Danny

The new born summer wailed with heat and Danny sat on his skateboard in the middle of an empty parking lot, head between his knees hanging down to cheek the bass waves of hazy sun beating off of the black tarmac. It was gummy beneath his wheels and streaked the red plastic with sooty skids, his shoes picked up a misty carbon sheen like they had over toasted in the oven. The traffic was light for rush hour, eerie lapses in cars between people dribbling home from work with their shirt sleeves rolled up and their ties flapping. Danny liked those people better, he didn't have air conditioning and the only relief from the stuffy neighborhood air was to get out of his house and keep moving, generating his own breeze skating or walking by the river. The business people with their windows rolled up and throat high buttons looked so alien behind the glass, he hated the thought of being trapped in a cold bubble where the organic outdoor noise was muffled, and the swelling air felt like an assault when you cracked the seal on your door to run inside.

He rolled himself back and forth, the satisfying spin of ball bearings mixed with forlorn bird whistles and moms corralling toddlers to the park or library. Summer was a ten day old thing and already all of his friends had fled town, to Avalon or Sea Isle or their mountain cabins. They were the places they went with their families, leaving in a caravan in the early cool of Saturday morning, and their dads came home with one tanned arm from where it hung on the window. They laughed at each other when they mowed their lawns the next week, pointing to their single red elbows. Danny mowed his lawn and he and his mother didn't get to go on vacations. It was a strange and lonesome two weeks when so much of the population evaporated leaving him to skate up and down empty streets after the sun had set and a stripe of sweat ran chills up his back like a skunks tail, the chucking wheels echoing off of the blank windows.

It was Danny's secret covenant to eat with his mother at least once a day. He wondered if it was hard, no husband and spending most nights at home. He was always out with his friends and even when they were gone he was too restless to stay in more than once or twice a week. Was it different to be an adult or do you just get used to things? Danny never had the courage to ask her. Sometimes he made her eggs before she left in the morning, or skated to her office with a sandwich. This morning he scraped hard butter on his burnt toast, black speckles of crumb coming off on the knife. He mom sat at the table and they made small talk about the day's plans. She took a sip of her coffee and said "You must get bored with all your friends gone. I don't know what you do all day."

"It's not bad." Danny said, "I get by."

"You'll probably get a job next summer, save for a car. Everything changes, but you'll be able to do more things."

Danny felt her looking at him, measuring him somehow in a mother's way that didn't need inches. It was like she was asking him a question but he didn't know what it was. "I'm ok with my skateboard, mom. I don't know what I'd change."

They sat there in silence lit in a timeless gold, she didn't have to rush off on summer mornings because so many people were away. She looked like she was going to say something but she finished her coffee instead and stood up. On her way passed him she leaned over and kissed his head and said, "You never were any trouble, Danny boy."

Victor

The cabinet was particle board covered with faux wood vinyl laminate that peeled back at the corners revealing the spongy looking honeycomb underneath. Victor sat in front of the record player looking at the flat summit, towering above his head like a Mayan pyramid, the sacred and mystical apex rotating with a serpents hiss and dusty pops before the music came in. He was fascinated by the mechanics even more than the sounds, the grooves in the record and their fingerprint ridges, the way the translucent tooth locking into them as sure as a train track, and the lazy rotation of the turn table. There was a satisfying, outdated clicking as the motor powered on, the analog sound of electricity real and soulful. Victor put his hands on the speaker like the hollow diaphragm stretched with a drum of skin, he could feel the beating of the bass pulsing from the woofer, belching sparkling dust in the air like Tinkerbell. He felt like he was in an aquarium, bubbles floating all around him, daylight stars in the shafts of orange morning light.

Victor dug through boxes that smelled of moldering cardboard, like wet earth and stale air. Turning up an item people had forgotten about was like having your own secret, Victor would investigate the disowned origins and cast off history, making his own sense where he could. He found a box of LPs, some of them with hand made jackets, photocopied fliers, in different colors like milky orange marble and translucent yellow. He played them over and over, sitting beneath the record playing and looking up with his chin in his hands, hoping when he grew up he could buy a suit with a skinny black tie, and wear a Joe Friday hat with sunglasses and two tone wing tips all the time.

Years later Victor would hear a radio interview with a man that was on many of his treasured records. It seemed profane to hear two strangers talk about something that was so intimate to him, he had since learned all the notes and words, and all the cracks and scratches in those songs. The man said what his song was about and Victor thought "No, that isn't right," not sure if he meant the meaning of the song, or who it actually belonged to. It was carved into wax and left an orphan artifact for Victor, and he had never tried to impose the mystery of that secret on anyone, and he was now unwilling to let anyone instruct him on its' design.

Carol

Carol started coming to the Dogwood Parade as a young grandmother after she had moved to Phoenixville to be closer to her daughter's growing family. As the tips of her hair frosted silver and she grew more pear shaped she stopped putting 'young'' before 'grandmother,' and her little muppets started calling her "Gran" instead of "Mom Carol." She saw how the parade evolved over the years, growing and shrinking with the discretionary income available, adding floats full of after school acting and karate programs, losing school marching bands. Carol pinched her chubby grandchildren between her knees and clapped their hands for them until, parade by parade, they grew too big and inevitably embarrassed by her enthusiasm. She loved a small town parade and the crystal May skies, the carefree virgin breeze and the youth of spring. Her little ones were in such a hurry to get older, to wriggle out of their Gran Carol's grasp and go running down the street towards independence. But as each one got away there was a new child to take their place, and Carol rededicated her efforts to try and teach a toddler how to Mummer's strut.

Tru

Tru knew she was right every second of the day which was why she strode with her chin up looking everyone confidently in the eye. Her height was sourced mostly in her sapling legs, young striplings with a rubbery bend she glided smoothly on instead of the clockwork oscillation of joints. Tru pressed forward in all things with even determination, eroding everything in front of her persistence. Her hair was cut efficiently short to her head, she wore smart business attire, stylish shoes with severe points. Tru looked like an attorney you didn't want to get into a scrape with.

She was the youngest of four daughters with stern, Kenyan parents. She grew up with the quietest voice in a house of cross examination. Her sister's would make the preliminary volleys, haphazard and full of implication that tried to assert her guilt by association. They made statements in a common voice instead of asking questions, always using the word 'we' in place of "I," hoping Tru would hang herself in her assertions. Her mother would scatter them like pecking chicks and begin her interview in the guise of friendship. Everything her mother asked was framed in the love and guilt of parenthood, drawing information like sap from a tree, drip by drip on the edge of warming and cooling air. Finally her father would interrupt and approach his child with the head on, fear of God approach. He would feign surprise at every topic, even when Tru was sure he had heard it before, and then command "Daughter, Tell me the truth!" as a prefix to every question.

It was the crucible she was born from, argument was a pass time in her family and she expected to be raked over the coals with every decision she made. Many nights of spirited discussion ended when she learned her father had agreed with her all along, he was just evaluating the strength of her conviction. When she was released into the world she realized people that knew her talked to her differently, they loaded their statements with evidence, trying to inoculate it against the resistance she would offer. Tru smiled, her eyes beacon clear and shining.

Freddy

It wasn't enough just to have a beard because it still showed the shape of his face, where the high roundness of his cheeks tapered into the squareness of his jaw, how the lines of his mouth were drawn down, starting in the wells of his eyes, so Freddy let his beard grow shaggy in thick uneven tufts, almond hairs mixed in with the dark brown, mottled in texture like camouflage. It was Christmas time when he stopped shaving and his face looked hearty in the winter months, but by summer he was gaunt and haunted. Freddy wore his sunglasses whenever possible, even in-doors, something he detested, but the dark lenses took the character out of his eyes. His aim had become to be as featureless as the hidden side of the moon, if he could get away with it he would've worn a ten gallon hat pulled mean and low on his eyes like a cowboy movie villain, and a bandanna tied around his neck for quick and anonymous stick ups.

There was a popular song playing on the supermarket PA, the chorus of girls working the registers were dancing little hippy box steps and clapping along, singing the dramatic overtures together. They had hair like cockatoo's, the girl ringing him out was named Bevin and she pointed to the invisible music and told Freddy "She used to come in here. She babysat my friend's sister!" She was talking about Jenny Bauer, a local girl that had moved to LA and hit. Before she was famous she had long, wild hair, burning red and thatched like straw. Now she wore it chopped up with a razor, severe, and shorts that made her legs impossibly long. Everyone was in love with Jenny Bauer for her clear, honest eyes and her bruised voice. As Freddy picked up his bags and pulled up his hood he heard Bevin tell her friends "Ugh, the guy she's singing about it such a creep. I'm so glad she dumps him in the song."

His phone was ringing at 1am on a weeknight, and for some reason he didn't sleep through the low buzzing. It was a number he didn't recognize, but he picked it up anyway. His room was dark, the mauve streetlamp shone across his feet but his bed was turned to keep his head in the shadows. The voice was delicate and familiar, with a naturally sardonic inflection. "Freddy?"

"Jenny?

"Sorry, it's so late. I just got off stage."

"You're doing pretty well, I heard some girls singing your song today."

"It's crazy, huh?"

"Yeah, crazy. But I always said you were talented."

"Listen, Freddy, I'm sorry you've got to keep hearing that song. I only wanted to hate you for a little while, and I'm done with it, but I've got to keep singing the song, y'know?"

Freddy opened his blinds and ruby light fell across his eyes. "It's ok, I'm happy for you." The night was nameless and empty, "You were right, I should've come out there with you."

Tiffany

Tiffany was a perfect Tiffany, she dyed her blond hair blonder and wore it wet, crimped or curled and up. She smoked Salems or Winstons and her mother told her she had stunted her growth. True enough at sixteen Tiffany had small bird bones and tiny features but her mom had smoked since she could buy looseys from the drug store and didn't have much room to talk. She was just over five feet tall and had milky skin, looking slightly malnourished but she rarely ate much. She would leave the table early and sit on the wooden porch swing smoking menthols, texting her friends about their boyfriends, texting Dom.

Dom always wanted to go down by the lock, back through the tunnels of buzzing bushes and low hanging leaves whose saw teeth caught her hair, like a spider teasing out a single strand of silk. They used to go for a walk around the park, or to buy a Mexican coke at the little bodega and drink it out on the bridge, but once she agreed to go down by the canal that was the only place he brought up. He was a senior and he had a car, both pluses. Her friend dated his friend and had set them up, and Tiffany liked piling in the car and going to the mall or the ball field where they would smoke a joint if no games were going on. She could talk to the other girls while the guys threw the ball around in big cottony arcs.

The broken asphalt turned off of the main road and ran along the still water of the canal, alternate smells of mildew or laundry soap. The leaves sat on the surface like a carpet, sometimes so thick it looked like quicksand from a fairytale, if she tried to step on it and sink to her waist Dom would have to save her with his heavy arms. Over the concrete bridge where the water break rushed below and then down the steep and narrow steps, slick with flower petals like the treacherous footfalls of a princess bride. Thick and wild greenery lined either side of the long stone jetty, Tiffany wasn't sure why it was there except to walk on, there was no water here to hold back, but verdant waves lapped your feet. Dom walked ahead and pulled Tiffany by her doll hand, passing over empty cups and condoms, graffiti faces and names spray painted on crosses. At the end she glimpsed the gray and rushing river through the hole in the trees that opened onto a little gravel beach.

They sat on a cold blanket and he started nuzzling her neck. She shrugged him off but he persisted. "I don't feel like it right now."

Dom puffed his chest and threw his arms up in the air, "Jesus Christ, what now?"

"I just don't feel like it, it's gross here." She smacked mosquitoes away from her white legs, they were drawn to the apple vinegar smell of her hairspray.

"You always have an excuse, just relax." He started kissing her again.

Tiffany thought she heard someone on the path behind them put Dom pulled her face back in. She kissed him with her eyes open, looking out onto the water. An emerald headed mallard and his mate were bobbing in a whirlpool like bars of soap. They cleaned themselves with their flat bills, ruffling their feathers then meticulously smoothing them down. His marble eye caught sight of Tiffany and Dom, and as he spun on the water he turned his head to keep the couple in his field of vision. Tiffany watched him, his jade head catching the setting sun The duck quacked once to his companion and she looked too. Dom put his hand under her bra strap, the two birds revolved in the backwater not taking their eyes off the scene.

"Dom, Dom, stop." She tapped his shoulder until he pulled his head away, she knew she could always speak to him in the language of mixed marshal arts.

"What is it?" he said, now completely irritated and doubting where the night would end up.

"Those ducks are watching us."

Josh

I forgot that I used to want to be an improv comic until I heard someone talking about the classes they were taking. It reminded me I wanted to be a priest when I was in kindergarten, and then a movie critic. I was going to move to Alaska and be an astronomer, where there wasn't anything to obscure your view of the stars, and I was sure I wouldn't mind the cold. There were a lot of things I wanted to be and not a lot of things I was, by the time I graduated high school my future was a blank, the hanging syllable before a stutter, and I've remained thoroughly blocked. No matter how dissatisfied I am, and I am all underachieving day, I can't articulate what to do about it.

From my desk I can see a tree, where two birds built a nest of straw and one long bit of shoelace. They hatched three chicks there, pink and wormy with tiny beaks and linty black feathers. All day long the birds feed their chicks whose spring loaded heads stretch skyward ambitiously, and after only a week they're noticeably bigger and stronger, venturing onto wobbly, optimistic legs. It's something to watch all day.

I know a little boy that wants to be a pirate, and I hope he gets to be.

Gaffe

Gaffe watched the young couple that met every night across the way from his fry truck, in the gazebo near the poplar tree. They were sneaking around, he had seen enough to know that, the way the man looked over her shoulder and how she took his hand low and hidden. Children chased balloons and parents pushed strollers, sullen teenagers loped in groups loitering free and loose on a weeknight, so happy to not be home doing homework they were pleased to do nothing at all. The weather came up an opened over the fair, a sudden downpour falling from one end of the grounds to the other like a curtain, everyone ran and the ground was instantly roiling pebbles churning steam from the summer baked tar walks. Suddenly Gaffe had nothing but time.

The gray scraggle on his face crept down his neck like moss on a rock, his beat black cap was pulled down on his eyes, and the fat drops pinged off of the steel awning of the truck. In his twenties Gaffe wandered from place to place, they called him Richie before age thinned and bent his frame. He sheered sheep and picked vegetables, painted houses and cut lawns, always gravitating towards the transient work that would keep him moving, seasonal that would keep him changing, and never anyone who would ask you what he did with his paycheck. He couldn't find anything to satisfy him so he kept trying new things. These days he worked out of York for awhile, jumped over to Gainesville, or Knoxville and everyone who saw him called "Hey, Gaffe," he wasn't young Dickie anymore. He had nothing but time and wondered if anything could satisfy him.

Noah

The fair had closed its' last day in town, and at 3 a.m. the skeletal machines lay on the ground like sleeping dragons, their bright plumage subdued and cygnet wings laid low to Earth in a deathly slumber. Will o'the wisp lights in red and green flickered in the uneven distance that sloped away from Noah, pooling roundly like the small of her back before rising up again and running on. He came back here instead of the long walk home expecting some bustle, not realizing how late it was, hoping to fight off his doubts for another night. But in this diminished state the fair was worse even than dark and empty lanes. Half broken and littering neon judgment spread before him, Noah sucked in breath and the full measure descended on him. The air was cool but humid, it clung damply to him, and an unsettling breeze stirred the fairground trash.

They had spent the night in a field beneath a migration of smoky clouds, and made love under mist in the witness of chirping crickets. All week long had been a flirtation, brewed from the discontent of her with her husband and him with himself. Their innocent sympathy grew bolder and they had carefree fun together, the balm of companionship voicelessly growing closer, ignoring the warnings of building momentum and the inappropriateness of their intimacy. When there were shards of panic and jagged doubt the sounds of the calliope were enough of a distraction, and they lied to each other that there was nothing wrong.

Without words, hand in inevitable hand, on the last raucous night of bedlam, they went off together and the instant it was over they knew they had to confront now what they had maintained there was no cause to confront in the past. Noah didn't say anything and neither did she, but there was a tremble in her hand when he let it go and she ran in the direction of her uncertain home. "Who was lying to who?" he asked himself. Was he just an act of sabotage, or did she need him more than he was worth? It was a terrible and sudden vexation he was ordained to carry over the far ocean. A low rumble of thunder rolled over the bones of the fair, Noah thought of rough sea on the side of a ship.

Jane

The bell above the door in The Artisan's Cafe gave a cheery jingle of hello as Jane let it close behind her. Dale was behind the counter and she gave a wide mascot's wave from the end of the long room. He had seen her every morning that week and she was up only slightly later on the drizzly Saturday. "Hi Jane, what'll it be today?"

Her hair hung long in a mess of curls, hiding the arms of her round tortoise shell glasses, and she wore chunky ethnic jewelry laying in the deep v neck of her simple, white knit sweater. She tilted her head all the way to one side and a curtain of spiraling tendrils climbed down her shoulder like pea shoots. "I need some caffeine today," she said, wilting limply to show how she was dragging. "I gotta get going," and she popped back upright like someone remembered to water her.

"Coffee then? Latte?" Dale didn't understand why he had to drag orders out of people but he was practiced pleasant.

Jane liked when Dale asked her questions in his easy, casual way. He didn't ask for her order in the commercial sense, Jane knew he was more asking about her day, how this first decision would set her on her way, inform her actions, reveal her expectations. "How about some tea?" She could take her time this morning and sip, she wanted the nice smooth momentum of a boat and not the bumpy dirt bike jitters she chased all week. "Do you have green tea? I want to wake up and relax at the same time." Jane had a bright, white smile and she flashed it now. Her eyes were soft brown and her skin clear, unspoiled like the air after a downpour.

"Of course we have green tea," he said thinking 'who doesn't.' He produced the carousel bending to set it down for inspection, Jane took it as a bow and giggled. She thought he had the perfect indie coffee shop persona. He obviously had eschewed a traditional career, he moved with artisinal care but obviously dismissive of authority, he served the tea at his genuine pleasure, and his soul patch was so cute. Jane had been coming in every day since she decided this, slowly insinuating a warmth in their relationship. "We have green ginger melon, green mint, lemongrass herb..."

"Do you have just regular green?" He nodded in a funny way. "I'm just plain Jane" she said, pronouncing her name like 'Jay-ane' and holding out her hands to illustrate the same, laughing again. He smiled benignly. "Is it organic?"

"Yup." He had no idea. "Milk, sugar, honey?"

"Nope," she smiled to show how easily pleased she was. "I brought my own soy."

"We have soy."

"I like my soy better." Jane was pleased with how that went. She turned to discover a small line had formed behind her.

Helmut Bangs!

"When you introduce me you will say 'Ladies and Gentlemen. Pause. Presented for your Amazement. Pause. The Fabulous. Pause. Helmut Bangs!' and you must pop Bangs, excite the audience. If you make me limp the performance will be limp, and then we all suffer, okay?" The emcee nodded but Helmut had no confidence, here was a chubby man in a tight tuxedo with a brushy little mustache, he didn't know anything about being mysterious, he couldn't thrill or intrigue. Helmut himself had hypnotic eyes garrisoned below a thick black brow that burned with the ancestral pain of Eastern Europe. He brushed his eyelashes through with mascara and claimed Egyption blood, his long hair of orangey blond tumbled mountainously beyond his shoulders in wild churning swells, he whipped it around himself creating misdirection. Bang' s came from the open collar, bare chest school of magic, leaving behind the formal maitre'd technicians but refusing to slip all the way to the alt college acts. His cuffs were French and turned up like dramatic gauntlets highlighting his powerful, practiced wrists. The magic he did had a pantherous sexuality, muscular but bendable, with sparkling lights and throbbing bass.

He wrinkled his push broom mustache, such a custodian. "Ladies and Gentlemen." Pause. "Presented for your Amazement." Pause. "The Fabulous" Pause. "Helmut Bangs!" Explosions lit the stage and Helmut appeared in a fog of tinsel. 'Pop you pig dog.' he thought throwing a lacquered glance off stage at the failed Robert Goulet. He performed The Camel Train from Agra and then Spiked Suacy Pineapple. The Visiting Stranger went off without a hitch and a slick confidence grew in Helmut, he was dripping the salty liquor of magic, he was sure the smell intoxicated the audience making them susceptible to his will. Posing with his hands framing his face he began The Cairo Lotus and helped a volunteer onto the stage. Helmut always selected beautiful leggy blonds, their slim length helped to frame the illusion and were his personal preference besides. He did some close up tricks, making a dollar bill materialize in her balled up fist, when she let it bloom from her hand to thunderous applause she saw it had a phone number written on it. Helmut game her a sly wink, then made her disappear.

Backstage Helmut blotted his waxed chest with a purple silk kerchief. "Thank you so much for helping me make my illusion," he snapped his fingers and an assistant brought two glasses of Chardonnay on a small tray. Helmut took up his glass and sipped, "I trust you enjoyed yourself?"

"Yes," she said. "It was very fun, thank you." She did not touch the wine.

"Did you notice my gift?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't."

Helmut did not put down his wine but showed his empty hand front and back in a casual way, and with a pop and bunnytail tuft of smoke was holding the dollar bill with the phone number. "That is, of course, my personal cell. I hope you will call me anytime."

Her hand reached to her face with defensive embarrassment. "Oh no, I really couldn't.."

"But you must." Helmut leaned in and a rose snapped into space between his fingers. "You've been a flirt."

"No," she said with astonishment, "I didn't flirt."

"Of course you did, you did the trick, you magic flirted."

Benray

The firemen were standing around chatting and laughing in small groups, having taken off their helmets and heavy yellow coats, looking strangely off balance in their sooty, over sized pants and blue t shirts. They hung around the shade of the firetruck talking baseball, the oily water at their feet throwing off a fish scale rainbow, with Benray pacing nearby in front of the smoking hulk that was his car, hands covering his eyes in a martyr's pose and muttering loudly to himself. People were looking, they were streaming out of the Acme to find the nineteen year old kid who had just bagged their groceries with quavering water in his eyes walking around shaking his head like a Quaker, occasionally stopping stock still to punch the air and yell profanity. Usually Benray liked standing out, he had golden eyes and stilt legs, he bumped his bass up and bullshitted every girl he met, but this was embarrassing. He wished the firemen would turn off the red blinkers on top of their truck, it was like a klaxon calling the prayerful to worship at his stupidity. Benray looked at the naked guts of the engine, blackened to brittle and brimstone scorch marks licking all around the hood, he crossed his arms and stuck out a pouting lip far enough for a crow to land on. The firemen started mounting the truck and the oldest one who seemed to be in charge came over and clapped him on the shoulder. "Well son..." Benray dared him with his hardest look, knowing that no wisdom in the world would penetrate, and this man looked like his father except white. His father always wanted to share some philosophy that wasn't a bit of help and Benray just didn't want to hear it right then. The old man took his hand back in no hurry and showed a crooked smile. "Tough shit, kid."

For 17 years and 364 days his father had been reminding him that he wasn't an adult yet, and that he would respect the rules of his house, so on his 18th birthday Benray moved out. He borrowed some money from a friend and bought the car, a 1987 BMW M3, which was five years older than he was and had a blowing exhaust that sounded like a lawn mower running over a golf ball. Benray admired the stubbornness of the car, which always almost refused to kick over, he loved the aggressive stance and the stout wing at the back. It was cherry red, a color that broke his heart to see blistered with ugly welts. He gripped his cell phone like he was going to throw it, he thought about calling his father but he couldn't stand another lesson right now. His half brother worked on cars, he would know what to do.

"Maxroy? It's Benny."

"Bee. What's up man? You talked to Pop?" His older brother was always trying to put Benray and their father in touch.

"My car burnt up."

"What?"

"My car. Burnt. Up."

"What happened?"

Benray shook his phone like he was throttling his brother's neck, he was sure he was being willfully difficult not instantly understanding the pain this had caused. "I drove to work this morning and it smelled kinda funny, but it always does something funny, but it wasn't leakin' anything new underneath. Little later some blue hair comes into the store says she called 911 'cus some flashy car is on fire outside."

"It was your car?" Benray's hand tensed into a talon so sharp he cut his ear. "What do you need?"

"What can I do?"

"About what?"

"What d'you think, man! What can I do about my car, do you think you can fix it?"

"Benny, it burnt up."

"I know that, I seen it, everyone just loves to keep telling me my damn car burnt up, I dont need another person tellin' me that Maxroy. I need someone to tell me what I can do."

"It already caught fire, everything you could do is done, more than done, five steps after done. Like you're in results time, man. The car burnt up, that's the last thing that happens to a car. No one says 'my car was on fire last week but it's running pretty good now.' Just let it go."

He was crushed. "You don't understand."

"I understand you bought a 20 some year old car with a few hundred thousand miles on it and drove it around like it was new. C'mon, you cant be losin' that much money on it."

"I still owe money on it."

"Shit, don't tell dad that."

"You don't tell dad."

"I don't tell dad everything about you. You think that just because I'm grown up and moved out and not you that I don't occasionally get my ass chewed out by proxy for some shit you pull? Why do you think I'm always tellin' you to call him, so you can get at least a little of what's due before he tires himself out yelling at me. Call him, he'll feel sorry for you, the old man loves cars."

"He'll just tell me he was right."

"Jesus Christ, Benray, Wasn't he?"

Tom

Tom was basically a good guy, but when he saw an attractive girl on the street he had to fight off the urge to lean out of his car window and yelp "Owww!" in a crescent shaped howl. He was perfectly aware it wasn't appropriate, or ever well received, and Tom wasn't even sexist, but still he didn't quite understand why. He didn't mean it as objectification or embarrassment, he didn't expect the girl to come running just because he showed interest, after all Tom believed that every girl that falls for a guy who demonstrates no value in a movie was seriously misogynistic. He was willing to prove himself, to get to know her and to admit when his snap judgment was wrong and the content of her character wasn't nearly attractive enough to warrant his superficial hooting. Tom wasn't confined to traditionally pretty women, he wanted to catcall the big noses and long faces, hippy girls and punk girls, girls he was pretty sure were lesbians.

"Birds did it!" he would argue and he envied their crystal clear intentions written in plumage and whistles. Tom yearned for a concise bypass to the fumbling nonsense that had to start these relationships. Wasn't it more adult, more respectful to just declare his interest? It didn't make him some uncontrollable maniac girls had to fear, all of his shirts had their sleeves, he was civilized. It was warm spring in the city, all the girls were in sandals and long skirts. One of them stepped out in front of him, walking up the sidewalk just a few paces ahead, wearing a hemp necklace and fine blond dreadlocks pulled into pom poms on either side of her head, and it took every ounce of restraint for Tom not to go "psst psst psst hey baby."

Paul

It was windless and early, the papery film of pollen lay undisturbed on everything, a mild scum on the sidewalk and a thick line gathered by dry windshield wipers, like a powdery green worm ready to sun itself. Paul's eyes were always a simmering red, no discernible bloodshot but a seeping diffusion which tinted the whites an ugly brown/maroon. He walked with a rustle, shaking the morning form his legs, because his pockets were filled with notes. Reaching in for them he would extract his hand covered in yellow post-its and blue stickies, scraps of notebook paper and envelopes, like a bear assaulting a beehive and regarding his furry paw plastered with tasty honey and angry bees. Paul's mitt was just as indistinguishable, the useful information mixed in with the obsolete and irrelevant. His notes were directions, suggestions, reminders, congratulations, coupons, receipts, follow-ups, phone numbers and doodles. They had no uniformity, one side a list of bands to download and the other the time of his dentist appointment, and by the time he used them they needed excavation, rescue from his impenetrable hand writing, esoteric contexts and general degradation in the recesses of his pants. The paper rubbed shiny and the pen faded like an old tattoo, Paul would have to put his nose nearly to the paper like a Medieval monk copying the scripture by candle light, people would laugh and tell him he was going to ruin his eyes.

On the steering wheel of his car was a yellow tab with "reports" written in pen, reminding him to pull his monthly performance numbers when he got to the office. He flicked it with a satisfying "swack" and the paper corkscrewed to the floor mat, turning quickly like a helicoptering leaf before joining the trampled and forgotten reminders in a litter collage that could've been wheat pasted to a city wall.

Paul had free time in the afternoon when he had closed the book on one month but not yet opened it for another. He was purging the foliage of sticky notes that canopied his desk and turned his monitor into a strutting turkey. Frank came in to bullshit for awhile, Paul put his feet up, feigning a big shot to make Frank laugh. "Reports," Frank said, pointing at the bottom of Paul's shoe. "Haven't pulled mine yet, but I see your "shoeberry" reminded you." He laughed again on his way out, the door clicking softly behind him.

On the bottom of Paul's shoe was the note he flicked from his steering wheel that morning. "Isn't that strange," he thought. He was always picking up notes like ticks, tracking them around stickier than mud, but this one had persisted nearly eight hours stowaway, up and down stairs, hallways, lunchrooms, men's rooms. His itchy eyes flared with superstition. Secretly Paul thought of his horde as a kind of universal rolodex, the undeniable physicality of the notes proving more valuable and permenant than anything electronic. It was an analog solution but his first instinct when confronted with an issue was to sift through his papers to find the evidence that anchored him to the problem. Paul refused to be taken to task through some machine's ghost's mischief, without a note he was happy to believe in an alternate reality or doppleganger. He peeled it off his shoe and looked at it, "reports" had no meaning beyond "reports," he was sure of it. Paul turned to throw the trash out but something tugged the strings of hesitation, the note had hunted him ominously all day and to just throw it out flew in the face of his system. Every other note had stayed in his car, why had this one not?

He stuck the post-it to his desk and leaned in to stare at it, but he couldn't make it mean anything. Suddenly struck with how silly he was being he bolted back, peeled the note off of his desk and turned it over, slapping his hand on top with a great bang like the closing of a cell door, locking the sudden stupidity away. He shook his head blushing slightly, took his hand off the desk to rub his bald pate. The color drained out of his face and he looked down and the square, written on the back, older than the pen on the other side, undeniably in his scratchy hand and subtly slipping away to time, was the word "Judgment." He took a trembling breath, the air conditioning turned on in the office and an Autumn of notes sprinkled down all around him, like the thick descending morning pollen.

Anne Way

Weeknight tension built as the window lights clicked off, one by one, like the houses were shutting their eyes to sleep in the docile dark, peaceful and blank until roused by the rising sun. Anne sat inside, with nowhere to go tomorrow, but the school night panic was something she never outgrew. The small hours were vile with accusation, unemployed and kept, retired at 32. There was too much empty time in the day to fill and she spent much of it doing whatever she wanted, leisure had become devalued with nothing in contrast. When everyone was in their bed Anne was poisoned with boredom, there were no errands to run or friends to visit, she couldn't stand video games and she could only half watch a movie she wasn't interested in. The center of the teeter totter was around 2am, if she could fall asleep before that she would land on the right side, but later and she would have to pour a drink. She never had just one, and before long the sun was rising and she was wondering when blame would find her.

Her father had money and no scruples, in exchange for his indiscretion her mother only demanded indulgence, a privilege extended to her children. Anne earned a 6 year BA and worked part time at places with no dress code, taking annual vacations and frequent leaves. She ran in the morning, the sleepy gray halflight suiting the desolate paths. Later, in the full afternoon, the lack of people was eerie. From the mid morning she would buy groceries, bank, shop, or oversee workmen on small household projects. She felt like he was sneaking around but anyone might mistake her for a woman on a day off, or a regular housewife.

Anne was a born boxer with a long reach and strong, skinny legs. She bobbed her head in and out, the grace that never manifested in dance or gymnastics bloomed in the ring. She trained at a VFW gym with a program run by a retired ex pro who never got a shot. He saw her five days a week and invited her to assist his youth classes. The kids took her seriously, responding to her instruction and following her routines. They were disappointed on days she couldn't come, and she missed them too. She learned to work a corner, and drove her students to PAL youth boxing nights, bursting with pride when they did well and offering firm and unpatronizing support when they didn't. Anne got her CPR certification and started looking into personal training. Some nights she put together DVDs of fights for her kids, some nights she filled her flask and went looking for a place to hide out.

Maggie

In eleven years of life Maggie had never conceded the last word. Her father's people were lanky Northern rangers, but she was built of her mother's stock, pigeon bodied and squatly proportioned, potent and inexhaustible. She carried on their Mediterranean tradition of speaking very quickly and all at once, like taking a conversation in turn was wasting time, cultivating the talent of reconstructing the torrent, mentally breaking down the Tower of Babel brick by brick. She was the youngest on her bough of the family tree, she would remain the shortest person at every holiday until she had nieces and nephews. Maggie compensated for her stature by increasing her volume, a tried and true method of her lippy Italian ancestors.

Maggie was exaggeration. She stuck her hip into every expression, her mouth a corkscrew at the end of every sentence. There were no pauses, spaces or pacing to her thoughts, each sentence began with a deep breath and she would not surface for another until she sputtered out. To Maggie being quiet was withholding her sparkle, and generally reserved for punishment, crossed arms and the iron grip of her eyes holding you in an easily forgivable contempt. She couldn't manage to be mad at anyone for long, and she demanded large hugs from her father and uncles, the contrasting sizes dwarfing her and speaking to her extremity.

On parent-teacher conference day Maggie's mom went to the school and met her beleaguered young teacher. Nothing had prepared him for the unwavering intensity of the tiny girl. "Maggie is a fine girl," he said looking down at his grade book, "but not without issues. I have a list of things I'd like to discuss about her."

Her mother reached into her shoulder bag and removed a sheet of paper. "Good," she said putting on her reading glasses. "Maggie's given me a list of things she'd like you to work on, too." The teacher gave pause, his mouth hanging open for a second. "I'll go first."

It was late and the family had already eaten, Maggie had the captive audience of her father and sister without the verbal competition that only her mother could give. She looked in on her husband, sleepy on the couch, and her quiet daughter reading by a soft light. She found Maggie in her room, texting with friends and having 7 other conversations on facebook. Maggie turned and smiled at her mother, the full bowls of her cheeks generous and warm, like a mischievous cartoon monkey. No words passed between the two women.

Edward Dray

The antiques were spotless, oiled and free of dust, tastefully arranged to give context to Edward Dray, an elderly man who in youth had fragile blue eyes and unshatterable features, who tried to break them like crashing waves on adventurous rocks, and became more fair for the chips and crags experience left on his face. His voice was refined and understated, each word carefully measured and enunciated in rich, dry tones. He could speak to the personal history of every item in his shop, many of them gathered on his own travels. He explained the manufacture and lineage but also colored them with the personalities of the men who sold them, the complexion of the townsfolk, the smells of the food. Each item he sold was a page from the diary of his life, ripened to the same dusky patina as him by the dust of the road and the eternal sun.

Dray would not retire but he would enjoy opulence and indulge the taste he had cultivated in his long life. His typical around town outfit was a tan suede jacket and brown suede vest, his riding pants tucked into tall leather boots. A gold watch chain taking gleaming brilliant peaks in time with his stride. He often carried an ivory handled mahogany walking stick, with which he gestured instructively. Edward only dealt what he would own himself, but particular pieces spoke to him, spent some time in the shop, and then migrated into his personal collection. He drove a 1928 Mercedes Benz SSK, regally long and unapologetically sleek, never looking out of place in it, the car wrapped around him like a bubble of anachronism, a mobile explanation for Edward Dray.

He traveled to Mexico in 1947 before Kerouac, they called him El Guapo.

Khaela

On the dawning of the irresponsible spring, the weeks of school dwindling closer to a small few, and the bright afternoons giving over from gentle warmth to lazy heat, Khaela felt the pins and needles of confused anticipation. She tapped her pencil on her desk staring at the clock, the steady and intolerable slowness of the second hand's sweeping revolutions, the pizzicato insistent of her eraser challenging the minute, illustrating the eternity between 60 wide seconds to her restless legs and unquiet thoughts. With the windows open she could taste the sweet breath of gladiolas.

Flower beds were the common ground that Khaela and her mother met on, the conciliatory art that she would learn to give her mother the satisfaction of molding her only seedling who was otherwise so stony and rigid. Khaela had long legs and a lean frame, but she wouldn't run track or play volleyball like her mother wanted. She rode a BMX bike for hours, straight legged in skinny jeans with a flat brimmed Volcom hat. Her mother complained that her daughter looked like a boy, dressed like a boy, played like a boy and only hung around boys, but Khaela was happy when her body only developed to a hidable degree, and the boy's world she enjoyed didn't ostracize her for the evidence of her gender. But Khaela felt like she owed her poor mother something, who collected dolls even as an adult, so she learned gardening. She felt earthy and nurturing with her plants, she could discuss them with her mother who was patient, indulging mistakes and experiments. It improved their relationship to the point that when Khaela cut off all of her auburn hair her mother decided she looked 'like an adorable pixie.'

Khaela was a student of the weather, constantly checking maps on her iphone for green blotches of clouds or the dropping of barometric pressure. Her plants were at the mercy of the weather, she worried about the arid blazing of the sun too early or the pregnant clouds too late. And on the nice days she would meet Ariel outside of her last class, and they would walk home together. Ariel had skin the rich chocolate toast of espresso, she wore strapless black party dresses with pink polka dots to school, and had a high cascade of ocher hair raining down on her perfect, bare shoulder. Khaela was enamored with Ariel in a way she understood but wasn't ready to admit. They didn't know how to talk to each other in the morning, their exchanges were stiff and business like. They waved at each other in the hallways, sometimes Ariel would slug Khaela in the arm as she passed. But as school let out and the tension of captivity unwound the afternoon became too chaotic to care, self consciousness melted away, and they could talk. Khaela hated the sour weather when Ariel would dart off like a fawn, and some days she was torn between the wilting of her plants and the tremor in her heart.

They lingered by a flower stand, mother's day was approaching and Ariel wanted to buy a gift. Khaela explained how much light and water each plant liked, like they were sullen cats and eager dogs. Ariel chose a pot of tulips, their happy yellow heads a metronome to the charming bounce in her walk. They went into the drug store and collaborated on a box of chocolates, debating on the merits of each while the druggist rolled her eyes at the two giggling girls. They headed home and in the shady block of handsome brick houses their hands brushed, the delicate excuse me of fingers, a sharp whisper of a touch. Khaela matched her stride to Ariel's and they laughed, Ariel took Khaela's hand, lacing their fingers, swinging easily and unmentioned between them. They walked like that for another block and then their paths split. Khaela stayed on the lonely corner for awhile, sitting on the stoop of a laundromat waiting for the hyperactive zinging she felt to mellow. "Just two blocks," she thought. That was all it took to take all the firmness out of the ground and leave her so rattled, the eternity of 60 wide seconds washing Khaela out into its' mighty sea.

Wally

Wally sang loudly in the listless traffic, slapping his meaty forearm on the door of his car, with the windows down in the sparkling spring air. No one liked traffic, or construction, but the sound of jack hammers was infrequent and the lively breeze scrubbed the exhaust from the blue sky. Wally found it easy to enjoy himself, to take it easy and relax, and even though impotent frustration was written on the faces of his neighbors, he was taking the stranded drifting of cars for himself.

He was bald with white and gray hair swirled in a fringe. His belly stood prominently in front of him, threatening to dip out of the bottom of his t shirts. Wally always wore khaki shorts with a dirty seat, and wide, broken down shoes. He bopped when he walked, a happy rhythm to his life. His hands were calloused and his hairy arms ready to scoop up oily parts and bags of dirt, his back ready to bend to shovel good, honest earth. When he was young he found he was happier to let jobs and people drift in and out of his life at their own pace.

Today Wally was working on his buddy's company car. His favorite Creedence song came on the radio and he turned it up, beating metal in time, carrying an embarrassingly toneless tune. He looked over and crooned to the woman in the next car, his small childlike eyes winking flirtatiously. She was horrified, stuck in traffic next to a hearse driven by a bum cheerily serenading the whole street, singing the wrong words, "Down on the corner...."

Jennifer

Jennifer was in the car behind me, and I watched her in my rear view mirror. She was a sales person and had a fizzing feminine laugh which she readily used while grabbing your arm. Her hair was whipped cream blond, her eyes wide, and her makeup made bold expressions of her face. She was always a little over dressed, the stiffness of her suits countermanding the looseness of her demeanor. Jennifer was supremely personable, her heels clicked happily like fingers snapping the beat to an uptempo song.

Jennifer spent lots of time on the road, in hotel rooms and rented cars. When she got home she could smell sanitizer in her clothes and on her hands. She shared an apartment with her brother, a web designer who had come to Kansas City from their native Florida where the rest of their family still lived. She was happy to have a room mate so she could come home to a lived in space, warm with body heat and cooking smells. Without him she would have to give up her dog, a golden retriever named Annie, who she always gave a shaggy hug to as soon as she came in the door, no matter the time of day or night, despite the hair it left on her jackets.

I saw her mouth turn down below tired eyes. At stop lights she looked dreamily into the sky. She was 36 and turned down sweets, was devoted to the gym for the consequences she feared as a woman in sales slipping away from youth and into something else. She thought she'd have a husband and a child by now, but she spent so much time on the road it was hard. Every week she was in a new place, sunnily selling things to strangers, leaving town without getting to know them. The better she did the more calls they sent her on, she wasn't really sure what she was working for anymore. Jennifer's face was gray and drained behind the smoky glass and I wondered how it looked in the empty hotel room, or the dark apartment before her dog came bounding to lick her face. She opened her window and a screen of light dawned on her face, the yellow hair took color again and she smiled a winning smile.

Quint

Emily Quint started a punk band with two girls she went to high school with and called herself Em Quint. She had the perfect smeared eyes and bloody mouth, and when she played guitar she hunched over and stuck out her chin, like she was trying to suck it into herself. When she was 17 she had a body everyone paid attention to, and it helped her band win the local slot on the nearest stop of the Warped Tour. She met Stretch there, hanging out backstage trying to steal a beer, but she knew exactly who he was already, everyone did.

She lied about her age at first and he took her back to LA, he had her change her name to M. Quint. Her band mates were invited but they waved her off, they had lives to complete and colleges to go to. M. Quint dropped out and when she turned 18 they married. Stretch had a label and he hired his friends to back her up. He told her to lower her register and gruff up her voice, he started writing her songs. When she played out people didn't take her seriously, they snickered and talked about how she was mimicking Stretch. They said he probably tuned her guitar for her.

By 27 Quint's first marriage was over. Stretch was the same man she met when she was 17 and it had become the bored strumming of the same open chord. She didn't get along with the friends he installed as her band, and she was frustrated with the label he wouldn't let her leave. He had announced her as the opener for his next tour without asking, he liked to keep her close, and she had booked a string of her own clubs. It was the last fight, she had all of her stuff moved out of the house by his first date on the road.

Quint was shocked at how few musical contacts she had that weren't connected to Stretch. She started playing solo again, like the days before she was 17 and taught those girls bass and drums. Her style had become spare and haunting, and she was noticed by the singer of an up in coming indie rock act. They started collaborating, he loved the bruised memories of her songs. They made a record together, then became an item. People scoffed, they thought she was such a man eater, and she could only leach her personality from her boyfriends.

Tyler

Tyler felt ill equipped for the task set before him, he was wearing a tented, sleeveless shirt that was already sticking to his back with sweat, basketball shorts and his squat, fat low tops. The itch of the long grass was already crawling up his legs like a creeping vine, midges of pollen nested in his ears and frizzed his lank hair. When he turned 14 yard work became his domain, a responsibility he found as hideous as a gorgon. He fought his mother fiercely and bravely, dragging his heels with divine levels of procrastination. When her face was as red as it was going to get and Tyler was finally ready to concede, the deluge began. A steady April rain began falling, with brief but balmy respite before carrying on merrily again all the way to May. When the strong sun ran ashore on the beach of spring the yard had grown thick and wild, lurking with buzzing things and furry creatures like a miniature Madagascar.

The lawn mower could not surmount those odds and his mother pointed her wicked finger at the hateful, spitting weed whacker. Tyler would go out and look at the yard with a hand on his hips, then go back to the garage and arrange his tools, his water bottle, before returning to the veld to remind himself. He fuddled with his ipod, finding the exact throbbing motivation that could set his stone rolling down hill, praying that the gods of momentum would place him firmly on their backs, and fly him mercifully through his efforts. When his song was right he set to work on his shoes, scrubbing the dew and dirt from them, fretting over the ecto green stains he would sure pick up juicing an acre of wheat grass like Jack Lelane's forgotten bastard.

Tyler took one last look at the house where his mother drew the curtain across the bay window, satisfied that her indolent son was now cornered and the only way out was through a pile of fresh cut. He cranked the rip chord and the weed whacker coughed a metallic, gasoline twang. He began chipping away, laboring like Hercules in the stables. His whole body lit up in a histamine crackle, and bits of snapping weed stung his bare shins. He wheezed and sweated the long afternoon away and glacially migrated across the yard. He looked at the parabolic shorn patch in his wake and to the rising tide of foliage before him, discouragingly deciding by the time he reached one end the other would have magically regenerated. In that moment he decided he had explicit knowledge of Sisyphus, not intellectually because he had never heard of him, but certainly in spirit.

Mary

Whenever one of her grandsons started dating a new girl Mary would sigh "I hope he doesn't take it too hard when it ends." And when her neighbor bragged that his daughter had been invited to study art in France she said "That will be nice if she can turn it into something." Her watery eyes drooped and her lips pursed, Mary had the perennial look of a graveside mourner. She wore clip on pearls in her dangling ears, she had never gotten them pierced, and her hair was done up in a sandy bun. Every joint in her hand was swollen with arthritis, and the last knuckles on her fingers were permanently crooked, she used them like a schoolmaster's wooden pointer. Mary always shook her head, frowned, and shrugged, and the young people would roll their eyes and laugh to each other "You know how grandma is."

She was a little Polish girl, with thick curly hair, in a pretty dress her matka had sewn with bone needles. Mary loved to sit on the sunny porch with her sisters, the licorice smell of basil perfuming the yard, and tin cans tied to strings to ward animals away from the bed of vegetables. Across the way was an old bent strega sitting in her wooden rocking chair, always in black lace. One by one Mary's sisters would go into the house, complaining of the hot sun and the summer doldrums, and when Mary was alone the old woman would wave her withered hand, and beckon Mary to her knee. "Parla?" she asked and Mary shook her curls. "I see you help your mother," her Italian accent was dripping, "that's very good. I think she could not string all her beans without you." The old woman dotted the sentence by touching Mary's nose. "My sons wont do the women's work, I always wanted a daughter to be my friend. Let's have an ice cream," she clapped her ancient, papery hands softly once, and Mary grinned. She went into the house for a moment and returned to stand next to Mary on the walk, a large black bag under her arm and a hat with a scrap of black veil. A hulking black Mercury pulled up and Mary recognized one of her three sons, who were all bald and wore undershirts, and never seemed to work. Merrily the two women continued their friendship for the breadth of the summer.

Mary had a sister she never knew, the only of her siblings born in Poland, taken by influenza when mother and father had newly arrived in this country. They had never had pictures made, so Mary's image of her ghostly older sister was a delicately knitted baby blanket. Mary left school during the depression to help work, picking up small jobs where she could until the WPA was launched. She rode the back of a pie truck and handed out lunches to the men working the roads, more than likely feeding the teenage boy who would grow up to be her husband. Her only brother was killed in the war, it would be the only time anyone in her family had ever been back to Poland. She married and worked in a factory, her wedding ring keeping the lecherous bosses at bay, but she still earned a swat every now and then, and was dismissed without warning from several jobs. The other girls had it rougher though, the girls that still had accents and didn't have husbands who might come to work with a length of pipe or a pistol. And after her children grew and left to have children of their own she fought off four cancers and a bypass between her husband and her, and then he finally retired.

The old lady took a lick of her ice cream cone and made a sign with her hand, twisted like the roots of a tree, and kissed Mary's forehead with it. "The moloik is everywhere, little girl. You'll see nonna is right one day." Mary's mother had been cross that the mob woman across the street had adopted her pretty daughter. It would come to an end, she swore, but today Mary could sneak out. "The nicest thing you can do for someone you love is worry for them, and maybe you keep the evil eye from seeing them. It will see you instead." Mary didn't understand what the old lady meant. It was the last days of August and the old lady would not see October, the evening sun was a marathon of orange and the grass like gold thread in the field before them, the buzzing of insects lulling into the cooling dark. Mary squeezed the old lady's leathery hand. "It's okay ragazza, things are hard for old people, but you're still young."