2020 SmatchUp “What Am I Doing Here?”
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"A Reason To Live" by starter Donald Shephard and finisher Sharon Bowers
"Alien at the Met" by starter Earlene Gleisner and Priscilla Comen
"Chick Lit" by starter Notty Bumbo and Malcolm Macdonald
"Gotcha" by starter Leslie Wahlquist and Norma Watkins
"Mercy For The Exchange" by starter Jay Frankston and Nancy Wallace Nelson
"Midsummer's Eve" by starter Joan Hansen and Amie McGee
"Parenting is an Art Best Learned" by starter Nona Smith and Susan Fisher
"Spamalot" by starter Robyn Koski and Barbara Lee
"The Awakening" by starter Elizabeth Vrenios and windflower
"What's In A Name" by starter Doug Fortier and Rob Hawthorne
"Alien at the Met" by starter Earlene Gleisner and Priscilla Comen
"Chick Lit" by starter Notty Bumbo and Malcolm Macdonald
"Gotcha" by starter Leslie Wahlquist and Norma Watkins
"Mercy For The Exchange" by starter Jay Frankston and Nancy Wallace Nelson
"Midsummer's Eve" by starter Joan Hansen and Amie McGee
"Parenting is an Art Best Learned" by starter Nona Smith and Susan Fisher
"Spamalot" by starter Robyn Koski and Barbara Lee
"The Awakening" by starter Elizabeth Vrenios and windflower
"What's In A Name" by starter Doug Fortier and Rob Hawthorne
"A Reason to Live"
Starter Donald Shephard
Finisher Sharon Bowers
Starter Donald Shephard
Finisher Sharon Bowers
Johnathan sat on a rustic bench overlooking Point Beach and watched a Red-necked Phalarope whirling on the waves. His mind slowed until he lost focus. After four hours of driving winding roads he calmed with the stillness, the repetitive swashing of waves grinding sand up the beach. Something else had changed since he left the Central Valley dust and exhaust fumes. Here thousands of waves scrubbed clean the onshore breeze. A peace washed him for the first time since his wife uttered the word “leukemia” to him.
“The doctor says it’s treatable and I feel fine.” Both lies. Was that three months ago, six, or longer? He knew not. After the formalities, the paperwork of death, and after the wake, he headed for the coast. “Wake,” he thought, “Why wake? Like the wake of a ship, the last sign of its existence before the waves of time cover the memory of it passing. He sat on the bench watching the sun dip nearer the horizon. A grey whale blew a bush-like spout creating a rainbow around it which immediately left. As ephemeral as life. What am I doing here?
A white-haired woman sat beside him and stared at the ocean lost in her own thoughts. She wore a bright yellow frock, soiled white opera gloves, and a fuchsia fascinator. Her hair billowed over her shoulders in the updraft from the bluff.
Smiling she said, “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”
“Rainer Maria Rilke.” He said and noticed goose bumps on her upper arms.
“Yes, but I can no longer remember the name of the poem.”
“That is from his letters, if I am not mistaken.”
She peered into his face, “Why, thank you, kind sir. Would you like to sleep with me tonight? We can read poetry together.”
He sighed. “If only you had asked me fifty years ago, but alas, we are too late.”
She wept silent tears which ran down the smoke-induced wrinkles of her face. He wondered how to extricate himself leaving them both with a little dignity. His wife had vowed to grow old gracefully with him. In honor of his beloved, he could not leave this charming and perhaps senile person alone on the headlands. Still, what could he say?
The sea continued its shush-shush of waves scouring the beach. They sat side by side within the sounds of ocean, gulls and black oystercatchers calling below them. A raven barely cleared their heads as it sailed along the cliff on rising air. Johnathan saw a tweedy figure puffing along the trail toward them calling, “Sarah-Gertrude, Sarah-Gertrude your dinner is ready. Sarah-Gertrude.”
Johnathan waved, gesturing the tweedy figure to the bench. The man slowed and Johnathan glanced at the woman for a sign of recognition. He saw none. She moved closer to him as the tweed-clad man struggled nearer.
The waves set the rhythm for Johnathan to recite from The City by The Sea by Edgar Alan Poe. “Lo! Death has reared himself a throne, in a strange city lying alone. Far down within the dim West, where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.”
***
That ingrate doesn’t know what he’s missing. I don’t offer bed privileges to any gloomy coot I meet at the beach. Look at his conceited expression, the fool thinks I’m crying over him. Sad really, men are so egotistical. Why do I even bother? My life would have been so much easier if I had accepted Connie’s offer of everlasting love and adventure. But no, my darn hormones wanted a fucking dick.
Wish Connie was here now. What a free-love skank, she turned out to be after I rejected her proposal. Wonder if she would still have the hots for old dilapidated me? Oh what a stupid question! My nephew dresses me like a deranged opera-goer and I haven’t the energy to oppose him. Charles means well, but has no style sense. I drive him crazy by ignoring him. Like now with his constant screaming of my name. The gentleman beside me is clearly rattled, but I keep my cool, pretending I haven’t a clue of my own friggin name.
Connie proposed in this exact spot. In high school, we would come to this bench to smoke the cigarettes she stole from her dad and watch the sunset. We were inseparable back then. God, she lived fearlessly. Now I trip down memory lane without her. The guy next to me looks like he’s on a tragic trip of his own. Too bad we can’t do it together in my big cozy bed. I even have a bedside fridge stocked with white wine, which comes in quite handy when reminiscing.
Oh good grief, here comes Charles in his Wuthering Heights getup. He dresses like he’s Heathcliff on the foggy moors of England. Though he made roast chicken and dark chocolate pudding for tonight’s dinner, so I better acknowledge the dear boy’s existence. His pudding alone is a reason to live.
“The doctor says it’s treatable and I feel fine.” Both lies. Was that three months ago, six, or longer? He knew not. After the formalities, the paperwork of death, and after the wake, he headed for the coast. “Wake,” he thought, “Why wake? Like the wake of a ship, the last sign of its existence before the waves of time cover the memory of it passing. He sat on the bench watching the sun dip nearer the horizon. A grey whale blew a bush-like spout creating a rainbow around it which immediately left. As ephemeral as life. What am I doing here?
A white-haired woman sat beside him and stared at the ocean lost in her own thoughts. She wore a bright yellow frock, soiled white opera gloves, and a fuchsia fascinator. Her hair billowed over her shoulders in the updraft from the bluff.
Smiling she said, “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”
“Rainer Maria Rilke.” He said and noticed goose bumps on her upper arms.
“Yes, but I can no longer remember the name of the poem.”
“That is from his letters, if I am not mistaken.”
She peered into his face, “Why, thank you, kind sir. Would you like to sleep with me tonight? We can read poetry together.”
He sighed. “If only you had asked me fifty years ago, but alas, we are too late.”
She wept silent tears which ran down the smoke-induced wrinkles of her face. He wondered how to extricate himself leaving them both with a little dignity. His wife had vowed to grow old gracefully with him. In honor of his beloved, he could not leave this charming and perhaps senile person alone on the headlands. Still, what could he say?
The sea continued its shush-shush of waves scouring the beach. They sat side by side within the sounds of ocean, gulls and black oystercatchers calling below them. A raven barely cleared their heads as it sailed along the cliff on rising air. Johnathan saw a tweedy figure puffing along the trail toward them calling, “Sarah-Gertrude, Sarah-Gertrude your dinner is ready. Sarah-Gertrude.”
Johnathan waved, gesturing the tweedy figure to the bench. The man slowed and Johnathan glanced at the woman for a sign of recognition. He saw none. She moved closer to him as the tweed-clad man struggled nearer.
The waves set the rhythm for Johnathan to recite from The City by The Sea by Edgar Alan Poe. “Lo! Death has reared himself a throne, in a strange city lying alone. Far down within the dim West, where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.”
***
That ingrate doesn’t know what he’s missing. I don’t offer bed privileges to any gloomy coot I meet at the beach. Look at his conceited expression, the fool thinks I’m crying over him. Sad really, men are so egotistical. Why do I even bother? My life would have been so much easier if I had accepted Connie’s offer of everlasting love and adventure. But no, my darn hormones wanted a fucking dick.
Wish Connie was here now. What a free-love skank, she turned out to be after I rejected her proposal. Wonder if she would still have the hots for old dilapidated me? Oh what a stupid question! My nephew dresses me like a deranged opera-goer and I haven’t the energy to oppose him. Charles means well, but has no style sense. I drive him crazy by ignoring him. Like now with his constant screaming of my name. The gentleman beside me is clearly rattled, but I keep my cool, pretending I haven’t a clue of my own friggin name.
Connie proposed in this exact spot. In high school, we would come to this bench to smoke the cigarettes she stole from her dad and watch the sunset. We were inseparable back then. God, she lived fearlessly. Now I trip down memory lane without her. The guy next to me looks like he’s on a tragic trip of his own. Too bad we can’t do it together in my big cozy bed. I even have a bedside fridge stocked with white wine, which comes in quite handy when reminiscing.
Oh good grief, here comes Charles in his Wuthering Heights getup. He dresses like he’s Heathcliff on the foggy moors of England. Though he made roast chicken and dark chocolate pudding for tonight’s dinner, so I better acknowledge the dear boy’s existence. His pudding alone is a reason to live.
"Alien at the Met"
Starter: Earlene Gleisner
Finisher: Priscilla Comen
Starter: Earlene Gleisner
Finisher: Priscilla Comen
Boras opened his eyes to bright light and his refection bouncing off the mirrored walls of a small enclosed space. Searching, he saw no controls or buttons. His image was unfamiliar: lips clamped thinly beneath black rimmed glasses on an exceeding large nose under a spike of brown hair.
“Not my face,” he said in confusion.
He dropped his eyes to his feet like they tell you to do in lucid dreaming.
“Definitely my feet,” he said as he saw his scruffy Nike tennis shoes extending from underneath pressed, blue polyester slacks. “What’s the deal? I never wear slacks, only jeans.”
He felt a thin folder clasped under his right arm.
To understand his surroundings, he began to read the pages he found inside.
“Reports of Incident concerning Boras Studlight (BS).”
Icy prickles fountained up his spine. “That’s my name! But how can I be reported for an incident I know nothing about? I don’t even know where I am!”
He read further for clues.
“Said person has shown inability to contain emotions and thoughts. In as much as BS can focus on technological processes, he still has limited personal brain to mouth filtering capacity, and more.”
“At least I know technology.” He scanned the corners and surfaces of his current space. No apparent cameras or listening devices were visible. Nothing but mirrors. “Nice for a bedroom,” he said then gasped while the room shuddered as if it had come to a stop. He read more.
“Recent occurrence of transformer malfunction on BS’s reconfiguration machine registered high enough on the frequency scale to cause digital and mechanical devices in Building 3093 to spark up to dangerous levels. Robotic programs were skewed, exposing implanted service providers encoded to report aberrant personal activities of staff.”
“Am I in trouble?” Boras said to the room, trembling as a fear in his mind circuited under his skin. He fought to steady his fluttering heart and gasped at oxygen for his numbing brain.
Steam rose from the papers he held in front of him. A flame erupted from their surface.
He held his breath then released it to consciously and rhythmically regain control of his emotions. The flame reduced. He centered into calmness as behind him the sound of metal scraping open made him turn to see his reflection shift away. He faced a cavern of darkness.
***
It may have been a minute, an hour, forever. And then the spotlights found him. He was in a dream, on another planet. The shouts of Bravo assailed him, bouquets of flowers struck him. The audience was on its feet, shouting, stomping on the floor. The huge chandelier shook overhead with the vibrations, frightening the people below.
His counter-tenor voice had been clear and high on the scales. He was proud of his performance. The steam and flames behind him on the set hissed and rumbled. He marveled at the way the Met’s set designers had worked on the complexities to resemble a space ship. He couldn’t recall which planet he had come from; it was long ago and far away.
The opera conductor jumps onto the stage to shake his hand, to embrace him. Boras removes his wig and glasses. His co-star, the soprano, runs onto the stage and kisses him. This is the satisfying climax to his life-long dream of singing at the Met. The mirrors now show him as he really is: blond wavy hair, blue eyes, and snub nose. Only the pressed trousers and Nike tennis shoes remain as proof of who he had been for the past three hours. Was he really Boras, the Terrible, the Alien of the Met? Or was he Stanley, the simple accountant of Brooklyn, who wanted a dream to come true? “Bravo Boras,” the crowd roars. He knows who he is. Do you?
“Not my face,” he said in confusion.
He dropped his eyes to his feet like they tell you to do in lucid dreaming.
“Definitely my feet,” he said as he saw his scruffy Nike tennis shoes extending from underneath pressed, blue polyester slacks. “What’s the deal? I never wear slacks, only jeans.”
He felt a thin folder clasped under his right arm.
To understand his surroundings, he began to read the pages he found inside.
“Reports of Incident concerning Boras Studlight (BS).”
Icy prickles fountained up his spine. “That’s my name! But how can I be reported for an incident I know nothing about? I don’t even know where I am!”
He read further for clues.
“Said person has shown inability to contain emotions and thoughts. In as much as BS can focus on technological processes, he still has limited personal brain to mouth filtering capacity, and more.”
“At least I know technology.” He scanned the corners and surfaces of his current space. No apparent cameras or listening devices were visible. Nothing but mirrors. “Nice for a bedroom,” he said then gasped while the room shuddered as if it had come to a stop. He read more.
“Recent occurrence of transformer malfunction on BS’s reconfiguration machine registered high enough on the frequency scale to cause digital and mechanical devices in Building 3093 to spark up to dangerous levels. Robotic programs were skewed, exposing implanted service providers encoded to report aberrant personal activities of staff.”
“Am I in trouble?” Boras said to the room, trembling as a fear in his mind circuited under his skin. He fought to steady his fluttering heart and gasped at oxygen for his numbing brain.
Steam rose from the papers he held in front of him. A flame erupted from their surface.
He held his breath then released it to consciously and rhythmically regain control of his emotions. The flame reduced. He centered into calmness as behind him the sound of metal scraping open made him turn to see his reflection shift away. He faced a cavern of darkness.
***
It may have been a minute, an hour, forever. And then the spotlights found him. He was in a dream, on another planet. The shouts of Bravo assailed him, bouquets of flowers struck him. The audience was on its feet, shouting, stomping on the floor. The huge chandelier shook overhead with the vibrations, frightening the people below.
His counter-tenor voice had been clear and high on the scales. He was proud of his performance. The steam and flames behind him on the set hissed and rumbled. He marveled at the way the Met’s set designers had worked on the complexities to resemble a space ship. He couldn’t recall which planet he had come from; it was long ago and far away.
The opera conductor jumps onto the stage to shake his hand, to embrace him. Boras removes his wig and glasses. His co-star, the soprano, runs onto the stage and kisses him. This is the satisfying climax to his life-long dream of singing at the Met. The mirrors now show him as he really is: blond wavy hair, blue eyes, and snub nose. Only the pressed trousers and Nike tennis shoes remain as proof of who he had been for the past three hours. Was he really Boras, the Terrible, the Alien of the Met? Or was he Stanley, the simple accountant of Brooklyn, who wanted a dream to come true? “Bravo Boras,” the crowd roars. He knows who he is. Do you?
"Chick Lit"
Starter: Notty Bumbo
Finisher: Malcolm Macdonald
Starter: Notty Bumbo
Finisher: Malcolm Macdonald
In a world chock full of mad scientists, few have ever reached the pinnacles of madness achieved by Orpington Barnevelder. His was a life-long pursuit of the means by which two brains could change places – well, bodies, to be precise. Jeered and insulted at every scientific symposium, he was never deterred from his quest. He would show them all the folly of maligning his brilliance, if it took him his entire life!
He did not have to wait that long, however. On a typical day – usually filled with one failure after another – Barnevelder decided his machine needed more power, reasoning that the transfer of minds needed a swift kick if it were to ever happen. He placed his two chicken test subjects into the opposing chambers (he reasoned, considering the numbers of test subjects he had actually fried in his quest for fame, he might at least get a dinner out of his failures) . Sadly, in his zeal to prove that more power was indeed the right choice, he made a most serious mistake.
As he turned to place the second chicken (her name was Hetty, for accuracies sake), he lost his
grip on the hen. As she felt herself released, she made a quick decision and jumped over his head, landing on his back where her clawed feet pierced his thin shirt, and made her escape out the window. This instigated a face-first fall by Barnevelder, and as he collapsed into the chamber the door jerked closed and he found himself locked inside. The locking mechanism unfortunately was the signal to the equipment to start the process, and before he could over-ride the door, everything happened exactly as Barnevelder had predicted.
His mind transferred into the brain of the chicken, and vice versa. The power was indeed the key.
When the transfer had completed, the power shut off and the locks on both doors released.
Barnevelder’s body stood up, confused by the view from so far above the ground. The chicken, with Barnevelder’s mind now running the feathers, stood blinking in the other chamber, and then, as awareness dawned on him, well, her (her name, again for accuracy, was Mabel), she began to scream.
Well, squawk. Because despite having the brain of a genius, her vocal cords, as such, had a very limited range, and essentially, no vocabulary to speak of.
The mind of Mabel, now occupying a human male body, took a bit longer to find words about her new situation. Despite having a brain with limited options for speech, her new body could process even basic avian thoughts into actual words. And her first words, while inelegant, were perfectly appropriate under the strange circumstances she now experienced.
“Holy shit-pickles.”
She paused, slowly turning in the chamber until she was facing the door, which had opened of its own accord. She took a step outside the chamber, looking around the room. Her eyes fell on her former body in the other chamber, where it was squawking with rage. As she had never actually seen her own body before, her confusion merely increased, because the noises coming out of the chicken – Mabel, that is – made perfect sense to her. But she, well, he, had heard many words before and somehow, she,or he, began to use them, if haltingly.
“What… am…. I… doing… here?” At the sound of this question, Barnevelder was as shocked as Mabel.
***
William Faulkfeathers pushed the script and a bottle of Old Crow across the desk to F. Scott
Fitzbantam before muttering, “What's with this cross-species drivel? No self-respecting chicken
audience will pay to watch this.”
Fitzbantam tipped the bottle to his scarred beak. “It's not science. It's not fiction.”
“Fantasy,” Faulkfeathers clucked. “What's next? Crossing a fly and a chicken. What chuckle-pluckmeisters would you cast in that?”
“F. it,” F. Scott said. “I can't write this poultry poo.”
Faulkfeathers nodded. “Let's go somewhere and get fowled.”
The pair wobbled their way all the way through Metro Golden Egg Mayer Studio. They flagged a
Yellow Yolk Cab to the seedier side of the coast where the Leghorn driver dropped them off on the wrong side of the highway, so they slipped him a cracked shell tip.
They paused while silver penciled Wyandottes whirred by. “Maybe we could try chick lit,” Faulkfeathers said, but he could see F. Scott was once again entranced by the green light at the end of the pier across the way.
“It's just another watering hole, old friend, a bar, a saloon.” Faulkfeathers placed a withered wing around his companion's back.
F. Scott gazed wistfully up and down the highway. “Why do we cross the road?”
Faulkfeathers pointed his other wing at the distant, flickering light. “It's an age old query, pal.”
F. Scott smiled and they set off with renewed spry steps in their skinny legs. As the green light beckoned them ever closer, they cackled in tandem, “Cock-a-doodle-doo.”
He did not have to wait that long, however. On a typical day – usually filled with one failure after another – Barnevelder decided his machine needed more power, reasoning that the transfer of minds needed a swift kick if it were to ever happen. He placed his two chicken test subjects into the opposing chambers (he reasoned, considering the numbers of test subjects he had actually fried in his quest for fame, he might at least get a dinner out of his failures) . Sadly, in his zeal to prove that more power was indeed the right choice, he made a most serious mistake.
As he turned to place the second chicken (her name was Hetty, for accuracies sake), he lost his
grip on the hen. As she felt herself released, she made a quick decision and jumped over his head, landing on his back where her clawed feet pierced his thin shirt, and made her escape out the window. This instigated a face-first fall by Barnevelder, and as he collapsed into the chamber the door jerked closed and he found himself locked inside. The locking mechanism unfortunately was the signal to the equipment to start the process, and before he could over-ride the door, everything happened exactly as Barnevelder had predicted.
His mind transferred into the brain of the chicken, and vice versa. The power was indeed the key.
When the transfer had completed, the power shut off and the locks on both doors released.
Barnevelder’s body stood up, confused by the view from so far above the ground. The chicken, with Barnevelder’s mind now running the feathers, stood blinking in the other chamber, and then, as awareness dawned on him, well, her (her name, again for accuracy, was Mabel), she began to scream.
Well, squawk. Because despite having the brain of a genius, her vocal cords, as such, had a very limited range, and essentially, no vocabulary to speak of.
The mind of Mabel, now occupying a human male body, took a bit longer to find words about her new situation. Despite having a brain with limited options for speech, her new body could process even basic avian thoughts into actual words. And her first words, while inelegant, were perfectly appropriate under the strange circumstances she now experienced.
“Holy shit-pickles.”
She paused, slowly turning in the chamber until she was facing the door, which had opened of its own accord. She took a step outside the chamber, looking around the room. Her eyes fell on her former body in the other chamber, where it was squawking with rage. As she had never actually seen her own body before, her confusion merely increased, because the noises coming out of the chicken – Mabel, that is – made perfect sense to her. But she, well, he, had heard many words before and somehow, she,or he, began to use them, if haltingly.
“What… am…. I… doing… here?” At the sound of this question, Barnevelder was as shocked as Mabel.
***
William Faulkfeathers pushed the script and a bottle of Old Crow across the desk to F. Scott
Fitzbantam before muttering, “What's with this cross-species drivel? No self-respecting chicken
audience will pay to watch this.”
Fitzbantam tipped the bottle to his scarred beak. “It's not science. It's not fiction.”
“Fantasy,” Faulkfeathers clucked. “What's next? Crossing a fly and a chicken. What chuckle-pluckmeisters would you cast in that?”
“F. it,” F. Scott said. “I can't write this poultry poo.”
Faulkfeathers nodded. “Let's go somewhere and get fowled.”
The pair wobbled their way all the way through Metro Golden Egg Mayer Studio. They flagged a
Yellow Yolk Cab to the seedier side of the coast where the Leghorn driver dropped them off on the wrong side of the highway, so they slipped him a cracked shell tip.
They paused while silver penciled Wyandottes whirred by. “Maybe we could try chick lit,” Faulkfeathers said, but he could see F. Scott was once again entranced by the green light at the end of the pier across the way.
“It's just another watering hole, old friend, a bar, a saloon.” Faulkfeathers placed a withered wing around his companion's back.
F. Scott gazed wistfully up and down the highway. “Why do we cross the road?”
Faulkfeathers pointed his other wing at the distant, flickering light. “It's an age old query, pal.”
F. Scott smiled and they set off with renewed spry steps in their skinny legs. As the green light beckoned them ever closer, they cackled in tandem, “Cock-a-doodle-doo.”
"Gotcha"
Starter: Leslie Wahlquist
Finisher: Norma Watkins
Starter: Leslie Wahlquist
Finisher: Norma Watkins
Sandra is lying on a flagstone deck by the mineral pool with a turquoise beach towel draped across her middle, and nothing else. Her head’s propped on a striped tote bag, her chin rests on her chest. Huge sunglasses hide most of her face and a hat, with a brim like a string of revolving tsunamis, shades her freckled shoulders.
We first met at a new mom’s group thirty-eight years ago, but lost touch until around the time my youngest turned six and I went back to teaching Calculus part time. She’d just been hired as our high school’s bus driver and it didn’t take long for us to cement a friendship.
Yesterday, I stopped at her house and she showed me the hat. “Do you have anything like this,” she held it up for inspection, “and dark shades for looking around discriminately?” (I was pretty sure she meant discreetly but I got the picture.)
“I have a version of them.” I said. “Nobody has a hat like that but you.”
“Well, bring what you have.” Her dazzling green eyes shone lovely and wicked. “We’re gonna have us some fun.”
I’m sitting next to her in a low chaise, enjoying the combination of wafting sulfur steam, warm sun, and the chardonnay we drank at lunch. The paraphernalia she suggested is affixed to my head and she was right, we can gaze incognito wherever we please. Right now I can’t tell if Sandra is sleeping, or peeping.
“Hey.” I nudge her toes with my toes. “Four o’clock.” I just noticed the young man whose birthday suit we admired this morning is at the gate. She banks her head like a stealth bomber and the corners of her lips rise up. She’s awake.
He’s searching the area, hands on hips, allowing us precious time to devour his splendid angles and ridges from across the pool. “Damn, I wish I had my bifocals,” I whisper, slithering off the chaise to drop beside her.
A pink towel cascades from my chest, but who cares? I’ve discovered I’m invisible at this point in my life. There are definite perks to this, but glancing down I am reminded my breasts are not among them.
“Does Ed know you come here?” Sandra’s husband is away on a fishing trip and I’m trying to imagine him at a clothing optional resort.
“No way. Did you tell your grandkids you were coming?” Touché.
Adonis is on the move. I calculate his most likely trajectory and it brings him very close to our camp. The man is a made to order fantasy. Skin the color of an expertly roasted marshmallow that must be enjoyed quickly... lest it melt right off the stick. His manner, ripened by experience, is still vulnerable. He believes bliss is found with the right woman. He laughs at the witty things I say…and he’s …certified in deep tissue massage…his morning breath, it’s like…sweet butter left to melt in the sun.
Masked by our sunglasses, our gender and our age, beyond suspicion, we watch the polished marble of his bottom pass by and make its way toward the deep end of the pool.
“He’s gonna use the diving board,” she breathes, adjusting her head a few degrees south.
Reaching for my water bottle I twist nonchalantly for a better view and happen to glimpse back toward the saunas. “Oh my god,” I croak.
“I know. Gorgeous.” Her vocal chords are gummed up by lust.
“No. No, not him.” I bump her hard with my elbow. “Look over there. LOOK.”
***
Who is it?
Angela didn’t answer. She was too busy getting flat, trying to make herself disappear under the towel. “Get down,” she said.
Sandra tried, but she wasn’t as skinny as Angela and the sweaty towel refused to slide on concrete. She tilted the large hat over her face instead. Now blind, she hissed at Angela. “Who was it?”
“Didn’t you see? It’s Ed.”
“My Ed?”
“In the dangly flesh.”
Sandra tilted the hat up enough to see. “Shit.”
From under the towel, Angela said, “What’s he doing?”
Sandra hissed. “He’s with his secretary, that slut.”
“And they both are . . ?”
“Of course. He’s sucking in his gut so hard, his face has turned purple. She’s got one of those Brazilian wax jobs.”
“What color?”
“Don’t be coarse, Angela. It’s dyed—red to match her extensions.”
“I want to see.”
“Don’t move. They haven’t spotted us. The asshole has our picnic basket. They’re headed for the lake. When they’re far enough away—we’ll skedaddle.”
“Aren’t you going to confront him?”
“Not until I talk to my lawyer.”
Angela heard a series of clicks. “What are you doing?”
“Getting pictures.”
“Madam.” An official male voice. “Photographs are not allowed here at Freedom Acres.”
“Go fry yourself,” Sandra said. “Angie, get up. We’re out of here.”
Angela tried to rise while keeping the towel around both her sweaty behind and bosoms.
“I insist that you delete those.” The big voice came from a small man in flip-flops.
“Step out of the way, buddy.”
Angie watched in admiration as Sandra gave the man a hip shove that sent him sideways.
“In here,” Sandra said. They ran through the dressing room, grabbing their clothes, and headed for the car.
Sandra screeched out of the parking lot. “That skunk, that lowlife, that piss-ant excuse for a man.”
Windows down, wind drying the sweat, Angie felt exhilarated. “We’re like Thelma and Louise except we’re driving naked.”
Sandra gave her a grim smile. “And we’re not the ones going over a cliff.”
We first met at a new mom’s group thirty-eight years ago, but lost touch until around the time my youngest turned six and I went back to teaching Calculus part time. She’d just been hired as our high school’s bus driver and it didn’t take long for us to cement a friendship.
Yesterday, I stopped at her house and she showed me the hat. “Do you have anything like this,” she held it up for inspection, “and dark shades for looking around discriminately?” (I was pretty sure she meant discreetly but I got the picture.)
“I have a version of them.” I said. “Nobody has a hat like that but you.”
“Well, bring what you have.” Her dazzling green eyes shone lovely and wicked. “We’re gonna have us some fun.”
I’m sitting next to her in a low chaise, enjoying the combination of wafting sulfur steam, warm sun, and the chardonnay we drank at lunch. The paraphernalia she suggested is affixed to my head and she was right, we can gaze incognito wherever we please. Right now I can’t tell if Sandra is sleeping, or peeping.
“Hey.” I nudge her toes with my toes. “Four o’clock.” I just noticed the young man whose birthday suit we admired this morning is at the gate. She banks her head like a stealth bomber and the corners of her lips rise up. She’s awake.
He’s searching the area, hands on hips, allowing us precious time to devour his splendid angles and ridges from across the pool. “Damn, I wish I had my bifocals,” I whisper, slithering off the chaise to drop beside her.
A pink towel cascades from my chest, but who cares? I’ve discovered I’m invisible at this point in my life. There are definite perks to this, but glancing down I am reminded my breasts are not among them.
“Does Ed know you come here?” Sandra’s husband is away on a fishing trip and I’m trying to imagine him at a clothing optional resort.
“No way. Did you tell your grandkids you were coming?” Touché.
Adonis is on the move. I calculate his most likely trajectory and it brings him very close to our camp. The man is a made to order fantasy. Skin the color of an expertly roasted marshmallow that must be enjoyed quickly... lest it melt right off the stick. His manner, ripened by experience, is still vulnerable. He believes bliss is found with the right woman. He laughs at the witty things I say…and he’s …certified in deep tissue massage…his morning breath, it’s like…sweet butter left to melt in the sun.
Masked by our sunglasses, our gender and our age, beyond suspicion, we watch the polished marble of his bottom pass by and make its way toward the deep end of the pool.
“He’s gonna use the diving board,” she breathes, adjusting her head a few degrees south.
Reaching for my water bottle I twist nonchalantly for a better view and happen to glimpse back toward the saunas. “Oh my god,” I croak.
“I know. Gorgeous.” Her vocal chords are gummed up by lust.
“No. No, not him.” I bump her hard with my elbow. “Look over there. LOOK.”
***
Who is it?
Angela didn’t answer. She was too busy getting flat, trying to make herself disappear under the towel. “Get down,” she said.
Sandra tried, but she wasn’t as skinny as Angela and the sweaty towel refused to slide on concrete. She tilted the large hat over her face instead. Now blind, she hissed at Angela. “Who was it?”
“Didn’t you see? It’s Ed.”
“My Ed?”
“In the dangly flesh.”
Sandra tilted the hat up enough to see. “Shit.”
From under the towel, Angela said, “What’s he doing?”
Sandra hissed. “He’s with his secretary, that slut.”
“And they both are . . ?”
“Of course. He’s sucking in his gut so hard, his face has turned purple. She’s got one of those Brazilian wax jobs.”
“What color?”
“Don’t be coarse, Angela. It’s dyed—red to match her extensions.”
“I want to see.”
“Don’t move. They haven’t spotted us. The asshole has our picnic basket. They’re headed for the lake. When they’re far enough away—we’ll skedaddle.”
“Aren’t you going to confront him?”
“Not until I talk to my lawyer.”
Angela heard a series of clicks. “What are you doing?”
“Getting pictures.”
“Madam.” An official male voice. “Photographs are not allowed here at Freedom Acres.”
“Go fry yourself,” Sandra said. “Angie, get up. We’re out of here.”
Angela tried to rise while keeping the towel around both her sweaty behind and bosoms.
“I insist that you delete those.” The big voice came from a small man in flip-flops.
“Step out of the way, buddy.”
Angie watched in admiration as Sandra gave the man a hip shove that sent him sideways.
“In here,” Sandra said. They ran through the dressing room, grabbing their clothes, and headed for the car.
Sandra screeched out of the parking lot. “That skunk, that lowlife, that piss-ant excuse for a man.”
Windows down, wind drying the sweat, Angie felt exhilarated. “We’re like Thelma and Louise except we’re driving naked.”
Sandra gave her a grim smile. “And we’re not the ones going over a cliff.”
"Mercy for the Exchange"
Starter: Jay Frankston
Finisher: Nancy Wallace Nelson
Starter: Jay Frankston
Finisher: Nancy Wallace Nelson
|
Get off my life!
You’re crowding me your fears, your tears, your insecurity, wrapped up like flies in a spider web hang on my clothes line. And you pretend and stand on end and flap your wings like the blades of a helicopter and we all get out of your way. But you reach for me and I feel used, abused, confused. And there you are again washing your face in the kitchen sink and blowing soap bubbles in the air. ***** Let’s breathe fresh air! We’re needing help our interconnectedness the burden, holding both of us in suspension no room for new breath. As we posture relationship that traps us both in whirring cycle of constant pain we must interrupt the pattern. But we hold to the past and keep each other so confused. We go at it again watching each other at the kitchen sink hoping soapiness can clean our space. |
"Midsummer’s Eve"
Starter: Joan Hansen
Finisher: Amie McGee
Starter: Joan Hansen
Finisher: Amie McGee
She sat in the sand with her chin resting on her knees, her long raven black hair covering her face. I strolled by barefoot, on my evening walk on the beach; she reached up, pushed her hair back, and looked at me. Her face was tear stained. Her eyes were red and puffy. The look of pain and sadness in her eyes touched my heart.
The Sandpipers scurrying to and fro with the rhythm of the waves were the only activity on the beach that evening. I continued my solitary walk along the ocean, while my inner voice repeatedly nagged me “this is none of your concern, mind your own business.”
The sun, now a great luminescent white ball surrounded by radiant orange streaks, had moved low on the horizon, a breathtaking work of art by nature. There in the distant waves I saw the seal’s head pop up and look at me. I watched it dive down, pop up wet and shiny, and look at me again. This phenomenon happens often on my walks. A seal frequently follows in my direction when I walk the beach with its black eyes staring curiously at me.
I turned and began walking back to the hotel. She had not wandered away. She sat gazing at the sunset. What sad dark brown eyes she had. Now my inner voice spoke to me again in a compassionate voice. I walked straight to her side and sat down beside her. She became startled and turned her head from me. I spoke so gently to her “Is there anything I can do, are you in trouble?”
She ignored my questions and as I watched her body tense, I felt her fear. Why was this young woman so fearful? An hour passed as I sat quietly by her side. The evening fog rolled in bringing a damp chill and a fishy ocean scent. An early crescent moon rising in the distant darkening sky offered no light on the beach. I stood and removed my warm sweater, and as I wrapped it around her shoulders I whispered, “I have to leave now, I wish I knew your name.”
***
“Ginger,” a man’s voice called from the waves. I turned, Where the fuck did he come from? He walked from the sea stripping out of his wetsuit, dark in the slight moonlight. For real—where did he come from? I looked around thinking I would see a group, or a kayak maybe, but nothing, no gear, just the girl—Ginger—next to me.
She sucked a long breath in and let it out with a deep sigh. The man, bare-chested, but still waist-deep in the water, lifted his shoulders and held his hands out as if asking “What gives?”
“I can’t find it.” She shouted, shaking her head, younger than I’d realized. “It’s your fault, Roan, you said it would be fine if I left it. I can feel it’s almost time; I’m going to be stuck here.” She buried her head in her knees.
The man wiggled himself out of his kit, and to my surprise, was, um…commando. It wasn’t dark enough to hide that. “Hello?” I waved my hand at him trying to avert my eyes thinking, Who strips out of their wetsuit in plain sight? “Please put your suit back on, this is a public beach.” I felt the “age” part of my middle age as I said it.
“Who are you?” The man growled flipping water from his hair. He hopped slightly, kicking his feet from the suit. Definitely not that dark out.
“Ah, be nice.” Ginger stood and as her long hair settled I was shocked to find that her bathing suit was also missing.
“Jesus.” I snagged my sweater before it hit the sand and tried to cover her exposed essentials.
“Tell me the minute.” The man was next to me so fast that I jumped and let out an unflattering yelp, then squinted at him.
“Pardon?”
“Tell me the minute,” he shouted.
“What the…? What does that mean?”
“The minute. What minute is it?” He jiggled me, and himself, at the same time.
“I don’t know, eight-thirty-five, eight-forty?” I said shaking my head. “Almost sunset.”
“Six minutes.” The man shouted to Ginger who’d slipped away during the jiggling. The dripping suit slung over his shoulder looked like fur, not neoprene.
“Found it!” Ginger stepped from behind a small gathering of rocks shaking something shimmery, also like fur, then slinked it up her legs. She hopped along the beach toward the water awkwardly pulling the suit as she went. The man jogged after her, his full moon shining in the dark. He skipped slightly, and yanked his suit back on in one move with a freakish ease I’d never seen. For a moment, I thought they were flopping in the water instead of running. Must have been a trick of the missing moonlight.
“You can’t swim now,” I yelled with actual terror, “Jaws!” But they ignored me.
Youth, I thought as I walked up the beach to my hotel. I turned one last time to the sea, and, scanning the horizon, found them nowhere. Only two seal heads bobbing in the surf, watching me.
The Sandpipers scurrying to and fro with the rhythm of the waves were the only activity on the beach that evening. I continued my solitary walk along the ocean, while my inner voice repeatedly nagged me “this is none of your concern, mind your own business.”
The sun, now a great luminescent white ball surrounded by radiant orange streaks, had moved low on the horizon, a breathtaking work of art by nature. There in the distant waves I saw the seal’s head pop up and look at me. I watched it dive down, pop up wet and shiny, and look at me again. This phenomenon happens often on my walks. A seal frequently follows in my direction when I walk the beach with its black eyes staring curiously at me.
I turned and began walking back to the hotel. She had not wandered away. She sat gazing at the sunset. What sad dark brown eyes she had. Now my inner voice spoke to me again in a compassionate voice. I walked straight to her side and sat down beside her. She became startled and turned her head from me. I spoke so gently to her “Is there anything I can do, are you in trouble?”
She ignored my questions and as I watched her body tense, I felt her fear. Why was this young woman so fearful? An hour passed as I sat quietly by her side. The evening fog rolled in bringing a damp chill and a fishy ocean scent. An early crescent moon rising in the distant darkening sky offered no light on the beach. I stood and removed my warm sweater, and as I wrapped it around her shoulders I whispered, “I have to leave now, I wish I knew your name.”
***
“Ginger,” a man’s voice called from the waves. I turned, Where the fuck did he come from? He walked from the sea stripping out of his wetsuit, dark in the slight moonlight. For real—where did he come from? I looked around thinking I would see a group, or a kayak maybe, but nothing, no gear, just the girl—Ginger—next to me.
She sucked a long breath in and let it out with a deep sigh. The man, bare-chested, but still waist-deep in the water, lifted his shoulders and held his hands out as if asking “What gives?”
“I can’t find it.” She shouted, shaking her head, younger than I’d realized. “It’s your fault, Roan, you said it would be fine if I left it. I can feel it’s almost time; I’m going to be stuck here.” She buried her head in her knees.
The man wiggled himself out of his kit, and to my surprise, was, um…commando. It wasn’t dark enough to hide that. “Hello?” I waved my hand at him trying to avert my eyes thinking, Who strips out of their wetsuit in plain sight? “Please put your suit back on, this is a public beach.” I felt the “age” part of my middle age as I said it.
“Who are you?” The man growled flipping water from his hair. He hopped slightly, kicking his feet from the suit. Definitely not that dark out.
“Ah, be nice.” Ginger stood and as her long hair settled I was shocked to find that her bathing suit was also missing.
“Jesus.” I snagged my sweater before it hit the sand and tried to cover her exposed essentials.
“Tell me the minute.” The man was next to me so fast that I jumped and let out an unflattering yelp, then squinted at him.
“Pardon?”
“Tell me the minute,” he shouted.
“What the…? What does that mean?”
“The minute. What minute is it?” He jiggled me, and himself, at the same time.
“I don’t know, eight-thirty-five, eight-forty?” I said shaking my head. “Almost sunset.”
“Six minutes.” The man shouted to Ginger who’d slipped away during the jiggling. The dripping suit slung over his shoulder looked like fur, not neoprene.
“Found it!” Ginger stepped from behind a small gathering of rocks shaking something shimmery, also like fur, then slinked it up her legs. She hopped along the beach toward the water awkwardly pulling the suit as she went. The man jogged after her, his full moon shining in the dark. He skipped slightly, and yanked his suit back on in one move with a freakish ease I’d never seen. For a moment, I thought they were flopping in the water instead of running. Must have been a trick of the missing moonlight.
“You can’t swim now,” I yelled with actual terror, “Jaws!” But they ignored me.
Youth, I thought as I walked up the beach to my hotel. I turned one last time to the sea, and, scanning the horizon, found them nowhere. Only two seal heads bobbing in the surf, watching me.
"Parenting is an Art Best Learned"
Starter: Nona Smith
Finisher: Susan Fisher
Starter: Nona Smith
Finisher: Susan Fisher
The man behind the desk stands when I enter the room, making a show of deference. Not for one second do I buy it. I’m here on his behest, not the other way around.
“Good morning,” he says in honeyed tones.
Maybe for him it is. But not for me.
“Come in.” He smiles a toothy grin. “Have a seat,” he says, sitting and gesturing at twin armchairs across from him.
I’m getting a spider and fly feeling in my gut.
With mincing steps, I move across the plush carpet toward him while scanning the room for possible escape routes. The ceilings are high, the crown molding wide. Shelves, crowded with books, line the walls. It’s an elegant room, somebody’s library or study.
Gauzy curtains billow at the windows and catch my eye. The windows are open, but just barely. Could I possibly dash across the room, fling one wide and jump out before he subdues me? Not likely. Besides, I have no money…and no shoes.
I’m standing close enough to the man now to notice the flakes of dandruff on his shoulders, his Groucho Marx eyebrows, dark and bushy.
“Sit,” he says. It’s a command, not an invitation.
The chairs have deep seats, meant for a tall person. If I were to sit back properly, my knees wouldn’t bend, and I’d be reduced to looking like a child. Instead, I perch on the end of one chair, squeeze my hands together in my lap, and wait for what will come next.
“So,” he says, leaning forward across the desk, a sneer on his lips, all pretense of admiration gone. “You know why you’re here?”
My stomach is roiling and I can feel my heart banging around in my chest like a caged wild thing. Keeping my voice calm, I go for an imperious tone when I speak.
“Actually, no,” I say. “What am I doing here?”
* * *
I wake in a very narrow bed. The top sheet is tightly tucked in all around; it is almost impossible to move. A woman in purple scrubs lays a taped paper packet atop a utility towel on a bedside rolling table. She gingerly opens and arranges it, then speaks: “Your doctor will be in momentarily.” Out the door she goes and I am left to contemplate my near future.
Soon I hear, “Knock, knock.” Not actual knocks, but someone using onomatopoeia. In comes Groucho, this time in a white coat that hides his dandruff.
“Hello, Mariah, are you ready?”
“I certainly am not. I demand an explanation of who you are, exactly where I am, and what you are planning to do.”
“Now, now, no need to be snippy. I am the one who gets to snip--the vestigial sixth toe on each foot. When I’m done, your feet will be as lovely as a foot model’s. There will be nothing freakish about you.” I curse my parents under my breath. Why should they care?
His silky voice drones on while he prepares a syringe of anesthesia. I focus on the surgical instruments of the opened packet, now beautifully aligned along the sterile interior of the wrapping. With every bit of strength I possess, I will myself to obtain the shiny scalpel on the far right. The confining sheet pops free; I lunge and grab.
“Honeys, I’m home,” I sing out as I enter the drawing room of my parents’ house, with its creamy ecru décor and well-lit art.
“We didn’t expect you to be home for a week,” my father says casually, before he looks up at the smeared state of my bed-sheet toga, forearms, hands, and bare feet. My embarrassing feet are still intact. My mother sits completely still, her eyes opened as wide as humanly possible.
“I couldn’t wait, darlings. Ugly things should be eliminated--isn’t that right?” I say.
I do what I must, glad that it is the servants’ night out.
“Good morning,” he says in honeyed tones.
Maybe for him it is. But not for me.
“Come in.” He smiles a toothy grin. “Have a seat,” he says, sitting and gesturing at twin armchairs across from him.
I’m getting a spider and fly feeling in my gut.
With mincing steps, I move across the plush carpet toward him while scanning the room for possible escape routes. The ceilings are high, the crown molding wide. Shelves, crowded with books, line the walls. It’s an elegant room, somebody’s library or study.
Gauzy curtains billow at the windows and catch my eye. The windows are open, but just barely. Could I possibly dash across the room, fling one wide and jump out before he subdues me? Not likely. Besides, I have no money…and no shoes.
I’m standing close enough to the man now to notice the flakes of dandruff on his shoulders, his Groucho Marx eyebrows, dark and bushy.
“Sit,” he says. It’s a command, not an invitation.
The chairs have deep seats, meant for a tall person. If I were to sit back properly, my knees wouldn’t bend, and I’d be reduced to looking like a child. Instead, I perch on the end of one chair, squeeze my hands together in my lap, and wait for what will come next.
“So,” he says, leaning forward across the desk, a sneer on his lips, all pretense of admiration gone. “You know why you’re here?”
My stomach is roiling and I can feel my heart banging around in my chest like a caged wild thing. Keeping my voice calm, I go for an imperious tone when I speak.
“Actually, no,” I say. “What am I doing here?”
* * *
I wake in a very narrow bed. The top sheet is tightly tucked in all around; it is almost impossible to move. A woman in purple scrubs lays a taped paper packet atop a utility towel on a bedside rolling table. She gingerly opens and arranges it, then speaks: “Your doctor will be in momentarily.” Out the door she goes and I am left to contemplate my near future.
Soon I hear, “Knock, knock.” Not actual knocks, but someone using onomatopoeia. In comes Groucho, this time in a white coat that hides his dandruff.
“Hello, Mariah, are you ready?”
“I certainly am not. I demand an explanation of who you are, exactly where I am, and what you are planning to do.”
“Now, now, no need to be snippy. I am the one who gets to snip--the vestigial sixth toe on each foot. When I’m done, your feet will be as lovely as a foot model’s. There will be nothing freakish about you.” I curse my parents under my breath. Why should they care?
His silky voice drones on while he prepares a syringe of anesthesia. I focus on the surgical instruments of the opened packet, now beautifully aligned along the sterile interior of the wrapping. With every bit of strength I possess, I will myself to obtain the shiny scalpel on the far right. The confining sheet pops free; I lunge and grab.
“Honeys, I’m home,” I sing out as I enter the drawing room of my parents’ house, with its creamy ecru décor and well-lit art.
“We didn’t expect you to be home for a week,” my father says casually, before he looks up at the smeared state of my bed-sheet toga, forearms, hands, and bare feet. My embarrassing feet are still intact. My mother sits completely still, her eyes opened as wide as humanly possible.
“I couldn’t wait, darlings. Ugly things should be eliminated--isn’t that right?” I say.
I do what I must, glad that it is the servants’ night out.
Spamalot
Starter: Robyn Koski
Finisher: Barbara Lee
Starter: Robyn Koski
Finisher: Barbara Lee
My friend Dorinda is a foody. During our phone convo’s words like clarify, de-glaze, and temper are intermixed with immersion blender, #10 grater, and parchment paper. Ingredients are described with reverence for local sourcing and political correctness. I feel like I should tell her how much parchment paper intimidates me, and that in my lexicon a temper is something to avoid raising.
I listen because Dorry is a good friend. We’re maybe not as close as we were in college. I mean, she’s not my bestie anymore. I’m sorry, did I call her Dorry? No, she prefers Rinda now. Goes with Prada, her last name--and possibly her new best friends, Sonja and Delphiniaah. I’m still listening to her breathy, excited description of their new club. “It’s a cooking club,” she says. “We each get five mutual ingredients, and a bunch of regular ingredients, but then each of us picks a mystery food to incorporate. The mystery item is the outlier—something each of us has brought, a weird one, a challenge, concealed in a brown bag. We each pick one and go. Fifteen minutes to devise the recipe and an hour prep. You should join us.”
“Sounds fun, but how’re we all supposed to cook in the same kitchen at the same time, and don’t you get enough time in the kitchen as it is?” Rinda has two children, an awesome kitchen, in an awesome McMansion in the hills above my flatland digs, and an even more awesome husband, Doctor Prada.
Yep, she married Doctor Prada. We spent a long moment with him in the emergency room, centered around an incident between Rinda and me, back in the day. Hasan Prada is a gentle soul. And loaded. He’s good for Rinda. And he was really sweet about the EpiPen—I mean, he understood how I could mistake it for a magic marker. Boy, Rinda really swelled up, though--looked like a roasted marshmallow.
Rinda sighs. “Our chef does the cooking here. Even the school lunches. All I get to do is suggest genres. And Delphiniaah has turned her kitchen into a showroom for designer jewelry seconds. She’s got the whole room surrounded with glass cases, lit from behind, remote control dimmers. It’s spectacular. Her meals are delivered by Door Dash and Amazon” (I’m wondering how eco-friendly this Delphiniaah is, with her extra ‘ah’) “Sonja’s kitchen is huge, though,” Rinda gushes, “three ovens, gadgets galore, extra sinks, glass front refrigerators, granite countertops and floors. Everything we need.” (And, I think, environmentally conscious Sonja has singlehandedly stripped a granite mine.)
“Okay, count me in.” I say, looking around my retro kitchen, with confetti formica, salivating over the thought of cooking club leftovers. When I hang up I peer into my two-shelf pantry, searching for my rando ingredient. Cookie sprinkles? Anchovies? Sweet tofu rice wraps? Spam? Hmm…
***
Spam has a humbling effect on me; reminds me of the lean times of my childhood. In fact, this can of Spam is from my mother. She gifted it to me when I moved out of her house and moved into an apartment with my brand-new eighteen-year-old husband. That was fifty-nine years ago.
Claire had four kids; three girls and a boy. She gave birth to her first daughter when she was 14 years old. That was me.
My grandfather, Irvin Gates, whom I believe I never met, made sure my mother married the father of his thirteen-year old’s child, the sixth of his ten daughters, known in the Mission district of San Francisco as “the Gates girls.”
Claire and two younger sisters had been in an institution. It might have been an orphanage even though they had a father, but he had taken a wife that hated his kids.
All the girls were good-looking but Claire was naïve and fell for the first guy she ever met. He turned out to be my father. He went away to WW2 like every other guy in 1943. They divorced, but I was passed around among my mother’s oldest sisters until I went into a TB sanitarium, along with two other girl cousins, only to emerge and find myself looking for my mother in Tubbsville, California. By then I was eight.
I found her. She had remarried; a nice guy named Ray. They already had my sister Susie when I showed up wearing a cowboy shirt and jeans. Before I knew it, Susie was into everything that meant anything to me.
Claire taught me the ways of Spam: on biscuits, with pancakes, with scrambled eggs, with cheese in scrambled eggs, spam sandwiches (always white bread). She was good with Spam.
I pick up the ancient can of Spam which still comes in the same squat blue tin and I go back to a place in time called “the 50’s.”
I know spam and I know retro.
I listen because Dorry is a good friend. We’re maybe not as close as we were in college. I mean, she’s not my bestie anymore. I’m sorry, did I call her Dorry? No, she prefers Rinda now. Goes with Prada, her last name--and possibly her new best friends, Sonja and Delphiniaah. I’m still listening to her breathy, excited description of their new club. “It’s a cooking club,” she says. “We each get five mutual ingredients, and a bunch of regular ingredients, but then each of us picks a mystery food to incorporate. The mystery item is the outlier—something each of us has brought, a weird one, a challenge, concealed in a brown bag. We each pick one and go. Fifteen minutes to devise the recipe and an hour prep. You should join us.”
“Sounds fun, but how’re we all supposed to cook in the same kitchen at the same time, and don’t you get enough time in the kitchen as it is?” Rinda has two children, an awesome kitchen, in an awesome McMansion in the hills above my flatland digs, and an even more awesome husband, Doctor Prada.
Yep, she married Doctor Prada. We spent a long moment with him in the emergency room, centered around an incident between Rinda and me, back in the day. Hasan Prada is a gentle soul. And loaded. He’s good for Rinda. And he was really sweet about the EpiPen—I mean, he understood how I could mistake it for a magic marker. Boy, Rinda really swelled up, though--looked like a roasted marshmallow.
Rinda sighs. “Our chef does the cooking here. Even the school lunches. All I get to do is suggest genres. And Delphiniaah has turned her kitchen into a showroom for designer jewelry seconds. She’s got the whole room surrounded with glass cases, lit from behind, remote control dimmers. It’s spectacular. Her meals are delivered by Door Dash and Amazon” (I’m wondering how eco-friendly this Delphiniaah is, with her extra ‘ah’) “Sonja’s kitchen is huge, though,” Rinda gushes, “three ovens, gadgets galore, extra sinks, glass front refrigerators, granite countertops and floors. Everything we need.” (And, I think, environmentally conscious Sonja has singlehandedly stripped a granite mine.)
“Okay, count me in.” I say, looking around my retro kitchen, with confetti formica, salivating over the thought of cooking club leftovers. When I hang up I peer into my two-shelf pantry, searching for my rando ingredient. Cookie sprinkles? Anchovies? Sweet tofu rice wraps? Spam? Hmm…
***
Spam has a humbling effect on me; reminds me of the lean times of my childhood. In fact, this can of Spam is from my mother. She gifted it to me when I moved out of her house and moved into an apartment with my brand-new eighteen-year-old husband. That was fifty-nine years ago.
Claire had four kids; three girls and a boy. She gave birth to her first daughter when she was 14 years old. That was me.
My grandfather, Irvin Gates, whom I believe I never met, made sure my mother married the father of his thirteen-year old’s child, the sixth of his ten daughters, known in the Mission district of San Francisco as “the Gates girls.”
Claire and two younger sisters had been in an institution. It might have been an orphanage even though they had a father, but he had taken a wife that hated his kids.
All the girls were good-looking but Claire was naïve and fell for the first guy she ever met. He turned out to be my father. He went away to WW2 like every other guy in 1943. They divorced, but I was passed around among my mother’s oldest sisters until I went into a TB sanitarium, along with two other girl cousins, only to emerge and find myself looking for my mother in Tubbsville, California. By then I was eight.
I found her. She had remarried; a nice guy named Ray. They already had my sister Susie when I showed up wearing a cowboy shirt and jeans. Before I knew it, Susie was into everything that meant anything to me.
Claire taught me the ways of Spam: on biscuits, with pancakes, with scrambled eggs, with cheese in scrambled eggs, spam sandwiches (always white bread). She was good with Spam.
I pick up the ancient can of Spam which still comes in the same squat blue tin and I go back to a place in time called “the 50’s.”
I know spam and I know retro.
"The Awakening"
Starter Elizabeth Vrenios
Finisher Windflower
Starter Elizabeth Vrenios
Finisher Windflower
|
Be careful of the teeth, my brothers warned.
Shine the light in each hole, and yell as loud as you can. That will scare them into your gunny sack. I creep forward through the damp mustard and rattlesnake grass in the field across from our house, searching for the telltale mound of dirt where these creatures live. It has been more than a week that I have waited for the dark of a new moon, the only time they would appear. I know exactly how I will spend the silver dollar I have been promised when I catch one: send for the Captain Midnight Secret decoder ring I read about in my latest comic book. My Gene Autry flashlight lights up the dry grass upending crickets and spiders, giving me courage, for I want to be like my brothers. I want to show them that I am not just a little sister, but, like them, can throw rocks, swim in the creek and even shoot Daddy's gun if they will let me. Shivering, I hear the shrill whine of cars in the distance, see the clouds hooked on the scythe of a cold-blooded moon, and smell the pungent smoke from our chimney. I stop breathing, my body steels up - Do I hear a rustle in the grass? There, ahead is a hole! I hold my sack over the mound, yell as loud as I can, and hear my echo down our empty street. At last I will see a snipe! *** Be careful of the teeth, my brothers warned. Under the bare smile of the slivered moon of my flashlight I gently open the sack stare into her vertical eyes blacker than a universe without stars, in that moment the noise of the world is sucked into that dark vast universe; as a cascading calm flows through my body there is a glint of recognition in the flick of her tongue in the power of her potential bite. I lightly toss the sack back over the mound and watch as she gracefully slithers back home. I turn towards the smell of smoke the dry fields crunching under my feet. No longer following my brothers I look up at the infinite cosmos and begin to decode the mysteries of life. |
"What's in a Name?"
Starter: Doug Fortier
Finisher: Rob Hawthorne
Starter: Doug Fortier
Finisher: Rob Hawthorne
Annie owned two Irish Setters when she met Wayne. He had a cat who'd never been fixed, much like Wayne. Thirty-seven years later, the pets were memories, but their love for cats and dogs continued. Along the way, they acquired two sets of calico sisters who lived long lives. One cat remained, named by the dog, Chase the cat.
After years with multiple cats, and thinking the old cat wouldn't be around much more, the couple learned of a woman seeking homes for feral kittens she trapped around Noyo Harbor. There weren't two calico sisters so they chose a long-haired calico and a tortoiseshell of black, gold, and orange. Chase kept the new kittens, Cleo and Godot, toeing the line into adulthood. The dog door set up for the long-resident Springer Spaniels became the young cats' access to the world of lawns, gardens, and trees.
The neighbors reported sightings of Godot extending her territory in all directions, sunning herself on the warm macadam of the driveway, running into culverts to hide, and hunting birds in the empty lot across the way.
On a Sunday night in January, when occasional rains came in from the ocean, Godot didn't push through the dog door for her supper. This wasn't a first. She'd gone missing for several days, on several occasions. No worries.
When Annie took the Springers, Jamie and Jilly, into the yard the next day to play fetch, Godot meowed from beyond the fence, up in the redwoods that had grown in a fairy-ring around an old stump. She couldn't be seen but returned a cry when Annie called her name.
“She'll come down when she's hungry,” Annie said. “That's what cat's do,” and “Has anyone ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree?” The days passed with Godot on a curving shelf of branches covered in Redwood needles. Wayne brought the aluminum extension ladder and positioned it to reach the branches, about thirty feet from the ground. Each morning and afternoon, Annie and Wayne took turns climbing the shaky ladder while wondering if a misstep would put them in the hospital. They couldn't coax Godot close enough to take her by the scruff of the neck and bring her down.
On Wednesday, Wayne became alarmed by information on the internet about a cat's need for water and the potential for kidney damage. “Don't worry,” Annie said, “she's probably getting enough from licking her coat after it rains.”
Wayne lost sleep each night thinking about the cold wet cat unable to back down the crumbling redwood bark. He chastised himself for not being imaginative enough to figure out a way to save Godot. They waited.
On Thursday, Wayne drove toward their house. By the side of the road lay a long-loaf shape in the colors of black, gold, and orange. “No, no, no! Poor Godot!” he cried. It didn't move. It wouldn't be moving. When he examined it, Wayne found a lump of grass and dirt, the result of a neighbor’s effort to channel water from the road.
***
Once again, Thursday night, he lost sleep. As he tossed and turned in bed that night, Wayne played scenario after scenario in his head regarding the cat in the tree. All of them led to Godot's demise. There was the one where the mountain lion went up the tree for a light snack; the one where lightning struck the tree; and there was the one where Wayne and Annie became the first people to find a cat skeleton lodged nicely between two branches.
Friday morning was the last straw. The worry he'd felt was causing him stress and the sleepless nights were wearing him to exhaustion. That morning, Wayne went to the freezer and pulled out two rainbow trout he'd caught. He thawed them in warm water and cut them into slices. Then, he laid the slices of fish onto a plate and took one of the deck chairs out to position himself beneath the tree.
At first he couldn't see her, but she was up there, and Godot mewed down to Wayne in recognition. He dangled the plate of treats into the air, hoping she'd climb down for a delicious meal. But no. She wasn't budging. Wayne planted the chair firmly in the ground and waited.
One hour went by. Then two. By the third hour Annie made sandwiches and took them outside in case he was hungry, but Wayne had fallen fast asleep with the plate of trout on the ground next to him. That plate puzzled Annie. She was sure he'd cut up both fish, yet the plate had a little less than one fish on it. She thought about waking him but decided to go inside and have a stakeout of her own. In no less than fifteen minutes, Annie heard the mewing coming from the tree. She looked through the kitchen window and saw Godot scampering down the trunk. Her first instinct was to shout out to Wayne, who was still sleeping. Instead, she watched quietly as the cat delicately picked a piece of the rainbow trout up with her teeth and climbed the tree once more.
Annie laughed. She saw that Wayne was stirring, and rather than tell him what she'd witnessed, she called Jim down the road.
“Hey, where's my cat bait?” Wayne scanned around the deck chair for the missing rainbow trout, but looked up when he heard Annie and their neighbor talking by the fence. He waved at Jim and Jim waved back. The neighbor vanished for a moment and returned with the rumbling of a motorized lift.
Jim drove over the terrain, the lift tumbling and tilting precariously, stopping at the tree where Godot had made her home.
Wayne and Annie both watched nervously, but Wayne was nearly petrified. He was sure their discovery would be an upsetting one.
There was a loud mechanical hydraulic sound as the lift rose into the branches. Jim stopped it and moved it a few inches to the left then to the right and then it rose some more.
The lift stopped and Wayne, anxious but still, held his hand to his mouth. He mumbled under his breath about how he knew it wasn't going to end well. “Maybe she's stuck or hurt, but she can't come down. The poor thing.”
Then Godot mewed again. Jim reached from the lift's bucket and grabbed the cat. He had something else in his hands too, which puzzled even Annie, who was already aware that the cat was perfectly fine.
The lift dropped slowly and when he stepped off of it, Jim was holding one annoyed Godot and a nest with three little hatchlings surrounded by bits of trout.
Everyone took a few minutes to fuss over the cat and fuss over the baby birds, and they came to the conclusion that Godot had killed the mother and discovering the children she'd left behind chose to be their guardian. Of course she'd been up and down the tree many times since finding the babies, but was so secretive that Wayne and Annie hadn't noticed.
Wayne held the cat, happy to have her back and declared, “Next time we get a pet, we choose its name more wisely. All this waiting for Godot nearly killed me.”
After years with multiple cats, and thinking the old cat wouldn't be around much more, the couple learned of a woman seeking homes for feral kittens she trapped around Noyo Harbor. There weren't two calico sisters so they chose a long-haired calico and a tortoiseshell of black, gold, and orange. Chase kept the new kittens, Cleo and Godot, toeing the line into adulthood. The dog door set up for the long-resident Springer Spaniels became the young cats' access to the world of lawns, gardens, and trees.
The neighbors reported sightings of Godot extending her territory in all directions, sunning herself on the warm macadam of the driveway, running into culverts to hide, and hunting birds in the empty lot across the way.
On a Sunday night in January, when occasional rains came in from the ocean, Godot didn't push through the dog door for her supper. This wasn't a first. She'd gone missing for several days, on several occasions. No worries.
When Annie took the Springers, Jamie and Jilly, into the yard the next day to play fetch, Godot meowed from beyond the fence, up in the redwoods that had grown in a fairy-ring around an old stump. She couldn't be seen but returned a cry when Annie called her name.
“She'll come down when she's hungry,” Annie said. “That's what cat's do,” and “Has anyone ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree?” The days passed with Godot on a curving shelf of branches covered in Redwood needles. Wayne brought the aluminum extension ladder and positioned it to reach the branches, about thirty feet from the ground. Each morning and afternoon, Annie and Wayne took turns climbing the shaky ladder while wondering if a misstep would put them in the hospital. They couldn't coax Godot close enough to take her by the scruff of the neck and bring her down.
On Wednesday, Wayne became alarmed by information on the internet about a cat's need for water and the potential for kidney damage. “Don't worry,” Annie said, “she's probably getting enough from licking her coat after it rains.”
Wayne lost sleep each night thinking about the cold wet cat unable to back down the crumbling redwood bark. He chastised himself for not being imaginative enough to figure out a way to save Godot. They waited.
On Thursday, Wayne drove toward their house. By the side of the road lay a long-loaf shape in the colors of black, gold, and orange. “No, no, no! Poor Godot!” he cried. It didn't move. It wouldn't be moving. When he examined it, Wayne found a lump of grass and dirt, the result of a neighbor’s effort to channel water from the road.
***
Once again, Thursday night, he lost sleep. As he tossed and turned in bed that night, Wayne played scenario after scenario in his head regarding the cat in the tree. All of them led to Godot's demise. There was the one where the mountain lion went up the tree for a light snack; the one where lightning struck the tree; and there was the one where Wayne and Annie became the first people to find a cat skeleton lodged nicely between two branches.
Friday morning was the last straw. The worry he'd felt was causing him stress and the sleepless nights were wearing him to exhaustion. That morning, Wayne went to the freezer and pulled out two rainbow trout he'd caught. He thawed them in warm water and cut them into slices. Then, he laid the slices of fish onto a plate and took one of the deck chairs out to position himself beneath the tree.
At first he couldn't see her, but she was up there, and Godot mewed down to Wayne in recognition. He dangled the plate of treats into the air, hoping she'd climb down for a delicious meal. But no. She wasn't budging. Wayne planted the chair firmly in the ground and waited.
One hour went by. Then two. By the third hour Annie made sandwiches and took them outside in case he was hungry, but Wayne had fallen fast asleep with the plate of trout on the ground next to him. That plate puzzled Annie. She was sure he'd cut up both fish, yet the plate had a little less than one fish on it. She thought about waking him but decided to go inside and have a stakeout of her own. In no less than fifteen minutes, Annie heard the mewing coming from the tree. She looked through the kitchen window and saw Godot scampering down the trunk. Her first instinct was to shout out to Wayne, who was still sleeping. Instead, she watched quietly as the cat delicately picked a piece of the rainbow trout up with her teeth and climbed the tree once more.
Annie laughed. She saw that Wayne was stirring, and rather than tell him what she'd witnessed, she called Jim down the road.
“Hey, where's my cat bait?” Wayne scanned around the deck chair for the missing rainbow trout, but looked up when he heard Annie and their neighbor talking by the fence. He waved at Jim and Jim waved back. The neighbor vanished for a moment and returned with the rumbling of a motorized lift.
Jim drove over the terrain, the lift tumbling and tilting precariously, stopping at the tree where Godot had made her home.
Wayne and Annie both watched nervously, but Wayne was nearly petrified. He was sure their discovery would be an upsetting one.
There was a loud mechanical hydraulic sound as the lift rose into the branches. Jim stopped it and moved it a few inches to the left then to the right and then it rose some more.
The lift stopped and Wayne, anxious but still, held his hand to his mouth. He mumbled under his breath about how he knew it wasn't going to end well. “Maybe she's stuck or hurt, but she can't come down. The poor thing.”
Then Godot mewed again. Jim reached from the lift's bucket and grabbed the cat. He had something else in his hands too, which puzzled even Annie, who was already aware that the cat was perfectly fine.
The lift dropped slowly and when he stepped off of it, Jim was holding one annoyed Godot and a nest with three little hatchlings surrounded by bits of trout.
Everyone took a few minutes to fuss over the cat and fuss over the baby birds, and they came to the conclusion that Godot had killed the mother and discovering the children she'd left behind chose to be their guardian. Of course she'd been up and down the tree many times since finding the babies, but was so secretive that Wayne and Annie hadn't noticed.
Wayne held the cat, happy to have her back and declared, “Next time we get a pet, we choose its name more wisely. All this waiting for Godot nearly killed me.”
