Tina

Tina sucked long, light cigarettes in the claustrophobic cabin of her metallic blue, mid eighties Chevy with the heat on no matter what season it was. The upholstery was powder blue fabric, cheap and tinseled with clear plastic filaments like industrial high traffic carpet, and burned through in craters rimmed with melted crusty edges by her careless cherry, showing yellowing foam underneath like a unblinking, jaundiced eye. The car interior seethed nicotine flavor with tinges of exhaust from the climate control and decaying polymer.

Tina was always on the lookout for bumper stickers. If she saw one she liked she would try and find it for her own car, or at the very least repost it on facebook, offering it up as a mantra, wisdom on loan. She wasn’t interested in espousing religion or politics which she felt insisted themselves to any sane person, she chose stickers that made a more social criticism of the idiots in the world around her, or a general gripe. “Shut up, I have Kids.” “Learn to Drive or Get Out of the Way.” “Get Off My Ass.” And “You Should Be Ashamed.” The bumper sticker was a great way to express herself, Tina thought. It was a wonderful packet, vaguely hard to challenge and nebulously meaningful. Tina wasn’t comfortable with specifics or allowances. The bumper sticker left no room for the snakes to wriggle out from under the thumb of judgment, with their confusing rationalizations. You could hardly tell what was real and what was a lie, all the more reason for Tina to cut their fancy talking off at the knees.

Teenage celebrities were on drugs and having psychotic breakdowns, and Tina related how she and her cousins were also out of control on drugs when they were teenagers, but they could never afford enough drugs to cause a psychotic breakdown, therefore they were better. She said “The weather better not be so crumby next weekend, or at least gas prices better come down,” as if the two were related. The smell of cigarettes clung to her breath, her clothes, her bottle blond hair like the memory of a suffocatingly hot blanket. She updated her facebook status to “Its better to wear a jacket than carry it,” and went about her day.

Anthony

The Eighth Grade did not feel different enough for Anthony. He had grown into the boots of his puberty The timid movement of his emerging body became a confident gait. His screaming limbs lengthened, springy like green wood until they found the strength of bone, replacing the aimless new energy with the notion of capability. Anthony recognized the precipice he had arrived at, and was ready to go beyond it. The price of this awareness was the juvenile world that caged him. Like Tantalus, the fruit of maturity hung low, and when he reached out to take it's privilege it was snatched away.

Being in Eighth was like being the seniors of middle school. To Anthony and all of his friends this suggested elder statesmanship, utter familiarity and contempt for the mysteries of this place. But it became swiftly apparent that there was no extra latitude in this world, no hidden place for them to mold to their own purpose. They existed in the dominion of their elders for another year, and even worse none of his friends exhibited the same balmless itching Anthony could not quiet.

Anthony rode his bike in the pumpkin afternoon down deserted Sunday streets. When he came to a hill he'd extend his quickbeam legs and broaden his chest, bombing down the incline at dangerous speeds. The young wind sharpened Anthony's persistently articulating desires for girls, ambition, and travel. The faster he moved the more the impediments burned away, leaving the raw lust for achievement he felt at the core of himself. As his road flattened out he felt the entropy return, eroding his vital powers. Anthony stood on a wooden footbridge over a swollen brook, and commiserated with the restless sound of wet rocks rushing underneath.

The bus arrived in the quiet of early afternoon. His friends talked about the cars they were two years away from owning, and all the places they would go once they got them. They began to drift home but Anthony held them to the spot, the bus stop, the one small patch of land they recognized as their own. They stood with their feet far apart, taking up more space than was necessary, surveying the land they would one day lay claim, and discussing their plans.

Abigail

Abigail had selected the princess dress. It was freshly white with charming little flower buds, inspired by antique wallpaper prints, and complimented the tooled flowers on her short waisted sweater. The simplicity of the top built into an elaborate bottom, as if all of the whimsy of the dress had rolled downhill. It ballooned out from her hips like a petticoat, with textures of ruffle and lace, dotted with large yarn flowers in deep reds. The billowing garment stopped abruptly at the knee, like she had been topiarily pruned to be Alice sitting on top of a giant mushroom with the Caterpillar. The dress resembled a wedding cake in shape and design, and Abigail chose it because it reminded her of the tutu she refused to take off as a little girl, which would put her at ease for her appearance on Jeopardy.

She was worried it would all go to pieces when she first laid eyes on Alex Trebek. While filling out paperwork in a make shift corral of folding tables she saw a nest of producers and show runners begin to simmer, her throat tightened and she was sure the man had just come in. She gripped the edge of the table ready for her anxiety to explode when a production assistant cheerily plopped down and began Abigail's pre show interview. The PA's cheeks were ripe and high, her smile impossibly huge and whitened. "So, do you have any hobbies?"

Abigail had always wondered what her fact would be in the mid first round interview with Alex. You had so little time and if your story was going too long Alex was a master at politely cutting you off and moving on. But Abigail felt if her facts were too simple a nation of intellectuals would be judging her. She would be recognized at the farmer's market, and the book swap, and young people in rough organic clothing would look at her and think "It's the uninteresting poser girl that lost on Jeopardy on totally easy questions."

"Uh, I knit, and I like to bake. But I'd really prefer not to talk about that."

The PA had an uncanny ability to turn her brow down in displeasure, but keep the same smile plastered on her face. It was unsettling to Abigail. "Why not?"

"Well," Abigail fidgeted in her seat. "It's a little hipstery, isn't it? I mean, everyone started knitting. That's ok. I didn't invent knitting, I didn't even get into it until a knitting shop opened in my neighborhood so I guess I'm late to it. But I really love to do it, and I'm really good at it. And I cant show Alex something I've knitted to prove that I really am talented so I'd really rather just not mention it."

"It's okay, we find something for everyone to say. What do you bake?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Is it cupcakes?" The PA now had an air of confidentiality.

"Oh God!" Abigail was scandalized. "You cant say I bake cupcakes, it's such a cliche. I might as well tell a funny story about riding my fixie around Williamsburg."

"You ride a fixie?"

"No," Abigail said sadly. "I have a prewar 3 speed with giant fenders and a latticed dress guard and a giant grocery basket."

"Oh that's so much worse." The PA looked shamefully down at her notepad.

"His name is Phineas Pedalbuggy," she said sadly.

The PA tapped her pen on her notepad, then looked up cheerily. "You're married. Something funny always happens at the wedding, was there anything unusual about yours?"

Abigail had planned a tasteful and sedate wedding. There was a lone incursion of oddity. "I wore blue Chuck Taylor high tops during the ceremony. It is kindof a funny story why."

The PA grabbed Abigail's hands. "Okay! That's what we'll use. What happened?"

Abigail shook her head. "It's a very long and involved story."

The PA slumped. "Look, we have to use something. I'm writing "blue sneakers wedding" on this card and handing it to Alex. I'll leave it up to you what you tell him." She got up in a huff and went to the next contestant who looked like he surely had a whole championship run worth of concise and impeccable factoids.

Across the room the bustle began to thin out, and as the group parted there was Alex shuffling index cards. He was in his street clothes and he had a tan line from his sunglasses. He was shorter than she expected. He walked with a little hobble in his step. She waved when he looked up, and Alex waved back and went off to his dressing room to put on the sharp suit she was expecting to see, and the makeup she had never realized he wore. Abigail was soothed to realize she had believed wholly in the total inauthenticity of Alex Trebek for all these years. There may be hope for her yet.

Morton

They’re over there discussing whose going to come get me and wheel me to the day room,” Morton thought to himself, watching the aides clustered in their nurses scrubs from his room at the retirement home. He knew they divvied up the patients, making deals with each other, using the levels of attention needed as currency. For example, Morton had to be wheeled around but often put up a fuss, which was worth one completely mobile ward plus a small chore. He was glad he hadn’t declined to the level where his charge was a whole day’s dues, so dependent on assistance he would be a breathing penalty box to these young people. But still he remembered being new and robust, when they wouldn’t even follow him down the hall to make sure he arrived at his destination. Those days were gone and with the failing of his body Morton knew they all suspected his mind must be thick with choking weeds, too. Those days were gone and he was worried.

It was the young white kid with the pants down his ass. Morton always hoped for the Puerto Rican girl because sometimes she pressed up against him while leaning over, possibly on purpose. Morton had tried to surprise her one day by speaking Spanish, but she didn’t know it. The kid helped Morton into the chair and the routine began, “You don’t need to wheel me young man, I can walk just fine.”

“No Sir, No Sir.” He was thickly built with a Mediterranean complexion. Everywhere he was covered with his nearly black hair it had a messy fringe, his eyebrows looked like caterpillars that were tracking dirty footprints above his eyes. His clothes were baggy and posture slumped. By contrast Morton was always groomed and dressed neatly, in the business casual way that had once been as informal as a man would dress in public. He rose early and showered, wrote letters or read in his room until they came for him. Routine was coming to dominate Morton’s life and he was resigned to never being surprised again.

After the charade of trying to assert his independence Morton settled in and allowed himself to be taken. He, too, was doubting his ability to get around on his own and he knew none of them had time to walk with him. It only made him realize how glacial he moved. They were always in a hurry and he had been the exact same way. Morton had stood around with other young men, each taking a serving of the day’s tasks, and he was always happy to take a little extra because it meant he was a little better. He worked like that until the day he retired, and he couldn’t believe he had managed another quarter century.

“Now I’ve got a bald head and sagging skin, hands look like I’m a kid wearing his daddies gloves,” Morton thought as they came into the sun of the day room, where he would read the paper and talk with the other old men. He looked at the lurching aide and the white string hanging from the kid’s neck caught Morton’s eye. “That looks like a transistor radio. Kids aren’t messing with those again, are they?”

“No Sir, No Sir.” The kid took his ipod from his pocket and showed it to Morton, who immediately put the rubber bud into his bristly ear. The kid began to protest but Morton waved him off.

He had lost his interest in music as his hearing went, and he couldn’t quite make this out, but the voice was aggressively vital. There was an ambulatory rhythm and brassy squonks, like the sudden calls of geese migrating overhead.

“What’s this?”

The kid balled his pink baby fists. “It’s music, sir.”

“I know that! I’m not senile. What is it?”

“N.W.A, sir.”

He aimed a large ear at the kid. “Huh?”

“Rap music, sir.”

Morton ignored the kid’s loud frustration. “Could you write that down for me? I will have my grandson pick some up before he visits.”

Ramona

Ramona was short for her age, with inquisitive eyes and narrow shoulders. She always stood at attention, her chest puffed out, feet together, and rod straight posture extended through the top of her head. It was easy to imagine her in a bow tie because her frame was so slight, and neck so small. Her mouth was a narrow line, turned down, and she kept her lips together except when she was speaking. Ramona was Japanese, polite but insistent, and she was also a small cat.

Technically Ramona was Japanese American, her mother had birthed the litter shortly after the family arrived in the states, but her parents were xenophobes and paid extra attention to rear Ramona and her siblings with all the manners and tradition of Japanese cats. Even though she had never been there, she felt thoroughly native to Japan, and considered herself an expatriated kitten.

The time came for Ramona to move away from her parents, and she was adopted, shockingly, by a family of white people. Ramona was always taught to pad around the house silently, and moved on her paws with a smooth lightness. The people didn't even make an effort, they thumped around the house indiscreetly. The house smelled differently. It was very rare to smell fish or the earthy umami tones she was so familiar with, there was much more meat but they didn't like when she tried to get a close up look. Ramona would clean herself fastidiously, down to her tiny white gloved paws, and they would pick her up and get their smell all over her and she'd have to start over. She was used to a more aloof household. One day, in the kitchen, looking at one of their backs, Ramona decided to complain. It was a high and sustained cry, and they turned around to look at the fuss Ramona was making. They talked at her but didn't seem to understand. They gesticulated and finally settled into a sympathetic but oblivious attitude. Ramona realized it was hopeless, they didn't even speak Japanese, but to be fair she had never bothered to learn English. She decided a compromise could probably be reached.

Willy Lee

"You're a dangerous man," she said with a wide, enticing grin.

James took her hand, "No honey, I'm just reckless." She giggled bashfully, not understanding and shaking the brown ringlets that fell around her big eyes. "Dangerous happens to other people. That's the secret if you want to know the truth. People say I'm dangerous, but I'm just reckless." He leveled his sinister eyes on me, "I let other people worry about dangerous."

"It's stupid," I told the slicked down hair on the back of his head as we left the diner. "You stick out like a sore thumb when you carry on like that." He didn't turn to look at me but waved his hand. I stopped, frustrated, and looked up into the blank sky for some kind of explanation. "It's dangerous when you're us."

"Now what did I tell you about that?" He didn't stop until he reached the passenger seat of the car where he immediately settled down and waited patiently for me to compose myself and catch up

Driving him was always like this. He'd spout his rhetoric or snatches of poetry he'd written about himself, fall into melancholic staring and suddenly launch into a topic aged two days as if you were just discussing it. "You worry too goddamn much." I rolled my eyes. "Understand that James Cagney James understands the tolerable subtleties. I cant be you fretting over what I did was right or wrong, plowing your value beneath your sense of risk every second of your life. I cant be you and be me."

Rain was falling, the dots on the window cast shadows drawn across his face like a veil, his eyes shifting slowly from telephone poles streetlights, cars and me. The low appraisal of each was written in the thin line of his mouth, and I had had enough.

"Being me has kept you alive."

His expression broke with a flash of lightening, like he'd been waiting for this bait. "You really think that?" The razor smile was back. "I'm a prime mover, and you're a cog. You think you're doing favors for me?" He placed his hat on his knee, and groomed it while he spoke. "Don't be so sure I aint who they want me to be."

"And what is that?"

"Not the cull, no matter how much I look like it to you. I'm the Judas goat, I walk in the slaughterhouse just the same but come out the other side. They need this villain, they want James Cagney James to get away and twist his mustache, cackling."

"I know your name, Willy Lee." He shot me an acid look, the only sound was the rain coming down in sheets and popping off the roof with hollow metallic pings.

"How'd you know that?" He asked with taught voice.

"I just do."

"We traveled miles in dark and quiet, his mood settled in a low place like thick morning fog. "My mother named me Willy Lee after her brother, who died when she was young. I asked her what I'm supposed to be like, carrying the name of a dead man I never met, what she hoped I'd be. She told me there's always a job nobody wants to do, makes 'em sick just knowing it needs to be done. The man that steps up for that job will always have steady work and silent gratitude. My uncle was that man. I come to find out he done every shit job a pecker wood could dream up, till one day he fell of the mast of a ship and plunked down in the ocean so hard he never even bobbed back up so they could bury him. And that's the man she wanted me to be, that's the man I tried to be."

"Is that who you are?"

He let out a bitter laugh. "I wouldn't be that idiot for anything. I learned what he forgot, one hand for you, one hand for the boat. That's something I aint forgot yet."

James Cagney James

I have seen him write his name "J.James" and let the world make guesses on how outlaw he really was. "Let them hang themselves from their assumptions," he'd say. "It isn't the hook's fault for biting what takes the bait." It was the kind of thing he said to diner waitresses whose eyes were a little too big or humor a little too indulgent. One such waitress measured him, smooth skin drum tight, pale on his cheeks, making his hawk nose that much sharper, a pure white collar and impeccable fedora, just a touch of affluent softness smoothing over a care hardened body. James Cagney James knew he had a fish on the line. "A notion of fate brought us here, and brought you here, brought us together, and dictates what we'll do together." He winked an oily black eye. It was a sly trick for a man with no room for blame who believes even an assumed name carries obligations.

I met him playing cards, he wore that same suit, the only nice one he owned. "Luck does not seem like a currency you trade in," I had just walked away from the table after a parade of bad hands, and he followed unsolicited to keep me company. "Neither do I, trade in it, anyway. Take some bad luck here, be paid back with good later," he moved invisible piles of luck with his cupped hands in a gentle demonstration, "trying to keep ahead of the ledger that's chasing you your whole goddamn life." He smiled in the way only he could, his teeth were needles. "Stay in the black and get out while the gettin's good? No, I plan on overstaying my welcome. Cash out every piece of good luck the second I can, and when I run out pass as much bad paper as I can write until five seconds before everyone smartens up and beats down my door with pitchforks and torches. The last indignity will be my manufactured luck getting me clear without so much as an offending wind inconveniencing the part in my hair, and everyone else is left with my red column in their ledger and their ass backwards desire to balance the book no matter what." We were on the dirty boardwalk looking at the blackness of the sea that night. Alone and still he leaned in to whisper, "I don't have a book," he was a karmic deadbeat. "The only way not to fall behind is to have those bills sent elsewhere."

The waitress was transfixed, charmed like a snake lulling her head, hypnotized by his steel blue gaze. "The day I was born they gave me a killer's name and here I am, an artful practitioner, living symbolism, sublime predestination. James. Cagney. James. Pleased to meet you, you sweet young thing."