1

She inserted the key and struggled with the lock. She grabbed the door knob tightly and then relaxed her grip. Pulling the key from the door, she shuffled a few paces to her left and tried another door. Room 341. The door loomed large before her. It wasn’t like the doors at home, those flimsy dividers of space. It was a door to keep things in and out. Boys. Noise. The fear that had scurried up from her stomach and into her throat as she pushed the door open. Darkened before her was the emptiest furnished room she’d ever seen. Two beds. Two desks. Tile floors. And nothingness. She knew just how the room felt.

“Jamie,” her father sliced through her thoughts. “Are you going to turn on the light?”

She whirled around to find the light, but her father had already put down the box he’d been carrying and flipped the switch. After a moment, the flourescent rectangle spewed too-white light across the center of the room. The beds, pushed up against the walls, seemed to be trying to weasle back into the shadows, but weren’t having much luck.

Her father smiled weakly as he pushed her box of belongings further into the room. Jamie puzzled over him for a moment. He looked smaller somehow. She began to search his face for signs of shrinking, when she felt her mother waltz into the room.

“Oh,” she gushed. “This is going to be your new home, Jamie.” There were no weak smiles from Jamie’s mother. She outshone the flourescent light. “I think the curtains we bought are going to be perfect.”

The curtains. That shopping trip from a few weekends ago seemed so far away. She and her mother, like dozens of others had been making a last stop at The ‘Mart, the place to shop in Hays when she had spotted the curtains. They were red and velvety. They were beautiful with a hint of ridiculous. Perfect for someone ready to explore tastes of her own. Her mother hated them. She’d tried to leave them out of the cart in three different aisles. “Oh goodness,” she had said every time. “I didn’t want them to get wrinkled.” She’d cover her mouth and turn away, while Jamie placed the curtains back in the cart. That was now a million miles away. Going to college felt like intergalatic space travel. Interstate van travel was more accurate. Her father had driven most of the eight hours it took to get to Collegetown, Colorado. Her mother had driven a tiny stretch near Goodland. For reasons Jamie couldn’t understand, her mother loved to drive across time zones. Pounding, from above, interrupted her thoughts. It sounded as though elephants were racing through the halls. Her parents seemed unaffected by the noise. Her mother had gone immediately to putting up the curtains. She may have her passive-agressive moments, but the woman was maternal when she wanted to be. Jamie couldn’t help but admire the brown curly hair that poofed off her mother’s head as if they hadn’t just spent eight hours in a mini van, but had instead just stepped out of a beauty parlor. Her mother hadn’t removed her long tan coat. It more stylish than anything Jamie would ever wear. Her mother had class. Class that seemed en route to skip a generation. Jamie was her father’s girl, studious, meticulous, even nerdy, though she wasn’t one to admit it.

Looking at her father she realized he was still standing in the middle of the room, a weak smile plastered on his face and the hint of condensation building behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Dad,” she said sweetly and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go get some more boxes.”

Jamie and her parents unpacked a van full of belongings quickly and uneventfully. Her mother was unusually quiet. Her father was quiet as usual. Jamie hardly noticed as she sought to appropriately place items that she’d hadn’t even owned six months ago. Should the shower caddy go on the floor or on a shelf? The shower caddy amused her. When she’d first opened the box and seen the words “Shower caddy” on the side, she’d pictured a squat little man standing just outside her shower pulling conditioner from a bag and whispering in her ear, “I think you should use this. Relax. We’ll finish up with the shampoo in a minute.” In her imagination she’d glared at him and mouthed “2-N-1” but he’d shaken his head “no” and confidently pushed the conditioner at her.

With a sigh, Jamie’s mother finished making the bed. For the first and last time, Jamie’s bed was made perfectly. Wrinkles weren’t even twinkles in the sheet’s eyes when Jamie’s mother finished with a bed. Starting the next day, as far as the extra-long bed was concerned, wrinkles and the closely-related cousin, mounds of twisted sheets and blankets, would dominate the bedscape. For now, the bed was as smooth as the plains that Jamie and her parents had left at 7 AM this morning, not that Jamie had time to consider wrinkles, she was too busy considering the sigh.

“Is it time for supper?” she asked placatingly, sensing that her mother’s patience was setting with the sun.

“It’s past time,” her mother said with syrupy sweetness. Jamie fought the eyeroll that voice pushed her toward. “Look how much we’ve accomplished. Almost everything in its place. The room looks so homey. I really think your curtains bring out the red in your bed cover. It’s really very nice.”

Jamie ushered her parents out of her new room. With a look back into the flourescent bathed room, she took in the velvety curtains and hoped that her roommate would approve. She took in the perfectly made bed and every item, save one box left to unpack, in its place. The room had an invisble line down the middle. One side was Jamie’s and the other side was empty. It was a reminder to Jamie of how much was still unknown.

Hey, it’s Jamie, and I’d just like to set the record straight. Come on, I like the third-person omniscient narrator as much as the next girl, but that’s not how the first day of college went. The problem with the 3-p-o narrator is they tend to be know-it-alls. It kind of comes with the territory. I get that. But let’s have a look at this from someone that was actually present.

First, can I just say, LONGEST DRIVE EVER. I don’t know how my parents ever fell in love. My mom is this New York socialite trapped in the body of a Midwestern housewife. She alternates between bouncing all over town volunteering her time, to sulking at home with the shades drawn. It can be rather dramatic, but I’m used to it. My dad is a quiet soulful professor-type, but he seems to be lacking a little on the soul. He’s not a bad guy, just pretty boring. Anyway, polar opposites. So we’re on this drive from Hays, Kansas to Collegetown, Colorado. I got accepted to College University, early admission in December. It wasn’t my first choice for school, but it did meet the very important get-out-of-Kansas criteria and it has a decent PT program. Physical Therapy, it’s a bit trendy I know, but it pleases my dad’s biology sympathies and it seems like it could be a decent major.

But back to the drive. Mom had mood swings at every town. Fortunately, we were in Kansas, so there weren’t that many. It was fun when we had the time-zone change sing-a-long. I think even Dad was singing, along to Celine Dion “My heart will go on...” Touching really. I guess they’re not so bad, but I sure was glad to actually get to school. I’m nervous sure, but there’s been so much chatter about college for the last year and a half it seems like I’ve been waiting forever. A lot of it is a blur by now, but I do remember one thing my Scholar Bowl advisor told me, she said, “Make your room home. You’re going to live there.” She said it with such gravity. That’s why Mom and I got into the Mart-battle over the curtains. I’m trying to have my own style and she just didn’t see it that way. I guess she finally saw it my way because they curtains are up now and they look sweet. I hope they don’t clash with Jenny’s stuff. She’s supposed to be here tomorrow and I’m totally nervous. We talked on the phone and she sounded nice enough, but she’s from Denver. I think her high school was as big as my town. Jenny and Jamie. We should be fine. They put people together that should be fine, right?

My parents were great with the unpacking. I thought Dad was going to burst into tears at one point, but he seemed to get over that. Mom turned on the full-force mothering, which is why the room all but sparkles right now. Ok. So yes, I went to the wrong room when we first got here, but all the doors look the same and the hallway was kind of dark. Seriously, where is everybody?
It’s true that school doesn’t actually start for another week and that Fauntelroy Hall just opened today, but from my visit in the Spring, I thought this place would be crawling with people. I’ll give it a day or two before I panic. I just wish that Nicole could be here. We would have had such a good time, but she decided to stay in Hays and make some money before going to school. I respect that, but I miss her.

Finally, Jamie fell asleep in her half of her new home. Her parents had gone, they’d stop by in the morning for a goodbye-flavored breakfast before their return to Hays. After dinner, the family had watched TV at the local motel until her mother announced that she was exhausted. Her father drove Jamie back to campus and saw her to her room in near silence.

“We’ll see you at breakfast,” he said quietly as he kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand good night. Jamie cried herself to sleep thinking about Nicole. So far she’d seen no other students other than those on official duty. She felt so alone. It reminded her of summer camp, but she didn’t know where the swimming hole was.

Jamie and Nicole had been friends since the sixth grade. Nicole had moved in up the street from Jamie and they had instantly bonded over the things that females of that age instantly bond over. Boys. Rollerblades. Milkshakes. Not necessarily in that order. Through the trials of middle school Jamie and Nicole stuck together. Middle school for anyone is a lot like a Senate Supreme Court nominee hearing without the fancy suits. There’s posturing, name-calling, and the inevitable and unenviable position of being forced to remain silent on an issue and be labeled for life, or speak up and risk losing the appointment. Neither middle school nor Supreme Court nomination hearings are particularly pleasant, but at the end of one comes high school and at the end of the other comes a lifelong appointment with 8 other codgy justices. It really comes down to survival. Jamie and Nicole survived by sticking together. They weathered the Nick-Sanders- lips controversy, the Kerri-called-you-fat controversy, the stabbed-in-the-back-by-the-backstabbing-bitch controversy. That one was particularly ugly. Lots of tears. No one really talks about that one. Painful scars. Ugly. Jamie and Nicole got through it, and a host of less-memorable and less-hyphanated disputes.

And tonight, Jamie couldn’t help but dream about her best friend. On a school bus together, but fully grown, in the way that 18-year-olds are fully grown, they were hurtling down a wormhole. It didn’t matter that the bus was big and yellow, or that worms and their holes are small. This was a dream. She reached out and grabbed Nicole’s hand and clasped her fingers between Nicole’s. Nicole’s hand turned into five-dollar bills and began flying out the windows. The scene and the symbolism were destroyed there.

I don’t want to talk about the stabbed-in-the-back-by-the-backstabbing-bitch controversy even though I’m sure that would be interesting to sixth-grade gossip mongers everywhere. After six years it gets hard to remember how things could escalate so quickly, but things move faster at that age. There’s a franticness about most everything. Think about it. Long-term relationships at that age last three weeks. Middle-school years are faster than dog years. If dogs went to middle school... let’s just say that pet graveyards would be a lot more populated. Nicole is my best friend. I would never even be in college without her. We used to spend entire weekends together, one night at her mom’s house and one night at my parents’ house. Six meals, two nights sleep, Mad TV, a movie, a card game, some singing, some dancing, and the disection of every piece of relationship minituae within a 10-mile radius. That was last weekend. That was six years ago. Nicole knows as much about me as the narrator. Maybe more.

It tore me up to see my parents drive away from Fauntelroy Hall. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone and yet so excited in my life. I couldn’t even cry. For very long. They’re gone. They’ve left me. I’m alone. I’m free. I’m scared.

Read Possibly Strongly Opposed

~ an inspiring title. an inspiring tale. - maybe ~
I think you're pretty brave, but I'm glad you're going to try.
There's a link to the next section at the end of every section, so you can read straight through. If you get tired or have to come back the sections are listed below especially for you. This is pretty close to the way it spilled out of my head. Good luck with that.
Start, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,16, 17, 18.

Believe me, no one is as sorry as I am that you can't draw in the margins.

18

Engulfed by the crowd, the council members had no choice but to consider the current spot of their cars to be parking spaces. They stepped from the cars and the volume of the chanting immediately increased. It wasn’t violent or ugly, though some of the protestors may have felt that way, but for the most part the crowd was well-behaved in their opposition to the money-grubbing casino proposition under consideration. This wasn’t an issue that elicited the passion of something like abortion or the death penalty. It still obviously touched a number of Ohioans enough to get them to take to the streets. Even with very little threat of violence, the look of fear in the councilmembers eyes was something Sherri and Ben were not likely to forget for a long while.

Inside, Sid was waiting with a group of lawyers, experts and highly politicized and energized citizens ready to send the council a barrage of questions that he hoped would make them realize the magnitude of the error they were about to make. Matty was one of those lawyers. Sid had hated to call her for help, but he decided that at a time like this, resources were more important than feelings. He hoped J would understand.

J would understand, but he had spotted the familiar older couple again and was trying to fight through the crowd to get a closer look. He had a funny feeling in his stomach.

McCormick and Jimmie were getting one side of the crowd riled up while Ben and Sherri led the other side. The chants bounced back and forth like badminton across the parking lot, not that backyard stuff, we’re talking Olympic-level gold medal match badminton chants of, “GREED-Y” from one half and “BAS-TURDS” from the other. The council could hear the rumblings inside the auditorium. Sid couldn’t help but smile at the massive outpouring of opposition. He had never been prouder of anything in his life.

J got within a few feet of the couple and realized that his parents were a part of the protest and his mom was hollering BASTARDS at the top of her lungs. He stopped, hardly believing his eyes. He didn’t know whether it was harder to believe that his parents were here after he hadn’t seen them in years or if seeing his mother scream BASTARDS like she had 40 years of protesting pent up inside of her. She was screaming with so much passion it almost looked like she planned to let it all out tonight. J just watched in awe. His dad seemed to be mouthing “bastards” as well, but there was no way to tell if it was silent or not, not over his mom’s yells.

Inside the council debated, but things seemed to be fairly one-sided against the original casino proposal. The support had crumbled quickly. Only one dissenter remained and even he seemed to sense that he was fighting a losing battle. One of Sid’s concerned energized citizens slipped out the side door and went to tell Ben and Sherri that there was only one dissenter.

As J was reaching out to his parents, to tell them a shocked hello, Ben grabbed the bullhorn and said, “There’s only one dissenter in there. Let’s flush him out with noise.” Only when Ben said “noise” his voice crescendoed into a gargling hollering mash of sound. The crowd followed suit in an eruption. The estimated 1,000 people suddenly hollered like the Bengals had won the Super Bowl, or louder, since no one remembers what that sounds like. It was deafening. J and his parents were in the middle of it. His mother was hugging him. His father was touching his shoulder and the crowd all around them surged with energy and screams. J tried to speak, but nothing he said could be heard.

Inside the council heard the roar and the dissenter gave up his arguments. “Let’s vote,” he said hanging his head. The eruption quieted down and returned to chanting and singing as they waited for the vote. They didn’t know what was going on inside, yet the entire crowd seemed somehow tuned in.

“What are you guys doing here?” J asked with a yell, finally able to get a word in.

“We came to help you move,” his mother replied.

The vote was quick and unanimous. Sid and his group poured out of the auditorium hugging and cheering. The crowd erupted again. This time with more joy and less of the guttural animal sounds. Ben grabbed Sid and hoisted him up. The crowd supported him as he surfed over the heads of the boisterous and victorious protestors. Sid’s smile was so enormous that his face started to stretch and strain under the effort.

J caught a glimpse of him bobbing above the crowd, smiling 5 years of worth of smiles, and J found a smile of his own.

“That’s Sid!” he said to his dad excitedly. “You haven’t heard the last from him.”

The crowd eventually put Sid down and let the council drive away. The party atmosphere stayed for a few more hours. Though the very late arrival of the police dampened the party sooner than it might have otherwise ended. Ben, Sherri, J and J’s parents had long since returned to Sid’s kitchen for celebratory ice cream. Sid arrived much later. The smile still plastered on his face.

For a while everything was three scoops of laughter and two scoops of praise. They heaped accolades on Sid. Even J’s parents said they were impressed by the way Sid had handled the council. Ben and Sherri nuzzled each other’s noses whenever anyone said anything about the chants outside. A lot of spoons flew into the air with triumphant pronouncements. Even J seemed full of energy in his praise of everyone’s work. Still J seemed smaller somehow, he didn’t fill the kitchen like he had before. At first Sid thought that it might be an effect of J’s parents, but they left for a hotel and the promise to meet J in the morning and still J’s stature didn’t grow. It was strange to see J with his parents after hearing so little about them in all the time they knew him. It was also to see J as life-sized instead of larger than life. Someone, probably Ben, suggested they bring out the daquiris to celebrate, but Sid put a stop to that idea. “I want no part of chocolate body art tonight” he said with a laugh.
Ben, Sherri, and J laughed along with him. Sid was too caught up in the moment to be aware of his own change, but Sherri noticed. It was like Sid had filled out somehow, finally grown into his own skin. Sherri noticed that J seemed different too. He had shrunk. It was as if he had grown into his skin too. He wasn’t bursting at the seams anymore. He seemed calmer somehow.
When had that happened? she wondered. Had she and Ben missed something when they were hiding in the sheets? They obviously had, but it wasn’t worth dwelling on. Especially not with J leaving. It was amazing how quickly the party shifted from celebration to farewell.

“How can we let you go?” Ben wailed.
“You’ve got each other,” J said with a laugh. Whether the laugh was uncomfortable or not was not discernible.

Ben and Sherri stayed a little longer to relive some of the good times they’d had. J told Sherri how impressed with Reading Rocks he had been and he told Ben to hang on to Sherri. They both thanked him and made him promise to write. They suddenly felt like they were in summer camp. Ben couldn’t help but wonder if like summer camp he’d never hear from J again.

After the couple had left, Sid and J sat across each other from the table.

“You were amazing, Sid.” J said like a proud father.

“Aw.” Sid replied. “I had a good teacher.”

“I didn’t teach you that stuff. It came from in there.” J said very seriously as he pointed at Sid’s heart.

“I’m going to miss you.” Sid said with tears in his eyes.

“Don’t cry. We’re not crying here.” J said as he held out his hands and pressed them against an imaginary wall. “I’m moving. Not dying. ok?”

“Yea.” Sid wailed.

“Come on.” J said as he held out his arms. He and Sid embraced. “Goodbye,” J whispered.

The night passed quickly and J’s parents returned in the early morning. J felt like he’d slipped back in time and his parents were picking him up from a slumber party. He snuck out before anything resembling breakfast could be served. He snuck out before he’d have to say goodbye again.

The biggest advantage to moving a son that detests materialism is his distinct lack of materials. J had already cleared out his place and tossed the non-essential items. He carried a single bag which contained one change of clothes, “Big Sur”, some beef jerky, and a spatula. His parents were amazed that the move was so small and pleased that they hadn’t brought the trailer. It was going to be a twelve hour drive back to Independence, fourteen if J never took the wheel. They had a lot of time to catch up. J wanted to start with the previous night.

It was a little odd to be riding in the backseat of his parents’ Mazda. He hadn’t been in the back seat of a car in quite a while, but to be riding behind Mom and Dad on a road trip, the urge to ask “Are we there yet?” was almost too great to control, but J controlled it. He remembered growing up and playing Auto Bingo and the way he used to argue with his dad about speed versus fuel economy. He had come down on the side of speed then and despite the many changes he had gone through since those days of Auto Bingo, he still sided with speed when it came to too many hours in the car with the folks.

“I can’t sit back here the whole time.” J announced.

It had to be no less strange for the Jones. They hadn’t had anyone in the backseat since J went to college. They now found themselves with a grown man, a grown man with a goatee and clothes that were in disrepair by her standards. He looks like a hooligan, J’s dad thought but refrained from announcing. This journey back to Missouri was a strange way to continue their already strange reunion. They’d taken on part of his world and now he was returning to theirs. It seemed symbolic somehow, but J was finding it more suffocating than anything else.

“We’ll change at the next stop.” J’s dad replied.


J.afraid to discuss too much of their estrangement for fear that it might stir up feelings he wasn’t particularly interested in dealing with, stuck with the simpler questions. He found out his mom was still puttering and that his dad had taken up woodworking. He’d just completed a lovely spice rack. Mother was quite proud. The smile on Dad’s face seemed to indicate the same, but he was too proud to admit it. Too proud to be proud of woodworking, that was J’s father. They hadn’t traveled much. They had almost everything they needed smack dab in the middle of the heartland, they told J matter-of-factly. They acted part doting parents, part passive agressive children and part brochure for the Midwest. J’s parents had become everything he feared about retirees. They were reckless in their stingy treatment of the purse strings, buying fantastic purchases like RVs and flat screen TVs and then never finding the time to get out on the open road or get rid of the comfortable tube. They had worked so long and hard to accumulate wealth and now that they were no longer accumulating, they felt the need to spend it. Something was terribly wrong, but J couldn’t wrap his mind around what it was. They still lived in the same house and went to the same church. Mom didn’t like the new pastor, but thought she was fine.

“Fine?” J had asked with a wink and that extra syllable that turned fine into foxy.

“Joseph,” J’s mom had replied with an elongated syllable of her own that managed to silence J and his father.

J soon found out that the neighbors were well, except for the German Sheperd Marty who had died and the tomato plants that looked unruly. He found out that his cousin Dan had married a nice girl named Clare and settled down in El Paso to start a family. J saw his mother start to ask when he would find a nice girl, he could see the question form in her mind and then race down past her eyes toward her lips. She started to open her mouth and then thought better of it. That’s when he found out that his other cousin was finishing school and hoped to be an art teacher. He was spending his summers at a compound in New Mexico. J’s mother said compound the way most people say cancer; it swirled with death and doubt. They were all terribly worried about J’s uncle, because he hardly ever returned their calls. He just wrote emails. It didn’t seem that strange to J, but he decided not to mention it. This conversation continued long after J was listening. Conversation is the nicest way to say monologue. J was soon caught up with all the goings on of the last 5 years and they weren’t even to Indianapolis yet. His mom was like the CNN of Walnut Ave. He was her 24 hour news channel. His dad chimed in a few times to offer a correction or an opinion or to elucidate a point, but for the most part he was a BMW without all of the pesky connotations of Germans or speed. J sat near silence cramped in the back seat, sometimes nodding, sometimes munching on beef jerky but always staring out the window, watching as the MidWest unfurled before and beneath him. The further West the family sedan creeped the larger the world became. Large in this case was a quart-size Zip-Loc bag and the family sedan was a pebble. Large was barren. Large was empty. J saw the towns, the haystacks, the barns, even the other cars speeding past, but none of it had the life of even Cincinnati. Some of it would, sure. Indianapolis was home to the Motor Speedway and St. Louis was not a village about to be swalllowed by the river, but for the most part this drive was through a field. Charming fields J was sure, but basically unchanging, unpopulated masses of grass and weeds broken up by the gas station and the fast food restaurant. He knew that there were communities, towns, people somewhere off this little ribbon that he was hurtling across, but his focus was only what he could see and far as he was concerned he didn’t see much. The sedan of course was on Interstate 70 by now. J knew that Interstate 70 was a stellar infastructure acheivement and the reason that so many did indeed like Ike even if it meant that tanks could traverse the country more quickly, but pavement and cars were on the move and J was one of them. He was on the move across the plains, generally thought to be flat, and yet he felt so much like he was slipping.

After his mother had quieted, J leaned his head against the window and felt the hum of the road. It sang him softly to sleep. J slept fitfully, as backseat sleepers tend to do. He was comforted by the sun shining in from above, but alternately discomforted by the series of images that ransacked his brain. There was Matty smiling and then laughing, her mouth opened wide so that J was engulfed by the darkness. There he found Sid who was burning incense and chanting “Monogrammed towels. Monogrammed towels.” Sid dissolved and turned into Carl who was pushing a giant mound of paper around in circles. The paper morphed into Ben as Carl turned into Sherri. The two moved into kiss and were blown away by a gust of wind. J stood alone in the darkness until a spotlight and the noise of helicopter called him from above. He woke up to find his mother reaching over him into the trunk to get the pickles. J had forgotten how much his mom loved pickles. It was one of the traits he found most endearing about her. Some woman only grave pickles during pregnancy, but J’s mom was just the opposite. She ate dills in the morning, sweet pickles at night and never had a sandwich without a pickle plopped between the bread and the meat, both sides. Her arm had been moving such that the sun was hitting J in the face and then disappearing behind a cloud of elbow before reappearing again. The helicopter had been two trucks roaring past the sedan on both sides. J’s dad never flinched, he just roared calmly along at 55 miles per hour. The cruise control was off, but the needle never wavered. J watched as they rolled over hills to see if he could catch the slightest twitch, but the needle was still. His father was so focused and patient. It was enough to make J start to itch and twitch and had someone else been in the backseat likely other words that contain the letters i-t-c-h and start with b. He stopped watching the unmoving needle and tried to return to his nap, but he was awake and growing more frustrated by the minute. The salt from the beef jerky started to dry out his mouth and soon his tongue began to beg for a drink.

“Can we stop for a drink?”
His dad let out a long sigh of disappointment. He was in a groove and stops only served to throw off his rhythm. J wondered if one long low note could really be considered rhythm, but in light of the circumstances again chose to keep silent. If he had learned nothing else in his long absence it was when to hold his tongue, dry or wet.

At the very next exit, J’s dad signalled and pulled off the highway. He cruised up the ramp and followed the blue signs to the nearest service station.

“They don’t call them service stations anymore.” his dad said to no one in particular. “You don’t get any service. You get twenty four hours of a man in a glass cage...” he trailed off still to no one in particular.

J darted inside to grab a drink, but decided first to use the restroom. Very few bathrooms anymore have the sort of dilapadated charm they had in the 1980’s. They now come in two flavors- super anti-septic clean and downright broke. There is no longer the rainbow of variety that once dotted the landscape. Graffitti is wiped out by a slop of paint. Character and perverted charm go with it.

Every so often between slops, between perverted charm-erasing paint, a lucky toilet patron can find the adages of old. It’s not that the poopers have given up their pursuit of wall wisdom, it’s just that they have found other outlets, for what is the Internet if not a giant bathroom wall? and the watchers have grown more vigilant. Both have spelled near extinction for the poop proverbs of yesteryear, at least in middle America. J was lucky, for two poopers had gone undetected with their pens and their bowels moving. The first wrote classic prose,
“here I sit all broken hearted
tried to shit but only farted”

The second writer was feeling more philosophical, “GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!”

The first gave J a chuckle, the second pause.

He left the toilet, washed his hands and headed for the land of overpriced drinks in cold glass cages.

Back in the car, he tried to talk to his parents about bathroom graffiti but met with strong resistance.

“That’s vulgar,” said his mother from the backseat.
“Joseph,” his father said sternly. He was at the wheel. It had been years since he’d shared driving responsibilities and he wasn’t ready to give up the pilot seat just yet. He would have been even less likely had he known that J was unlicensed.

The hands of childhood tightened on J’s neck, the weight of his decision to return home weighing heavily on his torso and pressing against his lungs.

“Can we call me J?” he announced. “I know you named me. I respect that, but I’m 27 years old. And I go by J.”

“It’s just a letter” his mother whispered.

“It will be an adjustment, but it does not seem unreasonable,” his father replied with a glance in the rearview mirror at his wife.

“Thank you.” J said with a sigh.

How his parents could cause him so much angst at this age after the things he’d been through was very much a mystery to J. He was an adult. He had nearly starved and survived. He had been beaten and survived. He had battled intelluctually with the nation’s leaders, well intellectually might be a stretch since when it came to nation’s leaders he had mostly been part of a screaming mob, but he had certainly battled intelluctually with local leaders. He had fought for peace. He had voted. He had avoided criminal prosecution. What, J wondered, did it take for his parents to see him as a grown up. He wondered if they could ever see it. He wondered if he could be around when they did. Even the front seat seemed small at the moment. It seemed crowded. He glanced back to see if he was close to his mom’s legs. He tried to push the seat back, but it went no further. His arms started to itch again. He took a swig of his YooHoo, folded his arms and pouted silently.

They rolled slowly through Illinois and into Missouri. The Arch, the gateway to the West, waved hello beneath the twilight sky. J nodded his hello. He’d always been a little suspicious of the Arch. It was big and metal and symbolized something that was neither big nor metal. It didn’t quite make sense. Was it a giant straw near its breaking point? Was it one of the bendy things in a stage coach heading to the new frontier? Was it manifest destiny brought to bear by Eero Saarinen? J had no idea, and it bothered him just a little bit.

As they cruised beyond the city life and back into the plainness of the Plains, darkness blanketed them. The needle remained at 55. The radio was playing Oldies and J was slipping in and out of sleep. Somewhere about Kingdom City, he saw a hitchhiker that looked a lot like Jimmie. Men in ragged clothes in the dark have a tendency to look a lot like men that wear ragged clothes, but the shape, the thumb, something had caught J’s eye.

“Can we pick up a hitchhiker?” J asked sincerely.
“Those murderers and perverts,” his mother gasped.
“I don’t think so.” his father said unamused.

J turned and looked at his mother. She had just generalized and insulted a whole group of people who J wasn’t readily able to separate himself from (the hitchhiker, not the murderer or the pervert, that would be a very different story).

He turned to look at his focused and driven driver of a father. He didn’t care where they were going at 55 miles per hour, he had to get out in a hurry.

He grabbed his bag from the backseat.

“Mom. Dad. This isn’t my life.” J said as calmly as he could. “I have to get out.”

As J reached for the car door handle his father slammed on the breaks and skidded toward the shoulder. All three of them were thrown forward in shock.


“Walter!” his mother hollered when they slid to a stop.

J’s dad got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. He opened the door slowly.

“Kiss your mother goodbye,” he said.

J reached back and gave her a peck on the lips. He turned back around and his father stepped back from the door. J stood. His father reached out his hand to shake J’s, but as J reached out to shake it, the hand continued around J’s back where it met its partner as Mr. Jones hugged J quickly, coldly, but firmly.

He let go and said, “It’s ok to call once in a while.”

J stood stunned by the stop, by the hug, by the words.

His father shut the passenger door, walked briskly around to the driver’s side door and got in. The brake lights went off and the mazda drove off, no doubt reaching 55 miles per hour as it headed on into the darkness.

J continued to watch the taillights as they faded away. He was nowhere on Interstate 70. He was rideless, homeless, jobless, but not quite family-less. J stared up at the speckles in the sky. He stared across the highway and then across the dark hills around him. He looked to the West and then he looked to the East. Checking the traffic once more, he darted across the highway, all four lanes, looked back for any oncoming headlights, popped his thumb into the air and settled into a brisk walk.

17

Ben and Sherri stood in the kitchen, Ben’s arm draped over Sherri’s shoulder, Sherri’s arm wrapped around Ben’s waist. They leaned into each other as if they were starting to meld together.

Sid and J sat at the kitchen table. For a moment everyone was silent, considering, being. J started to poke at the sugar packets with his finger. Sid began nervously rubbing his knuckles. Sherri started to lightly run through piano scales on Ben’s rib cage. Ben stood stoically, desperately trying not to giggle.

Slowly, Sid stood up from the table, his palms pressed against it. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out as he realized that everyone was looking at him, waiting. His head bowed slightly and he closed his eyes. He inhaled sharply and began.

“J asked me earlier what I wanted,” Sid said. “Well, I want to go out with one last stand before this goofy unnamed group breaks up.”

Sherri gasped and said, “Oh. We wouldn’t…”

Sid held up his hand to silence her. “It’s not you two. Whether J knows it or not, he’s leaving soon.” Everyone turned to look at J.

J shrugged with a face that said, “I don’t know,” but eyes that said, “probably so.”

There are times and places and people who cross paths to make a difference. They change the course of things. It’s not always in a grand sweeping newsworthy gesture. Sometimes someone comes along or someone leaves at the exact moment that another person needs them to. They appear as if from thin air and maybe their effect is not immediately obvious. They end up bringing two people together that might not otherwise have found each other, or they make someone see the world in a whole new way. When they go, no matter how sad it might be, they leave a vacancy that has to be filled.

“I’m proposing one last stand for PANSY, for Theatre of Tragedy, for In Your Eye Action, for Society’s Blender.” Sid announced.

“Society’s blender?” Ben whispered to Sherri.
Sherri shrugged and directed their attention back to Sid.

“We’re going to go out swinging and we’re going to go out hollering. We’re going to the city council to stop the casinos from coming to Cincinnati.” Sid announced with a smile. “And we’re bringing all of our friends.”

“And making new ones,” he added with a smile.

J smiled a weary little smile. Sid was going to be all right if he left. Ben and Sherri had each other, but he’d been worried about Sid. The curl of J’s lips was all Ben needed to get Ben to pump his fist and say, “All right.”

Sid liked the enthusiasm as Ben and Sherri pulled up chairs at the table.

“What’s the plan, Sid?” Sherri asked in all seriousness. No one, least of all Sid would have ever expected that he would be leading a charge.

Here he was. “We’ve been crafty in the past. We’ve had good plans that got us on the news or that caused a stir, but I think we need people power for this one.” Sid said proudly, having thought this through. “We’re going to round up everyone we can find and we’re going to march on the council. We’re going to be heard.”

Sid had it all mapped out. They would send a mass of protestors to the next Tuesday night’s city council meeting. They’d fill the auditorium, they’d fill the hallways, and they’d fill the parking lot at town hall. Everyone they knew, and even those they didn’t would have to be called or cajoled in whatever ways they could think of. Stopping the casinos from giving Cinci a black eye was going to be a going away gift for J and a going away gift for Cincinnati. J had always despised casinos. They are a consumer-driven culture’s dream and a community’s worst nightmare. If nothing else J had done had mattered, this would. Letting casinos onto their side of the border was an invitation for crime, for pawn shops, and for desperation. Despite the education funds that casinos dangled in every state, the blemishes they left far outweighed any of the loot they promised.

Sid was fired up on this one. His mother had worked as a cocktail waitress for a while. He didn’t like to talk about it, but it seemed like a good time to bring it up. Gambling brings the dregs of society and it takes them out of hiding and puts them front and center under the neon lights. It legitimizes throwing money away and it attacks the down and out. The lower a person feels, the more likely he is to think that he deserves to win. And once in a while he will win, but most of the time the casino wins. And Cincinnati loses. “It’s disgusting,” Sid told them at the finish of his tirade.

“You’ve got us, Sid.” Sherri told him. “Let’s get to work on the details.”

They got on the phones that night, calling everyone they knew in Cincinnati. Sid and J alternated in Sid’s kitchen. J ate ice cream during Sid’s shift. Sid highlighted phone numbers in the phone book on his break. J had never seen him so serious. Ben and Sherri worked out of their new place, working from the back of the phone book. They tended to take their breaks together and those breaks didn’t to involve massages, kissing, and things which do not require all that much imagination, but will be left for imagination anyway. At first it was easy, the calling, not the imaginary lovemaking. J called McCormick and told him to round up anyone at the house. McCormick was an easy sell.

“Count on me.” He said with such enthusiasm that J thought he might jump through the phone and hug him. “I can probably round up another 10 to 15 from here as well. I’ll try to find Jimmie and see if he’s got any buddies to bring.”

“Thanks,” J said warmly. “We appreciate it.”

J wondered if having a large homeless contingent was the best demographic for this protest, but figured if they could get the numbers high enough, they’d mix right in. Numbers were the key.

J called all his friends. He called the people that had ever looked the other way when he was in trouble. He even called Carl from the elevator sit-in.

“Who?” Carl had said when J tried to explain who he was. “Is this a prank?”

“No. Listen.” J said his charm so thick that almost no one around could breath. Sid was practically writhing in the corner it was so intense. “Think about it. Casinos are not going to help you in anyway. I know you’re safe and sound in your cubicle at MegaCorps. I know you’ve got a cushy job and an ok life, but this is your chance to be part of something bigger. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Carl tried to resist, but he really did want more. Without even realizing it, he’d come to care about Cincinnati. It was his town and he wanted to be part of the fight to keep it that way. By the time J was done, Carl was whooping and hollering. “Count me in. I’ll bring my old fraternity brothers. F the MAN!”

J, “Thanks Carl,” He said as he hung up.

Sid made the rounds making mostly random calls to people in the phonebook. In ten minutes Sid talked to more people on the phone than he had in the last ten months. A lot of people cut him off, or hung up thinking he was making a sales call, but as he looked at J eating his ice cream in the kitchen, he brushed off the rejections one after another. Finally he landed a few successes. He found some students at UC that were up for anything. They said they could get most of their crew team to join in the protest as well. That sent Sid soaring. He was teetering on the edge of giggling wild, but he managed to hold things together. Rejections and acceptance soon blended into one big ball of experience. There were bound to be people that disagreed, but there seemed to be enough support for their anti-casino position. Sid could hardly believe it. His plan, HIS plan was working. It wasn’t just a tribute to J or for the good of Cincinnati, it was Sid’s baby, it was Sid coming out of his shell, it was way too much for Sid to think about without getting incredibly nervous.

Meanwhile, Sherri and Ben were having similar success when they weren’t doing it. Motivating people can be an aphrodisiac and they were still in the early stages of a relationship, so they didn’t see any harm in it.

At eleven pm, Sid decided to call it quits. He figured they would offend more than they would convince if they called during the news. People can be very testy when it comes to the local news.

“It’s probably the asinine anchors,” J said to Sid.
“Probably,” he laughed.

Sid was bouncing off the walls by eleven. He was feeding off the success like a seagull at the dump. Success didn’t smell nearly as funny. Try as he might, he couldn’t even find the words to tell J how excited he was. After the fifth time Sid grabbed J’s shoulders and hollered, J had to grab Sid’s shoulders to steady him.

“I’m going for a walk,” he announced slowly. “I’ll be back.”
Sid just smiled and continued to giddily bounce around his home.

J walked briskly in the cool night air. It was good to see that Sid was going to be ok. He hoped the confidence he was seeing would carry over after he was gone. He still didn’t know where he was going. Part of him wanted to stick out his thumb and head back to the highways, but most of him was tired of the drifting. Even with the last few years in Cincinnati he felt unanchored. He was seriously considering returning to Missouri to be closer to his parents. They had a lot of work still to do on the reconciliation front. He could put his college education to use somewhere, maybe working for a construction company, or finding something in the non profit sector. “Was he really going to work?” he asked himself, but the only answer he could find was yes. And yes didn’t sound so bad right now.

J returned to Sid’s still walking purposefully. He paused to look at the moon. It certainly didn’t look like cheese to him. It looked more like a giant glowing rubber bouncy ball. If he could just grab hold of it and slam it against the ground he could picture the moon rocketing through the milky way. Even a giant glowing rubber bouncy ball like the moon would just be a tiny speck bouncing through the galaxy. J felt strangely connected to the moon at that moment and not just because they shared the same gravity.

Sid had calmed down and gone to bed. J curled up on the couch and went to sleep. He’d been in far worse accommodations in far less comfortable clothes. Sid’s might as well have been a five star hotel the way J slept that night. His sleep was dreamless, peaceful, and restful. He almost expected a complimentary mimosa when he woke up the next morning.

Sid had made a lot of changes recently, but complimentary mimosas had not been one of them.

Even without the mimosa, J awoke refreshed. He was ready to assist Sid in anyway he could. There were moments he wanted to lead, where he wanted to offer suggestions, but he bit his tongue, which hurt like hell, but also kept him from speaking up and stepping on Sid’s plan. He was so proud of Sid and couldn’t understand what had made caused the change.

As they were painting the posters, he decided he’d ask. Halfway through “Greed is a disease” with paint dripping from his brush, J stopped and looked at Sid as he finished up, “Children are not games of Chance.”
“What’s gotten into you?” J asked Sid doing his very best not to let any emotion creep into the question. He didn’t want to sound accusatory, angry, or anything but curious.

“I really think we can stop these bastards.” Sid answered enthusiastically.

“I know, Sid. But YOU,” J stressed, “What’s gotten into YOU?”

“I’m. Well.” Sid seemed to struggle with the answer. “You asked what I wanted.”

“And this resulted?” J asked disbelievingly as he waved his hands around in a sweeping gesture.

Sid smiled as he touched the paintbrush unconsciously to the tip of his mouth. “Yea,” he shrugged offering J very little.

“I don’t understand.” J said amazed. “I expected a short list, or a non-answer, not a revolution.”

“It’s not a revolution,” Sid replied as his cheeks flushed red. “I’m just…what I wanted was what we always want… to make a difference,” Sid continued. “I could tell that your time here was up and I realized that I either had to rise to the occasion or I was going to sink into…something.” Sid explained.

J’s mouth hung open. He was shocked. “Wow,” he said. “I didn’t know you had… I didn’t know I had…”

“that much effect,” Sid finished his sentence. “Neither did I.”

J and Sid looked at each other. The next logical move seemed to be a hug, but hugs between J and Sid had been nonexistent to this point. A handshake felt too cold and callous to J. He threw his arms around Sid and gave him a big hug. “I’ve never been prouder,” J said. It felt a lot like a graduation hug. In a way maybe it was a graduation hug between two twenty-something men. It was as awkward as it sounds, yet entirely appropriate.

The embrace lasted all of three seconds before it split apart and both men returned to making posters. Both averted their eyes having both seem to caught something in them at the exact same moment. After a few minutes of working in silence and rubbing their sleeves on their eyes a lot, they were able to speak again, though they chose not to, relishing their moments working side by side. J felt like the sidekick and he didn’t mind so much. Sid felt like a giant peacock about ready to unfurl his feathers. He didn’t mind so much either.

They turned out a heap of signs once the help arrived. With Ben and Sherri working alongside Sid and J in the kitchen it felt like old times. So intense was the focus on signs that somehow they even used Sid’s bed sheet by accident and had to go buy him a new set. It was a laundry mix-up; it could’ve happened to anyone.

The four activists collapsed in the kitchen that night and slept on the floor. The city council meeting was fast approaching. By Sid’s count they had somewhere near 700 protestors prepared for the event. In terms of size it was going to be their largest task. Sid did his best not to freak out completely and leap from the window, any window, even ones on the first floor. The day before the council meeting J, Sherri and Ben took to the streets. They posted signs across the city. The Vespa was working its little Italian rear end off as Sid raced around with his bull horn, trying to fire up anyone that would listen. Sid stopped at grocery stores and at bowling alleys. He talked with owners softly, trying to explain the inherent risks associated with the casionos coming to town. The business sector had been a late addition to the plan. Their support could certainly help the cause. Sid’s reception was chilly at first, but as his speech got better, he started to leak a little charm. J would’ve been proud. Sid was sweet talking some business owners. He had especially good luck at the La Quinta hotel chain, which Sid found surprising since hotels tend to get extra guests from casinos. He wondered vainly if it had been the wink he’d slipped in. Disgusted he tried not to think about it. “Just be yourself,” he said as he marched into each new business. He talked to barbers and to bank managers. Like anything, some were more receptive than others. The city was too big and the timing poor, but Sid did manage to turn a head or two. It was a noble effort; not to mention an exhausting one.

J was spacey, distracted, it was almost like he wasn’t there that Tuesday morning. Sid was intoxicated with his own adrenaline. He hadn’t been this nervous since he starred as Annie in the fifth grade Dewitt Elementary Boys School production of the same name. The sun had come out today, but Sid’s bottom dollar remained firmly tucked in his wallet. Excited as he was, he wouldn’t bet on the outcome of today’s events. There was too much being left to chance. Besides, it wouldn’t look good to gamble on an ant-casino protest. Sid made some calls to some of the people and businesses who had seemed really committed to the efforts. They began to mobilize that afternoon. By five pm, the parking lot was half full, and the meeting wasn’t for another two and half hours. The atmosphere was tense but festive. The sense of community in an angry community can be frightening and energizing. When J saw the crowd, his body began absorbing that energy, awakening him from the fog he’d spent the day in.

By six, the crowd had filled the parking lot and the atmosphere was getting rowdy. One side of parking lot was shouting “GREED-Y” and the other side responded with “BAS-TURDS.” There was honking and J thought he smelled hot dogs. Was he at a protest or were these people tailgating? And how much difference was there? “It’s all just a desperate need to focus energy on something, anyway,” he told anyone that would listen, which strangely seemed to be no one. A small Yorkshire terrier did stop to look at him while he was talking, but sneezed and walked off before he finished. The strange thing was, it didn’t bother him. He almost liked being practically invisible. He was trying to remember if he’d seen a sign at a craft fair to that effect, “Old protestors never die, their shouts just get inaudible.” No. He was pretty sure he’d never seen that one. He wondered for a second if there was a market for just such a craft and then scoffed at himself. He wasn’t dying. He was leaving. Then his train of thought jumped right off the tracks. There, striding through the crowd, she in slow motion, the rest of the crowd just a blur of activity around her, the crowd parting like she was the queen and her throne was next to J. The blur bowed as it separated and her petite gorgeous frame came striding in his direction, her black hair swishing behind her. Then, like the bizarre shampoo commercial in his head, she stopped. She was talking to Sid. She was laughing. Her head was thrown back and her white teeth glistened. The sound sent out shock waves that shook the ground J stood on. J’s mind raced to ridiculous places; it raced to the top of the Mount Jealousy and through the valleys of anger, it raced over the plum-crazy river and dove into the impossible woods. Then his mind tumbled down a ravine, rolling and rollicking all the way to the bottom where it skidded to a stop. He could see that Matty had turned away from Sid and continued through the crowd. “Well,” he whispered to himself sarcastically, clutching at his heart, “at least I’m over her.” J leaned against a car casually and closed his eyes to collect his thoughts; a few had rattled loose in his tumble.

Near seven, he awoke to hear Sid had located a bull horn. Sid was working the crowd, part cheerleader, part teacher, and all charm. He reminded the group that this was a peaceful protest. He went over some of the chants and songs they would be singing. He introduced Sherri and Ben. They’d be leading the group out here, while he and a few others made their way inside to speak at the meeting. “I want to hear you out here when we’re arguing in there,” Sid growled. The crowd loved it and cheered wildly. Sid looked around for a moment stunned by the response. He felt like a one-man parade. Rather than let the crowd grow restless, he passed the bullhorn to Ben who helped the crowd practice their chants. Like any protest some were better than others. “Casinos Suck.” “Two, four, six, eight, Casinos bring in jail bait.” “Greedy bastards” made a triumphant return.

Sid took the moment to find J. At that same time McCormick and his rag-tag band of friends arrived and spotted J. They were working their way through the crowd. Sid reached J first, a big smile on his face. “It’s great, isn’t it?” Sid said unable and unwilling to contain his enthusiasm.

“It’s awesome.” J said. “You’re going to be fine, Sid.”

For a second Sid choked up slightly, but this new Sid didn’t lose composure for long. He nodded in agreement and said, “J. Other places need you.”

“Thanks.” J said.

Sid turned to gather up the crowd that would be on the front lines. He gave J a peace sign and said no more as he walked away. J responded in kind.

McCormick appeared at that moment with Jimmie close on his heels.

“Is there going to be bra burning?” Jimmie asked J eagerly.

J started to offer Jimmie some clever response when he saw an older couple standing off to one side, scanning the crowd.

“J, I was kidding.” Jimmie said pulling him back to attention. McCormick laughed his big laugh.

“A little distracted, aren’t you?” he asked with a wink.

“It’s the new focused,” Jimmie said with a laugh and an elbow to J’s ribs.

“Oof.” J grunted.

“We’re glad to be here,” McCormick told J. J smiled and gave them a thumbs-up. It was almost as if Sid had borrowed his energy for this event. J was happy to lend it, but it left him feeling so disconnected.

A small line of Cadillacs and Towncars started to arrive and then stopped in a line bewildered by the crowd before them and around them.

Don't quit now, 18 is it

16

A little bubble caught in J’s throat, but he forced out the words, “I know it’s been a long time. Too long.”

“mmm,” his own mother was giving him the verbal equivalent of a noncommittal nod. At this point J saw very little choice but to take it.

“I’m sorry. Can we go from there?” J asked feeling rather desperate. His face was hot and he was on the brink of perspiration.

“Joseph,” she gasped. Somewhere in his name he heard the seeds of forgiveness, the bricks for a bridge that needed rebuilding and the deeply buried but still present love of a mother. Never in his life had his given name sounded so wonderful. The bubble in his throat twitched; his eyelids felt heavy.

It would take time to heal wounds that had been growing for years. It certainly wouldn’t be accomplished on three quarters from a payphone in what J’s mom called, “the middle of the night.”

The next day, J went to see Matty.

She hadn’t gone to work because she wasn’t feeling well. J hadn’t known that when he headed over to her place that morning. He had planned to leave a note, call her at work, but he could handle the universe’s decision to allow their conversation to take place in the morning. J had always felt that not enough of the “heart-to-hearts” took place in the morning. So many seem to happen in the evening or worse way past bedtime. There really is nothing like a good night’s rest before the talk.

Matty seemed to sense what was coming, since so few things roused J before 9 AM. They didn’t speak as she opened the door and lead him into the living room. She sat on the couch and he pulled a chair up close so he could sit facing her.

It started, as these talks are known to do, with a lot of far off stares. Both Matty and J alternated their gazes that not only took in the other, but took in all their past and any future they might have dreamed of. The time-sensitive stares are murder on the eyes. It eats right away at the cornea. That isn’t scientifically proven, but it makes sense, because something about the stares always end up activating the tear ducts and blinking becomes imminent, crying likely.

So far in their silence, Matty and J had been able to stave off the tears. It seemed odd to J, that the most their relationship would synchronize outside of the bedroom, was going to be during the break-up. He hadn’t made a move and yet he sensed that Matty was not only fully aware of his next move, but if he weakened, fully prepared to make the move for them. Nothing brings a relationship together like ending it.

With a deep breath, J began to speak. His words were a jumbled mess in the delivery and no clearer in Matty’s reception, but it didn’t matter because she knew what he was saying. It had been said a million times in a million ways by a million different lovers all over the world. In every language it’s the same, sometimes the tone is different. It can be tinged with sadness, regret, or anger, but the message is always the same, “So long. Heart hurts.” In some cases a tiny door gets left open, but those doors always look larger to one person than the other and they are always revolving; a Russian roulette of love doors, a game show of reunification, where it only works if the plinko ball lands just so.

“So long. Heart hurts,” J said to Matty in so many words.
“So long. Heart hurts,” she cried back to him in so many words.

J trudged away from Matty’s place. He felt like he’d given in. He felt like he’d lost a fight to a giant boxer wearing valentine heart shorts who kept landing repeated bunches to his gut, his head and below the belt. J just let the boxer wail on him with his left hook of loss and his jabs of disappointment. There was nothing he could do but take the beating.

As he made his way to McCormick’s, he couldn’t help but relive the good times he and Matty had shared. He couldn’t help but find the place in his mind where her smells, her soft hands, her constellation moles all resided. He walked slowly, obliviously along as he tried to hold each feeling in his hand, to knead it like dough and then to put it carefully away in a little trunk somewhere to the left of his cerebellum.

McCormick looked older every time J saw him. Without spring in his step, J wasn’t looking like much of youngster either, McCormick thought. McCormick hadn’t been expecting him, but as J made his way deliberately up the drive, McCormick noticed and put a pot of coffee on. He had a surprise for J and by the looks of him, J needed a surprise.

J walked right in, always at home with the homeless. McCormick greeted him cheerfully and led him to the kitchen.

“Jimmie?” J said hardly believing his eyes. He hadn’t seen Jimmie in almost as long as he hadn’t seen his parents.

“J!” Jimmie nearly shouted as he stood up from the table. He stuck out his hand to shake J’s, but J mashed the gesture into a bear hug. Jimmie didn’t smell great; it wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy hygiene as much as the next guy, but he’d been known to miss a bath, not that any of that mattered to J. He was so glad to see Jimmie.

“What’s with you?” Jimmie asked.
“I’m having a rough run lately,” J replied.
“No home, no food, a cough that you can’t shake, kind of rough?” Jimmie asked, betraying a bitterness that J had never seen in Jimmie. “Or just can’t find a use for that condom I gave you?” he asked as his friendlier nature returned.
“It doesn’t seem so rough anymore, Jimmie.” J said the hint of a smile. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
“No, J. That was out of line. A broken heart is nothing to…” he trailed off.
“I used your condom,” J said with a smile.
“Don’t say it like that,” McCormick said with a laugh.
“I’ll get him a new one,” J said with a laugh of his own.

It was so good to be sharing a cup of coffee with McCormick and Jimmie again. It had been too long. They sipped and shared stories like old times.

Jimmie had been in and out of jail a few times for some minor offenses. J told his dollar and sixty nine cent theft story to riotous laughter. For a moment as they sipped coffee, McCormick didn’t look so old, J didn’t look so tired, and Jimmie’s hacking cough didn’t come so frequently.

“So that’s it,” J said as he finished telling them about Sid, Sherri and Ben and the last few activities they’d participated in. He hadn’t sugarcoated things, he’d told them about the success and the failures. He’d told them about the absolute bust that was “The Color of Money” had been. He told them about the legal trouble Crazy Ralph was in. He told them about his self-motivated and regretful decision to push the elevator sit-in. He told them that he was trying to make a difference, but it just didn’t seem to be worth it the way it used to. J was trying not to dwell on the failures. “I was talking to Sid and I told him we weren’t distracted enough, but I don’t even know what I mean.”

McCormick played with his ponytail thoughtfully. Jimmie rubbed his knuckles against his five o’clock shadow. No one said a word for a while as they thought about everything J had been through. It’s not that his activism had been earth-shattering or so different from their own attempts to set the world on a better course. The real difference was that J was in front of them asking for advice, without so much as asking. McCormick and Jimmie had played a lot of roles to a lot of people, but advice seekers weren’t exactly following them around like groupies. Each man wanted to make sure he said something that might help J. McCormick knew that most people looking for advice were looking for ways to validate feelings they already had. He was searching J’s countenance for those feelings. He kept coming up empty. Finally when the silence had crossed the border of thoughtful and was coming up on the checkpoint of awkward, McCormick spoke up, “J,” he said flicking his tongue against his cheek and then holding it there. “I think you’re running on fumes.”
J looked back thoughtfully hoping that the old man had more than that to offer. “Your brain’s in the right place, but your heart has up and left,” he said with a punctuating click. “I think you better fix that.”

McCormick looked at Jimmie, expecting an automatic disagreement, but Jimmie didn’t seem prepared to give one.

“Look,” Jimmie said with a shrug, “I am not a philosopher. All I can tell you is somewhere about halfway through that tale I got Willie Nelson stuck in my head.”

J turned to Jimmie skeptically and raised an eyebrow.

“You know,” Jimmie said as he started to strum an imaginary guitar. “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, you’ve got to know when to fold ‘em.” He sang. Badly.

J was considering the message while McCormick was considering the source.

“That’s Kenny Rogers,” McCormick shouted.

“What’s the difference?” Jimmie laughed. “For a taste of whiskey, I’ll give you some advice too old man.”

“I can’t think of anything I’d want your advice on,” McCormick laughed. “I’ll keep my whiskey, thank you very much.”

“You’ve got whiskey?” Jimmie said with awakened interest.

“Gentlemen,” J said holding his hands up.

“Where?” hollered Jimmie.

All three laughed and then quieted back down.

“I’ve got to go talk to Sid,” J said. “Thanks. Always a pleasure.” He said with a wave to his friends.

“Good luck kid,” Jimmie said. “you owe me a condom.”

“You don’t need it,” McCormick said with a chuckle.

“It’s the principle,” Jimmie retorted with a smile.

J could hear the two of them still arguing as he walked down the drive. What a couple of characters, he thought. It’s funny which people can end up meaning so much to a life. It all just seems like so much chance.

His brisk walk to Sid’s didn’t really clear out any of the issues that were percolating in his mind. Something had to give. He just couldn’t keep going the way he had been. He thought McCormick was right. Maybe he’d outgrown this method of voicing disapproval. Maybe his only hope now was to work from the inside. He hated to think that his idealism might be dying out, but maybe it wasn’t, maybe he was knowing when to fold ‘em. And maybe he was knowing what ‘em were. Still, it felt so much like failure.

“It feels so much like failure,” J told Sid.
“It is what it is,” Sid said. J was pretty sure he’d said it to be reassuring, but he didn’t get much assurance out of it, let alone any reassurance. J’s scrunched eyebrows communicated that to Sid.
“I just mean that times and people change. Things, attitudes… they change,” Sid tried to explain.

Just then there was a knock at the door. A knock followed by the entrance of Ben and Sherri. They were holding hands and smiling. It seemed to be an aggressive display of affection, especially after what Sid had seen after the MegaCorps fiasco. Sid wondered if they were trying to compensate. J wondered if they were liquored up.

“What’s got you two so giddy?” J asked.
“We’re moving in together.” Sherri said with an enormous smile. It was the biggest smile either of them had seen, bigger even than the smiles she had from the Reading Rocks campaign. “It was Ben’s idea.”

Their gaze shifted from Sherri to Ben. He shrugged and gave a little smile of his own. It wasn’t the reluctant, “what the hell have I done?” sort of smile that Sid and J had expected. It was a “you can’t fight love,” sort of smile. Sid and J both shrugged themselves and flipped their hands out as if to answer the smile. “No. I suppose you can’t,” their open palms seemed to reply. They were caught a little off guard, but something about it seemed right, a little out of character perhaps, but still, it sat well with them. Sometimes that’s all anybody should ask.

So could 17

15

Triumphs, like helium-filled balloons that come with them, never last long. Something, be it another gas or a porous surface, something, always brings the balloons and the triumphant into a shrunken, fallen state. It is the nature of triumph. For J, a weekend of forgetting Matty completely was probably not going to sit well, not since they had been through quite a few rocky patches recently. Arguably her recent rocks had been more like boulders of infidelity, but that wasn’t an argument J was prepared to make.

Nervously, he called her at work. She was too busy to talk, which he had learned in Matty-ease meant that she was too busy to talk. He took that as an encouraging omen. People tend to make times for things like breaking hearts, screaming matches, and even silent treatment. J had only received, “I’m too busy to talk. We’ll talk later.” It wasn’t a warm robe and a cup of Irish Breakfast tea, but under the circumstances he considered it a pretty warm reception. Maybe she hadn’t noticed that he hadn’t noticed, J thought as his optimism grew to unreasonable proportions.

That night when J stopped by Matty’s, she seemed unconcerned about the past weekend. She seemed unconcerned about almost everything. J looked around suspiciously wondering if the government had replaced her with a robot in an effort to destroy him. He saw no evidence to the contrary, save one bottle of Merlot, three-quarters of the way empty. That could explain the dreamy look in her eyes and her stoic calm, but J was unable to immediately abandon his robot assassin conspiracy delusions. Robot assassin conspiracy delusions can be some of the hardest delusions to shake and no one knew that better than J, but sometimes the simplest explanation really is the best one.

“Matty,” J whispered softly.

She smiled placidly. J looked deep into her eyes for any sign of mechanical inner-workings, but the Matty he knew seemed to be intact albeit in a land far far away.

“Matty?” J whispered again.

“Shh,” she said as she moved her index finger to his lips. He puckered slightly and kissed her finger. “Roughday” she slurred as the glaze of her eyes lifted slightly and she smiled. The smile melted J’s heart and his one goal in life became to press his lips against hers. Softly, tenderly, he and Matty kissed. Their lips pressed out all the recent anger and all the recent pain between the muffled smacks of soft moist patches of pink. Murmuring her enjoyment, Matty’s mouth with assistance from her tongue and larynx formed a single word “mmmmmmMarc,” she said softly. J heard and the kissing ceased. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Had he just heard a Marc in that murmur? Or was his imagination acting up? These were important questions he was trying to answer as Matty’s lips were seeking his out, but like a ski rental shop in the summer, J found the answers and closed for business. Uninhibited, drunken Matty had just whispered the name of the cheater while kissing him. He wasn’t sure she even realized it. Anger bubbled inside of him. His plans to attack MegaCorps solidified. His plans to kiss Matty were put on an indefinite hold. She didn’t seem to mind. She was content to curl up next to J and absorb his body heat. He watched her drift off to sleep. Asleep she was so perfect. Her lips were like unsalted gummi worms, the fire in her eyes was masked by her lids, the little freckles on the top of her cheeks like stars in the olive skin tone sky. The problem was never and had never been about J’s attraction to Matty. It was unending, undying, as permanent as the Styrofoam not decomposing in the landfills. Like that Styrofoam, it was surrounded by heaps of garbage that nobody really knew what to do with, so it just piled higher and higher and no matter how biodegradable it was the heaps just seemed to grow more mountainous and more insurmountable.

Matty drifted off into a happy drunken slumber. J unhooked her bra and craftily, but asexually removed it from the armhole of her shirt. It was a skill he had picked up that he occasionally found useful. J dropped the bra and scooped Matty up as tenderly as he could. Carefully and quietly he carried her to her bed. Balancing Matty with one arm and his knee, he pulled down her bedspread and then slowly slid her tiny body under the covers. He pulled the sheets up to her chin and gave her one last pained but longing look as he showed himself out.

Deflated, J walked slowly to Sid’s. His mind was clouded with inner conflict. Good sense debated whatever it was that his heart was crying out. And for once good sense seemed to be winning. If it was in fact good sense who was endorsing a subversive course of action, one which included a demonstration at Ned’s, now Marc’s place of employment MegaCorps LLC inc. J would need the team for this one, but first more research was in order. Tomorrow he’d hit the library, he thought with a yawn. It wouldn’t hurt if he could find someone on the inside either.

MegaCorps was ugly like most big organizations. They were bogged down by bureaucracy, they had some fishy deals, and some fishier leadership, but basically J couldn’t find anything that he could rally around. Well, J could rally around his vengeful agenda against one employee, but he couldn’t find anything that Sid, Sherrie or Ben could rally around. He briefly considered telling them that, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit that he wanted them there for his personal vendetta. J got to Sherri first.

“…I mean, they don’t even recycle,” he told her with disdain. “A huge organization like that just chewing through trees without a care. It’s disgusting.” Then he slipped in “And one of the reasons we should go there and protest.”

Sherri looked a little skeptical. Recycling was one of her pet projects but it was strange that J had come to her job to make such a plea.
J sensed her hesitation.

“I was walking by and just thought you would want to know what I was thinking,” he said with a smile so genuine it nearly made Sherri blush.

She was converted. Now he had to talk Ben into it and find a way to keep the two of them from talking. It would be tricky, but not beyond the manipulative means of J. He waited for evening and caught Ben after a day of work. Work always wore out Ben’s soul and made him a little duller, a little less sharp. Today was no exception.

“Ben. Sherri approached me about a demonstration at MegaCorps. She said you’d be totally down for it, but she didn’t want me telling you it was her idea. Something about being concerned that your relationship would interfere with things. Whatever.” J said, “The deal is, they have immigrant cafeteria workers who we think are being mistreated among other things.”

Nothing teed Ben off more than immigrants being mistreated. He was 1/8 Asian from his father’s side and had seen his grandparents harassed and harangued for everything from buying groceries at the wrong store to walking in the park. The hair on his neck stood straight up and he angrily nodded his approval.

That left only Sid to convince. J had a feeling Sid would be an easy sell. The loyalty he cultivated was about to come in handy. In as many uncertain terms as he could compile he explained to Sid the importance of a MegaCorps demonstration. Sid’s eyebrows were scrunched in confusion through most of J’s speech, but he heard and appreciated the end result. J wanted a demonstration at MegaCorps. He wanted it from somewhere deep inside, Sid could see that. He was more than willing to be a help in any way possible.

Sometimes Sid amazed J.

The demonstration had originally involved a complete office power shutdown, computer viruses, and the destruction of all snack machines. Get them where it hurts, the sweet tooth. J hadn’t been able to find a man on the inside. He’d barely been able to come up with more than a rough sketch of the inside. His original intent had also included a provision to make Marc’s life a little more hellish, he hadn’t decided how yet- red ants, a wire tap, something along those lines; whatever lines it is where red ants and wire taps cross. Before it was too late he realized that the demonstration was becoming too involved and any direct personal attack on Marc would be so easily traced by Matty that it just wasn’t worth it. He couldn’t back out though. Sherri and Ben were fired up and Sid was willing. He had no choice but to revise his plan. That’s when he came up with the elevator sit-in. It was a statement, he’d figure out what statement later. It sounded legitimate and he thought he could convince the others that it was the way to go. When he told them of the plan to have an elevator sit-in, they weren’t the least bit skeptical. They followed their leader from the penthouse to the basement and to all the floors in between. Success was not part of the floor plan.

If time is linear and it’s all about marching along in step down a path to a final destination, passing billboards along the way that say things like, “Adulthood 5 miles” and “Next left for emotional maturity” and “Exit here and you’ll grow out of it.” then this story had been winding around and around a cloverleaf for quite a while. Now it’s time to get on the freeway and drive like mad, less than five miles over the pre-determined speed limit, of course.

If time is not linear and things happen as they happen and then humans plot them on a timeline so that they can be more easily digested by the intellectual stomachs in our noggins, then this story continues as before.


“What do you mean we aren’t distracted enough?” Sid asked skeptically.

Distractedly J answered, “In a minute.”

J thought about his recent setbacks and how more and more they were feeling like failures. His efforts were hollow. He’d just undertaken a half-hearted stab at revenge and he’d roped the people that cared about him and that cared about the state of the world in with him. For the first time in his life he felt like maybe he was holding Sid, Sherri and Ben back, rather than someone holding him back. He didn’t like the feeling at all. It tugged at his insides like his pancreas had been weighted with dumbbells. He had an overwhelming desire to curl up into the fetal position.

Sid sat by waiting for a plan.

It’s not that a plan was not gestating at that very moment, but in his desire to be fetal something had reminded him of his mother. He couldn’t tell what. It may have been a combination of smells- the intermingling of Sid’s dryer sheets with the model glue that was drying on the table. It may have been a sound, or the combination of all his senses landing on something familiar all at once. It could have been that at that moment his mother was thinking so hard about her little Joseph that the universe had no choice but to summon him. It could have been the thought of the fetal position. Whatever it was, J had a powerful longing to contact his mother and by extension his father. They hadn’t spoken in years. He didn’t know what he could possibly say, but the earlier bitterness and resentment had just vanished like a puff of air. It was out there somewhere floating through the atmosphere, but it was no longer attached to J, no longer dragging him or pushing him in any direction. It’s hard to say where and when forgiveness will decide to pop out, like those little arcade weasels, but different than the weasels, forgiveness didn’t require a pounding with an oversized hammer, it only required that J consider it and when he was ready act on it. At the moment he was considering. Action would come later.

Sid was waiting patiently, staring at J like a little child waiting to go to the circus but afraid to be scolded.
J noticed his eager eyes first.

“You’re a good guy, Sid.” He stated “Do you ever wonder if what we’re doing is worth it?”

“No.” Sid replied matter-of-factly.

J was surprised at the speed and brevity of Sid’s answer. His mouth opened to ask a follow up question, but he could only form letters without sound. His lips readied for the H of how and then the w of what, but only silence came out.

Sid could see J struggling and he took some satisfaction in it.
“I only mean that we’re trying. Look at how many people go through their lives meaning to make a difference and then lying on their deathbeds without affecting much of anything. We may not always be successful. We may not always be right, but we’re taking what we believe in and we’re acting on it.” Sid explained.

J contemplated Sid’s speech.

“J,” Sid whispered, “I don’t have a lot, but I have this” he gestured broadly indicating his apartment and his kitchen and J. “even if it doesn’t last. It’s something,” he trailed off.

J looked perplexed. He was searching for the things Sid had indicated in his gesture. He saw them of course, but he didn’t have them, not like he wanted them. And he wasn’t sure Sid did either.

J stood to leave.
“What about the plan?” Sid asked.
“I don’t have it yet. I’ve got to think some more.” J started out the door and then stopped. “While I’m gone think about what you really want, Sid. Will you do that?”
Sid shrugged his shoulders and J gave him a wave as he left.

J needed to talk to somebody and he again thought of his mother. As he walked home under the speckled sky and blue-gray haze of light pollution, the idea of calling seemed logical until he realized that he couldn’t remember the phone number. He stood by a pay phone and stared at the key pad. He stopped and started several times. To call was to dip into his past, to not call was to continue to ignore his family. It seemed that calling would not fill the void he felt, but to not call only pulled at the seams of the void until it ripped wide open.

Settling his nerves, he took a deep breath and let his fingers do the walking. They worked with his brain to conjure up the digits from his childhood. J couldn’t have written the number on paper. He couldn’t have said it out loud. He didn’t know it that well, but to dial the phone, to have the keypad in front of him he was able to place the call.

“The call you have made cannot be completed,” he heard from a digital woman somewhere out there in the digital world. “Please insert seventy five cents to complete your call.”

“Seventy five cents?!” he hollered as he fished in his pockets for some change.

There was J, looking like a late twenty-something hobo with a well trimmed goatee, sans cell, sans steady job, sans family standing on a street in Cincinnati trying to reach out and touch someone, but looking more and more like MC Hammer doing a dance with his hand in his pants, trying to dig up the required change. He managed to scrounge three quarters from the depths of his pockets and he popped them in and dialed again.

The phone rang and rang and rang again. In five rings, J had time to consider the following: his parents could be asleep, they could have moved, they could have died, they could be taking a cruise, they could be out searching for him, they could be playing gin rummy with the neighbors, they could be on their way to the phone and J had no idea what he was going to say if they answered, maybe he didn’t want them to answer, maybe this was a foolish mistake, maybe they no longer wanted to talk to him, it’s not like conversation had ever been that enjoyable for them either. As he started to give up and subsequently hang up, the ringing stopped and was replaced by a tired and shaky, “Hello?”

“Ma?” came his much younger sounding but just as shaky reply.

Silence raced up and down the telephone lines that stretched from the Southern side of Ohio to the Western side of Missouri.

16 could be the best section

14

The next morning Sid went to work and Matty went to work. Sherri went to work and Ben went to work. J went to work too, it was just much later and he surmised that he liked it much less.
He surmised incorrectly.

After work, J and Sid met to discuss the dog tracks.
“This is really one Sherri would love,” J said as he pointed at the gold star on the Cinncinati map. “Mistreatment of animals, mismanagement of money, general recklessness with the human spirit,” he continued. “This is up her alley. Where is she?”

“Not here.” Sid answered.

“Sid. You’re really getting sarcastic lately.” J commented. “I know she’s not here, that’s why I asked where she is.”

A knock at the door cut off Sid’s chance to make further sarcastic remarks, which was fortunate because he wasn’t prepared to defend his sarcasm with sarcasm. He hadn’t realized that might be necessary. The sarcasm game was really a new realm of passive-agressive behavior for Sid. It was still very much in the experimental stages, but he was enjoying the early tests.

J answered the door to find Ben looking falsely happy. J could tell he was falsely happy because he was showing all his teeth in his smile. Ben wasn’t a full-tooth smile guy. He was a smirker. He had a devilish smile to go with his devilish good looks.
“What’s wrong with you?” J asked.
“What?” Ben answered snippily, the full-tooth smile wiped clean off his face.
J waited with an accusing look on his face; it was a little trick he picked up from Matty.
“Sherri and I had a fight,” Ben whispered.
“Please.” J guffawed. “Was there yelling?”
“No.”
“Then it wasn’t a fight. A lover’s quarrel at best. Nothing some flowers and candy won’t cure.” J said with a dismissive wave. “But I’m hopeful that you aren’t here just because you didn’t have time to write ‘Dear Abby’ about your love life?” J asked.
“We haven’t been out on the streets in ages,” Ben said as if an ache came from deep inside him.
J slapped him on the back and ushered him into the kitchen. “Sid and I have a plan.”
Sid turned and stared at J. “Had he just given him credit for part of a plan?” Sid wondered.
“It’s too bad Sherri isn’t here. She’d eat this up.”

Another knock prevented further ponitification. “Did you order pizza, Sid?” J asked with a knowing smile as he opened the door.
“Sherri. Sherri. Sherri. Just the woman we hoped to see.” J purred, charm spilling into Sherri’s helpless ears. The poor girl stood no chance against J’s flattery. She may have come to try to find Ben to make amends, but she was now butter ready to be sculpted into a tiny replica of an activist saving mistreated greyhounds.

With his team reassambled and the distractions of love momentarily minimized, J felt a surge of energy rush through him. He was Frankenstein and this collection of the finest activists in Greater Cincinnati were his lightning. J felt the power in his veins as he ran through a preliminary plan.

“The dog tracks,” he said with both flair and foreboding. “The dregs of society make their homes at the dog tracks. We save the poor helpless dogs. By default we clean up the area, both morally and physically. The city of Cincinnati will practically beg us to speak at the next mayoral event, but respectfully we will decline. Mr. Mayor, we didn’t do this for the accolades, we merely saw a blemish on this fine city and we sought to fix it. It’s what we do. Please. Please. Your thanks are enough,” J said with great pomposity.

The three stared at him captivated, thrilled, itching for action.

“Sherri you and Sid are going to be in charge of freeing the dogs and getting them off the premises, even if that involves chasing them on Sid’s Vespa.”

Sherri started to look disappointingly toward Ben, but J nearly shouted to keep her focused, “BEN and I will have to figure out some way to shut down the concessions and create a diversion for the two of you. I think I have an idea, give me a day or so.”

The group broke up to pursue various reconnaisance. Sid and Sherri went down to check out the race track, while Ben and J called various concession companies trying to figure out who was supplying the track. J also placed a few calls to local pet shops, which Ben didn’t understand, but didn’t question.

Sid and Sherri immediately realized that they were going to have their work cut out for them. The pre-race area was almost non-existent. It appeared that most owners kept the dogs in their trailers until moments before the race. That meant J and Ben were going to have to be especially distracting since they’d have to free the dogs one by one.

By Friday, the activists were ready. Ben had located the concessions organization that supplied the race tracks’ food. With a brilliant impersonation of a panicked marketing director who had strict orders from the catering manager, Ben had convinced the company to replace the usual concession items with earth-friendly and vegetarian-friendly fare. The dog track hot dog lovers were in for a real treat on this night. Nothing says a night at the races like a Veggie Dawg!

Sid and Sherri were packed and loaded for some serious roping and riding Eastern Mid-West style. Sherri was even decked out in a striking ten gallon hat. It was probably five gallons, but on Sherri it looked ten. Ben noticed her cowgirl attire with a smile, which pleased Sherri to no end. Sid had washed and waxed the Vespa and dusted off some old ropes. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use them because he hadn’t a clue how one might lasso much of anything, but he had them just in case. They helped the aesthetic immensely. Both Sid and Sherri were packing dog treats and dog whistles for both enticing and repulsing as needed. Sherri had holstered her mace too, in case there was a shootout. When they were ready to go, Sid pulled up on the shiny clean Vespa, and tipped his Expos baseball cap in Sherri’s direction. “Ma’m” he said with a twang. Sherri giggled and climbed aboard their little red Italian stallion. They headed off to the track, while Ben and J ran what J would only call “an errand”. They’d borrowed a truck for the errand, but only J seemed to know where they were going and he wasn’t telling.

J and Ben lurched to a stop outside of Peppy’s Pet Mart. J ran in and quickly came out followed by two gentleman carrying boxes with holes in them. The efficiency and seriousness of it all reminded Ben of a drug deal, if the drugs were teeny-tiny puppies. Or as he’d come to find out after stops at both Ted’s Pets and the hole in the wall, but always popular Mexican restaurant Mi Casa Rulz, rats.

“Rats” J said as if he were in a musical of nearly the same name, jazz hands and all.
“Rats?” Ben asked with one eyebrow arching to the heavens.

“Rats” J said again complete with jazz hands and maniacal smile.

Ben waited for an explanation but he didn’t get one until they had arrived at the race track.

“Take a box and follow me,” J said.

It wasn’t an explanation, but it was direction. It had always amazed Ben how easily he and others he knew confused the two.

J made his way quickly to the edge of the staging area, the spot where owners/trainers/and tiny invisible jockeys made the last minute preparations before letting the dogs chase the mechanical rabbit. In that moment the staging area reminded J of the subway system from his days in Washington DC. The Subway was the staging area before mankind was released out in the world for another day of chasing mechanical rabbits. Poor sorry souls. If only they had his rats to fill in for the poor sorry working dogs they had become. Maybe that’s why they call it the rat race he thought to himself, but then realized that he was mixing metaphors. His head started to hurt, so with a glance to both sides, he motioned for Ben to put the box down and return to the truck for another. When they had the rats positioned, J gave the signal. He barked three times. Unfortunately, his barking was drowned out by other barking. He needed a new signal and fast. Considering his options, he told Ben to guard the rats while he alerted Sherri and Sid of the new signal.

As he was walking to the dog trailer area, a man from the stands leaned over and spit out the chewed remains of a hot dog, just missing J’s shoes. “What the hell?” he said as he made both the most obscene and most beautiful face J had ever seen. J had to look away lest his giant smile provoke the man.

J spotted his cowpokes at the far end of the trailer area. They looked nervous and he could tell Sid was listening for the signal. He gave a little cough which got Sid’s attention. Then he gave Sid the thumbs up. The thumbs up in J’s mind signalled “release the hounds”. Sid’s mind interpreted things differently and he flashed J a thumbs up back and then stood dumbly.

J walked briskly over and said, “That was the signal.”
Sid looked at him and replied, “No. The signal is three barks.”
J made a clicking noise with his tongue. “The plan has changed. The thumbs up is the new signal.”
“Who changed the plan?” Sid asked feeling very confused.
“I did.” hissed J losing patience.
J walked away. As he turned to leave he noticed Sid still standing not moving to free the animals. J thought for a moment, started to head back toward Sid and then flashed a thumbs up instead. It was all Sid needed. He sprang into action. And so did J.

Just outside the staging area, J faked a psychic episode. His eyes rolled back in his head and he stuck his hands into the air. He spun around wildly and began chanting dogs names. “Kitten Kaboodle, Big Gray, Pantsless Fury, Dalmation 9, Barker’s Millions,” A crowd started to gather around him as he halted suddenly and said, “Win. Place. Show. HOLD IT. It’s coming.”
Ben meanwhile worked through the crowd whispering, “it’s a psychic episode.” and “he’s psychic.” The word spread like pollen in a field of bees. Soon nearly the whole crowd and the owners had gathered around J. J screamed at the top of his lungs, “RABBIT CHASER, 3 DOG DAYS, FAST FIDO” and then he collapsed in a heap in the middle of the crowd.
“Rats” he whispered, “I lost it.” His eyes returned to normal and the flush from his cheeks departed. A few people asked him if he needed medical help, but Ben strode to the center of the crowd and announced that he was an RN and would see that “this man was ok”. He said it very regally. It was hard not to believe him. It’s not like dog race people really want to deal with medical problems, they’ve got addictions to contend with. They were more than happy to let Ben take control. Ben pulled J to his feet and they made a quick exit to the staging area and their boxes of rats. J left Ben with instructions to ready the boxes for release. He had a rabbit to chase out of its hole.

While J was in the midst of his insane frenzy, Sherri and Sid had been letting the dogs out.
Incredibly, getting the dogs out of their trailers had been as simple as popping 25 latches and letting the dogs charge out like mad hounds. Whatever J was doing, it must have been attracting a crowd, because no one seemed to be around. The dogs milled around for a moment, confused by their freedom. Sherri grabbed a steak from her bag as Sid fired up the Vespa. They took off like a shot. Sherri was waving the steak and Sid was gunning the little Vespas engine. At the sight and smell of fresh meat, 25 really fast dogs took out after the little red stallion and its too passengers. The dogs were barking like mad, but they were on they had already spilled into the back parking lot. A few cars were pulling in and a few drivers stared on in awe, but nobody seemed to grasp what was taking place. Sherri handed the steak to Sid as he slowed down to let her off the scooter. He gunned the engine again and continued to head as fast and as far away from the track as he could go. Sherri worked back through the lot, whistling at dogs and rounding up those that had been distracted by a whole new world of toilet space.

Within a mile of the track, the dogs had lost interest in the scooter-propelled meat. Sid was just happy they hadn’t mauled him. As they dispersed, Sid dropped the chop and turned back to go collect Sherri.
She had been running and the excitement of freeing the dogs and the wind in her hair, gave her an air Sid had never noticed about her before. It was like the open space, the freedom, gave her a glow. Sid couldn’t explain it and he wasn’t likely to try, but he liked the smile that accompanied the glow. He knew that much.

Back at the track, soon after the dogs had gone off chasing meat, J had found the room he was looking for- the control room. It wasn’t empty, but when J shouted “Fire!” into the room, the two old guys waiting for race time ran out long enough for J to take care of some business.

He located the gate starter button and then quickly located the PA system. “And they’re off!” he screamed like a real race announcer as he pressed the gate-starter. The mechanical rabbit took off like a shot and the gates opened up to reveal nothing, and then slowly suddenly, hundreds of rats began pouring out where everyone had expected dogs. The high pitched screams were better than ice cream to J. The two men had returned to the control room, but J had literally pushed right by them as he took off in a run. They were so confused they didn’t follow.

After Ben released the rats, he ducked into the stands and quickly made his way back to the truck. He and J had arranged to meet at a spot about half a mile from the track, near a large oak tree. Ben drove around a little bit to give J a chance to get there, but he didn’t need to drive long because J’s run was fueled by a new sense of optimism and enthusiasm. “They were off to the races!” he practically cheered of their latest attack. “If only ‘they’ could agree on a name.”

J hopped in the drivers seat as Ben slid to the passenger side of their borrowed white truck. They lurched away from the oak, smiling with their success.

Triumph felt so good. It’s too bad these things never last.

When they all returned to Sid’s kitchen late that night, there was much celebrating. Both pairs had avoided returning directly to the “office” in case they were followed or somehow under suspicion. Ben and J returned the truck to its owner and then walked the long way to Sid’s.
Sid and Sherri cruised around on the Vespa for a few hours, Sherri still delighting in the wind blowing through her hair. Sid was delighted to share his Vespa.

That night, Sid’s promises of no more chocolate syrup and Vodka were quickly forgotten as he drenched himself in liquid euphoria. The four partied well into the night, only sorry that they had missed the news coverage. The local stations had eaten the story up, “RAT RACE!” they chanted and “This world is going to the RATS!” and unfortunately but expectedly, “Who let the dogs out?” For all its faults, the worst in J’s mind was the way the media could beat its puns and gags to death.

Sometime around sun-up the shots had ended. The celebration grew tired. Sid had long since passed out on the kitchen floor, and he was once again the canvas for a chocolate temporary tattoo artist. The work had grown more intricate, as a miniature poodle (the size, not the breed) was now at home between the nipples of Sid. It would be a mess to clean, but the howls of laughter it created were well worth it in Ben’s opinion. J collapsed next to the couch. Sherri and Ben considered Sid’s bed, but the dirty clothes near it, suggested that sharing the couch might be a better option. They drunkenly and loudly managed to intertwine their bodies in ways that only inebriated couples in love can manage.

Saturday would be non-day filled with non-activities like drinking lots of water and vomiting. Sunday would not fare much better. Monday however was a new week full of new possibility. As J slipped in and out of conciousness that Monday morning he wondered if he’d remembered to call Matty at all during the weekend. He had the sinking suspicion that he had not.

15 and keep the change