The Autograph

My son, Dylan, was ten when I took him to a baseball card show. Stan
Musial was scheduled to be the Guest of honor. Yeah, "The Man." Stan's
as much an icon in St. Louis as Davy Crockett is in Tennessee; a legend
in a town that takes its baseball as seriously as New Orleans its jazz,
Boston its culture or Washington D.C. its politics. Dylan and I took
our places in the long autograph line, impatient as two felons waiting
for a bureaucrat to finish filling out their parole papers. To us the
line was moving as slow as a Friday creeps toward the weekend. We were
excited though as we eagerly awaited our audience with perhaps the
greatest of all Cardinals.

As Dylan leafed through our autograph scrapbook, my thoughts sprinted
off like a hitter would at the crack of the bat, toward the first base
of adolescence; baseball and Walter Kwiecinski. Walt was my best
friend's six foot four father. He was a lean, weathered telephone pole
of a man; soft spoken, as quiet as a home dugout when its pitcher is
taking a no-hit game into the top of the ninth. The scent of
enamel and fiberglass always clung to him like an olfactory business
card; that identified him with his auto body shop as surely as a
pinstriped uniform is a hallmark of a New York Yankee.  During the
summer his repair shop would resound with the voices of Halsey Hall and
Herb Carneal, the play by play announcers of the Minnesota Twins radio
network.

Walt was a survivor of the Bataan "Death March." After the surrender at
Corregidor, the Japs marched their prisoners through the Phillippine
jungle to where they would be imprisoned. He watched many of his
comrades collapse with hunger or exhaustion only to be kicked, prodded
with a bayonet or dispatched with a bullet if they couldn't keep up
with the column. Walt always credited baseball with keeping him
alive.

"I'd try to replay all the games that I'd ever watched or listened to
in my mind," he explained. "It took my thoughts away from the hunger,
the pain, the stench of rotting jungle and the death that could spring
out suddenly at one like a howling monkey out of the jungle. It kept me from fixating on
the brutality of the Japanese guards; those callous umpires who were
deciding our fates with a toothy sneer or the butt of a rifle."

To Walt, his son Steve and I were excuses to go to a ballgame. When
we'd go to Wade Stadium, that magnificent old structure built by WPA
labor during the Depression that preceeded Walt's war, my old man would
keep a tight rein on us. If we were with Walt though, he would set us
free to roam the stands, to chase foul balls as if they were the pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow, to bother the players and to hassle the
young vendors.

They'd bellow "Ice cold pop!"

We'd holler, "tastes like slop, sugar on the bottom and water on top."

Yeah, we were proud of our ten year old wit, and Walt would let us
flaunt it as loudly as we wished to.

His eyes would rarely waver from the ballfield or his scorebook as he
watched the kids who would be Tigers, Detroit's single A franchise, the
Duluth Dukes. It can get awfully cold watching baseball on a Northern
Minnesota evening, and Walt would have a blanket wrapped around him,
trying to banish the chill with a cup of hot chocolate as he followed
the game. We kids, of course, were impervious to the cold.

We discovered that the way to Walt's wallet was to get him to reminisce
about the game that he so passionately loved;  he'd share his heroes with us
 as though they were treasured possessions.  "DiMaggio was flawless,"
he'd marvel. "Cinema perfect, caviar and Hollywood. Did you boys know
that he was married to Marilyn Monroe?  Man, it was something to watch
 him range the outfield with the grace of a gazelle."

"Then there was Ted Williams, the God of Hitting. He played
the game as though it was a war, seeing enemies everywhere, from the
pitcher's mound to the pressbox to the stands. If the good Lord ever
would have returned and reached down to pick up a ball near the mound,
Teddy Ballgame would've had the steel to pick up a bat and try to face
him down with a glare as well."

Stan Musial, though, was the most wonderful diety in Walt's baseball
pantheon.

"You kids should've seen him," Walt would exclaim with admiration.
"DiMag may have been vintage wine, and Williams champagne, but Stan was
one of us. More of a "beer and a bump" kind of guy. Before the Twins
came to Minnesota I was a Cardinal fan, and I watched him carry the
team for quite a few seasons. Old Stan, he was a three time MVP, and
had a lifetime batting average of .331. He was durable too. He holds
the National League record for games played, hits and runs. Yet, I'll
bet you could sit next to him in a bar, and I'll bet he'd shake your
hand and act as if it was HIS pleasure to meet YOU. Stan would be the
kind of guy that you'd like to have on your bowling team, or that you'd
like to go fishing with."

The Kwiecinskis were a devout Catholic family. Many was the night I
waited for Steve on their front porch while they counted their beads.
They always had to do the rosary right after supper. Now that I'm at an age
where I have a bit more insight into human frailties, I can envision
Walt's mind wandering to the diamond during that Holy time as well.

But here we were now, at "The Man's" table.
My son swapped smiles with him, then the Hall of Famer offered him his
hand, which Dylan accepted with the nonchalant aplomb of a parking
attendant taking one's keys. Watching my boy with him, I thought of how
much it would've meant to Walt to have gotten the same opportunity, to
have gotten to meet and shake hands with Stan "The Man" Musial.

Dylan picked up the autographed postcard of Musial's Hall of Fame
plaque at Cooperstown and held it up triumphantly, as though he was a
corporate raider holding the proxy vote that he needed to take control
of a rival company. As we were leaving the building he whispered "His
autograph will be worth lots of money when he dies, won't it,
Dad?"

Time to Tender an apology to Joyce Kilmer

"Trees"

Think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair
Upon whose bosom snow has lain
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

My college writing instructor, you know the type: erudite, supercilious, with a voice dripping with just a trace of a sneer. The kind of man you meet in so many professions; an insecure individual who likes to build himself up by tearing others down. A pedantic, hollow man; eloquent yet empty. This fountainhead of knowledge devoted part of a lesson to Joyce Kilmer's beloved poem, "Trees." Not to laud the virtues of the poem, of course. That would make for a boring lecture. To this molder and shaper of undergraduate minds, the poem was an object of derision. According to Professor Supercilious, "Trees" was just an example of an incompetent poet stringing together some mixed metaphors.

I can still hear him reciting it, his suave voice brimming with sarcasm.

"The tree's hungry mouth is prest
Against the Earth's sweet flowing breast."

He'd give us a sardonic little grin and sneer, "lovely image, isn't it? Now watch this. Next the tree is going to somehow manage to turn a flip that a Chinese acrobat might envy. It can manage to...

'Raise its eyes and look at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray.'

"What a neat trick," he flippantly observed. "Maybe," he suggested, "the tree has managed to turn a somersault. But no. Its mouth is still sucking the sweet milk of earth while it lifts its leafy arms to pray and yet it can stand and look at God all day. It's just a very limber tree, that's all. It's a contortionist tree."

"Next the poet gives us the ridiculous image of a tree wearing robins in her hair. What hair? The armpits maybe of the 'leafy arms' she lifts in prayer? Nothing else would seem to make any sense given what we've read of the tree's anatomy thus far." Our instructor shrugged, as though totally confused, then continued.
"Then there's the question of the tree's 'intimate' relationship with rain. 'Intimate.' What an interesting word choice." The instructor smirked, then after a pause said, "maybe we'd better not go there. "Let's address the bosom question instead."

"Joyce Kilmer, being the incomparable craftsman that he is, next gives us the image of the tree with snow on its bosom. Now where in the devil is this part of his tree's anatomy located, anyway? Somewhere, I guess, between 'its leafy arms raised up to pray' , its hairy armpits and its ground-suckling mouth. This goes beyond simple acrobatics and suggests a tree limber enough to out-contort a Hindu yoga practitioner."

We all laughed. If I remember right, our erudite instructor ended the lecture with something like.....

"His poems are read by fools like we,
But only Kilmer can screw up a tree."

Actually, he used a different word than "screw," but that's not the point. The point is...we laughed. The lecture made me feel as smug as a junior high boy who has just learned a new "dirty" joke, or has heard a secret that he shouldn't have. It made me chuckle when I'd visit my grandparents. It made me feel somehow superior to them when I'd look up and see Kilmer's poem hanging on their living room wall.

It was painted on a round varnished wood plaque. The poem's text was written just below and to the right of  the tree, as if it was sitting in the shade. It rested there like a young man enjoying a mid-day respite from plowing perhaps, or from weeding the garden.

My grandparents knew more about work than they did about literature. My grandfather was a plumber. He made his living by channeling water through or unclogging crap from pipes. You can make a successful argument that a good plumber is an artist in his own right. Having demonstrated my ineptitude at it, I know that I have more respect now for those who practice the profession than I did when I was a college student who looked down with some disdain at manual labor.

My grandmother was a beautician. She blew out a knee and a hip after years of standing behind an operator's chair, trying to transform frumpy Loretta Lockhorns into someone as glamorous as Marilyn Monroe. One can successfully argue that cosmetology is as much an art form as any profession. It certainly takes an artist's vision, dedication and skill to know what to diminish and what to enhance.

Perhaps Joyce Kilmer's poem on their wall gave them some moments of pleasure after a hard day's work. Perhaps they only had time to glance at a line or two as they walked past it, in which case the mixed metaphors that my instructor found so laughable would never have occurred to them. The attraction of the poem, no doubt, for hardworking folks such as my grandparents, was that for a few moments, at least, Joyce Kilmer's images could transport them away from the stress and the aching muscles of their lives and slip them into an idyllic woodland scene.

Certainly the poem probably brought them more pleasure than their grandkids did. My parents struggled to get by in the early years of their marriage, and needed two full-time incomes to pull themselves out of debt. Most of the debt was my fault, thanks to expenses incurred due to my premature birth. My sister and I were dumped on my mother's parents during summer vacation and whenever there were holidays during the school year.

With both of my grandparents working, as well as owning a small resort of fourteen cabins and a lodge to keep up, they didn't have much time to give to us. Ray & Gen's Cabins" had over the years been allowed to dilapidate past respectability into a rural bowery, best exemplified by the ever present bottle of Jim Beam that my grandfather kept on his worktable in the laundry building. The spartanly furnished cabins were occupied by this time mostly by alcoholic single males. My sister and I were not allowed to wander out of the area that comprised 'the cabins," and we both resented having to be there. Me especially. I kept envisioning my friends in the neighborhood getting together for a ballgame or enjoying the freedom to play in the creek or roam in the woods behind our homes.

The woods. What images that simple phrase conjures forth in one's mind.  Perhaps that's the reason "Trees" is so popular. The poem tugs at the heart, not at the intellect. We've all enjoyed the peace , beauty and solace of the forest. More people can identify with the sentiments expressed in "Trees" than with those expressed in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Not that such a comparison makes "Trees" a better poem. If one were to carry an argument like that to its illogical conclusion, Britney Spear's "Oops, I Did It Again" has more merit than "The Wasteland." No, that's absurd. T.S. Eliot has and will continue to stand the test of time as have you, Mr. Kilmer, whereas the "Pop-tart" will go through her fifteen minutes of fame quicker than a much more talented and just as self-destructive a singer, Janis Joplin, could slug down a fifth of "Southern Comfort."

Yes, Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" has given a lot of pleasure to a lot of people. In that respect Joyce Kilmer is and continues to be a well-loved poet despite what critics like Professor Supercilious do to demean his reputation. In all honesty, there's no telling what his literary career would have been had he not been killed in action in France toward the end of World War I. It was an unnecessary death. He had five children and was thirty years old. He wouldn't have had to go. He bought into the rhetoric, though, that it was "the War to End All Wars," and he felt compelled to enlist to do his part to make it so.

Mr. Kilmer, it's time to tender you an apology. Your poem, "Trees," has stood for generations like a majestic oak. Its honesty and imagery are simple enough for anyone to understand. Sure there are more erudite, more accomplished, and more learned poets out there to read, but Mr. Kilmer, your poem has managed to reach out and earn the love of an audience that normally doesn't give a damn about poetry.

 Perhaps there's a lesson in this. Until we, as writers, learn to touch the hearts of our readers as you have yours with your "Trees," we'll be lucky to pull more than a couple dozen people into a poetry reading. People want poetry that they can understand, that they can derive comfort and solace from; not verse laden to the density of lead with obscure literary and historical allusions. As for me, if I could write one poem that can move as many people as your "Trees" has, I'd consider myself a success as a writer, as you have been proven over time to be. 

I wouldn't mind having that plaque on my wall now.  Perhaps your words could transport my thoughts as well to the soul-healing beauty of a verdant forest.  At any rate, it's worth a try.

The Empty House

My father turned his back to me and watched through the living room window as the moving van pulled away with my family's possession

"How long till he gets to Monmouth?" he asked me, his usually authoritative voice softened to a whisper.

"He's got another home to load, then he'll deliver their goods first," I told him. "He says it will take about three days."

Swede nodded. His broad shoulders sagged slightly as he realized that we had nothing left to sit down on. His eyes scanned the empty house with the practical mind of a man who had spent his lifetime in the construction industry. His ability to apply textured plaster and tape sheet rock had put me through college. He always professed to be proud of his "boy." I'd always suspected, though, that he would have been happier with a son who was less bookish and more adept with a football or basketball. I'd never been much to brag about at the coffee shop on Saturday mornings. While his caffeine cronies related Homeric tales of their offspring's athletic exploits, my father had his nearsighted son and no bragging rights at all. It had to be frustrating for so gregarious a man to have nothing to contribute to the conversation.

"It's just a house now," he observed, his back toward me still as he continued to gaze out the living room picture window. "It's the people that live here and their belongings that make it a home."

"Yeah," I acknowledged. I looked out at the bleak coldness of a February landscape. The front yard was stripped as bare of foliage and color as the house had been of life. The wind was swirling shimmering flakes of frozen snow about. They skittered across the ice to find refuge in small drifts that huddled on the east edge of the driveway. It was nothing to concern myself about. The new owners could get their shovels out.

Swede winced as a loud caterwaul of outrage came from one of the two cats imprisoned in one of the empty bedrooms. "They're still pissed off at us, aren't they?" he murmured. "You know." he said, still in that strangely muted tone of voice, "they fear change too. Just as much as we do."

"Yeah," I grunted as I walked over to the kitchen sink to splash some water on my face. "Just a bit flushed from the bullwork of helping to load the van, I guess," I apologized. It felt uncomfortably warm and claustrophobic in the empty house that had been my family's home for more than a decade and had been the scene of the first six years of my son's life.

"How'd the mink cage work out that I borrowed from Chet?" Swede asked.

"I've got it partitioned into three compartments," I informed him, looking down the hall to avoid looking at his face. "I'll lay a blanket down at the bottom of each compartment. They'll be comfortable enough. I've got the sedatives from the vet, too. Hopefully they'll settle the cats down. Otherwise the ten hour trip to Monmouth will be a horrible serenade."

Another yowl erupted from the bedroom as though to assure us that the sedatives wouldn't work. That was Josephine that time," Swede asserted. "I'd recognize her voice anywhere." He walked down the hallway toward the bedroom, as though contemplating going in to attempt to reassure her. Then he shook his head and came back into the kitchen. "I'd better leave her alone," he decided aloud.

"Thanks for coming to help us pack," I told him, trying to steer his thoughts away from the agony of having to listen to the cats give voice to their uncomprehending fear.

"When are you kids leaving?" he asked.

"As soon as Nancy gets back from taking care of the last of the paperwork at the bank." I responded, although it was information that he already knew. "And as soon as we get Napoleon in."

"When he comes in I'll help you sedate all three cats," Swede volunteered. "You'll have a hell of a time doing them all by yourself."

"I've doctored them before," I reminded him. "Everything from Josie's broken pelvis to Napoleon's kidney infection."

Swede looked up at the lights on the chandelier and asked "what are you doing with the cats while the three of you are at the motel?"

"The realtor said that we could leave them at the house. It's empty anyway, and all we're waiting for is the mover to deliver our stuff. We'll be there painting and cleaning for much of thedaytime. It isn't like we'll be abandoning them, except for the nights."

Swede slid open the sliding glass door that led from the kitchen to the second story deck. I watched him through the thick glass as he called Napoleon, repeating the cat's name several times. His voice had a mournful quality to it, as though indicative of some deeper pain than just our moving a day away.

Swede stepped back into the kitchen. "Are you happy with the house that you've bought?" he
asked.

"I think so," I responded. "Time will tell." I had to suppress a bit of a chuckle. Swede had always expressed an aversion toward monstrous old houses with high ceilings and deteriorating plumbing. I knew he wouldn't be impressed with the three story old Victorian dowager that my wife and I had fallen in love with. But then, he and I had never agreed on much of anything.

We heard a scratching, clattering noise on the outside of the house. Swede and I looked at each other, both recognizing the sound. Napoleon,our old battle-scarred tabby, had always been too impatient to wait at the front door to be let in. He'd discovered that by leaping three feet he could catch a hold on the cedar siding above the exposed, stuccoed portion of the basement. Using his claws to dig into the siding as though it was a trunk of a tree, he'd pull himself up the corner of the house to the deck that protruded from the kitchen. Then he'd wait to be let in through the sliding glass door.

"That's the last time that he'll use that enterance," Swede observed sadly, looking down at the grey tabby.  My father went over to the door,slid it open, knelt down and whispered "come on in, big guy."

Napoleon, recognizing the voice that coaxed him in, rubbed up against Swede's legs as my father stroked his back. Then, tiring of the attention, he moved forward to where the kitchen table would have been. He always used the legs of the table to rub his whiskers on. Abruptly the cat stopped and looked about in evident confusion. He began to give out  a series of increasingly panicky yowls as he tried to comprehend the absence of familiar objects and scents.

"It's alright, Napoleon," Swede whispered soothingly, attempting to reassure the spooked animal by kneeling to take hold of him.

Napoleon was beyond reassurance. He eluded Swede's grasp and ran into the living room, wailing his distress at the changes in his environment. His howls were now joined by those of the two cats that
were locked in the bedroom but determined now to add their chorus to his plaintive yowls.

"Jesus Christ," marvelled Swede, shaking his head in agitated astonishment. "I've never seen anything like this ever happen before." He looked as though the cat's distress was causing him physical pain.

Napoleon let loose with another series of ear-splitting complaints. Swede winced visibly at each howl of feline anxiety.

I tried my luck at easing Napoleon's worry. Picking up the big, frightened tabby, I began to cradle him in my arms. He was quivering with fear as he panted, already exhausted by his vocal protests.

"Settle down, big guy," I whispered, gently stroking his head. I looked over at Swede and saw that he was slipping on his coat.

Napoleon gave out another mind-shattering howl.

"I've got to get out of here," my father decided, in a voice choked with helplessness. "I just can't take this anymore."

I rocked Napoleon in my arms. His pupils were wide and black, testimony to his fear. "It's alright, big guy," I assured him, stroking him gently. "Everything's going to be alright, you big old baby."

My father looked at us for a moment, then turned away from us and went downstairs to the foyer. I heard the front door open, then shut softly as he slipped away. Napoleon howled again, a meowwwwwwww that echoed mournful as taps through the emptiness of the house that was no longer a home.

Old Men Drink Scotch and Water

Malcolm MacGregor tossed his briefcase on the front passenger's seat
and glowered at the dashboard clock as he got into his car. It was
after nine p.m. already. Good Lord, he hadn't realized that the meeting
had run that late. "Those blowhards from advertising tend to run off at
the mouth as much as they tend to run over their budget," he muttered
disgustedly to himself as his car pulled out of the parking lot and
onto the frontage road. His blue Corvette eased down the frontage road,
then shot onto the expressway with a burst of speed. God, he loved his
car! It was youthful, stylish, and the women really admired it. Yeah,
it was his toy. "At least the traffic's light now," he whispered, still
angry but trying to snatch some solace from the late night meeting that
had wrought such havoc upon his normal routine. It had even deprived
him of Happy Hour at the CASTAWAY.

The CASTAWAY was one of the bars whose neon lights glow invitingly just
off the expressway. The CASTAWAY'S neon logo was a barefoot beachcomber
sitting contentedly on a sandy isle with a drink in his hand. Above him
a palm tree rose to challenge the somber ebony emptiness of the
evening.

Happy Hour had become Mac's social life. Until seven p.m. he could
drink two Coors Light for the price of one and let the pressures of his
job slide from him like soapsuds and dirt under the barrage of a warm
shower. His ex-wife, Marcia, could never understand that. Happy Hour
was his "humanizing" session, but to her it had always been a challenge
to her feminine wiles. To think that he would want to spend time in a
tavern rather than hurry home to her, upset her. Maybe she would've
been happier if he would've driven straight home and slapped her around
a bit, like so many husbands do. He'd seen so many women hanging on to
abusive husbands as though they feared by letting go they would plunge
into a bottomless abyss that would swallow their screams in an eternity
of freefalling fear.

Yeah, she hadn't liked his cattin around a bit either. She couldn't
understand that a guy had to go out and prove himself as a man on
occasions, just as he has to do at work everyday. What else could he
say? At least they hadn't made the mistake of having a kid or two
before their marraige disintegrated.

Oh well. She'd remarried soon after. "She's probably even happy," he
murmured, hoping maliciously though that she wasn't.

He was almost fifty five now. Either he was getting older or his job was
getting tougher. Some days he felt like the sullen, half-crazed bag
lady he'd see sometimes during the morning rush hour as she'd be
ramming her shopping cart forward against the flow of pedestrian
traffic. There were more and more lonely ass-dragging mornings.
Mornings he felt awash and adrift in a swiftly moving current of
humanity. Mornings he felt as confused about his own relation to the
universe as the blind man on the street corner must as he senses the
schools of people darting indifferently past him.

Yeah, he was a little past fifty. Still in good shape though if you
overlooked a little greying above his temples and the beginning of a
spare tire around his gut. "It isn't how old you are," he reminded
himself mentally. "It's how old you feel. And I can still run with the
best of them."

It was half past nine when Mac picked up the CASTAWAY'S sign in the
darkness. "No sense in confusing my car," he muttered, smiling smugly
at his wit as he pulled off the expressway and made his way into the
bar's parking lot.

"You're late, Mac," Mike, the tall, dark-haired bartender chided him,
tearing his gaze away from the gorgeous blonde co-ed with the nice rack
that he was seducing conversationally just long enough to acknowledge a
regular customer and good tipper. "I can get you two beers for Happy
Hour price yet, though."

"Thanks," Mac replied as he looked around, hoping to spot a familiar
face. Mac missed the regular crowd. This late in the evening it was all
mostly college kids with a smattering of older yuppie males who were
there sniffing after the younger "meat." Even the music had been turned
up louder. The "stop for a couple after work " crowd was gone. Glenn
Gehringer of the thick brown mustache, the flirtatious mind-set and the
acutely cynical political insights had long since found someone to go
home with. His barstool was now occupied by some pudgy-cheeked,
rodent-faced fat kid wearing a college fraternity shirt. Jake the
Laundryman had cleaned up his act and gone home, and "Chip," the
Frito-Lay driver had long since departed, taking his Viet-nam stories
home with him. Yeah, like a chameleon the CASTAWAY had put on a
different "night" face and Mac felt like his watering hole was a
stranger now rather than a friend.

Mac hunched over his two beers at the bar as if hoping to leave the
raucous crowd of college kids behind him. He studied the familiar faces
on the shelves of the bar just in front of the mirror. At least THEY
never changed. Jose Cuervo, Yukon Jack, Jim Beam, Jack Daniels. They
were all there. A constant. Just like Happy Hour. There was even a
bottle of Cutty Sark. Mac's old man liked his scotch. He called it
"chasin the skirt" when he'd stop at the bar for a scotch and water
after work. Once Mac asked his dad what he meant by that, Mac's dad, as
proud a Scot as you'd ever want to meet, whispered, "It's from Burns,
laddie. Dinna they not teach you bout him here in tha new country?" Then
he launched into a boisterous recital of "Tam O'Shanter," a poem about
a drunken Scotsman who comes upon the devil and some witches cavorting
and dancing. He's so taken by the beauty of a witch in a short outfit,
a "cutty sark" that he bellows his approval. This ill-timed
indiscretion caused the evil dancers to give him chase.

Mac managed a wan smile ashe remembered his father's rendition.
Mac wasn't much for poetry himself. No time or patience for it. Then he
remembered what Mike the bartender had said to him once after he told him
about his father andhis love of reciting Bobby Burns while in his cups. "It's the old men
who drink scotch and water," he said slyly. "We young studs, we've got
to stick to our beer."

Mac checked himself out in the mirror. By God, he looked pretty good
yet. No college punk anymore. More distinguished. Mature. Yeah, that's
it. More mature. Marcia should have stood by him for God's sake. "I'll
be she hasn't got as good as me at home right now," he wagered to
himself, comparing himself to Marcia's second husband who took delight
in ballroom dancing, oil painting and in staying home with her. Not
much of a life for a man.

Mac looked up into the mirror as the barstool beside him was occupied
and a strong scent of perfume began to seduce his nostrils. She was a
fine-looking bitch, a real stunner. Yeah, she was dressed to the hilt
too, showing enough cleavage to leave no doubt that she had substantial
"assets." Oops, she was looking in the mirror too, and she caught him
savoring those mouth-watering melons of hers. She smiled though. That
was a good sign, and then she asked him, are you here on
business?"

"No" he smiled as he turned to talk to her face to face. "Just a bit
later than usual. That's all."

She turned her barstool to sit facing him, and as she did one of her
legs brushed against him. She had long blonde hair that tumbled like a
stream of sunlight down her shoulders, and she was wearing a satin
teal-colored blouse with a black skirt that was indecently short. He
glanced down at the leg that was pressed against his, moving slightly
now in an erotic message of arousal. Then he looked up at her face.
God, she was YOUNG. So Beautiful, too.

Mac thought to himself. "I guess I've still got what it takes," as he
looked triumphantly at her. Her soft pink lips parted just enough so
that she could moisten them with her tongue. Then she whispered, "my
name's Tamara."

"Mine's Mac," he gulped. "Malcolm MacGregor." He reached for his second
beer in a desperate attempt to buy time to think of what to say next.
Mike the bartender looked over at him, smirked, and winked at him. Then
he whispered something to the blonde that he'd been hitting on and they
both glanced over at him, then laughed.

"May I buy you a drink, Tamara?" Mac asked her. May as well get down to
the basics, he thought. Man, she was gorgeous.

"I'm not here to drink," she said coyly. "I'm looking for something
else, and figure that maybe you are too." She slid her leg slowly,
languorously along his and said, "I hope we can work something out
between us."

"I've nowhere to be tonight," Mac assured her. "Do you want to leave
right now or have a drink or two first?"

"You got a couple hundred bucks on you?" Tara asked, her voice suddenly
changing to brusque and businesslike.

Mac looked at her dumbly for a moment, not comprehending at first, the
shift in the conversation. Then it dawned on him.

"You mean....you're a hooker?"

She looked at him impatiently. It was the look of frustration that you
might see a worldly sister give her naive young brother. "Yes," she
whispered. "A working girl. I ain't got time to sit and drink, Mac. Do
you want to get it on with me or not? I've got my van out in the parking lot."

"I..I've never had to pay for it before," Mac assured her, stammering
slightly.

"Well. you will me, Mac, if you want me. Do you think I'm hustling an
old guy like you for the fun of it?" She looked at him, suddenly
contemptuous. "I've got tuition coming up and a payment due on my
Mercedes. Did you really think I'd hit on you if there weren't a payday
in it for me?"

Mac pulled away from her as though she were a prophetess forecasting
the end of the world, and stumbled slightly as he rose from his
barstool and fled. He dared not look back. To think that she saw him as
an old man was a sucker-punch to his pride, his manhood and a
frightening harbinger of a decline into impotency, a nursing home,
spoonfed meals and a drool-bib.

Mac's pride forced him to drive past the CASTAWAY the next evening. He
needed a drink though, so he looked for another sign that looked
welcoming. He saw promise in a sign that read KOZY KORNER that hung
above a red brick building adorned with a faded Schlitz beer sign.

Yeah, he remembered Schlitz. "You only go round once in life, so you've
got to grab for all the gusto you can get." Yeah, that looked
promising.

Mac opened the door and was greeted by the smell of stale beer and
cigarette smoke. The long bar was scarred by burns and rings of stain,
and the interior was dark and devoid of people other than a couple of
elderly pensioners sitting with a cribbage board between them and a
husky, grey-haired stevedore of a woman bartender who sported as many
tatoos as the wrestler who calls himself The Undertaker.

"What do ya want, buddy?" she demanded.

He looked around glumly at the silent jukebox. the faded caricatures of
the Hamm's Bear behind the bar and the rows of dusty liquor bottles.

Yeah, there it was, the old Cutty Sark. Yeah, he'd chase the
skirt.

"I'll have a scotch and water, I guess." Mac sighed, as he gazed in the
dusty mirror behind the bar at the forlorn expression on his middle-aged
face.

Longing to Disappear

Ever since he was a child, Mortimer McConnell had dreamed of
disappearing. No, it wasn't that he'd carved that visible a niche for
himself in this world. Just the opposite. Surprisingly, for a tall,
hulking, big-boned young man like Mortimer, anonymity was a state that
he didn't have to work toward. He moved with the painfully awkward
uncertainty of an uncoordinated giant. Even in high school he had been
that "big, tall...you know...oh, what's his name," or worse yet,"Lurch"
a nickname given him because of his supposed resemblence to the Addams
Family's Frankenstein of a butler.

Yes, Mortimer had longed to disappear even then, to vanish in a cloud
of mystery that would banish the laughter, replacing it instead with an
aura of baffled astonishment. Like unrequited love, Mortimer's longing
to disappear gradually festered into an obsession. Every person that he
encountered was masking a sneer of contempt for him, and every set of
eyes that didn't avert their gaze from his burning glare of combative
anger was probing his mind for dark and guilty secrets.

Eve his job had become distasteful for to him. He had nothing in common
with the beer swilling, sex-obsessed losers that he worked with, and
the job itself was maddeningly repetitive. Finally he quit. He just
walked away from the receiving dock at the discount store one
afternoon, pleading illness. It wasn't a lie, he was sick to death of
humanity. Two days later he called his supervisor to let him know that
he wasn't ever coming back. A phone call was good enough. That way he
didn't have to see anyone or go through the phony amenities of goodbyes
and best wishes. You know, all that crap that you say but don't really
mean to someone whom you've worked with but don't really care
about.

He had enough money saved to last a few months, at least. Maybe longer
if he scrimped on his meals a bit, turned down the heat and only burned
one light at night. Television wasn't a temptation any longer. He'd
kicked in the picture tube in a fit of anger. It had been one of those
happy huggy people commercials that had pissed him off. You know, one
of those commercials that they crank up the sound on. This one was so
sickeningly upbeat that it had even including singing. He didn't have
to put up with that crap. Now that he'd drawn the drapes on that
annoying electric window to the world, he was truly alone. But he was
still dissatisfied.

He knew that there had to be a way to disappear. He couldn't want
anything like he wanted to disappear so badly, he reasoned, without it
being possible somehow. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise. In a world
that had cheated him of so much, he desperately hoped for fair play in
this one urgent desire.

For years Mortimer had pored through tomes of occult lore, tales of the
supernatural and old, discredited volumes of metaphysical quackery. Now
that he'd forsaken his job, he had even more time to devote to his
research. Maybe their was a nugget of truth to be extracted from those
veins of delusion. Maybe he could discover a passage that would
suddenly make things clear to him. Maybe he'd find the key that would
allow him to slip into another plane of existance and leave this
contemptable world behind.

Charles Fort, in his "Lo," and "The Book of the Damned," those wierd
compilations of bizarre and inexplicable events, had written of
individuals fortunate enough to have managed to unaccountably
vanish.

Mortimer read the mystifying account of David Lang, a farmer in
Tennessee, who stepped into a window in time, a vortex, or who knows
what. He just vanished. He disappeared in plain sight of his wife and
children while walking from their house to the barn.

Stranger yet, where he disappeared there appeared later a circle of
dead grass about fifteen feet in circumference. Several months later
his children came running frantically into the house. They said that
they heard their father's voice faintly, plaintively, calling for help.
His family listened with impotent anguish as the voice faded gradually
away into the oblivion of the lost.

Mortimer was obsessed with the case of Dorothy Arnold as well, the
debutante who disappeared in New York's Central Park in 1910. Could her
case somehow be connected with the sudden, inexpicable appearance of a
magnificent white swan in Central Park Lake? She'd written a poem
shortly before she vanished, comparing herself to one.

Living within eight blocks of Central Park, Mortimer seized upon this
area as his best hope to find a way to enter that unknown land that
lies beyond our ken. He'd always avoided the park in the past. Too many
noisy people, loving couples ad obnoxious kids. Now he wandered the
park resolutely in the twilight hours before the night, after most
people have left with the daylight. He started packing a .38 too. No
muggers, punk kids or other trash of humanity were going to stand
between him and his search.

Evidently, Mortimer decided, there are occasional rifts in the fabric
of our existance that a person can step into if he is fortunate enough
to find one. No doubt that's what had happened to Lang and Arnold, he
reasoned, althogh it must be harder to come back out of one of those
strange portals than it is to enter one. May an individual couldn't
return once he'd stepped through the rift. No problem. He didn't figure
he'd have any desire to step back into the world he knew and longed to
escape from.

After wandering the park for a couple of months, Mortimer was becoming
acutely sensitive to his surroundings. He could feel an eerie,
indecipherable presence in the area surrounding Central Park Lake. It
was something unearthly. It was a sinister force that he felt he could
almost reach out and touch. Almost. He'd found a couple of circles of
brown grass too. He was getting close. He could feel it. It would only
be a matter of time now before he could step out of this world into
that glorious unknown beyond.

"There's that crazy son of a bitch that I've been telling you about,"
whispered one of the three young thugs who were watching Mortimer from
behind some bushes, like predatory animals stalking their prey.
"He lookin for somethin?" the youngest of the three wondered
nerviously. ""Ya think he's alone? He keeps stickin his hand in his
pocket. Ya think he's packin some power?"

"He ain't lookin at nothin but the ground," the third male growled, his
voice honed to a hardened edge by inner city rage. "Let's go for
it."

The huddled behind the bushes to plot their assault. here were loud
whispers, a couple of nervous questions, then three almost simultaneous
grunts of assent. One of the figures rose from behind the bushes and
slipped away to the right.

Mortimer was oblivious to their noise and movement though. He'd seen a
shimmering flash of light off to his left, then darkness. Then
anunaccountable flash of light again. No, it wasn't fireflies. He'd
been fooled by them before. There was something strange, something
eerily different. Maybe he'd just gotten a glimpse of an enterance to a
portal.

Moving toward it, he tripped on a tree root and fell to the ground. He
cursed softly, but was more embarrassed at this confirmation of his
clumsiness than he was hurt. He had stayed in the park too long
tonight. He could hardly see the footpath, much less obstacles such as
tree roots now that he'd deviated from the sidewalk.

There it was though. There was that inexplicable flash again. It looked
like one of those lamps that you turned on with the rest of the lights
in the room off. You know, the kind of lamp that flashes multi-colored
bursts of light in a room, then goes dark so that the next display of
light will be yet more dazzling.

A lava lamp. That's what it was called.

Rapt in wonder and in hope Mortimer began to grope toward that coaxing,
shimmering beacon.

The young nervous member of the trio deliberately cracked a branch off
to Mortimer's left, then coughed loudly as he approached Mortimer,
holding his hands out to assure the stranger that no harm was
meant.

"Excuse me, Mistah. I've lost the path. Can ya point me to it,
maybe?"

"Leave me alone," Mortimer muttered bitterly, still vainly hoping for
the shimmering puzzle to return. Yes, there it was. It was only a few
yards away. Then it disappeared again.

The intruder moved between Mortimer and where the light had been.
Mortimer panicked. "Get out of my way!" he screamed at the young man as
he tried to push his way past him to head toward the light.

Suddenly an arm locked itself around Mortimer's neck from behind. He
tried to get at his gun, but now another pair on hands had grabbed his
arms and were pulling them behind him. Mortimer kicked, he wriggled; he
broke free for an instant but was pulled to the ground from behind. He
rolled away and kicked up at one of his attackers and knew that he'd
done damage. The guy had grunted in pain.

Mortimer turned to look for the lights. They were gone. By that time
two of the men had come back at him. One of them hit him a numbing blow
on the side of the head and the other tackled him from behind.

They guy that he's hurt with his kick had gotten up now. "I'll show
you, you son of a bitch." he shouted angrily.

Mortimer saw it as though it were a slow motion film; first the flash
of silver, then the lunging movement that thrust it forward at him, and
finally the impact. He felt a searing, frightening moment of intense
and overwhelming pain as his stomach took the knife to its hilt. Then
he felt it withdraw, and then re-enter his body with more murderous
fury.

As he sensed his life slowly ebbing from his body, Mortimer McConnell was
wishing for the last time in his life that he could disappear.

Wellness Training

“You’ll never guess where you’re going next week,” Harley chortled, smug in his possession of information that he knew would be as unwelcome to me as the flashing lights of a cop car would be to a hard working guy; the kind of everyday joe who had stopped for a few beers on a Friday evening and might now be looking at a DUI.

By his shit-eating grin and his mocking tone of voice, I had a pretty good idea where I

was being detailed to.  Turkey Ridge.

“The Ridge?” I moaned disgustedly.

Harley’s snicker at the grimace on my face confirmed my fear.  Just another case of “no sympathy in a packing house.”  We labor in an environment where a disability becomes

a derisive nickname, or a run-in with the law  elicits laughter instead of pity.  In fact, the

usual callous packing house response is…”Don’t come to me looking for any sympathy.

Look it up in the dictionary.  You’ll find it tucked in there somewhere between ‘shit’ and

‘syphilis.’”

“Yeah,” Harley gloated, savoring my situation as though it was a tumbler of Jack and Coke.  “You’re on the night shift, too.  You really got screwed over, dude.”

His obvious pleasure at my predicament grated on my mood, which had instantly plunged

to an anti-establishment attitude worthy of the most radical member of the Michigan
Militia.  I gave him a look of utter contempt and growled “How’s your love life, you pathetic turd?”

He walked away smiling.  His quest to find his ideal soul-mate, (I mean, we’re talking

a submissive and docile young lady with huge hooters and nymphomaniac tendencies who also just happens to be a superb cook and housekeeper) had been unsuccessful up to this point.  In fact, his latest object of adoration had recently spurned him to enter into a lesbian relationship.  Normally his lack of success with women was a sensitive subject that could plunge him into depression and morose responses of grunts and monosyllables.  It was a pretty cheap shot on my part, but it had glanced off the obese biker as though it was an arrow tipped with a rubber suction cup.  He realized that my response was just a spear thrust compared to the tac-nuke news of the Turkey Ridge detail that he had just dropped on me.

Turkey Ridge is a decrepit little river town, a community built on a swamp, a river rat sanctuary devoid enough of beauty to actually deserve to have a packing plant as its major industry.  If you walk into one of the town’s restaurants, an appetite-killing exercise in itself, you’ll soon discover that the main topics of conversation always revolve around guns and “dawgs” and women, the only variable being the order in which they’re brought up.  During my second night detail there, I finally, in exasperation, asked one of the gut-pullers what people did for entertainment in Turkey Ridge.

“Drink,” was his succinct reply.

My experiences have since proven him right.  Turkey Ridge is worse than hell; it’s a hemorrhoid on the ass of the universe.

I’m not really certain if it’s the water or just generations of inbreeding, but even the USDA inspection crew at Turkey Ridge borders on the sociopathic.  Especially the women.  Don’t take me wrong.  There are a lot of fine women working in the USDA, and Dorothy Collins is still the benchmark that I measure all slaughter inspectors by.  Turkey Ridge, however, has spawned its own unique breed of womanhood.  I mean, these charmers are just out and out “psycho-babes.”  You know the type; the “Fatal Attraction” broad on steroids and amphetamines.  Downright scary to have to work next to.

I was sitting in the break room at the Turkey Ridge plant on Monday afternoon, when Dr. Dorkman walked in.  Dr. D. is our regional supervisor.  He’s an up and coming young suck-ass with his gaze firmly fastened on one of the cushy Washington DC political jobs.  He usually doesn’t have much to say to us peons who work the line on the Kill Floor.  He’s a geek evolved to bureaucrat who has little in the line of “people skills” but who is adept at paper shuffling.  To him we’re not individuals, just Social Security numbers.  Usually this personality-deprived dweeb walks past us with his head down to avoid eye contact with us and huddles behind a locked door with our plant supervisor to go over paperwork.  Given that this is government, he’s got to make certain that the plants in his region keep a steady torrent of dead trees running smoothly into the sea of agencies in Washington.  He’s plotting his career course down this swollen stream of paper, and like so many soulless bureaucrats he’s become an adept navigator.  Like all bureaucrats on the make for a promotion, he’s as trustworthy as a crack dealer.  He no doubt wouldn’t hesitate to sell his children’s souls to Satan and his wife into white slavery if such deeds could earn him his coveted sinecure in the city on the Potomac.

Dr. Dorkman and the supervisor at the Turkey Ridge plant have a good working relationship though.  The supervisor, Dr. Asskissir, is a little Pakistani fascist who detests everything about Western civilization but the paychecks. He’s got both his hands attached firmly to the rungs of the promotion ladder as well.  Needless to say, he’s also got his lips as firmly attached to Dr. D’s ass as a Cardinal’s are to the ring of the Pope.  The first thing these two Washington wannabes do when they hook up is to lock themselves in the office for awhile to plot how to put one over on us.  We expected no good when they emerged in typical buddy-buddy form just before the night shift was to begin.

“I’ve called in three intermittents tonight,” Dr. Asskissir announced, looking to Dr. Dorkman for his approval.  “Dr. Dorkman and I will be taking you off the line, three at a time, to give you a course on Wellness Training.”

“Wellness Training,” I muttered sarcastically.  “What’s the government going to waste money trying to teach us next?  Fiscal responsibility?”

I suppose that I should know by now that I ought to keep my mouth shut.  I detest bureaucratic phonies though, and the contemplation of those two assholes attempting to shovel some bullshit government course like that at us pissed me off as much as a matador’s red cape would a bull.

Drs. Dorkman and Asskissir both poured sour looks my way, but otherwise ignored me.  It was just Vanderbilt waxing cynical again.  They’d become used to it.

I didn’t draw the first opportunity to sit in the office, slug down massive amounts of caffeine and listen to their banal presentation.  My turn would come later.  Right now I was working on the viscera table across from Jeff Paniagua, one of the intermittents, and next to “The Amazon,” one of the USDA’s most infamous “psycho babes.”  She was in a foul mood because she’d lost the draw too and now would have to wait for her Wellness Training until after supper.  Wanting to flaunt her foul mood for everyone to notice, she moved down the line away from us to sulk in silence.  The Amazon wasn’t to be trifled with when she was wearing a chip on her shoulder, which was most of the time, so her voluntary choice to shun us didn’t bother me in the least.  I mean, this is the psycho-babe who once volunteered to clean her sister-in-law’s house while she was being hospitalized after a caesarian delivery.  During the course of her housecleaning, she got it into her mind that the family’s new baby would be better off without their two cats around.  She bragged later in the office of how she thrust each of the family pets into an empty potato sack.  One at a time she carried each agitated, caterwauling sack out to the highway.  Then she’d wait for an approach of a semi.  As it neared she gleefully hurled the bag into the air in front of the oncoming truck, then took off and ran into the woods.  To have done this, not once, but twice, is an indication that I’d better be wary of this individual when she’s working with a knife next to me.  I mean, we’re obviously not talking about a mentally well-adjusted human being here.

“Where’s Lady tonight?” I asked Jeff.  “Our Lady of the Perpetual Illness” was another reason that we had to be grateful for the Government’s gender hiring quotas.  She’d earned her nickname due to the many illnesses she’s used as excuses to miss work.  From beriberi to a reaction to a brown recluse spider’s bite, to work-related mental stress, her sick leave documentation has ranged from the imaginative to downright ludicrous.  Last time I’d been in Turkey Ridge, she’d called in unable to make it to work because the oil light in her car had come on, and she didn’t have enough money to buy a quart of oil.  I was curious to find out why she was missing today.

“You mean you haven’t heard?” Jeff laughed bitterly.  “She was gone all last week.  Sounds like she’ll be gone for awhile.”

“What’s wrong with that flighty broad now?” I asked disgustedly.

“You’ve heard, of course, that’s she’s pregnant,” he began.  I nodded.  USDA employees are supposed to distance themselves from company personnel so as in theory not to compromise enforcement of the regulations.  Our Lady though, had gotten herself a bellyful of child by one of the bung-droppers.

“So,” I responded.  “She’s not due for a few months yet.”

“Let’s pretend that I’m Paul Harvey providing you with ‘The Rest of the Story’,” Jeff laughed.  “It seems that she’d scratched a winning lottery ticket, so she decided to invest in another tattoo.  Something really tasteful.  A strand of a barbed wire fence around her left tit to match the one already wrapped around her right one.”

“That’s a set of breastworks that you’d have to be one brave soldier to storm,” I observed.  “I mean, that kind of an artful image has about as much sex appeal as a pig with the dry heaves.”

I firmly believe that nothing defaces a beautiful female more than a tattoo.  It’s like spraying gang graffiti on the Venus de Milo.  Given Our Lady’s emaciated looks and Marlboro-honed voice however, the image of the tattooed breasts that I had conjured up in my mind was more gut wrenchingly repulsive than aesthetically offensive.

“Now she’s come down with hepatitis,” Jeff continued, after a short pause for effect.  “The tattoo artist’s needle was tainted, probably.” 

“Jesus Christ!”  I gasped, shuddering.  “That shit can be contagious.  Have you guys been tested yet?  How long has she been working with the product since she’s been infected?”

“Who knows,” Jeff shrugged, rolling his eyes disgustedly.  “The Little Fascist won’t tell us anything.”

"Think Doctor Dorkman knows?"

“Yeah,” Jeff replied, in the same bitter disgusted voice.  “We jumped his ass about it earlier this week and he got real defensive.  He assured us that he was aware of the problem and would handle it.”

“What has he done?”

“Far as I know… nothing.”

“Any of you guys been tested yet?”  I asked him.  “If it’s Hepatitis A, that shit can ravage your liver, your kidneys; it can even kill you.”

“As far as we know, our fearless leaders are trying to keep a lid on the problem.  Dorkman doesn’t want a story to break about a Hepatitis scare in a plant in his region.  Not only would the publicity be devastating for the plant’s potential sales, but it might possibly have an adverse effect on Dorkman’s promotion chances.  You know that’s what he’s most concerned about.”’

“I’ll bet,” I agreed.  “But if the disease spreads from the plant here, it could be his career on the line.  Especially if the word got out and he didn’t do anything about it.” 

“It’s got everyone scared,” Jeff continued, having looked over his shoulder before he commenced speaking again.  “Mike, on the day shift, he’s got a youngster with kidney problems already.  He went out and got himself inoculated after work yesterday.  He was that afraid of bringing anything home.  So did Davey Fillmore.  His wife just had a baby and when she heard about Lady, she ordered him to go to the doctor, NOW!  Lady gets to wallow at home in front of the TV while all this is brewing, which doesn’t help our morale any.”  He looked around again to make certain that none of the company employees had come within earshot, and then continued. 

“I guess we’ll just wait to see what happens,” he sighed dejectedly.  “Maybe we’ll find out more when we get our turn to do the Wellness Training.”

Our time arrived later that evening.  Jeff, the Amazon, Whitey McConnell and I were reminded that we needed to remain in the office after lunch.  I mouthed another sarcastic comment about the absurdity of the government wasting money on a “Wellness” course. 

“I’ll bet it did wonders for Ted Kennedy.”  I was ignored, as usual, so I shrugged and went over to pour myself another cup of coffee.  It was going to be a long, boring evening.

Dr. Dorkman and Dr. Asskissir came into the break room and gazed down upon us with the patronizing looks that supervisors bestow upon underlings. 

“Are you ready to learn how to live a more satisfying and healthful life?” Dr. Asskissir asked.  It was obviously the lead-in question from the teaching program.  It had the phony aura of faked spontaneity that only a clueless bureaucrat would attempt to pass off with feigned enthusiasm as his own words. 

“Before we get started, perhaps we’d better address the issue of Our Lady’s hepatitis,” Jeff Paniagua broke in abruptly. 

“It’s under control,” Dr. Dorkman insisted defensively, glaring at Jeff for daring to bring up the subject.  “It’s not the dangerous hepatitis.  None of you have anything to worry about.”

“That’s what they told the peasants during the Black Plague,” I muttered.  Then the absurdity of the scene registered in my mind and I broke in with a Monty Python routine. 

“Bring out your dead.  Bring out your dead.” 

My attempt at humor was lost on both Asskissir and Dorkman.  They looked at me as though I was a leper.

“Let’s get down to business,” Dr. Dorkman finally sighed.  “Open your notebook to page one.”

Dr. Asskissir was passing out expensive-looking binders that no doubt cost the USDA $15-$20 apiece.  Expensive clothing for a doll made of garbage, I mused to myself.  Then I spoke my next thought aloud. 

“I’ll bet one of Dubya's Texas cronies made a killing on this contract,” I observed sarcastically as I held up one of the expensive green binders.  “My God, there’s even a cassette tape in here.”

Whitey McConnell brought us back to Our Lady’s hepatitis when he asked, “As Union Rep, may I have some written assurance that we employees and that the company product are at no risk from hepatitis?”

“That’s enough,” said Dr. Dorkman sternly.  “I don’t want to hear any more speculation about a supposed hepatitis panic.”

“That’s enough,” chimed in Dr. Asskissir, attempting to sound just as authoritative.  “We have everything under control.”

“That’s what Captain Smith, the master of the Titanic said,” I observed, brandishing my wit again.  “Can we say, ‘Iceberg ahead?”

“Can we say ‘insubordination?’ countered Dr. Dorkman, looking at me in exasperation.  “Dr. Asskissir and I have a course to teach.”

I mouthed an obscenity under my breath that addressed his relationship with his mother,

 but I realized that I’d pushed the two sanctimonious assholes to the limit of their patience.  Recognizing my silence as submission to their authority, the Gods condescended to smile upon us peasants again.

“Now, as Dr. Dorkman suggested a few moments ago, let’s turn to page one in our Wellness Training manual,” Dr. Asskissir intoned in his irritatingly officious voice.  “How you choose to live your life and what hazards and abuses you choose to subject your body to can drastically alter your physical and mental well-being.”

He paused…. for dramatic effect I assume; then resumed reading from his handbook.  “Let’s start with Chapter One.  ‘Coping with Stress in the Workplace.’”

The Clumsy Elf

"Tell us a story, Aquamarine," the young elvlings pleaded, pulling at the forest green tunic of the short, ungainly elf. He smiled, shrugged his muscular shoulders in resigned amusement, and putting an arm around the shoulder of the most insistant youngster, he escorted the children to a stone bench wreathed in ivy. Gently, almost reverently, he pushed away enough of the persistant vine to clear himself a place to sit. Good. Now he was ready to accommodate his eager audience.

He took a deep breath and gazed upward at the canopy of leaves that the Gathering Oak had spread to shield the elven glade from the noonday sun. The gently moving branches filtered light down upon them in an ever-changing kaeidoscope of shadow and light which played upon the beaming faces of the golden-haired children. He stroked the stubble left on his chin by an indifferent morning shave and smiled. Yes, he was ready to begin.

"You've all heard the stories, even some of mine, about Mored Gore the evil mage, and of the alliance between Farendane Sycamore the Elven hero and Grim Stonehewer the Dwarven King. Together they drove the evil from the land," he explained, telling the children history that he knew that they'd already been taught. "What happened next? Rose-Petal?" he asked a young girl whose bored expression let him know as only precocious children can that "this was stuff everybody had already heard."

"King Farendane and Grim Stonehewer both wanted the mage's scepter as a battle trophy, unaware that the wily wizard had bestowed it with a curse of discord. Both Kings suspected each other of stealing it. King Farendane set up a barricade walling off the road that led into the forest, and old Grim had a stone wall built around the mountain where the mage had built his tower and each forbade the other or his subjects to enter the other's country until the scepter was returned."

"What happened to the scepter?" asked Wilhemina Wildflower.

"Everybody knows that!" boasted Rose-Petal, annoyed that her explaination had been interrupted. That evil old wizard, Mored Gore, had planted a spell on it, causing it to vanish into another dimension."

"Thank you, Rose-Petal," Aquamarine whispered, "you're right. This is history that's been written for everyone to learn. Listen closely though and I'll tell you a story that you've never heard before. Let me tell you the tale of Blood Stonehewer."

"Who is he?" demanded Rose-Petal petulantly, as though offended that this was knowledge that she didn't already possess.

The other children took pleasure in hushing her with whispered warnings and fingers to their lips. Two adult elves standing to the rear of the crowd of children smiled, their feline faces smug in their knowledge of the tale about to be told.

"Blood Stonehewer was the youngest son of Grim the dwarvish King. Ever since the falling out Old Grim and his clan had dug deep into the Wizard's mountain, both seeking riches and fortifying it against their elvish foes. Old Grim had christened his son "Blood" in the hope that his birth in the month of the dwarf God of War would be the harbinger of a warrior king born to lead the dwarves to glory on the battlefield."

The storyteller laughed uncomfortably, then looked about and took a deep breath, savoring the scent of the pungent pines.

"Blood was a disappointment to old Grim though. The din of steel upon steel and the discipline of the drills that led to skill with an axe bored him, and young Blood would often be found in the library instead. The old scrolls which talked of a world of liquid called a sea, especially fascinated him. He was almost seventeen and had never set foot in the daylight world beyond the walls surrounding the Wizard's mountain, but oh, his imagination had fled to those lands of story countless times.

Old Grim would come looking for him, his eyes flashing like the coals used to heat the forge in the armory.
"What the fiery hell are you doing down here?' he'd demand, his jaw firm as his grip upon his axehandle.

"I like the smell of old books," Blood would defend himself sheepishly. "They smell friendly, like wise old guides in tired leather inviting you to join them on exciting quests to exotic places. They don't smell damp and musty like the cold clammy walls of our tunnel homes. How can you call something a home that feels like a lizard's skin and beckons arthritis in your joints?"

"Enough!" Old Grim finally roared one evening. "You want an exotic quest, I'll give you one. You can come with us tonight on our wood-stealing expedition."

Another wood-stealing expedition. Blood's heart sank. Over the years the dwarves had stripped the mountain of all the trees on it. Now they would occasionally leave the mines to enter the forest at night, when the black of night would wrap them in its cloak and the damp of the dew would give the forest a less threatening, foreign feeling. They would fall a tree or two, limb it, then wrap chains around its trunk and drag it back behind their mountain barricade to be devoured by arms wielding axes like teeth to chew it into items that couldn't be made with stone. At night the dwarves were safe from the dreaded elvish longbows, but it was hard, backbreaking work. In the night stones and roots would lay in wait like little goblins to trip up unwary dwarves. Blood's face must have mirrored his unhappiness.

"You'll come with us and you'll like it, " Grim growled as he walked away.

At midnight the dwarves met at the barricade and then followed Old Grim out into the night. The smells of the forest reached out to intimidate Blood's nostrils with their strangeness.The screeching communication of the forest night creatures sounded menacing as a horde of orcish marauders. Warily Blood tried to peer through the darkness. Limbs became writhing serpents and boulders trolls poised to spring. Blood looked about him in frightened fascination. The rest of the dwarves moved down the trail, stolidly unaware of anything but their mission. A stumble, a grunt or a curse was all the noise Blood would ever hear from them. They set an experienced pace though, and soon Blood found himself lagging behind.

Running to catch up with the group he felt something grab his foot. Tumbling forward, he felt his head strike something hard. He felt himself tumbling for a moment before unconsiousness engulfed him.

"That damn kid probably turned around and went back to the caverns," Grim grumbled, disgusted with his son. "Wrap your chains around this trunk and put your backs into it. We've got lots of work to get done before light comes and brings those accursed elves down upon us."

Blood awoke with a frightened start. His forehead was throbbing and a trickle of blood had run down into his right eye, clotting there, but he wiped it away and saw now what had happened. Daylight showed him the root that had tripped him up as he climbed out of the gully that ran adjacent to one side of the trail. Daylight! By Gore's scepter, the elves may be about!  I'd better make tracks back to the mountain," the dwarve resolved, with a worried look about him.

Thoughts of elves fled from his mind as he became aware of the beauty of the forest. There is no damp here, he thought. The sun's rays drive it away. Red berries hung like rubies from thorny bushes along the trail. Blood tasted one; they were better than rubies; they were giving instead of hard and both smelled and tasted sweetly tart. He picked berries slowly, savoring each ones flavor and admiring the brilliant sunlight as it shattered through the leaves above him. Its golden warmth made the pile of rocks in the dwarves' treasure chamber pale to insignificance. Now Blood noticed the delicate white flowers that were scattered like strewn pearls along the trail. He knelt to learn if they too had a fragrance.

"Watch me split his shoulder blades with an arrow," whispered the younger of the two elvish scouts who had been watching Blood since he had crawled up from the gulley.

"Patience you fool!" the elder scout hissed. "You can pick him off at anytime. Let's see what he's up to." He shook his head disgustedly at his young partner's impetuosity. He watched from the corner of his eye as the young elf beside him smiled with the pleasure of an avenging spirit who finally has his enemy ready to topple to destruction.

Blood moved closer to them, but they were securely hidden from view. By this time the trail had come to a field, scarred only along the path where the dwarves had dragged their trees the night before. Along the other side of the trail long golden grasses moved in the breeze. Caught up in the peace of the surroundings, Blood walked into the billowing grasses and laid down to bask in their scent and watch the clouds. They looked friendlier in the daylight, having shed the looming dark menace of night. Still groggy from his knock on the head, Blood soon fell asleep.

"What's going on?" an imperial voice demanded of the two elvish scouts who had sent a runner back to the clan of the Gathering Oak to summon him.

The two elves saluted King Farendane. Then the younger one blurted out, "There's a dwarf skulking about in the field."

"In daylight?" Farendane questioned, his brow wrinkling as his mind tried to ferret out an explanation for this unusual behavior.

Meanwhile, King Grim had searched for his son; then all the dwarves had joined him in combing the mountain. Finally deducing that he had to have been lost during the night, the dwarvish warriors donned their armor and joined their king to search for his son in the forest.

A roaming scout ran breathlessly up to King Farendane. "The dwarves are on the move," he alerted his king. "I've taken the liberty of alerting the folk guarding the Gathering Oak community."

"Good," King Farendane commended him. "You wear initiative well. We'll meet them here. Take your positions on this side of the clearing. We'll drive them back 'neath a hail of arrows."

The elvish troops gather round the clearing. Soon they could hear the murmur of dwarves and the clanging of their armor as they approached. Old Grim was calling for his son. A sense of urgency had found its way into his voice now, as his son still hadn't answered his increasingly louder bellows.

The noise of the approaching dwarves awoke young Blood, who had sank back into the healing sleep that his throbbing head demanded. Rubbing his still tender bump, he stood up and managed a weak reply.

"I'm over here."

The young bowman next to King Farendane notched his arrow and pulled back the string. It was time to kill the lone dwarf in the field before his companions arrived.

The King silently laid his head on the bowman's shoulder. "Hold," he whispered. "This doesn't look like a raiding party. Stay silent and hold your fire. Let's learn what they're about."

"There's Grim Stonehewer," the elder scout next to King Farendane observed, as the fierce dwarf chieftain ambled into the clearing. King Farendane's jaw tightened, but he gave no further orders.

Blood walked unsteadily to his father who embraced him with relief. As though ashamed by this display of emotion, King Grim stepped back, looked at his son, and grunted. "What the hell happened to your head?" he demanded. "Some elf crack your skull?"

"I tripped last night," Blood confessed with embarrassment.

"You worried the hell out of us," Old Grim grumbled. "Come on. Let's go home."

The thought of returning to the damp, claustrophobic mines sent the shudder through the mind of the young dwarf. He took a deep breath, watching a monarch butterfly flutter above the long golden grass and spotting an eagle soaring off in the distance, perhaps to the shores of the sounding sea of topaz hue. To go back into a hole, like a serpent slithering back into its den of blackness. No. He wouldn't do that again.

"Take a look around you, father," he pleaded. "Look at the beauty of the green leaves climbing toward the sky. Smell the freshness that envelopes you. Can't you feel the openness, the freedom that beckons you? How could you ever give this up to live in some holes in a mountain?"

King Farendane, listening to the young man's impassioned speech, nodded approvingly. This young man wasn't your typical dwarf.  Good thing we didn't shoot him.

"You know what happened," Grim growled angrily. "Farendane stole the scepter of Gore. By rights that belonged to me!"

"So you gave all this up in a petulant fit," Blood confronted him bitterly. "Sure makes a hell of a lot of sense to me."

King Grim, stung by his son throwing profanity back into his face, growled, "I won't live in the same land as a thieving elf."

Farendane, King of the Elves, stepped from the forest into sight. "I didn't steal the scepter, Grim," he spoke, controlling his anger with a great deal of effort. "I'll wager that you carried it off into your mountain hoard."

"I'm no thief," Grim growled, looking about hte elves who ringed the clearing, their bows at the ready. Three dwarves stepped up to protect their chief with their shields. The dwarves behind them knelt and put up their shields to use as a defense against a rain of arrows as well.

"Lower your weapons," Farendane ordered. "I can see you that you didn't come here today to pick a quarrel with us.  Let's have no bloodshed today."

Appreciating the generosity of his foe and appreciating that he was letting him extract his forces from a tactically disadvantageous position, Old Grim was man enough to acknowledge the debt.

"Thank you for your courtesy, King Farendane of the Elves," Grim said in a gruff but subdued voice. He stepped forward to shake the warrior's hand.

King Farendane advanced to meet him. As their hands clasped the ground beneath them shimmered for an instant, and suddenly at their feet lay the scepter of Gore. The simple act of their handshake had broken the old wizard's spell of discord.

"So you didn't have it!" both men exclaimed, both astonished at the innocence of their foe. Both men looked at the scepter covetously for several moments. Blood Stonehewer finally spoke before either leader could do or say something that would spoil the moment.

"Let this be a moment of reconciliation," he urged. "If it meets Lord Farendane's approval, I would like to purchase the scepter for my father by giving myself as hostage to the elves for the remainder of my days. I can aid you with stonework and I can fill your scholar's scrolls with tales of dwarish lore.

King Farendane had heard the young dwarve's exchange with his father.  It rang to him as sincere as a thunderclap presaging a storm. "I'll go you one better," he smiled. "You're from this moment a free citizen of the Gathering Oak Community, should Lord Grim agree to let you come join us."

The clumsy elf grinned. The youngsters were beginning to guess the end of his story already. It was time to tie his tale together.

"The scepter lays under a monument showing Grim Stonehewer and Farendane Sycamore shaking hands. The statue is ringed by a grove of maples which flame a bright red in the autumn. Hopefully that's the closest thing to the color of blood that you youngsters will ever have to see." He paused.

"Oh yeah. "Blood" isn't much of a name for an elf, is it?" Rose-Petal raised her slender hand to offer to finish the story, but Aquamarine wanted to wrap this one up himself.

"The month of the Dwarven God of War has another birthstone besides the bloodstone. One that evokes an image of blue seas under a sky of billowing white clouds. Can anyone tell me the name of that stone?"

The children shouted the answer, each happily trying to be heard over the others.

Smiling, Aquamarine waved them off, then stood up and stretched. The Gathering Oak was his home now, but next week he would be going back to the mountain to visit his father. Old Grim would be glad to see him, and glad to see Farendane Sycamore as well, who would accompany him on the journey. The two old warriors would swap tales of ancient battles and toast each other to a mellow torpid contentment., while the dwarve who'd found his niche as a clumsy elf would sit back in a corner, listen, and smile with a feeling of belonging.

Emma Goldman's Siren Song

The evening had been well-advertised.

September 3rd, 1901
8pm at the Labor Temple

Emma Goldman
Political thinker and philospher

Will give a talk entitled...
"Freeing One's Self from the Chains of Injustice"

Now, however, it looked as though she wouldn't be allowed to speak.

"Inciting Revolution successfully can be an art form in itself," Emma mused dispassionately as she watched two of New York's finest shove their way up to the podium to pull her away from it.

The first cop, a burly, bull-necked tough whose breath smelled of whiskey, grabbed one of her wrists and snarled, "we don't want your kind here, you anarchist bitch."

The other, a swarthy little man who reeked of garlic, wrenched her other arm roughly, but the physical discomfort didn't bother her near as much as having to watch the distressed looks of concern on her supporter's faces as they vented their impotent anger.

Yet she felt strangely detached from it all, as though she was an actress who had just played out her death scene and was now awaiting the curtain call and an opportunity to take her bows. The authorities had drawn the heavy velvet curtain of censorship on her evening performance, but at least the leaflets had been distributed. Maybe the written word could incite someone to action. After all, hadn't her own beloved "Sasha" put his life on the line. He'd attempted to assassinate that Capitalist whore Frick after that despicable manager of the Homestead Plant had called in the Pinkertons to put down a work-stoppage. Several of the strikers had been murdered.

Both she and Sasha had felt that their deaths merited vengence. Sasha proved to be a better lover than an assassin, though, and Frick survived his attempt to kill him. Now Sasha was languishing in a prison cell. Despite his failure, she still believed in "The Attentat;" the use of a targeted act of violence to inspire political and social change. She'd written in the tracts that she'd prepared for today.....

"No real social change has been brought about without Revolution.
Revolution is but thought carried into action."

She'd also quoted from THE ALARM in the leaflets that had been distributed.....

"From thought to action is not far, and when the worker has seen
the chains, he need but look a little closer to find near at hand, the
sledge with which to shatter every link. That Sledge is Dynamite."

She'd written the words that she'd delivered with such passion in an earlier address, an address that earned her a stint in jail. The thought of that experience still angered her. Imagine. Jailed simply for exercising one's right of free speech. Not in some European monarchy, but in America, the "land of liberty."

"Workingmen - I call upon you. Arm yourselves. Demonstrate
before the palaces of the rich. Demand work. If they do not give
you work; demand bread. If they deny you both, take bread. It is
your sacred right."

Maybe her words would reach one soul. Maybe they'd kindle a spark. She's written once that......

"Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds.
They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world."

She sighed as the minions of authority led her away. It was about what she'd expected. "The most unpardonable sin one can commit in a regulated society is independence of thought." Suddenly she allowed a wry smile to momentarily soften her stern, outraged features. How vain and ludicrous it was of her to be thinking of words that she had written in the past when the government had stifled her attempts to speak this evening. The law had silenced her tonight. But maybe, just maybe, a man: a warrior-poet, a working-class hero had been moved by the power of the words in the leaflets that had been distributed.

Leon Czolgosz read through the leaflet again and scowled. Emma had written....

"It is organized violence at the top which begets
Individual violence at the bottom. It is one's accumulated
indignation against organized wrong, organized crime,
organized injustice which drives the individual act."

His mind was listening to the seductive song of the Lorelei of the Anarchists. Her words moved him.  He reflected back upon the last two Presidential elections and frowned. The rich had pulled out all the stops to insure McKinley's election, even going so far as threatening to close the doors of their businesses if that radical, Bryan, was elected. They poured plenty of money into McKinley's re-election campaign as well. People who wouldn't give a loaf of bread to a starving child would donate plenty of money to ensure that they could keep grinding their heels in the workingman's face. What a fraud the election had been upon the people. Emma had been right when she'd written that "if voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

He had tried writing a poem to express his disgust with the election, but other than the refrain, he'd been dissatisfied with it.

"Hearst's press had used threats, intimidation and lyin
To steal the election for McKinley from Bryan.
So, cast your ballot with a bullet;
You've got the power in your hand.
Feel the power? Now just pull it
To make some changes in your land."

He glowered at his bowl of watery soup, with the neck bone that he'd had to boil for the second time. He looked in dismay at the battered furniture in his tiny apartment. Then he thought of McKinley who drinks good wine with his meals; wine that is served to him in silver goblets. Just a businessman's tool whose pockets are lined with Wall Street and railroad tribute, that's all he is. A Judas, fingering his silver as he watches the poor being crucified upon crosses of gold. The pale, intense young man in the shabby apartment thought it a crime.

"It is not right that we have so little," he shouted, pounding his fists on the table, ":and one man have such riches and influence."

At that moment Leon Czolgosz envisioned himself a hero; a catalyst, a righter of wrongs, a changer of history.

"Cast your ballot with a bullet;
You've got the power in your hand.
Feel that trigger? Now just pull it
To make some changes in your land."

Emma's lips were set in a grim frown as they led her away. Revolution was rampant in Europe. The crowned dinosaurs were huddling together in fear. In Russia the Czar was no longer being followed in blind obedience. It wouldn't be long until he would be toppled from his throne.

In the United States, though, it was hard to arouse any interest in the movement. Labor unions were being broken; Union leaders were being jailed on trumped-up charges, and in some cases, like those of the Haymarket heroes, even executed.  That travesty of a trial had given the movement martyrs to venerate.

But the country was strong; dynamic as a young man flush with health and confidence. It was a world power now, fresh off a victory in a one-sided quarrel against the doddering old Spanish Empire; a flex of expansionist muscles that William Randolph Hearst had christened "A Splendid Little War." Her message seemed to bear as little hope of bearing fruit as apple seeds would if sown into New York sewers.

In New York, though, a pale, intense young man had just purchased a pistol and a ticket to Buffalo. He had a rendezvous with a President.

"Cast your ballot with a bullet;
You've got the power in your hand.
Feel that trigger? Now just pull it
To make some changes in your land."