Homeless - A Sketch

He handed her back her heart.

“It didn’t fit,” he said looking down at the organ.

“Are you sure?” Claire shook her head in confusion.

“Yeah,” he half smiled in awkwardness, eyeing the curl her head tilt had knocked loose.

Claire tucked the heart away in her messenger bag. She carefully arranged a clean handkerchief around it. It would be expensive to have the heart reattached, she thought. She wasn’t sure that she had the funds at the moment. Claire could feel Corey continuing to watch her.

“Oh. Okay,” she muttered for something to say. She thought that she should walk away now, but continued to stand still. Stock still. She was wearing the polka dotted skirt Corey had said he loved once. Wearing it made her sway.

She’d smelled like pennies, he though, not all the time, but when she wore this copper necklace that she loved. She shone and smelled like change. That night listening to the sounds of the mist stand still he drank his too hot cup of coffee. Held his cigarette between two stained fingers. Unlit. He let his heart beat. Beat against his healed ribs. Against his unworked chest. Corey couldn’t swallow her away, couldn’t leave her either, couldn’t cut her off the wall. The cheap mug burned him. It was satisfying at first, until it wasn’t and he had to set it down. Save himself. He rubbed his hand roughly against his face, pulled slightly at his hair, slouched forward curling his spine over his knees.

They’d arrested two generals the newspaper he’d borrowed from his neighbor’s welcome mat informed him. Two war heroes who had slaughtered a town of old women to hold the line. Arrested them in exchange for chocolate and cigarettes. For trading rights. The right to sell something other than their memories and second daughters. They looked good, he noted holding the paper closer to his face, these bartered goods. They looked tailored and well fed. Corey’s own stomach fumbled audibly and he took a gulp of coffee. Slightly cooler. Bearable.

Claire had been in love with a coworker when they met.

“Corey, this is Claire,” Marie had introduced them as an after thought at her birthday party.

“Delighted,” she teased and curtsied after he’d ducked his head to bow slightly by accident. He’d been taken off guard.

Corey was in love with a woman named Jane.

“So, how do you know Marie?” Claire asked in a disarmingly confident manner.

“She’s married to my brother.”

“You’re Tom’s brother!” she’d exclaimed with genuine joy.

Tom had told Corey about Claire, of course. Mentioned her in passing a few times and pointedly at least once. She was a friend and coworker of Marie’s. She laughed loudly, baked, and had nice hair.

“How’s her ass?” Corey had asked his brother in jest.

“Yup,” Corey responded to Claire’s exclamation, “as far as I know.”

Claire smiled to one side and rolled her eyes. She was pretty he noted, but thought nothing of it.

Jane was gone by the time he got home that night. She’d cleared out her side of the closet, pulled her shoes from beneath the bed, and left a note. “I need space to think,” it read each time Corey read it over the coming months. Never said more or less. He hung it on the fridge next to the Bai Mint Thai take out menu.

“Marie saved me from death by boredom,” Claire offered over cappuccinos. It had been three months since they’d met. Corey needed out of the apartment and Claire owed Marie a favor.

“Boredom?” he challenged, one dark eyebrow arched in doubt.

“Sever,” she emphatically confirmed. “We worked together at the bank before everything went wonky and the world collapsed.”

“Ph, that does sound terribly boring,” Corey teased.

“Well, that part wasn’t so bad. Or, really, that part was awful if not terribly boring. It was everything leading up to the apocalypse that bored to tears.”

“And, now?”

“And now we’re real friends.”

“And you?”

“And we what?”

“No, you do what now that you don’t work at the bank?”

“Oh, I consult.”

“Hm,” he nodded. Claire liked this answer because people rarely questioned it. “So you consult and she moms now,” Corey stated.

“She does indeed. And you?” Claire questioned, scrapping the foam from the edge of the cup before placing the tiny spoon in her mouth.

“I read.”

“You read?” Claire looked up in surprise.

“And paint.”

“Wait, what? For a living?”

“Marie really didn’t tell you anything about me did she?”

“No, not really,” she smiled and shrugged slightly. “So you paint? Like, what?”

Corey took a deep drink of his cappuccino, enjoying the brief bitterness. He hated this question, but knew that it could not be avoided. “Canvases.”

Claire drew her eyebrows together in annoyed confusion.

He wondered if she groomed them. They looked too perfect to be natural, but just wild enough to be real. This early observation would later amuse Corey, after he became too well aquatinted with the diligence of Claire’s body hair routine.

“Paint what on canvasses, Pablo?” Claire fired back with snarky precision.

Corey laughed. Everyone had been so delicate with him since Jane left. Had carried him around like a hallow egg shell, handing him carefully from friend to friend in clear terror of dropping him. No one had used sarcasm around him. No one had snarked. “Mostly trees and faces recently,” his eyes smiled back at Claire in silent gratitude. “And things I want to remember.”

Claire enjoyed the hiss of the electric kettle, the moment the swirl of milk conquered the tea, and the slide of melting butter across the toast. She thought of continental drift.

Their first breakfast together was a revelation to Corey. It was like witnessing a benediction or a practiced act of contrition. Each movement in the pink gray of Claire’s kitchen was measured and precise. Her body hummed with efficiency and grace. Her bare feet tapped the floor in patterned step.

He had stayed over on her couch the night before. They had been out to dinner, pizza at some corner place, and gone back to Claire’s for wine and privacy. Claire and Corey had been seeing each other for two months. Had been seen together. Had sat publicly in communal contemplation and conversation. But never touched.

When Corey thought back on this first breakfast together, he remembered that her lips had looked bruised and her curls had refused to keep away from her eyelashes. And she glowed.

Brief

I waited out the day

To watch you

Speak

Hear the curl of your voice

Exhale

To glance slyly, shyly

At your awed confusion

Your hesitating grin

I washed dishes

To move the hours

To fill my hands

Distracting

I stared at the chair

Grazed the pillow

Handled the book

Bent slightly and water worn

I lingered

On your laughter

Left perched on my lips

Lingered on the space

Between

Chocolate for Lena

“Aren’t you going to smell that?” Lena asked as Orlando dropped a bottle of lotion into the basket.

“What?” he asked, confused.

“The lotion. You didn’t smell it.”

Orlando starred down at the plastic white bottle.

“How do you know you’ll like it?”

“Its on sale.” He pointed at the clearance tag on the shelf.

“But how do you know you’ll like it? It’s a big bottle.”

“Yeah, and its on sale. It’s a good deal.”

“But what if you put it on for the first time and you don’t like it?”

Orlando picked up the bottle, “its lotion?” he asked turning the bottle over in his hands.

“Yeah, Lando, its lotion,” Lena stated taking the bottle from him and opening the top, “but they don’t all smell the same.”

“I know that. But its lotion. Its on sale.”

Lena put the top back on the lotion and placed the bottle back into the basket. “Okay.”

Lena was not dating Orlando. She had been ‘not dating’ Orlando for around four years. He had recently floated the idea of her moving in. They were both paying too much in rent and he wanted to see her more.

“Can you grab me a box of tampons?” Lena asked as they passed the OBs. Thank God they’re back on the shelf, thought Lena. She was tired of rooting around in purses and the bottom of drawers for strays. Orlando flicked the nearest box into the basket using only the tip of his index finger.

“Did you grab a Super?” Lena stopped walking.

“What?”

“The tampons. Did you grab Supers?”

“I don’t know,” Orlando shrugged, looking away. Menstruation made him nervous.

“Did you look?”

“They’re blue, right? I grabbed the blue ones.”

“They’re all blue.” Lena puller the Variety pack out of the basket and replaced it with a box of Regulars. “I just need the regulars,” she stated to Orlando’s back. He was looking at his feet. I swear to God will you never grow up? Lena asked Orlando, in her head.

“Do we need anything else?” Orlando asked, looking down at the list Lena had written up in his apartment.

“I don’t think so, but we can look around some more.” It was hot outside, blistering, fry an egg on the pavement, melt lip balm in your car, kind of hot. Neither Orlando nor Lena had air conditioning at their apartments and so they were delaying leaving the cold glory of the store.

“Oh, I know,” cried Orlando in excitement and ran off.

Lena was flipping through a copy of Sunset when he returned. “They’re on sale,” he said proudly dropping two Cadbury Milk bars into the basket. “Chocolate. Its your favorite.” He grinned at her.

Lena leaned over and kissed him. They were smiling at each other when the clerk screamed.

“Oh my god a gun!”

Clide had never lived in Nashville, but he’d always dreamed of buying a little house there. His mom loved that home and garden station where they were always redoing people’s houses. Sometimes they did a house in Nashville and he’d watch with his mom and think how he’d do it differently. He wanted tile in the kitchen. Real blue tile. He didn’t care that his mom said it’d be dangerious, too slick when wet, people’d fall. He liked the idea of tile instead of linoleum, thought it sounded like something you’d hold on to.

There wasn’t much chance though, of getting that house. Clide had worked some odd jobs off and on. He was pretty good with plumbing. He’d fix things for neighbors. They’d pay him if they could, but he’d fix the problem anyway if they bought the supplies. His mom had tried to talk him into applying at a plumbing repair service. But he’d been afraid. He didn’t think they’d take him without a high school degree. He didn’t want to get laughed at for trying. He’d worked for a while at a plumbing supply warehouse. He’d liked it there, but some stuff got stolen and a coworker accused him. He’d denied it, but they’d fired him anyway. He had stolen the supplies, but not the money that was missing. Someone else had taken that.

Lena leapt behind Orlando, feminism be damned. A guy in a gray hoodie was pointing a gun at the blonde teenager at the cash register. His hand was shaking.

“The cash,” he yelled, pointing at the drawer with his other hand.

The cashier just stood there starring at him.

“The cash,” he repeated. This seemed to work better in the movies. Everyone was just standing around starring at him with their mouths open. No one was even crying. That was good though, Clide didn’t like it when women cried.

“The money,” he tried again, this time pointing with the gun. The movement of the gun seemed to wake the girl out of her paralysis.

She exhaled loudly and started to press keys on the cash register until she got frustrated and started hitting it.

“What are you doing?” Clide asked. “That’s not going to work. That’s not how it works? Are you new or something?”

“What?” asked the blonde teenager, now starting to cry.

“No. Crap, just move okay.” Clide slid behind the counter and opened the drawer. He shoved a bunch of twenties into his pockets and lifted the tray to see if there was anything larger. There wasn’t. His buddy had told him a grocery store was a great bust cause they’d be low on security and would be sure to have lots of large bills. Nick had been wrong before.

By this point the blonde was sobbing and leaning into Orlando’s shoulder.

“You,” Clide gestured at Orlando with the gun, “you got a phone on you?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’ve got a phone. It’s in my back pocket.”

“Okay, well give it to me.”

Orlando, pushed Lena aside just enough to grab his phone. She was clinging to him pretty hard, he thought he might have bruises in the morning.

“What’s this?” Clide looked down at Orlando’s five year old phone.

“It’s a phone.”

“This it?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”

“You don’t have like an Iphone or something?”

Orlando let out a brief burst of laughter. Lena pinched him and her mouth got very small.

“No,” he told Clide. “I don’t have an Iphone or something. I’ve got that.”

“You don’t get upgrades?” Clide asked, turning the phone over in his hand.

“Seriously?” Orlando looked at Clide in disbelief and then looked at Lena and the sobbing cashier.

“Yeah, yeah, right” Clide responded, getting the hint. “Anyway, um, don’t call the cops.” He clipped his shoulder on the automatic sliding glass door as he ran out. The door hadn’t opened as quickly as he anticipated.

“Oh my god.” Lena breathed slowly, still clinging to Orlando’s shoulder. “We’ve been robbed. Or… well… I guess, you’ve been robbed.”

“Don’t worry I already called the cops,” said a guy near the back of the dairy aisle. “They’re on their way.”

That night, Lena collapsed on Orlando’s futon. “I am too tired to move,” she stated into the cushion. They’d spent hours talking to cops and filing paperwork for Orlando’s crappy phone. The guy had been right, of course, Orlando’s phone really did need to be replaced.

“I don’t have anyone’s numbers,” Orlando had realized at the station. Lena couldn’t help really, they had some friends in common, but since they were not dating, they kept their social lives fairly separate.

“You’ll just post it on Facebook. People will send you their numbers.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Orlando broke open one of the chocolate bars in the kitchen while Lena lay face down in his living room. The store had given them their items for free, since they’d been so helpful with the police and Orlando had calmed down the teenaged cashier. Well, until her boyfriend arrived anyway, at which point she started crying so hysterically that the only thing anyone could understand was “I could have died” over and over again.

“You want anything?” he called to Lena.

“Have you thought about having a baby?” she called back.

Orlando chocked on his square of chocolate. The sweetness coated the roof of his mouth, “what?” he asked quietly, walking into the living room with the look of a man given a fatal diagnosis.

“A baby,” Lena repeated turning her face in his direction.

“That’s what I thought you said. A baby?”

“Yeah. A baby?”

“Like a human baby?”

Lena stared at him without answering.

“What? It’s a legitimate question.”

“No” Lena sighed, pushing herself into a sitting position, “its not.”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know where this is coming from.”

“It coming from my uterus.”

“What?” Orlando started, starring at her lower abdomen. “Um, wait are you?” his voice trailed off.

Lena threw her hands over her stomach. “No, no, what? No. We bought tampons.”

“I don’t know. What is going on? What is wrong with today? I got robbed. We are not having this conversation. Not today.”

“You didn’t seem that upset earlier.”

“Earlier?”

“At the police station.”

“About the baby? I didn’t know anything about a baby at the police station.”

“What? No,” Lena shook her head slowly. “About the robbery. You didn’t seem that upset. Are you pretending.? To get out of this conversation?”

Orlando sat on the floor, “I would, I mean, I would pretend to get out of this conversation, but no. I’m not pretending now that I’m upset. I was pretending then that I wasn’t.”

“What?” Lena crawled off the futon and over toward Orlando on the floor.

“There was some guy, pointing a gun at you. I was upset. Of course I was. But what was I going to do?”

“You didn’t seem upset.”

“What was I going to do? Whitney was sobbing…”

“Whitney?”

“The girl. The cashier, her name is Whitney. Anyway she was scared shitless, and she was sobbing and you were there and the dumb fuck had a gun. What, I’m gonna start crying or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“Anyway, I’m not pretending. But, Lena, a baby? You want to have a baby?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“With me?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“But you decided to think about it now. Today?”

“I don’t know. That guy, he had a gun pointed at you. I… I mean… I think we should have a baby. Maybe. Or at least talk about it.”

“Not today.”

“Okay, not today, but still.”

“Right.” Orlando pulled Lena to him and wrapped his arms around her. He rested his chin on top of her head. “We’ll talk about it later.”

A Short Sale

De looked down at her neatly gnarled hands. They hadn’t gone the way of her friends’ hands, haphazardly curled and swollen along long forgotten fault lines. De’s hands had collapsed around themselves with a graceful symmetry, like perfectly balanced tree roots. This symmetry made them none the less useless sometimes, however. Beauty had not saved her stemware nor opened her jam jars. It was best not to be vain over useless things, best not to be vain at all, De was quick to reprimand herself.

Flexing her fingers to judge their grip, De thought about the agent. He was coming again today. He would arrive, as always, scurrying nervously up the walk in his ill fitting suit. De would, as always, greet him with warm coffee and a burning loathing. Never mind that it wasn’t this man’s fault that she and Walter had mortgaged the house thrice over, nor that Walter had up and died on her before they even nearly paid back the bank. This man was a scavenger. He fed off the bones of old ladies and single mothers.

The house had never been much in comparison to the faux mansions middle class couples were buying up on the outskirts of the city. Or were they, De wondered, still buying those places? Still middle class couples? She and Agnes, her best friend, had gone out to tour one of the houses when the subdivisions first went up.

“Can you believe this?” Agnes had gasped when they’d entered the foyer.

De had given her friend the ‘be cool’ look. They were both pretending they could afford this place and the woman showing the house was pretending that she did not know any different. A lot of the older ladies from town had come through for a good gawk and a bit of make believe.

“Your rug would look lovely in this room,” De offered in her best Miss Georgia voice as she meandered into the first living room. The house had four, though of course the company building the places had a different word for each room.

“You put a couch in here?” asked Agnes.

“If you like,” answered the polite smiling young woman, clutching a leather folder and teetering in what De assumed must be very trendy heels.

“But, you put a couch in here,” Agnes countered almost accusingly in the middle of the fourth living room, which was termed the “entertainment room” on the little printed map of the house that the women had been given upon their arrival.

“Well, yes. This is a reclining seating unit. It is really comfortable and great for watching movies on this built in entertainment center.” The woman pressed a button on a remote she had in her folder and a screen rolled down from the ceiling. “The entertainment center is one of the optional upgrades listed in the informational packet.”

“Hm,” responded Agnes.

De’s house certainly did not have an “entertainment room” or optional upgrades. It had three bedrooms, one bathroom, and one, yes one, living room. Though this had never stopped her and Walter from entertaining.

“No granite counter tops?” the agent had questioned on his first visit.

“No” De had answered.

“Hardwood floors?” he continued without conviction.

“Under the carpeting.”

He looked up hopefully.

“In some rooms,” De rushed to add, “but its not in very good condition. That’s why we got the carpets.”

The agent wrote himself a note.

“How old’s the roof?”

“I don’t know,” De admitted. That had been Walter’s job, taking care of the maintenance of the house, managing the paperwork. They had discussed it of course. Did they need to replace the roofing? All of it of just patches? What would it cost? Could Walter do it himself on a dry day? But she honestly couldn’t remember if this was eight years ago or twelve. She knew they’d done something to the roof, but the extent of it escaped her.

She sensed the agent’s frustration and bafflement, but how could she explain the way the years leached together. Forty years of marriage. Thirty three years in this house. There were no unfrayed edges left.

De shivered as a whip of late November breeze hit her. She’d miss this porch, she thought. She and Agnes had sat here drinking tea and watching their collective children play on summer evenings. She and Walter had rocked nights on the two seater rocker that they had saved for and carefully picked out. Solid maple and carved with branches. “Solid like our marriage,” Walt had said, “nothing but the best for my baby.” Nothing you couldn’t brag about.

Forty years of marriage doesn’t go down easy. De hadn’t know that until she was smack in the middle of it. No one told her. No one said it would be so hard to be so happy. They were, happy. Happier than they were angry, sad, lonely, or anything else. This made their marriage a success by any yardstick, but that didn’t mean that De hadn’t been bone weary by the end. She had not realized how tired she was until she came home from the hospital that night Walter had died. She unlocked the door, dropped her purse, weighed down with his personal belongings that she ‘might want to hang onto,’ on the threshold. She couldn’t summon the energy to walk through the open, empty, doorway. She’d slept on the porch that first night. Rocked on the rocker. Agnes had come by next morning with her husband, still living and capable of coming by, and gotten De to bed. De had not know a body could be that tired.

She was only fifteen the first time she saw Walter. She and her girlfriends were hanging around the community pool willing the boys to admire them. Walter had walked by on the other side of the chain fence, decked out in blue jeans, collard shirt, and a bright red jacket with the collar up. Up, as though it weren’t over 90 degrees in the shade. Up, as though he couldn’t be touched. Touched by mere reality. De wanted to fall at his feet, so she did what any self respecting fifteen year old girl would do. She ignored him.

“Hey ladies,” Walter’s cousin called to De and her friends. “It sure is hot today.”

The girls eyed each other and giggled as they turned away.

“I’m John, this is my cousin Walter. We’re new in town,” he continued undeterred. “Walter, have you ever seen prettier girls in your life?” John asked dramatically, whistling and widening his eyes like an actor he’d seen in a movie. Walter was annoyed.

“Yeah, great. John, I’ve got to go. If I’m late my first day they’ll can me.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re going. Hey ladies, you hear, my cousin here has a job. Do your boyfriends have jobs? I bet we could take you to see a movie on Friday, if you’re interested,” John said leaning closer to De’s half turned back.

“Johnny, come on,” Walter hissed.

“Being new and all, we seem to have gotten ourselves a little lost,” John continued trying out his smooth voice on De’s friend Peggie. “Do you know how we could get to Sylvia’s Market?”

“You work there?” De asked Walter, as though she could not care less, but was too well bred no to ask. Her heart had begun to race standing so close to him.

“Um, yeah, well, I will if this guy doesn’t get me fired.”

“You’re real close,” she said, nodding east with her chin. “You could walk from here,” De hesitated. “Want me to show you?”

“Oh, sure,” Walter replied, a little taken aback.

“K. Let me get my skirt and things. Just a sec.” De wanted to vomit. She’d never been so bold with a boy in her life. Her mother would be horrified. But it had worked, hadn’t it? Forty years of marriage all because she’d ignored nearly everything her mother had ever taught her about men.

“You were sassy,” Walter told her about a week before he died. “I liked it. You weren’t like the others, you played me, made me work to please you.”

De’d laughed. “Work? I loved you from the moment I saw you. You had no work to do.”

“Yeah,” Walter smiled slyly, “but I didn’t learn that till later.”

He was late. The agent. He was always a little late, but what did that matter if he did his job, right? And he did, do his job. You wouldn’t know from the suit, but the man could hustle. De supposed that was a genetic requirement in a hyena. He had shown up, taken one look at her house and said, “Yeah, we can sell it. The bank’ll have to take a bit of a hit, but they’ll take it. Better than another foreclosure.” He had added this last part as though they were sharing a sage secret. As though he weren’t laying bare her shame.

“Okay,” was all De could bring herself to say.

Her son in law had brought up selling the house, taught her about short sales, brought the agent around.

“De,” he’d never called her Mom the way other son in laws might, “you can’t handle this place. The monthly payments are insane. I mean, for what its worth, now, in this market, you just can’t be paying this much. And you’ll never pay it off... on your own? I mean if Walter had left you something, maybe you could hang on to it. But as it is, it just seems insane. And, I mean, we love you, but Pat and I just aren’t in a position to help you right now. And really,” he rambled on emotively “wouldn’t you be happier in a smaller place? A one bedroom? You could rent a place near us, so much more convenient. So much less to clean.”

He’d meant well. De kept telling herself that. They had gathered around her kitchen table, the one she had raised four children at. Sunday dinners, homework, birthday cakes, and decline.

“Should we vote?” asked Patti, De and Walter’s second daughter. Veronica, the eldest would never have suggested such a thing, but she wasn’t there that day.

“Vote?” baulked her husband, “Why? This isn’t an option. She has to do this.”

Patti had nodded at her mother the way she might at a young child. De wondered if she hadn’t given Patti enough attention as a child, enough encouragement. How had she raised a child who would so easily give up to a husband? But then in the end she’d given up to her son in law as well. It had seemed easier, and if she was honest, more practical. And maybe less to clean wasn’t such a bad idea, though the amount of cleaning hadn’t seem difficult since the children had moved out. Children, lovely creatures that they are, really did make a mess of things.

That had been three months ago. Smelling the coffee percolating and pulling out the slightly chipped mugs from the cupboard, De wondered if short sale was the right phrase. Should a short sale take three months? The agent had posted the house on Craig’s List, on Youtube, on real estate web sites, and such. They’d taken pictures and people had come by and commented on the color of the walls and the height of the grass. De hadn’t started looking for a one bedroom apartment yet.

“We’ve got an offer!” the agent said, rushing up the walk as De walked out with the coffee tray.

“What?”

“An offer. On the house. We’ve got one. It is what we asked for, so the bank will look it over. They’ve got thirty days, but it shouldn’t be a problem. There’ll be an inspection, but that should be fine too. Barring anything unexpected, De, your house is sold.” De didn’t like that her daughter’s husband and this man called her by the same name, even if it was her name. She felt it gave the agent a familiarity that she didn’t want him to have.

“Its good news,” he said, eyeing her over the mug’s rim as he drank down some coffee.

“Yes,” she paused. “Yes, yes, it is. I know.”

“You’re in shock, that’s okay. Normal. Anyway, I’ll get things started with the bank and call you in a couple days with more information. I just wanted to bring you the good news in person.”

“Yes. Great. Thank you.”

De sat at the kitchen table for a long time, watching her cup of coffee grow cold. Her house. Gone, or would be, could be in thirty days or so. A month to pack up a life. She hadn’t really prepared. She’d thought she was ready, or maybe didn’t really think about what getting ready would entail, didn’t really think about what ‘ready’ meant. Where would she go? An apartment? De had never lived in an apartment. Never. She moved from her parent’s house to a small house she and Walter had rented to this house. She hadn’t thought about it before, but could she live in an apartment? How different would it be? She didn’t know, couldn't quite fathom.

De rested her face in her hands. They were sore today, the wind did bite a little and settle in her joints. She rubbed the back of her neck. She needed to get out of the house. She needed perspective.

De got into the car and started the engine. She didn’t drive much, never had. She wasn’t a bad driver, but Walter had enjoyed driving, had enjoyed driving his wife and kids around. De didn’t mind, but she enjoyed Walter’s pleasure more than she enjoyed driving herself. After he died, she didn’t take the care out for a month. She would wait until one of her kids came by to run errands, or walk to the market, or take the bus.

“Mom, you have a car, why don’t you just use it? Are you worried about your eye sight or something?” Kyle, her youngest, had asked.

“My eyesight? There’s nothing wrong with my eyesight?”

“Then what’s your problem?”

She hadn’t thought of an answer that she thought he would understand, so she just started driving herself around.

She let the car rumble for a minute before backing out of the driveway. The radio murmured quietly in the background as the world went dusky around the edges of her headlights. She had driven through the gates of the middle class couple faux mansion subdivision, before she realized where she was going.

There were street lights on, but no house lights, no tv screens blinking. So they hadn’t sold the houses after all, De realized. The houses had begun to degrade through neglect and mistreatment. There were swirls of scarlet paint across the facades “Niko was here”, “Fuck you Susie!”, “Go to Hell” and other things she couldn’t make out. There were No Trespassing signs everywhere, which were obviously not doing much good. De pulled her car up in front of the house she and Agnes had toured. This was supposed to be a wonderland. An island of middle class opulence to protect one from the cares, demands, and smells of the rest of the word. A way to blindly ostracize oneself. “Optional upgrades” De sighed shaking her head. It was sad, but they really had been such useless things.

A security car pulled up behind her. “Ma'am, this is private property,” the uniformed young man said with as much authority as he could muster as he walked up next to her driver's side window.

“Oh, I know. I’m sorry, I just got a little lost.”

I woke one day tired

tired of hearing your heart beat of

hearing the gap

of laying my head down

down down

down beside the indentation

I'd assigned

in a moment of exertion

a moment of hope

creation and long sought endeavor

Too worn out I changed my clothes

pinched toes into kitten heels

pinched smile into coy

pressed flat my hair

to lift out another's smile

another smile

a smile

a moment of hope

The Itch

Things had gone terribly wrong in the village of Vita. The cows would not moo, the bells would not chime, and young Gertie Le Fleur was growing a flower, right out the top of her head.

No one was sure how, or even when, their misfortunes had started exactly, each remembering the sequence a little differently. The butcher would waddle out of his shop, wiping his bloodied hands across the front of his ill used apron, declaring that one morning last spring the cows had gone silently to the slaughter. He thought it might have been March.

“Lies,” chuckled the baker, shaking his head across the square. “It was the bells,” he declared. “The bells fell mute first... and that was May, at the earliest. I was pulling a pallet of walnut loaves from the oven the moment I realized that the bells had not rung me awake that morning.”

“It began with me,” stated the statue poised at the mathematical center of the square, as he wiggled one big toe, “only, no one noticed.” The villagers paid no mind to the statue’s claims. He was a lesser duke who had fought in a lesser war, after all.

For Gertie Le Fleur it all began with an itch.

“Girl, stop scratching your head,” her grandmother cried one morning as Gertie drowsily shuffled into the kitchen. “People will think you have bugs.”

“But, Baba, it itches,” Gertie mumbled, still scratching the top of her head.

“Well, you’ll only make it worse,” the rotund woman declared as she removed Gertie’s hand from her scalp. “You want sugar in your tea this morning?” she asked the girl, while quickly searching Gertie’s hair for lice.

“I don’t have bugs” Gertie huffed, slumping down in the chair closest to the oven. She was cold that morning in mid February.

“Sugar?” her grandmother repeated. Gertie shook her head. “You are the strangest child,” Baba Le Fleur declared, setting the steaming mug of milky tea in front of her granddaughter. “Whoever heard of a child who doesn’t want sugar?”

“Its too sweet,” Gertie mumbled into her mug. She had wrapped her thin hands around the mug and rested her forehead on its lip so that the steam warmed her icy nose.

“The strangest child,” Baba Le Fleur chirped, pulling Gertie’s shoulders back so that the girl was sitting up straight in the old wooden chair.

“But I’m frozen” she whined.

“Eat this. You’re too thin.”

Gertie looked suspiciously at the roll her grandmother had handed her.

“Don’t make that face at me child. You are getting too old for this petulance.”

“What is petulance?” Gertie questioned, picking apart the roll and lining up the small pieces on the table in front of her.

“That” Babe Le Fleur accused, pointing at the crumbs.

“Raisins!” cried Gertie in delight. There was a cinnamon raisin mixture hidden in the center of the roll. Raisins were not Gertie’s favorite, but they were unexpected that morning. Gertie enjoyed the unexpected.

“Stop scratching your head!”

“I didn’t know I was,” Gertie replied defensively,

Gertie was eight and in her third year of school that winter. She was the youngest of five children and the only girl. Ivan, Isaac, Irving, and Ithicus were all strong boys and big for their age. They towered over Gertie, tickled her, and tied her shoes.

“Gertie!” called Ivan, “We’re leaving without you.”

“No you’re not,” squeaked Gertie as she hopped down the battered and slightly warped stairs, boots untied. Upon reaching the bottom step she sat down, stuck her feet straight out, and began to adjust her scarf.

It was soft, the thick cotton wearing in spots from too many washings. A frayed edge strategically hidden beside Gertie’s ear always tickled. Tickled more as the day went on. This was Gertie’s favorite scarf, choked with overlapping red poppies woven into a barely visible dark green. She wore it on days she needed to be brave. Wore it on birthdays and exam days.

“You having a bad day already?” Ivan questioned as he steered Gertie out the front door.

“No” she replied reflectively, “there were raisins for breakfast, which was good, but” Gertie paused.

“But what?” Isaac asked kicking at a pile of snow.

“But something is wrong.”

The brothers nodded without hearing. Little sisters, much like lesser dukes, were more decorative than things to be taken seriously.

The snow was high that winter. It had begun falling in early October, which even for a village well aquatinted with snow was exceptional. Gertie waddled up to a snow bank pushed up against the gray stone wall bounding the brewery. A place that, by necessity needed to be bounded, to contain the smell and keep out the thieves. Many of the oldest women in the village still would not mention the brewery, or its owner, by name. The snow bank on this day reached up to Gertie’s chin. She starred into the snow, scratching her head.

“Puppy!” called Irving from up ahead. “You coming?” The brothers had taken to calling their youngest sibling Puppy the day she was born. “She looks like a new born puppy” Isaac had declared in awe.

Gertie poked at the snow, breaking off a chunk that had iced over. “Puppy,” Isaac chided “we are going to be late.” He moved her hand aside and rested his own atop her head.

“The snow, Isaac, its pink” Gertie whispered in disbelief.

Isaac chuckled at his sister’s youth even while noting that the snow did, in fact, look pink. “Its the sun Gertie. The sun makes it appear pink.”

“How?” Gertie challenged looking up into her brother’s down turned face. He had reached the age at which he was attempting his first mustache. It was not going as planned.

Isaac paused, unsure how to explain this to his sister, unsure how the sun turned snow pink. “That,” he began leaning down to Gertie’s eye level, “is an excellent question for you teacher.” He wrapped his arm around her small frame and redirected her toward the school building.

The church bells echoed off the stone houses, off the mountains surrounding the village, off the frozen pink snow. A gray kitten darted across the children’s path and scurried into a crevasses in the brewery wall.

“Why must we go to school so often?” Gertie asked her brothers as they entered the building.

Gertie was comforted by the smell of chalk and the warmth of the radiators. She hung her coat in her personal cubby at the back of the room and rubbed her head.

“Gertie, don’t” her teacher commanded, brushing Gertie’s hand aside. Gertie had long ago learned not to protest when given a command at school. She generally remained silent from the moment a brother left her by her classroom door until one collected her from the same spot at the end of the day. Gertie enjoyed silence.

“That child could frighten the devil himself” an Auntie had once declared of Gertie. She liked to watch, to examine. She found speaking an unnecessary interference. Needless to say, Gertie Le Fleur did not have many friends.

“Hey Gertie” Dom roared ramming his side into her arm. Dom was two years older than Gertie and still in her year at school. He made a point of pushing her, teasing her, poking her, and trying to force her to speak. “Why you got that stupid look on your face?” he whispered, pinning Gertie against the wall next to the cubbies.

Gertie turned her face away. His breath smelled. His breath always smelled, of garlic, onion, sour milk, and general decay.

He sniffed her. Thought of the sound of her giggle, her laughter when she talked to her brothers or grew bored during math. “Its cold,” he said to her, trying to look less mean, but not moving away. “Cold,” he repeated. “What are you looking at?” Dom turned his face to the window. “What?” he repeated moving his face closer, “your lip is bleeding. Gert, what are you looking at?”

Gertie starred out the window at the snow. The gray sky had burst open since she had arrived at school and soft heavy flakes of pink and purple ice were drifting to the ground.

“Can’t even answer a question?” Dom paused, willing her to speak. “Answer my question!” he commanded, slamming his left palm against the wall. Gertie was awoken from her reverie. She turned to look into Dom’s eyes. She scratched her head.

“What's wrong with you?” the boy whispered, releasing her.

Gertie was not really afraid of Dom, but she did not like him. Sometimes during class when he would throw bits of paper at her, she would envision a pack of wolves devouring him alive. She would hear his screams and smell his blood. Gertie cried the night her grandmother told her there were no wolves left in their village. The hunters had long ago killed them off.

“Children,” the teacher clapped at no one in particular. “Gertie, your lip is bleeding,” she reprimanded, touching her own bottom lip.

Gertie ran her tongue around her mouth. It bit like old metal, old pipes.

The day progressed as they have the habit of doing. The children were taught grammar, math, geography, and history. Gertie had not participated nor been expected too. She had drawn a cartoon about a sheep in her notebook. The sheep had wandered off and been lost in the mountains. It would never be seen again.

At break the children had gone outside to play in the snow and the teacher had fretted about the classroom getting wet upon their return. There would be puddles. Someone could fall.

Part way through a good scratch Gertie had discovered a lump on the top of her head. She poked it. Tried to feel the edges of it, gauge the size. Her hair was in the way, the scarf.

“Gertie Le Fleur,” the teacher interrupted Gertie’s medical contemplation, “do you need to see a nurse?” Gertie’s hand froze on the top of her head, mid poke. She slouched into her chair and shook her head. The entire room full of children had turned to stare at Gertie. She gulped and mourned the wolves, contemplated arsenic.

“Stop scratching yourself. Its rude,” the teacher continued before turning back to the blackboard.

Gertie slid out from her chair and tip toed out of the room, backwards. She slunk down the hall, hugging the wall. Imitating the spies in the movies her brothers loved and bought bootlegged from the neighbor's son. When Gertie reached the bathroom she closed the door behind her with warm relief. The bathroom was steamy from leaky pipes and hot radiators. It smelled slightly of mold and bleach and was painted a deep golden, for no imaginable reason. A third of the floor tiles were missing. Gertie checked that the stalls were empty before removing her scarf.

There was blood.

She tilted the top of her head toward the mirror and attempted to part the hair around the lump. Her hair was sticky. She couldn’t get a clear view. A loud noise came from outside, from the direction of the monastery. The mirror in front of Gertie shattered and fell into the sink basin. Fell like an armload of silver snow. Gertie starred into the bowl of tiny Gerties. She tilted her face from one side to the other, watching the hundred other Gertie’s mime her movements. She reached the tip of one finger into the basin and crunched in against the shards.

“Ow,” she yelped quietly. There was a tiny shard stuck in the finger, next to the nail. Great more blood, thought Gertie.

She was not frieghtened by the blood really. Having grown up with so many brothers she was accustomed to a degree of personal injury, a quantity of blood. This was different however. The semi self inflicted wound on her head was worrisome. After pulling the shard of mirror from her finger Gertie washed her hands and lip in the basin to her left. She tried to clean off some of the caked on blood from her hair, but it seemed to have little positive affect. If anything her hair looked worse, more matted.

Her scarf was ruined she noted, unfolding the weary cloth and wieghing it across her thin wrists. Though maybe not. The red poppies masked the blood well, taking it on as an additional yield.

Gertie gingerly replaced her covering, dried her hands on her thighs and made her way back to the classroom.

Some of the students at the back of the room whispered as Gertie entered, but the teacher was still teaching. Face to blackboard, back to class. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed, Gertie pondered not without a touch of disappointment. Few children want to be invisible under normal circumstances.

“Gertie Le Fleur!” roared the teacher, whipping around as Gertie’s chair creaked under her returned wieght. “We do not leave class without permission. Its r...” The teacher’s voice was cut off mid word. Her face seemed to freeze, mouth gaped open. Her shoulders shook a bit and a quiet chocking sound crept out from the back of her throat. The students began to giggle nervously. All except Gertie, who starred in horror at the consequence of her misbehaviour. The teacher clawed at her own throat in painc. Slowly, the students ceased their giggling and looked around at their commrads, uncertain what they could do.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a bursting balloon and a swarm of butterflies rushed from the teacher’s gaping mouth. Bright blue. Most of the students squealed in delight as the teacher fell to her knees gasping. Gertie remained silent, transfixed.

“Anything interesting happen at school today?” Irving asked his sister as he retrived her from the regular spot next to her classroom door. Gertie looked over her shoulder. Her teacher’s head was flat against her big desk, her face starring unseeing toward the window. Gertie shook her head. “Did you at least learn anything good?”

“Butterflies,” Gertie whispered.

“Hm?”

“Butterflies. They don’t like the snow.”

Gertie drew her stockinged feet with her onto her bed. She rested her chin on her knees, making herself very small. She was unsure what to do. She had walked home silently behind her brothers, which they had, of course, not found unusual. She has shaken her head in quiet refusal at her grandmother’s offer of a slice of honey slathered bread, which had been only slightly odd. She was hidding in her tiny room as yet not burdensom to her family, but how long could she wait before they found out? Surly the principal would call. The teacher herself eventually would arrive at the door filled to the brim with accusations. What was the appropriate punishment for her crime, Gertie fretted. Would the police drag her away or arrest her quietly in the dead of night? What would her grandmother be forced to tell the neighbors?

Gerties’ terror over the episode with her teacher had temporarily distracted her from the growth under her hair. She washed her face and sent herself to bed without supper. This did worry Baba Le Fleur, as the girl was awefully thin.

Gertie awoke the next morning to the gray predawn, a crowing rooster, and an aching head. She rubbed her face into her pillow seeking comfort. Before sitting up, Gertie gave her scalp a good scratch, despite the antisipated pain of the action. POP. The lump on her head, having grown over night, gave into the bite of her fingernails and perpetual scratching. The skin ripped open and it felt, to Gertie’s horror, as though something had trailed out. She held both hands out in front of her face, up toward the ceiling as far as her arms would take them. The offensive hands that had torn at her head. There was blood beneath her fingernails. Gertie lay very still, unwilling to move her head even slightly in any direction. She tried to breath deelply. She tried harder. Gertie could hear her grandmother in the kitchen below her making all the normal sounds of morning. She could hear her brothers rising in the rooms on either side. She lay very very still trying to think of what could unwind from the human head. She was certain that she was dying. Or already dead.

“Gertie!” her grandmother called, “I haven’t heard you yet.”

“Gertie!” Baba Le Fleur called again, louder as her voice got closer. “Are you awake?”

“I’m awake!” Gertie sqwaked too quietly to be heard. She swallowed, wetting her throat. “I’m awake!” she cried out louder as the handle on her door moved slightly.

“Good. Well, get up. You’ll be late,” her grandmother commanded from the other side of the door.

Gertie did as she was told. She slipped from beneath her covers, keeping her neck as stiff as possible. She tried not to touch anything with her hands. She hesitated at the door of her room. Pressing her ear against the door, she listened for silence in a house that rarely had any. Hearing the pounding of boys' bare feet descending the stairs, Gertie rolled open her door knob with the heels of her hands and rushed to the bathroom. She frantically locked the door behind her.

Gertie had come in search of the mirror. However, finding herself faced with the possibility of what was happening to her, she hesitated once again. She washed her hands, without looking up into the glass. She carefully cleaned beneath each finger nail, checking her cuticles, her knuckles, her palms for any residue. Finally, Gertie lifted her face. She looked pale she noted, perhaps even thin. She tilted her chin up toward the ceiling, noting the weight of the back of her head. She tilted her head to the right, noting the fall of her hair. Gertie Le Fleur hung her head forward and presented the top of her head to the mirror. She parted her hair with one hand. It was green. The lump that was not a lump any longer. There was something green and spindly trailing, as trailing was in fact the correct term for what was happing atop her head, from the wound. Gertie lifted a finger to her scalp. She poked the hair and skin around the wound, moving counter clockwise and slowly inward. When she got to the gagged skin, Gertie poked a little more forcefully, accusingly even. The spindly trail unfurled. Unfurled into a leaf. Gertie fell down in shock.

... to be continued...

What I like about Sarah Palin and other misadventures

“So I have this problem,” Ernie began over his fourth beer, “I think it might be serious, like I might be dying.” Ernie turned to his friends Dave and Ljilja for signs of concern.

“What’s wrong?” Ljilja asked, resting her hand palm down on the bar near Ernie. The three were at their regular corner place having a few drinks after work. They didn’t do this so much anymore. The place was still their “regular place” but they weren’t so much regulars these days. Not since Dave and Ljilja had gotten married.

“I think I might have diabetes, or it could be stress, I don’t know.”

“You have diabetes?” Ljilja asked, giving Dave a concerned sideways glance.

“I don’t know. I might. I read that it could be diabetes.”

“What could be?” Dave questioned.

“Is there diabetes in your family?” Ljilja asked over him.

All three were huddled together now, beers tucked in close. Dave had one hand resting on Ljilja’s lower back, Ljilja had one resting on Ernie’s elbow.

“Yeah, what, exactly, is the problem?” she continued.

Ernie looked around and leaned in closer to his friends, “I can’t come,” he whispered.

“What?” Ljilja pulled back in surprise.

“You’re so full of shit,” Dave muttered, shaking his head and leaning back on the stool.

“No really,” Ernie exclaimed, nearly standing in his enthusiasm. Ljilja started laughing. “Lil, its not funny. This is bad, something’s wrong with me!”

“I’m sorry Ernie, but...” she started laughing harder and buried her face in Dave’s shoulder. Ljilja had a world class laugh. The kind that came full force from her belly and shook her whole body.

“but,” Dave continued, “its ridiculous.”

“Its not,” Ernie countered.

“Seriously, Ernie, what’s wrong?” Dave asked, taking a drink.

“That is what’s wrong. I can’t come. I mean not with someone else,” he whispered the last part.

“So you’re impotent?” Ljilja asked, recovering from her laughter.

“Hey, hey,” Ernie looked around, gesturing for her to be quieter. “No,” he whispered, ducking his head down toward the others. “I’m not impotent. I can get hard, an erection, you know, I just can’t...” he paused, “I just can’t finish.” Dave and Ljilja looked at him for a moment. “I guess I know what those women who can’t orgasm feel like,” Ernie continued, taking a deep drink of his beer.

“Yeah, you should join a website,” Dave said sarcastically.

“I was thinking about it,” Ernie responded with excitement. He hadn’t caught the sarcasm. “I could be like ‘hey I feel your pain lets try to work on this together.’”

Dave laughed into his beer.

“Wait, so you can’t” Ljilja hesitated.

“Ejaculate” Ernie filled in.

“Right. What does Mishka think?”

“Think?”

“About this. I mean do you always have this... problem, with her?”

“More or less. I try. I mean, what can you do? I don’t know, she feels bad I think. I just keep going and going and nothing.”

“Modest,” Dave laughed under his breath.

“What?” Ernie looked at him.

“What?”

“I’m just saying its hard, cause we have sex and I really like women, but I just can’t come.”

“So its not impotency?” Ljilja asked, confused. “Its weird.”

“He’s making this up. Poor Ernie, little Duracell Bunny, just keeps going.”

“Its Energizer Bunny and you wouldn’t understand.”

Ljilja put her hand on Dave’s knee. “Now, now boys,” she tisked, “no need for any of that.”

“’Nother round?” asked the aging bartender.

“Yeah.”

“I’m good,” Ljilja shook her head, placed her hand over her glass.

“No, come on Lil. On me. Three more,” Ernie said to the bartender.

“So impotency, its, what: stress, diet, blood pressure?” listed Ljilja.

“Diabetes. Yeah. I was reading this thing online about things to do with your partner, to work up to it. Ways to sort of get used to coming with someone else.”

“So you’re not impotent solo?” Dave asked, half smiling.

“No. Wait. I’m not impotent” Ernie hissed. “And no, no, I’m fine. Alone I’m okay. That’s what they say to do, with your partner. In front of her.”

“So you do this with Mishka?” Ljilja asked nodding encouragingly at Ernie.

“No,” Ernie shook his head while taking another drink. “I just read this yesterday.”

“But you would do? With Mishka?”

“Where is the lucky lady tonight?” asked Dave.

Mishka was at a Christian women’s conference in Washington.

“What I love most about her is what a great mother she is,” stated the blonde, eighteen year old sitting next to Mishka.

Mishka wasn’t technically a Christian. She’d admit to a tinge of cultural Christianity at best, but true faith was hindered by her belief that Jesus was probably just a really nice guy. But Mishka worked as an assistant in the development department of a nonprofit and Christians could be very generous, especially the women.

Mishka was her boss’ go to girl for the Christian women’s conferences. “You pretend so well,” he’d said. She didn’t mind the conference sessions really, it was the between session coffee breaks that were difficult. But the coffee breaks were also where the money was made.

“She is such a good mom, you’re right Sarah, and so stylish. I don’t know how she finds the time.”

At this particular coffee break Mishka found herself at a table turned impromptu discussion of the merits of Sarah Palin. The women were going around, one by one, and stating what the admired most about the former governor. They were starring at Mishka, it was her turn. “Um,” she paused to think. “I guess you have to admire someone who can keep being so publicly humiliated and still continue to stand up for what she ... believes.” There was a prolonged pause.

“Very good, Mishka. Resilience. It is an essential quality for a woman,” encouraged the table’s de facto leader. The other women at the table nodded and smiled at one another, looking a bit relieved.

Resilience, thought Mishka, Truth. Mishka was feeling a bit in need of this quality herself as of late. Between her boss’ prostitution of her to the Christian Right, her on and off again relations with Ernie, and her growing fears that she was becoming a friendless hermit, Mishka was beginning to feel a bit frayed around the edges. After attending a conference with Mishka four months ago, Sonja, Mishka’s flatmate, had found Jesus and a train load of new friends.

“They’re good people,” Mishka had said to Ernie over one of their nearly nightly phone calls about a week ago.

“Judgmental.”

“No, they’re not. I mean, yeah, okay they are, but apart from that, they’re really good people, its just...”

“They’re nice people, Mish, not good people and you’ve got to get out of there. Having to deal with these people at work is bad enough, but having them around all the time? They’ll brain wash you!”

“Now who’s judgmental. Besides, Sonja’s still Sonja. I don’t want to just leave her. It’s kind of my fault she’s like this. And anyway where would I go?”

“Your fault?”

“Well, I’m the one who took her with me to that conference. I just couldn’t take three days by myself...”

“I remember the text: ‘In enemy territory, will write as soon as is safe.’”

“Right, well, I brought her with me thinking we could have a laugh at night, save my sanity a bit. And they got her. I mean, I knew she was having a hard time over her split with Jack, but...”

“Yeah, what happened with that?”

“With Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing.”

“Something happened if he changed her into a Born Again.”

“He didn’t change her. That’s what I’m saying. I changed her. Its my fault. It was the music I think, she liked the band the first day.”

“Hey, can you be a Born Again if you weren’t born already?”

“What?”

“I mean, she wasn’t a Christian before, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly, what?”

“Exactly, she wasn’t a Christian before and then she was ‘reborn’ when she became a Christian.”

“Oh, that’s what it means!” Ernie exclaimed.

“What?” Mishka was confused, somehow this conversation had gotten off track.

“I always thought it was reborn, like reconverted or reverted to Christianity or something. I guess this makes more sense.”

“Anyway, I can’t just move” Mishka stated, trying to redirect the conversation.

“Sure you can. People do it all the time. I can help you look.”

“She can’t afford this place on her own.”

“Good thing she’s got a ton of new friends.”

“I can’t afford a place on my own and I don’t want to live with strangers.”

“Look, you’re just making excuses. If you want to stay, stay, but stop complaining.”

Mishka was quiet.

“Look,” Ernie started again.

“No,” she interrupted. “You’re right. You are. I’ll look around. It wont hurt. I’ll just look and then decide.”

“I’ll help,” he offered again sheepishly.

“Thanks.”

She hadn’t started looking yet, but she thought she might. When she got back from this conference. Maybe. She was comfortable with Sonja, even when they fought or didn’t get along. That was part of her problem, wasn’t it, thought Mishka, as a large woman in slacks talked about Sarah Palin’s faith, she was too contented being content.

“So what is going on with you and Mishka?” asked Ljilja over the trio’s fifth beer. She wasn’t really drinking her’s, but the guys hadn’t noticed yet.

“Nothing. You know, we’re us,” Ernie replied, avoiding eye contact.

“Right. You’re you. Like?”

“Well, son, if you are going to be masturbating in front of the girl don’t you think you should make this thing official?” Dave asked in his best Ward Cleaver voice.

“What like marry her?” Ernie cried.

“Perish the thought,” Dave laughed, hand to heart. “Maybe just start calling her your girlfriend.”

“Or stop hitting on every other woman in the room?” offered Ljilja.

“Now, honey, that he can’t help,” Dave jumped in, placing his hand on his wife’s back.

“I don’t!” Ernie declared.

“You do, but its really not your fault,” Dave reassured his friend.

“Man Boy” Ljilja said quietly into her beer.

“What? What did you call me?” Ernie asked turning to Ljilja.

“Man Boy, Erns. You are, you know. Its okay,” she said gently, patting his arm.

“Oh, god. Man Boy,” Ernie moaned resting his head on the bar.

“Man Boy The Impotent,” Dave laughed.

“I’m not impotent,” Ernie mumbled into the wood.

“You’re not really a Man Boy either. Not exactly.” Ernie’s head popped up hopefully. “Its your Aw Shucks charm that’s the problem,” Dave continued. “It’s confusing. The Aw Shucks charm sometimes makes you seem like a Man Boy, but its not actually the same thing.”

“You think?” Ljilja asked.

Dave nodded. “Its a subtle difference.”

“Man Boy?” Ernie repeated in a dazed and defeated voice.

“Its that thing you do,” Dave counseled, “you know, where you say or do something dirty and then you smile or do something goofy and the girls laugh.” Ljilja smiled. “It distracts them,” Dave stated, “disarms them. Quiet clever really.”

“Not clever,” said Ernie.

“You really are charming, sweetie,” Ljilja petted, “just adorable.”

“Adorable Man Boy The Impotent,” Ernie proclaimed. “Fabulous.”