The Schnippets Collection

Short-Short Stories

by

Joshua D. Dinman
(schĭnp' ĭt) n. - a short-short story, kind of a cross combining
the tenacity of a miniature schnauzer and the speed of a
whippet. Also called "flash fiction," "sudden fiction," and palm of
the hand stories" by Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata.

Paris first appeared in Toasted Cheese, Vol 4, 2004

The Glamour of Business Travel #1 first appeared in Skive
Susquehanna first appeared in The Write Side Up, Issue 1, January 2007
Dead Charlies first appeared in Skive, June 2007

©1990 – 2009 Joshua D. Dinman

 Contents

Paris………………………………………...…………….3
Imagined Lives of the Dead.………………………5
An Evening at the Ritz………………………………8
The Glamour of Business Travel #1:
The American on the Beach………………….16
The Next Great Conqueror of Asia..…………..18
You’re Only Eighteen Once. Aren’t You?.....22
Autumn………………………………………………….24
My Mother’s Humming………………..………….26
We Never Talk Anymore………………………….28
The Glamour of Business Travel #2:
The Poolside Restaurant..…………………….30
Dead Charlies…………….……………………………33
T-Minus Two….……………………………………….35
Susquehanna……………………………………..……37
The House…….………………………………………..41
Neighbor Jones………....……………………………43
Love Song…………………..…………………………..46
Watching the Sun Set on a Summer
Evening With Two Survivors......…………….47
A Minimalist Love Story……………………………49
 Paris

Then there was Paris. We were miserable. It was very hot. We were in a little hotel on a

street off the Rue de Magenta a few blocks from the Gar de Nord. The hotel looked in on

a courtyard shared with an apartment co-op whose tenants celebrated the end of July and

the coming vacances.

We spent five days there at the height of the worst heat wave on record. Enduring

sweltering nights wrapped in hotel linen, we counted the days to our departure. She

maintains we made love once. I do not remember. Love, the making of it, does not ring

a bell.

Late on our last night, the courtyard echoed with the sounds of a man and a

woman making love. The expressions of the lovers resonated through the courtyard. The

woman cried out, "Oui monsieur. Oh oui, monsieur, merci monsieur."

And she said, "She's faking it. No woman really feels that way. She's acting.

Maybe she's a whore. Listen to the way she calls him monsieur."

"Yes," I agreed, stroking her thigh.

She took my hand from between her legs.

"So?" I asked.

"No woman cries out something like that while in the throes of passion," she said.

"No?" I asked, thinking of other loves.

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 "Not that way," she replied. "There are whispers, cries, moans, but that woman's

faking."

So we listened to the lovers the way you listen to an amateur orchestra, listening

for squeaky notes, misplaced fingerings. We lay there nearly naked, so close that our

sweat intermingled and yet we were as distant as foreign moons. We waited, and listened,

to the gurgled ripple of laughter passing from throat to throat of the apartment revelers

drinking to their impending vacations, to the woman’s theatrical, impassioned cries and

to the man’s animal grunting, all commingling above the courtyard. In the sweltering

Paris night, the lovers' lies became transparent, and their voices were joined by others, a

swirl of laughter, of moans and breaking glass, an orgiastic swirl that echoed through the

court as though the heat had finally gone to the entire feverish city’s head.

She turned and traced her finger down the length of my spine, drawing her tongue

across my sticky Adam’s apple.

And in the infinite heavens, the Great Deceiver smiled.

4
 Imagined Lives of the Dead

We're at an estate sale and Marta is getting pissed off because I'm looking through

photo albums. "It's so morbid, looking through dead people's memories," she says. She’s

got this throaty German accent that makes her sound scary and sexy even when she isn’t

trying. "We're looking for a bed for me anyway. Look for a bed," she insists. I ignore

her and look through the albums, at photographs of boys holding fishing poles and trophy

fish, of group shots at family reunions, snapshots of naked children in bathtubs. A

woman who looks disturbingly like my grandmother appears in many of them.

"Does anyone buy the photos?" I ask the woman sitting at a card table with a

ledger and a small cash box. She sits very upright and tells me that sociologists

sometimes buy the albums for their research.

"They count how many women have beehive hairdos, how many family members

suffer from hair loss and the like," she says, sounding every bit the part of the

schoolmarm. "They tell me it's a very important research tool."

"Will you come on," Marta pleads, leaning over the railing half way up the stairs

already. "We have four more sales to hit after this one," she says. "I want to get there

before all the good stuff's gone.” She hrumphs and frowns at me. “You can be so

morbid sometimes, looking at dead people's pictures."

I follow after her up the stairs. "Well you want to buy a dead person's bed," I say.

"That's pretty creepy too, you know."

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 She stops where she is and thinks for a second. "That's different, beds aren't

people's, you know."

"What does that mean?" I ask. "That doesn't even make sense."

"I'm a foreigner, I don't have to make sense," she replies as we reach the landing.

"I don't care, I want a bed, even if somebody died in it two days ago!"

Two ladies who are just emerging from a back bedroom stare at Marta.

"Shit," Marta mutters as she head toward the master bedroom dominated by a

huge walnut four-poster bed. The bedposts are as thick as trees. It reminds me of the

huge bed in my grandparents’ old house I'd played on when I was very young.

"It's very, uh, big," I say.

"It's beautiful," Marta whispers. She crawls onto the light blue mattress and runs

her hand over the material. She sits in the middle of the bed and reclines on her elbows,

drawing her leg up, a mischievous look crossing her face.

"This isn't right," I say. "Maybe we should go to Mattress World."

"I don't want to go to Mattress World," she insists, still leaning back on her

elbows. "I want to have you on this bed.” Sensing my unease, she tosses her hair back

with one hand, and unfastens one of the buttons of her blouse.

The two ladies walk into the room. One quickly turns away, but the other just stands

there, frowning at Marta. She stands firm in the doorway looking from Marta to me,

before turning to join her friend.

"What was their problem?" Marta asks as she crawls off the bed. She looks at me.

"What?"

I stare at her.

6
 "Oh." Marta bites her lip regretfully. We walk back down the stairs in silence,

and she turns to me when we reach the bottom.

"I want to buy it," she says, squeezing my hand. Before I can say anything she

walks up to the lady at the card table and starts negotiating a price.

The old ladies gingerly walk down the stairs glaring at Marta and then at the sales

lady. They shuffle towards the door with their eyes trained on the floor, clutching each

other’s arms.

At a table by the window, an old man is looking through the photo albums. He

looks at me and I turn away, pretending to examine the titles of the books on a bookshelf.

Out of the corner of my eye I see him tear a page out of an album and slip it into the

pocket of his coat.

"I can give it to her for three hundred," the sales lady says to me. "There’s no

family left, so I can give you a deal."

Marta smiles at me and writes out the check, and the old man tugs on the lady's

sleeve and asks if there are any picture frames for sale.

7
 An Evening at the Ritz

Regis Grabowsky sat at the bar, cleaning out his wallet. Dean watched him, wiping

glasses, wearing his white apron like some bartender in an old photograph. It was the last

Thursday before Christmas. They were alone. The afternoon shift at the mill wouldn't let

out until six-thirty. The neighborhood regulars wouldn't arrive until after dinnertime.

Regis sorted the photographs first. The picture of his wife Ginny was ten years

old. So were the snapshots of his sons, muscular college men now, so different from the

smiling, tow-headed boys in the school pictures from his worn billfold.

He made two piles - trash and keepers. He threw a small stack of bent business

cards with his old title into the trash pile. Now that he was a vice president, he didn’t

need them. He paused, then fished one out and threw it on the keepers pile for

perspective. He threw his country club membership card in with the trash. He knew that

number by heart. On the keepers pile he heaped a small mountain of credit card and

ATM receipts.

"It’s like looking through one of those low-budget museums you see on the side of

the road," he said, staring at a hundred-dollar bill he held in both hands. "You

know-Bob's Exxon and Indian Museum? Something like that. The shithouse life of

Regis Grabowsky."

"Uh oh," Dean said, “get out your handkerchiefs.”

Regis smiled.

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 "The boys coming home for the holidays?" Dean asked.

"Nope," Regis replied staring at the pile of yellow credit card receipts. "Bobby's

out West skiing with a college buddy's family. Jeff's in Florida for some fraternity

thing."

"Lifestyles of the rich and famous," Dean said.

"Yeah," Regis snorted. "I raised a couple of playboys."

"It's a lot different from when we were growing up," Dean offered.

"Yeah," Regis chuckled, examining Ben Franklin's image on the hundred-dollar

bill. "Real different."

Dean shrugged and turned his attention to dusting the top shelf bottles and the

neon Iron City Beer sign behind him. The silence was broken as a young couple entered

the bar. They hesitated, a light dusting of snow clinging to their coats and hair. Behind

them through the open door Regis could see the snow falling steadily. Most of it fell

straight down, but some of it, carried by a gentle updraft, floated skyward.

"Well, come in if you're gonna," Dean growled.

Regis smiled into his beer. Dean liked to fancy himself a gruff old barkeep. Regis

knew was just a big softie.

"Is this a hotel?" the young man asked. In his hand he held an overnight bag. The

door closed gently behind him.

"We don't let rooms," Dean replied gruffly.

“The sign says Ritz Hotel,” the boy said.

“I know,” Dean replied, “but we don’t let rooms.”

"Are you full?" the girl asked.

9
 "No," Dean replied, losing his patience. "This is a bar, we don't rent rooms."

"You don’t have any rooms?" the young man asked again.

Dean's face reddened.

"We have one room, always have. Never let it out," Dean said. He crossed his

arms. The young couple stared at him blankly.

"It’s there from the old days," Regis said. "To get around the blue laws against

serving liquor on Sundays."

The girl looked at the two men as if they were touched. The young man nodded as

though he only half-understood. His hair was curly and unkempt, shaved high and tight

around his temples. He was tall and thin with the face of a child not yet grown into his

manhood. The girl wore his college letterman jacket. It was so big on her she almost

disappeared in it. Her long hair was pulled back in a ponytail, revealing her fine, angular

face. Her skin was almost white. She seemed to shine standing next to the dark young

man.

They reminded Regis of the friends his sons brought with them from college on

their infrequent visits home. They had an air of a world completely removed from the

hollows and the steel mills.

“We can’t stay here but we can get a beer on Sunday. Right?" the girl asked.

"Look, honey," Dean said, "you can get a beer anywhere on Sunday nowadays.

They changed the law."

"I understand," she replied, smiling impatiently. "It just doesn't make sense."

"Dean's not good at making sense," Regis said.

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 "Look," Dean said, softening up a bit, "there's one of them Knight's Inns by the

highway. I can give you directions if you want."

"How much are rooms there?" the young man asked.

Dean shrugged and looked at Regis.

"Don't look at me," Regis said. "It's not like I'm a regular over there."

"Probably thirty bucks a night," Dean said.

The couple considered their options. The boy whispered something to the girl.

Regis watched as she listened. When she replied, she gently took his hand in hers. He

thought of his own sons and remembered how tender he and Ginny were so long ago. A

sudden sense of sadness overcame him watching the boy and girl standing at the end of

the bar.

He thought of the snow falling silently outside. It would fall in the hollows and

on the hills, covering the road and the banks of McLaughlin Run, stained orange by the

acid run-off from the abandoned mines. The snow would fall on the steel mill and the

chemical plant on the other side of town. And it would fall, too, on the wide lawn and the

shingle roof of his five bedroom colonial house in the subdivision on the hill where

Ginny was probably wondering why he was late.

"Look," Dean said to the kids, "have a beer while you think things out. It’s on

me."

“Could I have a water please?” the girl asked, almost apologetically.

“Sure, whatever,” Dean replied. He drew a drought from the tap and slid it down

the length of the bar to where the young couple sat. The young man smiled in

appreciation of Dean’s performance. Dean walked the girl’s water to her. Sitting at the

11
end of the long bar in the dark, brownish light of the room, the two of them looked

impossibly small.

Regis watched them and wondered who they were. The girl hung the letterman

jacket she’d been wearing on a peg. The leather was shiny and new. He thought of his

sons' high school letter jackets that hung in the hall closet at home. They didn't wear them

anymore. They were college men, they'd told him, college men don’t wear high school

letter jackets. Their mother had taken to wearing them to do outside work.

The young man sat up on his barstool, leaning toward Regis and Dean.

"We could pay you twenty dollars to stay in the room upstairs," he said.

"Look, you can't stay here," Dean said. "This ain’t a hotel.”

“Listen, I’ll loan you the money for the motel, okay?” Regis interrupted, losing

his patience all of a sudden.

"We couldn't," said the young girl.

"Yes you can," he replied. "It ain't like it's a thousand bucks."

The young man looked at the girl.

“Give me your address then, so we can pay you back,” she said.

“You don’t have to,” he replied.

"We want to," she said. "You're very kind."

"Yeah, whatever," he replied, looking downward and fumbling with the receipts

piled on the bar in front of him.

By the time they stepped outside, about half a foot of snow had fallen. Dean stood

at the front door as Regis and the young couple stepped onto the parking lot.

12
 The snow fell without a sound, illuminated in the street lamp like moths circling

the light on summer evenings. Large, sweet flakes stuck to their coats and in their hair.

The "Drink 7-Up" sign above the door flickered as Dean turned it on. Under the

soft drink logo the words "The Ritz Hotel" were painted in faded block letters. A car

passed on the road moving slowly, the snow a muffled crunch under its tires.

The boy wiped the snow off a ratty-looking two-seater sports car. It was the only

other car in the small lot besides Regis’ Buick. Regis gave the girl directions to the motel

and pulled the one hundred-dollar bill from his billfold, which he folded over several

times before pressing it into her hand and turning toward his car.

"You didn't give me your address," she called after him.

"Forget it," he replied, his back to her.

"Give me a business card then" she insisted, making her way to where he stood.

Regis hesitated, then pulled out his billfold again and handed her one of his new

cards. She held it in both hands.

"Regis," she said. "King."

"Yeah," he replied, unsure of what to say

"I bet your kids think you're a pretty good dad," she said.

"Eh, I don't know," he muttered.

"No," she said, "I bet they do."

"Yeah, well," he replied.

She smiled then suddenly kissed him gently on the cheek before turning away.

"Be careful, with the roads and all," he called after her.

13
 The car pulled away, the snow crunching under its tires. Dean asked Regis if he

was all right.

"Yeah," he replied. "Goodnight," he said, though Dean had already headed back

inside. He stood alone, idly fumbling the coins in his pocket, looking up at the snow-

covered trees clinging to the steep hillside. His feet were cold. The snow was melting

through the soles of his black tassel loafers. He tried to remember the words of the poem

they’d made them read in high school about the man and his horse stopping in the woods,

but he couldn't remember.

Across the road and the creek that flowed alongside it, the pines on the hill were

weighed down with snow. The woods were silent and beautiful, covered by the white

blanket. As children he and Dean had romped among those trees playing cowboys and

Indians. They'd stood lookout for their fathers trudging home from the mill with their

lunch pails in their hands, their heavy work boots dragging on the macadam. The men

always stopped at the Ritz for a shot and a beer, even when they worked the graveyard

shift and got off at 9:00 a.m.

Regis thought of his big empty house up on Rolling Meadow Road, and of its

wide, bare lawn. The saplings he had planted there would resemble the trees on the hill

in a hundred years perhaps. It seemed he'd traveled a thousand miles since he was a boy

growing up in the row house within walking distance of the mill and the mine. Instead he

had traversed only three miles from the hollow to the subdivision up on the hill with its

vinyl siding, its manicured lawns and Buick sedans.

For some reason, he wanted to wade across the creek like he and Dean had when

they were kids and climb the hill and knock the snow from the pines. Instead, he stood in

14
the parking lot watching the snow gently cover the tire tracks left by the young couple's

car. The large flakes continued to fall, filling the deep tire tracks. In twenty minutes they

would be completely covered over, erasing all evidence that they had been there at all.

15
 The Glamour of Business Travel #1: The American on the Beach

He stands with one hand on his hip, a Heineken in the other, at the very northern edge of

South America, flirting with the two-dollar whores at Le Snack Bar truck parked on the

beach. He buys them each a beer and with saccharine smiles they insult him in French,

twittering as he replies unwittingly: “Samba?” Dance?” Rain clouds momentarily darken

the searing tropical sky. Palm trees sway, chattering in the breeze and Le Matron covers

her impossibly sagging breasts as a few passing raindrops pockmark the sand.

He came here hoping to check out the topless European girls and dark chocolate

skinned Caribbeans in their thongs. To his disappointment the beach is empty this

afternoon except for grandma with her brown titties hanging below her hips, and the

whores drinking their beers, biding their time until nightfall and the nightclubs, and

drinking, and dancing and sex with the soldiers from the Foreign Legion.

“I gotta find some other way to make another living,” he says out loud, staring

into his beer. He doesn’t want to die an old man, his lips firmly puckered from kissing

customers' asses. He sighs then checks his watch. The Japanese will land at the airport at

seven. And their impossible demands will start as soon as they get off the plane.

‘Stanley-san, we go to zoo tomorrow?’ They don’t care that he's scheduled a luncheon at

the foreign minister's house a hundred kilometers in the opposite direction of the zoo.

He shakes his head angrily and takes a hard swig of his beer. Le Matron uncovers

her boobs as the blinding sun emerges from behind the clouds. A dazzlingly beautiful

teenage girl with firm high young breasts arrives at the beach with her mother. He

watches intently. Le mama unceremoniously slips out of her sarong, bearing lopsided

16
and leathery suntanned breasts. The girl shimmies out of her shorts. He stares hungrily

in anticipation. No thong. She doesn’t even take off her T-shirt! You can see him

scream “goddamn-it” to himself. Cautiously, the girl makes her way to the water, brown

and murky at the mouth of the jungle river, and walks along the sand without a shred of

self-confidence, despite her devastating beauty. Le mama watches her and sighs

dismissively, shaking her head, rehashing a thousand disappointments in her mind. The

whores watch, their faces falling, remembering their innocence perhaps, before re-

assuming their tough, bored expressions. He takes a last long pull on his beer, emptying

the bottle, staring hard at the girl as though he might be able to will her out of her shirt

and bikini top by sheer suggestion.

The whores' laughter sails on the breeze as the sun beats mercilessly down upon

them, the young girl, and the topless matrons. His face pink and sunburned, the

American turns toward the litter-strewn parking lot, the airport and the Japanese charter.

The palm trees sway in the sea breeze, their fronds clattering their tropic sarabande, the

nonstop jungle rhythm of cheap sex, warm beer, meaninglessness and decay.

17
 The Next Great Conqueror of Asia

He’s traveling with his secretary, which is like vacationing with an annoying aunt,

except he can’t tell his secretary to shut the fuck up because that would result in a

shitstorm of lawyers and annoying yentas from HR, and as bad as escorting her around is,

that would be worse.

“Oooh shopping!” she exclaims. “Stop the car! Stop the car! I promised the girls

at the office that I’d bring them something.”

The interpreter eyes him in the rearview mirror.

“Stop?”

“Yeah, whatever,” he replies.

The interpreter tells the driver to pull over. He makes a sharp turn at the town’s

only shopping center, a gaudy building that looks more like a discotheque than a mall.

Passersby stare at the enormous American SUV as it comes to a stop. The interpreter

makes a call on his cell phone. The driver sighs, then steps out into the frigid, bright

Kazakh afternoon.

18
 Women in fur coats and high heeled boots pull children on sleds along the

sidewalk. The children, bundled against the cold stare at the foreigners, their Asiatic

faces full of wonder and curiosity.

Inside, the mall is a warren of cold, dimly lit hallways with sullen-faced Kazaks

shopping for linens, pirated music MP3s, and shiny polyester clothing. The glitzy

exterior is just a façade for the dark and crumbling soviet-era structure inside.

His secretary oohs and ahhs over gaudily painted Matrushka dolls.

“How much?” she shouts at he sad-faced shopkeeper.

The translator, by far the cheeriest Russian he has ever met, dutifully if not

entirely enthusiastically, negotiates a price. In the end she is happy to overpay 200%.

He rolls his eyes and stamps his feet to ward off the chill.

A band of little ruffians race down the corridors darting between shoppers and

wary-eyed shopkeepers.

“Hello!” they declare, their eyes full of devilry and false cheer. “USA?”

“Yeah, USA,” he replies, thinking the little imps are destined either for the

reformatory or local office. “Here’s a buck, kid. Don’t spend it all in once place,” he

says in his best movie gangster voice. He hands a dollar bill to each of the five urchins.

Once she’s blown through a couple thousand rubles on gifts, they make their way

back to the car, the boys racing around them until she climbs into the SUV with the

assistance of the interpreter who holds her shopping bags and rolls her eyes as she tries to

heft her fat ass into the vehicle.

“You didn’t buy anything!” she declares, almost dumbfounded.

19
 “Nothing caught my fancy,” he replies, studying the Mongol features of the

people passing by. On an enormous steam pipe raised above the frozen ground, a sleepy

eyed cat luxuriates in the sunshine.

The boys race around the car, waving and smiling until the driver pulls away.

They bump along ice-covered streets lined with brightly painted housing blocks, one

more hopeful and dismal than the next in the blinding winter sunshine.

***

As he enters #33 housing block T, the dollar bill falls from Dmitri’s coat pocket

onto the linoleum floor of his mother’s kitchen.

“Where did you get this?” she cries, picking the crisp bank note from the floor

and holding it accusingly in the air.

“An American…at the shops. He gave it to me,” he cries, leaping in vain to

retrieve the bill from her hands.

A compact woman with a round dark Kazakh face and blue eyes thanks to the

Russian father she’s never met, she raises the bill above her head with one hand and

deftly swats Dmitri on the side of the head with the other.

“But mommy…it’s the truth!” he cries, holding his hand to the red welt rising on

his cheek.

She puts the bill under the sugar tin high on the cupboard.

“How many times have I warned you about stealing from the shopkeepers, you

little monster,” she cries as he shuffles toward his room.

***

20
 As they approach the airfield his secretary gasps in horror. “My wallet. My

wallet! I’ve lost my wallet. We have to go back. Tell him! We have to go back!”

The translator shakes his head and says it’s impossible.

“Impossible?” she shrieks.

“You have passport, yes?” he asks, knowing full well she has it safely stashed

inside of her coat.

“Yes, but…” She sputters.

“Is okay then,” he says.

“No is not okay!” she screams., “We have to go back.”

“Impossible,” the Russian replies coolly. End of story, no argument.

***

In a tiny frigid bedroom that had originally been a balcony but has been inexpertly

enclosed by his father, Dmitri stealthily counts and recounts the fat American lady’s

dollar bills and rubles, a king’s ransom exceeding any he could have ever imagined. As

he examines the strange credit cards and the round white porcine face on the woman’s

driver’s license, he imagines the white stallion he will someday buy to ride across the

steppes to the West, to find his long-lost grandfather and take his rightful place beside

him as the next great conqueror of Asia.

21
 You're Only Eighteen Once. Aren't You?

I never remember names. I remember other things, strange things, trivial things

about people, the way they laughed, their favorite song, but I don't remember names.

There are about fifteen names in my life and there probably always will be. Everyone

else, well, they're lost.

I remember Tazz. But I only remember him because someone brought his name

up in a conversation the other day. What I do remember is a lacrosse game we played

against Wheeling College. I have the ball and I'm running down the sideline and Tazz is

singing a B52's song -- the one where the guy sings: "What's that on your head?" And

the girls reply: "A wig!"

"What's that on your head? A wig! What's that on your head? A wig! Woo,

woo! What's that on your head." He's singing this over and over, even while he's

breaking toward the goal motioning for me to pass the ball to him. And I call an "iso,"

and he draws the defenseman around the back of the goal perfectly, opening a lane for me

to lose the big galoot of a defenseman who's riding me, and I take a shot on goal, and the

net ripples as the ball hits it, and the ref blows his whistle and holds his hands above his

head as he runs to the scorer's table and says, "goal, number thirty-nine, blue, unassisted."

And Tazz is still singing "what's that on your head?" And if I close my eyes, I can still

see the net flutter as my shot sneaks past the goalie's stick. That's the sweetest sight there

is in lacrosse, the sweetest sight in the world.

22
 Another example: I can't remember the name of the guy who used to ride down

with me to games in my old Datsun 280ZX, but he'd smoke joints and I'd gun the motor

as we flew around curves on sweet smelling spring days, traveling to small colleges in the

Pennsylvania hills. If we could manage, we'd get beers before we left campus and drink

them as we drove. There is no better feeling than driving back roads on the way to a

game with the smell of spring in your nostrils and a beer in your hand on a Saturday

morning when you're eighteen years old, and what's his name is smoking a joint sitting

next to you in the passenger's seat.

I have made love to beautiful women; rich girls who make love to you wearing

nothing but a strand of pearls, and girls whose daddies aren't rich, who wear nothing

more than the natural beauty god gave them, and you know a god has to exist to have

created such beautiful women, endowing them with little more than beauty and the

deeper truths the debutante girls could never know.

But not even they could equal the smell of promise of a spring morning when the

grass is new and sweeter than summer corn, when the air smells of fresh earth and you're

waiting to play lacrosse with a bunch of guys whose names you'll forget soon enough.

And you know that feeling will stay with you for the rest of your life, like the fiery colors

of autumn and the silent snowfalls of winter nights that never let you forget that you're

only eighteen once in your life and you can never go back. Never.

23
 Autumn

The puppy's gotta pee in the middle of the night. On my way through the kitchen I notice

the clock on the microwave reads 1:58 a.m. and something registers in my brain that

yesterday was the autumnal equinox. So it’s autumn now.

Outside it’s cool. The dog holds its snout high in the air taking in the night scents.

It smells like autumn. It smells like summer packing its bags and heading south, like

winter hiding around the next corner waiting to kick you in the balls when you least

expect it. It smells of wood fire and fungus, of diatomic earth, wet dogs, and the warm

beds of lovers dank with slumber.

I think of old loves, of the beds we shared in apartments in drafty old houses with

creaky floorboards and temperamental radiators. I think of those girls and they will

always be girls to me. I’d fall in love in autumn. By summertime it was usually over.

Still, I’d take five consecutive autumns over 10 sweaty summers any day. How could

you ever tire of caramel apples or Halloween or cool crisp nights or falling in love and

bringing your new girl home for Thanksgiving? Could you ever get bored of jack-o-

lanterns glowing on doorsteps? Forget the plastic costumes and latex masks kids wear

nowadays. No, there’s always one kid who shows up at your door dressed in a bedsheet,

and memories of your childhood come flooding back, of stale candy hardening in your

sock drawer that you couldn’t bring yourself to eat because somehow that would mean

the end of Halloween, or childhood, or innocence, or something.

24
 It’s autumn now, when fathers berate their kids to rake the damn leaves, and

freeze their asses off in pumpkin patches out in the country or in shopping mall parking

lots – suburban “punkin patches” with a little straw strewn on the blacktop and gourds

spilling from the back of tractor trailers. Inevitably, at least one kid ends up bawling

because all the “good” pumpkins are gone.

“Just pick a damn pumpkin,” the father growls. The mommy shoots him a dirty

look, and he turns and sips warm cider from a Styrofoam cup, thinking of the receptionist

at the office with her tight little mini skirts. Hhe wonders how the hell his life turned out

this way.

And now, in the middle of the night that guy pauses at the window, unable to

sleep, watching me standing in my backyard waiting for the dog to pee. It’s fall now, he

thinks, opening a window to let the night air in. He remembers bringing his new girl

home for Thanksgiving, and thinks of old lovers, of his childhood, his hometown, and his

parents, long ago laid in their graves. His wife stirs and tells him to come back to bed.

It smells like autumn, like hay rides and apple cider, and leaf mold and black rot

and death. After a moment he turns from the window and crawls back into bed, curling

up next to his wife. And the dog sits at my feet looking up at me, wondering why the hell

I’m crying.

25
 My Mother’s Humming

My mother hums all the time. It's what makes my mother my mother. It is her

signature. Once, a lady from the old neighborhood recognized my mother's humming in

a rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike.

"Leila?" the woman asked from the next stall. "Is that you?" My mother hadn't

seen the woman in twenty years, and didn't recognize the woman. It could have been an

embarrassing moment, but my mother just smiled and pretended to remember her,

without missing a beat. Just about nothing fazes my mother. Later, as we drove north of

Youngstown, she recalled the woman's name and laughed for three miles straight.

Because of her humming, I never lost my mother when I was young. I simply

had to remain very still and listen for her quiet melody. As a child, I thought she

hummed her song just for me--it was, I assumed, a homing beacon, a call home.

Her song had no distinguishable melody, it was just a song, her song. As far as I

can recall, the humming stopped only once, when my grandfather died. My uncle had

called from the hospital to tell my mother. She hung up the phone and stood with her

arms at her sides, looking around as though she were confused, then sat down on the floor

and cried.

I wanted to say something to her, but I was frozen where I stood. The silence of

the room, and the absence of song in the air, scared me.

My mother was born in Germany but for the longest time I thought she grew up

in Ohio. Her family escaped before the war, and she had grown up in Philadelphia. She

hadn't moved to Ohio until after she married my father. Since then, she has lived in

Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania. I imagined my mother as a product of Ohio

somehow, like my brothers and sisters. They laugh and sing the line from a song they

26
learned in kindergarten--"Ohio, where the residents keep on raising presidents"--and I can

only smile with them. I was born somewhere else.

I can imagine my mother growing up on a farm, from "good stock" as they say

out in Ohio. I can see her standing in the yard by the edge of a cornfield, watching the

orange sunset, humming.

She says she remembers a Nazi rally in 1938. She went with her class.

"I sieg heiled. I didn't know better."

Her aunts and uncles were killed in the camps.

"We were lucky to escape."

"At the station. We took what we could"

"The suitcases on the platform, who would claim them?"

"I did not want to leave Germany," she says.

"I did not want to go to a strange land."

My mother laughs a lot, she has a good sense of humor. Sometimes I can't believe

how happy she can be, considering everything. If someone is laughing or humming a

song in our house, it's usually my mother. I guess she doesn't dwell too much on the past;

this is her home now. She belongs--whether she's in Ohio or not. As long as she is alive,

my mother will be humming; Canton and Akron, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh--Dachau,

Treblinka, Auschwitz, Birkenau-- Chicago, Toledo and Kalamazoo.

27
 We Never Talk Anymore

“We never talk anymore,” she says suddenly.

“We talk,” he replies. “Kind of.”
“We don’t really talk. We just pass each other during the course of the day. We
chat, but we don’t talk, talk.”
“We can talk now. What should we talk about?”
“I dunno,” she replies, the corners of her eyes curling into a kittenish smile.
“Fer chrissakes,” he sighs, putting down his magazine. He points to the bedstand.
“So…whatcha reading?”
“The Stories of John Cheever,” she says, glancing at her nightstand without
raising her head from the pillow. “I just finished The Swimmer.”
“I vaguely recall —a guy decides to make his way across the county by
swimming through peoples’ backyard pools.”
“Good memory.”
“Great. I can’t remember where I put my car keys, but I remember a story from
an American Lit 101 course a decade ago.
“I’m not sure I really like the story. The ending’s kind of unsatisfying,” she says.
“He’s swimming across the county and all of a sudden he’s traveled through time. When
he makes it home, the yard is overgrown and the house is empty inside.”
“Wife and kids gone, nobody home,” he says. “I remember.”
“I had a professor who said every short story could end with “And after that
nothing was the same.” I mean I get it, but why does every story have to be about some
incredible, life changing experience? Real life isn’t like that.”
“They have to,” he replies. “Real life is boring. It’s bad enough we have to live it,
who wants to read about it too?”
“Do you think our life’s boring?”

28
 “No. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean yeah, life is boring a lot. Driving to work.
Sitting at work. Driving home from work….”
“Repeatedly fucking your wife when she’s ovulating so she can have a baby…”
“So we can have a baby. You know I want this too.”
“You’re sweet,” she says, touching his face. “It’s just so frustrating.” She turns
her head away. The room is so silent that he can hear the air rushing through the
ductwork. A tear creeps from her eye and rolls down her face. It falls onto the
pillowcase making a small blot on the cotton. She sniffs. “I’m sorry. This isn’t very
romantic is it?
“It’s all right,” he says, sighing. “Look, I’m ready to go again. Want to turn out
the light?”
“What’s the point? Let’s just get it over with.”
“And after that nothing was the same,” he whispers.
“Shut up,” she protests, wiping a tear away as she tries to smile for him. The grin falls

away and she closes her eyes, her brow furrowed in concentration. She wraps her legs

around him. He does not turn out the light.

29
 The Glamour of Business Travel #2: The Poolside Restaurant

Outside it's raining like a motherfucker, my sweet. According to the travel guide, the wet

season is supposed to be over, but it isn't. So much for the travel guide. Rain falls in

sheets, smacking the patio outside like a thousand hands smacking a thousand asses. The

hotel is mostly empty now. The Japanese and Americans, the English and the few pale

Germans and Norwegians are gone.

The restaurant is nearly empty too. In a wicker chair in the lounge, a

distinguished looking gray-haired gentleman watches TV, his mouth agape, the universal

guy-watching-television expression on his face. Seated next to him his younger, once-

trophy wife, more plump with age but still a looker, watches the program in disgust, her

hoped-for night of romance or passion or whatever thwarted by bad French TV.

The weightlifter, his ebony forearms heavily veined and muscled, drinks Perrier

alone at a table waiting for his date. He gets up and circles the dining room anxiously,

waiting for her arrival.

A group of Frenchmen entertain two Mexican businessmen, but it's soon apparent

that it’s the same old Mexican story - big ideas but no financing. The French soon ignore

their guests and go about their dinner, conversing loudly amongst themselves,

acknowledging their still-smiling but discouraged guests from time to time. Two couples

out for the evening occupy another table. One of the women holds a nasty little dog.

30
Fucking French and their yippy dogs. Not that I hate the French, really. It’s just that I'm

stuck here in this tropical steam bath on the tip of nowhere in South America, and I miss

you, my love.

The rain stops. Water drips off the veranda as the maitre d'i opens the doors to

the patio and the pool outside. A hotel employee fishes an iguana from the greenish

water with a long net. The lizard lands on the concrete with a 'splat' then scurries off into

the night.

The slim effeminate waiter stops to watch, then brings the bill to the party with

the lady with the yippy little dog. And then it hits me. The weightlifter isn't waiting on

his girlfriend. No, my dear, the waiter is his lover. See the tender expression on the

muscleman's face as he watches the waiter sashay his way to the kitchen with a tray of

empty coffee cups. The tenderness! Like I used to smile, watching you do almost

anything, when we were newly lovers. I have to remember to look at you that way again.

Maybe I have to go away to remember how much you mean to me.

As the waiter slips behind the bar to tally the French-not-deigning-to-entertain-

the-Mexicans bill, the bartender and the other waitress playfully tease him. He smiles

and cowers at their gentle slaps. The weightlifter sits up in his seat, on guard, ready to

spring until his lover smiles at him as if to say, "It's all right. I'm okay."

The rain begins to fall again, heavier than before, if that's possible. The tropical

night smells of rain and decay and musk. The dog yips as the couples split the tab and

leave. The old man and the woman watching TV yawn in unison then rise from their

wicker thrones and exit through the lobby, holding hands.

31
 And I'm still here, drinking coffee, alone at the edge of the jungle, putting up with

yippy dogs and bad manners and Iguanas and the French. Have I told you? I miss you, I

miss you. I miss you.

32
 Dead Charlies

Okay, so you Google Charlie’s name and page after page of Charlie W obituaries

appear. New York, Illinois, Utah. A corporate CEO, a president of a major university, a

farm seed salesman. So many Charlies. They were known to business associates and

friends simply as “Charlie.” Good Old Charlie. Charles is much too formal – for an

American anyway. Charles is for De Gaulle or some European ruler with a roman

numeral after his name.

Poor Charlie. He wasn’t going to set the world on fire. A middle manager. Not

corner office material. But then again, there are only so many corner offices to be had.

And what’s so wrong with that? Leaders need their followers, armies need foot soldiers.

Blah dee blah. Shouldn’t be so glib about it. Charlie’s dead.

So why “poor Charlie?” Because he was so young. Because his children are at

that age when they still desperately need a dad, although teenagers don’t always admit it,

not out loud at least. Because those other Charlies – the CEO, the college president, the

seed salesman – they were old, they had lived full lives, had testimonial dinners,

retirement ceremonies, 75th birthdays. Not that they deserved to die, but their passing

doesn’t haunt you, their obituaries don’t jump off the page – in the prime of his life, his

kids so young, and on and on.

We didn’t always speak so well of him. We told jokes at his expense. Hey, don’t

get so high and mighty - they tell jokes about you too, and about me and everyone else.

But when someone dies unexpectedly you feel remorse for speaking ill of them, for being

33
so chippy. You resolve to be a better person– to hug your kids more, to take more time

off from work, to forget about setting the world on fire, to stop and smell the roses.

Clichés get bandied around like Buddhist prayer notes flapping on some Himalayan

mountaintops.

“Je n’oublie pas…” Baudelaire wrote, but we do forget, until something makes us

remember – the sunset on the water, the distracted smile on a lover’s face, the phone call:

“Charlie’s dead.”

I will not forget. We will not forget. Until we forget. Again.

34
 T-Minus Two

"Everybody remembers what they were doing when Kennedy was shot," my

mother says. "I had taken Jon to get his hair cut, and we were in the barbershop when it

came over the radio. The announcer said, `ladies and gentlemen, President Kennedy has

been shot.' Just like that. The barber stopped cutting and said he was going to close up

shop for the day. We walked out of there with only half a hair cut out of respect for the

president. Oh, I was so upset I just started crying when we got to the car."

My sister says she remembers the principal announcing it over the p.a. system.

But that's impossible because she was only three years old then and would have been too

young to be in school.

Kennedy was killed two months before I was born. My brother was five years old

at the time, and he says he can remember it like it was yesterday. I believe him. He

remembers everything like a tape recorder. He can spit out dates and events, but he can't

tell stories very well. I'm the only one in my family who's good at telling stories, but I

wasn't quite whole the day Kennedy was shot. I do remember seeing replays of it on TV,

over and over again, of Jackie Kennedy standing up in the car and leaning over the body.

"We were reviewing that smart ass Herb Fletcher's dissertation when Bob came in

and told us," my father says. "You remember Herb, don't you, dear?"

My mother squints her eyes like she can't remember, then nods her head.

"Maybe it was when Robert Kennedy was shot that I remember," my sister says.

"Maybe that was it."

My mother says she doesn't remember what she was doing that day.

"I may have been shopping," she says.

35
 My father says Robert Kennedy was shot at night and I look to my brother for

confirmation. I was five then and my brother was ten.

"Dad's right," my brother says, and we all nod our heads in agreement.

"Martin Luther King?" my sister asks as though she's wondering how she could

have forgotten so much of her history.

"He got shot a couple months before RFK," my brother says.

"All I remember was someone got shot and my teacher cried," my sister says.

"It was probably Miss Gallagher," my brother says, nodding his head like he is

looking at a blueprint. "She taught third grade, room 7B," he says matter of factly.

I try to imagine Miss Gallagher breaking down and crying in front of the class.

As I remember, she was young and pretty. All the other teachers in our school were old

and hard, and wouldn't have cried for anything.

"All I remember is walking out of that barbershop when John Kennedy was shot,"

my mother says. "It was as though something was lost that day, I knew right then that

things would never be the same."

I keep going over the pictures in my mind, of the convertible, and Jackie's dress,

and her little pill-box hat. There's a pause, and the film slows for a few agonizing

seconds. The bullet hits and Jackie leans over the body. The front of her dress and her

gloves are stained with blood. The film returns to normal speed, and the limousine races

away, and I'm beginning to think maybe I remember. Maybe I felt something down there,

t-minus two and counting.

36
 Susquehanna

An old man stood alone on a high bank of a slow moving river, gazing over the water.

Presently a young man approached and stood beside him. The old man did not stir.

Instead, he continued to stare fixedly at the green-gray water.

It was early evening, just after supper time. Gnats and mayflies danced above the

still water. Occasionally, a dragonfly zipped by in a crazy zigzag dance.

After several minutes, the young man spoke:

"What are we looking at?" he asked.

Without diverting his eyes from the river the old man replied:

"The longer I look, the more I see."

It was silent again. The young man did not stir from his position, though he was

unsure of what he was supposed see.

"Just what do you see out there?" he asked. "The longer I stare, the blurrier every

thing gets."

The old man did not reply.

"All I see are bugs flying around," the young man continued, growing impatient

and getting ready to move on.

"And?" the old man asked.

"And...I see the trees on the far bank reflected on the water."

"And what else?" the old man prodded.

37
 "And...nothing else." The young man strained to see more. As he could see

nothing more, he closed his eyes.

"Concentrate," the old man said deliberately.

The young man looked at the water directly below him and saw a lone bluegill

kiss a submerged branch.

"There's a bluegill," the young man said pointing enthusiastically.

"There are several," the old man replied. "They’ve been lingering there for some

time. What else do you see?" he asked.

The young man looked down at the bluegill and noticed the others swimming

nearby. He let his eye wander and he saw submerged logs and branches, the submerged

stocks of water lilies and water reeds. He told the old man. And the old man asked him

what else he saw.

"What do you see that I don't?" the young man asked, slightly angered by the old

man's serenity. "Tell me that?"

"I see a bass over in that pool there about to jump for a fly," he said, pointing.

Near the far bank, the still surface of the water was broken.

Suddenly, the young man was able to see everything. He was aware of three

worlds: the land, firm beneath his feet, tangible and hard; the shimmering world of

reflection of the water's surface, where mayflies and water bugs danced over the flawed

mirror image of sky and trees; and the water world, teeming with fish gracefully

swimming through their silent water world.

38
 He watched a box turtle skirt the murky river bed, and large mouth bass circling,

watching the surface for flies. Other fish hovered, as expectant as commuters on a

platform waiting for a train.

He saw a submerged automobile tire and a plastic bread wrapper caught on a snag.

He told the old man everything he saw, and the old man listened without words.

He became acutely aware of the sound of a rapid running downstream behind him.

He closed his eyes and imagined the quick water silvering as it met the resistance of the

rocky river bed.

He imagined the fish in the pool below compensating for the pull of the rapids

downstream.

When he opened his eyes he could only see the reflection of the trees and the sky

above.

"I've lost it," he said.

"Me too," the old man replied. "You have to start again. It takes a moment to see

it all again."

The light had changed. The sun had set over the treetops. It was still quite light,

but the mood of the river had changed. The water was darker, the reflections on the

surface more defined.

The young man spotted a brown trout cruising the shallows. It looked like a

leviathan compared to the bluegills. He was amazed by its enormity.

"Look at the size of that guy," he said, pointing excitedly. The fish started.

"He's middling at best," the old man said. "Remember water refracts light, makes

things look bigger."

39
 "Oh," the young man said, feeling stupid for having forgotten basic high school

physics. "I've forgotten" he muttered.

"Now you remember," the old man said, smiling slightly. "And you’ll probably

forget until you've need to remember again."

"Probably," he said.

"The sun's down now," the man observed.

The river became noticeably darker an instant after the old man spoke. The

young man looked at the sky above him -- the pink glow of sunset had faded from the

clouds, and the surface of the river rippled as a cool breeze began to blow upstream.

"I've lost it again," he said.

"Me too," the old man said. A fish broke the surface of the water by the far bank,

and the splash echoed in the young man's ears, ringing like the concentric circles

emanating from the point where the fish had broken the surface.

The old man turned to go.

"Thank you," the young man said.

"You're welcome," the old man replied with a wry smile. "But I don't know what

you're thanking me for."

"Well, for..." the young man hesitated. "I don't know."

"That's never an answer," the old man said over his shoulder as he started on his

way down the path. He made his was though elms and willows and disappeared around a

bend.

"No, I guess not," the young man said aloud, though there was no one to hear his

words.

40
 The House

There are times when I can see the house in my mind, clearly picture details of it,

but I cannot remember exactly where it was. I recall that it needed a coat or two of paint

and that the lawn was overgrown. Sometimes I think there were boards covering the

windows, but there are other times when I recall faded lace curtains behind rippled

windowpanes.

I remember chilling spring rains that tore the blossoms from the cherry tree that

stood in the front yard, its petals sprinkled about the ground like the confetti remnants of

some somber vernal parade.

Maybe students lived in the house. Beer cans were piled in the side of the yard.

But there are times when I think the house stood in the neighborhood where I grew up, an

old misfit with wood clapboards in the middle of a subdivision filled with ranch homes

and split levels with aluminum siding, named for the farm it had been built over. Some

said the old man who lived alone in the house was a millionaire who buried his money in

jars in the back yard. But those were only tales told by boys who had read too many

adventure stories.

Sometimes I think I've only seen the house in passing, along the highway or on

some lonely back road. There was a time when I would take our son on long drives

through the country on the weekends when I had visitation. We would cruise isolated

state routes through hamlets that time seemed to have forgotten, stopping to look at old

41
brick and wood frame houses. We used to like the quiet of those old homes. They

suggested something simpler, something lost and sad and gone forever.

There are things that I recall vividly about the house. I remember creaky

floorboards and stairs, faded wallpaper, sunlight streaming through windows illuminating

dust motes as they floated silently through in the air. I have heard mothers calling their

children home for dinner on summer evenings as I sat on the porch, drinking a beer after

one of our arguments. I have stood at the bedroom window listening to the wind blow

through the trees before a thunderstorm as our son slept in his crib, his breath labored by

the croup.

I have dreamt entire lifetimes spent in the house, of lives longed for but never

led— the linen tablecloth on the table, your old worn sandals in the closet, the cracked

tiles in the bathroom, the stained glass window in the hall through which the day's last

light streams. And though I failed you in so many ways, I still think mostly of you.

42
 Neighbor Jones

If the conditions are right and there are no clouds in the summer sky, Jones'

dining room is filled with a strange astral glow, like the shimmering of oil on water.

Jones' wife marks the appearance of this late afternoon aurora by pouring herself three

fingers of Scotch, which she sips while circling the small dining room with a wistful look

in her eyes.

The queer light show occurs when the sun reflects off the windshield of the

dilapidated bus parked behind neighbor Smith's house. Jones, who teaches high school

trigonometry, once calculated the necessary angle of deflection for the sun's rays to glint

off the windshield and illuminate the room where his wife now stands sipping Scotch.

Years ago, they'd dressed formally for dinner then made passionate love on the

floor as the dancing light filled the room. But that was years ago, lifetimes ago. Now

Jones keeps himself busy with projects around the house and waits for his wife’s summer

melancholy to pass.

"I'm going to call the police and see if they can't make Smith haul that heap

away," he says, passing through the dining room with a three-eighths-inch, variable speed

reversible drill in his hand.

"Don’t be an ass," his wife responds coldly.

It is silent for a moment and Jones thinks that he hardly knows his wife. Then, as

though someone has thrown a switch, the room is no longer filled with the light.

43
 In the bedroom Jones watches his wife remove her bra, watches her sagging

breasts sway as she slips off her panties and tugs a bathing suit over her fleshy ass.

Neither Jones nor his wife acknowledges the other, though Jones is aroused for a reason

he could not fully put into words if he were asked to.

He stands at the window and watches his wife climb the steps to the terrace. She

throws a towel on a battered lounge chair, then dives into the pool. Further up the hill,

Smith's bus sits rusting, illuminated by the orangey light of the setting sun.

Standing there, he feels stupid for having threatened to call the police. He feels

empty living in a house that has never rung with children’s voices. He wonders if their

decision not to have kids was a mistake. It is too late now. They’re too old, though not as

old as Smith and his wife next door, both bent over by grief and osteoporosis and time.

Smith bought the bus decades ago when his daughter was first born. He thought it would

make a nice playhouse for her once she'd grown older. They had their child late in life.

Mrs. Smith had nearly died in childbirth. They said their daughter was a blessing from

heaven.But as heaven bestows blessings, it just as arbitrarily extinguishes them. The girl

never lived long enough to enjoy her playhouse.

Jones' wife swims laps in the pool as he pads about the house. Still holding the

drill, he turns on the lights in every room. He runs his hand over the Formica counter top

he installed in the kitchen, examines the built-in bookcases in the living room, scrutinizes

the detail work on the buffet he put in the dining room. He sees only the flaws in his

workmanship—places where he should have used glue instead of nails, joints that could

have been better mitered, cracks in the wood where he should have drilled pilot holes

44
before driving screws. Where others praise his handiwork, he sees only the imperfections,

the shortcomings of his efforts.

Tugging open the screen door that always sticks, Jones' wife pauses to allow her

eyes adjust to the light. She watches him stare at the crown molding in the dining room,

then goes into the kitchen and pours two more glasses of Scotch. Outside, neighbor Smith

strolls up the hill, a martini in hand. Jones' wife returns to the dining room, the ice cubes

gently clinking about the glasses. Jones takes the Scotch, staring out the door, watching

his neighbor stand motionless before the bus. His wife hugs him from behind, her arm

clutching him about the chest, her chin pressed to his shoulder. He can feel her moist

bathing suit against his shirt, her breasts pressing against his back, and he puts his hand

on her arm.

In his back yard, Smith visibly sighs, his shoulders hunched. He throws back the

remainder of his martini, then turns toward his house, stopping in the middle of his yard

to look up at the celestial void. As though pleading to the faint stars that have begun to

shine in the bruised blue sky, he raises one arm to the heavens. His eyes turn to Jones'

house blazing with light that pours from every window then trudges back to his house.

Jones drinks deeply from his glass then kisses his wife's hand.

"Put that stupid drill away," she whispers, and he drops it, turning to her. She

smiles sadly. As he eases the strap of her bathing suit from her shoulder, she whispers,

"oh love, love." Jones doesn't even think to close the blinds or put out the lights, because

he does not care. And the world spins away as he loses himself inside his trembling wife.

45
 Love Song

Ending with a line from e.e. cummings

In these silences, long and deep, my love, I hear the infinite rumble of creation,
that distant thunder in which birds take wing, loath to roost for long. In your breath I hear
that whisper of eternity, discernable otherwise only to immense radio antennae perched
on far off mountain tops, craning skyward, listening for remnants of the big bang,
listening for God.
In these silences, watching wading birds stride among the mangroves, or in the
mountains, after sunset and the sky is bruised blue and dotted with early evening stars,
the rumble of creation (or doom) echoes in our ears like a million forevers thundering
past.
What if love were measurable like the remnants of the great peal of creation?
What if we could detect the origin of that thunder, determine in which direction it was
moving, if it was traveling toward or away from us? What in the end would that prove?
In time, the constellations will tumble into different constellations.
I want only to have you beside me, our bodies mingling without restriction,
without shame. For if love changes over time, the distant thunder remains – not as a
terrible reminder of paradise lost, but to spark our memories in the long and deep silences
into which we sometimes lapse.
I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how
not to dance.

- For Theresa

46
 Watching the Sun Set on a Summer’s Evening
with Two Survivors

He sat in his shirtsleeves in a chair at the edge of the garden, his back turned to

the party that overflowed onto the patio. Thin as a ghost, he wore a silk ascot and held a

cane in front of him with both hands. His wife sat next to him, hunched over by age,

shaking slightly, nodding her head as though she were agreeing with some unspoken,

absolute truth.

They'd come from the same village as my grandmother, who'd died years earlier.

They were my family's oldest friends. The party was a celebration of the Summer

Solstice, a gathering my mother held annually. I was alone that evening and it felt right

to keep the elderly couple company as the party went on around them. It was the

husband who'd suggested we take the seats on the edge of the patio to enjoy the first

sunset of the new season.

"Is your girlfriend coming today?" his wife asked.

"No," I replied. "She had to stay in the city for her work." I shouted the words,

leaning close to her, my voice rising above the others.

"She is quite a girl," she said. "Very smart, very strong. Hold onto her, she is a

wonderful girl."

Her husband nodded his head in agreement. "A very nice girl."

"She reminds me of a girl from our village, Miriam. So very thin and her

complexion--like porcelain,” she said. "May she rest in peace." Her voice fell and her

accent became heavier as though the memory saddened her. "So beautiful..."

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 Her husband put his hand on her arm. "My dear, you are upsetting our young

friend here."

She took my hand. Her hand was dry and warm and felt almost like crepe paper.

Her grip was surprisingly strong. "Much of the world died with Miriam," she said.

Her husband pretended to ignore her and stared out above the tops of the trees

beyond the garden and the grassy slope of the yard.

"It is very peaceful here," he said, staring at the sun as it began to set beyond the

hills. His wife nodded her head silently, and the smell of the night dew began to rise

from the grass. "This is what we should remember, this." He nodded towards the stream,

and the woods, and the orange sun beyond.

A light breeze stirred through the trees. The sound of glasses clinking together in

a toast drifted over the patio from somewhere in the house. His wife shook her head

uncontrollably. "Be careful what you remember," she said. "You must not..." she started,

then squeezed my hand and closed her eyes.

"I shall never forget this evening," her husband insisted. He inhaled deeply as

though he were leaning over a kettle of homemade soup, savoring the aroma. A smile

spread across his thin lips, and as he stretched his arm, the bluish numbers elongated into

a thin line that could have been mistaken for another vein.

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 A Minimalist Love Story

"Today is a good day for this song," she says thinking of something long ago. It

is raining and cold, as though it were still mid-November instead of early May. Outside,

everything is green, extravagantly green; that is how much it has been raining. The

song on the stereo is a soulful ballad with a Spanish guitar line. The singer's voice is

rough, as though she has been crying. "Her voice sounds like rain," she says. "It's sad."

It is Sunday and they are lying on the living room floor, reading The New York

Times and drinking coffee. She'd gone out in the gray drizzle and bought the paper, as

he'd slept. They nibble on the dark squares of chocolate as they read the paper. He

finishes reading Arts and Leisure, she Travel, and they trade.

"Remember that apartment on Centre Avenue?" she asks, turning, laying the

paper down. "Remember how noisy the buses were?"

He nods his head. "Yes, I remember," he says. "Joey and Ethan climbed through

the window from the fire escape, and we played guitars." Having finished the Travel

section, he folds it, and picks up another. "It seems like a thousand years ago," he says

scanning the page.

She tries to remember what it was like a thousand years ago, when everything was

different, when they drank beer on Sunday in the park. She knows he has forgotten, and

it makes her sad, like the song. He puts the paper down and curls up against her. He is

warm.

"Do you remember what we used to fight about?" she asks.

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 "Yes," he mumbles sleepily.

"Tell me."

"I remember how I felt when I thought I'd lost you," he says. She takes his hand

in hers, holding it to her heart, and decides to let him off the hook.

"I remember champagne picnics in the park at midnight," she says. "And every

fight we’ve ever had." She turns around to face him and inhales deeply, taking in the

perfume of his body.

"I'm sorry I've forgotten," he says.

"Sometimes it doesn't seem real," she says, but she isn't sure what she means. He

sighs and draws her closer.

"From now on, I'll remember everything," he promises.

She turns over again and watches the rain roll down the window.

"I swear," he says.

"Shut up," she says.

"No, I mean it." He says, on the verge of sleep.

His breath is warm against her neck, and she listens to the beating of her heart.

The song fades, and another starts, less sad than the one before.

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