My doctor ordered me to take a vacation

...a real vacation, he said. No obligations, no running around. A good, solid rest.

No problem, I said. I'm going to France.

A direct flight is entirely too expensive, so we fly through Montreal. Nine o'clock in the morning on Sunday, we are on our way to the airport. At security, Mr. Billy is pulled aside. Suspicious character, Mr. Billy. Shifty eyes and whatnot.

He walks away with an official airport security shoehorn in his pocket. Thanks, security guys!

Eight hours or so later, we're in Montreal, or so they tell us. It's French-language training wheels. We wander through the clean, modern airport, the Limbo of air travel. Duty Free, bars, restaurants, endless shining hallways.

We are stuffed into another metal tube with wings, shaken and buzzed and fed and movied for another seven hours or twelve hours or fifteen days. Plastic shades are lowered over oval windows, and some people sleep.

Sleep does not come for us.

We touch earth at last. Paris. My head rings, a long, sustained note.

The training wheels are off, now, and my brain struggles to come up with the language I once knew. Mr. Billy has no French, so it's all mine to fuck up.

We follow the signs to the train station, down in the belly of the airport. We're scheduled to meet my dad on the Côte d'Azur this evening. It's Monday afternoon, local time.

We find the station. Victory! Now, we need to buy train tickets. TGV - Very Big Fast - the bullet train south. There are kiosks and vending machines and counters and signs and signs and my brain rings and the words mean nothing. Like writing in dreams, the words shift and change the moment I think I've decoded them. I leave Mr. Billy with the bags while I try to find something I can understand.

There, a queue of people, a sign that says something like what I need, I can't even form the question in English. I stand in line and I am standing in line for a lifetime and then I'm at the front of it. I walk up to the man at the counter and try my thirty-years rusty French.

"Two tickets, if you please, for San Raphael. Or Frejus."

He answers me in English. The train leaves in half an hour. All is well.

"Don't leave me for so long, next time," says Mr. Billy when I return. He's been sitting here, prisoner with bags. No language, no idea where I am. I'm hungry and thirsty, but don't dare spend a single precious Euro cent. The train tickets were much more than we expected. I can't even process the exchange rate. We can't afford this trip, not even close. What was I thinking?

There are no drinking fountains.

It's all right, though, our train is coming. We find the correct platform, we know which car we need to board. It's assigned seating on the TGV. The train arrives, and we look for our car.

No, we're at the wrong end of the train. We run the length of the platform. The car numbers are going the wrong way. No, somehow we missed our car. The note sings in my head, and thoughts are slow to swim to the surface. We should just get on, somewhere, but I can't articulate the thought, can't act on it. We're running, dragging our suitcases. I can't even see a door that's open, all we need is an open door, but it's too late, all the doors close, we're running and the train is moving, pulling away.

I can't speak, French or English. I make a panicked face at the attendants on the platform. They shrug at me. What's the fuss, they say. There'll be another train in twenty minutes.

Okay, okay, twenty minutes. I can deal with that. I'd better see if I need to change our tickets, I say to Mr. Billy. I have to leave him alone again. Back up to the queue. The minutes are ticking away. I get to the counter just in time. The platform attendants lied. It's another three hours until the next train.

We get to know the station very well. You have to pay to use the toilet. You have to pay for water you can drink. We sit, and we wait.

The train is twenty minutes late. We have to transfer in Marseilles. No problem; we have an hour between trains.

The train arrives thirty minutes late, and we get on the right car. We'll be all right now.

We watch the countryside out the window, but nothing sinks in. My ears sing. I'm tracking our progress on a map. The sun goes down. The next stop is Marseilles. It's dark outside, and the train slows, then stops. We look at the man across from us. He shrugs.

Some knocks. A clang. A loud report. A voice comes on the intercom. I can't understand these things in the U.S., let alone here. The announcer monologues. Clearly, it's quite a story. The man across from us looks at us for a moment.

"They don't know what's wrong," he says.

The process repeats. Knocks, clangs, the engine lurches, then silence. The voice monologues.

"They still don't know what's wrong," says our companion.

Again the ruckus, again the monologue. It's almost time for our transfer.

"They have no power," says the man across from us. He explains that we should still make our transfer - a lot of people are in the same boat, we just need to follow them.

The train begins to roll. The engine doesn't start up; they must have realized that there was enough of a slope to coast into the station. Softly as a dream, we pass graffitied walls and warehouses, and slide into the station.

We fall out of the train in the crush of bodies, dragging our corpse-suitcases. There are uniformed rail employees waiting on the platform.

"Transfer to St. Raphael?" I say, in French.

"Hurry!" says the rail worker. "It's leaving! Hurry up, hurry up!"

We step up the pace, rushing along with the crowd. The crowd rushes through the train station and out into the parking lot. Mr. Billy and I turn around, rushing back the way we came. There's the train, I see it now, we're running toward the train as it pulls away from the platform.

French comes flowing out of my mouth. I curse the rail worker eloquently.

"I told you to hurry," she says, shrugging.

"You didn't say where. Apparently that was too hard for you. Is your arm broken? Are you unable to point the way to the platform? I asked you about our transfer and all you said was hurry up. This was not helpful!"

She shrugs.

It's almost midnight, and we're in the Marseilles train station. The next train is tomorrow morning. I do what any grownup would do. I call Daddy.

"Don't worry," he says, "We'll pick you up."

It's more than an hour's drive, and my seventy-something-year-old Dad cheerfully suggests getting on the road at midnight to rescue us.

I find a bathroom (a pay bathroom, taking only coins, which requires me to buy water at McDonald's to get some change first), lock myself in the stall, and cry.

Mr. Billy is waiting out at the curb for me. We stare into the Marseilles night, nodding at the cat-sized rats that keep us company, and wait for Dad to arrive.

Sudden fall, part 2

(Writing from a seaside villa in France. Life is grand, for you kind and hardy souls still reading. A break was called for, and a break this is. The story from before, however, continues...)

"I think I might've cracked a tooth," I say from the bathroom. I'm inspecting the damage to my face in the mirror. Not too bad. A scrape from the tip of my nose to my mouth. It jogs a bit to the right as it courses over my top lip. My boss will tell me later today it looks like the scar after harelip surgery.

Right now it just looks like I have a nosebleed.

A goose-egg is growing on my chin. It's already starting to bruise up.

I go back to the living room, where Mr. Billy is icing his foot with a bag of frozen peas. I get another bag and hold it to my face. I look over at Mr. Billy. "We're the disaster twins."

He tells me I shouldn't go in to work. I don't answer that. In only a few days, we'll be leaving the country for a three week vacation. There's just too much to do to miss a day.

I do, however, take time out to see the dentist.

"That's not a crack," she says, peering in (while I breathe out, relieved). "That's bits of sidewalk. I'll just buff it out."

My teeth appear to be intact, but there may be other damage. She can't tell - not even with x-rays - because of the swelling. I may have fractured my jaw.

"Soft food for a month," she says. Soft food? Is she crazy? I'm going to France! No crusty French bread?

"Just the soft, inside part."

Blecch.

On the bus back to work, I think of all the delicious soft French foods I can eat, while people's eyes slide off me. The bruise is in full bloom already. I feel like I'm wearing blinking lights on my face.

Eclairs, pot de creme, onion soup, pate.

Nobody wants to look at me. This isn't an insouciant, adventurous bruise. Something along the cheekbone, maybe, would speak of a branch in my way as I snowboarded down a pristine mountain.

Brie, chocolate mousse.

A bruise on the chin, a scrape on the mouth - on a woman's mouth - these are ugly. People see only bad crazy things that end up here. Somewhere out on the edge of sweaty half-dreams, where the money runs out, the addictions take over, that thing lives. That thing that most never ask themselves - How far can I fall and still live? A face like mine answers, Farther than you dare imagine.

Cafe au lait, I think. Ratatouille.

Sudden fall, part 1

Two cars screech to a stop in the middle of the street. I watch the drivers jump out and run in my direction. This is interesting.

"Are you okay?"

"We saw you fall."

I'm on the ground, looking up at them. I just fell down, no big deal. A third person appears from somewhere behind me. I should probably get up, but it's not so bad, down here on the sidewalk.

I touch my face, and look at my fingers. Hm, blood. Maybe my nose is bleeding.

"Do you need a ride to the hospital?"

I look at the woman. It must have been a spectacular fall, to make her stop her car. I remember starting to fall, trying to catch myself. Taking giant steps, arms windmilling, all flapping limbs like Stan Laurel. My glasses are a couple of feet away. I pick them up and put them on. They aren't broken. Not even scratched.

"I just live right here, thanks," I say, gesturing vaguely behind me.

"Do you need help up the street?"

They really want to help. I thank them again. I'm just three steps from my front door. What was it the hobbit said? "It is a dangerous business going out your front door."

I find my keys, my purse, my book bag. I stand up. No problem. I unlock the door I just locked and walk inside.

"You're back," Mr. Billy calls from upstairs. He's laid up with a mashed foot.

"I fell down," I say, heading up the stairs. I sit down on the couch beside him. I'm sweating, and my vision starts to tunnel in. I put my head between my knees. Maybe I'll be a little late for work.

With my head between my knees, it occurs to me. This was a "sudden fall," a "drop attack," an "otolithic crisis of Tumarkin." Curse you, Tumarkin!

Let me back up.

Several weeks ago, I was tentatively diagnosed with Meniere's Disease. Dig the picture of the guy falling down. That's what happened to me, only I landed on my face instead of my ass.

I've been dealing with the whole Meniere's thing like the bowl of mush I am. Whining a lot. Hey, it's just dizziness. I should be able to deal with that. Had to change my diet, my work schedule, my sleep schedule. I can't drive anymore. That's all okay. I'm lucky to be able to make those adjustments.

But reading is difficult during a dizzy spell. This is not fair. Reading is the thing I do when I can't do anything else. When I was grounded as a kid, when I was recovering from surgeries, when I rode the bus, when I had to sit in a waiting room, I could always read. I'm a writer, dammit. If I can't read, I sure as hell can't write.

But drugs help. Diet helps. Reducing stress, reducing my workload - all of that helps. I was getting past the whining. Just the meat suit reminding me that my flesh outfit is me and I am it and we're in this thing together. All in all, it's a pretty good ensemble. My face fits me: kind of goofy-looking and friendly. I'm a decent dancer. I'm not especially tall or short or fat or skinny. Most of my parts work the way they should.

And then I fell down, and things got a little more interesting.

ping ping

Today I rode the train downtown. Morning train commuters are more self-contained than bus commuters. It's quiet, everyone in his own bubble. I stand all the way downtown.

It's a different crowd on the way back. Almost noon. A tall, thin woman sits beside me with her daughter. She is pregnant, but long and slender above and below her tidy, rounded belly. Clear-skinned, high cheekbones.

"I bet there won't be any kids there," the girl bumps her toes against the seat in front of her. Embroidery sparkles at the bottoms of her leggings.

"I bet there'll be a lot," says mom.

"I bet none," daughter sneaking a smile up at mom.

"I bet a lot! Look look, do you recognize it? There's the park."

They get off, whispering together, and mom's seat is taken by a stringy man in a beard. His jeans hang loose from his thighs.

He might be homeless, but I don't know for sure.

I look up at the next stop to see a transit cop standing at the front of the car.

"I need everybody to show me proof of payment. Ticket stub, fast pass."

She seems to have materialized in place. Full transit cop gear. Jacket, badge, heavy things strung from her belt.

The stringy man beside me bolts for the door, crossing directly in front of the transit cop. It's too late. The doors are closed, and he pings back and forth in the stairwell, pushing the door releases, palms open against the doors.

"You won't get out that way, sir," the transit cop says to him, softly. She doesn't want to bust a homeless man.

He's trapped, and he knows it. He buzzes past her again, toward the back of the car. She watches after him, then lifts a chin at the passenger closest to her. He shows his fast pass.

I lift out my pass, looking over my shoulder toward the back of the car. What can they do to a homeless guy? Normally it's a fine, but if someone doesn't have ID, doesn't have an address? It's not like she can arrest him, can she?

I can't see the stringy man, but I can hear him bumping up against each door of the car like a pinball. I imagine him fretting to the end of the car, pinned against the back door, heart thrumming in his chest.

I, who am your friend, will help you

The man sitting beside me on this morning's bus holds a small notepad; it fits in the palm of his hand. I glance away from my book to read what's written: English phrases, followed by Asian characters.

"Yes, I should like to come over."

"What time would suit you for my coming?"

The English is beautiful and formal, strangely contorted into correctness. Me and my dangling participles feel loose and jangly beside him.

The man looks like a character from a Kurosawa movie. Long, lined face. The honest farmer whose family has been brutalized. The salaryman who yearns for the forbidden. I peek to see more of the useful phrases he is learning.

"Do not bother yourself," his notepad reassures, "I, who am your friend, will help you."

This fills me with warmth, and gratitude. If he were my friend, and I was in need, I am sure he would help.

En Wye See

Inside for two days. Rattling around hotel elevator, conference room, conference room, hotel room, conference room. PowerPoint slides and airconditioning that turns my fingernails blue. Up too late at night, unadjusted to East Coast time, getting up far too early, co-workers reflecting back bleary and hungover, some not appearing until afternoon.

Moving through the grand lobby, I spy daylight out there, but then it's back to another conference room for lunch and more sessions.

A couple of hours before the flight home, two precious hours, and I'm outside, stumbling onto the sidewalk blinking like a matinee moviegoer, surprisingly mild air - it's January! - my eyes wide, drinking in all the images I can't record in the camera I forgot to bring. Overtired, the whole thing happening a few paces removed from me, my head still rolling around an empty conference room, seeing New York City projected in a PowerPoint slide on the wall.

I trail behind co-workers up a broad set of stairs, library lions on either side. The doorman nods and a security guard peers into our purses, and deep into the library we go, ceilings high and stacks of books, but they would only tease - I'm too far from home with too little time to check out even one - instead we move in to the temporary display.

Running up the center of the room is a long glass case, a single yellow page running end to end, Kerouac's On The Road, all on one long page, so he wouldn't have to check the flow long enough to change out a page.

I don't usually dig stuff like this. Biographical stuff. Artistic process shit. I'm always comparing, thinking, if he didn't wash his socks until a manuscript was finished, maybe I shouldn't either. And the life isn't the art, anyway, the art is. This is why I don't read writer biographies. I'd rather just read what they wrote.

But it gets me. I'm crooking my neck to read - security guard scolding us about leaning on the glass - and I can see his cross-outs (not many), his dead-ends and wrong turns. I can see it was good right from the start, and he knew it.

And it doesn't make me feel small. I'm reading it and I'm waking up. It's okay, I think, it's an okay world where something like this is written, and remembered. Where a glass case is constructed so people can crook their necks and see, for a second, into somebody else's head.

It's time to head back to the hotel for my bags before being churned through the intestines of JFK and hurled home in the belly of a plane.

I nod at the security guard at the door, and breathe in some outside air on the front steps. Beside one of the lions is a delicate-boned young woman with a cane, black hair hanging to her hips. She turns to show a porcelain doll face, maybe Eurasian. I fall in love with her right there on the steps, watching her move fluidly, cane and all, and I'm glad. The girl with the cane, the guard at the door, the man eating his lunch on the library steps, the tourists. I'm in New York City, and it's alive and a hundred people jostle by, leaving little bits of themselves inside me.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

It's being a long winter here in Billyland, but a welcome ray of light has peeked through. My novel, Hoodoo, is a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

I don't particularly believe in contests, and I'd completely forgotten I entered this one. But I gotta say, I'm tickled. This one's an interesting contest; it gives at least a portion of the power to the unwashed masses - you know, readers - in addition to the usual few who decide what makes it into print.

The novel will now get a full review from Publisher's Weekly (that would be the usual few), and is in the running for a publishing deal from Penguin.

But one of the factors that will decide whether Hoodoo makes it to the next level will be reviews from actual, real-life readers.

If you wanna have a say, go to my Amazon page, click the download button, and read the excerpt. Don't worry, it's a short excerpt. If you like what you read, write a glowing review. If you don't like it, write a nasty review. Write whatever you like! It's the Internets!

If you write a few good reviews, there may be something in it for you. According to Amazon: "The three customers who provide the most high quality reviews will be qualified to win one of three customer prizes, including an Amazon kindle reader, $2000 in Amazon gift card value, and an HP photo printer. Learn more at www.amazon.com/abna."

All in all, it's probably all about driving more traffic to Amazon's site so they can sell more stuff. The wheel turns and we all do our part.

But I still think it's pretty damn cool.

A short yarn

I want to be hibernating. This is the time of year to hibernate. Yes, I live in California, but the northern bit of it. It gets dark before five p.m. That means hibernation.

But, no such luck. I must muster out of bed in the dark of the a.m. and make my way to work, then home again home again in the deep dark of a winter's eve. Normally, the bus commute is reading time. But when it's dark outside, my stomach lurches by the second block, and by the third I'm reaching for the bell, sweat pouring down my face and hands a-tremble.

So reading's out.

Somehow, though, knitting is fine. I can look up often enough to see where we're going, no sweats, no trembling, no dry heaves into the lap of my neighbor.

Tonight I pull my knitting from my bag as soon as I'm seated. I'm practiced at this by now, removing the stoppers from my needles, checking my pattern to see where I am, I settle the whole works in my lap, when I see my yarn isn't where it should be.

The red ball of yarn has escaped from my bag, and now it rolls quietly down the aisle of the bus.

The bus is in motion, my hands are full, the ball rolls, playing out the line that leads all the way back to my needles. I'm sitting near the back, and all I can do is watch its progress. It rolls neatly ahead, then dips to the side as the bus turns, then out again into the aisle, passengers one by one taking note as it passes, it's pointless to chase it down while we're moving: the yarn is nimble and light, I am an ox carrying panniers of water.

It rolls all the way to the front, at last coming to rest against a passenger's foot. It nudges at her instep like a kitten, but she doesn't see, doesn't feel its soft insistence until I rustle, lumber, clank to retrieve my prodigal yarn.

I murmur a sorry as I brush against her shoe to pick up my rebellious red ball, then scurry back to my place.

No - I correct myself: I murmur a sorry, barely holding in the guffaws that inflate my cheeks. I'm laughing, all the way, I'm delighted, and as I pass, the other passengers look up and into my eyes and share the joke.

I resume my seat, the whole bus shaking with silent laughter, those invisible walls between stranger and stranger dissolved for a moment, and I'm glad, finally, that I emerged from my cave today.

This is my brain

According to credible reports, I am still here.


Not only that, my brain demonstrates no evidence for intraparenchymal signal abnormality.

The major intracranial signal voids are demonstrated, and the sagittal midline image demonstrates no evidence for pituitary mass or cerebellar tonsilar herniation.

To cap it all off, my ventricles and my sulci are age appropriate.


So I don't want to hear any more jokes about my immature sulci. Got it?

Do I know you

He's just across the street from me as I'm waiting for the bus. He's focused intently on something in the gutter. He reaches both hands for it, carefully, stooping down, he scoops at empty air, gently gently handling nothing, bringing nothing close to his chest, cradling nothing tenderly, he steps around in a circle, letting nothing go, he begins all over again.

I can't take my eyes off him. What does he see? What is he holding with such delicacy? His hair hangs down over his face, I can't read his expression, but he performs these actions over and over, with variations: now he is cradling with both hands, now one hand holds while the other supports - what - a baby's head? Is he rescuing babies in the street? Or kittens?

Or something else, something of inestimable value? Something I can't - with all my busy-ness - begin to imagine?

He shakes his hair back, and I see his face for a few seconds. He smiles at whatever he holds. He looks like Viggo Mortensen, dirty face, long hair, beard. But his beard is trimmed. He wears a clean corduroy jacket - if slightly worn at the elbows - clean khakis. As he steps around in his turn, I see a wallet in his back pocket.

Who was he, before his doors of perception were thrown open, when he could tell the difference between the world Out There and the world In Here?

My bus comes, and I get on. It's time for me to be back at work, but I turn in my seat and watch him as we pull away. Do I know you?, I think. Do I know you?

A health care lesson

Recently, Bones asked what makes me pig-biting mad?

I have a wonderful nurse practitioner who has been my primary care physician for a few years now.

Correction: I had a wonderful nurse practitioner. Last week, she left private practice in order to work in public health. She's thrilled to be going back to her original focus - research & education - but here's the part that surprised even me (I'd considered myself well-informed about many of the health care issues in this country): working in public health instead of private practice, she will be making more money, getting better benefits, and working better hours.

"Really?" I said, astutely.

She went on to tell me how she was lucky to get the bare-bones benefits she had at the practice she was leaving. Many private practices, she said, don't offer benefits at all.

That five- or ten-dollar co-pay you make for your office visit? The practice depends on that to make payroll.

It's our beloved insurance companies who are making the money. Not the people who make us well when we're sick.

One thing I loved about seeing her was that she always seemed to have an appointment open when I was sick, and she always spent a generous amount of time with me. She listened to me, and she took the time to communicate clearly.

Apparently, she routinely got in trouble with the insurance company for vile, subversive behavior like this. In order to keep appointments available for people who were sick, she inevitably would have time slots that weren't filled. And this was a cardinal sin. The insurance company comes down hard on any practitioner who doesn't have every single time slot filled.

Good luck, then, getting an appointment when you're sick.

My wonderful nurse practitioner isn't an exception, either. More and more, brilliant and talented practitioners are leaving private practice in order to get out from under the thumb of insurance companies. They're leaving private practice, too, according to the dictates of the "free market": because they can make more money and get better benefits in public health than they can in private practice.

Allow me to repeat this: practitioners are leaving the private sector to work for the government so that they can earn more and have less interference from above.

Pig-spitting mad? That doesn't even begin to cover it.

ESL

Time for some scratch fiction. Consider this a topic tag, too. If anyone wants to write on ESL - go! Let me know in the comments and I'll link to your story.

"Oh, my. Yes, it really looked so, um...he looked...what's the word..."

Eleanor tried to describe what she saw in her head with her hands, circling them around her head. Doug's boss nodded, smiling, a tiny clump of lipstick clinging to her front tooth. Doug's boss turned to answer somebody else's question and Doug squeezed Eleanor's knee under the table.

Eleanor was to be her best tonight. Charming. Brilliant. Dazzling. Doug's first dinner with the new company and she was on display.

But it chewed at her brain, while she sipped her wine. What was the word? She could see it, the man she was describing, backpack and coffe cup in one hand, books in another, reaching for his ringing cell phone. She saw it, but she couldn't think of the word to sum it up. Not silly. Not ridiculous. For some reason her brain threw up the plays of Samuel Becket, Ionesco. Waiting for Godot. Rhinoceros. What was it what was it?

Eleanor worked with words for a living. She didn't like to see one escape, a raw-muscled fish wriggling from her grasp.

"That's a lovely necklace," Doug's boss was talking to her again, "where did it come from?"

Eleanor touched her throat. "Thank you, it was a..." oh good lord you know this word, opening the wrapping, tied up in a ribbon..."um...from my mother." say something nice back, "your..." shit. Thing, the thing you wear to a formal dinner, Eleanor lightly touched Doug's boss' collar - was that strange? "...beautiful."

Doug's boss beamed. She touched her own collar, and started talking, and the words came from her mouth but seemed to drift somehow before they reached Eleanor's ears. What language was she speaking?

Doug spoke from Eleanor's side, the words colliding and cascading in front of Eleanor's eyes. It's like I'm forgetting my language, thought Eleanor, seeing foreign people sitting in a classroom, practicing words, what is it, what is my language called?

Eleanor smiled and nodded, watching the words pop out of Doug's boss' mouth like fat grapes, like shining ornaments, like puffs of flame, they lit up the room. Eleanor smiled at Doug, seeing images of him at his desk, Doug knocking on his boss' door, his eyes on his boss, his boss reaching across her desk to touch his arm once, twice, more, but she doesn't think "boss" "desk" "arm," she sees him, she sees her, she sees more than she's ever seen, more than she could wish.

Doug's boss turns to Eleanor and pushes out words that make a question, looking at Eleanor, but her breasts are looking at Doug and Eleanor opens her mouth, then closes it and smiles.

"Your wife is such a good listener," says Doug's boss, but Eleanor only sees the bright baubles falling from Doug's boss' mouth, her breasts looking at Doug and her thighs open and Doug and his cock nodding, nodding to his boss.

Quake that refreshes

Ka-boom-boom-boom-boom.

The flat started shaking as I was sharing a pomegranate with Mr. Billy. I had time to stare at Mr. Billy, think, "earthquake," put down the pomegranate, think, "damn, it's a long one."

And then it really got going.

BOOM-boom-BOOM-boom-boom.

We're looking around the flat for anything that might come flying off a shelf or a wall. We both stand up at the same time. Our black cat scrambles for her safe place under the bed.

Something crashes in the guest room.

The striped cat holds for dear life to his platform on the cat tree.

We stand ready for...something. Um, do we need to get under a doorway maybe?

I look at the picture behind the couch, swinging on the wall.

It stops. It doesn't wind down. It just stops. Mr. Billy moves quickly to me, puts his arms around me. We hold each other tightly, for a long time. He grins at me, his eyes big.

We take a minute to look around, see what fell. Nothing seems to be broken. We coo reassuringly at the cats, but it will be awhile before they've calmed down.

I'm putting away the leftovers, and it occurs to me: I'm happy.

Moments before I was Googling symptoms (note: do not do this. I can't stop myself, but you're better than me. Hint: whatever you have is cancer), checking work email, obsessing. Now I'm humming as I find a container for the pomegranate.

The seeds blink out at me like jewels.

Burned-out husk

Post-rush-hour crowd on the bus as I ride to a doctor's appointment. An Asian man in a toupee sits across from me, Ken-doll swoop to his bangs. He holds his mouth pursed as though keeping in a mouthful of vomit. Or pearls.

I'm knitting, listening to the women behind me.

Mature Woman #1: Di-vis-a-der-o.

Mature Woman #2: That's a major street, there.

MW #1: So she asked me, are you carrying flame retardant with you when you drive? I mean, the car was just a burned-out husk, sitting in the driveway.

MW #3: Tsk.

No, it isn't quite a tsk. It's a sound I recognize, I've heard it before. Kind of a tsschp.

MW #1: Boat's completely gone. It was an old wooden boat, in the driveway. Nothing left. SUV's a burned-out husk.

MW #3: Tsschp.

Now I recognize the sound. My grandfather used to make that sound when he was sucking on his dentures, slurping the loose dentures back up against his gums.

MW #1: The firemen had to yell at Bob to stop, he was spraying down my car with the garden hose when they got there. Get away from there, they said, it could explode.

I'm eight years old again, listening to Gramps play guitar, jazzed up with a wah-wah pedal my uncle designed, and Gramps' own flourishes.

MW #1: You know, my little car didn't get any better mileage than that SUV.

MW #2: What'd it get?

MW #1: (mumbling) 16

MW #3: Tsschp.

Gramps played a fancy guitar, singing and playing and sucking up his dentures. Natty in his dark suit and string tie.

MW #2: Your car's not so little.

MW #1: It is. Not full-size.

My stop already. As I step down to the doors, I look back at the women. They each have a variation of the practical Mature Woman haircut. One gray, one blond, one brunette.

They wear matching, red-white-and-blue American flag windbreakers. The brunette shakes her map of San Francisco open for the other two to see.

Back by popular demand

(Popular demand = my sister and a friend)

Chuck has looked like a thumb for far too long. In mere moments, I hope to replace that vaguely repulsive image with a new one.

Chuck looked like a thumb today

Waaay out of practice with the scratch fiction. Topic tag courtesy of monkey 0.

"No no no, it's really easy. You get a box like this, see? And you put a light inside."

"Right, they're attracted to light."

"And some bait. That's all it takes. Once you have enough in there, you drop the gate, and..."

Chuck jumped at the sound of the security gate slamming down, high-speed. "What the fuck?"

The chick over by the Twinkies jerked her head around to look at him, ponytail swooshing over one shoulder.

"Hello?" The dude had to be around here somewhere. "Um, guy? Anybody work here?"

Steve and Fayed appeared from the back of the store, Fayed humping a case of Miller. "What's with the gate?"

"Oh, dude, Miller? We can do better than that."

Fayed shrugged. "Is there like a fire or something? Maybe someone tripped a security switch."

Chuck looked over at the girl. She rolled her eyes like why-the-fuck-should-I-know. She put the Twinkies back on the shelf and pursed her lips. "Any of you work here?"

Chuck shook his head for the three of them.

"Yeah," said the chick. She shouldered past Chuck to get behind the counter and picked up the phone.

"Line's dead."

"You're shitting me."

She held the phone out to him, an exasperated sound popping out from between her lips. Short fuse. But that wasn't exactly a minus where Chuck was concerned. Especially not looking like that, all pissed.

Damn, thought Chuck. I look like a thumb today. Flesh-colored t-shirt and freshly shaved head. She must think I'm some kind of obscene joke.

Fayed was still holding onto the beer. Dipshit. "Put the beer down, Fed. Check and see if there's anyone in the bathroom."

Chuck turned back to the girl. Be still my heart, he thought. "Anything back there look like a control for the gate?"

She was searching around behind the counter, lovely brows shoved together in concentration. Fayed was walking back from the bathrooms, hands open. Nothing.

Steve ran over to the gate and started pounding. "Hey! People in here! HEY!"

"What's that thing?"

"Slushie machine. You have one of those, some beer, Funyons, you can get ten, fifteen in an hour, easy."

It took a while to calm Steve down. The idiot left Chuck's cell phone back at the place. And the chick - her name was Brenda - hers wasn't getting any signal. Shitty provider. She sat with her back against the counter playing with the ends of her hair. Her jeans held nice and tight around her ass, smooth neck lifting out of the collar of her sweater. Chuck imagined kissing her just below her earlobe, the down on her neck soft as kitten fur on his lips.

"Hey, they got playing cards here," Fayed held up a pack. Brenda shot him a look like no way in hell, but what else did they have to do? She lifted one shoulder and looked away while he shuffled.

A little too early to suggest strip poker, thought Chuck.

"They're just sitting around. They're not doing anything."

"Shake the box around some. That usually gets them all riled. Watch."

The blogger of the moment

Mr. Thing of the Moment was kind enough to travel far out of his way to meet me in an undisclosed location somewhere in Maine recently.



While Mr. K. is a real photographer with a fancy camera and the very expensive giant lens that captured every horrific detail of my bad hair day (whaddya want - I'd had an unexpected ride in a speedy and windy boat earlier that day), I was carrying my highly professional point-and-shoot:



But I didn't miss my chance to grab a photo of his terribly fashionable Chuck Taylor All-Stars, as well as a glimpse of his famous calves.

(Everybody's got something to hide except for) Me and My Monkey (Part II)

Idexa agreed to take breaks so I could photograph our progress.


She worked for three hours.


I had a strong memory of my mother while Idexa's drill burred into my skin; one I hadn't thought of in years. She used to draw elaborate pictures on my feet. My favorite was a spiderweb that covered my foot and ran up the inside of my ankle, with a spider spinning away at the top.

"Do you like spiders?" Idexa asked.

"No," I said. In fact, both my mom and I were phobic. But somehow it was comforting, Mom lazily drawing the web as I lay back on her flowered quilt. She cradled my foot and we talked about nothing. I looked at my dad's painting that hung above their bed: a wingless angel flying overhead, cupping a palmful of light. If you fuzzed your eyes just a bit, though, it looked instead like the face of an old bearded man wearing goggles.


There it is, the finished product. You can say it - you know you're thinking it - I now have a monkey on my back.

The perfect beauty of the moist towelette

I am on a short flight from Boston to New York. We're past the solid layer of cloud over Boston, and below fluffs of white I can see green fields and black lakes. Little houses with bright blue-green swimming pools. Chlorine blue.

The stewardess who looks like Jackie Brown pours me a soft drink. She doesn't give me the whole can. She presses a white paper bag into my hand, her French manicure dragging across the paper.

I should have asked for the can.

I open the bag to the wonders inside. There are crackers shaped like butterflies. Cheese. Ranch dressing and a little baggie of tiny carrots. A fun-size Almond Joy. A white packet that tells me it contains a moist towelette. I can use this towelette, it informs me in serious black serif font, to clean and refresh my hands without soap and water.

Isn't there soap and water in the moist towelette?

I eat the cheese and crackers and drink my soft drink, wishing I had the whole can. I can't eat carrots or almonds. At first, the inside of my mouth would itch. Then my throat would swell until my breath was sealed off. I would flail for my Epipen dropping it on the floor. The plane would bank, sending my salvation rolling through the aisles as I slid off my seat and into oblivion on the industrial carpeting of a Delta shuttle.

If Mr. Billy were here, I would have offered him tiny carrots and Almond Joy. I would have watched doll fingers of orange disappear behind his white teeth. But Mr. Billy isn't here. The deadly snacks stay behind in the white paper bag.

We're out over water now.

I pull open the white packet containing the moist towelette and unfold it. It is thick and soft, not like the thin, papery towelettes I remember from Kentucky Fried Chicken in the days before it was KFC. In those days, they were wet-naps, bringing to mind visions of dirty diapers and drooly babies.

The Jackie Brown stewardess saunters lusciously down the aisle, checking that our seat backs are in the upright and locked position and our tray tables are closed. I see tall New York buildings below.

I take pleasure in the neat little rectangles created by the folds in the moist towelette. I wonder if the factory has a folding machine, or if a person folded this very towelette with her small hands.

The plane tilts at a very bad angle. Buildings that should be below are directly in front of me, above me. We are going to die in a screaming ball of fire. Me and a planeful of shining businessmen and -women in black suits.

I wrap the moist towelette gently over my hands, sliding it over my skin. I will go to my death with clean, refreshed hands.

The plane rights itself, and slides in to land, the wet-nap crumpled in the palm of my clean right hand.

No soap, no water.

(Everybody's got something to hide except for) Me and My Monkey

"Billy, what have you been up to?" you might well ask. And I might answer:

"Getting a monkey on my back."

Shortly after my mother died, and my uterus was ripped out, I decided to get a tattoo. I'd avoided marking myself up for years, but with a newly-scarred body I figured I had nothing to lose. And it seemed a suitably twisted way to mark a pretty major year in my life.

That was two and a half years ago. I asked my father, an artist, to design my tattoo. In typical fashion for my family, it took me about a year to figure out what I wanted the tattoo to be. It took my dad another year and a half to start the design, and then he whipped it out in about an hour. We Billys raise procratination to an art form.

So, Dad's design was beautiful. But it wasn't right for my tattoo. So I found another design online.

Then I had to find the tattoo artist. I accosted illustrated strangers on the bus, in the pub, on the street. "Where did you get your work done?"

I surfed tattoo websites. I haunted tattoo parlors.

Finally, I found Idexa at Black & Blue Tattoo.

First we made an appointment to discuss the design. I brought her the design I'd found online, my dad's design, pictures of my dad's work. We made an appointment for a couple of weeks ahead to look over her design & make any final adjustments.

Then we made an appointment for the inking.



To be continued...