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The Craftsmen

7/31/2011

            Those dry eyes will not do. The look is too blank. No one wants to buy a doll these days. However, circumstances being what they are, I suppose some people are willing to take what they can get; and seeing as the visage will take too long and too great an expense to correct -- put the thing out on the floor and do better next time. We’ll sell the little bugger at half price and hope to make up the loss in maintenance.

            But don’t get me wrong.

            Ten years back, maybe less, this would have been hailed as a work of art. The perfect expression of man’s own greatness: the marrying of genetics with circuits: the synthetic human. Yeah, we took our celestial crown the day the first one breathed. Sure, it only passed for human at a glance -- skin all the wrong shade and that twitching, thank Christ someone figured out how to stop that. However, it was a sight to behold. The wonders of this new era; the human race is bi-polar, mark my words, and it takes certain accomplishments to haul ourselves out of the depressive down swing. The way things had been, lets just say, we needed to feel special.

            And of course, once the market got a hold of Synthetics it was only a matter of time before we started tinkering them closer to perfection. The First series had a way of getting under your skin. Like the twitching, and the way the voice sort of crackled, though I’m willing to bet marketability had more to do with the onset of improvements than a desire to make them seem more human. After all, no housewife is going to want a servant she’s afraid to look at.

            Which isn’t to say we, as a race, like to think we sought more lifelike Synthetics as a challenge, our own personal quest. There’s no truth to that, believe you me. If the first series had sold we’d’ve focused on perfecting their efficiency, better power management, and the ease of fixing the damn things. But instead we opted to make them prettier, more pleasing company. I’m not saying I mind, but there’s something more unsettling about the ones that pass for human. You can walk the street and never know the people you’re passing aren’t people.

            Like the other day, waiting for the subway, I saw a drunk college kid stumble into this woman knocking her onto the tracks. Everyone panics, what with the train barreling down the tunnel. She tried to climb out just a split second too late; and it’s a mess, make no mistake about it. Train caught her right along the side, whips her over onto the platform, juices of all kinds spraying out of her. Judging by the sudden smell, the college kid shit his pants. But a funny thing happened then. Here’s this woman, her situation eliciting all the pity the assembled gawkers have to offer… until someone notices she’s got a bit of wire where the rest of us have intestines. Sure enough, she’s a Synth out doing god only knows what, though this fact isn’t obvious till her insides are all over the platform. So the crowd departs, never minding the twitching, shuddering wreck smeared across the platform. Some passengers even begin complaining the train might be delayed.

            Such is life.

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Maurice's Wishes

7/25/2011

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They told Maurice he wouldn't last long.
So he did
the first thing he could think,
"I want to go
to kindergarten."
Some said,
"There's more to life,"
and he replied,
"But I'm five."
So the family did
what they thought best
and followed the wishes.
First to school,
where the pointlessness gained ground
the more Maurice coughed,
nothing like
a bloody palm
to inspire,
"Fuck colors,"
in a kid at five.
Second
to the world.
What cash could be gathered
spent on tickets to circle.
"The world is wide,"
Dad said
(never saying
he considered
'why haven't I
till now?'),
"You'll be glad to see it."
But the voyage proved
there's too much to miss.
Maurice confessed,
"We can't see it all,
though I'd like...
take me home."
Third to preachers & philosophers,
begging the question,
"What's the reason?"
And after hearing all,
and six turning Past,
Maurice dismissed them
bringing us to Fourth.
He already knew
the bliss of pills,
so attention went to:
Fine food, cognac, and deserts,
Kisses from pretty people,
etc. --
It takes all kinds
to feel fine.
Eventually Fifth, Maurice wished
to plan from flowers
to coffin.
His mother cried
all the time he planned,
and he told her,
"It's getting too damp;
I can't afford a cold."
She wailed at the thought,
when the Fifth came,
'He'll surely die,'
to which
Maurice rolled eyes,
knowing, "I know
that's why I'm planning."
Sixth arrived on a rainy day.
Maurice rose
before the rest
and dressed his best.
Even in sleep,
his parents looked troubled.
He wrote a note
to give them peace,
"I love you both,"
though he used to curse
for birth...
those days are done.
Sitting on the front porch,
he watched the sun
and wondered,
"Who gives a shit?
It rises every day.
I'm more the miracle.
This is the last time
I..."
and at the sense
this breath is last
Maurice wished
He'd never learned
This is all there is
for him.

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Rain

7/22/2011

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            The rain never stops. Or maybe it does when I’m asleep, so I just haven’t noticed. Nobody says one way or another, so I've stopped asking. Either way, I don’t think you can call this rain. I remember rain. It didn’t act anything like this brown sludge. This stuff is like the sky saved the industrial to vomit it back down on us. I guess. That’s one thing people say. They say other stuff. I’ve heard talk about comets, apocalypses, changes in the Earth’s axis, and I don’t think any of it really matters. Knowing where the rain comes from isn’t going to change the fact it’s falling with no signs of stopping. I suppose people caught on to my way of thinking because no one really talks about the weather anymore. The grime every storm leaves, oily streaks across walls and smearing glass, as well as the wind that tastes as foul as it is to breathe. People used to mention and speculate on the way the world turned against us. Now it’s just a part of the everyday.
            I live on a billboard floor, where a whole advertisement covers part of the building. That helps. I don’t have to see how the drops leave greasy coats across the window panes. It took some getting used to, living here. The sign glows, burning red into my rooms all night long, making me sick of a cola I don’t drink. But I've come to think of it as my sun. Provided I know when it’s day. I remember the old Sun, just not the last time I saw it.
            The gutters clog about every three days and the streets flood. Whatever was making a break for it, down the sewers, comes back to haunt the pavement. I don’t walk the avenues of these Venice knockoffs. There’s nowhere to go.

            #

            The note arrived while I was sleeping. I thought it was part of a dream until I felt it in my hand. Paper. I didn’t think anyone used paper anymore. I remember paper. I still have a valentine from a sweetheart in eighth grade. She died when the rain changed. I didn’t know her then, so she ended up a tally keeping track: who you know you won’t get to see anymore, just another person, another mass, floating away with the water fall. This note, the new one, said somebody would be at my door in three hours. So I cleaned up a bit, as mother always taught -- "Company is coming, and it's best not to have a mess when there's guests." -- and sat down to wait.
            I don’t have to see the rain, but I will have to hear it. Those ham fisted thuds slap against the outside, trying to get in, only to slime down the walls and panes in defeat. They keep on coming though there’s no chance of success. Yet, there’s always a mark to prove the attempt. So maybe it (the rain’s effort) isn’t all in vain.
            Thunderous clamors for attention sound in the apartment, and the rain seems to quiet at the noise. I’m not certain I want to open the door, but I worry whoever is out there will simply bash a way through, what with the manner Whoever is knuckle dusting the door.
            There’s no one there when I look out the peephole. Taking a chance, I open the door a crack and find a little girl. Soaked and streaked brown, she’s shivering in the hallway. The rain made a mess of her white dress. I suppose that’s why she looks like she’s going to cry.
            “Are you my appointment?” It seems like a stupid question. She couldn’t have been pounding so savagely. But she nods. So I let her into my home. She heads right to the radiator. I’m not surprised. The mud raining outside can frost bones.
            I wait till she looks settled before asking, “What can I do for you?”
            Turning away from the heater, she coughs, hiccupping a bit as she does, and silently spills a stream of dirty dishwater. She gasps. I tell her it is okay. “Better on the floor than in your gut. You know that stuff is bad to swallow.” Kids do it all the time. I guess that’s why you don’t see too many of them around anymore. It just can’t be helped. Youngsters haven’t learned to keep their mouths shut all the time, although she spit up more than I’d expect a casual stroller to inhale.
            Figuring she’s more nervous than when she arrived, I decide to make small talk to calm things down, “So, where did you get paper? Are your folks rich? I hope they don’t mind you scribbling a note with it.” She stares. Her eyelids slide shut, slide open.
            “Did you know there used to be whole stores with all kinds of paper? Different colors. Emblems. Designs. Like an ice cream shop or a candy store but one that sells paper.”
             Eyelids ease up and down. Her lips pat together softly, but she doesn’t make a sound.
            “Not too many of any of those kinds of stores anymore. I guess I just dated myself there. How old are you?”
            She sits down on the floor. The skirt rings her like a rusty halo.
            “I was thinking about the paper I still have. When I saw your note, that’s when I started thinking. I don’t have much. I’ve got a valentine, and a birth certificate, and a few letters. Have you ever gotten a valentine?”
            She folds her hands in lap. The sloppy plop of garbage flopping against the windows kills the quiet. I wonder if I should get something to clear the sick off the floor or at least wipe her chin clear.
            “It’s funny. This is the most talking I think I’ve done all week. Maybe even all month. Are you always this quiet?” Something about her makes me want to cry.
            “Where are you from?” Her parents must be worried about her. If they even know she’s gone. Or maybe they sent her. I don’t have much money, but I can see why they might. I look like one of those people: the ones with human house pets. I won’t mention it unless she does.
            Looking over at the window I breathe a sigh of relief escaping from her eyes, “It’s really starting to come down.” The sky is falling by the sound of things. Whole chunks of above are being sheered off by lightning knives.
            The lights in the apartment flicker. Another black out is on the way. Her eyes shine in the dark.
            “Are you from this building? There’s a little girl in this building. You remind me of her.”
            Her lids slither closed. I can hear the soggy scrape they make sliding over her eyes. They pop open with a schlop.
            “She was playing in the basement, and it was flooded. As usual. She slipped in the muck. I watched her float for awhile which I thought was neat because the water wasn’t that deep. Then I went back to my room. It was nice to see something happen, but she got boring just floating there.”
            There aren’t really faces on the streets anymore. The rain is a veil masking everyone. Pedestrians are just forms bumping into one another nowadays. I don’t go outside much. I don’t see the point. There’s nothing to enjoy colliding down the sidewalk, swimming from one stop to another.
            She has the pale skin of every child now, more milky and translucent than any adults’. Grown-ups have all had some hint of the sun baking their skin. Even the most porcelain people are hardened ceramic. But when I look closer, the blue veins that should be etching her flesh are muddy colors matching the rain.
            “That girl owned paper. It was a gift from her grandfather when he floated off. She used to slip scraps under people’s doors with random words printed on them. But she ran out before getting to my door. I don’t see why her parents let her waste it so. No sense on any of their parts I suppose. I always felt sort of left out, so I tried following her around to make her feel guilty. One time, before the basement, she saw me and started playing chase, so I ran after her, but like I said, she slipped and got boring.”
            She hiccups another mouthful of sewage that dribbles down her chin, scarring the sad little white left on her dress. I can’t get her to speak, so we sit in silence, sharing a stare, while the rain remains steady and unwelcome.

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Norma Desmond

7/18/2011

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Where have all the eyes gone?
To watch the dirt
While diamonds tarnish.
So what? So now.
So long as
The letters come.
Day to day
Daily
Asking for gods;
Screens bred
The goddess
Lest they live
Godless.

What has been
Has been
Will be
Returning.
Never leave,
Never
left...

the eyes remain
housed
in the old
Dying
to recall.

And the mirror is a lie!
The photos a truth.
They never stray
An inch from youth.
Witness the screen!
It will tell
The proof I defy
Aging
... so long as the film
Reels in the image
My life is frozen.

Call me Norma.
Call me Wanted.
Call me goddess
Silver purchased.
I made this world
for you.
All by my eyes
so
You owe me yours.

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Kissing a Frog

7/15/2011

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The last time I kissed a frog's ass is the first time I met your mother. I suppose I’ve kissed her on the mouth since then, but I’ve come to think of her less as a frog’s ass. Nowadays she’s more of a Sign of Settlement. There are only so many times you can lie to yourself about what’s available. Take you for instance. I started out with one intention in life: to raise a daughter better than my son -- my son being the product of a youthful indiscretion your mother has been kind enough to ignore on account of her ugliness limiting the men willing to sink a cock in her. Anyhow, I always figured a girl would suit me better than a lad, considering the fact I hadn’t done very well with the former. Rather than try to strike out twice, I decided to be statistically considerate of my situation. Of course, that meant first finding some womb or another willing to house my seed. This proved more difficult than I calculated. After all, women do have certain lists they like to run through when contemplating a man, and though these are not necessarily universal, they do tend to blend together in places. Jobs are one factor. Smell is another; most women do not like to date a man who smells regularly of beer and cigarettes. Sense of humor, check. But money and looks are more important than most are willing to admit. No one likes to look greedy or shallow. Fortunately, men are naturally unencumbered by such limitations. For instance, I can be as shallow as I like, and it is somehow expected of me. On some occasions it has made me seem more of a man by comparison, said comparison being useful in the sexual accusation of a, shall we say, beta male. “Naw Brandy, don’t go home with him. He’s looking for cock, and no offense, you might pass for butch in the right light. HEY! I’m not saying a thing, I like the way you look, but those near queers are a strange lot: looking for something they can figure is male enough and what’s that do? Leave you with a complex when he finally gets right and real about who he is.” It works. Not always, but it does. Now that line in particular worked on your mother. Brandy Winston Hanks. She drove a battered Honda Civic round town and looked like she could kill a man with her jaw. Half black like milk in strong tea. Makes it smoother. You didn’t know her back the way she used to be, body fit enough to make a boy look pathetic, ripped tone and six pack, but a face that was easy to fun up as a tranny gob. Truth be told, I felt like I was taking my chances, despite the feel of her gash, till you came along. Her taking the deposit put her at the top of my list for blushing brides, and I’ll admit I started to see more subtle ways she might be attractive. Sometimes it just takes a closer look. That isn’t to say I lost my balls. I’ve seen better since, but I don’t think of her as a frog’s ass, wishing on a kiss for a big tittie angel… come to think of it she does have some fine big tits. Fake ones, but delightfully huge. There’s value in size, but I digress. Yours'll be popping out fine, just the right size. How do I know? I know my blood.

Now at first, Brandy didn’t want to get married. I said, “Who the fuck wants a marriage? I just want the kid, a little access now and again.” We did the figures and put together that our combined incomes would set us up something comfortable. So we split rent on a spot near to downtown, making it easiest for us to walk to work. Our respective jobs: Brandy a bartender, and myself a man of many trades. Small towns are good about small crops; you make due with what you have; I had enough mechanical know how to make me a handy man, however, I preferred a freelancer style, picking up jobs when I cared to find them. No one else in town being close to my skill level, I managed to get by alright. For one thing, I could undercut the cost of any auto shop, the same true for plumbing. The only problem folks had was finding me when they needed me most. But whatever. Money in hand is more proof than anyone should need of talent. And talent makes you wanted. I guess I wouldn't’ve done as well if I lived in city, but I’ve always been mindful of my limits, your mother being proof of that. I stuck to where I could win. I paid my share of the bills and rarely asked her for a thing. From time to time I tried to stir the fire between us, especially when my hang dangle got rock diamond hard, throbbing to split itself open. Sometimes we got back together. Mostly we just watched TV in the same room. I’d make dinner, or she’d, or we’d go get some carry out. Neither of us ever really cared for most other folks. And to her credit, Brandy always let me drink my fill… so long as I didn’t get weird or grabby. I’d make compromises like smoking in a room other than one she occupied, and she’d not insist on toast being too specific a shade. The full fact of the matter is that it worked. There were occasions, even after you were born and unlike prior when the, according to her, “hormones” were making her “crazy horny,” we screwed sober. On purpose if you will.

Anyhow, nine months later: water (ruining the new tile I‘d been laying down), blood, screaming, “GET THIS FUCKING THING OOOOUUUUTTT!! -- she grabbed a knife, not a scalpel, an honest to god bone carving machete. Your momma had to be restrained and all such madness. I almost died laughing a couple of times. But eventually, the doctors knowing best, you came out. I will not lie. I puked when the placenta just sorta slorped out of your Mom. That was just gross, there’s no other words for it. But that’s life, don’t be getting a complex or nothing. Shit, now as I go on, that’s about five years past. You mom is still as fine a gal as I could hope to have, though not the best I’ve seen, I think you’ve come to understand, but she’s my lady. She didn’t leave me when I spent that thirty days for punching Josephus Walker. Age is not a license to avoid an ass whooping, you remember that. Sixty can still be a motherfucker is all I’m saying. It’s just nice to know it can work, ya know? Yeah, we still got the same shitty place we moved into first, but it’s home. It’ll be home till we get like hermit crabs. Sure your mom ain’t as tone as she used to, but I’m not exactly the pick of the litter much more myself. We take what we can get, we’re just lucky we got each other. Not like before.

…

I started something, seeing as it’s your birthday. I put fifty bucks in the bank under your name. I can’t touch it, somehow made sure of that. They say it’ll grow, but they being the bank I don’t know how much to trust them. The point is it’s there. You’re welcome. I didn’t do my best, the first time around. Brandy don’t like to hear about it, but what the fuck can she say about what’s unheard? That said, trust me she hates being working on your birthday, but the fact of the matter is plain: we need the cash more than you need the memory. And it’s only as bad as you’re willing to think. You got your doll. Probably chuck it out some years from now, but ech. Like I’m one to judge. I’ve lost, pawned, or garbaged just about all there is for a person to own. Heh. Not to sound maudlin. Junk type things mean more the older you’ll get till a point where they start to mean less, like a rise and slope, from zero to peak to zero. And it’s the down slope you find what matters. Mark my words. It’s all toys and dolls till you’re too old for that shit then the next round of do-dads and whatnot. There was still so much I wanted when my son got born. And make no mistake, kids are a drain, cash money leeches. There isn’t a penny they can’t spend without a fucking choice made on their part. You’ve already spent thousands without even asking. I mean, we could be shitty parents, but then the guilt and the villagers’ glares. I mean, this town ain’t big enough to be shitty folks, and we can’t live anywhere big enough to disappear, so… the money bleeds out. I hate you for it some times. Lets be honest. Lets put all the cards out. I got miserable for a stretch and thought I’d figured how to make my life right. Guilt can be canceled if regret is over compensated; I’d do better with one than another. This is the one. I’ve got to get you right. Better! Better. Maybe just, one day you’ll meet your brother and be able to say, “He wasn’t so bad. He just didn’t know what to do. Maybe if people were clockwork, mechanical and such, he’d have been more sure.”

…

Whatever. What do you say we get some more of your cake?

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Delusions of Grandeur

7/11/2011

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            Everything was going fine till Jake Wyler showed up, blind drunk on Old Crow. He thought he’d arrive at the last minute and in some black out moment of drunken brilliance, he would deliver an address to the Hellenic council saving our fraternity. However, he managed to offend so many people in five minutes that Tom Griffith, our mousiest frat brother, knocked him out with a chair. Thank god. But the damage being done, we quietly conceded to the end of our charter. The honest fact of the matter being: none of us really knew what we were fighting for, and only Jake, who had riled us to hold our ground with one impassioned drunken rant after another, (which always sounded brilliant at the time though never in retrospect, despite making for hilarious anecdotes) seemed bitter for the loss.

            Tom moved into an apartment with two brothers, while six other friends returned to nearby homes, where they completed their degrees as commuter students. I found a studio apartment on Belden near Clark. Jake shacked up with Connie Delgato, then Tracy Wingem, Audrey Oliver, and eventually lost track of the names of the women from whom he mooched.

            Of course, it sucked to lose the house. However, all things considered, losing the frat and the house meant we didn’t get expelled. Although, Jake wouldn’t have minded going out in a blaze of glory, more proof of his wisdom and the source of it. We did manage one bacchanalian going away party. Seventeen people arrested, four injuries of a variety so bizarre there’s no time for the details here, and barely a memory clearly recalled. It was a fine farewell.

            That last year passed, the first few months of the semester going more to earning the calluses necessary to ignore the looks others gave, getting easier as time went by, to the point all that had been didn’t seem to matter. True, it would have been easiest to come back as some kind of heroes, but none of us were ever meant to be legends. We liked to think of ourselves as the misfits who would one day be admired. However, the truth is often too harsh to appreciate. Ol’ Jim Donnovan only ever got laid because he realized he could use that straight A average to outwit drunk girls, while Marvin Goldstein didn’t get so pale by being social. The house on Kenmore had been a safe house for people who didn’t get along with the rest of the world. Hell, we only tolerated one another because it made living together less of a burden. Once college ended we all went our separate ways, barely a letter or call as a look back, which, in a way, we all knew was coming without ever saying.

            I took my degree in English and settled into teaching (not what I‘d wanted to do but as a necessity, one that got easier to live with over time). The facts of our disbanded fraternity transmuted over time; I sometimes told stories about then, always leaving out the details that would lead to awkward explanations. Suffice it to say: a crusty dean, an overzealous conservative administrator, an alumnus with clout who couldn’t stand us, for one reason or another, and not to mention our arrogant archenemy fraternity; the prank war that ensued, only our victories ever told; efforts on all sides to seemingly fight fair eventually escalating till it was all just mindlessly over the top; the girls that passed back and forth; half remembered speeches, rants, and diatribes, all booze induced and fringed in weed, recounted to emphasize the epic nature of our struggle; nostalgia creeping deeper in than I could have expected, refashioning memories to sound better than they probably occurred. To the point where things are no longer what they were but a good story I’m glad to tell whenever the occasion permits. Maybe that’s the slow steady way we come to accept things.

            Until one night, feeling forty though I’ve only just past thirty, I went to a party in Roger’s Park. The story came up, a friend of a friend asking me to tell an interested group, people I‘d never met who recognized me from a famous tale, so I told it.

            “You tell it so well, you’d think that’s what happened.” He’d come over from another room, perhaps simply passing through. His attention caught by a quote, he lingered to hear more. Recognizing the events and not agreeing with the telling, he felt the need to comment.

            “Excuse me. Do I know you?” I asked.

            “Not anymore,” and he disappeared towards the kitchen.

            “Who was that?” I asked the group I'd been entertaining, but no one knew. So I let the matter go, shrugging it off as some drunk interjecting. Later, one of the ladies in the group mentioned, “Hey, that guy who was all like, ‘You tell so well,’ and all. I was talking to some folks. His name’s Patrick Sullivan. If that means anything.” Too much, but I shook my head, “Nope.”

            I got home that night, hours later than I ever planned, leaving my car behind and taking a cab back. The first thing I did was crack open a bottle of Old Crow -- I’d kept a bottle for years out of some sentimental impulse I’d never fully understood. Pouring a drink, I turned on the TV to feel like I had some company and went trolling through the channels for something to own my mind. It’s a funny thing when you can’t command the gears in your own skull.

            Rebecca Donnelly came to DePaul in the Winter of 2001. She didn’t come with much, just a suitcase and a student loan. She liked to wear black, and though she never did it maliciously, she seemed to delight in bringing up rebuttals to teachers’ lectures. I loved her the moment I heard her speak. My fingers crossed in the hope she was pretty though not sure if I cared, till I saw her, and the matter seemed settled. Rebecca liked karaoke, not performing but watching others. I ran into her one night when Jake, like so too many occasions before, thinking he could sing, dragged us into a spot to play rock god. “You’re in Heinemann’s class,” she said. Somehow I managed to stammer out, “Yu-yeah. I liked your last story.” -- about growing up on a farm and being surrounded by characters straight out of a David Lynch film. She smirked, “Too much autobiography.” From then on out, everything that followed was my fault because we kept talking all night long. Even after the bar closed, we went to a Mexican diner just down the block, closed that, and wandered past sunrise till she needed to sleep.

            Now, we, meaning the frat, never really threw parties so much as weekend benders. Jake would concoct some witch’s brew in a five gallon Gatorade drum, typically several handle jugs of Wolfschmidt Vodka, concentrate fruit punch, and a liberal splash of Everclear; Our reason always hinging on the idea liquor undid our social awkwardness. At the very least, it made us feel less misfit, especially by the time other people stopped by, which was known to happen when we didn’t try inviting anyone. Besides, it was college life and depending on who you ask, excess is part of the equation. Jake’s potions had the unique quality of seeming to be devoid of alcohol, despite the severity of their intensity. Rebecca came over one weekend. She drank but typically knew her limits. She and I were three months into our relationship. I was sitting on a bench, escorting her home, when she tripped over her own feet, falling onto the El platform. Rebecca didn’t fall, bodily, in front of the train, only her head hung off the edge. The Red line cleaved it off while she laughed about the fall. I like to think she‘d been dancing, enjoying herself, not stumbling about.

            Her cousin, who loved her in a way I sometimes I wonder about, went to DePaul, and I think, in the interest of a long story short, the line of events thereafter is pretty clear. When he found out where she’d been, the night of her accident, he went on the war path. And I don’t blame him one bit. I’d like to think I’d’ve done the same. In a way, I’m lucky he blamed us all. Otherwise, I don’t like to imagine what he might have done. However, he set his sights on ruining our lives collectively. Unfortunately for him, he thought the frat meant something to us, and I suppose, when we seemed to retaliate, we re-enforced that opinion. There’s some gratitude owed to Jake there, since he got us burning for battle. Poor Patrick Sullivan, he must have thought he’d won. Whatever that reward might have been, it must have stopped him from assaulting me in Roger’s Park. We’d known each other, barely casually, through Rebecca. I remember he smiled a lot, like one of those people whom it seems wrong for them not to be grinning. He didn’t smile in Roger’s Park. He didn’t look capable.

            It just makes me wonder how much we’re heroes of our own histories.

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The Craftsmen

Maurice's Wishes

Rain

Norma Desmond

Kissing a Frog

Delusions of Grandeur

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