I’m pleased to invite you to a combination art show / zine release / music-listening / snack-eating / drink-drinking event next Monday evening, the 6th of July, at Wonder Fair Art Gallery in Lawrence, Kansas. Wonder Fair is located at 803 Massachusetts Street, and the show’ll run from 6 ’til 9 in the evening.

• Ten of my illuminated cigarette pack / Christmas light / advertising photograph assemblages will be up for display and purchase, and priced to sell, sell, sell. They’re going silent-auction-style (bidding ends at 8:30, everything must go!), so you could potentially walk out with a moderately large, moderately attractive artwork for as little as a buck.

• The latest issue of Johnny America will make its debut. This’ll be the seventh issue of our little magazine of fiction, humor, and other miscellany. Patrick Giroux’s going retro with the cover, to be silk-screened, as usual, at the Blue Collar Press during their off-hours. Should you forget to wear a shirt, rabbit-emblazoned t-shirts will also be available.

• D.J.Gloria Vanderbilt has agreed to provide musical selections for the event, which I’m pretty excited about. You’ve probably seen her at the Eighth Street Tap Room with D.J. Candlepants. (Please disregard any earlier advertisements or rumors indicating musical accompaniment would by D.J. Pattycakes (P. Giroux) and D.J. Professor Periwinkle (J.J. Holley); they are inferior to Gloria Vanderbilt, and have been fired.)

• Snacks. Cheese, crackers, Otter Pops, who knows — Monday the 6th is still a long way off, so I’m not sure.

I hope to see you all at Wonder Fair.

Best,

Jonathan Jay Holley

The next day I received another e-mail from Shirley. This one was marked urgent and had the subject line in all caps: REFS NEEDED ASAP!!! I had no errands to run that weekend, no people to see. It was Laura’s turn to have Hallie. For me it was clear skies. I deleted the e-mail.

That night I was home smoking a joint and watching Animal Planet when the phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number on the caller id. At first I ignored the call, but then I thought — you never know, maybe it’s some girl who heard I’m single again, maybe an ex-girlfriend who wants to throw some fat on the fire for old time’s sake, or maybe —

It was Shirley. She was still scrambling to find refs to cover tomorrow’s games and my name was next on her call list. I was too stoned to come up with a plausible excuse right away, so I told her I’d cover a girls’ game tomorrow at the middle school. She said thanks so much.

The next morning I went in my closet and dug up my old referee uniform. I didn’t mind the shirt, bright yellow with black pin stripes, but the shorts and the socks bothered me. The shorts were too short, for one thing, and the socks went all the way up to my knee caps. They felt like pantyhose. The league wanted us to look professional, though, and insisted we wear this get up. When I was kid playing Little League it was a different story. Back then the umps were old guys in t-shirts who smelt like cigarettes and Brylcreem. I hung the whistle around my neck and pulled my socks up. I put the penalty cards in my back pocket and headed out the door. I looked forward to coming home and spending the afternoon getting high and jerking off in front of the TV.

When I got to the middle school I had a hard time finding a parking space. The league had two fields with games scheduled throughout the morning and afternoon. The place was overrun with kids of all ages and their parents lugging lawn chairs and plastic Igloo containers.

I was making my way over to the south field when I heard someone yell, “Hey Dad!” I turned and there was Hallie standing under a tree with her mother by a row of Porta-Johns. Hallie was holding the leash to a dog I’d never seen before, a big golden retriever. I walked over. Even from a distance Laura’s body language made it clear she wasn’t too jazzed about seeing me. I had lived with this woman for six years and knew how her mind worked. She was probably angry that she hadn’t spotted me first — that Hallie had called out to me before she had a chance to stop her. She nodded but didn’t say hello. She seemed a little jumpy and kept looking over at the Porta-Johns.

“Hey there Hallie,” I said, ignoring Laura for the moment. “What are you doing here? And who’s this handsome fella?” I said, meaning the dog.

“This is Taylor,” Hallie said. “We’re taking him on a walk.”

“Oh yeah?” I knelt down and stroked Taylor’s head. “Who’s dog is he?”

“Bret’s.”

I glanced sidelong at Laura. “Who’s Bret?”

At that moment the door to a Porta-John swung open and this tanned, middle-aged guy in a Tommy Bahama shirt walked out drying his hands with a paper towel. Taylor began to fidget and whimper and I knew then who Bret was. I stopped patting the dog.

“That’s Bret,” Hallie said.

Laura hurried over to Bret and said something to him. Bret listened as he walked. Laura introduced me as Hallie’s father and Bret as Bret. Not as her boyfriend Bret — just Bret. He thrust his hand out at me and said something about being pleased to meet me and all that.

I knew I’d bump into one of Laura’s boyfriends eventually, but I didn’t expect I’d be wearing short shorts and knee high socks when it finally happened. The sardonic smile playing at the corners of Bret’s mouth signaled he knew this ridiculous outfit placed me at a disadvantage.

It was an unnerving experience, happening upon what used to be my family and shaking hands with the guy who’d taken my place. Laura seemed just as uncomfortable. She stood off to the side staring down at the grass. I had to get the hell out of there.

I told Bret it had been a pleasure but I had a game to officiate. I held up my whistle as if I need that to prove the veracity of my excuse. He laughed and said, “By all means. Do what you have to do.” I said bye to Hallie and told her I’d come get her next Friday. I also said bye to Laura, if only to show Bret how unperturbed I was. Laura gave me a lame smile but didn’t say bye back. I waved a last time to Hallie. I left them standing together under the tree. Behind my back I heard Hallie tugging on Taylor’s leash. “C’mon Taylor,” she said. “Let’s finish our walk.”

When I got to the soccer field the teams were in the middle of their warm-ups. I went through the pre-game routine. I had each team line up so I could inspect their shoes and shin guards. I did the coin flip with the captains and gave them a canned speech about sportsmanship. Then I blew my whistle to start the game.

It was a mismatch. This was supposedly a game between ten-year-olds, but half the girls on the blue team could have easily passed for twelve or thirteen. A few of them were almost my height.

Five minutes into it I called my first foul. Two players were fighting for the ball and the player from the blue team — she must have weighed a buck ten at least — threw her elbow hard into the other girl’s chest, knocking her to the ground. I stopped the game and gave the blue player a yellow card. I warned her to watch it with the elbows. An asshole on the blue team’s sideline, the girl’s father most likely, yelled something about it being incidental contact.

Before long the blue team was up 5-0. The girls on the green team seemed to accept that this wasn’t a game anymore — it was punishment, an ordeal they’d just have to suffer through. They ran after the ball in a desultory, demoralized way, kicking at it indifferently. The girls on the blue team, though, showed no sign of backing off. Each goal they scored only made them hungrier and more aggressive. Their demented parents cheered and egged on. It made me angry to be part of a fiasco like this.

I was counting down the seconds to half-time when the hulking girl I had yellow-carded earlier tripped a green player from behind right in front of me, sending her sprawling on her face. I blew my whistle and held up the red card and told the blue player she was kicked out of the game. There was a groan on the blue team’s sideline, and the girl’s father came running out on to the field. He got right in my face, screaming like a lunatic that she was just going after the ball and what the hell was wrong with me. I didn’t hear everything he said. Spittle flew out of his mouth. I thought seriously about hitting him, but instead I took a step back.

“Listen cocksucker,” I said. “I’m a volunteer. You want to ref this lopsided bullshit? Go ahead — I’m done.” I walked off the field. The blue team’s parents jeered at me behind my back and I heard one of them say something about reporting me to league officials. I turned and walking backwards I gave them the finger with both hands. When I got to the Porta-Johns I looked around but saw no sign of Hallie and Laura. No sign of Bret and Taylor either. I peeled my shirt over my head and threw it in a trash can.

Hours later I was back on the couch in my living room, stoned and watching TV. I was naked except for the referee socks and the whistle which still hung around my neck. The phone rang. This time I recognized Shirley’s number. The answering machine kicked in and her voice came over the speaker. She said my behavior at the middle school that morning had “deeply hurt and upset” the children on both teams. She said that because of my outburst I was now disqualified from refereeing any future games. I thought she was done, but she went on, stating how my immaturity and foul language went against all the principles the league stood for. I got off the couch and picked up the phone. I could hear her droning on through the head set. Standing bare-assed in the middle of my living room, black socks pulled up to my knees, I pulled a great gulp of air into my lungs and blew the whistle full blast into the receiver. When I ran out of breath I put the phone back in its cradle and unplugged it from the jack in the wall. I sat back down on the couch, picked up the remote control and went to the onscreen program guide. In fifteen minutes the Discovery Channel would be airing back-to-back episodes of I Was Bitten, one of my favorites. I looked forward to a quiet evening at home.

Reagan

Dear God no, Reagan… and my condolences (you are named after the girl on the Exorcist). I wrote this the other day and perhaps you can get a little nugget out of it. I don’t want to spell it out but it deals with people such as me coming back from war, divorce, situations like yours, and the general confusion of finding yourself in new places.

James

Sometimes I imagine this gigantic bank vault door three feet thick and cold. And of course I want to open it up because there is fucking money in there. When I open it, sort of just crack it a bit, there are screams and smells and half rotting arms (in my dream they are always gray and Thriller-like) flaying and reaching out from the crack. The arms grab and search and tear as if the palms had their own eyeballs, mouths, and teeth. I push all my weight against the giant metal amalgam and see a spatula cutting sausages in half on my frying pan, I push and want to cut all the arms off, want to pinch them off like a turd. there is bad stuff in there. Close that fucking door, I say!

But a part of me wants to return with flame throwers and bleach bottles. Open, stand back, burn, melt, ash, scoop and take out the trash. But you can’t take out this sort of trash because it’s radioactive, it’s contagious — to open the door, enough for a flame thrower or a car bomb or a stick of dynamite, to open the door that wide could be enough to let it out. All those arms and teeth and zombies, it might be like 28 Days Later.

And just let’s say that you succeed, then what? You can’t just keep that shit around, you can’t bury it. Perhaps you could invent a rocket that would shoot it into space, but how could you be absolutely sure you’ve left no trace behind? Some kids you know have their own safes, and they open them up like Christmas presents. Some parents play games and have them search their safes for Easter eggs.

I waken, roll over, kiss Kim and tell her about this dream. She kisses me back. You’ve got to see the way sun shines here in Alaska upon me.

In the supermarket I met a guy I’d been in a band with many years before.

He had changed.

I felt like he had changed more than I had changed.

He told me a strange story about his grandmother. She’d fallen down the stairs in her house and died. Now he was living there, in his grandmother’s house.

When I went to the bar, he was in the bar, too. This time we weren’t surprised to see each other.

I don’t remember what we talked about. Maybe he told me about his grandmother again. Or maybe he hadn’t told me about her in the supermarket and this was the first time. I really don’t remember.

I kept looking around the room for people I’d known when we were younger. There were a lot of people there. Most were my age or older, but I didn’t know any of them. Who were they? It was like the people who’d lived there when I’d lived there had been replaced by a new set of people who had nothing to do with me.

Then another guy I knew came in. He had the same first name as the guy I’d been in a band with, and, in fact, the two of them had been in a separate band together.

He shook my hand. Then he asked what it was like living in a foreign country. I told him it was great at first but that it progressively wore you down until you wished you’d never gone there.

But there was never any alternative, I said. Staying put would have killed me.

He said he couldn’t understand why anyone would leave our town in order to live in a foreign country. I shrugged. I couldn’t understand why anyone would stay in our town when there were foreign countries to go to. I didn’t say this, though. I didn’t want to sound like an asshole. Even after all these years, I wanted these people to like me.

After that we probably got drunk. What else were we going to do? I probably got drunker than the two of them put together since I didn’t have to worry about driving or getting up for work in the morning. At some point a guy at the bar said he remembered me from kindergarten. He seemed pretty excited about it. He smiled and shook his head like he couldn’t believe I was actually standing there, right next to him at the bar. I remembered him, too. He looked exactly the same, but bigger. I wondered if I looked that way to him. I felt more than just bigger. I felt alien. Because that’s what I had become - an alien. Secretly I doubted I’d ever been the child he was thinking of.

The next day I went to the airport and flew home with a hangover. I haven’t been back there since.

I sell my things and move to the shore. I learn to surf incredibly well and get really tan. Women flock to me, the other surfers are afraid of me. Eventually, I meet a girl with a Reef ass who is a better surfer than I am. She teaches me the spirit of the ocean and the ghosts of the waves. We fall passionately in love as she challenges me each and every day. One day she comes to me in our modest bungalow and tells me she is carrying my child. We have a boy and name him Dakuwanga, after the Fijian Shark God. He becomes the greatest surfer who will ever live.

You take me back after I threaten to throw myself off the overpass near your house. We fall back into the same old arguments that remind us of our horrible relationship. You eventually get fed up and dump me again after I come home one night extremely drunk and high on mescaline. You move to Colorado to do some “save the Earth” stuff and I stick around here to work on my music. I get a few gigs at this-guy-I-know’s pub, and make a few bucks. Eventually I am doing street music on the corner downtown, and so that’s going pretty well for me. Also, I have a fantastic beard and hardly ever wear a shirt.

I get into a fight at a local sports bar after State loses the playoffs. A fight coordinator sees me take down a guy twice my size and wants to book me for an expo in two weeks. I’ve got nothing to lose, so I go for it. The training I undergo in those two weeks is excruciating, yet shapes me into an awesome fighting machine. My trainer, a tiger named Raja, follows my every move and threatens me with her knife-sized incisors at every false step. Nonetheless, I am well prepared. The fight happens and I knock the guy out in the first round by double-roundhouse kicking him followed by an axe punch to the solar plexus. He goes down like a heap of sausage, and I raise my fists to the audience’s cheers. You are in the crowd and you push off the slick-suit guy you are with and his cigar falls out of his mouth because he is so in shock. You run into the ring and embrace me; sweat everywhere. “Let’s get married,” I say. You smile and say “Oh hell yeah.”

I die of a broken heart. My soul goes up to Heaven, where my Grandma and my old dog Pluto are there waving and clapping. When I get through the gates, Paul Newman gives me a high five and slow motiony points me toward the buffet. The clouds make everything misty and white, and all the angels are very pretty naked girls. Everyone else is wearing these bluish robes and they are all smiling. At the welcome dinner buffet, I see all the people I ever wanted to meet: Kurt Vonnegut, James Brown, Albert Camus, Janis Joplin, Shannon Hoon, and my uncle Steve, who supposedly always had the best weed. At dinner, Jesus comes over and hangs out for a bit. He ends up being a really funny guy. Afterward, Jimi Hendrix, Heath Ledger and I go have drinks at the pool with some of the angels. We get wasted and the modelesque seraphs make out with us and each other. Somehow we all end up in the hot tub together and things get a little crazy for the rest of eternity.

After a short, but emotional heartbreak stage, I eventually get on with my life and start to get out there again. I start working out from time to time, and that becomes a regular thing, so I start to feel pretty good about the way I look. I work hard and get a promotion, and take some business trips overseas. After an extended layover in Tokyo, I meet a girl in the airport who strikes up a conversation with me in the food court. I buy her a drink at the bar before it closes and we both end up missing our flight. We get a hotel room overlooking downtown Tokyo and make love on top of the sheets with pink neon illuminating the window. She falls asleep on my chest and smiles in her sleep. We make slow, careful love in the morning before our rescheduled flight. We keep in touch, and she eventually moves to my area and into my apartment, and we get a Corgi puppy. We name him Radar because it’s a palindrome. We get older and decide to have kids, who end up being really great and we take them to theme parks and point out how we are better than most of the people there. I run into you and you husband, Michael at a function in Virginia, I introduce you to my wife, who is far prettier than you. I am also taller than Michael.

We’re pleased to announce that McNally Jackson Books (52 Prince Street, NY, NY) is now stocking Johnny America. New Yorkers, now you’ve got three shops where you can pick up our print edition.

In other news: know that we’ve started to work on Issue Seven. We aim to wrap it have it in the mail and on retailers shelves by the Fourth of July. Our usual cover-creator Patrick Giroux (who was unavailable for our last issue) is available once more, so #7 will be silkscreened by our favorite lanky Frenchman. We’re pretty excited about this.

Also: if you were are social networking friend on MySpace or Friendster, be advised that we’ve ended our flirtation with social networking but that our interest in you continues. Those two sites became passé ages ago, and as for the current darlings, Facebook and Twitter, well… we’re already a print magazine and a web site — how many modes of information distribution does one entity need?

J.A.

“Three pounds,” he said. “Light week. But that puts us over a hundred for the year.”

Jill brought the shoebox out into the living room, but the bigger box into which they had been dumping the junk mail was on the verge of overflowing. One more loose leaf and the paper peak would crumble.

The paper shredder, which they were no longer using, was sitting in yet another box, beside the mountain of junk mail, taking up space, specifically box space that could be holding even more junk mail. Jill thought about tossing it on a trash day, but then she pictured the shredder sitting on the top of some junk heap, along with a mental time lapse in which everything eventually decomposes and turns into dirt except for the shredder and some Styrofoam cups.

So the young couple spent the evening deconstructing the shredder and using the sharpest knives in the kitchen to shave it down to thin leaves of plastic paper. By the end of the night they were exhausted, but they had more room for paper, as well as more paper to burn in the cold months, which were just around the corner.

The next day, Jill and Jose were having supper at Jill’s sister Megan’s house. Megan was serving an organic casserole made exclusively from vegetables grown on her windowsill, eggs laid by the chickens that roamed the co-op courtyard, and milk squeezed from her own breast.

“I listen to these podcasts at night that subliminally make my body think I’m having a baby,” she said. “I mean, can you believe people used to drink cow’s milk?”

Jill stopped mid-bite and looked at Jose with wide eyes.

Jose cleared his throat. “Tell your sister what we did yesterday, honey,” he said.

“Well, not only are we gonna burn all the junk mail like you suggested,” Jill said, “But we also shredded the shredder, and we’re gonna put that into the fireplace, too.”

“Not bad,” said Megan, who was the person responsible for Jill and Jose’s eco-conscious lifestyle. Right after she introduced them to the concept of carbon footprints, Jill and Jose sold their pickup truck, which they used to use to pick up logs of wood for their fireplace.

Megan looked at Jill, wriggled her eyebrows and stretched her shirt out in front of her. “You like this shirt?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Jill said, “I was going to say something about it. I love how it changes colors in the light.”

“And it’s so shiny,” said Jose. “Must have been expensive.”

“Let me show you what I’m doing,” Megan said.

She handed Jill and Jose surgical masks made of the same iridescent material as her shirt, and walked them to the back of the apartment.

As they got closer to the back room, Jill and Jose could hear a high-pitched grinding sound. When Megan opened the door, red and blue smoke wafted out towards them, behind which three Chinese women were working on various machines. One was using a loud deli meat slicer, the next woman was using something that looked and smelled like a gas-powered cheese grater, and the third woman was operating a traditional loom.

Megan yelled over the metallic clamor: “Jin One is breaking the plastic down into thin sheets, which she melts in the boiling water at her feet. Once the plastic is all melted down, Chang grates it into fine string, which Jin Two weaves into fabrics that they sew together, and which I wear.”

“You can afford to pay these people?” Jose asked.

Megan walked around the tiny room, inspecting the work being done, and she continued to shout over the machinery. “I found these ladies outside a Sunset Park garment factory. I give them twice the salary they were making at the sweatshop, and I’m still paying less than I did when I was wearing regular clothes. They even brought their own gear.” She circled between Jill and Jose and put her hands on their backs. “Can you believe I used to wear cotton?”

“And what powers it all?” said Jill.

“Only the most environmentally safe energy source available,” she said, and walked them out of the room before they could ask a follow-up.

In the living room, Jill now noticed that all of Megan’s book shelves and entertainment center were free of media. “Where are all your CD’s and DVD’s?” she asked.

Megan pointed at her shirt and at the masks that Jill and Jose were still wearing. “I downloaded everything to my computer. I’m completely digital. No hard media, smaller carbon footprint.”

“And your books?” Jose asked before he spotted a firewood rack stacked with pulpy gray logs.

“Yep,” said Megan, “Those logs there are made of the classics. All of my contemporary fiction and poetry went into the insulation for the walls. Don’t worry, I scanned them all first and put them online.”

Jose and Jill left the co-op in a bit of a daze. “I think I was breathing plastic fumes through my mask,” Jill said.

“Yeah, I think my mask was melting,” Jose said, pointing at a hardened silver glob on his cheek.

When they turned the corner, they saw a man on the other side of the fence run out into the co-op courtyard and vomit. He was a slender Chinese man wearing only jogging shorts. His hair was saturated with sweat.

“Do you think we could get firewood delivered?” Jill asked Jose.

“Yeah,” said Jose. “You read my mind.”

— The New York Times

“Average,” she calls me. Of all the epithets to fling my way, she chooses “average.” It’s more odious than “unremarkable.” That I was kicked out of my Phd program for plagiarizing from Ulysses (it turns out people have actually read it — something I had not anticipated), doesn’t mean that I didn’t have the skills or the mettle, or the mind to exceed my dilettante colleagues or that I am somehow “average.” I’m glad Sally left. And it’s surprising how lucid everything becomes when I’m here writing in my toilet journal. I should spend more time in here. Collect my thoughts. Sally wasn’t right for me.

…Wish I’d brought a pillow. My mind is racing in here. Between going to the toilet and the fountain of fecundity pouring forth from my pen, I’ve forgotten to eat. But “Joe Average” here will be okay. This will be awkward for the delivery man…it was. But the crab Rangoon from Uncle Chan’s is divine.

I feel that keeping vigil over this porcelain albatross has weakened my resolve. But what am I to do? Mom sent me some more magazines, which was nice. Of course, I’ve given myself a mild case of vertigo by trying to see the future through interpreting flush geometry (no flush is precisely the same; this also holds true for snowflakes and cheeseburgers), so it’s difficult to read for any length of time. Yesterday, I tried to read an article in People — something about a deformed boy and a goat. The boy either saved the goat’s life or vice versa — anyway, next thing I knew I felt wobbly and woke up with the float ball in my mouth. It felt like something from a movie. What didn’t feel like something from a movie is earlier today, when, for three hours I tried to name every object in this bathroom with my eyes closed; I always forget the f’ing Loofah.

His name is Claudio Thunderpants, née Cienfuegos. That’s what I call him now, the toilet. The walls sing songs of silent pain, the loneliness envelops me like a snake ingests a rat — clinically — and the boredom is two fire hydrants testifying before committee (I am working with metaphors. Does this work?). Ask Mom to send rhyming dictionary and The Elements of Style. Remind her that White has other books besides Charlotte’s Web. Like last year, when he wrote every issue of Hustler — double check this…No, don’t. The toilet snake is singing as the Duke of Mantua from Rigoletto. I tell him the Duke is a tenor, but the toilet snake insists on singing it mezzo-soprano. I have been going to the bathroom for one year. One year. Sounds like “wonyier,” the word for “mercurial” in Claudio’s and my secret language.

The tank gasket has opened with Sicilian. Is he ready for the Moscow Variation (2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+)? Damnit! He is. Why the hell is the flush valve snickering? Who do you think you are, flush valve—Gary Kasparov? I think he just might be. Reminder: Ask flush valve for valid ID. Sally sent some kind of specialist over. I hate being analyzed and you’re so vulnerable on the toilet. I just pretended to be crazy. Sally used to be my girlfriend, but it’s clear she is Asmodeus, King of the Nine Hells, eternally astride an infernal dragon. Must sleep. Big day tomorrow. Going to try to read À La Recherche du Temps Perdu again. Still don’t read French, but this time I feel lucky. It’s too quiet…

I feel like the kid in that movie where he goes to Alaska and dies in a bus. This is like that, but without the view and all the moose and snow. I need a priest. No, not a priest. A haberdasher. Yes, a haberdasher. Finished À La Recherche du Temps Perdu. Is it about rugby?

My mother is William Faulkner.

What is left for me? I feel I must extricate myself from this bowl. But how? I am afraid. Something must occur. The atoms need to slide in some kind of direction. But which? This bowl has never been colder. I am lost. I feel so…what, so stultified. In the words of Claudio Thunderpants, née Cienfuegos , “What is to be done?”

— The New York Times

Jesus wept. I need to go for a walk or something. Finally made it off the toilet. Three years I was on there. Does an “average” person (Yes, I still remember what you said, Sally) make it three years pondering the mysteries of the soul on a toilet with only a Cantonese-speaking delivery man to fill me in on box scores, deliver sustenance and occasionally shave me? No. That is distinctly un-average, wouldn’t you say? Only made it two blocks on my walk. I’d like to pick up the pace, but with Claudio Thunderpants, née Cienfuegos and I now being, quite literally, “joined at the hip,” this trek looks much more ambitious. But you’ve always wanted to see the world, haven’t you? Yes, I have. Well then I better keep going. A child looked at me and shrieked in horror as Claudio and I trundled down the block.. What’s the big fuss? I thought I was just an average guy.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
(William Carlos Williams)

This is just to say…

I had poisoned
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you probably
stole
and ate

Forgive me
But you always knew I was
not so sweet
and so cold
(response to William Carlos Williams)

This is just to say…

I have sought
medical
attention
with the doctor

who
you probably
paid off
and slept with

Forgive me
but it was the right time
for me to meet
that sweet sweet man
(response to response to WCW)

This is just to say…

I have left
with
all my
things

and which
were probably
your things
too

Forgive me
they are mine now
mine
so mine.
(response to response to response to WCW)

This is just to say…

I have taken
appropriate measures
for my
poisoning

and the cheating with which
you probably
thought you could
get away

Forgive me
Dr. Ronald will never be the same
never as sweet
a little more cold
(response to response to response to response to WCW)

This is just to say…

I forgive you
for the plums
from the icebox
that you ate

let’s just
put the
past
behind us

if you don’t
press charges
I promise you’ll never have to
see Dr. Ronald and me again.
(response to response to response to response to response to WCW)

If you’re willing to save the relationship, but not ready for kids, it might be time to buy a house. Planning is the first step. Talk about gardens, an office with a window looking out over pecan trees. Goats, someday; cows, maybe. Pick names for them. This is the work you’ve heard about; shared experiences are what bind us together.

Evenings and weekends, drive randomly around neighborhoods close to parks and historic districts. Take information packets from the most expensive looking houses you can find. This gives you an idea of range. When you venture into shabbier neighborhoods, working class neighborhoods, ghettos, places closer to where you currently live, make jokes about rolling up the windows. Then turn around and make your way back to the higher end houses. Avoid making eye contact with anyone walking the streets, sitting on their porches, etc. Play music loudly to cover the sound of your ratty engine. Ignore the fact that your muffler fell off two months ago.

Stop at an upscale grocery store to pick up some of those ‘Home Buying Guide’ papers they give out for free over by the automatic doors. If it is so upscale that they don’t have any, go to the Kroger a couple blocks over. Compare prices and locations, find the most reasonable seeming deals and try not to wonder why they are so reasonable. Make maps, plot out trips to look at houses. Pack a lunch, (remember- you’re saving for a house; this isn’t the time for frivolous trips to Wendy’s), and park in the driveway of the nicest looking house you can find and share sandwiches.

If you find a house you like that is for sale, circle back to it a couple times to make sure you want it, then, with the engine running, one of you hop out and steal the ‘For Sale’ sign from the yard so no one else will know about it. It might be best to do this at night. Begin to seriously consider trying to get a home loan, or, if applicable, a job.

If you can’t find a house that you want for sale, you might have to try another approach. Take off work (if you’re working), pack a tent, a grill. You can take shifts if you have to, but be careful you don’t turn this into something too much like work. Better yet- both of you go; treat it like a vacation, a camp out, which it is.

Pitch a tent on the sidewalk in front of the house you want to go on the market. The sidewalk is public property. If the current occupants of the house threaten to call the cops, tell them this. Once you’re pretty sure they have called the cops, strip the camp and take off. It’s best if you use an easily removable tent, or maybe just sleeping bags.

Don’t go too far. Climb a tree, go to the top of a hill or just use a police scanner. The cops will come, the (current) homeowners will complain. The cops will leave.

This is when you go back.

As I’ve hinted at above, anonymity is an important factor in house buying. When camping in front of a prospective home, you may want to wear masks or disguises. This can be not only an effective means of disguise and a good way to further confuse the (current) homeowners, but it can also be fun and stimulating. Many couples find this to be a good opportunity to add a little spice to their love-lives. Why not encourage your wife to disguise herself as a seductive nurse, and you, a Hollywood stuntman, recovering in your sleeping bag from a near-fatal accident on the set of a Hollywood blockbuster? You can develop fantasy lives, pretend to know famous or even dead or imaginary people, such as race car drivers, or Richard Dean Anderson. This is an opportunity for quality time between you and your significant other; a chance to work on building that mythology between the two of you. In doing this, you may discover that every situation offers an opportunity for adventure and for strengthening the relationship between you and your loved one. This is an important lesson and one you’ll be glad to have learned.

The important thing to remember when buying a house isn’t just persistence, but randomness. In war movies, when they talk about water torture, notice that it is drops of water that drive people crazy. If it were a steady stream, one could adapt.

Bearing this in mind, it may be a good idea to pack up camp every so often and leave. And just when they think it’s over, come back. If you’ve got your eye on a different house, this would be a good way to divide your time between the two. Hop back and forth between them randomly. After a few days, you won’t even have to camp there anymore. It will only require occasional visits to remind the (current) homeowners of your presence. You can even get away with simply driving by playing music loudly at late hours. But be sure to vary the types of music you play: country one night, salsa the next. This serves a two-fold purpose: 1. it distracts from the fact that one person or one group of people are the cause of this disturbance, and 2. it confuses them. (See above.) Just imagine them, sitting in their comfy house/s trembling in terror every time a loud vehicle drives by or backfires, while you sit on your tattered couch watching reality shows. It is always best to take not only pride in your work, but enjoyment from it.

Now it is a question of waiting. I’ve known people who’ve waited months or even years for a (current) homeowner to break down and move out. Many lose sight of the long-term goal, until they’re taking Sunday drives through neighborhoods they’ve long given up on moving into, playing traditional German folk music at full blast and not even remembering why. Maybe they see a For Sale sign on that house they’ve always liked, but all ability to move forward has been lost in the blare of accordions.

Even worse are the ones who succeed and wake up one day to find a pair of strangers dressed in skydiving apparatus making love in a hammock in their front yard. These poor souls have become the thing they once hated: they huddle on the linoleum on their kitchen floor, drinking bottled water and waiting for the police to come, hoping that will be the end of it, but knowing somehow that it won’t be; all the while trying to remember something about this that all seems familiar.

These are examples of the most dreaded of words: habit. Habit is death not only to home buying, but to a relationship. Imagine a life as an automaton, doing the same things day in and day out. It isn’t difficult because it requires little imagination. Now we are beginning to see what this has been about all along. It is to be hoped that in buying a home, you will keep in mind not only issues of comfort and secrecy, but also the adventure of it all. Home buying is a big step, it marks a transition in one’s life from adolescence to maturity. Remember, it was only a couple centuries ago that the only people who could vote in this, and many other countries, were ones who owned homes. This idea can be looked at in two ways: 1. it shows that home owners were generally seen as being mature, responsible people capable of making big decisions. 2. since these laws were made by home owners themselves, it serves as a warning to prospective home buyers to remember where they came from and never take themselves too seriously. It is to be hoped that when you succeed in buying your home and wake up one morning to find that ragged pair camped out on your sidewalk, you’ll pack your things and move on. In this way, we all can benefit, as you will have acquired equity, and will make a nice profit on the sale of your home. This is the final lesson of home buying. Now, you are ready. Good luck.

Lance and Jessie replied with louder moans and heavier breathing. Amy shoved her feet in her clogs, pulled her coat on over her pajamas, and slammed the door on her way out.

Lance would only last about ten minutes. She hated that she knew this fact. She wished they had a more regular pattern, enough that she could be out of her room at the appointed hour. If it were always an after-work-to-get-up-an-appetite-for-dinner-fuck, then she’d just go straight to dinner, and not stop at home first. Or if it were a Sunday-morning-day-off-wake-up-fuck, then she’d take a Sunday morning run. But there was no decipherable pattern. The only consistency was that her neighbors always seemed to screw each other when she was home. Tonight was the worst - a goodnight-honey-fuck just as she was about to fall asleep. Amy was starting to wonder if she was the pattern, an audio-voyeur.

She walked over to the deck of the Chalet. It was the only tasteful building at McMurdo Station, home to the offices of the Station Manager and the National Science Foundation Representative. The building was all wood, even with lovely wood paneling inside, and they’d built a deck that looked out to the frozen sea of McMurdo Sound and the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. A semi-circle of flag poles populated the deck, one flag for each nation that originally signed the Antarctic Treaty. A bust of Admiral Byrd sat in the middle.

Tonight wasn’t bad, clear and in the 30’s with a bit of wind to keep the flags busy. Amy sat down on the cold wooden bench and stared out at the mountains. She tried to do a breathing meditation like they did at the end of yoga class, breathe out toxins, breath in pure air. Breathe out frustration, breathe in pure air. The mountains offered a backdrop for her breathing with their stable figures, their indifferent gaze. She could feel herself calming ever so slightly with each exhalation, her shoulders sinking a little lower, a bit more comfortably into her back.

She was grateful for the sound of the flags. Their thick fabric snapped with the wind, and closing her eyes, the sound took her to the middle of that flock of macaws from Costa Rica. She called to mind their vibrant and fluid colors, tried to hang on to them when she opened her eyes to the voracious white.

She glanced at her watch. It had been fifteen minutes. She decided she’d brave her room again. She had to get up in six hours.

Thankfully, they were finished. After Amy slipped under the covers, she realized she’d waited too long. Her room rocked with Lance’s snores.

David’s mother is telling all her friends how proud she is of her son. He’s lost so much weight since he started the swimming, she says. He’s there every day for hours on end. He’s a born again dolphin.

David Mackey heard that playing with yourself will turn you blind. He knows that’s not true. His vision is getting worse, but it has nothing to do with that. That’s nothing but an old wives tale, told to scare old husbands and old sons. Just in case, though, he doesn’t tell his mom that he can’t see the board at school anymore. He moves to the front of the class, and though his grades don’t improve his teachers praise him for the burgeoning interest in his studies.

This kind of dedication, they tell his mother, might see him getting into somewhere like Berkeley. His mother is over the moon. Did you hear that, she says to David’s father. Berkeley! His father grunts approvingly and scratches himself.

David Mackey buys a dirty magazine from a store in New York on a field trip and the next week he takes it into school and unsticks the pages to show pictures of naked girls to the other boys in his class.

David has so many friends now, says his mother. I know that being popular isn’t the most important thing, but still… They’ve all started swimming too, say the other mothers. He’s such a positive influence.

I fucking hate David Mackey, says Jessica Goldstein. The big jerk off.

“What do we do now?” he asks the night she brings home the news.

“I’ll find something,” she says. “Don’t worry.” The tone of her voice, though, tells me she’s not all that confident.

It’s June, summer’s just coming on, and there seems to be all the time in the world. But it goes by quickly, her three months severance pay sucked up by some phony headhunter with the promise of a “better paying job in the tri-state area.” Unemployment insurance helps us squeak by. My dad’s been off the entire time, and even when he returns to the university he won’t be bringing home one-tenth of what she made.

“I thought you said you’d find something,” he badgers.

“Times are rough,” she tells him. “We’ll just have to wait it out.”

I’ve contributed what I can. But a summer job grilling “elephant scabs,” and scooping ice cream for minimum wage at Hamburger Patty’s isn’t exactly the cushion he’s looking for. Besides. On September first Patty puts up the plywood and I start eleventh grade.

“Maybe you can ask for a few more courses,” my mother suggests at breakfast one morning.

“No way,” my dad tells her. “They’d have to pay me benefits, and there’s no freaking way.”

What I notice is this: as my father becomes more and more frantic, my mother grows more calm. She’s started gardening again for the first time in years. She gets up early, reads, and writes in a journal she won’t let anybody see. She cooks, nothing elaborate, but it goes down. At night she tells me stories about growing up in northern Ontario. “We had an outhouse,” she says. “And sometimes, in the winter, if you spilled water on the kitchen floor it was frozen before you got back with a rag.”

“Were you happy?” I ask.

“We didn’t know not to be,” she tells me.

Then, during Columbus Day weekend, my father loses it. He comes inside the house and tosses the car keys on the coffee table.

“Gas is up to three-sixty a gallon!” he shouts.

My mom and I are sitting on the living room sofa taking turns reading to one another from a collection of Gabriel Garcίa Márquez stories. She looks up and says, “We’ll cut back. We live close enough to town to walk.”

“What about this winter!?” he fires back. “With the price of home heating oil through the roof?!”

“We can use the fireplace,” she tells him. “We’ll cut down a tree. If we can’t do that, we’ll break up the furniture.”

“And what will we eat?” he asks, no longer quite so confrontational.

My mother remains placid, totally unruffled.

“Shit,” she says. “We’ll eat shit.”

This, however, is not about China or other metaphorical bears. It’s about real bears, sleeping and living uncomfortably close to your home, thanks to lost habitat and the relaxation of various social mores that once kept bears at arm’s length. These cultural shifts have turned the once-docile animal that inspired at least two lovable constellations into a volatile beast to be feared by men.

Considering that, here are the basics on bears:

The color of a bear’s fur is meaningless. Some brown bears are black and some black bears are brown. Some black bears (who are black) identify more with brown bears. Regardless, a bear will use its fur to trick you. And then maul you to death.

Bullet-proof vests are useless against bears. Bullet-proof vest when used in tandem with bulletproof jacket and slacks, maybe. Also, it’s a good idea to be as strong as the bear you ambush. Don’t just assume you are, especially if you’ve been drinking.

Sometimes the sleeping bear you come across is really a stuffed bear, perhaps a toy or training tool left mistakenly by a troop of Boy Scouts. But more than likely it is a trap set by a real bear, which is patiently waiting behind some bushes. Acting like you are riding the bear buckaroo style so that someone might take a “funny photo” will only serve to insult the real bear, which is in no mood for your shenanigans.

How much you can get away with when dealing with the bear is hard to say. Bears are unpredictable and known to fly off the handle. Ask any park ranger or documentary filmmaker. Bears can mess you up. But you could get lucky and once the bear has been jostled awake, she might offer you a bowl of cereal, sending a lesser forest animal for milk and a spoon. While you eat, it’s possible that the bear will perform a song she made up, sung to the tune of “Mr. Bojangles” but she’s substituted the lyrics for all this funny stuff about wildlife. And then the song takes a sad turn and all the once-funny stuff about animals is turned around into a poignant social commentary about disappearing wilderness. But none of this registers with you because you are too busy thinking how this bear’s home would be a great spot for your home.

“Are you even listening to me?” asks the bear, at which point you’re not even looking her direction anymore, a big mistake because the once jovial bear takes a violent swipe at the back of your head. And you say “Hey what was that all about?” and she says, “You could at least look at me when I sing to you.” And you say “I’m a dreamer, baby,” which sounds cool, but not to bears.

If you are thinking of awakening the bear by jumping from a tree in a surprise attack, consider that sometimes what looks like a sleeping bear is no bear at all, but something that can be even more frightening than a bear, like your wife. You wake her up like that and, man, have you ever seen her temper?

It’s probably just a good idea to leave the bear alone. Don’t tap on the glass (especially if you’re locked out); don’t talk back to the bear. Surprise the bear by picking up the dry cleaning; take out the bear’s trash without having to be asked. And don’t bring up the fact that because you cooked the meal, the bear should clean up afterward. That logic does not work with bears. Lastly, smile at the bear, unless the bear tells you to “wipe that smile off your face,” in which case I’d do as asked. And if that fails, play dead.

The camel mashed her lips and said who the hell are you?

I said who the hell are you?

I said you’re not the hootchie-cootchie mama with black cherry eyes whom I brought home from The Gibraltar Straight.

She said you’re not the handsome sheik who took me home from The Persian Rug.

But if I close my eyes, she said, you might look like a Berber with the eyes of a prince.

A burger? I said.

Berber, she said, just ask any camel.

She closed her eyes and puckered her lips.

She start kissing me all over.

I had camel slobber running down my face.

I pushed her away.

I said stay on your own side of the bed.

She said this bed is so small it wouldn’t fit a jackass.

The camel and I stared out straight into space.

We didn’t talk to each other.

Finally, the camel broke down and asked if I had any water.

I said my water is reserved for invited guests.

She said she needed to take a shower.

I said she’ll clog the sink with camel hairs.

She asked if she could make her face up in the bathroom.

I told her that no matter what she did she would still be ugly.

She said you are such an ass.

I said I’m sorry you feel that way.

A real horse’s ass.

At least horses know their place, I said.

A real donkey’s ass.

Donkeys don’t swing in discos, I said.

Do you treat all camels this way, she asked.

I haven’t met many in this part of town, I said.

I guess this part of town is dried up, she said.

It wasn’t last night, I said.

Just what do you have against camels, she said.

Nothing, I said, I just hate waking up next to one.

I bet you love all those double-hump jokes, she said.

Now that you mention it, I said.

You’re about as much fun as a nomad in gastric distress, she said.

At that point, it seemed all communication broke down.

Finally the camel said let’s go back to the bar.

At the bar the camel plowed me with Straight ups and Boogie Woogies.

I matched her drink for drink.

Everyone started to pet the camel.

I felt possessive.

I felt a lost connection.

The room was spinning.

She whispered in my ear.

She said you’re beginning to look good.

I was about to pass out.

The camel gave me a lift home.