rotten little apples

Self-portrait, Jonah, 7

The Best [Pants] Of Both Worlds

These Dickies are like burlap bred with cardboard
To fabricate a child both rough and smooth,
Ready-born to bear the weight of manly labors,
Perma-pressed, presenting gentlemanly couth.

The rugged seams hold firm through deals back-alley
‘Mid scraping drunkards, thugs and cutthroat rascals.
But creases, preternaturally crisp, bespeak
Respectability, respect and scruple.

A time may come for businessmen to scrabble
Foul streets for pennies from lazy pockets,
For winos to come inside, invited to dine
At tables sumptuous, spread for stately junkets.

As men might reach their stations slaves to schedules
Set not by them but, rather, destiny,
It’s wise to dress prepared to play all angles,
To brace against fate’s whims sartorially.

Peace Through Common Enemies

Gigantic bugs would deserve to die because they’d be so fucking disgusting; I think we can all agree to that. Moreover, the presumed culpability of huge, mutant bugs, though certainly an unpleasant subject, is not the terrible problem that so many horror/sci-fi movies would have us believe it to be. Indeed, far from being such a problem, this universal imperative to kill giant, nasty bugs lies, rather, at the heart of a solution.

There’s a bitter debate currently raging in nations where bullfighting is part of the society’s sporting tradition. Animal rights activists portray the practice as torture, and torture it must surely seem to the animals that are forced to participate and so often die in the bullfights. On the other hand, aficionados of the sport argue quite compelling that this time-honored contest between man and beast, though perhaps cruel, is nonetheless a legitimate cultural expression of shared values (e.g., courage, determination), values that people have a right to celebrate. Who’s to say what’s morally correct? Ethics is hard.

Science, by contrast, is easy. Why can’t the R&D people at Monsanto (or Raid or Hormel or wherever) cook up some genetically modified superbugs for the bullfighters to fight? The bugs wouldn’t have to be enormous. In fact, considering the proportionate strength and speed of insects, a bug the size of a bull would probably be much too deadly. I’m guessing that bugs the size of terriers would be plenty formidable – challenging enough, at least, for your typical matador. Personally, I’d very much enjoy watching 30-lb killer bugs chase some Spaniards ‘round a bullring like a bunch of goddamn rodeo clowns. And vice versa. Throw some fancy stretch pants into the mix and that's one hell of a ticket. Perhaps the bugs could even be engineered to have horns and fur, taught to stomp and snort like bulls. Bugfighting would rival bullfighting in terms of both spectacle and glory but with none of the stigma that attaches to blood sport. I don’t even think bugs have blood. It’s mostly goo.

For millennia humankind, as if cursed, has used its technologies to forge weapons of war. Must we continue devising means by which to devastate and destroy each other and ourselves? Maybe it’s about time we all shook hands and started using our petards to hoist some giant fucking bugs.

A Few Minutes In Paradise

I’m lying on a tropical beach. I wiggle my toes in the warm sand, and I listen to the gentle rhythm of the water lapping softly against the shore. I inhale slowly though my nose, and I exhale through my mouth. I focus on my breathing, but soon there’s no need for concentration as my breaths come steady and deep of their own accord.


I close my eyes. I direct my attention to the top of my head. I gradually relax my scalp until all of the tension there dissipates and moves elsewhere. I do not concern myself with where that tension has moved. When my scalp is completely at ease, I turn my consciousness to my forehead. I relax my face – my brow, my temples, my cheeks. I slacken the muscles of my jaw, then my neck, then my shoulders, calmly ushering the stress away and down through my body. The loosening continues, an easy wave rolling lazily on through my torso. The tightness in my chest, the stiffness in my back…it all seems to melt and flow through my belly and hips and buttocks and into my thighs. I feel now as though I exist entirely in my thighs. I let myself gather there; I allow all of my awareness to collect in the blood that feeds the tissues of my quadriceps. Eventually that awareness drifts down behind my knees and into my calves. My energy finally trickles on into my feet, and it tingles there briefly before it seems to escape from my toes and into the warmth around me. I am serenely bereft now. The turmoil I once housed has left me; it lies scattered, atomized among the billion grains of sand in which I lie. I rest peacefully at the edge of a doze.

I am startled by the shriek of a gull, and I jerk my palms down into the sand in a spasm of alertness. A stabbing pain shoots out of my left wrist and toward the fingers of my left hand. It’s my carpal tunnel syndrome. (About a year ago the chronic pain in my right wrist became intolerable and so I switched to mousing with my left hand. This tactic bought me some relief, it’s true, but comfort is a creditor without pity.) I suddenly realize that I have no idea how to relax my arms or my hands. What had that audiotape that they played at the anxiety workshop said about arms and hands? You’re at the beach, then you do your head, then you do your neck, then you do your shoulders…. Do you do the arms and the hands after you do your shoulders? But then you’d have to come back up through the arms again in order to get to the chest. That can’t be right. The whole point was to go downward through the entire body in one slow, sweeping motion. Maybe you’re supposed to do the arms at the same time as you do the torso? But then your arms would have to be laid flat against your sides. The tape never said anything about your arms needing to be flat against your sides. I think back to the voice. What had the voice said about my arms and my hands?

Nothing! I’m sure of it: the tape never mentioned arms or hands. What the hell? How do you make a tape demonstrating a physical relaxation technique but not mention the hands? They’re the busiest parts of the body, the prime utensils of a hectic, stressful lifestyle. Jesus Christ…fucking HMOs.

I hear the raucous calling of more gulls, and I look up to see them swooping in their frantic, graceless circles. Their cries grow ever more incessant, more desperate, as they jockey for some unseen carrion. In their mindless screeching I sense a universal pang of hunger and an instinctual fear of death. Oh, the madness, the senselessness of it all! For what more could life be to these wretched seabirds than a futile bid to defy the inevitability of death? The irony of their frenzied will to live is that death will obviate life’s purpose, and so there is no urgency. In reality there are no stakes. There is no pressure. Yet the gulls do not calm themselves; they cannot.

I raise my hands to shade my eyes from the sun’s burning glare. I wish I had sunglasses. It occurs to me that I’m not wearing any sunscreen. (It’s not that I forgot to bring sunscreen; I just hate the greasy feel.) My lips are chapped, cracking badly, and my Blistex stick has worn down to a concave nub. I'm so thirsty. I think I'm getting a migraine.

Things Can Be So Hard Sometimes

I was riding the bus and eavesdropping on two orgiasts who kept peppering their conversation with "that's what they said" jokes. It was virtually nonstop. It was as though they were having a contest to see who could throw the punchline most often and who could do it most wildly. No set-up was too flimsy, no context too tight for maneuver. These guys were willing to stretch things as far as things needed to go. It was fairly amusing at first, but after a certain point it started to seem just juvenile.

A Recipe For Tough Times

Undernourishment isn’t funny, but nobody ever said it couldn’t be spicy. If you have (access to) a saucepan, a hot plate, and some water then you can make taco soup.

Find your local Taco Bell (they’re everywhere) and grab some packets of hot sauce. The condiments are at the service buffet with the straws and the napkins. Take as many as you can. I don’t think you’re technically stealing but, still, you should try to be as inconspicuous as possible. Empty 8-10 packets into a saucepan, add 2 cups or so of water, and heat up, stirring occasionally. Thin the broth to taste by adding more water.

Nutrients aren’t taco soup’s strong suit, let’s face it, but the price is right. And there’s definitely something in there: various salts and sugars, little bits of pickle. Plus it’s truly satisfying in the sense that you probably won’t want any more taco soup once you’ve finished.

For cream of taco soup, follow the above recipe but sprinkle in some Coffee-mate as you stir. Packets of Coffee-mate can often be found at donut shops, at 7-Eleven, and at gas stations that serve coffee.

The Interrelatedness Of All Things

In my efforts to affect how events unfold in China I've been killing a lot of butterflies lately. I don't mean to kill them. I simply catch them and make them flap their wings, but they almost invariably end up dying. I'm not really attempting to influence Chinese situations in a particular direction at this point. I just want to see if there's any potential for making a difference.

The Worm Is Very Busy

The Worm remains in its latibule, not in hibernation or repose but squirming, conscious and hungry. It coils forth from its own rotting corpse and then turns back toward the fleshy, dead womb from which it sprang. It twists into its putrefying meat until nothing but digested filth is left of that meat, and then it consumes the filth in order to sustain itself in the squalid privacy of its pit. It waits in vain for the morsels of others, something new on which to feed, but no scraps fall down into The Worm’s lonely lair.

Apparently nobody wants to share. Apparently no one needs advice. I guess everybody’s got their problems all figured out.

But whatevs. The Worm doesn’t care. It’s got troubles of its own to deal with. Plus, it’s been meaning to spend more time on itself lately anyway…take some yoga classes or Pilates, go to farmers’ markets, maybe get a juicer. It’s not like The Worm’s sitting around checking its in-box to see if you need help. The Worm’s schedule is quite full as it is, thank you very much. There’s plenty enough on that plate already, that’s for sure.

Maybe if you need some advice you should go ask Dan Savage. He’s always got something interesting to say. He’s a genuine font of wisdom, that Dan Savage. Yes, sir, he's probably got a whole team of assistants just to help him sort through all his mail. Oh, he’s heavy traffic alright, a real go-to guy, Mr. Dan Savage…maybe you should ask him.

Someday, though, you're going to have questions and difficulties that aren’t of a sexual nature. Someday Dan Savage is going to be completely stumped, and then…well, let's just say I wouldn't necessarily assume you can just come crawling to The Worm’s hole for help. (I mean, you can ask. It’s not like there’s any harm in asking, so you might as well ask. You should definitely ask. But I wouldn’t expect The Worm to get back to you right away – at least, not immediately. Probably soon, though. Maybe a couple of days, something like that. I suppose that if you were to label your inquiry as being urgent then I'm guessing The Worm’d probably be able to turn it around in a day or so…but you know what? The Worm really isn’t making any guarantees right now. It’s got a lot of priorities at the moment. There’s a ton of stuff going on these days, and you’re not necessarily at the top of the list. So, you know…whatever. I imagine The Worm will just have to get to your issue whenever The Worm can get to your issue, that’s all. Like I said, it’s been very busy lately. Things have been super hectic.)

Zimbabwe Bird

The man and his son sped north through Kruger National Park toward the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. The man focused on the highway ahead, occasionally taking off his sunglasses to squint at the waves of summer heat that danced above the asphalt. The boy lay reclined in the passenger’s seat, his eyes closed, his bare feet resting on the dashboard of the rented Ford. The boy wore headphones and was oblivious to the noise of the wind that rushed through the open driver’s side window. The man pulled his sunburned left elbow in from where it lay on the sill, and he rolled up his window. Grabbing the steering wheel with his left hand, the man reached with his right hand over to his son’s thigh and began shaking it. “Hey, Dom…Dominic….”

The boy looked up at his father and took off his headphones slowly as if he’d been napping. “Huh, what?”

“What are you listening to?” the man asked.

“Nothing…the radio. What?” asked the boy, looking for the off switch on his new walkman.

“We’ll get to the border in a couple hours,” said the man. “After that, it’s about an hour and a half to the ruins.”

“Oh,” the boy replied absent-mindedly. They were on holiday, and the goal was to see as much of southern Africa as they could in the two weeks they had together.

Three days earlier, they had spent Christmas at the home of the man’s old college buddy who had settled in Capetown. Christmas had been pleasant enough. The father’s college friend and his family were gracious hosts, and they had a son about Dominic’s age. When not eating, the two boys had spent most of their time playing ping-pong while the adults discussed financial matters and played bridge. Capetown had been cool, fanned by ocean breezes, but Pretoria had been hot and now the heat seemed to be getting exponentially more oppressive with every inland mile.

They were scheduled to see Great Zimbabwe today and to stay in Harare tonight. Tomorrow they were due to reach Victoria Falls, one of the world’s seven natural wonders, and then it was on to a three-day guided tourists’ safari in Zambia. After that, the plan was to head back to Pretoria and Johannesburg and to see as many attractions as they could before the boy had to fly back to Sydney for school and his father had to return to his work in Riyadh.

Dominic adjusted his seat to its upright position and looked around at the vast plain through which they were driving. Summer was usually the rainy season, but the region was into its second year of draught and the grassland was parched, the grass more yellow than green. The highway was straight as a vector, and the savannah almost perfectly flat, punctuated only by the occasional shrub or dying tree. Kruger was famed for its wildlife, but they had seen none of it. They hadn’t even seen another car in more than an hour. The mid-morning sun burned in the cloudless sky, and the boy put on his sunglasses to better survey the scene. Still nothing, only now less bright.

“You hungry?” the boy asked.

“Not yet,” his father answered. “It’s not even eleven yet.”

Dominic re-reclined his seat, rolled over on his side, and stretched his hands back toward the cooler that sat on the backseat. After struggling a bit with the cooler’s latch, he fumbled inside for a Coke, found one, and managed to close the cooler lid again. As he turned back around with his soda and raised his seat back upright, he glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye.

“What was that?!” They had raced past what looked like a stone marker sitting about 25 feet off to the right hand side of the road.

“Yeah,” said the man. “I don’t know. It sort of looked like a tombstone.”

Dominic swerved around in his seat and looked back through the rear of the car, but the thing was gone and he could see nothing but dry grass.

“Let’s go back,” the boy suggested excitedly.

“It was nothing,” said the man, “just a milestone. It’s not worth stopping for.”

“Come on, Dad,” Dominic implored. “We’ve been driving all morning and there’s been nothing. Let’s check it out. It’ll be fun. We could stretch our legs.”

“It wasn’t anything, Dom. If it were important the guidebook would’ve mentioned it. Besides, we’re only supposed to get out of the car at designated stops, you know. Wild animals.”

“Oh, come on, Dad. You can see forever in every direction. There’s nothing dangerous out here.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s what whoever’s buried in that grave said.”

“Come on…it could be interesting.”

The man sighed in exasperation. He looked in his rear view mirror, took his foot off the accelerator, and brought the car to a halt. Making a three-point turn, he headed back south. “Let’s make this quick,” he said. After a minute, he slowed the car down to about fifteen miles per hour so that they could more easily find what they were looking for. The boy was delighted, practically bobbing in his seat as he looked out to the left, searching for the marker.

“There, there!” Dominic exclaimed. The man pulled to the shoulder and stopped the car, and Dominic slipped on his tennis shoes, leaving his unopened soda on the car floor. “Careful,” the man warned as Dominic threw open his door, but the boy was already jogging across the highway.

Once off the pavement, Dominic realized that what had seemed like an even coat of grass was actually a series of giant, intermittent tufts, spreading out each to each, creating the illusion of constancy. Crossing over the tufts of grass was clumsy business, and it was easier to walk around them than through them. The boy approached the stone marker in zigzag fashion, using the narrow dirt trails that occupied the interstices of the grass tufts. The marker’s inscription soon became legible: Tropic of Capricorn.

It took a moment for Dominic to process what he’d read. He’d fully been expecting to find a gravestone, a lonely memorial to some explorer of yore, gored on this spot by savage beasts…or maybe boiled alive in a huge pot, encircled by hungry natives undulating in wild, ecstatic thanks to their primal gods. But despite his teenaged predilection to bloody fantasy, he quickly decided that this stone, though somewhat staid and dryly academic, was nonetheless monumental enough to satisfy his thirst for adventure. “What’d you see on safari?” his mates would surely ask him. “I saw the Tropic of Capricorn,” he’d say. “Not much to it,” he’d tell them, “wouldn’t even know it was there if it weren’t for this stone marker,” he’d say.

Dominic’s father came up and stood beside the boy, arms akimbo, studying the inscription and nodding his head. “Hmm,” the man said, indicating that he too considered this discovery sufficiently interesting, that their back-tracking had indeed been worth their while. “Let’s have lunch here.”

They went back to the car to fetch their food and gear. The man threw a large picnic blanket over his shoulder and took a bag of utensils from the rear of the car. Then they grabbed the large cooler from the backseat, each of them holding one of its handles. The man kicked the backseat door closed, and together they carried the cooler over toward the marker. They spread the blanket out and laid it over the large tuft of grass closest to the stone. They set the cooler onto the blanket, knelt, and began to take out their lunch supplies. Bread, ham, cheese, mustard, a chocolate bar with almonds. The boy drank soda from a can, and the man drank iced tea from a thermos. They used paper towels for plates. They prepared their sandwiches in silence, on their knees. Once their food was ready to eat, they switched to their buttocks and sat facing the marker. “Here’s to the southern Tropic,” said the man, raising his thermos in salute, and the boy raised his Coke to complete the toast. They began to eat.

“How come there weren’t any blacks in Pretoria?” Dominic asked as he chewed.

“They were there,” his father answered. “They don’t mingle that much outside of Capetown.”

“Oh…you mean mingle with whites?” asked the boy, considering. “So what would I be here?”

“Well, you’re American and you’re a tourist, so you’re white,” said the man.

“But what if I lived here?”

“You’d still be white so long as you were a U.S. citizen. You might have some trouble, socially, ‘cause of how you look, but legally you’d be white. It’d be as though you were Portuguese, I guess.”

“What if I was all Vietnamese? I mean, a Vietnamese citizen.”

“American citizens are basically white unless they’re obviously black. If you were a Vietnamese citizen…well, I can’t imagine you’d live here. But if you did, I suppose you’d be colored. You’re either white here or you’re black or you’re Indian or you’re colored. If you’re not white or black or Indian, then you’re colored.”

“So Asians are coloreds?”

“Well, Indians are Asians, but other than that, yeah. Actually, the Japanese are sort of honorary whites here.”

“Why’s that?” asked the boy.

“I’m pretty sure it’s ‘cause everybody likes Toyotas,” the man answered with a laugh in his voice. “And Sony.”

Dominic put his sandwich down and started opening the Cadbury bar. “Finish your sandwich first,” his father told him.

“So there’s no apartheid in Zimbabwe?” the boy asked, knowing that there wasn’t but wanting to keep the conversation alive.

“Not officially,” the man said. “You know it used to be Rhodesia?”

The boy nodded as he chewed to show that he knew. “There was a revolution,” he said, swallowing. “Bob Marley played at the opening ceremony.”

“Yeah…I guess. About five years ago Rhodesia sort of broke with South Africa. It changed its name back to Zimbabwe and abolished apartheid. It wasn’t much of a revolution, though…hardly anybody died, property didn’t really change hands. White people still own everything. Blacks can vote now -- the President’s black, Mugabe -- but all the rich people are still white. Nothing really changed.”

The boy thought about this. “Are we rich?” he asked.

“Not yet,” his fathered answered, “I’m working on it.” Then, after some chewing, he wiped his mouth with a paper towel and added, “We’re affluent. I’m hoping to be rich by time I die. If we’re not rich by then, it’ll be up to you to finish the job.”

The boy wondered how his life might be different if they were rich, he and his father. Dominic’s mates at boarding school all assumed he was rich, largely because he was American and partly because he traveled so much between terms. He thought it was fine for people to assume he was rich, but he did not think it was actually the case (his father seemed too concerned about minor expenses to be a rich man). The boy knew that they weren’t poor, but he had no idea how close they were to being rich. In fact, the boy only vaguely understood what his father did for a living.

He told people that his dad was an engineer and sort of an architect but not really an architect. Dominic knew his father had studied engineering in college and that he had an MBA, but the boy wasn’t too clear about what an engineer was or what a businessman did. He knew that his father was a “contractor” and that a contractor, unlike an “employee,” was his own boss (he’d often heard his dad boast that he hadn’t been an employee since he’d been 22). He knew that his dad often contracted for oil companies, that he currently worked for ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia, and that his father had met his mother while contracting for the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. And he knew that his father built things or designed things – platforms, bunkers, storage facilities. His father rarely talked about his work, but he had once said he was like an architect but that he never designed big things like office buildings or bridges or even proper houses but, rather, only smaller structures, things for temporary use. His father had once told him that he could design whatever was needed if the job paid enough.

They finished their sandwiches, and Dominic opened the chocolate bar and broke off a piece. As he ate the candy, he got a plastic bag out of the bag in which they kept their cutlery and began gathering up their trash. He put the plastic trash bag back into the utensils bag, broke off another piece of chocolate, and got up to walk over to the stone marker. His father remained seated and ate chocolate as he watched his son approach the marker.

The northern face of the stone was identical to its southern face, reading simply, “Tropic of Capricorn,” plain but weighty testament to the factitious line announced. The boy pressed down with both hands on the top of the marker, trying to lift his feet up off the ground, but the marker was not quite tall enough for him to get the right leverage. He looked at his hands, now filthy from the dust on the marker. How long had this stone been here, how many years of dirt had it accumulated? Dominic wiped his hands off on the legs of his trousers. He realized that, assuming that the marker was accurately positioned, he was straddling the Tropic perfectly. He began hopping, slowly and deliberately, from side to side. “I’m tropical…I’m subtropical…I’m tropical…I’m subtropical…” he began to sing out as he jumped.

The man put the remnants of the chocolate bar into the cooler, latched the lid, and stood up. “Dom, come on…let’s go.” The boy stopped his hopping. They gathered up the blanket and the rest of their supplies and carried the cooler back to the Ford.

The man turned the car back around, and they continued north. “Okay…heart of darkness,” the man said, “you and me against the world, kid.”

Dominic thought about putting his headphones back on, but he knew that his father was going to want to talk now that they had eaten. This was where and when they communicated best, it seemed, inside of cars while driving. For almost as long as he could remember, the boy had spent holidays on road trips with his dad – the American southwest, Mexico, the Pacific northwest up through Canada to Alaska, southeastern Australia, Iran, northern Africa – and the plurality if not the majority of their waking hours together were spent in the cab of rented vehicles.

Dominic felt a certain comfort – not exactly a sense of contentment, but one of normalcy – when sitting at his father’s side, heading for places his father expected to be somehow enriching, destinations of cultural interest or scenic beauty. They spent a couple of weeks together several times a year, and the man felt it was his obligation to do his best to spend this time broadening his son’s horizons through travels. Between stops, they shared what they could about themselves with each other. Indeed, if the boy were asked to draw a picture of his father from memory, the image he would surely conjure would be one of his father’s profile, his father’s hooked nose and grey temples, as he sat in a driver’s seat concentrating on a road ahead.

“Did you finish the reports?” the man asked.

“Yeah.” Three times a year Dominic’s masters sent his father the boy’s academic ranking in each subject along with narrative reports on his progress during that term. The man would read the reports and would then give them to his son to read also.

“Good job in English,” the man said.

“Thanks,” the boy answered. “Mr. Partiss always yells at everybody for letting a Yank beat them.”

“What’s going on in commerce? And in biology?”

“Falconer hates me,” the boy protested, referring to his commerce teacher. “The exam was mostly essay. I did alright on the multiple choice, but most of the points were on the essays, and he’s got it in for me. There’s no right answers. I don’t know what he wants.”

“Well, your job was to figure out what he wanted and give it to him. What about science? Has he got it in for you, too?”

“No,” said the boy.

“Biology’s pretty objective,” said the man. “Look…commerce is over. I guess biology is too, but chemistry and physics are coming up. You need to improve in science. English is great, and I’m happy with math, too, but you have to do better in science. Aren’t you embarrassed to be in the B class?”

“I’m dux in that class,” the boy said sullenly.

“It’s the B class, son! There’s no duxes in a B class! I want you to move up in science by the end of next term. You’re at the top of the B class, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Spend all your prep time on science if you need to. Don’t sacrifice math, but other than that science needs to be your top priority. You might think school doesn’t matter, but you’re 15 now. These grades are going to have a direct impact on your life, your college, career, everything. You can’t be playin’ around, Dominic. You should be top ten in everything. And you definitely need to be in all A classes, for Christ’s sake!”

Dominic nodded quietly. The man remained silent also so as to give his scolding some time to sink in.

“Hey, great job with the diving, by the way,” the man said after a few minutes. “I don’t know where that came from.”

“I’m just good at it,” replied Dominic, relieved that the discussion had turned from academics.

“You’ve never been a very strong swimmer, though,” the man observed.

“They’re different,” the boy said matter-of-factly, vaguely pleased that he could understand so plain a fact more clearly than did his father.

[to be continued]

The Grass Just Might Be Greener In Afghanistan

Someone famous once said that one can judge a civilization by the way it treats its criminals. I say that one can judge a civilization by its reality-TV game shows about the way it treats its criminals.

These days, what with the asymmetrical warfare, the Taliban probably has neither the time nor the energy to enforce its psychotic version of shariah law, but I’ve heard that they used to cut off a petty thief’s hand every now and again. I tend to believe these nasty rumors because the Taliban are obviously human rights abusers, brutal to the core, and I’m still pissed off about when they blew up those giant Buddha heads. I think it’s safe to assume that somewhere -- whether in Af/Pak-istan or somewhere else like, say, northern Nigeria or maybe Saudi Arabia -- this practice (the hand-chopping, that is) continues.

Meanwhile, in the state of California, a person can steal a few golf clubs or a handful of video cassettes and end up going to prison for, respectively, 25-years-to-life or 50-years-to-life. (I may have matched these prison terms up vice verse with the thefts, but whatever.) This draconian justice has been green-lighted by both the California and the federal Supreme Courts. This shit is real; it happens. I’m not a lawyer, but for $50 I could find the cases and cite them.

So...you get some poor, thieving sap from Waziristan or wherever who’s headed for the chopping block and you offer him a deal where he gets to keep his hand in exchange for his doing a lengthy stint in the Golden State’s slammer. Then you find some dude in California facing 25-to-life for petty theft who thinks that he’d rather lose a hand than lose that much time, and you offer to send him away to some crazy-ass place where they’ll set him free once they’ve lopped off a hand. It’s the old switcheroo. Mohammed is sitting around cracking his knuckles and bored out of his skull (except when he’s getting gang-raped), and Johnny’s always moping and whining about how freedom’s no fun when you’ve only got one hand. The audience votes for a winner (i.e., whichever contestant seems happiest with his choice, I guess), and the winner gets a million bucks. And the feel-good twist to the season finale: Mohammed gets an opportunity to be released from prison if he’ll agree to go and serve out his sentence as Johnny’s right-hand man.

Then, next year, we get to see their adventures together. (True, the competition aspect of the show will be lost, but this second season can focus in on character delineation and cross-cultural rapport.)

I ♥ My Honda!

Of course, I am joking. It would be perverse to love a vehicle. It would also be tragic to do so (because a machine cannot return one's affection).

Why Do I Even Bother?

My father, whom I’m to honor, is a staunch atheist, and the Lord shall visit the inequity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him. So I’m pretty much fucked. My brother, my nephew...we're all pretty much fucked because of Dad (great job, Dad; thanks a lot). Seriously, though, I got nothin’ to lose, bitches! The patriarchy has totally let me down.

Garratt v. Dailey, 46 Wash.2d 197, 279 P.2d 1091 (1955)

Young Brian Dailey grabbed his knapsack full of rocks and walked to Maplewood Park to throw rocks at squirrels. He walked past the playground and the picnic area, and he went over toward the small grove of evergreens that occupied the northwesterly section of the park. He stood there in the sun, about 25 or 30 feet from the southern edge of the small but dense grove, and using his hand as a visor against the sun’s glare he peered squinting into the grove’s relatively dark interior. Before long he spotted a squirrel moving on the ground in the shade of the evergreens. Without lowering his hand from his brow he walked steadily forward, keeping his eyes focused on the squirrel. When the squirrel seemed to notice Brian and suddenly scampered away, Brian stopped. He took his knapsack off from around his shoulders and set it on the grass, crouching down to unbuckle it and flip open the canvas flap of its main compartment.

Having laid his pack’s flap open, Brian took a moment to admire his arsenal. The uniformity of his rock collection served as a considerable source of pride for the boy. He had gotten most of his stones at the creek bed, and each projectile had been meticulously selected for a smoothness, shape, and heft that perfectly suited Brian’s preferences. He palmed one, stood back up, and looked once more into the grove, this time without using a hand to shade his eyes. With his knapsack at his feet he stood squinting and scanning the umbrage, his body tense and half poised to throw, waiting to spot another squirrel and let loose his first missile of the day.

He did not need to wait long at all. After 15 minutes Brian had launched nearly as many stones. All had missed their mark, as usual, but each had given the boy the minor thrill of causing some small disruption. Also, with every pitch he felt the slight ecstasy that comes with the physical release of stress. Brian still had plenty of rocks left in his knapsack, but he began thinking that after one or two more hurls it would be time to enter the small grove in order to retrieve as many of his stones as he could find.

As he bent down and grabbed another stone, Brian saw a calico cat jump gracefully down off a wooden fence to his left across the quiet street that served as the park’s western border. That first property, the one whose fence the cat had climbed over, was the Murphy home, but Brian thought he recognized the cat as belonging to Billy Hudson, who lived some eight or nine houses up. The Hudsons, Billy remembered, had two cats, Tumbleweed and Charger, very similar in appearance, and Brian was fairly certain that this cat was one of the two. The cat walked slowly along the ground by the base of the fence, moving about six feet farther away from the boy, and then it settled to groom itself. As it lifted its paws and scraped them with its tongue, it seemed to be watching Brian. The alertness in its eyes belied the lazy confidence with which it moved its body.

Brian stared back at it. He imagined throwing the rock that he’d just picked up at the cat. He literally pictured himself winding up as though he were a big league pitcher on the mound. The mental vision he conjured was only of himself winding up and throwing, there was no actual image of the cat in his fantasy, but as his imagination worked he gazed fixedly on the animal, and the reality of the cat held his mind as completely as did his athletic figment.

Brian understood that it would be unacceptable for him to throw his rock at this pet cat, and this though the chances of his stone hitting its target be virtually nil. He suddenly swiveled his neck and shoulders around, looking behind him to his left toward the sidewalk at the edge of the park, relieved to see no one. He dropped the stone down back into his open knapsack and, with arms akimbo, began slowly marching in place, stretching one leg or the other out in an exaggerated kicking motion with each step. This exercise blurred the boy’s memory of the transgression that he’d fancied seconds earlier and had the effect of dispelling from Brian’s mind any shame attached to his imaginary assault on the Hudson cat. He carried on with this clownish march for about a minute and then, swooping his knapsack up by one of its shoulder straps, he jogged off into the grove to find the rocks that he’d thrown there.

As Brian emerged from the grove and back into the warmth of the summer sun, slightly perturbed at having retrieved only eleven of his prized stones, he saw an elderly woman in the distance walking north along the sidewalk that lined the edge of the park. The woman wore a peach dress and was holding a pink box just like the boxes in which Brian’s mother sometimes brought home cakes from the bakery. Brian went toward the woman, fastening up and strapping on his knapsack as he walked, and before long Brian thought he recognized her as the lady who had won the rose contest at the Independence Day pageant earlier that summer. He stopped walking and waved hallo, holding up his right arm and swinging it from side to side in unison with his upper torso as though he were an upside down pendulum. The woman stopped and looked at him. She could not wave back as she was using both her arms to carry the box, but she leaned slightly forward and to her right, in the boy’s direction, as her way of acknowledging his greeting. She waited there as the boy ran up to her.

“Hi,” Brian said, coming to a stop in front of the woman. “You’re the rose lady.” Before the statement could register with the woman, Brian added, “You’re the woman from the rose show that beat my mom…at the Fourth of July.”

The woman closed her eyes, relaxed her mouth, and tilted her head back with a slight nod as it dawned on her what the boy meant. “Aahhhh.”

“I’m Brian Dailey.”

“Ah, yes, the Daileys’ boy. I remember,” the woman said pleasantly. “How are you and your family?”

“I’m fine, thank you very much,” the boy responded quickly, as though reciting by rote. “You had the prettiest roses….”

“Why, thank you! How nice! Thank you,” said the woman, charmed by Brian’s compliment. “Oh, and your mother’s roses were so beautiful.”

“Pop said Mom’s roses were even nicer than yours,” the boy said matter-of-factly.

“Maybe so, maybe so,” mused the woman, and she jutted her lower lip out and nodded her head diplomatically.

“What’s in the box?” Brian asked.

“This is a cake that I’m bringing to my sister for her birthday,” the woman answered with satisfaction. “My sister Ruth is 76 today,” she added fondly, proudly.

“Wow!” Brian said. He thought for a moment. “That’s 70 more than me!”

“Not quite, I’d say, but almost,” said the woman, pleased that her sister’s age had made such an impression on the boy.

“Uh huh,” Brian said. “70 plus six makes 76.”

“Oh, but you’re not six,” the woman protested.

“Uh huh,” said the boy with a mock pout. “I will be in October.”

“Surely you can’t be five?” the woman asked. The boy was rocking on his toes and nodding pridefully. “I thought you were eight or nine,” she said, believing but astonished. “Maybe ten.”

“I’m bigger’n all my friends,” Brian said, beaming. “Mom says I’ll be bigger than Pop soon.”

“Well, I wouldn’t doubt it,” the woman said. “You are a fine young man, Mr. Brian Dailey.” She paused and considered the mood in which her sister might be. “You know, Brian, I’m sure my sister Ruth would be delighted if you were to come and have a piece of cake with us. Would you like to help us celebrate her birthday?”

“You bet!” the boy answered enthusiastically.

“Well, then you come with me and that’s what we’ll do. Would you be so kind as to carry our cake?”

“You bet,” said the boy, and he carefully received the cake as the woman handed him her pink box. “Is this from the baker on Chapel Street?” he asked.

“It is,” replied the woman.

“What flavor?”

“It’s chocolate,” the woman said, “and it’s got a ribbon of raspberry.”

“Wow,” Brian said. “I forgot your name.”

“I’m Naomi Garratt,” the woman said, and with the upturned palms of her newly unburdened hands she made a gesture indicating that she and the boy should cross over the street in the direction of the Murphy house and continue on that way. They began walking.

“That’s right. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Garratt,” Brian said politely.

“Oh…it’s ‘Miss Garrett.’ You can call me ‘Miss Garratt.’ I never married.”

“Okay,” said the boy. They crossed the quiet street over to the sidewalk on the other side, and then they went on, almost immediately making their first left to head west on the residential street that dead-ended into the park behind them. “Where does your sister live?”

“On McKinley. Six more blocks,” Naomi answered.

Brian’s rule was that he was not to go farther west than Maplewood Park, but he had safely broken this rule before, many times. He thought of it more as his parents’ rule than as his own. “How old are you, Miss Garratt?” Brian asked cheerfully.

“67…68 soon; I have a birthday in October just like you.”

“Oh. Hey, Miss Garratt, do you like baseball?” the boy asked.

“Uhhh,” the woman said ambiguously, letting her voice trail off. Brian got the impression that it was difficult for her to walk and talk at once. He whistled a few bars of Yankee Doodle Dandy. Naomi turned her head to smile at Brian, and he stopped whistling to smile back. They walked on, and Brian resumed his whistling and thought about how much he liked cake.

*** *** ***

Naomi and Brian approached Ruth Garratt’s house, and Naomi stopped walking.  The boy stopped with her, and they stood together looking at the corner-lot house, its yellow paint fading and peeling and its lawns brownish and poorly tended.  Brian had seen this house before on many occasions.  He had walked past it several times, and sometimes his mother and he would pass it as they drove to do errands.

“This is my sister’s house.  Our uncle used to live here many years ago.”

“Where do you live, Ms. Garratt?” asked Brian, understanding intuitively that Naomi Garratt did not live with her sister.

“I live all the way across town.  But I come out to see Ruthie at least once a month…much more often than that, really.”

“Why don’t you and your sister live together?” Brian asked.

“Ruth decided she prefers to live alone,” explained Naomi.  “She’s very independent that way.  I suppose I am as well.  Now, Brian, do you remember my sister’s name?”

“Ruth?” the boy answered.

“Good,” Naomi affirmed, smiling.  “You can call Ruth ‘Miss Ruth,’ okay?  And you can call me ‘Miss Naomi’ if you’d like.”

The boy nodded seriously, as if they were agreeing to something solemn.  “Okay, I will.  ‘Miss Naomi’ and ‘Ms. Ruth.’”

“Good, Brian.  You are such a smart young man!  Now, Brian, Miss Ruth doesn’t hear very well, so you will probably find that you must talk very loudly for her to understand you, and it’s okay to talk louder than you would usually.”

The boy was nodding and paying close attention, and Naomi continued with her instructions.  “The most important thing, Brian, is that you not get in her way when she’s walking.  Have you ever heard of arthritis?”

Brian shook his head, disappointed with himself for not knowing, almost contrite.

“Arthritis is a condition that affects older folks’ health, and it makes it hard for them to move around easily the way young people do.  My sister uses a cane, and she moves quite slowly when she walks.  You must be careful not to bump into her because you could easily knock her down if you did.  You must be careful not to bump into her or trip her up.  If you’re rambunctious, you might hurt her, do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.  I’ll be careful,” Brian promised.

“That’s good.  Thank you.  Now, Brian, my sister is expecting me but she doesn’t know that you’re here with me, so I’m going to have you wait on the porch a minute while I tell Ruthie that you’re here to celebrate with us.  Ruth loves children and it will be good for her to see you, but you should know that sometimes she can seem a bit ill-tempered.  She doesn’t get too many visitors, and, other than myself, the only people she really sees are the people who come each morning and evening to help her around the house.  So if she should seem a bit short with you or a bit grouchy, then just remember that older folks are tired and sometimes they seem irritated even when they are happy to see you.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, Miss Naomi,” said Brian, nodding.

“Good, good,” Naomi said.  She smiled and motioned for them to continue on up the walkway leading to the front porch of the house.  “I’m so glad you came, Brian.”

[NOT YET WRITTEN: birthday “party” at Ruth’s house, where Brian maims the old bag, spits in Naomi’s face, and runs away]

*** *** ***

The elder Brian Dailey had finished eating what he wanted of his dinner, and he had finished telling his wife and son about the family’s plans for the upcoming weekend. He sat at the table listening to his wife answer their son’s question about why a gravy boat was named such. He shifted in his chair a bit, and he flicked at the crumpled cotton napkin by his plate, expressing his impatience through the crispness of these randomly timed flicks. He wanted dinner to be over, and he wanted to fix himself another cocktail. With the fingertips of his right hand he rapped in quick succession on the table, and in a tone balancing exasperation with condescension he said, “Just tell him you don’t know….”

The woman and the boy looked up from their confab and turned their attention to the man. The boy, seeing that his father had not been directing the remark toward him, looked down at the carrots and peas still on his plate and scooped some onto his fork for a bite. The man tipped backward in his chair a little. When his chair’s front legs had settled squarely on the floor again, the man raised his buttocks slightly and with the crooks of his knees he pushed his chair back a few inches from the table. His wife watched him and waited to listen to him continue.

“Who knows?” the man asked rhetorically, as if answering a question that had just been put to him. “It doesn’t really look like a boat, it’s just called a boat…why is a shoe called a shoe?”

The man’s wife turned her face downward, and she straightened the napkin that lay upon her lap.

“‘Gravy floats in it like a boat floats on water’?!” Brian added, mimicking his wife. “Honestly, Helen, you tell the boy stories like you were making up fairy tales.” The man looked over toward his son and namesake, who still had his eyes down as he ate and focused on the vegetables on his plate in front of him. Straining to imbue his voice with a gentle seriousness, the man went on: “Everyone just agrees to call it a gravy boat so we can all know what it means when we say it, that’s all. It doesn’t matter why it’s named that…it’s got to have some name so you can say ‘pass the gravy boat’ and people will know what you’re talking about. That’s all.”

The matter of the gravy boat’s name had been settled, and Brian sat quietly. His wife began carefully pulling some of the dishes and serving utensils at the table’s center toward her and stacking them neatly, preparing to bring them into the kitchen later. The boy hurried to finish the carrots and peas still left on his plate. He did not enjoy carrots and he detested peas, but he knew that only the consumption of everything on his plate would entitle him to dessert.

Just as the boy was finishing his vegetables, the doorbell rang. The boy looked up and over at his father, who was in turn looking toward the boy’s mother to see if she might have some idea as to who might be calling. The man could see from his wife’s face that she had been expecting no one. He stood up from his chair, grabbing at his soiled napkin and balling it up in his hand as he rose. Once to his feet he dropped the napkin back down onto the table before him, and turning from his family, who sat watching him, he walked out of the dining room to go answer the doorbell.

Brian opened his front door to Ed Wells, a deputy sheriff and Brian’s acquaintance since childhood. Ed was in uniform, and behind him, beyond the front lawn and parked in front of the house, was the squad car in which he’d arrived. “Hi there, Ed. What brings you by?” Brian asked.

As he listened for his answer, Brian broke eye contact with Ed and looked over the officer’s shoulder and across the street toward the Harris home, where the Harris boy was watering agapanthus in the early evening sun. The Harris boy wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, and he slowly waved his hose to and fro along his driveway. He kept his back to the street as though oblivious to the deputy’s presence at the Dailey house.

“Howdy, Brian. I was just swingin’ by,” Ed said awkwardly but cordially, with a quick tip of his hat. “Hopin’ to chew your ear for a minute.”

“We were just finishing supper, Ed…but you know I always got a minute for the law.” Brian pulled softly on his front door’s inner knob and then let go; as the door was swinging further open, he caught its outer handle to stop it. He leaned stiffly against the doorway’s jamb as if he were settling more comfortably for a chat. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I ain’t really here on official business” the deputy said, and he flopped a hand to one side so as to dispense with any need for formalities. He looked briefly over his shoulder to his vehicle. “I just got the squad car ‘cause the fuel line on mine…oh, it’s a long story….”

“What’s it all about, Ed?”

“Well, it’s about your boy, Brian,” said the deputy, lowering the volume of his voice some. “You know Naomi Garratt, right?”

Brian nodded, and he leaned forward a bit to encourage the deputy to maintain this more discrete volume.

“Well, she’s been down at the station for the last couple hours, raisin’ all kinds a hell…said your boy pushed her sister down at her house earlier this afternoon, and then he run off. They had to take the sister to hospital – broke a hip, I guess – and, well, Mrs. Garratt’s sayin’ it’s all your boy’s doing…sayin’ we oughtta come down here and arrest him. She wanted Riley to get the district attorney on the line. She said she wants to press charges; she’s claimin’ she saw your boy push her sister off her chair and that he done it on purpose.” Deputy Wells paused so that Brian Dailey might process this accusation against his son.

Brian stopped leaning against his doorway’s jamb and stood up straight. “Aw, hell, Ed…that’s crazy,” he said with a puzzled look, shaking his head. “My boy’s been ‘round here all day. No…I left the office early today, must’ve been home by quarter to four. Brian was out back there at his sandbox, fillin’ cans or what he does. No. Naomi Garratt’s got the wrong boy. Why would my boy be with them two old bats, anyway…how’d he get out to Riverview?”

“Nah, it was at the older one’s house…Ruth Garratt, out on McKinley,” the deputy explained, gesturing westward. As he spoke, Helen and little Brian Dailey appeared behind their patriarch, rounding the corner of the hallway that connected the living room to the dining room. Young Brian had his hands thrust into his front pockets, and he looked glumly toward the ground. Helen bent slightly as she moved, trying to keep her arm about her son’s shoulder, though it was obvious that the boy did not want to be held. Deputy Wells bent his knees a bit and spoke past the man, directly to the child: “Brian, were you at Ruth Garratt’s house on McKinley earlier today?”

The boy looked up from the floor and at the deputy. Between them stood his father in the threshold, who, following the deputy’s gaze, was swiveling around toward the boy. The boy turned his face back down to the floor. The child’s vision was blurring as tears welled in his eyes, and he tried to stare deeply into the area rug on which he stood, to lose himself in the earth-toned patterns of its rough weave.

“Helen, goddammit!” exclaimed the man. Then, embarrassed by this outburst on his part, he turned quickly and looked at the deputy with an apologetic expression, as if imploring the officer to bear with any of his family’s poor manners. He then turned back around toward his wife and son. “Helen, get him on outta here!”

Helen knelt down and wrapped her arms around her son, pulling him toward her tightly as her husband stood in the doorway, the man rocking his hips slightly from side to side, with his arms akimbo and his back to the deputy. She whispered into the child's ear, after which the boy pulled his hands out from his pockets, turned, and ran up the staircase behind them. Brian turned back around toward Deputy Wells and swung the front door open wide. Helen walked back around the corner into the hallway from which she had emerged. Once out of sight, she stood silently and listened.

“So what’d Riley say,” asked Brian once his wife had disappeared.

“Well, I was hardly in the room, but he said that if she wanted to call Lewis then that was her business,” the deputy reported. “He said an old lady fallin’ over a five-year-old boy weren’t no police matter but that he’d gather up a report and file it with Lewis by the end of the week, Monday at the latest. He’s gonna call you first thing in the morning…probably gonna want you to come down. I imagine he’s gonna need to talk to your boy, too, at some point.”

Brian heaved up his shoulders and, pursing his lips together, he breathed out heavily through his nose. “Thanks, Ed. I really appreciate you comin’ by.” Sincerely grateful, he held out his hand to shake the deputy’s hand.

“It’s no problem,” said the deputy as the men shook hands. “I figured the sooner you knew about it, the better.”

“Thanks,” iterated Brian.

As they broke off their handshake, the deputy added, “You know, Brian, I’d give old Floyd Brady a call if I was you. I figure you can handle Riley no problem, but still….”

“What do you mean?” Brian asked apprehensively.

“Well, Mrs. Garratt was goin’ on and on about how she was fixin’ to sue you. You or your boy. She said that she didn’t expect nothin’ from Riley or from Lewis but that she weren’t going to just let it go. I think you should talk to Brady. He done great by us in that business ‘bout the fence last year…with the Parsons. Wrote a couple letters, and that was that.”

“What’s Garratt gonna sue me for?!” asked Brian angrily, indignantly.

“Well…the doctors’ bills, Brian,” answered the deputy, surprised that he would have to spell the situation out for the man.

“Fuck!” Brian muttered under his breath, and he looked up toward the sky as he considered his predicament. After a couple of seconds he looked back down and asked the deputy, “So this Garratt woman, the older one, she broke her leg?”

“Hip,” said the deputy, “even worse.”

Brian looked down at his shoes, shaking his head.

“An old woman don’t rightly recover from a spill like that,” Deputy Wells continued soberly.

Brian looked back up at the deputy. “Fuck!” he snapped. “Oh, those fucking kikes!” He shook his head some more. “Jesus!” He looked to the deputy as if for the man’s sympathy. “What do these bitches need with my money?! They got a house in Riverview, for godsakes; they got two houses!”

The deputy did not know what to say, and he just stared at the man. Brian breathed deeply, trying to gather composure, to control his frustration. Lowering his voice in an effort to make his point more cogently, he went on:

“We fought for those people, Ed, and a whole lot of us died in the fightin’. And then we gave ‘em a country. Do you think they just got their own country? No; we gave them a country. So now they got their own goddamn country! And now this…bitch! This old bitch, she wants me to pay for her sister’s doctor’s bill?! It’s unbelievable! Now, Ed, you know that old Garratt, he left them sisters plenty, you know that...they got more money 'n they got need for. And I put my ass on the line for these people, Ed. We all did.” Brian paused, waiting for his comrade’s validation.

“Well, I was in the Pacific,” the deputy answered, shrugging his shoulders, not knowing quite how to respond.

“Oh, Christ, Ed! That’s not the point….” Brian threw his hands up in disgust, and he shook them there in the air between the two men. “I’m saying these people will just…they’ll do whatever it takes to get their hands on some money, you know?” He stopped shaking his hands, dropped them down, and sighed to indicate that he was resigned to the reality of his unpleasant situation. “Look, Ed, I really do appreciate you comin’ out here,” he said, winding down his conversation with the officer.

“Yeah…no problem,” the deputy said, shrugging again and nodding his head with noncommittal empathy. “I guess maybe I’ll be seein’ you down at the station.” He tipped his hat once more to Brian, who was nodding unhappily. The officer turned and descended the steps of the Daileys’ porch, and he started toward his parked squad car. As he stepped along the walkway crossing the front lawn, he stopped for a moment to look admiringly over at the rose bushes that bloomed luxuriously against the wall of the Daileys’ garage. Brian Dailey stood at his front door and watched the deputy leave.

Once Deputy Wells had reached the sidewalk, Brian slowly closed the door. He stood listening for the deputy to pull away. Brian pushed his chin down and into his chest, trying to stretch the muscles in the back of his neck. He lifted his head when he heard the squad car’s engine turn over, and he reached with his right hand up over his left clavicle to the fleshy crest of his left shoulder, pressing with his fingertips as hard as he could into the muscles there. Brian heard the deputy’s car drive off, and he switched to massaging his right shoulder similarly with the fingertips of his left hand. He then raised both arms, held his elbows out to the sides and his hands behind his neck, and began swirling his fingertips into the tissue on either side of the back of his neck. He arched his lower spine and closed his eyes, and for more than a minute he stood digging with stiffened fingers into the knots where the back of his neck met the base of his skull.

When he had finished massaging himself, the man began to walk slowly toward the stairway. His wife came out from the hallway where she had been waiting. She was wringing her hands, and she looked at her husband with trepidation and tender pity.

“You know about this?” he asked calmly, not really suspecting that she did.

Helen shook her head. Holding her hands up and together as though in prayer, she walked into her husband’s ambit, in close, that he might embrace her or compass her as he would. He did not hold her, and she bowed her head and lowered her arms to her sides. Brian looked down at the top of his wife’s head as she huddled in toward his chest, as close as she could get to him without touching him. He looked upward to his right, up the stairs, and back again to his wife, who had lifted her face and was now gazing up at him. “Where is he?” he asked quietly, without affect.

Helen raised her hands up along Brian’s torso and began to softly paw at her husband’s chest. “Oh, now, honey….”

“Goddammit, Helen!” Brian barked, buckling his knees and jerking his body downward in momentary tantrum. His wife shrank with him, absorbing the man’s contempt somewhat as she cringed, though none of his rage. The man bounced up and pulled away from his wife. “Where is he?” he repeated, sounding absentminded. He turned about where he stood, appearing confused, back and forth between the staircase and his wife. Then, as if suddenly regaining his wits, he started moving for the staircase closet where he kept the leather strap with which he whipped his son. “Boy…” he called out as he walked. The woman turned away, receding back toward the dining room and kitchen. “Boy!” the man yelled up through the ceiling to his son, not so much to terrify as to give fair warning.

Shorthand Fiction

I just had a great idea for a short story:

There’s some sleazy Russian guy, we’ll call him Rusky, drinking vodka in his basement apartment and doing cybercrimes. The place is a mess, cables and wires everywhere, organic squalor all mixed in with the computer equipment. He’s trolling the web doing some real low-level shit. He used to make his living hacking credit card numbers and such, but now he’s reduced to squatting on expired domain names, pasting links to porn and gun sites, and stuff like that. The writer would have to sort out the necessary details about technology, law, and black market internet commerce…whatever.

The doorbell rings and he climbs up the steps to his front door, opening the door to a hustler, a young Ukrainian guy, we’ll call him Uky. “You Dmitry’s friend?” asks Rusky. Uky nods. Rusky lets Uky in, and they descend the stairs down into Rusky’s place.

“You want a drink?” asks Rusky.

“Of course,” says Uky.

They stand together at a countertop. Rusky pours Uky a vodka, which Uky drinks. Rusky’s pouring Uky a second drink when Uky asks, “You got any food?”

Rusky looks at Uky for a few seconds. “I got olives…for martinis. No vermouth, though.” Uky takes a drink from his straight vodka. “You want an olive?” asks Rusky.

Uky shrugs as if to say that he’ll accept an olive but not with gratitude. Rusky goes to the fridge and comes back, setting a jar of olives on the counter in front of Uky. Uky picks up the jar and unscrews the cap, and Rusky says flatly, “Stick an olive up your ass.”

“What?”, asks Uky aggressively, sneeringly, having understood full well what Rusky had said. Uky holds the jar in one hand and the cap in the other, staring at Rusky, waiting for an answer.

“Stick an olive up your ass,” repeats Rusky matter-of-factly. “I want you to put an olive in your ass. And then I want you to put the olive in your drink like it was a martini.”

“Fuck you,” says Uky sharply, putting the jar and the cap back onto the counter and reaching for his glass of vodka. “'I want you' to go fuck yourself," he says, taking a drink. "But it's not gonna happen.”

“Surely you’ve had things up your ass before, though,” says Rusky.

“Not olives,” replies Uky, raising his glass for another swig.

Rusky reaches into his pocket for a roll of money. He peels a couple of bills off the roll. “[The Russian equivalent of] $20,” he says, holding the money up in front of Uky's face. "Nothin' to do with Dmitry," he adds in a dull sing-song voice, waving the bills a tiny bit.

After a couple of seconds Uky puts his glass down on the counter. He shakes his head. “You fucking Russians,” he mutters as he swipes the bills from Rusky’s hand and pockets them. Uky grabs the open bottle of olives and dumps a handful into his palm, spilling brine all over the floor in the process. He crams the handful of olives into his mouth. While chewing deliberately, defiantly, he fishes another single olive out of the jar and puts the jar back on the counter. Holding the olive in one hand, he unbuckles his belt with his other hand and shimmies his jeans down around his ankles. He swallows his mouthful of olives with mock ceremony. Without removing his briefs, he takes a moment to relax, reaches into his underwear, and inserts the olive into his anus. After a couple of seconds he retrieves the olive and drops it into what’s left of his vodka. He finishes off the glass of vodka, staring at Rusky over the rim of his glass as he drinks. He slams the glass, now empty except for the olive, back down on the counter, and then he pulls his jeans back up and rebuckles his belt.

“Good,” says Rusky without enthusiasm but with approval in his voice. He picks up Uky's glass, tips the olive out onto the counter, and pours Uky another vodka.

“So what is it?” asks Rusky as Uky drinks. “[The Russian equivalent of] Twenty, right?”

“[The Russian equivalent of] A hundred if I come,” says Uky.

“How do I know if you've come?” asks Rusky.

Uky finishes his vodka with a slow gulp. “It’ll be obvious,” he says, putting his empty glass on the counter, this time more politely. “We won’t need to argue about it.”

“Over here,” says Rusky, ushering Uky away from the counter and over toward a workspace in the main room of the apartment. “Over there”, Rusky says, indicating an area rug in the center of the workspace. “Kneel.”

Rusky goes to sit by the table that he uses as a desk, and Uky goes to kneel on the area rug, facing away from Rusky.

“Face me,” says Rusky. Uky shifts around a bit but not so much as to face Rusky. Uky unbuckles his belt again and pulls his jeans down toward his knees. He pulls the waistband of his briefs down and lifts his scrotum and penis out of his briefs, leaving his genitals flopping out over the waistband. His penis is forked -- split down the middle, more or less -- forming two misshapen and flaccid flaps. The flaps are raw and red but not quite bleeding, and there is a sheen all over his mutilated penis, a glaze of pus and Vaseline.

Uky kneels there for a few minutes, silent and still, concentrating, and eventually the flaps of his penis begin to become turgid. He pulls down on the front of his waistband, trying to pull his underwear down away from his genitals without simultaneously exposing his buttocks. He starts to very gingerly stimulate himself with his fingers, using the tips of his fingers and thumbs to gently squeeze and massage the twin shafts of his now semi-erect penis. His swelling genitals are clearly the source of excruciating pain, but Uky perseveres and manages to maintain his double soft-on. The masturbation becomes less precise, less surgical, and after a while Uky’s fleshy prongs are engorged enough that he can hold them together and stroke them as one using the palm of one hand rather than manipulating them separately with fingertips from both his hands. The speed of his strokes increases, as does the tightness of his grip. Uky doubles over slightly as he masturbates, as if enduring a terrible cramp in his belly, and with his free hand he leans and presses and clutches into his thigh. He winces and hisses his breath outward through clenched teeth with every stroke, and he is crying tears.

Rusky, fully clothed, watches Uky intently. Using only his eyes and mind, Rusky tries unsuccessfully to become aroused himself.

After about ten minutes of this, Uky abruptly stops. He lifts his shoulders slightly and tries to let his chin fall to his chest, but his neck muscles won't allow it. He kneels there quietly trying to rest, to smother the pain radiating from his groin and core, but his body needs oxygen and he soon begins to gasp for air. He feels the shakes coming on and, realizing that he may be unable to resist them, becomes overwhelmed and begins to sob.

Rusky slowly gets up from his chair and walks over and squats by Uky. “Nevermind,” Rusky says softly, sadly.

Uky suddenly snaps out of his weeping fit. “Fuck that!” he snarls. “I can do this!”

“No, no…you can have the money. I’ll give you the [Russian equivalent of the] hundred,” Rusky says, reaching toward Uky’s face to brush away some hair that has matted to Uky’s wet cheek. Uky recoils violently from Rusky’s reach, jerking backwards and bracing himself on the floor with his masturbation hand in order to keep from tipping over. Rusky stands up, gets the roll of bills out of his pocket, and hands [the Russian equivalent of] $100 out toward Uky. Uky takes the money, and Rusky backs up a few steps.

Uky jams the bills into the pocket of his jeans, which are still down around his knees. He puts his genitals back into his briefs.

“How old are you?” asks Rusky.

“Twenty”, Uky answers as he pulls up his jeans and stands up.

“When did you do that?”

“About a year ago,” Uky says, rebuckling.

“Why?” asks Rusky.

“I don’t know…looking for some fun, I guess,” Uky replies contemptuously. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing,” says Rusky, trying to sound soothing so as to de-escalate the tension between them. “What’s your name?”

“What’s your name, old man?” Uky asks dismissively, rhetorically, turning around toward the stairway leading out of the apartment.

“I’m Rusky.”

“Well, fuck you, Rusky," Uky says, swiveling back around to face the Russian one last time. "That’s my name: 'fuck you'. I like your money.” Uky climbs the stairs and exits the apartment, slamming the door as he leaves.