make my quota, no problem. I've been on a roll for the past couple of weeks. If I can keep it up, I might be the top recruiter of the month. I could use the bonus.

He's more than willing; he's eager. He wants to know how soon he can be inducted. He wants to leave now. Right now. I tell him about the physical exam and aptitude testing. It's going to take a while. I say a couple of months, but in my experience, six months is more realistic.

That's not good enough for him. He wants to kiss his girlfriend goodbye and climb on a bus today.

I've seen a lot of eager young guys — I'm good at raising their enthusiasm — but this one takes the cake.

The girlfriend looks over the form and asks about the criminal record check. She wants to know what that means.

Isn't that obvious? They're going to check his criminal record. Has he ever been arrested? Been to court? Convicted of a crime? She shakes her head. No.

I look at him and he agrees. He claims that he's never been arrested. Not even for shoplifting or drunk driving.

I infer that he's done plenty of both. Maybe he has a juvenile record that sealed. I don't care about that. If the army doesn't know about it then, he won't need to apply for a criminal waiver. Why are they worried about it?

He asks about what happens if he gets arrested before he gets into the army.

I tell him that he should avoid doing anything illegal for the next few months.

He asks again and I tell him again not to get arrested.

He says that he might not be able to do anything about it. He says that he might be arrested if it takes too long for him to get into the army.

Might be arrested?

He won't say any more, but his girlfriend is willing to talk about it. They heard that the police are looking for him. He has a couple of buddies who got picked up and he heard that they ratted him out to the cops to get a plea deal.

The girlfriend is sure that he didn't do anything wrong. He's as innocent as a lamb. As pure as new fallen snow. She swears it. His low-life buddies made up stories about him being the driver in all those liquor store robberies so that they could get a shorter jail sentence. Maybe her boyfriend was there, in the car, but he didn't know what was going on inside the stores. He was just an innocent bystander.

He says that he wants to enlist right now. He grabs the form and signs it. He can't go home because the cops could be waiting for him there. He doesn't have anywhere to go. He wants to know where to catch the bus to boot camp.

I'm not smiling any more. I can't get a waiver for a criminal who's on the run. Even with two active conflicts, the army isn't that desperate for recruits. I tear up the form and tell them to take a hike before I call the cops myself.

I don't need this low-life wasting any more of my time. I've got to hook a real fish before the end of the day or I'll never make recruiter of the month. I want that bonus.

Giving Thanks

I lease a new Beemer every year. The new models come out in early fall, but I won't accept a model off the lot. It takes a while for them to manufacture one to my specs, so I usually take delivery around Thanksgiving. It's become a bit of a tradition for me. A tradition that was sharpened one time, a few years back.

It was a brisk fall day right before the long weekend. I'd turned in my old Beemer and picked up my new one over my lunch break. When I got back, I parked it in my personal spot up on the third floor of the Oldfield Bishop Parking Garage — that's where I trade, at Oldfield Bishop Investments. You have to walk across the street to get from the garage to the offices, and I found this old homeless guy hanging around the garage door, begging for handouts.

I ignore beggars on the street. I write a substantial cheque to the United Way every year and let the professionals dole it out properly. That way, my money gets spread around fairly and equitably, and I get the tax break that I deserve.

This beggar, though, caught my attention. I don't know why. Maybe because he resembled my brother a bit. He wasn't my brother, of course, because Steven died last year and he was never homeless, but this guy had similar eyes. More likely, though, I stopped because he spoke clearly. Most of those homeless guys mumble incoherently, but this guy had a good, clear voice. He didn't ask for spare change or whine that he was hungry or claim that he was a Desert Storm vet like most of the homeless guys in the city. Nope, he just wished me a happy Thanksgiving in that strong, deep voice.

I nodded and returned the sentiment and he said that he would. He had a lot to be thankful for.

That stopped me dead in my tracks. What did this loser have to be thankful for? He was as skinny as a rotting fence post, shivering in ragged jeans and a tattered coat of wool that smelled worse than when it had been on the sheep. His boozy breath told me that he spent any money he got on wine, not food. His face was half scabbed over, maybe from getting scraped on the pavement or maybe it was some kind of eczema. I don't know. I'm an investment banker, not a doctor.

But anybody could see that he was a mess, so when he said that he had a lot to be thankful for, I had to stop and ask him what that might be. I was genuinely puzzled.

He dropped his gaze and stared at the half-Windsor in my tie and said that, for one thing, he don't got a closet full of suits and he's thankful for that, for sure.

What in hell did he mean by that? I don't have a closet full of suits, only half a dozen, and I didn't see why it mattered to him if I had a decent tailor, so I asked him what was wrong with wearing a decent suit.

He said that I looked like a fashion plate in a magazine and that had to rest heavy on my soul. He said that it was obvious that I got to keep my suits cleaned and pressed so I can wear a fresh one every day. And then, I got to keep buying new clothes to keep up with the latest fashion. He said that I didn't look like an off-the-rack kind of guy, so he figured I had to spend a lot of time fussing about tailoring. He said that he was thankful not to have that chore in his life.

He was right, of course. I have to keep up appearances because no one's going to trust a broker who looks like a loser. But dressing well isn't a burden, it's a tool of success. You got to look successful to be successful.

So I told him that you got to look successful to be successful and he said that was another thing that he was thankful for. He was thankful that he didn't have to try to be successful.

Now he was just being annoying, trying to jerk me around. I told him that I didn't try to be successful. I was successful. Success comes naturally to some people. To the natural winners.

He said that he comes by his lack of success naturally. He's thankful that failure comes so easy to him. He said that he doesn't have to do nothing to be a failure. It sounded to me like he was bragging about not having to set an alarm in the morning and get up and rush to an office and fuss about getting invited to the important meetings and try to talk people into buying whatever he had to sell. He said that he's thankful that he's a free man who can do what he wants when he wants and doesn't have to answer to nobody.

I had to admit to myself that he had a point, but I wouldn't concede it to him. I just told him that I liked having important business waiting for me every day.

He laughed at that. Laughed right out loud. Laughed right in my face.

That made me angry enough that I wanted to punch his lights out, but I didn't because I didn't want to break open those scabs. I might get pus on my hands and end up with some kind of infection. Instead, I told him that I was happy that I enjoyed good health. I figured that even this guy couldn't claim that he was thankful for being sick.

He didn't. Instead, he said that he was thankful for booze. He was thankful for every bottle of booze that he'd ever drank. That was a lot of bottles, so he had a lot to be thankful for. He said that the booze made him feel better, no matter how sick he was. That's what good health is, right? Feeling good. So, if the booze makes him feel good then he's doing as well as any healthy man so he's just as thankful for that as I am.

I said that he wouldn't live long with that attitude and he said that a short life is a merry one. Especially when he had a bottle to share with his buddies.

I'd wasted enough time on this loser. I could see what he was doing. The bottom line was that he was saying was that he was thankful that he wasn't me. That was all. And I told him so.

He laughed again and said that I damned sure got that right.

Now I was really angry. So you know what I did? I figured that I'd show him what real success meant. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet and handed him a hundred bucks. Then I told him that if he were me, he'd be able to give someone money like and not care a damn, either.

You want to know what he did? He put that hundred bucks into his pocket and said that he was going to give my money to his buddy who needed it worse than he did. That made him the same as me because he could give away a hundred bucks just as easily as I could. He said that five minutes ago, he didn't have a hundred bucks and he was happy enough and in half an hour, he wouldn't have the money again and he'd still be just as happy as he was five minutes ago.

That's what he told me and I believed him. He looked like the kind of guy who'd give away his last nickel and not care.

I was tired of arguing with this guy. He was never going to admit that I'd won so I called it a draw.

I walked a couple of steps toward the office and then turned back to give him a parting shot, but he was already gone. There was nothing there but a solid concrete wall. I don't know where he went. It was like he'd just disappeared into thin air with my hundred bucks.

He was gone, but not forgotten. Ever since, I've remembered him and been thankful that I'm not him. So every year, when I pick up my new Beemer, I take five twenties out of my wallet and give them to the first five homeless people I see.

Giving away a hundred bucks a year makes me feel good because it's not much money to me, but that old beggar couldn't do it, no matter how hard he tried.

Every year, I prove all over again that he's not the same as me. In the end, winners always win.

That's one more thing that I can feel thankful for.

The Case of the Nervous Bricklayer

I hung out my shingle as a gumshoe ten years ago to get the dames. In the stories, there's always a beautiful but treacherous blonde sashaying into a private dick's office, with a mitt full of dough, looking for a man of the world to help her in her hour of distress.

Every day, I am sorely disappointed on that count. My clientele is a parade of seedy lowlifes and middle-aged broads who are certain that their wives and husbands are stepping out on them and want the photos to prove it.

They're usually right about the infidelity. Which surprises me every time. To look at them, you wouldn't think that any of those sad cases would be able to seduce a member of the opposite sex on their best day. But for every guy or gal who you'd think was on the bottom of the ladder, there's another gal or guy who's on a lower rung yet, looking up for someone to reach down to them.

I'm not in a profession that gives a man much hope for improvement in the human condition.

So, I wasn't surprised when a nervous-looking fellow dressed in a worn out tee shirt, mud-stained blue jeans, and bargain-basement boots slouched into my office this afternoon and told me that his name was John Smith.

If you're going to give a private dick a false name, you got to use some imagination. Maybe call yourself Pete Smith. I might have believed Pete. But it didn't matter if I believed Smith or not. All I had to believe was that he had money in his wallet to pay my daily fee. Which I did not believe, even for a New York minute.

But this is laid-back L.A., and I had nothing better to do this afternoon than to listen to his story. I'm not exactly drowning in clients. I leaned back and told him to lay his problem out for me.

This is what he said:

"I'm a brick-layer by trade. Mostly I do small jobs — fireplaces and chimneys and the occasional garden wall. There ain't much call for brick houses in this city. Bricks cost a bundle and stucco is cheap.

Last week, I got a call from a fella called Humphrey Downs out in Cayoga Park asking me to lay a brick pad in his back yard. I do that kind of job a lot, so I didn't think nothing of it, except that I don't get much work up in the fancy places in Cayoga Park.

Mr. Downs said that he needed the job done quick. He'd pay extra if I could lay the pad down right now.

I had another job booked, but he promised a fat bonus if I was quick enough, so I couldn't turn him down. I had about the right amount of bricks and mortar on order for that other job, so I told my supplier to deliver it to Cayoga Park instead.

When I went up there, I found that the guy had already started to prepare the place that he wanted covered, but he done a half-assed job of it, like you'd expect from a rich guy who never did a day of real work in his life and didn't know what he was doing.

He wanted a ten-by-ten pad, but he'd only turned over the dirt on half that area and hadn't removed much. You got to have a sand base to lay bricks down. If you lay them right on dirt, they'll sink all uneven and look like hell.

I got a buddy who can deliver sand quick when I'm in a pinch, so I gave him a call and began excavating the area while I was waiting. You got to take out a good six inches of topsoil to have a bed for the sand and bricks.

Mr. Downs got agitated when I started digging. He asked me what in hell I was doing, so I explained that I had to go down half a foot to make room for the sand and bricks and he calmed down a bit and told me to make sure that I didn't go down even an inch more than six inches. He watched me like a buzzard all the time that I was digging. Made me nervous as anything. I hate it when someone watches me work.

I remember the smell when I was removing the top soil. It smelled bad. Rotten. I was glad when the digging was done and I started shoveling on the sand. Tamping down the sand tamped the smell down, so I could breathe easier. Mr. Downs seemed to breathe easier, too.

I got the brick work done before dark and Mr. Downs wrote a check for the full amount, including my bonus for finishing on time.

It was good money, but I been feeling uneasy about that job ever since. And I been wondering if I should go talk to the police about it, because I don't want no trouble with the law if Mr. Downs did what I think he did, and if they arrest him and he tells them that I helped him cover it up."

I knew what John Smith was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. It was probably Mr. Downs' wife under there. Or if not his wife, then his lover. Or maybe a business partner. Like I said, I don't have much faith in humanity left after all the unsavory business I've seen.

I advised Smith to go to the cops and tell them the same thing that he told me, except to use his real name. The cops hate a liar. All he had was suspicions, so he wasn't going to get in any trouble for doing the right thing.

Once he told the cops his story, then it would be the cop's problem and not his. They likely wouldn't get around to searching Mr. Downs' house for a couple of days, but Smith could sleep with a clear conscience tonight.

I didn't charge Smith any fee for my advice. In fact, I should have given him a finders fee, because as soon as he walked out of my office, I raced over to offer my services to Mr. Humphrey Downs in Cayoga Park. I have some very special and expensive services to offer to him.

He's going to greatly appreciate the help of an experienced professional in this matter when I tell him that he's been ratted out. The cops are going to come around with a warrant, sooner rather than later, no question about that.

Keeping Mr. Downs off death row is going to cost him a pretty penny, but if we act quick, he can stay a free man. Not only will hiring me now save him from getting arrested and going to trial, but I'll cost a lot less than a decent defense lawyer.

The only downside for me is that this job is not going to give me any better appreciation of humanity.

But that doesn't bother me as much as you might think.

The Cabbie

Where to, Bud?

Grand Central? Sure thing. How about we take the bridge? It's a bit further, but with all the Christmas shoppers clogging the tunnel, it'll be faster and cheaper on the meter.

Don't worry; after driving this cab for more than twenty years, I know New York traffic. I'll get you to Grand Central quick as anyone can, and quicker than most. Those Uber drivers, they don't know the city like a cabbie does, let me tell you.

So, that's a full suitcase you got with you. You getting away from winter? Going somewhere warm?

You don't know where you're going? Wish I could do that. Wish I could just walk into Grand Central and go wherever the first train takes me. No plan, not accountable to anyone. Nothing ahead but open road.

I been stuck in city traffic for so long, I can't remember what it's like to blast down an empty highway, foot down, driving as fast as I want.

Hey, Buddy! You see that moron? Turning right from the left lane and not even a signal. Must be out of blinker fluid, that guy.

Anyway, you remind me of back when I was just out of high school, and a buddy of mine had an old Chevy Impala, and we drove it all the way across the country to California. That was some trip, let me tell you. There's roads in Texas that's straight as an arrow where you can see all the way to the horizon and not another car in sight. Those were the days, my friend. Those were the days.

But they're gone now. Now, I got the wife and kids to worry about. My oldest is at NYU. Great for him, but it costs me a pretty penny. He got some student loans to help out, but I hate to see him go too far into debt to the bank. That's no way for a young man to start out in life. I know. I had to borrow too much to get the medallion for my cab and it took a hell of a long time to dig my way out of that hole. So I'm going to give the kid as much as I can to help out. I can't pay the full shot, but I'll give him enough to do some good.

Woah, Buddy! You going to a fire? You see that guy whip around me like that? He thinks he's racing at Daytona. I tell you, some of the people they let have a drivers' license. I don't know.

Anyway, I guess you don't got a wife and kids if you're heading out on the open road.

Oh, you do? A kid in high school? So you're leaving the house to the wife and him going solo for a while. Make everyone happy. I get that.

Funny thing, you know. I can't say I ever been happy being married and having a family. It's been years of worry and fights. Boy, you should have seen some of the fights me and the old lady had. She can be a mean one when she gets her back up.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that marriage has been all bad. We had good times, too. But if I start thinking about the good times and the bad, I figure the bad outweighs the good.

There been times when I been tempted to take off, just like you, you know, and maybe I should have. But I toughed it out and, believe it or not, I don't got a single regret for that. Sitting behind this wheel for all these hours, I've pondered some on my life, and I figured out that happiness isn't the most important thing. Not for me, anyway.

Hey, Lady, if that light gets any greener, it'll grow. I don't know what shade of green she's waiting for. Probably texting her friend about how she's going to be late. Lady, if you wasn't playing with your phone all the time, you wouldn't be late all the time. There you go. Now try second gear.

As I was saying, I talk to my passengers and I see them always trying to figure if they're happy or not. But I don't see where it's written anywhere that you going to be happy. It's not in the Bible, near as I can tell. Even the Constitution don't say that. All it says is that you got a right to pursue happiness. That means that you get to keep trying, but it don't say that you're guaranteed to get it.

I do try and get some happiness, and I get my share, but like I said, that don't mean that I'm happy all the time, or even most of the time. Nobody is. I've calculated that I must have driven a hundred thousand people more than a million miles in my cab over the last twenty years and I bet not one of them can say that he's spent more time being happy than not.

Nope, I figure that life isn't about being happy. You got to wait till God takes you up to Heaven for that. I figure that life here on Earth is about doing the right thing, especially for your family and friends. I'm proud as can be that my boy is in college. He's not going to be driving a cab for his whole life. He's going to have the whole world in front of him. And my daughter is just as smart. In a couple of years, she's going to go to college, too. Just wait and see if she don't.

Yeah? Your kid, too? I bet he'll like college. My kid sure does.

That's what's important to me. Making things good for the wife and kids. And if that means fighting with the old lady sometimes, and fighting traffic for hours every day, and fighting against Uber drivers for fares — well, that's the way it's got to be. Fighting every day may not make me happy, but I win my share of the battles and that makes it worth while.

I'm sure that you've won your share, too. You look like a successful guy. And you'll win your share out on the open road, too, I'm sure.

Turn around? You want to go back? Well, sure, I can take you back. No problem. Good thing that we aren't on the bridge yet, or we'd be stuck there till the other side.

You know, I'm not surprised that you changed your mind about spending Christmas at home. It's good to spend the holidays with the family, even if it's not quite as happy as on the TV specials they show around this time of year.

And you know, a week after Christmas, New Years comes around and what can be more hopeful than starting off a brand new year.

Yeah, you're right. You can always hit the road some other day. It'll still be there after the kids have moved out.

Here we are, back where we started. That's eight bucks ninety on the meter.

You have yourself a Merry Christmas, now.

Christmas Dinner

Did I ever tell you about the time Kenny and I made Christmas dinner? No? Well, I better tell you now, so you know what not to do. No sense you making the same mistakes that we did; you should make brand new mistakes of your own.

The first thing you're going to ask is what could go wrong when two young guys are going to make a turkey dinner.

You wouldn't ask that question if you knew Kenny. Nothing ever went right for Kenny and me. Not ever.

See back in the sixties, we were a couple of young guys, right out of high school, looking for a summer job to earn a few bucks before we went to college. We didn't know which way was up. All we knew was that we wanted to get as far away from our parents as we could, as quick as we could. Kenny heard about a company up in Alberta that was hiring for the summer and that provided accommodations as well as paying two bucks above minimum wage, which would come in handy when tuition came due in the fall.

We wouldn't be working in the oil fields, as such, but our jobs were nearby, building temporary housing for oil field workers.

The lure of adventure was too strong to resist, so Kenny and I signed up for a three-month stint that would get us back to Kingston just in time for our first classes. We got our fake IDs claiming that we had attained legal drinking age — they were easy to obtain in Ontario and important to have in Alberta if you were only eighteen and wanted to have a good time.

Now, you might have noticed a certain discrepancy in my story right off. I said that we were making a Christmas dinner, but we were up in Alberta for the summer. You heard right and I'm telling you exactly how it was. We'd decided to make a Christmas dinner in the middle of July, complete with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, and a vegetable side. Not Brussels sprouts like your grandmother would make — we had more sense than to cook food that we both hated — but peas. Peas are green, like Brussels sprouts, so they'll look right on the plate, but unlike Brussels sprouts, peas taste good. The color is important, you see. You got the white potatoes, the green peas, and the red cranberry sauce, all making the plate look like Christmas.

Now, to be exactly correct, Kenny and I didn't actually decide to make Christmas dinner in July; a couple of girls made that decision. We'd met them in a bar and they got to telling us how much they loved Christmas, and especially the Christmas feast, so what would a couple of eighteen-year-old boys do, but tell them how badly we wanted to make a Christmas dinner for them? They looked doubtful but we swore up and down, with all the sincerity bestowed upon us by a few pints of beer, that we knew exactly what we were doing. We claimed that we'd been giving our mothers a break for years by making Christmas dinner for our families back home. It would be no problem.

So these two girls, I can't even remember their names any more, agreed to come over to our house at three o'clock Sunday and join us for Christmas dinner in July. I'm pretty sure that they came only to see if we could deliver on our beer-fueled braggadocio.

We figured that we were made in the shade. All we had to do was cook a turkey with all the fixings and a couple of sides. How hard could that be? Just about every mother we knew made Christmas dinner and they weren't all rocket scientists like Kenny and me.

So on Saturday, Kenny and I had to walk the three miles to the nearest Safeway. The company accommodations weren't located in the middle of town, and we didn't have a car, which made dating a problem. The girls from the bar did, though, so that made us extra keen to get into their good graces.

It was a hot day and the mosquitoes were biting fierce, but we slapped them down as best we could. When you're working outdoors in northern Alberta, like we'd been, you expect to be swarmed by mosquitoes, and you learn to live with them.

I never expected that it would be so hard to find a turkey. They're plentiful around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and even at Easter, but there wasn't so much demand for them in northern Alberta in July, so Safeway, which wasn't such a big store up there, didn't bother with them in the summer. Nor did they stock cranberries.

We got the peas and potatoes, though, and that was a good start. And I picked up a loaf of bread because bread stuffing requires bread.

The manager in the Safeway meat department suggested that we try Woodward's for the turkey. They were mostly a department store, but they had a food floor and so he thought they might have what Safeway lacked.

Woodward's was another two miles over on the other side of town, but Kenny and I were young and determined to impress the girls, so we gritted our teeth and set out.

Forty-five minutes later, we had a frozen twenty-pound turkey in hand. There were smaller birds in the store, but we were going to have four people at the table and we didn't want to run out of food.

And we got a bonus; the manager at Woodward's took pity on our sad story and dug around in the back until he found a dusty can of cranberry jelly on a shelf somewhere.

We had a five-mile hike back to the house and that turkey got heavier with every step. Heavier and colder. Back in those days, we got our groceries in brown paper bags — plastic shopping bags hadn't come to northern Alberta yet — so, carrying this turkey meant holding it against my chest. I carried it until I feared frostbite — which took only a couple of blocks — and then traded with Kenny who carried it another couple of blocks, until he demanded that I take it back.

We traded the frozen bird back and forth so quickly that our chests didn't have time to get fully warm before we had to hold it against ourselves again.

When it was my turn to carry the bird, I'd pack it in my right arm against the right side of my chest until my arm was about to give out, maybe fifty paces, then switch it to my left arm for another fifty paces, then hold it in the center for another fifty, and so forth.

Kenny did the same when it was his turn.

I'm serious about frostbite. It was a real danger that day in Alberta, despite the warm weather, which by the time we were nearing home, was fast fading toward sunset.

By the time we made it back, we were aching from head to toe, except for our chests which were numb, but it was worth it because we were going to have Christmas dinner in July and impress the heck out of two lovely, beer-guzzling girls.

It was a pity that we forgot to buy beer, and that the liquor store was closed by the time we got back, and that liquor stores weren't open on Sundays in Alberta back then.

We were going to have a dry dinner, which boded poorly for our fiendish plot to have our evil way with the girls, but we carried on regardless.

It was an ever greater pity that we didn't own a recipe book between us. In fact, it never even occurred to me that I should have used a recipe, if for no other reason than to make up a list of necessary ingredients.

Pressing that bird against our chests for five miles didn't thaw it to any noticeable degree, but when we got it home, I put it in the refrigerator because I feared that it might go bad if I left it on the counter. It had cost us too much pain and suffering to risk losing it now.

The next morning, I woke at eleven, ready to get on with the cooking, eager to impress the ladies who would be coming over in four hours.

Kenny was already up and sitting in the kitchen, staring at the turkey. He poked it and pointed out that it was still frozen, solid as a rock.

I said that was no problem. It would thaw quick enough in the oven. It's hot in there, right? That bird will thaw like an ice cube in Hell.

He asked what we were going to cook it in.

That was a stumper. We owned exactly one cast iron frying pan and one aluminum pot. The turkey was too big for either. Besides, we were going to need those to cook the potatoes and peas.

I opined that we could just put it on the rack in the oven. The rack was solid and the turkey wouldn't fall through the wires.

He thought that was a good idea, but said that maybe we should fold some aluminum foil underneath it to act like a pan.

He was a genius, Kenny was. We had a whole roll of aluminum foil, so he set to folding an origami roasting pan while I tried to figure out how to stuff the bird.

Like I said, I didn't know about recipes back then. All I knew about stuffing was that it was made of bread, so I thought you could just put the bread inside the bird and it would turn into stuffing. You know, the juices inside the bird would soak into the bread as it was cooking and that was what would make it turn brown and taste like stuffing.

I remembered that the bread in Mom's stuffing was cut into little cubes, so I cut a bunch of slices of bread into cubes. It took a bit of looking to find the hole in the back of the bird where I could put the stuffing, but it was there, right between the legs. It wasn't very big, and the bird was frozen solid so I couldn't pull it open any further, but I could drop the bread cubes into it a couple pieces at a time, so that's what I did. It took a while, but I was in no hurry. The girls wouldn't be arriving for more than three hours.

When the bird was full of bread and Kenny had fashioned a nice-looking aluminum foil tray, we put the tray on the rack in the oven, put the bird on the tray, closed the door, and turned the oven on high. I didn't fret about the exact temperature, the bird was frozen, so the higher the better. I could always turn it down after a bit when the bird was thawed.

That done, all that remained was to cook mashed potatoes and peas.

Mashing the potatoes was a chore. They were hard as rocks. I had to cut them into tiny pieces and then Kenny had to put all his weight on the masher to squash the pieces.

Too bad I never noticed that Mom boiled her potatoes before she mashed them. I know how it's done now, but back then, I gave them to Kenny as raw bits and cheered him on as he struggled to mash them. I did wonder how Mom managed to mash hers so easily.

After a while, he got it done, and I piled the raw potato mash into the frying pan and put the heat to it.

Next, we shelled the peas. I bought fresh peas because I thought they'd taste better than canned peas. When I'd looked in the produce department at Safeway, I'd seen two kinds of fresh peas. I'd bought the snow pea kind because I thought that sounded more like Christmas food than garden peas, which sounded summery.

When we set to shelling them, I had my doubts about the wisdom of that logic. The peas inside the shells were just babies. Instead of being the size of regular peas, the snow peas were a quarter as big as they should have been, and were more flat than round.

Once they were shelled, the whole bag of snow peas barely covered the bottom of the pot. Kenny and I agreed that it was a real rip off. We'd tell the Safeway manager what we thought about his peas the next time we were in there.

But we had to make do with what we had, because the stores weren't open on Sundays back then, and we didn't have time to walk three miles into town and back anyway. The girls would be arriving for their Christmas dinner in two hours.

I put water in the pot and set the peas to boiling.

All was well in hand. The turkey was stuffed and cooking in the oven, the mashed potatoes were frying in the pan, and the peas were boiling.

We had two hours to relax in front of the TV and dream about how impressed the girls were going to be.

I was so content, that I drifted off to sleep. Kenny, too. We had both been awake before noon, so we had to catch up on our zees.

The doorbell woke me up. The girls had arrived promptly at three o'clock.

It was hard to see the door, though, for all the smoke.

I shook Kenny awake and told him to answer the door while I checked on dinner.

The smoke was worse in the kitchen than in the living room.

The mashed potatoes were naught but a black crust lining the bottom of the frying pan, as were the peas in the pot, the water having boiled off an hour earlier.

The real problem was the oven. When I opened the door, I was greeted, not only with smoke, but with flames. The old saw that, "where there's smoke, there's fire," was literally true in this case.

The inrush of air when I opened the oven door was followed by an outrush of flame that scorched the hair off my arms.

The turkey had dripped enough fat to overflow the ersatz tray that Kenny had folded out of aluminum foil. Like I said, Kenny never did anything right. The liquid fat flowed down to reach the flames in the gas burners under the oven and had flared high enough to ignite the turkey itself.

We had a charbroiled bird on our hands.

I was serenaded with a chorus of shrieks and screams.

Kenny had escorted the girls into the kitchen so that I could impress them with my culinary skills. They were impressed, all right, though not in the way that I'd intended.

I slammed the oven door shut to confine the flames and then turned the gas off, both to the oven and underneath the pot and frying pan. I shouted at the girls that they were not to worry. The turkey was cooked and would be served as soon as I figured out how to extinguish it.

One of the girls screamed over the other's shrieks that I should use baking soda.

I yelled back that the bird was already baking and didn't need any soda.

She told me that I could extinguish a grease fire with baking soda.

I didn't know what baking soda was, but I was certain that we had none.

Kenny jerked the oven open again, admitting oxygen to give new life to the fire, and then tried to beat it out with a dish towel. He succeeded only in fanning the flames and setting the dish towel on fire. He tossed the burning towel into the oven to join the burning turkey and slammed the door shut again. The safest place for anything that was aflame was inside the oven.

I saw the error of his ways. I grabbed another dish towel, the only other one that we had, and held it under running water until it was sopping wet. Then, when I opened the oven and smothered the flames, the towel didn't burn. I did — my arms got a few small burns that took a week to heal — but the towel didn't.

So I was the hero that saved the day and kept the house from burning down.

It wasn't fair that the girls laughed so long and so loud at my quick and fearless action. I thought women looked up to firefighters.

Once the flames were extinguished, I pulled the bird from the oven and set it on the counter to cool.

The girls wouldn't stop laughing.

I have to admit that the bird was a bit of a sight, being black as a giant lump of coal on the outside, and on the inside, too. The bread stuffing, having soaked up grease like a sponge, had caught fire and burned away, charring the bird's inside as thoroughly as its outside.

Later, I found, deep in there, the sooty remains of the gizzard, heart, and neck. I hadn't known to remove those before stuffing the bird.

Having come this far, though, I was not to be deterred. I warned the girls not to judge a book by its cover. I assured them that this was exactly the way my mother cooked her turkey every holiday. It was our secret family recipe. Underneath the grilled exterior, the meat would be roasted to juicy perfection.

The girls couldn't stop laughing — they looked near to dropping to the floor and rolling around — but I grabbed the carving knife, determined to show them. The peas and mashed potatoes were history, as was the bread stuffing, and I had no idea how to make gravy, but come hell or high water, they were going to have turkey meat. That was the living heart of a Christmas dinner.

When I cut into the breast — or at least the part of the bird that I thought should be breast; it was little hard to tell which part was which — the charred skin flaked away, raising black puffs of soot, and then the knife jammed as though it had hit a rock.

Underneath the cinders, the meat was still frozen solid. There was at best an eighth of an inch of cooked meat in the thin boundary between the charred skin and the frozen flesh.

I was defeated at last. I had no more boasting, blustering, or bravado left. All hope was spent.

And the girls were still shrieking with laughter.

In between their chortles, they informed us that there was a diner on the south side of town that served turkey burgers. They would be kind enough to drive us there and treat us to one if we still wanted turkey for dinner.

Fast food turkey burgers was the final humiliation, but I bore it with as much dignity as I could muster. It helped that I was starving and there was not a morsel of real food in our house.

All was not lost, though. The girls had brought a bottle of wine with them, and after we'd eaten our fill of turkey burgers, we came back to the house and split it four ways. A quarter bottle of wine was hardly as effective as a quarter of a two-four of beer. We ended the evening almost as sober as we'd begun it. The girls were in no danger of getting busted for drunk driving when they left.

Kenny and I went out with the girls a couple more times after that, but they never got tired of telling turkey jokes, and I did get tired of hearing them, so for the remainder of the summer, we took up with other girls who were blessedly unaware of our turkey adventure.

I never did open the can of cranberry jelly. I threw it away when we moved back to Ontario at the end of August. It was probably too old to be any good, anyway.

The bottom line, Jason, is that as soon as I got to university, I bought a cookbook and learned to cook a perfect turkey, and after I married your grandmother, I insisted on cooking all of our holiday meals. And that's why, now that you're moving out on your own, I'm giving you a cookbook. Learn to cook, my boy. That's the secret of domestic bliss.

Snow Good

I hate snow. There's nothing good about it, as far as I can see. And I can't see very far when there's nothing but white filling the air in all directions.

My hate affair began the first time that I saw it. I was born and raised in Africa. The Europeans used to call it darkest Africa, but I never understood why. It was a land of warm savannah and blazing sunshine all the way to the horizon.

I'll tell you what is dark. Dark is what I felt in my heart when I stepped off the airplane in January in Ottawa at seven in the evening and could hardly see my hand in front of my face, mostly because my eyes were squeezed shut against the cold. I was afraid that my eyeballs would freeze solid. I opened them only the barest crack to see my way across the tarmac. And when I did, all I saw was white everywhere. White below my feet; white covering the buildings; and more white falling from the sky. White came from the blackness above and faded into blackness in the distance.

When I came here to look for work six months ago, it was summer, so Canada hadn't felt much different from Africa. My parents, who were Canadian by birth, had told me about snow, but I never believed their story about clouds freezing and falling to earth into soft, gentle flakes.

And I didn't believe them all over again when I climbed down from the airplane in Ottawa. These weren't soft, gentle flakes; these were tiny bullets of ice biting into my skin as though a thousand invisible hunters were firing tiny blowgun darts at me.

My skin stung and burned as I trudged gamely through the blizzard, desperately seeking the shelter of the terminal.

After experiencing snow for less than thirty seconds, I already hated it with a passion. My eyes watered, not from the cold, but from missing the hot plains of Africa, and the tears froze to my cheeks like icy warts.

To this day, I believe the only reason that Canadians don't cry about the winter because they don't want to have their tears frozen to their cheeks.

When I hear them say that they like winter — and they insist on telling me that with depressing frequency — I know in my heart that they must be lying. Nobody can openly embrace such a perversion of the natural order. Polar bears were made for the Arctic and man was made for the savannah. We should stay in in the south and leave the north to the polar bears who belong here.

God never made it snow in the Garden of Eden. I know that without needing to read it in the Bible. Eden was paradise, and any place that has snow is not.

This I knew as soon as I felt the first snowflake sting my cheek. I didn't need any worse experience to convince me, but I got one anyway.

An hour after landing, I walked out of my hotel lobby, looking for a place to get dinner, when a car came speeding down the street at the snail's pace that is still too fast for snowy conditions. It lost its traction, and swung toward me with all the grace and aplomb of a hippo dancing on rain-slicked clay.

The driver twisted the steering wheel back and forth frantically, but to no avail. No matter which way the tires were pointed, the car slid straight towards me, on a line as true as the flight of an arrow.

My frozen bones would shatter like crystal when that car hammered into me. No matter how slow the blow, my frail frame could not absorb the impact of two tons of Detroit steel without suffering destruction.

I did not stand in place like a nail waiting to be pounded, but was already trying to scramble aside, to no avail. My pumping feet found no purchase on the snow-slick sidewalk. Rather, they slid out from under me, dumping me on my ass on the ground, leaving my chest at the level of the approaching bumper and my head posed to serve as a grizzly hood ornament.

I am here today only because a second car, coming in the opposite direction, suffered the same calamity as the first. When it lost its grip on the icy road, it swung about, end for end, and crunched backward into the first car, deflecting it from its previous trajectory and bouncing it off a third car that was parked under the hotel portico.

I was left seated on the snow, unscathed, framed in a tangle of bent and bashed fenders.

The two drivers sprang from their cars, ignored my plight, and set to screaming at each other, hurling insults and blame at the top of their lungs. As I rose, gingerly, to my feet, patting myself in search of broken bones or dislocated joints, the commotion drew a third man from the hotel lobby. He owned the parked car that formed the third side of the wreck that surrounded me.

He threw himself into the verbal altercation. His accusations of incompetent driving were answered by equally vehement accusations that he had parked incompetently and, therefore, had been the true cause of the accident.

I knew the true cause — snow — but I didn't try to enlighten anyone. Having ascertained that I was unscathed, apart from a bruised butt, I limped silently back into the safety of the hotel, rode the elevator back to my room, and put myself to bed, sore and hungry.

The next day, I contemplated, in all seriousness, booking a flight back to Africa and never setting foot in snow again. But escape was futile. The snowstorm had increased in severity and had shut the airports, not only in Ottawa, but in Montreal and Toronto as well.

I had no choice but to grit my teeth and report to my new job at the Department of Northern Affairs.

In a final twist of fate, that driver who almost mowed me down in front of my hotel that first night, turned out to be the director to whom I would report for the first decade of my career.

He thought that the story of our first, nearly fatal, encounter was hilarious, and often amused his colleagues with the anecdote, revising those facts that did not accord him sufficient credit for having successfully avoided killing me.

I never laughed along with his audience.

When I'd accepted my new job as liaison with various northern governments, I was told that I would sometimes have to travel to the North. But I didn't understand that I would have to travel north during winter for so many emergency meetings. A couple of times every year, I've had to leave the deep freeze of Canada's capital, to fly up to the far worse, lung-biting temperatures in the Arctic. I never anticipated such hardship when I'd grown up on the balmy plains of Africa.

I've told you all this so that you can see how I came by my hatred of snow honestly and have had ample reason to maintain that hatred ever since.

As much as I love Canada, someday I will retire back to Africa to finally escape the snow.

The Long Island Gunslinger

I never told you about a man I met back in eighty-five, who called himself Frank McGraw.

I was a young man back then— eighteen years old and ready to take on the world. In eighteen-eighty-five, there was nothing in the hills of West Virginia to hold a man if he didn't want to be a coal miner, which I didn't, so I saved enough money to buy a train ticket to New York City.

I found a job hauling furniture out to the big mansions on Long Island. It didn't pay much, but I got to see how the fancy folk lived. And the more I saw, the more I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to sleep in a feather bed in a room with mahogany furniture and red velvet drapes on the windows and a Persian carpet as soft as warm butter under my feet.

But I didn't get paid more than pennies, so I could barely keep myself fed after I paid rent for a flea-infested, straw mattress in a men's dormitory in the city.

The fella I worked for, Mr. Barrett, wouldn't let us come to work dirty because he said that he couldn't have us befouling the rich folk's homes. I had to wash myself with icy water from a tin basin every morning. That wakes a man up.

The only fair part of the job was that I didn't have to worry about clothes. Mr. Barrett provided uniforms for his deliverymen on the theory that no rich woman would ever come back to his showroom if we wore tattered rags when we brought his furniture into her mansion.

Everyone who lived in the rich parts of Long Island back then knew about Barrett's Fine Furniture and recognized his deliverymen in their pale blue uniforms.

One of those men was Frank McGraw.

Mr. McGraw was new to New York. If you asked, he'd tell you that he'd just moved from Cleveland where he owned a few different businesses. He never talked about those businesses, except to say that he hired competent managers to take care of the details, so that he didn't need to bother with them.

I heard that story about his past, but I come to know a different one, as you'll soon hear.

Because Mr. McGraw had just moved into a mansion with more empty rooms than you could count, he needed a lot of new furniture. He came into Mr. Barrett's several times to pick out a couple of room-fulls each time.

We could only fit a couple of pieces on the wagon, so I had to make a half-dozen trips out to Long Island for every one time that Mr. McGraw came into the city.

He didn't have any staff yet, nor a wife, so he attended to the delivery and placement of each load of furniture personally. He'd even lend a hand if a piece was heavy. In all the deliveries that I made to Long Island, Mr. McGraw was the only man who ever helped us carry even a single stick of furniture. That alone would have made him stand out in my memory, if not for the more astounding nature of his character.

You think of rich folk as being soft and smooth, and you're mostly right. Mr. McGraw, however, was made of sterner stuff. He stood tall and stared at you with eyes that were as cold as ice. I don't know if he ever blinked.

He was lean and wiry, and strong as steel cables. When he grabbed a piece of furniture, he took most of the weight himself. He could heft a hundred pounds like it was a piece of tissue paper.

We were a little scared of Mr. McGraw, though he never gave us cause. He spoke in low and polite tones, even when we made a misstep or said something inconsiderate. But he didn't hesitate to correct us, and he never minced his words.

That, you see, was a problem for Kirby Grimes, who was the boss of the wagon and me. Kirby had worked for Mr. Barrett for eight years and never advanced past deliveryman because he had a bad attitude and was proud of it. When he was with a customer, he kept his temper in check for the most part, but when we were alone together, Kirby was a big, blustery bully who would fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, or more often at no provocation at all. He was an angry man who didn't limit himself to angry words. He wouldn't do anything that I could report, but if he thought that I wasn't giving him all the respect that he was due, he'd shift a table to jam my hand against a wall or jockey his end of a couch to bang my elbow against a door frame. He was sly and nasty.

I would have slugged him in the face if it would have done any good, but he was twice my weight and strong as a bull and would have flattened me, and then he would have reported me, and then I'd get fired and wouldn't be able to afford my rent or buy another meal.

On account of Kirby, I'd been looking for another job, but hadn't found anyone who was hiring just then.

That changed one day when we were delivering a china cabinet and sideboard to Mr. McGraw.

Kirby was in a particular temper that day. I hadn't done anything to him, but first thing that morning, Mr. Barrett had called him into his office and dressed him down for some infraction — I never knew what — and Kirby was keen to pass his humiliation on down to me.

He found an opportunity to vent his spleen when we were moving the sideboard into the dining room. Mr. McGraw was out in the garden, so Kirby and I were alone in the house.

I was on one end of the sideboard and Kirby was on the other and he began pushing harder and harder until I was practically running backward. When I hit the wall, the sideboard slammed into my gut and knocked the wind out of me. Then it and I slid to the floor, the sideboard on top of me.

If it had hit me any higher, it would have broken my ribs. My gut absorbed the blow, though, and I was lucky that it didn't burst any of my organs and make me bleed out. But it put me down for the count.

Kirby wasn't so lucky as me.

Mr. McGraw had come back into the house to see how we were placing his new sideboard. He always moved quiet like a cat, so Kirby didn't notice him. But he'd been there when Kirby started pushing that sideboard against me and saw exactly what had happened.

McGraw didn't say a word. He crossed the floor in three steps, grabbed Kirby by the collar, jerked him around, and hit him square in the face. Kirby's nose broke with a dull crack and blood sprayed out of his nostrils in a dense mist.

Kirby took a wild swing at McGraw, but he didn't connect properly; McGraw had already stepped inside the punch so his face was only an inch from Kirby's. He stared hard into Kirby's eyes.

Kirby froze. He was looking death in the face and he knew it. They stared at each other for a minute, then Kirby slowly looked down to watch the barrel of a six-shooter that was poking him in the chest.

I don't know where the gun came from. I didn't even know that McGraw was armed. One instant Kirby was trying to slug McGraw and the next instant, McGraw was holding that gun against his chest, pointing straight at his heart, the hammer full-cocked and ready to fire.

Everyone in that room knew that McGraw would pull the trigger without a qualm if Kirby so much as twitched.

After a full minute of deathly silence, Mr. McGraw explained, in that low voice of his, that Kirby was going to drive back to Mr. Barrett's store and tender his resignation. He was never to come out to Long Island again if he valued his life.

Blood spattered on both of them when Kirby nodded his head like a human woodpecker.

I knew for certain that this was not the first time that Mr. McGraw had been spattered with another man's blood.

When he finally released Kirby's collar, Kirby ran for the door like the devil himself was on his tail.

Mr. McGraw lifted the sideboard off me and helped me to my feet. He informed me that he had need of a gardener and that I would be learning how to care for lawns, flowers, and shrubs beginning today. He would pay me double what Mr. Barrett was paying, and would provide room and board to boot.

I only gardened for Mr. McGraw for one season. When I proved my worth, he promoted me to his personal assistant.

A few years later, after Mr. McGraw came to trust me, I came to learn who he really was.

I won't tell you his real name — I have promised keep his identity secret for the rest of my life — but I can tell you that he was not a businessman from Ohio. He'd been a gunfighter in Texas and New Mexico for fifteen years. He'd killed more than his share of men, and accumulated a considerable fortune, most of it ill-gotten.

He had not moved to Long Island for the weather. He had a substantial price on his head and he'd had to leave the West when it became too difficult to avoid all of the lawmen and bounty hunters who were looking for him.

He was looking to live a quiet life in the civilized East, but peace was not in his nature.

Sometime I'll tell you about all the adventures I had as Mr. McGraw's personal assistant, but not today. He's old now, and in a rest home, but he's not yet dead and I've sworn to keep his confidences for as long as he lives.

He still has enemies who want to put a bullet in his beating heart no matter how old he is. I don't want to see that come to pass.

My Ex Ghost

I'm freaked out right now because I just saw a freaking ghost. I don't mean I saw it right now. I saw it last night, but, you know, it was a real ghost and you don't get over seeing that right away.

It was the ghost of my old girlfriend. Not Belinda or Virginia or Danielle. It was Kathy. She's a girl that I dated way back before I knew you folks. I met her when I just started working at Enterprise in the airport back in Halifax. She was a manager-in-training at Hertz, two booths down from me. We went together for almost a year. We even talked about getting married some day, but we didn't. Now she's dead.

I don't know how she died. I didn't even know that she was dead until I saw her ghost last night. But her being a ghost means that she's got to be dead, right? Everybody knows you have to be dead to be a freaking ghost or a zombie or an angel. And Kathy was never an angel — not by a long shot — so she's got to be a ghost.

What did she look like? She looked like Kathy, of course. If she looked like Elvis then she'd have been Elvis's ghost. That's how I knew that she was Kathy's ghost; she looked like Kathy. She wasn't floating on air or walking through walls. She was just standing there, looking sad. I guess she looked sad because she's dead, but I didn't ask her about dying or being dead. That would have been awkward.

I was pretty surprised, as you can imagine. I was just sitting in my living room watching TV and next thing you know, she was standing there staring at me, blocking the screen. I couldn't see the show through her. She's not the transparent kind of ghost.

It was an old Walking Dead rerun. I've been binge watching them on Netflix. That's how I know that she wasn't a zombie. She wasn't rotting and falling apart. That would have freaked me out worse than her being a ghost. If she looked like a zombie, I would have been running to the kitchen to get a butcher knife to stab her in the head. But she didn't; she just looked like sad old Kathy, freshly dead. I don't mean that she looked old — she looked the same as when I used to date her — but she was an old girlfriend. That's what I mean by old.

I wasn't dreaming. I was awake, for sure. You don't dream when you're awake, do you? Well, maybe you do, but I don't. I was awake, and I saw her standing there, so I asked her what she was doing in my living room, because she shouldn't have been in my apartment at all, you know, because I keep the door locked and I didn't invite her in. I didn't even know she was in town.

So, I asked her why she was there and she said that she'd come to talk to me. She wanted to see how I was doing.

Sure, ghosts can talk. They don't just moan and clank their chains. If Kathy's any indication, they talk a lot. Besides, she didn't have any chains to clank. She was dressed normal. I think she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, but I don't really remember that for sure. I didn't look at her clothes. I was distracted by her being a freaking ghost. Besides, she wasn't there to put on a fashion show. She came to talk to me.

That's why she asked how I was doing.

I told her that I was doing okay, but I was a little down because Danielle moved out a couple of weeks ago and I don't have anyone else to date. You know that I've been going with Danielle for a long time, so all our friends are couples, and that means that all the women that I know these days are married. None of them want to have an affair with me. Nah, I haven't actually asked any of them; I just know. You can tell when a woman wants to have an affair and none of the ones I know do. So, I'm going to have to find a woman who's single and available. I haven't found one of those, yet, so I'm alone right now.

Kathy's ghost said that she was happy to hear that. She looked cheerful for the first time.

I didn't think it was nice for her to be so happy that I was alone, so I asked her why and she said that she was happy to hear that I was alone because that was what I deserved. I didn't deserve to have a girlfriend.

She was pretty bitter for a ghost, but maybe they're all bitter. Maybe being dead does that to a person. I don't know. I never met any other ghosts before.

We talked for a while about why she didn't think that I deserved to have a girlfriend and she told me at some length how bad I'd treated her when we were going together, and then after all that bad behaviour, I went and dumped her instead of marrying her. That was the worst of all — getting dumped. She said that she never really got over that.

I didn't know that she was so broken up after I dumped her because I never saw her afterward. When I left Halifax to come to Ottawa, I just sent her a note. But now, hearing her tell me about what it was like for her, I got to wondering about something. If I'd treated her so bad when we were together, then why was she so broken up when I left her? She should have been happy to see the last of me.

She said that she would have been happy if she'd done the dumping, but I'd done the dumping and that hurt because I made her feel like she wasn't good enough for me. She figured that there had to be something wrong with her if she wasn't good enough even for a crummy guy like me.

I could see her logic but I told her that she was wrong about not being good enough. She was a great girl. If anything, she was too good for me.

She recalled that I'd put that right there in the note that I'd left for her, but I guess she never believed that part. I'm not sure that I did, either, but I won't admit that to her because I feel different now.

Last night, I told Kathy's ghost that I'd made a mistake. I never should have broken up with her. I wasn't just saying that to make her feel better; I was telling her the truth — kind of. That year when I was going with her ended a long time ago, and I'd always rather remember the good times I've had. I'm the kind of guy who forgets bad times.

Kathy's ghost, though, has a better memory than me. She told me about every bad time me and her ever had, and in her memory, every one of those bad times happened because of something I'd done wrong. She'd never done anything wrong, as near as she could remember, and maybe she's right, because I don't remember any different than her now.

As we talked, though, I convinced her that the bad times weren't quite so bad as she remembered. I've had worse times with other girlfriends and I told her about some of those times and she laughed at them. Laughed hard. Like I said, she was pretty bitter.

In the end, though, we both agreed that my life would have been better if I'd married her instead of dumping her.

Then she said the damnedest thing. She said that she forgave me for dumping her the way I did back then and that we could be together again. She could come back and visit me any time she wanted. She could pop up wherever I was. Ghosts can do that, you know — just pop up.

I told her that would be fine. I'd like to see her again. And she said that she'd be coming around regularly, then.

So there you have it. I'm all freaked out today because I've started dating the freaking ghost of my old girlfriend. I guess, after a while, lots of guys end up dating the ghosts of our old girlfriends.

But the thing of it is, I don't think this affair is going to turn out to be very satisfying; her not being a real person. I can't see how it can work. But, when the day comes that I need to stop seeing Kathy's ghost — and it feels like that day is going to come real soon — I don't know how I can dump her again. What can I say? Tell her to stop haunting me? I don't imagine that just telling her to go away will get rid of her. From all the stories that I've heard, that's not the way haunting works.

This time, I'm afraid that I'm stuck with Kathy for better or worse, and even death — my death — won't part us.

It's a freaking horror story.

Wedding Toast

As Sam's best man, it's my duty and pleasure to toast the happy couple.

I met Sam in the first year of our MBA program when we were assigned to the same group project. Sam and I discovered that we both approached the project in exactly the same way. Both of us were determined to make the third member of that group, Nancy Corsley, to do all the work. You remember Nancy, right, Sam? I'm sure that you do, because you got along real well with her, as I recall. That was good for both of us because her final report gave us an A in introductory microeconomics. Sam and I were so successful at not working when we worked together that we made sure that we were assigned to the same group on every project. We always found a way to make the other members do all the work, so we earned a string of A's without ever breaking a sweat.

In fact, we became such experts at shirking the work but taking the credit that we've made it our career. After graduation, we got ourselves hired by Wilder Associates three years ago and haven't lifted a finger since.

Oops. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. I forgot that Sam invited Mr. Wilder and his wife to his wedding. Just kidding, Mr. Wilder. Just kidding. Sam and I are working our fingers to the bone for you, putting in long hours all day, working late every night. Honest.

You'll all have to excuse me. I'm getting a little off track here. I should have told Jaimie to write this toast for me, instead of trying to make it up as I go along. Jaimie's a great writer. That's her, right over there at that table by the cake. I hope you're having a good time, Jaimie. You deserve it after writing all those presentations for me.

Oops. Just kidding again, Mr. Wilder. Jaimie doesn't really write my presentations for me. No, sir. I write them myself. Sam, too. I don't mean that Sam writes my presentations. I mean that he writes his, just like I write mine. He doesn't make Jaimie write his presentations, either. Isn't that right, Jaimie? Yes. That's right.

Maybe I better move along, because I haven't said anything about the other half of our happy couple. You all probably don't know that I've been friends with Cerise for even longer than I've been friends with Sam. Cerise and I were classmates back in our undergraduate days. In fact, Cerise was my lab partner in my third year biochem course. You might say that we had great chemistry. Oh, I don't mean it like that. Cerise and I were never like that. I just mean that Cerise was really good at chemistry. Our lab reports always got A's. Even in fourth year when we kept hanging around with each other, we were just good friends the way a brother and sister can be good friends. And I don't mean the incestuous kind of brother and sister; I mean the normal kind.

Gosh, maybe I shouldn't have said that, either. I definitely shouldn't have drunk that fourth glass of wine. Or was it my fifth? I lose count after the third. You know how it is.

Not that you can really count glasses of wine, anyway because sometimes they're twice as full as other times. One glass of wine can be the same as two glasses.

Which reminds me that I want to thank Sam's new in-laws for telling their bartender to pour heavy. I think we all appreciate that. These are first-rate glasses of second-rate wine. Oh, don't be like that. You know what I mean. I'm not saying that this isn't a drinkable wine. I've drunk my share and so have you. I'm trying to say that we'd feel like we'd have to hold back if we were drinking expensive imported stuff and none of us want to hold back, do we? This is a great wedding wine. That's what I'm trying to say.

But here I am, getting off track again. I was telling you about Cerise and how we were such good friends. But we weren't that kind of friends, which you know is true, because you can see how beautiful she is. And that's not just because of the white dress. She looks just as great in a pair of jeans and a sweater. Especially because she thinks that she's a size three when she's really a size five, so those sweaters and jeans fit like a second skin. They don't leave much to the imagination.

Oops. Sorry, Sam. I guess I shouldn't have said that, either. I don't know what's wrong with me today. I'm just trying to explain to your guests why I never had any romantic aspirations towards Cerise. There were too many guys in line ahead of me because she's so beautiful.

Oops. I'm not saying that she was dating all those guys. No, sir. I'm sure that she turned down most of the guys who asked her out. Maybe she turned them all down. I never asked her, but I know how classy she is and the guys who were attracted to her were all scummy. They were all beneath her. But not physically. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that no guy who ever asked her out was good enough for her.

Oops. I mean the guys before you. Not you, Sam. You're the classiest guy who ever asked Cerise out. For all I know, you might be the first guy that she'd ever dated. I do know that you were the first guy that she ever got serious about.

But I'm getting off track again, here. You got to follow what I'm trying to say. I'm just saying that I'm not classy like you, so Cerise never would have dated me even if I had asked her out, which I didn't. We did go to a lot of parties together, but just as friends. Like I said, it was like we were brother and sister. You know that we went to parties together, because I introduced you to her at that frat party that we all crashed during our second year of the MBA program.

I know that this is sounding all wrong, but I'm just trying to tell you all how the happy couple met. Cerise and I went to a Beta Delta Sigma party when I was in the second year of my MBA. I knew about all the frat parties because all the guys had such a good time when I brought Cerise along, so even after we graduated, someone always told me when there was going to be another party. Just before Christmas break, I told Sam about the Beta Delta Sigma party, and he showed up, and I introduced him to Cerise. They hit it off like Romeo and Juliet and they've been living a fairy tale romance ever since.

Well, Cerise is giving me in that look that tells me that my time is up, so I'll wrap up here. It's just as well because my throat is dry as a cactus and I really need to drink this wine, so let's all raise our glasses to Sam and Cerise and wish them our best. Chug-a-lug, folks. Chug-a-lug.

Grocery Shopping

I know this guy, let's call him Bill, who went out to do some grocery shopping the other day.

He and his wife, let's call her Jane, aren't exactly newlyweds — I'd guess they've been married for at least ten years — but in all that time, Bill had never gone grocery shopping with her. Or gone by himself, for that matter.

The fact is, before his wife sent him to a grocery store, Bill had never been in one in his whole life. His mother had done all the shopping when he was growing up, and he was still living at home when he'd got married, and his wife had done all the shopping since.

Bill has never lived on his own, even for a single day.

Jane knew that, so to help him out on this first trip, she gave him a list. It wasn't a long list, and nothing on it was unusual, but even so, Bill should have asked her for clarification before he left. But she'd been a bit short with him, so he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of letting her lecture him about groceries.

Now, let's be honest, here. Bill's my buddy, so I hate to disparage him, but the truth of the matter is that he made a bit of a stink when Jane asked him to run down to the store and pick up some groceries for dinner. In fact, he'd been decidedly insulting, so she hadn't been too keen to speak to him when she shoved her list at him.

She did have a point. She'd strained her back shoveling the driveway — why she was shoveling instead of Bill is a whole other story that we can't really get into right now — so she was laid up on the couch and was in no shape to go out and pick up the groceries for dinner. Either Bill was going to have to do the shopping for the first time in his life or he was going to go hungry.

Sadly, it took a bit of effort and some shouting back and forth to make him accept that those were his only options. Hence, the bad feelings at home.

Because Jane couldn't move, and figuring that her disability was Bill's fault for not having shoveled the driveway himself, she expected that he was not only going to have to do the shopping, but was going to have to do the cooking, too. She hadn't told him about the cooking, yet, figuring to break one bit of bad news to him at a time, for fear that the shock might unhinge him. But she understood that he was going to have to cook something foolproof.

To her mind, macaroni and cheese was pretty much something that any fool could make. They were low on groceries, which is why Jane had been trying to shovel the driveway in the first place. So, Bill would need to buy macaroni, cheddar cheese, grated parmesan, milk, butter, and a can of breadcrumbs. Surely even he could boil macaroni, drain it, put it in a casserole dish, and make a cheese roux to spread over it, sprinkle some breadcrumbs browned in butter on top, and then bake it for half an hour. She could tell him how to do that easily enough without moving from the couch.

Bill was smart enough to know that he couldn't get the groceries at Canadian Tire, which was about the only place that he went to shop, so he drove out to the Superstore. He figured that was the biggest grocery around, so it would surely have everything on the list.

Bill went into the store, read the list for the first time, and then spent ten minutes wandering the aisles in a daze. He couldn't find even the first item: macaroni. Who knew that there were so many different kinds of groceries in a grocery store? Not Bill. What he did know was that he wasn't going to find all the things on his list in under an hour, and there was a game going to start in twenty minutes. He wanted to get home and get settled in front of the TV before kickoff.

Then he got a brainstorm. The problem was that there were too many groceries in the grocery store. The inventory was overwhelming. If he went to a store that had but a few groceries, it would be a lot quicker to find what he needed. After all, Jane had told him that there was nothing on the list that would be hard to find.

Bill had seen groceries for sale at the Seven-Eleven right near his house. He would stop there, grab the items on the list, and be sitting in front of the TV in time for the pre-game commentary.

It sounded like a plan.

He abandoned the Superstore and drove straight to the Seven-Eleven.

There were only three short aisles in the Seven-Eleven, and two of them were dedicated to chips, pop, candy, and cookies. Not to mention the counter space on the back wall for the Slurpees and Big Gulps. That left only one aisle for groceries — exactly the right amount to suit Bill's shopping expertise.

He scanned each box, can, and package on on those few shelves, looking for macaroni. To his joy, he found it right away. The word, macaroni, was emblazoned on a can in big letters. And he got a bonus. Below, that, the words, and cheese, was printed in slightly smaller letters. It didn't say cheddar cheese like on the list, but it had to be the right kind of cheese, otherwise it wouldn't be included in the can. He was overjoyed to find two items in one can. He added a quart of milk and a pound of butter from the dairy case to his basket. The can of breadcrumbs mystified him for a minute, but he hit on a solution. He grabbed a loaf of white bread and figured that if Jane needed crumbs, she could grind it up. The only item left was grated parmesan. He had no idea what that was, so he asked the clerk.

The high school student behind the counter shook his head morosely. He had no idea what parmesan was, either, but he was pretty sure that they didn't stock it at the Seven-Eleven. He and Bill frowned at each other for a minute then came to an unspoken mutual agreement that if Seven-Eleven didn't carry it, it couldn't be that important.

When Bill got home, his animosity toward his wife was forgotten. He waved his shopping bag with the Seven-Eleven logo at Jane, and pulled out each item with mounting pride. On his first shopping trip, he'd managed to get everything on her list, except for the parmesan, and who knew what that was.

She looked at the canned macaroni, shocked into silence. She didn't know that macaroni and cheese could come in a can. She'd never seen such a thing. It must be something sold to people who are too lazy even to cook Kraft Dinner. But she was having none of it. She wouldn't put even a single elbow in her mouth. Not even on a dare. He might just as well have purchased a can of dog food for supper.

Her first impulse was to blow up at him, but the drugs that she was taking for her back pain had kicked in and mellowed her out enough that she managed to force a smile and thank him for getting the groceries.

There was something pathetic about his child-like belief that his first grocery shopping trip had been a magnificent success. And she had to give him some credit for getting the milk and butter, at least. Even if the milk was whole milk rather than the one percent that she always bought.

Then she told him that she'd changed her mind about cooking and sent him out to MacDonalds to pick up a couple of burgers and fries, confident that he could do that much. He was well acquainted with fast food.

When she was alone again, she vowed that, as soon as she was back on her feet, come hell or high water, she was going to drag Bill down to the Superstore, and teach him how to shop for groceries properly.

He needed to learn how to survive the modern world. If he didn't, he might not survive even the remaining days of his marriage.

Saigon, Sixty-Nine

In sixty-nine, I was stationed in Saigon. It was unreal. Everybody knew that the war was lost, but nobody could admit it because Dick Nixon kept insisting that he had the North on the run. Yeah, right. The only direction the Viet Cong were running was towards Saigon.

The only war we brought to the North was carpet bombing. Tricky Dick was tying to wipe out the entire North Vietnamese population from the air and he wasn't making a dent. When guys in black pajamas were killing us on our own ground, did he think that bombing women and children a thousand miles away was winning? Dream on, Dick, dream on.

In Saigon, we could pretend that there was no war, as long as we closed our eyes to the monks on street corners dousing themselves with gasoline and lighting a match, as long as we pretended that Thieu's uniformed thugs crushing anyone who spoke the truth were ordinary police trying to keep the peace, as long as we forgot about friends who went on patrol in the jungle and came back in body bags.

We looked the other way and lived in our own dreamland.

I was lucky. I didn't have to pack an M-16 in country. I was a cryptography specialist. I spent my days in a concrete basement far from the bullets and bombs, encrypting and decrypting communications between the CIA and the military; and I spent my nights in debauchery trying to forget the Alice-in-Wonderland, Red-Queen, off-with-his-head communications that I'd been reading all day.

In sixty-nine, all the venereal diseases were curable; pregnancy was the woman's problem, not mine; and booze and drugs were cheap and plentiful to erase any lingering Puritanical inhibitions. Besides, with the Viet Cong sneaking closer by the day, who cared about any of that? We had no future to worry about.

On April Fool's Day, in the So Lucky GI Bar, I noticed a bleach-blond mane shining like the sun in a sea of black Asian bobs The woman's ethereal beauty was shocking in that gritty joint. I caught her eye and hoisted my beer. She motored over to me, said that her name was Marisa and told me that I had to buy her a vodka martini.

I almost broke my shoulder waving for a cocktail waitress.

She was a graduate student from Finland who'd come to Saigon to document the lives of the South Vietnamese business class before the impending communist revolution wiped them out.

I didn't care about anthropology I cared only that her ample curves were a welcome change from the delicate flowers native to Vietnam.

For three months, Marisa and I were inseparable. Physically, emotionally, and intellectually. I've never clicked with any other woman so completely. I loved every bit of her, from her thick accent to her slender ankles.

She was interested in everything. She was a student of the ways of the world and introduced me to exotica beyond even my wildest fantasies. Even more thrilling than the physical, she was fascinated by my life. When I spoke, she hung onto every word I uttered. No other woman has ever listened to me like Marisa. She probed for my deepest thoughts and extracted my highest ideals.

Naturally, she was fascinated by my work. I was handling America's most sensitive, most secret information. I knew that we were at war, and I knew that the penalties for violating national security were severe. But Marisa was beautiful and sexy and wanted to be impressed by my important job. And I needed to impress the woman of my dreams.

Of course, I knew that she was a Soviet spy. A Finnish anthropology student? She happened to stumble across an encryption specialist in a bar? A beauty like her attracted to a face like mine? Her cover story was laughable.

I knew that she was a spy, but I told her anything that she wanted to hear anyway. Sometimes it was the truth. Sometimes it was half lies. Sometimes it was pure fantasy. I didn't care and neither did she. All she needed was something to tell her boss back in the Kremlin so that she could stay in Vietnam and keep living off her government expense account.

For three months, life was terrific. As long as I kept telling Marisa bigger secrets, true or not, she kept making life in Saigon bearable.

By the end of June, I was running out of secrets that were important enough to satisfy her. She was hinting that she was going to have to move on to a bigger fish. Desperate to hold on to her, I told her that I'd decrypted a monumental secret. The biggest of all. The American army was going to cross the DMZ and invade North Vietnam beginning on the Fourth of July. They were going to push straight through to Hanoi and unify the country for once and for all. It would be a surprise attack. Rather than mass our army along the border and signal our intentions, our troops would be sent secret orders at midnight on the third to leave their posts and push north. All of our border strongholds would be undefended but that wouldn't matter because the North Vietnamese Army would be so busy trying to assemble a defense that they wouldn't counterattack.

It was a stunning story and Marisa was so pleased that she hired a beautiful Saigon orchid to join us that night.

But I had gone too far. On the Fourth of July, simultaneous attacks on our strongholds along the border were repelled at a terrible cost to the NVA. They had expected them to be deserted and were the ones taken by surprise.

No one could doubt that my intelligence had been false.

Three days later, Marisa disappeared. I waited for her, but she didn't come to my apartment. I went to her place, but no one had seen her. I kept searching the bars for the remainder of my tour of duty, but I never again saw her blond head shining above the crowd.

I never saw her again.

I don't know if she was recalled to Moscow or buried in a rice paddy somewhere at the edge of the Mekong. I only know that she was gone for good.

I'd understood from the beginning that the fairy tale had to end, and three months was a long time for a dream to last, but even to this day, I remember those nights with my beautiful Russian spy, and I miss her terribly.

Short Order

I've cooked everywhere. Man. Everywhere from national chains like Denny's to mom and pop independents to pubs. Wherever there's a grill and a deep fryer, I've been there. It's all the same to me. Cracking an egg for an Egg McMuffin in Duluth is no different that cracking an egg for an omelet in Denver. I walk into new kitchen in Schenectady; I'll learn the recipes in twenty minutes; and I'll be working the grill solo before the lunch rush starts.

The other day, though, was different.

I was working the night shift in a twenty-four-hour diner downtown. It was a fifties retro joint. Chrome edges on the counter and Elvis on the jukebox. You better believe you're going to get tired of Hound Dog after you've heard it a hundred times in a week.

Most kitchens don't give the cook a view of the clientele, but this was a joint where the grill was behind the counter so I had to mingle with the nighthawks. And I got time to mingle at two in the morning. There's not exactly a constant stream of orders coming up.

At one end of the counter, Chuck, the insomniac, is drinking his third cup of joe in a row and wondering why he can't get to sleep. Over in a back booth, some young Romeo and his Juliette are pretending that nobody can see them necking even though the front's got more glass than a greenhouse. At the other end of the counter, Al's parked his sax on the floor next to his stool and wants to talk about the cool jazz he used to play at the Blue Chord Lounge, which burnt down four years ago. Now he plays for coins by the bus stop on the corner of Second and Main. He collects enough silver in his porkpie hat to buy eggs Benedict every night, so he must do all right.

Around two, a waif — maybe sixteen, maybe eighteen, it's hard to tell — peers through the window, then sneaks in the front door, and slithers into a corner booth. It's a six top and she's all alone, but I don't care about the wasted space. It's not like we're crowded. I figure she's a runaway and needs a spot to warm up for a while. It's late fall and getting frosty out there.

She orders a Coke from Minnie. No food, so I don't have to tend the grill. Al's talking at me about the time he met Miles back in the day. I've heard the story a dozen times, but listening to him is better than listening to Jailhouse Rock for the hundredth time this week.

The runaway is creeping me out because she keeps staring at me with big blue eyes.

I only look at her sideways; I don't want to make full-on eye contact. I figure she's probably on drugs.

A couple of young guys come in and sit at a table. They look homeless — long hair and tattered jeans — but they're clean, so they're probably college students. They ask Minnie for burgers and I throw a couple of patties on the grill and put their fries down.

While they're waiting for their food, they make eyes at the runaway.

She doesn't make eyes back at them, but she moves her left hand so they can see her ring. It's small but it's a genuine diamond, so they leave her alone.

I change my estimate of her age. Maybe she's twenty or even twenty-one. She's got one of those valentine-shaped faces that looks young until one day it looks old.

She's still staring at me.

I get Chuck his fourth cup of coffee because he says he doesn't feel sleepy yet.

Minnie's supposed to pour the drinks, but when the guy's sitting at the counter and the pot is right there and I've got nothing better to do, I don't mind serving. Minnie doesn't mind, either; I always leave the tip for her, even when I've waited on the customer.

After the college guys leave and Minnie's bussed their table, she gives the runaway a second refill on her Coke. The runaway chats with her for a bit, then Minnie comes to the counter and leans close.

I ask if the girl wants some food. I'll spot her a couple of eggs and toast if she doesn't have any money. I don't want her to leave hungry; I just want her to leave because she's still staring at me, creeping me out.

Minnie says that the girl doesn't want to eat; she wants to talk to me.

I tell her that I'm right here. She can come up to the counter any time. But Minnie says that I ought to go to her booth.

I do.

The girl says I can sit down. She says her name is Courtney Moore and I'm her father.

I'm not as surprised as you might think. Let's be realistic. For thirty years, I've been banging waitresses all over the country, from Sarasota to Seattle, every chance I get. Not all those waitresses were as educated about birth control as they should have been. I must have popped a few buns into the oven over the years.

The biggest surprise — apart from seeing that I fathered such a lovely young woman — is that she tracked me down. I don't stay anywhere for more than a few months, often not for more than a few weeks. When things start to look serious, I move on. My resume looks like the restaurant section of the Yellow Pages.

It turns out that the girl's fiancé is a clerk at the Social Security office in Portland — the low-key Portland in Maine, not the hipster one in Oregon — so she didn't have to be a Sherlock to find me. She just asked her fiancé to look me up in his computer.

I'm thinking that it's a little late in the day for her to be chasing me down for child support, not that she has a hope in hell of getting any blood out of this turnip. Saving money has never been one of my life skills.

She says that she doesn't want a penny from me. All she wants is for me to walk her down the aisle in June.

She can't be serious. I'm a total stranger to her. Her mother raised her. It ought to be her mother who does the honors.

It would be, but her mother died last January. Cancer. I'm sorry to hear that. As near as I can remember, her mother was a good lay. Though I don't tell the girl that last part. I'm not an idiot.

Anyway, the upshot of it all is that I'm the only family she's got, so I've got to come to Portland in June and act like a real father.

This could be a problem and, for my whole my life, anytime I've had a problem, I've moved away from it.

So I'm moving again. But this time, I'm manning up and moving to Portland, Maine, instead of running to the Portland on the other side of the country. I'm even going to buy a suit.

I figure it's time I acted like a grownup and took responsibility for something in my life.

And you know what? It doesn't feel bad. Not bad at all.

The Trouble with Sky

If you're going to understand what happened, I gotta tell it from the start.

See, I got this buddy named Skyler — Sky for short — who I've known for a long time. I hung around with him in high school and for a while after that, but I don't see him much any more. Sky's not the kind of guy you want to know when you grow up. You see, when Sky reaches a fork in the road, he'll choose the one that leads to trouble every time. Trouble's contagious and I got tired of catching it from him, so back in my early twenties, I decided to follow a different road from him and my life has been getting better ever since.

That is, until yesterday. Out of the blue, Sky gave me a call. He wanted to get together and catch up on old times.

What could I do? He just wanted to talk over a beer, so I had to say, "Yes," because I couldn't disappoint an old friend. Besides, what could go wrong just talking to the guy?

After work, I met him at a bar called Phil's Folly and we ordered a pitcher of Bud and chatted about our high school days. We got into a lot of trouble back then, but we can laugh about it now that it just distant memories.

Back then, Sky had this old Mustang that he bought with a few hundred bucks that he borrowed from his father. I doubt that he ever paid back a penny. The car was a rusted-out piece of junk. Ten years old when he got it; it must have had a hundred thousand miles on it. We spent as much time pushing it as we did riding in it. I missed more than a few high school classes because I was stuck beside the highway with Sky in that broken down beater. I'm pretty sure I would have passed Mr. Bozeman's chemistry course if Sky had a more reliable car. I told him that over our second pitcher of Bud and we laughed about it. And then he reminded me of the time we ditched school go to down to Tijuana and we had some more laughs.

By our third pitcher, I was kind of missing those good old days. Back then, we didn't care how much trouble we got into because, when you're a teenager, it's all good times.

Sky said that he was going to get another Mustang. Not like his old one. A new one. Cherry red. Only a couple of years old. Less than ten thousand miles on it. He was getting it from some guy named Willy who owed him a lot of money.

In fact, he was going to go pick it up right after we finished our fourth pitcher, which the waitress had already put on the table.

Funny, I never even noticed him ordering the last two pitchers. I think I was filling my glass a bit more often than he was.

Thing is, he needed a ride out to Casa de Oro where this guy lived. After all that beer, I probably shouldn't have been driving at all, but I live in Santee, so Casa de Oro isn't that far out of my way. Well, it kind of is, but it's all freeway driving to get there, so it's only going to take me an extra ten minutes each way.

Besides, how could I turn an old friend down? There's not many guys I've known for as long as my old buddy, Sky.

So we finished the pitcher and I settled the bill. We would have split it, but Sky was a little short. Some guys owe him some money, so he said that he'll send me his share of the bill when he collects from them. I told him to forget it. A couple of pitchers is no big thing when you're sharing them with an old friend, and I get pretty good pay from my commissions.

Out at Casa de Oro, we get a bit lost on the back streets — the roads really wind around in behind Mount Helix — but we drove around until he found the right house. It was round about midnight by then. We knew that it was the right place because it had that sweet cherry-red Mustang sitting in the driveway. That car looks like it's breaking the speed limit even when it's just sitting there parked. I could see why Sky wanted it.

I asked him if it wasn't too late to pick up the car, but he said that Willy stays up most of the night, and I figured he must be right because I could see some lights on in the house.

Sky has to knock a few times before the guy answers the door. He looks like an old hippie — he's got a long grey ponytail and a ZZ Top beard. He doesn't look like he planned to be up all night because he's wearing a pair of worn-out pajamas. Really worn out. Big holes in some unfortunate places. I can see why they call him Willy.

Sky isn't concerned about that. He introduces me and drags me into the house.

Willy doesn't seem so eager to have guests arriving at midnight, but Sky offers me a beer, and before I can decline, he sends Willy off to the kitchen to grab a couple of Buds out of his fridge.

We talk a bit about nothing important while we're drinking our beers. I expect that Sky is going to ask about picking up the car, maybe get some paperwork signed or something, but he never mentions the Mustang. Mostly he talks about a Brewer and Shipley concert that Willy saw up at the college on the weekend.

When we finish our Buds, Sky says that he needs to use the can and heads down that way.

I go after he comes back. It takes Sky a while, so I'm getting kind of desperate by the time I get my turn. The can is kind of grungy; Willy isn't much of a housekeeper.

When I get back, Sky's ready to leave. He thanks Willy for the beer and I follow him out the door.

Out in the driveway, I mention to Sky that I'll take him home because he didn't get the Mustang.

He says that I'm wrong and holds up the keys. He settled his business with Willy while I was in the can.

So he gets in the Mustang and drives away. I follow his taillights down One-Twenty-Five until then he takes the Fletcher Parkway exit and I continue on to Santee.

Which gets us to the crux of the matter. I'm telling you all this because I need a recommendation for a good criminal lawyer. I don't mean a lawyer who's a criminal, I mean one who keeps criminals out of jail.

Because, it turns out that Sky didn't actually settle his business with Willy. He figured that Willy owed him money for the drugs that Willy sold at the Brewer and Shipley concert and he decided to take Willy's Mustang as collateral. He didn't bother discussing this arrangement with Willy. Instead, when Sky went to the can, he was also went into Willy's bedroom and took the keys to the Mustang out of Willy's pants pocket.

Willy has a different understanding of his business arrangement with Sky. His understanding does not include Sky taking his car. Sky didn't figure on a drug dealer wanting to discuss his business with the cops, but Willy didn't think that part through very carefully. He reported the Mustang stolen and gave the cops footage from his security cameras which show my license plate, clear as day, as well Sky getting out of my car with me, and later, Sky getting into his Mustang.

The cops busted Willy for being a drug dealer and then came to my place to put the cuffs on me for being an accessory to grand theft auto. They'd like to charge me with drug dealing, too, but they don't have enough evidence for that yet. They're looking for Willy or Sky to testify against me. Sky'd never do that to an old buddy, but Willy's got to be trying to think up a good story so he's got something to negotiate with.

Hence my need for a lawyer quick.

I can't believe that I let Sky suck me into another mess of trouble. It's just like old times. And it's not as much fun as I remembered when we were drinking our third pitcher of beer last night.

The Case of the Blonde in the Rolls

I first saw the blonde dame when I was sitting in my Ford on a stakeout, waiting for Mrs. Hendriks and her lover to come back out of the Motel Six on La Cienega. Mr. Hendiks was going to pay me fifty bucks for photos that he could use in his divorce. That's good money for a few hours work.

So I was sitting out there with my camera loaded and ready, when this blonde bombshell came strolling along, holding the leash of a gray dog that looked as big as a donkey. A great dame walking a great dane, as it were. I kept watching her because she looked like a movie star and we were up at the north end of Le Cienega between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, so it wasn't out of the question. This dame didn't look like anyone I'd seen on the silver screen, but she was still easier on the eyes than anyone else on the street.

She looked like money. Her dress belonged on a Paris catwalk; I could see her diamond ring sparkle all the way across the street; and it'd cost most of what I earned to feed a dog that size. So what did this rich dame do? She dropped a dime into a payphone outside a corner store and got to chatting a mile a minute. It had to be somebody she liked on the other end of the line because she was smiling and laughing into the receiver.

Alarm bells were ringing in my head. This was all wrong. A classy dame like her has got to have a phone at home. She doesn't need to use a payphone. And if her home phone was broken, she wouldn't bring the dog along to make a call. It was a bother because it kept tugging on the leash and she had to keep pulling it to back to keep it from dragging her away from the phone.

I saw her story, clear as a crystal bell. Her wedding ring said she's got a rich old husband at home, so when she wants to make a phone call without him listening in, she's got to tell him that she's taking the dog for a walk. Now she's out here on the street, making a call to her lover from a payphone.

That was her story and I had only one question. How much money can I make from this?

First, I had to get an incriminating photo, but I didn't sweat that. That's how we private dicks pay our rent. The bigger problem is to figure out who will pay me the most.

The rich husband has the money. He'll pay for the photos, even if he decides to forgive his honey and forget about her cheating ways. He'll have to buy the negatives to make sure they never get away from him and embarrass him somewhere down the line.

On the other hand, the cheating dame has the most to lose. If her husband dumps her, she loses half his fortune. That makes the pictures worth a lot more to her than to her husband. So she's the well that I'm going to tap. No matter how much dough I ask for, she'll come up with it one way or another.

When the blonde hung up the phone, Mrs. Hendriks was still inside the motel with her man. That was all right. The blonde wasn't in a hurry to leave. She just waited at the curb with that dog.

Ten minutes later, a silver Rolls Royce eased up to the curb and a greasy-haired Lothario hopped out to talk to the blonde doll.

She didn't bus her beau there on the street, but that was no surprise. A smart broad like her wouldn't put on a show in public. She chatted with her man for a minute, and then they climbed into the Rolls, dog and all.

It occurred to me that maybe the man was her brother or something like that, but that didn't make sense. She wouldn't have to go to a payphone if she wasn't hiding something from her husband. This man had to be her lover.

When they drove off, I had to make a quick choice right on the spot. Do I wait to get the photos of Mrs. Hendriks coming out of the motel and collect my fifty bucks, or I follow the Rolls and cash in a jackpot?

You know what I did. I went with the money. I could get a snap of Mrs. Hendriks any time. I needed to know where the blonde in the Rolls was going.

I followed them up into West Hollywood and around the hills for half an hour. I couldn't figure out where they were going or why. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to their wandering. They drove here and there and ended up back on La Cienega, where they parked and sat in the Rolls for another quarter hour. I was too far away to see if they were necking in there, but I could imagine them having a hot time. Finally, the blonde, the dog, and the lover all got out. She gave her fellow a quick hug and then walked away.

I got the pics. Not as incriminating as I would have liked, but I captured the hug on film and that would do. Just seeing his wife's arms around the slick young guy in front of the Rolls would stir the old man's imagination.

I followed the blonde for half a dozen blocks and took note of the mansion where she lived. Nice place. She had money for sure, and a lot of it.

I took my film to a guy who could process it overnight.

The next evening, I knocked on the mansion door. I carried a brown paper envelope of eight by tens in my hand. It pays to invest in large format prints when you're putting the arm on someone.

The blonde answered.

I'd done my homework down at the city registry. The mansion was owned by Walter Crawford. I asked if she was Mrs. Crawford.

She said she was.

I told her that I had some photos that she would want to see.

She didn't invite me in, so I had to show her all the photos right there on her doorstep. I told her that I'd be happy to sell them, along with the negatives, if we could arrive at a satisfactory price.

That broke her up. She laughed right in my face. Then she called for her husband to come and see what the cat dragged home.

An old guy with thin grey hair and a mustache big as a clothes brush shuffled out of the back and asked what's going on.

She told him that some fool had taken pictures of her buying the Rolls that she'd given him for his birthday this morning. She told me to show her husband the pictures of her and the salesman making the deal.

I didn't bother hanging around. I just turned and walked away, my tail tucked between my legs.

The kicker was that I never did get the photos of Mrs. Hendriks, either. She must have broken off her love affair in the motel that night because I followed her for weeks and never caught her stepping out on her husband again.

When I spoke to Mr. Hendriks, he said that he'd decided not to divorce his wife after all.

Sometimes, you can't win for trying.

Tea for One

I don't know what kind of tea I'm supposed to buy. Look at them all. There must be a hundred kinds of tea on these shelves. What kind does Gillian want? I don't know. She should have told me. At least, she could have said if she wants regular tea or an herbal tea. I don't know if she drinks herbal teas. Maybe. I remember her offering mint tea to the Gibsons once because it didn't have any caffeine in it. It was that time that we didn't finish dinner until after nine and they didn't want any coffee when it was that late. So, she offered mint tea. If she had mint tea in the cupboard that has to mean that she drinks herbal teas sometimes, right? Mint sounds good. But over here, they've got lemon and ginger tea. That sounds even better than mint. I never drink tea, but even I might like a cup of lemon and ginger tea if I wasn't feeling well. And they've got chamomile, too. What is chamomile? I've heard people talking about it, but I don't know what it is. Maybe it tastes even better than lemon and ginger. Or maybe it's something that only old ladies with blue hair drink. I don't think I've ever heard anyone who's Gillian's age ever mention chamomile tea. Not that she's all that young, but she isn't old enough to have blue hair, either. Even if she still had hair. Of course, these days, young people die their hair blue, too. That girl coming down the aisle has neon-blue hair and she can't be more than sixteen. So young and healthy. And rude. She's walking right in front of me, so I can't see the tea that I was looking at. I should say something. But she knows what she wants. She just grabs a box and away she goes before I have time to tell her off. Maybe she gets tea that matches her hair. I wonder if they sell blue tea. If they have rose hip tea, then they must have blueberry tea, right? Wrong. I don't see any blueberry. Don't see any oat straw tea, either. That's what Maude drank in that old sixties movie, Harold and Maude. Maybe there's no such thing as oat straw tea. Maybe the screenwriter just made it up because it sounds like something that an eighty-year-old hippy would drink. Or maybe it really exists, but it tastes so bad that they don't sell it in Whole Foods. Not that Whole Foods ever let bad taste stop them from selling something. Not if you're willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it. You can always find someone who'll buy anything. Even poison. Have you heard that people buy apricot seeds and those things are full of cyanide? Eat enough of them and you'll die. But stores still sell them and people still buy them. And eat them, I guess. My mind is wandering again. It's so hard to stay focussed these days. I came here to buy tea, not cyanide. What did the girl with the blue hair buy? Here's the box. It says chai. What's that? Is chai even tea? You have to have a Ph.D just to buy tea in this store. A Ph.D in what? Botany, maybe, or maybe anthropology. Whatever. Not anything that I'd have a Ph.D in. I still regret that I never finished my dissertation. I'd done most of the research. It was just a matter of spending another couple of weeks in the library getting a bit more evidence to support my thesis and then writing it up. Oh, well, that was a long time ago. Water under the bridge. No sense regretting decisions that I made when I was in my twenties. Not when I've got so much new to worry about. Like buying tea. But if I'd finished my doctorate, I could have applied for tenure track positions and I'd be a university professor today instead of a mid-level bureaucrat. If I were a professor, then I wouldn't have any problem buying tea. Because university professors wear corduroy jackets with elbow patches and drink tea all day, right? I mean, I never met any real university professor who was like that, but if I were a professor, that's the kind that I would have been. A tea-drinking, elbow-patched professor of contemporary English literature. Of course, I would have done it ironically in true post-modern style, but I would have drunk a lot of ironic tea by now, so I'd be a tea expert. Too bad, I never finished my thesis. I don't even read contemporary English literature anymore, much less analyze it. Not like Gillian. She reads all the Pulitzer Prize winners and the Booker Prize winners and the Giller Prize winners and the Nobel Prize winners. She likes prize winners. Too bad, I don't see any prize-winning teas on this shelf. Picking that one for her would have been a no-brainer. But I ought to know her well enough after all these years to guess what she'll want now that she's started wanting tea. I should forget about herbal teas. Gillian only reads proper books, so she's only going to drink proper teas. She's not shy about telling me what she wants, so if she wants an herbal tea, she would have said so. She just told me to go out and buy her some tea, so she must have meant traditional tea. If only there weren't so many kinds of regular tea. The selection of real tea is scarier than the selection of herbal teas. Caffeinated or decaf? Caffeinated. She wouldn't want wimpy tea. Here's a caffeinated mint one. It isn't an herbal tea; it's just got mint flavor added to regular tea. It says that it's from Morocco. Maybe that's what Gillian offered to the Gibsons that time — Moroccan mint tea. But I don't think that's what she wants tonight. She isn't going to want any flavor but tea flavor. What does that leave? Black tea, white tea, green tea. Orange pekoe, oolong, and Earl Grey. Why don't they have any regular tea? I never heard of white tea and green tea is what you get in Chinese restaurants. I'm pretty sure that Gillian doesn't want orange tea or something named after an earl, so I guess that leaves black tea. Loose or in a bag? In a bag. Gillian can't fiddle around with loose tea; she needs something easy. What kind of bag? This one comes in little pyramids and that one comes in round pouches and that other bag is folded in two. Does the bag make any difference or is this all just marketing? Who would care about the kind of bag? Not me. Or Gillian, I hope. What brand does she drink? Who knows? I'll just grab the most expensive one because that has to be the best, right? Maybe she'll be able to keep it down better if it's a good tea. And if this one isn't good enough for Gillian, then I'll have to come back and get the right one. But, I'm not going to come back until she tells me exactly what kind she wants. I'll just put my foot down until I know for sure. I can't handle all this worry about tea. Her last round of chemo is almost over. If the cancer goes into remission, she'll get strong enough to come here and buy her own tea. Then I won't have to worry about anything any longer. That's a hope. We have to have hope. And tea.

The Woman in the Snow

Early spring in Alberta isn't like on the other side of the Rockies. Vancouver gets daffodils by the sea; we get snow on the range. So there was half an inch of snow on the road where I first spotted the woman. I was in my Four Runner, driving this dirt road out past the back of my spread because I heard there was coyotes lurking around and they'd be awful hungry after a hard winter. I didn't want them feeding off my herd.

When I saw her walking along, all by herself, I couldn't believe my eyes. At first, I figured I had to be dreaming. I mean, there's nothing out there. Not for miles around. My place was five miles behind us and there wasn't another soul all the way to the foothills, some fifteen or twenty miles further on.

But this wasn't a dream; she was real as anything, all right. She was strolling along, not rushing, but making steady time, not toward my place, which was the nearest shelter, but toward the far mountains. There was a stiff breeze from the north and some flurries coming down, so any tracks she was leaving were getting blown in pretty quick. I couldn't tell how far she'd come or where she'd come from. She couldn't have driven out here because no one else uses this road. I'd have taken note if I'd heard a vehicle going by my house and stopping to open my gate because that would be a rare thing.

As I drove past, I slowed down to get a good look at her.

Now, I know what you got to be thinking. That these days, women hunt, too. But this woman wasn't any hunter or hiker or camper. She wasn't wearing boots and camo and packing a deer rifle. She was dressed like a lady all the way from her fancy hairdo down to her high heeled shoes. She was wearing a dress underneath her wool topcoat, not even something as sensible as a pair of slacks. Soft leather gloves, nylons, and lipstick told me that she didn't belong out here because she was a lady from the city.

I had some misgivings about pulling over and stopping — she might get scared of a rough sort like me accosting her so far from civilization — but I didn't have any choice. I couldn't leave her on her own. Not when it was late afternoon and the forecast predicted a whole lot more snow coming and there was likely a pack of hungry coyotes on the prowl and she was walking in the wrong direction.

I stopped a hundred feet down the road because I didn't want to sneak up behind her. I figured that she needed to see what I was about. I got out of the truck and stood by the door and waited to let her decide how close she wanted to get to me.

She didn't look the least perturbed. She walked right up to me, and then kept on walking. She passed within a couple of feet of me but didn't say a word. Didn't even look at me. For all I could tell, she didn't even see me. It was like I was invisible.

So I called out to her. "Hey, lady. You all right? You need a ride somewhere?" I would have driven her all the way to Vancouver, if she wanted. I was that worried about her.

She didn't even pause, just kept walking in that slow, elegant way like a model might walk on TV.

I was in a dilemma. I didn't want to harass her. But I couldn't leave her be, either. She had to be out of her mind and we got to take care of those who can't take care of themselves. That's what the Good Book says.

I figured my best bet would be to call the police and let them take care of her. That's their job. But out here, that was not possible. It's a long way to the nearest cell tower. I barely get reception at my place and, like I said, that's five miles back. You don't get any bars out here.

So by the time I got all that figured, she was another hundred feet down the road, just strolling along like she didn't have a care in the world.

I hopped in my truck and drove past her again and stopped and got out again and waited again.

This time, though, I didn't let her walk on by. I stood in front of her and blocked her way.

She had to stop and look right at me. She had a pretty face, like you don't see too often out here. Fine features and soft hair.

I didn't smile because she had to know that this was a serious situation. "Ma'am, we got to talk."

She cocked her head and didn't say a word.

"You can't keep walking on this road. It's cold and it's going to get colder and you're not dressed for it. Besides, I heard tell of a pack of coyotes, maybe a dozen or so, that's been hunting out here. It's been a long winter and they're going to eat anything they can bring down. You can't keep walking out here by yourself." She stayed silent, but she didn't try to leave, either, so I kept trying to reason with her. "Tell you what. You get in my truck and tell me where you want to go and I'll take you there. I don't mean to interfere in your business. Whatever you're trying to do, you just get in my truck where it's nice and warm and I'll help you out as best as I can."

She nodded and climbed into the cab. She didn't walk around, just climbed in the driver's side, slammed the door, and put her in gear.

I couldn't believe it. She drove off in my Four Runner and left me standing out there in the middle of nowhere all by my lonesome.

I had to walk five miles back home. Took me two hours, and the snow was coming down heavy by the time I made it.

I called the police and they came out and looked all night for her, but they never found any sign of her or my truck. They didn't say directly that they disbelieved me, but to be honest, I'm not sure that I'd believe my story, either, if it hadn't happened to me but was just something that someone told to me.

That was a full month ago, so I've given up any hope of getting my truck back. I made a claim on my insurance and used the money to buy a used F-One-Fifty last week but it's not as good as my Four Runner was.

But the truck isn't what's keeping me awake at night; it's the woman that preys on my mind. I keep wondering who she is, where she came from, and where she went with my truck.

I guess, I'm going to have to settle for it staying a mystery that I'll never solve. I just have to let it go.

It sure is frustrating, though, when I don't have a clue what it was all about. I sure would like to talk to that woman again, and this time, I'd get some answers.

Full Moon

Nine-one-one? Yeah, I have an emergency. I need help. There's something out there in the dark and it's coming for me. I can hear it.

No, I don't know what it is. Are you crazy? I'm not going out there to look. It'll get me if I go out there. I'm not even going to go to the window. I'm hiding in my closet and I'm staying here until the police get here.

If it was a burglar, then I would have told you that it's a burglar. It's not a man. It shuffles and snorts. Burglars don't shuffle and snort. They sneak. This creature doesn't sneak. It bangs around. I heard it banging against my garbage cans. That's what woke me up.

No, it's not a raccoon. I know what a raccoon is. I've seen lots of raccoons. This is bigger than that. A lot bigger. This isn't a raccoon unless the city has been invaded by six-foot-tall raccoons. And it isn't a skunk or possum or fox or any other little critter.

No, I didn't see it. I already told you that I'm not looking out any windows. That'd be crazy. If I go looking for it, then it's going to see me, and then it'll really want to get in and get me.

I didn't have to see it to know that it's big. It sounds big, all right? It was thumping up high on my wall. And I think I saw its shadow. I was asleep in my bedroom and the noise woke me up and I saw a shadow pass by my window. A big shadow in the dark. It looked mean. Dangerous. That's when I grabbed my phone and ran into my closet and called you.

Maybe it's a werewolf. There's a full moon tonight, right? So maybe it's a werewolf. They shuffle and snort, right? And they're big. When I think about it, that shadow looked pretty shaggy. Werewolves are shaggy like that, so maybe werewolves are real after all.

No, I'm not alone in the house. My wife is in here, too. She's still in bed. She's a sound sleeper.

No, I'm not going to wake her up. She hates being woken up. She'd bite my head off if I woke her up and told her that she had to hide in the closet because I thought I saw a shadow. She's on her own out there. If the werewolf gets inside, she's going to have to take her chances.

You tell the police that they better put some silver bullets in their guns, just in case it's a werewolf, you know. Because you can't kill one of those things with a regular bullet. It takes a silver bullet to kill a werewolf.

I got some silverware in the dining room. It's in a box in the sideboard. Real silver. It was a wedding gift from my mother-in-law. Do you think a werewolf would die if I stabbed it with a silver fork? Probably not. Anyway, I couldn't do that. Its arms have got to be longer than mine. I don't have very long arms. Even my wife has longer arms than me. It would rip my head off before I got close enough to stab it.

No, I haven't been drinking. I don't drink. Well, I do drink, but not much. Only at parties and I didn't go to any parties tonight. And I don't drink when I'm alone. I was home alone all night. Well, home with my wife, but that's almost the same as being alone. We don't talk much any more. We haven't had a proper conversation in years. Not since the children moved out. But she didn't drive me to drink, if that's what you're thinking. I don't drink because of her. I only drink at parties.

There! Did you hear that? Could you hear that on the phone? That was the werewolf banging against the back door. I could hear it all the way in here in the closet. No, it wasn't knocking. It was banging. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! You didn't hear it? I sure did. I think it's trying to break down the door to get to me.

Just a minute, let me peek out. Nope. She hasn't moved. Like I said, she's a real sound sleeper. It's ridiculous how soundly she sleeps.

No, she doesn't take sleeping pills. Me, neither.

No, I'm not on any drugs. I've never used LSD or peyote or anything like that. Hiawatha? Isn't that an old poem about an Indian? By the shore of Gitchi Goomi, and so forth. Oh, ayahuasca? I don't even know what that is. South America? No, I wouldn't go all the way to South America to take drugs. I don't even take drugs here in Toronto. Why would anyone go all the way to South America to take drugs?

Look, are you going to send the police or not?

Oh, they're already on their way. They're almost here? Good. Tell them to watch out for the werewolf if they don't have any silver bullets, okay. They got to be careful out there.

It's howling now. Do you hear that? You've got to hear that. The werewolf has started howling. And it's banging at the door. It's trying to get in. Let me hold the phone up so you can hear it. You hear that? You've got to hear that howling. It's loud enough. It almost sounds like it's howling my name. That proves that it's trying to get me.

I'll open the closet door so that you can hear better.

Wait, there's lights out there. I can see red and blue shadows through the window. Oh, the police are here? Great. Tell them to watch out for the werewolf.

They got it? What do you mean, my wife is outside. No, she's not. She's right there in bed.

Okay, I'll go look.

Hey, you're right. That wasn't her in here. The duvet was just piled up on her side of the bed.

The police say she locked herself out? Why did she do that? Emptying the kitchen trash? In the middle of the night? I don't believe that for a minute. It's the full moon. That's what it is.

Now I know. She had to go outside because of the full moon tonight.

I can't believe that I've been married for thirty years and I never noticed that my wife is a werewolf. Isn't that something?

No wonder we don't get along so well any more.

The Death Insurance Escrow System

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you've heard all the testimony that both myself and the prosecutor have presented. Shortly, you will retire to decide if my client is guilty of conspiracy to commit multiple murders.

Mr. Wilkins will talk to you after I'm finished, and he'll tell you that my client, Miss Caravelt, was part of a conspiracy to murder hundreds, or possibly thousands, of innocent victims because she was an employee of an invisible corporation called the Death Insurance Escrow System, known by the rather morbid acronym, DIES.

Mr. Wilkins cannot prove that Miss Caravelt was even working for DIES; he's given you only some weak circumstantial evidence. But if she was, she would still be innocent of murder.

To understand why, you have to understand how DIES operates. It's what people have begun calling an invisible corporation. It's difficult to understand how a corporation can exist if nobody can see it, but you heard expert witnesses explain how modern technology makes this possible.

Let me summarize what they told you, and maybe I can make it less mysterious than what the experts said. You know experts — they're not always the best at explaining complicated things.

It all starts with a technology called blockchain that lets people own information anonymously. Don't waste time trying to figure out how that works, you just have to accept that it does. It's what makes cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin possible. Consider a Bitcoin. Everybody knows that it exists and that someone owns it, but nobody knows who. Nobody knows and nobody can find out. If the owner gives it to someone else, then everybody knows that now someone else owns it, but that's all. The magic of the technology is that nobody knows who the previous owner was and nobody knows who the new owner is. Even the previous owner doesn't know who he gave it to. All he knows is that he transferred it from his numbered account to another numbered account.

Now the trick to making a corporation invisible is to use blockchains to hold all of its information. Not just its money, but its personnel records, its accounts, its ownership, its contracts, everything. It isn't registered with the government as a corporation because the government doesn't have any way to find out who owns it, any way to find out who works for it, nor any way to tax its profits. The invisible corporation doesn't have offices or equipment anywhere. It exists only inside computers that are scattered all over the earth.

So how did the Death Insurance Escrow System operate as an invisible corporation? Let's say that you don't like your neighbor. In fact, you dislike your neighbor so much that you're willing to pay ten thousand dollars to see him dead. You buy ten thousand dollars worth of Bitcoins and send it to DIES, along with your neighbor's name, address, and other information to identify him. DIES puts your money in escrow — that means that its still your money and DIES is just holding it for you, but you can't get to it. DIES then puts an advertisement on the Internet which describes your neighbor and offers to insure his death for ten thousand dollars. DIES isn't the one that's insuring his death, they're only saying that someone else, you, wants to insure it.

Now, say someone of low moral character reads that ad and wants to buy that insurance. He pays DIES ten percent of its value, one thousand dollars in this case, and owns the policy. It's like life insurance where you insure your neighbor and that fellow, who neither you nor anyone at DIES knows, is the beneficiary. DIES removes the ad because it only allows one person to buy someone's death insurance at a time.

If bad luck befalls your neighbor within ninety days of the sale of his death insurance, then DIES will pay the purchaser your ten thousand dollars from your escrow account. They keep the ten percent purchase price as their profit, no matter what happens. This is a lucrative arrangement for DIES, as you can see.

You should not be surprised to hear that people named in these death insurance policies often meet a violent end within ninety days — they have a very high probability of being shot, poisoned, run over, blown up, or whatever — and the person who purchased the policy gets paid. To collect his payment, he must provide documented proof of the death of the victim — a scan of a death certificate, an obituary, a funeral notice, whatever.

If nobody buys the insurance policy that you issued for your neighbor, or if your neighbor survives more than ninety days, then you can get your ten thousand dollars back out of escrow. Or you can increase the value of the policy and put more money into escrow. Maybe someone who didn't want it for ten thousand dollars will buy it for fifty thousand dollars.

You might think that DIES' so-called death insurance is nothing more than a contract for murder-for-hire, but even that is debatable. All they do is broker private insurance policies. It's the same business model as any traditional life insurance company. We don't call MetLife a co-conspirator when someone kills his spouse to collect the insurance. In the case of DIES, they aren't even paying for the death. They're only handing over money that they're holding in escrow for someone else.

But what about Miss Caravelt, sitting here beside me? Even if you take the unprecedented leap to conclude that DIES is a murder-for-hire enterprise rather than simply an insurance broker, is Miss Caravelt really a co-conspirator like the prosecutor says?

No, she is not.

What did she actually do? Last year, she answered an advertisement that offered contracts for private investigations. That's what she does. She has been a licensed private investigator for eight years. After answering the ad, every few days, she was sent information about a death — a shooting or a stabbing or some such — somewhere in the country. She was paid a fee to write a one-paragraph opinion about whether that information was true or false. That's it. Her only job was say if an obituary or a medical report or some such documentation was real or fake. She had no idea who was offering the contracts or who was paying her. She would receive a scan of documents in an anonymous email, make a few phone calls, send back a couple of sentences saying what she found, and receive a Bitcoin transfer into her account. If that's considered murder, then every reporter who ever checked a source for a crime story could be considered a criminal after the fact.

The only reason that the police suspected that she was working for DIES was that she phoned a hospital to ask about the fate of Kyle Chang, a victim of a hit and run. The coroner, who had already been questioned by the police because Mr. Chang died a week after a DIES death insurance policy had been issued for him, reported her query.

Nothing that she did makes her a co-conspirator in a murder-for-hire enterprise. Conspiracy requires an agreement between people about a crime before that crime is committed. She agreed to nothing beforehand. She had no idea that Mr. Chang even existed, much less that someone might want him dead badly enough to offer a hundred-thousand-dollar policy for his death. Nor did she know beforehand that any of the other dozens of victims whose deaths she verified were going to be murdered.

The only thing that Miss Caravelt knew was that these people had met violent ends. Some of them had been killed deliberately and some died in apparent accidents, but she knew nothing about DIES. She'd never even heard of DIES before the police arrested her. She never looked at the DIES website and had no idea that any of these people had been insured with policies that DIES brokered.

So why did the police arrest her when she is obviously innocent? Why did the district attorney indict her and bring her to trial? Because they're frustrated. They have spent millions of dollars investigating DIES almost since its inception and they haven't been able to identify and arrest a single employee of the corporation. They don't know who owns it or who works for it. Occasionally, they have caught, arrested, and convicted the real murderers — the people who bought DIES policies and then killed the people named in them — but those people don't know who works for DIES or even who issued the policies. For all the countless man-hours the police have spent investigating DIES, they haven't identified a single employee or contractor. They need a scapegoat to justify their waste of taxpayers' money so they arrested the only person that they could find: the hapless defendant in this trial who had never heard of DIES and had no idea that she was receiving contracts from them.

If you convict her of murder when she is demonstrably innocent, then anyone who ever takes any contract for any service online, from designing wedding invitations to doing some bookkeeping, might be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder if, completely unbeknown to them, their client is involved in a murder.

In summary, you have no grounds, whatsoever, for finding Miss Caravelt guilty of murder. You must return a verdict of not guilty.

Thank you.

Kolath's Revenge

I wait for Brice Kolath to come back into my life, and I am terrified. It's been seven years since I saw him last, but he swore to return and take his revenge on me. He swore it, and I have never known him to break an oath.

Every night, he haunts me. I think about him before I fall asleep, and I awake screaming in the darkest hour, certain that his shadow looming over my bed.

In seven years, I have never slept through a full night.

It's my fault. I knew what Kolath is like. I've known ever since we were in grade school together. He holds a grudge. Not forever, only until he has satisfied his thirst for revenge. But it takes an awful lot of misery to satisfy Kolath.

The first time I watched Kolath exact revenge was when Bobby Horowitz crossed him in Grade Six. Bobby was a bully. If a kid was smaller than him, Bobby would push him around, take his stuff, treat him like dirt. And all of us were smaller than Bobby. He was a big kid because he'd been put back a grade in primary school.

So one day, Bobby turned his attention to Kolath. He called Kolath a wimp and took his lunch — not to eat it, but to stomp on it until it was a soggy bag of mush.

Kolath wasn't stupid enough to attack Bobby — he would have suffered the same fate as his lunch — but he wasn't intimidated, either. He looked Bobby square in the eye and told him that one day, he was going to make him regret that he'd done that. He said that it wouldn't happen right away, because nothing bad enough could happen to a kid in Grade Six. No, Kolath said that he was going to wait until Bobby was older and had something that was really important to him — something that was as important to him as life itself — and then Kolath was going to take that thing away from him.

That's the way Kolath talked, even back in Grade Six. When Kolath speaks of revenge, every sentence he utters is a fresh curse of doom.

Bobby didn't get it right then. He laughed and told Kolath that he was chickenshit and walked away.

But after that, Kolath wouldn't leave Bobby alone. The next day, Kolath asked Bobby if he liked his bike. It was a nice red bike that Bobby had got for Christmas. Kolath said that it'd be a real shame if Bobby lost it.

Bobby threatened Kolath, of course. Said that he'd beat Kolath to a pulp if anything happened to his bike.

Kolath said that he wasn't going to touch Bobby's bike. If something happened to it, it would be someone or something else that did it. It would be an act of God.

Bobby started being extra careful to lock up his bike at school. He'd double check that the lock was fastened and then check it again. Then he started going out to check on his bike at recess and at lunch time. Kolath wouldn't stop talking about the bike, though. Every few days he'd make a comment about it — what a nice color it was; how nice it must be to ride; that is sure had a lot of gears; that sort of thing. He made no specific threats, just reminded Bobby that he hadn't forgotten about him and his bike.

After a few weeks, Bobby started leaving his bike at home and walking to school, but even that didn't stop Kolath from focusing on it. He must have been spying on Bobby because he knew that Bobby kept his bike in his garage at home and asked Bobby if he'd checked that the garage door was locked properly before he came to school because it'd be a shame if his father had left it open and someone went in and stole his bike.

At the end of the year, Bobby told Kolath that he was an idiot because nothing had happened to his bike all year. Kolath just smiled and said that he didn't care about Bobby's bike. Some kid's dumb old bike wasn't important enough. He was going to take something from Bobby would be as important as life itself.

Year after year, Kolath never let it go. In Seventh Grade, it was Bobby's mother. Kolath said that he'd heard that Bobby's mother and father didn't get along and that they might separate and Bobby's father would get custody of him. Kolath said that he might just have to send a note to Bobby's father about some of the things his mother did. Bobby was terrified of his father because he was a violent, short-tempered man.

In Eighth Grade, it was Bobby's dog. In Ninth Grade, his best friend. Tenth Grade, his first girlfriend. Eleventh Grade, his varsity letter.

But in Grade Twelve, Bobby decided that Kolath was all talk. He figured that Kolath wasn't really going to take anything away. So he told Kolath to go take a hike and stop bugging him.

That was when Kolath struck. By their senior year, Bobby was smoking a lot of pot. He was one of the biggest heads in the class, so Kolath took his pot away. It was easy. Kolath found out where Bobby's scored his weed and dropped a dime on his dealer. He had the cops bust the guy. Bobby found another source and, within a week, Kolath made another anonymous call. He spread the word that anyone who sold or gave so much as a flake to Bobby Horowitz was going to get busted. He hinted that Bobby was a narc who was ratting out his own dealers. Bobby's friends were scared even to share a joint with him. They hid their stash when Bobby was around.

In less than two weeks, Kolath had taken all the joy out of Bobby's life.

Bobby didn't stick around. He dropped out of school, hopped on a Greyhound, and moved to Florida.

That was Kolath's revenge over nothing but losing a sandwich and a couple of cookies way back in Sixth Grade.

Bobby Horowitz wasn't the only person who ever regretted crossing Brice Kolath.

Kolath dated a couple of different girls in high school. When they broke up with him, it was no big thing. He didn't hold a grudge against them for moving on.

But Gail Victor was a different matter entirely. Kolath and Gail were an item for most of Twelfth Grade. But then, just after Easter, the varsity quarterback — I don't recall his name — took Gail up to make-out hill, where they did a little more than just make out. If she'd broken up with Kolath before riding the quarterback, it would have been all right, but poor Gail thought that she could keep Kolath and have her secret quarterback on the side. She misjudged the quarterback's need to brag and the efficacy of the high school grape vine. Within three days, everyone in the school knew that Gail had cheated on Kolath. Including Kolath.

He didn't yell and scream at her. He didn't even tell her that he knew that she'd gone out behind his back. He took her into the girls' washroom next to the chemistry lab, stood her in front of the mirror, stepped behind her, and whispered in her ear that her head looked like a pumpkin. He showed her that it was big and round. Her tan had an orange tinge and skin was tough like pumpkin rind. He made her see her eyes as holes with candle light flickering in them, and he traced her mouth with his finger, describing it as a dark, gap-toothed hole and cast her nose as a vacant triangle. He told her that everyone saw her the way he was describing her. She was the only person in the world who thought that she looked normal.

Then he walked away and left her staring at herself, imagining all the ways that her head looked like a jack o' lantern. His revenge was that quick and simple.

A quarter hour later, when she walked back out of that washroom, she looked the same to us as she always had. But to herself, every time she looked in a mirror, she saw a pumpkin head. The seed that Kolath had planted grew every day. We wondered if Kolath had cast a magical spell on her to warp her mind.

Gail started therapy before graduation and, last I heard, was still attending sessions every week without fail. She never had another boyfriend.

People started calling Kolath a wizard. An evil wizard.

Kolath didn't mind.

University was a particularly trying time, both for Kolath, and for any student or professor who crossed him.

In his calculus class in first year, he was convinced that the professor — a contract instructor who was not on faculty and was, therefore, especially vulnerable — was biased against him for being Caucasian. The professor liked having a small class and was known for a high failure rate. After the midterm exam, Kolath was the only student left in the class who wasn't Asian. He didn't think that was an accident. On exams, he noticed that other students got partial credit for answers whereas he was given zeros for the slightest mistake.

In the end, he passed the course, but barely. He did nothing about it until the following year. Then he started asking students if they'd heard about the professor making sexual comments about girls in his class the previous year. He never made a direct accusation, just asked the question. At first, everyone said they had never heard the professor say anything inappropriate. But as Kolath continued to ask the question in different ways, suggesting some specific comments, a few students began to think that maybe they did have a vague recollection of such comments. And as time wore on, they became more certain. By the middle of the term, three women had gone to the department head, independently, each swearing that they remembered hearing the instructor make highly inappropriate remarks about other female students.

The professor was replaced before the end of the term, and rumor has it that he hasn't worked since.

I could tell you another half-dozen stories about Kolath taking revenge on someone who wronged him but I'm sure you've got the idea.

Which brings me to my nightmares.

After Kolath and I graduated from the state college, we started a business together. It seemed like a good idea because we were both near the top of our class and he and I had always gotten along with no problem.

Our business wasn't one of those amazing billion-dollar, dot-com, social-media ventures or a cool, high-end, organic-vegan-food store or anything exciting like that. It was just a little management consulting agency, specializing in statistical analyses and reporting. Kolath and I did all right for a while. We had a few steady clients and managed to attract enough small contracts to fill in the gaps and generate a healthy income.

We did very well for a couple of years, until it became clear that Kolath and I had a different vision for the company. I wanted us to be a boutique firm that catered to successful businesses that had a special need for psychometric models of their customers. Kolath wanted to become a corporation with a staff of minons that offered a smorgasbord of standard services at discount prices.

As friction between us increased, it was inevitable that we dissolve the company and go our separate ways. But it was not inevitable that I set up a new company behind his back, leave without warning, and take our entire client base with me.

Kolath was angry. I told him that it was just business, but that made no difference to him. He takes everything personally.

Late in the evening after we closed our office for the last time, he came to my door, vowed revenge, and disappeared into the night.

As I said, I haven't seen him for seven years, but that means nothing. Kolath's revenge is as certain as the tides. He never, ever forgets or forgives.

I have no idea what he's going to do to me. Every night before I fall asleep, I imagine some new horror that's about to unleash itself on my life, but I'm under no illusions. My imagination is limited; Kolath's is not. When the wizard returns, he will bring a blight that will wither my days and reduce my life to ash.

I hope only that he comes back soon. I can't keep living with this terror for much longer.

The Redemption of Corporal Ritchie

Everybody in the regiment knew Corporal Jake Ritchie, the colonel's clerk. Nobody liked him, but everybody knew him.

Ritchie was a lowlife of the first water. The little weasel would smile to your face and stab you in the back every time.

The only reason the colonel didn't transfer him to the front was because Ritchie was a first rate bootlicker. Groveling never offended the colonel. No flattery was too outrageous, no sniveling too pathetic for his taste.

But in the cracks between flattery and obeisance, Ritchie never failed to slip in a few words claiming that this lieutenant or that sergeant was failing in his duty in some way or another. According to Ritchie, there were only two prefect soldiers in the entire regiment: the colonel and Ritchie himself.

Some of us thought that Ritchie did this because he was bucking for promotion — sergeant, or maybe even a recommendation for officer candidacy — though we knew that was never going to happen. The colonel wasn't a fool. As much as he loved Ritchie's sycophancy, he knew that Ritchie was no leader of men.

Others thought it more likely that Ritchie didn't have an ulterior motive. It was simply his nature to be a jealous backbiter. Ritchie knew in his heart that he was never going to amount to anything, so he never wanted anyone else to amount to anything, either.

During the time he worked for the colonel, Ritchie's greatest success was scuttling the promotion of Major Moran. Moran was a rising star. He'd caught the attention of senior command when he'd developed strategies that resulted in some critical victories. Though only in his mid-thirties, he was recommended for promotion to lieutenant colonel.

Ritchie was infuriated to see a better man fast-tracked to a senior rank. He launched a relentless whispering campaign to impugn Moran's moral character. At various times, he claimed that Moran smoked opium, caroused with women of easy virtue, and blasphemed God.

Few believed these outrageous stories, but they made the senior command question whether or not Moran held the respect of the troops. Moran's recommendation for promotion was sidelined, pending further investigation, and he was transferred overseas.

Ritchie couldn't contain his delight and our disgust for the worm sank to a new low. We also lost considerable respect for the senior officers who had shown themselves to be susceptible to such a crude, simple-minded sabotage of a fine officer.

Then, one rainy afternoon in March, a stray dog slunk into camp. The mongrel looked to be a mix of several large breeds. We could see a bit of golden lab, maybe some Rottweiler, and definitely German shepherd there. Maybe it even had a bit of boxer. The mangey beast was starving; its ribs stood stark beneath its patchy fur. It sidled around the garbage bins, trying to nose the lids off, raising its hackles, baring its teeth, and snarling fiercely at anyone who dared get near it.

Two mangled ears, bent tail, and cruel scars on its flanks told the story of more than one fight to the death. This beast had been the survivor, but it had suffered for its victories.

The cooks couldn't get near the bins to throw out the garbage and nobody could empty them.

Sergeant Whitford declared that the only way to keep the base operating efficiently was to shoot the mongrel dead, and he was the man to do the job.

Maybe for the first time in his life, Ritchie confronted a man directly instead of sneaking around behind his back. He stood tall between that mongrel and Whitford's rifle, looked the sergeant in the eye, and told him to leave the mutt alone. He declared that he'd take care of the dog himself.

Whitford was so surprised that he backed off and let Ritchie have his way.

To this day, I don't know why Ritchie cared about that ugly mongrel. My best guess is that he found fellowship in a creature that was as reviled as he was.

Moving the beast away from the mess was no easy task. It would eat food that was thrown at his feet, but it wouldn't budge from the garbage cans. It seemed convinced that it was going to find some way to open them and gain access to the motherlode of scraps inside.

For two full days, Ritchie devoted every spare minute and four pounds of ground beef to lure the creature away from the mess to behind the command post. There was no reason for anyone to go back there, so the mongrel would be safely out of the way.

We had to give Ritchie credit for his persistence. He spent every waking moment out back, sitting as near he could to that dog, feeding it and talking to it.

Sometime in the second week, he got close enough to touch it. I wasn't there, but I heard that he never could approach the dog; he had to wait until the dog decided to approach him. He never tried to put a collar on it.

A mongrel that's had a hard life won't give its trust easy, but when it does, it becomes a staunch friend.

A month after its arrival in camp, that mongrel was following Ritchie around like a shadow. That dog will never be handsome — its ears will always be mangled, its tail will never grow straight, and its fur will never fully cover its scars — but with good food and care, it grew strong and proud. It stood tall, held its head high, and walked boldly. And if someone threatened a man, it would spring to his defence without hesitation.

It was a soldier's dog to its core.

Ritchie, to the amazement of all, followed the dog's lead. He began acting like a real soldier for the first time in his life. He couldn't let that mongrel be the better man than himself. When a man did wrong, Ritchie began standing up to him and telling him to his face to back off instead of lurking around, stabbing him in the back later.

I won't say that anyone began to respect Ritchie, but we didn't see him as low as we used to, either.

Turnover is high during a war and, every month, there were fewer men on base who remembered Ritchie the worm and more who saw him as the soldier with the dog.

Ritchie was doing a better job for the colonel. He was working harder and treating men better. But he stopped groveling for him and that lost the colonel's favor.

That did the trick. To get Ritchie out of his office, the colonel promoted him to sergeant and gave him command of his own squad. Ritchie's squad wasn't the best in the regiment, nor was he the best leader, but it wasn't the worst, either. They were a respectable fighting unit.

A month later, Ritchie's squad was sent into combat. He had to leave the mongrel in my care. Their parting was one of the saddest things I ever saw. The dog understood that Ritchie was leaving and whined pitifully. Ritchie's eyes overflowed. No man thought the less of him for his tears.

The mongrel never left the base. We named it Corporal Dog Soldier and made it the unofficial base mascot.

There was a rumor that Major Moran made the command decision to put Ritchie's squad on the point of the assault on Stronghold Foxtrot. I don't know if that's true or not. Rumors abound in the army. But I do know that payback comes to each of us some day, one way or another, and it's always a bitch.

Ritchie was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for exceptional valor. In the end, he'd become a first-rate soldier.

Old Bones in the Hills

Youngsters these days, they don't know what it was like back in the day. It was different. We took care of our own problems. We didn't go running off to the government every time someone stubbed their toe. I mean, we had our sheriff and the state troopers, but we didn't bother with them. They was there to help the rich folks, not us ordinary working fellas.

Sure, these youngsters today got a lot to say about what we should and shouldn't have done back then, but like I said, they wasn't around, seeing what we saw — seeing what needed to be done. And if they'd of seen it, they wouldn't of had the fortitude to take matters into their own hands like we did. These youngsters go running off to momma every time someone looks cross-eyed at them.

You got to understand, first off, that nobody had much money back then. Well, Frank Wentworth did. He was the big cheese. He owned half the valley and we was mostly tenant farmers on his land and that was a raw deal and we all knew it, but that's the way it'd always been, so there wasn't nothing to be done about that.

Back then, when you wanted to kick your heels up on a Saturday night, you needed a jug of shine. You didn't go down to the liquor store and part with your hard-earned cash. Who could afford store-bought whiskey? Prices in Wentworth's store were more'n double what you'd pay in any store in Little Rock and Little Rock was too dear for us. We wasn't about to fill Wentworth's pockets with any more of our money than we had to. He was already getting everything we had, being that he owned all the decent land here about. Bleeding us white, he was.

So when Saturday rolled around, we didn't get store-bought whiskey, we distilled our own sour mash up in the hills, and we passed the jug around, nobody asking for nothing from nobody else. We all pulled our own weight, and we all shared our shine.

It was all good until the day Wentworth decided that he didn't like losing out on the liquor sales. He was the one who called the government on us. I can't swear to that on the Bible, but we all knew it for sure. I'd bet my bottom dollar it was him.

More'n a hundred years, going back farther than anyone can remember, our family's been brewing our own shine, just like the Johnsons and the Kellys and the MacDougals and all the other folks around. It was tradition and all of a sudden, for no good reason, two of them government men was coming around in their funeral suits and ties, flashing their brass badges and asking us where the stills are and saying that they's going to lock us all up in jail as soon as they find our shine. They busted into our barns and sheds, looking for jugs and copper kettles and anything else that might be part of our operations. Nobody ever heard of a search warrant back in those days. The government just busted in wherever they felt like, whenever they felt like. They favored coming around in the middle of the night when we was trying to get some rest before spending another day behind the plow.

They didn't find nothing, of course. We been hiding our operations for a hundred years and we're good at it. City fellas don't know jack about how we do things up in the hills.

So the government men got frustrated, and then they got nasty. And I know for a fact that Wentworth was back there in the shadows, egging them on, telling them stories about all the shine we was making. Rivers of the stuff, according to Wentworth. Whole lakes full.

So it's no surprise that somebody spilled the beans. They was beating on Bob Kelly's boy and he cracked and told them that they should look in the gully up near Iron Springs, where Iron Creek carved itself a little valley. I got to give the boy credit. He took a hell of a beating before telling them what they wanted to hear. Which was why they took every word for gospel.

The Kelly boy told them to go up the gully to Iron Springs at high noon because that was when we'd be up there, working our stills.

Now you got to understand that the gully's shear on both sides because of the way the creek's been wearing through the rock since Genesis. The only way to get to Iron Springs is to follow the creek all the way up, and a man with a rifle at the top can see you coming from a mile away and have a clear shot at you when you get close. And all of us fellas was crack shots with our deer rifles.

The agents went up Iron Creek with sledge hammers to break up the stills and brought extra handcuffs for all the fellas that they was going to arrest. Except that they went in and never came out. Nobody never seen them again.

The sheriff and his boys investigated as best as they could, and so did more government men who came to town. They talked to all of us, but none of us seen anything or heard anything or knew anything. We'd all been out working our fields when the agents disappeared. We swore to it.

Of course, we was all upset that Wentworth had called outsiders to come in and meddle in our business. That wasn't the way we do things. We all understood how things were done, and Wentworth had broke our pact. It was betrayal beyond forgiveness.

Two weeks after the agents went back to where they came from, Frank Wentworth's house burned to the ground in the middle of the night. Someone throwed gasoline all over the back stoop and put a match to it. Wentworth and his family got out okay, so that was good, but there was nothing left for them in the valley.

The sheriff and his boys investigated that, too, but nobody around here didn't know nothing about the arson, so they was beating their heads against a brick wall.

Wentworth had seen the handwriting on his bedroom walls as they was burning down, and the handwriting said that his family wasn't welcome around here anymore. He got smart and moved his family out of the valley and over to Little Rock.

He sold our land to us at a fair price — gave us all mortgages at a decent rate of interest — so we left him alone after that. It was a lot of land and he got a lot of money, so it was a good deal all around.

He tried to hang on to his stores in town, but nobody would shop there no more — we started taking the extra time and expense to buy our staples out of the valley — so in the end, he had to sell them to us, too.

See, that's how problems got taken care of back in the day. We didn't need outsiders meddling in our business. We handled matters ourselves.

Everything would have stayed fine if they hadn't started building those new houses up on Morton's Hill and dug up those old bones. Bones riddled with bullet holes and rusted out handcuffs and sledge hammers all buried together. Now we got a new crop of young government fellas coming back to the valley to investigate. The youngsters are saying that they got new science that's going to solve the old mystery. They say that it don't matter that all that happened so long ago. They won't let old dogs rest when it's murder that they's investigating. Especially murders of government agents.

But we old timers aren't worried about them. They don't know as much as they think. The old ways is the best ways, so we'll make out just fine. You just wait and see.

Raine Lake

If you remember the movie, When Harry Met Sally, you'll remember that Harry goes to great lengths to convince Sally that he has an epic dark side. Harry's cynicism, my friend, was but a pimple on his personality compared to the darkness in my heart when I was a young man.

I was cynical about everything, from produce in the local supermarket to politicians in the nation's capital. I knew in my black heart that they were all rotten to the core.

In high school, I expressed my disdain weekly by publishing an underground newspaper that tore into the establishment with total abandon. Thirty-five years ahead of my time, I anticipated the modern style of publishing news articles based on no facts whatsoever. I just ranted and raved about anything that aggrieved me.

And in my spare time, I pined for the girl next door. Literally next door. The Lake family bought the old Fitzgerald house the year before I graduated. My parents said that they were a bunch of old hippies who weren't raising their daughter right.

The first time I saw Raine Lake, I was smitten. She had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a centerfold-worthy body.

She was my age and went to the same high school, but I was invisible to her. She dated older men — college students with muscle cars and muscled bodies.

I didn't have the guts to introduce myself to such a goddess, much less ask her out. Instead, I pretended to my few friends that I knew my new neighbor well and told them, based on no facts whatsoever, that she was an airhead with the personality of a moldy tomato. They were quick to believe me when they saw her strolling down the school hallways, chattering and giggling with her equally flaky friends, not one of whom would give any of us the time of day.

All year, Raine broke my heart from afar.

After graduation, I got a summer job at McDonalds. I needed to earn some money before I started university in the fall and McDonalds was the only employer willing to hire me. I did not interview well. Working fast food is a job that will drag a boy's cynicism down to lower depths than ever. It was a perfect place for me to wallow in my misery.

One day in July, I was working the counter when Raine Lake came in to order a Big Mac with no sauce, and a strawberry shake to go. She did not want fries with that. She acknowledged my existence for the first time. She greeted me by name. I was shocked because I'd swapped name tags with some other guy just to mess with people, but Raine ignored the false moniker and knew my real name. She commented that we'd never been in the same class, which was almost true. We'd taken world history together, but she'd never noticed, probably because I usually ditched class — Mrs. Haliburton was lax about keeping attendance — and on the few occasions that I did attend, I sat in the back corner. I never said a word in that class. World history was beneath me and I was certain that everything Mrs. Haliberton taught was wrong. I couldn't say exactly why, but I was dead certain anyway.

When Raine got her food, she said that I should come over for coffee sometime. She was moving to Africa with her family for a year and it would be a pity if she didn't get to know me before she left. She was serious. She made a firm appointment. She asked when I was getting my next day off and told me to come over to her house at ten in the morning.

She took her Big Mac and strawberry shake and left me in such a turmoil of emotion that I don't know how I managed to finish my shift. I was elated that Raine Lake would talk to me, devastated that she was moving to the other side of the world, and terrified of having to be alone with her for even the time it would take to drink a cup of coffee.

Despite my terror, I went over to her place at the appointed time: freshly showered and wearing a clean shirt, which I didn't always do.

When I knocked on her door, I half-expected that she'd be lying in wait with a bunch of her friends, pointing at me and laughing, snapping pictures of me: the sucker that could believe a perfect ten like her would actually want to talk to a loser like me. I imagined that she'd heard about the nasty tales I'd told behind her back and had set a trap to get revenge by humiliating me.

The bastard child of cynicism is paranoia.

My fear was a waste of psychic energy. She was alone, delighted to see me, and invited me in for the promised cup of coffee.

We talked for two hours. We couldn't have been more different. Where I was dark and cynical, she was bright and naïve. Her world was a wonderful place, populated by wonderful people, where everything was getting better every day in every way. I don't think that she even noticed my cynicism. Darkness couldn't penetrate her rose-colored glasses.

Then she shattered my world with a few words. She told me that she believed in free love. She hated the games men and women play over something as simple and trivial as sex. The world would be so much better if everyone stopped making devious and failure-prone plans to seduce each other and just hopped straight into bed together and made each other happy.

I choked on my last sip of coffee. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My vision fogged and I felt like I was going to pass out. When I shook my head clear enough to settle my thoughts, I said that free love was a nice theory but I didn't see it working in practice.

She told me that she'd show me how it worked in practice. She took my hand and dragged me to her bedroom.

My world was never the same again. She moved away the following week, but I spent the rest of the summer floating on a cloud. Every day was sunny, and every night was filled with starlight. The scales had been torn from eyes, and I saw that relentless cynicism is just as naïve as unwarranted optimism. Raine's goodness proved that there is good in the world as well as bad and, for the first time, I was seeing both.

I became the journalist that you see today, and won respect and two Pulitzers, because Raine taught me to see both the good and the evil side of everything, and like the great writers, I spent my life writing about the eternal struggle between the two.

Over the years, I've often thought about Raine Lake and the incredible gift she gave to me, but not as much as I've dwelt on those memories during the past couple of weeks.

See, I had a heart attack on the twenty-fourth of last month. It wasn't fatal, obviously, but one of my arteries was a hundred percent occluded. They installed a stent and I spent a day and a night in the hospital and now I'm as good as new.

After the operation, the surgeon stopped by my room to spend her coffee break with me. I was surprised that Raine still remembered me. After a year in Africa, she came back to study medicine and specialized in cardiac surgery. She was a lot smarter than I gave her credit for in high school. Smarter than me, if the truth be known.

She doesn't practice free love any more — she's married and has a handful of grandchildren — but she's still wearing her rose-colored glasses. She's harnessed her optimism and put it to work. For thirty years, she's been making the world a better place by saving lives every day.

I'll not see her again, but I'll remember until my dying day the woman who fixed my heart twice.

Simple Arithmetic

My neighbor, Stan Dorn, brought a petition around the other day and wanted me to sign it. I read it over, of course. I don't sign anything unless I understand it and figure that it's in my best interests.

This wasn't the typical petition being circulated by some national charitable organization wanting to save the whales or to stop fracking. Rather, it was a petition that Stan had written himself, complete with bad grammar and littered with spelling mistakes. He was demanding that schools stop teaching math the new way and go back to teaching it like he'd learned it, half a century ago.

I was a bit puzzled by that. Stan never seemed like the kind of guy who cared about math, one way or the other. I asked why it was so important to him.

He stuck out his lower jaw and glared at me. It seemed that this issue was emotionally significant for him. Who would have guessed?

He said that he'd looked at his kid's homework and it was just plain crazy. The kid was supposed to be learning long division, only he wasn't learning anything. The steps that his teacher told him to do didn't make any sense at all. There was no way for anyone to get the right answer the way the kid had been taught.

Stan was making it his mission to put the education system back on track and make them teach kids the proper way to do arithmetic. The proper way, in his opinion, was the way that we learned it and our grandparents learned it, and so had everyone else, all the way back to the age of the pyramids.

I told him that the way modern kids do arithmetic is to take out their cellphones and run the calculator app. I was surprised to hear that modern schools even bothered teaching long division anymore. Seems like a waste of their time.

Telling that to Stan didn't make him one bit less angry. No, sir. He got red in the face and told me that he didn't need a cellphone and his kid was going to know what to do if he didn't have one handy, either, and that if I was smart, I'd want my kid to know how to do arithmetic the old way, too.

I knew what was making Stan angry. He'd tried to help his kid with his second grade homework and hadn't been able to do it. I doubted that Stan could do long division the old way any better than the new way. He probably hadn't done a long division problem in forty years. So the poor man had been embarrassed by his eight-year-old and that made him madder than a hornet.

I probably shouldn't have egged Stan on, but to my discredit, I couldn't pass up a golden opportunity to have a little fun at the poor man's expense.

It happened that I'd been about to hang a picture in the entryway when Stan rang my doorbell. I'd been about to hang that picture ever since Mary asked me to, a few weeks back, but this seemed like the perfect time to get busy and actually do it.

I asked Stan if he'd take a minute and give me a hand. It was a heavy picture — an oil painting in a gilt frame that Mary had picked up at a yard sale — and hanging it would be easier if Stan could help out.

Stan wanted my signature on his petition, so he agreed.

I told Stan that we had to figure out where to put the hangers. I wanted to hang the picture on two hooks about six inches apart. I grabbed the tape measure and handed Stan a pencil and a pad of paper to write down the measurements.

The wall was seventy-three and a quarter inches from one side to the other. The picture was thirty-six and a half inches wide.

Also, the picture was twenty-seven inches tall and I wanted the center of the picture to be about five and a half feet off the floor. The wire in the back was five inches from the top of the frame, but I figured that it would stretch up about two inches when it was hanging from the hooks.

I asked Stan to figure out where the hooks should be nailed while I went to get my hammer.

I took the time to brew a cup of coffee for him and me, but even that didn't give him enough time. He was still figuring up a storm when I got back.

I sat and sipped my coffee and waited until he was satisfied with his numbers.

When he read them off, I measured the position on the wall and hammered the nails home. I put them exactly where he said; I didn't even look at where they were until the picture was hung from them.

You won't be surprised to hear that the right edge of the picture was seven and a half inches from one side of the wall and the left edge twenty-nine and a quarter inches from the other side, and the top of the picture was level with my shoulders. To say that it was not exactly centered at eye level would be an understatement. I had to stand to one side and stoop over to look at it.

Stan sputtered and began checking his calculations.

Unfortunately, right then, Mary came to see what all the banging was about.

Stan's anger about new math was like a summer breeze compared to the blast of Mary's fury at seeing her picture so poorly placed on the wall. Mostly because it was the first thing that everyone would see when they came through the front door. Let's just say that her vocabulary was not suitable for work.

It didn't help when I told her that Stan had calculated the measurements because he was really good at arithmetic.

She turned her rage toward Stan.

He dropped his pen and all his papers and fled.

That was a month ago. Stan hasn't yet come back to get his petition, which was one of the papers that he dropped when he ran off.

I haven't taken it over to his place because I've been busy trying to find the time to place the picture in the right spot and fill the nail holes from when it was hung wrong. I really got to get around to that soon, because Mary keeps harping on it something fierce every time she comes in the front door.

If Stan ever does come to get his petition back, he might notice that it still doesn't have my signature on it. Judging by the way he calculated the place for those hooks, I can't see how the new math could possibly be any worse than the old math that we'd all learned back when we were in grade school.

Space Aliens from the Milky Way

I've come down here to the police station to make a complaint.

I got space aliens in my garden. Honest-to-goodness little green men from Mars. Except they're not green and they're not from Mars. They're a splotchy grey color like bad army camouflage and, as near as I can tell, they're from some star in the Milky Way.

You probably think I'm crazy. Deluded. Seeing things that aren't there, but I swear it's true. Hear me out and see if you don't come around in your thinking, too.

It all started last May when I decided to grow my own food. Now if anything is crazy, that is. We got supermarkets overflowing with all kinds of food. What kind of a fool would try to grow his own when there's a supermarket a few blocks away? Me, that's who. I figured that I could thumb my nose at the agro-industry by growing better food for free in my own back yard.

I don't know anything about agriculture or horticulture or any other kind of culture, but I figured it couldn't be that hard. What's to know? You rip up the grass to get a bare patch of dirt, throw some seeds down, and wait until you got ripe tomatoes, cobs of corn, and heads of lettuce just waiting for you to pick them and eat them. Oh, I know you got to water it and stuff, but the seed packages got instructions on the back that tell you how to do all that. It's got to be easier than assembling flatpack furniture, right? Because the seed packages have got a short list of instruction using actual words, not page after page of diagrams with arrows and numbers and not a real word anywhere.

So I ripped up most of my lawn, planted a bunch of seeds in neat rows, soaked the ground good, and sat back with a beer, waiting for my dinner. Not right then. I knew that I wasn't going to get food out of the garden the same day that I planted it, but soon enough.

The day I planted my seeds, about when it was getting dark out, I saw a shooting star flash across the sky. Everybody did. There were newspaper articles saying it was what they call a rogue comet that come from somewhere way out there in the Milky Way. You might have read the articles. You might even have seen it for yourself if you'd been outdoors about nine o'clock in the evening at the end of May.

What you wouldn't have seen was the lovely sparkles that fell from the tail as it passed right square over my house.

I figured it was a good omen. In the old days, when everybody was a farmer and grew their own food, they had legends about shooting stars being good omens.

Days passed, and I drank a lot of beer out on the back deck while I watched my garden grow.

It came along just fine. Real fine. The plants grew way faster than I expected. They shot right up, tall as me before I knew it. I figured I'd have to pull bunches of weeds, but I was wrong about that. The only plants that came up were in neat rows right where I'd planted my seeds. I didn't have to lift a finger.

The only disquieting aspect of my garden was that all the plants looked the same.They all had big sturdy stalks and great round leaves. I figured that couldn't be right. Corn has pointy leaves and peas have thin stalks and melons stay close to the ground and so forth. These plants didn't look like any of the pictures on the seed packages. I thought about having someone come over and take a look at them, but I'm not acquainted with anybody who knows any more about gardens than I do. It's not like I have a whole lot of farmers in my social circle.

So in the end, I just drank more beer and waited for harvest when I'd see what I was going to get.

I didn't have to wait long. In less than a month, my plants were higher than my head and each one had big pod in the stalk Not growing out of the stock like corn or a the end of vines like peas. Nope. These were big swellings right in the stalks themselves. It almost looked like the plants were pregnant, which turned out to be closer to the truth than I could have guessed.

I was tempted to cut into one of the pods and see what kind of fruit or vegetable was growing in there, but I decided to be patient and wait to see what happened. I'm not sure why I hesitated; there was just something unnatural about these plants and I didn't want to mess with them if I didn't have to. I didn't know what might happen, you see.

Then, last night, I was sitting out with my beer, looking at my strange garden and wondering if maybe the best thing to do with it would be to go buy a chain saw. The stalks were a foot across at the base now and woody. I was sorely tempted to cut down every last plant and have myself a bonfire. I could clear cut the whole thing, throw down some grass seed and get my lawn back. But before I made up my mind to get off my chair and go do it, the first one hatched.

The pod on the stalk split right down the middle and a splotchy gray man, like I told you about before, stepped out. He was about three feet high and spindly like a tree branch.

I stood up and stared at it. It looked right at me, brazen as all get out, and said, clear as day, "Shoo!"

Now maybe that means Take me to your leader in space alien language, or maybe that's just the way a space alien sneezes. I don't know, but when it did that, I got a powerful urge to run off, so that's what I did. I got out of Dodge, fast as I could. I run off so quick, I didn't even shut my back door behind me.

It might be space alien mind control. Maybe that's why I couldn't cut down the plants, much as I wanted to, and maybe that's why I run off instead of grabbing the little thing and breaking it into kindling like I should have. Or maybe it's just common sense not to mess with a space alien whose seeds come riding on a comet all the way from the Milky Way. Maybe they can shoot death rays from their eyes. I don't know. All I do know is that I'm here and there's space aliens in my garden. Must have been more than a hundred of those plants growing in my back yard and I bet they've all hatched by now, so there'll be plenty of them and I ain't going back until you tell me they're gone.

So if you're not going to do it, then I hope that you can tell me who I should call next. We got enough National Guard and Homeland Security and immigration officers in this country that there's got to be someone who's supposed to take care of these illegal aliens. Because I want to get back home before they move into my house and make a mess. They didn't strike me as likely to be considerate houseguests.

The Way Home

It's going to be great. Another couple of hours on this freeway, an hour on the highway, and I'll be rolling into my driveway, back home.

They say you can't go home again, but I don't see that. Sure, I've been away for close to ten years, but Smitherton is still my home. There's no question that it'll be the same as when I left. Nothing ever changes in Smitherton. Well, maybe it's not fair to say that nothing changes — it's not still stuck in the nineteenth century — but changes come at a glacial pace. Ten years isn't long enough for anything to be noticeably different.

Mom and Dad will still be living in the second brick house on Red Maple Lane. Randy will still be working at the Co-op. She'll be promoted to cashier now, or maybe even assistant manager, but maybe not. Maybe she'll finally have married Jackson, or maybe not. But what does it matter if they're officially hitched or still just shacking up? Mom's never going to like Jackson, whether he makes an honest woman of Randy or not. Nor how many more grandkids Randy and him make.

Mom will tell me all the latest gossip, but they'll be the same stories as when I left, only the names will be different. Someone will be having an affair with someone's wife and now she's pregnant and her husband doesn't know that it's not his; someone will be fighting with his brother over some land because their father meant to split the estate but happened to die before he got around to changing his will; someone will be claiming that the traffic accident that totaled his car was the other guy's fault and it's unfair that the insurance won't pay for it just because he blew too high on the breathalyzer. There's only so many stories you can tell in Smitherton and who cares if this time the someone in the story is named Smith instead of Jones?

I sure don't. Not after spending ten years working all around the world. Why care if some woman is lying to her husband in Smitherton when thousands of women are being brutalized in Burundi? Why care if two brothers are arguing about a couple acres of land here when a million Rohingya are driven from their land at gunpoint in Burma? Why care if some drunk lost his car when thousands of Syrian civilians are being bombed in their beds by their own government?

Mom and Dad are going to ask about what I've been doing and I'll tell them about the beauty of Ha Long Bay, and the magnificence of Mount Fuji, and the wonder of Angkor Wat and it won't mean a thing to them. They see the pictures flash by on the National Geographic channel as they skip from one insipid sitcom to the next, but they never pause to look. When I tell them about the world outside of Smitherton, they won't be any more interested than when Michael Palin or Anthony Bourdain talks about it on TV.

I spent the last year in D.C., but they won't be interested in what I was doing there, either. They'll be more interested in the Prius that I'm driving than in the work that I've been doing. Dad will ask about the gas mileage and Mom will comment on the color. They won't care to know how their taxes might make the world a better place.

In the next election, just like in all the previous elections, they'll automatically vote for the Republican name on the ballot, no matter what policies the party proposes. They won't even try to understand why one policy might be better than another. As long as the Republican candidate says that he's going to make America great by trying to roll back the clock, that's good enough for them.

If I try to tell them how much more the government can do, the only thing they'll want to change is the subject.

Maybe I shouldn't be too hard on them. I've got to be honest and admit that I thought the same before I left home. I didn't care about our government's foreign policies until I saw it in action. Spending my first month in Gaza was a real eye opener.

I've got to stop dwelling on the negative, though. I have to keep reminding myself that I've seen more good than evil in the world. That's the real lesson they need to learn. Not only is the world full of great people and great events, it keeps getting better every year because good people are working hard to make it so.

The real tragedy of the small towns like Smitherton is that the people who stay there don't see how great the world is. They've built themselves a comfortable cage, one brick at a time, over generations, and now, they can't see past the walls. They won't believe that any place on earth could possibly be better than their own back yard.

So why am I going back? Good question. Why am I going back? My contract in D.C. is finished, but that only opened new doors. I've got offers for a dozen other contracts in my pocket. I could be flying to London or Beijing or Nairobi right now instead of driving home.

Going to Kenya was tempting. Africa is blossoming. There's more opportunities opening up there than anywhere else on earth. If the Sub-Saharan nations play their cards right, they'll be great world powers in two generations; if they play them wrong, they'll be even worse off. I could do a lot of good in Africa. There's nothing I can to help Smitherton, mostly because the people there don't want their town to be any better than it is. Not if being better means changing anything.

But I'm not going home to change the town; I'm going there for myself. I've spent too much time chasing fires hither and yon. Now, I'm going to take a year's hiatus. I want to get back in touch with my roots and regroup. I need to make some long-term plans. I have to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my working life.

That sounded like a good idea back in D.C., but the closer I get to Smitherton, the more I remember what it was really like, and the less certain I am that this is a good idea. I'm making a mistake if I let the romantic idea of returning home outshine the dull reality of small town life.

I should have realized before I left D.C., that I won't fit back into Smitherton. Not any more. It's still the same square hole, but now I'm a well-rounded peg.

Every mile I drive closer to home, the more I'm tempted by a little contract that I was offered in Peru. It's a full year, but the work is spaced out. It'll give me lots of time to make long-term plans.

I can take the next exit and get back on the freeway in the other direction. I'll call Mom and Dad tonight and tell them that something has come up and I can't come home after all. They won't mind. They might even be relieved.

It turns out that everyone was right. You can't go home again. Not even if home is exactly the same as when you left.

God's Lawn

The minister caught my attention this morning when he said that you can find God in a single blade of grass. I don't usually listen to the sermon, but this one reminded me that I had to mow my lawn. It badly needed cutting, even if God does abide in every blade.

After the service, I told Amanda that there was no hurry for lunch because I wanted to get the lawn mowed before it started to rain. Dark clouds were already massing overhead.

She said she had no intention of making lunch. She was still full from Sunday breakfast. If I wanted to eat, I could scrounge some of last night's leftovers from the fridge.

As soon as I got home, I changed into my old jeans and tee shirt. Amanda claims that I'm in love with holes because the more holes in my clothes, the more I love them.

She must be right because my gardening clothes are my holiest clothes, and that's the way I like them. She's under strict instructions never to throw them out. If I want them in the garbage, I'll put them there myself. Amanda figures that means they'll never get thrown away.

I married a smart woman.

The reason I let the lawn grow so long is that my mower wasn't working so well. In fact, it wasn't working at all. It's an electric mower, you see, and the last time that I'd used it, just as I was finishing up, I turned back to cut the little patch between Amanda's roses and the lilac bush and I ran over the cord. There was a loud snap and a big flash and the mower, deprived of power, stopped. I unplugged the severed end of the cord, and put it away, intending to fix it later.

Later had to be today. The first step in mowing my grass was to splice the power cord back together.

As Amanda will be happy to tell you, I'm not a handy man. She loves to explain at great length to anyone who will listen how I can't do anything useful around the house. She's right. I steadfastly refuse to learn how to do even the simplest home repairs. I draw the line at basic yard work — mowing and raking. I don't even touch the gardens; they're Amanda's responsibility.

But I did want to get the lawn mowed before the rain began, and I wasn't about to buy a new lawnmower just because the cord was cut, so I relaxed my no-DIY rule and set to mending it. I couldn't see how that would pose any great intellectual problem for a smart guy like me.

However, to bolster to my reputation of domestic incompetence, I don't keep a single tool in the house. Not so much as a screwdriver or a hammer. The one time, years ago, when Amanda had the poor judgement to ask me to hang a picture, I used the handle of a table knife to tap the nail home, in the wrong place, which prompted Amanda to finish the job herself. She hasn't asked me to hang anything on a wall since. I can only assume that the new pictures that appear on our walls every so often are placed there by Amanda when I'm out of the house, which suits me fine.

Now, though, having no tools, I was again forced to resort to employing kitchen utensils. I fetched a paring knife to trim the plastic away from the copper wire. Then I twisted the bare wires together — the white one to the white one; the black one to the black one; and the green one to the green one; that was a no brainer. To hold them in place, I wrapped scotch tape around the splices. I know that handymen are supposed to use duct tape for everything, but I'm no handyman, as I said. Scotch tape and staples are middle managers' secret weapons.

I plugged the mower into the wall socket and nothing untoward happened. There were no sparks, no burst of flames, nothing dramatic.

When I grabbed the mower's handle and closed the switch, the blade began to whirl and bits of grass blew out from underneath, just like they should.

Everything worked fine and I congratulated myself for being an undiscovered mechanical genius.

I set to mowing the lawn.

All was going well until I got a whiff of that smell that you would probably recognize: the aroma of melting plastic and ozone. The aroma of an electrical fire.

I looked down at the cord and followed it with my eye across the grass until I reached the joint that I had spliced. Smoke was rising from that ball of scotch tape. A considerable amount of smoke. While I watched, it burst into flame.

If I'd used only a wrap or two of tape, it might have been all right. But I'd wanted the joint to be strong when I tugged on the cord, so I'd smothered it in half a roll. When it burst into flame, it made a sizable fire.

Even that wouldn't have been serious if my splice had been laying on the green grass. Unfortunately, it had been dragged through Amanda's rose garden. And even more unfortunately, I'd decided, last fall, that there was no sense raking the leaves out of her garden. In fact, I'd raked a more leaves onto it. It was a smart idea, you see, because that way, she wouldn't have to buy mulch. The leaves would provide natural mulch for free.

The piles of leaves around the base of Amanda's roses were as dry as tinder. The burning scotch tape ignited them instantly and they began to burn fiercely.

I ran to fetch the hose and turn on the water. By the time I returned, her entire rose garden was in flames. You would not find God in those burning bushes because, unlike Moses' burning bush, these were being consumed.

I twisted the nozzle to get a maximum jet of water and directed it toward the garden. Right at the place where the burning electrical cord was lying. The electrical cord that in my haste, I'd neglected to unplug.

A blue arc snapped through the spray of water and knocked me flat.

When I recovered my senses, I found myself staring at a blade of grass, an inch in front of my face, wondering if God was in there, laughing at me.

Amanda was not laughing. She'd come out of the house to ask me why the lights and TV had gone dark. Now, she was yelling at me for burning up her rose garden. She raced past me go grab the hose. Given a choice between resuscitating her husband and saving her roses, she chose the roses.

She directed the jet of water toward the flames.

I tried to warn her, but she wasn't listening.

It was all right. The circuit breaker had flipped, so the electrical cord was no longer live. Unlike me, she was at no risk of electrocution, and had no idea why I was lying on the grass while her garden was burning.

She had the fire under control before I managed to stagger to my feet.

Her roses were a lost cause. By the time she extinguished the last of the flames, they were black and crispy.

She still hasn't yet forgiven me for immolating her precious flowers, but every disaster has a silver lining. Within the hour, she'd signed a total maintenance contract with a lawn care service and I haven't had to touch a mower or a rake since.

Incompetence is a good and powerful friend to any man who treasures his leisure.

Now, I can throw out my gardening clothes. That should make Amanda happy.

The Midsummer Edenport Rock and Roll Festival

When I was a young man, just getting out of high school, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I guess I could have gone to college, but I didn't apply. My grades weren't so good, more D's than C's, so I didn't figure I'd have much of a chance at getting into Harvard, and if I couldn't get into the best, then I wasn't going to settle for anything less. You know who comes in second? The guy who's not the winner.

Most guys who get out of high school and don't go to college have to get a job because a guy's got to get money somehow. That wasn't me. They wouldn't give me the job that I deserved, and I didn't deserve the jobs that they'd let me have.

The mill where my old man spent his whole life was barely staying afloat and the old guys like him weren't giving up their jobs. They hadn't hired anyone in years, so a union job was out of the question. I wasn't going to spend my days flipping burgers or packing groceries. That's no way to get ahead in the world. I couldn't see wasting my precious years hoping to get promoted to assistant manager of some risky-dink business establishment.

My buddy, Leon, was in the same boat as me, so we spent our summer days together, talking about what we ought to do next. Leon wanted to hit the road, hitchhike across the country, live off the land, survive by our wits.

I figured that meant we'd end up sleeping in a ditch in the rain somewhere. If I wanted to be miserable, I could stay right here in Edenport and be miserable in the comfort of my own room.

I told him that we ought to start our own rock and roll band. Money for nothing and chicks for free, as they say. That sounded good to me.

He pointed out that the problem with my plan was that neither one of us could play a lick or sing a true note. Being musical was kind of a requirement for being in a band.

I told him that we could learn. We spent a lot of hours listening to music. How hard could it be to learn to play a guitar? You just put your left hand on the strings and pick away at them with your right. Lots of guys do it. Besides, if he didn't want to learn the guitar, then he could be the drummer. Anyone could bang a drum.

Try as hard as I did, I could not convince Leon.

But that thinking about that made me think of a great idea. Why should we learn to play music ourselves when the town was already crawling with rock and roll bands? We could organize a concert and let other people play. How hard could it be? We'd find a place, get some bands, post some flyers, and sell tickets. We'd be rolling in dough by the end of the summer.

Leon was keen on my idea. He and I were on the same page at last.

It was going to have to be an outdoor concert because there wasn't a big enough building in our little town, and even if there was, we couldn't afford to rent it. Besides, all the best rock and roll concerts were outdoors. We'd be just like Woodstock!

We went down to city hall to ask about setting up in Shipley Park. We only got halfway through telling the old lady behind the counter what we were planning to do before she told us in no uncertain terms to get lost. We weren't discouraged because we had a backup plan. Leon knew a guy out on the edge of town who had a big field behind his parents' house. They weren't using it, so Leon's friend said it would be cool if we set up a stage and invited some bands to come and play on the last Saturday night in July.

Next weekend, Leon and me walked around town, listening to guys practicing in their garages. Any group that sounded half decent, we knocked on their door and asked if they'd like to play in the Midsummer Edenport Rock and Roll Festival. We told them that we'd give them ten percent of the ticket sales if they'd play two half-hour sets. Five bands signed on, so we had ourselves a concert.

I had another buddy who knew how to make up posters on the computer. They looked pretty good. We printed out a couple hundred and stuck them up all over town.

People bought tickets. At twenty bucks a pop, we sold more than a thousand tickets in two weeks. No one cared that they'd never heard of the bands or cared if they were any good, as long as they were loud. The tickets were cheap and everyone loves a party.

So Leon and me got twenty-thousand dollars in no time at all, no problem. We set aside some for the bands — we fibbed a little and told them that we'd only sold five hundred tickets, so their share was a thousand bucks each. They were plenty happy with that. It was more than any of them had ever made playing rock and roll.

We liberated some two-by-fours and plywood from a construction site to make a stage and had to use some of the money to rent a generator and lights and a sound system, but Leon and me still cleared five thousand bucks apeice.

I'm not saying we didn't have hassles. The city saw the posters and kept bugging us about permits and business licenses, but we told them that Leon and me weren't organizing the festival.We were just a couple of dumb kids doing the grunt work for minimum wage. We told them that we were paid by the Edenport Festival Corporation. We didn't know who owned it; we just did our jobs and cashed our paychecks.

The bureaucrats spent a couple of weeks chasing their tails, trying to find some record of the corporation and figure out who ran it, but they kept hitting dead ends, and we kept playing dumb. The concert was over before they could figure out how it went down.

There was also a hassle about copyrights. Someone from some music organization wanted to know if we were paying royalties for the songs that our bands were going to cover. I told them that I didn't know anything about that. We didn't ask the bands what songs they were going to play — which was true — so they'd have to talk to the bands to find out if they'd cleared the copyrights.

As soon as the copyright guy left, I called all the bands to give them a heads up. I told them that if they told the guy that they were going to play all original material, he'd quit bugging them. So they did and he did.

The big day came and the weather was good. The bands played and people danced and the neighbors complained. Everyone had a good time.

Leon and me invested in fifty cases of beer, buying a couple cases here and a couple there, going to every liquor store in the county, so the cops didn't notice what we were doing. During the concert, we sold them out of the back of Leon's father's van for four bucks a bottle, which broke a bunch more laws and earned us another few thousand dollars in profit.

The cops showed up when the concert started. We closed the beer van every time they got close, so they never figured that out. They thought all the kids had brought their own beer, which a lot of them had.

When the cops asked to speak to the organizers, we said that they were around somewhere. We sent them backstage to look for them. When they didn't find anyone there, we said that we'd seen them going to toward the far edge of the crowd, then when they came back, we told them that we'd seen them out on the street where everyone had parked. They were getting tired of chasing ghosts and getting a little skeptical, but we kept assuring them that the organizers were around somewhere. The cops were still wandering around looking for them when the concert ended. The cops were too motivated to look that hard. They didn't want to stir up trouble. Everyone was having a good time and the cops didn't want to make a fuss and incite any riots. They left when the crowd broke up at the end of the concert.

The field was a mess afterwards. It was littered with bottles and trash; and the grass was pretty torn up, but that wasn't our problem. We packed up the rented equipment as soon as the last band finished and got home before dawn.. We never did go back to break down the stage.

So that's how Leon and me organized our first music festival.

We've made a fine career out of organizing concerts. We're a whole lot more professional now — we get all the proper permits and licenses and pay royalties for the music and even hire our own security — but I'm sure Leon would agree that that first festival that we ran by the seat of our pants back in Edenport was the most fun we ever had. More important to me, though, is that small as it was, it was the best music festival that Edenport had ever seen.

I never settle for less than the best.

Lucky Man

Last week, I met a lucky man. Not just a man who is lucky sometimes, but a man who is lucky every time in every way.

He and I got on a Greyhound in Thunder Bay and rode together as far as Winnipeg. You know what northern Ontario and the eastern Prairies are like — nothing to see but rocks and scrub for eight hours — so it was natural that my seat-mate and I spent some of that time chatting.

He told me that he was cursed with good luck when he was born.

He'd learned about the curse from an uncle.

His father was married to his mother, but he was unhappy so he took a mistress, promising her that he would soon leave his wife. But when the wife got pregnant with their first child — my seat-mate — the father changed his mind and reneged on his promise to his mistress.

The mistress was an uncanny woman — some said she was part Gypsy, some said she'd studied voodoo in Haiti, some said she was a witch who'd sold her soul to the Devil. Nobody knew for sure. Maybe none of it was true, maybe all of it. But when my seat-mate's father told his mistress that his wife was going to have a baby, so he couldn't leave her, the mistress promised him that their child was going to be a boy and that the boy would have good luck for his whole life. More than good luck, perfect luck.

The husband thought that she was blessing his child and thanked the woman for her generous good wishes. He didn't know an evil curse when he heard it.

Max — my seat-mate's name was Maddox, but everyone called him Max — never got a bump or bruise when he was young, but nobody paid much attention to that. They did notice that, as a baby, he never cried. He happened to get his diaper changed the instant that it was soiled, happened to get fed just before the first hunger pang, happened to be wearing exactly the right clothing for the weather.

His school days were uneventful and unstressful. He spent his time playing at whatever pleased him. The teacher's back was always turned when he acted up. When he was given a test, he didn't bother filling it out. Somehow it happened that the teacher always misreported his grade as an A instead of an F, and never remembered his failures.

Max never learned to read or do arithmetic, but he passed every course.

In Third Grade, his class was given an IQ test. He didn't open the booklet because he couldn't read the questions. Instead, he marked the answer sheet at random. He was the only student in the entire school to get every answer correct. His teachers were assured that he must be earning the A's that they were giving him.

In Grade Four, he got bored, so he stopped going to school altogether. He spent his days playing in the park. But through errors in taking attendance and recording marks, he passed every grade and eventually graduated from high school. His parents swelled with pride to see him walk on stage and receive a diploma that he couldn't read.

He's lucky that nobody ever asks him to read anything aloud.

Max has never held a job in his life. When he needs money, it appears. He'll find a stuffed envelope lying on the ground, or some distant relative will die and leave him an inheritance, or he'll receive a cheque in the mail from some contest that he never entered.

Even as he was telling me this, a lottery ticket came drifting through the bus. It must have slipped out of someone's luggage in the overhead rack. When it fell into Max's lap, he showed it to me. He told me that if he checked the numbers, he'd win the jackpot, guaranteed. But if he gave it to me and I checked, it would be worthless.

His luck was never transferrable.

In fact, he was certain that someone, somewhere suffered bad luck every time he had good luck. If he found a hundred dollars lying on the ground, then someone must have lost a hundred dollars. If he bought some stock and it went up, then whoever sold the stock will have used the money to buy some other stock that went down. If he cashed his new-found lottery ticket, then whoever was supposed to win the lottery would not.

He'd seen enough examples of his good luck coming at the expense of someone else's bad luck that he considered it an immutable law of nature, as reliable as gravity.

I think he's probably correct — the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Law of Entropy, would predict that — but I didn't try to explain entropy to him. He was lucky to avoid that boring lecture.

It occurred to me that he must get lucky with girls, too. Otherwise he wouldn't be lucky at all.

Max was quick to confirm my extrapolation. He said that he gets lucky every night. Ever since he was a young man and first became interested in sex, he hasn't spent a night alone, except by choice. And he doesn't choose to be alone very often. The most beautiful girl in the room will seek him out, as certain as sunset, and flirt with him. He doesn't know how to seduce a woman; he has ever needed only to let the woman seduce him.

I couldn't see him as a desirable man. He had a fair complexion and good, symmetrical features, but he was rather pale, somewhat overweight, and on the far side of middle age.

I must have looked somewhat skeptical, so he offered an explanation.

He said that there was always a woman with daddy issues, or a woman who just broke up with her boyfriend and needed comforting, or a woman who hates being alone and has no other friends around at the moment.

In his entire life, he's never met a desirable woman who was accompanied by a steady boyfriend or husband at that moment.

I wondered if he had ever desired to stay with a woman for more than one night; if he had ever been lucky enough to meet his soul mate.

He laughed and asked if I was talking about getting married. He said that he was far too lucky to fall into the trap of matrimony. Considering my own marital history, I didn't need him to expound on that point.

Needless to say, his story had made me more than a little envious. I told him that his miraculous luck hardly sounded like a curse.

He laughed aloud and said that he'd heard that before. In fact, he could predict with a hundred percent certainty that everyone who heard his story was going to make the same comment at about this point in his story. He chided me for failing to see the downside of perfect luck.

He asked how I would like to be the most ignorant man in every crowd. He'd never had to learn anything of substance. Most of the time, he had no idea what people were talking about. But it didn't matter because he could always spout some nonsense and it would happen, by chance, to be exactly the right words to impress the listener and carry the conversation forward. The only topic on which he was a true expert was his own luck, and he was so tired of talking about that that he wanted to scream.

He asked how I would like to know that everything that I did was hurting someone else. Every time I got a dollar, someone had to lose one. Every time I bedded a woman, some man was losing the love of his life. He wasn't a sociopath. He'd been blessed with a keen sense of empathy for his fellow man and he felt guilty about the trail of pain he left in his wake.

Even taking this seat on the bus, which he'd obtained when he found a ticket left on a counter in the depot, meant that someone else was failing to get to Winnipeg for some vital reason — to be with a dying parent, to get to a job interview, to rekindle an old friendship, something important.

I asked him if he couldn't use his luck to help his fellow man. Why not look for a cure for cancer? If he was that lucky, he could just walk into a laboratory, pick some chemicals at random and they'd happen to be a miracle cure.

Sorrow passed over his face like a cloud, blown there by my abysmal failure to understand what he'd been saying.

He told me to imagine what would really happen. If he walked into a laboratory full of rats dying of malignant tumors and gave each of those poor animals nothing more than a drop of pure water, every single one of them would go into remission. Every tumor would shrink and disappear in the next few weeks. By pure luck, not one rat would die. And in the next laboratory, the opposite would happen. The scientist in there who had discovered the real cure for cancer would find every one of his rats dying, not for lack of a cure, but simply by bad luck.

The real cure would be discarded and mankind would be worse off for his efforts, not better.

I began to understand, at last, the evil of his curse. A life visited by perfect, unrelenting good luck was a wasted, unrewarding experience.

Then Max told me that the worst part of the curse was that he could never make a friend. The more time a person spent with him, the more that person would grow to envy him. Especially when he suffered bad luck every time Max enjoyed good luck.

Even his family couldn't help but dislike him for his good fortune. He hadn't seen his brothers and sisters in years. Staying away was his gift to them.

He lived in a world populated by strangers like me.

Our conversation ended there. I had little interest in hearing more about this sad man. I scorned him for being so ungrateful for all that his luck gave him. He had shown me that receiving that much luck had its downside, but I was sure that, if I had his luck, I'd find ways to enjoy it.

I spent the remainder of the trip ignoring him and staring at the woman across the aisle, one row ahead of us. I'd seen her get on the bus. Every man aboard had stared at her when she'd made her way down the aisle to her seat. Young, blonde, fair in face and figure, she was the stuff of dreams.

The only man on the bus who seemed not to care a whit for her was the man sitting beside me. I didn't see Max glance at her, even once, that entire trip.

But when we got to Winnipeg, the bus stopped for a special drop off at a hotel downtown before continuing on to the depot. My companion left me there. I thought that he'd be the only passenger to leave, but as soon as he walked passed the beautiful woman, she rose and followed him.

I watched through the window while we waited for the driver to unload their luggage. She spoke to him, he said something back, and she laughed. They chatted more and she touched his arm.

When they got their suitcases, she followed him into the hotel, holding his hand.

I hated the lucky bastard. As did every other man on the bus. Not that any of us had a chance with that woman, but it's only natural that we'd hate the man who was, right then, making our fantasy his reality.

I haven't rested easy since I met Max last week. His story keeps preying on my mind.

It was my bad luck to have been seated beside him.

Deliberate Accidents

Not all accidents are accidental. I can tell you that for a certainty because I've been an accident investigator for eighteen years and I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

I've seen a car driven into a concert abutment at over a hundred miles an hour, no seatbelt, the airbags disabled, and a suicide note scratched into the paint on the trunk.

I've seen a seventy-year-old man take umbrage at some punk who threw his cigarette butt out his window, run the punk's car off the road, and then ram the driver's side over and over until the punk's car was so twisted that the bodywork got entangled in the old man's bumper and he couldn't pull back to take yet another shot.

I've seen a moose that went through a windshield. Only the moose had been shot in the heart with a thirty-ought-six a month earlier and was still frozen from having been kept in a freezer. The driver, didn't have a scratch on him, had his car insured by six different companies, and expected to collect full damages from each and every one of them.

Not every driver on the road is a rocket scientist.

You're not going to see me come around if you have a fender-bender in a parking lot. Insurance companies only hire me if they're being hit up for at least a hundred thousand in damages and their adjuster smells something rotten.

Take a case I investigated last week.

Single car accident. Twenty-five-year-old woman was driving a brand new Porsche Turbo Carrera out on Highway Seven late Saturday night — technically, one-thirty AM on Sunday morning — and hit a big maple tree. The car was totaled, but the seatbelt and airbags did their job and, apart from a bit of whiplash, the driver was only bruised.

The tree is going to survive.

Your first thought is booze and drugs. She's a party girl who got wasted and then got behind the wheel.

Wrong. The cops thought the same, so they put a priority rush on testing her blood every way they could. No alcohol, no THC, no coke or meth or ecstasy. The woman was as clean as a nun.

Your second thought is excessive speed. Porsche Turbo Carrera. Empty road. No cops for miles. She figured Highway Seven was as good as a race track and mashed the gas to see what the car would do.

Wrong again. You or me couldn't resist the temptation, but she was no stunt driver. Measuring the damage to the tree and the car and performing a few quick calculations put her speed at no more than ten kilometers over the limit. Technically illegal, but within the range of responsible driving.

That left falling asleep at the wheel. Nine times out of ten, that late at night, that would be the correct conclusion and the adjuster would accept it and pay off the claim, which in this case was almost a quarter of a million for loss of the car, property damage to the tree, medical expenses, and time the victim lost from work.

But the young woman made a mistake, as a young person, unaccustomed to the ways of the business world might do. When the adjuster told her that he wouldn't write a cheque on the spot, that the company would want him to investigate her claim first, she asked him what she could do to speed up the process. She made her meaning clear. She was willing to be, shall we say, friendly with him if he could skip the investigation and settle right away.

I've known the adjuster, Benny Schwartz, for several years. He's not accustomed to having beautiful young women come on to him. Or for that matter, plain, middle-aged women, either. He's no matinee idol. The behavior of this blonde temptress sent his suspicions soaring. He didn't tell me if he succumbed to her seduction, but if I know Benny, and I do, he didn't let the opportunity go to waste. But he did renege on his part of the deal. He called me the next day and told me to turn the dogs loose on her.

I took the contract.

I looked at the police report and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The report concluded that she'd fallen asleep and drifted off the road. I looked at her medical records to confirm that there were no drugs or alcohol in her system. Forensic photographs from the hospital supported her story. The bruise from the shoulder belt extended from left collarbone to right hip, as it would if she were in the driver's seat, and her face was somewhat scuffed from the airbag deployment. She wasn't claiming extensive soft tissue damage like someone would if they were trying to pad their disability. She reported that her neck was only somewhat stiff.

The Porsche was still in the impound lot — being totaled, no one was in a hurry to remove it yet — so I went down and looked it over.

She hadn't hit the tree square in the middle. She'd struck it just inside the passenger headlight, so most of the damage was to the passenger side. That's just what you'd expect if a car was drifting slowly off the road. The passenger side would be more likely to hit something than the driver's side. That the car was hit on the side where she was not sitting was probably why her injuries weren't worse.

I looked at the police photos taken at the scene. The grass was torn up exactly as the damage to the car would predict. Because the car struck on the passenger side, it twisted after impact and the rear tires slewed toward the driver's side. That sideways motion was probably what caused her whiplash. The headrest only protects you from a backward snap and the sideways motion wasn't sufficiently violent to trigger the side airbags.

The most curious aspect of the whole affair was her ownership of the car. A Porsche Turbo Carrera is going to set you back two-hundred grand. It's a man's mid-life crisis car, not an accessory for a twenty-five-year-old event planner, which was the occupation that she gave in her police interview.

I talked to her employer in person. He confirmed that she worked a full forty-hour week. My suspicion that her real source of income was prostitution was baseless. She definitely was not a paid escort.

Was the car a graduation gift from her parents? Her father was a high school history teacher and her mother a bank teller. They didn't have that kind of money to spare, and if they did, they'd give her a down payment on a house. They wouldn't waste it on a sports car.

Yet she owned the car outright according to the registration documents. Her insurance didn't list any bank or loan company as beneficiary, which it would if she had bought it with borrowed money. Even if she'd tried to get a loan, she wouldn't have qualified with her income.

I didn't want to interrogate her directly because she would undoubtedly have some lie ready — she'd probably claim that she'd won a lottery or had invested in Google when she was in grade school, or had some other such good luck.

Considering the way that she had tried to dissuade Benny from investigating this accident, I suspected that it was a gift from a boyfriend. She was not above using her charms to get what she wanted, and she was desirable enough to snare a wealthy man.

It wasn't difficult to find her boyfriend. I just spent a couple of nights watching her and followed her to her next tryst. He was the CFO of an investment bank whose primary share holder was his uncle. He had money to burn. He was also forty-five years old, married, and the father of three teenagers. He was exactly the kind of man who, on the occasion of his mistress's twenty-fifth birthday, would give her the same sports car that he would have bought for himself if he'd needed a third car.

Why would she deliberately destroy such a gift? To convert it to cash, of course. You can't spend a Porsche, but you can spend the insurance payout if it's totaled.

The only question was how to prove that was what she'd done.

A credit check showed that she owed almost a hundred thousand in personal debt, most of it on an impressive array of credit cards. She was only paying the monthly minimums. The interest payments were eating her alive. After paying for the insurance on a pricy sports car, she'd barely have enough left to feed herself.

I've seen my share of people who were downing in debt, and they're a miserable bunch. That much debt makes a person desperate.

Desperate enough to risk her life in a deliberate traffic accident.

Desperate enough to throw herself at a middle-aged, overweight insurance adjuster.

Why hadn't she asked her wealthy boyfriend to bail her out? Shame, most likely. People who have buried themselves in debt are usually reluctant to admit it.

She'd rather risk her life driving her new car into a tree. She might have reported it stolen and set fire to it in some empty parking lot, which was a more common method of defrauding an insurance company, but that would look more suspicious.

Had she known that she was going to be risking her life if she did it wrong?

That was an interesting question. Nothing you do on the Internet is secret from someone who has access to the right people. Forget about underground hackers like in the movies; I've cultivated professional relationships with a few system administrators. The guys who run the computers have access to everything.

My blonde fraudster had done her homework. Her browsing history showed that she'd spent a lot of hours researching traffic accidents to determine what was most likely to total a Porsche without maiming or killing the driver.

This accident had been no accident.

My work was done. My evidence was circumstantial, but I didn't have to prove criminal intent. I needed only enough proof for the insurance company to deny her claim and protect itself against a potential lawsuit.

Not that that was going to happen. The woman wasn't going to go to court and expose her private business to public scrutiny. She'd already gone to too much effort to hide her history of poor financial decisions.

Now she was going to have to get her boyfriend to rescue her from her debts, not an insurance company. Maybe her next crime will be blackmail.

My commission is ten percent of the claim denied, in this case, twenty-five grand for a few days of investigation. Not a bad gig. Not bad at all.

Conroy's Girl

I got this buddy, Conroy, who told me the other night that his girlfriend is a dancer. A ballerina, no less.

It's not that I don't believe Conroy, but the truth is I don't. You see, Conroy's not the most handsome guy in the room. Or the most coordinated. If the truth be known, he's got two left feet and not enough rhythm to tap them together at the same time. I can't see what a professional dancer would find attractive about him.

Now, it's not that Conroy lies. It's that he's got his own truth which doesn't always agree with everyone else's truth. One day he might start thinking the sky is green and, before you know it, he really believes it is green. And he believes it's always been green. And he doesn't understand why we all think it's blue. Then, before you know it, he's in a big fight with the whole world about the color of the sky. And when I say a big fight, I mean punches get thrown and noses get broken.

Conroy never backed away from a brawl. Which he never wins, being the most un-coordinated, un-athletic guy you'll ever meet.

But he'll give it a go every time and take his lumps without a second thought.

I'm telling you all this so you'll understand, why, when Conroy told me his girl is a ballet dancer, and not just any old ballet dancer, but the star — what they call the prima ballerina — in a national company, I didn't argue with him. Or ask him for any details. Because the more you ask Conroy for details, the more details he's going to give you, and every detail he comes up with is another brick in the fantasy castle he's building, and by the time you're sick of hearing about it, he's living full time in the clouds.

That's why you'll understand that when Conroy said his girl was a world-famous ballerina, I said, "That's great," and didn't say no more about it. I just filed it away in my brain along with a lot of other unexamined Conroy facts that I file under the heading, Conroy's World.

So we talked about last night's game — Conroy's positive the Yankees are going to win the World Series this year, even though they're only one loss away from being eliminated for the pennant — and we talked about his car — he's positive not only that his ten-year-old Hyundai Elantra is a sports car, but is the fastest hot rod on the streets. It helps that none of the other drivers ever realize they're in a road race against that old Hyundai that's limping along in the slow lane.

Before we parted ways, though, Conroy told me that he wants me to meet his girl. She doesn't drink and only eats raw meat and salads to keep her figure and still get enough protein to maintain her muscle mass, but she likes hanging around with other people and doesn't mind if the rest of us eat and drink whatever we want.

Those are the kind of odd little details that make up the strange world of Conroy.

He said he's going to barbecue some top sirloin next Saturday and I should come on over about three and have a brew or two and meet his girl.

I'm not that keen, but he insists and I figure: what can go wrong? Whoever is there, I'll just be polite and chat with her and Conroy and me will drink a few beers and hang out, which is what we do best.

He didn't say anything about me bringing my girl along, but I figure that's implied. I been going with Opal for a while now, and he wouldn't expect me to leave her home by herself while I'm out chugging beer and chawing down steak.

So when Saturday rolls around, me and Opal go over to Conroy's place and what do we find? He has a girl there. An actual, real, live girl is standing next to him. And she's a fine looking girl, too. Not just pretty, but athletic. Maybe she has an actual dancer's body. She's wearing shorts that show thighs like concrete and calves like pieces of knotty pine.

She could do a man serious damage with those legs.

I never seen a real ballerina before, but she was what I imagine one would look like.

Conroy introduces Opal and me and we open some brews — for us, not for the dancer; she doesn't touch the stuff.

Conroy and Opal and me talk about the usual stuff, but when the conversation comes around to the dancer, she talks about orchestral music and national tours and the other dancers in her company. She sounds like a real ballerina, all right.

We have a fair afternoon, until the sun goes down and the mosquitoes come out. Then Opal and me take our leave.

Since then, Opal and me have talked some about Conroy's girl. As often as we've revisited the subject, and we still can't figure out which of us is deluded. Maybe it's Conroy's girl. Maybe he convinced some gullible young woman who played too much field hockey in high school that she really is a famous ballet dancer. Or maybe it's Opal and me that's deluded. Maybe Conroy pulled off a double and convinced both of us together that the sky is green and that we met a dancer when there was no one but him in his back yard.

To this day, I don't know which of us has been sucked into his fantasy, but I do know one thing for sure. I'm not going to hang around him so much anymore because he's getting too persuasive.

I'd rather not live full-time in Conroy's world.

The Case of the Blonde Firecracker

Nobody wanted to shoot the dame. I got to be clear about that right up front. Nobody.

We was all there in Lucky's back room. Me and Juice Jackson and Artie Buskin and, for once, Lucky. Lucky don't usually sit in on our games, but Andy Thumbs didn't show up and business in the front was slow, so Angela could pour drinks and handle the cash by herself, so Lucky decided to sit in for Andy and play a few hands. It all would have turned out different if Andy'd come and Lucky'd been out front with Angela, but you can't change the past, so there's no sense feeling bad about how it turned out.

The thing about Lucky is that he isn't. The moniker is ironic, you see, because everybody knows that the only luck Lucky ever has is bad luck. That night was no different.

Lucky'd been losing every hand — hadn't won a pot all night — which was lucky for the rest of us, but didn't improve his mood none. His usual sour mood was turning downright bitter.

So when there was a fracas out front, Lucky had no appetite for getting involved. He said that Angela would take care of whatever was happening and I should ignore it and decide if I was going to raise, call, or fold, and I better be quick about it.

I told him to hold his horses; I had a decision to make.

It was a hard decision. I was looking at the biggest pot of the night and I was holding two pair, aces over queens. Not a great hand, but not an automatic fold, either. Juice had bailed right after the draw, but Lucky and Artie had been raising hot and heavy. Artie was famous for trying to bluff when he was holding dreck and I figured he was up to his old tricks. He'd been raising like there was no tomorrow, which he only did when he was bluffing, and that was why the pot was so big.

Lucky was the bigger problem. Like I said, he hadn't had a winning hand all night, so maybe this was his turn to score. But I had to consider that Lucky never is. Chances were that he was holding the other two aces and was determined to ride this one out just because he was tired of losing. Unless he had aces over kings, I'd have the winning hand. Of course, if he had three of a kind or better, then I was toast, and any other guy probably would have it, but this was Lucky and I was thinking that maybe it was a chance that I should take. It's usually best to bet against Lucky.

I hadn't decided yet when the fracas out front stopped. There wasn't a sound, not so much as a scrape of a chair or the clink of a mug.

We all looked at each other and knew that something bad had gone down.

Lucky looked at the door just before it opened. The odd look on his face was almost like he knew what was coming.

I turned to look, too, when I heard the hinges creak.

The gun came through the door first — an ugly snub-nosed thirty-eight revolver. That two-inch barrel wouldn't be accurate for more than a few feet, but we were all sitting in a small room, so it would serve.

The hand that was holding the gun was shaking like a half drowned kitten on froze over lake. That wasn't going to improve the accuracy of the snub-nose any. If the owner of that gun tried to shoot one of us when she was shaking like that, she was just as likely to hit someone else.

I say she because the next thing through the door was a blonde head. Why are all the beautiful dames blonde? I blame Clairol. They keep telling bored housewives that blondes have more fun.

This blonde didn't look like she was having any fun at all. She was snarling like a she-wolf looking to take down a buck.

I don't mind telling you that I was scared stiff. I seen a man gut-shot by a thirty-eight and it ain't a pretty sight. I didn't fancy seeing my belly sporting a smoking volcano erupting with blood. Besides, I was wearing my last clean shirt and I wouldn't be picking up my laundry tomorrow if I was lying in the morgue making an appointment with the devil.

So I asked her if we could help her, figuring that she'd be less likely to shoot men who were trying to do her a favor.

She looked us over and asked where was Andy.

She had to mean Andy Thumbs, and I said that he wasn't playing tonight. He had another engagement. I figured he must be out with some other dame because he wouldn't have missed a poker game for any lesser reason, but I didn't tell the blonde that.

She flashed the rock on her left hand and said that the only engagement he had was to her. She phrased that sentiment in some exceptionally colorful language that I don't care to repeat in polite company. Let's just say that she was less than complimentary in her description of her fiancé.

Then she said that she was going to plug the lying, cheating bastard and be done with him for once and for all.

She meant to use the gun she was holding.

Juice Jackson said she could just give the ring back to Andy if she wanted to break up with him.

That was the wrong thing to say to a woman who knows she's being wronged.

She blasted the snub-nose in Juice's direction, but only managed to nail Miss July on the calendar hanging on the wall. There was no question that she'd tried to plug Juice between the eyes, but like I said, she didn't have a hope of hitting anything she was aiming at. Bullets were going to fly in random directions every time she pulled the trigger. We was all about to become collateral damage if she kept shooting.

I'm a private dick, but I don't carry a piece. Artie, though, is regular law enforcement, so he had his own thirty-eight in a shoulder holster, which was now behind him, hanging from the back of his chair. Lucky keeps a shot-gun in the corner, its barrel sawed in half, so as to discourage lowlifes from bothering him when he's in here toting up the day's receipts. Artie has to pretend that he can't see the illegal weapon when we're playing cards. And Juice has a strong preference for the switchblade in his pocket, but he always has a little derringer strapped to his ankle because he don't want to be caught with only a knife in a gunfight.

None of us went for our guns. The blonde would blast away at any one of us who made a sudden move. She could empty the whole revolver before any of us got to a gun. Besides, like I said before, none of us wanted to shoot the dame. It's just not what a gentleman does.

Angela, though, was no gentleman. She didn't bother with the forty-five that Lucky keeps by the register; she came at the dame from behind with the baseball bat from under the counter.

She screamed like a banshee to get the blonde's attention. As soon as the blonde turned the gun away from us, Angela bashed her shooting arm with the bat, breaking both bones. We could hear them snap. The blonde's second, and final bullet, hammered into the floor when she dropped the gun. You can still see the hole in the oak plank there by the door.

Angela didn't bother with the bat after that, she grabbed the blonde by the hair and dragged her backwards out of the room.

Out in the bar, both of them were screaming to raise the roof.

I finally made my decision. I called and threw down my hand.

Artie threw down his hand — nothing but there but king-high, not even an ace; he was bluffing just like I figured — and went out to arrest the blonde. He couldn't let the dame shoot up the place without arresting her, even if her arm was broke bad.

Lucky had a straight — the only decent hand he'd had all night — but you only need one if the pot gets big enough, so he left the game with a sizable win.

It was the end of the game; none of us had any interest in dealing another hand.

Andy Thumbs stopped by to get a drink just before final call. He smelled of sweat and French perfume.

I told him that he missed the most exciting game of the year. And that we'd met his fiancée. She'd made an impression on us.

He said that she was a firecracker.

I told him that he'd have to bail her out of jail, but not until after the hospital put her arm in a cast.

Andy just shrugged and said that sometimes things go that way when you're engaged to a beautiful dame.

Tulsa Honeymoon

We didn't get much of a honeymoon, but that's no surprise because we didn't have much of a wedding. I was nineteen, and Gail was eighteen. Barely eighteen. We'd had to wait for her birthday because we'd needed her parents' permission to get married before she was eighteen and they weren't ever going to sign that paper. They didn't think much of me and had been doing everything they could to break us up.

Gail and me, though, we was in love, and we was going to get hitched come hell or high water. The more her parents threatened her if she kept seeing me, the more she got her back up and hung in there with me, tighter than ever.

The day she turned eighteen, we lit out for city hall and got our license and three days later, we did the deed — no family in attendance. Not even friends, because we didn't want word to leak back to her parents. God knows what they might have done if they'd known. They would have called the police, for sure. They might have even got her committed to an insane asylum because they'd rather have her locked up in a padded cell than married to me. That was how much they hated me.

I didn't have to worry about my parents at the wedding. I don't have none. I was in foster care until I turned eighteen and then the law made me a free man. Being abandoned and in the system was part of the reason that her parents were so set against me. That and because of my juvenile record. That got sealed when I turned eighteen, so Gail's parents shouldn't have held that against me. They shouldn't have even known about it, and wouldn't have except that Gail told them all about it. One day when we'd been going together for a month or so, they was ragging on her about me so bad that she got so mad at them that she told them every bad thing that she knew about me. That didn't help them like me any better, but it shut them up, so I guess it made her feel like she'd won that round.

So as soon as she turned eighteen, we got hitched at city hall in what they call a civil ceremony and spent our wedding night in the Motel Six out on the highway. We joked that we got the Honeymoon Suite. Everybody knows that the Motel Six don't have suites, just regular rooms, but we turned our room into a honeymoon room, anyway.

Early next morning, we caught the express train to Tulsa. We didn't go down to the station until the last minute to buy the tickets because I was worried that Gail's parents might figure out where we was and be waiting with the cops to ambush us.

They weren't there, though, so I spent the last of my money on two one-way tickets to Tulsa. We didn't have any luggage, all we had was the clothes on our backs and some fresh underwear in a plastic shopping bag.

We was starting our new life from scratch, that was for sure. But a man needs a fresh start every so often, right? I've always liked a fresh start.

We slept some on the train, her all snuggled up to me, because we hadn't got much sleep in the motel. Not for the reason that you think, but because there was a ruckus in the next room for most of the night. Gail and me tried banging on the wall a few times, but that didn't do no good, so all we could do was try to sleep as best as we could.

Besides, all we could do on the train was sleep because we didn't have no money for food. I had a few bucks left after buying the tickets, but not enough for train food. It's expensive to eat on a train, as we found out when we tried to buy a sandwich to share.

It was a seven hour ride to Tulsa, so we were pretty hungry by the time we got there.

I didn't know anything about Tulsa. I just picked it because it was as far as my money would take us from Amarillo. I could have gone the other way to Albuquerque just as easy, but Tulsa's easier to spell, and I figured I might have to write a letter to someone some time and tell where we live.

No sense living in a town if you can't spell the address.

So we got to Tulsa and didn't have enough money for a motel room. I bought us a burger at McDonalds and we split it and a coke, too. While I was in there, I asked for a couple of application forms for work because we needed jobs. The manager let us fill them out, but said that he wasn't hiring right then, so we shouldn't hold our breath waiting for a call. That was just as well because we had to leave the phone number space blank, not having a phone.

We figured to sleep in the railroad station that first night, but we couldn't because they got guards there and they want to see a ticket for the train your waiting for before they'll let you stay, so we had to leave. We found an alley downtown and slept with our backs to the wall. It was awful cold, but we didn't mind. We kept each other warm.

The next day, we had to panhandle for money because we needed some cash for breakfast.

The good folks in Tulsa weren't near as generous as good Christians ought to be, so it took us near to three hours to get enough change for a couple of Egg McMuffins and coffee.

We asked again, but McDonalds still wasn't hiring.

Gail and me spent the rest of the day panhandling, hoping to get enough for a room.

Turned out that we didn't need it.

Gail's parents showed up in their shiny new Lincoln Continental at eight that night. It'd turned out that when Gail had gone to use the washroom in the railway station at noon, she'd also placed a collect call back to them and told them where to find her.

We was only married for thirty-six hours and she was already tired of matrimony.

That was a year ago that she left with them and I haven't seen her since.

You might say that it wasn't much of a marriage, but I disagree. Near as I know, Gail and me are still married because I never got no divorce papers. Someday, when I get enough money to buy a car, I'm going to drive back to Texas and pick her up. Just see if I don't.

It won't be soon, though. I don't expect that she's going to want to leave with me again until I got a decent bank account. That'll take some time, though, because the only job that I can find is working the night shift at the Seven Eleven and I got to spend most of my wages on renting a room and buying food.

But I miss my wife every day, so I'm not going to give up hope. No, sir. Not ever.

Back from Death Valley

There's a fella I know just got back from California. He won't say anything about his trip. You ask how it went out there, he just says it was fine. You ask if anything interesting happened, he says nothing did. You ask what he saw along the way, he says nothing much. It's mighty strange because you got to figure something must have happened somewhere along the way. It's a three-thousand mile trip, you know. Six thousand miles there and back, and that's an awful lot of miles in the saddle. Who ever heard of someone riding a motorcycle all the way across the country and back and not seeing anything?

I'm curious, but his his girl, Pam's, got to be more curious. He left her behind. She wanted to go, but he was loaded up with his sleeping bag and clothes and stuff so there was no room on the bike for her. She had to stand in the driveway and watch him roar off into a soggy New Jersey morning and wish him a safe trip and then wait for a whole month for him to come back to her.

She told me that he never did call all the time he was gone. He didn't take a phone, so there was no calls, no texts, no emails. He just disappeared down the road into the mist and that was that until a month later when he knocked on her door late one night and said he was back. Like she couldn't figure that out when he was standing there under the porch light, big as life.

After he'd been home a couple of days, Pam told me he smells bad. Not such a surprise because he was living out of a pack for a month and he's not the sort who's going to spend a lot of time in laundromats, but she says that's not it. He smells bad like rotting meat. Even after he showers and puts on clean clothes, she keeps getting a whiff of that smell.

He hasn't touched her since he got back, but she don't mind that because of the smell. She says that she doesn't want to get too close to him. Not until she figures out what's happened to him.

After she told me about the smell, I started sniffing around him a bit, and I see what she means. It's like he's wearing the world's worst aftershave. Not slathering it on, but just patting a touch here and there. Not that he uses aftershave because he doesn't shave — he's got a full beard — but you know what I mean. Except when I smell him, I don't get the rotting meat that his girl said. To me, it's more like the sulphur smell that you get from rotten eggs.

It's only a faint smell, but it's bad. Real bad.

I noticed that the other guys aren't hanging around him much. Used to be, before he went to California, that all the guys like to party with the fella. He was quick to smile and always joked with you. Hardly anything you could say, he didn't have a funny comeback.

Not now, though. Now he hardly says a word to a soul. He mostly sits alone and stares into his beer. Even when there's other guys at the table, he looks like he's alone. Maybe if he drank the beer it'd be different, but he never does. He always orders one and then watches it get warm and flat. Maybe he'll take a sip now and then, but I swear he ends the evening with the same beer that he bought at the beginning and less than half of it is gone.

I'm sure he hasn't smiled since he came back. Not even once.

You can't tell me that nothing happened on his trip. Something happened, all right. Something so bad that he won't talk about it, but something he can't forget.

I asked him a couple days ago what the weather was like out there, figuring that if I asked something easy, he'd have to tell me about it and, maybe, once he got talking, he'd keep talking until he told the whole story.

All he said, though, was that it was hot. Burning hot. Hot as hell. Then he shut up again.

I asked if he'd gone through Death Valley and he looked up at me, looked me right in the eye, and said, "Yeah. Death Valley. That's exactly right. I been in Death Valley."

Maybe I could have got him to talk more about that, but the way he looked at me, suddenly I didn't want to know any more. His eyes was burning. Swear to God, I could see hellfire in his eyes, deep in the blackest part, way back inside. It was like his brain was in flames behind his eyeballs. I never seen nothing like that before and swear to God, I never want to see it again.

After he said he'd been in Death Valley, I downed the last of my beer, went home and spent all night awake in bed.

Next day, I went over to talk to Pam again. She said that her guy didn't come home last night. She doesn't know where he spends his nights, but he doesn't come home a lot of times. And when he does, he doesn't come to bed; he just sits in the living room, staring at the TV. Not turning it on, just staring at the black screen, like there's some ghost program playing in there that no one else can see.

She said that she wants to break up with him, but she can't. When she talks to him, he tells her that he came back from California just for her. That she's the only reason that he didn't stay where he was.

How can she tell him that she doesn't want to be with him, when he says that she's the only thing keeping him here?

She says that she hopes he gets over his depression soon and gets back to being the great guy that he used to be.

I hope so, too, but it don't seem likely.

This evening, when he was in the bar, I went out and took a look at his bike. I didn't have any special reason, just curious to see what all those miles did to his hog.

They didn't do it no good. There was more than the usual wear and tear on it. It looked like it had been in an accident. It was all scraped and dented. The fairing in the front was half broken off — nothing but ragged fiberglass on the left edge — and the left pannier was gone. The steel strapping where it was clamped to the frame was bent and twisted like it had been torn off.

Worse, though, was all the crusty, rust-colored gunk all over the saddle and gas tank. It looked like dried blood, but nobody who'd lost that much blood could have survived. There had to be gallons spilled. Maybe he hit a deer somewhere on the road. Or maybe it was something else — spilled paint or even ketchup from eating a month's worth of burgers and dripping on his bike. I don't know.

The weirdest thing of all, though, is that I can't remember the fella's name. He was my best buddy before he went to California, but now that he's back, I can't for the life of me recall his name. Ain't that something? I keep trying but it's like I got Alzheimer's at thirty. Except I can remember everything else, everything except that fella's name.

I keep listening to the other guys in the bar, to see what they call the fella, but I haven't heard any of them say his name, either.

I can't even remember Pam talking about him by name. As near as I can recall, she just talks about her guy.

I can't ask — how would that look, me not knowing my best friend's name? — so I don't say anything. I just keep hoping that it'll come to me.

Because if it doesn't, what then? People have names. Everybody has a name. Who can this fella be if he doesn't have a name?

I been thinking that I ought to get over to the library and check through the newspapers from across the country and see if there were any bad motorcycle accidents last month on the highway between here and California. Any accidents where a fella from New Jersey might have died.

Ain't that something? That I'm thinking this fella maybe died when I see him right here, walking and talking. But I don't know what else to think. I haven't gone to the library to look, yet, though. I'm scared about what I might find there.

But I'm going to have to figure what to do because it just ain't right with that fella. He just ain't normal. He's unnatural, is what he is. Pure unnatural.

My Father's War on Evil

During most of my life, a series of horrifying murders overshadowed our town.

I was the son of a preacher. Growing up, we were poor as the proverbial church mouse. When I was a child, my father preached to only a handful of the faithful in his little wooden chapel. The three of us — him, my mother and me — lived in a couple of rooms in the back. Every Sunday when he passed the collection plate, he begged for people to give generously, but the pittance they gave was barely enough to keep us fed with the simplest, cheapest food.

We were poor, but he was a fine, decent man.

Then, about the time I started high school, the head cheerleader disappeared after practice. Her body was found the next day. I won't upset you with all the gruesome details — you can go to the library and look up the old newspaper reports for that — let me simply say that vile and cruel perversions had been visited upon the poor girl during her last hours of life.

Nobody knew who could have committed such a despicable crime. Most believe that it had to be some itinerant worker passing through because none of the fine, upstanding citizens who lived in our town could have done such a thing.

People remembered a man of color who had been hitchhiking out on the highway, but couldn't agree whether he was a light-skinned black or latino or native or maybe even Asian. Everyone remembered seeing someone different standing by the side of the road.

That Sunday, my father delivered the most powerful sermon of his life, exhorting all good men to rise up and wage war against the evil in this world. When he spoke of the murdered girl, his eyes burned and his voice roared.

Week after week, he trumpeted his war against evil, and exhorted everyone to take up the holy cause. His flock grew, sermon by sermon, until his church was filled to overflowing. The collection plate overflowed as well. People dug deep in their desire for a better world than the one that had killed that innocent young woman.

My father could afford to move to a larger church with a separate manse. Our family lived and ate better.

Six months later, a second student in our high school disappeared. She was an honor student and had been selected to be the class valedictorian. Not only was she brilliant, she was beautiful. Her corpse was mutilated almost beyond recognition when it was discovered in the woods two days later.

My father launched his war on evil anew. A great horror was befalling our town and we all had to unite and make God the center our lives. Only He could protect us from the predations of Satan.

When my father described the beauty and brilliance of the victim, his voice choked with love for all young people. He told in circumspect, but vivid language, the evil that had been done to her. He begged all men with good hearts to come together in fellowship with the Lord and purge this evil from our midst.

His flock grew and grew. He built a new cathedral — the grandest in the county. People came from other towns, miles away, to hear him preach against the demons among us.

It was a year before the next girl disappeared. She was the class president and most popular senior in the school. As bad as the previous two murders had been, hers was the most brutal yet.

Still, the police were unable to find any clue as to who the murderer might be. The demon who had slaughtered her had slipped back to hell without leaving a trace.

That summer, my father was visited by a television producer and director from Minneapolis. They had heard about him, had attended his last two sermons, and proposed to televise his services. They were betting that he could attract a significant share of the Sunday morning audience. Maybe even a majority share.

He was delighted to spread his word over the air.

After every broadcast, our mailbox overflowed with donations. People were incredibly generous in their support of our war against evil.

Mother and I stood in front of the cameras at my father's side and became minor celebrities in our own right.

Two years later when I was a senior in high school, two of girls in my class, twins, were murdered together, just as cruelly as the others. The war was not won yet, but this latest outrage in the parade of blood and death bound our community ever more tightly together. We diligently searched the faces of every stranger, every outsider, every loner for the glint of perversion in his eye, the stain of guilt on his lips.

The police interrogated suspect after suspect, but detained no one. They had countless theories, but not a single tangible piece of evidence. The murderer left not even the slightest trace of himself behind.

My father noted that the murders were growing less frequent. It was slow, difficult work, but he assured us that we were winning the war on evil. We were enjoying longer periods of peace between these terrible crimes, but they had not ended yet. It was too early to relax our vigilance. We had to steel ourselves for a long battle that would sap our will if we let ourselves grow lazy and complacent.

Our Sunday broadcasts were syndicated nationally and my father built the greatest cathedral in the state. Our family moved into a mansion with a five car garage and heated swimming pool.

We were wealthy, but that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that we had to keep driving evil from our midst. The murders continued, but less frequently. Three, four, and even five years passed between them. Some high school classes graduated without suffering a single loss. But when there was a loss, it was always the most beautiful and brightest girl.

During the thirty years that my father waged his war against Satan, an even dozen murders were committed . As many murders as Christ had apostles. My father assured his congregation that the death toll would have been worse, much worse, had we not all united against Satan.

The Sunday my father announced his retirement, he delivered the most significant sermon of his life.

I'll never forget it.

He began with a question. If God is all powerful, why does He not defeat Satan for once and for all? Why does He not destroy him and his demons completely? Why does he allow evil to exist in the world?

The answer, he said, is that men and women need an enemy. They need a reason to band together in fellowship. They will never support each other, never sacrifice their own comfort for their fellow man, if they live in a paradise on Earth. Man did not flourish in the Garden of Eden. He needed the serpent. We will only make a supreme effort to help our fellow man — we will only be as good as we can possibly be — if we are faced with a common enemy. And the more evil the enemy, the more we will give of themselves to defeat it. We will accomplish miracles only when Satan drives us to seek God's protection.

Evil, therefore, is essential for God's work. Only when we are visited by the cruelest evil, will we turn their face to God and embrace Him with all our hearts. Man grows complacent when he languishes in the light of God's goodness. Satan paves man's path to salvation.

My father illustrated his point by telling the story of his church. When he began, few people in our town attended church regularly. It was only when that first poor cheerleader was murdered, that people sought comfort in God's embrace and came to worship Him and draw strength from His almighty power. That was when they saw that God wanted them to comfort each other and raise their eyes to heaven together. It was only then that they aspired to be good and true in their faith.

The longer the evil persisted, the more people found God. First in our own town, then in the rest of the county, then across the state, and finally throughout the entire nation.

The terrible sacrifice of twelve innocent girls brought millions of people into the arms of God. Millions. Those twelve girls were rewarded for their sacrifice. God elevated their souls, one-by-one, to heaven to sit at His side. We know this because He has promised to bring all who serve Him to heaven to sit by His throne in the light of His holy grace.

That is the ultimate good. The highest calling is to bring all men back to God. That is why the demon who killed God's martyrs was never caught, never stopped before God's work was finished. God protected the murderer because those murders brought all the good people in the country together in a common cause. The murderer was doing God's work.

I sat beside my father on that stage and looked out at the congregation and saw bliss on their faces. They loved hearing that they were going to heaven.

I looked at my mother beside me. She was nodding, her face in repose, gazing on the flock in rapture.

I looked at my father and recalled how he reveled in describing the deaths of those dozen beautiful young girls. Though his words had been pious and his descriptions indirect, his eyes had sparkled and his voice thrilled to recount the details.

I was the only person in the cathedral, undoubtedly the only person in the nation, who understood what I was hearing. Only I heard the real message in my father's sermon.

My father was confessing to his crimes. He was so certain of his righteousness, so certain that he had been doing God's work when he murdered those innocents, that he could stand before television cameras and justify his evil and no one would believe what they were hearing.

Only I could see that deeply into my father's black heart.

I said nothing about my revelation. Not then and not afterward. Not to my mother nor to any other soul. And certainly not to my father.

He lived out his remaining days in comfort, enjoying the fruits of his wealth and the endless adoration of his fans. He passed away in his sleep. Even as he died, he never suffered a single moment of pain to balance the suffering that he inflicted on those dozen young girls.

But now that he is dead and buried, I hope and pray that his soul has been cast down into the deepest pit of Hell to burn for eternity.

This confession of my complicity in my father's evil after the fact is my only hope of salvation. I pray for forgiveness for my crime of keeping silent and letting my father escape punishment in this world. I hope that God can forgive my cowardly silence, and when I die, that my soul will not be cast down to join my father's in Hell.

This I pray.

Amen.

The Arrest

I'm not going to claim I'm perfect. I mean, it's not like I haven't done anything wrong in my life. But who hasn't broken a few laws? There's books and books full of laws. Whole libraries of them. Nobody knows all the laws. Not even the lawyers, I bet. So everybody's broken laws — you, me, everyone you know. That's a guarantee.

But I never did anything that should have got me arrested. You know, the obvious things like murdering someone or robbing a bank or burning down somebody's house. I never did any of those things.

So I don't know why the cops came around yesterday morning and nailed me. Broke down my door, pointed guns at me, put the cuffs on me, took me out to this little jail, fingerprinted me; took a mug shot. They put me through the whole procedure.

They even took all my clothes away and put me in this big quilty dress thing. It weighs a ton and doesn't even keep me warm, being that it has no sleeves and barely bends. Makes me feel like a turtle.

I don't get it. They had no call to do this to me. They got no right to put me in jail.

I asked, of course. I asked, "Why are you arresting me?" Over and over, I asked. They wouldn't say. All they said is that I got a right to be silent, so I better shut my mouth. Those cops were a hostile crew. That's for sure.

I don't know what I did to piss them off, but I never seen cops so pissed.

They didn't even try to make me to confess to anything. If they'd told me what to confess to, then I'd know what they think I did wrong.

All I can figure is that someone must have ratted me out for something that I did not do. Maybe one of my buddies got busted for possession and told the cops that I'm his dealer, which I'm not. Or maybe someone got picked up for robbing a jewelry store and said I was his fence, which I'm not. But one of my buddies might have said something like that. You know why. When the cops arrest a guy, they'll give him a better deal if he rats on his friends. It doesn't matter to them if the friends are guilty or not. All they want is to get more guys to arrest. They won't be happy until they've arrested everyone in the world.

But what I don't is that if the cops for possession of pot or stolen property or something, they would have told me to confess and then made me rat out all my other friends.

Which I wouldn't do. I wouldn't lie about my friends being criminals, even if they were, which most of them are not. I'm not like whoever must have told lies about me being a criminal. I don't know who would have done that or what the lies were, but somebody must have said something real bad about me if the cops won't even tell me why they arrested me. They must figure they got all the evidence they need even without a confession, which they couldn't have, because I never did any crime that I know about.

I just can't figure out who could have ratted on me. I never did anyone wrong, as near as I can remember.

I told the cops I wanted a lawyer right off, but they didn't say nothing about that. They just locked me in this cell and went away.

So I've been here in this jail for two days, all by myself. I guess it's just as well that I'm in solitary so I don't have to get hassled by nasty, lowlife scum, but I'm getting awful lonely in here.

A young cop brought me meals — breakfast and dinner yesterday and breakfast again today. It's the same guy every time, but he won't talk to me. When I say something to him — like ask him why I been arrested or tell him I want to talk to a lawyer — he won't even look at me. He just slides the food through the slot in the door and turns his back on me.

The food is served on a paper plate and they don't give me any knives or forks. I have to eat with my fingers, which is messy because they give me scrambled eggs and toast in the morning and stew for dinner. I'm glad there's a sink in here, not just for washing the stew off my fingers, but for getting water to drink, too. They don't give me anything else to drink with my meals — not even coffee with breakfast.

That's just plain cruel.

Maybe I'm getting paranoid after two days — look at me, talking to the walls already — but I'm starting to think that this isn't an ordinary arrest because they don't think I committed an ordinary crime. What kind of extraordinary crime might they have in mind? All I can think is maybe they figure I'm a terrorist.

That might explain a few things. Look at those poor guys in Guantanamo. They don't get lawyers or trials or anything. They just get locked up and tortured for years. When the government says, "national security," all the laws get tossed in the garbage and the government can do whatever it wants to you.

Maybe this cell is the waiting room for Guantanamo right here, just outside the city limits. Maybe late tonight, when nobody is around to see, they'll sneak me out in an unmarked car and put me on a jet and fly me to some place where they don't have to worry about violating my rights.

Nobody saw me get arrested — the cops came around early in the morning when the sun was barely up, and they weren't wearing uniforms, just suits with their badges clipped to their belts. Even their cars were unmarked, so the neighbors wouldn't have taken much notice.

Maybe my family is asking the cops where I am right now, and maybe they're getting told they don't know. Maybe they're being told to file a missing person report.

If the cops clam up about me, then I'll just be someone who disappeared one day. I'll be a mystery, soon forgotten.

What then? Then the cops will have to keep me locked up until I die because they can't let me out again because I'll tell everyone that it was the cops who kidnapped me. When they get tired of keeping me in jail, they're going to have to put me down like a dog nobody wants to have around anymore.

Look at me. Am I being paranoid or what? I did nothing wrong and I'm convincing myself they're going to execute me because they made a mistake.

That's nuts. The cops wouldn't do that. Not to me. I'm not a terrorist. They got no reason to think I'm dangerous.

But now that I'm thinking about it, I'm getting to wondering. My buddy, Karl is pretty nutty, so I don't listen to him much, but something he said the other day is coming back to me. He was blathering on about how someone's got to do something about the deep state. No surprise there. He's always blathering on about the deep state, which is why I mostly just pretend to listen to him, but this time he was talking a little different. Instead of just saying how Hillary and her libtard snowflakes are trying to bring down the President because they got the FBI and the CIA on their side, he was saying that someone has to do something about them. From what I could tell, he was talking about how you could put a little bomb on one of those radio-controlled drones and fly it into someone and blow him up. The drone would fly right over top of metal detectors and security agents and land on someone's head and — boom! — blow their brains to bits. It was far-out stuff, so I just nodded and went on about my own business.

But what if he really tried to do it? What if he bought a drone and made a bomb and the government caught him?

They'd ask him who else was helping him. Maybe while they was torturing him with a waterboard. What would he say to stop from getting drowned? He might say he was talking to me about blowing up someone in the government and he might say that I was agreeing with him. He might even say that it was all my idea if that's what it took to make them stop waterboarding him.

Or maybe they didn't arrest Karl and torture him at all. Maybe he's one of them. Maybe he's an undercover agent for Homeland Security and he was trying to convince me to be a terrorist. Karl says those guys need to arrest a lot of terrorists so they can keep their jobs, so if they can't find enough real ones, they try to turn ordinary people into terrorists.

If I'm thinking that, I can't be thinking straight. The government wouldn't deliberately do that to someone. I'm going nuts in here, talking to the walls and making up wild stories.

It's got to be a simple mistake. A misunderstanding. A failure to communicate.

I got to talk to a lawyer and get this straightened out.

I don't know why they won't let me talk to a lawyer. They got to do that, right? That's the law, and I got rights, don't I? Don't we all got rights in this country?

They can't just lock me up for no reason and kill me like a dog whenever they want.

Not in this country. Not when I didn't break no laws.

I hear someone coming. Maybe they're bringing me a lawyer at last. Maybe now they'll tell me why I got arrested.

The Pizza Delivery Guy

Delivering pizzas isn't the glamorous career that everyone thinks.

You'd figure, pizzas taste great, right? A pizza guy is going to be driving around town, giving people their favorite food and they'll be happy and grateful. And what people are we talking about? Most pizzas are eaten by teenagers and half of those are hot girls, so you do the math. A guy's going to spend most of his shift ringing doorbells where the hottest chicks in town are waiting just for him, their mouths watering for him to get there. What could be better than that, right?

Well, let me splash a bucket of cold reality on your high school dreams.

It's not like the movies you see where the hot, lonely chick invites the guy in, they throw the pizza aside, along with all their clothes, and get it on.

It's not like that at all.

Most of the time the chick that answers the door is some grandmother who didn't feel like cooking for grandpa. And when there are hot chicks in the house, it's their boyfriend who answers the door because it's always the guys who pay. And if it is a lonely young woman who's getting the pizza, she's lonely because she eats way too much pizza, and it takes her ten minutes to waddle to the door, huffing and puffing and drooling down the front of her moldy old bathrobe. I'm not trying to be mean — I respect people's personal choices; chicks can eat as much pizza as they want; I'm not judging — I'm just saying that you're not going to find many movie stars opening the door when the pizza guy rings the bell.

The world ain't like in the movies. That's all I'm saying.

Let me tell you what happened on my shift just yesterday. I spent all day running all over town, trying to drop off Italian sausage specials and Hawaiians and all the other usual combinations to all the usual customers before the pizzas got old and cold, and I was getting stiffed on the tip half the time, like always, so I'm feeling pretty beat up by the end of my shift. Then, just before the place shuts down, Ricky — that's the owner of Pizza Heaven, Ricky Garcia — he says I got one last run. Someone ordered a large hot pepper and anchovy.

Hot pepper and anchovy? Who's going to order that? Some geezer with hardly a tastebud left in his mouth, that's who. Some senile old guy who wouldn't know he's eating something unless it's got enough salt to pucker his mouth and enough spice to burn his throat all the way down.

It'll be a guy so old he thinks a two-bit tip makes him look like a millionaire because he remembers back when he was earning a buck a day driving a hay wagon.

But I gotta do my job or Ricky is going to find some other sucker who'll do it for me, and I don't feel like going back to the fry station at McDonalds. Indoor work's not for me.

I grab the box, slide it into the thermal bag, and hit the road.

It's almost one in the morning, so there's no traffic. That's a blessing. I hate rush hour. That's when people getting home from work want their dinner delivered piping hot and fast, but it takes an hour just to get across town through the traffic jams. You don't get tips during rush hour, just dirty looks and doors slammed in your face. Though, the door slams after they've grabbed their pizza. No one ever slams the door in your face before they get their pizza, only before they give you your tip.

So, I'm roaring down Magnolia Avenue, thinking about hot pepper and anchovy. I don't recall ever delivering a hot pepper and anchovy pizza before. It's not what you'd call a popular combination. I'm thinking, maybe this is a prank. You know. You don't like your neighbor so you call and order a pizza for him so he has to answer the door at one in the morning and some guy — me — is standing there wanting to get paid for a pizza that he didn't order and wouldn't eat even if he was willing to buy it.

Funny joke. Ha, ha.

I expect Ricky would have confirmed a strange order like this by getting the number and calling back. We don't get so many prank calls these days with caller identification, but you never know. There are ways to trick the system, so I've heard, but a call back to get the order confirmed fixes that.

But maybe, being at the end of a long day, Ricky got lazy and didn't bother with a call back. Maybe I'm going to get to the place and find some big, bad-tempered guy in his underwear, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, who figures the best way to send me away is to punch me out.

With that in mind, when I get to the house, I look it over. It's pretty dark, but I can see a bit of light reflected from a back room. Someone is up. Most likely.

I ring the bell and then stand back, out of punching range, just in case.

Sometimes, late at night, lowlifes try to rob a pizza guy, so I'm looking around, trying to make sure that nobody is sneaking up behind me in the dark. Robbing a pizza guy is a dumb idea because we don't carry a lot of money around late at night. I keep a few bucks in my pocket to make change, but no more than twenty at the most. I keep most of the money locked up in the car. I got an envelope hidden away in a back seat pocket, where no mugger is going to look because he'd have to be an idiot to take the time to search the whole car instead of running off before the cops arrive.

Not that you can rely on a mugger to be smart enough to figure that out. You'd have to be an moron in the first place to think you're going to find enough money on a pizza guy to make risking getting arrested worthwhile.

So I'm standing in this guy's front yard, holding this hot pepper and anchovy pizza, trying to watch for shadows while I'm waiting for him to answer the door, and what do I hear?

I hear a scream.

It came from inside the house, but it's not a scream scream, like in a horror movie where some hot chick is getting murdered. It's a deep-throated scream of joy, like some guy is finding his happy place.

I don't care what the guy is doing in the privacy of his bedroom; I got a pizza to deliver and it's the end of my shift and I want to get home to my own bedroom.

I ring the bell again, twice. Forget the postman. It's the pizza guy who always rings twice, because he doesn't get paid if you don't answer.

A few minutes later, and another ring of the doorbell, and the guy finally opens up.

He's a big, hairy dude wearing nothing but jeans. I'm grateful for pants, at least. I don't need to see this guy in all his glory. He tells me I'm the pizza guy. He looks at the pizza box I'm holding up and says, "You're the pizza guy," like this is going to be news to me.

I say, "Yeah. Large hot pepper and anchovy. Eighteen-fifty with tax." It's actually eighteen thirty-seven, but I always round up a few cents to make it an even number so I don't have to carry pennies and nickels in my pocket, just a couple of quarters. Worst case, the customer takes the change I give him and I get a thirteen cent tip. Typical case, the customer hands me a twenty and says to keep the change, like I'm supposed to be thrilled with a tip that's less than ten percent. Even waitresses expect double that and they don't have to carry your food all the way across town.

This guy, though, he has another thought entirely. He waves two twenties at me and asks how I'd like to earn an extra twenty.

I don't say anything. I just give him a look and wait to hear what the deal is.

He says he's got a lady here who needs a ride home. If I wait a couple of minutes until she gets dressed, he'll give me the extra twenty to take her downtown.

What do I look like? An Uber? Well, maybe I do. What the hell? Twenty bucks is twenty bucks more than I figured on getting and it's the end of my shift and I'm driving back across town anyway. So I say, "Sure."

He doesn't invite me in. He grabs the pizza and slams the door in my face leaving me standing in his yard, empty handed.

Now I'm wondering if I been stiffed, because he's got his pizza and he hasn't given me a cent yet, not even the eighteen-fifty that he owes for it. You're never supposed to give up the pizza before you've got the money in your hand, but this guy took me by surprise.

But I know where he lives and I'll be ringing his doorbell all night if he doesn't pony up the cash pretty quick. I don't care how big he is, nobody stiffs me.

My worries were for naught, as they say. Couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes and the door opens again and a lady steps out. When I say, lady, I mean a lady of the evening, a professional lady. To be blunt, a streetwalker. The woman's wearing fishnet stockings, a miniskirt that's barely there, and a tank top left over from the seventies.

You might think she looked hot, but you weren't seeing what I was seeing. She was old enough to be my mother. Wrinkles around her eyes and mouth made her face look like a dried up mud puddle. Her thin, wispy hair would have been gray if not for a cheap dye job, and her body sagged in all the wrong places.

You deliver pizza, you're going to deliver to a lot of stoners. You get so you can spot them down the block. This woman was a long-time stoner, no question about it. You could see it in her eyes.

To tell you the truth, I felt a little sorry for her. Like I said, I respect people's personal choices, but I sure wish this woman had made some better ones when she was younger.

The guy poked the two twenties in my hand, like he promised, and slammed the door. Didn't even say goodbye to the woman. He was a charmer, that guy. Made me feel even sorrier for the woman he was kicking out of his house.

How mean was he? So mean, he didn't even give his lady friend a piece of his pizza. He was going to eat the whole thing himself. But maybe that was a blessing for her. I mean, after all, it was hot pepper and anchovy, for Pete's sake.

So I escort the lady to my car and open the passenger door for her.

She thanks me like I was a lord. I guess not many guys open car doors for her any more.

When I pull out of the driveway, I ask where she's going.

She says I can drop her off at El Cajon Boulevard and Texas Street.

I figure that's fine, until Texas Street sinks into my brain. She's not talking about El Cajon Boulevard right here in El Cajon. She's talking about the other end of El Cajon Boulevard way out in downtown San Diego. That's almost a half-hour drive, each way. Well, with no traffic at this time of night, I might make it there and back in less than forty minutes, but even so, that's a long detour for twenty bucks. Even an Uber would charge more than that.

I look across at her and I'm going to give her the twenty bucks and tell her to call a cab and kick her out, but I can't. She looks too sad. Like a dog that's been beat a lot.

So, what the hell? I say, "Sure," and head for the freeway.

When I glance at her again, she looks relieved. She must have figured what I was thinking and figured I had every right to kick her to the curb.

She chats a bit on the drive downtown, but not a lot. Just about how she likes San Diego because the weather's nice and she likes the people here.

I tell her I grew up here, so I don't know what people are like in other places. I figure they can't be too different because we're all the same species. We're all human beings.

She says that I'd be surprised, and then goes quiet for a while.

I don't mind. It's past one-thirty and we're both too tired to talk much. We're just trying to be polite to each other.

When I get to the top of Texas Street, near El Cajon Boulevard, she says that anywhere here is fine.

I don't know if she lives near here and doesn't want me to know her address — which would be smart — or if she's going back out on the street to look for another customer. That wouldn't be easy, because there's not many guys around this late at night, not even in this neighborhood where there's a few all-night diners.

When I stop, though, she's already got a customer in mind. She asks me if I'd like to have a private party in my back seat for the forty bucks that Harvey handed me back in El Cajon. She's licking her lips like they're something tasty, just to make sure I understand exactly what she means.

I'm not even tempted. It's not just because she's got to be near to twenty years older than me, it's not just because she's a sad case, it's not even because she's gotta be half stoned on something. It's because it's forty bucks. When you're a pizza delivery guy, forty bucks is a lot of money. I got to pay for gas and pay Ricky for the pizza and got all my other expenses to worry about.

If she'd been hot, maybe I would have done it, but not her. Not for forty bucks.

I tell her she's a great person, but I'm not up for it, but thanks anyway, and she smiles a sad kind of smile and says she had to try. She thanks me for the ride, gets out of the car, and waves as I pull away from the curb.

So that's it. That's the closest I ever got to getting a hot chick when I was delivering pizzas.

Like I said, delivering pizzas isn't the glamorous career that everybody thinks.

Life isn't a movie, not even in Southern California.

War Is Hell

God, I hate being a soldier. It's hot and dirty and miserable out here. All I can think about is getting home again. It's got to be over soon and I'll be on the plane back to the States. This hell can't last forever.

And you know what I'm going to do when I get back? That's all I'm really thinking about right now. What I'm going to do when I get back. I'm going to kill Jimmy, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go straight to his house and murder the bastard. Because this is all his fault. He got me into this. It was no accident. He knew damned well where he was sending me. He knew damned well what was going to happen when I got here. He knew that I was going to get ambushed. He set it up. He even warned Hellier. Told him how to get me to cooperate. I know he did.

Jimmy knows I hate guns, but he arranged for me to have to spend all day, every day, out in the burning sun, crawling around in the dirt, blasting away with damned machine gun until my ears are ringing. I can't even run out of bullets. They feed me an endless supply. I just keep reloading and reloading and reloading.

But the dirt and the heat and this ugly uniform and this damned machine gun aren't the worst of it. The worst is that I gotta take orders from Hellier. Do this! Do that! Get that uniform on. Get that food into you. We're late. We got to get shooting before we lose the sun. Hellier's always yelling at us. That's always been his way.

Jimmy knows I hate Hellier. I've hated him ever since we were shooting back in Vietnam. That was bad — hot and humid; I sweated pounds away in Vietnam — but this is worse. I hate shooting in the desert. There's no shade and the sun'll bake you to a crisp. I have to be outdoors all day. All this dirt on my face makes damned uncomfortable sunscreen and it's not nearly as effective as the real thing.

That's what I'm going to get rid of Jimmy when I get back. I'm going to get off the plane and drive straight to his mansion and bang down his front door and shoot him down right where he's standing. I'm not even going to go inside the house and have a drink first.

I got a right to be angry because he lied to me about what I was signing up for. He told me this was going to be an adventure. He used that word. Adventure. And he promised there'd be romance, too. He said that I'd find romance out in the desert. Romance? Hell, there isn't a woman anywhere out here. It's all guys, wall-to-wall. I don't get it. This isn't World War Two. This is the new millennium. There's women in the army, now. Lots of them. So where are they? Where's this damned diversity that everyone keeps talking about? We have women soldiers now and everyone is supposed to be all sensitive about diversity, so where are all the women? You can't have romance with no women.

It's all Jimmy's fault. He rushed me into signing up without giving me a chance to read what I was signing up for. I trusted him. He got me drunk. That's what he did. He got me drunk on eighteen-year-old scotch and told me to sign the papers and I was in no shape to read them, must less understand what I was committing myself to.

That's why he kept filling my glass, three fingers every time. He knew I'd never have signed on if I knew what I was going to have to do over here, so he got me dead drunk.

He didn't care that I'd told him over and over that I wasn't going to star in another war movie. He knows that I hate war movies, and look at me. Stuck in the desert in a damned uniform with dirt all over my face and Hellier screaming at me that they're ready for the next scene. The special effects guys have got all the explosives set up and there's going to be tanks crawling across the set behind me and the cameras are ready to roll and all I can think about is how my agent lied to me to get me out here.

I swear, Jimmy, when I get back, your head is going to roll.

I'm going to find a new agent. So help me, God, Jimmy, I'm going straight to your house in Beverley Hills and fire you. I don't care if they're paying me ten million for thirty days on the set. It's a war movie, not a romantic adventure like you said, and that's thirty days of my life that I'm never going to get back. So, I'm going to fire your ass.

But right now, Hellier's yelling at me that he's got to shoot this next scene before he loses the sun.

Where's makeup? What's her name? Julia? Where is she? I'm sweating. I think the dirt on my face is beginning to run. It's going too be mud soon and there's no mud in the desert. It wouldn't look right.

I'm not ready for my closeup, and I'm sick and tired of taking orders from Hellier.

It's all your fault, Jimmy, and I'm going to get you for tricking me into signing up for this movie. I don't care if it's art. I don't care if it wins a damned Oscar. I'm firing you anyway. Just see if I don't.

The Halloween Costume

After my daughter turned six last year, I decided to make a Halloween costume for her. For her earlier Halloweens, my wife, Miranda, picked a costume, pretty much at random, off the rack next to the bins of cheap candies at Walmart. You know the costumes I mean: those flimsy printed polyester gowns with the plastic masks. But when Sarah came home from school in late October and told me what her friends were going to wear to her first grade Halloween party, I figured she needed a real costume. She couldn't be the only girl in her class who went to her school Halloween party dressed in polyester and plastic.

I told Miranda that she should forget about phony princess and rainbow pony masks and create a costume that better suited a girl who was going to school. This should be a Halloween that Sarah would remember with pride and joy.

She could show her friends the fruit of her mother's imagination and talent. She should be proud of her mother.

I know. That was pretty insensitive thing for a man to say to his wife. But we'd had a pretty insensitive year. Our relationship was feeling the stress of two careers, rising debt, and assorted problems with the house and car. I'm sorry to say that telling Miranda that a good mother would make a better Halloween costume for her school-age daughter was far from the cruelest thing that either one of us said to the other that year.

Miranda's response was easy to predict. Basically, she said that I should go to hell, though she conveyed that sentiment in a far longer and more colorful monologue. Miranda could always wax eloquent when she was describing my shortcomings, which in her mind were many and deeply embedded in my shallow personality.

I returned an equally-venomous rebuttal, the essence of which was that if she wouldn't step up to the plate, then I would. I think I used the word lazy at least three times in conjunction with an even less polite noun.

It's a miracle that neither one of us whipped out a phone and made an appointment with a divorce lawyer right there on the spot. But we both loved Sarah, so we were determined to hang in there for as long as we could.

Having been slapped across the face with the challenge of making a Halloween costume, I couldn't back down. Forget the Walmart junk, I couldn't even consider renting a good costume from a high-end purveyor of fine apparel. I had to make something magnificent from scratch, not just to make my daughter proud, but to show Miranda the stuff of which her husband was made.

But what would I make for my angel? An angel costume would be simple — white gown, cardboard wings, and a gold ribbon for a halo — but that was too obvious. I wouldn't send my darling to school going to look like a refugee from a kindergarten nativity play. She was going to be spectacular.

If an angel wasn't good enough for my sweet Sarah, then I could go the other way. She could be the devil, herself. Red gown, pitchfork, horns and a tail. The whole works. That was the ticket. My angel would wear a devil costume as an ironic disguise of her true nature.

I loved it.

But what kind of devil? History gives us a plethora of choices, from Milton's fallen Lucifer to Faust's Mephistopheles. But I reasoned that first graders were unlikely to grasp a sublime literary allusion when they saw my daughter's costume. Nor, for that matter, was her teacher. Miranda and I had met Mrs. Halloway and had not been impressed by her grasp of postmodernism.

Even a reference to the devil in a blue dress of rock and roll fame would be a stretch for Sarah's peers.

So I went for a mundane, pop-culture parody of the Sunday morning cartoon devil.

This could be an educational experience for Sarah if she were party to every stage in the production of her costume. She would learn what her father could do for her.

On Saturday, two days before Halloween, I bundled her into the car and we made the rounds of fabric stores, craft stores, and hardware stores, shopping for inspiration and essential supplies.

It occurred to me that I couldn't sew until I had a sewing machine, so I added Costco to the list of stores that we had to visit.

What began as a lark soon turned into a shopping marathon.

I soon learned that a six-year-old doesn't have the stamina to match to the demands of a marathon. As we visited one store after another, smiles turned to complaints, which turned to screams, which turned to tears, which finally turned to a blunt refusal to leave the car.

Repeatedly walking past racks of polyester vampire and superhero costumes without stopping even to try one one set her off.

I began to doubt that dressing my daughter as the embodiment of evil was as ironic as I'd thought. Though she absence of any evidence of an angelic nature was providing me with more inspiration by the minute.

When I tried to extract my daughter from the car in the Costco parking lot, her screams attracted the stares of strangers. Fearing that one of them might call the police and condemn my daughter to the horrors of an inquisition by child protection services, I relented, stopped trying to pry her fingers from her seatbelt buckle, and took her home to the welcoming arms of her mother.

Sunday, I had to finish doing the remaining shopping by myself.

This costume, including the purchase of a sewing machine, tailor shears, and other sundries, in addition to the fabric, added more than six hundred dollars to my nearly-maxed-out credit card.

But I'd worry about the bills later. I was on a mission and determined to achieve my goal at any cost.

Once I had all the materials and equipment in hand, I had but a single evening and the following day before her attendance was required at her class Halloween party on Tuesday.

Sunday night, I set to cutting up the fabric. I was going to dress her from head to toe in flame-red satin. I even had red satin pumps — one of the few items I'd managed to purchase while she was still in a mood to try them on for proper fit.

It would have helped if I'd known anything about using patterns. But as a novice, I'd never heard of such a thing. Instead, I looked at her yoga pants — they were all the rage among the first grade set that year, so Sarah had a pair — and a long-sleeved top to get some idea about the shape of the pieces of fabric that would be required, and how I should stitch them together.

When I started, I didn't know that both her pants and the top that I was using as models were made of materials that stretched and that satin had no give at all. Through an evening of trial and error, and the destruction of three meters of red satin — at a cost of more than thirty dollars — I came to understand that not all materials are equally suitable for all types of clothing.

But I finally produced something that didn't look half bad — when it was laying on the kitchen table.

When my daughter awoke on Monday morning, I had her try on her new costume. My dear wife laughed. Out loud. In my face. My daughter uttered not a word, but her expression of dismay nearly broke my heart.

The pants pulled in all the wrong places and sagged pitifully in the rest of the wrong places. There were no right places. They weren't even symmetrical. The top wouldn't fit over her head until I took the shears to them and slit the back halfway down.

If the devil were an indigent clown, clothed by a blind tailor, he'd still look better than my poor Sarah.

Miranda soothed her by telling her that she wasn't going to have to wear this disaster to school on Halloween. This was just the first trial. Her father would get it fixed up before tomorrow morning. She dressed Sarah in her best school clothes and took her to the bus stop.

As Miranda walked out the door, she hissed at me that I better get my act together because our daughter wasn't going to be the laughingstock of her class.

I called in sick and spent an hour sitting in the scarlet detritus of my pitiful efforts at tailoring. The longer I sat, the more my plans shrunk. I had to forget about making pants and a top. Stores sold clothes. All I had to do was buy them.

I told a clerk at a store that sold sporting clothes for women what I needed. She advised me to forget about yoga pants and a top. I'd never find matching colors. She sold me scarlet tights and a matching leotard, assuring me that that was the basis for a decent devil costume.

She was a genius.

By lunch time, I was working on fabricating a tail with an arrowhead point at the end. And tossing my work away and starting again. And again. Three disasters later, I went to the fabric store and threw myself on the mercy of another clerk. She told me how to sew a tube of fabric and invert it to hide the seams inside. By using two pieces, I could make the tube curve. Brilliant! Then I could pack it with polyester stuffing. I bought more scarlet satin, a five-pound bag of polyester stuffing, and with a bow headband that I could use to mount stuffed fabric horns on my darling's head.

I was on a roll, now, and managed to manufacture both pieces to my satisfaction.

But how to fasten the tail to my daughter? I went back to the fabric store and asked the clerk. She sent me to the mall to buy a red cloth belt and stitch the tail to it.

Bless her. I would have married her, if I weren't already married, and if she weren't old enough to be my grandmother.

I even managed to stitch together a little red cape out of my leftover satin. It was rather ragged around the hem and asymmetrical, but that only made it look more evil.

My credit card was melting under the heat of all my purchases, but I finally had a devil of a costume for my little angel.

When Miranda got home, she was greeted by a lovely little demon, dressed in red, complete with horns, a tail, and a pitchfork.

Instead of being impressed, she asked about makeup. A devil has to have a red face.

My face was the one that was red. I hadn't even thought about makeup.

Miranda relented. She said she'd take care of it. She left me to rustle up some dinner while she went to Walmart to get some red face paint.

I was exhausted, but Sarah was happy, so my fatigue was worth it. I went to sleep early.

The next morning, when we dressed Sarah in her new costume, I found that Miranda had stayed up late and stitched a little satin skullcap to hide her hair. That was the crowning touch.

Instead of putting her on the bus, we drove her to school together.

In the car, after we dropped our little devil off at school, Miranda took my hand and told me she was impressed by my dedication to our daughter's happiness.

I don't know if we'd somehow taken our enmity out of our hearts and sewn it into that Halloween costume, or if we'd simply grown tired of being nasty to each other, but whatever the reason, making that costume marked a turning point. Our marriage began to improve noticeably during the following months.

Now, a year later, Miranda and I are getting along fine and Sarah has a new little brother.

And it's time for me to think about Sarah's costume for this year. I'm thinking she should be a cuddly panda bear. That would be cute, right? I'm sure I could make the costume. I still have three days before Halloween. How hard could it be for a man who has costume-making experience?

A Perfect Gift

Finding a Christmas present for my wife isn't a life or death decision. It just feels like it. Mostly because I die a little inside every year when I see the look on her face after she unwraps my gift.

Maybe it's my fault for trying too hard. Maybe if I didn't care, she wouldn't care. Maybe if I just grabbed any old thing off a store shelf and tossed it to her on Christmas morning, still in the bag, she'd be grateful for the thought. But I can't bring myself to do that. I can't even pretend I don't care. I care too much.

So here I am, at four-thirty on Christmas Eve, still looking for a gift, desperate because the stores are going to close soon. I didn't realize stores close early on Christmas Eve. It makes sense, I guess, because the staff has got to get home to their families, but it's hell for us husbands. I thought I'd have until eight or nine to search for something. Now I'm down to the wire with not a moment to waste.

I definitely have no time to waste in housewares. It's been a long time since I gave her that ironing board for Christmas. Decades. But she still tells people about it. She's been known to strike up conversations with total strangers on the street and ask them if they can guess what I gave her for our first Christmas after we got married.

No one ever guesses.

Sporting goods is out, too. There was that year I gave her a little lock-back jackknife for her purse. It was a lovely little knife. Not cheap. A quality tool. The look of puzzled disappointment on her face when she opened the little box was unforgettable. Later she admitted that it wasn't such a bad gift after all. She found it surprisingly useful to have a knife handy for everything from trimming loose threads to opening blister packs. Until she forgot about it when she went through airport security and they confiscated it. Ridiculous. The blade was less than an inch long. Those TSA contractors are thieves, pure and simple. One of them probably gave my wife's cute little knife to his wife for Christmas.

I hope that jerk's wife gave him the same sorrowful look that my wife gave me when I gave the knife to her.

Chocolate? That didn't work. She berated me for not knowing she was allergic. How would I know that? I'm pretty sure she never mentioned it to me, and I don't watch every candy she eats to see if she's avoiding ones with chocolate in them.

Perfume? Nope. It's politically incorrect to wear perfume these days. It seems everyone suffers from environmental sensitivities. Including my wife, as it turns out. How was I supposed to know about that, either? She never mentioned any environmental sensitivities to me. At least, she was honest enough to admit that much when I questioned her about it. She said it was something new. Yeah. Environmental sensitivities were all the fad twenty years ago. You don't hear nearly so much about it anymore, but people still think about it, I guess.

Clothes aren't even on the wish list. They're the third rail of gift giving. I got burned on that one more than once over the years. Mostly, I bought the wrong size. It doesn't matter if it's too big or too small, either one is an insult. And looking at the labels in the clothes in her closet is no solution. It turns out different stores size their clothes differently. What kind of nonsense is that?

And even on the years when I got the size right, I got the style wrong. Either she's insulted because my gift makes her think I wish she was still a teenager, or she's insulted because she thinks I'm already seeing her as an old lady.

There's no winning for trying. Not if you try to buy clothes for a woman.

Don't tell me I should just ask her what she wants. That's not romantic; that's just asking her to send me on a shopping trip. There'd be no happy surprise there. Besides, when I did ask once, all she said is that she doesn't care. Just get her anything.

Yeah. She didn't care until she unwrapped my gift that Christmas morning. Then she cared. Boy, did she care when she saw the fine leather briefcase I gave her.

Jesus, I've been wandering around for fifteen minutes already and still don't have a clue. Half my time is gone and I'm going to be walking out empty handed. That would be the worst of all. No merry Christmas for either one of us tomorrow morning.

A watch? No. She's got a box half full of watches that I gave her back in the nineties and she doesn't wear any of them.

Maybe I should just get her a gift card and she could pick out whatever she wants.

No way. That would be a cold-blooded dereliction of my duty. I'm no coward. I will face her down, gift in my hands, tomorrow morning.

I've got to find something. Think, man, think! Surely I can think of something she wants.

Wait. That's it. That's my problem. I'm trying to think of a thing. She doesn't want a thing. She's got all the things she wants. If she wants a thing, she buys it. She doesn't wait for me to give it to her.

What she wants is love. That's the ticket. That's what I'm going to give her. Love.

There's a pet story right across the parking lot, and it's still open. I'm going to get her a puppy. A puppy will love her and she will love it.

What a great idea!

Just wait until tomorrow morning when I bring it out. She's never had a puppy before. She never even said she wants one. This is going to be a real surprise! I can hardly wait to see the look on her face.

THE END

