Dead Tree Diaries

"What Happens Next" by Pamela Ribon

2006-07-03T21:12:00.000-04:00

from the short story collection Girls' Night Out, a Red Dress Ink publication

I walked into that video store knowing I was going to rent three movies and ask Eric out.

Eric made my thoughts jumble together. I had been planning on doing this for a while, but before a syllable would come out of my mouth, every possible scenario played in my brain like a demonic blooper reel. A terrifying cause-and-effect would unfurl in my head until I stopped myself from doing anything at all.

If I told him I liked his shoes, he’d look down at them, causing out heads to clunk together like a Three Stooges punch line. Then he’d back up, covering his head, wincing. This would make him step on the foot of the woman behind him, who would, inevitably just have had bunion surgery. So the woman with the foot would wail, falling to the ground, clutching herself while screaming about a lawsuit. She would, of course, have some small dog that would yip and growl before peeing all over the carpet. Eric would be fired on the spot, and it would be completely my fault.

I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly was different about tonight. It could still go horribly wrong, but something about this evening made it okay to fail. It’d be worth it.

I had run out of microwave popcorn. While this may seem completely unrelated to video rentals at first, when I found the empty box in my cabinet, the first person I thought of was Eric. It wasn’t only because Eric sells me this microwave popcorn due to its convenient location at the checkout line. When I didn’t have any popcorn, I wanted to turn to Eric and say, “We’re out of popcorn.” I wanted to start a sentence with the word “We” and I wanted the “You” part of the “You + Me = We” to be Eric.

Eric + Maggie = We.

I left the house without closing the cabinet door. The next time I made popcorn, I had to have at least tried to make my life have a “We” in it.

I thought I’d walk into Happy Endings Video as if I had no intention of talking to Eric. I’d use a different checkout line for my DVDs. I’d find the girl he’s always talking about—the skinny one with dreadlocks—and ask her to check out my movies. I’d seen her once but never talked to her. It’d be much cooler to finish my transaction with that girl before walking over to Eric and asking, “Can I get some popcorn?” Then, while he rang up my three-pack box of Pop Secret in Light Butter, I’d stare at the top of his head, looking deep into his dark tangle of curls, and ask, “Do you work Friday nights?”

It was a question I already knew the answer to, and he knew that. He’d smile, but I wouldn’t see his smile because he’d be looking down, and he’d say, “Maggie, you already know the answer to that.”

And I’d smile, but he wouldn’t see it because he’d be still staring down at my popcorn, which by now he’d probably have put in a plastic bag, and I’d say, “I do. But I also have a question I don’t know the answer to.”

I’d end my sentence with a preposition like that because he once told me he can’t let a sentence like that hang in the air. Eric was in graduate school for English, wanted to be a fancy-pants professor one day. I wanted to be the one who sewed patches onto the elbows of his blazers. I wanted to clean his monocle, polish his pipe, alphabetize his Twain. It all sounded so incredibly sexy.

“You have a question you’d like me to answer?” he’d say.

And I’d say, “Do you want to have dinner with me on Friday night?”

But I’d have leaned in to ask, to appear flirty, to appear irresistible, and I’d have accidentally rested my forearm on the intercom switch, so my question had boomed over the loudspeaker. The entire video store would have heard me. They would all be looking, laughing, judging.

And Eric would have to stammer, over the loudspeaker, “We’re having a sale on Vin Diesel tonight. Don’t miss it.”

There’d be this agonizing silence as he turned off the switch, handed me my popcorn and kept his eyes averted from my face. I’d take the popcorn and leave the store, the city, and the state, forever.

So.

Maybe I’d start my video-store experience the same way I always did, marching right up to Eric and asking, “What have you got for me?” Eric had been helping me pick my rentals for the six weeks I’d been coming to the store. I’d have to start things naturally, act like it was all the other times I’d walked in, but then somehow work in the part where I date him, make out with him, marry him and have his intellectually superior children.

I wanted to skip all of tonight and fast-forward to the part where we’d already gone out and had a great time. Then the next time I walked into the store I could jump up on the yellow counter, dangling my legs over the returned disks, and lean in for a kiss from my cute video-store boyfriend. He’d compliment my T-shirt (which he’d bought me) that boasted some ironic, geeky sentence, like “Don’t mess with tech support,” and I’d run my hand over the mess of brown curls on his head. By then we’d have some kind of inside joke from our fantastic date—a nickname he’d given his skinny female coworker, perhaps—and I’d be able to be a part of his inner world. “You working with Man-Hips?” I’d ask, and Eric would laugh that warm laugh he’s got, and he’d nod his head in Man-Hips direction. Then he’d wiggle his finger, warning me to keep his secrets quiet. I’d flirt back that he’d have to do something to keep me quiet, like buy me something, and he’d say “Buy you something? You never asked me to buy you something before.” And I’d say, “Yeah, that part of this fantasy is nothing like me. I was just going with it.” he’d frown and say, “I’m breaking up with you.” Then I’d have to jump off the yellow counter, but I’d miss, and I’d fall into the returned-disks bin. Man-Hips would help me up but I’d accidentally call her Man-Hips and I’d have to change my video store, apartment, and time zone.

So.

Eric knows more about me than I do about him, purely through his knowledge of my past movie selections. He’d hold up a DVD and say the movie’s title. If I had seen it, I’d launch into the story of when, with whom and what had happened that night. Through Eric’s game of Twenty Movie Questions he’d found out the story of my best friend moving away to grad school (we’d stayed up all night watching her favorite movies—Grease, Steel Magnolias and, for reasons still unknown to me, Taxi Driver), the last time I had the flu (I had watched the first two seasons of 24), and my recent breakup (I still haven’t seen Out of Africa). Eric used his job to peek into my life. Now it was up to me to bring his life into mine.

I didn’t want it to be my move. Eric had never asked me if I’d seen Fight Club, so he didn’t know that I don’t usually ask men out. My Fight Club experience was so awful I vowed to let love find me. I had asked out a guy named Terrence, which isn’t a real name as far as I’m concerned, and he spent most of the date commenting on whatever piece of food I put into my mouth while simultaneously explaining how he was never going to get married. As soon as I purchased The Popcorn That Brought on Terrence’s Most Disapproving Glare, I knew it wasn’t worth putting myself through that.

It wasn’t fair that someone always had to make the first step toward progress. Someone had to be the brave one, or the stupid one, the one who was willing to change everything. I didn’t want Eric to remain my video-store clerk; I wanted him to be someone I could see away from the glare of the fluorescent lights. I wanted to know what he looked like when he wasn’t wearing a yellow vest. And because I wanted to know what he looked like in the dark, or in my bed, I had to be the one to put myself at risk, in public, and ask him if he thinks about me outside of the store, too. I had to see if he would eat a meal with me. That’s the next step. I flirt with you here in this store, and now I see if you’d like to eat food with me. The dating ritual was truly bizarre. Why not: I let you borrow my favorite sweater, and now let’s see if we have fun planting a rosebush together? It seemed just as arbitrary. If I tell you what day it is now, will you then return a library book with me Friday night? Dating was coupling up in new situations to see if people were still compatible. Why did it have to be the same series of steps—talking, eating, kissing—before we decided? Maybe I should throw Eric a curveball. He might prefer a girl who asked him to IKEA instead of a restaurant. Except then he might think I considered him hired help. Now that you’ve chosen a movie selection for me, would you please grab that Allen wrench and help me put together this Skööl bookcase? Does this make you want to eat food with me?

I pushed the door of Happy Endings Video too strongly; they smacked against the wall with a clatter, making everyone in the store stare at me, wide-eyed. “Sorry,” I said, my voice too quiet for the large room.

But I was in. I was one step closer to finding out if Eric would eat food with me. No matter what happened, once I did this I had earned the right to buy myself a burger and fries tonight. That was the reward I had decided to give myself. I could eat whatever I wanted tonight because I was a winner. I overcame obstacles. And winners ate cheeseburgers. Or I could order Chinese. Maybe some kung pao chicken from that new place, the one I’ve wanted to try. But if I ordered from there and it wasn’t good, I’d have ruined my victory dinner with a risky new venture. Maybe my victory purchase shouldn’t be something food related. That might look bad, when it comes to my self-esteem. I don’t need food to be a reward. I’m not that kind of girl. How does a girl reward herself intellectually but still emotionally after a semi-shallow victory such as asking Cute Video-Store Boy out on a date? Let myself read an extra chapter of a book? Rent a foreign movie? Go for a long walk? being a smart girl sure could be lame. I’d rather treat myself to a bottle of wine and an Us Weekly. I make progress in my life so I can judge the lack of progress in Cameron Diaz’s.

I stood at the front of the store long enough for Eric to notice me. He waved at me from behind the counter. He was working an incredibly long line that weaved all the way back to the PlayStation games. I mouthed, “Busy!” and he shrugged back at me with a grin. I loved our secret communication, the shorthand language we’d acquired.

There was a time when I thought I had blown it with Eric, when I was sure I had disappointed him with our differences. We were wandering through the aisles, trying to find my next selection, and had just finished bonding over how terrified we were of The Dark Crystal when we were kids.

“Gelfling!” Eric screeched at me from behind the Academy Awards section.

“Stop it!” I shrieked back, tossing a copy of Gandhi at his head.

He caught the case, flipped it in the air and gave me one of those looks that said he was sizing me up. Then he announced: “The Godfather.”

I was hoping this wouldn’t happen for a few months, at least. I was going to have to confess something that would break the heart of any Movie Geek Boy. As much as I knew it would hurt, I needed to tell Eric the truth. I had to make sure he’d still respect me.

“I’ve never seen it.” I kept my eyes closed so I couldn’t see his immediate reaction. All I heard was the sound of Eric’s breath escaping his body.

“How could you not have seen it?”

I was too busy blushing over the compliment to realize he was serious.

“Bad parenting?” I offered.

“Bad everything,” he said. “Here,” he said, handing me a DVD with Marlon Brando’s face on it. “Wait.” He handed me another case.

“This is the same movie.”

“I want you to rent it twice.”

He was right. It was wonderful. The only thing that would have made it better was if we had watched it together, so he could hold my hand during his favorite parts.

Eric was busy with customers, so if I wanted to impress him moments before asking him out, I was going to have to pick three killer rentals. What said, “I am an independent woman who makes her own choices, confident enough to let a man’s taste influence her decisions but not be bullied into doing whatever he says?” Quite a movie; did it star Angelina Jolie?

I let my fingers dawdle on the plastic spines, listening to the quiet patter they created as I dragged my hand down an aisle. Perhaps I should start with an independent film, something made for next to no money, something with a good story behind it. I paused in front of Cult Classics, waiting for inspiration to strike.

“You see this one?” a female voice asked. A finger came over my shoulder, in front of my face, pointing at the words El Mariachi. “It’s awesome. Rodriguez made it with the money he’d earned volunteering his body for medical experimentation.”

I turned to find a skinny girl in a Happy Endings uniform. The skinny girl. The yellow vest was baggy over her tiny frame, the bottom hitting her midthigh. She wore torn jeans with fishnet stockings peeking from behind the holes. Her hair, a dark blonde tangled mess of braids, dreads and streaks of purple, was held in place on the top of her head by a chunk of plastic, making her look like a deranged genie. Her name tag read: “Zöe.”

“What did they do to him?” I asked.

“It’s this place in Austin. I hear they give you thirty grand if you let them cut off one of your toes and reattach it without any anesthesia.”

“Wow.” I pulled the DVD from the shelf. “Thanks.”

“No prob.”

Zöe moved to the other side of the aisle, but I could feel her eyes still on me as I made my way through the aisles, El Mariachi tucked under one arm.

I became distracted by a Sandra Bullock movie, something I hadn’t seen before. I have a soft spot in my heart for her films. I always root for her, no matter how dumb the predicament. That girl could get herself into trouble trying to put on her clothes in the morning. I thought about a scene she was in where she was wearing a raincoat.

I was giggling when Zöe ripped the Sandra Bullock movie out of my hand.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing!” I said, sounding like a kid caught with a stolen cookie. “I was just looking.”

Zöe looked back at Eric. He was helping an elderly woman with her purchases. Giddy grandchildren jumped at her knees, cheering about a Japanese comic-turned-videogame she had rented for them. “He didn’t see,” Zöe said.

“Eric?”

“You’re lucky.” Zöe gave me a look, one that I had been dreading from Eric, one that said she knew I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t the kind of person who got to date Movie Geek Boys. I didn’t have a skinny frame or purple streaks in my hair or know random facts about filmmakers’ private lives. I didn’t grow up watching everything I could get my hands on. We didn’t even have cable. I went to the movies on weekends with friends, which meant I was usually limited to the early works of Keanu Reeves.

Once I met Eric, everything changed. Foreign movies, old movies, actors I’d never heard of, films that were hidden, beautiful gems. He turned my television set into a nightly gift, this box that told me the most beautiful stories Eric always knew what I’d love, and aside from one Vincent Gallo movie, he never made a bad suggestion.

Doing it on my own was different. I didn’t want to do this without Eric, just as I didn’t want to run out of popcorn without him. I didn’t want to impress him; I wanted to experience things with him. He was my guide into this weird, wonderful celluloid world of DVD commentaries and extras and The Criterion Collection. If Zöe thought I didn’t have the right to be his girlfriend, it was her problem, not mine.

“I’m sorry,” I said, like a reflex, like it was what I was supposed to say. Zöe hadn’t earned any kind of apology from me, but I had to say something.

“Wait here,” she said before running off. Her belt made jangling sounds. A long chain that snaked from her back pocket to her knees bounded against her leg.

She tapped Eric’s shoulder, beckoning him into a back room. An older man took Eric’s place behind the register. The line had died down considerably.

So.

There I was, standing next to the collected words of John Landis, when I realized Zöe was tattling on me, telling Eric I was a Sandy fan, that I probably had Miss Congeniality on DVD, and it meant I also loved Julia Roberts, Jennifer Love Hewitt, or any movie for which Renée Zellweger intentionally gained weight. Zöe was probably telling him I was the kind of woman who cried at the end of a Topher Grace movie, who recited lines written by Nora Ephron, who loved Meg Ryan before all the plastic surgery, and Drew Barrymore when she wasn’t in an independent film.

But so what if I was? There was nothing wrong with letting a film take over my brain, letting my life fade away to become a blurry murmur. A movie didn’t always have to make me cry, or wish I’d joined the Peace Corps. Why did everything have to be so serious all the time with people like Zöe? Since when should taste in movies prove a person’s worth? Sometimes movies should be silly, or even predictable. If my life could be as predictable as a Sandra Bullock movie, I could have walked in here tonight, delivered a perfect speech to Eric in front of all those people, executed a flawless pratfall on my exit and still found myself kissing Eric in the rain, living happily ever after.

Zöe and Eric were probably watching me on the security camera. I bet they were pointing and laughing their superior laughs, wondering what lame-ass movie choice I’d make next. I didn’t need humiliation. I just wanted a sweet love story. Zöe could have Eric. She was probably in love with him. Why wouldn’t she be? He’s perfect for her, with his sense of humor and his sweet demeanor. He’s the perfect Movie Geek Boy. If I stormed back there right now, stopped their laughter by pulling the Sandra Bullock card, if I acted like these were the last ten minutes of my romantic comedy, I’d tell Eric I thought I had a chance with him. “A real chance between two people who just wanted to sit still and watch movies together,” I’d say, because women always repeat themselves at the end of those films. Then I’d get serious, like they do, hurt with a hint of tears. “But I guess I was wrong,” I’d say, because that’s what they all say. And then the music would turn sad, or if it were an indie romantic comedy it’d be something like The Postal Service, all bleeps and blips and a man crooning something about spaceships and love affairs. But this is my big-budget romantic comedy, so if would have to be something more predictable, like the Counting Crows. I’d wipe the one tear from my eye and ask, “You know what?” because that always precedes the really profound statement, the zinger, the punch to the mouth. I’d look Eric right in the eye and say, “I’m gonna go find my own happy ending.” Then I’d walk out, grabbing a box of Pop Secret in Light Butter on my way out. Nah, fuck it: Kettle Corn. I was a new woman.

I wasn’t going to put myself through this, in this garishly lit room where I wasn’t cool enough. There was someone out there who loved me no matter what I wanted to watch on a big screen, no matter what preposition I ended my sentences with. Maybe he was outside that door right now. That’s how some movies end. He’d be right outside, and I’d bump into him the second I grew a spine and the audience knew I was going to be find on my own. I’d run out of the store, knocking into The One in my predictable, clumsy-but-cute-aw-shucks Sandra Bullock way. He’d drop his manuscript; I’d drop my popcorn box. We’d bend down together, catch each other’s eyes, the music would start, we’d run to his place and the next time we saw daylight would be three days later when our bones were aching from how hot our lovemaking had been. That’s how I would fall in love forever. I wanted a man who didn’t giggle when I said “lovemaking.”

Accepting my fate, I put El Mariachi on the nearest shelf, covering a Julie Andrews film. I pushed past a kid trying to sneak into the porno section. I reached the door. My hands gripped the bar and I pushed. Wind hit my face as I left behind the pressure, the anxiety, and Eric.

I immediately bumped into someone. A man. But he wasn’t holding a manuscript. He was holding a yellow, plastic vest. Eric.

So.

“What took you so damn long?” he asked, shivering in the wind. He was in just a white T-shirt and slacks. He stamped his feet against the concrete, trying to kick warmth into his muscles.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“I’ve been waiting for you to leave. I didn’t want to do this in this stupid vest.”

“Do what?”

“Did you get the Rodriguez movie?”

“No.” I looked behind Eric, wondering if The One was over there, arms crossed at his chest, patiently waiting for his cue.

“Why not? Zöe said you were going to get it.”

“She thinks I’m not cool enough.”

Eric pointed over my shoulder. Zöe was standing behind the glass, inside the store. She was staring at us, biting her lower lip. Her hands were clasped under her chin. “She’s been trying to get me to do this for three weeks,” Eric said. He then pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. Breath curled in a pretty stream around his face. “I was hoping you like to eat food.”

I was already smiling when he tried to explain. “My words get mixed up around you,” he said.

Inside my head, music was swelling. I didn’t feel like Sandra Bullock; I felt like me.

“I know what you mean,” I said.

“I’m asking about Friday. For dinner.”

“Eric, I would love to eat food with you.”

DISCLAIMER TO SAVE MY ASS

2006-07-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

I don't own any of this. At all. I'm not profitting in any way, nor do I want to. The entire purpose behind sharing these works is sheer enjoyment. Beyond this disclaimer, none of the words are my own.

The books the stories so far are from:

GirlS' Night In (Red Dress Ink) - "Rudy" "What Goes Around..." "Know It All" "Acting Strangely"
Girl Boy Etc. (Red Dress Ink) - "What I would tell her" "The last American virgin" "Bear claws the size of her head"
Things You Should Know (HarperCollins) - "Things You Should Know"
I Am No One You Know (Ecco) - "Wolf's Head Lake" "The Mutants"
Will You Always Love Me? (Dutton) - "Politics"
Les fleurs du mal - "Get Drunk"
What Smart Women Know (M. Evans) - "Smart Women Know..." parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (Ballantine Books) - "Credo" "Puddles" "Summer Job" "Testing"
The Dictionary of Failed Relationships (Three Rivers Press) - "Etiquette" "FAQ" "Pain" "Vitriol"
Dangerous Women (Mysterious Press) - Introduction "Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft)" "Rendezvous"
Devil's Cub (Harlequin) - excerpted from pages 148 to 154
Sleeping Over (Red Dress Ink) - excerpted from pages 163 to 172
Fight Club (W.W. Norton & Company) - excerpted from pages 96 to 99
Love Stories (Quadrangle,The New York Times Book Co.) - "Long Walk to Forever" "The Love-Letters of a Clodhopper"
The Ayn Rand Lexicon (Plume) - "Altruism"
The Fountainhead (Signet) - excerpted from pages 677 to 685
The Neurotic's Handbook (Holiday House) - "I Can't Breathe": The Neurotic Looks For Love
The Solomon Sisters Wise Up (Red Dress Ink) - excerpted from pages 147-149, pages 192-196, pages 232 to 242
Travels (Alfred A. Knopf) - They
Website - "The Open Window"
Things I meant to say to you when we were old (Dolphin Books) - "Special Delivery" "Touché"
Girls Night Out (Red Dress Ink) - "What Happens Next"

This will be the bottom post every time you visit this page. I update it whenever I enter a new work.

"The Old Stoic" by Emily Brontë

2006-01-18T00:17:00.000-05:00

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish'd with the morn:

And, if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!'

Yea, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore:
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.

"No Coward Soul is Mine" by Emily Brontë

2006-01-18T00:15:00.000-05:00

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

"Friendship" by Henry David Thoreau

2006-01-18T00:12:00.000-05:00

I think a while of Love, and while I think,
Love is to me a world,
Sole meat and sweetest drink,
And close connecting link
Tween heaven and earth.

I only know it is, not how or why,
My greatest happiness;
However hard I try,
Not if I were to die,
Can I explain.

I fain would ask my friend how it can be,
But when the time arrives,
Then Love is more lovely
Than anything to me,
And so I'm dumb.

For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak,
But only thinks and does;
Though surely out 'twill leak
Without the help of Greek,
Or any tongue.

A man may love the truth and practise it,
Beauty he may admire,
And goodness not omit,
As much as may befit
To reverence.

But only when these three together meet,
As they always incline,
And make one soul the seat,
And favorite retreat,
Of loveliness;

When under kindred shape, like loves and hates
And a kindred nature,
Proclaim us to be mates,
Exposed to equal fates
Eternally;

And each may other help, and service do,
Drawing Love's bands more tight,
Service he ne'er shall rue
While one and one make two,
And two are one;

In such case only doth man fully prove
Fully as man can do,
What power there is in Love
His inmost soul to move
Resistlessly.
______
Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side,
Withstand the winter's storm,
And spite of wind and tide,
Grow up the meadow's pride,
For both are strong

Above they barely touch, but undermined
Down to their deepest source,
Admiring you shall find
Their roots are intertwined
Insep'rably.

"Touché" by Merrit Malloy

2005-11-20T23:10:00.000-05:00

I hadn't seen him
Since he left for Paris . . .
That was a year ago
He wrote and sent me hope
I didn't want . . . Then . . .
Called and took it from me
When I did . . .

So this morning . . .
When he called
I went to him . . .
And let him make the coffee
And the love . . .
For me it was charity
My offering for an afternoon.

He cooked me lunch
And struggled not to try too loud
. . . Or talk too small
He gave me back a ring
He bought once . . .
To buy some time from me
. . . When I had it

And then sweetly
Like a boy . . .
He begged me not to go
And gave me gifts of words
That smelled like promises before

I told him how I felt
That I would need some time
To maybe go to Paris for a year
. . . And then he smiled . . .

He already had his ending
And now . . .
I have mine . . .

"Special Delivery" by Merrit Malloy

2005-11-20T23:05:00.000-05:00

Your letter arrived this morning
Unexpected . . . and years too late

I crowded it into my jeans
Sure to cover the broad, familiar strokes of your pen
Black as billboards
. . . And
As distracting . . .

Damn you . . . Just showing up like this
uninvited . . .
indestructible . . .
unavoidable . . .
to leave your droppings
on a linen page
inside my pocket . . .

Each time the phone rang
It was an insult
Forcing me to fall back to the first word
And climb the pages again . . .

And in a way I'm proud . . .
That you could keep me all these years
It bring back some half-remembered pride I'd felt
In knowing that I knew it all along . . .
We grow to deserve
What we need to believe . . .
Since I've known you
I've been careful not to pray out loud
Wishes have a way of coming true
When you least expect . . . but

Damn you . . . Sneaking in like this
Unannounced
Insatiable
Inevitable
And me . . . with just
A sense of humor
To hold back the sound
of your footsteps
climbing the stair
just outside the safety
of my home . . .

"The Open Window" by H.H. Munro (Saki)

2005-11-05T18:05:00.000-05:00

 "My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very
self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and
put up with me."

 Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which
should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the
aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these
formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do very much
towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

 "I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing
to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and
not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from
moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I
know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."

 Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was
presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.

 "Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when
she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

 "Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the
rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of
introduction to some of the people here." He made the last statement in a
tone of distinct regret.

 "Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the
self-possessed young lady.

 "Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering
whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable
something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

 "Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child;
"that would be since your sister's time." 

        "Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot 
tragedies seemed out of place.

 "You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October
afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened
on to a lawn.

 "It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but
has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"

 "Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband
and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never
came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground
they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been
that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other
years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never
recovered. That was the dreadful part of it."

 Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became
falteringly human.

 "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they
and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that
window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every
evening till it is quite dusk. "Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how
they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm,
and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as
he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you
know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy
feeling that they will all walk in through that window--"

 She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton
when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being
late in making her appearance.

 "I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.

 "She has been very interesting," said Framton.

 "I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton
briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and
they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes
today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you
menfolk, isn't it?"

 She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of
birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter.

 To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but
only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly
topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of
her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open
window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence
that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

 "The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of
mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent
physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably
widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are
hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause
and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he
continued.

 "No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn
at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention--but
not to what Framton was saying.

 "Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and
don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

 Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look
intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out
through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock
of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same
direction.

 In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the
lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one
of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his
shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly
they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the
dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"

 Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the
gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong
retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to
avoid imminent collision.

 "Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh,
coming in through the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was
that who bolted out as we came up?"

 "A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton;
"could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of
goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

 "I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me
he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on
the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the
night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and
foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."

 Romance at short notice was her speciality.

"They" by Michael Crichton

2005-10-02T16:56:00.000-04:00

I was on my own again in 1983, after more than a decade spent in marriage or otherwise exclusive relationships. Suddenly I was playing the field. It was shock to discover how much had changed.

I was having lunch with my agent in a restaurant when a woman walked up, slapped her business card on the table, and said, “Call me.” Then she turned on her heel and walked off. She was an attractive woman in her late twenties, wearing a business suit.

“Wow,” I said, after she had gone. Nothing so brazen had ever happened to me.

“It’s a new world,” my agent said, shaking his head.

The incident was exciting, but it was also a little unnerving, so I didn’t call this woman for a while. Eventually curiosity overcame me, and I called and made a date.

We met for dinner in a sushi bar. Andrea was twenty-eight; she had a degree in business administration and she worked for a commercial real-estate company. She was ambitious and levelheaded about her work; she had it all figured out, how long she would stay in this company, when she would leave, what she would do next.

She didn’t ask me much about myself, and in fact didn’t seem very interested in me, except to ask where I lived, and whether my house was close to the restaurant. She was impatient during dinner, restless. I couldn’t figure out why.

Finally the meal was over and I asked if she wanted tea or coffee. She shook her head. “Can’t we have it at your house?”

And then I understood her impatience, her hurried indifference toward me. I was being rushed to the bedroom. Amazing! Andrea was doing to me what men supposedly did to women. I was being treated as a sex object.

At my house she announced she didn’t want coffee but wanted a tour instead; she saw the bedroom and the Jacuzzi.

“Nice Jacuzzi,” she said, starting to take off her clothes. “Want to join me?”

Things were going very fast. I had the strangest sense of trying to catch up, to accommodate this new pace of the eighties. It seemed we had hardly gotten into the Jacuzzi before we were in the bedroom, and it seemed that we had hardly gotten to the bedroom when she was up and getting dressed, and I was still lying there on the bed, and to my astonishment I heard myself say: “When will I see you again?”

“I'll give you a call,” she said, buckling her belt.

It seemed to me she was dressing with undue haste. Did she have another date after leaving me?

“You have to go now?” I said.

“Yeah. I hate to fuck and run, but… big day tomorrow, I have to get my rest.”

So I lay there in bed, feeling worse and worse, while she got dressed, and pretty soon she waved goodbye, and then I heard the door slam and her car back down the driveway, and I thought, I feel used.

Well, I had been out of the action for a decade. My friend David had been single all during that time. The next time we played racquetball, I told him about my experience, which still troubled me.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve had that, too. Where you find yourself asking her, ‘When will I see you again?’ you feel used after she’s gone…..”

“Yes,” I said. “I really did. I felt used. Seduced and abandoned. All of that.”

“I know,” David said, shaking his head. “It’s a new world, Michael. It’s all changed.”

It was David’s theory that feminism and the sexual revolution had actually had the effect of reversing traditional sex roles.

“Look,” he said, “all of my male friends want to get married and settle down. But the women don’t. The men want babies. The women don’t. The men want meaningful relationships. The women want quick sex and then they want to get right back to their careers.”

In keeping with this idea of reversal, David had a term for the behavior of women like Andrea: “feminine macho.” David’s idea was that women had seen the past years as an opportunity to behave like men - but that, in taking up certain traditional forms of male behavior, they had sometimes modified the form without understanding its underlying purpose.

“See,” David said, “women think that, when men behave romantically on a one-night stand, that’s hypocritical. So women won’t do that. When a woman intends to have a one-night stand, she lets you know it. Bam! No illusions from her. But that doesn’t feel like honesty to a man, it feels like brutality. Because, let’s face it, men are the romantics. We’re the ones who need the romance.”

Here I am in the locker room with my friend David, who has been a Hollywood bachelor for two decades,, who has gone out with so many models and actresses that’s he’s good friends with the people who run the model agencies - here’s David, suave man of the world, telling me that men are the romantics, and not women.

“”No, no, no, David,” I protested. “Women are romantic. Women want flowers and candy and all that stuff.”

“No, they don’t,” David said. “Women want the respect and admiration of a man, and they know flowers are a sign of respect from a man. But they don’t care about the flowers; they don’t moon and ooh and aah and sigh, except for our benefit. They don’t have any of those romantic feelings men think they do. Men have the romantic feelings. Women’re much colder and more practical.”

I disagreed.

“Okay,” David said. “We’re sitting in the locker room, right?”

“Right.”

“Have you ever had a locker-room conversation about women - you know, the way women think we do, talking in explicit detail about what we did with our dates the night before?”

“No,” I said. “I never have.”

“Neither have I,” David said. “But you’ve been accused of having such conversations by a woman?”

“Yes, sure.” I couldn’t count the number of times a woman had said she didn’t want me talking about her to my male friends.

“You know why women think we have these explicit conversations? Because they do, that’s why. Women talk about everything.”

I knew this was true. I had long ago learned of the frankness of women among themselves, and of their tendency to assume that men were equally frank, when, as far as I could tell, men were actually quite discreet.

“You see,” David said, “each sex assumes the opposite sex is just the way they are. So women think men are explicit, and men think women are romantic. Eventually that becomes a stereotype that nobody questions. But it’s not accurate at all.”

David insisted on his view; women were stronger, tougher, more pragmatic, more interested in money and security, more focused on the underlying realities of any situation. Men were weaker, more romantics, more interested in the symbols than the reality - in short living out a fantasy.

“I’m telling you,” David said.

“What about the idea f the nurturing female?” I said.

“Only for children,” he said. “Not for men.” He shook his head sadly. “Did you ever wish a woman would send you flowers?”

The question caught me off guard. A woman send me flowers?

“Sure. Send you flowers, a nice note, thanks for a lovely evening, the whole bit.”

It seemed such a strange idea. But as I considered it, it seemed as if it would be terrific.

“I’m telling you,” David said, “we’re the romantics. Work it out.”

Working it out seemed to be the story of my life in the mid-1980s. In my private life, all the women I saw worked; often they were preoccupied with their work. During this period I went out with a reporter, a computer salesperson, a choreographer, and a composers’ agent. Dinner with these women tended to be a litany of their problems at work. They assumed that the details of their jobs were as interesting to me as to them.

I was reminded of the times in the past when I had gone to dinner and monopolized the conversation with my own work problems. And, as David had said, the sex roles were now reversed. But whatever the explanation, there wasn’t much romance in those dinners. On the contrary, this new equality had some decidedly dreary aspects. I used to listen to these women and think, The only time you give your full attention is when you are talking. When I was talking, they would glance at their watches. They were all vaguely preoccupied; they were all pressed for time; they were all playing An Important Person of Affairs. Which was fine, but it wasn’t sexy: “Hey, it’s nine o’clock now, I have to hit the road at ten. Do we have time to do it, or what?”

Practical, but not what I would have called a hot date.

One night I was sitting in the corner of a woman’s kitchen when her roommate stormed in from a date, banging doors, shouting: “Jesus, what does a girl have to do to get laid these days?”

This roommate was embarrassed when she saw me sitting in the kitchen, but it led to an interesting discussion. And the most interesting thing about the discussion was that the attitudes, the frustrations, the disappointments expressed, were exactly the same as for men. In exactly the same terms. There was no difference at all.

By now I had adopted David’s view of the inherent differences between the sexes, that men were the romantics and women were the pragmatists. His view that each sex saw the other as a projection of itself. I walked about this idea all the time, particularly with women.

I noticed that it always made women angry. They didn’t like to hear it.

At first I thought it was because women were experiencing so much discrimination in the workplace. Women felt they were always being told they couldn’t do this, or weren’t suited for that. Or else they were just subtly bypassed in corporate hierarchies so women were a little raw about any notion of inherent differences between the sexes, because it sounded like the setup for justifying discrimination.

But then, as I continued to listen to their complaints, I heard something else. I began to hear about “the way men are,” about “the way men stick together,” about “the way men are threatened by sex.” About the way they are. About the problems they make for women because of the problems they have with intimacy or feelings or power. I heard a lot about how they act this way, and how they act that way.

I wasn’t hearing about a particular man, or a particular job. Nothing was individualized. It was all abstract, all explained by a general theory of the way they were.

One night I was at a dinner party. The conversation was lively and far-ranging, and not at all concerned with the sexes. It was broadly social and political. But as I listened I noticed a tendency to talk about how they don’t protect the environment, how they don’t run the government responsibly, how they don’t build quality products, how they never report the news accurately.

The basic message was that they were ruining the world, and there was nothing we could do about it.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Who is this they that you keep talking about?”

I got confused looks. Everyone else at the table knew who they were.

“Look,” I said, “I don’t think anything is served by imagining a world of faceless villains. There isn’t any they. There’re only people like us. If a corporation is polluting and the CEO sounds uninformed on TV, the chances are he’s some guy who’s in the middle of a divorce and whose kids are on drugs and he’s got a lot on his mind, a big corporation to run, stockholders and board meetings and everybody pushing at him, and he’s tired and pressured, this pollution issue is just one of many problems, and the government changes the regulations so often nobody can be sure whether he’s breaking the law or not, and his aides aren’t as smart as he’d like them to be, and they don’t keep him as informed as he’d like to be, and maybe they even lie to him. This CEO doesn’t want to appear like a jerk on TV. He’s not happy he came off that way. But it happens, because he’s just a guy trying to do his best and his best isn’t always so hot. Who’s any different?”

The table got silent.

“I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I think I’m pretty smart, and I don’t always run my own life so well. I make mistakes and screw up. I do things I regret. I say things I wish I hadn’t said. A lot of people you see interviewed on TV have impossible jobs. It’s only a question of how badly they’ll do them. But I don’t see any grand conspiracy out there. I think people are doing the best they can.

The table stayed silent.

“And what’s really wrong with making them the problem,” I said, “is that you abdicate your own responsibility. Once you say some mysterious they are in charge, then you’re able to sit back comfortably and complain about how they are doing it. But maybe they need help. Maybe they need your ideas and your support and your letters and your active participation. Because you’re not powerless, you are a participant in this world. It’s your world, too.”

So there I was, preaching at the dinner table. I got embarrassed and shut up. But in the back of my mind, I kept thinking, There’s something else here. Some other way this is true. Something you haven’t considered.

Back in the early 1970s, a girlfriend became exasperated with me and said, “Listen: just assume men and women are the same.”

“How do you mean?” I said.

“Anything you think as a man, I think as a woman. Anything you feel, I feel.”

“No, no,” I said.

“Yes, yes,” she said.

“Well, for example,” I said, “men can just look at a woman and get turned on. The visual stimulus is enough for a man. But women aren’t like that.”

“Oh, really?”

“No. Women need more than a visual stimulus.”

“I’ve certainly looked at a nice pair of buns in tight jeans and thought, ‘I wouldn’t mind trying that.’ “

I thought, This is a very masculine woman. “Maybe for you,” I said, “but for women in general, it doesn’t work that way.”

“All my girlfriends are the same,” she said. “We’re all bun-watchers.”

She must have a lot of perverted friends, I thought. I gave another argument. “Women aren’t turned on by pornography and men are.”

“Oh, really?”

We went on like this for a while. She insisted that men and women were the same in their underlying behavior, and I had a lot of wrong ideas about differences. Back in the 1970s this was pretty extreme stuff.

In subsequent years, I forgot that conversation, but now, more than ten years later, it came back to me. It seemed useful to reconsider the whole business.

I still thought there were differences between men and women. It was true I didn’t conceive those differences in the simplistic way I had so many years earlier. But I still thought there were differences. I wanted to know what those differences were.

Then, slowly, I began to ask a different question. Not what the differences were. Instead: What is the best way to think about men and women?

And I came to a surprising conclusion.

My old girlfriend was right.

The best way to think about men and women is to assume there are no differences between them.

* * *

I had already concluded that the best way to think about disease was to imagine that you caused it. Maybe that was literally true, and maybe it wasn’t. The point was that the best strategy in dealing with your illness was to act as if you had control over it, and could change its course. That enabled you to stay in charge of your own life.

Similarly, I now thought the best way to think about the sexes was to imagine there were no differences between them. Maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t. But it was the best strategy.

Because, as I saw it, the biggest problem between the sexes was the tendency to objectify the opposite sex and ultimately to become powerless before them. Both men and women did this about the opposite sex. They were this way or that way. They had this tendency. There was nothing we could do about the way they behaved.

When I looked back, I realized that in many instances I had failed to take action with a woman because I assumed there was nothing I could do about her conduct.

For example, whenever I lived with a woman, I new she talked in intimate detail about our relationship with her girlfriends. I always hated that. I hated running into one of her girlfriends and thinking, This woman knows all about me. If felt like a terrible invasion of my privacy, of our privacy. But what could I do? Women talked with one another. Women had these special relationships.

But if I had been in a close working relationship with a man, I would have complained immediately if I found out he was talking about me with another man.

So why couldn’t I say to a woman, “It makes me feel terrible that you talk to your girlfriend about us. I feel really betrayed, and I feel dismissed, too. Why do you take the most intimate parts of our relationship to a stranger? It makes me feel awful. You ask me to open up to you, but I know you’re going to get on the phone tomorrow and tell all to some friend. Can’t you see how that makes me feel?”

The answer, of course, was that I could say it. I just never had, because I had thought that women were inherently different from men. And in formulating that difference, I had also objectified women. There were different. They didn’t have the same feelings I did. They were they.

Excerpt 3: The Solomon Sisters Wise Up by Melissa Senate

2005-09-05T00:27:00.000-04:00

This was a Thanksgiving of firsts. For the first time in my life, I was having Thanksgiving dinner without my mother - and with my father and his fiancée. For the first time in ten years, Ally was having Thanksgiving dinner with her father. For the first time ever, Sarah was having Thanksgiving dinner with a sudden distaste for turkey and sudden craving for cheddar cheese, which Zalla had rushed out to buy for her.

And also for the first time, I’d brought a male guest to Thanksgiving. Daniel, looking absolutely irresistible, sat on my left, to my father’s right, and pretended great interest in the Zone diet, which my father was waxing on about ad nauseum.

“It’s like Barry Sears says, Daniel,” my father pontificated, his forkful of dark-meat turkey, skin and all, pointed at Daniel, “carbohydrates are the real culprit. Not fat. Carbohydrates. And -“

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

My father was halted midsentence by the sudden appearance of my mother, in a skintight red dress that flounced about her knees, and a long, slinky faux fur leopard-print coat, in the entrance to the dining room.

“Mr. Bart,” Zalla said, “Mrs. Judith Solomon is here.”

My father smiled. “I see, Zalla, thank you.”

“Funny,” my mother said, “and both funny ha-ha and funny strange, anyone would think that this woman -” she pointed at Giselle’s mother “- was the bride-to-be, and that the four young lovelies at the table were your daughters, and that this little cherub -” she made a kissy face at Madeline “- was your granddaughter.”

Giselle smiled pleasantly, as she always did. Daniel squeezed my hand in support, and I squeezed back. Do not let this turn into World War Three, I chanted silently.

“So this is the ex-wife?” Giselle's mother asked, forkful of turkey laden with cranberry juice on its way to her mouth. “That’s some getup,” she added, looking my mom up and down, disapproval smacking her lips.

Again, Daniel squeezed my hand.

“Giselle, June, Madeline, this is Judith, Zoe’s mother,” my father said. If he was the least perturbed by his ex-wife’s appearance, you’d never know it.

“Oh, I’ve met the blushing bride, Bartholomew,” my mother said with a smile. “Are you forgetting that she and Zoe used to be friends? Where did they meet? That’s right - in a college class, doing what young people their ago do.”

“Mom -”

“Zoe and I were having lunch one day last year when we ran into Miss Archweller,” my mother interrupted. “Amazing how I didn’t call her young friend the next day to arrange a date!”

“Mom, enough -”

“No, dear,” my mother said,” it’s not enough. But I’m through giving a flying fuck. I came to give you this, Bartholomew.” She took off her wedding ring and walked over to my father. We all stared, waiting to see what she would do.

What she did was drop the ring with quite a plop onto my father’s pile of no-carbs stuffing.

Giselle’s mother gasped. “Look, lady, there’s a two-year-old at this table, if you haven’t noticed. If you can’t watch your dirty mouth, you’ll have to leave. In fact, I suggest you do leave.”

“My dear woman,” said my mother, “I’ve noticed all the children at the table. Zoe, honey, I'll call you tomorrow about setting up a lunch. Nice to see you again, Ally and Sarah. You’re both looking lovely. You take care now, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving! Toodles.”

And then she whished out of the room, Zalla trailing behind her.

My father fished the ring out of his stuffing with his salad fork and set it on his napkin.

“Shall I clean it?” Zalla asked, hurrying back to his side.

“I really don’t know,” my father said, looking quite perplexed. “All right, everyone -” Big smile. “Let’s make a toast! No, I have a better idea. Let’s go around the table and say what we’re thankful for.”

That was my dad. Able to change an uncomfortable subject in ten seconds despite the fact that my mother’s wedding ring sat gleaming with goo stuck to it twelve inches from his hand.

“I'll begin,” he continued. “I’m grateful that -”

“Dad,” I interrupted. “I'll take the ring. Maybe Mom will want it back.”

“I doubt it,” Ally said.

“Do you believe that woman?” Giselle's mother snarled, shaking her head. “The nerve of some people! Waltzing in here like she’s Elizabeth Taylor. Well, she’s not! Who does she think she is, that’s what I’d like to know!”

“So what’s this stuffing made out of, anyway?” asked Sarah, always the diplomat, looking from my father to Giselle. “Vegetables? Soy? It’s just delicious!”

“Who she is, Mom, is Zoe’s mother,” Giselle aid very quietly, and all eyes swooped to her. “And she deserves our respect.” All of a sudden she jumped up, tears in her eyes, and fled the room.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” my father said. “Now look what happened!”

“Poor Dad - you’ll have to deal with your upset fiancée!” Ally singsonged. “Or maybe you’ll just finish your carbs-free stuffing first. And it’s not delicious - it’s absolutely disgusting!”

He looked at Ally with the honest confusion of someone who had no idea what the hell she was talking about. “Ally, is something wrong?”

“Is something wrong?” she repeated.

“Yes, is something wrong?” he asked, his blue eyes, recently lifted (well, the eyelids), flashing concern at his eldest daughter.

“Why would anything be wrong?” Ally retorted.

“Well, for starters, you just snapped at me and you practically accused me of acting like my upset fiancée was a nuisance to me. As though I would be more interested in my meal than in making sure she was alright.”

“That is what I think, Dad,” Ally said. “But that wouldn’t make ‘something wrong.’ That’s just the status quo.”

Sarah and I were volleying our gazes back and forth from our father to Ally. It’s what we thought too, but neither of us had ever said it aloud.

He wiped his mouth with his napkin, then stood up. “Well, Ally, you would be wrong, honey. Quite wrong,” he added as he headed out of the dining room. “Gisele, sweetie?” he called out, running up the staircase.

“Oh, and happy birthday, Ally!” Ally called after him. “I can’t believe I forgot to say happy birthday to my own daughter even after Sarah reminded me this morning! But you’re still wrong, honey - I’m a very sensitive person!”

Giselle's mother looked at Ally like she was crazy. “The person who should be getting some respect around here is your father, young lady,” she snapped at Ally. “That man is a godsend.”

Ally chuckled, and June scooped up the toddler and harrumphed out of the room.

“I think I'll skip the Zone birthday cake, if you guys don’t mind,” Ally said. “I’d really like to just get the hell out of here.”

“Why don’t you and Sarah come have drinks with me and Zoe?” Daniel asked. “My treat.”

“Thanks, Daniel,” Ally said, “but I’ve got a hot date. I might as well be unfashionably early.”

I winked at Ally; after some doing, she’d finally convinced Rupert Jones to give her a second chance.

“Sarah, this is the big meet-the-parents, rights? I asked.

She nodded. “I’m a nervous wreck!”

“Good luck to both of you,” I said. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

And suddenly it was just Daniel, me and a lot of food left at the table.

“Ally was right about the stuffing,” Daniel whispered. “It isn’t delicious at all.”

I laughed. “I’m glad you’re here, Daniel,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Things can get pretty tense around here.”

“Why don’t you go untense things,” he suggested. “I'll wait right here. I promise not to eat all the stuffing or whatever’s in that bowl,” he added, pointing at what I was pretty sure was solid tofu.

“You mean with my father?”

He nodded.

Knock. Don’t knock. Knock. Don’t knock.

I knocked.

Giselle opened the door. “Your dad’s tucking in Madeline,” she said.

“Actually, it was you I wanted to see,” I said. “I promised Ally I’d walk Mary Jane for her before I left, and I was wondering if you’d like to come with me.”

Five minutes later, Giselle and I were walking down Park Avenue, Mary Jane scampering ahead of us and sniffing every tree plot.

For a moment, walking with Giselle felt so natural. During the six or seven weeks of out budding friendship, we’d taken so many walks together.

Mary Jane lifted a leg and the two of us stopped. “I don’t really know what to say, Giselle.”

“You don’t have to say anything, Zoe. I know it’s going to take time. And I also know you may never forgive me. I hope you do. But I won’t expect it.”

“That’s the key word,” I said. “Expecting. My whole life I expected my father to leave my mother, leave us. It was like living in a constant state of worry. And then he leaves after twenty-five years - for you. Do you have any idea how weird that was for me?”

She nodded and her eyes filled with tears. “I can imagine, Zoe.”

“Just when I started to think commitment meant something, boom. It’s a joke.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I never trusted in commitment,” I explained. “But when Charlie came along and I started to think it could mean something. And then, boom, my parents’ marriage falls apart. Twenty-five years down the drain.”

She nodded. “But you know, I don’t think it’s so much a matter of being able or not able to commit, but of being with the right person. Something stopped you from saying yes to Charlie, and I’m no sure it had anything to do with your father.”

“Maybe, maybe not. It doesn’t really matter anymore.”

“Yes or no, Zoe,” she said. “It doesn’t matter because from the looks of things tonight, you are with the right guy. If you’d said yes to Charlie, you wouldn’t have been free for Daniel. It’s as if something inside you kept saying, ‘Don’t stop here. This isn’t the end of the road.’ ”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Mary Jane scampered along, and we resumed walked. “One day, Zoe, I hope we can be friends again. I realize it may never happen, and we might never get past the truce you’re willing to agree to, but I really hope so.”

“Well, I guess if I want my father in my life, I need to accept that the two of you love each other and are getting married. It’s what my mother -”

Interesting. I’d been about to say that it was what my mother needed to accept so that she could move on. I hadn’t realized that I was as blocked as she was, that I was holding on to something very heavy that wasn’t mine.

I took a deep breath and added that thought to the five hundred others swirling around my mind. For the past couple of weeks, ever since I’d spoken to Sarah’s boss on the telephone, I’d been writing the article for Wow Woman in my head every time I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to say, a but came to me and I had to amend what I’d mentally written. Dating, romance, love, marriage. People trying to have relationships with other people. Why was it so hard?

“Can you just tell me one thing, Giselle?” I asked, and she nodded. “What the hell do you see in my father? Why are you in love with him? I mean, I spent my life waiting for him to leave us for another family. Why would you trust him?”
“That’s a good question,” she said. “And I guess it’s not about trusting him so much as trusting, period. I’ve been left, Zoe. You know that. My father left my mother when I was very young. Madeline’s father wasn’t even there to leave. But I do trust your father. I trust him because I love him. And I love him because he makes me feel incredibly happy. When I’m with him, I’m the most peaceful I’ve ever been in my life. I feel the most me. And I feel the most hope. Does that make sense to you?”

The Snoopy dance.

“It’s like how I feel about Daniel,” I said in so low a voice I wasn’t even sure I said it aloud.

“I could tell, you know,” she said. “I saw it in the way you look at him, how comfortable you are with him. And I saw it in him too. Where is he, anyway?”

“He’s waiting for me at the apartment. I left him in front of the tuxedo bulletin board and the wedding cake bulletin board.”

“Why don’t you go save him,” Giselle said. “I’ll finish walking Mary Jane.”

“You sure?” I asked.

She took the wad of newspaper and plastic bag and crammed them in her jacket pocket. “So I’ll see you at the engagement party on New Year’s Eve?”

I nodded. “Let’s just hope you don’t see my mother there.”

She smiled. “Zoe, I don’t know your mom very well, but I have a feeling there was a lot of symbolism in her giving back her wedding ring - and on Thanksgiving, no less.”

I looked at her and realized she was right. My mother was done fighting.

And it was time for me to stop too.

“For someone who untensed things, you sure do look tense,” Daniel said as he unlocked the door to his Upper West Side apartment. “I think I know what you need. Have a seat in the living room. I'll be right there.”

As he disappeared into his tiny kitchen and began making quite a racket with bottles, glasses, and plates and the sounds of a knife hitting a cutting board, I sat down on the red velvet sofa and realized I was beginning to trust that he did indeed know what I needed. “I’m in your hands,” I said.

He poked his head through the kitchen doorway and shot me a grin and wiggled his eyebrows à la Groucho Marx, just as he’d done when I’d arrived in New York almost two months ago.

“You have to hand it to your mom, Zoe,” Daniel said as the whoosh of a cork popped. “Show knows how to make an entrance, a speech and an exit in less than five minutes.”

“Drama’s her specialty,” I agreed, checking out Daniel's digs. His apartment was a one-bedroom in a brownstone off Columbus Avenue. Guy-furnished, but nice, very Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn, with a lot of individual touches. He liked the color red.

“Voilà,” he said, carrying a silver tray into the living room. There was a bottle of win, cheese and crackers and a tiny pumpkin pie. “For someone who just had Thanksgiving dinner, I’m starving.”

I laughed. “Me too. I’ve been hungry for almost two months now.”

“Open up,” he said, waving a cheese-laden cracker in front of my lips. I opened, and he placed the cracker square on the middle of my tongue.

“Sexy,” I joked.

He smiled and popped his own cheese ‘n’ cracker into his mouth, then poured us each a glass of red wine.

“To full stomachs and untensing,” he said.

“Hear, hear,” I seconded, and we clinked.

As if on cue, Murray, his mutty-looking gray tabby cat, jumped up and sprawled between us, his furry head hanging over the edge. I scratched and the cat purred. “Now there’s the definition of untensed.”

“Twist away from me,” he said, clenching and unclenching his fingers in the air. “I'll give you my special massage.”

The moment his hands touched my neck, I tensed.

“Uh, you’re supposed to melt, Zoe. Not stiffen.”

“I guess I have a lot on my mind,” I said. “I’m glad I talked to Giselle, but the conversation left me unsettled, I’m not even close to accepting her in my life.”

“You’re not supposed to be close. Talking to her was only supposed to be a start. That’s what it’s all about, Zoe. Starts. They’re the hardest.”

I nodded and took a sip of my wine, then took my mother’s wedding ring out of my pocket and cupped it in my palm. Tiny bits of vegetable stuffing squished.

“Here,” Daniel said, “gimme.” He took the ring into the kitchen. I heard water running. “Sparkling clean,” he said, handing it back to me. “You know, I still had a better meal in the Zone thank I would have had you not invited me to your family’s Thanksgiving. It would have been just me and Murray, sharing a frozen Swanson’s TV turkey dinner, just like the Fonz before Richie insisted he come to the Cunninghams’ Thanksgiving feast. That episode was on Nick At Nite last night. Did you see -”

Suddenly I was all over him. I pressed myself against him and kissed him, passionately, and after what I sensed was a second’s hesitation, he pressed me back against the couch with his body, squishing Murray, who slithered out from under me and jumped down, and took over.

“I expected you to be a talker,” I said to Daniel. I lay naked on his bed, half-covered by a sheet, staring up at the ceiling, relaxed, sated and just slightly, truly slightly uneasy.

“I know when to shut up,” he said, turning on his side to face me. He stroked my cheek with the tip of his finger.

“I don’t know what this means,” I told him, point a finger from him to me. “I don’t know what I feel about anything.”

“That’s okay, Zoe,” he said, those warm brown eyes on mine. He kissed my neck and trailed a line of kisses across my collarbone. His silky hair swept against my skin. “You don’t have to know how you feel. You just have to feel.”

And as Daniel slid on top of me, the weight of him deliciously against me, I took his advice and felt.

Excerpt 2: The Solomon Sisters Wise Up by Melissa Senate

2005-09-05T00:21:00.000-04:00

“I wanted to throw little pebbles at your window so you’d come out and talk,” Daniel said, “but I didn’t know which was your bedroom window and I didn’t want to wake up your sisters.”

God, it felt good to hear his voice. I clutched my cell phone against my ear and tiptoed out of my bedroom and into the walk0in closet in the hallway. I sat down on a cardboard box and moved the tail end of a long sweater off my head.

“I’m sorry about calling so late,” he added, “but I didn’t want another day to go by. You know you’re not supposed to go to bed angry, and I’ve gone to bed angry for the past three nights.”

Mrs. Guttleman would approve.

“I’m glad you called, Daniel. I’m sorry about the other night. I was out of line, and I shouldn’t have -”

“Ah, forget it,” he said. “You were right. I just didn’t want to hear it.”

“No, I had no right -”

“Actually, you had every right. I think we’ve become really good friends, Zoe. And that’s what I’d want a friend to do - tell me the truth.”

Friends.

What the hell was wrong with me? Now that wasn’t enough? When I didn’t necessarily want more, either? I’d spent the weekend driving myself - and my sisters - crazy trying to figure out my feelings.

“Go to his apartment,” Sarah had suggested when I’d come home from the restaurant in tears.

“No - she shouldn’t throw herself on him,” Ally had insisted - and she repeated it twice the next day. “She’s called and left too many messages as it is.”

“Sometimes a little groveling is good,” Sarah had pointed out as we were getting ready for bed last night. “What I would do for a little groveling from Griffen.”

“She didn’t do anything wrong,” Ally said. “She told him the truth. If he can’t take it, oh well and who wants him anyway?”

I did.

So why did that feel so strange? Did I want to be Daniel's girlfriend? Did I like him because he was unavailable? Did I like him because he used to like me and now liked someone else?

We might as well have been back in high school for all I was acting and thinking like a thirteen-year-old,

“And, anyway,” Ally had said as she rubbed body lotion on her elbows, “what’s the point? He has a girlfriend.”

Deep sigh.

“Yeah, but a girlfriend who doesn’t like him!” Sarah had pointed out.

“And that’s why he likes her,” Ally said. “Because she doesn’t like him. If Ms. Unfunny did like him, he’d have told her long ago to develop a sense of humor and then get back to him.”

“Why do we do this?” I’d asked. “Why don’t we like who we’re with? And why are we with them in the first place if we don’t like them?”

“Because sometimes we’re just with the wrong people and it takes a while to figure it out,” Ally said very quietly.

Sarah and I had looked at Ally then, waiting for her to say something about herself and her husband, but she didn’t.

I’d been with Charlie for over a year when he wasn’t the one. I’d known all along, but something had kept me with him. Because it was safe? Because I got to have a boyfriend who couldn’t hurt me?

I was giving myself a headache.

Once Sarah and Ally had fallen asleep, I had lain awake staring at the ceiling, I’d crept out of bed to take But I Don’t Know To Be Pregnant! off Sarah’s chest (she was on the last chapter), and I pulled Ally’s law journal out from under her cheek and put it on her bedside table.

Neither had stirred when my cell phone rang. Ally and Sarah could sleep through anything.

“So what happened with Joy?” I asked Daniel. “Did you break up?”

“Yep. It was pretty ugly.”

“Oh, Daniel, I’m really sorry.”

“Nah, it’s for the best,” he said.

“So how’d she do it?” I asked. “Did she make some bad excuse and leave?”

“Actually, I broke up with her.”

“You broke up with her?”

“Zoe, the woman has no sense of humor. I can’t date someone who doesn’t watch Seinfeld reruns.”

I laughed. “I love Seinfeld.”

“I know. It’s too bad you’d never go for me. We’d make quite a good couple.”

“Why don’t you think I’d ever go for you?” I asked.

“Zoe, I already told you - I have self-esteem. You don’t need to build up my ego. I know full well you wouldn’t go for me. I’m not your type.”

“What’s my type?”

“George Clooney. Brad Pitt.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m their sidekick, the funny one who never gets the girl.”

“Actually, that’s the one who always gets killed.”

“That’s right.”

Tell him how you feel. Tell him how you feel.

But I couldn’t. Because if I let myself feel what I felt, I’d be in trouble. A few months down the road, once he got to know me or once he was used to me, comfortable, he’d see me for who I was, see all my flaws, and a few months later, he’d be gone and I’d have my first broken heart - at the hands of a boyfriend, anyway.

“So when are you leaving for Thanksgiving?” I asked, dreading the thought of him flying home to L.A. for a few days. I felt as though I’d just gotten him back, and now he’d be gone again next week.

“Actually, I’m not,” he said. “I have to work on the Friday after Thanksgiving, so it’s a Swanson turkey TV dinner for me.”

I smiled. “Or you can have Thanksgiving in the Zone,” I said. “No stuffing or potatoes, but all the turkey you want.”

“Ooh, I get to meet the famous and infamous Solomon sisters? Can’t wait,” he said.

Me either.

Excerpt 1: The Solomon Sisters Wise Up by Melissa Senate

2005-09-05T00:20:00.000-04:00

Daniel’s almost-girlfriend was pretty.

I sat at the bar, two feet from their little round table by the window, my notebook open, my pen at the ready.

And, boy, was there a lot to write.

Daniel talked too much, too fast, laughed at his own jokes (most of which were, indeed, funny, though the girlfriend didn’t always get them), gulped his drink in the middle of a story, and twice stopped dead in the middle of one of those stories to say, “You are so beautiful,” with absolute sincerity and awe in his voice.

I understood why Daniel so strongly felt her ambivalence. She seemed to like him and find him annoying at the same time. One of those was going to win over the other, and my job was to get him to get her to choose like.

At the moment he was telling her how much he loved the movie The Mighty, and how he walked out fighting tears, mortified that he was actually crying. I smiled. The object of Daniel's affections, however, Joy Ross, flinched for a half second.

A few months ago, Charlie and I had gone to see a tearjerker, and he’d burst into tears on the street, two blocks from the theater. Delayed reaction. I’d found the movie a little too manufactured, and Charlie's reaction irritated me, as in how could you be taken in by manipulation? He’d gotten mad at me for not agreeing that the movie was heartbreaking, and we’d gotten into a fight and hadn’t gone home together that night. We’d made up the next day, but the difference between us had bothered us both. I felt it in Charlie's voice, his slight distance, but a few days later it was gone. We’d joked about how ridiculous it was to let something so silly cause tension between us.

But it had been there and there had been lots of those “differences.” Things that perhaps shouldn’t matter, little stupid things. But they did seem to matter.

“Never go to bed angry,” my elderly neighbor, Mrs. Guttleman, had said a few times. She lived next door to the house I’d grown up in, and she’d baby-sat me for years. “I know, I know, you’ve heard it before. But don’t. Abe and I never went to bed angry. In sixty-one years. You love someone, you don’t go to bed angry. You never want to be against the one person in the world who you truly love.”

I’d gone to bed angry at Charlie countless times.

I tried to imagine being angry with Daniel; I couldn’t, really. With that cartoon smile, those ridiculous jokes and story for every occasion, it would be like getting angry at Snoopy.

Snoopy. When you love someone, really love someone, Mrs. Guttleman said three or four times, his voice, his presence, just the thought of him, will make you want to do the Snoopy dance.

And I’d see Snoopy, spinning around in utter joy over mean Lucy, his ears flopping, his black nose in the air, little hearts flittering out of his chest. And I’d laugh and Mrs. Guttleman would hug me and cut me a piece of checkerboard cake.

The Snoopy dance.

Daniel was sitting across from a woman, doing the Snoopy dance. His eyes were sparkling, he was leaning forward, he hung on her every word and had something either funny or insightful to say in response to everything that came out of her mouth.

As a “relationship guru,” I rarely if ever critiqued a date as though I were the one sitting across from the client. It wasn’t about whether or not the date appealed to me or offended me or bored me; it was about how the client came across universally. Whether the date was uptown, downtown, buttoned-up or goofy, the important point was for the client to learn about his or her own behavior. Did goofy typed turn a particular client into a chastising jerk? Did smart typed intimidate a particular client into not saying a word lest she appear less than brilliant? Maybe.

As I watched Daniel, though, I heard and saw him through the eyes of a woman sitting across from him, and I liked him. Yes, he did that and this, this and that, but for some reason, it worked.

Except for Joy.

So which was it? Was Daniel supposed to change the way he acted on his dates with Joy to appeal to her? Or was he supposed to be himself, and if she didn’t appreciate it, screw her?

Not literally.

Suddenly Joy glanced at her watch and hopped up, and Daniel also stood.

“Well, I have an early day tomorrow, so…” She kissed him on the cheek. “No, no - stay and finish your nachos. There are a ton of cabs.” And then she dashed out the door, hailed a cab and jumped in before Daniel could even say good-night.

He shoved his arms into his chest as though she’s stuck a dagger in his heart and kneeled down to the floor and fell over.

“Sir! Sir!” a waiter yelled. “Are you okay?”

Daniel popped up, an apologetic look on his face. “Kidding, sorry. No food poisoning. No lawsuit.”

The waiter grimaced and hurried away.

I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing.

“C’mon, kid,” he said. “You can give me the awful report outside.”

He put out his arm and I took it.

"I Can't Breathe": The Neurotic Looks For Love by Charles Monagan

2005-09-05T00:05:00.000-04:00

You feel faint. Your pulse is racing. You are haunted by a feeling of insecurity that does not seem justified. You are unable to concentrate on anything for more than a minute or two, you are unable to make any sense of what people are saying to you. The question is: Are you in love, or are you merely having another anxiety attack?

There are two reasons why this is not an easy question to answer:

1. Neurotics fall in love two or three times a month.

2. Anyone who is in love is neurotic.

Neurotics believe in a flawless, ideal sort of love, at least until they get married. They are prone to crushes. The objects of their ardor often are far away or married to a friend or on the cover of People magazine or otherwise unattainable. This unavailability makes neurotics feel very happy and very sad at the same time, a feeling that physically is almost exactly the same as the one you get when you are in an air plane flying through heavy turbulence. But instead of calling themselves “sick” and going to see a doctor, neurotics call themselves “romantic” and go to see an astrologer.

Although many neurotics sit around at home expecting love to come knocking at the front door, this very rarely happens. Eventually we have to snap out of our rich and extraordinarily fulfilling fantasy lives; we have to go out and take a look around. This “looking around” can be unpleasant business, and it means that we have to get involved in a lot that has nothing at all to do with true love. It means such things as going roller skating for the first time and laughing whenever we fall down, or cavalierly pretending that it doesn’t matter when a scoop of ice cream falls out of the cone and onto the seat of the car. It means dating. And dating almost always means trouble.

The Dating Game

Neurotics usually fall in love with someone first, and then start dating, and then fall out of love. Occasionally they can get away without ever going out with the people they are in love with, and sometimes they can manage not even to talk to the person (thus preserving the love in its purest state), but more often than not a date is set and, over the course of an evening, the petty disappointments reveal themselves.

And how could they not reveal themselves, given the neurotic’s strict standards? A piece of spinach caught in the teeth of a date spells doom. A mispronounced word here, a print on the wall of dogs playing poker there, and the whole arrangement is shot. The truth is, while neurotics are willing to overlook major character flaws (a lengthy record of armed robbery convictions, a penchant for dozing off at the wheel of the car), they demand nothing less than perfection in the little things of life. And perfection, in this context means agreement.

Dating a neurotic can be a harrowing experience, not so much for anything that happens during the date itself as for the inexplicable silences that follow. The date is left wondering what went wrong, but the neurotic knows. The neurotic has been watching, and quietly checking off flaws. Here are a few danger signals that can convince a neurotic that Things Just Aren’t Going to Work Out.

ON A DINNER DATE

1. Your date attempts to be clever with the waiter - and fails.

2. A strolling violinist comes over and plays as if you are deeply in love when actually it is your first date together.

3. Your date holds the eating utensils like a prison inmate.

4. Your date doesn’t finish dinner and then orders a huge dessert and finishes it all.

5. Your date goes into the kitchen to personally congratulate the chef for what your thought was a mediocre dinner.

6. Your date loudly joins in on the singing of “Happy Birthday” for celebrants at a nearby table.

ON A DANCING DATE

1. Your date insists on doing the Limbo.

2. Your date is completely drenched in sweat after two dances.

3. Your date yells inappropriate requests to the band.

4. Your date is a much better dancer than you are and you both know it.

5. Your date seriously injures a stranger on the dance floor with a flying elbow.

6. Your date does a modern interpretive dance to a Jerry Lee Lewis song.

ON A MOVIE, PLAY, OR CONCERT DATE

1. Your date tries to prove he or she knows when the music ends by starting to applaud just before it does.

2. Your date sprawls in an unseemly way.

3. Your date loudly discusses abortion politics while standing in line in front of the theater.

4. You notice that your (male) date’s thighs are skinnier than yours are.

5. Your date spends half the play trying to read the Playbill in the dark.

6. Your date answers rhetorical questions that are posed on stage.

ON A BAR DATE

1. Your date seems to be flirting with the bartender.

2. Your date goes to the bathroom and doesn’t come out for 23 minutes.

3. Your date becomes sullen after one drink.

4. Your date starts lighting matches just for fun.

5. Your date absolutely insists on a certain brand of gin.

6. Your date asks people at neighboring tables for the cherries in their drinks.

THE BLIND DATE

The blind date was first practiced in the Dark Ages when the chieftains of barbarian tribes used to torture captured spies by fixing them up with disastrous dates until the spies gave in and revealed all they knew. Like the cockroach, the blind date has remained essentially unaffected by the passage of time. Today, in its most prevalent form, the blind date is a device used by happily married couples to torture their single friends just for the sake of a few laughs.

Because neurotics fear the unknown above all else, they find blind dating to be an appalling exercise to which they will consent only when they are either drunk or have had a few too many drinks. After all, who wants to take a chance like that? Who needs the humiliation? Who says I’m that desperate? On the other hand, you never know.

Here are a few tips to remember when you’ve sobered up:

1. Expect the worst. Your partner for the evening has been described as being “nice” or “cute” or “successful” or “recently divorced.” Don’t believe any of it except for the “recently divorced” part. You are not about to latch onto a prize. Other people latch onto prizes. If you expect the worst, anything above rock bottom will be a bonus.

2. Looks aren’t everything. You’ve been told this all your life and you’ve even said it to yourself a few times. Here’s another chance to put your goodness on the line, even though you certainly understand that looks do help in a situation such as this.

3. Quickly establish the other person as the “blind date.” You will probably be accompanied by the couple who set up the date in the first place. Talk to them, laugh with them, throw in a couple of references that your date couldn’t possibly understand. Do everything you can to establish yourself as being “closer” to the sponsors. Dominate the proceedings.

4. You are not responsible for anything that goes wrong. The date wasn’t your idea, so you needn’t feel responsible for the conduct of the chef, the band, the movie projectionist, or random strangers you happen to pass on the sidewalk - as you would on a normal date. You might even be able to have fun.

5. Some things not to do. Don’t bring along a book. Don’t go into a trance and order double shots of Jack Daniels and gulp them down one after the other. Don’t try to make a joke looking at your watch after you’ve been caught doing it. Don’t keep saying, “What’s your name again?” to your date. Don’t bring along a briefcase. Don’t be an ass.

6. When you get back home. You may well realize that, despite everything, your blind date is the best person you’ve gone out with in months - something you weren’t composed enough to see during the heat of the date itself. Maybe you’d even like to go out on another date. Maybe it could even lead to true you-know-what. Only one thing to do: Sit by the telephone and hope that the feelings were mutual.

The Singles Scene

No one likes the singles scene, yet everyone who is not married is in it. We all know that the scene is filled with empty-headed chatter, people asking each other what their signs are, desperate eleventh-hour propositions, and the sound of breaking glass. We all know that the only lasting relationships to come out of such nights on the town are the ones between ourselves and our neuroses.

Nevertheless, when Friday night rolls around, the neurotics are out there flocking together, hoping to stir up a little business, trying to establish a little eye contact.

DO YOU LIVE AROUND HERE?

The people in the singles scene are looking for companionship, understanding, and love, to be sure, but first and foremost they are searching for the perfect opening line. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as the perfect opening line; there are merely good ones and bad ones, and the good ones sound rehearsed while the bad ones just sound bad. Neurotics, however, are firm disciples of the opening line. They believe, quite correctly of course, that without the opener there can be no further discourse. What they don’t seem to realize is that even a great opening line in no way guarantees that the ensuing conversation will be any good at all.

In any case, here are a few typically neurotic opening lines:

1. “Do you know anything about ingrown toenails?”

2. “I hate this place, don’t you?”

3. “Oh! I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

4. “Careful! I’ve got poison ivy on my arm. See?”

5. “Do you mind if I put my crutches here?”

6. “Vell, vell, vell…” (humorous German accent)

7. “Do you know if there’s a post office around here anyplace?”

8. “Boy it’s nice to sit down. Do you like to sit down?”

9. “Do you by any chance know what time it is? In China?”

10. “Where did you get them shoes?” (humorous bad grammar)

Those Three Little Words

There are times when dating, the singles, scene, or even a chance encounter leads to love. At least the neurotic thinks it’s love. This leads to many joys and problems, of course, but one of the earliest problems is the inability of some neurotics to say, “I love you.” It means so much to them to say these words, such a commitment, and, besides, they’ve been burned so many times before. Frankly, they are tired of saying “I love you.” Why should they always have to take the initiative? Why should they once again lay their whole lives out on the line just so they can run the risk of hearing the person in question come back with “You do?” or “Don’t be ridiculous” or “I’ve got a train to catch”?

The fact that these neurotics eventually learn not to be the first to say “I love you” does not prevent them from falling in love (even repeatedly), however. Nor does it prevent them from expressing this love in a thousand other ways. If you hear a partner whom you know to be neurotic utter any of the following, for instance, you’d better start preparing for what lies ahead (or consult the train schedule). If you find yourself saying any of this, you are yet again in over your head.

1. “You can use my car any time you need it.”

2. “I really like your family.”

3. “Your lip curls up (down) in the nicest way.”

4. “Don’t you think it would look better if this chair went over there?”

5. “I used your toothbrush.”

6. “Sex really doesn’t mean that much to me.”

7. “I haven’t felt this relaxed in months.”

8. “You can always come to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving.”

9. “I think the scars give you character.”

10. “I hate you.”

The Big Event

What it all eventually leads to for most of us, whether or not we have found the truer-than-true-love-of-our-lives, is marriage. There are two bits of evidence that suggest decision to get married is not always a rational one. First, the institution of marriage declares that we are prepared to live in peace and harmony with one person for the rest of our lives. Second, any decision that has anything to do with weddings can not be said to be rational.

Weddings are like the Olympics for neurotics. Weddings give our anxieties the opportunity to gather together in one place, under the twin flags of Love and Etiquette, for a grand display of what years of bitter experience has taught them. As with the Olympics, the original intent of the wedding has gradually been lost in a fog of social and political maneuvering. As with the Olympics, there are certain wedding “events” that capture the attention for the crowd and bring out the best or worst in the participants.

These events in the Wedding Decathlon can be listed as follows:

1. The Low Hurdles. In this event, the hurdles of parental and peer approval must be cleared. In modern times, the couple usually have been in training for some time and their performances together have been well documented. This still does not prevent the neurotic feeling among the participants that some of the key judges do not approve.

2. The Steeple Chase. Once the announcement has been made and the date set, this race begins. A suitable church must be found, and a posh reception site must be secured. This is a tough and even grueling event, especially if a June wedding is planned, because many other contestants are competing for the same prizes. The anxious belief that the setting for the event, rather than the event itself, is the most important thing can cause strife and a loss of concentration here.

3. The Invitational Relay. Among the most neurotic of all events. The judges must decide who gets invited to the wedding and who doesn’t, and the results almost always cause disappointment and team dissension. Once again, the sideshow nature of this event distracts the couple from the task of Love and sometimes leads to exchanges that are not smooth or orderly. (Look for some reform in this event in future years, especially in light of the infamous Uncle Frank Boycott in Akron, Ohio, in 1980, which almost brought the entire institution of Marriage to its knees when the Ludgen family delegation refused to attend the ceremony until Frank Ludgen - a well-meaning lush - was invited.)

4. The Marathon. This event tests the legs and the heart of the participants. It last from the day the announcement was made to a day about two weeks before the wedding - a matter of months or, when both participants are extremely neurotic, years. There are peaks and valleys along this marathon course, as well as running through high and low attitudes. Participants say that this is the event that tells them more about themselves than they care to know. The race is very anxiety-producing in its late stages. Most finish it, although some are in such frazzled condition that they barely realize what they are doing along the rest of the way.

5. The Vault. An event for the fathers of the brides. They must exercise agility and legerdemain and grace under fire as the bills start to pour in. the more they have in the vault, the better off they are.

6. The High Hurdles. The strain is beginning to show as this event rolls around. The hurdles are those of self-doubt and fear, and one slip here can put the whole Decathlon in jeopardy. This is where good coaching becomes imperative. The contestants must be told what the team is more important than the individual, that a similar opportunity may not come up again for years, that the weekend plans of scores of people hang in the balance. If necessary, the dazed participants may be kicked over these key hurdles.

7. The Butterfly. A few days before the wedding, giant butterflies appear in the stomachs of the major participants and begin to flutter madly. These butterflies feed on small details that suddenly assume enormous proportions. For instance, if the weather forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of rain, the fear is of a torrential tropical downpour that drowns wedding guests in the church parking lot. If a bartender calls in sick, the fear that the guest will be forced to stand before row upon row of glittering unopened bottles, muttering nasty oaths against the families of the bride and groom. What if the marriage official turns out to be a longwinded fool? Do we have enough champagne? Where will people park? There is nothing that can make the butterflies go away.

8. The Dash. This event takes place on the day of the wedding. It is run in a state of high panic, in a wild variety of directions, but ultimately to the same finish line. The Dash is run on a reserve of pure neurotic energy that is so intense it often lights the bride’s face up into a radiant flush.

9. The Toss. When the bride tosses her bouquet, there is one neurotic in the crowd of unmarried females who is convinced that everyone is secretly rooting for her to catch it. She is right. Sometimes the bride will fire the bouquet on a wicked line drive to this woman, but more often an overenthusiastic thirteen-year-old who knows nothing of lost love and heartache will lunge out and make the grab.

10. The Crawl. The final event in the Decathlon is meant for the wedding guests. The reception starts out as a supercharged celebration but, as hour after hour ticks by, it slows into a statelier pace, and finally to a crawl. Points are scored during the Crawl for crankiness, the dredging up of dark family secrets, and food and drink spillage, but the only true winners are the bride and groom who have long since escaped, in a shower of rice, to live happily ever after.

Excerpt: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

2005-08-24T16:17:00.000-04:00

This speech is made at the trial of Howard Roark, the main character. He is on trial because he blew Cordlandt, a housing project he designed.

“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.

“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures - because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer - because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received - hatred. The great creators - the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors - stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building - that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.

“His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man’s spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

“The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power - that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He had lived for himself.

“And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.

“But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act - the process of reason - must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

“We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.

“Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways - by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

“The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.

“The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

“The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.

“The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.

“Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

“No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

“The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality - the man who lives to serve others - is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.

“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

“Men have been taught hat their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer - in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.

“Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

“Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egoist as the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does and thing, feel, judge, or act. These are functions of the self.

“Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative - and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism - the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal - under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.

“This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

“The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.

“The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man - and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.

“Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man’s independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

“In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.

“No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.

“The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.

“A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule - alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.

“Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

“But men were taught to regard second-handers - tyrants, emperors, dictators - as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. This is a synonym.

“From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.

“The creator - denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited - went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.

“The ‘common good’ of a collective - a race, a class, a state - was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever establish over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by the disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to hear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.

“The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is - Hands off!

“Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

“It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

“Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It was poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.

“I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principles on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.

“Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.

“I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.

“I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building superseded all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.

“I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I designed it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.

“I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and are unessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.

“I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of this nature.

“It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them a right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world.

“I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.

“I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.

“It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.

“I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who’re destroying the world.

“I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.

“I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken place.

“My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend - and to the battles he won. To every creator whose name is known - and to every creator who lived, struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him.”

Excerpts: "Altruism" by Ayn Rand

2005-08-22T19:19:00.000-04:00

Altruism –

Theory

If you succeed any man who fails is your master; if you fail, any man who succeeds is your serf. Whether you fail or not, whether your wishes are rational or not, whether your misfortune is undeserved or the result of your vices, it is misfortune that gives you a right to rewards. It is pain, regardless of its nature or cause, pain as a primary absolute, that gives you a mortgage on all of existence.

If you heal your pain by your won effort, you receive no moral credit: your code regards it scornfully as an act of self-interest. Whatever value you seek to acquire, be it wealth or food or love or rights, if you acquire it by means of your virtue, your code does not regard it as a moral acquisition: you occasion no loss to anyone, it is a trade, not alms; a payment, not a sacrifice. The deserved belongs in the selfish, commercial realm of mutual profit; it is only the undeserved that calls for that moral transaction which consists of profit to one at the price of disaster to the other. To demand rewards for your virtue is selfish and immoral; it is your lack of virtue that transforms your demand into a moral right.

A morality that holds need as a claim, holds emptiness-non-existence-as its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defect: weakness, inability, incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the flaw-the zero.

[GS, FNI, 178; PB 144.]

Altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard of value.

[“The Objectivist Ethics,” VOS, 33; pb 34.]

Since nature does not provide man with an automatic form of survival, since he has to support his life by his own effort, the doctrine that concern with one’s own interests is evil means that man’s desire to live is evil-that man’s life, as such, is evil. No doctrine could be more evil than that.

Yet that is the meaning of altruism.

[“Introduction,” VOS, xii; pb ix.]

Practice

The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice-is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state. Soviet Russia is the ultimate result, the final product, the full, consistent embodiment of the altruist morality in practice; it represents the only way that that morality can ever be practiced.

[“Conservatism: An Obituary,” CUI, 195]

America’s inner contradiction was the altruist-collectivist ethics. Altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism and with individual rights. One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial animal.

[“Man’s Rights,” VOS, 127; PB 95.]

From her start, America was torn by the clash of her political system with the altruist morality. Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of self-interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and man’s happiness on earth-or the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces.

[“For the New Intellectual,” FNI, 62; PB 54.]

Psychology

The advocates of mysticism are motivated not by a quest for truth, but by hatred for man’s mind;… the advocates of altruism are motivated not by compassion for suffering, but by hatred for man’s life.

[“An Untitled Letter,” PWNI, 123; pb 102]

"The Love-Letters of a Clodhopper" by Gertrude Brooke Hamilton

2005-08-15T22:28:00.000-04:00

“There’s no use talking - the person who can read this story without feeling a limp in his throat has something wrong with his heart.”

- so was this archetype of Love Conquers All introduced in a 1917 Redbook

She selected several letters form the packet and put up a lovely hand to switch on the drop-light. Its glow vivified her flowing, tawny hair, waxen skin and black-lasted, coppery eyes - illuminated the bronze appointments of her ebony writing-table, purpled the pool in her jeweled inkwell and deepened the rich window hangings of her colorful room. Below the windows the tide of Manhattan broke and thundered on the shores of Seventy-second Street and Broadway. She spread the selected letters on the ebony table and began to read:

Dear Miss Gilder.

I rec’d your most helpful letter at 5.40 to-day.

Please excuse pencil. The ink is froze. Also please excuse, as usual, my uphill fist and bum spelling.

My married sis, Mrs. Pink Tibberly, is in a worrie to know who you are - she has brot me some of your letters from the P.O. But I wont tell her. I want the secret to myself. Just think. for 3 fine yrs you - Zola Gilder, a New York writer and poet - writing cheering letters to me - Martin Redd, a clodhopper!

Ever since I was old enuff to day-dream I have wanted to know some one like you. But when I first writ you in the care of a magazine, because the story of yours “Just Nature” had made me blubber, I calculated I was cutting fodder to rot. That first pretty, polite letter from you I wore under my shirt for 30 days. And then I seen your picture in a magazine. Shivering snakes! I went down on my big knees to what you had writ to me! It was 7: ½ months before I hunched up the nerve to fist my pen again. And you writ back. And I writ back. And dearest, we kept company in letters.

Please excuse the “dearest” for you are dear to me. I have never seen you. Calculate I never will. But I don’t think you ought to blame me for loving you as much as it is possible for a man to love a woman. You are good and noble. You make the farm chunks around here look like 30 cts. You know something else besides corset covers and boys and baking biscuits. You have told me 50 fine books to read. I love, honor, and adoor you.

If this makes you mad, I am realy and truly sorry. also please forgive me.

Have just finished reading your story “Ships That Pass In The Day.” I think it is the sweetest one yet - a sort of sad-sweet story. Will get the current magazine you mention. As usual, I gave the “Ship” story to my sis, Mrs. Pink Tibberly, to read.

I am very sorry to hear of your having a cold, but it is no suprise to me, as I know you work to hard. You need fresh air and buttermilk. Dearest, I haven’t taken a dose of Dr.’s dope for a cold or anything else for over 14 yrs and I hope I never do again.

Does it make you mad for me to call you dearest? If it does, please tell me so and please forgive me. For I would not hurt or harm you in any way, shape or form. Please an’sr soon.

Your humble friend,

MARTIN REDD.

Dear Miss Gilder.

Yours rec’d at 6.27 this evening.

I was beginning to feel that you was mad at me because I told you I loved you. I would like for to tell you heaps of such things, but I calculate you would laugh at me a think me a fool. But honest I could just fairly chaw you up - I like and love you so well.

After I writ that last letter to you I saddled my mare Crystal Herne and rode 16 hrs. straight. The coarse grass on the prairie didn’t seem no coarser than me handing you - Zola Gilder - a josh word like “dearest.” I drove Crystal and myself to a dripping sweat. On the way home I stopped at Tibberly farm. My married sis Pink was feeding her chickens. I grabbed the mush-pot from her, and before I knew it I was telling her who my girl was. Sis sat down hard and took off her glasses to squint at me. Her eyes are so bad now that she can’t read much, so she hasn’t read your current story “The Shack Woman,” but she will now as fast as she can. Sis thinks I ought to worship you (which I do) bow down and say my prayers to you - which I’ve done.

Please excuse me for calling you my girl to Sis. I know you are not for me, only to dream about, but in my dreams you are my girl. I wonder if you will be mad when you read this. I had a dream last night which I would like for to tell you about.

My Dream.

The date sliped a few notches and it was midsummer, balmy and fair. I rec’d a letter from you saying you was coming out here. I hitched Crystal to the buggy and drove S.E. along the little lane from our house to the road - then turned E. to the big road called Clinton Road in the country and Clinton Ave. in town. I followed the Road to a little hill about ½ mile long. Then I turned E. and drove over a new concrete bride - the sides big wall of solid concrete and steel. I drove on over the grade, with Salt Creek running E. at the foot of the grade. There was no houses - all farm ground and pasture. Then I left the grade, drove up a hill - and was on the prairie.

You was there waiting for me. You was just what I know you are, a tall, straight-backed girl with fairy feet and flying hair and something that smells of God about you - like the girls you write of in your stories, like your face in the magazine pictures. You come running to meet me, and as you run you threw off your fine New York clothes and underneath them you wore a print dress and under your shirt you wore that picture of me with my best yearling that I sent you 2 yrs ago.

When you got close by me you stopped, sort of shy, and said, “Howdy, Martin Redd.”

And I - pretending I was stuck-up and cityish, and wanting the laugh on you said, “Excuse me. At what hog show did we meet? I can’t calculate to remember, Miss Zola.”

And you hung your head and shook your flying hair over your eyes and you begun to cry.

And man alive! I went down on my big fool knees to you right then and there.

And you laughed quicker than you cried. You run - you was lighter than dandelion fluff - to Crystal and kiss the white star on her forehead and you jumped into the buggy and grabbed up the reins and hollered - “Giddap!”

Crystal backed in the traces and begun to skid. I got in and took the reins. Crystal reared, shyed, laid back her ears and let loose! She had us home in about 5 minutes.

Before the buggy quit swaying you was out of it, dancing by the barn, touching the head of my Holstein heifer, kissing the cat that has double-pawed kittens, wading and capering thro the S.W. field of clover, grabbing up apples and pears and biting into them and throwing them over your shoulder and running all the time to my mother, throwing yourself into her arms and crying. And all the time dancing with your feet.

For supper we chawed something. I never dreamed what. After supper I raced you to the barn. You tiptoed into it and kissed Crystal eating oats and corn in her stall. And mooed at the cows, Blossom and Lillian Russell, munching their straw, and shook your hair over the guinea fowls squeaking to get out of the barred back doors. And like a squirrel you scampered to the hay lofts. I climbed after you. You got to the highest loft and spread out your arms like a bird and sailed down 10 ft and lay there for a minute beautiful and rosy and climbed up again, and said “Unbar the back doors of the barn, Martin Redd. Let the crying guinea fowls. And show me the view.”

I pulled back the wooden bars and opened the whole back of the barn and you spun out on your tiptoes and whirled about and shrieked with joy at the view. You can see 5 counties - a river - and about 1000 acres of heavy timber from the back of our barn. It is like standing in the clouds with the angels so high up that you can’t see no people - just spires and the tops of things. You got sort of solemn over it and you cuddled close to my side and your hand stole up to my breast and lay there.

Next thing - you was laughing. I was fixing a swing for you under the stars. It was N.E. of the clover field where the view is high again. You leaped into the swing and swung up touching the trees. Down, brushing by to quick for me to kiss you.

Next Mother was giving you a foaming pitcher of milk to drink. You drunk and drunk till we all laughed and loved you and worshiped you and went clean mad about you. Mother took you to the S.W. bedroom that is next to hers and she give you a lamp. It shed a sort of a glory over you. We like for to have died from honoring you.

You said - looking at the flame of the lamp, “Martin Redd, I love you - I love Crystal Herne, and the cows and the heifer, and the guinea fowls and the double-pawed kittens and your Mother and your married sis, Mrs. Pink Tibberly.” And sly as a little spider you spun into the S.W. room and shut the door on me. Mother and Sis run down to the kitchen and begun to break eggs and cream butter and sift flower for the wedding cake.

In the night - when I was prowling under the window of the S.W. room -I heard the sash slip up. You put a foot over the sill and jumped down.

I said, “Where are you going?”

And you changed into a farm chunk.

Dearest, I woke up blubbering.

If this dream offends you I am truly sorry.

The robins have come and the wild duck and geese are going north but we have had several flurries of snow - about 1 inch deep last night.

How is your work getting on? I wonder if when things go wrong you would like for some big strong person to take you in his arms and make you forget worrie - past and future.

I told you about 13 months ago what I look like. I am 6 ft., weigh 170 lbs. have yellow hair and gray eyes, sound teeth, high nose and reddish skin.

Hope you are well and prosperous. Write when you can.

As ever your humble friend,

MARTIN REDD.

Dear Miss Gilder.

I sent you a letter some months ago. Like to never got it mailed as I was in the woods cutting timber for 2 weeks on a stretch.

We are having some cussed weather. Spring don’t seem to be coming this yr. everything is covered with sleet and ice. Telephone lines is nearly all down and things in bum shape generally. I wonder how cold it gets in New York. It gets 30 below real often here, sometimes 35 and 40.

Please forgive me for that last letter. I calculate I deserve the 10 weeks silence you have handed me. Also please excuse ink blots. Time to feed the hogs.

Hope you are well and happy.

Your humble friend,

MARTIN REDD.

Dear Miss Gilder.

Yours of the 22^nd arrived on Christmas Day. I am happy to hear about your good luck about your work and sorry you was to busy to write to me for 3 months.

I have lost $400 worth of hogs. That wont seem a very large sum to you.

I read your story “No King But Caesar” and thought it fine. It hits a world of women - the women in the world. As usual, I gave the Caesar story to my sis, Mrs. Pink Tibberly, to read.

Am glad you got a smile off my mare’s name. She is all right. When the mare was a baby it seemed that one of her eyes was going to be what people call glass eye an eye that is white. I decided on the Crystal partly on account of the crystal-like eye and partly for Crystal Herne. I seen her once in a play when I was in Chicago and thought her fine.

I am glad you are coming to the good money. Hope you are able to keep it up. I am not like you for I don’t want heaps of coin or fame.

I wont bother you with any more.

I love you.

Your humble friend,

MARTIN REDD.

Dear Miss Gilder.

I went to a corn-roast in these parts last night.

The men build a big camp fire in the field. The girls bring corn and salt and marshmallows sometimes rolls and hot sausages. They sit around the camp fire and eat and tell stories. There is always a funny fellow and a girl who recites sad pieces. Once I could laugh at that fellow and the pieces always brot tears to my eyes. Last night I sat like a stiff in the crowd. I saw your face in the big camp fire. Your arms reached out to me in the licking flames. Your curling mouth laughed at the bunch I went with - guyed my friends, guyed me, sang up to the stars in the smoke from the fire and made fun of the clodhopper who had gone stargazing. It come to me in a crack that the love making was always on my side and that it wasn’t getting me nowhere. I calculated I was getting tired of kisses on paper I sort of flared up high as the camp fire and put the blame on you. You have crammed my head with 75 books and set me blubbering over your stories and writ me letters to wear under my shirt. And I’ll be thirty next birthday.

This is for you alone. I want to work for you, to do things to please you. I want you to like the things I like and I like the things you like - to hold you in my arms evenings and tell you that same old sweet story over and over and over. I love you! You can’t never marry me. What is the end of real love but marriage?

What did you learn me to love you for?

MARTIN REDD.

Dearest.

I could grab you in my arms and murmur lots of things in your ear and lay your head on my shoulder - and blubber. All of which would make you justly mad!

I am tipping my hat to you for that lock of hair. It is realy beautiful hair. I have your pictures propped up in front of me as I write. The 3 I have cut from magazines. I wish I was at your side that I might stroke that beautiful hair and kiss and caress you. I don’t feel like telling you nothing but I love you. I wonder how you would like for me to come into your room and love you savagely, to take up your hair in my hands and bury my face in it, to look into your eyes and find nothing but purity there. But on the other hand if you was the Devil’s own Daughter and your hair was coils of glittering snakes I would love you. You couldn’t do nothing low or mean enuff to keep me from loving you.

I am going to ride 18 hrs. straight and think it out.

My Thoughts.

At first I thought I would come to New York and give you back your letters and only slightly smile when I saw you and then come back home after having just loved you with my eyes.

And then - dawn was on the prairie when I come to my 2^nd thought - I felt my big, young body and the muscles in my arms. I thought of the $3000 I have in the Fairbanks bank in Mansfield and the 200 good acres I own. I looked at my hands - brown and hard enuff to protect any soft white hand that would trust itself to it. I thought of my married sis, Mrs. Pink Tibberly, who thinks me good enuff for any woman. And my Mother who says I am the handsomest man around these parts. And the farm chunks who any one of them would jump at slinging hash for me.

My 3^rd thought was about Love.

My 4^th thought was You. I read the beautiful things between the lines of your letters. I heard you calling me. I saw you in New York - pestered by men - fighting for your fame and money - and all the while resting in my big ugly arms.

For you are mine by the right of my manhood - by the right that hasn’t nothing to do with schooling - by the right that made Eve belong to Adam.

I am coming to New York to pick you up in my arms and bring you back with me. You’re mine! My friend! my girl! my ideal! my pal! my saint! my wife! Those fairy feet of yours may run fast, dearest, but they shant outrun your clodhopper’s hoofs. In all my dreams you get away from me. I am going to quit dreaming! I am coming to New York to pick you up in y arms and bring you back with me!

I love you so I am sick and humble with love. My knees knock at the thought of coming into your presence. My eyes blubber. I am like an old man with a young man’s lungs. I am feeble and powerful - glad and blue - resolute and uncertain - shouting and afraid - bold and hanging back.

Tell me to come. Tell me you love me.

MARTIN REDD.

Miss Zola Gilder.

I would like for to kill you for your letter rec’d today at 12.50.

I would like for to come into your room and put the marks of my fingers on your white shoulders and stamp with my feet on your feet and use my horsewhip on your beautiful back.

You begin your letter with some French that I can’t read because I don’t know no language but my own. You go on to say that you are not the marrying sort - that my letters have been one long, big laugh to you - that the only reason you encouraged them was to get what you call copy - that a clodhopper story you hope to sell for $500. is already in your typewriter - that love is a fairy tale that brings so much a word - that nothing funnier could be imagined than Zola Gilder jumping about in hay lofts and nestling up to a six-foot son of the soil! You end your letter with some Latin that you know I can’t read. And with that you are thro.

Well so am I. Here are your letters, the lock of your hair and the magazine pictures of you, you beauty, you she-wolf.

I am glad you got a $500. laugh out of me.

I love you.

THE CLODHOPPER.

She replaced the letters in the packet and put out lovely hands to pick up a pair of crutches. Slowly she got to her feet and crossed her colorful room to an electric button. She punched white light in abundance over the room. At her ebony-framed, full-length mirror she took stock of her flowing, tawny hair, well-chiseled brow, black-lashed, coppery eyes, delicate nose, idealistic nostrils and red, wistful mouth. Pulling a shimmering mass of hair over her shoulder and half turning from her mirror, she gave a slant stare at the hump on her back and at her shrunken legs and crippled, club feet. She spread her hands on her crutches and began to sob.

The telephone rang. Zola Gilder answered it.

“Mr. Martin Redd, of Illinois, calling,” came the metallic voice of the hotel clerk.

“Who?” Zola gasped.

“Mr. Martin Redd, of Illinois, calling,” replied the mechanical voice.

Zola Gilder’s face went white. “Martin Redd - calling!” she repeated. In swift succession, panic, joy, apprehension, despair, possessed her features.

She moistened her lips, and said into the telephone: “Have Mr. Martin Redd shown up to my suite.”

Her hand, as she put the receiver into the hook, went weak. Her shoulders rested heavily on her crutches. She seemed about to crumple up like an imperfect rose-petal at the end of a perfect summer.

Then the spirit that shone in her coppery eyes conquered her weakness. Resolutely she moved to the center of the room, where the light from the chandelier fell full upon her.

Outside, in the softly padded corridor, feet passed and repassed. Somewhere a room-telephone tinkled. The heavy sound of a trunk-truck rumbled by.

An elevator-door clanged. A tread, different from the rest, came along the corridor. The knock that smote her door reverberated through the suite.

With wild, uneven steps, hampered by her infirmity, she rushed to her door - and locked it.

The knock came again. I was perhaps, the rap-rap of knuckles fisted to strike.

Zola leaned against the door and put her paling lips on the wood where the knock sounded. “Martin Redd,” she whispered dryly, “go away! What have you come for?”

A hand wenched the door-knob. A heavy foot struck against the satin panel of the door. It seemed as if a giant shoulder might be placed against the wood and the door might come crashing in.

Zola Gilder unlocked the door and moved back to her position under the chandelier. “Come in,” she said.

Martin Redd opened the door - and was in the room. He carried a rawhide whip.

Zola Gilder spread out her lovely hands on the rungs of her crutches. “Howdy, Clodhopper,” she said faintly.

Martin Redd’s balked, baffled stare played on her exquisite face and fair - and on her body.

“You see,” she said with a three-cornered smile, “I would be funny jumping about in hay-lofts.”

His look of amazement increased.

She shook back her flowing hair. The movement revealed nobility of her brow, the beauty of her eyes, the idealism of her nostrils and the redness of her mouth. “You wouldn’t want to come into my room and love me savagely, would you?” she faltered.

Martin Redd took a step toward her and stood still.

Zola Gilder smiled. For the second, her face was all that a man might dream of.

Then renunciation leveled and controlled her face. “I am glad you came, Martin Redd,” she said slowly. “I am glad I have had the courage to see you. I am glad to be able to tell you that I did not encourage you to obtain what I call copy. I have not written a clodhopper story. I was lying.”

Her voice sank, became infinitely sweet. “Now that you have seen me, you can go back a happily marry a ‘farm chunk.’ Now that you have seen me, you can forget - or laugh. For it is funny!” She pulled a mass of hair over her shoulder, with brave, tragic humor, exposing her deformity. “See how far I am from the women you have wanted, Martin. Brains I have, and soul, and beauty of face -” Her tragedy shook her.

His arms hung at his sides, inanimate as his stare.

The slow, luminous calm of the spirit challenging the physical composed her. The spirit transcended the physical. “You can never marry me,” she said, sadly. Her face colored. “What is the real end of love but marriage?”

She seemed to wither. “I have done wrong in deceiving you,” she stammered. “Use your whip on my - back.” She hung her head and shook her tawny hair over her eyes and began to cry.

Martin Redd placed the rawhide whip on her ebony writing-table beside the jeweled inkwell.

A step took him to her.

Gently he threw away the crutches and picked her up in his arms. “Blubber on my onery shoulder, dearest,” he said, in a rich voice. “Please excuse the ‘dearest,’ for you are to me.”

He walked her up and down the gorgeous room, stroking her beautiful hair - kissing and caressing her.

Below the windows, the tides of Manhattan broke and thundered on the shores of Seventy-second Street and Broadway. As an automobile-siren screamed in the streets, Zola laid a hand on Martin’s breast.

“You cannot marry me!” she cried.

“I fail for to see why,” he answered.

“I am misshapen.”

“I calculate that don’t make no difference.”

“But Martin, I am a cripple!”

“You’re my girl.” He rocked her and cradled her. “You’re glad you’re where you are, in my big, ugly arms. Aren’t you, dearest?” lay your head down on my shoulder. There.” The rich voice was humble. “If you will let me take you back with me, you’ll do my honor. I love you.”

Her hand on his breast, lighter than a snowflake, seemed to melt there. Her face on his shoulder became less the face of a child-sufferer, less the face of a brilliant recluse - more the face of a woman who would play her woman’s part.

A delicate and courageous ecstasy flowed through Zola Gilder’s whisper, “I could die from honoring you, Martin Redd.”

"Long Walk to Forever" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

2005-08-08T19:39:00.000-04:00

They had grown up next door to each other, on the fringe of a city, near fields and woods and orchards, within sight of a lovely bell tower that belonged to a school for the blind.

Now they were twenty, had not seen each other for nearly a year. There had always been playful, comfortable warmth between them, but never any talk of love.

His name was Newt. Her name was Catharine. In the early afternoon, Newt knocked on Catharine's front door.

Catharine came to the door. She was carrying a fat, glossy magazine she had been reading. The magazine was devoted entirely to brides. “Newt!” she said. She was surprised to see him.

“Could you come for a walk?” he said. He was a shy person, even with Catharine. He covered his shyness by speaking absently, as though what really concerned him were far away - as though he were a secret agent pausing briefly on a mission between beautiful, distant, and sinister points. This manner of speaking had always been Newt’s style, even in matters that concerned him desperately.

“A walk?” said Catharine.

“One foot in front of the other,” said Newt, “through leaves, over bridges -”

“I had no idea you were in town,” she said.

“Just this minute got in,” he said.

“Still in the Army, I see,” she said.

“Seven more months to go,” he said. He was a private first class in the Artillery. His uniform was rumpled. His shoes were dusty. He needed a shave. He held out his hand for the magazine. “Let’s see the pretty book,” he said.

She gave it to him. “I’m getting married, Newt,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“I’m awfully busy, Newt,” she said. “The wedding is only a week away.”

“If we go for a walk,” he said, “it will make you a rosy. It will make you a rosy bride.” He turned the pages of the magazine. “A rosy bride like her - like her - like her,” he said, showing her rosy brides.

Catharine turned rosy, thinking about rosy brides.

“That will be my present to Henry Stewart Chasens,” said Newt. “By taking you for a walk, I’ll be giving him a rosy bride.”

“You know his name?” said Catharine.

“Mother wrote,” he said. “From Pittsburgh?”

“Yes,” she said. “You’d like him.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“Can - can you come to the wedding, Newt?” she said.

“That I doubt,” he said.

“Your furlough isn’t for long enough?” she said.

“Furlough?” said Newt. He was studying a two-page ad for flat silver. “I’m not on furlough,” he said.

“Oh?” she said.

“I’m what they call A.W.O.L.,” said Newt.

“Oh, Newt! You’re not!” she said.

“Sure I am,” he said, still looking at the magazine.

“Why, Newt?” she said.

“I had to find out what your silver pattern is,” he said. He read names of silver patterns from the magazine. “Albemarle? Heather?” he said. “Legend? Rambler Rose?” He looked up, smiled. “I plan to give you and your husband a spoon,” he said.

“Newt, Newt - tell me really,” he said.

“I want to go for a walk,” he said.

She wrung her hands in sisterly anguish. “Oh, Newt - you’re fooling me about being A.W.O.L.,” she said.

Newt imitated a police siren softly, raised his eyebrows.

“Where - where from?” she said.

“Fort Bragg,” he said.

“North Carolina?” she said.

“That’s right,” he said. “Near Fayetteville - where Scarlett O’Hara went to school.”

“How did you get here, Newt?” she said.

He raised his thumb, jerked it in a hitchhike gesture. “Two days,” he said.

“Does your mother know?” she said.

“I didn’t come to see my mother,” he told her.

“Who did you come to see?” she said.

“You,” he said.

“Why me?” she said.

“Because I love you,” he said. “Now can we take a walk?” he said. “One foot in front of the other - through leaves, over bridges -”

They were taking the walk now, were in a woods with a brown-leaf floor.

Catharine was angry and rattled, close to tears. “Newt,” she said, “this is absolutely crazy.”

“How so?” said Newt.

“What a crazy time to tell me you love me,” she said. “You never talked that way before.” She stopped walking.

“Let’s keep walking,” he said.

“No,” she said. “So far, no farther. I shouldn’t have come out with you at all,” she said.

“You did,” he said.

“To get you out of the house,” she said. “If somebody walked in and heard you talking to me that way, a week before the wedding -”

“What would they think?” he said.

“They’d think you were crazy,” she said.

“Why?” he said.

Catharine took a deep breath, made a speech. “Let me say that I’m deeply honored by this crazy thing you’ve done,” she said. “I can’t believe that you’re really A.W.O.L., but maybe you are. I can’t believe you really love me, but maybe you do. But -”

“I do,” said Newt.

“Well, I’m deeply honored,” said Catharine, “and I’m very fond of you as a friend, Newt, extremely fond - but it’s just too late.” She took a step away from him. “You’ve never even kissed me,” she said, and she protected herself with her hands. “I don’t mean you should do it now. I just mean this is all so unexpected. I haven’t got the remotest idea of how to respond.”

“Just walk some more,” he said. “Have a nice time.”

They started walking again.

“How did you expect me to react?” she said.

“How would I know what to expect?” he said. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Did you think I would throw myself into your arms?” she said.

“Maybe,” he said.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said.

“I’m not disappointed,” he said. “I wasn’t counting on it. This is very nice, just walking.”

Catharine stopped again. “You know what happens next?” she said.

“Nope,” he said.

“We shake hands,” she said. “We shake hands and part friends,” she said. “That’s what happens next.”

Newt nodded. “All right,” he said. “Remember me from time to time. Remember how much I loved you.”

Involuntarily, Catharine burst into tears. She turned her back to Newt, looked into the infinite colonnade of the woods.

“What does that mean?” said Newt.

“Rage!” said Catharine. She clenched her hands. “You have no right -”

“I had to find out,” he said.

“If I’d loved you,” she said, “I would have let you know before now.”

“You would?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. She faced him, looked up at him, her face quite red. “You would have known,” she said.

“How?” he said.

“You would have seen it,” she said. “Women aren’t very clever at hiding it.”

Newt looked closely at Catharine’s face now. To her consternation, she realized that what she had said was true, that a woman couldn’t hide love.

Newt was seeing love now.

And he did what he had to do. He kissed her.

“You’re hell to get along with!” she said when Newt let her go.

“I am?” said Newt.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

“You didn’t like it?” he said.

“What did you expect,” she said - “wild, abandoned passion?”

“I keep telling you,” he said, “I never know what’s going to happen next.”

“We say good-by,” she said.

He frowned slightly. “All right,” he said.

She made another speech. “I’m not sorry we kissed,” she said. “That was sweet. We should have kissed, we’ve been so close. I’ll always remember you, Newt, and good luck.”

“You too,” he said.

“That you, Newt,” she said.

“Thirty days,” he said.

“What?” she said.

“Thirty days in the stockade,” he said - “that’s what one kiss will cost me.”

“I - I’m sorry,” she said, “but I didn’t ask you to go A.W.O.L.”

“I know,” he said.

“Must be nice to be a hero,” said Newt. “Is Henry Stewart Chasens a hero?”

“He might be, if he got the chance,” said Catharine. She noted uneasily that they had begun to walk again. The farewell had been forgotten.

“You really love him?” he said.

“Certainly I love him!” she said hotly. “I wouldn’t marry him if I didn’t love him!”

“What’s good about him?” said Newt.

“Honestly!” she cried, stopping again. “Do you have any idea how offensive you’re being? Many, many, many things are good about Henry! Yes,” she said, “and many, many, many things are probably bad too. But that isn’t any of your business. I love Henry, and I don’t have to argue his merits with you!”

“Sorry,” said newt.

“Honestly!” said Catharine.

Newt kissed her again. He kissed her again because she wanted him to.

They were now in a large orchard.

“How did we get so far from home, Newt?” said Catharine.

“One foot in front of the other - through leaves, over bridges,” said Newt.

“They add up - the steps,” she said.

Bells rang in the tower of the school for the blind nearby.

“School for the blind,” said Newt.

“School for the blind,” said Catharine. She shook her head in drowsy wonder. “I’ve got to go home now,” she said.

“Say good-by,” said Newt.

“Every time I do,” said Catharine, “I seem to get kissed.”

Newt sat down on the close cropped grass under an apple tree. “Sit down,” he said.

“No,” she said.

“I won’t touch you,” he said.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

She sat down under another tree, twenty feet away from hi. She closed her eyes.

“Dream of Henry Stewart Chasens,” she said.

“What?” she said.

“Dream of your wonderful husband-to-be,” he said.

“All right, I will,” she said. She closed her eyes tighter, caught glimpses of her husband-to-be.

Newt yawned.

The bees were humming in the trees, and Catharine almost fell asleep. When she opened her eyes she saw that Newt really was asleep.

He began to snore softly.

Catharine let Newt sleep for an hour, and while he slept she adored him with all her heart.

The shadows of the apple trees grew to the east. The bells in the tower of the school for the blind rang again.

“Chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” went a chickadee.

Somewhere far away an automobile starter nagged and failed, nagged and failed, fell still.

Catharine came out from under her tree, knelt by Newt.

“Newt?” she said.

“H’m?” he said. He opened his eyes.

“Late,” she said.

“Hello, Catharine,” he said.

“Hello, Newt,” she said.

“I love you,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“Too late,” he said.

“Too late,” she said.

He stood, stretched groaningly. “A very nice walk,” he said.

“I thought so,” she said.

“Part company here?” he said.

“Where will you go?” she said.

“Hitch into town, turn myself in,” he said.

“Good luck,” she said.

“You, too,” he said. “Marry me, Catharine?”

“No,” she said.

He smiled, stared at her hard for a moment, then walked away quickly.

Catharine watched him grow smaller in the long perspective of shadows and trees, knew that if he stopped and turned now, if he called to her, she would run to him. She would have no choice.

Newt did stop. He did turn. He did call. “Catharine,” he called.

She ran to him, put her arms around him, could not speak.

Excerpt: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

2005-08-04T16:09:00.000-04:00

This week the insomnia is back. Insomnia, and now the whole world figures to stop by and take a dump on my grave.

My boss is wearing his gray tie so today must be a Tuesday.

My boss brings a sheet of paper to my desk and asks if I’m looking for something. This paper was left in the copy machine, he says, and begins to read:

“The first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.”

His eyes go side to side across the paper, and he giggles.

“The second rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.”

I hear Tyler’s words come out of my boss, Mister Boss with his midlife spread and family photo on his desk and his dreams about early retirement and winters spent at a trailer park hookup in some Arizona desert. My boss, with his extra-starched shirts and standing appointment for a haircut every Tuesday after lunch, he looks at me, and he says:

“I hope this isn’t yours.”

I am Joe’s Blood-Boiling Rage.

Tyler asked me to type up the fight club rules and make him ten copies. Not nine, not eleven. Tyler says, ten. Still I have the insomnia, and can’t remember sleeping since three nights ago. This must be the original I typed. I made ten copies, and forgot the original. The paparazzi flash of the copy machine in my face. The insomnia distance of everything, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything, and nothing can touch you.

My boss reads:

“The third rule of fight club is two men per fight.”

Neither of us blinks.

My boss reads:

“One fight at a time.”

I haven’t slept in three days unless I’m sleeping now. My boss shakes the paper under my nose. What about it, he says. Is this some little game I’m playing on company time? I’m paid for my full attention, not to waste time with little war games. And I’m not paid to abuse the copy machines.

What about it? He shakes the paper under my nose. What do I think, he asks, what should he do with an employee who spends company time in some little fantasy world. If I was in his shoes, what would I do?

What would I do?

The hole in my cheek, the blue-black swelling around my eyes, and the swollen red scar of Tyler's kiss on the back of my hand, a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

Speculation.

Why does Tyler want ten copies of the fight club rules?

Hindu cow.

What I would do, I say, is I’d be very careful who I talked to about this paper.

I say, it sounds like some dangerous psycho killer wrote this, and this buttoned-down schizophrenic could probably go over the edge at any moment in the working day and stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-180 carbine gas-operated semiautomatic.

My boss just looks at me.

The guy, I say, is probably at home every night with a little rattail file, filing a cross into the tip of every one of his rounds. This way, when he shows up to work one morning and pumps a round into his nagging, ineffectual, petty, whining, butt-sucking, candy-ass boss, that one round will split along the filed grooves and spread open the way a dumdum bullet flowers inside you to blow a bushel load of your stinking guts out through your spine. Picture your guy chakra opening in a slow-motion explosion of sausage-casing small intestine.

My boss takes the paper out from under my nose.

Go ahead, I say, read some more.

No really, I say, it sounds fascinating. The work of a totally diseased mind.

And I smile. The little butthole-looking edges of the hole in my check are the same blue-black of a dog’s gums. The skin stretched tight across the swelling around my eyes feels varnished.

My boss just looks at me.

Let me help you, I say.

I say, the fourth rule of fight club is one fight at a time.

My boss looks at the rules and then looks at me.

I say, the fifth rule is no shoes, no shirts in the fight.

My boss looks at the rules and looks at me.

Maybe, I say, this totally diseased fuck would use an Eagle Apache carbine because an Apache takes a thirty-shot mag and only weighs nine pounds. The Armalite only takes a five-round magazine. With thirty shots, our totally fucked hero could go the length of mahogany row and take out every vice-president with a cartridge left over for each director.

Tyler’s words coming out of my mouth. I used to be such a nice person.

I just look at my boss. My boss has blue, blue, pale cornflower blue eyes.

The J and R 68 semiautomatic carbine also takes a thirty-shot mag, and it only weighs seven pounds.

My boss just looks at me.

It’s scary, I say. This is probably somebody he’s known for years. Probably this guy knows all about him, where he lives, and where his wife works and his kids go to school.

This is exhausting, and all of a sudden very, very boring.

And why does Tyler need ten copies of the fight club rules?

What I don’t have to say is I know about the leather interiors that cause birth defects. I know about the counterfeit brake linings that looked good enough to pass the purchasing agent, but fail after two thousand miles.

I know about the air-conditioning rheostat that gets so hot it sets fire to the maps in your glove compartment. I know how many people burn alive because of fuel-injector flashback. I’ve seen people’s legs cut off at the knee when turbochargers star exploding and send their vanes through the firewall and into the passenger compartment. I’ve been out in the field and seen the burned-up cars and seen the reports where CAUSE OF FAILURE is recorded as “unknown.”

No, I say, the paper’s not mine. I take the paper between two fingers and jerk it out of his hand. The edge must slice his thumb because his hand flies to his mouth, and he’s sucking hard, eyes wide open. I crumble the paper into a ball and toss it into the trash can next to my desk.

Maybe, I say, you shouldn’t be bringing me every little piece of trash you pick up.

Excerpt: Sleeping Over by Stacey Ballis

2005-07-11T14:42:00.000-04:00

Michael gets up and futzes with the fire in his fireplace, and I pour us both a healthy slug of cognac. He made me dinner for a change, which was lovely. One of the problems with being a chef is that frequently people don’t want to cook for you. They think you’ll judge them. They obviously don’t realize that I often whip up a special batch of Kraft mac ‘n cheese for my own supper, especially when I’m out of peanut butter and jelly. It was just a simple salad and pasta with his mom’s sauce, but I loved him for not caring and not trying too hard. I also loved him for breathing in and out, and walking upright, and a million other things that are pedestrian and mundane. He walks over and sits beside me on the couch, sips his cognac thoughtfully and smiles at me.

“Okay, kiddo, you’re on.”

“Meaning?” I know what he means, but I’m hesitant to begin.

“Meaning I’ve been a good boy. It’s pouring cats and dogs out there. I’ve fed you amply, built you this lovely fire to take off the chill and let you use the Baccarat snifters, despite the fact that you’re a major klutz and are likely to break them both by the end of the evening. You promised me your treatise on love, and I do mean to hear it.”

Well, crap.

“Okay, okay, I get the picture. Are you sure, considering what you have been through?”

Andrea called him over the weekend and told him that she was staying in L.A. His choice, move and be together or be over. He chose over. I’m amazed that love’s a topic he is willing to broach. Plus, I’ve been dreading it, so it’s worth trying to stave him off.

“Nope, you and I both know that if Andrea and I were the real deal, I never would have let her leave. Sad but true. It has been over two years we’ve been friends, and this is probably the only topic we haven’t talked about. I wanna hear it.”

“That’ isn’t fair - you know all about all my failed romances.”

“Not the same thing, and you know it. If you’re going to be my personal philosopher, then it’s time for the love chapter. I believe I’ve earned it.”

I’m so going to be fired. Or will have to quit. But maybe it’s time.

“Okay, if you insist. Love is a state of being in which you care about someone else more than you do about yourself. Where someone else’s happiness defines your own. It becomes impossible for you to be a truly happy person unless the person you’re in love with is happy. If it’s you that makes them happy, that’s true love, a rare and wonderful beast. More likely, they will only be happy with someone who is not you. When this happens, you find yourself actively seeking the person who will make the object of your love happy, sometimes even more actively than they themselves may be seeking, because, as I said, if they’re not happy, you can’t be happy. Of course, your heart is broken, which makes you miserable, but it’s a happy misery, because really being in love with someone means loving them enough to let them love someone else. That is the cycle of love, it’s what makes us human, fallible. It’s the essence of reality.”

He looked up, attempting to make some sense of the theory I had just explained to him.

“So how do you know when you are truly in love?”

“You just ask yourself if you would be willing to fix her up with your brother.”

“What will that prove?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You never know when true love will happen for anyone. So if you’re willing to fix her up with your brother, despite your attraction to her, that means you are in love. If the idea of her and your brother together makes you angry, jealous, nauseous… then you are just lusting after her, because if you were in love with her, you would seek her happiness at any cost, even the outside chance of becoming her brother-in-law. You might love her as a friend, but you aren’t in love with her until there is nothing you wouldn’t do to help her get happy.”

“I don’t have a brother.” He grins at me.

“You know what I mean, your best friend, then.”

“I see.” Outside, the rain beat down, and the rumble of thunder was getting closer and closer.

“I know it’s vaguely confusing, but if you let it sink in awhile, it’ll begin to make more sense.”

“So since I’m back on the market, how will I recognize a woman I could fall in love with? Does she match any set of qualities I have in my head, or will she pop out of nowhere and surprise me?”

“When you find the perfect woman, you’ll just know.”

“Nobody is perfect.” He is so damn sure of himself.

“Exactly.”

“You lost me again.”

“It’s common knowledge that as humans, we have flaws. That’s a given. Therefore, in order to be a truly perfect human being, you must have flaws. Our perfection is directly attributed to our flaws.”

“So then all people are perfect.” Such a logician.

“In their own way, yes.”

“Then how do you know when you find the right perfect person?”

“Ah, Mikey, that will be the person whose flaws are crossed out by your strengths, and vice versa.”

“Don’t call me Mikey. I still don’t quite understand.”

His little smirk is at once irritating and irresistible. I want to smack him. And then kiss him. Or maybe kiss him and then smack him.

“In true love, both people, being perfect, have flaws.”

“All right, Robbie, I’m with you so far.”

“Don’t call me Robbie. Anyways, those flaws don’t merge, they get crossed out by the other person’s strengths. A true love means a true union. A true union means the melting of two hearts, minds and souls into a single heart, mind and soul, which is redistributed into two bodies. During the rearranging of two into one, flaws and strengths cross each other out. That way, when one is separated back into two, the union is unmarred.” He shakes his head, but I press on.

“As time goes on, new flaws appear, and sometimes it takes a while for a flaw to find a counterbalancing strength, so they stick around and cause trouble. But since new strengths appear as well as new flaws, if the union is strong, eventually even the new flaws get taken out of the picture.”

“It is certainly a thought-provoking theory.”

“Well, I think there’s some truth to it, but then again, it’s my theory. I’m less likely to be aware if I’m full of shit than you are.”

“No, you’ve made some very valid points. Maybe slightly unconventional, Robbie, but so was the round-earth theory in its time.”

“I graciously accept the compliment that was veiled in there somewhere. And don’t call me Robbie.”

“How did one of such a tender age become so wise in the subject of love?”

I hate when he does this. “Firstly, I’m not so young. If you didn’t know how old I really am, what would be your guess?”

“Honestly?”

“No, please lie to me, you know how I relish it.”

“Easy, killer. I don’t know, about thirty-eight.”

“Fine. It happens to be a fact that girls mature faster than boys, and that the average woman of thirty is as mature as the average male of thirty-six. Since you’ve told me that I’m not average, but in fact, appear to be six years older than I really am, that puts me at a forty-four-year-old mentality, making me a year older than you.”

“Uncle! I admit it, I’m a mere babe in the woods compared to your overwhelming senior citizenship. That still doesn’t answer my question.”

“I forgot your damn question.”

“How did you get to be so wise in the subject of love?”

“Simple. I’ve opened myself to it, and as often as possible, embraced it. I’ve loved long, hard and frequently. Mostly, I’ve loved people who are unable to return that love to me. But I’ve loved the true love. Once you have walked that path, you’ll go through any heartache in order to achieve that union again.” So very true.

“You are lucky. Sometimes, I think I’m incapable of the true love.”

“You will love the true love. You can’t escape it.”

“How are you so sure of me, when I’m not?”

“Faith.”

“And you?”

“Someday I’ll love the true love again. Till then I’m in search of someone to take me to dinner.”

He laughs, clear and honest, and shakes his head from side to side in disbelief.

“Don’t laugh at me. I mean it.”

“I’m sorry, but that is some ultimatum. Be my true love or buy me dinner. Your choice.”

“I didn’t give an ultimatum! I can wait for true love… But I can’t stand this enduring loneliness.”

“I’m sorry.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder and rubs gently. It’s soothing. It makes me all tingly. I can feel my face flush, and hope he doesn’t notice in the firelight.

So I just keep talking. “It’s not your fault. It’s the plight of the hopeless, realistic romantic.”

“The hopeless, realistic romantic?”

“Yes. It’s incurable. Often fatal. A truly horrid condition.”

“I’ve heard of the hopeless romantic, I’ve even been called one once or twice, but this is a new one for me.”

“The principle is basically the same. I’ve an enduring hope that someday my true love will sweep me off my feet, that he will carry me off into a wonderful new life. But I’m realistic enough to not search for him in every man I meet. What I look for is someone to be my friend. The qualities that attract to me to a person as a friend are the same I seek in a love, they’re just focused differently. If I gain a friend, that’s a wonderful thing. If I become attracted to him in a romantic way, and he happens to lean in a similar direction, that’s a bonus. And if, in all this, I stumble upon my true love, that will be a miracle. But I don’t look for him - I look for someone to keep me warm at night, to make me laugh. I have infinite patience for the arrival of my true love, but I’m eternally weary of sleeping alone. As you well know.”

“I understand.” He tweaks my nose.

“Do you? We’re perfectly matched friends. You fear ever being able to truly love, but you never lack interesting warm bodies to enjoy life with. I know I’ll love again, but I can’t find anyone who wants to spend his time with me.”

“And just as you have faith that I will love the true love, I believe that someday soon some guy will realize what a catch you are.”

“Most are fishing for a sleek blue marlin, not a blue whale with a great personality.”

“You promised me you were going to cut that out.”

“Sorry, it slipped. Look, I know I’m a wonderful person. When the rest of the male population figures it out, I’ll be one psyched chick.”

“That’s better. So my little philosophess, can you have a one-sided true love?”

God, he is frigging adorable. “Sure. Some of the purest, truest loves have been unrequited. Most of mine have been.”

“So you aren’t really awaiting the next true love, you are awaiting the one who will love you back.”

“Yes. Endless waiting. Romance’s equivalent of the DMV. No such thing as the short line.”

“Interesting analogy.”

“Unfortunately appropriate. Waiting for love is, I believe, the circle of hell that Dante forgot.”

“Wasn’t there a play by that name?”

“No, silly, that was Waiting for Godot, but it’s a common mistake.”

“Sure make fun of me.”

“Sorry.” We laugh at our own ridiculous banter.

“So are you in love now?” he asks.

Here we go, kids. Fasten your seat belts, keep arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

“Hopelessly. Realistically, but hopelessly.”

“Really? Anyone I know?”

“I can’t tell you that. You know better.”

He looks at me in a way I’ve never seen before, as if seeing me for the first time. This is going to suck out loud.

“Do you love me?”

What can I do but answer him?

“With everything that I am.”

He is silent, and alternates between looking into my face and staring at the fire. Finally he speaks.

“So what do I do?”

“Well, we already had dinner. You can fire me.”

“I can’t do that, you’re the best exec sous I know, and when Gerald moves on, I’m going to need you to take over the kitchen. What do I do about us?”

“I dunno. It isn’t a big deal, really, you can just forget it.”

“Forget it? Forget it?!? How the fuck am I supposed to forget it? How long?”

“Michael, it doesn’t matter.” I hadn’t counted on angry.

“It does too matter, Robin. How fucking long?”

“Stop yelling at me. A year and a half. Give or take.”

“You have been in love with me for a year and a half.”

“Ever since the picnic.” Michael hosts a winter picnic every year at the restaurant. Indoors. Moves all the tables and chairs out, and puts blankets on the floor, and a couple kiddie pools, and does all the cooking himself. At my first one, six months after I got the job, I ended up staying late to help him clean up. We talked and talked and drank a great deal of beer, and he danced with me in the kitchen, and he kissed me a little too long when I finally left about three in the morning. We’ve never spoken of it since.

“Rob, I never thought, I mean, the age difference…”

“It’s eleven years. That isn’t so much.”

“It isn’t so little.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Owie. Why did I ever tell him?

“Of course it matters!”

“It only matters if you want to be with me. Do you want to be with me?”

He looks me right in the eye, which I give him much credit for.

“Yes.”

I’m trying so hard not to cry. “It’s okay, we can still be friends, I mean, if you want to.”

“Robin.”

“I think we can just pretend like you don’t know, and we won’t speak of it again, and…”

“Robin!”

“Stop yelling at me. Jesus! What?”

“I said yes, you little idiot. Yes! I do want to be with you! I’m scared as shit, and deep down I’m wondering if it isn’t the hugest mistake in the fucking universe, but you are sitting there, and you are so beautiful, and so crazy, and smart and - fuck!” He has lost his words.

“Oh.”

“Oh? This is all you have to say?”

“Wow.” Holy shit.

“Oh and wow. We’re fucking doomed.”

Excerpt: Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer

2005-07-02T19:33:00.000-04:00

He was standing by the fire with a glass in his hand. Suddenly she knew why his eyes glittered so strangely; his lordship had been drinking, and was drinking still.

She took one quick look at him, and went to the table, and seated herself, holding the pistol under her skirts, and putting her cloak over the back of her chair.

“I find that you were right, sir,” she remarked politely. “I shall be the better for some food.”

He strolled over to his chair and sat down. “You look as though you need something to warm you,” he said. “Will you drink burgundy with me, or ratafia by yourself?”

“Thank you, my lord, I will drink water,” answered Miss Challoner firmly.

“As you please,” he shrugged and leaned back in his chair, lazily watching her.

The entrance of a liveried man, followed by one of the inn-servants created a welcome diversion. The discreet-looking man began to serve them, and surprised Miss Challoner by addressing her in her own tongue.

“I always travel with my own servants,” explained the Marquis, observing her surprise.

“An agreeable luxury, sir,” commented Miss Challoner.

She made an excellent dinner, and maintained a flow of easy conversation for the benefit of his lordship’s servant. The Marquis emptied his bottle of burgundy, and sent for a second. Miss Challoner’s heart sank, but the wine only seemed to make his lordship readier of tongue. There was a certain air of recklessness about him, but he was far from being drunk.

Miss Challoner, dreading the inevitable tête-à-tête, lingered over the sweetmeats. When she at least ended her repast, the Marquis signed to his servant, who, in his turn, directed the French hireling to clear away the covers. Vidal got up and lounged over to the fire again. Miss Challoner stayed where she was, only pushing her chair back a little way from the table.

“Will your lordship require anything further tonight?” asked the servant.

“Nothing,” Vidal answered.

The man bowed, and withdrew. Vidal spoke softly: “Come here.”

“I have something to say to you first, my lord,” returned Miss Challoner calmly.

“Good God, girl, do you suppose it was to hear you talk that I brought you to France?” Vidal said derisively. “I swear you know better than that!”

“Perhaps,” admitted Miss Challoner. “Nevertheless, sir, I beg you will listen to me. You won’t pretend, I hope, that you are fallen in love with me.”

“Love?” he said scornfully. “No, madam. I feel no more love for you than I felt for your pretty sister. But you’ve yourself at my head, and by God I’ll take you!” His eyes ran over her. “You’ve a might trim figure, my dear, and from what I can discover, more brain than Sophia. You lack her beauty, but I’m not repining.”

She looked gravely up at him. “My lord, if you take me, it will be for revenge, I think. Have I deserved so bitter a punishment?”

“You’re not very complimentary, are you?” he mocked.

She rose, holding her pistol behind her. “Let me go now,” she said. “You do not want me, and indeed I think you have punished me enough.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” he said. “Are you piqued that I liked Sophia better? Never heed it, my dear; I’ve forgotten the wench already.”

“My lord,” she said desperately, “indeed I am not what you think me!”

He burst into one of his wild laughs, and she realized that in this mood, she could make no impression on him.

He was advancing towards her. She brought her right hand from behind her, and leveled the pistol. “Stand where you are!” she said. “If you come one step nearer I shall shoot you down.”

He stopped short. “Where did you get that thing?” he demanded.

“Out of your coach,” she answered.

“Is it loaded?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Challoner, incurably truthful.

He began to laugh again, and walked forward. “Shoot then,” he invited, “and we shall know. For I’m coming several steps nearer, my lady.”

Miss Challoner saw that he meant it, shut her eyes and resolutely pulled the trigger. There was a deafening report and the Marquis went staggering back. He recovered in a moment. “It was loaded,” he said coolly.

Miss Challoner's eyes flew open. She saw that Vidal was feeling his left arm above the elbow, and to her dismay she watched a red stain grow upon his sleeve. She dropped the pistol, and her hand went up to her cheek. “Oh, what have I done?” she cried. “Have I hurt you very badly?”

He was laughing again, but quite differently now, as though he were really amused. “You’ve hurt old Plançon’s wall more than you’ve hurt me,” he answered.

M. Plançon himself burst into the room at this moment, his eyes fairly starting from his head. A flood of questions broke from him, accompanied by much excited gesticulation. My lord disposed of him summarily enough. “Calm yourself, my friend. Madame merely wished to assure herself that my pistol was in order.”

“But milor’, in my hôtel! My beautiful salle he is spoiled! Ah, mon Dieu, but regard me that hole in the wall!”

“Put it down on the shot, you old villain, and remove your fat carcass from my sight,” said his lordship. He saw his steward behind the agitated landlord. “Fletcher, take the fool away.”

“Certainly, my lord,” said Fletcher impassively, and drew M. Plançon out of the room.

Miss Challoner said guiltily: “Oh dear, I am sorry! I did not know it would make such a stir.”

Vidal’s eyes began to twinkle. “You’ve spoiled his beautiful salle, and you’ve spoiled my no less beautiful coat.”

“I know,” said Miss Challoner, hanging her head. “But, after all, it was your fault,” she said with spirit. “You told me to do it.”

“I may have told you to do it, but I can’t say I thought that you would,” replied his lordship.

“You shouldn’t have come any nearer,” she said severely.

“Obviously,” he agreed. He began to strip off his coat. “I make you my compliments. I know of only one other who would have had the courage to pull that trigger.”

“Who is she?” inquired Miss Challoner.

“My mother. Come and bind up your handiwork. I’m spoiling old Plançon's carpet.”

Miss Challoner came promptly and took the handkerchief he held out to her. “Are you sure it is not serious?” she said anxiously. “It bleeds dreadfully.”

“Quite sure. I observe that the sight of blood don’t turn you queasy.”

“I am not such a fool, sir.” Miss Challoner began to roll up his sleeve. “I fear the lace is ruined, my lord. Am I hurting you?”

“Not at all,” said Vidal politely.

Miss Challoner made a pad of her won handkerchief, and bound the wound up tightly with my lord’s.

“Thank you,” he said when this operation was over. “Now if you will help me to put on my coat again, we will talk.”

“Do you think you had better put it on?” asked Miss Challoner doubtfully. “Perhaps it may start to bleed again.”

“My good girl, it’s the veriest scratch!” said Vidal.

“I was afraid I had killed you,” confided Miss Challoner.

He grinned. “You’re not a good enough shot, my dear.” He struggled into his coat, and then pulled a chair to the fire. “Sit down,” he said. She hesitated and he drew one of his own pistols from his pocket and gave it to her. “Shoot me with that next time,” he recommended. “You’ll find it easier.”

"Rendezvous" by Nelson DeMille

2005-06-15T20:14:00.000-04:00

As I learned in high school biology, the female of the species is often more dangerous than the male. Maybe that was true in the animal kingdom, I remember thinking, but with human beings, the male was more dangerous.

I changed my mind about this when I crossed paths with a very deadly lady with a rifle, who was intent on killing me and everyone around me.

I was a young infantry officer doing a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1971-72. After a few months of combat, I mistakenly volunteered for a crappy job. I found myself leading a ten-man Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, known as the Lurps.

I was near the end of my tour, with twelve patrols under my belt, and all I could think about was getting home alive.

We were patrolling near the Laotian border west of the Khe Sanh, a hilly area of dense semitropical rainforest broken up now and then by expanses of head-high elephant grass and bamboo thickets. The local population of indigenous Montagnard tribespeople had long since fled this free-fire zone for the safety of fortified compounds to the west.

I had the feeling - which was total illusion - that I and my nine men were the only human beings in this Godforsaken place. The reality was that there were thousands of enemy soldiers moving around us, but we hadn’t seen them, and they hadn’t seen us, which was the name of the game.

Our mission was no to engage the enemy, but to find and map the elusive Ho Chi Ming Trail - actually a network of narrow roads used by the enemy to infiltrate troops and supplies into South Vietnam. We were also to report such movements via radio so that American artillery, helicopter gunships, and fighter bombers could deliver appropriate disincentive to the enemy.

It was July, it was hot, humid, and buggy. Snakes and mosquitoes loved the weather. At night, we could hear the chattering of monkeys and the growl of tigers.

Long-range reconnaissance patrols usually lasted about two weeks. Beyond two weeks, the carried rations ran low and the patrol’s nerve ran out. You can only take so much time in the jungle, deep in enemy-controlled territory, outnumbered by hostile forces, who could snuff out a ten-man patrol in a heartbeat if they discovered you.

We carried two radios - PRC-255, called Prick Two Fives - so that we could keep in contact with our headquarters far, far away, to make reports, call in artillery or bombs, and ultimately arrange our extraction by helicopter when the mission was completed, or when the mission was compromised, i.e., if and when Charlie was breathing down our necks.

Radios sometimes fail. Or get damaged. Radio frequencies sometimes don’t work. Sometimes Charlie is listening to you on his radio, so there is a contingency plan if the radios are no longer an option. There were three prearranged pickup sites marked on my terrain map, with three prearranged times of helicopter rendezvous. These are called Rendezvous Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. If you don’t see your helicopter at Alpha at the designated time, you move to Bravo, and if that meeting fails, you move to Charlie. If that fails, you move back to Alpha. Then you’re on your own. And as our Viet friends, Xin Loi. Good Luck.

Things that caused a missed prearranged rendezvous were weather and enemy activity in the area. So far, the weather was clear, and we hadn’t seen or heard the enemy. But he was there. We saw fresh ruts and footprints in the network of trails and we came upon recently abandoned camps, and we smelled cooking fires at night. He was all around us, but he was invisible, and so, too, I hoped, were we.

That all changed on Day Ten.

We were patrolling an area that gave me some concern; it was a place that had once been lush woodland, but was now an expanse of napalm-charred tree trunks, compliments of the U.S. Air Force. Our job here was to report on the effects of the recent air strike, and I was trying to comprehend and evaluate what I was seeing: black ash, charred trucks, and dozens of grotesquely contorted and incinerated bodies, white teeth protruding from charcoal faces. We needed to do a vehicle and body count.

The problem with this place, other than the obvious, was that it offered little or no cover and concealment to me and my men.

I spoke in a whisper to my radio operator behind me, a guy named Alf Muller. “Radio.” I put my hand out behind me to take the radiophone, but it was slapped into my hand as it should have been.

I turned to see Alf lying facedown in the black ash, his radio strapped to his back and his arms thrown out from his sides, one hand holding the phone at the end of the wire.

It took me half a second to realize he’d been hit.

I yelled, “Sniper!” and dove to the ground and did a roll in the ash with everyone else. We lay there, hoping to look like something inanimate among the blackened debris of the blasted earth.

Sniper. The scariest thing on the battlefield, where scary things abound. I hadn’t heard the shit, and I wouldn’t hear the next one either. Nor would I see the sniper even if I was still alive after the next shot. The sniper operates from a long distance - about a hundred or two hundred meters - and he has a very good rifle, equipped with a telescopic sight, a silencer, and a flash suppressor. He wears camouflage clothing and his face is blackened like the ash I was lying in. He is the Grim Reaper who harvests the living.

No one moved, because movement meant death.

There was no way to tell where the shot had come from, so we couldn’t get behind something because we could actually be putting ourselves in the direct line of fire. We couldn’t run because we could be running right toward the sniper.

I turned my head slowly toward Alf. His face lay in the ash, and there was no sign of breathing.

To the extent that I had any thoughts at all except terror, I wondered why the sniper had taken Alf, the radio man, rather than me; the guy next to the radio man is the officer or the sergeant, who is the prime target in combat, like taking out the quarterback. Strange. But I wasn’t complaining.

There is no best thing to do in this situation, but the second best thing to do is nothing. My guys were trained, and they knew to keep their nerve and stay motionless. If the sniper fired again, and someone got hit - assuming we knew someone was hit - then we’d have no choice but to scatter and take a chance that the sniper could only hit so many moving targets before some of us were out of range.

I get paid to make decisions, so I decided that the sniper was too far off to hear us. I needed a heat count, and I called out, “Dawson. Report.”

My patrol sergeant, Phil Dawson, called back, “Landon is hit. He was moving, but I think he’s dead.”

The patrol medic, Peter Garcia, called out, “I’ll try to get to him.”

“No!” I shouted. “Stay put. Everyone report.”

The men reported in order of their assigned patrol numbers. “Smitty here,” the “Andolotti here,” followed by “Johnson here,” then after a few long seconds, Markowitz and Beatty reported.

Sergeant Dawson, whose job it is to count heads, reported to me, “Nine accounted for, Lieutenant. You got Muller with you?”

I called back, “Muller is dead.”

“Shit,” said Dawson.

So we had the two radio operators dead, which was not a coincidence. But it was puzzling.

I needed to get on the radio and ask for observation helicopters and gunships to form a ring of fire around us and maybe flush out the son of a bitch. I glanced toward Muller, who was about five feet from me.

Well, I thought, we could stay here and get picked off one by one, we could wait until sundown and hope the sniper didn’t have a nightscope, or I could earn some of that extra combat pay. I had a thought, based on a year of this kind of crap, that the sniper was gone. I thought this because all this possum playing didn’t amount to much, considering how exposed we were in this burned-out terrain. So, if the sniper was still there, he’d have taken a few more shots by now. I called out, “Report.”

Everyone who was alive a few minutes ago was still alive.

I took a deep breath and rolled twice, then a third time over Alf’s body and came to a motionless stop on top of his outstretched arm. I snatched the radiophone out of his stiffening fingers and put it to my ear, waiting for the shot that would blow my brains out. I squeezed the send button and said in the mouthpiece, “Royal Duck Six, this is Black Weasel.” I released the send button, and I pressed the earpiece hard against my ear, but there was dead silence. I tried again, but there wasn’t even a radio hum or the sound f breaking squelch coming through the earpiece. The radio was as dead as Alf Muller.

I waited for the impact of the bullet somewhere in my body. I could almost feel the hot steel tearing into me.

I waited. I got pissed off. I stood and called out to my patrol, “If I go down, you scatter!”

I stood there and nothing happened.

I ordered again, “Report,”

The seven other survivors reported again.

I looked down at Alf Muller and saw now the bullet hole in his radio. I walked along the line of the patrol and saw my men lying in the black ask, their heads turning toward me, and some of them saying, “Get down, Lieutenant! You crazy?”

You get this sixth sense that it’s not your turn that day, that you’re okay now, that fate has spared you for something worse later.

I found Landon facedown like Muller, and like Muller there was a single hole in the top of his radio. The battery is in the bottom; the guts are in the top. The sniper knew that and was able to put a single round through the electronics and into the spine of both radio operators.

What I didn’t understand was why the sniper didn’t take out at least a few other guys. He certainly had the time, had the range, hand a clear field of fire, and obviously was a good shot.

Actually, I knew the answer. This guy was playing with us. There was no other reason for his actions. A little psychological warfare, played with a deadly rifled instead of propaganda leaflets or Radio Hanoi broadcasts. A message to the Americans. And the game wasn’t over.

Snipers think and act differently from normal people, and our own snipers, some of whom I’d met, liked to play games, too. It gets boring waiting for hours or days or weeks for a target. The sniper’s mind does weird things during the long, lonely waits, so when a target finally shows up in the telescopic lens, the sniper becomes a comedian and does funny things. Funny to them, not to the targets. An American sniper once told me he’d shot the hashish pipe out of an enemy soldier’s mouth.

I though about sharing these thoughts with my men, but if they hadn’t figured it out already, then they didn’t need to know, or they’d know soon enough.

Decision time. I said, “Okay, we’ve got to leave these guys for a body recovery detail. Strip the bodies, and let’s get moving.”

There wasn’t a lot of enthusiastic movement until finally Sergeant Dawson stood and said, “You heard the lieutenant. Move it!”

Everyone got up slowly, heads and eyes darting around like corned prey. The men stripped the bodies of the two dead radio operators, removing anything that could be of use to the enemy: rifles, ammo, canteens, dog tags, rations, compasses, boots, rucksacks, and so forth.

Dawson asked me, “How about the radios?”

“Let’s take them,” I replied. “Maybe we can make one good radio out of two.”

We moved quickly out of the deforested area and into a thick growth of bamboo that offered some concealment, but gave us away by the movement of the tall, leafy shoots as we macheteed and moved our way through.

We spent the night in the bamboo, forming a defensive perimeter, and we allowed ourselves the belief that we’d shaken the sniper.

A few of the guys tried to make one live radio out of two dead ones, but the guys who knew about radios were six kilometers back and not in a position to help.

By dawn, we’d given up on the radios, and we buried them with our entrenching tools so as not to give anything up to the enemy.

We hadn’t been able to call in our situation report during the night, so now our boss, Colonel Hayes, also known as Royal Duck Six, knew that his patrol, known as Black Weasel, had a problem. A radio problem, he was thinking, or maybe a got-captured problem, or a got-killed problem. These things happen with long-range recon patrols. One minute you’re there, and the next you’re gone forever.

We saddled up and moved toward the grid coordinates on the map that was Rendezvous Alpha.

We got out of the bamboo and into a nice thick growth of forest. We came to a rocky stream that we had to cross and we halted. Streambeds are like shooting galleries. Dawson volunteered to go first, and he bolted across the knee-high stream and scrambled up the opposite bank, dropping into a prone firing position, sweeping his M-16 rifle up and down the stream.

Two riflemen, Smitty and Johnson, went next and made it to the far side. Next, the medic, Garcia, carrying his big medical bag on his back, charged through the stream and was helped up by the other guys. The guy who carried the grenade launcher, Beatty, took a deep breath and moved so fast I though he was walking on water. Another rifleman, Andolotti, waited five seconds, then ran so fast he almost caught up with Beatty.

Markowitz and I were left on the stream bank, and I said to him, “Your call.”

He smiled and said to me, “He’s waiting for you, Lieutenant. Your call.”

I replied, “I’ll bring up the rear. Good luck.”

Markowitz said, “See you on the other side.” He charged into the stream and about halfway across, he slipped and fell. I waiting for him to get up and get going, but he didn’t seem able to get his footing. Then I saw the water turning dark around him. He fell again and lay there, submerged, but still moving.

“Sniper!”

Garcia, the medic, and I charged simultaneously from opposite stream banks toward Markowitz. The guys on the far bank opened up with automatic weapon fire, raking and blasting the tree lines up and down the stream.

Garcia and I reached Markowitz at the same time, and we each grabbed an arm and dragged him as we ran toward the far bank. I glanced at the wounded man and saw white frothy blood running from his mouth.

We were about four meters from the trees growing along the bank when Markowitz’s wrist jerked out of my hand. I turned and saw Garcia lying faceup in the rocky stream, a huge gaping hole in the left side of his head, meaning an exit wound, meaning the shot had come from the right.

I dropped face-first into the stream and scrambled to a small rock that gave me a little cover if I got real small.

I looked upstream in the direction the shot had come from, not expecting to see anything, but there, on a jutting bend in the stream about a hundred meters away, was a black-clad guy kneeling among the rocks. I stared, and the guy seeming to be staring back. From where my men where in the scrub brush, they couldn’t see what I could see from the stream.

Slowly, I took my field glasses from their case and focused on the guy. He didn’t seem to have a rifle, which was good, and he was wearing the traditional Vietnamese black silk pajamas. I focused in tighter and saw that it wasn’t a guy; it was a woman with long black hair. A young woman, maybe early twenties, with high cheekbones and big unblinking eyes, looking right at me.

I had two totally contradictory thoughts: This was the sniper; this couldn’t be the sniper. Just to be on the safe side, I unslung my rifle, but before I got into a firing position, she shook her head and stood. I could now see a rifle in her hand, a long gun, probably a Russian Draganov sniper rifle, mounted with a telescopic lens.

I stared at her through my field glasses, and I knew if I moved myself or my rifle, that Draganov would be in both her hands, and I’d be dead. She had the range, as Markowitz or Garcia would attest to if they could, and she damned sure knew how to shoot. The guys on the stream bank were still firing blindly, and through the fire I could hear them yelling at me, “Come on, Lieutenant! Got out of there! We got to get the hell out of here! Come on, come on!”

I looked one more time at the woman standing on the high bend in the stream, and she seemed very nonchalant. Maybe she was disappointed that we weren’t much a challenge to her.

I stared at her. She held up her hand with four fingers extended, then clenched her fist and pointed at me. My blood ran cold. She turned and disappeared into the brush behind her.

I jumped to my feet and ran through the stream and up the muddy bank, pulled along by outstretched hands into the brush.

I gasped, “Sniper! I saw her! Upstream. Let’s go!” I began running on a path parallel to the winding stream toward where I’d last seen her.

Dawson ran up behind me and jerked me back by my rucksack. He said in a loud whisper, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I saw her! It’s a woman! She’s upstream. About a hundred meters.”

The other four guys caught up to us, and I explained quickly what I’d seen. I must have sounded a little nuts or something because they kept shooting glances at each other. Finally, they got it.

As I said, they’re pros, and a pro’s instinct for survival doesn’t mean running away; it means running toward what’s trying to kill you so you can kill it first.

In any case, we needed to run because we’d given away our positions with all that firing, and we were deep in enemy territory, so when you fire, you’ve got to get the hell away fast.

No one likes leaving dead guys behind, but this wasn’t regular combat stuff where you recover dead and wounded at all costs; this was long-range recon and getting left behind is definitely a possibility.

We ran about a hundred meters along the path, and Andolotti called out, “We could be running right into an ambush.”

Dawson replied through heavy breaths, “I’d rather do that then get picked off later. Move it!”

We came to the bend in the stream, and I ran out to the edge of the bank where I saw a brass cartridge sparkling in the sunlight. I picked it up and saw it was 7.62 millimeter, most probably from a Draganov. I didn’t need evidence, but somehow finding the cartridge made me more certain that I hadn’t been hallucinating. I put the cartridge in my pocket.

We moved quickly back to the path, where we saw a few footprints in the damp soil, Reluctantly, but with the knowledge that it was her or us, we pressed on.

We moved at a half trot for about an hour, but by then, we knew we weren’t going to find her. She would find us.

We’d been moving away from Rendezvous Alpha, which we could make in the three days left before our dawn rendezvous time, if nothing went wrong.

You never go back on the trail you took in, so we headed into the woods and chopped our way through brush until we intersected a trail that headed in the general direction we needed to go.

We moved as quickly as we could, but the heat and fatigue, and fifty pounds of gear, was slowing us down.

We took a few minutes’ break every hour and pushed on until dusk, not saying much, but I’m sure everyone, myself included, was thinking about why the lady hadn’t blown me out of the water. I had a few answers to that, and it had less to do with a sudden feeling of compassion on her part and more to do with fucking with our heads.

The sun had sunk into Laos, and the enemy moves at night. We heard trucks and tanks rumbling somewhere to our right, then heard men chatting and laughing not far away. If I’d had a radio, I would have called in artillery on them. Actually, if I’d had a radio, I would have called in choppers to get us the hell right out of there right after Muller and Landon got hit. But the lady had left us mute and deaf to the outside world.

We moved more quickly away from the enemy troop movements and about an hour later, we found a small hill covered with tall elephant grass where we set up a defensive perimeter, for what it was worth. We were six lightly armed guys, surrounded by massive numbers of enemy troops. Plus, on sniper, who knew we were there, but who wanted to keep us for herself.

We ate some dehydrated rations reconstituted in their pouches with tepid canteen water. No one said much.

About midnight, we took turns sleeping and keeping watch; two up, four down. But no one slept much. Near dawn, I was on guard duty with Sergeant Dawson, an old guy at thirty, who was on his second tour, and probably his last.

He said to me in a quiet voice, “You sure it was a woman?”

I nodded and grunted.

“You sure? You saw tits and stuff?”

I almost laughed. I replied, “I saw her in my field glasses. It was a woman.” I added, “They make good snipers.”

He nodded. “Had one in Quang Tri once. Killed four guys before we blew the shit out of her with rockets.” He added, “We found her head.”

I didn’t reply.

He asked the obvious. “Why didn’t she nail you?

“Don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s like, maybe there’s a two-guy-a-day limit on her hunting permit.”

“Not funny.”

“No. Not funny.” He asked, “You think we gave her the slip?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

And that was the end of the conversation.

* * *

We moved out at first light and headed south toward Rendezvous Alpha.

About noon, we got to believing that we might make it. There were no more big streams to cross, just a few little brooks that were choked with good covering brush, and there were no open areas on the map that we couldn’t avoid. But then we noticed that the trees and the brush started to look a little sick, and within half an hour, we realized we were in an Agent Orange defoliated area that wasn’t marked on the map.

Pretty soon we were moving through a dead zone of bare trees and brown, withered brush that offered no concealment. Dawson said, “Lieutenant, we got to go back and around this defoliation.”

I replied, “We don’t know how big the area is. It might be a fill day detour, then we’re not going to get to Alpha.”

He nodded and looked around. He said, “At least Charlie ain’t around here. They don’t like the defoliated areas.”

“Neither do i.”

We took a break, spread out, and got down, as per standard operating procedure when a patrol is stopped.

Smitty pulled a jungle bar out of his jacket and bit off a piece of the chalky, so-called chocolate. He said, “That bitch.” Meaning the sniper, of course. “That bitch could have wasted us all back there in the napalm area. She could’ve wasted at least you, Lieutenant, back at the stream, and maybe a few more of us. What’s her fucking game?”

I didn’t reply, and neither did anyone else.

I was getting a bad feeling about this place, so I stood, put on my rucksack, and said, “Saddle up and move out.”

Everyone stood, and Andolotti unzipped his fly and said, “Hold up. Gotta take a quick piss.”

About midstream, he pitched backward and landed with a thump on his back, still holding his thing, which was still streaming yellow piss.

We all hit the ground and lay frozen on the dead, chemical smelling earth.

I called out, “Andolotti!”

No reply. I turned my head and eyes toward him. His chest was heaving, and I saw blood around his mouth. He gave a final heave and lay still.

From the way he’d been thrown backward, ii knew he’d been hit square in the chest, so I knew where the shot had come from. Through the dead vegetation, I could see a slight rise in the land about a hundred meters due west. I called out, “Follow my tracers!” I took aim from my prone position and fired a long burst toward the rise. Every sixth round was a red streaking tracer that looked like a laser bean pointing toward the suspected target.

Dawson, Smitty, and Johnson joined in with long bursts of m-16 fire, and we raked the hill, while Beatty, who had the grenade launcher, popped three phosphorous grenades at the hill, setting the dead vegetation ablaze.

I shouted, “Outta here!”

We moved back quickly in a crouch, firing to cover our retreat.

Beatty slipped another phosphorous round in his grenade launcher and was about to get off a hip shot when the launcher flew out of his hands, and he went backward lke he’d been hit by a truck.

Dawson yelled, “Beatty’s hit!”

I shouted, “Move back! Move back!”

I was about ten meters from Beatty, and I could see he was still alive. I hit the ground and started crawling toward him, then saw his body jerk in three quick movements. A fourth shot hit his grenade launcher and fifth shot threw dirt in my face. I got the message and got the hell out of there.

I joined up with Dawson, Smitty, and Johnson. We ran like hell until we came upon a dry gully, which we dropped into. We moved in a crouch through the gully for a few hundred meters until I gave the order to stop. This wasn’t the direction we needed to go, so I ordered everyone out of the gully, and we moved quickly due south, toward our rendezvous point, which was still about thirty kilometers away.

We got out of the defoliated area and entered a place that had been carpet-bombed by B-52s. The forest had been blasted to splinters by the five-hundred- and one-thousand-pound bombs, and craters as big as a house dotted the landscape.

All around us were twisted pieces of steel, almost unrecognizable as once being vehicles. Pieces of rotting corpses lay everywhere, and the surviving trees were draped with body parts. Some sort of carrion-eating birds were feasting and barely noticed us.

The sun was sinking, and we were near the end of our physical limits and our mental endurance, so I ordered everyone into a bomb crater. We lay along the sloping earth walls of the crater, caught our breaths, and drank from our canteens. The place stank of rotting flesh.

Dawson grabbed an arm and flung it out of the crater, and then made the standard joke and said, “So, we count the arms and legs, divide by four, and we got a body count.”

No one laughed.

He finished a canteen of water and informed us, “Two bad things about bomb strike zones. One, Charlie comes looking for salvage and pieces of people to bury. Two, the B-52s sometimes come back to the same place to get the guys looking for stuff.” He added, unnecessarily, “We gotta get outta here.”

I agreed and said, “Take five, then we move.” I took out my map and studied it.

Smitty said to me, “Hey Lieutenant, why’s she always missing you?”

I didn’t reply.

Johnson asked me, “You think she’s still on us?”

I kept looking at the map and replied, “Assume she is.”

I climbed to the rim of the crater and looked through my field glasses. I swept the area in a 360-degree circle, pausing every ten degrees to focus on any possible movement, any glint of metal, or a wisp of smoke, or anything that didn’t look like it belonged in its surroundings.

I was a sitting duck, but I’d developed a fatalistic attitude in the last few days; she was saving me for last.

She’d get Smitty and Johnson in whatever order she wanted, then Sergeant Dawson, whom she had identified as a leader, then me.

I pictured her stalking us, like a big cat, slow and patient, then she struck. The survivors ran, and she ran after us. She was very fast, sure-footed, and quiet, and she knew just how close she could get without getting too close. The chances of us setting up an ambush were not good. All we could do now was run.

I slid back down into the crater and said, “Looks clear.” I checked my watch. “Thirty minutes until dark.” I unfolded my map and studied it in the dim light. I said, “Okay, if we hustle, we can do five kilometers before dark and that will bring us to a rock slide area where we can spend the night.”

Everyone nodded. Rocky areas were like natural fortifications, giving both cover and concealment, and usually good fields of fire. An added bonus was that Charlie avoided open rocky terrain because of our scout choppers so we weren’t going to meet him there. And with luck, our guys might see us from the air.

That one downside was the lady with the gun. She’d had a map, or she knew the terrain, and she was smart enough to know where we’d be heading. Even if we lost her, she could guess where to find us. I mentioned this privately to Dawson.

He replied, “Maybe you’re giving her too much credit.”

“Maybe you’re not.”

He shrugged. “I like rocks around me, and I like choppers overhead who can see us and get us the fuck out of here.”

“Okay… saddle up.”

Everyone slipped on their rucksacks and in ten-second intervals, we climbed out of the crater at different points and assembled quickly on the south side of the hole, then began double-timing away from the bomb-blasted area.

A half-hour later, the ground began to rise, and the flat white rocks stuck out of the damp brush-choked earth, like steps leading to an ancient jungle-covered temple.

Ten minutes later, we were in a rock slide area with sparse vegetation. To the west were high hills and a ridgeline that had collapsed some time ago and created the rock field.

We found a high point surrounded by the good-sized slabs of stone and set up a small, tight defensive perimeter. Truly, you could hold off an army from here if you had enough food, water, and ammunition. We had extra food, water, and ammo, thanks to Muller and Landon.

We settled in for a long night. We couldn’t light cigarettes, and we couldn’t light heat tabs to boil water for the dehydrated rations. So we mixed the stuff with canteen water and Dawson and Johnson, who were smokers, got their fix by chewing the tobacco from their cigarettes.

About midnight, I took the first watch, and the other three guys slept.

I took my starlight scope from my rucksack and scanned the higher ground to the west where the ridgeline ended. The starlight scope is battery-powered, and it gives you a greentinted picture by amplifying the ambient light of stars and moon.

I noticed a small waterfall cascading over the rocky ledge a hundred meters away. Then I saw a movement, and I focused tightly and held my elbows steady on the flat rock in front of me.

She was crouched on an outcropping beside the waterfall and she was easy to see because she was completely naked. She was drinking from cupped hands, then moved closer to the waterfall, and let the cascading stream run over her body as she ran her hands through her hair, then down her sides and legs, then back up to her rear end, then her crotch.

I stared, transfixed at the sight. It was very sensual out of context, but within the context it was grotesque, like watching a tiger languidly licking itself after a meal.

I reached behind me and pulled my M-16 rifle onto the rock, took one last look, then brought the starlight scope and rifle together. By feel, as I’d been taught, I mounted the scope on the rifle and took aim.

She was still there, and she had put her right foot under the water under the stream of falling water and kept it there for a few seconds before switching to her other foot.

The four-power starlight scope made her look twenty-five meters away, but the actual distance of a hundred meters was a stretch for the M-16 rifle, which is made to spray bullets at shorter ranges.

I put her in my crosshairs and steadied my aim. I was only going to get one shot. A very loud shot, since I didn’t have a silencer. Hit or miss, we’d have to get the hell out of there.

She turned from the waterfall, and I could tell she was slipping her feet into her sandals. She stood there full frontal nude, my crosshairs over her heart.

For some reason, I needed to look at her face again, to commit it to memory, to burn it into my mind. I looked slightly over the crosshairs at her face and saw the same disinterested faraway look that I’d seen on the stream bank.

She reached back and brought her long black hair over her right shoulder and squeezed the water from it.

I focused again between her breasts and squeezed the trigger, just as she bent over to gather her black pajamas.

The blast of the rifle sounded very loud in the quiet night, and the report echoed through the stones. Night birds and animals started squawking, and the three guys behind me were on their feet before the sound of the shot faded into the distant hills.

I took a last look, but she was gone.

Dawson said excitedly, “What the hell-?”

“Her.”

Smitty said, “Holy shit!”

Johnson asked, “You get her?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Dawson said. “Maybe? Maybe we should get the fuck out of here.”

“Right. Saddle up.”

We gathered our gear, and because we slept with our boots on, we were ready to move within a minute.

I led the way down the south slope of the rock field. The going was slow and treacherous in the dark. A sliver of moon dimly illuminated the white rocks, and also illuminated us. I didn’t hear the shot because it was silenced, but I heard the ping of a ricochet against a nearby rock.

We hit the ground, then got into a low crouch and stumbled along, zigzagging, dropping, rolling, doing everything to make ourselves a difficult target.

Another shot ricocheted somewhere to our right, then another, and another. I pictured her kneeling naked behind something, focused through her snipe scope, looking for movement and moon shadows, trying to guess our line of movement, and now and then popping off a round from her Russian rifle just to let us know she was thinking of us.

We came to a place where the rock slide entered a tree line, and we ran at full speed into the concealment of the forest.

I took the lead, and we moved as quickly as we could through the pitch-black woods.

We came to a wide trail over which a great many tires, tank treads, and rubber sandals had passed recently. Counterintuitively, I turned in the direction of the enemy troop movement and we followed the trail south.

About an hour later, I could hear the throaty sound of a big diesel engine up ahead, and the clank of tank treads.

We slowed to a walk and followed at a distance, hoping they didn’t stop for an unexpected break.

We traveled through the night, following the enemy army, who kept up a moderate pace. Before dawn, I knew, those vehicles and men would scatter into the jungle to hide from our aircraft and helicopters. We needed to make a detour around their day camp so I led my patrol east through the forest. We found a trickling brook that flowed down from the hills toward the coast, and we followed it for an hour, the cut south again, hoping to skirt around the bad guys, who were by now scattering into the triple canopy forest.

At dawn, we stopped in a bamboo thicket and rested. In fact, we were so exhausted, we just lay where we stopped and fell asleep among the bamboo and the bamboo vipers.

* * *

The midmorning sun and heat woke me, and I sat up, sweat running from my face and neck.

Sergeant Dawson was also awake and was drinking what looked like instant coffee from his canteen cup. He asked me, “How’d you miss her? And why’d you shoot?”

I replied, “I missed because I missed, and I shot because I made the decision to shoot. You got a problem with that?”

He shrugged.

I studied my terrain map, and Dawson asked me, “How far are we from Alpha?”

I put the map away and said, “I don’t know where we are, so I don’t know where Alpha is.”

He didn’t like that answer, so I said, “When we get moving, I’ll find some terrain features and locate us. Don’t worry about it, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

You need to establish who’s in control if you’re going to survive, so I said, “Get the men up and moving. Eat on the march. We’ve been here long enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sergeant Dawson got Smitty and Johnson up and within a minute, we were moving south through the bamboo, which gave way to scattered trees, then a thick subtropical growth of palm brush that cut our arms, hands, and faces.

Within an hour, I was able to locate us the map, and I announced, “Rendezvous Alpha is about twenty kilometers south and west. We won’t make it in the daylight, but we need to be there for our 0600 hours rendezvous.”

Everyone nodded, if not enthusiastically, then at least with a little optimism. One more day and night of hell, and by first light, we’d be on the magic carpet, and half an hour later, we’d be in base camp on the coast, showering, eating real eggs and bacon, and getting debriefed, not necessarily in that order. Maybe all at once, if I had my way.

I had exactly twenty-nine days to go in this shithole, and by custom, you didn’t go out on patrol with less than thirty to go. This was my last patrol, one way or the other.

We moved into a triple-canopy jungle where the lack of sunlight kept the brush at a minimum, and we should have been able to make good time, but we were barely able to put one foot in front of the other. We all had the heat rash, crotch rot, jungle sores, festering cuts, and blisters big as onions. I had the sense that we were making barely two kilometers an hour.

It got darker in the triple canopy long before sunset and by 1900 hours, when it should have still been light, it was getting murky, though now and then sunlight would slant in from the west.

We pushed on, me Sergeant Dawson, Smitty, and Johnson, the survivors of the radioless patrol known by the radio call sign of Black Weasel. We’d located troop movements, but were unable to report them. We’d evaded large numbers of the enemy, but could evade a single woman who’d taken an obsessive interest in us. If, in fact, I found myself eating scrambled eggs while being debriefed by Royal Duck and the intelligence types, all I could think to say was that they’d better send a good antisniper team in before they sent anyone else. And don’t be surprised if you never hear from the first couple of teams that go in.

We moved into a long patch of sunlight that was contrasted with a dark shadowy area up ahead, and my sense went into high gear. I was about to say, “Spread out and find shadow,” when a movement up ahead caught my eye.

Even with her flash suppressor, I saw the spit of fire high up in the triple-canopy jungle, not more than seventy-five meters away. Johnson let out a loud grunt behind me, and I heard him hit the ground.

I dropped into a kneeling firing position and emptied a full magazine where I’d seen the muzzle flash.

As I was firing at where she was supposed to be, I caught another movement to my left and turned. I was aware of a long vine swinging in an arc back toward where I was spraying bullets. She wasn’t on the vine, but she’d been on the vine and was now in a tree somewhere to my left.

Dawson and Smitty had been firing burst where I’d directed my fire, and before I could shift my fire to where I thought she’d ridden the swinging, Smitty screamed out in pain, then stood, stumbled a few feet, and collapsed facedown. I saw his body jerk like he’d been hit again.

I shifted my fire to where I guessed she was, but Dawson kept firing at her last location, and I shouted to him, “Monkey vine!”

He got it and shifted his fire to intersect mine. Red tracers sliced through the jungle canopy, and leaves, branches, and palm fronds feel to the ground.

We backed out in a crouch, firing as we went, and regrouped about fifty meters back down the trail, then scrambled into a thicket of brush.

Dawson was visibly shaken for the first time since I’d known him. He kept saying, “Jesus Christ. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

I said, “Quiet.”

He sank cross-legged on the ground, then began rocking back and forth, mumbling something.

I said softly, “Get it together, Sergeant. Get it together now.”

He didn’t seem to hear me, then suddenly he brightened and said, “We got her. I know we got her. I saw her fall. We wasted that bitch.”

I didn’t think so, but it was a nice thought.

I said, “Get up.”

He stood.

“Follow me.”

I led us a hundred meters away, found another thicket of brush and said, “We stay here until midnight, then we move toward our rendezvous. Understand?”

He nodded.

We sat very still until dark, then drank some water and ate a few cookies from home that we’d found on Landon’s body.

Sergeant Dawson had gotten himself under control and to make up for the lapse of cool, he said, “Let’s go out and get her. You got the starlight scope. She don’t have a nightscope. Right? We can see in the dark, she can’t.”

I listened, as though I was considering this insanity, then I replied thoughtfully, “I think our best course of action is to stay put for now. I think I can find Alpha from here even in the dark. If we go out after her, we’ll get disoriented and miss our rendezvous. What do you think?”

He pretended to think about this, then nodded. “Yeah. We need to get back and report what happened. They need to get some antisnipers on this bitch.”

“Right. Let the pros handle it.”

“Yeah…”

“We can go along and give them some tips.”

He didn’t reply for a while, then said quietly, “We’re not going to make it, Lieutenant. You understand? She’s too good. She’s not gonna let us make it.”

I stayed silent for a while, then gave him some good news and some bad news that I knew I’d be sharing with him eventually. I said, “One of us is going to make it. She wants one of us, the patrol leader, me, or the patrol sergeant, you, to go back and tell them about her. Otherwise, all her fucking bullshit was for nothing. She could have wasted all of us at any point since day one, but she didn’t. She made us piss our pants, tighten our assholes, sweat cold and run hot. She risked her own life to wow the shit out of us, and she didn’t do that for a totally dead audience. One of us - you or me - is going to get on that chopper at dawn. And if it’s you, I want you to report very accurately and professionally what happened here. And you make sure you make the dead look good and bring honor on them. Then you - or me - volunteers to come back here and settle the score. Understand?”

He didn’t reply for a long time, then said, “I understand.”

“Good.” I put out my hand, and we shook.

* * *

We moved through the night and I navigated as best I could, using my compass and keeping track of our paces.

An hour before the dawn, the land sloped steeply downward, and I knew we were in the vicinity of Rendezvous Alpha, which was a bowl-shaped depression about a kilometer across thick with elephant grass.

We had less than twenty minutes to get to the approximate center of this place, and it should be easy, if we just kept going downhill until we started going uphill. Very simple, said Royal Duck. How can you miss the bottom of a bowl, even in the dark?

I looked at the luminescent glow of my watch. It was a few minutes to 0600 hours, and I didn’t hear a chopper, and I didn’t know if I was at the very bottom of this depression.

Normally, it wouldn’t matter if we were even a hundred meters off because we could use a signaling mirror, or pop a smoke canister as a last resort. But the geniuses who picked this place hadn’t taken into account the morning ground mist that had settled into the depression. The good news was that the lady with the gun, if she was anywhere on the rim of this depression, couldn’t see us. We might both make it out.

Somewhere above the mist, the sun was rising and from the air, the terrain would be light enough for the choppers to find this bowl of pea soup.

Dawson and I decided we’d gotten to a place where the terrain was rising on all sides, so we stopped and listened for the beating chopper blades, which we hoped we could hear over our heavy breathing.

We waited. It was ten minutes after rendezvous time, but that wasn’t a worry. The chopper pilots were always wary about these pickups in the middle of nowhere, and then tended to dally and recon a lot. There would be two Hueys to pick up ten men, thought there were only two of us, and there’d be two or more Cobra gunships flying cover if they drew fire, they’d try to suppress the fire, and sometimes they’d come in under fire. But not always.

It was now fifteen minutes past rendezvous time, and Dawson said, “They’re not coming. They didn’t hear from us, so they’re not coming.”

I replied, “We’re here at the prearranged because they didn’t hear from us.”

“Yeah, but - “

“They’re not going to leave us.”

“Yeah, I know… but… maybe we’re in the wrong place.”

“I can read a fucking map.”

“Yeah? Let me see the map.”

I have him the map, and he looked at it intently. Sergeant Dawson had a lot of good skills, but land navigation was not one of them.

He said, “Maybe we should go on to Bravo.”

“Why?”

“Maybe the choppers saw gooks on the ground.”

“Unless they’re getting shot at, they’re coming in. take it easy.”

We waited. Dawson asked, “You think she’s out there?”

“We’ll find out.”

We waited and we listened. At 0630 hours, we heard the distinct beating of helicopter blades against the cool morning air. We looked at each other, and for the first time in a long time, we managed a smile.

We could hear the choppers get closer and I knew the pilots were worried about putting down in a mist-shrouded area where they couldn’t see the ground. But they’d been briefed that it was elephant grass, easy landing, and the downdraft would clear the mist for them. Still, we had no radio contact so they wouldn’t know who was waiting for them on the ground. I thought about popping a green canister, which meant all clear, or a yellow that meant caution. That would tell them we were waiting although it would also announce our presence to people who didn’t need to know we were there.

Dawson said, “I’m gonna pop smoke. Pick a flavor.”

“Wait. They need to get closer. They don’t want more than three minutes between smoke and pickup, or they get pissed off and go home.”

I listened to the approaching choppers, counted to sixty, then popped a yellow smoke canister. The billowy plum sat on the ground in the damp, windless air, then began to rise into the mist. At some point, it must have broken through the top of the gray fog because very quickly the sound of the choppers got very loud. A few seconds later, I could see a huge shadow overhead, and the mist started swirling like a tornado was coming through.

The first chopper was twenty meters away looking very ghostly in the gray mist as it settled toward the earth. The second was about twenty meters farther.

Dawson and I sprinted toward the first chipper, making hand signals to the crew to make them understand there were only two of us, and waving the other chopper off. Someone understood because the second chopper lifted off before we reached the closest one. Our chopper hovered five feet off the ground, and I slapped Dawson’s ass indicating he was first. He reached up and grabbed the hand of the crew chief. His feet found the chopper skid, and he was in the cabin in about two seconds. I was right behind him, and I think I actually high-jumped into the cabin, calling out above the noise of the blades and engine, “Only two! Eight dead! Go! Go!”

The crew chief nodded and spoke into his radio mouthpiece to the pilot.

I sat cross-legged on the floor as the chopper rose quickly through the mist.

I looked at Dawson, who was kneeling on the floor of the cabin and already had a cigarette lit. we made eye contact, and he gave me a thumbs-up. Just as the chopper lifted out of the misty depression, Dawson’s cigarette shot out of his mouth, and he pitched forward, his face falling in my lap. I shouted, “Fire!” as I grabbed Dawson’s shoulders and rolled him on his back.

He stared up at the ceiling of the cabin, blood running from the exit wound in his chest.

Both gunners had opened fire with their machine guns raking the forest below as the Huey shot forward away from the area. The Cobra gunships fired their rockets and Gatling guns into the surrounding terrain, but it was mostly for show. No one knew where the shot had come from, though I did know who fired it.

I got down close to Phil Dawson, face to face, and we stared into each other’s eyes. I said, “You’re okay. You’ll be fine. We’ll go right to the hospital ship. Just hold on. Hold on. A few minutes more.”

He tried to speak, but I could hear him above the noise. I put my ear to his mouth and heard him say, “Bitch.” Then he let go and died.

I sat beside him holding his hand, which was getting cold. The crew chief and door gunners kept stealing glances at us, as did the pilot and copilot.

* * *

The magic carpet landed at the field hospital first, and medics took Sergeant Dawson’s body away, then the chopper skimmed over the base camp and deposited me at the landing zone of the Lurp Headquarters.

The pilot had radioed ahead, and Colonel Hayes - Royal Duck - was there to meet me in his Jeep. He was alone, which I thought was a nice touch. He said, “Welcome home, Lieutenant.”

I nodded.

He asked me to confirm that I was the only one left.

I nodded.

He patted my back.

We got in his Jeep, which he drove directly to his hootch, a little wooden structure with a tin roof. We went inside, and he passed a bottle of Chivas to me. I took a long wig, then he steered me to a canvas armchair.

He asked, “You feel like talking about it?”

“No.”

“Later?”

“Yeah. Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He patted my shoulder and went toward the door of the single-room shack.

I said, “Woman.”

He turned to me. “What’s that?”

“Female sniper. A very dangerous woman.”

“Right… take it easy. Finish the bottle. See you when you’re ready. In my office.”

“I’m going back to get her.”

“Okay. We’ll talk about it later.” He gave me a concerned look and left.

I sat there, thinking about Dawson, Andolotti, Smitty, Johnson, Markowitz, Garcia, Beatty, Landon, and Muller, and finally about the sniper.

* * *

After I made my report, the Air Force carpet-bombed the area of my patrol for a week. The day the bombing ended, we sent three two-man antisniper teams into the area. I wanted to go back, but Colonel Hayes vetoed that. Just as well, since only one team made it back.

We kept people out of the area for a few weeks, then sent in an infantry company of two hundred men to locate and recover the bodies of the eight guys left behind, and also, of course, to look for the lady with the gun. They never found the bodies; maybe the bombs and artillery obliterated them. As for the lady, she, too, seemed to have vanished.

I went home and put the whole thing out of my mind. Or tried to.

I stayed in touch with a lot of the Lurp guys who were still in ‘Nam when I left, and they’d write once in while and answer the questions I always asked in my letters: Did you find her? Did she get anyone else?

The answer was always “No” and “No.”

She seemed to have disappeared or gotten killed in subsequent bombings or artillery strikes, or just simply quit while she was ahead. Among the guys who knew the story, she became a legend, and her disappearance only added to her almost mythical stature.

To this day, I have no idea what motivated her, what secret game she was playing, or why. I speculated that probably she’d had family killed by the Americans, or maybe she’d been raped by GIs, or maybe she was just doing her duty to her country, as we did ours.

I still have the brass cartridge I’d picked up on the riverbank, and now and then I take it out of my desk drawer and look at it.

I didn’t want to obsess on this, but as the years passed, I began to believe that she was still alive and that I’d meet up with her someday, someplace, though I didn’t know how or where.

I knew for certain I’d recognize her face, which I could still see clearly, and I knew she would recognize me - the guy she let get away, to tell her story. Now the story is told, and if we ever do meet, only one of us will walk away alive.

"Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft)" by Laura Lippman

2005-06-13T01:37:00.000-04:00

You won’t believe this, but this really did happen to me just last fall, and all because I was five minutes late, which seemed like a tragedy at the time. “It’s only five minutes,” that’s what I kept telling the woman behind the counter, who couldn’t be bothered to raise her gaze from her computer screen and make eye contact with me. Which is too bad, because I don’t need much to be charming, but I need something to work with. Why did they make so many keystrokes, anyway, these ticket clerks? What’s in the computer that makes them frown so? I had the printout for my E-ticket, and I kept shoving it across the counter, and she kept pushing it back to me with the tip of a pen, the way I used to do with my roommate Bruce’s dirty underwear, when we were in college. I’d round it up with a hockey stick and stash it in the corner, just to make a pathway through our dorm room. Bruce was a Goddamn slob.

“I’m sorry,” she said, stabbing that one key over and over. “There’s just nothing I can do for you tonight.”

“But I had a reservation. Andrew Sickert. Don’t you have it?”

“Yes,” she said, hissing the “s” in a wet, whistling way, like a middle-school girl with new braces. God, how did older men do it? I just can’t see it, especially if it really is harder to get it up as you get older, not that I can see that either. But if it does get more difficult, wouldn’t you need a better visual?

“I bought that ticket three weeks ago.” Actually, it was two, but I was seeking any advantage, desperate to get on that plane.

“It says on your printout that it’s not guaranteed if you’re not at the gate thirty minutes ahead of departure.” Her voice was oh-so-bored, the tone of a person who’s just loving your pain. “We had an overbooked flight earlier in the evening a dozen people were on the standby list. When you didn’t check in by 9:25, we gave your seat away.”

“But it’s only 9:40 now and I don’t have luggage. I could make it, if the security line isn’t too long. Even if it’s the last gate, I’d make it. I just have to get on that flight. I have… I have…” I could almost feel my imagination trying to stretch itself, jumping around inside my head, looking for something this woman would find worthy. “I have a wedding.”

“You’re getting married?”

“No!” She frowned at the reflexive shrillness in my voice. “I mean, no, of course not. If it were my wedding, I’d be there, like a week ago. It’s my, uh, brother’s. I’m the best man.”

The “uh” was unfortunate. “Is the wedding in Providence?”

“Boston, but it’s easier to fly into Providence than Logan.”

“And it’s tomorrow, Friday?”

Shit, no one got married on Friday night. Even I knew that. “No, but there’s the rehearsal dinner, and, you know, all that stuff.”

More clicks. “I can get you on the 7:00 a.m. flight if you promise to check in ninety minutes ahead of time. You’ll be in Providence by 8:30. I have to think that’s plenty of time. For the rehearsal and stuff. By the way, that flight is thirty-five dollars more.”

“Okay,” I said, pulling out a Visa card that was dangerously close to being maxed out, but I was reluctant to give up my cash, which I would need in abundance Friday night. “I guess that’s enough time.”

And now I had nothing but time to spend in the dullest airport, Baltimore-Washington International, in the dullest suburb, Linthicum, on the whole Eastern Seaboard. Going home was not an option. Light Rail had stopped running, and I couldn’t afford the thirty-dollar cab fare back to North Baltimore. Besides, I had to be in line at 5:30 a.m. to guarantee my seat, and that meant getting up at four. If I stayed here, at least I couldn’t miss my flight.

I wandered through the ticketing area, but it was dead, the counters all on the verge of closing down. I nursed a beer, but last call was 11:00 p.m., and I couldn’t get to the stores and restaurants on the other side of the metal detectors because I didn’t have a boarding pass. I stood on the stairs for a while, watching the people emerge from the terminals, their faces exhausted but happy because their journeys were over. It was almost as if there were two airports - “Departures,” this ghost town where I was trapped, and “Arrivals,” with people streaming out of the gates and onto the escalators, fighting for their baggage and then throwing themselves into the gridlocked lanes on the lower level, heading home, heading out. I should be doing the same thing myself, four-hundred-some miles away. My plane would be touching down by now, the guys would be looking for me, ready to go. I tired to call them, but my cell was dead. That was the kind of night I was having.

I stretched out on one of the padded benches opposite my ticket counter and essayed a little catnap, but some old guy was pushing a vacuum cleaner right next to my head, which seemed a little hostile. Still, I closed my eyes and tried not to think of what I was missing in Boston. The guys would probably be at a bar by now, kicking back some beers. At least I’d make it to the major festivities the next night. It hadn’t been a complete lie, the wedding thing. I was going to a friend’s bachelor party, even though I wasn’t invited to the wedding proper, but that’s just because there’s bad blood between the bride and me. She tells Bruce I’m a moron, but the truth is we had a little thing, when they were sorta broken up junior year, and she’s terrified I’m going to tell him. And, also, I think, because she liked it, enjoyed ol’ Andy, who brought a lot more to the enterprise than Bruce ever could. I’m not slagging my friend, but I lived with the guy for four years. I know the hand he was dealt, physiologically.

Behind my closed eyes, I thought about that week two years ago, how she had come to my room when she knew Bruce was at work, and locked the door behind her, and, without any preamble, just got down on her knees, and -

“Are you stranded?”

I sat up with a start, feeling as if I had been caught at something, but luckily I was too disarranged down there. There was a woman standing over me, older, somewhere between thirty and forty, in one of those no-nonsense suits and smoothed-back hairdos, toting a small rolling suitcase. From my low vantage point, I couldn’t help noticing she had nice legs, at least from ankle to knee. But the overall effect was prim, preternaturally old-ladyish.

“Yeah. They overbooked my flight, and I can’t get another one until morning, but home’s too far.”

“No one should have to sleep on a bench. A single night could throw your back out of alignment for life. Do you need money? You probably could get a room in one of the airport motels for as little as fifty dollars. The Sleep-Inn is cheap.”

She fished a wallet out of her bag, and while I’m not strong on these kind of details, it looked like an expensive purse to me, and the billfold was thick with cash. Most of the time, I don’t angst over money - I’m just twenty-three, getting started in the world, I’ll make my bundle soon enough - but it was hard, looking at all those bills, and thinking about the gap between us. Why shouldn’t I take fifty dollars? She clearly wouldn’t feel it.

But for some reason, I couldn’t. “Naw. Because I’d never repay you. I mean, I could, I’ve got a job. But I know myself. I’ll lose your address or something, never get it back to you.”

She smiled, which transformed her features. Definitely between thirty and forty, but closer to the thirty end now that I studied her. Her eyes were gray, her mouth big and curvy, fuller on top than on the bottom, so her teeth poked out just a little. I go for that overbite thing. And the suit was a kind of camouflage, I realized, in a good way. Most women dress to hide their flaws, but a few use clothes to cover up their virtues. She was trying to hide her best qualities, but I could see the swells beneath her outfit - both on top, and in the back, where her ass rose up almost in defiance of the tailored jacket and straight skirt. You can’t keep a good ass down.

“Don’t be so gallant,” she said. “I’m not offering a loan. I’m doing a good deed. I like to do good deeds.”

“It just doesn’t seem right.” I don’t know why I was so firm on this, but I think it was because she was basically sweet. I couldn’t help thinking we’d meet again, and I wouldn’t want to be remembered as the guy who took fifty dollars from her.

“Well - “ that smile again, bigger this time. “We have a stand-off.”

“Guess so. But you better get down to that taxi stand if you want to get home tonight. The line’s twenty-deep.” We glanced out the windows, down to the level below, which was just chaos. Up here, however, it was quiet and private, the man with the vacuum cleaner having finally moved on, the counters all closed.

“I’m lucky. I have my own car.”

“I think the lucky person is the man who’s waiting at home for you.”

“Oh.” She was flustered, which just made her sexier. “There’s no one - I mean - well, I’m single.”

“That’s hard to believe.” The automatic bullshit thing to say, yet I was sincere. How could someone like that ticket-clerk crone have a ring on her finger, while this woman was running around loose?

“It’s a chicken-or-egg problem.”

“Huh?”

“Am I single because I’m a workaholic, or am I a workaholic because I’m single?”

“Oh, that’s easy. It’s the first one. No contest.”

Her face seemed to light up and I swear I saw her eyes go filmy, as if she were about to cry. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“You need to hang out with better people, then.”

“Look - “ She put her hand on mine, and it was cool and soft, the kind of hand that gets slathered in cream on a regular basis, the hand of a woman who’s taking care of every part of herself. I knew she’d be waxed to a fine finish beneath that conservative little suit, with painted toenails and nothing but good smells. “I have a two-bedroom apartment on the south side of the city, just a few blocks from the big hotels. You can spend the night in my guest room, catch the first airport shuttle from the Hyatt at five. It’s only fifteen dollars, and you’ll get where you’re going rested and unkinked.”

Funny, but I felt protective of her. It was almost as if I were two people - a guy who wanted to keep her from a guy like me, the guy who wanted to get inside her apartment and rip that suit off, see what she was keeping from the rest of the world.

“I couldn’t do that. That’s an even bigger favor than giving me fifty dollars for a hotel room.”

“I don’t know. It seems to me there are ways you could pay me back, if you put your mind to it.”

She didn’t smile, or arch an eyebrow, or do a single thing with her face to acknowledge what she had just offered. She simply turned and began pulling her bag toward the sliding glass doors. But I was never more certain in my life that a woman wanted me. I got up, grabbed my own suitcase, and followed her, our wheels thrumming in unison. She led me to a black BMW in the short-term lot. Neither one of us said a word, we could barely look at each other, but I had her skirt halfway up her thigh even as she handed the parking lot attendant two bucks. He never even bothered to look down, just handed her the change, bored with his life. It’s amazing what people don’t see, but after all - people didn’t see her, this amazing woman. Because she was small and modest, she passed through the world without acknowledgement. I was glad I hadn’t made the mistake of not seeing what was there.

Her apartment was only twenty minutes away, and if it had been twenty-five, I think I would have made her pull over to the side of the road or risked bursting. I had her skirt above her waist now, yet she kept control of the car and leveled her eyes straight ahead, which just made me wilder for her. Once she parked, she didn’t bother to pop the trunk, and by that time I wasn’t too worried about my suitcase. Wasn’t going to need any more clothes until the morning. She ran up the stairs and I followed.

The apartment building was a little shabby, and in an iffier neighborhood that I expected, but those warehouse lofts usually are in odd parts of town. She pulled me into the dark living room and locked the door behind me, throwing on the dead bolt as if I might change my mind, but there was no risk of that. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to take in my surroundings, although I did notice that the room was sparsely furnished - nothing more than a sofa, a desk with an open laptop, and this huge credenza of jars with gleaming gold tops, which looked sort of like those things of peppers you see at some delis although not quite the same. I couldn’t help thinking it was a project of hers, that maybe they were vases distorted by the moonlight.

“You an artist?” I asked as she backed away and began pulling her clothes off, revealing a body that was even better than I had hoped.

“I’m in business.”

“I mean, as a hobby?” I inclined my head toward the credenza, as I was trying to get my trousers off without tripping.

“I’m a pickler.”

“What?” Not that I really cared about the answer, as I had my hands on her now. She let me kiss and touch what I could reach, then sank to her knees, as if all she cared about was pleasing me. Well, she had said she was into good deeds, and I had done pretty well by her in the car.

“A pickler,” she said, her breath warm and moist. “I put up fruits and vegetables and other things as well, so I can enjoy them all winter long.” And then she stopped talking because she had -

* * *

Maureen stops, frowning at what she has written. Has she mastered the genre? This is her sixth letter, and while the pick-ups are getting easier, the prose is becoming harder. Part of the problem is that the men bring so little variation to their end of the bargain, forcing her to be ever more inventive about their lives and their missions. Even when they do tell her little pieces of their back stories, like this one, Andy, it’s so boring, so banal. Late to the airport, a missed connection, not enough money to do anything but sleep on a bench, blah, blah, blah. Ah, but she doesn’t have the luxury of picking them for material. She has to find the raw stuff and mold it to her needs.

So far, the editors of Penthouse haven’t printed any of her letters - too much buildup, she supposes, which is like too much foreplay as far as she’s concerned. Ah, but that’s the difference between men and women, the unbridgeable gap. One wants seduction, the other wants action. It’s why her scripts never sell, either. Too much buildup, too much narrative. And, frankly, she knows her sex scenes suck. Part of the problem is that in real life Maureen almost never completes the act she’s trying to describe in her fiction; she’s too eager to get to her favorite part. So, yes, she has her own foreplay issues.

No, she definitely has voice problems in this piece. Would a young man remember that whistling sound that braces make, or is she simply giving too much away about her own awkward years? Would a twenty-three-year-old man recognize an expensive purse? Or use the word “preternatural”? Also, she probably should be careful about being too factual. The two-dollar parking fee - a more astute person, someone who didn’t have his hand up a woman’s skirt, fumbling around as if he’s looking for spare change beneath a sofa cushion, might wonder why someone returning from a business trop paid for only an hour of parking. She should recast her apartment as well, make it more glamorous, the same way she upgraded her Nissan Sentra to gleaming black BMW. Speaking of which, she needs to get the car to Wax Works, just in case, and change Andy’s name in the subsequent drafts. She doesn’t worry that homicide detectives read Penthouse Forum for clues to open cases, but they almost certainly read it. Meanwhile, his suitcase is gone, tossed in a Dumpster behind the Sleep-Inn near the airport, and Andy’s long gone, too.

Well - she looks up at the row of gleaming jars, which she needs to lock away again behind the credenza’s cupboards, but they’re so pretty in the moonlight, almost like homemade lava lamps. Well, she reminds herself. Most of Andy is long gone.

Introduction by Otto Penzler (excerpt*)

2005-06-13T01:35:00.000-04:00

What makes a woman dangerous? No doubt there are any number of opinions, depending upon the experience of the man or woman who responds.

Personally, I think the most dangerous woman are those who are irresistible. Each of us may have a unique weakness, an Achilles’ heel that is unfathomable to others, or we may share universal sensibilities that everyone understands. It may be a woman’s great beauty that wins our hearts, or her charm, or intelligence. It may be the way she brushes her hair back from her eyes, or the way she laughs, or the way she sneezes.

She may be acutely aware of her power, or utterly innocent of it. One will use it as a steel-edged weapon, another as a fuzzy security blanket. The intent neither increases nor diminishes the power, and that is the terrible danger to those who may be in thrall to it.

Power is dangerous. We may know it, even fear it, but if we want the heat from that flame, we will risk everything to get as close to it as possible.

Dangerous women have always been with us. Remember Delilah? Authors have understood the ferocious attraction of dangerous women and used them as literary devices relentlessly. Most of the great women of history, as well as most significant female literary figures, have been dangerous. Perhaps not to everyone, but frequently to those who have fallen in love with them. Men have killed for dangerous women, betrayed their countries, their loved ones and themselves, given up thrones and committed suicide. Sometimes the dangerous women may even be worth it - worth risking everything and giving up all one holds dear.

Many literary detectives have been aware of the dangerous woman. Sam Spade fell for one, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, while Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer are often chased by them; they have been known to allow themselves to be caught.

Sherlock Holmes, although he allowed himself to be enamored of Irene Adler (“the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet”), had a famously powerful aversion to most members of the opposite sex. “Women are never to be entirely trusted - not the best of them,” Holmes stated in The Sign of the Four. “I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance money.”

Although Archie Goodwin loves women, his boss, Nero Wolfe, generally speaks and behaves like a misogynist. “You can depend on women for anything except constancy,” he said. Further, while in a particularly foul mood, he declared, “The vocations for which they [are] best adapted are chicanery, sophistry, self-advertisement, cajolery, mystification and incubation.”

And neither Holmes nor Wolfe ever met the dangerous women on these pages. They would have been shocked and appalled. But, as I predict you, too, will be, they would have been fascinated. They would have been helpless in their desire to know what they were up to, where they would lead, what adorable little tricks they had up their sleeves.

It is clear from the enduring success of Hammett, Chandler, Macdonald, Doyle, and Rex Stout that they understood much, including the appeal, of a kind, of dangerous women. The authors in this book have proven to be no less accomplished in providing an array of femme fatale to delight you - and cause you to shudder in relief that they are not women who matter in your life. At least, for your sake, it is to be hoped that they don’t.

+++

These giants of the mystery writing world have put together a bevy, a veritable harem, of dangerous women of all kinds. The gentler sex? Don’t make me laugh. And stay on guard, lest they win your heart, because they’d like to have it. Perhaps with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

*The missing chunk is marked by "+++".

Notice

2005-06-02T01:33:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be in Lexington, Kentucky for the next couple of days, so no more new stuff until at the earliest, Monday.

Sorry guys.

"Testing" by Robert Fulghum

2005-05-29T22:13:00.000-04:00

IT’S BEEN REAL QUIET around our house this month. My wife is studying for her exams. Every seven years she must take and pass an all-day examination in order to be certified by the American Board of Family Practice Physicians as competent in her profession. She’s liable for everything she’s learned about medicine since the first day she walked into medical school.

As for me, I panic just knowing I have to renew my driver’s license. I haven’t taken an exam since college. Just being in the same house with someone who is studying for one gives my brain the worry-willies.

But it is a provocative notion - this business of being recertified every seven years. I wonder how it would be if all of us had to take a major exam as we passed through the decades of our lives after formal schooling was over. Suppose we had to prove our competency and proficiency as members of the human race. And if we didn’t pass muster, we’d have to go back to class for retraining.

It makes some sense, actually. See, the only reason we’re require to go to school is that we believe a nation is better off educated than ignorant. It works for the common good. But just because we got through the system doesn’t mean anything really stuck or that we know how to apply what we know, does it?

Sometimes I’m appalled by my own ignorance. One of my favorite Peanuts cartoons has Lucy asking Charlie Brown, “Don’t you wish you knew back then what you know now?” Charlie stares blank-eyed for a while, and then asks, “What do I know now?”

Think about it. What do you know now? Just what should we have nailed down cold in our brains by, say, age thirty, to justify our education and our continuing participation in life with people?

Reading, writing - still the basics. But right away there’s trouble. Did you know that 22 percent of adult Americans are functionally illiterate? About forty million people would not pass reading and writing. It’s true.

As for math - we should at least still be able to add and subtract and multiply and divide - even fractions. No algebra, though. If algebra is on the test, I’m going to be sent back to junior high school for the rest of my life.

What else? History’s got to be on the exam. We get into continual peril because we lose track of the long and wide view of human experience. And basic civics has got to be tested. When only 38 percent of the eligible voters show up at the polls at a national election, some of us need reeducation about democracy.

By age thirty we ought to be clear on matters of money, sex, health, and love, because nothing causes more grief lifelong than our ignorance and ineptitude on these items.

So, basic economics and personal finance has to be on the exam - “Make a simple budget - demonstrate knowledge of balancing a checkbook.” Ha. Right.

If you haven’t got sex figured out by the time you’re thirty, you’d better go back to class. Basic health - and first aid - should be current.

But love may have to be left off the exam. Most of us will never learn.

What else? How about knowledge of ethics, law, ecology, and science?

Sure, but that is tidy-fact stuff. What about more subtle things? What should you know by thirty about art, music, and literature? How about friendship, honor, courage, truth, beauty, happiness, hope, imagination, wisdom, humor, and death? Whoa. This is getting out of hand. It seemed like a good idea when I began. I’m already over-questioned.

And we haven’t even dealt with the existential items, such as:

Why is there Something instead of Nothing?

When will I have time, and who knows where the time goes?

How deep is the ocean - how high the sky?

When is enough enough?

What are people for?

Is there life before death?

Is it true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?

And if birds fly over the rainbow, why can’t I?

"Vitriol" by Shelley Jackson

2005-05-29T21:34:00.000-04:00

vit-ri-ol \’vi-trē-әl\ noun [Middle English, from Middle French, from Medieval Latin vitriolum, alteration of Late Latin vitreolum, neuter of vitreolus glassy, from Latin vitreus vitreous] (14^th century) 1: a sulfate of aany of various metals (as copper, iron, or zinc); especially: a glassy hydrate of such a sulfate. 2: something felt to resemble vitriol, usually a caustic quality; especially: virulence of feeling or of speech as exhibited by a lover.

One morning, I found a puddle under my bed. It was small and the dull yellow-green color of the foliage in old paintings and had a halo of tiny, shiny blisters that burst incessantly and were replaced by others that showed not the puddle’s own volatility but the devastation of the varnish on the floor. I dipped my finger in it and brought my finger to my nose. It smelled bitter and familiar.

“My mother has cut me out of her will,” you said, “and will not allow my name to be mentioned in her house.” You showed me a punitive gift from her. It was a family portrait in which you did not appear. In your place was a hole in the shape of you. Only your fingers were left, clenched in your sister’s hand. The edges of the hole were not scissored but rough, brittle, and discolored.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Vitriol,” you said. “Bile.”

It smelled familiar and remorseful, and it seethed slightly upon my fingertip and stung under my nail, and when I wiped my finger on my jeans I noticed that my fingertip had gone white and powdery and that my cuticles still burned. I washed my finger and found that some of the white wiped off, but not all, and my finger felt unpleasantly smooth. Later, my same finger wandering found a hole seared through my jeans where I had wiped my finger.

Your mother’s difficult love had made all love difficult for you. When you began to love me, you asked me to let you read my journal. “Now that I love you, you have power over me. I need you to give me something personal so I have power over you, too,” you said. “How can you expect me to trust you if you won’t trust me?”

“Let her,” Nolan said. “Love invents its own rules.”

“Let her,” Madeline said. “But then leave her.”

You took my journal into the bathroom and locked the door. When you came out, I saw your face, severe.

You wouldn’t give my journal back. So much for trust.

Where I had wiped the finger, my leg hurt. I could see through the hole that my skin had gone intricately bumpy, as if nettle-stung. The pain gave me a peculiar satisfaction. It was my pain, only mine. I went to the puddle and I dipped my finger in it and I painted my mouth with it. It hurt, fizzing softly.

I might have left you, but I couldn’t let you keep my journal. I went to get it back. In your anger, you had thrown my shoes out the window into the neighbors’ yard. You pointed them out from your window. One was caught in the top of a bush, the other lay next to the rotting sofa, where the stray cats fought or fucked - you could never tell the difference. My shoes looked worried and foolish there. We laughed at them. Then we had sex.

Fizzing softly in the darkness, my obnoxious secret grew. I checked it every morning. I cultivated it like a grievance.

When you gave my journal back, you said, “Someday I will ask to see this again.” Although you had already read it (but surely not every word), I went through the whole thing and scribbled out everything I thought might offend you. I tore out whole pages, adding lines to the tops of the following pages to close the gaps. These offending pages I destroyed. I mailed my other notebooks to my parents for safekeeping. I congratulated myself for my cunning.

I cultivated it like a grievance I would one day charge to you, and every day I took a little from the growing puddle with a turkey baster and made ablutions with it. I washed my hands with it. I douched with it. I squirted a little stream from the baster into my eyes. When I could see again, it was with eyes that had learned not to trust too easily.

I showed you photographs, but when you saw a naked picture of me, you railed against me, not believing I had taken it myself with a tripod and self-timer. I went through my photographers and got rid of all the other ones I thought might bother you, like an old picture of my ex with no clothes on; I even destroyed the negatives, knowing you were subtle.

I made ablutions with it, and I learned to love its rigors. It stripped my fingers of their prints. My hands grew as anonymous and smooth as marble. My period stopped. My eyelashes fell out. I gargled, and grew mute.

There was nothing I did not examine with your eye for the unforgivable, because I knew you noticed everything. You paid attention to syntax, to sentences interrupted in midstream, to wrong numbers and non sequiturs. I lied about these things even when the truth was blameless, because it was easier than explaining, and more and more I kept my mouth shut.

I grew mute, but I could write. One day, I dipped a pen in the bile. At first my writing was invisible, but pretty soon the ink ate into the paper, leaving a hundred holes in the shape of letters. It was not impossible to read these missing words. The silhouette of a girl cut out of a photograph can still be recognized and may be a better likeness than her image was.

When I wrote in my journal, I typed it up on the computer that I used at school, gave the files deceptive names like English 101 Syllabus, crumpled the handwritten originals and hid them inside take-out boxes and paper cups, which I discarded in other people’s wastebaskets. I learned that I was a deceiver after all, just as you had feared. I took a vengeful pleasure in this.

A hundred holes were not enough to speak my mind. I injected the bile into the ink cartridge in the printer that I use at school. I am printing out my journal. I would like you to have a copy. Every page is blank, but the acid is at work in the paper fibers. By the time you get it, my life will be written down in absentia. You can read every single thing I thought about you. Read that I loved you, and that I’m gone.

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, you mother always said. I’ve taken that advice. But take a good look at what I haven’t said. I’ve learned to write that way. Now you’ll learn to read.

"Pain" by Leslie Pietrzyk

2005-05-29T18:38:00.000-04:00

pain \’pān\ noun [Middle English, from Old French peine, from Latin poena, from Greek poinē payment, penalty; akin to Sanskrit cayate he revenges] (14^th century) 1: punishment. 2a: localized physical suffering associated with a bodily disorder such as disease, injury, or termination of romantic relationship; also: a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive action. b: acute mental or emotional distress or suffering: GRIEF. 3: one that irks or annoys or is otherwise troublesome - often used in such phrases as pain in the neck.

Want to feel suddenly single? First: Hurt yourself. By accident, of course. Do something stupid - say, use a sharp knife to pry wax from a candleholder and direct the sharp point of the knife toward your hand. Let a bagel slip sideways on a cutting board while you’re slicing it and slice your thumb instead. Try to wrestle gristle from a slick piece of beef with a dull knife. Drop a wineglass on the hardwood floor and step barefoot on a shard as you’re trying to clean up the mess; curse yourself for breaking expensive crystal, for not wearing shows, for being stupid. There are many possibilities.

But that’s important is that you don’t hurt yourself badly enough to warrant an automatic trip to the emergency room. You want to think about your injury, to study the flow of blood. Is it a flow? An ooze? A drip? Examine the size of the cut - wider than a nail head? Longer than an eyebrow? Deeper than a thumbtack? Wonder.

You want to avoid doing something that makes blood gush. Gushing blood may well mean the need to visit the emergency room. Instead, aim for this thought: hospital, followed by a big question mark. Like this: Hospital? Immediately followed by another question: Or will Band-Aids and hydrogen peroxide be good enough? (Make sure you do not have gauze pads anywhere in the medicine cabinet or in your overnight travel toiletry bag. It’s okay to have a roll of the sticky white tape for taping gauze pads, as long as there is no gauze to be taped. Cotton balls are okay, because you aren’t sure if they’re sterile.)

It helps if you hurt yourself on a Saturday, when your doctor is at home with her husband. Perhaps she and her husband are spreading mulch on their front yard flower beds. Perhaps the two of them are getting ready to go to the mall to buy him a new suit at a store that is having a one-day sale. Perhaps they are upstairs in the guest room making love on the bed up there because it’s someplace different, something meant to be exciting (the suggestion of a friend - you know exactly this type of well-meaning friend - who said something like, “What have you got to lose?”). Actually, it doesn’t matter where they are or what they’re doing, because the point is that your doctor is not in her office. That’s the point.

What you want, what you’re looking for here, is to achieve the perfect type of injury that should be shown to someone else, someone trusted, that one person who can say with certainty and in a soothing voice, “Yes, you need stitches,” or “No, you don’t need stitches.”

Of course, the goal here is not the stitches.

Second: Get sick. Better yet, start to get sick. Have a scratchy throat, glands that are tender when you squeeze them obsessively with your thumb and index finger. A slight fever, ninety-nine degrees perhaps. Struggle into work, anyway, because you think you should. Cough whenever someone intercoms you. Build up a pyramid of used Kleenex in your garbage can. Sneeze into the phone when you have to take a call in someone else’s office. Maybe - if you’re lucky - by lunchtime, the receptionist will ask if you’re okay. By two, your boss will suggest that you go home.

Go home. Discover that you have no soup in the house. Begin to crave ice cream. Want Jell-O. Need tea with a squeeze of honey form a plastic container that is shaped like a bear. But have none of these things - not in your cupboards or your refrigerator or your freezer. Instead, call the other Chinese restaurant - not the one you like, not the one you used to call al the time, not the one where they know your name and could write out your order at the sound of your voice - no, the other one - and ask them to deliver wonton soup. If you’re especially lucky, the will inform you that there is a minimum order of ten dollars for delivery. How many containers of wonton soup are in a ten-dollar order? Find out when your order arrives. Late. This Chinese restaurant does not take checks the way the other one does. Cough so hard that your eyes water while you dig your fingers deep into the couch cushions, looking for change so that you can tip. Later, run out of Kleenex and carry a roll of toilet paper up to bed with you.

Third: Work on projects. Decide that the house needs a new roof. Or that the crumbling driveway needs a new layer of asphalt. Or discover a colony of carpenter ants, nesting at the base of the oak tree out front. Let two companies give you estimates with two very different treatment plans and two very different prices; both companies are highly recommended, both have excellent reputations.

Even better - refinish the bathroom floor. Best - refinish a bathroom. Talk to plumbers and contractors and guys who do tile. Let them ask you what color of tile you want. When you say white, let them spread out six different shades of white tile.

Bring home a hundred paint-chip samples and set them out on the living room carpet in neat rows. (Maybe you also need new carpet - but don’t be sure if you do or don’t. wonder if getting new carpet and painting will lead to wanting new slipcovers. Plaid? Flowered? Checked? Is white upholstery chic, or is it a huge, huge mistake that you will regret for years? What about window treatments? Possibly look into putting in a bay window. Wonder if that room is really too small for a bay window.)

Another option: Buy a new car. And insurance. (Don’t rely on getting a flat tire. Getting a flat tire is for amateurs. Anyone can get a flat tire. You just call the auto club for a flat tire.)

Somewhat related: Get involved in a car accident. Preferably, this accident is not your fault. In fact, your best bet is if the other driver takes off after ramming into you. Maybe you’ve parked your car in an end-of-the-aisle spot (even though there are those who warned you repeatedly - though kindly - about the hazards of parking in the end-of-the-aisle spots) and you are returning to your car, lugging several bags of groceries that contain a number of expensive, perishable items (shrimp and three cartons of your favorite premium ice cream), and you discover that someone has bashed in the side of your car but did not leave a note.

The goal is: not your fault. But there is no one who will listen to your explanations or watch your reenactment with salt and pepper shakers on the restaurant table, no one to appreciate the magnitude of the other driver’s stupidity. The insurance agent is mildly interested, listening politely to your rant, but he is quick to note that you did not pay the extra $2.57 monthly premium that would have given your rental car coverage in the event that your car sustained damage.

Take the f - ing bus to work. Be late every day for five days in a row. There is no one to drive you, no one’s car to borrow. On one of the days, it rains.

Fourth: Begin to crave - deeply - a particular item of food that is prepared exclusively in an enormous quantity. (Bonus points if this product is made from a very, very special recipe and this recipe is so special and so right and so perfect that similar products sold in the deli near your office do not at all duplicate this particular product, do not come remotely close to satisfying this immense craving, and the thought of eating the deli version is ludicrous. Extra bonus points if you happen to no longer have access to this recipe.) Examples: bread pudding, mashed potatoes, chocolate soufflé, stuffing, crepes, collard greens flavored with ham hocks and Tabasco, any kind of pie (but a pie such as apple or peach that requires a great deal of peeling and slicing is preferred). Note: These are not foods that produce leftovers that can be popped into the freezer. These are not low-fat, low-cal foods, not foods such as baked potatoes. Obviously. Baked potatoes come in all different serving sizes. You can make one baked potato exactly as easily as you can make two.

Fifth: Plan this little adventure of suddenly feeling single around your birthday. Certainly, someone will take you out to dinner or buy you a drink or tie a Mylar balloon to the arm of the chair in your office. Maybe people in the office will all sign a card that insults you - humorously, ha, ha - for turning another year older. (Laugh at this card even if it’s not funny - and it won’t be - and prop it on the corner of your desk for one day. Then you can secretly tuck it underneath other papers in your garbage can.) There even may be a present from somebody, the kind that is dropped into a gift bag instead of the kind that is wrapped with paper and Scotch tape. Perhaps a surprise party will be given, if you have those kinds of friends. Maybe when you are taken out to dinner, waiters in a restaurant will sing “Happy Birthday” and everyone will clap, including the tables of people you do not know.

But there will not be the present, the thing you’d been dropping hints about for two or three months. That present - opal ring, KitchenAid mixer, Fendi bag - you will have to buy for yourself. Be sure to use your credit card. Be sure not to pay the full balance on that bill so that you can have the pleasure of (a) paying more money than the cost of the item through excessive - but legal! - 18 percent interest charges and (b) sensing that particular item lingering, lingering, endlessly lingering on your monthly statement.

Sixth: Look for ways to fill out lots of official forms, forms that want to know the name of your spouse. Your spouse’s employer. Your spouse’s employer’s address. Your spouse’s work phone number. Some even ask for your spouse’s social security number!

Bonus points: Have to go somewhere where you have previously filled out those forms (in ink) and tell those people to remove those pieces of information. Smile while you say that. They will smile back, but it will be a different kind of smile.

Extra bonus points: Fill out a new form that asks who to contact in case of an emergency. Is it so terrible to write down your mother’s name and phone number, even though she lives two time zones away? Do not make eye contact when you hand that form to the person sitting behind the counter.

Seventh: Go to a wedding. It should be a very romantic, very loving sort of wedding, not the other kind, not the kind where people are snickering behind their hands and reminding each other that according to Emily Post it’s okay to wait a year to give a wedding gift.

No.

This should be the kind of wedding where the bride and groom feel like incomplete people unless they’re standing next to each other. And when they stand together, they are always touching - hand on a shoulder, two elbows rubbing, one foot brushing up against the other’s. That kind of bride and groom. Perhaps they finish each other’s sentences on occasion? Maybe they tilt their heads to the same side when they smile? Both families are very happy; each family likes the other. Sense no brewing arguments about where to spend holidays. Hear someone comment that the honeymoon is a trip to fill-in-the-blank, somewhere you’ve dreamed of going.

The wedding must have a towering cake (perhaps decorated with real flowers), a band, lots of people taking flash pictures, champagne that is better than average, at least one grandmother on both sides, and a noisy, noticeable, prolonged bouquet toss. There should be one other single person at your table. Loathe this person on looks alone. When this person talks, think of fingernails scratching spiral after spiral on a blackboard. Dance with this person anyway. You are the better dancer.

Send a present from the registry to this couple. Do this with one phone call and a credit card. The person on the other end of the phone will ask, “What would you like to say on the gift card?” This is what you should say: “May you have many happy years together.” But this is what you actually manage to say: “Congratulations.”

Of course, these are just suggestions to get you thinking. There are more. But the important thing is this: It all starts with injury. Start with pain.

"FAQ" by Elizabeth Benedict (excerpt)

2005-05-28T23:45:00.000-04:00

FAQ \’fak\ noun [Internet terminology] (c. 1990s) 1: acronym for “Frequently Asked Questions,” a popular way of presenting detailed or complex information on a Web site. 2: a list of questions and answers presented in a simple-to-follow format.

What were there before FAQs?

Philosophers. Questions with no answers.

Are FAQs available on every subject?

There is a shortage of them pertaining to “female troubles.”

What are “female troubles”?

Men.

But haven’t women always had trouble with men, even before FAQs?

The questions used to be different. And there were never any answers.

For example?

Between 1945 and 1963, the average woman was tormented by these questions: “Should I call my mother-in law Mom?” “Should I go to a doctor who doesn’t make house calls?” “Is it permissible to disagree with my husband’s views on Red China?” “How many times a week should I wax the kitchen floor?” “Is this all there is to life?” “How will I know if I’ve had an orgasm?” The average woman was often too ashamed to ask anyone, even her mother, these questions.

How have the times changed?

Today’s FAQs on female troubles concern matters involving the intersection of etiquette, law enforcement, mental illness, addition, and technology.

Can you give an example?

Can we ever! These are the most frequently asked questions on our site:

1. What are the benefits of dating a recovering crack addict?

a. Drama. Will he pick up if I do something he doesn’t like? Will he pick up when he realizes I’ve changed the password on my ATM card? If so, will it be as bad as it was the last time I changed my password? Can I believe him when he says he will never sell my dog again?

b. You get to feel needed without ever being sure that you are, so there is always plenty to hope and strive for.

c. Even though addiction counselors say you shouldn’t, you can blame yourself if he does pick up again!

2. How many Internet porn sites do you need to discover on your boyfriend/husband/fiancé’s computer (e.g., analsexwithpuppies.com, slutsandchildrenfirst.com, cumhardandfastwithdebbie.com) before you confront him?

Three to five.

3. What is the best way to confront him in this situation?

Despite the prevalence of this problem, we have no idea.

4. Should you ever date a man over forty-three who has never been married?

No. In the words of one of our consultants, “Better he should have murdered his wife than never to have been married, because then at least you’d know he can make a commitment.”

5. Should you ever date a man who is attempting to divorce a woman who has never had a job?

No. No exceptions.

6. If a man tells you he wants you to have his child, does this mean he is seriously interested in you?

No. There is no correlation between this statement and his feelings for you. In fact, there may be an inverse relationship. Having said something so bold and serious, he is likely to have scared himself to death and need to retreat at the first opportunity.

7. Is it better to date a man with an ex-wife or a dead wife?

Most women would definitely answer “dead wife,” but they would be wrong. The dead woman’s physical absence is often a trick to make you think the man is available.

8. Is it always up to the woman to look out for the trouble spots, the danger zones, the bad moves, the foolish vacation destinations?

Yes.

9. During the first week of a relationship, is it a good sign when the man sends you flowers, buys you a bauble from Tiffany’s, and invites you to Paris for Christmas, which is eight months away?

No! Beware! We approve of the flowers, but the Tiffany’s tchotchke and the trip to Paris may indicate someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

10. What’s that?

A common misconception about narcissists is that they love looking at themselves in the mirror. But those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are afflicted with problems far more serious and destructive. Narcissists cannot empathize with others, but they are excellent at pretending they can, using lavish gifts and grandiose promises to lure others into their orbit. Once the lover is hooked, however, the narcissist wants only to be worshiped and adored, and at the first sign of criticism or withdrawing from his affections, he suffers a “narcissistic injury,” seems to “come apart,” and turns on the lover suddenly and viciously.

And, make no mistake, this will happen - long before you get to Paris. Sadly, you’re likely to experience the first attack well before the flowers have lost their bloom.

11. How can you predict all that mental illness from a dozen roses, a piece of jewelry, and an invitation to Paris?

That’s why we’re here, to save you the trouble.

12. Just because a guy comes on strong - you’re labeling him a psycho?

We are merely suggesting that it is unwise to draw conclusions after the first week of a romance, even when that week is blissful. At the start of things, we advice you to “just say maybe.”

13. I’m sure I’ll have more questions. What if I can’t always reach you?

The Internet is a thriving democracy. Information is available to all, 24/7, regardless of education or training. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in the problem. Fast, easy, free.

14. What are the other problems I can learn about?

The dirty dozen: alcoholism, codependency, drug addiction, gambling addiction, sex addiction, passive-aggressive personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, manic-depression, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. If there’s an affliction, believe us, there will be a Web site.

15. Are you saying that reading these sites, making our own diagnoses, will make us happy? Help us have better relationships?

Heavens, no. but understanding that your boyfriend has a personality disorder and is not just stubbornly unavailable may empower you to move on, instead of buying him Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus for Valentine’s Day. I think we’ve got time for one more question.

16. Do you ever yearn for the days when all we had to worry about was whether to call our mothers-in-law “Mom”?

No, never.

17. Don’t go yet.

It’s getting late.

18. But time doesn’t exist on the Internet. It’s always open. And you’re about to vanish. This is all so scary to contemplate on my own. Will I ever find a man who isn’t riddled with disorders and addictions? Are there any out there?

Of course there are.

19. How will I know if I’ve found one? Is there a secret handshake?

Your question indicates that you are well on your way. An ability to laugh at life’s leftovers is an essential ingredient in your search. Knowledge is power, and so is humor.

20. That’s it? That’s all you’re willing to say?

We think that is saying a great deal. Happy endings, my dear, are for fairy tales.

"Etiquette" by Thisbe Nissen

2005-05-28T23:33:00.000-04:00

et-i-quette \’e-ti-kәt, -,ket\ noun [French etiquette, literally, ticket] (1750) 1: the conduct or procedure required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official life. 2: that which should be adhered to more closely by certain members of a certain gender, after meeting other members of a certain other gender, so as to avoid confusion and entry into call-hell.

1. Don’t say you’re going to do something unless you actually plan on doing it. You and I were playing, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” We said 1-2-3, GO. I pulled down my pants, and you laughed and ran away.

2. If it’s going to be a one-night stand, let it be a one-night stand. Say: “Hey, it was nice meeting you. Maybe we’ll run into each other again someday at some other wedding. Don’t say: “Let’s talk soon.” Don’t call from O’Hare when your connecting flight home gets delayed. Don’t send cute postcards, each time promising the next card will be “more scenic,” each time promising a “next.”

3. Don’t get angry when someone uses things you said against you. Especially when those things were said under the influence of more than your share of Bloody Marys, and before some heated foreplay in the backseat of a taxi to the hotel, where the bride’s parents were so graciously putting us all up in the charitable hope that their daughter’s wedding might get a few of her friends laid as well, and a few hours of sex that made me think I might finally be able to understand how people decide to get married at all.

4. Certain things are not to be said during sex if one would like to maintain that sex is just sex and nothing more. Like, “God, I love you.”

5. When your mother told you not to say anything at all if you couldn’t say something nice, she wasn’t referring to relationships, in which case it’s much nicer to say something: “I’m not really interested,” or “I don’t do long-distance,” or “I’ve met someone else,” or “Relationships scare me,” or “Did I forget to mention my wife and seven children?” or “Yo no hablo ingles.”

6. Misrepresentation can be grounds for a lawsuit. Did you know that?

7. Life is confusing enough as it is. And would still be plenty difficult even if everyone actually did tell the truth insofar as they could discern what the hell that might be. I have little patience for guessing games and no patience at all for the rules of courtship - both those unspoken and those outlined in a best-seller I refuse to read - so I don’t do coy, hard-to-get dances or spend my time dangling carrots.

8. There’s nothing more pathetic than a woman waiting around for some guy to call … reading and rereading the words he left scrawled on a scrap of hotel stationery, trying to find within those simple lines - name, street, city, state, zip, area code, phone - some explanation as to why she now feels that to use any piece of that information would be to push and pry on the door of a life that’s been suddenly and inexplicably slammed.

9. It’s courteous to give a person a little warning. Like, maybe you could have said something before you went and slammed the aforementioned door, since I happened to be standing in the aforementioned doorway.

10. When it starts to feel like you’re at a SoHo dinner party where everyone’s skinny and wearing black and you’re laughing gaily as you sip your cabernet, when suddenly you feel something fuzzy against your leg and it turns out to be the girl you just slept with, and she’s under the table begging for scraps, then you know that something’s seesawed way off-kilter in the power dynamic. I am not a basset hound.

"Summer Job" by Robert Fulghum

2005-05-27T23:41:00.000-04:00

TWO DESPERATE YOUNG MEN were at my door one night last week. “We’re desperate,” they said. They didn’t look desperate. Neat and clean - tennis shoes, jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps on the right way. “We’re fifteen years old,” which is why they were desperate. They needed summer jobs and nobody was hiring unless you were sixteen. “Being fifteen isn’t good enough,” said one. I remember. Being fifteen is being in-between - a transitional phase.

“Just how desperate are you?” I asked.

“Really desperate - we’ll do anything for money.”

Wonderful. Actually I had been looking for a couple of guys in this condition. See, a neighbor has been needling me about my excessive firewood. He thinks it weighs too much and is maybe bending the timbers of the decking on the dock in front of our houseboats, and since the dock decking is common property, it’s his business. Furthermore, he thinks that burning wood in a stove contributes to serious air pollution problems and I am therefore irresponsible for not heating my house some other way. Right. I agree. That’s exactly why I have so much firewood: I don’t burn it anymore. But this guy keeps yawping at me and I’m steamed.

Suddenly I have a genius solution for the firewood fracas.

“Gentlemen,” I say to the young men at my door, “I have a job for you.” They are excited. “You see all this firewood along the dock?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I want you to haul it all up onto the street where you will find my neighbor’s very large four-door green Buick sedan. And I want you to fill that Buick with this firewood.”

“There’s too much to go in the trunk, sir.”

“Exactly. So, I want you to fill the whole inside of the Buick completely with firewood - door to door and floor to ceiling. And if you have any left over I want you to stack it on the hood and roof. Doing it carefully, of course.”

“We couldn’t do that sire - we might get in trouble.”

“How about if I pay you ten dollars each and you do it at night?”

“We could do that, sir. But what if we get caught?”

“For an extra five dollars apiece you will not get caught.”

“Right, sir.”

“And besides,” I tell them, “at fifteen you’re still juveniles - they won’t give you the electric chair for misplacing a pile of firewood. Do it.”

I am tired of being patient and reasonable and fussing around with the minutiae of life. Direct-and-swift action is my mode these days. A one-man SWAT team am I. Don’t mess with me. My neighbor is lucky I didn’t pile the wood on his front porch and set it on fire. After all, who would believe that a nice man like me would do such a thing? I’ve worked hard all these years on my disguise of benign gentleness and the time has come for the Bad Samaritan to rip off his mask and strike.

So the neighbor is away for the weekend. And I happen to know where he keeps his hide-a-key: in a really dumb place under the rear bumper of his Buick - I saw him put it there. I make sure his car is unlocked, and during the night I hear the lovely sound of firewood being moved by desperate fifteen year-olds.

The next morning I am pleased to find the wood gone. And the Buick looks like a moveable wood yard. Ha. Brilliant. I’m thinking my neighbor is going to have a cow when he gets home. Funny.

Did this really happen?

Yes and No. The young men did come to the door. The neighbor and the firewood are real. And the whole scenario did flash through my mind. The thing even went as far as the midnight movement. And there was a time in my life when I would have gone through with it.

But now. Well. I am, alas, older and wiser. Too bad.

I stopped the young men. Paid them. But I had considered that my neighbor is a cunning devil with a wicked sense of humor. He would have got even. He would have paid the young men to stack the firewood in my bathroom. Not so funny.

Maybe I’m going through a desperate transitional phase like I did at age fifteen. I often have these loony ideas and come close to acting on them.

But. Maybe. And However.

The imagined memory must suffice sometimes.

If you only make it up, you never have to live it down.

"Puddles" by Robert Fulghum (excerpt)

2005-05-27T20:45:00.000-04:00

IT’S MAY IN CENTRAL PARK in New York City. An afternoon shower followed by seductive spring sunshine lures busy people off sidewalks and onto park benches. At 80^th Street and Fifth Avenue there’s a path into the park, on which the rain has left an obstacle course of puddles.

A small child, kitted out in full raingear, runs splashing through a puddle, “YAAAAAAAAHHH.” His mother, likewise rain-proofed, runs after him, shouting, “NO. NO. NO.” Catching his hand, she pulls him back onto dry land and barks sternly: “NO PUDDLES, Jacob. I told you: NO PUDDLES.”

The child strains outward and away from her like a guy wire from a tent in a windstorm. He whines. The mother pulls him further away down the path. The child upshifts into a wail. The mother tries to pick him up. The child goes limp and screams. It’s a standoff. A child-in-the-checkout-line-at-the-supermarket deal. And this kid is a black-belt screamer: “WHOOOAAAOOOYAAAA.” The mother is embarrassed. People are staring. (“What did she do to him?”)

A well-dressed middle-aged man observes from a nearby bench. He’s wearing polished black leather wing-tipped shoes. Between him and the mother-and-child hoo-ha is a large puddle. The man stands. Walks deliberately into the puddle, wing-tips and all. Grins. Shouts, “HEY-HEY-HEY.” Mother and child look up. The kid goes silent, stands still.

This scene is too good to be true. How can I stay out of this? I get up off my bench and walk into the puddle to stand beside the grinning man. I’m wearing serious leather sandals and socks. I grin at the man and the mom and the kid. A fashionably dressed young woman takes off her shoes and joins us, as does her dog.

The kid laughs, lets go of his mom’s hand, and marches into the puddle.

Now at center stage, the mom wears an expression of pained pleasure. She’s caught again in a parenthood paradox. On the one hand, the child must learn to mind. But, then, what harm can a puddle do if the kid is wearing rain boots? She doesn’t want him to get sick. But of course everybody knows you catch colds from germs on other peoples’ hands, not from puddles. It’s hard to back down when you’ve said “NO!” But it’s not wrong to change your mind. She doesn’t want her child to follow the example of strangers. But all these three people have done is to stand in the puddle and grin at her. How can so much be at stake over such a small event? What’s a good mother to do?

Being a parent always involves some hypocrisy. If she were a kid, she’d be in the puddle right now. She walked in puddles when she was a child and came to no harm. Her mom probably shouted “NO PUDDLES” at her, too. Does parenthood always mean being driven by the autopilot of the past?

All this races through the mom’s mind in nanoseconds. The waders and watchers are waiting. She can’t stand there forever.

The mom smiles. Laughs. Walks into the puddle. Her audience applauds.

The waders shake her hand, shake each other’s hands and go their ways.

The child has a pleased-but-stupefied look on his face.

Adults are weird. He will not understand how weird until he is one.

"Credo" by Robert Fulghum (excerpt)

2005-05-27T20:16:00.000-04:00

I realized that I already know most of what’s necessary to live a meaningful life - that it isn’t all that complicated. I know it. And have known it for a long, long time. Living it - well, that’s another matter, yes? Here’s my Credo:

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school. These are the things I learned:

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don’t hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life -learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

Wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and plants foes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own messes.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are - when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.