Brians Writing

Character Craving

binding *
disparaging *
swept*
conditions*
comment *
overheard *
nighttime *

I stepped out of the subway station in those moments between daylight, twilight, and nighttime.  I stood at the top of the staircase to get my bearings before moving forward into the dark shadows the high rise building lining Market Street cast.  A sharp jolt to my back made me start as a young man wearing a ski cap and dungarees pushed past me onto the sidewalk.

Immediately, I knew the kid's story.  He was late, rushing from art school to his job parking cars at a fancy restaurant in the Castro.  He seethed nightly at the haughty insults and disparaging remarks he got from the businessmen and trendy club kids who saw a valet as something slightly less valuable than an empty can of Red Bull.  His art reflected this anger, poured out in bright reds and blues and chartreuses onto his canvases.  He had lost more than a couple of girls eager to see his paintings when they felt unsettled by the depth of emotion in that artwork.

This city street is my canvas.  It's where I find characters to fill my stories as I make snap judgments about a person's life from the few seconds I experience him or her in public. The end of the business day is prime feeding time for my character craving. 

Walking forward now past the steam rising from the grate in the sidewalk, I glanced at the transient finding a place to put his bedding.  He's in his late 40's with a scraggly beard, a dark jacket that might have once been elegant years before it ended up in the Salvation Army thrift store, and a hat set at either a jaunty or haphazard angle on his head.  It's that attitude with the hat that pegs this fellow for me.  It wasn't that many months ago that people treated him with respect.  He had a wife, a family, and a good job selling sub-prime mortgages to people who couldn't really afford to buy a house.  He did what his bosses told him, came home every night to his cheating wife, and indulged the kids with just the right piece of electronic gadgetry.  Then you can fill in the story from there.  The market collapsed.  The drinking started to get more intense.  The wife took the kids and moved back to Topeka.  He lived in his car for a while before selling that for booze.  Now he's getting settled in for the night, unrolling his filthy blankets from their bindings and trying to avert eyes that know the meaning of real fear.

I looked to the left as a whirlwind in red swept past.  This woman was dressed for the opening of the design market from her petite white strapped shoes to the green scarf trailing from her neck.  The rest of the vision was red, indeed more than just red.  Her top was a patchwork of burgundy, maroon, vermillion with a dash of crimson.  Perhaps the get up was a tribute to her radical past.  Now she works as a buyer at the furniture market on 9th street but she first arrived in San Francisco during the Summer of Love as an organizer for Abbie Hoffman's Yippies.  She thought she was coming to sunny San Francisco so the 19-year old version of my apparition dressed for the beach.  She doesn't make that mistake anymore in the freezing conditions of mid-July.  She gave up on the revolution at about the same time that Johnny got the big inheritance if only he would cut his hair and become an investment banker.  It wasn't long after that that she gave up on men in general.

I had barely made it a block and already I had three characters ready for my stories.  I wedged my way into the backdoor of a passing trolley car and started to make notes.  I was just starting into the transient when I overheard a comment from the next row.  Most of the people sitting on the surrounding benches seemed oblivious but perhaps that's because the remark was in Russian.  I sat back and pondered what I had heard as I stared out the window at Lotta’s Fountain sliding past.  That's when I knew what my next plot twist would be. 

I Owe It All to Glassy

recording *
briefed *
private matter *
glassy *
poised *
roiled *
revulsion *

The corporate conference room I sat in alone seemed pretty typical for a high-priced lawyer's office.  Dark stained teak walls provided a neutral backdrop that highlighted the expensive art hanging from the walls.

I stood from the plush cushioned chair and started to tour the room examining the artworks.  If I'm not mistaken, one wall hosted a Cezanne sketch.  Another featured a Cubist version of the city skyline but it was the framed picture in the far corner that captured my attention.

A talented if somewhat mechanistic painter had depicted rolling hills of row after row of grape vines.  Superimposed over the image was a close-up of a bug that looked for all the world like a slug.

"That's a Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter," the patrician voice behind me startled my concentration on the image. 

"What's that?" I turned to examine the newcomer to the room.  He was dressed immaculately in a pinstripe suit, a regimental necktie and a gold chain hanging from his vest pocket to what I assumed was a very expensive, if not heirloom, timepiece.

"I owe it all to that little critter," I blinked at hearing this fellow use the word "critter."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I grew up in the California wine country," now the lawyer was standing next to me staring at the unusual image along with me.  "I was poised to spend my life working those fields, creating great wines, and living the life my parents had enjoyed before me."

I nodded but didn't say anything, unsure of where this was going.

"Then, in my sophomore year at Stanford, Glassy here changed everything," the attorney had now taken off his metal-rimmed glasses and was polishing the lenses one by one with a monogrammed handkerchief.  "Within a few months, this little bugger had left the family vineyards barren from something called Pierce's Disease.  Heard of it?"

I shook my head as he replaced the glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"I hadn't either at the time," his voice had assumed a wistful tone as he revisited that time.  "So I went down to one of my biology professors who gave me a complete briefing.  Pierce's will wipe out a vineyard crop faster than you can express your revulsion.  Nothing's left but twigs and dust."

I followed him as he turned away from the image and we returned to the long oak conference table.  A technician had come into the room to set up the recording equipment for our conversation.  Feeling self-concious, I combed my short red hair.

"Something about that bug roiled my world," an assistant handed him a bound leather notebook opened to a page with my name along the top as he sat with his back to the camera.  "My dad died from the stress of that year.  My mother followed soon thereafter.  I sold the land and enrolled in law school.  Now I owe my life to glassy."

I didn't quite know how to respond to that so I said nothing.

"So, now to this not-so private matter we're here to discuss today," the friendliness was gone from his voice as we sat down to the deposition that could determine my future and the future of my children.

The Accident

Today's words were chosen from The Australian News story referenced in Today's Cool News as "Get High, Read the Bible, They Did, Maybe"

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familiar *
light *
awareness *
molecules *
power *
partaken *
contexts *

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The physicists tell us solid objects are anything but solid.  In fact, they would have us believe, a light pole is really an amazing dance of atomic and sub-atomic particles with electrons and neutrons clumped into atoms which are in turn clumped into molecules which in turn get mushed into clumps so big they can form a "solid" light pole.

It's amazing where your mind will take you when your body encounters trauma.  I lay as still as I could thinking about light poles as dancing quantum events while somehow tuning out the big questions that might make me realize how I had gone from driving while trapped by thoughts of familiar things to being literally trapped in the wreckage of my drive.

As the brain played mind games about cosmic forces, the body slowly developed an awareness of my more subtle senses.  My rented sports car's distinctive horn obliterated the sense of hearing.  The first real sensation I remember was taste, specifically the metallic flavor of adrenaline still coursing through me mixed with the taste of blood from what felt to my tongue like a broken tooth.

Ahh feeling, so useful, so blessed, so ecstatic in the proper contexts but in this one a mixed blessing at best.  The feeling of the broken tooth processed as throbbing in my pain centers at one end of my body suddenly matched by an identical but sharper pain in my left ankle.

When I tell you I heard the lights of the approaching rescue squads, you'll no doubt suspect that I had partaken of something that might alter my perceptions to the point of inebriation.  Before you decide this accident is just what I had coming for such irresponsible behaviors, let me assure you the pulsing strobes stimulated vibrations of hope and relief that pulsated deep into my ears and nostrils and taste buds.

Who said nostrils?  My perception confusion vanished.  My hope and relief abated.  I breathed deeply the noxious smell of gasoline and realized the power of my salvation was still a chancy bet, at best.    

The Green Lapels

Okay, so this is the first new one.  It's based on a posting today on Today's Cool News about a Christopher Hitchens piece in Slate about the poor level of political discourse in America today.

I took seven words/phrases out of the Hitchens story for this prompted freewrite I call "The Green Lapels"

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Lapel *
Stability *
vapid and vacuous *
potty-training *
Dream *
Riposte *
Landscape *

I made a stupid mistake.  I suppose that's because my attention was focused on the lapels of the man standing in the doorway of my walk-up rented room.

One doesn't expect to see lapels on the coat of the sort of man who wanders into this "Care Not Cash" SRO hotel on San Francisco's Market Street and certainly not ones that looked like these.  They were green (the rest of the coat was a grey pinstripe) with sparkling cubic zirconium fake diamonds studded around the seams.

On second thought, perhaps that's exactly the kind of garb you would expect on a man in this dump.  In any case, the lapels were a distraction I couldn't afford.  By the time I looked up, his fist was just inches from my nose.  Far too late to duck but just enough time to turn and keep from getting the thing broken.  Still I took a hard punch to the side of the face.

Dazed, I reached back with my left hand to the small dresser for stability while my right hand reached for the gun in my waistband behind me.

Again, he was too quick.  His gun was in my face before I made it to my belt.  After watching my weapon disappear into his waistband, I found myself bouncing on the hard surface of the room's small bed.

In the kinds of detective novels my ex-wife read, I would have had some witty reposte for the man holding a cheap revolver about three inches from my nose.  Instead what I came out with bordered more on the vapid and vacuous.  Perhaps it was the taste of blood in my mouth.

"Let me explain the landscape around here to you," his voice startled me from my dream.  That's when I noticed the intensity of his eyes.  They were so powerful, so mad, so beyond this earth, that I knew I didn't have much time.

"Ever have any kids?" I allowed my eyes to unfocus as I said it.

"Wha?" his gun was shaking now.

"Ever have to potty-train a small child?" I was shouting now, raving, my hands flailing.  Soon his arms were waving with mine.

It was all the time I needed.  I grabbed his gun hand and pushed it upward, away from both of us.  At the same time, I swept his feet out from under him and wrestled him to the floor.

Later as I sat on the edge of the ambulance allowing that cute paramedic to patch my face, I wondered how much truth to put in the paperwork, especially about those damned lapels.

Sunsets

When I was a teenager growing up in La Jolla, I would take my girlfriend to the beach everyday after school. We would sit on the park bench, my right hand around her shoulder with that gorgeous blond hair draped over my muscled weightlifter arms and we would stare quietly at the breakers as the sun set over the flat horizon of the ocean. I always thought I would never experience anything quite so beautiful.

I was wrong. Now, forty years later, sunsets remain my passion. I am constantly on the road as a salesman for the Fulcrum Joint Company. We make the world's most expensive elbows and fittings for the world's most discriminating chemical companies. My two children, who are getting an expensive education from the proceeds of my work, are constantly telling me I'm helping to destroy the environment. If only they knew what my real mission was in life. I help my clients produce spectacular sunsets.

You see, I've learned the best place to watch a sunset isn't on some sandy California beach. It's in desolate cities like LaMarque, Texas or Sulphur, Louisiana or Gary, Indiana. Why there? Because the most important ingredient in a connoisseur's sunset is Air Pollution. The smokestacks my customers use to spew cancer-causing contaminants into the air, poisoning the people who live downwind from their outflow also add particulate matter to the atmosphere.

As the sun begins its trek towards the horizon every afternoon, its rays reflect off that gunk and produce the shades of red and yellow and orange that I crave in a great sunset.

I sometimes wonder what ever happened to my high school girlfriend. I fantasize of finding her, sweeping her off her feet, and taking her in a private jet to a chemical plant in Buffalo and showing her my accomplishments, some of the world's greatest sunsets.

The Mosh Pit

"The Mosh Pit" - Short Story Based on "The Curse" by Atreyu

“I will not be broken, though I am the one that bleeds...”

Don’t get me wrong. I love loud heavy metal. In fact any other Friday night might find me drenched in sweat, a band t-shirt plastered to my back, listening to this very same Atreyu song while tearing up a mosh pit at one of the local dives that pepper Willow Street.

“Hate can be a positive emotion, when it forces you to better yourself…”

I wonder about the emotions that have me trapped in this place. I’m lying on a marble floor. The radiating cold ignores my flimsy jeans to soak deep into my bones. What emotions motivate the people with guns who have turned my brief stop to deposit my paycheck into a potentially life-ending experience?

Why would the police be playing my new favorite album? Suddenly I’m transported off this bank floor and into the mind of a fellow teenager I’ve never met and who probably doesn’t exist.

“So full of malice, so full of scorn,” The kid listens and squints in the low light to make out the words printed inside the CD cover booklet. “You tried your best to crush my spirit, you tried to steal my…”

“What the f…,” the kid feels his headphones go flying across the room.

“You finish that sentence,” the voice of authority echoes, “and that’s ten demerits.”

The kid wisely shuts up. He looks up at his dad who is in full action hero get-up. Crew cut frames rectangular face. Hard muscled biceps ripple in the soft light. Green camouflage pants cover heavy steel-toed boots.

“I will not be broken, though I am the one that bleeds...”

I am not the one that bleeds on the floor of the bank. Instead I look over at the blood pooling next to the motionless body of the security guard. He seemed like a nice old man. I’m sorry now for mocking him behind his back during the years I came with my mom or dad to this branch. I was the little kid who always had to pull down the rows of red velvet ropes hanging from brass hooks. The old guard would give me a kindhearted smile while restoring the dignity the rope lines provided to the small branch bank.

The dignity is gone as the ropes lie askew next to the guard who will never indulge delinquent brats again.

I can only concentrate on the music, the hard, cold floor, the flashing red and blue strobe lights, and the fear I’m trying so hard to ignore. I will myself back into the head of my imaginary teenager.

“I will not be broken, I am the one.”
The song sounds like it’s coming from the Mr. Happyhead speaker at the local drive-thru as it croaks from the tiny headphones now wedged between a tennis shoe and a pile of schoolbooks on the kid’s floor.

The dad reaches for the headphone cord and with the same motion he uses to cast for trout yanks the plug free from the stereo. This has the unintended consequence of blaring the music at top volume.

“WILL YOU STILL HOLD ME WHEN YOU SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE? WILL YOU STILL KISS ME THE SAME WHEN YOU TASTE MY VICTIM’S BLOOD?”

The kid reaches for the volume knob and twists it quickly to zero.

He’s shocked when Robo-dad turns it back up to “four.”

“Hmm, not bad. Not bad at all,” his dad strokes his bushy black mustache and nods his head. “In fact, this may be exactly the sort of thing I’ve been looking for.”

I know what I would think if my dad suddenly started liking my music. It would be like the Catholic Church holding a news conference to announce they had fired the pope and hired Marilyn Manson to replace him. It would freak me out.

Just like it’s freaking out my imaginary kid.

“You can’t like this music,” the kid sputters. “You’re always bitc…” a scowl appears beneath those mirrored sunglasses, “er… complaining about my music.”

“Give me that CD, kid.” Robo-Dad punches the eject button. The song ends in mid-beat. The kid’s dad opens his black steel briefcase then takes out a bright orange bound volume containing plastic slips for CD’s. Across the top of the booklet the kid could just make out the words “PSY-OPS.”

“Hmm,” the kid thinks, “sounds like a cool game.”

“Does it all simply end in a blanket of darkness? What of my soul, what of my soul?”

So maybe that’s how I came to be in this bank listening to this music. I try to ignore the pressure that “Sammy’s Super Huge Drink” and my fear are combining to place on my bladder.

“What if I could take back those misspent days? Every second of anger, I would wash my sins away.”

Would I wash my sins away? What sins brought me to this place? Why am I seeing these masked thugs starting to use some sort of putty to attach those bricks to the wall? Is it because of what I did with Mary Beth last weekend when her parents were away? Could that kind of sin lead me here to this bank of purgatory?

Why hadn’t I avoided the sin of entering the West Community Branch Bank on a Friday afternoon at the same time as these maniacs?

“If I had my way, I’d cut the calluses off your breaking heart, if I could get past the sternum.”

For the first time in a while I chance a glance at my fellow hostages. I’m sitting next to this totally hot chick on whom I had a huge crush on when I was a freshman and she was a senior. She never knew I existed. Probably still doesn’t. A woman in a gray pantsuit sits with her back propped against the matching gray-flecked wall. A surfer dude in his early thirties has his head between his hands, his blond bangs partially obscuring his Pepto-Bismol colored shirt. Then all other thoughts vanish as I glance above him into the alcove leading to the back vaults.

The CD kicks into the song “Nevada’s Grace”, never one of my favorites.

I concentrate on my apparition who looks exactly like my imaginary kid’s Robo-Dad. Now he’s in full cammo gear. Instead of the mirrored glasses, he stares at me through night-vision goggles. His stiff black mustache bobs slightly as he recognizes that I have seen him.

The Swat leader takes his index and middle fingers and jabs them toward his own eyes then points directly to my left. Fortunately my experience with Swat style video games pays off. I knew where he wants me to look.

To my left one of the robbers squats on his haunches, his back pressing against the fake wood paneling that covers the front of the teller’s booth, his automatic rifle resting lightly on his knees. A wire runs from one of the dollops of putty on the wall to a white box with a red light and black button.

“How could I know that you would take my breath away? And how could I know one kiss would change everything?”

And then I knew it was true. One kiss could change everything.

I glanced back at the swat team leader then suddenly reached over and started to French kiss the hot chick. I rolled on top of her while pushing my tongue deeper into her mouth.

She reacted exactly as I had fantasized. She tried to scream but my tongue didn’t afford her much air. She started hitting me on the top of my head. I would have preferred that she didn’t bring her knee into my groin, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

The robber reacts on cue. He stands up and starts heading towards us while shouting, “What the hell is going on?”

As soon as he moves away from the detonator the cops set off
the flash-bang grenade just the way I would have in the game. Suddenly the room is full of armed swat officers, the red lights from their laser scopes bounce on and off everything in the room. The chick slaps me one last time then pushes me off her. I barely notice the sound of small arms fire followed by loud shouts of “clear” echoing through the bank branch. Instead I just hear the music.

“This is life. This is struggle. This is love. This is war.”

Later I sit on the edge of an ambulance, its metal edge as cold as the bank’s marble floor.

“You done good in there kid,” I look up and Robo-dad himself is looking at me. He has the mirrored sunglasses back on, even in the dark.

“Thanks,” I say, “but we both know who really deserves the credit here. Please let your kid have his CD back.”

The Rain

The Rain

Had this been late April, we would have been sitting back in our locker rooms, the TV sets on and competing varieties of loud, pulsating music would have vied for our attention as we got out of our rain-soaked uniforms and prepared for a make-up doubleheader.

But this was late October and the umps were under a lot of pressure. A rain delay now, in the bottom of the fifteenth inning of the seventh game of the World Series, would cause a lot of problems for a lot of people. Major League baseball had a lot invested in this event, possibly the largest television audience in the history of an ailing sport. The TV network had a schedule to meet and advertisers to please.

I allow myself to think of all of this as I swing the weighted bat in the on-deck circle adjacent to my team's dugout. I can barely see the Yankee leftfielder through the glare of driving sheets of water passing in front of massive lights. I realize a crack of thunder would change everything. They would be forced to stop the game rather than risk having lightning electrocute a player on international television.

SCHWACK!

For a moment I was afraid that was exactly what happened. Then with relief and elation I realized the sound came from the bat of catcher and number eight hitter Spokey Smothers. I cheered as he rounded first and made it into second with a stand-up double.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Attention Please," the voice of public address announcer Mildred Pierce had a strange echo as it overpowered the sound of the rain hitting the top of the dugout. "Batting For The Pitcher, Pinch Hitter Larry Micklewood!"

Ever since little league, when it was only Dad and Uncle Franky in the stands, as soon as it was my turn to bat, I entered that other world. It was as if I had stepped out of the consensus reality and through a strange portal into another dimension. The silence would overwhelm me. I literally could not hear, nor was I in any way aware of the 60,000 screaming people in the stands, the 1.23 billion watching on worldwide television or Uncle Franky shouting "Attaboy, Larry."

In ways I could never explain to either of my wives, there is nothing in the world more intimate than the batter's box. They could never do anything in bed that could approach that moment standing in the box, digging your cleats into teh dirt until they supported you just right, and then turned your attention to the face, no the eyes of the pitcher standing 66 feet away from you. That man wishes nothing good for you and he's holding a hard weapon he will hurl at you at unbelievable speeds. Still no matter how much you want to beat him, you have to respect him.

That night I stood in that zone and stared at Butch Mukayhee, the Yankees feared closer. Rain drops dripped from the brim of his blue cap, making it harder to see him and understand his intentions. For a moment my resolve broke. I reached up my right hand in front of the umpire and called "TIME!"

I placed my right foot back into the batters box. I realized then what had interrupted my focus. It was the dirt in the batters box that was quickly turning to mud. A hitter must have perfect balance and that starts with a feeling of being comfortably anchored in the ground. I stepped back out of the box, then used the tip of my bat to wipe some of the freestanding water from the hole my foot had just left.

Finally in position and ready for the first pitch, the ball comes in low and outside. I fiinch but restrain myself as the ball's rotation takes it out of the strike zone. I look down the third base line at Frenchy Frye, the seemingly 87-year third base coach. Someone who didn't know better might assume he had Parkinsons, but Frenchy’s twitches and gestures were all designed to cover up the one important movement that would signal the play. In this case, just swing away.

Just beyond Mukayhee, I could see Spokey taking a lead-off from second.

"One and Oh, One Out, Play smart, Larry."

My own voice or was it really Uncle Franky’s in my head almost startled me as it interrupted the complete silence I still felt.

Concentrate on the pitch. A fastball coming in the high-90's. By the time I realize I would be late on the pitch, it was past me. Called strike. One and One.

The umpire exchanges the ball for a dry one that he's kept wrapped in a white towel inside his small black pouch. I looked back at Frenchy. Slap to the face, pick at the pants, point at the nose, tug on the ear, and surprising me, two tugs on the brim of his cap. That meant Spokey was going to try to get a jump on the pitch and I was to try to slap it to right, at the least moving him up to third and at most a hit and run that would score a run. That's the way I thought of it. I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I knew scoring a run would mean we were world champions and I would be on a Wheaties box. But honestly at the time that's not where my mind was at.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the pitch. It was a slider that was supposed to hook outside at the last minute. Instead it sat there right in the middle of the plate, looking to me as big as a grapefruit. I did what I've done since Uncle Franky first taught me how. I put pressure on my back leg then rotated my body forward putting as much torque as possible on the bat. I felt that microsecond of exultation when the sweet spot of the bat hit the ball. I knew it wasn't out of the park. I knew I had to run. I sensed Spokey in my peripheral vision sprinting towards third. I jogged towards first knowing that if Spokey scored the game was over. Then the first sound hit my conscious mind since I entered the batters box. It was one of those sounds where you assume the barometric pressure has just dropped as everyone in the stadium sucked in their breath. I looked at third base where Spokey had tripped and fallen in a huge puddle of standing water. Shortstop Rene Lesveque grabbed the ball from the left fielder and tagged Spokey out.

Two out and I was on first. Being a runner on first base is the exact opposite of being a batter. There is no intimacy. There's a first base coach whose only job is to tell you not to fuck up. There's a first baseman who acts like your friend but is trying to mess with your mind. And there's the drama at the plate that requires your full attention.

I took a modest lead. I have decent speed but in this situation I'm not running. Sure, I kept on eye on Frenchy but I knew the play.

Muckayhee took our leadoff batter Estaban Queso to a full-count. Now I and everyone else knows I have to run with two outs. The pitcher stares at me, and then whips a throw to first base. I jump back, landing in a pool of cold rain water, and reach for the bag. Safe. The pitcher stared again at Queso, then brought his motion to a rest. Now there was rain pouring off Muckayhee's bushy red mustache.

Suddenly he turned and pitched to Estaban who hit a steaming line drive into the gap. I'm off towards second, then look up at Frenchie who is waving his arms in circles. Run, Run, Run. But be smart, Larry, Uncle Franky's voice echoes in my head, so I look down between second and third and see the puddles that tripped up Spokey. I avoid them and keep running. Now I feel like I'm in a hurricane, the fierce rains, the wind whipping from the first base side directly in my face. I hear everything, the sound of the ball hitting the relay man's glove, the crowd shouting, the rain pounding on the dugout roof but mostly I hear Uncle Franky saying run and dive arms outstretched towards that home plate.

But unlike the old sandlot which was hard and dusty and would leave huge bruises on you until you learned to land just right, Pittsburgh stadium's dirt had endured days of heavy rains and a season of hopes and dreams. So you couldn't call what I did sliding. As one sportswriter later put it, it was more like wallowing in the mud at Woodstock Four. I came to a sudden stop a foot and a half short of the plate. I could hear the ball hit the catcher's mitt with a thud. There was no time to think. There was no time for dignity. There was only time to reach out my hand, feel the rough plastic surface, experience the rain soaking every inch of my body, and hear the most blessed word in the history of human creation.

SAFE!

Desolation

I'm in a big city with millions of people within a few square miles of me. How then can I feel so desolate? I'm sitting in a small cell, the adrenaline still coursing through me, my ears still buzzing, my heart still disbelieving.

"Guilty of Murder in the First Degree."

I know the words but I still cannot grasp their meaning. How can I subscribe to a belief in the system when that same system is determined to kill me?

I hear a loud buzzer from somewhere deep within the Metropolitan Jail. I look up at the opaque glass window that is the only break in the white walled regularity of my cell. I cannot see out but I know some bored deputy is assigned to watch me. I saw the sign as they led me in shackles from the courtroom to this spot.

"Suicide Watch."

Does that mean they watch to see if I commit suicide or watch me wrap this bed sheet around my neck, tie it to the upper bunk, and lean forward, depriving the state of the satisfaction of killing me? Why would they abhor my suicide when they are planning to make me a victim of state-sponsored homicide?

I picture the deputy sheriffs sitting around on the other side of this window, eating the ham sandwiches their wives and husbands so thoughtfully packed that morning, and watching me try to kill myself. They would laugh and talk about last week's football scores and critique my suicide technique as I pulled the bed sheets from the thin mattress and tried to find a spot on the bunk where I could tie them off.

Would they arbitrarily intervene or for maximum enjoyment wait until I felt the pressure around my throat before rushing into the room to rectify the situation?

No! I will not constitute their object of their lust for blood sport. I close my eyes, lean back on the bunk, and contemplate the next eight-to-ten years waiting for the needle.

Holloween

"Are you illiterate or just plain stupid?" Franklin Edwards taught English and was the all-time winningest coach in the history of Castleroom High School. Subtle, he was not. "The word isn't Holloween! It's Halloween. You know, like 'All Hallows' Eve' the day before November 1st which is 'All Hallows' Day.'"

"Yeah but Coach," 17-year old Jeremy Stanford stammered. He looked at the giant banner he and his buddies in art class had spent two weeks preparing to hang over the entrance to the town square. "Since we all live in the town of Sleepy Hollow, we thought it would be cool to call it Holloween."

"People are going to blame me for this," when Edwards got something in his teeth, he wasn't going to see reason. "The school board is likely to cut the stipend I get for teaching English in addition to molding young men to become gridiron warriors."

The coach was pacing in front of the banner now, the way he did when he was on the sidelines, his team trailing by a field goal, and the sophomore who always threw the ball well in practice but tended to throw to the opposing teams in games was slowly walking the offensive squad up to the line.

Jeremy was truly afraid now. His art class had developed an entire presentation around the theme of "Holloween" with a video presentation that featured the town's mayor dressed as Dracula. Please, he prayed, don't let this "King of all the Jocks" screw this up.

"This is just not acceptable," the coach's red nose was throbbing now. "I will not allow this mis-spelling to embarrass what this school stands for."

"What is the problem here?" Jeremy looked up and saw the world's most unlikely action hero riding to the rescue. Sylvia Putterman taught art at Castleroom. What's more, with her brilliant red hair and fiery eyes, she was the object of desire of every man and boy in the school including the coach.

Now it was his turn to stammer.

"Uh, Ms Putterman, did you see this mis-spelling in the banner this young man has produced?" The coach looked with scorn on Jeremy and then back with awe at the art teacher.

"Coach Edwards," Ms. Putterman matched the coach's tone and intensity, "I personally approved this project including the spelling which as you must know is a play on words. Do we have a problem here or do we need to go see Mr. Slerper?"

The coach wanted no part of that. He had seen the way the principal and art teacher looked at each at school assemblies and heard the rumors of their late night "teacher development projects."

"Uh, well, if you say it's okay, it's okay with me. Just make sure everyone knows I've taught these kids how to spell correctly," and with that he blew the whistle that hung around his neck and marched off towards the athletic office.

"Nice work, Ms P," Jeremy smiled at his mentor. "He had me worried there."

"Don't let that ole blowhard intimidate you," Ms. Putterman's smile blew a hole in the cloud cover and allowed the sun to shine on the banner. "That's the way you have to deal with jocks."

The City Beat

I have to level with you. My Mother always thought I would be a doctor. My Father pictured me as a Lawyer. All that time I knew deep down inside my desires would overwhelm the discipline needed to achieve those goals.

I'm not a doer, for good or evil. When I hear the President talk, I always assume he's flashing back to his crack head and alcoholic days and really means "Evil Dewars on the Rocks." Instead I'm an observer. I sit here at street level, mapping the pulse of the big city from the relative safety of my refrigerator box.

There's no doubt the city has a rhythm. On a hot summer day, I can tap my foot to the steady throbbing of commerce and congestion. In the fall, the cool breezes flatten out the tempo like a string quartet playing a Baroque melody. By the wintertime, I shiver and wrap my dirty blanket around me in a warm embrace. I watch the maids and janitors who clean the homes of the doctors and lawyers my parents thought I would be standing patiently in a queue, waiting for the transit authority bus to take them to their mindless
workplaces. Then the spring arrives bringing a syncopation to the city as the birds chirp and the children emit peals of laughter as they run around in their shorts and t-shirts and I hear that sweetest sound of all, the patter of falling coins meeting the bottom of my tin cup.

In a way I'm a journalist working my own particular version of the city beat.