A Sad Case Of A Surgically Remove heart

The Day My Heart Stopped Beating
That was years ago.
That was Yesterday.

I Can Only Say It No Longer Ticks

It’s Like a Broken Watch, Useless

One day I Hope the Blood Will Again Flow
But Hope Doesn’t Spring Eternal

Time Goes By and I can feel it Passing

Years Roll On and They Kept Going Faster

The Day My Heart Stopped Beating Was Like No Other
I Can Barely Recall The Pain For I feel almost Nothing

Excepting for a faint flicker of love still lives inside this dead heart

Hoping, waiting, dreaming

That someway, someday, somehow they’ll be a spark

So then that the heart, atrophied and broke, long since forgotten

Can beat again. can pump again. Can love again

But the scars to deep

Think we’ll need to operate

Maybe carve a little hole and get rid of that blackened piece of coal

Replace it something artificial

Better than nothing, right?

You won’t be needing it anymore

We’ll just dispose of it in a timely way

Forget about your thoughts forget about today

Tomorrow you’ll start anew, albeit with a fake ticker

But that’s what you wanted, correct?

To get rid of that flame, that hope, that flicker.

I hadn’t smiled in long time. Not since the day before that day. I decided after all was said and done to isolate myself. Whereas before I would go out to dinner at fine restaurants in Rittenhouse Square, now I just laid in bed, straing at the walls with tears in my eyes. Who would I go with anyway? Sleep didn’t come easy and when it did it wasn’t pleasant and was plagued by nightmares of times I couldn’t forget. Waking up screaming and not knowing where I was at was a common occurrence. The sheets from my bed lay wrinkled on the floor and I slept on the bare mattress cuddled up in my blanket trying to pretend it was her. This went on for awhile. I thought about seeking help, but I didn’t. I thought about killing myself. I didn’t, obviously, or I wouldn’t be recounting this chapter.

My only friend during this period was Jack Daniels, though I did hang out with Jim Beam. Yes, I drank—a lot. My recyclable bin overflowed like a flooding river of tears that were just empty bottles. It tipped over if it rained, leaving shattered glass all over the street. My one neighbor, this old bitch that never minded her own business and constantly gossiped to all the other neighbors about my problem, called the police one time. They knocked. I answered—drunk. They told me to buy another bin so they didn’t have to come back but were generally annoyed at her more than me since I told them I was just minding my own business and wanted to be left alone.

Life went on—if you could call it that. I bought movies after TV became monotonous, which happens quite fast. Somehow I managed to keep my job at the factory machining pieces of high stainless steel alloy with 7.5 percent Molybdenum into sheets for nuclear power plants. It sounds hard but after 10 years it becomes second nature. I could do it with my eyes closed; I did it with my head pounding.

Nobody said much to me at work. Why would they? The place is loud and no one wants to be there. They would hire many convicts for the positions. So, my drinking was hardly a matter of concern. These people stole snacks out of the fridge. They even stole my safety glasses. No one ever was told to leave. The boss wouldn’t even tell their parole officer. Hell, it was basically slave labor anyway so I can sort of understand. But at 29 years of age, it bothered me that I worked so hard for so long and these people just waltz in like pauper princes and do whatever.

It made me want to kill myself even more. But, after Brenda took that bottle of valium I couldn’t bring myself to join her, yet. I remember when I woke up and shook her. Her body felt like a warm burger left out for a husband who came home late. It felt like a stiffening Christmas tree left out on the curb. It felt like death. It felt like my heart had just stopped beating.

That was a year ago. You would think I’d be feeling better but I am not—how could I? Memories flash like lightening bolts through my head every waking moment: walks in the park, drives to nowhere, the trip to Paris, the pregnancy.

Well as you can imagine the isolation drove me to pace around the house, to punch holes in the wall just to see if I could still feel physical pain as I had gone quite numb emotionally. So, I picked up the phone book and found a bar in Bucks County where nobody knew me.

I started going there a lot. I wanted to drink with people and somehow that made me feel even more alone. The place was called EAT and DRINK, quite imaginative of the owners, correct? I hung out on a bar stool and didn’t talk to anyone. Cobwebs wove through the neon lights that gave the place a bit of atmosphere for me. The stool, wooden with a thin pad, was tall enough to let my legs dangle without hitting the floor. One particular night some punk called me a faggot since I was dressed in a suit jacket and wore a pink shirt underneath. In hindsight I wore the outfit on purpose. I wanted to fight. I wanted someone else to feel the pain that I felt, even if it was purely physical. I grabbed him by the throat and hauled him into the bathroom where I smashed his mouth against the sink, breaking one of his teeth. Blood splattered everywhere: the mirror, the floor, on my shirt. I smiled and told him if he fucks with me again, it wouldn’t be his mouth that I’d crack open—it would be his entire fucking head.

Obviously I was quite angry, as I learned that night. The next little step was bargaining. Then depression.
Brenda gave birth to my son Josh at Holy Redeemer. It happened so fast. His little head poked out as Brenda screamed “Oh, God. Fuck, come out already.” He was so precious with his little faced drenched with amniotic fluid. The nurse carried him away after letting Brenda hold him for a minute. She beamed and held my hand so tight.

My life rattled onwards down the tracks towards some life I didn’t know and never wanted. It zigzagged somewhere between suicide and acceptance. I guess I’ll just come right out and say it: I lied to you; I did try and commit suicide. It happened rather peculiarly, laying on the couch and watching golf.

I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t even have a sharp enough knife. What I did have was an orange extension cord. I tapped on the ceiling to find the wooden girder and then hammered in a steel nail. I wrapped the extension cord around the nail and made a knot, and then I made sure there wasn’t enough slack to reach the floor and tied the rest around my neck, causing me to choke and turn blue. The chair was wobbling and I thought of Jacob.

The day he lay in his crib facedown jumped into my head like so many unwanted gifts at Christmas from people you loved. I could feel my hands tingle as the memory of me turning him over to look into his dead eyes and breathless face shot through my mind. I cried. I could see Brenda run into the room and collapse on her knees. For days, she laid face down on the pillow. SIDS is what the doctors said.

We never really said much after that and I tried everything to console her and asked her to seek help. She did and the shrink gave her valium. The day after she came back from the doctor, I found her face down on the plush, red rug, clutching an empty orange bottle of pills when I came home from the factory. Rigamortis set in awhile ago as she must have took them right when I left for work.

That’s when the pain really started. I cursed God. I cursed him for taking Jacob. For taking Brenda. For taking everything. What did he want? My soul. It didn’t feel much like I had one. And I would’ve sold it to the devil to get back what I had before: the life I had planned out, the life where I was happy, the life where things were normal.

Anyway, the day I tied the extension cord around my neck was long ago. I couldn’t do it. I tried. I didn’t want to die; I just didn’t want to live, if that makes any sense. To those of you who may know intense pain, it will.

I didn’t go back to the EAT and DRINK for awhile. I figured it would be best to steer clear, lest the cops came. No one knew me there anyway and I paid with cash, so they couldn’t have my name. But, I doubt the kid snitched anyway.

Actions have consequences. What I realized was that I was still alive. When I smashed his head into the sink it proved to me I could still feel. It proved I wasn’t dead. It proved I could love again. And after I went home that’s what I set out to do—fall in love again and machine the pieces of my broken heart back together, not to forget but to move on. What choice did I have?

So I quit my job. I had saved a lot of money and I could always go back. I also had the money from the insurance. Even though there was some clause that prevented them from shelling out the money if the person commits suicide, the agent listed it as catastrophic given the circumstances of how everything went down.

I went to EAT and DRINK and applied. I wasn’t too much older than much of the staff so I didn’t feel out of place, though I didn’t tell anyone I had left a rather lucrative position to wait tables. But it wasn’t about money; it was about meeting people. A year spent in grief is a year lost and I desperately need to get out, to meet someone, to meet people. Otherwise I would’ve tied that extension cord around my neck eventually.

It was the strangest thing. All so surreal. I never thought I could move on. I don’t know if I did. But working there I slowly came out of my shell. I slowly started to open up and talk to people. I told them lies. I couldn’t tell them that I was married and my son died of SIDS and my wife ate a bottle of pills and I was on the verge of wrapping an extension cord around my neck. A tad dreary, don’t you think? Hey, Paul, did I tell you about the time I came home and found my wife’s lifeless body face down on the floor; it was quite a sight. I think not. It’s better to keep the past where it belongs. Dead.

The money wasn’t really good but I enjoyed the atmosphere. The bar, made of wood, had two sides and was quite cozy for mingling. The dining area bustled with people many nights. And then it came to me: I had to leave. I had nothing. And when you have nothing, you go where there might be something. The only thing here there were bad memories that needed to be erased.

But life isn’t a piece of paper that you can just erase the words to when they no longer fit into some story line. It isn’t a wall with pictures you can take down when you no longer feel like seeing them. Memories flash through synapses and neurons and hurt like hell and I thought that maybe, just maybe if I could leave it all maybe one day I’d be able to open up and not tell lies. For I was sick of the lies. And that’s what I did: I left. I know, I know, it’s a rather quick ending. I wish I could tell you more. But there’s not much to tell. You see, I woke up the next morning and booked the first flight to Phoenix. I pointed at a map and that’s where my finger touched. That was years ago. You see my heart did start beating again. And now when I go to sleep, it isn’t a blanket I hold to, it’s a person, my wife, Elaine.

Three Nights For Jacob: A Prequel

Jacob gripped the toilet with both hands as he put his face over the bowl and heaved up greenish, yellow bile from his stomach. The acrid smell of all the puke that he never flushed made his eyes tear and caused him to heave harder.

He pushed himself up from the white porcelain bowl and staggered back into the room.

A picture of a pretty high school girl in a cheerleaders’ outfit hung on the wall above his bed. Her long, flowing blond hair touched her shoulders and appeared to be in disarray. The moment captured as a gust of wind blew it from its perfect shape.

He crashed to the floor and then crawled over to his bed. He clawed his way up, grasped the sheet and pulled himself into the bed, which was inclined. He gasped for air as he laid down. He wheezed. He pulled a piece of his hair out of his eyes. He didn’t have much hair left.

Jacob thought back to better times. Being only seventeen, he hadn’t been here too long. He remembered launching 40 yard touchdown passes to receivers down field as crowds in the stands roared. He was every girl’s dream. Everyday a new girl would send him a love note. They’d slip them through the crack in his locker. He’d find it later and smile. Sometimes they’d pass him one in class. It was nice to be desired. He hadn’t even received a visit since he came to this place.

“Jacob, it’s time for your shot.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You need it.”

“Why don’t you let me die already?”

The nun, dressed in gray, just smiled, walked over, pulled up his sleeve and stuck the needle into to his bony upper arm and pushed down the plunger. Temporary relief is what morphine offers.

“Get the fuck outta here.”

He couldn’t help the way he felt. He focused on the past but the present he couldn’t escape. The leukemia weaved its way through his body. It infected every white cell. Time was lost. Hope was gone. Death was near.

At the nurse’s station, or, more correctly, the nun’s station, the two Sisters looked at each other, each frowning.

“Sister Mary maybe you should give him what he wants. And tell the doctor to cease the treatments.”

Sister Mary walked to the end of the hall, opened the door and held her frock up with her left hand and glided her other hand over the rail as she stepped down the stairs until she came to the basement where a prayer vigil was set up with a bunch of candles in red glass holders. She lit one and then kneeled down before the large wooden crucifix and said the Our Father.

Jacob tilted his head as the door opened to his hospice room.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I am Sister Patricia. I came to talk.”

“Go find somebody who gives a fuck, what did I miss a fucking meeting or something? I’m supposed to gush out all my feelings and everything is gonna be hunky doory, huh? ” he coughed out, trying to make it sound louder.

She didn’t listen and sat down on the bed and put her hand on Jacob’s bony leg. He was too weak to try and swat it away. She told him how God and medicine could cure him. She told him to stay positive. She told him to pray. Jacob spit on her. She wiped it off her face and then rubbed it on a napkin she pulled out from a hidden pocket in her frock. Sister Patricia laid her other hand on Jacob’s forehead and said a prayer, a prayer for the dying.

Jacob wasn’t even Catholic; he was Jewish. The reason his parents never visited him was because they lived in the slums of Tel Aviv and spent all their shekels to send Jacob to America where suicide bombers didn’t blow up buses, where he could put his talents as a football player to the test, where he could thrive. He told the nuns that his parents died in a suicide bombing on a bus in 2001 because he didn’t want them to see him die. He wished Alexis, the cheerleader in the picture would visit, but he never got so much as a letter. After he was diagnosed and went to the hospital she broke of all contact. Last time he heard from anybody was his history teacher who called one day, and, who not being able to lie, told him that Alexis was going to the prom with his best friend, the wide receiver, Mark.

Jacob lived on the outskirts of town in a trailer that his parents had paid for. The reason he ended up in the hospice was because he had no health insurance and it was the only place that would take him in.

“Jacob, I can help you. I can love you. God is love”

“Love me? You’re a fucking nun and I'm a self-hating Jew. That and I’m fucking dying if you hadn’t noticed, bitch. What the fuck, seriously,” he said, coughing as he spit the last word out of his mouth

“God can heal all wounds, even the deepest ones that seem as if they will scar you forever.”

“There is no God.”

Sister Patricia started caressing his thigh, saying how she never even wanted to be a nun, that her parents forced her into it and that she was a virgin.

Her hair peaked out of her headdress; a light blond wisp tickled her cheek. Her skin was flawless and her perky breasts pushed out the front of her frock like none of the other old nurse breasts could She didn’t look a day over 20.

“I have to go now Jacob. I’ll visit you tomorrow night.”

Jacob rarely slept; he stared at the ceiling at night. The touch of Sister Patricia’s hand on his thigh send shivers down his spine as he thought of it. He smiled. He hadn’t smiled since he came to this place. He fell asleep.

“Morning, Jacob,” Sister Mary said, strolling in and opening the blinds. “It’s time to check your vitals.”

Jacob didn’t say a word as she strolled over to him like the old nun that she was and wrapped the cuff around his upper arm and pumped the little air bulb until the cuff tightened to capacity.

“Very good Jacob. You seem to be doing better. Your face even has a little color. But, it’s time for you IV and then the morphine.”

A doctor in a green scrub wearing a mask rushed in, rolling an IV filled with chemo—specifically, a high dose interferon. He told the nun to prep the vein for the injection. Then after she wiped his arm with anesthetic, patted it dry and touched Jacob’s forehead again, the doctor came over and inserted the larger needle into his vein and watched as the blood started to filter through the hole and then he pressed the on button and the chemo swam into his bloodstream like thousands of little submarines all armed to teeth with one mission: kill. Kill the cancer. Kill everything. Try not to kill the patient. It happens sometimes. Sometimes they do it themselves when the pain becomes too much to bear and the morphine steps its magical, yet deceptive, healing abilities.

After all the last drop of that deadly fluid entered his blood, the nun gave Jacob another shot in the arm.

Jacob looked up and waited for the rush as the morphine send waves of pleasure through his body. The tsunami of ecstasy started at his heart and then washed up on every cell on his body, caressing him like the warm waters of the Atlantic off the coast of Florida in August. He squinted his eyes and saw the room start to dance, as the nun closed the door to give the shot to the next patient.

As the door closed, it creaked back open as Jacob stared out the window. Sister Patricia sauntered into the room, grazing her fingertips against the wall until she put her hand on Jacob’s head. “Your fever’s gone. You look better.”

“Well if it isn’t the 20 year old virgin nun.”

“Shush, Jacob. I’m only here to help you.”

“Well then show me some mercy, fuck.”

They talked about the sunny day first and the Sister even offered to wheel Jacob out to the garden outside of the hospice that resembled some scene from an Amazon jungle: palm trees and sycamores, frogs leaping out of ponds, fish swimming, trained tropical birds fluttering their wings. But Jacob didn’t feel much like moving he told her and then he grabbed a piece of her gray frock.

“Kinda rough fabric, looked softer.”

“It does get hot.”

Jacob lapsed in and out of consciousness. His head nodded. His aches left. He felt good. He was originally on Oxycontins, but in his condition they just didn’t do the trick. Most of the nuns didn’t like him. Most patients tended to be sullen but jovial in a way. Jacob was angry—at God, at his ex, at the world for even being born. “Oh God, why are you doing this to me,” he’d cry out at night silently so no one would here. He kept thinking back. And that was his problem. All past. No present. No future.

When the nuns came in he unleashed his fury at them. He’d throw whatever he could get his hands on—spoons, forks, flowers if anyone sent them, which they didn’t. In a world full of people, in a world he thought was happy, in a world that appeared so nice, he felt hated and he hated himself for allowing the bitter poison of animosity to sicken his soul the way the leukemia sickened his blood.

“You’re really pretty. Why don’t you get out of the hell out of here.”

“It’s where I belong.”

“You should live. This isn’t living watching the dying. People like me. People filled with bitterness. People who hate everyone.”

Sister Patricia simply laid her hand on his chest and rubbed it. Jacob grabbed he r hand and held it. The Sister didn’t pull away. Then Jacob moved it down farther and farther until it was right on his crotch which attempted to harden and ever so slowly it did. She glanced down. He pulled her on top of his bony body as she languidly fell all over him, straddling his legs her crotch pushed up against his.

Back when Jacob was in school he had the chance to be with girls, but never really got anywhere. A touch here. A kiss there. A brush against a perky breast there. But nothing intimate. He’d always figured time was on his side, that he’d overcome his shyness. What a joke God played on him—for time slips away fast and you cannot recreate moments passes you can only create future ones. And that’s what he realized as she bucked against him, riding him. It’s what he realized when he threw her over and mounted her. It’s what he realized when he wanted that final cigarette. When he awoke she was gone. But she’d come back.

Sister Mary walked in the door and saw Jacob smiling.

“You look better.”

“I feel it.”

“Any pain?”

“A little. But I’m feeling positive like you told me; maybe I’ll make it after all. Maybe I can beat this.”

“Well I have your shot.”

“How come Sister Patricia doesn’t give it to me?”

“Excuse me, Jacob.”

“Sister Patricia, I want her to be the person who gives me the shot.”

“Jacob, you must be having some sort of reaction to the morphine. No Sister Patricia ever worked here and no one by that name does now.”

“She was twenty. Blond hair. Pretty.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t give you the shot.”

The blood drained from Jacob’s face like so many memories that need to be forgotten and his eyes filled with tears that streamed down his face. He collapsed. The heart monitor beeped and then flatlined. Code blue. Code blue.

The Itch

I scratched my scrotum. I scratched it again and again. It was a bitter relief. Scratch and bleed. Scratch. Then bleed. The problem started months ago, I didn't think much of it at first, "just a little bit of jock itch." Not true. That fleeting itch turned into a full-blown case of my scrotum and butt are bleeding and there is no fucking God type of itch. I fled to the supermarket to find relief, limping from the pain in my genitals as I walked down aisle after aisle, searching for something. Maybe some Vagisil will help, I thought as I considered all my options. I bought that and a host of other feminine hygiene products as well as some itch creams for babies. I'd used every jock itch medication on the block from Lotrimin to Itch-be-Gone. None worked. I didn't care that I'd be buying products designed for someone of a different plumbing structure as long as it worked. Hell, soon enough I won't have any plumbing at all if this itch cream doesn’t work. I felt like pulling down my pants right there in the middle of the aisle, exposing myself to everyone and clawing away with my overgrown fingernails for a little bit of temporary satisfaction. Just thinking about scratching the itch a little caused escatasy. But the agony always returns.

Every night I turn over tens of times and pull the covers this way and that way to find a comfortable position. There isn’t one. I placed the fan right on my crotch in the hope that some cool air would spell relief. Nope. I did find something that worked, kind of. It was meant for severe Poison Ivy, but “what the hell,” I said out loud to no one. The problem was as soon as he applied it my balls burned like they were caught in a fence in the middle of a nuclear explosion. I just lathered it on down there, picked up a towel, put it in my mouth, bit down, felt the burn, screamed under the makeshift muffle, looked at the clock, and waited for it to pass. The relief, as painful as it was, was worth it. It lasted a total of ten itch-free minutes every time. I figure it had something to do with the unbelievable pain it inflicted.

But, it became too much so I got the femme products. Hell, I'd stick a tampon up my butt if I thought it would help, though I don’t see how it could. It would soak up the blood though. I couldn't take it so before I put the products on, I put my hands down my pants and gave a little scratch. The ecstasy. The agony. My whole body went into a spasm and shivered as if I were a junkie and had just got the first fix of the morning. A wave of pleasure ran over my skin and through my body as I gave a little scratch. I smiled. It disappeared as soon as I took my hand away. There was blood on it. A lot of blood.

Strewn about my room, which before the itch was impeccably clean, was a variety of dirty underwear drenched in every conceivable itch cream on the market. I’d just lop the stuff in globs all over the area.

I reached into his pocket and pulled out a broken packet of ketchup that leaked through the hole in my pocket that I ripped open to allow easier access to my scrotum and allow a degree of discreetness, too. “Thank God,” I sighed, realizing I wasn’t bleeding.

I collapsed down on the bed. My heart pounded from the very thought his balls were torn open.

I shot up from bed at 5:30 p.m. Then I looked at the last rays of sunlight fading through my window and shouted an obscenity as I caught the image of my dress shirt and pressed denim pants. “7:30 tonight, dammit,” I muttered. Then I leaped out of bed, collapsed, pushed myself back up, and limped to the shower.

I tore my clothes off in the bathroom and looked in the mirror above the sink. Curious, I raised myself onto the counter and spread my genitals apart; the skin, graying and turning purple, had giant lacerations streaked across them that resembled the worn fabric of a sofa in the house of a old woman with too many cats. I touched my butt.

Not that too, I thought, turning around and gripping my cheeks, pulling them apart, causing a ripping sound, the kind you hear when trying to tear apart magazine pages that are stuck together like the dried up gum under school desks. I stared at the nascent signs of redness appearing. I flicked off some dried blood.

Just then the phone rang.

“Hello. Cindy?” I said, snatching the phone from its cradle, catching my breath from the sprint down the cluttered hallway, cringing from the throbbing of my big toe that I smashed into the ground when I jumped down off the counter.

“Is Joe home?”

“This is him,” I said, dropping my shoulders down, sighing.

“Hi Joe, this is Brenda from HealthNow Insurance. We haven’t received your payment for your health insurance since last month. If we don’t have it by the thirty-first we’ll be forced to terminate your coverage.”

“The thing is I have this other bill and … you know. I was hoping…”

“Hoping? How about paying? Either you pay it or your insurance will be canceled. If you have any questions you’ll have to call customer service. Good day, sir.”

I slipped the phone back unto its hook; I shrugged my shoulders. Waddling over to the coffee maker, I pressed the on button. “Good thing I took off this week,” I muttered to myself, tugging at my pants, drawing the zipper down, opening up the hole that would allow me sweet, sweet relief. I clenched my teeth. But, then I had an epiphany and ripped my hand away from my crotch and slammed it down unto the counter. I smiled and grabbed my keys.

The branches of the trees scraped across the windows of the house as the wind blew them back and forth as he slammed the door. Outside, water dripped off the icicles hanging from the roof outside.

At the drug store, still wearing my work out pants that masqueraded as pajamas and a beat up white shirt with brown stains on the underarms, I tottered over to the over the counter allergy medication aisle. Just recently, the FDA allowed certain medications to be sold that before you needed a prescription to buy. I grabbed a box off the shelf, gasping at the price, and squinting my eyes, trying to read the list of cures the medication promised. Itchiness related to seasonal allergies was one of the miracles the brand assured.

I grabbed the box with a crescent moon on it since it was the least expensive and headed for the register. The cashier looked at me, pulled her head back, and pressed her lips shut. I stood, tracing my finger over my crotch and didn’t realize until it was too late that she probably thought it was some creepy come on, the kind of thing old men do at bars to young women that are there with friends, trying to have a good time.

The wind blew on my face as I opened the door and wrestled with the bag, yanking the pills out, ripping the box open, and peeling the pills out. Two now, two as soon as this itch doesn’t go away. I popped them in my mouth and swallowed them with saliva. Looking at my watch, I revved the engine and sped into reverse and darted back to the apartment; I only had an hour left before the date.

I scurried around the house searching for clean underwear; it wasn’t my biggest concern lately. I decided, with a smile at my brilliance, to douse my dirty, stained underwear with cologne: L'essence de L'homme—the most expensive I found two days ago at the mall. I raced back up the stairs, skipping several steps and grabbed my pants and shirt and then glided the shirt over my body and stepped into the pants with the grace of figure skater.

I glanced at my Rolex watch. Time for a little pre-date indulgence, I thought, grinning.

In the dining room furnished with the finest leather sofa, love seat, and recliner, I opened the mahogany liquor cabinet and stretched my arm over the various wines, whiskeys, and vodkas for a bottle of Kentucky Fire Engine Red Whiskey hidden in the back.

I poured a double shot of the stuff into a glass and then slugged it down. I twitched. I gagged. I squinted. I forced myself not to puke. Then I poured another glass, plopped myself down on the couch, picked up the remote and turned on the TV. My eyes closed for a second. “Better get going before I fall asleep. Damn, I already got so much,” I whispered.

I put my head down and looked at my crotch. My hands had been working non-stop since he got home: ironing, pouring, holding, combing, spraying—but, I didn’t once scratch.

I put my hand down my pants and scratched. Nothing. No relief. No itch existed. The medication worked wonders; his date would be fine after all. The thoughts vanished of running to the bathroom to throw my hands to his balls to scratch that itch away. The the fear of Cindy glancing at him as he unknowingly grabbed, rearranged, and scratched his balls into submission and causing the irreversible impression that he was in fact a crude, crass white trash trailer park hillbilly dressed to the nines disappeared.

I arrived to the bar at 7 p.m.; Cindy wasn’t there yet, so I told the Maitre D to site me while I wait. I think I may have slurred my words as he had to ask me twice what name the reservations were under. I ordered a water. I asked for menus. I twittled my fingers, constantly glancing at my watch as the digits ticked away past 7:45.

I waited longer. Then a little bit more before I decided to call. Finally I picked up the phone and dialed though I din’t want to appear desperate. The phone went straight to voice mail. I didn’t leave a message. Did she stand me up? Was this all a dream? I didn’t understand. The waiter came over about 8:30 and asked if that was all. I said “yes.” Then I left.

At home I could feel the itch coming back on, so took a couple more pills and fell asleep, alone—again, forever. At least that’s how I felt at the time. That was four months ago and I don’t know what I feel now.

That Red Chinese Place: Lucky's

Pulling off an old, dusty copy of The Histories from the top shelve, which was so high she needed to use the step ladder, Kate opened up the book, whose pages yellowed long ago, and a piece of paper fell out, flittering to the floor like the first snowflake in winter. She stepped down. She picked it up. She read it out loud: Mr. Wong 678-9078. Above the English writing five Chinese characters were written on it. She squinted her eyes. How long had it been there she wondered? The book looked old, but the piece of paper was fresh and the ink unfaded. Did someone leave it there by accident? Since the book was so high on the shelf was the number to some organized crime syndicate based out of Shanghai and they thought since the book was so old they could just leave the message in there so no one would read it? Or maybe it was just an old man who wanted to help or a kid playing a prank?
Kate always did have an over-active imagination. She spent days hovering over fantasy books at The Philadelphia Free Library. She marveled at the beauty of it. At the marble. Of the grand staircase when you walk in. of all the books. Of the bums who routinely made hasty exits through the heavy doors after being shooed away by security. It all enthralled her. But this, this was the most exciting thing so far she found since she moved to the city to attend Penn a year ago. Should she call she thought; she had to.
Never much of a party girl, she spent long days at the library. Because of this here friendships, if you could call them that, were not many. Mostly it was helping others with homework, though she did accept an invitation from one girl to go to a keg party in an apartment in West Philly. Needless to say she got drunk and sick and then even sicker. She puked everywhere. When the partygoers found out she had never drank before they made it a point to make sure she became plenty wasted. She hadn’t drank since.
But this was brand new excitement. She took out her cell phone and called the number. It rang. It rang. It went to a voicemail: this person has yet to set up their voicemail. Bye. How rude was that message she thought. Maybe he’d see the missed call and call back. She would. She always answered her phone. She didn’t get many phone calls and when she did it was usually prank calls. She reckoned that someone had scribbled her cell number on some bathroom stall.
But the characters haunted her. What could they mean? So she headed to the nearest Chinese restaurant she could find. She walked across Vine Street and then passed a street vendor who looked Chinese and was selling hot dogs and pretzels out if a lunch truck.
“Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me what these Chinese characters mean?”
“What just cause I look Asian you think me Chinese I Japanese get out.”
“I’m so, so sorry.”
“Ha! You fell for it. I’m just joking. Yeah, I can try my Chinese isn’t that good though. I’m second generation.”
“Oh, God, you scared me for a second,” Kate said handing him the paper.
“It says something about,” Mr. Wong squints, “about, about a book holds a house of gold. It’s a proverb, meaning you should read since knowledge is money and gets you places. Where’d you get it?”
“In an old, yellowed copy of The Histories by Herodotus at the library.”
“Ha. That’s funny. Probably some joke. But why the English name and number. A girl as pretty as you should spend more time enjoying life and less time trying to figure out vague mysteries. Maybe that’s what it meant.”
“No. I don’t think so. Maybe This Mr. Wong loves the book and is dying and is giving away all his money to ever finds it.”
“And maybe today and I’ll go home and find that someone has paid all my bills.”
“Funny.”
She scurried back to the library, dodging speeding cars on Vine Street like Frogger, afraid that someone else might take out the book before she could check it out. Running up the library steps after dismissing several angry and unmentionable comments for motorists her sundress swirled around as she an up the steps, swung the doors, and made it back to the shelf where the book that contained the note still sat.
“Hmm, there doesn’t seem to be a barcode on it, young lady. Where’d you get this again?” said the little, old librarian more familiar with the Dewey Decimal system then any “new fangled technology” as she often called it to some of the younger and more hip librarians.
“It was in the Map department on the second floor,” Kate gasped.
“Now why on earth would a history book be in the Map department?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone misplaced it. Maybe someone put it there. Maybe it’s some sorta message.”
“Message? Let me take a look-see. Oh, here in the second to last page is the sleeve and card for the old system. The one that worked when books weren’t misplaced. Ah, this is quite a find young missy. No one has taken out this book since 1979. You weren’t even a twinkle in your father’s eye yet.”
“1979?”
“Yes, now let me just take this back and get it logged into the new system.”
The old librarian waddled to the desk behind her and gave the book to some guy who placed a bar code in it, typed something into the computer and handed it back to the old woman.
“There you go now honey.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, smiling and handing her card to the woman. With that she left.
Leaving the library and walking briskly down the city streets, through alleyways, passing the Chinese vendor who glanced at the book and shook his head while Kate pretended not to notice, she bumped into a bike messenger who was stopped on the corner of Market Street, knocking both of them down and tangling their legs in some weird, awkward embrace as cars zip by with passengers squinting at the sight of a hipster helping up a frightened girl gripping a book with her free hand.
The Comcast Tower thrusts its modern, mirrored reflection to the ground, unshakeable, the tower, seemingly small from the distance, dwarfed its older counter parts: Liberty One and Two.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Kate says, her eyes planted to the sky.
“Are you okay?” the boys says, his eyes roaming over their entangled legs as he pulls his one leg away from hers his denim jeans dragging across Kate’s smooth legs and past the yellow dress she wore.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said pushing herself up and tucking the book in front of her breasts as he crossed her arms and starts to say something, before he interrupts.
“It was completely my fault, really. Us messengers don’t look where we’re going half the time and don’t care the other half. Hey, my name’s Ryan, Ryan Jeffries.”
“Kate, but I have to…”
“Hey, let me make it up to you. Would you want…”
“I really can’t.”
“But, well, here take my card. I’m an artist. If you change your mind, it’s nothing really. We could just grab a beer. Do you like art?”
“I have to go; I’ll think about it,” Kate says, shoving the card in between the pages of the book as Ryan gives a crooked smile and watches her step up her pace and fade into the distance, scurrying towards City Hall with William Penn looking down on her.
Back in her apartment, located on the ninth floor of an apartment building on 14th Street, she stared out the window as the moon rose above the skyline and the sun fell below the horizon, causing that beautiful, pinkish, purplish glow in the sky—the kind that cause young lovers to kiss like the never kissed before, dreaming of fairy tale love.
Kate started to pace around. She thought about the number. She thought about the vendor. The librarian. The sky. The book. She picked it up and started reading. Herodotus wrote that no one should take what he says as absolute truth only some version of it. How events were described to him and he was just a messenger that wanted to tall a story to make people think, smile, and give them some sort of guide on how history plays itself out in the grand scheme of things even if the history itself was filled with tall tales of one-eyes giants battling an armies composed of hundreds of thousands fighting an army of one hundred.
Sitting down on the fluffy, blue couch, she pulled her cellphone out of her purse that laid on the floor and slid open the key pad. Going to calls made, she realized she miss-dialed the number. So it wasn’t that the voicemail wasn’t set up, it’s that she called the wrong number. So this Mr. Wong does exist. The book does contain gold. But why gold? A smile broke out on her face like those you’d see on a thousand prisoners escaping across razor-wired fences and running into the distance across fields and into hiding. But Kate didn’t want to hide; she wanted to call. Was it too late? Would he answer? Was it even a phone number? Her mind raced. Her fingers trembled. Her heart pounded. This mystery that plagued her day might be solved. Or maybe it would drag on for weeks with her finding out where he lived after tracking him down and with him giving he her just rewards for being so generous as to return what was surely valuable and needed to be found.
She dialed the numbers. The phone rang. It rang again. Someone answered.
Outside rain started to tap on the windowpanes and the blinds started to rattle as the storm that was approaching all day materialized. Kate stared out the window. Her gaze so intense it could make grown men timid.
“Helwo, Mr. Wong’s.”
“”Hi, I’m looking for Mr. Wong.”
“Pick up or delivery>”
“I’d like to talk to Mr. Wong.”
“Mr. Wong. Who is Mr. Wong? This Chinese take-out and delivery prace. What you wike to order?”
“But I found your number in a book.”
“Phonebook. Yes, we advertise.”
“No it was in a book with a message saying something about books hold a house of gold.”
“Ah, yes. Ancient Chinese proverb. Very good. Books contain knowledge. What you like.”
“But…”
“You have too much time on your hands. Why not you go meet boy? Make famary. You seem very young to be chasing proverbs. Go live. That your fortune. Know what you like.”
Kate slid the top piece of the phone over the key pad and dropped it on the floor. The back cover and battery pooped out and darted across the room. A tear formed in her eye. No mystery existed. It was probably some student writing down a number to order Chinese as he was studying up on history and practicing his Chinese by writing down some stupid well-known Chinese proverb as practice for a test.
She gazed up at the ceiling, tracing he fingers over the book that rested on her lap. She opened it and felt another piece of strong paper. She looked down and it was Ryan’s business card. The only thing she didn’t think about all day. She looked out the window and then to her phone on the floor.

Home Sweet Home

Melissa crushed the thick snow that glittered from the sunset under her feet as she approached the cabin, carrying a dead deer with dangling limp legs over her shoulder. She placed it in the thick snow in front of the wooden house. Home. Reaching into the pocket on her blue jeans she pulled out a set of keys and opened the door, leaving the wind and snow behind her.
An explosion echoed through the thick pine trees, guarding the cabin as she walked through the door.
Melissa sauntered over to the countertop in the kitchen, dragging her fingers over the paneled wooden walls covered with a thick dust. She picked up a rectangular wooden box filled with old snapshots of her family playing in the snow in front of the cabin and inhaled a blast of cedar through her nose. Closing her eyes and smiling she lit a candle. The scent of strawberry rising from the flames reminded her of mom.
She remembered Brian saying, “He’s dead you can’t take him with you.” She took the deer anyway, picking him up right out of the mud. His eyes looked so innocent rolled over black with death, his legs limp and twisted the wrong way looked helpless reaching for the ground when she lifted the buck over her shoulder. “You’re too sweet,” Brian said to her as she trekked away with the deer.
She flicked the switch on the wall, flooding the room with light. A poster with the words “Strike a Blow for Mother Earth” graced the wall on the left side of the room next to a black and white picture of Che Guevara. Pictures of her mom, dad, and two brothers stared back from the other wall.
Brian, Steve, and Lynn shivered in from the darkness, carrying green duffel bags. Brian held a red gasoline canister.
“How’d it go, honey?” Melissa said.
“Great,” Brian said. “Better than great.”
“There’s something in your hair,” Melissa said as she grabbed a leaf out of Brian’s black deadlocks. “Did you call the veterinarian?”
“No.”
“You promised.”
“I couldn’t get through. There’s no reception up here.”
“Use this phone.”
“You have to bury it Melissa. That thing stinks,” Brian said, referring to the odor of rotting flesh outside.
“No. We can save him.”
“I love that deer as much as you do honey, but what is, is,” Brian said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it away.
“Call.”
Brian picked up the old rotary phone and dialed. Someone picked up. He spoke. Walking away to the other side of the cabin, whispering so the others couldn’t hear he told the person he’d meet him at Fork’s Road at noon.
“It’s cool. I’m meeting him tomorrow,” he said as Melissa slid her hand into Brian’s back pocket.
Melissa, standing on her tiptoes, placing her hands on Brian’s shoulders pecked him on the cheek. The ring on her finger sparkled as pure as a virgin’s teardrop on prom night.
Love.
“I can’t believe those god damned loggers ran over the deer and just left him there to die in the cold. Fuckers. I swear to God, I hope they burn in hell,” Melissa said, grabbing a cloth, running it under the tap in the kitchen, and walking to the door. It slammed. A gust of cold wind blew into the room.
Melissa hesitated up to the dead dear, kneeled down, and wiped the blood off of his mouth. She rubbed her hand over the deer’s fur, staring at him. She took the rag and wiped her eyes. Bastards, she thought.
“Melissa. Get in here,” Brian said. He startled her.
Steve and Lynn sat mesmerized on the couch, gazing at the picture on the television.
“This just in the Vale Development Project has gone up in flames tonight. Suspected members of a terrorist group are believed to be responsible. Damage is said to be at least fifty million dollars. Police Officer Tad Bradley fired a shot during the attack. What he thought was a terrorist turned out to be an endangered Columbian White-tailed Deer. Poor little thing. We’ll get back to you when we learn more about this developing story,” the anchorman said.
Jumping up and cheering the four danced around the room.
“We did it,” Melissa said. “We did it. That’ll teach those dicks to rape the planet.”
Sitting down with crossed-legs and looking at everyone Melissa pulled a joint out of a rainbow striped change purse. She lit it. Sucking in the harsh smoke she inhaled as deep as she could and exhaled, passing the joint to Brian. She coughed. Melissa zoned in on the lines on the far side of the wall.
“Look everyone,” Melissa pointed. “The blue ink lines on the wall are where my dad marked my growth spurts. Awesome.”
Brian draped his arm over Melissa’s shoulder, squeezing her, smiling, staring into her brown eyes. Smoke danced around the bulb, hanging high on the ceiling, lighting the room languidly. Steve and Lynn staggered up and told Brian and Melissa they were going to bed.
“Goodnight guys,” Melissa said.
Melissa stared at Brian. He didn’t notice. She pulled him up and dragged him to the other room where she slept as a little girl.
The cabin, old and strong, smelled of smoke now and the feeling you receive only as a kid on Christmas morning saturated the place.
Melissa awoke the next morning and brewed a pot of coffee. The sky, cloudy and white, looked painted on the window. Shuffling through the drawers in the kitchen she found an old yoga journal she used when she was in high school.
“Might as well,” she said, noticing a police cruiser sitting outside of her cabin.
The wind whistled hard outside, causing the branches on the trees to scrape against the side of the house, emitting a noise reminiscent of long fingernails clawing their way down a blackboard.
Knock, knock, knock. “Hello, is anyone home?” the police officer said.
“Holy fuck,” Melissa whispered. “The police.” Brian, Steve, and Lynn crawled into the main room where Melissa stood like a statue. They pulled her down.
“What are we going to do?” Brian said.
“Don’t look at me,” Steve said. Lynn remained silent.
“We’re going to jail for so long. Fuck dude,” Steve whined.
“Stop it. We’re going to be fine. Stay cool man,” Brian said.
Melissa gazed out the window. The forest, thick with old trees and snow, was a forbidding place. She wondered how they could have found them? It seemed so simple. Go in at night … douse the wood with gasoline … strike the match … watch it burn … run … live, happily ever after. She glanced at the gasoline canister.
An idea lit up in her head. Would it work? Yes. Did she have a choice? No.
Knock, knock, knock. “Is anyone home?” the police officer said.
“What are you doing?” Brian said as Melissa stood up and walked towards the door.
“Answering it.”
“Don’t.”
Shaking she grabbed the door handle with sweaty palms. Her heart raced. She glanced over her shoulder at the others and closed her eyes. She opened it.
“Howdy miss,” The officer said, inhaling an odor through his nose, making him gag. “My name is Sheriff Jon Blamires. I was wondering if you saw anything out of the ordinary last night. Someone burned down Vale.”
“Oh my God. No. That’s horrible.”
“Is everything all right? You look a little flush. Do you smell something funky? That’s what brought me up here. Something died. Eww. Anyway I was poking around and saw this here cabin and wanted to ask if you saw anything. You here by yourself?”
“No. I’m with my fiancé Brian and our friends. We’re going snowboarding. I can’t believe some asshole burnt down Vale. I was so waiting for it. Killer snowboarding.”
“I bet it woulda’ been. I’m sorry to have bothered you. Good day miss. If you see anything call me.”
She shut the door. The others sighed. Outside the officer opened his car door and turned on the engine. He drove away down the hill.
“We have to get out of here,” Melissa said. “Now.”
“Why?” Brian said.
“He’ll be back. He knows what I look like.”
“Where we gonna go?”
“Far away from here. Far away from home.”
She languidly looked around the room, smiling. “I have to do something,” she said, stepping towards the door, grabbing a shovel, heaving it over her shoulder. Looking back at Brian she opened the door, letting in a blast of morning sunlight and a putrid whiff of winter air.
Melissa dug. She dug a hole right through the thick snow in the frozen ground. She dug for hours. She finished. Picking up the deer his stiff legs sticking down she rested him in the ground.
Brian came outside. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I know,” Melissa said, patting down the mound of dirt with her hands, burying the last remaining white-tailed deer. “Brian, do me a favor and grab the gasoline.”

The Bike Lottery

The call to prayer echoes out from the top of the minaret of the local mosque across the two storied row homes of the dreary North Philadelphia neighborhood. The sun, just starting to peek out over the horizon, looks a reddish-purple as it struggles to force it’s way over Roosevelt Boulevard and through the dark thunder clouds hovering over the skyline.
Down the street from Luzerne and Fairhill a small crowd carries tables, chairs and tents from white vans parked on the grass of Hunting Park. One of the women in the group, who was about five feet tall and tugs at the too short blue shirt, hammers a sign reading FAIR into the ground. It’s a simple sign with a painfully simple message.
But this meant next to nothing to Jay who wakes up to the sound of hammering and loud, obnoxious prayer calls when he would rather have stayed asleep far away from the realities of everyday life in this little section of Kill-a-Delphia. He rubs his eyes with closed fists and lowers his feet to the floor.
Jay still smiles though as he slips on his shoes as he hunched over the bed. Day ago he bought a new pair from the paycheck he received at his new job as a clerk at a local deli on Erie Avenue near the El. Jay had been released from the Youth Study Center on 20th Street not too long ago. Living with his grandmom, he promised her he wouldn’t get into anymore trouble. He was only 12.
For Jay, life had not been so kind, as it was not so kind to so many of the residents of Hunting Park. A neighborhood plagued with late night crack deals and a section of the city that went well beyond the call to kill your fellow man for no reason whatsoever other than an unwanted glance.
Jay went to Juvie for selling rocks on Fairhill Street. Some bum came up and wanted a bundle, and, since Jay was stoned at the time, he didn’t think anything out of the ordinary about how a homeless man could afford that much rock. Well, he was no homeless man; he was undercover. Since he was so young he only did a year, but the urine-stained walls and lingering smell of feces didn’t exactly make the place some kind of locked down Radisson. Not only that but when he was arrested his bike was left on the side of the one rowhome on the corner with the boarded up windows and porch with a giant hole in the middle of it.
“Man, I wonder if there’s any soda in the fridge or somethin’,” Jay mutters under his breath as he trudges through the pile of clothes on the floor of his bedroom. As he enters the kitchen he sees his grandmom sipping on a cup of coffee.
“Jay honey, someone’s throwing a fair today down the street. Maybe you should go it would be fun”
“A fair. You talking about a fair. Nah, me and Nate were thinking ‘bout hitting up the bowling alley on Erie.”
“It’s a free fair and there’s even prizes.”
“I don’t know, Gran. I’ll see what Nate wants to do.”
Just then, Nate knocks on the door. “It’s unlocked, bitch. Come in.”
“Don’t talk like that. You need to learn manners young man. You can’t end up like some no good loser. You get good grades and you’re going to college and back to school at the end of August. I won’t, I won’t have you end up like that no good Son of mine.”
“I’m sorry Gran. It’s just words, for reals.”
Nate and Jay pound each other’s fist and then walk out with a passing hand motion to grandmom as they open the door and let it close slowly as it creaks.
They head down the corner and walk into a deli and both grab an energy drink from the refrigerator. They pay for it in dimes and quarters and leave.
‘Hey, man you see dat fair they throwing in Hunting Park. I hear they giving away a bike and they got cotton candy and shit.”
“Fuck, man I thought we was going bowling.”
“Fuck bowling, dat always there and this fair is a one time thing.” “Ar’ite let’s go. Just for a minute though to check this whack shit out, yo. I ain’t tying to go on some fairy ass merry-go-round and to win stuffed animals.”
The cars whiz by down Luzerne. Some are nice. Others squeal like dying pigs left in burning engines. Still other hunker buy as if they had hit a roadside bomb that only damaged the car slightly.
The sounds of hip-hop reverberate through park and kids run around all over. Some with painted faces. Others munching on cotton candy. Parents stand by trees seeking shade and talk. Some drink beer out of bags. Some slug down water. Others just stand there and pay no attention.
“Hey, man look at dat. It’s a bike and you can win it. Let’s go enter. Man and maybe if you win you’d have a bike again. That would be phat, man.”
“What? That probably is my bike and they all painted it and shit to make me not notice. I shoot those mutherfuckers.”
They both walk over to the booth where a lady and man stand handing out raffle tickets. “It’s completely free they yell. Free bike. Enter to win. Free bike. There’s only a limited amount of tickets so enter now.”
“Shit man I’m gonna enter as many times as possible. You see dat thing it be sweet as hell. I be getting all the honeys.”
“Man, are you fucking stupid. You ain't gonna win that bike. Shit’s fixed. That guy probably gonna give it to his little girl or something. Seriously, you think two niggers like us are ever gonna win anything? You better wise up Nate, for reals.”
“Man, you stupid. I’ll win and then maybe I let you ride it. Maybe.”
The man at the counter glances over to the two boys and shakes his head, turning away. Nate walks over to the man and asks for a raffle ticket and after filling it out, the man folds it twice over and drops it in the box.
“Good luck wit dat shit, yo. Man, why even bother.”
“Man, you way to bitter for a 12 year old.”
The two walk away and start picking up branches that the storm knocked down the night before. “Stick fight,” Jay yells. The swing the sticks at each other like they were Obi One Kanobi and Darth Vader battling it out in the first Star Wars movie—the one that doesn’t suck.
The two, after finding the fair rather boring, headed down Eight Street to buy some ice cream. The little carnival was winding down anyway and the raffle stand had run out of tickets hours ago so the two stopped their game of stick wars to indulge in a summer delight for children.
The street, lined with garbage pushed to the curb with flyers floating about and bouncing up and down in some random fashion throughout the road, was dangerous. A tall man in baggy jeans and an oversized tee-shirt hands off a large yellow bag filled with even smaller yellow bag to what appears to be a cancer patient—though he is no cancer patient. A sniper sits on the rooftop waiting for any would-be rivals from capping them. Another younger looking kid stands on the corner with a cell phone in hand and with shifty eyes makes sure no police cruise down the street.
The two walk past without a glance though jay notices and looks back t the BMX that looks just like his. “Don’t fuck with them, man. Even if it is yours, they shoot you man. They don’t give a fuck. Look at ‘dem. Let’s go get that ice cream.”
“‘Ah’ight. It cool.”
The reach the store and step inside asking the Chinese man at the counter if he sells soft ice cream, which he does. They both buy the chocolate and vanilla mix and leave. “Man, you shoulda’ got strawberry cause you a fruit, nigger.”
“Man, you the nigger who was too dumb to fill out a free raffle to win a bike. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.”
“Man, you and your fantasies about something better really starting to get on my nerves, seriously, this a white man’s world my daddy used to tell me.”
“Yeah and where’s he? Prison. My momma says you don’t wise up that where you be to.”
“Yeah, see that bike man. We should take that shit than we can ride to the zoo again and sneak in.”
“Man, nah. I’m gonna win that other bike fair and square. You see.”
“I’m takin’ dat shit.”
Jay runs across the street hops on the bike and takes off towards Fifth street where he zigs and zags down alleyways and side streets to escape the wrath of the Seventh Street Gang.
Nate watches across the street as the men shrug and pull a phone out of their pocket and make a phone call. Nate, so frightened by the fact the gang saw him, doesn’t move but leans back against a wall, acting as if he never met Jay. Several, minutes later a police cruiser pulls up and the men move to the window and tell the officer something. The police vehicle cruise away and the men walk inside.
Shit, Nate thinks as he scratches his head baffled by the fact that the meanest gang in Philly called the cops and not their own personal army. Nate starts trudging down the street kicking a can for fun until he reaches his stoop.
“Nate, Nate thank God your home. I have great news and sorta bad news, but not so bad.”
“What, ma. I’m tired.”
“Did you sign up for that bike contest today?”
“yeah.”
“You won.”
“For reals? That’s awesome. Can’t wait to tell jay,” he yells gleefully as he lunches at his mom to give her a hug.
“There’s just one problem honey. Some kid stole the bike that a group of ministers who cleaned up Seventh Street were giving away. But there can buy another one.”
“I think I’ll call Jay now.”

88 miles an hour isn't fast enough

I had the world and watched it pass me by.
And how it happened I have no idea…I’m just left here wondering why

You got on a jet plane…flew a million miles away and even when I’m close to you
it seems like we’re so far away.

And now it seems you found another man…who wants hold your hand
And while I drink myself to sleep the way I do every night
You should know I still think of you as I grab my pillow and hold it tight

I sometimes imagine that that pillows you and that everything we had is still so very, very true. But I know, oh I know.

I know so very well in the back of my head. I know what’s really going on and while I still miss you so…I hope you understand…that when you walk past and see my smiling bright that it is all just a front ‘cause in the back of my mind you know I don’t feel right

I still miss you so and imagine you’ll come back, oh come back
We could catch a plane and get this thing back on track. We could make it right on a second chance. But I know I don’t have a chance, oh I know.

But all I have is this pen, some rhymes and a love song
It’s the only thing that keeps my holding on…it’s the only thing that keeps me strong
Cause I still miss you so, oh I know, oh I know.


Jacob’s head lay cradled in his arms folded on the desk in front of a pile of open books stacked on top of each other. Papers scattered across the floor like feathers from the wind from the fan blowing them back and fourth. The computer hissed from being kept on for so long.
On the opposite edge of the dingy basement, a six foot tall pod made out of aluminum with wires running like tentacles down its side down to the floor and back up again to a steel box with the a clock and two lights on it that sat on a wooden table. The machine’s door was open and on the inside shiny metal glistened from the light bulb tangling from the ceiling in the middle of the basement.
A fly buzzed around the machine and the piece of cold chicken and an open can of Pepsi near the box. Nothing else could be heard in the house as the twilight started to break and appear in the window well that had long grass and weeds growing in the gravel on the outside of the well.
Jacob’s hands were bandaged and you could see scars running up his arms if you looked close enough. His fingernails, blackened and cracked, dug into the table as he moved his head from one side to the other appearing to awake. But his head rested again and he started to snore.
Two years ago, he took a ride to the junkyard to buy the aluminum for the machine’s core. He graduated from M.I.T. ten years ago with a degree in advanced astrophysics; his senior these was on the theoretical possibilities of time travel if one could find or create a wormhole in order to use the elasticity of space to travel backwards at light speed to any destination and to change history. He received a C, the lowest grade he had ever received.

M.I.T or California with Rachael, Jacob thought? He pressed down the accelerator with his right foot and raced down I-95, hitting 100 mph. The highway went on for miles and the twilight broke the complete black of the early morning hours as the piercing stars faded into blue skies.
“Jacob you should come with me.”
“But this might be my only chance at M.I.T.”
“This might be your only chance for a new life.”
“Boston is new.”
“So is California.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I don’t know.”

“Rachael,” Jacob screamed, his head darting up from his arms.
Rubbing his eyes with closed fists, Jacob yawned and then picked up the screwdriver on the table and walked over to the box. He unscrewed four screws at its base and slid the cover off it and picked up a soldering iron that he had plugged in the night before and fused a piece of wire to a circuit board.
Decisions factor into your life like algebra. One wrong one can ruin an entire equation. But unlike math, you can’t just go back and erase the mistakes—they stay with you forever and no eraser can wipe away the stains. Unless, of course, you alter time and correct the things you’d do differently. But time travel is just an illusion for those who hold onto regret like a pillow at night when you’re all by yourself.
Jacob trudged up the steps past boxes filled with circuitry, wires, yellowing books, and pictures—that had long since faded, just not from memory. In the kitchen, he removed a can of coffee from the cupboard and started scooping the Columbian coffee into the percolator. Who needs sleep when you have coffee?
Jacob had long since left the hospital. He almost died that day he realized the nun was but an hallucination. Somehow, by some miracle, the thought of something better—hope—kept him alive. That was years and years ago.
The problem was that when he left the hospice and moved on he did meet someone and then was forced to make the choice. Now, years later, regret filled him like a heart devoid of blood. For whatever reason, he didn’t try to look Rachael up. He didn’t think that maybe, just maybe, she missed him too. That at this very moment she too might be looking for him. That she might too dream about him every night.
It really didn’t matter since he cloistered himself in the house after he won the award. He received $10 million dollars from a wealthy philanthropist after having discovered the elusive “God Particle” at the Long Hadron Collider in CERN near Geneva. The universe opened up to the world after that but Jacob closed down. He often wondered what she thought. She must’ve heard. It was all over the news. But that wouldn’t change the fact that he did what he did.
He didn’t like the fact that she wouldn’t go with him to Boston; she didn’t like the fact he wouldn’t go to CalTech instead and follow her to California. Something like that…it ruined things.
“God damnit, work.” He yelled at the machine which was really more of a pipe dream. In the back of his head he knew it would never work. How could he possibly bend time with scraps of uranium plated alloy? He could anyone bend time at all. It was all theory to him. He knew that time moved forward at an unstoppable pace and that even the present would become the past in a second. And the future would become the present and then the past. But going back? not possible.
He picked up the box on the table and smashed it just like all his dreams. He then threw the pieces at all the books by Bourn, Visser and Hawking. Then he collapsed on the floor, his head prostrate on the ground, and cried.
For someone like Jacob losing wasn’t easy. Ever since his battle with cancer and his subsequent victory he felt invincible. And he thought that when he made the decision to let her walk away and never ask her to stay, he’d be okay. But, he didn’t realize at the time how much he needed her.
And now as he lay on the floor he hoped against hope that he could find her. That he could call her. That she would want him. But that was years ago even if it felt like yesterday to him. He picked up the box and started rebuilding the machine.