Societies dating back for centuries have celebrated some sort of festival or holiday at the end of December…Greeks, Vikings, and of course the Romans and present-day Christians. Basically, the holiday is a collection of co-opted traditions from a variety of cultures which we labeled Christmas.

Some people feel writing it as “x-mas” is sacrilegious.

I say, lets embrace and promote the abbreviation.

Just like in Algebra, the X can be a variable.

Then everyone can celebrate it as a time of love, charity and goodwill…

Because even atheists like making snow-angels…

The best thing about monogamy is that you use condoms for birth control instead of pest control.

Is it age or apathy that has brought on this liberal leprosy, the slow shedding of my ideals?

A year ago, my four-year old Anna encapsulated beauty and acceptance in one simple song:
“Mommies and daddies and children and doctors and teachers and dogs and grandmas, we all have a different butts, oh yeah.”

Flu shots…

Chicken pox vaccines…

If we don’t let our children experience any simple hardships, how can we expect them to handle the difficult ones?

It sounds so simple…just to listen…take the time to focus.
On our children. Our enemies. Our friends. Even ourselves.
Are we afraid of the silence? Afraid of our own thoughts? That we’ll come to some realization that might alter our secure realities? Deeply held truths might be questioned?! Deeply buried fears might be realized?!
For some of us, it might be as simple as turning off the music and driving in silence. Perhaps sitting to play cards with our children instead of reaching for the remote. Skipping the Friday night movie and unfolding a couple chairs near the bonfire.
For others it means questioning ourselves. Examining our own arguments. Admitting fault to a political adversary, with the hopes of finding some middle ground.
Arguments are never so simplistic as we make them! Simplicity that comes from not listening. From shouting. Blaming.
Does anyone really want prevalent abortions?
Does anyone really want families killed by terrorists?
Does anyone really want to pay higher taxes?
Its ridiculous what sort of ideals we project onto our political “opponents.”
Because its not a competition. American politicis should not be a war between right and wrong, us versus them, the good guys versus the bad.
Neither side has all the answers.
But they think they do.
And their passions refuse to allow them to listen.
To really see what lies at the heart of their argument. To listen to the other’s fears, and then admit our own. See that we truly want the same thing, and if we took the time to listen to one another, maybe we just might find that answer in the middle.
Sometimes we just have to turn off the noise.

Top Ten Worst Ways to Die

Ranking the worst ways to die is impossible. Who the fuck knows. It’s like rating someone else’s orgasms. All we can do is measure the screams.

10 - Electrocution: Remember when you were a kid and you tested a nine-volt battery on your tongue? The 9 volt jolt doesn’t hurt necessarily, but it’s enough to make you wonder how 2,400 volts would feel surging through your body. That’s the average voltage used in modern-day executions. The electricity is first pumped through the victim for seven seconds, burning his nerves and violently contracting nearly every skeletal muscle. If this doesn’t do the trick, the executioner sends an additional 600 more volts into the body, this time for a total of seventeen seconds. Death is caused primarily by suffocation, and the electrical currents cooking the brain. By the way, this is still a legal form of punishment in six states…Southern of course.

9 - Drawn and Quartered: Executioners in the Dark Ages may have believed the world was flat, but they were well educated when it came to pain infliction. When a mere hanging was insufficient, the guilty party would be drawn and quartered. That is, slowly skinned alive and their limbs partly severed at the joints. They were then hanged from the gallows, with their limbs dangling by a few tendons which were ripped off by four quartered horses.

8 – Ebola: Imagine having the flu. You’ve got a fever, a touch of diarrhea, and a sore throat, but instead of puking up last night’s pot roast, your leaking blood from every orifice in your body. That’s the Ebola virus. Not only does the victim suffer from nausea, headache, and chills, but after seven days, blood begins leaking from the eyes, ears, and asshole. Thankfully for the bedside nurses, the victim has usually been fully drained and dead by the eighth day.

7 – Stoning: No, not a single human has ever died from an overdose of marijuana, but thousands of people had died from a good stoning. Even today in Third World countries like Nigeria, where entertainment is a rarity, public stonings are still a family affair. Just as it was practiced hundreds of years ago, the victim is placed in the center of a circle and covered with a blanket. The crowd then pelts the victim, usually a suspected-adulterer, with jagged rocks. After the victim collapses, the stoning continues until some brave crowd member checks for a pulse, or sufficient blood soaks through the blanket.

6 – Iron Bed: Here, the victim is strapped to an iron bed and placed over a stoked fire until he roasts to death. Bon appétit.

5. The Cauldron: Recipe for a gut-wrenching dinner party — First place a small iron pot, mouth down, on top of a man’s naked stomach. Next, gently place three hungry rats inside the cauldron and begin pre-heating the container with a flame. Now sit back and enjoy as you watch as the rodents begin to gnaw their way into the guts of the victim as they flee the intense heat.

4. Concentration Camp: Among the gas chambers, hangings, public shootings, and glass tubes crushed inside men’s urethras, there is one form of death that stands out among all others. Not because of the intense pain inflicted, but rather the sheer mental and physical torture that the victim had to endure. In Daschow, arguably the worst concentration camp, the prisoners were forced to live in “Standing Bunkers”. The bunkers were 3×3 cells in which up to 6 men were forced to use as their sleeping quarters. With no room to sit or lay down, the men had to stand all night, sleeping on one another as they stood, only to be awakened 6 hours later for another 18 hour work day. If a man died, he was there all night, rotting, as the other occupants endured the horrible smell of shit, piss, and death.

3. Burned Alive: After seeing the pictures of burn victims that have survived, maybe this isn’t such a bad way to die after all. Sure, the hot flames whipping your flesh would be excruciating, but wouldn’t you rather die than survive?

2. Crucifixion: Heres a question for you…How is a picture frame different from Jesus Christ? Answer: It only takes one nail to hang a picture. — It took three nine-inch nails to crucify the savior of mankind. There were three devices used in crucifixion, an old tree, an upright pole, and then the infamous wooden cross, which consisted of an upright pole permanently fixed in the ground with a removable crossbar, usually weighing between 75-100 lbs. The victim was then placed on his back, arms stretched out and nailed to the cross bar. Two seven to nine inch nails were driven between forearm and hand in a way that resulted in minimal bleeding, and tightly secured the body to the cross. A third iron nail was driven through the victim’s feet, also in a prime area that would result in minimal bleeding, and position the body in a way that it would not fall. Death was a slow process. First, the weight of the body caused the shoulders, elbows and wrists to dislocate. This put an immense amount of weight on the victim’s rib cage, causing a state of “perpetual inhalation.” To exhale, the victim had to try and stand, causing severe pain in his spike-ridden feet. After a few hours, the legs become fatigued, and soon the heart begins to fail, the lungs collapse and fill with fluid. This sends the victim into a state of dehydration and hyperventilation, which eventually results in suffocation. Depending on the severity of the victim’s crime, the executioners would either break his legs immediately, causing him to die in a matter of minutes, or place a small seat on the cross, allowing the victim to bear his own body weight, and die in about nine days. It’s hard to say which was more just.

1. Alone: Definitely the worst way to die.

I think it was a pit bull.
Actually, I know it was a pit bull. But he still had a tail and uncropped ears, so at least he wasn’t a fighter.
I was riding my bike past an empty lot. The weeds were high and an apple tree toppled in the center. The dog was chest high in the branches and sniffing madly.
When I saw him I cranked faster, hoping to get a head start. To build some momentum. I’d been chased by them before, and they’re not easy to outrun. Especially when you’re halfway into a good buzz.
I pedaled quietly. Lowered my head and tucked in my shoulders to reduce any wind noise. Anything to stay silent and unseen.
Then his head popped out of the dead leaves. He had a blue coat. Shoulders nearly as wide as mine.
He looked right in my eyes.
“Fuck,” I said, then stood up and pedaled as fast as I could.
I waited to hear that click of toenails. That heavy panting a few feet from my tire. Fangs ready to hit my weak, white flesh.
But all I heard was my own panting. The sounds of a desperate white man in the black part of town.
I looked over my shoulder. The dog was circling the tree now, hopping over branches and burying his face in the leaves. He was onto something. Probably a rabbit’s nest.
I sat down and coasted in relief.
Up ahead there was another bicyclist coming my way. An old man on a fixed gear. Basket in the front and a bundle of clothes bungeed to the rear. The man’s skin was far too tan for the Spring weather. His hair was long and white and greasier than his bike chain.
“Hey!” I waved. “Hey! There’s a loose dog up there!”
He kept pedaling.
“Hey! There’s a dog up ahead! ”
We were closing in on each other.
“What?!” he said, annoyed by this drunk on a mountain bike — my battered blue helmet and six-pack buckled safely in the baby seat.
“There’s a loose dog! Up there in that lot!”
“What?!”he shouted with his head down.
He rode right by me, so I swung my bike around and blocked his path.
He put on the brakes. They were squeaky. Like the bike. Dented and colored a shade of grey that took decades to perfect.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know there’s a loose dog ahead.”
He kept his eyes on the concrete.
“It’s a pit bull. Up there by that tree,” I pointed to the lot.
He lifted his head.
“I don’t know if he’s mean or not, I just wanted to warn you.”
“I had a cherry once,” the man replied. “But they turned it into a baseball bat.”
I raised one eyebrow…Was he a schizophrenic from the nearby shelter? Or some transsexual who had his cherry stretched to the size of a Louisville slugger?
“I wonder what ever happened to that bat.”
He looked me in the eyes then, as if I had an answer.
I shrugged.
Then he went on: “I’d been riding it since…since…since… I got chased by a pit bull once. They’re fast. It was a good bat. Thanks for the warning.” He said this entire phrase in one breath.
All I could do was smile. And shift to an easy starting gear.
“Well you have a nice afternoon,” he said. We both pedaled away.
I looked back. He was riding straight toward the empty lot. I shook my head. All I wanted to do was ride home. Up that hill. Stop at the Irish bar for a breather and watch the blonde bartender jiggle. But instead I had to take out my cell phone and get ready to dial 911.
The man pedaled along, so slow I don’t know how he kept his balance.
I looked for the dog. He was out of the tree now, shaking a rabbit to death. Its little gray body slamming back and forth against his powerful jaws.
I cringed. Reached down and stroked my calf. My hairless, happy calf.
The old man rode along, oblivious to the dog and his carnage. He disappeared around a corner and the dog pranced away.
Riding up the hill, I wasn’t sure if the man was brave or dumb, a schitzo or a trannie…or if there was even a difference.
Either way, he was a lot more man than me.

An introduction to Inhumanimal.com, and other columns —

They inaugurate the first voyage of a ship by breaking a bottle of booze on its bough. While I have no idea what that signifies, I figured it’d be a good way to inaugurate this column.

Slam a bottle of wine. Red wine. Fortified and poorly labeled.

It seemed fitting. Something to loosen the fingers. Get to tap-tapping on the keyboard. Pausing only to tip back the bottle or click on some free thumbnails. Amateurs pics. Always amateurs. Maybe some midgets if I’ve got writer’s block.

The column will be part truth, and part fiction, only because I have a hard time differentiating dreams from drunkenness. Sometimes it’s a nice handicap. Other times its just confusing…Did I really lose $1000 at a poker table? Did that stripper really just squirt me with her breast milk? Did I really dig up my dead dog and put his skull on my computer?

This column will be about the stale floorboards under a barstool. Soaking it all in. About the old men who pour beer over ice. The women who mix their gin with one dainty finger. About opening a beer can with one hand while the other one steers. About puking in a urinal just to make it to midnight. Clacking pool balls and machismo on draft. Women hunched over bars like mashed cigarettes. Copping a feel at a funeral. About drinking cooking wine because its the only thing I could steal. It’ll be about what we have to do just to make it through. Some of us have pills, some have dope, and some have the barstool.

But if you’re lucky, you have all three…

Of that which we are most critical, we are often guilty of ourselves.

A story I submitted to a mobster who wanted a ghost-writer for his biography. This is a true story written for “John.”

—

Meet the Mobster

Drugs are easier than coffee.  They’re cheaper, faster, and way more easy to cut. The only thing coffee does is alienate your friends and make your dog go fucking nuts.

I learned this lesson early. Around 1976. Living in that starter home with my wife and new baby, Angela. I was young and needed a big score to get my family established. Make them comfortable. I had been doing a few small jobs here and there, but nothing big enough to get ahead.  I had two-bedrooms and some nice furniture, but everyone else was on their first Lincoln. So like every other Italian around me, I was going to take what I wanted. Stealing was what I knew. What everyone knew. We were Entitled. Engrained. Encoded by our DNA. It was the way things worked.

One day I get this call from Timmy. He was a friend of my fathers. Actually, more like a fat mutt that danced around my father, panting, praising and waiting for scraps. He was a nice guy, though. He dressed good and even drove a new Cadillac every year. Of course, it was all paid with his two uncles’ money. His family owned the biggest wholesale food  company in Iowa and employed about every Italian in the state. Timmy’s dad died young, so his two uncles ran the place and sent him an allowance. Forty years old and this guy didn’t have any say in the business. He felt cheated. He wanted to get ahead, like me. Except I was twenty years younger.

Timmy called me and said he wants to start a coffee company. The shit was super-expensive then, so he wanted to cut it like cocaine. Mix it with some tasteless filler. With coke, you cut it with things like baking powder or aspirin. Timmy wanted to cut the coffee with something cheap, package it, and then sell it to fucking grocery stores. The easy part would be stealing the coffee, everyone we knew worked at this wholesale house. The bitch of it would be finding the right filler.

So we got the biggest straight-truck we could find. We pulled it up to his uncles’ warehouse  and paid the guys at the dock a few hundred bucks. They filled it from top to bottom with cases of Folger’s and Maxwell House. And when they were done, we hung out on the docks trading smokes and bullshit. If it made the uncles look bad, so fucking what. They’d made their money. All that matters was how we looked.

We drove the truck to Timmy’s apartment. He rented some shit-hole near the train yard. A fucking dump surrounded by broken taverns and ugly women. The guy spent all his money of cars and clothes, and lived like a fucking mulie.

It was the perfect hiding place.

We took turns carrying it in case by case. One guy watching the truck while the other filled the apartment. We lined the walls. Packed the closets. Set them on his couch, his television, his stove. There wasn’t enough room for a cat to walk around his place, let alone Timmy’s fat ass. But we got it all in there.  And I went home. Stopping by the bar first to get the stink of coffee out of my clothes.

A few weeks later Timmy shows up at my house. His car parked cockeyed in the drive. He was sweating more the usual and one tail of his shirt was untucked.

“I think they’re onto us, John,” he panted from my doorstep.

I pulled him inside and looked around the street. I saw cases of coffee in his Cadillac.

He sat on the edge of my couch:  “I knew we took too much, I knew it.”

I got him a drink. He took it down. Then he caught his breath and said: “They’re gonna cut me out, John. My uncles are gonna cut me out. We have to move this shit.”

He started shuffling around my house. Scanning the dining room, the kitchen, the toy room. Back in the living room he gave me this puppy-dog look. The kind he used to give my father. Pitiful desperation.

I sighed: “Fuck. All right. We can keep it here. But we better find somewhere and something to cut this shit with quick, or the wife’s gonna have my balls.”

I made Timmy carry the coffee into the house. I’d done enough manual labor. Besides, it was going to take me some time to calm down Angela. Explain why our house smelled like a diner. After a little persuasion and promises, she calmed down. Not like she had a choice. But, it made her feel better, like she had some control. Not to mention it kept her legs spread.

That day we started calling in favors. Asking around to find some empty warehouse to start cutting the coffee. All the while, the smell in the house kept getting worse. You could catch a buzz from the driveway. I even had to give away my fucking dog. The poor guy was chasing his tail to the point of exhaustion. Sure it made my little girl laugh, but the dog was going fucking nuts. We gave him to some cousins just to save his sanity. I figured we weren’t too far behind. No one could sleep.

Finally we found some place in Mitchellville, Iowa. Billy’s Engage. Billy said we’d have to get it out of the cans first. So one-by-one I cranked open those cans. My fucking wrists were swollen for weeks. I’d fill one trash bag with coffee, and another with the empty cans. The garbage man must have thought I was some sort of junkie, or wiring my kid with caffeine.  He knew something was up, but he never ratted on us.

At Billy’s Engage and started testing fillers. Soybeans, solvents, sawdust. We tried everything. Then Billy told us to try barley. It was cheap, and when you burned it, the ash was pretty much tasteless and odorless. We came up with a combination that was palatable. It still tasted like coffee, but as Timmy joked, it had only half the caffeine. Later he used that as a marketing slogan.  

Now we just needed to find some place to mix and package it in bulk. Timmy had already made up these fancy jars. Plastic hourglass jars with a paper label on the front: Antonio’s Morning Brew. But, the guy spelled his own name wrong. His own birth name. The jars read: Antiono’s Morning Brew. 

Here I am in business with a  guy that can’t even spell his own fucking name.

But Marco wasn’t much better…

Marco was an old childhood friend. His dad knew my dad, but Marco’s family wasn’t in the business. He was a Ward Cleaver type. Geeky, little league, church-goer guy. Like he just walked out of the Fifties. Anyway, he was married to a woman who’s family owned Davey Brewing Company in Des Moines. This beautiful old building downtown near the industrial plants and grain mills. It was a third-generation business started by this woman’s great grandfather. They had all this antique equipment that had been brewing coffee for like one-hundred years.

He was a last resort, really. I’d tried to make some deals with these gangsters in Kansas City, but that got all fucked up. So I called Marco. We met for a drink. I had Scotch, he had soda.

“Its just a few bags at a time, Marco. We’ll burn it, cut it, and we’re done.”

“John, if my wife found out she’d—”

“In and out in a fucking hour, Marco. You’ll be snuggled up with her by the time Johnny Carson is on.”

“What if something happens?”

“I’m doing you a fucking favor here, Marco. I’m asking you because we’re friends. If you don’t want to do this, then I got plenty of other guys that will take this money.”

“All right,” he sighed and put his face in his hands.

The guy’s wife fucking hated me, but Marco needed some cash in his pocket. He worked for his wife at the company, bought the house she wanted, even let her pick out his fucking clothes. Looking back, I think Marco just wanted to show he still had some balls. 

We set up the first batch a week later. At night, when the mills and plants neighboring the coffee company had closed. Everything went smoothly. We were able to cook, cut and package in less than a couple hours. And of course, Marco would bitch the entire time, about the noise, the mess, the gamble. Saying I was going to ruin his marriage. That his wife would find out and divorce him. He had to come up with some new excuses all the time to tell his wife. Emergency dental appointments, little league gatherings, PTA meetings, all this shit. He was getting some money in his pocket though, so we keep on going. Marco kept saying no, but he really meant yes. Every week we had the same discussion:

“We can’t keep doing this. We have to stop. She suspects something, John.”

I’d light a cigarette and watch the roasters burn.

“We can’t feed this to people. The USDA will shut us down. These are ashes, John!”

“Listen, its food. Barley is food. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“This is the last time. I swear, this is the last time.”

“A deal’s a deal, Marco. You’re in this now so shut the fuck up.”

Then he’d stomp his foot and go hide in his office…

Timmy was selling a few cases here and there to grocery stores. Traveling around the state handing out samples and schmoozing with store owners. We were making enough to pay Marco and take our women out for some nice dinners, but if we were ever going to get ahead, we needed a bigger score. We needed someone to take it all.  And somehow, Timmy did it. He landed a deal to move the entire load. Somehow he got a fucking contract with the State. They wanted it for their prisons and mental hospitals. All the mulies and looneys were gonna be sipping our stolen fucking coffee.

We were fucking ecstatic. But, it meant we had to cut the entire load as soon as possible. So I talked Marco into one last, big batch.

I didn’t tell him how big it was until he saw us pull up. Me in my car and a grain-truck close behind. The back was filled with a hill of barley.

“No way, no way,” Marco said, waving his hands and running up to my car. “No goddamn way.”   

I parked. Got out. Elbowed past Marco and waved the truck toward the warehouse.

“We can’t do this, John! It’s too much! It’s too much! Someone’s going to see us!”

The truck emptied its load. Marco paced, hands in his hair and cursing to himself. A lot of it was directed at me, but I acted like I didn’t hear him. When the driver finished, I handed him some cash and he took off.

“She’s gonna leave me, John!  She thinks I’m cheating on her!”

I ignored him. The phone in his office rang.

“See, that’s probably fucking her. God dammit!” Marco hurried to his office.

I took off my coat and started shoveling barley into the roaster, packing it more than usual. You have to burn a lot of barley to get a little ash, so I filled it to the rim. I patted it down tight with the shovel and shut the hatch. Then I lit a cigarette and called for Marco to start the machine.

He came out of his office shouting again. “Well, I just had to lie to my wife again. You’re fucking me up, John. Do you hear me? Huh? Do you hear me?”

That was it. I threw down the cigarette and walked toward him. Face to face. Our toes nearly touching. Marco’s eyes widened and his left arm started shaking.

” Yes, I hear you,” I said calmly. “And you’re gonna roast this fucking barley.”

I half-expected him to start crying. But he didn’t. He went over and fired-up the machine.

I smiled. Tapped another cigarette out of the pack and Marco sulked back into his office.  Before slamming the door he turned and screamed: “I’m tired of people telling me what to do!”

I walked over and put my ear to the door. I could hear him crying.

Fuck.

So I hurried and drove to a payphone to call Timmy. I told him Marco was either going to confess or bail on us. We still had one batch in and about three to go.

“What do you think we should do?”

“Give him his money tonight. Double it,” Timmy said. “That will change his mind. Just burn it all and we’re done.”

 I agreed and drove back to the coffee company.

From a block away and I could see Marco standing out front, pacing in the streetlights.  I took two stacks of cash from my glove compartment. He saw my car and ran toward me, right in the middle of the fucking road, in and out of the spotlight. “Where the fuck did you go! You’re gonna get me busted!” he cried.

I rolled my window down, just enough to hold out the stacks of cash.  He slammed his palms on the car hood, tears in his eyes: “Why did you leave? Where did you go?”

“Shut the fuck up and take this,” I said, dangling the money. “Its just one more night, Marco.”

“No. Fuck you. I’m not gonna do it,” he turned and started back to the warehouse. “I’m going home, John. Fuck you.”

I could tell he was serious.

Looking back, I should have thrown the cash down and told him to go home. But I didn’t. I pulled the car beside him and rolled the window all the way down.

“Your in this now, Marco. If you fuck me up, your mother-in-law is gonna find out.”

He stopped walking. I stopped the car. Then Marco put his head back and screamed into the night: “I’m tired of people telling me what to do!”  

At that moment, the coffee company exploded.

The-entire-fucking-building blew up.

Engulfed in flames and flying debris.

Marco turns snow fucking white and starts running around mindlessly.

I threw the car in reverse and sped away. In the rear view I could see the whole building, the entire operation, three generations of family success turned to dust. A hole in the ground. Nothing but a flaming pile of rubble.

I guess I packed the roaster too tight…

A few weeks later, Marco called me on the phone. I didn’t think I’d ever hear from him again. He started out by telling me the insurance company paid out, but the equipment they had was irreplaceable. The aged roasters gave their coffee its distinct taste. So, the family couldn’t rebuild. They were finished.

The whole time he’s telling me this, all I do is grunt in response.

Then he tells me, “It was roasting all that barley that caused the explosion, John.”

“What? What barley? What are you talking about?”

“Remember, John. You filled up that roaster with barley. You were trying to cut it with the coffee so you could sell it?”

I told him he was fucking crazy, “You need help, Marco.” Then I hung up, wondering how many cops were on the line listening as well.

They never did get anything on me.

After this, I got into the drug business. Like I said, drugs are easier. I could double $1400 in a day. Yeah, I got a Corvette and a Lincoln Continental out of the coffee deal, but it wasn’t worth the fucking headache.  Timmy retired from the coffee business too.

Thirty years later I ran into Marco at some wedding. The first time I’d seen him since that night. He had a white fucking stripe in his hair, which he swore he got the morning after the fire.

“My mother-in-law tortured me every day about that shit,” he seethed.  “My wife still brings it up once a week.”

Three decades later and he’s still fucking mad.

“I told you your wife wouldn’t leave.”

“Yeah, well at least I always admitted the truth, John.”

“I’m glad you got that off your chest,” I smiled.

“You blew up my family business. We had it for three generations and you blew it up.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been acting like a bad-guy.”

 John shook his head: “Some things never change.” 

About that, he was wrong. Marco was now an executive at UPS. He didn’t work for his wife, he made a ton of money, and he grew his damn balls back.

I did him a fucking favor.

And the cocksucker didn’t even thank me.

-end-

It was one of those days that started with schnapps in my coffee. And ended with me crying myself to sleep.
My daughter and wife left for the zoo before I got up. I planned on staying home to do chores. But instead, I ended up paying a neighborhood kid to mow the lawn, then slipped on my jacket and headed to the tavern. In the pocket I found a note: “Anna lost her first tooth this morning. Please get a silver dollar. Love, Wife.”
She knew I’d be sneaking off to the Irish Bar at some point for their Saturday dollar drafts. She also knew the owner liked to stock novelty currency. Silver dollars, two-dollar bills and others that were good for conversation.
At the bar there was a Spaghetti Western on one of the televisions, and auto racing on the rest. I saddled in front of the movie.
My beer arrived as I took off my jacket. “Can I get a silver dollar in change?” I asked the bartender. I think her name was Sonya. She was middle-aged and trying to hang on to her beauty. She was doing a pretty good job of it. I always liked her arms. They had just enough fat to bruise with a squeeze from passionate fingers.
She came back and set a faded coin on the bar. It was about as old as the movie I was watching. A little older than me.
I dipped my finger in my beer and polished it up a bit. Then slid it into the tiny pocket of my jeans.
The movie was a classic. I couldn’t hear the actors, just the sound of the racecars and rowdies, but I knew the story well enough to follow. Besides, I was mesmerized by the Western imagery. The horses, the campfires, the ladies in ruffled corsets. The way cowboys ate beans with a spoon. The way they sipped their coffee. The saloonkeepers with handlebar mustaches, and the whores with loose hairpins.
Part of me wanted to live during that time. It was romantic. But honestly, I think I’d have grown tired of the cholera, chlamydia and cow shit.
It did inspire a thirst for whiskey. American Bourbon. Straight and warm in a rocks glass. I took it down. Felt it immediately. It soured me and I started thinking like the whiskey. Thinking about the people around me. About which ones I’d shoot. Which ones I’d rape. Which ones might beat me at poker or draw their guns quicker…There were more than a few that deserved a piece of hot lead in their chest. More than a few girls that deserved a dirty cowboy panting and grunting behind her.
I knocked down more whiskey. And Sonya kept them coming. She never cut me off. If she did I’d cock the hammer on her. Grab the bottle and ride off into the desert. Or maybe throw her on the back of the horse, tie her up campside and fuck her ’til I was dry.
That’s what I’d do if I was a cowboy. Either that, or I’d be dressed in red long-johns and perpetually stuck in the drunk tank.
Probably the latter.
The movie’s big shootout was coming. I ordered one last shot to enjoy the finale.
“And get yourself one too!” I called to Sonya.
She set down the little glasses. We tipped em back. I coughed. She didn’t. What a woman! She’d probably be the one raping me by the campfire.
“It’s five bucks, honey.”
I reached in my pocket. I only had four.
“Can I getcha t’morrow?” I slurred.
“Not after last night,” she whispered, then cocked her head to the other end of the bar. The Irish bar owner was there, a few months out of college, staring at me as if it were high noon.
I hated his red eyebrows. His freckles. His muscles and youth.
Irish cocksucker, I thought. The German at the Bismarck would let me slide…
“You already owe three tabs,” she whispered.
I knew she was right. Skipping out on three tabs was bad enough. The fourth and that little Irish fuck would probably call the cops.
So I pulled out the silver dollar. Looked at it one last time, and then spun it on the bar.
I drank down my beer and was out the door before the coin twisted to a stop.
It was still light out, so I went to the river. I watched some man swing his son in circles. A couple of kids pull fish onto the shore. And an elderly couple tear pieces of bread for the ducks. At sunset the teenagers came out and chased me away with their music and shouting.
I stumbled home. The family was asleep. I found a note on the refrigerator: “Thanks, Mr. Tooth Fairy. I’ll see you when Anna wakes up. Love, Wife.”
I went to the sofa. Reached between the cushions. Found some popcorn seeds. Doll clothes. Pen caps. But not even a single fucking penny.
So I put my head down and cried myself to sleep.

We all have our pews. The places we go to search ourselves. Mine just happens to be on the barstool. Sitting before the mirrored-shrine of liquor, cigarettes and jerky. The light refracting through the schnapps and vodkas and rums. I can look at myself. Into myself. Through those bottles. My image twisted and bent. Like the feelings within.

Its where I can think. About the roads I’ve taken. About Frost, and how he didn’t really take that road less traveled.

I think about how one of my roads leads to a studio apartment. A place small enough to shit, eat, and fuck without taking six steps.

Little more than a cubicle with a couch. No TV. No bed. A crooked glass door that I battle just to smoke on the porch, staring at the river one-story down.

A fridge filled with beer and catfish. A cupboard of breadcrumbs and olive oil. Fry them with enough pepper to mask the taste of the Mississippi.

Three empty bottles of shiraz on the nightstand.

A woman smoking on my sofa. Legs perched on the coffee table. Blonde, perhaps. Redhead, maybe. Though it doesn’t matter. As long as she has that meat. That padding. Enough flesh to absorb my thrusts. Enough patience and bravery.

We’d trade drinks. Share smokes. Maybe even toke while we fucked. It just might take that long….Switching positions just to get rid of the cramps. Her on top, me on top, over, under and down.

I’d cum on her belly. Watch her rub it in like some European skin treatment. Smoke again. Drink again. Let the night pass as napped and drank and listened to jazz. Unsure if we were conscious or dreaming.

We’d read the morning news and eat eggs scrambled in butter and bacon grease. A glass of cranberry juice spiked with enough vodka to take away the throbbing in my head and in my loins.

A walk down the street with two fresh smokes and no agenda. Maybe stop to watch some kids play basketball. An old woman water the flowers in her window. Two bums try to figure out where they’ve awakened.

We’d drink our way downtown. Ride the bus ’til we got lost. And just waste time. Waste life.

That’s one road.

My other road leads somewhere else…

To a small pond. Where I can sit on the shore and watch my wife, Tevis, walk towards me from our small house, enough spring in her step to make her look girlish. She’ll squeeze my arm and kiss my cheek. I’ll act as though I don’t care, but actually have wings on my heart.

I’ll read a novel with fish nibbling my toes as I sit on the dock sunning myself with the reflection from the pages, occasionally tossing canned corn to the turtles. It will be a pond that’s too big to throw a stone across, but small enough to swim. A pond that will cradle my wife in a raft as she bastes her skin. A pond skirted with cattails and trees that shadow the water in late afternoon. The frogs will croak us to sleep while the crickets play their lullaby. It will be a place where I can smoke the plants I grow on the hillside. Where the air is prehistoric with no trace of diesel.

My neighbor will be perched two hilltops away, close enough to be beckoned by a phone call but far enough to discourage any surprise visits. We could entertain the neighbors on the weekends with grilled vegetables, corn in the husk, skewered tomatoes and zucchini, all grown in my garden. Maybe drink pale ale and throw bocce balls while our children did flips into the pond. We’d laugh and tell stories embellished just enough to make them interesting.

On Sundays I would cook breakfast as the breeze billowed the kitchen curtains. My wife and I would sip coffee at our deck table, the morning sun on the pond. The children would show me crayon drawings and chase the dog, as we digested eggs and melon with our feet propped on the porch railing. I’d battle the wind as I read the newspaper.

I’d watch my wife walk the dog around the pond, admiring her sexy amble, her body bathed in sunlight. After a lunch of leftovers, I would row Tevis and the children along the banks of the pond, visiting the frogs and searching for turtles. They’d lean over the side and see the bass and bluegills dart about.

By evening we’d watch the sun go down, and then gather on the couch to watch a movie. The screen doors our only barrier to the outdoors. We’d carry the children to bed, then explore our bodies in the moonlight. Maybe atop the dock. On a boat. Even the grass. But fervently, with a passion that can only come from years of patient sexploration.

That’s the other road I imagine.

And like Frost, I wonder which one I’ll tell people I followed. And which one I actually will.

I went to Loki’s grave one night. Drunk in the dark woods. I swayed back and forth over his homemade headstone, weeping and wanting to pound my fist into the dirt.  To punch deep into the black soil and feel his fur for one last time. To have his smell on my hands. To bend his ears and rub them as he sighed.

I wanted him back.

So the next morning I called my friend with the tattooed neck and science degree.

“We’re going to get Loki,” I told him.

He didn’t question me. Just showed up at my house with his bucket and hacksaw. I grabbed my shovel and we went to the ravine.  

“We might need to cut around the vertebrae,” he said, holding up the hacksaw. “Depending on how much he’s decomposed.”

We traded pulls on a pint of whiskey and made our way down the hill, making guesses on what Loki might look like now.

My friend figured he’d look like a ninety-year-old smoker. Sunken eyes, parched lips, and skin barely hanging off the bone.

I said that all his flesh would be gone, except maybe for stray bits fur.

We’d learn that neither of us were right.

First we moved the logs off his grave, placed there to keep the animals from digging him up.

“Two animals are digging him up now,” he joked.

It was the only time I laughed all day.

He shoveled the first spade of dirt and pulled up a healthy worm.

It was good dirt. Full of life.

“Loki reincarnate,” I said, taking the fat worm. I set him gently on the ground so he didn’t burst.

The second and third spade brought up even more thick soil and worms.

It was the fourth spade that made my heart sink. In it was a string of blue ribbon. The ribbon I had tied around a bunch of tiger lilies and put atop Loki’s body. The lilies had long decomposed, but the tight, knotted ribbon remained.

One, two more spades. My friend shoveled horizontally so as not to crush the bones.

As he got closer, he pulled out his pocket knife and started scraping away the dirt like an archaeologist.

I turned my back and sipped the pint.

“I see teeth,” he whispered. “Look at this.”

I didn’t at first. I wanted to keep the memory of my dog’s smiling face. That puppy-dog-look that Loki never outgrew. That noble and majestic beast.  A dog that everyone liked. A dog that knew more than he should. A dog that had a little something extra. Something you can’t breed or clone. Loki had that. Boy did he have it.

I slowly turned to see. In the dirt was a fang, along with a snout and eye socket. All attached to a skull  that was brown and black, like a museum fossil.

My friend jiggled Loki’s head a bit and then pulled it straight up, shaking off the clods of dirt. He peeled one small patch of fur from the cheekbone.

The skull was smaller than I expected. And it was missing the bottom jaw.

I thought about how many times I had stroked his head, felt his chin on my lap, and endured those teeth as we wrestled in the basement.

My friend pulled Loki’s bottom jaw from the dirt, and tossed the bone into the bucket.

Instantly we filled in the hole.

“I’ll clean this and get it back to you tomorrow,” my friend said.

I nodded. Not saying a word.

We finished off the pint and went home.

Walking up my front steps, my new dog greeted me. Bella, the Norwegian Elkhound. I knelt down, and petted her lovingly, feeling the skull beneath my fingers…our bones separated by thin layers of tissue and hair. So thin. So vulnerable…Skin is no match for dirt.

I pet her and told her I love her.

I wondered when I’d be digging her up to put her skull atop my bookcase.

He was one of those guys that carried an umbrella, even if it wasn’t raining.

Sometimes he’d have it opened like a parasol, spinning hypnotically over one shoulder.

Mostly it was by his side, clicking against the tavern floor as he strutted in from the sunlight.

Timothy, I think his name was. He’d stab you with the umbrella if you called him Timmy. At least that’s what he told me. I never tested him.

We drank together on Tuesdays. Two strangers in the corner bar. Coffee and schnapps in the morning. Beer in the afternoon. Maybe a whiskey or two before stumbling home for dinner.

I punched in there all week. Monday through Friday. Same time. Same barstool. Same credit card nearing its limit. When the card finally ran dry I’d have to tell my wife: “Sorry, baby, I got laid off, the credit card is maxed and the check for the babysitter’s gonna bounce.” Same story different man.

So I spent the days the tavern across from my old company, having parked my car in the employee lot. I could see the trucks pulling in and out of the warehouse. Hear the chirp of the air brakes and the slamming of trailer doors. Sometimes I’d play the jukebox just to drown it out. It was how Timothy and I first started talking. We had the same taste in Soul.

“Electronic bile is all you hear now. Its so apparent and superficial.”

That was another reason I liked him. He used big words. Plus, his glass was always half empty.

I’d sit and listen to him talk for hours, the self-proclaimed history professor. His clothes mismatched and faded, duct-tape holding one shoe together. His words more blurry and boisterous as the day passed. He’d rant about Visigoths and Romans and homosexual generals. I’d nod and smile, even though I thought Tervingi and Vesi were types of pasta. He was entertaining. Animated. Sometimes dueling invisible soldiers with his umbrella and downing a shot after each imaginary victory.

He made me forget. Made me feel distinguished. I was there learning history of the world, while my former co-workers loaded and unloaded those fucking trucks. Those pallets and forklifts and fat fucking bosses. I forgot about the emptiness. The failure. The castration of my esteem. I was the only one to be laid off — the only one! I was going to be a housewife soon and be stuck at home with my toddler. Cleaning stains out of tiny sweaters and making macaroni for dinner. Watching out the window for my wife to pull in the driveway, hoping she’d give me a blow job for cleaning the house. That would be my life soon. And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be a drunken history buff with a fancy umbrella.

I told him that one day after too many pints.

“The grass may be greener, but you still have to mow it,” he said.

I nodded. Took a long drink. Let my shoulders fall even further.

“Want two more, boys?” Tina asked. That chubby bartender with the percolating tits. She’d accepted her meat and let it bounce and shift and jiggle, just to tease a few extra quarters out of us. We told her yes in unison, and watched her saunter to the cooler — it was the only time Timothy was quiet. He watched her with a hunger. A drunken, head-swaying hunger.

True, she’d be ugly in 10 years, but now she was wrapped in tight fabric everywhere but her cleavage. It bounced furiously with each step, escaping the v-neck of her white wool sweater. You could see her black bra beneath. It had four clasps in the back. Four, fucking clasps!

She set down our beers and marked them on my tab, tits shaking as she scribbled.It was too much for Timothy. He stood up. Hooked the umbrella over one arm and started prancing about like a Greek orator: “Dear Tina, like the sea-Nymph Galatea, sweeter to me than thyme of Hybla, whiter than the swan, lovelier than pale ivy!”

He twirled around the room slaying dragons, dancing with debutantes and shouting: “As soon as the pastured bulls seek the yard again, if you care at all for thy Corydon, come! Come! Come!”

Tina looked at me and raised one eyebrow. I shrugged.

At that, Timothy took a bow, then came back to his stool.

“Um… thank you?” she ventured.

He twirled his fingers like a sultan and gave her a wink.

Tina gave us two shots on the house.

I wondered how we stayed on our barstools.

Then the tavern door opened, filling the place with sun. Three of my former co-workers came in. Two grunts and Ron. The biggest guy on the loading dock. He hurried over and threw one arm around my neck and dug his fist into my hair. “Hey Maine, we miss you over there cocksucker. I gotta fetch my own damn coffee now! “

I pushed Ron away and straightened the mess. The other workers fed the pool table. I could hear them laughing.

Ron took my beer and leaned one solid arm on the bar. His muscles were the product of twenty years of loading trucks. As was his self-esteem.

“Yep, place just ain’t the same without a bitch like you round,” he said before putting his lips around the beer. “I see you’re car over there. What you been doin? Comin in here botherin my Tina? Starin at those big-ole titties uh hers?”

Tina rolled her eyes, “You guys want a pitcher or what, Ron?”

“Yeah, and put it on Maine’s bill. He’ll pay with his food-stamps and shit,” Ron slapped my back, too hard to be friendly.

I ignored him, just as I had for years. He could say anything he wanted about me. Start rumors that I was a faggot. A sex offender or cross dresser. It didn’t matter. Nothing he said was as painful as my own thoughts. And besides, I felt comfortable being the heel. Less was expected of me.

“C’mon Ron, what do you guys want?” Tina smiled.

“Goddamn, she’s deaf and dumb!”

I stayed silent. Timothy unbuttoned his umbrella.

“Stupid bitch thinks she can get through life on her tits,” Ron took another swig. “Get me a pitcher and three glasses.

Timothy stood up. Staggered. Caught his balance and said, “Please. Don’t offend the lady.”

Ron set down the beer and turned to Timothy.

“She’s far too beautiful for such barbarism.”

Ron squinted and took a step forward.

The umbrella snapped open.

“And while your at it, you can pay for the confiscated beer,” Timothy set the umbrella over one shoulder and spun it slowly. It made me dizzy.

“Who the fuck let Mary Poppins in here?!”

The other workers laughed as they chalked their pool cues.

“Check it out guys, Maine’s got himself a nanny!”

I wanted to get up. Wanted to stand between the men and bring some sanity to this ruse. But all I could do was sit there. Always just sit there…

“My name is Timothy. And you, sir, are about as genteel as a tribe of drunken Visigoths.”

“Listen, Timmy, sit your faggot-ass down, before I –”

Ron didn’t get the last words out. He fell to his knees. His massive hands over his neck. Blood seeping from between those iron fingers.

The other workers came over and helped him.

Tina dialed the phone.

Timothy cleaned the metal tip of his umbrella with a cocktail napkin.

I stayed on the barstool.

Just a few seconds ago, he was reciting Latin poetry and fencing invisible foes. Now, he was watching as a man writhed and gargled on the tavern floor.

“Only my father called me, Timmy,” he said under his breath.

For a moment, I wondered if that could have been me on the ground, gasping for air amidst the booze and the blood. Could I have been one harmless joke away from a pierced larynx?

Timothy sheathed the umbrella and straightened his sport coat. The other workers took off their shirts and started mopping Ron’s neck.

“Well, this gentleman will be out of commission for awhile. I’ll bet they have an opening across the street,” Timothy smiled.

I ignored him. Though he did have a point. Maybe I could avoid playing mommy for awhile.

Timothy downed the last of his drink and went to shake my hand…I didn’t move.

“Fair enough,” he said. Then a little softer, “Fair enough.”

He turned to Tina: “Goodbye, me dear. Forever sweeter than that thyme of Hybla!”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at him. She was shaking, panicked, both hands on the telephone.

Timothy blew her a kiss, and then walked into the world the umbrella clicking at his side. On to some other bar. To some other city. To some other time when men settled their differences like men.

—

I outdrank her as usual …passed out naked in our hotel room.

I didn’t even have time to mount.

I suppose I still could have. She wouldn’t have noticed.

She’d shaken her pussy like a peacock. Teasing me. Taunting me. Then telling me I had to wash my junk before I could get inside.

When I got back she was snoring, arms and legs spread atop the covers, still holding a beer in one hand. I took it, finished it, then grabbed another one from the ice in the sink.

I turned on the television and unwrapped the deck of cards we bought as a souvenier. It had pictures of Vegas showgirls on the front.

I sat on the edge of the bed. Sipped the beer. Listened to the laughter on television. And one by one, I flicked the cards between her legs. Aiming for her snatch like a bored detective trying to shoot Aces into his hat.

She wasn’t that wide though.

I did land the Jack of Spades on one nipple. The rest piled on her belly.

And she slept through it all.

Maybe next year we’ll try Disneyland.

- end -

(appeared in Oct 08 issue of Slurve Magazine)

She works on Tuesdays. Alone in that little German bar, where the prices and decor are stuck in the 70s. She pours beer with too much foam, but no one ever complains. Not to Kara. Not to those curls. That headdress of blond plumage that is pony-tailed in the summer, and let loose in the winter like a mink shawl warming her shoulders.
I’m there every week, to watch her bend into the beer coolers and reach for the top-shelf bottles. Her supple belly peeking from the front of her shirt. Soft and curvy where it matters.
Sometimes I draw her pictures on damp beer coasters. Or fold roses out of the cocktail napkins. Anything to stand out from the other men. Anything to get that smile.
I go there in my cleanest shirt. My unstained jeans. A thorough grooming and splash of lemon juice behind my ears.
Tonight she served me a foamy draft. A shot of whiskey. I smiled in thanks. Speechless as usual. Then watched her glide to the loud men at the other end of the bar. The Electrician. The Drywaller. The Lawyer.
For hours she sauntered back and forth, slow and sensual like a lazy panther. And I couldn’t look away from those curls. They were alive. Doing twists and turns and pirouettes. I wanted to taste and touch and feel their scent. But most of all, I wanted to know what they’d look like slithering across my pillow.
Two more drinks. Then four. Grumbling to myself and wishing the loud men were gone. Wishing they’d shut up about their sports and drive home in their sedans.
Somehow I needed to stand out.
I reached into the back of my wallet. Behind the old receipts and insurance card, where I kept my “emergency” cash. The $100 bill I hadn’t unfolded in years.
I swallowed the last of my beer. Then, with purpose, I set the bill flat under the bottle.
“Thanks, Kara,” I called, putting on my coat and heading slowly to the exit… If I timed it right, she would find it just as I reached the door. Then she’d run and throw her arms around me and I’d bury myself in that glorious headdress.
But as I walked out, the beauty didn’t chase me. She didn’t even call out “goodbye”.
The door closed and I walked into the snowy parking lot.
Immediately the wind hit me. Made my heart somehow colder. And I felt that crisp tingle on my ears…Shit! I had forgotten my stocking cap! The wool hat from Norway that my departed father had given me.
For five or ten minutes I shivered in the snow. Looking at the door. It grinned at me. Winked. It was a drawbridge too heavy for my nerve.
I couldn’t go back in. I couldn’t face her.
So I sat there in the cold, hoping she’d find it before some drunk did. Maybe save it for me behind the bar. Who knows, maybe she even take it home and sleep with it! Spray it with her perfume or leave me a love note in the fold… After all, I was the man who left her $100!
I decided to return the next day. Take the gamble. Give her a chance to pen some note of thanks or risqué poem.
The next morning I was at the bar before it opened, knocking my cold knuckles on the door until the cleaning man let me in. He had a beer in one hand, and an empty mop bucket in the other.
“Did someone find a hat here last night?” I asked. “It was black with a Norwegian flag on the front?”
“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah” the man slurred. “I think its in the back, let me go check.”
I knew she’d save it!
I paced and guessed what she would leave me. A phone number? A limerick? A naughty photo?
After a long minute the man finally returned. I snatched the hat, thanked him, and ran outside.
There was a folded cocktail napkin in the bottom. I unfolded it, breath short and heart flickering.
I was ready for the proclamations of love and lust!
Ready to run to her bedside and ravish her!
But there was no love letter. Not even a kiss of red lipstick.
It was my $100 bill. Still damp with beer.
On the napkin, written in heavy ink, was the word, “Don’t”
I stuffed the napkin into my pocket. Slid on my hat. Then spent the money at a Irish bar down the street.

I watched them every night, through the broken shades and parted curtains of their apartment. The Czech beauty and her little daughter. A narrow alley separated us, filled with ruin and filth from ten stories above. The stench forced me to keep the windows closed through Summer, and attracted plenty of my minions.

But the alley kept me from them. From their life and their mornings, their beds and their hearts.
So I sat alone in my folding chair, waiting and watching and dreaming of a place at their dinner table. Longing for a throne between my Petra and little Anna. To eat the oily cheese salads and unknown meats covered in spice and sauces. I would swallow Petra’s foul Czech cooking to be near them. Anything to be close.

I imagined how Anna and I would endure those wretched meals each night. How we’d play dominoes on the carpeting, then read bed-time stories until the little girl fell into dreams of magic and mystery. Petra and I would then sip wine from elegant stemware as we tangled ourselves in the light of the television, our hearts and minds afloat. We’d assail one another under those glorious red sheets, until we were awakened by the sound of Anna shaking a box of breakfast cereal.

But for now I sat alone, waiting for that life to begin. The phonograph playing scratched records. The box fan spinning its cockeyed drone. And of course the mountain of bloody tissues beneath my seat. A few still wet from the night before, when I had to save the Rottweiler in the alley.
The dog had set up residence in a fallen oil drum outside of Anna’s window, and had nearly awaken her with his scratching — that bony black elbow of his slamming against the metal drum as he dug at the fleas and mites.

So last night I stumbled to the window and pressed a few tissues to my nose. The blood came in a slow, salty trickle as I closed my eyes and focused.

A few seconds later the fleas jumped from his body, cascading down the alley like spilled marbles. He sighed and shook his loose black skin, then retreated into the drum for a few peaceful hours. But of course the bugs would return tonight for their canine feast. And I would beckon them away again. Anything to keep that little girl asleep and peaceful, while her mother worked at the tavern down the street.

I had followed her one night, as she walked to that bar across from the tire factory. Where the oily men came each night to catch a buzz before heading home to their families. She’d carry trays of beer mugs from table to table as she balanced on ice-pick heels, breasts so heavy it was a mystery how she kept her balance. The factory men would berate her with vulgar comments, knowing she couldn’t understand their quick English.

She understood their touches though. Those little slaps and pinches that she wouldn’t rebuke.
When Petra brought me my own beer, I gave her a sympathetic smile and a modest tip. Nothing too large to draw attention. Not enough for her to remember or recognize me. But enough to let her know that I sympathized…that I wasn’t like those men.

I wanted to punish them for each slight and degradation. To beckon a cloud of bees and fill them with stingers. Swell their eyes shut with spider poison. Bury a legion of termites into their marrow. A swarm of mosquitoes to suck them all dry — lifeless sacks of skin and bone scattered about.

I could do it. Easily. But all I did was sit. And watch. And drink till my wallet was empty. Then I stumbled home slowly, and dropped into my folding chair to watch the little girl sleep. Dreaming innocently while her mother endured ridicule for dimes and quarters.

Petra no longer smiled like that day she first moved in. The sweet morning last Spring when the apple trees were finishing their bloom. That windy afternoon when my life was graced by the little girl and long-legged beauty, as they carried in boxes amidst the falling pink petals. She had walked tall. Proud. But that was gone now as she came home just a few hours before dawn, damp with beer and sweat.

I wanted to go to her door. Hold her. Comfort her. Let her know that there was some chivalry still alive in this city. But where would I have gotten such confidence? Such bravado? It wasn’t within me. Not my soul nor this sickly frame. This pale monstrosity of bones and cables and cavities. I didn’t deserve such perfection. My powers, or rather my curse, would never allow it.
That’s what my mother called it. The curse. The “demon affliction.” What other explanation could she have for the hordes of honey bees that followed me each Summer? The box-elder bugs that covered my bedroom window?

I couldn’t blame her for using a supernatural excuse.

Especially with what happened to my father…

“It wasn’t the drinking that killed him,” she had told me one night, her own voice slurred. She was in my bedroom doorway, chest rising and falling quickly with the hall-light behind her. “It wasn’t the drinking, Maine…But you know that, don’t you… You know that!”

For the next hour she screamed drunken prayers for my redemption as I hid under the covers.

I didn’t talk to the bugs for a year after that. And never in her presence.

At eighteen I moved away. Worked in warehouses and grills for a few years. Then I finally found a benefit for my curse.…I started a simple, one man company called “Pied Piper Pest Control.”
I cleansed local apartment buildings. Some restaurants and offices. And of course, the big houses in the suburbs. Those secluded sub-divisions where in just one day I could make enough money for rent and booze.

I’d fill my chemical tanks with tap water and cleanse about ten houses in one afternoon.

With a tampon plugging my nose, I’d drag the tank from floor to floor, room to room, pumping and spraying the corners and walls. For show, of course. I merely beckoned the pests and sent them to the house next door, where I left my flyer and waited for that family’s desperate call the next week.

My mother would have called me a thief, but I felt no sympathy for those men. Those secure pimps with their warm dinners and queen-sized beds. I felt no remorse, nor shame. After all, the money was now going to my beloved Petra and Anna.

I would sneak them a few bills at a time, carried by a platoon of roaches under their doorway. Bill after bill left atop couch cushions or dinner plates, where Petra would find them each morning and attribute to lost tips. I gave them whatever I could bleed. They bought a few simple toys. Some fresh fruit. Lovely red ribbons for Anna’s hair. A flowered dress for Petra. I smiled at each package and bag they brought home.

They were both beginning to shine. To feel joy…

Until the day he came.

That man in the army jacket. A jacket with a Czech flag sewn to one shoulder, and USA flag on the other, the squat, pudgy man in between. He had a small face on a big head. Chubby breasts and hips, gathering fat where only a woman should.

He had appeared just once before, the day after the girls first moved in. Riding in on that black motorcycle, he kissed Petra on the cheek and gave them a wind-ravaged houseplant.
Today though, he did not come to give, but to receive.

I sat close to the window, foot tapping and fingers wrestling while the man turned his key in their apartment door. Petra ushered Anna to her room. The man sauntered in, casually going through the cupboards and drinking straight from the milk jug.

After pulling Anna’s door shut, Petra came to the kitchen with an envelope in hand. The man, nearly six inches her shorter, snatched it and looked inside.

He inched closer to Petra, cornering her against the wall and tapping her breast with the envelope. She stared at the floor, head turned away.

Suddenly he began to shout. Loud and animated. His open-hand smacked the wall.

Petra flinched as he jabbed his finger toward Anna’s room.

I looked to the little girl’s window and saw her sitting atop her bed covering her ears. I wasn’t sure, but she might have been singing to herself.

I grabbed a handful of tissues, and the blood poured fast…

A mass of lightning bugs appeared at Anna’s window. Fifty or more of the creatures touched the glass, twisting and turning into the shape of a smiley face. Then a heart. A teddy bear. They swirled into a fractal, timing their flashes in a glorious light show. The girl swung her legs off the bed and smiled, while one room away the Czech man continued his barrage of obscenities and threats. I made the bugs into stick figures, glowing silhouettes that danced and tumbled and did impossible feats.

Anna laughed.

And the blood kept flowing.

The Czech man made a move toward the hallway. Petra blocked his path, her long arms stretched between the walls. He put his fat hand into the back of her neck and kissed her hard.
I waited for her to shove him away. To send her knee into his groin so I could follow with a platoon of bees or roaches into his clothing. Send him into a wild fit, scratching and screaming out the door.

But just as she did with those vile men in the tavern, Petra did not retaliate. Instead, she returned the kiss.

My stomach fell. Petra pushed the man against the counter, pawing and mawing his horrible body.

The bugs danced for Anna. They played out their circus of light while my lover laid into that man. That man with the clean army coat and envelope full of cash. That man with the woman-fat collecting in his thighs and breasts and buttocks. That man who left an hour later, hair disheveled and recounting the bills atop his sputtering motorcycle…

From then on he returned each week, delivering a barrage of insults and leaving with an envelope filled with money. My money. Anna’s money. He’d make empty threats and then satisfy his carnal tastes with Petra. And each time I entertained the little girl with insect feats. I distracted her with dancing fireflies and a wreath of lady bugs. An unimaginable flea circus or a balancing tower of roaches. I amused her with magic and whimsy while the man thrust atop her mother.

All the while, I couldn’t stop thinking, why him? I was the one giving, and never asking for anything in return! I was the one who watched over the blessed girl while Petra worked the tavern. I was the one who watched Anna tuck herself in, hiding under the covers from the noises the monsters and men. Midnight and machines. It was me!

But how could she know? How could she know that I was the little girl’s guardian? That it was me who sent that legion of bees carrying sweet bits of honeycomb to her kitchen? That I was the one who filled Anna’s room with a colorful sea of butterflies? That it was me who bled each week for the distraction. That I weakened myself to bring her joy. How could they know?
I would never tell. There would be no recognition for my sentry…All I could do was work longer hours at my job and keep sending them money.

But through it all, I grew weaker. Bleeding day and night, I lost two notches on my belt. The Czech man’s shakedown was literally bleeding me dry.

I needed to end it. To find out how he was blackmailing them…

One warm afternoon in late Summer, with the girls gone to the park, I decided to sneak into their building. I took down a bottle of whiskey for the courage and walked to their front door. I called a few ants to twist and turn the springs of her lock, then slid inside the apartment. Into my sanctuary.

Inside I looked at each decoration and knick-knack with reverence. Afraid to touch, but unable to not. The statue of the Infant of Prague. The miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty. The wooden carvings and porcelain dolls. I stepped carefully, and surgically opened each drawer and cabinet.

Slowly I made my way to Petra’s bedroom, stood in the doorway, and absorbed my surroundings. I stared at her glorious red sheets. Inhaled their smell. Felt it in my lungs and libido. A scent I would not forget.

I went to her dresser. Opened the top drawer. Always the top. Frayed bras and stained panties. I pushed my fingers through the satin and lace to the bottom where I found some letters and cards. A small medallion of St. Christopher. A ticket stub from a children’s movie. And amidst these memories, was a pile of white envelopes, along with a notebook. A small, wire-bound record with angry drawings on the front. Inside were a few Czech words and scribbled dollar signs with numbers that decreased as I flipped through the pages. The numbers seemed so high. A debt perhaps, with ridiculous totals that a lifetime of neither waitressing nor exterminating could ever erase.

As I returned the notebook, I noticed a bra hanging from the hamper. Red. Satin. I touched it. Lifted it. Inhaled the fabric of my foreign lover. I grew harder than I’d been in months. Beneath it was a pair of matching panties. I slide them both into the front of my pants and went to make my escape.

But as I made my retreat, I was drawn to Anna’s room. Just to see a glimpse of the little girl’s world in person. To see it from this opposite vantage point.

I pushed her door open hesitantly, with a fear that somehow she might be there, shivering on her bed frightened by my sickly frame. But of course, she was not there. Just a dirty rag doll atop her pillow. The red ribbons for her hair draped from the hooks on the wall. Everything I had seen from my window. Gentle and sublime.

In this room I could smell her life. A faint mix of urine and crayon wax. The smell of innocence. An uncomplicated life. No worries of perverts and prowlers. No misery or misfortune. Just her own childhood enclave, he own simple problems and joys.

On the far wall was her artistry. Rudimentary pictures from floor to ceiling. Cave art. Colorful renditions of the insect magic she had seen…

It was all there. The flea circus and lady bug wreath. The swirling lightning bugs, the sea of butterflies, the bees with their crackers and honey comb. Even those I had forgotten. Like the congregation of praying mantis, the eight-legged can-canning spiders, and the chorus of crickets that I sent to sing her lullabies.

And there in the center, directly above the window was a picture of me! Sitting on a yellow throne with a crown of jewels. So fanciful! So realistic! My bony shoulders and cabled neck. High cheekbones and tousled hair. Even a mess of tissues against my nose…There was only one minor falsehood ~ I was smiling. A broad grin that I hadn’t seen in years.

In this picture, I was for once, happy.

I backed out of her room and clicked the door shut, still holding the handle as I rest my head against the wood. A few tears welled in my eyes. I let out a slow breath. I was not upset that she had seen me, but instead I was touched that this is how she had pictured me…

That night I did not watch the little girl sleep. I kept my blinds closed. It was Petra’s lone night off from the tavern, so she would be there with Anna, and I needed to be unseen. I needed this time for myself. To feed my internal hungers. My primal cravings.

I bought a bottle of rum. Two bottles of red. Even a new vinyl record from the collectible store. Some early Bill Withers.

At home. Alone. I lit a candle and put the needle to the album.

I set the red stain bra and panties atop my bed. Then plugged my nose with a twisted paper towel, and tipped back the first bottle of red.

Then the blood came…

Along with the ants…

I laid on the bed and felt a hand gently touch my shoulder. It crept up my neck, and traced a familiar path along my bony face. It was a delicate touch that raised my hairs.
The fingers twiddled my ear lobe. I opened my eyes, and saw the her silhouette from the candle. The body was a mesh of black insects, corralled by Petra’s red bra and panties. The flickering flame shone through thousands of tiny holes. And yet, she was just like my Czech beauty– heavy, vital breasts. Hips that stretched beyond mine. I could practically see every contour and crevice of my beloved.

She slid off my boxers. Her face, her arms, and her body was a mass of hissing, crackling ants.
The long fingers coaxed my member to attention. I pulled off those red panties and plunged myself into the black mess.

Her vagina conformed to my length and girth — the ants did their job perfectly. Thousands of the little creatures, gripping leg to leg, antennae to antennae, forming a flawless replica. Their limbs tickled my nerves with delicate precision. I thrust back and forth, ignoring the hiss and drone of the insects, instead hearing Petra moan in ecstasy.

A few short minutes into the masterpiece, I climaxed, hard and full and deep, dousing and drowning some unlucky ants. They fell into a mass of white goo onto the floor, some dead, some struggling. And just as quickly as I had created my beautiful monster, I let the body of ants drop to the ground, scattering over the fallen red undergarments.

I composed myself. Opened the second bottle of wine, and then went to the window.
I wanted to open the blinds. I wanted to see Anna was safe and happy… But I couldn’t. What if she saw me again? What if I made eye contact?

So instead, I returned the needle to the beginning of the album. Went to bed. And drank myself to sleep…

That night I dreamt of my father.

Of the day he ripped my own childish drawings from the wall. Shirtless with puke crusted on his chest. He spat on the artistry and cursed about expensive paper and crayons. He emptied my drawers, screaming about my clothes and shoes. He drank from a bottle of cooking wine, and told me I was the one holding him back. He kicked my walls and shook his fist at my face.
I crawled under my covers, screaming in my mind for an escape. Begging someone to shield me from the words that pounded through the blanket. I tightened my eyes and asked to be saved…pleaded to the only voices I could hear…

A few seconds later I heard a small commotion, a thud, and then silence.

I peeked from beneath the blanket. My father was on the floor, eyes open and blank, spiders pouring from his mouth. His bottle of cooking wine spilled and mixing with the blood trickling from his ears.

I sat there. Not fully comprehending what had happened. Unable to move until my mother arrived home. She came to my room and saw the blood, the wine, and the stray spiders still camped on his blue lips. The rest of the swarm was crawling across my legs and lap, doing small acrobatics and pirouettes. She put her hand to her mouth, backed out of the room, and ran to call an ambulance.

At the hospital they determined he died from respiratory failure. And given his blood alcohol level, history of drink, and meager bank account, no one bothered to question it. I surely didn’t quarrel, and neither did my mother. At the time, she seemed to accept their explanation, because the alternative was simply too unbelievable…

The morning after my love affair with the ants, I was awakened by the Rottweiler in the alley. His barking reverberated through my apartment and rattled my throbbing head.

I shuffled to the window, stepping over the puddle of dead ants as I went. My loins sore and itching.

I twisted open the blinds. Cracked the window to yell at the dog, who was jumping up and down in front of the little girl’s window.

Anna’s room was in shambles. Ribbons on the floor. Toys scattered. Drawers open with clothing hanging out. She was on her bed in her pink pajamas, eyes wet and bruised, face flushed and nose dripping. Petra was holding an ice pack to her chin and stroking her hair!

I fell into my chair and grabbed the bottle of last night’s rum. I took a long, punishing drink that sank into my gut and seared my insides.

Eyes burning, I put my face in my hands. What had I missed? My imagination raced.
I forced down another long pull and brought myself to look again.

Anna was now doing what little girls typically do. Singing to herself. Dreaming. Playing with her rag doll, but a bit more violently than I’d seen before.

Petra though, was pacing the room and nibbling her fingernails. She would go to the bedroom door, touch the handle, then turn around quickly and pace again.

The dog was still barking.

He moved from the bedroom window to the kitchen, jumping frantically.

Inside Petra’s kitchen I saw the Czech man. On the floor. A serrated bread knife sticking from his fat neck.

I grabbed the rum and finished it off.

My stomach cramped and it took all my power not to vomit — Not because of the drink. Not because of the puddle of blood on the white tile. Not because of the carnage stinking up Petra’s kitchen. But because I knew that my girls would now be separated. Petra to jail. Anna passed among foster homes. Their dreams destroyed by the Czech man’s avarice.

Unless…

I grabbed a fresh box of tissues. Filled my nostrils with as much as they could hold and climbed out my window into the alley.

The Rottweiler came to my side. I petted him with one hand, as I held my nose with the other.

I tested the kitchen window. It was open. I lifted it slowly. A cloud of houseflies poured in, followed by a legion of cockroaches scaling the wall.

The roaches surrounded the body as the flies blanketed him from head to toe.

In unison, the army hoisted him from the tile.

Petra appeared from the hall and saw me in the window. She looked into my eyes. Scared, but not enough to scream. I smiled, and it calmed her. It was the first time, the very first time I think, that she truly saw me.

I put one finger to my lips, and then pointed to Anna’s room. She nodded, backed down the hall, and clicked the little girls door shut.

My flies and roaches, those Lilliputians, carried the Czech man out the window and into the alley of stink and ruin. They traversed the garbage, with the Rottweiler following the procession curiously. Hungrily maybe.

I followed a few steps behind, dizzy and ready to collapse from the lack of blood. As we passed Anna’s window, I saw Petra pull and hold the loose curtains shut.

When we were out of sight of Anna’s window, I had the bugs drop the Czech man amidst the rancor and stench.

Soon the flies left, and the roaches and maggots began their job. That mass of white worms sucked hungrily the moment they reached his flesh.

I dropped the tissues from my nose. The bugs were working on instinct. Their own hunger now drove them through his flesh and tendons and bone. More bugs appeared for the banquet. A swarm that shadowed half the alleyway.

I back stepped toward my apartment and called the dog to follow. My feet unsure, with the world pulsing and spinning around me. Each step mechanical and unconscious, as if were just my head floating between the buildings. There was no difference between seconds and minutes, each passed as quick as the other until I found myself back in my folding chair. Where I collapsed until dusk…

I awoke in a daze. Poked my head out the window and saw the remains of the Czech. An empty army coat, pants and shoes sitting atop the heap of garbage.
Though he was a waste of man. Though he had dishonored my Petra. Though he had perhaps desecrated my little Anna, I still felt the fates and gods and my own dear parents looking down at the black spot upon my soul. I wanted to crawl into that filth and disappear with him. Let my existence be eaten away and forgotten.

But at that moment of guilt and despair, my angel appeared. The Czech beauty calling me from her kitchen window in a flowered dress. Scooped neck and cleavage screaming. Hips silhouetted by the light behind her.

She motioned for me.

I smoothed my hair and obeyed, gliding from my apartment to hers. The ground an easy mist below my feet.

I followed her inside, my eyes pulled left and right rhythmically behind her stroll.

When we reached the kitchen, it was spotless. All the horror and death cleansed and removed. The tile polished and clean — just like the plates upon her modest table. The white bowl of macaroni and peas. A waxed salami with a knife beside it, the blade smooth, not serrated.
Anna appeared from her room. Standing in the hall, hugging a doll. Dressed now in a pair of green pajamas. Her wounds tended. Eyes no longer red, but some bruises remained.

A meager smile parted her lips as she recognized me.

We all went to the table, and I slipped into my throne. I whispered grace, and then took my luck with the food…

It filled me.

They filled me.

We ate silently. Quickly. Because we knew it was a fleeting joy. All around us, the walls were stripped. Dusty silhouettes of picture frames. Shelves barren. Porcelain figures tucked away in tissues and tape. And there in the corner, the two suitcases I’d seen them carry in last Spring.

My shoulders were heavy, but for that one glorious night, I felt like a man…

When we had finished our play, our pious impersonation, Anna came to me. She hugged my arm and then looked up innocently.

“Good night,” she said in a feint voice.

I grinned. Called a spider to my finger. He spun on one leg, bowed like a gentleman and then rappelled up to the ceiling.

She giggled. I pushed the hair from her eyes and lay a soft kiss upon her forehead.

“Thank you for dinner,” I said, walking to the doorway. Petra stood behind the little girl, hands atop her shoulders. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Then I glided home, and watched that little girl dream for one last time…

I’ve said it before…When you’re monogamous, you use condoms for birth control instead of pest control.

Lately I’ve realized that’s just one of the benefits.

For the past fifteen years I’ve lived this life with the same woman. My lover. My friend. And while I’ve been with her for a longer period of time than without her, its not until recently that I realized I’ve taken this for granted. Not in the sense of forgotten anniversaries or cheap gifts, but in not realizing how much of an accomplishment this is for two imperfect souls…

We have been in love since the waning days of teenage puberty, to these first stages of downhill aging. These days when we start showing our scars and damages and pains upon our skin. These bags below our eyes and softening flesh! These receding bodies and fading looks. But there are laugh lines as well. Creases forged by holidays and happiness. Even honesty I suppose.

There has been doubt and desires, but they pale against the joy. The silent joy. The kind that keeps you looking out the kitchen window for her headlights. The kind that makes you grab her hand at the foot of a casket. The kind that sneaks out when you find yourself alone in a restaurant splitting two bottles of cheap wine. The kind of joy most people don’t acknowledge until its gone.

A joy that keeps you together…

Sometimes I don’t know why I love her.

And maybe that’s the secret.

Love isn’t something you think about. Its not something you quantify, calculate or consume. Its just a feeling of comfort no matter where or when. Its about getting what your mind and body and emotions need, without even knowing it. Its about forgiveness, and knowing there will be times of hatred and sadness and disgust…and not running away from the pain that brings. Not letting it defeat you and send you searching for some fleeting lust. Some instant gratification.

Its about patience.

All forms of patience…

We like to watch the Hollywood tales of dashing from the altar for your one true love. Its aggravating. Where are the stories of holding each other after taking your children to pre-school for the first time? The stories of buying Christmas ornaments, picking out pumpkins, or cooking pancakes on Sunday morning.

The stories of fifteen year wedding anniversaries spent all night in a hotel room, celebrating four times…There’s nothing quite like monogamous sexploration…

Those stories don’t sell though. Not enough glamor I suppose. And monogamy really isn’t glamorous. Its not beams of sunshine and six inch heels, but it’s just as satisfying. You just can’t have definite expectations, rules or a menu for satisfaction. You overlook the bad and revel in the good. No body is perfect. No love is perfect. Which is why I guess a lot of people just give up. I don’t blame them. Its not easy. But good things never are. The best rewards come from hard work, no matter the medium.

So I guess I do know why I love her.

Its not because she does my laundry or looks great in a cocktail dress. Its not because she can beat me in a debate or sends birthday cards to my cousins. Its not because she sings to our children or fits perfectly beside me on the couch.

Its because she accepts me… I accept her… And we love the results…

- end -

(Appearing in the Nov 08 issue of SlurveMag.com)It was raining when we walked to Yong’s Restaurant. Anna was on my shoulders. She held the umbrella while I held her shins.
The wind kept turning the nylon umbrella into a tulip and we had to stop twice to fix its skeleton. Realign the membrane. Which was just enough to cover my daughter and my shoulders.
Anna was smiling through it all. And laughing. Partly at my wet misfortune, but mostly because we were on one of our daddy-daughter adventures. This time to seek out her favorite meal. Spicy chicken from Yong’s, where the air was oily, and all the tables were within spitting distance of the wok.
When we walked in Mrs. Yong scowled at my soggy clothing and bloodshot eyes. I set down Anna and shook the umbrella. The tiny woman let out a sigh, and glared at the puddle we left.
We went to the counter. Even Anna’s four-year old smile couldn’t break the woman’s frown.
Mr. Yong waved at us from the kitchen. As usual he was sweating over a trio of hot woks. He gave a wide, squinty grin to Anna.
“Number 14?” Mrs. Yong said more than asked. Her vocabulary was small, but her memory was stellar.
“Yeah, the General Tso’s Chicken, and–” I scanned the wall-to-wall menu hanging overhead. It was full of faded stock photos of Chinese dishes, and held together with invisible tape. Some of the photos were mismatched and the tape had yellowed. 
“And then I think we’ll have — umm — some crab rangoon…”
Anna panted like a puppy dog, saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” 
I smiled. Mrs. Yong didn’t. Then I added, “–and two lemonades please.”
She screamed the order back to her husband, though he was just a few feet away. Then she scooped ice into two big cups.
Anna began to sing and twiddle her fingers in the air. A young couple, the only other customers in the restaurant, giggled at her antics.
Mrs. Yong put our drinks on the counter and told me the total. I reached into my wallet.
There was only one bill. And it wasn’t big enough.
“Um, can we cancel the lemonades please,” I whispered.
The woman’s face scrunched as she poured our drinks down the drain.
Anna kept singing to herself. Oblivious.
Mrs. Yong told me the new total.
Still too much!
“Can we skip the crab rangoon too?” I said humbly.
“No rangoon! He no money again!”
Mr. Yong nodded his head. The young couple went quiet.
Anna stopped singing and looked up at me. A puppy dog again, but this time not happy.
“I’m sorry, baby.  Daddy thought he had more money.”
I wanted to crawl into myself. Take back the last few hours. Get back the dollars I dropped on liquor and empty laughs.
“That’s ok, Daddy,” she said. “Can we still have the chicken?”
“Yeah, baby,” I sighed. “We can have the chicken.”
 Mrs. Yong handed us two paper cups of water.
We walked through the five-table restaurant, past the young couple and their big trays of food. Plates that reached from shoulder-to-shoulder filled with fried rice, battered meat, and eggrolls.
Anna hurried to “our” booth by the front window. The furthest from the heat of the kitchen.
She smiled as we talked about the animal zodiac on our placemats. She laughed when I told her, yet again, that I was born in the year of the dog.
She reveled. I reveled. Soon she forgot about the rangoon.
But I didn’t.
The young couple got up. No take-home bags. No little cartons of rice for tomorrow. They walked by us, the young girl stopping to admire her own reflection in the window. She smoothed one hand across her belly, then chirped goodbye to Anna and followed her boyfriend to the car.
I downed my water and headed to the counter for a refill, slowly passing by the couple’s plates to see what they had left. Amidst the scraps of rice and half-eaten eggrolls, I found two rangoon. Two glorious fried moons stuffed with cream cheese and pink fish. Untouched. Unsauced. Sitting and waiting for me to toss them into a napkin and present to Anna.
I went to the counter, and looked back to make sure Anna was distracted. She was. Coloring on the placemat with the pink crayon from her pocket.
Mrs. Yong refilled my water and hurried away.
I grabbed a napkin from the counter and shot a wink to Mr. Yong. He smiled as he tossed our broccoli and chicken. He was a chef and a juggler.
I unfolded the napkin and turned for my salvage. To thieve the leftovers and save my fatherly honor.
But there was Mrs. Yong, clearing the table and grinning at me. Deviously. The rangoon crushed between the heavy plates. Mashed in sauce and rice and noodles.
I wanted to kick her. Roundhouse that smug little face.
“You food be ready in-a minute,” she said.  
She knew. She smelled me. She knew that stench of cigarettes and beer. She knew why I had to deny my daughter. And now she was making me pay. 
I slowly walked back to Anna.
“Look, Daddy,” she said proudly, showing me the placemat and the stub of her crayon. There were pink stripes on the tiger. Pink scales of the dragon. Pink fur on the terrier of my birth year.
“That’s nice, Baby,” I managed to say. “Good job.”
Sometimes her innocence made me want to cry.
Mr. Yong appeared at our table. A plate of steaming chicken in one hand. A small take-home box in the other.
He set the big plate in front of Anna. The box in front of me.
“Thank you,” he bowed. “Thank you princess.”
She smiled and unwrapped her chopsticks.
Then he went back to the kitchen.
Anna began to spear pieces of chicken with the sharp end of her chopsticks. 
I opened the box. Inside were three golden rangoon. I set one crispy piece in front of her and she squealed. 
A happy laugh came from the kitchen. It was followed by a bit of shouting, but not for long.
My daughter and I smiled at each other. Listened to the koto music. I ate the pieces of chicken she didn’t want. The ones that were too ugly or spicy.
“I love this dinner, Daddy.”
I smiled.
That was all I needed.