How 2010 could be more like 1934
A lot of people say that
2010
will be like
1994
when the Newt Gingrich-led “Contract with America” helped the Republicans win a majority of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.
But I think it will be like 1934
.
In the first congressional election of his first term, Franklin Roosevelt surprised pundits and the mainstream media by expanding his majorities in both the House and the Senate.
But I don’t think Obama will do that well.
FDR was only cleaning up after
.
Obama is cleaning up after these two
.
Which is like cleaning up after this guy
and this guy
with a little bit of this guy
.
So remind everyone you know in every way to register then vote because voters rule.
.
Will the iPad lead to the Napsterization of Publishing?
I feel a craze coming. I think the iPad is going to do for books what the iPod did for albums—that is make them all pretty much free.
You’ve already seen the theory introduced that the real “best-selling” ebooks for the Kindle are public domain classics that sell for $0.00.
Well, thanks to the iPad, a few million more people are going to have ereaders by the summer of 2010 And those people need free shit to read. At least, I hope they will.
Let’s say 1% will.
That’s tens of thousands of people who will be reading. 1% of them may even buy some books.
Of course, most of them will steal, or “check-out” the ebooks from what I call the original Napster—the public library. And I mean steal in a good way. Please steal my free ebook about the dirty secrets of a new teacher.
No matter if iPadders buy or steal, we, wannabe writers of stories, have a very good problem.
A vast new audience of savvy, cultured early adopters need books.
Major publishers have got the machinery behind them—but could their fixation on prices result in a repeat of what happened in the music industry?
Either way, it won’t be easy. Giving away music worked well for Radiohead but not as well for Meanest Man Contest.
However, the social infrastructure of the web is improving all the time. And I believe that there are huge opportunities for writers’ with strong voices, convincing subplots and a disproportionate love for white space.
A new generation of webwriters—of, by, and for the marriage of web and story—can employ the few modicums of foresight they might have to make a name and a space for themselves in the iPad of an attractive stranger.
Hell is the Boys’ Locker Room
If you don’t think that something like the Holocaust could ever happen again, spend some time in a boys’ side of a high school locker room. I say this with certainty because I’ve had my own real human head bashed into a locker for no reason other than some kid knew he could get away with it. And verily I tell you, it sounded worse than it felt.
I was a freshman in high school and because I’d only gotten a C in my Science class the year before, I wasn’t in Honors Physical Science with the well-fed geeks who’d been my constant companions since we’d been sorted into reading groups in the second grade. So that first day of school, as Algebra II (The Vengeance of Algebra) ended, and everyone else giggled off to their Honors class–where they’d wear lab coats and poke half-pencils behind their ears–I found the gym on the school map and began my lonely trek.
I’d traveled the entire length of the campus and was only yards from the gym when I saw some kid, probably another ninth grader, running at me. He was in his PE shorts, bright orange with white trim, a low-volume scream blaring from his slightly bloodied mouth. I stopped to watch him flail his bony arms as he zigzagged around me and through the crowd.
As his cries faded, I was grazed. Then bumped. Then shoved by the herd charging toward the gym. I couldn’t move.
I must’ve been waiting for someone to explain. But they just kept mowing through me, heads down, nothing to see.
I had no choice, so I just stumbled forward and joined the line to get a P.E. locker combination.
The old gym was as big as a city block and built to survive a Russian attack. Inside, the locker room was a world of cold gray murk. Abstract shadows cast across grids of exposed pipes lathered in a diseased filth, dripping a rust-colored mucus.
Every few minutes, some ancient machinery in the walls would rumble awake to crush something brittle and necessary. A brief silence would follow, interrupted by the throes of a gathering mob, possibly on horseback and chasing a small animal. Then a thud–flesh smacking against concrete.
Then screams muffled by hands or feet or worse.
I shut my locker and looked up and down the aisle to see who else noticed the madness around us.
Every head down, everyone lost in the task of getting shorts over shoes and out on the field as quickly as possible. I took the cue and joined the stream of identically dressed bodies filtering out to the yard. We gathered on a particular faded yellow line. The bell rang.
A coach with a Stalin mustache took four steps out of his office to grunt roll. Done, he’d throw us a few balls, blast his whistle twice and disappear. We’d all fall out to play whatever game we’d been assigned. But in the periphery, some poor kid lingered–everything about him in a limp.
The victim of the day.
He’d be forcing back tears and blood as he nursed an arm or his entire right side or clutched an ear as if it was about to fall off. And beneath the hurt and shock that kid didn’t seem any weaker or more defenseless than anyone else. Just hurt.
So I knew it–they were coming for us all.
We were just waiting our turn.
After less than a week, the mayhem bled out of the shadows. Beatings happened under bare light bulbs, in and outside of lockers, adjacent to urinals, into urinal cakes. The same madness every day, except before long the chasing and screaming stopped. Why bother? No one was coming to help. It was Lord of the Flies–sans the subtle erosion of morality.
I’d ask my nerdy friends about their P.E. class. They’d yawn one of those endless yawns that approximates unbearably sleepiness and sing, “Boring.” And they said it like boredom was a bad thing. In fifth period PE with most every other Calculus-bound kid on campus, the worst thing that ever happened was that a basketball game might end tied six to six.
But there was nothing boring about my P.E. class. When you’re fucked, boredom is paradise. And we were fucked.
Evil, real evil, had found us, and I realized that the sanitized, comic, Disneyfied notions of darkness at the edge of town or a Christian Hell with just one whimsical, well-dressed Devil were tropes designed to keep kids dumb or happy.
Here’s what real hell was like: Constant, soulless laughter; the drafty helplessness of standing barefoot on sticky concrete; my goods only shielded from harm by tighty whities; the more than occasional sight of penises–unfettered and dangling from beasts who would appear from nowhere, defying gravity, leaping from bench to bench, crushing rat shit and cinders under bare toes.
Everywhere a devil, and they seemed to freeze in midair while flinging themselves, their penises, their shit, their semen into eyes that never closed quickly enough.
Trashcans roved. A beast with hairy, pale, three bare legs dancing underneath–laughing, spinning, bouncing off walls, incapable of containing the hilarity of what was coming new. The can would pause and rise, as if caught in a gust of air. Then its stink would swallow some sad unsuspecting ninth grader’s entire being. Joy would thunder in from everywhere as the gears in the walls woke around us. The beasts were pleased.
And the worst part: Every humiliation, every beating was followed by the ritual of the fiends begging us to tell someone –anyone–what was going on.
“Then you’ll see what happens,” they laughed. “Then you’ll see, bitches. Everyone gets a turn,” they said, explaining exactly why being alive can be such a horrible thing.
When it was time for gym, an unfamiliar, unrelenting sort of fear–the feeling of my pelvis inhaling my testicles–consumed me. To function, I had to turn off who I thought I was and dig my chin into my neck. And every ninth grader in that locker room assumed the same pose. Slouched, head forward. No nods, no acknowledgment of each other of any kind.
Silence and shame were all we had to keep us human.
And I know: There were ten times more of us than them; we should have united and revolted. That’s as obvious in retrospect as it was impossible at the time. There was no one to lead, no ground to hold, no troops to rally.
Just tell the fish food to rise up against the fish.
And of course: There were people to tell, someone who could’ve helped. My mom might’ve cared, and she might’ve tried to do something drastic like alert the principal, I suppose.
But I wasn’t dumb. Anything she did would’ve led to more humiliations, more brutal poundings, a deeper more obvious sense of despair. All we could do was hope that life wouldn’t get any worse, knowing deep down that it would.
I survived those first few weeks–only bumped, rattled and slightly spat-on–by minimizing the time it took to dress. Without moving too quickly, I ducked in and then out in time to be on the field well before the second bell rang. I did whatever I could to avoid the fail that came from dressing less than ninety percent of the time. I knew if I could just make it till June, I’d join some team sport that was barely a sport– like tennis or golf–and never have to take regular P.E. again. There was a way out–if I could just survive.
But there had never been such a huge if in my stupid life.
In October, I began wearing my PE shorts underneath my jeans. But I gave that up when a girl in Algebra II asked me if my diaper was full. By November I was back to stripping down to my tighties. Then for months and months I slunk between the beatings and the smeared shit and the hocked loogis, spared anything worse than an occasional hangnail in an eye.
I survived until early spring when the belligerent ghouls decided for no reason that it was our row’s turn.
And we were getting ours–one-by-one.
Two lockers down, a brown-haired kid with a Big Dipper of moles on his back got dragged off to have his face buried in a used toilet. They held his head down in it for almost a minute before they, almost graciously, flushed.
The poor blond guy whose locker was right behind mine got peed on, twice, in the same day–once at the beginning of the period, then a longer more public spraying as he writhed on the floor near his locker less than an hour later. When it was done, he sobbed and wiped himself off with one leg of his jeans, I couldn’t even feel bad for him because I knew–I was next.
Verily I’d walk through into that bleak gray maze, that nest of vipers, as bravely as I could, knowing it to be the stomach of hate itself and I was but a piece of kibble. When I was dumb enough to look up, I’d see dozens of beasts licking lips, wagging cocks, all on the hunt for some bitch to devour.
Yet as soon as we were out of the locker room, they changed. They weren’t decent, but they were leashed. Their hands were always tucked in their pants, but their tight orange shorts nearly contained their junk. I might get elbowed in an ear if I was dumb enough to go up for a rebound, but they’d pretend to care. “I’d have someone look at that,” they’d say, almost cheery about it.
But in the locker room, the hunt was on. And when they found what they were after, they were righteous and dramatic, fuming with the affected torment of justified scorn.
“Why did you touch that fucking kid’s nuts?” this beast screeched at me, on the day I finally got mine.
From ten feet away, his spittle still sprayed into my eyes.
Half a dozen fellow ogres surrounded him, drooling encouragement. This beast was huge, and everything about his burnt skin, wild hair, gaunt frame was as jagged and sharp as broken bone. To steady myself, I focused on the odd holes in his sweat-beige PE shirt. His nipples dissolved cloth.
“Tell me, bitch. Why did you touch his nuts?”
The beast was pointing at the kid who had the locker under mine. He was skinny, short, pale kid with sad gray eyes. He was out most days, probably at a hospital being force-fed sugar water through a straw. Even the beasts knew that beating him would’ve have been worse than cruel–it would’ve been easy.
“Tell me! Why did you caress that fucking kid’s little white nuts and then stroke his tiny cock up and down?”
“I–” For reason that must relate to a subtle osmosis of religious hokum, I’ve always believed that being completely and irrationally honest in a crucial moment might save me or–in the worst-case scenario–my soul. But I’ve never found any evidence to prove this theory. “I–I wouldn’t do that. Ever.”
This beast was closing in, screaming, “You did bitch, admit that shit.”
Nipples in a beeline for my eye sockets–they’re bleeding. Or it’s blood from my own nipple-stabbed eyes.
The world spins. Fingers invade my nostrils, my mouth, my eyes. Why did I have so many useless orifices?
Rotting flesh inside my mouth. I could bite–but I can’t.
Then, that sound. The dull crunch of my real human head being bashed into a metal locker. Then? Relief.
Crumbled into a ball, wedged between the ground and the locker, expecting a downpour of piss, I held my breath.
But they were gone. I was OK.
My brain did the math–the locker was better than the floor. Better than the corner of the locker or the bench or–especially–the pale kid’s nuts.
My skin was entirely wet with sweat, but I was alive–only because weeks were left in the semester.
Next time would be worse. Next time there would be feces.
That night, for the first time in my stupid life, I wasn’t able to sleep. I love sleep. I was born asleep, crying but asleep. It was the only aspect of my life that never let me down. Even when my dad was at his worst, sleep found me as soon as my head and a pillow met.
But that night as I lay awake, sheets twisted across and around me in a dozen irrational ways, something terrible washed over me. As much as I wanted to be brave and important or good, there was a weakness inside me that only cared about being safe and comfortable. And this weakness didn’t believe in happy endings. And it didn’t care what or who or whom it had to sell-out to make my life easier. As the glum gray light of earliest morning seeped between my blinds, weakness took charge.
And though I had no idea who or what I believed in anymore, weakness knew exactly what it had to do.
When it was time for P.E. the next day, I made the long walk alone, but instead of feeding myself straight into the mouth of locker room, I made a hard right and kept walking along the length of the gym. The bell rang. I sped up as if I were being chased. All I saw were walls and fences so high that I couldn’t climb them without risking my life or my nuts. The urge to turn back and give myself up had nearly overtaken me when I noticed a pale blue door for a bathroom tucked into the building across from the gym. I sprinted to it. Before I did anything, I stopped to consider my options–I didn’t have any.
Weakness told me to push. The door opened.
I threw myself inside.
Though it was a barely bigger than my mom’s closet, it seemed to be empty. The walls were smeared with some strange filth. Rolls of what appeared to be used toilet paper were strewn across the floor. But the light was bright and yellow.
“Hello?” My voice cracked in several unlikely ways.
Nothing. No one. Of the three stalls, only the newer, handicapped one had a door and was large enough to hold a whole human being. Still I had to scrunch myself up as small as I possibly could so that my bare skin wouldn’t rub against anything. I sat down on the toilet. I kicked the stall door shut and pulled my legs into my stomach.
In that fetal pose, I waited for the bell to ring.
The next day, I went right back through the pale blue door. This time I had a day-old newspaper from my Algebra teacher’s trash to read and blot up odd puddles on the floor. I sat myself down. And when I was done with reading and blotting, I’d studied the cracks and the mold on the walls until the bell rang. After a minute or three of letting the blood seep back into my legs, I made my way back into the world to find my nerdy friends, nearly skipping. A new sort of lightness–I might even say a glee–tingled across my skin. And it lasted even as I watched my fellow ninth-graders hobbling out of the locker room, doused in shame and spit. I couldn’t care anymore.
Weakness had won.
For weeks I made my way in and out of that bathroom every day. Every day I felt a little safer.
As I became familiar with all the scars and dents on the pee-stained floors, I let my feet settle on the ground and taught myself how to doze off on the toilet. I was the master of my little world, and every day I thought less about what I was avoiding and more about how smart weakness was. And that’s how I should’ve known some terrible reckoning was on its way.
I had been dozing on the toilet for a half hour when I was awoken the sound of a grown man whistling the Pointer Sisters’ “Jump (for My Love)” right outside my stall.
I was trapped. My shoes could be seen beneath the stall door. I tried to pull my legs up–they were both so heavy with sleep that even thinking about them sent a million pins and needles stabbing from my ankles to my thighs. Ignoring the pain, I grabbed one foot and forced a shin to rest across the plastic toilet seat. I took the other foot and tried to tangle my legs Indian Style. Together they were so lifeless and askew that it resembled a pile of scrap appendages. So I tried to forget that I had a body at all and concentrated on willing myself into invisibility –my superpower when I was a kid.
Through the crack between the stall and the door, I could discern that the whistler was wearing shorts. The giant muscles on his calves jutted out like a chin from his hairy legs.
Weakness told me that I’d survive if I didn’t breathe, move or speak. But weakness had no idea what the man would do next.
In a swift succession, he blasted three of crispest, wettest, longest farts I’d ever heard in my life.
Stink must travel at the speed of light because it hit me immediately. And since or before, I’ve never experienced anything close to the brutal horror of those atrocities.
I clenched my eyes, and dug my face into my shoulder, attempting to seal off the little air I had inside. That didn’t work. To keep myself from vomiting, I plugged my pointer fingers up my nostrils, knuckle-deep. If I could just wait him out and escape into the earth’s atmosphere, I might survive.
Tears wept through my eyelids. I tried to squeeze myself still, but the stink pervaded everything. I didn’t have much time, and knowing that I had to look to see if the man was still there. He hadn’t moved. He must’ve been surveying his environs, basking in his smell.
Then he turned and lunged at me.
Giant hands bulging with hairy, walnut-like knuckles grasped the top of the top of the stall and then a giant bulbous head with a giant Stalin mustache joined them.
My P.E. Coach and was staring down at me.
Unfazed by the sight of a pile of useless human flesh with fingers plugged up its nose, he shouted, “One!”
His head–but not his giant hands–dropped out of sight.
Less than a second later his head reappeared.
“Two,” he growled, adjusting his grip.
He considered me and said, “Thank God you weren’t yanking your worm, shitstain. I would’ve certainly crippled your ass.”
He dropped down to the ground and blew his whistle twice. Apparently there was a universal whistle language he assumed was recognized even in the shitter. I forced my feet on the ground and tried to stand, but my legs were still tingling with sleep. They buckled and I stumbled into the slime that coated the stall door. “What the fuck is going on in there?” the coach screamed, concerned I’d abruptly decided to start yanking my worm.
“Nothing, sir.” The smell entered my mouth. I fell back on the toilet. I leaned over myself to unlatch the stall door just so he could see my worm was nowhere in sight.
As soon as it was open, he began to push. “C’mon, shitstain. I don’t got time.”
I leaned back, spread my arms and stuck my palms into the ooze on either side of the stall to try and lift myself up.
He backed away, a bit spooked.
I fell forward and caught myself on the door. Somewhere deep in the stink I detected the taint of baked cauliflower, the worst smell on earth. I closed my eyes. A blue sky dawning, white doves fluttering in the distant, unbearable sunshine.
“Now, shitstain!”
I opened my eyes and forced my legs take shape as I contorted myself–like a cramped little old man–toward the coach. He backed up until he hit the sink. He put his hands up Judo-style, warning me not to get any closer.
I stopped and tried to unbend myself. My legs could barely hold me. I placed my hands on my knees and braced myself.
“Where are you supposed to be, shitstain?”
I thought he was just being wise and asking a question he knew the answer to. So I said, “I’m really sorry, sir,” trying not to allow in any smell in as I forced out what I’d taken in.
“I’m not square-dancing with you, shitstain. Where in the fuck are you supposed to be?” He was serious.
“Out on the field, sir–with our class.”
He huffed and puffed for a moment. “You’re in my class?”
The illusion that he had ever been wise was shattered.
Lying at that point would only confuse him and prolong the conversation, giving his smell the time it needed to smother my few remaining brain cells. “Yes, sir.”
“Now, you’re fucked. Wash your pussy and come with me.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said and fell to the floor.
In the PE office, two different soap operas were playing on two-oversized color TVs. Newspapers opened to the box scores were splayed everywhere. Three coaches, each holding a Styrofoam cup, and a few senior girls, each holding a can of diet soda, were all watching a groom tilt his blond head at his crying bride on the larger of the TVs. The coach walked me to his desk with one hand gripped tight around my flabby bicep so I couldn’t fall again. He told me to sit, stay.
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
I fell into the chair and it sank a several inches. I was still woozy–as close as I’d ever been to actual intoxication.
The coach watched the screen for a moment before the gauzy close-up faded to black and became a commercial for dish soap. “You dress tomorrow, shitstain,” he said, pointing at my head.
I preferred a life-sentence in jail, possibly the gas chamber. “Coach–” I said. I didn’t know how to properly say his last name, Ostropoloski, though I’d been in his class for months and it had been on several of my report cards. “I’ve missed twelve days–more than ten percent. I can’t pass.”
“Calm the fuck down, shitstain,” he screamed and turned toward me, one finger extended from his giant fist. “How do you know what you’ve missed?” He’d cracked the case.
“I kept track?”
He grunted, and nudged me out the chair. He pushed the chair over and out of the way so he could get his roll book from the top drawer of his desk. With his giant inflatable hands, he flipped through the little grade book as if his fingers were attempting Greco-Roman wrestling moves on the pages. His hands looked like four bulbous, hairy moles that shared one huge disjointed erection. Finally he pinned down my class. He counted for a second then abruptly turned the book toward me and told me to total the NDs for “Not Dressed” and the As for “Absence.” Once I figured out that his Ns were just as often Ms, it took me about twenty seconds to count all the days I’d spent luxuriating in that pale blue bathroom. And I was right; I’d missed for twelve classes, well over the acceptable 10% for the semester.
“Do everyone–the whole class.” He turned back to the TV.
That took maybe five minutes. I leaned over his desk and entered each student’s total in pencil next to his name.
The coach took the book back and stared at what I’d done until he began to rattle. His shaking got worse, nearing a seizure. I placed my arms over my head to prepare for the worst. Then a laugh began; he was just celebrating, as if he’d found a huge fold of twenty-dollar bills stuck up his own ass.
“Half these fat fucks can’t pass,” he said. “Wait here.”
He walked his roll book around the office and showed it to the other coaches. There was plenty of laughing and punching of each other’s shoulders and arms in a way that seemed more hostile than familiar. When that was done, the coach walked right up to me, poked my shoulder, possibly dislocating it, and said, “You got the job, shitstain. Take that and shove it.”
He paused, waiting for me to thank him so I did.
“You can show these ladybugs how to count up like that, too.” He pointed to the senior girls. “You’re welcomed.”
“Thanks,” I said again and took a moment to note the disgusted, repulsed frowns on the girls’ camera-ready faces as they inadvertently noticed me for the first time.
From then on, instead of going to the locker room or the pale blue bathroom, I walked straight into the coaches’ office and sat down at the coach’s desk. Two bells would ring and the coach would go out to the field, call roll and blast his whistle twice. When he got back, I’d adjust the absent kids’ totals. Then I’d sit still and be invisible. I tried to ignore everything, even the newspapers. I hadn’t looked at a box score since my dad had passed, and nearly every inch of newsprint was doused with coffee stains and the powder of sugar donuts.
So I just sat there. Every day a new kid sank into failure. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
Or that’s what weakness told me.
Finally, it became June. It was over a hundred and ten degrees every day and the office was air-conditioned down to the mid fifties. The cold comfort made it easy to settle into my role as official snitch/bookkeeper. But I wasn’t welcome. The other coaches and the senior girls never did anything except actively shun me with thorough disdain–even after I’d taught them the secret of adding two-digit numbers without the assistance of fingers or toes.
Still I couldn’t shake from a sappy sort of gloom as I dwelt on the thought of it all ending. I’d never see them any of them again. Not my coach, not the bald coach whose body hair sprouted like weeds from the back of his shirt, not the scowling blond senior girl with giant breasts that grew larger and more spherical every day. That’s when I realized how screwed up it is to be alive–or me. Whatever’s ending–no matter how terrible it is–always seems better than what’s coming next.
On the last day of class, no one had to dress.
Everyone came straight out onto to the field. Basketballs were passed out and the students decided if they wanted to play or not. It was a cool, breezeless day and, for the first time, I heard what sounded like actual joy coming from the field.
The moment he saw me at his desk, the Coach said, “Been waiting for you, stains. Bubble all the grades, except yours.” He handed me a bubble-in sheet with flaps that had flaps.
“I’ll be back. Gotta drop off some shit at the pond.”
It took about five minutes to enter the grades. Only nineteen kids out of forty passed. The rest were damned.
As the coaches and their girls watched their soaps and giggled, I kept reminding myself that there was nothing I could do for the kids who’d failed.
I had to look out for myself–and I wasn’t safe yet.
Then, one-by-one each of the coaches grunted as they dropped their roll books and grade sheets in front of me. I went through, counting out and bubbling as quickly as I could while constantly checking the clock so I’d be done in time.
An hour passed in what felt like a minute.
There were two minutes left in the period when my Coach got back; he was sucking down the last drops from a carton of chocolate milk. From a pocket in his sweats he pulled out a plastic bag filled with cauliflower and dropped it on his desk.
My throat closed. I felt my legs begin to tingle.
I handed the last coach his grades back and sat back down at Coach Ostropoloski’s desk. “The sheet, shitstain,” he said.
I lost myself for a second and had no idea where it was. Then I realized it was right in front of me. I handed it to him. He nodded at me a couple of times, and then wiped his mouth with both shoulders, “OK, give yourself a pity C, clear?”
The bell rang. The office quickly emptied.
It was just us and two TVs blaring.
I took the sheet back and stared at my name.
It wasn’t right that I’d pass when so many hadn’t–that was pretty easy to figure out. But if I didn’t take the C, I’d have to repeat. And weakness wouldn’t let me consider that.
A D would’ve been more honest, but then I might have to explain myself to my mom. And if I did that, I might cry, and no one needed that.
So I bubbled in the C and told myself that that was it. Weakness could never win again.
Stop Calling
Falling in love with the wrong person—even briefly—is always embarrassing. But falling in love with Leonard Lee was a humiliation that did not end no matter how many times I hung up on the boy. And I hung up on him at least 1,372 times.
It became a reflex: I saw Leonard Lee’s name and number on my cell, I answered, said, “Stop calling,” and hung up immediately.
And, of course, he’d call right back.
“The freak just wants to hear your voice,” my too-cute co-worker would remind me, making that jerking-off hand motion that guys love to make every chance they get.
And I understood my too-cute co-worker’s frustration.
From his much-too adjacent cubicle, he’d heard me hanging up on Leonard Lee dozens of times. And even though anything anyone at work does in your presence repeatedly tends to become unbearable, my co-worker was, generally, decent enough not to dissect the insanity my life had become. Still, he did occasionally illuminate the obvious: “You can block that guy’s number on your phone or change yours, or call the cops.” And those options made sense—if you actually believe that we are rational actors exercising free will. But I know better.
So I’d defend myself and say that if I didn’t pick up the phone every so often Leonard Lee would show up at my apartment or work, which he probably would’ve (had I ever been insane enough to reveal where I lived or worked). And that passed for the truth, since the actual truth was far too icky: I didn’t have the nerve, desire or self-worth necessary to eliminate Leonard Lee from my life completely.
So I resigned myself to taking Leonard’s indelible interest in me as flattery until he found another inordinately large-breasted white girl with incredibly low standards to fix his entire being upon. And as a silent compromise with the world around me, I began turning my phone off as soon as I got into work.
But even when it came to that, I slipped up. And, of course, Leonard Lee caught me at the worst possible moment.
I’d gone into the office at four AM to finish my Q1 report so I could get it to my too-cute co-worker in time for him to start his Q3 projections by nine. Of course, I was done by six thirty. At that point, I had two options: A fresh cup of French Vanilla instant coffee and plenty of time to review the Q1 report—or a quick nap at my desk.
After what felt like a full night of sleep, I woke to find my face fused to my computer’s keyboard—a surface that is both far cozier and stickier than I’d ever imagined.
In distant cubicles, I heard rustling. But I didn’t have the energy or courage to wake fully.
Then footsteps—getting louder.
“Hello,” I said, still not lifting my head.
“Does it have a pulse?” I heard my-too cute co-worker ask.
I jumped straight up, bringing the keyboard with me. I severed it from my face and set it back on my desk.
“Christ,” he said. “You been here all night?”
“Check your email. You’re good.”
I placed my hand on the top of my chest and felt my heart—pounding. I traced the grid of groves carved into my temple—oddly gratifying.
My co-worker sat down at his desk and cracked his knuckles, one-by-one. When he was done with that, he cracked his neck or his shoulder or his sternum. Some part of him that wasn’t meant to crack.
Men are not meant to work in indoors, sitting down. It makes them docile, broken, needy, compelled to spend whole weekends drowning filthy urges with beer while watching nearly nude real men ultimate fighting. And my too cute co-worker—with his constant knuckle cracking, foot tapping and tuneless humming—was the epitome of a modern caged male. Sometimes I wanted to hose him down—but I knew it would’ve pleased him too much.
“Did you think I was the stalker?” he asked. “The guy who calls? Your boyfriend?”
I did not acknowledge the question.
So the charmer repeated what he’d asked exactly: “Did you think I was the stalker? The guy who calls? Your boyfriend?”
“That’s done, seriously. He hasn’t called in, like, forever.”
And right then—of course—my phone began to ring.
The smart thing would’ve been to just turn the damn thing off. Instead, I saw Leonard’s name and I picked it up. I’m sorry; it was a reflex. “Stop calling.”
“Amazing,” my too-cute co-worker said. “I so called it. Point—Me.”
I was ready to hang up—but Leonard was sobbing. Usually it took three or four straight hang-ups before he got into sobbing and slurring incoherently. But this time he was straight at it. Mucous was definitely surfacing from the depths of his soul. His sobs were pitiable, childlike, trailing off into a noiseless oblivion. It was a sound that no decent human being could dismiss easily—unless she’d heard the same thing 1,372 times.
“I’m seriousssssssssssss, Nat,” he sobbed. “I need you. Help?”
“Stop calling,” I repeated and hung up. But there was softness in my voice—weakness. He was winning.
I set my phone on my desk and attempted to shape my hair into some presentable shape.
My too-cute co-worker studied me, giggling in a very fey way.
I thought: I’ll answer one more call, just to make sure Leonard is OK. But if he calls me “Nat,” again, I will go over there and choke him with my heel. (Only my mom, my cousin Gail—who has a stutter—and my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Ellis—the most decent human being to ever bless this earth—are allowed to call me Nat. But that’s what you get for letting a lunatic check your voicemail for you, once.)
More vibrating from my phone. This time in short, spastic bursts. A text—from him, of course: “I did it. I don’t know what to do OPlease help!!#”
Oh shit, he did IT. He did what?
“It” had to be his sister. It had to.
She was the only “it,” the only person, in his life—besides me.
Maybe he’d lost it on her, gotten violent, tossed a vase or two into her skull. I imagined that the kind of seething anger and frustration he’d been accumulating over the last eight years could spark into violence in a flash–if his nearly hairless body produced any testosterone whatsoever.
For a moment, I forgot how uncomfortable I was, or should be. The muscles in my shoulders slackened into a pleasant slouch.
I wouldn’t blame him if he hurt her. Actually, in the murky crevasses of my brain where depravity reigns, I’d be proud of him. But maybe he’d just sent her packing to her parents, as I’d begged him to do dozens of times. The idea of his sister in an airport terminal high on liquid morphine—or Demerol or whatever Leonard said she was on—disturbed me. She’d have to be shackled. The image of her in a wheelchair bowling into a crowd of elderly strangers flashed in my mind .
No, sending her away was too complicated. He must’ve killed her.
I wanted to text back, “Just what did you do?” But the cops would get his phone, his bills, his everything. By the time the autopsy was done, they’d have warrants, APBs, wanted posters.
Then the trial: “Ms. Steiner, if your codefendant was ‘stalking’ you, can you explain then why you never blocked his number or went to the police? Can you explain why, instead, you answered his calls 1,372 times in the month of May?”
“Only to hang up on him immediately. I was worried he’d follow…”
“On the 15th and the 17th, these records indicate that you spent over an hour…”
That’s when I’d plead the Fifth. I was complicit—an accessory, an accomplice. I was guilty by reasons of association and occasional insanity.
I texted Leonard, “Stay there.” Then I pushed away from my desk and told my too-cute co-worker, “OK, I’m getting lunch.”
“It’s 9:04 AM. A little early for a lunch date, no?”
“I said brunch. Sorry. I meant to say brunch.”
#
Leonard Lee and his sister lived in a gated community—one of those bland, plain-brand, I’ve-given-up-on-any-hope-for-a-better-tomorrow gated communities that became suburbia in the 80s and 90s. The kind of gated community you hope will be overrun by barbarians one day soon.
At the entrance, there was always some half-a-transient in a cramped tollbooth playing security guard. When you pulled up to the gate, he’d wake from twilight sleep, look right and left until he located his clipboard in his lap. Then he’d swallow a mouth load of phlegm and ask, “Who you here for?” which is one of those poorly phrased questions that can throw you straight into a deep Theta state of meditation. But if you could remain conscious and say, “I’m here for the Lees,” or any Jewish or Asian sounding last name, he’d buzz you right in—no questions asked.
By the third time he let me through without even acknowledging my presence. He’d just mouth something like, “Oh, some bitch for the Lees,” and the gate’s arm flew straight up.
It was noon and the streets were empty. Even the driveways were empty. Every garage door closed. Each house had the same cookie-cutter landscaping—green and coiffed. Plastic. Any house on the block could’ve been a model home.
What if Leonard’s sister is dead? I couldn’t not consider the consequences. He might get the house. A real life. That would be nice. He deserved it. After eight years indentured by his parents to that sister so she could guzzle narcotics and imagine that colors were trying to suffocate her, he could live. Basically his whole adult life had been wasted coddling severe mental illness. No wonder his only pleasure in life was stalking me.
But what good was getting rid of her if it meant he was going to jail? What if I was going to jail, too? Could I hack it? Would I become a lesbian? I’d have to find one badass dike with a crew cut and flabby biceps and fading anchor tattoos to protect me—I’d be her bitch…if I had to. Why couldn’t I think one thought at one time? Was I mentally diseased?
Had stress continually deprived my brain of oxygen for so long that the most essential lobes had wasted away to the size of an undernourished walnut? Knowing that would be a relief. Knowing that would explain everything—mostly.
Their driveway was empty, except for a dried, Mickey Mouse-shaped puddle of oil. Completely mini-vanless, just as it was when I met him.
Yes, during my brief “affair” with Leonard Lee, I drove. But if I complained or even hesitated slightly—he’d call us a cab.
And taking a cab in the suburbs was one of those questionable, overly indulgent luxuries that attracted me to Leonard. (He also only wore brand-new socks, tipped waiters excessively and voted Republican—even in 2004.) Focusing on the absurd excesses—and the sweet little cowlick he had right above his bangs that made him look as if he’d always just woken up—made it easy to ignore what or whom I was really getting into.
Yes, for six whole days and nights, Leonard was simply a bony, always slouching, independently wealthy guy with the odd sort of quirks I looked forward to developing should I ever end up independently wealthy. Sometimes he even seemed a little too normal. That’s what I told my friends and co-workers, if they asked.
And then I met his sister.
It was 12:30 AM, Tuesday night. The cab was dropping us off after a movie. As Leonard paid the driver, I was staring off into a distant driveway, trying to not see or hear how much the ride cost. From somewhere nearby, I heard a screech, a pre-historic screech.
Leonard’s head snapped toward it; something inside of him turned on instantly—like a motion-sensing light. He stiffened into perfect posture. His mouth slouched into a serious frown. Gone was the half-smile he’d adopted permanently the first time we had sex.
And there she was, standing in the middle of their lawn with one finger in the air, dressed only a pale orange bathrobe and big black boots.
The cabbie said, “Go on.” We were barely out of the car before he’d peeled out down the block.
She was ten feet from us, one foot forward—ready to charge.
I asked Leonard, “And who is that?” thinking some other skank he’d met on Match.com was having a Fatal Attraction moment.
Then her screams became words, ‘Where. The fuck. Is my minivan? Leonard?”
“It’s her—her sister, my sister,” Leonard whispered.
“Speak up, Leonard!” the sister screamed. Even from a distance it was clear that her eyes were not able to focus on the same thing at the same time.
“Don’t whisper,” he said, loudly. “It’s her condition.” Then he whispered, “Whispering gives her vertigo and foot cramps,” as if that explained anything.
Watching Leonard whisper at me again was too much for his sister. She wailed and hobbled at us—her fist in the air as if she intended to stab us with her knuckles.
He grabbed my hand and whispered, “Come with me.”
In the midst of the madness, the flailing of his sister’s knuckles, he was calm.
I’ll admit it: that turned me on. That’s how disturbed I am—at that point, I was still able to get physically aroused by Leonard Lee.
Swerving widely to our left, we cut across the lawn to the front door. “Don’t step on the azaleas, specially the blue ones,” Leonard whispered loudly, though I had no control over where were going. “They’re like her children. It’s her condition.”
Every time we headed up the walk, he’d told me not to step on the azaleas, as if he had detected my unconscious compulsion to do so. But he’d never explained why before.
We must’ve gotten too close to her children because his sister screeched, again, “Get out off my house!” Then a wild, violent scream followed by a harsh, hacking cough—the kind of cough that you have to look at for fear of being showered by shrapnel and mucous.
“Don’t stare,” Leonard said. “She doesn’t like that. It’s her condition.” He tugged on my hand. We got through the front door and Leonard slammed it behind us. “Up there,” he said. “She won’t…she can’t go up there if there’s a stranger in the house. It’s…”
“…her condition,” I said. I’m quick.
I took two steps at a time.
Leonard was right behind me, breathing hot buttered flavoring into the back of my ear.
(Now, of course, I have to speculate about why I went along with this mad chase. Why didn’t I just leave? My car was twenty feet away. And frankly, I wasn’t too intimidated by his sister. I’ve seen worse; I’ve been to public school. It must’ve been her scream—the ululation of a feral beast. Your only choice is to flee with the natives.)
I stumbled straight into Leonard’s room and he slammed the door behind us.
More screaming from below. But it wasn’t getting any closer. She was stuck—her condition. Between her screams, I heard a disgusting mix of coughing and blubbering.
Leonard backed away from me, kicking his shoes off. He stumbled over to his futon and fell on his butt. His eyes were blank and unfocused. He definitely had PTSD—tons of it. He began twitching—all kinds of flashbacks must’ve been firing off from deep in his brain. For the first time, I wanted to flatten his cowlick. I wanted him to look grown up and aware, but I didn’t dare get too close for fear he’d forget himself and dropkick me.
At that point, I considered the prospect that Leonard Lee and I might be stuck in that room together for the rest of our lives. Eventually we’d have to eat each other. I clutched my arms across my breasts.
“She’ll quit after an hour or so,” he said, finally looking me in the eye.
Again, the house rattled with her shrieks.
“Are you OK?” I asked, probably because I wanted him to ask me the same question. (That’s all I do; I live the Golden Rule. But I assure you that treating people how they want to be treated has never done me any good whatsoever.)
“Well,” Leonard said. “I don’t even know where I left her minivan. I’m not sure.”
“She has a minivan?” I don’t know why that baffled me so. I think up until that moment minivans had epitomized normalcy, middle-Americana, sanity.
“Yeah, my mom got it for her when she said that she was going to start a garden design business because she couldn’t work in movies anymore because of her condition. That was two years ago. But we just use it for shopping, mostly. I think we were at the mall or the Home Depot when she had her last thing. I went with her in the ambulance and I forgot to go back and get the minivan—until now, I guess.”
“That’s understandable.”
He nodded.
No one ever gets it when I’m being ironic.
“Do you think it’s still there, the van, wherever I left it?” he asked.
“How long as it been?”
He counted his fingers. “Maybe nine days.”
“Not ten?”
“Yeah, actually. Probably ten.”
“Sure. It’s probably fine.” What else was I going to say? I was too busy realizing that his sister had been away for exactly the amount of time I’d known Leonard. And that’s how he’d tricked me into thinking he was normal, even something of a catch.
“This is a very shitty world,” Leonard said. “I hate this shit world.” Tears began dripping down his cheeks. Big fat tears, as if he’d missed his eyes with Visine.
“Tell me about it.” I hated myself for saying the most ordinary thing possible. I needed to make it up to him. I approached him at an angle and sat down, nearly in his lap. We both sighed then leaned into each other. I found his cowlick and traced it with my finger.
Then, for the last time, we had sex.
It wasn’t terrible sex. Maybe it was the best sex we ever had. Prison sex, I guess, because we had to be quiet and it was our only release and some maniac was screaming in the distance. Prison sex—but in the missionary position, and with a condom, of course. (Leonard was forgetful, so I always had condoms with me. Yes, at some point in my life, I hope to actually grow some shame.)
Eventually, after an hour or so, I fell asleep. Immediately I was woken by a scream. Every fifteen minutes the same process repeated all night through the morning. But Leonard was apparently used to this kind of insanity. At three minutes to eight AM, I shook him awake to say, “I have to go to work.”
“OK,” he said and dug his palms into his clenched up eyes. “Maybe she’s asleep.”
Before we could move, she screamed, as if she’d heard every word we said.
“She’ll give up soon,” Leonard said. “I promise. You can’t push her when she’s like this.”
“A half hour,” I said. “Then I got to go.”
He shrugged away from me and stood up to stare at the window. After a long, doleful gaze at nothingness on the street, he turned to me and stared, as if he were trying to figure a way to Rapunzel me out of there. His eyes settled on my breasts. He smiled. A reflex, I’m sure.
My back began to ache. Nerves, or the result of sleeping in an stiff, upright position. “I’m going down.”
“She’ll attack. She’ll get incontinent. She may bite.”
I didn’t buy it…or I didn’t care…or I didn’t believe in any causal relationships anymore. Shit just happened or it didn’t. There was no reason for anything.
“I’ll risk it.”
“Nooooooooo!” he cried, a hint of his sister’s growl in his voice. And this is where I was introduced to the Leonard Lee I didn’t know. The real Leonard Lee.
He sank his head into his arms and sobbed completely.
I stood up. “I’m going now.”
He cried some more. When he realized that wasn’t going to work, he said, “OK, fine. Just stay to her right. She can’t move to her right—it’s an eardrum thing. Part of her…”
“I get it,” I said, realizing how we’d evaded her so easily on the driveway.
He opened the door and let me go, alone. And that’s when I knew we were over. Yes, it wasn’t to that point that I decided we were done—no matter how he tried to make it up to me. I’m obviously quite desperate. But even I have limits.
She was at the bottom of the stairs. Her robe was hanging open and flesh was dripping from her in body all kinds of anatomically incorrect ways. Her arms were up, guarding the bottom step like a goalie in some European sport.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, trying not to stare. “Maybe we can be friends, you know?”
She screamed, “Just leave us alone!” and clawed at me from ten steps away as if she were Kong and I was a biplane, circling. But her scream was hollow—she’d worn out her growl. I was afraid she was going to start peeing. I knew I couldn’t handle the sight of pee trailing down an adult woman’s legs.
I edged as far as I could to the left, her right. She didn’t move.
I slid three steps down and had about seven more waiting. She swiped at the air, but no peeing.
I decided to go all the way to the right, her left. She mirrored me with tiny steps until she was stuck at the far right edge of the bottom step.
I took nine or ten deep breaths. Then I did it.
I ran straight at her and just as we were about to collide, I leapt to the left, her right. She froze. Leonard knew her condition exactly. All she could do was swat at the air around me. I ducked, avoiding her arms, and got to the front door.
Before she could circle round for another swipe, I was avoiding her azaleas, especially the blue ones, and running across her lawn. I turned to watch her shriek madly as she winded to her left like a monster ballerina on a giant music box. I kept on till I got to my car door.
I watched her give up and scoot sideways to the garden hose. The engine turned over and I shifted into drive. Water splattered against my back window.
I heard her scream, “And never come back!”
As I drove away, I surveyed the area. Someone was jogging. A couple of neighbors were gasping, covering infants’ eyes. But they didn’t look as shocked as they should be. This kind of thing must’ve happened all the time.
I passed the security guard at the exit and promised myself, God, everyone and anything that ever had consciousness, awareness or scruples that I’d never ever even get close to that house again.
At first, I still answered Leonard Lee’s calls.
I tried to explain to him how I wasn’t ready for a relationship. How he was too kind for me, we’re just too similar. Work’s just crazy right now! All that bullshit guys say when they can’t man up and say, “We’re done.”
He got the point quickly and began begging me for a second chance. So I stopped answering, which resulted in him calling more often, at all hours. Occasionally, when I was lonely or drunk or bored or all three, I’d answer and ask him about his sister and listened for her shrieks in the background. I needed to know why his parents—decent, hardworking, first-generation-immigrant liquor store owners in Hartford, Connecticut—were wasting their life savings financing her insanity.
He told me that a decade ago she came out to California to become a star and became an extra instead. She’d never been able to support herself, but as her condition got worse and she started believing in her ability to see colors and tune into the electromagnetic radio waves that tune the universe, her parents got worried and started flying out every few weeks. They couldn’t handle her mood swings—the mania followed by coma followed by bursts of coherence. So when Leonard finished his AA degree, his parents decided he should move to California and watch his sister. It was his job.
Eight years of that, and now he’d done “it.”
Maybe she was dead, or gone, or at least unconscious. I had to be optimistic. It was the only way I could ever justify returning to their neighborhood.
I fished my phone out of my purse. 18 missed calls. All from him. More missed calls that I’d racked up in all 2007 in the fourteen-minute drive to meet him. Amazing how letting one psycho into your life can skew your perspective on everything.
I parked my car about a block from his house and sat there. Then I did one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my life. I called Leonard Lee, again.
The phone didn’t even ring once before he picked up. “Are you here?” he asked.
“I’m not going in there.”
“I don’t see your car… I’ll come out to you.”
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“No. I love you. I’m in trouble.”
I hated when he did that—slipped an “I love you,” as if that’s what I was waiting to hear. Still I said, “Hold on,” and shifted into drive to roll along the curb at two miles per hour.
What makes being alive interesting is that there isn’t just one voice inside our brain. In moments like this, it’s clear that our brain is more like the big scene in 12 Angry Men, with one lone voice calmly, assertively arguing for rationality (“Just leave, Natalie, there’s no good to be done here.”) while the rest are screaming out nonsense like “Dude, maybe he stabbed her ear?” “Will there be blood on his hands?” “I bet he strangled her,” and so on.
It took a full minute, but there I was, outside their house. Again, the minivan was gone. On the driveway there was a thick green goop, a goop that could have only have been the result of a very close encounter with a poltergeist.
Leonard came running out from the side of the house, ducking as if he were avoiding gunfire or the blades of a helicopter. I unlocked the passenger door for him, expecting him to jump in screaming, “GO! Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
But he was calm—he’d been crying, or sweating, or both. Even his cowlick was flat and wet.
He’d done it; he must’ve.
“What did you do, Leonard?” I asked, sounding a bit screechy, a bit like his sister. What if they were contagious?
“So many fucking people in this world,” Leonard said. “A thousand babies born every minute, millions more of us all the time. And why? What fucking good do any of us do?”
He was making some sense, for once. “What did you do, Leonard?”
Why was I interrogating him? Why wasn’t I going straight to the cops? Why was I always thinking in questions?
He reached across himself to put his seatbelt on. “Please just drive,” he said.
I put my hand on the strap, refusing to let him buckle. “No, Leonard. Stop. Tell me what you did.”
“I killed them. Please go.”
It must’ve fallen into a slight shock because I let him buckle. Then I shifted into drive and the car started to roll. Them? He killed THEM. Had his parents shown up? Had all his anger woken up at once? He was clean, but sweaty. Did he already wipe the blood from his hands?
My phone began to ring. I pulled it out of my pocket. My too-cute co-worker. I answered it and immediately hung up.
“How did you do it, Leonard?” I asked and accelerated a bit. Maybe I was taking him to the police station. Maybe we were fleeing to Mexico. I didn’t know.
“I stomped. Stomped and stomped and stomped until they were in pieces. I didn’t want to but she was fucking with me. She’s always fucking with me. Then I buried them.”
“All of them?”
“There are some more in the backyard. But she doesn’t care about those, not much. Just drive they’re looking for me.”
“You buried them there?” He was even more insane than I imagined.
My phone erupted into spastic bursts. A text from my co-worker: “You only did Workshet 1? Need all to start”
Shit. I’d only done half. No wonder I’d gotten done so quickly. I turned the corner toward the gate. I needed to drop this maniac off and get back to work.
“Go faster, Nat, please.”
I slammed on the brakes and karate chopped my steering wheel. “Could you do me one simple, fucking favor? Could you never call me ‘Nat’ again? Please.”
His entire body stiffened. For a second, I thought I’d actually scared the shit out of him.
But he began to raise his arm to point directly in front of us. “Oh, fuck. There she is.” He covered his face with his arms.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes, and she knows.”
Parked facing us in the out lane of the exit to the gated community was the mini-van. It was just as I imagined it—brown and wide and covered with goop.
“She knows what?”
“That I did it.”
“Did what, Leonard? Seriously. What the fuck did you do?”
He crumbled over and that turned into tears and sobbing, his usual sobbing. “I killed her azaleas, all of them. Even the blue ones.”
I was going to call him a fucking idiot and kick him out of my car but the sight of his sister struggling to get out of the passenger-side of the minivan distracted me.
She was wearing a sundress and Ugg boots—like an almost normal human being.
As she limped toward my car, she seemed able to even focus on one thing with both eyes. And that one thing was Leonard.
My phone began to ring. My too-cute co-worker, again. I answered and said, “Stop calling.” Then I turned it off.
Leonard pulled his arms from his eyes. “Who was that?” he asked.
His sister kept coming. She hobbled but kept up a good pace. There was something wrong with her left leg. It was too dark, plastic almost. It hit me: it wasn’t real. She had a prosthetic.
That was her condition.
Leonard reached for the shifter and put us into reverse. “Gas, gas. Go!” he said. I pulled the keys out—the engine went dead. I needed to hear what his sister was going to say.
There was movement inside the mini-van. The side door appeared to open and a little, old Asian woman got out. A little, old Asian man followed her. The stopped at the hood of the car and grasped onto to each other for support. Seeing them, Leonard crumbled over to sob.
His sister got to my car and turned toward my side. I rolled down my window.
Using my car as leverage she made her way around to me.
“Hey, I’m really sorry about that night,” she said. “I thought you were one of his drug buddies and I was trying to scare you away, you know. So I wouldn’t have to call the cops again. I wasn’t well because of the fall and the pneumonia. I’m sure he told you.”
“Drug buddies?”
I looked at Leonard. His hands were wrapped over his neck and he was trying to hide under his arms. Was it bad that I was just happy he had anyone who he could call a buddy?
“Yeah, he’s got a few. Real gems. One of them stole my extra leg.” She laughed in a very sane way. “But I didn’t realize how bad off Lenny was till he took all the Demerol I got for my fall and replaced them chewable vitamins. But don’t worry. He told us all about you, that you’re not like that. You’re trying to help.”
“Oh, Jesus. I had no idea.”
“Yeah, he’s a good actor. He’s had us fooled for a while.” She leaned toward my window. “Are you OK, Lenny?”
His sobs became loud. I looked up at his parents who’d been joined by the security guard who was eating an extra long stick of beef jerky. His parents were so shaky and worried—like they weren’t sure they could even breathe the air in this atmosphere. Poor people. Why do people have kids when they can turn out to be Leonard Lee? I just wanted to hug them both—together.
“They aren’t mad, Lenny, seriously. They just want you to get help.”
“NO! I can’t” he screamed and sat up. His face was drenched. “Who’s going to take care of you?”
“I’m moving home, Lenny,” she said, as I tried to disappear completely so they could talk. “Mom and dad need help at the shop.” Then she said something in another language. Chinese, I assume.
“What about the house?” He swiped at his face sending mucus and tears and sweat everywhere.
“Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about the flowers anymore,” she said.
At that, Leonard doubled over and started sobbing again. “I’m really sorry. I really am. I was crazy,” he said over and over. “I just don’t want to leave her.”
He meant me. He didn’t want to leave me.
“It’s only 90 days, Lenny,” she said. “It’ll be fine.”
“You—“ I tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come easily. “You should go, Leonard. Get well. You really should.”
He sat up and looked at me. “Will you visit me, really?”
I turned my head slightly so I could see his sister. She looked so concerned and so normal. I couldn’t fuck this up. “You can call me anytime, whenever.”
“And you’ll answer?”
I didn’t even think about it. “Yes, definitely.”
He unbuckled his seatbelt and hugged me. I felt drool and snot and goop pressing into my face. He pressed closer to get a good feel. Then I felt his sister’s hand on my back, rubbing in circles.
“Thanks, Nat,” she said. And when she said “Nat” it didn’t even sound too terrible. “You’re saving his life, Nat, really. You are.”
His parents wouldn’t let me leave without hugging me, which was nice. They both felt slight and smelled like some bland soup. Even the security guard wanted to shake my hand, which I did reluctantly. By the time I got out of there it was almost noon.
I was about a mile away from their gated community when I turned on my phone. Five messages from my too-cute co-worker.
I hit a red light and decided that it was time to make a change. I went into my phone’s contact list, clicked on Leonard Lee’s name and selected “Remove.” My phone said, “You will no longer receive calls from this number. Are you sure you want to remove?” I pressed yes and turned the thing off.
The light turned green and I accelerated. For a minute or two, my brain went totally silent. Not one thought. Not one question. For once, everything was easy.
***********
This is a new story–any feedback is appreciated.
Warning: What Eight Years of BUSH/CHENEY May Do To Your Economy
The most common side effects of BUSH/CHENEY are ill-conceived invasions of foreign countries, excessive occupations of said foriegn countries, tax cuts for the rich, wasting a long-sought-after surplus (a surplus that was really paying down slivers of our monstrous debt; a surplus AL GORE ran on preserving—remember the ‘lockbox?’), no-bid contracts for cronies, military spending unchecked by conscience or fiscal discipline, unfunded mandates on public schools, a completely bungled response to a nearly apocalyptic hurricane, the opportunity for hedge funds and private insurance companies to explode in unsustainable growth, irresponsible or lacksidasical regulation of banks, millions wasted on abstinence education, massive real estate fraud, and upset stomach. Less commonly, blurred vision, restricted civil liberties, hostility towards science, SARAH PALIN, or sensitivity to light may briefly occur.
What a Responsible Public Health Care Plan Could Mean to You
1. You can keep your current insurance—if you are lucky enough to have care you love.
2. You’ll have access to a comprehensive medical care plan that won’t reject you or inflate your rates based on who you are.
3. You’ll have a primary care physician you can select and see on an ongoing basis. This physician will provide all care including preventative care, mental health screening and dietary advice.
4. Your rates will be predictable and will only rise at or below the rate of inflation.
5. Medications will become more affordable and less tied to marketing costs.
6. Your insurance will be available to you regardless where you are working.
7. If you become extremely ill, your care will continue at costs that are manageable and fair.
8. Health care will be respected as a right—not a privilege.
9. Your children will get all the care they need at minimal cost to you.
10. Billions of dollars that private insurance companies spend trying to not insure Americans and treating preventable conditions brought on by smoking and obesity will be saved.
The Republican’s Deficit Deception: Fiscal Irresponsibility at Its Worst
The Republicans should have a Ministry of Truth to erase the history that don’t like. Instead they just blatantly lie and misrepresent the past to make their case.
As Dick Cheney has said, deficits don’t matter—except when the money is being used to create a more just, responsible society.
The fact is that the GOP purposely drove up the debt in order to prevent the government from delivering more services that help more people. They don’t believe in a government that works for anyone but businesses, banks and defense contractors, and a large debt fuels the argument that we can’t afford real change.
President Bill Clinton left this country with a SURPLUS in 2001. Of course, there was still a huge debt, but we were paying it down.
The only reason we have the debt that we do is because of the irresponsibility of George W. Bush and the Republican Congress.
Bush and Cheney cut taxes for the rich and then they cut taxes for the rich, when they were done with that they cut taxes for the rich. Just weeks after 9/11 the administration was arguing that the attack required cutting the Capital Gains taxes.
These cuts didn’t build infrastructure, fund sustainable development, keep people in their jobs or provide health care for the needy. They just lined the pockets of the top 5% of this county as this country waged war in two foreign countries. It’s unprecedented in American history and a blatant example of the irresponsibility of the Right.
Obama is trying to bring responsibility back to capitalism and create fundamental reforms that will prevent another unnecessary crisis.
Republicans can say that 2 + 2 = 5, but that doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t concerned about debt. They’re just scared to death of creating a government that actually works for people.
A Public Health Care Plan Could Save Your Life
50 million people in this country have no health care insurance.
Some can’t afford it. Some aren’t willing to pay the outrageous fees they are being charged because of a pre-existing condition or previous ailments. A few just don’t want it.
And because they don’t have insurance, they have no access to preventative care, early diagnosis or general wellness. We have no idea how much that costs us eventually in Medicare and public assistance.
But we do know about the billions the private insurance companies make and millions they spend trying to prevent covering the wrong procedures or people.
A public health care plan would change this by giving every American access to affordable health care.
Private insurance companies complain this will make it impossible for them to compete—as if their profits were more important than saving American lives.
In fact, it will help private insurers by covering the people they spend millions to not cover. And it will help small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers and the entire economy by creating jobs by relieving employers the onerous burden of providing decent health benefits.
Creating a public health care plan could save your life. Or the lives of your friends, families, fellow Americans. And we will retain our system of private insurers who will be forced to offer premium care and service.
Here’s the serious part. Our best and only chance public health care plan could die in the next few weeks.
The opponents of universal care are powerful, as powerful as the banks, those banks that’ve retained an iron grip on Congress even after causing this Great Recession.
The attacks against a public plan will be shady, targeted and smart. Really stilted TV ads are already darkening our airwaves
We need a creative aftershock to the earthquake that helped get Obama elected.
We need everyone to tell the story of health care.
You need to explain what a public plan mean to you. Tell people about your experiences being denied coverage. These stories can be personal and painful, but they are poignant and necessary.
We also need filmmakers, poets, writers and all creative sorts to tell the story of why a public plan maters to us as a people.
And we need everyone to know why NOW maters so much. Universal health care has been the goal of Democratic administrations throughout the 20th century. But the current recession reveals how important it is become a more responsible, empathetic society.
This President has the will of the people behind him.
But unless we can tell the story of why a public health care plan matters so much, the private insurance industry and their friends in the GOP will defeat a bill that could save your life.
Obama’s Answer to the Muslim World
If there was anyone out there who still doubts the importance of electing Barack Obama President of the United States, his Speech to the Muslim World is your answer.
Of course, this one gesture can’t heal his predecessor’s seven-year plan to piss off the Muslim world.
Of course, we still have to deal with the aftermath of seven-years that flaunted International Law and common decency, mostly at the expense of the Muslim world.
Of course, there are Hawks and Conservatives that will spew vitriol against any sign of empathy for any foreigner they do not deem worthy. Hawks and Conservatives who will look to Tehran and see fundamentalists as enraged and committed as they to spreading ideas through violence.
Of course, these critics will call Obama naïve—as if a political movement that despises scientific theories like evolution, that invades non-aggressive countries without conducting a meeting of the National Security Council to weigh the move, that nominates Sarah Palin to the Vice-Presidency can expect us to take their judgment on naivety seriously.
But the image of a man who would have been declared 3/5 of a man at the founding of this country standing as the President of the United States was America’s new answer to the world. And that same man poignantly advocating non-violence is proof itself to the Muslim world that anything is possible when women and minorities are given the transformational power to vote.
He didn’t condemn the feudal states that oppress their people. He didn’t ask for forgiveness for the US’s role in perpetuating the refugee crisis in Palestine. But he did present a simple way forward through fundamental respect and engagement.
If there was anyone out there who doubted if peace was better than war, George W. Bush did his best to give you his answer.
If there is anyone on earth who still hopes to live in peace, thank you for your patience. We’re de-Cheneyifying ourselves as fast as we can.
I didn’t believe in miracles — then I saw this parked a few blocks from my house.
