Day 28: Eddie the Penguin

It starts slow, but it gets better as it goes along.  If I had the time I would definitely tighten the beginning.  By the way, anyone who has mastered this style has my deepest respect.  It is harder than it looks.

Eddie the Penguin

“He's a shrimpy little homunculus. But he gets things done.”

Davey Butter keeps his mouth shut when Victor makes the above remark about Eddie the Penguin, because although Davey is thinking bad thoughts about Eddie, Victor seems to end the remark about Eddie on a positive note.

Victor is a kind of guy who has a mustache and curly hair and five different dining and drinking establishments. Victor is also the kind of guy who has a scar on his face and who looks nice when he smiles, but also who you do not want to ask questions about where he gets this scar. Victor is also a guy who does not have a nickname. Everyone knows who you are talking about; there is only one Victor.

Victor is a guy you do not contradict. Especially when he is making a mostly nice remark about Eddie the Penguin.

Eddie the Penguin is a bald, pear-shaped individual with a high-pitched voice and a way of moving his legs that looks like he is a bird that lives at the South Pole.

The thing about Eddie is that he is everywhere. You can be taking inventory in the freezer or putting the schmooze on a customer or scraping the eaves and that little pygmy will saunter by and ask how are you doing today, in that high pitched voice of his, and be gone. He isn't exactly intrusive, but you can't escape him, either.

Don't get me wrong. I am not inviting unfavorable comparisons with Pygmies. What I am saying is that the guy is short and that his dad is a Mbuti.

Who am I? I am a pal of Davey's. It is I who got Davey into this mess. I got Davey a job working for Victor.

Davey meets Eddie the Penguin during the lunch service at the Breast Bar. The owner, that is Victor, the guy aforesaid, means originally to call it the Brest Bar after either that town in France or the pastry invented to commemorate the famous bicycle race. But the sign arrives with the word “Breast” instead of the name of the place, “Brest,” and Victor is a practical man. Also, the bar is a titty bar and the customers don't care about bicycles, so perhaps this is all for the good.

At the moment when I get Davey his job working for Victor, he is in some trouble. The trouble is that Davey's girl Tina ejects him from her apartment, and Davey does not have a place to live. Some persons might object that Davey may rent for himself his own individual place to live, but these persons are not taking into account Davey not having any monetary instruments or bundles of cash with which to effect this sort of arrangement.

Thus it comes that Davey is bunking with me, a phrase I do not mean literally because I do not want to impute that kind of romantic taint into our friendship. Don't get me wrong. I see nothing condemnable about that kind of romantic taint. I just mean that Davey is sleeping on the couch.

I am also a player in the drama of putting food in people's mouths and tits in people's eyes, and my role in this drama is that I am a dishwasher. I am in the employ of said Breast Bar's owner, that is, Victor, at a place called Madeleine, but formerly I washed dishes at his place called The Puff.

The Puff is named also after a pastry, but in this case, shortly after The Puff opens for business, it develops that some customers confuse the meaning and think it is a place for ladyboys. At first the owner (Victor, as I said) takes this unkind and wants to change the name or perhaps burn the place down, but then decides that there is also money in ladyboys, so he hires some, and develops new affection for the name and the customers and most especially their cash.

It is while I am a dishwasher at the Puff that I come to meet Eddie the Penguin. While I am scraping steak bones and fish skins into the trash, this short little guy with a funny walk delivers a case of second-hand knives for the cooking staff to cut things with, and for about five seconds he puts the looking part of his face in my direction, and asks me how I am doing today, like he has this same conversation with me last week and is just checking to make sure that the tumor has not grown.

I do not have a tumor and I have never had a conversation with him before. Therefore I give him a scan and he seems like he is meaning no harm, so I say I am doing alright and he says great and waddles out. That is how I meet Eddie the Penguin.

It is only a few days later that I tire of the fact that the tits being highlighted at The Puff belong to persons who also have things between their legs, and I request a transfer to another of Victor's establishments, which is called Madeleine. Madeleine is a classy establishment, also with tits but tits belonging to regular girls, but that is another story. I will only say that at Madeleine I also see Eddie, a lot, that is practically every other day.

To get back to the point, the story at hand is about my pal Davey, and his relations to Eddie the Penguin.

This lunch service where Davey first meets Eddie is also Davey's first lunch service in this Breast Bar establishment, and at this moment Davey finds it is his job to keep water glasses full.

At the time when Victor makes his remark about Eddie, the one at the top of this story, the remark that starts out disparaging Eddie for his lack of height and of beauty, and that ends with a compliment about his effectiveness as someone who can make things happen, Davey is working at the Breast Bar for maybe two weeks. Davey has therefore had time to form a definite opinion about Eddie.

Like me, Davey sees Eddie maybe every other day, always coming in and going out. But it is in Davey's personality that he sees Eddie always on the move like this and then thinks about how he, Davey, is always humping the same jug of water around the same twenty-five tables and feels like a dope, and he notices that Eddie comes and goes as he pleases, and always has a smile on that face of his.

I believe that this does an injury to Davey's pride. See, everyone knows how Rita pushes Davey out. But they also know that Rita pushes Davey out for a guy who was not very tall. I am not saying that this new boy friend is a pygmy, or even a partial pygmy, but Rita does make a comment as to the new boy friend being twice the man as Davey even though he is half Davey's size.

Also, you should know in case you do not guess it, my pal Davey is good for nothing. This is why his girl Rita pushes him out of the nest, and why Davey is not in possession of any resources of the spending money kind when Rita gives him the ditch.

Davey is also the sort of guy who seems to deserve his nickname, which is Butter, because he eats so much and it looks like what he eats is mostly butter.

Do not mistake me, Davey is good for a laugh and also for helping me to clean out my liquor stash, although I admit that some people would consider this as nothing.

It is on a day when we are laughing and cleaning out my liquor stash that Davey proposes that we knock Eddie the Penguin very hard on the skull. He says that this would be a laugh. I ask him why, and he says that Eddie is having too much fun and that there is no fun left over for other people.

I think this is an amusing thing to say, so I have another laugh, and Davey interrupts my laughing to say that no, he is serious. When he says this he has a look on his face. I do not like this look and tell Davey we will not talk about knocking Eddie on the skull anymore.

The incident is as we say forgotten, until a month later.

At this time, a month later, I receive a telephone call from Davey informing me that he is decided to go to Mexico for his health, as working in the filling water glasses industry is a negative effect upon it. The health emergency is urgent and he is in Mexico already, so I can have the couch back and also there is a nearly empty bottle of my Scotch underneath it.

I think this is another laugh, but I also believe it, for this is a typical stunt of Davey to go away all sudden like, usually because he has built up some debts or because he is good for nothing.

It is a day or two later, at Madeleine, when I next see Eddie the Penguin and I hear the better story. I have finished scraping plates for the day and I am sat down on a crate to eat my filet mignon and trout which I have reserved for this occasion. Eddie sees me in the midst of my gustatory business, and he waddles over to keep me company, to amuse me, and to tell me what happened to him three days ago.

I would say that Eddie's is the true story, but I am not present to observe either party engaging in the events in question, so I will just report what Eddie relates to me.

Three days ago [Eddie says, in his high-pitched voice] I am making a late night delivery to The Breast. It is late enough that people who live by the clock would call it the morning. I unlock the place and wander through it, carrying a package that Victor asks that I deliver. The package is very valuable and very small so I walk back through the kitchen so I can climb the stairs to the office where I know there is a small, safe place that is inconspicuous.

When I am walking through the kitchen, I turn on the light. But before I can take more than six steps [listening to Eddie, I figure that this is three steps for a normal person], something falls on me with a clang and it is now dark again and also very hot and echoing.

I punch very hard at whatever is around me and for my efforts I get some bloody knuckles and also a ringing in my ears. It is obvious now that some person has overturned a cooking pot on me.

I know that my stature is not impressive but I still find this to be an insult to my dignity, so I yell to the person who overturned the pot to refrain from such insults and also to remove the pot.

There is a shouting noise, and although I can not make out the words, I believe that they are rude. Then this person or these persons commences or commence to beat on the outside of the pot with more force and with a harder object than formerly I had been beating the inside. To judge from the noise, this object is a ladle.

Because acute hearing is important to the sort of business I do, I stick my fingers in my ears and wait for the noise to finish. Which it does, eventually, and this I think is because there is only one person outside the pot, and this person is now tired.

At this point it is that I change tactics and stay very, very still. This staying still goes on for a time and then I think my captor gets bored, because the pot is lifted up and I see a pair of legs.

I step toward the legs very quickly and then go around behind them because I do not think that this person is very smart, because his actions so far have not shown me that he has any kind of plan besides being a pest and a bully to a person of smaller stature.

Indeed, I get the jump on him, and he is standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding the pot and swaying and looking for where I could have gone. He is looking everywhere but behind him, so my guess about his smarts is on the money, as they say.

There is no point in waiting for him to grow some extra smarts, so I step forward and punch my fist into the backs of his knees. I do this very hard and he falls down very quickly and I have to move out of the way to avoid being crushed by this man, because in addition to being of greater stature than me, I also find him to be of greater mass.

Then I step onto his chest and I practice my tap-dancing. I find that his chest is not big enough for my routine, so I also include his face and his knees and also some other parts in between.

When I am satisfied that my tap-dancing is practiced, and also that he will not put any more pots over my head, I take a rest, and I ask him how he is doing. I always like to know how guys are doing because I am a sympathetic personality.

He groans a bit and he mumbles, and I think he mumbles because he has his arms over his face and this is not good for the articulation.

It is at this moment that my driver, Big Sally, decides he must appear. I believe that Big Sally has gotten impatient and maybe also a little bit worried for my health. I tell Big Sally that I appreciate his concern but that he worries too much, and I was delayed because I had a sudden desire to practice my tap dancing.

Big Sally looks at me, and looks at the guy on the floor, and he starts laughing because he has a big humorous streak and he likes a good laugh, and while he is laughing I go upstairs to drop off my package.

When I come downstairs again, Big Sally has still got a case of the chortles, and I suggest to him that as much as I, too, enjoy a good laugh, that it is now becoming an injury to his dignity, and that he should give it a rest.

He quiets down and then gives the fellow on the floor, I believe it was your pal, Davey Butter, a hoist. Your pal Davey is not walking so good, what with the cowering and his arms over his face, so Big Sally puts him over his shoulder like a bag of Idaho Russets, and we walk out together and set Davey on the pavement outside.

We prepare to take our leave, and this fellow Davey, he takes his arms from his face and talks. He is more clear with his words now, and this is what he says:

“You won't tell anyone about this, will you?”

I am a sympathetic personality and I say no to comfort him, even though this is obviously a lie because I am telling you about it now. But Big Sally thinks this is the biggest joke of the evening and despite my earlier warning to Sal about injury to his own dignity, he cannot stop laughing until we get into the car and drive away.

So [Eddie the Penguin says] that is what happened three days ago.

I thank Eddie for keeping me company, and I scrape my own plate, which has very little to scrape by now because I was very hungry and the filet and the trout at Madeleine are both very good.

Then I go home and I fluff the couch as best I can which is difficult because after this time Davey has left a very big dent in it. And I sit on the couch and take out the whisky and finish it, and I am sad, because Davey did not leave very much in the bottle for me to drink.

(c) 2011 Michael Bernstein

Day 27: The ComfortCat(tm)

Another fictional time stamp.  It's actually 3:26am on the 28th.

Ahh, fear.  We wait and wait for "inspiration," whatever that is.  And then we start writing without it, and something happens.

The ComfortCat(tm)

Darrell Happleby started combing the fur of the ComfortCat. Darrell wasn't feeling too terribly well at the moment. He had just forgotten his wife's name when introducing her to his doctor. The doctor watched Darrell searching his brain, and made a note.

The sheets on the hospital bed smelled of bleach and lavender and the walls had been painted the color of summer wheat. Outside the windows, trees waved in the breeze. Absent from the corridor were the typical hospital sounds; they had either been deadened by carpet and soft wall hangings, or eliminated by careful training or advanced communication technology.

The ComfortCat had been patented by the hospital's managing director. So the label on its belly said. Its silky fur resisted the comb just enough to be satisfying, and as you groomed the synthetic beast it gave forth a euphonious purr.

If a fellow were to be losing his mind, this would be the place to do it. And what better companion than a blue, furry cat?

Rita Happleby sat in a guest chair at Darrell's feet. She had assumed a bright and cheerful look meant to comfort him, but he had been married long to her enough to know that beneath that look of repose a sob waited to burst forth as soon as she could find time alone.

Rita clutched a black patent-leather purse. Of course nobody called them purses anymore. And no one would have mistaken Rita's purse for a design current on the streets of New York or even Bayonne, although doubtless Rita's niece Sarah appreciated it.

Darrell wondered why he was wondering about purses. He saw himself wondering about wondering. And then he thought: if he could see himself think, did that not mean he was all together in the thinking department?

Rita's niece Sarah sat next to Rita. Sarah at age seventeen managed to dress fashionably and simply, in a way that seemed old and new to his eyes. She called her style vintage, but Darrell could not work out the relationship to wine.

Darrell had remembered Rita's name only a minute after he'd forgotten it. Still, his stomach hurt with the shame of it, and he feared to look at his wife and her encouraging expression for fear that he'd start bawling.

How strange, Darrell thought, the older I get, the more readily I cry. When I was a child, I believed that the whole point of growing up was to never to have to cry again.

The doctor made brisk noises and slipped out, only to be replaced by an equally brisk nurse who told Rita that she could stay if she liked but that Sarah would have to step out as it was time to bathe him.

Sarah left, telling her uncle how nice it was to see him, in that way that Darrell knew was a lie, but also that the lie was kindly meant. His wife excused herself as well, telling Darrell that she should walk Sarah out and perhaps get a bite in the cafeteria, as their sandwiches were very good, and she shouldn't pass up the the chance, and would he like something?

Darrell said that's alright, I'll see you soon.

The abrasions stretched down the length of his right leg. The nurse, who introduced herself as Pam, put a waterproof cover on the wound and the dressing, and started to bathe Darrell with a sponge.

(The emergency room staff had cleaned the gravel from the wound last night. They had given him a local anesthetic, not enough, and Darrell found his eyes leaking a bit at the pain but not complaining.

Then they sat him in a room, this room, and gave him the ComfortCat. Darrell looked at the orderly in confusion, and the orderly apologized and gave Darrell the comb. Then the orderly left.

So Darrell sat in the quiet hospital room, by himself, hours after falling off his bicycle on a country road, and ran the comb through the long, fluffy fur of the stuffed cat.)

The nurse sponged all the way up and down Darrell's legs. He got an erection, but Pam the nurse ignored it, and the erection went away again. That's a pity, Darrell thought.

The ComfortCat sat on Darrell's chest, purring still, even though he'd stopped combing it once the nurse had come in.

Pam finished bathing him, his lower half that is, tidied, pulled the sheets back up, and left.

Darrell breathed in the quiet of his room.

Rita hadn't arrived until about an hour ago. She didn't drive, and so had to wait until Sarah could meet her at the train station.

Where will Rita stay, Darrell wondered. Or are we going home tonight? I am in no fit condition to drive a car, and the bicycle won't be at all comfortable. Where is the bicycle?

The ComfortCat stretched, arched its back, and moved from Darrell's chest to the crook of his arm. Darrell thought that the creature had developed quite a personality in the past few minutes.

He dozed for a bit, and awoke when Rita came back in. She stood by his bed, looking down at him. He looked up.

How was the parade, he asked. She smiled and said it was fine.

Then he wondered why he had said that. Silly. No parades in hospital cafeterias.

He searched her face for signs of worry. Nothing, except for a bit of tension above her lip, and a tiny narrowing of her eyes. He reached out to touch her.

Hold my hand, Darlin, and I'll take you for a ride in my Mustang, he said.

Only if you promise not to drive too fast, she said. My Daddy doesn't like boys who drive too fast. Even if I do like them.

He smiled back at her.

I'll take you up in my rocket ship, then. We'll battle bug-eyed monsters together, far from your Daddy and his rules.

Her cool hand felt tiny in his. He held it gently so he would not hurt her. Her fingers, long and elegant always, had thickened a bit at the knuckles. Or was it that the rest of each finger had shrunk? He looked up at her face again. She'd pulled back her hair, but a wisp had escaped, falling across her forehead. She saw his gaze and knew what it meant. She brushed the hair aside.

The ComfortCat at his side began to irk him. With his free hand he pulled it out from under the covers and looked for a place to set it.

What's that? Rita asked.

Stuffed animal, he said. Hospital staff gave it to me to keep me company.

She looked at the thing, read the label on the belly. MADE IN CHINA. It's a pity, she said, we don't make anything anymore. It's the Chinese making everything.

Darrell looked at her and at the cat, troubled.

Where have they put my bicycle, he asked.

Your bicycle, Darrell?

Yes. I'm sure they have it somewhere.

Alright...I'll ask, alright?

Thank you.

Satisfied, he slept.

* * *

Rita Happleby looked at her husband as he dozed in the hospital bed. She only had to squint a little bit to see him when he was seventeen. He still had the same broad shoulders and narrow waist, and his belly, while it had grown, did not hide the man he'd been.

She weighed the cheap stuffed toy in her hand. She wished she could afford a better home for him. This place was noisy and smelled of hospital, but at least the staff were kind.

She set the toy on the bedside table. Put her purse there, too. Slipped her flats off. She let down the rail at the side of the bed, and climbed in with him.

He moaned a bit, and slid over. The scrapes from his fall last month still seemed to bother him, but he did not wake. She lightly rested her fingers on his chest and felt it rise and fall. She felt the warmth of him.

She stayed there like that for a while.

(c) 2011 Michael Bernstein

Day 26: Saul

I have been sitting on this one for about three weeks.  When I first wrote it, I didn't feel comfortable posting it, so I wrote another one.  Reading this one today, I wonder: what was I worried about?

Tonight I had my pals at Shelter Sundays read it aloud and give me feedback.  The physicality in the story bothered no one, but they still had things to say.

I fixed the easy stuff.  The deeper issues I have not addressed.  The experience reminds me how bad I am at revisions: I so fear breaking what works that I hesitate to change much--at least after the first creative impulse has passed.

Saul

Saul is hot. Saul is cold. Saul wants to skip like one of the nerdcore kids. Saul is holding Kate Gerlacki's hand. Kate Gerlacki is wearing her dress with the roses on the front, the one that goes down to her knees. Saul wants to lift the dress up and feel what is underneath. Or even have the wind come up and do it for him. See if she wears a thong or granny panties or nothing at all.

They let go of hands and hook it into Pizza Tim. That's what they call it, Pizza Tim, because the E has fallen off the sign leaving a pale reversed image of itself. Inside the new version of Pizza Tim. Grand opening. Owners fixed up the interior but no one bothered to fix the sign.

On the wall brown and orange painting of old guys with mustaches and not much hair on the tops of their heads. Behind the counter one of those same guys, he must be the owner, and also a bunch of Dominicans and also a woman who Saul hasn't seen before. On the other wall, dark grainy pixelized versions of Frank Sinatra and all the other heroes.

Saul gets two lasagne slices and a giant Coke and Katie gets one plain and a large Diet Sprite. They eat and talk about how goofy Katie's parents are with their obsession with raw milk and ugly tomatoes and how specifically Katie's dad is actually kind of cool about the piercings thing, not that Katie actually has any piercings, she is seriously considering getting some, but hasn't yet, she's actually waiting for her mother to stop freaking out about the idea. Saul rubs his shin on Katie's calf.

He has a truly terrific hard-on, an unusual high-grade hard-on, and is definitely feeling a buzz, not certain if this is from the giant Coke which is almost gone now or the warm resilient softness of the flesh on the side of her knee which is touching the side of his knee. Saul is like one of those lobotomized robots on Invasion of the Body Snatchers and he can feel his ability to form a definite plan melting away--aside from the plan that maybe they could go right out the door and one door down and then upstairs to her place, and check out her dad's old yearbooks to see if possibly he could have been that cool when he was in High School, because sometimes you know a guy can be a nerd and then grow out of it. Right?

They shove their paper plates into the bin. Saul rubs his hands with his napkin and throws it away because you can never be sure if a girl is going to notice. And specifically he wants to make sure that he isn't sweating when they hold hands again.

As it turns out she doesn't have a moment for him to hold her hand or even open a door for her as she unlocks the gate and then the inner door and then goes up the stairs ahead of him and he considers for a second looking up her dress but isn't sure if she'd catch him, so he races up the stairs right behind her almost too close, was it too close, or does she like that?

While she looks for the yearbooks he drinks a glass of water and swishes it around in his mouth to make sure he doesn't have any cheese between his teeth. It is a good chance that they would make out now. He walks to the front windows and looks down.

Down on the street he can see Tommy fake-punching the back of Esteban's head and Esteban fake-pulling Tommy's backpack off. Some guy in his thirties looks like he was about to pull out his phone to call the cops in case the altercation becomes violent.

Saul inhales the Gerlacki family funk. It smells like B.O. and mint-scented trash bags and cookies. There is a little bit of dust on the top of the window unit air conditioner so he drags his fingers across it leaving five exactly parallel trails. He thinks about pressing against the A.C. to restore his hard-on, like he does on the washer when it's in spin cycle, but then maybe the cold air would cancel out the vibration and besides how gross would that be if Katie sees him doing that?

She couldn't find the yearbooks she says from the hallway as she walks up behind him smelling like Clinique Happy just like she has been smelling for the past couple of hours only it is stronger now. He turns around and she is almost on top of him and it is an accident when their lips touch because he didn't really realize that she was that close. The buzz travels up inside of him and now his lips are trembling and he definitely does not want that to happen so he presses harder with his lips on her just to ease the buzz and her lips slide across his and he thinks he is going to slide right off and get whiplash. He moves his head back the other way and now her lips are parting and her tongue is coming out and pushing between his lips. Just a little bit. Not being nasty or anything.

This is the first time that any of this has happened to him before, and Saul isn't going to say or do anything to give that away.

He stands there looking into Katie's eyes, which are green flecked with gold and brown and she has a thin irregular trace of eyeliner on each of her eyelids and also there are tiny almost invisible freckles on the bridge of her nose.

Then he kisses her again and he traces the outside of her elbow with his fingers. His fingers are itching to touch her breasts but definitely not sure if that is cool right now.

Then they are sitting on the couch and he is touching her breasts because she has put his hands there. The back of his neck is prickling with sweat so hopefully she doesn't touch him on the back of the neck.

They are leaning on the couch, this ugly woven fake wool with flowers thing that has dark shadows on the armrests. She rubs his shoulders and his biceps, which admittedly are pretty pumped right now.

Then her hand is on his hip, and he's working her breasts well, squeezing them, and she's making noises, like little sighing noises, and then her fingers brush his junk, and a shock runs through him from his lower back to meet the tips of her fingers on the front of his pants, and now the inside of his baggies are wet, and Saul feels really cold.

“Uh, sorry, I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Cool..okay.”

Not exactly like she's cool with it at all, but the first thing is to get out of there and to somewhere else where he can check out the damage.

And he's in there with the fake flowers and the Renuzit and drops his pants and boxers and there it is, a wet spot all over the inside of his boxers, shining slick in the light.

Saul stares at his fuck-up. Figuring out what to do.

He uses toilet paper to scrape most of the fuck-up off the inside of the boxers and flushes the t.p. down the toilet. Nothing on the inside of his baggies.

So he pulls everything back up again, washes his hands, and goes out into the living room.

Katie's in the kitchen taking brownies out of a plastic container and putting them on a plate. Saul teases her, saying he didn't know that she was a baker, but in fact he definitely knows that her mom bakes brownies all the time, Katie brings them to school like she did last week on the last day of school.

Katie says: “Want a brownie?”

“Yeah.”

He takes the brownie. Her mom's brownies are good.

He eats it.

This is the best brownie ever.

Saul leans forward a bit, so his baggies hang right, that is: so the wet spot doesn't touch him as much.

Katie says: “You wanna watch the Yankees beat the Angels? My Dad just hooked us up.”

He looks into her eyes, the green flecked with gold and brown, looks for any sign that she's going to make fun of him. But she's just looking right back at him, steady, whatever that means.

“Yeah, I do, but I got to get home.”

“Okay.”

Saul scoops up his backpack, throws it over his shoulder.

Now he's standing at the door. She's eating a brownie and breathing its scent on his face. She puts the brownie down and gives him a bro-hug and then he tries to kiss her on the lips but kind of gets the side of her cheek. She hugs him for real and he finds his hands on her hips pulling her to him. Her breasts are on his chest, which is nice, but he can feel his wet spot and after a second he lets go.

“See you tomorrow?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “We're leaving for Greenport tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, right.”

“Text me.”

“Yeah.”

Then she closes the door.

He rattles down the stairs to the outside. He slips out and grabs his phone and sends a text to Esteban.

.wat up

.nothin bro you peg katie?

.sure. want to catch yankies

.you mak enny promizez?

.nup free man

.cool bro common over

Saul walks down the street toward the bus stop.

He passes Caitlin Estevez, Katie's best friend who looks almost exactly like her, walking the other way.

Caitlin smiles at him, and he feels hot and cold all over.

(C) 2011 Michael Bernstein

Day 25: The Sort Of Moment You Wonder Where Was It Exactly This Went Wrong

Thank you, Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt.  (Oblique Strategies online here.)

The Sort Of Moment You Wonder Where Was It Exactly This Went Wrong

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, goes the turn signal.

He woke up in the front passenger's-side seat.

Covered in treacle.

Hand stuck to his face.

Upside down.

Pantsless.

Never again would he.

(c) 2011 Michael Bernstein

Day 24: Beer, Beer, Shot.

Beginning, middle, and end.  I'm not sure how well the middle works, but all the parts are there, so I'm calling it done.

Beer, Beer, Shot.

Friday morning.

Jeremy Phillips lies in bed staring at the ceiling. Clock ticks over to five a.m. Alarm sounds but Jeremy hits snooze. Which doesn't work. Can't even sleep in, dammit.

Hit the personal gym for thirty minutes. Hit it hard. Throw up a little bit.

Shower, shave, get into some decent clothes. Down the stairs, grab a cab to the office on 27th Street, coffee comma egg and cheese sandwich and then into the elevator. Six a.m. and thirty minutes change.

That's a ninety minute jump on the rest of the office.

People walking by Jeremy's desk at eight get a cheery Hello.

Jeremy likes to have people's backs to him. He can see their desks, their computer screens. He can see when Tanya has washed her hair and the damp ponytail leaves a dark spot on the back of her shirt. He can see when Chris lets his shirt pop out of the back of his pants.

Three spec. campaigns, two client memos. Finish them and don't look back. Only way to make the day.

Now (10am) he's got to talk to Chris Marcy in the conference room because Chris doesn't know he's about to be fired and because there's hope for Chris.

Yes, there's hope for Chris. Also, Jeremy has fired two other creatives this quarter and Jeremy does not want to appear a bad manager.

"Chris, you're about to be fired." Uncomfortable silence. Chris staring at his feet. Chris can't imagine why. So then, Why:

“You can't write a campaign to save your ass and also you don't properly acknowledge leadership. My leadership, specifically, as that is the leadership that will enable you to write a proper campaign.”

And then: important remedial steps to take. Chris scribbles these things tearfully. The meeting ends with a comforting but entirely heterosexual handshake.

Lunch. Three beers.

Afternoon: a round of campaign status meetings. Fighting the delicious urge to pick his nose while the managing director is talking to him. Get two client approvals, one request for re-write, one "sorry, we're going in another direction." Acceptable.

Evening: Cypress Bar at 26th. Beer, beer, shot, beer, shot. Making out in the alcove with Amanda Pruitt. Shot, shot. Hamburger, shot. "You want me, Amanda Pruitt, 'cause I'm a man, and you wanna man...to do it." Oops, no love from Amanda Pruitt tonight. Another shot.

Out for some air. For the hell of it, walk down the ramp into The Garage. White walls, concrete beams. Vendors unpacking their wares from vans with Pennsylvania plates. African masks. Suits from 1937. Suits from 1948. Suits from 1968. Knickknacks.

Jeremy admires the enterprise of flea-market vendors, but despises the filth and disorder they embody. It disgusts him.

Flea markets are for fleas.

The night is young. Keep going, south on the Avenue of the Americas. "Mister Softee makes the very best," reads the side of the truck. Words to live by. That means a large vanilla ice cream, double-dipped in chocolate.

Chelsea: Gays. Tourists. The Barnes and Noble is now a Trader Joe's. Wonder what it'll be in four years. The Village: More Gays, more tourists. Duck into some place for a couple of shots. By NYU: Comedy club pimps. Does anyone actually ever go into those comedy clubs? A shot and a beer at Shade.

Now Jeremy is on the train like a plebeian. Can't actually recall paying the fare. Did he jump the turnstile? Perhaps.

A passage of time during which Jeremy may not be completely conscious. He may have explained how to make gunpowder to the drunk London girls sitting across from him. He may have tried to look up their skirts. They speak in sharp, clever, barely audible sentences with lots of consonants. He laughs and shows that he can take it.

A woman with a bouffant and a man with a fanny pack are on the train, and there is a pleasant debate among all present about how to get them to Times Square. The first step is for them to get off the train and go back the other direction.

Jeremy thinks this through for a stop or two, and discharges himself from the train to look for a cab or a car before he goes too deep into the wilds of the Outer Boroughs.

Neither yellow cab nor livery cab are at hand, but the next corner up looks promising. So does the next. And the next.

Jeremy is next to a long plywood barricade. On the other side, a throbbing. The throbbing gives Jeremy a headache, as he is much closer to sober than to drunk and there is neither water nor booze nearby.

And not a damned car in sight. He must be deeper into Queens than he realized.

Jeremy peeps through a hole in the plywood barrier. Stretched out before him, orange in the sodium glow, a spacecraft. Jeremy knows that it is a spacecraft because of the airlock, the shock-mounted supports, the portholes, the cables and lines and vapors. It's a spacecraft.

Also, aliens, with their eye stalks and their trilateral symmetry? Dead giveaway.

So he mounts the fence. There are two useful possibilities: with his charm and drive, Jeremy would make an excellent intergalactic trader. Either that, or steal one of these ships and sell it to the highest bidder; perhaps the U.S. Government, perhaps Google.

He lands in soft dirt at the top of the blast pit. He hurries toward the ramp that leads down to the ship, for the three-legged monsters are headed for the ship's airlock. No telling when they'll take off and miss the chance of Jeremy's life time. The throbbing comes from the ship; plainly the captain is revving the engines.

A rifle butt to the side of Jeremy's head. He sees stars. Then he feels someone sitting on his chest. He tries to get up, but it's hard, being stunned by a blow and also having 220 pounds of person on top of you.

Straining his neck a little, Jeremy can see from the corner of his eye that the craft's door has shut. The throbbing drops a note, and the craft rises.

The craft disappears into the night sky.

Jeremy's captor allows him to rise. Looks like some kind of Special Forces man, but no patches, no insignia. He turns Jeremy around and frog-marches him to a door in the plywood wall. Jeremy protests, but is pushed out the door, and clubbed again, from behind.

Saturday morning.

Jeremy Phillips lies on the bench on the train platform, staring at the sky. He is cold. He has wet himself. He is somewhere in Queens.

(How does he know that he is in Queens? He doesn't. But he must be in an outer borough. They don't have intergalactic space craft in Manhattan. No space for them. Queens is as good a guess as any.)

The train display ticks over to five a.m. The display changes again, and the speaker comes to life: A Manhattan-bound train, two stations away.

Jeremy praises, well, not God, because he doesn't believe in God, but his own silly good luck.

If he gets on this train now, then catches a cab at 59^th Street, then he can hit the gym and get in a solid four hours at the office and still see the Yankees host the Rays at 1:05pm.

(c) 2011 Michael Bernstein

Day 23: Advice

This one came more easily.  I like it.  I hope you like it, too.

Advice

Dear Alice,

I think my mouse is back. I hear the little skritching sounds he makes. I will have to put out traps again with some little mousie nibbles.

When I woke this morning, the sky was already bright and I could see the sparrows hopping up onto my window sill. They use it as a launching pad to get to the bird feeder. Lazy creatures, like me.

Thank you very much for the seed catalog. I am not gardening as much but they are very pleasant to read. I do spend a lot of time on the planters on my balcony. Much easier to get to.

There was a fire up the canyon last week. It stayed away from my house, and I couldn't even see it, although I got a few anxious calls. Forest fires seem so much bigger and more dangerous when you live far away from them, I guess.

I have a letter from Geeta on my desk. You'll remember that she stayed up here the summer after John died, when I thought the company would do me good. I keep meaning to write her back. She is asking me for advice about Adam and I have long since given up on advice. I think he will leave her, but that the kids will be fine. I have never seen such smart, grounded, independent children. I wish some of that would rub off on their mother. I honestly do not know what to tell her. Perhaps I will write and say that getting older does not necessarily make one wiser.

I suppose that is what makes this letter to you so difficult for me to write.

When you were born, you were one surprise after another. I did not think you would arrive with a full head of dark brown hair. Nor did I think that it would fall out and reappear (blonde, no less) in such short order.

I also thought you would take after me, for some reason. I suppose that was a reaction to having had a succession of boys. As my first and only female child it only seemed fair that I should have someone like me to be my daughter. An ally and a friend in the middle of this tide of jock straps and charlie horse punches.

As we both now know, you are not like me. You are outspoken and sensitive and far more conventional than I ever was. By high school, the only time I could convince you to leave the house was in the company of your girlfriends or with a young man.

I am thankful that you have always had good taste in young men, by the way. I include David in that, no matter what your present troubles. I can hardly claim the credit. John and I met when I was nineteen and we just fell into it--a surprise to Mother, who despaired of my ever meeting a boy at all, much less a suitable one.

Sometimes, when the meadow below the house is full of snow, I look at it and wish that I could show it to you. I mean of course that I wish I could show you what I see.

Kym will be alright, I think. I know how the demon of worry can gnaw at a mother. Especially when her only daughter is sixteen, but I have to tell you, Alice, it doesn't ever really go away.

The worst thing you can do is to try to stop her spending time with Faoud. I think she is stubborn like me. She will dig in her heels, or worse, cut you off completely.

Those are my two cents. I do hope they are worth something,

Love,

Your mother,

Joan

(C) 2011 Michael Bernstein

Day 22: Jackie

I got about seven hundred words into another story before starting this one.  The first story just wasn't going anywhere.  It's like I'm forgetting how to write.  Then, when I get started, I don't want to let the story go, and boom, it's 3am and I have nearly two thousand words.

Jackie

The man in the blue suit does not seem to notice when Jackie rubs against him. Crowded train, after all. But now Jackie has the man's ID, his transit history, his credit history, blah blah blah, the works. Got the NFC, One Two Three.

Train pings and Jackie slips out the door, Fubatzo thump rocking his ears. He takes the stairs two at a time, out the turnstile, knocking into people in a rude but not calling the police kind of a way: guy in glasses, woman in trench coat, some sexy piece of ass in a pencil skirt. Whatever.

Two doors down from the subway entrance. Jackie slips into Hiky Brown perfume shop, down the narrow single aisle, around the register, kissing Hiky on the cheek, into the back. Fingers on the secret panel, tap tap, “Who is it?” from behind (or something, Jackie still listening to Fubatzo on high). Jackie whistles the wake-up tones from his old flip phone.

Secret panel slides back and in goes Jackie. Panel closes behind him. Ring of LED around the camera, Jackie makes lips, his face bathed in infrared. Solenoid-operated bolt goes Chunk, Jackie can feel it through his feet, and the second panel opens. Jackie rattles down the stairs.

Professor Tam waiting for him at the cramped table full of computers, blank fare cards, must be about twenty phones, soldering iron. Tam curled like a comma, shuffling from the table to greet him. Tam's face wide and flat, swimming behind those super-powered spectacles, Jackie digs the old school epicanthic fold. Jackie himself got the double eyelid surgery last year and is saving up for his Michael Jackson nose--not the scary old Michael, just the first cut, 1985, before anyone twigged just how weird that boy was.

Jackie slips his phone over to the Professor and waits. A flat panel shows futbol. Man United is on, a repeat, them against the Blackburn Rovers. Whatever.

Tam said something. Jackie pulls out his ear buds, Fubatzo all tinny now that the buds are around his neck and not his ears. How did they do that, make so much bass when they in your ears but soon as you take them away, it's like a mouse farting? Sometimes when Jackie has the ear buds in, he puts a finger over that little hole on the outside of the ear bud. Same thing. Goes all tinny. Take it away, hear the bass again. Miracle of modern physics.

Tam spoke again. “Where did you get this?”

He points at a spot on the screen. Jackie looks. A line, highlighted, reads:

ESN 0a003ef53bea MANU VZQ 13121920234 DaltonEdwa SN 210E84192

Jackie scrunches his forehead and smoothes it out again. “How do I know? I bump up against fifty people today.”

Tam shakes his head, making like old school sagacious scholar. Jackie has no time for this, “Can I go now?” And Tam says, “All right,” and counts out some bills, which Jackie scoops up and puts most of in the envelope he keeps inside his track suit jacket.

Outside on the street again, people flowing past, Jackie finds the two spare bills in his track suit pants pocket are burning a hole there. Before anyone tweeks the smoke from the extra cash, Jackie gets moving. Down into the train, through another two hundred people, flat noses and sharp honky beaks, blue eyes and brown eyes and green. Jackie admires a few more rounded asses. Sees a sharp Armani suit he'll have to find for himself, right after the surgery.

Train arrives with a crash and Jackie boards, slipping ahead of a couple of tourists with straight blond hair and neon graphical backpacks. Wanting to chill, Jackie switches from Fubatzo to Tanaii, breathing in the sonorous loops of piano and fuzzy guitar.

Off the train at 8^th and hike over to Avenue C. Buzz Randi's number, she lets him in. Two floors and at the back, her door is ajar, he slips in.

Randi watches all sorts of stuff online, Jeremy Kyle and Oliver Geissen and those guys. That's what she's doing right now, some guy is throwing an envelope at Jeremy Kyle's head and she watches it over and over and laughs.

Jackie says hi and sits on the futon watching Randi watch stuff online. She's got blond hair in fine ringlets all over her head, lip gloss, grey T and black and white tiger stripe tank over that, pink mini, bare legs, bare feet.

She finishes and comes over to straddle Jackie and kiss his eyelids and they get into it.

Downstairs after that, Jackie's buying her ice cream and earrings. Randi digs lychee ice cream and Jackie will always order chocolate because it is a true classic. The large hoopy earrings bang against Randi's neck when she moves her head to lick her ice cream cone and Jackie wants to go back upstairs with her. But there are no more bills burning a hole in his pocket, so he heads back west.

Jackie takes care of his money like this: Put the bills to spend in his pocket. Put the bills to save in the envelope with Michael's picture in it. When the bills in the pocket disappear, it's time to make some more.

Next to the magazine store on the corner with the words GEM SPA over the awning, Jackie sees a lean Rajasthani boy named Tim. Tim wears a Members Only jacket and acid washed jeans and on his wrist a promise bracelet. Jackie asked Tim once: “Why you wear a promise bracelet if you gay? What's the point?” Tim explained like Jackie was an idiot: “Just because you commit one sin does not mean you have to commit them all.” All Jackie could say was “awright bro.”

Jackie says hi, Tim says hey. They watch the college students for a while. Tim says his parents trying to arrange a marriage with some girl from Jaipur. She's from this hella rich Christian software developer family, want to get their little girl out of Rajasthan before it gets too crazy. Jackie says “that sucks bro.” Then Jackie gets nervous to be earning some more money and says goodbye to Tim and heads up to Times Square.

He turns on the NFC on the train. Looks at all the other geeks pushing their fingers around on the glass fronts of their phones, pads, whatever. Just like him. Only he's making bank with Professor Tam.

There exist many good places to meet people and the devices that contain their personal information. Port Authority. Grand Central. Penn Station. Upper East Side (anywhere along the 6 train, really). World Trade Center. Chinatown. Times Square.

Jackie likes to mix it up. He hasn't been made yet. Doesn't want to go to jail, ever. He's heard stories.

Into the throngs of tourists. 7:45pm, good hunting time. Cooled off, jackets and maybe a few sweaters, people don't notice when you brush against them a little bit, just don't be suspicious. Usually Jackie brings somebody like Tim but Tim is all sad about this marriage thing and would be nothing but weight while Jackie is trying to work. Whatever. Just get to work, remain calm.

Familiar face in the crowd. Not so rare, seeing a familiar face, but this guy is looking right at Jackie and Jackie can't place where he knows this guy. The guy's look makes his stomach contract. Jackie flicks his eyes away and casually crosses the street. No point in lingering

Now some other guy makes eye contact and Jackie does not know this face at all. The stomach gets tighter. People everywhere, should be no problem at all to disappear. Jackie heads down toward 42^nd, subway entrance is full of people moving fast, he can get in with them and slip onto the train.

A burly arm goes around his shoulder and the guy says “come this way, please,” and Jackie looks over and sees that the guy is holding a badge, the badge flashing in the reflected neon of the Square.

Burly brings him to a white step van on a side street. Guys in blue poplin jackets but no insignia. Jackie steps up into the van because he is told to and it's full of electronics inside and it's got a non-slip steel floor. The man in the blue suit is there. That was the familiar face from five minutes ago, before Jackie's stomach seized up.

Burly is behind him pulling on nitrile gloves and asks Jackie to raise his arms. Burly explains in what fashion he is going to touch Jackie, and why, and asks if he understands. Jackie nods and tries not to get an erection when the guy gets to the part where he runs his hand up inside Jackie's thigh.

Meanwhile the man in the blue suit asks Jackie a lot of questions. The man is very interested in where Jackie goes with the NFC turned on. He seems to know everything about Professor Tam but doesn't seem to care.

At the end Burly hands Jackie's phone to the man in the blue suit. The man in the blue suit says he'll give Jackie a receipt, but what he hands to Jackie is a card with nothing on it, just an address:

26 Federal Plaza, 18^th Floor, Suite 1821, Office D.

Then Jackie is asked to step out of the van. The guys in the blue poplin look at him like he'd better move along, so he goes back to the train and transfers once so he can go uptown on the East Side.

Fewer people walk back in forth in front of Hiky Brown at night than at day, but right now there is a crowd half way down the street, surrounding Jackie as he emerges from the subway. Flashing lights--cop lights.

Jackie knows he should go home now but he hates Flushing any time of the day and his stomach is only going to get tighter staring at the fish tank over his brother's bed. So he pushes through the crowd toward the cop lights and Hiky Brown.

There's a bag on the stretcher. The bag is shaped like Professor Tam. The bag and the stretcher go into the ambulance. The ambulance has the cop lights on top.

Hiky stands next to a guy in a pinstripe suit. Pinstripe has messy white hair and his tie a little bit undone, but he's comforting Hiky not the other way around. Hiky looks so put together even when things go wrong.

The man in the blue suit is asking Hiky questions and nodding sympathetically. Then he walks up to Jackie. No, it's a different man in a blue suit, but it could be the other guy's twin. He says “go home, Jackie” and Jackie doesn't need to be told twice, he doesn't need to know who these guys are in the blue suits, he doesn't need to know who killed the Professor or why or even if there's a job for him tomorrow or next month when Hiky gets the place repaired. He's going home like he's been told.

Except on the train he decides to go back to Randi's place. He pulls a bunch of bills out of the envelope he keeps inside of his track suit jacket. Jackie is glad he took the express, so people don't have as much time to see the smoke rising out of his pocket from the multitude of bills burning a hole there.

At the corner by Randi's place, Jackie pulls the picture out of the envelope and throws it in the trash can.

Fuck having Michael Jackson's nose.

(c) 2011 Michael Bernstein