PattiKen and the Muses

The Briefing

2012-02-01T19:02:00.001-05:00

This is Part 1 of what will be a multi-part story for the River

of Mnemosyne Challenge on the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

How many parts? I have no idea (those muses never tell

me anything), but it won't be more than nine, I promise.

Muse 1: A Legacy of Smoke and Shadow

Image by porbital

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The Briefing

There’s no way of knowing, of course, but she was probably a normal enough child. If there were anyone left to ask, we might be able to find out. But there’s no one.

You might say that Mercedes Karpov is the very definition of an “orphan.” She is without a doubt the most alone person I’ve ever met, and in this business, I’ve come across a lot of people with no ties. That’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it? This is not a life suited to someone with a family, after all. It’s no surprise that the first step into it is often taken as a result of abandonment.

Mercedes’s story is a variation on the theme, though, because no one who left her life -- and they all did leave sooner or later -- did so voluntarily.

Mercedes had a brother she never knew. The boy died in infancy thirteen years before she was born. There were no other children until Mercedes came along. “My parents had given up on having another child," she once told me. "I suspect my arrival came as a quite the surprise.” One can’t help but wonder how having a sibling might have changed things for her.

Mercedes’s mother Ella died a natural death – at least it was a natural death, as far as we know -- when the child was nine years old. I was about to append “poor kid” on that, but it’s hard to apply that description to Mercedes. Still, I suspect she was devastated. What nine-year-old girl wouldn’t be at the loss of a parent, especially her mother. She actually uses the word “abandoned” when she speaks of her mother, which is rarely. Who knows, maybe that’s what put her on the path to becoming the woman she is today. Maybe. But a lot of children lose their mothers at a young age, and manage to grow up to become perfectly average people. And let’s face it. There’s nothing “average” about Mercedes Karpov.

After her mother’s death, her father remarried pretty quickly. It’s likely that he was “involved” with Laurene Louise Calhoun -- or Laurie Lou, as she called herself -- while Mercedes’s mother was still alive. Mercedes remembers lying in bed late at night listening to her parents fighting behind the closed door of their bedroom down the hall. She was always afraid that one or the other was going to leave. And soon after, one did, just not the way Mercedes feared.

Barely two months had passed after Ella’s death when her dad announced he had married the former Georgia beauty pageant winner. At that point, many years had passed since Laurie Lou removed the rhinestone crown from her head and the “Flower of Savannah” banner from across her ample bosom, but she was still an attractive woman who knew how to use her feminine wiles. She’d come to New York to be a Rockette and was still waiting to be discovered. She had been working at Macy's until she "got a break." That's where Mercedes' father fell under her spell.

Laurie Lou considered herself a "southern belle," and was accomplished in acting the part. I'm sure playing the step-mother was not a role she'd aspired to, and she let Mercedes know it in no uncertain terms. The girl responded by wearing her considerable willfulness like a badge of honor. Not surprisingly, Laurie Lou and Mercedes didn't take to each other, and the marriage was destined to fail right from the get-go. In fact, Laurene Louise Calhoun was just the first of several step- mothers to pass though Mercedes’s life, and none had any staying power.

No, near as we can tell, her father was the only constant in Mercedes’s early life and a sorry one he was, at that. He didn’t offer much positive influence, by all accounts. He was well into his forties when she was born, and hardly suited to be a parent. Mercedes said he’d often told her he was “too old to be a father." It was a sorry excuse for bad behavior and neglect, and I'm sure Mercedes knew it, but she loved her “baba,” as she called him, all the same.

There aren’t many people still around who knew him either, since anyone he might have called “friend” is long gone. But we managed to find a few who knew him on the job, and who were young enough at the time to still be among the living. Unfortunately, most of the men we were able to locate were spending their last days in nursing homes and couldn’t remember what they had for breakfast, let alone someone they knew so long ago.

But some were still pretty sharp, and they knew him as well as anyone did. Or thought they did, anyway. They all remembered him as a sot.

“Oh, sure, I remember Phil. A lush, I’d have to say. Drank on the job, you know, and was frequently into his cups by ten o’clock in the morning. ‘Sun’s over the yardarm somewhere in the world,’ he’d say as he tossed back three fingers of straight vodka like it was water. Gives me the shudders to think about it even now.”

“He was a drunk, pure and simple. Hard to blame him, though. He had real bad luck when it came to women. It’d be enough to drive any guy to the bottle. I gotta tell you, though, that second wife of his might have been an airhead but, wowie boy, she was a looker, alright.”

“I figure old Phil was one of them fellas you’d call ‘a working alcoholic.’ Hit on that bottle he kept in his glove box all day, Phil did. Never slowed him down none, though. In fact, sometimes I thought it was the only thing that kept him going.”

“Phil? Yeah, I knew him. Didn’t like him much, I can tell you that. All happy-go-lucky on the face of it, but I always thought there was something -- I dunno, ‘off,’ maybe -- about the guy. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, he was a drunk and everybody knew it. So, how’s a drunk keep his job on the force? You tell me that.”

"Phil was a drunk, all right. But he sure loved that little girl of his. When he wasn’t on duty, he took her everywhere with him, even to his favorite watering holes. Didn’t do her any favors, if you ask me.”

Yes, we know he was a New York City cop. That’s all well documented, but as we also know now, his personnel jacket is pretty much woven out of whole cloth. There’s not much else we know about Phil Brin except that Phil Brin wasn’t his real name. It wasn’t until he was dead and buried that we learned even that. Grigori Karpov managed to keep his identity hidden for decades.

I suspect that the ability to get lost in the smoke and shadows is one of the most valuable lessons Mercedes Karpov learned at her baba’s knee. That and how to hold her liquor. And oh, yeah, he probably taught her how to shoot too. She learned that lesson well. And we were only too happy to take advantage of all those skills, weren’t we?

We shouldn’t be surprised now. We bear as much responsibility in this as anyone. And it's up to us to fix it. Mercedes Karpov has been abandoned by just about everyone in her life. I'll be damned if we're going to join the crowd.

Continued in Pride and Extreme Prejudice

Stripped Bare

2012-01-19T10:42:00.000-05:00

(Photo Source: The Telegraph)

No national flags.

No military uniforms or guns.

No my way is the only way.

Just people meeting on the path of life.

“Hi.”

“Hi. Nice to meet you.”

No I am OK and you are not.

No I am right and you are wrong.

No you are wrong so you are ignorant.

Just discussion between curious people.

“This is what I think.”

“I think you may be right.”

No pretenses or airs.

No mating dance or peacock prance.

No false fronts or misleading masks.

Just honest attraction.

“I like you.”

“I like you, too.”

Is this the end of the world as we know it?

***

Imagined for The Tenth Daughter of Memory

Coed Naked What?

2012-01-16T07:47:00.000-05:00

This is a true story. I’ve changed the names (except for her middle name, which even she made fun of) to protect the two funny people who had this exchange.

They had a lot in common, though neither would ever admit it.

She was Carmelita Immaculata Concepción Gonzalez Jones. He was Juan Perez.

They were both software specialists: she an end-user application consultant, he a technical consultant. Their jobs were to provide customers with telephone support, and each felt the problem could always be placed at the doorstep of the other side. To her, it was never user error; it was always a technical issue with the software. To him, the software was perfect, if only the lame-brained customers would learn how to use it.

They were both Hispanic Americans: she of Cuban descent, he of Argentinian. They each claimed El Che, the "Guerrillero Heroico," as a native son of the homeland.

She spent much of her childhood living outside the US and spoke with a slight Spanish accent. He’d grown up in the States and had no accent at all, but he took great delight in teasing her about hers by mimicking it.

She was a fairly serious person, and generally not given to frivolous behavior. He was the department clown, and rarely suffered a serious moment.

They sat in adjacent cubicles. She wanted nothing to do with him, and nothing gave him greater pleasure than baiting her.

Their ongoing battle across the cubical wall was a great source of entertainment for everyone. Well, for everyone except Carmelita Immaculata Concepción Gonzalez Jones, perhaps.

***

Day 1 of the Apocalypse

He: “Hey, Carmelita. Did choo wash that game on TV last night?”

She: “What game? I didn’t see any game."

He: “It was on one of the es-spanish language channels. Late, around midnight, I thin.”

She: “No, I don’t watch TV that late. I rarely watch the Spanish language channels. And, for heaven's sake, stop talking like that.”

He: “Oh, choo missed a really gray game.”

She: “What was it?”

He: “Coed naked bolleyball.”

She: “What? Coed naked volleyball? They played naked volleyball on TV?”

He: “No, no, this was different. Coed naked bolleyball. Oh, chjess, gray game.”

She: “No. Go away. You’re an idiot.”

***

Day 2 of the Apocalypse

He: “Carmeleeeta…”

She: (sigh) “What?”

He: “It was on again last night. It’s a tournament, I thin. The Coed Naked Bolleyball Tournament.”

She: “No.”

He: “Choo gotta es-see it. It’s awesome. Coed naked …”

She: “Stop.”

He: “But…”

She: (walks away)

***

Day 3 of the Apocalypse

He: “Oh, boy. ¡Ay caramaba! What a game that waz.

She: (menacingly) “Juan. Do. Not. Start.”

He: (innocently) “What?”

She: “You know what. Don’t do it.”

He: “Do what? I waz joos gonna …”

She: “Oh, I know what you ‘waz joos gonna’ do. Cut it out.”

He: “Huh? I waz joos gonna tell choo about the finale of the coed naked…”

She: “Stop!”

He: “But, the finale waz…”

She: “If you don’t stop this nonsense and leave me alone, it’s going to be the finale of you.” (leaves in high dudgeon)

***

The Finale of the Apocalypse… and Juan

He: (walking toward his desk) “Oh, Carmelita…”

She: (sweetly) “Hello, Juan. How are you today?”

He: (throwing himself into his desk chair with his usual exuberance) "So last night... Ah, ah, ah... what the hell?"

She: (snicker)

She: (whispering) "Gotcha, amigo."

He: “What the hell happened to my chair???”

She: "Sí, bery funny, Juan, don't choo thin?"

***

Remembered for The Tenth Daughter of Memory

"What's it like?"

2012-01-08T14:34:00.003-05:00

What’s it like?

She never married and hasn’t had any family for years, but she’s always had friends. Some have visited, though not that many people come to see her anymore. Who can blame them; it drags on so.

She is surprised that none of them has ever asked, “What’s it like?”

Were she the visitor, she’s pretty sure she would ask. But perhaps not. Maybe, like everyone else, she might wonder (assuming that they are wondering) but would consider it somehow unkind or impolite to bring it up. As if it were not always right there, the proverbial elephant in the room.

It’s probably just as well she doesn’t have any family left, she thinks now, because that means there’s no family to leave behind.

***

She hears the voice in her dream.

“What’s it like?”

Well, for the past several weeks, she answers, it’s been like floating deep within a pool bathed in pale silver moonlight, awareness rising and falling with the ebb and flow of the tides. Until recently, the waters were turbulent and I was frequently battered by crashing waves of pain. But it’s calm now, thank goodness, and I drift in and out on gentle swells of consciousness.

As long as she doesn’t dwell on what it all means, it’s not so bad, really.

***

She slowly becomes aware of the hum of life outside her room, but she’s reluctant to leave her dream world. Eyes still closed, she lies still and hopes she can fall asleep again.

She’s not sure what awoke her. She’s become so accustomed to the everyday commerce of this place. Life goes on, or it doesn’t, played out to a soundtrack of announcements from the speakers in the hall, the conversation of the nurses and doctors as they go about the business of saving lives, the soft, but pervasive beeping coming from the machine at the side of her bed, and the occasional squish-squish of rubber soles moving across the floor of her room. For the most part, it all happens with little drama. The controlled urgency of the floor staff responding to a Code Blue or the grief-stricken reaction of a family just told that a loved one is gone gets caught in eddies of melodrama now and then, but that’s infrequent. The rest just floats by her, barely making a ripple.

Snippets of conversation and occasional laughter drift her way from across the hall. Visiting hours are no longer restricted to brief periods in the afternoon and evening. Family and friends are welcome to come anytime, but old habits die hard. The majority still come between six- and nine-o’clock at night. They are here now, pushing sleep out of the way.

She opens her eyes and sees that darkness has crept into her room. The door to the hall is nearly closed and only an inch of light manages to peek around the jamb. The sky outside her windows is almost black, and soon she’ll be able to watch the moon as it crosses the sky. She’s grateful that she has the room at the end of the hall. Because it’s situated on a corner of the hospital, she has the luxury of two windows, giving her a wide-screen view.

She knows that for many at this point in their lives, the nights are the worst, the place where the terrors lurk in the depths of darkness. But the night is her favorite time. It brings a peace that is hard to find amid the flurry of activity during the day.

“You’ve always had a thing for the night, you know. There’s nothing new about that.”

The deep voice comes from the corner of the room, where she can just make out his tall form. Neither the voice nor the comment it makes somewhat sardonically surprises her. He’s been here before. She can’t see him clearly (and she’s really grateful that, in the dim light of the room, he probably can’t see her -- and her bald head -- clearly either), but she knows that he’s leaning against the wall, his long legs casually crossed at the ankle. He’s wearing a plaid flannel shirt, sleeves rolled to just below the elbow and his thumbs are hooked into the pockets of tight jeans that are faded at the swell of his crotch.

He’s her only regular visitor now, excepting the medical types, of course, and she’s always glad to see him. After all, just look at him.

He’s right; she knows that. She’s always loved the mystery of the night. Daytime bathes everything in the harsh light of reality, leaving little to the imagination. It’s always seemed to her that anything is possible at night.

Like him, for example. He always comes at night, never in the daytime.

“Of course I don’t. I’m not about to compete for your attention with the cast of thousands hovering around you.”

The smile in his voice warms her.

Oh, you exaggerate, and you know it. There is no ‘cast of thousands.’ Not anymore, anyway. Just the doctor once a day, the nurses and the odd technician. She sighs. I’m lucky if I see ten people a day.

“Just as well, if you ask me. They come bearing needles, false smiles and platitudes.”

They haven’t always, not at the beginning. Back then, they came bearing hope.

She hears a faint snort of derision from the corner.

***

It’s been an odd journey, the progression of this disease, kind of like sitting at Mr. Toad’s side on his Wild Ride. As she careened through endless months, then years, of treatment, her emotions have been tossed up and down, back and forth, emerging into the bright sunshine of hope only to plunge unexpectedly back into the darkness of despair.

It started with four words: “You have ovarian cancer.”

In the beginning, the doctors were optimistic. “We think we caught it early,” they told her reassuringly. “We’ll need to remove your ovaries, but we’re confident that with chemo and radiation after the surgery, we can beat it.”

Like anyone drowning in terror would, she grasped a hold of that lifeline and clung to it with all the strength she could summon. In the end, it hadn’t been enough.

***

Slowly, a pool of light begins to fill her room as the moon makes its way across her windows. The soft glow caresses her face. She resurfaces and realizes that she drifted off again.

Oh, it’s a full moon tonight, she thinks. I love the full moon.

“Only the best for you, my love.”

Thank you for that. I just wish it were a little closer, like it was in Miami that time. Oh, what a moon that was! So huge and golden, and nearly close enough to touch.

“I remember.”

She knows that she is fully illuminated now in the wash of moonlight. She thinks to raise a hand to her head, and but then thinks better of it. He’s not bolting from the room in horror, after all. She draws a deep breath, taking in a little unaccustomed courage along with it.

Yes, it would be lovely if the moon were just a little closer. In, fact, it would be lovely if you were a little closer.

She holds her breath, waiting to see what he’ll say, dreading the rejection she's come to expect in her relationships with the opposite sex. She hears the faint rustle of his jeans as he moves toward her bed.

“Glad to oblige.”

He reaches her bedside and, to her astonishment, carefully climbs on the bed to stretch the length of his body against hers. Very gently, he takes her into his arms and draws her close.

“Actually, I think I can oblige on both counts. It’s time, sweetheart, time to come with me.”

As she sinks into the strength of his arms, she feels at peace. His last words take her breath away.

Yes. Yes, I’d like that.

What’s it like? Oh, you have no idea. It’s everything she hoped for.

The last thing she hears is the unbroken whine of the bedside machine she leaves behind.

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory

Them? You Listen to Them? - Part 2

2011-12-23T12:14:00.035-05:00

Continued from Part 1

Robert didn’t show his true self right away. Oh, no, he was much too masterful for that. He knew just when to move in and when to ease off, like some kind of fisherman with a fish on the line. Dangle the lure until the fish bites, reel the line in a bit, let the line out a bit, moving the fish closer and closer, until she is flopping around on the deck wondering what the hell happened. And all along, she’d thought she was the one doing the reeling. Ha.

After a suitable courtship – such an old-fashioned word, but apt, though she’d often felt it was her mother he was courting – they married, making her mother even happier than she was.

Then bit by bit, the real Robert surfaced. At first it was little things, like leaving his clothes scattered hither and yon; using the last of the toilet paper; spending the entire weekend glued to ESPN. He expected her to dote on him, clean up after him, serve him gourmet meals, service him in bed.

“He’s a man,” her mother said when she complained to her on the phone. “It’s what they do. You have a handsome husband, a lovely home and an easy life, Meg. Count your blessings.”

Meg had tried, honestly she had. But it had only gotten worse. After a year or so, Robert began traveling more and more on business. When he wasn’t traveling, he came home later and later from the office, often without a call. She couldn’t count the ruined dinners she’d tossed in the bin.

“Oh, poor man. He works so hard!” her mother said. “Other girls should be so lucky to have a husband who works that hard to take care of them. You need to have a baby, Meg. That’ll keep you busy.”

She’d been trying to get pregnant. She stopped taking the pill soon after they married, but to no avail. She’d begun to think that something was wrong with her. Though he seemed rather indifferent to the idea of starting a family, Robert was certainly willing to do his part to get her pregnant.

When she started answering the telephone only to hear the quiet click followed by a dial tone, she suspected his late evenings were spent doing something other than work. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, they always said.

“You need to give him a reason to come home, Margaret,” her mother advised. “I’m sending you a book. I’m sure it will help, and you’ll feel better.”

The book, How to Set Your Marriage Ablaze with Passion, came. Desperate to bring the spark back to her marriage, she opened it at random one night when Robert was in Chicago.

Greet your man at the door wrapped only in Saran Wrap, his martini in hand…

What the hell?

Or perhaps a costume… a cowgirl or a saucy French maid is always good. You can give him the variety he needs so he’ll never have to leave home to find it.

Oh, good grief. Meg closed the book in disgust and ate a pint of Häagen-Dazs Amaretto Almond Crunch instead.

The kicker came the day she answered the door to two humorless men in brown suits.

Mr. Nondescript, the older man on the left, said officiously. “FBI, Ma’am. We’d like to see Mr. Prince.”

FBI? The J. Edgar, Eliot Ness FBI? That FBI?

“Um, my husband’s out of town. What’s this about?”

“Sorry, Ma’am. We’re not at liberty to say,” answered the younger Mr. I’m-Nondescript-Two. “When do you expect him home?”

“Not until Friday.”

“We’ll come back,” the Nondescript twins announced in unison, then drove off in their brown Chevy sedan.

Her heart pounding, Meg called her mother. The news had been full of reports about financial scandal, and more than one big-wig in the industry had been arrested. Just look at Bernie Madoff. What if…

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Margaret,” her mother admonished. “Just ask him, for heaven’s sake. You’ll see. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

So she did. She asked. He denied. She accused. He denied, only louder. She threatened. He laughed, and called her “overly dramatic.”

***

Her mother was going to have a cow, but Meg had decided to leave Robert. Six years of trying to please him was enough. She just couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t even like him anymore, let alone love him. He treated her no better than his dirty underwear, and besides, she’d begun to suspect that the man she’d married was a crook. Thank goodness she’d never managed to get pregnant.

She decided to pack a couple of bags while he was on the golf course, and stash them in the trunk of her car. Right after the Christmas party tonight, she would to tell him it was over, and get out of Dodge.

It was when she was hurrying to gather her things and pack before he got home that she found it. As she reached up to pull her toiletry bag down from the shelf in their walk-in closet, she kicked over a stack of Robert’s shoe boxes.

She bent to put the shoes that fell out back into their boxes, and inside an Italian loafer, she found a small, rolled bundle of papers held together with a rubber band. She pulled the elastic from the papers and got the shock of her life. The top two or three pages were a recent bank statement from a bank she’d never heard of. She nearly fell over when she saw a balance in the account large enough to support a small African country for years. And they were addressed to Robert at a post office box.

Oh, no. She instantly flashed to those FBI agents who’d come to the door. Oh, Robert, what have you done, she thought in horror.

But as bad as that was, it was what she found beneath the statement that sent her reeling: a receipt for the vasectomy he’d had fifteen years ago.

She straightened, and felt a small seed of hatred take root and sprout. What was it they said? If it walks like a duck…

Leaving him was way less than the bastard deserved. Meg walked back into the bedroom and picked up the phone.

***

If she’d had any doubts that she was doing the right thing, Robert’s behavior tonight put them to bed. He had a couple of drinks before they left the house, and once at the country club, the only time he didn’t have a glass in his hand was when he was groping one of the young secretaries on the dance floor. Thank heavens they’d come in a cab.

The band leader announced last call and Robert immediately got up and headed to the bar yet again. Meg followed and stopped him before he ordered.

Grabbing his arm, she whispered, “Robert, please, not another drink. You’ve had too much already. Everybody’s talking. You’re making a fool of yourself and you’re embarrassing me.”

“I own this company, Meg, in case you’ve forgotten. These people owe their jobs to me. You think I’m worried about a little good-natured talk? Besides, you’ve been an embarrassment to me for years. Welcome to my world, Baby.”

He yanked his arm free, and continued to the bar, leaving Meg rooted to the floor, stunned. He was often cold, but she’d never heard that cruelty in his voice before. Didn’t they say that a drunken man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts? Oh, yeah.

***

They’d argued about his drinking and her “constant nagging” as they waited for the taxi to arrive. The other CIS people at the party had seen the storm coming, and left them alone in the bar, thank heavens. Meg was mortified enough as it were.

Well, now was as good a time as any. A bird in the hand, and all that.

“I’ve had enough, Robert. I’m leaving. Life’s too short.”

Robert burst into laughter. She hadn’t expected him to be all broken up, but she’d never thought he’d laugh.

“Right. Well, I’ve got news for you, Baby,” he smirked. “You won’t get a dime of my money.”

“I don’t want a dime of your money, Robert. I’ll be happy just to get my self-respect back.”

Meg turned to see a waiter gesturing at the door.

“Come on. The taxi’s here.”

***

As the cab turns the corner onto their street, Meg blows her nose and wipes the mascara off her face as best she can.

The climb out in front of their house, and Robert thrusts some bills at the cabbie. “Keep the change, Buddy.”

They’d barely walked – well, in Robert’s case, perhaps 'staggered' would be a more appropriate word – halfway up the drive when a brown Chevy sedan pulls up in front of the house, followed by a sinister looking black Suburban.

The Nondescript twins get out of the sedan and approach Robert, who is looking like he's been gob-smacked. Meg senses that he suspected this moment was coming. Perhaps that explains his unbelievable behavior tonight.

“Mr. Prince? FBI. You’re under arrest for securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used…”

As Meg listens to them read him his rights, she has to fight a satisfied smile. She can’t help but think, “Yeah, Robert. Just like they say, payback’s a bitch.

As the federal agents drive off with Robert in the back of the Suburban, Meg walks toward the house while fishing her keys from her evening bag.

You know, she thinks as she unlocks the front door, maybe “they” are pretty smart. They’ve been pretty much right about everything. Well, all except for the promise that “there is someone out there for everyone.” But Meg counts herself as a basically optimistic person, so the jury’s still out on that one.

But that thing about the curly hair? Yeah. They totally lied about that.

The End

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Them? You Listen to Them? - Part 1

2011-12-23T12:13:00.011-05:00

“There is someone out there for everyone.”

Isn’t that what they always say? Of course, this would be the same “they” who told her that eating the bread crusts on her PB&J would make her hair curly, and you can see how that turned out.

Even so, like everyone else, she wanted it to be true. So she believed, and looked forward to the day her special someone would find her.

Until she didn’t.

It was kind of like believing in Santa Claus, Meg Gilchrist thought. She wasn’t sure when it happened, but one day, she realized she no longer bought into whole someday-he’ll-come-along fantasy. Didn’t they also say, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is”?

***

Meg was fast approaching her thirty-fourth birthday when she figured it was time to face reality. He wasn’t coming. Ha, if he even existed. Her failure to find her “someone” had been stellar, at least as her mother described it.

Not that she was a dog in the looks department, or some kind of wallflower. A natural (though abysmally curl-free) blonde with hazel eyes, she was passably attractive, if she did say so herself. Well, OK, you can overlook that one crooked front tooth, can’t you? She dated as often as the next girl, and had had her share of close calls. Fortunately, before extricating herself became the stuff of daytime TV drama, she realized that none of those ~~losers~~ guys was the right one -- despite what her mother thought -- and ended it. They were all duds in her opinion, bringing not one spark of the fireworks she’d expected to feel when Mr. I’m-the-One walked into her life. She hadn’t been willing to settle for Mr. Almost-the-One.

“Don’t be so picky, Margaret,” her mother chided. “You’re not getting any younger, you know. Tick, tick, tick.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, chill, Mom,” Meg replied wearily. “I have no intention of leaping into bed with the next warm male body to come through my door just to satisfy your desire for a grandchild. There’s plenty of time.”

In a shocked voice, her mother said, “Margaret! Watch your mouth. No wonder. Oh, well, they say it’s always darkest before the dawn.”

Oh, no. Mom too?

Well, there was plenty of time, right? Of course there was.

But she might as well face the facts, she soon decided. Mom was right. The proverbial clock was ticking. It was time to make a plan. Clearly, a girl had to take matters into her own hands. It was time to find someone to love, even he were Mr. Not-Quite-the-One.

***

The day she put her plan into action, Meg was working as a temp, filling in for a service clerk who’d been called up and sent to Iraq, She could have spent her whole assignment at Colonial Investment Solutions without once ever seeing its CEO. Sure, CIS was a small fish in the vast sea of financial management, but it was big enough. His office was in the building next door where the brokers did their thing, and besides, the distance between the head office and the Customer Service desk was much greater than the width of a parking lot.

An irate customer insisting on seeing “the idiot running this show” brought Robert Prince on a rare visit to the front office where Meg worked behind the desk.

“That was my retirement!” she’d sputtered at Meg without explanation. “What am I supposed to do now?”

Meg was clearly in over her head.

“I’m so sorry,” she’d offered sympathetically. “But I’m only filling in here. Let me get someone else to help you.”

“Oh, you can get someone else, alright, Missy.” That was when the customer, her face flushing redder with every word, demanded to see The Idiot.

Meg consulted the telephone directory taped to the desk next to the phone and called the CEO. She wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. In fact, she was pretty sure it was the wrong thing, but everyone was out to lunch and there was no one around to ask. Her heart went out to the poor woman, who looked as though she could stroke out at any moment. Besides, what could they do? Fire her?

To his credit, Prince had come to Customer Service without argument. He introduced himself to the now weeping woman, and gently steered her to a small grouping of chairs near the front windows. She couldn’t hear his words, but as she watched him turn on the charm and soothe the distraught woman, she was impressed. And when he walked the woman, who was now almost smiling, out to her car, she was flabbergasted. Obviously, the guy running this show was no idiot.

She expected him to continue across the parking lot to the other building and his office, but instead he turned, and headed back. Uh-oh. She had a feeling she was in trouble. Maybe he would fire her.

She had a short reprieve when Prince stopped in the lot to talk to one of the brokers returning from lunch. Something the man said brought a smile to his face, and for the first time, she noticed how good-looking he was. She’d heard the buzz about the “drop-dead gorgeous” CEO in the coffee room, of course. How could she not? He was a favorite topic of conversation. She knew he wasn’t married, and all the girls -- the single girls, anyway, and maybe a few of the married ones – had their eye on him. No wonder. Tall, dark, handsome, not to mention wealthy. And, oh yeah, way out of her league.

No matter, because in her head, they piped up to remind her, “If it sounds too good to be true…”

As she stood awaiting her fate, the sound of conversation from the hall announced the return of the other customer service clerks. Not anxious to be chastised in front of the others, she decided to talk to him outside. It was her lunch break, anyway.

“I’m off to lunch. See you later,” she told her coworkers as she walked to the door. Prince was on his way up the walkway from the parking lot, and she hurried to intercept him.

“Mr. Prince, I’m really sorry. I…”

In her haste to speak to him before he reached the entrance, she missed the step down to the walkway. With all the grace at her command, she went flying and landed at his feet. Humiliated, she took the hand he held down to her and scrambled to her feet.

“Oh, my gawd, I’m so embarrassed.” Face flaming, she straightened herself out and struggled to meet his eyes. “I came out to apologize for siccing Mrs. Flynn on you. I didn’t mean to tackle you in the process.”

“No apologies needed on either count,” he said. “You did the right thing. The calling part, I mean, not the tackling part.” The hint of laughter in his voice drew her eyes to his face. She was relieved to see no sign of anger. What she did see was a definite spark of interest in his Paul- Newman-blue eyes.

As he spoke, he reached out and lightly touched her arm, and hello. Was that a small flash of fireworks?

And there they were again. “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is with a poor one.”

She swallowed her pride and turned on the flirtatious charm she’d been practicing in front of the mirror.

***

The silence in the taxi fairly crackles with anger as Meg and Robert ride home from the CIS Christmas party at the country club. Recriminations hang heavy like some kind of cruel interpretation of holiday decorations. Meg wiped tears from her cheeks, noting the dark mascara smudges on the tissue. When would she ever learn to wear waterproof mascara?

You’d think that after living with the bastard for nearly seven years, she would no longer be surprised by his behavior. But tonight… Tonight he was in fine form.

She weeps silently as she looks at the mulish set of Robert’s chiseled jaw in the light of passing headlights. But she knows she’s not crying in sadness. She shed those tears years ago. No, these are tears of regret and disgust at herself for believing.

The thing is, she knew better. She has always known better. But he was so handsome and he had that whole power-of-position thing they like to talk about going on. In her mind, and no doubt in his own as well, he bore the unmistakable appeal of being “the town’s most eligible bachelor,” as the local press liked to call him.

She’d been blinded by his reputation, and fooled by how nice he’d seemed to be when she first met him. She still feels a little blush of shame as she recalls how she had literally thrown herself at his feet, which he probably saw as his due, she suspects now.

And he’d actually been interested in her, which flattered her enormously.

It had all come together. He’d seemed perfect. She’d begun to believe that maybe they were right, and her “someone” had found her at last.

Ah, but as they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Concluded in Part 2

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

A Bouquet of Thanks to Monkey Man

2011-12-11T11:03:00.000-05:00

This is my farewell entry in Sunday 160. When I began my blog, Monkey Man's Sunday 160 was one of the regular events that got me writing. Thank you for that, MM. I'll miss having my coffee with you on Sunday morning.

Nighttime Caller

2011-12-09T12:10:00.001-05:00

(Phote by Vera Kratochvil at PublicDomainPictures.net)

Three times last night, I thought

I heard your ring, though the phone

was distant and silent. Each time, as

I sought to answer, the ringing ceased.

But in the dread still-dark of dawn,

I answered your call in my dream,

and heard your voice, broken. And in that

moment, the monster that lurked, lunged.

***

Written for Friday Flash 55. Got something to say in exactly 55 words? Go tell Mr. KnowItAll.

Under the Cover of Time, Part 2

2011-12-07T16:14:00.005-05:00

Continued from Under the Cover of Time, Part 1

July 15, 1935

There were many towns across the country with fewer residents than Tudor City. There were normally about 4,500 people living there, but that day the population came within a heartbeat of dropping to 4,499.

A green-and-black Ford pulled to the curb on Tudor Place, the bubble on its roof throwing an angry red glare into the gloaming. After the driver slapped a red, white and blue "Police Business" placard on the dash, two of New York’s finest, Mike Grath and Vincent Lorenzo, climbed from the car and headed to the park across the street, where several uniformed cops from the precinct struggled to hold the curious at bay. The scene was lit by intermittent pools of light cast by popping flash bulbs.

One of the uniformed cops walked out to meet the two detectives as they entered the park.

“Glad you’re here, Mike. This guy’s a celeb, and the press is all over it like stink on shit.”

“Oh, yeah? What we got?”

“Guy from across the street.” The cop jerked his head toward the gothic-looking building on the other side of Tudor Place. “He was walkin' home from Grand Central and when he gets near that fountain over there, some palooka with a shiv jumps him. He’s cut up pretty bad, but the doc says he’ll make it. He’s real lucky he ain’t dead. The meat wagon’s gonna take him down to Bellevue in a few minutes.”

“Robbery?”

“Yeah, I guess. Who the hell knows? Don’t see it as a hit. No reason I know anybody’d want him dead. Besides, who’s dumb enough to pull a hit with a knife that time of day? Wasn't even full dark yet.” The cop shrugged. “But if it was a robbery, Mikey, it was a botch job. He's still got money and a swell pocket watch."

A small scuffle broke out in the growing crowd at the fountain as the looky-loos jostled for position, and the three policemen turned to look.

Mike turned to his partner. “Vinny, you better get over there. Looks like it’s turning ugly.”

Lorenzo clamped his fedora down firmly onto his head and trotted down the path toward the fountain, shouting “Hey! Back up, everybody. This is police business. You jamokes wanna get hauled off to the hoosegow for interfering with an investigation?”

“Who the hell is that?” Grath asked the patrolman. “Fiorello LaGuardia?”

“It’s Abie Cohen, Mike. You know, catcher for the Dodgers.”

“Abie Cohen? No kidding. My boy’s got a bunch of his baseball cards."

"Don't think you're gonna get an autograph from him today. He ain't conscious."

The two cops start walking toward the hubbub, and Grath asks, "Don't suppose we got any idea who the goon with the knife was?"

"Nah. He's long gone."

"Witnesses?"

The cop lifted his cap, scratched the top of his bald head, and settled the cap back in place. "Yeah. But, see, here's where it gets dicey."

Grath raised his eyebrows. "How so?"

"Well, coupla kids, about eleven or twelve, I'd say, were out here playin' ball on the other side of the fountain. They'd didn't get a good look at the stabber, never noticed him, or Cohen, for that matter, because of the fountain. But they got a glimpse of him when he ran away. Just an ordinary lookin' guy, they said. Just before that, though, there was another guy walking by who caught a ball for them. The ball got away from one of 'em and was about to go into the fountain. This guy catches it, and tosses it back. They asked him to join the game, but he said he hadda get home."

"Yeah, and? What's this got to do with the attack on Cohen?"

"Well, right after, when the guy starts to walk away, apparently he sees the guy hackin' away at Cohen. He shouts and the guy runs away. Too bad he didn't shout sooner, because the goon had plenty of time to turn Cohen into swiss cheese. Even so, the doc says this guy probably saved Cohen's life. Then he just disappears. We think he's the one who called the cops, but we have no idea who he is. Gone, poof in the night.

***

July 31, 1945

"Leah!" Abie burst through the door of the apartment, his voice filled with excitement. "Leah, where are you?"

Leah Cohen walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. "And where else would I be right before dinner, silly man?"

She kisses her husband's cheek, and asks, "What's wound you up, Abie?"

“Look.” He held the magazine out to his wife. “Today’s the day.”

The Cohens had been waiting for the publication of the cover article ever since Abie was interviewed. It wasn’t the first time he’d been featured in a magazine article. There had been many stories about his baseball career. But this was the first time he was pictured on the cover. And on Chronos magazine. Wow.

“Oh, Abie. I can’t wait to read it, but it’ll have to wait until after dinner. The brisket is almost ready. Go wash up.”

Lean runs her hand over the cover photo of Abie in his Dodger’s uniform, then carefully puts the magazine down on the sideboard and heads to the kitchen to take up their dinner.

After they eat and the dishes have been done, she settled on the couch next to the reading lamp and opened the magazine to the story about her husband.

“Unsung Hero.” She smiled at Abie. “Imagine!”

Across the living room, Abie switched on the Philco and tuned to The Arthur Godfrey Hour. As he sat listening, he never took his eyes from his wife’s face as she read.

Her eyes flew to his face. “Abie! Oh my God!”

Leah knew he was overseas during his service, of course. But she’d thought that he was a part of a group of former sports celebrities, making the USO circuit from base to base. She had no idea what he really did or that he’d been behind enemy lines.

“Abie, why didn’t you tell me?”

Shock is turning to anger, as he’d suspected it might. Before he left, she’d made him promise that he wouldn’t do anything that would put him in danger.

Abie came to her side and squatted down next to the chair. “Ah, Leah, I couldn’t. It was all classified. Besides, I knew you would worry.”

“You promised!”

“I know. I’m sorry, Honey. Please try to understand. I just couldn’t tell you. I’d have been court-martialed.” He took her hand and kissed it. “You see that, right?”

Leah had never been one to stay mad long. Even before he was through speaking, he could see she was softening.

“Besides, it’s all over now. I’m home for good. Go on, finish reading.”

Leah skewered him with a piercing look that said, OK, but if you EVER do something like that again... Then she looked back down at the magazine and picked up the article where she’d left off.

“Abie! Oh, my God!” The shock was there again, but it was wrapped in awe rather than anger. “Oh. My. God.” She said again as the realization of what the words she’d just read meant sank in, her voice barely a whisper. Then she threw her arms around her husband and cried.

“Sshh, ssh, Bubbala.” Abie rubbed his hands slowly over her back. When she’d calmed down, he told her about it, as much as he could anyway.

“Thank God you didn’t listen to me. Thank God you were there,” she said.

“I almost wasn’t. Remember when I was robbed in the park across the street about ten years ago?”

“As if I could ever forget!” Leah exclaimed.

“That night, a man came along when I was being stabbed over and over, and he scared the robber away. I’m pretty sure if he hadn’t, the robber would have killed me. The doctor told us that I almost didn’t make it as it was.”

Leah put her arms around her husband again. “He’s the one who called the police, isn’t he?””

“Yes. He saved my life. Leah, he hadn’t come at just the right time, I’d be dead. And if you’d stayed in New York, so would you.”

***

July 15, 2005

Finn can’t shake the dream he had while dozing on the couch.

It seemed so real, he thinks as he enters his kitchen, which has a dry floor, he’s pleased to note. He pulls open the refrigerator door and gazes in, but he sees nothing that strikes his fancy.

He catches another whiff of brisket. His stomach growls and that decides it. He’ll head over to the Tudor City Deli and get some brisket for himself.

Before heading out, Finn grabs the Chronos from the floor and goes out to get an elevator.

While he rides downstairs, he glances at the magazine in his hand, and realizes that his dream was probably triggered by the fascinating article he’d read about Abie Cohen in the old publication. He decides to read it again while he eats. It feels like a legacy Abie Cohen left behind just for him, hidden away under the sink.

As he walks across the park, Finn waves to the boys playing ball near the fountain.

The End

***

The character of Abie Cohen is loosely based on Moe Berg, who was a bit of a Renaissance man for his time. A successful major league baseball player, Berg finished second in his class at Columbia Law School while playing for the Chicago White Sox. During WWII, he served with the OSS, spying in Europe for the US Government.

You can read more about Moe Berg here and here.

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Under the Cover of Time, Part 1

2011-12-07T16:11:00.005-05:00

July 31, 2005

Tudor City perches on a hill overlooking FDR Drive and the East River. Comprised of apartments, parks, shopping and restaurants, it’s often referred to as “The City within a City.” The nickname fits, Finn MacCool muses as he crosses the street and heads into one of several parks within Tudor City.

The pocket park in front of the building he calls home is alive with activity on this perfect summer day. A tall boy playing catch with another boy overreaches his mark with his throw -- kid's got a hell of an arm, Finn thinks to himself -- and the baseball flies over Finn's head. He leaps into the air to catch it just before it continues on it's trajectory straight into the water at the fountain.

Laughing, Finn sends the ball back to the boy closest to him, who's waving his arms in the air wildly. "Not a bad catcher, am I?" he calls as he tosses it.

"You wanna play, mister?" the tall boy calls back.

"I'd love to, kiddo, but I gotta get home. Got some reading to do. Maybe some other time."

Finn loves the The City, as he's learned to call it. He was beyond excited when he was transferred to the New York office of his management consulting firm, but his first couple of years in the city brought an unfamiliar feeling of claustrophobia into his life for the first time. He’s a Texas boy, and grew up knowing only wide-open spaces and distant horizons, where the whole of outdoors was his playground. The concrete canyons of Manhattan came as a bit of a shock. Tudor City with its green parks was a happy find. Central Park is great, but the little parks of Tudor City are at his doorstep. They bring a breath of fresh air in the truest sense.

That was not always the case, Finn knows. When Tudor City was originally built, its planners made sure that the buildings all turned their backs on the slaughterhouses in the area, lest wafting aromas offend the middle class residents they hoped to attract. Some area residents claim they can still detect lingering odors, but that’s hogwash. Ha. So to speak.

He wouldn’t want to live any place else. Oh, sure, his apartment building in Tudor City is an old pile, and like a lot of old folks, it can be cantankerous. But it’s also got barrels of charm and history out the wazoo, history that sometimes sneaks up on a guy and smacks him upside the head.

Take yesterday, for example. Just as his Sunday fell victim to the foibles of his crotchety old kitchen, a bit of history did just that.

It was a beautiful afternoon and Finn was looking forward to getting outdoors. He was planning to head over to Central Park and see if he could catch a pick-up game on one of the diamonds near Columbus Circle. But like many best-laid plans, they came to a screeching halt when he headed to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of juice to take with him. A puddle of water was creeping across the kitchen floor, adding a shine the linoleum hadn’t seen in quite a while.

“Oh, that’s great. Just fucking great.”

He turned off the water and fetched his toolbox from under the rubble littering the floor of the hall closet. When he opened the cabinet beneath the sink to see how bad it was, he saw that the cabinet floor supporting miscellaneous bottles of cleaning stuff was pretty much ruined. So much for the ballgame.

After he threw a few towels down to soak up the mess, he headed to the hardware store. The store is just a half a block away, another perk to living in Tudor City. He bought some wood to repair the cabinet floor, and while he was at it, he got a new elbow for the pipe, since obviously the plumber’s tape he’d tried to make do with the last time didn’t work.

In a matter of minutes, Finn was back, stretched out on the floor in front of the sink. When he pried the warped wood from the bottom of the cabinet with his trusty crowbar, instead of the mucky mess he’d expected to find, he got a delightful surprise. The leak had apparently not seeped through the cabinet floor, because the space beneath was dry as a bone. And resting there, nestled comfortably in decades of dust and a few unidentifiable droppings Finn chose not to think about, was a 1945 copy of Chronos Magazine. The cover photo was of Abie Cohen, a major league ball player back in the day, and an early resident of the very apartment Finn lived in now.

Finn knew that Cohen had lived in his condo when he bought the place. It had been one of the major selling points for him. Baseball and history, his two favorite things? What could be better? Abie Cohen was one of Finn's heroes, and he was one of America's heroes too. He was s fantastic catcher, sure, but it wasn't only that. He was a man of real courage.

Finn was thrilled to find the magazine, and set it aside to read later. Fixing the damn sink had taken all afternoon, and then he had a date with that cute redhead from IT, so he never got to it. Now, as he heads home from work, he can’t wait to read it. He quickens his step.

***

The delicious smell of brisket and cabbage drifting in the open window float by like a wave of cartoon aroma, tickling his nose awake and jerking it from the dream he’d been having. The rest of Finn quickly follows, and he realizes that he’s starving.

The living room has fallen into deep shadow. Huh. I must have dozed off, he thinks as he swings his legs from the couch and sits up, sending the Chronos magazine on his chest sliding to the floor.

He stands and heads for the kitchen, thinking as he shook the sleep off, that was one hell of a dream.

***

July 31, 1945

He emerged from the subway on 7^th Avenue. The air of celebration that still lingered in Times Square -- though VE Day was several weeks ago -- brought a smile to his face as it always did. There were times when he thought he’d never make it home from Europe to enjoy it. He had much to celebrate.

“Hey, Pal, how you doin’?” The familiar whiskey-and-cigarettes voice rasped its daily welcome.

“Great, Joe. You?”

It’s like a scripted vignette. Every night, he stopped at the newsstand just outside the entrance to the subway, and grabbed a paper. And every night, he and Joe, the grozzled old guy who had been at this corner since forever, exchanged the same words.

That night, the script was a little different. The image of his own face on the cover of a magazine caught his eye immediately and he improvised.

“Hey, wow, Joe, look at that!” He picked up the magazine and flipped to the article about himself, feeling a little thrill of pleasure. He put it on top of his newspaper, and dug in his pocket for some coins to pay Joe.

Joe winked as plucked a dime from the hand holding the money. “Yup. Yer famous. Didn’t know I was dealing with such a hotshot. Magazine’s on the house. I been saving it for you, Pal. They went like hotcakes.”

“Gee, thanks, Joe. You’re a swell guy, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

He clapped Joe on the back, then turned the corner at 45^th Street and headed toward his apartment. He couldn't wait to read the article. There was also a piece about Tudor City, where he’d lived since he came to New York as a rookie to join the Dodgers a lifetime ago. That was a bonus.

He couldn’t wait to show Leah. She was going to be over the moon.

Concluded in Part 2

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

The Funeral

2011-12-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

The two women stood arm in arm a slight distance away from the other mourners. It was the first time they’d met, but the friends knew each other well. Over the years, they’d shared laughter and love, heartbreak and triumph, anger and dismay. They always knew they’d meet face-to-face one day. They just never thought it would be like this.

They had come to bid farewell and amen toYouth.

There are many “old sayings.” There’s a reason for that, of course. There is truth in every one of them. The appropriate homily for this sad occasion is “Youth is wasted on the young.” It would be nice if it were never true, and surely for some, it is not. But, if ever it were, it was for him.

He had it all going for him, Youth did. He was beautiful, smart, talented and oh, so sexy. But, alas, he was young. That goes without saying, right? And if there’s not another old saying that speaks to that, there should be. Because most of the young lack a certain judgment – let’s call it wisdom, shall we? – that comes with experience. And sad to say, experience usually takes enough years to carry one beyond “young” to… someplace else.

Youth was so busy trying to figure things out, trying to decide who he was, who he wanted to be, that he never saw the years accumulating around him like falling snow. While he was posing in front of his mental mirror, all got up in a costume of poetic angst or creative indifference, his worst enemy was able to sneak up on him, unnoticed under the cover of time.

And then one day, cackling wildly, Age struck, and Youth was vanquished.

“I really loved him,” one woman said sadly.

“Yes. Yes, I know you did.”

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

My Fifteen Minutes

2011-11-30T14:05:00.008-05:00

Poets United is a wonderful site for everyone who enjoys reading or writing poetry. Its community of contributors is so talented.

Unbelievably, Poets United has given me the great honor of interviewing me for their "Life of a Poet" series. (I still have to chuckle at that. Me, a poet!)

The interview was published today, and I'm still blushing a little. I'm a talker, as many of you might have guessed My dad used to tell me I'd been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. After reading my interview responses, I'm thinking he was right. Oh, boy, I talked. A lot.

Alas, there goes all the mystery...

The Curious Case of the Brown Shoes

2011-11-23T19:53:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone*!

So glad you could make it for dinner.

* Including those of you not celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow.

But don't worry, I made enough for you too.

16 for dinner, one cook

You've got to admit, it's a pretty good excuse!

***

This is my entry at The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Dragons Weep Today

2011-11-23T14:50:00.000-05:00

"She first set dragons free on Pern and then was herself freed by her dragons." - Todd McCaffrey

(Image of Sad Dragon by Rakaseth on DeviantArt)

The world of science fiction and fantasy writing lost a powerhouse this week. Anne McCafrfrey died on Monday at the age of 85.

Author of almost 100 books, McCaffrey was best known for the Dragonriders of Pern series. During her 46 year career she won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award. Her book The White Dragon became the one of the first science fiction novels ever to appear on the New York Times Best Seller List. She was honored by induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006.

RIP

1 April 1926 – 21 November 2011

(Image from numerous sites on Google Images)

Fortune Cookie

2011-11-22T17:00:00.000-05:00

Crack the shell of uncertainty,

and peer into the future for answers.

Likely you’ll find none. Besides,

everyone else is still guessing

And most best guesses are wrong.

So, go ahead, take your best shot.

Predict tomorrow, then fuhgedaboutit,

and live your best life today.

***

I'm bellying up to the bar at dVerse Pub tonight with some of my good blogging buddies. So, set 'em up, Joe. Writing is never a lonely business here.

Transference

2011-11-09T13:52:00.000-05:00

(Photo from 123RF, Royalty Free Stock Photos, edited)

I called your office one weekend. I knew you wouldn’t be there, but just knowing the phone would ring in your space made me feel closer to you. Your answering machine picked up my call, and I was shocked to hear your voice. Not one of the many layers between us had snagged the call so some self-important guardian at your gate could ward me off. Instead, I heard your voice, filled with warmth and caring. I wondered: how did you know I would call?

Once I knew you were waiting for my call, I punched in your number over and over, and listened to your unspoken words of affection. I called so many times, I could picture the telephone lines between my phone and yours burning up from overuse. With every call, I expected Ma Bell to answer, chastising me with “now you’ve done it.” But you were always there, filled with anticipation. Your voice embraced me, though you concealed your feelings from prying ears with words about office hours and the doctor on call.

That was so many years ago, and I got over you. Sorry. I heard after a while that you and your wife got divorced. By then I didn’t care, but I wondered: how did she know about us? You never did.

ceci est la couleur de mes rêves

2011-11-05T22:53:00.001-04:00

(Joan Miró, Spanish, 1893–1983)

this is the color of my dreams.

it's also the color of my mood.

like Joe Btfsplk, I'm being stalked,

your misery blocking my sun.

does it help, I wonder?

do you feel better when I feel worse?

is blue your favorite color?

I prefer yellow myself.

***

Written for d'Verse, and for my friend who,

like Joe Btfsplk, is being stalked by the gloom.

(from Li'l Abner by Al Capp)

Shouting Down a Well

2011-11-05T16:57:00.006-04:00

It gave me the creeps. Nodding, the man on the Blasingstoke bus leaned over and said to me, in a tone of complete complicity, “Oh, yes, just like shouting down a well.” I could tell he was thinking, “I know that you know just what I mean.” I didn’t. But even though I’ve never been sure what that means, I have a pretty good idea.

***

When I read that Gainsborough Farm in Blasingstoke was for sale, I decided to pay one last visit while I’m still able. I spent many happy days there are a child, and some not so happy ones.

Picking my path through the over-grown puckerbrush carefully, I make my way back to the well that still stands out behind what used to be my great-grandmother’s house on Gainsborough Farm. It once provided water to my ancestors, but it’s a forlorn orphan now. Surrounded by tall dying grasses and thorny thickets, it’s been neglected by the more recent residents of the house.

The deep hole is covered with a rotting wooden cap. Around it, crumbling stones still support the lichen-covered shakes of the roof, but the bucket that once hauled cold spring water from its depths is long gone.

I haven’t seen the old well since the last time I visited Great-Gamma with my family on Guy Fawkes Day all those years ago. My brothers, Will, a year older – he’s gone now, bless him; Daniel, a year younger; and I: we loved that well. We called it our wishing well. Despite admonitions to stay away because it was dangerous, at least once a visit to the farm, we’d sneak back there into the thicket. We would stand on the big rock beside the well and hang over the edge in turn to drop a coin, calling down our most sincere wishes before the faint splash of the coin hitting bottom called back in answer.

Not one of those wishes shouted down the well ever came true. Not even the one that George Fisher would stop tormenting me. No, especially not that one.

***

George Fisher lived on a farm on Coventry Lane that was next to Great-Gamma’s. I think he was only a little older than I was, maybe a year, but he was much bigger. And ugly.

We only saw each other when I visited Great-Gamma, but I was convinced that he spent the rest of the time dreaming up ways to torture me. He started small. The first time, he jumped out of a bush by the side of the dirt lane when I rode my bike past and scared the living bejeebus out of me. I know that sounds like a little thing, but I was just a little thing myself. Down I went. The fall tore my pants and knee alike. I can still hear George’s taunting laughter ringing out behind me as, limping, I pushed my bike back to Great-Gamma’s, trying hard not to cry.

“He only does it because he likes you, Nessa,” Great-Gamma said soothingly as she cleaned up my knee while I sat on the counter beside the kitchen sink. She gently pressed a plaster over the scrape, and went on. “That’s just how boys are.”

Unfortunately, Bobby and Daniel were sitting at the kitchen table at the time with the remnants of Great-Gamma’s shortbread biscuits and milky tea on the faces. “Georgie loves Nessa. Georgie loves Nessa,” came their annoying sing-song little voices.

I remember thinking, “Ugh.” From that day onward, I always thought of that old nursery song whenever I saw George.

Georgie Porgie, Puddin' and Pie,

Kissed the girls and made them cry,

When the boys came out to play

Georgie Porgie ran away.

Except he didn’t. Run away, I mean. When my brothers came out, they all ran off together to wage war against the Germans at George’s house. And bully George always got to be Montgomery, I’m sure.

Over the next few years, George developed his craft, getting much more creative with his torment. As much as I loved visiting Great-Gamma, I began to dread the inevitable pranks I knew I would suffer at George Fisher’s hand.

The day he laughingly crushed the tiny bird with a broken wing I’d been nursing under his boot, I thought it couldn’t get any worse.

“Oh, you are a right bastard, George.” I cried. “Your day will come. Mark my words.”

***

I was alone at the well that Guy Fawkes Day. Father had taken Will and Daniel to the Guy Fawkes events in town. Even though taking our tea at Mrs. Firthingham’s Parlor was enticing, the idea of standing amongst a bunch of rowdies at the bonfire that would go up just after dark put me off. I decided to stay with my mother at the farm.

I was fourteen that year, and no longer really believed that the wishing well could grant my wishes. I still enjoyed visiting it, though, and that’s what I did that afternoon just before darkness fell.

“Don’t dally, Nessa,” my mother called as I was crossing the mudroom behind the kitchen. “Tea is almost ready, and besides, it will be dark soon. I don’t want you wandering around back there alone in the darkness. It’s not safe,” she warned.

“Yes, Mum,” I answered, “I’ll be back before full dark.”

I wasn’t worried, though. The path to the well was as familiar to me as the palm of my hand.

When I reached the well, I fished a shilling from my pocket and dropped in down the well.

“Please, I’d like to be pretty,” I called after the coin.

I didn’t wait for the splash to answer me. The echo of my own voice in the well reminded me that wishing wells were childish nonsense. I turned to head back through the gloaming to the farmhouse, looking forward to the lamb I’d smelled roasting before I left the kitchen.

That’s when the answer to my wish reached my ears.

***

The tramp through the weeds to the well has tired me.

“You old fool,” I grumble to myself as I sit on the big rock along side the well that we used to stand on. “You’re not the young wisp you were back then. What were you thinking, coming back here?”

But I knew what I’d been thinking. I’ve been haunted by that day for sixty years. It's long past time to face the ghosts once and for all, then be done with it.

***

“Ah, but Fraulein, you’re pretty enough for me.”

Though the accented words had been near whispered, I recognized the voice as being not that of any German.

“Go away, George.”

I made to quicken my step, but he grabbed my arm roughly and spun me round to face him. I was astonished to see him in a cobbled-up approximation of an Army uniform.

“I was just wishing me some fresh Kraut meat,” he leered.

I opened my mouth to scream, but his meaty hand clamped viciously across my lips before I could get a sound out. I wrenched my body frantically, trying to break free of his grasp, but he was too big, too strong. He forced me to the ground, and settled his weight across my chest. His massive thighs pinned my arms at my sides.

With his free hand, George unfastened the broad leather belt at his waist, and pulled it free of his trousers. In short order, he had it wrapped around my head and pulled tight across my open mouth.

“There now, Liebchen, Let’s eat.”

Terrified, I thrashed my legs as I struggled for breath, but between his body atop my lungs and the belt in my mouth, I stood no chance. George Fisher was going to kill me, crushing me as surely as he’d crushed that little bird.

***

The warm sun drapes gently across my aching shoulders and songbirds call gaily, but I am too far away to notice. I’m on the damp ground on a chilly November night, feeling nothing but the rocks beneath me and the pounding within. Old tears spring into my eyes as I face the demons that my memories have become.

***

After pushing the front of my sweater up toward my neck, George grabbed the front of my brassiere and ripped it apart as easily as if it were tissue paper. When he leaned forward to feast on my exposed breasts, he lifted enough for me to draw the chilling air into my aching lungs. The stars I’d been seeing receded, leaving me with the loathsome sight of a wild-eyed George reaching for my flesh with his fat tongue. My shame and revulsion, as much as the cold air, made my nipples stand erect, offering themselves to the drooling animal slathering his hunger upon them.

Leaning back again, he grabbed first one of my hands and then the other, and held them firmly in his left hand. With his right hand, he reached down and fumbled open the zipper on his trousers, releasing his engorged, throbbing penis. The sight of it springing toward me like a viper was disgusting, and I could feel myself begin to gag.

George slid his bulk lower onto my thighs, and reached beneath my skirt with his free hand. He tore my panties free and forced himself into me. Grunting like the rutting pig he was, he pounded, slamming his need into me over and over. With a groan that released his fetid breath into my face, he collapsed onto me.

The throes of his release brought not only the sticky mess oozing past his now flaccid penis and onto my buttocks, it also cause him to loosen his grasp around my wrists. My hands were free.

I grabbed one of the many rocks scattered around the well, and before he could react, I brought it down with as much force as I could muster against George’s temple. I immediately felt his body go limp, becoming even heavier than before. I pushed him off of me and scrambled out of his reach.

***

As I wipe away the tears drying on my wrinkled cheeks, I can still feel the pain in my heart and my groin that never went away after that night. I pull myself to my feet, using the side of the old well for leverage and support. The crumbling wooden cover covering the well moves aside easily, and I look down into depths as dark as my soul.

My voice cracking a bit, I call down my most sincere wish.

“I wish…”

***

After undoing the belt and pulling it from my head, I grabbed the side of the well for leverage and support, and pulled myself to my feet. I never took my eyes from George’s inert form. My soul was filled with hatred for the bully who had taken such pleasure in my anguish.

I pulled my destroyed brassiere and panties free and threw them down the well beside me, sending the belt down after them. Then I straightened my clothing and brushed the dirt and leaves off as best I could. With a last look at George, sprawled on the ground beside the well, I ran through the dark toward the farmhouse.

When I walked into the kitchen from the mudroom, my mother and Great-Gamma gasped at the sight of me.

“Nessa! What happened?”

Looking down at myself in the light, I saw that my clothes were filthy, and I had a little blood on my leg.

“I, uh, fell. You were right, Mum. It’s dangerous out there after dark.” Then I hurried upstairs and scrubbed the stench of George Fisher from my body.

The next day, they found George, hanging in the well, suspended from the rope that usually supported the water bucket. He was dressed in his General Montgomery costume.

His distraught mother told the constable that he’d never come home the day before. “He said he was going out to fight the Germans.”

***

I clear my throat, and start again in a stronger voice.

“I wish,” I call down the well, “you hadn’t killed yourself, Georgie Fisher. I’m sorry you did that.”

I pause and feel a burden lift from my soul. Even if I am wasting my breath shouting down a well, I feel better.

“But I’m not sorry you’re dead. No, not sorry at all."

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Echoes

2011-11-03T16:26:00.027-04:00

beneath the waning

lie echoes of the young

heart beating, thrumming

with yearning, passion

once strong and heady, now

gone the way of the forgotten

green shoots of promise.

***

Happy Recipient of The Everyday Goddess'

Goddess Award

Grand Avenue

2011-11-01T11:22:00.024-04:00

(Photo from WikiMedia Commons)

The distance between then and now isn’t very far at all.

It’s about the same as it is between here and there, exactly the width of Grand Avenue. Despite its grandiose name, Grand Avenue is nothing special, just another pot-holed street crisscrossed with trolley tracks. But this morning, as organ notes drift through the cold air, people sitting at their breakfast tables on both sides of Grand Avenue are reminded just how far away the other side is.

This was supposed to be a better place. That’s what Mama and Pa always told us. We weren’t born yet, me and Eddie, when Mama and Pa came to America. When they left Ireland, they’d been married just a few months and Mama was pregnant with Eddie. She was bound her son wasn’t going to be born over there. Her pa died in the street from an IRA bullet, and no child of hers was going to suffer that fate.

First chance they had, Mama and Pa left Belfast and came to America, anxious to put an ocean between them and the fighting. After growing up with a war that seemed like it would never end, Mama was certain that life in America would bring a grand new beginning.

I guess she never expected to find another war in America.

My name is Rose, but Eddie always calls me Rosie. Eddie’s my big brother. That’s him, up there at the front.

I don’t understand how this can be, what happened to bring him to this place. I asked Mama, and she tried to explain it to me, but I don’t think she really understands it either.

And when I asked Pa, his face got all red and he muttered low, hoping nobody would hear him, “Damn fool boy, got us all messed up over cheap dago tail.” Mama heard it, though, and whacked him a good one. After that, Pa wouldn’t talk to me about it all.

It all started when Eddie met Anna. Anna Monteleone, along with all the other Italians in our neighborhood, lived on the wrong side of Grand Avenue. 'Course, nobody on our side of Grand calls them that. They’re dagos or maybe wops. Most of all, they’re the enemy.

Maybe it isn’t the same as the fighting back in Belfast, but to me, it seems like a war just the same. Men from both sides, Irish and Italian, band together and strut around like little tin soldiers, more bravado than brains. I don’t know what started it all, but eventually it got to be all about crime and money. Bookmaking, drugs, hijacking, robbery... They’re all fighting for control: control of the mob and control of illegal ways to make an easy buck. Pa said one time that Joe Kennedy was the master. He made a fortune as a bootlegger during Prohibition and ended up as the President’s father.

Far as I know, Eddie stayed out of it. My brother wasn’t dumb. He knew if he messed with the mob, Mama would turn him over to Father Flanagan. And when Father Flanagan was done with him, he’d probably turn Eddie over to his brother Jimmy, who was a cop.

Then Eddie met Anna. When he first saw her at the Woolworth’s lunch counter, where she worked weekends, he didn’t know where she lived or that she was one of them. I think all he knew was that she was real pretty.

Like I said before, he wasn’t dumb. I’m sure Eddie realized soon enough that he had wandered into a minefield. But I’m also sure he didn’t care because, soon enough, he was in love with her. He told me that he was going to marry Anna Monteleone someday.

Before long, like it or not, he was in it up to his eyeballs. Anna had brothers. And her brothers had friends. One of them caught Anna and Eddie in the back seat of his car, parked out behind one of the warehouses on Fort Point Channel.

That night, late, Eddie came home all beat up. I was already asleep upstairs, but not for long. I awoke to the sound of Pa’s angry voice. Mama quieted him down pretty quick, but not before I heard him yell, “I warned you, Eddie, didn’t I? That’s what you get for thinking with yer Mickey.”

The next day, when he'd calmed down a bit, I heard Pa tell Eddie that he’d see to it that those goombahs were taught a lesson.

After that, Pa started spending more time up at O’Malley’s and Mama’s lips got tighter.

Early one Saturday morning a few weeks later, just after the Feast of San Gennaro, Michael Pino’s body was found in the dumpster behind Mariano’s Liquor Store. Eddie never said, but I think that was one of the guys who beat him up over at Fort Point Channel.

Jimmy Flanagan and another cop came to our house after they found the body and questioned Eddie. I was pretty scared, but when Eddie told them he was working at O’Malley’s the night before, it was okay. Jimmy Flanagan kissed Mama’s cheek and shook Pa’s hand, just like he always did, and then they left.

Even though it wasn’t even lunch time yet, Pa had a drink. And Mama started crying.
.

Eddie started to change that day. He got kind of cold and hard, somehow. I guess war will do that to you. And it will also kill you, like it killed Eddie.

It wasn’t just Eddie who died that day. He and Anna were going to run away, and when the car blew up, they were both in it. There’ll be another funeral soon, down in the Flats on the other side of Grand Avenue.

The distance between here and there isn’t very far at all. It’s about the same as it is between dead and alive, exactly the width of Grand Avenue. As the organ at St. Francis falls silent, those on both sides of Grand Avenue know the journey to the other side is one that’s just too far to make.

My name is Rose, but Eddie always called me Rosie. Eddie is my big brother. Was. Was my big brother. That’s him, up there at the front. The one in the casket.

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Metamorphosis (Part 5)

2011-10-23T15:56:00.003-04:00

Continued from:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Before

The plane touched down on the shimmering cracked runway and taxied toward the ramshackle hodgepodge of buildings that served as the airport. It was a defunct WWII airfield, abandoned by all except those who prefer to travel and transport relatively unobserved. Located in the middle of Texas ranch land, the only witnesses to activities here were herds of sleepy steer and the nodding iron mantises sucking crude from the parched earth.

Cabrera brought the plane to a halt at the end of the runway. He opened the door to the scorching Texas heat. and climbed down to meet the flatbed coming out to meet them. Close behind the truck was a government-issue black sedan carrying US Customs, Immigration and Public Health officials. El Comandante’s customer would have to wait a bit longer to take possession of the large crated stone in the plane’s cargo hold.

All cargo coming into the US was subject to Customs examination. Because his plane flew under foreign registration, US Immigration and Public Health always stuck their noses in too, even though he and Muñoz would leave immediately after off-loading the crate and refueling.

It was all a bit of a hassle, but one Cabrera was happy to tolerate. It was far easier on the nerves than the alternative.

It wasn’t mere luck that had enabled El Comandante to traffic goods in and out of the US undeterred for so long. He made a point of following the letter of the US law. Electronic waybills and cargo disposition documentation were filed in advance according to US Customs requirements, and he insisted the customer pay any duty tax before the shipment arrived. The Customs official meeting the plane was there to inspect the cargo, and verify that the filed declarations were accurate. Thanks to some clever packaging, what the government man saw was not quite all that the customer was getting. There was no question that the duty tax the customer had paid was far from adequate, but Customs would never know that.

Cabrera had flown into the US under the radar many times, moving more kilos of cocaine that he cared to remember. But he hated it. He was too old for such risk-taking, and was glad to be out of it. Though he was well aware that El Comandate’s compliance was largely a sham, he was grateful that the old man pulled it off so well. Not once had he been questioned beyond the routine.

Questions answered, documentation examined, the crate opened and resealed, the flatbed backed up to the cargo door and positioned its attached conveyor belt in the opening. With the help of a winch inside the plane, Cabrera and Muñoz moved the crate to the belt. The hunk of marble was soon secured on the bed of the truck and on its way.

And after refueling, so were Cabrera and his plane.

Back in Medellin, the old man savored the anise flavor of his aguardiente liqueur, and mentally counted the money he’d made from his latest “export” into the United States.

***

Now

“I think the statue’s magnificent, Kate. What else could I think?”

As I say the words, a flash of satisfaction appears on Kate’s face and is gone just as quickly. I could have imagined it, but… No, I’m sure I saw it.

“Want to take a look at ‘the scene of the crime,’ Marty?” Without waiting for my answer, Kate is already walking toward the back.

“I do.” My eyes linger on the statue for a long moment, then I turn to follow her into the office. “But don’t even joke about that, Kate. The cops have a way of being awfully literal.”

She doesn’t go into the office, though. Behind a decorative screen at the back of the gallery, she presses a nearly hidden button. A panel illustrated with a fresco of Charon on the river Styx slides back to reveal a small elevator. Clever.

After a short ride, during which I fight the enticement of the heady perfume that embraces me in the close quarters of the elevator, the doors open to an apartment foyer.

“Well, this is quite a change from The Garret,” I comment as I step onto the gleaming black and white tile flooring. The tiny apartment Kate and I shared in the Village during college wasn’t much larger than this foyer, and it was a whole lot drearier.

“Thank goodness. What a pit that was.” Kate tosses a smile over her shoulder as she shrugs out of her coat. It goes into the coat closet, and she holds out her hand to take mine.

It’s irrational, I know, but I feel a little hurt by her response. That Village apartment may not have been anything to write home about, but my memories of sharing it with the girl I loved are positive. A silly adolescent romantic notion, I suppose, one Kate apparently didn’t share.

I follow as she leads me into the living room, noting with admiration the sensuous roll of her shapely hips under the clinging knit dress. Easy, boy, I think to myself.

She gestures to the couch sitting perpendicular to a small fireplace. Several colorful throws completely cover its upholstery.

“I couldn’t stand to look at the blood stains, and the police told me I couldn’t get rid of it yet. So…”

I lift the throws to look at the stains as Kate escapes into the kitchen. As she had mentioned, there isn’t a lot of blood, but the small spots that are here spread in a wide spatter pattern. This was no accidental nick with a pocketknife. I can see why the cops are suspicious. Probably the result of a deliberate blow, it looks like the “arterial spatter” the CSI shows on TV love to feature.

The white carpet beneath my feet is spotless.

I call to Kate in the kitchen. “Didn’t you say there was blood on the rug, too?”

“Yes, but the cops said I could clean that up. They took pictures of the spots before they left.” Kate emerges from the kitchen, snifters containing a rich amber liquid in hand.

“The crime scene guys were barely out the door before I called a carpet cleaning service. Ugh, it was gross,” she says as she hands me the cognac.

“Let’s talk over here.” Kate moves toward two overstuffed chairs positioned in the gentle curve of a bow window on the other side of the fireplace. “I just can’t sit on that couch.”

She picks up a remote from the mantle, and with the click of a button, the fireplace springs to life, filling the room with a warm glow.

After setting her glass down on the small table between the chairs, she turns and heads toward a short hallway. “I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.”

Uh-oh…When a woman said that to Philip Marlowe, it usually meant she was going “to get into something more comfortable,” and that always led to trouble.

As I take a sip of the cognac – the excellent cognac, I might add – I settle in one of the chairs and look at the lights of Madison Avenue outside the window. I can see the Ralph Lauren building on the corner. Even at this hour, it’s beautiful, arched windows glittering. Kate landed in a pretty grand neighborhood, I’d say.

“Marty, could you help me for a minute?” Kate’s voice reaches me from down the hall.

“Sure.” I set my glass down next to Kate’s and head in the direction of a lit doorway at the end of the short hall.

As I turn the corner, I see that she has called me into her bedroom. There is one small lamp lit in the room. Kate is standing just inside the door, silhouetted against the lamplight. She’s wearing a silky peach-colored robe that perfectly complements her fair complexion and chestnut hair. From the outline of the shape beneath, I doubt she’s wearing much else.

Taking a step forward, she reaches up and kisses me very gently, just at the corner of my mouth. Her fingertips barely touch as they slide under the hair at the nape of my neck, and despite myself, I groan. That has always driven me crazy.

I can’t help myself. I put my arms around her, pull her hard against my chest, and kiss her hungrily. Lost in the kiss, I’m transported back in time. I’m twenty-one again, kissing my girlfriend in our shabby but romantic garret.

Kate breaks away for a moment and unties the sash on her robe. As it falls into a silky puddle at her feet, she wraps her arms around me and molds her naked body against mine.

Oh. my. God. I may just have a heart attack right here.

“Ah,” she murmurs with a smile in her voice as her lips move to meet mine again, “you’re glad to see me.”

To be continued

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory .

Enlightenment

2011-10-22T12:23:00.004-04:00

The hardest part was not knowing.

Why had her parents returned her like a defective toaster? What was her flaw? Was her soul so stained with Original Sin that only the Sisters could scrub it clean? Was that why she was left to their ministrations?

Don’t worry,” they told her when she questioned, and she questioned just about everything. “Wisdom will come if you are pure. You’ll understand when you grow up.”

That promise of wisdom kept her going, made the pain of abandonment a little more bearable.

The expectation that she would understand someday carried her through many long, dank years living in the Home, where the door to salvation slammed in her face over and over. It supported her through an endless stream of goodbyes as friends too left her behind, departing with new parents to live in a different sort of home.

In her darkest moments, she replayed Sister Martine’s words to sooth herself. When I grow up, she thought, my soul will be clean and it will all be clear.

But when she did grow up, she still didn’t understand. And she was pretty sure that her soul was just as stained as it had ever been. Wisdom eluded her.

Once on her own, like an explorer in the Land of Endless Confusion, she searched everywhere for that elusive wisdom. She tramped through failed careers and disastrous relationships, looking in every dusty corner and under every rock. But all she found was more pain, more confusion.

Then, one day she discovered the ruby light, glowing warmly in liquid enticement.

What the hell, she thought. With a stained soul, I’ll never find heaven anyway. It occurred to her that perhaps this was the wisdom she’d been looking for all her life.

She dove in, and heard the angels sing.

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory .

Metamorphosis (Part 4)

2011-10-22T01:31:00.003-04:00

Continued from:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Before

The driving rain that pounded the small private airstrip outside Medellin for several hours finally stopped. Enrique Cabrera had begun to despair of taking off before dawn. Not that he hadn’t been in the air in bad weather before. It was getting into the air that worried him. With the heavy cloud cover, visibility was nil. Worse, the temperature was dropping, and it wouldn’t be long before the water on the runway began to ice. He didn’t want to take a chance skidding off and into the muddy field. Not with this cargo.

The rain had been unexpected. This part of Colombia seldom got more than a few inches a month. Cabrera almost postponed the flight until tomorrow night, which would not have made El Comandante or his customer happy. As it were, they were several hours behind schedule. Mierda. Fucking global warming, he thought.

He climbed from the nondescript rust-pocked panel van sitting on the apron near the old DC-6 cargo plane. He walked around to the front of the plane, and with a circular motion of his arm, he beckoned to Juan Muñoz, sitting in the cockpit.

Vámanos, he mouthed. Let’s go. Muñoz nodded, and in a few moments, the first of the four prop engines on the plane coughed to life, releasing a cloud of oily smoke. As each engine approached speed, it was followed by the next, until all four props were spinning at full speed and the plane was ready for take-off.

Cabrera went back to the van and spoke to its driver. Moreno would have some explaining to do when he got back to camp with the van.

“El Comandante will question your delay, Manuel. Tell him it was my decision. Only un hombre loco would attempt to take off in such rain. Sí, we will be a few hours late, but I will deliver the cargo safely. Better late than lost in the mud or the mountains. You tell him that.”

“Sí. Ningún problema.” Manuel Moreno would tell El Comandante, for all the good that would do. He would still bear the brunt of the boss’ anger. The old man’s temper was legendary. Moreno already wore evidence of that on his scarred face.

Cabrera turned and strode to the plane’s open door. He climbed the small aluminum ladder and, once in the plane, pulled the ladder up behind him. He threw the latch and secured the door.

Before going to the cockpit, he paused to check the crate that was strapped down in the plane’s belly. There was little doubt they would run into some weather as they climbed to flight altitude, and the last thing he needed was for the heavy crate containing the massive piece of marble to break lose.

Satisfied, he went up to the cockpit and climbed into his seat. Earphones in place, he checked for final clearance with the small tower, and took her up.

They would be in Texas in a few hours, and more than a few more hours late. But somehow, Cabrera didn’t think the buyer would be too upset at the delay after laying eyes on the magnificent stone they carried with them

***

Now

While I wait for Kate to emerge from the Ladies' Room, I find a small grouping of empty chairs tucked behind a fern in the Plaza’s lobby. Confident no one will overhear me, I take a seat and speed-dial Harry’s cell.

Without any polite preliminaries, he answers. “So, is she still the looker she was back in the day?”

Even from 2,500 miles away, I can hear the lecherous leer in Harry’s voice drifting over the airwaves and into my ear.

“Oh, yeah, she’s all that. But, I don’t know, Harry. Something’s off. She’s gotten herself into a hell of a mess.”

I tell Harry the strange story of the sculptor’s disappearance, peering through the fern every now and then toward the Ladies' Room door.

“It sounds to me like the cops have no choice but to try to make a case against Kate, but with no body, it’s going to be an uphill battle.”

Exercising his talent for stating the obvious, Harry says, “They could find a body any time, Marty. If that blood matches, she’ll be in real trouble. What do you think? Did she do it?”

“I would like to think she couldn’t have killed anyone. But, geez, Harry, I wouldn’t swear to it. Like I said, there’s something that’s just not right here.”

I stand and walk around the fern to check the lobby.

“I’ve got an appointment with the detective who questioned Kate.” I continue. “I’ll see if I can get a sense of where they’re going with this. I’m not holding my breath, though. They have no reason to cooperate with a PI from LA. But it’s worth a try.”

“Anything I can do from here?” he offers.

Harry’s holding the fort in LA, and was in the midst of what was shaping up to be a lollapalooza of an embezzlement case when I left.

“Well if you have time, put your computer skills to work getting everything you can on Alex DuBois. He’s the sculptor. He’s supposed to be well known. Kate told me a book had been published featuring his work.”

I spot Kate emerging from the hallway to the restrooms and give her a wave.

“I have to go. I’ll check with you later.”

OK,” Harry says. “And, Marty? Watch yourself. You never could say ‘no’ to Kate Bell.”

“No worries, Pal,” I say before ending the call. But truth be told, I am worried. He’s right. I was always lousy at following my best instincts when it came to Kate. I was much more likely to follow my base instincts. I’m very worried.

***

Kate and I walk over to a little Italian restaurant on 57^th and have dinner. Over our meal of the little triangle-shaped spinach ravioli in butter and sage sauce called Fazzoletto di Ricotta E Spinaci, and a glass of Chianti, we set aside the topic of Alex DuBois and talk about old times.

After dinner, I offer to walk her home. Yeah, I’m chivalrous that way. But I’m also anxious to see the sculpture and the layout of the gallery and apartment above. We pull our coats tightly around us, and head up Madison. It’s chilly, but it’s not a long walk and we’re sheltered from the cross-town wind by the buildings along the street.

After crossing the street at the magnificent former Rhinelander mansion that now houses Ralph Lauren, Kate leads me to a doorway recessed in a building about halfway up the block. She unlocks the door, and to my surprise, it swings open to reveal a small inner courtyard. As I have often done in the past, I wonder how many little secret gardens hide behind the canyon walls of the city.

“Wow. This is great,” I comment as she relocks the door.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? I love this little oasis. It’s too cold to use it now, but in the summer, it’s heavenly.” Kate walks deeper into the courtyard, following the wall of the brick building at our left.

“The door to the gallery building is back here,” she says as she shuffles keys on a ring in her hand. “I’ve had the gallery closed since… well, you know. The security gate is down covering the front of the store. This is the only way in.”

Kate unlocks a door at the back of the building, which triggers the beeping of an alarm system. She quickly punches a series of numbers into a security panel, silencing its chirpy voice.

“Come on; let’s go in through the gallery.” We move down a short hall and Kate opens an inner door, deactivates another alarm and flips a few switches on a panel just inside the door. The level of security doesn’t escape my notice. It wouldn’t be all that easy to break into this place.

As the lights come on, I see we are in a small kitchen. It opens onto an office, and on the far wall of the office, swinging café doors apparently lead into the gallery itself.

Kate heads toward them. “The exhibits are in here.”

She pushes through the doors and holds them open for me. When I walk into the gallery, the statue dominating the space in front of me literally takes my breath away.

Only a few lights burn in the gallery, and all of them illuminate the sculpture. It stands at least seven feet tall, if you include the two-foot concrete base. But the base is inconsequential compared to the winged woman emerging from it. I’d recognize her anywhere. Well, all except for the wings, that is.

DuBois has somehow created an incredible contradiction in terms. The piece must be heavy as hell. But, somehow, there is a lightness to it that defies gravity. The woman looks like she’ll take flight at any moment.

And the marble… There is no other word for it but amazing. Like the gossamer butterfly she represents, the woman’s body is awash in subtle colors that seem lit from within by a liquid golden glow.

The piece is nothing short of awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

I glance back at Kate, who is watching me closely. She smiles faintly, and in a voice that seems just a little smug, asks, “So? What do you think?”

Continued in Part 5

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory .

Moonrise

2011-10-20T18:01:00.000-04:00

Daylight, melted

In rivulets of mauve and
peach, lies seeping into the edge

of night, leaving just enough light to see.
The yellow cheer and cerulean celebration

of the day have fled, leaving only a dusky gray
that outlines looming, blackened shapes no longer
clear. Shadows whisper offers of mystery and intrigue,
but I feel no longing to follow. Here, beside me are
you, a lush purple silhouette. My hand in yours,
I warm to your touch and I smile into the
twilight twinkles that are your eyes.
Soon moonlight wraps its arms
securely around us, and
we are night.

***

This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow again and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.

Bernard DeVoto "The Hour"

***

Written for

Metamorphosis (Part 3)

2011-10-10T17:13:00.007-04:00

Continued from

Part 1
Part 2

Metamorphosis (Part 3)

Before

It was nearly ten o’clock when the last customer left the gallery. Exhaustion and an over-service of champagne left Katherine wobbly on her Jimmy Choos. She turned the locks on the front door, flipped the sign in its window to ‘Closed’ and drew the gauzy curtains across the front windows, blocking the view from Madison Avenue. She hit the button that lowered the security grate in front of the gallery and locked it in place. Longing for sleep, she turned to head for the small elevator discretely situated behind a Japanese screen at the back of the gallery and her apartment above.

As she walked across the large room, she saw the many champagne glasses and small plates left on the tables scattered through the exhibits. There were even a few glasses on the base of the large sculpture dominating the space in the center of the gallery. Slobs, she thought.

Groaning, Katherine kicked off her heels and padded back to the small kitchen behind the office to get a tray. The furniture rental company was coming first thing in the morning to pick up the tables and the mess had to be cleaned up. And she knew for damned sure the acclaimed artist honored by the exhibit wasn’t going to do it. In fact, she didn’t know where Alex was, and assumed that he had already gone upstairs. Sure, she thought. The help will take care of it.

As she began collecting the glasses, she paused to gaze at the sculpture. It mesmerized her, as it always did. There was no question that this was Alex’s best work, the piece that would make him internationally famous. And probably even more arrogant, she thought, if that’s possible.

The base was a crude, unfinished hunk of concrete. Emerging from its top, a nude woman cast in marble struggled toward freedom, small wings unfurling from her back. The contrast between the rough grey concrete and the smooth marble, which is veined in subtle colors, is breathtaking.

“It’s you,” Alex had said proudly when he unveiled it for her.

“Oh, Alex.” Katherine breathed, stunned and flattered.

“Just call me Pygmalion in reverse,” he chuckled.

Not taking her eyes from the magnificent piece, she asked, “What do you mean?”

“Pygmalion created a statue and it was transformed into the perfect woman. I transformed you into the perfect woman, then created a statue. Pygmalion in reverse, see?”

The warm glow she had been enjoying from the assumed flattery disappeared as though Alex had doused it with ice water. I should have known better, she thought.

“I call it Metamorphosis. Perfect, don’t you think, Katherine?”

Right. Perfect. She grimaced in disgust as she got back to cleaning up the mess made in his honor.

Katherine gathered the glasses from the base of Metamorphosis, and carried them to the kitchen. It was the last thing she needed, but she downed a glass of champagne and poured another, clicked off the gallery lights, and rode the elevator up to the apartment.

When the elevator doors slid open, she walked into an empty apartment. In a way, she was grateful. She was in no mood to listen to Alex sing his own praises, and she was too tired to care where he had gone or with whom. She drained the champagne glass she’d carried up with her and fell fully dressed across the bed. She was asleep in minutes.

***

Now

“He ‘transformed’ you? What does that mean? I thought you were pretty much perfect right from the get-go.”

Kate leans across the small table and kisses me, sending my pulse into over-drive. “Alex is an artist. He saw me as an ‘unfinished work of art,’ he said.”

I roll my eyes. Oh, please.

“We met at Rizzoli’s when he was there to do a book signing – there's a wonderful book of his work -- and started dating. I was so flattered that a famous sculptor was interested in me. I think I was blinded by his fame. In fact, I know I was.”

Kate drains her glass and I quickly follow suit, raising a finger to catch the waiter’s eye.

“It was stupid, I know,” she continues. “But I was young and already bedazzled by the world of art. To have this successful sculptor notice me totally blew me away.”

The waiter sets down our drinks, and when he leaves, Kate continues.

“To make a long, sordid story short, after dating for several months, we moved in together. It wasn’t long before Alex started ‘fixing’ everything he saw as being wrong with me.”

“What?” I’m shocked. If there was anything wrong with Kate Bell, I’m Brad Pitt.

“Oh, he was subtle. From the beginning, he called me Katherine, saying Kate was too 'common.' Then he started changing the way I look. At first, I just thought he was buying me gifts. I kept pinching myself, wondering how I’d gotten so lucky. But in retrospect, I see it for what it was. How could I not? He even admitted it, didn’t he? ‘I transformed you into the perfect woman.’ His words. Apparently, I wasn’t good enough to be the girlfriend of the great DuBois.”

Tears well in Kate’s eyes and she impatiently swipes them away with her graceful fingers.

“He told me how to dress and went shopping with me to make sure I followed his advice. He thought my hair style was too old-fashioned and unsophisticated, so he took me to a stylist. He stood there, he actually stood there, right beside the chair, and told the guy how to cut my hair.”

I’m appalled. “How come you put up with that, Kate? I don’t remember you as being a shrinking violet.”

“I…” Kate pulls the napkin out from under her glass and wipes a tear from her cheek. “I don’t know. Bit by bit, I lost myself, somehow. I hardly recognize myself in the mirror. I look to him for approval for everything.” More tears stream from her eyes.

Seeing her like this breaks my heart. I hand her my handkerchief and wait while she wipes her face.

“Oh, and I forgot to mention… Being a buyer at a bookstore wasn’t good enough. He bought a small gallery, which I run now. We live in an apartment above it. It’s the perfect job for an artist’s girlfriend, don’t you think?” The scorn in her voice in unmistakable.

Remembering the phone call that brought me to New York, I’m starting to have a really bad feeling.

“Kate, where is Alex now?”

“She raises her eyes to meet mine, and says, “See, that’s the thing. I don’t know.”

***

Before

A shaft of sunlight coming from a gap between the bedroom drapes cut across Katherine’s eyes, waking her. She opened her eyes, and immediately closed them again as a world-class headache made its presence known. Too much champagne, she thought. Before she closed her eyes against the pain, she saw the way she was dressed, and realized that she’d slept in her clothes.

Groaning, she sat up, and looked at the clock. She was relieved to see that it was just after seven o’clock. The gallery didn’t open until ten, but the rental company would be there at nine to pick up the tables from the previous night’s opening.

As she swung her legs to the floor and stood, Katherine saw that she was alone in the bedroom. Since she had fallen asleep on top of the bed, she assumed that Alex had just slept on the couch when he got home.

She walked to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes on the floor behind her, and got in the shower. After letting the hot water run over her head a few minutes, she felt a little better. She finished bathing and wrapped herself in a terry bathrobe.

Before getting dressed, she headed to the kitchen. She hoped that coffee would finish the job started by the shower to make her feel human again.

Rubbing her hair vigorously with a small towel, she went into the kitchen. She popped a k-cup into the coffee maker and pressed a button. A minute later, she poured milk into the steaming cup, sprinkled the contents of a Splenda packet on top, and gave it a stir. Cup and towel in hand, she left the kitchen. When she looked over at the couch, she dropped both. She jumped back as the hot coffee splashed on her bare feet, and stifled a small scream.

Now

Kate picks up her glass in a shaking hand, and takes a decidedly unladylike gulp of the cosmo.

“What is it, Kate?” I ask. “Was Alex on the couch?”

“That’s just it, Marty. He wasn’t there.” Kate lowers her voice and leans toward me. “But what was there was blood. Not a lot but it was kind of splattered on the couch and the carpet in front of it.”

“What? What happened?”

“Marty, I don’t know.” Kate’s voice is tinged with panic now. “I was a little drunk, but I’m sure I would have noticed that blood if it had been there when I got back upstairs after the opening. The couch is white.”

I rub my hand over my eyes. “OK, think back, Kate. Did you hear anything during the night?”

“No. I went right to bed. Actually, I think passed out. I was so tired, and I’d had a lot of champagne. I never heard Alex come in or anything else. I saw the blood the next morning, but I have no idea how it got there.”

“And there was no, um… Alex wasn’t there?”

“No. I haven’t seen him since. And that was three days ago. Marty, I’m so scared.”

My mind racing in a dozen different directions, I ask, “What did you do when you found the blood?”

“I called the police. And then I called you.”

“And they came right away?”

“Yes.” Kate replied. “They asked a lot of questions: where was I the night before, when was the last time I saw Alex, that kind of thing. While they were talking to me, some other cops came and took samples of the blood. They looked around, but there was really nothing to see. Everything looked totally normal except for the blood.”

“Was the front door locked when you got up?”

“I never thought to check it. I use the elevator in the gallery to get upstairs most of the time. But the cops checked it, and said it was locked. And they said they saw no signs it was tampered with.”

“So how was all this left?”

“A couple of detectives came the next day, and asked me pretty much the same questions as the uniformed guys the night before. When they left, they told me to call them if I heard from Alex. But, Marty, they sounded… oh, I don’t know, sort of suspicious, you know? Like they thought I wasn’t going to hear from Alex. And they told me not to leave town.”

Kate took a big swallow of her drink. “Marty, there’s something else I didn’t tell the police. I had dropped my clothes on the floor when I went in to take my shower. That was before I saw the mess in the living room. The bathroom is off the bedroom and I didn’t go out to the living room until after I showered. When I went in to dress before the police got there, I just scooped the clothes up off the floor and dumped them in a basket on the closet floor. It wasn’t until later that I saw it.” Kate’s eyes bore into mine. “Marty, there was blood on my slacks.”

“Don’t worry, Kate,” I tell her. “I’ll help you get to the bottom of this. I’m not leaving until we find out what’s going on.”

Kate looks at me, tears glistening in her eyes again. “Oh, Marty, what if I…? You don’t think I killed Alex, do you?”

I take her hand again. “No, absolutely not. In the first place, if you had killed him, there would have been a body, right? But, besides that, I know you, Kate; you would never kill anyone.”

As I reassure her, I hope that I’m right. The girl I knew in college couldn't kill anyone. But this Kate? Alex’s ‘creation’ is not that girl. In addition to her appearance, I wonder what else he changed.

Continued in Part 4.

***

Tune in for the next muse at The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Metamorphosis (Part 2)

2011-10-10T17:11:00.002-04:00

Continued from Part 1

Metamorphosis (Part 2)

Now

Grateful to be out of the chill, I rub my cold hands together and head for the staircase to Rizzoli’s mezzanine, where Kate said she’d meet me. At the top of the carpeted marble stairs, books are arrayed on shelves around the edge of the mezzanine. The chandelier I’d seen from below hangs over the open center. On the other side, I see Kate sitting on a bench in front of the window overlooking 57^th, flipping through a glossy coffee table art book. The two-story arched window that frames the front door downstairs now also frames Kate. She is dressed in a charcoal gray knit dress, and colorful silk scarf flows around her neck like molten Chihuly glass. Her chestnut hair is shorter now and slightly curly, but she’s as beautiful as I remember.

She looks up as I approach, and a smile welcomes me. I can’t help but notice that it never quite reaches her brown eyes.

“Marty.” She stands and wraps me in a hug. “It’s so good to see you. Thanks for coming. I knew I could count on you.”

After a quick peck on the cheek, she steps away.

“When could I ever resist you, Kate? Oh, wait, that would be around the last time pigs could fly. How could I forget?”

I’m pleased to see the smile climb into her eyes at last.

“You haven’t changed a bit. Same old Marty.” Taking a small step back, she looks me up and down. “Actually, you haven’t changed. You look great. A bit older and wiser perhaps, but it looks good on you.”

“Well, you’re right about the older part,” I chuckle, “but I’m not so sure I’m any wiser. But you? You don’t look a minute older.”

“You always were a slick talking rascal.” I think I catch a tinge of sadness in her voice.

“So, what’s up? I’ve been going crazy. You call and drop that bombshell on me, and then just let it hang?”

“I’ll tell you everything, but can we go somewhere else?” Her eyes scan the mezzanine, which has begun to fill with after-work browsers.

“Sure. I’ve been fantasizing about a martini all afternoon. The Plaza is just around the block. Let’s go get a drink.”

Kate slips on a black cashmere coat and we make our way downstairs and out onto 57^th, which is more crowded than I left it. As we retrace my steps back to Fifth and hang a left, Kate tucks her arm through mine. It feels just right. I think back to the many times we explored the streets of New York just like this 17 years ago.

Without prompting, Kate begins talking.

“After school, I completely lost track of you, Marty. I had no idea that you’d moved out west. I tried calling your mom and dad once, but got a recording that the number was disconnected.”

“Dad died a few years ago, Kate. Heart attack. Mom moved out to California to be near me. She has a small place in Santa Monica.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear about your dad. I liked him a lot." She gives my arm a small squeeze. "Why California, Marty? I always thought you’d go into your dad’s business.”

“Actually, I did for a while. But you know how much I love movies, Kate. I opened a branch of Tremaine & Co in LA.”

We cross 58^th Street and walk past the Pulitzer Fountain to the entrance of the Plaza.

As we climb the few red-carpeted steps beneath the gilded marquee sheltering the doorway, Kate stops short.

“Remember that time we came here and they had those live mannequins in the windows?”

“Yes!” I laugh. “I remember standing in front of the windows trying to get a reaction out of them. They were like the palace guards in England. They never even twitched. I don’t know how they resisted my charm.”

Kate rolls her eyes. “You acted like a maniac. I’m surprised they didn’t run away in horror. God, that was a long time ago, another lifetime. It was my 21^st birthday, remember? We came to celebrate with my first legal drink.”

“I’m glad you qualified that.” I say as we head into the marble lobby. It's like walking into Versailles, grander than I remembered it.

We find the Oak Bar and settle in at a small table in a quiet corner. When the waiter appears, I order my martini and Kate asks for a Cosmo.

While we wait for our drinks, I ask, “So how did you find me? I’m really glad you did, by the way. I’ve missed you, Kate.”

Kate smiles. “I saw a note in the NYU Alumni magazine a couple of years ago announcing that you’d opened a detective agency in LA. You and Harry. Still the Dynamic Duo, I see.”

“Yep. He went out to LA when I did. We were going to take Hollywood by storm.”

“And did you?”

“Ha, not even close. Turned out the studios and Hollywood types already had accountants. Who knew?”

Kate gives me a well, duh look.

“Yeah, I know. Harry got closer than I did. You remember that he was a computer whiz, right?” She nods. “Well, most of the studios have gone digital, and our Harry got in on that pretty early. Before so many guys opened their own computer graphics shops, the studios dabbled in it, and Harry was there.”

The waiter sets down a bowl of peanuts and two frosty stemmed glasses, mine clear as crystal and Kate’s a rosy pink. We touch glasses.

“I’m really glad to see you, Marty,” Kate says as the glasses clink softly.

“And I, you,” I respond. “You have no idea.”

We both sip and almost simultaneously make an appreciative “mmm” sound.

“So, anyway, I saw in the alumni update thing that you guys had opened this detective agency. A detective agency? What happened to accounting?”

I swallow the peanut I’ve been chewing. “Well, I guess I was bored. Instead of signing on exciting clients from Hollywood, I ended up with plumbers and electricians from Van Nuys. When Dad died and the business was mine, I sold out. I made enough to give me a little cushion while I tried to decide what I wanted to be when I grow up. My fantasy of being ‘Accountant to the Stars’ had failed, so I turned to another fantasy. Got my PI ticket and a really neat hat, and sure as Bob’s your uncle, I’m Marty Tremaine, Private Eye, at your service.”

As I say the last few words, I reach into my pocket and pull out a business card, which I present to Kate with a flourish.

She accepts my card with a smile. “It is a nice hat.”

“You should see the real one. Now, what’s up? I know you didn’t call me out of the blue just to say hi. Though I’ve got to admit, ‘I think I might have killed someone’ is one hell of an opening.”

Kate takes a swallow of her drink. “For the past ten years, I’ve been living with a man named Alex DuBois.”

“I didn’t know you were married, Kate.”

“Oh, I’m not.” She gives a slight snort of derision. “Not that there is much difference. Not to me, anyway. Practically from the moment we met, he was 100% in my life: in my job, my home, my bed, and worst of all, my head.”

“I’m not sure I follow, Kate.”

“No, I can see where you wouldn’t, Marty. You’re a nice guy. But there are men out there, guys like Alex, who are not so nice.” She pauses to take another sip of her drink.

I can see this is hard for her. She actually seems… I don’t know, a little less somehow. Definitely not the strong, self-confident Kate I remember.

I reach across the table and take her hand. “It’s okay. Go on.”

“Maybe I should start at the beginning. After school, my first job was at Rizzoli Bookstore.”

“You majored in art history, right? Don’t I remember that you wanted to work at the Met?”

“Good memory.” Kate smiles. “I couldn’t get in. Openings at the Met are pretty scarce. Rizzoli is known for its Arts department. I was lucky to snag a job as a buyer. You were probably wondering why I suggested we meet at Rizzoli.”

“Not really,” I say, shaking my head slightly. “I figured it was just convenient for you.”

“Yes, it was,” she answers. “But it was also where this whole ugly saga began. I thought it would be a fitting place to begin to write its ending.”

I notice her fingers drawing in the condensation on the side of her glass. It looks a bit like a woman with wings. Then she gives the image a swipe with her thumb, obliterating it, and looks up at me.

“Marty, do you know the story of Pygmalion and Galatea?”

Continued in Part 3.

***

Written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Metamorphosis (Part 1)

2011-10-10T17:10:00.003-04:00

This is a Tremaine Investigations story. You can read earlier stories in the series here:

From Hell to Breakfast,

Two Over Easy and a Questionable Chardonnay

Metamorphosis (Part 1)

Before

“You know, Alex, there may be a limit to how much of your arrogance I can overlook.”

Katherine’s eyes remained on the sculpture in front of her as she spoke. A quick glance at her profile told Alex she was pissed, but it wasn’t fatal. A faint smile touched his mouth.

He wasn't worried, a perfect illustration of that arrogance, he supposed. But the flat tone of her voice belied the threat in her words. She wasn't serious. He doubted she’d ever be serious. He created her. She was his, completely. And they both knew it.

His smile widened.

***

Now

As I move along the along the broad sidewalk with the crowd, I realize that I don’t exactly fit in. I might look like just another New York businessman bustling about his workday if I were not obviously underdressed for the unseasonably cold weather. In a sea of men in top coats, my California-weight Armani suit, well tailored though it may be, stands out. Not that anyone notices. This is New York, after all.

I shiver and hunch my shoulders against a cold gust. The late afternoon sun is thin and doesn’t do much to warm the air. Geez, it’s colder than … well, you know. It’s been a long time, but was it always this cold in New York in November? As I round the corner from Fifth to 57^th Street, I notice Bergdorf on my right, its glittering windows featuring mannequins posed amid pumpkins and autumn leaves.

Yeah. A glance at my watch tells me there’s enough time. I turn in at the 57^th Street entrance and head to the Men’s Department to get myself a lightweight topcoat. I’m blessed with one of those builds. The grey coat from the rack slips on as if it were custom-made for me. I’m back on the street in ten minutes and immediately swept back into the crowd rushing down 57^th.

Funny, I don’t remember so many people completely focused on getting there back in my day. Ha, probably because I was one of them. Carried along by the tide of humanity, I’m actually struggling to keep up. I guess I’ve gotten used to the slower pace out in LA. Besides, we don’t walk anywhere there. LA’s the city Detroit built. I decide I’d better reacquaint myself with the subway.

Still, this walking has to be good for you. Maybe that’s why everybody walks – and quickly, very quickly – instead of bringing a car into the city. Well, that, and the fact that a decent parking space costs more than a Nolet Silver martini, which you’d need anyway if you were crazy enough to drive here. As far as I’m concerned, the martini does a lot more for your heart than racing the streets with the rest of the rat pack. Or maybe everyone just moves fast to keep warm. A martini can take care of that too.

Like the people ahead and behind me, I veer around the huge red number 9 splitting the foot traffic flowing down the sidewalk like a rock in a stream. Just ahead, peeking over an awning on the building next door, I can see the arched glass front of the townhouse housing Rizzoli Bookstore. A glow of light from the chandelier inside beckons warmly like an old friend, and I step it up as I make my way to the right side of the sidewalk. I’m eager to get warm, and even more eager to see the woman I know is waiting for me inside.

Using my shoulder so I won’t have to put my already frozen hand on the cold brass door handle –I should have gotten some gloves too – I push my way through the heavy wooden door. The interior of the bookstore is just as I remember it. Beneath the glittering chandelier suspended from the gently arched ceiling high above, patrons stand browsing through the books displayed on rich wooden shelving and tables. Strains of Mozart play softly in the background. I can’t help but smile. The ambiance here is about as far from Barnes & Noble as New York is from LA. It’s good to be back.

I’m Marty Tremaine, and I’m no stranger to New York.

***

Before

I spent four years living in the city while I was at NYU. Harry Carrold, my closest friend since forever, and I shared first a dorm room and then the tiny apartment we liked to call our “garret,” both in the Village near Washington Square. After graduation, we moved to LA, I to open a branch of the family business, and Harry, well, because “Hey, what the hell?” And that should pretty much sum up Harry for you.

My dad ran a very successful accounting practice in Hartford. He expected me to come into the business, naturally, since I was the only child. But I’d had my heart set on Southern California for as long as I could remember. I’m a huge movie fan, and the pull of Tinseltown was strong. Oh, I had no aspirations to be the next Hollywood hunk or anything. I just wanted to be in the neighborhood. Being accountant to insurance drones just wasn’t going to do it for me.

We compromised, Pop and I. I would join Tremaine & Co but I would do it in Los Angeles. I had grand dreams of bringing in some of the money that flows in and out of Hollywood.

So Harry and I headed west. I opened the West Coast branch of Tremaine & Co, putting my finance degree to good use. I did very well, though oddly, few of my clients came from the movie business. Harry is a techie, and he bopped around from company to company, changing jobs whenever he got bored. Since the world of computers was growing like crazy and relatively few people could be called “experts” yet, LA was Harry’s oyster. Interestingly, many of the pearls in that oyster did come from the entertainment world. Go figure.

We both got married, with similar results. Neither of the marriages had long-term staying power, Harry’s much less so than mine. But I did come out of it with a couple of great kids. We won’t talk about the woman who became the ex-wife from Hell. I did manage to get even with her eventually, but that’s another story.

A few years ago, Dad died, leaving Tremaine & Co to me. I wasn’t having a whole lot of fun crunching numbers by that time, so I sold the business. I’d been drawn to my romantic Hollywood image of being a P.I. for quite a while. Yeah, me and Philip Marlowe. So I took some classes, got myself a license, a gun permit and a cool fedora, and stenciled my name on the door to Tremaine Investigations. It wasn’t long before Harry quit his programming job and came in with me, because “Hey, what the hell?”

We’ve been doing pretty well, and all of the profits these days are by way of honest labor. I have to admit that back at the beginning, that wasn’t always the case. Harry and I had a unique combination of skills that had enabled us to collect a “fee” from both parties in a divorce action. Hey, what self-respecting bean guy doesn’t know how to cook the books a little? And, luckily, this one has a computer whiz around to clean up the kitchen after him.

But a hard-earned windfall, courtesy of my ex-wife, gave us the cushion we needed to switch lanes and travel the high road. Business could be better, but what we do bring in is coming in via the old-fashioned route. I’m not saying I’ll never take a short cut again, but for now, it’s all on the straight and narrow.

I've got to say, though, that being a private dick hasn’t turned out to be quite as glamorous as I expected. There are a lot of days when I get to sit with my feet up on my beloved battered wooden desk and imagine myself recovering the Brasher Doubloon.

It all began on one of those days. I was at my desk reading the week-old Variety Harry had left on behind when Steve appeared at the door to my office. Stephanie – “don’t call me Steve” -- McGuire is our receptionist, secretary and all around Jill-of-all-trades. She may be Tremaine Investigations’ most valuable asset, present company excepted, of course. There’s not much she can’t do, from playing “mom” to her two sometimes-irresponsible employers to fixing the copier.

“You’ve got a call, Marty. You want me to put it through?”

I lifted my eyes from yet another article about the rise and fall of Charlie Sheen. “You know who it is?”

Steve waggled her eyebrows at me, green eyes sparking. “Yup. A sexy-sounding lady from New York named Katherine-with-a-K Bell.”

I think my heart stopped for a moment. Kate Bell. Back at NYU, Kate Bell was the object of my desire – OK, let’s be honest here, it was out and out lust -- the love of my life and ultimately, the one who got away. Kate Bell.

I realized Steve was waiting, looking at me with her freckled face full of questions. “Uh, yeah, put her through.”

***

“Marty?”

At the sound of her voice, my mind went into instant flashback, replaying steamy scenes from the Marty and Kate Story.

Kate was the sexiest woman I’d ever known, hands down. She was about 5’8”, and at a time when being as thin as a runway model was considered ideal, Kate was all curves. She wore her dark hair long, and when she allowed it to float loose to her shoulders, she looked like Jane Russell. Most often, though, she tied it up in a perky ponytail that bounced happily behind her as she ran out to Washington Square most afternoons to get a lemon gelato from the old Italian guy with the cart.

I never really knew what happened between us, but we were a hot item, and then we weren’t. Though I’d thought about her plenty, I hadn’t spoken to her since I left New York.

“Kate. How are you?”

“Marty, I need your help. I think I might have killed someone.”

Continued in Part 2.

***

Written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Stream of Soup

2011-10-01T18:02:00.000-04:00

Hmmm… Soup for supper?

I’ve always liked Campbell’s Soup, but those kids? Please. They look like the Katzenjammer Kids pretending to be little angels while they are mentally planning some sort of mischievous attack on the Captain.

Who was the Captain, anyway? I suppose he could have been a boarder, given the times, but what if he and Mama were getting it on? Geez.

And that’s a strange one. Read somewhere that Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On was first going to have a religious bent. Wow, gimme some of that old time religion.

Andy Warhol had a lot of that old time religion. They say he was a Byzantine Catholic, whatever that is. He sure seemed obsessed with The Last Supper, and even did a painting sort of like this one called Sixty Last Suppers. He ate soup for lunch rather than supper, though, Andy Warhol did.

Hmmm… Soup for supper? I’ll have the Chicken Noodle.

***

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub, where today's prompt is Pop Art.

The Funeral

2011-10-01T11:28:00.000-04:00

Mourners gather around the raw wound.
Some clutch flowers to toss into the void.
Skies darken in sadness as heads bow.
I stay away, filled with anger and dread.

Kettle drums roll as skies rend and cleave.

Collective tears of eternity flood through.

Inevitable sadness drenches me where I lie,

Huddled in bed, blanket pulled over my head.

What a cold lesson it is to learn that,

When the heavens weep in sodden sobs

To the sound of so many hearts breaking,

There can be no shelter from the storm.

Not That It Matters

2011-09-26T12:11:00.001-04:00

Not that it matters, but…

Twenty-five is way too young to die,

And death is an awfully permanent way to

discover you aren’t immortal.

Not that it matters, but…

OK, so it wasn’t your fault. Still, if you’d looked

Around, you’d have seen thousands of giant raptors

Piloted by idiots, all blind to see you coming.

Not that it matters, but…

So sorry to tell you this, but that macho hunk

Of iron wedged between your legs didn’t do

One damn thing to make you seem like more of a man.

Not that it matters, but…

I think you died of poor judgment, posturing, a lack

Of true belief in yourself, and most of all, selfishness.

The moment of death was just a logical outcome.

Not that it matters, but…

I’m so angry at you. Your family weeps, their lives

Changed forever as yours crashed to an end.

And I bet you never gave that a thought, did you?

Not that it matters, but…

If you weren’t dead, I’d want to hit you, scream at you,

Tell you to grow the fuck up. But that’s just me.

Not that any of it matters. You’re still just as dead.

***

If you are a fan of poetry, be sure to check out the dVerse Poets Pub. It's Open Link Night and you'll find a lot of great poets hanging out there.

Requiem Invictus

2011-09-19T19:31:00.000-04:00

After battling so long without success, she was already battered and bruised. The first arrow found its mark easily, and she staggered. She yanked it from her chest and pushed on. But in rapid succession, a second arrow hit and then a third. In her weakened condition, she was helpless to withstand the barrage. She was finished, and she knew it.

As the end came, her last words struggled from between her lips.

"...and the horse you rode in on," she breathed. "You're out of the will."

And then she was gone before the rest of the arrows even took to the air.

*******************************************

Written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

Paso Doble

2011-09-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

She has a great smile and she uses it a lot. It’s her most appealing trait. That and the sense of humor behind it. That smile draws people to her, many of them hurting, looking for a salve made up of equal parts compassion and smart-ass to sooth their bruised soles. But who brings a poultice for the wounds she hides so well?

Sometimes, a gust of loneliness blows through, riffling her control and the pages of her secret dance book, that place she records each step of longing and pain. The pages flutter and rest open-book, exposing the anguish hidden by the smile for all to see, if they cared enough to look. Few do.

If those close to her were paying attention, they might notice that many of the lines in her dance book are not in her hand. Moments left behind, as empty as the messages left in the pink plastic-covered autograph book she had in elementary school, he inscribed the margins with hopes and dreams that she never recognized as fiction until the ink was dry and it was too late

Charming, he dances a clever paso doble cloaked with temptation, never committing to anything but the dance. Woven from spun sugar, promises of more are sweet on the tongue, then quickly melted and gone. The dance keeps her emotions teetering on the precipice, unable to move forward, unable to pull back.

She is a smart woman, our heroine. She knows all this. But when the loneliness blows in, passing though the arbor as it comes, perhaps, she sees him as she wishes he were, and the dance of longing is renewed. The saddest thing is that, committed to her fantasy dancer, even such a charming one, she is unable to look into reality and see new partner.

Were she to ask, which she won’t, someone close to her, someone with more concern for her than for personal footwork, yes, Someone might offer a suggestion.

Go to a quiet place in your head or your countryside, Someone would say, a place important only to you with no associations to anyone else. Go there, leave your dance book locked away and open your heart instead. Ask then: If I could have anything, what would it be? If all obstacles were removed, and I could have him exactly as he is, no alterations allowed, would I want him? If the answer is yes, Someone would add, the next question is obvious. And does he want you, exactly as you are, no alterations allowed?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, Someone would roll her eyes and ask, “Then what the Hell are you waiting for?

But if any of the answers is no, Someone would need say no more. Our heroine knows that if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. She might wish she were taller, younger, or able to tap dance, but she doesn’t invest her time and emotions longing for the impossible.

She’s a smart woman, our heroine is. And did I mention that she has a great smile?

Boost Your "Curb Appeal"

2011-09-08T20:16:00.008-04:00

Going green? Good plan. But, geez, no need to be boring about it. Let me help.You’ll discover a popularity like you've never known before. Complete strangers will wave to you on the street. Pause, and you’ll be surrounded by admirers.

Aw. can’t handle quite so much awesomeness? Then check out my less flamboyant brothers.

***********************

Showing off here for Friday Flash Fiction, hosted by a car guy who works for my Big Daddy, G-Man.

A Pox of Prejudice - Part 2

2011-09-06T00:29:00.004-04:00

Continued from Part 1

And so it starts…

That Monday, the day people have started calling “Black Monday,” Dodie is filled with trepidation as she pulls her old Ford into the lot two blocks from the STC building. She has no idea what to expect. The rumor mill predicts everything from demonstrations in front of the building to National Guard escorts for the new employee. She finds herself dawdling as she locks the car and starts walking.

The front of the building looks just as it always does. She shows her badge, and takes the elevator to the fifth floor.

“Are you ready for this?”

She turns toward the woman riding beside her. It’s someone she doesn’t know, but even so, she can tell the woman has dressed up a bit today. She looks more like she’s going to a wedding than to work. Dodie wonders if she thought she might be on television or something.

“Sure.” Her answer seems a bit flat in response to the somewhat sarcastic tone of the other woman’s voice. But so far, she has avoided getting into the snide, and frankly offensive, conversations that have swirled all around her since the announcement. And she’s not about to start.

“Well, we’re in for it now. This is just the first, you know. If we don’t do something, the next thing you know, the place will be infested with them, and there won’t be a chair fit to sit on.”

Dodie is shocked by the naked disgust in the woman’s voice. Coming from an attractive woman in a pink suit, it’s like finding a cockroach in the sugar bowl. Then the words hit her. Do something?

The woman looks at her over her tortoise shell glass frames. “You’re with us, right?”

Dodie is saved when the doors slide open on her floor. “Uh, gotta go, I’m almost late. See ya.” She bolts from the elevator and heads for the bank of small lockers lining the hall outside the room filled with switchboards. A glance at her watch tells her she really is late. She twirls in the combination, exchanges her purse for her headset, and hurries to the time clock to punch in.

After she takes her place at the board and plugs in, she still hears the echoes of the hatred spouting from between that woman’s Rose Petal Frost-covered lips.

“Do something…You’re with us, right?” The words send a frisson of fear down her spine.

***

Like a wave, the room goes silent from front to back. The absence of sound lasts only a few seconds, and is followed by a second wave, as the operators resume their work. But the buzz of voices has a quality that is slightly off-pitch.

Dodie runs the current call card through the time stamp and turns to look. Several seats away, she sees Marge and another supervisor. Between them is a thin colored girl who is probably about twenty but looks much younger. She wears a simple plaid dress and her hair is smoothed and pulled back into a tight French twist. But it’s the face beneath the rolled bangs that catches Dodie’s breath. The girl looks absolutely terrified. She never raises her eyes to meet the daggers flashing from the eyes of several women around her as she takes her place on the board.

At that moment, Dodie vows to befriend her. She knows full well what it is like to walk into this job, doubting your ability to master the corded monsters all around you. And she didn’t have to face the resentment that infects the air all around this poor girl.

***

The call comes on the fifth cord set at Dodie’s position. No need to plug this one in. Only the first cord set is currently handling a call on the board. She knows a call on one of the last three indicates a call directly to her position from somewhere in the building. Shortly after she began at STC, a call on one of the last three cord sets was usually an announcement about a training class or Payroll with a question about her withholding.

Not now.

Dodie’s heart skips a beat. In the three months since “Black Monday,” a call to her position has become a daily event. At first, they were polite, suggesting that she might want to give more attention to her job and less to her coworkers. When she got the first one, she had gone straight to Marge and asked what was lacking in her work. Marge’s reception was cool, but then, she hadn’t ever been much in the warmth department.

“Your work is fine.”

It was enough to reassure her. She chalked it up to a practical joke. It wouldn’t have been the first one.

But the calls continued, each more aggressive and uglier than the last. It became clear that the problem was not the attention she wasn’t giving her job as much as it was the attention she was giving Rose, the new employee. Seems some people aren’t happy that she’s not “with" them.

Dodie is nothing if not stubborn. The more they threaten, the more she digs in her heels. She’s taken to having lunch in the cafeteria with Rose. The poor girl has been eating a bag lunch in the little park down the street from the building, and it wasn’t easy to convince her to brave the cafeteria. But she’s done it, and aside from the dirty looks, which they’d both ignore, there hasn’t been a problem. Others had actually started joining them. Not everyone is as prejudiced as whoever is making the calls to her station.

She’s tempted to ignore it, but it could be an emergency. She sighs heavily and pulls the toggle back on cord five. “2047.”

“Seems like you got a hankering for a bomb in your mailbox, nigger lover. That’d be a real shame, nice house like your daddy’s.”

Tears in her eyes, Dodie sits listening to the emptiness on the line after the caller disconnects until a tap on her shoulder startles her.

“Eleven o’clock, Dodie. Time to go home. I know you don’t love this place that much.”

Dodie turns and gives her friend Mary a weak smile. “Right.”

She pulls her headset cord free of the board, and joins Mary as she walks toward the hall.

“Hey, you alright?” Mary touches Dodie’s arm, her voice filled with concern. She’s seen the remnants of tears in her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. Yawning, you know?”

At the front door, Mary says, “You sure you’re OK. You want a lift to your car?” Mary gestures to the car idling at the curb. It’s her only car, and her husband picks her up when she can’t get a ride with someone else heading toward the Grove.

“No, really, I’m fine. See you tomorrow.”

“OK, ‘night.”

Dodie gives a wave at the car pulling away from the curb and heads toward the lot.

***

February 12, 2000

The ballroom in the Grand Regency Hotel is sparkling as the elegantly dressed woman pauses in the doorway, her hand held by her tuxedo-clad husband. Soft music from the small band near the dance floor floats through the air as they make their way toward the head table. It’s slow going, because at every table, someone stands to congratulate her.

Finally, the couple reaches the dais. She smiles as she looks at the large banner on the wall behind the table. “Happy Retirement!” It’s been a long time coming, she thinks as she takes her seat.

After a sumptuous meal has been served and cleared, one by one, friends and co-workers take the podium and speak glowing words about her accomplishments. Finally, the CEO turns toward her.

“I have the great privilege of presenting our guest of honor. I know that no introductions are necessary. She’s our favorite techie and I, for one, am going to miss her terribly. I know you feel the same. Ladies and gentleman, Vice President of Information Services Rose Franklin!”

The room bursts into applause as Rose joins the CEO at the podium. He leans down and kisses the diminutive gray-haired woman’s cheek and then sits down.

As the applause dies down, she adjusts the microphone.

“My friends. I am so incredibly honored by this wonderful send-off. But I had no idea you were so anxious to get rid of me.”

She pauses while the two hundred people in front of her laugh.

“Before we get to the dancing, which is really the only reason I came,” she smiles as the audience chuckles again, “I’d like to say just a few words.”

“When I started at STC 46 years ago, I never dreamed I would be standing here today. You all know your history; I don’t need to tell you how hard it was. Over the years, many of you have told me what a trailblazer I was, how brave I must have been.”

Rose takes a sip of water, and continues.

“You are so wrong. I was a timid little mouse who needed a job. That’s all. I couldn’t have been more terrified than I was the day I first walked into that room full of switchboards.” She smiles as she sweeps the room with her glowing brown eyes. “I know some of you must be old enough to remember what a switchboard is.” The responding laughter is accompanied by groans.

“That room was filled with white women. I was like a chocolate drop in a bowl of marshmallows. I know that they all weren’t ready to kill me on the spot, but I believed then that a lot of them would have welcomed the chance. Actually,” she says, her face turning serious, “I still believe that today.

“I never thought I’d make through the first week. And I wouldn’t have, except there was a young woman on that switchboard who really was brave. A woman who probably never realized it, but she was the real trailblazer. She had the courage to stand up to incredible pressure and become my friend. I can only imagine what she must have suffered to do so. I know what she sacrificed.

“Every time I was ready to throw in the towel, I could hear her say, 'Hang in there, Rose. It will get better. It has to.’

“Every time I was terrified to take the next step, her words of encouragement filled my head.

“It’s because of her that I stayed at STC through those horrible first years. It’s because of her that I went back to school and learned how to become,” she turns and smiles at the CEO, “your ‘favorite techie.’ And it’s because of her that I am here tonight.”

Rose stops, and looks down at the podium for a long moment. The room is completely silent. Finally she looks up at the audience again, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

“And it’s because of me that she isn’t here tonight. One night when she was getting into her car after her shift, she was attacked. When the security guard found her hours later, she was dead, beaten horribly. The authorities never found the cowards who killed her.

"So tonight, I think it is appropriate for us to honor her. My friends, please join me in applauding the true woman of courage, the real heroine in my story, Dodie Williams.”

Rose beams, tears running down her cheeks, as everyone in the room stands and enthusiastically claps their hands along with her.

When the applause finally fades and everyone takes their seat again, she turns to the band and says, “Get your boogie on, Boys! There’s folk want to dance here.”

The End

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory

A Pox of Prejudice - Part 1

2011-09-06T00:27:00.006-04:00

Yawning, Operator 2047 braces her feet on the metal footrest attached to the front of her tall chair so she can twist around without falling off to grab the white card hanging from its back by a clip. The large numbers printed on the card identify her to the supervisor trolling back and forth behind the long row of women. There are eight other supervisors like her in the hangar-sized room, each monitoring her own row of women. The women all sit in identical chairs with numbered cards clipped to the back. During peak hours, there can be as many as 400 of them creating a hum of murmured voices that seldom abates. It’s like working in a beehive.

Worker Bee Number 2047. So warm and personal. Dodie doesn’t know why that still surprises her, but it does. It’s not even remotely what she’d imagined when she applied for the job last summer. It had seemed so glamorous then. If only Mom and Dad had had the money to send her to college right away, she thinks now. She’d give anything to be up in Tallahassee with her friends instead of being here.

Suppressing another yawn that makes her blue eyes water, she turns the card over to expose the bold red letters that cry for “RELIEF” on the reverse side and slides the card back under the clip. Almost simultaneously, as though she had triggered it, the board in front of her suddenly bursts into life, most of its small lights gleaming red.

No need to check her watch. It’s nine o’clock; two hours to go. Groaning inwardly, Dodie leans back and looks behind the backs for the supervisor. There she is. The tightly permed brown hair peeks out from the row of heads to her right. She’s standing between two chairs about halfway down, tethered to the board by the coiled cord dangling from her headset as she speaks into the mouthpiece. She sees Dodie looking at her and holds up two fingers.

Dodie nods, then turns back to the board and pulls out the rear cord of the only unoccupied cord set at her position. Might as well start chipping away at the red lights. Most of them, she knows, are pay phones full of impatient snowbirds who waited until nine o’clock when the rates went down, then dropped a dime in the slot and dialed “O.” Not her favorite customers to deal with, but when you work at night, it’s a fact of life. That she’ll be working at night for a long time is also a fact of life. You have to pay your dues before you are rewarded with the coveted eight-to-five shift.

She seats the end of the cord in the hole beneath one of the lit red bulbs on the 538 strip. The prefix identifies the location of the caller as the Beach, probably the lobby of one of the big hotels now filled with seasonal tourists. She flips the toggle forward, puts on her cheery voice and says, “Operator.”

A full fifteen minutes later, after she has completed that call and several more, the supervisor appears behind Dodie and plugs in.

“Thanks, Marge. My back teeth are floating.” Dodie pulls her own headset cord from the board and heads out to the Ladies Room. It’s true; she does need to pee. But even more, she needs to walk around a bit or she’ll never make it to her shift end at eleven. It’s been an awful day and she’s exhausted.

In the Ladies Room, she says hello to the three women standing in a cluster by the sinks, and pushes into one of the stalls. No toilet paper. Great. She turns around in time to catch one of the women pulling a face at the others. The expression is quickly replaced by reddened cheeks, and the three leave the bathroom.

Big surprise, Dodie thinks as she settles gratefully onto the toilet in the next stall. She has become accustomed to the feeling that she has single-handedly cleared the room.

After she washes her hands, she rests her arms against the cool porcelain of the sink and lets the cold water from the tap flow over her wrists. She feels a little foolish doing it, but figures it can’t hurt. Even though the old-timers swear by it, she doubts the chill to her wrists will perk her up. Catching sight of the reflection in the mirror above the sink, she grimaces at the image looking back at her. Even if the cold water does wake her up a little, it won’t do much to help the appearance of the person in the mirror. No one should look that old at nineteen. Her normally glossy ponytail hangs behind her head like a tired, coffee-stained string mop and dusky circles frame her bloodshot eyes. She hasn’t slept much since the whole thing began.

Yeah, it’s been one heck of a day, the latest in a long line of them. And tomorrow promises to be no better.

***

For Dodie, growing up in Miami was like growing up in Everywhere, USA. No one is “from” Miami, no one that she knows, anyway. Everybody is a transplant from somewhere else, usually some place up North. As with other coastal cities in Florida, the Miami draw is the beach and, most of all, the weather. But unlike many other coastal Florida cities and towns, Miami is a booming metropolis, about one million people strong.

Despite being about as far south as you could get in the continental US, Dodie’s Miami doesn’t seem much like “Old Dixie.” Little of what she knows about the American South touches Dodie’s life in any way. Few people seasoned their speech with “ya’ll” or ever invited ya’ll to “come have a glass of sweet tea and set a spell.” But scratch the surface, and what you’d find is southern to the core.

Her high school was as white as the bread that scented the air with tempting aromas wafting from the Wonder factory a mile away. Well, at least until the first handful of Cubans appeared during her senior year. “Racism” was something the TV commentators talked about, not a factor in Dodie’s reality. She’d heard the word “nigger,” of course, but it wasn’t in her vernacular. Other than the coloreds she saw outside the big apartment complex on Dixie Highway she drove by everyday on her way to work, Dodie never really noticed many Negroes. She knows there are a lot more up in Overtown and Liberty City, but that’s so far removed from the Miami she knows, it’s like another planet.

Recent events have brought the coloreds to the forefront of Dodie’s mind for the first time. As she thought about it, she’d realized that she had only ever known one colored person in her whole life. Ida had been there on Thursday when she got home from school, standing in the kitchen ironing as she listed to her “stories” on the radio.

“Hi, Ida. What’s happening in Young Doctor Malone’s life?” was her standard greeting every Thursday afternoon of eighth grade. While she ate the milk and cookies Ida set out, Dodie listened as Ida filled her in on the heart-stopping crisis the young doctor had faced during the previous week. She enjoyed hanging around with Ida on Thursday, but she’d never thought of her as anything but someone who ironed and liked soap operas. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Both, Dodie supposes now.

***

One Month Earlier

The announcement comes as an insert in everyone’s paycheck, which is hand-delivered to her by Marge. That’s odd, she thinks. Why such personal service in the normally impersonal workplace?

“Open it,” Marge says without preamble as she hands the white envelope to Dodie.

Dodie does as she’s told and sees right away that there is an additional piece of paper in the envelope with her check. Oh, no, am I getting fired from my first job? With a shot of fear, she looks up at Marge, who nods.

“Read it.”

Hands shaking, Dodie pulls out the pink slip of paper and reads the words mimeographed on it.

“On Monday, February 10, the first Negro employee at Southern Telephone Company will begin working as a long-distance operator. Management urges everyone to treat our new co-worker with respect.”

Her mind in a whirl, Dodie doesn’t grasp what she’s reading. She expected the pink slip of paper to be the proverbial “pink slip” so completely, the actual words don’t register.

“What…?”

“Yes. And she’s coming to our board.” Marge’s voice holds the same note of impending doom as it might have had she been talking about a fatal diagnosis.

“Um…” Assaulted by conflicting thoughts, Dodie finds herself speechless, a rare occurrence.

To be honest, she can’t say she’s ever noticed the absence of colored people on the switchboards. But she can’t say she ever looked either. And had she thought about it, which she hasn’t, she would have assumed there were coloreds in other parts of the company. This is Miami, not Little Rock.

She feels a little surge of pride when she realizes what the announcement means. Good for you, Ma Bell. Surely, this can’t be a bad thing. But judging from the look on Marge’s face and the forbidding tone of her voice, she figures it must be.

Marge leans in conspiratorially. “We all have to be careful. She’s probably a plant.” She lifts her eyebrows. “You know, from the NAACP.”

“No, surely not. Really? How do you know?”

“Oh, I hear things.” Marge gives her a knowing look. “That sort of thing is going on all over, you know. It’s in all the papers. They’re just looking to stir up trouble. That’s how they are.” It might be possible for the supervisor to display more disapproval on her face, but Dodie can’t see how.

Dodie’s mouth is poised to give voice to the doubt she feels, but looking at her supervisor’s pinched face, she holds her tongue.

“Uh, OK…”

“Good. Mind your Ps and Qs. Spread the word.” Marge turns and marches down the hall, her back stiff with self-importance under the striped shirtwaist dress.

As it turns out that Dodie doesn’t need to spread the word. Marge hand-delivered that week’s pay envelope to every operator on the switchboard, even those who don’t work her shift. She came in early and stayed late to ensure she had the opportunity to “warn” everyone.

Dodie assumed that Marge was playing Chicken Little. But she soon learns that the operators on the other seven switchboards have all received the same pink slip, and a warning to go with it. During the coming days, discussion of the announcement commands more attention in the Operators’ Lounge than the television.

“Can you believe it? A nigger operator.”

“I know! This used to be a good place to work.”

“And it’s only the beginning. You mark my words. They’ll descend on us like a plague of locusts.”

Dodie is ashamed she doesn’t speak up. But she’s the new kid on the board. And besides, she likes and respects her co-workers. Many of them have helped her as she struggled to learn the job. Hearing such conviction in their voices makes her question her assumptions. What if they’re right?

To be concluded in Part 2

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory

The Perils of Pauline

2011-09-03T18:56:00.001-04:00

The Perils of Pauline

playing the damsel she cowers, fist to mouth,

as Joe twirls a finger 'round invisible handlebars

framing a leering grin. “ah, my pretty…”

and then, and then… (cue music)

with a waggle of eyebrows and swirl of his cape,

he is upon her. feigning a sigh of high drama, she

succumbs, as damsels must do, and counts herself lucky.

The Perils of Pauline beats Europa and the Bull any time.

Meanwhile, Up in the Attic

2011-09-01T12:59:00.000-04:00

whipping winds threatening

to wrench the microphone from their hands,

TV reporters stand on the shore,

backdroppped by rolling waves of Irene’s fury,

repeating the same frantic phrases, lamenting

the fate of coastal cities and towns.

over and over, hour upon hour, day after day,

the same video loops crashing waves and

boarded windows as Irene and the “news” roll on.

local meteorologists try but fail to keep excitement

from their eyes as they do their thing at the map, thrilled

to take center stage with something important to say.

and then it passes, and Irene becomes less,

no longer newsworthy as she leaves New York behind.

the guy at the map talks of sunshine and fair winds,

no longer excited but, boy, what a ride.

recaps include video, but we saw it two days ago. "still,

she was one for the books," he murmurs with pride.

meanwhile, up at the top of the country, Irene

has the last word, but except for the locals,

there’s no one who hears. Like old toys and

broken furniture out of sight up in the rafters,

they are trapped there, isolated and forgotten,

as things in the attic frequently are.

Shark

2011-08-27T16:56:00.002-04:00

Image from Free Images

He lurks

beneath the tranquil surface,

tracing slow circles, seeking

a sign of weakness, a

barely-visible tinge of

red signaling vulnerability.

Swift, the strike is subtle,

concealed in a whisper

touch no less lethal than

casual words that tear

the heart, shredding hope.

Sated, stuffed with conquest,

yesterday’s catch abandoned,

the quickening cloud of red

marking her surrender drifts

beneath the tranquil surface,

and he moves on.

Wrath

2011-08-25T14:38:00.000-04:00

image by Free Images Live

Brow furrowed, eyes piecing,

face darkened in growing rage,

malice swells her heart.

A bead on her target,

she bears down, inexorable,

wreaking havoc as she passes.

Not a woman to be toyed with,

her fury is swift and terrible,

her caress harsh and cruel.

Brace yourself, complacent denizen,

take cover and cower in dread.

Irene is coming, and she’s mad as hell.

The Last Game? (Part 6)

2011-08-23T01:18:00.001-04:00

This the final part of a six-part story written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

The Last Game? (Conclusion)

(Continued from Part 5)

Image from WikiMedia Commons

Felix

A tone in his ear brings Felix out of his trance. A guard is on the move. Best he get on with business.

Once the pieces that were to travel in the exhibit had been announced, Abraham Leewes told Felix which he should steal. He has no intention of taking everything. In fact, he is only going to steal two pieces, but what pieces they are. And thanks to Leewes, Felix fervently hopes that no one will realize they are gone until he is well out of it.

He hurries over to the first of the cases he plans to open. It is a glass model of Buckingham Palace and inside, resting on a drape of deep blue velvet, is the unbelievable Imperial State Crown. As a bit of millinery, it’s almost comical. But as a carrier for the more than 3,000 gems adorning it, the crown is incredible. Most of the jewels are diamonds, with a scattering of emeralds, rubies and sapphires to set the diamonds off. Around the bottom is a ring of ermine. Most astonishing are the two gems on the front of the crown. One is the enormous Cullinan II diamond, which Felix knows weighs in at over 300 carats. Above it, the Black Prince’s Ruby almost pales by comparison, despite being about the size of a chicken egg itself.

Felix opens his bag and pulls out a steel contraption he’s designed for this job. Comprised of several eighteen-inch tubes, it fits fit together like something made of big Lincoln Logs. Once assembled, they create a brace. The glass palace is heavy, and not fastened down in any way. Lowered over the crown, it’s held in place on the base by its own weight. Around the display, a red velvet rope keeps onlookers from getting too close. As Felix pushes the rope aside, he hears another tone from the ear bud.

Leaning the brace against the stand for a moment, he lifts one edge of the case, praying that the pressure plate alarm beneath it is deactivated. Silence reassures him that Leewes is a good as his word. When the glass palace is high enough to slip the crown out from beneath it, Felix positions the brace securely to support the tipped case.

He lifts the crown out, nearly blinded by the flash of light coming from the big diamond in the front. He’s surprised by the crown’s weight. As he wraps the crown in a jeweler's cloth from his bag, he muses that, at thirty-nine ounces, it must be a bear to wear. He read somewhere that the queen wears the crown around her apartment off and on for several days before an official state event, just to re-accustom herself to its weight.

He sets the crown on the floor for a moment while he takes a large hat-box-like container from the bag and opens it. Inside lies the twin to the crown, delivered to his office last week by Leewes. Amazing work, he thinks. They look identical. Leewes even made it to the exact weight of the real crown so the pressure plate wouldn’t sense a change. The cost of its construction was more than the price tag on many pieces in the Tiffany showroom. But Felix knows the replica is worth very little by comparison to the real deal.

The imposter takes its place on the velvet platform and Felix removes the brace and lowers the palace back into place. A quick polish with another jeweler’s cloth, and he stands back to admire his work. Perfect.

After putting the real crown in the case vacated by its twin and returning the box to his bag, Felix gathers everything up and hurries to the second case. He’s about to follow the same procedure on a glass replica of Windsor Castle when he’s startled by a voice in his ear.

“Hey, Mark, where are you?”

“I’m just clocking in at the Impressionist gallery.” As the voice speaks, the words are accompanied by another tone. “Why?”

“Williams is back from his dinner break. I’m making take a quick run up to the Tower of London. A visitor called this afternoon and said she’d lost a tennis bracelet when she was here to see the exhibit today. I’m gonna take a look.”

“Sure thing. I’ll be there in about 10 minutes. I’ll see you, if you haven’t left by then.”

Felix’s heart is suddenly in his throat. Gathering up his tools and bag, he looks around for some place to hide. He was prepared to conceal himself beneath an exhibit table skirt were a guard on rounds come by. But the guard coming now is looking for a dropped bracelet, and will likely turn on the lights, and look under and behind things.

Across the room, he spots a small ring in the cream-colored wall. He walks to the wall as quickly as he can without rattling his tools, and pulls gently on the ring. The entire panel of the wall swings inward heavily, and Felix slips behind it, pulling the panel closed behind him. Before he touches the switch to turn off his headlamp, he sees that he’s in some sort of storage area. He moves behind a tall case and turns off the light.

He gently sets the bag on the floor at his feet, and leans around the cabinet in time to see a line of light appear beneath the wall panel. From beyond it and through his ear bud, the guard can be heard whistling softly as he searches for the missing bracelet. Felix’s heart is pounding so loudly, he’s surprised the guard can’t hear it through the wall panel.

Come on, come on, he thinks.

Several minutes later, the concert is interrupted. “Hey, you’re still here. Find anything?”

“Nah. If it was here before, it’s long gone now. Ha, imagine finding a diamond bracelet in this room. It’d be wonder that anyone would see it at all, what with the glare.”

The two guards laugh, and their voices fade as they leave the exhibit room. After the light strip beneath the panel disappears, Felix waits a good ten minutes and three tones from the key stations before he dares to move. He turns on his light, picks up the gear, and goes back to the panel. Slowly easing the panel open an inch, he listens carefully. Nothing. It’s totally quiet. When he pushes the wall out far enough to shine the light through, he’s satisfied that he’s alone. Time to get out of here.

Felix quickly returns to Windsor Castle and liberates a jewel-encrusted scepter. He wraps it and sets it in a case that looks as though it should hold a clarinet. Before lowering the castle, he lays the paste scepter in the display. He stows the long box in the bag along with his now-disassembled brace, gives the case a quick polish, and hurries to the door. A quick scan of the exhibit assures him that everything looks exactly as it did before he began. As he turns to leave the Tower of London exhibit hall, his light catches a diorama depicting an axe at Anne Boleyn’s neck, her head in the bucket standing in front of her kneeling form. Ugh, grisly.

Shuddering, Felix leaves the hall and retraces his steps downstairs to the alley door. He slips out of the building, repeating the procedure with the remote as he goes, this time hitting the green button twice as instructed.

He presses the number that will call Greene, says “ten minutes,” and then drops the phone back in his pocket. Before heading down the alley to the street, though, he applies his lock picks to the door again. When he leaves, everything is exactly the way it was before he got there.

Well, almost.

***

Charlie

It’s dawn when I hear the key in the lock, and I almost collapse with relief.

“Hey, Babe.” When he walks into the living room, Felix is smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

I launch myself at him, nearly knocking him to the floor. “Are you OK?”

“That’s the closest I’ve come to getting hurt all night. You ever consider a career in football?”

I don’t know when I’ve seen him happier. I’m guessing everything went according to plan. “It was OK?”

“OK? OK, you ask? It was fucking perfection.”

For the next hour, we sit in the kitchen drinking coffee while Felix gives me a play-by-play recap of the last five hours, complete with color commentary. I’m amazed that he’s telling me anything at all, to be honest. I know it goes against the grain, especially since I’m a crime reporter. But I’ve promised him that when the story breaks, I will be just another cop shop groupie scrounging for details. And that’s a promise I will keep.

“What about the jewels? You don’t still have them?” I suddenly form a mental image of cops bursting in and finding stolen goods – and not just any stolen goods, the crown fucking jewels for Pete’s sake! – in our hall closet.

Felix chuckles. “No, Charlie, I don’t still have them. They’re safely in Leewes’ hands. You know, the gem guy from Amsterdam. Before I left the car at the bus station in Ft. Lee, I delivered them to him at the Doubletree. Broke my heart to hand them over, I’ll tell you.”

“So what happens next?” I say a little prayer that there isn’t any more cloak-and-dagger derring-do involved. I don’t think my heart could take it.

“He’s going to break the pieces down and…”

I can’t help myself. I give a little gasp. “Break them down? Break the queen’s crown down? What does that even mean?”

“Yeah, I know. Seems a shame, doesn’t it? But they have lots of other crowns and scepters. And it’s only two pieces. We clearly can’t sell them as is. You know that. And I’m not in the business of building a private collection in my basement like that guy in the Eiger Sanction. Hey, any of those croissants left?”

Felix get up and pulls open the empty breadbox. “Damn.”

“Well, I couldn’t help it. I always eat when I’m nervous. Have an English muffin.”

Felix looks downcast and sits back down. “That’s so not the same thing.” I feel a little guilty, but not much.

“Anyway,” he goes on, “by ‘breaking down,’ I mean Leewes is going to remove all the gems. Normally, I’d have the gold melted down, but it’s too risky to do that here. Leewes will pack up the empty crown and scepter, along with the biggest stones – there are about twenty, I think – and ship them back to Amsterdam. The rest of the stones, he’ll send to me. I should get them in a few days. They’re beautiful, but there’s nothing about them that screams ‘crown jewels.’ I can fence them much sooner. Those twenty stones are what it was all about.”

“What’s going to happen to them?”

“He’ll hang on to them, for years probably. Eventually, he’ll cut them down into smaller stones, set some in necklaces and such, and sell them. The guy’s a real artist.”

“Sorry I can’t see any of his work.”

“Well…” Felix gets to his feet. “I’ll be right back.

I pour us both more coffee, then sit down just as he return to the kitchen, a broad smile on his face. He drops to one knee in front of me, makes my hand and says, “Charlie, I never thought I’d ever be on my knees at anyone’s feet, but then, I never thought I’d meet someone like you. Will you marry me?”

My eyes fill with tears and I throw all thoughts of caution to the wind. To be honest, what passes through my mind as I say “Yes, oh yes!” is that Ma will be so happy. Yeah, I know. But I promise you, she won’t be as happy as I am right now. Close, though.

Felix takes my left hand and slips the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen on my finger. I’m about to hold it out in front of me, you know, like they do in the movies, when it hits me.

“Felix. I’m not wearing stolen goods, am I?”

Laughing, he stands and pulls me to my feet, where he wraps his arms around me. “No, sweetheart. This one is all yours. I had Leewes make it for me. He gave it to me this morning. Do you like it?”

“Oh, Felix, I love it.” I hold my hand out behind Felix’s back so I can admire the ring. I do love it. The setting is unlike any I’ve ever seen. That guy really is an artist.

Felix tightens his arms around me, and says in my ear, “Charlie, there’s more.”

More? I pull back and search his face, which looks serious now. “What more? You’re scaring me a little, Felix.”

His eyes never leaving mine, he says, “The last time, Charlie. This was the last time. No more jobs.”

Just then his cell phone, left on the hall table, rings. Giving me a quick kiss, he steps into the hall to take the call, leaving me to think about his last words.

Well, it’s a nice thought, but I’m not sure I believe it. I know Felix thinks that, with the theft of the crown jewels, he’s reached the pinnacle, that point in the game where the music plays as the screen says “Congratulations, you won!” But I’m not so sure.

***

Felix

Felix is feeling on top of the world as he answers his cell phone. Charlie has agreed to marry him. Wow.

And he meant it when he told her that this was his last job. As hard as he’s tried, he can’t get the image of her face as he left last night out of his mind. It has haunted his thoughts ever since.

And besides, this was the one. He’s stolen the fucking Imperial State Crown from the crown jewel collection, and the crime was perfect. Anything else can only be an anticlimax.

“Hello?”

He’s surprised to hear Leewes’ voice coming from the phone at his ear. They weren’t supposed to talk until next week.

“Felix. It wasn’t apples and oranges. It was apples and apples.” Then as quickly as Leewes was there, he is gone.

Felix pushes the end button and looks at the tiny screen for a moment, which says “call from unknown ended; 6 seconds.” What the…

And then it hits him.

***

Epilogue

The break-in and theft from the Athenaeum are never reported. After the collection had returned to London, and been reinstalled in the Tower of London, Felix gives old Nige a call.

Nigel is in good cheer. “Hello, there. How’s my favorite yank? What’s this stuff I hear about you tying the knot? Until I hear it for myself from the horse’s mouth, I’m not having a bit of it.”

Felix laughs. “Believe it, Nigel. This old bachelor has met his match. Can’t wait for you to meet her. The wedding’s in June. You’re coming, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it, old chap,” Nigel says. “I haven’t been across The Pond in too long.”

“So, what’s this stuff I hear about the ‘royals’ in the Tower of London exhibit being total posers?” Felix can’t help coloring his words with a light coating of sarcasm.

There’s a pause that lasts just a beat too long before Nigel responds.

“Well, bloody hell, you didn’t think we were going to let the real ones leave the country, did you?”

The End

The Last Game? (Part 5)

2011-08-23T01:17:00.002-04:00

This is the fifth part of a six-part story written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

The Last Game? (Part 5)

(Continued from Part 4)


Image from WikiMedia Commons

Felix

“Right on time.” Dobbs greets him in a voice just above a whisper.

“Any problems?” If all has gone according to plan, Dobbs has made it possible for Felix to enter the Athenaeum without detection.

“No, everything is ready. Like I told you, we don’t want to shut the system down completely. That would be an alarm in and of itself. But every security system has a ‘standby’ setting, sort of a back door, for emergencies, you know? It doesn’t signal an interruption until it’s been off for more than ten minutes.”

Felix pulls on gloves as he listens to Dobbs describe what he’s done.

“Here, take this. I’ve got it on a lanyard, so just hang it around your neck. Don’t want you fumbling in a pocket and maybe dropping it.”

With gloved hands, he passes a small black box to Felix, who drops it over his head. It looks sort of like a garage door opener.

“I routed everything to a relay on the building-side of the back-up power. As far as the computer knows, the alarm is never off. Now, look at the remote. See those three buttons that look like a traffic light? The top button, the red one, shuts everything down. At that point, you’ve got ten minutes to get inside.

“But before you open the door, press the yellow middle button. That starts the loops on the video. As far as the monitoring system goes, it’ll all look normal. And that’s what the guards see at their station. Just remember that the guards make a physical check every 30 minutes during their rounds. You’ve got to be quick,”

Felix nods. He has every intention of being quick.

“When you get inside, press the bottom green button. That will rearm the perimeter alarms, but the alarms in the Tower of London exhibit hall will stay off. Capice?” Dobbs looks at Felix, eyebrows raised, and gets a nod in return.

“Then when you’re done,’ he continues, “it’s the same sequence again. Red to shut it down. Yellow to return the video to live. Green to reset. But that time, press the green button twice, so it gets the Tower of London hall too.”

“Sounds awesome, Malcolm. I don’t know how you do it.” Felix is really impressed.

“Piece of cake, my boy, piece of cake. Computers. Everything is computers these days. Never even had to be in the building. I just hacked into their system. It’s all there. Oh, sure, they tried to obscure things with misdirection and some bogus labeling. As if.”

“Any footprints they can find?”

“Nah. At 4AM, everything I did goes poof in the night. There’ll be no trace left on the system. I’ve already dismantled the computer I used – which was in Trenton, by the way -- and junked the parts. It’s all good. And don’t forget. As soon as you’re away from here, gloves on, take the remote off the lanyard, and grind it under your foot. Scatter the pieces far away from each other.”

“Thanks, Malcolm. You’re a genius,”

“Yeah, I know. Now go. Get in and get out. Quickly.”

Dobbs turns to go, pauses, and adds, “Oh, one more thing. Here.” He hands Felix an ear bud. “With this, you’ll be able to hear any chatter on the guard frequency, as well as any telephone calls. You should have no surprises.

“Good luck, son. You’re on your own now.” And then he’s gone.

Oh, yeah, that he is. But there is no one Felix trusts more than himself. He draws a deep breath. It’s hard to believe he’s about to steal the crown jewels of England. He’s been training for this all his life.

Felix pulls a penlight headlamp from his bag. He centers the lamp on his forehead, then wraps the fastening strap around his forehead, and presses the Velcro closure firmly. A touch to the finger pad at his temple and the light springs to life, and Felix follows its beam to the doors.

And here’s where the value of all his research comes in. At the personnel door next to the large bay doors where exhibits move in and out of the museum, Felix opens the case holding his picks and turns his attention to the locks. When he’s ready to work, he presses the red button on the remote dangling from his neck, and checks his watch. Ten minutes.

With an eye on the point in the alley where Dobbs has rounded the turn to the street, Felix makes short work of the first lock, working by touch only. Practice makes perfect, he thinks. One of the services Dobbs was able to provide was a copy of all the building specs for the museum, which was rebuilt in its present location only ten years earlier. Heaven only knows what computer he broke into to get them.

Using the name of the security firm’s management team, he called the manufacturer of the locks used on the rear personnel door. He asked for, and got, one of each of the three locks there. Though they are all good products, unbreakable and very secure, there is nothing exotic about them. Felix is good with the picks, and has rarely been beaten by a door lock. These are a bit more challenging, but he has been able to practice, opening them over and over. For good measure, he’s also taught himself how to relock them. It’s his intention that no one will know anyone has broken into the Athenaeum, let alone how they got in.

He dispatches the second lock, and then attacks the third. It doesn’t surrender as quickly as the first two, but Felix has it unlocked with two minutes to spare. Before opening the door, he presses the yellow button to thwart the video camera that is sure to be directed at the door, as well as the others all over the museum, and then he’s in, relocking the door behind him.

Inside, he pauses to get his bearings, and the moves quickly toward the the stairs and Tower of London exhibit. He has studied the floor plans of the Athenaeum carefully. He knows exactly where the Tower of London exhibit is from a brochure he picked up in the lobby of the Marriott in Times Square, and he knows how to get there. And thanks to Dobbs, he knows where the guard key stations are located. Even better, as a guard checks in at each station, the system transmits a signal to the main guard station as well as logging it into the main security database. His ear bud will notify him each time that happens with a tone unique to the particular key station. Felix will be able to track the guard’s progress through the building by the tones he hears in his ear.

Following the layout he’s committed to memory, Felix is at the door to the exhibit hall in minutes. The hall is large, and divided into sections featuring various displays. The crown jewels are the real stars of the show, and Felix knows they are in their own room at the back of the hall. He wends his way through displays of royal armor and artifacts from the fusilier museum toward the rear gallery. When his penlight beam catches the gleam of a tiger’s eye and he turns to see the enormous beast, mouth pulled back in a snarl showing its truly lethal-looking teeth, Felix jumps. Realizing he’s been surprised by a stuffed animal, albeit a large, frightening one, he smiles at himself and wills his heartbeat to slow to its normal 62 beats a minute.

And then he’s at the door of the “jewel house.” He comes to a stop in the doorway. This is it, what he’s dreamed of for much of his professional career as a jewel thief. As he slowly swings his head and its attached beam left to right, the penlight is answered by the winks of gems determined to outshine it. They are mounted in crowns, on swords, scepters and orbs. Tiaras of all sizes sparkle with diamonds. And in the middle of it all, there an actual throne, covered in diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and heaven only knows what else. Magnificent, it takes his breath away. Even though this is small sampling of the nearly 25,000-piece collection of jewels worn by British royalty, what is here is still unbelievable. Felix is mesmerized.

Concluded in Part 6

The Last Game? (Part 4)

2011-08-23T01:14:00.004-04:00

This is the fourth part of a six-part story written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

The Last Game? (Part 4)

(Continued from Part 3)

Image from WikiMedia Commons

Charlie

“You’re what? You’re going to do what???”

I can’t believe my ears. And here I’d thought he might have another girlfriend, or maybe a gambling problem. This is the absolutely last thing I ever expected him to say.

Felix’s trips out at night to “get some ice cream” or “visit a sick friend” had become too frequent to ignore. When he called just as I was starting dinner to tell me he’d be late – again -- because of a last minute interview, I decided to confront him. I’ve kept my apartment, and if this isn’t going to work out, best I find out now, and get out before I get in too deep. Even as I told myself that, I knew it was too late. I’m already in too deep. Not only was he good looking in an irresistibly boyish way, not to mention charming and successful, when I took him home at Easter to meet Ma, they’d taken to each other like bread and butter. We’ve actually been tiptoeing around the idea of marriage.

Ohhh, I think to myself, this is what I get for trusting enough to set aside my deep-seated fear of commitment and move in with someone.

But how could I resist? That box of chocolates on my desk back in February was the most romantic gesture anyone has ever made to me. And it wasn’t as though we didn’t know each other. We’d been dating for months. Ha, fine judge of character I am. I know him all right, all except for the fact that he’s a freaking jewel thief. A criminal, for heaven’s sake. Charlie Martin, intrepid crime reporter, cohabitating with a criminal. That’s rich.

“OK, I knew I was probably going to have to tell you eventually, Charlie. I love you, and I don’t want to keep secrets from you. Sit down. I’ll be right back. I think we’re both going to need a drink.”

I sat on the couch, where Sinbad took advantage of the available lap. Felix returned from the kitchen carrying two glasses and a bottle of chardonnay. He twisted off the cap, poured two generous glasses and handed one to me.

“See, it’s like this,” he began as he sat next to me. “I love a challenge…”

***

Felix

He’s been trying to work up the nerve to tell Charlie about the Athenaeum job for quite a while. As it turned out, she stepped in and made it impossible for him to keep the secret any longer. He really wants to be honest with her. He plans to ask her to marry him after the job is finished, presuming he’s not in jail, and he’s not about to let that happen.

To say she is shocked is the understatement of the year. But once she calmed down and he told her the whole story, she’s taking it surprisingly well. Felix knows she’s terrified he’ll get caught or worse.

“What if you get shot?” she cried, clutching the cat in her lap, who now wears the same wild-eyed look as his mistress.

“I’m not going to get shot, Charlie. I promise. For one thing, I never carry a weapon. The last thing I want is for anyone to get hurt, and that includes me above all. That’s why I’m so careful.”

“Yes, but…”

Felix hadn’t intended to reveal anything but his plans for the crown jewels – as if that weren’t enough – but he decides that telling her everything about his past might allay some of her fears about his safety.

“Remember that robbery you covered last year? Marguerite Morgan’s jewelry?”

Impossibly, Charlie’s eyes go even wider “That was you? They said it was gang of professional thieves. That’s what I wrote. You told me it was a good story.”

“It was a good story.” Felix flexes his fingers in front of his face, forming quotations marks in the air as he says the word story. “And it was partially true. The job was pulled off by a professional. But just one. No gang.”

“Felix, the cops said the only way the thieves… thief could have gotten in was coming around the ledge from the pool deck. The Morgan apartment is on the 12^th floor. You didn’t…”

Sinbad gives a little yowl and leaps down, heading for safer ground.

“No ledge, Charlie. The apartment directly above Morgan’s is one of those corporate places, empty as often as it’s occupied. Getting in was easy. Then I just dropped a line from the balcony down to the Morgan balcony. The slider was unlocked. When I was done, I walked out the front door.”

“But what about the alarm? And the safe? Are you a safecracker, too? Oh, my God, Felix, what if they’d been home?”

“They weren’t home. I knew exactly where they were. That was the night of the Christmas charity ball for the Museum of Natural History. Marguerite was the chair, so she was sure to be there. The Morgans were dancing the night away in the Grand Hall at the museum while I was dancing away with the family jewels.” Felix pauses to pour them both more wine.

“As for the rest, people on a high floor feel safe. They think nothing of leaving the alarm off, with valuables out and slider doors unlocked. Yes, it was a calculated risk that she’d lock the jewelry up after she picked out the pieces she planned to wear to the ball, but not much of one. And even if she had, I’d have left empty-handed and chalked it up to bad luck. I’m not always successful, Charlie.”

“Geez, Felix, you’re like a character out of some mystery novel.”

Felix hears a tinge of admiration in Charlie’s voice, and breathes a sigh of relief. He’s glad he came clean. Maybe he can get some sleep tonight.

***

Charlie

I’m going out of my mind. I begged Felix to let me go along tonight, promising I’d stay out of the way, but I knew he’d say no. The last thing he needs is someone tagging along, especially when that someone is a reporter. I even said I’d wait in the car, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“I’m not putting you at risk, Charlie.”

“I thought you said there wasn’t any risk.” I hated the touch of whine in my voice, but I couldn’t help it.

Yes, he’d said there wasn’t any risk, but how could there not be? He was going to steal the most important jewels in the world.

“Charlie.” His tone and expression said there would be no arguing. I kissed him goodbye, and watched him walk out the door. He looked just like he always did, a handsome guy headed out to go to the 24-hour store up on the corner or something. I knew he kept some clothes and his “tools of the trade” somewhere else.

That was hours ago. I’m beside myself with worry, and have paced a groove into the Berber carpet in the living room. What if…

***

Felix

He knew it wouldn’t be easy, but leaving the house and Charlie was harder than Felix had anticipated. In the end, she’d kissed him goodbye and wished him luck, and he knew he couldn’t ask for much more than that. Still, he can’t help but feel guilty.

No time for that tonight, he decides, and puts it out of his mind.

Washington Square Park is a little more than a mile from his town house, and Felix covers it in twenty minutes. As he crosses Waverly Place, a small non-descript brown panel van slides to the curb. Felix yanks open the passenger door and climb in, the van barely pausing.

“Your bag is in the back. Everything else all set?” Greene asks as he pulls away from the curb. Traffic is relatively light, but not so light that they’ll stand out as they head uptown.

“Yes. The cars in place?”

“Yep. You ready for this, man?”

As they talk, Felix moves into the back of the van and opens the gym bag. He’d met Greene at Grand Central earlier in the week, and given him the key to a locker on the lower concourse. His tools and clothes for the job were stashed in the locker inside a bag Felix has used to carry his gear for many years.

He tosses the stocking cap he’ll use to cover his light hair onto the passenger seat, and then pulls on the black pants he packed for the occasion. With the black turtleneck he wore when he left home, he’ll be all but invisible if he stays in the shadows outside into the Athenaeum.

After rolling his khakis and dropping them into the bag, Felix makes a quick check of his tools and then climbs back into the front seat.

“I am now. After you drop me, Wheels, take off. Keep your phone on and I’ll call you when I’m done.” Felix, Greene and Dobbs all carry throwaway phones that will be crushed and gone by morning.

Felix pulls on his stocking cap as the van pulls over two blocks from the Athenaeum. The he grabs his bag and gets out.

“Good luck, man.”

Felix has a thought that luck is not what it takes to pull off something like this, but he knows he’s fooling himself. He does need luck, and a shitload of it. Anything can happen.

“Thanks. If you don’t hear from me in two hours, get the hell out of town.”

He slips the strap of his bag over his shoulder and walks down the street at an easy pace, looking like he might have just left the all-night gym a few blocks away. The Athenaeum is on the edge of a residential neighborhood, and at close to midnight, the streets are empty and relatively dark.

Turning a corner, Felix sees the dark mass of the Athenaeum on a corner two blocks ahead. He turns left one block before, and then right again, entering the alley that he knows leads around behind the buildings and to the Athenaeum’s delivery entrance. It’s black as pitch. Everything on the alley has a blank wall, with no windows overlooking the area below. Dobbs stands in the shadows waiting for him.

Continued in Part 5

The Last Game? (Part 3)

2011-08-23T01:11:00.002-04:00

This is the third part of a six-part story written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory.

The Last Game? (Part 3)

(Continued from Part 2)

Image from WikiMedia Commons

Felix

Sitting at the desk in his office working his way through a plan to hit the Athenaeum, Felix remembers a course he had at NYU on project planning. Nearly everyone in the class hated it, but he enjoyed it. Schedules, time lines, critical paths and contingencies: what others saw as tedious, he saw as more puzzles to be solved.

A stack of sheets torn from a yellow legal pad grows on the corner of the desk beneath a framed photo of a pretty brunette. Each page is covered with lists, written in Felix’ precise hand. Despite the amount of detail he has captured, he knows that in the coming months, he’ll add to it.

He’s run through the job step by step, from the moment the Tower of London exhibit arrives in New York until the jewels have been liberated from antiquity and set securely in modern times, and he is safely back in the life of a law-abiding citizen. As he knew from the get-go, the gaps in his knowledge are enormous. He doesn’t know more than he knows.

Time to call in the reserves.

A huge antique, multi-compartmented apothecary cabinet stretches along the wall opposite Felix’s desk. Its 57 small drawers are labeled with ingredients used by a pharmacist back in the late 1800s. Felix pulls out the drawer labeled “elder flower” and lifts the false bottom. Secreted beneath is the disposable phone he purchased that morning.

With the cell phone, a list of people he hopes to recruit for the job and his lists in hand, Felix heads for the large Cooper Hotel in Times Square. He knows he can find an enclosed phone booth off the lobby there, one of few remaining in Manhattan. It’s the perfect place to make his calls.

***

Charlie

The big heart-shaped box of chocolates sits right in the middle of my desk blotter when I walk in. Even though the “crime desk,” a small cluster of desks around the scanner, is on the other side of the newsroom, the spot of red floating in a grey sea of office furniture is impossible to miss. It’s the first thing I see as I push through the glass doors from the hallway. Huh.

Hat and gloves shoved into the pockets, I park my coat on an empty hook of the coat tree, and head over.

“Hey, Charlie, seems you have an admirer.” Lois, our take on Dear Abby, is grinning from ear to ear.

“I see that. Where’d it come from?”

“It was delivered about 15 minutes ago. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Cellophane wrapping stripped off, the lid lifts off easily. I pick up the small white card resting on top of the white quilted heart covering the candy.

“Live with me. - F.”

Oh.My.God. I can feel my face flush to a red matching the box lid I’ve just set aside.

***

Felix

Felix has boiled the Athenaeum job down to its components: getting in, stealing the jewels, getting away, keeping the authorities of his trail, and eventually selling the take. When he pulled together his team, he focused on those elements, and brought together what he considered to be the best in each area.

He’d expected the hardest part would be getting agreement from them to wait longer than is typical for a jewelry heist to fence to spoils. That’s another of his personal rules of survival. Haste is often a ticket on the express train to prison.

While it’s not quite as bad as selling easily identifiable artwork, really high-end jewelry is often custom. To those in the business, such a piece is as unique as a fingerprint of its owner, and therefore traceable. Felix has no doubt that the police have experts on board as consultants quite capable of taking a look at a piece of jewelry and knowing who made it and who bought it. And we’re talking the British crown jewels here. One need only go to the local Barnes and Noble and grab a magazine marketed to royalty watchers like Majesty World or Queen, and pictures of pieces from the collection abound. The catalog for the Tower of London would be enough, but for even better shots, Google is at your command.

Fortunately, the three “experts” who joined him in this little adventure are almost as cautious as Felix. While the last guy who tried to steal the crown jewels was pardoned in return for a pledge of allegiance to the king, they all were quite sure they would enjoy no such consideration. Besides, it was the challenge that enticed them, not the ultimate payback, though they all agree that will be pretty damn gratifying. It’s their plan to break down the pieces into their saleable components, and then tuck them way for several years. While not worth as much as it would be as a crown or scepter, each stone in one of those pieces is a glorious representative of its kind, and will bring a pretty nice price, even after the fence gets his cut.

The four team members set aside their thoughts of what they would do with the money, and focus on planning and research.

Security is the bailiwick of Malcolm Dobbs. After years in the business of computers and high-tech security systems, there is little Dobbs doesn’t know about them. Even better, he has never before applied that knowledge to crime, so he’s not in the system. But he’s been retired for a few years, and basically, he’s bored.

Over the years, Dobbs watched thieves bumble their way into so-called secure sites, and was convinced he could do a better job of it. He was happy to share his thoughts on it with Felix during an interview about the successful hit on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum back in the nineties. Felix never published the article, but Dobbs’ name became part of the rolodex.

The movies love to show thieves descending from ceilings and dodging invisible beams to lift an item from its pressure-sensitive pedestal. Bunk. The only way to remove a piece from a museum display is to make sure security systems are disabled before you ever go in.

Dobbs told Felix that during the day, museum security is by necessity a little lax compared to what’s in place after hours.

“The whole idea is to let visitors see the stuff up close, right? Not that I’m suggesting going in during the day, you understand. But that’s the time to make sure that when I was ready to go in, I could create an open window, if you will, and then close it on my way out. They’d never know what hit ‘em.”

Getting away successfully is a function of transportation. Felix recruited Mike “Wheels” Greene to handle that part. After serving as the driver for several major hits on the West Coast, Greene spent some time advancing his education in San Quentin. After probation ended five years ago, he moved to Philly, and has kept his nose clean, as far as Felix knows.

Getting away in a car driven by the likes of him is what got Greene caught, and he knows it. In “the Arena,” as the prison was known to its inmates, he learned a lot about the finer points of escape. The driver is the least of it. A complicated system of vehicle exchange is far more likely to transport both the doers and their take to obscurity, which is another word for safety, in Greene’s mind.

Greene is the team member that makes Felix the most nervous. For one thing, the moniker is worrisome. That and the fact that, though it sounds good, the transportation plan he has in mind is based on what he learned from "experts" behind bars. Felix plans to give Greene a very short leash.

The last member of the team is one Felix considers to be the most important and the most qualified. Abraham Leewes is a master cutter. Though there is nothing about diamond cutting he doesn’t know, his real value is his knowledge about gems in general. He has enjoyed a legitimate career in Amsterdam. He relishes the opportunity to handle really world-class stones, something that doesn’t happen all that often. And like Felix, he enjoys the occasional challenge. He’s moonlighted as a resource for some of the most famous jewel thieves in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Felix first heard about Leewes when he interviewed Jack Murphy, known in the press as Murph the Surf. He added Leewes to his rolodex even though he’d never met the man and, at the time, couldn’t imagine ever needing his services. But, hey, you never know.

When Felix visited Leewes at his home above a small shop on Wagenstraat in Amsterdam, he discovered that Leewes knew of him too, though not by name, of course. Many of Felix’s heists had made the press simply by virtue of the fact that the mark was newsworthy.

“I always wondered about the thieves skilled enough to rob them and get away with it,” he told Felix. “And it was just you, one man?”

It didn’t take much convincing to bring Leewes into the fold.

All in all, a good team, Felix thinks, and as the date of the job draws closer, he’s pleased with the way it’s all coming together. He plans to do the actual deed himself. Even though he has broken a cardinal rule by involving others in the job, years of working alone make it impossible for him to rely on anyone but himself when it comes to stealing the jewels.

The one person that Felix never expected to be involved was Charlie, but it just couldn’t be helped. He’d finally taken the leap and asked her to move in with him. She and Sinbad, her Tonkinese cat, moved into his townhouse off Gramercy Square four months ago, just after Valentine’s Day. It was a risk, given that he was right in the middle of planning the biggest job of his career. Oh yeah, that and the fact that she’s a crime reporter for the Observer. But, damn, he loves her. She’s gorgeous, funny and smart enough to keep him on his toes. He’d decided it was a risk worth taking

And of course, it only took her a few weeks to be onto the fact that he has a little something going on the side.

Continued in Part 4

PattiKen and the Muses

The Briefing

Stripped Bare

Coed Naked What?

"What's it like?"

Them? You Listen to Them? - Part 2

Them? You Listen to Them? - Part 1

A Bouquet of Thanks to Monkey Man

Nighttime Caller

Under the Cover of Time, Part 2

Under the Cover of Time, Part 1

The Funeral

My Fifteen Minutes

The Curious Case of the Brown Shoes

Dragons Weep Today

Fortune Cookie

Transference

ceci est la couleur de mes rêves

Shouting Down a Well

Echoes

Grand Avenue

Metamorphosis (Part 5)

Enlightenment

Metamorphosis (Part 4)

Cabrera went back to the van and spoke to its driver. Moreno would have some explaining to do when he got back to camp with the van.

“El Comandante will question your delay, Manuel. Tell him it was my decision. Only un hombre loco would attempt to take off in such rain. Sí, we will be a few hours late, but I will deliver the cargo safely. Better late than lost in the mud or the mountains. You tell him that.”

“Sí. Ningún problema.” Manuel Moreno would tell El Comandante, for all the good that would do. He would still bear the brunt of the boss’ anger. The old man’s temper was legendary. Moreno already wore evidence of that on his scarred face.

Cabrera turned and strode to the plane’s open door. He climbed the small aluminum ladder and, once in the plane, pulled the ladder up behind him. He threw the latch and secured the door.

Satisfied, he went up to the cockpit and climbed into his seat. Earphones in place, he checked for final clearance with the small tower, and took her up.

They would be in Texas in a few hours, and more than a few more hours late. But somehow, Cabrera didn’t think the buyer would be too upset at the delay after laying eyes on the magnificent stone they carried with them

***

Now

While I wait for Kate to emerge from the Ladies' Room, I find a small grouping of empty chairs tucked behind a fern in the Plaza’s lobby. Confident no one will overhear me, I take a seat and speed-dial Harry’s cell.

Without any polite preliminaries, he answers. “So, is she still the looker she was back in the day?”

Even from 2,500 miles away, I can hear the lecherous leer in Harry’s voice drifting over the airwaves and into my ear.

“Oh, yeah, she’s all that. But, I don’t know, Harry. Something’s off. She’s gotten herself into a hell of a mess.”

I tell Harry the strange story of the sculptor’s disappearance, peering through the fern every now and then toward the Ladies' Room door.

“It sounds to me like the cops have no choice but to try to make a case against Kate, but with no body, it’s going to be an uphill battle.”

Exercising his talent for stating the obvious, Harry says, “They could find a body any time, Marty. If that blood matches, she’ll be in real trouble. What do you think? Did she do it?”

“I would like to think she couldn’t have killed anyone. But, geez, Harry, I wouldn’t swear to it. Like I said, there’s something that’s just not right here.”

I stand and walk around the fern to check the lobby.

“I’ve got an appointment with the detective who questioned Kate.” I continue. “I’ll see if I can get a sense of where they’re going with this. I’m not holding my breath, though. They have no reason to cooperate with a PI from LA. But it’s worth a try.”

“Anything I can do from here?” he offers.

Harry’s holding the fort in LA, and was in the midst of what was shaping up to be a lollapalooza of an embezzlement case when I left.

“Well if you have time, put your computer skills to work getting everything you can on Alex DuBois. He’s the sculptor. He’s supposed to be well known. Kate told me a book had been published featuring his work.”

I spot Kate emerging from the hallway to the restrooms and give her a wave.

“I have to go. I’ll check with you later.”

OK,” Harry says. “And, Marty? Watch yourself. You never could say ‘no’ to Kate Bell.”

“No worries, Pal,” I say before ending the call. But truth be told, I am worried. He’s right. I was always lousy at following my best instincts when it came to Kate. I was much more likely to follow my base instincts. I’m very worried.

***

Kate and I walk over to a little Italian restaurant on 57th and have dinner. Over our meal of the little triangle-shaped spinach ravioli in butter and sage sauce called Fazzoletto di Ricotta E Spinaci, and a glass of Chianti, we set aside the topic of Alex DuBois and talk about old times.

“Wow. This is great,” I comment as she relocks the door.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? I love this little oasis. It’s too cold to use it now, but in the summer, it’s heavenly.” Kate walks deeper into the courtyard, following the wall of the brick building at our left.

“The door to the gallery building is back here,” she says as she shuffles keys on a ring in her hand. “I’ve had the gallery closed since… well, you know. The security gate is down covering the front of the store. This is the only way in.”

Kate unlocks a door at the back of the building, which triggers the beeping of an alarm system. She quickly punches a series of numbers into a security panel, silencing its chirpy voice.

“Come on; let’s go in through the gallery.” We move down a short hall and Kate opens an inner door, deactivates another alarm and flips a few switches on a panel just inside the door. The level of security doesn’t escape my notice. It wouldn’t be all that easy to break into this place.

As the lights come on, I see we are in a small kitchen. It opens onto an office, and on the far wall of the office, swinging café doors apparently lead into the gallery itself.

Kate heads toward them. “The exhibits are in here.”

She pushes through the doors and holds them open for me. When I walk into the gallery, the statue dominating the space in front of me literally takes my breath away.

DuBois has somehow created an incredible contradiction in terms. The piece must be heavy as hell. But, somehow, there is a lightness to it that defies gravity. The woman looks like she’ll take flight at any moment.

And the marble… There is no other word for it but amazing. Like the gossamer butterfly she represents, the woman’s body is awash in subtle colors that seem lit from within by a liquid golden glow.

The piece is nothing short of awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

I glance back at Kate, who is watching me closely. She smiles faintly, and in a voice that seems just a little smug, asks, “So? What do you think?”

Moonrise

Metamorphosis (Part 3)

Metamorphosis (Part 2)

Metamorphosis (Part 1)

Stream of Soup

The Funeral

Not That It Matters

Requiem Invictus

Paso Doble

Boost Your "Curb Appeal"

A Pox of Prejudice - Part 2

A Pox of Prejudice - Part 1

The Perils of Pauline

Meanwhile, Up in the Attic

Shark

Wrath

The Last Game? (Part 6)

Kate and I walk over to a little Italian restaurant on 57^th and have dinner. Over our meal of the little triangle-shaped spinach ravioli in butter and sage sauce called Fazzoletto di Ricotta E Spinaci, and a glass of Chianti, we set aside the topic of Alex DuBois and talk about old times.