tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9594413610408300842024-03-12T23:56:20.927-05:00Writing-FlynnPoem and story of the month by David FlynnDavid Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-18092296081661597752017-04-03T13:41:00.002-05:002017-04-03T13:41:51.342-05:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">Whining Is the Prayer of the Dog</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Whining is
the prayer of the dog.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If I whine,
sorry; </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>it is me
trying not to be a box.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mayakovsky
saved me last night.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That communist, chauvinist, pretentious,
self-centered</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>baby</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>rages. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Lord how he
rages.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I have to
rage till dawn, </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>each hour
like an individual watch</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>and all the
time that watch contains.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let screaming
and banging and drinking do for me</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>what a
good-night kiss from a beloved daughter</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>does for
others.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This poem has
no point,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>but is </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>5:24 to 5:39
p.m.,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>July 31,
1992.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px -48px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px -48px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px -48px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-86805790248110988612017-04-03T13:34:00.001-05:002017-04-03T13:34:31.966-05:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Monument</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old
man couldn't see his wife.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The living
room was black.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He knew when she stared
at him though, and when she gazed into nothing.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He sat in his chair.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She sat in
the facing sofa.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He sweated and almost
fainted from the heat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The shack was
boarded shut.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The door had a piece of
plywood nailed over the inside.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The two
windows were filled with boards.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
could look through a knothole at the bears.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The glass was smashed.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old
woman mumbled against him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>From the
kitchen at the rear he heard his grandson move.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The boy liked to stay near the peanut butter.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That was all they had left to eat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He liked to be near the bucket of water.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That was all they had left to drink.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For days after the faucets stopped, the
grandson sloshed the liquid around as fun.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The old man made him stop.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
kitchen was black too.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man
clenched his teeth until they hurt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
wanted the grandson and his wife gone.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He opened his mouth but the teeth still hurt.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Snarls
and growls came at the front door.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bears
banged against the clapboard shack wall.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>They tore at each other.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Their
teeth sliced into fur and meat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They
ripped with sharp claws at face and belly.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>At first the bears had eaten dogs and deer.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The county was emptied of that meat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then black and brown bears ate striped and
yellow bears.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Ground bears caught tree
bears.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man looked for but hadn't
seen a grizzly.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
sound of wood tearing came from the kitchen.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He tensed and felt happy for death.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Instead, the grandson screamed in ecstasy and ran outdoors.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His
wife laughed in the dark.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man
pushed with effort out of his chair.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
stood.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He became dizzy because he had
sat so long, and the heat. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A blacker
black filled then cleared from his eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He stumbled from chair to table into the kitchen.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Light pushed in from the sides of the opened
plywood.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Light hurt his eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He hated light.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He hated the grandson for disturbing
him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The boy was to stay a few days
while his parents, with a farm down the dirt road, visited relatives in
Nashville for the last time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
grandson was a nuisance.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He ate their
food until all that was left was the peanut butter.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He drank their water until the bucket was next
to empty.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man grabbed a pot
sitting on the electric stove.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Electricity cut off weeks before.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The phone stopped.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then the
faucets dried up so the only water was a stream in the woods among the
bears.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He wedged his skeleton against
the loose plywood.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He banged in the bent
nails with the back of the pot.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A few
points stuck in the door frame.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
kitchen went black again.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man
felt better.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When he
woke in his living room chair he was a few seconds being sure he woke.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The room was thick with heat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Decades before, when he was a farmer, he
liked heat in the summer.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He worked
hard.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His heart beat loud.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He moaned.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>His wife snored from their bedroom.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She had become senile.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As she got
old she wouldn't help him around the shack.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She made noises.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He wanted rid of
her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man went to the kitchen for
a sip of water.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He stuck his head in the
bucket for two sips though there was little water left.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He looked out the window through a crack in a
board.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The sky was blue.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The hills were dark green.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The light hurt his eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Scattered in the back yard were heaps of bone
and fur.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bears died stripped of meat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A few dead bears were piled in a mound where
he figured the grandson's carcass was.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The mound was at the edge of the soy bean field.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A farmer down the road sharecropped the field
since the old man got tired of work.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A
brown bear ran across his weed-grown yard chased by a black bear.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Night
came.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The dark of the living room became
darker.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Heat rose to a peak he barely
stood then eased a little.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Growls and
bangings of bears decreased.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bird calls
came, the owl and the crow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His tongue
lolled out.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old woman mumbled harder
against him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She walked back to the
bedroom.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He stayed in his chair blank
from the heat or dreaming in strips back to his regular days.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His wife cooked hours then, chicken and corn
he raised.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His daughter was cute and
good to show off to his neighbors.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
hunted squirrel and coon in the Tennessee hills.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>From the River he hooked bass and catfish he fried.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He couldn't get enough of farm work then, the
row.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>TV shows came to talk about, and
there was church to meet people on Sundays.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>His wife to kiss.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There was the
St. Patrick's Day parade in Erin, and the Okra Festival in Fulton at the
harvest.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Christmas.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He couldn't taste anymore, not even
oranges.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A few months before, he heard
the radio news:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>All the bears in the
world were migrating toward his county.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
slept in his chair.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Morning came.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The black was lighter black.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bears roared and banged in the front
yard.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The air got swelter hot another
day.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He squinted through a knothole when
bears roared so loud it hurt his hearing.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>His hearing was still good.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Black
bears fought over a brown bear where his wife's flower beds had been along the
dirt road.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bears banged into his truck,
turned over and burned.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They ran, chased
or chasing, by the dozen.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even bear meat
was growing scarcer the more bears arrived.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He had wondered what happened to bears running from foreign
countries.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe those bears drowned in
the ocean.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He was disappointed he hadn't
seen a polar bear.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He got tired.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>All he wanted to hear about bears was on the
radio before electricity quit.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He sat in
his chair across from her again.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
heard her whine.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He wished he could quit
hearing too.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A few
hours later he had to drink more water.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The heat made his mouth cotton dry.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The bucket was empty.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He licked
the bottom, which was still cool and wet.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He heard his wife coming from the living room.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He closed his eyes in time not to see any of
her in the dark.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A few days before, a
ray of light like a line threaded through a front knothole and swept over her
on the sofa.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He glimpsed two red eyes
wide open and gray jowls.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He glimpsed
her claw against her cheek and her white hair in tangles.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was naked.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He sat
in his chair.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Soon he heard wood being
chipped away.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He had been afraid a bear
would find how flimsy the plywood and boards were.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man stood up.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The chipping came from inside.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He sat down.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The naked old woman pulled at the plywood with her fingers until the few
nails pulled loose.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He heard her awkward
steps on the back porch.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The roars
started.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He was tense she might bring
the bears too close.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He hurried to the
kitchen best he could.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>With the pot he
banged the nails in the frame again.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Even fewer stuck.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The growls were
loud.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He looked out a board crack.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Black bears streamed from the woods at both
sides of the shack.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Dozens of black
bears wrestled in a knot over his wife.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He turned away.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She hadn't said she
loved him for years.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They had loved,
slowly, warmly, when they were young.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The shack was so hot he didn't think long.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He forced his breath.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He licked the bottom of the water bucket
again, but the tin was hot and dry.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
porcelain toilet was dry too when he licked it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That
night he hardly had enough saliva to wet his mouth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He ate a few fingers-full of the peanut
butter, scraping the glass bottom of the big jar.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The brown paste was dry.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He had to work for the spit to get it
down.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He felt free without his grandson
and his wife in the shack.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He sat in a
chair at the kitchen table where he'd wanted to sit all along.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Food he used to eat was what he pictured:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Catfish and hushpuppies.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His tongue swelled thicker in his mouth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He decided to sleep in his living room chair;
his mouth was on fire.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Fire was what he
thought of.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Heat
woke him many times in the night.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Heat
kept his sleep shallow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He woke at
sunrise exhausted in a chair full of sweat.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>No thought stayed more than a few seconds of thirst and heat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thoughts came by the dozens that died
fragments.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He had to drown his throat in
water.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The stream was a hundred yards in
the woods by the shack.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man
fought taking the bucket to the stream.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He messed around the rooms feeling the furniture.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The overalls he'd worn for weeks bothered him
with their touch.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He shed them fast as
he could.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He got naked.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His teeth ached.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His body radiated heat like a fire.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His eyes burned.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
bucket rattled when he picked it up from the kitchen sink. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The plywood opened at the touch of his
fingers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He stumbled through the back
porch.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The sky was blue.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The sun was a red circle over the hills.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His eyes became black from the sunlight.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He had to close them then felt
weak-headed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The back yard dawned into
sight.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His heart hurt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Piles of bones and fur rose scattered in the
weeds.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>An extra big heap rose over his
grandson, and an even bigger heap over his wife, dozens of dead bears.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The air stunk.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A black bear sniffed where the pump house lay
on its side.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The bear rose on its back
legs.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old man rushed best he could
down the steps and toward the woods.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
wasn't able to run.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A second black bear
rounded the far corner of the shack.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The old
man limped toward the stream in the dark woods.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The bucket banged in his hand.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Behind rose one roar, then other roars.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The stream gurgled ahead, hidden by the tree trunks.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Pounding shook the ground behind him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A black bear's claw swiped a chunk out of his
back.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He was on fire.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Claws tore into the thin meat of his chest
and his face as he fell on the leaves.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He was a flame.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A black weight of
fur fought on top of the human.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Black
bears bunched in a fury.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tens of black
bears ate each other, then hundreds of black bears, and in a day thousands of
black bears.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The dead fell in a mound
big as a hill over him.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-76268574791337555262017-02-01T21:19:00.002-06:002017-02-01T21:19:15.370-06:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Furin</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">The small
bell, furin, bender of bar on</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">which bell
hangs, waits the flick of finger, waits</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">with memory
the figure-shadow, shape</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">upreaching,
ping.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Small sound, ping, yet sharp.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sees</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">weight and
force, not me, its start of voice fixed</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">by fellow's
force, fellow's finger.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mold made,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">mad with
fire, molten metal froze by cold</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">water
plunging to scream with peal, pinging.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">I am
sorry.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Birth hurt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But then came not</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">breath but
breeze-dead middling air.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So hangs
ping</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">and
ping-potential until fire will melt</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">it back, not
likely, while I, I fear more</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0px;">than fire,
and I, I sing ping on paper.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-91883840916938225972017-02-01T21:08:00.001-06:002017-02-01T21:08:06.348-06:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The World Has Completely Changed</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga Ivanova woke in a white
room.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A woman in a white cap wearing a
white mask looked down at her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Behind
her, a sun in a silver dome hurt her eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Barshnip bouknip," the
woman said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga moaned.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her head hurt with a pain that cleaved her
skull.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When she touched it with her
fingers, she had no hair, but a bare white skull with a hunk of gauze in the
middle.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Nork nuggie barshnip,"
the woman said, jerking her hand back.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"For the love of God,"
Olga said, almost in a scream, "what is happening to me?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The sound of the voices told her
these were either Americans or British.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>When she tried to remember though, Olga knew no Americans or
British.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She thought of Leningrad, where
she surely was, and trying to make a living after she wrote the play.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And her parents in their apartment.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bits pushed through that confused her,
however:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>a bus and out the window the
steppes of Kansas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She fainted.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She must have fainted.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Or it might have been the anesthetic, for
clearly she was in a hospital.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A man
with long hair and fat lips sat at the side of her bed when she woke, holding
her hand, crying, saying in English something passionate that seemed full of
love.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She didn't know this man.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She smiled at him, for she felt unsure, and
shrugged her shoulders.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And oh how her head hurt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A small mirror was attached to the pale green
wall opposite her bed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Shock rolled in a
wave through her as she saw her face on a white orb, a hideous monster's head
with a white gauze bandage in a lump on top.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Then she laughed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A sick
egg.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That's what she was.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Before she had been pretty.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She remembered dispassionately, for beauty
was a tool to use.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She had been an
actress, a bit, after she could no longer study the oceans.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But who was this man, with her hand in a grip
hard as steel?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She felt pity for
him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Zaplgloob zornat,
pooitally," he said, staring into her eyes with the deepest
sincerity.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Zooballay."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She knew she was supposed to say
something, so she smiled again.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga
didn't dare move.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A flood of humans gushed into the
small private room.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Two were dressed in
jeans, a man and a red-haired woman, both middle-aged.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Two were in white, a nurse and a man, likely
a doctor.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Behind them came scowling a
thin man in poor clothes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He had a
scraggly fringe of a beard and looked depressed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Ah, at last.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>A Russian.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The others talked English to her, as
if they expected her to answer.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga
looked right at the man and said, "What is all this?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What has happened to me?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"You don't know?" he
sneered, like it was her fault.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She felt
comfortable with this man.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His Russian
felt like rain, like meat, like a real job would feel.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Nothing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not a thing," she answered, and shrugged
her shoulders.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Something bad,
though."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Life had to be bad. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A word, "catastroika" ran through
her hurting head. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"You fell on a bicycle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Your head hit the curb.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe your brain is damaged," he
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His face was long and thin, and
when he spoke the gray skin around his eyes wrinkled into despair.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She felt herself falling in love with this
man.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"But I am in Leningrad.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who are these strange people?" she said,
especially the man who held onto her hand like a life rope. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga wished he would quite crying
and let her go.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His face was fat and
shiny.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When she spoke, no panic entered
her voice.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She had seen worse.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Here there was even a color television on the
wall playing a cartoon. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Leningrad!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No, no, no," the Russian said
precisely.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now he cheered up.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He could teach her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe he was professora.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The others waiting patiently had faces like
masks; this one had a face like a bulletin board.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"You are in Oakland, California.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And besides, there is no Leningrad anymore.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There is only Saint Petersborg."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Saint Petersborg?" she
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She couldn't believe it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga sighed.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>At least these strangers didn't appear to wish her harm, though she had
to be on her guard.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even if they hated
her, what could she do?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She could just
be sad.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Whatever had befallen her was
going to be awful.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Gikky bitz snoob," the
Russian said to the others.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Eyes
widened, mouths dropped opened, sounds rose in a chorus.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She had to laugh.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They looked so funny.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What idiots.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I told them you lost your
memory," the Russian said.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"Leonid Bozkaya."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The fat-cheeked man holding her hand
broke into tears.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The man actually
cried, and she disliked his weakness so intensely she could have spit at
him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A man crying!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Leonid's long, gray face was permanently
depressed; he knew.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This baby, who rose
as if to embrace her, knew nothing about life.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She felt his soft belly against her.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"No," she said at
him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In English.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The nurse, thankfully, said something mean to
the man, and he retreated with an expression like a spanked boy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Who is this man?" she
asked Leonid cynically.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Your fiancé," Leonid
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A cruel smile slanted his thin
lips.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Maybe you would like me tell
you a few things.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When was the last time
you remember?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She pictured Leningrad's dark
buildings, and trying to make a living after the government turned against
her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She remembered finishing at the
Leningrad University with a degree in oceanography, and with that her love of
the sea flooded through her pain-racked body like, well, the cold tide of the
Baltic.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The stupid play she wrote, a
satire of Brezhnev and his all-embracing Soviet bureaucracy, was produced by
friends just before she was to graduate.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She was happy to see her words turned into humans on a stage; was that
stupid.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The play made the government
deny her request for a passport.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No
passport, and she couldn't leave the shore.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>No passport, no ocean, no graduate work in oceanography.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And with a bachelor's degree in oceanography,
all she could do was fall back on her looks, and her legs.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How she loved the sea.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It stretched, gray and brooding.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"So I lived with my
parents.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You know how that is, crammed
into two rooms.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We hate each other.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Years and all I got was a job here or there
as an actress.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Once I made a program for
the television," she smiled.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Actually, she had loved the life of not working, standing in food lines
and scrounging.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If not the ocean, then a
life as a high official's mistress.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Work was for peasants.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her ancestors had been aristocracy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"When was this?" Leonid
asked.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The doctor left.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And who were the man and woman, maybe in
their 40s, beside the nurse.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She smiled
at the man.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I . . .," Olga tried to
think, and was aware of an empty space of years, empty and brooding like, well,
the sea.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Everything was like the
sea.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her poetry mentioned the sea often,
and for that the poets told her it was shit.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"The last for sure, maybe, winter, 1986."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Leonid laughed, at her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He told the others, and again that widening
of the white eyes, that gasp, and the idiot man blubbering at her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The Russian returned his sharp eyes to her,
his head at an angle, and a know-it-all smile.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"What if I tell you this is
January, 1992," he said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She
shrugged her shoulders, a tired, sad egg.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Bad things happened.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Worse too.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She enjoyed the feeling that something
incredibly bad had happened to her, because it was interesting in a life of
boredom and struggle, and because it was bigger than usual.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And because she sensed that she would live
and maybe have a better life, with air conditioning and a color TV.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If her head would just quit hurting.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And her beautiful hair!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"So, it's 1992," she said
flatly, enjoying Leonid's disappointed look.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"What else can you tell me?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Everything," Leonid
recovered, though irritated.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He had
thought he would floor her, but how could any human react to such news?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"For example, you are not a citizen of
the proud Union of Soviet Socialist Republics anymore.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There is no Union.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You are a plain Russian."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He waited for her response.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Which was nothing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How could she care about a stupid statement
like that?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She grew suspicious.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What kind of lousy communist she had been
anyway.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Politics bored her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Rising to the challenge, Leonid tried to stab
her with a knife of words. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"And, you are divorced and have
two children waiting for you back in St. Petersborg."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga tried to keep no expression,
but that news really hit.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Being a mother
revolted her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Families were bourgeois
things she hated, like her own family.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But children!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The thought made
her eyes water, though try as she might, she couldn't remember any babies.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Why hadn't she gotten abortions?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Which was the father?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>With the greatest effort, she shrugged her
shoulders, so what?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was an actress.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Leonid tried again.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"And, there's a McDonald's in
Moscow," he concluded triumphantly.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Six years lost, but later, alone
with the throbbing in her head, bits came to her, like pictures in somebody
else's album.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The boy and girl, 3 and 4
years old she was told, and the husband who deserted her, did not return, so
she dismissed them as inconveniences.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But she did remember, guiltily, sleeping with Tom in his Leningrad
artist's studio for meat and warmth one year before, and she remembered meeting
the woman with the red hair, his wife Victoria.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The man and woman in the blue jeans.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>In the seconds between the shot the nurse gave her so she could sleep,
and while she drifted off into oblivion, she laughed to herself.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It was said by the political outcasts of
Leningrad that Olga Ivanova had beautiful pale-rose lips, and the sad eyes of a
true Russian.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One Sunday a month later she remembered
little more, though she accepted all the stories of her life she was told, like
fiction:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>the long bus ride from New York
to San Francisco, and the man who stole her purse with the few dollars in the
middle of Kansas.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga lay below
blankets upon a mattress on the plank floor of Tom and Victoria's studio.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The wood was hard.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Above her the rafters, and around her the
chaos of paint-splattered walls and failed gray sculptures.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The air of San Francisco's Mission District
was ice cold, and she wanted to lounge below the blankets much longer, maybe
all day.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Though Victoria was clearly growing
tired of her staying for free, this second-story studio, a former warehouse,
was better than the mystery if she had to leave.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga had no money, zero, nothing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Below the blankets was better.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But then she had to trap an American husband
quickly.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Too bad she had insulted Rich
at the hospital.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe Tom.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He could divorce Victoria.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At least he had been an immigrant once, from
Prague of all low places, and the parents had brought him to America when he
was only two.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So what did he know?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The two daughters, Alyssa and Haley,
burst from around the Japanese screen and jumped on top of her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They pulled her ears and stuck their elbows
and knees into her stomach and sides.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"Get up, get up, get up!" they yelled as one.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Get up?" Olga said,
recovering her breath.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"What is the
time?"<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She really hated children,
especially these two without discipline.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Victoria let them run wild.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She
would borrow more money from Tom today.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Lazy bones," Haley, the
oldest, accused her, eye to eye.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If this
was her child, she would whip her until she obeyed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The daughter's dirty blonde hair was chopped
short.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"You get out of that bed,
you whore!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The girls only repeated what her hostess
said in private.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But they also enjoyed
being cruel.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Tom?" she'd overheard
Victoria the night before, when they thought Olga was asleep in the next
room.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"When is that woman getting
out of our lives?"<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And that wasn't the first time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga's story, apparently, had been that she
was organizing an arts festival in St. Petersburg, and would remain in San
Francisco one week, recruiting artists.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She wasn't sure if Tom or she had thought of that excuse.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"So what do you want me to
do?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Kick her out?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She hasn't got anywhere to go."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom had drank from a glass of vodka,
straight.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He stared at his wife with
stark hatred before he walked out.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Victoria suspected he took refuge in other women during these exits, and
was sure Olga had slept with him, even after they had brought her from the
Oakland charity hospital.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga wanted to sleep with every man
when she first appeared before Christmas, unannounced to her though Tom,
despite denials, seemed to know.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
probably slept with lots of Russian women.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Any male with an American citizenship and the chance for her green card
had his neck surrounded by Olga's arms a few hours after she met him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria had watched even Haley's 60-year-old
elementary school psychiatrist get the treatment.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But she couldn't condemn the woman.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Life sounded terrible back in Russia, with
the riots and meat only once a month.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She supposed she'd do anything too, except maybe abandon two babies.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If Tom divorced her, she'd keep the girls and
try to save them. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria opened the old
refrigerator.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The frosty glow lit a
slice of the room.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Their studio had been
a small warehouse, divided into the big rough room where they painted and
sculpted, and what had been small offices that became the kitchen-living room,
and two bedrooms.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The floor was raw
plank, pitted and splintery.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Furniture
was garbage they got for free, though they painted it red and yellow, like
canvas, to hide the age.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom contracted
house renovations for the real money in their lives, and she had argued for him
to make improvements in the dark, morbid loft.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But he was unwilling, too restless and always planning to move them
elsewhere.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He also was very cheap.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Among the leftovers wrapped in
plastic and a dish with tuna fish, Victoria found the coffee can.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A few grains littered the bottom.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She sighed, because Tom had promised to buy coffee
last night.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Without coffee, and the
long, luxurious ritual of wakening that two cups every morning allowed her,
especially Sunday, life seemed intolerable.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Shopping meant a walk out into the Mission District.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even one coffee can meant leaving her fortress
into the dangers of the American city.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga emerged with the two girls
holding onto her legs and smiled at her sleepily, dressed only in Tom's
shirt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She looked sweet sometimes, like
now, dewy and gentle in spite of the spiky brown hair growing on her bald head,
and that terrible scar.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sometimes
Victoria even admired her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To have
demonstrated in the streets against the government, and to have climbed to the
top of the municipal building to tear down the communist hammer and sickle took
more courage than she had.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At other
times, though, Olga had a nasty temper, especially after she and Tom or one of
Tom's friends drank whiskey until comatose.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria was incapable of
holding a grudge; that was one of her faults.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Even if Tom slept with Olga, she was just one more.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And Victoria had slipped up a time or two, or
three, but one night stands only.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At
least the Russian, being pummeled by Alyssa who climbed around her shoulders,
and Haley, who wrestled at her middle, was a good babysitter, patient and
non-communicative.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Poor Haley.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her first was already in therapy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What would Haley do if Tom left?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe craziness ran in the family.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria's own mother was a manic
depressive, and had to be put into the hospital for beating her kids,
especially Victoria.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But she'd gotten
over it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She couldn't hate, even her
mother.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria couldn't even argue
with Tom, who argued day and night.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She
resented any lack of smoothness in her day.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I'm out of coffee, Olga,"
Victoria enunciated slowly.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At times she
didn't believe Olga had lost her memory, because her little English came back
right away.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I'm going to
Kim's."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga smiled.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Haley stared through the glass of the
office-bedroom with those red eyes down deep holes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Why couldn't she just be a child?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Cynical at six!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Unlike Alyssa, who acted dumb and happy, the
jock of the family.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria put on her
coat, because she could see her breath inside the room. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She couldn't bear to look at her art
drying on the walls as she walked through the studio.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her paintings and installations were always
dark and morbid.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A teacher of hers at
the Art Academy once called them 'constipated.'<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>In contrast, the two paintings in their midst that Tom had brought back
from Moscow and Leningrad were in yellows and reds, with cartoon-like robots
marching in an abstract world of white squares and triangles.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Still, she kept getting grants, though all
local and not enough to live on.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Down the steep stairs she carefully
walked, then out the rotten door, having to wiggle the key in the lock until it
finally gave.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A real drug crazee would
find the lock no barrier at all.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She had
seen more than one derelict walking on the roof a mere sheet of glass from the
kitchen.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then she was outside in the criminal
alley. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The sky was gray, and a misty rain
filled the winter air.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her rusted Sentra
slanted half on the cracked sidewalk; she was always glad to see it still
there.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The alley threatened her every
second; she came from a clean east coast suburb.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom loved the decay, and painted the
rot and the trash in hyper-realistic detail.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He said here was real life and he loved rot, but all she saw were broken
bottles the girls might step on, graffiti on the walls--"Fuck the
Shits," "AIDS Kills"--and the homeless, violent, resentful men
and women down on the sidewalk as she walked by.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This morning an alcoholic man slept against a
telephone pole.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria stepped around
a lake of still-liquid yellow puke.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Yesterday, when she escorted the kids out to an Indian woman on the next
block who babysat, right by their door a man pissed into the gutter.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How could she raise decent kids in the
District?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom thought the girls were
better off here than in some soulless suburb.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But Victoria would move in a minute if Tom left her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She liked being happy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom just had so much crap inside him from his
own lousy immigrant childhood.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At
Kim's, the neighborhood grocery, Victoria had to step around a drunken woman
dressed in rags standing in front of the screen door.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was Hispanic and young.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Drunk at 9 a.m.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At least that was better than cocaine.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Inside, Kim greeted her with a sour nod of
his acne-scarred face from behind the cash register.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The Korean was talking lottery to a black
guy, maybe Haitian.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Kim rang up her
coffee quickly, without a hint that he knew her or that she came there on
average once a day, Tom two, three times for vodka and beer. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>After she had eased back past the woman, who
mumbled a blue streak to herself in Spanish, Victoria halted before the
telephone pole at the corner.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>An
ambulance rushed down the busy street, siren blasting, as she checked over the
stapled flyers for events.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Blues, rock,
rap, reggae, a peace poetry reading, a political rally against
gay-bashing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But no, no jazz.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom hated music, hated black music
especially, hated blacks with an intensity that was scary, but Olga had arrived
with a love of jazz.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The second night
after she called from the bus station they had gone to a jazz club, where Olga,
the dear, wanted to dance.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Dance to
jazz!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The Russian had dressed up in her
best man-catching clothes, a knobby tight yellow sweater and a pink short skirt
to show off her terrific 31-year-old legs.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Her then voluminous reddish-brown, curly hair had been combed with a
flirtatious slant to the right.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She
looked like a woman from the fifties.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>When Olga saw that nobody was dancing, she was disappointed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"In America, jazz is more
intellectual," Victoria had tried to explain through the smoke and the
gloom of the club.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A man was passed out
on the floor under the next table.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"We just listen.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Rock and
reggae are better for dancing."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom left in a rage, mad at being near black
people, and<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>because Olga, in her
feminine, vulnerable, seductive way had insisted on showing them how to dance
jazz.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The black band and the white
customers stared at Olga and Tom slow dancing to a Miles Davis moan.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even with Victoria right there, abandoned,
Olga rubbed her body tight against Tom.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And she was twelve years younger than Victoria.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria's red hair was streaked with white. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But
Tom had stormed out without warning as something exploded inside him, and left
the women alone at their table.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She
stayed, in need of the blues and despair.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>America was in a lousy mood.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Or we feel the music.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Just sit and feel it," she had added.
Always it was hard to tell if Olga understood the English.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When Victoria fiddled with the lock
again, and the door at last yielded, she secured the wooden barrier in a
hurry.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If she and Tom broke up, got
divorced like everybody else they knew, she'd let him have the damn studio, and
move somewhere nice, like Berkeley. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The kids had torn up the newspaper, and pieces
were all over the kitchen-living room floor like snow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Savages, but what could she do.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga smiled at her, an egg with rose lips and
blue eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria needed to work on her
instillation that morning, the one where swinging doors painted and shaped like
a rib cage would lead the visitor into a room, painted as the inside of a
stomach.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her grant was about to run out,
and the church with the space was getting impatient.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She had work to do, studying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gray's Anatomy</i>.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Haley and Alyssa would be dumped at
day care, though Sunday was expensive.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But first, her two cups of coffee.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The blessed two cups of coffee.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Churchgoing had been part of her Philadelphia childhood, and though she
hadn't been in decades, a Sunday morning ritual was vital.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Heating the water in the banged-up pan,
letting the liquid seep through the grounds and the filter, then hearing the
fall of black coffee into the glass carafe brought peace and sanity to
Victoria.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As she sipped the coffee, she
forgot the rest of her life, past, present and future.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let the shit flow past unnoticed; don't worry
about tomorrow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga
glided into the room, looking sheepish and hung over.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria and Tom had taken her to a poetry
reading at the Cafe Beano the night before, and, as had become usual, a knot of
male candidates had shown up too.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Rich,
still trailing her like a dog, was kind of stupid, but he worked with Tom on
house renovations and made a decent living.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Sid was unemployed and lazy, but he had a law degree from Berkeley and
one day might snap out of it and be a good catch.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That Leonid too.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga could talk Russian with him, though Olga
didn't take him seriously as a green card husband.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Just as long as that bitch was out of their
studio soon. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>An image flashed through Victoria's mind as
she took another full sip of the coffee:<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>the big blue eyes of Olga, dressed like a high school dream of the
1950s, standing in the vast auditorium New Years Eve night at the Exotic Erotic
Ball, one week after her arrival.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Gay
men made out, each wearing women's gowns; topless women bounced to the rock
band; and in the middle of a thousand dancers an exhibitionist woman gave a man
a blow job.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga looked like she had
landed on another planet. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I drank too big," Olga
said in her charming slurred accent, and smiled her humble smile.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Where are you bursnip
norfday?" Victoria said slowly.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The Russian felt uncomfortable
around her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She knew the American didn't
like her, and she wasn't sure she liked the American.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Too chirpy and optimistic.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And she let those brats run wild.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But what choice did Olga have?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Maybe, I think, I would see the
ocean today," she said. "My heart, the sea."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She made a sweeping motion with her
arms, like she would embrace it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And she
knew she could never leave San Francisco, or at least some coast of America
where she might dive into the ocean.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So
far she had hardly seen it, but that was O.K.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>As long as the sea was nearby for her.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And a sophisticated city too; she needed a city.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The daughter of aristocracy had to have
comforts.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Is Leonid dortforgy you?"
the hostess said, pouring her a cup of coffee.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>American coffee was terrible, so thin.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She sat across from the woman, whose gray streaks of hair in the muddy
red were particularly noticeable this morning.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She was doomed be a wrinkled, ugly old woman.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"No, no," she said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Leonid was a good man, but he insulted her
poetry, and told her she was spoiled, a city kitten.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She wanted a male who would spoil her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not loving a husband had its advantages too,
beyond the financial.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If Tom left
Victoria, as he said he was, he would be the best of a bad lot.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>America was too democratic, but what
could you do?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So the two women sat at the table,
drinking coffee.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga's skull throbbed,
the scar a burning ditch.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When her hair
grew over the scar, she would feel more beautiful, and get down to
business.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That night was the monthly
grandmother night.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom and Victoria
brought the kids and Olga to the nursing home where they had put Victoria's
grandmother.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How could they say bad
things about her leaving her babies, when, instead of the 92-year-old living
with the family in their studio, they dumped her into a rundown building?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As was the routine, Tom and Victoria guided
the brittle body out the security doors, and a few steps down the sidewalk to a
Mexican cafe chosen because the granny could no longer bend to get into the
small car.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>El Palenque, the Fighting
Rooster, had a linoleum floor, torn vinyl booths, and a few posters of
bullfights on the wall.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The waiter, a
glum man with a mole by his nose, brought them the menus.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga ordered a big enchilada, because Tom was
paying, and stared out the window at the dirty street splashed with orange from
high-intensity security streetlamps. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Babushka looked around the cafe like she was
in shock.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her face was wrinkled like a
sea turtle's, but white as her hair.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Long hairs grew from her chin.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Alyssa and Haley screamed in the booth beside her, but she didn't
notice.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The granny stank.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And while Olga sat across from her, the
yellow, rotted odor of her dry skin surrounded her, like medicine. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"And who are you?" the old
woman asked for the tenth time since they sat down.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who were these people?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She concentrated, and there was the expected
Victoria, and what's his name, Tom.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Tom
looked Jewish.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Was he?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Surely Victoria, a good old Irish gal from
Philly, wouldn't marry a Jew.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The cafe
looked familiar, with this black-haired waiter with the fat stomach, but who
were all those effeminate men in the other booths.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Why, those two at the next table were holding
hands, and they were hairy as her husband, dead fourteen years now, bless his
soul.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Philadelphia had sure
changed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"My name is Olga," the
woman said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her accent was confusing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A Pole?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Good-looking though, and well-dressed in a silver silk blouse, pleated.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The name didn't ring a bell.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary drank her coffee. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They didn't let her drink stimulants at the
retirement home. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Can I have a beer?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Sure, grandmomma,"
Victoria said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The cafe was too noisy,
clinking plates and mumbling queers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Why
didn't they take her to Momma Leoni's where she always went on Sundays?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The husband hardly looked at Victoria, but
that's the way it was in a marriage.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>When she and hers first got hitched, they held hands and stared into
each other's eyes for hours, like they were hypnotized.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A few years, and they were like strangers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But, once you said 'I do' you did for
life.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>'Til death do us part.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She tried to picture her husband's face and
couldn't, nor could she remember his name.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Where was she?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At least there sat
Victoria.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The waiter brought some beer she didn't know,
not the Budweiser she always drank.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her
granddaughter poured the bottle into a short glass, but made too much
foam.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary downed it in a gulp.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There sat that foreign girl with the ugly
haircut.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"And what's your name
again?" she asked.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Olga.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Olga Ivanova."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Are you a friend of
Victoria's?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Yes," the woman said,
with a sad smile.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was real
young.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The waiter banged a plate down in
front of her, some cheese stuff she didn't recognize, and beans.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Every Sunday she ate spaghetti with meat balls;
Victoria knew that.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She'd just
starve.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He poured more beer into her
glass, and she killed it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Can
I have another cup of coffee?" she asked Victoria.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"How many is that?"
what's-his-name, the husband, asked.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
always looked mad.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His eyes were alcoholic.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Oh well, that was Victoria's problem.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For better or worse, 'til death do us
part.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sixty-two years with hers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Four kids raised right.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At least her husband never fooled around,
like they do these days.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He was a good
breadwinner, even if he was a bastard.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She'd had a secure family with him, and a house they stayed in forty
years.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Just two so far,"
Victoria said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I'll cut her off,
but let her have a day out.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I think that
new roommate of hers is mean." <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bless Victoria.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She felt safe with her around.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Victoria was much better than her stupid
daughter, Victoria's mother, who never called from Baltimore, just down the
pike.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Can I have a beer?" Mary
asked.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The little girls giggled.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her great-granddaughters were sure spunky.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Your beer is not . . .
dead," the foreign woman said, pointing to the Mexican bottle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then smiled in apology.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Are you sure a diet burrito is
the right thing?" Tom asked, his dark face scowling. "She'll make a
mess."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Then let her make a mess, for
God's sake.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It's the least spicy thing
on the menu."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Fuck it," Tom
screamed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He wiggled out of the booth
and stomped out.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary turned red at the
language.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They didn't talk like that in
her day.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She'd almost never missed a
mass at Christ the King for seventy years.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Maybe the priest could bring her the host.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"What's his problem?" she
asked her granddaughter.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Oh, he's just, just Tom.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I don't know," Victoria said, with
resignation but also plainly glad to be rid of him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary too.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He didn't even have a regular job.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She felt sorry for Victoria because she had to work, and couldn't be a
housewife.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The kids didn't have a
full-time mother like in her day.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Something's on his mind
lately."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Alyssa cried, but Haley just
glared.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Tom has very big temper,"
the foreign woman said.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"Kaboom."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"And who are you again?"
the grandmomma asked.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Where was
she?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now it was just we gals.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She took a sip of beer straight from the
bottle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The waiter set a new cup of
coffee beside her untouched burrito.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"Can I have another beer?" </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Sure, grandma," Victoria
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Anything you want now.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Take your time."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Olga," the foreign woman
said. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Polish?"<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Coffee dripped off Mary's chin.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The strange woman reached across with a
napkin, and patiently blotted her dry.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Russian," she said, with
a proud toss of her head and a smile.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"I am Russian."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But maybe I will stay here, Olga
thought.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-79109577617739707452017-01-02T16:56:00.001-06:002017-01-02T16:56:05.658-06:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">America
Is Dead</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">America is dead.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Democracy is dead.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">I am floating without a
government.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Want to be mayor?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Put a few millions of
your own money into the campaign,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">or sell yourself to the
rich who will.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Land of the free.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Freedom of religion.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">The Statue of Liberty
welcoming the masses.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">That was decades ago.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Rich, white, male.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">That’s one country.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Poor, middle class,
white, black, Asian, female,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">artist, free soul,
Muslim, Sikh:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">we are the enemy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Capitalism is dead too.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Competition is evil to
large corporations.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Kill the other companies.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Oligarchy means three
competitors are too much.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Raise the rates, cut R
& D, buy politicians.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Work lots more, lose your
job, disappear.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Are you a machinist?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Might as well go into the horseshoe business.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Teacher?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let me introduce the software that will take
your place.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Robots in a row, that’s
the factory floor.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">So things change, but no
retraining for you.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Just, like I said,
disappear.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Maybe 500,000 will die
without health insurance.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">So die.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">America is dead, and it
was the most glorious idea in history:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">let the skills, the
needs, the passions of the millions define the nation.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Now it’s the same old
thousand or so.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The country is them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Might as well have a
king.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Might as well
re-establish property levels for the right to vote,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Say $20 million.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Might as well.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Democracy is dead.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">America is dead.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-88831996209296712832017-01-02T16:54:00.001-06:002017-01-02T16:54:40.136-06:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Die
Trying But We’ve Got to Try</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Max felt Lorenzo’s
hair.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Imagine, an Afro in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Max had shaved his head after
losing some hair.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Oh my God,” he
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“I thought your hair would feel
like wires.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Nope.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am a human too.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">The black young man spit
in Max’s face.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Max’s wrinkled old white
face glistened.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“No need for that,” he
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“I was just curious.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Lorenzo put out his
hand.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Sorry about the spit.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’m just tired of this shit.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Sorry too.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I learned something, “ Max said. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Max walked to his drum
kit.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He knocked out a 2/4.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Lorenzo picked up his
guitar.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He joined in.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Don’t sing though.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You sound like an old white man with a cold,”
Lorenzo said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">The bass player, whose
name he had forgotten, whacked a few strings.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Charlie on the trump tooted.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Let’s make up
something,” Charlie said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“I got soft hair. / kinda
like a bear.”—Lorenzo.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Feel it good / so it’s
understood.”—Max.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Skin’s like skin / Eyes
like eyes.”—bass player.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“I want some fries / and
maybe some pies.”—Charlie.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Everybody laughed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Max started a
shuffle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Sweet home, Chicago,” he said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“What do you know about
Chicago?” Lorenzo asked.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Never been there.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You?” Max stood up.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“I’m tired of this shit.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Either we play together, black, white, yellow,
red, whatever, or I’m going home.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“What rhymes with
segregation?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Chill everybody.”—bass
player.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Conflagration,”—Lorenzo.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Damn, Schoolboy.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">They laughed.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Max started the shuffle
again.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“You Lorenzo’s white
boy?” Charlie asked.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“I’m just playing my
drums.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Have a nice day, gentlemen.”—Max.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">The bass player laid down
a line.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Trumpet player tooted.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Lorenzo added a lick or two.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Gotta get along,” he
sang.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Or Die Trying.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">That’s the title, bass
player said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Die Trying.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Damn,” Lorenzo
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“I’m sorry Max.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Just some kid got killed by the white cops in
Dallas last night, and we’re a little on edge.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Not my doing,” Max
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Let’s just play.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let’s just disappear into the music.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Damn,” Charlie
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“World’s too complicated.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Die Trying but we got to
try,” Lorenzo sang.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Nothing to it; just open
your mind,” Charlie sang.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“World’s a hellhole and
that’s no lie,” bass player.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">“Die Trying but we got to
try.”—Max.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-14776995557953811512016-12-01T20:30:00.002-06:002016-12-01T20:30:14.728-06:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Drinking
My Way Through Christmas</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">My whole life’s just one big blooper.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Singing “Jingle Bells” in an alcoholic stupor.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">She’s gone, I’m broke, lost my job, lost my hope.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The only present I want this year is rope.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I fantasize about kicking Santa in the balls.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Down the chimney the old fatso falls.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Those reindeer better not shit on my roof.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The only nog I want is 90 proof.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">So I am drinking my way through Christmas.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I’ll wake alone on Christmas morn.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I am drinking my way through Christmas</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">wishing Jesus had never been born.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-78596217153635602202016-12-01T20:28:00.001-06:002016-12-01T20:28:12.270-06:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The
Triumph of Chris Moose</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There once was a very ordinary moose.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the woods he blended into the trees.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the streams he looked like a brown
log.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The other moose, even his brothers
and sisters, sometimes forgot he was there.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Even his mother and father ignored him.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One
day this moose was eating bits of grass.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>They were delicious, so fresh and so juicy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But when he looked up, the other moose were
gone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He searched everywhere, in the
meadow, in the forest, by the rock cave, but there wasn't another moose to be
seen.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"They've
left and forgotten I was here," he thought.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Big tears fell from his eyes, and flowed
through the fur on his cheek. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Mother!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Father!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
rest of that day and the days that followed the ordinary moose hardly ate a
blade of grass or a leaf.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He moped
around, trumpeting for help, but no moose answered.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not caring where he was he stepped into a
hole, and heard his leg crack.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
thrashed around, trying to escape the hole, but knew his leg had been
broken.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He didn't care.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"If
I die, nobody will know the difference," he thought.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then
two creatures appeared.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They were pink.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One pointed with his paw.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A few minutes later, one aimed a tube at the
moose.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He felt a sting in his shoulder,
and tried to run, but he couldn't escape the hole. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Everybody
hates me," he thought.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Nobody
cares if I live or die."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
ordinary moose became drowsy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His hooves
seem to weigh a ton each.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No matter how
afraid he was, he could not move any more. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"It's
better this way," the moose thought.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"I'm better off dead.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not
even my mother and father loves me."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When
the moose woke up, he was in a cage.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
cage was moving, faster than he imagined any animal could move. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The leaves on the trees passed overhead so
fast they were blurs.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He became dizzy,
and trumpeted for help.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But, of course,
no moose came to free him.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
next few days were terrible.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He was
forced into a new cage, and shot again with the stinger.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When he woke up, the ordinary moose was back
in the cage, but with a strange tube on his broken leg that kept it
straight.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The pain was pretty bad, and
for days he tried to scrape or shake off the tube.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He was fed though, delicious leaves.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Another
sting, and this time he woke up in a small meadow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The tube was still on his leg, but it felt
O.K.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He tried to run away but at the
front was a big ditch and walls blocked the other sides.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He decided he couldn't jump that far or that
high.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Besides, there were those
delicious leaves to eat piled in the middle of the snow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Though he missed his family, and other moose,
he decided to stay for awhile.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What
puzzled the moose the most were gold and red vines around the fence, and a big
creature's face topped in red with white trim.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Children of the creatures came up to the fence and pointed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They seemed very happy to see him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No one had ever been happy to see him.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When
the ordinary moose was first brought into the Maine Zoological Park, the staff
treated him as routine.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A smaller than
normal, unexceptional animal, who likely would have died in the wild, but with
the cast for his broken leg would be released into the woods again in a couple
of months good as new.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But
. . . this was just before the Christmas season.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"What
kind of Christmas display can we put up this year?" asked the veterinarian
setting the leg.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Let's do
something different."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Yeah,
last year's tinsel is getting pretty droopy.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Besides, we need something that will make the newspapers," her
assistant said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Maybe
we could do something with this moose," the vet wondered.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She thought a second.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"He's helpless and in need.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He's a little runt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>People like that."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I
don't know.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He's pretty ordinary, and
he's no reindeer," said the assistant.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"We could decorate his area with Christmas tinsel though.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We'll call him the Christmas moose."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Wait.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I've got it," said the vet.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Let's call him Chris Moose."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And
that's what the big banner above his area said, "CHRIS MOOSE."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The newspapers loved it, and printed the
story of the little orphan moose with the broken leg.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>TV ran all sorts of pictures of him.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And the kids came out by the dozens.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Chris Moose became the most popular animal in
the Park.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
ordinary moose didn't know any of this, of course.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He didn't read newspapers or watch TV.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Though he missed the woods, and the other
moose, even those who didn't treat him very well, he enjoyed all the attention,
especially from the baby creatures.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
food was great, and he didn't have to hunt in the snow for it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
zoo printed Chris Moose t-shirts, and had little furry dolls made with Chris
Moose in a Santa hat.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then
Christmas was over.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One day, the
ordinary moose suddenly noticed that the vines and the big sign with the jolly
face was gone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Kids still came and
pointed, but not nearly as many as before.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"By
next Christmas this moose will be big and grown up.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We can find another small moose, and it can
be the new Chris Moose," said the vet. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When
summer came, the ordinary moose's leg was completely healed and he felt
great.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He loved his new life in the
small meadow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He was much bigger, tall
and strong, with growing antlers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One
June day, however, the creatures forced him into a cage.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The tree leaves passed so fast he could
hardly see them, again.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
creatures released the moose from his cage into the same meadow by the Maine
woods where he had been found, six months before.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He stood and watched them drive off in the
truck.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Though
he felt sad to lose all the attention, this time he didn't panic, because he
had confidence.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The sun brought so many
delicious leaves on the trees, and he felt strong.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For days he missed the pink creatures,
especially the little ones who called him Chris Moose, though. Another group of
creatures had abandoned him.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When
at last another moose came into the same meadow where he was eating, he
trumpeted the challenge, and the moose trumpeted back, then left him
alone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He had won, because he was
bigger, and knew he could survive on his own, like a grown up. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And
that fall, when the leaves had changed to red and yellow, another moose entered
a meadow where the ordinary moose stood.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>This moose's trumpeting sounded familiar, so eagerly he trumpeted back,
not a threat but a hello.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It was his
father.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>With him, edging from the woods
warily, were his mother and one brother.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>They could hardly believe their eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The ordinary moose was even larger than his dad, with more points on his
antlers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now
he held his head high.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Did he ever have
a story to tell his family.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-83941669932775484442016-11-01T19:58:00.002-05:002016-11-01T19:58:09.833-05:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The
Freak Show</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I spent a day in a freak show.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The Royal American Carnival was in
Memphis,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">and I got the feature assignment
from my city editor.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">After exposes--the weight guesser's
prizes</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">were so cheap he made money even if</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">he guessed wrong--</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I walked into the orange, green and
white tent</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">where the public paid money</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">to watch freaks.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The smallest married couple on
Earth,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">two midgets a bit over three feet
tall,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">were really friendly.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">They lived in Wisconsin most of the
year,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">in a trailer made their size.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">They were in love, </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">two blond burghers from the
German-Scandinavian</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">part of America.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"Do you mind being called
freaks?" I asked.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"Oh no," the woman said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"That's what we are."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">They invited me to visit them
during the off season.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The man who stuck nails through his
nose</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">looked at me from the height of
celebrity.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">He wore black tights and a sequined
tunic</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">which was dirty.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"I learned my art from a
famous man," he said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"He used railroad
spikes."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">Interview over, he paraded off,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">barely acknowledging the existence
of the other freaks.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"He's a real bastard,"
the midget man said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"Nobody likes him."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The woman with the boa constrictor
wouldn't even talk to me.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"She hates that snake,"
he said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Everybody knows</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">she beats it when she's
alone."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The world's fattest woman and the
tattooed man</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">asked me where the good restaurants
were.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The roustabout, a young man with
muscles,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">wanted to know what hot bars were
open</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">after 1 a.m.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"I ran away from home to join
the carnival," he bragged.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"Normal story around
here."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">And indeed when I left the freak
show</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">and talked to ride operators or
management accountants,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">each bragged about not being
normal.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"We're a kind of
society," the cotton candy woman said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">"Everybody looks down on us, </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">but we look down on everybody else</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">because they're not carnie."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The yellow and green neon, the
noise from countless speakers,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">the screams, the whirl of the
Octopus ride</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">disappeared Saturday midnight to
Sunday morning.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I went on with my reporting of
hospital committee meetings,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">murders, the Mom of the Year,
politicians.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I felt there was little difference</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">between the carnival and the city.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">And that within the carnival--</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">low-class people with greasy hair
and crooked teeth--</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">the lowest level was the freak
show.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">And that within the freak show</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">the man who put nails in his nose
and the woman with the snake</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">were higher</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">than the midget couple and the fat
woman.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">They were normal and made
themselves freaks; </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">the others were born that way,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">and had no choice.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I liked the fair.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I wished I had run away</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">from the miseries of my family, </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">as did the boy at the poor end of
my street.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">His name was Jewel New. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">His older brother ran away with the
Ringling Brothers circus</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">where he became a lion tamer.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I don't think life is better in
circuses and carnivals,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">just more a circle, more us against
them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The police against them, the
religious right against them,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">the middle class against them, the
fashionable against them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I feel so general I don't know who
I am for or against.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I just report.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">A man who operated the game</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">where kids pulled yellow plastic
ducks</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">from a water trough </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">gave me one of his prizes.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">We were discussing romance.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">A silence rose between us, </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">he on the carnival side of the
counter and me on the public side.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">A few seconds passed when each
pictured his ideal woman </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">in an ideal landscape</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">lit by a dagger of the full moon.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">He reached in his box of prizes</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">and gave me a toy bull. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">The bull was fuzzy and red,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">worth about a quarter.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">Between his horns he wore a straw
hat,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">and in his teeth he held</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">a red plastic rose.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I have the bull still, a quarter
century later,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">and I have carried it with me
through four states</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">and a year in Japan.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I don't know why.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">My education has taught me that he
is</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">cliched and cheap.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">But:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>me against them;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">the carnival versus the academy;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">romance versus urban cynicism.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; margin: 0px;">I have been a walking freak who
looks normal.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px -48px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px -48px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px -48px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px -48px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-65307117445516995072016-11-01T19:55:00.001-05:002016-11-01T19:55:47.958-05:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The Itty Bitty Titty Contest</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The entrance to Cowpoke's Bar and
Boogie Roadhouse featured a two-story pointed boot, painted like snakeskin, and
weathered wood.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It was almost midnight
as I walked up to the door, with "Howdy, Partner!" in red letters,
avoiding first a fist fight in the parking lot, watched by a circle of drunken,
shouting Nashvillian youth.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The blue blazer I had put on over my
dress shirt made me conspicuous as an ambassador at a tractor pull.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Though single and divorced for ten years, it
had been awhile since I had gone out.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Plus I was more than 50, and the average age of the fight fans was, I
estimated, about 21.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Inside, it was easy to find the Itty
Bitty Titty Contest.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To the left was the
Aloha Pardner room, with 'grass' on the walls, and harried waitresses in hula
skirts and cowboy hats.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Straight ahead
loomed a depressing, dark bar with no personality except a sign that read Bar
None.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One poke brooded at the
stools.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But to my right waited a parquet
dance floor surrounded by a wall of men yelling and screaming,
"Boobies!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Boobies!"<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yes, I had found the place.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It was hard to spot Mary, the
finalist who had invited me, but against the right wall, on stools sat a couple
who stood out even worse than I, a tenured professor, did.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Indeed, from the stern expressions on their
spare faces, they might have been listening with approval to "Sinners in
the Hands of an Angry God" at some Puritan church.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The elderly man's back was stiff as a rod in
his black suit.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Next to him, the
gray-haired woman wore a black dress from her ankles to her throat, and her
expression was so severe she might have been condemning witches.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary's parents of course. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I spotted the 28-year-old public
relations exec in a gold metallic skirt almost crotch high, fish net stockings,
black high heels, and a sparkly red blouse so low cut I could count every rib
down to her flat tummy, the belly button visible even across the room.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It was the first time I had ever seen my
former pupil out of a business suit.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Robert, you made it!" she
greeted me, clearing a spot for my own stool.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Before I could be introduced to the
young couple, likely her sister, with the family's drawn face, and her husband,
across the round table, so small their two beer bottles about covered it, the
crowd of what I immediately thought of as 'Neanderthal' men let out a
roar.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Factory workers mostly in their
early twenties.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And a few women, factory
workers too, working this night their tight t-shirts and jeans to be picked up.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am Dr. Robert Turly, by the way, with a
Ph.D. in religious history.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I don't
believe in God.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A woman, almost a midget, bounced
into the middle of the surrounded dance floor holding a microphone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Blonde, curly hair to her neck, rough face
with a big nose.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She hadn't exactly
dressed for the occasion, in jeans and a sweat shirt, but the men obviously
knew who she was.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Hi!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Everybody having a good time!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I felt like I had landed on another
planet, with a research grant of course.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Current religious history was really a branch of anthropology.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>None of my colleagues believed in God
either.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I left the quiet of my
apartment, near campus, to dig for signs of America's declining culture.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We academics are all for decline.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Might be good for a paper.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>My field was religion in America.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>On the decline, of course.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Puritans marked the high point in religious
intensity, and now it was TV evangelists and hack, country preachers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I had made a living out of writing papers on
such.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The appropriate uproar.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A man with a muscular back straining a white
t-shirt standing before Mary's support team held up a beer bottle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I was glad my first wife, whom I had met in
graduate school, never had a child.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This
one had no hair, the fashion being for men to shave their heads bald.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Every person in the dance room was white.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I'm Savannah, DJ on
WDEX!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>New uproar.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary looked nervous.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One of the best students I ever had, with an
M.A.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her dissertation was on masochism
in Puritan communities.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I had wanted her
to continue with her doctoral studies, but she took a well-paying job in public
relations instead.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We had maintained
contact, and a kind of platonic friendship that I didn't really believe in
between male and female had developed.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Occasionally she or I called, and we talked for hours about her bad
boyfriends.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Or the Puritans.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary whispered in my ear.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I think I'm better than two of the
contestants, but there's one I worry about.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She's really beautiful."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary actually sounded worried.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I had taken the whole contest as a joke, but
it dawned on me she was deadly serious.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She was the kind of woman who could look bad on a bad day, with stringy
black hair and the thin face of her parents, or good on a good day,
sophisticated and lithe.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As her teacher,
I had noticed her looks in the way one notices the weather, but now in a kind
of impossible way, due to the age difference, I was more direct.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Ready for the Itty Bitty Titty
Contest?!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Savannah revved up the oval of
cavemen, like a wall of muscle and thigh.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For this was the finals of the Itty
Bitty Titty Contest, to determine who had the most need for first prize, breast
implant surgery.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The silicon blobs had
been in the news, leakage, disfigurements, and billions of dollars in law
suits.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This crowd, however, acted as if
they had never heard of surgical malpractice.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Second prize was mere money, $2,000, and Mary had no need for that,
making maybe twice what I made as teacher.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I had joked with her that second prize might be one breast, but, come to
think of it, she hadn't laughed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She wanted that big chest.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her chest was flat, there was no doubt about
that, but that made her body like a snake's, sinuous and beautiful.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Too bad she was half my age.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That too was anthropological research, what
young Americans were like.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A study in
godless empire.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The night she called and asked me to
attend Cowpoke's Bar and Boogie Roadhouse, I tried to talk her out of being
ridiculous.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Mary, that's sexist," I
heard myself say, standing in my underwear.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>My apartment was the usual one bedroom, post-divorce hole near
campus.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The floor was littered with my
dirty clothes and tomes, life works that nobody but me would read.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"It's what's inside that counts.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sensuality comes through attitude and the
eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You don't need those
implants.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Besides, they might be
dangerous."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I used every thought from the year
2000's list of college mores, feminist especially.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>My first wife had left me after joining a
campus feminist group and finding that she was lesbian.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That was no surprise to me.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Still, I supported less patriarchy, less
machismo, and more equality between the sexes.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Sex object: that obviously, to anybody with a brain, was what this
ridiculous contest was all about.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I want the woman inside to
show in the body outside," Mary said on the phone, her voice so serious
and so profound I wiped the smile off my face.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"Men like them, and I want a man to love me."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No use.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What kind of man, blah blah blah.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary felt self-consciously girlish, and with
30 in sight wanted to become what she defined as 'womanly.'<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I discovered that once a notion was in Mary's
mind, an executive decision made, nothing, not even the world of reason which
she was usually so professional at, made her change.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Around that dance floor I'd bet
there wasn't a man or woman who had heard the name Simone de Beauvois.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A new uproar brought me back to the
spectacle.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Let's bring 'em out!"
Savannah said, with a wave of her hand.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary stood up.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Wish me luck, everybody," she
said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As she passed me her hand squeezed
my shoulder, and a bolt of electricity shot through my body.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I needed love too, that was clear, though
often I wished I didn't.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her parents' faces didn't move, nor
did their upright posture.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Their table
was bare.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The sister and her husband
waved encouragement, and I, from a distance again, heard myself yell,
"Knock 'em dead, Mary."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary Wilkerson, M.A., rushed to join
the line of three women who stood beside Savannah on the parquet floor.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Two of the others were lumpy working class
women, also mid-20s, with dyed lifeless blonde hair showing dark roots, thick
muscular legs, and flat chests.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>These
were women like I grew up with in a factory area of the city--my father built
air conditioners on an assembly line--and the type I might have married if it
wasn't for a scholarship to the state college that started my climb out of that
hole.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I was smart, was all, and full of
religious spirit that changed from redneck revivals, like my parents dragged me
to even in high school, to knowledge that destroyed all my beliefs.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I missed God, like I missed love, and had
tried to believe again, but simply knew too much.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Was too self-conscious.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary stood next in her gold
mini-skirt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her body seemed more alive
that the other two, somehow tense, manic.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Her face too, by comparison, looked as if something was happening behind
the flesh, thought and psychology.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
blondes might as well be cows.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary, who looked self-conscious as a
dean's wife at a beer chugging party, kept glancing to her side.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Once my attention moved from my ex-student I
almost gasped.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There stood one of the
most beautiful women I had ever seen.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Black hair flowing like wind to her thin waist, tan skin like a
Tahitian's, perfect without a single mole, the most beautiful warm face and
wide lips . . .<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I fell instantly in
love, as I was sure each beer holding man in a t-shirt circling them did as
well.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She wore, slightly, a tropical,
flowered bikini top and a matching blue sarong.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Legs of the softest skin and finest shape peeked from the cloth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yes, she was flat, but who cared?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary's only chance, I thought, was
pity.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If the judges, whatever qualified
them for that role, thought the beauty--Leilani I named her--didn't need help,
and Mary played on their hearts, appeared in fact pathetic, she stood a
chance.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But Mary was a strong woman.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was used to ordering lesser employees at
the public relations firm, of drinking chardonnay at executive sessions--she
was on first name basis with the mayor--and this crowd wouldn't react well to
female inner strength.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They wanted a
submissive inner child with a whore's body.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>At heart, these macho men were afraid of women.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They might fail in bed with Mary.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Each of the finalists will
introduce herself, then tell the crowd why she wants those big boobs!"
Savannah announced, holding the mike.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>From her FM radio voice, it was clear she'd done dumb stuff like this
before, likely every week.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Extra
money.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"We will start with
contestant Number 1!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I was having a good time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Anthropologically, there was a thesis in
this, The Metaphysics of the Breast.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Did
these men worship the boob?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Only in the
subtle, vaporish way academe filled its journals.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Laughter from my colleagues, yes, but a
graphic point to be made as well.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This
was these men's church.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>O.K., it was
crap, but my colleagues got out even less than I did.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Erotica, but, as always, underneath
Eros.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thoughts habitually formed in my
trained mind, like weeds growing in the sun.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I had quit believing in thought as well.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>#1 got a small rise of applause, and
a shout from a single female friend.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She
looked deeply uncomfortable, as if she was being barbecued.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Mumblach!" this female
potato mumbled into the mike, holding it like it was mildewed cheese.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The image I had been trying to find
all night finally popped into my mind:<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Mary's parents stared straight ahead, like American Gothic had come to
life at Cowpoke's.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Except, of course,
that couple was father and daughter.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I
knew these things.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Nipsorb dooflag," the
poor dear continued.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I hadn't understood
a word.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Words and thought were not her
forte.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When #1 finished, she slid back into
her place in line, like an apology.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Like
she'd messed up a job application at a factory.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Calves like hard balloons, and a nose to match.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One "Yeehah!" was all she got from
the men.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>#2 was much the same.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This one had an accent so hick her teeth stuck
out at every syllable.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>#1 and #2 could
be twins, but weren't.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The one sentence
I understood was a tactical mistake.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"My boyfriend wants me to have
a big chest,"<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>she said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Oh dear.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Don't mention boyfriend in this crowd of men with sex on their minds.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Might as well mention the Virgin Mary, or
their mothers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This one too got a single
"Yeehah!", from the same man, who held up his beer bottle.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Contestant number 3!"
Savannah yelled out, fumbling back the microphone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary stepped from the line, making
the Well-Known DJ look like a squat midget, flat herself.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She looked poised, which was a mistake, but
then she had been doing presentations before commissions and business boards
for years.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Clearly, she had planned her
strategy, while the first two had no strategy.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Go Mary!"--her sister.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Hoots and howls from the
brother-in-law too, and I joined in, my reason for being there.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Three of us, then, cheerleading as loudly as
we could.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The parents remained silent
statues, as if waiting to rescue their daughter from a brothel, and return her
to ankle-length gingham homemade dresses.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>#3 stood with her hands at the waist
of that metallic mini-skirt, ready for a graduate oral exam.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"And why do you want those big
boobs!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The audience hushed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This was odd, because they had continued to
talk and move about rudely while the other two were mumbling.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Respect?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>These men respected no woman, except their mothers who weren't women of
course.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Likely they were just curious,
and respectful in the way employees are to their superintendents.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary was obviously above them in class.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her voice was like a book of Spinoza in a
pile of Tattoo World magazines.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I want my outside to reflect
the inner woman I feel inside," she began, with school-girl
seriousness.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Men, I have found,
don't want slim women, like the models in magazines.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They like more curves than I've been
given.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Inside, I am alive with
sensuality; outside I need help.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And
that is why I need bigger breasts."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thought.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Actual thought.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It seemed to dumbfound the audience.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The sister-husband and I applauded and
yelled, and the audience, as if awakening from sleep, let out a 'yeehaw' or two
as well.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I looked at the nearby men,
expecting them to be laughing at her behind her back, but they didn't.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Enthusiasm?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>No.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A weird kind of respect?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I was sure they were glad when she stopped.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Well all right!" Savannah
exclaimed yet again.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Big knockers
are what we're here for, aren't we boys and girls!?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The DJ was a pro.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She wasn't going to let a brain intrude on
the hormone display, and the men as one raised their beer bottles and yelled in
response.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Back on track.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary, bless her, took her place in
line, and Leilani took two long-legged, physical steps to Savannah, leg muscles
rippling below the perfect, tanned skin peaking from that sarong.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The men in the crowd went nuts.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She knew this crowd.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Poor Mary.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Poor me.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Being smart had done
nothing for me outside the university.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"And now contestant
#4!"<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Savannah shouted.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Nikki.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Why do you want those big plastic boobs!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Instead of answering in words, words
not her medium, Nikki flashed a smile at the crowd, the dazzling result of a
lot of porcelain crowns, shook her shapely hips, the breathtaking result of
many hours in a gym, and took one step forward in her high heels.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Slowly, like a snake its skin, she removed
that sarong, then threw it in the air.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Below, hidden only by a thong
bikini, appeared the lower, luscious, muscled flesh.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The woman was a stripper.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In a flash she pranced around the dance
floor, shaking her exposed bottom, grinding her pelvis.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She had sex with the entire audience of shookened
men.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Leilani's long black hair floated
over the perfect face, like a Pacific sunset.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She was physical perfection, except for the flat chest.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>#4 made two circles around the wall
of men, stopping to stick out her behind at each extreme.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The audience awoke from their sex dreams, and
screamed like they were climaxing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
minor three, the leftovers, stood awkwardly in their row, obeying the rules.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They were the housewives, the obedient, the
dull stretch of months at the middle of a doomed marriage.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Until, that is, Mary stepped forward
and started removing her top.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary's
body was thin, boyish almost, but after she removed her blouse, and after she
slithered out of her mini-skirt the men screamed and hooted for her too.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She enjoyed sex.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That was clear from how Mary also bumped and
ground, imitating Leilana in an amateur, awkward way that had its own
charm.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>All the pr executive was left
with were white lace panties and a black bra that didn't match.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nevertheless, she gave it her all, and the
crowd thanked her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was all right,
but better as somebody else's girlfriend.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Leilani, though, had only to shake
her hips, spread her legs, turning up the heat, for Mary to be forgotten.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And that, in poor sportsmanship, the dream
did.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Poor, dear Mary.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was competing in a field where she didn't
have the equipment.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The customers wanted
bigness, and she had beautiful smallness.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Mind, spirit, soul could wait for those boring days on the household
sofa, before or after a full day's work at the factory.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The men who counted here, out of Mary's
domain, wanted tit and ass.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At some point I turned, in a steam,
my mouth perhaps literally open, and saw first her brother-in-law's look of
amazement, struck as if by a semi-trailer truck.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her sister couldn't stop laughing at the
sight of her straitlaced sibling next to naked before hundreds of male eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I dreaded the rest of the family. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her mother sat more bolt upright, a
matter of an inch, gray, an element of death in that steely black dress that
hid even her throat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her sour face said
without speaking, Wait until I get you home, young lady; you are going before
the preacher.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The father, also a shiv
more bolt, seemed dismayed, not sure what to do.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Incest!<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He had watched his daughter be sexual.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I too felt uneasy, as if I had just had intercourse with their daughter,
while they were in the next room listening through the wall to our moans.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As if I had just had sex with a student in my
office.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>#1 and #2 had to do something.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They clumped around the dance floor, still in
their Wal-Mart two-piece bathing suits.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Next to Leilani and Mary both seemed like men, though the audience
hooted in respect, if that's not a contradiction.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nikki
and Mary worked so hard under the lights they started sweating.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I know.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I stared again at the wet dark skin of Nikki.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe one reason I had lost belief in God was
that I hadn't lost belief in sex, despite a nearly sexless marriage.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The Baptist Church taught that Jesus was
against sex.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sex, in fact, was the
demon, virtue the Virgin Mary.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The body
was a horror, that shriveled and rotted at death.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Celibacy just made me sick.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If I had only met a sensual woman,
instead of the smart woman-student I had predictably landed on at the
University.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Predictable indeed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I wish I had married a whore.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I wished I still believed in God.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Reason was garbage.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I didn't believe in anything, though beyond
50 I desperately needed faith in something.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This was turning into a depressing
night for me.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When the contestants in the Itty
Bitty Titty Contest rejoined into a line beside Savannah, Nikki didn't put back
on her top or her sarong, so neither did Mary.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>She stood there in her mismatched panties and bra, looking scared and
bony.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>My admiration for her had
increased a thousandfold.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What
guts.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>From a feminist perspective she
was a sex object; from outside that cloistered world she was strength.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"All right, ladies and
gentlemen!"<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Savannah intoned into
the mike, like she had a plane to catch out of Redneckville.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Let's hear it for our
contestants!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A man with a shaven head, like
Michael Jordan but white and in a Nascar t-shirt, whistled with two fingers in
his mouth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The crowded began to break
apart.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They had seen what they wanted to
see, and could care less who won.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"The judges will decide the
winner in just a few minutes!" continued Savannah, who sounded
sleepy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Men started hitting on the few
women in the room.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Cowpoke life returned
to normal.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I had no idea Mary had it in
her," stated her sister, a little dumbfounded. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary returned to her family, and me,
her clothes back on, though they were still that golden mini-skirt and low cut
red blouse.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Men passing by yelled "Way
to go!" or just the expressive "Woo woo!"<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And she smiled back at them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was sweating and looked a bit let down.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I don't think I'm going to
win," she said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her brother-in-law
slapped her on the back.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"But I had
to try, you know, Robert."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And she turned to me, actually
pissed off.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"The crowd liked you," I
said, a stupid thing to say.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I was
flustered.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"You did
great."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I was never going to think
I was smart again.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The father mumbled something that
sounded disapproving, and did not smile.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Mary didn't bother glancing at her mother.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the 30 minutes or so I had sat near the
mother, she hadn't said a word.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She
hadn't even moved, a statue titled Chastity.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I had much better ideas to discuss
with Mary, sexuality, intelligence, and always with me, God.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But she disappeared.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I sat amongst the family, the unknown
stranger, and among the young men, like male menopause.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Years seemed to pass before Mary returned
with two Bud Lights, one for me.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She
didn't explain, but sat at my table, facing her sister.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Is that woman a whore or
what?" she said.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Somebody
said she was a 'Personal Trainer.'"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"At least the personal part is
right," I said, trying to cheer her up.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"You were the only one with a brain in the group."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Oh who wants a brain.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Men don't want brains.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even you don't want a brain, I'll bet.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Men want sex and that means big boobs.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>History doesn't want brains.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Business is all about sex.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Wake up, Robert.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even religion is about sex."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Henry Adams concluded that sex
was behind everything," I started my lecture.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"'The Virgin and the Dynamo.'<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sex is the dynamo of all human action, even
thought."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She was upset, and on edge.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The manic quality I admired in Mary spilled
over at times into paranoia.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I wanted to
tell her she was fabulous.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I want to
tell her a feeling I had swelling up inside me that wasn't thought and wasn't
sex, but was, maybe, love.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But I
couldn't, of course.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not then, not ever.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I felt incredibly old, like an elderly cab
driver taking Mary and her lover home.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A silence grew, a silence during
which I turned to my death and senility.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The only alternatives to love.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Mary . . ," I started,
but she looked at me like she was examining the detailed brush strokes of a
painting, and began talking about fiscal years, adjusting tax ledgers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I laughed, and that laugh maybe saved me.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I'll call you," she said,
take charge.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Somebody had to take charge
of me, Lord knows.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I was hopeless to
start anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>My only hope for love
was if some woman loved me first, and grabbed me by the lapels.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I'm just really pissed right now, about
a lot of things."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Call me," I said,
flustered.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And
at that point our gracious hostess entered the arena once more.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"We have a winner!"
Savannah announced, and the men sort of thickened into the oval again, and sort
of quietened a little.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mostly, they
ignored her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"This is it," Mary said,
standing to leave.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To her list of
virtues I added innocence.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Despite the
obvious defeat, she tingled with anticipation that she might win, and that
plastic tits might lead to a prince. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The four women formed their line,
headed by Leilani.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She smiled and waved
at the crowd of men, fewer than before.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Third runner up, second runner up,
and the fates of the two dyed blondes were settled.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A little polite applause.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They didn't even get so much as a certificate
for their humiliation.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Such would be
their marriages, their children, their lives.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nikki and Mary stood side by
side.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They even held hands.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary, poor woman, still glowed with the
goodness of life.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The possibilities were
endless for a pr executive with an M.A. in religious history and big
boobs.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Just don't teach, Mary.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Gather power instead.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>My feelings had fallen to my feet.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The contrast was too much.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"First runner up is . .
.!" Savannah intoned, waving the sheet from the judges.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Get it over with.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"First runner up is . . .!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Mary!" </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not even a last name.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nikki strutted around the dance floor in a
victory march, still bumping and grinding, still jutting out that round
beautiful behind.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The tour complete she
arrived at Savannah, who handed her the microphone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The winner grabbed it, like fame, and mumbled
something that might have been thanks.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Clearly words weren't her medium; dance and sex were.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Words, concepts, were secondary, focused but
false.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I had spent my life in their
waiting room.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The stripper made another victory
lap.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Well, she'd look complete with
those breasts.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Leilana would walk into a
restaurant, and every male face would turn to her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Every female face would turn to her in anger.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Every day, the rest of her life.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even when she aged, the boobs wouldn't.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the grave, she'd be a skeleton, but the
boobs would be smooth, still alive.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her
breasts would achieve immortality while the rest of us, seer and billionaire,
rotted.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The awful thing was over.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Mary slumped back into her knot of
supporters, we who consoled her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even
the mother unthawed to pat her on the shoulder.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"I knew I wasn't going to win
the minute I saw her," Mary told me, sitting at my table.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She sounded deeply disappointed.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Didn't you win second
prize?" I asked.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"$2,000?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Heah, you're right," she
spoke up.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>From defeated sheep suddenly
it was as if a steel rod had been inserted through her body.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Though I suspected second prize was a rip
off, discount coupons maybe, Mary's fine, thin face turned from dejection,
inferiority, and shame into mission.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
executive, and brilliant graduate student, roared to life.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"$2,000.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I'll have to see about this."<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And off she flew, with a hard
expression, and a heart full of righteousness. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959441361040830084.post-7237212042505457242016-10-01T16:29:00.001-05:002016-10-01T16:29:13.400-05:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> Danny
Armour</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
friend Danny went too deep below</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the
top of the Atlantic Ocean.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Soon
now</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the cave opening</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>would
come</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
he would not breathe as he had breathed</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for thirty-five years.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The
hose</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>had
broken apart</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that's all</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the bubbles had flown like</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fair balloons on strings</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">he'd
bought</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He was lost</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in
rock</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>alike as lawns and windows</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of his neighbors but</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fifty</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>feet undersea</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where men</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>shouldn't be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He'd never dive</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>again, not dollars</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">for
air. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never dive</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where he</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>wasn't welcome like back home</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the woods of Tennessee. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in -0.5in 0pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in -0.5in 0pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in -0.5in 0pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
David Flynnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01845679427246310329noreply@blogger.com0