Pink

Pink is the color
of blushing flesh
or is murder in the rain
one blossoms
one goes down
the drain
pink lemonade
follows the curb
to the gutter
and the drain
of
words diluting
into
watery
sweat

Taken, Not So Taken

MORE THEN THAN NOW
USED TO BE A LOT
BUT NOT SO
LATER
WHEN THINGS WERE
NOT SO
TAKEN BUT THERE YOU
ARE
THE WAY IT WAS
OR WAS NOT MORE
THEN THAN NOW
USED TO BE
A LOT
BUT NOT SO
NOW
WHEN THINGS
TAKEN
USED TO BE
A LOT

Woman in Alaska

Her muscles
The swing of the axe
Her hair in pink plastic
Rollers
The way she sat on a chair
The way
She smelled
The blanket her body
Made
The goose-bumps
Kindling the fire
Fur in my mouth
And
Breakfast.

Anomie Anonymously

Anomie
Anonymously
Emerging
Disappearing
In a room
Of tubular emptiness
Meeting as virtual particles
Testifying wordlessly
To the vacuum between them
Appearing
Disappearing
Re-appearing
Never closing the distance
Never touching
A shadowy dance
Around an imaginary fire
Some almost things
full of fleeting pinholes
Of faux illumination
Flash and die
Beneath the spinning disco ball
Above the empty floor.

.

To Sleep Perchance To Wake

A clinical hypnotist noted in his journal the curious case of Annelle Pendleton. She had been referred to him by Doctor Alton, at the clinic where they specialized in sleep disorders. Ms. Pendleton not only slept 24 hours a day, she was a sleep walker for twelve of those hours. She was able to do what most waking people do, while sleep walking. she got up in the morning, had breakfast, brushed her teeth, and went to work, and yet, she was still asleep. At work, she was noted as a reliable person, who got things done, and was even Employee of the Month three times. The thing about Annelle Pendleton, was that she did all this while asleep, and sleep-walking. What follows, is the account of Doctor James Moltan, regarding his work with Annelle.

CASE # 379, ANNELLE PENDLETON

This recorded transcription is an accurate account of my use of hypnotherapy to both explore and understand, the
characteristics of Annelle Pendleton's unique presentation of an unusual sleep disorder syndrome not seen or written about before in the literature of the field.

Jan, 8, 2010. Initial Session with Annelle Pendleton. (Notes)

In my first meeting with Annelle, I was impressed at how perfectly normal she appeared. How awake she appeared. Her eyes did not display the kind of blank glassiness so typical of sleep walkers, nor was there any slurring or slowness of speech, as one might expect, and even predict, as typical of the common and classical form of the disorder. She was, in fact, quite articulate in describing to me her experience of her unique condition. She had been asleep now for three years. During that time, little about her life had changed. She still kept a tidy house, went shopping, maintained her excellent standing in the work place, went to bed at a normal hour and got up as usual in the morning. The only thing that really changed for her was an inner awareness, that, while it seemed she was getting out of bed, getting dressed for work, having breakfast over the morning news, and so on, she knew she hadn't awakened at all. She was still asleep, but going about her usual life. Being aware of this led her, in a misguided self help sort of way, to try to wake herself up. In our next session, we will review some of these efforts.

Jan 15, 2010. Session 2

Annelle, recounted her determination to wake herself up. She had tried purchasing a loud alarm clock. Then multiple alarm clocks. She says, as of this date, she has well over a dozen. None of them seemed to shake her from her endless sleep. Several of them were so loud and annoying, her neighbors in the next apartment had complained about them. Then she spoke of a day when, she was standing in the kitchen, and she suddenly walked angrily straight into the refrigerator, and knocked herself out. When she came back around moments later on the kitchen floor, she was disappointed to discover that she was still asleep. She reported that the collision she had attempted, did little more than than to create a slight red goose egg on her forehead encircled by a pale halo of bruising light blue..She said that she realized in that moment, picking herself up from the floor in tears, and rubbing her throbbing forehead with her palm, that she needed help. That she was getting increasingly desperate to wake up. She had thoughts of hurting herself into wakefulness, even if only to awaken screaming in pain. Or stepping out in front of a fast-moving car to her death, if just to have a moment of waking clarity before dying. "So, that is why I am here today, doctor" she said, finally raising her head from her fixed gaze down at the floral pattern of her dress across her legs. She swept her palms over her thighs several times, as though smoothing it, as she looked into my eyes. I nodded, looking at her, her eyes revealing nothing but an urgent dark question mark.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. "In our next session, Annelle, I'd like for you to take me further back in your life, so I can begin to better understand your inner dynaics." "What do you mean when you say my inner dynamics?" she said, standing to leave. "Well," I replied, "It means basically the stuff you are made of; the stuff that moves one purposefully through life. We'll walk through it together next time, Annelle. We'll take it slow and easy, and perhaps we both will get to understand you more in time. You see, we have no predictabilityy about life, without first understanding it. And without predictability, there is no possibility of control. It all starts with understanding. Do you understand?" I opened the door for her. "Yes, doctor. I understand." she said, waving goodbye as she walked toward the stairs.

Jan 27, 2010 Session Three

Annelle sat on the red leather arm chair by the window, as usual. She stared out the window, looking down at the busy street thick with city buses, and yellow cabs. People rushing along the city sidewalks, in all directions. "You know what's funny, doctor?" she said. " People are always wishing they could live in a dream. If only they knew what it was really like. "Are you living in a dream, Annelle?" I asked. "Mm hmm," she replied. "A very long dream." "I'd like for you to take me back, Annelle. Back to when your very long dream first began. Can you do that?" She nodded, "I will try. It was in the Winter of 2006. There was a lot of snow that year. I was 23 in the Spring of 2007. That's when it all went out the window." I leaned back in my swivel chair, looking at her as she fell into silence, and simply stared out the window. I knew from her records, that long before 2007, she had been seen by clinicians for narcoleptic seizures, that were brief, but with a sudden onset. These had begun when she was about 10 years old. "That's when what all went out the window?" I asked quietly. She turned her head to look at me with a startled expression. "I'm sorry, doctor. What did you ask me?" "You just said 'that's when it all went out the window' ." "I did?" she said. I don't remember saying that. "Annelle, I'd like for you to think back even further. To 1987. You were 10 years old that year. Do you remember? " She nodded. "I wish I could forget it. Doctor, I really need to leave early today." she said, wringing her hands. "Can we do all this another time?" I nodded, "Sure." I said, sensing her discomfort. We had touched, even if only on the murky surface, upon two periods of her life. Periods of time that were deeply significant in some way."

Sessions Four and Five, Summary of notes.

Over the next two sessions, we were able to identify the co-incidence of the emergence of various symptoms of sleep disorder, with times in her past where she had experienced great loss. At the age of 10, and, in fact, on the very day of her 10th birthday, her father did not come home. He had been tragically killed in a commuter train wreck, on his way home from work. By the time the news reached her that evening, she was dancing and having fun with a living room full of girls her age, celebrating her birthday. In the years that immediately followed, her life went reeling off-balance. She was having bouts of insomnia, wetting the bed, and having sudden narcoleptic episodes. These symptoms seemed causally tied to the trauma of her father's death. While things improved through high school and college, it could have been predicted even back then, that what happened years later in 2007, could have thrown her into the dark hole of endless sleep and dream, where she remains today.

Session 6

Annelle laid down on the couch and rested her head on the pillow. "Comfortable?" I asked, as I pulled my chair up near the couch, just out of her field of vision. "Yes" she replied. "I want you to feel comfortable and relaxed. You have been sleep walking through our sessions, haven't you? I said in a soft voice. "Yes." she replied. "Just as you have been sleep walking through the last three years of your life." I said. "Yes." she replied. "And you are wishing and wanting so much to actually wake up." I added. "Yes." she replied. " I want you to do something, Annelle. I want you to close your eyes and take a long deep breath....10... I want you now, in your present state of constant sleep, to imagine or dream, that you are not really asleep at all....9.....that you are actually awake....8.....Are you awake, now, Annelle?" "Yes" she said with a yawn, as she began to slip into a trance state. "Good. Awake and relaxed....7.....now, I would like you to close your eyes.....6....and go to sleep....5....very peacefully sleeping...4......peacefully sleeping......deeper and deeper asleep....3.....and when you hear me softly call your name....2.....you will awaken from your long dream....1....

I got up quietly and walked into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee. What happened to Annelle in 2007 involved a man who hurt her deeply. So deeply, that she had retreated into an extreme state of emotional insulation. A state of mind and feeling that no longer allowed the world with all it's shock and pain, to touch her. She became so removed, that the real world didn't seem real at all, but more like more like a long dream. And sleep for her became the only possible reality. Over time, she came to actually believe that life really was a dream. Finally, she awoke one morning, but without really waking up. She had begun to believe she was sleep walking, rather than actually getting out of bed. Her protective detachment, and insulation had engulfed her. Swallowed her. She was not living a dream at this point, the dream was living her. And so, for the past three years she has been sleep walking through a world in her mind, a world that was but a dream. A dream that possessed her. I made a few notes before continuing with the procedure.

"The procedure I used, to, in effect hypnotize her in her own self induced trance, is relatively new. Whether, it has worked here with Annelle or not, remains to be seen. In asking her, in her sleep walking state, to pretend or imagine she was awake, I was hoping that I had, in effect, entranced, her own hypnotic trance. When she answered that yes, she was awake, she was , in fact really awake for the first time in three years. It was as though I had psychically flipped her delusion like a pancake, and put reality face up once again. When I asked her to return to sleep again, I was basically putting this conversion of her state of mind into a normal sleep-wake cycle. Finally then, as she returned to sleeping, I gave her the suggestion that when I called her name next, she would awaken into reality."

I returned to my seat and looked at her. She was breathing slow, deep, calm breaths, peacefully asleep. "Annelle?" I called quietly. "Yes." she mumbled sleepily. "Are you waking up now,?" "Mm hmm," she said. I watched as she turned onto her side and snuggled the pillow beneath her head. She blinked her eyes several times, then rubbed them with her fist. "I guess I fell asleep." she said, with a yawn. "Yes, I guess you did." I answered with a smile. She pushed herself up on one elbow, and then slowly sat up. She gave a funny laugh and said, "I had the craziest dream." "Really? Tell me." I said. "Uh huh, it was so crazy. I dreamed that I had gone to sleep, and slept for three years! It was like I was Rip Van Winkle, or something. So crazy." I smiled. "So, how are you feeling now, Annelle?" "Happy" she said. "Happy it was just a dream. A long, long, bad dream." "Yes, Annelle. A long dream. But it ended, didn't it?" "Yes", she nodded. "I am awake now."

Against All Odds

This is the opening of a story. Maybe about the uncanny, although I'm not sure if that's the right word, or if there are other words that best describe it. I had met the young woman at a social gathering. A rather boring affair, we agreed. As we strolled outside, and into the garden to get away from the mindless chatter, she began to tell me of a very fascinating chapter of her history. So fascinating, I asked her if she would mind if I tried to write her story down. She agreed, on the condition that I let her read it first, before publishing it. It was a story of someone she met not too long ago. What follows, is basically the story as she told it to me that night, although I did call her twice to ask her for some further details. For now, I am calling the story, Against All Odds

They had met along the Italian Riviera, each had been strolling through the little coastal villages of the Cinque Terre, taking photos of the jagged limestone cliffs, and the Mediterranean blue waters sloshing with a timeless hypnotic rhythm far below. The harbored boats rocking gently about. The ancient buildings that appeared to lean out precariously over the sea, and which had held their seemingly fragile stand there for ages. It was in the village of Vernazza, to be exact, where they literally bumped into each other, backed into each other, in fact, while framing shots in their cameras. The result was a simultaneous exchange of polite apologies. " I am so sorry." "No, really, it was my fault." "I wasn't paying attention." and "Neither was I."
"Are you from the states?" she asked. "Yes, Arizona, actually; in the high desert. And you?" he asked. "Chicago, well, the 'burbs, actually." "So, what brought you here, to Cinque Terre?" he asked, thinking, as he looked at her, that he wanted to keep the conversation going. "Well, I sorta fell in love with a picture of Vernazza that I saw in a library book, and decided I just had to come here. How about you?" He smiled at her, somewhat entranced by her eyes. "Well," he laughed, "I think I came here to find you." She responded with a smirk and a giggle. It seemed obvious to her it was a clever pick-up line. Yet, it seemed to work. "Oh, you are really something, aren't you?. You don't even know me." she said. He shrugged. "I know, that's true. But I knew how to find you, regardless. Would you like to have a glass of wine, or something like that? I just saw a nice little place back that way." he said, pointing back to the narrow street he had just come down. "Sure, why not? I was just thinking of going up that way, anyway." So, this is how they met. And they soon knew each other's names, and a little about each other. His name was Enzio, named after his great-grandfather, who had immigrated from Italy to the states long ago. Her name was Candyce, named after a mother she never knew, who had died upon delivering her daughter into the world. Neither had a clue about where they might each wander next across Europe before returning to the states. And neither, suspected as they emptied their glasses and parted company, the mysterious chain of events that had just been put in motion.

Candyce awoke early that next morning and packed her bags. She ate a light breakfast in the Hotel's wonderfully aromatic cafe, and looked at her maps. Enzio had said he might walk the trail from Riomaggiore to Manarolo, or catch a train up to Rome, but he wasn't sure. She had told him she might go to Paris, or maybe not. She studied the map of the French Riviera. She was not sure about Nice. She liked the quiet villages better. Her eyes fell upon a little town tucked back into the mountains, some 15 miles from Nice. The village of Sospel. She could take a train to Nice, and then a local bus to Sospel. She grabbed her bags and headed to the train station. She thought about Enzio as she stared out the train window. Maybe it would have been nice to travel with him awhile, he seemed like a nice guy. She left her seat and strolled the length of the three passenger cars, thinking he might have actually gotten on too. But, no. "He's probably walking the trails back in Cinque Terre." she thought to herself, as she returned to her seat. She sat down and looked out the window again with a certain sense of regret.

Sospel was a sleepy little place. Off the tourist track, and with little to do. She had a glass of wine at the little tavern by the bridge. The bartender chatted with her. He encouraged her to take a winding trail that went to the top of the nearby mountains. At the top was the remains of a German sniper's nest, and from atop that one could look down the other side at the Cote d' Azur, and the bustling cities of Nice, and Monaco. The mountainsides are abloom with many flowers. " You will like it", he said.

It was a pleasant gradual uphill hike, and as the bartender had suggested, quite beautiful. She stopped to pick some flowers and suddenly felt very alone. It was a strange mix of 'how nice, to be alone," and "how scary". She neared the top, and could see the ruins of the concrete bunker the bartender had mentioned. It disappeared from view momentarily as the trail took a bend around a large rock formation. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. There was the bunker. And there, on top of it sat Enzio.

"Enzio?" she called. He turned to look at her. "Oh, there you are!" he said, "I was beginning to think I had it wrong." She walked toward him, and climbed up onto the top of the bunker. She sat down next to him. "Had what wrong?" she asked, looking at him. He shrugged. "I don't know, I just had this feeling that I would see you again." "Are you following me, Enzio?" she asked, feeling the strangeness of the moment. He laughed, and shook his head. "No, believe me. I took this trip to be alone. To just be an anonymous nobody in particular, wandering through places I'd never been. Yesterday, I was thinking I would stay on in Cinque Terre for a few days. But, I had a sudden feeling after meeting you, that I might see you again. And that, it would only happen if I kept moving. If I kept moving, I would find you. And so, here we are. I had no idea that I would come here. I was sitting here for over two hours, and was just deciding to leave, when you suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I don't know how to explain it." Candyce stared out at the sea. "So, I wonder whether it is that you found me, or I that found you?"

They walked back down the trail together, holding hands at times. And then Enzio would run off over the hillside and return with handfuls of flowers for her. So many flowers, she finally had to pull up the hem of her dress to make a basket of sorts to hold them. About half-way down they passed a cistern fashioned of rock and mortar, or perhaps, more properly an artesian well. They splashed off over it, cooling their faces, and drinking the cool mountain water. Candyce could only use one hand to splash her face, since she had to hold onto her dress, bunched about her waist, and full of flowers. She threw her head back laughing at how good it felt, and tasted. And that was when he kissed her. Back down to sleepy Sospel, they promised to meet the next morning for breakfast. He walked away down the street to the Hostel. She stepped into the hotel lobby and walked passed several staff there, ignoring their glances at her and her dress full of flowers. Before going to bed that night, she sat for at least an hour laying flowers, one by one into the pages of her journal.

The next morning, she waited over a cup of espresso at the cafe. Enzio didn't appear. She walked down to the Hostel and asked about him. He had left just before dawn. He had left a note for her. "Candyce, I am not sure where we will meet again, but I know we will. I don't know why I know, but I know. It's strange, I know. But it doesn't matter whether you find me, or I find you. It's just going to happen again. I know. See you then. Enzio." She tucked the note into her bag. She felt a tangle of emotions. Some of them were so, so, sweet. Others were so, so, scary.

And as Enzio predicted, they did meet again. And again. Almost every day, and in different cities, different countries. Neither of them ever asked the other where they were going next. And they both seemed to have the same idea of traveling. Get on a train, with a destination in mind, then decide to hop off in strange places. Then wind up at last in some place, not planned, and there would be the other. Candyce came to understand that he was not somehow following her. Sometimes, she would arrive in a city to find that he had already been there for two days. The last time she saw him was in Copenhagen. She was torn to see him on one of the walking streets with another woman. But when he saw her, he turned to the woman and said something, and then came running to her. They hugged. They strolled about the walking streets going in and out of little shoppes. He bought her a floral patterned pair of black nylons in a lingerie shoppe. She bought him a hand knit woolen sweater.

Enzio never got to see Candyce in her racy hosiery. Candyce never got to see Enzio in the handsome warm sweater. For some odd and unknown reason the synchronous, uncanny interweaving of their lives simply stopped. She waited three days in Paris wandering around to all the sights, but never caught a glimpse of him. On the flight back to Chicago via New York, she mostly slept, but sometimes quietly wept, and sometimes wrote in her journal full of pressed flowers, of her sadness. She wandered Manhattan for several days, still hoping she might see him again. At last she returned home, and returned to her internship as a nurse at Chicago Lakeshore Hospital.

I called Candyce to tell her I had finished writing her story. "I finished your story, Candyce. It's sad, of course, but..." No! No!" Candyce said. "It's not finished. I don't want it ever to be finished. If it is finished, then I will have no hope. I won't be able to go on, if it's finished." She began to cry into the phone. So, of course, I consented to her wishes, her desperate hope, and put the story aside.

As it turns out, Candyce was right. It was not finished. I got a call from her a few days later. She sounded out of breath, and excited. "I found him! I found him!" "That's incredible!" I replied. "Tell me, Candyce." I heard her take a deep breath. "OK, OK, I went to the hospital this morning to make my rounds with the doctor. Wait a minute, I have to sit down, my legs are so shaky. OK, so, we were making the rounds and I was taking notes, and we walked into this room, and there he was!" "Amazing!" I said. "Yes, yes, I know, I took one look at him, and fainted on the spot! I woke up with the doctor over me. The first thing I said was 'Is he going to be ok?' " The doctor said he would be fine. He has a concussion, a broken collar bone, and a broken leg, but he will be fine." "Oh, my!" I said. "What happened?" Candyce was beginning to sound out of breath again. "Well, he was on his way home to Arizona, and had a lay-over in Chicago, and he was walking around downtown along Michigan Avenue, and went to cross the street to the Art Institute, and got hit by a cab that had run the light." Unbelievable!" I said. "I know, but it's true. He's here! And I am never going to let him out of my sites again. Not ever!"

So, the story goes on. I got a call from her two weeks later. She was in the high deserts in Northern Arizona with Enzio. They were staying at his father's ranch. His father had given her a young Arabian stallion, and she was learning to ride. Enzio was still on crutches, but healing up nicely. She said I could tell you this story, but to never call it finished. I agreed.

Kronikles of Karla

Karla seemed a woman who was neither here nor there. But, if you asked her where her mind was, she would only shrug. Everything she did, was done with a certain detachment. When she looked at you it was never eye to eye. It was as though she was looking at someone or something just behind you, and off to one side. And she seemed always just out of arm's reach. We roomed together in a small apartment a few blocks away from campus. It worked for both of us, in a financial sense, and that was about all there was in this relationship I had with her. Actually, relationship would be too strong a word. We co-existed. I knew about as much about her as I would know about a random stranger passing on the street below. The more removed she was, the more determined I was to know her. I even would poke around in her room while she was out, looking for clues. Not a very nice thing to do. But it was beginning to drive me crazy. Especially when we both were there in the apartment together, with nothing shared other than the air we breathed, and the walls oround us.

I worked on ways to provoke interaction. For the most part, these were ridiculous failures. Like today, when I came in, she was sitting in the easy chair reading a book. "Hi, what are you reading?" "A book." she said, without looking up. "I was thinking about making a quiche." I said. " Do you like quiche?" She nodded yes, and turned a page in her book. "OK, then, I'll get started on it." I said, as I walked toward the kitchen. I felt like pulling my hair out...or hers. Well, no that wouldn't be right. She can't help the way she is, I guess. But, why? It was beginning to create a certain bitterness in me that I didn't want to feel. So, I would try to make lists of things I liked about her. She always is on time with her share of the rent and the utility bills. She doesn't just leave it up to me to take the garbage out. She does her part in keeping the place clean. I don't think she has ever even looked into my room. I wished she would. Then I wouldn't feel so bad about how often I go into hers when she isn't around. I do like red heads, and she has red hair. So, that's another thing I like. And 'Karla', I like that name. It has an air of mystery about it somehow.

One day, I was sitting on the side of her bed looking around. There was little there to tell me much about her. I laid my head back on her pillow. If she walked in right now, she would probably turn around and leave and never come back. Maybe that would be for the better. That's when I felt it. A small book under her pillow. I pulled it out. It was a journal. I opened it slowly, almost afraid to look. The first page said simply, 'The Story of Karla'. On the second page was a quote:

"I find myself regarding existence as though from beyond the tomb, from another world; all is strange to me; I am, as it were, outside my own body and individuality; I am depersonalized, detached, cut adrift. Is this madness?"
-Henri Frederic Arniel, 1880

I had goosebumps up and down my arms. I turned the page. It had a date some two months back, and then in the middle of the page, a big check mark. The next page was the same, and the next, and the next, and so on, all the way up to the present day. The remaining pages were blank. I took a deep breath and let it slowly out, as I slid the book back under her pillow and left.

I walked down to the pub and got a draft and sat down by a window, lost in thought. Jake and Kenny strolled in. Two guys I played b-ball with occasionally. "Joey!", Kenny shouted slapping me on the back. They got a couple of beers and pulled up to the table. "What's been goin' on, man." Jake said, as we clinked glasses. "Not much, really." I said. Kenny chuckled, "Yeh, ever since our Joey here moved in with that hot chick, we haven't seen him on the courts lately. Did you notice that, Jake?" "Now that you mention, it, you're right" Jake said. "Come on, Joey, give us the juicy details. What's Karla like? I'll bet she's hot in bed, am I right?" He clicked glasses with Kenny. "There's not much to tell, really." I said with a shrug. "OH! Oh!" Kenny said, pointing out the window. "Check...it...OUT!" I looked out the window. It was Karla across the street walking down the sidewalk toward the apartment. "OK, Joey", Jake said, "Let's have it. What's she like? I mean, really? You can't tell me you don't have your hands all over that!" I shook my head, "No, It's not like that." Oh, you are such a liar!" Kenny laughed. "OK, I'll tell you. I was in the record store the other day, and I saw this poster. And I thought, 'That's Karla to a T." "What poster?" Kenny asked. It was a poster of a woman, and she's sorta staring off at the sky. And beneath it, it said, "Please don't interrupt me, while I am trying to ignore you." Jake made a face. "Ooh, that's cold, man! You mean Karla's a bitch?" "I shook my head no. "No, she's not a bitch." "What then?" Kenny asked. "Is she into girls?" "No." I said. "Look, guys, I really don't want to talk about it right now." I got up to leave. "You are doin' her, aren't you? You are!" Jake laughed. I shook my head no, and left.

When I walked into the apartment, I was both surprised and relieved she wasn't there. I could tell she had been there, though. I could smell her recent presence in the air. I walked into her room, and once again, looked at her journal. The past few days looked like all the pages before. A big check mark in the middle of the page. And then, I came to today's entry. It said, "Have you learned anything yet?" I didn't know if she was talking to herself, or whether she was on to me. Down at the bottom of the page were more words written upside down. I turned the book upside down. It was a quote, once again. "I now realized the Importance of Being Earnest" - Oscar Wilde.
I found myself in love with her, even though, I didn't know who she was.
Karla sat in her room with her hands over her ears. Today was her 10th birthday, and her parents were downstairs fighting again. Shouting horrible things at one another. She turned on her radio and increased the volume, hoping to drown them out. But it was no use. She ran down the stairs and screamed at them. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Her father glared at her with an expression that seemed monstrous and frightening. She ran back to her room and shut the door, and threw herself on the bed covering her face with the pillow trying to stop her sudden sobs. After awhile the shouting and screaming stopped. She sat up and turned the radio off and listened for any sign of them downstairs. Nothing. Then the jarring sound of the front door slamming shut. Then just complete and utter silence. She stared down at her lap, wringing her hands nervously. She heard her father revving his truck in the driveway. Then the squeal of tires. Then nothing. She stood and went to her door and slowly opened it. "Mommy?" she called in a small voice. Again, from the top of the stairs. "Mommy?" She took the steps slowly, one hand on the wall, listening intently. "Mommy?", she called as she stepped slowly into the hallway. "Mommy?" She peeked timidly into the living room. Her mother was lying on the couch. "Mommy?" She walked across the room slowly. Her mother's eyes were wide open and unblinking. Her neck seemed a livid red. Her head cocked at a grotesque angle. She sat down in the big rocking chair near the fireplace. The chair her mother used to rock her to sleep in when she was little. She stared at the charred blackened litter of burnt wood. There hadn't been any fires there for quite awhile. She gathered some kindling and a cord of wood and made a fire and stared at it for some time. She got a blanket from the closet and covered her mother with it, then picked up the phone. She called 911. "What is the emergency?" a voice said. "It's not actually an emergency." she said quietly, "My mother is dead. Yes, I'm sure. My daddy killed her. No, I don't know where he is. He left." She sat back down in the rocker and stared at the fire.

Somehow, my impatience about Karla lessened, along with my expectations that we could possibly become friends, or even more. I knew there must be something deep-seated that led to her coldness. Not even a beautiful sunny Summer day could melt it. I felt an ambiguous empathy for her, but hadn't a clue how to help her out of some dark hole she had fallen into. One day as I came into the apartment, I heard her crying in her room. In a way, I was almost happy to hear it. It was the first display of emotions I had known her to express. I stood by her door and listened for a minute, then said, "Karla, are you OK?" She didn't answer, but it seemed her crying diminished and softened. "Are you OK?" I repeated. "Not really." she replied. "Can I come in?" "I guess so." she replied. I opened the door and looked at her sitting on the side of her bed holding a box of tissues. I didn't say anything as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "What's wrong?" "I don't know. I was just remembering something." she said. "Something sad, I guess?" She nodded and looked up at me. "I wish I was brave like you." she said. "Like me? I'm not so brave." "Yes you are. You are really brave." she said. "What makes you think I am brave? Can I sit down?" She nodded. "Because you are always nice to people." she said. "I don't know," I said, "I don't think it takes much courage to just be nice to people." "For me, it does." she said. "For me it's a scary thing." "Why is it scary, Karla?" I asked in a soft voice. "Because, when you are nice to people, then they like you. And when they like you, you like them back. And then one day, they are gone." "Did you lose somebody, Karla? Somebody you really cared about?" She put her face in her hands and nodded as she began to cry again. I put my hand lightly on her back as I handed her the tissues. I couldn't believe she was letting me get this close to her. I gently rubbed my hand across her back. "You don't have to tell me, Karla. But, I would like it if you would." Then she began to talk. It had all begun when she was 10 years old. As she told me the horrific details, I realized she was telling me as well, about her fear of ever being close to anyone again. She suddenly burst into tears again. I put my arm around her and she turned to me burying her face against my chest. I held her for a long time like that as she let it out. "Karla, can you see how brave you are right now? To allow yourself to re-live that day? To tell someone else of that day? To mourn? To cry? To let me hold you?"

Things got better for Karla in the days that followed. I heard her laugh for the first time. We took on cooking as a hobby. And took turns cooking for each other. We held hands and leaned on each other watching tv in the evenings. We talked about all kinds of things. We kissed. We slept together. We took walks in the park. And we bought a puppy.

The End

Fair Is Fair, Or Is It?

I didn't know if Nico was really her name or not. It wasn't the first time I have had a stranger at my door. In those days, a lot of people were on the road, either adventuring, or simply wandering and lost. Or sometimes running away from something, or somebody. There seemed to be some word of mouth that passed amongst them as their journeys led them each into chance encounters with one another. Places to avoid. Places to go. Places that were dangerous. Places that were safe. Where to eat. Where to sleep. When Nico showed up on my doorstep, she said that 'Bo' had sent her. "Bo sent you?", I repeated. She nodded, "That's what he said I should say. That Bo sent me. Is it ok?" "Yeh, it's ok. Come on in." She set her backpack down and followed me into the front room. When I turned to look at her, I saw for the first time, how pale and frail looking she was. How puffy and dark she was around her eyes. I smiled at her. "I get the feeling that you could probably use a good night's sleep, right about now." She nodded, then seemed to sway a bit and fell crashing to the floor in a dead faint. "Oh hell, Bo!" I said, as I bent to pick her up. I carried her into Allison's room. Allison wouldn't be back for awhile. She was in the county jail on charges of possession with intent to sell. I made Nico comfortable on Allison's bed. She came to, and opened her eyes just long enough to mumble 'thanks', and then drifted off to sleep.

I made my coffee that next morning after peeking into Allison's room to see if Nico was still there. She seemed comfortably asleep. I had no qualms about sifting through her backpack in search of clues as to who she was. I had my reasons. I had to know if she was on the run. If she was a fugitive, in any sense of that word. Harboring a criminal makes you an accomplice. I had almost gotten in trouble one time before. A guy who was running a phone scam on my phone. He disappeared suddenly and stuck me with a 300 dollar phone bill. And the next day, the police were at my door. That was the only time I had really been burned, but once is once too many. So who is Nico?

The contents of her backpack were a mess. Some jumble of wadded up clothes told me she was no adventurer, and had packed in a hurry. There was a well-worn little teddy bear about six inches tall and missing one eye, down in the middle of things. Finally, I came to what I was looking for. Identification. It was a driver's license sandwiched into the pages of a diary. Angela Jackson was her name. She was from a place I knew to be rather ritzy. A commuter suburb outside of Rochester, New York. She was 23 years old. She was some kind of runaway. I knew it before I even read the last five pages of her journal. I closed up her backpack and got ready for work. I went into her room and sat on the side of the bed, and quietly called her name several times. "Nico?" I shook her shoulder gently. " Nico?" She woke up with a startled scream. "It's ok, Nico, it's just me. I have to go to work now. There is food in the kitchen, so help yourself, ok?" She nodded, pulling the blanket around her.
"I've got a nice hot shower, you'll love it. I'm going to lock the door behind me when I leave, so nobody will bother you. It's a deadbolt, so here is the key, if you need to leave, ok?" I pressed the key into the palm of her hand. As I pulled Allison's bedroom door closed behind me, I did one last thing. I went into my room, and into my closet. I pulled down a .38 from a high shelf, and sat on my bed rubbing it down with an oily cloth. I put six rounds in the chamber, and laid it on my pillow.

There was no telling what I might come home to after work. But, I knew one thing for sure. Nico would look about the house. They all do. She would find the gun. She would know she could use it if she needed to. I usually listen to public radio on the way to work, but this morning I didn't. In my mind, I kept seeing those same recurring sentences on the last five pages of her diary. Just those same words over and over. "He's following me, I know. He will find me. And he will kill me." Over and over. And over.

I was pretty distracted at work all morning with this whole Nico thing. I glanced at the clock on my desk. It was 11AM. I decided to call the house and see if she was up. I felt a bit edgy when the phone rang and rang. Finally, she answered. "Sorry," she said, "I was just getting out of the shower. You were right, it is a really nice shower. I hope it's ok that I am wearing Allison's bathrobe." "Yeh, it's ok". I answered. "So, what are your plans now?" I asked, as I tried to imagine what Nico would look like in the baby blue chenille robe I had bought for Allison. "Ummm, I don't know really", she replied. "Is there a pharmacy within walking distance?" "Yes, when you go out the front door, go to the right. It's about two blocks down. Or, if you like, I can stop there for you on my way home." "Thanks, but no. It's personal stuff." she replied. "Be sure to lock the door behind you, when you leave," I said, "And leave the key under the doormat, if you are not coming back." Oh, I'll be back" she replied, "I mean, if it's ok?" "Yes, it's fine. I will pick up some groceries on the way home." "When will that be?" she asked. "I should be home by 3:30, or so." "OK, then" she said, "Bye".

I ordered lunch from the deli down the street, as I thumbed through my address file for Bo's cell phone number. I was happy to hear his voice. "Bo, It's DeLaney. Where are you?" "Right now", he replied, "I am standing here in ElDorado Canyon, outside of Boulder. Trying to scope out this climb. Have you ever climbed The Grand Giraffe? The overhang about two thirds up looks like a bitch." "Yeh, it is a bitch!" I answered. " If you traverse a little to the right, you might get beyond it. I don't know of anyone who's ever gone straight up over the top. Listen, Bo, I need to ask you something. Who is Nico?" "You mean 'Nico', with the Velvet Underground? That's the only Nico I ever heard about." "No, not that Nico. Some girl named Nico came to the house, said you sent her. What about Angela? Do you know an Angela?" "Well", Bo replied, "I did run into an Angela about three weeks ago at a breakfast joint in St. Louis when I was on my way out here." "What did she look like?" I asked. "She had sorta black hair, Really bone white complexion, a beauty mark on the side of her neck." "OK," I said. "Well, Angela now goes by Nico." "Look, Delaney," Bo said, "If you are talking about the same Angela I'm talking about, she's trouble brewing. She's got a killer boyfriend, and you can take that literally. He's a walking time bomb. If she's not in St.Louis, and is down in your part of the country calling herself Nico, I'd say she is running scared. And he would be the reason why." "I figured something like that was going on." I replied. "Listen, Bo....remember, traverse right, and then elbow up over the crux. "Gotcha" Bo said, and hung up. I took a deep breath and thought about what Bo had said as I ate my lunch. The more I thought about it, the more I felt I probably should head back to the house. I told the secretary I was gone for the day, and left.

I had an edgy feeling about all this as I drove toward my house. People come and go. For all I knew Nico may have already moved on. If she did, I wouldn't blame her. I wouldn't blame her if she pocketed my gun on the way out. As I approached the house I noticed a pick-up parked one door down. It had Missouri tags. I cruised slowly past my house. Damn! The front door was wide open. I could feel the adrenaline begin to pump. I took the corner and parked. I opened the trunk and dug around in my back pack. A 6" knife I used for gutting fish. I tucked it into my belt behind me. As I approached my house I didn't hear any noises coming out of it. I went to the side of the house and looked through the window. Nico was curled into a ball on the floor in the hallway, her hands to her face. "Nico, it's me." I shouted as I bounded up the front porch steps and into the house. I knelt down beside her and pulled her hands away from her face. The whole left side of her face was swollen out and turning shades of blue, black, and purple. "What happened?" I said, holding her as she began to cry. "I think he's dead." she said. "Who's dead, Nico?" She pointed with a shaky hand toward my bedroom. I stood slowly and reached for my knife. He was lying on the floor in a growing pool of blood, but he wasn't dead. He was moaning and reaching out toward the gun several feet away. I walked over and picked up the gun and looked down at him. His stare was icy cold. "I'm gonna kill that bitch, if it's the last thing I do", he muttered. "No, you're not." I said, as I wiped the gun clean of Nico's prints with my shirt tail. He clutched his stomach in pain. "You asshole"" he groaned. "You'll be next." I stood over him and pointed the gun at his chest. "I'm afraid, you've already done the last thing you're going to do." I shot him. I heard Nico scream and stepped out to look at her. "He's definitely dead now." I said. "Get your things together, Angela. I want you to go to this address. It's just three blocks away. It's Bo's apartment. Here's the key." I watched as she threw the robe across the bed. There was blood on it. "Take Allison's robe with you. Stay there until I come for you, will you do that?" She nodded. I picked up the telephone. "When you get to Bo's, see if you can get that blood out of the robe." I dialed 911. "Someone tried to break into my house. He broke the door down. I'm afraid I've killed him, but I am not sure. Please hurry." I walked out the door with Angela. I pointed to the alley across the street. "Take the alley over three streets. It's the first house on the left." I watched her run off down the alley, then turned and pulled the door closed and locked it. I glanced up and down the street. I could hear the sirens in the distance. I turned to the door and took several swift kicks at it near the lock and busted it open. I walked in. and took my knife and wiped my prints off it. I curled the dead man's fingers around the handle, then dropped it next to him. I walked wearily into the front room and sat down on the couch. Two men rushed down the hallway wheeling a stretcher. I laid the gun down beside me, and stared blankly into my bedroom at the lifeless body on the floor. I looked up at the officer as he wrote out the report. " So, what happened was that I was napping at the time. I heard the door being broken down. I got my gun out of the bedside table. He came at me with some kind of knife. I shot him twice. I don't have a clue who he is. Why would anyone want to kill me?" I watched as the second officer donned a white surgical glove and picked up the gun and bagged it. "Do you have a permit for this?" he said. I nodded. The first officer scratched his head. "There's a lot of loose nuts running around these days. Who knows why anybody kills anybody?" I shook my head and shrugged, as he turned and walked away.

I sat there in the sudden silence. The house seemed eerily empty. I walked slowly down the alley toward Bo's house. I wondered if Bo made it to the top of the Grand Giraffe. My mind was a puzzle with a few missing pieces. Who was Angela, really? And had I killed the right person? I guess I will soon find out.

Part Two

When I walked into Bo's house, there was the strong smell of pot burning. Angela had found Bo's stash. She was lying on the couch looking up at me with pupils like saucers. She sat up. "Did they believe you?" "I don't know,"I said, sitting down next to her. "I think so." "Look," I said turning to look at her, " I need you to talk to me. I just killed this man for you, do you get that?" She nodded, "Thanks a lot." So, you're not really Nico are you?" "No" she said. "You are Angela." "Sometimes." she replied. "Your driver's license says your name is Angela." "You mean the one in my diary?" "Yes, the one in your diary." She shrugged. "It's a fake." She bent down and rummaged in her backpack and pulled out a small black leather drawstring bag. She reached into it and handed me another driver's license. "Angel Montgomery?" I said, looking at it, and then at her. "This is a fake too, isn't it.?" "Yep." she nodded. I stood up and paced the room. I was beginning to get angry. "Look. I just killed a man. I need some answers." "I don't have a real name!" she shouted. I stopped and looked at her, shaking my head in disbelief. "OK. This has got to stop!", I shouted back. She sat back on the couch and looked at me. "I don't have a real name." she repeated in a quiet voice. "No, no, no, no, NO!" I shouted. "Will you just listen?" she said. I sat down at the kitchen table and drummed my fingers on it impatiently. "I don't have a real name. I never knew who my real parents were. Nobody knew. Some family adopted me and made up a name for me. They didn't even give me their own last name. They named me Melody Finch. I grew up believing a fake story they told me about how my parents were killed in a car accident shortly after I was born. When I got older, I researched the things they told me. None of it was true." She got up and walked over toward me unfolding a piece of paper. "Then I found this." she said, laying it down in front of me. I picked it up and looked at it. It was a birth certificate dated 1986. It was from a hospital in Rochester, New York. "Baby Doe" "Parents Unknown". "Is this fake?" I said. "No. I would tell you if it was. This is the fake one." she said, handing me another paper. "The people who adopted me had it drawn up." She walked back to the couch and sat down. "Anyway, I decided that since I didn't have a real name, I might as well make up my own." "So, now you are Angela." I said, turning to look over at her. "Actually," she said, I kinda like being Nico."

"So, now tell me who it was that I just killed?" I said, walking over to the window and staring blankly out at a grey sky. "Bo told me you had a dangerous boy friend." "Ummm, well...that's not exactly true...." she said. I turned to look at her. "Well, what IS exactly true, Nico? Who did I just kill?"

Bo wandered into a little eatery in St.Louis called the "Over Easy Cafe" He'd been driving all night, on his way to meet some climbing buddies in the Rockies. It was an old timey looking greasy spoon, the kind of place he liked. He was buff and in his prime. So, it would be two over easy, some really fat bacon, grits, hash browns and some silver dollar pancakes. There was no doubt he would work all that off in a day or two scaling the walls of El Dorado Canyon. The girl behind the counter was a real cutie. And she kept refilling his coffee cup after every other sip. In fact, it was almost annoying. But it appeared to be some kind of restlessness she had, like she needed things to do. She kept wiping the counter top too, even though it was spotless. The little pin on her apron top said 'Angela'. "Say, Angela," Bo said, gesturing to her with a nod of his head. "Are you from around here?" She shook her head. "Up state New York, actually." "So, what brought you to St. Louis?" "Umm, I wonder that myself, sometimes..." she replied, her voice trailing off as she glanced up at another customer coming into the place. She looked back at Bo.. "Could you please keep talking to me?" she said in a quiet voice. Bo glanced over at the man who was taking a seat at one of the tables. He was intently staring at her. "Are you worried about something?" Bo asked. "SomeONE, you might say", she said quietly. "And worried doesn't begin to say it." "Maybe you need to get out of town for awhile." Bo said, glancing over his shoulder at the man who was still sitting there staring at her. Bo took a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and began to write as Angela walked over to the man. He watched as the man grabbed Angela's wrist and she jerked it away. He laid down the piece of paper along with a generous tip, and walked out.

Nico fumbled into her little black bag again. "I still have the note." she said. I unfolded it and read it aloud. "Look, I don't know exactly what the problem is, but if you need to get out of town, remember this address. Tell him Bo sent you." I sat down on the couch next to her. I looked at her bruised face. It seemed even more swollen and darker in color. "I may need to get you to a doctor." I said. She shook her head no. I went over to the refrigerator and got out an ice tray and dumped it into a kitchen towel and brought it to her. "Keep this on your face for awhile." I glanced down at the note again. "So, what was the problem actually?" I asked her. "The guy was a creep, that's what." she replied. "He had some thing about me. Said I looked like Lana Turner, some movie star. He was always wanting me to go out with him. And then he started following me around. And when he would come into the cafe, he would say things that sounded threatening. That if I didn't go out with him, I might come to regret it. "Did he ever actually try to harm you?" "I'm getting to that." Nico replied. "One day after work, I was walking home, and he appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my arm."

"Let go of me!," Angela shouted, trying to pull away from him. "Now, now. Don't play hard to get." he said, pulling her toward his car. "I just want to take you for a ride." She brought a knee up suddenly to his groin, bowling him over. "Now, you've done it, bitch." he shouted. She fumbled in her bag for the pepper spray and shot it at his face as he lunged at her.

"So, I went right away to the police station." Nico said, looking over at me. "I ran all the way there. They took down his description and asked if there were any witnesses. When, I said I didn't think so, they sorta shrugged. They said they would send a car out to look for him, but it would likely come down to his word against mine. And then, one guy says, "You know, young couples get into quarrels now and then. And sometimes, things get out of hand." Nico stood up and angrily threw the ice pack down sending ice cubes scattering across the floor.. "I couldn't believe that guy! I had just told them I didn't even know the guy's name!" "So what happened next, Nico?" I said. "What happened next? Nothing happened next. They couldn't find him. I couldn't sleep all night. I was scared out of my mind. So, who shows up at the cafe next morning? The same asshole, of course. And he sits down at the same table and just stares at me. That's when I was talking to Bo. So, I went over to his table. I told him that if he didn't leave, I was going to call the police and get a restraining order put on him. As I walked away from him, he said that if I did, it would be the last thing I ever did. Bo had left. I picked up his dishes and found the note he left. I walked back into the kitchen, read the note, and walked straight out the back door. I ran home, packed a bag, and you know the rest of the story."

I sat quietly and watched Nico picking up the pieces of melting ice from the floor. "He had it coming." she said, looking over at me. I nodded.
I stayed with Nico in Bo's apartment. The police closed the case. They used words like 'breaking and entering, attempted assault with a deadly weapon. Self defense. Justifiable homicide.' Once Nico was feeling back on her feet and her face was returning to normal, I bought her a bus ticket to Rochester, New York. She writes now and then. She said she had changed her name again. Now she was April. Such a peculiar girl. We do have one thing in common. We both killed the same man. He would probably have bled to death from the bullet Nico gave him. My bullet simply put him out of his misery. That's one way to look at it, I suppose. In any case, I would have killed him anyway. She said she wants to come visit me sometime. I wrote to tell her that I thought April was the perfect name for her, and that she should stick with it. I enclosed another bus ticket.
Last night I tossed and turned for a long time. It seemed I had just fallen asleep only to be awakened by someone knocking insistently on my door. I woke up this morning with April in my arms. At least, I think that's what her name is.

The End

The Much Needed Vacation

Sarah sat by the window all day, staring down at the people coming and going. Each and every one seemed a mystery in passing. Each harboring secrets. Private lives. Private places. Some of these quite innocent, their sins so small, yet preoccupying them...even becoming them. Some dark, and to be forever unspoken, possessing them. Who is who when you walk a busy city street? She scribbled little thoughts in her journal now and then. She drew a little picture of a butterfly. She stared at it blankly as she made the patterns on the wings in little inked dots. She wrote the words "He's dead now" beneath it. She made a list of errands to run, six or seven items. Get groceries. Pack bags. Get train ticket. A one-way ticket. Somewhere far away. Somewhere near the sea. Get a bathing suit. A red one. A straw hat. Beneath all that she wrote, "It wasn't my fault, you know." She closed her book. and stared out the window again. She sighed several times while massaging her bare feet. She ran her fingers between her toes. She pressed into the ball of each foot deeply with her thumbs. She took five minutes addressing each foot. And then she slipped on her shoes. "I really need to go now", she said to her husband, as she stepped gingerly over his dead body, and closed that door behind her.

Sarah stared out the window as the train rumbled through the rugged mountains of West Virginia and through the small and dreary coal mining towns that dotted the area. One kind of nowhere after another. A woman hanging clothes on the line. Young bare chested boys playing along the tracks waving wildly as the train whizzed by. The woman beside her was sleeping, and every now and then began to slump over toward her. She seemed about Sarah's age, maybe a few years younger. A red-head with freckled shoulders. When she first sat down she had said her name was Candy. Sarah looked over at her. She was slender but shapely. The kind of woman many men might see as candy. Sarah turned to stare out the window again and was startled by the sudden blackness as the train entered a tunnel through the mountainside. The overhead lights came on. Candy suddenly sat up with a startled look. "Oh, my God! Where are we?" "We're going through a tunnel." Sarah said calmly. Suddenly they were in broad daylight again. "I hate tunnels. It's like being buried alive or something. Or it's like you are going to hell." Candy said. "Well," Sarah replied, "I can't say whether you are going to hell or not, but that was just a tunnel." "I just wanna go to the coast." Candy said. "I wanna just lay in the sun and drink pina coladas, and swim with the dolphins." Sarah nodded, "Yes, I want to see the ocean again myself." "I guess I am really just running away'", Candy continued. "Reality sucks sometimes. I just wanna be a mermaid in the day time, and a lounge lizard at night." Sarah nodded again, and laughed, "Yep, sounds like a plan all right." Candy gestured to Sarah's diamond ring. "So, you're hitched, huh?" Sarah looked down at her hand, realizing she still was wearing her wedding ring. "No. it was my mother's. I just wear it when I am traveling alone. It keeps the guys away." Candy smiled. "That's a cool idea. Don't get me wrong, I like guys, and all that, but some of them are such creeps, you know?" Sarah nodded, and thought about her husband. Their dismal emotionless life together. It was such a waste of time. She stared out the window at the changing countryside. West Virginia was behind her. She thought of her husband on the floor with a bullet in his head. It couldn't have been suicide. There was no gun to be found. But it wasn't a break-in either. Nothing was out of place. She thought about the people he worked with. Maybe one of them hated him even more than she had. Maybe Carl. Carl was always flirting with her. She even encouraged it, even though he was as much a jerk as her husband. The thought now disgusted her. To be so hungry for attention as to encourage the likes of Carl. Maybe Carl killed him. Maybe he will be caught and thrown in jail. Now that would make for a very twisted happy ending. Her husband dead, Carl in jail.

Candy just kept talking. The men she had been with. The let downs. The guy who turned out to be gay, but was looking for a girl closet to hide in. The kid who said he was 18, but really he was 16. The one man who seemed to really love her, but it turned out he was married, and the whole thing was a lie just to get in her pants. Sarah turned to look at Candy babbling on. "So, how did that one end?" Sarah said. Candy turned to look at Sarah. "Do you promise not to tell?" Sarah nodded. "Pinky handshake?" Candy said holding out her little finger. "Pinky handshake", Sarah said, locking fingers with her. "I killed him this morning. I went to his apartment. I was going to tell his wife, but she wasn't home I had my uncle's 38. So,I just pointed it as his head, pulled the trigger, and walked out." Sarah's eyes widened as the words sank in. "Please don't tell, ok?" Candy said, her eyes beginning to well up and spill. Sarah cupped Candy's face in her hands, wiping away the tears with her thumbs. "I won't tell on you. In fact, I would have done the same thing. Let's go down to the club car and have a drink." "I don't have any money." Candy sobbed. Sarah took her hand. "You don't need any money, honey. It's all on me."

The End

The Feather (the rest of the story)

Katy wearily undressed listening to the sound of the tub filling. It was good to be home again. Her mind wandered back over the dreaminess of the last month or more as she stepped out of her dress. The small iridescent tip of a peacock feather floated to the floor as she freed her breasts from her bra and dropped it to the floor. She smiled down at it, as she stepped into the tub. She felt her tired body slowly going limp as she laid back in the warm water and felt it caressing her. She closed her eyes.

The Mojave desert had been scorchingly hot as she had driven west. She had taken the advice of the old man at the gas station miles back and turned off her air conditioning. "The less you make your motor work, young lady, the better your chances of making it across." He had been skeptical in looking over her rusted out Ford. Who knows how long that odometer had stopped counting the miles? It was at 217,000 miles, whenever it had given out. Under the hood, he had shaken his head several times in looking over her belts and hoses. Nevertheless, he topped off her oil and coolant and had given her two gallons of water. If you don't need it, your car might." he said. She sat in her car as he disappeared into the weathered wooden shack to get the change for her twenty. The whole place looked like a kindling pile that would go up in flame if someone lit a match. He approached her window and leaned down to look at her as he handed her several oil stained bills. "Take this too." he said, handing her a roll of silver duct tape. "Your radiator hose ain't the best I've ever seen. If it blows, you can probably patch it together with this. If you lose your coolant, the water I gave you might help you make it to the next station. Where you headin', anyhow?" "San Diego, I guess." she replied. Truth is, she wasn't sure where she was going. "Looka here," he said, pulling a map from his back pocket. He traced her route with his finger. "Bull Head City is about a hundred miles down the road. There's a Texaco just as you're comin' into town. If you're needin' help, ask for Johnny. He's my nephew. From there you can go south to 95 west. That'll take you through the Joshua trees, and you'll hit California right along the Mexican border." She smiled at him as he handed her the map. She looked at him in her rear view mirror, standing there along the roadside waving at her with a dirty red grease rag as she pulled away.

The old man hadn't boosted her shaky confidence by any means. But she knew he was shooting straight. The desert looked beautiful and scary at the same time. Why she thought California might offer her anything more than any other place, she wasn't sure. In fact, she wasn't sure of anything.

Her mother's advice had been, 'Look, you just gotta do what you can, with whatever you've got, wherever you are." She fought back an impulse to cry. It would be a waste of precious water under the circumstance. She glanced at the water jugs on the floor board, and then to the map on the passenger seat. She picked it up and looked at it. From its folds, the twenty dollar bill she had given the old man fell to the floor between her legs. That's when the tears began to fall.

Katy didn't quite make it to Bull Head City. She could actually see it in the distance, shimmering like a mirage. She opened the hood and backed away from the thick smoke that suddenly came billowing up from her motor. She went to the trunk and rummaged through it, not really knowing what she was looking for. She opened one of the boxes she had packed and looked down at its cluttered contents. Memorabilia. She wondered why she had even packed it. Nothing all that memorable about any of it. She picked it up and threw it off to the side of the road, its contents spilling out on the dusty ground. "I am not going to feel sorry for myself, damn it!" she muttered. She walked over to the cardboard box, and angrily tore it apart and took one whole side of it back to the car. She, in fact, did feel quite sorry for herself at the moment. And that was pissing her off even more. She didn't want those feelings, but they were there. She got in behind the wheel and looked at herself in the rear view mirror. She brushed her wind-blown hair. She put on some lipstick, then smeared it across the cardboard, the word, 'HELP!' She laughed, from somewhere deep inside her, about how ridiculously murderous the dark red letters looked. As though drawn in blood.

It was a plan. Not much of a plan, but a plan. It wasn't the big plan about California. It was a little plan. She would just start walking, with her purse slung over her shoulder, a gallon jug of water in one hand, her "HELP!" sign in the other. She would wave it around to anyone passing by. After several weary miles, she began to realize the flaws in her plan. Only one car had passed her and it was going in the opposite direction. A state trooper, no less. He didn't even slow down, even though she flipped him off as he sped by. She tossed her cardboard sign off into the air watching it sail a few yards and land in a mesquite bush. It was another oddly funny moment. She tipped the gallon jug up and took several large gulps of the more than tepid water as she walked over to the bush. She poured the remainder out over its dusty drak green leaves.. It splashed onto the cardboard sign and stained the soil a darkish brown. "Here you go, you mindless thing. Just remember, my name is Katy, I gave you water when you didn't even ask."

It took another hour to get to the outskirts of Bull Head. From a distance it appeared to be a big and busy city. But coming in on the East side, things looked rather shabby and run down. Windows on buildings seemed covered with a fine desert dust, as did the cars and trucks parked here and there. Looking ahead to the next block she could see a sign suspended over the sidewalk. It was the red Texico star. She felt weak and a bit light headed from walking almost three hours beneath the desert sun. She walked past an old rusty looking tow truck and saw the legs and boots of someone sticking out from under the front of a pick-up truck, and she could hear some muffled cursing. "Excuse me," she said, bending down to peer under the truck. "Is Johnny around?" "Johnny's busy right now.", was the reply amidst some more cursing and banging noises. She stepped back as the man began to slide out from under the truck. "How can I help you, ma'am?" he said as he stood and wiped a bloody knuckle with a grease rag. "I'm looking for Johnny.", she said. "Why? What's he done now?" "Oh, it's nothing like that." she said, " His uncle told me to ask for Johnny if I was needing help." The man squinted at her, shading his eyes from the sun with his hand. "You talkin' about that crazy old man way back down that road a good ways?" he said, gesturing off to the east with a nod of his head. "Umm, well, he didn't seem crazy to me.", she replied. Oh, he's crazy alright; harmless, but crazy as they come. What's the problem, ma'am?" "Well, my car broke down way back there." she said, pointing down the road. He tossed the grease rag onto the pavement behind him, and looked at his watch. "Will Johnny be back anytime soon?", she asked. "Look, lady", he replied, "How far down the road did you break down?" "I don't know", Katy shrugged. "It took me a couple of hours or more of walking to get here." "Come on", he said walking toward the tow truck. He opened the door, "Hop in. We'll go take a look at the situation." "You mean, right now?" she asked. "Yep, time's awastin' darlin', he replied glancing at his watch again. She climbed up into the dirty cab of the truck.

She glanced over at him as they drove down the highway. He was quite brown skinned. With black shaggy hair tied back with a bandana. She looked at his hand on the steering wheel. His knuckle, still bleeding in a red trickle down toward his wrist. "You need a band-aid for that cut." she said. He glanced down at it, then raised it to his mouth and licked it. "Look down there in that tool box," he said, pointing down to it on the floor board at her feet. "There might be a band-aid in there somewhere." She rummaged around through the greasy tools. "Oh, here's one. Hold out your hand." He glanced over at her as she gingerly applied the band-aid to his knuckle. "What's your name?" he asked. "Katy," she replied, glancing up at him. "What's yours?" "Johnny." he said, smiling at the surprised look on her face. "You mean, the crazy man is your uncle?" He nodded, chuckling. "It kinda runs in the family."

Johnny figured out the problem, he'd seen it before. "It's seized up." he said, turning to look at her. "What does that mean?", Katy asked. "It's a major melt down, so to speak. Your oil pump blew, and so the motor got so hot, the pistons got froze up in the block." Katy looked at him. "It got so hot, it froze?" "Something like that." Johnny said. Katy sat down by the side of the road, and began to cry. "It's not that bad." Johnny said, kneeling in front of her. "Not that bad?" Katy said with her hands over her face. "I am stuck in the middle of the desert, with a motor that just froze because it was so hot, and that's not bad? I am so fucked!" Johnny brushed her hair away from her face. "No, it's not that bad. I can drop another motor in for you in 48 hours. " She suddenly laughed hysterically. "Oh, and so, how can I afford that?!" "Hey, look, I got three motors sitting in the back of the garage with nothing to do. You can make it up to me one day. I can tell you are on your way somewhere, and I'd like to help you get there."

Katy spent the next two days at Johnny's mother's house. The old woman seemed constantly in the kitchen. Constantly putting more food in front of her. Both Johnny's mother and father agreed, she was way too skinny for a girl her age. She went up to Johnny's apartment in the attic, and slept with him at night. He was a sweet and gentle lover.

Katy stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around her. She walked barefooted through the boxes of all her stuff. Tomorrow she would head back to Bull Head City, and with a brand new motor. She tickled her nose with the peacock's feather Johnny had given her, then tucked it under her pillow. She faded into sleep thinking about Johnny, what kinds of jobs there were in Bull Head City, and how, of course, she would stop off to see Johnny's crazy uncle.

Line in the Sand, (the rest of the story)

Jake Atkins drove slowly down the winding road through the trailer park negotiating the mud holes and ruts. The place looked more like an abandoned junk yard than a trailer park. Some of the trailers were empty, their doors open, windows broken out. Broken down rusty old sedans sat here and there on flat tires, or no tires at all. Broken furniture was strewn here and there. Black plastic trash bags ripped open by ranging dogs, spilled cans, beer bottles, dirty diapers and rotting food along the roadside. He glanced over at a dull maroon '73 Buick parked beneath the rusty steel frame of a child's swing set. The car's hood lay nearby in tall weeds. A black greasy motor hung suspended above the Buick, dangling precariously from a chain, its weight pulling the overhead pole of the swing frame into a sagging bow. Everything looked just the way it did some 3 months ago when he was thrown into the county jail. He pulled slowly up to trailer 39 and sat there with the motor running, his eyes scanning the windows that were draped in white sheets. He saw several fingers pulling back the sheet a small bit, then closing it again. She had seen him. He glanced down at his watch, and lit a cigarette.

Deanna grabbed a pillowcase stuffed with clothes and hurriedly scribbled a note to her father. "Fuck you, asshole." was all it said. She swung the door open and ran toward Jake's car. They hugged and kissed and then Jake floored it doing a 180 degree fishtail , his spinning tires flinging a spray of mud into the air. "Oh, my God! We did it!" she said sliding over close to Jake. "Did you get any money, baby?" Jake asked putting his arm around her. "I got a little." she said grabbing the hand on her shoulder and kissing it." "How much?" Jake asked as they turned out of the trailer park and onto the county road. "About a hundred dollars." she replied. "That should get us to Galveston." he said, shifting into fourth gear, and turning to smile at her. "What's in Galveston?" she asked, kissing his cheek. "It's just a place to get lost in, baby." She rested her head on his shoulder as they crossed the railroad tracks on the edge of town. "What if he finds us, Jake?" she said quietly. "If he's got any sense at all he won't try. What I did to him last time, ain't nothin' compared to what he'll get if he shows his face again." Jake replied.

Jake had just done 90 days on an assault charge for going after Deanna's father with a baseball bat. He had broken the old man's leg just below the knee. But, he had it coming, as far as Jake was concerned. After seeing him throw Deanna against the wall so hard the blow knocked her out. Lucky for her father, that he hadn't broken Deanna's nose, because then the bat would have come down over his head. He glanced over to Deanna. "You sure got a cute nose." he said, reaching over to pinch it. "Quit it Jake," she giggled. "You're gonna run us off the road." There was one thing for certain, her father would never lay a hand on Deanna again; or see her again, for that matter. He turned off on a side road and into a driveway and pulled up to Jackson's house - a buddy of his. "Stay here, baby," Jake said, 'I gotta pick up some clothes and stuff. I'll just be a minute." "Hurry, Jake," Deanna said, "I'm scared." He kissed her. "You ain't got nothin' to be scared 'bout anymore, baby. You're with me now. I'll be right back," he assured her, giving her nose another playful pinch. Deanna nervously chewed on a fingernail and turned to look out the rear view window toward the highway, as Jake disappeared into the house.

She watched as Jake stood at the front door holding a large green Army duffel bag. She smiled as she watched them awkwardly trying to say goodbye. The quick and manly hug with slaps on the back, and a high five, then knocking their fists together. The door closed and Jake approached, tossing the bag into the back seat. "Let's go baby." he said firing up the engine. Jackson came running out of the house, waving his arm at them. "Dude" he said, handing Jake a small box through the open window. "I almost forgot to give you the bullets."

The Rest of the Story

From Galveston, the ride to Bolivar Island was short and by ferry. There was plenty of work there on the island since the recent hurricane. In fact, the island was a somewhat surreal scene as they drove across the debris littered sands of its wide and desolate beach. Beach houses lay in piles of splintered wood or were simply blown over onto their sides as though taking a nap. Inland, there were some sounds of industry. There was the churning sound of chain saws sectioning Live Oak trees that had been up-rooted and thrown about. The voracious noise of chippers reducing them to mulch. There was the sound of bulldozers pushing destroyed homes into burn piles, and here and there the black and sooty smoke of large fires darkened the sky.

For awhile, it was not too bad for Jake and Deanna. They spent their first several nights sleeping beneath a brown canvas tarp that had washed up on the beach. They had draped it over a palm tree that had almost been taken out by the gale winds but still hung on, leaning low to the ground. Jake got a job feeding tree limbs into a chipper. Deanna worked for a guy with a lunch wagon, a truck that drove through the neighborhoods selling sandwiches and cold drinks to the demolition crews. A week later they secured a better shelter. A small two room above a garage. It had survived the storm, but sometimes the structure swayed in gusts of wind. Deanna was sick a lot in the early stages of her pregnancy. And Jake worked that much harder.

It all ended quite abruptly. Within two months, Jake was dead. A falling rafter of a beach house being pushed down by a dozer had snapped his neck. The crew boss assured Deanna that he never knew what hit him. The bus ride back home was bleak, with Deanna crying in the arms of some woman she didn't even know. She walked wearily down the road into the trailer park, the heavy duffel bag dragging along the ground. Nothing had changed much in the three months she had been gone. Except for one thing. Trailer 39 stood abandoned and boarded up. A neighbor informed her that her father was dead. He had died in the front yard while staggering out to his car. Police said it was a drug overdose.

It was Jackson, Jake's buddy who helped Deanna pick up the pieces of her life. They now live together in Cleveland in a small but comfortable apartment. Jake's son, also named Jake is going on seven. There is another baby on the way.

Botched

It is often this way in a city so large. One encounters people never seen before while walking down the street. The bus is crowded with strangers. And yet, the air was filled with chatter. Small talk. People who knew nothing of each other, except perhaps what they might guess about the other judging by their appearance. Young? Old? Married? Single? Happy? Sad? Nervous? Poker-faced and blank? Asleep? "And how must I appear?", he wondered. In a suit and tie, with a folded Wall Street Journal under his arm. A business man, perhaps? A banker? A lawyer? Today he took a seat next to a young woman who held several books on her lap, looking out the window. She had on a dark but faded looking dress that came to about mid-calf. Over that she wore a bulky knit boat-neck sweater of a dreary gray. It was tattered and had several unravelled places revealing the dress beneath. But, most intriguing were her shoes. They were boots, actually. And he recognized these as a kind of boot he had worn in the air force some years back. They were brown and scuffed, having lost the high polished appearance they would have had on an officer of that time. She wore thick olive green socks folded and pushed down in bulky folds around her ankles and covering the top of her boots.

All of this he took in, in discrete glances, as she gazed out the window. Her appearance was quite different and alluring, in some strange way. She, perhaps lived in a world quite different from his own. More strange and interesting, perhaps. He felt so staid and stuffy in his suit. As though, she was one who lived as some new-age bohemian sprout on the fringe of the culture, and he was more like a tick sucking what blood he could get out of the establishment. As though she was clean and pure in her shabbiness, and he was soiled and dirty in his crisp new suit. His shiny shoes.

He was momentarily taken aback when she turned to look at him. "Do you have the time?" she asked. "Of course." he smiled, glancing down at his watch. "It's 11:32." Of course, he, of all people, would know precisely what time it was. He calibrated his watch daily to the tick of coordinated universal time. Time, for him, was of the essence. Time for him, was, indeed, money. He glanced back at her, absorbing the features of her face quite quickly. This, too, was important in his profession. To perceive quickly and accurately the subtle unspoken nuances, body language, facial expression and gestures of people. Understanding such characteristics, whether of the client or their competitors, often made the difference in making or breaking a deal. "Thanks" she said, turning back to stare out the window again. So, what was he to make of her? She was quite pale looking, as though she rarely sat out in the sun. Her hair was short and straight. Black, but with a kind of metallic quality about it. Like the sheen of a Purple Martin's feathers. Her ears were pierced, but not like the fashion of the day. Instead, the holes in her lobes had been stretched open enough to accommodate two spent 38 caliber shells. Bright and silvery. There was a certain edginess about her, a toughness of appearance that was feigned perhaps, to keep people at a distance. Yet, beneath all that there seemed to be some uncertainty, some vulnerablity. She seemed so different from the simple packaged personas he usually dealt with. More complex and paradoxical. He glanced down at her her crossed legs. Her arm draped lazily across them. Her limp and dangling hand. Her slender pale wrist. The thin silver chain wrapped around it. The tiny silver dagger that dangled from it, swinging hypnotically like a small pendulum. He looked up toward the front of the bus as it slowed down. The approaching street sign. This would be her stop. And his, as well.

"Excuse me." she said in standing, "This is my stop." "Mine, too," he replied, standing to let her go ahead. He walked slowly behind her down the block. She turned into a juice bar that offered smoothies, and bubble tea as well. He followed her in. She placed her order at the counter, and turned to look at him. "Are you following me?" "No," He said shaking his head, "I come here all the time. They make the best orange-banana smoothies. I am addicted to them." "To each his own." she said with a shrug, picking up her bubble tea and retreating to a booth. He ordered his drink and turned to look over at her. She had opened a book and was sipping her tea through a lime green straw. He looked at his watch. It was getting late.

She looked up as he approached. "You're following me." she said. "No, really, I'm not some kind of 'weirdo axe-murderer', or anything. But, you seem like an interesting person, and I'd just like to talk to you. May I?", he said, pointing to the seat opposite her. She looked around the empty room, and then back at him. "Sit down, if you want. It's a free country. But, I am reading an assignment right now, and don't care to talk to you, or anyone." He sat, and placed the newspaper on his lap. He watched her flipping through the pages of her book. "Interesting read, I suppose?" he said, as she reached beneath the table to scratch her leg. He reached slowly for the gun in the fold of the paper. He had been sent to kill her. She looked up and straight into his eyes. "You are following me, aren't you.?" He smiled, about to speak. And that is when she shot him, from under the table. His whole body jerked violently and his gun fell noisily to the floor as he clutched his leg. The shot had missed its intended target, his groin, but it had shattered his kneecap. He fell over in excruciating pain, clutching at his bloody pant leg, feeling pieces of bone beneath it. She bolted for the door, glancing back at him as she threw it open. "Bastard!", she shouted. And then she was gone. That moment of ambivalence had been his undoing. His intentions had been clouded over somehow by the look in her eyes. It had only momentarily disabled him, freezing his finger on the trigger. But that was all it took. It had been just another in a long list of lucrative jobs to do. But, that brief moment of vague desire had left him bloody and moaning on the cafe floor.

___________________________________________

Audra sat on the side of the bed and bent to unroll the thick woolen sock that was draped down over her boot. She pulled it up over her lean calf enjoying the way it warmly hugged her leg. She wearily retrieved the .38 snub nose from its holster around her ankle, and tossed it onto the bed. She was tired. She had sensed from the moment of waking up that morning that this would be the day some shit was going to go down. But it wasn't what she had expected. Jack had hired a stranger to do his dirty work. What an idiot, to think she wouldn't see through that. She slumped back on the bed, staring up at the dark stains on the ceiling as she untied her boots and let them drop to the floor. She raised herself up on one elbow and grabbed a small box from her bag, and plugged a fresh shell into the empty chamber of her gun, and spun the chamber as she looked around the room. What a dump. But there was no way to return to her apartment now. Not with Jack and his stooges looking for her. She fell back on the bed and fell asleep without undressing.

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Jack paced angrily around the hospital room. "What the hell happened?" Johnny looked past the trapeze-like affair that held his leg suspended. His words were slurred from the pain meds they had given him. "I was just about to nail her....I didn't know she even had a gun....." he said, wiping some drool from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's my gun, damn it! She took it when she took the money." Jack muttered. "She's one cold bitch, Jack." Johnny replied. "Yeh," said Jack, putting on his leather jacket. "She's gonna be one really cold bitch down at the morgue when I find her. What did you tell the police?" "I didn't tell them nothing. I just said some psycho chick tried to whack me for making a pass at her." Johnny replied. "They think I'm the victim."
"So, where's the gun?" Jack asked, stepping up to the bedside. "The cops took it into evidence. But, what the hell, I've got a license to carry. I told them it musta fallen out of my holster after the bitch shot me." Jack turned to leave. "Hey, Jackie", Johnny called out. Jack stopped at the door and looked back. "When you kill the bitch, shoot her in the knee first." Jack nodded. "Just for you, Johnny. both knees."

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Audra stood in front of the mirror adjusting the blond wig on her head. It had been cut and shaped into a retro page-boy look. It fell nicely around her face and concealed her dead give-away piercings. "Hi, my name is Dinah. Dinah Shore.", she said looking at herself in the mirror, and turning this way and that to examine her figure in the floral print shirt-waist dress she had found at the thrift store. "See the USA, in your Chevrolet...", she sang to herself as she strolled over to the tattered stuffed chair by the window. She glanced out the window, at the street below, as she slipped her feet into a rather cheap looking pair of white mules. She threw the gun into her bag first. Then her cosmetics. She paused to check her lipstick in the mirror of her compact. "Kiss it all goodbye, Jack," she said, smoothing out the blush on her cheeks. She stood, tossing her compact into her bag. There was business to attend to. A car to rent. A plane ticket to purchase. But first and foremost, a trip to the bank.

At the bank, she was known as April Hofmeister. And they knew her only as a blond. Her only account was a safety deposit box. This had taken months of planning. Months of putting up with Jack's cheating and lying. He had ripped her off on the last three jobs they had done together. That's three times too many. But it took awhile to put together another identity. To stumble onto the combination of his safe. To catch him in a drunken sleep, and take the money that was rightfully hers, and the rest of it as well. She drove slowly past her apartment building. It was not worth the risk to gather some things and pack a bag. As for the cat, surely someone will adopt her. She's probably on the roof of the building right now, stalking sleepy pigeons. There were just two more things to attend to. She pulled up to the drive-in window of her mother's bank. She made a substantial deposit. Enough to buy off her nagging guilt about leaving her mother to fend for herself, and a bit of a bonus too, for all the times she had put her mother through hell with her reckless ways. And now, there was but one more matter of business between her and the airport.

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Jack sat behind his desk in the office at the Drunken Sailor Lounge. He was on the phone and on the fax sending Audra's photo out, cashing in favors owed, and making promises he couldn't keep. Five grand for a photo of her with a bullet in her head. Ten grand, if you can deliver her to me alive. He put his hand to his neck and felt his pulse as he strolled out into the dim blue lights of the lounge, and motioned to Jason behind the bar. "Gimme a double shot of bourbon...the good stuff", he said. He looked over at the attractive red-head at the bar. "Get her whatever she's drinking." he added. Jason nodded. He strolled over to the woman. "Welcome to 'The Drunken Sailor', he said, easing onto a stool near her. He was desperately in need of the kind of relief a woman could offer. His eyes traced the long loose curls of her hair as it draped her naked shoulder. He watched her as Jason pushed the fresh drink to her. It was tequila, straight up. She threw her head back and tossed it, then slammed the glass down on the bar. She shook her head in the sting of the drink going down. "What do you do with a drunken sailor?" she asked, turning to him. "My kinda woman!" were Jack's last words. He never heard the shot that dropped him. The last thing he saw was Audra's eyes. Audra, motioned with her finger to Jason who seemed in a state of shock. She slapped two crisp one hundred dollar bills onto the bar. She picked up Jack's double shot of bourbon and handed it to him. "Pour it on his face, Jason, and find another job." "Whatever you say, ma'am"' Jason stammered. Audra walked toward the door, looking back to watch the splash of bourbon on Jack's blue face trickle to the floor and mingle with the growing pool of blood. She had 30 minutes to get to the airport. Plenty of time.

The Vacation That Never Really Ended

I have finally concluded this story! If you have been following it all along, you may want to scroll down to "Conclusion" to read the end. Otherwise, here is the story in its entirety.

The Vacation That Never Really Ended



Photo by Scriber

Marsha Livingston felt more happy than in a long time. Free of the city and its demands for a few days and exploring the Southern coast with her two children, Betsy and Clark. The kids were quite patient with her in Savannah as she dragged them around the historic neighborhoods. They could only think of one thing. "When are we going to the island?" She glanced at them in her rear view mirror. They were happy and excited as they drove the highway through the tall and signature grasses of the region. Clark was sitting there with his diver's mask and snorkel on his face, even though the water was still about an hour's drive away. Betsy was curled up on the other side, trying to ignore her younger brother by burying her face in a Harry Potter book. Every now and then, she would look over at him and roll her eyes. "Look, children." she said sticking her hand out the window and pointing at the tall and beautiful grasses blowing in the breezes that smelled already of the sea. "This is why Savannah is called Savannah!" Betsy ignored her. Clark stuck his head out the window, his hair blowing about wildly.

The days on the island were just what Marsha needed. She relaxed on a blanket in the sun, lazily watching her children, each absorbed in their own way. Betsy looked so cute in her little swimsuit and straw hat combing the beach for sea shells. She had begged for a bikini, but mother stood firm. "Maybe next year, dear." Clark kept stomping awkwardly out into the water in his flippers only to get thrown back by the next crashing wave.

In the afternoons, when the sun was unbearably hot, they showered and visited the commercial strip of the little beach town. They tried out the local eateries, and went shopping for souvenirs. Both Betsy and Clark were horrified watching their mother indulging in oysters. "Ohh, yukk!" Clark said, making a face. Betsy watched with curiosity. They looked so slimy and ugly. But watching her mother, she sensed that this might be an important rite of passage for her. Marsha watched as her daughter timidly reached out her hand, almost touching one of them, then drawing her hand back. They won't hurt you, sweetie", Marsha said. "Some people think of them as an aphrodisiac." "What's that?" Betsy said. Marsha realized she had said a little too much. "Ummm, you know...it makes you feel good.", she said, trying to cover her tracks, even though she knew her daughter would look the word up later. Betsy made a determined second attempt. Marsha and Clark looked on as she picked up an oyster, made a face neither of them had ever seen before, and gulped it down. "You are so gross!" Clark said in disbelief. "What do you know, you little twirp!" she retorted, her face still trying to return to normal.

They went in and out of little shoppes perusing shell collections, driftwood art, beach gear and the like. They wandered into a small place called "Island Couture." Mostly racks of colorful beach attire. Betsy kept flipping through the bikinis and looking over at her mother who consistently shook her head no. It didn't help that the little old woman running the store kept saying, "You would look lovely in that, my dear." They were about to wander back out, when the woman said, "Oh you simply must see what we have in the back room. It's all the latest. Come, come. You will love it." They followed her through the rattling, beaded seashell curtain and down two steps to the door.

That was the last anyone knew of the whereabouts of Marsha, Betsy, and Clark Livingston. The old woman was the last to see them. When questioned by the detectives from the Savannah police department, she only expressed dismay and concern that anything untoward might have happened to such a sweet little family. The officer's reports made mention of the remarkable resemblance between photos of the missing persons, and the mannikin's in the woman's shoppe window. No bodies ever washed ashore, and the few leads they had went nowhere. It remains an open, but dormant file.
II
Shane Livingston sat in the detective's office at the Savannah police department patiently answering the man's questions. Until he had learned of the disappearance of his wife and children on the news, he had no idea where they had gone. He only knew they were running from him. He had told her that if she ever tried to leave, he would find her....and he would kill her. He was careful in his responses to the detective's questions, and his face offered no clues of his bitterness or anger. "She seemed happy with her job. She was taking a painting class. No, she didn't seem despondent in any way." he said, in reply to the detective's question as to his wife's mental condition. "So, she was just taking a vacation with the kids?" the man asked. Shane nodded. "The kids were quite excited about it. They had been planning it for weeks.", he answered with a smile. "So, you decided to stay at home?" the detective asked. "I had no choice, really. I had a big deadline to meet at work. So, I told them to go on without me, and have a good time." Here's the thing, Mr. Livingston," the detective said, sitting back in his chair, "your wife and children have been missing for five days now. So far, we have nothing to go on. All their belongings, clothes, suitcases, toys, were left behind in the motel room." Shane, shook his head bringing his hands to his face as though in despair. "Where are their belongings now?" he asked. "Everything is exactly as they left it in the motel room. For now, and until we have evidence to the contrary, we are treating it as a crime scene."

Shane walked out of the police station. The detective had advised him to 'stick around' in case they needed to question him further. Of course he had no plans to leave. He was hell-bent on finding them before the police did. He wandered the beach trying to second guess the workings of his wife's mind. What she would have done. This was no crime scene. They were hiding. It might turn into a crime scene. If he finds them, it definitely would become a crime scene. And by the time the officials found what remained of them, he would be long gone. He sat on a bench along the dock studying the row of charter boats bobbing in the water. The police had already questioned the captains and crews. No one had seen them.

Marsha and the children huddled in the cramped hold beneath the deck of the fishing boat as it chugged slowly through the choppy water. She had bought a few clothes for them and for herself at the shoppe back on the island. The old woman had arranged their passage on her husband's boat. "Where are we going, Mommy?" Clark said in a rather scared voice. She wrapped her arm around him. "We are going to another island, sweetie." she said, hugging him. " A wonderful island of palm trees and coconuts, and even monkeys!" "Monkeys?!" Clark exclaimed with a wide-eyed look on his face. She nodded, "Yes, lots of monkeys just like you." she said, pinching his cheek. She smiled as she looked down at her daughter sound asleep, her head resting on her lap. It would take two more days at sea. And then they would be safe. For awhile, at least.

It was simple but quite sweet, this life on the island. The children were already talking in the local broken English that to Marsha, seemed a strange mix of French and English and even had some African guttural clicks of the larynx embedded in it. Even some kind of body language seemed a part of what was spoken. Marsha found it difficult. She was in awe of her children's ability to absorb the culture. In the marketplace she depended on them to make the appropriate gestures that put an emotionality and intent in the words spoken.

All in all, she had gotten where she wanted to be. Free of Shane. The ways he had humiliated and scared her, and the children as well. It was so easy for him to sting her face with his hand. And he had struck out at the children as well. Still she kept a wary eye on the sea, and the boats that come and went, One day, she bought a gun as well as three lessons on how to use it. She felt safer here on the island than she had in a long time. Still, there would always be a certain uneasiness as long as she knew he was still out there somewhere. She kept the gun concealed from the children. She knew it would frighten them. They had been horrified that night seeing their father point a gun at her head. So, she managed to keep the gun tucked away. But close at hand.

III
The Conclusion

It was the typical kind of day on the island, sunny, breezy, a stunning blue sky, with only a few distant clouds off in the distance along the horizon. Marsha sat in the shade of the open air cafe sipping an iced coffee and Kahlua, watching the children playing down along the water's edge, mixing with some of the native youth. There was that boy again with Betsy. There were newspapers lying about from several countries. She picked up a copy of USA Today and flipped through it. There was her picture. "Georgia Woman and Children Still Missing." There was a picture of her husband as well. "Authorities report that Shane Livingston, while remaining on the island in search of his missing family, chartered a boat early yesterday morning, telling reporters only that he was going fishing and needed time to be alone with his grief." she looked at the date on the paper. It was from 3 days ago.

Marsha dropped the paper and walked quickly out onto the beach calling to her children. She knew Shane well enough to know he was on the prowl. Back in the efficiency she had rented two blocks off the water, she sat at the table with her children. "We are going to play a game." she said. "What kind of game?" Clark asked. "A game where we pretend we are secret undercover agents on a mission." "Cool!" said Clark jumping up excitedly. Betsy tilted her head to one side and looked at her mother with a frown. Marsha reached across the table and patted Betsy's hand. "Come on, Betsy play along. It will be fun." Betsy looked up at her mother and saw something urgent in her expression. "What's the mission?" she asked. "We are going to have to go deep into the interior of the island. Into the jungle, where the monkeys live." "Oh, yes! Yes!" Clark said excitedly. "You see," Marsha said, dropping her voice to a whisper, "someone is trying to steal the island chief's goblet. The golden goblet that has been handed down from one chief to the next since the beginning of time. It is our sworn duty to keep this from happening!" Marsha smiled at Clark jumping up and down in sheer boyish delight. Betsy sat there watching her mother closely.

Betsy sat on a stool in the bathroom, as her mother took the scissors to her hair. "This is about dad, isn't it?" she said as her locks fell to the floor. "Uh huh" Marsha replied. There was no fooling Betsy. She was wise beyond her years. Not old enough for a bikini, but wise beyond her years. "You are going to look so cute as a blonde." Marsha said, lathering up Betsy's hair. So Betsy became a blonde with short straight hair. Clark got a military boot camp look. Marsha sighed as she looked into the mirror at her new look. She now had auburn hair and it fell and cupped her face in some mod sorta way. "If I could lose about 20 pounds I would look just like Twiggy," she thought to herself.

It took all the next day to drive through the jungle to the other side of the island. Clark was mostly hyper, babbling on about monkeys, missions and goblets.. Marsha and Betsy did their best to make their crazy flight seem logical to him. They were all exhausted by the time they found a room in the little fishing village. It was a hot and sweaty night. The ceiling fan spun slowly overhead. Marsha found it impossible to sleep. She dressed and looked back from the doorway at her sleeping children, quietly picked up her purse and stepped out into the night air. The moon was almost full and the gentle breeze blowing felt good. She strolled out onto a rickety pier listening to the gentle lapping sounds of the water and looking back frequently to the room where her children lay sleeping.

"Hello, Marsha" suddenly cut through the air from behind her. And then his hand on her shoulder. He spun her roughly around pulling him to her. "Don't you think its time to come home now?" he said, nuzzling his face against her neck. She fought back the tears as she nodded in resignation, turning her face into his. "Oh, Shane, I am so tired. the children are exhausted." His hand caressed her face. It felt, for a moment like the man she had married. He traced her neck with his finger tips, and then his hand slowly tightened around it. She dug frantically into her purse. He said it in a whisper, "You stupid bitch." She fired three shots point blank into his belly. He fell back and into the water. She fired the last three shots at him as he slowly sank. The children, awakening to the sound of gun fire, found their mother on the pier in a dead faint. She smiled up at their faces as she slowly slid the gun to the edge of the pier and into the water. "Are you ok, mommy?" Clark said, as he and Betsy helped their mother to her feet. She wrapped her arms around them as they walked back to the room. "Yes, I'm ok. I guess I was having a bad dream. But, it's over now." "Was it daddy?" Betsy whispered in her ear. "Uh huh" she nodded, nuzzling her face into her daughter's fragrant hair.