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# The Ben Harper Stories

# RC Monson

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Copyright 2018 RC Monson  
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9780463557556

Cover Design: Livewire Productions  
Cover photo by bonappetit

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**Contents  
**4th of July Resolutions  
A Bullet Hole in Jack's Couch  
[Rough Trade  
](tmp_159f670f34e10496e1984981a2f260c1_3kOR3g.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_003.html#roughtrade)Sins of the Father  
Three Intruders  
The Road to Lake Mirage  
Prize Pets  
The Gatekeeper  
Harlequins  
The Happy Hedonist  
A Shade Too Dark  
[Border Wars  
](tmp_159f670f34e10496e1984981a2f260c1_3kOR3g.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_004.html#Border)Freeloaders  
Outside the Box  
Gangbusters  
Measure Twice

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4th of July Resolutions

"Watch it!" said Randy as he attempted to back through the doorway, lugging one end of a hide-a-bed couch.

Lance pushed a tad too hard from the other end, and the couch bumped the doorframe with a thump.

"A little more to the left."

Thunk.

"Your other left," Randy instructed.

Thump. Bump.

"Youch!" cried Randy. "That's my fingers you just crushed, dude."

"Sorry," Lance replied to his brother in a voice devoid of emotion. "Just angle that top corner in and the rest will follow."

"Like this?"

"There you go," Lance answered as he lifted his end about six or eight inches, "but watch that bottom cor—"

Bam! _Scraaaaape!_

"We're in!" Randy cried out in triumph.

"Halfway home," Lance blandly corrected him.

Meanwhile, Ben Harper stood by helplessly holding open the screen door. "At the rate you're going, you guys will knock the walls down before you get moved in."

Ignoring his elder brother's commentary, Lance instructed Randy to move to the left and, "Lift, a little higher. There we go. Now we're in."

Ben was just about to follow them inside, carrying a shade-less lamp and rickety kitchen chair, when Spike and Drew hauled in a worn-but-sturdy kitchen table. Bang into a wall. Bang into the front door.

"Over there, in front of the big window," Randy instructed.

"In the living room?" asked Drew.

"It's too damn big to fit in the kitchen," Randy replied.

Just then, Pat came up huffing and puffing toward Ben with a bear-hug grasp on a great big Sanyo. "Where do you want the TV?" he said, passing through the doorway.

"Put it on the far end of the table over there."

"On the kitchen table?" said Pat.

"It'll have to do for now."

Ben propped the chair against the screen door to hold it open and stepped inside, looking around for a good spot to put a lamp, and knowing anyplace would do, as long as it was well beyond the reach of Randy's wrecking crew.

"Where'd the TV come from?" asked Lance.

"Spike's mom contributed it to the cause," Randy answered.

There hadn't been a stick of furniture in the place till the band showed up this afternoon with a borrowed pickup truck. Up till now it had just been a place to store boxes full of everything Ben had brought with him from California. The last apartment he had rented was furnished and, for the most part, went unused because Ben mostly stayed at Amber's house the whole time he lived there.

"Where's the cooler? I need a beer," said Lance. He was a year older than Randy and ten years younger than Ben. Lance was old enough to drink legally, Randy wasn't, but of course that never deterred him at all.

Randy kicked aside an empty camping cooler and strutted over to the fridge, saying, "We've moved up a notch in the world, gents." And he opened the refrigerator door, revealing shelves full of nothing but cheap beer.

As everyone cracked open brew pops, Spike went looking for something in the cabinets. He opened a cabinet door and found the shelves filled with reference books and a small collection of Ben's favorite fiction writers. He looked Ben up and down as though examining a freak show oddity. He grinned, shook his head.

"I got tired of having to dig them out of boxes," Ben explained. As the band mates slugged down their beers and clowned around, he was beginning to think it might not have been such a great idea to turn his unused apartment over to his youngest brother and his clumsy band mates—no matter how much he would like to help them out.

He had acted on an impulse when Randy mentioned that they'd been living in a motel. The invitation had come rolling off his tongue before he could give it a second thought: "You guys oughta just crash at my place and save yourselves a few hundred bucks a month." It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Go figure.

When the band mates started hauling in the instruments and sound gear, Ben reminded them it was only for safekeeping. "Don't think for a minute," Ben cautioned them, "about turning this place into a practice space. The minute you start bothering the neighbors or causing me any grief, you're out of here."

Over the next two weeks, Ben would stop in after work to check the mail and attend to chores. As the days went by, empty beer bottles and pizza boxes and junk food wrappers started piling up on every available surface in the place. Each day the pile grew taller and more precarious. But what else could one expect from a bunch of young rockers who had only finished high school a couple of years before?

One afternoon Ben was running much later than usual. It was nearly five thirty in the afternoon and he found the band just beginning to stir from their slumbers, nursing hangovers from the night before. "Looks like you guys had a helluva night."

Randy was still half asleep, his normally glamorous hair style a lopsided tangle of dark clashing waves. He answered for the group with a groan followed by a pained grimace. "Would you mind toning it down a notch? I've got a killer headache."

Pat came out of the kitchen carrying two Styrofoam coffee cups and handed one to Randy. "Took us till three to tear down and stash the equipment," said Pat, his voice a tad raspy after last night's performance, "then we went out and partied till dawn."

"Sorry I missed it," Ben replied in a softer voice.

Ben browsed through the mail as Pat and Randy sipped coffee and Spike came lurching out of the bathroom preceded by a wave of noxious fumes that emanated from the same source as the sound of waterworks in the background.

Randy winced and buried his face in his hands. Pat pinched his nose and whined, "For Pete's sake, Spikey, turn on the fan." Meanwhile, Ben was thinking: Holy shit! They've been here two weeks, and the place is already a flophouse. And it was too. Evidently Randy had been sleeping on the couch, and the others had all bedded down on heaps of blankets spread out on the bare linoleum floor.

Someone had tacked a cheap head shop tapestry on the wall, lending the room an exotic Persian atmosphere, enhanced by pillows and a huge bong, a stray set of bongos and a tambourine. Ben kind of half-expected a troupe of belly dancers to come whirling and prancing out of the bedroom at any moment.

Instead, his other brother, Lance, came storming in through the front door, shaking a wrinkled paper document in one fist. Fit to be tied, he tore into Randy the moment he came through the door. "I went down to the MVD today to renew my license."

Uh oh! Randy didn't actually say it, but it was written all over his face as he replied, "And?"

"They told me my license has already been renewed, that somebody came in six months ago for a duplicate." Lance yelled, still waving the now-rumpled paper at Randy in an accusatory manner.

With another cringe, Randy suggested mildly, "Let me explain."

"You don't have to explain a thing. I know exactly what you've been up to and how you managed to get them to give you a goddamn fake ID with my goddamn name on it." He stopped waving the document and started making gimme signals with his free hand. "Hand it over," he demanded sharply, all four fingers flicking back and forth like a huge moth with only one wing.

Randy took out his wallet and fished the driver's license out, accidentally dropping several business cards in the process. Ben reached down and picked up the cards as Randy begged his older-by-one-year brother to, "Please, please, _please!!_! Let me use it for another three months." All he needed was three more months until he turned twenty-one and could start playing the clubs legally.

But Lance wasn't having any of that. He snatched the license out of Randy's hand and folded it into the crumpled document, which he then stuffed into his back pocket and headed for the door. Randy called after him, "You're not in trouble are you?"

"I don't know yet. I don't think so, but YOU might be in a shithole up to your ears."

"Well, that's a drag," said Randy with an odd combination of smiling eyes and frowning mouth, "Looks like we won't be doing any club dates for a while."

Ben glanced at the top card as he handed the stack to Randy. On the left side of the card's face his name and phone number were written out in a familiar hand. On the right side of the card, a happy face and the following words were machine printed: Smile, if you'd like to suck my dick.

Ben couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. "You don't actually pass those out, do you?" he asked.

"Oh, you bet I do," Randy answered proudly. "And I usually find a taker about half the time."

"No kidding? Fifty percent? That's not a bad return."

Randy laughed and pounded his chest with one fist like a boastful gorilla. He wasn't one to let things trouble him much, always tried to be philosophical about troublesome matters. Ever since he was a child, he had had this wonderful Zenlike, live-for-today perspective on the world.

"Too bad, you're not scoring as well with the neighbors," Ben informed him. "I got a call today."

"Sorry. We must've gotten a little out of control this morning when we loaded in."

"Yeah, well, out of control don't cut it. You're putting me in a compromising position, and I don't like it."

"It won't happen again."

Uh huh. We'll see about that.

The following weekend was 4th of July. Amber went away for the holiday to visit her sister, so Ben was left to his own devices. He and Randy stuck a few spuds in the oven and fired up the barbecue. Joined by a couple of band mates, they gorged themselves and drank too much and sat around the picnic table shooting the shit for a while before Pat broke out a guitar and they all started singing.

The neighbor who had been complaining, Tad Winslow, was a grumpy kind of guy who came outside to gripe about the noise. "You guys should hear yourselves. You'd set the wolves to howling."

Ben reminded him, "It's the 4th of July! Take a chill pill. All hell is about to break loose in about fifteen minutes when they start up the fireworks."

Tad backed off, went back inside grumbling, but not before suggesting that Ben Harper was just as bad, just as immature, just as obnoxious as his rude little brother and his freakish friends.

Lance and his date for the evening showed up with a fresh case of beer, and then a bunch of the band's favorite groupies joined the party. Whatever conflict he and Randy had had over his driver's license must have been resolved, because the two brothers were just as chummy as ever. Ben asked Lance about it. Lance told him that the judge had revoked Randy's driver's license as punishment for his fraudulent activities.

"But he's still driving around like nothing happened," Ben observed.

"Yup," said Lance.

Go figure.

First they heard fizzles and pops in the distance, then the first big BANG! A couple of blocks away, on the State Fair Grounds, the annual fireworks display pocked the sky with dazzling colorful flower-shaped explosions followed by puffs of smoke that gently trailed away on a soft violet breeze.

Before you knew it, every dog in the neighborhood was barking, gunshots rang out all around, and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. Ben had already dragged the ladder out of the shed and set it up against the lowest spot of the gable, so everyone scurried up to the rooftop for a better view.

Clambering across the shingles they roosted like giant condors along the crown of the roof to enjoy the show. They sipped their brew pops, burned a reefer or two, and exchanged excited childlike comments regarding this year's pyrotechnics display.

"Mind if we join you folks?" It was Tracy's voice, her face poking up from the top of the ladder. "Come on up. The celebration's just beginning," Ben called back to her.

Apparently Tracy had convinced her uptight husband to lighten up and try to have a little bit of fun for a change. Ben credited the man for at least giving it his best shot. Tad even tried to be friendly with Randy in spite of a couple of petty altercations they had had in the past few weeks.

The fireworks were so beautiful and mesmerizing that Ben soon forgot all his worldly woes as he took in the display with childlike wonder. Ten minutes later the firing of shells reached a crescendo of sparks and bangs and streaks of brilliant light overlapping overhead: red white blue green silver yellow, an explosion of crayon colors illuminating the heavens. And then it was over. Just like that. As the last plumes of smoke faded into darkness, Ben snapped back into reality—a cruel reality that currently featured troubles with his youngest brother and friends.

Everyone lingered a few minutes on the rooftop after the show ended. They chatted among themselves until someone noticed he'd run out of beer, which prompted the whole group to head for the ladder. Along the way Spike stumbled on a shingle and fell on his ass, sliding several feet down the slope towards the roof's edge. Which sent such a shock through Ben that he nearly swallowed his tongue. Randy and Lance both leaped to the downed musician's side. Each extended a hand and pulled him to his feet. "For a minute there I almost forgot where we are," said Spike.

"It's all good," said Lance. "We'll help you the rest of the way."

Ben held the ladder steady and reminded everyone, "Be careful," repeatedly, as they took turns clambering down. Tracy and Tad were persuaded to stay awhile and have a drink. Everything went splendidly as we all sang along to a few popular tunes, but then Tad started nudging his wife and gesturing toward their apartment. When she finally relented they excused themselves and headed toward the door.

"Ten o'clock, right?" Tad said to Ben in passing. "You'll be winding down this little gathering by then, I hope."

"Tell you what," Ben gruffly replied, rising from his seat, "at ten we'll take the party inside."

"I have to work in the morning and I'm not going to have you party animals keeping me up all night."

Tad's wife grabbed his elbow and tried to get him to hush, but he was going to have his say one way or another. "No! Goddamnit. I'm fed up with this shit."

"Maybe we'd better take this shindig down to the park," Randy suggested. "No need to hassle. We'll just take our beer and go."

"But then again," Ben persisted, as he often did when he had a good buzz going, "maybe Tad could try to compromise a little on the curfew. How about eleven?"

"Fine," Tad harshly agreed, "but if it's not quiet enough to hear a pin drop by eleven sharp, I'm going to call the police."

Ben might have punched the guy right then and there, but Lance stepped in between them. "Hey, no big deal. Just let it go."

Ben's thundering heart gradually settled down and the venom in his throat drained back down into his belly, and he gave Tad a hard look but kept his mouth clamped shut. It occurred to him that both he and his little brother were capable of behaving like adults, but only if they had no alternative.

Go figure.

Tracy and her husband went inside and Pat struck up a lively sing-along tune that everyone recognized immediately: "Against the Wind."

When they finished singing, Ben asked Randy, "What's this I hear about you losing your driver's license?"

"My lawyer tells me I'm lucky I didn't get my ass thrown in jail."

"So, what the fuck are you doing still driving around?"

"What am I supposed to do? Rollerblade everywhere I go?"

"If that's what you have to do to stay out of prison, yes!"

"You're probably right," Randy replied noncommittally. Then he gave Ben an affectionate little punch on the shoulder and changed the subject: "Bet you'll think twice before you ever let a bunch of crazed maniacs like us move into your place again."

"I don't know about that," Ben replied with a side-glance over at Spike who was even more shitfaced now than when he nearly took a header off the building. "But I'll tell you one thing for sure: Next year there won't be anybody climbing on the roof to watch the fireworks. I doubt I have enough insurance to cover the potential liability."

"Tell you what," said Randy. "We'll take a hotel room tonight. At eleven sharp, we're outta here."

"Does that mean we have to move again?" whined Pat, which stirred up a bit of commotion among the groupies.

"Knuckleheads," said Lance, shaking his head in disbelief, "you guys have been doomed since the day you moved in. It was just a matter of time."

"Where will you go?" Ben asked.

"Back to the same motel we were at when you invited us here."

"But they charge an arm and a leg at that place, you told me so yourself."

"It's not so much when we split it four ways," said Randy. "Besides, they also have maid service to clean up the mess."

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A Bullet Hole in Jack's Couch

Jack's couch was a fine piece of craftsmanship that he had designed and built himself. Framed in oak and walnut, it was very long and low and modern, with leather-clad cushions, and very heavy. He and Ben had just finished carrying it in from the U-Haul and set it down near the window in the front room of the freshly remodeled cottage, when Ben noticed a perfectly round hole in the top rail that went clean through it at a slight angle. "Is that a bullet hole?" he asked.

Glancing at the hole in the walnut rail of his couch, Jack gave Ben a sly grin and nodded. Ben waited for his old high-school pal to explain, as he normally would, launching into some elaborate tale involving misfits and mayhem and a couch with a bullet hole in it. But Jack just clammed up and didn't say a word. Ben was mystified by Jack's uncharacteristic reticence. It piqued his interest. But then, before Ben could goad him to elaborating a little, Jack's wife came out of the kitchen with a question.

"Didn't you guys notice there's no hot water?" asked Clara, a lovely woman with a slim figure and petite features, who was about ten years younger than Jack and his third attempt at holding a marriage together.

They went to the kitchen so Clara could demonstrate, and before long Ben forgot about the mysterious bullet hole in Jack's couch.

"It was fine before we left to go get the furniture," Jack said to Clara and then he asked Ben. "How about the stove. Is it working?"

Ben stepped over and turned the dial. The starter sparked, but no flame leaped out of the burner. In fact, nothing happened. No hissing sound, no invisible cloud of rotten-egg stench. Jack helped Ben pull the stove away from the wall, so Ben could squeeze in and check the petcock, which he found in the open position.

"Must be shut off at the meter?" he deduced while squirming out from behind the stove.

Ben led the way outside and to the side of the building, suggesting along the way that the previous renters might've had the gas turned off when they moved out. "Nope," was Jack's reply, as they turned the corner of the building and found an empty space where the meter was supposed to be. "Looks like the idiots had their gas shut off and turned it back on themselves."

That set Ben back on his heels a bit. "So the gas company pulled out the meter?"

Jack nodded. "That's how they work it," he said. "A friend of mine used to work for the gas company in Denver. He said they would typically shut off the gas, slap a lock on it, and demand their money. If the customer cut the lock and turned the gas back on, they'd remove the meter."

"Fuck!" Ben haplessly examined the two pipes that had, until recently, been attached to the gas meter: one sticking out of the wall like a small fist in a steel glove, the other jutting up from the ground like a mean-spirited exclamation point. At the time, Ben was still pretty new to the property rental game, so this was a first for him. "I guess you guys will have to cook next door till I can get the meter replaced."

"No problem," said Jack to Ben. Then, turning to his wife for confirmation, he asked, "Right? We can work with that, can't we?" Clara nodded her head in response, but she didn't look happy about it.

Grumbling something about taking care of this problem, right here and now, Ben marched around the building and across the courtyard to Unit B, which was located in the duplex next door. Although he didn't actually live on the premises, he did collect his mail here and also kept an active phone line handy, specifically for occasions such as this.

Inside, he shuffled though papers on an ancient metal desk he'd set up near a large picture window that looked out onto the courtyard. In due time he tracked down an old gas bill (or, more specifically, the phone number printed on it) and dragged the long phone cord over to the hide-a-bed where Jack and Clara had slept for a few days prior to driving back to Colorado to load up the U-Haul.

There he sat for nearly an hour, talking first to an operator, who transferred him to someone in the sales department, who set up a new landlord account. Then his call was transferred to the service department, so they could arrange for the new meter to be installed. And finally he was transferred to the billing department.

Go figure.

Meanwhile, as Ben mostly waited on hold, he wondered if he was really cut out for the property management business, or if his girlfriend was correct in her assessment that he shouldn't have bought the apartment complex in the first place. He quietly indulged himself in a few moments of intense self-pity, contemplating the plight of the ever-suffering landlord.

He watched Jack and Clara go back and forth past the window, lugging their furniture into the cottage. He looked on as Matt Harper, the oldest of his three younger brothers, met up with Jack and Clara in the courtyard. Jack gave Matt a friendly hug and introduced him to Clara. The three of them stood talking for a while. Then Matt and Jack proceeded to carry in a king-sized mattress and the box springs to match it. They too had been friends since high school, because back in the day Matt had been their biggest fan and had shadowed them around town as often as they would allow.

Matt was the younger brother closest in age to Ben, and they were total opposites: While Ben was fair-haired with a pale complexion, Matt had very dark features like their mother. Where Ben was tall, skinny and balding, Matt was short and stout with a full head of hair. Ben wore a beard and dressed like a slob when he wasn't at work, while Matt seldom skipped the razor for more than a day and usually dressed in casual attire.

Ben remembered the last time Jack had come back to town for Matt and Helen's wedding. Nearly a decade had passed since then but it all came back to him as if it were yesterday. For Jack and Helen, the minute they laid eyes on each other, it was HATE at first sight. "You. I've heard about you," Matt's fiancée, had growled. "I know your type."

This had occurred right after Jack had presented the betrothed couple with a full ounce baggie of killer Thai stick as a wedding present.

"I had a funny feeling you'd be like that," Jack had retorted gracefully but not without a certain undertone of malice. "Matt's told me all about you too, and you sound like on of those straight-laced, pseudo-religious girls who suck the blood out of their mates while converting them into pack animals."

"Don't listen to him, Matt," said Helen. "That man is the devil incarnate."

"Yeah right! Take her word for it," Jack suggested to Matt while glaring pointedly at Helen, "take your instructions directly from the Antichrist."

Being as the tuxedoes had already been rented, Helen had reluctantly conceded to go ahead and allow Jack to usher at the wedding, where Jack had repeatedly attempted to talk Matt out of going through with the ceremony right up to the moment before the Wedding March began. "It's not too late," he had forcefully prodded Matt. "All you have to do is walk out that door. Nobody's gonna try to stop you. Last chance! Take my word for it, man, you'll live to regret ever letting that vicious little tyrant get her hooks into you."

Needless to say, Jack Lambert's dire warnings had gone unheeded.

By the time Ben finally finished up his marathon phone call with half the people on staff at the gas company, his telephone ear was aching and he seriously needed to take a pee. After finishing up in the bathroom, he walked back to the cottage to join his friends.

"Are you about ready for a beer yet?" Clara asked as Ben came through the front door.

"No thanks. It's still a tad too early in the day for me."

"Get the man a fucking beer, for crying out loud," Jack demanded. "Can't you see we're having a celebration here?"

Matt displayed a tall green bottle for his brother to see. "They even talked me into one, and I hardly ever drink anymore."

"Or smoke dope," said Ben.

"Or leave the house unescorted," Jack scoffed. And then turning to Ben, he said, "I was shocked when he showed up today unencumbered by the old ball and chain."

"You guys are awful," said Clara, taking a beer from the refrigerator and handing it to Ben.

"They're both full of crap right up to here," said Matt, drawing an imaginary line across his forehead with his index finger.

Ben smiled at his old pal, Jack, who gave Matt and Clara a grin and a wink that seemed to say: Now tell me something I didn't already know.

Matt changed the subject by suggesting that they get back to work. "That U-Haul's not going to unload itself," he said, "and I have to be home by dinnertime."

They went outside and, leaving their beverages on the picnic table to warm in the afternoon sun, proceeded to empty the U-Haul. At one point, Ben was outside the cottage, headed in, while Matt and Jack were inside walking out, and he overheard his brother say, "I thought you said you were going to fix that bullet hole."

"I changed my mind," Jack replied. "I figured it would be smarter to just leave it there as a constant reminder."

"That's probably not a bad idea," said Matt.

"What's probably not a bad idea?" said Ben as he crossed the threshold into the front room.

Jack looked surprised and shot Matt a look that seemed to say: Enough said. And they both took evasive action, avoiding eye contact as they slipped past him on the way to the door. Ben felt a flash of anger, accompanied shortly thereafter by a pang of jealousy. He hated the idea of being left out of an inside joke, especially when it involved his best friend, Jack, and his annoying, tag-along younger brother.

After they finished unloading but before Matt excused himself to go home, Ben cornered him long enough to ask, "What's the deal with that bullet hole in Jack's couch?"

But his brother fell silent, just as Jack had earlier in the day, resisting Ben's attempts at drawing it out of him. "I've been sworn to secrecy," is all he would say.

Go figure.

Ben was relatively certain that someone would spill the beans sooner or later, so he set the thought aside. In due time, he pretty much forgot about the mystery bullet hole in Jack's couch for the second time that day.

He kept himself occupied with firing up the barbeque pit then went inside to help Clara peel potatoes. By that time, Jack was chopping vegetables and alternately swizzling from a huge plastic tumbler of vodka and ginger ale. Clara sipped single-malt scotch on the rocks from a highball glass. The bottle on the counter was labeled with an unpronounceable Gaelic name, which guaranteed that it probably cost a small fortune.

It was becoming increasingly evident to Ben that he had a couple of hardcore boozers on his hands. Not that he meant to be judgmental, mind you. Not when he considered the serious drinking problem he himself had been cultivating over the years.

Ben was outside tending to shrimp kabobs on the grill when Amber finally turned up. "I hope you guys aren't hammered already?" she said in muted tones.

"Surprisingly sober," Ben answered, "when you take into consideration we've been drinking all afternoon."

She moved a little closer and lowered her voice even more. "I'm really not in the mood to put up with a bunch of drunks all evening."

"We can go," Ben quietly replied, "as soon as we're done with dinner—assuming that you want to be antisocial about it."

"Looks like you got everything moved in all right," she observed, taking a seat nearby at the picnic table, which was already covered with a tablecloth. Set with chips and avocado dip and a few assorted garnishes.

"Everything went pretty smoothly except the part about the missing gas meter." Ben went on to explain in more detail about the gas meter ordeal. He was nearing the end of his story when Clara popped out of Unit B with a tall shapely glass of wine.

"Hope you don't mind Chablis with your seafood," said Clara, setting the glass down in front of Amber, just as she would while waiting tables.

"This will be great, thanks," Amber replied, scooting the glass an inch or two to one side.

"I think we have a bottle of Zinfandel in there too, if you'd rather."

"Oh no, please. Don't go out of your way. I'm not much of a drinker and I really don't have any preference. Just a little something to wet my whistle now and then is fine."

The two women smiled at each other, each of them trying a bit too hard to seem friendly. They had been introduced before but hadn't yet spent enough time together to finish sizing each other up.

"Hope you like potato salad and tossed salad with your kabobs," said Clara graciously.

"That sounds delightful." Amber made ready to stand up. "Can I help with anything?"

"You just stay put. Relax. Everything's ready but the shrimp."

"And they'll be done in a couple of minutes," said Ben.

Amber watched Clara walk back inside and said to Ben, "She doesn't seem to be the least bit tipsy."

"Amazing isn't it? That gal couldn't weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds, sopping wet, but she holds her liquor like a lumberjack."

Jack came out with a large bowl of salad in one hand and his gigantic plastic tumbler in the other. Approaching the table he raised his beverage hand to Amber and bid her a falsely pleasant hello. She matched his bogus pleasantness with a counterfeit greeting of her own. Ben watched with nervous anticipation to see what might happen next.

"All moved in then, are you?" Amber asked.

"Almost. We just have to use the kitchen in B for a few more days."

"Yes, I heard. A gas meter went missing on your watch."

"Not on my watch, lady." Jack snapped back. "Hey, what the hell are you insinuating by that?"

"Shrimp's on!" Ben announced loudly, pulling kabobs off the grill and piling them on a plate. He turned and shot a glare at Amber, then another one at Jack. The animosity in the air was nearly palatable. "Man oh man, we're chowing down in style tonight."

Clara stepped out with the potato salad and a glass of wine. She set the salad on the table and stepped aside to sip her wine.

"Get it while the getting's good," Ben crooned. "Have a seat," he said to Clara. "This is no time to be bashful. We've got some serious business to attend to here."

And he was very pleased indeed when they got all the way through dinner without any ugly incidents. Clara brought out more wine and filled Amber's glass without asking. Amber didn't seem to mind, which Ben took as a good sign. Jack went in to pour himself another large portion if his favorite beverage. Ben cleared off the picnic table then followed Jack inside to get a beer, leaving the girls to chat one on one.

"You want a shot?" Jack asked. "We've got tequila, Wild Turkey, or how about a neat little scotch. It's single malt. You'll love it."

"No thanks. The beer will be plenty." He opened the fridge.

"Looks to me like that little gal has got you by the balls there, buddy boy."

"If only you could convince her of that."

Jack emitted a little snort. "Women are like that."

"You can't blame them for trying," said Ben as he took a bottle of beer from the shelf.

"But that shit gets old fast. At a certain point, I start losing patience."

"No point getting upset with them for doing what they do." Ben popped open his beer. "You don't blame the baby for crapping in its pants, do you? You don't hate the cat for coughing up fur balls on the carpet."

Jack let that idea sink in for a moment then shrugged it off and moved toward the front door, jerking his head to one side. "C'mon. I got a few things I wanna show you."

Half an hour later Ben found himself looking through Jack's record collection. He had hundreds of LPs, which he took great pride in. Jack was like that, always had been. He liked to show off all the stuff he had managed to acquire: hats, power tools, specialized kitchen utensils, firearms. And that's what he started showing off next. He took out a little key and opened up his gun display cabinet.

"This is the Winchester my granddad left me when he died." Jack had grown up in Minnesota, the stepson of a big-time outdoorsman. He grew up with guns and fishing poles and camping gear galore.

Ben had been shown the shotgun at least a half dozen times before, but he just went along with his old pal, who had shifted from the first level of intoxication, which he called "the happy stage," to the second level, which he called "the willful stage," some time ago. The third level of intoxication, according to Jack Lambert's personal nomenclature, was known simply as _"invincible."_

"And this Browning here is the rifle I used to bag my first elk." He handed the rifle to Ben. "Feel the balance of that."

Ben had no idea of how he was supposed to do that, but he took the rifle and shouldered it and aimed down the barrel, before promptly handing it back.

"Looks like you're no more interested in firearms than you were when we were kids."

"Nope. I've never owned a gun and never wanted one. Can't think of any good reason to have one. I live in a culture where no guns are required to have a full and imaginative life. Besides, those nasty contraptions have been known to be fatal in the hands of a manic-depressive like me."

"But I remember you had a really good time when I took you out to the shooting range."

Ben remembered the occasion quite clearly, though he didn't remember having a particularly good time. He must've been pretending for Jack's sake. Or maybe he'd been trying to convince himself that he was having a good time. Ben hadn't quite finished sorting that out when the gals came through the living room, carrying their refilled wine glasses and chattering between themselves as they strolled past, scarcely even noticing the boys or the weapons. Ben picked up a fragment of the conversation as they went by, something about Clara's grandmother being a prizewinning quilt maker back home in Tulsa.

Now, Jack took out a handgun that he described as "a nine millimeter Beretta automatic," while nimbly slipping out the clip, clearing the empty chamber, and presenting it to Ben, grip first, with military precision. This time Ben didn't take it. He looked at the handgun and past it, across the room at the bullet hole in Jack's couch.

"You were going to tell me about that bullet hole, remember?" He stepped over to examine the damaged couch more closely.

"Oh, is that right?" Jack clumsily attempted to dodge the question while setting the gun down on the coffee table. By this time he was long past the "happy stage," and pushing the limits of the "willful stage" to the verge of becoming _"invincible."_ Like "Duke" Wayne in an old western flick or Edward G. Robinson in a gangster movie or Sean Connery in a 007 spy thriller, he suddenly rushed at Ben, shoving him with both hands away from the couch. "C'mon, muthafucker," Jack challenged, crouching, circling, his upturned palms and c'mere gesturing fingers reaffirming his feisty invitation.

This had always been his way of inviting someone to a friendly wrestling match on the carpet. As young men they had spent a considerable amount of their drunk-time engaged in that sort of roughhousing and scrapping about. Although Ben was feeling kind of "willful" at the moment, he was no more enthusiastic about wresting with Jack right now than he had been fifteen years ago.

But he did push back. "You're just trying to divert my attention away from that goddamned bullet hole," he barked, standing his ground. "I asked you a simple question, now give me a straight—"

BAM! Suddenly Ben was flat on his ass. Ugh! Struggling to roll over on his stomach while Jack tried to pry back one arm and roll him over on his back. Good thing Jack was totally bombed or Ben would have been pinned to the ground before Clara could come to the rescue. In a matter of moments, she came dashing in with Amber right behind her.

"Jack! Jack, stop it! You big dumb lug, knock it off." Clara put Jack in a headlock, twisting his neck back and away from Ben. Meanwhile, Amber grabbed a fistful of Jack's hair and helped Clara pull him back. She wasn't much of a scrapper but Ben was glad to see she had enough moxie to join in the fray.

Jack didn't put up much of a fight once Clara and Amber got hold of him. He just let go, and they let go, and he backed away from Ben, and Clara asked, "What the hell set him off this time?"

"Hell if I know," Ben replied, rising to his knees and standing upright again. "I just asked where the bullet hole in the couch came from. I guess he doesn't want to tell me."

"Of course not," she declared, slapping her husband lovingly on the back of the head. "Because that happened the night he nearly killed your brother."

Jack rose to his feet and stood there silently staring down at his feet while Clara stepped to the coffee table and picked up Jack's Beretta automatic.

"The idiots were sitting around eating fried chicken last time Matt was in town on business. If what Jack tells me is true, they were sitting on either side of the coffee table, both of them shitfaced drunk, when this fool pulls back on the slide," demonstrating with the handgun pointed up at the ceiling, "and it slips between his fingers."

SNAP went the empty gun in her hand.

"I didn't think it was loaded," said Jack, "thank God it wasn't pointed straight at him when it went off," his tone of voice conveying something akin to remorse—but not nearly as remorseful as Ben thought it should sound.

Ben, who was still reeling from too much beer and physical exertion, was shocked by what he had just heard. Flabbergasted. Actually, more like gob-smacked, considering that he just stood there with his mouth open. He couldn't think of anything to say.

So Clara had to speak up on his behalf. "You. Didn't. Think. Period!" she proclaimed, angrily crinkling her nose at Jack. "That's the problem, yuh freakin moron." Setting the Beretta back down on the table, she turned to Ben and declared, "There's nothing on God's green earth more dangerous than a couple of dumb drunks toying with a firearm."

"Dangerous but also lucky as hell," Jack asserted in his own defense. "Don't forget to mention the lucky part."

"Yeah, I'll grant you that much," said Clara. "You've got an abundance of dumb luck. That's for sure."

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

Rough Trade

Terence and Eli had been living in the cottage for several months. During that time Ben Harper had not seen a female of any age, shape, or color set foot in the place, not once. So naturally it came as a bit of a surprise when he noticed a sexy young woman, wispy and petite, all decked out in spiked heels and scanty dress, go strutting past the front window of his apartment on her way to the cottage. This aroused Harper's curiosity, you might say, and compelled the landlord in him to do a little snooping. From a different vantage point at the side window, he looked on as she took a massive key ring from her handbag and let herself into the building.

Ben was staying mostly at Amber's house at the time and had only stopped by to check the mail and pay a few bills, so he headed back to his desk in the combination crash-pad/home-office he had set up in the spare bedroom. His brother, Lance had moved in a few months ago and was currently in the other bedroom, at his desk, studying economics or finance or some such tedious thing.

Ben poked his head into the room just long enough to ask. "By any chance have you seen a platinum blond woman staying with the Boys in Back?" Eli and Terrence, along with a close little circle of friends, had come to be known as the Boys in Back. Ben didn't remember exactly who had coined the phrase, but he figured it probably had been Lance, because it sounded like something his younger brother might dream up.

"Nope," said Lance without looking up from his work.

The next day Harper stopped in to check his mail and water the trees, which is what he was doing when the same young tart came prancing by wearing the same suggestive outfit as yesterday. As she stepped past he smiled and waved his hand. She acknowledged the gesture with a cursory nod of her chin and nothing more. No smile, no wave, no hello, no introduction, no explanation, no nothing. Maybe she thought Ben was the gardener. Or maybe she didn't care enough to give their brief encounter any thought at all. Judging by the overall look of the gal, he figured it was probably the latter.

A couple of minutes later Ben was out front moving the garden hose, when a sleek black Jaguar pulled into the lot and parked right in front of the Tenant Parking Only sign. Harper stopped what he was doing and watched as a stocky, balding gent emerged from the car. He paused to brush a touch of lint off his fabulous Brooks Brothers suit, and pulled out a comb to smooth down what was left of his hair. He was heading toward the courtyard when Harper asked, "Didn't you notice the sign?"

Slipping his comb into his hip pocket, the man glanced at Ben, at the sign, and back at Ben again—but only for a second—just long enough to raise one hand and flip him off. Ben waited for the jerk to clear the gateway before following him into the courtyard, right at his heels. As they approached the entrance to Harper's apartment, the dapper old dude turned and barked, "The fuck you want with me?"

"Not a thing," Ben replied nonchalantly, lifting both hands to show him both palms at the same time. "I'm just headed inside to call for a tow truck." Then he stepped aside to make room for the guy to go back out to move his car. Meanwhile, Harper parked himself inside at the window, prepared to do a little more snooping. He was curious to see what sort of greeting this guy would receive when that sexy young tramp opened the door for him. When the older gent came knocking at the door, only to be greeted like a business associate, Ben's suspicions were confirmed.

A short time later Lance got in from work and headed directly for the refrigerator. "You want a beer?" he called out to Ben, who was sitting at his desk smoking a cigarette and brooding.

"Not yet. I need to keep a clear head right now. I've got kind of a tricky situation on my hands."

Lance stepped in carrying a bottle. "Oh yeah? What's the trouble?"

"I'm afraid I might have a hooker turning tricks in Unit C," I replied.

"A hooker in the cottage? What the hell are you talking about? No women ever go back there."

"Frank Gamble warned me that something like this might happen. They did it to him, and now it looks like they might be doing it to me." Frank Gamble was a shady real estate broker as well as the previous owner of the property. He had failed to make a complete disclosure of everything wrong the property but had been forthright enough to make a point of telling Ben: Don't let yourself forget for a minute that Pasties is right down the street, and the gals that work in there will turn this place into a brothel, if you give them half a chance.

"Who's they?" asked Lance.

"That platinum blond I mentioned yesterday. Judging by the look of what I just saw, this is exactly the sort of nonsense Gamble was talking about."

Lance cracked a grin and cocked his head to one side. "Go figure."

Ben called up Amber and told her he might be late for supper; he had a rather pressing issue to attend to here.

No, he didn't call the cops. Nor did he go back to the cottage and start banging on the door. He just casually went about his business, moving the garden hose to a bed of flowers, wondering when the Boys in Back had moved an extra bed into their apartment. All of a sudden the front door of the cottage slammed and the platinum blond came storming out in a huff. Adjusting her wig and buttoning her blouse, she dashed off at a furious clip. A minute later the dapper john came out looking confused, flustered, and far more sheepish than Harper would have expected. The man skulked to the gateway and sort of wandered out to his Jag as if in a daze. He gripped the door handle but paused a moment to gather his wits about him before getting in and driving away.

Now Ben was ready for a beer. He went inside and popped one open. After chugging about half the bottle, he leaned against the kitchen counter and looked out the window, just in time to catch a glimpse of that same infernal blond woman, slipping past before he could stop her. He decided to just let her be, to relax and bide his time until one of the Boys in Back came home from work.

Terence was first to get home, and Ben intercepted him in the courtyard. "So, who's the gal I've seen letting herself into your apartment?" Ben asked in deceptively pleasant tones.

"That would be Frosty," Terrence replied. "She needed a place to stay for a while. We didn't think you would mind."

"How long is a while?" Harper asked

Terrence assured him, "Only a week, maybe two."

"So then, what you're telling me is that your friend will only be treating my place like a whorehouse for about the next two weeks. Is that what you're saying?"

Totally shocked and taken aback, he gasped, "What?"

"I was kind of hoping Frosty's fat-assed john would still be here when you got home, but he took off about half an hour ago."

Terence was angry now, shooting dagger glances at the cottage. "I swear to God we made him promise not to turn any tricks while he's here."

"Him? He? Who are we talking about?"

"Well—" Terrence thought for a moment. "Frosty made us promise not to tell— But she's really a he. I mean, like, a transvestite."

_Ah hah! That explains the john's peculiar behavior as he was leaving,_ thought Ben. Meanwhile, he was suggesting to Terence, "Maybe we'd better go inside and have a little chat with him."

"Okay," Terence consented, "provided you pretend to still think he's a girl. He'll brain me if he finds out I told."

They went in together and Terence introduced the landlord to the trickster. Harper explained his situation to this duplicitous young rascal who called himself Frosty Glade, carefully recounting the story the previous owner had told him about the Pasties girls turning the place into a brothel.

Frosty just sat there, totally unmoved, and took it all in with a blank look on his face. Then he swore "on a stack of Bibles" that he would "never to do it again." But Terence and Ben remained skeptical. Neither of them was inclined to believe a word Frosty said. Ben looked at Terence and Terrance looked back at Ben. Then Terrence turned to Frosty and said, "I think you better give me back my key and start gathering your stuff together."

And that was that.

Harper stuck around long enough to watch Frosty hand over the key and leave. Then he rushed over to Amber's place for a late dinner. It never occurred to him that, like the main character in The Terminator, Frosty Glade (or whatever his name was) would be back. Unlike The Terminator, however, Frosty would return only once and fully intact, no missing pieces.

But it wasn't going to happen for quite some time, such a long time in fact that Ben had completely forgotten about him by the time the Boys in Back moved out. He brought in a new renter named Suzette, a tall gangly gal, who did security guard work and led a quiet simple life, seldom causing the landlord any grief at all, until one fateful day...

Life makes a hypocrite of us all, sooner or later. All you have to do is stay alive long enough to allow the Fates, poetic justice, the hand of God, the Karmic ass kicker or whatever you choose to call it, to get around to your turn. For some people the transformation is accompanied by some earth-shaking event and they realize what's happened right away. For others it's more of a gradual process that sneaks up like some wily predator with sharp teeth. In Ben's case, the Fates came to announce his confirmation into the First Order of Egregious Hypocrites in the summer of his thirty-fifth year.

He was working at his desk at the time. His brother had just gotten home from school and gone straight to the fridge for a nice cold beer.

"You want a cold one?" Lance had called from the kitchen.

"Sure," Harper had called back from his desk, "I'll stick around long enough for a short one."

Lance brought in a beer, set it on the desktop, and settled into an extra chair alongside his desk. From his place at the desk, Ben could look out the doorway, through the hall into the living room, and out the front window to the courtyard. And it was from that vantage point that he happened to notice a trim slatternly brunette go charging past the front window, headed out to the street from the cottage. She looked vaguely familiar, but he didn't give her much thought, even though she didn't seem like the sort of person Suzette would ordinarily have in as a guest.

A few moments later the doorbell chimed and Lance went to answer. Ben sat back and watched as the door opened and Suzette appeared, "Some woman just _stole_ my handbag," she frantically declared and then went on chattering excitedly. "She said she was in trouble and asked to use the phone. So I let her in. She called up somebody and started talking, seeming innocent enough, so I stepped into the kitchen to give her a little privacy. Next thing I know, I hear the door shut. I went back to the front room and she was gone, along with my handbag. Good thing I happened to slip my keys in my pocket or she would have gotten off with them too."

By the time Suzette finished her account of the burglary, Ben had walked over to the entryway. "Have you called the cops?" he asked.

She nodded her head in the manner of a strictly law-abiding citizen, one that was very kind and considerate and trusting, but also more than just a little bit naïve. To put it bluntly, Suzette wasn't the brightest piece of china on the shelf.

"Let's go for a little walk," Harper suggested, touching her lightly on the elbow, steering her toward the front gate.

They found the handbag in a neighbor's yard, two doors down the road. The wallet lay in the gutter nearby, her cash and credit cards missing. By this time Ben had remembered precisely who had gone charging past his window. The scoundrel who had made off with Suzette's belongings was none other than Frosty Glade. Ben was certain of it, but he didn't say a word about it to Suzette, sensing that nothing good would come of disclosing too much. The last thing he wanted to do was make a bad situation worse.

"I can lend you some money if you're strapped for cash," Harper offered.

"No, thanks," she replied, "There was so little money involved that it's not the problem," and she went inside to report her stolen credit cards.

Harper found his brother on the couch nursing a beer and watching Jeopardy on TV. Taking a seat on an armchair that Lance had brought in, he told him that they had found the handbag and empty wallet.

"Just between you and me," said Ben, "I know who did it. It was that same sleazy bit of rough trade that was turning tricks back there last year.

"You didn't share that information with Suzette?"

"That would only complicate matters."

"Sounds to me like you're making a of rough trade of your own."

"How so?" Harper asked.

"Lying by omission," Lance flatly replied, "isn't much different than telling a bald-faced lie."

It took a moment to make the connection, but then Ben started to see what his brother was driving at. "You're right. I've traded off a big chunk of my integrity just to save face and avoid inconvenience."

"Yup." Lance winked and grinned.

Ben smiled back, but his smile was a tad cockeyed and tinged with irony. "Who's the bigger whore now?" he said, feeling every bit as low down and contemptible as the two-faced bastard he had become without even noticing. "Frosty or me?"

Lance casually shrugged and swigged his beer. "You're the only one who can answer that question."

Ben thought about all the compromising situations he had found himself in since becoming a landlord, all the little white lies and half-truths he had told, and he heard a voice in the back of his mind that sounded a lot like Amber, saying: _Frank Gamble would be so proud._

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

Sins of the Father

_And here they say that a person consists of desires,  
and as is his desire, so is his will;  
and as is his will, so is his deed;  
and whatever deed he does, that he will reap._  
—Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 7th Century BC

Daylight Saving Time had recently kicked in, so Ben Harper headed directly to the triplex after work. He wanted to see how much of an on-going project he could finish up before nightfall. Inside his apartment, he gave the day's mail a cursory glance then cracked open a beer and started gathering the tools he would need from a toolbox he kept in the hall closet.

The moment he heard _that_ particular cadence of BANGING on his front door, Ben knew exactly who had come to visit. His pleasant mood instantly darkened and his easy-going countenance tightened into a resentful frown. "That'll be Tad," he grumbled to himself as he trudged to the door, wondering what in the world the guy had found to complain about this time.

"Those same assholes were parked in my spot today when I got home," said Tad without so much as a hello.

Evidently, some friends of our across-the-street neighbors had been playing fast and loose with the Winslow's parking place, in spite of the Tenant Parking Only sign that was clearly on display. "What am I supposed to do about it?" Ben asked.

"You could have another talk with the neighbors," Tad suggested. "Tell them—"

"We've been though this before," Ben reminded him. "I can't go telling the neighbors to tell their friends what to do. Sorry. You're going to have to fight your own battle."

"Well, why not put up a fence then? With a gate and a code box like they have at those storage unit places."

_This,_ thought Ben, _from a man who's been taking coursework at several universities for the last ten years. Go figure._ "Do you have any idea what that would cost?" Ben chuckled in amusement. "I'd have to take out a second mortgage half as big as the first.

Tad was full of bright ideas and grandiose delusions. As far as he was concerned, his job was beneath him. His wife wasn't pretty enough for a man of his potential greatness. To hear him speak you'd think he was a professional of some sort, a doctor or lawyer or engineer. He could speak with authority on a broad variety of subjects even though he was going on thirty and still working as an assistant manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Although Tad was as poor as a church mouse, his ego was so inflated that it could have raised the Hindenburg into the heavens, where he evidently spent a good deal of his time, daydreaming. "One of these days," he would fantasize aloud to his wife, Tracy, or to me or to anybody who happened to be listening, "I'm going to have a six-figure income and a mansion on a hilltop and a Mercedes Benz..." and so forth. "One of these days."

At present, however, Tad was still calculating his response to Ben's last statement and growing increasingly red-faced by the moment. "Well, all right then," he angrily concluded. "If you won't do anything about it, I will."

"Hey, before you go over there, you need to chill out," Ben cautioned. "There's no point in getting shot over a parking place." Ben knew for a fact that this particular across-the-street neighbor dealt in contraband and illegal weapons, and didn't suffer fools well. He knew this because the neighbor had been selling him weed on occasion for nearly a year and had once offered to sell him a hot 9mm automatic.

"I have to take Tracy to the doctor soon," Tad replied, averting his eyes in a cowardly manner. "This will have to wait till I can get around to it—" and here his voice deepened with frustration, _"maybe sometime next year!"_

Ben was about to ask about the health of Tad's pregnant wife, but then decided against it, fearing Tad's inevitable reply. He had been constantly complaining about the doctors and test results for months. "This can't be happening!" he had declared repeatedly, his brow deeply knitted with fitful anticipation and self-pity. "The good Lord can't be doing this to me."

Ben Harper was no psychologist, but he had dabbled around in the literature a bit back in college. He thought he was capable of recognizing a deeply troubled man when he came across one. "It's not only about you, Tad," he said with a comic sense of irony.

Less than a week later Ben was at Amber's place, having a quiet dinner at home as was their custom more often than not, when the phone rang. He could tell by the way Amber rolled her eyes as she handed him the receiver that it had to be Tad Winslow at the other end of the line. Less than forty minutes later he found himself poking around under the Winslow's kitchen sink trying to access the shut-off valve.

"You should have called sooner," Ben grumbled as he turned off the water.

"One minute it's just a little drip, and the next thing you know it's pouring out and you can't stop it."

"I'm surprised Tracy didn't mention it to me. She usually stays on top of stuff like this."

Tad's defensive expression and tone of voice changed dramatically to one of worrisome concern. "She hasn't been coming out of the bedroom lately. She's so depressed."

"Well, I hate to tell you this, but I'm not sure I'll have all the parts to repair this tonight."

"Aw, shit! That's just what we need."

"Don't go flying off the handle now. Just keep the faith." A curious, off-the-cuff expression Ben often used, although he hadn't counted himself among the numerous Catholics in the Harper family or joined in on any hippy-dippy peace demonstrations for decades.

Ben removed the handle and crank-stem mechanism while Tad anxiously looked on. "Gasket's fucked, but we already knew that," Ben said. He poked in a pinky finger, turning it back and forth a couple of times. "Feels like the valve seat's okay. That's a good thing. I'll check and see if I have the right gasket. Be right back."

In no time flat Ben was demonstrating how well the faucet was working again. "Thanks," said Tad, and for the first time ever Ben thought he saw a momentary glimmer of genuine appreciation in Tad's eyes. An instant later the man was gazing off into the half distance, lost in a tangle of troubling thoughts involving fetal complications and doctor bills and such.

The very next day, when Ben stopped by after work to check his mail and water the plants, he encountered in the courtyard a substantially younger and notably less gregarious version of Tracy. When he approached, asking if she happened to be Tracy's sister by any chance, she introduced herself as Linda. "I've come halfway across the country to help with the baby for a few weeks."

"How's Tracy doing?" Ben asked.

Linda shook her head and looked down, clearly distressed. "Not so well."

"Tad tells me she's suffering from depression."

Linda looked up at Ben again, on the brink of tears. "Poor thing. She's so depressed about what's to become of the baby that she's not taking care of herself.

"I'm sorry to hear that." He liked Tracy a lot and was sincerely worried about her yet powerless to do much of anything to help.

"She looks like she hasn't been out of bed in a month. Even the doctors are worried, and you know how _they_ are. But they assure us they see a lot of this in cases where the baby is expected to have severe birth defects.

"What a shame. She's too nice a person to deserve such an awful upheaval in her life."

"It's all so sad that I can hardly stand it. It must be a living hell for her."

"I can't imagine," said Ben with a little shudder. "How about Tad? How's he holding up? I saw him last night and he was a regular train wreck."

"Tad exists in a world of his own. He's no help at all. In fact, he's more of a hindrance."

A few days later Ben was busy sweeping off the patio when Tracy's sister brought the baby home on her own. Ben wondered what had become of the child's parents. He called out to Linda, but she acted like she didn't hear him and slipped inside. A short time later she appeared with a pack of smokes in her hand and wandered toward the picnic table. Ben set aside his broom and pulled out a cigarette of his own.

"I couldn't help but notice you coming in alone," said Ben, silently offering her a light. "What happened to Tracy and Tad?"

She nodded _yes_ to the light then shook her head _no_ in response to his question. "It's not really my place to say."

He held a light to her cigarette and then to his own. "Postpartum depression?" he asked.

She looked away and blew out a stream of smoke.

"I'm going to find out sooner or later," he asserted in a friendly, non-threatening way. "You may as well just go ahead and tell me."

"I suppose you're right, but it's not easy for a girl to admit that her big sister's been institutionalized. And that her dim-wit brother-in-law nearly got himself thrown in jail."

"You're kidding!"

"I'm not kidding. I was there. I saw it all. When they showed Tracy the baby she went bonkers. They had to call in the shrink. I mean a certified psychiatrist who has the power to lock her up without anyone's consent. Tad nearly went through the roof. They escorted him out of the hospital, throwing a fit the whole way. I don't know where he's gone off to now, probably some cave or monastery, judging by the way he's been talking lately. The man has completely lost his mind."

"Good thing you came, Linda. Looks like you're the hero who's come to save the day."

Linda laughed him off, saying "Hardly."

"How bad is it? I mean—"

"Come in and see for yourself if you like."

"I dunno. Maybe I'd rather have you describe him to me first. Prepare me for the shock."

"You're familiar with Star Trek, right?" she asked and, when Ben nodded in the affirmative, she went on, "I really hate to say it, but Little Thadius sort of reminds me of what I'd expect a baby Klingon to look like."

"All right, I've got to see this for myself."

Ben and Linda snubbed out their cigarettes in the ashtray and went inside. Linda kept him back a distance, so they wouldn't disturb the baby's sleep. Little Tad lay on his back in the cradle, swaddled in blankets. Nothing but his head was exposed. Poor little guy, he looked just like Linda had described him—the son of Worf, only completely bald and pink as a Valentine.

"It's an extra bone," Linda explained the child's condition as best she could. "His little head somehow developed an extra bone plate that's wedged in behind his brow. It's putting pressure on his brain. The doctors say it's a life-threatening condition with some big impossible name, and it's going to require at least two major surgeries to correct it."

"Wow." Ben was speechless, horrified by the whole sorrowful situation. It took a minute to compose his thoughts, but he finally managed to tell her, "Well, all I can say is I wish the whole bunch of you the best of luck. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

A couple of days later, Ben happened to bump into Tad in the courtyard. Much to Ben's surprise, Tad addressed him in the most refreshingly courteous manner. The edgy tone of voice was gone. He seemed calm and resigned, serene as a Hindu monk, at peace with himself for the first time ever. "Do you think it's true that a wrathful God would punish a child for his father's sins?" he asked Ben straight away, as if that thought alone had been occupying his mind for days on end.

"No, not really," said Ben. "No more than I believe in the tooth fairy."

"Because I'm pretty much convinced," he went on as if Ben hadn't yet responded, "that God has singled me out for punishment. I understand that I deserve it, and why. And somehow, strangely, I'm okay with that. I'm perfectly willing to assume full responsibility as long as that innocent little boy inside there comes though this all right." And with a small gesture he indicated that "there" meant inside Unit A, in a cradle, swaddled in blankets.

"Linda tells me they already have his first operation scheduled." Ben remarked, hoping to change the subject. "Do you know if Tracy's due for release anytime soon?"

But Tad wasn't listening. He didn't hear a word Ben said. Instead, he asked abruptly, "Do you believe in karma then? You know, the old karmic kick in the butt?"

"I'm more of a secular humanist," said Ben. "I don't necessarily believe or disbelieve in sky fairies or wrathful gods who would punish a child for the sins of its father. I don't really get off on all that mystical stuff. As far as I can tell, poetic justice is about the only mysterious force in the universe that makes any sense at all."

Tad was listening again now because I was back on topic, on the same wavelength, you might say. Giving Ben's statement a moment's thought, he said, "Poetic justice: Isn't that about the same as karma?"

"On a fundamental level, yes, I suppose you could say that," Ben answered with a playful grin, "only without the religious implications." He paused a moment to let that sink in and then went on to say, "Oh, and by the way, I don't think it's a good idea to take the Bible or any other ancient texts too literally; the men who wrote them were living in the Iron Age and believed all sorts of crazy stuff."

"Hmmm," Tad mused, in a manner that made it clear to Ben that he had stopped listening again. "Poetic justice, eh? That's food for thought." And with that the conversation ended, as Tad turned around and, totally preoccupied, stepped back inside his apartment.

A few days later Ben noticed Linda accompanying Tracy through the front gate, but they didn't stop to exchange pleasantries on that occasion. Nor did anyone have anything much to say for the next few weeks. The only signal Ben received from the Winslow household was that all the curtains and drapes remained closed at all times.

Linda just vanished somewhere along the way. Ben seldom saw the others, and when he did they averted their eyes to avoid conversation. They even went so far as to put the next three rent checks in envelopes, leaving them in Ben's mailbox on the first of each month. He wondered how they were doing and could only assume they must be all right, or else he would've probably heard about it.

Over the next few months, he only saw the entire Winslow family as a group on two occasions. The first time Tad had apparently assumed the role of doting daddy, unwaveringly dutiful and dedicated to both wife and son. And he was so pleasant and accommodating toward Ben that he almost didn't recognize him. What a spectacular transformation!

The next time Ben saw the three of them together, they came parading into the courtyard like a squad of cheerleaders right after the game-winning touchdown. Ben hadn't seen Tracy so bubbly and vivacious for nearly a year.

"The last operation was a total success," Tracy called out excitedly. "The doctors say he's going to be fine."

Ben was sitting on the picnic table with his feet on the bench, sipping a beer. So, he was fully prepared to join in the celebration. Tracy waved him over, "C'mere. You gotta see," she said, proudly displaying the little guy like a prize poodle at a photo shoot after the awards ceremony. "Here's my sweet little Boodlekins," Tracy cooed, touching the baby lightly on the chin, which elicited a big dual-toothed grin from Little Tad.

Ben stepped over and and took a good long look. Aside from a few prominent scars that the boy's hair would eventually cover, the little tyke looked perfectly fine. Just as healthy and happy and pink as could be. "I'm _so glad_ for you guys. I'm just ecstatic."

"Just what exactly do you have to be _ecstatic_ about," said Tad in cynical tones reminiscent of days gone by. "Our family ordeal has _nothing_ to do with you."

"Taaad! Don't be like that," said Tracy with a frown. "It's just an expression. He didn't mean any—"

Winslow emitted a short laugh composed of one sharp syllable: _Ha!_ "He's nothing but the fucking landlord, for Christ sake. And I'll behave as I see fit, thank you very much."

And just like that, Ben knew for certain: The old Tad was back, and he didn't appear to be very concerned about wrathful Gods singling him out for punishment anymore. Clearing his throat, he tapped his wristwatch a couple of times. "It's not getting any earlier," he snapped at Tracy impatiently. "And we have things to do."

"What if I'm not ready?" Tracy retorted sharply. "What if I'm still having fun showing off the baby and chatting with Ben?"

It was just like old times—the return of The Bickersons. So much for Tad's brief tenure as a pleasant and accommodating husband, father, and neighbor. So much for his quirky karma prompting any spiritual transformation or permanent change. So much for Tracy ever having her way without having to wage war with the man in the process. So much for all of that.

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

Three Intruders

It was a cold, blustery afternoon in the dead of winter, when Ben Harper parked his little pickup out front of Osborne Tires & Brakes. Burying both hands in the pockets of his parka, he trudged across the ice encrusted parking lot. The passage from cold outdoors to steamy indoors caused his glasses to fog over. Slipping them off, he stepped across the showroom to the counter and asked the cashier for Dean. The cashier showed him back to the manager's office, where an illegal transaction was scheduled to transpire in the next few minutes.

The two men exchanged greetings as Dean stood up and reached across his desk to shake Ben's hand. "Wow, you look really different without your glasses," said Dean, a husky fellow of average height with broad shoulders, who always batted fourth in the order on their summer-league softball team. "How's life been treating you lately?"

"Same shit, different day," Ben replied, putting his glasses on and taking a seat opposite Dean at the desk. "I've had an apartment vacant for over a month. Can't seem to find any takers, no matter how much money I throw away on advertising. It's beginning to really stress me out."

"I was just talking to somebody..." Dean's voice trailed sway as the gazed off into the half distance, trying to remember. Meanwhile, he slid open his top drawer and extracted from it a bag of Colombian. Casually tossing the baggie over to Ben's side of the desk, he said, "Wait a minute." Then he grabbed the phone receiver, punched the intercom button, and said into the mouthpiece, "Send Cutter in here for a minute."

Meanwhile, Ben unrolled the baggie and stuck his nose into the opening, taking a big whiff. "This ought to do the trick," he thought aloud. Dean gave a little wink as he cradled the receiver. Ben gave Dean a thumbs-up and resealed the baggie. Leaning back in his seat, he dug a wad of cash out of his pocket and tossed it on the desk.

Dean quickly snatched up the cash and starting counting. By the time Cutter opened the door and poked his head in, both the money and the weed had been tucked away into their respective pockets. "Whaddup?" asked Cutter, giving Ben a somewhat suspicious once over.

"Didn't you tell me Monique is looking for an apartment?" asked Dean.

"Yeah," said Cutter, who was smaller and leaner than his boss, and wore an identical name-embossed work shirt. "She needs a two bedroom, even though her kid stays with his dad most of the time. And it's got to be on the top floor."

"Well, Ben here tells me he's got a nice little standalone cottage available. And I can tell you I've partied over there and it's a nice place."

For the first few weeks after Monique Monet signed the rental agreement and moved in, this friend of a friend, the one who called himself Cutter, only came around now and then for a few hours at a time. He stayed through the night maybe three or four times. Ben was acutely aware of his comings and goings because he rode a Harley Sportster that generated a very loud and distinctive sound, which the nosey neighbor in Unit A reported on regularly.

By midway through the following month, however, Cutter was cruising his Sportster through the courtyard to a parking place beside the cottage on a daily basis. When Ben asked him if he was planning to move in, he claimed he was only going to stay for a few weeks, till he could find a new crib.

Naturally, the renters in Unit A complained even louder about the motorcycle noise, so Ben went next door to the cottage to tell Cutter he had to stop driving the damn thing through the courtyard. But when got there he caught Cutter rebuilding his engine in the kitchen. The table and chairs had been set out on the back porch and in their place sat the Harley frame with its metallic bowels strewn out all over the floor.

Surprisingly, there wasn't a drop of fluid nor a speck of grease to be seen anywhere. Cutter conducted his motorcycle mechanics in a nearly surgical environment. Ben was impressed, and having been a motorcycle owner himself some years ago, he remembered parking his bike in the kitchen to keep it safe at night. So the rebuild in the kitchen didn't bother him a bit.

The thing that irked Ben was an unauthorized kitten that went scampering like a dark omen across the carpet to the sofa and up to the window sill and then, on prickly little claws, about halfway up the window screen. Vaguely wondering why on earth Cutter would have the window open in the middle of winter, Ben asked, "What's with the cat?"

Cutter explained, "It belongs to Monique's sister." Then with a cunning little grin and narrowed eyes, he set his wrench aside and sauntered over to the window. With a quick sweeping motion he gripped the cat in one hand and tore it loose from the window screen, _RRRRRIP._ Then he tossed it to the floor like a discarded garment and declared, "We're only kitty-sitting for the day."

Ben reminded Cutter of his policy regarding pets on the premises. And Cutter promptly informed him that he should take it up with Monique. "Ben," he said bluntly, "I'm just a guest here."

Go figure.

That evening at Amber's house, as Ben and his lady friend prepared their dinner, Amber told Ben that, when it comes to business matters, he's too much of a blabbermouth. "You have a bad habit of telling too much. And it puts you at a disadvantage every time."

She thought he should stop wearing his heart on his sleeve, because such behavior exposes his soft underbelly and makes him vulnerable. She also worried that his naked candor might be dangerous, especially for a landlord with crazy tenants living right next door. "As my uncle used to say: It's really all about self-preservation; the rest is just window dressing."

"I know what you're driving at," Ben replied. "You think I should be more cool and collected, more of a pokerfaced shark, like my old pal, Frank Gamble," Gamble being the real estate shyster who had sold him the place.

Amber was a schoolteacher, the sort of professional who thought it best not to bring one's emotions into the arena under any circumstances, ever. "As far as I'm concerned, it is always a good idea to take the most diplomatic approach and keep one's emotions in check."

Which made Ben laugh out loud. "That sort of behavior coming from a guy like me would be totally out of character. I'm not a politician. I don't want to be quiet and cagey. And I would never be one of those businessmen who never discloses a goddamn thing and always seems to be concealing something, even when he's not."

But the next morning he woke up with a change of heart. He could see clearly now what Amber had been trying to say. That afternoon he made an honest effort to follow Amber's advice about keeping his cool and not talking too much when he went to visit Monique. When she answered the door, he told her simply that he needed to talk to her and asked if he could come inside.

Naturally, Monique was a tad apprehensive, so he assured her it was no big deal. He took a seat on the sofa and opened the Manila folder that contained copies of her newly revised lease agreement. Then he calmly explained that if Cutter intended to stay any longer, he was going to have to start paying his own way.

"How much are you gonna raise the rent?" asked Monique.

"If Cutter is still occupying the premises at the beginning of next month," Ben answered frankly, "the rent will go up by fifteen dollars a month. And more importantly, from now on he'll be expected to park his Harley out front like all the other renters. No more cruising through the courtyard."

Monique's response to the news was precisely what Ben might have expected from a twenty-five year old woman who's going on seventeen. She instantly cast herself into the role of the victim, telling him, "I've been trying to get Cutter to move in with me for years. And now that I finally persuaded him, the goddamn landlord has to come along and throw a wrench in the works."

She burst into tears, sobbing profusely. Ben asked her nicely whether or not she intended to sign the contract. She told him he could go shove the goddamn contract up his ass. "We'll just move out!" she cried out between sobs.

"You're still obliged to give me a thirty-day notice," Ben replied in his most businesslike manner, "if you expect to get back your security deposit."

"Why don't you just go fuck yourself," Monique suggested. Then she gave him a very dark, looking-down-the-barrel-of-a-shotgun glare and demanded, "Get the hell out of here!"

As he gathered up the unsigned contracts and rose to his feet, she rushed ahead and flung open the door, presumably, so that she could have the pleasure of slamming the damn thing right behind him as he stepped outside.

Go figure.

The next day was warm and bright, nice enough for watering, so Ben headed around behind the cottage to start the hose. The moment he came through the gate, he sensed that something was afoul. And right then a fierce bark and furious growling startled him into alertness.

The barking came from a mangy mutt that was tethered to the leash. The leash was wound tightly around the base of a cherry tree near the back corner of the yard. The beast was blackish red in color, built like a hyena, with an overlarge head and the face of a Tasmanian devil.

This all happened in a flash and, as Ben stepped onto the lawn, he heard the demon lapdog's evil twin growling at him from a position between a pair of teardrop-shaped evergreen trees. This one was loose and standing about ten feet away, baring gnarly teeth. When Ben turned to face the second one, it stiffened its posture and glared at Ben, ears drawn back, muzzle fixed in a snarl. Raising its hackles, the animal squatted down low on his haunches, digging in with its back paws.

So Ben hunched down too, low enough to touch the ground, and showed the dog his teeth. One thing he had learned as a kid, after getting nipped several times on the calves, was that you never want to run from angry frightened animals. It's always better to stand your ground and stare the animal down. Ben clenched both fists tightly and growled at the dog.

By this time his heart was pounding like mad. Everything seemed to be happening very slowly. The dog continued to growl and Ben continued to growl back. Meanwhile, he took one step back and shuffled to his left two steps, sideways, headed toward the gate.

The devil's lapdog attempted a tentative three-step advance, but Ben lurched at it and shook a fist, hollering: "HEY! Back off!" And it did back off, barking now for the first time. Ben barked back and growled and sidestepped another two strides.

The dog seemed to understand now that the threat was passing, and it eased its hackles down. It stopped growling presently but continued to glare. Just to play safe, Ben walked backward clear to the gate, keeping a hard eye fixed on the dog while he unlatched the gate and backed through. As the latch clicked shut he paused to take a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. Then, turning on one heel, he hurried inside to call the animal shelter. Less than an hour later the dogcatcher removed the devil's lapdogs, one evil twin at a time.

Needless to say, when Cutter turned up shortly thereafter, he totally came unglued when Ben informed him that his dogs had been taken to the pound. "What the fuck did you go and do that for?"

"You had no business bringing them here in the first place."

"But you told Monique I have to start paying rent, so I—"

"She refused to sign the contract, man. I was half expecting her to start moving out today."

"Okay, okay. Just so you know: We ain't going nowhere."

Ben just shrugged him off and headed over to Amber's place for dinner.

The next day Ben received a phone call from his friend Dean, who informed him, or rather forewarned him, that Cutter was on the warpath—talking shit about Ben, making threats. Dean told him, "You better be careful. That Cutter is a vicious little hombre. He knows martial arts and could slice a person to ribbons in half a heartbeat with that Bowie knife of his. You don't want to mess with that dude."

Ben thanked his friend for the warning and hung up the phone. He remembered Cutter had mentioned his martial arts training some time ago, but this was the first he'd heard of a Bowie knife. It occurred to him now that calling the dog pound might not have been such a good idea.

The eviction process can be a harrowing experience. But Ben was learning fast that there are times when a landlord has to take a stand. The trick is to be decisive and act fast. When Monique failed to pay her rent on time, Ben sent a three-day notice by certified mail. It was returned at the end of the week, stamped REFUSED. By then, however, he had gone downtown to the courthouse and filed the eviction papers. The sheriff's deputies posted the eviction notice on Monique's door the same day the three-day notice came back in the mail.

Go figure.

Two weeks later they stood before the judge, where Ben discovered that Monique Monet was a seasoned pro when it came to the art of scamming landlords. She knew all the legal angles and somehow managed to hoodwink the judge into granting her another two weeks, so she would have ample time to prepare for her move. Ben complained that the judge was giving her a month of free rent at his expense, but the judge went ahead and did it anyway.

After that, Monique and Cutter mostly hunkered down in the cottage. Ben steered clear of the triplex as much as he could. They did cross paths a few times and each time was uncomfortable for both parties. So they avoided each other as best they could until the end of March.

When Ben stopped by after work to check his mail, he found Monique loading a pickup with Cutter's stuff. Ben looked around for Cutter but he was nowhere to be seen. As Monique and Ben passed each other in the courtyard, Ben averted his eyes and they lighted on her little boy instead. Ben smiled and the boy frowned. Ben was not surprised but he was a little disappointed, because he had never been anything but kind to the child. His disappointment must have registered as disapproval to Monique, because she stopped dead in her tracks and shouted at him. "What are you looking at, you freak?"

"Just saying hello. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Who me?" Monique wheeled around and launched into another histrionic rampage. "A problem? Other than losing the love of my life and getting railroaded out of my home, everything in my life is just peachy! My problems are nothing compared to the problems you're about to start having when Cutter gets here."

Ben just buttoned his lip and kept walking, which seemed to make Monique even madder. She shouted after him: "Don't you walk away when I'm talking to you!"

He turned back long enough to remind her: "Everything that needs to be said has already been said, so there's no point in wasting your breath."

"I just wanted to let you know," she informed him in her inimitably insolent and condescending manner, "that we're having a big-league blow-out tonight—a sticking-it-to-the-landlord bash. Cutter invited all his biker friends and told them to be sure to bring their sledgehammers. And you're _NOT_ invited."

That got Ben's attention. But he wasn't too worried. He could tell by her shrewd eye gleam and smirking pout that Monique was just messing with his head for her own amusement.

All he could do was shake his head and blow her off, thinking to himself: _Wow. What a piece of work this one is._ He didn't bother to check up on their party that night, because he was confident that his nosey next-door neighbor would call the police at the first sign of any disturbance.

After work the next day, Ben went straight to the triplex and found a few people loading pickup trucks out front. Checking for mail, he unlocked the door and went inside, where he had his desk set up in the front room, right in front of a large picture window that faced the courtyard. From there he could monitor what was going on without making himself too conspicuous.

After Monique and her friends finished loading up, they all left except for Cutter. Ben saw him march up to the door and pound on it a few times. The minute Ben opened the door, Cutter tore into him like a rabid badger: "Hey, fucker, what's this I hear about you talking shit to my old lady?"

"I haven't been talking shit to your old lady," Ben explained. "In fact, I've been as polite as a cub scout to Monique and her son the whole time they've been here. She's the one who started getting aggressive."

"That that's not the way she tells it." Cutter's response to Ben's explanation was nearly as volatile and immature as Monique's had been. Right away, he started flying off the handle. When he started pulling at the latch, Ben pushed open the screen door and stepped outside. Realizing right away that he should have put a coat on, he thought about inviting Cutter inside but then promptly changed his mind. He would rather freeze than let that man inside his place right now. "She says you were giving Trey a funny look, and when she called you on it, you started being aggressive and disrespectful. And I'm not gonna tolerate that, you understand?"

"BULLSHIT!" Ben shouted, starting to lose his temper now, "She's jerking your chain, man. Can't you see she's making a tool of you?"

Which only succeeded in firing Cutter up even more. "Fucking perverted old landlords are all the same. Peeking through the bathroom window while she's showering."

"She said that too?" Ben was astonished at the nerve of the woman. "Well, it's not true. She's lying through her teeth."

"She's been talking to a lawyer about filing a lawsuit," Cutter said, inching closer and closer to Ben till they were standing toe to toe.

" _Fine!_ Go file you're fucking lawsuit. Just get your ass off my property. _NOW!"_

"I ain't going noplace till you give me Monique's deposit money." Cutter asserted firmly, unzipping his coat and revealing to Ben a little glimpse of his Bowie knife at his hip.

Ben belted out a laugh and proceeded undeterred, yelling his fool head off. "That's preposterous! You people were evicted. The security deposit was forfeited to cover part of your unpaid rent."

"But we didn't damage anything, motherfucker!" shouted Cutter, his face turning a deep, vein-bulging purple. "We were only here for three months."

Ben bent over forward at the waist so as to meet Cutter eye to eye. "That's beside the point. You didn't pay your rent!"

"No this is the point," Cutter screamed wildly, suddenly pulling his knife and waving its massive blade at Ben. "We're getting that money back or I'm gonna take it out of your hide."

Ben took a deep gulp and one giant step backward, soberly suggesting, "Maybe we should try to resolve this matter sometime at a later date."

Cutter also must have noticed things were getting out of hand, because he backed off as well, looking quite relieved and a little confused as to what just happened. Putting the knife back in its sheaf, he asked Ben, "Why would you want to go pissing me off like that?"

Ben didn't exactly apologize. "Hey, you're pretty good at pissing people off too."

"No worries," said Cutter. "For a fucking honky landlord, I guess you ain't such a bad guy."

"Well, I assure you that I would NEVER do any of those awful things Monique said."

Cutter nodded his chin in concurrence and admitted, "Sometimes she tends to get a little carried away."

"I've been guilty of doing the same thing," Ben replied. "Sometimes I get so caught up in managing these damned apartments that I start turning everything into a matter of life and death. When, in reality, it's just one small aspect of a mostly happy life."

"Looks like we both need to learn how to do a better job of choosing our battles," Cutter concluded.

"You got that right," said Ben. "This property is important to me, and it deserves to be protected and preserved. But none of this shit is worth putting my life on the line. In fact, to do so would only serve to defeat the whole purpose of the enterprise."

"Good thing you realized that when you did," said Cutter, "because there's no telling what I mighta done, if you didn't back off when you did."

Which prompted Ben to think: _Good thing I realized what a loudmouthed idiot I can be, standing there screaming my fool head off, vulnerable as hell without even realizing what a touchy situation I had gotten myself into._

Which in turn left him wondering just how close he had come to getting his throat cut. He stood there shivering for a moment before inviting Cutter inside to take a couple of hits off his peace pipe.

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

The Road to Lake Mirage

1

"That's cutting it pretty close, wouldn't you say?" Ben asked. He was seated at his desk in the living room, with a pleasant view of the courtyard through a large picture window.

"We'll have plenty of time," Randy answered. "The lake is only about two hundred miles away." Slouching on the couch with his snakeskin boots on the coffee table, he had a guitar cradled in his lap and was nimbly running his fingers up and down the frets, practicing blues scales.

Ben took a swig of his beer and said, "Well, I have to admit the annual Lake Mirage Battle of the Bands would be good publicity, especially if you win. But two hundred miles is a long way to go when you just finished loading equipment at three o'clock in the morning."

"Hey, at three in the morning I'm just getting started," Randy replied with a grin, and as an afterthought added, "Toss in an eight ball of sham and anything's possible." He struck a bright chord on the guitar, _BLING,_ and then went back to practicing scales.

Never one to be bashful, Randy's band mate, Pat, knocked rapidly and came bounding in with his furious daughter propped on one hip like a wailing pumpkin. "This little girl needs her diaper changed," he announced, plopping the most recent addition to his family on the kitchen table and opening the diaper bag.

Pat and Ben exchanged hellos and whatcha-been-up-tos as Randy sat squeamishly pinching his nose. Then Pat proceeded to change the baby's diaper, carefully attending to the rash that had been causing the child so much discomfort. By the time he recapped the ointment and tossed the soiled diaper into the garbage can, the baby's sharp cries had toned down to slobbery whimpers.

Pat sat the baby up on top of the table, and Randy momentarily unpinched his nose—just long enough to take a couple of tentative sniffs and say: "Man, you gotta get that stink bomb outta here."

Taking a pink washcloth from the bag, Pat turned to the sink and turned on the tap. "First I've gotta wipe all the goobers off this little girl's face." An action which, predictably, sent the little one into another raging fit.

Meanwhile, Randy set aside his guitar and stamped across the room to the kitchenette, still pinching his nose. Reaching into the garbage ever-so-carefully, like an explosives expert unearthing a land mine, he extracted the stinky diaper with in a pincer-like, two-fingered grip and carried it at arm's length out the front door.

"Thanks for pitching in and lending a hand," Pat said in sarcastic tones to Randy's back as the screen door slammed behind him.

Pat stepped over and pushed the door shut then turned back to his bag of tricks. "What's with him?" he asked Ben, handing the wee one a junior-sized baby bottle of fruit juice then popping open a jar of green baby food.

"He's just pissed at you about the battle of the bands."

"You saw what a disaster it was last year."

"Yep. But Randy went and told some chick that she's gotta be there to see him play. And you know how he is when he's got the hots for some new gal."

"Same thing every time," Pat said with a mocking laugh. "Love at first sight!"

When Randy came back in, Pat waited for him to get situated again and then said to him, "I'm never doing that bullshit battle of the bands again. So don't even bother to try to talk me into it. If you're so determined to do the damn gig, you're going to have to find someone to fill in for me."

"It's a done deal," Randy replied, nervously fingering the fret board of his guitar, "Drake Girard is sitting in for you. So you go ahead and enjoy your day off with the family."

Pat just shrugged him off with a callous grin, although Ben could see that he was angry and maybe a little hurt by Randy's impetuous dismissal. "You know, Randy, for such a loveable guy you sure can be a fucking hard ass sometimes."

"Right back at'cha," Randy growled, without looking up from his guitar.

Ben looked on as the fingers of Randy's left hand scurried along the fret board like a mountain goat darting nimbly along the ridge of a sheer cliff.

Pat asked Ben, "Do you mind if I jump in the shower?" He and Jenny lived on the outskirts of town, so having Ben's mid-town crash pad available was a welcomed convenience, and the shower was an added bonus.

"Go for it," said Ben. "I suppose Jenny will be stopping by for the car."

Pat nodded as he wiped off the baby's chin with her tiny plastic-coated spoon. "She might be running a little late. Her ride needs to make a stop on the way. So, if you don't mind—"

"Not a bit," said Ben, rising from his place at the desk. Even though he was supposed to be watering trees and sweeping the courtyard this afternoon, he figured it would probably be more fun to goof around with the baby. "I like other people's children..." he said aloud and then silently finished the thought to himself: _in measured doses._

"Don't you and Amber want to have kids someday?" asked Pat.

"I like to think of my writings as the children of my imagination," Ben answered, about half seriously, "and I'm pretty dedicated to them right at the moment." Approaching the table, he reached out to take the spoon from Pat's hand.

Pat handed over the spoon and baby food. Then he placed both palms together before his face in an Asian gesture of thanks and bowed his head, saying, "You're a very sensible man, Ben Harper." This with the weary, somewhat haggard expression of a freshly minted new dad spreading across his face.

"No. I just had to learn to supervise a bunch of little brothers and sisters before I had a chance to finish growing up, so I have a bit of an aversion to the dynamics of family life." He scooped out a small mouthful of whipped spinach and eases it into the baby's mouth. "I know in my heart that family life would inevitably mean the end of my favorite hobby."

"Well, me and Jenny sure do appreciate the help," Pat said, patting Ben on the shoulder. Then he dashed off to his car for a change of clothes. If he was going to be a glamorous nightclub rock star, he needed to look the part.

Ben scooped one spoonful after another into the baby's mouth, which worked a lot like a suction device, efficiently slurping down each measured portion of green mash. After a while she emitted a short piercing cry and spat the food back into the spoon a couple of times before finally ingesting it. Ben assumed she was either bored or full, so he started making airplane sounds and flying the spoon back and forth before her watchful eyes a few times prior to landing it in her mouth. Which seemed to amuse the child long enough to shovel in a few more bites.

Pat came back in and passed quietly through the living room to the bath. Randy scarcely glanced up from his guitar. The baby stopped eating so Ben handed her the tiny juice bottle, rinsed off the spoon in the sink, and tossed what little was left of the spinach in the trash.

Presently, he heard the water heater fire up and Pat starting to exercise his singing voice with a series of gradually rising notes that echoed in the bathroom and penetrated the wall with amazing clarity. Then Pat suddenly belted out a horrible guttural shriek that sounded like nothing Ben had ever heard coming out of a human being. Originating way down at the base of the diaphragm, the sound rose like an eruption issuing from Pat's powerful vocal cords, breaking into the open air like the gruesome peal of a disemboweled banshee.

"Egads," Ben said to the baby, knowing good and well that she couldn't understand a word he said, "I wonder if he realizes how awful that sounds to the casual bystander." The baby offered up no opinion on the matter. She just sat staring at the empty baby-food jar in his hand. Evidently, her daddy's horrifying death peal was nothing new to her. It didn't have any effect on her at all.

"It's just some exercises we all do," said Randy. "It helps us keep from shredding our voices."

"I never heard you do anything like that."

"That's cause I usually go out to the car by myself and do them right before the show starts." He ran through a few more scales then got up and packed the guitar into its case. When Pat came out of the bath, Randy went in to primp up a bit before the gig.

"Jenny shouldn't be too long," Pat assured Ben as he finished brushing out his great sorrel mane. "I'll call and see if she's on the way before we head out."

"Don't worry about it," Ben countered, lifting the baby off the table and setting her down on the carpet in the living room.

Randy came out of the john, still patting down an obstinate lock of hair. "We're gonna rock their world tonight," he exclaimed, slapping Pat on the back as if he'd completely forgotten how angry and disappointed he'd been about fifteen minutes ago. He polished off his beer and gathered up a few things on the way out. Pat thanked Ben once more for watching the wee one, and they were gone.

Ben sat down opposite the baby, crossed his legs, and they played pat-a-cake for a while. She cooed and bubbled exactly the same as his little sister and brothers, so many years ago. Her round little bulging belly was so irresistible that Ben just had to poke it with his index finger and watch her giggle and bounce. After about three pokes she belched and spit up a few spoonsful of green vomit, which Ben quickly whisked away with the feeding towel. Having been expecting the child to throw up all along, he had kept the towel handy. He was an old hand at this sort of thing. People told him he would be a terrific father someday, but he knew better. He and Amber had both come to the realization that other people's children are the best of children, because sooner or later somebody takes them home.

2

Things had gone smoothly all morning for Ben and Amber, mostly because he had moderated his drinking the night before. They had gotten up in their own good time and had a leisurely breakfast then loaded up the camping gear. An eight-lane freeway turned into a four-lane highway, and eventually Ben turned off on a twisty two-lane highway that climbed into the forest. The road to Lake Mirage always seemed shorter and infinitely more thrilling than the long, tedious drive back to town.

"Gotta love it," Ben proclaimed cheerfully, rounding a sharp curve, perhaps, a bit too fast. "There's nothing like the open road to revitalize your spirits."

"I hate these narrow, windy roads," Amber replied, nervously glancing out at the precipitous roadside ledge just outside her window and then over at him with an expression that said: SLOW DOWN NOW.

Easing off the accelerator, Ben grumbled something under his breath about spoilsports always ruining his fun.

"I heard that," said Amber, "and you better be careful or I'll make you hand over the keys."

"Not if you want to get there before midnight, you won't."

"Keep jerking my chain and I'll do it just to spite you," Amber asserted with schoolteacher-like authority. "It's my car and MY prerogative."

"Sometimes I wonder about you, Amber," Ben observed in a critical tone of voice. "You buy yourself a slick little vehicle with a great big engine and then want to drive it like Grandma's old station wagon on the way to church Sunday morning."

"Only when you're doing the driving," Amber retorted with a mocking laugh as she reached out and turned the stereo up precisely the right amount to make easy conversation untenable. She watched the pine trees and wildflowers going by. Ben turned the air conditioner up a notch, wishing he had brought his truck so he could drink a beer and knowing all the while that that's exactly why Amber had insisted on using her car. As much as he disliked being manipulated in this manner, he knew she only did these things for his own good, so he usually did his level best to play along with her little shenanigans.

For the rest of his life Ben would never forget what happened next: they were on a long straightaway, listening to AC/DC with the volume so loud that he didn't hear an ambulance approaching from up ahead. He only noticed the emergency lights flashing as it hurled toward him and whipped past. Moments later they came upon a line of parked vehicles and a gang of people assembled alongside the road near a second ambulance. And there in the middle of it all was Randy's very familiar blue Mazda pickup in a mangled heap.

Before Ben could fully grasp the gravity of the situation, Amber exclaimed, "Hey, look! Isn't that your brother over there?"

Expecting to see Randy, Ben was shocked to see Lance instead, standing there talking to a state trooper. He was with one of his girlfriends, and they both looked stunned and bewildered, as if they'd just been whacked on the head with a mallet. Ben hurriedly parked the car, and his knees wobbled beneath him as he climbed out. His heart began to race in anticipation of something too terrible to contemplate. As he approached he could see that Lance's girlfriend was weeping quietly, long tears streaming down both cheeks. The trooper turned and stepped away right as Ben called out, "Lance! Was that Randy in the ambulance that just went by?"

Lance shook his head. "That was Drake Girard. He got a broken arm and a crushed ankle."

"Where the hell is Randy? Is he in that one?" asked Ben, indicating the ambulance still parked near the crash site.

"I guess you could say that," said Lance, averting his gaze, "what's left of him."

"You mean?" Ben gasped.

Lance nodded woefully and his girlfriend burst into a fit of sobs. Amber came along now and asked, "Oh, my God! What's happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know," said Ben, stunned, bewildered, and totally unaware at the moment that he was slipping into shock. "Last I heard he intended to drive up last night. What the hell's he doing here at this time of day?"

"According to Drake," Lance answered, "they stayed out partying all night and then ran short of cocaine on the way. Fucking jackasses, first Drake dozed off and then Randy apparently fell asleep at the wheel. By the time he woke up they were off the road and headed straight for the guardrail."

"I knew that battle of the bands was a bad idea the minute he brought it up," Ben growled bitterly as rage and anguish built up inside like a hot boiler under extreme pressure, until it exploded and his knees buckled and he sank under his own weight into a blubbering heap on the ground, weeping inconsolably.

3

"I'm a little concerned about those antidepressants you gave me," Ben told Dr. Klemmer with a dire look in his eyes.

They entered the consulting room and the doctor closed the door, looking a tad concerned as well.

"But you told me last week that they're helping to stabilize your mood swings," the doctor replied, taking a seat in a comfortable office chair directly opposite the one Ben eased himself into. He had been coming to see Dr. Klemmer for six weeks now and had started to slip into a comfortable routine. Gone were the days of gloom and anxiety when he first came here feeling both curious about and horrified by the prospect of visiting a bona fide doctor of psychiatry.

Ben had sought out the doctor's help primarily because the grief he felt after Randy's death was more than he could handle. He was having such a hard time concentrating on his work that he couldn't seem to get anything done. More than anything Ben was worried about losing his job, because without his job he couldn't pay the mortgage on the triplex. And without the triplex he wouldn't have a place to stash his stuff and use as a crash pad anymore. In the absence of Unit B, he would be almost entirely dependent on Amber, and she would have him right where she wanted him once and for all.

"They are helping with the mood swings," Ben assured the doctor. "And I'm even beginning to concentrate on things for more than three minutes at a time. But now I'm afraid those pills are starting to give me hallucinations. I swear I saw Randy's ghost on the courtyard, plain as day. And when I spoke to him, he talked back."

"Did your brother's ghost seem angry with you?" asked the doctor, without looking up from his yellow pad, upon which he was rapidly scribbling something down. "Upset about anything?"

"No. He was totally stoic, inscrutable, as a matter of fact. I asked if he would ever forgive me for being such a terrible influence on him. And his face sort of glowed like the Buddha as he answered, 'The weather is pleasant here and we have a great variety of extraordinary fruits and vegetables.' Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean."

"You didn't stop taking the medication, did you?" asked the doctor.

"No. But I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to cut back on my dosage a little."

"Have you quit drinking?"

"For the most part, I guess."

"Have you or have you not quit drinking?"

"Not really."

"Then we'll just have to start reducing your dosage and get you off the Prozac. I can not allow—"

"I know. I know. It's dangerous to be mixing the meds and alcohol. But, Doc, I'm really giving it my best shot. Rome wasn't built in a day, and I really think the Prozac is helping."

The doctor rolled his eyes and grinned knowingly. "Try cutting back to two tablets a day and we'll see how your body adjusts to that," Dr. Klemmer prescribed, "And lay off the alcohol!" He jotted down something more on his notepad and then putting down his pencil and looking Ben squarely in the eyes, he asked, "Otherwise, how have you been feeling? How's work? Your home life? Are you and Amber getting along any better?"

"I haven't been quite so depressed all the time," said Ben with a faint hint of optimism in his voice, "and the panic attacks have subsided, I'm pleased to report," but then in gradually darkening tones: "But I'm still having a hell of a time getting a full night's sleep. And I still get so angry at times that I can hardly control myself."

"And what is it specifically that's making you angry?"

"Oh, just about anything will set me off. And I can't predict when it's going to happen. The other night Amber started correcting me on the way I was chopping the onions, and I went off on her like World War III. Scared the hell out of her, ranting and raving, waving the knife around over my head like a damn fool."

"Deep breaths," said the doctor with a sense of urgency. "Anytime you think you're about to start losing your temper, you have to take a moment and breath deeply. Have you been exercising at all?"

"Sometimes. But sometimes it's just too hard to get motivated."

"I understand." Dr. Klemmer quietly reflected as he browsed through his notes for a moment. "Okay, so now I'm going to look into my crystal ball and foretell your future for the next few weeks. I can see here that you are becoming fully focused on living and breathing and taking care of yourself. I also see you sticking to your Prozac regimen and leaving the marijuana and alcohol alone. No more self-medicating, got it?"

"Got it," Ben replied, even though he knew full well he'd be popping open a beer the minute he got home from work today.

"But even more importantly, you need to cut yourself some slack," he suggested, pulling open a desk drawer and taking out a pair of novelty glasses with a big nose and mustache. "You're far too serious for your own good. Since you got here you haven't so much as cracked a smile," he said with a perfectly straight face as he slipped on the novelty glasses, instantly transforming his appearance into something akin to Grouch Marx. "And sometimes laughter is the best medicine of all.

"Tell me: How many psychotherapists does it take to change a light bulb?" he asked, and then answered his own question without waiting for Ben to respond. "Just one, so long as the light bulb _wants_ to change."

Dr. Klemmer then proceeded to reel off one joke after another: "Did you hear the one about the neurotic elephant and his shrink? 'So what's the trouble?' asks the doctor, and the elephant replies, 'Even when I'm standing right in the middle of the room, everyone just ignores me.'

"'Doctor,' says the receptionist over the phone, 'there's a patient here who thinks he's invisible.' 'Well,' the psychoanalyst replies, 'tell him I can't see him right now.'"

By this time Ben's face was beginning to blossom into a big goofy brainless grin, so Dr. Klemmer finished up with a joke that he was certain to make his patient laugh out loud. "A man was walking in the street one day when he was brutally beaten and robbed. As he lay unconscious and bleeding, a psychologist, who happened to be passing by, rushed up to him and exclaimed, 'My God! Whoever did this really needs help!'"

He paused a moment to watch Ben's shoulders begin to quake and a chuckling sound starting to bubble up in his throat. Then he went on, "Ben, without a good healthy dose of laughter now and then, this life can be an awful grim and dismal experience. In fact, I'd go so far as to say, almost unbearable. So make it a point to never miss out on an opportunity to laugh. Seize on every chance that comes your way, even if that means laughing while at the same time gritting your teeth. The best time for laughter is right now, because there's no telling how much longer you're going be around. And as Mark Twain once said: 'There's no laughter in heaven.' So, you've got to get it while the getting's good."

4

Ben woke up feeling burdened by a dream that he couldn't quite remember. He got out of bed carrying the afterimage of that forgotten dream like a load of bricks. He didn't think he had ever had a dream that left him with such a baffling and oppressive feeling. Brewing up a pot of coffee, Ben wondered what in the world could have caused him to wake up feeling this way. _Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I've been drinking and smoking dope on top of my antidepressants again,_ he thought. _But then again, maybe not,_ he shrugged it off. Amber asked if he was ready for breakfast, but he just waved her off. She let him know with a penetrating stare that she was starting to get a little fed up with him and his unpredictable mood changes. But she didn't say anything about it aloud, she didn't 'bring it up," per se, and for that he was eternally grateful.

With the morning paper in one hand and his coffee mug in the other, he slipped out to the back porch where he could be alone. He sat down at Amber's snazzy steel mesh patio table and looked through the paper without registering any of the words.

When at last he emerged from his gloomy lapse and started to regain a tenuous grasp of the gauzy fabric of reality, Ben realized it was a glorious Saturday morning with bright warm sunshine slanting in through the trees. This was no time to be feeling so damn bad. If only he could figure out a way to make himself stop brooding and chase the doldrums away.

Just then, a lone wasp came looping into the scene. The wasp buzzed in close and started hovering right in front of Ben's face. He leaned back in the chair, holding his coffee cup at arm's length in case the wasp was just stopping in for a quick sip. But the wasp seemed to be more interested in landing on his nose, so Ben ducked away and stood up, splashing coffee on his hand as he backed away. "Get off me, you pesky fuck," Ben cried, fully aware of the fact that wasps speak a different language, and yet compelled to shout at the damn thing anyway.

The wasp seemed to be attracted by his black shirt or maybe the self-darkening lenses of his glasses. In an instant it buzzed past twice and started hovering in front of his face. Ben shook his head and brushed the wasp away, but the persistent little bugger came right back after him. So Ben quickly scooted around the side of the building, out of view. He waited a moment, sipping what remained of his coffee. Then he peeked around the corner just in time to see the wasp spiraling off, skyward and away, a tiny speck for an instant, and then gone.

Strutting back to his seat at the patio table with a triumphant gait, Ben tried to remember what he had been thinking about when that pesky wasp so rudely interrupted his thoughts. He remembered what he had been thinking, and it wasn't something that he particularly wanted to think about any more. Suddenly, it occurred to him that that fucking wasp was the best thing that had happened to him all week. That playful wasp got him up off his ass and motivated him to stimulate his lungs and heart. It reminded him of how spontaneous and fun life can be, if he would just loosen up and let it happen. That wasp made him completely forget about the noisome oppressive feeling he'd woken up with.

When he went inside to pour another cup of coffee, Amber asked him, "What's with you anyways? Two minutes ago you're out there shouting and cursing like a maniac, and now you come in grinning like a Cheshire cat."

"I was yelling at a wasp that wouldn't get out of my face—a lowly insect that has suddenly taken on a new kind of significance in my life. From now on the wasp will be viewed as a symbol of the fun and danger of life's many uncertainties."

Amber's dark eyebrows arched up and she looked askance at him for a long moment, as if he'd gone ape shit crazy, but he didn't know how to explain any better than that. "How can I help with breakfast?" he asked.

"That depends on what you feel like eating."

"What do _you_ feel like eating? I want to help you make some of that whatever you've got a hankering for."

"What has gotten into you, Ben?" Amber asked with a nervous titter and a flash of suspicion in her eyes.

"Well, it would appear that, with the help of a few choice friends, _yourself included,_ and an experienced psychiatrist, and a playful wasp, I'm finally beginning to feel like myself again."

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

Prize Pets

i

The sun shone bright and full one blustery February afternoon in Albuquerque. But the wind had an icy edge to it. Two of the Harper brothers stepped across the parking area at a brisk pace as they moved from Matt's car to the front gate of Ben's triplex. Pausing at the front wall, they watched a pair of dogcatchers at work across the street. The dogcatchers each had a long pole with a nylon strap at the far end. Each of the straps constrained a growling, flailing canine, attached at the neck. Meanwhile, in back of the truck the dogs already captured created a riot of furious barks and painful sounding yelps.

"They come by at least once a year," Ben explained, "The old gal who lives there won't stop collecting stray dogs until the next-door neighbor reports her. One time they pulled fifteen dogs out of that dinky little house."

"Poor old gal," Matt sympathized, "she must get lonely when they take all her pets away."

"Only the strays," Ben replied. "They let her keep the ones she has licensed."

"That's good." Matt rubbed his hands together and turned to move on. "Whadayah say we go inside before we freeze our tails off?"

As Ben opened the gate he posed this hypothetical question: "How many pets are too many?"

"Now there's a question for the ages," Matt replied.

"It's not necessarily an easy thing to quantify," said Ben. "Depends on the pets and who owns them. I've had great renters with a whole menagerie of animals, and I've had flaky renters with one dog who drove me nuts."

"I remember you mentioning that guy. The one who got his policeman friend to call up and hard-ass you on the phone."

"He tried to convince me that it was my civic duty to let his pal have a dog to protect his home, even though he had signed a contract stating that he wouldn't be keeping any pets."

"I guess, some people will do anything to avoid paying the pet deposit," said Matt.

The Harper brothers laughed together in unison, producing a stereophonic effect, their voices and patterns of laughter sounding so much alike.

"Go figure," said Ben. He made a little thumbing motion to indicate Unit A as they moved past the doorway. "Rachel did that, claimed she had no pets. Then, when the first parakeet appeared out of nowhere, she explained to me that, technically, the bird lived at school in her classroom and would only be staying the weekend. The next week she brought home a rabbit for a few days, and the week after that came the hamster."

"Maybe she has too many pets to fit them all in her classroom at once," Matt surmised.

"Sounds to me like she's got too many pets to make room for the kids: white mice and a guinea pig and an ant farm. She even had a couple of geckoes for a while, till they chewed off each other's feet and died of some sort of bacterial infection."

"At least she only brings them home one at a time," said Matt with an easy laugh. He was the younger brother closest in age to Ben, yet they were total opposites: Ben had fair hair and pale skin; Matt had dark skin and hair. Ben was tall, skinny, and balding; Matt was short and stout with a thick head of hair.

"To be fair about it, I should mention that she keeps the place nice and tidy for the most part, in spite of her assorted house guests," said Ben. Another thing he might have mentioned, had he been of a mind to do so, was that he and Amber were on the slide lately, and he had been flirting around with a few other women, including Rachel.

"The kids in the cottage are a different story," Ben continued, glancing toward the back of the lot at Unit C. "They've got an aquarium in every room: iguanas and pythons and boa constrictors. The guy's a veterinary assistant, and his girlfriend is a biology major, and they're both plumb crazy about reptiles. They're the nicest people you'd ever want to meet, but I do worry about what kind of mess they're going to leave me."

"I thought I saw a cat come scampering out of there when we came in."

"Oh, yeah. They've got a few of those, and a dog out in the backyard to guard the rabbit hutch. They also have canaries and turtles and exotic fish."

"I hope you charged them a large security deposit."

"When things go haywire, no security deposit in the world is big enough to cover the expense," said Ben as he selected the correct key to unlock the door to his apartment. "All you can do is keep an eye on things and hope for the best."

ii

The silence at the dinner table was deafening. Neither Amber nor Ben had spoken more than a few cursory mutterings while they prepared the meal. And now, as they mechanically chewed and swallowed and washed things down with wine, the absence of stimulating conversation was spoiling a perfectly fine meal.

With a measure of concerted effort, Ben managed to break the silence. "I saw Matt today. He asked me to send along his regards."

"How have they been?"

Ben shrugged. Sliced off a chunk of pork chop. "All right, I guess. I don't suppose he would tell me if they weren't. It's all about appearances with those two. They're not particularly interested in keeping me in the loop anymore. I think the Antichrist is afraid I might negatively influence her saintly children."

"Oh, stop now. Did he mention Helen and the kids?"

"Something about the boys starting karate and Angela doing ballet lessons this year. Other than that, he didn't have much to say about family life. We were too busy having a discussion about pets. How many pets does it take to make too many? was our topic question for the day."

"I don't think you should allow them to have any. Who needs a bunch of dirty animals in the house?" Amber shuddered at the thought.

Ben chewed his food and washed it down with a swig of wine. "Some people can't live without their pets. They're crazy about them."

"Too messy for me," said Amber, scrunching her nose, her dark bedroom eyes stunningly beautiful and cruel. "Too troublesome and unproductive. Who needs them?"

"Why in the world would you need a pet when you have me?" said Ben.

Amber gave him a funny look, so he went on to explain: "You clean up after me and feed me every day at feeding time. You dress me up and take me out to show off all the stylish outfits you've discovered for me to wear."

Amber set her fork down on the rim of her practically untouched plate and leveled a scowl in his general direction. "What are you trying to tell me?"

Ben set his fork down too. "You heard me. Sometimes it feels like I'm nothing more to you than a prized pet."

"Well, if the shoe fits," Amber retorted with a notable degree of exasperation in her voice.

"Eight years ago I thought I'd found a soul mate. I never would have thought you could be so cold and judgmental."

"I never thought you would turn out to be a manic depressive who just wants to be alone all the time. I thought we were going to get a house together like an ordinary couple, and make a life together. But then you go and buy those trashy apartments instead. And then, to top things off, Randy dies in the car crash and you go off your rocker. What the hell am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to think?"

"I don't know." Ben shakes his head and then shrugs. "I don't know. All I can tell you is this thing of ours just isn't what it used to be. There's no fire in it anymore. But, I suppose, you've probably noticed that."

"This _thing?_ Our relationship is a _thing_ now?"

"Face it, Amber: Our life together has become a dull routine, rigorously organized and rigidly compartmentalized and, well, _blah!_ You're a good, kind, decent person, and I love you like crazy. But I just can't—"

She didn't bother to wait for him to finish his sentence because she had already finished it for him in her mind. "Yeah, well, I'm getting really sick of living with you too. Sometimes you can be pretty darn _blah_ yourself! Pretty _blah_ when you don't want to join my friends for a drink. Pretty _blah_ when you go moping around the house for hours at a time. When we met, I never would have thought you could be so remote and cynical and solitary. It never would have occurred to me that you could be so selfish and insensitive. And such a control freak."

"You're calling me a control freak? If anybody around here is controlling, it would have to be you. And you don't share well either. You've been keeping secrets from me for years. You won't open up. You never let your guard down. That's half the problem right there."

"Sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Well, for instance, I've been waiting nearly a decade for you to clue me in as to why that guy, John, the one who was 'just a friend,' came out of his way to smash my windshield on New Year's Eve for three years straight."

"You can't prove it was him.

"I have no reason to think it would be anyone else."

"You're jumping to conclusions."

"The first time I guessed it was him might have been a bit of a leap. The second year I also might have been jumping to conclusions. But after three years in a row, the jump became more of a hop. At that point I was hopping to a conclusion about how you and John were sexually involved before I came along and rained on his parade. Why can't you just admit it? For Christ's sake, try to tell the _whole_ truth for once in your life."

"I don't want to talk about it anymore."

That night in bed Amber's cold feet seemed colder than ever before. She had awakened him more than once in the middle of the night with those icy toes of hers. But this was like the pure essence of frostbite, the absolute coldest her feet could possibly be without icing over. He got up and grabbed his backpack on the way out to the kitchen. There, he took a notebook from the backpack and opened to a recent draft with the working title, Granite Soup.

Jotting down a few small revisions to the text, he wedged in a line near the bottom. Then he read aloud, but softly, his most recent dedication to his beloved sexpot schoolteacher:

Granite Soup

Today she put a flame under her biggest iron pot  
and slowly, steadily brought it to a boil,  
slowly, steadily allowing the heat to work its magical alchemy  
forming a mineral-rich granite soup—  
a soup containing all the elemental ingredients  
necessary to maintain a nice safe distance at all times,  
like a sidewalk barricade or the High Sierras.

1 lb. dogged, straightforward persistence  
7/8 cup always busy, so busy, too busy  
3 oz. A-1 secretive sauce to keep the past at bay  
1 gal. everything needs to be just perfect at all times  
1/2 tsp. never let your guard down  
salt & pepper to taste  
Stir in one large sprig of longing to be close  
and add a generous portion of personal space.

This stardust soup sustains  
and fortifies her fine body along firm gravitational lines,  
building up a magnetic field  
of substantial force and resistance.

Meanwhile, I'm the spellbound blue comet  
approaching her big iron pot  
in fidgety anticipation  
of what happens when an unstoppable force  
meets an immovable object.

iii

Ben's principal reason for coming here this afternoon had been to collect Rachel's rent check, which was two weeks overdue. He had spoken to her earlier today on the phone. She had explained nothing more than that she and her mother had been out of town. His secondary objective for this visit was to ask if Rachel wanted to split a bottle of wine and help him forget his troubles and woes.

"I'm so sorry to keep you waiting," Rachel said when she finally answered the door. "Won't you come in?" She pushed open the screen door and handed Ben a pair of personal checks as he stepped inside. "My father was supposed to drop the check in your mailbox. But things have been so hectic lately and we left in such a rush, he simply forgot. There's a second check there to cover the late fee."

Ben glanced at the checks and then handed Rachel the wine bottle he'd brought. He gave her a top-to-bottom full-body review, which she appeared to enjoy as she pretended to examine the wine label. A kindergarten teacher, gorgeous, mid-thirties, no children, Rachel was very easy on the eyes and possibly the most responsible renter he had ever encountered.

"I just opened a bottle of merlot." She shut the door, closed out the wind and cold with a hearty shove. "Would you like a taste of that first?"

"Pour me at least a taste and a half." Ben watched her fine round rump swivel as she strutted to the kitchen. He stepped into the living room and slipped out of his coat. "It's been a hell of a week."

"Same here," she called out from the kitchen, emerging a moment later carrying a large wine glass filled nearly to the brim. She handed him the wine, took his coat, and tossed it on a nearby recliner. Then with a suggestive glance at the couch, she silently invited him to have a seat beside her. "I propose a toast to the best landlord in the world," she proclaimed, her glass raised high and tilted his way."

"Just because I didn't make a fuss over a late rent check?" Ben half-heartedly raised his glass and gave hers a little, preemptory TINK. After eight years in the rental management business, any unwarranted praise he received from the renters was most likely to be met with a measure of suspicion.

"For everything you do. For being so kind and understanding, even though you have every reason to be angry and bitter." Scooting over a little closer to him on the couch, she had a peculiar way of being both demure and aggressive at the same time. "How are things going for you and your lady friend?"

"Dismal. I'm doing my best to forget about it. So, how about we change the subject?"

"Certainly. That's fine with me," said Rachel, reaching out to set her glass on the coffee table. "Is there anything in particular you would like to talk about?" She leaned in close and place her hand on his leg. "Or any action, perhaps, you might be inclined to take."

Recognizing a blatant cue is something not altogether lost on Ben Harper, so he belted down a few gulps of wine and put the glass down beside Rachel's. Noting the scarlet pigment on the rim of her glass, he turned his full attention to her lips.

An hour later they lay side by side in Rachel's bed, watching music videos on MTV, when Rachel suddenly piped up, "You know what day tomorrow is, don't you?" Transforming a bed sheet into a makeshift toga, she bounded off to the other bedroom. A moment later she returned carrying a Valentine gift basket with a stuffed penguin poking its head out. She presented the basket to Ben in the manner of Demeter bestowing a bountiful crop upon a deserving subject of her domain.

"Oh, you shouldn't have," said Ben, thinking: _Seriously, she shouldn't have_. He let the Valentine balloon attached to the basket shield him from her penetrating gaze and took the stuffed penguin from the basket more out of nervousness than curiosity, giving it a tentative squeeze while trying to be a gracious as possible. "I'll order roses first thing in the morning." When he set the basket on the table the balloon bopped him on in the nose.

"Oh, no! Not dead flowers. I'd rather have a nice little potted arrangement. Something that's still alive, something vital—I mean, if it's all the same to you." She dropped the sheet and spread it over the entire bed, including Ben, then crawled in to snuggle at his side. "Do you mind turning that down for a while. We need to talk."

"Oh, no. Heaven forbid. I always hate it when women say things like that." Ben hit the mute button and rolled over on his side to face the music. For the first time since they'd met, it occurred to him there were certain times, when Rachel and Amber seemed very much alike.

"I have a confession to make," she said, and the cunning look in Rachel's eyes and her oh-so-serious demeanor, for example, were trademark Amberlike characteristics, as well as the subtle use of hands to guide conversation and set the tone.

"I wasn't completely honest with you when I moved in."

She waited for a reaction from the landlord, but he failed to respond, looking rather dazed and obtuse.

"You see, I was pregnant at the time and I had just broken up with my fiancée," Rachel went on with her confession. "When I had a miscarriage and found out I would never have a child of my own, I was frantic. I'm sure you must have noticed how abject and withdrawn I was."

"Well, not really. I try not to get too involved. I have other things to do."

"Well, I'm telling you, I was a wreck. I tormented myself over it for months. But then I thought up the most clever solution..."

"Oh please! Do tell," Ben suggested.

"My parents and I have adopted a Russian orphan."

Ben's chin dropped and his mouth fell open for an instant. "You're kidding right?" His eyes hardened momentarily. He rolled away from Rachel, reaching for his wine.

"No, I'm not kidding." She showed him a photograph of the child that she kept on her bedside table. "Isn't she adorable. Her name is Natalia and she's three. She's staying with my folks until I finish preparing a room for her. My precious little darling is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, and I want you to be here when I bring her home."

"You're bringing her here? Tomorrow?" He slammed down a slug of wine and set the glass aside.

"Isn't it appropriate that my little Valentine should arrive on Valentine's Day?"

"Wait a minute." Ben rolled off the bed and started pulling on his pants. "I might have to move in next door any day now, and I never bargained on any Russian orphans hollering through these paper thin walls. I'm sorry but I think you better start shopping around for another place."

"But all we have to do is rewrite the contract and include Natalia this time. She won't be staying all the time. Only on weekends." Rachel suggested, her expression souring measurably. "I'm sure I can come up with a few more dollars for rent, if that's what you're after."

That wasn't what Ben was after. As a matter of fact, Ben was genuinely offended. His feelings were hurt. He felt as disappointed as a young fellow who has just found out that his real father isn't really dead after all, but has really been in prison for murder and lechery. "You lied to me," said Ben, "or at least misrepresented yourself when you failed to mention that little detail about being pregnant."

"Ah, c'mon! Give me a break. One little white lie. Surely you can put that aside when you consider how wonderful life's going to be for the three of us."

"One white lie in a series of little white lies, you mean." He paused for a moment while fishing a shoe out from under the bed. "Such as the endless stream of small animals you run through here like a pet motel."

"Well, I never! What a nerve you have! I never would have imagined—"

Ben found it rather amusing how people always lapse into histrionics and act thoroughly insulted when they know they're wrong. "You could have been more upfront with me."

"As far as I'm concerned, you're far too unprofessional to be trying to run any kind of business. You have no idea what you're doing. I'll have you know, it's against the law to discriminate against children. My father will sue you from here to next Tuesday if you make any attempt to force us out of here."

"Ask your daddy about the Mrs. Murphy clause," said Ben, "He'll tell you you don't have a leg to stand on."

"Murphy clause? What the hell is that?"

"Just a little loophole in the law that allows landlords who live on the premises to discriminate against anyone we damn-well please."

Rachel glared and showed her teeth. "I'll always cherish my original misconception I had of you," she said with harsh resolve. And with self-righteous indignation that seemed to lift her off the bed, she stamped off toward the bathroom. "Beyond that, Buster, you can go straight to hell."

Ben proceeded to finish dressing, flashing back briefly to the moment when he and Rachel first met. On first impression, Ben had felt as if he'd stumbled upon a kindred spirit. It was as if he had known Rachel all his life, or perhaps from some past life—assuming of course that any such thing actually exists in this strange and wonderful universe of ours. In a matter of no time he had begun to feel she might very well be the soul mate he's been waiting for all his life.

_Isn't it funny how quickly things can go south,_ thought Ben _._ It had taken years for Ben and Amber's relationship to gradually evolve into a total disaster. For Ben and Rachel the process had run its course in a matter of hours.

iv

Late that evening Ben was still obsessing over dead flowers and stuffed penguins, when he unexpectedly found himself behind the washing machine in Unit C, repairing a ruptured hot-water hose.

There was water all over the utility room floor and Ben had smelled something shitty as soon as he stepped into the room. His renter, a redheaded New Zealander named Arnie, stayed within eyeshot of the back door to make sure Ben didn't leave the door open and let any of his critters loose.

"The boa constrictor's out now," said Arnie, a veterinary assistant, in a deep baritone voice that complemented his muscle-bound physique and Polynesian-style face tattoos.

"You don't let the poisonous ones loose in the house, I hope.

"Only on occasion," Arnie calmly whispered in his clipped Australian-like accents.

Which wasn't terribly reassuring to Ben. He stepped up the pace so as to hurry up and get out of there. When he twisted his body to scoot out from behind the washer, he caught sight of the source of that shitty smell. It looked like the remnants of an animal's nest behind the dryer. "What's this?"

"Think nothing of it," said Arnie, reassuringly. "One of the rats got loose for a time. We'll clean that up and bleach it right after you're done here."

"Rats?" said Ben in a voice that belied an innate revulsion. "What rats? You never said anything about keeping pet rats."

"Not pets," the reptile whisperer replied. "We feed them to the snakes."

"Live rats?"

"You betcha. They seem to enjoy their meal a lot more after a good hunt."

vii

Well, at least the washing machine was fixed now and Ben knew exactly where he stood with Rachel. Amber, on the other hand, he wasn't so sure about. The next day he bought her a Hallmark card and a pretty but inexpensive arrangement of cut flowers.

Ultimately, it wouldn't matter much to Amber. She had other things occupying her thoughts at the time. Ben knew her well enough to rest assured of that. And when he came waltzing into her house, carrying a cheesy bouquet of dead flowers, Amber handed him an even cheesier toy train in a little paper box with a ribbon on it.

"It's a streamliner," she explained tersely, "signifying that it was a fun ride while it lasted."

"You shouldn't have," said Ben, and he meant it too. Literally. He handed her the card and flowers as he would have handed over a shovel or a pair of pliers.

"I hope you didn't break the bank." Amber grinned with irony and crinkled her nose at the cheap bouquet.

And then, right on cue (almost as if it had been staged this way by forces well within the scope of Amber's influence) the doorbell chimed. Amber stepped over and opened the front door, and in stepped Ben's presumed replacement, or at least some temporary version.

"Howdy," said Ben's replacement, with a friendly smile and intensely competitive look in his eyes.

Ben just nodded and turned to Amber, saying, "Who's this?"

"My Valentine date," Amber huskily replied, and she snuggled into the replacement's open arms as if that's where she had always belonged. "We'll be out for a while having supper at Chez Lenore," Amber informed him, flatly. "Leave the keys in the mailbox when you go."

"It's been real," said Ben to the woman he'd been in love with for a decade, and just as a final parting shot he added: "Oh, and by the way, I'll always cherish my original misconception of you."

Amber took that in and a fleeting smile passed over her face, as if in appreciation of the sheer audacity of such a statement. "The feeling is mutual I'm sure," she muttered grimly as they exchanged a brief nostalgic frown.

Then she was gone.

Ben stood alone in Amber's living room fraught in a tangle of mixed emotions: love, loss, fury, fear, but most of all a tremendous sense of relief, like a pressure cooker right after the flame's been turned off underneath it.

A couple of minutes later, after popping off the top of a cold beer, Ben took the toy train along with a truckload of his various possessions back to his apartment—once and for all. He was long gone before Amber and her new prize pet returned from their romantic dinner date. He dropped the key in the mailbox just as she had requested, and that was that.

Go figure.

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

The Gatekeeper

Tonight, a motley crew of poets and friends jammed into an open area at the center of the bookstore. Folding chairs formed a makeshift theater-in-the-round with a spot in the middle for the microphone stand. At the mic stood tonight's headliner, a stately young woman with long black hair, exotic green eyes, the features of a Persian queen.

"Half the tears that form in the eyes expose a tender perspective," the regal young woman read from a volume of her recently published collection, "the aching depth of magnets, the frantic beating of small wings, half-baked solutions walking the dog thru unpainted neighborhoods..."

Among the spectators in the audience were two men in the back row. One man had a stocky build and swarthy good looks. The other had fair hair and glasses. Both men were in their early forties and probably old enough to know better than to gaze with such bald-faced adoration at the emerald-eyed poet as she continued in a rich lilting tone, "... a free flow of naked intuition _crashing_ with the surf and fractured shells, the stream of fate's unfolding summation," demonstratively gesturing the motion of stream flow with a broad undulating gesture.

Her gesture was punctuated by an arm-length, vine-shaped tattoo, very art nouveau in style, coiling round her arm while at once providing cover for a python that poked its head out of the foliage just above her wrist, its fangs fully exposed. "Inside-out glimmerings of eternity," she read, leaning in toward the microphone, "their wet thunderous clapping like a toothless old woman laughing hard."

With a broad gleaming smile she bowed her head in acknowledgment of the crowd's warm response. As the applause subsided, the fair-haired man leaned over to his friend and said, "She's _SO_ hot! Even if I never get to first base with her, it would be wonderful to have her for a next-door neighbor."

"You will not get to first or any other base with her," the stocky man knowingly replied with a thick Slavic accent of some kind. "Of that I can assure you."

After the reading, Alicia, the poet/goddess, took her place at a nearby table for the book signing. Her two male admirers had purchased books last week at a barroom launch party, so tonight they headed to the coffee bar situated near the store's entry way. One ordered espresso, the other a mocha java. Once they got their drinks, they went outside to the patio to have a smoke.

"You must calm down, Ben, and carefully pace your approach," the elder poet advised, "or surely you will frighten her away."

"You're right," said Ben, taking a sip if his chocolate coffee. "I'm probably coming off like a clumsy teenager, way too hot to trot. But you must understand, I've been really lonely since Amber sent me packing. I've been a regular basket case."

"Yes, I have noticed that. And I noticed also that your swooning adulation is totally overkill. You need to—how you say?—dial it back a bit." Ben's poet elder spoke with an authority that he had earned by coaxing Alicia into the sack (just once) the previous winter, on what he described as a wine-dowsed night of Dionysian delight and wonderment.

Lucky guy, until his wife got wind of it.

Tonight the summer sky was a star-specked velvet dome. The moon was nearly full and silvery blue. Not a cloud in sight. Tonight, Ben's dazzling fantasy girl came out of her way to greet him for the first and only time ever. He did his best to keep his cool as she treated him to a sisterly little half hug and a pat on the shoulder.

"How are you doing, Ben?" she asked, and with a nod: "Mitko."

"Alicia, you were terrific," Ben gushed. "The reading was a pure delight."

"I heard you have an apartment for rent," Alicia said in her usual friendly straightforward manner.

"Two bedroom, one bath."

"I only need a place for a few months," she said, stepping back and away to reestablish a comfortable distance.

"How many is a few?"

"Three, maybe four."

"What are the chances you might decide to stick around longer?"

"I don't think I could stand living in town any longer. I'm a country girl at heart and there's too many wolves here in town," said Alicia with a twist of irony playing at the corner of her mouth.

Utterly star-struck and oblivious to her insinuation, Ben blundered on, "Well, I can probably arrange a month-to-month contract, if you want to stop by and take a look."

"Mitko tells me you rent nice tidy apartments," she said, glancing briefly at Ben's companion.

"Mitko knows what he's talking about," said Ben, raising his coffee mug in tribute to a man he not only appreciated, but also truly admired.

Ben sized up at this elegant, exotic poet/goddess and then looked over at dumpy, half-bald Mitko, and he couldn't imagine how the sly old fox had ever managed to woo her into the sack. For an instant he went green with envy, but it passed soon enough, and a moment later he was back to admiring both of his favorite local poet masters, Mitko Ditmar and Alicia Rhodes-Hitchcock.

A few days later when Ben got home from work, he parked his compact pickup on the parking lot in front of the triplex, which was composed of a duplex, turned sideways on the lot, and a small cottage situated a little past halfway to the back of the lot. He stepped through the rickety wooden gate that he'd been meaning to replace since he'd bought the place. Stepping through the courtyard, Ben passed the entry to Unit A on his left and on his right the thick trunk of a massive, pavement-warping cypress tree. A matching Arizona cypress stood out front of Unit B, where he stopped and took a peek in the mailbox.

Inside the apartment Ben flipped through junk mail and tossed it all in a waste bin beside the refrigerator in the tiny kitchenette. Then he commenced to straighten up the living room enough to make it presentable for a guest of Alicia Rhodes-Hitchcock's elevated stature. Ever since Amber bounced him out of her place, he had been doing little home improvements to his apartment in an attempt to make it seem a bit more like a bachelor pad and less like a storage locker.

He had hung up a few pictures on the walls, including an etching Don Quixote astride his noble though downtrodden Rocinante, with a windmill on a rise beyond a stand of trees in the background. He had found the etching about fifteen years ago in a box in the basement of a place he'd rented in San Francisco. Over the years the Don Quixote etching had become an increasingly prominent figure in Ben's personal pantheon of unlikely deities. He had been joking with friends about Quixote being his patron saint for so long that he could no longer remember exactly when he'd started joking about it.

Go figure.

When Alicia arrived he invited her inside but she excused herself evasively, explaining that she only had time to take a quick look at the place. Ben grabbed the keys to Unit A and followed her next door.

"I love it," she declared a few minutes later as she drew the curtains of a huge picture window that looked out onto the courtyard. "It's so bright and cheery. This will certainly suit my needs for now."

"All righty then," Ben cheerfully replied. "Let's go next door and draw up the papers. I'll have them printed up in a jiffy." He was quite pleased to get the place rented, if only temporarily, and the thought of renting it to his favorite fantasy girl made him beam with happiness.

Alicia filled in the application with pertinent information while Ben drew up the contract on his computer. As the pages began to print, he said, "This calls for a celebration. Would you care for a beer? Or how about a glass of wine?"

"As much as I appreciate the offer, I really must be on my way," she tactfully declined. "I have a hundred things to do this week and the clock is ticking." Then she opened her handbag and pulled out a thick wad of cash, then another, tossing them in a heap on the desktop. "You'd probably better count it. Because, when it comes to handling money, I'm the worst."

Which might have been cause for concern from a landlord's perspective, if she hadn't added, "Thank goodness for my patron, who helps me keep all my ducks in a row."

"This patron of yours, is it anyone I know?" Ben asked before it occurred to him that it might be a rude thing to ask.

"My patron's identity is to remain a big secret for the time being," Alicia answered bluntly. "It's part of the deal."

The following afternoon, Ben found an unfamiliar pickup truck parked in his designated parking place. The truck had been backed in and the tailgate was down, so Ben immediately had a pretty clear notion of what was going on. His perception of the situation was confirmed when Alicia and her mother emerged from Unit A, talking together as they walked out to the truck. Seeing him coming in from the street, Alicia waved and called out, "Ben, I was hoping you'd come in time to meet my mom."

The mother greeted him with a welcoming posture, smiling and confident. "Hi there, I'm Marina Hitchcock."

The mother also reminded Ben of some sort of Persian dignitary. She and her daughter might have been identical, except that the mom was about twenty years older, thirty pounds heavier, and had jet black eyes to match her hair.

"Ben Harper." He reached out and shook her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

"This is a nice place you have here, but I've often wondered about this neighborhood."

"The real heart of the war zone is about a mile that way. It's usually pretty quiet around here, unless something goes haywire down the road on Main Street of course, and the choppers come hovering above with spotlights, and the police cruisers go racing up and down the streets."

"Do you think it's safe?"

"I wouldn't live here if I didn't think is was safe, mam. See that gaslight there," he asked, indicating the antique pole lamp just outside of the front gate. As she glanced over at the light, he went on, "That thing has been burning constantly for fifty odd years now. It lights up the whole area at night. Alicia's designated parking spot is right there next to mine. That's what? About thirty steps to the front door?"

"I'll be fine, Mother. Please give the poor man a break. He's just the landlord. It's not his job to be my personal body guard."

"Forgive me," said Marina, with the fretful expression of an over-anxious mother caught coddling her adult offspring.

Just then a gray-haired gentleman with a ponytail emerged from the apartment, and Alicia said, "C'mon over here Luke and meet my new landlord."

"Howdy, Luke. Say, don't I know you from somewhere? You seem very familiar—"

Gripping Ben's hand firmly, Luke Hitchcock replied, "I get that a lot. I was a bartender and bouncer at Boomtown Charlie's for fifteen years. You look kinda familiar to me too. I don't suppose you were any trouble though. I always remember the ones I had to eighty-six out of there."

"Yeah, I've probably been in there a few dozen times over the years."

"Alicia tells me you two have known each other for quite some time," said Marina.

"We met years ago when she was an intern at Carpoolers. Then when I went to the printing plant, she took over the newsletter for me. Now she comes down to the plant every month and we work together on it."

"He's a great help to me," Alicia declared. "He has a good eye and never misses any of my goofy mistakes."

Ben wasn't sure which blow had been more crushing: when she'd said he's "just the landlord" or just now when she condescendingly deemed him of "great help" to her. One thing was certain though, he needed to change the subject before he started feeling sorry for himself. "You know, at the risk of sounding like a TV cliché, I can't help but wonder how often you two get mistaken as sisters. Seriously."

"We get that a lot," said Marina with an impish grin and a sparkle in her eye. "People always seem to think we're from the Middle East. They think we're Jewish or Armenian or something.

"Which is a real belly laugh," Alicia scoffed, "when you consider that we're dark Irish through and through."

"But where did those dazzling green eyes of yours come from?" Ben asked, but Alicia didn't answer. She just stood there, dazed, nonplused, like a deer in the headlights.

"The green eyes come from Colonel Rhodes's side of the family," Marina interjected with mild revulsion on her daughter's behalf. "And that's about as much of him as we've seen since."

"Oh, Mom! You know that's not true. The Colonel always comes to the rescue when there's a real emergency. Like John Wayne and Steve McQueen and the guy with the bugle."

To which her mother, forgetting herself momentarily, excitedly retorted, "And getting evicted from your place isn't an emergency?"

" _Mother!"_ Alicia reared up like a cornered raccoon, but her voice remained calm and brassy. "Please. Not now."

Luke piped up just long enough to chuckle at the look on Ben's face. Otherwise he stood by and listened intently, occasionally stroking his wiry goatee.

"Well, the least he could do is come and help," said Marina. "He acts as if moving furniture is beneath his dignity or something."

"The Colonel has a bad back, Mom, remember? Although you're right about him being a little uppity at times."

"The Colonel is a self-righteous ass," said Marina, "He's also a pathetic drunk and a deadbeat dad—just to mention a few highlights of his personality."

"But I'm sure Ben would rather come in and see how we've set the place up," Alicia asserted.

"Oh, yes, please come along, Ben."

He followed the ladies inside and Luke silently followed along. The first thing to catch Ben's eye was a harp in the corner, a full-sized bona fide harp, then he noticed a guitar and an electronic keyboard. His eyes inevitably strayed off in the direction of one bedroom, which was still pretty much empty, and the other bedroom, which was all set up for—

"We'll bring the plants tomorrow," announced Alicia optimistically. "I think they're really going to bring the place to life."

Ben's eye was drawn to a couple of large modern abstracts. "Are these paintings your work?"

"Why, yes they are."

"You never mentioned that you're a painter," he said, scanning the room. His eyes passed over a love seat and an armchair and few scant furnishings aside from a tall shelf filled with books and assorted knick-knacks.

"There are a lot of things I never mention."

"Such as the harp, for example?"

"Such as the harp."

"But why not just step up and share your talents with the world?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Alicia firmly asserted.

"Okay."

"The children used to call her Harpo on the schoolyard," Marina spilled the beans, emitting a rather mocking and yet motherly laugh.

"Oh, I see," replied Ben. Then, turning to Alicia, he assured her, "You can trust me to keep your secret. Scouts honor!"

"It's not just that, Mother. It's more complicated than that. And you know it!"

"We don't need to get into all that right now, do we?" said Luke in soft, easy tones that, strangely, made him seem even bigger and brawnier than he actually was.

"I probably ought to get on with my chores," said Ben as he turned and moved toward the door. "I just love your cozy little pad and can't wait to see it with all the plants in place."

"Bye, Ben. Nice to meet you," said Marina.

Luke just nodded his chin.

"I'll be around," said Ben. "Let me know if you need a hand with anything."

As he stepped outside and past the kitchen window, he heard Alicia say something about the Colonel. He didn't catch all the words but he did catch her mocking tone and the sound of the whole Hitchcock family booming with laughter. He didn't like the tone of their laughter. As a matter of fact, there were a number of things he was beginning to not like about his fantasy girl.

Go figure

A week later, Ben was the substitute host of a poetry reading at a coffee shop near the university. At this venue it was customary to set up the reading outside on the patio. Which was a good thing. It meant no coffee grinder going off like a table saw every few minutes. But it was also not such a good thing because of the constant traffic noise in the background instead.

He had a table with Mitko and his wife, Pauletta, off to the right side of the P.A. The open chair beside him belonged to Alicia who was currently at the microphone delivering her usual riveting performance for a group of no more than thirty people. The adoring crowd made a big show of their appreciation when she finished.

"That was our own Alicia Rhodes-Hitchcock, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who might have just come in. Her new book came out a few weeks ago and she tells me she brought along a few copies, in case anyone's interested."

He introduced the next reader on the list, who's name he remembered because the man came frequently to the open-mic readings and bored the crowd to tears for three-to-five minutes with his tedious drivel.

Meanwhile, at tall slatternly woman with tangled hair came barging in. She had to push her way through and step over a few of people, but she was determined to get to the sign-up sheet on the table in front of Mitko. Her name was Gertrude Stone. She wrote obscure language poems and was a notorious dipsomaniac. Up close, her skin had the same ashen color as Ben's alcoholic father immediately prior to the man's untimely death at the age of fifty.

By the time Ben returned to his seat, Gertrude had taken it. She was sitting there, all slouched over, wedging her name in between the droning man on stage now and whoever was supposed to be next. Ben stepped aside and waited for the man on stage to finish. Then he reached over Mitko's shoulder and grabbed the list. Stepping to the mic, he thanked the man for joining their little circle of friends tonight and the audience gave up a meager spattering of applause.

"And next up we have one of my favorite guys on the local scene," said Ben, glancing at the sign-up sheet, saying, "Quincy Sch— No! Wait a minute. It looks like we've got a ringer here that I nearly missed. Pardon me a second while I try to read the name. It's all scrunched up real tiny and wedged in here." Ben wasn't in the practice of being an abrasive MC, but something about this woman rubbed him the wrong way. "Ah, yes! I see now. It's Gertrude Stone. Come on up here and show us your stuff, Gertrude."

Turning over the mic to Gertrude, he shot her a phony grin and hurried over to reclaim his seat. Leaning over to Mitko, he muttered scornfully, "Imperious fucking b—."

_I heard that_ —Alicia mouthed out the words as she pointed an index finger at her ear. She leaned in toward Ben and he followed suit, cautiously eyeing the fang-baring serpent emerging at her wrist. "You should be kinder to people you don't know well," she whispered loudly. "Gertrude is a legend on campus."

Ben didn't say it out loud but he was thinking: _Well excuuuuuuuse me!_ This while he acknowledged her statement with a noncommittal little nod.

On the following weekend, Ben set about the task of tearing out the old cedar gate that he'd been meaning to replace for years. He was about halfway through, and the rickety old relic was hanging on by a single hinge, when Alicia came out her front door carrying her guitar case. "Now I see who the gatekeeper is around here," she said in a whimsical tone of voice.

"More like the groundskeeper," Ben replied, quickly parsing her statement for possible double meanings.

"Well you do a spectacular job of it, I'd say." Stepping through the gateway she turned back long enough to say, "By the way, remember that rain check you gave me for the Ming Café? Well, I'm free this evening, early, if you have time."

Ben didn't think about it or he might have changed his mind. "Sure. Of course! What time?"

"I'll call you at around three or so to firm up the time, okay?"

"That'll be fine."

She called at four and suggested they meet at the restaurant at five-thirty. Then she called again an hour later and cancelled out altogether with a flimsy excuse and half-hearted apology. Which made him wonder if she was intentionally trying to discourage him or if she was just a total flake.

That evening Mitko invited himself over to share a couple of six packs. By the time he finally showed up, Ben was already about half plastered. "Where the hell you been. You called three hours ago."

"It's not important. Better you don't know in case Pauletta comes sniffing around."

"Oh, I see. You're using me as a front again for your nefarious activities."

"I plead the fifth," said Mitko.

He took a seat on the couch opposite Ben, who sat slouching on his recliner where he'd been moping for hours. "Well, I tell you, I'm really beginning to wonder about the girl next door. Why would she want to string me on like this?"

"Maybe she's not stringing you on," Mitko suggested. He popped open a beer. "Maybe she's got a thing about authority figures."

"You mean like me being her landlord?"

"Sure. Why not? It is a distinct possibility. Certainly not out of the question anyway. Maybe. Or maybe not."

"I just don't get it." Ben pondered. "When we get along, we get along so stunningly. It just doesn't make any sense for her to keep putting me off."

The next day Ben was installing the new metal gate when Alicia emerged from her inner sanctum to move again freely in the world, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. Ben had always been mad about butterflies. And he had always been a sucker for a pretty face.

Go figure.

"Top of the morning to ye," he chanted in an Irish brogue.

"And to you, sir." She didn't have to mention anything about gatekeepers again. What she had said yesterday would make a lasting impression on him, like most everything else she happened to say.

"So then, where are you off to today? If you don't mind my asking."

"I couldn't begin to list all the things I have to do," she replied, stepping around and slipping out the gateway. "That's a handsome gate you got there. Big improvement."

"It's going to be white when I get done. So it matches the lamp post and rain gutters."

"I see you have it all planned out. Very good, carry on," she said, and the manner of a military officer.

Ben lifted the gate into place and checked it for level. He put a wrench to work on the lower hinge to cinch it in a quarter inch then checked for level again. Perfect. Swinging the gate back and forth a few times, he smiled with satisfaction.

Meanwhile, out on the parking lot Alicia's car turned over and over and over. She tried again and again, and it kept turning over, but it wouldn't start. Ben moseyed over to see if he could help. Like a schoolboy he was still imagining how grateful and eager to please she might be if he could save the day by miraculously repairing her ramshackle old heap of a car.

She rolled down the window as he approached and said, "Do you think it's the battery?"

"The starter's cranking. Battery sounds strong."

"This is exactly what I _don't_ need right now. Well, like it or not, it looks like I'm gonna have to call the Colonel." She got out of the car, slammed the door, stamped across the asphalt to the pavement and past the new gate, which still needed a latch mounted and a couple of coats of spray paint.

"I'd be happy to help out," Ben suggested mildly.

"Oh, no thanks. My old man knows this old piece of junk like the back of his hand."

Presently, Ben resumed his work on the gate, determined to let Alicia take care of her own damn problems. After a couple of minutes on the phone, Alicia came back outside, and they were standing there talking when the Colonel pulled up to the curb in a gigantic Dodge Ram diesel with tractor-sized tires. Alicia went out to greet him and Ben went inside to get newspaper, tape, and spray paint.

When he returned the old boy was under the hood barking at Alicia like a drill sergeant. "Do you ever do any kind of maintenance on this fucking car? You're as bad as your mother. Don't you have any fucking concept of what automobile maintenance is?"

"Oh hush up," Alicia scolded her father. "You know I wouldn't call if I didn't need your expertise."

Mostly out of curiosity, Ben sort of wandered over to see what the Colonel was doing under there. Alicia didn't see it coming and neither did Ben or her old man. What a shock they all got when Ben Harper and Colonel Rhodes first laid eyes on each other. Same general build, same exact coloring and facial structure, even the same style in eyeglasses. Colonel Rhodes was Ben's evil twin, only ten years older. At first, Ben sort of buckled at the knees and his mouth dropped open. The Colonel bolted upright and bumped his NRA cap on the underside of the car hood.

"Goddamnit!" He shouted, staggering backward a couple of steps, holding his head with one hand. "Who's this queer looking bastard with the spray paint over here?" he asked.

"Settle down. This is Ben. He's my new landlord."

"You've gotta be kidding me. What kinda girlie hippy landlord you got here, little sister?"

What a nightmare. Face to face with his evil twin, Ben took one look at Alicia and started to see all the random pieces of the puzzle starting to come together. No wonder she always made a point of keeping him at a comfortable distance. No wonder she repeatedly blew him off when he hit her up for a date and then stood him up. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure these things out.

"Well pardon me," said Ben. "Just thought I might be helpful." And he turned around to go right back the way came from.

"Okay, crank this old bitch up and roll her over," the Colonel prompted his daughter.

Alicia slipped in behind the wheel and turned the key. The starter churned and the engine fired and missed and fired again and then kept on firing right on time, idling perfectly. Alicia leaped out of the car and danced around in circles. The Colonel just shook his head and shouted, "Shut her down. Shut her down. I'm not done here yet."

"Hey, Ben, you ought to stop by tonight around eight. It's high time we share a bottle of wine and see where it leads us."

He figured she had to be kidding. But she wasn't. She really wanted him to come over tonight for wine and whatever. Naturally the Colonel wasn't much in favor of his precious daughter cavorting with no commie pinko draft dodgers of any color, race, or creed. And he let it be known in no uncertain terms. Which made Ben wonder if he might be wiser to just skip out on Alicia's little get-together this evening.

But of course he didn't.

That evening the antique gaslight outside the front gate fizzled out for the last time. After burning constantly for about fifty years, it unceremoniously sputtered out and died. Ben watched it happen through the picture window in Alicia's living room, where he sat enjoying a glass of wine. Now he would have no alternative but to convert the lamp fixture to electricity or replace the whole damn thing.

"Wouldn't you know it?" he said, not even trying to mask the disappointment in his voice.

"What's that?" Alicia asked, turning in her seat to see what he was looking at.

"I just finished installing the new gate and now the gas lamp just died."

"Maybe you need to replace one of those little bootie things, like in a Coleman lantern."

"I installed a new set only weeks ago. Ended up having to tear the fixture apart and clean it out before I could get it going again. I think this time it might be _kaput!"_

"What a shame," Alicia gasped, lightly touching her sternum in a strangely melodramatic manner.

"Think nothing of it," Ben replied. "I apologize for interrupting. What were you going to say?"

"I was just saying that spoken word is different. The really deep cerebral stuff gets lost the minute you leave the printed page. Emotion is what works best with an audience. Unless the poem functions on a visceral level, you're sunk. The value of the poem is whatever feelings the audience takes away with them after the words are gone."

"Which might explain why I get a warmer response from people when I read aloud than when they read from the page."

"Yes, your work is always very visual and tends to stir emotions on a visceral level."

"I think that might be the nicest thing you've ever said about my writing." Ben was genuinely touched, "Thanks," for about two seconds.

"I wouldn't want to come right out and say you're an intellectual lightweight, but there are times when your thinking gets so muddled and convoluted that it borders on sophistry."

Ben might have been inclined to disagree had he not been distracted by a dark figure entering the courtyard. It wasn't until she stepped into the porch light that he realized who had come to call.

"Hello! Is anybody home?" called a voice at the screen door.

"Gertude, come in," said Alicia, rising in her seat. "Come in!"

The screen door swung out and in came the esteemed Ms Gertrude Stone, disheveled and unkempt, looking like she was already about half crocked. Panning the room, Gertrude broke into a delighted smile and cried, "It's adorable. I just love it! You're going to be so cozy here."

Ben, who had instantly gone into a state of paralysis the moment he saw her, sat there gob-smacked. He hadn't been aware of the fact that these two women were such close friends. And he was horrified by the idea that Gertude might become a regular fixture around here.

Alicia rose from her chair to greet her friend. "But I'm already beginning to miss my dog."

"Are you kidding? Roscoe would be miserable in this dinky little space. He's better off at your mom's."

"Can I pour you a glass of wine?"

"No thanks, I came fully equipped. You go sit down." She cracked open an oversized carryall bag and took out a pint bottle of amber-colored fluid. "I'll help myself to a glass of ice."

Alicia turned to Ben and explained: "You'll have to excuse us for cornering you like this. You see, we need to talk with you before making our big announcement."

"Oh, quit beating around the bush and come out with it," said Gertrude. "I'm rich. I just recently inherited a fortune from my dear, sweet, fabulously wealthy Aunt Aurora."

"Gertie is my secret patron," Alicia added excitedly, "and now you're in on our little secret. Lucky you!"

"We're going to buy a used press and start publishing a monthly," Gertrude interjected. "And we need your help."

She fixed a hungry, determined, relentless gaze on him, which made it plain to see the rich old cougar had her sights on him next.

"We'd like to set up the press in the second bedroom, if that's all right with you," said Alicia.

"You know about typesetters," said Gertrude, "and plate burners and all that stuff, right?"

"And if things work out," Alicia enticed him cunningly, "we might want to keep the apartment for a while, even after I move back to the mountains."

"Naturally," said Gertrude in a provocative and yet off-putting manner, "I'll be needing you're phone number."

Ben didn't know what to say. This woman who paraded around town like a crazy bag lady turned out to be Alicia's rich patron, helping to keep all her ducks in a row, helping her convert the second bedroom into a pressroom, and suddenly swooping in out of nowhere with designs on him. It was all a bit much to absorb all at once. He couldn't quite wrap his head around it.

"Did you hear that?" He cocked his head as though listening intently. "It's my phone next door," he said, rising to his feet and heading to the door. "I'll be right back."

A moment later as he walked past the kitchen window, he heard Alicia say something in a sarcastic tone of voice and both women burst into a chorus of raucous laughter. This was not at all what he had had in mind for this evening's activities—not in any way, shape or form.

Go figure.

Now that he knew exactly where he stood with Alicia as well as a little something of what her thing with the Colonel was all about, he really didn't care to try and cozy up with her anymore. Any attempt to become intimate with her, he realized now, was out of the question. By this time, even the thought of taking her for a roll in the sack had pretty much lost its luster.

Inside his apartment, he sank into his recliner, looking around at a world that had suddenly become very strange and scary. He stared across the room at Don Quixote on the wall. Ben's self-proclaimed patron saint looked nearly as bewildered and apprehensive as Ben felt, astride his beloved steed, gazing off in the direction of some unknown unseen something outside of the picture frame. What could it be? The future? Or was the delusional old fart gazing blankly into the half distance while daydreaming about some vague memory of the past? Ben realized it really didn't matter as long as his thoughts eventually moved him forward and onward, into the unknown and whatever new windmill he might decide to take a tilt at next. Drawing strength from past experiences, Ben reminded himself this wasn't the first time he'd ever taken on such a formidable challenge. And it wouldn't be the last. In his heart he knew he could survive the storm. He'd come out of this little ordeal all right.

Firming his resolve, Ben got up and headed next door, determined to resist whatever those two had in store for him. He was beginning to see their little ploy as just another power play by the renters—yet another feeble attempt to seize control of his humble domain. And he wasn't about to let anything like that happen. Not in this lifetime. No way!

As for Gertrude Stone, Ben had already had more than his fill of her and her poetry and her publishing project. He thought about going back in there and giving those gals a little piece of his mind, until he realized they would team up and cut him to ribbons. Better to keep them guessing. Keep them at bay by taking a cursory interest in their project, but then making himself generally unavailable. He could be helpful without becoming a slave to their every need. He also understood that he was going to have to start monitoring his phone calls as soon as Gertrude got ahold of his number.

"Now I guess we know who the _real_ gatekeeper is," he muttered to himself unhappily as he traversed the distressingly short distance between Units A and B.

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

Harlequins

i

"You're paying twice as much to keep that fifty-year-old fixture intact and installing two sets of wires for one lamp?" said Lance. "That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense," Ben replied. He was the elder brother and thought he was always right about everything even though, according to his ex-girlfriend, he was full of crap about half the time.

The two men were standing near the entrance of the premises, outside the new gate Ben had recently installed. He was the taller one, in his cut-offs and t-shirt. Lance, in his preppy collegiate attire, was more solidly built. Standing beside a trench that ran under the sidewalk and along the front end of the duplex to the backside of the building, Ben had his toolbox handy as well as an assortment of other tools and supplies strewn about the area.

"Perfect sense," scoffed Lance, "like how?"

"Well, for one thing, I'd rather pay more and have fine old vintage stuff that fits in and looks good than save a few bucks and get stuck with the cheap junk they build these days." Ben stooped down beside the trench and started feeding Romax into one end of the lamppost. Lance stepped into the gateway next to a cinderblock wall upon which sat the antique gaslight housing with the original gasworks removed and replaced by a length of conduit pipe with an electric lamp fixture jury-rigged in place of the old gas jets.

"Okay, I suppose I can see some sort of logic there, but why two sets of wires?"

"One will go to Unit B, so we can work it from there as long as we stay. And a backup going all he way back to the cottage so it'll already be set up when we move in there." He stood the post up in the hole at the end of the trench with a strand of Romax angling from the top like a plastic spike. "Hold this for a minute, will you?"

Lance set down his backpack and stepped over to help. "All right. I see you're reasoning now, I guess. Too bad you didn't just explain it to like that in the first place."

"That side," said Ben, "there you go. That will be fine, right there." He grabbed the shovel and began filling the hole. About a dozen scoops in, he asked, "Does that feel steady yet?"

"Looking good." Lance let go of the metal post but held his hand close just in case.

Ben grabbed a three-foot level and checked the bubble at each of the four compass points, tapping the post a little this way and a little that way, till he got it just right. Then he filled in the rest of the hole and stamped down the fill dirt with both feet.

Meanwhile Lance walked back over to the gateway, glancing over at Unit A, where the drape was partway open. The open drape exposed a bizarre conflagration of clashing colors and design patterns within. "Whoa! Talk about some busy shit.

"Ain't that something?" said Ben as he filled in the trench as far as the tunnel he had burrowed under the sidewalk. "It hurts my eyes to go in there."

"Looks like the new renter is fond of harlequins." Stepping around behind the wall, Lance crossed his arms and placed his forearms on top. "How do you like her so far?"

"I think she's going to be perfect. She's single, no kids, no pets, steady employment," he listed off Mitzi's qualifications as he hopped to the other side of the sidewalk and tugged on the Romax to take out the slack. "And a cheerful disposition and a terrific sense of humor."

"And maybe just a little too good looking for her own damn good," Lance replied. "I know what you're thinking, you old dog. I met her briefly the other day when she was moving in. I also met her boyfriend and a couple of teammates on his rugby team."

"I met those guys too, and that's not her boyfriend. She told me so herself." Ben set aside the shovel and went back to the post.

"Oh yeah, that's her boyfriend all right," Lance insisted. "Past, present or future, _whatever!_ That dude's her boyfriend."

"One way or another," Ben retorted, "I think she's going to be a wonderful neighbor." He took the antique cage-shaped housing down from the wall and turned it in his hands, marveling at what a dandy job he'd done of refurbishing it.

Lance glanced again at the window. "The only time I saw that many harlequins in the same place at one time," he remarked, "was in a curio shop in New Orleans."

"She must have fifty of those creepy ceramic masks on the walls."

"Not to mention the rugs and paintings and lamps and all the rest of that stuff. I wouldn't have thought you could fit so many fools in such a dinky apartment."

"You're right. It definitely gives the place a circuslike atmosphere."

"I can't imagine how anyone could sleep in there."
Lance shouldered his backpack and headed inside, calling back, "Later," and leaving Ben alone to focus on his task. He slipped the loose end of the Romax through the bottom of the cage. Then he reached up with both hands and slipped the housing in place atop the post. Now he could clearly visualize how it was going to look upon completion. He walked backward about halfway to the street and stood there imagining a light bulb in place and four brand new glass panels to seal it in.

"This calls for a celebration," he declared to himself and to anyone else within earshot. Lighting up a smoke, he headed to the apartment to grab a beer. As he moved past Unit A, he remembered what Lance had said about "so many fools in such a dinky apartment," which made him chuckle. He wondered what it might be like to have a hundred harlequins looking on while he and Mitzi got it in the middle of the floor. He wondered if she had harlequin-print sheets and a harlequin-embroidered comforter on her bed. Bottom line, his brother was right about him being smitten with Mitzi, but he wasn't sure if it was Mitzi in particular that had him going, or if just any woman would do. It had been several months since he'd broken up with Amber. Springtime was in the air. And Ben was getting really tired of sleeping alone.

ii

"Harley. Harley! Here you go, Harley. Over here! There's my adorable little Harley doll. Yeah!"

From the parking lot, Ben could hear Mitzi's voice calling out in musical tones that rang like bells.

"Are you my sweet little Harley doll? Yes, you are. Yes, you are my adorable little Harley doll." Her tone changed suddenly as Ben approached the front gate. "C'mere, Harley. Harrrrley! Come back. Get over here, you little rascal."

Ben entered the courtyard to find Mitzi down on her knees, giggling like a schoolgirl, having just snatched up a tiny Yorkie pup with one outstretched hand. The puppy was hardly bigger than a mouse and emitted a tiny squeaky yap as she lifted it to face level and kissed it on the nose.

"Hello," said Ben.

"Hello. How are you? This is Harley, the little guy I was telling you about." She held up the little dog in the manner of a TV model holding up a jewelry item or a bottle of chic perfume for display. "Isn't he just the most adorable little guy you ever saw in your life?"

"He's a cutie all right," Ben concurred. "But didn't you say you'd only be keeping the dog a few days? While your friend was out of town at a training session or something, isn't that what you said?"

Mitzi nodded and held out the dog for Ben to pet. "I've been meaning to tell you that my friend unexpectedly got transferred overseas. When she asked if I'd take one of the puppies for good, I couldn't say no. I mean, just look! Could you say no to such a precious little face?"

Ben could no sooner say no to Harley's precious little mug than Mitzi could. He petted the tiny pup with two fingers between the ears. Harley was just too darn cute to turn out in the street, but Ben couldn't resist the opportunity to yank Mitzi's chain just for the fun of it. "I regret to inform you, however," he said in a solemn voice, "that I'm going to have to charge you a pet deposit."

"Pet deposit? You've got to be kidding? How much?"

"I charge by the pound, and judging by the size that little meatball, I'd figure you owe me about thirty-five cents."

Mitzi shouted with laughter and said, "Put it on my tab."

Ben laughed along with her, and along with the laughter came an unexpected surge of confidence. The desire had been there for weeks, but thus far he hadn't been able to muster up the courage to ask her out. Knowing it probably wasn't a good idea for landlords to go hitting on the renters, he decided on an impulse to go ahead and take the plunge anyway, "You ought to let me take you out for dinner next week."

Judging by the automatic recoil of her body, the way she drew the puppy in close and averted her eyes, Ben could tell that her answer was going to be no.

"I'm going to have to take a rain check on that," she said, looking him directly in the eye. "I'm still trying to recover from my last disastrous relationship." Mitzi smiled but her eyes looked anything but happy. Tilting down her chin, she gazed at the puppy, stroked its head, as though drawing strength from a small furry battery of some sort.

"That body builder guy you introduced me to when you moved in?"

"His name is Brady. We were going to get married but—" She paused, crestfallen. "I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."

"I'm sorry I brought it up."

"No, no, no. You needn't apologize." Mitzi's face brightened and her voice rose an octave or two, but her newfound enthusiasm was totally unconvincing, "I really am truly flattered, and ordinarily—"

"Nuff said!" Ben shook his head with finality and waved off whatever she was about to say. "We ought to just let it go at that," he suggested, conjuring up a phony grin of his own. "Feel free to give me a nod, if you decide to take me up on that dinner sometime."

"Hey, relax," she called out as he stepped away, "I'd hate to see you go beating yourself up over this. Nothing in my life is settled right now, much less totally under control, and that's okay."

Ben looked down at her looking up at him with the puppy in her hands and its tail twitching madly as it struggled to break loose.

"Sometimes the best way to cope with this crazy world is to adopt an absurdist perspective on the world," Mitzi said in a way that made it seem like she was mostly trying to convince herself. "It's the kooky, quirky stuff that makes life spontaneous and fun."

"An interesting line of thought anyway," Ben mused.

"No, it's true," Mitzi vigorously countered. "I know this is so because I have a lot of personal experience in these matters."

iii

Ben and Lance were sharing Unit B at the time, and they had a friend named Nick who often came around to tip a few cool ones, cook up a meal, get loaded. Sometimes Ben would go along with them to Nick's favorite honky-tonk, which was located right down the street and around the corner. There, they could get totally plastered and then stagger home without any risk of getting a DUI. Now and then, they even managed to scare up a few women friends to join them afterhours for a nightcap at Ben & Lance's place.

One night, a few days after Mitzi brought Harley home, Ben and his buddies got lucky at the honky-tonk and brought a few gals home with them. As they filed through the gateway and into the courtyard, one of the gals observed, "Say, this is Mitzi's place."

"You know Mitzi?" Ben asked.

The honky-tonk lady was more than just a little intoxicated and slurred her words. "We've been friends since grade school. I puppy-sat Harley for weeks while she was getting moved in and sishuated."

This was Ben's first indication that Mitzi hadn't been completely up-front with him. It burned a little, finding out he'd been lied to, but that was nothing compared to what came next.

"Wait a minute," Nick snapped his fingers and asked, "are we talking about Mitzi Collins?" And when the honky-tonk gal nodded, his entire face broke into a beaming grin and he went on, "That one's a firecracker. She's loads of fun! We used to call her Miss Peaches and Cream of New Orleans when she started passing around those cheap Mardi Gras necklaces she's so fond of. Haven't seen that girl around for quite a while."

"She hasn't been going out clubbing much lately. Not since Brady left her at the altar and she found out she's going to have a baby."

The word 'baby' struck Ben like a body blow. He staggered backward a couple of steps, struggling to wrap his head around what the honky-tonk lady had just said. No wonder Mitzi didn't care to go out catting around in the middle of the night, he told himself. No wonder she didn't want to go out on a dinner date with the landlord. Mitzi was busy nesting now. Mourning the loss of her mate. Preparing for childbirth. The woman had a full plate.

From that point on the party was over for Ben. He went off on an alternative wavelength of his own. After some incalculable length of time, he excused himself and turned in, even though he was still feeling pretty loopy. It hadn't gotten any easier for him to sleep alone, but the problem wasn't as much a matter of missing Amber as it was a matter of missing that warm comforting body of hers—simple as that. An extra pillow to snuggle up with just wasn't going to cut it very much longer.

He thought about Amber awhile, then about Mitzi awhile, and then he found himself thinking about the ongoing turmoil at work. But that was just too damned depressing, so he transitioned to an image of some woman who had caught his eye at the honky-tonk that evening. Before the picture could fully materialize though, that hazy picture was obscured by a different, sharper, clearer image of Harley the Yorkshire terrier, tiny ringmaster of absurdity, with a bow in his hair and a harlequin-print bandana around his neck, his glossy eyes and nose no bigger than buttons, and the fur-fringed wire of his tail whipping back and forth like a crooked windshield wiper.

Holding the thought of Mitzi's comical little dog in mind for as long as he could, Ben finally drifted off to sleep.

iv

Ben didn't see much of Mitzi for the next few weeks. Nick didn't come around much either, although Ben had seen his friend's Bronco parked out front a couple of times. He hadn't given it much thought, surmising that Nick and Lance must have gone off somewhere together in Lance's car. In fact, he never gave it a second thought until the night of broken glass.

That night all hell broke loose on the parking lot shortly after two o'clock in the morning. After Ben and his drinking buddies had walked home from the honky-tonk, as they approached the parking lot out front of the triplex, they came upon a crime in progress. The crime in this instance was vandalism, and it was being perpetrated by Mitzi's ex-fiancée, Brady. He was currently in the process of smashing the last remaining window of her car with an aluminum baseball bat.

Ben noticed right away that the windows of Nick's Bronco were also laying in shatters on the ground. He also noticed Mitzi standing helplessly in the window, watching her car being vandalized by the same drunken brute that had left her standing at the altar and presumably knocked her up.

Evidently, Nick had been noticing these things too, because he sprang into action, rushing toward the bat-wielding hulk. Crazy with rage, and completely fearless, Nick went charging in: "The fuck you think you're doing," he shouted, "you giant douchebag?"

It took Brady a moment to adjust to this sudden intrusion from beyond the tiny sphere of his awareness, and that was all Nick needed. A small wiry man, Nick was faster than blazes, even half crocked. In two seconds flat, he had landed half a dozen solid blows and was backing away, taunting the lumbering drunk the whole way. "C'mon, numbnuts, show me what you've got."

When Brady took a swing at him with the bat, Nick nimbly sidestepped and kicked him in the ass. Which only served to further infuriate the man. He charged at Nick with the butt of the bat like a battering ram, but Nick slipped coolly to the side like a matador and tripped the man with his foot as he blundered past. Brady went crashing to his knees like a fallen buffalo.

Ben was impressed. He had never seen Nick go into action like that before.

Meanwhile, as Lance and Ben stood in the stark white glare of a pole lamp near the gate, watching Nick dance circles around a drunken maniac in the parking lot, Mitzi came out of her apartment but only as far as the wall. "I already called the police," she assured them. "No telling when they'll turn up though. Not at two-thirty on a Saturday morning."

Mitzi was right. The police didn't arrive till long after Nick was finished taking Brady's bat away and sending him home without it. "All right then, have it your way," said Nick. "Stick around till the cops get here if you want to. Your choice, but I can't imagine why you'd want to go to jail when you can just go home to bed instead."

Brady didn't say much before he left, only this: "I've done what I set out to do here."

"Expect to be hearing from my insurance company," Nick called out after him. Then he carefully jotted down Brady's tag number before the idiot drove away.

"Well, that was invigorating," he said, rejoining the group, "but a real buzz-killer." Flipping the bat from barrel to handle and back again with one hand, he went on, "What say we step inside for refreshments? My mouth is mighty dry!"

"I'll wait here for the police," Mitzi declared. And as Nick passed through the gate he and Mitzi exchanged a curious little look that instantly aroused Ben's suspicions, though he had no idea what to make of it till later.

Nick propped the bat near the doorstep before stepping inside. "Let's burn one really quick before the cops get here," he proposed.

"Wow, that was something completely different," Lance replied, "wouldn't you say?" And he put himself to work rolling one up at the coffee table.

"Completely over the top," said Ben. He stepped over to the window to keep an eye out for the cops. "But there's something about it that just doesn't fit."

"What's that?" asked Lance.

"Well, I can understand why the guy might want to trash Mitzi's windows, but why go after the Bronco? It's just not right for him to smash out Nicky's windows too."

He glanced over at Nick who was exchanging a secretive little look with Lance, who just came right out and stated quite bluntly, "He got just exactly what he had coming to him."

"Oh, you mean?" Ben got it now. "Ah hah, I see. You and Mitzi—"

"Aw shucks, you know I'm not one to kiss and tell," Nick said with a deep shrug, beaming with pride and blushing beet red at the same time. "I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy."

Later that morning, as Ben lay in his bed reviewing the night's events and all the foolishness that came along with them, he told himself, "Relax. Nothing's under control, and that's okay. The trick is to maintain an absurdist perspective while the lunatics overrun the asylum. It's the kooky, quirky stuff that makes life spontaneous and fun."

Remembering it had been Mitzi who first planted that idea in his head, Ben realized he wasn't the least bit angry or disappointed with her anymore. In spite of all the hoop-jumping she had put him through lately, Mitzi and her little dog had ultimately helped Ben formulate a line of thought that would be useful to him in the coming years.

Even in its nascent stages, this newfound ability to view the world of human folly through a Fellini-like lens was proving itself to be an invaluable asset. Particularly now that Mitzi was totally out of reach, and Amber was gone for good, and he found himself snuggling up with an extra pillow as he tried to relax and go to sleep.

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

The Happy Hedonist

i

The living room was full of swirling blue smoke shot through with afternoon sunbeams slanting in through a picture window near the front door. Across the room a stout young man with straw blond hair blew out a stream of smoke as he browsed through music CDs on a shelf above the entertainment center. Meanwhile, a petite, freckle-faced woman of about the same age sat cross-legged on the couch, holding her breath. She had just passed the bong to an older fellow with glasses, who was seated on an ottoman across the coffee table from her. The older fellow was about to relight the bong when: BAM! BAM! BAM!

All of a sudden the front door swung open, and a wave of smoke rushed outside as a scantily clad, hippie-type guy came barging in. "Busted!" he shouted so loudly that it could be heard halfway down the block.

Which gave the three pot smokers inside quite a start. The older dude norfed his toke, coughing uncontrollably, billowing smoke. The younger man almost dropped the CD box he had just selected from his music library. Meanwhile, the freckle-faced redhead on the couch nearly jumped clear out of her seat.

"Max is home," she announced with a note of sarcasm in her voice. Settling back down and re-crossing her legs, she explained to the older guy in glasses, "As you can see, our new roommate is really big on grand entrances."

Meanwhile, Max Cushman roared with laughter and roguish abandon. Tugging gently at the slender arm of the shapely brunette behind him, he drew her inside and shut the door. Max was a tall, ordinary-looking fellow with a slight build and long dark hair tied back in a ponytail. The lanky young woman at his side was tanned and toned and stunningly photogenic. A real knock out. Like Max, she had an assortment of tattoos and was clad in little more than a tank top and cut-off jeans. Both of them seemed to be thoroughly delighted with Max's juvenile antics.

"Have you met the landlord?" Tory asked, putting the disc down on the platter of the CD player.

"Oh, yeah. A couple of days ago," Max replied, and turning to the older fellow, he said, "Sorry, Ben! If I'd known you were here, I wouldn't have snuck up on you like that."

Ben, who still hadn't fully recovered from his coughing fit, wiped his watery eyes and muttered hoarsely, "No worries." Then he cleared his throat and added, "You know, come to think of it, I'm still waiting for that application form I gave you the other day."

"Ah, yes! Thanks for reminding me. I'll get right on that," Max replied in such a way as to leave the landlord wondering if he would ever see that application form again—filled-out or otherwise.

"Aren't you going to introduce your friend?" asked the redhead on the couch.

"Of course," answered Max, with a big lop-sided grin on his face. "This is Cindy Fox," he declared in the manner of a TV pitchman, wowing his audience with some pricey luxury item. "Cindy, I want you to meet my roommates, Tonya Bell and Tory Baggins. And over there, that's Ben uhm—"

"Harper," said Ben, and offering up the bong, "Want a hit? It's killer shit."

Max and Cindy shook their heads. "Smells great!" said Max. "But right now we'll have to settle for a contact high. Cindy's only got a couple of hours before her show, and in the meantime we've got a bunch of tattoos to compare notes on. So, if you'll excuse us," he begged off, taking Cindy by the hand, "we'll get on with our business and leave you boasters to yours."

As Max led Cindy to the hallway, Tory gave him a friendly one-finger salute then poked a button on the CD player to activate the music—Led Zeppelin, loud, though not too loud for conversation, yet at the same time loud enough to cover whatever commotion Max and Cindy might stir up while comparing tattoos in the bedroom.

After they had gone, Ben gave Tonya a quizzical look and asked, "Boasters?"

"That's his name for pot smokers," Tonya answered, brushing a loose lock of hair away from her dinky upturned nose. She opened up her laptop computer to resume the video game she had put on pause when Ben stopped by to pick up a bag of Tai stick from Tory.

"Because of the way we always brag about what good shit we've got," Tory explained a little further as he slipped into his recliner. "You did it yourself just a minute ago."

"Well, if anyone's got something to boast about, it would have to be Max. Where the hell does he go to meet so many gorgeous women?" So far Ben had been trying to maintain a holding pattern at forty-five for nearly two years, and he was beginning to wonder if his mid-life crisis was ever going to end. "I've seen him with a different one almost every day since he moved in."

"He works part-time for his brother-in-law at Pasties," said Tory, "chauffeuring the dancers around while they're in town. He takes them to run errands and back and forth from the club to their hotels."

"Lucky Max," Ben mused.

Tory shrugged and said, "I dunno, maybe so. Depends on how you look at it."

"Lucky Max until next time he brings home a dose of the clap," Tonya remarked without looking up from her video game.

"It's the price he pays for his reckless hedonism," said Tory, whom Ben understood to be a more responsible sort of guy who didn't particularly approve of Max's nihilistic approach to life.

"He's a bit of an odd sort," said Tonya. "But you've gotta give him credit for knowing how to take care of Max. He knows exactly how to satisfy all of his quirky proclivities. But, more importantly, he pays his rent on time."

ii

A few days later Ben found himself "boasting" with Max in the courtyard. Ben was on one side of the picnic table and Max on the other. They didn't say much as the joint traveled back and forth between them a few times. The only sounds they made were hisses and snorts.

"Fucking Tai stick really is the bomb!" cried Max, blowing smoke. Dressed in his customary shorts and sandals, he was fresh out of the shower and his hair was still wet. "I'm done. Thanks."

"I'll tell you who's the bomb," Ben replied, taking the roach and lighter from Max and setting them down on the table. "That tight-bodied little number you brought home with you yesterday, she's the bomb."

"Yeah, Cindy's great. Onstage she does this little thing with a ping pong ball that really rattles the boys' sabers."

"You must have quite a repertory of witty pickup lines to score with so many women."

"Are you kidding?" Max scoffed. "I just tell them they look hot and ask if they want to have sex. When they say no, I ask them how about later, after work, and suggest a few kinky tricks they might like to experiment with. If they continue to hold out on me, I promise the best sex they've ever had. If worse comes to worst, I tell them I have a huge dick, but I seldom have to resort to such extreme measures."

"I don't know if I could be that casual about it. I was raised to treat ladies like a gentleman."

"Ben, you're way too old-school. The last thing these strippers are looking for is a gentleman. They want a guy who's honest and open and easy. Uptight and overbearing just doesn't play anymore."

"Yeah, well, if you ever find yourself with an extra one on your hands, be sure and give me a call. I wouldn't mind learning how to get more laid back with one of those gals."

Just then, a scrawny little urchin of a man came screeching to a stop on his bicycle outside the gate. Awkwardly dismounting, he bashed the front tire into the gate as he opened it, then banged the gate into the back tire as he closed it.

"Yo," he said to Max as he pushed his bike across the courtyard toward the picnic table.

"Well, if it isn't Logan Lockett," said Max, scowling. "What brings the vermin out of the woodwork, Logan?"

Ben said nothing. He just looked on as Logan approached the end of the table and set the bike on its kickstand. Logan was one of those guys who bug the hell out of landlords because they don't seem to have a home of their own. Ben had had his fill of this guy months ago.

"Big SCA retreat this weekend, you going?" Logan asked Max, helping himself to the roach on the table, lighting it with Max's lighter.

"Could be." Max shrugged. "And _NO_ I'm not giving you a ride. Not after last time, buddy. No way!"

"What happened last time?" asked Ben.

"Motherfucker flipped a cigarette butt in the bed of my truck and nearly caught us on fire."

"Not your vintage '53 Ford!" Ben exclaimed.

"One and the same." Max answered.

"It was only a sleeping bag in the back that caught fire," Logan interjected in his own defense.

"A sleeping bag right next to a five-gallon tank of gas," Max corrected him.

"But—" Logan's entire demeanor changed from that of a cocky jerk to that of a whiny child who knows he isn't going to have his way. "I promise you _nothing_ like that will _ever_ happen again."

"That's for sure," Max replied with keen resolve. "Because I'm never going to be giving you a ride again. _Now. Go. Away."_

"Well, excuse me, Mr. High and Mighty Trust Fund Baby," Logan replied in the manner of a very little man with a really big chip on his shoulder.

"What can I tell you? I'm fucking blessed," Max rejoined him sharply. "My grandpa left me some money with all kinds of strings attached. My old man is a rich lawyer and an abusive drunk with unforgiving fists. I have a job where all I have to do is fuck beautiful women and take whatever bullshit my brother-in-law is dishing out from one day to the next. I never get a vacation, but I never complain. Never a day off, even though every day feels kinda like a day off. Yeah, my life is truly blessed. All the good things just sort of come to me."

"Not everyone gets to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth," said Logan resentfully. "Stuck-up fucking assholes like you always get their just desserts in the end." And with that he rolled his bicycle back to the cottage where he would hang out doing absolutely nothing for hours on end.

"I can't stand that guy," said Max, plenty loud enough for Logan to hear.

"Neither can I," said Ben.

"I can't believe he has the nerve to hit me up for another ride. Sometimes I think he goes out of his way to get under my skin."

"He's just jealous and petty."

"Dude, he's fucking pathetic, but we can't get Tonya to make him leave. They've been pals since grade school. At this point they're more like brother and sister."

"Maybe I should threaten to raise the rent, if he's going to be living here all the time."

"Now there's a scheme that would undoubtedly blow up in your face. Knowing Tonya, she'd just pay the extra money and bear a grudge against you till the end of time."

iii

About midway through August, Tory and Tonya threw a costume party for all their friends in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Late in the afternoon the guests began to appear in an endless procession of flamboyant attire.

Knights in plastic chain mail accompanied damsels in puffy sleeves and pointed hats. Celtic warriors decked out in imitation furs and leathers fraternized with Viking royalty, wearing fiberglass helmets with gleaming horns. Venetian merchants in tight leggings mingled with aristocrats in powdered wigs—just to mention a few. Tory looked like a character ripped from the pages of _The Lord of the Rings_. Max donned a kilt and breastplate and already had all the requisite piercings and tattoos.

Not everyone came in costume, however, and the ubiquitous presence of drab modernity only added to the overall strangeness and comic effect of the scene, reminding Ben of several renaissance fairs he had attended years ago in California, where people went to great extremes to come across as more authentically anachronistic than the next guy.

Go figure.

Ben was standing in the courtyard with a Heineken in one hand and a Viceroy in the other when the German girls arrived. Although not a single one of them was decked out in a conspicuous outfit, those five coeds, with their thick accents and odd foreign mannerisms, stood out in the crowd like a splendid bird of paradise among the pigeons. Ben was entirely captivated from the moment he saw them come marching through the front gate.

Tonya also noticed their arrival and turned to greet them as they approached. "I'm so happy to see you, Kirsten," she said, unconsciously fingering the golden neck torc that signified her status as a Celtic warrior princess. "And glad your friends could make it."

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Kirsten replied, pronouncing all the Ws as Vs in such a way as to thoroughly enchant a certain eavesdropping landlord who's ear registered her statement like this: Ve voodn't meese eet for za voorlt.

Tall and trim with golden blond hair and sky-blue eyes, Kirsten was the closest thing to a genuine Arian goddess that Ben had ever come across in his life.

"Gerhardt couldn't come after all?"

"I tried to persuade him to take a night off. But he and his colleagues are so busy at the lab he just couldn't. He sends his regards though and promised to stop by later if he can."

"Oh good. I hope he can make it," Tonya asserted, sounding not altogether convinced herself that the statement was true, but with all the grace and decorum befitting a Celtic princess. "Now, why don't you introduce me to your friends," she suggested in more commanding tones, demonstrating the warrior side of her nature.

"Tonya, I want you to meet Greta," she said with a nod of her head and fluttery hand gesture to indicate each girl as she listed them off. "And Uma and Astrid and Hilda."

"All nursing students?" asked Tonya.

"Just Kirsten, Uma, and me," answered Hilda, the only one of the bunch who wasn't the least bit attractive to Ben. "Greta is a geologist, and Astrid studies art and literature."

As the young women took turns sharing pleasantries with their hostess, Ben could have sworn he saw one of the girls pointing him out specifically to one of the others, which struck him as rather odd. Also encouraging though, considering what he had heard about European gals enjoying the company of older men with the kind of warmth and honesty that your average American coed would never dream of.

What was the harm in believing that fairy tales might come true?

He finished off his beer and headed over to the ice cooler to grab another, chucking the empty in a trashcan along the way. There were plenty of brew pops in the cooler but no bottle opener in sight, so he fished his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and put it to good use. Taking a swig, he noticed a figure slipping furtively into the courtyard.

By the time Ben sighted him, the light of a pole lamp was at the man's back, so his face was masked in shadow. Yet Ben could tell right away just who it was, because Logan Lockett walked with a distinctive little hitch in his gait. The sleazy little creep had become such a familiar fixture at Tory's place that Ben would probably recognize him in total darkness.

Tonight, he was draped in a Halloween toga and adorned with a scraggly laurel wreath. Ben assumed the outfit was meant to evoke visions of some illustrious figure from classical times, Caesar perhaps or Plato or Dionysus. From a landlord's perspective, however, Logan came across as more of a satyr-like bridge troll wrapped in a bed sheet.

Just then Tonya asked if anyone wanted a drink, and the whole group descended upon the cooler at once. Ben stood waiting with his handy Swiss Army knife ready for that inevitable moment when Tonya would say something like: I wonder what happened to the bottle opener?

He waited as Tonya selected her brand. Waited as she began to look around. Here it came.

"What the fuck?" grumbled Tonya with a snarl in her voice. "Somebody stole the goddamn—"

"Here yuh go." Ben suggested, taking the knife out of his pocket and offering his assistance, "Allow me."

"You're a life saver," said Tonya, handing him her bottle. "Ben's the landlord around here. He lives in that apartment over there," she explained, pointing across the courtyard at Unit B.

"Pleased to meet you," Ben greeted the group at large. He handed back Tonya's bottle, and she proceeded to introduce each German girl one by one, as he opened a beer for each he met in turn.

"How do you like our country?" he asked.

"I like many things," replied Greta, a haughty brunette with wire-frame glasses, as she handed him her bottle. "But other things, not so much."

"Care to elaborate on that a little?" he asked, gripping the bottle firmly.

"Not really," she demurred.

"Ah, I see," said Ben, "a diplomat," and the bottle cap fizzed a little before it cracked open.

"How about you, Hilda? Is your impression of America as unspeakable as Greta's?"

"It has been an interesting, a memorable year. But I am very anxious to go home."

"Well, that's a nice way to put it, I suppose," said Ben. The bottle cap fizzled briefly, just before the cap came off. "Surely one of you has a more favorable opinion of the land of the free and the home of the brave."

"I like it here better than the others, I think," said Astrid, who was a little too short and a little too squat to really float Ben's boat, but who nevertheless had a very pretty face with bright green eyes and a charming smile. "Especially the desert and all the Indian tribes and their ancient stone houses."

"All right. Now there's a girl after my own heart," Ben proclaimed, and this time he applied just the right amount of torque to pry the cap off with a clear POP!

"I also like very much the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest," Uma chimed in. Her long straight black hair shone in the moonlight. Her dark eyes flashed with dangerous sexual prowess that Ben found quite alluring.

"Have you been to Carlsbad Caverns yet?" asked Tonya.

"We have plans to go next week. I am very much excited. All over the country I am told so much about the bats there. So many bats they cover the sky."

And then, moments later, as Ben popped open Kirsten's bottle, she casually inquired, "Where's Max? Has he come yet?" and that's all it took to send the whole crew clambered off in search of the charismatic pleasure king of the Scottish highlands.

iv

After Ben had opened the German girls' beers and they had gone off to look for Max, Ben wandered around to the back yard to check and see what sort of circus was going on back there. He selected a good vantage point near the wall to stand and watch people and swig beer. He watched people playing horseshoes over near the vegetable garden and then others throwing darts at a target mounted on the side of the tool shed.

People gathered around a banquet table and portable barbeque set up in the middle of the lawn where a magician and pair of jugglers performed for a half dozen casual onlookers. Others formed a large group on the patio, where a skinny guy with a lute and a heavy-set woman with a flute entertained their audience with a rousting Elizabethan tune.

When Ben noticed Uma ambling up to the banquet table, he moseyed over to join her. "Watch out for the watermelon," he cautioned her, "I've heard it's spiked."

"Spiked?" said Uma with a puzzled expression.

Ben simulated the action of injecting a syringe load of drugs into his arm. "Spiked with acid."

Uma gave him a funny look that he didn't know quite how to interpret.

"LSD." With a nod of his chin, Ben gave her a knowing wink.

"Uh huh."

"I haven't touched the stuff for at least ten years and have no desire to try it again anytime soon. As far as I'm concerned, a couple of hundred acid trips in a lifetime are plenty."

"I see. Well, thank you so much for the warning," Uma replied. Then she headed straight over and helped herself to a big chunk of spiked watermelon. In the process, a little trickle of watermelon juice went streaming down from the corner of her mouth. Ben turned to watch the magician for a few moments and then glanced over at Uma again as she strutted away, all in black, disappearing into the shadows. So much for Uma, thought Ben. Strike one.

v

Sometime later, after Ben had downed a few more Heinekens and wandered around awhile, he found himself standing in the living room near the entrance to the hallway. Beside him stood a tank of nitrous oxide, which might account for the roomful of totally wigged-out people who went dancing wildly around a portly court jester and sultry Cleopatra wielding a snub-nosed Colt .38. Ben looked on with amused detachment as Max Cushman and Logan Lockett vied for the attention of a particular robust German beauty. First Logan then Max then Logan then Max, while Kirsten stood there, bottle in hand, with her head pivoting this way and that like an impartial spectator at a tennis match.

Things have changed a lot since the last time I went prowling around the dating scene, thought Ben, and yet they really haven't changed that much at all. One thing that hadn't changed a bit was the music. Everything these young people were playing went back to a time long before he hooked up with Amber and dropped out of the singles scene for the next ten years. The music Tory and his gang seemed to prefer went all the way back to Ben's high school days: The Dead, ZZ Top, Crazy Horse, and at the moment Black Sabbath, of all things. This was stuff that had been created before most of these kids were born.

Appropriate, Ben supposed, for a gathering of the SCA.

When someone came out of the bathroom behind him, he looked around and there was Greta, the geologist with a sparkle in her eye, coming his way. "Have you another cigarette?" she asked, delicately twirling a ringlet of hair around her finger.

He handed her a cigarette and she helped herself to the one in his mouth. After lighting hers with his, she put it right back where it came from. Then she winked and blew smoke in his face. He wondered if she was intentionally sending mixed signals or if mixed signaling just came naturally to her.

"You are so kind, and such a free spirit. I can tell. Although you are getting on in years, you are still very young at heart. If not, you would not be here."

"I get a big kick out of young people. I hang out a lot with a group of poets and musicians. Many of them are about your age."

"I am the opposite, an old soul. I have an ancient spirit. My ex-husband called me an anachronism. That is why I feel so much at home here. This creative anachronisms party, I just love it. These people, they are all so delighting, so beautiful!"

"You're pretty easy on the eye yourself, girl."

"Easy on the eye?" She raised one eyebrow. "I do not know that expression."

"You look really good to me," Ben nervously began to ramble, his head swimming, his voice too loud. "And my apartment is right next door. How would you like to come over and have a quick roll in the sack? Tell me, Greta, are you into casual sex? I've heard it's all the rage in Germany."

"Maybe in some big cities like Hamburg. But I come from a quiet village in Bavaria."

"I know a few kinky tricks you might like to try," Ben blundered on in spite of the crippling jitters that continued to vex him.

"We are God-fearing people."

"I guarantee the best sex you've ever had. And I have a _huge_ dick," he blurted out, in spite of himself, and instantly wished he hadn't.

"I am sure you do. But no, not this time." She smiled faintly and crinkled her nose and then her face started to blossom into a full blush. "My boyfriend would not approve."

For a moment her face turned the same rich shade of pink that her lips normally were, and they seemed to vanish. Ben had a feeling that the immediate object of his desire would soon be following suit. "Boyfriend in Germany?" he guessed.

She affirmed his conjecture with a simple nod.

"Lucky guy," said Ben, while at the same time thinking: So much for Greta. Strike two.

vi

Sometime later, Ben joined Tory in the inner circle of the master bedroom for a bump of nose candy intended to keep him feeling lively for the rest of the night. They cracked open a couple of fresh brew pops and tried to have a conversation but kept getting interrupted by an endless stream of timeless avatars with a nose for cocaine. When a pair of brutish gladiator types came lumbering in, Ben excused himself and slipped out into the hall.

The bathroom was occupied at the moment, and folks were lined up outside the door, so Ben headed next door to his place. But when he emerged from the hall, the German girl who wasn't Uma or Greta or Hilda or Kirsten gripped his forearm in both hands and pulled him over to the nitrous oxide tank. There, she gave herself a hit and then proceeded to pantomime a woman insisting that he take a quick blast through the clear plastic tube she wouldn't quit sticking in his face. Saying something utterly unintelligible in a high-pitched voice, she laughed like a hyena, and encouraged him to do the same. Ben took a blast and they both went into absolute hysterics for the longest time, before she grasped his hand and dragged him out the front door.

"Tell me your name again."

"Astrid."

As the screen door closed behind them, Ben heard a rutting sound over near the wall behind the evergreens. Automatically glancing in the direction of the sound, Ben caught a glimpse. And once seen it could never be unseen. Tonya's friend, Suzette, a big bawdy gal with an adequate bumper, was bent forward with her dress hiked up on her back and her folded arms forming a pillow on top of the wall. A substantial portion of her big round bumper was at the moment fully exposed and shone in the moonlight, while being actively attended to in an unspeakable manner by another of Tonya's friends, none other than the lascivious Logan Lockett.

Astrid too had noticed what was going on. And she was so amused by it all that she started giggling and poking Ben in the ribs. Which in due course triggered a giggling jag in Ben. They giggled all the way to the front door of Unit B, where they paused a moment prior to entry. She pressed him hard against her ample breasts, and said, "You are very handsome man. Men like you are most attracting to me."

"Not too old for you, ay?" he asked, opening the door and letting her pass in front of him.

"I have what we call a papa complex," she replied matter-of-factly. "Also, I am kind of a nymphomaniac." As she turned her tantalizing smile his way, he noticed the delicate bow of her lips, her perfect teeth.

"I think I can live with that," he declared, impatiently leading her straight to the bedroom.

"But first you must open the window. I want to smell barbeque cooking."

"Okay." Ben was willing enough to accommodate, no questions asked.

Astrid took several deep breaths as he slid open the glass pane, holding the last one for a moment and then slowly releasing it. "Ah, the smell of charred meat. I love it with wine and raw sex," she asserted, and now that she had succinctly pronounced her intentions, she proceeded to unzip his pants.

vii

Some indeterminate measure of time later, once Astrid was finished with Ben and they had put their clothes back on, the casual lovers parted ways at a juncture that led either to the front door of the cottage or around the side of the building to the back yard. He went one way. She went the other.

Out back, Ben chowed down at the banquet table, trying to sort out and organize his thoughts. Tonya came up from behind and lifted his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder like a blanket. "Having a good time?" she asked in a tone of voice that indicated that she already knew the answer.

"Ohhhhh, yeah!" Ben replied with enthusiasm tempered by mild, occasional aftershocks resulting from what just happened next door. He couldn't quite wrap his head around it.

"News spreads fast around here," Tonya replied, spinning away and facing him directly. "Nobody can keep a secret."

"With this crowd it looks like just about _anything_ goes."

"No holds barred," said Tonya. "That's what all my ancestors used to say."

"If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say Tory's got his hands full with a spitfire like you, lady."

"And you would be correct in your assumption. But that's not—" She gazed of into the half distance, absently gnawing at the inside of her lower lip.

At the far end of a pregnant pause Ben's curiosity was piqued. Tilting his face to one side, he asked. "What?"

"That's not what I wanted to talk to you about. Fact is, well, I have to ask a favor of you. As much as I hate to ask, we have nowhere else to turn."

"Go ahead. Spit it out."

"The German girls need a place in town to set up camp. The KOA is too expensive for them to stay a full two weeks, and that's how long they need a home base—that is, in between road trips they have planned in the meantime. We were hoping you'd be okay with them camping in the back yard. They'll just pitch a few tents and be in and out for a while. I bet you'll hardly even notice they're around."

"Oh, I'll notice them all right," Ben countered with a sly gleam in his eye, "and they're all so charming that I'm certain to be relishing every minute of it."

Tonya's eyes brightened and her brows arched way up and she threw her arms around him, shrieking, "Ben, you're the best! I've gotta go tell the girls."

As she headed inside, Ben called after her, "Do me a favor, will you? Tell Astrid she's welcome to come over and camp at my place anytime."

viii

And just like that the German girls were magically transformed into urban campers bivouacked in Tory and Tonya's back yard. They hung out around Ben's place quite a bit too. Astrid essentially moved in with him, and he willingly threw open his doors to the lot of them, allowing them to come and go pretty much as they pleased. They showered in his bathroom when the water heater next door went cold. They stored food in the fridge, cooked and cleaned up after themselves. They even fed Ben a few tasty home-cooked meals during their stay.

He was pretty much on cloud nine the whole time. In an uncharacteristic lapse into wonton hedonism, he went so far as to call in sick several times, just so he could stay home and loaf around with Max and Astrid and anyone else who happened to be hanging out. For a time even Logan seemed almost tolerable. What with Astrid regularly sleeping in his bed with him and the rest of ladies prancing around in scanty attire, the thought often crossed his mind that he must've died and gone to heaven. Even though he hadn't believed in heaven or sky fairies of any sort for decades.

Go figure.

It was during the German girls' camping trip to Kit Carson National Forest that Ben found himself alone on a Sunday afternoon, heaven help him. He was fiddling around with a poem and sort of half listening to a baseball game when Max came knocking at his door.

"C'mon along with me, dude. Hurry up! You don't want to miss this."

"Hold on a minute. Let me put my shoes on."

"You won't be needing them."

"Well, okay." Ben hurried out the door. "I guess."

"I found me a prize pony this time," Max proclaimed with a sinister snicker. Ben had to step up his pace to keep up as Max scurried across the pavement, barefoot and shirtless. Stepping inside the cottage and shutting the door, he gave Ben a little nudge in the ribs and whispered, "She gets off on two guys at once."

When they stepped into Max's room, the thickset strawberry blonde with batty eyelashes was already naked and reclining on the bed like Manet's _Olympia_. As she leaned forward to greet them, her boobs did that smooth little bouncy motion that firm breasts are prone to do. At that point, Ben felt certain he was ready for action. Max had already shed his cut-offs and was rearing to go.

But then, all of a sudden, Ben felt a wave of icy-hot ambivalence shudder through his body like loose shingles in a windstorm.

One look at Max climbing aboard that shameless vamp, and Ben felt no further compulsion to climb in with either one of them. For an instant he pictured himself entangled with those two in some gratuitous pornographic position—and that was that: An abrupt yet oddly appropriate ending to an adolescent fantasy that had been lingering in the back of his mind for thirty years.

"Sorry, guys," he said, "I hate to be a spoil sport, but I don't think I'm cut out for this," swallowing the hard lump in his throat, "I should probably be going now."

ix

The next day Ben intercepted Max as he was passing through the courtyard. "Hey, listen: I'm sorry I dropped the ball on you guys yesterday."

"Think nothing of it," said Max. "Logan happened to stop by, and he turned out to be just the sort of prick she needed, if you know what I mean."

"I guess I'm a lot more straight-laced than I realized. Way too duty-bound to lead the carefree life of a slacker. I suppose I'm just too damn busy getting things done to dedicate my life to an endless pursuit of sensual pleasures."

"It's just not your bag, I reckon," said Max, clearly anxious to be on his way.

"People like me are better off having genuine down-to-earth friendships, no matter how brief or inconsequential. You know, when Astrid got in last night, and we drank together and ate together and went to bed together, I did so with a clear conscience. Which probably wouldn't have been the case if I had joined your little menage au trois."

"Different strokes for different folks," said Max with a shrug. "I bet if Astrid weren't keeping you company lately, you'd have gone after that hot little mama like a hound dog on bacon."

"You're probably right," said Ben, although he wasn't so sure about the bacon part.

x

A few glorious nights with Astrid later, it came time for the German girls to go home. Rising to the occasion, Tory and Tonya threw them a little bon voyage party in the courtyard. The final farewell was a bittersweet one, as farewells often are. The weather, on the other hand, was perfect—warm and clear and bright. In the cool shade of Ben's twin Arizona cypress trees, about half the local chapter of the SCA, many in costume, gathered to see the girls off. It was a regular hippy hug-fest in the courtyard. At a few select moments there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd.

"We're going to miss you guys so much," cried Tonya.

"We are so grateful for all you have done," Kirsten replied.

"Message me the minute the plane lands, okay?"

Sometime later, as the party broke up and the German girls finished loading the van, Max shoved Logan aside and grabbed both of Kirsten's suitcases, leaving Logan to tag along behind till they got to the gate, where he ran ahead like a puppy so as to be ready and waiting to help her load in her backpack. Then he immediately pulled her aside so that Max would be the one left behind. Naturally, Max was having none of that and called Kirsten over to consult with him about where her luggage should be put. Which left Logan scrambling to dream up his next move.

Ben looked on with detached amusement as Max and Logan continued to vie for Kirsten's attention right up to the moment when she climbed into the van. Theirs was a healthy rivalry that might have raged on for years to come, if only Max had stuck around.

Astrid gave Ben a good-bye kiss that he would always remember fondly. The thing that bothered him about it was that afterwards she didn't cling or even linger in his arms. And when Ben attempted to take hold of her hand a few minutes later, she brushed his hand away. Which gave Ben the distinct impression that something wasn't right. He could understand if she was just pulling away to make the separation more bearable, but he feared there was something else at play.

"I want you to promise me you'll stay in touch," Ben demanded, even though he was beginning to wonder how damned likely to happen that was.

Astrid averted her eyes. She wasn't making any promises. "I will see what I can do," she replied flatly. Which cast a pall over all the warm memories he had been collecting for the last two weeks. Now he even began to wonder if the email address she had given him was a fake.

Remembering the night when the German girls first arrived, he recalled how one of them seemed to have been pointing him out to her friend, only moments before he had been introduced to them. Unfortunately, his memory was so fogged by time and alcohol, he couldn't clearly remember which girl had been nudged or which had done the pointing.

Was it possible that Tonya and the girls had been gaming him all along? Of course it was. There was also a very good chance that Astrid had never had any genuine feelings for him at all, that the whole affair was just part of a plot to gain access to his place for a couple of weeks. Hell, for all he knew, the girls had all drawn straws, and Astrid was the loser. On the other hand, wasn't it also possible that he was just imagining things? And Astrid was indeed the kind, loving soul she appeared to be? Of course it was.

Strangely, Ben really didn't mind either way. If being used could feel as good as the past two weeks had, then so be it. Why the hell would he want to let it trouble him? He was content to just let himself be played like a fiddle, if it meant having a loving companion again after such a long dry spell. As he saw it, even the illusion of a loving companion would do. Either way, he certainly didn't intend to make a fuss about it. Better to just grin and bear it, if only to keep the peace.

People hugged one another and a few, such as Tonya, wept and carried on right up until the van doors started to slam shut, one by one. The engine roared, the tranny thumped, and the German girls waved their farewells as the van slowly backed off the parking lot. Several voices called out good-byes from the crowd of onlookers. Ben grinned and waved, thinking: So long, Astrid, all the best to you.

He couldn't help but notice that Tonya was coming to pieces over there. And Tory was nowhere to be seen. Thinking back, Ben vaguely remembered seeing him slink off to the cottage shortly after the party began. Clearly, the group dynamics of their SCA crew were more complex than he had imagined. He had no idea what was happening with their relationship, but he had a feeling there was a lot more going on than met the eye. Stepping to Tonya's side, he patted her gently on the shoulder as they watched the van drive away.

A moment later the German girls were gone. Ben didn't know it yet, but their departure marked the beginning of the end of his life as he had known it. A few weeks later Max would be gone too. Off to Portland he would go with little more than a hasty good-bye—still owing Tory money. Furthermore, he would be leaving without ever getting around to returning the application form Ben had asked him to fill out when he first moved in. Which would come as no surprise to Ben when he finally got around to realizing it. The thing that was going to catch Ben off guard was Tory's sudden announcement that he and Tonya were splitting up and would be vacating the cottage at the end of the month.

xi

The day Tonya and Tory moved out, there was a pickup truck and a U-Haul on the driveway when Ben got home after work. So Ben parked his small truck on the street. He assumed that many of the people loading furniture today were the same people he had encountered at the party, but he wouldn't recognize most of them without their costumes. Except for Logan Lockett, of course.

"Hey, Logan," said Ben, when they met in the courtyard "What brings the vermin out of the woodwork today." About the only thing good about Tory and Tonya moving out was that Ben wouldn't have to put up with Logan anymore.

"Yo," Logan replied, glowering. "Just helping Tonya move some stuff." He held up a table lamp he was carrying as an example.

"Good to see you're not straining yourself too much," Ben retorted, opening the door to go inside.

"Yeah, well, at least I'm not a greedy old lecher of a landlord, using his money and property to lure in girls half his age."

Touché, thought Ben, but he didn't say anything. Better to just let it go, and let Logan go as well—once and for all. "Good riddance, Logan," he muttered under his breath.

Ben popped open a beer and checked his email, answering a quick note from Astrid who hadn't given him a phony address after all. He made a couple of phone calls and set out hoses in a couple of tree wells. Then he looked through a file folder for the last newspaper ad he had run for a vacant apartment. That's when he came across the blank forms that reminded him of the application he never got back from Max.

By that time the SCA moving crew appeared to be finished loading the trucks. Ben went outside to move the hoses. It was getting pretty dusky by then, and several members of the crew were leaving.

"Sorry we took your parking spot, Ben," said Tory, stepping away from the U-Haul that appeared to contain all of his stuff. The pickup, Ben assumed, would be for Tonya's belongings. "You want me to move one of those trucks out of the way?

"No big deal," said Ben. "Don't bother. I can move mine after you leave."

"We'll be out of here in no time. As soon as we finish cleaning up."

"I'm going to miss having you guys around."

"We've had some good times here, too many awesome parties to count. Hard to believe it's been five years."

"Time flies."

"I guess I better get moving, or we'll be here all night."

"Let me know when you're ready to do the walk through," said Ben, "unless you'd rather put that off till tomorrow."

"I'll keep you posted. I don't think we can do it, but Tonya's determined to finish up tonight. So, you know."

Ben moved the hoses and went inside to cook himself a little something to eat. After dinner he settled in to watch reruns of _Law and Order_ on TV. He thought it was kind of funny that in real life he avoided policemen and lawyers and judges and such, like the plague. Yet, he could sit and watch _Law and Order_ reruns for hours. He had seen so many episodes that he got them all confused and could never seem to remember the endings, no matter how many times he had seen them before.

Go figure.

At any rate, he was sitting on his recliner watching TV when he heard a huge metallic THUD outside. It was so loud that it seemed to be right outside his door in the courtyard. He got up and went to the window, and there were Tonya and Logan coming out of the cottage at a brisk pace, heading out to the street. By the time Ben put his shoes on and stepped outside, they were coming back from the parking lot. Tonya had a very grave expression on her face. Logan, conversely, was grinning like a cat that just ate the canary.

"Ben, I don't know how to tell you this," Tonya said when she got within earshot. "But your little pickup just got creamed out there."

"No way!" cried Ben, stepping up his pace.

"Some crazy drunk slammed right into the back of it," gloated Logan. "Knocked it clear over into the neighbor's yard."

Ben's heart sank. He loved that old truck, and he was far more concerned about it than anything Logan had to say. Striding past Tonya and Logan, he dashed to the gate, thinking: Damn! If only I had let Tory move one of these goddamn trucks when he offered.

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

A Shade Too Dark

At the printing plant, things were going as well as things at work could possibly be expected to go. The same woman had been living in Unit A for two years straight. And the vacancy in Unit B had been filled only days after Ben and his brother moved into the cottage, which had recently undergone a series of nerve-racking yet ultimately successful renovations. For the first time in quite a while, Ben Harper had nothing in the world to complain about. However, as he would soon find out, sometimes when you think you've got things lined up just right, you find out they were really only jury-rigged together or else just plain unfixable to begin with.

When he and Lance moved into the cottage, Ben had set up his desk in the living room in front of a picture window overlooking the courtyard. Today, he was sitting there sipping beer and watching the autumn sunset paint the horizon various shades of red and gold, when his brother and a friend passed under the lamppost and through the gate, which had a squeaky hinge that always sounded an alert whenever anyone came or went.

Ben looked on as Lance and Nick passed Unit A. He noticed Nick peek into the window of Unit B and suddenly stop walking and lurch back, aghast. Clamping both hands firmly over his mouth, Nick scurried the rest of the way to cottage like a small boy who desperately needs to pee.

The door swung open and Nick stepped in. His hair was a dirty sort of blonde, his eyes sky blue and bulging, and his face had turned beet red with veins popping out of his forehead. "Those guys are kissing in there," he exclaimed, all revved up and dramatic as an opera singer. "They're _making out_ on the sofa with the drapes _wide_ open! _Making out!"_

Ben swiveled around in his office chair, looking over at Nick. "So? Do you have a point?"

"You guys never told me they're _gay."_

"I guess we didn't think it was important enough to mention," said Ben.

"Settle down, Nicky," Lance advised, unzipping his jacket. "You'll give yourself a heart attack." At thirty-eight, Lance was the youngest of the three. Nick had about five years on him, and Ben had about ten, yet in some ways Lance was the most sensible one of the bunch.

"If your virgin eyes are too pure to handle that sort of thing," Ben suggested, "you shouldn't go snooping through people's windows."

"I know. I know. The 90s are nearly over now, and we're supposed to be getting used to those guys prancing around holding hands and smooching with each other in public. But _ooooooh!"_ Cringing deeply, he went on, "I don't think I'll _ever_ get used to it."

"Dumbass redneck," Ben chided with an admonishing headshake.

"Are you kidding?" said Lance, giving Nick a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Nick is one of those guys who still can't get used to the idea that women have the right to vote."

They all got a laugh out of that, including Nick who laughed louder and with more pure delight than either of the others. "Hey, I'm just an old-fashioned guy. What can I say?"

"He's got it in his head now that Jamaica is secretly in love with him," said Lance, "even though she's blown him off at least a dozen times."

"Jamaica doesn't date," said Ben, who knew this to be a fact because she had told him so. "She never comes out of her apartment except to go to work or visit her mom or hang out next door with Kim and Robin."

"I think she's hot," said Nick.

"She is a good-looking gal," said Lance. "I'll grant you that. But she's old enough to be your mother."

"Why would I let that stop me?" Nick retorted.

"Whatever rings your chimes," Ben interjected mildly.

"I once asked her why she calls herself Jamaica," said Lance. "She told me it's because Jamaica is such a sunny cheerful place. And she has a mad passion for reggae music."

"I had nearly forgotten that Jamaica isn't her real name," Ben remarked off-handedly.

"What _is_ her real name?" asked Nick, his eyes widening with anticipation, as if someone were about to reveal a secret treasure map.

Ben had to think a moment before he remembered. "Nancy. Nancy Slade."

Later that evening, after Lance and Nick had donned their cowboy hats and headed to the honky-tonk, Ben had settled in with a pint of Jack Daniels and a paperbound copy of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_. Sometime later, the doorbell chimed, followed immediately by a rapid knocking on the door. Which jarred Ben out of one waking dream world and cast him instantly into another, as Kim opened the door and let himself in.

" _Hell-oh-oh!"_ Kim sang out, fluttering his false eyelashes in an exaggerated manner. "I hope we're not interrupting anything important." He ambled into the room with a catwalk model's swagger and Jamaica, a willowy woman with a velvety complexion and tender eyes, right behind him. All decked out in a slinky red dress, Kim had one eyebrow impaled with a safety pin, and a dark shade of blue eye shadow accentuated his stony gray eyes. "We just had to show off the _gorgeous_ outfit Jamaica made me for my birthday party tonight at the Velvet Pulse."

Kim strutted across the carpet in his spike-heeled stilettos, pausing now and again to posture and pose. "Isn't it just _fabulous?"_

"It's stunning," said Ben, and to Jamaica, "You've outdone yourself this time."

"I think he's gone a shade too dark with the lipstick though," said Jamaica. "What do you think, Ben?"

"Kim's the one who's going to have to live with the birthday pictures," Ben replied. "I think we should let him be the one to decide."

For the next few weeks, Ben didn't see much of the renters. Winter was coming on and people were staying indoors out of the cold. Then one day Kim and Robin surprised him with visit. They both entered his living room wearing such long faces that Ben was alarmed.

"What's the trouble?" he asked, wondering if he was really sure he wanted to ask such a loaded question.

"You have to help us," said Robin, who was the younger of the two and tended to be a tad melodramatic. "Jamaica's been giving us the cold shoulder and won't say what she's upset about."

"And it's driving us _crazy!"_ Kim added emphatically.

"Maybe you didn't notice, but you've been kind of wacky all along," Ben playfully retorted, hoping to lighten the mood.

"We're certain we must've done something to offend her, but we can't figure out what it might be." Kim frowned, looking a tad perplexed. "We were hoping you might be willing to ask what's troubling her and then report back."

So now it was Ben's job to find out why Jamaica was giving her neighbors the cold shoulder. So he dutifully put on his coat and headed over to Unit A, wishing he hadn't asked that damned loaded question.

There were times when Ben's property management duties required savvy negotiations and diplomacy. He found himself on various occasions playing the peacemaker, the feud breaker, the uncle figure or the big brother, the confidante or the go-between. And he often thought to himself: _You have to do whatever it takes to keep them from killing each other or moving out. It's that simple._ There was no logical reason for this sort of nonsense to interfere with his busy schedule, but logic and reason had nothing to do with it. Where he was headed right now was straight to the heart of human emotion—straight to the belly of the beast, you might say, if you wanted to put it in biblical terms.

Jamaica was in a terrible state. She barely opened the door enough to poke her head out. Her face was drawn and her eyes dulled by the dark bags underneath. It looked like she hadn't slept for days.

"Can I come in? I need to talk to you."

Jamaica replied in feeble tones: "Yes, of course. Please come in." Shuffling her house slippers backward a couple of steps, she opened the door wide enough for Ben to pass through.

Her place was more cluttered and unkempt than he had ever seen before. The drapes were all drawn tight and the heater was turned up high. Ben noticed an open suitcase in the middle of the floor. "Going somewhere?" he asked.

After shutting the door Jamaica tightened the belt of her bathrobe and muttered, "I just got back," looking so melancholy that Ben half-expected to hear violins start playing in the background.

"Where'd you go?" said Ben, slipping off his glasses, which were starting to steam up. "I mean, if you don't mind my asking?"

"To a funeral in Phoenix," she said coldly. "My cousin died."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"There's no need to be," Jamaica assured him, gazing down at the floor in the most painfully abject manner. "We weren't close."

The tension in the room was nearly palpable. It must have been ninety-five degrees in there. Ben and Jamaica both fell silent for a time. Ben finished wiping his glasses on his shirttail and put them back on.

"The guys next door are afraid they might have done something to offend you." Ben wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. "They sent me over here to investigate. At this very moment they're over there waiting with bated breath to hear back from me. So, tell me, what gives?"

With a strained expression, Jamaica moved away from the door, combing the fingers of both hands through her tousled brown hair. "I'm sorry. I'm going through a very difficult time right now. I don' know how to explain and, to tell the truth, I'd rather not talk about it."

"Is it something they said?"

She shook her head.

"Something they did?"

Jamaica kind of flinched a bit but didn't utter a word.

"It was something they did, wasn't it?" he asked.

"In the bathroom last weekend," she finally relented, nodding her chin.

"What happened in the bathroom?"

"I could hear them going at it through the walls. I tried to ignore them and go back to sleep, but they just kept getting louder and more brutal until I couldn't take it anymore. I got out of bed and put on some music, but the pounding and banging just wouldn't stop. The _whole building_ was shaking, for crying out loud."

Ben didn't know what to say. He just sort of cringed. "That's not good. I'll have to have a little talk with them about it."

"No, please, don't do that. It will only make things worse. I've already made up my mind. I'm going to get out of here as quick as I can."

"Wait a minute. Let's not be hasty about this. Let me see if I can get them to tone down their bathroom antics. What do you say?"

"You'll be sorry," said Jamaica.

Naturally Kim and Robin demanded that he recount every last detail of the conversation. Ben did his best to cover every nuance, word for word. For his part, Kim tried to be philosophical about it. Robin, on the other hand, nearly blew a gasket.

"Fuck that dried-up old prude!" His dark eyes flashed and black eyebrows drooped in utter exasperation, as he brushed aside a lock of rusty mustard-colored hair. "We're gonna screw in the bath tub, on the couch, on the kitchen-fucking-table if we want to. And we'll do it anytime we goddamn please!"

"Quit being such an impetuous little brat," Kim barked at Robin. Then he turned to Ben and said in kinder, more imploring tones, "Please tell Jamaica that, from now on, we'll confine our sexual activities to the bedroom and do our level best not to disturb her."

"We'll do no such thing!" countered Robin.

"It's already a done deal," Kim replied firmly.

So Ben went back over to Jamaica's place with their message. Jamaica had just gotten out of the shower and her hair was wrapped up in a towel, like a turban. She didn't seem very pleased to be seeing him again so soon.

"Well, I suppose that will be all right," she said in response to Kim's proposal, "but I'll still be planning to move at the end of next month."

"Are you sure?"

"You don't understand." She looked away. "I don't feel that I have any other choice."

"You're right, I don't have a clue. Please enlighten me."

She turned now and looked him straight in the eye. "I really don't like to talk about it," she said with firm conviction.

Ben decided it might be best to just let it go. He thanked her and excused himself, heading straight next door, where Kim opened the door with Robin right beside him. "She says she'll be good with that," said Ben, and he dashed off before they had a chance to start asking any more questions.

That night, when Ben got home after a nice dinner with friends, he saw the three of them inside Unit B engaged in a fierce argument. Jamaica was really fired up and animated. Robin was on a rampage too. Kim turned from one to the other, pleading with them both to stop. Thankfully, their furious exchange was muffled by the window glass, and Ben couldn't make out what they were saying as he passed by. Which came as something of a relief to him. Free of any specific knowledge of what the neighbors were fighting about, he could now get on with the evening's activities.

The next day Robin surprised Ben yet again with another visit. Then he shocked the landlord even more by suggesting that his visit was business related. Robin wasn't the sort of person who did business. Fashion, movies stars, pop music, those were the things Robin did best.

"Remember the deposit money we gave you when we moved in?" asked Robin.

"I sure do. It was three hundred dollars, as I recall."

"I need to borrow my half."

"What? Do I look like a bank?"

"I swear I'll pay it back."

"But if I were to lend you the money, it wouldn't be a security deposit anymore. To get a loan in this world you've got to have some collateral."

Fixing a stare on Ben's crotch like a street hustler, Robin said, "Well, I could—"

"Don't even start on me with that stuff, man." Ben smirked and his eyes narrowed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Look, I'm not going to lend you any money, so why don't you do us both a favor and get lost."

"All right then. Be that way. Keep the money, you greedy pig."

Trying his best to stay calm and focus on the more comical aspects of the situation, Ben pointed to the door. After Robin had gone, Ben went to the kitchen and popped open a beer. He went back out to the living room and sat on the couch. On the coffee table before him sat his copy of _One Hundred Years of Solitude._ He opened it up and moments later he was lost in a magical faraway world where there were no renters dragging him into their personal affairs.

Ding dong. Ding dong. BAM! BAM! BAM!

Ben could tell right away it was Kim at the door.

"Anybody home," Kim called out as the door swung open and he came barging in.

"What do you want, Kim?"

"Have you seen Robin?" His voice sounded urgent and the little worry lines around his eyes were all tensed up.

"He was here about an hour ago, trying to get me to lend him your deposit money. The little fucker offered to suck my dick as collateral."

"He _didn't."_

"He sure as hell did."

"Well, if it's any consolation to you, he's gone now—presumably for good. Flown the coop without so much as a good-bye. The only hitch is he took half of the cookie-jar money with him. Which means I won't have enough to cover the rent."

"Maybe you could find a new roommate," Ben suggested with a measurable degree of panic in his voice. "I'll be happy to lend you enough to get by."

"That's kind of you, Ben, but there's no way I could ever put enough money together to pay you back. Thanks, but no thanks. I have friends who will take me in till I can get back on my feet."

A few days later, Kim and his friends from the Velvet Pulse came in and hauled his stuff away. Jamaica got home sometime later to find Ben with a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other, preparing to start cleaning the empty apartment. First, he spotted her in the window, peeking inside. Then she knocked on the front door.

"C'mon in," said Ben, his voice echoing in the empty room.

Jamaica pushed open the door. "I had a feeling this was going to happen," she said, standing in the doorway wearing an overcoat and knee-length boots. "You can't say I didn't warn you."

"They come, they go," Ben replied, setting down his bucket and mop. "C'est la vie."

"I was hoping I would have a chance to say good-bye," she said, stepping inside and closing the door behind her.

"Now that they've gone, you have no reason to leave," Ben suggested. "I could tear up your notice and you could stick around for another two years."

Patiently waiting for him to finish his sentence, she flatly informed him, "I put down a deposit on a new place today."

"Oh, I see." It felt like the air was being sucked right out of him.

"I'm really sorry to see you get stuck with two empty apartments at the same time."

"With a little luck, I might have this one rented by the time you move. Believe me, this isn't the end of the world. Worse things have happened."

"You can say that again," replied Jamaica, sort of leaning into what she was about to say next.

Ben could see that she was struggling to get it out, so he prompted her with a simple, "What?"

"I've been meaning to apologize for being such a jerk the other night, after my cousin's funeral."

"Think nothing of it."

"I was depressed and confused, and feeling very ambivalent. My cousin and I had a complicated relationship."

"A lot of relationships are complicated."

"I mean _complicated_ with a _capital_ _C_. I mean capital C as in Caligula, because that dirty bastard molested and terrorized me for years when we were teenagers, and I've been having a terrible time trying to deal with how good it feels to see him dead."

"Egads!" said Ben with an eek-shaped frown passing over his lips. "No wonder you're so sensitive to the guys next door getting rough in the bathroom."

"The thought of it still makes me shudder," she replied, looking a little rattled, wringing her hands to steady herself.

This whole strange ordeal was just a shade too dark for Ben to handle, a little too far outside of his comfort zone for him to fully wrap his head around. Jamaica stood silently with her eyes downcast and gloomy. She looked so miserable and helpless that Ben felt compelled to move a step closer and reach out to her. But, when her whole body instinctively recoiled, he backed off right away with both hands upturned in front of him, palms forward.

"It's okay, Jamaica. It's okay," he assured her in a stunningly unconvincing manner. Unconvincing even to himself, because he knew there were some things in this world are just plain unfixable, and that's all there is to it. "Everything's going to be just fine."

Just then, as if on cue, Nick went striding past the front window. Leaning into the wind with his eyes fixed forward, Nick seemed determined not to glance through the window under any circumstances. Not even when Ben called out: "Hey, Nick! We're in here."

"I'd better go," said Jamaica, reaching for the door with a gloved hand.

"Thanks for filling me in on the big mystery," Ben replied. "It's good to have all the pieces to the puzzle, even if they don't fit together worth a damn."

Stepping outside Jamaica encountered Nick, who was now coming their way. He looked pleasantly surprised to see her, until Jamaica gave a cursory little wave and dashed off to her apartment next door without so much as a greeting.

"Whoa!" Nick cried out as Ben stepped to the doorway. "What's her problem?"

"I don't think she wants to talk about it," said Ben, pulling on his coat and shutting the door. "And neither do I."

"Ah, c'mon dude, don't leave me out in the dark."

"Sorry, Nick, I'm going to have to keep this on the back burner for a while. I'll fill you in on all the sordid details some other time. Meanwhile, believe me, you're probably better off being in the dark about this shit."

Turning to look through the window at the empty apartment, Nick asked, "What happened to the gay guys?"

"It's a long story, and I really don't feel like going into it right now. But I am just about ready for a nice stiff shot of Jack Daniels." Ben nudged his friend toward the cottage. "Would you like me to pour you one while I'm at it?"

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

Border Wars

1

"All right then," snapped Lance. He was irritated because Ben had interrupted his TV basketball ritual. The brothers had been roommates on several different occasions over the years and usually got along well enough, but there had been trouble brewing lately. "What do we need to talk about that's so goddamn important?"

"You guys woke me up in the middle of the night _again_ ," Ben asserted with authority, always the elder brother, and now the elder brother who was totally fed up. He was seated in a plastic lawn chair on the back patio beside the giant wooden spool they used as a table. There was a highball glass on the makeshift table containing Crown Royale on the rocks. Lance stood in the doorway with his elbow bent in a beer drinker's stance, brew pop in hand.

"Okay, no more after-hours parties. Can I get back to my game now?"

"Hold on a minute. There's more to it than that. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think the time has come for my fledgling brother to leave the nest. It's nothing personal, mind you, it's just that I think you ought to start looking for a place of your own."

"Nothing personal my ass!" Lance fumed. He sipped his beer and fumed some more.

Ben was sure now that he had captured his brother's complete attention. "It's just that I've come to a time in my life when I'm ready to live alone. I'm getting _really_ tired of the party scene and too damn old for roommates anymore." He paused a moment to take a sip of his scotch then went on, "I'd like to see you clear your stuff out by the end of September." Which meant he was giving his thirty-nine-year-old brother—who had finished college years ago, and had a regular job these days, and could easily afford a place of his own—a little more than two months' notice.

To see his hangdog expression, however, you'd think Lance's happy life had just been brutally shattered. He braced himself and muscled up, biting his lower lip. "That's cool." Turning on one heel, he flashed a sneer and added bitterly, "I'll be out even _sooner_ if I can."

2

Later that afternoon, Ben stopped by to see Clancy. Clancy was the new renter in Unit A, who also happened to be a long-time friend. They had been acquainted for ten years before Clancy found himself in a jam and needed an apartment. The place where he had been living had a leaky roof, and Ben happened to have a vacancy, so he helped Clancy set up his space station in the front room of Unit A. Clancy had kept a room to sleep in and used the other bedroom as an isolation booth and storage room. He also used the kitchenette mostly as storage space, except for the refrigerator and microwave. In other words, Clancy lived in a sound studio that he had built from scratch. It was quite a place, really, with multiple computer screens, and a soundboard off to one side, and piles of CDs on the other. There was a whole rack of mysterious music-making equipment in the middle of the room and monitors strategically placed here and there. This was Clancy's domain, and he seldom ventured away from the cozy, cluttered confines of his space station.

"Man oh man, this stuff's even better than I expected," said Clancy, his eyes glassy, his mouth apparently locked in a cheerful grin. Big boned and heavy set, Clancy had a wild mop of brown hair that entirely encircled the top part of his broad face. A thick beard concealed his neck, and the lenses of his wireframes magnified his eyes just enough to give him an owlish look.

The reason for Ben's visit was to pick up some very special Afghani hash that one of Clancy's customers had come across recently. When Clancy tossed over the small bundle, Ben peeled back the tin foil and took a whiff. "Ah, very nice! Care to burn one?"

"No thanks," said Clancy with a very slight, barely perceptible lisp. "I'm hallucinating like crazy over here."

"Mind if I do?"

"Not a bit. Knock yourself out. My next appointment isn't for a couple of hours." Leaning back in his office chair, Clancy emitted a funny sort of Elmer Fudd laugh as he gazed off into the distance, lost in some deep, complicated, convoluted thought that Ben couldn't begin to imagine.

As a functional genius with an IQ of one hundred and sixty, Clancy had a unique perspective on the world. Unlike most ordinary people who only view the surface of things, Clancy saw everything from the inside out. What Ben might see as a toaster, he would regard as heating elements with a timer and mechanical box works in a hard plastic case. What Ben saw as an automobile, Clancy viewed as a drive train powered by a combustion engine with elaborate electrical, heating and cooling systems, encased in a durable steel and glass shell. A wizard of sorts, Clancy was a multitalented fellow, thirty years of age, with a quick wit and insatiable curiosity.

Clancy's genius was legendary in and about the university area of town. "Take it to Clancy. He can fix anything," was a common refrain around the student ghetto. Anything from guitar amps to desktop computers, from automobiles to household appliances—he knew them all inside and out. For all Ben knew, Clancy might have known how to repair a broken-down stealth fighter or faulty Mars probe. Seriously! Clancy knew how to write code and build bombs and design mechanical parts. But he had chosen to pursue a career in the music business and currently made his living as a sound engineer and music producer.

Ben took a little brass pipe out of his pocket and broke off a tiny chunk of hash, thinking: If Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead had been a wizard (and maybe he was), he would have been the same kind of wizard as Clancy.

"Last time I got my hands on this stuff it was like tripping on acid," said Ben. Which seemed to snap Clancy out of his daze. He shook his hair back away from his face, looking somewhat disoriented for a moment.

Ben lit the bowl and took a toke, instinctively offering the pipe to Clancy who declined once again, this time with a simple headshake. Pressing his lungs tight for a moment, Ben released his breath slowly and his head immediately began to thump inside. He could almost feel the THC racing to his brain. "Holy shit!" Ben exclaimed as a shimmering swirl of smoke formed Mandelbrot patterns before his eyes. For a time both men lapsed into silence, like a pair of lone wolves that still hadn't completely forgotten the importance of companionship but don't have a whole lot to say.

3

Business was slow at first, so Clancy kept himself busy recording everything in the vicinity that made noise. He made recordings of the grackles squawking in the cypress trees. He recorded the sounds of the garbage truck stopping and starting and stopping and starting, again and again, as hydraulic devices shrieked and growled like a giant mechanical beetle.

One day Ben came home to find Clancy on the roof with a microphone, antagonizing the hell out of the grackles, which were only trying to protect their nests as they repeatedly dive-bombed his position.

"I'm putting together a sample," Clancy explained, "that will make them sound like they're talking to each other,"

It occurred to Ben right then that he would normally be thinking: Go figure.

Instead, he was starting to see that all the wondrous mysteries of this chaotic world were way beyond figuring out much of anything. A famous quotation attributed to Socrates popped into his head: _I know that I know nothing._ As long as he accepted the fact that many things were _supposed_ to be beyond his comprehension, that the world was supposed to be an absurd and chaotic place, he would be a much happier camper.

Business had picked up in the studio the past few weeks. Clancy had gotten busier and busier, and the grackles had lost their novelty, becoming a constant nuisance instead. "Goddamn grackles," he would grumble. Or "fuckin buzzards," as he was wont to call anything or anybody that he found inept or tedious or annoying.

It got to a point where Clancy just HATED those goddamn grackles, as well as the garbage trucks, airplanes, police sirens, and anything else that interrupted his increasingly frequent and lucrative recording sessions. Sometimes he'd get so mad he'd come out with a cock-eyed air rifle that he'd had since childhood and actually start shooting at the birds.

Pump pump pump, PING! Pump pump pump, PING! Good thing he couldn't hit the side of a barn with that clunky contraption. Ben hoped against hope that he didn't accidentally hit one. He knew that both he and Clancy would both feel genuinely remorseful if that were to happen. "I know you're only doing this to blow off steam," Ben surmised, "but there must be a better solution."

"Cut down the trees," was Clancy's solution. "That'll get rid of the pesky varmints."

"Are you kidding? I _love_ those trees" He had been nurturing and pampering the twin cypress trees on the courtyard for the last fifteen years. "I couldn't imagine parting with them." He wasn't going to give them up, not in a million years.

"Okay, how about getting some plastic owls then? I read an article on the Internet that claims a few, well-placed, inflatable owls will keep them away."

Ben figured it was worth a try so he went shopping for inflatable owls, which weren't as easy to come by as you might think. Apparently, there wasn't as much of a market for inflatable owls as there once was. Ben finally found some at Ace Hardware, of all places, where the salesmen called him: The guy who tries to do his own plumbing. While he was in the store, Ben went ahead and picked up some long silver streamers that blinked and shone and cast off prism colors which, according to the salesman, repelled some bird species very effectively.

Anyone who has ever climbed an Arizona cypress tree knows: You don't wanna go there. Three branches up and Ben was covered with sap—sappy hands, forearms, elbows, thighs. Sap in his hair, on his face and neck and shoulders. He went squirming and slithering through narrow spaces like a goddamn iguana or something. When Ben got up the tree as far as he could go, he inflated the plastic owls and tied them down fast. He wouldn't want to see them blow away with the first gusty wind. Then he ran four, fifty-foot, silver streamers that gleamed like Christmas tinsel as they unfurled. He had to clean up with mineral spirits because that was about the only thing he knew of that would break down the sap gum. And he went to all this trouble and expense, all of it, only to find Clancy, two days later, outside on the courtyard again, shooting at grackles with his air rifle.

Ben and Clancy tried to knock down the nests with long poles made of PVC. But that only pissed the grackles off and seemed to make them even more determined to stay. So, Clancy brought in a herpetologist friend of his with a pair of wild bull snakes. "Fingers and Lefty," the herpetologist assured them, "would eventually eat enough grackle eggs to break the birds' spirit and drive them away."

Nice theory, but not a very practical solution. The bull snakes seemed to spend more time terrorizing the local cats than mixing it up with the grackles, who could be downright mean and aggressive if they had a mind to. No telling how many grackle eggs the snakes might've devoured before Clancy's friend came back and took them away. And, after all was said and done, the grackles hadn't budged an inch.

"Fuckin buzzards," muttered Clancy.

In Ben's view, the gist of the matter was this: Clancy was upset because he thought his living space had been violated. The grackles, on the other hand, would have every right to make the same claim. Ben felt his brother should move out because he was tired of sharing his space with roommates, yet Lance had unleashed his resentment on Ben for (as Lance had put it), "throwing him out on his ear."

These border wars are a tricky business, thought Ben, who was inclined to side with Clancy, of course, because the grackles weren't paying any rent. As for Lance, well, that was sibling stuff that would have to work itself out over time.

4

A few days later, a different sort of violation occurred on the premises, this time in Ben's back yard. He was taken by surprise when he encountered half a dozen post-adolescent youngsters in his yard with their dog. They were just lounging about on the plush carpet of lawn doing nothing. But they caught Ben with his guard down, which might account for why he responded in such a gruff manner. "What the hell are you guys doing in my yard?"

"We ain't doing nothing," said one tall, rail-thin, buzz-cut boy.

His chubby companion, this one with a tattoo on his neck, hissed: "Jussss chillin."

Noticing a big fresh pile of dog excrement on the lawn, Ben remarked, maybe a bit too harshly, "Yeah, well, don't you think you ought to be doing _that_ in your own yard?"

With a collective sort of silent groan, they all glowered at Ben and got up to leave. Having once done a short stint as a corrections officer at the local D-Home, he was somewhat familiar with this kind of behavior from young people. He shrugged them off and looked on as they took turns jumping the wall into the vast wasteland of their back yard, forming a makeshift sort of fire line by which to convey their midsize mutt to the back yard where he belonged. They left the dog shit as a present to Ben, a token of their high esteem for him. He had a feeling there might be repercussions, but what was he going to do?

The next day when he got home from work, Ben went straight to the back yard to see if the neighbors had been back and if their dog had left him another present. When he found no sign of their having returned, he felt a bit stupid and guilty for thinking the worst of the neighborhood kids.

5

The next day Ben received the shock of a lifetime. As he unlocked the deadbolt, he noticed the living-room window standing wide open and the window screen propped against the building. A cringe ran up his spine and lodged in at the base of his neck. Inside, he noticed immediately that the TV was missing, along with the bulk of his stereo system, his DVD player, his bicycle. There were beer bottles and soda pop cans and empty snack-food wrappers scattered here and there on the floor. Evidently, the kids had made it a festive occasion of their little foray into residential burglary. He was relieved to find that his pot stash was still hidden in its usual place as well as all the spare sets of keys to the apartments. The little thieves hadn't found them.

Ben tried not to touch anything, aside from the telephone, which he used to call the police. He wandered from room to room of the house, feeling restless and inept. A broken bedroom window was the obvious point of entry, but that window would have been too small to fit the bicycle through, which explained why the picture window in the living room was left open.

One positive aspect of an otherwise depressing situation, one that he actually found rather amusing, was that in their haste to shove his old Marantz amplifier out the window they had evidently pulled the cord loose and left it behind. _Joke's on them,_ thought Ben, as he stooped down to pick it up. Absent-mindedly coiling the cord as he walked, he wandered out to in the living room again.

It occurred to him that waiting for the police is a lot like waiting for water to boil, so he went next door to see if Clancy had noticed anything out of the ordinary that afternoon. Ringing the doorbell, he waited for Clancy to peek out of the heavy drape that covered an over-sized window.

The drape had not been opened since Clancy moved in. The other window in his music studio was covered with layers of bubble wrap, creating a soft opaque light, the principal light source in the room, aside from his computer monitors and a multitude of tiny LEDs on every electronic gizmo in the place. Clancy kept the drapes closed for security reasons associated those same electronic devices, which had cost him a small fortune. He needed to hang on to this stuff to make a living.

Needless to say, Clancy took a great interest in the burglary. He came outside and Ben explained what he had discovered when he got home. "Funny, I didn't hear a thing," said Clancy. They sort of drifted aimlessly toward the cottage and stopped to look at the open window and fallen window screen. "No way I could have seen the weasels from my place unless I happened to be outside."

As the two men stepped inside, Ben reminded Clancy not to touch anything.

Clancy scoffed and said, "Fingerprinting is the most inaccurate of all forensic methods. All the boastful talk you hear on TV about fingerprints being foolproof, it's nothing but pure gibberish."

Then he scanned the room with a methodical eye observing the significant gaps that now stood in place of Ben's favorite creature comforts. "Good thing they didn't make off with the computer," he said.

"That's a blessing. But why would the little fuckers take my old Marantz instead?"

"That Marantz is an antique. It's worth money." He continued to scan the room.

"Yeah, I don't suppose stolen computer equipment is worth much these days."

"Dime a dozen."

"And I suppose even a bunch of boneheads like those guys would probably know they'd never get around the passcode."

Clancy stopped scanning the room. He had now registered every object in the room that was missing or out of place, compared to the last time he had visited. "Wow, man, I'm so sorry they took your stuff."

Ben appreciated Clancy's concern but also sensed that the guy was worried about his own. One look at his face and Ben could see that Clancy was already formulating some sort of defensive strategy. He left when the cops arrived, having already concluded that their investigation would be "a waste of time." As it turned out, of course, he was right.

6

While the CSI guy was doing his thing, Ben filled out a pointless report form and told the investigating officer, "I know exactly who did this and where they live." He showed him the amplifier cord the boys had left behind and suggested pointedly, "This might serve as evidence, when it plugs right into the amp they stole."

The officer asked him, "Did you actually see them in the act?" and, when Ben shook his head, the cop explained in a consoling manner all the reasons why there was nothing they could do. Ben knew enough about the law to understand what the officer was saying, but the man's empty rhetoric and false empathy was of no consolation at all. With impeccable timing, the CSI specialist announced, "No prints." Ben was feeling pretty bitter and disappointed by the time they finally left. As darkness descended upon the courtyard, he found himself sitting on the picnic table with the coiled amp cord in his hand.

Clancy came out to the courtyard and joined him at the table, handing him a beer. Ben set the cord aside and popped open the brew pop, slamming down about half of it in a single draught. They discussed the virtues and shortcomings of homeowner's insurance and arrived at the conclusion that most everything Ben lost should probably be covered.

"You know the thing I'll probably miss the most," Ben observed rather sadly, "is the hair clippers my old man used to give us crew cuts with back in the day."

"Yep, they don't make 'em like they used to," Clancy concurred.

"Not to mention sentimental value. No insurance policy in the world covers that. But what are you going to do?" Ben was trying to be philosophical about it. "Fact is, I never used the clippers for anything but trimming my beard. And for their new owner, those same clippers might be the beginning of a thriving new barbering business."

Right about then a young woman in a skimpy red dress and platform heels came striding through the gateway like she owned the place. She got three steps in and noticed Ben and Clancy at the table but didn't miss a step as she cantered right past in her clunky Minny Mouse shoes. Rising to his feet, Ben asked, in the most intimidating tone of voice he could conjure up, "Can I _help_ you?"

The sassy young lass stopped dead in her tracks and turned to Ben with a defiant gleam in her eye. "I'm invited to a party back there," she said with cunning confidence, pointing her lavishly tattooed forearm in the general direction of the cottage.

"That's my place," Ben gruffly informed her, "and I'm not having a party tonight."

She didn't have anything to say about that, but Ben did notice her noticing the coiled amp cord on the table beside his beer. He saw her faintly lean toward it as the fingers of one hand subconsciously spread open, just a smidgen, just enough to betray her real motive for coming here.

Ben picked up the coiled cord and waved it menacingly above his head as he went on, "Whoever invited you to the party is gone now. They took a bunch of my stuff with them, but they forgot to take this."

As she started edging away, Ben stepped away from the table and directly into her path, glancing over at Clancy. "Whadayah think? Should we snag this thieving little chicken and tie her to a tree until we can get those cops back over here?"

Which promptly set the girl in motion. She headed off around the picnic table, keeping a measured distance between herself and Ben, who just stood there grinning at her all the way. She darted through the gateway like a frightened faun and clattered across the parking lot to her car. Ben followed her out to take down the license number, even though he rather doubted that he would bother to report it.

He watched her car speed down to the corner and make a right turn. He ran back to the courtyard, past Clancy, and alongside the cottage to the back yard, listening to the engine accelerate as it came back his direction on the next street over.

He got to the back wall just in time to see the headlights go black. When he heard the car door slam, he seriously started to consider jumping the wall and confronting her, which would have undoubtedly brought the whole crew out to the yard in a rage. Right then Clancy's voice came out of the darkness behind him, "Don't do it," he cautioned firmly, "It's not worth it."

Backing away from the wall and all the potential grief and anguish that lay beyond it, Ben turned away. The two men walked together back to the picnic table to finish their beer.

"Looks like it's about time to start planning a burglar alarm installation for each of the apartments," said Ben.

"You got that right," Clancy whole-heartedly agreed. "And maybe bars for some of the windows too."

Minutes later Lance opened the gate, which seemed to squeak in protest. He was trying to look cheerful but his eyes continued to scowl at Ben, just as they had been ever since Ben asked him to move. "What's the hell's gotten into you guys? You look like you just visited the morgue."

"I'm afraid I have some bad news," Ben tentatively informed him.

"Oh great! That's just what I need," Lance replied grimly. _"More_ bad news."

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

Freeloaders

i

Cack cack. Cack cack, Cack cack cack!!!

Come springtime the grackles returned to nests they had previously built high in the upper boughs of a pair of Arizona cypress trees in the courtyard. The trees were large enough to house four or five grackle couples at a time. They just moved right in without any warning and with absolutely no intention of paying any rent. Every spring the grackles came on like a shit storm, spattering their droppings everywhere like drunken pastry chefs flinging dollops of icing at a cake. About the only place they didn't crap was in their own nests. They could have made a fortune in the fertilizer business, if only they hadn't been so feckless and ornery about it.

The best thing those rowdy freeloaders could hope for would be a long-term love/hate relationship with humanity. However, in spite of their many faults and foibles, the grackles were very elegant and beautiful creatures with long, graceful, iridescent tails and regal blue-black heads. They were incredibly crafty, impetuous, persistent birds about the size of a crow with a piercing yellow eye that emerged from darkness like an imminent threat.

Even before their chicks hatched out, the grackles became very protective. They swooped down out of the branches, cack cack cacking, while buzzing past the head of anyone who stepped under the shady canopy of their domain. Sometimes they appeared to take deliberate aim at people, launching huge gloopy gangling bombs. Fortunately, they were not very efficient bombardiers and only occasionally hit their targets. At any rate, the grackles heckled the hell out of everyone: the tenants, the mailman, the guests, as well as anyone else who blundered in off the street. Until one day the following autumn, when they would just up and abandon their nests, without any prior notice and without leaving a forwarding address.

"Pardon me, are you Ben Harper?" asked a clean-cut, though exceedingly thin man at the front gate. His receding hairline accentuated a heavy brow, large square teeth, and deep-set eyes.

Ben stopped sweeping the patio and leaned on the broom. "Yeah, that's me."

"My name is Clint Vynere," he introduced himself, stepping through the gateway and approaching with a jaunty stride. "We spoke on the phone yesterday about a vacant apartment."

"You came to the right place," Ben replied, scooting his glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose before they shook hands.

"Nice to meet you," said Clint, looking the older man straight in the eye, which always made a favorable first impression on Ben.

"Good to meet you too. You say you went to school with my sister?"

"Yeah, same grade all the way through. I used to run around with Lance and Randy too." He was freshly shaven and dressed as Ben might have expected a cab driver to dress, in Khakis and a polo shirt with a light jacket. "I was so sorry to hear about Randy."

"It's been nearly eight years now since his passing," Ben replied with downcast eyes, "and sometimes I think I might be starting to get used to the idea that he won't be coming back."

After Ben showed him the apartment and they stepped back outside, Clint offered to help out with the yard work. "I'd be happy to keep this whole area swept up for you," he said, eager to please.

"I wouldn't object to that," said Ben, thinking it might be kind of nice to have this guy's cheerful disposition around the place.

"I'm gonna tell you straight away that I came onto some hard times a while back. But I've been getting back on my feet lately. Give me half a chance, and I promise I won't let you down."

"First you need to fill out an application, so I can check your references."

ii

Ben had been coming to the Chameleon Club for so many years that he had begun to think of the place as an extension of his living room. That is to say, until about a year ago, when a wave of anti-smoking sentiment forced bar owners to banish smoking. There were no ashtrays on the bar top anymore, no billowing clouds of thick smoke. To Ben, it felt as if the place had lost its soul. Nevertheless, he and Lance had agreed to meet there for dinner, so there he was.

"You should have called me before you let Clint move in," said Lance with a certain degree of urgency, which was kind of unusual for Lance. Leaning forward on the barstool, he bit off a sizable chunk of hamburger then wiped mustard off his cheek with a napkin as he chewed.

"I thought about it, but I figured you might still be pissed off at me," replied Ben, who had booted his younger brother out of his apartment just because he was sick and tired of living with roommates and didn't care to have one anymore.

"I wasn't that mad, to begin with," said Lance. "And by the time I'd been in my new place for a week, frankly, I was glad to be out of that depressing neighborhood of yours."

"So, you're happy with your new place then?"

"It's all right. I can't complain. But, like I said, you should have called me." Lance popped a French fry into his mouth and swigged his beer.

"What's the big deal? His references were a little spotty, but Clint's a mensch. A little odd, a little oblique, but he's far too docile to pose any sort of threat to a grizzled old landlord like me."

"Not oblique. The man is obtuse. Clint just doesn't get it."

"How so?"

"He's always been way too sweet, too passive, and way too strung out to keep his shit together for more than a few months at a time. He just sorta goes into self-destruct mode and starts coming unraveled. I'm telling you, the guy is toxic. You better get him out of your place as soon as you can."

"Are we talking about the same person?"

"I've been asking around, and I've heard a few things through the grapevine that you need to know," Lance insisted.

"For example?" Ben asked.

"Well, did he tell you about his wife, Anita? I've never met the woman, but I've heard she's a real Looney Tune. And how about the kids, has he given you the low down on them yet?"

"He did mention a couple of kids, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of them."

"You haven't seen the children because they're with Child Protective Services. One former friend, who refers to the ex as Anita the Hun, told me she's so smacked out on meth that she lost custody of the kids."

"Holy shit! Thanks for the warning."

"I just want you to be prepared in case she shows up."

iii

After a couple of weeks of seeing Clint dutifully drive off to work every evening in his Metro Cab, Ben began to think he might actually manage to pull himself up by the bootstraps and make a real go of putting his life back together. During that time, he noticed nothing unusual going on in Unit B. The only difference he noted was a stack of children's toys piled up outside of Clint's storage closet on the side of the building.

Then one day after work, Ben was out in the courtyard scraping bird shit off the picnic table with a putty knife when Clint came pushing a battered old cruiser bike through the gateway. He hadn't finished closing the gate when and a pair of grackles sounded, CACK CACK CACK, and descended upon him like jet fighter planes. As he passed the doorway to Unit A, he ducked under the overhanging eave of the roof for protection.

"Daring little fuckers, aren't they?" said Clint. He smiled at Ben who returned the gesture with a faint grin.

"Just a tad overly protective of their nests," Ben replied. "They'll chill out in a few weeks, once their hatchlings get a little bigger."

"We used to see that kind of crows all around when I lived out in the canyon."

"Grackles," Ben corrected him mildly, "and we've got a plague of them around here."

Clint just gave his landlord a blank look and pushed the bicycle outside of the grackles' alert zone. "That was the meanest goddamn bunch of crows you've ever seen," said Clint, "even more aggressive than these guys."

"They're called grackles," Ben corrected him again, but Clint still didn't appear to be catching on.

"That's for damn sure. They'd be grackling like crazy all day long. And dropping a shitload of guano all over the yard, just like yours do."

Clint stopped in front of Unit B and put the kickstand down, setting the bike carefully on the stand, and then dug his keychain out of his pocket. He looked around at all the bird shit on the sidewalk and patio, on the tree branches and picnic table where Ben had stopped scraping. "Sorry I haven't been too helpful around here. I've been meaning to sweep but keep getting sidetracked."

"Just let me know when you're ready, and I'll leave out a shovel and broom."

"I'll have more time on my hands now."

"Why's that?" asked Ben, who could clearly see now that Clint's eyes were so dilated they looked like two glassy black disks banded with dull blue auras.

"I'm out of work," Clint answered with a calm dispassionate voice—utterly devoid of the harsh or bitter or snide tones that Ben might have expected from a guy who just lost his job.

"Oh, no! What happened? Have you been laid off?"

"I won't be driving the cab for a while," said Clint with a charming sort of innocent honesty that Ben found rather endearing, but also somewhat annoying at the same time. "I got fired."

"When did that happen?" Ben asked?"

"Yesterday."

"What are you planning to do to make money?" said Ben, remembering what Lance had told him about Clint's apparent inability to keep his shit together for more than a few months at a time.

"I'm gonna be bussing tables over at Flack's Diner starting tomorrow. And I just put in an application over at O'Malley's," Clint said as he opened the screen door.

"Sounds like you might be a little too busy for sweeping the yard after all."

"Gotta hustle up some cash somehow, till I get my license reinstated." Clint sorted through keys until he located the right one.

"What happened to your license?"

"DUI. The judge took it away from me." Unlocking the door, Clint put the keys back in his pocket and propped open the screen door with a rock before turning to his bike and steering it toward the doorway.

"So then, what you're telling me is you already had a court date scheduled when you rented this place. And you didn't bother to mention it to me, is that right?"

Clint's answer came first in the form of a pained silence accompanied by a downcast gaze fixed on the ground in front of him. "Sorry," he muttered under his breath, like young boy explaining why his homework still hasn't been finished, "I forgot."

Which left Ben wondering what else Clint might have forgotten to mention. What Clint might have been conveniently forgetting to mention right that moment as he guided his bicycle inside, saying, "Catch you later."

iv

The next day was a Saturday, but Ben had to put in a few hours of overtime at the printing plant that morning. He didn't notice much of anything on his way to work, being as he was still half asleep. Little did he know that Anita the Hun and a horde of deadbeats had descended on Clint's place like a plague of grackles, settling in for an extended stay. According to the neighbor in Unit A, the party began at about three in the morning and had been going nonstop ever since. "If you don't do something about it," Clancy declared, "I'm calling the cops."

Ben, who had just gotten home from work, replied, "Man, I don't know if I'm ready for this. You want a beer? I know I sure could use one right now."

Clancy tugged at his beard for a moment and nodded his consent. Then he followed Ben to the cottage where they each helped themselves to an ice-cold one. After chugging about half the bottle, Ben lit up a smoke and leaned against the kitchen counter. "All right. Give me the scoop. What the hell's going on over there?"

"It's the wife. I'm sure of it," said Clancy, "along with a small army of bony men with chicken necks and mangled teeth. I swear they've gotta be meth-heads. They look like a bunch of Holocaust survivors, for crying out loud."

"How can you be so sure it's her?" asked Ben, dreading the mere thought of having to go one-on-one with Anita the Hun.

"Are you kidding? She started chewing his sorry ass out the minute she got there. I could hear every word she said, clear as a bell, right through the wall. She came in yelling at the whole sick crew, ordering them around like peasants. But she has this especially shrill tone, a really vicious one with a spiteful bite, reserved just for Clint."

"Let me try talking to them," said Ben, polishing off his beer.

"They won't answer the door," said Clancy. "They'll peek out the window, but they won't answer."

"Have you seen Clint around?" He headed back outside, prompting Clancy along with a sideways head nod.

"He took off on his bike a short time after they got here. And he hasn't been back since," Clancy explained as they entered the living room.

"Give me a minute," said Ben, and he hurried down the hall to another room to grab the spare key for Unit B from his hidden stash.

"Need I remind you that you're dealing with meth-heads. There's a good chance at least one of them is carrying a gun," Clancy warned, as Ben stepped past, heading to the front door. "You're going to get yourself shot if you go crashing in there."

"I'll be all right."

"I'll be inside," said Clancy, heading toward Unit A. "I don't want to get involved in your landlord shit. As Groucho once said: _I'd rather learn from the mistakes of others because you can never live long enough to make them all yourself."_

"That'll be fine," Ben replied. "I'll give you a minute to get safely inside before I start setting off the fireworks." He took one last drag off his cigarette and ground out the stub under the heel of his sneaker.

"If they don't quiet down in five minutes, I'm calling the cops."

Ben rang the bell and then hammered on the screen door. He watched as the eyes of strangers peeked out through the drapes. He rang the doorbell a few more times and shouted, "I have a key. This is my place. Unauthorized occupants of these premises will be treated as criminal trespassers and prosecuted accordingly. I'm coming in now." And just as he reached out to slip the key in the lock, the door opened.

Ben looked upon the deadbeats and freeloaders with a combination of pity and horror. The zombie-like forms of reclining figures were strewn out on thrift-store furniture and all over the floor, packed in like sardines. Anita's huge frame nearly filled the doorway. She had straggly yellow-gray hair, missing teeth, and that certain dead-eyed look of a malicious sociopath. In one hand she held a gallon jug of cheap wine.

"Landlord, ay?" Anita sized him up with a threatening look. "For what do we owe the pleasure?" she articulated with exquisite disdain.

"Where's Clint? I need to talk to him. Now!"

"He's at work."

"Then you guys are going to have to leave. You have no business here when Clint's not around."

"I'm his wife. I'm only in town for a few days. He said I could stay here as long as I want."

"Yeah, well, he's not authorized to tell you that. My rental agreement limits visitors to three days. The contract also prohibits noisy wine parties that disturb the neighbors."

"Did that asshole next door complain?"

"No, mam. I'm the one who's complaining. I'm also the one who's going to call the police if you don't clear this place out in the next five minutes."

"You can't do that," Anita replied, picking at an open sore on her cheek with a dirty fingernail. "You can't just barge in here like that."

"All I have to do is mention that I _think_ you might be cooking meth in there, and the cops will be here in no time flat. You decide what you're going to do. I'm done here."

"Fuck off," barked Anita with a fierce glare, chomping at the bit, just itching to get into a tangle with him.

Which prompted Ben to avert his eyes and step away from the door. At last he was starting to learn how to act like a professional property manager, although he wasn't very sure how much he liked himself anymore. If he had known that the next eighteen years would be filled with so many nasty incidents like this, he probably wouldn't have bought the triplex in the first place.

For the next ten minutes, he sat on the picnic table in the middle of the courtyard and watched an array of unsavory characters come straggling outside and disappear into the sunset. As the last pair of disoriented travelers cast off on the next leg of their wayward journey, Ben called out to Anita, "The clock started ticking the minute you arrived, so mark your calendar, and rest assured I'll be documenting every move you make for the next few days."

She worked her mouth around a scornful pout, controlling her temper but turning beet red in the process. Then she belted out a sudden heckling laugh that was still going strong as she slammed the door. "Cack cack, cack cack, cack cack cack."

Ben stepped away, shrugging it off, thinking: It is what it is.

v

The next day about mid-afternoon, Ben noticed that the wrecking crew was beginning to reassemble in Unit B. One by one, or in pairs, Anita's harem of emaciated men were gathering once more in Clint's living room. So, Ben decided to head over and make sure that Clint was home. Next door, the drapes were closed and it sounded like a small riot going on inside. Banging on the door, Ben shouted, "Hey, Clint. Are you in there?"

Clint opened the door a few moments later. He opened it just enough to reveal the stupid grin on his face and Anita the Hun right behind him, scowling. Ben asked Clint to step outside so they could chat. Meanwhile, an awful acrid smell, like burnt metal, came wafting through the doorway. Ben had never caught a whiff of anything like it before, nor did he care to ever again. Clint finished coming outside, using one hand to close the door and the other to shade his dilated eyes.

"You should have told me you were going to have a visitor before she got here," Ben said.

"We separated for a time but now we've reunited again," Clint cheerfully replied, still wearing the same stupid grin on his face.

Ben informed him quite bluntly, "That woman's out of here by Tuesday morning at three o'clock. And whatever it is you're burning, that shit's out of here right now, along with the rest of those people. C'mon, the party's over. We're not running an opium den around here. Get your friends to move along quietly, and the police won't have to be involved."

vi

"They're gone," said Clancy, who had been waiting in the courtyard for Ben to get home from work on Monday afternoon. "Cleared out about an hour ago."

"Did they take the whole meth lab with them or leave that for me to clean up?"

"All I know is they're gone," Clancy replied. "And I'm _not_ going to miss them a bit."

"Well, I suppose I'd better get over there and do a damage assessment."

"I don't know how you managed to run those worthless buzzards out of here, but I commend you on your success. You did a fine job."

"Hey, I'm just learning from my past mistakes. This wasn't my first encounter with a bunch of party animals. Hell, I was a wild party animal myself till I finally started getting my head on straight."

"Those guys were more like the _dregs_ of the party."

Ben was filled with apprehension when he went to unlock Unit B to see what kind of disaster Clint and the flophouse gang had left behind. He found the front door ajar and the doorjamb broken and splintered. A moment later his worst nightmare materialized right before his very eyes. The place had been totally thrashed. There were wine stains and burn marks and holes in the walls in the strangest places. And permeating the whole area was this noxious metallic odor that rendered the place virtually uninhabitable for days to come. Ben opened all the windows to air it out and hired in a handyman to repair the door frame so he could lock the place up again.

"Are you ever going to rent that place?" Clancy asked Ben one day the following autumn, shortly after Clancy's wealthy mother had sent his birthday present.

Ben had been applying a fresh coat of paint to the picnic table. He set his brush aside for a moment. "I don't have the money to clean up the mess. Why, do you know somebody who's interested in it?"

"I might be if the price is right. I've been thinking about expanding my studio so I can handle full-size bands again. You wouldn't have to clean up a thing. We'll clear it out for you, and hang up some insulation, and run some cables through the wall between the two kitchens to link everything together."

"Okay, tell you what," Ben proposed, pausing a moment to line up some numbers in his head. "You pay a hundred a month for the first six months, then two hundred a month for the next six, and then a year from now, if all is going well, you start paying market value less ten percent from then on. How does that strike you?"

"Let me think about it," said Clancy.

And of course Ben didn't object, because he knew he had just made his friend an offer he couldn't refuse. And he also understood how much his soon-to-be business partner enjoyed thinking about things. He wouldn't want to spoil Clancy's fun.

Later that afternoon, Ben was out in the courtyard sweeping up dry leaves when Clint turned up unexpectedly. "Hello," he called out, closing the gate behind him as if he were a casual friend or friendly neighbor stopping by to shoot the breeze for a while.

The expression on Ben's face must have frightened him because he stopped dead in his tracks. "It's all right. C'mon in," said Ben, motioning with one hand. "What the hell do you want?"

"Well, I've been kinda wondering if you might happen to have all those toys and stuffed animals I left behind."

"Why in the world would you think that?" Ben asked, reluctant to acknowledge the fact that Clint was on the right track. He had indeed asked Clancy to have his friends put the toys in several large boxes, which were now stowed away in a storage locker in the back yard, where they served as a reminder to Ben that sometimes it's better to be kind than right.

"Oh, I dunno," Clint replied, with a look on his face that clearly indicated he was indeed entirely clueless, running on impulse and amphetamines alone. "You just seem like the kind of guy who might not wanna throw away sentimental stuff like that."

"Your friends totally thrashed my place, remember?"

"I'm really sorry about all that. Sometimes those guys get sorta carried away."

"Somebody broke in the front door."

"Anita's stash got stolen while we were at Walmart, and she took it out on me, of course, like if it was my fault. I don't know why she has to be like that," Clint explained irrelevantly and then continued to yammer on some more.

Granted, Clint Vynere was a total screw-up who clearly deceived his landlord and was legally responsible for a substantial amount of damage. Yet, Ben still felt kind of sorry for the poor sap—though, admittedly, not much. Setting the broom aside, Ben headed off toward the back yard. "The toys are back here in the shed," said Ben, interrupting Clint's brainless drivel.

A broad grin spread across Clint's face. "Wait! Let me get Anita to help lug them out. She's waiting in the car."

"It's just a few of boxes. I'm sure we can handle it," Ben countered impatiently, without looking back, knowing he also had a dolly handy if they needed it. "C'mon, Clint. Step it up, before I change my mind."

•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•

Outside the Box

Every spring Ben Harper would lay siege on the same anthill. The anthill was a large, well-established colony of fire ants that never had taken kindly to his intrusions. This year he was out by the tool shed bombing the hell out of them with Carbaryl dust when he heard strange noises emanating from Clancy's studio. Not that hearing strange noises coming from Clancy's studio was anything out of the ordinary. Clancy's studio had a habit of producing all manner of bizarre sounds, just as a matter of course. It happened all the time. But when something as spooky as the sound Ben just heard came out of there, he could safely assume that KC Rathbone probably had a hand in it. And he was curious to see what they were up to this time.

Carefully closing the lid of the poison dust canister, Ben set it aside and approached Unit B, the source of the weird noise that had sounded like the tolling of a church bell inside an echo chamber. He waited at the front door of Unit B until he heard them resume their talking inside, then he knocked and Rathbone opened the door, saying, "Whaddup?"

KC Rathbone was a local jazz guru, college-radio disk jockey, columnist, poet, and percussionist of some renown. Ben only knew the man by his stage name, even though they had been acquainted for years. "What on earth are you two doing in here?" he asked, surveying a stack of refrigerator shelves and drawers piled at Clancy's feet.

What they had done was dismantled Unit B's empty, unused refrigerator and set a large iron pot inside—about half full of water. Clancy held the microphone and the fridge door open just enough for Rathbone to reach inside and clang it with a ball-peen hammer. The tone was deep and rich. And the echo produced inside of the icebox was then distorted and amplified a thousand times before escaping from a nearby monitor, like somebody clanging a bell at the bottom of the deep well.

"Just experimenting a bit before we start recording," Clancy answered Ben's question.

"Doing a little outside-the-box thinking, eh?" Ben remarked, giving the fridge a couple of gentle pats.

Clancy grinned as Rathbone grimaced at his lame attempt at refrigerator humor. "Yeah, you could say that," Clancy replied in his usual friendly manner.

"If you want to be _wrong,"_ Rathbone glibly interjected. "If you want to _discard_ the original meaning of the expression."

"What original meaning are you talking about?" Clancy queried.

Rathbone rolled his eyes. "'Outside the box' is an old expression used by aviators," he explained, "particularly test pilots, to mean operating outside the safety zone." His long rhino-like upper lip jutted out as he formed the words. "There's not a pilot alive who would _choose_ to fly outside the box, because that's how they get themselves killed."

"Fiddlesticks," Clancy retorted with absolute certitude and a very slight, barely perceptible lisp, "I've never heard of that before. Out-of-the-box thinking has to do with escaping the confines of conventional thought. It's about leading-edge innovations and novel new solutions to complex problems."

"Just because you never heard of it, doesn't make me incorrect, Clancy," Rathbone snapped back, mildly exasperated.

Ben left them to battle it out between themselves, though he didn't stop ruminating on the concept of thinking outside the box. The next day, for example, when he noticed a new anthill had popped up overnight, a mere two steps closer to the wall, he started thinking maybe it was about time for him to start doing a little more outside-the-box thinking. He needed to get to the source of the problem.

Leaning against the wall, Ben peered into the neighbor's yard, which was overgrown with weeds, and piled with discarded building materials, and overrun with fire ants. "That's where their goddamn nest is," he muttered to himself under his breath.

With his canister of ant poison in hand, he walked around to the front of the neighbor's house and knocked on the door. When the neighbor finally got around to answering, Ben could tell right away that his neighbor was shitfaced drunk. He explained that the anthill in his yard was an extension of the massive nest located in the neighbor's back yard.

"Have at it!" the neighbor proclaimed with alcohol-fueled intensity. "Give them little fuckers hell."

So Ben grabbed a hoe and set the canister of bug poison on top of the wall as he climbed over. Halfway over he imagined himself from a bird's eye view, like a tiny little ant crawling over the wall from one large box-shaped yard and into another, beyond his usual approach to pest control. After about twenty minutes of traipsing about in knee-high weeds and broken bricks and rotting lumber, he managed to locate about a dozen different entrances and dosed them all with a dusting of poison. But not before the ants attacked in swarms, biting his bare legs and ankles a dozen times before he noticed they had launched a counter-offensive.

He was headed inside to clean up and treat his wounds when he bumped into Rathbone and Clancy, stepping out to the courtyard to smoke a joint. Rathbone lit the thing up and took a big toke and then offered it to Ben. "Care for a little attitude adjustment?"

Ben took a hit and passed it on to Clancy. They did a couple of rounds like that before Clancy asked Ben about the welts all over his legs. Ben told of his adventures in the neighbor's back yard, Clancy offered: "I have a tube of cream for that if you need it."

Ben responded with a headshake. "No thanks. I have some aloe in the house."

Meanwhile, Rathbone remembered he had a joint in his hand and, after taking a big puff, he handed it to Ben. Ben took a hit and passed it to Clancy. They went a couple of more rounds like that and then got started with a new topic of conversation, which Ben would soon lose track of entirely because his legs were starting to itch like crazy.

Ben took a shower and, as he was applying a soothing aloe gel to the ant bites, it occurred to him that outside-the-box thinking might not always be such a good idea. The next day this quiet revelation was confirmed when he discovered that the fire ants had shifted their main base of operations from the neighbor's yard to Ben's side of the wall, between the wall and the shed. Now he had about ten times as many ants to contend with.

"What a pain in the ass," he grumbled as he wedged his upper body in between the wall and the shed, stretching his long arm as far as he could reach to apply a dose of poison to this latest incursion of enemy combatants. "I can't win for losing here."

The next day Ben's lower legs were still irritated and itchy when he went out to see if he'd succeeded in driving the ants away. The good news was the enemy had evidently relocated their main base to the neighbor's yard. The bad news was they had moved their original outpost to the far side of the shed and had proceeded with business as usual as if nothing had happened and it was just another day in their daily struggle for survival. For a moment, Ben's itchy ant bites seemed to burn a little hotter, a little deeper.

Ben understood that, although he might have won a significant battle this time around, he sure as hell hadn't won the war. So he headed to the hardware store to buy another canister of Carbaryl dust. As he passed through the courtyard he heard a strangely familiar sound wafting out of Clancy's studio; only now the echoing sound of a clanging bell at the bottom of a well had been enhanced with a gurgling noise like water glug-glug-glugging through a clogged drainpipe.

It was a warm bright morning, and Clancy's door was wide open. KC Rathbone stood near the screen door as Ben walked past. "Whaddup?" Rathbone said in that smooth low-pitched radio voice of his. "Yuh got a minute to spare?"

Ben stopped walking and turned to the screen door, where Rathbone's silhouette darkened the doorway with a ravenlike presence. "What do you need?"

Rathbone pushed open the screen door, as the soundtrack in the background stopped. "I want you to hear this piece we just finished," he proposed in vibrant tones, "and give us some feedback on it."

Ben knew Rathbone well enough to know the guy didn't give a rat's ass about his opinion about anything. He just wanted to show off some of his avant-garde poetry. And that was perfectly all right with Ben. He stepped inside and his eyes started to adjust to the light. He saw that Clancy was seated at the helm of his space station, working the soundboard and computer simultaneously. "I hope you guys didn't clog up the drain just to record that gurgling sound," he said to Clancy with a grin and a wink.

Clancy laughed out loud and assured him, "Don't worry about it. That's not a drainpipe. It's the sound you get when you put a watermelon in an empty refrigerator and whack it with a wooden spoon."

"Thinking outside the box again, are you?" Ben asked with a slight note of sarcasm in his voice. "Well, all I can say is you better be careful. That kind of thinking can be dangerous." Pointing out the large red welts on his lower legs, he went on to give a brief account of his ongoing efforts to eradicate an anthill in the adjoining yard as well as a report of the enemy's valiant resistance.

"See what I mean?" said Rathbone to Clancy, smirking with self-assurance as he pronounced, "There are times when thinking 'outside the box' is a horrible idea."

Clancy sneered for a moment but said nothing as he cued up the soundtrack. Meanwhile, KC Rathbone unfolded a piece of notebook paper and unconsciously tugged a few times at the Frank Zappalike knot of hair beneath his lower lip—his large black imperial. Then he squared his feet and shoulders and began to read the most incomprehensible load of gibberish Ben had ever heard in his life.

In a cascade of illogical non-sequiturs, the words streamed meaninglessly through an intricately interwoven gurgling of water and echoing of deeply submerged bells. Ben had never heard anything like it before, but that didn't necessarily mean he liked it. Frankly, he didn't know quite what to make of it, except that it reminded him vaguely of beatniks in black turtleneck sweaters.

When Rathbone finished, he asked what Ben thought. Ben said he wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to interpret the piece.

"That's okay," said Rathbone. "It's neither here nor there to me. As soon as I commit the words to paper, my job is done. What you make of it after that is totally your call."

"Yeah, no matter how you look at it," Clancy needled his friend with a menacing little chuckle, "when it comes to KC's poetry, he's always thinking outside the box."

"Are you saying he operates outside the safety zone or that he's an innovative trendsetter?" Ben asked, with a little burst of laughter of his own.

Clancy leaned back in his office chair and crossed his arms, grinning in a magical wizardly manner that reminded Ben of Jerry Garcia. "That's for you to decide," he answered.

For a moment the studio rocked with their combined shouts of laughter, although KC Rathbone just sort of chuckled along to be a good sport about it. What with all the laughter, nobody heard the front gate squeak as it opened, and they were surprised to hear a voice outside the screen door.

"Hey, what's going on in there?"

"Well, howdy there, Nick," said Ben, stepping over to open the door.

"C'mon in," Clancy called out from across the room.

"Clancy was just reminding us," Rathbone quipped, "that he's not quite as smart as he thinks he is."

To which Clancy replied, "Give me a break."

"You've heard the expression 'outside the box,' right?" Ben asked Nick, putting up quotation marks with his fingers, "What does that expression mean to you?"

"Danger! _Danger! DANGER!"_ cried Nick, in the manner of a certain TV character from their childhood that was supposedly a talking robot. And he went on to explain with a vaguely Texan drawl, "I only know that because my Daddy was a pilot, and the whole time I was growing up, he was always reminding me: 'Careful there, Nicky, you're steering it outside the box now.'"

"I hear you. But let's say you've got a broken AC unit that's got you flummoxed," Ben proposed hypothetically. "You'll never figure out how to fix it unless you start thinking 'outside the box' and try a new and different approach, right?"

Being as Nick was a heating and refrigeration specialist with twenty years of experience, he briefly processed the question and came back with a quick reply. "Oh yeah," he said, "I've heard of that. But nothing like that has happened to me for years."

Then a little gleam alighted on his eyes, accompanied by a wry smile. "Fact is, I spend a helluva lot more time and energy trying to get INSIDE the box if you know what I mean," he declared with a lusty little snort, giving Ben a playful little shove with one hand, "that is to say, one tight little box or another."

Remembering that Clancy and Rathbone had work to do, Ben suggested to Nick that they should head over to the cottage and burn one. Nick asked if he could let his dog loose in the yard, and Ben said fine. Nick let the retriever out of the cab of his utility van, and the dog came bounding into the courtyard with nostrils flaring. Streaking past Ben, the dog went straight to his favorite spot behind a clump of juniper bushes, where the neighborhood cats regularly left an assortment of tasty bits for the dog to dig up.

Inside, Ben took a seat on the couch and rolled up a fat one. Nick settled into a nearby armchair, except for one leg, which kept bouncing up and down of its own accord. This was a clear indication to Ben that Nick was currently riding the manic upside of an extreme bipolar disorder. He lit up the reefer and took a deep hit, offering it over to Nick.

"No thanks, not right now," said Nick, a white-haired man, about five years younger than Ben, with bushy white eyebrows. "I need to talk to you about something really important."

Ben took another toke and set the joint down in an ashtray on the coffee table. "Well, okay, I guess. As long as it doesn't start costing me money."

Nick emitted a nervous little titter. He looked over at Ben then glanced away. "I've got a little trouble brewing out in my neck of the woods." He looked at Ben again, his face reddening slightly. "I had a county sheriff poking around asking questions this morning. I'm afraid they might be planning to raid the place."

"And if they do, they'll never find it. Not in a million years." Ben had been there. He had seen the setup and he was certain Nick's crop was safe.

Nick had set up a pot farm inside a twelve-foot trailer outside his workshop in a secluded place in the nearby mountains. The workshop was presumably for his HVAC business, but the company was really more of a front for his pot farm, which had a hidden ventilation system and a secret entryway behind the shelves that would foil even the nosiest of sleuths. The trailer was parked outside, right up against the building, but the entrance was inside. Nick would move a box or two and remove a piece of sheetrock, revealing a small square entryway. He had to stoop down to walk under the rotating grow lights overhead. Each plant put down roots in the soil contained in its own five-gallon bucket. The trailer housed somewhere between thirty and forty plants.

"I need you to do me a big favor," said Nick, leaning forward in his seat anxiously. "Let me stash the stuff I've harvested in your freezer."

"Where am I supposed to put the food?"

"Okay, then how about somewhere in a closet or out in the storage locker. I'm desperate, man."

"Are you sure you aren't just being paranoid? I mean, what makes you think they're going to bust you."

"I dunno, man. It's just a gut feeling. I'd rather be safe than sorry, that's all."

"How long do you think you'd have to stash it here?"

"I dunno. A few weeks I guess. Until it feels like they're done snooping around. You can smoke all you want as long as it's here. And I've got several really nice strains to choose from."

"Now we're talking," said Ben. Lifting the joint from the rim of the ashtray, he relit it. He took a big toke and blew it out slowly. "How much have you harvested so far?"

"I dunno. About three or four pounds." He took a toke and norfed a little, pinching his nose to hold it in.

"Do you still have that key I gave you?"

Nick nodded, holding his breath, handing back the joint, which Ben set down in the ashtray.

Exhaling a stream of blue smoke, Nick asked, "Does your brother still have a key to the place?"

"No, he gave it back when he moved out," Ben answered. Then he asked, "Why do you ask? Don't you trust Lance anymore? Do you trust anyone not to steal your precious stash? Can you trust me?"

Nick looked this way, then that way, a little bit confused. "I hope so."

"Hey, I'm just messing with you, Nicky. Just jerking your chain. I'm not going to make off with your stash. I might very well smoke a huge portion of it, but I wouldn't steal a single bud."

So Nick stashed his stuff in Ben's freezer, and Ben treated himself to a little bud on occasion for the next few days. Then he went on vacation for a week. Where he went on his trip and what he did while he was there weren't even important enough to mention. The important part was that Ben's vacation left Nick in charge of the homestead while he was gone.

"Oh, he took charge all right," Lance adamantly informed Ben when he got back. They were in Lance's car on the way home from the airport.

"So?" Ben asked. "What's the big deal?"

"He moved right in like he owns the place." Ben's younger brother gripped the steering wheel at precisely ten and two and never let his eyes stray from the road ahead. "He was so flagrant about it that he even managed to piss me off. And you know I ordinarily wouldn't give a hoot what that maniac does."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, there were the sketchy babes he brought home from the honky-tonk on Friday night, for instance, and the hookers he brought home from Pasties on Saturday?"

"Tell me it's not so," Ben whined, in a breathless voice that indicated he'd just been dealt a harsh blow.

"Oh yeah. Nicky had himself a real blast in your place while you were gone."

Nick had initially joined Ben's circle of friend's as a friend of a friend, who ended up hanging out mostly with Lance. After Lance moved out, Nick had continued to stop by because it was a convenient place in town where he was always welcomed. For quite a while he had come and gone pretty much as he pleased until he pulled the stunt with the hookers, which promptly put an end to his free reign.

"You really pushed the limit this time, Nick," said Ben, the next time Nick stopped by.

"I don't understand what you've got your hackles up about. A couple of hookers, what's the rub?"

"C'mon, Nick, you know I've had trouble with hookers in the past. What with Pasties right down the street and around the corner, those gals never stop trying to move in on me. Besides, bringing them here was disrespectful," Ben harped on like a man with a huge ax to grind, "to me, to my place, to my renters. It was very irresponsible for you to bring them here. So irresponsible that I don't think I can trust you with a key to the place anymore."

"Okay, fine. If that's how you feel about it," Nick retorted. "But not tonight. I need to find another place for my stash first. I'll give it back as soon as I find someone else to stash my stuff.

"You'll still have access. You just won't have full reign of the place."

"Catch you later," said Nick as he turned on his heels, giving Ben a piercing glare, and headed for the door.

A week later Nick still hadn't returned Ben's house key. Nor had he found another friend who was willing to stash his illegal contraband. Ben pressed him for the key. Nick resisted. Ben pressed him further and Nick finally relented, pushing the key with his thumb into Ben's palm so hard that it left an imprint.

The next day after work, Ben got an inkling that something was amiss when he found his front door unlocked and Lance, sitting alone, nursing a brew pop in the front room.

"You gave me back that key, didn't you?"

Lance nodded his head.

Ben popped open the fridge and grabbed a beer. "Well, then how did you get in here?"

"Nicky let me in. You just missed him by a minute or two."

"But how could he get in when I have his key?"

Ben was thinking out loud now, which, judging by his younger brother's discerning grin, Lance must have found amusing. "Maybe he made a duplicate."

"Maybe so." Ben looked around the place as if all of a sudden he didn't recognize it anymore, as if he were lost in the middle of his own living room. He wandered over to the front door and examined the door lock and deadbolt. "Did you happen to notice if he took his stash with him when he left?"

"He had something in a great big suitcase."

After testing both locks, Ben proceeded to walk through the house checking all the windows and exterior doors. Meanwhile, Lance started retracing his steps, and a minute later he called out from the front entry area, where he had discovered how Nick had gotten in without a key.

"Look there," said Lance, pointing at the doorjamb where the middle hinge was set into its notch without any screws. "Crazy fucker removed all the hinge screws."

"Then he just pried the door out with a crowbar."

"And set it back in place before we got here."

"Yes sir, that Nicky, he's a cagey rascal for sure." Ben walked back to the couch and sat down, musing over the irony of it all, and muttering mostly to himself, "He did tell us he spends most of his time trying to get _inside_ the box."

"What?

I never would have thought anyone could be so paranoid and delusional about his stash."

"I wonder if he's off his meds again."

"I wouldn't be surprised. Last night he pulled a Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde on me. He gave me a glare that made me think he's done with me for good."

"Don't be surprised if you never hear from him again. I've seen him burn a few bridges behind him in the last five years."

"And this is how he chooses to apply his outside-the-box thinking." Ben was thinking aloud again, and Lance had no way of knowing what he was mumbling about.

"Say what?"

"Oh, nothing." Ben brushed the question off with a headshake. He paused a moment to arrange his thoughts, and then asked, "Would you mind watching the place while I run over to the hardware store? I'll be back in about twenty minutes."

"I've got a fat one rolled up and ready to burn when you get back," said Lance.

"In that case maybe the hinge screws can wait a few more minutes. Right now, I could stand a little attitude adjustment."

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Gangbusters

"I'm really going gangbusters today," Clancy proclaimed with the slightest of very slightly discernable lisps, as the screen door slammed and he rushed past Ben in the courtyard one autumn morning. "I'm booked up from noon till midnight."

"Good thing I caught you before your busy time," said Ben, pausing for a moment to lean on his industrial-strength push broom. "Do you have a minute?"

Clancy stopped in his tracks and turned to Ben. "Whaddup?"

Ben cocked his chin and pointed the broom handle toward one of the matching cypress trees in the courtyard—specifically, the one outside the front door of Unit A. Propping the broom against the picnic table, he moved quickly to the tree's lowest-hanging branch while Clancy lumbered along behind him. "Somebody tagged it right over here," said Ben in a serious tone, followed immediately by a little joke to take the edge off the accusation, "and I don't think it was the grackles."

Clancy glared at the graffiti-strewn branch for a moment, and said, "I told those boys _no graffiti!_ Goddamn it! What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Clancy had big plans for his little music studio. In his pipe dream, Studio A took on mythical proportions the likes of the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, which was in Clancy's imagination a near equivalent to the Land of Oz. Ben never discouraged Clancy from dreaming big, believing that Clancy's ultimate success would end up working out better for both of them.

A half dozen wanna-be rap stars had soon blossomed into about twenty young rappers, strutting and scowling and hanging around, scribbling street rhymes in spiral notebooks. Sometimes Ben would come home to find a whole gaggle of underage beer guzzlers, sharing fat blunts on the courtyard. He would ask how the session was coming along, and they would usually respond in a friendly enough manner. He figured they were better off in the courtyard than cruising around in their cars, where they were more likely to get themselves in trouble.

So Ben had allowed it to go on, maybe a tad too often and for just a little too long.

"You've just got to put your foot down, Clancy. You can be firm and yet friendly about it. Why not give that a try?"

"Okay," Clancy replied, and his eyes went narrow. "And if that don't work, I'll banish the buzzards for life."

"Hey, it's not like this is the end of the world. I just think it's important to nip this stuff in the bud. Before the little fuckers start tagging everything in sight."

"I'm going to put up a whole wall of posters in the studio and tell them to have at it."

"That might be helpful."

"I dunno. Direct threats seem to be the only language they understand," said Clancy as he stepped to the doorway of Unit A. "But they did bring over some really nice hooch. My treat, if you do the rolling." He glanced at his watch. "I've got about twenty minutes."

Ben followed him inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, but then he went right to work rolling up a reefer. Opening the cookie tin Clancy had handed him, he found papers and a bag of fat buds. He broke up a bud in the round shallow pan he made of the cookie tin top by setting it upside-down on his thighs. "Did you ever manage to get Dank caught up on his account?"

DJ Sparky Dank was, by Ben's best estimate, a flimflam artist of the highest order, a mover and a shaker, a charming narcissist with only one totally selfish concern in the world—that being, of course, the satisfying Dank's insatiable appetites.

Clancy, on the other hand, was such a helpful, kind-hearted fellow that he struggled with the collections aspect of his little business. Given half a chance, he would have given the shop away. Which was something Ben couldn't just stand by and let happen. He was dependent on Clancy's rent each month to cover a big chunk of the mortgage. If Clancy's customers didn't pay up, then how was he going to pay Ben? In that regard, the two men were dependent upon each other. Ben's success as a landlord was tied to Clancy's success as a producer and studio engineer, so Ben tried to help him out as much as he could.

"No, he's still a couple of hundred in the hole, but I'll make rent with or without him. No worries." Clancy took his place at the helm of his space station, where, at any given moment night or day, he might be found seated at his keyboard viewing one of several computer monitors or making adjustments to the soundboard or an array of other electronic gizmos with mysterious buttons and switches and glowing LEDs.

"Did you tell him what you said you were going to say?"

"Oh, yeah. I asked what he'd do if I told him, 'no money, no master.'"

Ben looked up for a moment from his nearly completed joint, grinning. "And what did he say to that?"

"He just thought about it a minute and said maybe he'd kill me and burn the body on the outskirts of town."

"Whoa! Surely you don't think he'd go through with it, do you?" Ben asked, twisting the rolling paper into a neat little cylinder and giving it a lick.

"Hard to say," said Clancy with a strange, above-it-all attitude that struck Ben as rather out of character for a fellow who was usually totally down to earth and practical about everything under the sun. "Dank is kind of an unpredictable guy."

Ben was just about to comment when the doorbell chimed. Glancing at the door then over at Clancy, he dropped the reefer into the cookie tin alongside Clancy's stash and replaced the cover. Meanwhile, Clancy got up and answered the door.

"Sir, we've had a reported kidnapping in the neighborhood," said an official-sounding voice outside the screen door. "Are you the legal resident of these premises?"

Clancy nodded and Ben turned to ascertain for sure that the voice at the door was that of a police officer. Once he confirmed that to be the case at hand, he stayed put, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible with a cookie tin full of pot paraphernalia sitting conspicuously on his lap.

"Is anyone else here with you?"

"Only the landlord," Clancy answered and pointed Ben's way.

"What can we do for you today?" asked Ben.

"We're going to need to search all of the apartments on the premises, sir." The policeman unlatched the door handle, but Clancy stood in the way.

"Not without a warrant you're not."

Which gave Ben a queasy feeling, being as he was the one holding the pot.

"Sir, we have an emergency situation here involving a small child. We know exactly who's coming and going from this place at all hours of the day and night. We know who's parking outside here and which ones are toting around a trunkful of weapons. And we're willing to put that all aside right now if you'll just cooperate."

"Why don't you just let them in," Ben calmly intervened. "The sooner you do, the sooner they'll go away. Unless you're hiding body parts in the freezer or something."

"This is no joking matter, sir," said the policeman gravely.

"Ah right then," Clancy relented, "but make it quick and don't start moving things around."

Two officers came stomping through the living room with Clancy right behind them, nagging them the whole way about his civil rights. The two officers trudged through the space station, seemingly unimpressed by the outlandishness of the place. They checked the bathroom, opened closets, and then they asked if they could search next door. When Clancy accompanied them to the studio side of the building, Ben stayed behind just long enough to stash Clancy's cookie tin on a bookshelf. Then he went back to the cottage and stashed a few particular items of his own in advance of their inevitable arrival at his front door only moments later.

Several days passed and Ben saw little of Clancy or his notorious clientele. The weather suddenly had gotten wintery, and only the heartiest of the wanna-be rap stars continued to assemble on the courtyard.

Then Ben came home from work to find a scrawl of graffiti running the length of the curb out front of the triplex. Clancy had already seen it and was waiting for Ben to get in. Dank was there too. He opened the front door as Ben latched the gate and invited him to join them in the space station.

"Looks like we found ourselves in the middle of a gangland turf war," said Clancy.

And Dank went on to explain, "A rival gang claims this neighborhood, see? They seen our rides out front and need to remind us we're treading on their turf. 'Sawright though. No worries. I'll bring over some gray paint from the shop and spray over it. It'll be a perfect match. Satisfaction guaranteed."

Sparky Dank was just plain full of himself and went racing through life in a silver Mercedes, hustling his DJ services, refurbishing cars, peddling drugs, and gathering a regular little harem of slinky hip-hop "bitches" along the way.

"That's all right, Dank," Ben replied, "I'll call in the city's cleanup crew. They come through this neighborhood as regular as clockwork."

"The important thing," said Dank, giving Ben a piercing look, "is to get it _gone,_ like yesterday. _¿Comprendes?"_

"The sooner, the better," Clancy reaffirmed.

"All right then," said Ben, "have at it. Far be it from me to stand between a man and his true calling."

"Satisfaction guaranteed," said Dank with a cunning wink. Among the local low-rider crowd, his auto-body work and paint detailing were renowned, and he knew it.

By the time Ben went to work the next morning, all traces of the graffiti were gone. As advertised, Sparky Dank and his crew had done impeccable work, even in the middle of the night. But then a few nights later, Ben came in late and found a new patch of tags precisely where the first batch had been. But, before he had a chance to tell Clancy about it the next morning, the new tags had also disappeared.

At this point, Ben was beginning to get a tad distressed about whatever the hell was going on right under his nose in the middle of the night. Before he had a chance to do anything about it though, he received an unexpected, late-night phone call. It was Clancy on the other end of the line, ranting incoherently.

"Hold on a sec while I turn down the stereo." Ben covered the mouthpiece end of the modular phone as he hurried over to turn down the music. "Okay."

"You better come over here, right away," said Clancy. "The little buzzard tried to gun me down."

Ben found Clancy in the space station, stunned, ghostly white, and altogether rattled. "He cut loose with a nine millimeter automatic."

"Who cut loose with a nine millimeter?" Ben asked. "I didn't hear a thing."

"Four shots," said Clancy, completely ignoring Ben's question. "There." He pointed to a bullet hole in the upper corner of the window. "There," he said, pointing at another one in the wall above. "There." At a third one just off to the right. "And there." The fourth bullet had come through the window and straight through the back of his chair, lodging itself in a closet door on the opposite wall. "That's the one that would have nailed me for sure. Fuckin little buzzard!"

"Where were you?"

"I was standing in the john with my dick in my hand," said Clancy, who was apparently beginning to feel like himself again. "That first shot scared me so bad I dove into the tub for cover. Pissed all over the goddamn place."

"Good thing Nature called when she did," Ben quipped.

"Thank God I've been storing up a big reserve of good karma lately," Clancy announced fearlessly, as he stepped over to reexamine the hole in the back of his chair where his chest would have been.

"What the hell are we going to do?" asked Ben. "Call the cops?"

"Oh, hell no!" Clancy countered. "That's the last thing we wanna do. I figure to lie low awhile. Give Dank and his crew a chance to sort things out and make it right. I had a little chat with him on the phone before I called you."

"You know who did this, don't you?" Ben suggested.

Clancy just grinned the most diabolical grin Ben had ever seen him display, the mad genius burning in his eyes like a searing lick of the devil's own noxious breath.

"This is serious!" Ben proclaimed. "I can't stand by and let a bunch of little punks—"

"'Sawright! Just relax. Watch the news for the next few days. The kid went rogue. He's a nut case, and these guys prefer to deal with their own in their own way," Clancy evasively explained. "Dank is going to be leaving town for a while, and he guaranteed me this is the last we'll hear about any screwball shooters around here. Everything's taken care of. No worries."

Ben watched the news as instructed and a few days later heard the report of a corpse found in a burned-out vehicle on the outskirts of town. Police suspected foul play and suggested that the killing might be gang-related. Ben wondered if this was the news item he was supposed to be watching for.

When he went over to Clancy's place to describe the news story he'd just seen on TV, Clancy acted unimpressed and somewhat inattentive. Ben asked, "Is that the story you told me to be watching for?"

"Hard to say," Clancy answered vaguely as he slid open his top desk drawer, poking around till he found the bullet he had pried out of the door behind him.

"Is that the one that would have nailed you if you hadn't been in the pisser with your dick in your hand?" In the absence of a little comic relief right then, Ben felt he was likely to break down and start crying for sure. It seemed his only choice, whenever life got too cruel and stupid to bear, was to either laugh it off or cry in his beer. Anyone who's not amazed, and confounded, and maybe a little bit mortified by the brazen absurdity of the human condition, thought Ben, just wasn't paying close enough attention.

"Uh huh. That it is," Clancy replied, prominently displaying the bullet on the open palm of one large hand. "And, to tell the truth, I really don't want to know anything more about it. I seriously doubt you wanna know anything about it either."

"But all this guesswork is driving me crazy. I just wish I could be certain, that's all."

"Be careful of what you wish for," said Clancy. "You might get it... and then what?"

"Maybe so, but I'm still kinda curious," said Ben disappointedly. "Can't blame me for that."

"Curiosity killed the cat!" Clancy replied, "Better to just sit back and take it as it comes," and that was the last time they spoke of it.

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Measure Twice

i

One bright summer day Ben Harper and his renter, Clancy, were standing out at the curb, tipping a couple of cold ones, talking about a home improvement scheme Ben had been dreaming about for years.

"Well, you're right about one thing," said Clancy, "the place has absolutely _zero_ curb appeal. But what you're talking about is going to run you into some money, and there's no guarantee you'll see enough of a return to make your investment worthwhile."

"But if I don't make the investment," Ben retorted, with perhaps a little hint of desperation in his voice, "I'm not gonna find any takers, just like the last two times I got the crazy idea I could sell this place."

"I'm just saying you better think it through. That's all. "Beware the law of unintended consequences."

"I've been planning this goddamn project for fifteen years, and now I finally have the funding available, so I figure what the hell? Get it done. Even if the place doesn't sell, at least we won't have to live with this sad excuse for landscaping anymore."

The two men surveyed the property again for a moment. Beyond a broad strip of asphalt for parking stood a cinderblock wall about four feet high with a white steel gate separated the parking lot from two huge cypress trees in the courtyard. Abutting the wall near the entrance, the gabled end of the duplex faced the street with an exterior closet door exposed to anyone who wanted to hang advertisements or the occasional copy of "The Watchtower" on the doorknob. Needless to say, over the past two decades, Ben had gotten pretty damn tired of finding a bunch of junk hanging on the closet door or littering the ground at the foot of it.

"C'mon inside," said Clancy. "Let's look it up."

Inside the space station, Clancy sat down at his computer and Googled "law of unintended consequences." His Google search led to Wikipedia **.** There he found out the term was popularized in the 20th century by sociologist Robert K. Merton, who proposed that there are roughly three types of unforeseen consequences that can result from the purposeful actions we humans take when we think we can control or change or otherwise influence some aspect of this unpredictable world we live in.

The action taken can result in a "positive, unexpected benefit (usually referred to as luck, serendipity or a windfall)." Or the outcome could be a "negative, unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect." Or, on a rare occasion, the action a person chooses to take will have a "perverse effect contrary to what was initially intended.

Scanning through the article, Clancy read aloud to Ben: "The law of unintended consequences has come to be used as an adage or idiomatic warning that an intervention in a complex system tends to create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes. Akin to Murphy's Law, it is commonly used as a wry or humorous warning against the hubristic belief that humans can fully control the world around them."

"Well that's certainly a whole lot more than I'll ever need to know about the law of unintended consequences," said Ben.

"Don't kid yourself," said Clancy.

ii

Clancy helped Ben jackhammer and remove a walkway that ran from the storage closet to the front gate. When they were done, they got to talking about unintended consequences and how Ben's insomnia had an unexpected and beneficial effect on his remodeling plans.

Clancy just chuckled and asked, "What kinda benefit are we talking about?"

"It came to me while I was out jogging in the middle of the night," Ben answered.

Clancy had been around a few years now, so Ben didn't need to explain to him that he had been combatting his insomnia by running himself to the point of sheer exhaustion. Sometimes he would toss and turn for hours before finally getting up to go for a nice long exhausting middle-of-the-night jog. He had developed a pattern of running from his neighborhood along East Main Street to a more upscale neighborhood about half a mile away.

Along Old Main was situated a half dozen of the seediest joints in town. The Madame de Sade, a peep show and adult toyshop, as well as a strip club called Pasties, which attracted all manner of unsavory characters. Down the road from there in either direction, there were a couple of ramshackle honky-tonks and bars that catered to drunken cowboys and Indians. And a little farther down stood the local gay nightclub with its festive outdoor swimming area surrounded by a ten-foot fence.

Once Ben got into the more affluent neighborhood up the hill, he would start taking note of the landscape architecture on the yards he trotted past. He imagined how he might achieve a similar effect in his yard. Over time Ben devised a lovely landscaping scheme for the front of his property and he also happened upon a perfect solution for the problem of the unsightly closet door.

After several months of insomnia and midnight jogs through this very posh neighborhood, he had noticed at the side of one lovely home a wooden partition, L-shaped, no more than four feet tall—behind which the garbage cans were neatly tucked away.

"I nearly ran right past without noticing, but the minute I saw it I knew it was exactly what I had been looking for," he explained to Clancy. His partition would have to be taller, of course, to fully conceal that hideous door, and he might need to arrange the pickets differently, but now he had a creative starting point. "What a stroke of luck."

"We'll have to wait and see how lucky it was when, and if, you get an offer." Clancy was skeptical, especially since Ben had told him how much he had spent on materials and how much he was planning to spend on trees and shrubs. He was also skeptical because he didn't really approve of the idea of Ben selling the place.

iii

Ben and Clancy had already jackhammered the sidewalk and removed all but a small pad outside the closet door. Today they dug four postholes and set the redwood 4x4s in place. They mixed cement and poured it into the holes at the base of each post. Before the concrete had a chance to dry, they topped off three of the posts with a six-foot 2x4s, forming the long arm of the L, and then attached it to a shorter cap piece at 90 degrees. "Measure twice, cut once," said Ben at one point along the way. Clancy got a kick out of that and kept repeating the old carpenter's saying every time Ben took a measurement. After squaring things up and tacking in temporary diagonal beams to keep the posts in place till the concrete set, they knocked off for the day.

They were tidying up and putting tools away when Ben came across an empty liquor bottle someone had tossed on the parking lot. "Some things never change," Clancy remarked as Ben bent over to snatch it up and throw it into the bed of his truck.

"People are such slobs. But what can you do?" Ben wondered, somewhat befuddled by all the endless daily aggravations that never got remedied. But he stopped for a moment to take a look at the brighter side, and then he answered his own question, "You live with it, that's what you do. You grin and bear it. At least I'm not finding spent needles and condoms strewn about the place anymore. Only fast-food wrappers and empty cans and such. And plenty of that, I must say."

"Just another day in the life of the real estate mogul," Clancy chided his friend. And with a snort he headed inside for another beer.

Ben followed along, muttering under his breath, "In a lifetime of cleaning up other people's messes, you mean."

The next day after work Ben finished nailing on the six-foot 1x4 cedar pickets before the sun went down. The next day he put on a primer coat. Over the weekend he applied two finishing coats of exterior latex. At last, the partition was complete and built to last a hundred years.

"It always feels great to finish up a project," said Clancy with one of those goofy little Elmer Fudd laughs he always did when he was stoned. He just happened to step outside while Ben was cleaning up.

"You must be a mind reader," Ben replied. "That's just what I was thinking."

"So, what's next? Do you already have your next project in mind?"

"I hadn't given it much thought," said Ben. "I suppose I'll probably get back to the book again."

" _The Confessions of a Marxist Landlord,"_ Clancy asked. He ordinarily had a very slight hint of a lisp, but the word "Marxist" turned his barely perceptible speech impediment into the lisp that roared.

"I don't know if I'm going with that title anymore," said Ben. "I think maybe something like _A Piece of the Rock_ might have more commercial appeal. Being as socialism has become such a dirty word in this country these days."

"Oh, I see. You think it might be more profitable to trick the landed gentry into buying your little Marxist tome, even though not one of them is likely to get through the first half of the first story before chucking it aside in disgust." Clancy had read enough of the manuscript to know what he was talking about.

"You're probably right," Ben replied agreeably. "I should probably stick with _Confessions._ If nothing else, at least it conveys a more honest and accurate description of what's between the covers. I mean, assuming the book ever gets published of course."

"Assuming it ever gets finished," Clancy chided. "You've been writing that opus of yours for about twenty years."

"And I'm just going to just keep right on plugging away at it," said Ben with resolve, "until I get it right."

"If you wait till you get it just right, you may never get around to finishing it."

"Oh, I think I'll know when _and if_ I ever manage to get it right."

"Perfection is an elusive little bitch," said Clancy as he shuffled to his front door. "Like that little hussy you were chasing around a few months back. What's become of her?"

"She's still around. She just doesn't want to get too involved. She wants to keep it casual and only lets me come around now and then, for a couple of days at a time. She says: Fresh fish and house guests are only good for about three days."

A couple of days later, when Ben got home from work, he paused a moment to gaze at his masterpiece—standing there so tall and clean and steadfast against the elements. He was still gazing in quiet astonishment of how smoothly the project had gone and how nicely things had turned out when Clancy appeared at the front gate.

"Just picturing what it's going to look like once the landscaping is all done," Ben explained. "I can see it all now in my mind's eye. There's going to be four Italian cypress trees right along here in front of the partition, and..."

Side by side the two men stepped out to the curb as Ben described for the umpteenth time how the landscape was going to look once it was installed. For the moment, he was filled with deep satisfaction at a job well done. What a magical moment it was! As if the spirit of Robert K. Merton had silently descended from the heavens and gently placed one beneficent hand on Ben's shoulder. For once it looked like serendipity was on Ben's side, and he might have actually reached the pentacle of home improvement perfection.

But then Clancy had to go and spoil everything. "I know something you probably forgot to plan on when you were making all your sketches," he asserted.

"What are you trying to say?" Ben queried with a furrowed brow.

"I dunno," Clancy, in fact, declined to say. "I'm not sure I oughta tell you. I wouldn't want to rain on your parade."

"What are you talking about, Clancy? Cough it up."

"Well, all right. Can't say I didn't warn you." He gave Ben one last chance to change his mind then went on, "Last night about midnight when I stepped out for a smoke, I heard voices out front, so I stepped over to the gate to look out."

"Oh, no! What did you see?"

"I saw one drunk guy standing outside the partition talking to another guy standing inside. But it's not what I saw or what they said that's important. It's what I heard in the background while they were talking—that familiar tinkling sound of water streaming onto the pavement."

"You've gotta be kidding," cried Ben. "He wasn't—"

"Oh yes, he most certainly was. It would appear that those resourceful old drunks have already turned your beautiful landscape project into a public urinal." Somehow Clancy managed to contain his laughter, but he was just brimming over with it nonetheless. Brimming over!

Ben crossed his arms and stood there fuming, flummoxed, gob-smacked. Taking a series of deep breaths to regain a degree of composure, he muttered in ironic undertones, "It is what it is."

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