Savage Stories

Amelia

2009-07-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Charlie and I planned to spend a weekend in Los Angles. An old friend of his was having a party and wanted us to come. She’d offered her guest room, so we wouldn’t have to drive anywhere after her party. She planned to get everyone very drunk. Amelia, a couple of years older than Charlie, was a singer who still worked small clubs when she could. A casualty of the drug years, she had finally settled on alcohol, since it was legal and cheap.

Charlie had arranged to meet his favorite female tennis partner, Janice, and her husband, Glade, who just happened to be in the city for a wedding, and wanted to see a female jazz vocalist they knew, playing at a new little chic club not far from Amelia’s place in West Hollywood.

We had Margaritas and fajitas while we listened to the singer. Most of her material was original and great. I was having a wonderful time and so was Charlie. We hadn’t had an evening like this in a long time. We’d both dressed up, and enjoyed the company. I’d met his tennis partner before, but I’d never met her husband and he was delightful--a rosy cheeked, red bearded Scotsman who taught physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He told wickedly funny stories about his colleagues.

During the second break, the singer joined our table. She and the Scotsman used to play together. He’s a pianist. She and Charlie and the Scotsman end up jamming on stage for the first two songs in the last set. They played two of my favorite old standards--My Romance, and I Could Write A Book. Charlie smiles at me from behind the borrowed bass, looking so perfectly at home, at ease, in his element. We were so happy when we left. We held hands on the way to the car. He kissed me in the front seat of the Volvo before he started the car, and nagged at me about using my seatbelt.

At Amelia’s place the party was in full swing--her thirty or forty closest friends. She was already pretty drunk but perfectly coherent, spotting us the minute we walked in the door. She floated across the room in an open silk kimono over silk pajamas, arm outstretched, cigarette in long holder, unlit, announcing our arrival to the assembled guests. When she reached me she took my hand and locked arms with Charlie, and led us around the room introducing us to person after person saying the same thing each time. “This is Judy, and she’s in love with Charlie. This is Charlie, and he’s in love with himself.” I remember nothing of the rest of the evening except Charlie wanting to fuck me in the ass that night, and then before I was completely awake, he was fucking me in the cunt in the morning. God help me, I enjoyed it, both times.

Flesh

2008-10-25T23:06:00.001-07:00

She was suddenly gripped with the need to tear her clothes off. She had hated her body so long she needed proof that it was still a worthy enemy. There were mirrors all over her small house, but she never looked at them anymore except by accident, and even then she didn't see herself. Just the blur of a moving target. She'd stopped caring long ago when she realized her youth and beauty were gone. Good riddance, she thought when she thought about it at all. She said she liked the invisibility that her age and lack of effort (when it came to grooming or dressing up) gave her, when she ventured out in public--which was seldom. She rarely did anything physical these days. The drugs she took for bipolar disorder made her body fat and flabby. And there was no point in caring about such nonsense as the flesh. It dried and withered long before the rest of the body. She was once a lovely rack of bones to hang a dress on, but now she was a weighty carcass for some poor soul to find someday dead upon her bed. The bed was where she watched TV, read books, wrote the checks for her bills, and slept. The only reason to leave her bed these days was to walk, bare feet slapping on the concrete floor and then the tile to go to the bathroom, then back to fix coffee, let the dog out. Then the slap of the foot on the floor to let the dog back in, to feed the dog and then the slap of the foot as she traversed the room back to the bed. She wore yoga pants and a wife-beater T-shirt, a long sleeved cotton shirt or T-shirt over that. She called this sloppy get-up jammies. She lived in it.

Autumn came and after three years of ignoring the grapevines on the south wall of the house, they were like a wall of green and gold a foot deep hanging off the roof of the cottage, drifting across the glass walls of the greenhouse. The honeysuckle had become tangled in the grape. The stone work she'd done fifteen years ago was disappearing under this wall of vines. Even virginia creeper had crept into the mix and it worked it's way into the crevice where a wood beam joined with the siding at the east corner. The wild yellow roses needed pruning and so did the white. And so late in October one sunny afternoon after she had her coffee and cigarette, she grabbed her gardening gloves and went outside. She worked for several hours, occasionally drinking from a quart of water now and then. She would stand with the jug of water in her hand, sweat dripping from her jaw, and survey the work so far. There was a bit of damage to the house. Nature left to its own devices will overtake the works of man like kudzu gobbles up barns in the South. Eventually it all goes back to wild in the end. There are great puffs of dust that rise into the golden air when she pries the wall of vines from the south-facing wall. She takes shears to it rolling it into a huge ball of mostly dried sticks and dead leaves where spiders made their summer home. She wrestled it into the huge brown garbage can using all her strength to force it down so she could put the thorny rose shoots into the mix, but found herself shaking and hot. She peeled off the long sleeved T-shirt and gloves and threw them on the rose garden chair. She bent over and shook her hair, watching upside down as debris fell to the ground in the shaking. When she stood up, she was trembling. Time for lunch. But just inside the door as the screen slapped shut behind her she wrestled the wife-beater off her body, unfastened her bra, and stepped out of her yoga pants to gaze upon the full ripe body of an old woman.

Body Warmth

2008-09-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

Our first house in Willamina was on the outskirts of town at the top of a long sloping hill. It was a small white box, with a smaller white box behind it. The garage was almost too short for the station wagon. The house had a small living room, a small kitchen, one small bathroom and one small bedroom. It had a back porch which doubled as a laundry room. The washing machine was one of the old fashioned kind that had a roller on it. It was just like Grandmother’s in Texas. The water emptied into a big, double sink. I slept across that room, next to an inside wall for warmth.

One of Daddy’s high school students gave me her old bicycle. I loved it even more then my bike in Salt Lake. This one was a real grown-up girls bicycle with a basket on the front and a long flat panel on the back to carry a passenger. It had a bell, too. Even with the seat as low as it would go, I could barely reach the peddles when I sat. It became my private measure for how much I was growing.

My mom, Maggy, got really hard to be around. If I came straight home after school, she would hound me about cleaning my room, picking up the clothes off the floor of the curtained-off corner that was my closet. She’d say things like, “You're seven years old. You're not a baby anymore. It’s about time you started to take some responsibility around here. I’m not your slave, do you understand me! You’re going to learn to clean up after yourself and start doing chores, like everybody else. Where’s your homework?”
“I did it at school, in the library. Why are you so mad at me?”
“I’m not just mad at you. I hate this place. Now help me clean up. Start in your room.”
“Why did we come here if you hate it?”
“Because it was the least of three evils.”
“What you mean.”
“It doesn’t matter. Just stay out of my way and keep your room clean. I want you to clean the tub after you bathe. You could help a little more with the dishes, too. Now do what I ask, and leave me alone.” She turned her back and walked out of the kitchen into the living room where she had her sewing machine set up on a card table. She was making curtains. I stood there, very quiet, and then I went into my room and started with the closet. I picked up the piles of clothes on the floor and laid them on my bed. Then I started playing dress-up. After I tried on an outfit I hung it up or folded it, and put it in the boxes that were my chest of drawers. If something smelled really bad, I dumped it in my dirty laundry basket. Then I quietly tiptoed out the back door and got on my bicycle. I rolled out the driveway and instead of circling the house around the picket fence that surrounded the front yard, and heading down the paved road to town, I took the dirt road at the back of the house, coasting over the pot-holed, rocky surface, cruising the neighborhood, heading for the woods that bordered the north end of town, only a few blocks from our house.

I found trails among the trees, ferns as tall as a person bordered the trails. I found delicate, orchid like flowers, fallen trees with trunks covered in a rug-like green moss. Within the cover of that forest, even in heavy rain I could remain remarkably dry. The trees were like gently dripping umbrellas. I found a huge variety of mushrooms and toadstools, and saw squirrels and chipmunks, does with faintly spotted fawns. I saw a skunk and he saw me. We stared at each other for a moment, then he turned and walked away, stopping once to look back at me. Then he hurried on. I went home when it started to get dark.

The smell of dinner hit me before I even opened the back door. And I could hear my mother’s voice raised. I paused with my hand on the doorknob. Maggy was raving about mildew. About mildew and money. That seemed safe enough for me to open the door. As I entered the kitchen, glancing quickly at the table to see if it needed setting, I heard her say, "...so I got a job. I start work Monday. I’ll work in the front office at the Electric Company. Judy’s going to have to help out here. And I’d appreciate it if you backed me up on that. Could you try to get home a little earlier?” Then she noticed me getting silverware out of the drawer. “Where the hell did you go?”
“I just went for a bike ride.”
“Did you hear what we were talking about?”
“I heard you say you got a job.”
“Well, that’s going to mean more work for you. I’m counting on you to help me out here, okay?”
“Okay.” I went about my business of setting the table. We had chicken with dumplings and salad. It was great, one of my favorite things. A filling, comforting food. And there were leftovers to eat after school tomorrow. And nobody would be home, so I could do what I wanted and wouldn’t get yelled at. I sang as I washed the dishes. “We are poor little lambs who have gone astray, baa, baa, baa. We are little lost sheep who have lost our way, baa, baa, baa. Gentleman songsters off on a spree, doomed from here to eternity. God have mercy on such as we, baa....baa...baa.”

When I took my bath I sang “A tisket a tasket, a red and yellow basket, I wrote a letter to my love and on the way I lost it.” I couldn’t remember any of the other words, so I kept repeating the same line over and over. I scrubbed out the ring in the tub with my washcloth and bar soap. I hung up my towel. I put on my pajamas, carried my dirty clothes into my bedroom and threw then on the closet floor. Maggy was sewing, and Daddy was grading tests. I said goodnight and went to bed. I was delighted that Maggy would be going to work.

When Daddy came in the next night to read with me, he said, “It’‘s cold out here. We need to get you a heater. Sit up and let me scoot in there. We can keep each other warm while we read. Did you ever hear of the Donner Party?”
“No. What kind of a party did they have?”
“They were explorers, pioneers, and they got caught in a snowstorm, crossing Donner’s Pass. That’s a high mountain pass. They ran out of food, and they were so cold. Almost as cold as I am right now.” He stuck his bare feet on the side of my calves. They were like ice. I giggled and tried to scoot away.

“If I’m going to finish this story, you’re going to have to keep me warm. Come here.” He wrapped me in his arms, and pulled me close to his body. Snuggling me in close, my head nestled in his armpit. “They call it the Donner Party, because it was a group of people who all died in a horrible winter storm on Donner's Pass. Nobody was prepared for how much snow there was or how cold it got. When the horses died, they ate the horses. That kept them alive for awhile, but now and then someone died in the night, even though they all slept together, like this. Do you know the best way to stay warm?”
“To wear lots and lots of clothes and keep your hat on!”
“That’s best in the day time, but at night, even with clothes on, your body temperature drops. So the best thing to do is share body warmth with someone else. Let me show you what I mean.” I had my back to his stomach, and he scrunched back from me and pulled his sweatshirt up, and pulled his pants down. Then he moved his bare stomach and chest and legs close to me, and it was like backing close to the gas heater in the living room. Then he pulled my nighty up and it was skin to skin. My butt was cold until it snuggled into his lap, which was hotter than the rest of him. It was like the hottest part of the fire. “See what I mean? That’s how the Donner Party stayed alive as long as they did.”
“Did they all die?”
“I’ll finish that story next time, but you need to practice your reading, so read to me kiddo.”

I leaned forward, breaking contact, to reach my reader. Daddy pulled me back, and with his hand he opened my legs, slipping his penis between them, resting it snug against my peepee. It was warmer than anything. Then he said, “Now I’m comfortable and warm, how about you?” I nodded my head. “Well, are you going to read to me?”

I turned pages to the slow, rhythmic rocking of Daddy’s naked body behind me, between my legs. His breath was warm and wet on the top of my head. I turned another page and held my breath, listening. He whispered, “Does that feel good? Are you warm enough?” I nodded my head. He used the hand that had slipped his penis between my legs to reach across and touch himself. Then he put his fingers on my peepee and they were slippery. They slid into the lips of my peepee, and he opened them so his penis was rubbing against me closer and slippery. He whispered, “Give me your hand.” I took my hand and put it in his, and he moved them both to the hot slippery place between my legs. He put my palm over the wet round top of his penis, with his hand on top on mine, he pressed our hands around it, and our hands moved together, touching my slick peepee then pulling back to move through the crack of my bum, then forward again, so slow and warm and slippery. The inside of my thighs were slippery, too. He made a soft huffing sound and our hands filled with hot wet slimy stuff. He held my hand there, full of that stuff, while he whispered into the top of my head, “God, oh God, you are the sweetest...oh...ah, God...”Then he used the hem of my nighty to clean up our hands. It was the beginning of a new tradition.

Another tradition was shooting rats at the city dump. The only picture of me holding that gun and aiming it, is from that day when I was about to turn nine. The gun I'm holding in the picture is my mother's Luger pistol, a spoil of war my biological father brought back from his adventures in World War II. I am a thin, long legged girl with shoulder length hair. The picture was taken at the city dump in Willamina, Oregon, in the summer. My Daddy and I are out of school and shooting rats at the dump. He leans against our ugly green station wagon, a cigarette dangles from his lips, and when he isn't aiming a camera at me, he is holding a bottle of beer and smoking a cigarette. I'm a good shot by then, but I don't remember when I held this gun for the first time. It has a fierce little kick that I have learned to control. I am standing there facing my Daddy, with the gun held in my right hand, arm extended, head turned to the right, shot by the camera in profile, squinting slightly as I aim. My left arm hangs so nonchalantly at my side. I have very good posture. I'm wearing shorts, a camp shirt, and have espadrilles on my feet. It was so easy to swing that gun in a quarter arc and shoot my Daddy dead. I remember the thought drift through my brain like the wisp of a dream. And then as if it were just a dream, I do it. I don't even think about it. It just happens. That quarter swing of my arm, and I pull the trigger. My aim is wrong. The top of his head flies off and splatters the windshield of that ugly green station wagon. He doesn't make a sound. He is slumping down, sliding off the hood of the station wagon, missing the top of his head. Then there is the sound of the beer bottle hitting the dirt. It's a soft little sound, as the beer bubbles up and spills into the dirt. Now it's so peaceful at the dump.

I'm curious, and walk slowly toward the station wagon with the gun dangling from my left hand. The cigarettes are in the breast pocket of his short sleeved shirt. Blood and bits of other stuff are soaking the shoulders of his shirt and I want to get the cigarettes out of his pocket before they're ruined. I drop the gun in his lap, and then I reach into his pocket and grab the pack of cigarettes and his zippo lighter. He's never let me play with the lighter. He always lights my cigarette for me. It takes me two tries to get the flame to pop up. It's so easy. I wonder why he made such a big deal about the zippo being dangerous. I sit in the dirt, and lean back against the back tire in the shade. It's so quiet.

The Contessa

2008-07-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

Junior saw her the first day of the seminar and made sure to get a seat directly across from her. It was a seminar on the plays of Harold Pinter. Junior was the English Department's only Woodrow Wilson Scholar. He also had a special grant from the Creative Writing Department, so he didn't really need to work. He could be a TA, but why? It cut into his free time. He had a William Morris agent--had since he was eighteen. First story he wrote got published in a collection of the Best Short Fiction, 1966. He's been writing and trying to find a better place to sleep. He doesn't worry about the deadline for a collection of stories, he writes fast. But he does need a place to flop. He also needs some blow.

Junior doesn't have to say a word in this seminar. The famous playwright is teaching. They drink beer together in the afternoon. They laugh together at the foolish things these Mormon kids say in class. They dish babes. The famous playwright has a new lover every semester. He's been married to the same woman almost thirty years. Imagine that. He has a son he doesn't talk about much. The famous playwright likes to gamble.

Junior starts to think of the beauty across from him two nights a week for three hours a night as The Contessa. He starts referring to her as The Contessa. Pretty soon other men are calling her The Contessa. She is the most vocal and confident of the students. She is prepared and perfectly willing to take on the Mormon grad students full frontal. The Contessa makes it easy on the famous Playwright. He only has to get her started and she runs the seminar smoothly. Soon there is a regular Tuesday night beer drinking group that takes the seminar into the late night. She is often there, sitting beside the famous playwright. Her name is Judith, but he finds himself still talking about her when she isn't there, as The Contessa. Judith doesn't seem to see him. He wonders if she's this semester's lover. He also finds out that Judith is married.

One early afternoon Junior pops his head into the famous professor's office on his way out for an afternoon of shooting smack. But his famous friend invites him to go have lunch with him, "My treat," he says. Junior is disappointed that his high will have to be postponed, but smiles and says, "Sure, thanks."

Strangely the famous playwright takes them downtown to a nice little hole in the wall restaurant called, "The Beanery." It's packed. They stand outside and chain smoke, waiting for a table to open up. It takes almost twenty minutes. But once seated, he sees The Contessa walking toward them smiling, with menus in hand. Her hair is twisted into a loose chignon at the nape of her gorgeous neck. She is tall, willowy, graceful, olive skin, dark hair. She's wearing a long skirt and sandals with straps that wrap around her ankles. She has beautiful feet. Is she wearing a bra or not? He's not sure, and so makes a study of watching her across the room. She is flawless and usually a bit aloof, yet now, oddly warm. When she approaches a table she's smiling, she seems patient, bends over a menu to point things out. She makes notes, smiles, turns away, and the smile is gone. What remains is a fierce, strong, beautiful woman in motion. Focus is what you see when she's not smiling. She comes back to take their order and calls them by name, "Junior, Henry, who let you boys out?" The famous playwright beams and says, "It's like a visit to Greece, and then having Melina Mercouri wait on you at a small cafe." She smiles and says, "I think more Anna Magnani, but then, who am I?" Junior blurts out, "You're The Contessa." She looks at him then and says, "Junior have you decided what you want?" He leers at her and says, "I'll have a Rose Tattoo." She turns and says over the shoulder, "Play amongst yourselves, and when you're ready to order food, let me know." The smile is gone.

He starts hanging out at the Beanery. She is not playful when he's with Wittlock. Smiles perfunctorily and takes their order. States plainly that she gets paid to work here and can't hang out and chit chat with them. Wittlock has a dishwashing job at The Beanery, and deals a little on the side. Wittlock has heard Junior call her The Contessa, but when Wittlock says it, it becomes The Cuntessa. So now around the Beanery she's called The Cuntessa by all the male help. One day when he and Wittlock come in for lunch, she walks to the table to take their order, Wittlock says, "Hi, Cuntessa," and she turns to look Junior straight in the eye and say, 'Thanks Junior, you little prick. Whadda you assholes want?" She smiles without any warmth at all. Junior tips her a twenty on a five dollar lunch.

Junior takes over Wittlock's job suddenly. Now he's working Wittlock's shifts and all her shifts, too. He does a much better job washing dishes than Wittlock did. He buses her tables and resets them, too. And sonnets start to appear on the Beanery bulletin board. It's in a public area, and is used mostly as a notice of rooms for rent, dogs lost, cars for sale. That kind of thing. But when the poems start appearing addressed to The Contessa. She knows who wrote them, and as soon as they appear she takes them down, reads them, and tears them up.

One night in August they were closing up The Beanery, when Junior asks the cook, who has just finished the last order of the night, "Want to take a little break downstairs? I've got smack or blow." Kirby doesn't hesitate, "How much, man?" "My treat." And Kirby is gone for a half an hour. Which leaves Junior and The Contessa alone for fifteen minutes, once the last customer is gone and the door closed and locked. "What do you like?"

"What do you mean what do I like? What kind of a question is that!"
"I brought you a present, and wanted to know what you preferred, heroin or coke?"
"Presumptive, aren't you?"
"I see you step out back to smoke your joints. I know you're no virgin."
"What the fuck do you think you know about me!" This is not so much a question, as an accusation. Almost shouted. When Kirby opens the basement door he asks, "Is it safe to come upstairs? Judith shouts, "Why the hell wouldn't it be, Kirby! And don't you ever call me The Cuntessa again! My goddamned name is Judith. Do you both understand? If I ever hear another male employee of this place call me The Cuntessa or Contessa, I'll get both your asses fired."

It was a week before she came back to work. She and Jack had gone camping. She didn't seem like the camping type. Junior asked, and found out she was taking a scheduled vacation. But still he worked two shifts--almost eighty hours a week. He gave up going to classes. He slept in the basement of The Beanery.

Junior was built like Judith. They were about the same height; he weighed a little more, but not much. Junior had a mane of curly black hair that he usually kept in a pony tail when he worked. His face was angular. He had hazel eyes like Judith, nice eyebrows, too. But his beard grew fast and very black, so even though he shaved every day, the lower half of his face always had a bluish cast to it. He was slight and pale skinned.

When Judith returned to work, he gifted her with an ounce of pretty good pot. She took the gift and said, "Thanks Junior, is this an apology?"

"What did I do that I need to apologize for?"
"You got every man in town to start calling me Contessa. I hate it. I want it to stop."
"Didn't you ever see the movie The Barefoot Contessa?"
"Yes. So what?"
"Just take it as a compliment. Ava Gardner is the star, and it's a great story. I think it might have won some Oscars. Anyway, I think you look like Ava Gardner, and you have beautiful feet. It just came to me in a flash of inspiration."
"What are your intentions, with all the flattery and the gifts of drugs, the busing my tables, the working two shifts to work with me? See, I did notice. But what is it you want?"
"I thought fathers were supposed to ask that question."
"Well, since I'm married, I have to ask this question myself. Or would you rather I have Jack ask you?"
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
"And what are your prospects, young man?"
"I'm a talented writer, and I have a William Morris Agent."
"Bring me a story. I want to find out how talented you are."
"At your service."

The next day Junior arrives with a story. It's called The Gates of Oxford.
Judith reads it on her break as she smokes a joint. It's funny in a dark kind of way. She thinks the main character is based on Junior, but the character is married to a real nut case, and she wants to know if Junior has been married.

When she comes up from the basement where she was smoking her joint and reading, Junior is in the dish room working like crazy getting ready for the lunch rush. As Judith gets to the dish room, Junior turns and says, "Well?"

"I have some questions." Junior puts his hands on his hips and sings, "I'm a little teapot short and stout, just tip me over and pour me out." He does the whole routine with the gestures and coyness of a kid performing for a grown up. She is delighted with this bit of childish spontaneity. She laughs and then says, "Well for starters, what would you call your style."

"Autobiographical Realism."
"That's a real literary style?"
"Yup."
"Are you married?"
"Not anymore."
"Did the cat live?"
"Nope."
"Was that your child?"
"Nope. She informally adopted the baby from an Indian girl who was going to jail."
"So, she stole the kid."
"Pretty much."
"And you went along with this program?"
"Well... I guess."
"What does, I guess mean?"
"It means, I guess I loved her, so I guess it didn't matter what she did. She was a speed freak. That didn't bother me either."
"Are you ethically challenged?"
"Not when it comes to love."
"Then why are you no longer with this crazy woman?"
"She left me for another man."

Later that afternoon, Judith's husband and three of his drinking buddies show up at The Beanery, and they're drunk on home brew and hungry. She and Junior haven't set the tables for dinner yet, and are just getting ready to start, when this quartet of drunks arrives and loudly demands service. Benny, a friend of her husband's, who spends more time at her house than she does, and never fails to piss all over the bathroom, shouts, "Where's The Contessa?" All four men have a fit of sniggering that isn't quite under control when Judith arrives with the menus and the cutlery. Jack demands water. There are no glasses on the table, and just as she turns to get glasses, Junior comes up behind her with glasses and a pitcher of ice water on a tray for the table. "Oooh, what have we got here, a waiter?" This from Paul who is almost too drunk to talk. Junior ignores the taunt and goes about his business. Then he disappears into the dish room. Judith says, "You boys have the menu memorized, what do you want to eat?" Jack orders an omelet. This will piss Kirby off, and ruin his end of shift buzz. The other three order sandwiches and fries.

When Judith walks into the kitchen, Kirby is already bitching. He's cleaned up and is planning on leaving the second the evening shift comes on, which was due to happen in ten minutes. "Fuck! Man!"
"I didn't invite them Kirby. I'm not exactly thrilled myself."

When she takes the rowdy group of drunks their late lunch or early supper, they grouse about how long it took to get their food. Benny says, nastily, "Tardiness doesn't help get you a big fat tip."
"Benny, you cheap bastard, since when have you ever tipped?" Judith turns from the table and heads for the back door to await her replacement and have a smoke.

As she passes through the dish room, she says to Junior, "Sorry for the assholes." Then she pushes the back door open, and heads outside to suck down a quick cigarette. Her lighter doesn't work. "Shit!" She turns to head back inside as the door opens and Junior comes out to join her for a cigarette. He has kitchen matches in his apron. He whips one out and strikes it with his thumb nail close to the end of her cigarette, it explodes in her face and the burning tip hits her open, startled eye. She drops her unlit cigarette and puts both hands to her eye. It burns wickedly. He is horrified and tries to get her hands away from her eye so he can see it, but it hurts too much, and her eye is streaming tears. "We need to get you to an emergency room."
"That would be a good idea, but I can't see to drive."
"I'll drive. Got your keys?"
"No, they're in my purse in the basement. Grab my coat, too."

He's back in seconds with her coat and her bag and they head to her old Chevy sedan in the parking lot behind The Beanery. He opens the passenger door for her, and she gets in. He rounds the front of the car and is seated behind the steering wheel in a couple of seconds. She's still rummaging around in her bag for her keys. She grabs the wad of keys and finds the Chevy's ignition key. She hands the keys to Junior and puts her head back against the head rest. He can't find the place to put the key. She grabs them out of his hand and inserts the key in its slot. He turns the key and the car lurches forward and dies. She say, "Put the clutch in, and try it again." He says, "I don't know how to drive a stick shift."

"Fuck. Get out and go back inside and tell Jack I injured my eye. Tell him I did it with an exploding kitchen match. I'll be home later. And then just ignore those assholes, they never tip anyway."

Holy Cross is close, and it's a hospital where her grandfather used to be Chief of Staff. She drives mostly one handed, with the other hand covering her injured eye. She comes to a stop into a parking slot outside the emergency room. When she gets inside, the waiting room is empty. This is a good sign that she won't have to wait long. When she checks in, she drops her grandfather's name. She only has to wait a half hour. They check her eye, rince it over and over, then put some ointment in it, put a patch over it, and write her a prescription for more ointment. She thanks them and heads out to the parking lot. Jack is leaning against her car. "Well, how's your eye?"
"Not too bad. I have a prescription. Will you take me by the pharmacy to fill it?"
"Sure, I'll drive you. Benny dropped me off."
"Why does Benny have to treat me like shit?"
"Benny likes you, you know that. He's just teasing."
"Benny's an asshole."
"Well, I'm not that crazy about some of your friends, either."
"My friends don't spend all their time at our house, pissing all over the bathroom. Next time Benny pisses all over, I'm banning him from using our toilet."
"Where's he going to piss?"
"In the gutter, for all I care. Maybe he should piss before he gets to our place, and not stay so damn long."
"You're sure being a bitch."
" My eye hurts. My feet hurt too. I'm tired, and you knew I was a bitch when you married me. And just for the record, I don't like being called the Cuntessa or the Contessa, so tell your fucking friends to knock it off."
"What bug crawled up your ass?"
"Maybe you and your friends and your drunkenness, have crawled up my ass, as you so poetically put it."

Judith uses the burned eye as an excuse to stay home a day and sleep. She sleeps round the clock a deep cottony sleep. A sleep like she imagines death. A nothing. A nowhere. She knows this absence of feeling. She has finally detached and drifted off. In her dreamless sleep, she has come to the understanding that she can take no more. Next time she wakes to pee, she eats some yogurt and a slice of toast, sips a cup of tea. Then she starts packing. When she has the essentials in her two bags, she takes them to her car and locks them in the trunk.

Next day is payday at The Beanery. She goes in and works her shift as if nothing has changed. Junior is already there. He asks how she is and she says, "I'm fed up, that's how I am."
"What are you fed up with?"
"Are you shitting me?"
"What?"
"Well, for starters, my asshole husband and his posse of drunks, this place, this town. I'm leaving tonight after my shift."
"What do you mean, leaving?"
"I'm packed and leaving, at four. And keep your damn mouth shut about it." She pushes past him and down the stairs into the basement, puts her crap in her locker and heads upstairs with her apron.

After her shift, she calmly walks to her car and heads for the Idaho border. She figures she'll stop for the night in some small Idaho town. Once she's north of Logan, Junior raises his head from the floor of the back seat, and Judith nearly loses control of the car.

Too Damn Big

2008-06-24T18:44:00.000-07:00

Judith Blue stands out in the parking lot and watches as two women scream at each other out their car windows. “Jesus! Will you learn to drive that thang!”
“I was here first.”
“So the fuck what! You can’t drive worth shit!”

She turns and looks at the line of women that snakes out the door and down the sidewalk in front of the small specialty stores that share this rather large strip mall with The Beefeater, the restaurant, bar, and disco she manages for Chuck. Women are beginning to push each other in front of Yin Lee’s.

“Oh god, what am I going to do now?” She thinks this aloud and the sound of her own voice startles her. A very pregnant woman gives a mighty shove at the woman in front of her, who goes down, hits the pavement on her knees, and as her hands come down on the concrete she screams, “What the…….” Judith turns toward the restaurant and starts moving as fast as she can, considering her high heels and the slope of the parking lot. She keeps thinking, ‘I didn’t know this many women lived in Springfield. Oh god, what am I going to do?’ When she gets to the doors she slips past a trio of women waiting to get past the two men stationed at the door. One of the guys guarding the door whispers in her ear as she squeezes through, “We need more wait staff.” It’s 5PM of a Tuesday night. The show doesn’t start for two hours and the place is packed already and the only men inside the place work there. Them and the cops guarding the stage in the disco.

A month ago she took this job as a lark. She needed a distraction from the faculty wives parties. When they first arrived she’d amiably gone along with the suggestions that she “participate.” The first abomination was a tea for faculty wives. Full dress regalia, it looked for all the world like the Junior League and the DAR all wrapped into one. Then there was the Gourmet Club. What a fucking joke that was. Someone actually brought a green bean casserole, with canned green beans and Campbell’s mushroom condensed soup. Gawd, it was so funny and so sad all at the same time. After that she knew she had to get a job.

During her interview with Chuck she asks all the questions while Chuck’s girlfriend/accountant gives her the skunk-eye. Both Chuck and his girlfriend come from Paducha where Chuck’s daddy owns the Caddy dealership. Must be a lot of pimps in Paducha. Chuck and his accountant are in their late twenties and have no idea what they hell they’re doing. She must be his first interview. When she’s through asking him questions, she asks one more. “Do you want to ask me any questions?” He stands up and giving her his most charming look, which is an Elvis lip curl, sticks out his hand and says, “Welcome aboard.” She shakes his hand and asks one last question. “What do you plan to pay me to make this into a profitable venture?” His left eyelid flutters a little and he says, “$800. 00 a month” and beams. She says without batting an eye, “Thanks, but no thanks,” and turns toward the door. He says, “Whoa, not so fast, that’s just base salary. If you can turn a profit, I’ll give you 2% and of course, you eat and drink for free.” She pauses for a couple of seconds and says, “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”
“4%?”

“Make it 5%, and and don’t hassle me about the changes I want to make. By the way, what’s your advertising budget?” She looks at the accountant who looks at Chuck who says, “Let me know what you need to spend, and we’ll pay the bills.”

“On time?”

He looks at her sideways and says, “Sure. Is that it?”

“No, I need to spend a week or so assessing staffing. Supplies., talent. Any changes I want to make, You’ll OK?”

“You’re the boss.”

“If I find that you have not paid staff, or vendors, or advertisers on time and in full, I’ll quit. Are we clear on all of that?”

“Yes mam.”

Walking to her car she knows she has just made a huge mistake, not asked for enough, got nothing in writing, but what the hell, she can always quit.

When she gets home Henry is there, smoking, drinking straight lukewarm vodka in a half full ice tea glass reading student papers. If you are a lucky student he gets to your paper just before that ice tea glass is empty. By then he doesn’t even bother to read them. He just gives these last four or five A’s and leaves it at that.
“I got a job.”

Silence.

“Have you eaten?”

“NO.” He says this rather too loud for her taste, and she wants to say, “Henry, go fuck yourself,” but refrains for once because she really doesn’t give a shit if Henry’s eaten or not, she’s not cooking for him, so, why engage?

She heads for the shower. An hour later, after the shower, drying her hair, and getting dolled up a little, she grabs her handbag and starts toward the living room. Henry says in his whiniest voice, “Aren’t you going to fix dinner?”

“How astute, Henry. Was it the click click of my high heels?”

“Yes.”

“Want to have a conversation, Henry?”

“NO. Are you going out?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I got a job, Henry. I told you, but it didn’t seem to register. I thought maybe you’d nodded off. I’d take you to dinner, but I doubt you could walk, and really, I want to see what the dining experience is like for a woman alone.”

“Why.”

“Henry? Are you in there? Why, to what? Are you so obtuse in class?

“A restaurant? Really? Will you bring me something back?”

“Probably not, since you’ll be asleep before I get back. Stay sober and I’ll buy you dinner tomorrow night. Good night Henry.”

As she drives to Beefeaters, Judith thinks about the possibilities. The place is huge. Restaurant seats two hundred. The bar is another hundred . Fire code says the disco can hold a maximum of three hundred. She does not know the population of Springfield, but thinkst keeping this place busy is really going to be a challenge. It's Thursday evening, just past 6 PM when she pulls into the parking lot. Stores are still open, but even so, the lot is almost empty. Oh God.

That first week she feels she has located all the major staffing changes she will need to make. She spends most early afternoons meeting with the back of the house—mostly the three cooks, one of whom has Culinary Institute training. They revamp the menu with specials that will not necessitate reprinting menus. Add dessert specials, everything is made in- house, bread, desserts. They work on a new wine list. Not necessarily more expensive, but better. Printing costs will be small. She gets rid of the English serving girl dresses with all the cleavage exposed, and the long skirts that are a tripping hazard, and put everybody in black pants and white shirts.

She spends her evenings in the bar. They have a cowboy quartet that starts playing at six. She gives them two weeks notice and puts up posters at the University’s music department and an ad in the classifieds of the News-Leader asking for jazz musicians. On Wednesday afternoon she auditions three groups. Hires a band called Entropy. Judith thinks the bands name is pretentious and not apt, since they play quite swinging or soulful Jazz standards but decides it isn’t worth arguing about, since very few bar patrons will have the slightest idea what the fuck it means. She hires a great looking female bartender and keeps the one male bartender who doesn’t hit on her right off. She asks everyone to put out the word that she’s looking for another bartender. She has three cocktail waitresses to start with. She’ll add them as she needs.

Judith Blue is now on a mission to poach talent from restaurants and bars in the surrounding counties, since she’s stolen all the good ones in Springfield. She’s left Horton’s alone because it is her only refuge from the Beefeater, so Larry and his staff are safe for now. Henry is too deep in his cups to really notice her absence.

Now she is concentrating on the disco. It’s days as a disco are numbered. Donna Summers is sort of old hat now, and it's time to transition to another incarnation. But what the fuck will that be? The place has a stage and dance floor and is too big by half. One morning in Fayetteville she stops for breakfast at a coffee shop near the the UAF campus, and while reading the paper, notices a small piece on page four about a club in Kansas City that sparks her interest. This little club, the Plug Nickel, has made news by offering the ladies a male strip show. The reason it makes any news at all is the huge crowd it draws—all women. Fancy that. She finishes her coffee, puts out her smoke, and tucks the paper under her arm and heads for the parking lot. She climbs into her Gran Torino and lites another cigarette before she turns toward Springfield. It’s a beautiful drive once you get past the strip malls that blight the landscape around Fayetteville, Benton, Rodgers, then she’s off the beaten track and on to Cassville, then Monett. Gorgeous farmland, no strip malls here. And she’s thinking all the way home.

She spreads the word among her staff of mostly S.M.S.U. students, that she’s looking for male dancers, real dancers, for an all female audience. Within a week she has fifty eight names on an audition list. And Beefeaters is buzzing. Business is picking up at a steady rate. Sometimes on Friday and Saturday nights there is a waiting list for dinner and the overflow is enjoying the jazz in the bar. Everybody’s making money and bickering and backstabbing is at a minimum. Even Chuck and the accountant are pleased.

So far the disco is a cavern still mostly empty, despite the sound of Donna Summer, Grace Jones, Gloria Gaynor, and Chic blaring from the huge speakers, and the glittery disco ball still twirling in the darkly lit space. She has banned the Bee Gees from the playlist, but there is always a small crowd late at night around the long bar, and a few diehard dancers still making the most of the big dance floor. But the times, they are about to be changing.

For three mornings she holds auditions in the empty disco. There are the dancers, the cocktail waiters, and the female DJ’s all in separate lines. Judith stands on the bar platform and tells them her plan. DJ’s have always been guys, but that is going to change on Tuesday nights. The women auditioning for DJ head to the booth. Dancers are limbering up down by the stage. And the first players in this performance are the cocktail waiters. Sixteen guys begging for ten spots. Mostly college athletes and frat boys, thinking this is going to be easy. They have to audition just like the dancers. She is going to turn the night-life gender roles upside down and see what falls out just one night a week for a month. She tells everyone exactly what her intentions are and what she expects of them. She will be the choreographer, and majordoma of this whole shebang. An experienced cocktail waitress from the bar gives lessons to the waiters auditioning. They have to be able to carry a heavily loaded tray high above their heads, arm fully extended, weaving their way through closely placed tables, with a certain grace and agility without spilling a drop. Almost every guy fails his first try. The regular DJ is demonstrating in a showoffy way the inner workings of the booth. Music gets going and then stops abruptly. She leves the bar tournament to the cocktail waitress and female bartender who will now make Tuesday night a regular part of her schedule. She's filling fake orders and loading the trays for these desperate waiter wannabes. Judith heads for the dancers.

This is going to be the tricky part of the whole deal. So they needed to have a little sit down. “Hi, I’m Judith Blue. Nice of you boys to show up, but this might not be exactly what you understood from the ad and posters. We are going to put on two shows a night one night a week for an all female audience. Women only. And you guys will be the entertainment.” There is a slight rise in the energy level of this group of attentive young men. They look at one another and smile. “I want to incorporate several elements to this performance, but I know this is a highly religious community, so to be fair to all of you, I must tell you first off, that there will be a little stripping involved. Anybody object to taking off your clothes while dancing and ending up nearly naked ought to leave now. We’re not doing anything illegal, but…” She shrugs, and sits at a table looking at the handsome, eager faces arrayed before her, spread out in repose on the dance floor, languid and muscled young men. Not a sound. No one moves to leave or even shifts his weight. “Is there a choreographer among you?” Three hands shoot up. She motions them over. They take chairs flanking her. “Will the remaining fifty or so of you break into groups of ten or eleven”? She waves her arm in the direction of the DJ booth. “Keep the volume low for awhile. We need to be able to talk in a normal tone, OK?”

There is a low murmur taking place in every part of the room now, then a large crash as one of the loaded trays hits the concrete floor. Dead silence for just a long moment, then the murmur starts again.

She has a powwow with her three choreographers and sketches out what she wants to see tomorrow, same time same place with some rough costuming. Is this possible? Yes, it turns out, it is.

Everywhere she goes she tells the women, in hushed and whispered tones that they might want to come for a special night just for women at the disco. At the bank, the grocery store, the doctors office, and throughout her strolls through the halls of academe.

By the following Monday morning they are ready for a dress rehearsal. She has ten well-trained waiters in short, tight, black shorts and white wife-beater t-shirts., that are wearing white tennis shoes on their feet. She was tempted to make them wear high heels, just for the object lesson, but decided against it in the end. Her DJ is not only a hot babe, she has great taste and timing. Judith’s strippers are dressed up and ready to go. The only thing missing is the audience, but it all works flawlessly in practice.

By six, the restaurant is full and the bar is overflowing. Women all over the place, and the excitement of anticipation is palpable. Conversation is decidedly more animated this evening. Judith surmises that without the sobering influence of the menfolk, the women are a little more uninhibited. She opens the disco doors and there is a near stampede from the bar. Women are running for the tables up front. Oh my god. Judith has the first of what will be many moments of dismay this evening. She stands inside the huge room and watches it fill in minutes. Her waiters are in full swing fast. She slips into the stock room behind the disco bar and uses the wall-phone to tell the boys bar-tending in the bar to come into the disco and assist the waiters at either end of the bar. This frees the two women bar-tending to mix drinks for the female customers three deep the length of the disco bar. Oh shit, this is not going to work as planned, there are just too many of them. Not one single ad and this is what has happened? There is a half hour to go and she already senses the chaos that might ensue if the bar fills with men waiting for the end of the shows and the emerging women. She checks with the wait staff in the restaurant. All the waiters agree that they will help out in the bar or disco when their tables empty. The waitresses express their displeasure at being left-out. Judith says, “Check your pockets at the end of the night and then tell me how left-out you feel.”

The show is perfection. But it is not the show that concerns Judith, it is the audience. This is like a fucking rock concert. Women are screaming and jumping up and down, throwing their panties. Waiters have come to her saying women are pulling their shorts down when they bend to take an order. These guy are getting groped. What the hell’s going on here? She gets goose bumps on the back of her neck. But gives a quick demonstration on how to squat at a table to take an order so as not to get ones shorts pulled down. This does not however solve the groping behavior. These guy are going to get groped. Nothing she can do about it now.

There are obviously kinks to be worked out, but there is no denying Judith is on to something here. Just what, she is not sure. She decides right then and there to do a fashion show on Wednesday night. She wanders into the bar and sees a milling mob of men. They are waiting almost patiently.

After a month of strip shows with an ever growing mob of women and the men who follow them, she has received television news coverage as far away as Kansas City. Now she gets a visit every Tuesday evening from the fire marshal to make sure they do not exceed capacity. Two burly cops flank the stage. Boys are coming out of the woodwork begging to cocktail for free, claiming all kinds of experience. But the crowd of screaming women of all ages and in all kinds of conditions, like hugely pregnant, or swooning and falling from the arms of their chairs where they stand to get a better view? This she cannot deal with. So, once the first show starts, she heads for Horton’s for a drink and a quiet dinner.

A Strange Woman

2008-06-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

"I was born with a flair for the dramatic but it was ridiculed out of me young. Not eradicated entirely, just driven under the bone, deep into the heart and spleen.” She pauses as if that’s all there is, finishes her Old Fashioned, plucks the cherry out with two long, slender, well- manicured fingers, tilts her elegant head back exposing a long supple neck and plops the glistening cherry in her open mouth. After she chews her cherry she continues, staring into her empty highball glass. “As I grew teeth, I ground them into cracked and splintered nubs. I eventually made tourniquets of the muscles surrounding my head, which I’m sure must feel like the binding of Chinese women’s feet in the old days. I only got to perform when I was assured of privacy. And there was precious little of that. Not that we were a big family. No, there were only the three of us. But there was only room for one performer in that small audience.”

She says this with a straight face and in a fairly convincing southern accent. Her voice is husky and deep, a whisky voice with that rough edge of a smoker. The whole thing sounds like something from a play. She’s addressing this load of crap to some big old John Wayne clone who’s muscled himself into the narrow space next to her at the bar. She’s responding to something he whispered into her right ear. He looks frankly bewildered, furtively glancing around for less complicated prey.

You can tell by the way she looks that what she says just might be true, but she tells it like a bald-faced lie. She’s a head-turner. Not flashy-dramatic, but eye-catching. Classy, chiseled face. Even if she isn’t terribly thin or young, she’s got great bones. Her clothes are expensive—quality, well-tailored, good fabrics. Her dark brown hair is cut about shoulder length and it gleams. It sways when she turns her head. Everything about her is striking, but quietly so. She’s the sort of woman everyone will turn to look at, but won’t approach. She looks self-contained and needing no one. Part of it’s her age. She’s not young enough to hustle. Not old enough to con. And despite that line of bullshit, and her age, she’s sexy.

The man who sits next to her at the bar wears a huge silver and turquoise watch and matching belt buckle. He’s tall, balding, and beer-bellied. She isn’t wearing any jewelry, no ear rings, no wedding band, no watch. They don’t even come from the same planet.

A tall, slender man in his thirties sits at the far end of the bar where it curves around and ends in the wall--something to lean on if need be. It’s the opposite end from where the bartender takes orders from the cocktail waitresses. It’s a good place to watch the waitresses and the rest of the bar clientele. He watches one of the cocktail waitresses for a few minutes. She smiles at the bartender as she rattles off the list of drinks she needs, and the second he turns away and starts working on her order, her face is a total blank, completely losing it’s warmth, as if a light went off. And just then she catches the slender man watching her. Her eyes lock on his, and he finds it impossible to look away from that completely expressionless stare, as if it were a dare. When she finally turns away from the bar with her two vodka tonics and three 7&7s loaded on that tiny tray, he looks down the bar at the dark-haired, older woman who is watching him with a bemused expression on her very interesting face.

She raises one eyebrow and lifts her highball glass in a salute. He lifts his drink to salute her back and feels his face flush. He signals the bartender, and when he looks back up at her, she’s looking in the mirror behind the bar bottles. At first he thinks she’s looking at herself, but her face is completely unstudied, and it occurs to him she’s watching the table behind her. She has the rapt expression of a voyeur. When the bartender takes his order, the slender man also order’s one for “the great broad drinking the Old Fashioned,” he nods in her direction.

A small, aged, black man at the piano finishes “‘Round Midnight.” The slender man at the bar pays for the bourbon and soda the bartender sets in front of him and leaves his stool to walk over and put a dollar in the pianists tip jar.

When he passes the back of the aging beauty’s barstool, she’s still watching the table behind her in the mirror. She sees him pass in front of them. When he walks back, after delivering his compliments to the pianist whose name turns out to be Bill Bailey, she turns her head and flashes him a high voltage smile. He smiles back. She says, “Hard to beat “‘Round Midnight” isn’t it?”
“It’s one of my favorites.”
“Thanks for the drink. Care to join me?”
“Sure, for a minute.”
Still smiling she says “My name’s Judith,” and extends her hand. She has long slender fingers. Her hand is soft but looks like it’s done some work in it’s day. There’s a small round scar just above her little finger. She has what’s called a French manicure.
He turns to her and says, “Would you like to share an order of escargot?”
“I’d love to.” Her lips are red and shiny. Her teeth are white and even. He asks her if she minds if he smokes. “No, not at all, I used to smoke and I’ll enjoy yours vicariously. It’s one of the reasons I still come here. Most places are so sanitized these days. Lord I love Larry Horton for keeping his bar properly smoke-filled.” Again the almost southern accent.
“You know the owner?”
“It’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody else and their business. So, since I don’t recognize you, you must be new in town or passing through. There are few strangers at this restaurant, since it’s small and far off the interstate. How did you find our little treasure?”
“I spent the day at Dillard’s today and asked the manager where to eat. She recommended Horton’s, so here I am. Sorry I’m so rude. My name is Martin. Martin Laterite”
“How very French.”
“The name, yes. I’m named after a great-grandfather.” He waves the bartender back and ask for the escargot. He says it will take about fifteen or twenty minutes.
“I noticed that you’re wearing a wedding ring. I find that so touchingly sweet in a man. Were you shopping for your wife?”
“No, I was selling. It’s what I do for a living. I sell women’s designer sportswear.”
“God! What a hellish job for a man.”
“Most women think it would be a great job.”
“Well, unlike most women, I hate stores and shopping. Did you like Lilly?”
“Lilith Jacobson? The store manager?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Yeah, I do. She’s a strait shooter. I like her directness. And I’m grateful to her that I’m not eating at Howard Johnson’s or the golden arches.”
“I play bridge with her once a month. And she does my shopping. God bless her for that. She’s a terrific friend.”
“And a wonderful job she does if the outfit your wearing is her handiwork. It’s Ann Klein Couture and they don’t carry the couture line in-store. So you must be a very special customer.”
“Just a picky friend. Besides, I only buy a few pieces each year. It’s not that much more work to buy special things for me. She knows my wardrobe and only adds what’s missing. I’ll bet she’d be here with you if it weren’t for her husbands business party.”
“Why aren’t you at her party?”
“Because I’m here having a drink with you Martin.” she raises her glass and sips her drink.
Bill Bailey starts “Straight No Chaser”, and the bartender heads toward them with a plate of escargot. When they’re finished with their appetizer, the hostess comes over and tells him his table is ready whenever he is. He asks Judith to join him for dinner and to his surprise, she accepts. This scares him a little.
They are escorted by the hostess in her long black dress to a table by the only bank of windows in the crowded room. As the two women lead the way he watches them whispering to each other. They bump hips and he notices Judith’s ass. The bias cut of her silk-jersey skirt pulls slightly as she moves from foot to foot and her hips rock from side to side. Martin balls his dangling hand into a soft fist.
They don’t talk much during dinner, but he does find out that she’s married to a college professor who doesn’t have time to go out, so she goes out by herself. He notices she doesn’t wear a wedding ring and says, “Women who don’t wear wedding rings scare me.”
“They ought to scare you. You are married to a woman I presume. What’s she doing while you’re on the road?”
“Staying home with the kids, I hope.” When she laughs he notices her neck is long and white. She eats with relish and makes slightly sexual noises with her first few spoons full of lobster bisque. It is a soft moaning noise deep in her throat. He wonder’s why she and her husband aren’t at Lilly’s party.
“Do You work?”
“You mean, do I work outside the home, honey? Yes I do. I’m the wife of a poor college professor, remember? I have to work so I can buy my Ann Klein Couture.” She throws back her head and laughs. Martin thinks about his penis.
After dinner he asks for the check and the waiter says the check has been taken care of.
He says, “No, I’ll get the check! Judith, I travel on an expense account. Please let me get the check.”
She says, “I have nothing to do with this. It’s probably Larry or the guys in the kitchen.”
“Who was it? I’d like to thank him if it was the owner. And I’d want to thank the kitchen anyway for a great meal.”
The waiter says. “I’ve been asked not to say. I’m sorry.”
Martin pulls a twenty out of his wallet and leaves it on the table. He says, “Judith, would you like to have a cognac in the bar and maybe some dessert?”
“Yes, thank you. I will join you for an after dinner drink.”
The waiter, still hovering, pulls her chair out just as Martin reaches for it.
When they head back into the bar, the pianist is playing “For All We Know.”
They order cognac and sip it warmed. The crowd in the bar is thinning. Soon the kitchen crew starts coming in through the restaurant. It’s almost eleven.
Before he gets a chance to invite her to his room, Judith stands up, nods to the two tall very-young men from the kitchen, and says to Martin, “My dates for the rest of the evening are off-duty and ready to escort me to my job.”
One of the two young men looks like Mic Jagger when he was twenty-something. The other looks like Jim Morrison alive. They hover a discreet distance from the drinking couple.
Judith leans over and whispers in Martin’s ear, “Our meal was comped by one of those two characters. They’re the chefs, and we’re going to the club I run for this rich boy who lives in Paducah. These guy want to go for the last strip show of the evening. They’d be very cross if I invited you. But I had a lovely evening with you Martin. Maybe next time you’re in town we can do it again.”

The End Of Love

2008-06-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

Their blue gray Grand Torino rounds the corner to the house, middle of the block, south side, and all the lights are blazing. It's June 15th at 3:48 AM. She pulls the big quiet car to the curb and cuts the lights, the engine, and sits there listening for a minute. The engine of the Torino pings a few times, but other than that, it's silent. This is later than she usually gets home on Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, but not much. She runs the biggest restaurant, and only disco in town and has turned the dead zone of Tuesday night into big news by transforming the disco into a stage for a variety of themes, but tuesday night is Male Strip Show with a female only audience. Jazz trio in the bar for the line of women waiting to get in when the doors open at seven, so the restaurant is packed early and the bar is doing brisk business since the place opened a couple of years ago. She's made the Evening News in Fayetteville and Paduca. So, now, getting home before 3 AM is damn near impossible. But why would all the lights be on? Oh God, she hopes he isn't waiting up for her.

The "he" she doesn't want to wake up, is her husband. He forgot her birthday, three days ago, or four, depending on how you count the days. It doesn't matter to her. On the actual day, she left for work late, giving him time to call, or come home early himself. When she got up, there was no card or gift left behind. No call during the day. So she hung around for awhile kind of loitering in her own home, until she was an hour late for work. It's not up to her to remind him. She never remembers their anniversary. They got married on Bastille Day, but she can't remember the year. So, when her little calender says, Bastille Day, she wishes him happy anniversary. Nothing more.

She walks softly across the wooden porch and tries the door. Oddly, it's locked. She runs her hand around inside the bottom of her bag and finds her keys--they are a large clump, a fist full. Carefully she finds the key by the light shining from the living room window. She hears Dinah when she opens the door. Her small gray female cat is waiting at the door meowing loudly. As Judith enters, Dinah turns and runs for the kitchen. Shit, he didn't feed her. How could he sleep through her nagging? She glances at his chair. It's empty. The ashtray is emptied. His ice tea glass is absent, so it is either in the bedroom with him, or in the kitchen sink. God he's predictable.

She quietly opens the fridge door, and gets out the can of cat food. A small dish is on the floor behind her. She bends to pick it up, turns to the counter and scoops out a couple of spoons full. Then, when she picks up the cat food can plastic lid, she notices a few dark leaves and blue red petals in the sink. She picks one petal out of the sink and rubs it gently between her thumb and finger. Unmistakable long stemmed red rose petal. She hates them. Such a fucking cliche. They are over-priced, never fresh, and remind her of all the men she's known who had no imagination. Shit!

She grabs her smokes and lighter, sets her bag and keys down on the kitchen table, and wanders back through the house, her heels percussive in the early morning silence.

The dining room is full of them. How had she not noticed? Selective blindness? There are tall tea glasses with three or four each, wilting high on the stem at each tightly packed bud. These are some droopy assed roses. She turns the corner into the living room and finds them everywhere. Every vase they own is crammed with the thorny stems of too-tall, dark red roses. The end of love, she thinks, but doesn't say aloud. This is what the end of love looks like.

She bends and puts her face in a huge cluster of them and smells the inside of the refrigerator truck they were shipped in. "Jesus, what a waste of money." They'll all be dead by tomorrow night. Just out of curiosity she walks around the room and counts them. Thirty one long stemmed red roses. Fuck that! She just turned thirty. Asshole doesn't even know how old she is. Can he count? She is four years older than he is by only a month. She sits down hard in his chair and lights a cigarette.

As she smokes, she tries to figure out what that extra rose is all about. Some symbolism? Junior speaks symbolism but doesn't know it himself. It's his secret language. They have been together four years, and she has been listening to this secret language, since he has taken to actually using words less and less. He has non-verbal tells. Not a card player himself, he isn't familiar with the term, but one of his tells is the shifting of his scalp, much like William F Buckley, when Buckley used to do Firing Line. In Junior's case it means, "This makes me uncomfortable" as in, "shut the fuck up!" Another of Junior's tells is the raised left eyebrow. If they are at a faculty dinner party and he wants to go, he finds her, makes eye contact with her, and lifts his left eyebrow. She starts making excuses, claiming she has to get up early, when they all know it's a lie. She thanks the host and hostess, finds Junior and says, sweetly, "Junior, we need to go now." He looks around, smiles weakly, and turns to follow her out. How has she let it get this bad?

The first year they were in Springfield she was expected to join in all the faculty wives' functions. There were teas. There were luncheons. Then there were the dinner parties that Junior had to attend as well. It was at one such dinner party, fairly early on, that she realized she could not keep up this masquerade. Junior was seated across the table from her between two women, one of whom had just asked Junior a question about his writing. He looked up from his serious consideration of his baffling plate, loaded with things he would never eat, if given the option. There was an awkward silence. Heads were turned his direction, all eyes on Junior. He looked up at Judith, wiggled his scalp and raised his left eyebrow. Judith turned to the man next to her left shoulder and said softly, "I think Junior isn't feeling well; we better go home."

Junior had started his serious drinking in Denver. She ignored it. It didn't start until his last year, and he was home from teaching and grading papers. But one night he pissed the bed they shared. When she woke up cold in the middle of the night, she found all her paintings removed from the walls and pilled in a corner. Junior was on the floor, wrapped in a blanket and snoring softly. She woke him up and demanded, "What the fuck is up with the wet spot in the middle of the bed.?" He said, "I mushed have shmilled my ash." This cracked her up. "Well, shmarty smants, why don't you tell me what you did with my paintings while you're sober and inert." He yanked the blanket out of her hand and slammed his head back down on the hard, cold floor. She moved to the guest room, and wondered how long he'd been getting this drunk.

So now she sits in the living room of the the house they rent, in Springfield, Missouri which she pronounces Misery, and looks at this disgusting display of Junior's guilt. Maybe $150, $200 worth of guilt. Probably called in and ordered over the phone. Delivered in a very big, long box this afternoon. They are dying by the second. And so is her love.

Finally she lifts herself out of the Windsor chair and walks, still in her high heeled boots, into Juniors room. It reeks. She can see from the light of the dinning room, that his bed is empty, and there is a very large wet spot in the center. She sees his naked foot and leg extending on the other side of the room, partially hidden by the bed. She walks over, no longer careful of the sound her boots make on the hardwood floor. He is naked, no blanket or sheet clutched to his chest. Flaccid penis lolling to the left. His arms are flung outward, palms up. His black hair is wet and curly around his blue shaded face. Jesus on the cross. She nudges his leg, hard, with the pointy toe of her black, patent leather boot. "Junior." Nothing. He doesn't even flinch. She moves up his body and aims a mighty kick at his rib cage, but cannot make herself follow through. She leans down and touches his shoulder. He is warm so not dead yet . She leans over, catches the faint whiff of vomit, and shouts, "Thanks for the dying roses motherfucker."

The song, "Dance Me To The End Of Love," starts playing in her head. She can't remember who wrote it, but can hear a man's voice singing it, sadly, softly. She rummages in her closet for a couple of suitcases, and starts singing along with the vocalist in her head.
"Dance me with the beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love"*

When she's finished packing, she picks up the phone and makes her plane reservation.

*Leonard Cohen

My Early History With guns

2008-05-31T17:59:00.000-07:00

The first picture of me holding a gun and aiming it is when I am eight or nine. The gun I'm holding in the picture is my mother's Luger pistol, a spoil of war my biological father brought back from his adventures in World War II. I am a thin, long legged girl with shoulder length hair. The picture was taken at the city dump in Willamina, Oregon, in the summer. My new dad and I are out of school and shooting rats at the dump. He leans against our ugly green station wagon, a cigarette dangles from his lips, and when he isn't aiming a camera at me, he is holding a bottle of beer. I'm a good shot by then, but I don't remember when I held this gun for the first time. It has a fierce little kick that I have learned to control. I am standing there facing my dad with the gun held in my right hand, arm extended, head turned to the right, shot by the camera in profile, squinting slightly as I aim. My left arm hangs so nonchalantly at my side. I have very good posture. I'm wearing shorts, a camp shirt, and have espadrilles on my feet. It would have been so easy to swing that gun in a quarter arc and shoot my daddy dead. I remember thinking the thought, and then letting it go. And to this day I think it was an opportunity lost. I would have many more such opportunities as I grew older. But then as I grew older the penalties for me would have gotten so much worse. I learned that there were always consequences for me, just never for the adults in my life.

My father took me quail hunting, pheasant hunting, duck hunting, deer hunting. I was a fine shot with a .22 caliber rifle. But on most hunting trips I was the human equivalent of a hunting dog. Flush 'em and fetch 'em. When we spent part of our summers at my grandfather's cabin up Mt Aire, We went porcupine hunting. That's when I got to fire the .22 for real and I was a damn fine shot. So was my mother. On dull days at the cabin, we would take target practice with tin cans. I was always fiercely competitive. Whatever I set my mind to, I got good at.

Later, in my teens, guys trying to impress me would take me shooting, and were always shocked that I could handle a gun as well as they, and was almost always a better shot. Such is the cocky chauvinism of boys.

My Later History With Guns

2008-05-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

When I realized how vile and full of shit my family was, I rejected all their values. I threw out the good with the bad. And some of the bad I didn't understand had become who I was. I was foul mouthed, just like my mother. I was sometimes cruel, just like my mother. I chose terribly flawed men, just like...

I gave up gun slinging. But I became a seducer, just like my dad. I lived in denial, just like my dad. I could go on and on, but I'd rather not.

Still the young men liked to take me out to the gun club. I shot skeet. Sometimes I beat them at their own game, sometimes I let them beat me. Then I seduced them and left them in the dust. I might let them fuck me for days on end, but never make a sound. Must have been a bit like fucking a corpse. Still, they professed their love for me. Sometimes I played dumb for awhile, then I ripped their guts out with my razor wit.

I did not want "love." I was dying for love. I killed myself over and over, but never with a gun. I tried to gas myself. I lived, goddamn it. I tried pills, and lived again. Spent some time in the looney bin for that one.

I dated a married man who took me shooting. He saw my talent with a gun and insisted I own my own. We went gun shopping. I bought a Browning semi-automatic, hand gun. Can't remember what caliber--probably a .22. It held a clip. That I remember. The kind of gun you didn't need to be too accurate with. Wave it around and hold the trigger down and you'll kill whatever is in the way. I lived alone. He thought I needed protection. Dumb fucker. One night after I had gone to bed, he came knocking on my door, drunk and sloppy. I told him to leave me alone--"Go home to your wife. I don't like sloppy drunks." I shouted this through the door. When he started begging, I went to my closet and got my gun. I opened the door and pointed the gun at his face. I said, "Get lost! Do not come back. Do we understand one another?" He nodded and left.

I married my boss who was gay. I knew he was gay. That's why I married him. I was nineteen and he was thirty nine. He had never had sex with a woman. I had had too much sex with men. We did not discuss what our relationship would be like. I was the house model in the designer department he bought for. His boss was homophobic. I wasn't. I assumed I'd be cover for him, and I could do what I wanted. It would be just like before, only now I wouldn't have to pay rent, and he would have cover. But he thought he was "in love" with me. We got married, and imagine my surprise that he, too, wanted to fuck me. I did not pull my gun on him, but it was a marriage made in hell for both of us. I stayed a year, like I said I would, and then I took my gun and my great wardrobe, and moved to San Francisco.

It was 1964. I lived above Golden Gate Park, a few blocks from the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. I got a job as the house model for the couture floor at I Magnins. I saved my money and put money down on a one way ticket to Italy on the luxury liner The Michelangelo. I left my gun in San Francisco in early 1965. That was the last gun I ever owned.

Still Life

2008-05-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

My alarm wakes me up this morning with loud static instead of Morning Edition on NPR. It jolts me out of a dream of my own appalling ineptness as a parent. I go to the grocery store for the usual things: milk, eggs, toilet paper, nail polish. When I get to the grocery checker she says, “ We’re having a special on babies today, two for the price of one.”

I say, “Great, I’ll take two.”

Boys or girls?”

“Can I have one of each?”

“Sure,” she says and reaches for the phone, and I hear over the intercom, “One of each, check stand seven.” A bagger brings two plump, bald babies in disposable diapers, lays them one at a time on newspaper, and wraps them like flowers, heads emerging from the unfolded end, wobbly, like large blooms on slender stems. The two of them fit snugly in one paper grocery bag, and the bagger offers to help me to my car. I decline the help, like I always do, and head to my car, bag of babies grasped to my chest and plastic bag of other stuff hanging from my left arm, keys in that hand. I open the trunk of my car, sling the plastic bag in, and then very carefully set the paper bag of babies next to the tire well, so it won’t fall over. Then I slam the trunk shut just like I always do. When I get home, I unpack the babies and put them on the kitchen floor. Pour milk in one bowl and cat kibble in another, and then I go to work.

I come out of this dream relieved to be awake even with the static. I have a headache and I’m sweating. I’m sluggish and shaky.

I’m the new receptionist at a chic and busy, upscale beauty salon. I’ve been brainless and sullen all day. Slightly paranoid and lazy in a resentful sort of way. I even annoyed myself.

Halfway through my shift at the front desk of the salon today I get nauseated. It’s Friday. The last day of the first week at this new job. Part of my job is to look chic and upscale. Well-coiffed and well-dressed. Another part of my job is to clean up after everyone else, so I sweep hair in my Ellen Tracy silk suit and Donna Karan three inch heels. This is not where I thought I’d be at forty- eight. Living alone in a carriage house with two cats. My God, how pathetic.

Both phones are ringing, and a fiftyish blonde in a taupe silk skirt and T-shirt and lots of tasteful silver jewelry, sits in a chair, scowling at me across a too short distance from my face. Her stylist has kept her waiting for the past half hour. He seems to be having some trouble finishing the perm he started two hours ago. That doesn’t bode well for the tastefully aging blonde or the permee, I think to myself while flashing her a truly sympathetic smile. She makes eye contact and then stares unbelievingly at her watch. She seems to have transferred her annoyance from me to her offending watch.

I can’t get away from the phones long enough to check the supply of clean towels and capes. I notice, as I pass one of the many walls of mirrors, that my lipstick has faded to the bruised blue pink of my lips natural hue, matching in tone the deepening circles under my eyes. I need to make more coffee. I need a cigarette and a nap. The perky blonde shampoo girl is getting surly. She washes coffee cups, aggressively banging them around in the sink, so I’ll notice she’s doing my job. Torpor sets in. Deliveries of hair care products are made, but the manager left and forgot to leave checks. I want to sleep, dreamlessly.

Some pimply, pudgy, sweet faced high school boy comes in and asks for Miss Torkleson’s order. I know nothing about Miss Torkleson’s order. I try to ask the stylists closest to my desk if they know anything about her order, but no one can hear over the noise of hair-dryers and Light Jazz. Eventually I find out no one knows who she is, or what the hell she ordered, or where it might be. It takes me ten full minutes to cover the entire space of the salon looking for clues to the mysterious Miss Torkleson and her missing special order.

When I return to the front desk, the peach fuzzed boy stands to the left of my desk by the ringing phones, shuffling from foot to foot. Two teenage models enter the salon laughing companionable. They smile at me and say “Helen, Hi!” as they pass my desk, not even glancing at the boy turning pink beside me. I sit and look up at him trying to formulate the right question. I ask him if he can give me any more clues about her or what she ordered.

He says, “I think it ends in O and R.”

“What ends in O and R?”

“The name of the stuff she ordered.”

I think to myself, great, that’s a big help, since no product I can think of ends in O and half of them end in R as both phones light up and start bleating. While I’m trying to fit the two women on the phones into the packed schedules of the stylists they want, he stands there, beet red and rocking gently from side to side.

When I get off the phones I say to him, “Are you sure you have the right salon?”

“This is Milano’s isn’t it?”

I ask him if he works for Miss Torkleson, and he says, “No, I’m a student.” As if that isn’t perfectly obvious - - he’s only fifteen or sixteen, at the most.

“Where does Miss Torkleson work? Can you call her?”

“She’s my teacher at Ellsworth High School. Can I borrow a phone book to look up the number?”

My God! Who does this teacher think she is, the Queen of France? He finds the phone number, dials it, and asks for Miss Torkleson. They put him on hold. The color in his face deepens by the second as he stands there, phone clamped to his ear, knuckles whitening around the receiver. After three or four minutes he hangs up and looks up the phone number again.

I look at him and ask, “What happened?”

“They hung up on me.” He dials again. He seems to be trying to hide his irritation and discomfort, but his eyes roll up in an involuntary and universal expression of disgust. He’s starting to sweat. I smile. I hope I appear sympathetic.

I haven’t said aloud any of the nasty things I’m thinking about his teacher, but I grow increasingly pissed off that some prissy bitch high school teacher would abuse her power and authority — would be such a perfect jerk as to send this poor, blushing, pimply, pubescent boy to Boy Hell to pick up some unknown beauty potion for her highness’s hair in the middle of a school day. What gall! I hope her damned hair falls out strand by stringy strand. My every gesture tortures him. Poor little shit — the whites of his eyes are beginning to show above his lower lids alarmingly. I write a brief note to his teacher suggesting that she call and tell us exactly what her order is, and when she’s coming in to pick it up. I give her the phone number and ask her to feel free to call. He leaves shaking his head in disbelief.

I stop at the Smith’s near the salon on my way home to pick-up cat food and coffee and a gallon of milk. It’s 2:15 when I leave the store. I’m trying to get my cats to give up baby-food lamb. Since we moved, traumatically, cross-country, a little over a month ago, I improved the quality of their diets to help them cope with the stress. Now I can’t get them to give up the Gerber’s Pureed Lamb. Fanny sniffs her bowl of cat food and slowly walks away. Phoebe stands there for a while shifting her dirty looks from her bowl to me before she covers the bowl with the dish towel I keep under their bowls, as if hers contains a stinking turd.

I’m puzzled when I unlock my door and Handsome greets me. He’s a large cream-colored tom with orange tipped ears, and blue eyes that cross when he gets close to Phoebe. He has orange freckles across the top of his cream colored, pink tipped nose. He spends a lot of time stalking Phoebe so he can jump on her back and bite her. If he can slip past me, he swaggers into the house like he owns the place. I kicked him out when I left for work. My two stayed in. At least that’s what I thought. Now Handsome is in, and the girls are out. What the hell! Is Handsome more talented than I thought?

Once he dashes out, I notice my backgammon set is open and the pieces strewn across the floor. And I think to myself, how the hell did that cat get the case open— it latches like and old Samsonite train case. My eyes drift up to the window above the kitchen sink, and I notice two small colored glass bottles lying on their sides at odd angles on the sill. A third and larger bottle is gone, presumably in the sink. The grey stone pestle hangs on the edge of the sill and looks like a wilting erection. I guess Handsome tried to get out the window. Poor guy. Trapped in the house.

And then the hair rises on my arms, and muscles tighten along the back of my neck. Something isn’t right here.

I find myself standing there, just inside the threshold of my house, tote and plastic grocery bag slung over my shoulder, keys in my hand, and my heart is pounding wildly. Nothing moves but my eyes. They drift from the windowsill to the antique hutch against the west wall of the kitchen. Two doors on the upper left side, above the flour bin, hang by one hinge each. The flour bin is all the way open. Wow, Handsome. You must have been really upset, I tell myself. It doesn’t work. I can’t quite buy it. I look back to the window, expecting to see the screen missing, but it’s not. Then I see the poker jar. The Ball jar I keep my poker change in is sitting in the center of the pie shelf. Last time I played poker, which was three weeks ago, I put it on the top shelf above the flour bin and closed the door, which at the time had two hinges. It’s not possible for a cat to get a quart jar off a shelf and move it to another shelf. He might have been able to push the doors off their hinges. He might have been able to push the jar and then have it fall to the floor, or into the open flour bin, but he couldn’t have set it on another shelf. I want to cut and run.

I force myself to turn my head toward the bed, which is partially screened from the rest of the living space by an old mammoth armoire. All the photographs and paintings are still on the wall behind my bed. The closet doors are open. And then in a panic my focus pulls back to the typing table, and I’m momentarily confused to see my computer still sitting there where it was this morning. Maybe it was just the cat.

I breathe and take a couple of steps into the room. Then I see the underwear. It’s all over the floor around the bed. Not the socks, they’re still in the bottom drawer of the little three-drawer chest beside the armoire. That drawer is pulled out about an inch and a half. The next drawer up contains cotton bikinis and tank tops. It’s halfway out and nothing seems to be wrong there. It’s just a tangle of faded cotton panties and T-shirts like always, but the top drawer is all the way open and empty, and all my silk bras, thongs, panties, tap-pants, teddies, slips and strapless bustiers are on the floor and spread all over. A small black velvet coin purse with a silver clasp is open and in the middle of the bed surrounded by my set of round Tarot cards, which were in a round basket with a lid at the back of my closet
.
The two drawers at the bottom of the armoire are open. They contain the prints from my photography classes. Almost exclusively figure study. Black-and-white nudes. All female.

One framed photo has been removed from the west wall above the window beside my bed and left in the deep sill of the window. It’s a female torso reclining on her side with her back to the camera. The knee of the top leg is bent and rolled forward in a stretch, which exposes the interior upper thigh of the other leg. It’s a high contrast print, very starkly black and white. Strong light from a window falls precisely on a barely visible tuft of pubic hair. My mother thinks this photograph is obscene.

I notice something else on the bed. The long flat pouch Charlie insisted I carry my passport and large bills in when we went to Costa Rica. I grab it and feel the passport without having to look inside. I clutch it to my stomach as I head for the phone. That’s when I dial 911.

The woman on the line says it might be quite a wait, since my situation isn’t life threatening, and the intruder is gone. She tells me not to clean up the mess until after the police look at it.

Fanny and Phoebe show up while I’m waiting for the police to arrive. They enter cautiously. They roam the house sniffing everything as if nothing were familiar. Eventually Fanny heads for the daybed and Phoebe perches on the bedroom windowsill. I pace for a while noticing more disturbance. My typing chair has been moved and there are huge shoe prints on it. Everything on top of the Armoire has been opened and dumped. I move from there to the solarium, take the two steps down and stand there in the warmth of late afternoon sun. The mattress on the daybed is slightly askew, but Fanny doesn’t seem to mind. She is snuggled into the pillows at the shady end by the west wall, which is redwood. I turn left into the bathroom and see that all the drawers have been opened and the boxes and cosmetics bags have been opened and emptied. Jewelry lies scattered on the top bookcase shelf between the toilet and the sink cabinet. There are two rings and an earring on the floor. I kneel down and start searching the floor. There is nothing else but hair, the odd bit of cat litter, and dust bunnies. I head for the closet to check for my camera.

It’s not where I left it, but it’s there, out of the case, lenses scattered on a bureau top. Film cans opened, but all the film seems to be there. I examine the camera carefully. I have a roll loaded with six shots left, so I start roaming around the house taking pictures. Load another roll of Kodak 35 millimeter, 24 exposures, 400 ASA, and start really looking at things one small frame at a time. There is dust on every surface. In the sink, along with a broken bottle, there are food scraps. Some toast crumbs and four sections of orange rind.

When Officer Crowley arrives the cats split, fast. One of the first things he does is tell me how traumatic a break-in is. He talks to me about the burglary being like rape, a violation. There will be emotional repercussions. Officer Crowley says to me, “Don’t let the man who broke into your house,”-- (and went through my underwear drawer, scattering flowered silk bras and panties like petals across the floor at the foot of my bed)---“make you change the way you live your life.”

We know it was a man because of the size of his footprints on that typing chair. He left handprints here and there on dusty surfaces. I wonder what Officer Crowley thinks of my housekeeping. Dusting is obviously not a high priority for me.

He asks me if I’ve only noticed what isn’t missing, and I’m so grateful for the fact that the burglar didn’t smash and destroy everything, didn’t shit in the middle of my bed, didn’t leave a threatening note, I can’t focus on what might be gone. He didn’t take my computer or TV, VCR, or camera. They seem obvious targets for theft. He even left credit cards. I keep telling myself how lucky I am. I keep trying to focus on the positive. I keep wanting this to be a victimless crime.

Officer Crowley is gentle and patient. He seems a very sensitive man. Not at all my stereotype of a cop. He has a round head with short blond hair, and a round gut. The rest of him is blunt and muscled--short, stocky, solid looking legs. But his voice is soft as if it rises from the great bulk of that belly. I like Officer Crowley. I don’t want him to leave.

He stays for about forty-five minutes. Says it looked to be a random break-in--someone looking for cash or drugs. He says I’ll probably never get robbed again. He says it convincingly, as though we all have our allotted burglaries assigned at birth, and now I’ve finally had mine. Whew! Then he tells me I should get a new door with better security locks and a dog wouldn’t be a bad idea either. He suggests bars for the windows. As he’s leaving, he says a photographer will be by later to take pictures of the gouge marks in the door where the burglar forced the deadbolt. I’m sorry to see him go.

Officer Crowley told me the cats might be traumatized and need tranquilizers. Hah! It’s getting dark now and my youngest cat, Phoebe, has brought into the house, proudly dangling from her jaws, a live moth the size of a healthy sparrow. She drops the stunned creature by my chair and smiles up at me. She’s carried it like a prize bird dog would — undamaged. It sits poised on the carpet, and then Phoebe reaches out one paw, claws retracted, and gives it a little tap. The moth rises and heads for the green gloaming of the solarium. Phoebe sits, still smiling, and watches its flight. It flies low like an overloaded B-52, clears the four-foot height of my yucca tree and crashes into the glass wall. I see a smudge of dust from where it hit the glass. Phoebe looks back at me and then trots off to the solarium to investigate. I know what her plan is. She’s slowly going to torment the moth, making it last as long as possible. When it seems finely lifeless she’ll walk away, disgusted and bored.

Fanny sleeps like a cat in a coma, curled into the pillows on the day bed. She doesn’t even look the second time Phoebe falls from the ceiling of the solarium. The first time she fell we both investigated, now we try to ignore her. Fanny naps and I pace. Phoebe climbs the redwood beams supporting the big glass panels of the solarium’s walls and ceiling. As she gets near the top of the beam she tries to reach the frantic moth with one extended paw, claws outstretched, taking swipes at it, as it hovers against the glass sky. Its wings beat fast; my heart seems to beat to the same frantic rhythm.

There’s nowhere to go but down. The racket Phoebe makes when she lands on the tile floor amongst the dust pan, the half empty bag of kitty litter and the broom is alarming. There’s a momentary silence and then the broom falls over punctuating the quiet with a sound like a hard slap as the wooden handle hits the tile. Phoebe leaps straight up three feet. Then walks sedately on tippy-toes to the toilet for a drink.

When she begins her next assault I decide to intercede on the moth’s behalf. I stand on the daybed and try to capture it in my cupped hands, but I swear I hear a sound that could only be a moth screaming, and it dives for the glass wall that faces the garden and the fence along the alley.

I can still hear the moth bashing its wings against something hard. I can feel the tattering of wings, smell the dust. It lies still for a moment. The moon shines through the glass roof of the solarium creating pools of cold light. I think about light and the moth, the smudged window, the disheveled day-bed, Fanny is a pool of black in the corner, the apple tree a pale ghost in the moonlight through the glass. I look through the lens.