A Fistful of Essay: Volume 1

To all of our family, friends, knavish cats, and loyal fans that supported us throughout our first year

Table of Contents

1.

2.

Fake, Plastic Treehouses?

3.

4.

Boy Fun: An Adventure Story

Taste of Bitter Love

If Knowing is Half the Battle, I’d Rather Lose

5.

6.

7.

8.

The Greatest Story Ever Told Ever

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife

Thinking Outside the Mustache

The Net

9.

They Rode The Bus For Fun

10.

Let There Be Light

The Greatest Story Ever Told Ever matt kuehl

The Greatest Story Ever Told Ever

It’s

dark. I am panting. However, I know I shouldn’t. Panting is for dogs. And the walking dead. Shadows conceal us, but they can never be trusted. If rays of moonshine from behind a

cloud or the light of a motion sensor intervene, the darkness will abandon you.

What is worse out here amongst the dark and the eyes: the enemy you can trust, or the friend you cannot?

For now we are okay. Our enemies forget what it is like to be small and young. They don’t check for us everywhere; they don’t think we can hide behind the air conditioner. The longer we hide, though, the more powerful they become, and the more likely I will die, or worse, become one of them. Finally, an opportunity arises. The plan is risky, but the gamble is a calculated bet with a splash of divine intervention that loads the dice. This is the plan of legends, the type that turns peasants into heroes, heroes into legends, and makes the heavens envy man, if only for a brief moment. In a few minutes, our fate will be decided. As people shout names of our friends, we will soon be amongst the dead or will stand proudly on base, the winner of another night’s game of olly olly oxen free.

Hiding games like “hide-and-go-seek” and “olly olly oxen free” are perfect for children.1 First, children are small, agile, and as a result of being mostly cartilage and having more bones than adults, they can hide and contort themselves into seemingly impossible shapes. Most kids like to hide, too. Perhaps hiding’s appeal stems from a vestigial instinct from our primitive ancestors (e.g.

1

Perhaps barring those with physical impairments, though I won’t put anything past them; they

often have mad skills.

MATT KUEHL

little prehistoric kids’ adaptation for hiding from saber-toothed cats and other carnivorous organisms), but regardless, this trait makes kids kickass hiders. The beauty of hiding games is their sheer simplicity. First, hiding games can be played everywhere.2Also, to paraphrase a great scholar, hiding games are “cheap as free.” Even Milton Bradley won’t attempt to box and market it; there is nothing to buy. The poor and the rich are true equals in the realm of hiding games. However, the trait that defines hiding games as the ultimate childhood activity is this: Everyone has at least one glory story. For some, this is a tale of how they hid in a pile of leaves for an hour, or how they scaled a roof to dangerously reach a goal their parents would not have approved of if there was adult supervision. There are as many ways to win as there are kids. For one glorious game in our youths, we were the kings and queens of hide-and-go-seek. Each child has his own story.

Not to brag, but my tale of glory rivals the ingenuity of that kid from The Shining,3 though my story involves significantly fewer bleeding elevators. Let me set the scene. The location is a small suburban town during a summer night in 1991 or 1992. The only reason that I can be specific with the year is because the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles happened to be at the height of their popularity,

2

Except perhaps the vacuum of space, but with no air there, kids would have more to worry

about than lack of places to hide.

3

Spoiler Alert: The little boy in “The Shining” finally escapes a crazy (more so than usual), ax-

wielding Jack Nicholson by walking backwards in his own snowy footprints and then hiding. Jack follows his tracks only to find that they just stop, and the kid is nowhere in sight. The kid escapes while Jack gets confused and goes crazier; Jack freezes to death in his madness.

The Greatest Story Ever Told Ever and in response, I was wearing a black T-shirt with a neon Ninja Turtles screen print. That night, like many warm, not-so-late summer nights (my bedtime was well before 10:30 back then), the neighborhood boys all met up to play a hiding game called olly olly oxen free. We usually went to one particular neighbor kid’s house up the street for one reason only: He had the best backyard — dark, lots of trees and bushes, and connected with several other people’s backyards. My house was not an option, since our family had an unscalable six-foot-high wooden fence surrounding the perimeter of our backyard, a small Great Wall of Minnesota if you will. Good for protecting our home from invading Mongols, but bad for olly olly oxen free.

Before each night began, we always met to discuss the rules. In retrospect, these discussions were pointless. As kids, rules added an official feel to each game. This wasn’t simply a game of pretend; this was an intense competition. In a similar vein as those pregame meetings, I will describe the basic rules of that night’s game as a refresher for those of you who haven’t been a kid for a while, and because of the many existing regional variants 4 of olly olly oxen free.

As usual, there are two sides, the hiders and seekers. The seekers range from two to four people; the remaining kids, hide. The object of the game varies depending which side you are on. If you are a seeker, find the hiders and tag them; if you are a hider, get to “base.” Base, much like obtaining the Triforce in

4

While I have not written a thesis on the evolution and regional diversification of hiding games

throughout the continental United States, I encourage someone to do so. That would make for one hell of Ph.D. defense.

MATT KUEHL

the video game Legend of Zelda, is the only way to truly win the game. But unlike the Legend of Zelda, base was not nearly as magical as a floating golden triangle; rather, it usually was something like a pole or a car. Oh, and of course, though this rule is a given, seekers could not “guard base.”5 The rules were straightforward that night, too. The host of the game decided his deck would be base. I preferred the tree; its 360-degree radial symmetry afforded easy access to victory from any angle. The deck base was more cumbersome to reach. A hider had to take a single set of stairs located in a conspicuous location, or climb over railings; either way I knew I could make do. The rules were like every other night’s rules, with one exception. To remove a hider from play, a seeker only needed to see you and shout your name.

This last-minute rules modification posed a serious handicap for me and the hiders. No longer could I rely simply on my ability to dart between bushes and nimbly leap over chain-link fences to escape my predators, as in games past. Achieving victory would require much more. There was no objection to the new rule, though; we just wanted to play. We divided into hiders and seekers. I was a hider. The seekers closed their eyes and dreaded countdown began. We fled.

The hiders left in a group. This pack mentality is how the first seconds of our games always started out. This group mentality is an effective strategy for prey animals like zebras and sardines. However, children are devils. They are not loyal like our animal brethren. Besides, packs mentality may work well in the Serengeti, but we were a different type of prey. We continued to run. None of us were 5

Duh.

The Greatest Story Ever Told Ever counting, but we knew with each footstep we took, both sides were a few more counts closer to the beginning of the hunt.

We reached the opposite side of a house, and quickly, bodies began creeping into various hiding places. Some moved toward the coverage of dense foliage, wedging themselves within the branches and leaves, others to the shadows. However, not every bond was broken. Partnerships hold potential.

In this case, a boy, whose house was in front of the water tower, and I team up.

We move toward those veiled open spaces. A hider must constantly debate between visibility and flexibility. Hiding in bushes, under cars, or in old boats provides the best cover, but at the price of mobility. The consequences of discovery are high in those places, capture is inevitable. However, while detection is easier for those hiding in the shadows of trees and houses, escape for the hider is easier as well. Since we were both the same age, size, and speed, we preferred the shadows. Unlike the others, we could always rely on our speed to save us.

But perhaps, not in today’s game. In traditional olly olly oxen free, we could use our combined agility and tactics to outwit an indecisive seeker. More often than not, the person with too many choices will choose none at all. We sat silently. And we heard the names. I, for the life of me, can’t remember those names, but I remember the cringe, the little drops of cold sweat on my brow.

Each name heard was a lost comrade, a fellow lost to the voice of the seekers, tagged out by sound. We waited. The two of us were young, but too mature to act hastily. We knew we couldn’t hide forever, though. Even if we could, we

MATT KUEHL

both wanted to get to the base. A stalemate was the true mark of a kid who never lived.

Another minute went by. From the beginning, I knew I was at a disadvantage that night for one reason: Ninja Turtles. While I believed that the faces of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael enhanced my strength and agility,6 none of these provided the camouflage I desired. If exposed, my neon-print Ninja Turtles shirt would make me instantly recognizable.

We sat pondering. The stars came out, but the sky became darker and darker. I refused to believe Ninja Turtles could ever betray me. They always won. They were ninjas and the good guys, after all. If countless episodes of their cartoon taught me anything, it was that pizza was king, “cowabunga” was the greatest catchphrase ever, and you could wear bright-colored bandanas and have shells equivalently as bulky canoeing backpacks and still be the stealthiest ninjas the world has never known.

I cannot recall exactly when, but at some moment of heavenly inspiration, I channeled the fictional cosmic energy of either Donatello, Raphael, or a combination of the two. Perhaps they could help me win. Donatello was indeed the smartest ninja turtle. He was a strategist. While the others would try to beat the enemy with force, he usually devised a plan to outwit the enemy, (typically with machines7). Raphael was cool and rude, but also a straight shooter. When he wanted to go out on the streets in the 1990 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he didn’t get intimidated by the fact that he was a giant 6

Just like racing stripes make any car faster.

7

As the theme song says, “Donatello does machines.”

The Greatest Story Ever Told Ever green mutant in a half-shell. He put on a trench coat and went incognito. The power of Leonardo or the groovy moves of Michelangelo wouldn’t win this game. A Raph and Donny mindset could, though.

Still entrenched in shadows with my mentors in mind, I discovered the ultimate strategy: I would become someone else. Speed and anonymity were the ultimate defense. If they didn’t know my name, my opponents’ weapons were useless. However, I couldn’t be a stranger. I needed to be someone they knew. At this point, I realized the great temporary sacrifice necessary to win, but I believed (and still do to this day) that my Japanese reptilian guides understood. I took off my shirt and told the boy to give me his.8 Like Raph becoming your average Noir-looking detective in 1990s New York, my friend would be my disguise and his disguise would be me.

Next, we crept from the darkness. While we were fast, we could still be caught by the quick, older boys. With the logic of Donny, we decided to stalk the seekers. Finding them was easy, but staying hidden took skill. We had disguises, but we couldn’t reveal ourselves too quickly. Instead we found a point at which we were far enough away so they could see our shirts, but not our faces.

We planted ourselves in position. I stood out in the open with my back to them. My friend hid. The plan wouldn’t work if we were together. If they saw both of us and shouted both our names, the disguises wouldn’t matter; it was

8

Of course his shirt was 50 times less cool than my Ninja Turtles shirt since his shirt was not a Ninja

Turtles shirt.

MATT KUEHL

vital that only one person was spotted. Soon the seekers came. And soon they saw me. I sprinted and they chased while shouting a name.

“John!”

Their words were not my name.

“John, John, John.”

They kept shouting that name over and over and over. As I ran, my friends slipped behind them a reached the base.

“John!”

The seekers, in their hubris, kept chasing me. Perhaps, they wanted to catch me, tackle me, and hold me down until I confessed to cheating.

“John!”

I ran though. The loophole would soon be exposed. I ran past an oak tree, between a white truck and a basketball hoop.

“John!”

Then down a grassy hill alley. I wouldn’t stop to reveal the genius of my reversal, my great doppelganger foil.

“John!”

Finally, I ducked around the corner of the house. The deck was in sight.

And no one was around except for a few of the captured, and my friend. As I stepped onto the varnished wooden steps of victory, I was greeted by four other familiar neon-printed faces. From that day on, I knew at least two things to be true, in my heart: This would go down as the greatest game of olly olly oxen free ever, and what I always suspiciously knew was confirmed true — Ninja Turtles could do anything.

Fake, Plastic Tree Houses? john sharkey

Fake, Plastic Treehouses?

I

don’t consider myself a particularly jealous fellow. Generally, I’m able to live with myself if someone has a sweeter car, nicer apartment, or larger slice of cheesecake. However, there is at least one man of whom I can say I am

unequivocally jealous: Horrace Burgess of Crossville, TN. Why? Because he owns the sweetest treehouse in the world.

Now, I’ve built (read: mostly watched my grandpa build) a treehouse or two (read: one) in my time. And it was pretty sweet. There was (or, is; the tree’s still there) a tree in my backyard that was prime for housing. About ten feet or so off the ground, it split off, Y-shaped, and continued on. That joint was an excellent spot for some hot treehouse action. By building the base platform on both sides of the joint, we could create two—yes, two—rooms. Granted, one room was about two feet wide, but still: you could stand on either side.

Awesome: my treehouse could hold three, and maybe even four, people at once. Now, I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is “yes”: there was a rope ladder. Were there hand-rails along the perimeter? You bet your ass.

I admit, though, that Mr. Burgess has me beat. Where my treehouse had 20-odd square feet of floor-space, Burgess can counter with 8,000. I had one story; Burgess has ten (and counting). This is enough to earn my jealousy, because treehouses are awesome. And this awesomeness gives the treehouse an important power; the concept of the treehouse is powerful enough to make a grown man sink a huge wad of cash into a treemansion. Even if the treehouse is to some extent fading from modern childhood1 it remains a significant symbol of what it means to be a boy.

It doesn’t seem to be popping up as much nowadays—but then again, a reliable source informs me that a treehouse makes an appearance in a High School Musical movie. Maybe I’m just out of touch.

1

JOHN SHARKEY

Of course, here is where the questions set in. Why is a treehouse a boy thing (at least in theory)? There’s no reason why girls can’t think treehouses are the bee’s knees. And gender questions aside, the treehouse is a symbol of a very specific, idyllic version of American childhood—one that probably obscures more than it reveals.

In its ideal pop-culture form, the treehouse serves as a powerful metaphor for boyhood. It’s outdoorsy and it involves a hammer, nails, and sweat; these are traditionally “male” traits, and girls who dare enjoy such things are often tagged with the “tomboy” label. Consider Calvin and Hobbes, the greatest comic strip of all time. His considerable vocabulary aside, Calvin is the prototypical boy, and so he must have a treehouse. His treetop fort is home to G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS), the secret society headed by Supreme Dictator for Life Calvin and President/First Tiger Hobbes. But G.R.O.S.S. lets Calvin do more than bestow upon himself impressive titles; its primary purpose is to exclude Susie, Calvin’s antagonist (and possible crush, but we’ll get back to that in a minute).

Children are powerless: they can’t drive, vote, or buy guns (not even at gun shows!). And as we all know, that helplessness can be maddening for a kid who is just getting old enough to realize all of his/her limitations. Enter the treehouse, where the kid is king—or Supreme Dictator for Life. (At least until bedtime.) It’s a space in which the child can control everything: rules, decorum, access. And as a preferred space, the treehouse holds several advantages over a child’s other choices. The bedroom is fine, but it’s only a province within the larger nation-state of the house, and as such occasionally (for example, when it’s time to pick up dirty laundry) falls under superior jurisdiction. Public places, like the mall, lack discerning taste in those allowed inside. Plus, no other choice is as ideal for SuperSoaker fights as is the treehouse.

Fake, Plastic Treehouses?

The treehouse does have some limitations, though: namely, not having a whole lot to do once you’re up there. You can chuck water balloons, or install a piece of plywood on which to rest snacks. But really, beyond that feeling of control, the treehouse affords relatively little in the way of positive, active power.

You can do anything, but there isn’t anything to do. And so, enter exclusion.

Indeed, the most important benefit of the treehouse (when properly equipped with retractable access) is the ability to pick and choose those allowed inside.2 That’s real power—power which Calvin uses to its full effect in his ongoing struggle against the forces of cooties. As the name of G.R.O.S.S. makes clear, it is an essentially sexist organization, existing solely to isolate those lacking the slimerepelling Y chromosome.

Definition-by-exclusion is such a common adolescent process it probably doesn’t require much exploration; suffice it to say that when we’re just beginning to form self-identities, being clear about what we are not is an easy starting point. G.R.O.S.S. and the treehouse allow Calvin to physically manifest this idea, as he excludes Susie and occasionally pelts her with buckeyes.

But secretly, Calvin is torn. He puts up a macho front, but there’s a side of him that finds the opposite sex intriguing. That side is, of course, Hobbes, who frequently fraternizes with the enemy. (The enemy apparently gives good bellyrubs.) As long as we remember that Hobbes only exists in Calvin’s head, we can see how the combination of G.R.O.S.S. and the treehouse serve as a tree-top flirtation device. Since Calvin is only six, he isn’t quite ready to admit that (and part of him clings to a cootie-free philosophy), but the seeds are planted.

“Inside” here used in a relative sense, of course. Unless you managed to build a roof, in which case: bravo.

2

JOHN SHARKEY

Assumedly, as Calvin ages his treehouse will take on a slightly different role in his life—perhaps the role illustrated in South Park. In the second-season episode “Clubhouses,” Stan and Kyle set out to build a treehouse. Since both lads are a few years older than Calvin, their goal has shifted. The treehouse is still all about girls, but now the idea is to bring them in, not shut them out; specifically, they must build a treehouse so that they can play truth or dare in it.

Stan is sure that once they have a treehouse, they can use it to play truth or dare with girls, and he will get dared to kiss Wendy (his girlfriend). They still do some excluding, but instead of cutting out the girls, they organize against their friend Cartman (who proceeds to build his own treehouse). And while the rickety treehouse never does get Stan any action, in the end it saves his parents’ marriage: on the outs, Stan’s parents meet in the treehouse and rekindle their romance with a game of truth or dare.

The point here (insofar as an episode of South Park can be said to have a point) is to illustrate the power of nostalgia for one’s childhood—it’s strong enough to save a seemingly-doomed marriage. But the story of the parents, combined with what we see Stan and his friends experience, suggests something slightly different. The treehouse affects much more strongly the lives of the adults than those of the kids, because they can look back on tree-top encounters through the rose-colored glasses of time. The contrast between the experience of the kids and that of the adults is the key: the kids are living in a real-world, present version of their childhood, in which things are imperfect. But when the adults play truth or dare, they can rely on perfect memories of things that may never have happened.

Once you cut through the rest, South Park is suggesting that the way we look back on childhood deviates wildly from how it actually was. All the bad, awkward bits get forgotten over time—washed over in favor of a sterile,

Fake, Plastic Treehouses?

pleasant ideal. This is how the treehouse-as-symbol works generally within popculture. It is the ideal that maybe never was. But this is not the treehouse’s fault (because, remember: treehouses are sweet). Instead, it’s part of a much more general phenomenon.

Think of all the assumptions involved the aforementioned ideal treehouse childhood. For one, it’s male, erasing any female role except that of object (to be either excluded or lured inside). There’s an expectation of heterosexuality, too: no room for a group of boys playing truth or dare. And the whole picture is either suburban or rural. Calvin has a forest behind his house, and the South Park kids live in a quiet little mountain town. For any of this to work, a kid has to have at least a back yard with a tree in it. And once we’re into a rural/suburban environment, we’re talking about an overwhelmingly white setting.

The treehouse, as it exists in the popular conscience, is part of the larger tendency to consider the white, male, hetero, suburban experience the universal one. But, of course, that has never been an accurate picture. I don’t think I’m breaking any stunning new ground by pointing that out—embracing the ideal of the treehouse childhood ignores the way in which the vast majority of the country grew up.

Every time a TV talking-head makes a casual reference to white males as the “regular folks,” we’re dealing with the same tendency. Or when a majorparty vice-presidential candidate talks about how small towns are the “real America.” Or when a craggy old pol writes a column titled “Traditional Americans are losing their nation,” and ends it by saying, “America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.” When Buchanan, Palin, and Matthews use that kind of language, they’re calling on a very specific type of nostalgia—the treehouse America, where everyone left it to Beaver and

JOHN SHARKEY

occasionally took fishing trips with Andy Griffith. As I mentioned before, that isn’t the America that most people experience. The chattering class is embracing a supposedly-shared cultural memory that is more fiction than fact.

So, the treehouse seems to symbolize nothing more than pure invention.

As a marker of a larger common culture, it has meaning only to a specific slice of the population. And as the South Park example shows, those of us who feel a particular personal nostalgia towards the treehouse are using it to symbolize a clean-scrubbed, idealized version of our own pasts. This is an understandable situation; after all, nostalgia is a powerful force. It gives us an escape from an imperfect present by offering an imagined version of that perfect past.

Unfortunately, innocent bystanders like the treehouse get swept up in the nostalgic current.

That’s where Horrace Burgess comes in. What his skyscraper in the trees offers us is a way out of nostalgia’s grip. Building a ten-story treehouse in adulthood is a statement: he has decided not to rest on nostalgia. Obviously, Burgess has some fond memories of a childhood perch, but instead of simply succumbing to some kind of falsified memory of youthful awesomeness he acted to make his present tangibly kick-ass. That’s a hard thing to do. Memories don’t take any work. You don’t have to drive a few thousand nails to remember sitting on a rickety wooden platform when you were nine. Acting on that memory to make something enjoyable in the here-and-now is admirable.

And that’s why I envy him—not because he put a basketball hoop in a treehouse (although that is sweet as well), but because he had motivation and drive enough to create a present-tense piece of excellence that takes the role of idle (and generally falsified) nostalgia. That’s an impressive display of carpe diem, one worthy of some genuine jealousy.

Boy Fun: An Adventure Story sarah steadland

Boy Fun: An Adventure Story

Okay,

I‟ll admit…It was entertaining. My downstairs neighbors were terrorizing the sorority that backed up to our duplex (terrorizing is a little strong but what

else do you call running half-naked around a parking lot and yelling „Sororowhores‟?). We had an epic rivalry with that house. From my spot on a balcony overlooking the mayhem, I was alternately laughing at their antics and cocking a judgmental eyebrow at their immaturity.

But mostly I was paying attention to Jack Steele, the deliciously cute sledneck (that‟s the Minnesota version of a redneck: someone really obsessed with snowmobiles and Fox racing jackets-so not my type…usually) visiting my downstairs neighbors for the weekend.

“Oh my god, what is Paul wearing?” I asked, squinting down at my slightly mentally unstable housemate.

“Is that a G-string?” Jack Steele wondered.

“I think so. Yeah.” We got the giggles. Somehow this didn‟t surprise me about Paul. The fact that he owned a G-String went along well with his roommate Corey‟s theory that Paul was a secret male stripper. Could it be true?

Jack Steele and I went on talking and cuddling. I was having such a lovely evening gazing into his Josh Hartnett eyes that you can imagine my surprise when I heard a voice from below me shout: “I‟m gonna break your fuckin‟ door down!”

SARAH STEADLAND

Unable to see where that had come from, I laughed. “Why?” I asked.

Then Jack Steele was dragging me into the house, where Paul and his friend Taylor and some guy whose age kept fluctuating between 15 and 18 (we‟ll call him Questionably Young Kid, or QYK) were already freaking out. It happened really quickly; I was completely disoriented. Before I could ask what was going on, Paul was hurrying us all downstairs into the basement. He unlocked our landlord‟s huge utility room with the key that he‟d once discovered hanging on the wall. This key gave us access to endless free cleaning supplies and keys to half the houses in the Dinkytown neighborhood. It was so against the rules.

“What‟s going on?!?” I kept asking, but Paul waited until we were safely locked in the utility room with all the lights out before he answered me.

“Ellie, that was the cops. Either the sorority or the Christian housing collective next to them called them. You and Jordan are underage so we have to hide you.”

“So are you!” I protested.

“Ha. Please. I have a military fake ID. Cops don‟t mess with soldiers.”

“And I‟m not even drinking, I‟m the only sober one here! They‟re just here ‟cause of your noise.” Not listening to me, Paul searched the room by the light of his cell phone, and found an empty metal utility cabinet that would fit both me and QYK. “What! No way,” I said, as QYK squeezed into the small space and Paul forced me into it also. In the dark I could just barely see the apologetic look on Jack Steele‟s pretty face. “No way, no way, no way. I am so not a part of this!

Boy Fun: An Adventure Story

Just let me go to bed!”

“You can‟t go upstairs,” Paul said with frightening force. “They‟ll see you and we‟ll all go to jail!”

“No we won‟t! I haven‟t been doing anything wrong! Just let me go to bed,” I said. Paul closed the door of the cabinet. “I‟m the sober one here, you‟re being unreasonable!” I yelled from inside the cabinet, but the other guys were gone already. I heard them creep out of the utility room. They were off to see if the cop car was still outside. “Ugh, this is ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” QYK agreed.

“Hiding from the cops. Why me? I wasn‟t even doing anything! I wasn‟t drinking, I wasn‟t annoying that sorority.” I took my cell phone out of my pocket and used it to light up the interior of the cabinet. This might be the time you expect one of us to start having a panic attack. Claustrophobia‟s quite a common problem, and the space we were in was extremely cramped. But if anything, I‟m actually claustrophilic, if there‟s such a thing; I love small spaces.

And I love hiding. So beneath my terror of getting in trouble because of Paul‟s decision to hide from the police officer, I was also loving the suspense.

“Paul‟s crazy,” QYK stated.

“Yep. So how old are you?”

“18.”

“Why‟d they say you‟re 15?”

SARAH STEADLAND

“Dunno.”

“If they would just let me go to sleep, I could get out of this whole situation.”

“I think it‟s kinda fun.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I kind of think so too. But god, if we get in trouble for not letting the cops in…”

“We won‟t. They‟re not even busting us for drinking. They don‟t give a shit about noise complaints. This is a college neighborhood.”

“True,” I said. “But I‟m guessing they‟re not going to be happy that we‟ve barricaded ourselves in here. Let‟s hope they don‟t see it as a fun challenge.

Find the hidden college kids.” We sat in silence. Dum-de-dum. From above us came the noise of the guys running up and down the stairs. I figured if the cops were still lurking outside, QYK and I did have the best spot in the house. I decided to stop fighting my forced imprisonment. I chatted with QYK about school (he claimed he went to community college but I wasn‟t so sure), his juvenile record, and the dangers of being friends with Paul.

Suddenly the guys were back. They saw my cell phone and took it from me.

“The cop‟s still here, he‟s circling the house. Be silent,” Taylor said in his ultra-manly deep voice.

Boy Fun: An Adventure Story

“Why are you wearing a G-String?” I asked Paul innocuously. He ignored me. They left again, this time leaving me and QYK in pitch darkness. We had nothing to say. I tried not to think about all the spiders inside the cabinet with us.

“Alright. I‟ve had enough. I‟m sneaking into my apartment and going to bed,” I said. “Mission acquired.”

“Good luck.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling into the pitch darkness. Okay, this whole snafu was getting kind of fun. I climbed silently out of the cabinet and braced myself for the impossible task ahead of me. I would have to creep up 5 flights of creaky stairs without running into Paul and the others. It would require ultimate stealth.

They were running all over the house now, I could hear them. I began dashing quietly up the stairs, stopping at every landing to peer around the corner.

Somehow, the coast was clear all the way up. I reached the door to my topfloor apartment and found it locked. Oh no. Was it worth it to wake up my roommates? Thinking back, I should have been worrying more about myself and less about interrupting their precious sleep. But it wouldn‟t have worked anyway; I later learned that the door was locked because Paul had repeatedly banged on the door to be let in. Hypocrite. He knew my apartment was the safe zone.

To me, he had claimed the cops would knock down every door in the house and arrest us all, even though they were separate apartments. I knew I needed to be on the other side of the door. My room was my only hiding place from the guys. But as I stood there deciding what to do, Paul ran up the stairs behind me and grabbed me by the wrist. I was again banished to the cabinet. He was obviously overreacting to the situation. I felt like the only rational person in the house.

SARAH STEADLAND

It didn‟t take long for me to wriggle my way out again and declare that I was going to be a part of the patrol team. I might as well join the fun they were obviously having. The cops were gone, but crazy Paul thought we still weren‟t safe. It was strange to be the only girl running wild with a bunch of guys, especially when one of them was only wearing a black G String. This would never happen with my wine-swilling, socially-conscious, book-nerd girl friends. I realized this was what boy fun was like. It was kind of entertaining, in a one-timeonly kind of way. It was like fart jokes or throwing burritos at your friends‟ cars: even the most ladylike of us girls like to indulge in boy fun from time to time.

We were all sitting on the steps somewhere in the labyrinth of staircases.

“Are you a male stripper?” I asked Paul.

He considered whether to tell me or not, but when you‟re drunk you always want to tell secrets. “Yeah, I am. Men of Steel.”

“Oh my god! I mean, I sort of suspected it but…”

“Yeah, it‟s a great job. I get paid to go party with hot older women. The company provides us with drinks and security guards. It‟s awesome. I‟ve been trying to get pretty-boy Jack Steele to be a stripper too. His name‟s perfect for it.”

Jack Steele laughed it off awkwardly.

“This is the craziest night of my life,” I said. This running from floor to floor at the whim of Paul the Stripper continued for like an hour. He was sure that the police would come back and get us.

Boy Fun: An Adventure Story

Finally, Paul got over his paranoia and we all went to clean up after the party he‟d thrown earlier that evening. A few minutes into the process, there was a knock on the door and the words, “It‟s the police.” We were all accounted for, so it wasn‟t a prank.

“That‟s enough, I‟m out of here,” I said, heading for the stairs to my apartment. Thankfully the door was unlocked now. I brushed my teeth and put on pajamas and crawled into my tiny little twin bed. Ten minutes later, there was the loud and distinct sound of Paul knocking on the door. He would do this all night if I didn‟t answer the door-I would know. That was quite a frequent problem in our apartment. I sighed and got out of bed. I opened the door and Paul and Jack Steele were standing in the hallway.

I let them in. We sat on my bed and talked about the night.

“They can‟t do anything if you don‟t let them in,” Paul said, explaining his decision to ignore the cops once again.

“They can tell our landlord about this whole ordeal,” I said.

“Whatever, Ellie. Tom doesn‟t mess with us. He knows we‟re soldiers and we get what we want.”

“Okay, it‟s five in the morning. I need to sleep,” I said. Instead of leaving, though, the guys climbed into bed with me. I was too tired to protest, though I made sure there were at least 3 blankets between me and Paul‟s G String.

Gross. Somehow we fell asleep like that.

Taste of Bitter Love tara sloane

Taste of Bitter Love

Emma:

When I go, I go at five.

Hugh will still be sleeping, snoring (―breathing heavily,‖ he calls it),

the corners of his mouth turned up in that content smile I’ve come to love. He wears it often, when he’s washing dishes at the coffee shop, humming along to Gladys Knight and the Pips, or to Ashford and Simpson, or to some obscure record he discovered whilst perusing a fusty old shop in North London or whilst sorting (for the thousandth time) through the myriad albums sold from crusty cardboard boxes on Portabello Road. He wears it when he’s painting, too, and when he’s visiting the Turners at the Tate Britain, and when he thinks I don’t know he’s there, watching me scour the London Evening Standard, absentmindedly stirring the next day’s batch of my specialty butternut squash soup and musing at the weight of the world (which never seems to burden his chest). Do I look at him the same way?

We alternate days opening the coffee shop — our coffee shop. Taste of Bitter Love, we named it, after the song by Gladys Knight and the Pips.

Customers are always curious about the name, the story behind which we never bothered to keep secret. I should make up some wild tale someday, maybe about some tragic love affair and how I came up with it whilst crying in my soup.

But the shop was a romantic idea, really: The reckless, tone-deaf musician’s daughter whose gap year had turned into an eight-year chasm of wandering, of travelling, of dabbling in this and experimenting with that, finally coming together at the doorstep of an aspiring painter and art history graduate, whose dream to open an artist’s café became our shared dream, the thing that would anchor a romance sparked (fittingly) along the shores of Brighton. He was in residency when we met; I was living with my sister — well, reassembling, I should

Tara Sloane

say — after my latest public art piece on the death of childhood via modernity was less than well received, to say the least (maybe I should have built my own swing set to burn?). The art world may love controversy — just ask Andres Serrano or Damien Hirst — but it has no patience for a feeble concept. One of those things I learnt the hard way.

Taste of Bitter Love is supposed to be a place for artists to escape from all that, at least that’s what Hugh wants. After all, what place is more comfortable, more normal than a coffee shop? Hugh is rarely happier than when the studio in the basement is occupied by an up-and-coming sculptor, writer, or printmaker, and I admit, Hugh’s giddiness has always been infectious. He thinks I don’t know he coaches them, tries to cram names and dates and movements and theories into their heads when they’ve taken a break from working. ―Is he always like that?‖ they ask me, over second helpings of butternut squash soup. Subtlety has never been Hugh’s strong suit, something I’ve always found endearing. For Hugh, the world is black and white. For Hugh, art works or it doesn’t, it’s art or it isn’t. I often find myself wishing I could see the world like that, as a place of absolutes.

Or maybe I just wish I could believe as much in Hugh’s vision for this coffee shop as I believe in the aspirations of the artists who come here, in their passion, however raw, to shape the world for the better. If you ask me, art was never supposed to be comfortable. Their future is not ours for the moulding. But no one ever does.

Hugh: When I go, I go at four.

Emma will still be sleeping, breathing softly, a tangled mass of blankets, hair, and limbs, her pillow flung halfway across the room. How anyone can sleep so tumultuously is beyond me. Sometimes I wake in wee hours to her muttering or laughing in her sleep, and once, she was actually humming. Who hums in

Taste of Bitter Love

their sleep? (She denies it, of course.) I never know what to expect with Emma, one of the reasons I love her. She’s my foil, impulsive, intuitive, charismatic, my warning nudge when I start slipping too far into my daily routine without realizing it. It’s become a bit of a private joke, really, what Hugh the Art Historian would be without his Emma: a bumbling bachelor, too intelligent to be socially adept (her words, not mine), who spends his days romancing museums and whose greatest joy in life is his record collection. The joke always ends the same: I say I’m only with her for her butternut squash soup, and, eyes ablaze, she slaps me with whatever she’s holding and we laugh and laugh and everything is right with the world.

Emma marks the point in my life where everything fell into place. Growing up, I never questioned that I would be a painter. I was a quiet child, one of those boys whose understanding of the world was entirely crafted from books devoured one after another in the public library by day, and upon the carpet of his mother’s cosy Kensington studio by night. I never knew my father. My mother, a writer, never spoke of him, save that he had left her for his real soul mate, rock and roll. I guess my own reverence for music comes from him, cliché as it may be. But it was my mother who introduced me to the world of art; so many nights of my childhood were spent thumbing through her collection of art books — Monet, Turner, Rothko, Klimt. It only made sense, then, that I try my own hand at oil on canvas. It wasn’t until my first year at uni that I realised it wasn’t enough to simply make art. I wanted to know it fully, to have an understanding of every artist, every movement, every medium. And three years later, there I was, an art history graduate with nothing better to do than a residency in Brighton, a residency that, if nothing else, compelled me to help foster the next generation of artists, if only by providing them their own cosy space to reflect, to sip cappuccinos and escape from the world. The question was, how?

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And the answer was Emma. I’ve always been more of a visionary, you see.

The mechanics of running a business were lost on me. But Emma makes it seem effortless. Apparently she’d helped run a restaurant in Dublin during her gap years, or was it a bike rental business in Amsterdam? The gap between Emma’s childhood and when she met me has always seemed cavernous to me. I know she’s seen half the world, but what was she doing in each new place? I’m forever trying to piece her together, and I’d be lying if I said that mysterious quality wasn’t what compelled me to her in the first place. In fact, it still does. It was her idea to have a studio in the basement. Sometimes the best thing you can do for in artist is give her space to work, was her reasoning, her solution to that powerlessness I feel when I look at the modern art world. I still don’t know if I agree with her; how can one create art if they’ve no knowledge of the world in which they are working? If you ask me, those hooligans who kill sharks to preserve in formaldehyde and call it art could benefit from a bit of aesthetics.

But I’ll settle for sharing my knowledge with the artists in our studio when Emma isn’t around to shoo me away.

Emma: It takes me seven minutes to get from my flat to Farringdon station, and twelve if I stop at the cash machine. I remember the day he added to it; people flocked Rosebery Avenue to see it, to snap a photograph or two in case it disappeared. Hugh opened the shop that morning — something I’ve always regretted, even though I had no way of knowing. I pass that cash machine every day on my way to the tube; how wonderful to have been one of the first to see it changed! But then again, would I have even stopped? Would I have taken the faster route to Farringdon station that morning, only to realise my mistake hours later when, once word had spread from passerby to passerby, some enthusiastic young art lover would flutter into the shop, breathless, eyes sparkling and cheeks glowing, the name ―Banksy‖ on her lips?

Taste of Bitter Love

To be honest, Banksy was my first true love. What adolescent girl doesn’t love a rebel? But whilst my friends flitted adorations from one untouchably beautiful punk-rocker to another, I didn’t need to know what Banksy looked like to adore him. How fortunate, as not even Banksy’s manager knows his true identity. Even to this day he remains anonymous, indestructible, the great mystery of my youth. I fear the day the world meets Banksy face to face, if only because the papers and the Bobbies could finally catch up with him. But the infatuation was never solely mine, you see. Even before the world had come to know him by that name, anti-establishment and anti-capitalist Banksy was the hero of my childhood neighbourhood. Maybe it was that he shared our gritty Bristol roots, or maybe it was that each new tag by freehand graffiti group DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), where Banksy got his start, felt like (a ridiculously cool) someone actually understood our angst, our discontent, but we couldn’t get enough of Banksy. When you’re sixteen and stir-crazy, few things are more satisfying than the oozing of fluorescent paint upon the sad brick buildings of your boring, oppressive hometown. That it pissed off all of our parents only made it that much more appealing.

But I loved Banksy for more than just his politics. I loved him for his anonymity, for the temporality of his work. If I’ve learnt one thing from my own artwork, however rudimentary, it’s just how much of the art world centres on immortality.

It’s as maddening as it is enticing, the notion that my work could render me immortal, that the work of today’s artists could help ensure this world we’ve built is never completely forgotten. Just look at museums and the lengths to which they go to ensure the precious artworks of the world survive the decades to come! If only it were as simple as preservation, that the life of a work was not contingent upon its ability to cause viewers to feel… something. That artist’s dilemma — how to create that thing that would shake the world — still gnaws at my chest from time to time, like when I’m exhausted from a long day at the shop, or when it’s rained for days, or when Hugh is travelling. This life we’ve built

Tara Sloane

has brought more colour to my cheeks than any of my artistic endeavours, but on those vulnerable days I find it nearly impossible to keep at bay the lingering fear that I’ve fallen from grace, the creeping shame of spending my days making Milky Doubles instead of art. New and better coffee shops pop up every day. What if I die and my greatest legacy is butternut squash soup?

But it was Hugh’s lips that brought the news. He had read it in the Standard, had seen people gawking at it on his way home. I could see him fuming, could feel his distaste as, hanging up his coat and umbrella, he told me that wanker Banksy had once again defaced the streets of Farringdon. This city is mad, he scoffed, London is home to some of the greatest art in the world, and yet it’s rubbish like Banksy that makes the Evening Standard every time he opens a can of spray paint. Banksy’s latest charade had produced a cash point, he ranted, out of which jutted a mechanical arm grasping a small girl. Disgusting. I didn’t mention that the cash point had already been there, that only the mechanical arm was new. Hugh had been in Japan when the cash point first appeared, and when graffiti artist D*Face had made it appear to be spewing dozens of fake tenners featuring Princess Diana’s face. ―His latest effort could be a comment on high street banks making record profits or their apparent reluctance to repay customers unfair penalty charges,‖ Hugh read aloud from the Standard. And who’s having to pay for Banksy’s rubbish? Utter bollocks. He was still muttering about a disgrace to the art world as he filled the tea kettle with water. I had joined him for our evening cuppa, changing the subject to the new record I’d seen poking out of his briefcase. I’d long since given up arguing with the art historian on the validity of graffiti art; I would go see the cash point once he’d fallen asleep.

Hugh:

Taste of Bitter Love

It’s Wednesday, my morning to open the shop. The tube isn’t open yet, but I prefer the bus anyways. Cleaner air, fewer people, a better view, no rats.

Not even the dulcet tones of buskers or the steady page-flipping of the dailies or the drilling of my own thoughts as they bounce from worry to plan to responsibility can distract me from the rats that live in the grimy underbelly of the tube. It’s embarrassing, but even thinking of them now makes me shudder. And don’t get me started on the suicides. Every other day a line is down due to a person under the train. It’s depressing. The tube may connect every corner of London, but a double-decker bus is the only way to travel, if only for the view from the top level (Tourists aren’t the only ones who find it magical). Besides, a ride on the 55 to Leyton/Baker’s Arms has never made me blow black into my tissue.

It’s still dark when I alight the bus. Rain is pouring down in torrents. I catch myself cursing it and laugh to myself. It always rains in London, and yet, we always complain. It’s not even that I mind the rain. Thirty-one years in this city leaves you pretty used to damp feet. It’s comforting, really, falling asleep to drip drip dripping on the pavement and then waking up to spotty windowpanes and the same watery cadence that had lulled you under. Warm, dry things are more comforting, and nobody feels the need to hurry through after work pints at The Slug and Lettuce. Another Leffe is infinitely more appealing than bumping brollies (yet again) with fellow passersby and having their runoff leave polka dots on your coat sleeve. But still we complain, even louder so when it’s too hot or too cold. And don’t even get me started on London snowstorms. You’d think they cancelled the World Cup, people are so put out. The entire city is turned upside down when it snows — everything closes early, transportation becomes even more unreliable than usual, the Evening Standard has a field day. I guess Londoners just love something to complain about, if not solely for the sake of conversation. Either that, or we’re just thin-skinned.

Tara Sloane

I saw a Banksy rat once. On a derelict building in Liverpool. How could I miss it? It had to be at least two storeys high. It was holding a marker of some sort, was signing Banksy’s name or something like that. The council decided to keep it up; they wanted to encourage local graffiti artists to beautify the other rundown buildings of Liverpool. As if graffiti could ever be beautiful. I’ll never understand it, how anyone could say graffiti and art are synonymous. Graffiti is a nuisance, the stuff of hoodlums with nothing better to do than write their names in bulky fluorescent letters, over and over again, in the most inconvenient of spaces. And even if graffiti artists really are just trying to deliver a message or challenge people to ponder the error of their ways, then why would they use such a flimsy medium? All it takes is some cheeky bastard or (rightfully) angry official to come along with his paint roller, and voilà, they’ve achieved nothing.

Nothing but a wall even more uninspiring than it was when they were through with it. Banksy rats pop up from time to time — Emma said there’s even one in Cuba. Apparently they inspire him. ―If you are dirty, insignificant and unloved, then rats are the ultimate role model,‖ says a book Emma keeps in the shop.

Well, you at least he got his role model right. Fucking Banksy.

The truth is, it scares me, this depreciation of what we call art. It seems the modern artist concentrates more on shock value than aesthetics. Like they’re more worried about getting their name out there than creating something that benefits people. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with fame — even Dalí had his own masquerade ball in New York City — but you have to have the talent to back it up. At least Dalí’s paintings, however controversial, required an incredible amount of technical skill. I refuse to give an artist personality points — obviously if you’re painting with your own bodily fluids you’re a bit of a character. But to impose upon the viewer a cast of your head made from your own frozen blood? These contemporary artists dream up the most revolting ideas and Charles Saatchi buys their work for millions of pounds and glorifies it in his gallery of monstrosities. But is it in the name of art, or in the name of business?

Taste of Bitter Love

Maybe I’m just not forward-thinking enough, but years of studying the most skilled artists in the world makes a person wonder where all today’s prodigies are hiding. Maybe they’re just too discouraged if all it takes is a tag on a building to draw the whole city into a frenzy.

I remember the day Banksy first rampaged our neighbourhood. It was a Friday, and I was on my way home from the shop when I heard the news. Leave it to the Evening Standard to proclaim it. Banksy graffiti makes a (cash) point. So that’s what those kids had been buzzing about in the shop earlier. What is it with teenagers and graffiti? I wouldn’t have been so aggravated had the work not been right in the middle of my walk home. In plain sight. And all those people taking pictures! Since when has vandalism been a photo op? I tried to compose myself before I got to the flat, but I was still fuming as I hung up my coat and umbrella. I could see Emma bracing herself; she could see my distaste. That wanker Banksy has once again defaced the streets of Farringdon, I told her, with more scoff than I had intended. This city is mad. London is home to some of the greatest art in the world, and yet it’s rubbish like Banksy that makes the Evening Standard every time he opens a can of spray paint. Banksy’s latest charade was a cash point, I explained, out of which jutted a mechanical arm grabbing a small girl. Disgusting. ―His latest effort could be a comment on high street banks making record profits or their apparent reluctance to repay customers unfair penalty charges,‖ I read aloud from the Standard. And who’s having to pay for Banksy’s rubbish? Utter bollocks. While I filled the tea kettle with water, Emma, bless her, made very obvious attempts to change the subject. We listened to the new record I’d found, Gil Scott-Heron’s ―Pieces of a Man,‖ over our evening cuppa, and I told her about the new shop I’d found off of Portobello Road. It had been awhile since Emma had defended graffiti to me, something I’ve always felt a little guilty about. I hated to think I’d silenced her in any way. I still do. But I didn’t let myself worry too much; if I know Emma, she’d have sneaked out that night to see the cash point.

Tara Sloane

*** Emma: It is cold, rainy, and even more dark than usual when I leave my flat. It’s Thursday, my day to open the shop, and I am tired and queasy. Yesterday was a vulnerable day, and Hugh and I had spent the evening arguing. My insecurities dig into him like terrified fingernails; he doesn’t understand why he can not fix them — fix me — and to be honest, neither do I. I never could bring myself to explain to him fully the circumstances that brought me to Brighton. He paints so beautifully, so assuredly; he sleeps so soundly. And whilst he’s studied every movement under the sun, he will never see how the whims of a common vandal could ever compare to the countless hours and brushstrokes, the impeccable use of line, of colour, of form, of quality of light, the purity of vision, the sheer propensity of human talent shown so blatantly in a Monet or a Rothko or a Klimt. In fact, he finds them offensive and utterly ridiculous. And whilst I’m sure he could support me if I decided to revisit blazing swing sets (once he overcame the shock, that is), I doubt whether he could ever see my work as serious art. Painting had faded from dream to pastime with his youth, and didn’t we both want this coffee shop?

These thoughts tear holes in me as autopilot takes me to Farringdon station (I do not visit the cash point), through the turnstile, down the stairs, up the stairs, down the other stairs, to my platform, on the next train to Liverpool Street, off that train, up the escalator to the Central Line Platform, onto the next train to Epping. The voice of the tube brings me back to Earth. This station is Bethnal Green. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. The doors open, and my nostrils are flooded with the warm, stagnant air of one hundred years of dirt and sweat, of repair and disrepair, of motion and friction, of rats. Though at times repulsive and unreliable, the tube comforts me in its familiarity, in the steady way it carries me to every part of this city I call home. It’s a London constant, you

Taste of Bitter Love

could say, even if it turns your nose to charcoal. A necessary evil. Its dark tunnels connect us all.

Hugh: Someone tagged a billboard on Old Street. I saw it from the bus window.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The letters were oozing down the billboard, an advert for a telecommunications company. Those hoodlums think they’re so witty, don’t they? So revolutionary. I make a mental note to change the quote on our specials board. The wanker has probably never even heard of Gil ScottHeron. At least it wasn’t Banksy again, although he’s probably busy painting rats under Regent’s Canal. This city is mad. And blimey! Will it ever stop raining?

If Emma is ever up in arms about the weather, then I’d never know. She rarely complains about the trivial things. London rains, espresso machines break, ends don’t always meet. It’s amazing, really. Customers are forever complimenting her unwaveringly cheery disposition. That’s how I know when something’s eating her – she wavers. She’s been quiet for days now – not sullen, but not contemplative either. Just… quiet. Defeated, maybe. We quarrelled last night. When it rains it pours, no? How fitting. I just wanted to know what was eating her, what I could do to fix it. She’s afraid she’s not doing enough. She never imagined her life would be scrubbing dishes at a coffee shop. But what does she want, then? As always, I am met with silence.

I found a paint can in the bin outside the shop. It was fresh. I was delivering more take away cups when I saw it. We had enough to get through the day, but I guess I just wanted to check on Emma – she left an hour earlier this morning than she usually does. She was laughing with a customer when I entered. Maybe a new artist for our studio? I kiss her on the cheek, and she smiles. This is my partner, Hugh, she tells the woman, and they share that look that says they’d just been talking about me. But she just wants to know where I

Tara Sloane

found ―Pieces of a Man,‖ and I tell her, throwing in a few ―I bet you didn’t know this about the artist‖s (I can’t help myself, really). Emma looks tired, but there’s an unfamiliar spark in her eye. Satisfaction? Triumph? But now I’m thinking too far into things. I put on ―Pieces of a Man‖ and check to see if Emma needs anything else before I make my way to Portabello Road. She doesn’t. I won’t tell her my suspicions, at least not now. Let her have her secret, if it’s even hers. Some things are best kept covered up.

Emma: If Banksy has ever worried about immortality, then you’d never know. His work revolves around the present, the immediate, the temporary, and for me, it is this very quality that gives a Banksy work its magic. Museum-quality glass has never protected Banksy, and even the pieces under Perspex have spent time at the mercy of the elements, of the authourities, of the whims of other taggers, of time. As swiftly as it appeared, a Banksy stencil can fade forever into the urban landscape, and too often for my liking, it does.

In that sense, my love for Banksy has always been a desperate love. Not because I have nowhere else to direct my affections, but because those things that make it real, that make him real, could disappear at any minute, without warning. Even though Banksy has never loved me back (how could he?), it was he who made me feel, like all first loves do, that the entire world hinges upon his existence. And even now, blessed with a partner who loves me for all of my quirks and fissures, who would do anything for me, save praise the name of Banksy, it is still Banksy’s name that gives me goosebumps, and Banksy’s work that gives me hope.

Maybe that’s why I did it. Because I wanted to see what would happen, how people would react. Could my words stop someone in her tracks, or penetrate a part of his heart he never knew existed? Or maybe I simply wanted

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to know what it was like to be Banksy, to paint something people would notice without knowing where it came from. You see, the world may not know Banksy, but it can not ignore him. He thus succeeds where I have always failed: When Banksy speaks, the world drops everything — if just for a minute — and listens.

It is still raining when the first customer enters the shop. She glances briefly at our Daily specials board, Butternut Squash Soup and Focaccia. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Hugh’s latest obsession is Gil Scott-Heron’s ―Pieces of a Man‖). I make a mental note to tell Hugh that I was right: The reference will pass right through them. The girl will have a Milky Double. I’m halfway to the espresso machine when it hits me. I didn’t change the sign. The girl’s eyes were flashing, intense. Her rucksack boasted a collection of pins — Warhol, an anarchy symbol, ―Make Art Not War‖ in black capitals — the kind you pick up in Camden Market, three for a quid. Her cheeks are flushed. She’s breathless; she knows. I am dizzy. Every inch of me strains from my secret. Is this what it feels like to be immortal, to have done something that shakes the world?

Have I already failed at anonymity? Even my smile feels like someone else’s as I hand her the coffee, ready for the words that make it real. Then: ―Did you hear what happened to Banksy’s cash point?‖

If Knowing is Half the Battle, I’d Rather Lose john sharkey

If Knowing is Half the Battle, I’d Rather Lose

Something

that happened:

A few comrades and I were spending a summer night lounging on the shores of a heavily-developed North Dakota lake. A still night, pretty clear—the sort of night where sound can carry for miles across the water. It doesn‟t matter what we were doing, because I don‟t remember. In fact, I only remember one thing about that evening. From somewhere across the water, a male voice proclaimed: “I am not getting on this fucking boat without my fucking merlot!”

Something that probably didn’t happen: The weekend wasn‟t going as well as Chad had hoped. He had big plans, after all—sure, a gentlemen‟s weekend might seem cliché, but it was a rare thing indeed to have the whole crew in one place. Good times would be had on the water.

Things started to go sour when Teddy missed his flight. At least, they were pretty sure Teddy missed his flight; in any case, he never got off the plane. His whereabouts remain unknown. And shortly after, Vinny arrived with his new lady, Tina, in tow. So much for a manly, blue-talking, hard-drinking weekend.

Tina and Chad had a bit of a history, which we don‟t need to bother recounting here; suffice it to say things were satisfactorily awkward. Chad was displeased, but committed himself to enjoying the weekend anyway. After all, they had an entire case of wine.

Most of the day turned out to be surprisingly bearable. The wine helped.

But having the rest of the gang around improved Chad‟s mood to the point that

JOHN SHARKEY

he was nearly enjoying himself. As the sun set the situation deteriorated, though.

It started with a friendly game of charades. For some reason, Jim was unable to correctly identify Chad‟s exquisite, Brando-esque performance of an emu. Then Tina was clearly mouthing words, in clear violation of charade protocol, while attempting to perform Abraham Lincoln.

Hope remained, though, for the evening boat ride. Chad has always enjoyed being out on the water, so the opportunity to wander the lake seemed like a good way to calm his party game-induced nerves. And cramming a dozen people onto a small pontoon boat would assuredly make for ideal opportunities to casually push people into the drink.

The kitchen had plenty of cooks, so Chad decided to let the rest load up the boat with the essentials: drink, cigars, dice, and some fireworks of questionable legality. Chad and a few others hung back and watched Baseball Tonight. Priorities, you know.

Anyway, after a spell the remainder wandered down to shore. As they were boarding, Kevin was checking off the list of supplies: “High Life… Black Cats… Canadian Club… Hey, anybody grab the wine?”

Chad stopped. All he wanted to do was hang out on a boat and lay the groundwork for a vicious red wine hangover.

“God dammit,” he said. “How hard could it possibly be to remember to grab a couple bottles of wine? Now I have to go back up for it.”

If Knowing is Half the Battle, I’d Rather Lose

Tina rolled her eyes. “For fuck‟s sake, forget the wine. We‟ve got everything else. Let‟s hit the water already.”

This proved to be too much.

“No. Fuck this. I am not getting on this fucking boat without my fucking merlot!”

Something even less likely to have happened: I woke up on the floor.

In and of itself, this would not normally be alarming. I frequently wake up on the floor. This floor, however, was unfamiliar. For one, it was hardwood, and I have made it a point to carpet every inch of my domain—among other things, it‟s more pleasant to wake up on. And, there was a dead moose staring out of the wall at me. I found this fact alarming, mostly because it took me a few seconds to conclusively conclude that the moose in question was, in fact, dead.

Attempting to get my bearings, I scanned my surroundings. An associate of mine was dozing peacefully in an easy chair. I gently awoke him.

“Holy hell! Where are we?”

“What?”

JOHN SHARKEY

“Where are we, and why are we sharing a room with dead beasts?” By this point, I had noticed the stuffed beaver and half-dozen mounted fish. I also seemed to be wearing a high school class ring that didn‟t exactly belong to me.

“North Dakota. A weekend on the lake. Don‟t you remember?”

“Does it look like I remember? Why in sam-hill would we go to North Dakota? That‟s the shitty Dakota.”

“I guess I shouldn‟t be surprised. With the amount of tequila you were putting away, I‟m shocked you woke up at all. Anyway, just relax. These people are friendly.”

“These people? What people? And how did we get here? And since when does North Dakota have lakes?”

“For chrissakes, calm yourself. He‟s an old friend. Works in oil now. We flew up in his Cessna last night. He was in Colorado for the weekend. Any of this ringing a bell?”

“I remember the tequila. Foul stuff.”

“Fine. We‟re here for a bit of relaxation. I think we‟ve earned it. A weekend on a heavily-developed lake, free hooch, some meat cooked over fire. Don‟t worry. We‟ll be back in Denver by Monday morning. We can finish it then.”

This all seemed reasonable enough. A weekend out of town sounded fine, and the whisky he‟d pushed into my hand during the reorientation was unwinding the vise clamped around my skull. Things were looking up.

If Knowing is Half the Battle, I’d Rather Lose

“Okay. So where‟s the oilman? I should thank him for this hospitality.”

“I think he‟s putting gas in the boats. I heard him leave about an hour ago.”

“Hmmm. Boats, you say? What kind of equipment are we—“ I didn‟t have to finish. The rumble outside answered my questions. We strolled outside to soak in the sight, near-comical: a slim fiberglass beauty with a pair of monstrous out-boards. To say the machine didn‟t fit its surroundings would be a crippling understatement.

“What do I call him?”

“Just Jim.” Jim slid the boat onto the lift and clambered ashore.

“Holy mother of fuck, I didn‟t think you‟d live through the night. We made sure we had you on your side, at least; you can put away a hell of a lot of shitty tequila.”

I just nodded and tipped my tumbler of whiskey in his direction. “Breakfast of champions,” he said. At least I knew he could read.

A proper breakfast was prepared. Jim got some wood out of a plastic bin in a clearing on the east side of the house, flame was created, and bacon was fried. Eggs were cooked in the fat. I was fortified.

JOHN SHARKEY

“Well boys, I think it‟s time to hit the water.”

My associate and I agreed. We stocked the boat with cheap domestics and a bottle of scotch and took to the lake. The lake itself was less an open body of water than a winding series of connected bays, which only heightened the absurdity of such a high-powered aquatic beast—with the throttle wide open, it was rarely more than a few seconds before we would need to rapidly change course.

This is exactly my style. High speeds, twisting turns, constant vigilance: a true test of a man‟s reflexes. Since I had a free hand (with the scotch in my left), I commandeered the controls and pointed us west towards one of the more expansive stretches of water.

My associate wasn‟t too amused by my talent of spooking water-skiers with a quick weave, but Jim seemed to be enjoying himself. My senses were running full-tilt; the lake was pretty shallow, and most of the points hid some serious rocks at minimal depth—at the speeds we were going, they‟d be enough to rip a fresh asshole right down the length of the hull. Luckily, Jim seemed to be a man of grit.

“Fuckin‟ a, boy. They aren‟t used to this up here. There‟s another one— eleven o‟clock!”

As it happened, our morning boat ride had started around three in the afternoon, so after a couple hours of raising hell on the water we retired to shore to begin preparations for a proper evening feast. The house had a fully-outfitted kitchen, but we were committed to doing this properly—thick, heavily-peppered

If Knowing is Half the Battle, I’d Rather Lose

stakes in a cast-iron pan, cooked nice and rare; thick Idaho golds wrapped in tinfoil and tossed in the coals, with another bottle of Scotland‟s finest malt.

This process, as you might expect, took a few hours. Can‟t rush these sorts of things. And besides, by now there was wine to drink—essential to mellow us out for the coming evening. After all, there was a whole „nother boat to test.

This one fit its surroundings a bit better. A modestly-sized pontoon boat, albeit one that suited our need for luxury. Comfortable seats and more than enough cup holders boded well for our future endeavors. After polishing off one more round of dead cow, we began preparations. This excursion would require endurance, so we packed accordingly—plenty of sugars, carbohydrates, and most importantly, the wine. It would be crucial to steady our hands while docking afterwards; a good red wine calms a man and brings clarity of thought.

Especially since we‟d be dealing with no light.

I briefly retired to the lavatory to attend to some business, leaving my companions to stock the vessel. When I returned a short time later, things seemed to be in order.

“We have the potato chips?”

“Indeed.”

“Both of the cakes?”

“Check.”

“The wine?”

JOHN SHARKEY

“Ah, I think it‟s still inside. Forget it; we‟ve got plenty to drink.”

“No, you don‟t understand its importance. I am not getting on this fucking boat without my fucking merlot!”

Thoughts: Wasn‟t that fun? I know I enjoyed myself, and for a very specific reason: I don‟t have the slightest idea who wanted his fucking merlot, or why that bottle of wine was so damned important. Every time I think about sitting on that lake and overhearing that snippet, I ponder the endless number of possible backstories that bubble up in the back of my mind. (Kind of like the bends, actually.) Since no single one is true, any of them could be. That lack of knowing opens up fantastic possibilities.

Think of your favorite suspenseful movie. What‟s the best part? The big reveal at the end? Doubtful. Sure, there might be some satisfaction in finally figuring out what was going on, especially if the ending is particularly well executed. But I‟d be willing to wager that the real reason you like that movie so much is the way it leaves you knowing so little about what‟s actually going on.

That lack of grounding context opens up fantastic possibilities.

I‟m particularly smitten by the TV show Lost. The reason is simple. Lost does an excellent job of giving you just enough information to be able to dream up all kinds of fantastic theories, without revealing so much that you‟re forced to settle on one interpretation. (This is becoming, inevitably, less true as the show hurtles towards conclusion, but that doesn‟t detract from the earlier seasons‟ excellence on this front.)

If Knowing is Half the Battle, I’d Rather Lose

All art is improved by contextual ambiguity. Would knowing why the Mona Lisa grinned, or to whom Shakespeare wrote his sonnets, add anything to our interpretation? Of course not. This may be a rather uncontroversial statement to make about art, but we treat all sorts of everyday happenings the same way, glorying in what we don‟t know.

How else to explain people-watching? That‟s most of the appeal of state fairs, after all. When we consider the visage of someone we‟ve never met—and will never meet—we‟re filling in all sorts of little pieces of backstory on our own.

That sickeningly-sweet couple over there, or the father ready to rip his own hair out because his kids won‟t shut up, or the guy riding the impractically tall bicycle, are all interesting insofar as we can imagine just what‟s going on with them. If we found out, any appeal they may have would depend on how they really were. Those interesting people we imagine could be lost forever.

We have entire websites devoted to this phenomenon, which just allow us to further satisfy our desire for contextlessness. We don‟t have to bother moving to be able to create all kinds of wonderful little worlds, populated with interesting people, right in our heads.

Now, the wonders of context-free living do have their limits. In certain situations—romantic letters, foreign policy negotiations, capital murder trials— context can be everything. (Context free: “I‟m going to kill him,” says the accused. Context: “…in that next game of parcheesi.”) So we must be willing to occasionally allow context to guide us to more accurate conclusions.

But we shouldn‟t let our natural desire for knowledge constrict the wonders of our imagination. Context replaces what could be with what is.

JOHN SHARKEY

Without it, we can spend our time pondering the significance of a certain bottle of fucking merlot to our heartâ€&#x;s content.

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife sarah steadland

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife

I

Ed am sitting in The Throne, drumming my fingers, when the clock hands finally

hit nine a.m. and the front door opens. Even though we are a business, our door doesn’t chime when it’s opened. That sort of noise could make a tattoo

artist jump and fuck up a tattoo. But we’re all very much aware of our door opening, because every time it does, we get to hear the raucous group of reporters that is constantly outside our chime-less glass door. This is an important day. Well, anyone else would say that. Me? I don’t know. It’s just another day of tattooing. But yes, it’s a high-profile client. That’s not something that will stress me out, though.

Rick Graves has a scheduled appointment for nine a.m., which is why we’ve all been waiting anxiously for the shop to open for the day. Sure enough, he walks through exactly at nine a.m. Not eight fifty-nine. Not nine-oh-one. The guy’s probably spent so much time in the corporate world, he can’t remember how to be late to anything.

“Swanky,” Graves says as he sweeps his eyes across the new shop.

“Uh, thanks, man,” AJ dumbly says like the intimidated idiot he is.

“Mr. Graves,” I say, standing up and walking over with my hand outstretched. That’s what they do in the corporate world.

“Ed Grund! Great to meet you!” he replies, grasping my hand in a power hand shake.

“Yourself as well,” I say.

SARAH STEADLAND

“So! Sorry about all this press. This has got to be annoying for you,” he apologizes.

“Oh, no, that’s always there,” AJ puts in. Keep your fucking mouth closed, you dumbshit! I want to yell. We’re supposed to be impressing this man with how important he is. If he changes his mind now, we’re out $16,500. Nerves can ruin a tattoo artist’s day.

Sure enough, Graves says “Too late to turn back now!” and chuckles awkwardly. He sits there quietly while I sterilize his arm and AJ sets up the equipment. Well, not really sets it up, exactly, since we had it all ready before Graves got here. AJ pretends to set up. I thank AJ and that’s his cue to go stand behind the counter with Ella.

“So I bet you’re wondering why I told the press I was going to do this?”

Graves starts. He obviously doesn’t like awkward silence. God, I hate the chatty customers. Silence when I’m tattooing just isn’t awkward for me. They all seem to think it is, though, so I very rarely get to tattoo in peace. Anyone will tell you I’m a quiet guy. But my business depends on me trying to be sociable. I try.

“Uh, yeah, most celebrities try and keep it quiet before they get it done,” I say. “I guess they’re scared they won’t like the results. They only want to go public with it if it’s good.”

“Yeah, I realize that,” Graves says. “But there were a few reasons I had that press conference. One, I was scared I’d puss out and not get it done, and I really, truly want to know who I should be with. With the press involved, I really can’t puss out. And two, the media went nuts over my company last year when we had that mini-scandal in the human resources department. Somehow, the

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife

press made my stock soar. But then we fell out of the spot-light. Maybe this will revive the public’s interest?”

Graves is chatty, that’s the truth. I mean, this is a guy who built a multibillion dollar corporation by smooth talking companies into buying personal carbon-use calculators for all their employees. Granted, they made the companies look more sustainable, and sustainability is the goddamn key word of the century, but still. That’s no easy way to make a billion dollars. Silently, I thank the God of careers that my life’s work doesn’t depend on talking the way Rick Graves’ does.

“Uh, yeah, I hope so,” I say, hoping that’s enough input. It is. He keeps talking.

“God, I’m just so sick of sleeping with supermodels.”

I almost choke. Did a human being just say those words? I clear my throat to cover my shock. I’m finished with the scroll part of the tattoo. Time to start writing the name.

“I know it sounds weird,” he continues. “But meaningless relationships just aren’t for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Models and heiresses are great. But three nights a week, I just look over at the girl and think ugh. I want a real live wife. And kids. You know, I was married once. Bad situation.” He barely ever stops to take a breath. Good thing, ’cause I am focused on his upper arm. M, I write involuntarily. What a weird feeling, giving complete control of a tattoo over to your all-knowing hand. I’ll never get used to it.

Rick

SARAH STEADLAND

I am so ridiculously, intensely nervous right now. They say tattoos are supposed to hurt. The pounding of my heart against my rib cage hurts worse. I hope Ed Grund doesn’t realize how nervous I am. I bet he sees tons of customers that are totally cool about the whole process. How pathetic am I. He seems like a weird guy. You don’t usually see a huge walrus mustache on a skinny guy like Ed Grund. Maybe it’s one of those ironic artistic things. Or maybe he’s trying to make his appearance more cohesive with his roughneck name. Ugh. Ed Grund.

Sounds like a 55-year-old mechanic with sweat stains down his front.

I hope Ed doesn’t realize that I’m jabbering on about supermodels because I’m so scared. Why did I ever decide to get a tattoo from Ed Grund?

Well, I already told Ed and the whole goddamn Associated Press why I decided to get this tattoo. Which, by the way, I hope didn’t offend any of the lovely women I’ve dated. But why, oh why, did I go through with this stupid plan? I mean, let’s think of the possible outcomes here.

Possibility one: the name is of some random 26-year-old elementary school teacher in the Midwest. A cute girl that I never would have otherwise met.

Things go really well. I finally find true love. All her dreams come true.

Possibility two: things go badly with that girl.

Possibility three: the name is of someone from my past. We realize how wrong we were in breaking up and everything turns out beautifully.

Possibility four: the name is of one of the girls I recently casually dated.

She is offended that I want to take her back just because of some dumb tattoo and then I have to live my life knowing I ruined things with my true love.

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife

Possibility five, six, seven...

Am I saying this out loud?

No, I’m pretty sure I’ve been silent for a while now, since Ed Grund hasn’t made any acknowledgement that I’ve been talking. It could be that he just doesn’t like to talk.

I clear my throat. “So...tell me, Ed Grund, do you believe in soul mates?

One person for everyone?”

“No one’s ever asked me that. Interesting,” Ed Grund says. “You’d think I’d get asked that every day.”

“Yeah, for real. So do you?”

“Um, I don’t really know.”

“Really? After spending every day with customers that pay a fortune to find out the person they belong with? And making all your money off of it?” This conversing is doing a good job taking my mind off the stressful tattoo.

“Well, that’s true, but you know, it’s not like I chose this...gift, for lack of a better noun. It just happened. I don’t think I like the odds that come with one person for everyone. In this huge world, what are the chances you’re going to find that person?”

SARAH STEADLAND

“But, Eddie, you’ve made those odds a lot better for the people who believe in that shit.”

“And the people who can afford it,” he adds sardonically.

“Yeah, that too. So even if you don’t believe in soul mates, have you ever thought about tattooing yourself? Find out the who’s the girl for you?”

“Oh, I’ve wanted to. I haven’t tried it, though. I mean, I don’t even know if it would work.”

“You have a girlfriend already? ’Cause that would complicate things if it didn’t end up being her name. Just stating the obvious.”

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says, then glances up from my arm to the cute receptionist with the bright green eyes and punk-girl hair. I hope she’s my soul mate, I think. She is on the phone with, I would assume, a potential customer. Maybe a movie star? A tech tycoon? A prince in Dubai?

The conversation is lagging, so I ask, “Do your customers usually peek at the tattoo while it’s being drawn?”

“Uh, some do,” Ed Grund replies. “Most wait till I’m finished for the big surprise.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Well, actually, I’m pretty much done here.”

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife

I gulp. I realize that’s a hugely clichéd thing to do when you’re about to find out something really important, but I gulp anyways. I’m so, so pathetic. He must think it’s hilarious that the president and CEO of a huge multi-national corporation is freaking out over a silly tattoo.

He hands me a hand mirror.

Here we go...will it be a name I recognize?

My heart plummets out the bottom of my chair.

This can’t be right.

Matilda Jones?

That bitch hates me.

“Well? Do you know this woman?” Ed Grund asks me. I briefly wonder if he always asks this question or if he can just see the awful look on my face.

Ed Rick Graves has an awful look on his face. Shit. Now I’ve done it. My days of tattooing the rich and famous are over. I ask the question. “Well? Do you know this woman?”

“Yes,” Graves says, calming himself. “It’s my ex-wife.”

“Ohhh...” I say, comprehending. Shit, shit, shit. I don’t know how this is my fault, because I obviously can’t control what my brilliant hands write, but it is my fault.

Goddamn it. “So, how bad is it?” I ask.

SARAH STEADLAND

“I haven’t seen her in eight years. I left her right as my fortune starting spiraling upward. I left her with half-a-million dollars and went on to make three billion. It was a cold, terrible thing to do. I try not to think about Matilda.”

I don’t say anything for a while. He doesn’t seem like she’ll be happy to find out they’re actually soul mates (there’s that word again; so overused in my life).

“Ella, come here,” I say.

“Hm?” “So...Mr. Graves here has a problem,” I say, then I explain the situation, hoping that crazy creative mind of hers will work out a solution.

“Well, the only thing I can think of would be to make a decoy tattoo, just for the press, she says. Brilliant.

“Definitely. I could draw the same tattoo in permanent marker on your other arm, with a different name,” I say.

“I already have a tattoo there.” Rick Graves has tattoos?

“Okay. Somewhere else?”

“I told them in the press conference it was going to be on my upper arm.”

“So we’ll tell them you changed your mind. This is all we can do, unless you want to show them the tattoo.”

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife

He agrees, and I draw the same tattoo on his right forearm, only this time I write the name “Anna Gushlenslaw,” hoping there isn’t an Anna Gushlenslaw out there. I’d hate to give out false hope of marrying a billionaire. Thankfully, my magic hand only seems to work when I’m working with real tattoos, so this time I actually have the power to decide what name I write.

“Here y’are,” I say when I’m finished. Rick looks at it and nods.

“I think this will work,” he says.

“Let’s pray to the God of names that there isn’t an Anna Gushlenslaw watching CNN right now, about to find out she’s Rick Graves’ true love,” Ella says.

Rick gets his suit jacket back on and heads over to the counter. Ella tells him the astronomical fee he owes me and he writes a check. I hate that I have to charge so much for a tattoo, but my finance guys tell me it’s the only choice I have. Now that my shop is so famous, there are far too many people lined up each morning to find out who their soul mate is. The only way to decide who’s worthy is to test their finances. Capitalist bull, but whatever. I like my new Porsche.

I offer to waive the fee, since he didn’t get the best results, but Graves says that’s ridiculous; I did my job. It wasn’t my fault it went wrong. He pays.

“Okay, Eddie, you going to come out there with me?” Rick asks.

“Uh, why?”

SARAH STEADLAND

“Well, this is a major press event. They’re going to want to hear you talk about it, too.”

I shrug. “Okay.” I don’t like speaking in public, and usually the movie stars and other celebrities I tattoo are too self-promoting to want to share the attention with me. But the cameras are always out there, every day, waiting for the results of this strange relationship test.

We open the doors and the cameras start flashing. Why? The sun is already glaring down on us. The reporters start pushing each other around and yelling out generic questions.

“What does the tattoo say, Mr. Graves?”

“Mr. Graves, how did it go?”

“Mr. Graves, what are you planning on doing now?”

They are all silent, however, when Graves pulls his jacket sleeve up and shows them a small banner with the name Anna Gushlenslaw written in it. He beams enthusiastically at them.

“Could you spell that please?!?”

“G-U-S-H-L-E-N-S-L-A-W,” Graves spells. They start furiously questioning him again. He begins to answer with bullshit answers like, “I’m going to start looking for this girl right away, any way I can. If she is watching this right now, she should call my assistant at 555-254-7485.”

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife

I tune out the riot.

Then, a reporter asks, “Mr. Grund, could you please offer a statement about the allegations your ex-customer, Melanie Wollace, made about your business being a, quote, joke”?

“I’m sorry?” I say. She repeats the question. I have been blindsided, and they all know this. Damn Melanie Wollace. Damn her to hell. “Um...I was not aware of this allegation. I’ll have to speak to Melanie before I can comment. Please disregard anything she says, though, for now.” I turn on my heel, whisper goodbye and thank you to Graves, and head inside my shop. Oh God, I do not need this right now. Melanie was my first customer. Well, my first magical customer, or whatever. Why would she want to mess with my reputation? She loved me so much for telling her some Enrico guy was the one for her, she brought all her friends to me. That was years ago. Why is she doing this now? I’ll have to deal with her later.

“Ella, are we still on for dinner tonight?” I ask.

“Yeah! Of course.”

“Is eight o’clock fine?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Okay, I’ll pick you up then. I know which building you live in, so be ready, I’ll be on time,” I say with a smile. She flushes a little and smiles. She’s probably confused about how I’m actually talking right now. Usually I say like three words all day. What a weird mood I’m in. Maybe I’m nervous for our date? Oh, Ella

SARAH STEADLAND

Vee, you’ll be the death of me, I rhyme in my head. “Rick Graves was the only one on the schedule today, right? I wanted the afternoon off. So I’m going to head out now.”

“Okay, see you tonight,” she says.

“Yep, see ya,” I say, and I head out the back door to my shiny new Porsche. I’m not really a materialistic guy, but I couldn’t resist spending my newfound fortune on a nice car. And it’s probably good that I already did that, since Melanie Wollace is about to ruin my cred and put me out of business. I catch my reflection in my rearview mirror and scrutinize the Mustache. When I was learning to tattoo, like the real kind of tattooing that requires talent, I grew a Hulk Hogan ’stache so I’d get the biker-dude clientele base, but obviously I haven’t tattooed them in ages. Maybe it’s time to re-grow that ironic indie-guy beard I had back in my one semester of college. It would certainly look more appropriate on my skinny frame. But then I think I would miss Ella teasing me.

As I drive around the block, I catch a glimpse of Rick Graves still taking questions from the mob of reporters. I hope he’s doing okay. I worry about him, now that he knows he’s already fucked things up with the love of his life. But he’s a crazy smart guy, he’ll figure it out. And if not, there are more supermodels arriving in L.A. every day.

Rick When my limo finally pulls up, my first thought is, How the hell am I supposed to get through this mob? But the other guy in the shop named AJ comes out and guides me through the reporters. He opens the door of the limo for me and I thank him. It occurs to me that maybe they go through this every

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife

day at Edgy Tattoos, and perhaps AJ’s entire job is to usher the celebrities through the crowd to their limos. I feel a little less important.

In my limo, the driver doesn’t ask how it went, which is nice, but now I’m alone and I have to think about my new problem. If Matilda Jones is really my soul mate, should I try to get her back? My romantic side tells me yes, but I doubt I have the balls to do that. I think back to when we loved each other more than we thought anyone could ever love each other. I married her young.

We still had debt up to our ears from my Yale education, but we were so in love, we barely noticed.

If she could get past our bad ending, maybe Matilda and I could be that happy again. She’s a ball-buster, though. Even assuming she believes in the famous Ed Grund’s ability to determine soul mates, it will be a tough sell. She isn’t one to go weak in the knees over a confession of love and a bottle of priceless champagne. Then again, maybe Matilda is what I need. I’m sick of the gold diggers. Isn’t that why I went to Ed anyway? And come to think of it, have I ever been happy since the divorce? Not particularly.

I call my assistant. “Hi, Samira? Could you find the phone number of Matilda Jones, in Connecticut? Yeah, it’ll be in your computer. That might not be the right number, though. It’s been years since I’ve talked to her. My lawyer, John Collins, he would probably know her current number. But try the one in your computer. Yep, thanks, Samira.” I hang up.

This is going to be a tough phone call. Hi, Matilda? It’s that jerk that divorced you because of a red-headed supermodel. Yeah, here’s the thing.

You’re the love of my life. Take me back.

SARAH STEADLAND

I can’t imagine what she’s going to say.

Thinking Outside the Mustache allison wickler

Writing Outside the Mustache

Question

#118: If your friends and acquaintances were willing to bluntly and honestly tell you what they

really thought of you, would you want them to do so? (Stock 103) Gone are the days of Advanced Placement English as it used to exist at my high school, and I will tell you why. AP English, one of those ―college-level‖ high school courses where you were supposed to work your ass off, take one huge test in the spring, and get enough credits to skip a class or two once you actually got to college, was defined not by the subject matter, but by the instructor, as classes often are. A teacher almost always affects how much you enjoy a class. Favorite subject + shitty teacher (where shitty teacher = particularly brainless, apathetic, patronizing or boring) = I hate this subject. Or, least favorite subject + awesome teacher (where awesome teacher = smart, caring, innovative, mindful) = I can dig this subject.

That‘s exactly where I‘m headed — to an explanation of Chuckness. I say AP English is no longer the same because Chuck, the class‘s long-time instructor, retired a few years back, but not before he imposed his Chuckness on me and my classmates.

And there are, of course, some teachers who split the difference, maybe the teacher who is completely knowledgeable and probably cares that he gets his students to learn, but is entirely un-personable.

The 4-1-1 on Chuck: • He taught English.

• He was nobody‘s favorite teacher.

• He was a lot of people‘s least favorite teacher.

• He had a mustache.

When Chuck was my teacher, it wasn‘t his mustache that interested me, not in the slightest. But now, it represents entirely what interests me about Chuck.

This is because of what I now know about Chuck and his mustache, and what I

ALLISON WICKLER

deduced from what I have learned. Ready for a heavy dose of metaphor?

When I knew him five or six years ago, Chuck‘s life was neither too big nor too small, but it represented what he perceived to be perfect normalcy. His manner of dress: classic khakis and a short-sleeved polo. Hair: short, light brown, naturally graying a little. Our class schedule was always pre-planned and adhered to: The first half of class was book discussion (for which Chuck kept tally marks next to our names for each comment we made, to effectively measure participation), the second half of class was vocabulary — ten words each week, with a quiz on Fridays — then preparing for the AP English exam by studying sample passages or learning and practicing the proper format to achieve a score of 7 or above on the essays (on a scale up to 9; that‘s how you earned A‘s in class).

But part of him must have known that he was so tidy (almost a little weenie-like; not full-on weenie, just a little) that he should make himself less so, maybe to have more in common with the rest of us in that we all have natural quirky differences, which are usually unobvious to us until someone else points them out. They make us human. It was my conclusion that he purposely integrated quirks into his personality to make himself seem more lax. The problem was that they were so obviously calculated that they never seemed natural, rather more like an automaton programmed to ―be human.‖

There was the golf swing, for one. Every once in awhile, he mimed a golf swing1.

He didn‘t say anything about it, before or after the act. He merely stood in front of the classroom and did the golf swing. Then he continued with whatever had been happening. The first couple of times this happened, the class reacted with confused chuckles, and then it continued to happen without reaction.

1

Matt Kuehl told me this could be imitative of the golf swing Johnny Carson did at the end of all his monologues, but how many high school students in the 2000s have watched a Johnny Carson Tonight Show?

Writing Outside the Mustache

Chuck also forever played the devil‘s advocate, especially when it came to the occasional ―treat‖ class activity: The Book of Questions. That‘s where Question #118 came from. Questions in the book largely fit into categories like wagering what physical attribute you would trade for an intellectual attribute (and vice versa), considering how mean you could be, or calculating how much of a risktaker you are.

He would choose respondents for the questions he selected. When you answered, you were really answering to convince him, not to spark lively debate with the rest of the class. Whatever your answer, he always found another angle and used it to challenge you (some people really are just like that, I guess, but Chuck‘s version of devil‘s advocate was entirely manufactured). For many questions, different students would have various opinions, so Chuck would end up agreeing with someone. But for some questions, it would be almost inconceivable to hold any opinion but one; Chuck, however, was never fazed.

Here‘s another made-up but completely realistic and plausible book-ofquestions moment: ―Now Miss Wickler, if you found that a good friend had AIDS, would you avoid him? How about if it was a brother or sister2? ―Absolutely not.‖ ―But don‘t you think it would be too difficult to maintain a relationship without the subject of the disease making things uncomfortable?‖ (Class is flabbergasted, but subsequently not surprised.) ―No. I would no longer be able to call myself any kind of decent person if I abandoned a friend when he was probably most in need of caring relationships.‖ ―But don‘t you feel like your role as a friend in that situation would be burdensome? And then what happens if you remain invested and he dies — 2

This question kind of gives away that the book was written in 1985, I think.

ALLISON WICKLER

that affects your emotions negatively. I think I would probably just say ‗So long, Jack.‘ ‖ As I sit back and read what I just wrote, I‘m thinking to myself: Did not most of what I just said describe Chuck‘s mustache? That mustache, the more I think about it, was not just neat and tidy, it was forced and calculated, too. Well, obviously every mustache is somewhat calculated; unless he‘s a wild mountain man, a man grooms his ‗stache. But Chuck‘s mustache was more than groomed — it was militarized. It obeyed his every command, rank and file with the rest of his neatness so that it did exactly, precisely what it was supposed to — act as a mustache — without really standing out. Maybe the mustache was originally a failed attempt at another quirk that ultimately blended in instead.

And many of us, as Chuck‘s students, followed suit. You had very little time to play The Game of Chuck before he decided whether you‘d win or lose, because in the beginning, you showed whether you would adapt to his grooming tactics or try to combat them. He decided, consciously or subconsciously, whether you had the potential to be the way he wanted you to be in his class. There were some students who were favored beyond a doubt, and others who seemed to be perpetually luckless in Texas Chuck‘em, because of their willingness (or lack thereof) to conform to his style (at this juncture, it was quite important to a bunch of honors students to keep a good GPA). And his style never changed; his classes never changed. Nobody was naturally like Chuck because Chuck wasn‘t completely, humanly natural. But lord knows Chuck would never change, like his mustache never changed, like the format for one of his AP English essays never changed. What, Chuck, was so bad about somebody thinking or being outside the boundaries of that too-perfect mustache? Why, Chuck, couldn‘t you figure out that this very idea was the essence of being human?

When we met Question #118 many words ago, it was still just a question in need of an answer.

Writing Outside the Mustache

―Hmm, maybe. On one hand, they are my friends for some reason, which should logically be positive reasons that outweigh any potential criticisms. I know that everyone is bugged by little things about other people, and I would be no exception. Understanding this and knowing that it‘s no reason to be angry, I could use their comments to improve upon myself. On the other hand, I could just assume the things people don‘t like about me and try to change them, so they‘d never have to bring it up at all. Or, what if I‘m worse at reading people than I‘ve thought, and I‘ve really picked backstabbing, conniving friends who want to kill me and take all my possessions? That would be devastating to know.‖ That‘s me. Chuck‘s approach, however, tended to be more black and white, and of course, in contrast to my answer. Chuck would have said no, definitely, because learning that others thought he had flaws would have ruined the pleasant equilibrium in which Chuck could perceive himself as ideal. I believe if Chuck would have thought of this metaphor as I am, he would agree; he would see himself like his perfectly balanced mustache, not too big and not too small, not drawing too much attention, but still smart and neat and functional and having enough character to be considered human.

I don‘t know how long Chuck had had that mustache, or if he was different before he grew it. What I know is what I described: that I can represent Chuck and his mustache using many of the same descriptors.

What shakes me up a little is what has happened since he shaved it off.

Yes, Chuck shaved off the ‗stache. This was after my high school tenure, of course. Shortly after, he ran away with the school librarian, they got married and retired.

This whirlwind of events seemed dramatically un-Chucklike; first, it was pretty dramatic, for him (not to mention sort of made for a movie — a rigid English teacher runs away with the stodgy, bitch librarian? The scene where they make out would be one of those where the audience is totally grossed out and

ALLISON WICKLER

unsatisfied. She would totally dominate). Second, it was both uncharacteristic and natural, not like his other quirks, which were uncharacteristic but unnatural (as I explained before, like he made his quirks happen on purpose).

When Chuck shaved off his mustache, it suddenly became clear what his mustache represented – that the mustache was Chuck, and vice versa. Was this the end of Chuck as we had known him, we all wondered? It was definitely the end of his mustache, but the beginning of the legacy of his mustache, almost like an artist becomes famous post mortem. He could grow it back, sure, but he and I and other people would always remember that he had shaved it off for awhile — that even for Chuck, it was possible to change, even just for the sake of change itself.

It‘s refreshing to know that not even the most constant of irksome constants will stay that way forever, because Chuck‘s ability to maintain his Chucknicity sort of freaked me out. Maybe that‘s what we all need — to shave off our mustaches and run away and get married and write an AP English essay that doesn‘t look like every other person‘s AP English essay, just to show that it‘s possible — at least once in a while, to ensure that we aren‘t destined to be stuck.

Question #132: If you went to a beach and it turned out to be a nude beach, would you stay and go swimming? Would you swim nude? (Stock 114) Me: ―I probably would stay, because nudity doesn‘t really bother me — it‘s a more modern thing, to make public what used to be considered private, and to be accepting of it and even nonchalant about it. Plus, I‘d probably never see the people again. In light of that, I might even swim nude.‖ Chuck: ―But there would undoubtedly be people there whose bodies were better-looking than yours. Wouldn‘t that make you self conscious? I wouldn‘t do it. That‘s just too personal.‖ Well, Chuck, did you ever think you‘d shave off your mustache?

Writing Outside the Mustache

Works Cited Stock, Gregory. The Book of Questions. Workman Publishing Company, 1985.

Works Referenced Kuehl, Matt. E-mail correspondence. 17 Jan. 2010.

The Net matt kuehl

The Net

I

believe they were deer hunters. Not the .30-06 (thirty-aught-six) kind, though; rifle season opener was quite some time away. This breed preferred fletching and string over barrels and steel. Perhaps this affinity for bows was due to the

more sporting nature of arrows, or the adrenaline high that comes from steadying and releasing the draw. Or maybe, just maybe, it is because hunting with a bow means you can slay a large, antlered mammal at least one whole month sooner.

I don’t have problems with hunters. My father is a deer hunter. So was my grandpa. My friend Tom, god rest his soul, was a hunter, too. A school janitor by trade, he hunted locally during winter and kept game meat in his seasoned pickup truck, wrapped up in butcher’s paper to give to friends. In the summer, he vanished from his home in the lonely suburb in northern Minnesota and migrated somewhere down south, living off the land and hunting game.

Hunters, much to the objections of hippies, can be good people. And as an ecologist, I can appreciate the balance they can provide to an ecosystem.1 However, that night I didn’t find these hunters in deer stands or hunting shacks. From a naïve perspective, if they weren’t in the forest with a quiver in hand, they were out of their element. But if one remembers that hunters are people too, they were exactly where they should be. Rustic oak-stained tables, a plethora of neon domestic beer displays, deer heads, moose heads, fish heads (and bodies) taxidermied and hanging on the wall, this was a bar made for them — a place where men (and the occasional woman) could come together to relax, talk about the trade, and get piss drunk. The Net was a 1

When I get a flamethrower and a katana, you are on my list, Australian cane toad invasion

MATT KUEHL

Mecca for hunters in northwestern Minnesota, which then makes you wonder why the fuck we were there.

While one of us slaughtered a deer with a car grill and several hundred pounds of speeding metal, for the most part, none of us were hunters. We were college-age teaching interns.2 Our purpose: Travel from the big city university to a country high school, bringing our fresh knowledge of science with us. Typically, most of our time was spent teaching biology, chemistry, or anatomy in the classroom, but occasionally, as part of our internship program, all us interns met at Itasca State Park for pedagogical training. During the day we worked, learning teaching technique or listening to professors lecture about research. At night, though, like all teachers secretly did, we partied.

One session, instead of staying back at the cabins,3 we decided to explore what the local establishments had to offer. The locals weren’t unfamiliar with our kind. Itasca State Park is home to a well-known university research station, so there is an annual summer influx of undergraduate student researchers. However, once autumn came, the college students were gone, and a new blaze orange demographic4 migrated into the rural countryside.

2

Side note: Being a teacher or intern teacher and a hunter are not mutually exclusive activities.

However, we were generally more interested in DNA than 12-point bucks.

3No

alcohol was allowed at the research station, which I am sure would be contested by many

of the greatest scientific minds in the world.

4

Prey for those of the blaze orange species may also include ducks, pheasants, grouse, and for

the lucky few that get a permit, moose.

The Net

The door swung open, a group of small bells clanged, and we took a seat at the only table able to accommodate us: a larger table, close to the karaoke machine, in the middle of the joint. A pair of staring eyes accompanied every half-drank bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon sitting on the bar. These were not glares, however, but more confused looks followed by the thought, “I wonder if they are having car trouble.” While this was not home for any of us, I felt particularly out of place for one major reason: I was the only one wearing sandals. And not your basic sandal either. I was wearing the sandal equivalent of Ugg boots.5 For your entertainment and mine, let me indulge in a related tale. Four weeks before the events at the Net, I joined a Tae Kwan Do class and suffered some immediate setbacks to my goal of becoming a professional kick boxer.

Three days into the classes, I bruised my toe doing some type of cool roundhouse kick. Not one to be discouraged by pain, after recovering, I jumped back in to practice.

Several days after I restarted my training, fate again tested my convictions as a martial artist: I demolished my other big toe, again at Tae Kwan Do. This time, I am sad to admit, I didn’t break it while performing an awe-inspiring, soaring jump kick. Actually, I was trying to kick a ball during some bizarre Tae Kwan Do ball exercise and I smashed my toe into the ground. For the few of you who are smart enough to read, but are somehow not intelligent enough to understand levels of physics even barnyard animals have mastered, foot vs. ground always results in foot’s defeat. Man may be able to destroy the Earth 5

While considered a hearty winter boot by some, they are most often worn by (slutty) girls in

miniskirts.

MATT KUEHL

with nuclear weapons, global warming, or perhaps a giant drill that reaches to the core, but the Earth will never lose to a man’s foot. The spoils of my defeat: a toe so broke, so swollen, I could not fit it into shoes.

As the season was autumn and I wasn’t a hobbit, I needed a substitute shoe that could accommodate my Hulk-like digit. Something with an open toe seemed the most suitable for my condition, but the timing of my fracture was not on my side. Stores in northern Minnesota tend to be seasonal, and summery footwear is in short supply in fall. As a result, the only thing I could find that would accommodate my foot was a pair of brown women’s flip flops from Target. The ambiguous nature of brown may have saved me from some strange looks or innocent childish harassment about my choice in sandals, if not for the faux sheep’s fur insole. They were girly, which is perhaps okay if you have a broken toe and two X chromosomes, but when you are a 20-year-old boy surrounded by drunken tough guys who probably just skinned a deer in some dude’s garage, a manly steel-toed boot is preferred.

Once our table ordered their first round, the other patrons knew we were there to stay. Truthfully, where else could you go out here in the wilds of Minnesota? The six of us, three girls and three guys, started out by playing cards.

In retrospect, this seems like a pretty lame thing to do, but when you are as awesome as we were, you can play cards and not be hassled. Nobody had noticed my unorthodox footwear selection, and surprisingly I wasn’t too worried.

I probably would have been a lot less anxious if I were drunk (I was underage and the designated driver) but the present company made things fun and relaxing.

The Net

“That chick is pretty hot.” An unfamiliar voice interrupted my conversation with one of my friends.

I laughed. “Yeah, you should go introduce yourself,” I said jokingly to the man. In a matter of seconds, however, he did exactly that.

Soon enough, I would find out that his name was John, he was a plumber, and while he didn’t need to tell me, the blaze orange cap and vest were sufficient evidence that he was a hunter. John was a cool, confident guy, the type that a jealous person would call an arrogant bastard. He drank. A lot. But I could tell that besides his slightly slurred speech, his confidence level and personality were not affected with varying degrees of booze. The hot chick that he was referring to was my friend and co-worker, Virginia. While I wouldn’t disagree with him on the “hot” part (though I personally would have phrased it in a more sophisticated way), her real charm was her carefree and charismatic spirit. She was the kind of girl who could pull a cigarette out of a man’s mouth, lecture him on the dangers of smoking, and after it was all through, leave the guy smiling. Sure, he would light up again, but he would at least wait 20 minutes to do so.

John and Virginia soon were talking. He was being an ass, which would have been annoying if she didn’t so effortlessly put him in his place; perhaps that is what some people consider flirting. I, on the other hand, didn’t mind observing; this was comedy gold. Eventually, as if proving this mysterious band of strangers meant them no harm, his cronies came over to chat with us as well.

While not nearly as cool or confident as their kingpin, they turned out to be

MATT KUEHL

interesting people nonetheless; one guy and I turned out to be best buddies after we discovered our shared respect for law enforcement.

Time passed and people were drinking beer and singing country songs as I dwelled on the uniqueness that was probably a usual night at this bar/off-sale liquor store in rural Minnesota. Then John and his buddies came up to me.

“Which one of these girls are you going to hit on?” John asked I laughed at his directness. “What are you talking about?”

“There are all these girls here and you are not hitting on them.”

“Well, we work together. It would be kind of awkward.”

“What kind of shit are you talking about?”

“Plus, hitting on girls at a bar really is not my style. I am a little classier than that.”

“Fuck. You don’t know how to pick up a girl do you?”

Again I laughed. “Okay, so let’s say I am a little young and naive. How about some tips from a master?” I said jokingly.

“Okay, lesson one: simple math. Six of you came here tonight. Beat up the two guys and you have three hot chicks to yourself!”

The party continued, people got drunker and drunker, and we were letting the good times roll on at the Net. John was giving me drunken advice throughout the night about how to hit on girls, most of which was the cliché junk I can’t really imagine myself, or anyone who didn’t want to be slapped, doing.

Also, from all the attention that we had garnered, I was amazed (and relieved) that no one had noticed my effeminate footwear.

The Net

Toward the end of the night, someone selected a sappy slow song from the jukebox. Old couples grinned and began swaying with each other, while lonely old drunks shed a metaphorical tear into their Buds. Virginia was talking with some of our friends. I just stood there, wishing for something a little bit more upbeat. John came up to me.

“Go dance with her.”

“With who?”

“Virginia.”

“This isn’t high school.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

“Yeah, she’s cool.”

“Can’t you tell that she is waiting for you to grab her and sweep her off her feet?”

“No, that isn’t my style.”

“Fuck. What is your style? Stop being a pussy!

“What, I just go up and ask her?”

“No, just grab her and start dancing.”

“I can’t just grab her. That just seems way too rude.”

“Girls like her won’t beg.”

“Yeah, I don’t know.”

“Look at the way she looks at you. She wants you.”

I contemplated his words. Each fading second brought me closer to some sort of redemption from this lecturing. While I believed there was chemistry between Virginia and me, I also didn’t want to ruin a good thing. We were good

MATT KUEHL

friends. Perhaps that is where I was always conservative like that. I had seen friendships get ruined by advances and such; I didn’t want to fall victim to the same trick.

“Come on, do it,” he said.

“Why don’t you do it?”

“I am a married man, and besides, she wants you.” He urged me on. “Do it!”

I wondered what would happen if I screwed it up.

“Get out there and do it you pussy!”

Or if she said no.

“This is your chance, man.”

Would it make everything different?

“Don’t live in regret.”

Was there really a more opportune moment to come?

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Come on son, go out and grab her!”

And I didn’t ask. I came to her, wrapped one arm around her, and dipped her. She looked surprised, but then genuinely smiled. I can’t remember what she said to me, but I believe she called me by my full first name, the way that she endearingly used to do. The dance was simple. And even though it lasted only part of a song, and even though it was amongst crusty old chairs and ash trays, the stained glass beer chandeliers, and with a broken toe that was not yet prepared to walk, let alone dance, it was beautiful. Looking and perhaps hollering on with his two friends, John knew his mentorship had been successful. His student didn’t beat up two guys and get three girls, but he did

The Net

get a dance with an incredible woman, a victory that they celebrated, of course, with beer.

***

Five years have passed since the events at the Net. While I sit here alone drinking a coffee, working as a teacher in a school and a community not so different than the one in northern Minnesota, I can’t help but think back on those days, and her, with affection; she is the one that taught me to appreciate coffee, you know. Virginia, John, the Net — I haven’t seen them in five years now. And while I don’t think that we were right for each other, I don’t regret dancing with Virginia that night; I don’t regret being less conservative than I usually was, and I don’t regret chancing it in the company of the camouflage and blaze orange patrons.

After all this time, I think I am finally beginning to understand the hidden truth to John’s teachings.6 In five years, I have seen many important friendships come, and while they don’t necessarily end, they go. In this migratory society, the ones you play it safe with, shy from, or grab on to, more often than not, they leave you all the same; this is the unfortunate reality of growing up. But even if this is true, the memories you make with the ones you did reach out to, they aren’t generic or stale or filled with what ifs or should’ves. They are like your trophy bucks, the ones this system tried to deny you, but the ones you took back 6

And even if John believed their use was only for trying to score with chicks, the hidden truth is

real nonetheless.

MATT KUEHL

because you decided it was worth doing something crazy, like sitting in a tree stand for several hours and then taking the shot, or going out in women’s sandals. And oh man, are these memories beautiful. They sound twangy, or ache like a fractured toe, or taste of mocha. The Net is what life feels like when, to paraphrase John, you stop being a pussy and grab on. And sometimes, if you are lucky, you’ll find someone who is willing to grab back, too.

They Rode the Bus for Fun allison wickler

They Rode the Bus for Fun

My

first few days as full-time custodian last summer reminded me of exactly why I decided to go to college. It was a combination of things that did it, really: the actual cleaning, yes, but more so the

cattiness among the custodians, the boss’s air of superiority, and even the way the kids looked at me like it was explicitly in my job description to wipe their fecal matter off the walls. But I had received my official jury duty summons letter from the county months before, and had informed my boss that I had been called to a possible two-week term of civic duty. At that point, it was all I could do to pray that I would be picked, rather than be sentenced to scraping gum off desks, cleaning floor-to-ceiling Venetian blinds, and cleaning up after classroom pets. I didn’t consider that my passion for social justice would cause problems in a courtroom.

I was the opposite of most other candidates, who found it a burden to be called away from work or their families. During selection, they looked for any excuse to show bias toward the lawyers, the parties involved in the case, or the nature of the accident that was up for judgment. I, however, avoided any response to the preliminary questions that would jeopardize my chance of showing up at the courthouse every day for the next two weeks. I practically willed myself to be selected; my ultimate dream was to be sequestered for the entire summer.

The best I could get was a small, two-day civil case. Still, it was something, and I looked forward to a brilliant and unique educational experience.

Michelle was a 20-something-year-old woman who lived with her mother in a nearby town. She claimed she was injured on a city bus because of the driver’s recklessness, and was only asking for the bus company to pay her medical bills and a small amount of pain-and-suffering. Her mother was the only other person on the bus at the time of the alleged incident, and apparently this bus was the only bus left in America with no video camera on board.

ALLISON WICKLER

Michelle and her mother were both ―slow‖ – that’s the best way I can describe it. Had they had the means or awareness to get evaluated, they probably could have been diagnosed with some formal type of mental retardation.

Not only did these people have no jobs and no money, they also did not have a case. After two years of waiting, they finally got to testify about Michelle being hurt on the bus. Because of their mental capacities, the time lapse, and the amount of coaching they had probably received, it was easy to understand how they could mix up their stories. They just didn’t have a chance against the slick-talking bus driver. The same simple questions, repeated a thousand times, were repeatedly answered, ―I don’t remember.‖ Despite definite responses given on their depositions months earlier, the prosecutor made them jumble and twist their stories around until I’m sure they couldn’t understand that their case was being severely worn down.

The verdict was plain and simple: The bus driver was not guilty. While it was plausible that Michelle probably had received some type of injury sometime (and as a result, substantial medical bills), negligent driving was not the cause.

She and her mother would not receive any money.

But during the deliberation, most people had a hard time ignoring the knot in their gut — the one that kind of feels like a conscience — despite the strict order to bar any personal feelings from the decision-making. It was obvious that every person took their role seriously; it was important to be consistent with the law that has been solidified in our country for so long. But one woman summed up what all of us in that jury room were probably thinking, despite the evidence laid out for us: ―I just feel like something happened on that bus.‖ Maybe it was Michelle’s untamed hair, acne-ridden face, or Goodwill-bought clothes that did it for me. Maybe it was the nearly inaudible way both Michelle and her mother spoke. Maybe it was the way their eyes always gazed

They Rode the Bus for Fun

downward, showing an utter lack of self confidence, that convinced me that the suit wasn’t a charade to extort money from a bus company. Or, maybe it was the fact that I thought the bus driver was a sleazebag, and I wanted to make him pay.

But what had struck me most about Michelle and her mother was the reason they had been on that bus in the first place: for fun. It was one of the only things they articulated clearly and consistently during their testimony. A lot of people say that riding the bus is an ―experience,‖ mostly for the variety of characters they encounter, but there is a difference between riding the bus for enjoyment and saying that riding the bus, when you have to do it, is fun.

Nobody rides the bus specifically for their afternoon entertainment, except for ―simple people‖ (as their attorney called them) like Michelle and her mother, who really had nowhere else to go.

I’m not stupid. I know that a legal system can’t be driven by sympathy; there isn’t enough money to go around for that. I know that some people lie through their teeth just to get money, and we can’t let feelings overtake the systematic approach to justice. But while I’m all for systems and organization and being logical, my stomach rarely lies. I still wonder about Michelle and her mother, which usually ends up bringing back that same sick feeling. I wonder, too, how I could feel so disgusting for doing the right thing; but somehow, on that day last summer, in an atmosphere that should embody all that is fair in the world, doing the ―right‖ thing felt really, really wrong.

Let There Be Light tara sloane

Let There Be Light

I

am deep in sleep, and the nightmares ebb and swirl in my head as they always have. I am running amidst hellish landscapes, with sinister smoke for sky and an atmosphere of billowy haze, and it is my job to save her, to guide

her safely… where? She is my mother, even though I don’t see her face and she’s always one step behind me to my left. We cross quicksand and fire and grimy bogs, steep terrain and never-ending pathways that somehow sprawl differently with every step, and we stop to talk with people who ask for directions in monotone, eyes blank. A girl I barely know when I’m awake, Katie, wants to know how much further. Just keep going, I tell her. It takes awhile, but you’ll get there. Get where? The road gets wider, the mass of journeyers, thicker.

But they’re all going to, as we go fro. Mountains shrouded in ash loom in the distance; the sky is red. We walk.

In the conscious world, it is the full moon. That is to say, the Sagittarius sky has transitioned to Gemini, so this fucked-up month of people leaving and fighting and running wild will (says my friend Paul) disappear with a blood red moon and a night of bad feelings (Paul again) proved true or false. I awake afraid. It never gets easier: the sensations felt from childhood night terrors – chest seizing, heart sprinting, feeling torn between both closing my eyes again (what if the nightmare resumes?) and getting up for a glass of water (but what if the darkness gets me?) – are no less impeding even though my feet have long since reached the end of the bed. The air conditioner rattles, but there’s something else making noise in my kitchen, on the stairs, in the hallway. A face appears in my doorway – (my roommate) Sarah? – shortish, short-haired, silhouetted, a tinge of blonde in the shards of moonlight escaping through closed blinds. She looks around my room, not at me, and turns to go. I check my phone – why is it that the most important thing when we’re disoriented and afraid is to know the time? – 4:17 a.m. But Sarah is supposed to be at her cabin this weekend.

Something has happened. I call out to her.

TARA SLOANE

Nothing. More banging around in the kitchen. Sarah’s bedroom light doesn’t turn on, bed remains disheveled and empty. I lock my door, hide my valuables (in bed with me), pull the covers up to my chin (worked when I was six), and wait. More acerbic nightmares, the kind I’ll protect Sarah from ever knowing, the kind that makes me call her the second I wake up to see if she’s okay. She is. Doors and windows still locked, kitchen in order, everything in its right place. And so I am haunted. Awesome.

A presence isn’t that surprising, really. I was that child who took walks with things I called angels, who saw them glide into my parents’ room when we got back from long trips and then disappear when I ran after them, who learned things from Ouiji boards that didn’t just become self-fulfilling prophesies (did they?), who floated straight to the ceiling during “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” fell back into my body and the outstretched fingers of a circle of thirdgraders who didn’t seem to notice where I’d been. Everything was simple light or dark back then – good or evil, angel or demon, from heaven or from hell. Or maybe it still is, and I’ve just gone like sheep, astray.

If it scares you, then it’s evil said my father, the morning after “she” visited.

I must go back to Him, start reading scripture again, fortifying myself with the armor of which I used to sing and pantomime in Sunday school so many years ago. Don the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith with grandiose gesture, stick out my righteousness-plated breast and stomp those peace and gospelclad feet, the (s)word of the spirit unsheathed before me. I say okay, Daddy, I’ll think about it, even though I know I won’t – at least not for a while. I do miss when it was simple to just get out of bed on Sundays and go to church, when I could use words like “faith” or “savior” without flustering, could believe that I truly am – what do they say? – fearfully and wonderfully made. And now when I pray, usually when I lose something or am smack in the middle of a panic attack, I tend to stop half way through the first plea for help, exasperated at the sudden

Let There Be Light

realization that I might be talking to nothing. And then nothing comes along and talks to me, and I’m a mess.

I always call my father when things get like this; when I get like this. I’m afraid that part of me is just humoring him, like when she comes back in the middle of the day a few weeks later, when Sarah is out and when I’d just finished telling someone my story, and I feel something in the air, like breath or heaviness or both, and I call my dad because I promised him I would if she ever came back, and he tells me to cast her out, yes like an exorcism. I shouldn’t have tried to speak to her when I felt the heaviness; I told her it was a low blow to give my oversensitive imagination nightmares, to appear to me in the witching hour of a full moon, for goodness sake, but that if she didn’t like our crazy parties we’d stop throwing them, but that I wasn’t going anywhere and so I hope we could make peace. She responded by turning the kitchen sink on, off, on again, and off, banging glasses and plates and rummaging in the cupboards. After the indignation (She’s the bitch disrupting my house, my afternoon. Why doesn’t she love me?), I shook, and my body temperature went snowy. She’d made her point, I guess, and at my father’s suggestion I made mine: tiny olive oil crosses above every doorframe, In the name of Jesus Christ you will not enter here! (and at Sarah’s: you will not hurt my Sarah). The embarrassment of talking to nothing had nothing on that, and ugh does my voice always sound so… meek? From her alternate realm window, I’m sure she was laughing (though she’s yet to return again).

When it’s the witching hour and things like this happen, the disparity between silence and noise feels vast as chasms, stuns to stillness. But in the middle of the day, cars drive by and people walk or bike by, and the shop on the corner does its dealings, and nothing outside my haunted house suggests the darkness that lingers in the in-between. My father kept cutting out as we spoke; I was certain she’d made her way into the airwaves, like monsters

TARA SLOANE

breaking free from the closet. Maybe she’s here because we needed to have this conversation, because you’re being prodded back to the light, my father says, familiar voice full of that steadfast certainty I’ve always admired, even though it fails to move me now. I wish this sickness were just for fear – she could be lighting my kitchen on fire, breaking all of Sarah’s dishes, coming to possess me, to steal my sanity. My childhood faith could have vanished for good – or have I banished it? But I do not linger upon these things. For what plagued me most was shame: yes, I was humoring my father.

But I haven’t lost sight of everything. If I absolutely had to choose, I’d probably say creationism. Maybe only because it’s more romantic, the idea of a heavenly easel, of an omnipotent imagination whose very breath gives life, but still. I still get queasy when I watch True Blood, when characters orgy and drink each others’ blood and literally rip the hearts each others’ chests and at the end of every subsequent terror of a day, the only one Sookie wants to hold her as she sleeps must leave her at dawn, lest he burst into flames, char into nothingness. Is it because I’m just sensitive, or is that the kind of perversion all those youth pastors were talking about? Maybe it just hurts less to trust scientific proof. And am I just supposed to accept that I flawed and fallible, then, if I can’t manage to tear myself away from the television screen (save for closing my eyes when the blood pours thick)?

And when someone’s misguided son or daughter shot up the corner by the Gay 90s a few weeks ago and I – along with my misfitting Minneapolis (friend) family, had left but two minutes before, heard the gunshots as we entered the parking lot, tried to convince myself it was firecrackers even though I knew is wasn’t, tried to be brave for Sarah, because how often does she get to come out into the gritty, sweaty, pulsating city with us? – breathed silent prayers of gratitude to the one who may or may not guide our cars swiftly home and waited to cry until I’d brushed my teeth, shed my dress, and tucked myself in

Let There Be Light

tight. Because if any of us had been lost, where would we go?

There’s a reason I won’t watch scary movies or shows: they fester. All it would take is one too many bumps in the night onscreen before I’d forget to check if it’s really just the air conditioner, nothing more, that’s doing the rattling. As it is, every time the internet goes down or the breeze coming through the window feels slightly colder than it ought to, I listen for her. I remember the night after her first visit, I had plans to go out dancing, even though no part of me wanted to go anymore. The dark outside scares me too, I guess. It was getting close to midnight, and my friend Jenny needed to go to the bathroom before we left. It was dark upstairs, and I followed her, flipping the stairway lights on for her. The poster hanging on the wall halfway up had been torn down in one corner – a coincidence that had me sleeping in other people’s beds for days. Some things you just can’t shake with an extra loop of Scotch tape. Although it must have been Sarah who hung it back up.