The tragedy of entropy II

Caleb’s Mom had her car radio on the a.m. station, WUAO, and a syndicated oldies show was playing, the host being Pat Boone. It had started to rain on the ride home. The show was called Jute-Box Saturday Night. Pat was playing The Love Unlimited Theme by The Love Unlimited Orchestra. Pat Boone followed this up with an often played Lawrence Welk arrangement of the gospel song, How Great Thou Art. Caleb’s Mom said, “That Lawrence Welk singer can’t hold a candle to Neil McVicker’s voice. When he sings those old gospel numbers, the hair on the back of your neck stands up.”

Caleb had heard his Mom brag on her co-worker, Neil McVicker’s voice for years.

Whenever there would be a singer warbling the gospel flavored music, Caleb’s Mom would muse, “Yes, I even told him long ago, ‘Neil, let’s just call Lawrence Welk and get you an audition.

You’re too good.’ And do you know what he told me?”

For the seventy-fifth time, Caleb innocently replied, “Why no. What did he say?”

And she would reveal, “Neil told me himself that he didn’t want any part of the musicians’ lifestyle!”

Caleb tried to imagine Lawrence Welk’s Hotsie Totsie Boys and The Lennon Sisters tearing up hotel rooms, getting wasted and fucking on the tour-bus. “No,” Caleb’s Mom primly asserted, “That kind of wild living just wasn’t for Neil McVicker. He said, ‘I know I could be famous, but my family and singing in my church are more important to me.’” Caleb reckoned that it wasn’t much of a choice at all. How could the Lawrence Welk musician’s empty life of constant debauchery and superficial glitz have compared with the reassuring permanence of his job at the bank and his choir singing? It couldn’t.

1

Caleb spent his two weeks home as if in a narcotic haze. Each day consisted of fishing for breakfast and lunch, running, cooking, getting stoned, and now, instead of watching The Young and the Restless at eleven a.m., Caleb and his Mom watched One Life to Live during her lunch hour at one.

After his Mom would go back to work (she drove the bank car to and from work.), Caleb would go for a drive in her car. Keeping the station on his hometown WUOA, he explored the dusty streets of his youth in the August heat of southern Illinois. His mindless, comforting drives gradually expanded to include excursions to the surrounding small towns of Carterville, Crainville, Hurst, Freeman Spur and Marion. He went by the concrete cinder block apartment duplex in which Serena and Billy had lived on the outskirts of Marion. He wondered what had happened to them and their daughter, Jessi. When he thought of them, he felt guilt, not the feverish kind of guilt that had once heightened his desire for Serena, but real guilt, like a granite face remaining after time has worn away the veneer of rationalizations. Caleb was sorry, not sorry as in ‘sorry but I’m in love with your wife’, just sorry. Sorry.

Billy and Serena’s poor apartment looked to be deserted. When Caleb saw the place and thought of Serena, he felt an echo of the secretive happiness he used to feel whenever he would see her. What was then an uncontrollable emotion was now distant, rueful affection. Now, the windows of their ground floor apartment were broken so that for a split second, as he rushed past, he could see inside the sunlit empty apartment. No one home.

Someone had been there though. The place was torn up. He imagined squatters inhabiting the rooms and destroying what they could. He pictured translucent strangers getting drunk and high and fucking on the dusty floors. He thought of them being violently wired and breaking the windows and the insides of the apartments on dark, wind blown nights, leaving their malignancy in 2

the air like radiation and in the walls like graffiti that can never be removed because its been burned all the way through the concrete.

Even though there was a strong argument that Caleb had desecrated something more important than the rooms in a ground level cinder-block apartment, the ruins of his lost friends’ home bothered him. And even though the apartment was filled with light, Caleb hurried past the place as if it were a stormy night. Though it was empty, Caleb shuddered as if he were being watched by something inside the deserted interior.

Summer’s really over now, he thought, driving through the reclaimed strip pits on the way back to Chase. Summer wasn’t over. The sun baked greenery, the humid heat and the dust in the air belied the idea of summer being over. But something was.

In the evenings of that week, Caleb and his Mom would sit on the screened in back porch.

The air smelled like pollen and mown grass in the late summer humidity, and Caleb mournfully played his harmonica, songs like Old Susanna and Camptown Races, everything played slowly.

Caleb’s Mom alternated between saying her rosary and reading her Harlequin Romance novels.

“Caleb, do you ever talk to your principal, friendly like?” she asked him.

Caleb stopped playing It’s Three O’ Clock in the Morning mid-melody. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean do you ever just go out of your way to go up to her and say, ‘Why good morning, Mrs. Porrtage,’ so she’ll know you’re there and that you’re on the ball?” she inquired.

“Actually,” Caleb confessed, “Everyday I pray for her to have a heart attack and die, but she doesn’t have a heart, so that prayer hasn’t come true.”

3

That didn’t sit well with Caleb’s Mom. “That’s not right. You shouldn’t be thinking like that, Caleb.” Caleb played a lick of Begin the Beguine. His Mom said, “That’s just sick.”

“Sorry. You’re right. I was just kidding. I used to pray that about Mrs. Herring.”

“You should never say such a...sometimes I don’t understand you at all, Caleb.”

“I know. Hating someone is bad. I don’t really hate either Mrs. Herring or Mrs. Porrtage.

God bless ‘em.”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“I’m not, Ma. I know hating folks is stupid. When I spent time hating Mrs. Herring, it didn’t bother her at all. It made me sick, but she just rolled on. So I gave up hating them. I made myself think of her and Mrs. Porrtage as being vulnerable,” He started to play Moon River.

His Mom interrupted him, saying, “How do you mean?”

“Like Mrs. Herring was morbidly obese, so I thought of her as a poor little overweight girl being left out of shit and being taunted and so forth. And Mrs. Porrtage is well over six feet, so I thought of her as a poor awkward teenager who no one asks to the dance.” Caleb finished his beer.

“Well don’t even joke about praying for someone to die. What if one of those women died?”

Caleb lingered on the thought of both of their deathbed scenes. “It would be awful. I’d feel so guilty,” he lied.

Caleb’s Mom put down her rosary and her paperback on the wicker coffee table next to the small yellow bamboo lamp. “Caleb,” she said, “You need to be friendlier to people who can help you. People like your bosses. That’s how people get ahead. It’s who you know.”

“Really?” Caleb said.

4

He was about to start playing, Way Down Upon the Swanee River when his Mom said, “Let me tell you a little story about a young man who used to come into the bank when I was a teller.

“All through high school, this boy named Bobby would come in on Fridays with the money he’d collected from his paper route. He’d put so much into his checking and so much into his savings account and even a little bit in his parents account. Every week he would do that, and he was just in high school,” Caleb’s Mom stressed to him. Caleb, much like the grasshopper in the children’s tale, tended to spend all of his money as quickly as he made it rather than save it as the ant-like Bobby did.

“So,” Caleb’s Mom continued, “about the time he got to be a senior, I said, ‘Well, Bobby, are you going to be going to college next year?’ and he told me, ‘No, Mrs. Jones. I just can’t afford to go, and I’d love to because I’m really good at chemistry.’

“I said, ‘Have you ever thought of a scholarship of some kind?’ and he said, ‘I wouldn’t know where to begin to even try to get such a thing,’ and I said, ‘Let me see what I can do.’”

Caleb looked at the cover of the Harlequin Romance that she was reading. Chaparral of Discovery was the title, a windswept cowboy and cowgirl on the cover. Caleb’s Mom continued, explaining, “I knew a fellow named Al Cabrese at the time who worked at SIU and had a line on all sorts of scholarships and grants, so I called him, and he told me to have Bobby call him. So the next Friday when Bobby came into the bank to make his deposit, I gave him Al’s number and told him to be sure and call the man. And when he called to tell Al that I referred him.

“He got that scholarship, and went on to become a chemist at Dow.” “Oh my gosh,” Caleb said. It was so nice of his Mom to do that.

5

“And do you know,” she continued, “That the next time he came into the bank, and every time he came in after that, WHY HE COMPLETELY SNUBBED ME! Went to another teller and acted like he didn’t know me from the man in the moon! Not a ‘Thank you, Mrs. Jones,’ not even a ‘Kiss my ass, Mrs. Jones.’”

Caleb suddenly was taking a liking to the story. His Mom sighed. “People...Anyway, my point was that he never would have gotten that scholarship without knowing someone.”

“Gee, Ma, I thought the moral of that story was not to do favors for dicks.”

“There can be two morals, two lessons from the story,” she conceded. Caleb played another song, one of the songs he’d heard on the car ride home. In the distance, coyotes howled faraway accompaniment. As Caleb slowly played, his Mom said in conclusion, “Don’t do favors for them, but don’t pray for them to die either.”

And so it was two soul cleansing messages that Caleb took with him back to the city. The first message was that he should always cultivate favoritism with his superiors no matter how odious they are. That would be easy enough to roundly reject. The second message was to maybe not be doing people any favors lest they be unappreciative. Caleb’s tendency to not go very far out of his way for others made this a more reachable goal. He went back to Chicago feeling refreshed and ready to begin another year.

BEAUTIFUL ANGER AND HER CUTE SISTER SORROW BOATING ON THE RIVER LETHE 6

Mrs. Porttage’s salary was one of the higher of the Chicago principals, but because the school itself was in a poor neighborhood, or because its students’ families were poor, or perhaps simply because the Chicago Board of Education was wasting money on things like pianos they would warehouse for years instead of using in actual schools, Ridle was poor in that very little money was allocated for the students’ educations either through federal or state funding or through local taxes. Therefore, in addition to there not being enough books and supplies, teachers would have the same students three or even all four years. So Caleb had lots of his old students again, and some new ones too.

Harold Stanley was a new student. Cognitively, he was a regular student, but he had been the victim of a gunshot wound and was wheelchair bound. There were about four or five gunshot victims in the school, all of them because of gang involvement. That was what had happened to Harold. He’d been in his gang fighting the fellows in the other gang, and someone had shot him.

He had told Caleb about being shot, being knocked off the sidewalk and lying in the street. He’d said it hadn’t hurt, but that he’d been unable to move.

The thing about Harold was that the young women were CRAZY about him. Was he a spectacularly handsome guy? Handsome enough. He was only a freshman, and though not as slight as Martell, he was not a large young man. He was thin, dark and had closely clipped hair.

Perhaps his eyes and mouth were his best feature, or maybe it was his voice and manner of speaking. More likely it was his overall manner, which was a blend of mature, understated thuggishness and quiet charm. Maybe he gave off an irresistible smell that the young women subliminally picked up. I guess it goes without question that he must have been a good lover. I guess.

7

Able bodied girls viciously fought over him, and he had, by twelve, fathered his first child.

That had been before he’d been shot, but being shot and put in a wheelchair hadn’t slowed him down. At fourteen, about six months after his injury, he had fathered another child by another girl.

Girls carried his books everywhere, brought him his tray at lunch, cut his bites of food for him and probably would have gladly fought over the privilege of feeding him if he’d let them. At some point during the year, Caleb had asked Harold why all the girls were drawn to him, and he’d lazily replied that all one had to do was love them. Caleb guessed that there was something that the young lad was leaving out, but he didn’t pursue the matter.

And of all the girls that Harold fooled around with, he started talking to Ronald’s girlfriend, Mary.

To further complicate things, although Harold no longer gang banged, when he had been active, his and Harold’s gang were against each other.

Maybe it was because Mary was so nice and pretty, and she had been wheelchair bound for her entire life and knew about everything that Harold was newly adjusting to. Whatever caused Harold to like Mary, he liked her and chose her to be his girlfriend. She went along with the idea pretty enthusiastically. Unlike lots of young men, and adults for that matter, Harold didn’t plan futures with the girls he dated. Except for the having sex and getting girls pregnant part, Harold was much more of a casual dater, and wasn’t at all possessive or controlling, not to mention safe or responsible. So Mary broke up with Ronald because she was attracted to Harold.. All did not bode well.

Ronald seemed as if he were ready to snap at any time. Harold and Mary went about their business as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Now it was Mary carrying Harold’s tray, cutting up 8

his cafeteria food into bite size pieces. The sight of them in the cafeteria made the whites of Ronald’s eyes go red.

Ronald got into a fight over it, but not with Harold. As mentioned before, Ronald was active in a gang. Two other boys in school who were also in Ronald’s gang felt badly that Harold, who, though no longer active, had once been one of their enemies and had now taken Mary from Ronald. It wasn’t that they didn’t give Mary credit for making up her own mind about with whom she wanted to be; it was simply a pride thing. And a bullying thing too. One afternoon they found Harold in the rest room trying to piss in the bottle he had for that. The boys, Percy and Orlanso, started messing with Harold, recklessly pushing his wheelchair around and splashing a bit of piss on him. The piss splashing gave them the idea of peeing on Harold, who, though he was resisting, was unable to defend himself very well.

But before they could carry out the rest of their humiliation and beating of Harold itinerary, Ronald came into the restroom. His eyes were red, but when he saw what was going on, they became even redder. The smiles that Percy and Orlanso initially had when they’d first seen Ronald faded when he muttered darkly that they were in violation.

“But, Ronald,” Percy protested, “This boy is not only our enemy, but he got your girl.”

Harold put in his two cents, saying, “Y’all are punks. Punk motherfuckers.”

“Hear that?” Orlanso cried, shoving Harold’s wheelchair so that it would crash into the wall. But Ronald didn’t let that happen, stepping in and grabbing the chair. Stopping it.

Ronald looked at the boy who had replaced him in Mary’s heart. He looked away, muttered, “Sorry. They’re in violation. Please leave now.” Harold, not being stupid, left.

9

“Man, what you gonna let him go for?” Percy cried, a sour expression on his face. “He’s got your woman, and you’re gonna’ let him go like that?”

Ronald was a young man of few words, and while he could have taken the time to explain that while it was true that Harold had taken his girl; still, beating a boy over a girl was not only wrong but stupid. He could have articulated that though she had broken up with him, he still cared for her and would never have done anything to cause her more of a burden than that with which she’d been born. Furthermore, Harold was no longer in their rival gang and had, in fact, paid a high price for his affiliations. Ronald could have verbally expressed his shame and displeasure at seeing members of his own set, very dishonorably tormenting someone physically challenged and wheelchair bound. He could have gone on and reminded them that it wasn’t their place to play vigilante for him, and he could have taken time to choose the best words to use in telling Percy how embarrassed he was by the whole incident but particularly Percy’s own uncalled for observations and his regrettable action of trying to push Harold’s chair into a wall. Finally, Ronald might have even made a few pithy observations about the displaced aggression he was feeling toward them for having interfered with his business and for his business having already upset him mightily and on general principal.

Instead, he knocked Percy out with one punch, not unlike the way they did it in the old time cowboy movies. He was considering doing something similar to Orlanso. Harold was trying to decide whether he wanted to knock Orlanso out as he had Percy, or whether he wanted to use him to break everything in the bathroom, starting with the mirrors. The knockout was immediately satisfying, but using the conscious Orlanso to break everything in the bathroom sounded really appealing; Ronald felt he could work something up that would be nobly admirable in its way. By then, Orlanso had wisely departed. Harold took the time to sit Percy on one of the toilets. Then he 10

left. And no one even got into any trouble, well, except Orlanso, who was after all in violation and whom Ronald arranged to have beaten in something like a formal beat down ceremony at their good old clubhouse somewhere.

Martell. Cute and loveable as the little scamp was, no one could stand to be around his contentious, sneaky and trifling ways. He could be boastful and insultingly cruel, but he could turn around and be childlike with wonder and bursts of infantile immaturity. What got into him to make him behave in ways that alienated his classmates, drove his teachers crazy and got him into trouble? By his sophomore year, everyone had his number. The EMH students such as Chester, Marty, Abbey and those kids understood the source of Martell’s acting out, the wrong headed ways that he was reaching out to the world, and they liked him for the essential sweet, goofy kid he was deep down.

That they could so readily pick up on what everybody else saw as Martell being a screaming asshole is a testament to their superiority in understanding matters of the spirit and heart. Nevertheless, the other students were not so charitable and took Martell to task for the little things he did, which were increasingly bad. It would be tedious and pointless to list the many instances of his classroom disruptions or his petty one sided feuds. They are too many and too similar and too grindingly insufferable to recount, so here are two of the many things that Martell did which caused the administration to, as they had done when he’d been a freshman and would continue to do until his graduation, suspend him throughout the year and send him home two weeks ahead of everyone else.

During his sophomore year his Grandma, who had moved in with Martell and his Dad after his Mom had left, talked his Dad into having Martell put on the school bus. He was getting into 11

too much trouble on the L. Martell did not like this at all, and the first day he’d had to ride it, he walked into Caleb’s third period class late and pissed.

Interrupting Caleb’s discussion of a selection from the American Literature text entitled, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by a preacher named Cotton Mathers, Martell met Caleb’s eye and said, “My Granny sucks dicks!”

Caleb had gotten the disgruntled Martell to sit down, but the boy kept causing disruptions by loudly instigating trouble among different students and trying to start arguments with his neighbors. The scary sermon’s message of the terrible precarious and random nature of life, and how we live by God’s grace in a beautiful world that we shouldn’t take for granted was lost in the struggle between guiding the students into blessed understanding and dealing with someone behaving like a raging dick. When the bell rang, Caleb asked Martell to stay.

In what Caleb said to Martell, there was plenty of screaming and lots of cursing. The Lord’s name was taken in vain and the f-word was repeatedly invoked. Somewhere in Caleb’s rant he stressed the unacceptability of Martell’s constant disruptions as well as his Grandma’s love for his unworthy ass being the motive for putting him on the bus, and the fucked upedness of saying that your Granny should suck your dick.

Caleb was punctuating his points by pounding his fist on the top of his desk. “...and you have no right to say that shit in my class every day...” BAM “...how the fuck are you or anybody else going to learn anything if all we do everyday is listen to you talk a bunch of stupid bullshit ...”

BAM “...so if all you wanna’ do here is act like a fucking baby, why don’t you drop out? Why don’t you drop the fuck out huh?” BAM “...don’t you know that one of the only people you’ve really got on your side is you Grandma, and here you’re saying that she should suck your dick for putting you on the Goddamned bus? She did that so you wouldn’t get your fucking stupid ass 12

kicked every other day, you Goddamn idiot...” BAM. And so on. At some point he stopped screeching and hitting his hand on the desk and looked at it. Martell was looking at Caleb’s hand too. It looked funny. The knuckle of his pinkie was over on the side of his hand.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Martell asked with genuine concern.

Caleb felt like throwing up. “Naw,” he said. “Get out of here.”

For the next eight weeks, Caleb wore a cast on his hand.

One afternoon near the end of the school day, Martell was walking down the hall with Chris. The two naughty fellows decided to see what mischief they could get into on their way to their last class. They ducked into the third floor bathroom. Immediately, Martell saw a great big waste can and a closed stall with someone’s legs visible at the bottom. Two plus two.

The bus driver had figured that he’d better use the bathroom now before it got any closer to the end of school. By then, he’d need to be on the bus, and he’d be stuck, so now was the time. He was answering nature’s call, sitting on the toilet and reading the sports section when he heard the door open. There were two voices. The lights went out. He heard scampering. Then something crashed down on top of his head knocking him off the seat and making him see lights in the darkness for a moment. What the fuck!

It didn’t take long for them to catch Martell and Chris. Chris helpfully told the principal that it was all Martell’s fault. They’d stopped in the bathroom to freshen up before their last class, and Martell had grabbed the waste can, turned off the lights and slammed it on top of the poor hapless bus driver’s head. Martell denied everything. He hadn’t done it, hadn’t been in the bathroom with Chris, hadn’t been coming down the hall. Where had he been? Not where the trouble had happened, that’s for sure. Honest.

13

Again, Caleb had Eddie Tuffs as a student. If anything, Eddie was harder to deal with than he’d been his freshman year. This year he had Eddie and Robert together at the end of the day in a film class. Half of Caleb’s energy went to dealing with Eddie’s irrepressible, bubbly stupidity, and a quarter of his energy was devoted to coping with Robert’s take on reality and how it pertained to Deareo’s butt. This being a film class, it was an opportunity for cognitively challenged and regular students to mainstream.

The curriculum was centered around one film a week, each day devoting the first twenty minutes of class to watching the movie. For the remainder of time after the viewing, the students would have varying activities. Mondays involved identifying main and secondary characters and making story predictions. Tuesdays had the students mapping the plot as well as reading reviews of the movie and responding in writing. Wednesdays they predicted how the movie would end and also role played scenes and critiqued each others’ performances. Thursdays they finished watching the movie and had a debate on the films’ merits and deficits, and on Fridays they wrote their reviews. The cognitively challenged were provided both writing prompts and assistance from the regular students. This being Thursday, the students were critiquing the film they had been watching that week, Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams.

Canisha K got the ball rolling. “This movie is so stupid it makes me hate all white people.”

Eddie Tuffs’ hand shot up as he squealed, “Don’t say that, Canisha. That movie was great.”

Eddie was wounded at Canisha K’s opinion, which made her smile. He tried to persuade her.

“Patch looks funny and makes me laugh with his tricks, and it, and...and it made me cry.”

“It made me cry too,” Robert asserted.

“I know. I saw you crying. I was embarrassed for you,” Canisha K replied.

14

“Oh, here’s a big fuck you, Canisha,” Robert said, punctuating his pronouncement by giving her the finger, the wrong finger, but the finger.

“Okay, kids, enough of that. Let’s just address the film,” Caleb reminded them. “Can we hear someone else’s opinion?”

Eddie Tuffs hand shot up as he said, “And I got mad at them people who was mean to Patch Adams!”

“Point taken, Eddie. Say, what did you think of it Joe?” Joe, a regular student, said, “I tend to agree with Canisha.”

Robert moaned and put his hands on the side of his helmet. “You all wrong. Patch Adams is a good good man.”

“Aw Canisha, you liked it. You know you liked it. Quit hating Patch Adams,” Eddie Tuffs said despairingly.

Olga Sanchez remarked, “It didn’t bother me that much aside from its being too corny.”

Canisha K shook her head. “That’s all it was. Corny! It was corny and lame, trying to make you admire that jerk doctor. If you think Patch Adams is funny, I’ll send you my crackhead uncle Leon to live with you cause he acts just about like that. Can’t finish a motherfucking sentence and always pacing, turning round back and forth wearing the whole damn family out; in fact, I wanted to know, is Patch Adams on rock? Is that part of the movie plot that I missed? It would explain a lot if that were the case.”

Eddie Tuffs found Canisha K’s comments intolerable, and he loudly cried in his high pitched whine, “Stop saying that about Patch Adams. He’s not on crack. DON’T SAY THAT!”

15

Robert too figured he’d had enough. Walk rolling his wheel chair to Canisha K’s desk, he gave the leg of her desk a tiny kick with his poor weak foot, and he cried, “STOP TALKING ‘BOUT PATCH OR I’LL KICK ALL Y’ALL BITCHES’ ASS!” Caleb had to calm Robert in the hallway outside of the class. It took about five minutes of assuring him that Patch Adams was fine and that everything was okay and not to take someone having a different opinion personally. He had him pretty calm and was about to go inside when he heard Canisha K call his name. “Mr. Jones,” she said, “Get in here before I have to hurt this boy.”

Caleb jumped into the room to see Eddie Tuffs out of his chair and in front of Canisha K’s desk. He was clenching and unclenching his fists and making an ugly face. It was good of Canisha to have called Caleb rather than give in to her initial impulse of pummeling Eddie, who leaned a little closer toward her and screamed, “PATCH ADAMS AIN’T NO CRACK HEAD DAMN YOU.” Canisha K’s eyes narrowed.

Caleb was at Eddie’s side in an instant. “Eddie, come on, not you too. Geez, it’s nice that you like that movie, but like I told Robert-“ Eddie pointed at Canisha K and screamed, ”PATCH IS GONNA WIN THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PERFORMANCE! BEST PERFORMANCE DAMMIT.” “Dammit,” chimed in Robert in a quietly regretful way.

“Eddie, you have to quit screaming now or I’m going to send you home, or to the office or some fucking where. Do you want me to call your Granny?”

“No.” “Are you going to sit down now?”

“But she-“ 16

”Eddie, you’ve got to sit down now. You’ve expressed your opinion and now it’s someone else’s turn.”

Eddie sat down, but Caleb could tell that he didn’t want to and that he had a lot more to say.

Since he was angry and felt unfairly censured, he decided to show off by calling attention to himself. First he loudly began burbling through his snotty nose, sucking it back into his throat and swallowing it.

“Get a Kleenex and blow your nose, Eddie.”Caleb advised him, and Eddie went to Caleb’s desk where the Kleenex were. He pulled two out and began blowing. It sounded like underwater cannon-fire, and Eddie kept blowing and blowing. Olga, who had been making a point that while the film certainly wasn’t perfect, it did have both funny and touching moments, stopped talking and looked at him. Caleb looked at the nose blowing Eddie out of the corner of his eye. Now everyone was looking at Eddie. “Eddie, go in the hall please.”

“I can’t help it,” he protested.

“That’s alright, just go in the hall.”

Blowing his nose, he went into the hall. Olga said, “I can still hear him blowing his nose.”

“Just ignore him,” Caleb suggested.

Eddie blew his nose for about five minutes. He tried to reenter the room to make a point about the film that he’d thought of while in the hall blowing his nose, but as he was still honking his magic proboscis, Caleb ordered him back out, which he resented. Finally through with blowing his nose, he reentered the room sulkily. Caleb was worn out, but for the remainder of the hour, about ten minutes, he was able to get the other kids to express what they liked and didn’t like regarding the movie. Finally the last bell rang.

17

Like Pavlov’s Dog, the students sprung from their seats to evacuate the room, and Caleb immediately busied himself with unplugging the television and vcr. As he hurried to leave, there was a beep from the speaker above the door. Caleb looked up to see everyone but Eddie gone.

Eddie was standing next to the intercom button, and he was grinning. He’d pressed it to call the office, and they were answering.

“Did you call, Caleb?” Lisa, the secretary in the office asked.

“No. I’m fine,” Caleb called to the intercom speaker.”

Then in his high-pitched, whiny voice, Eddie cried, “Help!”

Debbie said, “Did you call for help?”

“No,” Caleb said. “It’s Eddie Tuffs playing around.”

Before he could explain that it was all a stupid prank, the young lad said, “Don’t doooooooooooo that! Help. Stop it. Oh please stop it!”

“Eddie,” Caleb warned.

“HAVE MERCY! OH, HAVE MERCY!” Eddie bleated.

The school officer was there in about fifteen seconds. Caleb was ready to give Eddie something to beg mercy for when Officer Goldberg appeared.

“Okay, Eddie,” Caleb said, “You’ve got Officer G. here. Now tell us why you called the office? Have I been beating the shit out of you or are we going steady now?”

Thankfully, Eddie didn’t say that Caleb had either been thrashing him or trying to sodomize him. Still wearing his beatific grin, he gurgled happily, gleefully.

Caleb and Officer G. looked at each other as the tricky trickster chortled at the mischief he’d caused. Caleb wanted to punch Eddie about the head and stomach area, maybe kick him a few times. At least step on his damn toe.

18

“Eddie,” Officer G. demanded, “Why the hell you call them in the office? I ran up here.

Why?” From behind a face of snot impacted sinus, Eddie said in a sniveling, happily tremulous voice, “I’m Patch Adams.”

It had been a few months since Caleb’s cast had been removed. It was during his home room period with The Dawgs. Caleb had taken attendance and passed out the daily notes that his students would daily squash into a large paper wad and use as a basketball. Marky, Eric, Rodrick, Rondy, Andre and Katrell were playing. Cliffy was studying. Charlie and D. Brown were chilling at one of the long tables, and Canisha K was hard at work at one of the giant sewing machines.

She was cutting and sewing from gigantic bolts of cotton fabric, one of eggshell and one of lavender. At some point, Andre and Katrell, of course, got into a heated dispute and began wrestling. The rest of the basketball players started play fighting, and within seconds, all of them were boxing and wrestling. Cliffy, Charlie and D. Brown looked mortified. Canisha K ignored the rough housing.

So Caleb jumped into the middle of the melee. Within half a minute, The Dawgs were play fighting with Caleb.

For a time he held his own; well, not much of a time. He had Rodrick in a head lock and Andre with his arm twisted behind his back. Caleb was hopping on one foot and using the other to kick at Katrell and Rondy, which is how Marky tackled Caleb. Soon thereafter, The Dawgs were delightedly play punching and kicking Caleb about the ribs and kidneys.

“Enough. Ouch. Damn!” Caleb said, and The Dawgs reluctantly quit. Picking his sore ass off the floor, Caleb went to his desk in a huff.

19

The Dawgs grinned. Eric said, “Aw, Jones, don’t be mad. You’re mad. Jones is mad.”

“Don’t be mad, Mr. Jones. We were just playing. You were too,” Rodrick pointed out.

Caleb rolled his eyes. “No, I wasn’t playing too. I was trying to get you guys to quit.”

“You loved kicking my knee with your steel toe boot!” Rondy said.

Rodrick said, “And you were squeezing my head so I thought My skull was gonna’ pop.”

“Yeah, and you like to broke my arm twisting it behind my back, so as to you just doing your duty, I must say STOP LYING!” Andre said.

“Yes, it’s bad form to be mad after a play fight,” Marky pointed out. And he and Andre were right.

“Point taken, but fuck this stupid play fighting bullshit every day,” Caleb exclaimed.

D. Brown spoke up. “Mr. Jones is right. You all should stop that shit. It’s disrespectful to Mr. Jones.”

“That’s right,” Charlie concurred. “After all, fellows, we’re in school.” His and D. Browns air of disapproval was as palpable as the scent of weed around them, as just prior to homeroom, they had repaired to the washroom and lit several one hits, via the one hitter that Charlie had purchased up north. He’d tried to use one of his Auntie’s crack stems as a hitter, soaking it in alcohol for days to get rid of the nasty drug baked into the glass, but he’d been unable to rid the stem of the vile chemical aftertaste of crack, so he’d finally ventured out of his neighborhood via the green line and the red line, and he had pioneered to the north side of town.

There, no one bothered him regarding any gang affiliations. He’d enjoyed a nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant on Belmont and had afterwards enjoyed a banana strawberry smoothie. Then he’d ventured into one of the head shops about which Caleb had told him and bought several one hitters as well as a mahogany dug out. It was a different world. He’d never been up north.

20

And while slipping into the bathroom with D. Brown and doing hits was necessary if Charlie were going to be high in high school, roughhousing and being a constant disruptive, destructive pain in the ass to teachers, to Mr. Jones at least who had turned him onto getting a one hitter, was trifling. To D. Brown he said loudly, “Why can’t these motherfuckers grow up?” D. Brown smiled lazily and shrugged.

Canisha K commented, “I agree, but I think it’s wrong for Mr. Jones to curse like that. It sets a bad example.” To Caleb, Canisha K said, “For shame cursing, Mr. Jones. For shame.”

“Sorry Canisha K. You‘re right, and I promise you that I will never curse in school again,” Caleb vowed, and you can consider The Dawgs reaction to be like canned laughter right here.

Pricilla was and wasn’t different. Did she make an effort to conceal her sorrow or was her dignified silence her natural reaction to her son Paul’s death? When he’d been alive, she’d not talked about him, made excuses or complained, but, unlike Paul’s brothers and sisters, Pricilla had maintained a relationship with him. It was because of her that he’d been allowed to continue working. Had she been co-dependant? She’d turned him out when he’d repeatedly stolen from her. Did she feel resentment or guilt or both or neither? She didn’t say, not even to Brayfield, who over the summer had kicked out her own crack addicted husband.

If asked, Brayfield was happy to talk at length about the tragic and extraordinary antics of her husband and would veer from hysterical laughter to high bitterness. But Pricilla never talked about her loss.

She carried her grief as if she were a remove away from herself, the process of letting go invisible but for a certain observable indifference to her job. She cared enough to go through the motions, but on the inside, who knows? She accompanied everywhere her assigned student that 21

year, a physically and cognitively challenged poor boy from the Henry Horner Projects named Johnny Broom.

Johnny was wheelchair bound. He was big of head, and the rest of him was spindly. Like Marty, Johnny’s eyes shot out looking in different directions. He needed glasses, but had none and was almost leagally blind. His test scores put his cognition at pre-school level. Poor Johnny had to push himself around in his old rickety wheelchair, although Pricilla often pushed him. She would have pushed him more, but his Individual Educational Program, (IEP) stated that he had to push himself a great deal in order to maintain his weak muscles. Pricilla allowed Johnny the terrible freedom to blunder around the school howsoever he wanted.

Pricilla tended to him, escorting him to class, setting up books, notebooks and writing utensils for him, even going so far as to take notes. Johnny couldn’t take good notes himself. Oh, he tried, but his notes were wayward scribbles, as he was unable to write. Either Pricilla or Johnny’s teachers would accommodate him by giving him his tests orally and writing down answers he dictated, which were often unrelated to the question asked him.

Masking her bemused weariness, Pricilla might say, “Okay, Johnny, are you ready?”

Clapping his hands in eagerness, Johnny would inevitably cry, “I’m ready!”

Let’s say the test was on Romeo and Juliet, although the content really doesn’t matter.

Pricilla might ask Johnny, “Who loved Juliet?”

Johnny would look thoughtful, chew the tip of his pencil, perhaps make some random squiggles on his scratch paper, and then reply, “What are we having for lunch today? Sloppy Joe I hope, ” or “Know what? My Mother gave me this pencil. What do you think?”

22

Caleb got to talk with Pricilla outside of their lunch circle because he had Johnny Broom in Study Hall, a Study Hall which met in the cavernous, shadowy gym. Caleb sat in the back where he had a vantage point and could look down on the students who were randomly seated in the rows of chairs descending to the orchestra pit and the stage. Generally Pricilla and Johnny would hang out with him at the upper con-course. That’s what they were doing one day when Pricilla decided to talk about Paul to Caleb.

Most of the students were sitting more or less quietly. Every now and then a student would duck down into the seats and Caleb would call the student’s name. Marty was in the center aisle clumsily practicing a dance move, a spin and slide. Caleb had told him to sit down, but he’d finally given in to Marty’s pleadings to be allowed to practice his step. There were no where near as many students as there had been at the Study Hall at Brandywine. Caleb was absently gazing at the students’ heads and shoulders. Johnny was in the center isle next to Pricilla, who was working a crossword puzzle.

It was while she was filling in the crossword that she said something. “Have you ever known anyone who has been addicted to crack?”

“No.” Half a minute passed. Johnny clapped his hands and said, “Know what?”

“No, baby, what?” Pricilla asked.

“I’m gonna’ go down there,” he said pointing at a skylight but meaning the bottom of the middle isle. “That’s where my baby’s mama is.”

“Uh huh. Johnny, that ain’t a ramp. Baby, those are stairs.”

“I know,” Johnny quickly asserted.

“Well, your old chair ain’t made to roll down steps.”

23

Johnny’s head swayed unconsciously in consternation as if the weight of frustrating thoughts would cause his skull to topple if he weren’t careful. “Oh,” he conceded.

Caleb said, “I’ve known a few people who have had problems with powder cocaine, but I’ve never known anybody who has either free based or smoked crack. It’s the same thing isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Pricilla reached to the wheels of Johnny’s chair and set the brakes.

“Thank you,” Johnny said covertly trying to unlock his brakes.

Pricilla sighed. “Lots of people make jokes about crack heads. I guess they’re easy enough targets.”

“When you see them running around the city, they don’t exactly help their cause ,” Caleb told her.

“I know. People see skinny, filthy, crazy acting thieves and hoes and they tend to think the worst. Easy to generalize and see these people as ‘the crack heads’.” To Pricilla’s left, Johnny clapped his hands and shook his head happily, pleased with himself at having gotten one of the brakes unlocked.

Then, as if he’d just heard what Caleb and Pricilla had been talking about, Johnny’s expression darkened, and he commented. “My Mama smoke rocks.” He might have had cognitive deficits that prevented him from being able to read and count, but the wistful, sad knowingness with which he’d spoken bore the kind of wisdom that cannot be measured in units or learned but with experience.

“I know she does, baby. My son Paul did too. You remember Paul?”

“Good old, Paul.” Johnny murmured and laid his hand on Pricilla’s arm. “My Mama’s gone. Paul’s gone. My Mama’s gone. Smoking rock.” Johnny shook his head. “Now I live with 24

Granny.” His head sagged, and he took his hand away and started nervously, absently fiddling with his brake lock. He got it.

To Caleb, Pricilla said, “What would you do if someone you loved became addicted?”

Caleb thought. He said, “I’ve never believed in tough love. I always figured that you should stick by someone you love no matter what.”

Pricilla nodded. There was a far away look in her eyes as she stared off into the distance.

“I didn’t know what to do for Paul. Some said you have to cut them out of your life. Others said that would be leaving them to their death at their worst time of need. I took Paul to rehab. Then took him in my home. Then kicked him out. Took him back in. Back to rehab. Same old thing.

Then got him this fucking job.”

Johnny gasped at Pricilla’s having cursed. As he made the shame-shame gesture with his boney hands, his wheelchair slowly, minutely rolled toward the edge of the step.

“And they tell you it’s an illness, but instead of coughing and sneezing they steal, lie, be violent, be whores and kill themselves from not eating and sleeping. From poisoning themselves.

Paul was such a sweetheart. A big part of me will never cease to be surprised that he got into it.

Unbelievable. Then when you know what they’re about, and when you’ve known for a long time, you tell yourself that you’re savvy to them so nothing they do will either hurt or surprise you, but you never really stop being surprised that they’re not the way that they used to be. And you never understand the world looking at your baby and just seeing a damn worthless crack head.”

There was a clatter as Johnny’s beat up old wooden wheelchair banged its way down the steps. Johnny, his arms in the air, was screaming delightedly, “Whoooooeeeee!”

“Shit,” Pricilla dryly observed as her charge bumped and bounced his way down the steps.

On the way, guess whom he picked up? Marty, that’s who. “Oh hell,” Pricilla calmly added.

25

“Aw fuck,” Caleb sighed. For about twenty seconds, as it all unfolded, Pricilla and Caleb sat and helplessly watched.

With a girlish squeal, something like, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek,” Marty, who had been standing in the center aisle, had now been swept up in the careening wheelchair. Sitting in Johnny’s lap, they clattered all the way down until they hit the rail, where Johnny and his wheelchair stayed but where Marty was ejected from Johnny’s lap. Marty flew into the orchestra pit, luckily landing on something soft and dusty rather than falling on something hard and jagged.

Pricilla called, “Johnny, are you alright?”

“I’m great!” From the rail next to the orchestra pit, Johnny was clapping his hands and bouncing in his wheelchair seat.

Peeking from the shadows of the orchestra pit, Marty looked scared and disoriented.

Caleb called to him, “Are you alright?”

“I, uh, think so.”

“Well...let that be a lesson to you. When I tell you not to dance in the aisle, maybe you’ll listen now,” Caleb said.

Marty climbed back into the bleacher seats. “Uh huh, maybe I will” he said uncertainly.

Pricilla got out of her chair. “Let me get Johnny. Damn. I’ve got to drag that fucking chair all the way up here.”

“I’ll help you,” Caleb told her, and together they dragged Johnny’s chair up the steps, each step causing him to laugh or clap his hands in fathomless delight.

In addition to having Andre as a home room student, Caleb also had the impetuous lad in the one Spanish class that Mrs. Porrtage had forced him to teach. There was also a girl named 26

Vetta in that class. Vetta and Andre liked each other. They sat next to each other, and Caleb would see them flirt in a sweet, old-fashioned way that most of the other youngsters eschewed for the more popular ways of hooking up, either telling one’s hearts desire that you wanted to fuck, or the lighter, more casual verbal insult delivered in a flirtatiously derisive manner. Of course, there was always the timeless surprise of a well aimed sucker-punch to tell that special someone that you care.

Yes, seeing Vetta and Andre’s puppy love, fragile and tender, was like viewing an old timey, sepia toned portrait of your great-grandparents.

Sure, instead of gooning at each other, they might have been concentrating on their Spanish, but it wasn’t as if much Spanish was being taught anyway. Two paragraphs ago, you might have thought, ‘I didn’t know that Caleb knew Spanish.’ Well, he didn’t. The two years of high school Spanish that he’d had, he’d spent honing his cheating abilities to fool the eighty-five year old teacher, Mrs. Lingle. That had been the funny thing to do in Mrs. Lingle’s class.

Consequently, Caleb didn’t know any damn Spanish. Also, Caleb only had eight books, so kids had to double and even triple share each book. The books were at a rudimentary, baby level of Spanish and were illustrated with rosy pictures of clouds, bunnies and inanimate objects with faces drawn on them. Also, among the students, there were several native speakers of Spanish in the room to constantly correct Caleb’s nonexistent sense of Spanish syntax, usage and vocabulary.

Still, Caleb soldiered on like the doomed and incompetent journeyman without tools that he was. Standing in front of the class, Caleb might loudly project, “!Yomo palmeto Manfredini ferruchi panaterra!” or blather some other strung together nonsense.

And Olga might raise her hand and say, “Mr. Jones you just said, “Hat egg berry around backwards!”

27

Caleb would smile and blush, say, “Whoops, lets try this again,” and follow up by trying to teach something that would inevitably translate to something like, “South because tingle let they about for.” Mrs. Porrtage had told him he’d just have to ‘sub’ in the room until they could get a Spanish teacher. This was in addition to his already full schedule, so to do this he sacrificed his prep period, not to mention the students’ education.

Several difficult months passed before Mrs. Porrtage found a Spanish teacher she liked. By then, Caleb had the non-speakers yammering his severely idiomatic version of Espanole, and Andre and Vetta’s romance was on the cusp of fruition.

One day before the new Spanish teacher relieved Caleb of his onerous task, Vetta came in after class to ask his advice.

She wanted to date Andre, but her parents wouldn’t let her go with any boy. They were very strict with Vetta. With eyes downcast, the poor girl said, “I just want to be able to talk to him and spend some time with him so bad, but my Momma and Daddy won’t let me see him at all. I just don’t know what to do. What should I do, Mr. Jones?”

Caleb scratched his head and tried to put himself in her position and think of what he would do. He’d lie, of course, and he remembered giving that exact advice to Abbey. That had worked out wonderfully, so why not try it again.

“Well, Vetta,” he began, “Who is your best friend?”

“Why, that would be Estella Sayers.”

“Okay. Go to your Mom and Dad, and tell them that you’re going to have supper at Estella’s house, or maybe that you and Estella are going to see a movie. That might be better because that way you can have Estella tell her parents that you and her are going to a movie so if your parents check, Estella’s Mom and Dad will tell them the same thing that you told your parents.”

28

The light went on in Vetta’s head. “Yeah! That’s a great idea. And Estella can maybe hook up with a guy of her own. I think she said she likes Ray Ray.” “Why sure she could. Good idea, Vetta.”

“No, you had the good idea. Andre is going to be so happy. Wait till I tell him. He’s been begging me to figure out a way that we could be together. Thanks so much, Mr. Jones.”

Caleb felt the warm glow of satisfaction at having helped another of his students. “No problem, Vetta. Or should we say, ‘Non problemetti de all-o’.”

The more Karl’s Mom and Dad advocated for him, the further into his shell he withdrew. It wasn’t easy for Caleb or indeed anyone to tell how Karl was feeling. Even on a good day when he was at his best, he still could neither talk nor gesture more than slightly shaking his head or moving his hands a bit. And sometimes the medication that they gave him made him feel drunk or worse. One day he pissed himself and didn’t even known it.

His aides were expected to help him a lot, and to his parents that meant doing much of his school work. If Karl’s grades went slightly down, his Mom and Dad would send word to the principal. The aide would be reassigned to someone else, and a new helper would then be brought in. Pricilla and Brayfield had both been assigned to Karl for a short time, but neither were willing to do his work to the extent it took to get him an A. And Karl’s Mom and Dad weren’t satisfied with anything less than A’s.

“Those people are wrong headed,” Pricilla said at the lunch table about Karl’s parents..

“Have you ever had them come and sit in your class with you?” Palmer Weeks asked.

“Yeah, but I didn’t mind them,” Caleb said.

29

“I know they love their child, but they’re not doing him any favors. That boy is sick,” Brayfield said. “And they’re wanting him to go to Northwestern University ‘cause that’s where the Dad and Mom both went. How is that boy going to attend classes and do the work when he can’t read at more than a third grade level?”

Mr. Brown put forth his theory. “When you accommodate the kid like that, you’re making an environment that the real world isn’t going to measure up to. I heard that boy’s parents are wanting him to be a lawyer. I like old Karl, but he ain’t gonna’ be my motherfucking lawyer.”

“How’s he keep getting such good grades?” Palmer Weeks asked, fixing Caleb with the scalpel eye.

“Hey,” Caleb said defensively, “Grades are stupid.”

“Well what do you base your grades on?” Jackson asked.

“Whatever I feel like giving the kid.”

“That’s not fair.”

“On the first day of class, I tell my kids that although I’m an easy grader, I’ll give them whatever grade I feel like. And if they don’t think it’s fair; well, it’s not. I tell them right off the bat that there’s nothing fair about me, so they should take pains to get on my good side.”

“Which they don’t,” Palmer Weeks pointed out.

“And then you give all those fuckers A’s and B’s,” Jackson concluded.

“Well what did you give Karl?” Caleb asked.

“I gave him an A. What with all the accommodations of the aide reading and writing everything down for him. He made an A.” “What did you give him, Weeks?”

30

“I gave him a B. The only B the poor little kid has probably made here, but Goddamn it, it’s cooking class, and he couldn’t do anything in the kitchen except WEAR A FUCKING CHEF’S HAT, so I couldn’t give him an A. But he did well on the tests that his aide at the time administered to him, so I couldn’t give him below a B.” Caleb was a little exasperated. “What do the grades matter anyway? They’re stupid.”

“Karl’s Mom and Dad don’t think so,” Brayfield cracked.

In fact, three years later, Karl graduated from his class as Valedictorian. Standing on the stage, he was flanked by pictures of himself with the mayor on one side and on the other side with President Reagan. Karl’s Mom knew people in both parties, and of course what politician would turn down a photo op with a grinning handicapped kid shaking their hand? Not Dailey and Reagan anyway.

Karl delivered his Valedictorian Speech via his Mom, who had written it and was standing next to him on the stage and delivering it for him. It was slightly surreal moment. Karl’s Mom, speaking as if she were Karl himself, told all the girl’s in the school to try and not miss him too much, as if he’d been a raging Cassanova. Up there on the stage, Caleb couldn’t see any reaction at all from Karl during these proceedings, but he could imagine how the poor kid felt being the center of attention and having his Mom make a monumental ass of both herself and him. All out of a misguided sense of love.

Once ensconced at Northwestern, poor Karl lasted a week. His parents tried to sue Northwestern and then the Chicago Board of Education, but their suits were overturned. Karl spent the rest of his life in the lonely splendor of his parents’ luxurious home.

31

Ji Kee was a bright freshman of sunny disposition. She suffered from cerebral palsy but was ambulatory and could walk and move independently, though shakily. It affected her speech so that it was very hard to understand her. That didn’t stop her from initiating conversations, and not being understood didn’t make her feel self-conscious. She made herself be understood. She dressed in the post new-romantic punk fashions of the time. Also, Ji Kee liked Teddy, who was also a freshman that year.

Caleb had them both in his freshman class, but whereas Ji Kee was like a spring day, Teddy’s heart was like the Chicago winter. It wasn’t just that he was wheelchair bound, although that would have been enough to have embittered Teddy, who, like Ji Kee, was very smart. It was something more, something that legitimized his teenage alienation even more than not being able to use his lower body.

Teddy had a degenerative nerve disease that killed most people who had it by the age of nineteen or twenty. He had not only seen his three older brothers die of it, he had inherited the wheelchair that had been passed down from the oldest brother on. And Teddy’s problem with his parents wasn’t your garden variety, “Mom and Dad are being unreasonable because...blah blah blah...” No, Teddy’s parents had behaved in a stupid and selfish manner that caused Teddy to resent their choice in having had him in the first place.

They’d known from their first son that their boys would all be afflicted by this horrible disease, and still they’d continued to have children. Teddy’s two sisters carried the gene but were unaffected by the illness themselves, but Teddy knew he was going to die young in the same way brothers Larry, Randy and Bob and died. His parents defended their choice by saying they didn’t practice birth control because they were Catholic, but when their priest privately recommended that they practice contraception, they changed priests.

32

Of course, they received money for every afflicted son they had, and Teddy’s father, an idiot named Jerry, didn’t work. Nor did the stupid mother, Edie. They did go to mass in the special van provided for them.

Teddy wouldn’t go to church. He wished he’d never been born. Still, he wasn’t suicidal.

Though angry and bitter, he wanted to be alive. He dressed goth and wore thick pancake makeup.

Ironically, unlike most goths, who wear white makeup to make themselves look dead, Teddy wore regular flesh tone foundation to give his deathly pallor some artificial color. He was by turns sullen and belligerent, but Caleb couldn’t blame him. If he’d been in Teddy’s shoes, he probably wouldn’t even have gone to school, so he respected the boy’s smoldering anger and self-pity, though he couldn’t see how Ji Kee could stand to be around him.

Like certain people who would come on the L or the bus having just finished a cigarette, Teddy usually smelled as if he’d emerged from a nicotine bath. One day, he came to class smelling of more than cigarettes. During his previous period, he had ducked out and gone to the bathroom where he’d quickly drunk a half pint of sloe gin so that by the time he showed up at Caleb’s class, he was smashed. Not only smashed but he was in his belligerent mode. “Fucker,” Teddy addressed his teacher. “You want trouble?”

Caleb could smell the alcohol from across the room. In answer to his charge’s question, he replied, “No, Teddy. I’m not looking for any trouble.”

Too late. Teddy rolled up to Caleb’s desk, swept the books off it with his hand and promptly puked and pissed himself. The smell was gut churning, and it was close to Caleb and his desk. “Lovely,” he quipped. To avoid the dreaded puke smell gag trigger Caleb discreetly moved to the far side of the room. By then Teddy was slumped in his chair, the puddle of piss trickling 33

down the steel machinery of his brothers’ legacy to him and spreading across the floor. Teddy looked blearily up. Caleb said, “Feel any better?”

“Aw fuck you. You’re such an asshole and you don’t even know it.”

“Well, I guess I’ll-“ ”Oh for God’s sake, shut up with the fucking glib bullshit, you stupid fuck.”

Caleb was going to say something like, ‘Guess you’ve got my number,’ or some other dry, glib retort, but he just said, “Okay.” Not much glib or retort-like about that. Poor doomed, soiled Teddy couldn’t even charge Caleb of just having to have the last word. All eyes were on Teddy.

He rose to the occasion. Laboriously raising his arm to shake his fist , he announced, “I’ll be glad when I’m fucking dead, just so I can get away from all of you stupid cocksuckers,” and then Teddy entered the realm of those only a drink away from death by passing out; whereupon, in one last unconscious act of rebellion, he shit himself.

This year the students campaigned for a spirit week with theme days like many other schools had. There was seventies day, plaid day, opposites day, p.j. day, and wear what you want day. Plaid day went well. The rest of that week ran into problems.

On p.j. day, for example, while many students dressed in their regular clothes and some dressed in comically modest pajamas, lots of other students came to school in their underwear or short, teddy style p.j.s. Caleb’s eyes nearly popped out during first period when a student named Delores Archer pranced into class wearing a see through teddy which allowed for all to see her titties and little pink panties. She’d barely sat down and Caleb hadn’t regained his composure when Delores and about two dozen other students were called to the office over the intercom.

Caleb could see them pass by his classroom. There was Olga in some sort of hoo-doo Victoria’s 34

Secret en-sem, and Chris in his tightie whities. And Marty went by in what looked like a male gstring, his scrawny white ass cheeks pimply and looking like chicken skin. Once in the office, these students were adorned in cast off clothing that the school kept and then sent home.

Seventies day occasioned disco, hippie and punk fashions. There were many butterfly collars, bell bottoms, tee shirts, pimp suits , some black punk outfits of straight legged jeans and tee shirts with the sleeves cut out, and there were even a couple of white John Travolta suits.

There were also several dozen marijuana leaf emblazoned tee shirts and bronze pot leaf belt buckles as well as roach clip and coke spoon necklaces and earrings. Again, students were sent home.

Opposites day outraged Mrs. Porrtage when she saw the boys and girls in drag. Students were sent home.

Because of this, dress wild day was called off, which caused the student body to defy the administrations edicts and dress wild anyway. S.W.S.H. Throughout the week, the regulars and special students both took part as best they could, most of them. Some kids, like Herbie, didn’t take part not because he wouldn’t have liked to, but because he didn’t have a wardrobe from which he could put outfits together, nor could he go shopping. Federal and state funding, whatever they are, didn’t allow for Herbie’s trip to get special pajamas, or a special plaid outfit or something with a seventies flair. He did enjoy watching the other kids in their costumes. He paid particular attention to Chris’s great outfits.

On seventies day, Chris dressed like a peacock pimp in wide brimmed pimp hat splendor.

He flourished his pimped cane as his pimpish bejeweled goblet gleamed like a bowling trophy.

And his pimply outfit was like from Mars: sapphire paisley pirate shirt; sky blue fringed suede 35

vest; his sisters’ retro platforms; canary yellow bell bottoms. Chris struck his thoughtful pimp pose and said to Herbie, “I want my money, ho!”

Herbie flashed his pal a grimace smile and held out his little hand for a high five.

On plaid day, Chris was a vision in contrasting and clashing tartan plaid patterns. Purple green and orange plaids he wore. Looking at him gave too long would give you a headache.

On opposites day, Chris had worn his sister’s wig, micro-mini skirt, thong and thigh high boots. He discovered that it was amusing to flash people on the bus, but when several men approached him, thinking him to be a ho, he nervously got off at the stop several blocks away from school. During the short walk, no less than five cars tried to pick him up. Like on pajama day, Chris was sent home.

On dress wild day, Chris dressed in the gang colors of his neighborhood, which got him shot at as soon as he got out of his neighborhood. This was yet another day that he was sent home, along with two dozen other students who had either done as Chris had and represented their nations or had dressed in a sexually provocative manner in protest of having dress wild day cancelled. Incidently, no one who was actually in a gang dressed in gang colors on that day.

Nothing bothered Herbie that much.

Of course, he was frustrated with his condition. He brokenheartedly wished he could move like other people. In his dreams he knew how it felt, but he also knew that he would never see that dream realized. And not being able to communicate but with a clumsy pointer was frustrating, but Herbie was hopeful.

Herbie, like Teddy, was very smart, but Herbie had gotten used to having nothing, and had learned to appreciate things like waking up and being able to breathe okay. Not feeling ill and 36

having medical attention when he was ill. Knowing people where he lived and at school. Liking a girl. He cherished the delusional memories he had of his family. His Mom and Dad had been alcoholics who’d had the four year old Herbie taken from them. They’d given him up willingly and had never bothered to visit him, but he loved them anyway and would gaze at a framed picture of the three of them together in the park that he kept on the night stand by his bed.

Although Herbie wasn’t doomed to die at the end of his adolescence like Teddy, Herbie reckoned that he probably wouldn’t live all that long. He valued the small details that made up his life as much as Teddy was irritated by the minutiae. Herbie passively let go of his days, happy to sit somewhere and gaze at whatever passed before him, seeking stasis. Teddy desperately tried to imprint each moment with something of himself, even if it was a curse. Whereas Herbie wanted to watch, Teddy wanted to act. It might have had something to do with him being able to talk and Herbie being limited. They were both painfully aware of life’s infinite possibility and fierce beauty as much as their own short lived and tenuous grasp of it.

Before Sheena’s debilitating asthma attack, she would have been excited about spirit week.

She, her Mom and her sister would have spent weeks putting together the perfect outfits. As it was, she wouldn’t have participated, but her parents, who still wanted to see her and treat her like their old girl, wanted her to take part in the fun. On p.j. day they pushed and pulled her trembling limbs in jumpsuit style pajamas with a floral, girly print. On seventies day, her parents had thought it cute to dress her like a flower child in a headband, modest mini-skirt and go-go boots.

Plaid day had her bedecked in a Scottish tartan skirt, sash, kneesocks and a tam that kept falling off because of her palsy. On opposite day, her parents had made her up like a cute, girly farmer in red bandana, overalls and braids.

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Despite Sheena’s terrible self-consciousness, there remained a part of her that still delighted in lovely clothing and costumes. And even feeling the kind of ugliness that only a girl can feel, she took a shamed delight in dressing up every morning that week, and when she looked in the mirror each day, she was mocked by both the clothing and her memories of how she used to be. Still, she hoped that some of the regular students would notice her. No one did except Chris, who said the usual stupid, mean things. Sheena didn’t think what he said was funny at all. It hurt every time he compared her to a crackho, or commented on her tremors or her thin arms and legs.

Still, every morning, one of the people she thought of right before she looked in the mirror was Chris. She secretly hoped, before she looked, that today Chris would find something alluring about her, something of her departed essence that would be brought out by the outfit. But she didn’t see what she wanted when she looked in the mirror, just her eyes trapped in the ugly, sad face of this new sick girl who was wearing pretty, ill fitting clothes, not her. When she went to school, although the other challenged students complimented her, neither Chris nor any of the regular students saw anything of the person she used to be.

The only one who really seemed to NOTICE was Herbie, who was constantly trying to get her to take time and decipher the tedious tappings on his communication board. But she didn’t have time for him, whom she despised for his curdled hand, his blue expressive eyes set in the doughy, grimacing face and his soft, lumpy, inert body. He looked like a helpless sheep on its way to being slaughtered. As for herself, she felt like a taboo person, an untouchable, to be treated either with scorn or ignored as if she were invisible.

Abbey had quit both the twins and had played the field as much as she could, affixing crushes on different boys every day. Her usual manner of flirtation was to singingly approach her 38

prospective boyfriend with personal questions such as his name, address, phone number and, more directly to the point, what he liked in a woman. And no matter what the reply was, Abbey’s response was to deeply blush and lecherously giggle.

Abbey started to avoid wearing her glasses. She had also taken to wearing makeup, and would slowly and painstakingly apply it in class. Caleb allowed her to do this because he felt that it was a matter of pride for her to be able to beautify herself in front of her friends. The results were always asymmetrical, one bright blotch of rouge higher on one cheek than the other. Around her eyes were garish and blurred shades of green, black and orange. There were lipstick disasters.

She would get it all on her helmet. Still, it made her happy.

Chris, afraid that whatever reaction he had would be interpreted as flirtation, studiously ignored Abbey, but the friends she grew up with had varying reactions to her efforts. Some, like Herbie, Marty and Ramiro, were diplomatically quiet. Deareo would look startled and make a comment like, “Interesting look, Abbey.” Robert would look startled and avoid her as if he no longer quite knew who she was or was troubled by the person who looked like his friend but who clearly was like someone else. Zuzandra would invite her to church. Omar, Jose and Chester would generously compliment her, Jose saying, “Omar, Abbey looks like The Leetle Mermaid,” And Omar would add, “I think she reminds me of the girl on that show. I forget the show, but the girl is Heather Locklear.” Chester would wolf whistle and say, “You’re gonna get dates now.”

Lishy and Virginia would also express admiration, reverently saying, “You look like a princess,” and sometimes borrowing and trying to apply makeup the same as her. Virginia had a good eye, but Lishy liked to use a too much foundation and blush, slathering it exclusively on her forehead and chin. Sometimes, at the end of the period, it was all anyone in the class could do but 39

stare at the three girls. And when they would walk out of the room, sometimes Caleb could hear the incredulous reactions of the other students. There would be the sound of gasps and involuntary but quickly suppressed bursts of delighted laughter. To Abbey, all of their reactions were colored by her fomenting desires so that she saw their responses as loving attentions.

If the regular students had diminished social lives compared to suburban or small town kids, then imagine the degree of isolation a handicapped young person faces. Do this and understand why these kids never missed school.

Abbey was like that. School was her life. Her time at home was a kind of waking somnambulist’s nightmare where she felt as if she were underwater. She held everything in that she allowed to shine at school. She said little and endured the silent ill will of her parents. In Abbey’s household there might not be much in the refrigerator, but the television was on twentyfour hours a day, and when her parents weren’t drinking or arguing, they were sitting in their darkened apartment focusing on the t.v. They liked shows like Jerry Springer, which put them in fouler moods than they already were. They expected Abbey to not bother them. So she quietly endured her existence at home to experience her life at school.

With this in mind, it may be easier to, if not approve of her choices, realize that her choices are her business, and the reason she made them at school was that she had no other place. That’s how Caleb saw what happened to her and two able bodied EMH students from another class, Fred and Bob. She had met both of them in her work program where she and they spent a period everyday helping in the kitchen. She liked them both.

Yes, they were caught in the food pantry that was back of the basement kitchen, all three of them stripped nudie. They were caught by head cook, poor old Mrs. Bentley, who, shocked out of her wits in the dim light of the pantry, dropped an open bag of flour and screamed.

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A three-way! Well, not a three-way if you listened to Bob, who claimed he’d been unable to preform because of Abbey and Fred’s peer pressure for him to remove his socks.

“I tell you, once they made me take off my socks, it was all over. I’d have been alright if it hadn’t been for that. I can’t stand the way my feet look,” he’d said, though there was nothing abnormal about his feet. Nevertheless, Bob couldn’t fathom why he was being punished with Abbey and Fred, who, according to him, had done the deed using a pile of bread loaves as their love bed. He was indignant that he was receiving the same three day suspension that they were.

Abbey’s Dad was plenty angry. He would have been angry anyway, but the fact that Bob and Fred were African American made him apoplectic. He wanted them charged with statutory rape, except that Abbey was over eighteen, and both young men were sixteen and seventeen respectively. Although he came ready to tear the young men, his daughter, Mrs. Porrtage and all the staff a nice new collective asshole, Mrs. Porrtage explained that if anyone could cause legal trouble it could be the parents of the young men who could bring charges against Abbey.

When he attempted to bluster, she offered him a drink and a fine cigar. Mrs. Porrtage, in fact, assured him that from now on she would be taking a special interest in Abbey, and that if she heard that anybody was abusive in any way, she would have the police involved in a heartbeat.

When she turned the tables on him and asked him what he planned to do about what Abbey had done, his already red face turned nearly purple as he muttered that his daughter would be punished.

Mrs. Porrtage forced Abbey’s Dad to meet her eye and she pointedly asked him what EXACTLY he planned to do to punish her, and when he hemmed and hawed, she said, “Our councilor has all the agencies and advocates in the city and would be glad to arrange family council sessions for you, your wife and Abbey. It wouldn’t cost you anything.” Her eyes 41

narrowed as she fixed the poor, dim fellow in front of her in her scrutinizing stare. Then she said harshly, “Abbey says that you hate black people. Is this true?”

Mrs. Porrtage visually fileted Abbey’s Dad as he, resembling a fish gasping for air, gawped and stammered that, no, no. Then, becoming indignant, he said, “This is about Abbey being raped-“ ”Abbey wasn’t raped. She told me, our councilor and our police officer that what happened was consensual. It’s unfortunate, but it happens. We don’t want it to happen again, and by giving Abbey and the other boys a three-day suspension, we feel we’re telling them that what they did was inappropriate, but also, what’s done is done.”

She continued looking hard at Abbey’s Dad, then spat out, “What do you want us to do to the boys? We thought that when they got back we would monitor them more closely and get them into psychological counciling to learn more appropriate behavior, but what would you have us do to punish them and not your daughter? Lynch them maybe? Would you settle for castration?”

“I don’t want them around my daughter,” he sputtered.

“They won’t be, but if you mean by ‘them’, African Americans, than I have to tell you that this is a public school and your daughter will be around blacks, Hispanics, Asians and a few white kids. We’ll watch her around Bob and Fred though.”

Abbey’s Dad said, “Well, I guess that’s all I can ask for then.” He got up and offered to shake Mrs. Porrtage’s hand.

As she took his hand, Mrs. Porrtage said, “If you hate blacks why would you want to shake my hand?”

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Abbey’s Dad froze, then began sputtering. He said things like his not having come here to be put on trial and his having come here to find out what was going to be done about Abbey’s being raped.

Mrs. Porrtage cut him off. She looked at him incredulously and cried, “What? When Mrs. Bentley walk in on Abbey and the two boys, she said Abbey was wearing an ear to ear Kool-Aide grin on her face, and like I said, she not only told me, but told about eight other adults here that she willingly did what she wanted-“ ”But she’s retarded, and you’re supposed to keep her from being taken advantage of.”

“The boys involved are also COGNITIVELY CHALLENGED, and once again, we punished all three of them because we held them all accountable for their behavior, including Abbey. And once again, what do you want me to do to the boys? Have them arrested for fooling around with a girl two years older than them? Have them labeled sex offenders over this? NO.” Shuffling to the door, Abbey’s Dad darkly muttered about taking matters into his own hands and whipping the boys’ fathers.

“I wish you would try,” Mrs. Porrtage gleefully called. “Because I’ve seen both those boys’ Daddys. Would you like for me to set up a meeting between you and them?”

He didn’t answer her but hurried out of the door. Mr. Porrtage leaned back in her oversized throne like chair and put her feet on her desk.

D. Brown sold weed in school. Not much on a daily basis, but everyday. He sold actual nickle and dime bags of pot. They were the size of peas, but there were plenty of people who placed orders. His pal Charlie, of course, didn’t buy pea sized dime bags from D. Brown.

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Charlie’s Mom’s boyfriend sold weed wholesale, so Charlie was able to wake and bake and continue baking, barbecuing and full on broiling throughout the day.

D. Brown was fronted his ounces at a discount price from his Aunt and was, like generations of potheads before him, able to smoke for free from the profits he made. Each week he would buy an ounce of compressed Mexican herb and pack as many tiny, crack rock sized plastic baggies, pea-sized baggies, with weed. Every day he would take one hundred dollars worth of orders, cash only. The next day he would show up with the orders.

When D. Brown had been younger, he’d sold crack on a corner close to his family’s apartment. Although he made more money selling rock then weed, soldiering every night on that corner was easily as tedious as working at a Mac Donald’s would be and much more dangerous to boot. And then there was the moral issue of selling crack to crack heads, which D. Brown didn’t consider at first. He was so used to seeing people addicted to crack in his neighborhood that the sight of them didn’t freak him out. They were people he didn’t know or didn’t know well, and he made jokes about them and marveled at their psychotic antics with his friends.

He began to have misgivings a few months after he’d started selling. It wasn’t the crack heads’ monstrous qualities that were off-putting. It was what remained of their humanity.

Some boys his age who had taken to corner dealing became numb and contemptuous of their addicted customers’ conniving misery, but D. Brown couldn’t inure himself to seeing people destroy themselves. Then, when he lost several members of his immediate family to crack addiction, his Mom and a brother and his favorite sister, D. Brown started seeing the addicted members of his family in every addict who approached him. Then when several of his friends started buying from him, and he saw them suddenly taken away from themselves by the drug...When desperate crack heads had tried to rob him of his stash, and he’d had to nearly kill a 44

few of them, and he could see his family and friends in the eyes of these feral drug zombies even as he beat them mercilessly, it was then that he decided to stop selling crack.

He moved in with his Aunt Ruth, who smoked weed and set him up in business soon after taking him into her home.

It was an unusually quiet home room. Cliffy was studying, and D. Brown was kicking back and playing dominoes with Charlie. Andre was standing right behind him and looking over his shoulder as he played. Canisha K was working the largest industrial leather stitching machine.

She was crimping a leather girl chapeau. Katrell was playing hearts with Marky, Eric and Rodrick.

The others were sleeping at the large tables, their heads resting in their arms. Caleb was trying to finish his lesson plans, which were due that day. The bell rang. The Dawgs departed.

From his desk, Caleb immediately noticed the pea sized bits of herb on the floor. Casually following behind his hurriedly departing students, he leaned down and scooped up all of D. Browns orders for that day. He quickly pocket them.

Caleb went back to his desk, and in less than half a minute, D. Brown came back into the room. He went right back to where he’d been sitting and looked around his seat.

“Uh, Mr. Jones, did you, uh, see anything on the floor by any chance?”

“Ugh, No.” Caleb watched D. Brown’s visage adrenalize as if by magic, and the young man, now larger, more Hulk-like, ground his teeth and muttered, “I’m going to fucking kill Andre,” and he started out the door.

Caleb couldn’t allow Andre to be beaten by D. Brown, although he wistfully pictured it for a second. But instead, he called out, “D., come here a minute.” D. Brown came over, and Caleb 45

handed him back his little dime bags. “You need to stash these someplace more secure than your big assed pants, my friend,” he crankily admonished.

Can you imagine D. Brown’s joy? He picked up Caleb from behind his desk and carry/danced him around the room. “Yes, sir, I will. I have learned my lesson! I love you forever, Mr. Jones.”

‘I guess hearing that from a student makes it all worthwhile’, Caleb figured as D. Brown was joyously carrying him around the room. Caleb reconsidered this position when the lad tripped over a chair and came crashing down on top of him.

The people from the Chicago Board of Education who had suffered from food poisoning got back at the school by eliminating two positions. Of course, they gave Mrs. Porrtage the honor of choosing whom to cut. This was being done in spite of the usual teacher shortage. It was political. Vengeance. Caleb figured it might be him getting bumped because of his low seniority.

So one morning before school, Mrs. Porrtage called Caleb into her office. Caleb had the second lowest seniority.

The person with the lowest seniority, Mrs. Raben, had been a retired schoolteacher who had come back in the system after six years of retirement, and she was already in Mrs. Porrtage’s office when Caleb arrived. Mrs. Porrtage was offering Mrs. Raben a Kleenex because the poor old dear was crying. “I guess you know what this is about,” Mrs. Porrtage said to Caleb.

Caleb felt kind of numb, and he nodded. Mrs. Raben sobbed. Caleb knew that she had come back to teaching not because of her ‘love of the children’ but because she had to help take care of a grandson. Guess why? The child’s Mom was one of Mrs. Raben’s four daughters. The other daughters were fine, but this girl was a dope addict who couldn’t care for her child. Mrs. 46

Raben was sixty-three years old. Mrs. Porrtage patted the woman on the back and, looking at Caleb, said, “As hard as this is, I’ve got to get rid of one of you.”

Caleb knew that, actually, Mrs. Porrtage had to get rid of Mrs. Raben, but he couldn’t sit there and watch Mrs. Raben get the rug pulled out from under her feet at her age and with her responsibility. “It can be me,” he volunteered. Mrs. Raben cried even harder.

Mrs. Porrtage said, “That’s awfully nice of you, Caleb. I’m sorry this happened.”

Caleb was too. True, he hated teaching, but now he was once again in free-fall. Caleb was to report to the Board of Education building on Pershing Road. After lunch. He left the office in a daze.

His first period class didn’t take the news well, but compared to the reaction of Caleb’s division, first period was a tea party. In the class, there was stunned anger, and self-righteous mutterings about it being unfair and the like. But during division, Caleb’s announcement met with a much more vociferous reaction. To say that The Dawgs didn’t take the news well would be an understatement. Whereas the other class grumbled about it, The Dawgs very pro-actively began screaming their protest and breaking the room. Caleb, too pissed off to stop them, sat and watched the mayhem ensue. Curtains and blinds were torn down. Large tables were overturned. Chairs thrown.

The police, security and male aides were at Caleb’s room pretty quickly, and Mrs. Porrtage soon followed. The Dawgs stopped tearing up everything, but they continued to scream their outrage over losing their teacher. If Caleb hadn’t been losing his position, he would have been really touched. Mrs. Porrtage glared at the boys and the room. She shook her head and said, “This isn’t the way to change things.”

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The vocal consensus among The Dawgs was that Mrs. Porrtage should just wait until Caleb’s replacement arrived if she wanted to see some really glorious deeds of civil disobedience.

They gave the impression that they were coming from more of a Malcolm X school of revolution as opposed to the decidedly more peaceful Dr. King line of thought.

Mrs. Porrtage relented. Yes, she made a show of compromising by telling Caleb he could keep teaching his classes, but he’d have to do so at a Cadre’s salary. And without health benefits.

In front of The Dawgs, she offered him this bullshit, and Caleb agreed. What else was he going to do? Go back to being a daily sub and having full pop cans flung at his head? Big compromise on Mrs. Porrtage’s part. She had probably planned the whole thing.

“I’ll do it,” he sighed. And from the Home Economics room came a roar the likes of which had never been heard. That’s not true, but it sounds nice. The Dawgs did give a huge cheer though. It was what might be called rousing. That more than made up for less money and no insurance.

Teddy decided to put out a school newspaper. Although he was supposed to get permission from Mrs. Porrtage, he said, fuck that shit, and went full steam ahead, writing all of the pieces, mostly editorials and cartoons, and having Ji Ki help him type, set and print them. Much of the publication, which was widely distributed in the cafeteria during lunch time, would have gotten Teddy in trouble. There was, to begin with, the caricatures of his teachers.

The cartoon depicting Caleb, for example, all harelip and eyes, was saying, ‘Heen nnhaaa whooon heeeen eeeeeen whooo!’ Near the bottom of the frame were two students. One asked, ‘What is he saying?’ and the other answered, ‘He’s just showing us how cool he is by talking about last month’s Rolling Stone. Don’t worry, he’s not trying to teach us anything.’

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Another student in that particular panel, this one portrayed as being severely physically handicapped, was in a wheelchair and was drawn with a particularly feeble and weak line. This student was saying, ‘I can’t even get my dick hard and am so sick I’m gonna’ die next week, and even I get more pussy than Mr. Jones.’

In Palmer Weeks caricature, he wasn’t getting any pussy either, but he was getting plenty of dick. Weeks was depicted nude and the center of dick town, a dick in his ass, his hands and feet grasping dicks and from his multiple-dick filled mouth, Palmer Weeks saying, ‘And now, class, today we’ll be learning how to stuff sausages. Turn to page 210.’ Near the bottom of the panel were Weeks’ students. This time the students said nothing but were drawn with horrified expressions etched upon their crudely rendered features.

Mr. Brown was the subject of a classroom tableaux involving not only himself but two other teachers. Miss Smith, the young, attractive, white kindergarten teacher from the elementary wing of the school, was shown in sexual congress with Mr. Brown. She was bent over and he was triumphantly mounting her, one hand pulling her head back by her long blonde hair. Her eyes were rolled back in ecstacy. In Mr. Brown’s other hand was the severed head of the beloved American History teacher, Mr. Goodwyn, who was also white. Mr. Brown’s expression could be described as being philosophically thoughtful, but you’d be closer maybe if you put it down as being demented. On the floor at Mr. Brown’s feet was a bloody knife. The students at the bottom of Mr. Brown’s panel were having mixed reactions. The white students looked scared, and the black students were raising their fists in the air in solidarity. The word balloon next to Mr. Brown’s face had him saying, “O.J. for president!”

You get the idea.

Here is Teddy’s premiere editorial.

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KILL THE NICE One of my retarded parents’ favorite shows is a stupid fucking sit-com from the seventies called M.A.S.H. I won’t get into what an absolutely ass fucked show this is and especially what an annoying cunt this actor called Hawkeye is, but I will tell you one line from that show that stuck with me. It wasn’t Hawkeye (the cunt) who said it; it was the only amusing guy on the whole sorry show, Major Frank Burns, who plays a twit rather than a twat. He said, “It’s nice to be nice to the nice.” The simpering, ‘let me please you’ way he delivered that line made me think that the fucker who played this Frank Burns is a genius. It’s nice to be nice to the nice.

You know why it’s nice to be nice to the nice? Because the nice people deserve each other; that’s why! It’s like that stupid fucking song that my beardy Dad made me listen to one day, it was called, ‘It Is Cruel To Be Kind’. My twee Dad didn’t intend for me to think about the song, probably because his head is too far up his own ass to understand what any song is actually saying.

But I thought about the title (the lyrics were too dill-weed for me to bear), and I concluded that had the gaylord who wrote that song been born ten years later, he might have had a shot at writing a decent song. I say that because the title has its heart in the right place. Don’t be kind to people.

It’s cruel.

Why, you might be asking, do I think that it’s so awful to do what everyone says we have to do to keep society glued together? Not always, but usually, being nice and kind is lying to people.

It’s done to deceive people for many reasons, but one thing you can count on, is that the majority of reasons for people being nice are selfish. They either want to pat themselves on the back, so they’ll help you, or they’re kind to you and nice to you in order to deceive you by outright lying, or they frost the truth so you’ll swallow their shit without spitting it back in their lying faces.

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Like I said, some people who are nice and kind are people who can afford to be charitable.

And that’s what it is, charity. Charity from some privileged cocksucker. And what makes me most angry about these type of good Samaritans is that they themselves have so much of whatever, money or good will or wisdom or connections to shit, so much do they have that what they do or give you is absolutely no sacrifice to them. It’s like someone who has ten-thousand dollars giving you a fucking penny and expecting you to be eternally grateful to them and make them a fucking saint. What people like this deserve is what happened to the rich during the French Revolution.

Either that or if you’re merciful, liberate them of their ‘ten thousand dollars’ and leave them with a fucking penny for awhile. See how grateful they are. Yes, anybody who makes a big show of doing something for you should be thanked with a swift kick in the nuts, or a punch to the tit as the case may be.

Other nice people lie to you in order to control you. They don’t want to deal with you getting pissed at them and making trouble, so they either outright lie to you or, even better, they mix the truth with lies to sugarcoat what’s really going on. This starts with our asshole president and Nazi government telling us about how they’re helping us and the world when what they’re really doing is pulling strings on a global scale. Or when the politicians mis-use tax dollars for pork and tell us it’s for ‘the common good’. (Thanks for the history and government lessons Mrs. Pratz, you fucking twat.) Or when they’re working to deregulate industry so they can make more money fucking up the environment and calling it protecting the environment. OR when our elected officials award contracts to their business associates, who are either closing the factories and plants to go to foreign countries where they can produce their goods cheaper (so they can then import them here for us to consume thereby making them even fucking richer since it’s more profitable for them to do that than to keep the factories over here), or who are making small 51

businesses and farms impossible to operate and calling it fair free enterprise. And if you get pissed at shit like our trade deficit, you’re not being patriotic. You’re not being nice.

And it goes all the way down to your doctor making you do some fucked up, painful therapy and not telling you how bad you really are and how pointless any therapy is, but yet he does this so, ‘you’ll keep positive.’ Who is this helping, you or him? Teachers and class councillors telling you that if you do your best everything will work out for you. Study hard enough and you can do anything. Do any of you believe this? There are only so many jobs to go around, and there are too many people for them. And they aren’t giving these jobs to blacks, Hispanics or the handicapped, except as token jobs to show Affirmative Action that the businesses are complying. And the pendulum isn’t going to go only so far before it swings the other way and everything is okay again. Things aren’t going to get better. The teachers and preachers who keep blathering about picking yourself up by the bootstraps are lying to control you. They want to keep you in school, or working minimum wage, or addicted to drugs, or watching t.v. They want you to be grateful with whatever poverty you’re satisfied with. They’re nicely lying to you, and they deserve to be strung upside down and beaten to death like they did to that fucking Mussolini.

That’d show the rotten fuckers.

THE END

IT’S A CRUEL, CRUEL SUMMER

School had just been let out, and it was late June when Caleb met Ann. He was wearing a red spandex workout outfit that had a large yellow heart displayed predominantly on the ass.

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Caleb had gotten it on sale at a place in Boys-town called Ripped n’ Readies, and he was hoping that it would get Dakota’s attention. Ann was new in the class, and she caught Caleb’s eye immediately. She was in grey workout shorts that showed off her legs. She also wore a grey cropped tank top that showed off her midriff. She was curvy, and there was a tiny pocket of softness right at her belly button that Caleb liked. She had a rounded ass, small breasts and black ringlets of hair that didn’t quite fall to her shoulders. She looked as if she might be either Sicilian or Hispanic.

As it was her first time taking the class, she had some difficulty following the routine.

Afterwards, she spoke to Caleb, who was trying to get out of the club as quickly as possible, as was his wont. Before he could slip out, she said, “Hey, you could be an instructor yourself.”

“Thanks,” Caleb said, wondering if Dakota was seeing this girl talking to him. Perhaps it was his nonchalance, or maybe Ann thought that Caleb was being funny wearing a yellow valentine on his ass. It’s hard to say why Ann took to Caleb. He was happy at being noticed and spoken to by a pretty girl.

Caleb and Ann walked to the gelato store next door and Ann bought Caleb a vanilla mint ice. She had a bitter chocolate ice. They became friends.

To Caleb, being friends with Ann was like being friends with Madonna. It wasn’t that she was fabulously wealthy as Madonna was, but Ann was constantly expanding her horizons as was Caleb’s simplistic and idealized vision of Madonna. Ann was a challenging, dramatic and fun person, just like good old Madonna. Caleb and Ann started hanging out together, not dating, just hanging out. She didn’t live too far away, a few blocks east on Sheridan Road.

At first, after their workouts, they’d have gelato. Then after a week or so, they started having dinner together, not every night but three or four nights a week. Caleb asked Ann if she 53

thought that Dakota would think them a couple, and Ann said that Dakota probably wouldn’t give them a second thought.

She was not a person who liked to be idle. Ann was taking law courses at De Paul University, but she also took improve classes at The Annoyance Theater. She wrote and performed her own poetry at poetry slams at The Green Mill.

Her father paid for it all to assuage his guilt for not having been there for Ann when she was younger. He had divorced Ann’s Mom when Ann had been three, and he had moved to Los Angeles where he had done well in computers. Ann’s Mom, who had raised her in Chicago, had died when Ann had turned nineteen. She saw her Dad maybe once a year, but he paid everything for her.

Caleb and Ann’s favorite place to have dinner was an Italian restaurant on Broadway, Rugino’s. They’d sit in a dark green, leather upholstered booth in the dim dining room, Ann’s elbows on the red and white check plastic table cloth and Caleb typically pushed back into the leather. Ann was much younger than Caleb, twenty two to his thirty six. She did most of the talking. She’d tell him about her day. What her plans were for that week. Any new romances that came into her life. What it was like being her.

After they’d eat, they would generally go their separate ways. Ann would be off to study for a test or to her improv class or on a date. Caleb would go home to smoke pot, watch t.v. and possibly play with himself. Heaven forbid he do some schoolwork, grading papers or preparing lessons.

It was two months into their new friendship. When they would part company, they’d casually say, “Love you,” to each other. One evening, Ann became angry with Caleb when he said that he felt romantic love to be more important than friendship. “That’s wrong,” Ann said.

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“Boyfriends and girlfriends come and go, but friends are better than that. I hate it when all of a sudden, your so-called friend doesn’t have time for you because of his or her new boyfriend or girlfriend. And it always happens. You’re telling me that if you meet someone, and she’s jealous of our friendship, you’ll just toss me aside for her.”

“No.” Ann’s face was flushed as she speared an asparagus tip on the end of her fork. “You’re full of shit, Caleb Jones,” she informed him.

“No, I wouldn’t do that.”

“You promise? Promise that you’ll always be my friend.”

“Yes. Sure.”

His sincerity pleased Ann. She squeezed his hand, and like one of Mr. Finn’s Blue Boy reproductions, Caleb blushed.

In the southwest suburb where Sheena and her family lived, Sheena’s Mom decided to throw a birthday party for her. She would be sixteen that summer.

Sheena didn’t want a party. She tried to tell her Mom, but her Mom ignored her. She appealed to her Dad, but he was no help. She didn’t even try to talk to her sister. All Bobbi did anymore was ignore her. So Sheena was to have a birthday party. Not only that, but her Mom, thinking that she would please Sheena, told her that she was going to invite all of her old friends, including Tiger.

When Sheena’s Mom shared that bit of information with her, she teased it out as if she’d really done something wonderful. “Guess who else I invited? Someone I know you’ll be excited to see. Haven’t seen this boy in some time. Here’s a hint, his name reminds you of a jungle cat, 55

one that has stripes.” Sheena’s moan of mortification was misinterpreted by her Mom as being girly excitement. The Mom then tried to draw in Sheena’s sister, who happened to be watching television during the Mom’s teasing revelations concerning Sheena’s birthday party. “Bobbi, I don’t think I should invite those terrible girls who are your sister’s friends. What do you think?

Should I let those girls come? You know when your sisters around them, they are terrible!”

Bobbi who would have been in agreement with Teddy about it being cruel to be kind, said in a flat tone, “I don’t know why you’re doing this, Mama. Those girls, and that boy, Tiger-“ ”Shhhhh, we don’t want her to know!” their Mom fussed.

“Oh, Mom, none of them are going to come to her party,” Bobbi said.

“Don’t be silly. I’ve already sent the invitations out. Of course they’ll come. You wouldn’t be able to keep ‘em away, those girls. And Tiger too. Friends are always friends,” the Mom said optimistically.

Rather than be a party to the Mom’s pathetic insistence that things would be okay because she’d sent the invitations in plenty of time for everyone to get one and, ‘friends are always friends’, Bobbi got up and left the room. The Mom looked at her younger daughter leave, but she downplayed Bobbi’s response.

“That girl,” the Mom muttered, then refocused on Sheena’s party. “I think you ought to wear that pretty burgundy dress that I picked up for you last weekend.”

Sheena shuddered.

Back on the north side of the city, there was another birthday party in the works. Sandy’s birthday was July twenty-seventh, and this year he was throwing a small party for himself and a few friends. He invited Caleb, who asked if he could bring someone. “Sure,” Sandy told him.

56

On the day of the party, Ann took the bus to Sandy’s Antique store where Caleb was working. From there they took a cab to Clark street and walked from there to Sandy’s condo. The street was unusually busy because in a few days there would be the annual Halsted Street Fair, and there were more people than usual and more traffic. Halsted had already been blocked off and the booths and stages were being set up on both sides of the street.

Before they got to Sandy’s, Caleb and Ann stopped in a cd store call Orange Julie’s and bought Sandy a jazz cd by Bergenz Dhgal. Only the most esoteric, progressive jazz for Sandy.

While they were there, Ann bought a Luther Vandross cd.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky on that day, and looking south on Clark street, you could see the tall buildings downtown. As they approached Wrigley Field, the throng of people got to be shoulder to shoulder. There was to be a ball game that day. Caleb and Ann passed booths selling Cub pennants, hats and dozens of other Cub related items.

Caleb and Ann cut off Clark street and walked several blocks to Sandy’s fortress. They were buzzed in, and from the bottom of the stairwell, Caleb and Ann could hear the sounds of loud, skittery jazz and the excited barking of Sari. When they got to Sandy’s condo, Liz let them in.

She was bright eyed and grinning as if she were nightmarishly thrilled to see them. Caleb introduced Ann to Liz and then to Sandy as he joined them. Sari bounded up and tried to knock Caleb down. They headed to his huge game-room and deck on the top of the building, but Liz made Sari stay downstairs. Sandy directed them to the outdoor bar. From where they were they could see over the trees.

Caleb got a beer, and Ann had a glass of wine. There was a table of food, mostly untouched Caleb noticed. He got a plate and filled it with shrimp, vegetables and a few dipping sauces. Ann had a plate too.

57

There was the scent of marijuana in the air. Caleb wondered about the extent of the other guests’ substance use. They were all well groomed upper middle class couples whom Sandy had known most of his life. He dealt to many of them still, perhaps something or other to all of them, although not as much as he did to his two old high school chums, Joey and Stevie, also present.

Those two were always at Sandy’s. Really. Every time Caleb had been there they’d been there, and the times when he’d been out with Sandy and they’d stopped by his place, one or both of those guys would ALWAYS be waiting for Sandy’s arrival.

Now, the two of them were busy grilling steaks, hamburgers and huge prawns that no one was eating. The food was sitting in piles on plates near the gas grill. Still, Joey and Stevie continued to madly cook. As Stevie minced onions, measured amounts of worstechire sauce, brown sugar and mustard for the ground meat and butterflied and seasoned the prawns, Joey grilled the prepared food, turning everything about sixty times more than necessary. As Stevie kneaded the ground beef and skewered the prawns with slivers of multi-colored bell pepper and hunks of mushroom, Joey would delicately spray the steaks with beer. Though they dressed in casual ivy league style, Stevie and Joey’s clothes hung on them. They looked like junkies in their izod shirts, their Bermuda shorts and ironically worn black socks and yachting shoes. Both of them were pale, sweaty, feverish looking, peaked, and exhausted like children too excited to sleep on the night before Christmas.

Like Stevie and Joey, Liz was using lots of Sandy’s cocaine. Unlike the other two fellows, who had been eaten up by cocaine for years, the effects of cocaine addiction were quickly settling into Liz’s features. She was getting the same waxy porous complexion common to folks who use lots of heavy stimulants. Her hair was course like straw, and these days, particularly when she was coming down, her face took on a zombie-like expression of benumbed distress. She wasn’t 58

coming down during this party though, and she flitted from person to person saying one complimentary or bubbly thing or another to everyone. If anyone noticed that she, Joey or Stevie were wired they hid their suspicions well. Most of them were getting high on something.

It was sunny on the day of Sheena’s party. Of course, her Mom had prevailed and thrown Sheena her sweet sixteen party, which, prior to her accident, she would have welcomed, but which now she dreaded. After having been abandoned by her old friends, She was afraid to see them.

She ached to see them as well. She longed to hear their laughter, hear their voices and to just see them again, marvel at their expensive, sexy clothes, their beauty and their good fortune. What she was afraid of was of them seeing her the way she was now; after all, they’d shunned her after her accident. She wouldn’t have done that to them. How would they feel if they were in her shoes?

How would they react to her now? Sheena was a stranger to her own sister, who lived with her.

How could she expect her old friends, who had dropped her, to relax around her now?

Tiger was the one person she most didn’t want seeing her. The thought of the boy who once looked at her with such loving admiration now looking at her with revulsion or pity was more than she could bear.

The other possibility that filled her with dismay had been voiced by her sister, and that was what was unfolding. No one was coming to Sheena’s party. Sheena’s Mom, like Sandy, had gotten lots of food, which was now sitting on tables being uneaten. Bobbi hadn’t hung around and had left to be with her own friends, probably laughing about it all, Sheena figured. She sat nervously twitching in front of the blank television screen. Sheena’s Dad was at work.

59

A festive hip hop mix softly played in the background as Sheena’s Mom fluttered from the family room to the dining room to the kitchen. It was dawning on her that perhaps, ‘friends are always friends’ was bullshit. “Maybe I should call their houses,” Sheena’s Mom fretted.

“Nooooooo,” Sheena cried, wretchedly getting out of the chair and staggering out of the family room to go to her bedroom. Watching her daughter run away, Sheena’s Mom thought it all appalling, how none of her daughters friends even bothered to respond to the invitations and, more than that, how no one even appreciated the efforts she had made to bring the party off. She absently picked up a shrimp and popped it in her mouth.

During the long afternoon of Sandy’s party, at some point, he broke out some golf clubs and several of the guests took turns putting into a device that spit the ball back to you if you shot it successfully into the hole. After twenty minutes or so, most of the people had lost interest in putting, but Stevie and Joey, having grilled every dead bit of meat and seafood available, were now having a putting contest. As Caleb watched, Ann excused herself to go to the bathroom. Both Stevie and Joey employed elaborate and exaggerated mannerisms intended to help their aim.

Stevie aimed the putter off his forearm as if it were a crossbow while Joey lay on his belly and tried to eye the truest direct shot...or something.

Once they had found their spots, they took time adjusting their shooting stance. Both of them shifted their shoulders and hips, adjusted their knees and lock and unlocked their elbows.

They put weight on an instep then rotated their wrists. Then accidentally threw it all off with a cocaine shudder, a jitter here an involuntary jerk there. They took their time to get it right. So much that they had to do a line to focus and get the feel for the putt.

When they were finally ready, Stevie said, “Okay, Joey, on three.”

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“Okay, One-“ Joey croaked.

“No, I’ll count,” Stevie asserted.

“Okay,” came the croak of Mr. Frog.

Stevie counted. “One. Two. Three. Awp! Dammit!”

Stevie entirely missed his shot, fumbling and jerkily dropping his club, while Joey unaccountably pulled back for a full powered drive and sent his golf ball sailing at a crazy angle, due to having been slammed with a putter, over the tree tops. The ball beautifully arced high and over to the northwest in the blue sky, and it went somewhere across and down the street, where seconds later there came from the general vicinity the sound of glass breaking. Joey jumped, hunching his shoulders at the sound. Everyone else got very quiet. Without a word, Sandy took the golf clubs.

Caleb went looking for Ann. He found her with Liz near Sandy’s vast collection of jazz cd’s. He watched Liz fiddling with a flat cd cover, then lower her head and do a line. Ann then did a line, but instead of snorting it, she wiped her line of cocaine on her gums. When Caleb came up to them, Liz offered him a line. Caleb declined because though he didn’t intend to make any moves on Ann, if she, for some reason, wanted to fuck him, and stranger things had happened, then he didn’t want to be impotent because of having stupidly done lines of coke. He’d have enough to worry about without it, if he and she ever...He was surprised a little that Ann had done it. She had shown no interest in smoking pot with him.

“I’mb numb,” she said, smiling beatifically. Caleb smiled back at Ann as Liz burst into laughter. “You are adorable,” Liz declared. She leaned over and said, “If you need to see me later, just give me a word. Or a look.” And then she was off to hobnob with Sandy’s other guests.

“How come you didn’t snort your line,” Caleb asked.

61

“I can’t tand to thort it. I hardly eber do it doh.”

“I think Liz likes it,” Caleb said.

“I dink tho doo,” Ann agreed, and they both laughed at the cute way she was saying things.

Then she leaned near to his ear and murmured in a rather un-Ann like manner, “Your birt-day id com-bing up toon. Whad would you like, birt-day boy?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a gift certificate from-“ ”You wand do maybe dake me tomewhere ant fuck me?” she breathily uttered in Caleb’s ear.

Before they hastily left, Ann stopped and had a word with Liz, who, the perfect host, sold her a small amount of cocaine. Ann wouldn’t accept it for free. Once out of the door and into the stairwell, they started furiously making out. Caleb had never even kissed Ann on the lips, and now their tongues were plumbing the depths of each other’s mouths.

Instead of walking home, Caleb and Ann took a cab and were at his place in five minutes.

First, she made Caleb sit, facing his kitchen table. With her back to him, she bent over the table with her ass raised high and undid the bindle that she’d bought from Liz. She daubbed her finger into the powder and rubbed a generous amount on her upper gum. Then she languorously peeled her jeans down to her ankles. She kicked them off. She was wearing a red thong that glowed against the tan cheeks of her bubble butt. Ann then pulled off the slip of underwear and kicked it away. Looking over her shoulder at Caleb, she licked at her numb, dry lips and said, “I’mb albost ready. Do you hab anyting do drink?”

Caleb brought her a Budweiser, which she nearly chugged. Then, looking at him in the eye, she bent slightly at the knees, pulled her cheeks apart and said, quite distinctly, “Fuck me.”

62

After fucking on the kitchen table, they moved to the living room floor. From there they went to Caleb’s bed, and then they drew a bath and simultaneously washed as well as fucked and sucked away at each other’s newly clean bodies in the tub. And each time he’d near his breaking point, he’d either withdraw or stop moving, and about every half-hour to forty minutes, she would rub more cocaine on her gums. They ended up having sex until about an hour and a half after the cocaine ran out. Then she tearfully ordered him from his bedroom so she could sleeplessly crash.

Before he left the room, she called his name. With her head in her hands, she said, “This is never going to happen again.”

But Sheena, what of her? Most of the handicapped kids at school had either been born with their handicapping condition or had lived with it from an early age, but Sheena had known a different life. She’d had the kind of life that anyone would wish for a nice young woman to have.

To have that life snatched away was beyond terrible. To lose her friends was horrifically cruel, as was the insistence to throw Sheena a party , well intentioned as her Mom might have been.

Sheena’s life was defined by loss.

There was no one there with whom Sheena could talk to about this pain. Bobbi was lost in her own resentment and guilt, too much the selfish, adolescent to break through and show Sheena any love. Sheena’s Mom was preoccupied with her own feelings of having been wronged by God and being unappreciated by the daughter whose illness she couldn’t accept. Her Dad was a fool who felt that he was fulfilling his familial duty by working too much. He was clueless. They all were.

Having a party in which no one shows up has happened to other people during their childhood or teenage years. Maybe the lesson is to not throw yourself a party, or to not attach too 63

much importance to parties. It might even be a signal to change something about yourself. In the weeks after the failed party, Sheena told herself that it was all for the best somehow, but she didn’t believe it. She felt lost.

She gave in to despair I guess.

Herbie would have told her that she should just accept things. But she’d never have taken the time to decipher the messages he wanted to tell her via his pointer and letter board. I wish someone would have been there to listen to Sheena. What anyone could have said to comfort her, I don’t know, but maybe listening to her vent would have made those summer days more bearable.

Telling her to not feel sorry for herself or reminding her of how much better she had it than most of her other challenged classmates might have been lost on her. Maybe it would have been nice to just have one person show up to listen to music, drink pop and play checkers. They wouldn’t have had to talk much at all.

It was early August on a Sunday after church. The rest of the family was busy. Sheena left them to go into her nice room. It’s lavender and lime hues had always been so relaxing to her. She looked in her dresser until she found a bottle of rubbing alcohol. She poured it on herself. It flowed down her head, roping off her hair, so carefully braided by her Mom. It’s sharp smell stung her nostrils as she breathed in its fumes. The rubbing alcohol soaked through the aqua colored satin dress. The alcohol felt colder than ice water on her skin. Sheena was soaked in it, and without weighing the consequences carefully, yet frantically aware of what she was doing, she then lit a match. She only held it momentarily, loosening her trembling fingers so it dropped on her.

There was combustion on contact. Her screams brought her Mom, who suffered second degree burns trying to smother the flames with her own body. Sheena lived a day and a half and then died. God forgive and bless her poor burdened heart and her beleaguered soul.

64

Caleb got a call from Jackson about Sheena. The news put him in shock. When Ann arrived at his apartment to pick him up for their workout, he told her what had happened.

They went to the gym. Caleb went through his high impact workout concentrating on his poor student. It was awful to think about; yet, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Caleb could almost see her, the earnest attempts to talk in class, to joke around and relax. He remembered her photo album. Caleb also recalled the cruel taunts of some of the students, Chris specifically.

Caleb remembered that hurt look on Sheena’s face. And to set fire to herself. What had the poor girl been thinking?

An hour later the workout was over. Caleb’s mind was with Sheena, though his body was still in the gym with Ann. He felt guilty for not having protected Sheena better. When he’d seen kids like Chris teasing her, he’d taken them aside and had tried to quietly explain how their harsh words hurt defenseless people like Sheena.

But, as that was their idiotic objective, telling them that their taunts hurt their target only told them that their efforts weren’t going unnoticed and were, in fact, working. Caleb’s plea for better behavior and empathy was to them a validation of their unkindness. Caleb wondered what Chris’ reaction to the news of Sheena’s death would be. Judging from the way Chris had treated her, he’d be rolling on the floor laughing. In reality, Chris would probably not care, and would certainly not hear anything about his having had a hand in having driven Sheena to suicide.

Maybe he’d even pay lip service about it being too bad and what a nice girl Sheena had been. Of course, if he knew the details, he would indignantly lay blame at Sheena’s old friends and family.

But really, he wouldn’t care at all, Caleb reckoned.

65

“Are you okay?” Ann asked . The workout was long over. They’d left the gym and were sitting at a table in the Parisian restaurant at the end of Briar and Broadway. Caleb had ordered the carrot soup that he loved, and he’d eaten about half of it.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, imagining what it must have been like, felt like...the measureless heartbreak endured by his student. And the pain of burning.

Before summer ended, Caleb went back to Chase for a week long visit. He’d been feeling bothered. He’d think of Sheena and feel guilty, as if his thinking about her was somehow inappropriate or self-indulgent. She kept springing up in Caleb’s thoughts though. He’d still hung out with Ann, had continued working out at the club, had lain on the beach and had gone about his summer business, but part of him had been preoccupied.

Caleb hadn’t done more than mention Sheena to Ann once, so she hadn’t known exactly what was wrong with him, just that something was eating him. She suggested that he go to southern Illinois and clear out his head before school began. So he did.

Caleb’s Mom, Nadine, Matlock and Winkie Lee picked him up at the train station. The darkness was comforting in his Mom’s car’s familiar interior. Of course, WUOA was on, the Confessions radio show. Caleb tuned out the disc jockeys. They were asking people to phone in with their confessions and then cutting them off when they called. Ha ha ha. Big whoop. Nothing was funny, so he allowed their voices to blur into meaningless chatter. Nothing was funny.

Caleb also tried to ignore the teeny guitar hanging off Matlock’s shoulder. He couldn’t help noticing it though. It was a tiny, fully functional acoustic guitar. He wouldn’t ask Nadine, though Matlock gazed at Caleb as if to say, ‘ask about the guitar, man.’

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Aside from the tiny guitar, Caleb was dressed unobtrusively in a plain black tee shirt and a beret. Winkie seemed distracted and listlessly dozed with her face against Mousie.

He didn’t have to ask. Nadine broached the subject. “How you like Matlock’s guitar?”

“It’s amazing.”

“I offered to get him lessons, but he didn’t want them. Said he’d pick it up himself. Play something for Caleb, Matlock,” Nadine urged her pet, who looked as if he were proud to be a musician. Nevertheless, he did not honor Caleb with a tune.

Caleb noted as they drove out of Carbondale at how much commercial development always occurred while he was away. It seemed every time he came home that the malls and businesses at the edge of the town were continually expanding. A minute passed. When no guitar melody was forthcoming, Nadine said by way of excuse, “He’s shy is all.”

“So how’s Winkie Lee?” Caleb asked as he looked at the feline twitching in her troubled sleep.

Nadine said, “Winkie’s vet has changed her antidepressants at least four times. I think we’re going to resort to weekly meow therapy.”

“Meow therapy?”

“Oh, yes, along with the antidepressants. Our vet has recommended a great Cat Psychiatrist.” Winkie Lee jerked awake long enough to savagely bite Mousie’s head.

The week that he was home was especially arid. Southern Illinois was in the middle of a drought. Caleb spent much time in his Mom’s car with the windows down. Sometimes, he would be in the passenger’s seat as she drove them around town, the old time music show toodling as she would tell him stories about people in town whom they’d known, or whom she’d known at least.

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It was Wink Martindale and Peter Marshall playing tunes by the big bands as well as famous crooners like Sinatra and Bennett. Other times, Caleb would drive around by himself.

On a hot afternoon in the middle of the week, Caleb went for a solo drive. He left Chase by way of highway 148 and wended his way to the small village of Carterville until he reached the apartment complex where Bertie used to live and where Jake and Eva still did. It was hard to imagine Bertie not being in the second floor apartment where Caleb had visited him so many times so long ago. Caleb slowed his Mom’s car. He pulled in, cautiously circled the parking lot and found himself lost in hazy reveries when he noticed a haunting specter sitting atop the rocky embankment that ran alongside the outer perimeter of the lot. Caleb stared in disbelief at the figure atop the rocks. It was Jake.

Caleb parked his Mom’s car in one of the spaces. When he got out, he could see heat waves rising off the hot asphalt. Jake didn’t notice Caleb as he approached, not even as Caleb loudly made his way up the incline, kicking his way up the rocks and making little avalanches with every step. It was so hot that by the time Caleb was at the top, he was drenched in sweat, and he hadn’t been out of his car more than a minute.

Caleb sat beside Jake, who was intently staring at the apartment complex. In one hand, he was clutching a dirty looking glass stem. It looked something like a one hitter, but it had a black, nasty looking bit of copper screen in one end. In his other hand he was relentlessly rolling several smallish lumps of what looked like waxy soap. Jake’s eyes shifted, took in Caleb, who was looking at his cousin’s old pal like he was some sort of monster.

Which perhaps he was. Jake was dirty. He looked like he’d been wearing the same clothing for a week. He smelled. There was a knot over his eye. He was skinny and nervous nervous nervous! As Jake and Caleb regarded each other, Jake poked one of the bits of what was 68

rock cocaine into the dirty end of the glass stem. He then produced a lighter and torched the stem, taking a hit as Caleb looked on. ‘What the fuck’, he was thinking as he watched Jake blow out the smoke, which smelled like plastic jugs on fire. Jake’s eyes rolled back in his head and he twitched the paranoia/pleasure shudder of the crack smoker. “Wann’ hit?” Jake said dazedly, his eyes rocketing back and forth.

“Hell, no. Jake, what are you doing?”

“Getting high. Watching for that whore, Eva. She’s fucking some guy up there.”

“How do you know?”

“They threw me out,” Jake whined. “The guy hit me in the head with a bottle of rum,” he complained pointing at the sweat greased lump over his eye. He generously offered the stem to Caleb.

“No...”

“In that case, I think I’ll do another one,” Jake announced.

Caleb watched enthralled and sickened at the sight of Jake heating another hit in the blistering hot mid-afternoon sun. Caleb watched Jake blow out another flume of chemical smelling crack smoke. He said in a contented yet anxious way, “Tastes like roast beef.”

Caleb managed to say, “Damn, Jake, is that...crack?”

“Well if you say it like that! Like, CRACK!” “But that’s what it is.”

Jake was sweating ropes upon ropes. His sweat was pouring sweat. He said to Caleb, “Think of it as freebase.”

Caleb left Jake on the embankment, his eyes glaring at the apartment complex where Eva and her lover were fucking.

69

NOBODY LISTENS

Ann was smiling at Caleb’s having told her that he loved her, not simply as a friend, nor even as a friend with whom he sometimes had sex but in the regular romantic way. He’d said it over breakfast with her at Ann Sather’s Restaurant. Now she was puffy eyed and still possibly tipsy or high from last night, but the previous evening, she had awakened Caleb at four to join him in bed where they had fucked until she passed out. Then she’d been quite adamant about how much she loved him. Finally, while Caleb was still fucking her, she’d passed out. He’d gotten off of her and stayed in bed next to her for several hours just to watch her sleep. Behavior which in others would have induced his gag reflex. It would have perhaps been more romantically touching if Ann hadn’t been quite so fucked up.

Did it occur to Caleb that they were using each other? Ahh, nope. At the time, Caleb didn’t think, hmmm, having sex with my friend while she’s fucked up is a dickheaded thing to do.

Nor did he think of Ann’s reasons for coming by, whatever they were. But as he’d looked at her beautiful Sicilian face in repose, her mouth hanging open as she’d fitfully breathed, he’d just figured that he was in love; no, THEY were in love.

When she’d finally awakened, showered and been ready for breakfast, it was after twelve, but when they got to Ann Sather’s Restaurant, they ordered breakfast anyway.

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No, after their first night of having cocaine fueled sex, they had not stopped. A couple of times since that night, Ann had been by to fuck him. She would go out with girlfriends and party and would end up at Caleb’s. They’d have wild, nasty sex. She’d inevitably pass out and silently leave as soon as she awoke. And they wouldn’t discuss it afterwards. Then they would behave as if nothing had happened. Ann might even miss her workout and avoid him for a day, but today she’d not only stayed, but agreed to go with him to breakfast instead of silently and shamefully slinking out of his apartment.

Caleb hadn’t meant to tell her that he loved her, but it slipped out. It didn’t matter. She didn’t take him seriously. She said, “Caleb, you don’t love me. I mean, you love me, and I love you. But you’re not in love with me. You just think you are.”

“What’s the difference? I like spending time with you.”

“I like spending time with you too, sweetie.”

Caleb hesitated. “I like, um, I like being close to you too.”

Ann let Caleb’s euphemistic allusion go by her without a reaction. He continued. “What’s the difference between being in love and loving somebody?”

“Well, there is a difference,” Ann said quietly, adding, “and you’re not in love with me, Caleb Jones, you silly boy.” They were at a window booth that looked outside on Belmont Avenue. Fallen leaves from who knows where (there were few trees on this block) tumbled by with the regular debris from the street, swept up by a sudden autumn breeze. “I wouldn’t be faithful to you, Caleb,” she told him. “I wouldn’t be faithful to anyone. And you’re not in love with me anyway,” she added. What she was really saying was that she was not in love with him.

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Even if Caleb didn’t know the difference between the normal love of a man for a woman and whatever it was that he supposedly felt for her (dog-like affection perhaps), she seemed to know what it was about. She fell IN love with a nice guy named James. They met in a club where James worked as the talent coordinator who booked the bands and dj’s. Although he worked in entertainment, he was very down to earth. Caleb couldn’t help but like the guy.

Caleb and Ann did continue to have sex. James didn’t suspect there was anything going on between Ann and him. If Ann had difficulty juggling her emotions and loyalties, she didn’t show it.

James was a good guy. Because of his connections he got free tickets for any show that Ann wanted to see. James got them in to see a sold out Iggy Pop show in a small venue, The Caberet Metro. True, they missed the first half of the show because Ann kept changing clothes, but nevertheless, James was nice to Caleb. He was very good to Ann. The three of them would hang out together. Caleb didn’t look at having sex with Ann behind her boyfriend’s back as rank betrayal. It was alright to use the a little guilt as an aphrodisiac, but when it came to crushing guilt, Caleb put it to the back of his mind. After all, there was no way that James was going to find out.

Caleb and Ann’s public dynamic was so under the radar that even when Ann moved into Caleb’s apartment, James didn’t suspect what was going on.

At the beginning of the new school year, Caleb was back to being a cadre. He still had The Dawgs in his division from the previous year, but this year he’d gotten a really terrible mix of EMH (Educably Mentally Handicapped) kids for his freshman English class. Not only did they suffer from big cognitive deficits which made adequate learning difficult if not organically impossible, their fucked up behavior made them poison to be around. They had the attitudes of 72

fuck ups much smarter than they were without the intelligence to get by, so Caleb was teaching kids who not only were acting out to show off for each others’ benefit but who also would have had a difficult time learning if they’d been on task. Which they never were. And these kids made such a big deal of being in contempt of school, that the window of learning opportunity passed.

Hell, it was sealed shut.

If they could have been taught on a one on one basis, they could have learned. They’d have realized their potentials. That would have been their LRE (least restrictive learning environment), but there isn’t enough money for every mean assed EMH kid from a poor family to have his own teacher. In fact, I don’t believe there’s money for even one. So these children get left behind, if you want to call being cognitively challenged and willfully assholish about your education being left behind.

Caleb called it being a dickwad and worse, and that’s all he had in his new group. People like Caleb, who I guess are considered by society to be poor teachers, are routinely given these students in overcrowded rooms with inadequate materials. Of course these kids deserve better learning environments with better teachers, better materials, better brains to work with and a better life in general, but better wasn’t there for them. Factor in that they weren’t trying to help themselves either. They didn’t even know how to, so it wasn’t like some dumb romance with failure.

They didn’t know how to help themselves. Their parents or guardians or whoever was raising them hadn’t taught them. At home, they might have run wild or lived in fear, but beyond whatever personal dynamic going on there, they had no further respect for anyone. And the system, being what it was, didn’t offer alternatives. Caleb’s new group were seldom suspended for more than a day or two, no matter what they did. When they acted out, which was all the time and 73

everyday, there was no place to send them. The discipline office didn’t want to see them. They couldn’t simply be put in a room somewhere just because they were disruptive. They were expected to be taught. If their tests didn’t show progress, Caleb and the other teachers would be held accountable, and the school would be put on academic probation or, as had already happened, positions would be cut. Parents might sue. It was a bitch.

The worst of this crew had known each other from elementary days. Jesus Munoza was a large hulking Hispanic kid who was proud of being a bully. He loved gang life and tried to represent, but the gang he paid allegiance to wouldn’t have him because of his stupidity, lack of impulse control and poor judgement. The gang wouldn’t have him. That in and of itself (think about it a second) is saying something.

Rayell James was a small, stocky African American kid who could be found after school on Lake Street selling rocks and weed, or at least handing the drugs to the customer. His lack of mathematic ability made handling money out of the question.

Jerry Kredjxki was a medium sized white kid who, in addition to being EMH, could only speak halting English. And what he could say was usually threatening or lewd. He was new to America and had come with his parents from Poland. They couldn’t speak English at all.

Jenny Smith was a thin African American girl who was given to violent temper tantrums that could be set off by the least provocation. Once she started raging, it was hard to reign her in.

Adonis DeMarkay was a medium sized African American kid who was an incorrigible smart ass, except he couldn’t read and could barely add.

Then there was Larry James, white and dangerously perverse. He had driven off a new gym teacher five weeks into the school year when he’d waved his tallywacker at her and quipped, “Ever seen some swinging meat like this?”

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Frank Erikson was a small white guy whose family had moved from the Appalachians to Chicago. Frank spoke in a deep Appalachian dialect that, coupled with some invisible speech impediment, made him indecipherable. Also, poor Franks’s Mom had died a year and a half ago, and his Pa, because he was grieving, didn’t pay much attention to Frank. As a result, Frank was frequently dirty. It was nothing for him to wear the same dirty clothes over and over for weeks at a time. Even when he wasn’t dirty, he smelled bad, about which the stronger, meaner kids mercilessly teased him. So he hated them, and since the vast majority of his Chicago classmates had been minority youth, Frank had cultivated a seething hated for blacks and Hispanics and was a virulent racist.

Camille was passive aggressive. She would purposely set Jenny off by quietly forcing herself to belch or by rubbing her shoes and causing them to squeak. Even across the room, Jenny would pick up on the nearly inaudible burp or squeak.

None of these kids would do what they were asked the first, the second or the third time.

Much vein-throbbing-in-the-temple yelling. Repetition. “Can everybody get a piece of paper and a pencil out. Everybody get a piece of paper and a pen out. Pen and paper out please...Does everybody have their pen and paper out yet? I see that some have their paper and pens out and some don’t, so for those of you who don’t, now is the time to get out your pens and you paper. No, not your rolling papers, Jesus,” at which point, the class would once again laugh at something that had been done before many times.

Some kids only responded to a request when it was accompanied by cursing. And there were others in the class who might have been more manageable had there been fewer behavior problems, but in that mix, their worst came out on a daily basis. Most of them were seeing the school councilor.

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The school councilor, Jim Houseman, had way too many kids to see. The kid whom he was focused on today wasn’t one of the new freshmen who were giving Caleb the shits, however.

Instead, it was good old Teddy, whom he’d been having sessions with since the feisty lad had published his newspaper the previous year. To Teddy and his parents, Mr. Houseman was glad to report that the boy had made much progress. He had really learned to channel his anger and resentment constructively was how he put it at Teddy’s annual IEP meeting.

Everyone nodded favorably when he said that. Teddy smiled at them agreeably. His grades had improved. There had been no more embarrassing drunken episodes in school. He was still goth, pretty much a natural goth because of his morbid destiny of languishing illness and premature death. A de facto goth.

And how had Teddy constructively channeled his negative energy? He’d begun by working in the office. Ji Kee, who worked in the office herself, had helped him get the job as part of his work experience program. At first, Teddy would collate or file whatever Ji Kee or the secretary needed done. Then he’d started helping the payroll officer, Mrs. Abernelle, when her new computer would confuse her. From that small beginning he’d started helping the secretary and the payroll officer, and occasionally Mrs. Porrtage with any little computer glitches that they didn’t know how to fix and that he could. From that, they’d allowed him to help type in things like attendance and meal counts, small tasks.

“I am so proud of this guy,” Mr. Houseman said at those gathered for the meeting. His Mom yammered something about her prayers being answered, and his Dad then lustily kissed her, which had put everyone off except Teddy. He was used to his parents making spectacles of themselves about their very special love, and he enjoyed that aspect of his insane Dad and Mom, 76

who thought that everyone was turned on by their middle-aged soul mate french kiss displays of public affection. Teddy most enjoyed the mortification that the others in the room felt at seeing his dim Dad’s public display of virility. Teddy was also pleased because he was proud of himself, his accomplishments and his dreams, as was Ji Kee also proud of him, but they were prideful for an entirely different reason than the dweebs at his IEP had been.

This year, thankfully, Caleb didn’t have to teach Spanish, but one afternoon, his old Espanol student Veta came to see him during his prep period. “Cola habernero manfredini peeky pee poo,” she greeted Caleb in the Spanish idiolect he had taught those unfortunate students who hadn’t come into the class with prior knowledge of the language.

Not remembering what he had taught last year, Caleb said, “Why hello, Veta. Great to see you.”

She smiled beatifically at her old teacher. Again she attempted to communicate in Caleb Jones type Spanish. “Tinngy lingy lingy lee!” she exclaimed.

“Uh, let’s speak good old English if you don’t mind,” Caleb requested.

Veta sat across from Caleb’s desk. She seemed radiantly happy. Her hands were clasped on Caleb’s desktop and she positively beamed at Caleb. “I’m gonna’ have Andre’s baby,” she told him.

Caleb remembered his advice to her the previous year when she had mentioned that she wanted to see Andre but her parents wouldn’t let her, and he had advised her to lie. What the fuck had he been thinking? Caleb resolved to kick Andre’s ass tomorrow. He didn’t know what to say to Veta. He didn’t much want to bring up the stupid advice he’d given her last year to lie to her parents in order to see Andre.

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He didn’t have to bring it up. Veta said, “I just want to thank you so much for what you told me last year. You remember?”

“Aw, naw. I don’t really-“ ”You know, Mr. Jones, when you told me to lie to my parents if I wanted to see Andre and they wouldn’t let me.”

“Oh, heh heh. Shhhhh. That’s okay. No need to thank me for that. Let’s keep that particular good deed between just we two, huh?”

At this, Veta impulsively leaned over and gave Caleb a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, which nearly made him jump out of his skin. “This is the happiest that I’ve ever been in my life. I always wanted to have a baby to love me ever since I was a little girl and had a baby doll,” Veta declared, adding, “And I hope that when my baby gets in high school that you’re still teaching here and he or she gets you for Spanish like I did. !Sombreros huevos bananos!”

“Wow,” was all that Caleb could muster. He couldn’t believe that Veta was pregnant. And happy about it. When he was finally able to say something, he asked, “Does Andre know?”

“I’m going to tell him right after school,” Veta said.

Andre celebrated the good news by not coming to school for a week and a half, which did not help the soon to be father’s already low grade point average. Caleb reckoned that Andre had disappeared because he was evading his Dadly responsibilities, if going to high school can be considered to be a fatherly duty. Caleb reasoned that the lad didn’t want to be a Dad. But Caleb was wrong. Andre was thrilled about being a Dad. He’d missed school because the news had triggered some sort of party fever in the young fellow, but he was perfectly comfortable with being a sixteen year old father with failing grades in high school who also had no 78

outside prospects. It was probably because he wasn’t worried about taking care of his child. In Andre’s mind, things like the baby’s food and care were things that would somehow come to be.

His and Veta’s families would take up the slack. The day that they couldn’t rely on their families was the day that they would need to either start the revolution of figure out some crime to perpetrate. Right now, he was just proud to be passing his genes, if not his grades, and he was protective and loving toward Veta, though there were no marriage plans.

And you know what? Good for them! Don’t look down your nose at them because they are having a baby. They are young and in love and have as much of a right to have a baby at sixteen as other folks have rights to do the asinine, ill advised things that they want to do. No, it won’t be easy for whoever brings up Andre and Veta’s baby, and it will probably be hellishly difficult for the little tyke growing up in poverty, but that child represents something to Veta and Andre, and that something is hope. And I say, keep hope alive. Keep hope alive!

Marty’s hip hop phase had ended one fateful day when, as per usual, his pants fell to his ankles. He’d been going down the stairs when they’d fallen. His arms had been full of books, his walkman and his snacks. He’d tripped, tumbled down the steps and sprained his wrist, which he’d had to have put in a sling for a week. When that happened, his Mom must have thrown out all his baggy threads because he stopped wearing them. Nor did he go back to his nerdly fashion choices of wearing highwater pants and turning up the collars of his shirts and jackets.

No, Marty got into a kind of stylized military chic aesthetic. Camo pants and heavy army issue boots with either camo or solid tan or green shirts were Marty’s daily wear, along with dog tags and the occasional military hat.

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Marty also tried to affect the persona of a weary war vet suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, a tall order for a boy with blushing, girlish cheeks that had never been touched by a razor. Sometimes he would forget and grin goofily amidst his anguished posturings, but usually he tried to look troubled and haunted. Instead of constantly trying to get people interested in being in his plays, Marty became introspective, and this pose of being a loner made him seem both smarter (by virtue of his being quiet and still) and weirder (a civilian constantly wearing military stuff) to others, who still pretty much ignored him but now ignored him in a ‘different’ way. Okay, not really. Everybody but his classmates pretty much ignored him as they always did.

Now, when he did speak, he talked of, “...doing what I have to do,” and, “...doing my duty.”

And the duty he had to do was joining the Army, or Marines or any branch of the military that would have him, which was none of them. Did he know that his physical and cognitive challenges would keep him out? He sure as hell acted as if he didn’t. Often, when he would speak to Caleb, Lishy and his classmates, he would get a misty look in his eyes and stare off heroically and say in a hushed, cryptic way, “Just two years. Boy. Just two years.” Meaning that in just two years, when he was eighteen, he would enlist and, “do his duty.”

Marty’s new role as haunted, troubled, tough, patriotic, military, poet, singer guy pretty much flew right over Lishy’s head. She was still thinking of Joey from New Kids On The Block and wasn’t even looking at Marty’s up-from-under-the-brow smoldering stares, nor was she picking up on his quiet, wistful looks or any of the stuff he wasn’t saying but was communicating with facial expressions and body language of the James Dean/ early Marlon Brando school. He was throwing it out there though.

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In Caleb’s class one afternoon, to Lishy, Marty presented a set of dog tags. “They’re mine,” he confessed. “When I’m gone, I want you to pledge on your solemn word that you’ll wear them.”

Instead of allowing Marty to put the dog tags on her, Lishy grabbed the dangling tags and chain and examined them. “Where did you say you were going again?” Lishy asked.

Marty got an intense look on his face, as if the thought of where he had to go was too much to ask him to think of. After half a minute of quiet intensity, utterly lost on Lishy and the others in the room, Marty said, “In just two years, I’m set up to join the Marines. Yep, the day after I graduate, Lishy, I’ll be off to boot camp.”

Deareo looked at the tags in Lishy’s hand and said, “May I see those?”

“Sure.” Lishy tossed them to Deareo.

Marty was welling up with emotion at the thought. “The Marines,” he said.

Deareo was studying the dog tags, and she said, “Hey, these aren’t your dog tags. They say Jerome Taylor.”

Virginia said, “What are you doing with someone else’s dog tags?”

Marty fibbed. “Oh, they’re my buddy’s. He’s in the middle east somewhere.”

“Why do you want Lishy to wear your friend’s dog tags?” Virginia asked.

“Uh, in case he doesn’t come back.”

“We’re not at war.” Deareo observed.

Marty was exasperated. “You don’t know. We could be at war any minute. We could be in a secret war now. Ever think of that? You guys just don’t understand war and our freedom.”

Deareo handed the dog tags back to Lishy. “You’re right. I don’t.”

Virginia said, “I think it’s stupid.”

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Lishy tossed the dog tags back to Marty. She said, “I don’t want to wear these. I don’t know any Jerome Taylor. You’re acting weird again.”

Gosh, nobody, it seemed, understood about war, freedom and the altruistic and patriotic scenarios about which Marty fantasized, with himself as the hero of course. He could arouse manly tears imagining himself making the ultimate sacrifice by throwing his body on a grenade to save his comrades. Marty died a thousand brave deaths in his mind, countless variations on him killing dozens of the enemy and thereby saving different combinations of his fellow soldiers, Lishy and his classmates. Then, at the conclusion of each epic battle, after he’d saved everyone, Marty would die from the wounds he’d suffered while saving their asses.

Marty saw himself-in two short years- heroically dying for his country and receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor. He saw everyone crying at his funeral, soldiers and classmates saying nice things about how brave and true he’d been. Marty would then think as he’d wipe his eyes, ‘after I give my life for her freedom, then Lishy might lower herself to wear my dog tags!’

In order to teach Lishy as well as his classmates something about the nature of his intended soldierly sacrifice, Marty wrote a grand war epic, a drama for class. He asked that his new pal, Frank, the same Frank from Caleb’s buzz saw class of fiends, be allowed to play a role, and getting permission from Frank’s teacher that period, Jackson, was easy. The title of the play was, Flaming Eagles.

Again, Zuzandra cued the musical interludes, and Chester filmed.

At the start, Marty and Lishy were relaxing in their little corner of the class room. Marty nodded to Zuzandra, who cued the song, Desperado. He was striking a kind of casual pose that had him lying on the floor with his shoulder pushed against the wall. Lishy, whose character’s 82

name was Party Girl, was in a chair gazing off distractedly. In this opening scene, Marty had resurrected a baggy jumpsuit from his hip hop phase.

“Damn,” he said, “I sure am tired of the thug life.”

Lishy stopped looking out of the window long enough to answer him. Her line was supposed to be, “I think you should just party. Dance the night away every night and forget about tomorrow. That’s what I say.” But she forgot that and instead said, “Well, what are you gonna’ do?”

Marty dramatically scratched his head and admitted, “I don’t know about partying, Party Girl,” which didn’t make as much sense as it would have if Lishy would have said the proper line.

Deareo, who was playing duel roles as both Marty’s mother and The President of the United States, came into the room and said, “Hello, I’m here to bring you some cookies and milk but also some bad news. And something else too.”

Marty pretended to eat his cookies and drink his milk. He innocently asked, “What’s the bad news, Ma?” Deareo said, “The bad news...is that your pal Jerome Taylor who was serving in the Marines in the middle east got killed on a secret mission of some kind.” Deareo had eschewed using her script.

Marty, who didn’t need a script, halted the act of dipping his imaginary cookie in his makebelieve glass of milk in mid-motion. “What? Jerome died?” Here he pretended to drop the cookie. He rose from the floor and cried out, “Oh Nooooooo!” Then, much like a young James Brown, sank to the floor, his head in his hands.

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Deareo, unperturbed by Marty’s display of grief, delivered her line. “He, uh, this Jerome Taylor left you his dog tags.” Here she handed him the dog tags that he normally wore but which here was used as a prop. He reverently took the tags from her.

“Thanks Mom.” “Don’t mention it.”

His face registered mute pain, and Marty gazed meaningfully at Lishy. He said, “I know what I have to do.” Then he gazed at Deareo.

“What is it you have to do, son?” Deareo asked him.

“I have to answer the call that my country is making to me. Not just for Jerome, but for you and for Lishy, and for all of us Americans and everyone on the planet. Most of all, for myself.”

Deareo, who forgot the impassioned speech that she was supposed to make right here, improvised instead. “Wow,” she replied.

To Lishy, Marty said, “And you, little one.” Lishy looked vaguely insulted at Marty’s addressing her as, “...little one.”

“What?” she snapped testily.

“Do you love me?”

“No!” Then in a revealing non-scripted aside to the audience, she said, “I love Joey McEntyre.”

There was a pause as Marty looked meaningfully at Lishy, waiting for her to correct her line and say that she did, indeed, love him, love him with all her heart and soul. But, no, those words didn’t come. Marty nodded to her. She looked past him out the door of the classroom.

Finally, Marty whispered, “You’re supposed to say you love me, Lishy.”

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“Hurry up and tell the little boy that you love him so we can get on with it, “ Virginia piped up.

Exasperated, Lishy rolled her eyes and angrily muttered, “I love you.”

Taking that as an enthusiastic affirmative, Marty handed her the dog tags, and he said, “If you love me as much as you say you do, then wear these dog tags until I get back.”

“No!” Lishy said with much sincerity and with a flourish, knocked the dog tags out of his hand. “I don’t want to wear no stupid dog tags,” Lishy declared.

Reverently bending down and retrieving Jerome Taylor’s dog tags, Marty placed them on his own neck. “Very well, Party Girl” he intoned. “I’ll wear my pal’s dog tags and hope that they bring me more luck than they brought him.”

“Why would they do that?” Virginia asked, but Marty, being in scene as he was, ignored her.

Marty looked at Zuzandra, and right on cue, she played the next song, “Freebird”. It was one of Marty’s current favorite tunes. As Lynerd Skinnerd sang the timeless anthem championing your right, indeed, the duty you have to split on your loved ones at the drop of a hat, the class eventually started looking at each other and moving around restlessly. It’s a long anthem. Marty held a rapt expression of someone either deep in thought or in a fugue state until the last note of the old favorite trailed to silence. Then Marty announced, “Act two,” and went to the center of the room. “Come on Frank, Abbey.”

Marty and Frank stood at attention next to each other. Abbey stood in front of them. Marty nodded to Zuzandra, and she cued a snippet of the song, “Soldier Boy.” When it was over, Abbey started in on Marty and Frank. She was the drill Sargent, and they were the fresh recruits at boot 85

camp. She hadn’t been able to memorize the lines at all, or improvise the kind of testosterone driven harangue expected from a drill Sargent, so she read from her script.

In her molasses paced sing-song voice, and smiling at her new recruits, Abbey dressed them down. “Suck in that gut. Throw out that chin. Stand straight. This isn’t like school.”

Though she, like Frank, was white, and normally Frank hated only African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics, he didn’t know Abbey, so he hated her too and looked at her with smoldering hatred, which Abbey interpreted as the young freshman flirting with her, casting her amorous looks. She winked at his glower and said, “You men have got to be... tough. Now it’s time for exercises. Go to it, men. Go, men go!” She clenched her fist, gritted her teeth and stamped her foot.

Marty nodded at Zuzandra, and she cued up the song “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” as he began doing jumping jacks. “Come on, Frank. This is boot camp,” he urged his pal, who was still standing there, hatefully scowling at Abbey, who was blushing, giggling and batting her eyelashes at what she perceived as being Frank’s love eye being thrown her way. Marty went ahead and did as many push-ups as he could, three, and then went on to do a sit up. “C-Come on Frank. We’re in boot camp,” Marty panted as he then began jogging in place.

In his Scottish Appalachian brogue, Frank said something indecipherable as he continued to stare daggers at Abbey.

At the conclusion of the song, Marty had to sit down for a minute. He would have sat longer, but Caleb reminded them that they only had fifty minutes.

“Okay,” Marty panted, struggling to his feet and giving ZuZandra the signal to cue up Pomp and Circumstance. He and Frank were still standing in the center of the room as Abbey 86

approached them. As she came near, Frank balled up his fists as if ready for a fight with the flustered and flushed drill Sargent.

As Pomp and Circumstance played, Abbey read her lines from the script. “Men, when you came to boot camp, I was mean to you, but that was not be-cause I did not like you. I do.” And here she cast the love eye at Frank and, departing from the script, said, “I do like you...I loooove you.” Here she turned beet red, and Frank winced.

“Quit flirting with the troops,” Virginia ad vised.

Abbey continued, “I was so bad so you can be tough men. You men are now fit to go...go fight for the USA.” Marty saluted Abbey, and she returned the salute. Then Frank, against his better instincts, saluted, and Abbey returned his salute with an extra added wink, which caused Frank to step back from his place and regard Abbey suspiciously. “Now, Marty” she continued, “Here is your Mom and your (and here she drew out the word insinuatingly) girlfriiiennnd.”

Deareo and Lishy came to the center of the room where the award ceremony was . “Son I’m proud of you,” Deareo said unceremoniously.

“You look handsss...what’s this? You look very hand-some in your...uni-in your un-iform,” Lishy said even less enthusiastically than Deareo.

Abbey concluded, “And now, private Marty and private Frank, you have been so good that there is someone who wants to meet you. The President of the USA” Deareo, in her dual role as both President as well as Marty’s Mom, found herself addressing herself as The President addressed Marty’s Mother.

“Ma’am,” Deareo as President said, “I know that you’re proud of your son.”

Without missing a beat, Deareo as Marty’s Mom said, “I’m real proud of him.”

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As President: “Now I’d like to have a word in private with the private!” No one laughed at Marty’s play on words.

As Marty’s Mom: “Okay.”

Chester said, “You’re talking to yourself.”

“No, she’s the president and Marty’s Mom,” Virginia clarified.

“That’s right,” Deareo said. Then Deareo as President spoke to Marty and Frank. “I, The President of the United States have a request to ask of you two men. I want you to go on a secret mission in the middle east.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Mr. President,” Marty said. Frank cooed something likewise but had now focused his stare of hate toward Deareo. His brows were knit alarmingly as he regarded his president with a mixture of fear and disgust.

Deareo did a double take at his ugly expression then continued uncertainly. “We, uh, want you to go undercover as a Chicago gang that’s going to sell bombs to these three guys, ummm, Hussain, uh, Kadaffii and um, uh, the Shah of Iran. You’re going to meet with them before the real guys come, and you’re gonna’ sell them fake bombs that are...duds and take their money. That’s it.”

Marty again saluted and said, “Yes, sir, Mr. President!” Then Frank and Abbey saluted Deareo too. Pomp and Circumstance trailed off. Marty threw off his military jacket. Then, looking directly at the camera and at Chester, Frank said, “Act three. Me and my buddy Frank are meeting with Hussain, Kadaffii and the Shah of Iran to trade the bogus bombs for a suitcase full of a billion..One thousand billion dollars. We’re undercover posing as Chicago gang guys selling them bombs.” Here both he and Frank assumed the gangster poses they had been practicing. With his arms crossed tough guy style, Marty said, “Action.”

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“Go for it, Marty,” Chester said giving his chum the thumbs up sign with his free hand so that the camera shot would pick it up. In doing so, Chester got a good shot of the eastern corner of the classroom ceiling. Zuzandra saw Marty’s signal and a snippet from the suspenseful melody Coldblooded came on. It was music for Jose, Ramiro and Omar’s entrance. Jose was Hussein, Ramiro was The Shah of Iran and Omar was Momar Quadaffi.

Jose/Hussein led the trio of bad guys, maneuvering his chair around the desks to the center of the room. Omar/Momar followed in his wheelchair and Ramiro/Shah walked behind him.

Ramiro was carrying a brown paper bag. Seeing his buddies excited Chester, and he said, “Jose, you the man.”

“Hi, Chester,” Jose/Hussein said.

“Guys,’ Marty whined.

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Jose/Hussein said in his barely aspirated voice. “Okay. Now, here we are having our meeting. Right, boys?”

Ramiro/Shah ominously nodded, and Omar/Momar said in his Tattoo from Fantasy Island voice, “You right, Saddam.”

Frank looked as if he were going to have a stroke, he looked so angry. Jose/Hussein took note and said, “Are you alright, Frank?” Frank ground his teeth in reply. Jose/Hussein soldiered on, saying, “So, you gang guys, you guys got the bombs or what?”

Marty affected a thuggish demeanor. Marty went from his arms crossed and head tilted pose to his one hand on hip the other thoughtfully stroking his chin pose, and he said, “Yeah, boyeee. You got the Benji’s?”

Ramiro/Shah stepped forward and emptied the bag, which was full of multi-colored monopoly money.

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Omar/Momar rolled forward and said, “Now we want the bombs.”

Marty had spent a great deal of time writing Flaming Eagle, but he hadn’t spent any time choosing the prop he used for a case of fake bombs. Rather than a book bag, or even a paper bag, he thoughtlessly pulled a writing pen from his shirt pocket and used it. He handed it to Omar/Momar. Omar had through the years uncomplainingly portrayed all sorts of roles, many of them unflattering and of questionable ethnic stereotyping, but being asked to unblinkingly accept a writing pen as a case of bombs was breaking Omar’s weathered but trusty line of credulity.

Holding the pen, he looked at it, then looked at Marty as if he were unsure that Marty really meant for the pen to represent the bombs. Even mimicking handing a case of imaginary bombs would have been more realistic than handing him a ballpoint pen. He said, “This is the bomb? This is the case of bombs?” His face expressed a bewilderment and disbelief that worked well with his portrayal of Khadaffii being set up.

“Yeah, G. Those are the bombs,” Marty said.

“Let me see those bombs,” Jose/Hussein softly murmured, and Omar/Momar held the pen up where Jose/Hussein could see it. “It’s kind of small,” he pointed out.

“Oh, it’s the case of bombs alright,” Marty drawled. He gave the signal for Robert and Chris to enter, which they did.

“Hey, Chris,” Chester cheerfully called.

Chris said, “Shut the fuck up, Baby Huey. I’m not Chris. I’m da’ Felonizer Bunny ‘cause I never stop felonating! I just go on and on and on.” He was carrying a book bag.

Robert, who was rolling up behind Chris, said, “Hi. I’m Robert Michels,!”

Chris said, “Man, use the name I gave you.”

Robert thought about what Chris called him most often. “Hi. I’m Asshole!”

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“Naw, man, the name I gave you for the play. Sheesh. You Skeebop, Robert.”

“Oh yeah. Hi, everyone. I’m Skeebop.”

“Hi, Skeebop,” Chester said, waving to Robert with his free hand.

“Hey there, Chester,” Robert/Skeebop replied.

“Guys, come on,” Marty said.

Jose/Hussein helped them refocus. “Who are these new guys who just came in?” he softly mewled.

“We are the gang come to sell you the bombs,” Chris revealed. Jose, Ramiro and Omar exchanged glances.

Omar/Momar said, “These two guys here said they were you, and they brought us this case of bombs.” He held the pen to Chris.

Chris couldn’t believe it either. “Shit,” he said. “This is supposed to be a bomb? Hell no.”

He then threw the pen as hard as he could against the wall where it shattered on impact. “That’s a Gat damned pen, y’all dumb assed motherfuckers. What the fuck. You believe anything the white man tells you don’t you, ya’ gullible motherfucks. Here’s the damn bombs.” With that, Chris plopped the book bag he’d been carrying on the desk. “Check it out,” he said, and then in a very professional manner he removed his walkman from the bookbag and took it apart on the desk.

“Here’s the payload. Here’s the detonator,” he coolly improvised, going on to tell them the blasting capabilities both in urban and open theaters. Omar/Momar, Ramiro/Shah and Jose/Hussein, all looked well convinced. Chris ended his presentation by saying, “The rest of the bombs are right in there as you can see. Now these motherfuckers-“ Caleb interrupted, saying, “Could you tone down the profanity just a tad, Chris?”

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“Hell, no, I can’t Mr. Jones. I’m in scene. You ain’t and therefore shouldn’t say shit.

You’re being like Chester now, Mr. Jones.”

“Hey!” Chester piped up at the sound of his name.

Then pointing to Marty and Frank, Chris said, “These gentlemen here are impostros sent by the FBI, the CIA, the PGA and who knows who else. What you think, Skeebop? Skeebop, what you think of these phoney G’s, here? Robert!”

“Who you talking to?”

“You, fool. What you think of these dudes pretending to be you and me?”

“They can’t be me,” Robert helpfully offered.

“They can’t be me either.” To Jose/Hussein, Chris said, “Yo, Sodom. What we going to do with these pretenders?”

“I say we yell at them,” Jose/Hussein softly suggested. “Yelling at them would make them feel bad,” he explained.

Everyone looked at Jose. Then, before Chris could start cursing, Omar/Momar said, “I think we got to do more than that.” Ramiro/The Shah, raised his eyebrows and socked his fist in his hand. As Frank was observing this, he was nearly levitating with barely suppressed adrenaline.

Marty nodded to Zuzandra, who cued up the theme song to Mission Impossible as Marty said, “Come one Frank let’s take these terrorists and gangbangers out.” Then Marty lifted the dog tags to his lips, kissed them and said, “Jerome Taylor old buddy, this is for you.” He then assumed a tai chi pose and said, “Hayyyaaah!”

Standing next to Marty, Frank didn’t assume a martial arts pose, but flexed his biceps muscleman style as he uttered something that, except for what he said at the end of his speech, was unintelligible. Were it only that the last three words also had been impossible to understand. The 92

first of those three inflammatory words, addressed to both terrorists as well as gangbangers was, “You.” The second word was the Lord’s name taken in vein and the third word was the N word.

Chris nearly jumped on Frank, and only the speedy intervention of Caleb prevented Chris from thumping Frank about the ears. Chris said, “Let me go, Mr. Jones. You know I can’t let that slide. It’s in the school policy. I have got to honor my school agenda, Mr. Jones.”

Caleb smoothed down the fracas. It wasn’t being filmed by Chester either. While all that racial conflict was going on, Chester was getting some fantastic footage of the bun of clipped hair on top of Zuzandra’s head.

When he saw that Caleb wasn’t going to allow him to assault Frank just then, Chris looked at the younger and smaller boy, and he said, “I got you later, Gomer.” Frank looked kind of scared now. He was no longer in character.

Out of character himself, Marty said, “How come you can say ‘nigger’ to your friends but me and him can’t?” “‘Cause, Gomer, I AM black, so I CAN say it. You and David Duke here are WHITE. If you’re WHITE, you can’t say it like a black person can. When your boy says it, or if you say it, Marty, you guys sound like some Klu Klux Klan lovin’ motherfuckers, not like me or Tu Pacwhen we say it.”

“Except for your saying, ‘motherfucker,’ that was well put, Chris.” Caleb commented.

Marty looked chagrined, and he said, “Frank’s sorry,” and Frank himself mumbled his own gibberish apology, or maybe he just buried the N word deeper in his Scottish Appalachian dialect.

Chris blew air out of his cheeks and said, “I expect that from stupid white gomers like y’all so forget it, and let’s just get back and finish the play. Someone can edit that shit out later. I’m going to say action myself. Action!”

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Marty recued the Mission Impossible theme, and a few of the actors began the slow motion fighting scene. Some were more active than others. Frank, still shaken from nearly being thrashed, just stood there balling his fists and nervously keeping his eye on Chris. He was also standing still as Marty executed a six-million-dollar-man slow motion karate chop accompanied by a sound effect. “Shhhhhhhhhhhh-toc,” Marty said as the edge of his hand lightly tapped Chris on the shoulder. Chris smiled at Marty. Robert, Jose, and Omar were maneuvering their chairs in tight little arcs that simulated some sort of violent activity. Ramiro, his dukes up, was shadow boxing with an imaginary foe. Frank moved away from Marty and Chris to where Jose and Omar were, and he made a tentative jab in their direction.

“Shhhhhhhhhhh-toc,” Marty said, double karate chopping Chris in slow motion on both sides of his neck. Chris reacted by gleefully stomping on Marty’s foot, and not in slow motion.

“Aaaaaghhh!” Marty proclaimed clutching his stomped foot in both hands while hopping around the room on the other foot before toppling to the floor. Chris took the opportunity to go after Frank, who started running away to avoid being punched. Frank used Jose/Saddam as a barrier between himself and Chris.

“Out the way, Sodom. I got to take care of this racist,” Chris said.

“Okay, hold it,” Marty cried as he pointed his finger at them as if it were a gun.

Everybody, including Frank held their hands up.

“Our hands are up, man,” Chris told him.

That didn’t stop Marty from shooting Chris. “Pffffffffff! Pfffffffff!” was his answer.

Chris bitterly protested. “Oh, so you’re gonna shoot an unarmed black man after I got my hands in the air? Yes, I know this play is telling the truth now. Thank you once again, white 94

America!” With that, Chris resentfully tromped to a desk, sat down and slumped over to pretend to be dead.

Chris’ death set off the final gunfight in which everyone but Frank would be killed. Marty, Jose/Saddam, Omar/Momar, Ramiro/Shah, Frank and Robert/Skeetbop took turns aiming their fingers at each other and making gun shot sounds. Slowly, as Marty gave each of the bad guys the signal, they died one by one until it was only him, Frank and Jose who were exchanging gun shot sounds. Then, as Marty pretended to be shot himself, he also gave Jose the signal, and he and his last nemesis died at the same time.

“Ouch,” Jose said softly before closing his eyes and relaxing in a deathly posture.

Marty took a bit longer with his death scene. Before kicking the bucket, Marty called his buddy Frank over to him. From his own neck, Marty removed the dog tags belonging to Jerome Taylor, which he was now pretending were his. He held them for Frank to take from his dying hands. Marty said in gasping words, “May-be Par-ty-Girl-will-wear-my-dog-tags-now. Tell-herand-my-Mom-that-I-love-them. Arrrrrgh!” And with that, Marty stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth, rolled his eyes, closed them, and pretended to die. After a good ten or fifteen seconds of death, Marty opened one eye and said, “Cut.”

Three school desks pushed together in the center of the room provided the casket for the funeral scene, and Marty carefully lay down upon them. He folded his arms on his chest dead person style, and before closing his eyes, he nodded to Zuzandra who cued The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Then, as one of two preachers for this grand and solemn occasion, the other preacher being Robert, Zuzandra used her walker to drag herself on scene and take her place behind the prone Marty. She was facing Chester. Next to her was Robert, and standing behind them was 95

Deareo reprising her dual role of playing both Marty’s Mom and President. Flanking them and Marty were the mourners seated in their chairs, and they were Jose, Ramiro, Omar, Lishy, Chris and Frank.

Zuzandra began. “All rise,” she said. Then she spoke. “We’re gathered to honor this soldier boy. War is wrong. This boy died in some war that nobody talks about, but there’s all kind of wars. The war of souls. The war for hearts. The war that’s bad health. The wars of being poor.

I lost people, and I know you all have too. Makes no sense.

“Yet I stand before you and say God is justified. That a soldier dying is justified. My being sick-justified. Not enough money-justified. My older brother been shot and died for nothing, justified. My Aunt, Uncles, some my cousins and my one Grandma- all on rock-it’s justified by our God, who draws us all home one way or another. One time or another. Not for us to judge, not to mourn but, uh...We’re here to celebrate and not be sad ‘cause who’s to say what God’s will should’ve been. We lose everybody then we lose ourselves. Holding on’s vanity.

We’ve all got to go the hard way... Come to service and you’ll see. So what’s it matter about this flesh and bones. God is justified. Justified by however He chooses take us home.” And Zuzandra slowly dragged herself back to her spot at the boom box.

Robert’s eyes were big, and they were following her. He was supposed to be the second preacher speaking, according to Marty’s script. When she was back at her station at the boom box, Robert looked at everyone. He said, “After hearing what Zuzandra said, I’m too scared to talk...I don’t want to die! Oh, Lord, I really don’t want to die.”

When it was apparent that Robert was done with his part of the eulogy, Deareo stepped up.

“I’m the president right now, but when I’m Marty’s Mom, I’ll use a different voice,” she informed everyone. Then in a higher, fruitier register and delivery, she said, “Thees ees the voice I’ll use for 96

Marty’s Mom.” In a lower register, she said, “This is the voice I’ll use when I’m talking as the President.”

“You GO President Mommy,” Chester encouraged her from behind the camera.

Standing behind Marty, Deareo as President said, “We are here today to honor a fallen soldier who performed bravely without thought of his own safety, and he killed the terrorists and made American safe for you and me. In honor of his valor, I’m pinning the Congressional medal of honor on his chest and I’m giving his Mom a medal too, to remember him by. Uh, I’m supposed to give something else away to someone, but I’m not supposed to say who it is for or what it is, Lishy. So maybe you want to get up here by uh, Marty.” When she was closer, Deareo took out the paper medals of honor..

Then Deareo said as if to address herself, “And here is a copy of your son’s medal for you to have.”

One of Deareo’s hands, the presidential one, handed the paper medal to the other, the Mom hand. And in the Mom’s falsetto voice, Deareo said, “I’m soooo proud of Marty. Eef only he were here to see this. I know he’d be proud too!” At this comment, Marty, who was profoundly moved, had to stifle a sob.

Then, back as President of the United States, Deareo said, “And now a special presentation.

Lishy, I mean Party Girl, would you come right up here for a minute? Closer so Chester can get you in the shot with us.” Lishy complied, and when she was standing behind Marty and next to ‘The President’, Deareo handed her one of Marty’s paper medals of honor and then placed Jerome Taylor’s dog tags around her neck and said, “Marty’s last request was that you wear these dog tags.” Deareo looked at the script and read, “Now that he sacrificed his life for your freedom, maybe now you’ll wear the dog tags that you threw away before. Maybe now you’ll love him!”

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Lishy, whose line as Party Girl had her saying, “I’ll never take these precious dog tags off.

I’ll love Marty forever,” evidently didn’t feel her character would say that. Maybe she couldn’t bring herself to say such syrupy things about Marty or perhaps she forgot she was in a play for a moment and simply reacted to what Deareo had said. At any rate, she deviated from the script again, took off the dog tags, tossed them on Marty’s prone body and announced, “I said I wasn’t going to wear these stupid things, and I already told everyone that I love Joey McEntyre!”

Deareo recovered to read her lines. “Uh, Okay. I’m sure that Marty is looking down on all of this and smiling, uh, little one.”

“Don’t call me that. I’m not little,” Lishy snapped.

After another slightly awkward pause in the proceedings, Deareo said, “Alright. So anyway, this is the part of the service where people can come up and say nice things about Marty.

Marty’s Mom, would you like to begin?”

Deareo answered herself in her high pitched drone. “Yeees, I would. Marty was a goooood son. I’m soooo glad that I can enjoy my freedom because of his death. God bless you, son. I loove you. I miss you so.” A tear could be seen breaking from the corner of Marty’s closed eye and trickling down his cheek.

Even though he knew that he was supposed to stay in scene, Marty couldn’t resist. He raised his head up and looked into the camera. “Two years,” he tearfully foreshadowed.

Cameraman Chester reacted, “Yeow, Marty’s back from the dead.”

To further make plain the gravity of his sacrifice, Marty, now having forsaken his role as dead soldier, clumsily rolled off the desk tops and crashed to the floor, but that did not deter him.

Rising like a phoenix or a zombie, he stood up and again addressed the camera. “In two years, all of this could happen to me. I’m already signed up. And it’s for all of your freedom, people!” He 98

was, very rightfully, proud. True, he hadn’t been accepted and wouldn’t be going to boot camp the day after graduation or any other day thereafter. Still, give Marty credit for being patriotic.

For several seconds everyone was silent. Then Caleb said, “Thanks for doing that, Marty.”

“You’re welcome,” Marty quietly replied. “It’s my gift to the world.” Lishy rolled her eyes.

The strains of The Battle Hymn of the Republic swelled, and Chester said, “Yay, Marty.

Hero man!”

Were Marty able to carry out his plans to enlist and be martyred, he would have been disappointed to find out that his classmates wouldn’t have been much more thankful of the actual deed than they’d been at the enactment of it. Maybe Lishy would have worn his dog tags for a couple of days, and maybe some of Marty’s classmates would actually have attended a memorial service. There might have been a nice thing or two said. Most of them wouldn’t have been able to go. They’d remember him fondly for awhile, but he probably wouldn’t take a permanent reverential presence in their lives the way that he’d like.

Because of crack, heroin, prison and deadly violence, most of these youngsters had lost several loved ones. Their losses might not have been altruistic or heroic, but they were losses that had taught them how to let go of people when they die. The kids had the unspoken attitude toward death that was expressed in the Bghagvad Gita when one general told another, who was secretly Krishna, that he felt sorrow at the inevitable deaths of soldiers of an upcoming battle. The general who’d been spoken to then transformed into the little blue Krishna and told the other, mortal general not to agonize on what the forces of existence demand. To fixate on grief was futile and vain. Que Sera Sera...

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So as they wouldn’t have overly mourned Marty’s death, they also didn’t dwell on Sheena’s awful suicide. They recognized what it was, looked away from death’s awful glare and left it. All of them except Herbie. He grieved for Sheena. His mourning involved a turning in on himself.

How does someone as quiet as stillness itself gain further distance from the world? It wasn’t hard.

He responded to the world less and less. A soul practiced in silence and renunciation quietly allowed a private door to shut. He allowed the tide of loss to drift him farther from life and more to that jet stream of spirit. The world was all too ready to allow him to disappear in its midst. He gave back just enough to get by. Now most all of his communication consisted of his grimace and the suggestion of a shrug. Like an aesthete or a saint, his body, dormant whether in his chair or in his bed, wasted and grew thinner.

One person who noticed was Chris. While he didn’t have Herbie in Caleb’s class he had him in Jackson’s math class and they had lunch the same period. He saw Herbie getting skinnier and noticed him leaving his food untouched on his lunch tray. Hoping to get a rise out of him, Chris went to Herbie’s table and told him that since he wasn’t eating his lunch, he would take it, thinking that Herbie would object, but all Herbie did was gesture with his good hand for Chris to take the tray if he wanted it. As Chris unenthusiastically ate the food that he really hadn’t even wanted, he said, “What’s up, Retardo Rivera?” Herbie smiled, shrugged so slightly that the only person able to see was Chris and that was because he was sitting there. Chris was about so say something else bitingly satirical but, still grimace-smiling, Herbie manuvered his wheelchair away from the table and out of the cafeteria.

The next day, Chris insisted to Samala, who usually carried Herbie’s tray to his table, on taking it there himself. She wasn’t going to let him at first, but when Chris swore he wasn’t going to spit in or in any other way mess with Herbie’s food, she relented. When he placed the tray in 100

front of Herbie, the wan lad nodded his thanks. Then, instead of going to his regular table where he usually ate by himself, Chris sat with Herbie during the lunch period.

As Chris forked in his meatloaf and mashed potatoes, he again noticed that Herbie wasn’t eating. “You need some help eating?” he asked. Herbie shook his head no and slowly lifted his good hand and wiggled his fingers to show his mobility. “You just don’t like the food here, huh?

It’s good, Herbie. There’s nothing wrong with this meatloaf,” Chris said. Herbie answered with a shrug. Chris felt something unusual pass through him. He didn’t question it, but he knew what it was, a momentary flash of feeling, concern for someone other than himself. “So can I have your lunch,” he asked, seeing what Herbie’s response would be. It was the same as yesterday, an indifferent languid wave of his hand to go ahead, take it.

Chris started having lunch with Herbie everyday although he generally stopped eating Herbie’s food.

In fact, Chris got Herbie to start eating lunch again. It wasn’t the food on their trays that tempted him to take nourishment; in fact, what Herbie started eating was not very nutritious at all.

Chris was picking at a bag of red hots when he noticed Herbie eyeing the pungent snack food.

Without asking Herbie if he wanted any, Chris nonchalantly dumped a handful of peppery corn puffs in front of Herbie on his word board. The white boy’s good hand slowly took one of the red hots. It took him nearly twenty seconds to get it to his mouth and it left a red stain on his fingers.

Chris watched Herbie bite into it. He crunched it in his teeth. Chris could see the masticated red hot. Herbie’s eyes widened. He indicated for Chris to help him open his heretofore untouched carton of chocolate milk. Chris pulled the top corner of the milk open and put a straw in it. He held it so Herbie could wash the red hot down with a drink. Then he had another red hot.

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The next day, Chris brought with him to lunch a giant sour pickle he’d bought at the little store across the street from the school. The pickle, encased in its own brine, smelled like garlic.

Again, after noticing Herbie sniffing the pickle heavy air, Chris tore off a hunk of the pea green pickle meat and dropped it on Herbie’s word board. Again, Herbie’s barely functional hand took the offering, and he munched on it throughout lunch, washing it down with his milk, which Chris had prepared for him.

Salt drenched sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Bolts of salty pretzels that were filled with pepperoni flavored cheese spread. Salt & vinegar potato chips. Candy. Those were the tempting treats that Chris brought for Herbie to eat. After several weeks of this diet, Herbie started eating real food from his tray. At the living center which he called home, Herbie ate more.

Slowly, Chris pulled his friend back into life. Not just through getting him to eat junk food either. Everyday, Herbie would listen to Chris’s litany of bullshit. It distracted him.

Herbie didn’t blame Chris or people like Chris, for what happened to Sheena. True, if they’d been nicer or at least left her alone, she might have been okay. Herbie didn’t know the degree of Sheena’s suffering. People didn’t bother him. He knew they were at fault to a degree, yet he didn’t hold them personally accountable any more than he questioned or judged the weather.

Still, on a daily basis he asked himself why she’d killed herself. The sorrow that he felt was like a mystery, and it had less to do with Sheena than with him trying to understand. He couldn’t communicate to Chris about his loss, and he probably wouldn’t have had he been able, as he knew Chris’s response would have been some smart assed remark at Sheena’s expense. That was Chris.

“Look at her, Herbie,” Chris might say about an attractive girl in the cafeteria. Then he would call to her. “Sit over here,” he’d say and point to his face while wiggling his tongue and 102

then laughing like the supreme raconteur that he knew he was as the girl would either pointedly ignore him, curse him or stick up her middle finger.

One day Chris said it to Samala, and in answer, she knocked him out of his chair with an open handed slap. Despite himself, Herbie laughed uproariously, which for him amounted to an extra fixed grimace and some sighing guffaws that caused his nose to run and his eyes to shed tears. And rather than do what he would normally do, which would have been to get up off the floor and punch Samala, Chris sat on the hard tiles and watched Herbie quietly crack up. And it made Chris feel good. Samala, who was wise, had seen it too so that instead of following her open handed slap with an undramatic but well placed kick in the head, she smiled and said, “You boys can kiss my motherfucking ass!”

Chris looked at Herbie. “Kiss it? Samala. I wanna’ strap it on and take it for a ride outside!”

With the aplomb and comedic timing learned from years of watching Three’s Company reruns, Samala executed a bit of physical comedy on Chris’s head in the way of snatching his lunch tray off the table and smashing it on the top of his dome. Getting into the spirit, Chris, stunned with ringing ears, slumped over on his side to the floor amidst the bits of tuna casserole and mashed potato. From heaven, Mr. John Ritter might have given them an appreciative nod, or maybe not, but to Herbie it was funny. He clapped his good hand against his non-functional hand and groaned, which was to him the equivalent of side splitting laughter.

“Don’t do that, Jesus. Please sit down. Sit down Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Raynell! You know better than that, Raynell. Don’t say that please. Have a seat. It will be okay. She didn’t mean it. Jenny, It’s okay. Have a seat. Camille is sorry she was rubbing her ankles. So sorry, dear 103

girl. No need to...Have a seat please, Jenny. On behalf of Camille...Camille, please don’t belch.

Don’t belch! What’s that Adonis? No I’ve never had a blow job at the United Center, and as you well know, that’s an inappropriate question to ask a teacher, so please sit down.

Jerry Kredjxki haltingly approached Caleb’s desk with his book. Jerry’s eyes were darting back and forth at his crazily behaving classmates. The small bit of Caleb’s brain that wasn’t engaged in loudly and ineffectively trying to keep hold of the class was able to consider the plight of Jerry Kredjxki. Jerry might have been a low regular or a moderate LD in Poland, but over here he was labeled EMH. It was awful for him to have to deal with his cognitive challenges under the handicap of not knowing the language of the people he had to deal with. That they were such an angry and disruptive group of classmates only compounded Jerry’s misery, and he usually spat out his barely decipherable English in tones of contemptuous anger.

Standing next to Caleb, he opened the book on the desk. Both student and teacher faced the larger class, and keeping an eye on the simmering mob, Jerry said in an accusatory tone, “Eeesh sheetoopeet boooooog ({It} is a stupid book)!” He pointed at the pronoun exercises that he was unable to read, as the words weren’t in his native Polish. While he couldn’t read Polish very well, he at least could read it on a rudimentary level. English looked like ants on the page to him.

“Theeeeessss boooooog Shhhheeetoooopit,” he angrily reiterated.

Lying through his teeth, Caleb said, “It’ll be okay, Jerry. This is about pronouns...Mr. Munoza please keep your hands to yourself.”

“I’ma kill this motherfucker in a minute, Jones,” Jesus , referring to Raynell, thoughtfully informed Caleb. Raynell was having a jolly joke threatening Jesus with a pointed pencil.

“Don’t kill him, Jesus. Don’t even hit him. I’ve got to help Jerry here. Let me help Jerry.

He’s got to learn too.”

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Jesus smirked and pointed out, “Dat don’ effecks me’s.”

Jenny must have overheard Camille rubbing her ankles or softly belching across the room, for she shrieked and screamed, “Mr. Jones stop that bitch before I kill her. She’s rubbing her Goddamn ankles again.” Jenny was beside herself, standing next to her desk in the back row.

“Make her stop. She’s driving me crazy. Oh God!” Jenny exclaimed, rolling her eyes and clawing her temples.

Jerry tapped the page on which was his pronoun exercise. “Shhooo, eeeshhhh what theeees sheeet (So, is what this shit)?”

Apparently the frustration of hearing the searing noise of Camille rubbing her ankles and burping was too much for Jenny. She screeched and, for a split second, lifted her shirt to expose her bee sting boobs to Caleb and Jerry, who after that spectacle wordlessly looked at each other.

No one else had seen.

The expression on Jerry’s face was no longer sullen and angry but rather that of a straight boy who has seen real titties for the first time in his life, a look of stunned and abject joy.

In a voice filled with wonder, Jerry gushed, “Whaaaa fer she showw her tee-tees? Eeesh she leshbian (What for did she show her titties? Is she a lesbian)?”

How Jerry could make the connection between Jenny’s having flashed her boobs and her being a lesbian was beyond Caleb, but in answer to his student’s question, he answered, “I don’t know,” and , ”I don’t think so, but I don’t know.”

Thereafter, every time Jerry would see Caleb whether it was when he was coming into class or whether he saw him in the hall, he would blush and say, “Sheee showw usss here tee-tees. She eeeesh leshbian. I shhexy boy (She showed us her titties. She is a lesbian. I am a sexy boy)!”

To which Caleb would reply, “Yes, yes. Very good, Jerry.”

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For some reason, perhaps logic from the same fountain that made Jerry conclude that Jenny was a ‘leshbian’ for having flashed two males, Jerry became convinced that shaving his body hair like a professional wrestler, specifically Hulk Hogan according to Jerry, would make him more the ‘shhexy boy’. When he would see Caleb, Jerry would say, “I go shaveff my leks and chaist (shave my legs and chest) like Huk Hogans. Be schexy boy! Ha! Shaveff my nuts. Jainny (Jenny) show her teets. Why she show her tee-tees?”

Caleb would shrug.

“You shaeff your leks?” He would repeatedly ask Caleb.

And that would be the extent of Caleb and Jerry’s every conversation until the end of the school year and into the next.

Caleb and Mr. Brown had a Study Hall together that year. It was held in the Teacher’s Cafeteria. Ronald was in that Study Hall. He was coming to school less and less, though he did have his reasons. He played a very active role in his gang’s activities, and business demanded his on hands presence.

Still, to appease his Granny, with whom he was living, Ronald still came to school when he could. It was a good place to catch up on sleep. One sleepy Study Hall period, Mr. Brown left his and Caleb’s teacher table to rouse Ronald, whose resonant snoring was acting like laughing gas on the other kids. Mr. Brown sat across the table from the slumped over, comically snoring Ronald.

Mr. Brown nudged Ronald’s arm. Ronald opened his red eyes, lifted his head off his arms and stretched. He smiled. Ronald liked Mr. Brown.

“Ronald, what the fuck? You’re snoring.”

“Sorry. I didn’t get any sleep last night,” Ronald admitted.

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Mr. Brown shook his head and looked at the high ceilings in the light filled teachers’ cafeteria. It was really a pleasant room with one wall that was full of windows that looked out on Ashland Avenue and the small park on the opposite side of the street. Then he fixed his eyes on Ronald, who after half a minute said, “What?”

“You’re fucking up. I just thought I’d tell you before you either get killed or kill someone and are in jail for your Granny and your Momma to cry over.”

“My Mom’s on rock cocaine, Mr. Brown.”

“She still loves you.”

“She’s not there.”

“So what?”

“Yeah.”

“So how about your Granny, not to mention your older sister? How’re they gonna’ get over it? You think they don’t need you alive?”

“They’ll get by, Mr. Brown. I’m giving both of them money, sir.”

Mr. Brown tried another tack. “Forget about breaking your family’s hearts. How about your health. Don’t you care about getting shot?”

“God will take care of me.”

It seemed as if the teachers’ cafeteria were filled with God’s presence, so light and breezy was the atmosphere. For once, the students were pleasantly quiet for the most part, either sleeping or drawing or reading magazines. The conversation between Mr. Brown and Ronald was the only sound. It was so quiet when Mr. Brown asked him, “Why should God take care of you?”

Ronald puffed up a bit. He said defiantly, “God will protect my ass because I love God, Mr. Brown. I love Jesus and He’s gonna’ protect me.”

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Caleb joined them at the table as Mr. Brown studied Ronald. Then he said, “You tell me one thing, but your actions tell me the opposite story. You’re telling Jesus to kiss your ass when you’re out there doing wrong.”

“I’m just doing what I gotta do.”

“If that’s what you’ve got to do, then don’t tell me that you love Jesus.

“You say that you love God. God is gonna’ protect you from bullets or make it okay when you kill someone. You’re giving God the middle finger. You’re telling God, ‘Fuck you, Man.’” Ronald’s eyes widened at the blasphemy. “I ain’t say nothing like that, Mr. Brown.”

“You’re telling me you ‘got to’ take part in the destruction of our own people. Ronald, you’ve got a slave mentality. Whether it’s fighting over a block or selling crack, it’s playing into the white man’s hands.“ ”Yeah,” Caleb interrupted. “Why can’t you guys just sell weed?”

Ronald said, “You need some weed, Mr. Jones?”

“No. I’m just saying-” “Come on now, Jones, we’re trying to help this young brother,” Mr. Brown said.

“You need some herb, Brown?” Ronald asked.

“Not from your ass I don’t. Don’t try to get out of what the point of your little club is, which is to fuck up other folks, mostly people of color. That’s what you’r telling me, ‘cause I know that’s what you’re up to all night. You’re not Romeo Cassanova. You’s a thug type cat, Ronald. You got a complex. Know what they’s used to call it?”

“Naw.”

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“They’d say about you that you’ve got a chip on your shoulder. It’s nothing new. Please don’t tell yourself that you can do evil shit and God’s gonna’ bless your sins. Who you think you are, The Motherfucking President of the United States or some Goddamn king?”

Ronald sighed. “Yeah, I’m like the President. I got God on My Side.”

Mr. Brown snorted in disgust and got up from the table. “Come on, Jones. I just don’t know what to say to a young brother who holds onto the slave mentality.”

“I’m no slave, Mr. Jones.”

“When you try to do like the white man, you’s making yourself into a salve whether you know it or not.” Mr. Brown pronounced and walked off. Caleb got up to go back to the table too.

“What the fuck you talking about, Mr. Brown?” Ronald asked, mystified and on the verge of feeling insulted.

“When you excuse your evil behavior to get what amounts to shiny baubles. What they call The American Dream. What his people (and here he indicated all white people by actually pointing at Caleb who was sitting next to him at the teachers’ table once again.) are about.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re saying, Mr. Brown.”

Caleb helpfully offered, “I think Mr. Brown is referring to capitalism, Ronald.”

“Reefer Captain wha?”

“Never mind, Jones. Let Ronald go on believing Jesus is gonna’ protect his trifling ass. I’d laugh at the boy’s willful stupidity, but it not funny.”

“I’m not laughing,” Caleb solemnly agreed.

“Mr. Brown, I’m not bad and I’m not stupid.”

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From his chair back at Caleb and Brown’s teachers’ table, Mr. Brown yelled back, “I know you’re not. You are not bad. You are not stupid. That’s why you fucking up is so Gat’ damn pathetic ‘cause there’s no excuse.”

Again, Caleb decided to aid Brown. “Yep,” he concurred not unlike Barney Fife, “Mr. Brown is absolutely right, Ronald, and you are fucking up royally, young man.”

Brown moaned and said, “Come on, Jones. I know you’re trying to be helpful and all, but don’t. You white, so no matter how much you think you trying to help, you not helping ‘cause YOU DON’T KNOW.” “But-“ ”Shhhhh, quiet, Jones. You’re a good little white man, but hush now. Ronald isn’t listening to me, and he isn’t listening to you. What’s he need us for? He’s like the President of the fucking United States, and God’s on his side and Jesus is gonna’ protect his ass while he robs and profits off the misery of other blacks.”

“Uh, sorry.”

“That’s all right, Jones. Maybe Ronald’s right. I know they told me in Cleever Bible College that God loves everyone,” Mr. Brown said going back to his Ebony magazine.

“Hey, isn’t that the college that kicked you out?”

“Oh, they tried a few times, but, no, I got my degree from there. Soon thereafter, my dear old alma mater did shut down, but nonetheless, Jones, I got my degree.”

From his table, Ronald made a display of opening his history book. “Look, Mr. Brown.

I’m studying. I’m not a lost cause.”

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Caleb started to give in a little. He wanted to say, ’hey, Ronald, we know you’re not a lost cause’, or something equally heartening, but before he could say anything, Mr. Brown kicked him under the table.

And certainly, Ronald wasn’t a lost cause. Some people thought him devilish and carried fearful memories of their encounters with him. They might dispute whether or not he was a lost cause, but they would be prejudiced by their experience with him. Anyone can turn over a new leaf, especially someone as young as Ronald was.

He didn’t do that though. Instead, there was a locker sweep and they found the gun that he had in his locker. He didn’t have it there for school, but for the trip to and from school. To get it inside every morning he had one of the boys in his gang go in before him, then he would sneak it to him through an open window in the gym in back of the cafeteria, which was where the students went in the mornings after going through a metal detector. No one scanned them on the way home. It was bad luck but no big deal, Ronald figured, but he figured wrong. Mrs. Porrtage had him arrested, and he was taken in cuffs from the school. He’d probably be permanently suspended and possibly sent to juvenile hall.

Caleb went to bat for Ronald. He had the secretary make an appointment for him during his preparation period two days after the incident when he heard that Mrs. Porrtage was going to press felony charges against Ronald. As Caleb went behind the counter in the main office on his way up the private elevator to Mrs. Porrtages’s third floor crow’s nest type office, he looked at Lisa and Karen, the secretaries. “Wish me luck,” he told them.

Karen said, “Mrs. Porrtage is nice. Don’t worry, hon.”

When Caleb got to her office, he found her looking out of the window. Teddy, resplendent in a black lace shawl over an glittering black lame vest and black jeans, was busy filing 111

information on Mrs. Porrtage’s computer. Her office was different than when he had last been in there. There were several ornaments of nautical theme. On her desk was a weather barometer of gold and on the wall hung brass lanterns. A miniature treasure chest was next to her new desk of deep black oak. She’d replaced her already new chair with an even bigger chair with better leather and more gold detail. It was rich, befitting a queen, and from her gigantic window, she indicated for Caleb to sit down. To Teddy she said, “Honey, you finish that later.” Wordlessly, without even looking at Caleb, Teddy rolled his wheelchair out of the office and to the elevator, which he soundlessly took down. Mrs. Porrtage then sat and regarded Caleb. She said, “Why are you putting yourself in this, Jones?”

Caleb was nervous. Mrs. Porrtage wasn’t nice. He’d tried to get Mr. Brown to come with him, but Brown, who had almost as much of an aversion to administrators as he did to white people, had politely declined, reminding Caleb of their already having tried to talk sense into Ronald.

Meeting Mrs. Porrtage’s gimlet eye, Caleb forged onward. “Well, Mrs. Porrtage, I’m here about Ronald. I’m, uh, kind of hoping you’d reconsider charging him and having him permanently suspended.” It was here that Caleb thought that Mrs Porrtage might respond, but she continued to stare at him as if he were an experiment gone awry. So he continued, saying, “He’s a good boy.

I’ve seen improvement in him. He’s honorable. He wouldn’t have used that gun on anybody.”

“I am well aware of what a good boy our Ronald is, Mr. Jones. I know him. I remember how many people it took to keep him from killing that white boy with his bare hands. I know he’s seriously involved with a gang, and he controls criminal activity in his neighborhood. Even if he doesn’t carry out every little crime himself, he controls what goes on in his area. And as far as him not using a gun on anyone here, you’ve got more confidence in him than I do. Even if that’s true, 112

we don’t want the kind of student who would use a gun on anyone anywhere. And we cannot tolerate it. If we let him slide then what do we do about the next kid who sneaks a gun in the school? Slap him on the wrist because we don’t know if he’s a killer and we don’t think he’ll shoot anyone here? Are you serious?”

Mrs. Porrtage turned her back on Caleb. She continued, saying, “I’m inclined to do what I can to keep him out of jail on this, but reaccept him? I’m not leaning that way at all. I’m meeting with him and his Grandmother tomorrow. You’re welcome to attend, but I’m telling you right now, I don’t think that young man is going to show me anything that would make me reinstate him.”

Caleb remembered what Ronald had said in his own defense. “Mrs. Porrtage, Ronald isn’t a bad kid and he isn’t stupid. He’s not a lost cause.”

Mrs. Porrtage slapped the leather armrest of her chair. “Did you hear me say that? Don’t you dare put words in my mouth. The fact of the matter is,“ Mrs. Porrtage said, “it doesn’t matter if he’s a nice kid, a brilliant boy or a good risk for one more chance. It doesn’t matter because he brought a gun to school. That’s something that we don’t abide.”

There wasn’t anything else to say, so Caleb got out of the chair. “Thank you for hearing me, Mrs. Porrtage.”

“Think nothing of it, Mr. Jones. If you want to sit in on the meeting tomorrow, like I said, I wouldn’t object if Ronald and his Grandmother wouldn’t.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Caleb said excusing himself.

Ronald and his Granny didn’t object to Caleb’s sitting in on the meeting. Ronald smiled easily. He seemed like he was in a pretty good mood. His Granny was sad. Ronald sat between 113

his Granny on one side and Caleb on the other. When Mrs. Porrtage made her entrance, Ronald said, “Hey, Mrs. Porrtage,” in a friendly manner, as if they’d accidently bumped into each other at the store.

“Hello, Ronald. Hello, Mrs. Beesley. Mr. Jones.” When she imperiously took her chair, Ronald smiled and slung one leg over the armrest of his own seat. Mrs. Porrtage stared at him, which apparently didn’t register until his Granny nudged him. He took his leg off the armrest, and Mrs. Porrtage began. “We’re here today because of the seriousness of what Ronald did. Bringing a gun to school. It’s a felony, although he is still a minor. Nevertheless, before I make my final decision to suspend Ronald permanently from this school, we’re going to go over his grades, his school history and his arrest record. And I would like to hear from Ronald as well.” Mrs. Porrtage then gave a copy of Ronald’s transcripts and school records from kindergarten until present to his Granny. His grades had gone from good as a small child to mediocre at around sixth grade to bad by high school. At the time of his suspension for possession of a deadly weapon, he was failing everything. They went over his outbursts of temper and both lesser and greater fights that he’d had in school. Mrs. Porrtage read excerpts from his arrest record.

Ronald interrupted her to say, “Mrs. Porrtage your desk clock is wild. Is that a Fendi?”

Mrs. Porrtage stopped what she was doing to look even harder at Ronald. “Yes, it is.”

Ronald bounced in his chair like an excited kid who had answered the magic question. “I got one too,” he told her.

She paused and said, “Yesterday, Mr. Jones came to me and said, ‘Please give Ronald another chance. He’s not a bad boy. He’s a good young man. He’s had problems, but he’s improved, and he isn’t stupid. He isn’t stupid and he isn’t bad is what this white man told me about Ronald.”

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This gave Ronald’s Granny hope. “It’s the truth. Ronald is a good polite young man,” his Granny concurred. “His Mama is...she’s been out of his life, as has been his Daddy. And it has been hard on Ronald, Mrs. Porrtage.”

“Mrs. Porrtage-“ Caleb began.

“You talked yesterday, Mr. Jones,” Mrs. Porrtage said, cutting him off. She continued, “I know that Ronald isn’t bad, even though I believe he’s doing bad things. I know he isn’t stupid, even though he’s making failing grades.” There were tears in Mrs. Porrtage’s eyes as she went on.

If she were faking it, it was a good act. She fiddled with the heavy gold fountain pen holder on her desk and continued angrily, “But what Mr. Jones had to realize, what I had to remind him was that just because we know and care for Ronald doesn’t mean we can let him break the rules.” By now, Caleb was tearing up. Ronald didn’t take any of it seriously. He was sorry that his Granny was crying, but what the fuck. What did these people really expect him to do?

Mr. Jones was just a stupid white man who gave himself a thrill pretending to care more than he did, but Ronald liked Mr. Jones well enough. His had been an easy class to pass. And Ronald knew that Mrs. Porrtage was bullshitting.

Ronald sat back in the fine chair and took in the room. “Mrs. Porrtage?” he humbly asked in a contrite tone.

“Yes, Ronald?”

“Are those nautical sconces solid gold?”

Mr. Porrtage pursed her lips and snipped, “I cannot tell you what it means for a student to come to school with a gun. We have handicapped young people. We have little ones on the other wing. As much as I don’t like having to say this, I’m going to tell you what I told Mr. Jones. We cannot abide having a student come on these grounds with a weapon. And that is the reason that I 115

cannot allow Ronald back into school.” Ronald’s Granny was sobbing. It wasn’t good for her to hear what she already knew about her grandson. Mrs. Porrtage passed her the carved ivory Kleenex box. Caleb took a Kleenex himself. Ronald took one and blew his nose.

“I will talk to the District Attorney about leniency if I think you deserve it as your trial approaches. Maybe if you keep your nose clean, something good can come out of this.”

Ronald leaned forward, and as cordially as he could, he replied, “Well Granny says every cloud has a silver lining, so you’re probably right, Mr. Porrtage.”

“What about his education?” Ronald’s Granny plaintively cried. “If he’s kicked out of school, he’s gonna’ be...” Here she saw the fates of her son and daughter replaying in front of her eyes again, as if Ronald were reliving their mistakes step by step. All she could do was cry.

“I’d like to suggest a program in Job Core that works with at risk kids, kids in gang situations,” Mrs. Porrtage said. “But it will only work, if you, Ronald, if you stop where you are at now and make a change that not too many people, me included, think that you’re willing to make the effort to do.”

“I hear you,” Ronald said with an air of concerned regret, “but there is no way I’m going to go to motherfucking Job Core. Excuse my language.” Ronald got up and helped his Granny out of her chair. Her posture was stooped. “Come on, Granny. You know I got to take my gun wherever I go. You’ve heard enough of Mrs. Porrtage. She doesn’t know about the projects, and if she does then she doesn’t care.”

“I do care,” Mrs. Porrtage haughtily protested.

The smile was suddenly gone from Ronald’s visage. “No offense, Mrs. Porrtage, but you don’t care any more about me being here than I do So it’s been nice being a student in your beautiful school. Sorry about breaking the gun rule.” His Granny was crying. Ronald was feeling 116

a little aggravated at Mrs. Porrtage. He remembered something that he’s seen in a movie or on a tv show. He reached into his pocket and removed his roll of money. Peeling a hundred in twenties, he tossed the paper money in Mrs. Porrtage’s general direction, waiting to see what she would do in reaction. When she did nothing but glare at him, Ronald thought better about throwing away one hundred dollars and unceremoniously snatched them off the floor.

He was on his way out the door with his crying Granny when Mrs. Porrtage said, “Hold it, Ronald.” The way she said it had sounded like she was a policewoman and had a gun on him or something, and he almost expected to be in her sights when he turned around. “Sit down,” she commanded. Ronald thought of telling her to fuck off, but that would have been needlessly rude.

Also, he thought of the influence she would have in his upcoming trial. He wasn’t eighteen, so even though he had committed a felony, they couldn’t charge him as an adult. Taking everything into account, Ronald decided that he could behave impetuously and tell her the mean, old cunt to fuck off, and it probably wouldn’t hurt him that much. Instead, he sat down and listened to her.

Maybe it was something in her voice besides authority that made him come back.

She looked hard at him. “You are one manipulative young man. It was really smooth of you to try and get permanently suspended.”

“Mrs. Porrtage, I didn’t do-“ ”You’re not getting put out of school. I’ve changed my mind. It’s my prerogative, as Bobby Brown would say.”

Ronald’s Granny and Caleb looked overjoyed. Both of them gushed thanks to Mrs. Porrtage, but Ronald looked a bit nonplused. “Okay. Thanks, Mrs. Porrtage,” he said indifferently, rolling his eyes and starting to get up again.

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“Don’t get up yet,” Mr. Porrtage said. She was looking in a platinum bound record book, where all the students addresses were. “I see where you live, and it isn’t too far from Mr. Brown.

If he is agreeable, he’ll be taking you to and from school.” Mrs. Porrtage then spoke into the intercom and told Lisa downstairs to have Mr. Brown paged. She used her brass intercom with silver inlay.

“But I’ve got my own car,” Ronald argued.

“You miss too much school. And don’t think about not being there when he picks you up,” she cautioned him.

Mr. Brown entered looking a bit unsettled. He stood next to Caleb and looked at him as if to say, ‘this is all your fault’.

“Mr. Brown,” Mrs. Porrtage started, “you don’t live very far from Ronald and his Grandmother.” Mr. Brown’s eyebrows went up. “Mr. Brown,” Mrs. Porrtage continued, “I am sure that you have heard of Ronald’s difficulties.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Porrtage fixed Brown with her cold eye. “I want you to pick him up on the way to school and drop him off on the way home, Mr. Brown. I would consider it a personal favor if you would do that. Ronald is a young brother who is at risk...who needs a role model.”

As Mrs. Porrtage was telling him this, he was trying to subliminally tell her with his eyes that Caleb should be the role model. Caleb should be the baby sitter for Ronald, he tried to convey. Mr. Brown was looking meaningfully from Mrs. Porrtage’s eyes down to Caleb, then back at Mrs. Porrtage. Then Mr. Brown looked back to Caleb, nodding at Mrs. Porrtage as she spoke, thinking, choose Caleb, Mrs. Porrtage. Choose Caleb.

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“I want you to mentor Ronald,” Mrs. Porrtage decreed. Ronald caught Brown’s eye and was grinning at his prospective mentor. Mr. Brown scowled at the boy as Mrs. Porrtage said, “This boy needs a father figure, a strong black man to look up to. Can that be you just a little bit Mr. Brown?”

A pained smile came over Mr. Brown’s face, and his loose front tooth swayed back and forth with his every breath. Like someone who had been offered something he can’t refuse, he helplessly replied, “Okay.” Brown looked at Caleb, and though he was still smiling, his eyes said, ‘you got me into this, motherfucker’.

And he said exactly that to Caleb several times over the next couple of days at their lunch group. It would begin with Mr. Brown lamenting, “You got me into this, Jones.” Caleb would claim that it wasn’t his fault but that it was good that Brown was mentoring young Ronald, to which everyone at the table would add their affirmatives. Then Mr. Brown would say something of the adventures he was having with Ronald as his passenger.

“I was driving him home yesterday,” Mr. Brown would begin, “and I told him that I could maybe get him a part time after-school job at a friend of mine’s Popeye’s Chicken. Ronald was not too crazy for that idea, but we’re in the car, and I’m trying to sell him on the idea of working legally, and he says, ‘You sound like you like that Popeye’s Chicken,’ and I tell him sure, it’s a good business. Then...then Ronald asks me if I want the seed money to start my own Popeye’s Chicken. I almost took him up on it too. In fact, I’m thinking about it.”

Another day, Mr. Brown came to the lunch group cursing. “That Gat damned Ronald nearly got our asses shot at the stoplight on Lahore and Severin!”

“Oh my Lord. How’d he do that?” Pricilla asked.

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“From day one, I have been telling him to lay off throwing gang signs while he’s in my car, but Ronald is devious. He can look at a group of boys a hundred yards away and throw up a sign using his damn eyebrow and three eyelashes. I can’t even see the shit he’s doing, but sure enough, yesterday we were at the light where there was a bunch of boys on the corner. I had my eye on Ronald, and I didn’t see him do anything with his hands. But those motherfuckers saw him represent through a rolled up car window cause all of the sudden they start yelling, and Ronald starts laughing and yelling that we better get the fuck out of there right now. Then while I’m hightailing it, I see these motherfuckers waving some damn guns and...and pointing them at us.

Then I heard the damn shots.”

“Maybe those boys just recognized Ronald,” Jackson suggested.

“They recognized him alright,” Brown fumed. “If I’d have found a damn bullet hole in my car, I’d have made Mrs. Porrtage pay for the motherfucker.”

Pressing his hands in a prayerful manner, Mr. Z addressed Mr. Brown. Z said, “Mr. Brown, allow me to say that I feel that your helping young Ronald along the rocky path of his shift from childhood to manhood is a good thing, predestined in the very stars if you will, sir, and furthermore I have every confidence that you are more than specially qualified to be as a guiding star to young Ronald. Perhaps it might even be the case that inasmuch as Ronald is an aggravation to you that you are literally saving his life, if he so chooses to pay attention to you.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Brown groused.

Still, it worked out. Ronald didn’t really change noticeably, but he did change over time.

He kept going to school, which maybe helped him with his job as a collector in accounts and receiving for his gang when he wasn’t under the eye of Mr. Brown. Ronald was fairly successful 120

in his organization and could have gone really far before getting killed prematurely gangster style, but having Mr. Brown around him made something click. So after he graduated, he did give his old teacher the seed money to start not a Popeye’s Chicken but their OWN restaurant, which they called Ronald & Mr. B’s. Mr. Brown, sick of being a slave to the Chicago Public School system and Mrs. Porrtage, compromised his integrity to allow Ronald’s ‘slave mentality’ ill gotten money to start the business. He ran the place and kept the books while Ronald remained a silent partner, who came by whenever he wanted. After five years, they opened another restaurant on the north side of the city. Ronald ran that one. Caleb occasionally would stop in and eat. “This is so much better then teaching,” Mr. Brown said when Caleb came in one time. “Thank God for that bitch Mrs. Porrtage making me take old Ronald under my wing. It’s the best thing that could have happened for me.”

“For Ronald too,” Caleb added.

When Caleb would have his twice weekly phone calls with his Mom, he would now always mention Ann. At first, Caleb’s Mom asked if Ann were his girlfriend, and he told her that, no, they were just friends. Of course, he left out the part about their having sex when Ann would get loaded. Caleb’s Mom was impressed with all the irons Ann had in the fire.

“How does she take law courses, comedy improve classes, work and everything else?” she asked, adding to her question, “How does she pay for all of this from a part time job?”

“Oh, her Dad,” Caleb said.

If Caleb’s Mom had any misgivings, she didn’t let on. “She sounds like a movie star,” she commented, and it was true. Ann was like a glamourous celebrity, and being with her was like hanging with a star. “Doesn’t she know any nice girls that she can fix you up with?” his Mom 121

asked. Ann knew too many people altogether. Every day there was someone new in her life as well as someone with whom she was having a falling out. Of everyone that Caleb knew, which weren’t that many folks actually, she knew the most people and had the most expansive personality.

Caleb said, “She knows lots of people, Ma, but I haven’t met anyone yet.”

“Have her introduce you to some of her friends.”

Caleb and his Mom had never had the kind of relationship where he could lay all his cards on the table. It was probably because she would never have told him what he wanted to hear. So if he’d said, ‘I love this girl, and she won’t commit to me, but we have sex,’ his Mom would have become flustered, told him to stop having pre-marital sex and go to confession. She’d also have told him that loving someone who won’t commit to you is selling yourself short and selfdestructive. He’d also have felt weird saying that to anybody, let alone saying it to her.

Their phone conversation wasn’t going to go in that direction. Caleb said, “So how are Bertie and Maze doing?”

“Uncle Pal was by here and he said that they were doing really well. He had some pictures of their place. They live in the desert. Bertie and Maze have a pool outside their door. It’s real pretty. They don’t make it down that often; well, she comes down more to see her Dad. Bertie says that his job keeps him away.”

“Do Uncle Pal and Aunt Vee Vee still argue all the time?”

“I never see them together. He doesn’t have anything bad to say about her, but she talks about him like he’s a dog. Why every time I talk to her, she’s fussing about his drinking, and do you know that on more than one occasion, she’s said that he makes her so mad that she wishes he were dead.”

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“Aw, she don’t mean it. That’s just the way she talks. How’s Nadine?”

“Nadine is always talking about your pal, Sandy. How debonaire he was and how charming he was to her, and how jealous his girlfriend was. Oh my goodness, you’d think they’d gone on a date the way she talks. Mr. Finn too, she’s convinced that he’s infatuated with her. She refers to him as her fellow artist. Oh, I hope he still doesn’t have all those awful paintings.

Wherever I’d go in your apartment, I’d feel all them eyes following me. I especially didn’t like the red outfitted Blue Boy right across from your bathroom. He looked like he was up to something.”

As Caleb’s Mom went on about Mr. Finn’s painting, Caleb looked in the eye of a larger than life rendering of George Washington in a speedo. He was in a most courtly pose and kissing Cher’s hand. Cher was attired in some extravagantly spiked, feathered, sequined Bob Mackie on acid creation. They were posing against an arctic tundra. Caleb looked away from the knowing eyes of The Father of Our Country and Disco Icon Cher. Caleb said, “How’s Matlock and Winkie Lee then?”

“Nadine said that Winkie Lee has been a very naughty kitty and tried to get out of the house about half a dozen times. She doesn’t know what gets into her. They’ve changed her antidepressants three times, but she still tries to escape. And she’s taken to using the bathroom outside of her litter box, like in Nadine’s shoes and on her pillow. And Matlock is into a new hobby, amateur weight lifting. Nadine has bought him these little paw weights and these dietary supplements. You wouldn’t believe it, Caleb. He’s bulking up.”

Caleb asked, “How did Matlock become interested in amateur weight training?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. “She just said that Matlock had wanted to get into it. I suppose he led her to a magazine article, opened it with his muzzle and pointed to it 123

with his nose. I don’t guess he came up to her and said, ‘Hey, Nadine, I wanna’ get some little bitty muscles. How’s about buying me some weights and dietary supplements.’”

“Of course not.” Caleb wondered if Matlock were on creatine or amino acids. “What kind of dietary supplements?”

“I do not know, but I’m telling you, Caleb, he’s looking more and more like a Rambo than a Matlock. He’s taking all kinds of stuff, Nadine told me. Even a pill that’s supposed to make him live a lot longer. Nadine calls it his ‘live forever pill’. He’s all pumped up now.”

“He’ll always be Matlock to me,” Caleb said wistfully.

Caleb and his Mom talked a bit longer. She said, “Aren’t you tired of the big city yet?”

“No.” “Caleb,” his Mom said affectionately, “you are a nut.”

Irving called Caleb at school with a request. It seems that Sandy’s coke fiend pal, Stevie had an antique that dated from the pre-civil war. Sandy had ‘purchased’ it from Stevie, and although Sandy was supposed to have picked it up, he’d irresponsibly blown it off and the person who had bought it from Sandy sight unseen it would be there to pick it up in the late afternoon.

“Listen, Caleb, I hate to close the store to get the thing myself. You know that’s just bad business.

You know that Caleb. And to tell you the truth, just between you and me, those friends of Sandy, that Stevie, who is the one with the thing, and the other one, Joey...there’s something about those guys, I just can’t put my finger on what exactly, but I can tell you that they are both of them meshugganah. Real meshuggie. Masuggie, you know?”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, Irving,” Caleb said.

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“The one talks like someone has his kushkas in a vise and the other one croaks and bounces around like, like he’s a frog on loco weed or something. Both of them, seriously mashugganah, so to the real point, ah...I don’t want to go over there to that Stevie guy’s place I have to tell you.”

“I’ll go after school. How will I pick the thing up?”

“Come by here and get Sandy’s van. Then you can take it to the guy’s apartment and get the thing. I think he still lives with his Mom. He makes good cash from his kinky business, his kinky, kinky business. Do you know about that? He still lives at home. Mashuggie...So you’re gonna come by here right after school. Right after school! Very good my friend. Well, I’ll see you in awhile, kid,” Irving concluded and they hung up.

Driving Sandy’s big old van was a pain in the ass to Caleb. He felt as if he were guiding an unwieldy yacht down the narrow streets through Wrigleyville to Stevie’s Mom’s house. In addition to the van being too big, Sandy, who was six foot four, had adjusted the seat for his comfort, and he had adjusted it permanently so that it could not be readjusted. Caleb felt like a five year old having to sit on the edge of the seat and stretch his legs to get to the gas pedal and the brake. Holding the steering wheel made him feel like a steam boat captain at the wheel. The van didn’t have power steering either. Furthermore, in addition to being about ten feet off the ground, the shock absorbers were so sensitive that every pebble in the road that the van passed over caused Caleb’s captain’s chair to bounce and list as if he really were on the high seas. It was so scarey that every time he would pass a car, he’d nearly drive up on the curb to make sure that he didn’t side swipe the passing vehicle.

Of course, there was no place to park. Caleb nervously circled the block in front of the address he had for Stevie. After twenty frantic minutes navigating the floating van around and 125

around the block, Caleb was finally able to get a spot in front of Stevie’s house. Parallel parking ended up with the van beached at a crazy angle that was half in the space and half in the street. No matter, Caleb wouldn’t be there too long.

Stevie lived on a shady street of old two and three story houses. His Mom’s house was an exquisite Victorian painted lady of a delicate, powdery flat lilac tone with brash yellow and pink detailing. The porch extended all the way around the house as far as the eye could see, and when Caleb rang the bell, it sounded three sonorous notes.

Stevie’s Mom answered the door. She was a robust woman, pale as her son. Answering the door seemed to tax her, and she was slightly out of breath as she greeted Caleb. She wore a comfortable, loose dress of rich, black velvet, which brought out the whiteness of her hair all the more.

Caleb introduced himself. “Uh, I’m a friend of Stevie’s, Ma’am, and I’m here to pick up something, an antique that Stevie I think might have sold...”

“Yes, you’re here about the Phlemholt chair, I believe,” she said cheerfully welcoming Caleb into her dark foyer. It took several moments for Caleb’s eyes to adjust to the dimness of the house’s interior. When he could better focus, he could see that it was appointed in a baroque manner, filled with old money pieces of furniture. Stevie’s Mom led Caleb to a staircase that led to the second floor, which was pretty much Stevie’s bedroom and workspace. Stevie’s Mom said, “His friend Joey is visiting. Do you know Joey?”

“Yes, he’s a great fellow,” Caleb said.

“They’re nice boys. I know that they can’t get into too much trouble if they’re home,” she said. Then she yelled up the staircase, “Stevie! Stevie, you have company!” No answer. “Stevie, what are you boys doing up there, kissing?”

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“Aw, what are ya’ sayin’, Ma!” came the testy, coke fueled response from Stevie. “Cut it out. Who’s down there?”

“Uh, it’s a boy who says his name is Caleb. He’s here for the Phlemholt, honey.”

“Caleb?” Stevie sounded inordinately pleased. To Caleb he called, “Hey, buddy, come on up! I’m doing a little work and Joey is here too we’re just hanging around watching the Cubs game and Joey’s helping me up here just hanging out, heh heh come on up HEY YEAH! Sosa!”

Joey yelled, “Caleb my friend come on up and help me out here pal this crazy guy has got me helping him and I need some assistance myself.”

“I’ve been assisting you while you’ve been assisting me what are you talking a-a-a-bout?”

Looking pleased as punch, Stevie’s Mom said, “Go on up, Caleb. It was certainly nice to meet you, and you are welcome to visit anytime.” As she spoke, her son and Joey continued bickering about the game as well as other matters such as who was assisting whom exactly, and Caleb went up the old oak steps.

He figured that Joey, Stevie and Sandy had been going up and down these steps their entire lives. From little precocious kids running up and down, excited about toys, then sports, then girls and finally drugs. He wondered if Stevie’s Mom had been like his own, as much in denial about drug use as possible. The old planks groaned with Caleb’s steps as he ascended to the second floor. He could hear the play by play of the Cubs game, and the buzzing of Stevie and Joey’s voices chattering and culminating in a, “HEEEYYY!” when one of the Cubs did something good.

“HEEEYYY!” they yelled.

The first floor of the house and the stairwell were dark and busy, but Stevie’s space was minimalist and filled with light from the huge bay windows and skylights from the high ceiling.

The bay windows looked down on Wrigley Field. Stevie and Joey were watching the game from 127

Stevie’s windows, and they had the play by play coming from an old transistor radio on his nightstand. The only decorations on the spare walls were a Cub and a Blackhawk pennant.

Stevie’s bed was a Japanese wooden table with a mat rolled out over it. He was standing at the window making adjustments on a shiny black leather straight jacket. Joey was serving as the mannequin, modeling the straight jacket as Stevie fixed it. To do this, Joey was encased in it and suspended from the ceiling. His baseball cap was pulled low, and he was squinting at the cigarette smoke drifting in his eyes from the ciggie clutched in his teeth.

“Be a sport and help a pal out,” he piteously implored Caleb. “This bastard Stevie asks for my help, then he won’t even...” The cigarette fell out of Joey’s mouth and on Stevie’s hardwood floor. “Crap!” Joey croaked. The cigarette smoldered on the floor as Stevie tightened stitches at pressure points on the straight jacket, causing Joey to cry out, “Awp. Hey, that’s too tight...My cigarette. I need a drink of beer and a freaking bump. A little assistance.”

Stevie might have assisted, but he was ignoring Joey in a studied manner as he continued cinching the places on the jacket where it was under the most tension and would be most likely to tear. As he was doing this, he watched the game and addressed Caleb in a most friendly manner.

“Here comes Grubnowski up to bat Caleb you know he is the great white hope my pal Joey doesn’t appreciate his hitting skills and likes to poke fun at Grubnowski’s career but you just watch him here as here comes the pitch...Awwww, a strike. Shit.” Another strike on Grubnowski’s part and Stevie yelled in frustration. “Come on, Grubnowski square your shoulders bend your knees and LET THE SWING TAKE ITSELF!” Caleb lent a hand by picking the cigarette off the floor and perching it back on Joey’s lower lip. He held the straw in Joey’s can of beer up to his lips and when he’d taken a mighty quaff, Joey then requested that Caleb further assist him in holding some cocaine up to his nose so he could 128

snort it. “Good man,” Joey croaked as Caleb held the mirror, replete with several lines already cut from a gram pile, to the straight jacketed and suspended fiend. “Can you just stick that straw in my nostril, atta’ boy! You have a toot too!” Joey then snorked two lines that Caleb traced with the other end of the straw. As soon as he’d snorted and had begun coughing, Grubnowsk made his third strike, outraging Stevie.

“Grubnowski, damn you,” he yelled, further showing his anger by giving Joey a violent spin.

“Yeowwww,” Joey croaked as he spun around and around in his leather cocoon. The centrifugal force caused Joey’s hat to fly off. When he stopped revolving, Caleb helpfully placed it back on top of his head. He croaked, “This is absolutely the last time I ever help you Stevie what the Godamned hell do you think I am some kind of fucking dradle understand one thing my friend I’M NO FUCKING DRADLE DAMMIT!” Stevie, looking surprised at his friend having taken exception at being spun around in a straight jacket while hanging from the ceiling, replied, “I don’t remember ever saying that you were,” and with that explanation, Stevie gave the black, rawhide knotting a tighter cinch. As he was doing that, Caleb did a line. He hadn’t done cocaine in years. It made him feel devilishly happy and more empathetic toward Joey and Stevie.

“Heeellloooo,“ came the voice of Stevie’s Mom coming up the stairs. “I made some toasted cheese sandwiches for you boys. You can’t just drink beer,” she said appearing at the doorway. The sight of Joey in a straight jacket suspended from the ceiling as well as the cocaine lying in the open didn’t faze Stevie’s Mom at all. She behaved as she probably had when she’d brought toasted cheese sandwiches for Stevie and Joey when they were eleven and racing Hot Wheels.

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“Mrs. Feldman, make Stevie let me down. He spun me around,” Joey croaked in an accusatory tone.

“Stevie, is this true?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry Mom. I’m sorry Joey let me just tell the whole world how sorry I am and I’ll take Joey down in a minute just as soon as I finish the last couple of tiny details you know a stitch in time saves the customer returning the item complaining about shoddy merchandise you wouldn’t want that would you Mom, Joey? Say Caleb that chair is over there do you need any help getting it down the stairs not that I’m running you off you are welcome to stay and have one of my Mom’s cheese sandwiches you can have mine and Joey’s I suspect we’re not very hungry if you can’t finish them all now you cantakewhatyoudon’teathomewithyou.” All the while he was blathering, Stevie’s Mom was standing there beaming at them all. They were all still simultaneously beaming and talking as Caleb took the chair and left sans sandwich.

Through doing work for Mrs. Porrtage on her computer, Teddy was able to find the information necessary to get into all the school computer files, where he uncovered records of the many unauthorized purchases that she’d made on the schools’ account, over eight thousand dollars worth of items that she’d bought for her office. With Ji Ki’s help, Teddy assembled the research for the second edition of his underground newspaper. This time, he didn’t curse or rant. He didn’t write editorials or articles or cartoons. The tone of the second edition wasn’t strident. It was a bare bones introduction that explained the copied pages of figures from Mrs. Porrtage’s files. All her mis-spending was there.

Teddy did not distribute this edition as he had the others. First, he anonymously sent copies to the superintendent of the Chicago Schools and all the members of the school board either 130

through e-mail or through regular postal service. He also e-mailed articles to both the Chicago Sun Times and The Chicago Tribune. Then he waited.

The old cliche says that revenge is a dish that is best served cold, but for Teddy, revenge felt pretty hot when he was working in the office and three officials from the Chicago Public Schools showed up to immediately and unceremoniously strip Mrs. Porrtage of her duties. To make sure she didn’t take any of the things she shouldn’t have bought, they escorted her out of the building. As Mrs. Porrtage left the main office, she looked really embarrassed and offered little explanation when she left other than, “I’ve been called to Pershing Road.” The secretaries Linda and Karen didn’t know what to make of it, but Teddy did.

Mrs. Porrtage was fired. Because of the people Teddy had contacted in the media, the Board of Education wasn’t able to reward Mrs. Porrtage’s greed and dishonesty by promoting her like they usually did their fuck up administrators. Instead, Chicago Public Schools made a scapegoat out of her. She was noisily fired. There were articles in the paper. The mayor might have had something pithy to say about it. Teddy’s role in the whistle blowing came out, and he was treated like a hero somewhat. Certainly at school he was. More than that though, he felt the vindication that someone who is bitter feels at the fall of a hated oppressor. He could have been striking a blow for justice, or maybe he was just feeding his anger something delicious. Teddy loved the feeling, and he decided that he would become an independent investigative reporter. It gave him a positive way to channel his bottomless well of rage.

Ji Kee felt kind of bad for Mrs. Porrtage because she was soft hearted toward everyone, but Teddy was proud and happy; in fact the positive emotions that his body was churning out did something inside of him. Something good, not a miracle, but maybe a miracle. It was the kind of feeling that some kids get if they’re lucky enough to make the winning basket at the last second of 131

the state tournament. It’s a lottery winning kind of thing, and you may scoff at the curative powers of vengence, but listen to this. Teddy had an illness that typically killed its victims before their twentieth birthday. When Caleb last bumped into Teddy, it was several years after the little goth boy had graduated, and he was at that time twenty-four. Because of that one big adrenaline charged euphoric rush of a victory, Teddy may still be alive today.

No, he hadn’t become an investigative reporter, but he was still as biliously pissed off as ever and had in consummate elegance snubbed Caleb’s friendly greeting that day. Teddy not only didn’t answer Caleb’s, “Hello,” but as close as they were to each other, about five feet apart, he wouldn’t even look Caleb’s way. Instead, he silently puttered off in his chair and left his old teacher standing there snubbed. .

Did the teachers and students have high hopes for the incoming principal? Hell no. The Chicago teachers naturally hated and feared their principals, unless they were friends or were related to them. Even then...

The new principal was named Mrs. Wayers. She was probably around fifty-four or fiftyfive, and she drank coffee all day long, forgoing lunch for more coffee. She was a white woman and rather diminutive. Her hair was in a boyish cut with long bangs. Like many people who drink too much coffee, she was prone to shrill and strident outbursts of temper. Mrs. Wayers. Oh my.

On a morning that Eddie Tuffs felt especially happy to be alive, he started the day with four jelly doughnuts that his Granny had set on the table for his breakfast. Then, a little later, while he was standing outside and waiting for the school bus, he saw a hat, a very handsome hat that was the true definition of style. He saw it across the street, the kind of hat into which the Rastifarians 132

stuff their sausage sized dreads. The hat was being worn by a very approachable crack head, who was only too glad to sell it to him for his lunch money, a dollar fifty. As soon as they had made the transaction and the crack head had skittered away, Eddie put on his hat.

Immediately he felt a difference, that being several fleas and head lice jumping into his inviting, oily scalp. It emboldened him, made him quicker. He decided to let the hat be a harbinger of a new, more decisive Eddie Tuffs. Edgier. Itchier. He decided to not go on the school bus for which he was strictly supposed to wait but to strike out on his own. He strolled to school.

On the stroll, Eddie beheld a treasure, a sight that caused him to say out loud, “Hey,” even though no one else was within earshot. There on the sidewalk lay a wallet. Quick as a shot, Eddie Tuffs snatched it up. Oh glory day calloo calay! Sixty dollars! Where to begin?

Even though he didn’t smoke, Eddie ran into the nearest corner store and bought a pack of cigarettes. By the time he got the clear plastic wrap off and the pack open, he realized that he hadn’t bought a lighter. No matter. Eddie Tuffs had bought the pack of cigarettes as an accessory to his hat, and as he strolled down the promenade, he cooly held one of the unlit cigarettes in the corner of his mouth. As he walked, he affected the faux limping swagger appropriate to one wearing such a kingly yet formless chapeau. Eddie Tuffs rocked the gigantic hat so that its small brim was worn in the back.

Walking in the way of the pimp, though wonderful, proved to be slow going and tiring so that Eddie Tuffs waved down a taxi.

“I need to go to school,” he told the driver.

“Do you have the money for the fare,” the cab driver asked.

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Eddie Tuffs flashed his pimp roll, the two twenties and the change from the cigarettes. “I have all kinds of money,” he informed the driver.

As Eddie didn’t know the address of Ridle, only that he needed to go there, the driver had to radio in to get the directions. For his trouble as much as because Eddie couldn’t figure out how much to give the driver, when they got to Ridle, Eddie handed the driver fifteen dollars on an eight dollar fare and said grandly, “Keep the change, man.”

The admiration in the driver’s voice when he said, “Thanks pal,” made Eddie Tuffs feel good. If he were rich, he reckoned, he’d spend all his time making people happy like that, giving them money.

If Eddie had any doubts that the hat brought him good luck, they were laid to rest once he got to school for it was there that for the first time ever, a girl took notice of him in a positive way.

“Hey, Eddie. I like your hat. It makes you look very handsome,” Abbey told him as he made his way to his locker.

Eddie foot-dragged his way over to Abbey, who had a hallway pass to go to the restroom.

He suavely said, “Do you really think so?”

Actions speak louder than words, and Abbey leaned over and gave him a kiss, almost on the lips. Her kiss grazed the edge of his mouth. Wow. “Eeeeuuuuu,” Martell observed, adding, “How are you able to kiss that nasty boy’s crusty assed mouth, girl?”

Eddie Tuffs grinned defiantly at Martell. “You’re just jealous ‘cause I’m a pimp,” he informed Martell, who shook his head and darted off to continue his hall wandering.

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Abbey kissed Eddie again, this time all the way on the mouth. In her cheerful, sing-song voice, she said, “Come on, pimp. We’ll make out in the girls’ bathroom,” and she took him by the hand.

“Oh boy!” Eddie Tuffs exclaimed. He’d never made out with anyone.

Mrs. Weyer was on her way to the counciling office. With her was her trusty quart sized coffee mug, but she was down to the dregs. She could see bits of coffee grounds at the bottom of her mug floating in the tepid wash. Imagine her surprise when she entered the girls’ restroom intending to toss the remains of her brackish coffee in the sink and instead discovered Abbey licking the remnants of Eddie Tuffs’ jelly doughnut off his face. Mrs. Wayer’s caffinated heart began pounding at the sight. She stood there gawking with disbelief at the guilty pair, who were no longer smooching but were standing there blandly returning her look.

Mrs. Wayer put her hands on her hips. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” Abbey said before she dissolved in giggles.

“I’m a pimp,” Eddie Tuffs informed Mrs. Wayer.

Mrs. Wayer made the fish out of water face, gaping at what she couldn’t believe she’d just heard, couldn’t believe what she was seeing. When she could speak, she said, “Let me see some passes and an id.”

Abbey readily produced her pass and id to the restroom. The pass was from Caleb. Mrs. Wayer said, “So is this why you came to the restroom, Abbey?”

In her happy girl song voice, Abbey replied, “No, I had to pee, Mrs. Porrtage.”

Mrs. Wayer rolled her eyes. “I’m Mrs. Wayer,” she corrected Abbey.

“Oh, sorry.”

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Mrs. Wayer regarded Eddie Tuffs. She did not possess the menacing eye of her predecessors, but Mrs. Wayer looked at the threatening world through the wide eyed, alarming stare of the perpetually over-caffeinated. Vibrating in a manner not unlike a speed freak in full spun tweakery, she shrilly turned her attentions to Eddie Tuffs. “AND YOUR ID, YOUNG MAN?” “What do you mean?”

“Where is your student id?”

“I don’t know?”

Mrs. Wayer ground her teeth in coffee fueled rage. “DO YOU HAVE A PASS?” Eddie Tuffs stared in wonder at the veins throbbing in Mrs. Wayer’s temples. “You’re going to bust a blood vessel if you’re not careful,” Eddie cautioned Mrs. Wayer.

“SHOW ME YOUR PASS!” Figuring that he probably didn’t have a pass on his person, but making a game show of it, Eddie slowly looked through his pockets. He was hoping that he’d run across an old one. First his shirt pocket, then his other shirt pocket. Then his front pants pockets...hold on. Nope not there.

Then he checked his back pockets, nope not there either.

“You don’t have a pass, do you?”

“Nope.”

Abbey laughed, and Eddie started to put his arm around Abbey’s shoulder, but Mrs. Wayer knocked his hand away.

“Hey,” Eddie Tuffs protested.

“WHOSE CLASS SHOULD YOU BE IN RIGHT NOW?” Eddie Tuff clucked his tongue, “You should stop yelling,” he told her.

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“DON’T TELL ME HOW TO BEHAVE! WHERE SHOULD YOU BE?” “Don’t yell at me. Talk to me like I’m a human being, and I’ll answer you.”

“Where should you be?”

“I don’t know. What period is this?”

“It’s second period. You’re just now getting here?”

“Yes I am. And I belong in Mr. Jones class.” Eddie thought steam was going to come out of Mrs. Wayer’s ears the way it did with angry people in the cartoons. Her eyeballs were bulging crazily, and if he hadn’t been such a pimp, Eddie would have been scared by her scarey face.

“Take your hat off. Don’t you know that it’s against school policy to wear a hat indoors?”

“No, I’m not taking my hat off.”

“TAKE YOUR HAT OFF RIGHT NOW!” “Stop yelling at me, lady. I’m not taking my hat off, and don’t you DARE lay your hand on me again or my Granny will have you arrested and she will come to school and kick your scrawny white ass, BITCH.” Mrs. Wayer accompanied Abbey and Eddie Tuffs to Caleb’s class. Caleb was reading to the class, who were all EMH students. He was reading a story about a family of crabs who lived at the beach, and it was all he could do to stay awake while he was reading to them. Caleb hadn’t always succeeded in staying awake while standing behind the podium reading. Once or twice he’d actually nodded off while reading. His students, who had been following along in their own texts, had said, “Hey, what you’re saying isn’t on the page.”

Caleb perked up at the sound of Mrs. Weyer’s high heels tappity tapping nearer and nearer.

He was startled to see her angry countenance at his door, but when he saw that she had the 137

grinning Abbey and the pimpish Eddie Tuffs, Caleb had an idea of what was going on. “Well, hello, Mrs. Weyer,” Caleb said as happily as he could fake being.

“Mr. Jones, may I see you in the hall for a moment?” Caleb went in the hall with her and the students. Mrs. Weyer angrily spat, “I found your students together in the girl’s bathroom just now.”

Abbey was rolling her eyes and blushing. “I did give Abbey a pass to the bathroom,” Caleb admitted.

“Have you counted this one absent?” she said as she glared at Eddie.

“Uh, not yet. I was going to give him until the end of the period until I counted him absent.

Sorry.” Then he looked at Eddie. “Nice hat,” Caleb observed.

“This bitch tried to get me to take it off,” Eddie Tuffs complained pointing at Mrs. Weyer.

He added, “She put her hands on me!”

“Eddie, don’t call the principal a bitch,” Caleb urged.

Eddie Tuffs was looking plaintively at Caleb, looking at him as if he expected him to, I don’t know, join him in self-righteously cursing out Mrs. Weyer. As they were looking at each other helplessly, Mrs. Weyer snatched the hat off of Eddie’s head.

“Hey!” he squealed angrily.

Mrs. Weyer was clipping away in a staccato gait. She called back to Caleb, “I expect you to give these two a week of lunch detention.”

Caleb looked at his two young charges. “You heard her. Back in class,” Caleb said in as stern a tone as he was able to affect, which wasn’t very stern at all. Abbey giggled and Eddie Tuffs acted as if Caleb had told him the opposite of what he had said, for instead of going into the classroom, Eddie started after Mrs. Wayer. Caleb called after him, but Eddie Tuffs ignored him 138

and continued following the principal. When Mrs. Wayer saw that she was being followed to her office, she stopped and glared at Eddie.

He stopped and glared back. “I want my hat. That’s my lucky hat.”

“If you don’t go back to class right now, I’m going to have Officer Goldberg arrest you,” Mrs. Wayer warned.

“Why? You stole my hat!”

Mrs. Wayer turned on her heel and clicked to the main office. Eddie Tuffs followed her.

“You got my hat. She stole my good hat. I paid twenty dollars for that hat...”

Mrs. Wayer called Officer Goldberg. When he showed up, thinking that the officer was there to help him, Eddie stammered out the hat theft incident. Pointing at Mrs. Wayer, he cried out, “There the culprit is. Arrest her, Officer G. Make her give me back my hat.”

Mrs. Wayer, who’d had a shot of cappuccino from her personal cappuccino maker while in her office, was as wound up as Eddie Tuffs. “Arrest him, Officer Goldberg,” she was shrilly screeching. “I want to see him in handcuffs!”

“On what charge?”

“Disturbing the peace. Inciting a riot. Verbal assault.”

Reluctantly, Officer Goldberg cuffed Eddie Tuffs. In a show of supreme pimpnosity, Eddie broke down weeping, showing the law that he was so above them that they didn’t even register on his radar, and he wasn’t afraid to actually cry like a baby in front of them. That was how he would recall that memory and rationalize his big old tears anyway.

Veta had her baby in February, on Valentine’s Day. She and Andre named the little girl Vareeta. From the time she came back to school, Veta would regularly bring Vereeta and everyone 139

would go cute baby crazy. To Caleb, Baby Vereeta was the cutest, most adorable baby ever born, with her blue black skin, her black eyes and baby-puff afro. The sight of her made Caleb feel funny, like he wanted to laugh and tear up at the same time. Yes, everyone loved Baby Vereeta, even Mrs. Wayer, who would pop her caffeine stimulated eyes and coo at her, making the baby laugh at her veiny, florid face. Veta and Andre would declare, “Look at how Baby Vereeta loves Mrs. Wayer. She’s throwin’ you a kiss, Mrs. Wayer.”

“Oh my gosh,” Mrs. Wayer would say, taken by the wide eyes meeting her own wide eyes.

Then, undone by the baby, Mrs. Wayer would say, “You know school is no place for an infant,” as she waggled her finger at Baby Vereeta, who would hold her baby hand up in the air as if reaching for Mrs. Wayer’s finger. At which point everyone would go nuts with baby love.

If Mrs. Wayer had admonished Veta and Andre in the office, it would be at this point that Karen and Lisa would say, “You can leave that baby in here with us. We’ll take care of her. She won’t be any trouble, Mrs. Wayer.”

And of course, for better or worse, Vereeta was the youngest member of The Dawgs.

Canisha K focused her considerable talents to designing and creating what can only be described as Baby Princess Couture. Charlie and D. Brown used their weed profits in part to make sure that Baby Vereeta had the finest of baby delicacies and plenty of Baby Bennington to supplement Canisha’s beautiful clothing. Gold studs and little pearls graced Baby Veretta’s pierced ears as well as a delicate golden crucifix at her throat. They’d also thrown money into redoing her room at Veta’s parents house. They bought a basinet, a carriage, a regal crib large enough for several mobiles, a play pen and loads of diapers. One weekend they got together, bought gallons of pink paint and rounded up as many Dawgs as they could and painted Baby Vereeta’s room.

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Veta’s Mom and Grandma as well as her brothers, uncles and Grandpa and Great-Grandma were all dazzled by her. They all pitched in with groceries or cash or time and care. So, of course Vereeta thrived, her needs met, wanting for nothing and beloved by all.

What was her destiny? Did she grow up to get shot and die, or to get pregnant too soon or to become a chicken head crack whore? No. Baby Vereeta had a stable, good life. She stayed in school, and once she graduated, she took out student loans and went to college and became a court reporter. And Veta and Andre stayed together and were constantly in her life.

That’s not quiet true. Nearly three months after her birth, Andre went away for a few years to juvenile hall. Baby Vareeta and Veta still visited him weekly, and when he got out, Andre and Veta got married. They both got their high school diplomas, Andre’s in GED form. They didn’t get a divorce or fool around on each other or become drug addicts. Andre worked in a textile warehouse for several years before becoming a custodian at Loyola University. Veta had another baby, a boy named Andre II, and then she went to work as a receptionist. And they had a nice life.

Grand theft auto was what sent Andre to juvenile hall, but least you pass too harsh a judgement on him, let it be noted that what he did...what Katrell and he did, and what he alone took the blame for wasn’t really theft. They borrowed the CTA bus, fully intending to give it back; well, abandon it when they were done anyway. And while there is no excuse for taking a CTA bus on a joyride down Lake Shore Drive, please take into account the special circumstances under which they borrowed the bus. For you see, it was the night of MAY 26TH, a night of converging and erupting energies when The Bulls won the NBA championship for the second time.

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When the last second of the game clock ticked away, and The Bulls had won another season, everyone in the city felt a sweeping mass adrenaline rush. Everyone rushed into the streets. It was pure love that bubbled over into pure mob insanity in many places and pure felonious fun for Andre and Katrell, who, like everyone else, became a little giddy on the collective euphoric celebration.

That’s why they gently pitched the driver off at the first stop of his route when no one had yet boarded. They were carried away with exuberance and happiness. So they drove the empty bus down LSD, honking the horn and being honked at by other wildly happy people. Even the police were happy, merrily waving to the boys as they chased the bus in their squad cars. Andre, who was driving, was stuck there, but Katrell bailed.

When the police were flashing their lights and traffic was making them slow down, Katrell pushed the door open and said, “I’m makin’ a run for it.”

Andre, ever the raconteur, yelled, “Stop lyin’!”

“I ain’t lyin’,” Katrell informed him and hopped off the bus to, indeed, make a run for it and get away. Andre didn’t harbor any hard feelings, which is just as well as Katrell suffered no guilt or anxiety whatsoever for having left his pal holding the bus.

Andre was caught. “Oh you scamp,” the Officers said to Andre helping him into the squad car and smartly rapping him above the eye with a baton. “That’ll teach you to take a CTA bus,” the officer affectionately reprimanded him. Andre heartily wished he’d not given in to his wild impulse, but alas, he was busted.

So it was off to juvenile hall for two years. When Baby Vereeta was old enough to talk and ask where it was that they were visiting Andre and why he couldn’t go home with them, Veta and everybody else told her that Daddy was in a special College. Until she was eleven years old, 142

Vereeta thought that her Daddy had been going to The University of Chicago or somewhere on a prestigious grant that had called him away from home. Later, when she was about seven, she figured it out on her own.

Song was hired as a custodian to work under the orders of Burke, the school’s Maintenance Engineer. With his wife and three kids, Song had immigrated from South Korea and come to the United States. He had gotten a job with the Chicago Public Schools through a well connected and helpful member of his church, the Korean Baptist Church. Song was hard working. He could barely speak English, which made directing him at times problematic for Burke, who nonetheless showed great patience, or some patience at least, when communicating what he wanted the diminutive Asian man to do. Every day Song wore clean janitorial clothing of a matching dark blue work shirt and slacks. He was cheerful though serious about his work.

His sober dress and work ethic would have made him a target of derision among the students anyway without his, for them, unusual ethnicity, but his physical differences and his poor English were too much for the students to resist. But like the students with physical and cognitive challenges, Song endured the students’ tired attempts at mimicry with the good humor of a saint.

For example, each time Martell would see Mr. Song, he would affectionately call out to him something of the nature of, “Chinnee-chee, Chineee Mans!” To this, Song would invariably chuckle as if Martell had gotten off yet another good one at his expense.

It wasn’t only kids like Martell who made fun of Song. Even the kids who had been the victims of cruel taunts and generally knew better than to laugh at the differences of others, even THEY cracked themselves up with their wry imitations and thoughtless remarks to the hardworking custodian.

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Robert and Deareo liked to call Song’s name and then push the skin at their temples up in imitation of his eyes. Song’s response was to point at them and laugh in a good natured way.

Several times, Caleb told them, “Don’t do that to Mr. Song. It’s racist.”

“Oh, no,” the students would protest. “We’re not being racist. Song isn’t black. He’s Chinese.”

“No, he isn’t Chinese. He’s from South Korea, and racism is whenever you behave badly toward someone because of their race, whether they’re African American, Hispanic or Asian like Mr. Song.”

And then the students would go right back to delightedly teasing Song at any opportunity.

When Caleb would stop them, telling them over and over that they were being racist, they would all laugh and correct Caleb. “No,” they’d all say, “We’re not being racist, Mr. Jones. We like Song,” and then turning to Song, they would slant their eyes and say something like, “Chingee Chee! Winny Wee Wong!” Song didn’t help by laughing and going along with their attempts to mock him.

A little over three weeks before school was let out, Martell earned an early dismissal, as he would his every school year, including the year of his graduation. His suspension this year wasn’t for any prank he played at school nor for any bursts of pique towards his teachers.

On that early June afternoon, Caleb was feeling the relief that he always felt at the conclusion of another school day. He stood apart from the kids who were waiting for the same train. At this point, Caleb hadn’t had to walk Martell to the station since the previous year, and he could hear his student holding court among a group his classmates, Chris among them. ‘God bless ‘em; glad I’m not responsible anymore for awhile’, he thought.

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Caleb figured that he was as far away from the next day’s aggravation as he could be, and once his train came, he got on the car that was one ahead of the car that the kids got on. He took a window seat, settled back and closed his eyes. The train rounded the bend, the clack clack clack lulling him as it always did in the afternoon. He fought to stay awake, opened his eyes a bit to look out the window at the tops of the trees that were level with the train. There were white blossoms on the trees. The clack clack clack of the train rocked him just enough to make him shut his eyes and drift into an afternoon commuter nap. This was the type of nap where he would wake up at every stop just enough to look around before the train took off again. Then, for a minute or two, he’d once again lightly sleep.

At one stop, the doors didn’t merely open and close as they usually did but stayed open.

The train remained at the station. Also, there were CTA police officers waiting. They hurried on the car behind Caleb’s. That made Caleb sit up.

Caleb then saw the Police Officers leading Martell away in handcuffs. Shit. Martell was saying, “It wasn’t me. How are you just gonna’ blame an innocent young brother when I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” Then the train doors closed and it rolled out of the station.

Although he hated to walk between trains, Caleb’s curiosity had him pushing through the narrow, heavy metal door and walking the two steps on the walkway between cars. He held on to the chain rails and pushed into the car behind the one in which he’d been. Everyone looked at him.

“Hey, Mr. Jones,” Chris called. He and all of the students on the car looked as if they’d just seen something that had astonished them. The adult commuters, on the other hand, looked pissed for the most part. Caleb stepped around standing passengers until he was next to Chris, who had an aisle seat. Caleb held on to the rail.

“What happened back there?” he asked.

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“Mr. Jones, we were all sitting here, and that damned Martell brings out a bunch of rolled blunts and starts yelling, “Loose joints! Five dollars apiece! He didn’t sell any joints but he got everybody’s attention too much cause the next stop, there was the police. And you know the rest of the story!”

So, because Martell was a minor and because the joints he had didn’t amount to much, he got a slap on the wrist. As mentioned earlier, he was also suspended for the last three weeks of school. This wasn’t a punishment to him at all because he would spend those weeks at his favorite place in the world, the basketball court around his house where he liked to shoot hoops. It was here that Martell could delude himself that he was good at something.

This basketball court would be the setting for his future tragedy. He’d be mouthing off as usual...but none of this would happen until several years after he’d graduated.

The basketball court was on an asphalt playground in the center courtyard of an abandoned elementary school. At night it was populated exclusively by crack heads, heroin addicts and drug dealers. They were still there during the day, but they gave up the area around the hoops, content to do their thing in the shady sidelines of the court, next to the walls and broken out windows of the abandoned classrooms. To Martell and the few other neighborhood kids who would play pick up games or just shoot, it was almost as if all the other stuff wasn’t going on.

The addicts would buy and either openly use or creep through the broken windows to get high and fool around in the ruined halls of education, but the kids paid them no mind. Even when there would be crack hoes sucking dicks out in the open, Martell and the other kids ignored what was going on around them. It was only gunplay that would make them scatter. Otherwise, to 146

Martell it was as if no one else but him and the other ballers were there, and the silence was broken only by the eerie creaking of the double row of swings in the breeze.

He felt hopeful there, like despite being barely five feet tall that somehow he would make it to The Bulls to play alongside Jordon. That fucked up playground on that inner courtyard was the only place where Martell felt peace.

Sandy called Caleb at his apartment about picking up a cut glass lampshade from his store and delivering it to a customer who was a shut in. Caleb wrote the address down. He was about to say goodbye, when Sandy asked if he could speak to Ann. Caleb called her and gave her the phone. She wasn’t on the phone long with him, and when she hung up, she told Caleb that Sandy had asked her to dinner.

Ann smiled, pleased with something, and she said, “Are you jealous?”Although Caleb wasn’t jealous, he figured that James would be, if he knew, which he’d wouldn’t. “It’s just for a dinner. I don’t mind letting a man take me out for a good dinner. That’s all it is,” she said.

At the end of the school year, Palmer Weeks cooking classes prepared a feast for the teachers, parents and the big shots from the Chicago Board of Education who would come to observe. Palmer Weeks wouldn’t have every one of his students cook, but he would pick a couple of students from each of his classes. These students would then choose what dishes they would prepare and would plan a menu. Two days before the event, Palmer Weeks would pull his cooks from their other classes in order to make sure they were able to concentrate on doing everything perfectly.

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Jerry Kredjxki was among the students honored by being chosen to cook. Throughout the year, Jerry had shown a talent in the kitchen. His Mom had taught him from early childhood how to cook, and despite his inability to speak English and his cognitive deficits he was very adept and one of Palmer Weeks best students.

Jerry chose chicken soup to make for the end of the year feast, and the day before, he went with Palmer Weeks to the grocery store and picked out the ingredients that he would use.

Painstakingly, he looked at whole chickens until he found the exact one that he wanted. To choose the potatoes, tomatoes and celery, he went to the organic sections and chose each vegetable piece by piece. Holding up a tomato, he gently tested its firmness with his hands and checked its color and smell. “Deeesh a goot tamater This is a good tomato),” he judged. Then when testing another one, he would say, “Deesh na ribe (This is not ripe).”

In Palmer Weeks classroom and the cafeteria kitchens, the cooking students prepared their dishes. In addition to Jerry’s soup, there would also be ribs, several vegetable dishes, fried rice and grilled salmon on the menu. And for the desserts, there was apple pie, blueberry cobbler, mint gelato and creme brulee.

The feast was set up buffet style, and Jerry’s soup was one of the first offerings. As Mrs Weyer stepped up to his silver tureen and allowed Jerry to ladle a small bowl of the soup for her tray, she remarked, “I must say, Jerry, this soup smells delicious.” Jerry uneasily accepted the compliment by barely nodding his head.

With Mrs. Weyer were two of the infamous Board of Education people who had been among the group that had suffered from food poisoning so long ago. It was Simon and Sharon.

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Willing to let bygones be bygones, they were once again opening themselves to eating food prepared at the school that had caused them to be sent to the hospital. Sniffing at the soup, Simon commented, “This smells incredible.”

“It sure does,” Sharon said. “How did you prepare it?”

“Yes, tell us what marvelous ingredients you put in it.”

Shyly, Jerry said, “Forst I geet sheeky (First I get the chicken). Dain I poot shellory, tomattee, pootatoo ant pimka (then I put celery, tomato, potato and pimka).”

When Jerry said ‘pimka’, Palmer Weeks eyes widened and he sharply poked Jerry in the back.. “Oooosh,” Jerry said.

Mrs. Weyer, Simon and Sharon didn’t notice Palmer Weeks dig. Simon said, “I can hardly wait to taste it.”

“Me too,“ Sharon said.

“I tink you like de pimka,” Jerry told them, earning another sharp dig in the back from his teacher. “Oooosh,” Jerry said.

“If that’s your secret ingredient, I think we’ll all be going to the Polish supermarket and asking for Pimka,” Mrs. Weyer diplomatically said as she ushered the hot shots to the next dish.

“Yaysh. Go to Polish market. Ashk for big pimka. I tink you like. (Yes, go to the Polish market. Ask for a big pimka. I think you’d like)!” Jerry urged them as they shuffled along.

“Asshole,” Palmer Weeks murmured to Jerry, who laughed delightedly. Palmer Weeks couldn’t speak Polish, but he knew the word for cock in over a dozen languages.

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ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END IN FACT THEY ALREADY HAVE

On Memorial Day, Martell’s Mom comes by herself to his grave and puts flowers on it. Communes with him. Says she’s sorry. That she didn’t know what to do when she abandoned her family, but wishes things had been different. And that she misses him.

A few years after he had graduated, he’d gotten shot and killed on his favorite basketball court for having run his mouth to the wrong guy. At school, they’d announced his death over the intercom. When he’d heard, Caleb had been conducting a class, and the news took him. For seconds the classroom receded as Caleb imagined his old student saying to the wrong person, ”Now it’s on,” and that someone, in fact, bringing it on. At his funeral, Martell’s Dad cursed God to anyone who would listen. Martell’s Dad is still angry. His Mom is starting to make amends.

The new millennia holds bright promise for better times. Gone and graduated are all The Dawgs. They’re now either in college or working. Canisha K. Is taking courses at Columbia College. Baby Vareeta is eight and is an honor student at her school. Veta and Andre, Katrell, Charlie, D.Brown, we put them all to bed now. They’re okay.

Caleb’s beloved EMH and PH and LD students go to workshops or colleges, and most of them who need to live in assisted housing with other adults with special needs. A couple of them get married or go to college. Some of them live with their parents or grandparents. We can say goodby to them. They’re okay.

Caleb and Ann stop going to the gym. Caleb loses twenty pounds of muscle and becomes a skinny man once again. Ann remains beautiful. They move from Briar street to a sunny apartment 150

on Shoown street, right off of Clark . They are on the top floor, the third floor of their complex.

They have a balcony which has southern exposure and on which Caleb grows a lush garden, including several female pot plants. A bright palette of petunias, blue white sheeps’ ear and hanging vines camouflage the herb. Caleb and Ann’s apartment is filled with light. It has hardwood floors, austere blue white walls and indigo furniture.

For the first time ever, Caleb felt at ease. He appreciated living in a bright and sunny place.

Also, he’d come to terms with his and Ann’s unusual relationship. Pretending and lying were second nature to Caleb.

When they’d all hang out at the lakefront or go to a restaurant, the deception was like a second skin, and Caleb pretended that it was all okay. At times it seemed as if James knew on some level, but if he did, he never let on.

It was exciting living with Ann. She was constantly meeting fascinating people, going to the best clubs, the best restaurants. It was like living with a celebrity. But in the years that they lived together, something was happening to Ann. When they’d met, Caleb had thought that she was really talented and ambitious, and she was, but things would occur which would throw her off track. She dropped out of law school because it became too difficult to juggle her improv with the demands of the law courses. Then she lost her improve. She was supposed to work a few nights at the theater door. It was something that all of the students were required to do, but Ann started blowing off her responsibility. She missed three times, and she was let go. She stopped auditioning for things. She stopped singing around the house.

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Occasionally, Ann would get a job, and for awhile, she would thrive, but she’d get fed up with what she had to do, or the unreasonable schedules imposed upon her or the people she would have to work with. She was beautiful and personable, and it was easy for her to get jobs wherever she wanted to go. Because of her beauty and personality, she was given a chance. And she tried, but just like the continuous circle of beautiful people who came into her life, none of her jobs lasted very long. It was the same cycle. She’d be excited and excel, but then someone would piss her off. There would be words, and she would either leave or be asked to leave.

When this would happen, Caleb would tell her not to worry. James would tell her the same thing. They’d tell her that her working at that job simply wasn’t meant to be and that she would find a better job.

James could get into any club and nearly any concert type venue in the city for free, and Ann used his clout to gain entrance to many a VIP section and show. Although he was fairly straight, just beer and the occasional pot, Ann would drink every night, and she also would occasionally use Ecstacy and Special K, but it was during this time that her use of cocaine first escalated to where she saw it as a problem. Like her sex life with Caleb and her occasional trysts with other men and women, she kept her drug use hidden from James. She told Caleb pretty much everything that she did. She also blew up at him one evening.

It was when she announced that she was a cocaine addict. Caleb looked stunned and dismayed at the revelation, and she screamed at him, “Don’t look at me like that. You didn’t mind me being on it while you were fucking me!” Caleb didn’t know how to answer that. He could have said, ‘yep, you’re right. It was great to fuck you when you were out of your mind on cocaine’. He could have easily have said, ‘no, you’re wrong because it’s scarey. If I don’t perform like Sparticus you flake out’. He supposed both answers would have been true.

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Soon thereafter, she cleaned up her act with the cocaine. For the time being. And Caleb had hope that what she’d gone through had just been a fluke, a bad patch, something to put behind them. He had hope.

Ann didn’t seem to have that much hope. A psychiatrist told her she suffered from bi-polar disorder and prescribed antidepressants. Caleb foolishly reckoned that Ann had reached a turning point. Now they had the reason that she couldn’t get along at so many jobs and she didn’t finish so many things. Now they knew why she kept a continuous loop of new people coming in and going out of her life. They could fix things now.

Caleb and Ann’s sex life ended, which Caleb missed but which was a million times better than having Ann fucking him when she was in the throes of a drug binge. Ann sought to be closer to James, who, after all, was her boyfriend. She’d spend more nights over at his house or have him over to spend the night more often. That is what she wanted, but she complained of his libido being lower than hers. Caleb shared with her the supplements that he’d learned about. She later reported that he didn’t like taking them. Sex wasn’t that important to him.

Billy Bazoo was in Caleb’s current freshman crew. He had him twice a day, first thing in the morning for American History and later in the afternoon for English. Billy Bazoo wasn’t unusually tall or big for his age, thirteen, but he had the heaviest beard (to go with the heaviest eyebrows) of any kid that Caleb had ever seen. Billy wore a handlebar mustache and usually looked as if he were some sort of scrawny dock worker in need of a shave. And in this book, full as it is of characters spewing forth bad language, Billy had the foulest mouth of anyone by far.

Now most people who curse do so when in the appropriate set and setting, or at least they do most of the time more or less. Billy Bazoo, on the other hand, cursed as naturally as water running 153

downhill, and were he to bump into Billy Graham or the Pope, he’d greet them with a hearty, “How the fuck are ya’, ya old shit-dick!” One of the objectives in Billy Bazoo’s annual IEP was that he reduce his cursing.

Another objective was that Billy learn to reign in his unreflective urges and curb his tendency to act on irrational desires. Billy was labeled LD with a secondary BD status. At one time, he had been in a BD class, but he wasn’t really BD, just foul mouthed and jumpy.

Foul mouth and impulsive, that made Billy a treat to take on field trips. This year, Caleb’s freshman class were part of a program that twice a month would take them to either a play or a museum. Before the first trip, which was to see Macbeth at The Goodman Theater, Caleb privately took Billy Bazoo aside and said, “Billy, I’m a little concerned about taking you on this trip.”

To which young Billy replied, “Shitski, Mr. Jones, what kind of motherfucker you think I am? I swear I ain’t gonna do Goddamn shit to embarrass your ass, Sir. Fuck!”

After Caleb tried to explain to him the need for him to be quiet during the performance and at all times refrain from cursing, Billy assured him, “No sweat. When those cocksuckers are doing their Shakespeare bullshit, I’ll be quiet as a Goddamn mouse. I fucking swear to God.” That was all Caleb could count on, and it wasn’t enough. Nevertheless, Caleb took him and although he made sure that Billy was always at his side, helping the young lad restrain his animal spirits was a constant struggle.

No, Billy wasn’t bored by the performance; quite the opposite. Caleb and Billy sat on the front row, and Billy seemed to frequently forget that what was happening on the stage was makebelieve. During the frequent scenes of foul murder, Billy would clutch Caleb’s arm and cry out, “Oh shit!” or “Fucking hell, Mr. Jones!” and when Caleb would shush him, he would say, “But it’s some murderous shit up there, Mr. Jones!” During the scene where the king arrives, Caleb saw 154

that Billy was trying to distracting the actor who was playing the king by subtly waving to him.

Caleb grabbed his hand, and Billy hissed to the King, “You best get the fuck out of there, King.

They gonna’ be murderin’ your ass before you know it.”

At the banquet scene, Billy said, “What you got in the fucking mug? Give me a drink, King Fucker!”

But it was at The Field Museum that Billy’s antics nearly got them thrown out. Caleb managed to keep him from using the medieval armoire to run wind sprints for the class’s edification, but he was unprepared when Billy spontaneously sprung from the class tour group to the platform of a fossil exhibit. To Caleb’s horror, Billy struck a gangster pose on the platform which drew the attention of the hundreds of people in that area. “Hey! Fuck! I’ma Tareezan!” and with that, Billy Bazoo gave out a piercing Tarzan yell. When the horrified tour guide yelled for Billy to get down, Billy urged, “Why don’t you eat a bowl of fuck, you Goddamn homo.”

By kindly talking to Billy, Caleb got him to come down, and while the rest of the group proceeded with the tour, Billy and Caleb had to spend the remainder of that trip on the bus. It was on the bus that Caleb said, “Jesus, Billy Bazoo, if you’re gonna run around wearing a mustache, you have gotta’ learn how to act a little better.”

“What the fuck do you mean by that, Mr. Jones?”

Caleb tried to choose his words carefully. “Well,” he began, “If a little kid runs all over the place and jumps on things, misbehaves and such, people think, ‘ah, he’s just a little kid.’”

“I don’t get this bullshit that you’re telling me, sir.”

“You don’t look like a little kid, Billy.”

“I’m not a fucking little kid.”

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“That’s right,” Caleb said. It was cold in the bus. The driver was listening to a walkman and working a crossword puzzle. He continued, saying, “You are right. You don’t look like a little kid. You’re not a little kid, so it’s confusing to people...troubling to folks when you, ah...”

“When I act like an asshole?”

“Yeeeah.”

“Fuck. Sorry. I’ve got to fucking think!” Here Billy Bazoo struck himself in the head with his fist.

Though Caleb had wanted to do the exact same thing to Billy, he remonstrated here. “Oh, don’t do that Billy. Just think. Think before you do things that you think will be...fun.”

Billy Bazoo thought about his teacher’s advice. “If it’s fun, don’t do it,” he murmured.

“That’s a good acid test to go by,” Caleb said. “If it strikes you all of the sudden, and you think it would be irresistibly fun, don’t do it.” As Caleb was trying to reason with Billy Bazoo, the early afternoon sun came through the thick bus windows. The rest of the class would be in the museum for another hour. Billy hadn’t made it until lunch even. Now they would miss fucking lunch. Caleb wished he’d brought a sandwich and a book. He should have known.

While he was thinking this, Billy took the opportunity to light a small piece of paper on fire, pissing the bus driver off to no end and thereby sparking Billy Bazoo’s indignation. “What do you mean you’ll kick me off the fucking bus? You don’t own this Goddamn bus! The school owns this motherfucking bus, so you work for me, cocksucker. ‘Cause you the chauffeur, dick.

‘Cause I fucking said so, asshole. Fuck you, motherfucker, because I’ll say whatever the fuck I wann’ say,” and so on, with Caleb trying to mediate and calm down both parties so they could coexist long enough to get back to the school.

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Caleb spent fifteen to twenty minutes mollifying the bus driver by explaining that Billy Bazoo had grown up in a cursing household where people liked to argue, while at the same time trying to impart to Billy the necessity of recognizing consequences and boundaries. The driver, realizing that he could neither beat the shit out of Billy nor kick him off the bus to leave him stranded, allowed Caleb to apologize on behalf of the red faced, mustachioed thirteen year old, who was twirling the ends of his ‘tach in furious frustration.

“Yes,” Caleb dissembled, “I believe I can speak on Billy’s behalf when I say that he is sincerely sorry for lighting that piece of paper on your bus, and as his teacher, I can testify that he won’t do it again. He just wasn’t thinking of the results of acting without thinking, like he and I had been talking about.”

“Yeah, he needs to think before he does crazy things,” the driver concurred.

By way of owning up to his misdeed, Billy said, “You can tickle my ass with a feather for pointing it out, peterlips.”

As the bus driver choked on his blind rage, Caleb said, “I guess we’ve still got some work to do here.”

One of the constant circle of people that Ann met and brought around was a pot dealer who went by the nom d’ plume Tetras. Ann met Tetras in a club where Caleb guessed that he might have endeared himself to her by giving her cocaine. She may have endeared herself to him, in addition to being a vivacious clubbing companion that any man would be proud to be seen with, by fucking him. Ann started again visiting Caleb’s bed at the conclusion of her long evenings of clubbing, and that made Caleb wonder if she were getting high. She said she wasn’t, but Caleb 157

wondered if she were telling the truth. If she were getting high again, she seemed to have it under control. He stupidly guessed.

Tetras became Caleb’s pot dealer. The quality of Sandy’s pot had been suffering of late, though the price had remained high. Tetras had fine herb at a good price. Sandy didn’t give a shit.

Just from Joey and Stevie alone he was doing well.

When Tetras saw that Caleb grew his own pot during the spring and summer months, he was skeptical about how good it could be, but later, when Caleb gave him a bud and he smoked a bit, he was won over and wanted to grow his own also. And so in this way there developed a friendship between Caleb, the grower, and Tetras, the dealer, who became a grower.

Tetras decided to grow indoors. Caleb went with him to a store that sold only grow lights and hydroponic gardening kits. They were scared about going to the store, afraid that there would be police watching. They wanted to slip in there, get their lights and get out inconspicuously, and they might have better succeeded if they hadn’t taken Tetras’ gigantic purple van to the place. So they parked three blocks away. This seemed to be a smart way to prevent the police from knowing their business. If the van wasn’t at the store, how could they know that it was Tetras and Caleb purchasing the lights?

The answer to that question became evident once they had both bought a thousand watt light and had to carry them the three blocks to the van. They had to stop at the side of the rode and rest twice while carrying the big, heavy boxes. As they rested, everybody that went past gave them and their pot growing lights from the pot growing store a good knowing look, a look that said, yes, we are fully aware of what you’re up to, and we disapprove. We don’t like that nasty store in our 158

community, and we don’t like the likes of you contaminating our neighborhood. When they got to his van, Caleb felt as if people were looking at him from out of the windows of their homes.

Tetras got his carbon dioxide tank at a store called Brew & Grow, and he bought mylar for the walls and tubing for the Co2 at a hardware store. Caleb helped him set up his grow room in the basement. It was nice. Tetras put in an exhaust fan as well as a fan to circulate the air. His room was five by five by six, a close space. The fan created quite a bit of heat, so Tetras had to set up a small air conditioning unit in the room. It all worked, and Tetras was able to grow there. The only problem was that having it there scared Tweety.

Tweety was the mother of Tetras daughter Shae, who was about two. Tweety and Shae lived in Tetras’ house, which was in the lot in back of Tetras’s parents’ house. Tweety and Tetras had a strange, contentious relationships. They’d maybe been in love at one time, maybe not.

When Tweety became pregnant, she told Tetras that she wanted to keep the baby. She moved into his house and they kind of lived like a family, except that Tetras still lived pretty much like a bachelor, staying in the clubs until late in the evenings. Tweety worked during the day at a community center, so Tetras was Shae’s caregiver a lot of the time. Through the afternoons and early evening hours, he was the good, attendant husband and father. When it got late though, much to Tweety’s consternation, Tetras went out.

Once out, he liked to spend his money buying girls’ drinks, giving them cocaine and trying to fuck them somewhere besides his house. Having the father of her child out every night, in addition to his selling pot for a living, cast a shroud of stress on Tweety. She would quietly fester with resentment and insecurity until it exploded in angry behavior that would involve screaming, threats to call the police and a bit of small vandalism toward whatever of his was within reach during these episodes. When Caleb or Johnny gently suggested that the reason Tweety was 159

behaving so disagreeably might be because of his faithlessness, he would look thoughtful, even stroke his chin as if he were considering what they were saying, and after what appeared to be careful deliberation, he would reply if that were her reason, she would simply have to change.

That was all. Then it would be Caleb or Johnny’s turn to look thoughtful.

Caleb suspected that Ann was doing cocaine again. She brought it up one morning when they were in bed. She denied using it, just drinking and smoking pot, but he suspected she was lying. Ann was coming to his bed more frequently again. If she were out with others or with James, even if she brought him home, she would find her way into Caleb’s room after James would fall asleep in her room. Then didn’t seem the time to question her veracity. When her hot bare back, ass and legs were sealed tightly to his bare chest, his groin and legs, he was not inclined to argue about anything. He wanted to believe her, even when he occasionally tasted the bitter cocaine in her mouth. He figured that he loved her, and that she loved him.

Caleb called in sick many days just so that he could stay and fuck her. In those early hours, in the dim light of whatever room they were using, Caleb would see the planes of her face change, and she would become someone else, or rather someone more than herself. It was the drugs and sexual betrayal that fanned their carnal marathons to a state of transcendence, but using these unstable elements as fuel to their lust threw off a precious and delicate balance in Ann’s spirit and sent the person Caleb and James loved far away, to be replaced by another person altogether.

The next day was cold and windy, and while Caleb was on the Red Line on his way to work, his fifth period student, Juan, sat next to him on the ride to school. Juan usually got on the L at the Armatage Station. Juan smiled. “Where were you yesterday?” he asked.

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“I uh, had to take care of a few things,” Caleb replied. “How did class go?”

“Oh it went alright,” Juan said grinning. Caleb liked Juan. Juan was one of the smartest students that Caleb had ever had. He understood school work effortlessly in a genius like way, yet he was no nerdly academic. Despite Caleb and Juan’s good teacher and student rapport, Juan’s grin set off a warning signal to Caleb.

“Uh, so how was the sub?”

“Which one? There were two. I had the second one. She was weird.”

This wasn’t good.

“Uh, do you know why the first sub left?”

The train stopped at the Berwyn station and collected the commuters on their way downtown. Juan reported, “I heard that everything started during your first period American History class when he got upset about the paper airplanes.”

The florescent lights glazed the aluminum and chrome walls of the L car as it whizzed along its rail. “Paper airplanes?” Caleb puzzled.

“Yeah, the class made paper airplanes from the lame-o word searches that you left.”

Why the fuck couldn’t they have just done their Goddamn word searches? “Who was throwing them?” Caleb asked, pissed before he had even gotten to work.

“I’m not sure, but I think it was probably Billy Bazoo.”

By this stop, the car was filling up and commuters were standing in the aisles. Caleb concurred with Juan, but he asked, “What makes you say that?” The blustery, overcast morning blasted into the car every time the doors would open.

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Juan pulled his hood over his stocking cap. He said, “I don’t know, but someone torched one of the paper airplanes and it accidently on purpose landed in the waste basket is what I heard.

At least that’s what the fireman told me. He was pretty pissed.”

Over the tinny sounding speakers, the conductor indecipherably whittered on about something something something in the early morning semi-darkness of the L car’s interior. Caleb was liking the sound of Juan’s tale less and less. “The fireman told you?”

“Yep,” Juan said. “The paper airplane landed in the waste basket, and the sub didn’t notice I guess. Someone ran out of your room and pulled the fire alarm. Everyone had to leave class and go outside. The fire trucks came. The fireman said it was stupid.” Juan dug into his book bag and dug out a Slim Jim. Caleb couldn’t regret having called in sick the previous day, but for so many reasons, he should have regretted it. He said, “So then they sent the sub home?”

“No, then he left. They wanted him to stay, but he’d had enough.” Juan dug another Slim Jim out of his book bag and offered it to Caleb. “Want it?” he said.

Caleb took the Slim Jim, nervously tore off the wrapper and took a leathery bite. “Thanks.

Say, who pulled the alarm?”

“They don’t know. By then so many of your students were running around the halls. It could have been any of them really. My bet though is that it was Billy Bazoo all the way. The fire and the phone call if you ask me.” Juan dug back into his book bag and got out a plastic bottle of Mountain Dew, which he uncapped and from which he took a long drink to wash down his breakfast.

This was bracing news indeed. Juan was probably right, Caleb thought with a sinking feeling in his gut, or maybe it was the Slim Jim. “How was the sub in your class?” Caleb asked.

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“Pretty weird.”

“How did everyone act?”

“There was just me and Tiffany and Billy Bazoo in there. Until the police came with Mrs. Wayer.”

Caleb felt the blood drain from his face. He took the proffered jug and took a jolting chug of the caffeine generous soft drink and then another. “Uh...the police came by?” he ventured.

Juan’s eyebrows went up and he merrily smiled and nodded.

The Red Line went around a bend entering the downtown area, and their car rumbled on the elevated line, the train level with the end of winter tree tops. “What did they come by for?”

Caleb, against his better judgement, asked.

As Juan answered, The Red Line straightened and speeded, heading into the cavernous, and gun metal grey skyline beneath the overcast sky. Juan said, “Officer G and these other police came into your class looking for Oscar. I told them that he’d never come to class, but they said they already knew.” Juan giggled and said, “You should have seen how mad that bitch Mrs. Weyer was when she saw nobody was in the room. Especially after the fire in the waste basket. I thought she was going to bust a blood vessel.”

Though the more he heard, the less he wanted to know, Caleb had to ask, “Umm, why were they looking for Oscar?”

Juan shook his head in contempt. “That stupid fucker skipped out of you class and tried to rob the corner grocery with a damn stick he’d gotten out of the park.” Juan tipped the Mountain Dew back and took three righteous pulls of the syrupy beverage.

“I’m sorry. I must have misheard what you said.”

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“I said that dumb ass picked up a fucking stick out of the park in front of the school, and he went in the corner store and said he was gonna’ stab Paki (the man who owned and ran the store) with a stick if he didn’t give him his cash. Paki chased his dumb ass out of there and he called the police.”

The Red Line approached their stop where they would have to get on The Green Line that would take them within a block of school. At the stop, Juan would leave Caleb to join his friends for the last leg of the trip. Caleb sat in his window seat and looked out the window. Mrs. Weyer would be pissed at him. Good. Fuck her. Caleb had sick days to take, and it was none of her Goddamn business when he took them. She needed to lay off the coffee, Caleb thought. He was done caring what principals thought. Mini-despots were Weyer, Porrtage and Herring, and he wished strokes upon them all. Goddamn fucking principals.

Mrs. Weyer didn’t take Caleb to task for having taken a sick day. She fooled Caleb into thinking that she wasn’t totally evil by bringing him back as an FTB, but she was only fooling. If she hadn’t been addicted to caffeine, she would have been a reasonable, good natured, good humored administrator, but like most stimulant habituated folk, her moods were capricious. The normal person would be undercut by the shrill, bug eyed harridan. To some, like Mr. Z, she was openly contemptuous, belittling and screaming at him by turns. Mrs. Wayer had been known to reduce some of the staff, not Mr. Z, to tears.

Mrs. Weyer undermined teachers when in her coffee rage mode. Caleb would be attempting to teach a class when he would look up and see here glaring at him from the door.

When she would see Caleb, her glare would ice over into a scarey smile. While she never openly yelled or berated Caleb, she began tormenting him by never being satisfied with his lesson plans, 164

so that Caleb had to write mini-epics delineating each activity, its objective, the way the lesson met state goals.

Caleb had the chance to question her about it during their bi-semester conference. After having observed him, she sent Mr. Z to cover for his class while they discussed her observation.

When Caleb asked her why she was busting his ass over his lesson plans, she would simply challenge him to write better and more clearly. She also berated his classroom performance for doing too much for some of the students and not enough for others. Caleb quashed the impulse to hit her with a hard back book.

Mrs. Herring and Mrs. Porrtage certainly were monsters, but they realized that everyone there was doing their best at a remarkably difficult job. They didn’t indulge in counter-productive nitpicking, nor were they subject to caffeine fueled rages. Since he had no idea what she wanted, Caleb said that if she had a syllabus to go by, he’d be glad to use it, or if she could say what she wanted, he’d try to do it. She was elusive. She told him that she merely wanted him to live up to his potential. She wanted him to want to teach better. He wanted to throw her out of her office window.

When he left her office, he saw three of the students that were supposed to be in his class.

They were gossiping with the secretaries in the main office. The students were three friends: Ebony, Audranelle and Jenny (not the boob showing Jenny who graduated years back). They were standing at the divider between the public area and the office proper and were laughing merrily.

Their eyes lit up at the sight of their teacher. Ebony was the darkest and the most conventionally pretty. Jenny was going to be like a model someday. Now she was six feet two and about one hundred thirty pounds. And Audranelle was short, cute and sweet. All of them were awol from class.

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“Girls,” Caleb said, “Aren’t you supposed to be back in the room?”

“Mr. Z gave us a pass,” Ebony said showing the legal bit of paper enabling them to walk the hall and signed by Mr. Z. Audranelle said, “Yes, Mr. Jones. You better get back there though.”

Jenny tossed her head and showed her dazzling smile. “Yes, I think you better go. All I’ll say is that Billy Bazoo and Bishop are playing on the phone.”

Caleb hurried back, the girls in tow with him as he urged them to go faster. “Come on, girls. There’s no telling what’s going on.”

“Slow up, Mr. Jones. You’re going too fast,” the girls replied, grinning at one another.

In the room, Caleb found Mr. Z drawing a portrait of Juan and Tiffany together. Juan’s arm was around Tiffany, and he was beaming like he’d won the lottery. When Z saw Caleb, he began a lengthy greeting in which he complimented Caleb on the wonderful behavior of the students and their dedication to their education being a reflection on Caleb’s never ending efforts to educate them...Over by Caleb’s desk, Billy Bazoo and Bishop were indeed playing with the phone.

The game was that Bishop would get on a line out of the school and then dial some random number, and Billy Bazoo would talk. Caleb caught the tale end of their latest phone prank.

“You’re asking who this is?” Billy Bazoo belligerently spat into the mouthpiece of the phone.

“This is Asshole McFuck, that’s who, and just who in the Goddamn hell is this?”

Caleb said, “Billy!”

“Oh shit,” Billy said sheepishly and hung up the phone. Bishop, a heavy and most nerdly white boy with a serious Starwars fixation, was impishly suppressing a smile and looking like he was sitting in the catbird seat. While he discreetly maneuvered back to his desk, Billy Bazoo 166

lingered and gazed longinglyat the phone as if he meant to play another prank on it right under Caleb’s nose.

Mr. Z looked up from his portrait of Juan and Tiffany. “May I again stress that your students behaved wonderfully. Impeccably in fact. I have been doing a little drawing as you can see,” and here he held up the sketch.

“Mr. Z, you are an exquisite artist, and I thank you for so watchfully watching my class.”

“It is my pleasure and my privilege, kind sir. May I finish this piece for my good friends Mr. Mojica (Juan’s last name) and Miss Johnson (Tiffany’s last name)?”

“But of course. Juan and Tiffany can still participate in the lesson I think while they’re posing.”

“Why sure,” Juan said. Tiffany, who was a quiet and bashful girl, smiled and nodded in agreement, and Mr. Z continued his sketch.

“I think,” Caleb said, “that we were going to do our complex sentence exercise. Get out the complex sentences that you were supposed to write last night. Uh, you’ll have to go to your seat in order to do that, Billy. So...go on back to your seat now.”

Billy opted to ignore his teacher, focusing his attention on the phone instead and thinking of how pleasant it would be to make another obscene phone call. Jenny and Audranelle, both of whom were back at their seats and ready for work, decided to help Mr. Jones, and Billy did not ignore them when from their front row seats, they each grabbed a handlebar from his moustache and gave it a smart twist.

“Awp! Fuck! You bitches!” Billy squawked, learning a lesson in cause and effect when his curse elicited an even sharper twist of his upcurled tufts of facial hair. “Owwww.” He had crushes on all three of them.

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“You best sit down, little boy,” Audranelle cautioned.

“And get your homework out and get ready to do some work,” Jenny further explained.

“Awwww! Owww! I didn’t do my Goddamn homework,” Billy revealed. At this pronouncement, Ebony decided to help. She reached until she had a firm hold on Billy Bazoo’s nipple which she then treated to a painful tweak. And at Billy’s tortured yowl, Ebony warned him, “You better git in your seat and do it right now. You understand?”

“You got something nasty to say?” Jenny added.

“Ow, No. Okay. Ouch.” The girls got out of their seats and led him back to his desk by the handlebars. Once in his seat, Audranelle reached under Billy’s seat, got out his notebook and pen, put it in front of him and ordered, “Right now, five complex sentences.”

“I don’t know no fucking-“ Jenny swatted his head and instructed him, “Use your subordinate conjunctions. That’s just the first thing we learned in writing class, you dummy.” As she was berating both his natural intelligence and his pathetic attitude toward his own education, Audranelle found the list of subordinate conjunctions for him to use.

“There,” she said, “Now I’m not going to write ‘em for you.”

“You better git to writing,” Ebony warned him.

“Have you girls ever considered a career in education?” Caleb asked.

Caleb called upon Juan to start the class off by reading one of his complex sentences. Juan broke the pose long enough to get his paper out, and he read, “When the crack head tried to rob me, I took his gun and shot him in the knee.”

“Wow. That’s an action packed sentence, and is it just a complex sentence Juan?”

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“Nope. It’s a complex-compound sentence. ‘When’ is the subordinate conjunction. ‘And’ is the coordinate conjunction.”

“Correct, sir.”

Caleb called on Tiffany, who read her sentence, “Because Juan is my boyfriend, I am on birth control.” And, Mr. Jones, it’s a complex sentence using ‘because’ as the subordinate conjunction.”

“True. And, er, good job might I add. Umm, who’s next?”

Jenny raised her hand and read her sentence without waiting for Caleb to call on her. “My sentence is complex and uses because too,” Jenny told them, looking around at Ebony and Audranelle to listen to her sentence. “Because Song a Chinee man, I won’t bring my dog Suzie to school because I know Song would like to eat dogs!” and here Jenny erupted in giggles as Ebony gave her a warning look. Jenny collapsed upon her desk at having read her sentence. Audranelle rolled her eyes.

“Jenny,” Caleb said, pissed, “That’s horrible. It’s not funny. Jesus.”

Barely able to sputter out the words, she mirthfully said, “But Chinese and Japanese and all those people eat dogs. They eat dogs. Oh my.”

“Jenny, please stop being racist!” Of course, Jenny protested that she liked Song and that she wasn’t racist. Caleb shook his head disapprovingly and sighed.

Billy Bazoo raised his hand. Caleb called on Billy, and the young man read his sentence.

“My pagong-gong felt a thrill when Ebony gi’ me a fuckin’ titty-twister!” As soon as he said it, Ebony’s spiral notebook went sailing like a frisbee and bounced off Billy’s head. “Ouch!” he cried. “Quit lovin’ me Goddammit,” he yelled.

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Audranelle raised her hand. Caleb called upon her. Fixing her large eyes innocently on Caleb, she read, “Although Mr. Jones thinks his funny lip makes him sexy, it’s really his butter colored teeth that drives the girls go wild.” Conspiratorial looks among the girls were exchanged.

Mischief girl looks.

“Uh, thank you for the input,” Caleb said tight mouthed so he didn’t show his ‘buttery’ teeth. “And it is-“ ”It’s a complex sentence. The subordinate conjunction is ‘although’.”

Although Ann’s dissolution seemed to occur all at once, there were warning signs. Her faults became magnified. She became really angry at times. Of course, that could have been explained by nothing more than Caleb’s getting on her nerves, but late in the school year, Caleb found physical evidence that his friend was becoming someone new. He found a glass stem with blackened copper Chorboy stuffed in one end. He found that and a charred spoon in the kitchen drawer. Caleb thought it strange, but never thinking that Ann would smoke any kind of heavy drug, he stupidly dismissed it. How could he have seen those things and not known?

Ann’s bursts of temper became more extreme. Even when they would be fucking, she would become enraged if Caleb would miss a stroke or not be licking her to her coke benumbed and drunken satisfaction. Nor would he question her when she would interrupt their fucking to go to the bathroom. Never one for confrontation, Caleb allowed himself not to see what was happening.

She finally told him. It was while they were in bed. They were spoon position on their sides. Caleb was inside of her and she was squirming and undulating on him as she sighed, “I want to share something precious with you. Do you trust me.”

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That something was a glass pipe much like the one he had found in the kitchen drawer.

“What are you doing?” Caleb asked.

Even though Ann lied, didn’t say that it was crack but said it was a new designer drug called ‘the brown stuff’, Caleb wanted nothing to do with it. He didn’t hit it, but Ann continued to openly smoke it as they fucked. To Caleb, who was supremely horrified by the sight, it was like being with someone who would douse herself with gasoline, set herself on fire then giddily assure him that it was alright.

The next day, Ann told him that for the past month she had been smoking crack. She told Caleb that she’d been clean for a long time, but that one night she and Sandy went to dinner, and afterwards did some coke. From having resumed snorting, she graduated to smoking crack one night when she and some other gals had run out of coke and one of them got some rock cocaine.

And while some people can evidently walk away from crack, or at least not be instantly addicted like the scarey stories from the eighties, Ann was immediately in thrall to it. Loved it. It drove her crazy.

With her Dad’s financial help, they got Ann accepted into a pricey rehab called Lakehope.

Although she knew she needed to go, Caleb and James had to drag her there. They got her there on an early Monday evening. It was a hospital not far from the lakefront. She bolted when they were trying to get her admitted, and then while trying to find her, they got lost in the neighborhood around the hospital. Ironically, at night the blocks immediately around the hospital became something of a crack supermarket. Although Caleb and James looked and looked, she was no where to be seen. They found her back at Caleb’s apartment. She was clutching a stuffed Scooby Doo that James had bought for her the previous summer. They took her back.

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She stayed seven days then checked herself out and resumed smoking crack. Caleb left their apartment and checked into a crappy single room occupancy place called The Elegance. At school, she called as he was trying to teach. She gave him hell about leaving, and Caleb told her that he wasn’t going to live with her until she got help.

At the end of that school day, Mrs. Wayer came to his door. Looking uncharacteristically concerned, she told him that he’d gotten a call from the VISA fraud bureau and that he should call them back as soon as possible. When he did, Caleb discovered that Ann had maxed out his modest credit card at Western Union using only his number. They wanted to know if he wanted to start a criminal investigation. “No,” he told them right before he canceled his credit card number. As a precaution against anyone doing that again, the fraud bureau gave Caleb the telephone numbers of three agencies that would be alerted not to let anyone open an account in his name. He spent another night at The Elegance.

The next day Ann called at Caleb’s school crying for Caleb to come home. She said that she was hungry and broke, and Caleb told her that he didn’t see why she should be broke, having maxed out his credit card for cash just the previous day.

Maybe Caleb should have gone home then. He didn’t.

The next day, Ann again called Caleb at school. She said that she would go back to rehab.

Caleb spent the rest of his school day in class calling the hospital trying to get her readmitted. As soon as school let out, Caleb was in a cab and hauling ass getting home. He was thinking that she would be packed and ready to make a positive move, but when he got there, he found her to be of a different mind than when he’d talked to her on the phone.

As quickly as he’d hurried, he hadn’t hurried fast enough. Ann wasn’t alone when Caleb got there. She breezed out of her bedroom resplendent in a dress of filmy blush colored gauze.

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“Ahh, Caleb, love,” she breathlessly emoted. She was gakked to the tits, and what is interesting is that when she was really high like that, something of her old sweetness shined through. Caleb figured that it was because when she was ripped was the only time she was happy in the way she used to be before her addiction. It was both heartbreaking and devilishly scarey.

Following her from the bedroom was another crack head, a guy. His complexion was waxy, blue grey, his skin covered in beading sweat, and Ann introduced him. “This is Platinum ...you know, as in ‘Don’t leave home without it,’” she’d laughingly trilled as her nervous guest avoided looking at Caleb. Platinum was dressed in black jeans, a silver lame shirt and wasn’t wearing shoes. His hair was in moused knots, and he looked as if he hadn’t shaved or slept in days.

Platinum appeared to be anxious to the point of having a stress induced seizure, quivering like a stretched bow string and sweating ropes. Caleb was feeling pretty darned uncomfortable himself. Ann carried on as if they were all at a cocktail party on a sunny terrace, which was probably how she felt being as high as she was.

Knowing that she was probably going to start bullshitting him, Caleb tried to get her to address going back to rehab. “Uh, are we still going back to Lakehope?”

Leading the fidgety Platnum into the kitchen, Ann returned to talk to Caleb about rehab.

Caleb said, “I talked to the councilors. They were going to call you. Did you talk to any of them this afternoon? Are you, uh, ready to go?”

With one hand on his shoulder, she charmingly lied. “Oh, I talked to them, and I’m supposed to go in later this evening maybe. Hey, you look so stressed.” Gesturing to Platinum, who was facing the kitchen wall and staring intently, Ann said, “He’s one of the good guys. He doesn’t want me getting high, and he doesn’t get high himself. He just sells.” As she was going 173

on about Platinum’s stellar qualities, Caleb watched her new friend, who was so fucked up he that he started quietly but intently talking and gesturing to the kitchen wall.

“I’d feel a lot better if we took you back to the hospital,” Caleb said, knowing that what he was saying was futile. At this point, Platinum jerkily hobbled in to join them.

As if Caleb weren’t there, Platinum spoke directly to Ann. In the velvety chocolate voice of the needy Romeo con, Platinum wheedled, “Ann. This is so heavy. Do you really need to go to this place. Because all I want is what’s best for you, and I don’t think rehab is best. It’s not necessary is all I’m sayin’ All we need to do is maybe hop a plane. Get to a beach somewhere...Ride horses and swim. Doesn’t that sound more REAL?” It sounded pretty good to Ann. Hmmmm, rehab or the beach? That Caleb figured Platinum couldn’t really offer Ann a vacation on the beach didn’t enter into it. Ann led her grand, drug dealer, crack head boyfriend back into the kitchen where, after a short, hushed intent conversation between the two of them, she returned to speak to Caleb while Platinum resumed commiserating with the wall.

Easy breezy light and teasy was Ann as she further tried to beguile Caleb, mixing a bit of truth with her plots and lies. “He’s kind of fucked up,” Ann admitted. “I need to help him, so...we’re going to be gone for awhile.”

“What about going back to rehab?” Caleb asked.

“Oh, we’ll be back by five, and then we’ll go. If you’re worried, you can go with us,” she offered.

“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Platinum tremulously piped from the kitchen.

“I promise that we’ll be back at five.”

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Caleb didn’t believe her, and it was a good thing he didn’t. She didn’t come back. He stayed in his apartment that night waiting for her to return. Part of him hoped that she would stay away rather than show back up at the apartment all fucked up.

The next day Caleb talked to James.

“I heard from Ann,” James told him, sounding bemused rather than his usual worried and anguished tone of late.

Before Caleb could tell James the tale of Platinum, James said, “Ann broke up with me.

She said she’s in love with this guy she met.”

“Platinum.”

“No, that’s not his real name.” James laughed. Caleb couldn’t believe James’ tone. “His real name is Buttons. Buttons N. Bows is what Ann told me.”

“HIS REAL NAME IS BUTTONS N. BOWS?” Caleb couldn’t help himself. He started chuckling. James said, “Not only that, but she told me that she got his name tattooed on her shoulder.” Now his voice seemed to be listing with repressed pain. “My FRIEND at Chilly Tattoos said her and this Buttons N. Bow character came in high as a kite. She told everyone there that she was a crack head and that her boyfriend was a crack head too and that she wanted his name circling her shoulder.” James took a breath. Caleb looked at the people shopping for books in the main area of Borders. James continued, “My FRIEND told me that Ann said that she and Buttons N. Bows were going to get married and drive to the Pacific coast where they were going to kick drugs together.”

Caleb imagined Ann and Buttons N. Bows driving cross country on a crack fueled honeymoon odyssey. How far would they make it? He pictured the two shaky drug addicts seeing the sights that our great land has to offer. Buttons N. Bows tattooed on her arm.

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“Anyway, that’s more or less what Ann told me when she called. She said that she still cared for me, but not to be sad because now she’s really happy. Oh, and she told me one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

James said, “She told me about you and her.” Caleb felt himself go numb. Yeeee!

When he was able to speak, Caleb said, “Uhh, I’m sorry James. You didn’t deserve this.”

“I’m gonna’ hang up now,” James said, now all the pain in his voice bleeding out the knowledge of Ann and Caleb’s betrayal of him, on top of the surreal news of Ann’s breaking up with him to take up with a guy named Buttons N. Bows. The crack addiction, the tattoo encircling her entire shoulder (or so James’ friend had told him), and the betrayal. Caleb looked at the phone.

Ann was gone, and he’d never speak to James again.

“I know that she loved you too, James,” Caleb told him, but James didn’t reply.

“Bye,” Caleb said.

“Yeah,” James said and hung up.

Caleb didn’t stay in his apartment. Here’s a surprise, the Ann/Buttons N. Bows romance didn’t last. Ann came home later that night while Caleb was there. She was fucked up again and this time tried to rob Caleb, who had been lying in bed trying to sleep when she came in and ransacked his clothes until she got his cash, about forty dollars.

When Caleb protested, she punched him. They’s wrestled until Caleb just gave up. He let her have the small amount of money, and she left.

The next day at school, Caleb said he’d tripped and fallen, but he confided in Brayfield.

Brayfield told Caleb what he didn’t want to hear.

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“You’ve got to kick that woman out. She not gonna’ stop smoking crack for you. She’s gonna’ try and drag you down with her,” she’d told him. And after one or two disastrous attempts to stay with Ann, Caleb left for good in May. He stayed at The Elegance for the four months until his and Ann’s lease ran out. He gave her their furniture. He moved his books and his small twin beds out and dumped them at charity places. He didn’t talk to either James or Ann anymore. It just about killed him.

What doth not killith you, makeith you stronger. Bullshit.

Caleb lost fifteen pounds worrying and feeling guilty, his weight plummeting to one hundred thirty. Living at The Elegance was horrible, which tells you how bad living with Ann had become. The only thing that made living there preferable to his home, which he missed terribly, was that at The Elegance, the crack heads were outside his door.

When he first moved his clothes and boom box into his new home, he had to fumigate to send the roaches to the other rooms in the crumbling old building. To keep them out, he had to repeat that procedure once a week. He also bought cheap comforters and used them as rugs to cover the nasty carpet and bed. At least, being right off Belmont on Sheffield, Caleb was once again in his old neighborhood. The one meal a day that he now ate, he could eat at one of the toney restaurants in the area.

To supplement his drastic caloric decrease, Caleb upped his drinking, even easing off on his beloved pot in order to more effectively anesthesize himself with the booze. Pot made Caleb reflective, and what he needed was a strong buffer for his worry. And for that, alcohol was the very remedy.

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The dreams that Caleb could remember were of Ann in alleys and crack houses getting high and pulling trains with teams of drooling, spastic crack heads. Sometimes she would be getting raped and killed, and at other times she’d be violently assaulting Caleb, trying to kill him.

Caleb would usually drink three or four pints of beer at The Windy City Tap right around the corner from The Elegance. The alcohol helped keep him from reflecting upon these nightly visitations wherein the images were featured in brain lit anguish.

As the cries of broken despair and the loud threats of violence coming from the fiends in The Elegance reminded him too much of home, he would take long walks after school or in the evenings, miles along Lincoln Avenue, for instance, or he’d walk through long city blocks until he was too far to turn around and walk back. He might then pick out an interesting restaurant, eat and then catch a bus back to The Elegance and then The Windy City Tap for his nightly medication.

He avoided certain streets such as Clark and Broadway because he didn’t want to run into James.

Poor Ann and poor James was on the continuous loop along with plenty of self recrimination.

At school he went through the actions of teaching like a troubled gust of wind. He was absent minded and distracted. Since he didn’t dare use the showers at the Elegance, he had taken to showering at school in the early morning when only the night janitor was there. He kept doing his best in class, but sometimes, it was like he wasn’t even there.

Jenny was a dear girl, but she loved to talk. She always managed to get her work done in class, but it was a constant struggle because of her compulsive talkiness. And it was while Mrs. Weyer was observing Caleb’s class that he finally snapped on her when she, even with the nasty snake Mrs. Weyer there, continued to excitedly chatter like a fucking magpie.

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Caleb had been having the students identify and differentiate between predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives, a lesson for which he reckoned Mrs. Weyer would take him to task as she was a bitch who would have found fault if he’d taught the fucking kids to fly in formation around the room. As he tried to hammer the difference between ‘She is pretty,’ and, ‘She is president,’ into recalcitrant brains such as Billy Bazoo, Jenny was going on and on about her new crush, Gino Terruichi, the one Italian American going to the school. On and on she talked, waving her long arms and using her elegant hands to punctuate her declarations of, “That boy is so fine, when he walks by the walls sweat and the flowers bloom,” and, “Pretty as he is, if he thinks he can use me, WELL HE CAN. Hee hee!” On and on, oblivious to Caleb’s polite imprecations for her to be quiet. Having her move didn’t help. She continued talking, oblivious to the hypercaffinated glare of the principal. Finally it happened.

Caleb was trying to say, “Just remember, if it’s naming something, it’s a predicate nominative, but if it’s describing something...” Jenny’s talkity talking kept throwing him off. “If the word is describing something, then it’s predicate adjective. If it’s...if it’s...” and here he finally lost the will to keep his thread of teaching going, and he screamed, “GODDAMN IT, JENNY WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP. CAN’T YOU SEE WE’RE TRYING TO HAVE A FUCKING CLASS HERE? JESUS, I AM TRYING TO TEACH!” That shut her up all right.

In his evaluation, Mrs. Wayer told him that she couldn’t make him want to realize his potential if he didn’t want to, and he shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t challenge her. He didn’t care what she thought.

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When his and Ann’s lease ran out, Caleb let Ann keep the security deposit. She got another place somewhere. She continued fucking up her life with crack. Lost her apartment and lots of money. Became an escort until she couldn’t do that. Went back into rehab. Repeat this cycle.

Caleb moved into a tiny apartment on the northwest side of the city. He was at a busy crossroad where there were gas stations on three corners and his apartment building on the forth.

There wasn’t much else there, just warehouses and one restaurant on the block. There was a park two blocks away. Caleb tried not to think about Ann. He bought a tv, a futon, a rocking chair and a tiny table to go next to the rocking chair, which he positioned in his third story window so that he could watch the traffic go by. He thought of Ann constantly. Nothing made it okay.

Caleb, who had drifted away from Johnny during the years he lived with Ann, started hanging out with his old friend again, visiting him and Irene in their lovely large house once or twice a month. Caleb and Johnny would smoke pot in the basement and play mostly car racing video games on Johnny’s new Play Station 2. Caleb had stopped drinking so much, but even sober, he couldn’t win against Johnny at his games. Whether they raced NASCAR tracks, off road mountains and jungles or the streets of New York or Tokyo, Caleb would have to fight to keep his car on the road.

“Geez, are you even trying?” Johnny would ask.

After Caleb told them of Ann’s addiction and the way it had all played out, Irene asked him if he was really depressed now. “I’m not living under a shroud of misery,” Caleb lied. “I’m okay,” he said. It wasn’t really true, but Caleb knew better than to bore his friends going over the same things that he would simply have to process on his own. Johnny, never having trusted or liked 180

Ann, simply wrote her off as being a manipulative taker and now a crack whore. Irene, though pretty much of her husband’s mind, would have been slightly more sympathetic, but Caleb didn’t want to talk about Ann or his betrayal of James anyway.

Caleb couldn’t even talk of Ann in a sympathetic way with his Mom. Protestations that her disease had led to her behavior went unheeded. His Mom saw Ann as being slutty and opportunistic. Nor did she accept that Caleb loved Ann. After all, they hadn’t been married.

She’d had a boyfriend, James, so how did Caleb figure that was love? What had gone on may have been wrong, but it didn’t count as being love. More like a learning experience, Caleb’s Mom reckoned. So when they would talk, they would talk about other things.

“I’m a little down in my back. I was cleaning the bottom of the mower getting ready for mowing season and I twisted it,” Caleb’s Mom told him.

“Well what are you doing for it? Did you see Doctor Sorb?”

“He just told me to keep taking Tylenol.”

“How’s it feeling now?”

“It’s still sore. I’m getting old. It’s hard out here by myself,” Caleb’s Mom said, and Caleb felt guilty. Maybe it was time to leave Chicago and go back where he could help his Mom, he thought sadly. Caleb was sitting in his rocking chair watching the flow of cars below him on Irving Park road roll past his view. “Did you go to church last Sunday?” she asked him.

“Naw.” “You ought to go. Even Matlock is going to church now.”

“Church?”

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“Oh yes. Nadine said that he started watching the religious channel and expressed an interest in pursuing his faith.”

“They let dogs in church?”

“Oh, not regular church. Nadine takes him to this new, special pet lovers church where people go with their animals.”

“Is he still okay?” Caleb asked this because both Matlock and Winkie Lee were getting old, very old like two or three life spans type old for a little dog and a cat, but it seemed that Matlock’s regimen of exercise, proper diet and the ‘live forever pills’ that he’d gotten Winkie Lee on were effectively retarding the aging process, for neither animal looked a day older than their prime.

Winkie Lee had even gotten involved in her own exercise program, martial arts. “You should see her,” Caleb’s Mom twittered. “She’s so cute in her work out gear!”

“Does she lift weights too?” Caleb asked incredulously.

“Oh, no, she’s a cat. Are you crazy? She and Mousie take judo and karate classes.

Nadine said that she’s working on her brown belt. ” “Have you, uh, seen any karate demonstrations?”

“I saw her do some moves on Mousie that sent her flying across the room.”

Caleb watched the cars, a never ending school of metallic land-fish zooming and halting.

He said, “I’d sure like to see that.”

“You might,” she warned him. “Caleb,” she said, “Aren’t you tired of the city?”

It wasn’t the city. It was his old life that he’d shared with Ann, and it wasn’t that he’d tired of it but that, on the contrary, he missed it. There was no retrieving it, and the thought of seeing Ann on the street filled him with the feeling of a bottomless falling. Still, he missed her and where 182

they’d lived and their lives together. “The city’s nice, Ma, but you never know. I’ll probably be back before too long.”

“Well that would be good. People are always coming in the bank and saying that you should come down here and teach. What with your experience teaching in the city that you’d have no trouble getting a job.”

“Yeah,” Caleb said. He knew this was bullshit, but he didn’t feel like arguing about it.

On one of his long walks down, in this case, down Irving Avenue, Caleb came upon a music store. He bought a black electric guitar a small amp and a books of songs and chords.

Caleb started sitting in his rocking chair and rocking out a very limited palate of chords. He learned to saw out several simple tunes and had to buy headphones for the amp so that his neighbors wouldn’t complain about the rocking. What songs were in his beginning repitoire?

Pretty much anything he could sing behind E, F, C, and sometimes G. He did master some extra cords to learn two songs by AC/DC, but to give you an idea of his proficiency, anything by the Ramones was way over his head.

Nevertheless, when he reached a certain level, he asked if he could get together with Mr. Z, Palmer Weeks and Dave for one of their twice a month jam sessions at Dave’s condominium. Both Mr. Z and Dave were proficient guitarists, and they would take turns playing rhythm and lead on the tunes that Palmer Weeks or Mr. Z would select. As the guitarists would work their magic, Palmer Weeks, dressed for the occasion as a Cuban conga player in a balloon sleeved shirt, would do his best impressions of Streisand, Dusty Springfield and Garland doing the light pop, country, and dance tunes he invariably chose. When he wasn’t swooping about the room, Palmer soulfully played Ricky Ricardo style the two giant congas that belonged to Dave.

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Mr. Z always chose sad folk songs from his country, which he would deliver in a voice heavy with an almost feminine vibratto. They told Caleb that he could saw along on rhythm guitar.

“What should we sing first?” Dave asked.

Palmer Weeks was waving the lyrics he wanted to do first. “Downtown.”

“What do you think, Mr. Z.?” Dave asked.

Mr. Z., seated and impassive with his acoustic guitar at the ready, replied, “Downtown. A song of the, ahh, redemptive...oh, the powers of the downtown to restore one’s soul. To me, Down town is a song of hope, a kind of bravery in the face of our melancholy loneliness. I myself have taken refuge and gained strength simply from being downtown when I first came to your great land America.” And with that he counted out the time, very slowly for Caleb’s sake, for truth be told, having heard Caleb warming up, the others knew that he was going to hold them back. And while Palmer Weeks would have regulated Caleb to a tamborine, Mr. Z and Dave favored letting Caleb bash his electric ax.

“One....and-two....and...three...and four,” Mr. Z slowly said.

Everyone started playing, and Palmer Weeks began singing the slow, dirge version of Downtown. As Palmer Weeks vamped about the room, he droned, “When you’re alone, and life is mak-ing you lone-ly you can al...ways gooooo...DOWNTOWN.” After practicing that song three times, trying to get Caleb to speed up but actually intimidating him and making him play slower, they decided to practice one of Mr. Z’s songs, a beautiful ballad from his native land. Since it was a slow song, Caleb had less trouble, and Mr. Z and Dave filled the rhythm chords with sharp archipeggios before Mr. Z began to sing.

In a softly quivering contralto, Mr. Z sang what sounded to Caleb to be, “Tulip conlettoooo teeleeeepooooo!” As Mr. Z cooed out the song and played intricate parts on his acoustic, Palmer 184

Weeks soulfully tapped a slow conga rhythm, and Dave played a delicate counterpoint to Mr. Z’s guitar. Caleb strummed his electric guitar in what he thought was in time with the others.

At the conclusion of that song, Mr. Z, Palmer Weeks and Dave exchanged glances. Mr. Z’s face looked inscrutable as always. Dave’s expression was fixed in a quizzical smile, and Palmer Weeks was looking distinctly perturbed.

Mr. Z spoke. “Ah, Mr. Jones. You should have told us of your...ummmm, strength of playing.”

“You think so?” Caleb asked, a bit surprised.

“The ringing tones you are getting out of your guitar are inspiring, ahh, oh, such resonant notes and so loud, so forcefully executed. You know, I was just thinking...”

“He was thinking that you stink,” Palmer Weeks straightforwardly declared.

“Yeah,” Caleb said, sighing, but then he brightened. “Maybe,” he suggested, “I could unplug my guitar from the amp, and you couldn’t hear me play.”

Mr. Z. made his mouth into an expressive o shape. “That would be too wonderful,” he said, for once the soul of brevity.

For their third song, they did a Palmer Weeks chosen, Theme From West Side Story. Mr. Z. counted out the time, and Palmer Weeks tapped out the percussion and began warbling, “Theyah’s a place fah us...Somewheah theahs a place foah ussss.”

Caleb concentrated on the chord changes that Dave had thoughtfully provided for him. Just keep playing, Caleb thought. He wasn’t having any fun, but he was with friends. Everything is okay, he told himself.

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“We’re having visitors tomorrow. There will be people from The Board as well as parents who might send their children to our school next year,” Mr. Weyer shrilly informed the staff at an after school meeting. She looked like a teeth grinding speed freak as she stood in front of the teachers, a bucket sized plastic caldron of coffee gripped in her hand. “No passes!” she spat at them, fixing her jumpy coffee-eye on Caleb.

The next day, Caleb figured that he would address his main potential problems before he even had them in class. That’s why before first period, he told Billy Bazoo that in both of his classes, he had to behave better than he really was capable of behaving. “No cursing today.

Understand?”

“Sure. I’ve come a long way. I don’t have to curse all the fu-, all the time,” Billy Bazoo indignantly informed his teacher.

“And Billy, I can’t give you a bathroom pass today. If you’ve got to go to the bathroom, you have to go before class.”

“I’m no baby. I can hold my water,” Billy Bazoo sneered.

Caleb then hunted down Jenny, who was with Ebony and Audranelle. “Jenny, uh, and you too Audranelle and Ebony, see, we’re having visitors today-“ ”We already know,” Ebony said laughingly. “You’re the third teacher to tell Jenny to BE QUIET today.” Audranelle punched her friend in the ribs, and the statuesque future super model’s eyes narrowed at the injustice and embarrassment of having all those teachers automatically assume that she was going to talk. She’d show them, and right now she slouched like a giraffe with an attitude with her arms tersely folded.

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“Ssssoooo,” Caleb said looking hopefully at Jenny. “Can I count on you? If you behave, there’s a dollar in it for you, Jenny.” If rolled eyes were stab wounds, Caleb would have been mortally wounded.

First period went wonderfully. That was because Billy Bazoo hadn’t shown up. Caleb said a blessed prayer of relief, which he would have said had Billy Bazoo skipped his class on any day, but the scarey visitors did not make their presence known to Caleb’s first period. Likewise, second third and fourth period went by without the corridors outside of Caleb’s room being invaded by the dreaded visitors.

After fifth period lunch, at the beginning of sixth period, to Caleb’s heart sinking dismay, who should walk through the door but Billy Bazoo. “Well hello, Billy. It’s good to see you,” Caleb forced himself to say cheerfully, which caused Billy Bazoo to look at Caleb suspiciously.

“So, Billy,” Caleb began, “I missed you this morning,” neglecting to add, “and I didn’t expect to see you now. Why are you here?”

Billy sullenly slumped into his seat and semi-slammed his notebook on his desk. “I was here,” he stubbornly asserted.

Caleb and Billy looked at each other, both of them knowing that Billy Bazoo was lying.

Even if Caleb hadn’t seen with his own eyes that his student had not, in fact, been there, Caleb would have known Billy Bazoo was lying because he hadn’t cursed when he’d spoken, and that for Billy Bazoo was the sure sign of a lie, if not a guilty conscience.

Treading on eggs, Caleb lightly said, “Gosh, and I had you marked down as being absent.”

“Well I wasn’t,” Billy Bazoo said, all outraged righteousness as he nervously twirled his handlebar moustache. “I was in the bathroom” Billy whined indignantly by way of explanation.

‘Jerking off’, Caleb thought.

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“You told me to go there before class if I had to go, so’s that’s what I done,” Billy Bazoo said, now all injured innocence. ‘All fucking period?’ Caleb thought, but dropped it.

Caleb decided to mark Billy down as having been there. What the hell. By then the rest of the students were in the class. Juan said, “Those people who’re walking around here like they own the place are getting on my nerves. They’re lucky I don’t shoot one of them in the kneecap!”

When he said that, Tiffany grinned and silently mouthed the words, “Don’t believe him.”

The trio of girls came in, and Jenny stomped to her desk and sat down, folding her arms and glaring into the middle distance. Audranelle and Ebony could barely contain their glee. “It’s been a rough day for Jenny,” Audranelle confided to the class, eliciting a poisonous stare from her friend and cruel giggles from Ebony.

Deciding that a bon mot from him would no doubt lighten Jenny’s mood, Billy Bazoo said, “Is it Stretch here’s time of the month?”

Jenny’s eyes flashed fire in the middle distance and the muscles of her face became fixed in angry tension. Caleb figured smoke would come out of her ears any second. He had to do something. “Billy!” he yelled, hoping that Jenny would see that he was on her side. “That was totally rude,” he said.

Not as effective as clouting him on the side of the head, but rules were rules. Ebony, Audranelle, Juan, Tiffany and the rest of the class were smiling with anticipation.

“Hey, I didn’t cuss,” Billy Bazoo reminded Caleb. “Is it my fault that String Beans bleedin’ from the vagina?” Billy was congratulating himself on his toasting mastery even without resorting to profanity.

“Billy, shut up!” Caleb said hovering nearer his student. Caleb could feel a bit of the old rage and...he was getting pissed off.

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“Mr. Jones, you better do something about that boy,” Jenny said, and Caleb could tell that she was barely able to restrain herself from flying from her desk and...and.

“Yo’ Jenny what kind of tampoooon do you use, THE EXTRA LONG AND SLIM!” “Goddammit Billy,” Caleb yelled and grabbed Billy Bazoo by the throat. Billy’s tongue popped out of his mouth as Caleb throttled him, shaking the boy’s head back and forth. Caleb said, “YOU JUST DON’T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT DO YOU, YOU LITTLE FUCKER?” “Agg gggg ekkk aggg!” Billy Bazoo squawked, and Caleb noticed that the boy’s eyes were darting to the room’s entrance. Caleb looked up.

There at the door were the visitors, big wigs from the board, parents, and the Queen of the school herself looking on with bug eyed horror, Mrs. Wayer.

Continuing to throttle Billy Bazoo with one hand, Caleb forced his most charming smile and waved to the visitors with his free hand. Billy smiled and waved too, eliciting queasy smiles and little uncertain waves from Mrs. Weyer and the visitors. Caleb called to them, “Hope you enjoyed our dramatic performance.” The group replied with unconvincing nods and more strained smiles as they hurriedly moved on.

“Ffffuck,” Billy Bazoo muttered rubbing his neck.

“Gee, Mr. Jones, thanks,” Jenny said.

“Damn, Mr. Jones, that was great,” Juan said, his voice aglow with admiration.

“That’s not like you, Mr. Jones,” Ebony said.

Audranelle completed what everyone had been thinking. “That crack ho sure got under your skin didn’t she?”

For half a minute, Caleb was silent.

“She wasn’t a crack ho’,” Caleb said.

189

Song, the janitor, had been trying to change one of the florescent tubes that was in the ceiling. The burned out tube was stuck in the fixture, and Song had been trying to gently dislodge it without breaking the thin glass. The fixture was in the hallway in front of the office. Song had to precariously balance on an aluminum ladder while student and faculty traffic went in and out of the main office. As he’d worked, he had been muttering to himself. This was where Song’s swan song began.

Oscar Norman, the lad who had attempted to rob the corner grocery store with a damn stick, was, as you might have guessed, not the smoothest of criminals. He was lily white, buck toothed and a sullen, stupid asshole though, and he was quick to take umbrage whenever he could.

Oscar was a tall, gangly fellow with slicked back wavy hair, and he was a proud, card carrying bully and just a personally repellent cocksucker. He was the type of kid who would come up to someone and say, “Ma shoes are better n’ yours. You got ugly shoes.” To Caleb he occasionally said, “Yer ain’t no good teacher. None of y’all are any good here.” Caleb would have dearly loved to have taken a baseball bat to the young fellow. He was another one who wasn’t allowed into a gang. This wasn’t because he was too dumb; it was because no one liked him. No one in his neighborhood liked anyone in his family, which consisted of him, his nasty bitch of a mother, Martha, and his dickheaded uncles Manny and Decker. The whole family lived for stupid feuding.

And though they had all been living in Chicago for a couple of generations, Oscar and his whole clan talked like cave dwelling hillbillies. Their speech patterns were as countrified as if they’d just come from the sticks.

Oscar had been on his way to the office to pick up a box of books for Ms. Jackson, who had sent him on the errand just to get him out of her sight. Going past Song, Oscar imagined that 190

the beloved object of the students’ racism had muttered to him, “You white trash nigger piece of shit, suck my nuts.” Of course, not even knowing English or having even been aware of Oscar, Song had not said that to the mistaken jerkoff.

Looking up at the busy janitor, Oscar snarled, “What the fuck you say to me you cunt eyed gook?”

Because he did not immediately understand, Song looked down at the rabid Oscar and smiled. His smile faded as he read the angry facial expression and the harsh tone. “You fuckin’ gook. You call me a white trash nigger? You Goddamn faggot, asking me to suck your balls!” he screamed and kicked the leg of the ladder which caused Song to lose his balance. Song nimbly leaped off the ladder and regarded the furious jackoff who continued in the same vein. “I ain’t no fuckin’ nigger either, you Goddamn slope-eyed yellow piece of shit.”

Everyone in the office came out to see what was wrong, even Mrs Weyer, who clicked angrily up to Oscar and screeched like a banshee, “OSCAR NORMAN IN MY OFFICE!” It would be nice to report that Mrs. Weyer dressed Oscar down and both punished him and made him apologize to Song, but, no, sorry. She took him into her office where she bitched at him as he ranted back at her; then she sent him back to class with nothing resolved except in her mind.

Oscar, on the other hand, had no intention of dropping the matter. That night, he told his Mom, who became beside herself with the brain swelling anger that she felt about one thing or another everyday of her life. Then he told his worthless uncles, who also worked themselves into a murderous rage since they had absolutely nothing else to do. In short, the next day, the whole crapulous clan were at the school, threatening to sue.

So Song was called on the carpet.

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Standing in Mrs. Weyer’s office, in the center of hostile yabbering urban hillbillies and the accusatory sounding blurts of words coming from Mrs. Weyer, Song stood there silent and dignified.

And that’s too bad for him, because when Mrs. Weyer was asking him, “Did you call this boy a white trash nigger? Did you ask him to suck your balls? What did you mean by that? Do you have anything to say for yourself?” and other questions of that nature, he said nothing. He didn’t understand what in the hell they were saying, so what else could he do? He probably figured that anything he would say would be cause for them to send him to some sort of gulag. So Mrs. Weyer, who like most principals always buckle under to whatever psychotic whimsies their students’ parents demand, fucking fired Song. That was the one word he understood. Fired.

Feel incensed for Song for his unjust treatment, but be happy for him too, because he got away from jerks like Oscar and Mrs. Weyer. Song was a hard worker, and his network of family helped him start a restaurant, which was successful. Oscar ended up in prison, unjustly convicted of breaking and entering a restaurant. So there is Divine justice. Unfortunately, Mrs. Weyer just kept rolling on until she retired, but we can’t have everything we want. Song forgot about her anyway. And that is the greatest revenge you can inflict on anyone.

When spring break came, Caleb made an uneventful trip home on the Amtrak. When he arrived at the Carbondale station though, his Mom wasn’t there to pick him up, only Nadine.

Caleb was immediately concerned. “Where’s my Mom?” he asked.

Speaking to him as if he were five, Nadine said, “She called and asked me to pick you up, hon, ‘cause she wasn’t feeling too good. She’d wanted to come, but she...well she hurt her back.”

Caleb said, “She didn’t say anything about it.”

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“She didn’t want to tell you, hon. She so wanted to be able to pick you up.”

“What happened, Nadine?”

As Nadine pulled out of the train station parking lot, she told Caleb how his Mom had injured her back. “She was trying to clean under the riding mower to get it ready for spring, and she just twisted something. She’s been off work about a week. I’ve been going by there once a day to check on her and bring her stuff.”

Caleb felt guilty. He’d always been afraid that something like this would eventually happen. He’d had an abiding fear that someday she’d fall, or worse, someone would break in her house and hurt her. His Mom was too old to be out in the country taking care of ten acres by herself. Caleb needed to help his poor old Mom. It was a sober ride back to Chase. “Where’s Matlock and Winkie Lee,” Caleb asked.

“Oh, didn’t your Mom tell you? Matlock and Winkie Lee are performing in a traveling revival. Matlock is doing a Samson stunt, and Winkie Lee does a karate demonstration with Mousie, and she learned to say ‘I love Jesus’. They’re traveling around with Timmy Ruckland’s Youth For Jesus Ministry. He’s that actor.”

“Yeah.” Despite Caleb’s worried concern about his Mom’s condition, he couldn’t help thinking about Matlock and Winkie Lee’s Jesus testifying exhibition. “Uh, how’d they get in with that?”

“Matlock heard that Timmy was looking for ‘cool’ Christian young people with talent, so he sent in his resume, auditioned, and once he was in, he got Winkie in as well. They travel all over, Caleb. They were in Chicago. Did you see their advertisment?”

“No.” 193

“Oh, yes, they were there. They’ve got a video out, or rather Tommy Ruckland has a video of the whole show, and you can see Matlock and Winkie Lee doing their Christian thing. It’s really something, Caleb.”

Caleb’s Mom wasn’t even awake to greet him when Nadine dropped him off. As Nadine drove up the long driveway, Caleb could see that there were no lights on in the house. Grabbing his stuff, Caleb went in. “Mom?” he called.

“I’m in here,” came his Mom’s voice. She sounded weak. Caleb went through the house, turning on the lights in the front room and going on down the hall until he got to his Mom’s room.

He turned the light by her bed on. She looked like hell.

Caleb’s Mom’s face was drawn in pain, and she’d lost weight. It scared Caleb. “Mom,” he said, “Why were you cleaning the blades under the riding mower?”

On her night stand she had her radio barely on. It was playing a Johnny Mathis song, ‘Chances Are’. Caleb’s Mom sighed and she said, “Oh, well, it wasn’t cutting right. It was making ridges. I thought I’d be feeling better by now.” She blinked her eyes, adjusting to the light. “Caleb,” she said, “You need a haircut.”

Caleb had been avoiding haircuts since he’d left Ann and had been living at The Elegance, and by now, his hair was over his ears and curling in the back. And for the first time since the seventies, Caleb had opted for a center part. He hadn’t thought too much about it, but when his Mom mentioned it, Caleb immediately felt self-conscious.

“Oh I’ll get it cut by and by,” he told her.

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“They don’t wear their hair like that anymore,” his Mom informed him. The walls in her room were eggshell white, and there were bits of ruffle here and there. Caleb’s eyes fixed on the miniature pictures in their elaborate gilt frames. Pictures of Elizabethan gardens painted in the kitsch style of that period, fancy ladies with tall white hair being daintily courted by satin breeched white wigged dandies. Those pictures had been on her and his Dad’s wall since Caleb had been a baby. Caleb checked his hair in the dressing mirror over the dark mahogany dresser. His hair looked decent for once, he thought.

Caleb also realized that he needed to come back to Chase. His Mom didn’t deserve to end up breaking her back or a hip trying to keep up with the yard work. Caleb loved Chicago, but he loved his Mom too. Also, the city had lost something when Caleb abandoned his friend Ann to her fucked up crack addiction. Every day was painful because of that. And so, standing there in his Mom’s room as she suffered quietly, Caleb decided that he should come back here and do the things that she needed done so that she didn’t end up hurting herself and causing Caleb more guilt.

He asked her if he could get her anything, but she said that she didn’t want anything.

It wasn’t hard to leave. Caleb told his students and his friends on the staff that he wouldn’t be there next year, and word leaked to Mrs. Weyer, who called him into her office one day to ask him herself. “Yeah, Mrs. Weyer, I’m going to be going,” he told her. She was nice to him. He didn’t bother to even ask her for a letter of recommendation. He just didn’t give a fuck.

At the end of the year, what was left of Caleb’s lunch hour buddies gave him a shirt that said, ‘We’ll miss you’. Brown and Pricilla were gone by then. Brown was running Ronald & Mr. 195

B’s, and Pricilla was at another school. Caleb felt he was already gone too. On the last day of classes, the kids in his new division went to various other rooms to hang with their friends. ‘Guess they’ll be okay’, Caleb figured. Since they were all gone, he went to different rooms and said goodbye to Palmer Weeks, Jackson, Brayfield, Z and Dave. When he was back in his room, a small group of students made up of Juan, Tiffany, Billy Bazoo, Audranell, Ebony and Jenny stopped by to tell him that they’d miss him and to keep in touch. He said that he would, and he would have liked to, but he knew that he wouldn’t and that he was losing them. Losing them all, and that was a lonesome feeling. Then the day was over, and Caleb was gone from there, his career as a Chicago teacher finit.

YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN

Do not be a jerk. Do not be an ass. Don’t be a dickhead. They scan like the first or last lines of Haiku, and when Caleb moved back down on the farm, they became his mantra. When he would become restless or bitter or angry, when he would feel like telling someone to go fly a kite, he would tell himself, do not be a jerk. Do not be a dick. Don’t be an asshole. And he wouldn’t be.

In truth there were things to be thankful for.

Caleb still had his florescent plastic stars from Chicago. They weren’t much. Caleb hadn’t brought much back with him. He put them around the rocking chair he’d brought back and put downstairs where he liked to sit and read and be by himself.

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He was back to being a daily sub. In and of itself, that wasn’t good as there was much less money and no benefits, but on the plus side, he no longer had to make lesson plans. He also liked not having to see the same kids or go to the same school everyday.

Also, he didn’t need to deal with the administrators. The Principal of the Catholic school where he subbed was nice, as was the vice-principal of his town’s junior high. The other principals were cut from the same cloth as all his previous principals had been. Caleb could tell when he would speak to them and they wouldn’t deign to answer, as if they were fucking emperors and he was a bit of dogshit or something. To Caleb, they were definitely jerks, assholes and dickheads.

But now, when he started to dwell on either their snubs or his relationships with his past monsters: Berring, Porrtage and Weyer, he would stop himself. Spinning anger would only make him more angry, so he would again tell himself, don’t think about them. Don’t be a dickhead.

Maybe they disapproved of his hair. He grew it to his shoulders. Maybe they thought he should be a stricter sub. They were probably right, but fuck them anyway. Or, not fuck them, but God bless them, as Caleb was trying not to be a dickhead. God bless them if they were too rude to civilly reply when spoken to.

Really, Caleb felt they’d be right in never hiring him, but while many of the principals remained frosty, the schools themselves couldn’t get enough of him. He couldn’t figure out why.

He let the kids leave the room whenever they wished, and he’d let them go wherever they wanted.

He did teach lessons if the teacher left instructions, but he certainly didn’t insist that the students do their part. If they rebelled by saying the assignment was too hard or too much, Caleb suggested to them that they simply not do it and that he wasn’t mad at them but that he would appreciate it if they didn’t talk too loudly.

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Many times, teachers left inadequate lesson plans for him, and he would end up either talking to the students or quietly reading a book as they socialized. It was during a two day Spanish III class where Caleb had to show the Espanole version of El Dorado that the students, uninterested by the idiotically childish capers of the two heros of the movie, talked to Caleb. They asked him about music, film, art, pop culture in general, and finally asked if he smoked weed.

For some reason, Caleb didn’t feel like lying. “Of course,” he declared. “You can look at me and figure that out,” he further admitted, which prompted the students to offer to sell him weed.

He politely declined, telling them that they should all grow their own. Therein ensued a clinic on sensimilla cultivation.

During the course of this lesson, one lad jumped from his seat and declared, “This is the best day of school in the entire twelve years of my education.” Another fellow stood up, and with hand on heart testified that when he grew up he wanted to be exactly like Mr. Jones.

Heartwarming, but perhaps inappropriate. He wondered if it would get around and they would stop calling him.

Of course it didn’t. The high school in which he had conducted the advanced botany lesson called him more than ever. Caleb did get called on the carpet one time though, for something he didn’t even do.

For two weeks before Christmas break, he subbed P.E. for the nearby town’s middle school.

He was with a group of other P.E. teachers. The other P.E. staff took care of pretty much everything, and he had a good two weeks. Break came.

About a month after break, he was again at this particular middle school, this time working in a resource room, and it was near the end of the day when the principal popped his head in the 198

door and asked Caleb if he would stop by after school to discuss something. Caleb figured that since he’d never talked to the wee middle school kiddies about such matters as marijuana cultivation, and since he’d done such an exemplary job both in this particular resource room, which always used him, as well as the P.E. gig prior to break, why, this principal was going to say something like, “Hey, Jones, we’ve seen the kind of job you’ve been doing, and we like the cut of your jib! We’d like you to come here everyday exclusively, and maybe when a position opens, we’ll have you fulfill it. Welcome aboard, old chap.”

Caleb was sitting there, smiling at the principal, who was smiling back. He said, “You’ve taught our sixth graders before, haven’t you?”

“Yes, lovely kids. I enjoyed subbing for them.”

“Did you have any problems with any of them? Or, did anything happen with any of them?”

This didn’t sound like a congratulatory invitation to join the staff. Caleb cautiously said, “No. Seemed like nice kids.”

The reason that Caleb had been called into the office was because over break, one of the mothers overheard her daughter talking to one of her friends about some teacher who had been in the girls’ bathroom, and when the Mom had confronted the daughter and asked her who the teacher had been, the girl said that it had been the sub, Mr. Jones. The Mom had called the principal, and now he was asking Caleb if he’d been in the girl’s bathroom.

It was the one, the principal said, that was unmarked. Perhaps he’d accidentally wandered in. People had before, he said.

Caleb was fucking stunned. “No, I wasn’t in the girls’ bathroom. I think I’d know if I’d been in a damned girls’ bathroom.”

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It seems the girl’s friends saw her come out of a bathroom stall and then saw Mr. Jones throw his hands up in the air in surprise or embarrassment or something. Maybe he’d thrown his hands into the air because he just hadn’t cared. At the moment that the principal was relating this to him, Caleb didn’t have the presence of mind to ask how, unless these other girls were right there in the bathroom with him, they could have witnessed such a thing happening. And later, he wondered that the principal hadn’t thought of that. As it was, for once, Caleb was able to tell the truth instead of lying to save his ass about something. He hadn’t done anything of the sort. The thought of him hanging out, making the scene in the girls’ restroom was preposterous. With his long hair, and his harelip, he supposed they looked upon him as some Boo Radley type.

Thankfully, the principal saw Caleb’s surprise and disbelief at what he’d been told. Nevertheless, Caleb was totally creeped out. He asked who had said such a thing, and the principal said that he’d rather not say.

“I have a right to know who’s accusing me,” he said.

“True,” the principal conceded. “But I wouldn’t recommend it. You have a right to see your accuser, but the girl’s parents will be there, and they’ll believe her.”

Caleb said, “I don’t blame you for protecting your students, but I didn’t go in any girl’s bathroom. Look, I’m not comfortable teaching that class if some kids said that about me.”

The principal was sympathetic. He asked if the school could continue calling him for the seventh and eighth grade classes. Although Caleb said that it was alright, he already knew that he’d never agree to teach there again. And that was that. The principal apologized to Caleb, telling him that he’d been legally bound to ask Caleb about what had been reported, and then he shook Caleb’s hand.

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If you would have flashed through the meeting and just focused on the ending, you’d have thought that Caleb’s initial intuition that he was about to be offered a job had been right. And after seeing how it played out, you’d think that the principal, not actually knowing whether the girl or Caleb was lying, wouldn’t want him there at all, but he kept getting calls from the sub-center to take jobs from that particular place. At first Caleb would tell them that he was busy that day, but then he simply said that he wouldn’t teach there. On the form they sent him at the end of the year telling them he could sub next year, in the space for what schools he would be willing to teach at, he had written that he would work anyplace except that one middle school. Yet they still continued to try to get him to sub. Why? Finally, after he’d gotten over being pissed off, he realized he’d been lucky for having been accused of something he hadn’t done. And despite the fact that he never wanted to hear from this particular middle school again, he was lucky that they were still calling him, irresponsible and wrong as that was of them. Still... Do not be bitter. Another beginning or ending line for the Haiku.

Caleb was also thankful for the companionship of his neighbor, Dr. Fen’s dog, Buddy, who started coming around and hanging out with Caleb. Buddy was a black lab.

And another thing that Caleb was thankful about was the magical growing spot that he found the autumn of his first year back

He knew that the pound and a quarter of bud that he had brought back from Chicago wouldn’t last him forever, and from late August, Caleb explored his old growing theater. What had once been meadows were now acres of scrub wood, briar and, during the summer, poison-ivy.

The change was unbelievable. It was deer city. Caleb loved hiking through the undergrowth in the 201

fall. Once the weeds had lost their vitality and were no longer impenetrable, Caleb could make his way through them. He wore his good old steel-toed boots, and, as in days of old, he kept to the borders. He used fallen logs, stones, ditches, streams and the line between wood and meadow to walk, and he was careful to make as little of a path as possible.

It was on days that Caleb’s Mom had gone to work that he would explore the old area. It took him throughout the winter to find the spots that he wanted to use. Buddy would accompany Caleb on his every trip, from the initial scouting expeditions until the harvest.

There were four areas. Two were rather far away, and to get to them, Caleb had to walk through the woods behind his neighbor’s property. He felt visible and also loud, and Buddy always made a racket by crashing through the underbrush and barking at deer and rabbits. Those places got mostly late morning to mid-afternoon light, and partial southern exposure. The farthest place was on low ground, which would be good in late June until probably September but which would be soggy until then. The closest place was immediately in back of his Mom’s property. Just after the beginning of the wooded area, there was a spot where a tree had been hit by lightning and split. It got late morning to mid afternoon light, and Caleb prepared the soil for four plants in that area.

His best place was hard to get to and it was southeast of his Mom’s property. He found it in late November, when the frosts had made transparently assessable a gigantic wall of honeysuckle that in the summer was ridiculously hard to get through. Even in November, Caleb had to crawl on a path he saw that ran beneath it. Probably coyotes or possibly raccoons had made the path. Caleb followed it for about thirty feet until it opened on a clearing. It was as if he weren’t alone, though nobody was there.

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Caleb found himself in an open chamber of about a thirty foot diameter. The walls, raising twenty to thirty feet around him, were of honeysuckle vines. Unlike the rest of the wooded area, there was plenty of sunlight here, daylong full sun from early morning until dusk and from the beginning of growing season to the end. The one small tree that had been growing in this area was fallen, and it looked as if some animals had an abandoned den in the leaf and woody debris roofing some of the branches. Although it was fallen, it was alive, and would bear foliage in the spring.

Also, there were huge, meaty stalked plants growing all in the clearing. The color of the stalks ran scarlet to purple, and they seemed not entirely plantlike, but also like spirits. Of course, Caleb was high when he picked up on the plant vibe, but stoned as he was, he knew that this might very well be the perfect spot.

It took him a week to clear out the land and prepare the soil. Buddy would keep watch outside of the honeysuckle wall, occasionally coming back to see Caleb’s progress. Every day, as quietly as he could, Caleb went out there and worked, tearing down the abandoned den and severely pruning back the branches of the tree so there would only be a little camouflaging foliage left. He also removed the magnificent spirit filled plants before beginning the conventional soil preparations: digging and tilling the ground; putting down ground limestone; bonemeal; green sand; cottonseed meal; ground gypsum and lots of perlite. By late March, Caleb sowed his germinated seed out there and his other places.

And it was right after that, around early to middle April when Caleb’s Uncle Pal had to go into the hospital. Uncle Pal hadn’t been doing so well for quite awhile. Because of his poor health, mostly diabetes, he’d had to give up drinking. He and Caleb’s Aunt Vee Vee argued very little anymore, mainly because Uncle Pal had suffered a stroke and had such difficulty speaking 203

that he generally didn’t bother arguing back at her anymore. But if looks could kill, sometimes he’d be killing her. They treated each other with a kind of neglectful civilly most of the time, hiding their contempt for each other and not feeling the love they held for each other.

But now the diabetes had his feet and lower legs atrophying. They were dark blue and purple, and now he had to go to the hospital and have tests to determine if he would need to have one or both of them amputated. It was serious. When Caleb heard that Uncle Pal had been admitted, he visited him everyday. Each day brought more tests, more concerns.

When Caleb would come visit, typically, Aunt Vee Vee would be faithfully sitting there at Uncle Pal’s bedside, just as Caleb’s Mom had sat at his Dad’s hospital bed long ago. But his Mom had been in her fifties when she’d gone through that with Caleb’s Dad, and Aunt Vee Vee was in her mid-eighties and beginning to suffer from senile dementia. As the years had gone by, she had increasingly relied on forced, nervous laughter as an automatic response, and now her anxieties were demonstrated by her too frequent, mirthless giggle. She laughed at anything said to her, and her answers were punctuated with a laugh. It was un-nerving.

But not as un-nerving as Poor Aunt Vee Vee’s increasing tendency to repeat herself.

In the middle of the day, she would ask, “Do you make very much as a substitute teacher?”

“Nope.”

“Did you work today?”

Caleb thought of asking her how, if he were working, could he be here in the hospital room with her and Uncle Pal, but instead of being a dick, he would simply reply, “No.” Then, “Do you make very much money as a substitute teacher?”

Then she might regale him and Uncle Pal with one of the three or four stories she liked to tell about Caleb’s Dad. For instance, she might go on about how she and Caleb’s Dad would lie on 204

his bed and read comic books, and how Caleb’s Grandma Jones would hover around them. “Hee hee hee. Nothing happened. She’d just come in there while we were reading and talk to us.”

Then Aunt Vee Vee would look at Caleb as if she were surprised to see him. “Caleb, didn’t you work today?” And Caleb would think of replying that yes, he was working today and was, in fact, two places at once. But...

Aunt Vee Vee would also carelessly say things that normally would have driven Uncle Pal literally to drink. Now that he was laid up in the hospital, he could only roll his eyes or fix his mouth in a toothless look of resigned exasperation when she would ask him if he wished he weren’t in the hospital. Of course, he wasn’t mute. It was simply hard to understand what he was saying because of his stroke. When he would garble something Caleb’s way, Caleb would try to figure out what was being said. If he couldn’t, he’d just say yes and hope that Uncle Pal wouldn’t get a frustrated look on his face that told him that he’d just said yes to a statement or question not requiring a yes.

The tests were finally complete and Doctor Lindley was going to release Uncle Pal, but the news wasn’t good. They scheduled Uncle Pal to have his left leg removed in two weeks.

Hopefully, he would be able to keep his other leg. After the amputation, Uncle Pal would recover and go through rehabilitative therapy at a nearby nursing home. “What should I do with all of your left shoes. Do you think that the Good Will would accept them?” Aunt Vee Vee asked. Uncle Pal looked miserably frightened about losing his leg and put off by Aunt Vee Vee, but he said nothing.

Since Caleb had come home, he’d started taking his Mom to Mass every Sunday. They went to the eight o’ clock mass. They always sat in the same pew that was next to his Mom’s 205

cousin Sarah. To Caleb, church had always been achingly boring, but he didn’t agonize over the one hour a week that he was there with his Mom. He didn’t participate in the mass as he should have, however. He prayed and listened to the sermon, but he didn’t sing or take part in the call and response portions of the service.

Often as not, Caleb’s mind wandered. He might focus on the one isolated hair on the top of the elderly bald man’s head who sat in the pew in front of him, or he would look at the young families. It made Caleb feel good to see how the people loved their children. And, looking at the innocent and angelic faces, how could they not? Of course, not all of Caleb’s thoughts at Mass were either innocuous or wistfully wholesome. At times, perfect strangers in the congregation would strike him as being assholes, and Caleb would imagine getting into arguments with them.

The fantasy usually was something along the, ‘hey, you lookin’ at me?’ type of imaginary confrontation. And Caleb would think of kicking ass, right in church. Or he’d started mulling over how idiotic the stupid priest sounded with his fruity, ‘be good, everybody! God this! Jesus that!’ blather. To Caleb, the priest was a privileged American twerp yammering to other privileged American twerps about upgrading their lifestyles through having God on their side more effectively or something equally disingenuous. The priest always needed money to finance the unneeded and frivolous renovations on the church that he’d had done.

There was always plenty to be negative about when in church. But whenever he would notice himself doing that, he would remind himself of his little affirmations and would concentrate on God and being good and most of all on ceasing his dickheadery.

Every Sunday after church, Caleb and his Mom faithfully drove to the cemetery. On the way there, they listened to the nasal, tinny gospel song stylings of some little preacher lady broadcasting church services from WUOA. She would start her show by plinking on the piano a 206

melody entitled, This Is The Day. In her spunky, tremulous tenor, she sang, “This is the day! This is the day! This is the Day that the Lord has made! That the Lord has made!” and then repeated herself.

As Caleb and his Mom would park by the family plot, whether it be cold or, as it was now, warming up, his Mom would silently commiserate with Caleb’s Dad for a minute. While she would think of things she’d say and things he’d answer, Caleb would also address the memory of his Dad as if his ghost could hear him. He asked his Dad why he’d had to die. With his Dad gone, and there never having been ‘the good son or daughter’ produced, it was left to Caleb to come back home, where there was nothing for him.

His Mom disapproved of his long hair and profligate pot use, but she loved having him around, and it was convenient to have him do the chores that were becoming increasingly difficult for her. There at the cemetery, Caleb would ask himself, ‘why couldn’t she have come to the city?’

He hated being back in his little old town. He was incredibly pissed at his Dad and resentful of his Mom, and it would be about then that Caleb would realize what he was doing, and he would once again make himself stop thinking that way. Don’t be an asshole. Do not be a dick. It wasn’t his Mom’s fault he’d come back. It was a privilege to help her. He loved his parents. Furthermore, he’d lost his happiness in the city when he’d lost Ann, so he might has well be back in Chase where he could be useful. He had to be thankful.

Then his Mom would at some point say, “I’m ready,” and they’d drive off They’d go home and have biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and Caleb would be glad that at no point that morning had he acted in a way that would upset his Mom. He could have been the asshole, the jerk, the dick-head, but chose instead to bite his tongue. He felt bad for feeling so much anger and resentment, but he was glad he hadn’t expressed it.

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He’d tell himself to be thankful. Be thankful for what you have. It could have been the middle line of the Haiku, and Caleb forced himself to remember those words whenever he would become unreasonably angry or resentful.

Caleb knew that he should be thankful for what he had because whatever he had could be taken from him. Yes, in the sense that we are all fallible and life is precarious, sure, there was that to possibly lose, but, as his crop, particularly in the hidden spot, unnaturally thrived, Caleb began thinking long and hard about the real possibility of being ripped off or, worse, losing his freedom and going to fucking jail. Because this year, in that one secret place, by April, the plants, twentyone in all at that spot, were tall as Caleb’s chest. By May, they were nine to twelve feet tall and already as fragrant as past plants had been at harvest. Although at first, he hadn’t wanted to mess with the plants any more than necessary, he felt compelled to tie them down. It was his paranoia.

During four hot late May mornings in a row, Caleb would patiently tie nylon fishing line to a five inch nail on one end and a cable tie on the other. As he would do this over and over, he would watch Regis and Kelly. He loved Regis and Kelly. Oh, he’d loved Regis and Kathy Lee too, but he’d adapted and grown to appreciate Kelly just as much. For those four mornings, Caleb would construct the ties and chuckle at Regis, Kelly and Gelmen’s on air antics. Occasionally, he would shout some encouragement, something like, “You tell ‘em, Regis,” or, “Atta’ girl, Kelly,” or, “Look at Gelmen!,” or, most often, “Don’t let the man get you down, Regis!” Usually he would make thirty to forty ties. After Regis and Kelly, Caleb would get high, dress in dark colors and go to the plants.

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After he had them tied, once a week, during these hot summer months, he would take water to them, and every other week, he would treat the water with water soluble fertilizer. From early on, he mulched the plants.

Tying them down meant training the main and auxiliary branches to grow in a more horizontal direction than vertical. While he used fishing line and nails on the side branches, for the main branches, he’d had to use tent cord and long aluminum stakes. Making pot grow sideways not only reconfigured the shapes of the plants, but tying down the branches also allowed more sunlight to reach the inside of the plant. By July, Caleb was also tying down the side branches coming out of the main auxiliary branches. Even tied over, the plants came up to his chest.

Caleb wasn’t worried about anyone accidentally discovering this spot because it was too hard to find. The deer couldn’t even get to it. But he was still worried about planes flying overhead and seeing his canopy of pot growing in an open space in the wooded area. So, remembering his and Bertie’s trip to the craft and notions shop, Caleb went back there, bought out their stock of artificial babies breath and fielded the same questions about his use for them.

He told the girl at the counter that he was catering a sensitive man’s bachelor party. Instead of strippers and beer, there were to be tea-cakes and take home baby’s breath centerpieces. The girl highly approved.

Using florist’s wire, Caleb artfully arranged the bunches of Baby’s Breath on his weed so that planes going overhead would be less likely to recognize what the plants were. Standing back, Caleb looked at his handiwork. It helped disguise them but in no way dispelled his paranoia.

That was like a constant mist over his head. Caleb figured that if he got busted, he’d probably be in prison for the rest of his Mom’s life. Also, the grief and embarrassment would mess up her golden years. If it were just himself he had to worry about, he wouldn’t have given a fuck, 209

but he had to think of his Mom. Consequently, thinking about getting busted would saturate his thoughts. No matter what he’d be doing, whether planting hundreds of petunias around the bird bath or on the riding mower cutting the green, green lawn or lying in bed late at night, the fear of getting caught was always there.

Sometimes it was stronger than at other times. What usually happened was that the worry would build up to a feverish kind of plateau, and after several hours of driving himself nuts, Caleb would exhaust himself from obsessing about it. Then he wouldn’t worry quite so much until the paranoia built up again and he would be thinking and thinking about that and little else. As the growing season progressed, his worry deepened.

Caleb knew of people who had gone to prison, but no one that he had ever actually known had gone there. Caleb figured that he wouldn’t have to worry too much about guys wanting to fuck him. If he were busted, he hoped it would be like pretty much his whole life, just instead of pretty girls always ignoring him, it would be hard assed dudes overlooking him for more handsome guys.

Caleb told Johnny and Tetras of his efforts, the plants’ abundance and his paranoia. Johnny hypothesized that they were probably being listened to on a wire tap as they discussed it. Tetras begged for Caleb to keep him in mind at harvest time, front him something.

In mid-June, Caleb told his Uncle Pal about the plants during his first hospital stay that summer. One day, he waited until Aunt Vee Vee had gone out of the room for something and then he told Uncle Pal how many plants he had, the layout of his secret place and his efforts to disguise the crop.

Uncle Pal warned him, struggled to say, “Whoo any lants. Ooo nee haaa maannny? (Too many plants. You need that many?)”

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Caleb said, “I’ll be taking the males down as soon as they show, and then I’ll only have about half as many plants out then.”

In his garbled, strangled way, Uncle Pal said, “Eeeee airhooo (Be careful).”

Aunt Vee Vee came back in the room bearing a framed and autographed picture of herself.

To Caleb she said, “You Uncle Pal has been asking me to bring him a picture of me to put on his dresser while he’s here to cheer him up.” Caleb remembered his Uncle Pal having asked Aunt Vee Vee to bring a picture of the whole family, her, him and Bertie, not just her. Uncle Pal looked mournfully as Aunt Vee Vee fussed with the picture. “Which way should it go?” she asked him.

He looked at Caleb and shook his head. “Which way?” Aunt Vee Vee asked.

“Aaah’sss fffffiiiiiii (That’s fine).”

“What? Did you say move it to the right?” Vee Vee asked.

“OOOOOO (No). Aaaah’ssss iiiiiiinnnnn (That’s fine),” Uncle Pal said.

Caleb said, “He said that’s fine. It’s fine where it is. He can see it.”

“Now you can look at it,” Aunt Vee Vee said, satisfied with herself. Uncle Pal looked pissed.

In late June, Bertie and his wife Maze came to Chase for Uncle Pal’s operation. Caleb was getting ready to go for a run when the phone rang on a Tuesday afternoon. Bertie and Maze wanted to stop by. He asked Caleb if he had any weed, and Caleb told them to come see him.

They were nervous when they got to Caleb’s house. It was around three-thirty, and Caleb’s Mom wasn’t due home for about an hour. Caleb rolled a joint from the stash he’d bought from Tetras in Chicago, and he prepared a small bag of buds for his cousin. After three or four hits, they were 211

high and feeling a bit more relaxed. They hadn’t been by Bertie’s parents’ house yet. Uncle Pal was due to go into the hospital the day after tomorrow. Bertie asked him how Uncle Pal was.

“I think he’s depressed,” Caleb said.

Bertie shook his head sadly. Maze put her arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek..

Caleb handed his cousin a joint, which Bertie promptly lit and sucked at like it was oxygen and he was underwater. He smiled and handed the joint to Maze. Bertie said, “What’s Pop look like?”

“Ah, he’s looked better. You talked to him on the phone?”

Bertie took another hit and passed the joint to Caleb, who hit it. He said, “I don’t like talking to him since he had his stroke. I guess I’d rather remember him the way that he was when he was able to go fishing and drink and get away from Mom and just be happy. I’ve talked to him though. It just fucking tears me up.” Caleb passed the joint back to Maze, who daintily toked the reefer, pinkie extended. When it came back to him, Bertie again acted as if the joint were giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation. When he was able to speak, Bertie said, “I’m not looking forward to this.” He was referring to the upcoming visit with his Dad. Caleb handed his cousin the small bag of weed. “Thanks, cuz,” Bertie said hugging his old boy.

“Ain’t no thing,” Caleb replied, adding, “Me and Mom will come by tonight.”

“My Ma is making ham and beans. Why don’t you come by for supper?”

“I already got supper going, Bertie.”

Maze asked, “What are you having?”

“I’m making roasted squash soup,” Caleb said.

“You always were a little weird,” Bertie observed. Handing the joint back to Caleb, Bertie said, “I’m good. Maze, are you ready?”

“Yeah, baby. I’m ready if you are.”

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Caleb and his Mom went by Uncle Pal and Aunt Vee Vee’s house that evening. They were all in the den. They’d just bought a huge, super vibrating recliner for Uncle Pal, who was gloomily trying to make the best of things by hiding his fear and making the most of his son’s visit. There was much pained smiling.

At one point, Caleb’s Mom asked Uncle Pal to demonstrate the vibrating effect for them.

With his smile tightening to resemble a dog baring his teeth more than a smile, Uncle Pal turned the dial on the chair to high. Immediately the room was filled with a ferocious thrumming. Uncle Pal was suddenly an indistinct sitting blur as the concussion from the vibrations made his teeth shoot out of his mouth and across the room. He turned the chair off and mournfully regarded his dentures. “Ahhh oooon ike ack doooo utch, (I don’t like that too much),” he said.

“What you say, Dad?” Bertie asked.

Uncle Pal repeated himself twice before Caleb translated.

“Oh, you don’t have to turn it on. Once you’re home, you can sit in it and keep the vibrations on low or on off,” Aunt Vee Vee offered. Since Uncle Pal’s stroke, she had pretty well ceased her role in their adversarial relationship and had become conciliatory. She retrieved his teeth and offered them to Uncle Pal, who rejected them with a sweep of his hand and an imperiously puckered moue on his toothless puss. Before his stroke, they would have already been arguing.

Perhaps she was trying not to be a dick, or in her case because of her gender, a twat if you will. At any rate, instead of Aunt Vee Vee’s throwing Uncle Pal’s dentures at him in the attempt to bounce them off his dome, she merely pocketed them and said, “If you want them later, just ask.”

Then she giggled and said brightly, “Who want’s ice cream?” Caleb wondered if she would wash 213

her hands after having gamboled with Uncle Pal’s upper plate, and he thought about saying no, but went ahead with everyone else and opted for a dish. As Aunt Vee Vee hurried out of the room, Caleb’s Mom and Maze offered to help her, but she insisted that they sit. She would take care of it.

Aunt Vee Vee went into the kitchen.

Two minutes later she came back. “I’m so flustered and nervous,” she said laughing. “I forgot what I went into the kitchen for.” Caleb’s Mom and Maze got up and went back in the kitchen with Aunt Vee Vee. Uncle Pal said, “Eeeee aahhhhnn eeeeee-ennnnnnerrrrrrr (she can’t remember).” Bertie looked like he did when his parents used to fight. Like he didn’t hear and see what was happening.

Within five minutes, the women were back with the ice-cream.

And for a few minutes, the ice cream made everything better. It had been a good idea.

While they ate, everyone, including Uncle Pal, was as happy as when they’d been kids eating sweet, rich ice cream. It was vanilla.

This would be the last night Uncle Pal would spend in his home. He’d never have a chance to get used to his new recliner.

Bertie, his Mom and Maze took Uncle Pal to the hospital the next morning. They checked him into his room, a small single room that was painted a light pastel yellow. As soon as Uncle Pal was checked in, they had him change into standard hospital gown and slippers. Bertie and Maze kept joking about the gap in the back of Uncle Pal’s gown. He smiled for them, and Aunt Vee Vee giggled to assure herself that all wasn’t slipping away from her.

The next morning, Doctor Shelby amputated Uncle Pal’s leg. After the operation, Uncle Pal slept for a day and a half. Aunt Vee Vee, Bertie and Maze watched over him. Caleb didn’t 214

come around until the third day, when he got word that Uncle Pal was cognizant. Bertie was supposed to have stayed a week, but he ended up staying three. Maze had to go back after a week.

Every day, Bertie and his Mom would stay with Uncle Pal. Caleb visited nearly every day. Uncle Pal would have the t.v. on The History Channel, and they would all quietly sit in the room.

Sometimes, Caleb and Bertie would discuss growing. If Aunt Vee Vee were present, they would speak in veiled terms, relying on the old chestnut of referring to weed as ‘tomatoes’. If she weren’t in the room, they wouldn’t bother to disguise their words, as Uncle Pal and Maze knew everything. Occasionally, Uncle Pal would give Caleb a bit of gardening or woodland advice.

Before Caleb had decided to tie down the plants, Bertie was advising him to. “What do you need all the energy going into one cola for anyway. I like those little cherry buds.” That had always been Bertie’s term for uniform smaller buds as opposed to the colas. “Pick back the growing tips,” he urged.

They discussed the pros and cons of foliar feeding. Over the years, Caleb had read articles linking foliar feeding to mildew and fungal infections, and he had stopped the practice, whereas Bertie was still touting its benefits. “Baseball sized buds,” Bertie assured Caleb.

They also disagreed on curing techniques. Caleb was a fan of regular air curing: hang the plants in a well ventilated dark place until the buds were right for smoking. Bertie voiced his affection for the old commercial practice of spraying the harvested plants with Coke (Coca-Cola) and curing them with that stuff. It added taste and weight. Caleb didn’t think it a good idea.

And in that way, Bertie and Caleb spent their days. After an hour or two, Caleb would leave. Uncle Pal, Bertie and Aunt Vee Vee would stay as long as they could. In the evening, after visiting hours, Bertie kept to himself. He didn’t go bar hopping or call Caleb.

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Because of his job, Bertie couldn’t stay any longer. How much this bothered Bertie, no one could tell. His job needed him back. They were a business, after all.

It was the night before Bertie was supposed to go home. Caleb was watching Lettermen, and his Mom, as was her way, was slumped and snoring in her chair when Caleb saw a car pull in the far end of the drive-way and turn off its lights. Caleb went out to see who it was, and he saw his cousin Bertie’s rented car. When Caleb went out to it, he didn’t see Bertie anywhere.

Then, from high in the tree overhead, he heard Bertie. “Hey, I’m up here in your old tree house.

How long had it been since he’d been up in that thing? Twenty-five years? Twenty-seven?

Bertie had risked breaking his neck climbing up the old hand and foot holds. “Bertie, what the hell you doing up there?” Caleb called.

“Come on up,” Bertie urged, and Caleb climbed up the old foot holds. The wood was as grey as the tree bark, and Caleb was careful to test each step before he put his full weight on it. In half a minute, he was standing next to Bertie on the top deck of the tree house where Caleb had first, truly gotten stoned.

“I should have brought some weed,” Caleb said. “I can go get some,” he offered and started for the portal.

“Naw. For once we can kick back without the weed,” Bertie told his cousin. They sat in the lawn chairs, still there from so long ago. It was a beautiful night, and they were bathed in moonlight. “Yeah, Caleb, what do we need weed for.” This didn’t sound like Bertie at all, but then, people change, and Caleb was already high, maybe Bertie was too. Caleb was thinking this when Bertie nudged him. Caleb looked. Bertie was offering him a bowl of black hash. What did they need with weed indeed. They smoked up.

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When they were good and stoned, Bertie somberly intoned, “I don’t think my Dad is doing so good. I think he’s dying.”

“Well, you don’t know,” Bertie countered. “He might be fine. Might be sitting right over there on the bank of the pond fishing this time next year.”

“He’d want to be doing that. The pond will be there,” Bertie said. Caleb looked through the branches at the creamy blue night, and he imagined Uncle Pal night fishing down at the pond, and while he imagined his uncle, he imagined his Dad, wearing his old cowboy hat and riding up on a bay mare to where Uncle Pal was. Bertie said, “What if he dies?”

“It’s a deep thing when a parent dies. I don’t know how it compares to having other loved ones die. They say a parent losing a kid is the worst.”

“We don’t have to worry about that,” Bertie said, and it was true. Caleb and Bertie were the last of their particular branch of Jones.

Caleb told his cousin, “I remember thinking that no matter where I go, I’ll never see my Dad again.”

Bertie seemed deep in thought, and then he said, “How did Dad’s condition get to this point?” The stars twinkled merrily overhead. At the top of the night sky were sprinklings of translucent clouds that appeared as light patches across the field of stars. Bertie added, “I feel so helpless.”

The breeze kicked up, and the old boards creaked as the branches swayed around them. “I don’t know, Bertie. Pray for your Dad. If you start feeling too sad about him, think of things that he did that pissed you off,” Caleb said. When he thumped the bowl on the floorboards to stir the uncharred hash, the noise made Buddy howl from his fancy dog house at Dr. Fen’s. A freight train sounded, and Caleb relit the pipe. After he’d held in the hit and then exhaled, he said, “And if 217

you’re too pissed off at something about him, think of times when he was vulnerable.” From over where the pond was, the pond from which Uncle Pal could possibly be fishing next year if he made a recovery, came the splash of a fish flopping out of the water to snap an insect. “Really though,” he concluded, “you’ll remember what you need to about him when you need it.”

Bertie spoke again, “What do you think is up with my Mom?” Caleb didn’t want to speculate. “Aw, she’s just at her wit’s end from worrying about your Dad,” Caleb lamely offered.

The next day, when Bertie left, his Dad cried, probably because he figured he either wouldn’t see his son again, or he knew that the next time he saw him, he’d be on his deathbed.

Aunt Vee Vee cried too. Still, he had to go. You can’t blow your good job to watch your Dad die.

All of Caleb’s plants were coming along, but at nowhere near the pace that his plants at the hidden spot were growing. Tying them down every week helped keep them from soaring into the sky, but instead of being tall, there was an increasingly thick canopy of pot, twenty-five to thirty feet in diameter and constantly attempting to defy the ties by growing upward. The strategically tied baby’s breath helped camouflage the garden, and the honeysuckle walls that contained the area swelled as the vegetative months progressed so that no one could casually come upon the place.

Having learned his lesson twenty some odd years ago, Caleb limited his trips to the plants.

Still during the hot months of July and August, he had to carry water to the plants about once a week. He would tie three one gallon jugs to a belt and carry two five gallon jugs in. To get there involved high stepping along the borders of the wooded area and carefully working his way using the natural sidewalks of fallen logs and stones that he would find. To get to the spot took twenty to 218

thirty minutes of careful hiking and, for the last twenty-five yards, crawling under the honeysuckle hedge. By the time he would get there, Caleb would be soaked from sweat.

The oddest thing about the way that the magical patch grew that summer was how the female and male plants reversed some of their growth patterns. For instance, Caleb was able to read the female plants’ sex before the males, which is unheard of. By late June, Caleb was seeing single calyx and pistils at the growing nodes of the female plants, weeks before even a trace of pollen sacs showed themselves. The other way the males and females reversed their growth patterns was in their vigor. The females dwarfed the males. Wonderful but not supposed to happen. Not only that, but instead of the usual fifty-fifty male to female ratio, there were sixteen females to six males. Caleb was thanking God and praying that he’d get to enjoy these plants.

Nature didn’t readily allow Caleb to have his way. To get to the outer plants, he had to navigate through large blocks of briar and poison ivy. To cut down on getting stuck by the tiny strands of briar needles or bitten by the ivy, Caleb wore long pants and sleeves on the hottest, most humid days. Stinging insects hung in the flora like booby traps. On one hot morning, Caleb had been threading bits of vine and twigs near the place where he entered the wall of ivy when, pushing his hand deep into the honeysuckle, he disturbed a nest of hornets, and one stung him.

He’d not even been able to yell but had silently and quickly moved away from the nest shaking his stung hand. After having found it, he was thankful for it and wished he could have several of them at different strategic spots around his patch. Of course, ticks of every size were waiting for any warm blooded host they could drop on, and although he used a spray to repel them, he’d frequently get bitten. He’d always pull them off. Caleb also avoided the tall weeds that held the most chiggers. As soon as he would get home, he’d peel off the soaking wet clothes and take a steaming hot shower.

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Caleb and Buddy would frequently surprise animals that would react by bolting into the underbrush in a panic. On a day in late July, Caleb had lugged water and was in the middle of transporting it all under the honeysuckle wall. Because he was sweating so ferociously that his glasses kept slipping, Caleb had removed them. He was on one knee and bracing himself to move one of the five gallon jugs another foot when he felt something at his ear. He turned to see and found himself face to face with a bushy tailed fox. Before Caleb even had time to get scared, or for Buddy to even notice, the fox jumped into the seemingly impenetrable knots of vines. Seconds later, Buddy heard the commotion and came tearing through, nearly knocking over one of Caleb’s jugs of water.

Watering took a long time because it had to be done slowly. If Caleb would have simply dumped the water around the bases of the plants, it would have run off without soaking the roots.

So Caleb would quietly and slowly soak the soil with the water. Buddy could be a pest if Caleb was using fish emulsion fertilizer in the water because he loved the taste of the horrible smelling stuff. If permitted he’d push his tongue into the water jugs and drink up as much fish emulsified water as he could. When Caleb would catch him doing this, he’d hiss, “No, Buddy,” and the sweet doggie would desist, at least until he’d see Caleb not looking again. If Caleb didn’t watch, Buddy would also try to sneak off with one of the empty one gallon jugs, but Caleb would hiss, “No,” or, if Buddy were far away, he’d throw a clod of dirt to get his attention. Then the noble dog would sheepishly let it drop and usually lie down as Caleb would continue to water.

After Bertie had gone back to New Mexico, they decided that it would be too much for Aunt Vee Vee to take care of Uncle Pal at home for the time being, and besides, he needed intensive physical therapy every day, so they moved him directly from the hospital to a nursing 220

home between Chase and Marion. It was a huge complex that was called Shady Palms Retreat.

Pal had his own room there. It was a bluish rose pastel, and the few appointments, a night stand, a chest of drawers and two chairs, were all red pine.

The entire nursing home was a nice place. In the middle of the spacious lobby was an aviary where the residents and their families and friends could sit and observe the brilliantly colored tropical birds perching, flying, nesting and calling to each other. In the grand dining hall, where the residents ate their meals, a pianist was there belting a constant barrage of oldies from her immense repertoire.

Uncle Pal was listless. About the only thing that could still rouse him was Aunt Vee Vee, and what she was rousing in him was his ire.

“Cletis called, oh, I don’t remember when. He said something that tickled me when he said it...Told me to be sure to tell you. Oh, dear. I forget what it was. Are you cold? No? Looks like you’d be cold with the air on you like it is? Don’t he look cold to you Caleb?”

“I don’t think he’s cold.”

“I’n nawwwww oooooowwwwwwd (I’m not cold).”

Aunt Vee Vee jumped out of her chair and started drawing the blanket around Uncle Pal’s neck. “Cletis called. Told me to tell you-“ ”Iiiiiiinnnnn od ooooooold (I’m not cold).” Uncle Pal would now have an irritated scowl on his toothless maw.

“Oh, you’re not cold. Hee hee hee. You look like you should be cold though. Don’t he, Caleb?”

Uncle Pal would shoot Caleb a warning look, and Caleb would reply, “He might look that way, but if he says he isn’t cold, then I believe him.”

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Aunt Vee Vee would nervously, momentarily settle back into her chair, fretting, “I guess he knows what’s best for him. Hee hee.” Then to Uncle Pal, “Oh, Cletis called. I don’t remember when. He said something so funny, and he said, ‘You be sure to tell Pal this story,’ but I don’t remember... Doggone it. Hee hee hee. Can’t remember what the story was, but it was sure funny.

Pal, are you cold?” At this point, Uncle Pal would sigh and roll his eyes, eliciting a giggle from his poor, terrified wife.

Uncle Pal spent much time in his bed, but he was encouraged to sit up as much as he was able. The nurses and orderlies would hoist him out of his bed and into a wheelchair. Uncle Pal would grab at the thin white blanket in an attempt to keep his bluish and pink stump covered when they’d move him, but he was too weak and would always fretfully drop it. He hated exposing his poor feverish stump. His other leg looked bad too. It was a map of broken, crusty skin, bluish from lack of circulation. His withered thighs and ass were as white as foam. As soon as they’d get him in his chair, they’d considerately cover his stump.

And it was while he was in his chair that he would be taken into a large cheery room where he would do his physical therapy exercises. Whenever Caleb would come to the room and not find Uncle Pal there, he’d know to look in the physical therapy room.

That’s where Caleb found him before lunch, surrounded by doting physical therapists who were cooing over him, trying to get him to do curls with hand held weights. Caleb sat on a low blue bench, and his Uncle Pal winked at him. After his curls, which nearly exhausted him, one of the nurses played a gentle game of balloon volleyball with him. At the conclusion of Uncle Pal’s physical therapy they took turns kissing him on the cheek. They were sweet gals. Uncle Pal beamed. “I wish Aunt Vee Vee could see you getting loved up,” Caleb said.

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One of the therapy nurses said, “We give Pal some sugar even when his wife’s here, don’t we sweetie?”

His toothless lips formed an O. Then he smiled and said, “Aaaaaa oooooo (They do).”

Then he weakly laughed.

That day, Caleb sat with his Uncle Pal and three other residents of the facility for lunch.

The residents were encouraged to eat together in a social setting. It was like a restaurant, with one of the women who lived there providing lunchtime music by playing selections on the piano, mostly religious songs and show tunes. Lunch for Uncle Pal and his table mates consisted of cafeteria style Salisbury steak, rehydrated mashed potatoes and gluey canned beef gravy. The gentleman across from Uncle Pal stared as if shell shocked, and he ate his food as if he couldn’t taste anything. His name was Dayton Pierce. The man to Pal’s left gobbled his food happily as he made conversation with Pal, Dayton, Caleb and the other person at the table, a woman who wore a big black curly wig. Uncle Pal replied as best he could when spoken to, but he avoided speaking.

The friendly man, Seymour Wills, said to Uncle Pal, “You ever go fishing down at that encampment at Basin River?”

“Ooooo aaaaahhh (Oh yeah). I oooough iiiiiiig asssss errrrrr (I caught big bass there).”

The woman, Gladace Walker, jovially added her opinion, “You men and your fishing. The only time my husband wasn’t trying to go fishing was when he was courting me.”

“Oooo eeeee uhhhzz hisssin’ (Oh, he was fishing).”

They understood Uncle Pal as well as Caleb did and everyone, even the shell shocked fellow, had a polite if not forced chuckle. Seymour joined in, saying, “He was a fishin’ for somethin’. You just didn’t know it, Mrs. Walker.”

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Gladace pushed the envelope even farther. Looking like someone had just sat on a whoopee cushion, she said, “What was he fishing for I wonder?”

About thirty feet away the pianist was tinkling out Toot Toot Tootsie. When the chuckles at the table subsided a bit, Uncle Pal answered Gladace. He said, “Whore hoosy (Your pussy)!”

Well, everyone enjoyed that. “Mr. Jones, you are a pill,” from Gladace, her hands in the air fanning her florid wattles. “Whooee,” she said.

From Seymour, “I’m not even going to try to top that.”

Dayton leaned toward Caleb and in a barely audible voice said, “He’s like this everyday. I get here early just so I can be sure to be around Pal.” Uncle Pal beamed.

After lunch, rather than go immediately back to his room, Uncle Pal had Caleb roll him, first to the aviary where they watched the brilliantly colored tropical birds nesting, branch hopping and making short flights high in the trees. “Look at those merry little fucks, Uncle Pal. Aren’t they something flitting and chirping like they do? They sure know how to cut up. If I could be one of them, I’d be that little one over there. The orange and blue fucker. There he is! Pretty bird!” Caleb said trying to engage Uncle Pal, who after lunch seemed to go into a funk.

“Onna o ow-iiii? (Wanna’ go outside)?”

“Sure.”

It was a supernally bright July afternoon. Although it had been a characteristically hot and humid southern Illinois summer, this day was pleasantly temperate with a warm breeze bathing them. Caleb pushed Uncle Pal in his wheelchair through the inner courtyard past the rose garden and the furthest perennials and border annuals. Most of the lilies had already blossomed. The snap dragons were just beginning. When they were next to the purple and yellow petunia 224

bedecked front entrance, Uncle Pal had Caleb stop between the white columns at the doors. Caleb sat on the concrete at his uncle’s foot. The breeze felt good. It came across the soybean and corn fields. From the shade under the front entrance, Caleb and Uncle Pal watched the distant cars roll by on highway 57. The traffic made a constant dark blur, a smudgy line of moving cars on the horizon.

Uncle Pal said, “Oooo old (Too cold). Ache eee in (Take me in).”

“Ok, Uncle Pal, but it’s nice out here. How you gonna’ go fishing this fall if you’re getting a chill in here July?”

“Ah oond eee ooo-in iii-in (I won’t be goin’ fishin’).”

“What do you mean?”

All the cars on highway 57 made a humming sound that was carried on the hot wind. It was soothing, like it was speaking the melodic language of eternity to Caleb and his Uncle Pal on that perfectly serene looking July afternoon there next to the stately white columns in the shade of the entrance. Uncle Pal said, “Ere o-in oooo ut aw Iiii uhhhh egg (They’re going to cut off my other leg).”

Caleb was stunned. He leaned over and hugged Uncle Pal around the shoulders. Uncle Pal let out a choked sob.

Just then Aunt Vee Vee came walking up. Her hair was freshly done into a faded tangerine comfit atop her head. As she approached them, Caleb could see that she was pissed off about something. Uncle Pal murmured, “Eee uzzzzn oooo. Ooon aaa uhh-in (She doesn’t know. Don’t say nothin’).”

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“I’ve been all over looking for you, Mr. Pal Jones,” Aunt Vee Vee informed him. There was fire in her eyes. “I hear you been kissing them hussy slut nurses and talking about pussy with Gladace Walker!”

Uncle Pal regarded his wife of sixty-eight years. His eyes narrowed. Caleb wondered if Uncle Pal were going to gently break the news to Aunt Vee Vee now. Uncle Pal said to her, “Hoooo whooo ellll, ouuuu itch (Go to hell, you bitch)!” Some people came out of the facility.

“Oh you go to hell you flirtin’ horse’s ass,” Aunt Vee Vee spat. The people looked at the old couple disapprovingly as they walked past.

Maybe it was the song of the highway, the humming thrum of timelessness there on the green horizon, that was responsible for the years appearing to slip away from the old couple, so that for just a second, Caleb saw the young Aunt Vee Vee and Uncle Pal passionately giving each all sorts of ridiculous shit. And once more, just for that transitory flash, he was embarrassed for them like of old.

Bertie’s job wouldn’t let him go for his Dad’s second operation. They said that he’d been gone too long the first time. He and Maze agonized in New Mexico as Uncle Pal underwent a second surgery. It was mid-August when he had the second amputation. He lingered in a kind of feverish delirium for another couple of months. School started and Caleb began subbing again.

Three or four days a week and usually one day on the weekend, he would go visit Uncle Pal in the hospital, then in the nursing home and finally back at the hospital.

The second surgery depressed Uncle Pal. While back at the nursing home, he stopped going to the therapy room. Stopped eating with the others. When the nurses and therapists would come to him and make over him, he’d smile tolerantly but wouldn’t really be in the spirit of their 226

tender attentions. Whenever Caleb would get ready to go, Uncle Pal would say, “Oooo oooo ahhhh oooo dough (Do you have to go)?” It would always cause Caleb a pang and he’d stay awhile longer. Uncle Pal wanted Aunt Vee Vee there all the time. He usually was exasperated with her, but he wanted her there. Then he had to go back to the hospital.

Aunt Vee Vee drove everybody nearly crazy with her constant forgetfulness and her hysterical desire to make Uncle Pal comfortable. If he were sitting up, she’d try to get him to lie down, and if he were down, it was her mission to get him to sit up. If he resisted, she forgot that she had asked and two minutes later would ask him again. If he capitulated, she would have him up and down all day. Usually he ignored her.

Uncle Pal had less and less to say in general. Mostly when Caleb would visit, he would sit by his bed and they would watch The History Channel on television. Constantly being in bed caused him to get painful bedsores. As his body and spirit declined, the preacher came out and talked to him. Uncle Pal made his peace as best he could, and from then on was pretty constantly miserable. I wish I could think of how to put a funny spin or...talk directly about grace, and how it lifted Uncle Pal above his suffering. But to do that would be bullshit.

Bullshit as well to construct some scene wherein Caleb’s heartening words of wisdom helped alleviate Uncle Pal’s suffering. Like Uncle Pal, Caleb didn’t have much to say. He felt humble in the presence of encroaching death. He knew there was nothing to be said, but that his presence there was important in a way that he couldn’t understand or even talk about if he tried, which he wasn’t inclined to do. He and Uncle Pal would sit quietly together amidst the beeping of Uncle Pal’s machines and the nervous frittering energy of helpless Aunt Vee Vee. “Would you be more comfortable sitting up higher?...You look uncomfortable like that. Would you like to go higher?”

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Uncle Pal’s energy dwindled in inverse proportion to Caleb’s weed thrived through September and the first part of October. In mid-October he harvested it without a hitch. It took a sweet cure in the barn loft where he made a make-shift curing hut by simply partitioning part of the drafty loft so that the herb had complete darkness. A week after he hung it to dry, he started the manicuring process with small scissors. This part took nearly two months. All told, Caleb had eight pounds of bud and two garbage bags of shake. He immediately took two pounds of shake and put it with a gallon of grain alcohol. After four weeks, he strained out the shake and re-bottled the now dark green potion. This he dubbed Voodoo juice. It tasted like a mixture of wheat grass and cleaning solvent.

He was still in the process of manicuring the bud when Uncle Pal passed away. There were large freezer bags of cured and manicured herb stinking in the garage and still more to be manicured in the barn when he died. Caleb’s Mom got the call and told him. Aunt Vee Vee had been with him, and Bertie had just gotten to the hospital room as his Dad was passing so that they just got to see each other before he died.

As Aunt Vee Vee later told it, she’d been trying to get him to adjust his pillow when he had looked at her in a fierce way that had given her pause. She said that it had been such a funny look that it had made her say to him, “Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable if I just fixed your pillow behind your neck?”

She said that in a voice as clear as a bell, as if he’d never suffered from a stroke, he’d said, “I love you very much,” and those had been his final words. Then Bertie had come in. Pal looked up. Then he died. The nurses and the doctors had come in then and made them leave.

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Uncle Pal was buried at a plot in Memorial Lawn on the outskirts of Chase. The preacher gave one of his self-aggrandizing, “Although he didn’t go to church that much, before he died we had a talk, and I showed him the way to God...” sermons.

The burial was on a brilliantly blue, clear, fall day. Bertie tended to Aunt Vee Vee at the cemetery. She was frail and in shock, crying, silent and nervously laughing by turns. Caleb was one of the pall bearers along with Perv and Terror, the two brothers who were hell raising pals of Bertie and fishing buddies with Uncle Pal. Jake, who was late and zonked on something when he got there was another pallbearer, and the other two were unknown to Caleb.

Perv and Terror had arrived separately and were speaking very little to each other. The brothers were maintaining an uneasy truce, but there were tensions between them. Not so much the regular fraternal friction that naturally happens with brothers but a specific problem due to Perv’s having impersonated Terror at the DMV to attain a driver’s license with his brother’s name and his own picture. When Terror tried to renewed his license and the people behind the counter kept looking at him in a troubled way was when he found out. Leaning over the counter to see what they had drawn up on their computer screen when they’d typed in his name, Terror saw Perv’s smiling face over his information. Hence, the disgruntled air between the two boys.

Nevertheless, their differences had been put aside for Uncle Pal’s funeral and burial.

Afterwards, at the wake, Aunt Vee Vee, Caleb’s Mom and a few other people of their generation sat at the kitchen table. Bertie and Maze hovered around his Mom and tended to the older guests while Caleb and the four pallbearers whom he knew gathered in the extra bedroom Uncle Pal had converted into a television viewing lounge. It was the room where they’d put his brand new Lazy-Boy recliner that had only been used the evening before he’d gone into the hospital.

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While they were in there, Perv said to Caleb, “Say, you bring any of that green weed with you?”

He had, in fact, brought a joint and had been meaning to give it to Bertie or smoke it with him. Instead, he, Perv, Terror and Jake huddled around the window, which they cracked open.

Caleb took a hit and blew it outside, then Perv, then Terror and finally Jake, who goobered his spit all over the drawing end of the joint.

They were all admonishing Jake, for whom their recriminations were wasted, when Bertie came in and admonished them all for smoking a joint so close to the older, straight people. “I cannot fucking believe this,” he said. Caleb put the joint out. “Jeeze,” Bertie said.

“It’s all Perv and Caleb’s fault,” Terror explained.

“Terror, you’re an asshole,” Perv said to his tattling brother. “When you gonna’ learn that it’s just wrong to tell on your brother,” he said in an aggrieved, self righteous tone, transparently alluding to their DMV incident in which Terror had, in fact, not ratted Perv out. He’d only told his brother that he wished he had, and since then, Perv had acted as if Terror had turned him in to the DMV and was of a traitorous nature. Jake grinned and drooled contritely. Or contentedly. It was hard to tell.

Caleb stepped up and said, “We’re sorry. You’re right. It’s totally inappropriate. In our defense, and I think I speak for us all, I have to lay the blame on low impulse control. That’s the real culprit, I’m afraid.”

Bertie, unable to stay angry in the presence of a joint, sighed and said, “Let’s at least go to the garage to finish it.”

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Bertie and Maze stayed another day. They stayed close to Aunt Vee Vee, and two days after the funeral, they went back to New Mexico. They invited Bertie to come out and visit.

In late November, Tetras drove down from Chicago to pick up a pound and a half of weed.

Caleb agreed to front him the herb and Tetras agreed to pay Caleb four thousand a pound, six thousand dollars in all. He would double his money retailing it. Sandy had let it be known that he would never pay over eleven hundred for a pound of weed, which to Caleb was an insulting offer.

Tetras was supposed to stop by on a Sunday evening in late November. Caleb had the weed weighed and bagged in the big freezer bags. He had the freezer bags in two garbage bags, and the garbage bags were in an ice chest. It still gave off a faint skunky scent, and he stored it in the garage. He told his Mom that his pal, Tetras was coming down just to say hello. He said that his visit would be short as he had to get back to Chicago and was simply passing through. He also told his Mom that he had an ice chest which belonged to Tetras. Caleb said that he’d gotten Tetras’s ice chest at a fourth of July picnic and that he would take the opportunity of Tetras’s visit to give it back to him.

Caleb’s Mom, for whom an African American friend was an exotic notion, suggested to Caleb that he invite Tetras to spend a few days in southern Illinois. “I don’t think he has time to do that, Mom,” Caleb replied.

His Mom went on to tell of him of the several ‘nice colored people’ she’d waited on over the years at the bank. Caleb had heard of them many times; in fact, every time his Mom wanted to prove that she wasn’t prejudiced, she would talk about the good will she had toward colored folk.

Caleb recalled other times when she had let drop that she felt that the way things were getting, it was the whites who were in the minority. Nevertheless, his Mom had spoken several times over 231

the phone with Tetras, whom she referred to as Titraz, and had decided that she liked him. A few times she had asked what he did, and Caleb had told her that Tetras was a carpenter. A few times, she had asked if he was a drug dealer. Caleb’s Mom seemed satisfied with his lie, and seemed to want Tetras to spend some time in the little white-bread town of Chase.

“I know there isn’t much to do, and they still don’t really like colored, but if he stayed, you could show him the sights,” his Mom helpfully suggested. It was hard to imagine Tetras staying a few days in the country, fishing and taking wilderness hikes.

“I don’t think he really has time,” Caleb told his Mom. Although Caleb expected him during the afternoon, it was dark when Tetras arrived on that Sunday. Caleb and his Mom heard and felt Tetras’s approach before they saw him.

There came the bump and thump of Tetras’s far away stereo bass. “Another of those kids,” his Mom commented, but the reverberations came nearer, the tiny tea cups on the marble topped coffee table vibrating with each beat. The headlights from Tetras’s ride panned through the glass kitchen doors and across the living room walls. “That must be your friend,” Caleb’s Mom said.

Caleb went to greet Tetras. The stereo went off and the lights dimmed.

Tetra’s was driving his purple van, and with him were his pals Jimmy, TJ, and cousin Clyde. The driver’s door opened and out came Tetras, who turned to his buddies and, in a rather businesslike tone, said, “I’ll be right back.” Turning to Caleb he smiled, and they hugged.

“Caleb,” Tetras said. He was happy. “Man, you have no idea how much this is gonna’ help me out,” he told him.

Caleb would just as soon have sat on his entire stash, but Tetras was a friend. He’d still have enough herb to last him a couple of years, and the extra money would be nice. He was a little nervous fronting that much, but Tetras was pretty trustworthy. For one thing, he didn’t use cocaine 232

like most dealers whom Caleb had known over the years. As they started to head toward Caleb’s Mom’s house, she came out onto the back porch. “Caleb,” she said, “Didn’t you invite Titraz’ friends in?” Caleb wanted to give Tetras the ice chest and have him on highway 57 as soon as possible. Tetras wanted the same thing; the sooner he was back in Chicago with the weed the better. They looked at each other.

Caleb turned to the guys in the van and said, “Come on in fellas.”

Tetras said, “Sure, come on in for awhile.” The van door opened and the trio stiffly ambled out of the van. They went inside, where Caleb’s Mom had thoughtfully prepared a platter of milk and cookies for all. He smiled and shrugged at Tetras.

Once they were inside, Caleb’s Mom made him get out the tv trays with the floral tops for his guests. The guests were all in various styles of hoodies and pull-over sock caps, although Clyde wore a brown leather car coat outside his hoodie.

Munching a cookie, Clyde said, “Caleb, you and your Mama have a lovely home.”

“Thanks Clyde,” Caleb replied.

“It’s well put together,” Tetras added.

Caleb’s Mom said, “Caleb said that you were a carpenter, Titraz, so it might interest you to know that Caleb’s Dad designed the layout of this house.”

Tetras thoughtfully stroked his chin. “I thought so,” he commented.

TJ asked Caleb’s Mom what brand of cookies they were eating. “These,” he informed her, “would be so good to get the next time it is my turn to get the refreshments for my NA meeting.”

“NA? What sort of club is that?” Caleb’s Mom asked.

Rather than allow TJ to truthfully and proudly witness about his disease of addiction, Tetras interrupted, saying, “Jimmy, I’ll bet your Mama would like these for her weekly canasta club.”

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Looking a bit disgruntled at hearing his Mom alluded to, Jimmy sullenly said, “Yeah, I guess.”

Not allowing TJ to answer, Tetras continued. “Yes,” he went on, “Jimmy lives with his Mama too. Just like you Caleb.” Jimmy and Caleb looked distinctly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going.

“That’s nice,” Caleb’s Mom said. “I know that you’re probably a lot of help to her around the house.”

“Yes, Ma’am, I like to think so,” Jimmy said.

A little sadly, TJ said, “My Mom won’t let me come home. I can’t go home.”

For the first time since they’d been in the house, Clyde chimed in, “You can go home again. You’ve just got to stop stealing from your Mom, TJ.” The angel of silence reigned o’er them until Clyde once again spoke. “I live with my Mama too. Shoot, Tetras’ neighbors are his Mama AND his Daddy.”

“What you saying?” Tetras asked.

Clyde looked at them all. “I guess,” he began, “I’m saying that we’re all Mama’s boys here.”

“All ‘cept me,” TJ said mournfully.

Tetras patted the sad TJ on the shoulder. “That’s alright, man.”

“Yes,” Caleb’s Mom said encouragingly, “It will work out.”

“May I have another cookie, Mrs. Jones,” TJ asked pitifully.

“Here’s to the Mamas everywhere,” Clyde toasted, holding his glass of milk aloft. And then they all raised their glasses as well as their cookies in honor of their Mamas.

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“Aw, Mom, I know I don’t say it enough, but I love you,” Caleb said, then got up and gave his old Mom a hug.

“True that,” remarked Tetras.

“Aw, I wish my Mom was here,” said Clyde. TJ was daubing his eyes.

At a certain point, Caleb nonchalantly said to Tetras, “Hey, before we forget, let’s get that ice chest.”

“Yes, I have been missing that darned old thing,” Tetras said, and they excused themselves to the garage, where they then took the chest to Tetras’ van. Ten minutes later, Tetras & co. had left with invitations from Caleb’s Mom to come back anytime.

As they drove away, the explosive stereo once again blasting Wu Tang, Caleb’s Mom turned to him and said, “What nice colored boys!”

In December, Tetras called Caleb and told him that he’d had the bulk of the weed, along with the cash he’d made from selling it, stolen. He said that the thieves had gotten in through the window by removing the window calking around the frame and removing the entire fucking window, frame and all. Removed the calking and took out the window? That sounded crazy to Caleb. Tetras said that he suspected Clyde. Caleb suspected Tetras of having blown the money himself on strippers or horses, but Tetras was a pal and he deserved the benefit of a doubt. What else could Caleb do? Tetras said he would make it up to him, and Caleb had to suspend his disbelief. He just had to hope Tetras wasn’t bullshitting. Even though Caleb knew that Tetras was most probably doing just that.

235

CHICAGO REDUX

When he had packed his clothes and the quarter pound of herb that he was bringing for Johnny in his Mom’s suitcase, he carefully arranged his Good Old Days magazines and his Holy Bible in the mesh book bag where they would be seen by all who approached and where they would hide the dozen pot brownies that were individually wrapped in foil and bundled together in a deep freezer bag. He put on his overalls and tucked his hair under his straw farmers hat. “I’m ready to go, Mom,” Caleb announced as he pulled on his bulky down coat.. His Mom looked at him quizzically. “Can I help you carry anything?” she asked.

“Oh, no thank you. I have everything.”

As they went to the car, Buddy got up and wagged his tail. “So long old pal,” Caleb said as he loaded his things. The black lab ran after the car as Caleb and his Mom went down the long driveway, and then he cut across the neighbor’s land on his way back to his real owner’s property.

Caleb’s Mom drove.

On their way to the train station in Carbondale, she said, “Why are you wearing your farmer’s hat and overalls. Why’ve you got your hair tucked up?”

“Oh, I figured I’d start a fashion trend,” Caleb said. Before 9/11, he’d never worried about carrying marijuana on the trains, and even though he felt relatively safe, he still figured that he’d be less likely to be searched if he looked rural.

“And the Bible?”

“Well, I’m going to read it a bit, maybe on the train trip, maybe some time during the week,” Caleb said.

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“Instead of tucking your hair under your hat, I wish you’d get a haircut, shaggy. Don’t you know the weight of your long hair will cause it to fall out. You’re making yourself go bald is what you’re doing. Why don’t you get a haircut while you’re up there. You can go to one of your old fancy hair cut places you used to go to.”

“Maybe I should get it colored blonde like I used to.”

Caleb’s Mom made a face and viably shuddered. “Don’t you do it,” she cautioned.

Once Caleb was safely on the train and looking out the side window, his Mom stood outside and tried to see through the opaque windows of the Amtrak cars. Caleb took off his big coat and waved to her until she could identify him. When he’d lived in the city and she would take him back to the station for his trip home, she would stand outside the car and look sad.

The train pulled away, and Caleb waited until the ticket master took his ticket. When the official was far away, Caleb got into his mesh book-bag and quickly broke into the sealed freezer bag of brownies. He took one individually wrapped pot brownie out, resealed the freezer bag and quickly scarfed it down before the dank aroma of weed spread through the train car.

Caleb opened his Bible and tried to read where he had left off months ago. It was where Moses was making a name for himself foretelling stuff for the Pharaoh. He read for about ten minutes before the rich language made his mind wander, so he put down the Good Book and waited for the brownie to kick in. He didn’t have to wait long.

The rolling hills and small towns that the train was going through took on a most pleasing carnival aspect to Caleb, who became increasingly entranced with looking out the window. As the sunset turned to night, the lights from the distant farmhouses dotting the vast dark fields glowed like the points of battleships and holiday lanterns from friendly castles.

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Though there were few people to be seen in the small towns the Amtrak rolled through, the villages all seemed as if they were in the middle of wonderful parties and had been festooned with the most intricate neon colors and vibrant civil design, the afterimages of which Caleb continued to see when he would close his eyes. He felt the warmth of a kind of universal love as he imagined the lives of the people in the houses and farms that were going by the window. Babies and toddlers staggering around like little drunks, kids playing together in their little places, teens going on dates and partying until they married and start the cycle over, the couples making their families work, the old folks...

Caleb was sympathizing with all their imagined times.

By the time the Amtrak rolled into Union Station, he’d peaked and was coasting. Johnny was to meet him, and he spotted Caleb before Caleb saw him. “Hey buddy,” Johnny called.

Caleb shook Johnny’s hand. “My pal,” he said. “Good to see you.”

“Hard not to see you. Did you become Amish?”

“Naw,” Caleb said.

Once they were in Johnny’s truck, Caleb fished in his overalls for his brass one hitter, which was already loaded. He handed it to Johnny, who said, “Would you put that away until we get on the inner state?” Caleb grinned stupidly out the window at the city, and Johnny said, “Are you ok?”

“Yeah.” Being back in the city felt like slipping into a warm bath to Caleb.

Soon enough they were on the inner state, and Johnny said, “I’ll take that hit now, Cat Daddy.”

Caleb fished the hitter out of his overalls again and again handed it to his old friend. “Are you ready for the country?” he asked.

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Johnny flicked on his lighter as he drove, and he drew the hit for about three seconds before he started sputtering and spitting. With a finger he touched the tip of his tongue and removed from it a gooey blob of black pot resin. “Damn. Fuck, Caleb!” he said, them goofily imitated Caleb’s saying to him, “‘Are you ready for the country?!’”

“Geez, sorry about that, Johnny. I just cleaned the thing this morning.”

“Well it looks like you missed a little bit of the Big Muddy,” Johnny said sniffing his finger and wrinkling his nose.

“That’s horrible. I am so sorry. Let me load you another hit.”

Johnny said, “There’s still a hit loaded. Let me try again.” He hit the hitter again, this time there was the sound of the point of reefer combusting and the orange glow. Johnny exhaled and the truck filled with the sweet scent of high grade sensimilla. “Whoa.” Half a minute passed. “All is forgiven.”

Caleb said, “Let me load you another hit, Johnny.”

“That’s ok. I’m good. So how does the city look?”

“Pretty.” Now the skyline was to their left as they headed toward Johnny and his wife Irene’s home in Oak Park. Like Sandy’s girlfriend Liz, Irene was still a flight attendant. She was somewhere between here and Australia, and would be home the next day.

Johnny said, “How was your trip?”

“It was the best train trip ever, Johnny.” Caleb fished in his mesh book bag and got out the freezer bag of brownies. “Want a brownie?”

“It’s a bit late for that,” Johnny said, and for miles they drove in stoned silence.

Caleb broke the silence. “Drive me by where there are some hookers.”

“No.” 239

“Not to pick one up, Johnny.”

“Not going trolling for hookers. Glad to see you got a haircut though.”

“I didn’t. Just tucked it in this hat.” Caleb took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair.

“Geez, get a haircut while you’re up here.”

“No.” Caleb did a hit of weed. “Have you heard from Tetras?” he asked.

“No, have you?”

“Not since last night. I think something’s fucked.”

“He said that he had your money didn’t he?”

“He said that he was going to take care of me. I understood that to mean that he had my money. What else could ‘I’m going to take care of you when you come up,’ mean?” Caleb said.

“Knowing him, it could mean anything.”

“I don’t know. Something’s up.”

“I’ll tell you what. When I told him you were coming up this week, he sounded really, really surprised. Also, Tweety’s gone you know.”

“No! She finally got tired of him staying out all night. Where’d she go?” Caleb asked.

Johnny shook his head.

They turned west on North Avenue, and Johnny pointed to a group of working girls. “Feast your eyes because that’s all the whores you’ll be seeing.” They weren’t very alluring, but they did expose themselves as Johnny passed. He said, “Tweety moved into an apartment not far from him.

She put out a restraining order on him.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not only that, but his sister has to pick up Shae and drop her off. Dig this, Caleb, about two weeks ago, at the end of Shae’s visitation, Tetras’s sister can’t take her back to Tweety’s because she’s 240

got something that’s come up, so Tetras drops her off himself instead. He gets there and sees Tweety is standing behind the kitchen window, and when she sees Tetras, she says, ‘You bitch assed motherfucker. You can’t come on my property.’ Tetras tells her, ‘I’m dropping Shae off.’ Tweety tells him, ‘Well you’re a punk assed girl, and I hate your motherfucking worthless guts.’ And Tetras says, ‘I hate your motherfucking guts, you bitch assed ho.’ And Tweety calls out, ‘Why don’t you do something about it then?’ So Tetras says, ‘Maybe I’ll just come up in your house. What you think of that?’ Tweety says, ‘I wish you would die Tetras, and I wouldn’t mind putting you in the grave myself.’ Well Tetras is really pissed, and he says, ‘I’d loved to kill your nasty skank ass with my bare hands,” but what he doesn’t know is that Tweety is baiting him on purpose. Every time he says something, she’s got a tape recorder that she clicks on. Then when she says something back, she clicks it off. So then after getting him to threatening to kill her nine ways to Saturday, she holds up the tape recorder and is like, ‘Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh. I’ve got your stupid ass now.’”

“What’d Tetras do?”

The difference between west North Avenue in Chicago and North Avenue in Oak Park is startling, and the lively urban landscape became more upscale the further west they drove. In reply to Caleb’s question, Johnny said, “Tetras put his fist through the screen door, and Tweety called the cops. Shae was crying, ‘Don’t take my Daddy.’ He spent four days in jail. He needs a lawyer. What if he doesn’t have your money?” They turned off North Avenue onto a street of expensive homes. A neighborhood in which several of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses were set.

“Then he just doesn’t have my money is all,” Caleb said. “Poor Shae,” he added regretfully.

“Yeah.” Johnny said, and moments passed. Johnny continued. “And if he don’t come through?”

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“Fuck, I don’t know. He says he got broken into and ripped off. What are you going to say?

‘No you didn’t motherfucker,’ Geez, you expect me to go Tony Montana on his ass? He could probably beat me up, so I’d have to shoot him, and I can’t even deal with the sight of blood on those CSI shows.”

“Just cause he got ripped off, which is probably bullshit, doesn’t mean he doesn’t owe you the money.”

They pulled onto Johnny’s street. Each home was big, and more than a few were historical landmarks. Caleb said, “Hey, we’ll have a tag team match, me and you agin’ him and Jimmy.”

Johnny said, “Jimmy would be kicking all of our asses, including Tetras’s, until he, like, moved the wrong way and fucked up his back. Then we’d have to call the ambulance for him.”

Johnny gave Tetras a call. He said, “Hey I got Caleb with me. We’re heading toward my place.” To Caleb Johnny said, “Palmetto Bug and The Tom Tom Cats are playing at Shadleys.

Wanna’ see them?”

“Sure.”

“We’ll drop your shit off at my crib before go,” Johnny said to Caleb, then to Tetras, “You wanna come and see the boys? No? Ok, you wanna talk to Caleb? Ok.” And then he handed the phone to Caleb.

“Hey Tetras,” Caleb said to his old pal who was in the process of ripping him off for a pound and a half of exquisite weed.

“What’s up? Welcome back,” Tetras said.

“You ought to come out, Tetras. I was trying to get Johnny to cruise some girls, but he wouldn’t.”

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Johnny yelled at the phone, “Caleb looks like a serial killing farmer, and he wants to gawk at whores! No!” Tetras said, “Man, I’m in for the night, but I’ll call you tomorrow ok?”

“Sounds good.”

“Hey dude, I’ma take care of you. You know that right?”

“I know.” Caleb said bye and handed the phone back to Johnny. “I know he ain’t gonna take care of me,” Caleb said.

“I don’t think he is either. I hope this time next year we’re laughing about how we were doubting good old Tetras, but fuck.”

“If it walks like a duck,” Caleb said. They fell silent. While driving, Johnny gave Sandy a call. Sandy wasn’t there, but Johnny left a message. “Meet me and Caleb at Shadleys, fucker.” He turned into an alley and gunned the big black truck through the narrow way until he came to his garage. The door opened and he parked.

For moments they sat in the darkness of Johnny’s garage. He said, “I sure hope you mean to change out of that get-up before we go.”

“Shore thang,” Caleb drawled.

Johnny had a big three story house of grey stone. As he and Caleb trudged up the stairs, Johnny’s Rhodesian, Sally, started barking ferociously. The barking became louder as Johnny went in the first door and punched in his security code. Then the second door opened and the dog jumped on Johnny first and then Caleb. The huge dog licked Caleb’s chin. Sally was wearing booties on her massive paws. “I loves ya, Sally. Can you smell my doggie pal, Buddy? Aw, good doggie.” From a shelf overhead, next to a ceramic moon shaped clock emerged a yellow cat that jumped from its perch 243

to Caleb’s shoulder where, clawless, it struggled for balance. Sally nosed the kitty, who swiped at its nose. Caleb said, “Whoa, Spike.”

Johnny took the cat from his friend’s shoulder and said, “If Tetras don’t pay you, we’ll sick Spike on him.”

Instead of driving to the club, Caleb and Johnny took a cab to Shadley’s. Waiting for the cab to arrive, Johnny lit a joint of the sweet sinse Caleb had brought him. The air turned sharp with the aroma of the burning herb, and they passed the joint. Caleb had just finished the roach as the cab pulled up.

Once they were in the taxi, the driver turned around and smiled at them. “You guys smell like freedom,” he said.

Caleb handed him a sweet bit of bud and said, “It’s a revolution.”

The driver was thrilled. “I take you guys anywhere you want, no charge.”

“I’d like to see some hookers,” Caleb mused.

“No, take us to Shadleys, sir. Please don’t listen to my friend,” Johnny said.

“You know in the fourteen years I lived up here, I don’t think I saw very many prostitutes at all.”

“Man, what are you talking about?” Johnny said.

The driver laughed incredulously. “You live up heah dat long an’ you nod seen any prostitute?

Bro, you wan’t look too fucki’ hard. Shi’ dere go one rights now,” he said pointing at a group of people. “Dere anoder ones,” he said pointing at the people getting off the bus.

Johnny said, “Caleb, you’re sad.”

The driver said, “My man nod sad. You’s beautiful, Mon. Here de’ club. Haf fun man. Hey, you need a cab, here my card. I’ma take care you guys.”

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“Appreciate it, sir,” Johnny said.

“Yass,” the driver said.

“Rock on, sir,” Caleb said.

The sounds wafted from the interior of the old building that housed Shadley’s. As Caleb and Johnny headed toward it, they could feel the rolling thump of the bass and drum pushing through the walls to the outside. They went in. As soon as they opened the door, the music went through them, closed over them and pulled them inside. It was a smokey, small space packed with youngish white people mostly. Johnny and Caleb paid their entrance fee and waded into the energy of the music, the people, the smells of cologne and booze. Palmetto Bug was singing a verse about walking down a beautiful well traveled road, and at the end of the verse, he wiped his mouth with a doo rag and set to playing harmonica like a tornado as his band thundered behind him. Johnny went to the bar and got them drinks, Dewars and water. The taste of the scotch and water was at once dry, sweet and sharply, burningly bitter. Caleb thanked his pal.

Palmetto Bug sang about waiting on the corner with his cellphone in his hand. As always he was dressed in a nondescript grey pant and blazer set. His shirt was white, and he wore a tie that he had loosened. Palmetto Bug was sweating, singing, making a stand on the small stage. His smile cast the light of beneficence over the crowd as Mikey played the shit out of his guitar behind the bass and horns. The quickening guitarist caused the rest of the band to have to speed up their own parts, which caused them to exchanged pissed glances at each other and the guitarist as they soldiered deeper into the groove. Palmetto Bug enjoyed their irritation immensely, and laughed when the Viking”s drumming broke through the percolating sea of musical parts taking the horns and bass with him and pushing the soloing guitarist, who seemed to read his band mates annoyance as appreciation and kudos of his masterful solo.

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The crowd liked it and stomped and hollered. Mikey banged out his finale in snaking loops of notes as the drummer, then the rest of the band caught up and then swallowed and reabsorbed him into the machine. About that time, Palmetto came back in with his harmonica and brought the song home to rest with a joyous litany of raw, plaintive phrasings that worked at counterpoint to the rest of the band like the lost ghost of America. And then it was done.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are taking a short break and will be back in a bit,” Palmetto Bug said. The crowd clapped as the house sound system began blasting The Chicago Rhythm & Blues Kings’ song Help Wanted. The band members dissembled. Palmetto Bug went to an attractive woman he’d met earlier. T.O. went to his wife who was at a table near the stage. She lit his cigarette.

Daddy Z disappeared behind the stage, where his daughter waited for him with a spot of tea. Zone and Bonzo went to the bar. Mikey and the Viking headed straight toward his childhood pals.

Caleb and Johnny greeted their musician pals. Getting right to the heart of things, Caleb said, “I’ve got some smoke.”

“Let’s go out to the back,” the drummer suggested, and that is just what they did.

In the alley, Caleb handed the Viking the joint, and he lit it up. He took a giant toke, held it in, exhaled. Said, “Yeah!” He handed it to Caleb, who deferred it, saying that he was fine. The Viking tried to hand it to Johnny, who said to give it to Mikey. “I don’t know,” the drummer grumbled.

“Mikey, if I give this to you, will you use it to slow your ass down, or if not that, at least keep a consistent beat with the fucking rest of us?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps,” Mikey said as he accepted the joint from the Viking. He took a hit.

“I’m afraid it might psychedelicize his ass for the next set,” the Viking said. “Here, Mikey, give it back, man.” As they were smoking, a cat that was on the verge on jumping a big rat, stopped what it was doing and watched them.

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The rat scurried off, and Mikey said, “Can I buy some of this?”

The Viking said, “Yeah, is any of this for sale?”

Caleb said, “Naw, sorry. But here’s a joint you guys can have for later.” The Viking took the proffered reefer and tucked it in his shirt pocket. He then hit the burning doob and passed it to Johnny, who took it this time. The cat, turning its attention back to the rat and finding it gone, looked resentfully at Caleb’s group before turning its ass to them and padding off.

Johnny was passing the joint to Caleb when Palmetto Bug joined them. “Where’s that motherfuckin’ Mikey. What the fuck you on boy?” Caleb hit the joint and handed it to Palmetto Bug, who drew like he was sucking life itself from the joint.

Viking said, “Damn, Palmetto. You ain’t used to this kind of rocket fuel. Go easy, sir.”

Palmetto Bug’s eyes shone bloodshot red where the whites should have been, and he regarded the Viking disdainfully. He said, “ I came out my Mom’s pussy puffin’ on two joints at once, motherfucka. ” “I’m just saying-“ ”You’re saying what? I don’t know how to smoke weed?” Palmetto Bug exploded, punctuating his statement with another gargantuan toke, which he held in for nearly half a minute.

Then he reiterated, “So what you trying to say anyway?” And another big assed hit, the biggest yet.

“Ok. Ok, sorry,” the Viking said as Pametto Bug sucked down nearly the rest of the joint. He tried to hand it to the Viking, who when he saw how small it now was, said, “Shit, Palmetto, you bogarted all that joint. What the fuck you handing me that little assed roach for?”

“Man,” Palmetto Bug murmured, “I am so high.”

Mikey smiled broadly and laughed and the Viking said testily, “I don’t doubt that at all.”

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Then it was time to go back inside for the next set, but when they started in, the singer, who was at the head of the group, stopped in his tracks at the doorway. “Shit! Hold up!” Palmetto Bug declared, balking right there.

Mikey’s expression shifted to concern. His eyes widened and his smile began to sag as the giant bluesman refused to budge. The Viking scratched his beard. “Oh oh,” he said. “I think your reefer has broken Palmetto Bug, Caleb. What the fuck?”

Indeed, Palmetto Bug’s eyes were darting now, and there was flop sweat, and the man himself concurred with the Viking’s observation. “I feel paralyzed. Shit, Caleb. What did you spray on this dope? I got to sit down.” He attempted to sit where he was, but Mikey and the Viking caught him.

“That’s right, ease me down boys,” Palmetto instructed.

Mikey was grunting under the burden of holding up his share of Palmetto Bug, and the Viking said, “Palmetto, we’re not trying to help you sit down. We got a set to play right now. What we’re attempting here is to help you inside.”

“Well, I think I’m having a heart attack!” Palmetto Bug cantankerously declared waving his arms in the air and causing Mikey to groan. The bluesman demanded, “You fellows let me sit a spell.

Let me down I say.”

“Ok. Easy, Mikey,” The Viking said.

“Yeah, don’t fuck up my suit,” Palmetto Bug said. “Johnny! Caleb! Don’t just stand there, help Mikey and the Viking ease me down now. I’ll be alright in a minute.”

Caleb and Johnny helped assist and soon Palmetto Bug was sitting on the concrete ground.

Once settled, he sighed with relief.

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”I think I threw something out in my back,“ Mikey groaned leaning against the brick wall. An L train made its distant rumbling presence known, its sound passing and fading more quickly than the freight trains that ran in the country down home.

The Viking said, “Palmetto, you getting your bearings? Your heart still beating too fast or whatever?”

“You go on in and start playing. I’ll be in there in a minute,” Palmetto Bug assured them.

The Viking said to Johnny and Caleb, “You guys sit out here with him for awhile till he gets it together, and please make sure he comes in soon.”

“I’m sitting right here, dickhead!” Palmetto reminded the Viking.

“Sorry Palmetto. Me and Mikey are going to go with the rest of the band and start the set.

Uh, are you coming in to join us pretty soon? I mean it would be nice if you would.”

“Of course. I’m a professional,” Palmetto said.

“Ok. Come on, Mikey.” Mikey had considerable trouble straightening his back, and he limped inside with the Viking.

Caleb broke the momentary quiet, saying, “Doggone it, Palmetto. I sure am sorry. I didn’t spray my plants with nothing. You feeling ok?”

“Yeah, is your heart racing?” Johnny asked.

“Aw, hell, I’m ok. Shit. Man, I don’t feel like going in there and-“ Palmetto Bug frowned and bit his lip. “Shit.” He sighed, and from inside the building came the sound of the band kicking into what almost sounded like a martial beat, calling the epic bluesman to lead the good fight. “Aw, that sounds so nice doesn’t it?” he said.

“Yes, sir, it does,” Caleb said.

“That’s your band,” Johnny added.

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For a minute or so no one said anything. Palmetto Bug seemed to study the moon. He finally said, “My real name is Frank Bennet.” He held out his hands for Johnny and Caleb to help him up.

He was heavy, and they all three struggled to get him standing. Once upright, Frank Bennet dusted himself off. He said, “I wanted to be a doctor growing up.” He obviously didn’t remember their train trip together when he told Caleb that he WAS a doctor, in addition to having told him he was also an undercover officer and a preacher. Frank, if that was his name, said, “Aw Fuck it. Well, tally ho!”

He led the way inside.

Caleb and Johnny followed the giant through the back of the club. He led them through the storage room and the empty dressing room. When they broke into the main room, Palmetto Bug sprung to the stage like a gazelle. Mikey, who was leaning funny like a crooked stick, Bonzo, Zone, Daddy Z and T.O. made way for the front man, and the audience yelled loudly as Palmetto ripped into the bands groove with harmonic blasts of his harp, the notes as perfect as an angel’s saw.

It was during the second set that Sandy arrived at the club. His hair was cut short, no more ponytail. When Johnny and Caleb came up to him, he bought them drinks. They sat at the bar.

Caleb asked, “So how are Joey and Stevie?” To be heard above the band, Caleb had to nearly shout.

Sandy grimaced. “Stevie’s doing okay. He’s kind of straightened his act out.” Sandy’s face took on some pain. He too had to shout to be heard. “Joey’s dead,” he yelled.

“What happened?” Caleb cried, stunned by the news.

Up on the stage, Palmetto Bug wailed, “When I think of how you used to be. Or when I think of someone killing you or you killing me.” The cigarette smoke swirled. Caleb always hated that 250

about bars, that and the noise. It’s why he’d stopped going to those places, the smoke and the noise.

What had happened to Joey?

Sandy hollered, “He hung himself.” Caleb noticed that Sandy was drunk. After he’d revealed Joey’s suicide, Sandy tossed back the rest of his drink and ordered another. “It was awful. His Mom found him,” he yelled, sounding like someone trying to communicate from deep within a wind tunnel.

Joey’s Mom, like all of their Moms, was in her late seventies.

Caleb asked himself if Sandy felt culpable for Joey’s death. Selling Joey all that coke over the decades and thereby contributing to his friend’s addiction might have been easy for Sandy to rationalize while Joey was alive, but how did Sandy feel about it now?

“I hadn’t seen Joey in nearly eight months,” Sandy yelled, as if he’d guessed what had been in Caleb’s mind. “Joey started getting his shit from Chief instead of me, and he just stopped coming by.

I called his house, but his Mom always said he was busy. Then he never got back to me.”

Caleb didn’t know what to say. He remembered the many times when Joey had told him how badly he suffered from depression, that it ran in his family. Caleb remembered once gently broaching the subject that his depression might very well be linked to his nearly nonstop cocaine use. Caleb had suggested the possibility by using his own relatively limited experience with the drug as an example, telling Joey that cocaine caused him to go through the worst depressions of his life. But Joey had assured Caleb that it wasn’t the blow. Because of Joey’s metabolism, the cocaine, he had insisted Caleb, actually calmed him down and made him be less depressed.

To Sandy, Caleb said, “He’s in a better place.”

Anger informed Sandy’s sadness. “That’s bullshit,” Sandy said, “Joey shouldn’t have done that. He should be here.” Sandy ordered another drink.

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Palmetto Bug spread his arms and sang, “And the only time I’m scared is when I look into your eyes. Of course it ain’t you but then that’s just life.” Sandy excused himself. Caleb figured he was going to do a blast in the bathroom.

After the second set, Caleb and Johnny had kindly assisted the Viking in packing his drums.

After they were done, another joint was broken out and lit. As the Viking took a toke, he called to Palmetto Bug, “Hey Palmetto, want a hit?” The singer joined them and took the joint, took two moderate hits, thanked them and tottered off with one of the women who had been at the lip of the stage to listen to him.

“He said his name is Frank Bennet,” Caleb said.

“Yep, that’s his real name alright,” the Viking said.

Johnny said, “He told us he really always wanted to be a doctor.”

The Viking reinforced what Caleb already knew as he took another draw from the joint. He said, “Usually he just tells people that he IS a doctor.”

The next day, Irene was scheduled to arrive sometime that afternoon. Caleb, who got up at his usual time, six, quietly played with Sally and Spike until Johnny got up, which was about ten. Soon thereafter Caleb called Tetras, and they arranged to meet at a restaurant in Evanston. Tetras didn’t allude to the money that he owed Caleb, and after the conversation, when Johnny asked about the general tone of their friend, Caleb said, “I don’t think he has anything for me now.”

When Caleb and Johnny arrived, Tetras was already there and sitting at a window booth.

He’d already ordered. When he saw them, Tetras got up. After greetings were exchanged, they slid into the red leather upholstery of the oversized booth and studied their gigantic menus. Their waitress 252

was a stunning dark woman. Johnny ordered cabbage soup. Caleb ordered pancakes. Tetras unabashedly flirted with the woman until she left their table, and then he told Caleb of Tweety’s treachery, proclaiming, “Some bitches can’t stand to see a brother get ahead.” He also said that while he had suspected his neighbors of being the culprits who had broken into his house and ripped off the weed Caleb had fronted him, now he figured it was his nephew who had stolen the stash.

“And you know how he did it?” Tetras asked in a conspiratorial tone, forgetting that he had told them both his implausible story. Caleb and Johnny were silent, and Tetras continued. He said, “He got a putty knife, and removed the side window to get in!” From their booth, they could look out and see the families coming in and going out.

“Criminny!” Caleb exclaimed. Johnny didn’t say anything. “That’s fucked up.”

“Dude,” Tetras said as if it were his weed that had disappeared. “I nearly had your money and was about to start making profit.” At that point, their waitress appeared with their food. After setting their plates in front of them and asking if they needed anything else, she left, and Tetras gawked at her ass. He said, “She’s got an ass like this Croatian, Moslem girl I fucked two weeks ago.” The restaurant was so busy that staff and diners were constantly brushing past their table.

“Good grief,” Caleb said.

Johnny said, “Ain’t that something.”

“Yeah, but like I was saying before, I’m at first thinking that it’s the crazy fuckers next door who did it, but then my guy tells me that my nephew has been selling the same bud that I had got from you and that had been ripped off. And he sure knew about it cause he was always over here, and then after that happened, he kind of cooled off. I didn’t think nothing of it at the time, but then I got to thinking about it like you have to ask yourself about everybody who could have done it. And I didn’t think he’d do it. But when my cat told me what he told me, I had to rethink things.” The 253

lighting and contained activity made the interior of the restaurant seem like the churning insides of an illuminated washing machine.

“He’s got a criminal mind,” Caleb said.

“Indeed,” Tetras concurred. From somewhere in the throng of people there was the crash of a tray being dropped.

Tetras didn’t follow this observation regarding his nephew with a plan addressing what he intended to do about paying Caleb but concentrated on eating instead. That is until Johnny said, “What did you come here in?”

Then Tetras began to reveal his plan. “I drove here in the van, but dig this. A dude that owed me ten grand gave me his classic caddy. I’m telling you what, this car has got papers.” A waiter called to a party of four that he had their table ready, and as they pushed through, one of them stumbled and fell in front of Caleb’s booth. The fallen person nearly caused three other people to fall.

Caleb said, “What kind of papers?”

“This motherfucking car at one time belonged to President Eisenhower’s Secretary,” Tetras declared. Johnny and Caleb both paused eating their breakfasts to look at him.

“Eisenhower’s secretary?” Johnny said skeptically. A child, separated from his parents, squalled loudly.

Caleb said above the din, “Didn’t he have an affair with his secretary?”

With a note of sarcasm, Johnny brayed, “Yeah, don’t you remember Eisenhower getting caught with his secretary in the back seat of her car. There was a huge scandal and they wanted to impeach him. I always wondered whatever happened to the infamous presidential fuckmobile caddy.” Their waitress swept by their table automatically freshening Johnny’s coffee.

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Tetras said to Caleb, “Actually, I was wondering if you and me could work something out with the car.” An exasperated waiter called for whoever ordered the chicken biscuit and coffee to go to come forward.

“But you said you took the car for a ten thousand dollar debt. You owe me six thousand,” Caleb said. At the next booth over, a couple disputed their check with their waiter.

As the manager was brought to threaten the couple with the law if they didn’t pay up, Tetras tried to bring home the deal. He said, “Well I was thinking maybe you could pay me the difference.

And something else, dawg, you didn’t count the weight of them freezer bags. They’re nine grams each. All together they came to two ounces. So I owe you for twenty two ounces instead of twenty four.” Caleb felt a sinking sense of dismay as he heard the line of bullshit.

“Oh...okay. Twenty-two instead of twenty-four ounces. Fine. About the car, no thanks, Tetras. I don’t need a car, not even one with historical significance like being Eisenhower’s secretary’s caddy,” Caleb said. At the next booth, the couple loudly protested their bill as they unwillingly paid. Their faces were pursed as they left, walking past Caleb as a new group of diners were immediately ushered into the spot where the disgruntled customers had just been.

“Aw man, I was hoping you’d want the car.”

“Tetras, I don’t even like cars.”

“He doesn’t need a car,” Johnny said dismissively..

Tetras looked a bit troubled, and he said, “Bro’ I’ll have your money by the end of the week.

We’ll go to that strip club near Indiana. To celebrate, say Friday?”

“That sounds cool. And thanks for offering me the car, but I don’t want it.”

Tetras changed the subject. He said, “I saw your old girl Ann a few weeks ago. She was selling flowers on the side of the road. Man her hair was real short.”

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Suddenly, the surrounding commotion receded as if someone had turned the sound down and unsprung Caleb’s internal focus so that he was hardly there. Ann was never far from the surface of his thoughts, but this information upset him far more than learning Tetras had neither his money nor his herb. The mention of her opened feelings of terrible loss. Caleb managed to say, “That’s horrible.” He looked at the remainder of the pancakes he’d ordered, and he was no longer hungry.

He imagined Ann reduced to poverty, selling flowers for crack.

He imagined all sorts of sad nightmarish things as Tetras continued. He said, “You are so lucky that you got away from that girl. You know that, Caleb?” Caleb shrugged. Tetras said, “She was a freak though.” With Tetras’s harsh assessment of Ann, the roar of the voices in the restaurant again became painfully intrusive. The boisterous laughter of a group of police officers going to their table was like a personal affront. Caleb felt as if he were in a dreadfully overcrowded aquarium as he sat there and remembered the girl he loved.

“She was bipolar. And crack made everything worse. She was the greatest before she got so sick.” Caleb was always protecting her name, even now.

Johnny, who when he spoke of Ann, spoke ill, said, “That girl was a user. I couldn’t believe when I called your place and she’d done the message on the answering machine and not even mentioned that you lived there too. I just knew you were paying all the bills too.”

Caleb said, “She’d give me what she could.”

Tetras said, “Man, dude, she was using you. She used everyone she could. You, her boyfriend. She surely liked to fuck though. I remember me, her and her friend Misty were getting it on...” This was a story that both Caleb and Johnny had heard before. It was the story of Tetras having a three way with an Asian girl named Misty and Ann. It culminated in Ann holding Misty’s legs splayed while Tetras masterfully fucked the Asian until, suddenly breaking into tears, she tore 256

away from both Tetras and Ann. “And the bitch was running all hunched over holding her pussy and crying, ‘Ooh, ooh Tetras!’” This ribald tale was one of two involving Ann that Tetras routinely offered up whenever Caleb was around, the other involving Tetras fucking Ann until she suddenly started crying uncontrollably and suggested that she leave James, move out of Caleb’s apartment and run off with him.

Caleb doubted much of what Tetras had said, but he did know that he had given Ann powder cocaine on many occasions and had probably fucked her. She had mentioned that she’d messed around with him, but she’d been dismissive of his performance. Tetras said, “Yeah me and you was both getting that ass behind her boyfriend’s back.” From their spot several tables over, the police erupted in laughter as if they’d heard his and Tetras’s exchange.

“Yeah, Tetras, but I loved her.”

“Man, she didn’t love you. Or anybody. Not even herself,” Tetras said. Johnny waved to their waitress for their check, but she didn’t see him.

“I feel sorry for James. He was a nice guy,” Caleb mused.

Tetras said sardonically, “Oh yes, he was that.”

Tetras soon changed the subject to an Egyptian woman who was a lawyer in her late forties and was supposedly crazy about him. As he went on, Johnny continued to try to get the waitress’s attention. Johnny finally excused himself to get their check himself, and when he’d left the booth, Caleb said, “So, Tetras, you got any of my money?”

“Man, I’ll take care of you later in the week. When we go to the strip club. You know I won’t let you down.”

“Yeah, I know,” Caleb said.

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On the way back to Wrigleyville, Johnny said, “I wish Tetras would stop telling stories about the bitches he’s supposedly fucking. Shit.”

“I’ve got those stories about him fucking Ann burned into my brain by now. The same stories.

You’d really think he’d know not to tell me that kind of shit. I’ve told him that I love Ann I don’t know how many times.” Caleb sighed and added, “Oh well, he’s a national treasure.”

Johnny said, “If he keeps going like he is, somebody’s going to make him a buried treasure.”

By the time they got home, Johnny’s wife Irene was back from her trip. She was always happy to see Caleb, and after bussing Johnny, she gave Caleb a hug. “I was wonderin’ when your skinny ass was gonna get back up here,” she told him. Sally pushed her muzzle between her mistress and the guest.

Caleb said, “Irene, I miss the city.” She stepped back and looked at him. “You need a haircut,” she told him.

“Don’t you love my flowing lion mane?” Caleb asked.

Answering for his wife, Johnny said, “Hell no, what you think we’ve been telling you? Did you say flowing lion mane or stringy mop that’s been in the drain?” Caleb frowned at his hosts.

“I got to wave my freak flag high,” he told them.

To Irene, Johnny said, “Honey, when he got off the train he was dressed like...he was in overalls. Had his ‘freak flag’ hidden in a hat, and was carrying the Bible in plain view, so!”

“I bet he was cute, honey,” Irene said to Johnny.

“I had to go incognito,” Caleb said.

“Oh we’re just kidding you,” Irene said.

“Not really,” Johnny added.

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Despite having been on a sixteen hour flight, Irene cooked a down home type meal of chicken, dumplings and cornbread. While she was busy, Caleb and Johnny played a racing game on the Play Station 2, each of them with his own steering wheel, brake and gas pedal. Johnny placed within the top five every race. Caleb’s performance improved from regularly crashing into other cars to maneuvering through the pack to starting to place in the top ten. After seven games, Irene called them to dinner.

As they sat, Irene said, “Who won?”

She was serving them in the formal dining room. The walls were a buttery yellow, and the table was dark. Caleb spread the white linen napkin in his lap and ruefully said, “Johnny won.”

“Did you let him win?” Irene asked. The china and glasses were blue crystal.

“Why, yes. Yes, I did,” Caleb said.

“Thank you, Caleb,” Johnny said.

“You’re welcome,” Caleb said. To Irene, he said, “This tastes so good. Thank you so much.”

As Irene modestly protested, Johnny said, “Your dumplings are the best, honey. Thanks.” To Caleb, he said, “Isn’t she one in a million. I can’t believe how lucky a man I am.” Irene laughed in a self-deprecating manner, but Johnny continued, “Not only does she like my friends, she comes home after a two day trip and prepares home made chicken and dumplings!” He leaned over and kissed his wife.

Caleb chimed in, “She’s the best alright!” He held up his glass of water and said, “To Irene!”

Their glasses clinked. The blue of their glasses perfectly matched the powder blue gauze curtains against the wall.

Caleb ate ravenously, had seconds and mopped his plate with heavily buttered bread. As he devoured his food, Irene and Johnny told him about their God children, Sarah and Gabriel. They 259

were devoted to the kids, and Caleb knew them vicariously from his friends’ regular updates of what they’d been up to. It seems that Gabriel, now nine, and some of his friends had gotten in trouble for roughhousing on the playground during recess. In fact the young boys had gone so far as to claim play ground gang status by calling themselves The Winetka Wolves. Their teacher, the principal, the counselors and the boys’ parents met and talked about bullying, consequences, and acceptable alternatives.

Young Gabriel had been channeled into junior soccer. His fellows had been appropriately placed into various physical activities. A few of them had been referred for further counseling.

In other Godchild news, seven year old Sarah would be getting pierced ears, going to a concert and having a slumber party for her birthday. Johnny and Irene would be getting her an adorable little outfit. Johnny also bragged of Gabriel’s video game ability. “He can almost beat me racing,” he said. Furthermore, the proud Godparents had plans to attend a dance recital in which Sarah would be performing. She would be portraying a winged fairy. The family was currently vacationing in Ireland, taking a fourteen day ride through the Irish countryside, and they had sent pictures to Irene and Johnny. Irene showed Caleb the photos of overcast skies as well as the beautiful landscape of green hills and ruined castles. The vacation photos were spread on the table next to the tureen of dumplings. Gabriel and his sister had written that they wanted to spend every winter in Ireland. As he always did when he heard of these children’s fabulous lives, he thought of what it would be like to be them. Just imagining it made Caleb feel more hopeful about life.

Irene put away the photos and described the MacCormick ware she’d bought at a flea market during her last trip to visit her parents in upper Wisconsin. “I couldn’t take it with me, so I’m having it shipped. It should be getting here sometime this week,” she said. She showed Caleb pictures of the 260

lovely pieces of orange, yellow and lime enameled plates and pitchers. She got up from the table and brought in several pieces that she already had, creamy pastel plates that she sat on the table.

Irene tried to draw Caleb into talking about himself. Johnny’s brow furrowed. “Well,” Caleb said, and then sighed, “I don’t think that Tetras is going to pay me my money for one thing.”

Irene said, “Johnny told me that bogus story about someone breaking into his house. He’s such a jerk.” For some reason, since Caleb had met her, she had always behaved protectively toward him, taking his side whenever Johnny would start in on one of his faults, or in this case getting pissed at Tetras on his behalf.

“Well, he’s saying that he’s going to take care of me when we go to the strip club. I hope so.

So that’s going on.” Caleb wished he normal things to talk about, things like what his God children were up to or the MacCormick Ware he’d just ordered and was expecting.

Irene was indignant. “He knew exactly what he was doing I think. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know, Irene.” Caleb took a drink. He said, “I trusted him, so I have to give him the benefit of a doubt.” From their naps, Sally and Spike quietly entered the dining room and, sensing the easy mark in the new house guest, hovered around the legs of his chair.

“What if he doesn’t pay you back?”

Though Spike maintained her aloof demeanor, barely telegraphing her interest in Caleb’s food, Betty openly begged, looking mournfully at him and licking her lips. Proving himself to be no pushover, Caleb ignored the dog and replied to Irene’s question, saying, “Johnny told me I could borrow his gun, so I haven’t decided whether to shoot him in the right or the left knee, or whether I should just go all out and kill him. I mean, what do you do? The conventional wisdom says-go shoot. On the other hand, there is the school of dealers who recommend that you simply cut your losses and start anew. I don’t know.” Irene looked at Johnny.

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“He’s not really going to do that, dear,” Johnny said.

“I knew that,” Irene said. By now the dog’s drooling muzzle was inches from Caleb’s plate.

Irene slapped the table and said, “Betty, that’s enough. No!” The begging ceased, and the dog slunk to the living room.

Caleb said, ”Oh, Tetras saw Ann on the side of the road selling flowers.”

“How do you feel about that?” Irene asked.

“It makes me sad.” From somewhere deep inside the house, the furnace kicked on sending jets of warm air throughout the rooms. The sound was calming, like a sustained sigh behind the low rumble.

“I’m really glad that she’s not in your life anymore,” Irene said.

“Oh I don’t know. Before she got on crack, she was fine.” Johnny and Irene looked at each other. Caleb went on, telling them, “I’d have given anything if I’d known what to do besides leave.

She had so much going for her. It’s not her fault that she’s bipolar. If she’d just have not smoked crack. I’ll always feel like I abandoned her. Like it’s my fault. Like I let her down, you know.”

“Atta boy,” Johnny said.

Pushing away from the thought of Ann, Caleb asked Irene if she’d been anywhere interesting lately, and she told him of a recent trip she’d taken to Peru where she’d spent a week hiking through the jungles and floating down a river. As Irene described the deep green paths she had trekked, Spike tried to work its con on Caleb, purring and rubbing against the legs of his chair. As Caleb concentrated on what Irene was saying, he willed the mental picture of Ann selling flowers out of his mind. Irene described staying on a floating hotel that took her and the other tourists down the river.

She spoke of being able to reach out her window and pluck unheard of types of fruit from the boughs of passing trees.

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Then Irene asked, “How’s the teaching going? Think you’ll get a permanent position this upcoming year?” From Caleb’s left, Spike tentatively reached up with a paw and tapped his hip, trying to get his attention.

Caleb reached down and rubbed the crown of the purring kitty’s head. He said, “I really doubt it. I’m not a very good teacher. The kids kind of freak me out. No one is going to hire the likes of me.”

“Well why not?” Irene asked, and Johnny gave a short bitter laugh that showed not that he was amused but that he found the question to be a rich source of irony. The laugh was disagreeable to Spike, who blinked with alarm and then scurried away, no doubt in search of Betty.

Caleb said, “I have fourteen years full time experience and two or three years sub experience, and for what they’d have to pay me, they could hire two nice, new teachers.”

“Didn’t you tell one of your classes how to grow pot?” Johnny asked.

“Uh, well, they were seniors, and it was a Spanish class.”

“Oh well, it’s OK if they’re Seniors, and it’s Spanish class,” Johnny said.

By way of explanation, Caleb said, “The teacher had left the Spanish version of the Disney movie, El Dorado. The students didn’t like it, so they started asking me about the culture” “The culture?” Irene asked, mystified.

“He means the punk hippie stoner culture of unemployable losers I think,” Johnny offered.

“Yeah,” Caleb concurred. “So they asked if I wanted any pot, and I told them I didn’t need any, and that they should grow their own rather than buy it.” Here there were several beats of utter silence.

Irene’s mouth dropped. “No!” she said.

“I’m afraid so,” Caleb admitted.

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“And then he proceeded to tell them how to do it themselves,” Johnny told his wife.

“Is this true?” Irene said.

Their pleasant dinner conversation was starting to sound like a serious talk. “Fraid so,” he confessed. In response, Irene and Johnny looked searchingly at Caleb, who put down his fork to address them and answer all the unspoken questions behind their plaintive stares. He said, “I believe I might be suffering from Aspirger’s syndrom.”

Johnny said, “You’re really lucky that none of those kids Dads found out and kicked your ass.” In answer, Caleb nodded and his eyes grew big as he considered that awful possibility. The furnace was doing its job too well by now, either that or Caleb was feeling hot guilt making his internal thermostat go up uncomfortably.

Irene asked, “So did the administrators call you on the carpet?”

“No. They started calling me constantly to come back and sub. To the point that they were driving me crazy. It was the other school that called me on the carpet,” Caleb said, immediately wishing that he hadn’t brought that up. If only he had more pleasant, positive stories he could trot out at gatherings. But he didn’t.

“What happened?” Irene cautiously asked.

So Caleb trotted out that particular woeful tale, at the conclusion of which Irene asked him what they’d thought he’d been doing in the girls’ bathroom.

“Trying to make pee-pee friends I guess,” Caleb surmised, adding, “So that awful stuff came out of left field, but what I’d worried about at the high school; well, it turned out to work in my favor.

Whenever I go there, I’m treated so well by the kids. They offer to get my lunch tray from the cafeteria. Offer to buy me pops. It’s great.”

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“So see, Irene, it does pay to corrupt the youth after all,” Johnny explained spreading his arms expansively. To Caleb, he said, “At least it was girls who were complaining.”

“Yeah. Didn’t think of that.”

The house shifted, making several popping sounds. Johnny said, “Didn’t you say you were getting called a lot from the Catholic School, Saint Bernadette’s?”

“Not so much anymore. They called late one morning after I’d already gotten high-“ ”By ‘late’ he means eight-fifteen in the morning, honey,” Johnny pointed out causing Irene to put her hand over Johnny’s mouth.

“Yeah,” Caleb continued, “and I think the principal and secretary knew I was stoned when I went in. Anyway, that was crazy because we started the school day by going to mass, and they had Tammy Glass portraying Mother Teresa for the benefit of the little kids. She looked like a witch, but all I could think of was that I had seen a picture of her without her shirt on somewhere.”

To lighten the tone and spare poor Tammy Glass, who wasn’t there to defend herself, further aspersions upon her modesty, Irene said, “Have you heard about that new movie, Restless Angels with Tom Cruise, and, who was that girl, Johnny?” She removed her hand from his lips.

“Opie’s daughter. I forget her name,” Johnny offered.

“It was about Tom Cruise being a soldier scientist and that girl being a journalist who’s also British royalty. We saw it. Did you like it, honey?”

“It was okay. Fightin’ and lovin’. Lots of big explosions, gratuitous semi-nudity and special effects, and Tom Cruise...well, what can you say that hasn’t already been said about him.”

“And actually, near the end, I started to cry,” Irene said.

Johnny leaned over and affectionately squeezed Irene’s shoulder. “Yeah, but you’re a sissy girl who cries at the drop of a hat,” he told her, and to Caleb he said, “Ever since she stopped 265

drinking, she’s been an emotional roller coaster.” Relieved that he was no longer talking about his own sorry life, Caleb marveled at Johnny and Irene’s dynamic, how she balanced and sweetened his edge. He was proud of his friend for having made a good life for himself. Caleb was again feeling at ease and getting a little sleepy sitting at the table with them.

Irene said, “Have you seen any good movies or rented any interesting dvd’s lately?”

“Well, I bought a copy of Bum Fights III to complete my collection,” Caleb said, and Johnny groaned.

Irene asked, “Is that some foreign film?”

“No. It’s like a documentary,” Caleb explained.

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about, well, it’s these bums having fights, and some crackheads, prostitutes, crazy people, homeless people...” Caleb could see that Irene wasn’t buying Bumfights.

“Homeless people having...fights?”

“Yeah. That and getting high. It’s pretty interesting,” Caleb said feeling increasingly self conscious. “I think those guys who made those films ought to go into crack houses and interview the people there. I’d like to see that.” From the nonplused expressions of his hosts, Caleb decided to drop the subject of Bumfights and crack house documentaries to try and remember a wholesome movie that he’d seen recently with whom his friends could relate. The only one that he could think of was The Sound of Music, the last twenty minutes of which he’d had to show for a class he’d subbed.

Before he could wax poetic about the joys of seeing the Von Trappe family singing the ‘Goodby, Farewell, Aufwedersein’ song and their subsequent daring escape from the nazis, the light of recognition flashed across Irene’s face. “Wait a minute. I’ve heard of Bum Fights on the news.

They don’t just document bums fighting. They pay these poor people to hurt each other. The report 266

said that these guys were exploiting the people they were filming. It’s pretty morally reprehensible isn’t it?”

“I believe it is,” Caleb conceded.

“Caleb!” Irene said shaking her head.

Not feeling up to defending the aesthetic value of Bumfights, Caleb said, “What’s your book club reading these days?” Irene’s reading club met twice a month to have a potluck and discuss whatever books they all agreed to read.

Irene said, “Oh, we’re reading that new book by that guy, Brent Chasweld, it’s called Ruby Steam Creek. It’s really good, Caleb, it’s about these three generations who immigrate from Scotland and settle in a little town in West Virginia. It starts with the grand matriarch when she’s a little girl coming to America as a stowaway on a ship. She falls in love with a Duke’s son who discovers her hiding in a storage room, and they have a fling. The boat arrives at New York, and the Duke’s son is taken away. The girl’s on her own and then discovers she’s pregnant. Then it shifts to a section that’s told from her son’s eyes, and that’s about where we’re at now. It’s one of those dramady type things where it’s funny yet poignant in places. They had the author on Oprah. He’s really interesting.”

After telling him about that, she hazarded, “What have you been reading lately?”

Caleb felt as if he were on safe ground. “I brought The Bible and some Good Old Days magazines for the trip. I was reading about Moses, but I ended up looking out of the window most of the way,” he said. Caleb relaxed; after all, these were his friends that he was talking to. He could trust them not to pass judgement on him. “Good Old Days,” he continued, “ is a really fascinating magazine. I read a story about a kid and his family going cross-country in their Model T. That was good. The stories really make you want to go back to the days of long ago. You guys can read the ones I brought.”

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Without giving it much thought and giving in to his impulse to be open and answer his friends completely and honestly, Caleb continued telling them of his recent literary findings. “I guess the best thing I’ve read recently,” he innocently began, “was the newest novella by Dennis Cooper, it’s called ‘Feltching My Dead Father’.” Disregarding the sight of Johnny burying his face in his hands, Caleb went on to tell them the plot. “It’s about a teenage meth addict who’s obsessed with gay porno pictures that come to life and start murdering these other gay teenage crack whores It ends up where the main character falls in love with these dirty pictures he finds of his dear old Dad, and when the pictures comes to life, they join forces to find the hero’s brother, whom they rape and kill. Then all the other gay porno zombies come to life and eviscerate the hero! It’s like a hybrid between good, grinder-core and serious gay literature. And it’s a short read to boot.” Immediately after having given them the novella’s synopsis, Caleb realized that, in honestly sharing his recent reading interests, he’d unintentionally done it yet again. He wished he’d stuck to discussing Moses.

“Geez,” Johnny said visably shuddering.

Irene focused on the dumplings on her plate. Then she said, not unkindly, “Why do you read such horrible stuff, Caleb?”

“Oh, ‘cause it’s written really well. It’s like you’re really drawn in and engaged by his scenes of depravity, rendered in...like, poetic language.” There was a silence occasioned by curious stares of his hosts. Caleb, feeling now that perhaps he’d further alienated Irene, blundered forward. “Say, have you had a chance to listen to the cd that I burned for you?” he asked a shade too vivaciously.

“Is it the new Phil Collins?” she asked hopefully.

“Irene, now what do you think?” Johnny said as Caleb got up from his chair.

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“It isn’t Phil Collins. It’s a compilation of outsider music,” he said from the front hall closet where his mesh book bag was. He got out the cd, which was in a plastic baggie, and he presented it to them. “Want to hear it?” he asked. Surely they’d appreciate this.

“Why sure,” Irene said.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Johnny said. To Caleb, he said, “You don’t have to put it on right now.”

“I don’t mind. Listen to this,” Caleb replied, and before they could stop him, he’d gone to the kitchen where they had a cd player. Within seconds there came the tortured bleatings of the Swedish Elvis phonetically trying to sing Jailhouse Rock, which he pronounced as Yalehouse Yok. Caleb came back in and began to clear the table of dirty dishes. It was the least he could do, he figured.

Irene got up and said, “Caleb you’re a guest. I’ll do that. Please sit down and relax.”

“Yeah but before you do, can the music for awhile,” Johnny said.

Caleb reluctantly turned it off, but his countenance brightened as he got an idea. He said, “Would either of you like a brownie for desert?”

Irene said, “That sounds delicious!”

Johnny said, “Irene, you won’t be wanting one of those.”

He told her that, but Johnny did not take his own advice, and for Caleb’s part, he wanted two brownies. Irene poured her husband and Caleb both glasses of nonfat milk, and they went to the basement where Sally and Spike were sleeping in front of the television, which was on the weather channel. There they ate the heavily dosed brownies and drank the milk.

Minutes passes. Twenty minutes. Caleb started to feel a subtle tightening of his skull.

Caleb said, “Hey, want to race?”

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Johnny squinted as if he were looking into the sun, and he bit his lower lip. When he answered he seemed slightly out of breath. “Not now,” he muttered.

Irene came downstairs and looked deeply into Johnny’s eyes. She said, “You OK, honey?”

“Yes.” “What are you watching?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” Johnny said. His voice had taken on an odd, emotionless tone.

“It’s the weather channel,“ Caleb said as he handed Irene the changer. “I think Johnny’s afraid I’ll beat him racing now,” he said.

“Is that true honey?” Irene said.

“Heh heh,” Caleb said.

Irene turned on The Bachelor. Johnny lay on the sofa and seemed to sink into the upholstery.

Irene cheerfully said, “Johnny, I know you’re not very fond of this show, but is it OK if I watch this now, guys? If you don’t want to watch it, I’ll go upstairs.” To Caleb she said, “Do you ever watch The Bachelor?”

“Not usually. But right now it interests me strangely,” Caleb answered, settling back into an overstuffed leather chair.

“Johnny, do you mind?”

“Mmmmm?”

“Do you mind if I watch The Bachelor in here with you guys?” Irene asked, and Johnny’s lack of response she interpreted as meaning he didn’t mind. So she turned on the show. To Caleb she said, “I’m hoping that this guy, the bachelor, Windsor, I’m hoping he picks that brunette on the right.

Her name is Sigorney” 270

The girls reminded Caleb of antebellum debutantes, and he said, “Gosh, they’re all so pretty.

And Sigorney, that’s a pretty name.”

Johnny sighed nearly inaudibly.

Irene pointed at the screen. “See that gorgeous blonde Latin looking girl. That’s Gloria.

She’s a real hoot!”

“How so?”

“She’s totally manipulative and back stabbing. Like last week, she was telling Lindsey that Darla had rolled her eyes when she’d been telling Windsor about her puppy, and it wasn’t true. But Gloria got really upset when Windsor choose Yvonne from all the others to go with him on a balloon ride over Martha’s Vinyards.” To Johnny, Irene said, “Honey, are you still hoping that Yvonne gets her ass kicked by Holly?” To Caleb she said, “Holly is the brown haired girl on the left, second from left.”

Johnny replied by softly gurgling Although in the past while he had channel surfed Caleb had sped by The Bachelor, now that he was watching it, he found it to be darned interesting. The beauties glided here and there like animated porcelain dolls, and they all fawned over Windsor, who looked like one of the guys on the covers of his Mom’s bodice ripping romance novels. When he wasn’t around, the girls were mooning about what a great guy he was and how much they really liked him. The place they were staying was a fancy mansion.

With Irene, Caleb took a dislike to the bitch called Gloria, in whom Windsor took an inordinate interest. When Windsor chose her for the slow dance on the Moonlight Pavillion date, Caleb shook his fist at the screen and wholeheartedly agreed with Irene’s comment about how 271

common it was for someone to take an interest int the absolutely WORST person he or she could choose.

“It’s always like that,” he concurred slapping his thigh, and never had there been uttered a greater truth. It seems that before the Moonlight Dance on the veranda, when the girls were getting ready, this Gloria was caught on camera actually going through a contestant named Joolie’s purse and reading a private letter that Windsor had sent to this girl, who was a black haired, sweet, down home gal from central Iowa. Irene and Caleb liked Joolie, who confronted the wicked Gloria. The arch villainess brazenly denied it until shown a tape that had caught her in the act. Then she just laughed dismissivly. It drove Caleb crazy, so that when later, well after the galling Moonlight Dance, Joolie came up to Gloria and shoved her in the pool, he and Irene both leapt out of their chairs and high fived.

Johnny regarded them with a glassy stare but kept his own counsel.

The next show was The Apprentice. Again, a show that Caleb would never have watched on his own was now revealed to him to be a fascinating psychological study of the business mind.

Among this group of contestants, the one that emerged as the villain was a simpering Uriah Heep type named Hyde Swanson. Whenever Mr. Trump was in the scene, Swanson became a raging and obsequious sycophant. Otherwise he was by turns contentious, whining, backbiting, incompetent and lazy. Ironically, he was his team’s leader.

Their task was to design a campaign for a soft drink. They were to create everything: the shape of the container; the labeling; the catch phrase and all marketing strategies. Hyde Swanson started screwing things up from the start, pushing aside everyone else’s ideas and making them do his ill-conceived bidding on his own stupid campaign. He wanted to pursue his terrible idea of 272

carbonating coffee and calling it Coffee-Cola or Java-Coke or Extreme Caffeine Pop Fix or something. He proposed marketing it in gyms as an energy drink.

As this debacle was progressing, and this Hyde Swanson was inspiring Caleb and Irene to make catty remarks, Johnny’s cell phone went off. Although it rang and rang, he uncharacteristically chose to ignore it until Irene called his attention to it repeatedly, saying, “Johnny...Johnny answer your phone. It might be Don about your next job. Johnny, answer your phone. Answer your phone.”

Finally, Johnny jerkily reached into his pocket and took out his tiny phone. When he clicked it on, he did not say hello, but looked at it suspiciously.

Evidently someone else said something because Johnny dropped the phone as if it had exploded in his hand. He picked it up. Said, “Who is this? Mmmmm? Uh, what? When is that?

Ah? No, I’,m just tired. Teeth floating in my head like...wiggly feeling, Don.” Johnny gently tugged on several of his teeth to make sure they were not loose. Then he said, “What? What? What? Huh? What? What? What?...You better call me tomorrow. Call me tomorrow OK?” Johnny dropped the phone on the floor. “Don. Gone,” he said by way of explanation as he closed his eyes. “Whoa,” he murmured and opened them in alarm as if he’d just saved himself from falling down a mine shaft.

“Uh, honey,” Irene said, “I think it’s time for bed.” To Caleb she said, “You know how to work the remotes don’t you?”

“Why yes I do,” Caleb said. Irene pulled Johnny out of the sofa, and his hosts bid him goodnight. Once they’d left, Caleb entertained himself by putting Grand Theft Auto 3 in the PS2 and drove along the virtual Floridian beachfront until he dosed off and steered his car off the road, over several pedestrians in a crowd, down the lemony beige shaded beach and into the azure ocean, where his character drowned as he peacefully slept.

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Friday came. Caleb was to go back to southern Illinois the next day. It was bitterly cold, the coldest day of the year in Chicago. This was the day that Tetras was to pay Caleb for the twenty two ounces of bud. Bud that should have doubled Tetras’ investment, had he not been ripped off as he’d said. But nevertheless, as Tetras had a grow room of his own that Caleb himself had helped put up, he figured his pal had the means of production and would thereby be able to make up what had been supposedly ripped off. That is if Tetras had any intention of making good on what he owed Caleb.

This was also the day that Tetras and Caleb were to visit The Club O near the Indiana Illinois border. It was a strip club. The last time Caleb had visited Chicago, he and Tetras had made the trip to Club O where Caleb had bought several lap dances from a beautiful black woman named Regine who had given him a Club O lighter and allowed him to give her several hundred dollars. The next day after that adventure, Caleb had told Johnny and Irene that Regine was his new girlfriend and the lighter a token of her love. Johnny , being married, didn’t join Caleb and Tetras on these soirees.

This time he used the excuse of having a project come due.

The plan was that Tetras would have Caleb’s money, which he’d leave at Johnny’s, and then they’d go to the Club O in the big purple van. As Caleb expected, when he asked Tetras over the phone if he had his money, Tetras was evasive, saying, “I’ll tell you what’s going on when I pick you up at three.” Caleb watched the lovely falling snow dusting the Victorian brownstones and the trees on the street, and he knew that Tetras didn’t have his money.

That’s exactly what Irene said when she came home early from work, and Caleb could do nothing but admit that she was right.

Around six, the purple van came to the curb and honked. Caleb got in, and Tetras handed him a long blunt for himself. As the gigantic shell of a vehicle navigated through the soft snow toward 274

Interstate 94, they lit their blunts and smoked. The snowflakes hit the windshield and blurred the distant tall buildings to their south so that the city skyline looked like castles of angel food cake rather than earthly buildings. And Tetras started spinning his unnecessary web of bullshit.

The simplest way to put it is that times were hard and Tetras, despite his good intentions, had not been able to come up with the fifty six hundred that he owed Caleb, but to say it simply like that would be to miss Tetras’ turn as raconteur. He reiterated the tale of the cunning thieves, his nephew perhaps but he didn’t know, and how they REMOVED THE WINDOW BY STRIPPING THE CALKING AROUND IT. Then, in an attempt to soften Caleb, he praised his work as a grower, telling him of one middle aged smoker having had an anxiety attack and having to be taken to the hospital before having finished half a joint. He told several other colorful anecdotes involving people trying to smoke the bud in blunts and getting paralyzed.

“Why try to smoke fucking cigars of it?” Caleb asked.

“I smoke blunts,” Tetras said.

“But you’re the fucking dope man. You usually got a whole pond of weed around, so your tolerance is higher than those folks you’re talking about,” Caleb said. He wondered if any of that had really happened with people who had smoked his herb.

By then they were on the highway. It was night and visibility wasn’t very good, but the heater was blowing out warmth. An old Ludacris tape was in Tetras’ sound deck. The city lights were far behind them, and there was just car lights and signs in the snow. Caleb had put out his joint and settled back to listen to his old pal lie to him.

Tetras told Caleb that he’d had to give his pals four ounces in all (four ounces! $1600 to $2000 worth of weed!!) for driving to southern Illinois with him. He mentioned that a few buds were 275

afflicted with bud rot, which was believable as Caleb had discovered tainted buds here and there in the crop, mostly in one particular plant.

They passed through a toll booth, and when Tetras rolled down his window to throw the coins in the bin, an arctic blast filled the cab until they were past and the window was back up. The outer edge of the windows were icing up.

Then Tetras and Caleb discussed what had drawn them to be pals, growing techniques. Tetras tried to explain how the hydroponic system worked. Caleb had read himself how this system worked, but he was confused about the water table and water pump. They discussed organic fertilizing teas.

The merits of worm castings and bat guano. Caleb held forth on the drawbacks of super phosphates, and Tetras gave testimony to cutting the water with grape juice, which led Caleb to express his preference for apple juice, urine and tea. They traded secrets for loosening micronutrients and trade names of esoteric growing hormones which would increase yield. And Caleb regretted the fact that his pal was ripping him off. Miles went by.

They passed The Club O and accidently ventured into Indiana. On their way back Tetras was describing a method of increasing potency and yield by supercropping. Caleb expressed his unwillingness to use this technique as it involved breaking the plants woody interior repeatedly and hurting the plants’ immunity system. And it was about then, while they were driving back toward The Club O when Tetras said, “Oh fuck. Something’s wrong with my steering.”

They took the first exit they reached, and they managed to park the van in a Dominicks supermarket parking lot. Tetras called several of his friends, but they were all unavailable. The interior of the van was getting cold. They went into the Dominicks.

The Dominicks was a typical super store. It was brightly lit and bedecked with display after display of food and other super market products like radiantly packaged boxes of detergent. Tetras 276

called his car service, and they told him that he would have to pay them initially, and then they would reimburse them. Then Tetras called a towing agency. Then a cab service. All the time never telling any of these businesses to come get the van or pick them up. Finally at Caleb’s urging, Tetras called a cab. While they waited, Caleb bought a ham sandwich and a Yoo Hoo from the deli.

As Caleb was munching his sandwich, it occurred to him that this was a fucked up way to spend his last night in Chicago, and that he and his treacherous buddy were not high rollers but rather a couple of sad fools stranded on the coldest night of the year in a Goddamn fucking Dominicks.

The snow and sleet mixture buffeted the huge glass wall at the front of the supermarket. Tetras was flirting with a girl, ostensibly helping her find some decent produce. And while Tetras was doing this and Caleb was sipping his Yoo Hoo, he saw their cab pull up. It only sat there for about ten seconds.

Before he could even call Tetras or run outside to flag it down, the taxi drove off. By then it was after eight, and when Tetras returned from hunting the perfect head of lettuce, Caleb said, “Call the cab back. Ours just came and went.”

It took over an hour for the cab to get back there. Caleb bought a slice of pie and a National Enquirer. As they waited, he read stories about The Olsen twins, Michael Dougles and Catherine Zeta Jones. Every time he’d finish an article, he would try to get Tetras to read it, and Tetras would beg off, saying, “No, no, no. I don’t give a fuck about that shit.”

When the cab finally arrived, it was nearly nine thirty, and Caleb was well discouraged with how things had turned out. “Let’s just go back to the city and blow off The Club O. I don’t have that much money anyway,” he said. Tetras seemed incredulous that Caleb didn’t want to give his last hundred and twenty bucks to a stripper. He didn’t feel any better when the cab driver didn’t know how to get to either Oak Park or Evanston. It was extremely cold in the cab, and Caleb couldn’t even 277

see out of his side window. As he sat there and looked at the ice encrusted pane, Tetras said, “Damn, I left this girl’s phone number in my van.

“Man, it was 778 77... something. Shit. Was it 98?”

To himself, Caleb thought over and over, ‘...at least I’m not in jail. At least I’m not in jail...’

Caleb ended up having to give Tetras thirty bucks so he’d be able to get back home.

The next afternoon, Johnny was finished with his project, and he drove Caleb back to Union Station. It was a sunny day, and as they entered the downtown area they drove through canyons of shadow and occasional shafts of light. Right before Johnny let him off, Caleb ate another brownie.

As he got out of the car and gathered his stuff, Johnny gave him a hug. Caleb left his pal and went in the immense old building, where the train to take him home was waiting. This time he didn’t bother about trying to look rural and conservative. When it was time, he boarded the Illini and settled in for his return to the country.

Shortly after the train left the underground station, wending its way through the grids, the underpinnings and the concrete and steel maze, Caleb felt the brownie kick in. The train emerged into the snowing sunlit afternoon. Caleb watched the tall buildings recede, their lights like the dim, glittering colored sparkles in shadowy gray milk.

Tetras was never going to pay him. But so what? There was nothing to be done. Nothing but watch the Amtrak roll through the suburbs and back into the now snow covered country. Caleb would be home soon. He lost his vision in the white horizons whizzing by, occasionally disrupted by flashes of evergreen tree stands. Caleb contemplated the huge old pines and thought about how they stayed green all year long. He envisioned alpine lodges and men and women capering about in leiderhosen.

And he thought about the dark green needles and how they stayed green.

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INDISTINCT FORMS IN SEPIA DUST

Caleb’s second spring back in southern Illinois had been rainy. The moisture had fostered a fungus that had killed Caleb’s first set of pot plants. Raccoons dug up his second set that he put out, and another fungus got the third set. It wasn’t until mid-June that Caleb got a crop out at all. In July, Caleb had noticed powdery mildew and had started with a baking soda water solution applied to the leaves. Then he went to Neem oil and finally with a copper bordeaux powder, which did the trick in killing all vestiges of the disease.

But during his doctoring trips, someone had seen him. In September, he went to his plants to give them a treat, carbonated water. They were just starting to look good, but when Caleb got to them, they were gone. Caleb’s perfect spot was gone forever.

His old high school had been under massive reconstruction for two years before he’d come back to southern Illinois. The old dark brick facade had received a face lift and was now blue white granite, chrome and glass. The old football field was part classes and part parking lot. The new football field was about a mile away from the school, just past the Chase City Park.

The inside was quite different than what Caleb remembered from when he was a student.

What was once the main lobby was now the combined front entrance, cafeteria and main office. The western wing had been gutted and now had two by fours studding the skeletal walls. Sheets of polyethylene hung from the ceiling to the floor every so often.

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In the main building, the same walls of dark green lockers that had been there when Caleb had been a student were still being used. They’d been brand new when Caleb had been there.

Though he now had longer hair, on the whole, Caleb looked a little more formal when he went to work here as opposed to how he commonly looked as a teacher in Chicago. Instead of wearing jeans, work boots, tee shirts and his beloved motorcycle jacket to his job, Caleb now wore shirts with collars, dark blue chinos and regular shoes. When it got cold, he wore a London Fog trench coat. It made his Mom happy. Caleb didn’t care.

He behaved differently in the classroom also. No longer did Caleb request silence with a mannerly but prosaic, “Please shut the fuck up.” Gone were the playful head slaps, the good natured throttling of or kicking at the laughing, angry, wild ones. Now, if the students from southern Illinois did their work and listened, fine; if they didn’t, Caleb didn’t take it personally. In fact, he couldn’t have cared less. He told the kids that if they didn’t want to do their work while he was there, just don’t do anything to aggravate him or cause another teacher or administrator to come in the room.

Generally, the kids complied, did the work their teacher had left for them or were quiet enough about not doing it. If they wanted to go somewhere else, Caleb was a quick man with a pass. Only if a teacher specifically wrote instructions NOT to let students out of class would Caleb turn down student requests to go to another room or go to the bathroom or just go. Even then, if the student had a reason/excuse/lie, gullible old Caleb would give in. He figured that if the schools objected, they’d stop calling him; on the contrary, they called him more often.

Caleb refused to go to the Marion Middle School. The places at which he deigned to sub were his old high school, the Chase Middle School, the Catholic School which went from kindergarten to eighth grade, the Marion High School and a little country elementary school in a town called Breeze.

By Caleb’s third year back, one school or another would call him almost every day. They got on his 280

nerves actually, and when they wouldn’t call, he’d be glad. Call it underemployment if you will, Caleb thought of days he wasn’t called as mini-vacations.

As he usually did, Caleb got up at six and sat around waiting for a call. While waiting for Good Morning America to come on, he watched a program on the religious station. It was a man taking questions about the Bible and answering them using the Bible. He started talking about politics, and Caleb turned him off. Despite the man’s saying that he was only concerned with God and the Bible, he liked to get in his right wing politics. That’s when Caleb would get pissed and t urn him off. At seven, Caleb turned on GMA. He liked Diane, Charlie, Robin and Tony. Caleb said a little prayer that no one would call that day.

His prayers were answered! At around eight, his Mom left for work. She was now eighty-one years old. Since Caleb hadn’t been called to work, this would be the day that he took his Aunt Vee Vee to re-take her driving test. Caleb petted Buddy as he waved bye to his Mom. By this time, she had become senior-vice-president of the bank. She honked goodbye to Caleb and his pal, and she drove away down the drive-way.

Caleb said to Buddy, “You hungy old boy?” Buddy looked up and yawned as if to nod and say, ‘Yes, my friend, I am indeed hungry.’ Caleb went inside and made Buddy a microwaved cup of oatmeal, an egg, some of last nights rice and broccoli and a strip of bacon. Into this he stirred in a bit of soy milk.

He set it for two minutes.

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“Here you go, Buddy,” Caleb said to the black dog as he spooned out the mush into a plate that Buddy used for his daily breakfast. The dog discreetly waited until Caleb went inside before he started to eat.

While Buddy ate, Caleb ate some oatmeal. By then it was about eight-thirty, so he called his Aunt Vee Vee. She answered on the first ring. Caleb said, “Hey Aunt Vee Vee, it’s is me. Are you ready?”

“Yes I am. I was just now putting on my shoes.”

“I’ll be over in a minute,” Caleb said.

Before Caleb went, he smoked a bowl on the front porch. Sitting on the doorstep, Caleb blew the smoke toward the flowers around the bird bath. Although the perennials were pretty much spent, the petunias still thrived in the ripening early September sun. About four hundred yards away, right past the pond on the road, a car went past, and whoever was in it must have been one of Caleb’s many students, this one either graduated and unemployed or simply playing hooky, for there came from the distant car a faraway voice that cried, “Hello, Mr. Jones,” and Caleb could see an arm shoot out of the window in what appeared to be a wave, although it was entirely possible that the waver was actually calling his attention to give him the finger. Nevertheless, Caleb waved. The car disappeared behind a line of trees at the road. Caleb smoked another bowl, and then he was ready.

His Aunt Vee Vee was eighty-five years old now and had twice failed her driving test. When Caleb got to her house, she was already waiting outside for him. “I’m so nervous. Let me drive over there so’s I can practice,” she told him. “I sure hope I don’t get the same BITCH I got last time.”

“You probably won’t,” Caleb said as he opened the door for his aunt.

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As they drove in the general direction of the Department of Motor Transportation, his Aunt Vee Vee looked angry, gritted her dentures and kept talking about the lady who had given her the test.

She informed Caleb, “I despise her!� as they came to the stop light at the interstate highway.

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Aunt Vee Vee braked abruptly, which caused Caleb to be thrown forward. As he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, his forehead bounced off the dash. “Oops,” Aunt Vee Vee said.

“You might not want to do that when you’re taking your test,” Caleb said.

“I’m so nervous. Look at my hand shake, “ she said holding up her age palsied hand for him to see. The light turned green, and she turned onto the highway.

“Don’t worry. You’ll do fine, “ Caleb said. “I know you’ve been driving since how long? You were six when you started, right?”

“No, it was since I was twelve. I had to take my Mom to the greenhouse. She couldn’t see, so she had me drive. She told me what to do, and I went there with her and did alright.” Vee Vee was concentrating on talking, and the car gently began to veer into the left lane. Caleb gently steadied the wheel.

“See there. You’ll do fine,” he assured her perhaps too optimistically. “Just be extra careful and kind of slow,” he advised.

“My inner ear is going off. Maybe I should tell whoever gives me the test that my inner ear has been ringing.”

Caleb said, “I wouldn’t do that. It’s not like they’re going, to let you slide cause your equilibrium’s off.”

Aunt Vee Vee frowned and said, “You know how to get there?”

A pause. Caleb said, “Not really.”

“Well, I don’t remember, and I swear, I’m so nervous. I sure hope I don’t get that same...minx!” The wrinkles in Aunt Vee Vee’s face deepened and her expression

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hardened with the stress of driving and the dread of the upcoming test, possibly given to her by the same lady who had previously flunked her.

“How long you been driving?”

“Since I was twelve.”

“And you ain’t never had an accident, have you?”

“Um.” “Never mind. There’s never been a truer driver than you, Aunt Vee Vee. You just relax. It don’t matter who you get for that test. You’re gonna pass. Just relax, and don’t stop fast when you’re taking the test. You’re driving fine.”

“You think so?”

“Why sure. Just concentrate on your driving,” Caleb advised.

As they hurled down the interstate, rather than take Caleb’s advice, his Aunt Vee Vee told him one of her oft told tales of his dad. “Did I ever tell you about your Dad and Buttermilk Skies?”

Caleb’s made himself not look exasperated. He said, “I believe you have told me that one.”

She told it to him again. “Oh, your dad was a pistol. Me and your Uncle Pal had just got married and lots of times when your dad would get drunk, instead of going to your grandma and grandpa’s house and catching hell, he’d come over to our house. Well one night, me and Uncle Pal was sleeping and we were woken up by the most awful commotion coming from the kitchen. A big crash, and your Uncle Pal told me, ‘Never mind Vee Vee. It’s just my brother,’ and sure enough we started hearing him singing

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‘Buttermilk Skies,’ then the sound of him just a throwing up. He’d gotten a drink of soured milk out of the ice box!”

Caleb knew better than to ask what a carton of sour milk was doing in the ice box.

His Aunt finished the story with a rendition of ‘Buttermilk Skies’. She joyfully sang, “Oh Buttermilk Skies!” Caleb made ready to grab the wheel, but she stayed in her own lane as she sang.

“I think you’re supposed to turn to the right up here,” Caleb told her, and she got into the right hand lane and made a signal to turn onto a side road leading to a plaza.

“Am I supposed to turn up here,” Aunt Vee Vee asked in the middle of a turn, and Caleb, still unsure, said that he thought so. They shortly came up to the driver’s licence place. “Well I’ll be,” she said. “We found it.” She turned into the parking lot.

“This sure is a big car, Aunt Vee Vee.” Caleb said.

“I’m used to it,” she told him as she took up two parking spaces and turned off the key.

“Just don’t be nervous,” Caleb told her.

Inside, they sat in the back row of chairs that were there for the people waiting to take their drivers’ tests. Caleb was bored. His Aunt Vee Vee was absently thumbing through a magazine about cars. “I’m so nervous,” and, “I hope I don’t get the same bitch I got last time,” she would say every now and then. Finally, after about a half hour, her name was called. She was not to have the same bitch that she had the last time. No, this time, her tester was a stocky, red faced smiling man who was probably in his mid-thirties.

“Aunt Vee Vee, you’ll do fine, “ Caleb told her as she got up and headed toward her tester.

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To the man she said, “I sure am glad to see you, hon,” and then conspiratorially she added, “That last tester girl I got was a B-I-T-C-H!” Not only was the tester surprised by her comment (eyebrows raised and his smile grew a bit) , but so was everyone in the immediate vicinity. Aunt Vee Vee looked at the people looking at her. “Tee hee,” she said.

“Go on now, Aunt Vee Vee. You just relax and you’ll do fine. Go on,” Caleb urged. He watched his aunt turn to him and wave as she allowed the tester to take her by her elbow and lead her out the door.

She was in a merry mood on the way back to her house. Caleb was driving. Aunt Vee Vee said, “Did I ever tell you about when your dad came over and drank the clabbered milk when he was drunk?”

“Yep, on the way over,” he told her. That didn’t deter her from telling the story two more times before following it with another story that reflected poorly on his Dad. “Did I ever tell you about when your Dad and Uncle Pal were little boys?”

“Uh...”

Aunt Vee Vee threw her head back and laughed. “Your Dad and Uncle Pal were little boys down there on north thirteenth street, and the cross the street neighbor, Mr. Ditto, he saw your pa playing on the sidewalk one morning and he said, ‘Byron, you want to earn a dollar mowing my lawn?’ and guess what your dad told him? Tee hee, he said, ‘Naw, I don’t wanna but my brother will’!” She chucked Caleb on the shoulder, and he smiled.

“That’s a good one alright,” he said.

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As they pulled into Aunt Vee Vee’s driveway, she said, “Now let me pay you for taking me over there, Caleb.” She began fussing with her purse.

Caleb was having none of it. “You ain’t paying me nothing, Aunt Vee Vee.” “Oh yes I am!” They were looking at each other, neither willing to give in. An impasse had been reached. She looked like she was ready to pop him.

“Aunt Vee Vee, what’d I say? You know what I think about money?”

She bit. She said, “What you think about money?”

“I hate money!”

“No you don’t.”

Caleb said, “Yes I do. Know what I say when I see a dollar?”

“What you say?”

“I say, ‘Get thee behind me, dollar. Don’t tempt me with your worldly ways. Get out of my pocket,’ is what I say.”

Aunt Vee Vee looked at Caleb as if he were crazy. She said, “Everybody needs money.”

Caleb smiled mysteriously and said, “I got plenty of money.”

In a kindly way, Aunt Vee Vee chuckled and said, “You ain’t got no money, Caleb.

What are you talking about?”

Caleb tried to fix an expression on his face that said, ‘you just don’t know’, like the cat that ate the canary, and he said, “I got money coming out of my ears.” He tried to open the car door to get out, but it was a late model, and Caleb, being a klutz, found that he couldn’t open it at all.

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Making no attempt to help him, she said, “I don’t see any money coming out of your ears.”

Still fumbling with the door, Caleb said, “You know how much money I’ve got in my pocket right now?” He searched the side panel for directions and, finding none, frantically ran his hand over the armrest and side, trying to find something resembling a door handle.

“How much?”

“Twenty dollars!”

“Well that ain’t much,” Aunt Vee Vee said.

Caleb nodded wisely, and he informed her, “That’s just the tip of the iceberg, Aunt Vee Vee. There’s plenty more where that came from.”

She opened her purse and said, “Here now. You’re going to hurt my feelings if you don’t take a few dollars.”

“No,” he said. “Hey, how do you get out of this car?”

Aunt Vee Vee tried to get her own door open and, perhaps feeling put on the spot, found herself unable to remember how to operate it. “Oh, these darn new cars,” she fumed.

“I guess if I don’t take the money you’re not gonna let me out the car,” Caleb said.

The disagreement about the money continued after they had gotten out of the car.

Aunt Vee Vee was waving a handful of dollars in Caleb’s face. It occurred to him that they might be something of a spectacle out there in her driveway with her flashing her 289

cash and both of them arguing. “Aunt Vee Vee, seriously, I have plenty of money. I shit money then wipe my ass with dollars,” he reasoned.

“Take this money, dammit,” Aunt Vee Vee insisted.

“You know what they call me?” He asked, taking a different tact.

“What they call you?”

“Money. That’s my nickname.”

His aunt was unimpressed. “No one calls you Money,” she told him. “Brokey maybe, but not money.”

“I’m rich. Matter of fact, you ever need any money, just come to me. I’ll give you money. How much YOU want, Aunt Vee Vee.” Some part of Caleb realized that he was now being grandiose. He hoped the neighbors were catching this.

She ignored him and said, “I’m gonna give this money to your Mom then.”

“Instead of giving me money, why don’t you bake me a pie,” Caleb suggested, attempting a compromise.

“What kind of pie you want?” she asked suspiciously.

“Custard. I would like a custard pie.”

The two of them faced each other like exhausted Olympian competitors at a stand-off. “Okay,” Aunt Vee Vee said quietly. Only then did Caleb give his aunt a hug before driving off.

Caleb’s reputation as a substitute teacher for being helpful and earnest as well as keenly indifferent regarding whether students did the work at all made him a popular sub wherever he went. His sang froid regarding matters like cheating on in-class graded 290

assignments and tests and his peerless gullibility when it came to accepting excuses for leaving class had the students calling his name and asking him whose class he would be subbing for that day as soon as they would see him. At his old high school, the students would sing out, “Hello, Mr. Jones! I love you, Mr. Jones! You’re my favorite sub!” It make him feel needed.

Youngsters everywhere in America take advantage of their substitute teachers, but as these kids didn’t openly insult him or try to fight each other, the small ways they would try him didn’t try him at all. What they did or didn’t do, didn’t bother Caleb. He would do his best to follow the teachers’ instructions, but if the kids didn’t do their part, Caleb’s attitude was, “It’s your grade, pal.” If kids acted out, he generally expressed admiration and respect for the rebellious attitude but explained that the rebel would have to be, if not compliant, at least quiet. If the kid was still too rowdy, he acknowledged the youngster’s free spirit and then would release that spirit to either another room, the office or the hallways. Spread the freedom somewhere else.

Mrs. Rainey often asked Caleb to sub for her resource room at Caleb’s old high school. One day, the young women in the class, rather than catch up on their homework, were having a discussion about clitoral piercing. Caleb and the two other male students in the room, Preston and Doobie, pretty much ignored the girls. Caleb figured the dear girls would change the subject at some point, but they went on and on. A girl named Shannon, who was visiting from another class, was describing the procedure, telling of having been on her back, her feet in the stirrups, topical anesthetic daubbed on her twat and the awful cracking sensation she’d felt when the bar went through her clit.

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It was then that Caleb said, “Uh, wouldn’t clitoral piercing fall under the umbrella of ‘girl talk’. You know, the kind of thing that we guys are never, ever supposed to hear?”

“Yeah,” piped up Doobie, one of his beloved young charges. “Keep it up and you’ll give me a complex.”

The young women seemed surprised at the thought that their queasily graphic narratives would somehow be inappropriate in the classroom. “What? It’s just fashion, but if it bothers you, we’ll stop talking about it where you can hear us. We’ll just talk about it amongst ourselves over here,” they sweetly told Caleb, and the young women went to the far side of the room by the computers where they continued their discussion; that is until Doobie said, “Mr. Jones, the girls are looking up clit piercing on the internet!”

“Tell me this isn’t true, ladies.”

“It isn’t true,”Lindsey, who was one of the students, said, a second later confessing, “Oh, okay it’s true. We are. Or rather Jessica is.”

Jessica explained, “It’s for a class report, Mr. Jones. It’s research. How else are we supposed to find out?” She seemed sincere, even a little pissy that Caleb had questioned her.

“Ahh, you could ask your parents?” Caleb immediately realized the folly of THAT particular suggestion. “Okay, sorry...well, I think that if you need to research clitoral piercing, maybe it might be a good idea to wait until Mrs. Rainey is here. See, girls, I was hoping to continue subbing here and not be, say, barred from setting foot on school property because I was allowing you to have a clit piercing internet porn party.”

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“You’re right. We understand. So sorry. We’ll just wait until tomorrow like you so reasonably suggested. You’re so nice,” they prettily told him while continuing to ‘research’ clitoral piercing on the internet. Oh well, thought Caleb, kids will be kids.

And if worst comes to worst, they’ll just stop calling me, and that can’t be all bad, he reasoned.

The last time that Caleb took any kind of hard drug was right after Maze had come down, sans Bertie, to visit with her Dad over Father’s Day. While she was in Chase, she also wanted to check up on Aunt Vee Vee for Bertie, and that is how she and Caleb got together. She called on a Friday evening and said, “How about taking me over there tomorrow morning.

On Saturday morning, Caleb drove to Maze’s Dad’s place on Monroe street and picked her up. They were on their way to Aunt Vee Vee’s when she expressed a certain degree of anxiety at seeing Bertie’s Mom in her diminished condition. “God,” she declared, “let’s stop for a beer somewhere first.” Caleb could think of no other place in Chase that was disreputable enough to be open at a quarter till nine in the morning than Perry’s Tavern, which is where they went.

He hadn’t been inside of Perry’s in years, and he hadn’t drank at that hour since he’d been an undergraduate; nevertheless, onward and forward.

It was as dark and dank as Caleb remembered it being, even more so. Except for the bartender, the place was deserted. Even with its being empty, Perry’s had a claustrophobic, smokey atmosphere. Being inside there gave one the feeling of being in a kind of unholy chicken coop of debauchery. They sat at the bar and ordered two beers.

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The bartender, a grizzled soul whom Caleb didn’t recognize, somehow knew Caleb. “On the house, Jones. Long time no see,” the bartender said.

“Thanks...Are you Gary?”

“Nope.”

Maze said, “Hey, does Sally ever come around here anymore? I heard she worked here sometimes.”

“She’ll probably be in later. She ain’t scheduled to work here though.”

“How is she?”

The bartender, whoever he was, shook his head, and as he washed beer glasses in the bar sink, he enlightened them. “She’s homeless,” he began. Caleb regarded a slim roach exploring the bar top, walking along the edge of the ancient wood.

“I heard that she was living in the Park Avenue Motel,” Maze said, dismayed at the news of her old friend, a hard partying beauty, had fallen on such hard times. The roach disappeared down the opposite side. Caleb wondered if the roaches drank the beer that spilled on the floor.

The bartender clarified. “She was living in the Park Avenue, but the owner kicked her out for hooking out of the place,” he explained. “She goes between living in the park and hooking at the Hotel 8 out by Marion. If you ever want her, you can either find her here, the Hollywood, the park or the highway going or coming from Hotel 8.”

“Does she still party like she did?”

“Well what do you think?” The phone rang and the bartender went to the end of the bar to answer it.

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“That’s awful,” Maze said to Caleb, then fishing in her purse, she said, “Would you like a vicodin?”

Caleb, who was feeling the breakfast beer, really didn’t want to eat a vicodin at that hour. “No thank you. If I were to eat that now, you’d have to drive home and explain to my Mom that I’d come down with the fantods while we were on our way to Aunt Vee Vee’s.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yes, thanks anyway,” Caleb assured the generous Maze.

“Well, I’ll give you a couple for later.” Maze’s cell phone rang. It was her real estate office telling her that she’d successfully closed a deal on a huge apartment complex. “Fantastic,” She said. “So, how much is my commission? Like I thought?

Forty thousand? Great. I’m in southern Illinois catching up on old times with Bertie’s cousin Caleb. Yes. We’re going over to see Bertie’s Mom in awhile. I’ll be back day after tomorrow. I’ll see you then. Bye Bye.” Maze put away her phone and turned to Caleb, “Say, do you like oxycontin?”

“I’ve never tried it. Hillbilly heroin, right? Wasn’t that Rush Limbaugh’s drug of choice?”

“Yeah. That’s it. Would you like one of those for later too. We get them from a friend of Bertie’s.”

“Well, okay. Gosh, thanks so much Maze. You don’t have to do that,” Bertie told her.

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“Forget it. Here,” she said and handed him a bit of foil with the pills inside of it.

“Bertie likes to crush the oxy’s and snort them,” Maze helpfully offered, then she added, “I’ll get the next round of beers.”

“I’m good,” Bertie protested in the dim morning gloom.

One beer later, they were on their way out the door. As they were leaving, whom should they run into but Sally. Sally didn’t recognize them apparently, even when Maze said, “Hey Sally!”

Finally, through a fog, she recognized her old friend and said, “Maze?”

“Yeah, honey-pie, it’s Maze. How’ve you been?”

“I came in here to get warm,” Maze confessed, and Caleb could believe it because she was dressed in Daisy Dukes and a thin jacket on this November day. Though she seemed stoned on some sort of downer, Sally looked fantastic, not fantastic for a homeless drug addicted prostitute OVER fifty, but healthy, vital and sexy as hell, looking fifteen to twenty years younger than her age. True, she did seem cognitively unsprung as she sat dazedly with them.

She mumbled to Maze of her travels to California where she’d lived on the beach until she’d been hit in the head one night by some mean person. She’d been asleep when it had happened and hadn’t seen who had assaulted her. There was also a rambling allusion to a wealthy aunt on the east coast who would let Sally stay in the carriage house but who wouldn’t let her inside because of her history of stealing. As she rambled, Maze’s cell phone rang.

“You again. The Cathcarth Estates have been purchased? Fan! Fucking ! Tastic!

Draw the papers up and get them signed. Have them ready for me to finalize tomorrow 296

night.” To Caleb and Sally, who had continued to tell her story of woe, Maze said, “Life is good. Just made another giant commission. Bertie is going to love it. One more beer what do you say?”

“Great,” said Sally.

“I’m good,” Caleb said.

Two more beers and they were ready to go to Aunt Vee Vees. Maze said goodbye, brought a six-pack for the ride over and they were off. Caleb predicted a late morning or early afternoon nap.

When they arrived at Aunt Vee Vee’s, she was not wearing her upper plate. “The cat stole it,” she gummily informed Caleb and Maze. Aunt Vee Vee’s cat, named Kitty, had been given to her after Uncle Pal’s death by her next door neighbor, Dilly Holland, who figured that having a little pet around the house would do her good. And it was true if for no other reason than having Kitty there enabled Aunt Vee Vee to blame her when she would misplace things. Kitty, a lavender and white female, regarded them inscrutably. “Look at that little stinker,” Aunt Vee Vee said affectionately. “Where’d you put my teeth, damn you,” she said.

Perhaps sensing that she was being made the scapegoat, Kitty turned on them all, stuck her ass in the air, as if to say, ‘kiss my...’, and sashayed off to nap under the sofa.

“Want me to do your hair while I’m here?” asked Maze, who had taken one of her vicodin on the way from Perry’s to Aunt Vee Vees. Aunt Vee Vee’s hair was defying gravity in a perm uprising, the fading tangerine rinse giving way to the metal gray roots.

She sat at the kitchen table. It was now eleven a.m. Maze opened a can of beer and

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handed it to her, who although she looked surprised, took the beer in good faith and unquestioningly took a swig.

“Hoooeeee,” Aunt Vee Vee commented, adding, “Caleb why don’t you have a beer?” Caleb, also seated, had reached his limit.

“Naw, I’m good, Aunt Vee Vee.” Another beer and he’d puke. He wished he’d had a regular breakfast instead of beer.

Maze combed and teased, combed and teased, and then her phone rang.

Continuing to comb and tease, Maze cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder. It was her office again. They were relating more good news. “HE wants to see the property? Oooooo!” Her excitement made her combing and teasing intensify so that Aunt Vee Vee’s hair achieved afro-tic dimensions.

“When did you schedule me to show him the buildings? Mmmmm hmmmm. I love it. What am I doing right now? I’m fixing Bertie’s Mom’s hair and trying to get her drunk. Ain’t I Vee Vee?” Aunt Vee Vee giggled and had another swallow. “When you get my hair done, we’ll paint the town red won’t we, Maze?” she said.

“You better believe it, doll,” Maze told her. To her secretary she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, hon. Bye now.”

Caleb’s head was starting to hurt, and he got up. “Maze, I need to be getting back home.”

“That’s okay, doll. I’ll drive Vee Vee’s car home. Is that alright, Vee Vee?” “Why sure,” Aunt Vee Vee Said.

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Maze said, “If you take that ‘thing’ tonight, give me a call and tell me how you like it. Remember, if you want to take it up a notch, take the other ‘things’ I gave you.”

“Will do. Thanks again, Maze.”

He left.

Caleb ate when he got home. Took a shower. Avoided his Mom because he didn’t want her to smell the booze. Didn’t take a nap and thereby avoided the aftereffects. Shook off the malaise of the four beers drank during the day. Yuck.

Caleb had decided to postpone taking the oxycontin, but as the afternoon waned, his curiosity grew until he revised his plans and waited until after supper. At around sixthirty, he washed the small pill down with a swig of beer, and then he waited for it to take effect. He’d briefly considered grinding it and snorting it like Maze said Bertie liked to do, and he’d thought of taking a couple of vicodin on top of the oxy and really get fucked up. Good thing he hadn’t followed through with either of those options.

With his nearly full beer, Caleb went to his room and got on his computer. He hadn’t been on the internet for more than two minutes when the drug started to work on him. He felt an unusual warmth and a certain heaviness in his extremities. He started to have a good fuzzy feeling, and as he was stonily gazing at the screen, Johnny IM’d him.

Irene was at the computer with Johnny, and they asked what he was doing. Slowly, Caleb answered that he’d just taken an oxycontin and was starting to feel really good. “Excuse me,” he typed, “It’s a little hot in here. Hold on while I change into my shorts and tee shirt.” They typed in some reply, but Caleb didn’t pay any attention.

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The warmth that he had been feeling was now too hot. It was as if his internal thermostat had been turned way up. It dawned on Caleb, much to his chagrin, that he was allergic to opiates.

He was uncomfortably hot and couldn’t get his long winter clothing off quickly enough, particularly since his motor coordination was so thunky. His limbs felt long and heavy. While taking off his sweater, he managed to knock over his beer onto the floor, but fuck that, he thought, for he was by then sweating ropes. It was the kind of sweating that preceded puking, and Caleb got back to his computer and typed in, “Not feeling good. Hot. Am going to go in shower. Bye.” They were typing some sympathetic reply when he got out of his chair and collected his nauseous and fucked up bearings to walk past his Mom. He was concentrating on a natural stride, not overcompensating for his lack of coordination by adopting too stiff a gait, nor giving in to his natural inclination to stagger dramatically across the room. Walk properly, left, right, left right. The front room was illuminated only by the tv, and his Mom was watching Alias as Caleb walked through there, casually strolling on his way to the bathroom to take a shower and hopefully not be sick. On his promenade, as he was thinking about not walking like he was fucked up, he nonchalantly said, “Hey, Mom, how are you doing?” He punctuated his greeting by walking directly into the wall.

“Are you alright?” his Mom, who had been dozing, asked.

Caleb, most decidedly not alright, muttered that he wasn’t feeling so grand and was going to take a shower in hopes that the streaming water would somehow make him

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feel a bit better. Restraining the urge to crawl the rest of the way to the bathroom, he ran his hand along the darkened wall of the hallway to keep from listing.

He made it to the bathroom, where before his shower, he puked his guts out.

Caleb had heard that many people threw up upon taking opiates, but he knew that after they threw up, they felt good, riding that golden train downtown or some such nonsense.

Caleb didn’t feel that at all. In fact, he still felt really nauseous. Before he stepped into the shower, he looked at his face in the mirror. His pupils were tiny. He felt horrible. He felt like lying down, puking and choking on his own vomit. Caleb wanted to nod out, but he felt too sick. The shower helped marginally.

Pretty much for three and a half hours, Caleb puked. Never was there a moment of that legendary narcotic comfort he’d read so much about. Between pukings, he forced himself to remain standing so he didn’t pass out while he was as sick as he was.

Finally, after many dry heavings, Caleb no longer felt sick. As he lay in bed, pretty confident that he’d be okay, he thought, no wonder those fucking things are illegal.

If they want to put me in jail and throw away the key for having a bunch of pot, then they ought to chop Rush Limbaugh’s fucking head off for having these things. Thinking that pleasant thought, Caleb drifted off to a heavy, dreamless dreamland.

Jake died, od’d, needle sticking out of his arm, crack pipe and rocks by his side.

He’d been living with his Mom on the outskirts of Chase. A neighbor had noticed that Jake hadn’t moved in a long time and had checked on him.

Jake’s chair had been among shady pine trees and had been facing a long meadow. His heart had stopped while he had been enjoying the morning light, the cool 301

shade and the sight of the verdant green fields. Caleb hoped that Jake had at least felt good when he died. Neither Caleb, Bertie nor Jake’s by now ex-wife Eva attended the funeral. The prospect of all the people who would be there kept Caleb away. As for Bertie, he couldn’t leave his job to come home.

And Eva had been through too much shit with Jake to attend. She continued going over in her thoughts the same unending litany of sorrows involving Jake that she’d been trying to process for years now. Her feelings for him involved guilt, resentment and helplessness. She didn’t need to see his corpse laid out to remember the boy she’d loved, the boy for whom she’d dropped Bertie. Now she’d always be haunted by Jake just as she had been during his long dissolution into drugs. Still, faithlessness, addiction and divorce hadn’t been able to completely kill what she’d once felt for him and the good that she remembered about him.

It was better not to remember the person who had inspired her love. That guy had disappeared to be replaced by the addict that Jake became, Jake Mach II, unreliable, irresponsible and undependable, but other than that still a great fellow. If she had to think about Jake at all, better to remember that incarnation. Best to forget that which was good, that in him which she’d had a part in contaminating.

In time, the thoughts would be stretched to unreal, cartoon dimensions. Then it would not hurt so much. Eventually, it would stretch to the breaking point, then the memory would either suddenly burst or slowly dissolve. In time all her memories of Jake would be forgotten, dissolved. The poignancy, the details, identity itself finally faded to static. Replaced by someone or something else. Maybe just static. So she didn’t make it to the formal service, but she did make it to pay her respects.

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During a run, on his way home, Caleb was going past the Chase City Cemetery and he saw in the distance her lone figure standing at Jake’s grave. It was a sunny afternoon, and the markers and stones were just beginning to throw shadows on the well kept green cemetery grass. The birch trees among the burial plots looked like ghosts because their trunks had been whitewashed. As he was running, Caleb waved to her, but she didn’t see him. She hadn’t been looking at the road. She was so far away. He could see her hair whipping in the wind. She was smoking a cigarette. She didn’t seem to be looking at anything out there.

Without thinking, Caleb interrupted his run and walked onto the cemetery property. He joined Eva. She looked up. They smiled at each other but didn’t say anything. Caleb stood there with her, and he thought not only of Jake, but of Ann, of Serena and her husband Billy, of Jerry, his Uncle Pal, his own Dad. And he thought of James and of Joey. And all the hundreds of students he’d had over the years. Caleb said a silent prayer for them all as he, with Eva, stared out over the gravestones and past the road into the blue sky. Caleb asked God that they all be alright. Just for once.

After maybe a minute or two, Eva finished her cigarette. She said, “I’m leaving.

I don’t suppose you want a ride anywhere.”

“No. Thanks anyway,” Caleb told her. Then Eva went to her small red car. She got in started the engine and went away. Caleb went back through the cemetery, under the specter like birches, through the rows of grave stones and larger monuments. By the time he got to the road, there was no one in sight. He headed toward home. ‘I want to live for a long, long time’, he thought.

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IN SUNSHINE AND IN SHADOW

Caleb’s Mom retired after fifty-nine years of service to her job at the Bank of Chase. Although everyone thought that she wouldn’t like retirement, she loved it. She and Nadine would go to lunch once a week. Other than that, she relaxed around her home. During the summer months, she and Caleb would mow the land around the house and pond. The rest of the land she allowed a farmer to come in and plant soybeans.

There would be the neat, green lawn and the acres of rolling soybeans waving in the summer breeze.

Caleb had been encouraging his Mom to retire since she’d turned sixty-five and he’d tried to get here to move to Chicago. It was nice having his Mom be able to take it easy; of course, with his Mom there all the time, Caleb could no longer cultivate his beloved herb. There was no point anyway; after being ripped off the previous year, he had no safe place to plant. He tried to spot a few plants around the pond and on the perimeter of his property, but he couldn’t tend to his plants with his Mom around. It hurt, particularly during the spring months when Southern Illinois burst with the new growth of tiny buds, tender leaves, young grasses and fresh wild flowers, and Caleb knew he needed to plant for that year’s crop but couldn’t. But when he felt resentment starting to build, or when he considered ‘reasonably’ asking his Mom if he could grow weed in the basement, he’d tell himself; well, you know what he’d tell himself: Don’t be a dickhead.

Be thankful for what you have.

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Two lines of haiku. What could the middle line be?

A voice from Caleb’s past surfaced. Mr. Finn called Caleb’s Mom. He was going to be passing through Chase. He told her that he had DIVORCED his wife, sold his properties, bought a big old Winnebago and had taken to ‘cowboying’ across the United States. He said that he hoped to see both her, Caleb and Nadine and spend the day with them if it were possible. Caleb’s Mom said that she didn’t know but that she would ask Nadine and Caleb. When she told Caleb, he said sure. What did it matter?

When she told Nadine, it was clear that she was a bit miffed, yes, slightly slighted about Mr. Finn not having called her; after all, he HAD thrown himself at her all those years ago. “Have lunch with him? Well,” she sighed, “why not?”

“I don’t know. I told him that I’d ask you and Caleb, and if you wanted to go, then I guess it would be okay with me. But I could care less one way or the other,” Caleb’s Mom clearly pointed out to Nadine.

So when Mr. Finn called Caleb’s Mom back, she reluctantly and unenthusiastically said yes.

On the assigned day, Mr. Finn picked them all up in his gigantic Winnebago.

Caleb saw it coming up the road and turning into the driveway. It looked like a small barn teetering as it precariously made the turn. As the big recreational vehicle rolled up the driveway, Caleb’s Mom announced that she wasn’t going to ride in it. It looked too dangerous. To Caleb’s relief she quietly changed her mind and, with Nadine, they all climbed on board.

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The RV was white with blue and red trim, and everyone sat in his own deck chair in the front as Mr. Finn drove. The front window was huge, about five feet across and about three feet tall. Sitting and looking out it gave Caleb the sensation of being in the cockpit of an airplane. It seemed as if they were twenty feet above the road. But as big and unweildy as the thing seemed, Mr. Finn drove it as easily as if he were maneuvering a compact sports car, and he asked them where they would like to eat.

“I dunno,” Caleb’s Mom asserted. “Wherever you all want to go is fine with me,” she lied, figuring that Nadine would want to go where she always wanted to go, Long John Silvers.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Caleb said. He was feeling blue for want of fresh bud.

Having been ripped off the previous year, not being able to grow this year, and now being a semi-recluse without weed contacts, Caleb was down to smoking hits of leafy shake.

“Well how about Long John Silvers,” Nadine suggested.

Mr. Finn, who had planned on taking them somewhere a little more upscale than Long John Silvers, said, “Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather go to...say, Red Lobster?”

“Red Lobster sounds pretty good,” Caleb listlessly offered.

“I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to me. What do you think, Nadine?”

Caleb’s Mom intoned phlegmatically.

Nadine must have really liked Long John Silvers, for she said, “Long John Silvers is fine. Besides, Red Lobster is too expensive. You can get the same menu nearly at Long John’s for a fraction of the price.”

So it was off to Long John Silver’s.

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As they stood at the counter and looked at the menu, Mr. Finn encouraged them to order whatever they wanted. “Please,” he cajoled. “It’s on me.”

“Wow, thanks,” Caleb said.

Caleb’s Mom raised her hand. “No,” she said, “I’ll pay for me and Caleb’s meal,” she insisted.

“Okay,“ Caleb sniveled. He was feeling strangely emotional, like he might bust a tear for pretty much no reason. Oh, for some good herb! At the entrance of the Long John Silvers, there was a bell that patrons were encouraged to ring if they’d enjoyed their dining experience. As they looked at their menus, an unwatched child started ringing the bell, irritating Caleb immensely.

Nadine frowned at the little boy, and in a more uncertain voice, she said, “I’ll pay for my own meal too.”

“No, no, no,” Mr. Finn protested. “I invited all of you to lunch. I insist that you let me pay.” The child’s Mom angrily yanked him away from the bell, causing him to loudly cry.

“No thanks. I can pay for me and Caleb’s food,” Caleb’s Mom said diffidently.

The girl who was waiting to take their orders didn’t disguise her eye roll, but no one noticed but Caleb, who replied to her with an eye roll of his own.

“I’ll pay for my own meal too,” Nadine regretfully echoed.

They went back and forth over who would pay for what until Nadine acquiesced.

Caleb’s Mom looked a little disappointed in her friend, but she held her ground, insisting to go Dutch treat. She ordered the fried shrimp and fries. Caleb got the baked fish platter with a baked potato. Nadine ordered fried chicken and french fries, and Mr. Finn ordered 307

the fried fish platter, which came with fries, and everyone but Caleb requested extra ‘cracklins’, which were nothing more than crunchy, golden brown, fried blobs of flour.

“I just love Long John Silvers,” Nadine contentedly informed them. Caleb’s Mom joylessly ate her fried shrimp and french fries. What a waste of money, was the thought that kept looping in her mind.

Mr. Finn told them of his continued artistic efforts and the tensions in his household that they had produced. He didn’t dwell on the divorce, but rather spoke of his inspiration to “...see America up close.” He was having a wonderful adventure. “At seventy-four, I feel like the world is opening up for me in ways I’ve never dreamed of,” he said ecstatically.

“Do you still paint?” Nadine asked.

“Everyday. Usually at sunset when I’ve pulled off the road. Not only oils, but now I do work in watercolors and acrylics too. I’ll show you all when we go back to the Winny,” he replied.

“Mr. Finn, are you suggesting that I go back to your place to ‘look at you sketches?’” Nadine suggestively drawled. Caleb’s Mom shot her friend a withering stare.

Caleb was looking at a caricature of a fisherman and was thinking about the poor fisherman’s bleak life of bitter poverty. The picture seemed to bespeak of the bleakness of life in general. When no one was looking, Caleb daubed his eye. What a poor fisherman to be trapped in such a stupid life.

As the meal progressed, Mr. Finn suggested that after lunch they all see a movie.

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“A movie?” Caleb’s Mom said incredulously. “Oh, I never go to movies,” she said, adding, “It’s just so wasteful. Whatever they’re charging, it’s too much, that’s for sure.”

“I like to go to the movies,” Nadine said.

Caleb’s Mom forced a dour laugh, “Since when?”

“If we went to an afternoon movie, it would be half-price,” Mr. Finn offered.

In a tone that suggested Mr. Finn were arguing for them to do something like try to walk on their hands like gymnasts, Caleb’s Mom said, “Well, you all can see a movie, but I’m out. Caleb, I’ll give you some money if you want to go to the movies with them, but TAKE ME HOME before you go off traipsing to the theater.”

“I’ve got money, Mom,” Caleb protested.

“Well, we don’t have to go to a movie anyway,” Mr. Finn said a little sadly.

“Naw, we don’t have to go to a movie, if you don’t want to go,” Nadine added, a shade wistfully.

When they had finished with their meals, Mr. Finn looked at the list of desserts and suggested that they all have a piece of pie. Long John Silvers boasted of pecan, apple, peach and cherry pie. “They even have pie ala-mode,” Mr. Finn said delightedly.

“Let’s all get a pie ala-mode and a cup of coffee what do you say?”

“Oh, no, I don’t want any of their desserts,” Caleb’s Mom said as she made a face.

“No thanks, I guess” Caleb said, steadily regretting he’d come.

“Well, I think I’ll have a small piece of this lemon meringue,” Nadine said, earning a reproachful look from her friend and a look of gratitude from Mr. Finn.

“Here we go, gang!” he hopefully chirped.

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He ordered pecan pie and vanilla ice cream, and Nadine ordered apple pie with peach ice cream. By then it was a little after two p.m. While Nadine and he were eating, Mr. Finn said, “Hey, what do you all say we play some cards this afternoon?” At the suggestion, Nadine looked hopeful.

Caleb’s emotions were now scraping the valley, and he no more cared about playing cards than he wanted to fly a fucking kite. “I don’t care,” he dully revealed.

Again, Caleb’s Mom rose to her status as Queen of The Buzzkills. “I don’t like to play cards,” she primly shot.

“On religious grounds?” Mr. Finn said earnestly?

“Nope. Just don’t like cards. But you all do whatever you want to do,” she said bitterly. Her tone would have been more appropriate were she telling them to go right ahead and shoot Niagra Falls in a wooden barrel if they insist, just please leave her out of such an outre and dangerous activity.

Finally, poor old Mr. Finn gave up trying to have a nice afternoon with that lot, and after getting them back in his RV, he dropped them off without even showing them the paintings he’d been working on and had wanted to let them see. He politely told them that he’d be passing back through in October and that he’d give them a call.

Caleb’s Mom said a chilly goodbye, and Nadine a regretful farewell. Caleb said goodbye. He just wanted to go inside the house.

It wasn’t being straight per se that Caleb found odious; okay, it was. Even though he was still smoking weed, the leafy shake was to fresh bud what near beer is to a proper drink. It just wasn’t enough. It was almost like not getting high at all. And while not 310

being able to get stoned wasn’t anything whatsoever like full blown drug withdrawal, not having decent weed sucked. Not enough to go out and cultivate friendships at taverns with low companions just to get it, but enough for his emotional thermostat to be off kilter.

Not being high was like being high on a rather unpleasant, nagging stimulant.

Caleb felt waves of anxiety and bleak depression. These were days when he would lie on the floor and watch the shadows play across the ceiling for hours. As stated before, Caleb started feeling a hyper-emotionality. The most embarrassing example of this occurred when he and his Mom watched Patch Adams on the local ABC affiliate. Though he remembered Canisha K’s opinion of it, “...Seeing this makes me hate all white people...” and though he knew that it was mawkish, overly sentimental tripe, Caleb was tearing up every five minutes, furtively rubbing his eyes on his sleeve. Patch Adams, that noble, tragic, broken-hearted clown. Boo hoo hoo. And he was thinking, ‘now I get it. Thank you Robin Williams,’ before his emotional thermostat went cold and he wanted to throttle Patch Adams and kick Robin Williams in the nuts.

Still, that was better than tearing up over the sadly universal beauty he’d seen in a jolly MacDonald’s commercial of a hungry skateboarding and popping crew ‘getting their burgers on hip hop MacDonald’s style and lovin’ it’. When that advertisement had moved him to tears, Caleb knew that he was going through some fucked up changes indeed.

The other thing that happened when he wasn’t getting enough THC in his system is that he started dreaming again, more than people normally dream, pretty much all night every night. It was as if Caleb’s dream life were a job that he would check into when he 311

would lay his head down on his pillow. Does this sound like a magical portal into a world of wonderful nightly adventures?

In his dream landscapes, Caleb would wander on woodland canal fronts and beaches lined with high rises that turned into Carmen Hall and other dorms. And the edges of vaguely familiar towns would melt into the outskirts of cities that Caleb would enter on foot, crossing sea spanning bridges and finding himself in streets as colorful and active as carnival neighborhoods, and the party streets would wash into long, clean, deserted industrial galleries that became vast, baroque subterranean catacombs. He would drive off water covered roads into the shining Mississippi River. He’d find himself in all sorts of bars, small Perry Tavern type places and large barn like structures where women danced in cages. There were small rooms and tee pees and cavalcades of creatures in an unending night parade. Caleb was almost always surrounded by strangers.

Nothing made sense usually, and these nightly ordeals were so exhausting that Caleb would get out of bed tired every morning.

When he would know someone in a dream, it usually came out badly. In the past it would be his Dad, but now, more often, it would be Ann. She’d be getting high, or would be beseeching Caleb not to abandon her, and in his dreams, Caleb would sob and sob, hold her hands and...well, does this sound like your idea of a magical portal into wonderful nightly adventures?

Caleb and Ann are in a room. She is in bed. Caleb doesn’t want her to awaken and see him, but she does, and she calls him to her bedside. Caleb’s afraid to go to bed with her because (in the dream) he knows that she’s sick, but he wants to go to bed with 312

her because he loves her, and he’ll always both love her and want to fuck her as well.

Instead he holds her hand and they talk, dream talk that only makes sense to the sleeper.

Ann gets out of bed and tells Caleb that it’s time for her weekly treatment for hepatitis.

In his dream voice, which is slow and breaking with misery, he says, “That must be awful.”

And in her dream voice, which is also slow and filled with infinite sadness, she says, “No, it’s not awful at all. It’s like an old flirtation dance with God.” An old flirtation dance with God. More nonsensical dream talk, but in the dream, when Ann tells him this, Caleb responds by completely breaking down and crying.

Crying hard, and she’s crying too. And the irrevocable loss is all there is.

When he woke up, Caleb was dry eyed.

It was five-thirty. He got up. Went

outside. Dew glistened on the lawn and the blooming gladioli. Caleb looked at one particular dew drop. From where he was standing, it gleamed like a bead of molten gold, but when Caleb moved even an inch, its sheen became translucent. Where was the source of the dewdrops gleaming light? When Caleb moved, where did that fire go?

Buddy was asleep on the back step, but when Caleb opened the back porch screen door, though the dog’s eyes remained closed, the tip of his tail wagged. Caleb sat on the bottom step next to him, and he spent about fifteen minutes brushing his coat, marveling at how much of Buddy’s winter hair came out. It seemed that no matter how often Caleb brushed Dr. Fen’s dog, he still had plenty of his old thick coat. Caleb then fixed Buddy a bit of oatmeal, left over chicken, vegetable soup and yogurt. He watched the dog, shiny and black in the sun, eat his breakfast.

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After he’d eaten, Buddy playfully headed toward the wooded area where Caleb had planted marijuana for so many years. He wanted to go out in the woods where he could run rabbit and deer around the perimeter of Caleb’s spot. “Not this year, old pal,” Caleb sighed. Buddy wagged his tail and smiled at Caleb before he went ahead without him. “See ya’ later,” Caleb said to the dog, who trotted to the wood-line and vanished into the wall of weeds, trees shade and ivy.

Caleb went back inside and turned on the television. There was nothing but infomercials on all of the networks, with the exception of PBS, which was showing an encore presentation of yesterday afternoon’s prize winning Barney episode. The eerie Stepford-children on the show did their side by side two step as they and the overabundant Barney and insidious Baby Bop sang a song about not being mean to people who were different than you. Caleb, his nerves raw from lack of decent pot and the attendant night o’ dreams, snapped at no one in particular, “Goddamn you Barney!”

Caleb turned off the tv and jumped out of his seat, pissed as hell at the purple dinosaur.

From far away at the other end of the house, Caleb’s Mom called, “Did you say something, Caleb?”

“Naw, Mom.” “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“Okay.”

He went to his bathroom to try and get high on the leafy shake that he had left.

After five hits, his one-hit pipe was clogged.

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Caleb decided to clean it and put the stinky resinous tissue in the downstairs laundry room garbage. Quietly, he padded to the basement and was getting ready to clean his one-hitter when he noticed something in the waste basket. It was the plastic stars that with which he’d decorated his walls in Chicago. What were they doing in the garbage? He went through the trash and picked out all of them that he could find. He took them and cleaned up what his Mom hadn’t thrown away and put them in a drawer.

It really made him mad. Ordinarily, he’d smoke one or two hits and gain perspective, or at least no longer give a fuck.

But now he was mad. Caleb went back upstairs and ate some oatmeal. After awhile, his Mom got up. “Want some oatmeal?” he called.

“No,” came his Mom’s answer.

She entered the kitchen. “I want cereal,” she announced. Caleb got out the milk and Grape Nuts for her. As his Mom was getting ready to eat, Caleb sat at the table. He was mad about his Mom having thrown away his damn plastic glowing stars. Good Morning America was just ending a segment on paint ball in which Robin, Charlie, Diane and Tony ruined their beautiful outfits shooting at each other.

“I saw that you accidentally threw some of my glowing stars away,” Caleb casually mentioned.

Hiss Mom chuckled and said, “Oops!”

H would been livid if he hadn’t been successfully distracted by a commercial for some new brand of diaper on television, which threw his newly opened hearted and pot deprived feelings into an overdrive of baby love. Instead of taking his Mom to task for throwing his shit away, he exclaimed, “OH GOD LOOK AT THE BAAAABIES!” On 315

the screen, a bunch of babies were running around a sunny yard. He and his Mom laughed with delight at the sight of the wee bairns googly toothless mugging and staggering about. “They ought to have a show of just babies, puppies and kitties,” he proposed, still basking in the bath of baby-love emotion.

“I’d watch it,” his Mom concurred, holding aloft her spoon as if toasting the idea.

She then dug into her Grape Nuts, but by then the commercial had gone back to Good Morning America, which was running a segment on The Circus. Caleb was transfixed at the sight of a gaily dressed elephant on a circus set in Times Square where they had Tony holding a balloon on a string and sitting atop the elephant. “How sad the elephant looks,” he lamented.

Caleb’s Mom observed, “Elephants always look sad. And look how scared Tony is. I bet he doesn’t like being up there.”

Caleb, now in the depths of depressions, moaned, “It’s because they make him do tricks.”

“Oh they make poor old Tony do all kinds of risky stuff. He ought to just put his foot down,” Caleb’s Mom opined.

“I’m talking about the elephant,” Caleb clarified. The poor elephant looked as if it were trying to smile, and tears filled Caleb’s eyes.

“If you had someone whacking you in the head and ass all day, you’d look sad too,” his Mom offered matter of factly. Caleb could comment no farther, so affected was he by the plight of the sad circus elephant. And then just as suddenly seized with restlessness, Caleb jumped out of his chair, startling his Mom. As Caleb aimlessly paced around the kitchen, his Mom watched him out of the corner of her eye until he left the 316

room. She was just about to finish her Grape Nuts, when Caleb again startled her, this time with a burst of loud laughter from the front room. She jumped at his sudden laughter. “Are you alright?” she called.

“Yeah. Whew...It was just this car that went by. It’s so red,” Caleb explained, causing his Mom to frown into her Grape Nuts. She wondered if he was high.

He’d always readily admitted that he smoked pot, but she didn’t know that up until recently, her son had been stoned all the time everyday for thirty years now. She’d have been pissed if she would have known that the reason for his funny behavior the past weeks wasn’t because he was high but because the pot that he was constantly smoking wasn’t powerful enough. Caleb’s silly take on things was in actuality his reaction to reality and sobriety, or reality on weak pot. But she didn’t know all that, and she was used to Caleb being something of a nut, a bit of a weirdo, so it didn’t occur to her that he was going through a kind of low level drug withdrawal.

She was just about to take that bit of Grape Nuts when, again, Caleb startled her, this time making her jump. “Hey, Ma, come here,” Caleb had yelled from the front room.

Caleb had turned on and had been watching The Good Old Time Bible Gospel Show on the religious channel. Preacher Joe, a white haired old crank, answered questions about God and spread his conservative right wing nationalistic political views everyday. Caleb had been watching him answer questions like the one that Caleb heard that morning. Frowning down his bifocals, Preacher Joe read, “People in my church say I’m sinning because I adopted a child. Am I committing a sin against God by raising an unwanted child?” Preacher Joe shook his head incredulously.

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Rolling his eyes, he replied to the reader’s question. “Of course you’re not committing a sin. Why, you’re doing something good. What kind of church are you going to? A left wing liberal church full of literal loonybirds?” He snorted in disgust at the thought of such a church and the insane beliefs engendered there.

After answering several more strange questions regarding commonplace practices that the writers were afraid were sins, Preacher Joe concluded by telling his audience that Jesus loved them and that so did he. Then his voice speeded up and he asked for their tithes and offerings and told his listeners that if they wrote in he would send them his special tapes starting with How Gays Recruit Our Youth, to be followed with Satanic Pedophiles and the Left Wing Conspiracy.

Normally, Preacher Joe had the effect of enraging Caleb. The elderly televangelist’s sly inclusion of his right wing views would piss Caleb off. He’d listen for a minute or so until he was really outraged and then turn the channel, but as his emotions were topsy turvy, now as he watched Preacher Joe, Caleb felt nothing but the aching restlessness of his roiling brain.

All that changed the instant that Caleb saw who was on the next religious show after The Good Old Time Bible Gospel Show concluded. That was when Caleb had called and startled his Mom the second time, yelling, “Hey, Mom, come here. Look who’s on the religious station.”

Caleb’s Mom hurried in. She said, “Oh this is the first time that you’re seeing this isn’t it?”

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It was a tape of the actor Timmy Ruckland’s Youth For Jesus Ministry revival involving Christian rock, hip hop and skateboarding acts as well as Christian exhibitions of strength and martial arts prowess. Timmy Ruckland had once been a big movie star, but now he wasn’t. Though still a youthful, if bloated, forty-six year old, Timmy still wanted to be worthwhile, and by worthwhile, I mean the center of attention of something, ANYTHING. Then God worked it so that Timmy was ‘saved’ at actor Larry Gostling’s house and baptized in actor Steve Ryder’s Hollywood pool by none other than The Reverend Benny Hinnes himself.

Soon after that life changing experience, Timmy got the calling to do something to bring Jesus to ‘the hip kids’. And from that hatched Timmy Ruckland’s Youth For Jesus Ministry.

The tape was of the Richmond Virginia stop on Mr. Rutland’s revival. In a huge auditorium, to a roaring crowd of at least five hundred youth for Christ, a rock orchestra furiously played dated Christian rock and rap as a Christian rapper and a Christian metal singer took turns rhymin’ (and in the metal singer’s case, barkin’)for Jesus.

The Christian metal singer was stocky and had white boy dreads and a wispy mustache. He wore jeans, a tank top and was barefoot. He affected a kind of a grunge, nu-metal non-style that was about three years yesterday. He croaked in the bat voiced death metal singer affectation of the early nineties, but instead of throat barking stuff about being bad and loving Satan, he croaked about having been bad at one time, (at one time none the badder had there been), but now having been reborn in Jesus’ blood and loving Jesus instead of the things he used to love, drugs and pussy Caleb presumed.

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The rapper was short and chunky. He wore a white jump suit and matching Kangol hat, and he had a kind of smooth, slightly mush mouthed flow. His was the gangster style of rap, except without the cursing and homages to violence weed and sex, and he rapped about having been a thug and the things he had done and seen before he’d found salvation in Christ. And, it seems, in his relatively young life, he’d seen far too much and had done things he dare not mention in order not to incriminate himself. His world had been filled with things like pimpin’, ‘hoes and drugs, (which he could only allude to), and the attendant violence that is born of poverty, but now he was saved, etc.

The Christian rapper and metal singer pranced and posed and struck the same postures of their more evil and authentic counterparts in mainstream rock and gangster rap. While this quaint travesty was going on, behind the rapper/metal singer were all sorts of groovy young Christians.

On a skateboard ramp that had Jesus Really Rocks spray painted on it graffiti style, Christian skateboarders, The Christian Skaterats, were doing semi-extreme Christian stunts. On another area of the stage, Christian strongmen performed Samson like acts of strength involving the lifting of cars and the lifting of groups of Christian youth. The youth were drawn from the screaming, rabid audience and, once on the stage, were then sat on a long metal bar that was balanced on one of the mightiest of the Christian strongman’s shoulders and then lifted! Lifted for Christ as it were. On another area of the stage, Christians with ‘Jesus’ belts in karate were breaking ‘devil’ boards and ‘satanic’ cinder blocks to beat the band. But it was none of this delightful melee that had driven Caleb crazy with delight.

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No, it was the sight of his two old friends, Matlock and Winkie Lee. Matlock was perched on top of one strongman’s bald head and was dressed like some sort of Biblical character in a tunic and a long hair wig. He looked pretty muscular for a little bitty dog and was curling a tiny dumbbell. Winkie Lee was with the karate people. Winkie was dressed like an angel and had Mousie with her. Mousie was tightly clamped in Winkie Lee’s jaws and was dressed in an adorable little devil costume.

The Christian metal singer and rapper, not being actual musicians who could either read music or play instruments themselves, tried to urge the rock orchestra to greater heights of faster playing with their Elvis style microphone whipping and fist pumping. The Christian rock orchestra did its best to accommodate the frontmen and worked itself into a lather churning the kind of rock finale that Christian fundamentalists across America would have found offensive and condemned as being ungodly and that everybody else would have found as being insipid and boring.

At the crescendo, there were dry ice explosions and smoke billowing across the stage. It enveloped the Christian rock orchestra, the Christian rapper and metal singer, the Christian skateboarders, everybody there, all the Christians. And when the dry ice cleared, standing center stage was Timmy Ruckland, flanked by the Christian rapper and metal singer. All eyes were on Timmy.

“Jesus Rocks!” he shouted raising his pudgy forearm and fist in the air. The five hundred Christians in the audience raised their voices to shake the acoustic tile ceiling of the Shavren’s Memorial Stadium where the revival was taking place.

Timmy Ruckland, looking at the audience, in an expansive yet highly pitched voice, addressed the Christian metal singer. “Yorkie Devilstab, (the Christian metal 321

singer’s moniker)What do you think about this crowd of young Christians we’ve assembled to praise Jesus in God’s name out here in Richmond Virginia at Shavren’s Memorial Stadium?”

“OY FINK,” Yorkie Devilstab barked in his gruff throat singing voice, “ERE’S BE SOME DEBBIL STABBIN’ TONIGHT!” Yorkie rolled his eyes like Marilyn Manson, tossed his stringy, patchy dreads, jutted out his jaw like Popeye, and lifted his fist, which elicited yet another roar from the audience.

It thrilled Timmy Ruckland, who again raised his own fist in the air and grandly squeaked, “All hail Jesus.” After the crowd’s praising leveled off somewhat, Timmy turned to the Christian rapper and in his best ghetto patois, said, “Yo yoyo yo, DJ Anglehawk. What the upshake, my man?”

DJ Angelhawk humbly took off his hat, looked at the ground and dramatically pointed at the sky. “JESUS!” He screamed in a rough baratone. Then he looked from the ground up at the audience, popped his eyes at them and in a gravelly voice proclaimed, “JESUS UP. THAT’S RIGHT. UP IN THIS AUDITORIUM, JESUS UP. AND THE DEVIL TRY TO DRIVE BY HERE, WE GONNA TAKE CARE OF HIS A!” Again, the Christian teens ‘raised some noise’.

Timmy, getting carried away with himself, cried, “Dog, it’s a peeps to the max in His name, Jesus!” Although DJ Angelhawk’s eyebrows shot up in bewilderment at what Timmy Ruckland had said, Timmy’s butchering of hip hop slang went unnoticed by the predominantly white audience, who once again screamed their approval of the proceedings.

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Carried away with his command of hip hop lingo, Timmy Ruckland whined, “Jesus is breaking it down chilly style bling bling, my jackroll!” DJ Angelhawk looked at Yorkie Devilstab, who ground his jaw and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘I don’t know what this fucking weeny is talking about either.’

But that was lost on Timmy Ruckland who was striding back and forth along the lip of the stage like a big, bloated, soft looking Christian lion, pacing back and forth. He then delivered his sermon, which, to Caleb’s ears, sounded disturbingly sensual. “When you get into loving Jesus,” Timmy Ruckland assured the Christian teens for Jesus, “It’s better than being friends! It’s as if you become God’s lover!” Caleb raised his eyebrows and looked at his Mom, who didn’t seem to be picking up on what Caleb was. “And once Jesus is your lover, you will feel things that you’ve never felt before,” Timmy Ruckland revealed to the horny teens, “He will open you up AND COME INSIDE OF YOU...” He went on in this vein for about five or ten more minutes, eliciting screams from the Christian Teens and uneasy looks from Yorkie Devilstab and DJ Angelhawk.

“Now!” Timmy Ruckland commanded in his shrill voice, “Let’s get down to some of what I like to call, Airin’ for Jesus!” Then Timmy, Yorkie Devilstab and DJ Angelhawk exited while a few more ramps were dragged out. Then the Christian Skakerats did their tricks.

Let me say right here, that whether it was the Christian Skaterats doing skate tricks on their ramps, the Christian Muscle Crew playing catch with motorcycles and other heavy shit, or the Karatifying Christian Jesus Belts breaking devil-boards and satanic cinder blocks, all the bits used the same kind of thing for every bit. For each trick or stunt, the Christian Skaterat, or whoever, would call out a scripture, then do the stunt.

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Here is just one example. The Jesus belt Karate man quoted from Psalms 7:1-2 and 7:7.

For dramatic purposes, he didn’t quote 7:3-6, but what he said, he yelled over his microphone, screaming, “O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me: Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver...Arise, O Lord, in thine anger, lift up myself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgement that thou hast commanded.” And then he broke a foot wide slab of concrete.

And during the blocks of time between acts, different reformed sinners came out to titillate the Christian teens with tales of their past sins before telling them not to follow their examples but to follow God instead. The reformed sinners consisted of two exjunkies, an old man who claimed to have been a heroin addict for twenty years and an old woman who said that she had been a crack ‘ho for fifteen years, except she didn’t come right out and call herself a ‘ho. Then there was a young man who claimed that faith had “cured” his homosexuality, and there also was a repentant Satanist.

They all wove darkly baroque tales of their past debaucheries, and they were luridly riveting stories. The druggies told of shooting galleries, crack houses, turning tricks for dope and od’ing. The gay man told of Godless tupperware parties, same-sex country line dancing and, of course, AIDS, (the fundamentalists’ proof that their loving God draws the line when it comes to faggy behavior). And the Satanist described in painterly detail the luxurious Catholic Churches used by satanic priests for their depraved black masses. He told the teens that he’d witnessed and participated in sickening perversions of the most extreme nature and had even witnessed human sacrifices. You could hear a pin drop. The whole thing was entertaining as it could be.

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And, of course, Matlock and Winkie Lee both had their own star turns. When it was Matlock’s time in the spotlight, he appeared between two miniature Doric columns that supported a tiny roof, all of it on a small platform. Bracing himself between the two columns, Matlock reenacted Samson avenging himself on the Philistines. He pushed against the columns, his big little doggie muscles swelling like walnuts under the strain.

The gigantic Christian Muscleman, upon whose bald head Matlock had been been perched, stood next to the platform and read Judges 16: 28-30. He bellowed, “And Samson call unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left.” All through the reading, Matlock continued to push and push against the columns.

The baldheaded Christian Strongie continued, declaring, “And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein.” It was here that Matlock broke the pillars and brought them and the miniature scale roof down on his head. The Christian Strongman in Christ concluded solemnly, “So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”

At which point, Matlock popped out of the rubble, Phoenix like, and bowed to the thunderous applause of the Christian Teens. Matlocked hopped back on his pearch atop the Christian Strongman’s bald head, and it was on to the next feat of Christian Faith Based Strength.

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In Winkie Lee’s bit, her Kitty Angel, yowled out over the microphone what was supposed to be, ‘I love Jesus,’ but which came out, “Meow meow MEOW meow!” After which she did a sprightly karate demonstration in which her precious Angel Kitty personae kicked, clawed and bit the shit out of Mousie’s Devil Mouse, all to the delighted appreciation of the easily amused high on Jesus teenagers.

It was too much for Caleb, who, feeling suddenly overstimulated, left what remained of the show and took to bed in order to watch the murky shadows play across the ceiling in the quiet confines of his dimly lit room.

“Caleb, are you alright, they’re going to have the Big Christian Finale in a minute,” his Mom asked from his doorway. He could tell that she was a little concerned.

She said, “Matlock and Winkie Lee are going to be singing a song.”

“Oh, too much excitement for me, Mom. I think I’ll skip it.”

Caleb’s Mom hesitated, then she said, “You sure do lay in your room and stare at the ceiling a lot lately. Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

The shadows in the room looked like clouds floating, and Caleb said, “I’m just doing what the old time people did before they had television and radio.”

“What are you talking about?” She looked up, searching for whatever it was that Caleb had seen up there.

Caleb dissembled. “Folks used to stare at the ceiling for fun. As a pass-time and a hobby. Didn’t you know that, Mom?”

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Caleb’s Mom didn’t remember her Mom or any of her older family ever reminiscing about the joys of pre-television catatonic behavior as being the leisure time activity of choice. she shook her head and left him alone.

It would have been peaceful if his mind hadn’t been feverishly humming with self-recrimination, anger, resentment, guilt, and loss. What did he begin to see in the shadows? His dad was giving him a look that said, ‘Why’d you end up getting mad at me, son?’ And over in the corner was Jerry’s mournful visage, staring at him with an accusatorial expression, as if to ask Caleb why he’d discouraged him from following a Christian life. His sad face asked Caleb the damning question, ‘when I told you about going back to church, why’d you just laugh about it and get me high? Now I’m in hell, Caleb. What do I do now?’

There was Martell’s droopy face from when he was a freshman. ‘ I needed you to be a better teacher,’ his sad eyes told Caleb. ‘I wanted you to take some interest in me, and you let me down by not caring enough.’ Caleb’s gaze miserably and aimlessly drifted until he saw Sheena’s face twitching next to the light fixture. ‘The bullies who teased you wouldn’t listen to me, Sheena’, he thought.

So many faces, not all of them representing the dead either. In addition to Uncle Pal, Joey and Jake’s dead eyed shadow faces, there were others who were among the living, people who were lost to Caleb. So many. Olga, Veta, various Dawgs, Juan, Billy Bazoo, Chester, Deareo. ‘Why did you leave us? Why didn’t you care enough?’

What happened was that Caleb had entered that lucid state between dreaming and wakefulness, otherwise known as The Twilight Zone, and Ann was now in his room.

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In his lucid dream, Caleb sat up and hugged Ann. He felt his chest swell and his eyes sting. All the other faces were gone, and Caleb said to her, “Where did they all go?”

She said in the most serious tone, “They’ve gone now.”

Caleb could see himself hugging Ann as if he were watching himself and her from an entirely different point of view in the room. Somewhere overhead. He was crying.

Sobbing. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he was barely able to utter through his violent weeping.

“I know,” Ann quietly said.

Then Caleb was awake. He was lying down and was dry eyed. He stared at the shadows on the ceiling.

It wasn’t even ten a.m. yet. At ten, Mr. Rogers would be on PBS, and like One Life To Live and Regis & Kelly, seeing Mr. Rogers was important in the maintenance of Caleb’s summer routine. Of course, the great thing about watching Mr. Roger’s was being stoned while doing so, and since this part of the experience was not in play, well, watching Mr. Rogers just wasn’t as sidesplittingly funny as it normally was.

Nevertheless, Caleb got up from his bed and went back into the front room where his Mom was reading a romance entitled Yesterday’s Renewal. Upon seeing her son, she said, “Is it time for your pal to be on tv?”

Caleb turned the television back on and turned the station to PBS. “Yep,” he informed her as the piano intro began its deliciously jazzy opening and the toy village appeared on the screen. It wasn’t awful watching Mr. Rogers straight, and if Caleb hadn’t been going through the minor irritation of pot withdrawal, he would have been 328

more engaged. At the moment, the sight of the saint himself, Fred Rogers, neither inordinately tickled him nor evoked the feelings of fuzzy stoned warmth in his brain that he normally felt like Pavlov’s Dog upon seeing the legend of children’s television. Caleb just felt dead inside during the introduction of the show as Mr. Rogers took off his sweater and changed his shoes and began talking to the audience in his calm, reassuring way.

Mr. Rogers message before he let the audience go to ‘the land of make believe’ was lost on Caleb. Now lest you think I’m being mean about Mr. Rogers, let me just say that Caleb should have been listening, because everything that Mr. Rogers has ever said is true and can be applied to adult life as well as the rosy realms of dear childhood. If Caleb would have been watching later in the day, maybe he would have been weeping with emotion at what Mr. Rogers said, but right then, Caleb wasn’t feeling it.

His Mom looked up from her book. “What’s he going on about today? It’s okay to be afraid of your own poop?” she asked.

“Probably, Mom,” Caleb said sadly.

The segment of the show wherein the audience is transported to the ‘land of make believe,’ revealed that the theme was something along the lines of ‘don’t be afraid of the wind’. Most of it went right past Caleb, who focused but didn’t really take in the very special, dainty ‘Kite Day’ dance that Lady Eberlin performed for King Friday or the oddly inflected passive aggressive insults of drag queen, Phylis Diller like puppet, Lady Elaine Fairchild. Lady Elaine, with her red cheeks and nose and her rather un-Mr. Rogerish snarky attitude, was Caleb’s favorite character. On today’s show, she tossed out a casually Warholian put down of Lady Eberlin, when she made a twee attempt to make a 329

funny face, saying, “Toots, I was born with a funnier face than you can make. Now if you’re done with the comedy routine, and I use that term very loosely, I’m ready to FLY KITES!” Still, because of Caleb’s mood, it was like a plate of nothing to him. It was only the appearance of Prince Tuesday and Henrietta Pussycat that caused Caleb to snap out of his ennui.

Even stoned, Caleb despised those two particular puppets. Still, when he was high, he enjoyed the displeasure of despising them. In his current state, the sight of those two changed his blue fugue state into one of indescribable anger.

“Meow meow MEOW meow...wind,” that damnable Henrietta Pussycat mewled to Prince Tuesday.

The stupid doll tremulously cowered with the frightened Henrietta Pussycat puppet, and Prince Tuesday twittered to King Friday, Lady Fairchild and Lady Eberlin, “Daniel heard...that sometimes...the wind can take you away!”

“Meow meow MEOW meow...scary,” dribbled that fucking Henrietta Pussycat.

“GODDAMN YOU, HENRIETTA PUSSYCAT, YOU AND THAT FUCKING STUPID PRINCE!” Caleb declared rising from his chair and raising his middle finger to the tv screen.

“Shame on you for cursing,” his Mom snapped looking up from her book.

As the rest of the cast of ‘make believe’ tried to reassure the scared little sissy puppets that usually the wind needn’t be feared, Caleb said, “Sorry, Mom, it’s just that those two piss me off so much. They’ll be off in a minute.”

Caleb’s Mom said, “After your show, would you like to go for a drive?”

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“I don’t care,” Caleb said. In the show, Trolley appeared and signaled the end of the segment. It was time to leave the ‘land of make believe’, and go back to see Mr. Rogers again.

“Oh, come on, let’s get out of the house for a little while,” Caleb’s Mom said.

The trolley left the land of make believe set and came back to the little apartment.

Mr. Rogers was smiling at Caleb. To his Mom Caleb said, “Sure, Mom.” She got up and left the room to get ready. On the television, Mr. Rogers reiterated that, no, you needn’t be afraid of a windy day. Just don’t lose your hat if you’re wearing one. Mr. Rogers sensibility calmed Caleb, and he watched as Mr. Rogers pulled down a movie screen and a movie about a vegetable canning factory started playing.

Like all of the factories in the short films on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, this vegetable canning factory was cleaner than any of the half a dozen factories that Caleb had seen in real life. Caleb’s Mom came in during the film. Caleb said as he pointed at the screen, “I’d love to work there.”

The veggies went through various machines that prepared them for canning.

“Where’s that at, Mexico?” his Mom asked.

The film concluded. Caleb wished that he had a video tape of all Mr. Rogers little short films about working in various factories. He could watch that. Then everything would be okay.

And there was sweet, heroic Mr. Rogers again, this time holding a kite. He said, “I just want you all to know exACTly how special you are, and that sometimes the wind might blow, but that’s okay.” And here, he broke into song:

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“The mighty wind doesn’t mean to scare./ It’s just a-trying to ruffle your hair./ So when it blows on a windy day,/ You can still go out with your friends and play.”

As Mr. Rogers sang, he made the kite dance on his counter top. Caleb felt better.

He wouldn’t mind the wind blowing, he thought.

Caleb’s Mom drove them around the back streets of Chase. It was a hot day, so Caleb had his window down. On the radio was Glen Campbell’s Witchita Lineman. It was one of those songs that when Caleb had been a kid, he’d been uncomfortable listening to. The plaintive lonesomeness of Mr. Campbell’s voice and the lush instrumental arrangement had been for the child Caleb a glimpse through a melodic window into the lonesome life out on the line (whatever that would end up being) that was in store for him. “And the Witchita lineman,” Glen Campbell sang, “is still on the line.” And it was always after that phrase was delivered that the orchestral strings hit one sustained icy note that had been a pure foreshadowing of the future for Caleb.

So he listened to it in the car with his Mom, and he felt again the helpless urgency conveyed by ‘the lineman.’as he doubtlessly sank into an isolated world of madness, unpopulated with nothing but the road and the never ending utility line that somewhere needed fixing. “And the Witchita lineman, is still on the line,” Mr. Campbell sang, and the note hit again, like the lineman was telling someone that he was still okay, but you could see that he was really drowning. And finally there was the warm coda at the end.

After sharing the angst of the lonely Witchita Lineman, it’s safe for the listeners to get back to their own okay lives or something.

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The wind from outside blew into the car window and whipped Caleb’s hair into his eyes and mouth. “So, Caleb,” his Mom said, “have you heard of any openings this coming school year?”

“Naw, Mom. No one’s gonna’ hire me full time anyway. I’ll just sub.”

“You should ask them. Be a pest.” Their car veered into the other, thankfully, deserted lane. Caleb wondered if his Mom were trying to scare him with her driving, get him to react. If not, she was getting to be as lousy a driver as Aunt Vee Vee. His Mom didn’t used to drive so badly.

“I do ask,” Caleb lied once she’d pulled back into the proper lane. “Every time I see the principals, I ask ‘em to put me on full time. I tell them, ‘Hey, I’ll work for half of what I was making,’ but they...they laugh at me, Mom. The only thing they like about me is my hair.” When she looked at him incredulously, the car again swerved into the wrong lane. Caleb swept back his glorious widow’s peak so he could see and said, “Awp, get over.” She got over, but dropped the talk of his getting a teaching position.

When they town, they turned onto Park Avenue and cruised north, past the Italianate architecture of the two and three story commercial buildings of the main street.

His Mom said, “Have you ever thought of doing something else?”

“No,” Caleb lied, knowing that she didn’t want to hear about his hopes of growing a plantation of marijuana. “Subbing will be okay,” he assured her. Some little kids riding their bikes outside of The Dollar Store recognized Caleb and yelled to him. He grandly waved back. For some reason, Caleb thought of the line in the song ‘Trailer For Sale Or Rent’ which ran, ...all of the children know my name... It was true that everywhere Caleb

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went, it seemed that all of the children DID know his name. “I feel that by substitute teaching, I’m giving back to the community,” he further bullshitted.

“You could do something else maybe,” she told him. “You know, you should put your application in at the Marion prison. Maybe you could get on as a guard.”

This was the second time that Caleb’s Mom had suggested a branch of law enforcement as a viable job choice for him. He wondered if she was being purposefully ironic? “I’m kind of small to be bossing around those big criminals, Mom,” he said, neglecting to mention that he’d spent many summers worrying about being imprisoned with those big criminals himself. On the radio, the theme to Picnic began playing. It eased poor Caleb’s fevered brain, and he said, “This is one of the prettiest songs in the world.”

They went by the bank where his Mom had worked for such a long time, but she didn’t even notice it. “Say,” she helpfully offered, “you like music. Maybe you could be a disc jockey on the radio.”

“I think you need to get a college degree or something for that,” Caleb said. “And anyway, Mom, I think they frown on hiring people with speech impediments to talk on the airwaves.”

Caleb’s Mom looked at him sharply. “What are you talking about? You don’t have a speech impediment,” she asserted.

“Well, yeah I do,” he said. “A cleft palate and lip are one of the speech defect biggies. And I know that THE MAN doesn’t want any harelips as disc jockeys.” Caleb imagined broadcasting a show that no one could understand, and while he did find that idea appealing, he doubted anyone would hire him to do that.

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For awhile they were both quiet as they turned off Park Avenue and went down Monroe Street. They passed Perry’s Tavern, and Caleb’s Mom said, as she always did when they went by, “They ought to shut that place down. Nothing but dopers go in there.” The door opened and a trio of crusty mid-day drinkers rolled into the daylight from the interior darkness. The light hurt their eyes and Caleb’s Mom clicked her tongue as the no-goods shielded their vision. “Look at them,” she said disapprovingly.

One of them was Perv, who excitedly waved as they passed. “Caleb, my man,” he called out and his two fellows, upon recognizing Caleb, waved gaily too. He didn’t recognize them but regally returned their salutation nevertheless as if he were passing royalty.

On the radio was the song, ‘Tammy’. Caleb’s Mom said, “When you were a little boy, you wanted to be a doctor.” Doctor?

“No I didn’t. I don’t know where you get that,” Caleb replied. He reckoned that his Mom had crossed the boundary from purposefully ironic to willfully deluded.

“After you saw that movie M.A.S.H., you came home and told your dad and me that you wanted to become a doctor.”

Caleb vaguely remembered seeing the movie M A S H with Johnny and a few other guys at the drive in and being impressed by Eliot Gould and Donald Sutherland’s counter culture docs. “Yeah, I remember,” he said. “‘Cause I thought being a doctor would be like camping out and getting drunk like Hawkeye and...uh, the other guy. Then two weeks later, I changed my mind and wanted to be something else, a rock singer I think. Anyway, I get sick at the sight of blood.” Looking back, the idea of Caleb’s

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becoming a doctor was ridiculous although even now the thought of living in a cozy tent and being an alcoholic wasn’t all that outre.

“Oh, you could get over being squeamish. Caleb you could go back to school!”

“I’m forty-nine for God’s sake.”

“So? You can always go back to school.”

Caleb thought of spending the next eight years devoted to the study of medicine.

Did they still make doctors in training stay awake for long periods of time? That would never do. “Naw, I think I’ll pass on being a doctor. Being a substitute teacher is good enough for me,” Caleb told his Mom. The next song, ‘Call Me Irresponsible’, began playing.

“Who’s singing this?” his Mom asked, unable to place the vocalist.

“I think it’s Jack Jones.”

“Could it be Steve Lawrence?”

“I say Jack Jones.”

It proved to be Jack Jones. Caleb’s Mom drove by the house wherein she had grown up. They drove past the high school and went by the various homes in town that had beautiful gardens. She said hopefully, “Well, if you weren’t substitute teaching, what would you want to do?”

They were passing a huge garden of blooming mums and zinnas. Caleb pulled the hair from his face and pulled it behind his head, but as soon as he let go, it immediately wrapped around his face again. “I thought about getting into food service at the ground level,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

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“I’ve thought about dishwashing, and maybe working my way up to fry cook.”

“But Caleb,” his Mom tried to reasonably remind him, “you have an education.”

“Well, I figured that if I didn’t mention it, they couldn’t hold it against me,” Caleb confided. “Yes, Mom, I considered food service, but the pay for a dishwasher just wasn’t good enough for me to give up those sweet substitute teaching days.”

Caleb’s Mom decided to just shut up and drive.

Near the end of the school year, once again, Mrs. Rainey had called for Caleb to sub for her class. By this time, the seniors had graduated. In the room were only three students: Daelyn, Brittany and Dooby. Dooby was in the corner rather unsuccessfully playing mumbly-peg with a tiny pen knife. Each time he’d miss and poke one of his fingers, he’d wince and jump in his seat. Brittany was writing in her journal, and Daelyn was lying on the floor napping.

Daelyn was a lovely young Pentecostal woman who wore her light brown hair hanging down to her waist. Because she wore tie dyed shirts and long denim skirts, Caleb hadn’t known at first that she was Pentecost. Her friend Brittany was a cool goth girl, and Dooby was third generation hippie.

From Dooby’s corner, he said, “Ouch!”

“You need to quit that,” Brittany kindly reasoned with the indomitable lad.

“I think you’re on to something,” Dooby said, nonetheless continuing his folly.

Thankfully, he didn’t feel like doing that today.

“Uh, hey, Dooby. Wanna’ see a trick?” Caleb asked, hoping to distract him from his disastrous mumbly-pegging. He stopped and looked up. Dooby had a trick of his 337

own. He liked to pull up his shirt, draw eyes and a nose on his chest and stick a cigarette in his navel. He didn’t want to see Mr. Jones do that kind of trick.

“What kind of trick?” he asked a little suspiciously.

Caleb summoned the young man to his desk, and he performed a trick that he’d learned at Brandywine High School. First he got out a sheet of paper and tore it into three sheets. As he was doing this, he told Dooby, “I am going to read your mind three times.

“Think of a color,” he said. As Dooby thought of a color, on one of the sheets of paper, Caleb wrote the number 18 (81 upside down). He then balled it up and proclaimed, “I have read your mind and written the color you were thinking on this here piece of paper. Now tell me the color.”

“Red.” “Of course. Red. I knew that, Doobie, and I’ve written it down right here, but before I show you, I’m going to read your mind again.”

“Okay.”

“Think of a name,” Caleb commanded, and while Dooby thought of a name, on the next piece of paper, Caleb wrote the color that Dooby had just told him, red. After he’d written red on the piece of paper, he crumpled it up and put it next to the first balled up piece of paper, which bore the number 18 (or 81).

“I just read your mind again. Now tell us the name please.”

Dooby looked a bit skeptical, but he went along, saying, “The name I was thinking of was Sue.”

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“I knew that and have written it down right there,” Caleb lied pointing to the paper ball on the desk with ‘red’ on it. Dooby looked searchingly to Daelyn and Brittany.

Brittany wasn’t taken in by Caleb’s flimsy ruse, and Daelyn was softly snoring..

“Now, one last time I will read your mind. Please think of either the number 18 or 81.” As Dooby thought of 18, Caleb wrote down ‘Sue’ on the remaining piece of paper. He then crumpled it up, grabbed all three balls of paper and presented them to Dooby. “Your number, sir? Eighteen or eighty-one?”

“Eighteen,” Dooby said. “Where’d you learn this?”

Caleb mixed the balls of paper together on the table. “One of my students was into Voodoo,” Caleb lied. He handed one of the balls of paper to Dooby, who unfolded it.

“Oh my gosh. It says, Sue!” His eyes were aglow with wonder. “How’d you!?

Let’s see if you got red.” Dooby unfolded the paper, and this time, there was an element of fear in his voice when he read the paper. “It says red,” he murmured. Looking at Brittany, Dooby giggled nervously and said, “Are you seeing this? This is fantastic. Mr. Jones is reading my mind! Okay, there’s something about the last one.”

“Here,” Caleb offered, holding out the last piece of wadded paper. Dooby unfolded it, then turned it upside down. “This I can figure out,” he said. “If I hold it one way it’s eighty-one. The other way, it’s eighteen. So you didn’t really read my mind.”

“On the contrary,” Caleb lied. “It’s necessary to use the numerals eight and one.

See, the eight is the universal symbol for eternity and, like, boundlessness.”

“Wow.”

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“Wow indeed. And the one represents the individual consciousness. So in order to unlock the telepathic voodoo waves, I have to spring out the eight and the one. Or the one and the eight if you will, Dooby.”

“Oh my God,” Dooby said, awestruck, looking at the cards.

“He’s just fooling you, Dooby,” Brittany said.

“No, he’s not. He read my mind. You just heard him,” Dooby asserted looking at Mr. Jones as if he were afraid he were reading his mind at that very moment.

“If you can read my mind what am I thinking?” Daelyn, who had awakened, asked.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Caleb told them, preparing to tear up another piece of paper.

“Just tell us the trick,” Brittany said.

For a moment, Caleb thought about continuing to maintain his psychic ability, but he gave in. “Okay,” he said and quickly showed them how he’d done it. Brittany rolled her eyes, and Daelyn started to go back to sleep.

“I knew it,” Brittany said.

“It’s still a fantastic trick,” Dooby said. “Brittany, let me practice it using you.

Please?”

“Okay, Dooby. But it’s easy.”

“It’s fantastic is what it is! Wait until I show my little sister. This is the best thing I’ve learned all year I think. Thanks, Mr. Jones!”

“We aim to please, Dooby.”

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Hoping to gently encourage Daelyn to get off the floor, Caleb said, “Back when I was in high school, Daelyn, the Pentecostal girls didn’t lie on the floor and take their naps.”

“Oh we can lie on the floor and nap,” she assured him. But instead of napping, she fixed him with her dissecting stare, no doubt looking up Caleb’s asymmetrical nostrils, and asked him, “Mr. Jones, do you go to church?”

“Why, yes. Every Sunday, I take my Mom to the early mass. We’re Catholics.”

“What’s mass like?”

“Hmmm. Well, it’s boring and kind of long. You kneel. Then you sit. Then you stand. Then you kneel some more. Then you stand some more. You get the idea. The priest goes on and on about holy stuff. There’s some things he or someone else up by him says, and then the people say stuff back. Then we take communion and go home. I wish it were like, fifteen minutes instead of an hour.”

Daelyn seemed amused. “You only go to church for an hour a week?”

“Yeah. How long do you go?”

“We have a three hour service on Sunday morning. Then we go back at night for the real service. And we go throughout the week.”

Caleb was bowled over by the though of all that church. “Man, no wonder you folks don’t sin,” Caleb observed.

“We sin,” Daelyn informed him. “Does anybody get the Holy Spirit in your church?”

“Oh no.”

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From his corner of the room, Dooby said, “I heard of some holy rollers who throw rattle snakes around. Brittany, think of a color.” They went on with their trick.

Caleb said, “I heard that having The Holy Spirit is like an incredible buzz.”

Daelyn smiled wisely. “What would happen if someone got The Holy Spirit during a Catholic Mass.”

Caleb scratched his head. “We’d strip them naked and tie them to the alter,” he quipped, adding, “Wait, no, that’s what I’d do.”

“What would they do for real?”

“Ahh, they’d look askance. Then they’d probably be polite, and later on talk behind their back I reckon,” Caleb said.

THE AESTHETICS OF RENUNCIATION

The phone was ringing so early. Not that Caleb had been asleep. He’d been awake since five-thirty. Dreams had kept him active all night and again he’d awoken more tired than when he’d gone to bed. Dreams of unfamiliar cool blue urban junk yards filled with feral kids, of which Caleb was a member, despite his age, which somehow didn’t make enough of a difference in the dream to even register. They’d been living in a mountain of crushed metal in a big junkyard, and in the distance, there had been a silver highway singing with the car and truck sounds. And Caleb had run and hidden among the ruins with the kids, all night it seemed. His lower back ached when he got out of bed, probably from tossing and turning.

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It was just eight o’clock. Caleb turned on Good Morning America and waited for a possible phone call from a school wanting him to sub but hoping that since he hadn’t heard from them by now that they’d leave him alone. Diane Sawyer had the day off, and Caleb was hoping for the same, so the ringing startled him and filled him with dismay.

At the time, there was a segment about a certain celebrity who was promoting a movie and in love. He was busy acting like an asshole on live morning tv, and then the phone rang.

It was Aunt Vee Vee. “Caleb, can you take me to Doctor Promote?” she asked him.

“Sure. When is your appointment?”

“It’s written down here that it’s at ten. Do you know how to get there?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

“No, no, I ain’t,“ his Aunt Vee Vee said. “I got a pain in my chest and back, and I’ve been coughin’.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

The pain in her chest and back wasn’t Aunt Vee Vee’s only problem. Her brain was going. Whether it was senile dementia or the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s Disease would only be revealed by time. At the present, Aunt Vee Vee was extremely disoriented and had no short term memory to speak of anymore, but she was still grounded in reality. She still knew who people were, but she couldn’t remember anything for shit. Repeated herself over and over without even knowing that she was doing that until the person she was talking to told her what she was doing. And Aunt Vee Vee no longer trusted herself to drive. She had forgotten how to get to Dr. Fen’s office.

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She was ready to go when Caleb arrived. Dressed in a black and white pants suit, she had found her dental plate that she’d thought that the cat had stolen and hidden from her. “That darned Kitty had put my teeth in the refrigerator,” Aunt Vee Vee grumbled.

One of the saddest things in the world is when someone is trying to hide their fear with a forced show of transparent gaiety. On the way to Doctor Promote’s office, Aunt Vee Vee tried to get Caleb to stop by the Dairy Queen so that she could buy him a hot fudge sundae. “Come on,” she tried to tempt him. “I’ll get you a sundae if you’ll eat it,” she teased, but Caleb could see the helpless fear in her eyes. He could hear in her voice her fears about her health, and he could only think of the awful possibilities that might cause a sharp pain in the chest and back in a woman in her mid-eighties. He wondered if his Aunt Vee Vee would still be around in a year’s time.

He didn’t want a sundae, but hoping to distract his aunt, he said, “Sure,” and he made a detour to go to Dairy Queen, but when they got there and had walked up to the glass doors, they discovered that it wasn’t open yet. For moments, Aunt Vee Vee’s displaced anxiety focused on her foiled plan to buy her forty-nine year old nephew a hot fudge sundae. “Oh,” she fretted. “Dog dang it.” Caleb’s Aunt Vee Vee started crying.

Feeling protective and a little embarrassed, Caleb put his arm around her shoulder and walked her back to the car. “It’s okay,” he told her. “You can get me a sundae on the way home.”

Once they were back driving to Dr. Fen’s, Caleb tried to distract Aunt Vee Vee by asking her about the past. “Say,” he wheedled, “I hear that my Dad liked to get drunk, break into you and Uncle Pal’s old apartment and sing ‘Buttermilk Skies’. Is there any truth to that?” By then they were heading down the highway.

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Aunt Vee Vee cackled so hard that she had to stop because of the pain she was having. “Oooo, Lord,” she commented breathlessly. “Your Pa was the wild one between him and Pal, but everybody loved him.” She then regaled Caleb with another retelling of another story about his Dad. In this one he was also drunk again, this time with all the money from his newly cashed paycheck AND on his way to The Club Legionnaires to play cards. “And Caleb,” Aunt Vee Vee continued, “There wasn’t a worse card player in Williamson County than your Dad. Oh, he thought he was good, but you could read what he was holding by the way he acted every hand. Whenever he’d get a good hand, he’d sit up and grin like an old coon dog. And when he had a bad hand, he’d say, ‘Shit,’ and then after he’d given himself away, he’d STILL try to bluff. Everybody liked to play cards with your Dad.” In the story, Uncle Pal took Caleb’s Dad aside and asked if he could borrow some money, and Caleb’s Dad, being the generous young drunk that he was, gave his entire roll to his brother, which he then forget he’d done in an alcoholic blackout. “And the next day he came over to our house,” Aunt Vee Vee fondly reminisced. “He looked sad and hung over. He told your Uncle Pal,” and here Aunt Vee Vee spoke in a sotto voice like Caleb’s Dad would speak, “‘I just don’t know what I did with my money. I don’t have a damned cent left. Could I borrow enough to get me through till next payday?’”

She followed that anecdote with retellings of her stories about his Dad. She told the one about how they used to read comic books together on Grandma Jones enclosed front porch, and she followed that with the ‘Buttermilk Skies’ story and the story about Caleb’s Dad boldly and fecklessly evading work by telling the neighbor, “‘No, I won’t 345

mow your lawn, but my brother will.’” Then she laughed and winced at the pain. “I miss your Dad. I miss my Pal too,” she whimpered.

“Aw, don’t worry about them, Aunt Vee Vee. They’re up there in heaven whoopin’ it up with Jesus and God. Having beers with the angels or something, you know.”

“They don’t drink beer in heaven,” Aunt Vee Vee said indignantly.

“Okay, they’re up there eating manna and drinking nectar. Playing harps.”

“You think that’s what they do?”

“Why sure.”

At Doctor Porter’s office, Caleb tried to get Aunt Vee Vee interested in reading a magazine while she waited for Doreen, the pretty receptionist, to call her name, but Aunt Vee Vee had other things in mind.

“Hey, Doreen, do you know my nephew, Caleb?” she asked, following with an introduction. Doreen was a blonde young woman in her mid-twenties. She politely smiled as Aunt Vee Vee coyly said, “Caleb, this is Doreen. She’s Doctor Porter’s receptionist, and she is always so nice to me.”

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

During this time, Aunt Vee Vee took on the look that used to fill Caleb with dismay when she would turn it upon him, as she was now doing. “Caleb,” she said, drawing out his name to ask him a question, the answer to which she perfectly well knew.

“You ain’t got a girlfriend, do you?”

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“No.” Caleb and Doreen were both trying not to let their discomfiture show.

In a voice meant to be heard by Doreen, and thereby everyone else in the waiting room, Aunt Vee Vee said, “You think she’s pretty?”

“Uh, lovely. Sure.”

“Why don’t you go over there and talk to her.” It was good to see the intrusive, instigating Aunt Vee Vee back. Caleb didn’t even begrudge her wicked smile as she urged him to try and make a date with Doreen.

“I ain’t gonna’ do that, Aunt Vee Vee,” Caleb informed her.

“She ain’t got a boyfriend,” Aunt Vee Vee loudly hissed. Caleb wondered how she would know this.

Caleb decided to try a diverting tactic, and he said, “It’s too bad Bertie ain’t around then. You could introduce her to old Hollywood. He’d flirt with her.”

“Hee hee. Yes he would, that stinker,” Aunt Vee Vee conceded, then she frowned.

“Bertie has got a wife. He’s got Maze.”

Thankfully, Doreen, her cheeks and neck flushed with either passion or embarrassment, called Aunt Vee Vee’s name for her to go into the examination room.

As Aunt Vee Vee went, she said, “You go on and talk to Doreen.”

During the forty five minutes that Aunt she was in the exam room, Caleb did not talk to Doreen, but looked through the doctor’s eclectic magazine selection which ranged from the monthly AARP publications and the Royal Neighbor updates to Better Homes & Gardens and Ladies Home Journal. Once Caleb looked up and saw Doreen looking at

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him, so he smiled and raised his eyebrows, prompting her to quickly look away in either bashful ardor or barely disguised revulsion.

When Doctor Fen was finished, he called Caleb into the exam room where Aunt Vee Vee was sitting and smiling on the exam table. The walls in the doctors’s exam room were a restfully muted green tone, and the window looked out on tiers of high, sharply trimmed hedges. Since doctors, even the kindly though inscrutable Doctor Fen, scared the shit out of Caleb, he was nervous as a cat as he sat in a chair in the exam room. As he always did when confronted with a physician, Caleb steeled himself for the worst.

“Your Aunt has an infection, Caleb. We need to get it cleared up, so I’m gonna prescribe her some antibiotics. Now, I know she is very forgetful, so I’m going to give her a pill caddy, and I want to know if you or your Mom can call her or go by her house to make sure that she’s taking her pills.” Doctor Fen waited for Caleb to speak to him.

“Well, sure either me or Mom can call her. Aunt Vee Vee, we’re going to put your pill caddy by the phone. Now until me or my Mom call you, you leave ‘em alone. When we call to remind you, then you’ll take your pills.”

“Okay,” Aunt Vee Vee said. Doctor Fen handed Caleb his Aunt Vee Vee’s prescription, an empty pill caddy and a sheet of paper which had her pill schedule.

On the way back to her house, Aunt Vee Vee was well relieved that the Doctor had said she had an infection, not cancer nor pneumonia, just an infection, treatable with pills.

“Let’s get you that hot fudge sundae now,” she insisted giddily, so Caleb took her back to the Dairy Queen. They parked and went inside.

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The interior design was aimed to stir sweet nostalgic yearnings in customers who were, for the most part, too young to remember the fifties, except as one of the fifties retro movements that occasionally occursonce or twice each decade. The walls were shiny and white. The booths were mouthwash blue and the detailing was in chrome.

There were pictures of James Dean, Elvis and hot rods on the walls. Caleb and his Aunt Vee Vee sat in their blue booth, and Caleb ate his hot fudge sundae.

Aunt Vee Vee, who had ordered a banana split, said, “How’s your sundae?”

“It’s wonderful. Thank you so much,” Caleb graciously said.

Then, much to his exasperation, Aunt Vee Vee got out her purse and took out a ten dollar bill. “I want you to have this,” she told him, pushing the bill across the table.

Caleb groaned and said, “Aunt Vee Vee. You have already bought me a hot fudge sundae. Please don’t try to give me any money. You’re family.”

They pushed the ten dollar bill back and forth across the table, quietly bickering about Caleb accepting the money. “It don’t matter if we’re family. You take this money.”

“Aunt Vee Vee. Let me take you to the doctor without getting anything back. I need to do that,” he told her.

“Why?” “When I die, and I’m before Saint Peter, he’s gonna’ say, ‘We’re not letting you in. You’ve messed up too much.”

“How’ve you done that?” Aunt Vee Vee said unconvinced.

“I haven’t been a good friend to my friends. I’ve let a lot of them down. And I haven’t been a good teacher to my students. I gave them bad advice and didn’t care enough about them. I let them down too. I let my best friend down. I abandoned her.”

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Caleb shook his head. He missed them all, his friends and students as he sat there in the retro Dairy Queen. From their frames on the wall, James Dean smirked and Elvis sneer grinned at Caleb. Suddenly his hot fudge sundae stopped tasting good.

Caleb’s Aunt Vee Vee was looking at him in an uncomprehending way. “Take my ten dollars,” she urged.

“No, ‘cause when I want to go to heaven and they ask me if I did anything good that would make them reconsider, at least I’ll be able to say, ‘I took my Aunt Vee Vee to the doctor’s office,’ but then they’ll turn around and say, ‘Yeah, so what, you took ten dollars for it, you dick. Now down to hell with ya’.’”

Aunt Vee Vee shook her head. “Oh, Caleb, you wear a soul out, but have it your way. Now what I want to know,” she said, the mischief face jelling in her old face, “is did you talk to Doreen while I was in with the doctor?”

“No.” “Well why not?”

“I don’t want anybody, Aunt Vee Vee. I don’t want anyone nagging me to death, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. You wouldn’t have to be with someone that nagged you to death. You could find someone you got along with, like me and your Uncle Pal used to get along.”

Caleb’s eyes widened at this re-invention of history. Aunt Vee Vee started telling Caleb how much she missed Uncle Pal. “Oh, I just cry all the time thinking about him.

You know that he used to do everything. He was so smart.” Caleb could see the fear in her eyes as she considered things.

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“I’m lost now,” she conceded. “I don’t know how to go about paying the bills.

I’m scared to drive to get the groceries.” She was transfixed there in the Dairy Queen.

“Where are we?” she asked, looking at her half eaten banana split as if she didn’t know how it had gotten there.

“We’re at the Dairy Queen,” Caleb reminded her.

“I wish Uncle Pal was still here. I miss him so much, it like to drives me crazy,” she insisted yet again, and Caleb believed her because she was crying.

Then, figuring he’d give her the same stupid, glib advice that had gotten him so far in life, Caleb said the unforgivable, “Aunt Vee Vee,” Caleb said, “Please, think of all the many times that you and Uncle Pal were at each other’s throats. Really now, you and him used to carry on like you hated each other.”

“We did not. Don’t say that, Caleb. Me and your Uncle Pal got along swell. I thought you said you wanted to go to heaven,” Aunt Vee Vee said, hurt to the quick by what Caleb had said.

“Sorry, I was only trying to help you not miss Uncle Pal,” Caleb lamely offered.

He had really done it now. Caleb had made his eighty-five year old aunt cry, her dry sobs breaking the air-conditioned frigidity. She blinked wildly, her voice breaking as she stammered, “I don’t want to remember that if that’s what happened. I want to remember the love I had for Pal. I...I loved my husband. I loved Pal.” Her voice sounded broken, wounded. Caleb was so ashamed. Aunt Vee Vee said, “I want to, to remember us sitting in the kitchen having coffee.” Despite himself, Caleb pictured the more accurate scenario of Aunt Vee Vee and Uncle Pal both standing in the kitchen, red faced and screaming at each other.

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Aunt Vee Vee wept, and she managed to say, “I want to remember me and Pal and your Dad sitting on old Mrs. Jones front porch reading comic books. Did I ever tell you about that, Caleb?”

Caleb felt straight. Straight and sober. He didn’t even bother about smoking his poor quality shake anymore. He took his Aunt Vee Vee’s gnarled hand and said, “Naw, Aunt Vee Vee. I don’t guess you ever told me that one. Tell me all about it.”

Slowly, Caleb got out of the booth and helped his aunt out of her side. Slowly, they exited and got back in Caleb’s car. Aunt Vee Vee said, “Well, it was like this, Caleb.

Your Dad, when he was in junior high, he had the biggest old stack of comics that you ever did see. And come summer, me and him and Pal would sit out on her screened in front porch, and we’d read comics after supper.”

Caleb opened the door for Aunt Vee Vee and helped her enter. Before he shut the door, he could hear her chuckling. “When you get in, I’ll tell you about how your Dad got drunk and gagged on the soured milk. Me and Pal were in bed and we hear the awfulest crash in the kitchen, but I’ll wait. I’ll wait until you get in on your side.”

“Okay,” Caleb said, gently closing the door. He tried to think of five syllables to string together. But he couldn’t right just then. Nothing summed anything up anyway, he thought getting in on his side of the car.

“Like I said,” Aunt Vee Vee began, “Your Dad was drunk as a skunk,” and as she regaled Caleb with the affectionate remembrance of his drunken Dad, he drove her home.

No more deaths for awhile, Caleb thought. He noticed the beauty of the day. Caleb forgot to wish that he were high so that he could enjoy the green trees and the flowers in the sun, and he did something unthinkable. He enjoyed them anyway. “Oh, your Dad 352

was something, Caleb,” Aunt Vee Vee told him, no longer lost and afraid, but secure as she again went over her selective memories.

Those times were shining gems fixed the fabric of her spirit, and her spirit was more than her memories locked into her identity, identity dissipating as the body broke slowly down. Scary like a radio station fading as you drive out of its range. Lovely, like rosettes clinging to beautiful but rotting lacework. Dust and air finally.

Caleb got her prescription filled in Chase and then took his Aunt home, put her pill caddy by her phone and wrote a note by it telling her not to take the pills or move the caddy and that Caleb or his Mom would call to tell her when to take her pills. It was a bright pink caddy, impossible to miss. Caleb wished he had one of the cable ties that he’d used to tie his pot plants. He could use it to chain the pill caddy to the phone.

Then Caleb sat with Aunt Vee Vee at the kitchen table and played with kitty.

Caleb still felt guilty for having caused his old aunt to cry, and he was hugely relieved that she seemed to have forgotten his stupid advice.

Now she seemed to be in such a good mood. “I love my kitchen windows,” she revealed.

“You sure have a nice view,” Caleb told her. The three windows overlooked Aunt Vee Vee’s front lawn and the curving road around its border. “You ever sit here and watch the world go by?” Caleb asked.

“All the time,” Aunt Vee Vee allowed.

Before Caleb left, she again showed him the note that Uncle Pal had left her.

Caleb reread the references to comforting things like meadows, the quiet river, seeing his folks in his Father’s house and loving his wife, Vee Vee. It was about the spirit of love, 353

Caleb figured. He knew that his Uncle Pal had left it so that Vee Vee would find it later and read it and be comforted by it. The best of the person, that was the way to be remembered, and that was the was to remember others.

Think of the best of the person, Caleb told himself as he turned on the radio.

Forget what pissed you off about them. “Forgive”, as Barney Fife would say, “And let people live.” If you’ve acted like a jerk, hope they forgive you, for both of your sakes.

Go ahead and miss what you loved or at least liked about the people. Think about them and remember. He and Aunt Vee Vee watched a few cars go around the bend. He played with nameless kitty some more, and then he said goodbye to his aunt and went home.

His aunt was suffering from senile dementia. Caleb tried not to envision Aunt Vee Vee’s future, the increased scattering of her thoughts, her identity fragmenting so that she would no longer know Caleb or even remember the events from her past to which she so stubbornly clung. Soon she wouldn’t be able to drive anymore. Soon, Bertie would have to make living arrangements for her. Caleb would have to call him with increased regularity to keep him appraised. Perhaps Bertie would uproot her and bring her to New Mexico. She wouldn’t like to leave her home. Of that Caleb was certain. Like so many others, Caleb’s Aunt Vee Vee was going away, only she was leaving bit by bit with her life force still trapped in her physical prison.

To not think for awhile, Caleb took the long way home. On the radio was nothing but commercials, so Caleb hand turned the dial until he caught a grade of static that was restful sounding, like a rain tape. How far away the static sounded, radio waves from Pluto and beyond no doubt. Downtown, the red and brown brick buildings threw almost no shadows. Caleb thought of Ann and of James. He thought of his Dad, who was gone, 354

and of his Mom, whom he still had. Everything would be okay by a loose definition of okay, Caleb figured on the drive. The beautiful world would go on with its fierce and astonishing ways no matter what. It WAS beautiful, even for a harelip, out in the middle of nowhere and driving aimlessly in the middle of a hot day. Beautiful and fading, even as he prolonged his drive home. The buildings would be there probably after Caleb was gone. If no one tore them down, they could possibly be there for ten thousand years.

Sooner or later, it would all be gone. Or changed.

Caleb turned off the main drag and drove down the shady side streets and then out to the park, with its cool floor of shade from the well trimmed tree tops. Everything will be okay. Caleb didn’t know whether he believed that; or if it were true, how long things would remain okay, or if he had ever even believed it in the first place, but the hope that everything was okay was all that he, or most people had, a compass, and not a thing to ever take for granted.

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