The Book of Magellan Price




• THE BOOK OF MAGELLAN PRICE
  
  
  
  
  It took a near-death-experience before I finally started listening to Izuala’s Prophecies. Then, I was only 22, and my experience with death was almost as much of a disappointment as my life had been.
  
  I have been told, just moments before death takes you into her clutches, you’ll see your entire life flash before your eyes. I’ve heard people claim they’ve seen celestial beings or deceased relatives, imparting words of wisdom through a mysterious tunnel of light. I imagined I would see a tableau of my entire life flash before me like a shooting star, revealing every horrid mistake and every glorious moment.
  
  In my near-death-experience there was no tunnel of light, no landscape of all the horrid mistakes I had made, nor any panorama of these glorious moments.
  
  Instead, I apparently had tickets to some dark, underground, Gothic club scene. I had to feel my way through the crowd. It was dark and it had that heavy, damp, empty smell of a crowded room when all the oxygen has been spent. I blindly groped my way through the crowd. I was stumbling, trying to find a source of light, or an exit. My hands touched something soft. I expected it to be an angel of light that would impart word of wisdom to me. Instead I heard a voice yelling, "Get your hands off my tits!" And then, a masculine voice yelled, “Hey asshole, you’re standing on my foot!” Just moments later I was thrown out, arm in arm, by two bouncers. I was eighty-sixed from my own near-death-experience, right back into the alleyway of my life.
  
  Apparently, my near-death-experience was commensurate with the value of my life. I hadn’t done anything significant to earn a legitimate one. It was either that or all the good near-death-experiences had been sold out that day and I was just given excess stock. But I believe this NDE was indicative of my life: my dark, misdirected, impulsive, nowhere life. But that motorcycle accident and the Izuala Prophecies eventually caused my life to change.
  
  Izuala’s Prophecies was an incandescent, pebbled-leather book that gave me advice when I needed it the most. It was also the book that could stop my heartbeat in a second and turn my blood to slush. It caused me to question my sanity. I never imagined that some twenty years later I’d be “writing” my own book for another lost soul.
  
  When I first met the book that changed my life (soon enough you’ll know why I say ‘met’ instead of saw or read), I was a junior-high-school kid pilfering books from my local library in Akron, Ohio. This was a hobby I had discovered and cultivated at the age of eleven, partly because I’d been your typical juvenile delinquent and partly because I lived in the Midwest.
  
  There is a reason why Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in the Midwest, and why this part of the country is nicknamed the “little USSR”. The most exciting thing that happens here all year besides the 4th of July is the Indy 500. If New Jersey were hell and California heaven, then this area could be considered purgatory. Most of the people here, like the terrain, are flat and boring. In an area of the country where the winter never seems to end and summer never seems to last; it’s easy to get into a rut. Izuala’s Prophecies had changed all of that.
  
  I’d joined Kesling Middle School’s chess club out of boredom. I had been stealing books for the last couple of years already. Actually, I had been stealing things since I could open my fingers no matter how trivial; it could be a paper clip or a tampon from my mother’s bathroom cabinet. I figured this time I could at least steal something useful, a book that would transform me into a master and teach me all of the winning chess moves.
  
  Even though the library card only cost two dollars I didn’t want to burden my mother with it. Our family had always struggled financially; my father had left before I had even said my first two words. Besides that, stealing books was much more fun than checking them out like everybody else.
  
  My friend, Patrick Nelson, taught me to rip off the yellow sticker on the binding of the book and to tear the UPC code from the back, bottom corner to avoid triggering the electronic alarm hanging over the door. I still remember that rush, even thirty-something years later, just like it was yesterday. The way my heart pounded in my neck, walking through the exit with all of those books, just waiting for the alarm to go off and thinking how fast I would bolt if it did.
  
  But one day, as I was stuffing a Bobby Fischer paperback book down my drawers, a glowing book caught the corner of my eye. It sat lonely on the end of the shelf, just above the chess books. It was glowing a faint, orange-amber color. At first, I thought that the light from the dim library was causing this mild hallucination, or there was some blacklight dangling above.
  
  The cover bore the words: Izuala’s Prophecies, stamped in gold leaf. I remember that first time I held it in my hands. It was warm to the touch, as if someone had been handling the book just moments before I did, or as if they had left it above a heater. Other than the strange glow, which I dismissed at the time as a vision problem, and it’s unusual warmth, it seemed like any other leather-bound book. But then I opened it.
  
  There was no copyright, no author, no table of contents, nothing; there was nothing indicating a publishing company. The book was 144 pages, all blank except for the first one that read:
  
  You should give instead of take.
  
  And that was it. The whole rest of the book was blank. I put the book back where I found it and swore I saw it shimmer from the corner of my eye as I left the library with my Bobby Fischer tucked neatly in front of my crotch.
  
  
  My next thieving adventure took place a few days later. Patrick and I had been strolling through the aisles, looking for anything that would catch our eyes. Eventually, I found myself in the fantasy genre. A little green book, The Hobbit, caught my attention. I’d heard about it from our school’s recommended booklist. It went on my own recommended “to steal book list” shortly after.
  
  Patrick’s brown freckles seemed to turn bright red, almost violet, as he held up the Kama Sutra. That was another book on my recommended list, but I let him have it anyway. I usually deferred to most of his decisions since I played the role of his quasi-protégé.
  
  We ran under the little, black sensor through the exit and around the corner into the alley to unload our cache. His wide-open eyes gleamed as he held up the Kama Sutra; he ignored the rest of his book trove. I pulled out The Hobbit. But it wasn’t The Hobbit; it was Izuala’s Prophecies!
  
  I stood there, staring at the book in my hands. Patrick was also staring. He said, “Um, wow…I’ve never seen a book…glow like that.”
  
  I didn’t reply; I stood there motionless, trying to figure out how I grabbed that book by accident. It would have been something I would have noticed right away.
  
  “What is it? I’ve never heard of Izuala’s Prophecies.”
  
  “I’m not sure either. I saw it a few days ago but it was on a completely different shelf. Doesn’t it look like a witch’s Grimoire or something?”
  
  “I don’t know, never seen one. It is pretty creepy looking though. I wonder how they make it glow like that. I wonder if it’s got any batteries. Let me look.”
  
  I reluctantly gave him the book. When he first touched it he flinched a little, almost dropping it. “Damn, do you have an oven in your crotch or what?”
  
  He opened the book and began flipping through the pages, dropping his own coveted book to the littered, alleyway pavement. The pages seemed to glow gold in the dark alley. Again, the rest of the pages were blank except the first. This is what it said:
  
  It’s better to give than to take. Maybe if you spent more time reading the books instead of just stealing them you’d be better off. There is so much more to life, if you only took the time to discover it.
  
  My heart didn’t seem to beat for at least a minute. I just stared at the words, feeling my chest tense up. The only rational conclusion I had come to was that the library was on to our little scheme. They had made us. They had printed this book and put it in a section they assumed we would be stealing from. They even bound the book in some special kind of material that caused it to glow, grabbing our attention. Although I knew this explanation was bogus, it still sufficed to ease my mind a little at the time.
  
  “I wonder why they would go to all the trouble making this cool looking book and not print anything in it?” Patrick said.
  
  “Of course there is a reason, duh. They know what we’re doing. Isn’t it obvious?”
  
  “Maybe it’s supposed to be some kind of diary?” Patrick said.
  
  I slowly tilted my head, staring him in the eyes. Then I sighed. I wondered how he made it to the eighth grade.
  
  “What do you mean?” He finally asked.
  
  I sighed again. Then I pointed to the text and read it to him. He squinted and brought the book closer to his face. His freckles turned red again. Then he slowly turned his head to me. He blinked. Then he looked back at the page and laughed.
  
  “You must have some really good vision,” he said.
  
  “It’s right there are you blind?” I shouted in my squeaky voice, barely just broken from puberty. I snatched the book from him. His arms sank to his side and he had an expression that I couldn’t quite figure out. It was a medley of shock, confusion and embarrassment, I thought.
  
  “You’re really creeping me out man. You need to see a shrink.” Then he turned and walked out of the alley, every so often peering back at me over his shoulder.
  
  I grabbed the Kama Sutra and tossed Izuala’s Prophecies into the dumpster. I decided to have a lull in my shoplifting ventures. Over the week, with growling stomach pains, I managed to saved my lunch money and bought The Hobbit. During that month I read The Hobbit and the Kama Sutra, and I fell in love with both books. The Sutra is a dangerous book for a pubescent teenager. My mother can testify to this, as she walked in on me several times with my pants down to my ankles. At least the Hobbit had inspired me to start drawing comics and writing scripts, which were based largely on the book. But at least I was doing something creative, even if at the time I was only writing fan fiction, mimicking the great Tolkien.
  
  School was out for the summer by the time we decided to start our shoplifting sprees again. But there wouldn’t be another appearance of the book until High school, which would be starting at the end of that summer. We spent most of that summer fantasizing about what High School would be like. We watched The Breakfast Club in hopes that it would give us some vague idea of what we were up against.
  
  I gave up shoplifting in High school and searched for other outlets. During the summer I’d ride my little 180cc Yamaha scooter for kicks. It seemed like every year of High school was just an unbroken chain of new fixes, one after another. When one got boring I’d replace it with another. My freshman year it was the basketball team, which I failed miserably at, spending most of the season on the bench icing up the Gatorade for everyone. Next year it was soccer, which didn’t go any better. My junior year, I started drinking heavily and having occasional bouts with the police. By my senior year I think I’d played every sport offered at our High School and participated in every club, and I was none the wiser.
  
  The third appearance of the book happened my senior year, on prom night. A few of my friends wanted to climb the water tower after prom and watch the city. The plan was, we would lug up our little jam box to the top, smoke a few joints and listen to Led Zeppelin tapes. After we got good and high then we would lie on our backs and watch the stars twinkle red and blue with some girls.
  
  After prom I went home to change out of the tux and threw on some warm-up pants and a jersey that still fit from my freshman basketball days. But when I opened the closet, there was that book again! It was glowing like a spotlight. My limbs flushed ice cold. I winced and recoiled. I quickly turned around to see who would have put the book in my closet. Patrick had moved away our sophomore year with his father after his parents filed for a divorce.
  
  The only rational conclusion was that he had went back to the dumpster to get the book that day and now he was back in town. I figured he’d stopped by while I was out and left the book in my closet as a message to let me know he was back. But my mother was gone that night and the house was locked. And Patrick wasn’t the type to break into my house. He would have called and left a message.
  
  After slowly peering in my closet and searching the rest of the house I realized I was alone. I didn’t want to be around the book, but I knew I couldn’t just leave it there either. The book would be hanging over my head for the rest of the night if I did and it would ruin my pot high. So I slowly walked back to the room, half hoping it was gone. But it wasn’t. I finally forced myself to open it.
  
  This time the book was much warmer than before, almost too hot to touch. The first page read:
  
  Don’t go to the tower tonight, you’re in grave danger.
  
  That’s all it said. And like before, the rest of the pages were blank. I could feel my fists tighten up around the book. I could even see my heart beating in my paunch that I had been developing over the years. I gently put the book back in the closet on my gym shoe rack, as if not to anger it. I quickly snatched my duffel bag and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and ran out of the house.
  
  That night, we ascended ninety-something feet of rusty rails up to the top of Akron’s water tower. The city had three then, but this one, towards the outskirts of the city was the hot spot for us High School teen-agers. It was a legendary water tower, almost a rite-of-passage into graduation. It was rumored that countless children had been conceived here. This was a place of general teenage debauchery, the “cool” spot to hang out at.
  
  There were six of us: Chris, Tony, Beth, Mike, Jenny, and I. We were more than just acquaintances but not quite friends either. I’d met Chris during my sophomore year through soccer. He was suspended from the team for instigating our “shin kicking” tactics that we used to try and win the state championship. Tony was his right-hand man so we became friends by default. Mike was the crazy one in our group. He’d been in and out of institutions his entire life, so it was rumored. Either way it was very believable. I think Chris befriended him just because his father was the chemistry teacher. He figured it would help him get better grades to get into that IVY league University. We all vied for Beth’s favor. Just her touch could send you reeling for days. It was if her touch, by osmosis, spread her warmth to you.
  
  We had just burned a joint and started playing the tape. We were sitting on the catwalk that circled around the dome of the water tower, most of us clad in some black, rock band T-shirt. Led Zeppelin was screaming a whole lot of love. From our vista, the city looked like a Christmas tree. I remember thinking how much slower the city seemed to move looking down at it from that height. It was as if the water tower had some magical property that made everything tranquil. Or maybe it was just the pot.
  
  I tried to maneuver my way to Beth, but instead Jenny sat between us. Beth moved closer to Chris. I grabbed the bottle from the duffel bag and took a big swig. Then I passed it around. Like we were establishing some ritual, each person rambled angsty, teenage things when it was their turn to drink from bottle.
  
  Just minutes later, Mike was jumping up and down on the catwalk, causing it to vibrate and wobble slightly. He looked like an astronaut with that thick backpack wrapped around him. Like a broken record he continually repeated, “If a body catch a body…if a body catch a body.” Then he grinned, jumping higher and landing harder. Every thud from his heavy Doc Martin’s pounded my ears. I could feel the catwalk vibrating in my teeth. Then I heard a long, rusty squeak beneath us. I clutched the railing. Tony said something to Mike; I couldn’t tell what it was because of the ringing in my ears, but I’m sure it was something meant to calm him down. Beth grabbed Chris and held him tight, as if he were a lifeline. She whispered something to him. At that moment, the feeling of fright overwhelmed my jealous thoughts towards Chris.
  
  Chris shouted, “Stop!” Then everything was quiet. Mike turned to him, like a wounded puppy. Then he said, “What if Holden Caulfield’s job was to stand on top of the water tower to save the children instead of in the rye field?”
  
  “You’re really starting to creep me out,” Jenny said, in her annoying, but sometimes-cute, mini-mouse voice.
  
  “I’m going to climb to the top. If a body catch a body.”
  
  Chris stood up. “Mike, don’t try to climb the dome. It’s slippery and there is no railing up there. It’s just a polished, metal ball. You’re crazy.”
  
  Everyone turned to Mike, as he stepped on the circular railing for support. I don’t think anyone was breathing. We were stunned, watching this crazy guy ascend the thin, welded, metal ladder to the top.
  
  “Hey guys I found something up here. It’s got a handle on it. It’s like a manhole or something. Oh, did I tell you guys I brought up some bacteria cultures from the biology lab? That and I managed to steal some cases of mercury from my dad. I wonder what would happen if I opened this lid and dumped them in?”
  
  Beth and Jenny screamed. Chris yelled, “Mike, get down from there right now!”
  
  Tony stood up and stopped the tape.
  
  We heard the grinding of metal on metal. Mike was slowly turning the cover. “When a body meet a body, comin’ through the tower.”
  
  “Mike, stop! You’ll poison the entire city! What about your friends? Your dad?” Beth said.
  
  “Fuck them!”
  
  At that point everyone turned to Chris. Our gaze silently asked the question that he didn’t want to answer. His curly head sank. His long, wiry arms became fists. Then he began climbing that thin ladder.
  
  “When a body meet a body comin’ up the ladder,” Mike sang, repeating it like a mantra.
  
  We edged our way against the railing to get a view, but they were at the top in the center and we could only see the mops of their curly heads.
  
  “Mike, what the fuck’s wrong with you. You’re scaring the girls,” Chris said, his voice echoing slightly over the dome.
  
  “That’s all you can ever think about, girls, girls, girls! Don’t you care about anything else? The children? We have to save them.”
  
  We could hear the grinding of metal on metal again. Then I heard the clop of footsteps. “We’re not going to let you do this. You wanna spend the rest of your life in prison?”
  
  Then we heard one of them yelp. “I’m not gonna let-” Bang!
  We jumped. Then we heard a thud and saw a gun slide over the dome, and bounce off the catwalk railing to the ground. We heard a few more grunts and then a loud scream, “Noooooo…” Mike and Chris slid off the dome, still locked arm-in-arm and plunged over the edge of the catwalk.
  
  We stood silent. I wanted to believe I was still in my house, watching TV, or reading Izuala’s Prophecies. Instead, the image of the pool of blood and twisted carcasses of Mike and Chris at the foot of the tower replayed in my head, over and over.
  
  Later, the police told my mother that there was no case of mercury in the backpack. Instead, they had found duct tape, rope, a two-liter of Mountain Dew and some tranquilizers. They had also found some Ky jelly, and some .38 caliber bullets. I can only shudder as I imagine what he was planning to do. Fortunately these things were kept out of our local news. We never discussed the deaths and I never attended the funerals.
  
  After that harrowing episode I decided to go to the school psychologist since we couldn’t afford any other kind. Glowing, amber books don’t just magically appear and predict the future. My fear was that I was developing some form of schizophrenia, or my mother had taken LSD while I was still a fetus. The counselor told me I wasn’t schizophrenic because I knew that the book wasn’t real. According to professionals in the field, the difference between a psychosis and a neurosis is that with a psychosis you actually believe your hallucinations are real. If you have the ability to doubt them it makes all of the difference in such a diagnosis; you’re consider reasonably sane, a neurotic.
  
  She shook her head when I told her the book did predict the future and said, “This is stress related. You’re experiencing anxiety about your future and you have no father figure to give you the kind of support you need.” Then she told me about a state ran clinic that could prescribe anti-anxiety medication and I set up an appointment that week.
  
  
  After High School was over my life seemed to be in some kind of limbo. I was taking much more than my prescribed amount of Xanax, walking around in haze. I was still living with my mother, hopping from job to job. One week it was fast-food slavery with the manager screaming, “We need more fries in the vat now! The twelve o’ clock rush is here Magellan!” Next week I was sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets. I didn’t stick with any of the jobs for more than a few weeks.
  
  I’d thought about college, but I didn’t want to waste my time with it until I was positive what I would study. If worse came to worse, I figured, I’d muck around on my own time and not have tax payers paying the dole while I sat in some dorm, glued to my futon, smoking pot and staring at blacklight posters for four years. I didn’t want to be that college kid, who, 10,000 joints and a million bowls of Cap’n’Crunch later, stares up through a bong cloud at his diploma, worth no more than the empty ashtray basking under his lava lamp.
  
  The job I finally managed to stick with was Harley Rick’s. It took me four years from graduation day to finally settle into something I enjoyed. During the summers of High School I actually checked out some manuals from the library (instead of stealing them), to repair my own scooter. It passed the time and I seemed to have a proclivity for it and other things visual-spatially oriented, except for chess. After volunteering an hour of work Rick saw how much natural talent I had and hired me on the spot.
  
  It felt good to be able to finally pull my weight and help my mom. Her red hair was starting to turn a sandy gray, the same shade as our carpet. The wrinkles under her eyes were becoming more pronounced. Each new line was like a scar, little, deep tributaries that revealed how jaded her long life had made her. She had never found a new man. She seemed to just bide her time, inventing things to keep herself distracted. Some days she would clean the green mold on our white, aluminum siding outside. Other days she moped around through our tiny house with her head down, dusting the Chippendale knock-off furniture, over and over again. She existed rather than lived, but when I got the job I saw that sparkle in her golden eyes again.
  
  My next encounter with the book happened shortly after I was hired. I met a woman at the Harley shop. Her curly, blond hair reminded me of a poodle. Even the way she walked gave me that impression. All she needed was a cotton candy colored collar. She looked sort of like Marilyn Monroe turned-biker. She even had the same initials; her name was Marilyn Michaels. I figured she was about 10 years older, but I never did ask.
  
  I lied and told her I was renovating my apartment because I didn’t want her to know I was still living with my mother.
  
  We spent the night at a Super 8 in down town Akron. She was in the shower and I was watching the playboy channel, dressed in nothing but some plaid boxers. We had some cheap whiskey cooling in the fridge and a bag of coke on the nightstand next to the Gideon Bible. I was about to pour myself a shot to relieve my virgin fears. Then her cell phone started ringing. I looked at the ID box and I saw a Devin Michaels. Of course, I just let it ring and waited for her to come out of the shower. But she didn’t.
  
  As I stood up to finally pour myself that shot, I saw the book again. It was sitting where the Gideon Bible was supposed to be. I was so numb from the anti-anxiety medication that it I didn’t even frighten me. I was so high it didn’t occur to me that the medicine was supposed to stifle these book hallucinations. I just opened it to the first page like I was about to read the morning paper.
  
  Do not sleep with her; you are in grave danger.
  
  I thought, great, the magical nanny is back. But then of course, I remembered our water tower trip. I put the book inside the nightstand and grabbed a condom. She finally came out of the shower.
  
  “Someone called for you,” I said, handing her the phone.
  
  She looked at it for a second and her eyes twitched a little. I had guessed right at the time that she was trying to put on a poker face. The eyes that said, oh no, it’s not my husband who just called. It was my brother. Did I mention I had a brother? Oh, I was lying about not having one earlier.
  
  “Oh, it was nobody,” she said, turning bright pink. She quickly snapped it shut and hopped on the bed.
  
  I know this is wrong, but after seeing her big, round breasts and bullet nipples what I’d just read in Izuala’s Prophecies kind of sank down with the blood into my hambone.
  
  The next morning she disappeared without a trace. She never came back to Rick’s either and when I walked to her house she wasn’t there. She wouldn’t answer her cell either. Weeks had passed and there was no Marilyn. To forget about her I bought my first motorcycle. It was a black, 1990 Kawasaki Ninja.
  
  A month later she called me. “Magellan…we need to talk about something. I’m really sorry but I didn’t know…ugh, I don’t know how to say this…”
  
  I just stood there silent, waiting for an explanation. Finally she said, “I was just diagnosed a few weeks ago…I…I’m positive. I’m sorry I didn’t know. But I thought you should know.”
  
  My feet were ice. My blood felt like frozen ink flowing down to my knees. I couldn’t even feel the phone I was holding. Whether I even breathed for a minute I couldn’t tell. My life had changed. Nothing was the same for a long time after that phone call. Despite the medication I suffered nightmares and panic attacks. Even at Christmas dinner and every holiday, behind every feigned smile there was this invisible AIDS test hanging over my head like mistletoe.
  
  It wasn’t until eight months later that my fears had finally subsided. The test was negative. I chided myself for not listening to the prophecies and swore I would never be so stupid again. A month after the test I got another call. It was Marilyn.
  
  “Will you come see me, I’m downtown? I’m at St. Anthony’s room 23.”
  
  “Sure, give me a few minutes.”
  
  I went to put on my leather chaps and tied my hair back in a ponytail. When I opened the medicine cabinet I noticed the book down in the sink. It began glowing brighter than I had ever seen it glow before and it frightened me even through the armor of my dope. By this time I didn’t think; I just grabbed it by reflex.
  
  Don’t visit her; you are in grave danger.
  
  Shit, not again. What now? I put the book back in the sink, grabbed my helmet and headed out the door. I tried to subdue that voice in the back of my mind that said, please listen this time.
  
  But I didn’t. I was torn between wanting to believe it was just a hallucination resulting from my tolerance to the medication and that it was a legitimate warning. The book had never been wrong before. But I wanted to see Marilyn before she died. She deflowered me. Call it infatuation or call it love. I continued cruising through the rain on my Ninja, ignoring the voice in the back of my mind. Rain pelted my helmet and slowed traffic down to screeching halt. I pulled out of the jam to take an alternate route on the County Road. I kept the speedometer at or below 30, which was a perfect speed for the inclement weather. I was bopping along to some Rush song when the road and everything else vanished.
  
  There I was, in that damned underground club. Blind as could be and stumbling around, choking. I accidentally grabbed some woman’s breast and stepped on someone’s toe. Next thing I know I’d landed face first in the alley. Then I woke up.
  
  The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was my right leg. It was up in the air, hanging in a stirrup. I was on so much dope that every little thing seemed so amazing and beautiful, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Everything seemed to take on this transcendental glow; even putting on deodorant seemed like some act of divinity. With the amount I was on, everything seemed to make so much sense. Why channel 43 was right above 42. Even the white snow on the TV was like a comedy routine. My arms were fine for some reason, but my jaw was wired shut and I had shattered pretty much every bone I could name from my ribs to my big toe.
  
  I’d hit a pothole on County Road 12 and flipped my bike several times. I’d done several cartwheels with my Ninja. I’d suffered a concussion. My mother told me that for the first three months my head was swollen as big as a watermelon. She also told me that she was suing the Highway department in case I was unable to work again. I still remember those words echoing through my head, the words: in case you can’t work again.
  
  This was a pivotal moment in my life, when I began to no longer fear the book and began trusting it, whether it was a hallucination or not. Izuala’s Prophecies was the father that I didn’t have.
  
  The accident had changed my life as much as the book. For the first four months I couldn’t really think straight. I was always dizzy and nothing seemed to make any sense. My mother even had to feed me and remind me when to go to the bathroom. By the fifth month I could walk again, though with a big limp. But once I was semi-ambulatory and able to feed myself, things started going a little better.
  
  The doctor said I had suffered some minor brain damage and that I would probably never function at the full capacity of my cognitive ability again. It wasn’t as if my brain was gone; I was only slowed down a bit and suffered minor memory impairment. He also said that I wouldn’t ever regain the full use of my legs and that I would always walk with a big limp. My mother drove me to the social security department to get disability. My life was over. I remember heading to that office that day, feeling like I was signing my own death certificate.
  
  A few years later I’d moved out, against the wishes of my mother. She didn’t want her poor, vulnerable, little boy to face the world on his own. But I needed to do it for my sanity. I yearned to have a sense of independence, so I rented an apartment just a few miles away. With my monthly SSD check and my little settlement with the city I managed to live comfortably.
  
  But what scared me the most is that I woke up one day and somehow five years had flown by. I was 30 years old and I hadn’t done a thing with my life except sue the city and become a big, lazy leech. I lived in a government subsidized apartment complex. I’d thought about committing suicide, but I forgot that I was already dead. That and I was too afraid to do it myself. I’d thought about putting an ad in the paper or online to hire somebody to poison me or shoot me in the back of the head when I wasn’t looking, kind of like guerrilla assisted-suicide. Hell, I didn’t even care if they used a crossbow as long as they got the job done without me being aware.
  
  Five years turned into ten years turned into fifteen turned into twenty. I woke up one day and I was 42. If you take a color wheel in art class, with all the primary and secondary colors on it and spin it really fast it turns into a gray blur. That’s exactly what the last 42 years of my life had been. I looked like a weather beaten hippy, my long hair was gray, and my stomach was much bigger. My light brown eyes became dark.
  
  I could have done something with my life. I could have even been the couple of brain cells attached to an electric guitar in a local band somewhere, but I didn’t even do that much. I just waited for that SSD check every month, sinking further into my grave with each one. The checks are printed on the same paper as income tax checks; they are a tan, yellow color that reminds me of a tombstone. I served less of a purpose in life than a skid mark in a pair of underwear does. I was nothing.
  
  The book didn’t make another appearance until later that year, just after my forty-second birthday. It visited me again when I’d become so lonely that I put an ad in the paper to find a roommate. I was asking $200, utilities included. Even if it was a small, one-bedroom apartment it was a steal and I knew it. That didn’t matter; I just wanted a warm body there to make me feel like I was still alive.
  
  I took the first person that called. “Magellan Price? Err, what kind of name is Magellan anyway? Ughhhhhhh, Was your mom in some traveling circus or something boy?”
  
  That was Sidney. He called everyone “boy”. And every other breath he made this really strange noise like he was groaning or grunting, maybe even gurgling. He was a 55-year-old biker junky. I put up with this crystal meth habit because I was desperate for company. His skinny, skeleton of a body shook all the time and when I looked into his sunken eyes to ask him a question, it was as if there was no conscience there, no one was home. After he moved in CD’s and old records turned up missing. A few antiques also came up missing. My house looked like a dusty, antique mall, so cluttered you could barely maneuver through any room. But I knew where to find anything and I kept track of every little knickknack I had.
  
  I also let him throw a few parties at the apartment. And I regretted it. Every lowlife in Akron was there, laughing at my apartment and the clutter of antique knickknacks as if it were some kind of circus sideshow. I went to the bathroom the morning after to shave and walked in on a woman with a needle in her arm. At that point I was tempted to ask him to leave but I didn’t, until the book appeared again.
  
  He was out to ‘work’ that day, which meant he was out scoring drugs. He didn’t think I knew but I did. He said he worked at a bar downtown. But I went to the bar looking for him one night and he wasn’t there. He had never worked there. I was formulating plans to evict him as I went to the fridge to grab a beer. But there was no beer, just that book staring at me, nearly blinding me and flooding the kitchen with that amber light.
  
  I opened it like a reflex again, as if books had always magically appeared in my refrigerator. It had been twenty years since I had seen it, and I could already feel that old, familiar swelling in my chest again. Lightening was going to strike any second. It said:
  
  You need to ask him to leave. Make up an excuse. Do anything to get rid of him; you are in grave danger.
  
  It took dying once just to get me to listen, but now I did unconditionally. I lied and told him the landlord was asking questions and that it would be better if he found a new place. I even offered to help him find one.
  
  That week I left the apartment for a few days. I didn’t want to be around when he packed his bags. I bought a room from the same Super 8 Hotel that I’d stayed with Mariliyn at, just to remind myself to keep listening to the book. When I came back a few days later he was gone, but his clothes and neon bar signs that he had stolen were still hanging up in the back bedroom. And the apartment stank, horribly. It smelled literally like the sewer had backed up right into my living room. But there was another smell I couldn’t identify. It was sharp and bitter.
  
  I surveyed the house, inspecting each room to make sure no damage was done. Some of my antique coke bottles had been smashed on the floor, turning my beige carpet the color of caramel. My Felix the Cat clock was smashed into pieces on the kitchen floor. That clock was 60 years old. Other things were missing. I figured he threw some kind of party while I was gone but I didn’t care. As long as he was leaving nothing else mattered. When I made it to the bathroom the unidentified odor was stronger. I flipped the shower curtain and there was the girl I caught shooting up before the morning after that party. She looked like a balloon.
  
  Her face and lips were swollen black and blue. Her bloated body looked like a blow-up raft. And there was a needle dangling from her arm. I quickly looked away. I gagged and choked a little, but managed not to puke. The sink had fresh shaving cream in it. I searched the house again but no one was there.
  
  Just when I had my hand on the phone to call the police the door swung open. It was Sidney, smoking a cigarette. His thinning, gray hair was tied back into a ponytail so tight, it looked as if his eyeballs were pulled back taut in their sockets with the same pressure. He went into the kitchen and opened the pantry.
  
  “Hey Sidney, what’s up?”
  
  “Not a whole lot,” he said, looking around the walk-in pantry. Little pieces of my clock crunched beneath his boots.
  
  “Um have you seen the bathroom yet?”
  
  “Yeah just shaved a few minutes ago…ughh.”
  
  “Sidney, why is there a dead body in my bathtub?”
  
  “Do you know how to make hash browns? I mean from scratch. Not those pre-made ones you can buy at Wal-Mart.”
  
  “Yeah, I can make them. Sidney, who is in the bathroom?”
  
  “They take olive oil or vegetable oil?”
  
  I didn’t respond. He wasn’t human and I questioned for a moment whether I should just wait until he left to call the police.
  
  “You don’t have a skillet do you?” he asked, rummaging through a lower kitchen cabinet, clanking dishes.
  
  I sighed. “Sidney, fuck the hash browns, fuck the olive oil. Why is there a dead, bloated body in my bathtub with a needle in her arm?”
  
  “Hmmm, must have had a slight case of death. You know how long to cook ’em? Ughhh.”
  
  “Jesus Christ, just get the fuck out of my house!”
  
  “Jeez Magellan, a little touchy today? I always clean up my messes you know. I do my dishes. I’m a good roommate,” he said, shaking uncontrollably.
  
  Finally he left and I called the police. I had to explain to them why there were syringes and little bags of crystal meth scattered throughout the house.
  
  He was arrested a few weeks later and as pathetic as this may be, I was actually sad. I had lost my only companion. The only thing good going in my life was Izuala’s Prophecies, but over the years I had learned to associate the book, like a Pavlovian dog, with danger.
  
  I had my final conversation with Izuala three weeks later. I had the barrel of a shotgun propped up in my mouth. I pulled the trigger and…click. Nothing happened. I forgot to load it. I couldn’t even commit suicide the right way. I cried. I strolled outside to get some shells from the shed. But the shells were gone. Instead, there was the glowing, amber book. This time it lit up the entire shed, and the back yard. It looked like my yard was full of tiki torches.
  
  I opened the book, which was blazing hot. It read:
  
  “You tired of sitting around and using yourself, waiting to die? Why don’t you become a teacher and help children not to fall into the same traps you did? I allowed your motorcycle accident to happen. I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. I did it to wake you up. You wouldn’t listen to me. You never did. It took death just to wake you up. Go to Akron Elementary. My job here is finished.”
  
  Then I screamed and cried, “Why me, why the fuck me? Why did you do this to me?” Then I closed the book and opened it again. This time it read:
  
  “Because you are important, much more than you know. But you were too pathetic to manage your own life. One day you will write your own book. You will create pitfalls and escape routes. You will help someone, who, like yourself, wouldn’t have otherwise had the chance to make it in this world. It will be your job to wake them up as I have you. I am your book. But there are many books, some with leaves, others with wings and they are all trying to tell a story. They are trying desperately to reach out to the lost ones, if they could but recognize this.”
  
  I had to stop to catch my breath. My chest was heaving but I continued reading.
  
  “Do not worship me. Do not call me a god for I am not good. Do not call me a devil for I am not evil. Do not even cry. I am the universe balancing itself out, because Magellan wouldn’t have had the chance otherwise.”
  
  Maybe this book was never real. Perhaps it was just a hallucination caused by my motorcycle accident, or maybe I’ve always been schizophrenic. Maybe it was a subconscious survival mechanism kicking into gear and waking me up at the right moments. Or maybe it is real. I don’t expect anyone to believe me. Either way it doesn’t matter; the book will always be real to me. What really matters is it changed my life forever. It lifted me out of my nowhere life and planted me in firm soil.
  
  I’m a teacher now. My favorite student is a pigtailed, little girl named Elise. Sometimes she stays after class and asks me why her daddy hits her. She asks me why he is no longer home. For now, I can only tell her that it’s better that way, because I don’t have the answers. I can only love her and tell her that maybe he is gone because someone is looking out for her protection. Perhaps I will become her book soon, to intervene and save her from life.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

9. Call Girls and Chess




• Cardboard boxes threaten Marty Patrilla, surrounding him on all sides. They are stacked everywhere in haphazard rows, reaching six feet high in some places.
  
  But he is oblivious to everything except the ceiling fan’s thin brass chain. It mesmerizes him as it twirls and twirls in endless circles, providing a backdrop for the montage of images that swirl through his head, namely his ex-wife. If an earthquake shook the foundation of his Tudor home, he would continue to sink into the dusty recliner and brood about her.
  
  He finally rises off the recliner with labored movements, like a stubborn pile of dough that clings to the rolling pin. The maze of cardboard boxes makes it difficult for him to navigate his round frame through the house.
  
  The pungent odor of ammonia from a litter box permeates the air. The walls are plastered with faded rectangular shapes. He walks to one of the faded, yellowish spots, and imagines the framed photo of Bobby Fischer that once hung there. In the photo Fischer wore a gray beret and played chess with a young man in Central Park.
  
  He looks to the boxes behind him. Their flaps hang clumsily open, revealing stuffed pillows in the shape of chess pieces. Souvenirs and rolled posters poke through another box. The boxes are labeled with various room names and one is labeled Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator. Aside from the mangy recliner, the only remaining piece of furniture in the house is a lacquered coffee table. A crystal chessboard stands proudly on the center of it.
  
  He walks toward the chess board, but stumbles and coughs. He catches himself on the coffee table. It creaks beneath his weight, threatening to split and collapse at any moment.
  
  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
  
  Marty’s eyes flash to the door. He pushes himself off of the coffee table. A leg of the table shoots out from underneath it. It continues standing on the remaining three legs, but is tilted in the corner with the missing leg. The chess board slides down the coffee table, spilling the chess pieces. He plants his stomach like a barricade on the coffee table and lets the pieces slide into it, scooping them into his shirt. He catches the board with his free hand and sets it down on the floor. A solitary chess piece-a Queen- escapes him and falls to the floor, a tiny shard splinters from its diadem. He walks to the recliner and kneels, carefully dumping the pieces onto it.
  
  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
  
  He hurries to the bathroom and runs a comb through the dark tufts that line his head in a horseshoe-patterned ring. The gray-green grime coating the inside of the sink is more becoming than he is.
  
  Thump, thump.
  
  “Just a second!”
  
  A young woman of barely twenty is standing outside with her arms crossed. Her eyes are olive-green. He scans her full lips and thin face and she looks away from him. He is momentarily lost in her.
  
  Her shiny, dark hair is coiled in tight perfect curls and hangs over her shoulders. She wears a short, black skirt and a tight, turquoise halter-top. Finally, he waves her in. Her black heels click and scrape the cement. His head turns and follows her as she walks past him and into the house.
  
  She scans the room and eyes the stacked boxes. Her pointy nose crinkles. She coughs lightly, covering her mouth.
  
  “Oh, sorry, sorry. The cat,” Marty says.
  
  “Oh?”
  
  “Yeah, Ginger. She’s at the vet. Poor thing.”
  
  Marty pulls out a spray bottle of cinnamon air freshener and sprays the room.
  
  “Ging-air, cute name. So where are you moving to?” she says, slowly enunciating each word with a thick, Baltic accent.
  
  “Don’t know yet. Anyway, can I get you a drink? I’ve got gin and tonic.”
  
  Her eyes continue to scan the mess. She notices the chess pillows. Through the boxes, she sees a shaft of light gleaming off of the Queen.
  
  “I have to go now,” she says.
  
  “Why?”
  
  “I am late.”
  
  He walks closer to her. She turns away and begins walking to the door.
  
  “Late? I already paid Tye. You owe me a half hour.”
  
  He walks in front of the door, blocking her. Her face creases in a medley of something between fright and anger. She pulls out a cell phone, daring him to come any closer.
  
  “You are the one. The other girls told me about you. Chess-guy-creep.”
  
  “Creep? They bitch about getting $250 to make small talk and play a little chess?”
  
  “They say you don’t have sex, you only want to complain about your life. I don't mind chess, but they say you drone on and on and won't let them leave. We are call girls, not psychiatrists. Maybe you should speak with one instead, it is probably cheaper.”
  
  “I’ve already been fucked by plenty of psychiatrists and lawyers. It isn’t any cheaper, trust me.”
  
  She shoves him aside and walks to the door. Her hand is on the knob.
  
  “Good bye, chess-guy-creep.”
  
  “Wait,” he says, pulling out his wallet, “I won’t bitch, just give me a chance. We can watch a movie or something. We don’t even have to talk.”
  
  He opens his wallet and hands her a stack of crisp bills. She fans them out in a spread. She smiles for a moment, but a serious look floods her face.
  
  “Okay, but if you start complaining and depressing me, I go. Just like the other girls.”
  
  Marty holds up his hands in defense and says, “No, no. Don’t worry. I won’t. I’m Marty by the way.”
  
  He extends his hand. She reluctantly shakes it.
  
  “I’m Jordan.”
  
  “Jordan from Latvia?” he says.
  
  She shrugs and says, “My mother liked The Great Gatsby, what can I say?”
  
  ***
  
  Marty snores on his recliner. A few trickles of dried blood cake his nostrils and upper lip. A condominium guide from Costa Rica flutters on his chest with each exhale. A golden-purple ray from the morning sun casts a glint on an empty bottle of Gin next to him. Birds chirp in the disused chimney and gutters.
  
  The phone rings. He lets the answering machine pick it up.
  
  Beep.
  
  “Hi, you’ve reached Marty Patrilla. I am unavailable at the moment, please leave a message.”
  
  “Hello Mr. Patrilla, this is Trudy from Dr. Banaszack’s office. We wanted to let you know that we’re going to have to do the surgery. We’ll have to keep Ginger over night again. If you have any questions please call us back at…”
  
  Marty stirs. The sun shines more brightly through the curtains, revealing the rising dust that swirls in columns. A shaft of light illuminates his face. He balances the apartment guide on his face to shield it from the sunlight.
  
  The phone rings again. When he hears Jordan’s voice, he flinches. He squirms off the recliner and runs to the phone. He picks it up while the answering machine is still running.
  
  “Hi Jordan, how are you? Good, good thanks. At seven? Sure. See you later.”
  
  He hangs up the phone. The corners of his mouth rise into the best smile he can muster. He walks to the bathroom and takes a shower.
  
  ***
  
  Thump, thump.
  
  Marty rushes to the door. He is dressed in a black suit. His hair is greasy and shiny. The setting sunlight casts a golden glint in Jordan’s olive-green eyes. He breathes her in, the lavender sun dress and the perfectly coiled hair. The scent of honeysuckle rolls through the door and he savors it, not knowing or caring if it is from her or the winter, finally giving way to spring air.
  
  She smiles as he gestures for her to come in. She scans the room. A soft violin orchestra evaporates from a stereo, which was not there yesterday. The floor is haphazardly swept; splotches left here and there make it look worse than before. A fondue set sits on a table next to a bottle of Verdi Spumante. But the stacked boxes remain in the same place and nothing else has been altered.
  
  “I really like what you’ve done with the place.”
  
  Marty chuckles, and says, “Very funny.”
  
  She walks over to the table and pokes a cube of dried bread with a fork. She dips it into the sauce and nibbles it.
  
  “Mmm, tasty. Oh, and I love Ilya, such a great composer.”
  
  “Yeah, she’s great. Nothing like the Latvian composers. You still talk to any of your family there?”
  
  She chuckles.
  
  “Ilya Grubert was a man, but nice try. And no, I don’t keep in touch. My brother lives here though.”
  
  “You look beautiful tonight.”
  
  She smiles. He walks over to the table and grabs the bottle. He winds the bottle opener around until it finally twists out. He pours a drink for her.
  
  “So what is on the agenda tonight?” she says.
  
  “Would you like to play some chess?”
  
  “Well, it has been years since I’ve played. In my former years I was pretty good.”
  
  Marty raises an eyebrow and says, “Really?”
  
  “Well, chess is a big thing for us there. We have Mikhail Tal you know.”
  
  “Misha? I thought he was Russian.”
  
  “Born in Latvia. You like him?”
  
  “Like him? The Master of Sacrifice? He’s almost a god!”
  
  “Umm, okay.”
  
  “I want to show you something,” he says.
  
  He beckons for her to follow. She rolls her eyes when he turns away but follows him through the corridor of boxes to his bedroom. The bedroom is littered with more stacked boxes. Above a bare metal bed frame, a black and white poster of Mikhail Tal is pinned on the wall. He is at a table playing chess with another pensive man, who rests his chin on his hand.
  
  Marty crouches on his knees. He rips the tape from a box in one corner and pulls out several books about Mikhail Tal.
  
  “You know, people used to think he would hypnotize them?” Marty says.
  
  “Yes, Benko wore sunglasses because of it. What if I told you that my uncle watched him play Botvinnik for the world championship? And he has real photos of him, autographed.”
  
  Marty looks up at her. His mouth sags open.
  
  “You know, you’re the weirdest man I have ever met. A poster of Mikhail Tal above your bed? What did your wife think?”
  
  Marty ignores her and walks out of the room.
  
  She follows him through the boxes until they reach the coffee table with the chessboard. The leg of the broken coffee table has been repaired; splotches of dried glue have hardened on the leg like drippings of candle wax. He leaves for a moment and returns with two wood chairs. He walks back to the stereo and raises the volume; the violins echo through the house.
  
  He pulls her chair back and waits for her to sit. He grabs two of the crystal chess pieces, one black and one white, and closes his hands in a tight fist over each of them. He extends both hands in front of Jordan.
  
  She chooses the left hand, a black crystal pawn. He opens his other hand to reveal a white pawn. They set up the board. He quickly moves his Queen’s pawn forward. She opens conservatively with her King’s Knight. He pushes the c pawn forward two squares. She plays a fianchetto-sliding her Bishop in front of her Knight.
  
  “This real crystal?” she says.
  
  He nods slowly, not looking up from the board.
  
  “You’re playing the King’s Indian Defense,” he says.
  
  He brings out his other Knight. She castles, slowly looping the Rook and King around each other. She takes a sip of her wine. He plays a fianchetto. She brings her Knight in front of the Queen, guarding the other Knight. He castles. She pushes her King’s pawn two spaces forward, threatening his c pawn. He brings another pawn next to it. Suddenly, the board becomes complicated and alive with action with Knight sacrifices and a flurry of exchanges; pieces are being captured and scooped off of the board left and right.
  
  He looks up at her and notices her eyes are closed. She is enraptured from the violin piece, half opening and closing her eyes and only glancing at the board. He makes another move and watches her, realizing then that she has been playing like this the entire time.
  
  “Ahem. I just realized something,” he says.
  
  Her eyes flutter open. She says, “Oh?”
  
  “We’re playing a Tal game. I can’t remember the name of it, but I’ve played it before and we’re doing it right now, almost move for move.”
  
  “I know. And do you know who played black?”
  
  “What?”
  
  “Play,” she says.
  
  They make another flurry of exchanges: Knight for Knight, Bishop for Knight, until they are suddenly at a Mexican standoff with two Queens and two Bishops each. They exchange them. Twenty-one moves from the beginning and he has lost by board position and piece value; there are over five ways to checkmate him. He tips his King over with an index finger. Its crown splinters on the board. He gasps.
  
  “Gradus versus Tal,” she says, “1950’s I think.”
  
  He shakes his head and stares off into space.
  
  “Who the hell is Gradus?”
  
  A wry smile surfaces on her face. She shrugs.
  
  “Another one?” he says.
  
  “Okay, but only one more. And should I actually look at the board this time?”
  
  “Very funny.”
  
  This time, she plays white. They play for only a few minutes, some fifteen moves. She slaughters him, his pieces dropping like dead soldiers.
  
  He looks up at her, lost in her eyes and says, “Come to Costa Rica with me.”
  
  She chuckles coyly.
  
  “What?”
  
  “Come with me.”
  
  “You are eccentric.”
  
  “Just for a week, to get a feel for the area.”
  
  “Thank you, but I can’t.”
  
  “Tye?”
  
  She nods.
  
  “Yeah, I didn’t think of that. He acts like some big-city pimp. It’s a call girl service for god’s sake.”
  
  He stares off. He walks to his kitchen and comes back with a newspaper. He unfolds the classified section and points to it.
  
  “There’s a chess tournament tomorrow, at the Civic Center. You should sign up. They are starting a chess program this summer. They’re even hiring an office administrator.”
  
  She sighs softly and takes another sip of wine.
  
  “I already have a job and I don’t have time to play chess.”
  
  “Well, I’m just saying. If you wanted a change of pace…”
  
  “Says the man who makes a living taking photos of peas and corn for canned good labels.”
  
  She looks down at the ground and mutters something. She grabs her purse and stands up.
  
  “I have to go now, good bye.”
  
  “Wait.”
  
  He stands in silence as she walks out.
  
  ***
  
  The next day he invites her to come over for lunch. She teaches him how to make borscht and Latvian smörgåsbord. He has her fetch the ingredients because he will never leave the house except to check his mail.
  
  She tells him about life in Latvia and in Europe-the politics and the lifestyle differences. He introduces her to classic American films that she has never seen such as Casablanca and Singin' in the Rain. One night he asks her to rent Taxi Driver. Near the end of the film she walks out without saying goodbye. She never returns his calls.
  
  ***
  
  Marty lifts himself from the recliner and rubs his eyes. Several pints of empty gin litter the floor. An open liter of club soda lies on a newspaper. An article smudged with purple ink reads Jerry Foster wins chess tournament, Civic Auditorium.
  
  He looks at the digital clock. It is 2:34 PM. He starts hacking quietly. He flops back down on the recliner and doubles over, coughing his lungs out.
  
  Thump, thump.
  
  He gives himself a cursory glance. His belly hangs out of his white tank top, which is stained with spots of dried blood. He answers the door.
  
  Jordan is wearing a cream-colored business skirt with a black blouse. Her tangled hair is tied back. She carries a purse and wears wide sunglasses. She doesn’t smile. He motions her in.
  
  “Something is different,” she says.
  
  “I’m sorry. I know it’s a mess.”
  
  “No, it is always a mess, it’s something else… where is your cat?”
  
  “In the backyard. She-”
  
  “She’s dead, I know. I’m sorry, Marty.”
  
  He follows her to the window. A squirrel leaps from a branch, chasing another squirrel. It clumsily lands on the branch only to slip off and land on Ginger’s fresh dirt mound in the yard. The other squirrel climbs the length of the branch, and leaps into another tree. It hops from branch to branch until it is far away and disappears from view. Jordan stares down at the mound.
  
  “So, what then, you can sniff out death or something?” he says.
  
  “I can smell it on you, too,” she says.
  
  “Jeez, don’t act so happy to see me, it’s only been three weeks since you’ve called.”
  
  “I’ve been a little busy lately,” she says, taking off her sunglasses.
  
  Her eye is bruised black, purple, and yellow.
  
  Marty begins coughing, and loses his balance. He leans on a box for support. She leaves her purse and runs over to him. She helps him sit on a box and runs to the kitchen. She looks in the sink and then through the cabinets. There is one glass in a far corner. She grabs it and fills it with water. She brings the glass to him.
  
  “Why didn’t you go to that tournament?” he says.
  
  “I did,” she replies.
  
  “You didn’t win?”
  
  “I didn’t play, I was too late. But I met the club president.”
  
  “Chambers?”
  
  “Yeah, and I think he is smitten with me.”
  
  “That’s nice.”
  
  He looks away and takes a sip of water.
  
  “You played him?” he says.
  
  “Blindfolded.”
  
  He spits up a stream of water and coughs. She rushes to him and pats his back.
  
  “I can’t believe it. You beat him, didn’t you? You fucking beat him.”
  
  “I’m worried about you,” she says.
  
  “Worried about me?”
  
  He stands up and moves away from her. His eyebrows crease.
  
  “You beat a state champion blindfolded and you let that bastard pimp beat you around? Let’s get the hell out of here. I can get you a job tutoring kids at chess! Hell, anything, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got talent, Jordan. You’re worth a whole hell of a lot more than you realize, don’t you get it?”
  
  He walks over to the stereo and pulls an envelope down.
  
  “I already bought you a ticket.”
  
  He hands it to her. She sits down and opens it. She skims it.
  
  “I can’t leave.”
  
  “What… Oh my god. I can’t believe you. You’d rather stay here and be a whore for the rest of your life? We could have a condo in Costa Rica. Are you crazy?”
  
  She begins crying. He walks over to her but she shoves him away. She finally composes herself.
  
  “You know what the best part of my day used to be? I couldn’t wait to come into your disgusting, stinking house and drink your cheap wine. Because I knew once I was here, once I was inside, I didn’t have to pretend to be alive. Even for five minutes I would have come, just to feel that.”
  
  She grabs a tissue from her purse and dabs her eyes.
  
  She says, “I've spent my whole life feeling like a maggot crawling on my own skin, watching myself but unable to experience anything valid. And I tried to give you a chance but all you do is remind me of that.”
  
  He stares off, looking away from her. She walks closer, her face creased in a scowl.
  Only inches away from his face, she says, “I’m sorry that I can’t be your little trophy-whore you saved through a game of chess.”
  
  “You know that’s not true,” he says.
  
  “It is true! And I’m not the one that needs saving. You want to sacrifice everything and run off to some island like a little boy with your daddy’s inheritance. You won’t even admit to yourself that you are dying. You need to save yourself, not me. You need to look in the mirror. No wonder your wife left-”
  
  “Get out of my house!” he says, and throws the empty glass. Shards explode off the wall. A red bird flutters, bouncing off of the window. It flies off, soaring out of view.
  
  She cries. She tosses the envelope and grabs her purse. She walks out and doesn’t look back.
  
  ***
  
  Marty walks up to his house, holding a red, leather suitcase. He is clean and tan, and slightly thinner, but carries a heavy face. He wears dark shades. He opens his mailbox, letters fall out. He sets down his suitcase and scoops them up. He flips through them like photographs and stops when he sees one from Jordan. A smile plays at the corners of his mouth. The other letters fall to the ground as he opens Jordan’s as fast as he can.
  
  It reads:
  
  Marty,
  
  I’ve thought a lot about you over the weeks. I feel really bad about our last argument and I just want you to know that you are one of the greatest people I have ever met. You unearthed feelings and emotions that I had buried so long ago… so long that I thought they were gone.
  
  I’m visiting my grandmother in Riga, Latvia at the moment. There is still no word on the whereabouts of my parents, but that doesn’t matter anymore. My grandmother is so happy to see me, it has been almost ten years. We picked bilberries yesterday and we are planning a trip to the Baltic Sea for the weekend. I love it during the spring, when the snow starts melting from the spruce trees.
  
  Lots of things have changed here, the city has grown even bigger. Lots of things have changed also at home. My brother Andris took care of Tye. Let’s just say he probably will not be walking for a while. Unfortunately, Tye has many associates so I will probably always have to look over my shoulder.
  
  Chambers proposed to me last week, but I don’t want to be with anyone right now. He is sweet and understands this, and I know you do as well. It took me twenty-one years to find myself and I need to spend this time now getting to know me, if that makes any sense to you.
  
  I am coming back in two weeks and thanks to help from Chambers I will be working at the Civic Center as a secretary, but only for the spring and summer. My chances are slim to get a work visa so I am keeping my fingers crossed. I think that is another reason Chambers proposed to me, but I have too much integrity for that. But if all works out with the visa though I might even be able to tutor kids at chess! There will be a tournament very soon, you should come! You are probably smiling now, it is always what you wanted. Most of all I thank you, who knows where I would be without you, the master of sacrifice!
  
  With Love,
  Jordan
  
  Ps. In this envelope I have included the name of the very best doctor I know. Please see him. Also, I have a surprise for you. Open your door.
  
  
  He smiles and looks through the envelope. He finds the business card of Dr. Hapburn, oncologist.
  
  He picks up his suitcase and walks to the door. Two squirrels banter each other in the gutter but stop once they notice him. They bob their tails like pompoms. As he nears one squirrel ushers the other along the length of the gutter and over the gabled dormer. They dodge around a corner. A red bird flutters down at the edge of his roof and turns its head mechanically.
  
  The door is locked. He sighs and digs through his pocket, finally producing keys. The aroma of lemons engulfs his nose as the door slowly swings open.
  
  An orange cat darts behind a box, leaving behind a chewed piece of paper. His house is immaculate. The first thing he notices is the framed Bobby Fischer photo. The parquet floors shine. His azure blue, leather sofas, love seat and ottomans welcome him. The china cabinet sits in the den once more. He picks the chewed piece of paper from the floor and reads it; it is a receipt from Portland Storage, paid in full. The cat darts through the house; he follows it to the bedroom.
  
  The cat leaps on his bed and begins purring. The cat’s orange, watery nose probes a large manila envelope on his bed. He breathes in the fresh air of the room and looks around. His oak chest of drawers and nightstand are polished. His mirror has been cleaned.
  
  Marty walks to the envelope and pulls together the prongs. He unwinds the thread and opens it. Inside are several black and white autographed photos of Mikhail Tal. A sticky note on the back of one photo reads:I thought you would like these. Please stay in touch.

8. Autobiography of a Nobody




• I've often wondered what the outside world looks like to a fish in an aquarium. Or better yet, what if fish were intelligent creatures that could speak their own native language? With what prose would they express their dilemma, being forever trapped in the glass prison of fake ocean flora and dollar-store knick-knacks?
  
  It's not hard to imagine them peering out through the glass with their sad eyes, perpetually darting around with fish tank fever. Or to imagine seeing them trapped, weaving through plastic rocks in the cell of a twenty-gallon tank with the same cellmates and the same pitter-patter sound of the bubble jet until they died. It would be cruel and bitter loneliness.
  
  But, if we didn't know how to speak "fish" we would never know how they really felt; they could only commiserate amongst themselves. Without a way to communicate with us, they would have to abandon all hope of ever leaving behind their legacy. We would never realize their hopes and dreams.
  
  My life has felt just like that, one big aquarium since my birth in 1952. My native language is "fish". And like the fish, it seems no bipedal speaks my language.
  
  I was born a prodigy, however. Most people couldn't accomplish what I had done at the age of eight in their entire lives. At the precocious age of eight, I was partially responsible for Kennedy's election in 1960. The Civil Rights Movement, the Apollo Program, even The Doors, none of this could have happened without me. And the tragedy is that I didn't get even a smidgen of acknowledgment for it, not even a pat on back.
  
  All I've ever wanted out of life is a little recognition, plain and simple. I'm simply not credited for any of my work, and when I complain to anyone about it I'm completely ignored. I'm not saying that I want wealth; hell, I'm made of money. The child prodigy Mozart was never wealthy either; everyone knows he died in a pauper's grave. What I'm saying is that they at least recognized him for who he was. They realized he had talent at an early age. His father even carted him around before emperors and kings to toot his little clarinet, at the age of thirteen. As the old saying goes, you'd have to live under a rock not to know who Mozart is, even if you hate his music.
  
  But not me. I'll be the Unknown Soldier. My name will never go down in the archives of history.
  
  My life has been just one big, paradoxical extreme to the next. Even since my birth people have used me, discarded me like a bedpan, then begged for me to come back the next day. It seems that my friendship with them is only ephemeral, changing hands like a game of speed rummy. I feel like some drug they use to make themselves feel happy, only to be quickly let down and forgotten with the same fervor as when they first sought me. Then, next week they're dragging me back to their houses for drinks again.
  
  I've never even been called by my real name; no one's ever even asked me for it. They only have nicknames for me and it's never the same. That's the paradox; everyone knows me but no one knows me. People need me, but they hate me. I'm unique, but I'm also like the Xeroxed copy of a hundred million anonymous faces. I'm just a phantom helper, a ghost without a title, a nobody. And this is my dilemma.
  
  My life has never gotten any better. In fact, life paid me back for all of my philanthropy like this: I was held hostage on my twentieth birthday in a cockroach-infested motel in Indianapolis with a Vietnam vet named Jeff. This was one of the worst moments in my life I can recall.
  
  He was a proper thug, living off of prostitutes, whiskey and coke. Jeff would keep me prisoner until he died. There was no escape. He had a gun. The only thing I could do was think of all of the other terrible things that had happened that year, to make myself feel better about my own circumstance. John Lennon was shot and killed; the Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham choked on his own puke cocktail and Ronald Reagan was elected president. But this kind of therapy never worked for me before, and I thought at that time, why should it work now? You can't wallow in someone else's misery to forget about your own. And there was no Zen meditation that was going to save me. I was Jeff's prisoner and there was nothing I could do about it.
  
  That is, until he was eighty-sixed by a massive heart attack, clutching his chest and falling beneath the burning pink, neon motel sign, lying there motionless, as if he were painted there. Next thing I know the cops were raiding the room and escorting me to the county precinct.
  
  I wasn't there very long. Officer Lockwood held me for a few hours then turned me loose. They didn't even listen to my story, about how the psycho abducted me from the 7-11 down the road at gunpoint. They didn't even take me in for questioning. Officer Lockwood gave me a silent tour of the facility and then dismissed me as if he'd never seen me before, without even so much as a word. I felt like the phantom again. But I wanted to leave that cement and steel dungeon as soon as I could anyway. That was the only time in my life in which it was an asset to be a nobody. In spite of all I had done throughout my life, no one knew me. That day was the only time I cherished my anonymity.
  
  As I mentioned earlier, my life has always seemed oscillate between completely opposite extremes. My circle of friends has always changed from day to day. One day I could be hanging out with the most notorious gangsters (I once spent the weekend with Erminio Capone in Chicago), and the next day I would be at a gala dinner laughing with senators drunk with double entendre jokes. It was a catholic church and the Eucharist one week, and the occasional prostitute the next. My life couldn't be anymore double-sided. And what made it worse is that everyone pretended not to know me, brushing me aside and stuffing me in corners after they'd used me like a cheap hooker for whatever they could get out of me.
  
  On my fortieth birthday I wanted to commit suicide. I grew tired of swimming in circles and peering out of the tank at the world, knowing I could never be a part of it. If I couldn't find acceptance or even a modicum of affirmation, then I reasoned it just wasn't worth it anymore. You can only give so much charity. You can only help so many students produce their films and become famous. You can only help so many presidents get elected and do so much for humanity until you hit a solid wall.
  
  Year after year of dealing with unthankful crowds gnawed at my heart. I would have even been happy if they showed the utmost disdain for me and for my work, instead of just ignoring me. At least then I would have actually felt real. But I would never be graced with such kindness as animosity. Everyone has their limits and on January 9th, 1992, I had reached mine.
  
  The fact is I could never hurt myself. Not because I'm afraid, but because I'm crippled in a way. I would have ended it a long time ago if I had the capacity to do it. I've eavesdropped on a thousand conversations that have centered on unspeakable crimes of murder, drugs, molestation, and the dirtiest secrets ever told, simply because I was crippled. They never acknowledged my presence, as if I were invisible. They even referred to me in third person, as if I were an ottoman or some other random piece of furniture in the room. If they knew I had been listening and understood everything, they would have done the job for me. Then I wouldn't have to search for a Kervorkian to finish me off.
  
  I'm not sure exactly how many of you have been in my position. The overwhelming desire to end it all without the capacity to do it is the same as living in your own personal hell. But I've finally accepted it. You can eventually learn to accept even hell if you know it's your only option. But the truth is I haven't really come to terms with my predicament. I'm only bidding my time, longing for that day to come when I'll be snuffed out, burned, ripped up and gone for good.
  
  But recently, I've had an epiphany of sorts, a self-realization. Not that I don't want to die; I do indeed. But I've come to realize that humanity is not perfect and neither am I. What I have been doing my entire life is blaming other people for my personal problems. Most of the problems I have had stem from the pure naivety of humanity. After pondering this for quite some time I've decided that I can almost forgive them. Presently, I can offer no more than an "almost", but at least it's a step in the right direction.
  
  Also, I've been comparing myself to other people in a display of childlike one-upmanship, inflating my ego by bragging about my accomplishments, my super nova résumé. Maybe I have done this to compensate for my secret low self-esteem caused by lack of recognition? But no one wants to sit and listen to someone toot his own horn and so I will cease with the conceited ranting. I can't expect people to acknowledge my every achievement. And to my defense I can only add this: I admit that I'm the most irritating and pretentious one-hundred-dollar bill you will ever meet, so please be easy on me. I'm not the root of evil.

7. Eternal Scapegoat




• Harvey, A jaded and apathetic young man, who always seems to be life's doormat is convinced by his so-called friend to start a business, capitalizing on society's all to often need to find a scapegoat.



• Harvey Rodriguez doesn’t frown or protest as the manager fires him, her bleach-blond hair bouncing as she defines and gesticulates the reasons for his termination.
  
  He casually unties his blue frock and throws it into the hamper behind the convenience store’s grimy counter. The counter is etched deep with doodles, and initials and whatnots, long abandoned and forgotten by their owners.
  
  “I’m sorry, but this is the third time this month that the drop’s been short,” Marissa says, tonguing the remains of a dark green vegetable stuck between her teeth.
  
  She looks away from him, counting money from an envelope. She finally looks up and says, “Someone has to go, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be me.”
  
  Harvey doesn’t mention his perfect attendance record for the last six months here at Barker’s Stop-N-Go. More importantly, he doesn’t mention that he didn’t steal the money and that the bank drop for his last shift was actually a few dollars over. There were plenty of other likely culprits who should have been fired instead of him. Her boyfriend Brian, the felon with a mile-long track record of theft and aggravated larceny, just for one example.
  
  “It’s okay,” he says, walking toward the clock with his manila timecard.
  
  She snatches the timecard from his hand and says, “I’ll take care of it, good luck.”
  
  A brief, cool silence wells between them. He begins to open his mouth, but instead smiles and walks out of the door. The doorbell chimes with his departure. He shoves his hands in his pockets and buries his chin in his gray hoodie, as if it were cold. The wind rustles his shiny-black shoulder-length hair, as the sidewalk seems to propel him down the street to his apartment.
  
  ***
  
  “You’re joking…right?” says Carlos.
  
  “No.”
  
  Carlos leans back in the tan, leather sofa and stubs out his cigarillo. His hair is dark and long like Harveys and they are often mistaken for brothers. He props up his feet on Harvey’s shiny, mahogany coffee table. Little flakes of dried mud thread the lining of his boot soles and fall out intact, on the surface of the coffee table.
  
  “Of course you’re not,” Carlos says, shaking his head.
  
  “It was bound to happen,” Harvey says.
  
  Harvey rolls over and curls up on his black, metal futon and clicks on the television. His eyes glaze over.
  
  “Oh my god. You always say that. How many jobs have did this to you in the past two years?”
  
  “Hmm, don’t know. You heard back from that diner?” says Harvey.
  
  “Don’t change the subject on me.”
  
  “Okay.”
  
  Carlos sighs and lets his feet drop, littering the polished, wood floor with more clumps of crud from his boots. He sighs at Harvey and lights another cigarillo.
  
  “No,” Carlos says, as he exhales a big cloud of blue-gray smoke toward Harvey.
  
  “What?”
  
  “I want you to change the subject,” says Carlos.
  
  “Huh?”
  
  “I want you to haggle me about my jobs.”
  
  Harvey clicks off the television. He rolls over to Carlos and says, “Okay, how is your job going? And have you heard back from that diner yet?”
  
  “Harvey, you’re really something.”
  
  “What?”
  
  “I haven’t had a job for two years dude. I haven’t had a job since I’ve lived with you.”
  
  “Oh.”
  
  “Don’t say oh.”
  
  “Okay.”
  
  “Jesus, say whatever you want,” Carlos says, lighting the edge of the cigarillo box with his Zippo. Green-bluish flames slowly rise from one of its corners.
  
  “But you just said not to say it.”
  
  The flames rise higher, engulfing the entire cigarillo box. Carlos gasps and lets it drop on the seat of the leather couch. Harvey and Carlos watch the box for a time until it finally smolders out, leaving a charred square mark on the nice leather.
  
  “I should have had it upholstered with that stain resistant stuff,” says Harvey.
  
  Carlos laughs. Harvey rolls back over and faces the television. He clicks it on again.
  
  “Dude,” says Carlos.
  
  “What?”
  
  “I just told you that I’ve basically been sponging off of you for the last two years and I just burned a hole in your fifteen-hundred-dollar leather sofa.”
  
  “Ah, don’t worry. You’ll find a job.” Harvey says.
  
  “No, I won’t. I don’t like to work and I want to sponge off you for the rest of my life.”
  
  “Oh yeah?”
  
  “For fuck sake, grow some fucking balls will you!”
  
  Harvey clicks off the television, but continues staring away from Carlos, watching the blank screen.
  
  “What are you getting at,” Harvey says, still staring at the blank screen.
  
  “I just burned a hole in your sofa and you blame yourself for not getting a stain resistant one, like it would matter anyway. My point is dude, you never take initiative. And you let people walk all over you and then you blame yourself. You’re like some kind of eternal scapegoat.”
  
  “Hmm, you think so?”
  
  “When you worked for that oil change place and your boss’s wife got mad because he spent every weekend at the bar, he blamed it on you. And you just sat there and took the rap for it, and didn’t even stand up for yourself when he fired you just to make her happy. And this is just one of the many examples.”
  
  “She didn’t believe him.”
  
  “Of course she didn’t, but that’s not the point. She wanted to believe him. People don’t want to believe it’s their fault and they’ll look for anyone or anything to blame for their misery. And for some strange reason you always seem to show up in the nick of time. You’ve been like this since I’ve known you.”
  
  Harvey rolls over and faces Carlos.
  
  Carlos continues, “My dad always said society has always been built on two classes of people, the oppressors and the downtrodden. It’s been keeping the earth spinning since Cain and Abel.”
  
  Harvey says, “It’s the only thing I'm good at.”
  
  Carlos picks up an empty cigarillo box from underneath the coffee table, and lights a corner of it. He says, “No, you’re not good at it. With all due respect, even Jesus got something out of it.”
  
  Blue-green flames engulf the box, filling the air with its pungent odor. Harvey strains a soft sigh from his lungs. Carlos drops the box on the coffee table. They watch it burn.
  
  “So burning down my apartment will make me more assertive?”
  
  “You should start a business,” says Carlos.
  
  The box finally smolders out, gray and black flakes of ash litter the table.
  
  Carlos continues, “You should put an ad in the paper and say something like this, is your wife haggling you about a drug problem, did you screw up at work? Don’t take the rap, call me. No problem is too large for me to become a patsy. Reasonable rates, call me at…”
  
  “You were always creative, Carlos.”
  
  Carlos’s eyes widen, a smile plays at the corner of his lips.
  
  “Dude, no, this would be cool! I mean some people might think it's a joke. But who knows, maybe someone will actually call. Would you be down for it?”
  
  “I guess.”
  
  “Cool, just give me some money so I can put the ad in the paper.”
  
  Two weeks go by without a call. One morning the cordless phone rings. Carlos answers it.
  
  “Was your ad a joke?”
  
  “Huh? Oh, the ad. No, no, it’s for real.”
  
  “I don’t want to talk over the phone, can you meet me downtown at the bridge?”
  
  “Sure.”
  
  Carlos puts the phone back on the receiver and nudges Harvey, who is snoring, fast asleep on his futon.
  
  ***
  
  Days turn into weeks, and Harvey slowly gathers clients. One week he was the alleged supplier of Percocets and Oxycontin for the husband of an embittered wife. It didn’t solve his drug addiction but it bought him enough time to find another excuse. The husband told his wife that Harvey had been arrested and that their troubles were over. Harvey was paid to call her and confirm this, and to apologize for turning him on to the pills.
  
  Another week he allegedly, accidentally burned down a coffee shop so the owner could collect insurance on his failed business. Harvey received a hefty chunk of the claim, less Carlos’s cut, of course.
  
  One of the last assignments, before the calls started petering off, was to take the rap for a better who had welched on a horse race outside of Louisville. Days before the actual race he had already planned on running if he lost and made all of the arrangements with Carlos, who furnished the man with a duplicate of Harvey’s driver license.
  
  “Dude, you’re like Jesus, except with a bank account,” Carlos says, arranging a new, red, leather sofa. The old leather sofa is gone.
  
  Harvey lies on the futon and clicks the television on.
  
  “Dude, aren’t you tired of that old rusty futon.”
  
  “No.”
  
  “You should live a little, you’ve got plenty of cheddar now. Who would’ve ever thought you could turn blame and guilt into a business?” says Carlos.
  
  Carlos plants his feet on the new, glass coffee table and continues, “Wait, organized religion has already been doing that for thousands of years. I guess I'm not as original as I thought.”
  
  Carlos pulls out the last cigarillo in the box and lights it. He says, “I thought you were going to pick up some things from Barker’s.”
  
  “Oh, sorry.”
  
  Harvey lifts himself off the futon and grabs his hoodie. He pulls it over his head, tangling his long hair in a heap. He grabs his keys and pats down his pockets. He looks to Carlos.
  
  “Here man,” Carlos says, reaching into his pocket. He throws his own wallet to Harvey.
  
  Carlos says, “I think it’s my turn anyway. But don't lose my wallet, and don't spend too much.”
  
  Marissa looks up from counting money as she hears the bells on the door chime, and stares Harvey down. Brian peeks around the corner from a back room where the safe is kept. Harvey wanders the aisles, looking at everything and nothing.
  
  Finally, he comes to the counter. Marissa rings up his hot chocolate and two boxes of cigarillos and tosses them on the counter. She pulls out a plastic bag and tosses it at Harvey and says, “Bag it yourself, I’m busy.”
  
  Harvey leaves the bag on the counter and walks out. He walks behind Barker’s and unravels the cellophane on the box, and pulls out a cigarillo. He pats his pockets for a lighter and realizes he doesn’t have one. Brian comes out of the metal door next to him, smoking a cigarette.
  
  He looks at Harvey and hands him a lighter.
  
  “Thanks.”
  
  “That’s the least I could do for you,” Brian says, chuckling.
  
  Harvey takes a drag and gags. He coughs, and coughs, his eyes dripping with tears. Brian laughs at him. Suddenly, Brian looks down the road, up to the sky. Billows of black smoke swirl as high as he can see.
  
  “Wow, look.”
  
  Harvey stops coughing and looks up, his eyes watering less now. He drops his coffee and boxes of cigarillos and dashes toward the smoke. Red and orange flames lick the walls, completely engulfing his apartment. Embers pop this way and that way, like shooting stars. Someone screams from inside.
  
  Harvey dashes toward his front door, which creaks and falls forward when he is five feet away. A gust of fire and wind shoot out from behind it. Harvey falls to the ground. He quickly pulls himself up and tries to run in, but the smoke is too thick to see and it is too hot. He coughs and trips on something, stumbling on top of the burning door.
  
  Sirens wail in the distance and a dark car with tinted windows peels off down the road.
  
  Two months later Harvey stands behind a counter and rings up an order, smoking a cigarillo. His hair is cut short and slicked back with a nice sheen.
  
  The customer, a young brunette woman with a Monroe piercing says, “So, are you finally acclimating to the country of California?”
  
  Harvey chuckles, and bags her carton of cigarettes. He hands her the bag and says, “Well, it’s definitely different than Kentucky. I think the women here are prettier too.”
  
  “Wow, you're cute and not a bad liar. You'll be right at home here in LA...” she says, smiling and looking at the nametag pinned to his frock, “...Carlos.”
  
  “You like Shoe Gazer music? Me and some friends are going to hit Hotel Café this weekend,” Harvey says.
  
  She smiles, and scribbles her number on the back of the receipt. She hands it to him.
  
  “Maybe,” she says, still smiling.
  

6. The Mess




• I never wanted Malerie Walters to die. I never wanted her heart to explode like fireworks on New Years. I would have made any provision that day to keep her alive instead of accidentally handing her the wrong prescription.
  
  If God somehow gave me a second chance I’d even be willing to play Bridge or Bingo with her, crochet snow flake patterns, quilt an afghan, bake cookies, or any other thing Grandmas do in their free time, in lieu of that pharmaceutical botch up. Hell, I would have even laid her if it meant I was going to be saving her life. But the facts of life are that you don’t always get a second chance. You can’t just un-murder someone; sometimes you just have to make the best of it.
  
  The specter of Malerie Walters still haunts me to this day. It’s like a small ball, growing rapidly inside me until it grows so large I feel like I could explode. A tight grip crushes my chest, and it feels like the world is stealing my last drop of oxygen. Then her voice echoes in part of my mind like a mantra: “You murderer!”
  
  The other part of my mind knows it was an accident. If I could only convince the other half I’d have some peace of mind. I’ve always felt like I have two brains, separated in one crisp dichotomy.
  
  I’ve always been exactly half of my mother and half of my father. It feels like limbo; New Hampshire upper echelon meets southern, Podunk, mountain boy. I wear my father’s gruff beard and southern draw. My mother bequeathed to me her social repartee, an intelligent, pointy nose, and her frail frame. I’ve never quite felt at ease with either of my parents or any of their genetic traits.
  
  Living with my dad and enduring all of his antics inspired me to leave. There wasn’t a solitary night in which he didn’t come stumbling in drunk after work. We probably had three conversations my entire life, and they only occurred when he realized I was heading off to college. At any given time of the week there would be a greasy transmission or engine block sitting in the middle of the living room floor. The whole little shack smelled like engine grease, gasoline, pinewood, and stale cigarette smoke. You couldn’t walk into the kitchen without stepping on one tool or another. Ball peen hammers, little boxes of nails, glue guns and fragments of dry wall littered the entire trailer. No one can blame my mother for leaving. But when she left it became even worse.
  
  As an excuse to get out of the house I went to work for a friend of father’s at Jared’s Construction. Mostly, I just handed them buckets of cement or tools and swept up after we were finished for the day.
  
  The first day they stood around laughing at everything I said. Chuck, the foreman, looked at me and said, “You ever hang drywall college boy? They teach you stuff like that there?”
  
  I shook my head.
  
  After two weeks I’d had enough. We were building a home for a rich family on Signal Mountain. Dark, lavender thunderclouds were sailing in from the west and we knew the storm would hit before lunch. Fortunately, we were working inside, hanging dry wall and preparing to lay carpet down on the bare wood floor. I was covered in drywall dust and looked like I’d just come out of a vat of flour. My eyes were stinging. I went to the corner to grab a bucket of water and a sponge to clean myself off when Chuck noticed my American History book from the community college. I often brought homework to do during lunch break.
  
  He picked up the book from the unfinished staircase and grinned. It looked so tiny in his hands. Most of the crew looked just like him, large, round heads buzzed short with bodies that looked as if they were hewn directly from the mountainside. Their cheeks were swollen with wads of chewing tobacco, which they indiscriminately spat on the wood floor. He held the book at arms length and peered at it, it was hard to tell if it were mocking him or he were mocking it. He snatched it open and started reading, trying to imitate the medley of my southern draw and Rhode Island accent.
  
  He read the famous line of Kennedy’s inauguration speech out loud, “Also my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country.”
  
  He snapped the book closed with one hand and tossed it over his shoulder.
  
  “Why the fuck they have ta kill Kennedy for? He made a few mistakes, but he wudn’t a bad guy.”
  
  He shook his head and continued, “Why couldn’t they a killed somebody like John Ford instead. He was a nobody. What the hell he do for this country?’
  
  “It’s Gerald Ford, not John Ford,” I said.
  
  He ignored me and continued, “Sure he might have gut us out of the depression but maybe it was his fault to begin with.”
  
  He started pacing the room and bent down to pick a nail gun from the floor.
  
  “That Ford,” he said, “I would a killed that cock sucker with a nail gun!”
  
  He pivoted and swung the gun at my face holding it with both hands. He said, “That little cunt. I’d a shot him just like this, POW!”
  
  I was expecting a nail to pierce my face but instead it was just an empty click. My knees were shaking a little bit as he began walking toward me, the gun still pointed at my face.
  
  “What did you say to me boy? Ford wasn’t president?”
  
  “G-Gerald Ford wuz a president. There wuz no John Ford.” I tried to stretch my words in a twang thinking it would put him more at ease.
  
  “You come down here thinkin’ you’re some kind a’ hotshot. I know about your mother. Your daddy’s an all right feller, but you don’t take after ’em. You sound like that damn high-falootin’, tea-drinking-bitch mother a yours!”
  
  He jabbed the nail gun at my throat and held it there.
  
  “You tellin’ me there ain’t no Ford? I say there is a goddamn Ford!”
  
  He pressed the gun tighter into my neck.
  
  “Y-Y-Yes…you’re right, I must be mistakin’.”
  
  He looked over at the others. They all busied themselves looking down at the floor.
  
  “You hear that boys, he says there is a Ford.”
  
  “Leave him alone Chuck,” someone said.
  
  But he continued, “I think today is gonna be a commerashion. Today will be known here on out as Ford’s Day. You like that boy?”
  
  He prodded me with the nail gun a few more times until I said, “Yes sir.”
  
  It wasn’t any better at mothers. I once overheard a remark my grandmother Nancy made during my monthly custody visit. We were having dinner and I politely excused myself to the restroom. On my way back through the marble foyer I caught a glimpse of her peering down her long nose at my mother.
  
  She said, “You’re never going to be able to hide that little twang of his. His southern roots are going to betray him every time.”
  
  “Mother, can we refrain from being petty, just this once. He doesn’t get to visit very often.”
  
  I stood there listening from the corner of the foyer, peeking in just enough to see one half of Nancy. She took a sip of tea and tossed the cup on the saucer as if it were a rodent. She dabbed her lips with a cloth napkin and looked up at mother through her blush-wine colored bifocals.
  
  She shook her head at mother and said, “What in heaven’s name were you thinking Margaret? I taught you better than that. You didn’t have to go sniffing around the mountain down there in Tennessee for a husband. Thomas had everything you could ever want. I want you to explain something to me, how a two-bit, redneck drunk like him who claims he’s both mechanic and construction worker wins over a handsome accountant with a Yacht and a two summer homes.”
  
  “I don’t have to explain-”
  
  Nancy shoved both palms down flat on the table and said, “You’ve sure got a mess on your hands now don’t you?”
  
  As I walked into the room they froze. Nancy didn’t look up; instead she pretended to be cleaning a stain on the checkered tablecloth. Mother turned to me, hiding behind a feigned smile and pulled out my chair. I took my plate to the kitchen and asked to be excused.
  
  Through trying desperately to be a part of both worlds I inadvertently became the scorn of both. I’m not refined enough to become the socialite my mother’s side of the family expects me to be, but I’m considered too aloof and snooty to be a part of my father’s country culture. Both sides of my family detest me for the same reason; I remind them both of what they hate about each other, and possibly themselves.
  
  After the “John Ford” incident I decided to transfer from the community college to a regular state college. The university helped serve as a refugee camp and a means by which I could forge my own little world where I could finally be whole and complete.
  
  The pre-pharmacy certificate looked appealing because Dalton State College was offering a paid practicum at a private pharmacy upon completion of the first semester. After the first semester I applied at Greg’s Pharmacy and was accepted.
  
  Working there enabled me to pay for most of the college expense. It also served as the milieu where I could meet other people with similar interests and immerse myself in the type of environment where I would eventually be employed.
  
  I finished the semester with honors and began working for Greg’s full time. His wife helped him run the little pharmacy, which was only a ten-minute walk from Dalton College and my apartment.
  
  The training provided by Dalton was good and I already had a penchant for working large calculations in my head. I could convert liters to milliliters and grams of solution to milligrams with just blink of an eye, faster than any other pharmacy tech could, according to Greg. They were enthusiastic about hiring me and did so immediately. But despite my aptitude in math I was sloppy in work.
  
  Sometimes they would have to double or triple-check the prescriptions.
  
  Greg stood over my shoulder; his bushy gray eyebrows seemed to crease as he let out a soft sigh. He shook his head and whispered, “Jacob, I know you can do better than this. We don’t want to kill anyone son. You just filled this prescription with Tylenol instead of Hydrocodone. You need to look at the prescription more carefully. Hydrocodone 7.5/750 means there’s 750 milligrams of Tylenol in it, so you need to concentrate on reading the full prescription. You can’t just read part of it. I can’t let this slide any longer. You’ll have to leave if I catch one more mistake. You should know this by now...”
  
  The problem was I really just using the place. I was just biding my time away from my parents, not taking anything seriously so as long as I wasn’t at home. This was the cause of Malerie Walter’s death.
  
  We were swarmed that day; it was the beginning of the month. This was the time when many customers came in for refills. Greg and his wife didn’t have time to evaluate my work that day.
  
  I was supposed to fill a prescription for Ativan. It’s a medicine for treating anxiety. I read the prescription wrong and filled it with another drug, Aderol.
  
  There's a big difference. Aderol is a reasonably potent amphetamine that is sometimes even sold on the streets. Another problem was that Malerie also had a heart condition and because of that such a medicine would never be prescribed to her.
  
  Around two o' clock I took my break and went to watch the TV in the break room. My mouth dropped down to my ankles.
  
  The reporter said: "Malerie Walters, age 72 dies after fainting at the wheel for unknown reasons."
  
  That was a real nice way to put it. Malerie died all right. She drove right through her living room with that big boat of a Buick and killed her husband. Later that week, when the autopsy report came back, they'd found a lethal amount of the drug Aderol in her system. And that's when it hit me what I had accidentally done.
  
  Apparently, our cute old friend Malerie, granny glasses and all, liked popping pills, lots of them. Ativan and most drugs like it are very addicting, so it's not surprising to see even old, cookie-baking grandmas unknowingly abusing them.
  
  To put it simply, Ativan, like all other drugs in it’s family, turn on that warm Jacuzzi in the back of your mind. And that’s exactly what she expected. But what she got instead of warm tranquility were sirens, acrobats, and airplanes crashing.
  
  I’m assuming she thought they were Ativan or something similar, even though they look different. But she didn’t have a tolerance to Aderol. There's no telling how many she took, but apparently it was enough to make her heart pop like a big, red balloon while at the wheel of the car. She crashed straight through the brick wall of her living room and killed her husband.
  
  When the autopsy report came back Greg knew it had been me. And he knew someone would start asking questions soon. He asked me to leave without so much as looking at me. He handed me the check and that was the last time I ever saw him.
  
  All of my life I’ve tried to distinguish myself from my parents. I yearned to be a separate entity and not some morbid amalgamation, being part of both worlds but neither of them at the same time. Somewhere along the way I became so obsessed with this idea of being different that I forgot to be me. I’ve come to learn that my life isn’t just an excuse to differentiate myself from my roots. The idea of being separate from these worlds has caused more harm than simply being a part of them.
  
  I stayed in a hotel room and camped out for a few months, mourning Malerie. I looked out of the hotel window one morning, and I saw an image. It was a hillbilly and a scholar, wealthy, yet poor.
  
  Then I looked in the mirror, at my face which seemed to show plebian hardship, creased with age. And, strangely, it had a clean, refined look.
  
  Today, I’m a pharmacist living in Maryland with Malerie, halfway between my mother and father.