

### Man-Child

### By:

### Michael Jenkins

Copyright 2014 by Michael Jenkins. All rights reserved.

Cover and author photo by Tina Christy

Published by Michael Jenkins at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9781311027511

Thank you for downloading this e-book. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thanks!

If you would like to email me you can reach me at Michael.T.Jenkins123@gmail.com. Or see my current satirical site at:

http://www.vondrook.com

### For Timothy and Evelyn

### Contents

The Sleeper Agent

If You Are Not Confused, Then You Are Not Paying Attention

This is Not For You

An Anecdote in "F" Major

Comeuppance

Confidence Tricksters (Three Different Ones)

The Horror

Overcome Awareness

Studies in Modern Personal Agendas

A Changing of the Guard

Life Coach

Flush the Floaters

Talk To Your Hand

Marathon Man

A Day in the Life

Schrodinger's Monkey

I Could Go For a Laugh

The Rabbit's Hole

Ride the Tiger

The Great Herpes Scare of '05

Introvert

Contents

### The Sleeper Agent

Some people respond well to stress. There will be a burst of energy in their brain, connecting with the spinal column and telling all the muscles in their body to move quickly in beautiful harmony to finish whatever job needs immediate completion. There are people out there who work two jobs, have a gross of children as well as an unfaithful wife, and when it gets too overwhelming, they take a deep, cleansing breath, hold out their arms calmly and say, "It's alright. I got this." These are the type of people that live to be over 100.

I don't work that way. I figure that my death date will be in my late 30's. When a difficult problem approaches me, I get sleepy. In my college days, a teacher would hand out a shopping list full of assignments, and while the students ran their fingers tightly through their hair, wondering how in the world they were going to complete all of this work in time, I would lean back in my chair and give a huge gaping yawn of nonchalance, while my heart pounded uncontrollably and in my head I was screaming, "Holy hell, I'm unforsakably fucked!"

Nearly all of my term papers were written between frequent nappings, and were finished in the early morning just an hour or so before they were due in the teacher's hands.

I told my mother about this reaction to unwelcome stimuli, and she told me that she suffers from the same affliction. This perplexed me, for I imagined early hominids being chased by ferocious four legged beasts of prey, and while a few of them got picked off and were torn to shreds, some asshole ancestor of mine was probably sleeping on some sun-soaked rock. How we survived this long, I will never know.

My slovenly reaction to stress concerned me because I was about to go into my first job interview, and an inquiry into my stress management skills seemed more than likely. I didn't even apply for the job; they found me. It was a company called "Iron Mountain," and a representative named Claire gave me a jingle. She told me that she found my resume on the world wide web, and that if I was interested in pursuing an employment opportunity with their company, I should call one Abigail Reynolds.

"Let me give you her number," she said. "Do you have a pen?"

I stood there for a couple seconds. "Uh...Yeah, got it."

I repeated the last four digits while staring out the window. "0...4...4...7. Got it. Thank you."

I went online and looked at the e-mail Claire had sent me. The company had something to do with insurance documents. The type of job they were looking to fill had absolutely nothing to do with my area of collegiate expertise.

Two days had passed when I got a phone call from Abigail Reynolds. Just like Claire, she asked me if I was interested in setting up an interview. I knew I had to get my first job interview over with, if only for the experience alone. An interview was arranged for Thursday morning. This was Monday. I told Abigail that I had never had a real interview before. She proceeded to give me a verbal onslaught of advice. One of the things she told me to do was start the interview by asking what kind of person they were looking for to fill the position, then answer the questions they asked me accordingly.

"But Abigail," I said, "Isn't that kind of cheap? It's like asking the teacher for the answers to the test before taking it."

She told me just to use their answers as a way to frame my own. I suppose it was sound advice, but I was not the type of aggressive person who would just burst into an interview and begin demanding answers. Abigail's last piece of advice was, "And even if it's 100 degrees outside, wear a suit and tie."

"I figured as much. Thank you very much for your help, Abigail."

"It's no problem, Michael. I am going to e-mail you the specs and application to print out and bring with you."

_Specs_ , I thought. Well, I guess in the fast-paced cubicle world, there is no time to say _specifics_ , let alone the time-consuming five syllabled _specifications_.

"Good luck, Michael!"

I wished I could have shared her enthusiasm, but now I had a number of problems to deal with: 1) I needed to buy a suit. 2) I needed to ready myself with falsified answers to the interview questions, and 3) I needed to find a way to keep my hands dry for the pre and post interview handshake.

Of all these concerns, the handshakes were what worried me the most, for there was relatively nothing I could do about it, especially in the mid-summer heat. Nobody ever shakes a palm dripping with sweat and says, "Mmmm! Sweaty! That's the handshake of a real go-getter! I love it! Love it!!" But I couldn't fret about the sweat just yet, I needed to buy a suit.

The last time I had worn a full blown suit was Easter of 1988, when I was 5 years old. It included a clip-on tie. But now that I was an "adult," I had to buy a real suit with a real tie. I went to Sears. I brought my friend Chris along with me, because although I wasn't color-blind, I was not color savvy. The only thing I was sure of was to not wear red to the interview. I read somewhere that the color red displays dominance, and as an interviewee, I wanted to play the role of the submissive employee; someone that would pick up the dried-out pieces of shit left by the boss's dog, all with a big smile on my face.

I decided to get a plain black suit with a cornflower blue shirt and tie. My rationale was that the boss in the movie _Fight Club_ loved the color cornflower blue, and he was a major tool.

Now I had the shirt, jacket, pants, shoes, and tie. Grand total: $108.00. Problem: I didn't know how to tie a tie. Since my early adult life, I have been met with scorn and ridicule whenever I asked my brother, or worse yet, my father how to tie a tie.

"You're 18 and you don't know how to tie a tie?!" Then they would take the tie, wrap it around their necks, and hand me the finished product without even showing me how it was done. With each year it got more and more humiliating when I had to ask.

"You're 18...19...20...21...22... and you don't know how to tie a tie?!?!" I didn't want to hear them reach 24, so I turned to my adopted third parent, the Internet. Tie-a-tie.com would show me the way. It offered hope.

"Have your first job interview coming up?" it asked. "Let us show you how to tie a tie in just 4 easy steps! Learn the basic Windsor knot, the slightly more difficult half-Windsor knot, or the ever treacherous Pratt knot if you really want to impress your future employer! Let us show you the way!"

I was impressed. I was sold. I never saw so much energy being brought to something so simplistic and mundane. I completed step one with relative ease, placing the loose tie around my neck. Crossing the two ends over each other: that was step two. No sweat. Then, out of nowhere the website showed me a picture of a bunch of fumbling knots, with lines and arrows pointing in all sorts of haphazard directions, telling me to loop side B through side A, coming halfway across and coming back over the short end of side B, turning it 90 degrees through the knot, "like so." Step 4 told me to pull the back of side A for appropriate tightness. I looked down at my own crumpled heap of silky knots resting on my chest. "Now you're dressed to impress!" it told me. I tried quite a few times, but it was pissing me off and stressing me out so much that I nearly dropped off to sleep my chair. I admitted defeat at around 1:30 in the morning. I left the untied tie on the kitchen table with a note that read, "Could someone tie this for me please? I can _knot_ do it." It was important to me to still display humor in such frustrating times.

For my sweaty hands, I tried in vain to use my little electrolysis machine, called the Drionic. How it worked was that I would place my hands in two pans of water while little shocks of electricity shot through my palms and down my fingers. It's quite an uncomfortable procedure, and it goes on for half an hour. Whenever I got the urge to take my hands out of the pans prematurely, I looked at the quote on the box that read, "Eliminates social embarrassment!" The device is supposed to keep your hands dry for 4 to 6 weeks, but my Hyperhydrosis is severe, and the effect of the device will only last for ten days at max; and that is in the winter time. Doing it in the summer would be moot, but still, I had to try everything.

On Thursday morning I found the tie knotted in a half-assed, angry Windsor fashion. At 6:00 in the morning, my father was probably tying it, a cigarette dangling out of the side of his mouth and muttering, "Little asshole is 24 and he can't even tie a tie..."

I put on two undershirts for the sake of my uncontrollable armpit sweat. The only part of my wardrobe that I felt any control over whatsoever was my lucky orange underwear. I ripped through the large white Sears bag hanging on my door to reveal my nemesis: the cheap, 86 dollar suit lying in wait to make me look like a fool. As soon as I put the thing on, tie and all, I looked in my portrait mirror: I did not want this job. No way. Even if by some miracle they offered it to me, I would give a high-pitched shriek and run for the hills. This conclusion had come to me earlier, but only after seeing myself in that outfit did it finally sink in. On the one sleeve of my suit jacket was the label of the cheap brand sewn into the fabric. If it was a Ralph Lauren suit, I wouldn't have minded; but there is something about a suit from Sears that you just don't want to advertise.

My mother got out the scissors and tried to remove it. I saw her shaky hands nearing the fabric.

"Mom, I don't trust this. Maybe you should just give me the—"

"Oops."

There it was. A hole in my suit jacket the size of a dime.

"I'm sorry, dear," she said. Then she stuck her index finger in the air to make a mental note. "I owe you one suit jacket."

I wasn't even angry. By this point the situation had turned into a comedy. Today was just not my day. I snagged the directions, the specs, and got into my car. When Yahoo! Maps fucked me on the directions, I only laughed. I don't know how I got there, but I did. Despite my air conditioner going at full blast, my underarms were relentlessly oozing a nervous sweat. I reluctantly found the office building a half hour before my appointment. I parked a good distance away, yawned, and began filling out the application. After writing in the necessary information, I reached for my last line of defense: A long, tall container of Gold Bond Medicated powder. I was reluctant to use it, for it was a powder, and would spread like wildfire over my black suit. The Drionic sweat system did absolutely nothing for my hands, but the Gold Bond could provide temporary relief for the first, but not the second, interview handshake.

Diligently I poured the powder into my hand and began to sensuously rub it into my palm. It was heavenly. After that, I stepped out of the car and delicately put on my suit jacket, but, of course, the Gold Bond had yet to fully absorb my tenacious sweat, and little droplets of the powder fell onto my lapel and on top of my thighs. The white sprinkles lay there like so much cocaine. If it were to come in contact with the skin, it would be smudged into the fabric, fading the sheer blackness of my pants to a washed-out gray. I kicked my legs out and shook them individually, trying to get the powder off unadulterated, but the Gold Bond clung with sincere earnestness. I also tried bringing my legs up to my mouth and blowing with all of my might, but to no avail. Eventually, I just took the back end of my palm and rubbed it into my pants. Now my brand new, cheap suit looked aged and faded, with a hole in the sleeve to boot. I gave my upper body one last look in the driver's side window, adjusted my tie, and headed inside.

It was a 3 story building and smelled fairly stale, stagnant. When I picked up the phone in the lobby, a pleasant electronic female voice greeted me. "Hello! And welcome to the offices of the Iron Mountain Administration. If you know your party's extension, enter the number followed by the number button."

Numbers then the number button? It took me two tries to realize that the number button was the same as the pound sign which is what I usually refer to it as. I was exhausted. It was only 10:00 in the morning and I felt like I had been awake for 36 hours.

On the second floor I was greeted by a man not much older than me. He stuck out his hand to shake. I regretfully gave him the "clam hand" and hoped he would chalk it up to nervousness on my part. He led me through the small floor of cubicles leading to the boss's office. I kept my eyes focused on the back of his head, for fear that looking at the drones would depress me; but it did anyway _. Maybe I should just take a deep breath, work for 40 years and die_ , I thought.

The corner office was of average size with a wide panoramic view of the parking lot. My car was in plain sight. If that guy took one look out his window at the right time and saw me doing the "hokey-pokey" next to my car, I was done for. But it was too late to turn back.

The boss, a balding, slightly overweight man with glasses shook my hand (sigh).

"Glad you could make it," he said. "I see that the specs were easy to follow."

He told me to take a seat. Behind him on the distant horizon were the towers of a power plant, and if he sat just so, it would appear that his head was steaming like an embarrassed Elmer Fudd after being kissed by a transsexual Bugs Bunny. I found this humorous, and daydreamed about it while he explained what exactly his company did. According to the little tid-bits that I picked up from what he was saying, I would be scanning insurance documents and e-mailing them to clients. No editing whatsoever, just scanning and e-mailing. It had absolutely nothing to do with my degree. _Why am I even here_ I wondered, _you wascally wabbit_?!

I saw that he was about to wrap it up, so I began to concentrate. He leaned back in his chair and said, "So tell us a little about yourself."

I froze for a second, because I had remembered that I was chewing gum: surely an interview no-no. I swallowed my two sticks of Winterfresh and began to explain to him about my recent graduation with a Bachelor's degree in English, work at a golf course, been working since I was 16, never had any problems with any co-workers, etcetera. I was so worried about my hands and suit that I had completely forgotten to mentally prep. I rolled into this thing intellectually naked. It was when he began asking me cliched interview questions that I began to verbally stumble.

"If," he said, "you had only one word to describe your work ethic, what would it be?"

I paused for a moment and yawned with my mouth closed, causing my eyes to water.

"Um, consistent, I would say."

"Consistent," he said, looking for further explanation.

I went on to say that I am never late for work, and in my past five seasons at the golf course, I have never called out. I also told him that I was struggling a little bit because the golf course is pretty monotonous, and I was having trouble making a correlation between parking golf carts and scanning documents.

He said, "Don't worry about that too much." Then he pointed to the young guy next to me. "I've hired people from golf courses before."

So I tried explaining to him about monitoring the pace of play on the golf course. When he referred to how I handle diversity, I went back to my college days.

"In college, there were a few classes I had to take that I had absolutely no interest in, like German, or a course in homosexual male literature."

"Oh geez," he said, biting his lip.

"Yeah, I know," I said. "The point is I had to take these courses, so I just did it. Didn't fail one of them."

I took the role of the working horse, explaining that once I learn how to do something, I do it well, and when it becomes a steady routine I work quickly and efficiently.

"But what would happen if an array of different problems came at you at once?" he asked.

The whole "consistent work horse" thing painted me into a corner. If a bunch of problems came at me all at once, I would smack my head on the desk and pass out for a short while, but I couldn't tell him that. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of taking a deep breath and making consistent solutions to the problems. I used the word 'consistent' and its variations quite...consistently. The interviewer was consistently un-enthused. When he asked his final question, things got just a touch ugly.

"What can you offer our company that will put you ahead of the rest of the applicants. Basically, why should I hire you?"

He was wrapping up this interview early. I was wasting his time, and he mine.

Shit, I could have been sleeping at this point. Why should he hire me? He shouldn't! But instead of saying that, I tried a bit of humor. I pointed to the guy next to me and said, "Well, we both worked at golf courses, right?" I chuckled desperately and dryly. Not a smile or a smirk from either of them. I was frustrated.

"Look," I said. "I'm available at all hours to work. I don't have much of a social life, and am used to working long hours. Sixteen-hour shifts sometimes. Give me the proper training and I can do whatever job you need me to do." Then I opened up my palms as if to say, 'That's it. That's all I got.'

"Well, thank you for your time," he said. "We'll let you know."

I happily gave them the sweaty clam-hand and left, through the quiet hallway, past the front desk and out the front door. I walked through the parking lot staring at my feet when I noticed a tint of orange emerging from my crotch. My "lucky" orange underwear was exposed. My fly had been down the entire time. If the interviewer looked out from his corner office at that moment, it would appear that I was giving a long scream at my pelvic region, but in actuality I was producing a deep yawn, ready to take a much needed nap.

Contents

### If You Are Not Confused,

### Then You Are Not Paying Attention

"You always admire what you really don't understand."

\--Blaise Pascal.

French Philosopher, 1623-1662

Begin.

"Get into computers," they told me. "If you get into computers, you will be set for life." This was the mantra of every adult who made recommendations for my unforeseen future: Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, all of those whose careers were either finished or firmly in place tried to save me from a life of fiscal uncertainty.

The silicone age was dawning before us, and it would be harnessed to the backs of the youth who would carry it to its fullest potential, while grossly capitalizing on financial gain of course. Much like television—and before that, radio---personal computers were rapidly becoming a household staple. Every business that had enough money to advertise on television also displayed their web page address at the bottom of the screen. Online entertainment coupled with online commerce rooted the personal computer into American Life. The common thought amongst us citizens was, "So I can watch a drunk fall down an upwards escalator for 10 minutes, then pay my bills all on the same machine? Sign me up!"

The transition from what was soon called "snail mail" to e-mail hit the elderly the hardest, most of whom were unable to grasp the concept entirely. "Well, Grandma, the message is sent electronically to the recipient's computer; like a fax machine."

"What's a flax machine?"

The people who were my parents' age were the ones teaching us elementary school students the wonders of computers. Physical Education and Music Class were cut short in order to accommodate Computer Class. At first, the women who monitored us during recess were the ones who taught us, only without the sterling whistles around their necks. They had ready-made printouts and outlines to instruct us on how to grab the reigns on the magical wonder that was the personal computer, but it seemed that the teachers/lunch aids were well behind the students right from the start. The teachers would frantically flip through their lesson plans, trying to explain the on/off button, while we kids were playing solitaire or pinball. Our minds were like sponges, and those of us who were raised alongside Atari and the Apple IIe computer were well ahead of the curve. "How could they be so clueless?" we collectively thought about our teachers. "I mean, how does this _not_ make sense?"

By the time the Apple IIe computers were obsolete, along with Windows 3.1, I was just entering high school. Zip drives were replacing floppy disks, and "Duke Nukem 3-D" made "Oregon Trail" look like a stroll through Giggle-Berry Farm. I was able to keep up with the innovations, to enjoy them immensely, and the nagging voice of my elders echoed in my head, "Get into computers...you'll be set for life..."

Having already taken Creative Writing (in which my epic poem, "The Skank," received an 'A' grade), I opted to take a meaningful elective course that could get me started on the path to a prosperous future: Computer Programming I. The class was taught by Mr. Lanard, a middle-aged man who could easily pass as either a science teacher or a computer teacher: balding, gray mustache, tall, and gangly. He labeled himself as a "Computer Science" teacher, so I guess he was covered on all fronts of stereotyped classification.

Our class took place at high noon, right after lunch, in Computer Lab 2, which had four rows of 10 computers each facing Mr. Lanard's high-tech dry-erase board. Mr. Lanard, already charged with the task of molding young minds for tomorrow, also had to teach two classes at once. The first couple of rows were students in Computer Programming I, while the back two rows were Computer Programming II. Comp II was reserved for students who excelled at Comp I and had a propensity for intricate computer script writing. They were being taught the computer language of C++, which was more difficult than Turbo Pascal, but had much higher capabilities, like designing simple platform video games. When eavesdropping on the Comp II students' conversations, I was impressed and intimidated by their language. By overhearing a statement like, "No, I thought there was a typo in the algorithm, but it turned out to be a variant glitch with the A.L.U., so it was much easier to deal with by the U.I.P.," I knew I would fail the class before Mr. Lanard even began to hand out our textbooks.

On our first day of class, Mr. Lanard told us that the world's first computers were the size of a house and only had about 612 kilobytes of memory! At this remark, we students, sitting in front of computers with nearly a gigabyte of memory, were supposed to "ooooo," and "ahhhh," at the very idea. He went on to say that computers process information using binary code, which is a number system based on the numbers 0 and 1. The amount of places the zeros and ones fit are always by exponents of the number 2. 2,4,8,16,32,64...etc. "So," I remarked to Mr. Lanard, "Nintendo was 8-bit, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis was 16-bit, the 32x was 32 bit, the N-64 was...."

"Yes," he said. "Video game systems use binary code as well."

"Neato!" Enthusiasm is necessary for any student who fears getting an 'F' grade. It shows effort despite your blinding stupidity, and usually bumps you up to a passing grade. Still, I had no idea what he was talking about. On the first day I was lost, never to catch up.

The computer language we were to be taught was called "Turbo Pascal." Turbo Pascal was a program designed for teaching students how to write programs, if that makes any sense. I imagined it as the green recycled paper you got in elementary school, with letters of the alphabet outlined by small dashes for you to trace over in order to get the hang of the English language, only Turbo Pascal used words like 'variable,' or 'Boolean.' When I hear the word Boolean, I don't think of a true/false mathematical statement, but of the tear-shaped dribble of spit that comes out of Bald Bull's mouth when you give him a jab in "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out." Boolean, as it sounds, could also be used as a verb, as in:

"So, what did you do when the cops showed up?"

"I Booleaned the hell outta there, that's what!"

Pascal looked exactly like a blank text document, where you would write different formulas and algorithms, select "run file" from the drop down menu, and if you entered all the data properly the program would work.

"At the beginning of every program you write," Mr. Lanard advised us, "you have to type Begin. This tells the computer that everything you write after Begin will be a part of your program. When you type End., that tells the computer to stop all the operations."

Our first program assignment was a lighthearted, simple operation to introduce ourselves to the world of computer programming. Called, "Hello, World," it was a digitized friendly wave to the computer gods, where the final result simply stated, "Hello, World," but behind the text, the actual guts and skeletal structure of the program looked more like this:

Begin

Writeln(Hello, World);

End.

After completing the program, I looked at the kid sitting to my right, Tom. "That's pretty simple," I said to him. Tom was a tall, skinny, athletic kid on the Golf Team. Like Mr. Lanard, he was patient and soft spoken with a deep voice. "Yeah," he said back to me, "This might not be so bad."

In the days that followed, each class would begin with Mr. Lanard giving the C++ students an assignment.

"Write a program," he'd tell them, "of a simple 'Asteroids' game; and don't forget to vary the size, flight, and shape of the asteroids."

Immediately after hearing the assignment, the back two rows of the class came alive with the rapid clicking of 20 keyboards.

"Now, for my Pascal students..."

We didn't write many programs in Pascal at first, as much of it was vocabulary; keywords that told the computer to read a line of text, making mathematical calculations based on what numbers you typed into the program. It was easy for students like Tom and I to nod our heads when Mr. Lanard explained hypothetical situations on the dry-erase board, but when we had to put it into practice, we were lost.

A C++ student who sat behind us was willing to help us along. He was a short, goateed Jewish Senior, and when Tom and I would ask him why our programs didn't work, he'd take one glance at our screens, scratch his flaky beard and say, "Oh, you're variable quotient is off. It should be designated as an integer, not a real number." I'd give Tom a back-handed smack on the arm. "The variable quotient! Of course!"

Languages other than English were always difficult for me. Frau Eichler, my German teacher in junior high gave me a passing grade solely because I showed up every day and sought extra help when needed. If she graded me based solely on comprehension, I'd still be sitting in room 108 and reciting in German, "May have I the please bathroom pass?" The language of computers were no different to me than German or for that matter, Sanskrit, even though it was technically English. Some words performed mathematical calculations, while other words were assigned to label information that was coming in or going out of the computer.

Between the help of the C++ student (who enjoyed flaunting his knowledge to us lowly Pascal Kids), and Mr. Lanard, Tom and I hardly had to lift a finger to create the programs. Mr. Lanard understood our confusion and always had a steady, patient tone when answering our questions, no matter how idiotic the C++ students told us they were. In the long run this method of operation ended up being disastrous, but at the time it kept me from falling behind on the assignments.

In the first couple months, I was able to keep my head above water, teetering on the line between a pass and fail grade, but still somehow grasping the shape and idea of a language created by humans and only understood by computers. In March, however, I hit a philosophical wall when Mr. Lanard introduced us to the "If-Then Statement." If there are programming code words that act as mathematical equations or grammatical statements, then imagine the "If-Then Statement" as computer-speak for Newton's 3rd Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The idea behind the If-Then statement is to write a program that poses a question, and the program will give you an answer depending on what the person types in.

"Write a program," Mr. Lanard told us, "that asks for the different lengths of parts of a triangle and have the program determine if it is an equilateral triangle, isosceles, or scalene."

I raised my hand. "Wait, what?"

"Well," Mr. Lanard explained, "first you have to set up the parameters of what defines each type of triangle, then write corresponding If-Then statements based on what the user answers to the length of each side of the triangle."

I looked at Tom. "What?"

Tom said he didn't know, but he did actually know, and I was able to hobble along with the assignment, peeking at Tom's screen to fill in the missing points. Cheating and not getting caught was relatively easy, since there was only one or two correct ways to write each program. However, the marking period was coming to an end, and my reserves of intelligence were running short.

"Write a program," Mr. Lanard told us, "That determines the price of a slice of pizza. Each slice can come in three sizes, all with a different price, and can have up to 3 toppings, each topping with a different price as well."

My head smacked the keyboard. "Tom," I said defeatedly, my nose pressed against the letter F, suitably. "How many If-Then statements is that?"

"A lot," he said back.

I was thinking of letting Tom in on my thought process, about how the If-Then Statement, and all subsequent programming language, melted my brain in confusion and frustration but I was too embarrassed. Tom said he was just as confused as I was concerning the pizza size and toppings, but his full screen of text tilted away from me said otherwise. The C++ student was lost in his own world of algorithms and variable quotients, the lesson plans finally catching up to his inherent knowledge of the subject. I could hear him groan every time I was about to turn around and ask him for help until finally he said to me, "Look, I can't do all your assignments, ok? I've got my own shit to do." Understood, C++ student. Understood. Mr. Lanard was constantly occupied by students making the final push for an 'A' or 'B' grade, while I hung off to the side, hoping for an F- at best. Instead of working on the assignment, I sat with my arms crossed, quietly criticizing the pizza shop owner who obviously had no idea about fixed costs, profits, or employee training. "If I worked in this pizza shop, I'd quit on the first day," I remarked to myself. "No doubt about it. This guy sounds like an idiotic dickhead. I mean, what does the menu say, 'Tony's Pizza: Now With up to Three Toppings'?"

June was nearing, and by the time I was about 4 lessons behind, I decided to have a conversation with Mr. Lanard after class. He sat at his desk in the corner of the room while I stood in front of him as the class poured out the door. I started off broadly.

"I don't get it," I told him.

"What don't you get?"

"All of it. I don't understand a lick of it."

"I can see that," he said. "You're really falling behind, and you're running out of time before the school year is over. So, just tell me which specific parts are giving you trouble and we can go from there."

"Well, let me say that I am trying. I mean, I even bought a copy of Pascal to install on my home computer so I could work on it at home." That was true. I bought it off of Ebay for 25 bucks, and it came on six floppy disks. The problem was that instead of catching up on my programming work, Pascal became more of an insult generator, creating programs that gave it a personality closely resembling Don Rickles.

Are you trying to write a program?

Yes.

You just pissed away 25 dollars, you big nosed douchebag.

Or:

Hey, is this Mike Jenkins?

Yes.

Why don't you get a horse and live in the mountains and not bother anybody. You've got a personality like a dead moth.

"How does a computer program work?" I asked.

Mr. Lanard looked at me cautiously and said evenly, "I explained that on the first day..."

"Yes, I know, but the more you taught, the more confused I became. Like when you type, 'Begin.'"

"Right," he said, "Writing 'Begin' tells the computer that everything after that is part of the program you created."

"Yeah, but how does the computer know what 'Begin' means? Isn't there a program inside the program that tells the computer what 'Begin' is and what it should do in case it is written?"

He shut his eyes in frustration. "What? No, it's not..."

"And for all the code words, like 'writeln' or 'readln,' aren't there If-Then statements inside the program that tells the computer that if 'writeln' is written, then it should write a line of text? But then, even if there is a program behind the program of Pascal, what is controlling that program?"

"No, no," he said. "You're over-thinking it. It doesn't work that way. The program is based in binary code."

"Yeah, but what program reads the binary code? Isn't there a program that says if '00010' is written, then writeln 'B' or whatever? I mean, what program reads and processes each one and zero?" I felt like I was asking who God's mother was.

"There is no program. It's fed directly into the processor."

"Well, then what controls the processor? What regulates it? How does it know what information it's receiving?"

Mr. Lanard's face reddened. "It just _does_!"

He stayed silent for a moment, gathering himself. "Look," he said, "I can see how confused you are, so just do what you can with the amount of time we have left, ok? Now, can you make it to your next class on time, or do you need me to write you a pass?"

In my education that followed, through the rest of my formative years, I read the works of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre and Kant (to name a few), and I was able to follow and perceive each of their ideas when it was explained by a professor, but Turbo Pascal changed my way of thinking more than anything else. Even though I was pushed through the system with a grade of D+ (Or C--), I see the code everywhere. Pulling up to a red light, for example, my car stopping on the white strip on the road that reads the information of the weight of my car, registers it as a vehicle, tells the light on the other side of traffic to switch from green to yellow to red, and when it turns red, then my light turns green. Like Neo in the final scene of the Matrix when he looks down the hall and sees his world written entirely in code, only instead of numbers and symbols, I see my future financial gain; line after line of question marks, having been given just enough information to know how the system works, but not enough knowledge to comprehend it.

End.

Contents

### This Is Not For You

"Now imagine if _she_ was lying your bed," Mark asks me excitedly, holding up his cell phone, which displays an image of a woman posing in a uniform. "What would you do to _her_?"

The image is a typical one. She's a blonde haired woman in her early 30's, dressed in a sultry black and white maid's uniform, the kind reserved only for strippers and saucy housewives, not for actual women in the cleaning industry. Bent at the waist at a 90 degree angle, her skirt allows just enough room to reveal that fine line between where the legs end and the buttocks begin. She's looking back at the camera lens, a pink feather-duster in one hand, the other hand covering her opened mouth, as if the photographer had walked in unexpectedly. "Oh!" she seemed to say with her eyes, "Mr. DeMille! I didn't expect to see you back so soon! Did you...forget something?"

"C'mon," Mark begins again, placing her back into my imaginary bed. "She's sitting there. Ready for you. Would you?"

My hesitation causes him to shake the phone back and forth teasingly, and now the girl seems to be titillated and shocked by the earthquake. But still, she keeps her pose steady. "Oh! Mr. DeMille! The ground is... _shaking_!"

"I don't know, Mark," I say to him, moving my head back and forth with the girl, keeping eye contact with her, biting my lip and carefully deciding. "What's she like?"

"What?!" Mark asks incredulously, taking the phone back and staring at the girl. "What do you mean 'What's she like?' She's hot as shit! You won't fuck her?"

Mark's real name is Mariusz (pronounced Mah-Ree-Oosh). He's been my co-worker ever since he emigrated with his family from their village farm in Poland at the age of 18. We're the same age, same height, only Mark outweighs me with more than 40 pounds of muscle. His English has improved considerably since he first came over, and he has taken a great liking to the obnoxious eloquence that is sarcasm, a vocal trait and attitude I like to think I helped him develop through our years working together. I'm trying to lead him to the wonderful, powerful strength of the Pun, but he isn't very receptive yet.

"Oh, yeah," He says sarcastically, "I can see why you wouldn't fuck her. You're much more better-looking than she is."

This is the point in the conversation where I try to explain the rationale for my response, and it's the same routine every time.

"What is she doing in my room," I ask Mark, referring to the girl. "What are the parameters of her visit?"

"The what?"

"Is she drunk? Depressed? Trying to get her ex-boyfriend jealous? Does she think I'm rich?"

Mark spreads his arms wide in frustration. "She's want to fuck!"

There's something else you should know about Mark. He doesn't dream. I've told him that everyone dreams, but he says he just doesn't. At the end of the night, he blinks and wakes up feeling refreshed hours later, ready to come into work and talk about what girls are worth doing, his cell phone usually being the means of conveyance for random snapshots taken by people he's never met. I once tried to mention baseball as a conversational piece with him, a little respite from the usual verbal sexual savagery, and Mark kept it together for a few sentences, talking about the Phillies' chances for a World Series run. He proposed the notion that the second-baseman really needed to boost his batting average if they stood a chance. And the moment after I agreed he said, "You ever see his wife? Hot as shit!"

Shit does get pretty hot sometimes, I suppose.

I don't hate the occasional conversation about sex, but I do like to delve a little bit deeper than a simple "yea or nay" approach to physical attraction. It was facile for Mark to place any random woman on his bed and let his mind wander, easily replacing one woman with a simple shake of the head, moving the mental slideshow on to the next contestant until he was satisfied. But an insecure man like me needs at least a tinge of reality. I never met the woman in Mark's photo. I would know if I had. There are things I need to be aware of before I can have her in my bed. Has she read any good books lately? Does she prefer chunky peanut butter or smooth? Who scares her more, Freddy or Jason? It's not that the answer themselves will determine her value; it's the gathering of knowledge behind the opinions that I am looking for. The woman and I need to share at least one laugh together, a light-hearted argument, perhaps some banter. To put it simply, in order to be sexually activated, I need to at least have the illusion of reality. I am not above pornography, but I personally cannot place myself into a situation involving frivolous, nearly anonymous sex. I could never be the pizza-delivery guy who knocks on a lonely woman's door.

I saw an inadvertent boob once. It's true! I was walking into work when a Filipino woman bent over to tie her shoe. Her red shirt was loose and low-cut, and as I shuffled to the left to get to the time-clock, I saw her full-fledged boob through the slit of her V-neck. I paused for nary a moment to absorb the scene and found it surprisingly unfulfilling. Since she was unaware that I could see her exposed body part, her boob was nothing more to me than a soft mound of flesh that could have been placed anywhere on her body. It was as nonsexual as a dollop of fat on an ankle or an elbow. If she had caught my glance and winked at me, well, that would be another story entirely, but she didn't. My face felt flushed, and I looked away quickly, saying in my head, "Michael, this boob...this boob is not for you."

A similar, more physical altercation occurred during one of my summers working at the golf course, back when the beverage cart was operated by a 20 year old woman named Julie. A former drug addict picking up the pieces of her young life, Julie would cruise the golf course and sell beverages and snacks to the customers. She was a pretty girl; light blonde hair that reached her middle back, long straight-lined legs, fair skin, a winning smile. However, there was one thing about her—a constant reminder, if you will—concerning her previous life of addiction: a missing thumb. According to Julie herself, she had gotten so high one night that she passed out with her thumb on a live curling iron. She also stated that she was so high that she smelled the singed flesh before she could feel it. When she came to, it was too late. The thumb was gone; welded to the curling iron and carpet, I imagine, its texture similar to the burnt Chucky Doll from the movie _Child's Play_.

Potentially, it was a wonderful conversation starter, that molten thumb of hers. There were so many questions I wanted to ask. I wanted to hear her policy on handshakes, hi-fives, or simply catching an orange tossed from the kitchen. My questions would have been asked innocently, without insult, only I didn't know her well enough (I heard the thumb story second hand from other employees). But come on, it was a thumb! It's what separates us from the animals.

Instead, though, whenever I saw her I kept the conversation light and shallow by talking about the weather, the job, or the contents of the beverage cart.

"Hey, you're selling _cheddar_ cheese crackers now! Very interesting..."

She was cordial in return, and I figured that our relationship was as it should be: polite. Professional. There was no need to exchange tales of our checkered pasts, drug uses, or how one might turn a doorknob or cut into a steak.

On a random Tuesday, however, Julie approached me as I was parking golf carts in the rear of the barn. I made my simple small talk as she parked the big green beverage cart, asking about her day, and her answer to my question of how the customers were tipping that day was, "You're cute, ya know."

With one sentence, Julie had changed the whole dynamic of our relationship from professional to flirtatious. I didn't know how to verbally respond, but my body did all the talking as I blushed and looked away. Mistakenly taking my coyness as flirtatious reciprocity, she stepped out of the cart and began to approach me as I backed up against the wall. My mind raced as she closed the distance between us. Oh, no. _What's happening?_ Sweat rushed down to my hands as she came within three feet of me. _Who is this girl, really? How many times has she done this? With how many other guys? I don't even know her name. Julie what? Julie: drug addict_. She tilted her head slightly and parted her lips to contact mine. _What's the worst thing she ever did for a fix? What, by God, has previously been in that mouth? Issues. Dependency problems. Heroin. Bent spoon. STDs. Needles. Melted thumb_!

I pushed her shoulders away with the backs of my hands before her lips landed on mine. Why a push? For one, she was inside my personal bubble (you do not get inside of my personal bubble without express written consent.) Second, a push--a polite push--was all I could manage since my mouth had decided to cease all verbal communication. It was accidental body language that got me into the situation with the blushing, and it was forceful physical execution that got me out. And third, I used the back of my hands for the push because my palms were much too sweaty. I am, after all, a gentleman.

Feeling terribly insulted, Julie jumped back on the beverage cart and yelled, "If you fucking tell anyone, I fucking swear to God, I will fucking kill you!" She slammed on the gas pedal and peeled off toward the 16th tee box.

When she was out of sight I said aloud, "Don't worry, it's not my intention to tell anyone." My voice had finally returned. A little late, but at least it was back.

I didn't want to tell anyone about what had happened, anyway. She didn't need to threaten me with my life, for crying out loud. I didn't want to tell people what happened because I didn't want to have to explain my position on why I had pushed her. _Yes_ , I tried to mentally communicate to Julie, _let's keep this hush-hush_. And it was a peaceful 30 seconds that we kept it a secret, before Julie had blabbered to all the other co-workers what had happened. She was so angry, so offended that I didn't have sex with her outside the barn that she told the next person she saw all about it. It actually had to be brought to her attention that, believe it or not, there are many perverts like me out there who were not keen on random sexual encounters. Julie, in her 20 years on this planet, had never heard of such an idea. Julie and Mark would have been a perfect match for each other.

"Mark, let me ask you something," I begin, pointing at the photo of the faux French maid. "What do you think her name is?"

"And why do I care," Mark asks back sarcastically.

Mark is a very straightforward person. He sees the world in simple right and wrong, black and white, while I focus on extenuating circumstances and flounder around in the gray areas of life. Puns are difficult for Mark, because to him all you need is one word to describe something, and homonyms add nothing but confusion to what could simply be sound reasoning.

"Just try to imagine who this woman is," I say to him. "Her name, her marital status, her job, the sound of her laugh, things like that. Put a few 'ifs' in there, you know what I mean? A few contingencies."

Mark glares at me, but reluctantly looks hard at the photo. I can practically see the squeaky wheels of his unused Right Brain churning along, and it looks like a real internal struggle: The world of right angles and perpendicular lines embattling a small fleet of weak but determined meandering spirals and serpentine threads. His nose wrinkles, his cheeks contort, but after a minute, his eyes light up and he smiles at the photo, ready to speak.

"Ok, Ok," he says, "I got it. Now, would you do her... _if_...she had a dick?"

I hope it's not too late for him to enjoy puns.

Contents

### An Anecdote in "F" Major

"You wanna step aside for me there, Big Guy?"

Big Guy. That's the kind of label you are called after doing something stupid, like "Hey, you pour the milk in the bowl _after_ the cereal, Big Guy," or "Herpes _is_ contagious, Big Guy."

At first I thought that I didn't hear him correctly through the small holes in the bullet proof glass, but when he made a hand gesture towards the wall, I knew I had heard him properly. My immediate impulse to feel insulted washed away when I reminded myself where I was.

Nobody ever wants to spend their late afternoon at the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The only reason you would be there is if your car was parked illegally and had been towed. The further north in the city you parked, the more bitter you would become, for the lot for towed cars is located at the southern-most tip of the city. So if, say, you parked in a bus zone for an hour or two at 30th Street Station, you have to get on the horn and call up whatever friend is willing to cart your ass down to Oregon Avenue. It's situations like this that may cause you to be the designated driver on consecutive Saturday nights. It's best to get a head start on these favors so you won't owe anyone, and you can just cash them in like a 'get out of jail free' card. That's what Mary had done. She reminded me on the phone about a couple of Phillies tickets she gave me a while ago, then said, "Funny story–umm....my car..." Small favors are easy to accomplish through friends, but a trip down to the P.P.A., that takes bribery.

I didn't really mind being there; it wasn't my car that got towed. I just didn't want to be sucked in by the black hole of negativity that the P.P.A. creates. Just after Mary left the service area in search of her car, I was left alone by the vending machines. Just me in the waiting area, and four clerks behind the glass partitions. From the open doorway I heard a vehicle approaching, and in the back seat of the yellow taxi was a middle aged mustached man, yelling at God knows what.

Now, I have heard foul language before. I've been watching "R" rated movies since I was 6, and was not shy about using a wicked tongue in tense situations; but this guy–this guy just wowed me. The most impressive thing I found about his language was the lack of variety. It consisted of only one word.

"Well, fuck! I don't fucking–fucking know when I can be fucking there! Fucking...my fucking car got towed! ...The fuck??"

At first I thought he was yelling at the cab driver, who was probably looking for some idle conversation, but got verbally hosed instead.

"So, where ya from Mack?"

"Fuck–fuckity–fuck it!"

Upon closer inspection, I saw one of those blue-tooth phone attachments in his right ear. Sounded like somebody was about to miss an important meeting.

"Fuck no!! I'm here now. I'll call you back." He hung up the phone by slapping his right ear. "Fuck!!"

Despite all of his anger, he still managed to walk into the service area nonchalantly, his bloated spare tire entering first and triggering the electronic beep announcing another soon-to-be satisfied customer. Besides the four clerks, I was the only one he could relate to, looking for some solidarity.

"They fucking tow your car too?" he asked.

I explained that I was just dropping off a friend. He put his hands on his hips in disappointment. "Fuck..."

Maybe if I said 'yes,' we could have formed some sort of alliance against the P.P.A. and overthrown their reign of terror across the city. Hindsight is always 20/20. Seeing that I was not going to be any help to his plight, he turned his attention to the female clerk. He raised his arms in the air.

"Hey! I thought this was a nice city!"

"It is a nice city, sir." she said patiently.

I could see in the man's face an internal struggle between his true self and proper social congeniality.

"The fuck it is!" Congeniality lost by a nose. "Then why the fuck is my car here instead of at the fucking hotel?"

On his left hand he wore a wedding band, and as I sipped my Mountain Dew, enjoying the show, I felt sorry for his 2.5 kids at home, who had better eat their fucking vegetables, or else there is no fucking dessert.

"Sir," the woman said. "Your car was parked in a loading zone, correct?"

"Yeah, I was _unloading_ my bags! I fucking shouldn't get fucking towed for it!"

"Did you read the sign where you parked?"

"I fucking did. It said something about not parking after 5:00, but..."

I looked at my watch. 6:47.

It was then that he uttered the statement that is absolutely abhorred by nearly everyone in the world:

"I don't fucking need this," he said. " _I'm from New York_!"

The phrase 'I'm from New York' can mean various things to various people depending on their location. For example, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it means, "Roll out the red carpet, for I am King Shit!" In Hope, Arkansas, it loosely translates as, "I make more money than you can ever dream about, so fork it over!" In St. Paul, Minnesota, it means, "What the fuck am I doing in St. Paul, Minnesota?" But here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we like to imagine the New Yorker stamping his feet and crying, "Somebody please punch me in the neck, for I am an unforgivable asshole!" The bottom line is, it never means what the New Yorker wants it to mean.

I can say for a fact that all five of us Philadelphia residents in that room collectively rolled our eyes. The New Yorker began angrily filling out the paperwork required to regain his car and began to mutter,

"$125 for this fucking city. Fucking unbelievable. What a terrible fucking city..."

Now I was insulted. I was never one for Philadelphia pride. I was embarrassed by our wire-tapped mayor, our gross obesity, and our boorish behavior at sports arenas. To listen to this New Yorker piss and moan was one thing, but to listen to him speak ill of my city, that was another. By listening to him insult all of us in the room, I began to develop a growing sense of pride for our corrupt mayor. So our Mayor was suspected on charges of corruption; it's not like he murdered anyone. Yeah, our city is the 2nd fattest city in the country, but how can you deny the gluttony caused by our fantastic cheese steaks? And we only boo and hiss our sports teams because we know they can do better, because we are just so proud of our 76ers, Flyers, Eagles, and Phillies.

I could feel in that room a certain commonality between me and the clerks, and I no longer felt insulted by the 'Big Guy' comment. I'm sure the clerks were going to find many new loopholes to increase his fines ten-fold if he kept going with the attitude.

I saw Mary give me a wave goodbye as she whizzed through the gate in her beat up old Cadillac. That was my cue to leave. Just before I left the P.P.A. for (hopefully) the final time, the New Yorker looked at me.

"$125 for this. Can you fucking believe it?"

As I walked out the door I said, "You can't park in a no parking zone, Big Guy."

Contents

### Comeuppance

I don't believe in karma. I can't. My personality won't allow it. When pressed to think of an idea such as karma, my survival instincts kick in and I force myself to believe that there will be no comeuppances. I have to believe that, for I am a jerk.

My jerky demeanor is expressed through my humor: the less taste jokes have, the funnier I find them. Jokes that play off of sexism, racism, genocide...if the jokes I hear are just completely off the wall and mock an already persecuted people, I don't know what it is, I just laugh. Some people will hear a tasteless joke and immediately pucker up their faces and get on their high horse and begin to preach about the wrongness of the applied humor. Personally, it's the wrongness that I find so funny. The laughter also keeps me at a safe distance from others. If I didn't laugh at the jokes, then that would mean that I am sympathizing with someone or worse yet, sometimes even empathizing. Empathy gives me the willies. No, it's best to sit back and laugh, I find. Call me a jerk, but that's how I get by.

We jerks love to complain as well, and what better place to do so than at the Department of Motor Vehicles? People swear that the D.M.V. is the nexus of Hell. It's great fodder for comedians, and if you're at a cocktail party and someone starts an anecdote with, "So, I was at the D.M.V. the other day..." sighs will be heaved and someone will say, "Let me venture a guess: something pissed you off." Along with the post-office, the D.M.V. is a great place to vent your frustrations. Hell, with enough clever verbiage, you could blame all your faults in life on the Department of Motor Vehicles and people will believe it.

"Hey, Kyle. Guess what. Loretta left me, and on top of that, my boss just fired me!"

"What?" Kyle will say. "That's crazy! What happened?"

"Well, I was at the D.M.V. earlier..."

"Say no more," Kyle will say, waving his hand in dismissal. "Say no more. I hear you."

So I was at the D.M.V. the other day to renew my license. Just a quick in and out: hand over my information, snap a photo, and head out the door, right? Well, kind of. Now, to be honest, this was not a full-scale D.M.V. that I was at. There were no orange cones for parallel parking outside, no dumb kids failing the written exam, none of that. It was just the photo center, which restricts the size of the place to about the length and width of a child's bedroom. The walls were lined with foldout chairs, and at the north side of the waiting area was a large, red pull-ticket dispenser, the kind you would see at a deli. Past the ticket dispenser was the other section of the Photo Center, separated by a half-wall, where all the action happens: the flash, the glitz, the glamour.

I went in there a few days ago before work, thinking it would be a simple out-patient procedure, but I was greeted with eight people lining the walls, occupying nearly all the chairs. I stood in the middle of the waiting room, poked my head into the actual photo center, threw my arms up and said, "Well, I don't have time for this!" and headed out the door.

But this time I allotted myself enough minutes before work for the waiting. I walked in and four customers, each with their own respective wall to wait against, were passing the time. I snagged a number and took the seat nearest the door. The gentleman across from me, an older man, sat with his arms resting on his four-pronged walker. It had two gray wheels in the front, and the two supports in the back were cushioned with half-cut tennis balls. But these weren't any run-of-the mill, clichéd yellow tennis balls. Each ball was blue and orange, giving his obvious handicap a bit of pizzazz, a touch of rebellious attitude. His walker seemed to say about him, "Yes, it's true. I am growing old and weary," while the unconventional tennis balls yelled, "but I'll do it _my_ way, baby!"

Seeing as there were no reading materials in the room besides pamphlets concerning drunk driving or a brief recap of all the rules of the road, I began to mentally drift off. In my head, I had the old man across from me in all sorts of zany situations. With the aid of his walker and unique tennis balls, I was placing him on snowy mountaintops, or tailgating at the University of Florida (the school-color tennis balls would get him free booze from the students), and my personal favorite: vying for the heart of a woman. His competition: a man with the same style of walker, but with plain yellow tennis balls. They would duel in the promenade of the retirement home, their walkers as weapons, of course. Geriatric Jedi fighting!

My daydream was interrupted, however, by a conversation coming from the other side of the Photo Center. The half-wall restricted my view, but I heard what sounded like a conversation between two dumb women. And I don't mean dumb as in "stupid," or "idiotic," but dumb as in a deaf person or a long-time mute trying to verbally communicate. It was a very flat, dull sound coming from these two unseen women, and I couldn't quite make out what it was. It sounded like:

"Bokay, buy'll bee you boborrow."

I furrowed my brow, trying to figure out the odds that would result in two deaf people coincidentally working in the same job, taking over each other's shifts.

"At least 5,000,000 to 1," I thought.

A somewhat rotund woman came through the waiting area, heading towards the door. I realized she wasn't a deaf person once I saw her face. It was a woman with Down Syndrome. She turned one last time to say goodbye to her coworkers, thus confirming that she was one of the women having the conversation I had just overheard.

An unseen man from the photo action center said, "34. Is number 34 here?" I was number 36.

The old man with the walker stood up, his yellow number ticket in hand and made his way to the desk, only, he wasn't leaning on his walker to walk. He was carrying it; all four legs were off the ground as he sashayed on his own power. I was reminded of George Costanza carrying his Rascal down the busy streets of Manhattan.

_Whoa, whoa, whoa_ , I thought _. I'm gonna have to call "bullshit" on you, old man_.

The old man's actions bothered me. I wanted to sit him down, hold his shoulder and say calmly, "Hey, buddy. Look at me. The tennis balls are totally badass. Honest. I'm not dissin' your style at all. But your utilization of this device is lacking considerably. Get it together, man."

On the other side of the wall, the D.M.V. guy was asking questions like, "Do you have your camera card with you?" and "Is this all the proper information?" followed by, "Ok then. Have a seat and please wait for your turn to take the photo."

Minutes later, I heard the dumb voice again.

"Bisser Bobbins?"

Oh, no. The remaining girl with the Syndrome was in charge of instructions and photo-taking! I couldn't understand the girl, but I heard the old man's answers.

"4195," he said, after asking for the question to be repeated.

"176 Liberty Drive," he answered to another question that had to be asked twice.

"215-824-7121," was his last answer before being told, I think, to sit in the chair and take the photo.

The woman waiting to my left answered to her name and went to the front to collect her new identification and promptly left.

The girl with D.S. worried me. It didn't anger me that a person with Down Syndrome was working at the D.M.V., but it did irritate me that she was given the most vocal job in the place. It was almost as if this was a strange test of basic human patience and tolerance. I felt like an unwitting participant in a university study. "How many people," the sociologists probably wondered, "came to the D.M.V., and upon seeing the person with Down Syndrome behind the camera yelled out, alternating inflection on every other word, 'Oh, _what_ the _fuck_ is _this_ about?'"

What were they trying to prove? That people are intolerant assholes? Trust me, you don't need a test to prove it. It's inherent in our nature.

I wouldn't lose my patience at the D.M.V.; I had at least enough self control to avoid that, but I didn't want to embarrass the girl and myself by repeatedly saying, "Huh? What? What are you saying? I'm sorry, I don't understand." My intent was not to get frustrated, but the tone of her voice- the dull flatness of it- it boxed my ears and was nearly incomprehensible. My best bet was to follow the lead of the people before me and memorize the sequence.

Test subject 35 was called, and I repeated her answers in my head _. Last four digits of your social security, address, phone number. Social, address, phone number. Sohsh, add, phone. Sohsh, add, phone...._

When my number was called, I went through the motions while not making eye contact with the girl. I stared ahead and spoke only when she stopped.

"3101." I said.

"(Unintelligible)?"

"108 Main Street."

"(Unintelligible)?"

"215-872-9224."

She motioned to the chair and I made a triumphant fist as if I had just passed a crucial mid-term exam.

Sitting in the camera chair, I was proud that I didn't embarrass the girl, but once the photo was taken, I began embarrassing myself. I kept blinking, and the girl behind the camera was getting irritated.

"Bou're Binking." She told me.

On the computer screen that faced me, I saw my image: knotted long hair, uneven part, slight acne scars, eyes closed.

Three times. Three times she had to retake the photo because I couldn't not blink during the process. Humbled, I took the fourth photo and deemed it acceptable. I thanked the employees after my license was printed and got the hell out of there.

It wasn't until I was in the safe confines of my car that I began cracking jokes in my head and laughing hysterically. Bad jokes of the Down Syndrome variety. They weren't cold, hard, insults, but puns that played off of the chromosomal affliction.

"When one clocked in and the other clocked out...did I witness a... Down-shift?'

It eased away all of the tension I had pent up inside of me, and thankfully, I had enough resolve to wait until I was out of earshot from everyone else. But I still laughed, still had terrible taste in humor, was still safely distancing myself from others, still making myself a jerk.

I started the car and began driving to work, making these bad jokes to myself, and I thought that if karma was an actual presence in our world, I would get smacked head-on by a tractor trailer in the next 30 seconds. Either that, or the karma would wait, would hide itself in the deep recesses of my future, where my children would have Down Syndrome. I thought about that. My child being the physical embodiment of all my verbal assaults. Only, it would be too many afflictions for a single child to have. No. In order to be properly punished by the universe, I would need a whole litter of kids with all sorts of serious afflictions: Down Syndrome, Diabetes, morbid obesity, Autism, rickets, eczema...the list goes on. I would look at my bundle of kids wandering around the living room, sniffing dryer sheets, bumping into walls, stumbling around like little Verbal Kints, and I would be constantly reminded of all the jokes I made through the years. And you know what I'd say proudly?

"Worth it. Worth it."

Contents

### Confidence Tricksters (Three Different Ones)

I recall a morning back in the 7th grade, hanging out by the lockers with my friends before class. It must have been a Monday, for we were recapping our weekends. There was not much to talk about really. I'm sure the Hopkinson Twins talked about a wrestling meet they participated in. I talked about playing football with the neighborhood kids. And this one friend, Tom Zlakowski, dropped a whopper on us. He told us that he spent the weekend with his dad, and just as the conversation was about to turn to more pertinent subjects like a debate between which is better, Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2, Tom blurted out, "...and he's an F.B.I. agent!"

The rest of us gave a collective roll of the eyes, but little Tom Zlakowski persisted. "No, it's true," he exclaimed. "I was driving around with him and he got a call on the radio about these drug dealers, and he said, 'C'mon, let's go!'"

"What?" one of us said in disbelief.

"He was the closest to the scene."

"Oh."

"So we got to the drug dealer's house and he told me to buckle my seatbelt and put my head down. Then he hit the gas and drove through their living room!! The living room! He got out of the car and went, 'F.B.I.! Freeze!' and he arrested them! Isn't that incredible?"

We all felt, I'm sure, a lot of pity for Tom. I know I did. If his father was even active in Tom's life, how big of a screw-up would he have to be in order for Tom to come up with a story like that? The three of us did not directly accuse Tom of lying, but we did ask him simple questions regarding the semantics of his Saturday night:

What branch of the F.B.I.?

He couldn't call for backup?

He couldn't ring the doorbell?

He couldn't at least get you out of the car before driving through a goddamn house?

All of these questions were answered by Tom without hesitation, and eventually the three of us let the story slide, even though he never brought in his father's badge which he promised to show us. My bet was that Tom's biological father was an alcoholic, and Tom spent the weekend in his one bedroom apartment, picking up empty beer bottles, watching Jenny Jones perhaps, and concocting a story to make his Dad a heroic parent figure by 7:45 Monday morning. A few months later Tom's mother re-married, and Tom Zlakowski became Tom Sanders, and he moved away, out of our lives forever.

It seemed to me, at the time, understandable that a twelve year old boy would mask the shame of a deadbeat father behind a tall tale like that. But as I grew older, I found that the framework of a young boy's insecurities and subsequent lies follow him throughout his entire life, only the falsehoods grow more outrageous, outlandish, and shameless as he gets older until eventually, the liar doesn't even know who he is anymore.

Leroy was a fabricator who personally believed every lie that he told. He was a Cuban immigrant who came to the United States at the age of four and had grown rich and prosperous over 40-some years here, despite working with the rest of us poor saps in the mail-order catalogue warehouse for nearly a decade. His money, he said, didn't come from his warehouse paychecks, but instead from all the various rich women that he would entice on a regular basis.

"I don't have to ask them for a thing," he'd tell us, "They just give me the shit. I don't take, see. _They give_."

We on the night shift didn't know too much about Leroy. He used to work on the day-shift before coming over to the dark side, and he loathed his six-month stint on the 3:30-midnight shift. All we knew about him was that he was supposedly very suave, very charming. He said he had been given things such as watches, electronics, even a car from one of his girlfriends, although he never drove it to work.

"You ever see how these fuckin' people park their cars?" he'd begin to say. "No way I'm bringing that car up in here. You crazy?"

It was rumored that he had up to ten children with possibly ten women, but nobody could say for sure. No one met up with him after work for a drink, and he never asked to be seen outside of the warehouse. Everything about Leroy was self-proclaimed: self-proclaimed genius, self-proclaimed financier, self-proclaimed gift to women. All you knew about Leroy was what he told you, and what he told you was bullshit.

He was a very flamboyant middle-aged man. Flamboyant with his hand gestures, his shoulders always moving up and down, his jokes and mannerisms so rehearsed, you would know when exactly he would throw his head back before he laughed and how many times he would stomp his foot as his head rolled forward as he chuckled to himself. In one of the first conversations I had with him, we were discussing the matriarch, the owner, the founder of the catalogue itself, ReginaCarter.

"I met her once," I told Leroy, trying to be modest, but unable to hide the excitement of the punch line of my anecdote. "At the annual Christmas party, and she...well, she hugged me...in front of everyone. People clapped."

Leroy didn't even want to hear the setup, how it came to be that I would be embraced by the mythical woman herself. He just shook his package of crackers at me. (That was a trademark of Leroy's: he was always eating), shaking his head, giving himself time between swallows.

"Naw, naw," he'd say. "That's nothing. She kissed me. All the time. Every Good Friday, when she came in to pass out those coconut-filled chocolate eggs to all the employees, she made sure she got to me first. She'd go, 'Hi, Leroy!' And run over and give me a big wet kiss on the cheek."

"Bullshit," I told him, not wanting my story of my interaction with the 82 year old Regina Carter to be trumped.

"It's true," he said, licking his fingertips and staring down into the cracker package.

"Why in the world would a woman as powerful and sensuous as Regina Carter bother even getting to know your name, let alone give you kiss on the cheek?"

"Huh? What?" he asked, unable to believe that I would question the believability of his polite affair with The Regina. "Ask anyone. Go ahead. Ask anyone on the day shift. They'll tell you."

His exaggerated anecdotes at work were at first entertainment to us commoners, how he claimed to be a former pimp beating up on Johns who didn't pay, or sharing ways to know if the whore was lying about how much money she made. Leroy's mantra, the thing he seemed to repeat the most at work was, "I'm richer than all y'all motherfuckas in here."

Leroy was the first and only rich person I ever met who wore a faded Dickies jumpsuit and torn up canvas sneakers.

His mantra was true only to himself and his attitude reflected it. Since he believed that he was "richer than all y'all motherfuckas," he found no real reason to work. He was only working here for tax purposes, he told us, not for the money. We soon discovered that he was the worst kind of person to work with. He was lazy. I would be standing on a fifteen foot ladder, lugging 40 pound cases up and down the shelves, while he stood there at the bottom of the stairs, consuming empty calories and preservatives he bought from the vending machines.

"Leroy," I'd say, irritated while I worked and he stood. "You wanna grab a freakin' box here?"

He would ignore my request and dig his plastic spoon into his microwavable bowl of Vending Machine Chili, spilling some gray meat onto his jumpsuit and proclaim, "I'm richer than all y'all motherfuckas in here!"

Because of his unenthusiastic approach to work, Leroy had pulled a seam in the social fabric between himself and his co-workers. If he had actually worked with us instead of deliberately claiming to be too good for us, we would have listened to his lies and let him believe that we thought they were true, but he didn't. Say, for instance, he told us he had sex with four women in one night. If he had told us about it while stocking a box or two, we would have let him go on with his story. If his hands were only holding a plastic fork and a can of tuna, we would tell him to shut up and go away. He hardly listened.

Since the rest of the work staff had a combined hatred for Leroy, we were able to discuss him at length behind his back, and in doing so we were able to triangulate his lies to find the truth. Every person Leroy encountered at work heard a different variation on the story of his life, and when we brought that to his attention, he'd say they were lying, or they misheard him. Seeing that some of us weren't buying it, he'd throw his hand up in disappointment at us as he walked away, hoping to find someone who would believe his tales. When the time finally came for him to leave the night shift and go back to working days, there was only one person who could stand to listen to him, to feed his ego. Leroy would follow this guy around, talking in his ear for nearly the entire shift, while the rest of the workers heckled him and called his bluffs. Leroy was happy to go back to the day shift, and we were more than happy to see him go.

The worst—the liar that I think embodies the worst type of person—was Bill, the manager of the restaurant that is adjoined to the golf course. His physical features were disheartening enough, with his Homer Simpson-hairstyle, a widening frame, stunted height, and a graying goatee that must have dated back to the NHL playoffs of 1996 (Go Red Wings!)

Fashion-wise, he presented himself not as a restaurant manager, but more like a defunct junkyard salesman, from his dip-filled lower jaw to his torn black faux-leather sneakers, the original cotton laces replaced by large nylon laces, the kind only fit for boots; the laces too long for the sneakers, the double and triple knots in a rat's nest over the tongue in order to keep from tripping him.

I'm sure he looked real professional when dealing with customers.

Over the past few years, I was beginning to grow a sense of pride over my ability to read people. Not deep reading, mind you, but enough to know what to avoid. Like the girl with the distant look in her eye, or the inebriated fellow from across the bar who you knew was taking a bad turn with every sip, his scowl and confusion looming over his face; I developed a strong gut feeling for those who were trouble, and I instinctively knew that Bill was simply a scumbag.

I didn't know the exact depth of Bill's scumbaggery until I was at the restaurant bar one night. He had been drinking for quite a while at the corner seat of the bar, and he came over and sat next to me while I watched sports highlights on the television above the liquor shelf. With his dip spit cup on his right and glass of vodka tonic on his left, he decided to confide in me.

He kept his eyes focused to the front and said before spitting into his cup, "I've killed people, ya know."

"Ok," I said, focusing on the game.

"I was an assassin for the United States Government."

"Where did you do your assassinating?" I asked.

"I can't tell you that."

"Ok."

...

...

...

"But I can tell you that it was in South America in the 1980's. I was a sniper."

"You sniped a lot of people?"

"46," he said slowly, before taking a heavy swig of his drink, trying to add drama to his tortured past. "46 people I have killed. I can still see the looks on their faces right before I killed them." He said it with reluctance, as if I had pressured him into the conversation in the first place, only I hadn't. I wanted him back at the other end of the bar, spitting into that disgusting cup all by himself while I watched television from afar.

At this point, it was nearly impossible to contain my frustration with Bill, because while I outwardly kept my composure, inside my head I was screaming, " _Oh, my god! You liar! You big, fat bald liar! Oh, my god you're lying so hard right now!!_ "

"And why did you stop sniping?"

"Nightmares, man," he said, shaking his head back and forth, a mannerism I'm sure he'd practiced in the mirror more than once. "Too many nightmares."

My body was tense with frustration and blatantly calling Bill a big heaping pile of lie wouldn't help matters. He had too many outs, too many ways to weasel and shirk away from the actual truth. He could easily have said that all of his jobs were covert-ops or that there was no government record of his actions. It was a lie that was invulnerable to criticism. I could become president of the United States and show Bill his own file, and he could simply say in return, "Well, of course you can't see the real file, Mr. President. You need plausible deniability."

I turned my head from the television finally and said to Bill, "Can you prove any of this?"

"Ears," he said. "I have 46 ears under my bed."

" _How can you snipe 46 political figures from hundreds of yards away and then stroll down and cut off their ears, you bald sack of shit?!_ "

"Are they scattered about, or are they in a case?"

"In a case," he said, sensing my disbelief, "I'll bring them in."

"Please do."

He never did.

Bill lied about a number of things during his stint as manager, like telling his employees that he had access to any government file on record and that he could look you up and destroy your life if he felt so inclined, so you might want to reconsider taking off next Friday. One day he came in to work hours late and missed an important delivery. He told the owner, Joanne, that he was late because he was—get this-- intercepted by a United States government helicopter the night prior and had to complete a secret mission for them.

She believed him! His job remained secure. My faith in common sense did not.

Unlike little Tom Zlakowski, whose lies aroused pity, and Leroy, whose exaggerations were given with a wink and falsetto laugh, Bill's perjuries were used as a means of intimidation; a way of bullying others in order to compensate for his own putrid, empty life. What bothered me the most was that people bought it. Everybody bought it.

"Well," I remember one co-worker saying about Bill's late night rendezvous with the government, "I'm sure that's been known to happen, but he said he got dropped off well before sunrise, so I don't see why he would be late anyhow."

"You're missing the point," I exclaimed, pulling my hair, feeling like I was in a Twilight Zone episode, "The problem is that people are actually entertaining the idea that this happened! It didn't! He was too hung-over to come in to work on time!"

After speaking to Bill about his "work for the government" that one night, I was simmering in vain for months on end, raising my blood pressure and wearing down my already ground teeth at the very thought of people like Bill. Until, accidentally, I became no better than him.

By the time late fall came around, I was working at Regina Carter Gifts, stocking boxes, the changing of the seasons forcing me to find work outside of the golf course. The Christmas rush was on at Regina Carter, management was in a panicked frenzy, seasonal hires came in to lighten the workload, and I was back in my vitriolic form. A fellow young stocker, Alex, no older than eighteen, had been on staff for only a few days when he saw me punch a large cardboard box full of diabetic slippers. I unleashed my frustration at length, popping as large a hole I could while still moving to pick up another box. I caught Alex's shocked look on his greasy face, and I wanted to put him at ease. I wanted to tell him that I was simply having a bad day; that I didn't like my place in life, my non-existent writing career, or my turbulent relationships. Instead, what I said as I brushed passed him, my arms raised defensively, "I'm sorry, it's just...my baby's mama..." and kept on walking.

It was a joke. Anyone who'd known me for more than two minutes would know that I was kidding around, only Alex didn't. He actually believed, in his own youthful naïveté, that there was someone in my life who held the title, "My Baby's Mama."

"You have a kid?" he asked me later that night, trying to be understanding. "What's his name?"

I was going to correct Alex and tell him I was just goofing, but I couldn't help but think of Little Tom Zlakowski, of Leroy, of Bill, and I saw an opportunity to empathize with the very people for whom I felt so much contempt. It was an opportunity to grow, to mature. My innocuous sarcasm, coupled with Alex's gullibility, begat the creation of my fictional child,

"Chauncey," I told Alex. "Chauncey Jenkins."

I placed Chauncey at the rambunctious age of five. I fashioned him after Calvin from Bill Watterson's comic strip, Calvin & Hobbes. Similar to Calvin, Chauncey was a bit selfish, to be sure, but also incredibly bright with an impressive vocabulary and a wagon that he rode down steep hills.

"Yeah," Alex said, "I imagine with a guy like you, your son would have a big vocabulary."

"Thank you. You would not be erroneous in saying that."

I found that lying was strangely easy for me. Learning from people like Little Tom, Leroy, and Bill, I sold the idea of Chauncey to Alex through something they all lacked: modesty. I waited for Alex to mention Chauncey first and in doing so, give me the role of the reluctant yet stable father-figure. I may not have been driving through living rooms, wooing rich women out of their savings, or assassinating Panamanian drug lords, but I was giving my life more depth by no longer being just a failing writer whose life was treading water. I was a regular guy. I was a father who was just trying to do right by his son.

After only a couple days, the lies began to layer so easily that Chauncey shellacked the shortcomings of my own life. No, I wasn't stuck at the same job I had in High-School with the same pay and same night-hours while trying to write a publishable manuscript. I worked these hours in order to spend my days with Little Chaunce-Man while his mother worked (she was no longer a stripper, thank goodness). I didn't hurt my back lifting a heavy box; Chauncey left one of his roller skates on the hardwood floor yesterday, and I took quite a comical tumble. (Chauncey was a hell of a roller skater, zig-zagging around the kitchen table, doing figure-eights in his playroom, but sometimes I just wish he had the mindset to put away his toys!)

Chauncey existed for two weeks. I came into work one Monday to find that Alex had quit. It was fortunate, for Chauncey's sake, that Alex was gone. In actuality, I was already growing bored with the little anecdotal lies about my son, and in desperation was about to strike Chauncey with some sort of "-itis." I was leaning toward bronchitis or perhaps even Acute Pancreatitis, a condition I saw on television one Saturday. I wasn't going to kill Chauncey (I didn't have the acting chops for that), but Chauncey was going to spend some time in the hospital. In order to find the exact cause of his discomfort, he'd be poked, pricked, probed, and pained by one Nurse Brownwyn, a bitter old hag with a mole on her forehead and a bedside manner that had turned sour about fifteen years prior.

I imagined myself above Chauncey's bed while he writhed in pain, and I would yell at the doctor, "Tell me what's wrong with my son!" But instead of subjecting Chauncey to such traumatic experiences, he simply disappeared.

At first it didn't bother me. After all, Chauncey never did exist, but Alex's belief in Chauncey made him real in some sense, and once I began to think of things other than Chauncey, the protective layer my son created was stripped away and my bitterness towards my place in the world were exposed once again. It felt like a withdrawal from a peaceful drug, a drug whose side effects were serenity, happy slices-of-life, and most importantly, selflessness, a characteristic I wasn't quite ready to obtain through honest means.

Contents

### The Horror

I don't like it when there is a long line to see my dealer. It gives me time to reflect, and that is something that I'd rather not have. Not when it comes to something as shameful as this. Ahead of me, a young couple is buying a new television. They seem happy. I hope they make it. Ahead of them are a couple of kids buying a new video game. I'm a tad jealous of their youthful dexterity, being able to manipulate the latest massively huge controllers with over fifteen buttons, but still, I respect the video game culture. Ahead of them is a student buying a new laptop for probably his first year of college. I'm sure it will be free of porn for the next 30 minutes or so.

What I am acquiring today, I don't let the others see. I tuck my selections against my thigh, the labels facing inward, so nobody knows. Nobody will know. None of my other accomplices here in line will be able to judge me if they don't know.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a hold up in line; looks like the credit card machine is down at the register and I begin to think of where this terrible addiction of mine started.

The catalyst, I would have to say, would be a brand new, top-of-the-line VCR that my parents bought in 1986. Four hundred dollars this VCR cost at the time. The Beta vs. Video Cassette War was over, and spending that much on a VCR was a safe purchase. It would not be replaced until the late 1990's, when DVDs were invented. After receiving the VCR, my parents then proceeded to record nearly every show and movie that they had even the slightest interest in. A typical tape would hold approximately two movies or about six episodes of _ALF_. I don't really know how long it took them, because I always remember the secretary desk in my living room being completely stockpiled with self-labeled cassettes. The best tape by far in the entire collection was the one that held both _Jaws_ and _Back to the Future_. I cringe to think about how many times my brother Phil and I viewed that tape. Let me just say that we got 400 dollars worth of viewing pleasure just from that tape alone.

_Jaws_ is the first movie I remember seeing in my life, and to this day I still consider it my favorite, no matter how many times I've seen it. My mother, being a good mom, nurtured Phil's and my collected interest in the movie and also recorded _Jaws 2_ and _Jaws 3-D_. My brother liked _Jaws 2_ because of the shark's fin in that movie. The fin was extremely large and it terrorized the islanders who went sailing. _Jaws 3-D_ was nothing more than a cheap gimmick, especially for my brother and I, who did not see it in theaters and therefore did not see the movie in all of its 3-D glory. The shark effects on our 2-D screen made the whole movie a crapshoot. But Louis Gossett Junior was in it, so we had that going for us. When the shark attacked the underwater sea-lab though, it was merely a still shot of the shark, not moving, but still somehow floating toward the screen. I called shenanigans on it, but my mom said that if I saw it in theaters with my 3-D glasses, it would be much better.

I still somehow doubt that. Shenanigans, Mom.

When Phil and I heard that there was a fourth _Jaws_ movie in the theater, our mother, being a good mom, took us to go see it. Phil and I only being seven and four years old, respectively, we basked in seeing a Jaws movie in the theater. It was called _Jaws: The Revenge_. Being only four years old, I wasn't one for plot or character development, or plot holes or inconsistencies or improbability. When we exited the theater that day, we were all a little spellbound. Something had happened, yet we couldn't place our finger on it. We didn't talk much on the way home that day. We were just replaying the movie in our heads, trying to figure what had happened. It turns out that we had just watched what many people consider to be the worst movie of all time. Phil claimed to have ingested too much buttery popcorn and fell ill.

It wasn't the popcorn, Phil. It wasn't the popcorn.

Still, when the movie played on television the next year, it was recorded on the VCR. After watching all four of the _Jaws_ films in succession I had my first idea of criticism and formulated a theory on sequels. They got progressively worse as they went on. I constantly thought about how to prove my theory, citing examples from the four movies, willing to discuss it at length with anyone who would listen. What devices are used to compensate for a shoddy plot, whether it be the length of the shark's fin, a cheap ploy with blue and red glasses, or the idea that a shark can follow a woman thousands of miles to the Caribbean even though she took a plane, not a boat. I also found that the crappiness of the movies were in direct proportion to the shark's size. With each movie the shark got bigger and bigger. It started at 25 feet, and by the time the fourth movie came around, the damn thing was 40 feet long.

Being able to think critically about sequels and follow a familiar plot line from movie to movie gave me immense joy. I was hooked. I was hooked on sequels.

Not only were sequels fun to mock and degrade, but they gave me closure. They followed a story or a character that I cared about and I got to see what became of them. For me, for my addictive personality, one was never enough. I was and still am a person of excess. I'd rather have too much than too little. Sequels, especially horror movie sequels, were my first introduction to overindulgence. The second thing I overindulged in was Bugles; at one point I ate two whole boxes worth in one afternoon. I got so terribly sick that even catching a slight whiff of a single Bugle 20 years later renders me immobile with nausea. But sometimes the overindulgence can be fun, like binging on _Nightmare on Elm Street_ movies, watching that transition Freddy Kreuger makes from movie to movie. How he started off as something to dreadfully fear then quickly became a wise-cracking, bright-eyed slayer of teenagers. (In case you were wondering, the instant it happened occurred in _A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors_ where Freddy appeared on the television in the smoking lounge of the mental facility. The girl, Jennifer, had always wanted to be an actress. As Jennifer approached the television, Freddy's head came out of the top of the screen and wiry arms extended out the sides. He picked Jennifer up and said, "This is it, Jennifer. Your big break on TV! Welcome to prime time, bitch!" Then he slammed her head through the screen, killing the aspiring actress instantly.)

However, there was a downside to the closure. Sequels are inherently bad, that much I knew. And it stung something awful when I saw a character I actually cared about get turned to shit for the sake of a quick buck. _Robocop 3_ ; worst case I'd ever seen. I was twelve years old when I rented it from the video store. As my mom was preparing dinner that evening, she heard strange rumblings and groans coming from my room. She went upstairs to investigate and saw me hunched over in the chair, my head in my hands. Soda cans were strewn about, potato chip bags angrily tossed on the floor. On the television screen, Robocop was strapping a jet pack on his back and soaring through Old Detroit in order to save the underground resistance.

"He's flying," I told her dejectedly. "Robocop is flying." I nearly cried.

The credit card machine seems to be working again and I move up a step. The couple in front of me seems to begin to question and/or bicker about their choice of size for their soon-to-be acquired television. According to the man, Sunday's football game could look a lot better if they went with his first choice. I look down past the items in my hand and at my shoes. Looking at how big they are, how adult they are. I hardly remember even growing out of my shoes as a kid. This line I'm standing in is really giving me too much time to think.

If it's true that a child's habits towards his toys give a glimpse of his true passion in life, then I should be arrested. If a future architect spends hours in his playroom fidgeting around and crafting towns and cities out of Legos, and a future soldier for the Army roams the neighborhood protecting the people with N.E.R.F. toys, then my childhood passions do not make me right for this world. At my current age, I should be a flesh-eating zombie. Or a human fly. Or a Cenobite from Hell. Or any other ghastly departure from the goodwill of man. Just lock me up. Throw away the key if you wish. It's not like I am not socially awkward enough.

I don't go to the movie theater much. Not as much as most people, anyhow. Most movies I need to see go straight to video. "Say, Mike," a friend might begin. "Care to see the new M. Night Shyamalan movie Friday night?"

"No, thanks," I'll say, "But you're more than welcome to come over to my place and watch Michael Gross (of _Family Ties_ fame) reprise his role as Burt Grummer in _Tremors 2: Aftershocks_."

Sha-na-na-na

I'm not exactly a hit at parties, either. The discussion of blockbuster movies and feature art films are dependable ice-breakers at social gatherings; they rank even as high as the latest celebrity scandal or different driving routes to get to work on the list of acceptable topics. If someone decides to discuss the latest Martin Scorcese movie, I have trouble keeping up.

"Mike, did you ever get around to seeing _The Departed_? Dicaprio was pretty damn good in it."

" _The Departed_? Haven't seen it yet," I say, "But I did see another Dicaprio movie recently: a little gem of a film called _Critters 3_..."

I can see my friends' eyes roll back into their heads and I try to turn the conversation back to what they originally intended. "Now, _Critters 3_ was a bit of a... _departure_ for the Critters franchise in that the critters themselves were set in a solitary apartment complex in the city of L.A instead of the small rural town of Grover's Bend..." before I even realize it's happening, I'm speaking to an empty room.

Some people just can't handle deep conversations, I guess. Next time, I'll try to discuss something a little fluffier and less offensive, like politics or religion.

Back in line, the kids buying the new video game have become agitated and are beginning to bicker about who is going to play the game first, who's spending the most money on the game, whose mom dropped them off at the store. The kids arguing remind me of Phil and me when we were that age. We used to argue quite vehemently as children and I frequently walked away with deep bruises on my person, the kind of bruises that when you press your finger on them it takes quite a few seconds for the bruise to return to its light green color. I can still recall the life-span of my bruises. They went from an instant light green to a red to purple to yellow to brown.

If I think about it, Phil and I haven't argued in over a decade. The last hurtful physical contact we had took place over twelve years ago and it was I who was the perpetrator. We were at the high school football field, warming up with some friends for a two-hand touch game. Phil ran a slant pattern that took him across the middle of the field. He jumped in the air to catch the ball, and the split-second the football touched his hands, I completely decked him. As he lay on the ground writhing in pain, I stood over him and thumped my chest the way an ape might and roared. He did hold onto the football, though. I will give him that. Once I released my repressed anger I helped him up and our relationship has been nothing but handshakes, hugs, and pats on the back ever since. I wonder, what have we been doing these past ten years or so? How has our relationship changed? What do we even talk about? Movies come to mind.

The past ten years was quite a hectic decade for movies to say the least. There was a terrible rash of sequels, remakes, and cross-overs. I've been trying to cut back on my addiction because with a voracious personality like mine, there is never a leftover beer in the fridge and there is no place I won't follow a money-grubbing Hollywood producer. _Jason X, Alien vs. Predator, Creepshow 3, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy vs. Jason, Halloween: Resurrection, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, Rob Zombie's Halloween and Halloween 2_...I don't want to see these movies. I have to see them. And as long as there are people like me who will pay good money to see them, they will keep making them. It's a vicious cycle.

Thankfully, I am not alone. Phil joins me in these instantly regrettable trips to the movies. When one of us sees a preview for the latest rehashed old garbage, we give each other a call.

"Phil," I remember exclaiming on the phone back in 2002. "Phil! Listen: Jason Vorhees is being jettisoned into outer space. That's right. He's going to be an astronaut. A murderous astronaut! We're going on Friday....Yeah, Melissa can come, I guess, but she better not ruin it for us!" _Jason X_ strengthened my scientific theory that if you keep making sequels for any franchise, the characters and plot will inevitably end up in outer space. If there's another Jaws movie, it's going to be called _Jaws 5: In Space_. In my opinion, the screenplay writes itself.

The guy standing behind me in line is getting agitated at our slow pace. I can feel his frustration emanating off of him, like a bad smell. I think he saw me a few minutes earlier, in the movie aisle as I was quietly muttering and laughing hysterically.

What had happened was, well, to be honest, last night I was drinking a bit too much while I watched television. It's not an uncommon occurrence, but usually my viewing pleasures are relegated to safe movies; movies I have already seen at least a dozen times, like _Jeepers Creepers_ or _Total Recall_ if I am feeling particularly frisky. But I came across the movie _Leprechaun_ at around midnight. It starred Jennifer Aniston (of _Friends_ fame) as the protagonist and Warwick Davis (of _Willow_ fame) as the evil leprechaun who searches for and kills those who try to take his pot 'o gold. The movie was an absolute joke. It tried to tap into our collective trust in the mythical leprechaun and reverse it so that the leprechaun is seen as an evil, warped little creature that rides a tricycle and kills people while jumping on a pogo stick. If I were a sober man, I would have avoided the whole mess of a film to begin with, but as an inebriated fellow sitting on his couch, covered in salted peanut shells, I watched the whole thing. I hardly blinked.

Warwick Davis was destroyed when a four-leaf clover was shot down his throat and he fell into a well. Then they poured gasoline down the well and lit a match. The last words said in the movie were that of the leprechaun saying in his "hauntingly" cutesy Irish accent, "I'll not rest till I have me gold. Curse this well that me soul shall dwell. Till I find me magic that breaks me spell."

I knew there were sequels to _Leprechaun_ , which is why I had avoided the franchise in the first place. But because of my intoxicated viewing last night I was left vulnerable to the elements of bad taste. My sober side tried to talk me out of it, and at 2:00 a.m. I was having a vocal conversation with myself.

My common sense told me, "Now, Michael, listen: You're not going to the store tomorrow. You don't need Warwick Davis occupying your time and money. You've got better things to do."

"Do I?" I asked myself back. "Do I really? Personally, I think I could use a wasteful Sunday with Warwick Davis; following him on his adventures for his pot 'o gold."

"Dammit, Michael!" I exclaimed back to myself. "You're still recovering from the _Wishmaster_ series you saw over a month ago!"

"I can handle it," I said while opening another beer. "I can handle it!"

The voice of rationality was resolute, but with the help of more alcohol, I quieted him down to a whisper and eventually he became a white noise type of hum that I could easily ignore.

The angry man standing behind me scoffs as we take one step closer in line. I'm so paranoid that I think the scoff is directed at me, from when he saw me picking out the movies a few minutes ago. I came across the "L's" in the Horror section (the Comedy Section did not contain _Leprechaun_ , even though it should) and I was suitably horrified when I saw all the sequels and their terrible taglines. _Leprechaun 2. This time luck has nothing to do with it. Leprechaun 3. Welcome to Vegas. The odds are you won't leave alive. Leprechaun 4: In Space_. (of course.) _One small step for man, one giant leap of terror. Leprechaun in the Hood. Evil is in the house. Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood. Evil has a whole new rap!_

My reluctance to pick out these movies was shown in physical and verbal form as I reached for each one, my hands quaking, muttering to myself, "Oh, god, what am I doing? This isn't right. Stop it. Michael, please stop it." But still, my left arm kept reaching for the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one until I had all of the sequels in my hand and I laughed a desperate, mad-hatter type of laugh to myself as I held them all in my arms. That's when the man standing behind me came around the corner. I acted casual.

I hate myself for this kind of behavior. I really do. I wish that I could just get _Leprechaun: In Space_ , to see how they can take Warwick out among the stars. The screenwriters must be geniuses because it's a scientific fact that there are no rainbows in space. But knowing that he ventures into the hood after he goes into outer space, well, I have to see that too. I have to see how he escaped from the well in which he dwells. I have to see how the leprechaun handles the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas. I have to see it all. And it's not going to be pretty.

I'm going to try to put the movies face down onto the counter when I pay so that the barcode shows and the teller will not have any need to flip them over and see what dastardly deeds I am up to. Seeing all these sequentially awful movies warrants a sarcastic comment from the teller and I should brace myself for it. But once I get the items placed into a bag, then I will be free from judgment when I walk out those automatic doors. Hell, I could claim that I bought The _Godfather I_ and _II_ as well as _The Shawshank Redemption_. I could claim to be normal with good taste.

My neighbors might know something is up though. The walls in my apartment are incredibly thin, and although they don't know specifically what I am doing, they hear my reactions to them. They've already heard such insightful shouts as, "Shenanigans," "Bullshit," as well as, "You're...you're bastardizing the origin," and of course the all-encompassing, "NOOOOOOooooooooo!"

Tonight, when my neighbors are in bed they will awaken to a faint noise like the scratching of a paw against the door, and if they cock their heads the right way and listen hard enough, they will hear the desperate plea piercing through the cramped walls of apartment #3, "The horror...the horror..."

Contents

### Overcome Awareness

Celeste was expecting way too much hospitality from our little public golf course. She had booked an outing for 75 people in late September, and although she didn't play golf, she made sure that everything went off without a hitch.

Very controlling, this 40-something Celeste character was. She referred to us golf course employees as, "my staff," and my uniform (consisting of a Bugle Boy sweatshirt) had to be altered immediately upon her arrival because it was, to use her word, ugly. Celeste demanded that certain advertisements be placed on certain tee boxes even though she would never venture on the course to see them.

"Place them prominently on the tee boxes," she told our 60 year old course ranger, Joe. "Do you understand? _Prominently_."

Joe took a long drag of his pipe and replied, "So I shouldn't leave them face down on the grass?"

Our golf course catered to the weekend golfers: the hackers, the drunks who have to often be reminded that wife-beater t-shirts and army fatigue cut-off shorts are not allowed. If an angry customer came in to complain about the pace of play or bad conditions on the course, we would have to first say, "Yes, sir, I understand, but in order for me to take you seriously, you need to put on your shirt."

What Celeste was looking for was a country club reception, only we didn't have the means or the will to meet her lofty standards.

"You mean to tell me you don't have an easel," she'd asked me, shocked.

"Um, no, I'm sorry. But I have a friend, he paints. He might have an easel, but he lives down in the city. I could call him..."

"Never mind," she said curtly, and then called over to her young daughter. "Emily! They don't have an easel! Get the one we have out of the car."

Celeste then instructed me to close the cart-barn door because looking at the interior was, "disgusting." That much was true. The big red barn that stored our 73 golf carts was ugly. Actually, to call it a barn would be insulting to barns. It was nothing more than a two-story, glorified shack; held together, thankfully, by the barn-swallow nests at every creaking joint in the place. The barn swallows were good for that at least, but it came with a price.

I began to close the barn door while I said, "I don't think it will look much better with the door shut, what with the bird droppings and all..."

She saw the door and our barn swallows best attempt at recreating a Jackson Pollack. She sighed again and placed two fingers against her temples. "That's fine. Whatever. You have a banner to put in front of it anyhow."

The banner was 8 feet long and showed a picture of a smiling middle-aged woman who bore a striking resemblance to Celeste: same color brunette hair, same upturned nose. The text read: "Karen Beuller Memorial Golf Outing To Fight Ovarian Cancer." On the far right of the banner was a large teal ribbon.

As customers began to arrive to the outing, Celeste told me to carry their golf bags to their designated golf carts; once again, something that country clubs do, not public courses, but there was no use arguing with her. What did bother me, however, was that as I was picking up two bags at a time, trying to get the names of the owners to find their names on the cart layout sheet, Celeste advised them not to tip me. "Don't tip my workers," she said to a man who had opened his wallet, ready to fork over a buck or two to me, the guy working minimum wage. "Why not buy a mulligan instead? It goes to a good cause."

On my fourth trip to the bag drop, Celeste approached me with a scowl on her face and a teal silicone wristband in her hand. She shoved the wristband into my palm and said, "You work for me? Wear this." Etched in the silicone was the word, "OVERCOME."

The idea behind the whole "awareness wristband" trend forced my spiteful side, and left me no choice but to stuff the teal wristband in my pocket, and Celeste's possessive attitude kept it there for the duration of my shift.

It came as no surprise to me how popular these wristbands had become. I saw the first one in my sophomore year of college. My roommate, Jeff, and I were on our fourth pitcher of beer at the local bar and on his wrist was a yellow silicone band that said, "LIVESTRONG."

He told me that the bracelet cost a dollar, and that it went to cancer research. I wanted to inquire further, to ask such questions as, "Do you think that your dollar will help cure the liver cancer you and I are sure to get?" or "Would you still donate the dollar if you didn't get the wristband?" But I let it alone. I figured, "Ok, it's an ugly bracelet, sure, but it goes to a good, broad cause: cancer research. Fine."

The day after our seven hour excursion to the bar, I saw Jeff's LIVESTRONG bracelet as an ironical fashion statement as it loosely hung from his motionless wrist while he lay in his bunk through the entire morning and afternoon.

I saw the yellow bracelets everywhere after that; on people motoring down Broad Street at dangerous speeds, the LIVESTRONG bracelet resting comfortably on the wheel. On students lighting cigarettes outside of Gladfelter Hall, the tobacco smoke swirling around the yellow silicone on their wrists. On frat boys stumbling out of a party on a late Saturday night, falling over on the sidewalk, their LIVESTRONG bracelets hanging in the gutter.

Soon, however, yellow was not the only color wristband around town. The money that would normally be donated to the yellow wristbands was quickly being fragmented and diluted by other colors and causes: Dark Blue was for Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, Burgundy was for Cesarean Sections, Green was for Eye Injury, White stood for Hope, and Black was for Gang Prevention. Of course, there are only so many colors in the human spectrum of eyesight, so each color stood for at least four other causes. The most absurd one I saw was an Autistic Wristband, decorated with little yellow, blue, and red puzzle pieces. The text on the bracelet read, "I LOVE SOMEONE WITH AUTISM."

It took some time for me to realize why I disliked the wristbands so much. At first I thought it was because they were new and popular, and I argued that the only thing I would ever have on my wrist is my trusty quartz wristwatch, but my contempt for the awareness bands went deeper than that and after interacting with Celeste on the golf course that day I realized it: the wristbands were arrogant. They lacked humility and modesty, and worst of all, they were safe. They said to the world, "I am against things that are not good." They took a stand against the obvious horrors of life: cancer, mental retardation, gunshot victims, and rape just to name a few. The bracelets brought out a bitterness in me that I hadn't experienced since High School, when I failed at learning how to play the Recorder. My argument was sound. "How is this going to get me anywhere in life?" I asked hypothetically. "Is a potential boss going to say, 'well, Michael, your resume looks good...' then pull a plastic recorder out of his desk and go, 'now let's hear some 'Three Blind Mice!'"

I wanted to point to her teal bracelet and ask Celeste, "Oh, so you're taking a stand _against_ cancer? Maybe you should take a couple days before you make that statement. Don't say anything rash."

Another reason I detest the wrist bands is that I am all too aware of awareness. I can't believe that I am fondly recalling a time when the rear of someone's automobile was limited to things like political affiliations or favorite musical bands. So you may have voted for Ross Perot back in 1992 and yes, The Grateful Dead was a decent band, but this new generation of bumper sticker is more aggressive by constantly reminding you—yelling at you, "Cancer! Diabetes! Autism! Multiple Sclerosis! Cystic Fibrosis! Lymphoma! Sickle Cell! Lyme Disease! Children's Arthritis! Fibromyalgia! Epilepsy!" Whatever happened to decorating your car with reminders of your accomplishments like your community college parking permit or jokingly stating that your other vehicle is a broom? The bumper sticker I miss most is, "How's my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT SHIT." You just don't see that one anymore.

Now, the perpetual warnings of diseases and ailments are also decorating people's wrists, and I have to wonder, wouldn't it be nice to go a day without thinking about all the wretched things that can happen to you? Sure, you can emboss a derived generalized motivation on it like, _overcome_ or _fight_ or _battle_ or _defeat_ , words that make it seem as though if you concentrate on it hard enough, the ills can be willed away, but they won't be. It's still a reminder. It may make a person feel good about him or herself, but it's still a reminder of something awful. Think of all the times your hand comes into your field of vision every day, and wonder if it wouldn't be nice to just once not think of dying when it does. You open the door and look at your hand. Cancer awareness. Licking on a popsicle? Diabetes awareness. Give somebody a thumbs up for doing a good job or making a funny remark? Lyme Disease awareness. I really do think some bliss is called for. Some ignorance is needed.

I understand the intent of the wristbands, and for most people it's a well-intentioned effort. It's people like Celeste who already have a sneering attitude towards others and hide it behind the guise of something like a teal bracelet and a deceased sister in order to make herself tolerable to others who bother me. Call me cold, but being against cancer did not entitle Celeste to be a bitch. Her actions showed on that chilly morning in September that Celeste had been working painstakingly for years on her controlling behavior. If she actually cared about the charity and was compassionate towards others in order to exemplify a good cause, she wouldn't refer to the Mainland Golf Course employees as "my workers," and she wouldn't talk down to people as if they were personally against her.

After all of the golfers arrived and a mass prayer was recited before their game, Celeste stayed behind and stomped toward me with a grimace. She didn't say anything, but instead just held up her right arm and sternly pointed to the teal awareness band with her left hand. Moments earlier I had given my silicone awareness band to fight ovarian cancer to the young girl who was working the beverage cart, telling her that if she wore it, people would see that she too was on their side in the fight and that her tips would improve. "Wear two, if you can," I advised.

All that I could say to Celeste was, "Yeah, my shift here is over, So..." I turned my back on her and headed towards the time-clock when I looked at my wrist and saw the oldest of all awareness bands: my wristwatch, counting away the days, the hours, the minutes, the seconds, reminding me that at any given tick, my time too, could run out. But at least the band on my wrist didn't freely offer up any ideas as to how.

Contents

Studies in Modern Personal Agendas

It doesn't matter if you have blonde, brown, red, or any other color hair. It doesn't matter if your height is not proportionate to your weight. It doesn't matter where you are from. It doesn't matter how you were raised. It doesn't matter what skin tone you have. It doesn't matter if you're broke, rich, or somewhere in between. It doesn't matter what your level of education is, what your I.Q. is, or what your social status is. It doesn't matter whether you have faith in Jesus, Buddha, or Vishnu. It doesn't matter if you believe in Totalitarianism, Communism, Democracy, or Fascism. It doesn't matter if you are straight, gay, bisexual or asexual. There are many things that separate us from one another which can arouse contempt in the human heart, as well as jealousy, anger, or insolence, but there is one thing, one universal truth that I think we can all agree upon: Ivan Drago was Rocky Balboa's toughest opponent.

I'm not saying that _Rocky IV_ was the best of the Rocky films; I'm not. The best of the films could be and probably will be debated until the end of time. What I am saying is that Rocky's opponent in that movie, Ivan Drago, was the toughest that Rocky ever faced. You can't say that Apollo Creed, from _Rocky_ and _Rocky II_ was the toughest, for Ivan killed Apollo in the ring in _Rocky IV_. Killed him! Clubber Lang, played by Mr. T in the third Rocky, did defeat the Italian Stallion early in the movie, but was easily conquered once Rocky stopped selling out and really focused on some hard training thanks to Apollo Creed's guidance. And don't even get me started on Tommy "The Machine" Gunn from _Rocky V_. That guy had a mullet; he was a joke.

_Rocky IV_ did have some great heroic aspects that I turn to when I find myself in hard, desperate times. Rocky didn't fight Drago to keep his heavyweight belt around his hips. He didn't fight for any money. He was so motivated to avenge the death of his friend Apollo that he traveled all the way over to Moscow to fight Ivan on his own turf, on Christmas Day! Talk about will-power. And underneath this blood-feud between these two boxers was also the fate of the free world. The U.S.S.R. versus The U.S. of A. Communism versus Democracy. The boxing match was a metaphor for which country is the mightiest in the world. The 1960's had Neil Armstrong. The 80's belonged to Rocky Balboa.

I never found college to be extremely difficult until my senior year, and it was the Rocky Balboa I found inside of myself that got me my diploma. My senior capstone course, the final, hardest course I had to endure in my time at Temple University was called, "Studies in Modern American Literature," and for the first time at college, I was eager to impress. I wanted to wow them. I wanted to triumph. I wanted the graduation committee to look at my final thesis paper and say, "This kid's got talent. He's going places. We should have offered him a scholarship!" They were going to say this, for I was going to buckle down and study hard. No laziness, minimal drinking, just balls to the wall reading and studying, and in my corner was Jeff, my collegiate confidant who had signed up for the same class.

Our classroom wasn't set up like most classrooms at Temple University. Our class met in what looked like a large boardroom. A grand oak table, about fifteen feet long, stood in the middle, surrounded by cushioned chairs. Jeff and I sat at the far end, awaiting the arrival of the rest of the students. There was a total of 12 students when class began: three males, and nine females. The teacher, an extremely tall, completely bald, jovial man who looked like a soft Michael Stipe, handed out our syllabi. Immediately, something was amiss.

On the syllabus, before the course name was even mentioned, was a small legal abstract stating that there will be no discrimination against teaching about the homosexual lifestyle. Jeff and I gave each other a quizzical look. Our professor, who spoke in an effeminate British accent, slightly lisping, stated that we the students were going to read novels dealing with homosexual identity and lifestyle from the year 1920 to the present. I looked at the rest of the class, but they didn't have the same look of shock and disdain that Jeff and I did.

After all of the introductions were made, who we were, our hobbies, intended goals in life, etc., a young girl with short, jagged hair raised her hand.

"I would just like to say that I think it's great that there is a class like this. It's refreshing to talk about gay and lesbian issues in an open environment."

Instantly, the teacher shot down the girl's excitement.

"Actually, we are going to stay away from female homosexuality and instead only focus on male homosexuality."

I heard Jeff's hand slap his forehead.

I'd experienced professors doing this type of thing before. In one of my summer courses, titled "Popular Fiction," the course description stated that we would be reading detective novels and other works that were sold to the masses and were not considered classics. Instead, what the teacher did was use her own interpretation of the word "popular" and decided that comic books could be put in the same genre. Sorry, not comic books, _graphic novels._

After the end of the first class of our capstone course, Jeff muttered in the elevator, "You've got to be kidding me. No fucking way. It's just not gonna happen."

Upon getting back to the apartment later that day, I found that Jeff had made it home before me and had switched out of the class.

"I suggest you do the same," he advised.

I searched for different capstone courses to enroll in, but capstones are about 1/4, sometimes even 1/8 the size of a regular class. They were all full. Jeff had managed to snag the last seat in some British Literature course. Ivan Drago had given a devastating right hook and now my Apollo Creed was nothing but a twitching lump on the canvas, taking his last breath. I was on my own.

"Screw it," I said. "I just need to take this last class, then I can read whatever I choose for the rest of my life." I was going to avenge Apollo, to show him that I was going to go toe to toe with that foreign 6'6" professor and prevail. A good villain never goes without a decent nickname, so for the rest of the semester I dubbed my teacher, "The Beast From the Near East."

On our first full length class, The Beast asked us to name some derogatory terms for homosexuals, "since we are going to be seeing these terms in the literature for the semester."

Every one sat silent for a few moments.

"C'mon, don't be shy," The Beast said. "We should be able to openly discuss these things if we are to discuss the readings for the semester."

A girl at the far end slowly raised her hand. "F-faggot?" She said.

"Yes. 'Faggot', or 'Fag' is a pretty popular term," the Beast said in his lisped British accent. "Any one else?"

"Homo?" Another one said.

"Yes. 'Homo', short for homosexual. Homosexual is a proper way to label it, yet, when it's shortened to homo, it sounds so insulting. Why do you think that is?"

I raised my hand. "Butt Pirate."

The Beast nodded slowly. "Yes, 'Butt Pirate'..."

I raised my hand. "Flamer."

I raised my hand. "Queer Bait."

I raised my hand. "Pillow Biter."

I raised my hand. "Rump Thumper."

Surprisingly, The Beast didn't take offense; he was even laughing a bit along with the class. My puny punches didn't even phase him. Instead of being insulted, The Beast simply took the terms I gave him and tried to discuss why and how they were used in society, except for "Rump Thumper;" that one was pretty obvious.

Another problem that arose from my aggressive approach towards the class was that the next time we met, The Beast was no longer sitting on the far side of the room. He was now sitting directly next to me for the rest of the semester. It was going to be tougher than I thought.

Suffice it to say that when it came to the novels themselves, I was never compelled by them; they weren't really my cup of tea. They all followed a very simple formula: A young man is confused sexually, an older man takes the younger one under his wing, the young man is still confused though, and he is either raped, commits suicide, or gets murdered. In between the beginning and end are long descriptions of the naked male body. During class we would discuss the novels, our opinions of the novels, thoughts, queries, things of that nature.

I found the opinions of my other classmates to be dry and cliched. Although The Beast wanted an open and relaxed environment to discuss whatever was preying on our minds, people were still overly P.C. Personally, I really didn't want any part of what anyone had to say about the texts. I was completely indifferent to the whole scene. I'm not going to ever jump in the back of a pickup truck and terrorize homosexuals, but I'm also not going to march in a gay pride parade. I just didn't care. Wasn't it okay that I didn't care?

After the reading of one particular novel, a girl in the class said, "I thought the book was so romantic, so eloquently written. It truly was love between two men."

I raised my hand. "What about on page 28, where the narrator describes two men peeing into each other's mouths?" I highlighted the important parts.

Sometimes, to give us a real feel for the oppression the writers of gay novels faced at the time, The Beast would hand out copies of their book reviews from well-respected newspapers. I recall one really slanderous review from the 1960's that we read. One of the girls in class discussed her hatred for the reviewer's intolerance.

"It's despicable," she said. "that the New York Times would print something so nasty and cold about someone because of their lifestyle. It's-it's just so ignorant."

"Uh-huh, yes, yes it is..." Beast said. "Any one else? Thoughts?"

I raised my hand. "I think the review is funny."

"Why funny?" he asked.

"Because the reviewer is just so full of hate. It's two pages of hateful nonsense. I bet his first draft was nothing but his hands slamming on the typewriter while he screamed, 'Goddamn faggots!'" Then I chuckled to myself quite loudly imagining the scene.

The Beast never batted an eye at any of my comments. They were never truly insightful, they never got the class anywhere, and all I did was waste other people's time. In fact, toward the end of the semester, I tried to push The Beast to the brink. He gave us our last novel assignment to read before our final thesis was due, and I raised my hand.

"So...I guess then we have...homo-work...?"

And I'll be damned, The Beast laughed. It was the 10th round of the match, and the Beast and I were still standing toe to toe, exchanging blows; me trying to insult him, and he laughing it off. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on my final thesis paper.

I needed to write 20 pages on some sort of homosexual topic. My final paper training montage consisted of me sitting in my basement, surrounded by gay literature such as, _The Aging Homosexual Male, The Beauty of the Male Body, The Gay Midlife Crisis_ , etc. with empty cups of coffee surrounding me, as well as ashtrays full of cigarette butts, chewing on my pencil while reading about such terrible topics as male prostitution, incest, statutory rape, shameful suicide, sadomasochism, AIDS, herpes, Stonewall, Fire Island, genital warts, the 80's, golden showers, syphilis and anal sex. It was extremely difficult. I would pace around the basement, pumping my fists, yelling, trying to psych myself up; the ashtray growing fuller, the coffee pot emptying, the yellow Post-It notes blossoming out of the books, churning out page after page of useless arguments for five straight days.

After completing my final sentence, I realized that after I handed in this paper, I would have beaten The Beast. It wouldn't be a knock-out, just a split decision. The weight of 4 years of reading, studying, reading, drinking, drinking, and drinking, was finally going to lift. That tedious collegiate mountain of mine had finally been scaled. I hit the print button on the computer, and as the pages poured out of my printer, I shook my fists at the sky. "Faggooooooooooo...!"

When I handed in my paper on the last day of class, The Beast From the Near East had a treat for all of us. He had compiled a list of other homosexuals who wrote novels in case we wanted to further our studies in the genre. I looked the list up and down and noticed that someone was missing.

I raised my hand. "What about David Sedaris?"

"David Sedaris?" Then The Beast rolled his eyes at me. "C'mon..."

"What's wrong with him? He's one of the funniest authors I've ever read."

The Beast brushed off my comment.

"David Sedaris is only popular because of NPR. I will admit though, that his one story about working at the mall during Christmas had me laughing out loud, but–" He sighed and took a long pause. "It's just that he never stops mentioning his boyfriend, Hugh. He just goes on and on about him. It's like, enough already! I mean, don't you ever get sick of it?"

I will never forget the look on The Beast's face at that moment. After seeing it, I had realized what I had meant to do for the past four months which was to offend him. I had subconsciously been trying to offend him like he had offended me with his taste in literature, and just when I had given up hope, I succeeded. He was offended by the idea of a writer who wrote about being himself, who was only coincidentally gay, not a writer who was torn between his homosexuality and fitting into the every day world. Sedaris didn't write about the alleged tragedy of being a homosexual, and over that The Beast was offended. Maybe if David Sedaris blew his head off out of shame, The Beast would call him a modern gay literary genius.

In that one moment where The Beast waited for my reply, I flashed back to the four months of homosexual maleficence I had to read every day, and how disappointed I was to find that "Studies in Modern American Literature," was taken completely out of context by our teacher, who used it to raise awareness about his own agenda, and I came to a realization: my attendance was impeccable, my short papers were above average, my participation grade was through the roof, and there was no way my final paper was anything less than a 'C' grade. And seeing that thesis of mine sitting right in front of him, I knew I had my Drago against the ropes, and that no matter what I said to him, I was going to graduate college

I raised my hand.

Contents

### A Changing of the Guard

In the spring of 2005, I went to a Philadelphia Phillies game with a few friends. It was the second year that the Phillies were playing in their new ballpark, and although I was going to miss their old stadium, I was looking forward to making new memories in a new venue.

The Phillies' and Eagles' previous stadium, Veterans' Stadium, was considered an abomination by every visiting team that stepped onto the field. To describe Veterans' Stadium in one word, it would simply be, "shoddy." The teams played on Astroturf; terrible Astroturf that was easily comparable to concrete. A quarterback for the New York Giants once said that before he took each snap on the field, he'd look behind him for lumps and tears in the turf so he wouldn't trip during the play. Since its opening in 1971, the place hosted a number of injuries that would not have occurred had they simply played on grass; that's how shoddy the field at the Vet was.

Ask any Philadelphia sports fan and they'll tell you how proud they were of Veterans' Stadium. It was large, hosting anywhere from 56,000 to 63,000 people. It was cold, it was gritty, tough, and most of all, ugly; all traits a Philadelphian possesses with an aura of blue-collar snobbery.

The best way I can sum up the mentality of the Philly Sports Fan is by recalling a story about a man in the 700 level during an Eagles game. The Eagles must have been losing something awful that day, because this one fan decided to show his frustration by firing a flare gun from one end of the stadium to the other. A flare gun! The way I remember it, after the flare gun incident, a court was installed inside the stadium for immediate sentencing for any rapscallions and hellions that got a bit too frisky. I feel sorry for the first judge assigned to work that court. He must have constantly been pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut in disbelief. I can see him reading the facts back to the defendant.

"You—you wiped your ass with your hand," he'd say, getting the facts straight. "And then proceeded to wipe it on the face of a Dallas Cowboys fan? And then you spit on the man's 8 year old son?"

"Well, he offended my honor, your honor."

And before the judge could make a ruling, he'd look off to the right and see an endless line of drunken fans spilling into his courtroom, waiting for their sentencing.

I love the story of the Philly Flare Gun. A man was hanging out in the parking lot, drinking Bud Light, I presume, and had a premeditated notion to bring a fuckin' flare gun into the stadium for the sole purpose of firing it when the Eagles started to lose. And every time my mind's eye re-enacts the firing of the gun, the perpetrator gives a Howard Dean-ish "Hyaaaaagh!" It's so laughable. Why else would you bring one? Are you lost? You need to be rescued?

How early before the game did he buy the flare gun? A day? A week? An hour? Was he late to the tailgate party before the game because he couldn't find it? "Honey, the flare gun! Where is it?! I can't go to the game until I have my flare gun!" What did he tell his friends when they saw him stuffing it into his pants before going through the gate? "Ordinarily, guys, I'd never do something as awesome as this, but we're playing the Giants today, and...well..." That's a Philly sports fan for you.

My friends and I never got that insane when we went to Veterans' Stadium to see the Phillies play. We simply got drunk in the parking lot and hung out in the 700 level, where the tickets were cheap and the space was wide open. We would be free to smoke cigarettes up there without any repercussions, as well as stand up and empty our bladders all over the blue plastic seats. Ya know, harmless.

In one of the last games I ever went to at the Vet, the Phillies were playing the Chicago White Sox in inter-league play. The Sox had dominated the game, and most of the patrons left at about the 6th inning. With a good portion of the fans filing out, my inebriated friends and I decided to get some better seats. We moseyed on down to some abandoned box seats right behind the Phillies dugout. The security guard in charge of the section knew we were completely full of shit, but he didn't hassle or question us when we said, "Good evening, sir," and filed politely to the best seats in the place. As the Phillies were getting hammered by the Sox, I recalled that during the football season, the Eagles pummeled the Chicago Bears. Surely, there must've been some of that magic left lying around on the field. We began to do an "Eagles" chant, which consists of nothing more than spelling, "E! A! G! L! E! S! EAGLES!" The chant caught on from our box seats and carried through more than half of the stadium; scattered patches of fans yelling for an Eagle-esque comeback. By the time the chant reached the center-field seats, the Phillies began showing signs of life and started getting some hits. The poor pitcher for the Sox was getting verbally defiled by some drunken hooligans behind the Phillies' dugout, and with so few fans in the stadium, we were obviously being heard. By the time the Phils pulled ahead in the bottom of the 8th, we had completely lost our voices and had nothing left to give when the Phillies won the game.

I got back to my house a little bit after 2:00 a.m. and I turned on the Phillies replay game just in time to catch the 8th inning. There must have been a microphone near first base because all you could hear on the television were these drunken idiots screaming at the tops of their lungs, "He's pitching junk, man! He's pitching fuckin' junk! Guy can't even throw a curve ball!! E! A! G! L! E! S! EAGLES! The pitcher sucks ass!! A! S! S! ASS!!"

In the sports section of the newspaper the next morning, the reporter said that the fans who stayed at the game last night were so disappointed with the Phillies that they began to chant for next year's football season. He was clearly missing the point of our motivational techniques, but at least I knew we had a helping hand in the Phillies victory. No, we didn't personally hit any bases-clearing doubles, but we gave credence to the theory of home-field advantage, and that to me is sports-fan empowerment.

Veterans' Stadium was demolished in March of 2004, and the Eagles and Phillies each got their own individual stadiums; Lincoln Financial Field and Citizens Bank Park, respectively. For my first game at Citizens Bank Park, I was accompanied by a Phillies fan and two Mets fans.

Upon entering the stadium, I immediately began to contrast it with The Vet. For starters, it was warm and inviting. Ticket-takers all greeted you with a smile, bending down to pat the 6 year-old fan on his red cap and earnestly wishing for them to enjoy the game, whereas at The Vet, your ticket would be ripped with a grunt and a guttural growl by a hairy, unkempt man who smelled like he had given himself a hit of whiskey before work in order to keep warm.

The female ticket taker at the new stadium put her smile away when she saw us coming, and sized us up quite accurately with her scowl: ruffians, drunks. Young, arrogant men who would cause nothing but trouble and spoil the good time being had by all of the families around them. I never recalled seeing many families at The Vet, but here at Citizens Bank Park, we were vastly outnumbered by them. For years these families must have been hiding in their basements, fearful of the vagaries and raucous cat-calls emanating from the concrete behemoth known as Veterans' Stadium, and as soon as it imploded, they finally stepped out of their suburban hideaways and rejoiced in the streets. A multi-million dollar public relations project is how I thought of it. It didn't seem possible to change the inherently visceral nature of the Philly Sports Fan. To me, the new stadium was an attempt to potty train a litter of foam-mouthed wolverines.

Once we got through the gates, we were subjected to 21st century conditioning: designated smoking areas, escalators to the second tier, well-placed televisions and numerous eateries where one could order food and not miss a single pitch. Of course, if you know me, you know that I boo-hoo all things new. So smoking is unhealthy, but drinking alcohol is not as long as you pay $8.00 for a beer, then inhale a 1500 calorie cheesesteak for 10 bucks. And escalators? Are you kidding me? But that's just how I am. Take 20 bucks from me, replace it with a hundred dollar bill, and I'll complain that Ben Franklin was not even a president. I didn't want to be so bitter about the experience right from the start, but once I walked through those gates and saw all of the happy, smiling families, I knew that my behavior would not be welcomed, so why should I even bother to try to like it? I still wanted to get to my seat and maybe rouse the crowd a bit, bring some of that old fashioned Veterans' Stadium attitude to the new park.

The security guards at the new stadium were of a different breed as well. First off, the word "security" had been euphemized to "Staff Assistant," on their shirts. They were also predominantly women. Very modern. One of them asked for our tickets and walked us to our seats. Usually, at The Vet, if you found a security guard and asked him the location of your seat, he'd wave his hand in any general direction. "Over there, somewhere."

When Pedro Martinez took the mound for the Mets, my friend and I booed and hollered.

"Pedro," my friend yelled, "you suck donkey dick!"

I followed by politely calling Pedro "an indentured servant piece of shit."

It was vital to exploit all characteristics of the opposing team's pitcher: race, religion, marital status, age, etc. It's all part of the game.

The lady who showed us our seats came over and patted us on the shoulder. "No foul language," she hissed. "Watch your mouths."

The Citizens Bank Park Staff Assistant had suddenly become a matronly figure. No foul language? The whole Dionysian aspect of the game was quickly lost, as it suddenly felt more like we were being babysat. Imagine getting drunk off your ass and watching a game in your living room while your mother stood behind you burning a hole in the back of your shirt with her eyes.

We thought about maybe harassing Pedro in his native tongue, but our Spanish vocabulary was limited. I don't think it would have messed with his head if we asked him for a bathroom pass, or told him that we did not have the homework assignment, but maybe tomorrow we could have it, if that was okay.

A 5th inning error by the Mets second baseman earned him the label "stupid piece of shit" from our Mets fan companion. I looked back at our babysitter as she told one of her male constituents to talk to us. He came down to our seats and leaned on the aisle chair.

"Is there a problem here?" he asked us.

"Yeah, there is," said the verbal perpetrator. "Guy can't field for shit."

"There're families here," the man informed us. "Watch your language. Got it?"

We nodded our heads, and for the rest of the game I yelled generic enthusiasms. A 4-6-3 double play? "Go team."

A 10 pitch walk? "Good eye, batter."

A searing double in the right field corner? "We are proud of your athletic ability."

A hanging curve ball landing outside the plate but getting called a third strike by a half-blind umpire who wouldn't know a good pitch if it was sitting on his face? "Boo."

The game was tied in the bottom of the 9th, the Phillies at bat with a man on third and two outs. The batter hit a slow roller down the first base line. The pitcher fielded it and overthrew the first baseman. Game over, Phillies win!

"Fuck!" the Mets fan yelled in frustration. The madam security guard walked over as everyone was standing and giving an ovation to the drama and said to us, "Alright, that's it. Out. Get out now!"

Since we were already on our way out, her kicking us out of the stadium was moot but still hurtful. It was clear that we did not belong there. I led the charge out of Citizens Bank Park in hopes of getting a decent spot in traffic. While atop the escalator, we looked down and saw a large circle of people around two entangled figures in the center; one in Phillies red, the other in Mets blue. Normally I would have hurried down the stairs and gotten a front row seat for a good old fashioned Philly brawl, but something about the whole scene was amiss. The crowd around the two fighting were not cheering or really even looking at them, but were cautiously distant and working their way around them. Off to the side I saw a boy, perhaps four or five in a red Phillies cap, holding onto his father's hand as they walked to the exit. If a picture was taken up close, it would have looked like a beautiful Americana moment, but from my aerial viewpoint, the grander scene was more disturbing: the father trying desperately to get his son to safety in case the violence taking place a few feet away from them became contagious. Once I reached the bottom of the escalator, I did something I never thought I had the courage to do. I cut to the middle of the fight, past the frightened patrons, and put myself at center stage. The two opposing fans were tangled in a tight lock as I wedged myself between them and threw them apart with my arms while still walking out the gate.

The coolest part about it, I feel, is that I didn't lose stride while tossing them to neutral corners, nor did I look back. I don't know how the ruffians reacted to my imposition. Did they stare at me in disbelief? Did they go back to fighting, or did my intrusion give them a moment of clarity and reflection on their behavior? Either way, I envisioned myself as the complete opposite of who I actually was: strong and confident with a no-nonsense attitude. These men each outweighed me by at least 40 pounds, but I was able to fling them apart simultaneously, giving such an allusion of cool that I blush when thinking about it.

Before the Phillies/Mets incident, the bravest thing I had ever done was back in 1992 during a game of recess handball at Glenside Weldon Elementary School. The handball games were played in a small alcove at the joint of two perpendicular sections of the school, with the pitcher's mark, home plate, and bases spray painted on the blacktop. My team was batting, and the opposing pitcher, Chris, was known to throw the ball against our backstop in frustration. We must have been beating Chris pretty bad that day, because he gave a large wind-up to throw. The large wind-up was the cue for all of us standing by the wall to get out of harm's way. My teammates lined up on the opposite wall, but on this particular April morning in '92, I stayed behind the plate and readied myself. Chris hesitated when he saw my stoicism, and warned me to get out of the way, but still I didn't move. "I'm serious," he said. "I'm throwing this as hard as I can; you better get out of the way."

I only nodded.

I don't remember the release of the tennis ball from Chris's hand, but I do remembering opening my eyes and finding the fuzzy yellow ball in my left hand. There was a moment of silent disbelief on the playground as we all stared at the ball in my hand, and before anyone could say anything, the bell rang, ordering us back inside. Everyone erupted in celebration, patting me on the back and commending my bravery, wondering how in the world I was able to catch a speeding fast ball from seven feet away.

The incident at the stadium with the drunks surpassed what I had dubbed "The Catch" thirteen years earlier. It was a bittersweet moment though. Our wily Veterans' Stadium behavior was most assuredly no longer welcomed at Citizens Bank Park. I didn't believe it could happen until I saw the gross number of pacifist fans outnumbering those who would normally carry flare guns to the game. In the world of fandom, the Veterans with their Astroturf and losing habits would have to give way to the Citizens with their natural grass and N.L. East pennants, and in one moment I turned my back on the old ways of celebration. I recall the moment not in first person, but in third; an overhead view shot in slow motion. From the circle of spectators emerges a solitary figure, walking tall and coolly to the chaotic epicenter of the rivalry between two cities. Without missing a self-reliant step, he splits the center in two, the pieces flying away from his arms with such force that the two large men tumble to the ground in a heap of shame and weakness. And before he disappears into the opposite end of the crowd, never to be seen again, a stiff wind blows back his opened jacket, giving it a snap.

Contents

### Life Coach

"...But _Coach_ is a great show," I said, "Look, Luther is eating a sandwich and about to cause a ruckus."

"I wanna watch _Dora_ ," yelled Adam, age 3.

"Just try watching _Coach_. You might learn something."

Adam's mother had a job interview that morning, and because of a last minute cancellation by the babysitter, I was the unfortunate friend asked to watch her son.

" _Dora! Dora! Dora!_ " he exclaimed in frustration, and in order to avoid a tantrum, I reluctantly changed the channel.

I never liked children. Even when I was a child myself, other kids annoyed me. On the playground during recess, girls would skitter around in groups, yelling and screeching that typical young girl screech, and I would put my hands over my ears and plead, "Will you please be quiet, please?" When my childhood birthdays would near, my mother would recommend going to an arcade, or worse yet, Chuck E. Cheese, to which I would reply through my teeth, "But _Mother_ , there will be _children_ there!" Seeing, hearing, and interacting with other children always came in a distant 9th on my list of things to do, behind reading a Calvin and Hobbes book, or playing _Mega Man 2_ in the safe confines of my bedroom. I never imagined having a child of my own, or even babysitting one. But life always throws you a curveball, and it's these curveballs that cause introspective thought and maybe even build character, as Calvin's father always says.

Adam was a cute kid, I guess; if you find kids cute. He had blue eyes and bushy blonde hair, but all I could concentrate on was the overwhelming responsibility of keeping this tiny human being alive for the next 2 hours. He found a Starburst between the sofa cushions and asked if he could have it. Were 3 year olds allowed to eat Starbursts? They were gooey and small, sure, but large enough to choke and kill a child if placed in the wrong mouth. I gave him permission and watched breathlessly as he chewed, my arms extended and ready to grab him in case he started choking. I didn't know how to perform the Heimlich maneuver, but I did know what to do if you were choking alone: throw your chest against the back of a chair and force the stuck object out with a gush of air. It looked like the back of the kitchen chair had the sturdy craftsmanship to sustain the blow if Adam's chest was slammed against it.

Thankfully, the Starburst was swallowed without incident and we began watching _Dora the Explorer_. I had a problem with the show right from the start. First of all, the acting was simply atrocious. The woman who does the voice of Dora couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. Every other word she said was terribly emphasized, like, "We _need_ to _get_ to the _other_ side of the _bridge_! Can you help _us_?!" Her voice aroused a sense of panic in me, making me think that if I didn't show her how to cross the bridge, she and her monkey friend would surely drown. And she would often slip a Spanish word into a sentence, but without giving any explanation of what the Spanish word translates to in English. How are children learning from this broad? I thought.

Dora's world, in my opinion, was completely fucked. In her world, there were waterfalls placed in the middle of the ocean, as well as a bridge. A bridge in the middle of the ocean! On one end was the ocean, and on the other was, you guessed it, the ocean. And by god, in order to cross that bridge they had to answer various questions, and they would wait for the viewer to answer as well. They waited a really long time. Even after Adam would yell the answers to the television, Dora still waited, and Adam, who got annoyed easily, would scream at her until she started moving again.

Call me cynical, call me old-fashioned, but I grew up hanging out with the underground outcasts of Fraggle Rock, and spent many mornings on the mean streets of Sesame, and let me tell you, if you couldn't keep up with The Count, then you were left by the wayside. They gave you only a second or two to answer the question, then they would explain the answer. Explanations: that was the key difference between Dora and Big Bird. Big Bird taught, Dora yelled at you and never explained shit. If she were to be held responsible to explain her actions, she wouldn't be crossing bridges in the middle of the ocean, or hanging out near a rainbow in the middle of a deep, shady forest. No one was monitoring her; that was the problem.

"Hey Adam, are there waterfalls in the middle of the ocean?"

"Yeah, Mike."

"See? That's a problem. I really do think you would learn more if you watched _Coach_."

"Mike, you're silly. You're silly, Mike."

I decided not to push the issue with Adam. He wasn't my child, and all I needed to do was keep him alive, and for my benefit, quiet for the next two hours. Let his brain rot with lies, I thought. Just as long as he doesn't freak out, child-style, I'll be fine.

Adam was totally engrossed in the show. It looked like he was absorbing all of the crap Dora was feeding him, and I became a little mystified by the beauty of human life, and the awesome potential of the human brain. There is so much to be learned in life, I thought. There is so much hope and promise when you are a child, when your brain is a clean slate, and there are so many options, so many forks in the road of life that are yet to be traveled, and all of it seems so exciting. Looking at the serious concentration on Adam's face, his brow furrowed, his blue eyes wide, taking in all of the information he could, I began to wonder what he would look like when he was an adult. How tall he would grow, what kind of career he would have, what he would contribute to our society. I began to sense just a little bit of the appeal of becoming a parent. The idea of creating a human life with a person you love, of teaching a child the ways of the world, to mold him and make him strong, to know what's right and wrong, to not just make a human being, but also undertake the task of making him happy. Maybe the immense burden I felt watching a young child was equal to the amount of pride and triumph a parent would have when the child is happy and well-rounded. Adam looked so serious watching the show, and I smelled something funny.

"Mike, I poop-ted," Adam said while still staring at the television.

"Wait, what? Just now?"

"Yeah, Mike. I poopted." He reiterated.

"In your drawers?"

"Yeah, Mike."

"Well, go to the bathroom! It doesn't exactly smell like roses in here."

Before she left, Adam's mother had informed me that they had been working on his potty-training, but he had been constipated for the past couple of days. That was apparently no longer the case.

He went to the toilet, and I tried searching for a clean pair of underwear for him. I found some as he called from the bathroom, "Mike, Mike you have to help me."

"Help you do what, exactly?" I asked as I found him standing there, naked from the waist down, his butt and legs streaked with poop.

"You have to help me wipe," he said. "You have to wipe. Here." He handed me some toilet paper.

"Do I really have to do this? I mean, I thought potty-training was about taking care of your own dookie."

He laughed. "You're silly, Mike. You're silly. Come on, you have to wipe."

I balled up the toilet paper and started cleaning up the mess he had made on himself. He was holding all of the cards in this situation, and he knew it.

"Here, Mike," he said as he pointed to some on his leg. "Get that."

"Dude, how did you—it's on your fuckin' leg..."

The word slipped out way too easily, since I had absolutely no experience with children, and I thought that if I didn't act like I had just said a bad word, he would forget that he ever heard it. It didn't seem like he did though, for the sound of the new word must have tickled his ears and he let out a giggle. He continued to point out various places for me to clean up. After it looked like I got it all, I helped him put on his Sponge Bob underwear and we went back to the living room.

Ten more minutes of watching Dora walking across water, and Adam said again, "Mike, I poopted,"

"Very funny," I replied, "but I'm not buying it."

"Mike, I poopted."

"Hey, I didn't enjoy wiping all that stuff off your leg, and if you actually pooped, you should go to the bathroom."

He did.

"Mike, you have to help me," I heard him say. "You have to wipe."

I fearfully imagined Adam's mother coming home to find him naked and covered with his self-secreted filth while the marching band theme song of _Coach_ echoed from the living room. I reluctantly went to the bathroom, wiped him down once again, and before I put another pair of Sponge Bob underwear on him, I asked, "Are you done pooping? Cause honestly, this is a tad absurd."

"Yeah, I'm done, Mike. I'm done."

Back to the living room, where we sat comfortably for quite a while, but I could just sense that he wasn't done pooping. I knew he had more left. I kept looking at him, sneering, waiting for him to get that strained look on his face, and wondered if I could carry him to the toilet in time, like grabbing a puppy while it is urinating on the carpet and trying to get it outside before it finishes.

Every five or ten minutes I asked him, "Adam, do you have to go to the bathroom?"

"No, Mike. No."

"Adam, do you have to go to the bathroom?"

"No, Mike. No."

Adam, do you have to go to the bathroom?"

"Mike, I poopted."

The frustration I felt was unbearable because I had no way of releasing it. I couldn't shake him, I couldn't swear, I couldn't even punch a pillow, worried that I would scare him. All I could think of to say was, "Your Dora privileges are hereby revoked! We're watching Coach till your mom gets back!"

I wiped him down for a third time, not saying a word, not even trying to reason with him. He tried asking for baby powder for his butt, but I outright refused. It was bad enough I had to clean him up three times, I sure as hell wasn't about to literally blow smoke up his ass.

Back to the living room again, and he didn't really seem to enjoy Coach. It bored him, so he began climbing the furniture, which was fine, as long as he didn't defecate on me.

Shortly after the show ended, Adam's mother came home, and I felt somehow proud that he didn't injure himself or die while he was my responsibility. She asked me how he behaved, and before I could answer, Adam said, "Mommy, I poopted."

"Ok," she said, "Go to the bathroom and clean yourself, ok?"

"Ok, Mommy."

"Wait," I said. "Wait. He takes care of himself when he does that?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't have time to go over all that stuff with you. I was hoping he wouldn't have to go until after I got back."

Adam took me for a sucker, and he succeeded! He got himself a morning of _Dora the Explorer_ and three free wipe-downs, and I'm sure he was reveling in his cleverness.

I told his mother about the three pairs of dirty underwear, and how he took advantage of my babysitting ineptitude.

"...I mean, it was a real mess," I said. "It was even on his leg. I wiped, he pooped, wipe-poop, wipe-poop. I...I gotta go. I hope the interview went well."

I left somewhat abruptly, ashamed to admit that a three-year-old child outwitted me, and later that evening I received a phone call from Adam's mother as to where her son might have heard the "F" word, since her son had used it for the first time today at the dinner table.

"That's intriguing," I said into the phone. "Have you seen the shit they teach kids on _Dora the Explorer_?

Contents

### Flush the Floaters

My dad was relentless when it came to his career. A year out of High School, after dropping out of the first semester of college without ever lifting a book, he went to work for the phone company. Before the existence of my older brother and I, he was that guy you saw in the bucket next to the road repairing phone lines. Much like the people you see in movies from the 1970's, he wore a mustache, week-old flannel shirts, and tight blue jeans. He showed up everyday, put in the time. Knew his job; did it well. When my older brother, Phil, became a reality instead of a hypothetical, my dad and my mother married, and are together to this day, 30 years and still going. He continued to work for the phone company, and when the higher-ups realized that he wasn't a full blown idiot, that he actually knew what he was doing, he began to move up through the ranks. Yes, kids, believe it or not, that's how it used to work: you put forth the effort and you were rewarded by your company.

By the time he got moved into a more controlled environment, the central office of that area, I was old enough to shadow him at work on Christmas Eve each year. The year I recall was when I was 7 or so. My dad treated his fellow employees the same way he treated my brother and I. Phil was two years older than I, but it didn't matter when it came to lectures. Well, no, I shouldn't say "lectures," more along the lines of a quick remark like, "Don't be an idiot," or "Sleep at night." That's one of his favorite witticisms. "Don't be an idiot," he'd say, "Sleep at night, huh?" It's a good rule to live by. If you're ever worried about your next move in any situation, no matter how trivial, just think to yourself, "Would an idiot do this?"

When I went to work with him as a child, if an incident occurred that someone couldn't problem-shoot, or that was too urgent to put on their action-items list, my dad would come over to them, look at the situation, and resolve it effortlessly. When the operator, or whoever made the mistake, tried to rationalize their own faults, my Dad would get a bug-eyed look on his face. His eyes would grow wide, probably in disbelief. Most people, when they hear something that confuses them or that is completely irrational, they squint their eyes, as if they couldn't believe their ears, but not Tim Jenkins. No, his eyes would pop out of his sockets, like he was taking an optimal picture of this epic mental collapse.

The woman in front of the computer would say to him, "Well, Mr. Jenkins, I figured that the C-79 fuse was overloaded, so I transferred it over to C-80, hoping to alleviate the burden on the one tower..."

And I remember seeing my dad's face as she tried to explain, the whites of his eyes in plain view for the whole office to see, and he'd say, "Well, don't DO that next time," as if she were caught eating her own boogers. I knew the look; he gave Phil and I the same speech after he came home from work one day and found that somebody had spray-painted the kitchen with Coca-Cola.

"Well, Dad," we'd try to explain, "The soda fell on the ground, and then we opened it and it..."

"Well," he said in response, his eyes sticking out further than his nose, "Don't DO that next time. Sleep at night, huh?" It wasn't an angry tone that he took with us; it was one of those tones of, "Jesus, has logic failed you that badly?" It seemed embarrassing to him that one of his own offspring could mentally falter, even at a prepubescent age.

My dad's career was typical of the American Dream. By the time he earned his corner office, I was in college, and I bought him a framed print of the Grand Canyon for Christmas. He had finally moved up to a six figure salary. That was when I finally began to see my father as a man _trying_ to provide rather than my dad who simply does it. If I couldn't get him something for his new corner office, I wouldn't have gotten him anything that year. It was too big of a deal; his whole life, our whole family, our way of life was based on the success he had been accumulating since before my older brother was born. I wouldn't have been able to go to college if it weren't for his dedication. Well, yeah, I might have been accepted, but I would have been kicked out for not making payments on time. And as for my brother Phil, he was fortunate to get into a nice union job with the phone company thanks to our dad. Dad pulled some strings and got Phil into Pole-Climbing school, only to have Phil drop out after a couple weeks. Months later Phil wanted back in, which forced our dad to exhaust whatever resources and favors he may have had in reserve in order to make it happen. I don't know what promises he had to make or whose ass he had to kiss in order to achieve it, but I do remember when my dad came home from work that day. He was in the kitchen, shoulders slumped, his thinning hair in disarray. He shook his head and said to me, "Now, don't you ask to get in, because I'm done. Don't ask."

"Don't worry," I said, "I wasn't planning on it."

I was in college at the time.

I was going to be rich!

Phil now makes nearly four times the amount of money I make, and I will admit that it does get to me sometimes and I will mention it nearly every time I see him. If we're standing in line at a convenience store and he has the gall to pick up a Skor Bar or some Bubble Tape (that's 6 feet of bubble gum. For you. Not them,) and put it in with my pile of stuff, I don't mind making a scene.

"Whaaaaaat?!" I'll screech. "You can pay my monthly bills with four days' work! Put it back! Put the Bubble Tape back!"

Of course, he doesn't make it easy for me, either. He'll send me a message on my phone just to let me know that he is sitting in the company truck, doing a crossword puzzle and collecting time and a half overtime pay. If he asks for some help with the crossword, my answer is always the same. Hint: seven letters, slang for rectal orifice.

The end of my dad's career with the phone company was atypical of the American Dream. It used to be that a man worked for so many years, showing loyalty to the company, and was rewarded with a cheesy gold watch, a small gathering of people making lame jokes, perhaps even a cake. But somewhere along the line, that all changed. One day, the company's higher-ups bring in this young college graduate and say to my dad, "Here. Teach this guy how you do your job." It was unfair. It was tricky. It was clever. In order to keep his job for a few more weeks, my dad had to train somebody who would do his job for less money. Now, I don't know how you train a 25 year-old to work two offices state-wide, or how to establish communications in late September/ Early October of 2001 in New York City, or about being called a "scab" and other callous names by his own workers when there's a strike, or about sleeping in his office, working 20 hour shifts to keep the place running, but when the training of the kid was complete, a woman approached my dad with a pamphlet and before she even started her spiel about retirement, he said, "Just give me the papers, I'll sign 'em." It happened on a Wednesday, I think. Who retires at 1:00 on a Wednesday afternoon?

He was forced into early retirement, meaning that he still has to work another five and a half years before collecting social security. They really boned him. Honestly. I know that it's all about money: how the company can save X amount of dollars and blah blah blah, which is understandable, only the price for that particular type of profit has loyalty as a casualty. It seems to me that companies aren't just greedy (greed has always been the name of the game), but they seem to be insecure as well. I imagine corporations to be these insecure little girls who won't commit because they believe the person they're with will just leave eventually. Trust was lost somewhere, either when the insecure little girl got too fat, or the person they were with decided to start sleeping around with other corporations. Either way, they need a television psychiatrist to sit them down and say gently, "Who hurt you, Verizon, hmm? Who hurt you?"

My dad now works at a corporate home improvement warehouse, wearing a blue apron with a nametag. He does the returns. At first, I thought that the transition had jaded him. He takes orders from people who are fifteen to twenty years his junior. One floor manager, a perky-voiced mother of two, inquired about his lack of charity at the workplace. Most of the other tellers had a whole slew of clover shaped cut-outs that signified a customer's donation to a charity. My dad's station was bare. "Tim," she told him, trying to be helpful and suggestive, "we need more clovers around your desk. You have to up-sell the clovers."

To which my dad responded, "Um, actually, I don't. I don't have to sell these things at all." Then he told her to go away.

When his 30 year old manager made a scheduling mistake, my old man shot his bug-eyes out at him and said, "Just...just how fuckin' stupid are you?"

Just as my dad was easing into his "retirement," it just so happened that the management at the mail-order catalogue warehouse were offering me a supervisor's position. Although I wasn't planning on spending my whole career at Regina Carter Gifts, I felt that maybe the place did need some fresh blood. Management was getting a little long in the tooth so to speak, and perhaps with a little insight I could help the place run a little smoother. I would bring sound reasoning back to the company and bridge that ever-increasing gap of hatred between the day shift and night shift. It was a monumental task to be sure, but I was about to be entrusted with responsibilities, Supervisor responsibilities, and they wouldn't offer it to me if they didn't think I could do it. I told my parents about it. My mother was happy for me, and my dad stuck his eyes out at me and said, "Chase the carrot, Michael. Chase the carrot."

The metaphor was completely lost on me, so I said excitedly, "I start training on Monday!"

I trained for a week, filling out the proper paper work, doing the quality-checks, spot-checks, error-checks, and every other type of check to ensure that quality merchandise was being sent to its appropriate destination. It seemed like a cushy job; I knew nearly all aspects of the place, I could trouble-shoot nearly all problems sent my way through experience alone, and being trusted by management motivated me to work even harder. The most important part of my plan as supervisor was to open the field of communication between the workers and management, and to especially notice and reward good work, an idea that had been lost on management since the mid-twentieth century.

However, while clocking in for my third day as an official supervisor, I was told that I was being demoted.

"Wait—what?" I asked my boss. "Did I do everything ok? If something was wrong just tell me and I can fix it."

"No, that's not it," he told me. "You need to start stocking again because we're getting busy."

"But you told me you were making me a supervisor so that when it gets busy, Mark didn't have to supervise two areas at once."

"Yeah, I know," he said before walking away, "but we're busy."

It still doesn't make sense to me. But what did make sense right then was the carrot metaphor. I remembered a Looney Tunes cartoon from years ago and said in a moment of clarity, "Oh! The mule chases the carrot that's on a string!" and my enthusiasm dropped when the metaphor came full circle, "But the mule...he'll...he'll never get...it..."

So I went back to my usual strenuous routine at the warehouse, only I felt betrayed and my attitude took a quick turn for the worse. If you're working at a job—any job-- you always hope for something a little more; that maybe your hard work will be rewarded with a promotion or a pay raise or maybe even just a scanty amount of respect. Just some form or idea of escape from the present situation is necessary, but because I worked hard and put forth the effort I was told that I cannot go any further. It wasn't until after I received a photo from the day shift general manager, Jeff, that I grew a voice.

Jeff was in his mid-forties and like most managers he was an easy target for workmen's ridicule. His wardrobe was that of an effeminate man who was unsure about the ways of masculinity. Jeff's long blond hair was parted neatly on the left side and flowed around to the back of his neck where it formed a fluffed up, curled mullet that tucked itself right up to the back of his skull. The mullet was delicate, and although I cannot say whether or not it displayed any type of homosexual nuance, I can say that time was spent on the placement, length, and frothiness of the mullet. Time was spent. However, his delicate follicular and facial features were immediately juxtaposed when scanning further down. He wore flannel; heavy flannel, the kind reserved for lumberjacks and shady hitchhikers who carry switchblades. Only the flannel was neatly tucked into his jeans. I could imagine him in Sears, holding up a sample shirt from the rack and asking his wife, "Honey, is this...is this what men wear? ...Well, ok, if you say so, but I'll make sure it doesn't dangle."

His wardrobe reflected his managerial style: uncertain, unsure, unconfident, and frightened of any kind of confrontation, which led to him taking photos of various things around the warehouse. It used to be that he would walk around the warehouse and make notes on a legal pad, copy them, and distribute them to the supervisors, but he acquired a new toy that year: a Blackberry phone. Now he could take a photograph of what was wrong, e-mail it, then send it to be printed out in X amount of copies. What made it so terrible was that Jeff was not concerned with the amount of work we were getting out per evening, or how much time was spent in each area. What concerned him was whether or not a skid was inside the yellow-taped line on the concrete floor or if a piece of cellophane was left hanging on the edge of an opened box. He would take the picture, not say where he took it, and the next day my night shift manager would be walking around the building, holding the printed photo and trying to determine where it was taken so that the near calamity could be remedied.

Two days after my demotion from the illustrious title of Supervisor, my boss handed me a photo taken by Jeff. It was a picture of two boxes placed underneath what appeared to be the Stocker Desk from the "SR" area, with one word written above the photo in frilly cursive: "WHY?"

I thought I had snapped in my workplace before. I've kicked boxes in frustration, punched them, hurled them, even punted them. I've shouted, screamed, sworn to my loudest capacity, but the real snap occurred when I saw the photo. It was a deep snap, too. I always figured that it would sound like a slowly-falling branch from a dead tree, but it wasn't a long, boring creak. It was a quick flash of the wrists, like a crisp carrot being broken in two.

I carefully took the photo from my boss, analyzed it and said, "Ok, I'll take care of it."

I went to my standing desk in the "SR" area, grabbed a pen and wrote underneath Jeff's "WHY?"

"See reverse side for explanation \--------"

And this is what I wrote:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I APPRECIATE BEING GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO RESPOND TO YOUR QUERY REGARDING THE TWO CASES LOCATED UNDERNEATH THE "SR" STOCKER DESK. IT IS CRUCIAL THAT IDEAS, EXPLANATIONS, AND VIEWPOINTS ARE EXCHANGED TO ENSURE THE COMPANY'S GROWTH AND SUCCESS, AND I'M HAPPY TO CONTRIBUTE.

I WOULD FIRST LIKE TO ADDRESS THE WANDERING BOX OF 'SMORES MAKERS'(SRD 8358) THAT IS NOW NESTLED UNDERNEATH THE DESK AND NOT ON THE STOCK SHELF WHERE IT BELONGS. I REMEMBER THAT SRD 8358 IS A RATHER POPULAR PRODUCT, AND CASES WERE ORDERED IN FREQUENT MASS QUANTITIES. I, SADLY, CANNOT RECALL MY EXACT MODE OF THINKING AT THE TIME OF THE MISPLACED CASE, BUT THERE ARE A FEW THEORIES:

1. SEEING THAT THE STOCK SHELF WAS COMPLETELY FULL AT THE TIME, I PUT THE BOX UNDER THE DESK, THINKING, "I'LL JUST PUT THAT CASE ON THE FLOWRACK WHEN IT EMPTIES OUT. I MEAN, WHO DOESN'T LIKE S'MORES?" ONLY, I FORGOT ALL ABOUT IT, AND IT RESULTED IN INSUBORDINATION.

2. THE CASE MAY HAVE BEEN ON MY CART, READY TO BE NEATLY CUT AND PLACED ON THE FLOWRACK WHEN ONE OF THE THREE PICKERS I CATER TO BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 3:30 AND 5:30 (NOT TO MENTION WORKING THE BOX CAROUSEL AS WELL AS PUTTING AWAY THE LINESTOCK FOR AREAS "SY" "SN" AND "SR") CALLED FOR A HOT NUMBER AND I ACTED SWIFTLY BUT CARELESSLY, TURNING MY CART AT SUCH A SPEED THE BOX OF S'MORES MAKERS SPUN OFF THE END OF THE CART AND INTO THE DUSTY DEPTHS UNDER THE DESK. AFTER RUNNING UPSTAIRS TO GET EVEN MORE HOT NUMBERS, THEN REFILLING THE CAROUSEL, THEN EMPTYING ANYWHERE BETWEEN FIVE TO ELEVEN CASES OF LINESTOCK, THE S'MORES MAKERS MIGHT HAVE BECOME A CASUALTY OF MY OWN RACING BUT FORGETFUL MIND.

3. PERHAPS THE CASE WAS PLACED THERE PURPOSELY BY ME; A CONSCIOUS ACT OF DEFIANCE THROUGH BLATANT STOICISM. IT MAY SEEM FAR-FETCHED, BUT WITH MY ATTITUDE AT THE WORKPLACE, I CAN NEITHER SUPPORT THE THEORY NOR DENY IT.

NO MATTER THE ACTUAL REASON BEHIND THE MISPLACED BOX, IT DID OCCURR ON MY TIME, AND I TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY, REGARDLESS OF HOW BADLY IT MAY HAVE SCARRED THE COMPANY.

MOVING ON, I WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS THE OPENED CASE OF 'COUNTING MONEY JARS' THAT WERE LEFT HAPHAZARDLY ON THE FLOOR LIKE SO MANY SCRAPS OF CARDBOARD AND DUST-BUNNIES. SEEING THAT THE CASE WAS OPENED, I CAN ONLY DEDUCE THAT THE PRODUCT WAS AT ONE POINT ON THE FLOWRACK. HOWEVER, THE FLOWRACK WAS SO FULL (AS IT ALMOST ALWAYS IS), THAT THE ASS-END OF THE CASE JUTTED OUT OVER THE BACK OF THE FLOWRACK AND WAS LEFT VULNERABLE TO THE ELEMENTS. PERHAPS AN ORDER PICKER FROM THE OTHER END PUSHED THE ROW OF CASES BACK, CAUSING THE ITEM TO BE THE VICTIM OF EARTH'S HARSH GRAVITATIONAL PULL. THE MOST LIKELY THING THAT HAPPENED, THOUGH, WAS THAT SOMEONE WAS WALKING AROUND WITH A BLACKBERRY CAMERA PHONE AND HIS/HER SHOULDER KNOCKED THE CASE OVER. AFTER THE SOUND ALERTED HIM/HER, HE/SHE LOOKED DOWN AND EXCLAIMED, "OH, THE INCOMPETENCE!" AND SNAPPED A PHOTO, ONLY TO LATER ASK, "WHY?"

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.

PLEASE NOTE:

_INGENIOUS METHOD OF USING THE ALWAYS MORE COSTLY COLORED INK FOR THE PHOTOGRAPH. I HAVE NEVER SEEN MY OWN MISTAKES BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION IN SUCH VIVID HUES_.

I was proud of that letter. It was nearly 550 words and only took me fifteen minutes to write it with only two false starts and absolutely no spelling errors. I was so angry, so keyed up, that the frustration just flowed out of me and onto the page. I felt cleansed after writing it. I took a deep breath through my nose and slowly exhaled through my mouth, releasing the anger. Yet, I needed something more. I needed closure. I had an ex-girlfriend that did something similar. When something angered her, she went over to her desk and wrote a letter to the person that upset her, relinquishing all of her frustration to the letter and never mailing it. I remember her sitting down at her desk and writing two letters to me after I had angered her. After she wrote them, she put them in the top drawer of her desk and she came back to bed as if nothing had ever happened. That kind of emotional release was admirable, but unfortunately, I was not as emotionally stable. As long as the letter to Jeff was in my hands, no one would see it and my job would still be somewhat secure (at least until the layoff in the Spring), but, no. Screw 'em, I thought. Just...screw 'em.

I gave the letter to my boss, and after he turned the picture over and saw an entire page filled with tiny angry lettering, I thought his head was going to explode.

"What the hell is this?" he asked. "Are you serious?"

"He asked 'why.' I'm answering his question."

The next day, my boss pulled me aside and decided that he and I should have a little chat. He sat me down at his desk and began, "Listen, we know that you're very frustrated here and we want you to know that we appreciate all the work you're doing here."

I looked around the room and thought, _We? Who is we?_

"You're a very smart guy, and we know you're a lot smarter than nearly everybody working here, but things are done a certain way."

When he said that, I reflected back to earlier in the day while I was at my local convenience mart making myself a cup of coffee. I opened a small disposable creamer container, poured the creamer into the trash bin and dropped the empty vessel into my filled cup. It was the second time I made the mistake that week and it was only Wednesday.

"I am not as smart as you might think," I told him. "All I am saying is that this place is _ridiculous_."

He tried to sway me back to the company-man mode of thinking, tried to stroke my ego and appeal to my vanity by saying that I was better than this person or that person, but I wasn't falling for it. He wanted to make me think that management knows how great I am, but they were unable to show it through pay-raises or promotions, and all I could think was, "Management should never judge workers while speaking to their other workers." They lost me. Completely. After my boss's speech ended, I nodded my head and asked for the letter back. It was a good letter. Now I felt it could go into my top desk drawer.

Just... screw 'em. Screw who, exactly? I don't know, just... _them_. The same people who my boss speaks for when he reprimands me and says, "We know you work very hard, but..." and, "we appreciate all that you're doing, but..."

After seeing how my dad was treated after pouring so many years of his life into one company, I just found the whole idea of being a company-man completely pointless. So, I float. I work the warehouse job in the fall and winter, and after I am subjected to the layoff near spring, I float on over to the golf course and try to get as many hours as I can, earning minimum wage and hopefully make just enough to coast me through to the fall when the warehouse work picks up. I have no insurance benefits. I have no retirement plan, no 401K, no IRA. They're all acronyms for ideas and plans that I cannot believe in.

My attitude has shown mild improvement at the warehouse. I am not yelling or kicking and punching as much, but I am also not trying to change things for the better. It all just...is. When my boss hands me a photograph taken by Jeff, I will either laugh at it, or immediately crumple it up and throw it out before getting frustrated. Sometimes I'll screw with Jeff. I'll put some things out of place, or leave things behind, just to get him worked up so he'll take more photographs, just to let him know that I really don't care and that his photos are an absolutely fruitless endeavor. He will never confront me about it. I've worked there for three years, and he has never said an entire sentence to me. One day, while he was leaving work, I was going to the break room, and he held the door open for me. I didn't thank him. I didn't politely refuse his gesture. I walked through and said, "Damn straight!"

Screw 'em.

Thinking about my dad at his new job motivates me to find new ways to slightly disrupt the flow of my place of work. Just recently, I snagged myself a maintenance work order form and filled it out. In the area of the sheet marked, _Tools required_ , I wrote: Pliers, vacuum tube, coat hanger, miner's hat, petroleum jelly.

_Area of problem_ : Jeff's anal cavity.

_Description of job_ : To gently (or harshly, depending on how he likes it), extract Jeff's Blackberry phone from his own rectum. If extraction is deemed too damaging to host's body, at least turn the phone off of "vibrate" mode-- Manager is getting too much pleasure from that particular phone setting.

I chuckled a bit when I wrote it, and I thought for a moment that maybe what I wrote was a bit over the line, but then I remembered my Dad, the former company-man working at his new job in the home-improvement store. The corporate heads of the company decided that, for morale purposes, employees should get together every morning in Aisle 3 and recite a chant of the name of the store, ya know, for camaraderie. Everyone puts their hands in the middle of the circle, like a quarterback calling a Hail–Mary late in the fourth quarter. Fortunately for my dad, he's stuck in the return section and can't participate, so when he sees one of his blue-aproned brethren making his way to aisle three, he stands there, bug-eyed as they go past, braying, "Bahhhh.....Bahhh....."

Yeah, I think I'll hand the order in to maintenance. They could use the challenge

Contents

### Talk to Your Hand

When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon, his footprint was made with silicone boots. The development of flexible, thin-film silicone in the 1970's paved the way for cell phones, PDA's, and laptop computers. In the restoration of the Statue of Liberty in the 1980's, silicone sealants were used to preserve one of our nation's most cherished possessions. Car airbag protection was increased in the 1990's thanks to silicone rubber coatings, saving thousands of lives. And today, at this moment, a man is having his most intense orgasm inside the mouth of a life-sized silicone doll.

The Real Doll is an anatomically correct mannequin used for a lonely man's masturbation habits. It's not quite Kim Cattrall from the movie Mannequin, or Kirstie Swanson from Mannequin: On the Move, but it's still a giant leap in sex doll evolution. Before the Real Doll came along, forsaken masturbators had to waste valuable erection time and energy breathing life into what was nothing more than a reinforced rubber balloon in the crude shape of a woman. Their hands were merely cupped paws with no individual digits and if they needed to live a happy long life, the relationship would have to go strictly platonic after a few romps in the sack; just another night with T.V dinners and sitcoms. Her penetrable skin would not be able to sustain the rigors of a sex-based relationship.

I had heard about the Real Doll a few years ago on the radio and never thought that something so silly would ever be a successful business venture. "Imagine," I thought to myself, "how pathetic you must be in order to have sex with a doll that can cost upwards of $10,000." Yes, the Real Doll can cost anywhere from $6,000-$10,000, depending on which features you would like, such as extra pubic hair, special wigs, an option for a shemale body type (which leads into all sorts of vagaries concerning penile form and detachable testicles), larger breasts, et cetera. (Don't worry, as of 2008, the new ultra-realistic labia will come standard with your Real Doll at no extra cost to you!)

It's been fifteen years since the entrance of the Real Doll onto the masturbation scene, and I watched a documentary of its effects on three men who had purchased such an item.

The show profiled three men: one from Britain and two from the States. It's strange how something can evolve due to human interaction. The Real Doll was of course initially used for sexual purposes, but the longer a product stays around, the more varied the usage becomes. For example, the Frisbee Pie Company accidentally created the flying disk. And to stay true to the silicone theme, Silly Putty was originally a rubber substitute, but ended up as what many consider to be one of the most innovative toys of the 20th century. Much like Frisbee Pie tins and Silly Putty, the Real Doll was offered as one thing but soon evolved into another. To some men, their feelings towards the doll quickly surpassed the realm of strict sexual release and spilled over into an emotional attachment that gave these dolls more life than anyone would care to know.

"I think she might be upstairs sleeping it off," says Edgar, a 50 year old computer technician from Southern England. The camera follows Edgar upstairs to the bedroom, where indeed, his doll Claudia is wasting the day away. "Yeah, she's still asleep," he confirms. If he wants to wake her, he has to pry her face off and replace it with one that has opened eyes. Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey! "She just lies there, she's very static." Claudia, of course, likes to sleep in the buff, and does not get shy in the face of the camera (her nipples even stay erect, despite the boom mic and camera lights around her.) Edgar says that Claudia's companionship is still better than no female companionship at all.

Edgar likes to hang-glide. He feels as though it impresses his girlfriend, and well, all women really. He'll bring Claudia with him when he ventures off a hillside. She doesn't hang-glide with him, though. Instead, she sits in the car and watches Edgar's brave antics with a sign on her shirt that reads, "Do not try to rescue me. I am a Real Doll."

The introduction of the Real Doll into Edgar's life has gotten him interested in photography. He enjoys taking a couple of his dolls into alleyways and posing them in certain nonchalant positions, like sitting on a bench or reading a magazine. In order to make one stand up on its own, he has to attach a hook to her back and hang her from a pipe or a gate, but in a natural-looking way.

Edgar says that there are plenty of attractive women in his area, but they have absolutely no interest in him. According to Edgar, all women find him repulsive, and the Real Doll takes away the loneliness he would normally feel in such a judgmental world.

In Edgar's spare bedroom are his mother's possessions, exactly how they were when she died a few years ago. All clocks are set to proper time, and everything is properly dusted to make the room as fresh as it was on the last day she was alive. Even the rubbish bins have held the same waste his mother wanted gone many moons ago.

This sounds eerily familiar, I thought: A person who everyone finds disgusting, who has no friends, no sympathizers, and is completely obsessed with his dead mother.

"It's Jason Vorhees," I shouted from my recliner. "That's the same background as Jason fuckin' Voorhees!"

"Who?" My girlfriend, Tina, asked from the couch next to me.

"Jason Voorhees! He killed 154 people, not including _Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning_ , and the first movie, where his mother did all the killing."

"Oh," she said.

"You see, in _Friday the 13th: A New Beginning_ , the actual killer was just an ordinary man dressed as Jason who wanted revenge on these kids who..." I trailed off, and turned my attention back to the documentary.

Bobcat is a 20-something man living with his parents in Michigan. He owns a Real Doll. He says that his Real Doll, Samantha, causes quite a bit of disappointment with his parents, especially his father. "He sees it as unnatural and strange," he tells us. Bobcat enjoys rubbing Samantha's feet when her body parts are not placed in storage. Kissing is the act that Bobcat enjoys the most, seeing as how Samantha has three separate, detachable tongues. "One of them is curved. I don't know why I have that one."

I don't want to know why either, Bobcat.

Samantha has become an anchor for Bobcat. When she first appeared on the doorstep of his parents' house, the relationship was all about sex, sex, sex, but it has now become something gentler. Bobcat knows what to expect from Samantha, and from that, he draws comfort.

Bobcat's parents were not involved with the filming of the documentary, not that I could blame them. I wonder how honest Bobcat is at dinner parties or other gatherings when he is asked about his relationship status. Does he become embarrassed? Does he stretch the truth, saying that Samantha is simply a paraplegic-invalid who couldn't make it to the party, or does he boldly preach the benefits of fornicating with inorganic beings, much to the chagrin of the other party-goers? I only thought about this scenario briefly because I soon realized that Bobcat most likely doesn't get invited anywhere, hence his appearance in a Real Doll documentary, hence the Real Doll herself.

Tom is a 48-year old from Texas. In stereotypical Texan fashion, he loves excess and his lust for Real Dolls is gluttonous. He currently has 7 Real Dolls, and enjoys their company strictly as a sexual hobby, nothing more. "They don't offer me anything by means of companionship," he informs us. He tells the cameras, he tells us at home, that he is simply having fun with sex, and the Real Doll is his favorite way of enjoying his sexual proclivities. He makes it clear to us that he does not have an addiction. He speaks of things clearly and seemingly soundly, but when he shows us his garage, he completely loses all credibility.

The perimeter of his two-car garage is lined with disembodied parts and entire silicone women stuffed into crates. Others were disassembled and placed into boxes with various limbs sticking out, a couple of disjointed legs hanging out of a container, two left arms clutching onto the flap of a liquor box... With so many body parts in his garage, there was hardly any room for Tom to maneuver. The narrator told us that his hobby was causing him to run out of space for all of his dolls. Underneath his bed was a forgotten sexual casualty, her arms sticking out underneath the bed-skirt, her mouth agape in a perpetual expression of helplessness and horror.

"Welcome to Real Doll Heaven," he exclaimed to us, right before he showed us his collection of imported Swedish pubic hair: made from actual Swedes!

Tom's behavior was not as intimate and multi-dimensional as Edgar or Bobcat. It turns out that Tom did in fact have a girlfriend (pulse included!), and had told her about the dolls, but nothing too specific since the relationship was still fairly new.

"Now that's the freak," Tina exclaimed, pointing at the television. "That's the one you have to watch out for!" She had been lying on the couch, laughing through the whole show, but once we were introduced to Tom, she sat up straight and took on a tone of disgust.

"What about Jason Voorhees?" I asked.

"That's nothing," she said. "Look at how this guy treats the dolls."

Of course, the camera cut to one of Tom's dolls on the couch, her legs spread wide as Tom shoved a bottle cleaner up her vaginal orifice. "She really starts to smell like fish after a while if you don't clean her," he said.

Yeah, _she_ starts to smell like fish. I'm sure your semen has a delicious lilac scent, Tom.

Tom's girlfriend, Claire, wasn't aware of the extent of Tom's masturbatory habits, but was still opened minded as long as Tom was honest about it. Poor Claire. She was the same age as Tom, but her face was a bit more weathered, her graying hair tied back into a tight bun. Claire didn't seem entirely closed off to the idea of finally finding true love, but my guess was that she owned at least three cats.

"Any more cats than three," I remarked, "and she is completely gone."

But, to give credit to Tom, he was going to be honest with Claire about his Real Dolls, only he was going to do it in the most dramatic, eerie way possible.

Tom invited Claire over on his birthday to make her dinner. The scene was set in Tom's house, adorned with birthday party paraphernalia: colorful helium balloons were floating near the ceiling, a "Happy Birthday" banner hung in the living room, and a party hat sat on Tom's head. It looked like the place was set for a full blown bash, only there were no other guests besides Claire. I gripped the arms of the recliner in awkward suspense as Tom's two worlds prepared to collide. I knew there were other guests at the party, but they were waiting in the other room, not for Tom, but for Claire, and although these party guests couldn't speak, they would still shout "Surprise!" in their own way.

Tom greeted Claire in the kitchen and led her into the dining room where three Real Dolls were sitting at the table, scantily clothed, deflated party blowers in their mouths, plastic party hats resting on their heads. The cameraman was sure to focus in on Claire's reaction, which was a reaction I had never seen before, nor want to see again. Her hand went over her mouth as it opened in a shocked smile, only her eyes widened with disgust, and her cheeks sucked in with fear. Claire got what she asked for: Tom's honesty. She didn't ask for the Real Dolls to leave the party, and instead sat and had dinner with Tom and the three other women in his life.

At the end of the show, a small epilogue came on to say that shortly after Tom's birthday dinner, Claire ended the relationship.

"Oh, I know what happened there," I said. "I'll bet you he had the stones to actually bring one of those things into the bedroom, and much to her surprise, Claire probably got pushed off to the side, forcing her to simply watch her boyfriend make love to a doll instead of her."

"Good for her! That is completely sick," Tina said in summary.

Of course, it was easy to call these men freaks; to sit back and judge them in order to feel better about our own problems. The men of the Real Doll world were at the lowest of the totem pole where emotional stability was concerned. Of course, I have my own problems, but my counter-argument would be to say, "Well, at least I don't have sex with a _doll_."

Once the credits of the show rolled, and the feeling of self-righteousness passed, I began to fear that I might become akin to Edgar, Bobcat, or Tom. My desire to be alone usually greatly outweighs my urge to be with someone. If I actually followed through and became exclusively alone, would the Real Doll tempt me? Would I lie awake late on one of those nights, on the random occasion of feeling lonely rather than content, and clutch my pillow, and would the pillow be enough to console me? Would the loneliness escalate from pillow, to teddy bear to blow-up doll, to... Real Doll? Would self-humiliation be the price of my needed isolation? It was an honest concern.

Tina and I wouldn't make it in the long run. I knew myself too well to actually think we would spend the rest of our lives together, and I think she knew it too. Every time the idea of moving in together was brought up, I quickly shot it down. But that night, after the documentary, my commitment issues were looking quite trivial compared to what we had just witnessed on the television. My body was close to Tina's that night and I watched her sleep, her breast rising and falling at a soft, steady pace. I put my hand across her chest to feel her heartbeat, and I smirked as she touched back.

Contents

### Marathon Man

I see the forks in the road. All through our formative years, we kept in a tight pack and ran through all sorts of obstacles together, hurdling over various addictions, sprinting past our insecurities, and keeping to the inside track of our own happiness and well-being. That's how I view my close friendships: as a marathon run towards an unforeseen goal. Individually, we had no real set direction, but together, wherever we traveled, we knew it was the right way. More paths opened up with each year, more options for each of us. The most startling, for me, was the trail leading to the altar. The road itself was treacherous, time-consuming, and dark. And past the altar was an unknown path, leading to an unknown world. A world I wanted no part of.

Joe was the first to go. He and his girlfriend of four years, Jen, were set to marry in late October. Joe was the dark horse of our bet amongst friends to see who would get married first. We all thought for sure that Brendan would go number 1, but his mental rolodex of dead baby jokes, along with his maniacal clown laugh, kept him from crossing the threshold before the rest of us. There were also strong odds in favor of Andrew, who would likely be the first to marry as well as the first to hold the title of "First Annulment" simultaneously, most likely with a Vegas stripper or call girl. The rest of us were either loveless at the time or had no urge whatsoever to venture down the road of matrimony. Hearing the word "marriage" I only envisioned grotesque mini-vans, screaming children, a poor, hollow, schlep of a man pushing a shopping cart down the Housewares section of some never-ending mega-store; his wife's purse nestled in the child seat of the cart while his wife peruses various options for their new dinette set. If asked for his opinion and tells her what he likes, she will inevitably respond with, "No, no, we don't like that."

Death, I believe I called it.

I tried keeping up with my friends on the journey to the unforeseen land of the altar, but I pulled a terrible cramp early and decided to sit out for the rest of the journey. "No, Joe, that's ok. You can hoof it to the church. I'm gonna snag a cab and meet you there, but then I gotta split, ok?"

Despite my strong feelings on the subject, I had never been to a wedding before. My main concern was that I would somehow single handedly ruin Joe and Jen's day. This day was going to be one of the most memorable days of their lives, and although I was honored to be there to witness it, I also didn't want to be seen or heard. The less I do, I thought, the less chance I have of ruining this. When I was eleven years old, my grandmother was planning a surprise party for my grandfather's 70th birthday at a fancy restaurant. I was left in charge of staking out the front door for my grandfather and then darting inside so everyone could get ready. Grandpa drove past the front and came through the back door. I missed him. He ended up walking in and surprising the very guests who were supposed to surprise him. People turned around one by one and slowly said, "Oh! Um, surprise! Happy birthday!"

As my grandfather slowly approached people whose backs were turned and who were having their own conversations, my grandmother pulled me aside and scolded, "You've ruined it!!"

Reflecting back on that reverse surprise party fifteen years ago, I made a set of ground rules for when I was inside the church that day. Sit up straight in the pew. Don't yawn. Don't chuckle. Don't breathe loudly. Keep your hands clasped. Don't make any vocal observations. And if you sneeze, Michael, I swear to Christ...

A Catholic wedding is full of random cues for prayers, some prefaced with the priest raising his arms and saying, "Let us pray," while other cues were simply picked up by close followers of the church, those who had been to enough weddings and Sunday services to know what was coming next. Even though my girlfriend at the time, Tina, had given up on formal worship years ago, she knew the time to reach to the bottom of the pew in front of us and pull out a long padded bar which I thought was a footrest. This is a nice respite, I thought as I placed my feet up on what I now know to be the kneelers. An older woman, probably an Aunt or 2nd cousin of Joe's shot me a judgmental look as I corrected my faux pas. As I wiped the dirt from the bottom of my shoe off of the kneeler, my eyes requested an apology as well as a plea to keep this mistake under wraps from the bride and groom.

The ceremony itself lasted nearly an hour and then it was on to the reception hall to celebrate the union of the happy couple. Joe and Jen both come from large families so the hall they booked was quite grand with nearly 40 tables, a live band and a 20x20 foot dance floor. The friends and I were stationed at the far corner of the ballroom beside the stage. The drinks began to flow easily as we waited for the bride and groom to arrive and we rehashed old times from four to ten years ago, embarrassing each other in front of our significant others, laughing, bantering. I headed to the bathroom and as I was walking out, I was greeted by a bright flash and saw the backs of Joe and Jen posing for a photo. The photographer glanced over their shoulders and saw who had just disrupted their photo session. Joe and Jen turned around as well and I began to apologize over and over.

"It's ok," Jen said, laughing. "Go back in and get drunk."

"Ok, ok. I will. It is after all, your day. Oh, and I also put my feet up on the kneelers, I didn't know that they were kneelers. It's better you hear it from me than someone else."

Once I took my seat back at the table I could see the road dividing as we all talked; the girlfriends playfully giving support to each of their boyfriends after each dumb story was told, maternally rubbing their backs and going, "Aww...." Minivans were in their future. That much was apparent.

The schism was solidified, to me, when I saw Joe and Jen enter center stage and begin their first dance together as husband and wife. While the entire hall was focused on the two of them, Joe and Jen were focused on each other and I caught something as I watched their faces. The expression Joe had on his face was one I had never seen there before. Although Joe was most likely the quietest in our group he was also one of the easiest to talk to and quickest to laugh at all things absurd. The look he was giving Jen, and the look that Jen was giving him, was something that no Simpsons quote or Goodfellas reference could compare with. I've seen Joe smile, chuckle and laugh till he hurt, but that was nothing compared to the look of joy he had on his face when he was dancing with his wife. His smile and demeanor looked complete.

I saw the future unfold before me as they danced that first dance together. Other friends were quickly going to follow suit and opt for that road to the altar as we made our way through life. I knew it was going to happen, but I didn't see until then how friendships could dissolve because of it. I, for one, knew that I was going to sit on the sidelines with my trusty notebook and give a gentle wave as they passed by. I'll be just as happy as they will be but only through a different means. I love my friends. I love them as much as I can possibly love anybody. What makes it bittersweet is that I want more than anything for my friends to be happy, except that I won't be going along with them for their journey. I opted for the career route, where I am dependent on myself and independent of familial responsibilities. It's a major change for all of us involved.

Life will go on and priorities will change. While my married friends discuss fluctuating mortgage rates and retirement funds, I will only be able to compare it to my rent checks and cost-of-living raise at my dead-end job. As they share stories of their child's Terrible Two's and potty training, they won't want to hear about how my dog, Smeadley, got worms the other week. When their children are involved in mutual play-dates, they won't want me to show up with a six-pack and hear me whine once again about another rejection from another publisher. My friends and I bonded closely because for fifteen years we were supporting each other through the same problems, and now it was about to take a turn and over a long enough timeline I won't even be able to relate to what they go through on a simple day-to-day basis. I'm going to be on this bench for a long time and it's doubtful that as they are advancing further and further down the road they will want to hear my same old problems.

As the wedding reception wound down and the open bar closed, Tina walked as I staggered out the door. As we made our way to the parking lot she asked me who was next on the "hit list."

One friend was getting married in June. Another was proposing later in the year. Two more were going to have live-in girlfriends before the next year was out.

Tina smiled, grabbed my hand and said playfully, "They're dropping like flies!"

I froze in my tracks and thought even deeper into the future, years and years from now and saw Joe and Jen sitting on the couch in the early evening. Joe's scalp had been exposed for years now, and even with a few well-placed laugh lines, Jen still looked vibrant, only they both moved a tad slower. I saw them sitting there, just after their youngest child had graduated from school and gone off to start his or her own life. As a means of celebration, they pull out their wedding album and see where their family and all its subsequent happiness originated. They will focus on each page, trying to remember and recite the story behind each photo, what the photographer was saying to them, where exactly they were, what they were thinking at that very minute. When they're halfway through the album, they will come across a picture of what they thought was just the two of them. Squinting hard into the background of the photo, they'll see a man exiting the bathroom door, a look of shock on his face directed at the camera, his hands finalizing the zip-up of his pants. They will squint even harder, maybe even think it was a smudge on the photo and one will say to the other, "Who...who was that?"

Contents

### A Day in the Life:

### Day # 9467- The Turkey Rig

Here's the full extent of what I knew: I was going to be rejected. That's the solitary ground rule for any writer struggling to get published. You will be rejected. You will be rejected several times. It's one of the few truths in the life of a writer. When the first couple of rejections came my way, I was already braced for it. After all, I heard about it well before I even attempted to get published. Every book I read concerning the process of writing for money as well as every creative writing magazine told me on alternating pages that I would be rejected. More rejections came in and I decided that I was inquiring at the wrong publishing houses. More rejections came in after that and I decided that I was ahead of my time; one of many authors whose respect and fame would develop posthumously. Still more rejections came in after that and I deduced that everything I was writing was quite wrong and that I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

On Wednesday I checked my mailbox and saw two envelopes from publishing houses with which I had inquired. Both of them were too thin and light to be anything substantial, just more form letter rejections, politely refusing my work and professionally photocopying their signature on the bottom of the page. It was a beautifully devastating one-two punch from the industry, PA-POW!

A two-rejection day is hard to handle. It's best to just chalk your day up as a loss and start fresh the next day, because in all honesty, there aren't enough _Rocky_ montages in the world to build your spirits back up to fighting status. But it's not like I could simply get under the covers and cry away the day. I still had to get to my job at Regina Carter Gifts, where I worked as a stocker. I should have waited to open the letters until after work. It was the time between rejections that kept me motivated, for as long as those pieces of mail were not in my hands, I still had a future. My manuscript could still be sitting on the editor's desk, waiting to be approved. No news was good news at that point. For as long as I wasn't getting rejected, there was still hope that I could escape the job that I had been working since high school, but as for Wednesday, I was still stuck, and the door of opportunity had closed just a little bit more.

I was running on fumes at work. I was clocking overtime every day, and Regina Carter was using me. She was using me bad. More than using; she was running a train on me. They gave me less pay and had me working three times longer than was stated in my job description. My car was beginning to buck between gears, letting me know that the transmission was falling apart, along with the 250 dollars in my bank account, along with my sanity. It was bad. On top of that, my relationship with my girlfriend was nearing "shamble" status. She was tired of my attitude. I do nothing but bring her down, apparently. Maybe she could learn to deal with it. Maybe, she said.

So every day this week I was clocking in early, taking on 300% of my workload, walking up the fourteen-foot ladder, picking up the 40 pound box, carrying it down, up the stairs again, get another one, order pickers yelling for more numbers until I have a ten number backlog to fetch, then walk the 100 yards to where the order needs to go, ad infinitum. All the while getting texts on my cell phone from my girlfriend about how I'm a miserable grouch. My boss overheard me mocking him on Tuesday as I was expressing my disgust for his half-hearted "thank you's," which he always uttered in passing and without making eye contact. No matter, I was ready to be fired. But then again, there's a woman who works as a packer, and she shits her pants. Honest! She makes more money than me, and has full benefits (a luxury which I do not possess.) I figure that woman, Doreen, is great job security for me. My boss could say to me, "Mike, your attitude is terrible."

"Yeah, but Doreen shits her pants. She once sprayed the wall in the bathroom."

"Yeah, she did do that once, didn't she? Good point. Ok, get back to work."

My boss didn't mention the mocking he overheard earlier, but asked me if I wanted to work on Saturday morning at 7:30, after closing out on midnight the night before. I was busy and in a wicked rush, so I said something like, "Saturday can suck my dick." Besides, my Mom asked me to drive up to Watkins Glen on Saturday to chop wood for my Grandfather, then drive back down on Sunday morning. Chop wood? Sure! I love it! I would love to drive four and half hours, chop me up some wood, then drive the four and a half hours back. Sign me up!

A text from my girlfriend read "You don't need to grow physically, but emotionally." My legs had begun trembling from strain on Tuesday, and I was wondering how I was going to keep scaling those ladders for another nine consecutive hours. The pickers began yelling out numbers immediately from two separate areas, six of them total when it should have only been two. No matter, I was just hoping that I wouldn't fall off the ladder from exhaustion.

Another text came in from my girlfriend, telling me that she had spent the day hanging out with Bob. Bob was a mutual but distant friend of ours, a friend whom she had said a few months ago that if I hadn't come along, she definitely would have dated.

"He's sooooo much fun!" the text read. "He had me laughing all day long!"

I was presented with a number of options at that point. I could have turned my phone off, or at least have thrown it against the wall and cut all communications. I could have walked out of work and dealt with the consequences later. I could have cried. Instead, what I decided to do was sit atop the ladder and bask in self-pity. "Let it rain," I said to myself, making waving gestures with my fingers. "Just let the shit rain down upon me."

Self-pity can only emotionally cleanse you for a short while before you start to feel like a spoiled child and the self pity quickly turns to shame. For me, that cutoff point is about two minutes. Two minutes of sulking does the trick, usually. Then I began to ask myself, atop the ladder, did I really have it that bad? I began to think of disease-ridden individuals, mental retardation, starvation, destitution, and soon I was able to function again. I asked myself, have I ever really been hungry? I mean, real, third-world-flies-on-your-face starving? Even at my lowest and most destitute, I was still eating rice three times a day. I wasn't feeling happy, but I was able to at least move my throbbing legs. I got back to work.

While rushing past my number 2 boss, he mentioned the Turkey Lottery at 7:55. I stopped in my tracks. The annual ReginaCarter Turkey Drawing! I asked my boss how many turkeys would be given out. The pickers were screaming for more products, but I was sidetracked. They would be giving out sixteen turkeys. Sixteen!

Life suddenly had a purpose. My sole determination did not become about being accepted by a publishing house, fixing a shoddy relationship, mending bridges with my boss, or trying to find the forest among the trees. No. I needed to win a turkey. The turkey will solve all, I told myself. If I can just win a turkey, the world and everything in it will be alright.

I did not have to psych myself up to get excited over the prospects of a fresh frozen turkey. I immediately thought of various fixings to make with the turkey, the smell of it in the oven, and the box of wine in my refrigerator. It gave me turkey-bumps up and down my arms.

My one name in the drawing box with 68 other names would not be enough. I needed to win this bird. I needed assurance. When life wouldn't let me win, I would make myself win. I decided that after the 5:30 shift clocked in, I was going to work them over. Now, on paper, it may not seem like anyone would be willing to give up a free 15 pound bird the week before Thanksgiving, but they're out there. What I needed was to find a bunch of people who had no attachments to the holiday; people who didn't know about pilgrims, Abe Lincoln, or Indians; people who couldn't recall a cheesy and awkward Thanksgiving play in elementary school, or reminisce about the terrible verbal family massacre of Thanksgiving 1989, wherein Uncle Ted got wasted and accused Aunt Laura of being a "two-timing whore." I needed to talk to the immigrants. Immigrants were the key to my turkey salvation, for relying on my name alone to be chosen out of the lot would surely end in failure.

I felt my phone vibrate with another passive/aggressive text message. The message had something to do with how I don't listen.

I went straight for the gullet. I replied back, "I don't have time to hear that nonsense. Tonight is the annual ReginaCarter Turkey Drawing! I'm so excited! If I win one, I'm gonna invite people over for some fowl and box wine. It's gonna be off da hook!"

There was no response. I texted further, "What kind of box wine goes best? I would imagine a dark wine, robust and rich, peppered with week-old aged perfection that will soothe the palate. But hey, I guess all of those adjectives are true if your wine comes in a classy rectangular cardboard box!"

The order pickers were getting irritated as I hid in the shadows of the stock shelves, texting about my potential turkey.

I went on. "The proper spigot selection is key when choosing your box wine." The order pickers began yelling more numbers, but I ignored them. "There's the twist and turn knob, which promises that no drop will be spilt, which seems a tad arrogant. There is also the push tab. This is the one I prefer for it makes me feel like an athlete on the sidelines of the big game, drinking from a large tub of Gatorade."

I finally got a response. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The spigot, dammit! The mechanism used for optimal box-wine extraction!"

There was a long span of inactivity between us until she wrote, "You better win that goddamn turkey."

"I called in some favors, and I got 5 co-workers to yield their turkeys to me if their name gets drawn. I'm already thinking of a title for Sunday: Mikey J's First Annual Fowl Ball!" You know, 'Ball' as in gala event."

"Do it, Mike." She texted. "You can win that turkey!"

The employees were shuffled into the cafeteria at 7:45, but only I had an expression of optimism, desperation, and excitement. "Some may win a turkey," I thought, "but only I will find purpose in that turkey."

Another text from my girlfriend: "I can't believe I'm actually excited about this. I'm actually in suspense."

"Shh! Shhh!!" I wrote back. "It's starting!!"

My boss began calling names, and for every first name that started with "M" my eyes grew wide. Mark won one, but he hardly seemed excited. As did Maria, Melody and a woman named M.J. who had a mulleted gray hairdo. I knew I was next. I felt it in my being.

My boss took the next slip from the box. "Mike..." I ignored the fact that there were 4 other Mike's in the warehouse and I raised my arms triumphantly. "Jenkins." Applause. I held my arms up there for a moment, then back down to cover my face in disbelief.

I had won a turkey. It was incredible to feel such elation, such hope. I knew that after I had won the turkey, things were going to take a better turn for me.

The next name was Ivana, a Polish immigrant dame who I'd struck a deal with. Now I had two turkeys. When I heard the next name called, I muttered, "Oh, shit..." It was Ashish, a college student from India who didn't want his turkey and had promised it to me.

I had three turkeys at twenty pounds apiece. Three! I told my girlfriend of the good news. "I did it! I had a dream, babe."

"Will I see you tonight, my Turkey King?"

We were going to talk. We were going to work things out for a little while longer. But that would be later. That night I reveled in my victory of overcoming insurmountable odds.

Contents

### Schrӧdinger's Monkey

When I was eight, my older cousin Jamey told me that she had seen the movie _Faces of Death_. She said the movie showed actual deaths of humans and animals. The most upsetting segment, she said, was when they showed a monkey being beaten with a hammer. _Faces of Death_ was the only movie in the Horror section of my childhood video store that I never rented, but it had one of the most lasting impacts. I can still remember the cover: Black, with the text in large red print, a drawn human skull encompassing the lower half of the cover. On the top right hand corner was a blue banner that went diagonally from the top right corner to the middle right side. It read: BANNED! In 46 Countries!

Never did I have the courage to rent _Faces of Death_. Just hearing secondhand that a monkey was beaten to death with a hammer kept it out of my VCR. And how troubling is it that I can remember to this day being _told_ at the age of 8 that a monkey was beaten with a hammer? Imagine if I actually saw it! I might be in a rubber room right now. Of course, even though I never did see the monkey getting attacked, I still conjure up an image of what I think it might be like whenever it is mentioned. It's a small monkey, like a spider monkey, in a sterile white room, backed into a corner. The camera is set on a tripod while a solitary arm emerges from the left side of the screen holding a tack hammer, ready to strike, the monkey gritting its teeth in fear. I never had the tenacity to strike the monkey of my imagination, but it was unsettling all the same.

The reason I mention _Faces of Death_ is that I was trying to go my whole life without watching something as horrid as animal torture. I thought that with my steady history of watching Jason Voorhees slicing campers in two, Freddy Krueger slashing his way into people's dreams, and Pinhead tearing the flesh off of puzzle-box aficionados with rusty hooks, then surely I was numb to the human condition. I must have seen a few thousand human murders through my television, and that's nothing more than entertainment to me, just don't let me see any monkey torture! My mission has failed though, for every day at work I watch metaphorical monkey torture, and it's as unnerving as I imagine it would be to watch that tiny spider monkey in the sterile white room, the tack hammer getting closer and closer.

There's this guy at work. He's as defenseless as that monkey in my imagination, and every day I have to watch him get harshly reprimanded. I'm new at this place of employment, and I don't want to cause a fuss, but even on my first day on the job I was told by my manager that not only was this job so easy, "a monkey could do it," I was also told to stay away from the guy near the Deacro 1 machine. "He's a fuckin' moron," the boss told me. "Don't go near him, and don't ask him for any help."

I was not introduced to the guy, was not made aware of what he was working on, nor could I make the mistake of saying 'hello' to him if he passed. Immediately, though, the point was made: this guy was the workplace pariah, and communicating with him would be a dire mistake.

There are only five of us machine operators in this small section of the company. We cut plastic film from one large size down to several smaller sizes and sell the pieces to companies to use to wrap their own products. First day on the job, my trainer, the supervisor, was explaining which machine I will be operating and how it works, when the pariah came over. My supervisor's face immediately turned red, "What? What the fuck do you want? Get the fuck back to your machine!" My jaw dropped, and the guy quickly turned on his heel and went back to what he was doing.

Never had I seen someone treated so terribly in a workplace. He is frequently called, "Moron," "Asshole," "Dumbshit," or "Fuckin' Moron," each of which is preceded by a simple, "Hey." As in, "Hey, Dumbshit, what the fuck did I just tell you, you fucking moron asshole?"

Personally, I think the reason behind the sheer ferocity of my co-worker's reprimands lies solely in his name. The guy's name is Guy. With a name like "Guy" it allows a certain emotional distance from genuine human interaction. How would you like it if you looked up your own name in the dictionary and saw that the transitive verb form of your name meant, "to make fun of; ridicule"? I've also heard his name used to address a pair of kitchen tongs or a soup ladle, as in, "Hey, pass me that guy over there."

Guy is an adult, somewhere between the age of 30 and 50. He has brown hair, or blonde, I don't really remember. He has two eyes, a nose, and possibly some teeth. He really is as physically indistinct as his name would suggest. No, wait, I know he has teeth, because he shines them big and bright every time he gets yelled at by the supervisor. It's an old fashioned defense mechanism, a relic from our simian cousins. When a chimp or monkey smiles, he is not happy; he's nervous, scared, apprehensive. The same can be said for the Guy when he is backed into a corner, the manager telling him that he, "cannot wait to fire his stupid ass," Guy's lips spread apart and he smiles big, which infuriates the manager even further. My boss thinks Guy is screwing with him, but smiles do not mean "happy" for chimps, and neither do they for the Guy, especially not when there is the tack-hammer of unemployment looming over his head.

The Guy's wardrobe consists of random work shirts from previous places of employment: Pane-Less Window Installation, L&M Contractors, Homestead Carpentry... He seems to have a different work shirt for every day of the month. Severance packages, I presume, from a lifetime of being hired and subsequently fired. Think of all the Monday mornings when Guy got the call from his foreman, telling him not to come in that day, or the next day, or the day after... "And you can keep the shirt," he might say before hanging up.

Now, from the management standpoint, Guy is a total screw-up. Not only does he make mistakes every day, he makes the same ones over and over. There was a time, back in the long-long ago, when people in the company were patient with Guy, but that was before I came on. Unfortunately, I came into this job eight months after Guy started, so I didn't get to watch the slow disintegration of the bosses' patience. I only now watch the maturity of their hatred for him, and it is difficult to watch, to say the least. What adds to the tension is that my boss will tell Guy over and over that once I am trained on the machines, he is going to be out on his ass.

I can't do anything about this. I have absolutely no clout with this new company, so defending Guy will only hurt me in the long run. The best I can do is avoid the conflicts. When I see one of the bosses heading over to Guy, I make myself scarce. I dart behind my machine on the other end of the room where the whirring of my machine drowns out whatever is being said to Guy. I still watch, though, equating it to something like a slow-motion car wreck, but I paint a happier picture for Guy in my head. "This is an excellent label you just printed out here, Guy," My boss might say. "You are really excelling in this area of the workplace. I see a great future for you here. Your job is completely safe."

Of course, when my boss is really angry, the conversation gets a bit more animated to correspond with his red face and wild arm gestures, and it takes all of my skills to keep it positive. "Guy! You highfalutin' genius! This work is brilliant! Holy shit, you are so awesome! I'm so proud of you! I think I might tell you to take the rest of the day off! Look! There's the door! It's maroon!"

Surprisingly, Guy doesn't treat me like a threat. He might say 'hello' to me before we clock in, with the popular adage, "Is it Friday yet?" I laugh at the joke, simply out of pity. He says it to me all the time when he walks past my machine, and I give the comment the same amount of hearty laughter each time. If Guy is seen making a comment to me, my boss will yell across the room, "Hey, Asshole! Don't fuckin' talk to him, get back to work!"

Something has to give. Guy should find better employment, or management should just drop the hammer and fire him. I don't see how anyone can take such verbal abuse on a daily basis and not just go on a tirade. If Guy would at least defend himself a little bit or show that he has just a small amount of self-respect, the future I imagine for him would be much happier. But as it is, his anger and frustration with the company must be bottled up something terrible, and it's not such a far-fetched idea to imagine Guy walking in with a loaded weapon one day. The cliché, "Is it Friday yet?" echoing off the walls with each pump of the shotgun.

As badly as Guy needs to go (not just for the company's sake, but for his own sake as well), I have to admit that I need Guy to keep working here. He's the best training tool I have ever had. I am constantly asking my co-workers what Guy did to get yelled at, and they'll say, "Oh, he printed out his labels in kilograms instead of pounds," and I'll make a mental note _: Print labels in pounds, not kilograms_. Half of my training came from my supervisor, and the other half came from hearing about Guy's mistakes that cost the company money.

Not only do I need him there for his mistakes, I also need him there to take the abuse. I get the feeling that if Guy ever leaves, all of that negative energy has got to flow somewhere and I think I will be the next monkey in the white room. It's happened to me before, with my friends in 8th grade. The dynamic of our group had changed, and instead of being funny and supportive, we turned on each other like wolves. We had a chubby friend in our small group, and out of nowhere it became funny to mock and insult him, something we had never bothered doing before. The guys would take his seat at lunch, would write nasty things on his book-covers. I didn't partake in the insults, but I didn't defend the kid, either. After the kid decided he had had enough, he stopped hanging out with us and suddenly, it was my seat that was always taken in the lunchroom, my schoolbooks scribbled with insults, the snickering and notes passed in the classroom were about me. It was a truly awful feeling to be treated like that, and I went without any friends at school for nearly two years, until I finally found friends that were worth keeping. Friends who helped each other and only playfully mocked, not constantly insulted. Friends that I still have to this day.

I respect myself enough now not to be treated like that ever again, but this isn't school anymore. This is a job, a means to pay my bills and sustain my life. If I was talked to like Guy is talked to, I'd quit without a thought and worry about the consequences later. But this job has good hours, has benefits, even some vacation time after a year. I've never had it so good. I've been with the company five months now, my training ended after three, and still Guy is there, despite my boss's promise to fire him after I finished training. My boss reminds Guy, though. Telling him every day not to get comfortable, he will be getting it soon. The tack-hammer hangs high in the air, held by an unknown man, the monkey with his back in the corner, smiling wide at his perpetual doom.

Contents

### I Could Go For A Laugh...

When it comes to me and dating, I always tend to think of the recliner I will sit in during my twilight years. I fantasize about that future recliner frequently when I meet someone new, and if I'm on a date in a restaurant having a conversation, I will think to myself, "Will I be able to tolerate this person in the recliner adjacent to me?" Because in the end, after the kids have moved out, after your illustrious career is over, after your sex drive has abandoned you, all you have left is your recliner and cable television to get you by. To me, that's what it all comes down to: that damn recliner and who will be sitting next to you for your remaining days on this earth.

My friends love to mock me for my pickiness when it comes to dating. I have trouble telling them about my recliner scenario, so I just try to defend myself as the accusations come at me. "How come you're not going on a second date with Laurie," they would ask.

"She snaps her gum. Like she's 14 years old; just snap, snap snap."

"And what about that girl at the party? She gave you her number. She was cute."

"C'mon," I'd say through gritted teeth. "She bedazzled her shoes!"

"Who cares if she bedazzled her shoes?"

I imagined looking up from my recliner and seeing a future of bedazzled shoes, bedazzled ties that get mocked at work, bedazzled throw-pillows you can't rest your head on, the obligatory bedazzled Christmas sweaters I would have to wear for the rest of the holiday, bedazzled picture frames of our children...

"No. No, it...it would have never worked."

I don't date very often because of my frequent hang-ups with people. I realize it is a flaw of mine to overanalyze certain traits in another person, but I just amplify them in my head, and wonder how badly something as simple as a girl blowing hair away from her eyes will bother me 40 years down the line. Initially, another person's habits don't irritate me too much, but I know they will eventually. But what am I supposed to do?

"So how is your steak? Good? Good. I think you're wonderful. I really do. Oh, and by the way, if you scrape your teeth against the fork when you take a bite 146,000 more times over the course of our life, I am just going to lose my shit. Just so you know. Care to do this again sometime?"

I recall one date in particular with a girl named Sharon. I had met her at my friend's party a week earlier, only I kept calling her Shelly. I had a bit too much to drink that evening, but somehow emitted an air of sophistication and charm about me that led me to her house a week later to take her to the movies.

She got into my beat up sedan, and I tried to keep our conversation simple by asking about where she was going to school.

"Um, I am going to community college for a while, then I'm going to transfer to Drexel. We talked about this last week."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah, for like an hour." She said.

"Oh, well, I started out at community college too," I said, trying to find some common ground.

"Yes, you told me already."

"Right..."

It was a rocky start, and the date wasn't about to be improved at all. Besides blacking out for most of our initial encounter, I also had to repeat in my head, "Her name is not Shelly; it's Sharon. Sharon Sharon Sharon Sharon Sharon..."

Since I didn't remember what we had discussed for over 2 hours a week before, I tried to let her steer the conversation, but she was coming up short. It was getting quite awkward, so I asked her about her family. She told me of her 3 younger siblings, and I told her that I had an older brother, to which she said,

"Yeah, you told me already."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah, and he makes four times the amount of money you do, and is always reminding you of it."

"Right..."

I began speeding toward the movie theater, where sitting in silence would be a rule rather than an awkward lack of conversation. There I was, back at the recliner wearing tube socks, watching cable television with Sharon in the other recliner talking about anything, and I'm just rocking back and forth going, "Really? Right..."

The theater wasn't too crowded, at least for the movie we were going to see. I tried to lighten the mood a bit by playing some of the on-screen movie trivia before the movie came on, and that seemed to pass the time by appropriately. When the previews started, there wasn't too much to notice except when a preview for "The Bill Engvall Show" on TBS appeared on the screen, and much to my dismay, once Bill let out one of his well-below-mediocre jokes, I heard a chuckle come from my immediate right. I looked at Sharon and said,

"Really?"

"What? He's kinda funny," she responded.

"And Larry the Cable Guy, and that whole 'Blue Collar Comedy' scene...?"

"Yeah, they're pretty funny sometimes. What, you don't like them?"

The date was over.

Without any consideration for Sharon or her sense of humor, I just went on this huge diatribe about Blue Collar Comedy, and how I considered it the death of intelligent humor. Speaking in hushed tones, I told her about their simple jokes, their idiotic fan base who would laugh at anything those guys say, how their punch lines are seen coming miles down the road, and that muttering unintelligibly in a southern accent does not even make a joke, let alone a good one. Those guys wouldn't know a good joke if it sat on their faces, I remember saying.

I didn't even realize that I had been talking for so long that we were halfway through the opening credits of the movie. I had plenty more to say, but finally came to my senses and just sat back and looked straight ahead at the screen.

If you ask me what the movie was about, I couldn't tell you. I think Ray Liotta was solving a murder, but I can't be too sure. All that I thought about was my recliner with my tube socks, and Sharon hobbling over to our antiquated alphabetized DVD collection, and as she stopped on the "B" section she said,

"I could go for a laugh..." And I would gently stroke the barrel of the rifle next to me, and ponder how it would taste in my mouth.

I think we both knew that we didn't hit it off, and the night ended with a polite kiss on the cheek, and I was happy that it was over even though I never apologized for insulting her sense of humor and intelligence so terribly.

That date really got me thinking about what I could do to make me more patient with what I consider to be the faults of others, and how big of a pompous ass I must look like when I criticize others. Maybe I should try--really try--to see another person's viewpoint and learn to be more tolerant of others, perhaps even find that what makes them different from me is what I will eventually love about them. Maybe that's the trick, I thought. To be tolerant and learn to love the one you're with. Maybe love isn't instantaneous for me, maybe it needs to be nurtured and brought out from my overtly critical inner self. Maybe the hostility I feel towards someone when I first meet them does not mean that I will feel the same way on the recliner years from now. That recliner next to mine can't be empty. I have to change. I have to grow in order to not be alone the rest of my life, to fill that other recliner with happiness and joy and unconditional love. I must change.

Or I could just get a dog. But what kind of dog? I am not really a fan of short-hair dogs, for they are too rough when you try to pet them. Long hairs are nice, but it must be a real bitch to clean up all their shed hair. Chows are nice and fluffy dogs, but I heard that they are not easily trained, while a golden retriever is easily trained but I never found them very appealing. Smaller dogs don't seem like much fun, and their barks are really high-pitched and annoying, while a dog like a Basset Hound is even worse, but their ears are funny...

Contents

### The Rabbit's Hole

When I was ten years old, my mother got a part time job at the local video store (called Video Theater) in our town. She worked only a couple nights a week, and every Friday afternoon I would cross the street from my elementary school and hang out at the store for a few hours while she finished her shift.

It was a humble video store. Although it was extremely small in retrospect, it contained more valuable information and life lessons than any public library could handle. _Rocky IV_ and _Superman IV_ informed me of the cold war and the folly of mankind's creation of the atom bomb. _Friday the 13th I-VIII_ made me aware of the consequences of letting ugly children drown. Westworld brought the hypothetical dystopian family vacation to life. Robocop taught me the ills of corporate greed and corruption, and H.P. Lovecraft's _The Unnameable_ preached the dangers of man playing God. The list of condensed morals on the walls made me more gluttonous than the fattest, most cavity-ridden child in the largest of all candy stores, and that was only the main part of the video store.

There were two other smaller areas in the back. On the right side by the counter was a small alcove with movies strictly for kids: _Your Looney Tunes_ , your _Yogi Bear_ , _your Fievel Goes West_...

Every once in a while I would venture back to the children's section and get _The Garbage Pail Kids Movie_ or a copy of _Rikki-Tikki-Tavi_ if I wanted to get back in touch with my inner seven year old, but most of the time I just hung out in the main area looking at the Horror section.

The other alcove on the left side, adjacent to the children's section, was protected by two wooden saloon-style doors. The doors may have left the top and bottom of the doorway exposed, but they were placed at the perfect height to prevent any kids from peering inside.

Even before my mother worked there, when our family were just regular customers, I knew that room was off-limits. My mother never explained the exact reasoning why, but I was able to piece it together. Adult stuff. Nudity. Sex. I often "accidentally" dropped a nickel or penny in front of the saloon doors so I could bend down and get a peek, but it was always in vain.

The only analogy my prepubescent mind could come up with to summarize these adult films was to compare it to a sex scene in _Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors_. Without giving the entire plot of the movie away, there was a scene where Joey, a psychiatric hospital patient, was being seduced by a pretty blonde nurse. The nurse asked Joey to unzip her nurse's uniform, and as she turned her nude body towards Joey, she asked, "Do you like my body, Joey?" And after Joey nodded (For that was the only thing Joey could do, he was a mute after all), the nurse kissed him, and much to Joey's shock, the nurse suddenly had a gigantic slimy tongue sticking out of her mouth, and she spewed it out like a dart, wrapping Joey's arm to the bedpost! She fired three more tongues at him, tying up his other arm and his legs. Well, the nurse soon turned into the badly burned child-murderer, Freddy Krueger, and he said, "What's wrong, Joey? Feeling tongue-tied? Hahahahaha!" Then the bed gave way to show a fiery pit of doom that Joey was suspended above.

So, my childhood theory on the "adult" films were just like that scene in _Nightmare 3_ , only the nurse wouldn't spew out any tongues. There would be no severely burned child murderer wearing a glove made of knives. And worse yet, there would be no brilliant puns. The nurse would stay nude, the kissing would be uninterrupted, and the scene would progress to something I couldn't even imagine. And who the heck would want to see that? But there was some unknown force that would cause me to rewind the nurse scene when I watched the movie alone in my room. Something I couldn't quite understand.

"Do you like my body, Joey?"

"Do you like my body, Joey?"

"Do you like my body, Joey?"

Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for my mother, the bathroom in the store was located through the back of the Adult section. If I ever needed to use it, my mother would have to walk behind me with her hands over my eyes until I blindly reached the toilet, then she would wait outside until I was done and repeat the steps leading me back out to the common area of the store.

Sometimes there would be a crack of opportunity between my mother's fingers, and my eyes were exposed to nothing but pictures of barbaric female flesh on the walls. The look on the faces of the nude women were nothing but angry; their chests jutting out, curling their lips and gritting their teeth. I later found out that this was the look of lust, but at the time, I worried that the movies were nothing but an hour and a half of a nude woman yelling at the camera. I mean, some of them were holding whips, so why not?

Eventually, corporate video rental stores like West Coast Video and Blockbuster Video came stomping along with their multiple copies of movies and wide selection of Nintendo games and put Video Theater and other stores like it out of business. But, despite all my searching inside the gargantuan confines of Blockbuster, I could find no saloon doors or secret entrances. Almost all of the movies were clean, with no nude women on the cover. The closest thing I found was _Sex, Lies, And Videotape_ , but that seemed to pale in comparison to the real hardcore stuff behind the saloon doors of Video Theater. It was the end of an era.

### ***

Flash forward 15 years, where I found myself in the parking lot of a porno shop called, "Adult Galaxy." I had never been in a porno shop before. There was always something to keep me from going inside of one, like the fear of being secretly videotaped by the local news, a picture of my face with a thin black bar over the eyes. The voiceover: "Perverts infiltrate suburbia! Is your family at risk?"

I had to calm myself in the parking lot, repeating to myself, "People do this kind of thing every day, people do this every day..." Which is something I usually say when I'm about to go into any store, pornographic or otherwise.

There were plenty of cars in the parking lot: a BMW convertible, a couple Chevy Cavaliers, a Honda Accord, even a family-friendly mini-van. "There's normal people in there," I thought. "Law abiding citizens. Pillars of the community, even."

According to my mother, on her first night working at the Video Theater 15 years ago, a family friend came into the store. Recognizing my mother, he walked over and made some small talk. After a few minutes of that, he went behind the saloon doors and picked out 3 pornos and brought them to the counter to finalize the transaction with my mother. Whenever my mother recalls that story, she shudders.

But Adult Galaxy would be different. It was an entire store dedicated to the room with the saloon doors. It wasn't a front for sexual gratification. It didn't try to hide itself behind some legitimate Hollywood movies, only to reveal a secret passageway of nudity. It told you right from the start that this place was not meant for kids.

In order to get out of my car and into the store, I needed to find a comfortable mental plane so I wouldn't go hysterical and have a panic attack. I needed to be as casual as the guys from Video Theater 15 years ago. When I hung out at the video store after school, I would sometimes be sitting on a barstool behind the counter, and the presence of my 10 year old self did not deter male customers from going to the back room and coming back to the counter with a hearty stack of pornography. They'd just plant those absurdly thick VHS cases on the counter, and as my mother would tally the total, the guy would just look at me and say, "How you doin', kiddo?"

I'd just slowly turn away from him on my barstool and say, "Fine..."

I was never taught by my parents to judge or discriminate, but even at that age I was thinking, "There's something not right about this..." But the guys were so casual, like they weren't renting pornography at all, more like just buying some windshield wipers, or a pack of smokes or...cantaloupe.

Yes, cantaloupe. I was going into Adult Galaxy just to buy a cantaloupe, nothing more. There's nothing wrong with cantaloupe. People buy cantaloupe every day. With my mind prepared, my body entered the store.

Despite all of the cars in the parking lot, there were only two other customers inside the store. Maybe the cars were rented by the store to make it more inviting to people like me. Clever. The front register was occupied by a very tall, very heavyset woman, and if her birth certificate read anything other than "Big Momma," I'd be shocked.

Big Momma was talking to a female customer over a broken cantaloupe that needed to be replaced. "There's no refunds," Big Momma told her. "But maybe they can do something for you in the back." I followed Big Momma's pointed finger over to the far wall and saw what I thought had gone extinct years ago: two wooden saloon doors, leading to another room. A room containing what, I had no idea. The sight of the doors excited me, scared me, and confused me all at once. My mind began racing. I was standing in the store that was _supposed_ to be the room with the saloon doors, but now _that_ store has its _own_ saloon doors containing even _more_ sexual debauchery that I couldn't even fathom. Where did it end? How far down did the rabbit's hole go? It was a shock to my system and it took me a moment to collect myself. While I stood at the entrance gently clutching my chest, the female customer walked through the saloon doors and I never saw her again.

I took a breath and got my focus back. I decided to walk the perimeter of the store and avoid the cesspool of hardcore movies in the middle. There were just too many movies to count, too many varieties; stuff I never heard of like, Milk Squirting or CoEd Amputees. So many movies. So, so many. I don't believe in angels, but I now believe that every time a bell rings, a porno movie is made.

On the wall before the cantaloupe selection began was a poster of a porn movie called "Not The Brady's," and it showed 8 profile shots of people in their own little cube with a light blue background. So immediately, I thought of "The Brady Bunch," but that was a show about a family with children as young as 6! How can they make a porno movie based on the story of when a lady met a fellow and formed a huge family? But the porn was called, "Not The Brady's," so I guess _I_ was the pervert. My mistake. I guess the scenes of the movie always started like, "Hi, I'm not Greg Brady, and you're not Cindy Brady, so let's screw." Can't wait for "Not ALF" to hit the shelves, I thought.

There was absolutely no music playing in the store. The only things that could be heard were the slow creaking of the floorboards like an antique store, along with Big Momma's cough. She was working on a really fierce cold, and even as she politely covered her mouth with her hand, the sound of the mucus ripping out of her lungs and snapping at her throat was nearly unbearable.

While perusing the many varieties of cantaloupe, I saw the other male customer appear a good distance away to my left. He was standing in front of the "Not the Brady's" movie poster, and was probably contemplating the perversion the same way I did. He was an older man, a bit past middle-age with a mustache, dressed in a full suit. I continued looking at the cantaloupes. I noticed that whenever I moved further along the perimeter of the wall, the man in the suit did as well. He kept the same distance away from me, but I could see that he was always standing where I had previously stood, looking at the same cantaloupes I was inspecting minutes prior. I came up to the saloon doors at the back wall and began to sweat. Was I allowed? Could I do it? What was back there? I took a quarter out of my pocket and "dropped" it on the floor. I bent down to pick it up, but saw nothing but a hallway that made a sharp turn to the right, making it impossible for me to see more. I moved on. So did the mustached man. And what did he do when he reached the saloon doors? He dropped a coin and picked it up! At first I thought maybe his actions were just coincidental with mine, but not anymore.

Who the hell was this guy? What was he doing, mocking me? Why mock me? What did I do to him? He was distracting me from the cantaloupes. Maybe he was a mirror image of my future self, an apparition brought forth by the universe to warn me of what I may become if I hang out in the store for too long; a porn addict, getting his fix by rubbing his mustache and admiring the cantaloupes. I'm going to turn into a loser, I thought. And this man is here to tell me exactly where I went wrong in life: by entering Adult Galaxy. That's what I thought. Either that, or this guy was just a total creep. Big Momma coughed a good hack. After concentrating on the man's mustache, I went with the latter.

I finally came upon a cantaloupe on the wall that would work. It was a simple one. It was the type of cantaloupe Tom Petty or Chef Gordon Ramsey would buy for their wives. It was simple, basic, pure, and the label bragged that it got the job done. It didn't have the frills the other cantaloupes possessed. It didn't have any spikes, bumps, extensions, levers, pulleys, straps, secretions, dials, or power boosters. All you needed were 2 AA batteries and you could hitch a ride to Pleasure Town. Population: You!

I picked up a cantaloupe of the pink variety and brought it to the counter. Big Momma let out a hack and grabbed the case. She opened the package and said, "There's no returns, so we have to make sure it works."

"Oh, that's not really—"

"Now, now, we have to make sure," she said. Then she coughed on her hand and grabbed the cantaloupe, unscrewing the bottom of it with extreme crudeness. She reached under the desk and got out 2 AA batteries and shoved them in. Twisting the bottom back on, she felt the shaft of the cantaloupe, and shook her head.

"Nothing," she said, "Maybe it's the batteries."

I could feel the presence of the mustachioed man standing behind me in line as Big Momma coughed a wet one and got some more batteries and shoved them in the cantaloupe's anal cavity. She gripped the cantaloupe tightly and said again, "Nothing. See?"

She held the object out for me to touch, but I just shook my head. She grabbed a walkie-talkie next to the cash register and spoke into it. "Gene, get me some double A's, I got a dildo here that won't work."

"No, we don't need Gene," I said, but he had already responded and came from the back with a pack of batteries. Big Momma and Pony-Tailed Gene gripped the cantaloupe as I looked away in embarrassment. The mustachioed man made eye contact with me, then looked down at the cantaloupe he was going to purchase, identical to mine, only purple, then back at me. I darted my face towards the register again, watching Big Momma's sweaty mucus-drenched hands work the sex toy.

"Aha, there we go!" she exclaimed while holding the cantaloupe up like Excalibur. "Took a while, but we got it," she said proudly.

She offered me to touch it one more time to confirm that it was vibrating, but I declined. She rang up my total, and I collected my change, receipt, cantaloupe, and walked out the door.

### ***

A week later, my girlfriend opened a small box in Christmas wrapping paper and saw a receipt from a store called Adult Galaxy.

"That's great..." she began to say, "But where is the toy?"

"You mean the cantaloupe?"

"The what?"

"That's not important," I said. "The point is the journey. You always joked how I would never be able to walk into a store like that, but I did. I broadened my horizons, just like you asked."

"I think that's great," she said, "I really do think it's great. But seriously, where's the toy?"

"You mean cantaloupe."

"What?"

"I threw it out. I'm sorry, but I had to. It was violated."

"Violated how?"

"Let me just say that I didn't want your vagina to catch the flu. Trust me."

The moment was bittersweet, for it really was a struggle for me to do what I did that day, and I told myself that I would never go into a porno shop again, for obvious reasons. But I can't help but think of that room with the saloon doors. I lie awake some nights and think about what could be so adult that it can't be shown to adults in the main area of the adult video store. What could it possibly be? What??

Maybe in another 15 years I'll venture back there and finally find out, but only if someone puts their hands over my eyes first, leaving just a small crack of opportunity between their fingers.

Contents

### Ride the Tiger

Girls are lucky to know so quickly. True, when it comes to the responsibilities of life, women carry more weight on their shoulders mainly because they have to fit into a patriarchal society, but at least they know the exact moment they transcend from girl to woman. It's not a pleasant experience, of course. The rise in hormone levels causes sleeplessness, irritability, sudden outbursts, fits of crying, feelings of isolation and self-contempt, cramping, bloating... and yes, this uncomfortable cycle occurs every 28 days for the next 30 or 40 years...but at least they _know_.

Boys, on the other hand, have no universal standard to determine when exactly they become men. We turn to rituals instead, and our make-up and societal attitudes tell us that we need to be ushered into the state of manhood. We make manhood a secret club where you need to know at least one other member in order to join. The reason for our history of horrors is that men are insecure. We need confirmation that what we are doing is normal, that we have the same mindset as everyone else. We don't simply _become_ men. We have to _earn_ the title. Manhood requires a trial of some kind to prove that you are worthy and responsible enough to care for a mate and/or child. And because we have no clear set biological rule like women, we do the honest thing: we just start making shit up.

Some African tribes arm a 13 year old boy with only a spear and shield, and he will only be allowed to marry and have children after he kills a lion. An Aborigine boy becomes a man after eating his own foreskin (without chewing, of course), and can then marry and have children. Native Americans send their boys on "vision quests," wherein the boy sets off for the wilderness to live within the elements and survive until he finds his animal spirit, which will then guide him into adulthood. I think that with enough research, I could find a tribe whose trial is nothing less than strapping a harness on a tiger and riding it across the Serengeti.

As westerners, supposedly more civil than other cultures, we might call the above trials "savage" or "primitive," but what does a father say to his son after he bags his first deer? What is a bris? Is it actually a smarter move to slice off the foreskin after existing for only eight days? And we might not have "vision quests," but what about the first time you and your underage friends piled into the car and snuck into a strip club? Depending on religion, social status, or location, each boy's trial differs. Bar Mitzvahs, hunting trips with Dad, your first lay... these can all be considered rites of passage from boy to man. For me, being completely adverse to firing a rifle (for fear of shooting my own face off), having no set religion, and seeing sex as a reward for the completion of the manhood trial and not as an initiation, I didn't know exactly when my man-card would be signed until it actually happened. July 24, 1999. I was sixteen, and my initiation occurred inside of a Victoria's Secret store with a man I never met nor saw again after that day. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Jump back to August of the previous year. I was hanging out at my good friend Andrew's house playing a little Twisted Metal for Playstation. Andrew and I had been friends for a few years by then. We first met in the Glenside Youth Athletic League when we were on the same baseball team. He played second base and I pitched. He was an unstoppable second baseman. If you were playing against us and hit it towards the right side of the field, just forget it; Andrew would gobble it up. I nicknamed named him Hoover during our time spent on the field. By the end of the baseball season, once the ball went near Andrew, and before the ball was even in his glove, I would yell out, "Hoovah!" knowing that that play was over before it even started.

Andrew's flat street was always host to some sort of sporting event with the neighborhood kids depending on the season: baseball and basketball in the summer, football in the fall and winter, and hockey all year round. Hockey was always best because, since there were no sidewalks and only front lawns, we older kids were allowed to check each other as hard as we liked on the sides. God forbid if you went over to the curb to get the street puck. At any rate, during this one August evening inside Andrew's living room, we saw that little eight-year-old Dominic from down the street was playing basketball in his driveway. Andrew and I went down to join him. I didn't see her sitting at the entranceway of the garage. Not at first. The first thing that struck me about her before I even saw her was her perfume. It had an overwhelmingly feminine scent to it, a fragrance mixed with an impossible combination of sugary flower and sweet fruit that I had never smelled before. Before even seeing Kristen I was weak in the knees, and then after I saw her I was nearly struck dumb. She was Dominic's cousin who drove over in her blue 1989 Honda Accord to watch Dominic and his little brother while their parents were out for the evening.

Nothing was more important than to not let this girl know that she smelled fantastic. A simple 'hello' would have to do. Another thing I knew not to do was to let Andrew know what I was feeling. Andrew is a great friend, but all friends will see a weak point such as that and exploit it for their own amusement. I moved as best as I could, missing shot after shot, trying to look cool in front her, and making sure not to smile too much so as not to reveal the braces on my teeth. Her smile, however, was perfect and it encompassed her petite face when she was particularly amused.

I was in a haze by the time Andrew and I left Dominic's. I didn't walk away with Kristen's phone number, though. I had something much more palatable: her AOL screen name. I much more preferred to type than to speak. A phone conversation with her would leave me stuttering, and when I wasn't stuttering, there would be awkward pauses too numerous to count and too awkward to live through. The instant-messenger gave me enough time to be thoughtful of what I had to say and eliminated awkward pauses.

When I got home that evening, before drifting off to sleep, I let the encounter with Kristen sink into my head and if I really concentrated, I could think of something other than her for maybe three seconds before thinking of her again. It was a new emotion I was experiencing, and it went beyond the simple boyhood crush I had on my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. McNew. Of course, Mrs. McNew was a beauty, but my feelings for her were simply limited to staring at her while she worked the chalkboard and dumbly thinking, "pretty...pretty...pretty..." With Kristen, an odd feeling of possession took over. I didn't want to just look at Kristen for hours on end, I wanted to be with her. I was getting quick visions of time we could spend together much like that in a romantic comedy movie montage—cheesy, clichéd visions like holding hands on a beach, sharing a milkshake at the malt shop (two straws, one cup), making her laugh, kissing her sweetly and intensely, holding her tightly all through the night. I didn't just like Kristen. I wanted to be with her. I wanted to have her. Never had I felt that before, and it scared me to the point of paralysis. My hormones were working overtime. I was going to be starting the 10th grade in the High School building, away from the Junior High building. I had metal braces on all my teeth. Acne was multiplying exponentially on my face like a weird sort of pox on my skin. My voice was cracking profusely, trying reluctantly to find a deeper balance, the high-pitched tone refusing to diminish. And on top of all that I was now, for the first time, experiencing the feeling of falling in love.

Not too long after the screen name exchange, Andrew had alerted me that Kirsten was interested in hanging out with he and I, and not only that, she might be interested in hooking up with me. I was shocked. But before I got too far ahead of myself, Andrew told me that hanging out with her would just be a "trial period." I didn't quite understand the logic until I learned that Kristen had a boyfriend named Stefan. Fortunately, the relationship was long distance, as he lived in New Jersey. New Jersey might as well have been as far away as Neptune as far as I was concerned.

Andrew was incredibly vital in closing the awkward gaps I would create when the three of us would hang out. Andrew always had something to talk about and he must have known that I was dependent on him to make things run smoothly because he would exploit it. He would ask me for things in front if Kristen to make me look like a good friend or to embarrass me, which was something Andrew relished. There were two times, I recall, when we were at Kristen's house and I made a fool of myself. Kristen's dog, a floppy-eared, low-walking orange Cavalier King Charles named Riley took a fondness to my leg. Seeing Riley's enthusiasm, Andrew held me down while Riley made love to my calf. On another afternoon, in the same room, someone let slip a silent but deadly fart that cleared the room. Immediately, Andrew campaigned that I was the one who had broken wind and everyone bought it. I tried pleading with them, to Kristen especially, that it was not I who had emitted the noxious odor, but the idea was already planted in everyone's head. Trying to disprove my supposed guilt only put fuel on the fire and me getting beside myself only made everyone laugh harder from the other room waiting for the smell to clear. When they came back to the living room, I was gone and the back door was still slowly closing behind me. What was left of my presence was a note written on Kristen's little sister's chalkboard, next to the television. It read: "I DID NOT FART!" I walked home that day.

If we weren't hanging out at Kristen's house, we would drive around town in her Honda listening to CDs that Andrew would bring along for the ride. Bands like Crimpshrine, Bouncing Souls, and Billy Idol. Kristen preferred Dave Mathews Band, and for me, if it wasn't Tom Petty or Led Zeppelin, then it was just noise. It didn't matter what music we listened to, just as long as we were mobile, in the car going somewhere; no destination, no time constraints, just being aimless teenagers, shirking off any responsibilities that may come our way.

Andrew would always get dropped off first when the three of us would hang out, and that four-block quarter mile drive to my house was too intense for me to handle. Apparently, Kristen wanted to kiss me, and all I had to do was lean in for it, but I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I had never kissed a girl before and Kristen's beauty intimidated me. I kept asking myself, "Why? Why in the world would this girl want anything to do with me? Surely she is either psychotic or she is actually just a cruel mistress who will reject me and embarrass me if I try."

"Well, Kristen, so long," I'd say before the car would even roll to a stop. That was my routine for the entire month of September.

As October came around, Kristen's relationship with Stefan dissolved, and her friends as well as some other friends of Andrew's and mine began to all hang out, and together we had a good sized group, which unfortunately brought competition onto the scene to win Kristen over. Two other guys, Stew and Kolb, also began vying for Kristen's attention. They were not friends of mine, more like acquaintances. I wasn't worried about Stew. At the time, Stew was quite overweight and I saw him as no threat. There was a rumor that he at one point tried to serenade Kristen outside her bedroom window with a karaoke machine he lugged up the street, but it could not be proven. To anyone that was not there, it was simply hearsay. Kolb was a tall, freckly kid who physically seemed out of place for his generation. He looked like he belonged in a Norman Rockwell painting.

Most of us were in shock when Kristen began to date Kolb in late November. I was enraged. Kristen had grown tired of my shyness and had moved on. The problem with Kolb was that he was an ass. He paid no attention to her and that only seemed to drive her further into his arms. She would buy him gifts, take him wherever he wanted to go, and he seemed annoyed by every advance that she made. I had never felt such jealousy. Didn't this guy know how great he had it to have a girl like Kristen swoon over him? She even bought him a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64. Ocarina of Time! How could he be so clueless as to how lucky he was? Having a girl buy me the latest Zelda game is still just that—a fantasy. My brother had already bought me the game for my 16th birthday. He even got me the limited edition gold cartridge as well as the musical soundtrack to the game and a t-shirt to boot. Kolb didn't get the limited edition gold cartridge. He may have had the girl of my dreams, but could he display on his shirt the best videogame series of all time? I think not.

Kristen's friends and I soon discovered that it was not just Kolb's indifference to Kristen that made him a jerk. He also talked badly about her to his friends behind her back. Her friend Jen and I decided it was in Kristen's best interest to have a small intervention for her. I felt like a bastard doing it, since it wasn't really my place, but love and jealousy tend to supercede all bylines of the social contract. Kristen was quite upset over hearing the things that Kolb was saying about her, but at least the seed of doubt over his apparent awesomeness was planted in her head. They were broken up by late December and she was once again available.

On New Year's Eve, a few of us were watching the ball-drop at Kristen's house. By that time I had grown more comfortable around her and although I was still overanalyzing every interaction I had with her (her body language, her inflections on sentences involving likes and dislikes), I was no longer worried that each interaction could be our last. The "trial period" as Andrew called it months ago was over and I would talk to Kristen on the phone on a regular basis. I was still trying desperately to impress her, to show her what I could offer her as a boyfriend, but I never had the tenacity to just go for it. On that New Year's Eve night though, I made an insinuating remark to her.

"Ya know," I began. "I hear it's good luck to kiss someone on the first of the year."

"Oh, really," she said coyly. With that said, the other four friends in the room saw their immediate cue to leave and Kristen and I were alone. For twenty minutes we sat there, awkwardly, as I readied myself to lean in. When I finally did though, our lips locked and I followed her lead. Our lips didn't move at all as our faces were suctioned together, but her tongue began rapidly spinning around mine and I tried to keep up for the whole two minutes. I could taste that kiss the whole walk home that night, could still feel her tongue on mine. What an...what an interesting sensation! I kept thinking. And I wanted more.

To me, that kiss was an open invitation to put more moves on Kristen, except that on that night, she had only seen me as the best choice in a bad situation. I was incapable of playing it smooth. My eagerness got the best of me and the pager that Kristen received for Christmas that year was constantly alerting her to call me. I abused the hell out of that little blue beeper of hers, pleading with her to call me, typing in my phone number and following it with the numbers 7 3 1, meaning "seven letters, three words, one meaning." I was hardly ever called back, but when she did call, I did nothing but bombard her with constant flattery and sycophantic soliloquies. It may have been good for her ego, but it got me no respect at all. I don't even know why she was still hanging out with me as I constantly pressed the issue of being with her, commending her charm and extolling her beauty.

Throughout the winter months and into spring, we never did kiss again, despite my desperate attempts. As May rolled around, she actually had to sit me down and let me know that we would not ever be together. My behavior had changed for the worse after that kiss in January, and the only way it would cease would be if she told me face to face that we weren't ever going to do it again. She wanted to be friends. Nothing more. Looking back on how I acted that winter, not even 100 Rileys humping my leg could match the shame I felt when I left her house that day. It felt so final and I had never felt more defeated.

Once the school year ended, Kristen took a three week trip to Italy and I started working my first job as a summer janitor for my old elementary school, Glenside Weldon. It was strange how nostalgic it felt to be back in the same classrooms in which I was a student only four years prior. I was sixteen and was looking back on my childhood as if it were a lifetime ago. The desks were tiny, the ceilings were lower and I realized that I was making a major transition in my life. It was the hardest tug of nostalgia I had ever felt up to that point, knowing that the time I spent there in that school would never come again. That mode of childhood thinking would never come again. A lot of things would never come again. But there were things on the horizon, more adventures to get into, more experiences to revel in and more things to grow into. In my head I told myself that I needed to be with Kristen in order for me to continue onward. I was standing in my old second-grade classroom, scrubbing down a particularly dirty desk when I raised my head in a "eureka" moment.

While Kristen was away in Italy for three weeks, I tucked myself away in my room after work and thought over the past year in my head. What did I need to do? What was lacking? I tried every conceivable angle: shyness, flattery, assholishness, back-stabbing and desperation, but where did it get me? Nowhere. But what did all of those attitudes have in common? The commonality with all of them was in what they lacked: confidence. I needed confidence. It was the one thing stopping me from Kristen.

Now I knew what I needed, only I didn't have any. How does one gain confidence? I wondered. Being with Kristen would give me confidence, but I can't be with her until I actually possess it. I knew I had seen confidence before, but where? I snapped my fingers at the realization: Robert Redford in The Natural. I watched The Natural to garner some tips on how to be confident. Then, to balance out the quiet humility of Redford's Roy Hobbs I watched Steve Martin's character in the movie Roxanne to pick up pointers on timing and comedic restraint.

Now that I knew what confidence was I did what any desperate guy does. I faked it. I imagined myself in a high-stakes poker game, holding nothing but a pair of two's, and while the other players were throwing hundred dollar bills in the pot, I was playing with Monopoly money. The trick to winning was to be so convincing that no one would question it. I could see the other players conversing with each other. "Yeah, Biff," one player would whisper to another, "I don't think he's got anything either, but that stack of blue 50's says otherwise."

When Kristen came back from Italy, she saw a different side of me. I had a new haircut, a slightly modified wardrobe, and a straightened posture that gave me a bit of extra height. When it came to conversation, I kept it short and knew when to draw the line on my humor. No longer did I desperately try to force a joke or a laugh at an inopportune time. My jokes had a quieter, more subtle demeanor to them and were no longer antagonizing to others. I would poke light fun at things instead of making bitter observations. I was no longer going to be a jealous, spiteful person who could only feel good while putting others down.

During those first few days with my new attitude, I was outwardly sturdy but inwardly very fragile. At any given moment I could have been shattered by a snarky comment or a reference to one of my many previous embarrassments, but no one tried it. The more I bluffed, the easier the confidence came until I was no longer faking confidence, but gathering it.

A week after Kristen came back, she and I were kissing on a daily basis and we became a couple in July, which brings me to the Victoria's Secret excursion I mentioned in the beginning of the story. Kristen and I were not in the lingerie section of the store. We were in the bath and perfume section when another couple in their 30's walked past us. The woman was absorbed in her own world of fragrances, sampling each candle and scented soap while the man made eye contact with me and gave me a nod. It was a small gesture, but to me it meant the end of a journey. I recalled the past year from when I first saw Kristen sitting on that empty crate in front of her cousin's garage to the present moment when her hand was in mine. My personal voyage into manhood involved feeling the extremes of my basic human emotions: paralyzing fear, blistering rage, blinding jealousy, boundless shame, and finally unadulterated joy.

The man in the Victoria's Secret and I had something in common. Without our respective girlfriends there, he and I never would have set foot in that store. It all became so clear to me. The reward for being a man is to be invited to partake in another person's interests and life. In the future, I would stumble, I would recluse myself, I would push others away, and only every once in a while I would show a brief but brilliant flash of who I was in that store in 1999. But that would be the future. At that moment, I was the best man I could possibly be, and the next moment was to bend over and smell a body spray that Kristen offered and give her my thoughts on that sweet, flowery scent. A scent I never would have smelled and an experience I never would have had were it not for her.

Contents

### The Great Herpes Scare of '05

I can't say for sure why I hadn't showered or changed my clothes for over 4 days; I'd like to say that I was hard at work, completing story after story, a mad writer whose cleanliness falls at the bottom of his list of priorities, but to be honest, it was just one of those weeks. I got out of bed only to use the bathroom and when my own odor finally began to offend me, I decided to bathe a day after reaching that particular milestone of wretchedness. The second half of my junior year of college was about to kick-off, and I figured, whether I liked it or not, a shower was in my foreseeable future.

I gathered up whatever courage I had and made the long two-meter walk to the bathroom and, with an exasperated groan, turned on the shower. I let the water get hot as I hesitantly removed my clothing and gave myself a quick once-over in the mirror. Seeing my own frail reflection, I looked into my own eyes and scoffed before my excursion into the steamy depths. Once inside, I began my routine: shampoo to rid my hair of its natural oily secretions, conditioner to replace its shine, and a heavy coating of bar soap to wipe away the layer of filth on my skin. I started from my face and worked my way down, trying to rid myself of my homemade stench. All was going according to plan until I reached my right thigh. My inner right thigh, to be exact. It hosted a pink rash of some kind, about three inches wide, with little crimson bumps throughout.

My public school education taught me that if there is any kind of epidermal abnormality within 3 feet of your genitals, you have a Sexually Transmitted Disease. That's what the gym teacher told me in 10th grade and that's what I believed. I shrieked like a girl and immediately thought, "STD!" Panic set in as I scrubbed the infected area with my bar of Zest, thinking maybe it was a water-based rash and just needed to be rinsed. No good. With the hot water beating down on me, I took a good, hard look at my affliction and determined without any consultation that I had me the Herpes.

"No, no," I told myself as I stepped out and dried. "It only looks like the Herpes. This is probably from a new laundry detergent. How silly I must be to immediately think 'Herpes.'" I looked up at the ceiling and shook my head, "Oh, Michael."

My denial lasted until I walked out of the bathroom in my towel. I entered the hallway exclaiming angrily, "Fuck! Who? Who did this to me?" I mentally rolodexed my sexual history, and noted that in the past two years I had had two girlfriends. I stood in the middle of my studio apartment, centered myself, and thought of them. The first girlfriend, dating back to '04, didn't have a vindictive bone in her body, and the last girlfriend and I still talked, meaning that she surely would have mentioned something along the lines of a chronic STD, but no, every time we talked she failed to ask me about the status of my genital region.

My best bet: a public toilet I used three months ago. I hardly ever used public toilets, but on that particular autumn day it was an emergency; such an emergency, in fact, that I didn't bother to put down the protective layer of tissue paper over the bowl.

I dropped to my knees and began to plead to the God I didn't believe in, "Oh, c'mon," I said aloud, "this can't be! My acne is just starting to clear up and women are finally finding me attractive! I've waited too long for this, and now it's being taken away from me! I'll never use public toilets again, I swear. I'll opt to shit my pants before I use a stall at the pub. You have my word."

I needed confirmation that this was actually happening to me. I turned on the computer and began to scour the internet for an official diagnosis. The website I found didn't belong to the Center for Disease Control or Web M.D. or any kind of university or research facility. It had no affiliation with any kind of competent medical establishment, not even with Wikipedia. It could easily have been called, "Jill's Herpes Website." The tone of the website had an air of judgment to it, saying that if I ever engaged in unprotected sex, I most likely had Herpes. The opening paragraph stripped away any thoughts of denial. "Do not try to convince yourself that your rash is from a new laundry detergent. It's not. It's Herpes. Call all of your former sex partners and let them know so that they can get tested and prevent the spread of this hideous disease." Hideous. I was hideous for sitting on a toilet seat.

Scrolling further down the page, under the misspelled section called "Symptums," I learned that it could take up to eighteen months for symptoms to occur after initial contact. Eighteen! And not even that, I could have shown no symptoms whatsoever for my whole life! According to this website, everyone had the Herpes. Even babies had it since their mothers could have spread the virus to their fetus without even knowing they had it in the first place. Did my own mother give me the Herp? Perhaps!

It didn't matter, of course, who gave it to me; what was important was that I had it, and there was nothing I could do to about it.

I shut the blinds, blocking the late afternoon sun and sat in the dark, ready to surrender to my fate. I went to high school, I knew the story. Once the student body became aware of the dangers of sex, all it took was one quiet whisper of gossip along with a common but untimely cold sore and a person's stature in the student community would be ruined. The truth of whether or not you had said STD was irrelevant, for once the idea of it was generally accepted, *snap* you're taking your cousin to the prom. I've seen it happen to others, and it was about to happen to me. Me, a sexual pariah, and I laughed in the dark.

Not only did I quickly accept the fact that I had an STD, I began to embrace it. Herpes. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe it was a blessing. After all, Herpes was a chronic illness with no cure, but it was not terminal. Maybe this was the disease I was looking for all along. It forced upon me the world of isolation I'd always needed, since sheer willpower would not allow me to stay alone for long. But with Herpes, I would have to keep everyone at arm's length. Women who may want to interact with me would be rejected for reasons unclear to them, making me even more desirable. "Who is that," one girl would say to another, eyeing me up at the far end of the bar, "He's handsome!"

And when she'd buy me a drink, I'd take a drag of my smoke, and say while looking ahead, "Thanks, babe. But no thanks."

I would be a tortured soul. It would give my writing a great angle, and as for relationships, they would never go past the stage of flirtation. Flirtation, I thought, is as good as a relationship gets. I did not have much experience with long term endeavors, but no matter the timeline, each account started with blissful banter and ended with a woman screeching into my ear over the phone, "What's with this 'need to be alone' bullshit?"

The idyllic wonder of meeting someone new would never fade since my Herpes wouldn't allow it to be degraded by the passage of time and the worn grooves that a mundane routine would create; quiet nights in front of the television together, watching predictable sitcoms and only making bitter comments at the commercials. All encounters would be nothing but the most promising infatuations, started in reality and executed in my imagination for years to come. Yes, this would make me emotionally stunted for sure, but only in one aspect of my life. Just as when one of your senses is stripped away, the others become stronger. I would develop a perfectly objective view of humanity, and in that objectivity, I would reveal hardening truths about the world around me. For each great writer suffered a strife that molded their work into its excellent form. In the annals of modern literary history it would be read that Kafka had Tuberculosis, Vonnegut had the bombing of Dresden, Carver had alcoholism, and as for Mikey J, well, he had the Herpes.

My metamorphosis was nearly complete as I sat in the darkness, ready to be reborn, and a distant thought caused me to scratch the back of my head. Working its way from the rear to the front of my brain, the rumination forced me out of my chair and into the bathroom where I fetched an article of dirty clothing and sat back down. Unwillingly, my hand traced the seams of the boxer shorts I had worn for five consecutive days. At the end of the seam on the right side I felt it: a hardened piece of cloth knotted together by exposed stitching that scratched my fingertips as I caressed it.

"Oh, no..." I muttered, realizing that my Herpes was not Herpes at all. It was a simple rash caused by a tiny skin irritant that festered and grew while I slumbered in the same boxer shorts for days on end. Cursed by good health, I knew that my next move would be to open the blinds, to expose myself once again to the world.

"But not just yet," I told myself, "Just a few more minutes of what could have been."

Contents

### Introvert

Although I watched such wonderful programs as _Muppet Babies_ and _Fraggle Rock_ as a child, the thought of them never entered my consciousness during my times of fear and distress. After my parents tucked me into bed at night and I was left alone in the darkness, Scooter didn't come around to tell me that it was going to be okay, Fozzi Bear didn't appear at the foot of my bed to tell me some jokes or say, "Wakka Wakka!" And the Fraggles never invited me into their tiny world that was apparently placed behind my bedroom walls.

What comforted me enough to fall asleep in the darkness was not the idea of fluffy puppets or any other Jim Henson creation. Instead, what helped me drift off to sleep was the idea of zombies and homicidal maniacs roaming the streets and breaking into my house. I'd hold my blankets tight against my chin and imagine that my door was made of steel with a deadbolt lock. My parents would be unable to save my older brother in the next room, or even save themselves. Their brains would be eaten and hoarded over by the undead, unfortunately, but these zombies weren't going to eat my brains. No sir! Placed loftily on the second floor of my house, the zombies would need to stand on each other's shoulders in order to get up through my windows. And even if they did manage such a feat, I imagined I had steel gates that came down to cover the windows. I would frequently place such infamous madmen as Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees on the other side of the door to test its durability. Freddy would slash at my door with his glove of knives, creating huge sparks. Jason would hack at it, breaking his machete. Sometimes I would even get Leather Face in on the action, but not even his wicked chainsaw skills could get him through.

Every night my bedroom changed from a simple play area into an isolated haven safe from all the dangers my imagination could conjure. I got some great sleep that way.

As the years went on, the simple hook and eye lock that my parents used to lock me in my room when I was being bad was transferred to the inside of my door so that I could keep every one out. The safety of my room extended to all hours, where I wrote, drew cartoons, and read without being interrupted. Not only was I keeping zombies out at night, I was keeping the living at bay during the daylight hours, and I could not have been happier. From saving up my allowance and my paychecks, I could afford to build a small empire of material possessions in my little room. I had an "L" shaped desk that wrapped around the far corner of the room with a computer resting at its adjunct. I had a two-line phone in order to receive pertinent updates regarding my friends, as well as a large bookshelf whose top half held my MAD magazines, while the lower half displayed my PEZ dispenser collection. I had it all, not to mention a mini-refrigerator and cable on a twelve inch television that allowed me to play all my video game systems. It was all right there for me. If I needed the answer to an academic question, I consulted the Internet. If I wanted to know what was planned for the weekend, I'd pick up the phone. Need a root beer, Mike? Open the fridge, bottom shelf. I could satisfy all of my wants before they may have ever been wants. It was, to me, my Eden.

I was seventeen years old and nearly complete in my isolation when my parents decided to move us 25 miles northwest to a town called Harleysville. The parameters of my new living arrangement completely disrupted whatever comfort I had in my hometown. The new bedroom was much too small to fit most of my stuff. My desk and mini-fridge were transported to the basement of my parents' new house along with my bookshelf. The bookshelf became a tool-shelf where my father would place various drill bits, screws, and hammers. The PEZ collection was thoughtlessly poured into a box. The 150 issues of MAD Magazine were bundled with twine and stuffed into the closet. This new house was not my house. It was my parents' house. That much was certain. My room of safety was no longer a physical place that I could go. And in that strange turn of events, my room became a metaphor, a place on an ethereal plane that was all mine to visit.

It was much more spacious, this new room that appeared in my head. The walls were made of dark blue cavernous rock, like those in dungeon number one in the 1986 Nintendo game _The Legend of Zelda_. The room was lit by the fire in the fireplace as well a 1930's era bank lamp on my large oak desk, the bank lamp being chrome with a green glass lampshade. There were two doors in this new room that I created. The front door was a four-panel wooden door, kept secure by a hook-and-eye lock, while the rear door was more or less a bank vault door: a meter thick, with a large, cylindrical turning mechanism for access. The most important part—the piece that really tied the room together were the bookshelves. Large black bookshelves lined all four walls, seven feet high. However, these bookshelves did not contain MAD magazines or PEZ dispensers, no no no. These shelves held volume after volume of every thought, question, comment, interaction, and philosophy I have ever had. It was the entire memory of my life, manifested in a mental image of a place safe and familiar to me. Not only did this room hold an infinite amount of information, it was portable!

Where ever I went, my room went with me. It's where I tucked myself away in my senior year at a new high school. Yes, I would be asked to stand and recite my background on the first day of class, and physically I might have looked present, but I really wasn't there. I was inside my room, watching episodes of Seinfeld, eating popcorn. During my lunch period, it may have seemed that I was sitting at the far end of a table by myself, looking melancholy, but actually I was sitting by the fire, feet propped on a leather ottoman, reading about my first kiss. Inside my room all of my troubles and insecurities were manageable, and I never felt as strong or as capable as when I was locked inside my own room, ready to take on anything that came my way.

I had thought that the room was a defense mechanism for the move from Glenside to Harleysville and that it would disappear as quickly as it appeared, but it stuck with me even after I graduated high school. From high school to college, from new house to shared apartment living at my university in Philadelphia, I still had yet to have my own space back, so the room remained. However, the upkeep of the room and its subsequent safety would be threatened by a pint-sized sweetheart named Trish.

Patricia-Marie, to be exact. I was 22 and in my sophomore year of college when I met her. Originally from Vermont, Trish went to college in Maryland and just so happened to be taking summer classes at the school I was attending. Not only did she just so happen to be taking classes the same summer I was taking them at the same university, she also was living a floor above me in my apartment complex. Were I a fatalist, I would say that there were too many coincidences for our meeting not to have taken place, especially since on the first night we met, we went to a karaoke bar with some friends and Trish sang a Phil Collins song; the same exact Phil Collins song that just so happened to have been stuck in my head for hours that day: his 1984 hit single Against All Odds. After she slurringly serenaded me with the ballad, I asked her why, out of the hundreds of possible songs to choose from, she chose that one.

"Um," she said, "because Phil Collins fuckin' rocks!"

Even though I'm sure it wasn't the first time in history that the serendipitous musical styling of Phil Collins brought two people together, it was still special to me. Patricia-Marie may have gotten sick out to the parking lot a few minutes after the song, but it was too late. I was in love with her.

It was Trish's personality that really made her one of a kind. A great practitioner of puns and cheesy sarcasm, they gave her a vibrancy I had never seen before in a woman, and never had I felt on such an equal level with someone else. Movies, television shows, music, and contempt for nearly all other people were things we shared. Yes, we had our differences, but they were minute and fun to bicker about back and forth in order to entertain ourselves.

Before my friends had met Trish, they'd ask about her, inquiring about her personality and I would try to relay my feelings for her to them by trying to describe her laugh. Her laugh was one of my favorite things about her. It wasn't the most feminine laugh, but it wasn't rigid either. I'd tell my friends to imagine a man walking down a busy city street and yapping on his cell phone. Bumping into others, oblivious of the people around him, the corner of his briefcase jabbing people as he forces his way through the foot traffic, ignoring all forms of social congeniality...let's say, in his selfish rush, he steps out into the traffic and WHAM! He gets nailed by a speeding taxi and is flung high in the air. While skyward, his mind will race, life flashing before his eyes, and he will recount every mistake he ever made, every instance where he belittled someone, hurt someone, abandoned someone, abused an animal and all of it will hit him as hard as that taxi and as a comeuppance, on his descent back down to the pavement, he will hear nothing but the sound of Patricia-Marie laughing on the sidewalk. That's how great her laugh is, I'd tell them. It can be playful, sarcastic, even taunting. I've felt all three prongs of her laughter and it was something I could listen to all day. If that anecdote didn't sell them, I'd just say about Trish, "She's me. But funnier. And with boobs."

. Trish was a woman of short stature, but she drove the largest car I had ever seen: a gray 1996 Cadillac Deville. She'd slap on her oversized sunglasses that nearly covered the top half of her face and barrel down Broad Street in that beaten up ol' Deville. To passersby, it must have seemed that the car was driven by a ghost, but if they looked hard enough, they'd see Trish's small knuckles gripping the top of the wheel. The car matched her personality so fittingly I couldn't imagine her driving anything else. She would come over to my apartment and say casually while taking off her shades, "I got into a car accident on the way over," and before I could ask about it, she'd say, "I hit someone from behind at a red light and then they just drove off!" then she'd start laughing at the absurdity of it. Nothing was so serious that it couldn't be laughed at or mocked before being dealt with.

Trish and I were together for a year and we kept our relationship steady while she moved back to her college in Maryland and I stayed in Philadelphia. We'd talk on the phone twice a day, and every time she would greet me with a faux Chinese accent. "Herro?" she'd ask before hearing my voice. "Oh, Herro!"

She graduated a year before me and moved to Philadelphia in the spring. My safe room nearly collapsed upon itself one day in June. I picked her up outside her apartment, flicked on the radio and made a left onto Broad Street. The Rolling Stones song "Beast of Burden" came through the speakers and she turned up the volume. She said, "I'd like this song played at our wedding."

She said it so simply, so matter-of-factly that it hardly registered a physical reaction. But in my head, in my room of safety, the walls began to shake with a tremendous force, the words reverberating and creating cracks in the foundation as the sound waves penetrated my room of safety, "our wedding...our wedding...our wedding... our wedding..."

Caution lights descended from the ceiling cascading a yellow glare around my room. Over a loudspeaker, an automated female voice cautioned: "You now have...15 minutes... to reach...minimum...safe...distance..."

I jumped out of my office chair by the fireplace and saw that the knob of the front door was turning ever so slightly. I picked up whatever I could in the small amount of time I had, and made a rush for the back door; the bank vault door. The room behind the vault door was incredibly small, dark, and terribly uncomfortable but at least it was impenetrable.

What happened outwardly was that I quickly became a tense ball of anger. Of course it made sense that Trish and I would be together for such a long time, but having her vocalize it left me short of breath. Instead of doing the mature thing, instead of talking about my fears with her and working on them, I completely shut down all emotional responses to Trish and was feeling suffocated behind that vault door of mine. I wasn't ready. I was nowhere near ready to handle the responsibility of a completely serious relationship. I knew that after graduating college, I was going to lead a life of menial dead-end jobs while I privately worked on manuscripts and got rejected by publishers and agents. It was a rough road ahead of me, and I felt that it needed to be taken alone. I needed my own personal space to make it happen. Love, I thought, is a reward after you achieve your dreams. Marriage, kids, a suburban home...that all has to wait until I get my career in order, and when would that happen? I didn't know.

My means of internal lockdown was displayed through annoyance over everyday things, aggravation towards others who occupied my time, and reluctance towards caring for anyone other than myself. It's not that the relationship failed, it's that I failed the relationship.

After Trish and I ended, I would still try again with others, but it's always the same thing. The door to my room is opened and they find it void of humans. Safely tucked behind the vault door, I can hear them rummaging around, looking for me but I am nowhere to be found. Only after the sound of their search subsides and I hear the door close do I open the vault door to stretch my arms out and give a good scratch. The room will be slightly different but still familiar. Nothing is so damaged that it cannot be repaired with some dedication, but the room is somehow prettier than before, the shelves now adorned with inside jokes, the memories of the time spent with someone; something as simple as a laugh or a greeting on the phone.

Once I graduated, I joined the workforce full time, and after a year I was able to save up enough to move out of my parents' house. Slowly but methodically, my studio apartment on the outskirts of town is replacing the room I have in my head. Finally, with a small physical space to call my own, the room inside my head and the physical room that I live in are becoming indiscernible. My entertainment area contains all of the video game systems I had as a child and young adult. I got my old bookshelf back and it now barely holds all the books of my collegiate career, my diploma displayed in the center of the middle shelf, collecting dust. The bottom shelf holds unsold and undistributed copies of my self-published books that I cannot seem to give away. My work space is by the window with scraps of my life written on various stray pieces of paper, shriveled with sopped up coffee stains and underneath old beer caps. For motivational purposes, I have a Rocky Balboa bobble-head as well as the last sentence in Franz Kafka's "Before the Law" printed and framed. The Rocky statue is there to remind me to constantly get up after being struck down, the Kafka is there to remind how me short life is in the long run.

This wistful type of existence I have made for myself greatly motivates me. The yearning I feel for things lost drives me to be a better person and a better writer, to be able to go back and dissect every pertinent memory until it is exhausted. The pang of loneliness that I feel every once in a while is oddly comforting, like a warm blanket. It's only after writing this one piece do I realize that the door to my room has to be opened from the inside, and of my own volition. Nobody can do it for me.

I am trying, though. I have acquired a small addition to my family; a hermit crab whom I have named Chauncey. I figure that if I am going to begin to care for something other than myself, I'll start off small with an animal that is metaphorically just like me. What also aids my emergence are online social networks and digital communication that keeps me vaguely in touch with the outside world. From my computer I can still connect with people that I care about and give them good wishes at a distance that is comfortable to me. I still technically talk with Trish even though I haven't heard her voice in nearly five years. I find myself constantly thinking of puns and bad jokes to send her so that I can at least let her know that I am still around, still plugging away. I do miss her. I think I'm allowed that. I have become a small nagging voice on her shoulder, whispering homonyms and subtly letting her know that I will open my door one day.

