He said her body was “magnificent.” No one had ever used that particular word to describe her body before, not one of her past lovers.

It earned him some points. She was able to forgive herself a little for their current situation: the two of them, vaguely stoned, undressed on his bed, kissing. Then he was on top of her and the hair on his chest was rough against her skin. She kept kissing him and tried not to think about it too much.

She barely knew him but they were young and free and here they were in his apartment that had a wonderful balcony and he smelled nice and they were in Los Angeles and isn’t this what young, free, not-bad-looking people do in Los Angeles? Meet at some party, have a few drinks, exchange numbers, go out a few times, and if they like each other’s company enough, eventually, have sex?

Her legs wrapped around his waist and the noisy bed made them both laugh. He was biting her neck and moaning a little. She dug her nails into his back for effect. It did feel good but she was thinking about the girl she’d met last week and wondering whether she would see her at the cafe again tomorrow.

He was getting sweaty and she arched her back for him and soon it was over. He kissed her gently and his lips were softer than before. It took him a couple of long moments to catch his breath.

She ran her hands through the hair at the back of his head and knew that she probably wouldn’t see him again any time soon. It was a lucky thing that they didn’t run in any of the same circles. This brief, fun affair would just fade in their memories, with few reminders.

She wondered whether she’d ever fall in love again.

Rumors

The pizza arrived during the final round of the Caesar salad wrestling. The two runners-up were wrestling each other for first place, extremely delicately. They didn’t want to hurt each other. They bore each other no ill will.

Illa D-Murder paid and tipped the deliveryman, and also autographed an insulated delivery bag. The deliveryman said everyone at the 145 Chancellor Street Domino’s was a big fan. Illa D-Murder’s posse distributed the pizzas equitably to each table, and we devoured the pizza hungrily. Samantha Schulz-Singer asked the caterers if we could now have the Caesar salad. “Of course,” said a caterer in a Victoria’s Secret v-string, “help yourselves,” as she pointed to the floor.

The rumors concerning the catering company’s owner intensified. Where did the rumors come from? There were rumors about where the rumors came from. That’s how intensified the rumors had become. It was said the catering company owner had ties to radical Zionists. It was said he was the Antichrist, that he was a one-man Islamist sleeper cell, that he possessed the ability to walk through walls. “Why aren’t you wearing any pants?” Johanna Blum said to Rodney Feldmann. Rodney said, “Let me get my manager,” and then asked if anyone could lend him a magic marker. Darren Schnellenburger helped himself to some Caesar salad off the floor, and got in the way of the wrestlers. “Stop!” said Isaac Zeichner. “Stop!” Bull Jaworski mentioned he had a whistle in the trunk of his car. Johnny Zalewski staggered from table to table, showing everyone his face on a For Sale sign. “Look at that,” he said. “Isn’t that something?” “That’s something,” we said, which was inherently true.

Scoreboard

After the restart, the prom queen runner-up won the final round of Caesar salad wrestling. She and the homecoming queen runner-up were both tied for first place. “Let’s see how well you two do in the battle of wits,” said the homecoming queen. “Scoreboard,” said the homecoming queen runner-up. There wasn’t actually a scoreboard. It was just a figure of speech.

As we ate our dinner, more and more celebrity impersonators wandered into our midst. The reunion organizers were all drunk, and therefore less vigilant. They didn’t notice Jerry Lewis slow dancing with Dean Martin, or Joseph Stalin pouring Everclear into Liza Minnelli’s mouth.

John Lennon came. So did Charlie Chaplin, and Abraham Lincoln, and Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island. They had all heard there was pizza. “What they feed you at your retreat?” Illa D-Murder asked an Illa D-Murder impersonator. “Fruit snacks,” said the Illa D-Murder impersonator. “Ritz crackers. Cheese spread. Poland Spring bottled water.” Carl Finkelstein said over one-fourth of bottled water was actually bottled tap water and Wally Mulrooney said Carl could suck it. “Is Stalin really a celebrity?” wondered Terry Pastorelli. “He was big in Russia,” said Jamie O’Toole.

Memory

Wonderful memories were shared at the reunion. Tina Nadler remembered the times she would get free Blizzards from Karen Asnien at Dairy Queen. Dwight Haglund remembered the times he and Earl Skog would play Mario Kart 64 while listening to Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother. Elle Steinhauser remembered her locker combination, Jeff Revello remembered every profanity he ever etched into Mr. Carpenter’s desk, Rhoda Eisenstein remembered every topping that came with a number two from Big Sven’s Super Subs, Austin Quinn remembered every lyric to Gary, Indiana and Seventy-Six Trombones.

Other memories were not shared. Madeline Woodford reading the same medical brochure over and over in the clinic waiting room. Jawanda Jackson reading her name over and over in indelible marker on the bathroom stall. Jordan Krueger preparing the materials. Rachel Kempster writing her parents the note. Isis Cuomo getting into the station wagon. Reece Stickler handing Paul Oldenfeld that last bottle of Corona.

Did we come here to remember? If so, what did we hope to gain by remembering? Had we left valuable wisdom behind? Had we let vital knowledge pass through us, accumulate in our school’s plumbing and ductwork? Were the answers to our most fervent prayers circulated and recirculated in the hallways of our clueless youth? Sophie Bluestein remembered not knowing how to file a W-4 form. Adam Lux remembered not knowing the child support laws of Washington state. Janie Kennedy remembered not knowing that tuna contains mercury, that tap water contains chlorine, that Starbucks Frappuccino Lights contain gluten, that chocolate contains trace amounts of shit, that every woman should own a single breasted blazer, that a seamless bra is a must for the summer, that Zoloft tablets come in 25, 50, and 100 milligrams, that you need to get on the best preschools’ waiting lists as soon as your child is born. We remembered study hall. We remembered homeroom. We remembered the fertile smell of fresh-cut grass.

Speech

With dinner nearly finished, it was time for speeches. Speeches were absolutely necessary at a reunion, for reasons none of us could articulate. The first speech was to be given by Walter Grogan, who no one really remembered but who was now extravagantly wealthy from fertilizer money, but unfortunately Walter was stuck at LaGuardia, so the reunion organizers had a Martin Luther King, Jr. impersonator speak in his stead.

“Hello class of 2000,” said the Martin Luther King, Jr. impersonator. “Is anyone the owner of a red Chrysler Sebring, license plate 4BX G29?”

No one responded.

“Okay, your car is about to be towed,” the Martin Luther King, Jr. impersonator said. “Thank you very much.” He then walked back to his table, and there was scattered applause.

Nostalgia Table

There was a nostalgia table at the reunion. Guests had been asked to bring photos, posters, t-shirts, trophies, and other items of sentimental value to the reunion, and the reunion organizers had showcased the items on a large oak table near the Chandler Room’s main entrance. There was a photo of Darci Hessler winning the 1999 All-Regions Cross Country Invitational. There was a photo of Ethan Holveck closing his eyes and giving two thumbs up. There were swim team ribbons, golf trophies, playbills for Into the Woods, Les Misérables, The Music Man; letter jackets, never-returned history textbooks, student activity fee receipts. What was nostalgia, exactly? What was sentimental value? There were protractors. There were tardy slips. There were plastic jack-o-lanterns full of expired condoms, and copies of The Great Gatsby with disconnected phone numbers written in the margins. We looked so young, in the nostalgia table photos. Jonah Konkol had a Mohawk. Denise Holland had terrible acne. Mitchell Wunnicke still had the right half of his face. Some of us spent thirty minutes poring over each photograph, marveling over each trophy, fondling each jacket, each t-shirt. Some of us walked right past and ordered from the open bar. “To each his own,” said Eric Stamos to Ramona Hartley. “What?” said Ramona Hartley.

Speeches

After the Martin Luther King Jr. impersonator had returned to his seat, other speakers spoke. Carly Cashman, Duane Danielson; Carleton Chandler, the great-grandson of the Carleton Chandler for whom the Chandler Room was named. “Thank you for celebrating my great-grandfather’s legacy by enjoying the hotel’s state-of-the-art banquet hall facilities,” said the younger Carleton Chandler. “As my great-grandfather often said, ‘Monthly and seasonal rates are available on request.’”

Meanwhile, at our individual tables, we gave our own speeches. Nikki LaFlash spoke about the merits of a home birth. Rusty Cornelius spoke about the Mexicans and the Jews. Collin Biller spoke about his top four favorite speeches of all time. “Number four—Gettysburg Address. Number three—‘I Have a Dream.’ Number two—‘Win One for the Gipper’ in Knute Rockne, All American. Number one—Sermon on the Mount.” “Top four?” said Kelvyn Colussi. “Who makes lists of four?” Rusty Cornelius said the Mexicans and the Jews did. Lillian Dykstra said she would have put Pericles’ Funeral Oration at number two. Johnny Zalewski said, “Wait until you see this,” and disappeared into the parking lot. Doug Weisenhut said, “Scooch in a little closer, but don’t block the urn.” Bryan Kramer said he would have put FDR’s Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation at number three.

Battle of Wits

Once the speeches were over, Isaac Zeichner announced over the microphone that it was now time for the battle of wits. The queens and almost-queens were walking from table to table, asking if anyone had a change of clothes they could borrow. It must have been very uncomfortable for them, slathered with all that Caesar dressing. Nadia Jasmani reminded everyone she had never agreed to condiments. Isaac Zeichner said that his Lexus had recently been making a weird clicking noise inside the dash, and whoever could diagnose and fix the problem first would earn fifteen points. “Probably one of the HVAC servo motors,” said the homecoming queen’s boyfriend. “Hey! No coaching!” shrieked the homecoming queen runner-up. The prom queen refused to participate. She said automobile repair didn’t constitute a battle of wits. Joel Nast, an auto mechanic, said “Now listen here.” Dawn Euhardy said, “How about, instead of car repair, Sudoku?” Bull Jaworski said he had a 13,000-piece puzzle of The Last Supper in the trunk of his car.

The queens, almost-queens, and Isaac Zeichner argued, and the rest of us lost interest. The DJ turned Isaac’s microphone off and played TLC’s “No Scrubs,” and we danced. Rodney Feldmann was allowed to dance, so long as he also carried his tray of tomato bruschetta. Ross Schmelzer asked us if, during the best moment of our lives, we were wearing pants. “Yes,” said Sebastian Teschendorf. “Yes,” said Colleen Jenkins. “Yes,” said Taryn Palloni. “No,” said Alex Berenbaum. “How about cutoffs?” said Spencer Bergmann-Caligari. Joel Nast asked Isaac Zeichner if his Lexus made the clicking noise all the time, or just when he ran his heater or air conditioner. Kathleen Proctor told the homecoming queen she could borrow a t-shirt and some size two jeans. The homecoming queen said she was a size one. Joseph Stalin posed with Jacob Stenzler’s ashes, as did Mary Ann fromGilligan’s Island, as did Sonny Bono. “Ashes are ashes,” said Darren Schnellenburger, dismissively. Bull Jaworski said he had size one women’s jeans in a variety of popular styles and brands in the trunk of his car.

Magic Marker

Why did we come to the reunion? What did we hope to learn? What did we hope to achieve? Was the reunion a ritual? A collective commemoration of community, of shared experience, of elapsed time? Was it a contest? Who has a Ph.D., who has a Mercedes, who has Billy Crystal’s cell number, who has an unexpectedly attractive spouse? Was it merely a party? Appetizers, small talk, alcohol, inoffensive music? Or was it something else entirely? Why was the Chandler Room East north of the Chandler Room? Why weren’t the caterers wearing any pants? “The best moment of my life, I was wearing one hundred percent cotton Chinos,” said Edgar Steinhauer. “Can you sign these gym floorboards, you know, for the raffle?” Marsha Feathers asked Illa D-Murder. “Ain’t no thang,” Illa D-Murder said, and asked for a magic marker.

Late

It was late, relatively speaking. We were tired. Many of us were drunk. Some were unconscious, or physically ill. D. Schwartzkopf’s nametag had disappeared from its table. No one was sure if it had been stolen, or had been claimed by the real D. Schwartzkopf. No one was sure if there was a real D. Schwartzkopf. Life was full of uncertainty.

Birk Kaplan said he knew the catering company’s owner, casually. The owner’s younger brother Fletcher owed Birk Kaplan eighty-seven dollars. Birk Kaplan said the owner had probably written the caterers’ pantslessness into their contract. “Why would he have done a thing like that?” asked Greta Honeker. “You really want to get that sort of thing in writing,” said Birk Kaplan.

The prom and homecoming queens had officially withdrawn from the rematch. They were now completely sober. Illa D-Murder had lent them clothing from his own signature line of women’s urban apparel, Illa Girl, and so they were showering in the hotel’s pool locker room. The almost-queens were too furious to shower. They drank hard liquor from the bottle at the bar, and pouted. Johnny Zalewski showed them a sticker that said, “SOLD by Johnny Zalewski, THE REAL ESTATE KING!” and said, “Isn’t that something?” Pete Genter asked them if it was really true that the prom queen could speak to animals. Doug Weisenhut said, “Smile, and also—hold this urn.” Darren Schnellenburger asked them if they wouldn’t mind rubbing their forearms on his salad.

Floor

We started to leave. Marsha Feathers said no, we couldn’t leave, we had to stay for the raffle. Twenty-five floorboards from the old gym were being raffled, five of them signed by none other than international superstar Illa D-Murder. We stayed. Cameron Conlon won a signed floorboard. Diego Piña won an unsigned floorboard, and so did Georgia Smith. “What are we supposed to do with a floorboard?” Georgia Smith’s husband said. “Cherish it,” said Lucia Martin. “Build a birdhouse with it,” said Lance Crowley-Sachs. “Buy a bunch of other floorboards,” said Curtis Hudson. “Receive the proper training. Acquire the necessary tools. Consult the appropriate authorities, and follow the correct procedures. And then, in time, you will have a floor.”

Fin

We left. Marsha Feathers said no, we couldn’t leave, but this time gave no reason why we should stay. Some of us walked to our cars. Others walked straight to our hotel rooms. The DJ packed up his equipment, the caterers cleaned up the Caesar salad, Carleton Chandler stared for fifteen minutes at the oil painting of his great-grandfather, in the hotel lobby. Darren Schnellenburger was carried out—it took three Elvis impersonators to get him out of the Chandler Room. “Where are you staying tonight, Darren?” asked one of the Elvis impersonators. “Trina Samuelson?” said Darren Schnellenburger. “Oh—no,” said the Elvis impersonator. “I just took her nametag.” “You tell your son-of-a-bitch brother Andre that I want my fifty-six dollars,” said Darren Schnellenburger. The Illa D-Murder impersonator roamed the parking lot, offering to sign the raffle winners’ floorboards for five bucks. “Hey, everybody, I’ve got a Cher on the line,” said the Sonny Bono impersonator. “Ready? One, two, three . . .”

Some of us were disappointed by the reunion’s lack of significance. Others were pleased with its wealth of significance. Others were neither disappointed nor pleased. Still others ignored its significance or lack thereof entirely. Bull Jaworski said he had the reunion’s significance in the trunk of his car.

We retrieved our items of sentimental value from the nostalgia table, unless we forgot to. Benjamin Krakauer left behind his Most Improved Outfielder trophy. Cammie Krinkler left behind her five-paragraph essay on the major themes in Beowulf. The reunion organizers argued over what should be done with the nostalgia table’s abandoned items. Everyone wanted to safeguard these important relics of the past, but everyone also had limited trunk space. Kim Youngblood suggested taking archival photos. Nancy Drexler suggested talking to Win Baker about getting a deal on rental storage. Troy Handlen suggested that if the reunion organizers could simply perceive these items as being unimportant, possessing no value whatsoever, then they could just throw everything in the garbage, no problem. Debbie Panzini said, “Brilliant,” and suggested that Troy Handlen chair the next reunion. Everyone agreed. They patted Troy Handlen on the back, got a garbage can, and cheerfully swiped every last item on the nostalgia table into the trash. In the parking lot, they all admired Troy Handlen’s ’99 Chevy Suburban. Everyone was envious of the Suburban’s trunk space.

Epilogue

After the reunion, we returned to our lives. Some of us were pleased to return to our lives, others were displeased. Still others didn’t care either way.

Most of us returned to jobs. Some of our jobs were important, others were not important, others’ importance was unclear. Additionally, sometimes the important jobs weren’t important to the people who did them, whereas the unimportant jobs were very important to the people who did them, but not important to anyone else. Jobs were confusing, and so was the concept of importance. “It’s best not to overthink these things,” Eric Stamos said to the girl behind the counter at Dairy Queen. “What?” said the girl behind the counter at Dairy Queen.

A grand total of forty-seven reunion guests performed sexual acts the night of the reunion. This number has been verified; it is not due to mathematical or clerical error. In all likelihood, at least some of the sexual acts would not have occurred had there been no reunion, but who knows? Life is full of uncertainty. Illa D-Murder said as much after performing a sexual act with the prom queen runner-up.

Some of us were inspired by the reunion. Others were discouraged. Some promised to return in ten years, others vowed never to return, others vowed only to return once the world had learned to fear their terrible power. We ate, drank, slept, woke. We watched television, bought groceries, filed W-4 forms, conceived human life. It was all very important, or else it wasn’t. Terry Pastorelli said he could lean either way. Dirk Knoblaucher said, “Life’s a beach and then you swim.” Lou Francini said, “You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” Steve Heissler said, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” Barry Orenstein said, “Singapore Sling.” June Carmichael said, “Ma-ma. Ma-ma. Ma-ma. No—Ma-ma.” Darlayne Kleinhoffer said, “I demand to speak to a manager.” Jacob Stenzler’s mother said, “Jacob?”

Cole McCanna said, “It’s not the heat, really, it’s the humidity.” Sam Levinson said, “It’s not the size of the boat, it’s the motion of the ocean.” Madeline Woodford said, “It’s not so black and white.” Elaine Steinbacher said, “It’s not my fault.” The catering company’s owner said, “My wife wore those underpants.” Johnny Zalewski said, “One sweet day.”

The prom queen said, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” Rodney Feldmann said, “Port Salut. Oysters Rockefeller. Steak tartare. Foie gras.” Jamaal Gaines said, “Latisha, why you always be trying me?” Rick Douglas said, “Susan! I think I know how to reset the goddamn modem!” Glenn Van Sicklen said, “The best moment of my life, I was wearing 505 Regular Fit Levi’s.” The homecoming queen said, “Why does every used car dealership have so many goddamn American flags?”

Reece Stickler said, “I’m sorry.” Janie Kennedy said, “The key things are volunteer service hours and extracurricular activities.” Lucia Martin said, “Life is beautiful.” Vince Strickland said, “Look, Brandi, I’ve been thinking.” Rusty Cornelius said, “$2.50 convenience fee? Cocksucking Jews!” Carleton Chandler said, “Or as my great-grandfather would say, ‘Please conserve natural resources by reusing your towels during your stay.’”

Isaac Zeichner said, “It makes the clicking noise whether I’m driving or not driving, whether the air conditioner is on or off, whether I’m in park or in neutral.” Oksana Gaznayev said, “Qawishwallanavetum.” Marcus Lepeska said, “The goddamn Brewers have fucked themselves again.” Carl Finkelstein said, “Our lives are mere, insignificant blips relative to the vastness of the ever-expanding universe.” Wally Mulrooney said, “Fuck you, Carl.”

Darren Schnellenburger said, “What’s done is done.” Illa D-Murder said, “Nah, girl, ain’t no thang.” Laurie Baumgartner said, “Unforgivable.” Bull Jaworski said, “What’s unforgivable is what’s in the trunk of my car.” The Martin Luther King, Jr. impersonator said, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” The Joseph Stalin impersonator said, “Жить стало лучше, товарищи. Жить стало веселее.” The Sonny Bono impersonator said, “I got you babe. I got you babe. I got you babe. I got you babe.”

We said, “So, what do you do?”

“You’re smoking again,” he says.

She picks up the pack, studies it like a mounted butterfly. A bug. “Not really.”

“Can I sit?”

“Please.”

He slides into the booth, the red-plastic bench seat slick and cold. “You want anything?”

She looks at the table, eyes darting left and right across it. “I’m fine for now. But thank you.”

Out the window, the day is blank. Low clouds hug the tops of the buildings, pewter-plate the sky. Shadows absent. He wipes at his face with his hands, palms to forehead, cheeks, chin. His sigh fills the booth. He blinks, puts back on his glasses. “So what now?”

She fidgets with the lighter. “I don’t know, Boone.”

“Are you still seeing him?”

She shakes her head. “Not now, no.”

He can’t stand her sadness, the way her eyes look when she says it, the way it deflates her figure. Her shoulder slump, her elegant neck forward and plucked. Hates himself, then turns his hate on her. How dare she be sad? How dare she be so bold as to be saddened by her loss? The loss of this man she had been seeing behind his back? Boone clenches fists beneath the table, snaps his head left, looks back outside. A lone young man wanders out a door, his blond hair and healthy good looks unnatural on such a day, such life in the small concrete courtyard. “I have to get something.”

She nods.

How a man will rationalize for former love. Current love. He stands face to face with the young man on the other side of the counter. “Give me a minute.”

“Let me know.”

Scans the menu offerings, though nothing makes sense. Tries on the scenarios he sees before him. So they stay together, and she never strays again, and he must face her day after day like this. This sad woman bereft of something. Her eyes going from wan resignation to hard accusation. She would blame him, not herself for her unhappiness. And as he contemplates the hot apple pies, he knows she would be partly right. For Joan is always at least partly right. “Give me a fucking coffee.”

“Excuse me?” The boy’s eyes wide.

“Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry. That just came out. It’s not you. I just need a coffee.” And if he stayed and she strayed again, what then? He fits it, the scene like a rumpled traveler’s hat, now familiar. Something he’s used to. But why? What about it seems so comfortable, so familiar? Because she’s done it before, of course. “Do you have cappucino? From that machine there?”

The boy, coffee carafe in hand, looks at Boone, to the machines in back, clean white nozzles ready for students in the late afternoon. “It’s just a powder mix.”

“What flavors.”

The boy points at the large labels, left to right. “We got French vanilla, mocha, and cappucino flavor.”

“Cappucino flavored cappucino?”

“Like I said, it’s just a powder.”

“Well, ok then.” So she would stray again, and again he would leave and come back, and she would grow unhappy and stray. And to what?

“So you want one?”

“Mocha, I guess.”

The boy shrugs, puts back the coffee carafe, grabs a styrofoam cup from a stack next to the machines. The nozzle shoots air at first, then a horrible farting sound as the drink mix spews into the cup.

“We should take some time. To process,” She says.

“I don’t think I want to.” He has come back to the table with divorce.

“For Kyle, Boone.”

He nods. Again, she is partly right at least. They owe it to the boy not to rip their lives permanently to shreds. But what will it do for the boy, this silent moment writ large in their house? The sounds of a settling unmasked by conversation. The growing silence. “No.” Shakes his head. “I mean, we can take the time, but I’m not sleeping in that bed.”

“I understand.”

He sips from the gritty drink, sugar crystals not fully dissolved. Hot chocolate powder floating in the unknown liquid. Hopes it’s mostly water. “How many?”

Joan fiddles with the cigarette pack. Stands it on end, pushes it over. “Excuse me?”

“How many?”

She meets his eyes, holds his stare too long, and he must look away, back outside to the flat, gray day. No shadows. Wonders if Kyle is using the weather for portraits.

She clears her throat. “Seven.”

“Seven?”

“Not like that. In as many years. Or close.”

“Since the middle school years.”

She nods, a faint smile coming to her lips. “That’s a good way to put it. ‘The middle school years.’”

“Why?”

“You’re not around, Boone.”

“I’m here all the time.”

“Except you’re not.”

Outside, they hug good bye. It seems right, their bodies together like flavors from childhood, though there is reticence in both. A certain stiffness, trying now untested waters. He can feel her shoulder blades on his hands, ribs against his. “Have you been eating?”

She looks at the ground. “Here and there.”

“Jaye,” he says, touches her cheek.

“Shut up,” she says, though there is no anger, their old selves revealed for a moment beneath a slate-gray Kansas sky. “I’ll try.”

The wind picks up, leaves and a paper cup skitter across the concrete. “You parked far?”

She huddles into her thin sweater, shakes her head.

“Need me to walk you?”

Looks over her shoulder, toward the parking lots. Shakes her head again. “I should just go.”

Boone nods. She takes his hand, squeezes his fingertips and hurries off, hugging herself. Several moments, several yards, then breaks into a trot, her arms still wrapped around her, and then she is gone, around the corner, the courtyard as vacant and flat as if she’d never been there, as if she were still inside, waiting for him in the small cafe.

Photo by Stephen Mackenzie on Flickr.

“Let’s play!” he shouts after Ashanti, the black girl whose mother makes her flatten her hair every two weeks. Ashanti touches her head the way people repeatedly touch things that hurt.

“No way!” she says. “You’re a cheater!”

“I’m not a cheater!” Oscar says. “I’m just better!”

Deshawn, the bucktoothed kid that no one plays with because he’s so quiet, walks to Oscar.

“Let’s play!” Oscar says.

Deshawn nods, and Oscar hides a coin underneath a cup and commences with the shuffling. Ashanti gradually drifts over to them. A few other kids follow, and soon, Oscar’s surrounded, and he’s shouting, “Find the coin! Bet you can’t find where it is!”

I’ve been teaching this summer program for five years now. I worked in banking for ten before I burned out, started questioning the worth of my work, didn’t like the answer I came to. My wife Tina, a cardiologist, was supportive when I decided to get my credential and teach for a fraction (and a small one, at that) of what I used to earn. Past tense. We get by on her salary. “You owe it to yourself to discover what you love,” she said as if the words were foreign, as if she were trying to convince herself. Last week at my cousin’s red egg and ginger party, when my parents and grandparents asked her how I was doing (because they never believe me when I say I’m fine), she told them that I was thinking of going back to banking. I’ve never mentioned that. Sometimes when you lie, you reveal your true desires, what’s underneath, like when the cups are shuffled and you inadvertently show the coin.

A class of fifty is a lot for one teacher to handle. This year the district gave me a partner. Her name is Ashley. She’s dark-haired, of some mysterious ethnicity. She’s two years out of college, all earnestness and enthusiasm. Her voice cracks and chirps like a broken wind instrument. She comes to school wearing pencil skirts, crisp collared blouses beneath cardigans, like she’s off to interview after class. That’s her generation, the millenials. They take it for granted that we slave to please invisible coin counters in glass towers, even as the streets crumble with neglect. Her generation, they’re practically born yuppies (at least that’s what we used to call them).

Ashley and I talk, text, coffee after class. We find moments during the school day to look into each other’s eyes like intimates. She loves children, feels very passionate about fighting to make their lives better despite the many obstacles our education system seems designed to raise. I tell her to never lose that passion, never give up, and she seems to react positively to that message. What I don’t mention is that I’ve always lacked that passion. In a few years, when she grows more comfortable with herself, when her passion is self-evident, Ashley will be a very beautiful woman. She and I are having what I call a microaffair. Her generation is appalled by adultery in a way I don’t remember being appalled by it, not that I’ve ever been ballsy enough to commit it. I’m pretty sure that if I were transported to the late-sixties, I’d vote enthusiastically for Nixon.

We’ve instructed the children to write a letter to the President. Oscar ignores the assignment, retrieves the Monopoly board from the game chest, and has begun coercing other kids to play. I stare at Ashley, who’s explaining the assignment to one of the girls. Just the thought of separating Ringleader from his latest show exhausts me. I wait for Ashley to catch my look. I help one of the girls, LaShaundra, because she’s generally docile. Meanwhile, I wait for Ashley to discipline Oscar. He’s already got four kids around him.

“LaShaundra,” I say. “Have you ever wanted to ask anything of the President?”

“My name is Karla.” She points across the room at one of the other bespectacled black girls. “She’s LaShaundra.”

I look at LaShaundra and then at Karla. The two look almost nothing alike. LaShaundra is light-skinned with curly tresses. Karla’s wearing cornrows.

“Write,” I tell her.

“Oscar!” I hear Ashley chirp. She scurries to the back of the room, where he is jumping up and down on the seat of his chair like he’s a Rich Uncle Pennybags on speed. I catch Ashley’s eye as she’s telling Oscar to sit down. I make an effort to look appreciative that she’s saved me, even though I had no intention to take any action. She smiles, like she enjoys helping me. The millenials are forever eager to help.

My eighty-five year-old grandmother calls my wife once a week to discuss their favorite topic: me. Why don’t I want to give them great-grandchildren? What is going on in that boy’s head? Why am I teaching? That’s a hopeless, poor person’s profession. Do something in life that has a chance to succeed. Let better, dumber people do the death march!

“I know, Grandma,” Tina says in Mandarin. “You’re right…Sounds stupid…Yes, we should be having children soon. We’re both so busy…Yes, I know adoption is not the real thing…We should be taking care of our own kids, not someone else’s.”

I’m lying on our chaise longue, reading, doing what I do best: nothing worthwhile.

Tina hangs up with a sigh. I smirk. “She’s at me again, huh?”

“She’s at us,” she corrects as she plops on the couch and begins fiddling with the remote to find a show to watch – no doubt one with larger houses and babies. “When you don’t do what they want, it reflects badly on me as a wife as well.”

Her snipe surprises me. More and more often, I realize that Tina is supportive in a way that suggests that support is a wifely box one checks. But when you withdraw money at the cash machine every week, and there’s half of what there used to be, checking the support box suddenly doesn’t seem so prudent. Tina’s always been a pleaser. As a Chinese guy, I’m supposed to find it charming that she speaks perfect Shanghai-nese, goes out of her way to pour tea for our elders at banquets, gets enthusiastic about extended family trips to the homeland, and basically wouldn’t mind if we move in with my parents after we have kids. When we got married, Tina did everything both families expected and more. She’s perfect for them. She loves serving others, and more importantly, she loves being told she’s great at serving others. For ten years, it was just the two of us, and we were great at serving each other. Now I’m just one of many family members she’s in service of, just like I’m one of many poorly paid, charred-to-a-husk teachers of kids who have no desire to learn what we have to teach.

I’m reading a book of depressing Richard Yates stories. The thought of turning another page makes me nauseous. The book almost puts itself down.

“Maybe I’m not turning out to be the man you married,” I say.

Tina runs a hand through her shiny hair and plays one of her shows. Another home renovation. Another nursery.

“You don’t even try to be,” she says.

“People in my generation don’t try to try,” I say, attempting to inject some levity into our conversation, the room, our lives. “It’s the journey.”

Tina rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, you don’t enjoy that either, do you?”

This afternoon’s playground time. Thank God. Randall, a guest science teacher, will demonstrate how to blow large bubbles using a tub of soapy water and twine. Outside, it’s sunny for the first time all summer, and Ashley and I prod the kids from the classroom to the playground in a sinuous single file. There’s a fence that runs three sides of the blacktop. A perfect corral for tomorrow’s animals. Once we get outside, Oscar begins a headlong sprint around the playground in circles, tagging the arms of people he wants to join his Olympic relay.

“Oscar!” I say sharply. But he pays me no mind. Soon, he’s got a train of kids doing laps. Ashley tries to block him, but Oscar just runs around her. Half the kids are whooping like they’re celebrating that their lives are officially going to turn out the way they want now that they’ve decided to follow Oscar’s goddamn train. I throw my hands up and exchange helpless looks with Ashley. Correction: I’m the one that looks helpless. She just looks determined. People her age love to look determined even though they’ve inherited an even less impressive tomorrow than they originally settled for. Randall, the old science guy, stands on the grass, grimacing behind his spectacles at the sun, dangling his impotent rope in the sud bucket. This guy has been a teacher for decades. How the hell has he not given up?

“Alright everyone!” he calls out. “Bubbles!”

Of course, just like that, Oscar leads his troops right to Randall’s bucket, and they sit cross-legged before Senor Science like they’ve discovered their deity.

Ashley sidles over to me with her hands on her hips.

“I think we’re losing them,” I say grimly.

Ashley examines me for a moment before smiling. “Are you okay? It’s a beautiful day out. All we have to do is keep them inside the fences. Randall’s got this today.”

I smile back. At Ashley, I have no trouble smiling. She’s pretty. Her teeth are perfect. She’s a product of miscegenation, which I suspect makes her genetically superior to me and consequently, mildly frightening. I don’t know what the deal is with her thirteen-year-old boy voice, but life is a puzzle. With the kids, I have to force smiles. I’m not sure I ever liked children. What made me think I’d like teaching? When I left banking, teaching seemed a way to do some good in the world. As a banker, all we were doing was trading handshakes with rich people. Anyone who wasn’t rich was irrelevant. The other bankers would joke, “What else are you going to do, teach?” Well, yeah. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do! But now I realize my choice was the product of laziness. Reactionary. A conservative choice in a risky one’s clothing. One made to piss off my chief financial officer father. What a cliché! A weak one at that!

“You’re right,” I say. “How’s the roommate?” Ashley’s got a roommate who’s in a contentious relationship with a boy. Asking her about her roommate makes me feel young, hopeful and ignorant.

“Ugh, I’ve resorted to hanging out at the bar on the corner at night,” she says.

I have a series of brief and fond memories of when I used to hang out at corner bars at night. Faces of women flash before me inside dimly lit taverns, beyond rapidly emptying drinks. There seemed to be possibility at the bottom of every pint. I wonder what would happen if Ashley and I had a drink together tonight while Tina’s at the hospital. Would that violate the terms of our microaffair? You know what? Nothing would happen, because 1) I’m too old for the corner bars Ashley and her cohort frequent and 2) I’m too lazy to deal with Tina’s inevitable questions. Instead, I’ll choose the road with the widest berth. Stay home, read depressing fiction, and take occasional breaks to masturbate joylessly.

“Sounds like you’re doing the right thing,” I say.

“My friends say I should move out.”

“Yes, of course.” Unhappy? Do something about it! An option that rarely occurs to me. “Well, that’s another option.”

With his wands, Randall raises the twine from the bucket and slowly parts the loop while backpedaling, and a large, rainbow-tinted bubble rises and swoops through the air. The kids ooh and ahh and run after the globule. Though I see this experiment every year, even I have to confess to a certain sense of wonder at the bubble’s size and trajectory as Randall makes another smaller one and it bursts almost immediately. Why are some bubbles bigger than others? Why does one rise while others burst? Oscar the Future probably knows. In fact, he’s wandering behind the rest of the class, tugging on his goalie gloves like he’s about to start an imaginary World Cup match.

“I’m pretty fuzzy on my sciences,” I tell Ashley.

“So am I,” she says. She pulls out her phone, touches the screen a few times and finds a website with information about bubble-related science projects for schools. I’ve asked Tina for a smart phone for my last two birthdays. I’ve received flowers instead. “I read up on bubbles last night.”

“At the bar?”

“A bar can be a really good place to read,” she insists with a smirk. “Especially when you’re bored by the company.”

I almost say that, in that case, I should do my reading at corner bars instead of at home.

“Did you know that bubble skin is a thin layer of water sandwiched between two layers of soap molecules?” she asks.

I admit I had no idea. It’s amazing how little one needs to know to teach. I find myself identifying with the freeloading layer of water being carried along by molecules of soap.

Randall calls out for us. “Can one of you get that other bucket? We’ll show them how to merge bubbles.”

Ashley hops to action, trotting over to Randall. I feel suddenly lonely without my micromistress. I’m a married man. Ashley’s a goddamn baby. She’s too young to even be my friend on Facebook! I watch her make a large bubble. It rises to meet Randall’s, and together, they form a giant one that awes the children.

“You going to let her do you like that, man?” someone says. It’s Oscar. He’s standing next to me. His soccer gloves smell like feet.

I laugh. “Did you hear that line in a movie or something?”

“They’re making bubbles together,” he says. “Like they’re married.”

“I’m married,” I say. “She’s not.”

Oscar slapped me on the belly. “You’re not married.”

I’ve been gaining weight, and I’m chagrined at how the skin on my paunch ripples and shudders from Oscar’s slap. Now he’s softly smacking my belly with both hands like I’m a stuffed animal he’s beating.

“Hey, that’s enough,” I say with a smile, not wanting to be too harsh on Oscar the Future, but he persists.

“You’re not married,” he sings repeatedly, pivoting his head left and right while slapping my nascent fat man’s belly like we’re convivial frat brothers.

“Hey, Oscar, stop!” I say more loudly. Ashley and Randall are looking at me and I sense that both are wondering why I can’t discipline this squat kid, this ringleader, this eight year-old. This scene is reflecting poorly on me. On them as well. As I’m thinking this, Oscar runs away, making a beeline for the wide gap in the playground fence. He’s headed for the streets.

“Oscar!” I shout. To my disappointment, he doesn’t stop, and I realize that, despite the fact I haven’t engaged in any physical activity since I was a banker and had subsidized gym membership, I have to run after The Future.

“You’re not married!” Oscar yells as he runs.

I trundle after him, and after a few steps, I’m closer but already wheezing. My lower back feels like a sack of ball bearings.

“You can’t stop me!” Oscar the Future says. “I know better!”

“Come back here!” I say, suppressing a goddamnit. I grit my teeth, pick up speed, and I know I’m going to catch Oscar before he leaves the playground.

“You’re married to Ashley,” Oscar the Future says as I’m about to head him off.

I grab Oscar hard by both his smelly, gloved hands. “You think you’re better?” I shout. “You think it’s going to be so fucking easy for you? Well, it’s not! It’s not!”

Before I know it, Ashley is prying me away from Oscar and only then, do I see the boy’s frightened, reddened face. “What’s gotten into you?” Ashley asks. Out of breath, I look at her, and I see the pearls of sweat on her wrinkle-free brow. She’s been running after me all along, and she’s not even breathing hard.

“Oscar,” Ashley says with a voice that’s suddenly strong and unbroken. “Go back to Randall. Now.”

Oscar’s eyes are downcast. “Okay, Miss Ashley,” he says softly as he runs back to the group.

My partner escorts me to the classroom. My hands are clammy, I’m sweating profusely, my mouth tastes like room temperature milk. I know I’ve lost my job; I’ve made my choice. Tina will be pleased by my decision. Judging from the way Ashley’s keeping her distance as we enter the room of empty desks, I’m pretty sure our microaffair is over, if it ever existed. People in her generation know the rules, and are calloused by the shovel’s handle. When the rules are broken, do not hesitate to bury the rulebreakers, even if they’re your peers, your friends, your micromistresses.

Instead of sitting behind my desk, I choose a student’s desk. As I slide in the too-small chair, I sigh. I want to say many things to Ashley. I’ve lost my way. I can’t begin to tell you who I am anymore. You seem to know who you are, have it figured out. Can you help me?

“What happened?” she asks.

I shrug. “I should have let someone else do the death march.”

“That’s what you think we’re doing?”

“You’ll learn,” I say. “When you’re older.” I used to be a banker. They’ll always win. Without even trying. We lose. No matter how hard we try. Any little victory we enjoy only happens because the bankers let us win. Even Oscar the Future knows this.

Ashley offers me a piteous look. “I have to get back,” she says. “If I don’t get to say this later, I want to tell you that it’s been a pleasure.”

“Of course.” I stand and hold out my hand.

“Good luck.” Her voice chirps on the word “luck.” She pumps my hand. I feel something inside me warm, and the deck of my world cantilevers, and it feels like I’m backsliding down a steep hill. I try to pull her into my arms, but she wriggles away.

“Oh god, really?” she says. “You’re going to do this now?”

“I don’t get people your age,” I say. “I really don’t. All earnestness and repression.”

“What about your wife?”

Tina. Yes. Right. “This would definitely reflect badly on her as a wife,” I say.

Ashley laughs sardonically, and I can tell she’s hitting backspace on all the characteristics she thought I had. Composed, experienced teacher. Good husband. She’s ready to replace those words with others.

“You’re an old loser,” she says. “People like you are the reason we have so much to fix.”

“Grip the shovel, start digging,” I say, my voice a growl. “Show leadership, don’t give up.”

Ashley shakes her head and looks at me like I’m insane. She informs me that the principal will arrive momentarily. Like the rest of her generation, she thinks my problems are no one’s fault but my own.

Photo by Bart Boudreaux’s Photo on Picasa; used under a creative commons license

Odysseus: Hail Zeus! After ten long years, Troy is finally sacked. Come, my fellow Achaeans, let us set sail. Let us return home to our wives and children.

Achaean: Not so fast, Odysseus! Aren’t you forgetting something?

O: Tell me, comrade.

A: Why, a balanced breakfast, my king! Which is why we’ve looted a thousand daily rations of Kellogg’s Special K® Red Berries Cereal. Filled with succulently sweet strawberries, crispy rice, and whole grain wheat flakes, Red Berries Cereal packs ten essential vitamins and minerals into each and every bite! It’s the perfect way to start a homeward voyage—a voyage that’s positively ripe with possibilities.

O: Well . . . okay, surely the men are hungry after yesterday’s brutal and bloody conquest.

A: Kellogg’s Special K® Red Berries Cereal. A berry special part of your daily balanced breakfast.

* * *

Odysseus: Come, men! Cease your pillaging of the Cicones, and let us flee! They are far greater in number, and are clearly skilled in the art of war. Forget their booty, their women. Let us leave at once, to Greece!

Achaean: What if I told you that you didn’t have to leave at once?

O: Brother, there is no time to argue. If we do not flee, we shall surely perish.

A: What if I told you that the Burlington Coat Factory’s 30% Off Sale is extended until Sunday!

O: This concerns me not.

A: Aviator jackets! Trench coats! Bubble vests! 30% off!

O: Gentle Achaean, I implore you, let us make haste.

A: Peacoats! Bomber jackets! Fleece hoodies! 30% off!

O: Dost thou not hear? Their chariots approach!

A: Look at this Multi-pocket Washed Leather Jacket from Calvin Klein. With a 100% genuine leather shell, military-style epaulettes, and carefully distressed finish, it’s the very definition of classic cool. And through Sunday, it’s only $125.99!

O: Yes, truly this jacket is of the finest quality, but unfortunately now is not the . . .

A: And this Ladies’ Single-Breasted Coat from Hawke & Co., with its five-button front, gun flaps, belt with harness buckle, and charming tiered skirt. A fabulously feminine way to keep warm this fall!

O: It is true, this coat’s beauty is unassailable . . . and it would delight my beloved Penelope so . . .

A: And through Sunday, only $55.99!

O: Oh, curses . . .

A: And this Infant Athletic Bubble Jacket from London Fog . . .

O: Fine, fine. It is decided. Men, take one coat each. But swiftly, swiftly! The hour of our doom is at hand!

A: Burlington Coat Factory—we’re more than great coats!

* * *

Odysseus: We have tarried here in the Land of the Lotus-Eaters long enough. Think of your families, how they must pine for you. Let us proceed homeward. Let us not delay here another moment.

Lotus-Eater: Stressed out? Fed up? Monday’s got you down?

O: No, good sir, I simply wish to hasten our departure. My fair Penelope awaits me in Ithaca.

L: Never fear, relief is here: Bath & Body Works’ stress-relieving Eucalyptus Spearmint Bath Salts.

O: My sincere apologies, friend, but unfortunately we must now take our leave.

L: Part of Bath & Body Works’ unique Aromatherapy line, our bath salts’ patented formula contains a unique blend of essential oils and skin-soothing sea salts to nourish both the body and the mind.

O: Your offer is enticing, but if you knew my Penelope you would understand that every moment I am away from her is like an eternity.

L: And for a limited time only, buy any two amazing Bath & Body Works Aromatherapy products and get one free!

O: You are too generous. But, sadly, we must . . .

L: Lavendar Chamomile Pillow Mist! The natural lulling effects of chamomile combined with the sleep-enhancing properties of lavendar!

O: Men! The time is come. Into the ships!

L: Lavendar Vanilla Dream Bath! With aloe to nourish and rejuvenate skin!

O: Men! Do not defy my orders!

L: Orange Ginger Energy Sudsing Scrub!

O: Men!

L: Black Currant Vanilla Sensuality Body Wash!

O: Men! Men! Men!

L: Stressed out? Fed up? Monday’s got you down?

O: In truth, sir, it could be said—yes.

L: Then never fear, relief is here.

O: Men!

L: Relax. Unwind.

O: Men!

L: Let go. Be.

O: Men!

L: Aromatherapy, by Bath & Body Works.

* * *

Polyphemus: Help! Help! Nobody is hurting me!

Odysseus: Men! Quick! Tie yourselves to the bellies of the cyclops’ sheep, and let us escape to the ships.

P: Aiiieeeeeee! Help!

Other Cyclops: Polyphemus, who is hurting you?

O: Good, men, we’re almost there.

P: Nobody! Nobody hurt me. Nobody blinded me!

O: Patience, just a little farther . . .

OC: Well if nobody blinded you, then cease your crying and go back to . . .

Wilford Brimley: It wasn’t nobody who blinded you. It was Odysseus, Son of Laertes, King of Ithaca.

O: Comrade, be silent!

W: And I’m Wilford Brimley for Liberty Medical.

O: Are you crazy, man? Hold your tongue!

W: I’m a diabetic.

P: Odysseus? Wilford Brimley? What men are these?

W: Did you know that diabetes is the number one cause of new blindness in adults? And that people with diabetes are 40% more likely to develop glaucoma, and 60% more likely to develop cataracts?

P: Whence come their voices, diabolical and strange?

O: Master Brimley, be still! Or is your desire suicide?

W: Now, I know how serious this disease is, but I also know a way to control it.

OC: Polyphemus! The sheep! They are hiding themselves beneath the sheep!

W: Check your blood sugar, and check it often.

O: Men! Now! To the ships!

W: Liberty makes that easier.

P: Brothers, kill them! Destroy them! Devour them!

W: If you’re sixty-five or over, on Medicare, and diabetic, call Liberty right now.

O: Row, men! Row! Row!

P: But leave me the ones who call themselves Odysseus and Brimley. On those I shall mete my own revenge.

W: They’re the country’s largest Medicare mail-order diabetic testing supply company, and they make things simple. They bring your supply right to your door.

OC: Polyphemus, alas! They have escaped. Their ships are beyond our reach.

W: And Liberty bills Medicare and your insurance company. That’s right—no money up front, and no more forms to fill out.

O: Brimley! Stop, I implore you.

P: Father! Poseidon! The raven-haired, Earth-Enfolder!

W: Diabetes doesn’t have to take over your life. Check your blood sugar. Check it often. See there’s just no reason not to.

O: You shall only enrage him further.

P: If indeed I am your son, if indeed you declare yourself my father, grant that Odysseus the city-sacker may never return home again; or if he is fated to see his kith and kin and so reach his high-roofed house and his own country, let him come late and come in misery, after the loss of all his comrades, and carried upon an alien ship; and in his house let him find mischief.

O: This bodes not well, Brimley.

W: And call Liberty. They’re professionals and they can help you live a better life.

* * *

Eurylochus: Odysseus! Take heed! Circe, the woman of the wood, is an evil witch-goddess! She has laced her food with a magical potion and transformed your men into swine!

O: I am grateful for your counsel, dear Eurylochus. I shall gather the remaining men and set out to rescue our comrades at once.

Hermes: Hold it right there, Son of Laertes.

O: Hermes! The great messenger of the gods!

H: Tired of the same old, boring barbecue sauce?

O: <sigh> This is growing tiresome.

H: Then say hello to Kraft Honey Mustard Barbecue Sauce!

E: Hmmm . . . tangy.

Achaean: So flavorful!

H: Different, right? That’s the Kraft difference.

Achaean: You said it, Hermes. Mmm mmm. Now if only we had something to . . . wait a second, you know what this would go great on . . .

O: No. No. Speak not another word.

A: Eurylochus, that Brimley guy? Did he get transformed?

E: Yes, he has been transformed into a particularly delectable swine.

A: Come on, O-Dog. What do you say?

O: My sweet Penelope, shall I ever again gaze upon your beautiful face?

H: Kraft Honey Mustard Barbecue Sauce: Taste the Excitement!

A: Wooo pig! Wooo pig! Soooey!

Wilford Brimley: Oink oink oink oink oink!

* * *

Odysseus: Dearest Circe, the year I have spent with you has been full of pleasure, but I cannot remain here forever. The time has come for us to part.

Circe: No, lover, I pray—stay.

O: I shall always remember you fondly, but my heart belongs to another.

C: Your wife Penelope.

O: Yes, Penelope, Queen of Ithaca, my home.

C: I see. And Penelope, she applies K-Y Touch™ 2-in-1 Warming™sensual massage oil and lubricant to your aching neck and shoulders every night?

O: She does not.

C: But, she cooks you delicious, healthy meals on a George Foreman Champ™ Grill, yes? The grill whose patented sloped design and George Tough™ nonstick coating helps unhealthy fat and excess liquids drain away from you food?

O: No, we do not have such wonders in Ithaca.

C: But, surely, she teases you in bed with lacy thongs, hiphuggers, and fishnet panties from Victoria Secret’s Sexy Little Things® collection?

O: She wears a tunic and cloak in the traditional way.

C: But you like the K-Y Touch™ 2-in-1 Warming™sensual massage oil and lubricant, yes?

O: Yes, I like the K-Y Touch™ 2-in-1 Warming™sensual massage oil and lubricant very much.

C: And you prefer my meals cooked on the George Foreman Champ™ Grill to your meals in Ithaca, do you not?

O: I do, the George Tough™ nonstick coating truly is a cause for marvel.

C: And if you could choose, you would prefer your woman to wear Victoria’s Secret erotic Sexy Little Things® lingerie rather than a drab, heavy wool cloak in bed, is that right?

O: Witch-goddess Circe, you do easily discern my thoughts in regards to the Victoria’s Secret Sexy Little Things® lingerie.

C: So then . . . why does your heart belong to Penelope again?

O: I love her.

C: Such a shame, dearest Odysseus, for Victoria’s Secret has recently launched a new collection of sheer babydolls, corsets, and teddies—the Sirens® collection—and I was so looking forward to modeling them for you . . .

O: Well . . . perhaps I could stay one more night . . .

* * *

Siren: Bad credit? No credit? No problem!

Odysseus: Untie me from the mast!

S: Side effects may include . . .

O: Untie me from the mast!

S: This Christmas, come see the movie that Joel Siegel of Good Morning America calls . . .

O: Untie me from the mast!

S: Fares, taxes, fees, rules, and offers are subject to change without notice. Other restrictions may apply.

O: Untie me from the mast!

* * *

Calypso: Honey!

Odysseus: Yes, dear?

C: Clumsy me, I spilled grape juice all over our new carpet! Now it’s ruined!

O: Ruined? Oh honey! Not if Spot Shot® Instant Carpet Stain Remover has anything to say about it!

Spot Shot® Instant Carpet Stain Remover: Odysseus, you must leave this place.

O: What’s that, little buddy? Did you say that you eliminate the toughest carpet stains—even old stains?

S: You have been trapped on this island for seven years.

O: That you work great on pet stains, coffee, spaghetti sauce, grease and oil, marker, wine, and more?

S: You must return home. To Ithaca.

C: Wow, so you just spray on Spot Shot® and blot the stain away. No need for rubbing or scrubbing.

S: To your wife, Odysseus.

O: Yes, it’s that simple.

S: To Penelope.

O: And the stain-eliminating power of Spot Shot® is available in both an aerosol can and a trigger spray bottle!

C: Hail Zeus!

S: Penelope. Dost thou not remember faithful Penelope? The Queen of Ithaca? Your one true love? The mother of your child?

C: Oh honey! Look! The grape juice is gone!

S: Dost thou not remember her face? Her soft, rosy lips? Her star-kissed eyes?

O: Gone? With Spot Shot® Instant Carpet Stain Remover, it’s like the stain was never even there!

S: Say her name, Odysseus.

C: I can’t believe it! Thank you! Oh, thank you, Spot Shot®!

S: Penelope. Penelope. Say it.

O: Look for Spot Shot® in the household cleaning section of your favorite supermarket, drugstore, or club store.

S: Penelope. Penelope. Penelope.

C: Oh honey, I’ll never cry over another stain again.

S: Penelope.

O: Stain? What stain?

S: Penelope.

O: Spot Shot®.

Previous installments of Mt. Olympus, Miami

Whereas Charlene’s organic connectors had slowly decayed from decades of her synovial fluid washing against her cartilage, her corrosion-resistant, inorganic parts had proved themselves to be synarthrosic. Worse, few of her friends cared about her increasing restricted mobility. Those associates were usually otherwise occupied celebrating that academic’s career successes.

A short time ago, for instance, her department had held a luncheon to fete Charlene on Cambridge University Press’s publication of her Treaties on Dio Chrysostom’s Orations and on The University of Chicago Press’s declaration that it would print her Social Construction in Zenobius’ Proverbs. At that august entertainment, the professor had been unable to grasp the ordinary utensils that the caterers had provided. While observing her junior colleagues and department chair knock back rare roast beef and virtual mashed potatoes, she had allowed herself the luxury of a few sighs; she occasionally paid tribute to the days when she had been entirely made of flesh.

In fairness, despite the fact that the members of her mentor’s faction had questioned Charlene’s decision concerning her physical remediation, the scholar had gone ahead, anyway, and had exchanged her diothrosic chunks for bits made from titanium and rubber. Afterward, when that research exemplar, as well as the generation that succeeded him, had become as physically obsolete as were the ancient philosophers to whom the group of them paid professional homage, the intellectual awarded herself fresh credence for the way in which she had chosen among available physiologies.

Only much later, Charlene bungee jumped off her intellectual cliff.  Specifically, in the decade that followed the death of so many of her peers and advisers, she took on the electronic persona of a part-time retail employee from Iowa City , Iowa . Under that guise, the researcher began assembling and submitting writings based on all of the wiggly images that burrowed through her brain when she was supposed to be lecturing on western civilization’s cultural history.

Although Charlene developed a forte in both horror flash fiction and in lipstick poetry, she was not at all displeased when Analog Science Fiction and Fact made known that it was going public with her “Eyes of the Uromastyx,” and whenPloughshares advertised that her sonnet, “Georgie’s Pudding,” was going to appear in a future volume. To commemorate those successes, she scheduled additional innovative surgeries. Charlene had deemed it timely to replace her vertebral articulations with more reliable segments.

While Charlene healed from those invasive cuts, she penned “Ramos’ Salvation.” Straight away, that piece, too, was accepted for publication. The editors at Glimmer Train had exclaimed, in their acknowledgment email, that her exposition was so original as to bring to mind the genre of prose created by the AI Effect software, which was currently in vogue at select universities’ writing workshops.

Unfortunately, all of that literary bare branching did not bring Charlene further academic accolades. In the place of such honors, the university lecturer’s most topical placements had introduced, into her life, an interpersonal dilemma. The Iowa City Press Citizen had caught wind that a “local resident” was being extolled for pioneering poetics. A correspondent, from that weekly, had been tenaciously harrying Charlene, hourly interrupting her thoughts, with instant messaging.

To stop his harassment, the elitist was willing to break her façade, to let the news hound know: that she believed her counterfeited experiences to be a justified means to the agreeable end of her appearing more user-friendly in print, that a piece of her chicanery had consisted of her daughter photographing her in borrowed glasses and a wig, and that she had enlisted the help of her son in fabricating a verbal portrait that accounted, in the language of serial divorces and bad hair days, for her decades’ worth of living.

Charlene was hesitant, nevertheless, about making the acquaintance of that reporter.

Even if his publisher was willing to fly him to Princeton for the “scoop of the year,” She believed that their meeting would be ill-fated, since she had already experienced too many encounters with pediophobic people.

Just four neat months ago, Charlene had been subjected to repulsion from a collaborator employed in Brisbane . That fellow, the recipient of a University of Queensland travel grant, had been so intent upon working with the instructor face-to-face, to further their joint efforts on “The Probable Elocution of Judicial Oratory in the Fourth Century,” that he had transversed the globe to meet her. Unfortunately, that professor’s eyes had bulged and his limbs had begun to tremble long before the achiever could even respond to his preliminary salutation. As soon as he said “hello,” Charlene’s distinguished visitor had clutched his abdomen and had raced to the green that was adjacent to Princeton’s East Pyne Building . He didn’t quite make it, though. Instead, he had found himself spewing vomit along the Classics Department’s sacrosanct halls.

There had been other moments, as well, when Charlene second guessed her sham. One such incident occurred when she presented “Gorgias’ Ego” at an annual meeting of the American Branch of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. On that occasion, two colleagues had been carried out of the auditorium with chest pain, and six had complained of feeling dizzy. C harlene’s only surviving graduate school friend, Ryan Wallaby, mentioned that he had become ill with a chocking sensation.

As she contemplated such events, Charlene looked at her reflection in the panes of lead glass that insulated her office. Beyond her window, the bare boughs of a sickly elm tree beguiled the eye into seeking out complimentary life forms. Albeit, no chipmunks or squirrels investigated that gargantuan’s immense vertical furrows; no creature was interested in finding out more about the lines that alluded to that tree’s formerly expanding rings. No tourists sat near its roots. No graffiti defaced its bark. A pair of sneakers, a torn plastic bag, and a tattered hair ribbon constituted that mammoth’s sole ornaments.

Charlene shook her head. She had been morally contented with her ruse. Originally, she had meant only to compose and to broadcast. It was not until her piece, “Lice in Love,” had been nominated for a Hugo that she realized a natural lifespan would adversely constrain her creative output. Yet, Charlene maintained that she had not been greedy when she deigned to use her royalties, from the 7^th edition of that limitedly popular freshman text, Humanities for You and Me, to fund her initial elective surgery.

The doctors at the University Medical Center at Princeton had excitedly gobbled up Charlene’s monies, rationalizing that since her maternal grandmother had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, they were merciful in supplying their client with preventive care. In the same way in which those surgeons regularly excised the breasts of healthy women with family histories of cancer, and in which they performed episiotomies on young mothers with no skin elasticity issues, those practitioners readily replaced Charlene’s sacroiliac joints with proxies.

At the time, the Classic Department’s Tenure and Promotion Committee had been so delighted with Charlene’s participation in the anthropology dimension of the Fulbright Specialist Program and with her nomination to second vice president of the National Communication Association, that they were willing to look the other way on cosmetic matters. Her contiguous articles in Philosophy and Rhetoric and inTraditio helped her cause, as well.

So, Charlene, under her alias, wrote even more creative nonfiction for The Smithsonian and for The Christian Science Monitor. Under her nom de plume, she similarly fashioned further tales of vampires and of golems for The House of Painand for City Morgue. She dashed off intermittent book reviews for Jane Magazine,too.

At present, if Charlene’s exaggerated posture, as a tenured professor in an Ivy League school, gleaned less loathing, then all of the variations of her play-acting would have been as sweet as had been Socrates’ final drink when that great scholar had been confronted by the Sophists. Regrettably, the contemporary state of the academic community’s vagarities disallowed for undefendable fakery. Charlene called to cancel the interview.

“Belief. What is belief? Beyond belief. ‘What a Fool Believes.’ You don’t believe in me; I don’t believe in you . . .

“People will believe anything. Paul is dead. The moon landing was a sham. God has a beard. Why always a beard? And I quote from Genesis: ‘So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him.’ And yet, ninety percent of the time, Adam is depicted as being clean-shaven. What does he shave with? Rocks? Animal teeth? Specialized thistles? And why shave? This is pre-Fruit of Knowledge. Does he have head lice? A job interview? He’s oblivious to the concept of nudity, but he’s still self-conscious about a little bit of chin stubble?

“God’s beard—I guess I can see the logic there. A beard tends to give one a certain gravitas. It’s hard to imagine God creating the heavens and the Earth with a soul patch, or a Fu Manchu, or mutton chops. But who knows? God knows. He is all-knowing. Surely he knows about the Norelco 7810XL. The Braun 790CC. The Remington MS5200. Adam’s shaving with squirrel incisors, while God can’t be bothered for even a light trim. Mysterious ways. ‘Do you believe in miracles?’ ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ . . .

“Angels. People believe in angels. My issue with the angels is why are they always playing harps? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against harps, but I feel like at some point the angels would get tired of being pigeonholed. I feel like, one angel, he gets issued his harp, and he’s like, ‘No thanks, I want to play the electric guitar. What do you have in a ’69 Telecaster?’ . . .

“Genies. People believe in genies too. They’re in the Koran, supernatural beings made of smokeless flame. In Western culture, they’re lamp-dwelling wish-dispensers. Me and this girl were talking genies the other day, and she brought up the issue of airport security. Stay with me, now. Let’s say you travel to Qatar, rub a lamp, acquire a genie. Great. Now you have to fly back to the U.S. If you put the genie in your checked baggage, you’re probably okay. But what if the plane goes down? Or your flight’s hijacked by terrorists? You’re going to want that genie in your carry-on, right? But then you have to get the genie past security. First off, if there’s any liquid in the lamp—residual oil, etc.—you’re screwed, unless the lamp’s less than three ounces, which—not likely. Second, remember, the genie’s made of smokeless flame. You think the TSA is going to go, ‘Oh, it’s alright, it’s just smokeless flame’? The obvious solution is to wish for a magic carpet, of course. But carpet-based travel . . . I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like the optimal means of transportation to me. What if it rains? You’re soaked, and the carpet gets damp, and sooner or later you get that mildew smell. Why do male genies live in lamps, and female genies live in bottles? What happens if a genie bottle gets recycled? For people who believe in genies, are lamps and bottles continual disappointments?

“People believe in love. What does that mean, exactly? ‘I saw her face, now I’m a believer.’ Knowledge is a type of belief, but not the only type. We can believe what we do not know. ‘Don’t Stop Believin.’ Why? What if we all stopped believing? What if we just knew? I know that this Heineken is two for one until 6 p.m. I know that Heineken is a 5% abv pale lager, brewed by Heineken International since 1873. But how do I know these things? Someone told me. They could be lying to me. But I believe them. But what if I stopped believing? Now what do I know? You smell terrific. Can I buy you a drink?

“I don’t believe you.”

To be continued in Part Seven: We’ll Always Have Brownsville

Previous installments of Mt. Olympus, Miami

Photo by Travis Nicholson on Flickr

STUFF I GOT OFF CRAIG’S LIST

1.  Dining room table $40

2.  Five dollar CTA card $4.50

3.  Unopened twenty-pack carton Colgate $14

4.  Bluebird paperweight, ten cents.  Not like I needed a paperweight, but TEN CENTS?  You can’t pass that up! plus it’s glass and cold and sort of soothing.  I carry it in my pocket and grip it when I think I’m losing my mind.  Like when Gary left, I squeezed that bluebird so tight the beak cut into my palm.

5.  Size-ten lady’s whole closet, FREE.  I guess she died—leukemia—and her husband couldn’t handle it.  Please take ASAP, said the post.  I don’t want to remember anymore.  She liked the fancy stuff, this lady.  I got a cashmere trench coat that goes all the way to the floor.  Sometimes, when it’s slow at work, I imagine millions of keys lining the inside of that coat.  I imagine riding the el and suddenly it screeches to a stop and all the lights go off.  Something terrible is about to happen, we’ll be exploded by a meteor or beheaded by terrorists or something, and everyone is screaming and banging on the doors but I remain calm.  I reach into my trench coat.  I pull out a key.  It glows softly in the dark and people back away in awe—“Look, Mommy, we’re saved!” cries a small, freckled child—as I unlock the locked door and lead everyone to safety.

Sounds ridiculous, I know, but when you spend forty hours a week doing the same thing over and over—find the key code, line up the keys, grind—you’re also spending forty hours in your mind.  Forty hours thinking, and in my case it’s better to imagine impossible stuff than replay reality, ‘cause, I’ll tell you what, the reality is sort of shitty.  The reality is Gary, sitting across from me at our Craig’s List dining room table.  He’s wearing his Pep Boys uniform and his fingers are stained with Penzoil.  Underneath the table, his right leg bounces like it does when he’s nervous.

“How can you be pregnant?” he asks.

I think of that video from sixth grade biology, with the cartoon sperm narrating how babies are made, but now isn’t the right time.  “I don’t know,” I say instead, reaching into my pocket and grabbing the bluebird.  “I just am!”

By now Gary’s knee is banging into the underside of the table.  “Was it when the condom broke?” he asks.  “Or the night we got drunk?” and on and on with the possible blame.  I tune him out and watch the table shake.  I’d seen enough Lifetime Made-for-TV movies to know how this scene would end.  Either: A. “We’ll make this work!” or B. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

Gary didn’t say A or B.  He said, “get rid of it.”

*

“He told you WHAT?” said my sister Adel.  She goes to community college and is right now taking a Women’s Studies Class, where they spell “women” with a Y.

“To get rid of it,” I said.

“And what did you say?”

“Nothing,” I said which got her all sorts of worked up.  She talked like there was a whole press corps in her living room.  “When are you going to stand up for yourself?  When are you going to face these years of oppression and say to them, ‘Years, I will not be held back! This is the 21^st Century and I can, nay I WILL do it all!  I will work my job and feed my young and wear a skirt while doing so because never will I give up my femininity to play into your non-gender specific perceptions of my person!’”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told her, so she got off her fake pedestal and asked what I was going to do.

“I already did it,” I said.  “I went to Planned Parenthood last week.”  That’s when I started to cry.  Saying it aloud made me remember—the waiting room.  The paper robe.  The You’ll feel some discomfort—so I tried to think about something else.  Adel has this big fireplace and I imagined that inside it was a door.  I go to it, and then, I reach inside my coat and pull out a key and unlock the door and stretching out before me would be a whole starry universe and all I have to do is walk through and I’d be somewhere else.  Somewhere away.

Adel patted my shoulder.  “You need to protect yourself,” she said.  “In case this happens again.”

Starry universe, starry universe, I thought, rubbing the bluebird with my thumb.

“You should really go on the pill.”

*

The problem is, I don’t have health insurance.  I don’t even have the fifty bucks the pill would cost without Blue Cross.  But Adel was right—no way could I let what happened happen again.  So I did like I did with the dining room table and went online to Craig’s List.

PILL 4 SALE CHEAP

Reply to: loopydloo@aol

My insurance thinks I have an abnormal uterine bleeding problem so I only pay ten dollars a month for Ortho Tri-Cyclen, you can have it for twenty.  My husband and I don’t need it because he got a vasectomy.  We need money we are saving for a new deck. The Beachwood, Sunday night, 10 pm I have red hair.

Okay, I know.  It’s shady as all hell.  But you’ve got to understand: I couldn’t let it happen again.

*

The Beachwood is a bar over by the Jewel.  It’s a dive for sure, all dark, peeling plaster and neon signs.  Gary and I went there ‘cause the beers were cheap, but I never saw any other customers.  The bartender was over sixty, with red lipstick colored outside the lines.  She never said a word, just held up fingers for however many dollars we owed her.  Sometimes, as Gary stared at the television, I’d imagine pulling a key out of my coat and leaning across the bar.  I insert it between the bartender’s red red lips and suddenly she starts talking, same as those dolls that need their strings pulled.

“Can I ask you something?” she says, her voice two-packs a day.

“Sure,” I say.

“What’cha doing with this guy?” she nods her head at Gary, who’s lost in whatever’s on.  We haven’t spoken in hours.  We haven’t spoken in months and I am alone in an empty bar.

But THAT night, it’s not empty.  THAT night, 10 pm on Sunday, I went to the Beachwood and could barely squeeze in it was so packed.  I wondered if it was a bachelorette party or something, ‘cause everybody in there was a woman.

“What’s going on?” I asked the lady pressed into my right.  She had green hair and a tattoo on her neck.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “I’m here for the pill.”

“Me, too,” said the girl to my left.  “You see any redheads?”

“Hang on,” I said.  “Is everybody here for the pill?”

Lots of people heard that question, even over Smooth Criminal on the jute box.  A chorus of “Yeah’s” and “I am’s!” came from all around me—the soccer-moms in the Capri pants.  The college students, sweatshirts embroidered in Greek.  The teenagers, wide-eyed, watching their backs—and from there the voices erupted.

“Who’s gonna get it?”

“Me, I need it!”

“Everybody needs it!”

“Where’s that fucking redhead?”

They got louder and louder, girls all up in each others faces, heads whipping from shoulder to shoulder like that’s MY Ortho-tri-fucking-cyclin and I thought of movie scenes where the crowd panics and tramples itself to death.  In the midst of it all, a girl stood on the bar and yelled, “Everybody, listen up!”  She wore a business suit, the skirt high on her thighs from climbing.  Women like her came into Ace Hardware for Do It Yourself catalogues.  “Is the person who posted on Craig’s List here?”  The group went quiet.  Everyone looked around.  “Okay,” said the woman after a few seconds.  “We got screwed.  We should all go home and—“

“Fuck that!” yelled somebody in the crowd.  “We came for the pill and we’re leaving with the pill!”

Everybody cheered, and somebody yelled, “How?”

“There’s a clinic right up the street!” yelled somebody else.  “They’ve got tons of samples!”

It was well past midnight by that point, so maybe a couple hours of drinking had done its job.  Maybe it was that freak mob-mentality you see on the news.  Or maybe all the women in that bar had a story like mine, one we were trying our damnedest to forget.  Whatever the reason, we moved as one through the street that night.  Old and young, ugly and beautiful and scarred.  I was near the front of the crowd, close enough to hear the girl who first reached the clinic door yell out what we all must have known anyway:  “It’s LOCKED!”

I know.  What I should’ve done was walk away, but what I did do was walk forward towards that door.  In my head, I’d pictured this moment a thousand times:  I open my trench coat and the inside is lined with keys, all identical-looking, and I grab one of them—to the untrained eye it would seem random but me?  I know.  I am the Keymaster, the Asian guy in the second Matrix, I can unlock a goddamn DIMENSION if I have to! and I take the key and put it in the lock and lead us into that clinic.  I have another key to open the cabinets and hundreds and hundreds of free samples rain onto the floor and we pack them into backpacks and rush off through the night, thrusting the little plastic cases into the hands of women on the way.  I got so excited in that fantasy that I forgot the truth of it all: the math and the broken condom and the fifty dollars a month, all these girls showing up in some bar and me with my imagination.

I didn’t have any keys.  But I did have that bluebird, heavy and pulsing in my pocket, and I slammed it against the clinic’s front window.  Slow-motion slow the glass cracked into a giant spider-web and as I watched it go I thought, “I will not be held back!”

Image via blackbag.nl

Solomos’s dwelling and shop were located on the east side of the walled village, away from the marketplace and the crowded streets, far from peering eyes that would try to learn his secrets. His competitors would buy his shields, then try to take them apart in hopes of learning how they were designed. But it couldn’t be done, and so it was believed Solomos was blessed by the gods.

Visitors to Solomos’s shop knew a finished shield was ready for purchase when it was placed against the shrine of Zeus in the yard. Rarely would there be more than one shield available at a time, as it was bought before the next was finished. Each shield bore his signature mark, an S above two owl eyes, a symbol that was said to frighten warriors in battle, because of Solomos’s reputation.

Outside the gate, a hunched figure, suspiciously lingered. Solomos assumed this would be the next buyer, and waited, taking water from the well to cool his thirst. He watched as the figure, dressed in a grey, hooded cloak, inspected his new shield. When the figure left the shield, without so much as a small praise for its craftsmanship, and without a hint of interest, Solomos approached his visitor.

“Do you not like the shield?” He asked.

From beneath the cloak, an old woman’s wrinkled face turned up at him. Her eyes were gray, and shimmered. “This shield is too small.”

Solomos laughed. “My shield, unlike any other, protects the holder from chin to knee, and it is round and wide to hide even a fat man.”

The old woman frowned. “The shield I need would have to be three times the length, and as wide and round, so that an entire man could hide behind it.” She turned to leave.

“Wait,” Solomos called. “Surely, there is no man alive that could wield a shield of this scale. A shield of this nature could only be made for Heracles or Achilles, and they’re both dead, alive only in song.”

“So you say.”

Solomos rarely ventured beyond the courtyard. He noticed his wife watching him from the garden. Never had he chased after a buyer, but the grandeur of making a shield this size excited him. He wondered if he could make such a shield, but knew that if he did, his name would be remembered for all time.

“A shield as big as a man would be worth its weight in gold.” Solomos stopped the old woman.

From beneath the cloak, the old woman pulled out a heavy purse of coins. She extracted a single golden talent. “A shield such as this can also ruin the man who makes it.” She placed the talent in Solomos’s hand. “A token of my goodwill.”

Solomos hid the coin away, as a crowd gathered around him, interested in his business.

“I will return in three month’s time—not a day sooner.” The old woman pulled the cloak down over her eyes. “If the shield is not complete, I will expect to receive my token back. If you have neither shield nor token, you will face the consequences.”

Solomos watched the old woman disappear in the crowd and returned to his yard. He shouted at the crowd to go away. His mind raced with figures, how many hides it would take to pad the giant’s shield, the amount of wood needed to frame it, and the measure of bronze to cover it. He needed money quickly to buy supplies. He looked at the gold talent in his hand. Solomos was wise enough to know he would rather bury it, then spend it and have to repay it back.

Solomos went to his shop, and assessed the amount of room he would need to erect the giant’s shield. “The shield will barely fit, but I don’t have time to rebuild. It may take me three months, but I will do it.”

“Surely,” his wife said, “you can make three regular sized shields, with reasonable profits in the same time.”

“No, this is different. There is no other shield like this, save the shield of Achilles, long buried with him in his grave.”

“But how will we subsist.” His wife was concerned. “Three months without so much as a day’s wage, we’ll be ruined.”

“We’ll manage,” said Solomos.

Solomos made a list of supplies he would need. Before departing, he buried the gold talent in the ground. “Nice and safe.” He patted the dirt, and departed for the marketplace.

Nearly three months had passed. Solomos had two days to complete the giant’s shield. He had spent every ounce of daylight, and many dark nights perfecting the look of it. The wooden frame had been shaped and sanded smooth. Nine layers of bull hides had been dried and sewn together. Two layers of bronze had been crafted into a circle plate, then adhered to the hides. All he had left was to add the Argive and front decoration.

The Solomos had changed all these months later. His face was now thin and drawn; his chiton was no longer clean, but ragged and dirty. The house that surrounded him was no longer regal, but nearly bare, having sold most of his exotic belongings to afford his pricy endeavor. It was hard for Solomos not to notice his wife’s waiflike appearance, or his boy’s undernourished bodies. When was the last time they had a proper meal?

“Two more days.” Solomos voiced. “Two more days and all will be restored.” Solomos didn’t notice the magistrate enter the gardens. Instead he was focused on attaching the Argive. His wife came into the shop, explaining they had come to collect the overdue taxes.

“We have no money to give,” his wife pleaded. “We have no food. Our garden is bare. Your sons hunger. We cannot go on like this.”

Solomos went to a chest hidden behind the furnace. From it he pulled out a metal drinking-horn. It was his father’s, a prize from a warrior pleased with his father’s work. Solomos glanced at the shield, and then to the floor where the gold talent still rested. “Take this,” he said, “if it is not enough, tell them to come back in two days time.”

His wife placated the magistrate with the drinking-horn as a form of payment. “It will only buy us one day,” she returned the message to Solomos. “Tomorrow he’ll come again with guards for payment.”

The next morning, Solomos awoke with his head and arms lying on top of the massive shield. He glanced over his work. He tugged on the Argive, which had time to set. It was perfect. He had only the decoration to finish.

From the courtyard Solomos could hear his wife screaming for him. He jumped up, and ran outside. The magistrate and several guards were shackling his wife and sons.

“Pay what is owed, Solomos,” said the magistrate, “or I’ll take your family as payment. As slaves they’ll work off their fines.”

Solomos backed away. He was frightened. He ran to the shop, and started to dig up the talent. It would more than pay his debts. The cold metal was heavy in his palm. He started for the door, and then stopped. He realized his fear was not fueled by the magistrate, or from losing his wife or sons, but of the possibility of not being able to finish his shield. “I need but this one day to finish.”

Smoke and fire filled the air, as the guards lit the house on fire. A lighted torch was tossed into the shop. The thatched roof started up in flames.

“My shield,” he cried. Solomos struggled to move the heavy sphere from the table. With all his might, he pushed it over. The shield toppled, and rolled, breaking through the wall, and landing in the yard, away from the flames.

Solomos blocked out the terrified screams of his family as they were dragged into the street and taken away. He watched the fire. Nothing would stop him from finishing his work. He fished an iron ladle from the well, and placed the gold talent inside. He cast it into the flames and waited for it to melt. The decoration was the most important part of the shield. It told other warriors who made it, and sometimes which god was protecting the owner. Solomos closed his eyes and waited for an image to come into his head. He called on Hephaestus to guide him, to show him the perfect emblem.

Overhead, the sky darkened with storm clouds and lightening. Rain poured from the heavens. Solomos smiled at his good fortune. The gods were smiling down on him. Soon, the fire was nearly out. With his thirst quenched, he set to work crafting the shield’s emblem.

Solomos woke to the hot sun in the open yard, where he slept upon the hard ground beside the shield. He had finished. His work was complete. Soon, the old woman would come and he would be paid handsomely for his efforts.

In the street a garrison of guards crowded at his gate. The same magistrate stepped forward, and ordered Solomos’s arrest. He tried to resist, but was outnumbered, and shackled like a slave. What would his father say if he could see him?

A guard called to the magistrate upon seeing the massive shield. But four guards could not lift it, so it was considered useless. Solomos watched his dream of fame fall away as he was taken from his home.

Coming toward him, towering above the guards, was a great warrior-giant who stood at least eight-feet-tall. Beside him, shrunken in posture was the old woman, cloaked in grey. She stopped the magistrate, explaining to him the debt Solomos owed to her. “He owes me either a shield or a talent,” she said.

“They’re one in the same,” said Solomon pointing to the shield, the bronze plate reflecting like an orb in the distance. “See for yourself.”

“If this is true,” said the woman to the magistrate, “then he’ll have the means to pay you his dues.”

The magistrate was interested, and followed the woman and giant back to the courtyard. They all gathered around the shield. The old woman took off her hood, and when she did, a golden light fell over all of them, and they recognized it as the glory of a god. Tall and straight-backed, with grey eyes, and golden hair stood the Goddess Athena. The magistrate and his guards dropped to their knees, as did Solomos.

Athena ran her hands over the gold emblem. “How fitting,” she said. “Golden lightening bolts, a symbol of my greatness and glory.” She raised her finger to Solomos. His shackles dropped off. “I have been with you all along.”

Solomos bowed his head, as Athena touched him. “You have done well, Solomos.”

The giant took up the shield. The sun seemed to disappear from the sky when he raised it. In the next moment, both Athena and the giant were gone, the shield with them. In it’s stead a bag of gold.

Solomos paid his debts to all he owed. He bought back his family and rebuilt his home. He continued to make shields as word spread far and wide through Macedonia and all of Greece, and even to distant shores, that Solomos, son of Themius, was the greatest shield maker, and that he was blessed by the gods.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Jen said.

“Yes, I’m sure.” I said.

“Oh, Nina.” Jen said, stroking my forehead.

“What’s the time?” I asked.

“What?” she said.

“The time,” I said.

“There’s still time,” Jen said. “We have a few hours.”

“That’s not enough. Jen, that’s not enough time.”

I opened the storybook and continued to read aloud again. Jen kept looking at me. I ignored her. The baby and I didn’t have much time left together. Once out, it would belong to the Millers. Forever.

“It’s not like you’ll never see her again,” Jen said. “You could visit the Millers once in a while and talk to her.”

“It won’t be the same, Jen.” I said.

“Why not?” she said.

“Because she will be theirs, not mine.” I said.

“No, not yours,” said Jen.

We stared at each other in silence. After a while, I sat up in the hospital bed. Just as Jen started to say something, I held up a hand and cut her off.

“She’s kicking.” I said.

Jen put her hands on my belly. We stayed like that for some time, Jen, the baby, and I. The baby kept kicking. Nobody said anything.

“Jen?” I said.

“Hmm?” She said.

“How many stories do you think mothers get to read to their kids?” I said.

She looked at me and said nothing.

I went back to my story. After I finished reading it, I read out another. And another. And another. When I finished the whole book, I handed it to Jen. She kept it on top of a pile of books on a chair, and quietly handed me a new one from another pile. I opened it and started to read without looking at her.

“You’ve read plenty. You should take some rest now.” Jen said.

I ignored her and kept reading, stroking my belly. We didn’t have enough time. I wanted the baby to remember my voice. Time, I needed time. Once the baby knew everything about me, the Millers could take her. But not before. I looked at Jen’s wristwatch. She followed my gaze.

I finished reading Thumbelina, and pointed at my diaries. Jen bit her lip.

“She needs to know everything about me,” I said. “We only have a couple hours.”

“I’ll help,” Jen said. “Let’s talk about you.”

So we talked. We told the baby about my childhood, my family, my dog Max, my school days, my first crush, my dreams, the various jobs I took up over the years, the mistakes I made, how Jen was always there, how I could never keep a job, how I ended up broke, how I met the Millers, and how I had her. We told her everything we could remember about me. We kept talking without a pause, now interrupting each other and now speaking together. Jen told her about senior prom and my blue dress. I was suddenly reminded of the blue skirt mom wore on a summer afternoon to the park, and told the baby about how she smiled at me and pushed me on the swing. I talked about mom’s smile and her voice and her comforting smell. Jen jumped up and started talking about Tyler, my first boyfriend, and how I used to go on and on about how good he smelled.

“Do you remember how crazy you were about him?” Jen laughed.

“I was head over heels in love with him.” I said, laughing back.

“And Mark was in love with her, you know. Poor Mark.” She said, touching my belly.

“But I loved Tyler. And nobody loved Mark.” I said.

“Nobody loved Mark,” she repeated.

“I wrote a poem about him, though.” I said.

“About Mark?” Jen said.

“Yes. Hand me that purple diary. The one with glitter all over it.” I said.

She handed it to me. I flipped the pages.

“Here it is.” I said.

Jen came closer. She smiled, and looked at the words as I read them.

“Why did you write a poem about Mark?” Jen said when I finished reading it.

“I felt bad for him.” I said.

“Remember when we laughed at Maggie because she felt too bad for Sam and wouldn’t break up with him?” Jen said.

“Maggie is my cousin.” I told the baby.

“Her favourite cousin.” Jen said.

We told the baby about Maggie, my other cousins, and my friends from school — people she would never meet. People I loved. People who would never know her, or get to love her the way they loved me. We told her about what I loved to eat, my favourite movies, and my favourite bands. Then it was time to prep me for surgery. Jen held my hand as I talked about things I did when I was pregnant with the baby. She squeezed my hand as I turned to the intern to ask for one more minute.

“I didn’t tell her how much I love her.” I said.

“Nina, I think the baby knows.” Jen said.

And then it was time to go.

“I’m reliable. Punctual. A hard worker.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I’m bilingual, English and Greek.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Trilingual, really, if you consider Ancient and Modern Greek to be . . . which of course you should; they obviously . . .”

“But no previous restaurant experience?”

“. . . Well, I slew the many-headed hydra.”

“Fast food, maybe?”

“I obtained the girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyta.”

“Bartending? Washing dishes? Bussing tables?”

“I briefly held the dome of the sky upon my shoulders and retrieved the fearsome Cerberus from the land of the dead.”

“Very good. Unfortunately, right now we’re really looking for someone with more . . .”

“How about this. If I can lift that salad bar over my head with one hand, then . . .”

“I’m sorry we can’t offer you anything at this time, but . . .”

“How about the deep fryer?”

“We do of course appreciate your interest in joining the Ruby Tuesday family. It was certainly a pleasure to . . .”

“I’ll lift the salad bar with my left hand and the deep fryer with my right.”

“We have your contact information, so . . .”

“Okay, here we go, one, two . . .”

Labor #36 – Attain a Lasting and Mutually Satisfying Relationship

“So . . . this place is fun, right?”

“WHAT?”

“This place is fun, right?”

“SORRY, I CAN’T . . .”

“I said, ‘THIS PLACE IS FUN, RIGHT?’”

“THE MUSIC, IT’S [unintelligible] . . .”

“THIS PLACE! IS FUN! RIGHT?”

“EXCUSE ME, [unintelligible], I NEED TO FIND ONE OF MY FRIENDS.”

“OKAY! NICE TALKING TO YOU!”

“. . .”

“This place is fun. Right?”

Labor #49 – Make Informed Choices About Dietary Intake

“Quick question—is the Hollandaise sauce gluten-free?”

Labor #25 – Gain Meaningful Employment [cont’d]

“So I’m looking at your application, and under Personal References you wrote      . . .”

“Hades.”

“Right, Hades. Whose address is also . . .”

“Hades.”

“. . .”

“Yeah, that always confuses people. His name is Hades and he also lives in Hades.”

“I see.”

“Kind of like how George Washington lived in Washington.”

“. . .”

“Or how Flo Rida lives in Florida.”

“And this . . . Hades, his title is . . .”

“Lord of the Underworld.”

“But he has no phone number?”

“No, unfortunately—it’s the underworld, you know? The cell phone reception down there, as you can imagine . . .”

“I see.”

“Sure, sometimes the telecom companies make noise about expanding their service areas beyond the realm of the living. But then they start figuring out the logistics—the infrastructure costs, the crossing of rivers of fire and sorrow, the reluctance of subcontractors to forfeit their immortal souls . . . I think Verizon’s in talks with Hades and his legal team right now, but we’ll see. I’m certainly not holding my breath . . .”

“No email address either, huh?”

“Nope. The second personal reference should be easy to get a hold of, though.”

“Lil’ Bones.”

“Except don’t call him before noon. He’s not so receptive to phone inquiries that early in the morning.”

“I see.”

“Actually make it 1 pm or later, just to be safe.”

“Okay. And Lil’ Bones’s email address is . . .”

“LilB0neDezeBitchaz@hotmail.com.”

“I see.”

“Oh, and ‘Bone’ is actually spelled with a zero, not an O.”

“Of course. Well, we have your contact info, so . . .”

“That always confuses people.”

Labor #19 – Change Lanes on I-95

“Letmeinletmeinletmeinletmeinletmein . . .”

[Cars honking.]

“Letmeinletmeinletmeinletmeinletmein . . .”

[Cars honking.]

“HEY! SAME TO YOU, PAL!”

[Cars honking.]

“Letmeinletmeinletmeinletmeinletmein . . .”

Labor #36 – Attain a Lasting and Mutually Satisfying Relationship [cont’d]

“How about ‘Hero Seeks Heroine’? Is that too . . .”

“That’s a little . . .”

“Okay, we’ll figure out the subject line later. Let’s start with your description.”

“So, like, age, height, weight, that sort of thing?”

“Exactly.”

“Alright. Over two thousand years old . . .”

“How about we just put ‘Mature’?”

“Okay. Mature. I like that. Mature, 1.83 meters . . .”

“Six feet.”

“Fine. Mature, six feet tall . . . so weight in pounds then?”

“Right.”

“210 pounds, pure muscle.”

“Good. Or, ‘Athletic build.’ Now maybe list some of your interests, pursuits . . .”

“Interests, huh? Let’s see . . . I like quests.”

“I’ll put ‘Enjoys long walks.’”

“Feats of strength.”

“I’ll put ‘Sports fan.’”

“Slaying chthonic beasts.”

“I’ll put ‘Loves animals.’”

“What else?”

“I think that’s enough, for you. Now let’s focus on the woman. What you’re looking for, what you expect. Et cetera.”

“Okay. For starters . . . she should be pretty.”

“Of course.”

“But not too pretty. I don’t want any wars started over her.”

“I’ll put ‘Seeks attractive, real woman.”

“I’m too old for that shit.”

“What else?”

“She should be smart. And funny.”

“Good.”

“And kind. And compassionate. And loyal.”

“Good, good.”

“And she should never jealously poison me with centaurs’ blood.”

“Um . . .”

“And she should be immortal.”

“. . .”

“Because otherwise, why bother, right?”

“Well . . .”

“I mean, even if she’s perfect—especially if she’s perfect—I’ve got, what, fifty, sixty years, and then she’s gone. But I’m still here. The memory of her, the absence of her, gnawing at me every minute of every day.”

“Of course. I understand completely. But unfortunately . . .”

“I’ll want to die. I know I will. Like those old couples, how when one dies of cancer the other dies just weeks later, from a broken heart.”

“How about I put . . .”

“But I won’t die. That’s the bitch of it all.”

“You know, with the right diet, and the inevitable medical breakthroughs . . .”

“But then again, immortality is no guaranteed cakewalk either. Case in point my marriage to Hebe. Goddess of youth. What a disaster that was.”

“. . .”

“Oh who am I kidding? Right now I just really need to get laid.”

Labor #17 – Reach a Customer Service Representative

[Smooth jazz.]

“. . .”

[Smooth jazz.]

“. . .”

“Due to unusually high call volume, we are experiencing longer than normal wait times.”

“Cocksu . . .”

[Smooth jazz.]

“. . .”

[Smooth jazz.]

“. . .”

“Your satisfaction is important to us and we appreciate your patience.”

“Motherf . . .”

[Smooth jazz.]

“. . .”

[Smooth jazz.]

Labor #67 – Replace Ceramic Tile Tub and Shower Surround With Cultured Marble

“How my heart yearns for violence and blood.”

To be continued in Part Three: Ain’t No Party Like a Pembroke Pines Party

Photo by David Hoshor

But most of all, she likes me because I am from this city, and not a suburbanite on an extended vacation. She particularly likes that my earliest memories involve standing under the el, in block-wrapping lines, waiting to get food stamps.

Despite this, she can’t grasp the fact that I’ve never lived in a ghetto—that there are places in this city where college kids might never venture to—and that there are more residential neighborhoods than the ones that abut college campuses. Still, she has seen my childhood home, and called it cute, which, to her, means quaint or cozy. Or small.

What about my cinematic social education, where courting girls on elevator rides and eating Chinese food straight from the cartons are accepted, encouraged?  The elevators today are sleek and quick and most likely powered by nuclear energy, and even the Fishtown hipster girls, with their summer scarves and wet-crotched admiration for Tarkovsky, will tell you to get a fucking plate.

This is poverty porn, the worst kind, and no one’s ever been blown while watching Angela’s Ashes or The Color Purple, though a girl did once rub me through my pants during The Pianist.

Skinny Hips turns up the lights. I am seated opposite the television, dry-mouthed and stoned, rolling my tongue across the inside of my lip and winning a staring contest with her cat.

“Well?”

“That was—”

“You didn’t like it.”

“I didn’t love it. “

She frowns.

“I’ve never seen a horse in person,” I say, and she looks at me and does her sympathetic tongue-click-lip-biting-eyelash-flutter combination and buries her head between my neck and shoulder. “The Last Man on Earth. Now that’s a picture.”

“A picture?”

***

Thirty minutes or less, that’s what the signs, commercials and pizza boxes say; leftover media from the golden age, wild west expansion era of the national pizza franchise. But the signs have been cracked and peeling for twenty years, unchanging eyesores with washed out colors, and the commercials are odd with their ginger faced adolescents in hot pinks and purples, in hooded sweatshirts tied off at the waist.

Thirty minutes is more like forty-five of fifty, or an “It just left,” upon consulting an indifferent teenaged clerk via telephone. And etiquette is devolving. No longer is the polite, silent gesturing for the last slice, or the amicable split mini-slices of old. It is every man for himself, sauce and cheese guerilla warfare.

Still, though, P______ Pizza soldiers on, and I am sort-of-smiling-but-really-smirking employee, dressed in pristine paper hat and apron. This place is an early 90’s nightmare, with its tight-fit plastic booths and solid red soft-drink cups, its picnic-style tablecloths, and electronic mess of Pacman and Donkey Kong.

A pizza box has been torn in half and taped to a wall adjacent to the two-ton pizza oven, instructions handwritten:

IN EVENT THAT MANIGER (sic) IS UNAVAL GONE

1)   CLEAN TABLES

2)   MOP FLORE’S (sic)

3)   MAKE DOUGH

4)   TAKE OUT TRASH

5)   DON’T FORGET YEAST IN DOUGH (INFECTION is written over DOUGH)

6)   SMILE FOR CUSTOMER

[unofficial]

7)   DON’T SPIT IN PIZZA

8)   DON’T SPIT IN TERRY’S MOUTH

9)   SPIT IN TERRY’S MOUTH

10) (Poorly drawn sketch of penis)

11) (Arrow pointing to penis. Words: TERRY’S PENIS)

The clientele is mostly green-eyed bastard grade schoolers enjoying afternoon snacks and asking for too many napkins; more than I, as a dedicated employee, am comfortable giving. Little balled up napkins, stained orange and littered around the scuffed linoleum, greasy-pizza-proof of their PG rated, adolescent sexual socialization. But this job isn’t so bad.

Older sisters. Short skirted and knee-high stocking’d teenagers, experienced eyefuck seductresses. Employee bathroom, break-time cannon fodder. I’m a bad pizza boy and Sally Sweet Sixteen is going to punish me.

***

Catered events, nights and weekends. Freshly shaven, late and lying about the black boys that hang out near the corner store and their mean streaks and tall cousins and illegible t-shirt and baseball cap logos, most likely gang symbols. I iron the sleeves of my shirt by sticking them in the middle of a Modern Civilization textbook and sitting on it during the subway ride over.

I am one in a sea of red-tied waiters, interchangeable private function robots, carrying sweet smelling finger-foods, stopping at the whim of curious housewife samplers and thick-necked older gentlemen with shiny shoes, men prone to genial back-pats or discreet dollar-bill pocket slips. Meanwhile, in the back, sneaking vodka drinks from tiny plastic cups with the Mexican boys and the thirty-something cooks, and playing who can go without dropping their tray the longest after the third or forth trip around the floor.

***

Arrive at a row home party with tin-foil wrapped leftovers as conversation starters to newly urbanized college freshman girls who smile and admire my washed out tattoos with their conflicting ideologies—cave painting relics of youth and impulse.

Packed in tight with other boys and girls, standing around basement or first-floor kegs, wondering where all the teen movie party houses are, with their trampolines and in-ground pools, and without irate neighbors or eight fixed-gear bicycles chained to a single railing.

My friends, people who look and talk like me, are in the back, crowd watching and joking about people trying too hard or not enough, applauding the boys who walk up to stranger girls and strike up conversations, applauding the girls who drink with reckless abandon, imitating their shrill drunk-girl acts, while checking out their asses or breasts or butterfly tattoos and superfluous clothing accessories.

Five or six or eight beers in, through the crowd, in slow motion, like a terrible movie, Skinny Hips and her pulled back frizzy hair, her slow, bag-clutching walk, and subtle scanning of the room for familiar looking faces, with that short, nervous swallowing thing she does, smiling at strangers and blinking to get an eyelash out, then blinking quickly and haltingly, then not blinking at all, and she’s really quite pretty, and I might go up to her and pretend we haven’t met and say, hello, you are quite pretty. Do you like this rap song and do you think the beer tastes good?

Photo by Flickr user ldandersen

“Oh my god, I like totally hit a guy with my car today,” Teresa says. “He like bounced over my hood, hit the wind shield, and plopped off the side. It was freakin’ hilarious. I could barely drive away ‘cause I was laughing so hard.”

“That’s hilarious,” Elizabeth says. “Was he alright?”

“Someone ran over to help him up so I figured he was okay.”

“You just drove off?” I ask, cranking my jaw back into place.

“He was fine.”

“I know but–”

“So, Hazel, are you still like gothic and depressed?” she asks. “I remember in high school you were always dressed like you were going to a funeral.”

“I…was never gothic…and depressed,” I say.

“Yeah, remember that one time Winnie came up to you and was like, ‘You’d be better off if you killed yourself’?” Elizabeth asks.

“I don’t remember that,” I say.

“You don’t?”

“No.” I break open my tall menu hoping they’d get the hint to drop the interrogation and open theirs.

“How can you not remember something like that?”

“I…just don’t.”

Or maybe I do, but fuck, enough shit goes down in a teenager’s adolescence like the standard confusion over life on top of the misery brought on by the standard sadistic expectations to excel, in addition to whatever else went down in the 90s that could significantly warp an impressionable young kid like the Gulf War, the Soviet Union Collapse, the Oklahoma, Georgia, and Kaczynski bombings, among other things that capped off that decade like Columbine, and I really want to know how uprooting any of that now, especially the part where Winnie said that I should kill myself, could possibly do anyone any good when we’re all still trying to get over how horrifying our 20s were, much less what went down in our teens.

“Twenty-two dollars for a salad? It better be garnished with diamonds,” I say, trying to change the subject.

“You don’t remember her saying that?” Elizabeth asks.

“No, I remember now,” Teresa says. “Winnie came up to us and was all, ‘Hazel would be better off if she killed herself ‘cause it would do the world a big favor.’ She never said it to her face. Right?” She looks to me for confirmation.

“Oh,” Elizabeth says. “Hey, but remember how she’d always ask you how the suicidal cult was doing? And she’d chase you around campus screaming, ‘drink the Kool-Aid!’ And everyone would call you Hazel Nut Job.”

This is why people go into work one day with a shotgun. This explains why people turn to the masses and drink Kool-Aid. This is one of the reasons behind Chuck Palahnuik’s conceptualization of Project Mayhem.

I scratch at my neck hoping someone will change the subject.

Photo by Flickr user Pacfolly

Teresa sighed as she brushed bits of grass and dirt from her skirt. At least the new serial peripheral interface bus, with which she was tinkering, would refrain from glaring at her through its processor. Teresa wondered why management had insisted on master/slave communicators.

The hyperopic Erinaceinae watched the two-legged giant gambol. Like the rest of them, after it had quilled a plant or two, it returned to the power generation campus.

Ever since the partial core meltdown of Unit Two, those creatures had seemed edgy.

Few lingered in Shippingport anymore. None stopped just to visit. No hibernaculum had been disturbed in a very long time.

The wee-snouted creature anointed itself with the discarded stem. The scented froth, produced by that particular plant, lingered in a pleasant fashion in both of its mouths.

Nodding one of its heads at the other, the hedgie bowed to pick up its book, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Thereafter, it, too, trotted away.