Memoirs of Jack (Whistling Willy) Wilson (draft)

Chapter One " Me and What's Her Face"

"My Imaginary Wedding to Probably Donna"
Oh Wow! I am so nervous. Today is the big day. We are getting married! I really don't even know her name, but I think it is probably Donna. It was love at first sight, when I saw her standing there in the laundromat with her pink plastic basket of dirty laundry. It wasn't about the way she looked at me. It was more like the way she ignored me, as I sat my baby blue basket of dirty laundry down next to hers. We both loaded our washers in silence, not daring to look at one another, or at each other's dirty laundry, but I did peek once at her panties as she tossed them in. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer. I tried to say it as nonchalantly as I could while pouring in detergent, "Would you marry me?" There was a moment of silence that seemed to last an eternity, or at least a couple of seconds. And then at last, without looking up, she muttered the words I longed to hear, "Yeh, .... sure."
So now here I am, in front of the mirror, slicking back my hair I probably should have washed. My psychiatrist was so surprised when I called to cancel and told him I was getting married. "To who?" he asked me. "To Probably Donna!" I said. Then he hung up on me. What does he know about love? "I know what love is", I said, straightening my clip-on tie and whistling a tune I made up for the occasion. It was a medley of sorts of "Taps" and "Here Comes the Bride." "Here comes the bride...day is done...here comes the bride....gone the sun...dum de dum, dum de dum..dum de dum..." It will be a surprise when I perform it at the wedding. I could hardly imagine what it would be like, standing there in night court in front of the judge. We will probably need one of the muggers or prostitutes waiting their turns to serve as witnesses for us.. But that's ok, me and Probably Donna will be setting an example of how love can change your life. Oh, I can just see it now!
"Do you, Jack (Whistling Willy) Wilson take Probably Donna to be your.....live-in girlfriend?" "Yes, I do!" "To have?" "Big time!" "To hold?" "Oh, In deedy I do, your Honorableness!" "To get to really know?" "OK, yeh." " In the good times and the crummy times?" "OK, OK...get on with it!" " In health?" "Yep." "In sickness?" "Uhh....well, what do you mean by that? Like, she has a cold? Or she goes schizophrenic? What has this world come to, when you have to read the fine print at your wedding? OK, Yes! Even if she goes schizophrenic on me!"
That's when the thought first hit me. Right there in front of the mirror adjusting my tie, my smiling whistle disappearing like a Moto Guzzi tail light in the foggy night. That this was maybe the deal with Probably Donna. That she was really Maybe Schizophrenic. It scared me for a minute. But then, my manly protective instincts broke through. My sympathy. My empathy. My understanding. My consolation. My heart. My own dissociative disorder. Poor Probably Donna, my bride-to-be, is locked up somewhere in the cold castle of some dark schizophrenic head. I hastily folded the copy of my birth certificate and stuffed it into my back pocket. I grabbed my car keys and raced back to the laundromat. "I'm coming, Probably Donna! Hold on! I'm coming!"

"A Fool For Love"

Me: So you acknowledge that I am taping you, and with your permission?
Jack: uh huh....
Me: When we last spoke, you were rushing back to the laundromat....
Jack: Yes, I was frantic.
Me: What happened?
Jack: She wasn't there anymore.
Me: So what did you do then?
Jack: I just sat there all by myself flipping through an old issue of Wheels and Deals. Wishing I could go away...far away.
Me: I can understand how you must have felt.
Jack: But then, guess what happened?
Me: I can't begin to imagine.
Jack: Well, a few days later, I went back to the laundromat, and there she was! She had on this really cute T-shirt that said "Tell Your Boyfriend To Call Me." And so, suddenly, I felt all embarrassed, like maybe I needed to cool the situation down a bit. So as I walked past her I said, "I think we should put the wedding on hold." I just strolled by like that, kinda super cool, know what I mean?
Me: Uhhh, yes, I think so, so go on.
Jack: So, I sat down at one of those video game machines, and dropped a couple of quarters in.
Me: Mmm...hmm....(making notes)
Jack: Just as the game started I heard Probably Donna say, "Whatever?!!!"
Me: How did you feel when she said that, Jack?
Jack: I was so excited, so I started playing the video game. I mean "whatever", that means she's open for anything, right?
Me: Ummm, that's one way to interpret it, I suppose... I was looking at the entry you made in your journal on July 11th...You seemed to be feeling some ambivalence at the time.
Jack: I was?
Me: Here let me read you a part of it, Jack

"A Fool For Love" continued

Journal of Jack (Whistling Willy) Wilson, Jul 11:
"There is something a little scary about these feelings I have for Probably Donna. Like what if we should become something more than familiar strangers? Like, what if it changes, and we are not just me and what's her face anymore? Or Maybe Me and Probably Donna? What if we started trying to actually know each other? I would have a lot of explaining to do. And probably she would too. And then I would probably start getting self-conscious about my pile of smelly clothes on the floor by the washers. My crusty socks. And my worn too many times underpants. I would begin concealing these from her glances. Our growing knowledge of one another could eventually lead to our being cast out of the garden of strange familiarity. Our bond of coupled anonymity would be broken by the force of a growing friendship. And then love would be looming menacingly over us. And there would be sexual innuendos embedded in our conversations...and chit-chat after sex. Our dirty laundry would be all one mixed up tangle of panties and underpants. And socks and bras. The sterile florescent laundromat, with its sounds and smells, and blank-faced strangers had the potential of turning into a Pandora's Box full of complications, and complexes, and confessions, and explanations, and desires and longings. My love affair with ennui would be threatened - possibly destroyed."
Jack: Wow! Did I say all that?
Me: Uh huh...well I had to re-write it since a lot of your words were pretty jumbled up. Does it seem accurate?
Jack: Yeh...sounds pretty good.
Me: So, shall I include it in your memoirs?
Jack: Yeh, why not? I mean it is kinda scary...falling in love.
Me: OK, so finish telling me about what happened that day at the laundromat?
Jack: Oh yeh...OK...so like, I started playing the video game and Probably Donna was over in a corner behind me flipping through a magazine. And, all of a sudden she threw her magazine down and yelled "Oh Shit!" She went running over to the dryers and frantic like looking into the windows. I mean, I could see her in the reflection on the video screen right when I was in the middle of gunning down all these crazy monsters that were running all up and down the streets of this dark city. I knew that Probably Donna was in trouble, but the monsters kept popping up out of manhole covers and jumping out of windows and coming right at me. I was in a kill or get killed situation. And if they got past me there was no telling what they would do to poor little Probably Donna...she didn't even have a gun! So I just shouted "Go for it Probably Donna!", and started firing away. Blam, blam, blam! "Die you motherfuckers!" "Eat lead you rotten excuse for a slime ball! I could see her in the reflection pulling a couple of wet sweaters out of the dryer. I was cool under fire. "I've got you covered!", I shouted over my shoulder. I was just doing what any man would do, protecting my familiar stranger girlfriend from harm. When the game ended, I had racked up 378, 897 points. My best game ever! When I turned around, she was gone. And so was the pink laundry basket.. And that weird looking little Citroen she always drove in....it was gone too. Suddenly, I began to have an understanding of how fragile she is. Poor Probably Donna, it must have been so scary, so frightening to have almost shrunk her sweaters in the dryer. But at least I saved her life.
Me: But, Jack...did you ever actually really meet this girl?
Jack: Ummm...yeh. But back then, it was just this process of us getting closer. Love is a complicated thing, you know. You have to take it slow and easy.

Incident at Eddie's Market

I was edgy pulling up. I could see Probably Donna's car over by the laundromat. I had no plan other than to stroll in there and act like nothing ever happened. As though I had never screamed "Go for it Probably Donna, I've got you
covered!" Maybe she will pretend it didn't happen too. But what if she demands an explanation? "Oh...uhhh, that wasn't you I was yelling at...ha ha...no, I was yelling at...." Damn, that won't work - we were the only ones in the laundromat. What to do? First I would go into Eddy's Market next door for some gum. It would be a good warm-up exercise. Eddie and I had been familiar strangers for a long time, we had the art of mindless chit-chat down.
I saw Eddy smile at me as I walked past his window. I threw a quick wave and swung open the door. I let out what was supposed to be a long "Yooooo!" as my usual greeting, but it got truncated by the sudden vision of the back of Probably Donna's head. Standing there at the cluttered counter counting out change. She was facing Eddy who was looking up over her shoulder and smiling at me coming in. He wagged his eyebrows at me and did a quick point to her with his eyes as she organized nickels and dimes on the formica counter. It was a secret guy code that meant check out this little hottie. I smiled and nodded and tried to keep my cool in what was an obviously awkward familar stranger triangle. Eddy was clueless about this drama between me and Probably Donna. And what's worse, he was acting all turned on by my almost girlfriend. And I thought we were almost friends, me and Eddy. She was buying these fragrant papery things you throw in with your clothes in the dryer. And I couldn't very well just turn heel and walk out at this point. I was in a serious role conflict. Suddenly there was a ray of hope. Probably Donna didn't have enough money. "Oh, Darn!" she said seductively, looking up at Eddy. I had to act fast, because knowing Eddy he would say, "Don't worry about it." And try to steal my girl. So I borrowed a dollar from my lunch money and threw it over the counter. Gambling for redemption and trying to get the jump on Eddy. "Here you go Eddy." I said in a slightly deeper voice than normal. I gave him the secret code look back. Of course, Probably Donna turned around to see who it was that was fronting her. She started out saying, "Oh, really, I couldn't...."
Then seeing it was me, she just said, "Thanks. I'll pay you back." I couldn't clearly interpret her change of face. Her mouth was all over the place. A smile. A fret. A little chuckle that had some meaning only she knew. And then a flat line. And then a cold shoulder as she walked past me toward the door. I turned to Eddy who was already sliding my gum across the counter. I heard Probably Donna over my shoulder. "Seriously. Thank you so much." Then I heard the door swish and click closed. She needs me! Eddy pushed the embarrassingly crumpled up dollar bill back at me as I tried to switch my head back to the mode of strange familiarity and erase this moment of nagging desire and longing.
I walked nervously from Eddie's and into the laundromat next door with my pillowcase over my shoulder. I was a sailor home from the sea. Probably Donna was all the way down to the far end. Not in her usual washer zone. Plugging a couple of washers with quarters. Not looking up. Not playing the game with me. No "Oh, darling! You are safe at home at last." No baby slung on her hip I didn't know about for having been gone so long. Nothing. Not even a nod or momentary hint of a smile of recognition. It was as though I was a stranger she had never seen using the laundromat in these parts. Or she had amnesia.
I played it low-key, dumping my clothes out on the floor at the first washer I came to, and going through the motions of sorting. Its an operation I don't really care about. I just take my cues from others. That's what they do. Usually about half way through the whites-go-here-colors-go-there rigamarole, I give up and start throwing them at random into the washers. Attention Deficit Disorder can be very situation-specific. For me it occurs at the laundromat and at work. And especially now, re-tracing the incident at Eddy's market in my mind. Probably Donna is down there at the other end plugging quarters like she was in Vegas. So, how come if she has so many quarters, she couldn't come up with 89 cents for the fragrant smelly paper at Eddy's? She scammed Eddy! And I had become an accidental unwitting victim as well! Probably Donna was Possibly a Con Artist! It was a lot to swallow. To think my familiar stranger girlfriend, pink basket girl, Probably Donna was a cold schizophrenic con artist. Either that or she has amnesia. In any case, it was a lot to think about. These relationship things get so complicated so fast. Suddenly, I just turned and stared at her. These are the things that trip me up - desire, longing, furtive glances. You lose your Mojo all of a sudden, and find yourself staring. All the past subtleties go sliding down some slippery oily slope and you land embarrassed in the mucky puddle of your id.


Jack Whistles A different Tune

Me: Before we go on with your memoirs, Jack, I think we should clear up a few things.
Jack: OK, Like what?
Me: Well, in that you want our conversations to be noted in your story, how shall I describe myself?
Jack: Umm...I don't know, like maybe my sidekick?
Me: That's not much to go on Jack, I mean, I haven't actually been along with you on these events of your life. I am just writing them down for you....being your ghost writer.
Jack: I know, but that sounds creepy. Wait...I've got it!! You can be my butler! My trusted butler that I told the true story of my life to!
Me: Well, that's not exactly true, Jack.
Jack: I know, but we could pretend. Everything else would be the truth, of course.
Me: Well, it might an interesting way to convey your story....I suppose we could try it.
Jack: Let's try it out then! Let's see...you can be.... Carmichael, my butler!
Me: Ok then, Carmichael, it is. So lets just role play and see how it works.
Jack: Ok, lets...!

The interview continues....
Jack: Carmichael, sit please. There are some things I must talk to you about.
Carmichael: Sir? Is there something wrong?
Jack: No Carmichael, nothing concerning you. You have been my faithful butler now for many years.
Carmichael: Yes sir, and it has been my pleasure.
Jack: I must tell you some things, and I would like you to note them.
Carmichael: Of course!
Jack: So that one day the truth will be known.
Carmichael: Indeed.
Jack: I am not who you think I am, Carmichael. I am not Jack Wilson at all.
Carmichael: But, Sir.....
Jack: You must listen and listen very closely....and make note of these things I tell you.
Carmichael: But Sir, if you are not Jack Wilson then who...?
Jack: Write, Carmichael, write; and I will tell you.....It has been several years now since I left that dreadful place. I was there for three long years, Carmichael. And every day I spent there , seemed a year unto itself. Days and days of interrogation and intimidation as they tried to convince me I was not who I, in fact, knew myself to be. That I was Jack Wilson instead. A name they seemingly pulled out of the thin air.
Carmichael: But then, who are you really, sir?
Jack: I was born the child of Alison Mann. And no ordinary child at that. The doctors called me a "miracle."
Carmichael: In what respect, sir, if I may ask?
Jack: My mother was a virgin at the time of my birth, Carmichael. The doctors didn't believe her at first, but then when they studied my chromosomal make up, my genetic profile that is, they determined that my birth, in deed was a miracle. And so my mother named me that...wrote it on my birth certificate, "Miracle"
Carmichael: So, in reality you are Miracle Mann and not Jack Wilson at all!
Jack: Precisely.
Carmichael: Then...did you perform miracles?
Jack: Ha ha ha, of course not! Do you think I am some kind of raving lunatic? It was just a name. My real name. But then they put me in that place. Are you getting all this down, Carmichael?
Carmichael: Yes, yes...they sent you to that place....
Jack: Yes. And there, I was eventually worn down by their so called "therapies" and finally resigned, at least in a superficial way, to their lie. The lie that I was Jack Wilson. It was the only way I was ever to get out of that place. To go along with them. And so, I have been Jack Wilson ever since, for fear they might lock me up again. Carmichael, put these notes in the vault until we talk again. And never reveal what I have told you to anyone.
Carmichael: You have my word, Mr. Mann.
Jack: And Carmichael, never refer to me as Mr. Mann.
Carmichael: Of course, Mr. Wilson.
Jack: Well, that worked pretty good!
Me: Not bad, but it's becoming a helluva story, Jack.
Jack: I know, but its true.
Me: Hmmm....true.....yes.....

Me and my Shadow

Its not easy being someone else, Carmichael. I can still remember my mother coming down the hallway to my room in the morning to get me up in time for the school bus. 'Where's my little miracle?, I could hear her calling. And then coming into my room, "Where's my miracle?" And pulling away the blankets I had drawn up over my head, "There's my miracle!" And at school, the kids picked on me a lot. When I would walk down the hall there was always someone to crack, "Praise the Lord, I feel a miracle coming on!" And, on the playground they would push me around and say things like, "Not so miraculous now, are you miracle boy?" You might think I would be glad to be done with it. But, it seems that who-I-used-to-be still wants some part of the action, even to this day. In my case, he leaves me pre-recorded reminders on my mobile phone. "Hey Jack, this is Me. I just wanted to remind you, you were going to get dog food on the way home. And some more coffee. And for crying out loud, don't forget a small thing of milk for the coffee. If I have to drink that curdled stuff again, I will scream. Anyway, Jack, do you think you can handle it? Dog Food? Coffee? ... Cream? CLICK.
So, of course I called him back. Does he pick up? Of course not. So I leave him a message. "Look, asshole.... I am out here doing what you should be doing. Trying to be real. You don't know jack...and you know why? Because I am Jack and you are not. You are a wanna-be Jack. Yeh, I'll get the coffee and the dogfood. But you can get the cream yourself. You know why? Cuz I am Jack. Jack takes it black. So get off my back. Hey now, what do you know? I'm a poet! So, "sayonara....adios....hasta la vista baby....auf wiedersehen....and oh yes, I almost forgot....kiss my ass! Click. Ha ha, guess I told me!
My shrink and the nice lady that comes to see me once a month seem to be in agreement. They say I am marginal. I don't do a knee-jerk thing about it. Afterall, its not beyond imagination that one could be a temp employee at Wirex and marginal too. I think they call it multi-tasking. Many things are more or less, or other, than what they seem. Some things are just one big ball of wax. I am Jack and that other guy too. So, who are we, to be arrogant in this moment? I like this actually. Marginality, its the new frontier, Carmichael. I feel some Lewis and Clark Expedition moment is occurring within me. I'm not going crazy at all. I am just defining boundaries. I am charting new territory. I am navigating and documenting, and cartographing, and choreogaphing, a line from the sea to Probably Donna and me. Many fear falling through the crack. But I have a feeling that's where the action's at. Me and the Miracle, we understand each other. And if it should be that I can't be with her, then I would hope that he would look after her. He made me what I am today. And I really don't know if I was too tired to do the laundry today, or if it was something else that led to my giving him the keys to the car and the pillowcase of things to be washed. But I do hope he represented me well, because we both have so much at stake. Have you ever read "Howl", Carmichael?...the poem by Ginsberg? "Carl, while you are not safe, I am not safe, and now you're really in the animal soup of time."

The Lost Art of Not Staring


I should have known better than to let Miracle go to the laundromat in my stead. He has no sense of peripheral vision; no idea how to pretend to look at one thing while sizing something else up. Still, I was hoping he could pull it off. Be me, and be cool. But no, he had to stare! He had to look at her breasts...he had to forget that maybe she was a schizo con artist and stare dumbly at her breasts. What an idiot...I will never let him do my laundry again! And did she catch him looking? Of course she did! The idiot! She was leaning over the washer fishing stuff out and suddenly turns her head and looks at him. And the ice in her eyes was something he had no suave about. The idiot! He says something like "I am an art student." As though that would explain something! I tried to take over. To apologize.
But that look she gave me stabbed me right in the larynx. It plucked my tongue out of my mouth and tied it into a knot, and I was speechless. Besides none of that was true. It was nagging desire and longing that had led my eyes there. So I just turned away and strolled out the front door. I watched the traffic roll sluggishly by. People driving in slow motion. I whistled a tune. It was from a movie I saw once called The High and The Mighty. It starred Robert Mitchum as some kinda pilot of an airplane. And as the film opened and closed there was a whistled over-dub. I was high and mighty...high and mighty....it was the best thing I had heard since Canadian Sunset....nobody whistled on that but it was quite moving...Once I was alone....all alone without a dream of my own.....and then, there you were there...on that ski trail... without a dream of your own...or something like that. I took a nervous glance through the window of the laundromat. Probably Donna was grabbing a bra out of a dryer and disappearing into the bathroom. I had a feeling when she came back out she wouldn't be as jiggly and voluptuous as before. It was a sad feeling. Like maybe she was turning into a memory. Oh, yes, I remember her. What's Her Face. We were on familiar terms once. My eyes watered. But I wasn't sure whether it was because of the wistful songs I was whistling, or because Probably Donna covered so, was burning holes in the back of my head, or if it was the diesel exhaust of a delivery truck idling in front of Eddy's market. Or something else in the foggy air between my ears.

People Talk...and Talk...

It was a fluke, I suppose, to run into "Probably Donna" at a coffee house.
I wasn't even sure at first that it was really her. But from all the ways Jack had described her, it seemed likely. She just fit the bill. I was there to catch up on my notes regarding Jack...this story he wants me to write. And suddenly I am caught in this realization that I was looking at Jack's dream. I am sitting at a table next to Probably Donna, and she is seemingly unaware as she writes notes in her journal, that I am writing notes about her. "Is this really her?" I found myself writing again and again. She looked up and smiled at me. It was a pretty awkward moment. l said "Hi, working on homework?" She blinked once and then simply stared. I have never seen such big eyes. No one who lives in the city has eyes like this. In the city people squint. It's a kind of protection against the things that come at you all the time. There is so much in your face in the city. So she must be from the countryside. A place where nothing comes up in your face out of the blue. A place of big skies and lands that stretch. No reason to squint. That gaze alone gave me more understanding of Jack. "Not really", she said, "This room is full of chatter, and I was just thinking about why people talk?" It was tough here to keep my distance, I was Jack's ghost writer, and his butler too, as it turns out. "Helluva question!", I said as I sipped my latte. "Yeh, but what's the answer?" she said, looking down at her papers and doodling. "I don't know, its an interesting question though." I said pretending to shuffle papers of my own "...people, even strangers on an elevator seem to want to talk...they talk about the weather...or they say something like "How 'bout them Red Soxs? Its kinda funny." She glanced up at me, "Yeh, or they say, "Hi, working on your homework?" She leaned across the table, still not blinking, "There are two reasons people talk", she said, "One is for them to get to know you, the other is to keep them from knowing you at all." My head did a sudden little twitch, as though to shake myself from some trance her words and her eyes had put me in. "So which is it for you?" I asked. She closed her journal and stood, "You mean right here, right now?"
I looked up at her, "Yeh, right here, right now." "Right here, right now - I have to go. But if there is a next time, I might tell you."

Probably Not Donna

Tuesday morning I went to my chest of drawers and scooped out handfuls of t-shirts, underwear and socks and tossed them onto the floor. I didn't know what else to do. I was out of dirty laundry, but I just had to see Probably Donna again. So I just started kicking my clothes around on the linoleum floor and stomping on them. Finally I scooped them up and tossed them into the laundry basket and admired my handiwork. Yep, looks like dirty clothes to me...and Wow! my floor looks so clean! When I pulled up to the laundromat I saw her car. I knew she would be there waiting for me! I strolled in confidently with my basket of obviously dirty clothes. Probably Donna was way down at the back sitting at a table and sipping on an Icee. She was reading some kind of book. "Hi! I said, "Doing your homework?" "You know what's weird? she said, cocking her head and looking at me. "You're the second person who has asked me that today." "Really?" I replied. She nodded her head up and down several times looking at me with an unreadable expression on her face. "Yeh, ....really." "Wow", I said, "second?...that's like a silver medal or something!" She broke out laughing and then abruptly stopped. "I am reading a fucking story, if you don't mind?" "Oh...oh...yeh..." I said, "I get it." I dumped my clothes in the washer glancing over at her several times sitting there reading her book. And once when I glanced at her she was sitting there looking right back at me. I strolled outside and sat down on the bench. Oh My God! I am so in love! I re-traced in my mind this amazing thing that just happened. Probably Donna gave me a silver medal...I made her laugh...and she confessed to me that she was reading a book about fucking. A lady with two kids pulled up. They began dragging a monstrous amount of clothes behind them. She thanked me for holding the door open. Do you know how much money it takes to raise a kid? How many quarters just to keep them clean? As I let the glass door swing closed behind them. I glanced inside. The kids were running back to Probably Donna. They know her. She knows them. She is smiling and talking to them. If she has amnesia it must be episodic. A thing that comes and goes. I sat down on the bench again to contemplate these things. It would explain a lot. The amnesia cycles. Like why she smiles knowingly at me sometimes, and other times not. Why she didn't come to the laundromat for three weeks in a row. Poor thing, she probably forgot where it was. And why she had no money for Eddy and then had money for the washers. And why she gave me that icy stare that time when I was looking at her t-shirt. She had gone into one of her episodes, and thought I was a stranger. Maybe Probably Donna isn't a con artist. Maybe she is just a poor lonely cold schizophrenic amnesiac. My heart melted. And it ached. The same way my ears ache as they thaw out from a winter's walk. When I walked back in to check on my clothes, Probably Donna and the lady with kids were back there chatting. And then I heard the word. It pierced the air. And my ears. And my eyes. And my brain. And my teeth. And my heart. And my stomach. My upper colon. And then my lower colon. I even felt it in my knees. The lady with kids said it. The word was "Dorothy". She was looking at probably Donna and saying, "Oh Dorothy! Don't be silly!" This changes everything. Probably Donna was Really Dorothy. Probably Donna is gone forever. In a flash. Finished. Kaput! Vanished into the thick humid air of the laundromat. And in her place stood Really Dorothy, in Probably Donna's clothes. It reminded me of something I saw once on The Twilight Zone. Or something that happened to me long ago.

Probably Jack

The lady with the kids put her clothes in the washers. And then left. She told Really Dorothy she would be back in awhile. She promised the kids they'd go get donuts. Did Really Dorothy want her to bring back a coffee? Really Dorothy declined. She didn't like coffee. A donut? No thanks. Hmmmm.....well at least we have a few things in common. I don't care for coffee and donuts much either. It was some comfort. Still I felt confused. It's a big deal when your almost girlfriend pulls a name change on you. I strolled out and over to Eddy's market. " I'm outa gum already." I said as I walked in. Eddy chuckled and reached for the gum. I usually don't do this. It was unpredictable behavior on my part. To come in for gum twice in an hour's time. I didn't even have the exact change. I gave him the crumpled bill that I tried to give him earlier. My timing was suddenly all screwed up. I was off-balance. Teetering. Eddy seemed not to notice. Or perhaps pretended not to. "Is that little cutie doing her laundry next door?" he asked with a wink. " Oh, you mean Dorothy?" I replied letting him know I was on 'familiar' terms with her. I turned to leave again but then, on impulse turned back to Eddy. " Hey, would you do me a favor?" I asked. He shrugged. " Sure I guess so." " Well, look. I am washing clothes next door. In about 5 minutes could you come over and just shout in there "Hey Jack, ya gotta phone call."? "Yeh, sure." "Thanks." "No problem...Hey Jack", he said as I began to walk out. I turned to look at him with the door half open. "My name is Eddy", he said. I waved. Good to meet ya Eddy". "See ya later, Jack". My plots were thickening. My relationships were kaleidoscoping out at the speed of lies. In about four minutes, assuming Eddy keeps his word, Really Dorothy would learn my secret identity.
I sat at the table by the front door...chewing gum and pretending to be reading the business section of the newspaper. Really Dorothy was leaning on a washing machine writing in her journal. I looked at the clock. Eddy should pop in soon. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Really Dorothy disappear into the bathroom. "Oh, hell!" She had barely closed the door when Eddy popped his head in. "Hey, Jack ya gotta phone call." He looked around the empty laundromat. And then to me. Like am I crazy? I jumped up nodding my head yes. Of course I am crazy. " Do it again in two minutes. She's in the bathroom". He nodded and disappeared. The next time it worked. "Hey Jack, ya gotta phone call". I could tell Really Dorothy had looked up. And that at last, she knew my secret identity. " Oh thanks Eddy!", I said getting up and walking out. Now I had to go kill a coupla minutes in the market. Explain this to Eddy. Well, explain some of it. There are some things he wouldn't understand. Things I don't even understand. When I walked back into the laundromat, Really Dorothy was gone again. I sighed. I felt so exhausted by all these close encounters. Relationships take so much work. But it was a good day. Me and Really Dorothy knew each other so much better now. I couldn't wait for next Tuesday to roll around.


Love Song for Really Dorothy


Gonna take a sentimental journey...sentimental journey to the laundromat. Gonna take a sentimental journey cuz that's where you're at....no, that sounds corny.. Its not easy to write a love song for someone as special as Really Dorothy...it needs to be more romantic...ummm...You light up my.... my candles... blowing...hmmm... blowing... over a bridge....uhm... under troubled eagles... soaring in the wind.... Let's see....Strumming me softly....like a cat... licking a bowl of milk...ummm....you are my hunka..hunka...burning... toast...and...jelly... and...and..In a spin...love is that spin I'm in...in that old clothes washer of love....cuz people, people who do laundry, are the luckiest...ok..now I am getting on a roll...strangers in the night... exchanging numbers..on the bridge beneath my feet in the wind....killing me softly with my song... Ooh, I am already getting the melody...whistling it my head. I will save this for after a hot date. I will pull up to the curb and say "I have something for you to read." And I will hand her this piece of paper with these words. And she can read them as I whistle along. Knowing Really Dorothy the way I do, this will turn her into emotional jello. She will look at me with teary eyes, my love song trembling in her little hands, and she will say in a shaky voice, "Would you like to come up to my place for coffee?" And, I'll say, Uh, do you have cream and sugar?" And she'll say "Yeh, lots.." and give me a wink.



I Am A Temp

I'm actually not a temp. I am the temp. I am THE TEMP. You may think I am picking at straws, but there is a very clear line of distinction here. "A temp", is one who is registered with a Temp Agency. He (or she) is on file as available to work, but does not have an assignment. Once you have an assignment you are promoted to "The Temp"...as in the phone call from the agency, "You have been selected to be The Temp at Wirex." " What's Wirex?" " It's a coat-hanger factory." "Cool!" Even if there are other temps at Wirex, the message would be essentially the same. "You have been selected to be one of The Temps at Wirex." In my case, and with regard to Wirex, I was the one and only. This new status became apparent from the first moment I walked onto the job. The guy who was to be my superior...the "wire boss"....shook my hand enthusiastically and said with a look of surprise, "Oh! You are The Temp." Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Have you ever made a coat-hanger, son?" I said, "No, but I use them all the time. I even used one to open my car door when I left the keys inside." "Now, that's the kind of creativity we need here at Wirex. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it." Then he turned and looked me in the eye, "Do you know what a coat-hanger really is, son?" "It's a thing you hang clothes on.", I replied, eager to demonstrate my knowledge of the matter. "Ha ha," he laughed shaking his head, "that's what they all say when they first come in here. But I am talking about the essence of the coat-hanger. Listen to me closely, son, and you will do well here. A coat-hanger is a triangle. A triangle with a twisted question mark looming over it." "Oh Wow, I never looked at it that way." I said. "OK," he said, as we walked into the shop, "so we got the right bender over here." I smiled and nodded at the guy at the right bender and watched as he took some wires and put them into the bender and hit a button. He passed these to the guy next to him. "Now this here, is the left bender" the wire boss said as we continued down the line. "We'll start you out on the right bender, because the left bender is a bit more advanced." We continued down the row. "And this here is the hook maker, it's state of the art. But come on down here Jack, I want you to watch this." We went to the next station. I stopped and watched as this guy everybody calls "Joe", took an almost-coathanger and placed it in a jig. He hit a button and the almost coat-hanger started spinning..it only took a second, and then Joe held it up and handed it to the wire boss. The wire boss dangled it from one finger. "Take a look at that, Jack. Tell me what you see." "A coat-hanger!" "So, what do you think, Jack?", the wire boss said as we walked back to his office. "I think, its really great. I was hoping though, that I would actually get to make a whole coat-hanger all by myself." The wire boss leaned back in his swivel chair and kicked his feet up on his desk. "You know what, Jack? I like your ambition...your spunk...reminds me of myself when I was your age. So, I'll tell you what I am going to do...you come in tomorrow at 7am sharp and I will let you make a coat-hanger all by yourself." "Are you serious?" I said, hardly believing my ears. "I am dead serious, son..I think you've got what it takes." "Oh wow!" I said, "Thank you Mr...."
"Just call me Wire Boss." "Thank you Mr. Wire Boss!" "Not 'Mr. Wire boss', he corrected me.."just...Wire Boss". "Thanks, Wire Boss!" "OK", he said, "Now get out of here, I've got work to do." I was so excited as I left. My social worker would be happy to know I have a job. And tomorrow, I will make a whole coat-hanger all by myself. And I know just what to do with it. When Really Dorothy is taking her clothes out of the dryer, I will give it to her. " Here, I made this for you.

Probably Me and the Frisky Cowgirl

So I am sitting at a dinner with four other people. What possessed me to respond to such an invitation, I don't know. Something about that hug my landlord gave me when I brought her lost dog to her house. So she invited me to a "little dinner party". I wouldn't typically go to such a thing, being the introverted type my shrink says I am. but she was a rather attractive lady and she had always been understanding about my always being late with the rent. And I hadn't had a good meal in a good while either. Nevertheless, as it turns out, four people is a dinner. And five people is four people dining on a sacrificial lamb. Probably me, with my foot in my mouth. But my shrink says it is important for me do such things...to go out now and then...be with people..expand my comfort zone, whatever that means. To me, it means something like getting a bigger cushier couch, one on which me and Really Dorothy can get cozy. In fact, when I get my first check from Wirex, that's what I am going to do...buy a bigger better couch...a pink one. I tried to look as normal as possible. I tried to dress appropriate to the neighborhood my landlord lived in. I shined my Johnson and Murphy cowboy boots that I found at a thrift store. I hardly ever wore them. Mostly admired them and polished them now and then like I was a cowboy.. a cowpoke... a wrangler just in off the trail with the dust still in my mouth and its Friday night and I am horny. And there is a town nearby with loose women. Like Abigail, the one I was with last time I drifted through these parts. Spit crudely...polish with finesse...with fever. Put on my jeans. Put on my boots. Put on my shirt with the pearly buttons. I got the whole outfit just yesterday at the thrift store...except for the boots - my best find ever. I found those last year. They were slightly too small and hurt like hell, especially when I tried to walk like a cowboy. But that was the real test. If you wanna be a cowboy ya gotta take the pain...it goes with the territory...barbed wire..sore feet...eating beans around the old campfire. I made it up to my landlord's house ok, saying " Howdy Ma'am" when she answered the door. She gave me a smile that had more teeth than I have ever known anyone to have. "Just call me Denise, sweetie", she said, "here let me take your cowboy hat. Oh, that is so cute" she said, putting it on her head and looking at herself in the hall mirror. "Can I wear it, just for tonight?" "Ummm, sure", I said, trying to expand my comfort zone, even though I felt quite exposed with part of my costume taken away. But, I just asked myself, "What would a cowboy do in a situation like this?" "Looks mighty cute on ye' Abigail, " I said, trying to call up my best John Wayne drawl. "Oh, you are so cute" she laughed. "Its Denise, sweetie, now come on, I have some people I want you to meet." She took my hand and led me into the living room. She introduced me to her husband , George or Gary or something like that. And then to these other two guys who also just so happened to be invited to dinner. I don't know what in the hell their names were even though I said them twice inside my head as if the repetition would convince my mind it was important. I made it through the tortilla chips and salsa pretty good. Mostly nodding, smiling, and saying things like "Really?" Mostly I laughed when they laughed. Looked intrigued when others did. Can't remember why though. They continued to go on and on about things I knew little about all the way through dinner. After a while I simply shrugged sympathetically now and then, and smiled, and tried not to squirm even though my boots were killing me. It seemed ludicrous. The dinner conversation. Yet they were all in agreement. So it was probably only me who has, following my shrink's advice, gotten tangled up in a ridiculous situation. I am at home now thinking about it...writing it down so Carmichael can re-write it. It all seems safer here. I don't need to explain to myself as I try to explain to others, what it is I think I am doing with my life. I just need a bigger couch...and Really Dorothy. She probably knows how to chat. Ok, we haven't known each other that long....but I suspect she would be capable of covering me in such a situation as this. I am staring across the table at some total asshole (Denise's husband) , allthewhile admiring how smooth he is in his boasting. Its all in the presentation whether it is food or bullshit. I know you are right for this scene, Really Dorothy. You would know what to do. I have nothing to present. It's the ordinary that fascinates me and seems to bore everybody else. People who know how to shoot the shit attract and repulse me at the same time. So I made it through dinner and muddled through dessert. Its some detached sociologist in me that brings up this feeling my privacy has been invaded. Its not that I don't feel involved. I am. But, it's a detached involvement. A little space where one can empathize and be academic in some simultaneous way. I do want to say something that sounds reasonable when they ask, "So, what do you do?" I do want to hear all the details of their lives, mundane as they may be. I do. I even ask leading questions. Denise is sitting next to me at the table- and she puts her hand on my leg as she tells me about what happened to her yesterday. I smiled and nodded, "So, you went to your car and realize you left your keys in the house?", shaking my head sympathetically at how horrible that must have been. " And you locked the back door behind you, with the little button on the doorknob that you twist? Really? That happened to me once." (Actually, it happens to me every other day. I have crawled through my bathroom window, through my basement crawl space hole full of spiders, through my bedroom window, and broken several windows in the process....I've even taken the back door off its hinges, all in a frantic effort to get back to my keys. To tell you the truth, I don't know why I bother to lock the damn door. If I can break in that easy anybody else could. Nevertheless, while it was an ordinary tale told over dinner about absent-mindedness and forgetfulness, I understood the agony of such a situation. I could empathize. And besides, it made a nice diversion from the main story taking place at the other end of the table.) Her husband was talking animatedly to the two other guys. He was holding his dinner fork and choreographing a Lear jet in the air space over his plate. The rapid G's" of the climb, the weightlessness of the power dive. And just when you think its gonna crash, it gracefully levels out. Flying so low to the plate and artfully spearing a slab of pork tenderloin with a laugh and soaring back up like an eagle with a squealing mouse. I looked over at him as he tore at the mouse with his voracious teeth leaving half of it still impaled there on his fork. The mouse wasn't squealing anymore. George, or Gary, or Gregory, or Glen or whatever his name was, stood laughing and wiped a little dribble of mouse blood off his chin as he walked away so as to find another bottle of wine to pour for his friends. This part of the dinner might be seen as a brief intermission while the guy in the projection room changes the reels. Meanwhile, Denise is clinking wine glasses with me, and leaning her face toward mine, and telling me in a slurred voice how lonely it all was. How they had all these nice things, these conveniences. But he was gone all the time. He sold Lear Jets to corporate heads.... like these guys here tonight. And he was gone alot, adding"...know what I mean?" "Wanna see the rest of the house?", she said, almost losing her balance as she stood. She showed me the upstairs. I followed her up and wondered why it is I am here. I don't even know these people. Oh yeh. Denise wanted me to come to dinner because I was so nice to find her lost dog. She showed me some photos on the hallway wall. "This is when we got married. This is him as a little boy. This is me when I was nine." She even showed me her hamster in the hallway. He was in a shiny metal cage. His name was Freddy. Not Freddy...but, " Fretty," as she pointed out how sad his mouth was, by pouting at me. Right there upstairs, and away from her husband....I think his name was Glen or something like that. She pulls the pouty face on me. At any rate, he's gone alot. And I was thinking I should be going too. Or should not even have come. But it was too late now. She had on some kinda stretchy spaghetti strap top, and she just yanked it down then and there. And she started telling me about how her girlfriend Lola in L.A had a boob job. And her visual aide for this presntation, was to present a pink Victoria's Secret push-up bra complete with hard nipples trying to break through the nylon. "See these?" she said cupping them with both hands. " Now these are pretty decent, right?" I nodded. What else could I do in a situation like that? She had her little pink stretchy top down to her hips by now where it dangled over her stretch blue jeans like a balloon that just got popped. "Both of these would fit inside one of Lola's!" she said, sorta hefting her breasts in her hands like she was sizing up pink grapefruit down at the market and confirming their ripeness. Their robustness. Their readiness to be devoured. Pretty heady, when you think about it. I mean, here's my landlord standing there cupping her breasts and smiling drunkenly at me- and wearing my cowboy hat. Quite a picture. What would you do? Glen, or something like that, was downstairs with the corporate dudes. And all in a rush talking about his Motoguzzi 1000 . ...and how second gear made his balls just crawl up in his belly somewhere. He is spinning a thing about speed. "Its like some furry snarling little animal is racing up your spine and cumming in the back of your brain!" he is telling them. It all leads up to a sweet little jet that has just come up on the market. And those guys needed to buy it because Denise told me already that they were behind on their mortgage. Meanwhile, I am on the second floor , with Denise toying with her push -up bra and telling me about Lola . "You think these are rockets?! You oughta see Lola's...." Well, I guess I could have ripped her bra off and got shot by Top Gun Glen in a dramatic situation, wherein Glen comes rushing up the stairs, hearing Denise's moans,and shoots me, after sealing the deal with the awe-struck guys downstairs . But I didn't fall for it. I think she was all dolled up for that buyer and his pal. And then it turns out Glen didn't need her services to seal the deal. And now she was all worked up and horny. "You really have to go?" she said, pulling a Fretty on me again. I don't recall exactly what I said about how I needed to go home now as she followed me down the stairs pulling her shirt back up, inflating the fabric again like Fix-A-Flat. It was something really blubbery and stupid that I said. Something like, "Yeh, I gotta water my dog "...and I don't even have a dog. She followed me all the way out to my car. I could hear Glen with his customers in the attached garage. Then the rising, whining, growling wail of his MotoGuzzi 1000 being revved full tilt boogie. Denise is leaning into my open window as I fumble for my keys. Glen's flying a Nascar team to a race in Atlanta next week-end. Would I like to come by for dinner? She was bent down looking in at me. Giving me one last glance at her cleavage. And it was like I could hear a faint voice beckoning me to slide down that dark fleshy crevasse. And something about a video of a vacation she and Lola made in San Francisco last year that I just have to see. I said I'll call you and made a note to change my phone number. The drive home was uneventful. It was late. Nobody on the road. There was just one flash of light behind me out of nowhere. And a rising, whining, growling wail. And then a red tail light ahead that shrank and disappeared in synch with the Doppler fade of the Italian motor. It was Glen with one of his buyers on the back. They both waved. It was like a single flash of a strobe. Hi... Flash... Bye...Disappearing tail light. Blackness and little white dotted lines zipping by...and telephone poles...and I almost got creamed by an insane deer. Close call. Poor Glen...I turned on the radio to WKLA out of New Orleans... His balls shrinking up inside him from the grind of the Motoguzzi saddle... A weather report.... Denise squeezing her grape fruit...It was a trucker driver type station I could only pick up once I was a few miles out of town...Lola.. It gave weather reports in terms of stretches of highway coast to coast...Its raining all kindsa animals along I40 in Amarillo..Furry snarling little animals...That's El Nino for you...Clawing their way up my spine.. And if you are pulling into Alberquerque and checking into Cindy's Place.. Exit 69...The coast is clear...Cumming in the base of my skull. I jerked my head left and right to get the crick out of it. And now here is a little ditty while you are thumping your tires. Ghost Truck # 9! It was some song about this trucker. And he doesn't really know he is already dead. He just keeps driving this highway in Idaho. And he rescues people. Then he just drives away. It took me so much back to my childhood. The Lone Ranger. And, Damn! I forgot my cowboy hat. I thought about Really Dorothy. How she had abandoned that "Tell Your Boyfriend To Call Me" shirt for a new one that said, "Tell Your Boyfriend To Leave Me Alone". That was definitely a good sign. Its almost like we are going steady.

Evidence of My Existence.

Today is an important day and I really have to have my act together. The "nice lady", the social worker, is coming to check on me. She is very friendly, but she asks a lot of questions. Basically she is wanting to know if I am keeping a grip on reality. She will be looking for any signs of a re-emerging Miracle Mann. So I have had a regular routine of late, manufacturing evidence that reassures her that I am still Jack Wilson. First of all I wrote myself a letter. I will let the nice lady read it. It was from my uncle. The one who was famous. He was the one that taught me how to whistle. In those Bing Crosby movies where Bing would whistle a little bit of a tune....that was my uncle. It was over-dubbed. A lot of people don't know this about Bing. He could sing, but he couldn't whistle. Actually, I don't have an uncle. But Jack has an uncle. Anyway, in this letter I wrote about how he was thinking of me and hoped my career was going well, and did I get a business card made up yet because that was very important. And he was so proud of me that I was following in his footsteps. And that he just knew he would see me one day whistling on the Lawrence Welk show. And to tell Lawrence...Larry, he called him...that ol' Whistling Woody Wilson sent his regards. Of course, I wrote all this in a very shaky hand because Uncle Woody must be old by now, and in a nursing home out in some out-lying county south of here. The irony of writing this letter from my Uncle Woody is that while he doesn't really exist, I believed every word he said and read the letter quite excitedly when it arrived in the mail addressed to me, Jack Wilson. He was right especially about the business card. And I already had one in the works. It just said Whistlin' Willy....and my phone number. It would be ready day after tomorrow. He also said the people at the home are real nice and take good care of him. I was relieved to know that.

It was a real pretty drive out into the countryside. A number of old timers in trucks or on tractors waved at me. People I've never seen before. I guess they recognized me as Whistlin' Woody's nephew even though it had been years since I had been out this way. I waved back of course. I needed to mail Uncle Woody's letter from some quaint little town. Some place where Uncle Woody would have been proud to have been from had he ever really existed. I found this little dinky town. At first I didn't even recognize it , since I was just a kid when I came out here to see him. But there was something about the place. Like I could feel Uncle Woody's spirit. Or something. Yes. There it is. The town hall where Woody would whistle and whittle on the bench every morning. He gave up chewing tobacco just so he could whistle. And there's the little cafe on the square where he said he got his start, whistling requested tunes for his dinner. Bet there are still some folks that go in there that could tell some stories about those days. Or maybe not. Most of them are probably in that little cemetary I saw just before I pulled into town. And those that still hang on...just a few...have Alzheimer's. But I suppose even they seem to think they remember a guy named Woody who whistled all the time. River's Bend was the name of the town, and the name of the county nursing home. I wrote the return address on the envelope. And then I went to this little old timey post office on the square and mailed his letter to me. It was a simple little place, with one little old man behind the counter. And I was the only customer. He smiled at me. "Howdy Sonny, yer looking chipper today." Uncle Woody called me Sonny. I can't believe people remembered me if only cuz I was Whistlin' Woody's nephew. It was quite an experience. "One stamp please." I wondered how many times Uncle Woody musta walked down here sending off letters. Probably whistling all the way. He was a legend. Its sad to think of the shortness of a single life. And to multiply that out to the countless number who have come and gone before me. Even the ones that never came or went at all. Like Uncle Woody.

I wrote several other letters to myself from some carefully imagined acquaintances. An old high school friend. It was great hearing from him too. He told me all about him and Dawn, that cheerleader we both had a crush on and swapped many dirty lies of conquest about. Turns out he was telling the truth. He and Dawn had two little boys...and wouldn't you know it, they all play touch football together on Saturday mornings. This I mailed to myself from here in town. But he is moving to Oregon, he adds. And oh yes, there is this very formally typed contract offer from a production company wanting to know of my interest and availability for some commercial jingles they were taping. They needed some whistling over-dubs for several things. I was especially excited about the one where some guy is driving this automobile along a highway and whistling Hap Hap Happy Talkin' Happy Talk. I could whistle that one in my sleep. This process was a bit tedious and expensive since I had to invent the company's stationery and talk all that lingo. My social worker will be blown away when she sees all this mail I have gotten. She might even recommend that my medications be lowered. Of course, that would be a mere formality, since I only take them now and then anyway.

Creating records from the utility companies wasn't as complicated as I thought. I was able to accomplish it all on the phone. The most difficult part really was their automated voices that all sound like they have lobotomys. I keep swinging from one branch to the next on their menus. And then I would always wind up with the same voice giving me different choices. In each case I finally arrived at what I was looking for, the wish to speak to a customer representative option. Of course I was informed that they were all busy and then forced to listen to really bad muzak. But I was ready for all this rigamarole - been there done that. Manufacturing evidence was something I had gotten adept at. Besides I had a brainstorm while waiting and listening to that crappy music. It would be to pitch Whistling Willy whistling muzac tunes for such circumstances as these. To sell this product to replace this other crap. People everywhere waiting to talk to somebody would hear me - whistling Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, and Good Ship Lollipop, and even more jivey tunes like, You Can't Always Get What You Want.... they'd probably start whistling along with me on the other end of the phone, and forget how long they've been on hold. It would be a public service I'd be doing...and making money at the same time. I was actually excited anticipating an opportunity to speak personally with my own real live representative. Finally, in each case a woman would come on and ask how she could serve me. Well, I began by assuring her that I wasn't changing my service because of any animosity or discontent about the way she has been representing me over this past period of involvement. I mean, really, you have served me beyond my wildest expectations. In fact, that's why I was hoping you would be here today to help expedite this current situation that I am in. You see I must be out of the country for the next 12 months. Maybe longer. So I am sub-letting my apartment to my cousin. He has agreed to take over my utility bills. And so, I am hoping you can transfer my bill to his name for that time. Really? Oh, wonderful! Yes, his name is Jack Wilson. Correct. Excuse me? Oh, I am actually packing my bags as we speak. Its a matter of urgency. Well, ummm...I am actually am not at liberty to disclose my locations or itinerary because of the heightened Homeland Security alert. Its sad to think about not being here for Christmas and all....but, you know how those things go. And I took the vow. Oh, yeh, I'll be careful. Thank you Sally. You are the best. Thank you Rhonda. And give your children a hug from me. Thank you Brenda. For your service to our country. Goodbye then... for now.

Ok. So now to get a library card. Piece of cake. And a driver's license. And I don't mean a cheezy fake one.
A real Jack Wilson Driver's license. I was gonna have to take the test. With my few crumpled documents in hand to certify I was me....Jack Wilson, at this address. I had already set up the un-listed phone number for Whistlin Willy on my cell phone. The one on his business card. A mobile phone since he is always on the move. I made the call as his agent. Pointing out that this was very discrete because of his following. They mean well, but he is touring and the phone number has to be kept to a small circle. Not to mention the stalkers. Shareka, I think her name was, was sweet and sympathetic. She cut the deal for me. I didn't get around to social security since I knew that was a nightmare I didn't have time for. I did create a new bank account though. And Visa agreed Jack Wilson could co-sign on my card. Ashley, I think her name was, even agreed to have a card made up for him with his name on it, that would be billed to my account as soon as Whistlin' Willy filled out the form she was sending. That's alot to get done but this will be great news to my social worker. Not to mention that I was meeting Really Dorothy in less than a week at the laundromat. It was exhausting to take care of all these details, but who knows what questions a girl like Really Dorothy might spring on me in a vulnerable moment. And so, I had to have some semblances of history put together. Unlike the social worker who only requires the most superficial evidence of my existence on paper, Really Dorothy will likely ask more personal things, like "What was your Uncle Woody like? So I will need some stories. " So there I was with my Uncle, Whistling Woody, and we were fishing down along that bend in the river....the one they named the town after. And we had our lines out in the deep blue pool there. And he was telling me, ".... think what you want to but keep your eyes on that cork." It was from the wine bottle he had just shared with me. "And if you see it go down.....you snap up and pay attention. You let the first coupla bobs go down in the water. He is tasting the bait. But, If he pulls it completely underwater, Sonny, you yank like hell, hear me?" He said it all in a whisper. Fish don't have ears. But they have other ways of hearing. You can whistle though. They can't hear that frequency. We caught three fish that day. Big fat ones too. All the while, whistling Shenandoah together. Together....a brief moment, I will never forget. If Really Dorothy doesn't fall for that one, I will think of better stories perhaps. Anything to help her break through her cold schizophrenic amnesia and want to clutch at me.


The Nice Lady Comes Knocking

It doesn't matter if you are being yourself or being somebody else, you gotta be organized. The latter takes more organization than the former. And if you are being yourself and someone else at the same time, in some kinda ping pong game, you have to be really, really organized. The nice lady, Miss Taylor, is coming to see me today. And I have mixed emotions. She is sweet and kind and soft-spoken. But I have to be careful too. And there should be only calculated talk of Really Dorothy. Ping Pong. Do the nasty dishes in the sink. Peek out the window. She is a nice lady. Still, I hurry around on this day I circled on the calendar. Laying out all my evidence. Anything suggesting Jack. My letters from Uncle Woody and other friends are laid out in a carefully random way on the coffee table. My stack of bills weighed down by a checkbook. Forks, knives, and spoons are in the top drawer. My socks in the drawer below that. And my underwear in the bottom drawer. Pots, pans, dishes, saucers, cups, mugs and juice glasses all nicely stacked in the cabinet under the sink. It all seems wierd to me, but it doesn't matter in life if you are going crazy...only if you can still look normal. And when the nice lady comes, I need to look normal. I put my wallet in my pocket with all of Jack's fake IDs.

Miss Taylor was right on time,as always. "How are you doing Jack?" she said, sitting down on the couch- and then getting back up to pick up a spoon that was on the cushion. "Oops", I said, extending my hand to take it from her. She sat down again. " Fine. Fine. Doing really fine." She glanced around the room as she opened her folder on her lap and took a pen out of her purse, and I was getting worried I hadn't hidden everything. Maybe I forgot something. "Your employer at Wirex says he is quite pleased with the work you are doing. Do you like your work?" "Oh, yes. I never realized what it takes to turn out a good coat hanger. I feel like I am learning alot." She made a couple of notes while telling me how she thinks I am making great progress. "Look", I said getting up from the chair and walking over to the wall where my first coat hanger was proudly displayed in a glassless wooden frame. "My first coat hanger", I said pointing proudly at it with the spoon. She got up and walked over like she was really interested. "See, this is the left bend, and this is the right bend, and up here is the hook...and then , of course, this is the twist", I said tapping on it with the spoon. "Very nice, Jack", she said smiling at me. "You know what a coathanger really is? I asked her, waving my spoon. "Tell me, Jack" she said, reaching for my spoon and taking it over to the kitchen counter. "A coathanger is a triangle with a question mark." I watched as she sat down and began writing stuff in her folder. Do you like your apartment, Jack? Uh huh. Are you eating properly, Jack.? Uh uh. Tell her about breakfast, Jack. Tell her about lunch, Jack. Tell her about supper, Jack. Are you having any difficulty sleeping, Jack? How much do you weigh now, Jack?
Are you making any friends, Jack? Make up stuff about my pal, Eddy. And my neighbor, Mr. Carmichael. And Really Dorothy. "Really who?, she asked looking up at me. "Ummm...Really Dorothy." Suddenly, I could smell my armpits. That's what I forgot! Deodorant! Can't believe I just said "Really Dorothy". I tried to change the subject. " I am thinking of taking some classes at the community college." "Really, Jack?', she said, looking up at me and smiling. "What would you like to study?" "Ummm......I would like to do the kinda stuff you do. You know, go around helping people." She smiled. She liked that one. " I like to help people", I added. "That's good, Jack", she said as she made more notes,... goals are important. " What is your job called anyway?" I asked, trying to get the focus off of me. " I am a psychiatric social worker", she said, still writing and making me nervous. I squeezed my arms tight against my sides to control the smell of my armpits. " That's what I want to be. A psychiatric social worker." She stood at last and handed me a slip of paper. Upping my meds, but smiling as she told me so. "Ok", she said, "start with Introduction to Psychology and Biology 101." She closed her folder, and just looked at me for what seemed too long a time. "So, umm, do you think I am doing ok?" I asked. "Yes", she said standing and picking up her purse. She looked at me again. "In fact, I think you are a modern miracle, don't you think so?" I knew right away it was a trick question...pulling the 'miracle' word on me, just when I thought we were done. "Umm...well, I wouldn't call it a..umm, I wouldn't call it that." "Well, I'll see you in a month, Jack." she said, as I opened the door for her. "Ok, bye, Miss Taylor." I closed the door. She was gone. I wadded up the prescription she gave me, and peeked out the window to watch her get in her car. And now I had to go to college. Jack Wilson, Psychiatric Social Worker. Wow. Wait til I tell Really Dorothy about this. Yeh, I'm working on a degree in psychiatric social work. Kind of a fall-back plan. People who whistle professionally lose their pucker after awhile. And then the hearing goes. So, ya gotta think ahead.

End of Chapter One

Chapter Two : How Deep Is Our Love


The Burning Question

I've taken quite a few notes regarding Jack's life. And yet the more I write, the more questions I have. We get together every few days, and he rattles on to me about whatever happens to be on his mind at the time. I sit and listen, assuming the role of his imaginary butler faithfully recording his musings. Sometimes he goes on and on about Really Dorothy, his imaginings of their future life together, and yet, the fact is, he hardly knows her in reality. My leading questions usually go nowhere since he is more inclined to repsond in obscure, tangential ways. If I inquire about what his day was like, he may respond with a story that comes from some distant past...a time when he was someone else. Sometimes, it is not clear whether it is Jack talking, or that other person, Miracle Mann. Of course, I never refer to him directly as Miracle Mann. That subject must remain hidden until he chooses to release his memoirs. Back in my own apartment, I try to sort the jumble of notes I've made, and transcribe the many recordings of our conversations. Click............

Jack: Lets talk, Carmichael.
Me: Yes, lets. Where would you like to begin today?
Jack: Do you know what a coat hanger really is, Carmichael?
Me: Yes sir, a coat hanger is a triangle with a twisted question attached to it, if I understand you correctly.
Jack: That's right, Carmichael...and very good of you to remember.
Me: I try my best, sir.
Jack: That you do, Carmichael, that you do. But I am talking at an altogether different level now.
Me: What level would that be, if I may ask?
(Jack got up from his chair and strolled over to the wall, standing there, his hands clasped behind his back, staring up at the coat hanger on a nail inside the wooden frame))
Jack: I am talking deep...deeper... beneath the superficial appearance of things. This coat hanger, is a symbol, Clearly, I am the right bend. And yet, I am the left bend as well. Wouldn't you agree?
Me: That would be a fair statement, I should think.
Jack: ( turning to look at me) And so where does this leave us, Carmichael?
Me: I think we are left with the twisted question.
Jack: Precisely. The twisted question, yes...and the hook...do you see where I am going with this, Carmichael?
Me: Dorothy?
Jack: Exactly! Dorothy. Dorothy is the twisted question I must answer. She is the hook from which my life dangles.
Me: But who is Dorothy, sir?
Jack: You read my mind, Carmichael. Who is this woman who has cast her twisted line out into the tumultuous sea of my life, and set her hook into my very heart?
Me: Well put, sir...Who, indeed?
Jack: I don't know, Carmichael...I really don't know. But I do know this..(Jack walked back to the wall and took the coat hanger down. He held it in his hand studying it.) "Tomorrow, I am going to give this coat hanger to Really Dorothy as a symbol of our mysterious love."


The Gift

I found the perfect box in the alley behind the strip mall. It was in the dumpster behind McClain's Fashions. Probably a box a shirt had come in. A nice flat rectangular box with hardly any stains on it. The perfect size for my coat hanger. And amazingly, I found some wrapping paper too...a big crumpled up ball of purple tissue, enough to do the job. It was all coming together magically, and made me feel even more confident that this was meant to be. I am almost positive that Really Dorothy will be at the laundromat this afternoon. I can hardly wait to see the look on her face when she opens this present.
I buried the package down into the dirty laundry in my basket so I could smuggle it in without her noticing anything unusual...just another day at the laundromat....but then it would all change, right in the middle of doing our laundry together! I was a little nervous driving over there. What if I am wrong? What if she is not there? She has to be there. She simply has to be. This is bigger than either of our plans. This is fate, and we are being drawn inexorably together. My heart almost stopped when I saw her car. She was there! There's no turning back now. We are in the hands of something bigger than the two of us. A sudden calm came over me. I began whistling as I got my laundry basket out of the back seat. "Come with me...to the sea...to the sea...of love..." Suddenly, as I swung the basket around and kicked the door closed, I saw Really Dorothy coming out of the laundromat and going to her car. "Oh, hi!", I said, "Are you leaving?" She looked at me as she opened the door of her car. "Are you kidding?", she said, "...and leave you alone with my laundry?" She bent down reaching for something on her car seat. I couldn't help but notice that Really Dorothy has really nice legs. I looked away quickly for fear of getting caught staring again, and strolled into the laundromat. I was already plugging quarters when she came in with a magazine and plopped down at a table by the window. I couldn't help myself. I just blurted it out. "Is your name Really Dorothy?" She glanced up at me and then back down to her magazine and began flipping pages. "Yes," she said quietly without looking up. I began tossing clothes into the washer, slowly working my way down to the surprise. "Oh wow!" I said pulling out the box and holding it up. Really Dorothy looked up. "I almost forgot," I said walking over toward her, and thinking to myself that I was off to a ridiculous start. I mean how can I being giving her a present and, at the same time, saying I almost forgot I was giving her a present? But it was too late now. I held the present out to her. "I got you a present." She looked up at me with a rather strange expression on her face. "You got me a present?" "Ummm, yeh, well actually I made it." I said, as I sat the box down on her table. She looked down at it, and then back up at me. "Why?" "I don't know," I said somewhat sheepishly. She shook her head as she began to peel the purple tissue from the box. "Has anyone ever told you that you are very strange?," she said. " Is that a compliment?' I asked, watching her trying to slice through the tape along the edge of the box with her fingernails. She had nice nails. "I don't know." she replied, prying the top off the box. Suddenly, it seemed like time stopped. Two frozen people in the laundromat. Me, looking breathlessly down at her. She, staring down into the box. Then, ever so slowly, she reached into the box and pulled it out. "A coat hanger?" she said quietly, as she turned her face up to look at me. "Uh huh", I nodded hardly able to speak. "You made me a coat hanger?" I nodded again. She suddenly slumped back in her chair and threw her head back laughing somewhat hysterically. Then the laughter stopped abruptly. She held the coat hanger up and looked at it. "You made this?" I just kept nodding, still lost for words. "You made this for me?" I just kept nodding, actually afraid I would say something wrong and ruin the moment. "Nobody has ever made anything for me before." she said, staring at the coat hanger. "You made this?" "Uh huh." "Its beautiful!" she said, "I know just where I am going to hang it!" "I'm glad you like it." I finally managed to say. "I love it" she replied, "thanks....Jack." "Maybe I will make something for you sometime," she added. "Really? I said. "Maybe...," she replied. I was in a daze after that. We each busied ourselves with our laundry. There were a few more words exchanged, but I don't remember what they were. I do recall her chuckling and shaking her head on several occasions and saying "A coat hanger....a coat hanger!" As we walked out to our cars, she looked at me, "You are so funny!" she shouted. I waved to her as I opened my car door. "Takes one to know one" I shouted in return. She honked at me as she pulled out. I honked back.

Talk About Talking

Jack is wearing me out with little scribbled notes he leaves under my door. Things he wants me to add to his memoirs. Here's one: "Don't forget the part about the way she looked up at me when I gave her the coat hanger." And the way he is always in some state of loose association while I am trying to write down a coherent history..it is not always easy to translate into readable terms. I stuffed his notes into my briefcase and
walked down the block to Lucky Jim's Java. You can hear the caffeinated chatter coming from there long before you arrive. I'll be lucky to find a table. You would think it might be impossible to write in such an environment, but its not. All the voices mix and scramble and become a kind of white noise akin to a babbling brook. A young woman walked briskly past me from behind, and I realized in a flash that it was Dorothy! "Oh, hi there!" I said. She looked coldly back at me, but then smiled as she remembered that first time we met. "Oh, hi!, she replied. I picked up the pace and asked her if she was headed to Jim's. Yes, she was. " How about if I buy you a cup of coffee?" She glanced over at me as we walked along. "Why would you do that?" she asked. "Just for the fun of it, I suppose... and besides, you owe me an answer from the last time." "An answer to what?" she said. "Well, when I first saw you at Jim's we were talking about why people talk. And I asked you why you talked. Whether, it was to allow people to know who you are, or to keep people from knowing you. Remember?" "Ummm, yeh, actually, I do." She stopped and looked at me. "You said you would tell me, if we ran into each other again," I said, " So, here we are. And I thought if bought you a cup of coffee, maybe we could talk some more about talking." "Look, you're not some kind of weirdo are you? Some kind of ax-murderer?" I laughed reassuringly, "No, never took an ax to anybody....as for 'weirdo', well, I suppose that wanting to talk about talking is a bit weird. But, if my memory serves me correctly, you're the one that brought the subject up when we met."
As luck would have it, we found a table at the back in what looked like a closet that had been converted to make space for another table. The walls around us were covered with graffiti scrawl. And the table was littered with the cups of earlier customers, I swept them aside. "Thanks" she said taking a sip of her latte. I smiled at her. What a piece of luck. I am sitting in a closet with none other than Really Dorothy. "So last time we met we were talking about..." "Please, please" , she interrupted, "I just have to finish this book...I am on the last 10 pages." Oh, sure", I said watching her fish a book out of her backpack. "What are your reading?" "American Psycho," she said holding up the cover for me to see. "Hey, go right ahead," I said, "I've got some writing to do anyway." I pulled a folder from the briefcase at my side and opened it on the table. Dorothy was staring intently at the last pages of her book. I took out my pen and began to write..."You made me a coat hanger?" she said looking up at me. "Uh huh", I said, staring down at her up-turned face, at her almost unnaturally large eyes that seemed to be liquifying and pooling, and then spilling down her lovely cheeks.. it was hard in that moment, not to caress her face and lick away her tears. But I restrained myself, because I knew it would be too much, too fast."

Talking

Dorothy dropped her book onto the table and stared at me. "What are you writing about?" "Ummm...I was just writing about words." "What about words?" she said. "Well, where do they come from, for one thing...and what are they worth...and why do we say them?" "We want people to know us, so we say words", Dorothy said. "Or, we want to keep people from knowing us, that's another reason." "Right", I said, "that is what you told me before.. but deeper than that, where did those words come from?" "They came out of my mouth", she replied, staring intently at me. Oh, what eyes. Oh what lips forming words! I doodled on my paper for a few seconds to shake the trance off. "Yes, they came out of your mouth, but, how did your mouth know to say them?" "Because, I had this feeling, and said words about them." she replied. "Oooh, that's good Dorothy, let me write this down." I scribbled some notes and then looked up at her. She was looking around the room at all the people talking. God, she is gorgeous! The feeling gave me such an empathy for Jack's irrational and impulsive behavior. "So, one has feelings, and one then makes words that fit them?", I asked. "Yeh, something like that", she nodded, looking back at me. She looked away again to the tables full of chatter. I stared at her craning her neck this way and that. Damn, she's hot! "So, Dorothy", I said trying to get her attention back, "what we are talking about here, is the idea that one goes about their business every day and their understanding of reality is just a felt un-articulated thing until we encounter someone else and then words are somehow formed to try to describe all those wordless understandings." Dorothy turned to look at me. She put her elbows on the table and cupped her face with her hands beneath her chin. "There is this guy I met at the laundromat, and he is kinda cute...but every time he tries to talk, he puts his foot in his mouth." "Why is that, I wonder?" I replied. "That's what I wonder too", she said. "Today he gave me a coat hanger as a present." "A coat hanger?" I replied. She nodded,"Mmm hmm...he said it was a symbol of our relationship." "What on earth could that mean?" I asked. "I don't know" she said, " but I took it home and hung it on my wall as something to think about....I'm thinking about putting a frame around it." "Do you like him?" She nodded yes. "Why?", I asked. "I don't know...it's just a feeling I don't have words for yet." "Maybe the words will come in awhile", I said, as I stared at her perplexed frown. What lips! "I have to go now", she said abruptly, stuffing her book back into her bag. "I have an early class in the morning and a quiz." "Would you like to talk again next week?", I asked, as she stood to wrap a scarf around her neck. "Ok, sure... I think..." I watched her walk away. Damn, she has nice legs. I picked up my pen, and began to write..."Dorothy seems to want someone to know her."



Someone Needs A Miracle

I knocked on Jack's door with my secret knock. "Carmichael?", I heard him say, as he stared at me through the little wide-angle peep hole in his door. "Yes, it's me," I said putting my eyeball to the lens. "Isn't this your day off?" he said, as he unlatched the door and swung it open. "Yes, it is," I said, walking into the room. "But I felt I had to talk to you." I walked over to the couch and sat down as Jack gathered a bunch of papers from the coffee table. "Am I interrupting something?" I said, as I watched him pick his papers up. "No, not really, Carmichael. I was just writing another letter from my Uncle Woody. It is just a thing I have to do to keep the evidence current. It's not easy being Jack, you know." "Oh yes, right!" I said, nodding and realizing I was talking to Miracle Mann. I let him gather his papers and then announced, "I talked to Dorothy last night."
He froze and stared at me, "You talked to Dorothy? Really?" I nodded, watching his face somehow morph back into Jack. "Really? Dorothy?" he stammered. "You talked to Really Dorothy?" he said, sitting down in the chair opposite me and dropping his papers down onto the coffee table again. " Yes, I just ran into her at the coffee house last night and, lo and behold, she just starting talking to me about this guy she met at the laundromat." Jack jumped to his feet, "You can't be serious?" "Dead serious, Jack, she started going on and on about the coat hanger, and how you were cute...but weird." "Does she know who you are, that you are my butler, or anything like that?" "No", I said, shaking my head, "not a clue." "Jack" I said, leaning across the coffee table, "have you been taking your medications?" "Umm, well, not all the time." I stood to leave. "Look, Dorothy is in love perhaps. I can't swear on it. but it has to do with a guy named Jack." "That's me, right?" he said, standing as I did. I shrugged. "I don't know, are you Jack? Is that who you are?" "Ummm...yes, I think so...I try to be...I don't know, but I try to be...." "Do you love Dorothy?" I said turning to him. "Yes." "Then try harder, Jack." " I am trying, Carmichael", but look..." He handed me a paper from his coffee table. "It just came today." I took what appeared to be a letter and walked over near the lamp next to the couch in order to read it. It was dated September 14, 3 days ago.

"My dear, dear Miracle, I think of you all the time and hope you think of me too. Life, it seems, has torn us apart. And it leaves me limp and lifeless. Sometimes, I just sit at the window, and I simply don't know what to do with myself. There is no Miracle in my life. I do go on, what else can one do, but hope? I don't mean to worry you. I am still strong. But somedays are better than others. In this respect, neither you nor I are any different from all the others. Thank you for your recent letter. I am glad they have finally released you to try to make a life for yourself. I don't blame you for changing your name, it is hard to live up to being a miracle. Deep down in my struggling heart, you will always be my Miracle, and I know someday I will have you again in my life. Take care of yourself. I will try to get accustomed to calling you "Jack", it will be a game we play with the rest of the world. But I know who you really are, you are my Miracle. With all my love, your mother, Abigail Mann."
I put the letter down on the coffee table and looked at Jack. "Nice writing, Jack," I said. " If your social worker sees this, I am afraid it might have dire consequences for you." Jack stared at me. "I didn't write it," he said. "Look, here is the envelope." I took it from him and walked back toward the lamp. It was addressed to Jack Wilson. The return address was machine printed. It read:
Central State Psychiatric Hospital
Lexington, Kentucky, 70901
Beneath the address the name "Abigail Mann" was scrawled in ink. "Now do you believe me, Carmichael?" he said. I shook my head. "I really don't know what to think. I'm not even sure who it is that is talking to me right now." Jack nodded, taking the envelope from me and tossing it onto the coffee table. "I understand," he said, "I don't know either." "All I know is that someone named Dorothy is in love with someone named Jack." I said as I turned to leave. "Well, what am I supposed to do?' Jack replied, walking behind me, as I approached the door. "You don't believe me, do you?" I turned to him. "I believe your mother may very well be Abigail Mann. And I believe she may be in Central State. She may have been there for quite sometime. And I believe that it has likely caused you a great deal of confusion and stress in your life. And I believe that you should pay closer attention to the "nice lady" when she comes to visit. And I believe you should be following her instructions closely, and taking the medications she gives you, Jack. That's what I believe." I opened the door and left. It was hard to be so confrontational. Jack told me later, that after I left he just sat down and cried.

My Roommate

Carmichael is right, I suppose. It is confusing to be two people. Sometimes, when I come back to my apartment, I can tell that Miracle has been there. Things have been moved around a bit. He's left dirty dishes in the sink. His underwear is on the bathroom floor. He is so disorganized. I am compulsively tidy. Miracle is a slob. I know he has been with Dorothy a couple of times at the laundromat...trying to pass himself off as me. Surely she would see through that. But what if Dorothy likes him? What if she is a slob too? No, I have watched her fold her laundry, she is very organized like me. She is a bit secretive though. What if she is a secret slob? Could I handle it? If the love of my life turned out to be a secret slob, would my love be big enough to accept it? I stared in the mirror and realized Miracle has not shaved in two days. I looked at my watch. It is time for my pills. I hate my roommate, even if we do work separate shifts. I filled a glass of water from the tap and took the three pills from their respective containers. This is my 3rd day of doing what the nice lady told me to do. Following Carmichael's advice. I wish Miracle would go away, but he keeps hanging around. The creep. I bet if I brought Dorothy to our apartment he would butt in and try to hog the conversation. The creep. I tossed my pills into my mouth and slammed the water. I don't need a Miracle in my life, I just need Dorothy. Roommates are always a problem when you have a girlfriend. The creep. I looked in the mirror. I need to shave. Dorothy would not like to feel such coarse stubble on her delicate skin. Miracle has no suave...no sensitivity...the creep! If it has to come down to him or me for Dorothy, its gotta be me. I filled the sink with hot water. I shook the very empty feeling Barbasol can with determination. Allowing Miracle to share my space has turned my face to grunge. If there is no lather, than I will use soap. The creep! If there is no soap, I will pluck my whiskers out one by one with tweezers if I have to. He is not going to get away with this. Maybe Dorothy would let me move into her place. Let Miracle have this dump he's made of my apartment. The creep! Ouch, Damn it! I need a new razor.

The Big Proposal

I stopped at Eddie's Market and picked up some gum. " Let me guess, you're doing laundry again?" he said, nodding toward Dorothy's Citroen parked outside. "Nope," I replied, "fresh out of dirty laundry." Eddie chuckled, "Well, if you need an excuse to go to the laundromat, I could give you some of my laundry, I am way behind." "Ummm...no thanks Eddie, but I appreciate the offer." "Hey, that's what friends are for." he said as I turned to leave. I smiled and blew him off with a wave of my hand. Eddie! What a character. I peeked into the window of the laundromat. There she was, sitting at a table and writing stuff in a notebook. Dorothy. Sitting there like a lovely fairie in a wasteland. A stunning jewel sparkling up from an ancient river bed. A...a...umm...Oh, come on Jack! Get a grip! I took a deep breath and casually, ever so casually, swung the door open and walked in. (This is where Miracle has no suave...the creep!) She looked up with a startled face and closed her notebook. "What are you doing here?" she said, with some kind of face and intonation that was both revealing and concealing. I didn't let it throw me. The lovely Dorothy...such a puzzle...such an enigma...a paradox...a walking contradiction..partly truth and partly fiction...Come on, Jack, you are starting to sound like Miracle. I took another deep breath. I was feeling more sure of myself. More resolved. More confident. More medicated. I can do this. "I was outa gum, so I stopped at the market and saw your car. so I thought I'd just say hi. So hi!" "Hi!' she giggled. She giggled! That's an invitation! I sat down in the chair opposite her without even asking if it was ok. I felt quite clear-headed and on a mission. "What are you writing about?" I asked looking at her delicate hands seemingly holding her notebook tightly. Her slender fingers white and creamy like ivory, her fingernails each painted a different color...her wrists so delicate it seemed inconceivable she could actually handle a laundry basket....her forearm...I am losing it again. I smiled at her. It was the best move I could come up with at the moment. "What's wrong with your face?" she said with a concerned look. "What do you mean?" I replied nervously, thinking Miracle was trying to take over. "Its all blotchy," she said. "And your neck too." I wiped my hand across my face and down my neck nervously. "I am embarrassed to tell you'" I stammered. " Oh my god!" she said, "Are those hickeys?" "Oh, no, they are not hickeys," I said, "I can't remember the last time I had a hickey. My stupid roommate left me with nothing but a dull razor and I guess I scraped myself up a little." "Oh you poor thing!" she said digging into her purse. She pulled out a small jar of some kind of lotion. "Ok, so just hold still." she said standing up and coming over to me. Suddenly her fingers were all over my face. Her slippery fingers, so white and creamy like ivory, and with fingernails of many colors, caressing my neck. "I am going to get you a new razor" she said in a rather matter-of-fact voice as I was sitting there, my eyes closed in an almost orgasmic state of mind. She sat back down and looked at me. "I was just writing a poem when you came in, its sort of about you." "About me?" I said, in the most cool and calm voice I could come up with under the circumstance, given that I was still in some state of having Dorothy's slippery delicate fingers like ivory... and her nails of many colors, all over my face and neck. "Well, its kinda about you," she said with a bit of a blush. "Do you want me to read it to you?" "Yes, of course I do." "Promise not to laugh?" she said. "I swear, cross my heart." I watched as she opened her notebook with her delicate fingers creamy as ivory, her nails of many colors, her wrists so delicate..."Ok, its about the coat hanger. And I call it 'The Coat Hanger'". I stared at her lovely face and how it showed a certain nervousness. I nodded reassuringly at her. She swallowed and took a breath. How adorable is that? " The coat hanger. It is so small and delicate....this thing. And yet it makes my heart sing." She laid her notebook down and looked at me. It took an agonizingly long time for my lips to touch hers, but somehow they arrived. We kissed again by the Citroen. "On Friday, will you go somewhere with me?" "Yes" she said, laying her head on my shoulder.

emoirs of Whistlin Willy, 3 new episodes
Dorothy's Difficulties

I arrived at the coffeehouse well ahead of Dorothy in hope of securing the table we had last time. The one in the converted closet. It had a nice sense of privacy about it. Like a confession booth in a way. Jack had slipped a note under my door this morning. All it said was "I kissed Dorothy." It was followed by about a dozen exclamation marks, and then a PS in parentheses, "And she kissed me back." Again, followed with profuse punctuation. I don't know what to think of it....whether that really even happened or not. Jack has a vivid imagination, and sometimes his fantasies seem as real to him as the real world around him. At any rate, I will soon find out. I looked at my watch and then glanced out at the sea of babbling coffee junkies and their cluttered tables. There she was at the counter ordering her latte. Right on time. I waved to her and she smiled and waved back. She plopped down in the chair across from me. "Oh wow! she said, "we got the closet again!" I watched her as she fished into her purse for a black marker. She turned to the wall and drew a life-size coat hanger and the semblance of a nail. "What's a closet without a coat hanger?" she said smiling at me. I smiled back. "Well, you seem to be feeling chipper today!" I said. She nodded at me as she sipped her latte. I glanced at her pursed lips on the rim of the cup, her slender ivory fingers with their colorful nails, her slender wrist..."I aced my exam today!" she said putting her cup down. "Fantastic!" I said clapping my hands in applause. "I bet your parents are really proud of you." Her face went blank. She looked away and up to her coat hanger art. "I doubt that." she said. She looked back at me, her lips seeming to try to form a word. "They're dead." She said it in a matter-of-fact voice, her eyes unblinking. "Oh, Dorothy," I said leaning forward over the table and putting my hand on hers. "I am so sorry." "You needn't be", she said, "they're better off that way." She withdrew her hand from under mine and picked up her latte again. "It was a long time ago." she said as she took a sip. "Is there anything you want to tell me about it?" She shrugged, "What do you want to know?" "Well, you may not feel comfortable about telling me, but how did they die?" "I actually don't remember too much about it, I was little at the time. I don't even remember what the old man looked like. Evidently he wasn't around much. My mother said he was a drifter and a gambler. And because of that, when he got lucky, we had some really good times. But there were a lot of bad times too. And once, when I asked 'Where's daddy?' she told me he was on the lam." She broke into laughter all of a sudden. "I didn't know what that meant at all, and so I told my 2nd grade teacher that my daddy was on the lam. So, I got my mom in some kind of trouble, and she pulled me out of school. That's the way she told the story anyway, like I say I don't really remember him." "So what became of him, Dorothy?" She took another sip from her cup. "This is just between me and you, right?" "Sure," I nodded. "To make a long story short, he didn't make good on some debt, and wound up in the trunk of a car on the south side of Chicago with a bullet in his head." She sat her cup down. "Like I say, I didn't really know him." "You want another?", I asked pointing to her empty cup. "Ok, sure." I walked to the counter with our cups, retracing Dorothy's story in my mind so I could write it down later. When I came back, Dorothy had drawn a heart in the center of the coat hanger on the wall, with an arrow going through it. "So then, your mother raised you?" I said as I sat our cups down. "Not exactly." she said, wrapping the slender ivory fingers of both her hands with their painted nails around her cup and staring down at it. "Its such a long dreary story, you know, and..." "Look Dorothy, we don't have to talk about it. I mean, I am practically a stranger to you, I don't want you to feel like you have to tell me such sad and personal things." She chuckled softly and shook her head. "Its easier talking to a stranger sometimes than to someone you know well, as far as that goes. And the stories are just stories. And, I don't think them as all that sad or all that personal. Mostly they are stories told to me to help me understand the many things I don't remember. I sat back and watched her sip her latte...her pursed lips, her delicate ivory fingers with the nails of many colors, her slender wrists. She looked over at me, "I really have to leave soon, but the short of it, ummm, what did you say your name was?" "Carmichael," I replied. "The short of it, Carmichael, is this: My mom became a prostitute. She left me at home every night, although sometimes she would bring men home. I remember some of that, peeking out my bedroom door to see her making her money. One night she took a gun and killed herself. After that I lived in an orphanage run by the Catholic Church." "How old were you when that happened, Dorothy?" I asked in a quiet stunned monotone. "I was nine, I think." she said, as she put on her coat. I sat there in silence as she gathered her things. "Do you want me to walk you home?" I asked. "No, I'll be ok," she said standing and picking up her bag. "Oh, you'll never guess what happened." she said. I shook my head and shrugged, still stunned by her flippant account of a tragic life. "Jack kissed me yesterday!" " Are you serious?" I replied, sitting up straight in my chair. "Uh huh, he just right out of the blue, kissed me!" "Oh, wow!" I said, "How did that make you feel, I mean, what did you do?" She turned to walk away. "I kissed him back!" She looked over her shoulder as she walked toward the door. "Same time next week?" she called out. I nodded. Several people from nearby tables turned their heads to look at me as I took out my notebook, and began to frantically write.

Our First Argument.

I sat on the bench outside the laundromat with Dorothy. I had my arm around her. Neither one of us had laundry to do. We just decided to meet here. We didn't know where else to go. Eddie was being extra nice, coming out of the market next door and giving us hot chocolate. "Its on the house." he said giving me a wink, and taking a quick glance at Dorothy's legs. "Thanks, Eddie," Dorothy and I said in unison...and then both of us breaking into silly laughing. He laughed with us, then shook his head and disappeared back into the market. "Eddie is nice," Dorothy said sipping her chocolate. I hugged Dorothy a little closer to me. "You know it seems like only yesterday, when you first kissed me." I said. "It was yesterday, Jack. Except it was you that kissed me." "No, no, I remember it clearly, I was sitting there, and you leaned way over the table and you kissed me." She pulled away from me, "Jack, you got up out of your chair, and you walked over to me, and you bent down and kissed me!" "No, Dorothy, don't you remember, I was sitting there with all that lotion all over my face and you leaned across the table, and kissed me." "No, Jack, that is not what happened!" she said, standing and looking at me with a very stern face. I grabbed for her hand. "Dorothy, sit down." "I don't want to sit down," she said, trying to yank her hand away. "Ok...ok...I kissed you first. I did. I couldn't help it." Her hand went limp in mine, her sweet delicate little ivory fingers with their little painted nails, her slender wrist, her pretty little forearm with the hand-scratched and inked tattoo that said "fate". I stood up and said, "Come here." She was practically teary-eyed as I led her into the almost empty laundromat and past the table of our first confusing kiss. An old woman standing by a washer stared at us as we walked by, I ignored her. "Come here, Dorothy." I said pushing the bathroom door open. I locked the door behind us. I pressed her to the wall and kissed her mouth then held her tight and sucked her sweet neck. "Jack, Jack," she whined, clutching my head, "please don't give me a hickey. I have to go to school tomorrow." I eased back, and looked into her eyes. "I love how practical you are," I said, almost out of breath. We straightened our clothes and walked out. I gave the old lady a passing nod. We went outside and sat down on the bench again. We held hands timidly for several minutes and said nothing. "Are we still going out Friday?" she said. "Uh huh," I nodded. "Where will we go, Jack?" she asked squeezing my hand, I turned to her and looked into her eyes, I ran my fingers through her hair. "I want you to meet my mother."

The Coat Hanger's Hang-Up

"A lot has happened, Carmichael," Jack said, as I walked into his apartment. "You've been really cleaning up around here." I said as I looked around. "Yeh, you were right, Carmichael, I've been taking my meds like you said. And I think I have Miracle in a corner." "With all due respect, Jack, Miracle will probably be a part of your life for a long time, afterall you grew up with him...you were him." We sat down. "I know, but I am finally getting it. I think maybe, I am Jack Wilson after all. I am not sure, but I think it more and more. You know what I think, Carmichael? I think my Uncle Woody might actually exist." I looked at Jack. We stared at each other in the seriousness of such an idea. "If my mother is Abigail Mann and my uncle is Whistling Woody Wilson, then there must have been another Wilson who was his brother." "And that brother would have been your father." I said. "Exactly," Jack replied. "Miracle does not exist at all!" he said. "But only two weeks ago, you told me you were really Miracle Mann." "I know, Carmichael, but lately I've been thinking. And it occurs to me, that two and two does not make five." "I'm not sure I get your drift." I said. "Ok," he said pacing around the room, "let me put it in more simple terms, one and one does not make three. I should never have given her that coat hanger." "But she loves the coat hanger, Jack. She said it was a symbol of your relationship." Jack stopped and looked me. "Try to concentrate, Carmichael, I was the right bend and the left bend in the coat hanger. And Dorothy was the hook, the twisted question. But its different now, because Miracle is just somebody in my mother's head. And so, there should only be one bend in the coat hanger." I nodded. "Ok, I get it. Poor woman..." Jack sat down and picked up his mother's letter from the coffee table and stared at it. "Yes, poor woman..., and she is my mother. I am going to go see her, Carmichael." He handed me the letter, and I sat down to look at it again. I already knew it by heart. I had already written it into his memoirs. "So, when are you planning to see her?" Jack stood and walked over to the wall where the coat hanger once hung, and stared at the empty frame. "Tomorrow. And I am taking Dorothy with me." End of Chapter Two


Memoirs, the conclusion

Chapter Three Seek and Ye Shall Find

The Evaporating Miracle

I leaned back on the couch at Jack's place, flipping through pages of my scribbled notes of his memoirs. "Jack, has Dorothy talked to you much about her childhood?" "Take a look at this," Jack said. He walked over to me and handed me an elongated loop of wire with a hook on one end. I took it and studied it for a moment. "What happened?" I asked. "Did one of the benders break down?" Jack laughed. "Look at it, Carmichael. Think about it. What do you see?" "I see what looks to be a screwed up coat hanger." I said. "Yes, but I made it deliberately on my lunch hour. What's missing from this picture, Carmichael?" Jack said, taking it from my hands and dangling it on his finger by the hook. "The other bend?" "Yes Carmichael! The other bend! And so, what do you make of that?" I scratched my head, "Ummm...it means...uh...there is no Miracle in your life? I mean, he was the other bend, wasn't he?" Jack jumped up and down like a child on Christmas morning. "Yes! Yes! There is no Miracle in my life!" He sat down in the chair opposite me, swinging the improved coat hanger around on his finger like a mischievous child. "Guess what? The nice lady came to see me this morning. And I told her all about Dorothy, and that we were in love." Even about trying to give her a hickey in the bathroom at the laundromat?" I said, opening my folder of notes. "Yes, yes!" he replied, " I tried to tone the story down though, since it looked like she was getting all turned on." "So what did she say about it all?" I said, writing as fast as I could. "She just said, 'Way to go, Jack.' " I looked at Jack. He was so happy. "Jack, has Dorothy ever talked to you about her childhood?" "Not really." he said. I told him the story of what Dorothy had told me. He was listening very attentively. Very sober faced. And his eyes were watery. "How can anybody love anybody after going through that?" he said. "I don't know Jack. Most people become insulated and detached and so unable to commit to anything after such trauma. It is a wonder that she can love at all." Jack nodded. "Yes it is a wonder, it is even more than a wonder, it is a miracle. I am not the miracle, Dorothy is. Its ironic, isn't it Carmichael? I nodded. "Yes. quite ironic." "Oh, I almost forgot!" Jack said, as he jumped up and disappeared into the bedroom. "Check this out Carmichael," he said emerging from his room with some small object held between his finger and thumb. He dropped a shiny ring into my hand. "I made it for Dorothy," he said proudly. I picked it up and held it between my fingers. "Its quite extraordinary, Jack," I said, turning it around and admiring his handiwork. "How did you make this?" Jack sat down next to me on the couch and took the ring. "Well, I made it at work, and I almost got in trouble with Wire Boss, but when I told him I was making a wedding ring for my girlfriend, he kinda softened up. So what I did was to cut the hook off the coat hanger. And then I cut the twisted part away from the triangle. That's what got Wire Boss irritated, because I wasted a perfectly good coat hanger. So then I took the twisted part and laid it on the work bench, and hammered on it until the twists turned into these flattened coils. "Remarkable!" I said, looking at the flattened coils of the ring. "So then I just bent it around into a circle. I will spot weld the two ends together after she tries it on, so its sized just right for her finger. Have you ever noticed her fingers, Carmichael? How delicate they are?" "Yes," I nodded, "quite delicate...and like ivory... delicate wrists too." "Yes," said Jack, " her delicate wrists. And did you notice her neck, Carmichael, did you notice how graceful her neck is?" I nodded, "She is like a swan, Jack." Jack stood up and looked at me, "Yes, a swan! You are right! I will make her a swan necklace...or maybe a kind of neck band thing... a swan collar. But first, I have to take her to meet my mother." "You were going to do that today, weren't you?" "Yes, in fact I should probably be getting ready. I told Dorothy I would pick her up in an hour." "You will call me when you get back, won't you?" "Absolutely." "You are doing a brave thing, Jack." I said, getting up to leave. "You're still writing all this down, aren't you Carmichael?" Jack asked, following me to the door. " Yes, of course. I am going home to write right now, call me when you get back, ok? "I will, I promise." he said, closing the door behind me.

Abigail Mann

I held Dorothy's hand tightly as we walked up the sidewalk to the hospital. "I couldn't do this without you, Dorothy." "I want to meet her Jack." she said. "I haven't seen her in five years." I said, glancing over at how beautiful she was. "I know," she said, "I don't even know who my parents were." "I know, Carmichael told me all about that." We stopped outside the door. "You know Carmichael?" she said. "I love you, Dorothy." I said. "I love you too, Jack." We kissed. It was short and sweet, and interrupted by a security person. "Are you here on visitation?" "Yes," I said, "Abigail Mann." He handed me a clipboard. "Fill this out." he said. I signed the form as Mr. and Mrs. Jack Mann. Dorothy blushed but nodded. We were handed some Visitor tags to hang around our necks. And a slip of paper with a number on it. We took the elevator to the second floor and walked hand in hand down the long hallway. The air was a thick mixture of flowers and linoleum wax. A sweet little old lady walked toward us feebly pushing a walker in front of her. She pulled a tissue from the box in her basket and blew her nose. Dorothy was so sweet to talk to her. "Hi" she said, "how are you today?" The old woman stopped and looked at us as we walked by. "Fuck you, bitch!" she said. Finally, we came to the door with the number we were looking for. Dorothy and I turned to face each other. "This is scary, Dorothy." She took both my hands in hers. "I know. But we can do this." I knocked three times on the door. "Go the fuck away" a muffled voice replied, "Ive already taken the goddamned pills." I pushed at the stainless steel handle on the door, startled by its metallic click. "Mom?" "Miracle, is that you?" she said turning away from the window where she sat and staring toward us. "Its me Mom, Jack", I said, almost crushing Dorothy's hand in mine. "You are my Miracle!", she said holding her arms out toward me." I walked over to her and bent over and hugged her. She made a soft sobbing sound, her breath smelling thick and medicinal. "This is Dorothy, mom" I said, standing and gesturing for Dorothy to come closer.. She's my girlfriend." I stood there holding Dorothy's hand as she looked at her. Her eyes traced Dorothy from head to foot. "You are very beautiful, Dorothy," she said flatly. " It is obvious you have been touched by a miracle. My Miracle." "I am so happy to be with Jack." Dorothy said. "Jack? Who is Jack?" I bent down and took my mother's hand. It was bony, skeletal and pale and streaked with blue veins. "I'm Jack, mom." I looked into her eyes. I knelt down in front of her. "Mom, who was my dad?" "You never had a father, dear." she said running her fingers through my hair. "That's why you are my Miracle." I glanced briefly at Dorothy. She was nodding and smiling at me. "Do you remember Uncle Woody, mom?" I asked squeezing her hand. "Do you remember him?"
She stared into my eyes. "Of course, I remember Woody. He whistled all the time." "That's right," I said, "he whistled all the time. Who was he, mom? Who was Uncle Woody?" She reached for my hair again. "He was your father, sweetheart." "Mom, look at me. What did you just say?" "About what, sweetheart?" she said running her fingers through my hair. "About Uncle Woody, what did you just say?" She smiled at me. "He whistled all the time." "Mom, after that, what did you say? You said he was my father."
She looked at me and laughed, running her fingers around my face. tracing it with her frail and softly trembling hands. "You are my Miracle." I felt the tears spilling and running down my cheeks. I felt her fingers wiping them aside. "My precious Miracle." she said softly. "Mom,", its me Jack." I sobbed. "Yes, yes, I know, you are 'Jack' now. I suppose I never should have named you Miracle. It got you into so much trouble. But now my little Miracle is all grown up. You will always be my Miracle, Jack. You never had a father." "But, mom", I said drying my eyes, "....what about Uncle Woody?" "Uncle Woody?" she said turning to stare out the window again. "Woody whistled all the time." "Dorothy?" she said, still staring out the window. "Yes, ma'am?" Dorothy said stepping closer. She placed her hand sweetly on my mother's shoulder. My mother reached up and patted Dorothy's hand. "You know a Miracle when you see one, don't you?" "Yes, Ma'am," Dorothy said softly, turning to look at me over her shoulder, her eyes filling. "Take care of my Miracle, Dorothy", my mother said still staring out the window. "Yes Ma'am, I will." My mother's hand tightened on Dorothy's for a moment, then let go. "Miracle?" she said, looking down at her lap and wringing her hands. "I'm right here, Mom," I said, resigning to her delusional belief in me. "You take good care of Dorothy." "I will, Mom," I said, putting my hands on her shoulders as I stepped up behind her. "We'll come to see you again, Mom, real soon." She nodded silently, still looking down at her hands. I bent down and kissed her cheek. "Be careful out there Miracle, " she said, "The world will try to make you into something you're not."

The Drive Home

We didn't talk for several minutes after we pulled away from the hospital. "You heard it too, didn't you? She said Uncle Woody was my father." "Yes, she said it" Dorothy replied. "I don't think she meant to say it, but she did say it, in some fleeting moment of clarity." "Then there is hope for her, isn't there?" I said. "Yes, I think there is always hope, Jack." Dorothy sweetly ran her hand along the back of my neck and along my shoulder. "Do you still love me?" I asked, staring blankly at the road. "Yes," she said, "more than ever." "I have to get my mother out of there." "I know." she said sliding across the seat and snuggling next to me. I put my arm around her. "I didn't even believe I had an Uncle Woody. I thought I made him up." "But now you know, right?" she said. "Yes, now I know." I said, wiping my eyes. " I knew there was really an Uncle Woody. I figured it out last week. I found his name in the records of the River Bend Gazette. It was in the obituaries. He died three years ago. But I didn't know 'til now that he was my dad." Suddenly the tears, great big stormy kinds of tears, tears I never even knew I had, came pouring out of me... down on me. "Oh, Jack," Dorothy sobbed, burying her face beneath my chin. What happened next, I have little memory of. There was the sound of flying gravel, and then the shriek of metal tearing metal and an explosion of water. And then just blackness and Dorothy screaming my name.
I came to with a stranger's face staring down at me. "You're gonna be all right, son. Just lie still. You almost drowned." I sat up, suddenly wild with fear. "Where's Dorothy?" "Take it easy, son." the man said, trying to make me lie down again. "Your girl friend is fine, she's right over there. She's a mighty lucky girl, you saved her life."
"Where?" I said pushing him away. "Where is she?" Suddenly, I saw her. She was sitting in the open door at the back of an ambulance. There were several policemen and some reporter from the Lexington Times. I jumped up and ran toward her. "Dorothy!" "Jack!" She stood and ran toward me. We hugged. The reporter was taking photos. A tow truck was wenching my pick-up out of the river and up onto the bank. "You went off, just before you reached the bridge, son." a police officer was explaining. The reporter started asking me questions. " Are you the one that saved her?" "I don't know," I said, "I don't remember much." I hugged Dorothy, she was wet and trembling. "According to the officer, you dragged her out of the water", the reporter went on, holding a microphone to my face. " You gave her CPR and then passed out." "I did?" I replied, as Dorothy kissed my neck. "Yep' the officer chimed in, "you're a hero, son. " I ran my fingers through Dorothy's wet hair. "Please don't ever leave me Jack." she said, lifting her head to look into my eyes. "I won't." I said, kissing her cold wet lips. They were taking pictures of us, but I didn't care. "Come on kids, we'll take you home." the officer said, pushing the reporter back and leading us to his car.

Tying The Tangled Knot


"One, two, three, four, five. six, seven, blow into her mouth. One two, three... Dorothy!...Blow into her mouth....one, two.." I woke up in a cold sweat, dreaming of drowning. "Come here baby," she said, pulling me down into the blankets. Her hand pulling mine over her round pot belly. "You were just dreaming again." My fingertip caressed her swollen navel. "Quit it," she said, "you are going to wake up our little miracle." She snuggled into me. I stared sleepily around the room as I played with the ring on Dorothy's finger. I chuckled to myself as I caressed Dorothy's sleepy head on my chest. Feeling a bit of her slobber wetting my skin. Thought about how nice it is to be so intimate with one another as to slobber in our sleep. I thought about my Mom, and how we would somehow fit her into our lives. I stared about the room, the improved coat hanger, hanging on a nail inside its glassless wooden frame. I thought about our wedding at the laundromat. And Carmichael fumbling for the ring. And the reception at Eddie's Market. And the photo of me kissing Dorothy on the front page of The Lexington Times. "I give you this ring as a token of our abiding love, and how it moves in circles. And how we just go round and round, and how it never ends." How she said, "Jack, Jack shut up, I do already." And how I said, "So do I." And the ridiculous headline in the Lexington Times., "Miracle! Man Saves Drowning Girl!" I thought about Carmichael, again. I thought of my mother and how to get through to her. How to bring her home. I thought about how to make a swan necklace. I thought about the Wire Boss, and how I hope he won't fire me.
I thought about the huge pile of dirty laundry. The bras, the socks, the underpants, the panties. Dorothy squirmed in my arms, "Its laundry day," she mumbled, pulling the pillow over her head. "Do you want some coffee, sweetie?" I said, sitting up and looking down at her. Her hair a tangled mess. Her slender fingers, her delicate wrists, her swelling belly, and her bigger than ever breasts "Uh huh" she said, pushing the pillow away and smiling sleepily up at me, rubbing her squinting crusted eyelids with her delicate ivory fingers, her gaudy fingernails, her delicate wrist, her slender forearm with the hand inked "FATE" tattoo. I bent and kissed it. She wrapped her arms around my neck. "And Jack," she said softly into my ear, "I want some radishes...and some hot sauce too." "For breakfast?" "Mmm..hmm."

The End