Honore

Dwayne dreamed about her hand, the way she would sleep on her side, left hand over his stomach, so he could look down in the light from the street and see her wedding ring, the big dent in it from when she got her hand slammed in the door of the delivery truck.

Sleeping, he would feel her hand there again, then wake to the stink, to a flashlight moving by, to the blackest night he ever saw. He wanted to drift off again, back to his cool sheets, Honore's sleeping breath behind him, but the fat man less than a foot away started up that moan, that high-pitched sob that creeped Dwayne right down to his bones. "Help me help me, somebody come help me..." No, man, Dwayne, wanted to tell him, Nobody's coming, this is it, we're on our own, but he wanted to believe it, too, wanted to believe that someone was coming, any minute now, any minute and he'd be back home, in his own bed, Honore rubbing a hand over her whole face, yawning like a little kid, like she did every morning, sleepy eyes looking up at him through her fingers, smiling from a sugarsweet dream.

Dwayne blinked his eyes, no difference between open and closed, black inside his lids and out. A thousand people packed in around him, a head rolls against his foot, a whispered argument, feet scraping across floor, he thought he heard a girl the night before screaming, crying, saying Stop please stop, but he couldn't tell where it was happening, the sound comes from everywhere in here.

It would take a hurricane to pull us apart, Honore, thought Dwayne into the night, to wherever she was. He turned his head to duck the memory coming at him fast, her face before the wind took her away, not scared, just looking at him wide-eyed, trying to say something, she had something important to say, but the wind swiped it away, then her, like a story book, like a fairy tale, she disappeared.

Tomorrow, when the reporters come, Dwayne will find a box lid; will print in large letters one word, he'll hold it up for the cameras to see, this is his purpose now, the only thing that matters:

HONORE

Katrina: "...a test of our moral compass..."

There aren't enough words to tell how angry I am at the response of my government to this disaster. It is so much worse than it had to be.

The only thing for it right now is to do something, maybe offer shelter.

Or, donate here or here.

Meanwhile, the soul of New Orleans survives.

I don't believe in writer's block

No such thing, doesn't exist. I believe in Laziness, in Every Word I Type is Shit, in Getting Stuck for Too Long on One Chapter, in No Ideas, but I don't, don't, don't believe in Writer's Block. It's Santa Claus and the Devil with a pointy tail and Odin and the Tooth Fairy. Doesn't exist.

But.

Something creeps in on me, an almost-belief sliding up under my hairline when I'm sitting on the bus, wishing something like this would happen (I live in San Francisco, I ride the bus - where's my half-naked crazy lady?), all the while arrested, staring openly at the beautiful woman/girl standing near the front, half-crouched, eyes rolling wildly around, she looks Malaysian maybe, black hair neatly pulled back, beautifully embroidered jacket and badly stained sweat pants, mouth half open, eyes terrified, the bus comes to a stop and she lunges for a seat like it's a lifeboat, brushes perfectly manicured fingers over her shining hair and breathes again, eyes calmer, but focusing on nothing.

And I think, I should be able to use that. But it goes nowhere, I'm mystified by her, I want to stay on the bus and follow her around, read what's scrawled on that manila folder she holds, ask her name and listen to the voice she speaks in, but I have to get to work, I have to get off the bus and walk the same seven blocks I walk every morning, my brain running over and over the next chapter in my book, why can't I get past this one part? and I look up, I'm already there, already climbing the steps to the office and I've come up dry, again.

But I don't believe in writer's block. I can't, because if I did, I would have it.

Saturday OCD - lunchtime update

A quick update on yesterday's post: my New Orleans friends are fine. I did finally call them, but of course the circuits were down by then. But before bugging out, they got out an email saying they were pointing their wheels out of town, and this morning they called. They're in Memphis, waiting it out, trying not to think too much about the home they'd made and left behind, walls painted, pictures hung and homey details settled in. The storm was not as bad as it could have been, so there might be something there when they return.

I'm hoping.

And for those of you who were wondering about the title from yesterday, about "OCD", and thinking, "This isn't about obsessive-compulsive disorder at all, just a rambling post about a wet cat," well, you're right. You see, I meant to write about how, now that the cats were clean, I had to clean everything the cats might possibly come in contact with. And then everything that might come in contact with anything that might come in contact with any of those things. And so on. But the post was already too long, and I realized nobody really wants to read about how many times I had to check to make sure I locked the door, I did lock the door, didn't I? Well, it wouldn't hurt to go back and check to make sure I locked the door, just one more time. And I know I went back and checked, but did I really check? Surely there's time for me to just go back and be absolutely sure....

Saturday OCD

I should I really should be calling my friends in New Orleans, to see if they're okay. Are they bugging out, or staying put? I know they're the stay put type. But I just can't help these pictures in my head of them being tossed around, picked up and smashed down. Yes, I know tornadoes are not hurricanes, but I just can't reason with the pictures in my head.

But avoidance, really, that's my best feature. So instead of calling, to hear them say they're staying put, they're riding it out, to hear them not answer because cell towers are already down, or overloaded, to talk to them and not know anything more than I did before talking to them, instead of that, I do other things I'd been avoiding for months, things that really just needed a bigger avoidance to move me.

So, I bathed the cats. We, that is, Mr. Billy and I, bathed the cats. I had this idea it wouldn't be so difficult. I'd bathed them before. I don't remember it being so bad.

But then, every time I'd bathed them before, it had been immediately after a trip in their cat carriers. They were already traumatized, already freaky and submissive with fear. And, they'd soiled themselves in their carriers. So they were almost as eager as I for a little cleanliness.

But never before had I plucked them from a laze in the sun, comfortably curled in the papasan, looking up at me with trusting, lazily blinking eyes.

When I say them, I'm really referring to the Big Cat, Mario. Our Problem Child. He's a sweet kitty, really, but he was a rescued cat, a street kitty, a marauder in the rougher quarters of Honolulu, a killer of geckoes and dwarf pigeons, abused and abandoned. Stray cats are not loved in Hawaii, being overburdened with them, not being much a part of the culture as house pets. We can only imagine how he must have been treated before being scooped up by the Humane Society and handed over to us, big-eyed, skittish, ducking and flinching every time we lifted a hand to pet him.

Years of patience have mellowed Mario. He's handsome and loving, now, on his own terms. He never extends his claws (unlike Blanche, the little black cat, who doesn't seem to know how to retract hers), never bites. Never scratches, that is, until yesterday.

Mario must be edging up to twenty pounds, now. Not terribly fat, but long and tall and solid all over. I pick him up, and he curls his front paws up submissively. This will be easy, I think.

Mr. Billy has the sink ready, and I carry him over, lift him into the sink. He expands, twice, three times his original size, grows extra legs and paws, reaching out everywhere, bracing against the counter, I wrestle him into the sink and he explodes out, I hold on grimly, turning into my parents, "this is for your own good," I tell Mr. Billy to fill the cup with water, I have an idea of pouring it over him, so far only his paws are wet, and while Mr. Billy's hands are busy with the faucet and the cup, Mario's eyes are rolling madly, he spies an exit, he takes it, a wet, desperate cat - suddenly the size of a tiger - is climbing my chest, he's having flashbacks and just trying to get traction, he's up my chest and on my shoulders and thunk! onto the floor and gone.

Mr. Billy pulls my shirt away, his eyes big as he looks at my skin. Are you okay? he wants to know. I nod, quickly. Should we give up? I ask him.

Mr. Billy, I think, would love to call it off, but he's seen me like this before. He squeezes my hand and goes to find Mario.

This time Mr. Billy holds his front legs while I bathe him, Mario's whole body tense and shuddering, he yowls piteously, loudly, I'm killing him with all this water, but we get the job done, more or less, his tail like a bone, wet fur clinging, I wrap him up in a big towel and loose him to set to work on the other cat.

She struggles, but no yowling, no climbing my chest like a tree, and it's over soon enough. I stand at the counter, shaking and laughing.

My shirt is sticking to my chest. I'm bleeding right through it.

I pull it off in front of the mirror. Three long red lines running up my chest. Another grouping on my right breast, another on my left ribs. You can trace the shape of big paws on my back and shoulders. They're all raised and bleeding, welting up. I expect bruises to form around them soon.

I look like I've been in a bar fight. I consider swearing off open necklines while they heal, but a look at my wardrobe tells me that's impractical. I'm not wearing turtlenecks in August.

Instead, Mr. Billy and I are working on some good stories to explain the scratches. I welcome suggestions.

Meanwhile, I still haven't called our New Orleans friends.

Caution: My street is highly flammable

I want to clean my glasses again. There's something in the air, I can't place it, like someone dropped a box of face powder and it's still hanging there. I take off my glasses, rub them with my shirt, and put them on again.

We hear sirens coming up the street, at first distant enough to ignore, but then Mr. Billy is at the window, watching the lights flashing in the fog, watching them go by our flat, up the street, and stop. Two firetrucks disappear in what I'm thinking might not be just fog, an ambulance pulls around right outside our window, to block off the street.

"Another one," we say, pulling on our shoes.

This one is smaller, we don't see flames jumping out, can't trace its progression from the blackening walls at the front of the building. If it wasn't for the smoke - we're breathing it in now and it's smoke - and the firetrucks, nothing would look out of place.

Neighbors gathering on the street. We shake our heads at each other, "Again," we say.

The hippie guy with the moustache and long curly hair and his family are carting musical instruments - nine, ten guitars - and cats in carriers across the street.

"D'you need any help?" Asks Billy.

Hippie's eyes are big, but he shakes his head. "It's a, I think it's just a small, a small fire this time," tottering past, a cat carrier in each hand.

Pretty neighbor with the glittering diamond in her nose asks whose place it is.

"D'you know Rick, the guy with the -?" neighbor gestures in the region of his head.

"-the hair and moustache, yeah," the girl nods, recognizing the description of the hippie, "it's his place...?"

We look quietly at the firemen filing up the ladder, dropping through a newly-cut hole in the roof, appearing in the apartment window. It's another of those aggregate facade buildings.

"It's too bad" doesn't cover it, doesn't get to the nut of what we're feeling, looking, shamefacedly amused at the coincidence, at how it's only for a fire that we come out of our houses, expose our faces to one another. This one doesn't have that thrill of fear, of shooting flames, adventure! Glory! Heroism!

No, this one is just the quiet consumption of one family's structure, of the things they use to tell about and propel their lives. Their books and clothes and pictures of Sandy when she was four at her cousin's birthday party, Do you remember? - their recipes and plants and baby drawings and outdated calendars and tax forms from four years ago and I wonder what ever happened to that cute little skirt you used to wear? -and from now on everything will be changed because of the Fire back in 2005. Do you remember that? We lost everything.

Mr. Billy and I walk back down the street, into our own flat, vowing to move the cat carriers someplace more accessible, thinking again, What would I save? and in the dark, our living room blinks blue, then red from the whirling lights outside our window.

Storm in August

I've been trying to bring to mind some soft-focus, Hallmark Card memories of my mom. Or anything really, any specific moment. It all keeps getting lost in the narrative, told so often as to have lost its corners, its impact, its three-dimensional reality.

Except - I do remember she had long nails. She kept them perfectly manicured, though she never had them professionally done. At church on Sunday, we would lay our heads in her lap, and she would clean out our ears using the perfect scoops of her nails.

As I got older, I would ask for this, laying my head in her lap, a moment of blissful regression, but every time she would say, "Look at your perfect, pink little shell-like ears. They're just too clean, there's nothing for me to do..."

She was a poet.

While I was living at home, she would ask me to critique her poems. "Be brutal," she would say.

I could imagine nothing more terrifying. How could I possibly critique my mother's poetry? I did though, I tried. I have no idea what sort of half-assed or cruel or pointless things I said. It's all blocked out.

But after I'd been living away for several years, she sent me a volume of her poetry. It was beautiful.

At her funeral in January, I read a favorite poem from that book:

Storm in August
About the time we passed the Crosby House
the wind began to blow, sending whirlwinds
worrying red dirt. Through the haze
the sun burned ominous
behind the bee-bedeviled hollyhocks.

Mother's skirts filled up with gusts,
involving both her hands.
Squinching up our gritty eyes, we held together,
welded hand in hand; one on either side
of Baby Rae, nearly swept away, whimpering
into the tug of wind.

"I've left the windows open." Mother put it
in the wind. "...must go back...houses blow away.
Stay here at Sister Terry's; be good girls..."

Sister Terry did her best.
portioned songs and stories anxiously,
tea party's propitiation, paper dolls to hold
against the winding wind around the house,
filling up the periled afternoon.
The clock said five, but black had blotted up the sky
Lightning panicked when it struck
the pole across the lawn, splintering
and thundering. Lights went out up and down
the street. We groped toward each other;
Sister Terry lit the candles
in a trembling flame, then held us awkwardly.
We soothed each other, holding rocking in her lap.

The storm ran down just before dusk.
She loosed us, blinking in an altered world.
Power poles hung broken, strung among
their lines, limbs of stricken trees
blocked off the roads, littered lawns.
The cottonwood we couldn't span with our linked arms
now lay yanked on its side, roots extracted,
still gesticulating to the sky.

How washed the air! How bright the light
the sun put down behind the hills.

And, mounted on his stallion, Golden Racket,
cantering along the street, sharing shadows
cantering; our father came, wearing
his white Stetson, reining in,
looking like a god.

Pleasures

Remember this when surgery is months in the past, body again elastic, stitches irritating memories, doctor visits rare:

How delicious, walking to the corner store for milk at dusk.

Eating sausage in an outdoor amphitheater, laughing and crying at Cyrano de Bergerac.

Splashing bleach and water across the tiles of our tiny deck.

Sleep, with ordinary dreams - or, with my dreams, not demons out of a prescription bottle.

Walking, hips moving freely, skirt swinging, shoulders loose and open. Those muscles clenched tight for so long softening, letting go. Shifting in bed without anything hurting, or hurting much. This is luxury, this is pleasure.

In two, maybe three weeks, I'm going dancing.

Kitten heels and prayer candles, part 3

Mikhail was face down on the street, watching Saint Joseph, Sacred Heart, the Virgin rolling around, his jaw numb, trying to put it together. That Pedro guy was just a guy at first, just like a million other guys looking at his stuff like it was contaminated, like it was garbage, there with his girlfriend, it was nothing new, nothing different, and the Pedro guy sniffed like he was the King of Siam, he was better than this shit, and he was walking away, but it looked like he dropped something, Mik thought he'd dropped this paper when he turned to go, but all it said was "LOOK RIGHT," and Mik looked right, lifitng the paper and yelling after the guy, but when this Pedro turned to look back he was Mikhail, he wasn't some random guy anymore, he was Mik, but still Pedro - Mik had heard of people like that, his grandmother told him about people who could shift, but he didn't think he would find one on the street in L.A.

Mik was thinking too slow when the guy just walked quick up to him and now he was on the street, the asphalt pebbles sticking to his face.

He heard the Pedro guy walking away, but the footsteps stopped, and another pair of feet came into view, right in front of Mik. The girlfriend.

She knelt down in front of him and and looked in his face.

She was beautiful. Blue-black skin, long lashes, opening her mouth to yell, red tongue, white teeth, "He's hurt!"

She smelled of lavender. Mikhail closed his eyes and breathed her in. He could lie here forever.

Pedro's feet started moving back in his direction. Mik started to get up, pushing up with his hands, the street rocking underneath him, he could see Pedro now, his bottom half, one hand pulling out of the pocket.

A knife snicking open.

Mik stopped, on his hands and knees.

"Not hurt enough," muttered Pedro, lifting the knife, and Mik raised one arm, trying to get to his feet, but something hot pink flashed in the side of his vision, Pedro falling back onto the street, holding onto his face and howling.

"Come on," the girl helped Mik to his feet, holding a hot pink sandal in her other hand, her breath warm on his face.

"Bitch you bitch you bitch my face" Pedro was howling in the street, Mik looking back at him, prayer candles rolling around, his hands covering his face, the girl pulling him away.

Her hand was warm in his, running down the street, her breath pulling out of her, blocks and blocks before they slowed down enough to talk, their voices coming in harsh around their breath.

"You okay?"

"I think so, thank you...?"

"Nichelle."

"Thank you, Nichelle. I'm - "

"Pedro," she said, brushing his hair from his eyes, "You're Pedro."

Kitten heels and prayer candles, part 2

Nichelle walked fast down the street, gripping her shopping bag. Enough of Pedro, enough of both Pedros, she thought, hanging with him was like hanging with a prince or something. Everyone looked at him, knew him, talked to him - he was so pretty - Nichelle, just for being with him, would get the leftovers, people's faces all soft after talking to him, she'd get the last part of a smile, the second half of a How's it going, and that wasn't so bad.

But two of them, Nichelle would disappear completely, like falling into a hole.

Two Pedros. Nichelle wondered if she was cracking up, like her aunt up in Pomona who just sat in her living room all day, her hair going everywhere, talking about how God would tell her when to move.

Or should she feel bad, leaving her man alone with something scary like that? Hell, they'd probably make friends, the whole world can revolve around the both of them, just like it always did around Pedro, maybe sometimes he got lonely, the whole world looking in at him and nobody to look out with. Maybe it would be good for him to share a little.

Nichelle put on the brakes all of a sudden, if she'd been a car, her tires would've squealed.

No way Pedro would share. One of them would kill the other one, and then where would he be. The cops sure as hell wouldn't get it - Nichelle didn't even get it herself.

But she knew this for sure - Pedro was her man, and she couldn't just leave him. She turned around fast, shopping bag banging against her legs, and ran back to the prayer candle stand.

Scratch fiction deconstructed

I've found a few different ways to approach scratch fiction since monkey 0 introduced the meme back in March.

Sometimes I'll be thinking about a topic for a little while, and then an image or a situation will trigger a story relating to it. This story was an example of that: Sylvana had requested a Curious George story, but it wasn't until I saw a dog trotting down the street with a toy monkey in its mouth that the story was born.

Other times, I'll sit down at the computer with no idea at all, nothing, and just start typing. The night this story came about, we had a houseguest. We were expecting a few other friends to arrive in a few minutes, but I really wanted to get something posted, and my guest was curious about the whole scratch fiction thing. So I typed. A few minutes earlier, she had been showing me a picture of a girl she had a crush on, who was involved with someone else, so I pictured that girl. I made the person with the crush into a guy, because I've been working on a male perspective lately (my novel is entirely from a girl's point of view, so I make every attempt to take a break from that), and the story just fell out from there.

The interesting thing to me is that when I write so fast like that, often without any idea where it's going, little things I've read or seen or been thinking about lately will pop up all over the place. It's like recording a dream while it's happening.

Kitten heels is a pretty good example of that. All I had in my head when I sat down was the name Pedro, someone saying the name. So that's what I opened with. I had no idea who was saying it, or why. But as I wrote, it became obvious to me that it was happening in Southern California, somewhere not far from L.A. Nichelle was the name of a friend of mine from Compton - I knew her when we were teenagers, and I was living not far from there - and she seemed to belong in the scene. The dashboard Jesus vendor clearly carried things like the angel with no hands, back when she was new. And, it seems everyone I know has a pair of kitten heels, except me, dammit.

Some readers have asked me to write sequels to some of my scratch fiction, but I appear to have a hard time with that. Often enough, the universe of the story feels hermetically sealed to me; there's nothing more than what happens on the page, that's it. But maybe it's time to exercise that muscle a bit. I'll try first with a "Kitten heels..." sequel, and we'll see where it takes us.

Kitten heels and prayer candles

"Pedro, Pedro!"

They were already halfway down the block, what did this guy think? Pedro wasn't about to change his mind, turn around and buy his lame-ass dashboard Jesus or whatever, and Nichelle just had to whine at him, "Pedro, this one would look so cute in the living room," so now the guy knew his name, didn't he know enough when to give up?

"Pedro, wait!"

Nichelle had stopped and was looking back. She wasn't moving or talking or anything, which was weird enough all by itself, she was just staring, gone all rigid.

"What the fuck, Nichelle?"

Nichelle just slid her eyes slowly over to Pedro, her mouth hanging open, then looked back to where the guy was holding something, something like a paper he was waving back and forth. She dropped the plastic bag she'd been holding like life, the one with her new shoes in them, the hot pink sandals with the kitten heels, she'd been going on about how cute they were, like her whole life was gonna change 'cause she put on some slutty new shoes. But she was too busy now staring at the guy, the plastic-Jesus-and-prayer-candle vendor guy, her lashes so thick with mascara they cast a shadow on her cheeks, her lashes shaking, just a little bit.

Now Pedro saw it, there was something funny about the guy, something familiar - of course it was familiar, he'd just been talking to him a minute ago, it was the same guy - but now he looked different, something about how he stood was creeping Pedro out, something bugged him about it, crawling up from the base of his spine, what was it what was it, Pedro started walking back, the sidewalk so bright and hard in the sun he couldn't see all that good, but something was making him sick right into his stomach, even before the front of his brain knew it, the back of his brain was saying Bad Bad Bad Bad.

But then he was close enough to see. Not like looking in a mirror, 'cause things are reversed, which made the whole thing even more wrong, all the hairs on Pedro's head standing up and pricking into him, this guy was him, Pedro.

The guy opened his mouth and Pedro knew he didn't want to hear his own voice coming out of someone else, that would be too much, worse than hearing it on a tape recorder, so he didn't even stop to think, he just wound up and knocked his jaw sideways, Fucker can land on his ass for all I care, thought Pedro, walking away.

Billy goes under - part 2

I'm in a different room, a bigger one. Everyone's wearing those blue mushroom caps - people lying on gurneys, blinking and looking around, people in scrubs, walking by, a few gathered at a desk, talking about...food. "Have you tried their fries? Dude, they are a-mazing. They put like this seasoning on them?"

Bastards. I haven't eaten since yesterday. Not that I'm hungry. But still.

I guess they're all done, it's all over. I don't feel so bad, except. Oh, wait a second, here it comes.

Holy shit. I've never felt anything like this before, not even after the last surgery. But maybe people don't remember pain very well. Plus I had that morphine button before. I clutched that beautiful button in my hand all night. Push the button, push the button, good button.

I don't have a button now.

"Mghlapth," I say. I'm not sure what I was going for there, or if anyone could have heard me, but a nurse appears, looking down at me.

"Do you need something?"

"Hurts," I say.

"Brant?" she says, sweetly, "Need some Demerol here."

Brant moves fast, needle in hand, he or nurse or someone shoots something into the tube that's stuck into my hand.

Zooooom.

I feel wonderful. Bless you, nurse. Bless you Brant. This warm wave just washes over me and cuddles me up and I feel a big loopy grin spread itself all over my mug. There's pain there, somewhere, but I just don't care, I don't care, tra la. I look around. Nobody close to my left, but to my right is a guy - a kid, maybe 19 or 20 - on a gurney like mine, big padding on one shoulder.

"Hi!"

He rolls his head around, and flashes me a Demerol grin.

"What're you in for?" We are moments away from being old buddies.

"Fltjopblablepepoipwit shoulder," he says, beaming. "Shit hurts, man."

I nod, sagely. Nurses crowd around him for a minute, a curtain is pulled, but I hear him chatting away back there, to whoever is hovering around.

"...I'm a dancer, see, a ballet dancer," he's saying. The nurses disperse, until there's just one.

"Did I hear you say you were a ballet dancer?" Damn, I'm chatty. It's suddenly terribly important, this conversation. The nurse standing over him smiles at me - is it indulgently? and pulls back the curtain so he can roll his head around again and look at me.

"Yup," He nods, his head moving against the pillow, "I'm with the San Francisco Ballet."

"No shit," I say, "In the book I'm writing, my main character is a ballet dancer."

"Wow. Really?" he says. I doubt he would be this enthusiastic without the drugs.

"Yeah! It's called Hoodoo - working title - and," I want to tell him more. How this is no A Very Young Dancer sort of book. How it's actually really dark and creepy and twisted and all tied up with God and visions and I know he'd get it, we're Demerol buddies, after all, but they're wheeling me away.

"Hey," he says, "look me up on the site, SFBallet.org, I'm there!" He looks up at the nurse, "She's writing a book with a ballet dancer!"

"'s called Hoodoo..." I raise my hand, waving goodbye, as I disappear through the door.

Note to writers: Vicodin is not a performance-enhancing drug

Yes, I know: Hemingway had alcohol, Sartre those mescaline experiments, and Hunter S. managed to pound out amazing things while on...whatever he could get his paws on, but Vicodin just doesn't cut it. It takes the edge off the pain, but brings along with it nausea, sleepiness (I picture the Disney dwarf in Snow White), and shallow naps punctuated with menacing dreams. Profundity (or even the illusion of it), nope. Inspiration, zip. Clarity of thought, don't make me laugh.

I know, excuses, excuses. The story will continue later, after a short, terrifying nap.

Billy goes under

The orderly sits me down in a room, setting a neat pile of clothing next to me. They are considerate here, providing me with a real cloth gown that ties in back, and a robe to go over it. He tells me to remove all my jewelry, so my wedding ring goes into Mr. Billy's capable hands, along with bracelet and earrings. One earring won't come out, and the orderly tells me to let the nurse know.

A nurse comes in to stick me with the I.V. I warn her about my veins: smallish and deceptive, you can think you've hit it okay, but it collapses, or rolls away, or the needle just bounces off. These details are just speculation on my part - I tend to look in the direction of the ceiling while they're rooting around in there. My last hospital stay, both arms alarmingly bruised, nurse slapping away to wake up sleepy veins while I retch into a plastic tray.

This nurse assures me she won't try more than twice, and, she beams, "We have lidocaine, to numb you up!"

"Yay, lidocaine," say I, knowing full well it isn't the pain that freaks me out. I ask her to tell me when she's hit it. "I've hit the vein," she says, "now I just need to advance the needle."

She says nothing for a terrible long moment. I don't feel a thing, but my vision starts to tunnel in, that warm, distant roar in my ears, a high-pitched whine riding on top. I swim up to tell the nurse I may throw up, feel the kidney-shaped pan in my hands, stomach heaves, but they don't let you eat before surgery, nothing in there to come up. Enormous blobs of sweat slid down my body under the gown. Why does my body do this, I wonder? I'm not afraid, and it doesn't hurt, but I can't stop it. I'm barely able to ask Mr. Billy to crack the window. The nurse has said she won't try again, gathering up her goody basket and leaving the room. We can't figure out how to recline the chair, so I slide down onto the floor.

Another orderly guides me to another waiting room, Mr. Billy not permitted to come along, away he goes with my valuables, my clothes and books with the orderly in the plastic "patient belongings" bag. Seven Good Housekeepings and one Ebony. I pick up the Ebony. The doctor comes in, wearing a blue mushroom cap to match my own. She tells me what's going to happen, looks at my earring. "I can't get it out," I say, demonstrating. "Well," she says, "If you can't get it out, I guess there's not much danger of us losing it."

Another orderly, or nurse, walks me to the operating room. Complicated table meant for me, surrounded by blocks of machines, two full-color flat-screen monitors. People in blue caps introduce themselves, the doctor, the assisting doctor, the anesthesiologist. I climb onto the table, going over my vein story once more for the anesthesiologist. He grins and pops in the needle, no muss, no fuss, no lidocaine, no retching. It occurs to me that the anesthesiologist is the only man in the room, and the oldest, somewhat avuncular. I'm comforted by all the women, and the elderly uncle.

I wonder what they'll get up to, while I'm out, that they're so concerned about my jewelry coming off.

And then I stop thinking anything.

Castle of everywhere

Alfonse was just this close to finishing, two more stones to heave into place, his men moving together, they were one creature, onetwothree push, sweat making trails in skin, Alfonse moved his hands like he was conducting an orchestra, his men the music.

The stone moved home, fitting so sweetly into place it could have been born right there. Alfonse walked along the walls, dragging his hand slowly across stone, it sang into his skin, nearly unbearable harmony of stone on stone, fitted so close like it lived and breathed and shaped itself to its purpose.

Alfonse looked up a flying buttress, almost too delicate, soaring upward, into the clouds, arcing high over his head, over his men, the freeway, the glass-and-steel towers, living stone higher than all those dead things, office buildings like toys at the feet of his castle, sinuous buttresses and domes and windows of a hundred colors and towers of stone as intricate as lace.

This was his, this had been born from his dreams and spun out into the world, Alfonse felt the tears running back to his ears while he gazed up, he didn't hear the horn of the bus bearing down, didn't see it, maybe his eyes still dazzled, but a hand pulled him back just far enough, and he did feel the whoosh of the bus going past, his dirty coat lifted and flapping around him.

Alfonse looked around at the people waiting at the bus stop. They were looking down the street for their bus, not looking at him, not looking up. Why aren't they looking up? How could they see anything else? If they would only lift their eyes, away from the street, their papers and magazines, away from their shoes and their bills, if only they would look up, they would see.

They would see he had made room, he'd made a home, for every one of them.

Trip

The van was getting that road trip stink: unwashed bodies, peanut butter sandwiches, crushed crackers, spilled soda, Boyd hated to think what was growing underneath the seats. The kids were singing that stupid song for the thousandth time and the trip had barely started. Another day and a half of this and Margie would be back in charge, she knew how to settle them down, get them studying in their rooms while she and Boyd had their own reunion, grownups time, he could make it that long. He pulled up to the pump and hopped down to fill up the tank, popped his head back into the van to call back, "Okay, nobody get out, I'm just getting gas, we'll stop for dinner in about an hour," before padding around the back to unhook the nozzle, shove it home.

Boyd saw his reflection in the window, hair sticking up, wrinkled shirt, puffy eyes. He thought about Margie, her skin under his hand, her round bottom, belly tight with pregnancy, another person moving around in there, Boyd on the outside pressing his hand against the creature inside, pressing back, Margie one of those women who got bigger and brighter when pregnant, like the kid's personality got added to hers for nine months, or something.

"Everybody here?" Boyd fell into the driver's seat with the automatic question, "count off," and started the engine while they counted, "One. Stop it, Jared!" "Two," piping up from under a towel, "Three," "I'm not touching you I'm not touching you I'm not..." "Four," "Da-ad, make him stop," "Five. Shutup, twerp."

Five. It stopped at five. Boyd killed the engine and threw an arm over the seat to look into the back.

"Okay, who's missing?"

"Not me," said a sleepy voice, followed by a chorus of giggles and "not me"s.

"Very funny. Okay, I see Darryl, Ashley, Jared, Brianna, Andrew. Wait, that's only five. Who'm I forgetting?"

"That's all of us, Dad," yawned Darryl.

"Yeah right." Boyd sighed and grabbed at his hair. Margie would freak. No, she'd be rational about this, if she were here. "Count off again."

"One." "Two, I'm two." "Three." "Four."

A Mercedes waiting behind them honked. Boyd poked his head out the window and waved him to another pump, then got out of his seat so he could face the back of the van square, crouching between the two front seats.

"This is not the time to play tricks on Dad. Okay? Okay. I see Darryl, Jared, Brianna, Andrew." No, this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong. There were five a minute ago. Why can't he remember the fifth one's name?

"I swear dumbhead, if you poke me one more time..."

"Don't call your brother dumb, Andrew." Boyd rubbed his eyes. None of the doors to the van had opened while they were sitting there, the others had to be here somewhere. "Look under the blankets, maybe someone's asleep under there."

"Ow, hey..."

"Leave your sister alone, Jared," Boyd was losing it. There was Jared, there was Brianna, there was Andrew. That was only three. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus God help me now. What was the name of the missing one? How could he forget his own kid's name? He wasn't even sure if it was boy or a girl.

"Look, look, sit still, for just one minute!"

The kids stopped wrestling for a second and looked up at him. Jared and Andrew. His sons. He thought there were more than two, but he wasn't sure now.

"Goddamnit, you come sit up here next to me okay?"

The Mercedes honked again, and Boyd saw, out the back window, the driver flip him off. "Yeah, fuck you too," he muttered, still holding on to Jared's arm, Jared, his son Jared, Boyd looked at him, this kid staring back at him, and kind of laughing, and there was a pop, an actual - pop - and Boyd was holding nothing.

Boyd lurched forward, crouched awkwardly, and felt the van dip with his movement. It was empty, Boyd the only one here. He knew something was missing, something important, he felt sick deep in his stomach like he'd fucked up something big, but he couldn't, couldn't bring it into his head.

He turned to look out the front windshield then sat in the driver's seat, looking out, down the road that ran past the gas station. Where am I going, wondered Boyd.

What's it doing way over there?

My expectations for medical tests have been lowered in recent months. Once upon a time, I would walk into the ultrasound room with an idea that the technician would turn on the machine, point her wand at me and exclaim, "Well, there's your problem!" and turn the monitor so I can clearly see a tiny demon hammering away at my gut with a pickaxe. He would peer over his shoulder at me and grin maliciously before taking a hefty swing.

"Wipe that smug grin off his face," I would announce, standing on the bed in my paper gown, shaking my fist at the monitor, "Vaporize the bastard!"

Too many times, though, the tech would prod me and gaze glumly at the monitor, clicking her mouse to bracket off bits of sludge from other bits of sludge, muttering to herself, "hmm...that could be...but I don't know..." like she was reading tea leaves. Any questions I asked would be answered with "You'll have to ask your doctor," or even a weary gesture toward the printed sign that scolded any patients who might expect answers from the technician.

Today, however, was different.

Ron the technician has a soft lamp set up in the lab, and a mobile of whales overhead, but I'm much more interested in that grainy gray sludge moving around on the monitor. He's prodding at me with the wand, when suddenly those beautiful words are spoken:

"Well, that's what's causing your problem. And it's a big 'un, too. Look at that!"

And I do, and yup, there it is. No demon, but...something. That's definitely a...thing.

"But what's it doing way over there?" adds Ron.

You got me there, Ron.

Meat suit

Been spending too much time in medical complexes, not enough time on the bus lately, gotten tardy in my posting. Strange how the whole howling world wants to focus down to a single point when the animal envelope - the meat suit I put on every morning at the end of dreamtime wandering - malfunctions.

Tomorrow I get to spend a day inside darkened rooms, dully illuminated by glowing displays of my innards, breathing and seething and going about their innardly business, charcoal-edged light glinting off shining surfaces.

Yesterday I sat in a hard plastic chair on Institutional Green carpet, not enough to hide the unspeakable stain of something liquid splashed under my feet. A woman stands behind a little podium and calls names, a ninety-year-old woman in a wheelchair and her fatuous seventy-year-old daughter, "Joyce called me a pistol today. A pistol! Well, I guess I do have a sort of energy, you know, I think people are attray-acted to something like that..." I could just about hear the old woman's eyes rolling around in her head at her idiot-child, her own comments dry and and spare.

Another plastic chair in another waiting room, an hour earlier. A giant man, massive head, thick lips, Central European accent, also in a wheelchair, and dark blue hospital jammies. "Not a milyon dollarss - a milyon dollarss over twenty yearss, not like you have it all right now."

"...but it's good to have money when you need it, for healt' reasons, or whadever," his mantis wife leans forward reaching one emaciated arm out to lay a hand on her husband's knee. Sitting next to her is a young woman in scrubs, Our Daughter the Doctor, smoothing the way for Daddy in this trying time.

"But the house, beaudiful things, I have a wife who likes fine things, I work hard all my life to give her those things, it makes me happy, people come to the house, they can' believe the beaudiful things..."

Different chair, in the hall this time, earlier yet in the day, reception area renovation, plastic sheeting, dot-matrix printed signs directing patients back through a dark inner hallway, receptionist squeezed in behind her desk, edging out past patients in line to use the copier, laughter bubbling out from behind the door of the break room.

It's too quiet, everyone too submerged in their own broken-down meat suits, no-one meets your eyes, no-one talks, except to their own family, to the receptionist, the nurses, only to say help me, help me.

I'll be back on the bus soon.

The pigs

(Just one more and I will finally let this go. I think.)

Sharon rummaged in the closet for her sweater, the pink one with the wide neckline, it showed off her collarbones. Gary was taking her out for dinner, first night home after visiting her parents in Wisconsin, clothes all jumbled around, suitcase hanging open like a mouth on the bed, earrings brushing against her neck.

"...it took 'em days to get the whole thing cleaned up, and the stink, baby, was un-fucking-believable."

"-what?" Sharon pulled her head out of the closet to look at Gary, in his boxer shorts, standing in the middle of the room like he'd forgotten what he was doing, blue shirt half-buttoned, one sock on.

"The pigs, you remember I told you about the pigs, I - ?" Gary broke off, and lifted his head to one side, like he could almost hear something, not quite, he pushed his brows together, listening harder.

"Oh yeah," Sharon spotted the pink sweater and yanked it out of the pile, grinning that she didn't disturb the rest of the stack, "the drowned pigs. Weird."

"A-" said Gary.

Sharon was pulling the sweater on over her head when Gary said something else she didn't quite catch, and then she heard another voice, a deeper one, one she didn't recognize, did someone else come in, dear god she's half-naked, skin prickling up she yanks the sweater quick hard down over her head her hair all in her face now and panicking she brushes it out of her eyes someone else is here.

"Who's there?"

Gary is standing right where he was a second before, but now he's half-crouching like he just ducked something that whizzed over his head, eyes open wide.

"Who is it?" Sharon hears her voice whine, can't see anyone but she knows she heard a voice, not Gary's.

"My name is Legion," said Gary, or, Gary moved his mouth in the shape of those words, but like he was dubbed, someone else's voice came out, not someone's, a hundred, a thousand someones, millions, the whole world spoke out of Gary's mouth and Sharon felt the chill crawling up her neck, running on million-insect feet, up into her hairline, Gary still ducking something she couldn't see, eyes big, looking toward the ceiling, like a cartoon he was frozen in his boxer shorts and Sharon knew the universe had shifted and any minute, any minute now the earth would dissolve out from under her feet and she and Gary would fall forever.