Home: 15

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Expect nothing, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

March 1982

 
"You're up late." Kathy had come out of the bedroom and was now standing behind me as I sat on the couch. I liked the pressure of her hands on my shoulders.
"Not up late--couldn't sleep."
She sat next to me. "Everything okay?"
I nodded. We'd been married for just two months, and she had yet to become used to my chronic insomnia.
"You hungry?"
"Not any more. I had two bowls of ice cream. Now I just feel crappy."
She pointed at the book on my lap. "What are you reading?"
"Kafka."
"That'll cheer you up."
I laughed. "Who wants to be happy when they can't sleep? It's a time to revel in misery."
We sat there, and she leaned into me. "I'm sorry you had to get out of bed," I said. "You didn't have to. You know I can't go far if I try to escape." I raised my half-leg.
"Oh, I've seen you hop," Kathy said. "You're pretty good at pogo-sticking around."
That made me feel good, relaxed. Kathy was relaxed, too, and I could tell by her breathing that she was dozing off. "Kathy."
"What?" she whispered.
"Let's go back to bed."
"Can you sleep now?"
"I think so."
"Okay. I'll race you."
In bed, Kathy was asleep again almost immediately. I lay on my side, facing her, watching as her breasts rose and fell with her breathing.

Intermission #2

What follows is additional commentary on the work of fiction (Home). This is mainly filler because there isn't much else going on, fiction-wise.



Fiction-wise, there are parts in my head--a mental exercise in laying the foundation for whatever will follow. But some things away from the story--a couple of them not pleasant--have transpired over the last couple of months, and they have proven to be lingering distractions.

Heeding my own advice, I've begun keeping notes about who the characters are and when certain events take place. I've also begun adding the separate Intenet parts to a Microsoft Word document that I can print, append, and annotate. I should also retrieve one of my many blank notebooks so I can capture random thoughts about everyone and everything.

I'm up to, what, 14 segments now? I actually started a 15th but decided part-way through that it wasn't working. 

What's missing from the creative process is silence. Not the after-the-tv-is-turned-off-before-bedtime quiet but extended silence. Unfortunately, extended silence is and will be hard to come by. 

More fiction to come, I promise.

Home: Part 14

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Expect nothing, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

June 1958

 
"Like this," my father said. He pinched the worm in half with his thumb and forefinger, then slid one half onto the hook end first. "Run it up to the top of the hook, and cover the barb." He handed me the other half.
"Does it hurt them?" I asked.
"Nope."
I pushed the hook into the worm.
"Now, all the way up. You want to cover the entire hook. Good," he said. "Rinse your fingers off."
I reached my hand into the water and washed the blood off my skin.
The pond was small, not far from our house. It was full of sunfish and bluegill. We were using bamboo poles with filament tied to the tip. My father adjusted the bobber on my line. "Toss it in."
The round bobber floated not far from shore. 
"How's your leg?"
"It's fine," I said. 
"Let me know when you get hungry. I packed sandwiches for lunch, and your mom threw in some cookies." He reached into the waxed canvas satchel he'd packed everything in. He filled two cups with coffee and handed me one. "Here," he said.
I took the cup and looked into it. "I've never had coffee."
"No? Well, let's hope it doesn't kill you. Don't tell your mother, okay? She'll be worried that it'll stunt your growth."
I considered that. "Will it?"
"What--kill you?" He smiled.
"No. Stunt my growth."
"You'll be fine," he said. "As tall as anyone else, I'd say."
It was rare for my father not to work on Saturdays. It was the one day he got paid overtime, what he called "my beer and fun money." School had been out for just a couple of weeks, and I was still getting into summer's rhythm. The sun was low behind us, and the water was calm. The coffee was dark and bitter, but I sipped in anyway. My father sat in the grass and drank from his own cup, smacking his lips in a way that I knew my mother would disapprove of. He had yet to put his line in the water, so I watched my bobber and waited.

Home: Part 13

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1982

 
The rain began the day after our wedding, and it continued for two weeks. Our small apartment often seemed more like a cave than a home: dark, musty. It was only during this type of weather that my leg sometimes bothered me, though neither I nor anyone else could explain why. My parents and assorted doctors attributed it to "growing pains" when I was young. "There's nothing there to grow," I once said to my father after one visit to a doctor.

"Maybe you're dancing too much when I'm not home," Kathy said one night as we ate dinner at a small Formica table beside the window in the kitchen. 

"Yes, dancing," I said. "Mrs. Miller would love that, wouldn't she?" Mrs. Miller, who lived in the apartment beneath us, seemed especially sensitive to even the slightest of sounds or vibrations above her. After she complained numerous times to our patient landlord, Mr. Baxter, Kathy and I had learned to be as soft-footed as we possibly could. "She's been here a long time," Mr. Baxter told us.

"It's my fault, you know," my father told me after I'd gotten fitted for a new prosthetic. We were driving home from the clinic. It must have been early spring, because I remember that the snow on the ground seemed tired of being there: dirty, crusty on top, melting at the bottom.

"What is?" I asked.

"The leg."

"Your fault?"

"My genetics. Or my bad ones. Bad genes. My dad's brother, your great uncle Rick, had a left hand that was little more than a claw. From birth."

I had never considered actually blaming anyone for my leg, though I was getting to an age when I felt like I wanted to blame someone. Maybe my dad foresaw that and felt like he had to say something. Years later I would feel my own guilt as I thought of how he must have carried that burden.

"It's just half a leg," I said. "I've been okay without it."

So, during those two weeks of rain, I limped more than usual. Kathy would massage my thigh hoping to help. "You're strong to put up with this," she said as we lay in bed.

"No," I said. "I am not strong. I'm just used to it."

"I think you are strong. You've put up with this for a long time. I'm sure it wasn't always easy."

"My parents didn't coddle me," I said. "They mocked me when I complained. They threw things at me when I fell down. My sister would hide my crutches when I was bouncing around on one."

Kathy laughed. Even in the dark apartment I thought I could see her eyes as we listened to the rain's tattoo. "You have such a cruel family!"

"Assholes, each and every one of them," I said. "But I forgive them now. I'm a better man."

"You're a fucking saint!" she said.

And we lay there in the darkness, and the rain continued.

Home: Part 12

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1982

 
On our wedding night, which we spent in a Radisson Hotel, Kathy and celebrated with room service and small bottles of liquor taken from the room's courtesy bar. "This is for getting married," Kathy said as she handed me the bottle of Smirnoff. "And the Jim Beam is for my birthday. I'll drink this." It was a simple celebration. I liked that about her: a tendency toward understatement. We lay in bed and kept the television on all night, though at some point all we could watch was visual static or test patterns. 

In the morning: a Continental breakfast that Kathy had ordered while I was still asleep. I awoke to her sitting on the side of the bed. She was staring down at me, smiling.

"You're pretty when you sleep," she said.

"Pretty?"

"Yeah. Pretty." She kissed me.

I liked looking at her and thought I could do it forever. Her eyes, what had first attracted me to her, were almost gray and perfectly symmetrical. "I'm not sure I want to be 'pretty.'"

"Oh, men can be pretty. Sit up." She handed me a cup of coffee after I'd arranged the pillows as a backrest. "Don't spill. It's hot."

"I like being spoiled," I said. The cup was close enough to my bare chest that I could feel the coffee's warmth.

She lifted her own cup and touched it against mine. "To us," she said.
"To us."

Home: Part 11

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1958 

My father hit my mother only once, as far as I know. He didn't drink, but he was prone to brooding silences that occasionally ended just at the edge of violence. With me, over the course of my youth he crossed that edge more often than I ever revealed. 

Superman ended just before dinner time, just after my father returned home from the Sears Roebuck where he was currently in charge of major appliances. He enjoyed his job, I always believed, and he seemed to enjoy taking me to work with him on weekends when he went in early to "get things in order." At the table that night, though, he was happy about nothing: not the casserole, not the biscuits, not the canned green beans. Cindy and I sat on one side of the table, our parents on the other. Tiger was under the table, and my father kicked at the dog with enough force that Tiger cried out and scrambled out of the room. 

"That's nice," my mother said without emotion.

My father didn't say a word. I saw his arm flash out, the fork slipping from his fingers and clanging against the wall. Then, the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and something connecting with something less hard. My mother's head jerked back, and she made a sound not unlike Tiger's when my father had kicked him. I didn't know what to do. Beneath the table, Cindy's hand squeezed my knee. My mother's upper lip had started to drip blood, and she blinked her eyes as if to make sense of it all. My father's hand was now a fist, and he looked down at it where it lay on the table. My mother reached into her mouth and pulled out half of a tooth. She set it on my father's plate, wiped her mouth with a napkin, then rose from her chair and left the room.

I suppose it was a time when men thought they could--or maybe actually should--do such things without fear. They could kick dogs, they could hit women, and who even in such a small town would care? The neighbors and friends would know, but nobody who really mattered.

"Finish eating," my father said. "Your mother works hard feeding you two."

For years afterward, whenever my parents argued, I sensed that my father had become afraid--not of my mother, but of what he might do. If voices became loud, my mother would raise her upper lip to display what he had done, perhaps mocking him or daring him to strike again. He was always the first to back away from the argument, throwing up his hands and announcing, "I guess that's just the way it is, then."

Sleepless in bed that night I listened to Tiger whimper and snore, and I wondered what world he was in. My bed was just beneath the window, and toward dawn I finally rested my chin on the sill. I could smell snow. Tiger bit at his paw, then lay beside me and put his head beside mine. He must have smelled more than snow. I heard footsteps in the hallway: my father getting ready to leave for work. A few minutes later I watched as he dusted light snow off the car, then backed slowly into the street and turned toward the highway. The car's tires crunched against deeper snow. When he was out of view, I closed the window and settled into my bed. My palm hurt where half of my mother's tooth pressed into my skin.

Home: Part 10

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

July 1974

 
I awoke. For a moment I did not remember that I was inside the airplane. My forehead was wet with perspiration, and I caught vestiges of a dream in which I was lost in Subic City, trying to find my way back to the hotel before curfew as the traffic closed in around me. I settled in my seat. Through the window I could see little more than darkness and the lights on the wing. 

I thought about Narcie. I had told her that I would return soon, and that I would find her somehow. I suddenly was not convinced that I'd been lying to her. She had heard lies from many men before, so she probably knew better than I did about what about me was true. 

Unbuckling my seat-belt, I slid out of my row of seats and stood. Nearly everyone on the plane seemed to be sleeping. Inside the lavatory I wiped my forehead and face with a damp paper towel and stood with my eyes closed for a moment as my legs adjusted to the plane's motion. When I got back to my seat, I closed my eyes and tried unsuccessfully to relax into sleep. When I had changed planes in Honolulu, I had sat at the bar for nearly two hours after getting through Customs. From the table I had found a seat near a window, I could see planes landing and lifting off, and for a brief moment considered not boarding my flight to San Francisco but instead staying in Hawaii for a while. I have always been somewhat prone to loneliness, even among friends and family, and the fatigue of travel often exacerbated the feeling. There were, really, few reasons to head home, and the sequence of martinis I was enjoying at the bar made things that much worse.

Now, somewhere over the Pacific between Hawaii and California, I leaned my head against the plane's bulkhead and stared out the window. Someone a few rows ahead of me snored softly. A stewardess stopped in the aisle. "Do you need anything, Sir?" she asked. 

I liked her well-trained smile. "Perhaps some water, please," I said.

"I'll be right back." She headed toward the rear of the plane. When she returned, she handed me a cup of cool water.

"Thank-you," I said.

"My pleasure." Then she was gone, walking away from me.

Intermission

What follows is commentary on the work of fiction (Home). This is mainly filler because there isn't much else going on, fiction-wise.



So far, in nine segments, Home is proving to be a challenge and is perhaps a bit too ambitious for someone of my abilities. As usual--and to the detriment of the work itself, I believe--I have worked without either a plan or a net. Spread out over the decades, the story is still trying to figure out where it is going and how it will end. The characters, too, are trying to find how they fit in and who they are. In the latest segment, which takes place on Thanksgiving Day, a few characters introduce themselves, and the relevance of the ending (dialogue, really) started to become clear to me a few days after those sentences were written, while I was riding my bike somewhere I didn't have to worry about navigating through traffic. They were actually written when I was alone in the silence of a cabin in Northern California, where silence is both good and welcome.

The way the work's timeline is developing, though, makes me realize that I'm going to have to start keeping notes not only about what's been written, but what will be written. Rather than developing literary flashbacks, I'm trying to keep each storyline simply play out across time until they finally come together at the end. 

More intermissions to follow, I'm sure.

Home: Part 9

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

November 1976

Thanksgiving. Cindy and her husband Ron traditionally opened their home to whoever wanted to eat and drink well. They lived in what amounted to a large cabin in central Oregon, five acres of hills and pine trees. Cindy was a high school principal in a district where most of the students were rich and white. She said she dealt with the same problems any principal did in any district, but that the drugs the kids used were of better quality. “These parents,” she said, “they think because their kids are star athletes and scholars, they don’t do drugs. Pot is legal in the state, but these kids want something better and stronger. And these kids? They think I’m just as ignorant because I’m old. I want to tell them that I’ve got some experience in these matters.”
 
Cindy had more than academic experience in the area. As a teenager, she’d run with any wrong crowd she could find, and several times I’d heard my father leave the house in the middle of the night muttering that would be the last time he would help her get home. The day she left for college, my parents hugged her at the airport, and on the drive home my mother was crying not because Cindy was leaving, but because none of us was sure that we would see her again. When she came home for the summer, though, my sister told us that she had found God and had left her previous self behind. My parents were joyful, but I was skeptical. My parents had learned to see what they wanted to see, but I was still too young for that.
 
Ron was a chiropractor, and he had done well. I’ve always thought that, like a preacher, a chiropractor is little more than a shaman that does nothing but plant mythological seeds of healing and hope. But, I could not argue with his obvious income and success, and he and I got along quite well. Ron was also a deacon in his church. “You still resisting coming into the fold?” he asked as he and I wandered around the acreage surrounding his house.
“I think I’m beyond saving, Ron,” I said.
“Nobody’s beyond saving,” he said.
“Maybe I’ve been saved in my own way, then.”
He laughed. “Cindy tell you to talk like that?"
Cindy hadn’t, of course, but I knew she’d drifted from the fold herself. “It just gets…tedious,” she’d told me a few years earlier when we’d met in San Francisco while Ron was there for a convention. “I mean, I’ve gotten the message. I don’t need to hear it every week. If God and Jesus don’t love me by now, they never will.”
We were sitting at the table. Ron was praying. I’d bowed my head slightly, but my eyes were still open. I watched as Cindy yawned. Tom and Michelle, a married couple that taught at Cindy’s school, sat across from me. My parents sat on each side of me, and the way my father was breathing, I thought he might have fallen asleep. Brian, Cindy and Ron’s son, sat next to his mother. Their daughter Wendy was with the Peace Corp in Guatemala; everyone had taken turns talking long-distance with her earlier and she seemed slightly homesick. “No turkey here,” she’d said.
After dinner, Brian was off to visit his girlfriend. Tom and Michelle stayed long enough to clean up, and then they had to drive to Portland to catch a flight to Amsterdam. “You travel?” Tom asked me as they said their goodbyes.
“Sometimes,” I said.
Cindy spoke up. “Don’t believe that, Tom. He’s never home. Half of the time I don’t even know where he is.”
Later, I sat alone with my parents while Cindy and Ron finished putting the food away. Neither one of them was especially energetic, full of food and old age. They lived in a retirement home not far away. Generally content, they seldom complained. “You should visit more,” my mother finally said. My father had finally dozed off. “We like to see you.”
“I will,” I said. “I like seeing everyone.”
“Your nephew and niece barely know you,” she said.
“They know enough,” I said.
“They needed a cousin. They’ve got nearly no family beyond what you see here.”
“Mom,” I said. “Not today.”
She looked at me, her lips pressed tightly together. She nodded, and we sat there, breathing.

Home: Part 8

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1982

 
Kathy and I were married on her birthday. She was svelte and muscular at the same time, and the top of her head reached to my chin. Embracing, we fit well together. We told nobody about the civic ceremony, thinking that the secret—“a little, dirty thing,” Kathy called it at the time—was something we’d always share for the rest of our lives. A year later, after they thought they’d gotten to know me and after Kathy had said I’d asked her to marry me, her parents suggested that a formal church wedding was appropriate. We never told anyone the truth.

Our first house was small, just two bedrooms and single bathroom. The kitchen and dining room were one room, really, and what functioned as a living room was barely large enough for a sofa, a chair, and a television set. We learned to live with few possessions, and if Kathy was every unhappy with our life at that point, she had learned how to keep that a secret, too.

Home: Part 7

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1958 

Our house was small, usually dark. My mother often suffered from headaches, and she said the light hurt her eyes so much that she could barely see. In the summer, she often wore sunglasses even while inside. During winter’s short days, the house could be dismal. When my mother was gone, my father would dash around the house and open the drapes as though he thought the light he let in would be stored in the house. He kept only the drapes on the front window open so that my mother would think the house was as she’d left it. Cindy, my sister, was usually our lookout, sitting on the sofa at the front window and yelling “she’s home!” when our mother returned. Then, we would close the drapes.  If Mom was home, we’d either go outside or stay in our rooms where the drapes could always be open.

“She has to know,” Cindy once said when both of our parents were gone one day. We seldom bothered with my father’s ritual if he was not home. “She isn’t stupid.”

“Dad told me they don’t have secrets,” I said. Cindy was older by four years, and perhaps she had better insight into my parents’ relationship.

“Everyone has secrets,” Cindy said. “Even Mom and Dad.”

As I got older I would learn that she was correct, but right then I felt only disillusionment when I saw that my parents and their relationship were not perfect. I don’t know why I suddenly believed Cindy and not my father at that point, but I did.

Home: Part 6

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

July 1974

 
The airport was hot, crowded. I wanted to sleep. I'd left the hotel room early and felt like I'd been awake for two days. Sometimes the heat and humidity do that to me. Narcie hadn't wanted me to go so early, and I almost hadn't. When she'd first seen my leg, she didn't bat an eye. She'd wanted to know if I'd lost it in a war, or something, and she just smiled when I told her the truth. That's one thing about prostitutes: they accept everyone. There's an honesty about them. Some people--maybe a lot of people--believe that they are loving and accepting of others, but they love and accept only those who are like themselves. My father told me once that we're all hypocrites at some level; he might've been right. But no matter how accepting Narcie was, I still found it easy to leave her behind. I was sad about that, but sadness had never stopped me from leaving someone.

The flight wasn't crowded, and the seats around me were empty. Manila stretched out below as the plane bumped a bit during takeoff. Soon enough we were over the ocean, and when I could I reclined my seat and shut my eyes. I was glad to be heading home.

Home: Part 5

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

July 1974

There was rain. Outside the hotel, I watched Narcie hurry through the afternoon crowd, her shoulders hunched toward her ears. My luggage, a single leather Samsonite suitcase, rested against my leg as I stood beneath the hotel's awning and waited for my driver. I did what I could to stay dry, but the rain was warm and would stop soon enough.

"You will be back?" Narcie had asked as we left the room and started down the hotel's narrow staircase.

I did not want to lie to her, but I did. "In a month," I said. The lie, really, was not about my return, but about seeking her out if I did. I gave her most of the Pesos I had left. She hugged me before we stepped outside, and then she was gone.

A car stopped at the curb in front of me. "The airport?" the driver called through the open window. He helped me with the Samsonite, and then we were an anonymous part of the traffic. I was glad to be going home. In her previous letter, my mother had written that my father had been ill--nothing specific other than "not feeling especially well these days." I did not know if the affliction was mental or physical, for my father had spent much of his life depressed, and that depression often seemed to manifest itself in physical ailments. I was also somewhat weary of traveling. Though I'd been in the Philippines for nearly a month, I had been away from home for the better part of a year.

"Checkpoint," the driver said, and he pointed ahead where several Filipino soldiers stood beside a truck. "You legal?"

"I am," I said. I had my passport ready in case the soldiers asked to see it. But I also knew that the driver was making sure I had no drugs on me. The driver stopped the car.

While two soldiers leaned against the truck, their weapons resting against their hips, a third looked through the driver's window, looked me up and down, then grunted and waved us through. I knew that if my hair had been longer, I might have been questioned about where I was going, and why. I couldn't change my skin color to a shade of brown, but I could keep my hair short enough to appear like one of the sailors simply headed out of town.

"Easy one, today," the driver said as we continued on.

"Very easy."

"The rest of the ride, no problem."

I was glad. I wanted simply to get home.

Home: Part 4

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1958 

I was born with a flipper attached to my left knee. More precisely, I had no shin or ankle below my knee on that leg, just, as my father said, "a floppy little thing that wasn't good for much." So, just a couple of days after my birth, surgeons removed the flipper and I was then free to evolve in my own way.

Tiger tended to pull on the leash as we walked, and I had to be careful in the snow and on the slick concrete. I was stable, for the most part, but I was also cautious. "Slow down, Tiger." I pulled back on the leash several times before he finally got the point. We did a loop around the block, and half an hour later we sat in the basement and watched reruns of Superman.

Home: Part 3

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1958 

My mother's voice: "Steven."

Even from under the blankets I could tell it was cold outside, and dark. My parents were frugal, and even in winter they often kept the heat low at night. They believed that an extra comforter was just as effective as running the heater. One night, though, when my mother was gone, I found my father in a chair in the kitchen, the oven door open and the heating element glowing hot. He looked at me. "Go back to bed. Don't tell your mother." He smiled, and I was grateful for the secret.

"Steven."

"I'm awake, Mom."

"Your father and I are leaving now. Remember to take Tiger for a walk. We'll be home for dinner."

"Okay."

 She shut my bedroom door, and I listened as they left the house, as my father started the car and backed out of the driveway. I lay there and let myself fall back asleep until the gap between dawn and morning narrowed to a point that kept me awake. Breathing into my hands, I warmed my fingers enough so that when I got ready to stand up, I could strap my left leg on without missing a buckle. I stood slowly, a lifetime habit, to be sure I wouldn't topple over if one of the buckles was too loose. Dressed, I left my bedroom and walked down the hallway toward the kitchen. "Tiger," I yelled. "Let's go walk in the snow."

Home: Part 2

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

July 1974
(continued)

The room had a small window, and through it I could look out onto Subic City's early morning. Everything outside appeared quiet. When I lay on the bed again, I watched the ceiling fan rotate slowly above me. The room smelled stale, lived in, soaked in decades of sweat. I wasn't sure if Narcie would return, but I didn't want to wait all day. It was Friday, and I planned on getting out of town before a good portion of the Seventh Fleet was on liberty for the weekend. I had a flight scheduled from Manila to San Francisco via Honolulu on Sunday; being stuck in Subic City until then had no appeal.

Narcie did return. I must have dozed off while watching the fan blades turn above me. "I told you I'd come back." She was lying beside me and caressing my bare shoulder with her fingers.

"How was church?" I asked.

"I had to take my son," she said. "It is his birthday. He has friends there."

"You don't have to explain. How old is  your son?"

"He is five."

"His father?"

She shrugged the question away.

"I have to leave in a little while," I said. "Manila."

"We can eat first?"

"I think that is a fine idea," I said. "But not just yet." I smiled at her.

"You're like a sailor," she said. "Always ready to do something."

I laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment."

She stood up and slipped out of her clothes. Naked, she looked down at me. "What do I call you?" she asked.

"Call me?"

"Your name. I want to know your name."

I thought about it. "Call me Ishmael," I said.

Home: Part 1

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

July 1974

There are things you should know.

In 1974 I was in the Philippines. The country was under Martial Law at the time, and for the most part nobody was allowed outside between midnight and six in the morning. You could be in a bar, or even in the front room of your house with your windows wide open. But you couldn't be outside. I wasn't. I was in a hotel room after a long night of drinking San Miguel. Narcie, the short Filipina I'd bought out of a bar a few hours earlier, was asleep and snoring beside me in the bed. I liked how her skin felt against mine. She'd fallen asleep as soon as she lay down, so feeling her skin like that was the culmination of our experience together.

Earlier that afternoon I'd found myself with a group of U.S. sailors and marines, which I thought odd not because they were there, but because they were together. The sailors generally got drunk and stupid, while the marines got drunk and edgy. The groups usually didn't mix well, but for some reason they'd put aside their differences and found commonality in the beer I was buying them. We'd started out in Olongapo, in a bar called the Brown Fox not far from the main gate that separated the U.S. Navy from the Philippines itself. At some point we'd all climbed into a jeepney and made our way to Subic City. That's where I met Narcie and decided that I'd rather spend the night with her than with the sailors and marines. I'd like to think that those men remained cordial after I stopped buying beer and led Narcie outside, where she took the lead and guided me to the hotel, but I couldn't guarantee that things worked out nicely.

Narcie woke up just before dawn. She rubbed her eyes and looked at me. "I need to go to church."

"Church?" At the time I found it odd that so many prostitutes could be so consistently religious. Maybe, like a lot of other people, they thought that God would forgive them if they just showed up and prayed on Sunday morning. In the decades since, though, I've come to think that those women were no worse than anyone else, and that when it comes to feeding the family, the table truly is full of options.

Narcie was getting dressed. "I'll come back, okay? Two hours."

"You don't need to," I told her.

"I'll come back," she said again.

Time for Endings: Interview #3 (The Final Cut)

It's good to see you again.
I'd bet you say that to everyone.

But I always mean it.
I'm sure you do. What's on your mind this time?

I thought we'd discuss your latest project.
That's it?

We'll see. You know I like to wander.
Fair enough.

It appears that you're finished with the project. Am I right?
I think you are. I always qualify that, though, since I've been known to change my mind.

Why are you ending it? You wrote only five "endings."
Well, how many endings does a person really need? They can't go on forever.

I couldn't help noticing that the final two pieces involve beds. Was that intentional?
Do you want it to be intentional?

I have no preference. I just thought it was an interesting prop.
Prop? Why a prop? It's more of a location. You ever experienced insomnia?

As a rule, no. Why?
If you ever do, the experts will tell you that the only things you should do is bed is sleep and have sex. Everything else should be done someplace else.

That makes sense, I suppose.
No, it doesn't. We can't dismiss how much time we spend in bed--not just for sleeping and sex, but for so much else. Most of us are born in a bed, and perhaps most of us will die in one, if we're lucky. Beds are great places for conversations. We generally feel safe there, and it's a fine place to ponder what we need to do on any particular day. And depending on when we're in bed, we can feel safe and protected, or we can be quite vulnerable.

I see. So, do you think using the bed as a location in two different stories was intentional?
You're often annoyingly persistent.

It's my job. It's what I do.
Then I'd say that, no, it was not intentional. I probably didn't even realize it until you brought it up.

You don't read them when you're done?
Generally, no. That's why you might find typos.

In "Ending #2" you have a family that seems to be in some kind of trouble. What prompted that story?
Nothing prompted it. I just typed the first line, and the rest took care of itself. These pieces are not long enough to require any planning.

The family--or the parents, at least--appear nervous about returning to their home.
They are.

Why?
I don't know. I wrote only the ending, not the rest of the story.

I think readers might need a bit more information, some background.
I told you before that I don't have any readers.

And the father in that one. He and his children have witnessed their cabin--or a cabin--burning. Yet you never say why it burned, or why the son has only one shoe.
No, I don't. You're more than welcome to fill in the rest of the story on your own. You've got an imagination, so you should write your own version of the story. Have some fun with it.

Also, I didn't find much happiness in any of the stories.
I think one of them has some happiness--the fourth one if I remember correctly.

Readers...
...which I don't have.

...might be put off by the sense of bleakness in the works.
Perhaps all of the happiness takes place before the endings. Besides, life isn't always peaches and cream, is it?

No. But I think if people are unhappy in their own lives, or even in parts of their lives, they're not going to want to read something that takes them even further down.
I'm not trying to take anyone anywhere. These are works of fiction. You know that, right? It's all pretend. The works are not about me or my experiences; they're just a bunch of words strung loosely together, and they have no meaning beyond what they are.

I think I understand what you're saying. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me, or to tell anyone.
Ummm... No. But you realize that you and I are just pretend, too, right?

So, this is fiction, as well?
Damned right it is.

Ending #5

In which we find the fifth (and probably final) installment of an ending for something that has not been written.

David says that he is comfortable, that this is a good way for things to end. "I was glad we got to go to London," he says as though we'd been there yesterday and not several months ago right before things turned bad. "Could you move the vase off of the windowsill?"

Annie, our older sister, had sent the flowers--a bouquet of bright blooms that she hoped would add some light to the room. I lift the vase and set it beside the picture of Mom and Dad. "You need anything to eat or drink?" I ask.

"Not now," he says. He struggles to get his arm untangled from the IV. He doesn't want me to help with such things, but we both know that in a few days he won't be able to do it alone. "Is Terri coming by today?"

Terri is the head hospice nurse. "Yeah. In a little while. It's still early." He trusts Terri more than he trusts anyone else, even me. I can't blame him for that. Terri is a short, thin brunette, characteristics my brother has always sought in women. I'm usually here all night while Terri and her crew take over in the morning until I can return about lunchtime. Someone called in sick this morning, though, so I'm covering for a few hours until Terri can get here.

"I've lived a good life, you know," he says. "I'm happy with how things turned out, overall." He laughs. "Well, not with this part, but everything before this."

I sit down again and stay silent. I'm never sure of when I should talk. Terri told me that I should let David guide how each day goes. Sometimes we nap at the same time, and when we do I remember how we had to share a bed for awhile when we were kids.

"One thing I would change," David says, "is not eating enough bagels."

"Bagels?" I ask. I'm sometimes not sure of it's him or the morphine drip talking.

"Yeah. Bagels. I always liked bagels. But when I was married to Cindy, she wouldn't buy them because she was so anti-carb, as though bread was the worst thing a person could eat. I let her win that fight because at the time I thought letting her win was important."

"You can eat bagels any time you want to, David."

"Like I said, I'm happy with how things turned out. I mean, I'd rather die with small regrets--like bagels--than die thinking I'd missed something major."

"That makes sense," I say, and I start mentally counting my regrets. Maybe that's what he wants me to do.

David has drifted off. He seems relaxed, and I walk to his side and wipe the moisture from the corners of his mouth. He looks so young, now--not my older brother, not someone who has suffered so much in the last year. I turn the lights off and shut the window blind most of the way so that only a bit of light shines through. Annie's flowers stay bright. I sit down again and listen to David's breathing, and I watch the regular drops of fluid that leave the IV bag and slide down the clear plastic tube.

In the notebook that Terri and I keep on the table beside the chair, I jot notes about how David was last night--if he ate anything, how he seems to be feeling. I know that things will get worse soon, that at some point David won't even know we're here. I hear mockingbirds in the trees outside. In the kitchen, ice cubes fall into the tray. I consider how things have gone these last 65 years, and I realize that, overall, and except for this, I'm happy with how things have turned out.

Ending #4

In which we find the fourth installment of an ending for something that has not been written.


I looked outside and saw that the rain had ended. The hotel room was still dark, and Sherrie was lying on the bed, the heavy blanket pulled up to her chin. The garbage truck that I'd heard earlier had just left the parking lot, the flashing orange light on its roof reflected in puddles. "It's going to be a good day," I said as I sat on the foot of the bed. "The rain has stopped."

Sherrie pushed against my back with her foot. "You say every day is going to be good."

"I'm an optimist," I told her.

"Since when?" I liked how her voice sounded in the morning: soft, a little raspy.

"Since I met you," I said. And I meant that, too. When we left Paducah, just before we crossed the river into Illinois, I realized that things had changed and were going to be different. It was a good realization.

"You're sappy, sometimes," Sherrie said. "Come back to bed."

I wanted to get on the road early. We were almost to St. Louis, and I didn't want our momentum to stop. "Only for a little while," I said. 

Under the covers, I lay on my back as Sherrie pushed up against me and rested her forearm on my chest. I felt protected, loved. "I'm going to drive into Missouri," she said. 

"Then I get Kansas," I said. "You can have all of Missouri."

She giggled. "This is exciting, isn't it?"

"It is," I said. 

We were quiet for awhile. Daylight had begun moving around the side of the window's drapes. I could tell from her breathing that Sherrie had drifted off. I shut my eyes and thought that maybe she had the right idea. Everything that had happened in Paducah had been left behind when we'd packed the car and driven out of town. So, I lay there and caressed Sherrie's forearm, letting my eyes shut to the morning, letting Sherrie hold me like that.