It has its own website, which is here.

I say “shit” and flick the lure back to the ocean. My son caught a ten-pound bass here last week. He called to tell me and then he hung up. That seemed petty. This is the fifth day I have come here and brought this canoe out to this spot and sat down and used this fishing pole to fish. I was excited on the first day.

A southerly breeze tries to take the fishing pole out of my hands. I feel unsteady so I put a hand on the boat’s edge. This is a mistake. Something bites my lure and my sloppiness allows the pole to fly away in an attempt to catch the prey on its own.

Now it’s raining and I’m covered in seaweed and my pole has drowned. I say “shit” again. I may not come back tomorrow.

* * *

“I’m glad you’re back,” Janice said, but she didn’t look glad.

Janice and Donnie preferred to eat their dinners at a folding-card table in the basement of her parents’ house. Her parents had always insisted that the regular dining room table was okay but Donnie had always insisted otherwise. It was one way of feigning independence, as though Mr. and Mrs. Tellerman weren’t weren’t paying for Janice’s education and refusing to let Donnie pay rent. The basement wasn’t finished like the rest of the house, so if Donnie stopped thinking about it he could pretend they were actually living in a run-down apartment complex.

“Yeah,” Donnie said, and he began to chew very slowly on a piece of microwaved steak.

“The police called on Monday,” Janice said. “I didn’t have any idea where you were until you called and that was two days after what happened.”

“I didn’t want to call during your classes or while you were working on homework or anything like that,” Donnie said, still chewing. He stared at one of the loose sleeves of her plaid pajamas. She’d been wearing them all day because she didn’t have any classes on Fridays. “I’m fine, Jan. I’ve been fine. I didn’t want you to worry. Isn’t exam week in like two weeks? You have other things to worry about.”

Janice shook her head. “What kind of an answer is that?” she asked. “How long have we been together and you think I don’t need to know about stuff like this?”

“What’s there to know? Someone you don’t know was killed trying to kill his son. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything.” This was not what the policeman had told Donnie as he sat on the Best Buy floor. According to him, the incident had been the second time the fat man with the handlebar mustache (his name was Al) had pulled a gun on his son – but, just like the last time, Al called the police beforehand. Apparently Al wanted to scare his kid without having to say “just kidding” afterwards.

“That’s not what I mean, Donnie.” She was sitting on an old leather drum stool, borrowed from their friend Scott. Donnie could hear the legs creak as she leaned towards him. “I mean that… it’s a traumatic event, right? Aren’t we supposed to be there for each other during traumatic events?”

“It was a stranger,” Donnie said. “No trauma, okay?” He watched Janice’s lips curl. Al’s handlebar mustache, that’s what he couldn’t get out of his head. Donnie thought it was such a weird thing to intentionally add to that face, but it had been so carefully groomed, white and soft like pillow feathers. It was no embarrassment; Al was proud of it. He must have spent all morning getting it to look that good; hell, maybe Al took care of it every morning. Maybe it was Al’s ritual.

Janice was staring at her plate. Donnie understood her problem; he wasn’t sure what he would say either, were their positions reversed. He actually wasn’t entirely sure what to say in his own position. And, thought Donnie, why – why hadn’t the cops arrested Al and put him in jail for some serious time the first time he pointed a gun at his own child? Why would they just let him out, a psychotic father going home to the son he threatened? Cops don’t screw up like that, if they can help it.

“So I think I’m gonna, y’know, retake the entrance exam,” Donnie said at last. In his mind he tried to list the recommended jail sentences for minor gun-related crimes. And why didn’t they take the gun away from Al altogether? Or maybe he got a new one – who buys a gun illegally just to scare their kid? What was wrong with you, Al? “I, uh, I talked to the cop at the scene about it, and he told me –”

“You talked to the cop at the scene about that?”

“Why not?” Donnie was barely listening to their conversation. He was certain now that the police should have been able to do something – certainly if he had been assigned to the case, he would have somehow figured out a way to get that child a safe distance from a crazy guy like Al. Maybe he could have begged the district attorney to take away the father’s custody rights. “He said sometimes it takes people a few tries to get used to the test and pass it. So, I think I’m gonna retake the test.”

“You’ll need to actually study this time,” Janice said. She looked away from him and began to wrap her hair into a ponytail. “Put more effort into it. That’s what you have to do if it’s something you really want.”

“Yeah,” Donnie said. He was imagining a courtroom scene – a dramatic argument, a furious judge, and a man in a handlebar moustache becomes Donnie’s arch enemy. They have a showdown on a pier and Donnie says not today, pal and Al falls into the ocean and Donnie gets a medal. “Yeah, I know.”

* * *

“Come on, Donnie!” Scott said. “Just for one song, man! I know you know this one!”

Scott was the front man for a garage band he called The Raisinettes. Every Saturday they got together for a jam session, and Donnie and Janice would come to watch and cheerlead. Each of the four band members had attended Donnie’s high school – Scott the singer, Dave the guitarist, Ted the drummer and Nick the bassist. They had all graduated, too, except for Nick, who had dropped out in their junior year to begin his career as a car mechanic.

Scott’s garage was almost a professional studio, covered in large black amplifiers and thick wire, with acoustic and electric guitars hanging like artwork across the wall. There was also a large red couch off to the side, where Donnie and Janice usually sat. Scott owned all of this band equipment because his ownership of an accounting firm meant that he enough disposable income to easily buy the band equipment. Still, they’d been fine playing with junk in high school; The Raisinettes had always been less about the music and more about the prospect of weekend release.

Donnie and Janice had only been in the garage for a few minutes of awkward silence and instrument tuning before Scott had asked Donnie to man the drums.

“I’ve never even played a drum before,” Donnie replied. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. “Not even a single one.” That wasn’t really true – Donnie had tried to learn the drums once, when he was ten, and had given up in frustration.

“You used to drum your fingers on the desk instead of taking notes in Algebra,” said Nick, “and you were usually keeping a good beat. That means you’re at least as good as Ted.”

“Ted’ll be back next week and we can just screw around without you after this one song,” said Scott, “but we’ve been practicing this stupid thing for a month now and I really wanted to try a full run-through at least once. All you need to do is stay on a 4/4 beat – don’t give me that look, dude, I know you know what a 4/4 beat sounds like.”

“One and two and three and four,” said Donnie.

“Right, you’re a regular metronome. Sit down, man.”

Donnie did as he was told. The drum kit was monstrous, like an octopus with cymbals for hands. There were over a dozen round-shaped things splayed out around him buffet-style, drums and cymbals in all different sizes and no apparent order. There was even a cowbell hanging from a metal pole to his left.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Donnie asked. Dave snorted.

Scott began to point at the drums and name them, one by one. Donnie didn’t watch; he was somewhere else. Crash, hi-hat, snare, bass. There weren’t actually that many of them, Donnie thought. He remembered some of this from his childhood, and he might figure it out pretty easily if he followed Scott’s finger, but he didn’t want to. He was reminded of the Memory Test section on the entrance exam, where he had to read a paragraph of information for five minutes and then they took the paragraph away and he had to answer questions about it from memory. How many shotguns did Meyers tell the Officers were missing from his store? What was the first action taken by the Officer upon arriving at the scene? You killed him, what did you do that for?

“You only have to worry about these two,” Scott said, and this time Donnie paid attention. “These two and the foot pedal for the bass drum. Just a basic beat, you do it like… here, get up for a second and watch me.”

Scott sat down and cleared his throat for some reason. He picked up the drumsticks, which had always looked like over-sized chopsticks to Donnie, and began to tap out a slow, simple beat. “Now watch what I’m doing with my foot,” said Scott, and Donnie watched his foot. Donnie had never really listened to Ted’s frantic heavy-metal-style drumming, but in Scott’s basic rock beat he could hear something fundamental, so simple that it seemed ridiculous that Donnie hadn’t been able to do it immediately.

“Okay,” said Donnie, “cool.” He sat down again and took the drumsticks, now with a sense of purpose.

“Just do that for like three minutes,” said Dave, who had chosen to wear a white cowboy hat to the garage band jam session. “Do something fancy every now and then for fills if you feel like it, just go nuts, nobody’s gonna yell at you as long as you’re sort of keeping up.”

With that, Donnie tapped four times in the air, like Ted always did, and tried to start up the beat. It was strange for a second – one and two and three and four – but it seemed to come naturally. The drums were impossibly loud; they were deafening without leaving him deaf, an intermittent jolt to the system. After a few seconds he could hear Nick’s bass on the amplifier, a guttural white noise that shook the pavement. He glanced at Scott and Dave, and he could see that they were playing, Scott’s throat clenching on syllables and Dave’s fingers flailing wildly, but he couldn’t hear them. All he took in was the foundation of the song. His heart seemed to be pumping at twice the speed of the beat – a regular metronome – and he thought to himself that maybe he actually sounded pretty good to everyone else.

“I can see why Ted likes this!” Donnie yelled, but no one heard him, or at least no one responded. All of this thumping and crashing kept his thoughts private. He closed his eyes for a second and found that he could actually keep them closed as long as he stuck to the main beat.

Donnie thought about the drum kit his mother bought him. She was so excited when she’d explained that learning an instrument was hard work and took dedication and passion to succeed. He hadn’t really heard her, though, and he gave up after two weeks of discordant banging. She tried to sell the kit back to the store but they wouldn’t take it with the scuff marks Donnie had left. So the kit remained in the storage closet, and every now and then his father would accidentally hit a crash cymbal with his shoes and would say something about an “ugly waste” and would not speak to Donnie at all that night.

Donnie’s eyes fluttered open. He hit a few of the crash cymbals, just for fun, before closing his eyes again. As far as he could tell, there was still another minute or two left in whatever song was being played around him. He hadn’t thought about his parents in so long. His mom moved away when he was fifteen. Dad? No, he died. Line of duty. He’d said it to people so many times. Everyone thought the tragedy was why Donnie wanted to be a cop, but it was only because Donnie watched television cop shows and had thought it would be a cool thing to do. There’d never been any better reason than that. That was probably why he’d failed.

He’d failed at one thing and then the next. Donnie thought about Al’s mustache, and his kid. The kid hadn’t been relieved, just confused – what did you do that for? Like Al and Al Jr. were just stage performers and Donnie had run onto the stage and flailed his arms like an idiot and ruined the whole show. The tragedy of it was confused by that instant; maybe, for someone else, it could have been a punch line. Donnie’s eyes burned, so he closed them. He knew how that moment should have played out. It was always easier to pretend that he’d done what he wanted to do. Things could work out okay if he just played pretend, until someone reminded him that he owed them money.

He could feel himself lurching around now, fluttering back and forth to the beat. Wasn’t the song supposed to be over soon? Lots of small things crawled across the inside of his eyes. What did you do that for? In his mind he saw his stomach bubbling up into his brain and blood on a yellow floor sign that read SAVINGS HERE! Maybe he should have been an accountant, like Scott. It’s so stupid, he thought, isn’t it? Like a bad action movie. I bet this is how Beach Justice ends. He felt sick but calm, like the moments in your seat just after the roller coaster stops. Or maybe drumming, he thought, is like taking a shower where the water won’t stop screaming. It was all very confusing, and then the song ended.

“How’d I do?” he tried to ask, but instead his voice rang backwards into his throbbing skull. The bass line had been replaced with a single, endless note echoing from somewhere in his throat. His limbs were slack from exhaustion.

After a moment he heard a faint buzzing in front of him. It was Nick. “Pretty good, man!” He sounded impressed.

“I can see why Ted likes this,” said Donnie at last, gasping, wiping tears from his eyes.

We sit at our folding card dinner table with Styrofoam plates and look at each other for a little while. Like most nights, she has neglected to change out of her work clothes. The dress shirt’s sleeves are rolled to her elbows so she can use her fingers without ruining the white cotton. She eats quickly, without dwelling on taste. When she looks away from me to take another bite, I stare down at my pizza. If I squint the cheese looks like a clump of molted snake skin. This does not make the food any less appetizing.

“It doesn’t taste any better if you stare at it,” she says. I can hear pizza chunks sloshing around her tongue. “It’s like taking medicine. Just go for it.”

“I’m just waiting for the cheese to cool down.” It occurs to me that I’ve never actually seen molted snake skin. I assume it’s not usually this greasy.

“It came out of the microwave ten minutes ago,” she says as the index finger on her left hand raps against the table, “but if you want we can speed this up and put it back in the fridge.”

“No, that won’t work.” I pick up my fork. Elizabeth insists on setting the table with real silverware, even on microwaved pizza night. I think she gets this from her mother, who has been sending us new silverware sets on nearly every holiday for the past three years. She should send plates. Or food. “You can’t re-microwave microwaveables. I think that’s against the law.”

“I think making this stuff should be against the law,” she says. I hear her teeth grind against the cardboard crust.

With my fork I find and poke at a withered spot of burnt cheese on the pizza. It reminds me of a dog we used to have, Spot. Spot was a Yorkshire terrier who loved peeing on the floor. Elizabeth and I bought him the year before we graduated from college, but the apartment had a strict no-pets policy.

“I don’t think I can eat this,” I say. I set the fork down, the prongs resting on Spot. He was always Elizabeth’s dog more than mine. She cried the day we handed him to my parents and she punched me in the elbow that night when I said that we’d at least save money on steam vac rentals. The punch hurt more than I expected it to. “I don’t think I’m hungry enough to eat something this sad.”

“Pizza can’t be sad,” she says. “It’s dead.” She snatches my pizza out of my vision. The empty, pockmarked Styrofoam plate fails to call back memories of lost pets, so I look over at our kitchen sink and wonder if it ever gets lonely without any plates to wash.

“Do you think the kitchen sink ever gets lonely?” I ask.

“You’ve asked me that before,” she replies. I hear a dull crackling and look up. Elizabeth has broken my pizza in half like a graham cracker. I wish she wouldn’t keep her hair up like that. Who keeps their hair up at the dinner table? “Listless, maybe, but not lonely. I’d rather be the empty kitchen sink than the packed fridge.”

“Are you kidding? I bet it’s like a party in there.” I grin and gesticulate, watching Elizabeth and hoping to catch a smirk. “Ketchup, I’d like you to meet Grape Jelly. I’ll just be over here with Olives, you two just have yourselves a good time, hah hah, if you know what I mean.” I nudge at the air with my elbow to make sure Elizabeth knows what I mean.

She shakes her head and looks at the fridge. I follow her gaze. We have tried to make the beige monstrosity friendlier by covering it with photographs and half-folded letters from friends who are miles away. It doesn’t work. “That fridge would make for the worst party ever,” she says. “It runs too hot and the lights don’t work.”

“Who needs lights for a good party? Ketchup could cop a feel and blame the mayonnaise.” One of the photographs shows me posing with a half-dozen paralegal coworkers at last year’s Christmas party. The lighting is too harsh and my smile has never been more badly faked. I wonder for a moment if my boss would be angry if names in his court documents were randomly changed to “Ketchup.” Lawyers can be testy about that sort of thing.

“I had no idea condiments were so lecherous,” she says. Her eyes are still scanning the fridge, maybe searching for a particular moment. She’s not smiling anymore. I know the feeling.

“Hey,” I reply, “why do you think the cap’s always sticky?” I say this more for my own sake than hers. I direct the question to the kitchen sink, who looks like he could stand to be a part of the conversation.

There is a long pause, during which I imagine Elizabeth biting her lip and squinting one eye at me. She does this a lot. “I’m not sure what that means,” she says, “but I don’t think I want ketchup from that bottle anymore.”

I continue to stare at the sink. After a moment Elizabeth tries to push her plate, and the half-pizza, into my line of sight. “Eat it,” she says. “We paid for it, it’s what we have. We have to eat it.”

This is how you talk to a pissy five year old. I glare at the plate.

“I think I’m okay,” I reply. “Really. I had a big lunch.” Now I’m talking to a line of cards along the left side of our fridge. We received every one of these on the same day five years ago. They are on the side of the fridge instead of on the front because Elizabeth thinks all the pictures of wedding cakes are too tempting. When I told her that wedding cake cards don’t actually taste any better than regular wedding cards, she told me I was missing the point. I asked her to explain but she wouldn’t.

There is a minute or so of silence. I close my eyes for one long second and try to calm down, letting the sounds percolate. Behind the crunching of Elizabeth’s jaws, it’s hard to differentiate between the refrigerator hum, the buzzing ceiling lamp, and the air conditioner. Our apartment has always sounded like a colony of hornets. That was the first thing Elizabeth said when we moved in. After she suffered through three nights of near-insomnia I bought her a pack of foam ear plugs and received one of the tightest bear hugs of my life. These days, though, she keeps her clock radio tuned on low volume to public broadcast news. She always laughs about this and calls it “getting bored to death for six hours every night.” It’s never worked for me, but I really do love her enthusiasm.

I decide to break the silence as she stands to toss our Styrofoam plates into the trash bin next to the sink. “Your mom called earlier.”

“Oh? When?” She grasps all of the silverware at once off the table and sets it into the sink bowl. Elizabeth has remarked before that one of the nice things about our present situation is that no one has to do much housecleaning.

“While you were in the shower this morning,” I say. “I had to catch the bus before you came out, or else I would have said something earlier.”

She turns to me and rests her back on the counter. Her arms are folded and her fingertips tap a steady rhythm onto her elbow. “What did she say?”

I stare up into the ceiling lamp, but I try to keep her at the bottom edge of my vision. “She says she forgives you for making this horrendous mistake and you can go move back in with her. It’s okay, she says, she’ll even give you your old room and do your laundry and make you sandwiches for lunch.”

She lets out a barking laugh and kicks my chair leg softly. I always find this adorable, like when a puppy nips your leg and stares at you with a furious tail. Every time I say that to her, she kicks again, much less softly. “Shut up. What did she actually say?”

I look downwards and trace a long scratch along the blue plastic tabletop. Everything in this apartment is scratched or cracked. “She wants to send another rent check,” I say. “If we need it, of course.”

Her fingers stop dancing and clasp her forearm like an arm sling. “Did you tell her that we are just fine with the rent and there’s no way in hell I’m taking her money again?”

“Yes,” I reply, “but I was more diplomatic.” I resist the urge to lean back and rest my feet on the table, because I know Elizabeth hates it when I do that. “I told her we appreciated it when we needed it, but we don’t and won’t for the foreseeable future. I don’t think she has much faith in your job security.”

Elizabeth continues to hug herself. “I didn’t appreciate it even when we needed it.” She slumps, probably in an attempt to catch my line of vision. I look up to make it easier on her. I still think she should put her hair down. Every worry line sticks out right now, scrawled across her forehead like tree rings.

“It was humiliating,” she says. “Especially when Dad came over and went through all our drawers, explaining finances to me like I’m still twelve years old and don’t know what taxes are.”

“You didn’t know what taxes were when you were twelve years old?”

Her eyes flicker downwards, catching the wrinkled tips of her black socks. I regret interrupting her. “And then he tries to tell me that this is just what I get for not planning out my career path while I was in college,” she says. “Thanks, Dad, that really does a lot for me now.”

“Maybe, instead of rent checks, they could send tuition money.” I stand up and lean back against the counter, just beside her. I look at the brown welcome mat in front of our door. This is the wrong side of the door for it to lay on, but it was a very sincere wedding present from an old friend and we didn’t want it to be stolen by passing residents. “We’ll set you up as an accounting major just like your dad, and you can grow up to be an extremely successful corporate shill.”

She smiles faintly for a moment and lowers her voice. “I just don’t want their money. We can manage, we’ve been managing.” She looks up at me and flashes a pained smile. “Who needs money anyways?” she asks, without enthusiasm.

“You should ask our landlord that question. I’m sure she’d give you a good answer.” I notice for the first time that Elizabeth’s dress shirt is still buttoned all the way to her neck. Sometimes I wonder if the news radio sleep thing isn’t just a clever way to drown out quiet, frustrated sobs.

“A long answer, at least,” she replies, gazing towards the front door. “Thank God you take care of the business of talking to her. I think she hates me.”

“Oh, she just hates you because she and I are having a torrid love affair, and you’re the only obstacle in our path before we head to Bermuda to get away from it all.”

She laughs softly. No kick this time, but her voice builds back towards it usual volume. “You don’t call a love affair with a sixty-five year old woman ‘torrid.’” She walks into the bedroom, stretching her elbow behind her back on the way there; her version of daily exercise. “’Tepid,’ maybe.”

I follow her, closing the door behind me. The bedroom is larger than our kitchen, though not by much. The extra bathroom space is the only thing that makes it possible for the both of us to stand and get dressed simultaneously in the morning. Elizabeth is staring at the computer. I can recognize her e-mail program if I look carefully at the lens of her glasses.

“You’re just jealous of our passion,” I say as I fall back onto the bed. The springs let out a satisfying squeal.

She doesn’t respond. I turn towards my end table and flip on my desk lamp. Beneath the shade the lamp’s base is a lump of stained wood carved into a pair of delicate feet and ankles, so that the lamp looks like the bottom of a woman wearing a dress. Elizabeth made it for me as a present in our sophomore year of college. My response was to ask if there was supposed to be something suggestive about reaching up a woman’s skirt to turn her on. She didn’t say no.

“Mom sent me an e-mail,” she says, turning around the desk chair to face me. She sighs very dramatically. “She wants Dad to run our finances again, to make sure everything looks all right.”

Finally I let my eyes relax into hers. “Have you even taken your shoes off yet? You’re not at your desk and your parents aren’t in the room. It’s okay if you let your hair down.”

“He’s going to want to talk to you,” she says. She starts to tug at the back of her head. “He’ll ask you when you’re supposed to be getting that raise, why you weren’t given that raise earlier, why don’t you have a job where you wouldn’t need a raise like that, why didn’t you do something more productive with yourself. God, why did you get to have the quiet and gracious parents?” Her shoulders heave and relax, and her hair collapses like a waterfall. The worry lines erode against a wash of brunette curls.

“Quiet doesn’t mean gracious,” I reply. “They could just be laying low so we never suspect their plot to kidnap me and protect me forever in their basement.”

For a moment I think about graduation, when the two of us spent our last night in a fair-sized master bedroom with good lighting and wondered about the possibilities. As I recall, microwaved pizza night was not among the topics of discussion.

I notice that she’s still frowning, so I continue talking. “Don’t worry about your Dad, though. I’m just going to respond to all of his questions with ‘come on, Rod, who needs money anyway?’ I’ll even add a big grin and a thumbs up. That would go over well, right?”

She looks horrified but I think she’s faking. “I will kill you if you say anything like that to him,” she says. “Your parents won’t get the chance to kidnap you.” She stands up and stretches her elbows again.

I glance at the cluttered computer desk just behind her waist and think about the day we realized we wouldn’t be able to fit or afford a television in our apartment. I had been angry, but Elizabeth just laughed it off and said she never watched much television anyways.

“They’ll just take you instead,” I reply. Something about this conversation feels familiar, like an old joke. “They’ll hold you for ransom. Gang warfare will ensue.”

Elizabeth smiles and lets herself drop onto the bed, catching herself with her elbows. Her chin comes to rest on a pillow. The springs squeak approvingly. “Gang warfare? Between our hapless families?”

“A total bloodbath.” I roll onto my side, towards the lamp. Its toes curl towards the feet, as though the woman they belonged to were being tickled. “You’ll end up dead too, probably on accident, your mom choking you with a spoon-fed dinner. There will be news articles about the horror of it all. Made-for-TV movies.”

“Not even a Hollywood deal,” she says. “Lame.” I hear the light clink of her glasses being set on the end table. I think this is how we used to talk all the time, two people reading from the same script. I guess that was before things caught up with us.

“You win some, you lose some,” I say. There is a strange pause and I have to stop for a moment to think about what to say next. I want to look at her but if I do I’m going to forget my next line. My eyes are impatient; wooden toes and white plaster walls block my train of thought. Was it always this hard? Didn’t we used to flow like Tom and Jerry cartoons, right from one joke to the next?

Finally I think of something. “I’m sure it’ll get a book deal,” I say. “Instant bestseller. A modern Romeo and Juliet.”

“Yeah, right,” Elizabeth says through laughter. She places a hand on my shoulder and keeps laughing for a few more seconds. The warmth is a surprise. Maybe my mind’s still foggy, but I think I might be wrong after all. Maybe these days Elizabeth is just as amused as I am, and I just haven’t been paying enough attention.

“Although,” I say, “you’re probably too old to be a good Juliet.”

I turn towards her to see her reaction. Before I catch a glimpse the world goes black, with a loud whump in my ears and a mouth full of linen pillowcase. I hear a sharp barking laugh, and when I can finally see again Elizabeth has backed herself towards the edge of the bed, staring at me with a hyena smile and clutching her pillow like it means the world to her.

I nod slowly, reaching behind my head and clutching the edge of my pillowcase. “Biggest mistake of your life,” I say. A grin tugs so hard at my cheeks that it hurts. “You’re going down.”gays who swallow
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Harris pulls the oar out of the water and lets it thud heavily upon the edges of the rickety wood boat. His fingers are numb (pulverized meat), his sleeveless white shirt sticky with perspiration. He smiles toothily (clowns smile this way and give children nightmares) at the girl sitting at the boat’s far end. Harris hopes that Dolores cannot see the sweat on his arms as he slumps down, hopes also that she can, he tries to lean against splintering cedar the way toddlers fall into bean bag chairs. His legs cross at his ankles; the toes on his bare left foot hover (birds of prey) near Dolores’ sandals.

For the past twenty (is twenty minutes long enough? How long is too long in an old canoe?) minutes, Harris has been staring alternately at the dwindling dusk skyline, the silhouette frame of his father’s dock, and his own chest. Only now has he turned to Dolores, who has folded her arms just beneath her breasts softly pinching the fabric of her plain yellow t-shirt against her upper stomach. Every few minutes, her thick-rimmed glasses have threatened by centimeters to fall to her lips (something silly, potential levity); she has dutifully returned them to the nose’s bridge each time. At least Barth carried pretension of the motion of story (began in a car before the principle event). “Lost in the Funhouse” suggesting active loss; “Floating In the Lake On etc” suggesting sedentary lazy. How can nothing move too quickly? Pacing being critical to a short story (alongside compression; Hemingway once). Dolores is looking out somewhere along the ocean’s edge with half-lidded eyes (sedentary implying nothing better to do).

Harris has not said a word since “here we go” and kicking with a bare foot against one of the dock pillars. Barth may have opened in a car instead of his funhouse, but it is not generally advisable to start before the story has set into motion (it is also generally inadvisable to start in medias res if the middle is less interesting than the beginning) (if nothing is interesting it is generally inadvisable to write the story). Harris has been anxious for this day; for this specific event he has waited for ten days and fifteen hours and twelve minutes and fourteen seconds to the moment it occurs to him that this day will not end the way it has ended in his wet dreams over the past ten days, that moment being now, (now) being the moment Harris lifts his arms in a mock-shrug and cannot remove the clown smile from his lips and tries to tell Dolores that it’s shakier out here than he thought it would be but cannot say it because his nerves jangle his jaws until forcing them shut is the only way not to say “aatututututut.” James Joyce is (supposedly) one of the finest masters of the sentence in the English language, his Ulysses being full of endlessly long ones which nevertheless maintain clarity and engagement; wonderment, considering such context, how easy it is to lose the reader in the midst of, any sentence with a single misplaced mark of punctuation (editors are helpful) (Hemingway once said) or bad syntax or a sentence that overstays its welcome by one or two too many dependent clauses or an overexcited use of the; the problem with attempting a postmodern narrative in a fiction workshop is that the proper utilization of postmodern technique requires a strong established command of traditional technique (construction inherent to deconstruction

forgetting all your punctuation
and using line breaks
because you don’t really know how
to use either doesn’t
make you
fucking e.e. cummings)

and a knowledge that technique presupposes intention and purpose (writing half the words in italics doesn’t make your reader care unless you include something to care about); this knowledge is built through experience and refinement (experience and refinement not particularly inherent to the fiction workshop).

Harris stares at stray blonde noodles of Dolores’ hair curled along her silky collarbone and tries to concentrate. In class over a week ago (ten days fifteen etc) Dolores had reacted in excited affirmation after Harris had asked her the question. Their conversation to that point had been about boats on the lake at sunset and what a magical. This conversation had taken place in their A.P. English course. Dolores was a writer (poet) (artist). She oversaw the school’s literary magazine (The Mighty Pen, one issue released so far) (one dollar to buy it just come over during lunch period, Harris bought four) (name in pixilated grayscale scrawled across amateur recreation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream) and published all of her poetry inside.

When he had asked her (asked her many things on many days) why all of her poems in The Mighty Pen were published only on pages justified to the right she had turned only her neck to him arched it like a baroness (Queen Elizabeth to a subject who has over-polished her shoe) and responded

it’s for effect

and smiled smugly and he had nodded, declining to pursue the question further, either in conversation or self-reflection.

Now Harris looks at Dolores’ eyes and sees nothing (half-lidded glassy like snow globes with fog machines). Something occurs to him. William Strunk, author of The Elements of Style, might refer to the previous sentence as “simply redundant, used from a mere habit of wordiness” (lucky he is dead and cannot comment). Harris did not know (until this moment) if Dolores had responded so excitedly to his question because he was the one who had asked or because she wanted to own the experience (any rower would suffice). He hoped the former, feared the latter; now he understands that neither is applicable: Dolores merely wants to see the sunset on the lake because Dolores wants to pretend that Dolores has seen the sunset on the lake so that Dolores can write about.

Is postmodernism endless navel-gazing and amateurish tinkering to the amusement only of the creator? (there is a reason the watchmaker’s apprentice does not take the master’s watch and assemble from it a broken model airplane) Is poetry merely purple faux-lyric which describes without describing the essence? (it is, in the wrong hands)

Harris clutches the sides of the canoe and begins to move rhythmically with the ebb of the water (imagine a gorilla extending its arms and swaying on its torso like a seesaw; nested metaphors are generally speaking a good way to confuse the reader) and the boat sways. Dolores seems fixated on a point at the ocean just beneath the sun’s gaze; the first thing she notices wrong is her glasses bouncing rather than sliding, slapping her gently on the nostrils and falling into her lap. Her arms unfurl and she grasps wildly, clutching the frames and staring up at Harris (puppies get this look when they shit on the carpet) and their eyes meet for a long moment of mutual unrecognition before the boat catches water and upends itself.

When Harris surfaces he laughs, lets it ring in his ears and cross its own path in the echo (ha ha ha (ha ha (ha) ha) ha). This is melodrama tailored to theme, but it is alright (Harris does not mind, how could he, too busy laughing). Dolores sputters and grunts and flails at the canoe, ignoring Harris’ laughter. She will write no poetry

dying sun radiant blossoming like
azaleas
then the boat fell over

but Harris will write (at least) one story on the experience, though this story will never be public, will remain in his journal. It will contain little imagery. Dolores has left his mind already, even when he gives her a silent ride home; the next (second) girl Harris asks on a date, he thinks, will not be a poet.adult auctions
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“See that?” she said, gesturing at an arc of water and grease on the ground. The little boy sitting across from her, the restaurant manager’s son, nodded. “What’s that look like to you?”

The restaurant manager’s son shifted his arms from beneath a thick blue winter coat. Angela thought he might fall asleep at any moment now; he wobbled dangerously on the little stool. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, and ate another handful of French fries out of the little box he clutched to his chest.

“It looks like a fox’s tail to me,” Angela said, smiling gently. “Have you ever seen a fox before, Danny? They have great big red… swooshy tails. It’s like they’re always keeping a fire to their backs to keep them warm.”

Danny reminded Angela of her own son, but then again, most young children reminded her of George now. She could see his auburn locks in any boy’s hair, find his fragile body inside any boy’s chest. A long time ago, Angela had given George her description of a fox’s tail, as they read together from a children’s dictionary. George had responded with a loud laugh, and immediately wanted a fox of his own; Angela had smiled warmly and told him she would try as hard as she could to find one for him.

There was a soft pop beside her, and she turned her head away from the mop. The boy’s French fry box laid on its back in the middle of the floor. His chair squeaked as his little legs bobbed impatiently.

“I want to play in the ball pit,” he said through his nose.

“The ball pit’s closed, honey,” Angela replied, patting him on the head. His face turned into a scrunched marshmallow; she spoke up more loudly. “I’m sorry. Your daddy will be finished in just a second.”

“Just a few more minutes, yeah,” came a reply from behind them. Angela turned; the restaurant manager had left his office, hidden somewhere deep inside the kitchen innards, and was rifling through the cash registers now. Jim was still a young man, thinly built with spindly arms; Angela had already turned forty when Jim first became manager at twenty-two. At the time she had told her husband, Marty, how disorienting and unpleasant it was to get the paycheck she had been earning for over a decade from a little kid.

Angela sighed heavily and set the mop against the wall, brushing strands of black hair away from her face. She pressed a palm against her back and winced for a moment – her joints always tightened up as the sun set, a rising pinch and a dull ache which would spread deep into her thighs and knees. Her legs could only respond haltingly if she didn’t want to hurt herself, so she slowly plodded away from Danny and towards the registers.

“He’s a cute kid, Jim,” Angela said quietly. She leaned against the counter and sighed again, this time in relief. Next to her arm was a little glass charity box, promising to “Feed The Hungry” in third-world nations. She took a moment to stare at it, counting out the fifty-two cents which it had collected over the past week.

“Love of my life,” Jim replied with a smile. He was working through each of the three front registers, bobbing his head as though he were listening to music along the way. “This was the first chance I had to let him see where his dad works. I think he was just excited to get to eat some French fries.”

Angela nodded without a reply. She turned back to watch the toddler standing up in front of the door to the playhouse, with his palms pressed against the thick glass. As well as she could remember, her own son had always wanted to play with her or Marty; apparently this child was more interested in finding his own sources of amusement.

“Mind if I let him into the playhouse for a few minutes?” Angela asked Jim. “He looks like he’s going to burst if someone doesn’t let him in there.”

“Sure,” Jim replied. He didn’t look up from the registers. “If he can get worn out playing in there, that just makes things easier when I have to put him to bed tonight.”

“Don’t you read him a bedtime story or something?” Angela pushed herself off of the register and walked towards the playhouse. “That always seems to calm them down.”

“How could I find the time?” Jim replied. He sounded vaguely irritated, as though the mere mention of bedtime stories had set him on edge. “I’m exhausted when I get home. So’s my wife. We’d like to spend more quality time with him, but sometimes it’s just easier if he’s managed to tire himself out.”

“You should find the time, you know. Even with little things like that, it means a lot to have those memories.” Angela thought about George for a moment – always thinking about George for a moment – and thanked God she had spent that kind of time with him, even when she was exhausted.

“I’ve got too much work to build those memories right now. I figure I still have plenty of years left with him to…” Jim coughed loudly in a moment of uncomfortable recognition, and finally looked up at her from the registers. His voice softened considerably. “Sorry. You know what I mean. I just have so much to do.”

“Yeah, I know, don’t apologize.” Angela couldn’t look back at him now; she hadn’t wanted to make Jim feel guilty just for having a child who was alive, but that always seemed to creep into the subtext when she had conversations like this. “I understand.” She clutched the bar across the playhouse door and swung it open.

Danny scurried into the playhouse excitedly. There were no solid walls in this room, only glass panels which allowed potential customers to see how easily they could deposit their children out of their minds while they ate. A large red bench and a shoe rack were the only furnishings along the carpeted floor; the rest of the room was dominated by an oversized plastic cage and a sprawling pipe maze, all painted in what Angela imagined to be the brightest shade of yellow known to man.

“Don’t hurt yourself, hon,” she called out to Danny as he leapt into the ball pit with a delighted squeal. Angela sat down on the bench; the cold metal sent a tingle crawling up her spine. She reached to her back and pulled a folded newspaper from her pocket, smiling softly as she unfolded it to the section with the crossword puzzle.

Nearly half of the puzzle had been solved, many of the letters in different colors of ink. She and her husband had been passing the puzzle back and forth for a week now, using their respective daily lunch breaks to attempt to jointly accomplish the task. They had recently discovered, in the process of discovering less obscure words, that a three-letter synonym for “prevaricate” was, in fact, “lie.” She wasn’t sure the word meant anything to her, but her husband had laughed and shook his head and had remarked on how complicated the world can be sometimes, and they had stared at it with their seats pushed together at their dining room table, and she knew that meant something.

Danny’s head popped up from the ball ocean for a moment. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the newspaper.

Angela glanced up at him. “It’s a puzzle,” she replied. “It’s a lot of fun.”

“Can I play?” he asked. He was already starting to pull himself out of the pit and back towards her.

Angela laughed and nodded. “Sure,” she said. “You can help me solve at least one of these words.”

The little boy waddled over to her and crawled onto the other side of the bench. Angela set the crossword in her lap and watched him. He really did remind her of George now; he seemed to have that same desire to place himself in the middle of whatever older people were doing around him.

Danny set himself down next to her and leaned towards the crossword. He stared at it for a moment, then looked up at her impatiently. “I don’t understand,” he whined.

“It’s real easy once you get the hang of it,” Angela replied. She prodded the paper gently in a few spots, trying to reveal the pattern to Danny. “You just have to get the easy ones first. Then you figure out the rest with the clues you get. Everything starts to click into place after a while.”

Danny continued to stare at the puzzle, uncomprehending but fascinated.

“See, like this,” Angela said, pointing towards a specific row. “We’re supposed to have a six-letter word for ‘vaporous exhalation,’ and we know that it starts with an ‘M’ and ends with ‘IA.’” She knew none of this was going to get through to the child, but she was enjoying the opportunity to explain it regardless, and could tell from his expression that he appreciated the challenge. “Do you know any six-letter words like that?”

Danny shook his head, and began to pick at his ear with an index finger. “That doesn’t sound very fun,” he said at last. “Do you have to know a lot of words?”

“Yeah, I guess you do.” Angela laughed softly. “It’s not too hard on me. I don’t solve most of the words, anyway. My husband does. His name is Marty, he’s real good at crossword puzzles. I just try to help him out if I can.”

“Why does he need help?” Danny asked. His head was tilted at a slight angle, like a curious puppy.

“It’s not that he…” Angela tried to think of a way to explain, and for a moment her thoughts drifted to a few years back, when her kitchen sink had broken and she had asked Marty to explain exactly what he was doing to fix it. He had shifted as far to one side as he could underneath the kitchen counter, and she had lain next to him, smiling and watching his eyes file across the pipes as he explained it to her. He had only spoken for a minute or two before realizing that she wasn’t really listening; after that, they had simply laid together inside the cramped wooden cabinet, staring up at the maze of PVC pipe as though it were the starry night sky. By that time, it had already been a year since they had lost George.

Danny was still staring at her, waiting for an explanation. The heels of his sneakers clanked lightly against the metal bench.

“It’s not that he needs the help,” she finally said, closing her eyes for a moment. “He just likes it when I help. We like to do things together. Don’t you and your family like to do things together?”

Danny thought for a moment, then shrugged. “My mommy likes to take me to the park sometimes so Baxter can run around. Baxter’s my dog.” Danny raised his arm and held his hand out flat. “He’s this big now.”

“Wow,” Angela said, nodding. The crossword puzzle was still folded across her lap; she had her palm pressed against the words, but didn’t notice. “What kind of dog is he?”

Danny put a finger on each cheek and pulled down, talking and spitting through his scrunched lips. “Bast hound,” he replied. “He looks like a sad dog.”

“Oh, a basset hound,” Angela said, smiling brightly.

“He’s got a long tail,” Danny said, a big smile beginning to creep across his face, “and it points up like this.” He crooked his arm and pointed at it. “And when he’s happy, it moves like this.” Angela laughed as the boy began to shake his arm wildly.

“That’s adorable. He sounds like a very good dog.”

“His tail isn’t on fire, though,” Danny said.

Angela’s eyes widened. One of her hands crept up to her chin. “What’s that?”

“His tail’s not on fire,” Danny repeated, looking up into her eyes. “That’s because he’s not a fox. But it’s okay, because we keep him warm by letting him stay inside the house when it’s cold outside. He curls up on the couch next to me and he’s not shivering or anything so I think he’s okay. Then I can pet him and hug him and that’s when his tail moves.” Danny nodded. “That means he’s happy.”

Angela pressed her open palm against her smiling lips and nodded slowly. She felt her legs tighten up, suddenly worn down from the stress of the day; she knew she would have a hard time standing back up, though she wasn’t sure she minded that at this point. “I’m sure he’s really happy,” she replied, her eyes half-closed now. “Hugs and pets. I don’t think a dog needs much else.”

“All done, guys!”

Jim’s voice startled Angela and wrenched her out of the moment; she jumped almost entirely out of her seat. Danny hopped off the bench and waddled briskly out of the playhouse. Angela placed the crossword puzzle back into her pocket and followed Danny slowly, feeling her legs crack and bend reluctantly as she stood. She thought about taking a long, hot bath once she got home, neck-deep in the water, letting her bones settle back into their natural positions, but the thought only made her joints hurt even more for the anticipation.

Jim was standing in the middle of the restaurant, kneeling down to meet Danny at eye level. He had turned off all the lights behind the register counter, and the keys to the building were clutched in his hand.

“Alright, little guy,” Jim said. He was still at arm’s length from the child, with his wrists resting on his knees. “Are you ready to go home? Baxter’s going to be real excited to see you after being separated from you for this long.”

“Can I give him a treat?” Danny asked. “Mommy never gives him a treat when she feeds him.”

“Of course you can,” Jim replied. He stood up slowly and looked at Angela. “Sorry for keeping you waiting.”

“It was just a few extra minutes from my regular shift. It’s no problem.” She looked to Danny, bending down as much as her aching spine would allow. “And it was worth it to meet such a nice young boy. Thank you for helping me with my crossword puzzle, Danny.”

Danny took a step towards her. “But I didn’t solve any of the words,” he said, clearly concerned. “That puzzle’s too hard for me.”

“That’s alright,” Angela replied. “You gave me another set of eyes to look at it with. Sometimes that’s enough to get you going in the right direction.”
Danny nodded.

“Say hi to Baxter for me,” she said.

Danny nodded again, as Jim reached down and hoisted the boy onto his shoulder. “Thanks for watching him while I got all that stuff done,” Jim said.

“No problem,” Angela replied. She felt a small knob rise in her throat. “He’s a joy to talk to.”

“I can believe it,” Jim said. He handed her the keys. “Could you lock everything up behind you? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Angela nodded. Danny watched her as his father carried him away; he raised a small hand and waved goodbye. Angela waved in return, watching the two as they walked out of the door and into the newborn evening. She sighed deeply, stifling a quiet sob and taking a moment to let her emotions settle. As she collected her mop and bucket, returning them to the janitor’s closet where they belonged, she wondered if she still had the child’s dictionary she had read with George. She could give it to Danny as a present, and he could curl up on a couch and tell Baxter about foxes.

What? No, no, he’s not for Alice. Alice doesn’t have any pets. She had a snapping turtle when she was twelve. She cried and cried when he passed, wouldn’t come out of her room for days. No pets after that. I think Gloria, she’s my first grand-daughter, I think she has a kitten. She goes to school now. University of… oh, I can’t remember. She’s such a lovely girl, though.

Here he is, yes, look at him… what breed did you say he was? Great Dane? But they’re so big… I had a friend who had a Great Dane, a long time ago. But this one’s so small right now. He can’t be more than a few weeks old, can he? Ten days old? Oh, my. He’s such a curious little pup. Yes, that’s a walking cane, sweetheart, now don’t chew on it. They grow so fast, you know. These dogs, I mean, they just sprout up like weeds. It won’t be long before you’re old and wrinkled like me, sweetheart. Enjoy your youth while it lasts!

I’ll have just another minute with him here, if you don’t mind. Just a minute more.

I remember one morning, when Gloria was seventeen, she was visiting us for the weekend, I remember she asked me what was wrong with Grandma. I told her, nothing, dear, she’s just old, we’re both just old. She shook her head and gave me a bright smile and said no, Granddad, you’re not old at all. Alright, alright, sweetheart, you can lick my hand, go ahead.

We went to the beach after that, she and I and Alice. I felt the waves crashing on my knees and I heard Gloria laugh and the sun was just peeking out of the ocean’s edge. I was shaking, it was exhilarating. We had to take Maria to the hospital that night, she was having trouble breathing again and we didn’t know what to do.

I’m sorry. I’ll just be another minute with him. I wonder what I could name you, little one. Come up here and let me see you. Oh, you’re not shy at all, are you? So young, so full of love and wonder. You just want someone to hold you and never let go. I think I would name you David. I know it’s not a regular dog’s name, but I like it. My father was a David, his father was David. We didn’t have a son, you know, but that’s alright. Alice is the world to us. To me.

She moved away, Alice did. Of course she did. When they’re babies you can hold them forever and they won’t fault you for it, but she has her own way to follow, and I love her for how fiercely she follows it. She still calls and visits, she’s very gracious that way. It’s just that even someone at my age needs a little bit more to do with himself. I write in a journal about these things now, I write down everything I remember and everything I love, so it’s a large journal, ha ha. And I read my newspaper and I try to keep up with the world. But when I wake up in the morning and my neck is stiff and I need a glass of water, oh, I think it would be so nice to see someone right there who’s happy I’m awake.

I think we all need that kind of urgency, you know, David? Oh, yes, hello. Yes, yes, he’s just perfect. I’ll take him.

Here’s a poem of mine I found recently; I wrote it a few years ago. It’s a sonnet.

* * *

Her ignorance a rose, her sweetness found -
His scent appealed to her, too strong fragrance,
Dancing around the sky, all tied and bound
With string, tied neat, too tight, not sweet romance.
To him, her eyes had sung, so bright, a trance,
A light, a sign – imaginary pride.
His eyes had called to her, so soft a glance -
Then struck, and bound her to his side.
The touch was light, the signs all – cried -
She made no move, no struggle, no -
Attempt to stop him, try to – cried -
Through stifled – sight bound – tight lips – no -
Her legs cold, her tears coarse -
her face shorn, her throat hoarse.

It would be worth your time to read the whole thread, as there are many, many amazing and hilarious contributions. I will immortalize my own, however, because I’m very proud of them all and want to remember them even if some or all of them do not make the final cut for David Wong’s article. Also, these covers constitute the most creative output I’ve had in months, so I may as well put them here in lieu of some good writing.

Warning: these are both enormous and not family-friendly.

Book 1: None Hallow’s Eve
Tonight, the lantern laughs… at your corpse!

Book 2: Instrument of Death
They stole his life. He stole their tank.

Book 3: The Porter Incident
“Come on, barkeep, just two more…”

Book 4: Fisting the Dragon
One man. One fist. One million dragon asses.

EDIT: The article is here. Instrument of Death made the cut.

She’s giving me a strange look. It’s probably a response to my own, though I can’t begin to fathom what she might see at a moment when I’m this trapped inside an extended digression. Her left eyebrow is arched like it’s playing Twister on her forehead; the other one must be keeping score, kicking back and relaxing while spinning the game card from the worry lines along the bridge of her nose. Her mouth is pinched inwards as though it had barely survived an assault of lemon juice, and her cheekbones are pulled upwards by wincing eyes. If her hair were a little whiter, her worry lines a little more pronounced, she might be mistaken for the Queen of England, although the gray mittens she wears on her walk to the office probably pale in comparison to the thin white gauntlets of royalty, the kind of rare beauty I assume you can only get from the fur of Giant Pandas or some other very nearly extinct animal.

“Not hungry?”

I stare down at my plate in reply. It’s all sweet potatoes and green beans, a mix-and-match of whatever was quickly edible from the pantry. I have arranged them to form an emerald-eyed giraffe with tank treads for legs. I do not think she is amused, but I haven’t looked back up to see if her expression has changed since my attention refocused.

“Not particularly.” I keep staring at the plate, wondering how long it would take to mold the giraffe into a city skyline. Something majestic and grand, like a shot of New York from above the treetops of Central Park. “Veronica called earlier. I think she bought another outfit for her dog?” Or maybe San Francisco at night, from a boat on the bay. How do I do night with sweet potatoes?

“We need to move. That woman is insane.” She takes a quick forkful of potatoes into her mouth, but refuses to let this interrupt her. I can hear something slushing in every other word, like she’s swilling gelato as she talks. “The first time I met her, the poor puppy was dressed like a Navajo warrior. I think she even gave him a plush spear to chew on.”

“Always important to accessorize. At least he wasn’t chewing on a squeaky toy American invader.” No, a city would take too long. Maybe just one building? With windows and a grassy horizon. “And it’s not a puppy. She’s had him for what, five years?”

“As long as he’s cute, he’s a puppy. That’s the rule.”

“Yeah, well. He’s not cute when he’s dressed like an astronaut.” I glance up at the refrigerator; simple enough to do since the beige monstrosity is only about two feet from my face where I sit. The only thing of note, aside from a calendar and a door handle, is a photograph, stuck onto the wall with an old magnet from a Hallmark store. The magnet is a miniature heart-shaped box of chocolates, with the words “it takes two” in elaborate pink cursive at its center. One of us thought this was funny, or else it wouldn’t be here. I don’t think it was me. “I walked in and my first thought was ‘dear God, this woman is choking the life from an innocent.’”

“She probably was. She said the suits are sometimes a size too small, didn’t she?” She snorts, and lets her fork clang onto an emptied plate. I take a look at her; there’s a small bit of burnt potato stuck on the side of her lip. It looks either like dirt or smeared lipstick. “I wonder who has to decide how to properly size animal outfits.”

“It can’t be that hard.” The photograph itself is scratched and bent at the corners, but it’s still fairly vibrant for being taken nearly five years ago — one of the advantages of having a photo printer and a digital camera. “You get three chihuahuas, three beagles, and three Great Danes, and you just do the averages of their tailor-made cuts. Maybe throw in a black bear or a ferret, in case someone’s just that lonely.”

She’s finally noticed what I’m staring at, apparently; it takes her a moment to speak again, and I’m not sure exactly how she looks now. “You don’t have to be alone to want some company that’s well-dressed every now and then.”

The photograph is of a small, chocolate cupcake, with the word “IT” painted in horribly scrawled icing on top. I definitely thought that was funny.

“I’ll go put on my tuxedo, then.” I pick up my fork and start mashing my potatoes and beans. I don’t know what she sees in my face now, but I know I’m smiling. “And then I shall take you to the dance hall in the other room, and you shall never want for company.”

“I’m not even sure what that means.” I can hear her standing and the sliding of the plate lifting into the air like a heavy frisbee as she turns to the sink. “You don’t even own a business suit. How do you have a tuxedo now?”

My former dinner is now a hurricaned blob of color and texture. It looks like a crushed turtle with a million tiny heads, all coming to grips with the situation. “I’ll make one out of dollar bills,” I reply. “We have some to burn, don’t we?”

“If you use them for that, I’ll make sure it’s money to burn.” She turns her head towards me, and our eyes catch again. I can see the laughter in her eyes, and she’s trying not to let it slip downward from there. “It’s just that there won’t be much of it left by the time the fire trucks get here.”

“What a waste. Either you really like watching me suffer or you just really love being broke.” We’re failing to stare each other down now. It’s a boxing weigh-in gone terribly wrong. Do they disqualify you if you burst into laughter and start using sink water as a weapon? I suppose they don’t have sink water at boxing weigh-ins.

Something interesting: it took me two hours to fall asleep after I had that dream about the pennies. It might normally only have taken me a half hour of panting and wincing, but I was in a hotel for the weekend, the walls were white and barren, and it was very cold, so I decided to try something different. I spent an hour and forty-five minutes on the phone, laughing, and it only took me fifteen minutes after that to stop smiling and fall asleep.