Datasets:

sradc

/

chunked-wikipedia20220301en-bookcorpusopen

like 0

### crouton: a love story ### and other tales by t. alex miller smashwords edition *** published by t. alex miller on smashwords crouton: a love story copyright 2011 by t. alex miller read the author's novel "ohiowa" on smashwords at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/504 plus his latest nove: "zombie road trip" at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61085 all rights reserved. without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. this is a work of fiction. names, characters, places, brands,

media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. the author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. the publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. smashwords edition license notes this ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. this ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. if you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. if you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

thank you for respecting the author's work. ### crouton ### and other stories by t. alex miller copyright 2011 ### soporific jeff had been writing theatre and film reviews for the newspaper in his small town for what was it? five or six years now. he was driven by what he told himself was a true love of theatre, but there were other reasons. at $35 a pop for a ticket, being on the press list was a real savings especially if he brought a date, which he nearly always did. he'd lost track of how many different women he'd surprised by asking them to "the theatre," the phrase rolling off his tongue with the suggestion not of one particular venue, but of a magical place where everyone is smart, dressed nicely and somehow more polished than those attending the tractor pulls, the bingo tournaments, the drown

nights at the local bars. it took about 90 minutes to drive from his mountain town to most of the denver theatres; more if it was snowing. that gave him plenty of time to acquaint his new date with his vast experience with the theatre. he never laid it on too thick; just enough background to fill in the picture for them. implied beneath it all was the fact that, not only was he taking her to the theatre while other local suitors were plying their dates with jell-o shots, he was then going to write about it, critique the show, and the review would appear in the local paper. and not to mention that, when they arrived at the theatre, the pr person would treat him and his date like royalty. he'd get the folder with the tickets, the press release, the cd full of production photos. they'd be given excellent seats,

and the flak would seek him out after for a quick reaction: _how did you like the show?_ sometimes, wise theatres even gave him drink tickets. but not always. you couldn't count on it, so he always had to bring some cash for drinks and, at the bigger venues, parking. he chafed at the expense, but smiled to himself when he watched all the other schmucks paying top-dollar for tickets. even if the show sucked, which it seemed to do about half the time, he was only out 10, maybe 15 bucks. his current theatre date was a leggy waitress new to elmo's brewery. jeff was in there at least once a week after work, so he noticed her immediately. usually he sat at the bar and had the beer-and-burger special ($5 on tuesday nights), but when he spotted her, he asked rick at the host stand to seat him in her section. "good

luck," rick said, leading him to his table through a spring-break crowd of college kids powering down pints and burgers. "she's kind of a cold fish." _no problemo_ thought jeff, warming up his spiel in his head. he was a master at effecting transitions between unrelated topics and the theatre. he could move from a question about fries or slaw to the new stoppard at the denver center with practiced ease; effortlessly make the leap from a comment about the broncos latest losing season to the gurney revival at the curious. and he'd done it with how many waitresses from elmo's? he did a quick calculation as he sat down: it must be at least five, maybe six. he'd literally never been turned down. her nametag said "kathy," her manner said don't even think about asking me out. jeff skipped the transitional phase and

jumped right in. track records don't lie, so why wait? "i'll have the beer-and-burger special please, medium-well with swiss and a pint of the wheat," he said. "and i'd like to know if you'd accompany me to the theatre thursday night. in denver." she stopped scribbling and looked down at him. "what?" he smiled up at her, very much the rake in form. "the theatre. in denver. i'm the entertainment editor for the _journal_ and i have to go review a play at the arvada center. i'd like you to come with me." she wrinkled her nose, narrowed her eyes and flipped to a new page in her book. "here," she said, dropping a page on the table. "call me tomorrow." when she delivered his meal, she made it clear that there would be no further discussion on the matter, and jeff went along with it. after all, why mess with

success? all he need do is utter that magic phrase, "the theatre" and they dropped their guard and often their pants like autumn leaves. it was pretty rare to bed his theatre dates on the first try after all, it was usually a weeknight, they'd get back to the mountains pretty late and the drinking was confined to a glass of red at intermission but it usually happened pretty soon after. he figured kathy was the second-best-looking woman he'd ever gone out with (after jennifer, of course, his junior-year prom date who, he'd found out later, had gone with him on a dare). kathy had reddish-blonde hair, a slightly upturned button nose and a light spray of freckles visible from just below her neck and descending down her blouse. he imagined following that trail maybe in a week or two? and seeing where it led.

he smiled at the thought, sipping at his pint and watching her move around her tables with the grace of a veteran stage actress. on thursday, jeff filed a profile about some other no-name jam band playing at the bighorn bistro and left the newsroom early. he was already concerned about the evening for a number of reasons. for one, kathy had been less-than-warm on the phone when he'd called to make the arrangements. "please don't think of this as a date," she'd said. "i have a boyfriend back in minnesota and... i just don't know where that's going." but she had said she was "happy to accompany him," adding that she had a bfa in theatre from nyu. that was bad enough: who knew what kind of theatre knowledge or lack thereof she would call him on during the course of the night? he also hated to think he was wasting

an evening of theatre with a woman who had no intention of sleeping with him (he'd felt similar misgivings when he'd taken his cousin, visiting from out of town, to a plum freebie: _phantom of the opera_ at the buell). and then there was the added problem he was having these days: theatrical somnolence. for some reason, he just couldn't keep his eyes open more than halfway through the first act. it was a relatively new phenomenon, occurring (he thought) for the first time the previous summer during a production of _lear_ in boulder. it was outdoors in the mary rippon theatre, and he was in the third row with a hardware store clerk named alice (he'd impressed her with the theatre as well as his knowledge of dowel rods). she poked fun at him on the way home, then admitted that she'd "maybe dozed off a little too,"

which made him feel a little better at the same time he was near-despondent at his lapse. when it happened again (at the bas bleu in fort collins, a physical therapist from avon, during a production of _krapp's last tape_ ), he explained it away as what most modern theatre-goers do during beckett. indeed, he had identified one other man nodding off and at least three others in the audience with very heavy-looking eyes. but when he told the short brunette (she did something in planning at the town of vail) that his favorite comedic playwright was larry shue, then slept through almost the entire first act of a rattlebrain theatre production of _the foreigner_ , he determined drastic action was needed. the woman had actually laughed half of the way home, recalling how she'd had to poke him several times to keep

him from snoring so loud as to distract the players. "and that was a pretty funny play," she said. "i don't know _how_ you could have fallen asleep during it." it wasn't for lack of trying. he'd feel like he was being drawn inexorably off the side of a cliff, try though he may to dig in his heels and stay in the light. but there was this gray area between sleep and awake he could no longer effectively negotiate. helpless, he was drawn into it as if by tractor beam, and it mattered not how good or bad the show was. lively, modern musicals and comedies were just as likely to put him under as ibsen or shakespeare. million-dollar extravaganzas in big halls were just as effective at knocking him out as bare-bones productions in 50-seat venues. so jeff amazed the theatre flaks by showing up at the next several press

nights sans date. until he could get the problem corrected, he couldn't bear to suffer any more slings and arrows about "conking out" from these women on the way up the hill; didn't want to be laughed at, or asked if he was "ok" to drive. he called it his "testing period." for starters, he left work early and tried and failed to take a nap. he tried no-doz, red bull, triple shots of espresso from the theatre bar. he would sit ramrod straight in his seat, pinching himself in the thigh repeatedly and holding his eyes open as wide as he could as the house lights went down. for his efforts, he was rewarded over the course of three months' worth of theatre with twice being awakened by the applause at the end of the act; another couple of times by ushers alarmed by the volume of his snoring; and once by a blue-haired

old woman who actually poked at him with her umbrella from two seats over. the rest of the time, his efforts to stay conscious took up so much of his attention that he could barely focus on the play itself. moving in and out of sleep during performances, he was left with huge gaps in his understanding of the material like someone trying to follow a complex movie plot while supervising a roomful of preschoolers. and he still had to write about them. while the simple fact of his physical presence at a play gave him some idea of the overall vibe, he was nonetheless compelled to include details about the plot that gave readers some indication of what the play was actually _about_. for this, he turned to the press releases and program descriptions, as well as to reading other reviews of the same works he found online.

it worked well enough, he told himself, to get by with, but he felt like a dork turning in such warmed-over reviews. kathy was to be the first date he had after enjoying a modest success during a boulder dinner theatre revival of _the scarlet pimpernel_. he'd chased some diet pills with four cans of red bull and managed to sit through the entire show with only one episode of sleepiness toward the end of the first act. but he'd fought through it and won, clapping like a madman at the curtain not so much for the performers but for himself. _yeah baby, i'm back!_ now he was ready for kathy, the bfa. he popped the pills and downed three of the red bulls before he picked her up; he figured he'd chug the fourth and swallow two more pills in the men's room just before the show. no reason to tip his hand or invite

inquiries from the cold fish, he figured. besides, what man could fall asleep in the presence of such a hot babe, unless it was a post-coital bliss kind of thing? when she got in his subaru, she seemed to cower against the door, staying as far from him as possible. he tried to ask her a little about her theatre background, but got responses so perfunctory that he gave up and turned up the radio. they were past idaho springs before she offered anything by way of conversation. "i'm sorry. i probably shouldn't even be here." "huh?" he reached over and turned the music down. the signal was fading in and out anyway, like his brain at the theatre. "it's not fair to you, i mean, to let you take me out when i'm not, you know, really available." "s'okay. let's just have fun, enjoy the show. it's no big deal." he

could feel her twisting there in the seat, wanting to say something more, but she remained silent. probably trying to figure out if she wanted to continue dating this guy she mentioned, when a thousand miles separated them. maybe she'd moved here to get away from him, then was tortured by his absence. jeff was the first guy she'd gone out with after however many years with what's-his-name, and it was hard, blah blah blah. he wasn't the most patient suitor, considering that six weeks was the usual timeline between first date and "the talk," or the dreaded text, but for this one he could devote a couple of months. she was a hottie, there was no doubt about it. for the theatre, she'd put on all kinds of makeup, done up her hair and worn a clinging black dress that showed beautifully sculpted legs that went right

up to a perfect ass. he couldn't wait to see the look on the arvada center flak's face when he walked in with kathy; they were often the only people who ever met his girlfriends, and he'd sometimes e-mail them the next day to get their reaction on some of his hotter dates. they arrived a bit early, and she lightened up once they were in the lobby outside the theatre. there was some kind of art exhibit, halfway decent stuff, and they had fun walking around commenting on the pieces before entering the theatre. she'd let him buy her a diet coke, then excused herself to go to the ladies' room while jeff found a stall in the men's to slam his energy drink with a couple more diet pills. the show was _master class_ , something about an old opera star who was nuts nuts but really talented. the stimulants got him about

halfway through the first act, but then he felt it coming: the pull toward the cliff, the tractor beam to the land of nod. he fought it with everything he had, did the super-erect posture thing, the eyeballs wide open trick, the thigh pinches. when the house lights came up for intermission, he thought maybe he'd pulled it off without doing anything too obvious like snoring, or, god forbid, drooling ( _twelfth night_ , denver civic theatre). but he couldn't be sure. at intermission, kathy accepted a glass of insipid merlot (drink tickets!) and bubbled about the play. she was a mezzo-soprano herself, loved the opera and fairly worshipped maria callas. grabbing jeff by the arm, she looked him in the eye and thanked him for taking her. she'd never be able to afford theatre on the pay she received at elmo's. "you're

welcome," he said, wondering if some kind of comment about his falling asleep would come next. but she moved on. "i had teachers at nyu who told me i was good enough to pursue opera, but god, i don't know," she said. "it's a hard life, practically impossible. but theatre's not much easier, i mean. look at me, waiting tables in a ski town when i should be... elsewhere." not a word about me! he felt he should make a comment about pursuing her dream, how this was just a parenthesis in her theatre career but he just smiled and took a sip of his wine. maybe he hadn't fallen, visibly, asleep. he'd been drowsy, sure, but had he kept it together? it was hard to be sure, although he seemed to recall little of the play itself. he usually didn't have trouble with the second act. somehow, intermission seemed to perk

him up, or maybe he'd just gotten his nap in during act i. back in the car on the way up the hill, it was as if he'd exchanged the terse, nervous woman he drove down with for a chatty, hyper chick on the verge of going home with him. ah, the theatre! it was like viagra for women, powdered black rhino horn in two acts (or maybe that was just musicals). at her condo complex, she thanked him again and made to get out, then turned back and planted one on his cheek. he was pretty sure she had "why don't you come in?" in her eyes, on her lips, but she let it hang there, backed out and closed the door with celibate finality. still, this was progress. when he called her two days later with an invite to see a staged reading at the bug, she was back to cool kathy. but she said ok. it was in the car on the way down that

she dropped the bomb. "so, think you can stay awake for this one, jeff?" he continued to drive while his brain simply froze. different answers rose to his lips, ranging from "i'm not sure what you're talking about" to "ya caught me, huh?" in the vacuum, she continued. "because i'm pretty serious about theatre, and it's kind of embarrassing when the guy you're with starts to snore." they were passing georgetown, and it occurred to him to pull off, turn around and take her home if she was that "friggin' embarrassed." instead, he gripped the wheel more firmly and said quietly: "kathy, can you help me?" and he told her, told her everything. from the first time at _lear_ to the half-plagiarized reviews to the old lady with the umbrella. they had a laugh over that, but he shifted back to the problem. "this is

killing me, kathy. i've tried everything and still i can't keep it together. and part of, maybe the worst part, is trying to hide it from the friends i take with me." she laughed. "you mean all the different girls you take to the theatre?" how did she know about that? "it's a small town, jeff. it's not like it's a secret. but i am flattered that i got to go twice. i understand that's not generally the case?" he didn't answer, thinking that the only thing worse than a girl with your number was a smart girl with your number. he could feel her looking at him. was she really expecting an answer? really expecting him to give up secrets about his gig, his modus operandi, completely justifiable in a county with a 5-1 male-female ratio? "look," she continued, now staring straight ahead. "i guess all guys have some

line of bullshit they use to get laid. and i'm not putting the spotlight on yours to make you feel bad..." "really," he said. "i couldn't tell." "no, jeff, i'm not. but i need you to know that i'm different. i mean, tom and i have broken up and so i don't feel like i'm cheating on him anymore if i go out with another guy. and i'm not saying you and i are, like, going out or anything but, i dunno, it's possible. so let's do it on the same level, ok? eyes wide open. no bullshit." he lightened, hands relaxed on the wheel. maybe this wasn't a simple trip to the relationship pillory after all. _it's possible_ she said. "so what, in your opinion, have i been bullshitting you about?" encouraged by her latest words, he was still deeply troubled by the implication that he was some kind of a fraud. "i really have

gone to a ton of theatre and written lots of reviews. i studied some theatre in college, even acted in a few plays. not well, i admit, but i know what it's like to be on stage." she leaned over to touch his arm. "i know jeff. i'm not talking about that. it's just the, you know, the whole 'i'm the big theatre critic, aren't you lucky to be with me' gig. i'm just saying you can drop that with me; i don't need it, not impressed." "oh." "and i know i'm a total bitch for saying it like that, but you have to understand, this thing i just got out of with tom, the guy in minnesota? it was built on bullshit like that. he was like the son of the mayor in this little town, and whenever i went there it was all this 'look at me, my family runs this town, you're so lucky to be with me, i know everybody' yadda yadda yadda." she

sat back heavily in her seat. "god, it made me fucking sick, being in the shadow of that ego." he nodded. "right. so no bullshit, no ego. ok. got it." the voice of the pulverized male plucked her nightingale chord, and she put her hand on his thigh. "and i'm sorry, i really am. it's not your fault. i just wanted you to know where i'm coming from. and to know that, even if i'm not even close to wanting to jump into a relationship with another guy, i could use a friend. i like you, and i'd love to go to some more shows with you. let's learn from each other, have fun with it. i know a lot about theatre, you know. maybe even more than you." she gave his leg a little squeeze. "and i think i know a way to help you stay awake during that deadly first act." staged readings were usually death to jeff. the seriousness

of it all, the utter lack of movement, the shuffling pages it all acted on him like a powerful narcotic. he generally preferred to sit in the back in the likely event he dozed off, but this time they were in the second row. it was local playwrights, and the theme was "social justice." they might as well have put out a cot for him. but kathy was there this time, there with some kind of a cure she wouldn't tell him about. "the surprise of it is part of my treatment," she said with a wicked grin. still determined to do it on his own, jeff employed all his useless methods and lost consciousness in the first 10 pages of a mind-numbing drama about police brutality. he drifted out during some kind of disciplinary hearing, and the next thing he knew he was sitting bolt upright in pain. watching out of the corner

of his eye in the seat to the right, kathy timed the moment perfectly, employing her "treatment" in the space of about three seconds. she put her left arm around jeff's neck and covered his mouth tightly while her right hand sought and found her funny little theatre critic's closest testicle. while the sergeant was raising his voice to the beat cop about improper baton usage, she performed a sharp pincer maneuver with thumb and forefinger, waited half a beat, then did it again. she felt his body come alive, like a cardiac arrest victim responding to the defibrillator. his eyes fluttered open while his hands automatically flew to his crotch but her hand was already gone. it had moved north to his chin, which she grabbed and turned to face her. her lips she placed on his, gave him the briefest dart of tongue

then moved her mouth close to his ear. "you're back, baby. you're back." ### ### free bird "ok," said bernard, with a big pall mall exhale, "we can get moving now." he looked as if he'd just had sex; i almost felt i could smell the musky aftermath, feeling under my skirt along my thigh in the dazed expectation that i'd find some unwelcome slick. hauling him in, dna tests, him saying, "but i never touched her!" and he'd be right. he never touched me. but those 11 minutes and 30 seconds on the side of the road waiting for his song to end... now i laugh at the remembrance with a mixture of knowledge and the kind of lingering longing you almost always associate with a pleasing sexual encounter. "so, you a college girl or something?" he'd said, the trucker whose name was bernard. the retort, "woman!" rose to

my lips and died before it reached my midnight ochre lips. seated with my knees super-glued together as far away from bernard as i could possibly be without actually exiting the truck. a mini, a chenille top showing off my black, thirty-dollar bra. all of me, perched atop a pile of ripped atlas pages and jack-in-the-box tray liners (bernard's suggestion, "to keep the cooties off.") i was trying to imagine what sort of things i'd have stuck to my ass by the time bernard let me off. if he let me off. he'd let me off. technically, i cannot operate a motor vehicle because my license is suspended, my 1983 amc eagle is uninsured and unregistered, and i have this unfortunate habit of bumping into things when i drive. i really shouldn't drive, it overly complicates my life. i shouldn't have driven tonight, except

that sherry's beater honda wouldn't start, which meant that i'd either drive or we'd both sit out this black-and-blue party. this "theme" party. but it would take some doing. the eagle needed a jump start, gas, oil, you name it. sherry lived 20 miles from me off the interstate; the party was another 10 from me, in the opposite direction. fifty miles to drive to get to some stupid party in some ranch house in a suburb in a part of the country people in planes fly over remarking, "boy, can you imagine living _there_?" i could see everything so clearly, as clearly as the people flying over ohiowa could see the roads and farms laid out like some kind of monstrous board game. go around the squares long enough and you'll find some guy with a pickup or a hopped-up f-250 to marry you. you can get drunk together and

smoke menthol cigarettes and watch bad television. you can try to look small on the soiled couch while the cops question your husband about the noise, the broken lamp, the bong on the coffee table... and your black eye. i'm the protagonist in a country song, you see; all of this will happen. especially showing up at parties dressed like this, like the kind of chick who wants a ride in a huge f-250. i'd been in an 18-wheeler before, so when bernard pulled up in his freightliner, all hissing and popping hydraulic sounds, i wasn't that impressed. bernard thought my flaming eagle was the best thing he'd ever seen; he wanted to stick around to watch the whole show. listen, i told him, i've got no insurance, no license, no insurance and this car is a complete piece of shit that's probably worth about a hundred bucks.

i found the plates in someone's trash and the only thing of value in there is probably a hair brush and a half-pack of juicy fruit. so if you want to give me a ride, let's get the hell out of here now! i said it with a vaguely disguised hint that, were he to get me out of there, he might get a piece of this fancy brassiere. bernard was quiet as we pulled away from the eagle, which by this time had vast plumes of black smoke pouring out of its windows. ever seen a vinyl fire? i once burned a section of a naugahyde couch with an unplanned union between a marlboro and a shooter of jack daniels. later, mom kept whipping away the towel i'd put over the burn to exclaim, "i can't _believe_ you did this! _how_ did you do this again?" dad's only comment was to put his arm over my shoulder and say solemnly, "you know,

shandra, they killed a lot of naugas to make that couch." looking at the eagle out of bernard's right-side mirror, i was kind of hoping it would explode, but i knew it probably wouldn't. we all know where cars really explode, and it's not in ohiowa. my car would just be this stinking, moldering hunk of junk some poor highway department guys would have to haul away. dripping wet from when the fire guys hosed it down. i know some of those guys. they have not-so-great jobs, and the last thing they need... well, it couldn't be helped. like i said, i shouldn't be driving anyway. being relieved of the eagle was like having a bottle of booze taken away from you when you know you shouldn't be drinking. plus, its demise gave me a good story to tell. i started forming some of the sentences in my mind in preparation for

the party if i ever got there. "and then, the damned thing burst into flames, and me sitting there in my goddamned mini wondering what the hell i was going to do when this trucker pulls up and..." this is what i was thinking about the silver lining of my experience when bernard suddenly hit the brakes and pulled over to the shoulder. "free bird!" he yelled, turning up the radio. "what?!" i said. "free bird!" he said, gesturing at the radio. "it's free bird!" "i _know_ it's free bird," i said, "but why are we stopping?" "i always pull over for free bird," bernard told me. "it's eleven minutes and thirty seconds in heaven!" i just looked at him. not mean, but sort of questioning. "that's the live version, of course. the studio version is only about eight minutes or so." i knew this and, soon, much more

about the song, because bernard would yell another piece of free bird trivia at me every 30 seconds or so. he didn't seem to be listening to the song at all, occupied as he was with coming up with new factoids for me to think about. "the live version was recorded at the fox theatre in atlanta in 1976," bernard yelled to me." "oh!" i said back. then he'd lean back in his seat and close his eyes, occasionally taking long drags from a pall mall before he'd suddenly open his eyes, pop upright and deliver another. "did you know that ronnie van zandt performed bare foot?" "no, i didn't" i screamed back. "can we go now?" "he said he wanted to feel that stage burn!" i also found out through bernard that when lynyrd skynyrd first started playing free bird in bars, they were booed because people wanted music they

could dance to, not protracted guitar anthems. even if you couldn't dance to it, i felt that it was certainly music you could _drive_ to. i thought about yelling this observation over to bernard, but he was out of factoids and leaning back with his eyes closed. pure pleasure, i thought. why bother him? one thing i surely wasn't going to tell him was how i felt about free bird. i used to like free bird as much as the next girl. at least enough to tolerate it when, occasionally during high school some boys would put it on the stereo in their basement, smoke some bongs and turn out the lights to listen. they'd act like they were all into it for about 30 seconds, then you'd feel that hand snaking around your waist and that breath on your ear. clocking in at nearly 12 minutes, free bird was the makeout song for guys,

although my friends and i were more into whole sides of pink floyd. it was mellower. one year i visited a friend in new york city. she knew some guys who were piano students at some fancy school, and i wound up sort of half hooking-up with one of them. he wore a scarf and a blazer, kind of just like i pictured a music student looking, and he kept looking me in the eyes and saying, "i cannot _believe_ i'm kissing a girl from ohiowa!" maybe he was smart, but he smelled like drum tobacco and this strong coffee he got from some egyptian deli, and he wouldn't eat hot dogs. he made fun of them. prime rib, too. i told him i grew up on a pig farm, and he added that information to his kissing exclamation. i can't even remember his name, or his friend's name, but i do remember sitting around their apartment playing cribbage

(yes, cribbage) with the radio on. the friend started flipping the dial and he landed on free bird, which was in mid-jam. and an amazing thing happened: they mocked free bird. they stood up and air-guitared the riffs, pointing out to me by making noises with their tongues that the free bird riffs, those sacred riffs, were simple and repetitive. in the space of about 20 seconds, they reduced free bird from an anthem to a laughing stock, an object of ridicule. a little while later, they did the same for the charlie daniels band's "the devil went down to georgia," laughing hysterically as they mocked the fiddle playing. then they told me about some famous pianist named glenn gould and played some of his records. and they theorized what glenn gould might do with a song like free bird. they called it "the skynyrd

variations" and thought that was pretty damn funny. so i sat in bernard's truck listening to free bird that night, my eagle probably still in flames just a few miles back, and i thought about those juilliard students. the one i was with couldn't get it up, and it's just as well. the two of them standing there in that room yukking it up at the expense of southern rock. looking over at bernard and the grin of pleasure imprinted on his face, i felt a stab of pain for him as i thought of the juilliard boys. i laughed a little: bernard would kill those two guys if they mocked free bird in his presence. he would drive his freightliner over their pianos. he would tie them to chairs and make them listen to free bird for 36 hours. he would read aloud to them the liner notes from the live double album. free bird, as

you may know, takes a long time to wind down. with each false ending, i'd wiggle in my seat a bit more, thinking about sherry waiting for me (this was the days before cellphones). i sat there wondering if we would have to hear the very last note and the sound of the crowd before he'd say "ok" and we'd get going again. "you know, it seems kinda silly, but it just gives me an excuse to take an unexpected, unscheduled break once in a while," bernard told me after we'd gotten underway again. he'd been shifting about a little and acting like he wanted to say something. he wasn't a bad guy; he cared whether i thought he was a nut or not. i tried to think of something to say. "we've all got our little pet songs we love to hear," i told him. "i stop whatever i'm doing whenever i hear that foreigner song cold as ice." "really?"

said bernard, shooting me a pleased look. "cold as ice?" i like cold as ice. i don't know if i'd pull over for it, but..." he paused for a moment. "if you were in the truck, i'd pull over for you if it came on." i felt my face go up a few degrees and a little tremor run up my back. who is this nice man that i'm sitting so far away from? i scooted over on the seat a little thank god he couldn't see my tears in the dark and said, "thank you very much, bernard. if i were driving and free bird came on, i'd stop for you." the lie was worth it to see the look on his face, half-illuminated by a village inn sign off the highway. i thought he was going to propose to me right then and there. he tried to say something, but he just smiled. bernard let me off right in front of sherry's house. she came out in time to

watch in wonder as i climbed up next to his door and kissed him on the cheek. as the freightliner moved jerkily up the street, sherry demanded 17 different answers. she bitched about the time, she wanted to know where my car was, who the guy in the truck was, why i was kissing him, why i'd worn midnight ochre instead of the red satin lipstick she wanted me to try. "sherry, we're not going to any party," i told her. "you got any jack daniels? let's go crank up your stereo... i think i'm in the mood for a little skynyrd." ### ### seltenberger's syndrome i don't remember exactly when it was that i first experience drifting, nor do i recall whether it came on suddenly or gradually grew until it became this regular thing in my life. i finally went to someone about it, expecting full well that they'd shrug their

shoulders, ask a lot of questions about my life like depression or drug use or whatever, then maybe suggest i go to some kind of real doctor and get an mri, or a cat scan. while that's more or less what happened, the person, a roberta someone-or-other, did do one good thing: she asked me to write down what drifting felt like. it read as such: "have you ever heard the expression about whether someone is comfortable or not in their own skin? it's obvious when someone isn't, isn't it? or when you look at someone on stage, a veteran performer, and that person is so at ease up there, they could be in front of thousands of people and they are just completely on, totally themselves. or at least seem to be. so, in drifting, i'm like the opposite of that. and mostly it happens when facing a group or i'm with someone

senior to me either at work or just in age or status. i suddenly feel very self-conscious about what i'm saying, and the more i think about it, the worse it gets. and that's just dumb anxiety, or insecurity, right? everyone, or at least most people, know what that feels like. but the drifting is something beyond that. so i'll be sitting there, say, in the publisher's office (i work at a magazine as an editor), and i get highly, acutely aware of the fact that i should be speaking intelligently or creatively about something, and the self-consciousness starts and then... i drift. it feels like an out-of-body experience, like maybe a little one. not an epiphany, a big journey to some metaphysical place, but maybe just a short trip. and i have to reel myself back in. but that's not always easy, and sometimes it's

impossible. a drift can last for hours, sometimes days, i'm not even always sure when it begins, or ends. i know at this point i'm supposed to offer some caveat that i know this sounds nuts or i don't believe in out-of-body experiences or something, but since you're a shrink, i imagine you can handle that. plus, i read a new york times story not too long ago where they figured out some of the physiology to the out-of-body experience, and also how there's a brain explanation for how people lose themselves and speak in tongues. i imagine it's something like that, this drifting. but more low-key. i mean, i don't speak in tongues. another way to describe it is this: have you ever seen like in a film or a commercial where they use a special effect to make a person appear as if he or she is splitting into two people?

and then one of them, usually a little on the diaphanous side, drifts away from the other, and then the two mirror images sort of regard each other with this curious expression? that's also kind of what drifting feels like, although i don't really see that mirror image so much as feel it. i could be sitting still, but it feels like my body has shifted an inch to the left. or maybe it's just part of my consciousness that's shifted. so that's drifting. there's some other elements to it, like visual weirdness sometimes, but those are the basics." i emailed this to the shrink before my second and final visit. i'd spent a fair amount of time on it, trying to describe it, so i was anticipating that she would have spent a commensurate amount of time studying it, perhaps doing some research to see if my description

matched anything anyone else knew about. the way i see it, people may all be different, but we're made out of the same stuff and go through a lot of the same experiences, so it stood to reason that someone had identified drifting before. it probably had some other name, like seltenberger's syndrome or something. i don't know; i just made that up. but it seemed apparent to me that roberta had hastily read the note just after her last appointment left, and she didn't have any insight or information. she asked me more questions about it, like how drifting made me feel, how long it lasted, things like that. i was keenly aware that she was trying to be all professional and smart, but that it wasn't going to help. when i left, i resolved not to return. if she couldn't be bothered to read my assignment more thoroughly

and follow up in some way... that's not going to work for me. the reality is, i think i know where my seltenberger's syndrome comes from. i'm recently divorced, separated from my three kids except for two weekends a month, broke from all the lawyers and child support payments, and i typically sleep only four or five hours a night, if i'm lucky. am i depressed? of course i'm depressed, who wouldn't be? but i've pored over pages and pages of information online about depression, and drifting, or anything like ss, is not implied anywhere that i could find. i have a new symptom of depression, one might be led to believe, but as i've already said, i doubt that's the case. i wanted to find a chat room or a support group filled with other drifters, maybe get some tips on how to cope. but i never found one, although

i continue to look. instead, i started making up chat room chatter, featuring drifters who wanted to find ways to return to what they call "real space" or "rs." (i was quite proud of creating my own imaginary piece of jargon.) a typical exchange would look like this: "ted123 writes: whenever i'm in church, sitting there in the pew, i start to drift. it's not simple inattention, because i can feel myself shifting somewhat corporeally. and no, it's not religious fervor or anything. anyone have any suggs on how to deal, get back to rs?" "gina456 responds: i have the same problem in this reading group i'm in. when i feel myself start 2 drift, i find it's helpful to move. i'll stand up, tell the other folks my leg is cramping or something, and i'll stand behind the couch a few minutes. that really helps put me

back in real space." i liked gina456's advice so much that i tried it at our last staff meeting. it was about 15 minutes into it, and i started to feel like my brain was moving outside my skull, like a lump of dough sitting in a bowl on a space ship, floating away in zero gravity. it was when i was in this place that i dreaded questions or any attention directed at me. i'd be afraid i would open my mouth and nothing would come out; or what would come out might be a high-pitched wail, or an animal sound like that of a whale , or a marmot. and drifting is often paired with a stiff neck, like my head is stuck atop a steel pole that can't move. so if the person talking to me is in a place that required me to turn my head to face them, i had to sort of move my whole upper body, which had the effect (i imagined)

of making me look like a guy in a neck brace. i should point out that, so far as i can tell, my seltenberger's syndrome is not noticeable to others. no one has ever said anything to me about what seems to me like aberrant behavior. but, then, the strange behavior of many people is probably not described back to them; they never know. or maybe they do, but they can't stop it and figure people will get used to it. the publisher is the kind of woman who hates anything interrupting our meetings, cellphone calls or bathroom breaks and the like. so i tried to move very slowly, thinking she wouldn't notice. my goal was to move to the corner over by the coffee machine. i could get a cup, then remain there, maybe for five minutes. if anyone asked, i'd use gina456's cramped leg excuse. i was set. as soon as i stood

up, i felt the publisher's eyes on me. when it became clear that the coffee machine was my destination, her eyes resumed their usual course of targeting everyone in the room in a random order: questioning, seeking, accusing. i don't typically drink coffee, so i went through the steps as casually as i could, feeling all the while as if i were performing a delicate brain operation with a dozen observers looking on. my greatest fear was making any kind of noise or otherwise drawing attention to myself, so i lifted the pot of coffee very carefully, filled a paper cup about halfway, replaced the pot, then eyed the condiments: three different types of sweetener, powdered cream, plus a small cardboard box filled with red plastic stirrers. what kind of coffee drinker might i be if i were a coffee drinker? not black,

i decided, reaching for a packet of creamer stuff. i knew it was just some kind of powdered fat, and likely no good for you, but its presence near the coffee machine told me that others used it, and i was all about fitting in at the moment. i tore the top off and poured the powder into the coffee, expecting it to somehow dissolve. but it didn't; it just sort of sat there in a pile, not moving. i reached for a stirrer, feeling pre-guilt about the fact that i would soon use a small piece of plastic an essentially non-renewable resource for about five seconds before consigning it to the landfill. what a waste. but what were the options? this most definitely wasn't the time to make some kind of statement by stirring with my finger, or with a pencil. it was at that precise moment, reaching for the stirrer, that

laura, the publisher, said my name, sharply. the steel post holding up my head swiftly descended, like a downward periscope, to the base of my spine, and the hand reaching for the stirrer stopped as if frozen. it was then that i realized that laura had stopped speaking, perhaps some moments before, and that the room was silent. "ken, that coffee is from our last staff meeting a week ago. allison's on vacation, so nobody made a new pot this morning." at any other office, someone might at this point crack a joke at my expense, and life would go on. but the magazine i work for is an insurance trade publication, and it may well be the most humorless office i've ever worked in. we work in silence, mostly, and we hardly know each other. i'd only been there six months, but i was already looking for other jobs. i just

couldn't bear continuing to work in such a joyless place, not when my own life was such an unhappy thing. so, with laura confronting me on the coffee and the eyes of six or seven other people on me, i had some critical decisions to make, and i needed to make them rather quickly. and you see, that's one of the other things about ss: time slows down. the lump of dough was still floating outside the bowl, even if my coffee-procurement activities had slowed it down somewhat. a typical person in this situation would turn around, say something like "oh, crap! i didn't notice," then dump out the coffee, throw out the cup and resume his seat. another option might have been to make some ridiculous, face-saving gesture like "i like my coffee old and cold," and start drinking it. could maybe get a laugh there, too, if

you played it right. that's not really me, though, if you want to know the truth. the other thing i was thinking about was how i could have been so out of it as to not have noticed that the coffee was old, cold. surely there would have been a little red light on to indicate something; steam would have come off the liquid sitting there in the cup and, of course, the powdered fat would have dissolved instantly, i see that now. i should have recognized it when it just sat there, that i was holding a non-viable cup of coffee. so, while i was considering my options and chiding myself for my cluelessness and feeling as stiff as a shellacked fish hanging on a wall, i made an odd and sudden choice: i sat down, right there on the floor in front of the coffee maker. first, though, i grabbed a red stirrer stick. more

than anything, i wanted to vanish, which is an odd feeling, too, but one with which you might be familiar. probably there was a time in your life, maybe as a kid, when you were so embarrassed or humiliated that you just wanted to either die or disappear. as we grow older, our ability to handle these moments with more grace makes the urge to die go away (unless, of course, you're suicidal, but that's another affliction altogether). i supposed i could also have walked briskly from the room, but that would have seemed like admitting complete and utter defeat. in this instance, the reptilian part of my brain chose a course of action for me that my higher brain rejected outright just a nanosecond or two too late. and now that i was sitting, with my higher brain ready to resume command, it seemed like it would have

been worse to suddenly stand back up, admitting my faux pas, and return to my chair. so i stayed there, facing a cabinet door that instantly assumed a preeminent place in my here-and-now. there was a handle, a simple pull knob, the door itself a dark wood. there was a horizontal scratch about two inches long just a few inches above the carpet a wound no doubt inflicted by a vacuum cleaner at some point, i reasoned. i had the cold coffee in one hand and the stirrer stick in the other, and i was sitting cross-legged, facing away from my colleagues. observing people confronted with a highly unusual event or action is something that's consumed the time of a great many psychological researchers, not to mention the producers of various television shows where marks are set up to be shocked, baffled or scared for

the amusement of the audience. in this case, although i couldn't see the looks on the faces of laura and the other editors, i could tell from the silence that they, too, were now confronting some difficult choices. these might have included: 1. laura saying "ken, what the hell are you doing?" 2. ignoring me and going on with the meeting as if nothing were amiss. 3. the person who felt most friendly toward me, alan maybe, getting up, coming over to me, putting his hand on my shoulder and saying "ken, buddy, let's go get some air" or something like that. 4. remaining still and silent until such time as i moved, spoke or died. in fact, they chose none of the above. it was mostly no.2, though: they acted as if nothing were amiss but still included me in the meeting. i actually answered several questions and

gave a rundown of my section's content budget for the following month, all addressed to the pull knob on the cabinet. when the meeting was over, they filed out, saying nothing to me while i continued to sit there. (although chelsea, who handles ad&d policy topics, dropped a handout in my lap on the way out.) as soon as i was alone, the dough returned, albeit slowly, to the bowl and i stood up. i did some of that typical soul-searching stuff, like looking out the window and contemplating all the people out there going from one place to another and wondering what the hell it was all about. then i slipped out the back stair and walked the 17 flights down, where i grabbed a bagel from the lobby deli and headed out for what would turn out to be a four-hour walk all the way back to my apartment. there's no better

place in the world to be weird and alone than in manhattan, and as i made my way up 10th avenue, i imagined i felt a kinship with some of the homeless folks i came across. i wasn't too different from them, i thought, and no doubt many of these men were husbands, fathers, employees at some point; guys who'd perhaps suffered a seltenberger's syndrome episode of their own, and who sat down on the floor at a meeting one day and then never went back. the disdain i used to feel for the panhandlers on the street morphed into a new-found respect when it occurred to me that i lacked the ability to pull the plug on my life like that. yes, they're weak, awful men who left their families for a bottle or a needle or because they couldn't handle mortgages and health care co-pays. but you've got to hand it to them: they removed

themselves from it, those painful situations. and now here they are, free from it all. but i wasn't one of them. i went back to work, the next day. i needed the job and the money, for sure, but i was also intensely curious as to what kind of reaction i would get. i got some averted eyes, certainly, but mostly people acted as if nothing happened. at one point, halfway through the day, the publisher popped into my office and said this: "let's stick to the chair for our next meeting, 'k ted?" i nodded and she left and that was the last i ever heard about it. isn't that amazing? that you could pull off a completely bizarre act like that and, well, get away with it? shouldn't i have been fired, or sent to counseling or reprimanded by some crone from hr? and what happened was, after the coffee episode, my bouts

of ss started to decline. eventually, all the divorce stuff was behind me, the lawyers got paid off and i slipped into the unfair, unfulfilling yet inevitable routine of being with my kids every other weekend, with a week at christmas, half the summer and alternating spring breaks and thanksgivings. i still do feel ss sometimes, though, especially when i'm putting the kids on the no. 1 train to go back uptown to their mother. i'll be standing there on the platform, and the train slides away and the dough starts to float and it becomes impossible for me to tell whether it's the platform or the train that's doing the moving. relativity. but i figure that, if you're going to drift, that's the place to do it. that way, if you start acting all wiggy, you're just another freak in the subway, and people just walk around

you. chances are, though, they won't even notice. ### in the desert monday, 6:30 a.m. the alarm clock goes off and i drag my protesting ass out of bed. even though i've no time for coffee or shower, i still get to work 20 minutes late. the boss looks at his watch and slaps me hard then orders me to clean the meatloaf and gizzards room. that afternoon i get my sleeve caught in the drill press and the fire department must come rescue me. as i stand there trapped, my boss circles the drill press, yelling at me and occasionally whipping the backs of my thighs with a piece of rebar. go home, miserable, still haven't eaten so i pawn my watch and go to the diner. sandy flings some slop at me and slides the coffee on the counter too briskly, some splashes in my eye and i fall from the stool breaking my collarbone

in the process. i drag my sorry ass home and flop onto the couch. i go to turn on the television but remote is somehow missing and the thing won't do anything without it. i open a book but all the pages have been ripped out by gilford, my ex-girlfriend's dog. i go for a walk but it's dark and i slip in a ravine and break my legs. i crawl to the highway, pulling myself along with my hands, and try to flag down a car. one pulls over and runs over my head, squashing it like a grapefruit. the people in the car don't even know what they've done. one gets out and pisses on my head and throws a cigarette butt on my shirt which bursts into flames as they pull away. all around, a bad day. i make it home by 4 a.m. good, i'll get 2 hours sleep. tuesday 6:30 a.m. the alarm clock goes off and i drag my protesting ass out

of bed. i manage to get my ass into the shower and i'm sitting there on the floor with the hair and the scum letting the water run over me as i read the instructions on the shampoo bottle: squeeze out crap into your hand, rub it on your melon, rinse, repeat if necessary. squeeze out crap into your hand, rub it on your melon, rinse, repeat if necessary. squeeze out crap into your hand, rub it on your melon, rinse, repeat if necessary. after three times i figure my head is clean but i can't rise. i'm stuck in the lotus position, with the plastic drapes around me i feel like i'm safe, like nothing bad can happen. as soon as i stand up, i know, everything will turn to shit. i think about just staying there, and even though every cell in my body wants to do just that, i somehow manage to get up. i lather up my bony

chest, my skinny arms, i take a dull disposable razor and shave my pointy chin and the hairy union between my beady eyes. i lather up my poor old shriveled dick, scrub my hideous feet, rinse off and open the plastic drapes to greet the day. i dry off with a piece of burlap standing in the corner and climb into my soiled clothes. i have some sort of filth for breakfast and feed my shitty old cat a piece of green bologna i find in the back of the fridge. i climb into my piece of shit amc matador and roll it down the hill, pop starting it because the starter shit the bed a few months ago. i drive to the 7-eleven and get a pack of winstons and a coffee. the sun is shining like a mother fucker and i put on my cheap, shitty shades that say "porsche" on them and pull out of the parking lot. some guy yells out his window

at me about something i guess i did and then i'm next to him at the stoplight and he's in a bad mood, i guess, because he just keeps yelling at me as i try to torch up one of these winstons. it's a hot day and in the parking lot it takes a bit to get my thighs unstuck from the plastic seat. i walk into work and the boss rips both my arms off and tells me i can work with my fucking feet for all he cares. jimmy tells me a joke about iraqi women and gilbert tells me about how the company insurance policy doesn't cover his alcoholism treatment because they say it's a pre-existing condition. donny chews on cloves to quit smoking, wayne talks about his brother the f-14 pilot, sam says his old lady threw a rod in their washing machine. nobody mentions my broken figure, everybody has their own problems to think about.

at lunch i go to the 7-eleven for nachos and the old crone at the counter yells at me because you're only allowed two pumps of cheese shit on your chips. i buy a lottery ticket and drive to the parking lot at sears where i eat my nachos and smoke winstons, all the while looking at the bank clock. i can get to work in seven minutes, i know, and as i drive back i keep looking at all the bridges and cliffs and shit and how easy it would be to just jerk the wheel and be done with it. the guy on the radio keeps me going. he talks in a non-stop sort of joking kind of thing and he makes it seem like life is just kind of fun amusement park ride or something. even the songs, the happy pop songs that he plays, don't seem too important according to him. he talks through the part of the song in the beginning where nobody's

singing and then he starts talking again when the song nears the end. he just doesn't care. the weather report is always the same here in the desert so he sort of glosses over that, always making the same joke about how the weather's always the same. but he always does the joke just a little bit different, which i like. by the time i get back to work, i feel okay from having listened to him but then i get all tense when i punch in and put on my apron. the boss takes one look at me and accuses me of being drunk. i wish i was. he says i can't operate the machines and makes me clean the meatloaf and gizzards room again. as i turn, he sucker-punches me in the kidney and laughs. i laugh, too. jimmy needs a jump start after work and i get the wires mixed up i guess and my battery explodes, acid spraying all over my

eyes. i laugh and drive home blind, which is okay because i'd always said i could do this trip blindfolded so i figured this is my big chance to do something i said i could do. i put the nose of the matador into the front of the trailer and hit the propane tanks, which blow up magnificently. as my vision comes back, i sit in my chaise lounge smoking winstons as the fire department pours water on the smoking remains of my home. one of the cops who shows up finds a pot seed in my ashtray and hauls me off to the pokey on drug charges. i think my ex-girlfriend used to smoke pot, so i guess that's where it came from. i call up jimmy and he says he's in bed and all but he comes down and bails me out and lets me sleep on the sofa at his trailer, which is kind of nice of him. his wife gives me a hot dog and a bowl of

mac and cheese and says how it's good to see me and that she hopes i won't be staying long because she's expecting a baby and the neighbors were complaining about their dog, hammond. i say okay and walk into the desert, never to be seen again. wednesday, 6:30 a.m. but i show up at work again the next day, even though it took me forever to start my car because there's no hill to roll the matador down and jimmy has a baby seat in his car and there's no room for me. i point out that the baby isn't around yet but he says he's 'practicing' and he is, too, with a little doll in there just like it was his own kid. jimmy will make a good dad, i think later, drilling holes in pieces of metal. for some reason, after six years of doing this, it suddenly occurs to me to ask the boss exactly what the hell it is i'm doing.

he gets all soft on me all of the sudden and talks a lot about the important function of these pieces of metal. then he makes me go clean the meatloaf and gizzards room. at the 7-eleven again, i compare my lottery number to the winning numbers and discover that, had i chosen "24" and "35" for my third and fourth numbers instead of "16" and "29," i would have won $34 million. that makes me feel pretty good. i drive by the insurance place to see about my trailer and the guy tells me that the remains of my trailer have been confiscated by the police because i'd bought it with all of the money i made from selling pot. he says they won't pay for anything because of this. he says they'll confiscate my car, too, and laughs, pointing out the window at a wrecker hooking up my poor old matador. i laugh and shake his hand

and tell him i've had better days. he wishes me luck and as i shake his hand, i look at his tie and think about asking him if it's hard to tie those things, what it's like to own them, how he decides which one to wear each day, what they _mean_. he looks at me and asks if there's anything else he can help me with but i just say no and walk back to work. the boss looks at his watch and just points to the crucifix. i've been up there before and so i don't need any help getting strapped in. as i hang up there watching everyone at work, i suddenly feel all peaceful, and i realize this is the first real rest i've had in a long time. the boss visits me now and again, talking about dipping me in the acid tank, talking about getting some carrion birds in to pluck at my eyeballs. gilbert comes by and hands me a drink

of water and before you know it they're taking me down and putting him up in my place. i go back to work for about five minutes but then the whistle blows and i head out, nodding to gilbert as i pass. i walk for about five minutes towards the trailer park and then realize i don't have anything to walk home to. i sort of stand there in the dirt as the cars whiz by, not knowing what to do, what direction to head in. i think of how it doesn't matter, i think of my parents sitting down to dinner, i think of wanda, my ex-girlfriend and her dog, gilford. then my mind kind of goes blank and i close my eyes and the only thing i'm aware of is the doppler shifts of the cars as they approach, pass me and rush on. i think about the people in the cars and wonder where they're going, how they're going home, probably. i know

about doppler shifts from an intro to astronomy class i took at the community college last year. i think how probably my boss doesn't know about doppler shifts, how most people probably don't know about them. i try to think about other things i know that maybe nobody else does, like how our closest galaxy is andromeda, 2.2 million light years away. how it's called m31. i start feeling all airy and light-headed. i open my eyes and i'm drifting high above the highway looking down on my body standing there next to the road. i notice i still have my apron on and ... but i can't take it off now. i keep rising, higher and higher and i see my body far below me topple over in the dirt, like its plug was pulled or something. then whatever i am now starts kind of blending into the air around me as i go higher and higher

and higher. i hear the diffused laughter of my radio dj all around me, like the world is a big amusement park or something. ### ### hank's tuba billy barr first meets henry when henry's family moves in next door. they stand at the bus stop together regarding each other but not speaking. billy: i'm a nerd, a woosy and a geek. i wonder what you are. henry: i hate moving. i hate going to new schools. my froot of the looms have given me a wedgie. i'm a froot loop. i had froot loops for breakfast. i'm turning into a froot loop, that's what mom says. billy: this kid is not going to believe how tough fifth grade is in this school. the bus pulls up and the only bench left is the one nobody wants, right behind the bus driver. billy and henry sit down in. billy clutches his new space dude lunch box (liverwurst and

bologna on white with ketchup, ziplock bag of fritos, ring ding and thermos of kool-aid). henry thinks about the money he has in his pocket his mom can't cook. henry: is making a sandwich cooking? you just moved here, says billy. henry just looks at him. you just moved here, right? henry nods. you just moved here and this is your first day at school, right? henry nods. bet you're scared. nothing from henry. i'm billy barr. they shake hands. i'm henry. the voice is squeaky. henry? henry what? ain't you got a last name? billy: he's got a stupid last name. he's going to get beat up a lot. maybe _i'll_ beat him up. the bus pulls up in front of the school and henry and billy disembark. henry leans against a wall and billy watches, amazed, as henry throws up. the god david jarnowski comes up. gross! who's

your pal, barr? i don't know him, honest. he was just sitting next to me on the bus. david's minions are in tow. henry is too weak, too gross at the moment, so they turn to billy. one of them takes his lunch box, opens it, and yells yuk liverwurst and bologna! do you know what's in this stuff barr? david waves the sandwich in front of billy. it's poison, billy, poison! he throws the sandwich away and cuffs billy in the head. don't eat this stuff around me. billy: i told mom to give me veggie stuff. she wouldn't listen. i am appalled that anyone could eat a dead animal. david. billy: your mom said that. you're just saying what your mom said. they're veggie terrorists! i'm going to call this david jarnowski's mother and... he's on his knees, begging mode. no mom! please? he's tired of peanut butter and

jelly, but it's vegetarian. poor henry had a corn dog from the cafeteria and the david gang squeezes him until he throws it up. henry throws up a lot. mom and dad never seem to throw up. why do kids do it all the time? i'm a wreck. henry to billy. another parent phrase. no kid would say that. i can't eat meat, but my mom won't make me a veggie lunch and all's they serve at the cafeteria is sloppy joes and corn dogs and hamburgers and hot dogs and meat, meat, meat! now nobody will eat meat and the principal has ordered the cafeteria people to cook only veggie stuff. david has won. the man from the music room comes today. he has a violin. he talks about music and how it was time to take lessons. he plays the violin and it looks weird how the thing scrunches against his chin. he looks at henry. you have

thick lips. you could play tuba. henry blinks and gulps. the music man hands out forms to take home. $75 for music lessons! what the hell are my tax dollars paying for? billy, let's wait until you're a little older. i think you're too young to play an instrument. god knows i've done okay without playing anything. aint' that right dear? two days later, henry is struggling onto the bus with an enormous case. what, what's that? asks billy it's a tuba. i'm taking it home to practice. mr. fredrickson calls me hank. i have big lips. david jarnowski's dad plays the tuba in a polka band. he's in, the little bastard. he's in! i'm a vegetarian and where's my tuba? billy barr is still too young to play. he helps hank carry the tuba each morning and looks with wonder at the sheets of music with the strange symbols.

what does that one mean? i don't know says hank. it means that i push this thing and blow this way. it's a note. a note. billy mouths the word. david jarnowski has not taken up an instrument because, he says he's tone deaf. but he helps hank carry his tuba whenever possible. my dad's tuba is 150 years old and his dad got it from his dad. it's from poland. it's a legacy. a legacy. well, a legacy is er, well, billy, it's a thing that's been around for a while, really old. a generation thing. well, a generation, that's uh, well, i'm one generation and you're another. my father was a generation and your kids will be another. ain't that right, dear? legacies in our family, eh? well, uh, no. i can't think of anything off hand but... hey, you know the way when you blow your nose it sounds just like when i blow

my nose? yeah? well, that's a legacy. it's in the genes, b'god. that's what it is. my daddy made the same goddamned noise when he blew his beak, b'god. it's gym class. dodgeball. billy has been duly pummeled and is sitting on the bleachers. david jarnowski is next to him. it's one of those rare occasions when he's gotten out, too. i want you to make sure that hen... hank plays that tuba. i want you to make sure he don't quit. my dad says that people are always taking up instruments when they're kids and then giving up. he looks around and talks quiet. don't let him stop. if you do that, i'll be your friend. he slaps billy lightly on the cheek and walks away, calmly surveying the game in progress, the gym: his domain. he's out of the game, but he's still in it somehow. billy watches hank lugging the tuba

up the block. it's saturday, not a tuba-lugging day. we had a concert. i forgot some of my parts. i screwed up. i forgot the notes. hank is crying. billy has opened the case like he often does. he's pushing the levers, looking at the music on the pages, wondering about the mystery of this big brass thing. billy: don't cry. you're a musician. don't cry, hank. you're a musician. you're a great musician. david jarnowski says... to hell with david jarnowski. sniffles. i'm tired of lugging this stupid tuba around. the girls think i'm a fag or something. billy: do they? no, they don't hank. i wish, i wish _i_ could play the tuba. silence. snifflings. a minute or two, maybe less. really? yes, really. my dad says i'm too young. he won't let me play. sniffles. but you can play, hank. you can play for both of us.

you have to. hank and his tuba, you'll be famous! it's dodgeball and david jarnowski is picking off members of the other team with killer precision. how does he throw the ball that fast? their team is taking it hard and only he and david are left. how does he catch those fast balls like that? billy runs up to grab a ball near the middle line and trips. fatty tendralillo has a small punisher ball and winds up to deliver the killing blow. david has no more balls left but with a yell he tackles fatty. the gym teacher comes over. that's a foul, jarnowski. thinks a bit. but fatty deserved it. the gym teacher loves david. the gym teacher hates every one of us. the gym teacher loves david. i love david. who said that? david says, unexpectedly, dodge ball should be banned. it's too vicious. it brings out the

worst in us. it brings out the hunter. billy barr, i'm worried about hank. i don't think he likes his tuba anymore. i've tried. i don't think he wants to play anymore and, pat on shoulder, i know it's not your fault. i know you've tried. but i have a plan. oktoberfest? you want to go to oktoberfest? that's for grownups, billy. that's beer and more beer. you uh, you wouldn't fit in. i uh, i forbid it. so your dad wouldn't let you go? you snuck out the window? good man, billy, good man. don't worry, i told hank to be here or else i'd tell everyone he's a fag. hank is waiting, jittering, by the beer tent. he doesn't know what the hell he's supposed to do. you see that hank, old sport? that's the band. you see that guy with the tuba? that's my dad. the band starts to play. david's dad blows tuba and cavorts.

the band goes through a string of favorites, the crowd is moving in unison, holding up beer steins, singing along. the band takes a break and david squirms through the crowd up to his dad with billy and hank in tow. look says david. people are around mr. jarnowski, offering him beers, slapping him on the back. look, they love him because he can do something they can't. he can play tuba, hank. hank? the polka band gets up on the stage for another set. david has maneuvered hank up to the stage and david's father is announcing the young newcomer on the scene. hank has already thrown up twice and had a sip of beer. he'll be okay. the crowd stands around, looking expectantly at hank, who they can hardly see behind the tuba. all eyes on hank, smiling. they want him to do well. the band begins to play and hank

starts blowing and moving levers like he really knows what he's doing. david's dad stands right next to hank, tuba poised near his lips to cover in case hank screws up. but he doesn't. the song ends and the crowd goes wild. hank feels the applause ripple through his body. david feels the applause, billy feels the applause. david hugs billy. hank, david and billy walk from the oktoberfest and david is telling hank what a hit he made. he's telling billy he should be hank's agent. hank stops to throw up only once and they part with high-fives. billy climbs in his window and falls asleep, wondering if he could handle an accordion. ### ### flipper's funn hutt reel and jump, move about performing gesticulative non-sequiturs, yell to flipper for more quik. turn up the brady bunch, more mrs. paul's fishticks,

_s'il vous plait_ , more doritos, more kraft mac & cheese, more park's sausages, yes, more. bongo crosses the room and surveys the kids, doing his job, taking in the scene. all eyes follow him, adoringly, as he moves from table to table: a bon mot here, a one-liner there. the kids chortle with glee and look after him longingly as he moves on, ever-moving, ceaselessly entertaining. vinny is in town, he's a big man now with cable tv. he's hosting a reception at flipper's to promote the new cable station, wtbs, the who's the boss? station, which runs episodes of our favorite show non-stop 24 hours a day. is it our favorite show? it must be. turn it up vinny, this riotous and zany dialogue has us peeing in our jumpsuits. i'm standing outside flipper's later, next to the enormous satellite dish smoking cigarettes

and talking to bongo, the bar fool flipper pays to dress up like a sunoco attendant and hand out steak knives. i ask bongo how tricks are, i ask bongo how he likes his job, i ask bongo how much he gets paid. bongo says tricks are okay, he says he loves his job, he says he gets paid well, he says he gets 401k from flipper. what's 401k? i ask. bongo says he doesn't know. i say i have 401k also at my job, bongo asks me how i like it. i say i like it just fine. bongo says it's like a conversation piece. i say i wish i could wear a zip-up one-piece suit all the time, like bongo does. bongo says it makes dressing "a breeze." bongo asks me how to tie a tie. i say i don't know. i ask him if he knows how he breathes. he says he doesn't know. i say that tying a tie is kinda like that. he nods, pinches the cherry off

of his salem and puts the butt in his pocket. we like bongo because he is an environmentally conscious bar fool. i'm at my desk, i'm in my office, i have my little fan blowing in my face. everybody here has little fans at their work stations because the vent system sucks. and i'm working on a speech for a client, i'm writing it in between interruptions from my assistant, my numerous bosses, the office manager, the fedex guy coming in the door, the phone, the email alerts. i'm wearing a wool suit, i'm wearing a tie. the ac is on and i'm sweating. i'm staring into my computer, writing important things for someone else to say at some meeting in a few weeks. in baltimore. the beefaroni rep is in town. he's at flipper's handing out cans of the shit and buttons to everyone as wtbs competes with the brady bunch channel

from either end of the room. where's the silly string, who's got the fake blood, where's the wowee whistles, frieda is blowing super elastic bubble plastic with a newport, look, you can see the smoke inside. the shirley temple machine is humming, i'll take my glass rimmed with pixie stix, thank you. pass the paxil, administer that white necco wafer to me like communion, let's get out the big wheels, it's snowing? is it good for packing? it's raining? where are the mud puddles? who did this hilites puzzle in pen, the answers are all wrong! the stairmaster in my building's health club died, can't exercise today, billy barked his shin on the jukebox, where's the bacitracin? all of these needs, all of these sounds and tastes swirling about. we stand there after work and fondle our neckties and pantyhose with quizzical

expressions. what is this shit? janie says she she wrote a proposal today, but that its contents were receding from her memory like a stuckey's in her rear view mirror there has to be a slide show to go along with the speech my company is working on, the speech i'm writing, and the slide house has gotten everything ass-backwards. or we did. people are yelling at me. yelling. shoulda used power point. i'm looking at the strategic plan for this client, wondering if the $20,000 a month is doing what we said it would. i think about what i could do with $20,000 a month. i wouldn't write speeches and news releases about high performance synthetic fibers, that's for sure. i'm walking over to park avenue, over to the slide house. i have to go "raise hell," they tell me. i have to go be an asshole. the slide woman is

apologetic, although she points out that most of the errors i'm bitching about are our fault. although i know this to be true, i go to her boss and paint for him a tale of mixed signals, uncooperative underlings and missed deadlines. after this, things happen faster, our mistakes are fixed. fixed quick. the "oh my nose!" episode comes on the brady bunch channel and we sit in rapt silence, drinking it in, hanging on every word, laughing uproariously as these suburban bumpkins lie and cheat and sport wimple-like lapels with naive chic. some guys in suits walk in and start asking for beers. flipper just shakes his head and offers some sasparilla. they look at our little lobster bibs stained with red sauce, regard the wailing tv sets, look at the tables of candyland players bent intently around their boards and

walk out scowling. i run into suzie, who is vice president of corporate communications and investor relations at a company that makes asshole medicine. i ask her how tricks are. what? she says to me. she's watching major nelson on tv. he's dressed as a viking or something and colonel bellows walks in on him. i repeat my question. what do you mean, how's tricks? she says, jamming a bunch of cheeze doodles past her lipstick and into her head. she doesn't like to talk about how she works for a company that makes stuff to squirt up your ass, and she thinks that i'm trying to get her to talk about it. she doesn't want to talk about anything, i see, so i wander over to the frankfurter machine and spend 20 minutes looking, transfixed, at the dogs impaled on stakes making their rounds inside their glass cage. my performance

at the slide house, although it didn't endear me to the folks there, makes a hit at the agency. i get an attaboy from my boss. he says i've got executive fiber in me. wee. we get the presentation ready in time for the client's trip to the city and he liked it, he did. we were at the office until midnight the night before getting it all ready. the client had no idea. i got spaghettios juice on my mr. bubble t-shirt, mom will get it out with fab, which can take an oil slick out of a wedding dress in a regular load with hardly any scrubbing. spaghettios are great for hangovers with a glass of strawberry quik and a grilled cheese sandwich slimed in butter, but since flipper's opened, i hardly know hangovers. the dogs are sweating under the light and i'm always fascinated to see kids buy these things. when they

order one, i like to watch their faces as flipper plucks one off its skewer and slams it into a bun with practiced ease. the buyers, i notice, always watch every move flipper makes. they tell him what they want on it and watch intently, licking their lips with concerned anticipation as he prepares their meat treat. i watch their eyes, you see, which never leave the dog. i wonder, but i don't eat meat anymore, although i don't know why. smoking isn't allowed in flipper's, so i go out to the satellite dish again and join the other kids out there smoking like fiends. i light a parliament and listen in. most of the kids smoke parliaments because they have the funnest filters, more fun even than vantages, some say. bongo is out there again, and so is tex, the other bar fool. tex has sheepskin chaps and a 40 gallon

stetson hat and big fake guns and spurs and a saddle that flipper makes him tote around. tex calls the saddle his cross. if you ask him about the saddle, he'll hold out his palms and say see my stigmata? which tickles him because nobody knows what the hell he's talking about. tex is talking about his ford falcon that he drives. he says it has a bad water pump and that he'll have to spend his day off replacing it. everybody is amazed to hear tex talk about this, and nobody interrupts him whenever he talks about his car. not only is he the only person we know who owns a car in the city, but he even knows how to fix it. problem is, says tex, with the loping conversational tone of someone who knows he has the floor, is thet i have to drain th' radiator. then i haff to take off'n the fan belt and remove the waddah

pump. i'd heard tex talk about replacing his muffler last week and, even though the conversation was good, i felt queasy, had to go. i get back to my building. i get in the elevator and nearly keel over from the smells of indian food coming up from the super's kitchen in the basement. i get into my apartment and thank god there's a chuck norris film on channel 11. i've missed star trek, i rue, but it was the ok corral episode and i always thought that was kind of a dumb one. i have my victoria's secret catalogue, i have my molson golden ales, my parliaments, i have my television; my spear, my loincloth. i watch chuck kick people in the head and i think a little about my working week. i have to go to baltimore tomorrow for the big presentation. can't sleep, nervous, so i'm in this room, right, and all of these