Fiction by Tom Gunn

Saint Nick

2010-12-06T18:34:00.000-08:00

This is a special guest post by Amy Gunn

There has always been a Rose in my family, for as far back as any of us can remember. It’s one of those family names that keeps cropping up, and it’s almost like we don’t even have a choice in the matter anymore. The firstborn daughter is always named Rose.

My life had always been completely ordinary before Nick. It had been early December when we met; I was just finishing up my first semester as a freshman in college. I hadn’t dated a lot through high school, so when Nick came along and swept me off my feet I was positive that it was true love.

We met at a party. It wasn’t one of those cool parties that you see in movies or anything; it was actually pretty boring. People were sitting around, some of them holding hands, and everyone was listening to loud music. Okay, now that description just made it sound even cooler than it was. The loud music was classical music, since it was a symphony Christmas party. Yeah, I was the embodiment of the phrase “band geek.” Anyway, Nick introduced himself to me with Bolero blaring in the background, and it was love at first sight, at least for my part. I had never seen him around before, but I was in the woodwinds and he told me he was in percussion, so that sort of made sense to me.

Nick was a looker, so I couldn’t believe he was even talking to me. He was over six feet tall with glossy blond hair that had just the right amount of wave in it, and his eyes were a piercing color of electric blue. He was like the Ken doll of college sophomores.

I left the party with him that night and never looked back. I don’t remember where we went – which is weird I guess – but we went someplace and talked until it was almost getting light outside. The knowledge that I had been picked up by this totally amazing guy sort of filtered down to everything else in my life to make it all seep pretty great.

We saw a lot of each other over the next couple of weeks. I’m sure my dorm roommate wondered where I was spending all of my spare time, but we were all pretty stressed about finals so maybe she didn’t even notice. I’m not sure what Nick and I did those nights; more talking, I guess. But suddenly I had my happy thought to get me through finals, of which I’d been terrified since I started school that fall.

Nick was always giving me presents. Every morning when I woke up I’d find things resting on the foot of my bed. I wondered how much he had paid my roommate to put them there, but somehow I never got around to asking her. Once there was a nice pair of earrings that I swear had real diamonds in them, but it was mostly little things, like candy and a note that said “sweets for the sweet” or something equally corny. I loved corny, so it made me fall for him even more.

I’m not sure exactly when or how it happened, but sometime after Nick found out I was going home for Christmas at the end of finals week, we were suddenly planning to make the trip together. I had never brought a guy home with me before, so this was a big step for me. I decided to keep him as a surprise for my family, although I wasn’t sure why. Nick was like the best thing to ever happen to me, but I didn’t want to share him just yet.

The last day of finals was just a few days before Christmas. Somehow I survived everything, and then it was finally time to get off campus and head for home. My parents lived a couple hundred miles away from the school. It was close enough that I could visit them without breaking the bank, but also far enough away that I felt like I could have a little space.

We both crammed into my ancient Volkswagon Rabbit. I had family Christmas gifts packed into the hatchback next to my dirty laundry and suitcase. Nick had packed pretty light; I couldn’t even see any of his stuff under the mountain of my own. He was great company. I don’t remember much about the trip home except that I was enjoying spending the time with him.

The trip seemed to take no time at all, but then there we were, suddenly driving down the street I had grown up on and I could see the familiar white house with the swing on the front porch. I was getting a little anxious, but in an excited sort of way. I parked a couple houses down, because I wanted our arrival to be a surprise to my family, who weren’t actually expecting me – let alone Nick – until late that night or the next day.

Nick was helping me pull my luggage out of the back of the car. There was a dizzying instant where I blinked and the tiniest fraction of a moment passed before I reopened my eyes, and when I looked at him again there was another gift perched on top of my duffel bag.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Open it,” Nick replied, smiling. He was closing the top of the one bag he always seemed to have with him. I wondered for a moment if this was the only piece of luggage he had brought with him, but then I got distracted by the gift under my nose. I opened it and was shocked to see a necklace that matched the diamond earrings he had given me before (which I was wearing, of course). “Nick,” I argued, shaking my head, “I can’t believe you got this for me. It’s too much!” But my fingers were itching to pull it out of its box and put it on.

Nick’s teeth still gleamed behind his smile, “It’s just a little something to remind you of me,” he shrugged, “do you want me to put it on for you?”

There was weight and some deeper meaning to his question that I didn’t quite catch, but my feeling of guilt disappeared and I just nodded. Something flashed in Nick’s eyes as I watched him pull the necklace out of the box. Triumph? I figured he was just pleased I was accepting his gift after all.

I had to hold my breath to keep from squealing when he put it around my neck. It felt heavier than it had looked in the box, and somehow when I looked into Nick’s eyes again I knew that something had changed in our relationship forever. I couldn’t help but wonder if a diamond ring might someday follow this gift.

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Nick was a huge hit – especially with my mom – and things couldn’t have been better. My little brother Trevor didn’t seem to care much for Nick at first, but then Nick went to his little magic bag and suddenly there was a gift there for Trevor as well. Nick was like that – always thinking about others. Things went better with Trevor after that.

The next day was Christmas Eve – the day my extended family got together for a huge dinner. I was excited they were all going to meet my new boyfriend. I helped my mom get ready for the dinner – even though I was a terrible cook – partly because I wanted to impress Nick by doing something all homey, but also because I wanted everything to turn out perfect this year. Nick stayed out of the way but was always there just within sight when I started to wonder where he had disappeared to. Then it was time for people to start showing up. I didn’t want Nick to feel

overwhelmed by my large family, so I took him back onto the covered porch in the back

of the house, and the place started to fill up.

He stood there staring into the trees in the backyard, and I thought he seemed tense. “Hey,” I greeted him, walking over to put my hand in his.

“Hey,” he said, grinning when I took his hand. “Sorry, I don’t really do crowds,” he confessed. “I thought this was just going to be you and your family.”

Okay, now I felt really guilty. “Sorry,” I apologized, “but this sort of is my family.” I gestured weakly toward the back door. I realized just then that I had no idea what sort of family background Nick was coming from. He had never been interested in talking about himself and it hadn’t seemed odd to me before that moment. I heard the knob turn as someone on the inside of the house was coming out, and I felt Nick stiffen next to me. I looked over at him curiously, squeezing his hand just in case that weird look on his face was discomfort at being subjected to my extended family. I turned back to the house to find my grandmother standing in the open doorway staring at the two of us with her mouth hanging open.

“Hi grandma,” I said, thinking she was just overreacting at seeing our clasped hands. She didn’t look at me; just continued to stare at Nick.

“You!” she finally said after a quick moment, pointing a long, gnarled finger at him. “You are not welcome here.”

I sucked in a deep breath, nearly swallowing my own tongue. “Grandma!” I choked in disbelief. I turned to Nick, hoping that my muddled brain could come up with an acceptable apology, but I realized he was still smiling.

“Hello, Rose,” he said, calling her by her first name. I was confused, thinking at first that he was talking to me, but he was still watching her. Neither one of them was paying me any attention.

“You are NOT welcome here, Nicholas,” she said again. How did she know his name? This was getting weirder all the time. Nick was still grinning, not troubled by her rudeness.

“Rose, Rose, Rose,” he said again, still sounding pleasant, “I said I would be back; you just hoped I would forget. But you should know I never forget to call in a debt.” His words sounded cruel, but I had no idea what he was talking about.

“What?” I finally said out loud, flabbergasted. “What’s going on, Grandma?” I looked back over at her, pleading. Somehow even though Nick was talking to my gran like she was an old rival, it didn’t occur to me to wonder about him. Looking back, I realize this was pretty ridiculous, but it didn’t seem like it at the time. Grandma was the only part of the equation that didn’t make any sense at the time.

“No, Nicholas,” she said bitterly, spitting his name out, “You’re wrong.” She ignored my question completely. “I knew you’d be back, though I must admit I thought it would be sooner.” I thought she chuckled, but it was so soft I wondered in the next instant if I had imagined it.

Nick flinched a little, but I had no idea why her words had bothered him. “I’m here now, Rose – dear one –” he smiled cruelly as the pet name rolled off his tongue, “and you’re too late to save this one.”

And then I realized he was pointing at me. I started to feel weird; the world was swimming, everything covered in a haze. Then the necklace Nick had given me earlier felt like it was burning into the sensitive skin of my throat.

“Take it off,” I begged, reaching out towards Nick, but when I fell to my knees he didn’t reach to help me. My hands were clawing at the necklace, but I couldn’t find a clasp to open and remove it. I heard an awful rasping noise but I was so distracted by trying to take off the necklace I

didn’t realize at first that I was hearing my own breathing.

Grandma yelled something indistinguishable beneath all the noise I was making and her hand flew up to the skin above her own collar. In an instant that lasted for an eternity, I remembered the pale burn scar I had often noticed around her neck when I was little, and I wondered again why she had always refused to tell me where it had come from. As I watched, suddenly the scar lit up to the hot orange of glowing lava.

My grandma laughed again, and it was exultant. She was ignoring the glowing ring around her neck completely. “I’ve felt you getting close for years and I knew you’d return soon. That was why I brought this with me.” For a split second she held something out in front of her that I couldn’t quite see, and then she reached her hand up over her head and threw whatever it was at Nick.

“No!” Nick screamed, and in the middle of the scream his voice changed to something else – a gurgling that was both inhuman and terrifying. “I will be back,” he gurgled before the noises coming from him stopped altogether. I stared in horror as my boyfriend shrank into a shapeless lump on the back porch. The burning slowly faded away as the world around me came back into focus. I was still crumpled on the floor clutching at my neck. I couldn’t feel the chain wrapped

around it anymore, but I could still feel the pain of it. Something heavy was in one of my clenched fists; I opened it to find the diamond pendant that had hung from the necklace. I

was shivering and I thought I was going to start sobbing at any moment. For some reason I tightened my hold on the pendant like it would save my life, even though a part of me just wanted to throw it as far as I could away from me.

Grandma stepped closer to me and I saw that she was limping. “That’s it, honey,” she said. “Pick yourself up and help these old bones get sat down on that chair.” She pointed to a pair of metal patio chairs several feet away and I got to my feet, letting her hook her elbow through mine as we went to sit down. The metal was cool beneath me and I shivered again. I looked around, dazed.

“What happened to Nick?” My overworked brain still couldn’t wrap itself around anything that had just happened; I was half expecting myself to have a complete meltdown. Grandma sighed and reached up to pat my hand.

“Same as always,” she said sadly. “He’s gone for now; don’t you worry.”

My head was spinning. “What do you mean ‘same as always’?” I asked.

She stared into my face, her mouth tense, and then she nodded. “I guess you’re old enough now – he just proved that. You deserve to know.” She leaned back, her usually excellent posture forgotten as she slumped against the metal back of the chair. I wondered for a second if she would ever be able to get up out of the chair, she looked so frail.

“Nicholas has always been there – at least as long as any of us can remember. They say the first Rose in our family made a deal with the devil – eternal beauty for the price of her soul. She tricked him, though, when he came to collect. Rose had fallen in love right after she made the deal, and she regretted selling her soul like that. Somehow she was able to slip past him and run off with the man she loved. She thought she could hide from Nick. She was right, at least at first.

“She got married and they had a couple of kids, and she mostly forgot about the deal she had made. Then one day when her daughter – another Rose – was all grown up she said she had met the man she was going to marry. Her mother realized that the mystery man was none other than Old Nick himself.

“She was almost too late to save her daughter; she showed up at that last moment when Nicholas was the most vulnerable (he had used up most of his power giving the

daughter nice gifts to seduce her) and Rose saved her daughter.

“Nick wasn’t finished, though; he was patient and kept coming back. No matter how often they moved, every woman born into the family was found and seduced one by one.” Grandma looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching her fingers.

“I was the last one before you, and I never believed the stories either. My mother came to help free me, but not before I got this,” She was fingering the angry red burn at her throat, and I wondered if it was as painful as it looked. My hand went up to my own throat where I was sure I had a matching burn. She saw my gesture.

“Yes, I was almost too late to help you too, my little Rosie.” She shook her head. “No matter how often you try to convince yourself this never happened, you can’t let yourself forget this day,” she paused, “because there’s another part to it that I haven’t told you yet.”

She went silent and I didn’t think she was going to continue, so I asked “What’s that, Grandma?”

My blood ran cold when she looked up at me again and said “The devil always comes back to claim his own, and he knows that one of these days we won’t quite be fast enough.” I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. “Each time he gets a little bit closer. Don’t you ever forget, Rosie,” she said again. She was wagging a finger at me, her face stern. “He’s like the family saint: always coming with a smile on his face and gifts to win everyone over. But we can’t forget that Old Nick and Saint Nicholas are one and the same. He’ll go to no end of trouble to claim what he thinks is his own.”

I’ve shoved my memories of that night ten years ago into the far corners of my mind because they were much too terrifying to be real, but today everything changed with the birth of my daughter. Now my whole life revolves around the fear that someday I might be the one who will get there just a little too late to save my Rose from Old Scratch.

THE END.

Silent Killer, Part II

2010-10-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

It took some money, but they found him. It had not taken long to convince Gennie of the need to find Scott, Gennie's old boyfriend that had been, and still was, a private investigator.

Neither of them had the patience to be content with a simple Google or Facebook search.

Omar was living about a thousand miles away. He had served in a tour in Iraq, one in Afganistan. He had a blog that he had set up, mainly for his family, but Scott couldn't determine if he was doing any other writing worth mentioning.

Reading the blog, let alone finding it, would have been out of the question since it was locked with a password. Getting a hold of that would have cost too much extra to be worth it.

Dust kicked up and clouded behind their car down the long drive to the place they were told was Omar's home. He lived on a peach orchard in the cheerfully hot Sacramento valley.

Michael felt a little tickle of nervousness in his chest the closer they got, tightening his grip on the Jeep's steering wheel. Gennie looked over at him from the passenger seat.

"You going to be okay?"

"I'm not thinking about me."

She looked out the window a long time, watching the trees pass in neatly regimented rows. "I'm going to be okay," she said.

"Omar may be the only person who knows that for sure."

They continued slowly down the drive. Michael would accelerate impatiently only to hear gravel ping the steel plates protecting the undercarriage. Michael slowed down in response, bringing the car down to an agonizing crawl as the farmhouse in the distance grew larger behind the brown fog of dirt and dust.

"Maybe he isn't home," Gennie said.

"He's home. See the car in the driveway?"

"Whatever he knows or doesn't know, honey, it's going to be okay. I'm going to be okay."

No, Michael thought, it wouldn't be. The thought of Gennie's death was like cup of briney olive oil, impossible to swallow and keep down.

"There's a difference between knowledge and power," she muttered, almost to herself. Michael figured he must be giving off a "let's end the conversation" vibe.

A man came out of the house holding a cell phone to his ear. Michael thrilled at the idea that this might be Omar. It was strange, he had learned, to see people he had known after a very long time, even if he had known them well. Somehow there was always something about them foreign, strange, and off-putting at first. After all, he mused, you don't really know the new person they've become. You have to start all over again.

He took a good look at the man. He looked to be about the right age. If it was Omar, his stocky frame had grown a little, mostly in horizontal directions. The man hung up his cell phone and put it in the pocket of his dusty jeans.

Michael parked and made to get out of the car. This close there was no mistaking his old friend. The thrill of seeing him bubbled up in his chest and he felt an overpowering desire to shout and run to him and give him a big hug. He resisted, but still wore a big smile on his face, suddenly forgetting why they were there.

He got out of the car, smiling big, and holding out a hand in eager greeting. But Omar's look slowed him down. Whatever enthusiasm Omar might have shared at seeing an old friend was hidden behind a look of meloncholly that threatened to set panic loose in Michael's chest. His eyes were fixed solidly on Gennie, his mouth slightly agape.

The moustache was a little off-putting too.

It took Michael only a moment to piece together the reason for the look. What he couldn't place was the feeling behind it, staring at her as he was as though he were looking into the face of death itself.

Omar, it's Michael. Do you remember me?"

Omar said nothing, only looked at Gennie, winced, and then rubbed his face. Michael thought he heard the man mutter something to himself, though he couldn't make it out. When his brown face peered out from behind his hands he looked them both over. He smiled politely.

"Michael!" he said. The two men clasped hands and then embraced. They laughed together.

"This is my wife Gennie."

"Of course," said Omar. He shook her hand. At this, Michael's stomach dropped into a bottomless pit in his heart. Everything went quiet.

"You remember," Michael said.

"How could I forget. That was the first time. Come in, both of you. It's hot out. I have some limeade inside. It's too bad Lori isn't here. I'd introduce you."

They followed him into the farm house. It was built small and tight, for a time when smaller mortgages had more value than a few extra square feet.

"What have you been up to these past few years?" Omar asked over his shoulder as he stuck his nose in the fridge.

"Things have been, well, difficult."

"Yes," he said, pulling out a pitcher of lemonade. "Yes. Life kicks you in the ass."

Just then Michael noticed something strange about Omar's arm. It didn't exactly seem to be his, though he used it well enough that he carried the illusion off rather well.

"What happened there?" Michael had to stop himself from mentioning the war or anything they had learned about Omar before coming to visit him.

"Iraq. IED. You know the story." Omar talked about amputation like it was just another item he had seen in the news; something that didn't impact him in any direct way.

Omar sat down accross from Michael at the table, looking him square in the eye for the first time since there arrival. There was something both cool and sad in the man's look that made him seem older. Strange, Michael thought, that I had ever gone to school with this man, old before his time.

"You came here to ask me something," said Omar.

Michael looked at Gennie, nodded, and took a deep breath.

"Gennie has cancer. I hoped . . . We had hoped, you could tell me something about . . ." Was he really going to bring it out, admit the insane theory this entire visit was premised on? Michael reached into his back pocket, pulling out the folded pages of the story Omar had written all those years ago.

He put it out on the table in front of Omar, spreading it out and smoothing the corners. Omar picked it up and furrowed his brow, looking it over it while his guests allowed their limeade to sweat in the summer heat.

"I came, Omar, because I wanted to know how this ends. I have to know why you refused to finish the story. Could you finish it?"

Omar passed the story back accross the table, taking a long drink from his own glass. He nodded. "I could finish it. I don't suppose it would do any good to tell you that you don't really want to know how it ends, that knowing won't help you change the result."

Michael exhaled, realizing that his friend wasn't about to accuse him of being mad, but was nevertheless resistant.

"I won't argue with you Michael. I've spent enough time fighting my enemies. Life's too short to fight my friends. I know how it ends, Michael." He gave Gennie a long, sad, look.

A cold, tight feeling took hold of Michael's chest, taking his breath.

"You will miss him," he said ot her. "You will ache for him. But you should know that he loved you before he had any reason to believe you existed. You will move on after he is gone, and be happy."

Michael tried to stand, but could not. His arm burned with pain. He could hear the sound of sirens moving towards the house, and realized that Omar had been on the phone with 9-1-1 when they arrived.

Omar turned to look him in the eye, and grabbed him affectionately by the neck."This is how it ends, old friend."

Handle Time

2010-08-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

Miles had just enough time to register that his friend Jill was suddenly on a call in the middle of their conversation before his headset beeped in his ear, telling him that he had a call of his own to handle.

A moment after the beep, in a well-conditioned pavlovian response, he began:

"ThankyouforcallingRiseWirelessmynameisMiles. How can I help you today?"

"I need to go over my bill. It looks like there were some roaming charges that just don't make sense. I was hoping you could help me clear it up," the woman on the other end answered distractedly.

"Certainly. I'll be happy to help you with that today. Can I get your name and the last four digits of your social?"

"Yeah. Lily Haber. Last four is 9046." A few breaths later she said "Hello? Are you still there?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. Just one moment."

Miles struggled to reorient himself. He rubbed his eyes and nodded.

"Yeah. I'm here. I'm sorry, something just distracted me here. What were those last four digits again?"

She sighed. "9046."

"Right." He swallowed and tried not to shake as he brought up her account information. It was her all right. Right name, right place, right age. He knew quality control could be listening. He knew he was supposed to give this one to a supervisor. But, after all, there was no need to mention how or why he knew this person.

"What can I help you with today Lily? Oh, right, excuse me, the roaming charges. Let me just bring your bill up here."

Five years experience had its advantages. He managed to bring up her latest bill without losing track of what he was doing.

"Do you have your bill out right now?"

"Yes. By the way, you guys have got to do something about the hold times. That was just ridiculous."

"I do apologize, ma'am. We do try to serve you as quickly as possible. Now, uh, can you tell me just where the problem is?"

She walked him through the bill. He followed along. The charge didn't make sense, but it was a problem he had seen once or twice. They had sent out a memo about it last week; a bug in the billing system easily remedied by a credit to the customer. No need to call for a supervisor. No drama. Just a few clicks and he would be done.

"Okay. Ma'am I see what the problem is here," his heart raced as he considered his next words. "Unfortunately it's going to take some time. Can I take a moment to handle this and I'll give you a call right back?"

"Uh, sure. I guess that's fine."

"Should I call your wireless number or do you have another line you'd like me to call?"

"Uh, yeah. I have a dead spot in my apartment, so you better call me back on my landline. It's 503-555-7046."

Miles struggled to keep up with the numbers as he jotted down her home address from the information he was seeing on the screen.

As he closed the call he made a point of skipping the part of the script that dictated that he remind the caller of his name.

"Thanks so much for calling Rise Wireless. You'll be hearing from me soon."

QC would probably not look twice at that since this was an unconventional call. Then again, they would wonder why he didn't simply resolve the issue.

As much as he tried to evade the fact that he was playing roulette with his job, that's precisely what he was doing.

He tucked the small note into his pocket, looking around as though he had just pilfered a candy bar.

The rest of the shift passed in a blur of call after call, and he nearly forgot about Lily. But just the presence of her name and number written down and in his pocket brought back the old feelings, good and bad. On this particular night it turned out that he and Jill got off their shifts at the same time. He trailed her out of the building. Her dark hair brought Lily back to his thoughts and suddenly the tiny piece of paper in his breast pocket glowed and warmed up in his mind's eye.

Driving home in the dark his mind stayed hypnotically fixed on her. A familiar cocktail of feelings and thoughts rushed through his brain and his body like a drug he'd been sober from since high school. She was back in his system.

The heady mix was a blend of the thrill activated by her proximity to him and the sick feeling of desperation and fear that had kept him from talking to her before she moved away and it was too late.

He only knew what city she had moved to from eavesdropping. She was still there, in that city. And now he knew precisely where she was.

He thought of getting rid of the paper. After all, it had been a relief when she had left and he had a chance to move on. She had been a terrifying obsession for him since the sixth grade.

And why shouldn't he have been obsessed? Can't fault me for my taste in women, he thought to himself. She was pretty in such a way that he could almost convince himself he was the only one who thought so, but it was more than looks that he had watched. She chose good friends; nice people he was nevertheless terrified to talk to because of their mere proximity to her. She had many developing talents, doodling beautiful landscapes during bored moments that found full flower in the painting class he had cooincidentally taken with her. She liked to wear flowers in her hair, and her smile made him want to weep. She wore white keds that she had personally decorated with stars and stripes.

When he arrived home and his room mate had not yet returned, he flipped on the television to forget her and had a drink. A few more drinks later, and after the room mate had gone to bed, he pulled the paper out and looked at it. Just a collection of numbers scrawled in his own frenzied hand. He thought of calling her, but realized it was too late.

He thought of moving to her city. He thought of putting himself on her street from time to time, hoping for a glimpse. No, he assured himself, she still had her name, so she was unattached. No boyfriends. No children. No exes. Only her waiting for him.

"Why didn't you say anything?" she would ask him after he worked up the nerve to talk to her.

He would smile and push back her hair and kiss her softly in reply. And she wowuld yield to him. And he would be happy, and get a new job in the new city and take care of someone.

He fished out a lighter from the spare kitchen drawer and went to the back porch. He simply stood there in the dark cold, holding up the lighter and the tiny note in a long hesitation, like a suicidal man contemplaying a long jump from the side of a bridge.

The flame almost surprised him, leaping from the gas vent and licking at the edge of the note. He dropped the flaming thing and Lily burned on his back porch.

He was half way to work the next day when he realized that he had promised to call her back to resolve her issue. He would not and she would grow frustrated and lose confidence in the service provided by Rise Wireless. She would call again, exasperated, and talk to someone else, another stranger, in another call center far away.

She would threaten to break her contract, cancellation fee be-damned, and they would transfer her to retention where they would bribe her and woo her and butter her up. But she would say no and hang up and that would be that.

He had let a customer down and might lose his job, but nothing could be done.

It was much too late.

Rebuild

2010-08-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

Giulieta wiped the grease from her cheek with a saturated grease rag and turned to see Ty, the boy she had crushed on for weeks, losing a finger in a fan belt. Later, as she wrapped the tourniquet tight she idly wondered if Ty liked gourmet Italian cooking, and if his girlfriend would be very vengeful for what she was about to do.

Silent Killer, Part I

2010-08-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

Michael woke he looked over at his wife. Sleeping. Present. Breathing. Warm. He gently stroked her golden brown hair in an effort not to wake her, and wondered how she would look when it was over, if it would soon be over. He wondered if he would be able to look at all, and if she would look beautiful to him if the worst of what the doctors had said were to come true.

His cousin, a beautiful girl of sixteen, had been killed in a car accident. Her fair features were bloated, somehow set awry in death. Her familiar warm colors had been changed to something startling, like a black-and-white photo with painted-in accent colors. There had been no beauty there any more, only a husk that had once been a person’s body.

He had no tears for Gennie yet: only a wild fear that ran through his blood and made it beat faster. He felt himself go cold, a pale feeling crawling up from the tips of his toes, up the back of his calf, then creeping up his spine like a leak in icy water bed.

He wanted to hold her tight, as though it might save her, but did not want to wake her. He rose, knowing that there was work to be done for the day. An early start, things to do, things to put in order.

Gennie’s mother’s visit brought with it boxloads of junk from their old place, and it had sat like unfamiliar furniture across three Saturdays in which neither of them had had the time to tackle it.

Michael found the folder in among Gennie’s old school papers she had insisted on keeping all these years. He had already dispensed with all of his long ago, or so he thought. Whatever he hadn’t thrown away he thought for sure had been forgotten in his dad’s attic in the decades since he moved out.

He had told himself that he wouldn’t open it--the yellowing manila folder with decayed, photocopies of hand-written pages of college ruled loose leaf. He feared making a mess far bigger than he had the strength or will to clean up before the weekend expired and forced him back to work.

He knew he had some of his old stories in the folder. These had been his means of escape in the hell of junior high school and had, in a way, become a career.

He had to escape now, but this was not a conscious decision on his part--only a whim that he felt he couldn’t resist, and which he never gave himself the time to challenge.

The vaguely familiar handwriting grabbed his curiosity. A few words in, and Michael was hooked.

“Silent Killer” was the title scrawled in precise-yet-awkward cursive letters, and the name of his old friend Omar Jiles.

The name brought up a face which he hadn’t seen since their third year of high school: the year when Michael and his dad had moved away.

This copy had been one of six passed around the room during a session of a weekly writer’s club meeting held after school. Michael had almost been too embarrassed to hear Omar read the story out loud in front of everyone else. He felt that he was being watched--a paranoia that had been shared by all his classmates, he was now sure, but which had been acutely intensified by the fact that this particular story of Omar’s had him, Michael, as the central character.

The story was not long, only a ten to twelve hand-written pages. Omar had been changed, unimaginatively, from Michael to Mike.

The wording was awkward in most places. The characters felt a little bit flat and ordinary. Some of the spelling was horrendous.

What kept Michaelf frozen in place as he sat alone on the living room floor, awash in a sea of cardboard, old paper, and bits of junk, was not the story’s quality, but it’s content.

Michael, in a fit of narcissistic boredom, had asked Omar to write a sci-fi story about him: a story that would take place in the future. “Silent Killer” was the result of that challenge. Parts of it had riveted his attention: the details about his wife in particular. Michael had searched in vain among the girls at school who might fit the name and description of his future wife in the slightest way.

But over all, Michael had been disappointed by the result. It hadn’t described the adolescent fantasies of his future quite the way he had hoped, and now he knew why.

It had accurately described his life in the present day with chilling accuracy: an argument he had had with his editor only yesterday, the color of his wife’s hair, and the heartbreaking news concerning Gennie’s health. He had gotten her name wrong, however, spelling it “Jenny.”

Numbly, Michael read it to the end. Omar had not really finished it--a work in progress, he had said. Michael remembered that he had asked Omar to get on with it, wanting to know what happened next. Omar had said he had lost interest and was working on something new.

When Gennie came home from therapy she found Michael sitting still, holding the story in his hands, a tear staining his face.

She came over and immediately embraced him. She had been crying herself, and had no more tears left. She held her husband as he sobbed silently. Soon his breath slowed and he held her close to him. He whispered into her ear.

“Hey honey.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“That old boyfriend of yours--do you happen to know if he’s still a private investigator?”

To Be Continued

No Name #1

2010-08-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

My friend fell. He was on the way out to the playground after lunch. He just laid there while half the school passed him on the way outside.

“Get up! Why don’t you get up?” they said.

Another said. “You’re faking. He’s faking.”

They went out and they never came back. I still remember where he fell. Everything seemed big then, in the way that large important buildings are big in the adult world. You moved down the hall away from the cafeteria, past the vending machines, around the corner. Another left down the stairs--concrete clad in gripping rubber-- and the landing, and then the long flight down into the dark.

You move through the dim hallway that was dim in sickly fluorescent light. It turned black when the people ahead of you opened the door wide in to the bright sunlight facing south.

We had laughed a lot at lunch. We almost ran down the hall, forgetting rules, forgetting everything. His big legs frenzied down the stairs like we had done together a million times. He jumped the last steps. He fell, and didn’t get back up. He shouted and I came back to see what was wrong.

“Can you get up?”

He wasn’t crying. “Just give me a few minutes. It just really hurts right now.”

I looked at him and someone opened the door, letting the light into the long dark hallway. I left and joined them.

I wandered around the playground. I came in on a game of foursquare, then waited in vain to be picked for kickball. I toyed with tether ball alone. I trotted slow and alone from this game to that toy, like a kid in a nickel arcade waiting for his ride home. I thought of my friend again and I went back. Nobody else had.

He still laid there. “I’ve tried to get up and I just can’t,” he said.

I tried to lift him on one side. He was always heavy. On the day of our physicals I watched silently, invisble as I could be as the other kids laughed at him.. One hundred and fifty pounds in third grade was unforgivable. He didn’t look very fat. He was heavy, and fell from my hands when I tried to lift him..

People had stopped coming through. Lunch was over.

He tried to slip his leg under himself and shouted in pain, his voice echoing down the dark hallway.

“I’m getting a teacher,” I said.

The paramedics arrived with flashing lights, parking near the opened door at the end of the hall. Everyone gathered and watched in a circle and pretended they cared about him.

His face was dusty with the tracks from size 8 tennis shoes that had been brand new in September. They had his ankle braced tight and loaded him into the aid car like bread into a truck.

When we were gathered and corralled inside I turned invisible in the back corner of the classroom where my desk was and brushed my fingers along the margins of my text book. I wondered if he was okay. I wondered if he would leave me alone there, and if he would come back and try to do for me what I had done for him.

The next morning I cried and lost control and told my mother that I wouldn’t ever go back to school again.

It was another week before we saw him again, and we all pretended it hadn’t happened in our heartless way.

We didn’t go to the same high school.

Nightfall

2010-07-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

-dedicated to Isaac Asimov

John had plenty of trouble with Eric. He himself, of course, had never had any problem rising at that hour. It was just something he was always able to do since he was a kid, rising early with his own dad to help with the landscape business.

All he had ever had to do was set in his mind what time he wanted to rise. He would set his alarm clock dutifully, winding the hands on the face until they lined up just so, and then would settle himself in for a long rest. The time of his rising settled in his mind as a small point of thought fixed in his head,, but shrinking with his consciousness as he fell off to sleep. The next morning he would find he had awakened himself, sometimes seconds before the alarm. It was a trick of concentration he had come to rely on, and he hadn't owned an alarm clock since college.

The work he woke up for had been brutally difficult, but character-building. Still, to this day he had nightmares about shoveling snow or melting under the summer sun while manicuring the lawns of the Ann Arbor aristocracy.

He was tempted to congratulate himself for giving Eric an easier time than that. Sure, it was early enough to still be dark, but it would be worth it, he was sure. The sunrise over the monuments would make them feel as new and magical as when they had first approached them on highway US 6, having passed over the long emptiness that came after Price.

"Come on, let's go."

After a good jostling, he managed to coax a low grumble out of his son.

"Sunrise, remember? Come on, or we'll miss it. I know the perfect place."

The boy's lips shifted and he half-mumbled, half-breathed the word "tomorrow."

"No, come on. We won't be here tomorrow. Let's go."

Reluctantly, the boy seemed to surrender, not willing to fight it. He pushed himself up, his hair a disjointed pile of straw in the light of the electric lantern.

***

John passed his son another granola bar from his pocket, and tried not to let the dazzling display of stars overhead distract him from making his way.

"Hurry or we'll miss it."

Eric was a good hiker, but at this hour he still managed to drag his feet plenty. He tried to comply, his wiry limbs fumbling with his day pack and maneuvering his feet around rocks and brush.

"How much further?" he asked. John grinned with pride: there was barely a hint of whine in the boy’s voice now, a characteristic that had been much more prominent the previous year when he was still only eleven. His voice had only recently turned. That helped a lot, he was sure, but he liked to think the boy was beginning to get tougher.

***

They settled in at the selected lookout and John broke out his last pair of granola bars. They had made excellent time. The sun hadn't even begun to rise. In fact, there wasn't even a hint of pale blue or gray in the sky, not even the slightest fading in the spilled-sugar ceiling of stars overhead.

***

An hour later, Eric was wishing he had snuck his new sports watch into his day pack.

"No electronics," Dad had insisted. "We're looking to get away from the things of man."

All Eric wanted was the time; the video game he had begged his dad to let him bring last year might have been diverting, but all he wanted now was to know the time. Such a simple thing.

The sky was still dark.

"No wonder I'm so tired," Eric said. "Must be the middle of the night."

"This isn't right," his father said, evenly.

"Why didn't you bring an alarm?"

"You know I don't need one. I've done fine without it. I've been up right when I wanted to be every day so far. Remember when we went fishing on Monday?"

Now that Dad mentioned it, Eric realized it was something he hadn't even considered. He still took it for granted that the adults in his life knew better than he did what was next and when it was time to go. He was just in the habit of doing what he was told.

There was something about Dad's voice that he didn't like at all.

"We better head back to camp. This can't be right."

It concerned Eric that Dad seemed so serious, and about such a simple mistake. Lighten up, Dad. You're not a human alarm clock, just a human. We'll get back to camp and it'll be three in the morning. You'll see.

"I'm sure it's just not as late as you think it is," Eric offered out loud.

"Yeah," Dad said absently.

***

Eric's dad powered up the GPS; something they swore they would only do in an emergency.

Dad was fidgety, impatient to get it powered up. Eric was just glad to be back near his sleeping bag. He figured it wouldn't take long to get it nice and warm again.

He had just settled his head down on his travel pillow and shut off his light, giving himself over to the cocoon of darkness in the tent.

"What?" he heard his father mutter to himself. The man's voice dripped with disbelief. "Eric, please come here."

Eric groaned inwardly and reluctantly left the warmth and darkness behind.

"What's wrong?"

In the light of the lantern Eric's dad looked half way to dead under his ginger beard, his cheeks colorless, his expression haunted.

"These things aren't wrong. Do you understand why? The time can't be wrong. Can you tell me why that is?"

"Um, I don't know. I guess it uh . . . you don't set the time on it, do you? It finds the satellites, and then satellites tell the computer where it is. The computer then comes up with the time based on where we are. Something like that."

"Then why do you suppose, even though it's pitch black out here, that this clock says it's 8:27 AM Mountain Time?"

Eric had no more answers than his father did. They resolved to go back to bed, to forget all this. That would have been Eric's first suggestion if Dad hadn't said it first.

Somehow, the darkness in his tent didn't seem half as inviting, and he found that he had trouble quieting his mind enough to sleep.

***

Some time later, Eric woke up. Dad's panic was contagious.

"Eric, you see those stars up there, right?"

Poking his head out of the tent, he nodded.

"And this display says it's 10:17 AM. Mountain Time, right?"

Eric looked at the display. There was no mistaking it. The sun was late.

***

As the pair made their way back to the lookout John had picked out, neither dared to say anything. Eric felt he'd give just about anything to see sunlight. The light of his flashlight now seemed so feeble, even pointless. Neither of them questioned the need for the hike. They just moved, as if somehow they could find the sun if they just moved fast enough and waited at the lookout long enough.

They sat on their rocks once again, looking up at the stars that now seemed menacing and strange.

Light filled the sky. The sun appeared as though in fast-forward.

Together they sucked in their breath, and both felt the unmistakable sensation of falling. The sun grew smaller, smaller. In the smallest moment, a massive noise of rushing air filled the open space of the desert.

The stars tumbled away, the sun joining it as a speck of insignificant light, and were lost.

Escape

2010-07-14T11:13:00.001-07:00

The bear's claw made contact and the man fumbled with his jeep keys, wishing in a moment of wild panic that he had opted for keyless entry.

Knife (PG-13)

2010-07-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

The knife was not his, but it could have been. He hadn’t been out of the business that long. Four and a half inches long, single-bladed, stainless steel with a graphite handle, covered in dried blood, Kyle’s new wife Sam found it tucked quietly away in the far corner of the closet under the stairs.

There had been a catch in her voice, pregnant with fear and suspicion when she said “Kyle, come over here, please.”

She said nothing, simply shining the icy beam of light from her flashlight on the hiding weapon, the light glinting off the unstained parts of the blade.

“That’s blood,” he said, the voice of an expert. Her stern look and set jaw told him that she wasn’t impressed in the least.

“You can’t think that I had anything to do with this.”

“Can’t I?” she muttered.

Kyle fought the urge to storm away and used his own flashlight to investigate the closet interior itself. There were blood stains here and there, though there were signs that there had been some attempt to clean it up. They had been sloppy--jittery.

Sam looked around the front room in the vast, empty Arts and Crafts home. Finding no place, she slid down a wall to the floor, curling her legs under herself.

“What am I supposed to do, prove it to you?”

She buried her face in her hands.

“You told me you were out of this. You said there would be no more. I really want to believe you, Kyle. I wish that I could.”

“So, what, then?”

Divorce hung in the air like death waiting to take them both at once, and not to a better world.

She sat quiet for a long moment, the house cracking gently around them with the unfamiliar tension their presence on the old floor boards created.

“It doesn’t make sense, you know,” he said. “Of all the places I would have left a used weapon like that--”

She snorted. “That’s great. Where are you hiding your weapons now?”

He shook his head, barely containing his temper now. He walked towards the back of the house. He had seen the door in the rear of the kitchen. He stopped short of the threshold leading onto the old tile.

“If you’re not going to trust me,” he said, “then maybe this isn’t going to work after all.”

“I want to trust you, Kyle. I just thought you were past this, and I want to believe you. I just don’t know if I can trust myself to be able to discern what’s really going on, regardless of what you say about this. Are you absolutely sure you had nothing to do with this?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then we need to do something about this. It’s as simple as that. You just don’t come into a house that’s been empty and vacant for years, find a blood-soaked knife on the floor of a closet, and then just not say anything--to authorities or anyone.”

Kyle back towards the door a few steps.

“You know we can’t do that.”

Sam crossed herself and pinched the sides of her nostrils with her fingers, sighing deeply through her mouth.

“I just need to know that this stuff, your old life, isn’t going to effect our new life. Can you understand that?”

Kyle nodded. “I can understand it. I just wish it changed anything. If we’re going to start a new life here, it’s going to be with that knife destroyed, buried, whatever, just so nobody finds it.”

Sam’s arms wrapped down around her stomach as she looked up at him. A strand or two of her black hair fell down and out from her ponytail. She looked at her new husband, her eyes wide with fear.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, picking it up with a small part of his fingers, holding it like a dead rat and walked out the back door.

He said nothing more about it.

The following weekend, they moved in. Kyle refused help, sweating and grunting and wrestling with furniture dollies. He assured Sam that the weapon was gone. He wouldn’t tell Sam where he’d put it, only that it was gone.

They ate pizza on their new furniture, admiring the lines of the architecture, and the handsome way the dark color of the wood complemented the space. They had ordered a medium with Canadian bacon, their favorite, but they still had several pieces left over.

Sam walked up to bed that night, wincing at the creak of the old stairs. Kyle followed her. They breathed the air of their new home deeply, and only acknowledged each other under the sheets before they slept.

Kyle sat up. Sam was gone. The bed where she had been was cool to the touch. There was a newspaper, folded over.

Kyle read it. Her name was Franchesca, the accompanying story said. Her friends called her Franny. She had been only sixteen years old and she was dead. Police found her body in a search along Occidental Road, not five miles from their new home. She had been dead three days.

Sam was not downstairs. She had gone for a run without him. He looked again at the girl’s picture in the paper. The eyes looked out at him, full of enthusiasm, marked with the kind of beauty that’s borrowed from childhood and carried awkwardly in a new adult-sized body.

He put the paper down and started breakfast. His mind wandered as he went through the steps, cracking eggs, lighting the stove. He stopped suddenly, dropping the pan in the sink, his breakfast aborted.

He grabbed a spade from the shed and ran behind the house to the base of the golden hill behind their new property. He watched frantically for the dry patch of dirt. Finding it, he quickly recovered the knife.

He got in the car, praying he could guess in which direction Sam had run. Left, towards the beach. He knew she’d never be able to run all the way there, but she would like the feeling of heading in that direction.

When it was over the police found the knife on the body of the man who had tried to hurt Sam.

She held him tight, her tears mixing with the sweat of her run. He held her back, and didn’t let go.

Gifts (PG)

2010-07-05T14:12:00.000-07:00

“Come in.”

These two words could mean anything to us. It could mean, “I’ve been waiting for weeks for a chance to cast out the demon of Mormonism, and you two look just like ideal candidates to find the real Jesus today.”

It could mean, “I’ve been looking for Jesus’ true church all my life. I’m full of doubts and questions, but I’m willing to listen to what you have to say.”

Between these two extreme possibilities, and even on the fringes of them, lay experiences that recently-retired boy scouts from mountain states, like Elder Murello and I, could never be trained to anticipate. “Elder.” It wasn’t his first name. It wasn’t mine either, but that’s what we called each other; a title we took seriously, but which non-Mormons tended to treat with a mixture of bemusement and contempt. I, for one, didn’t need anyone’s approval.

But I need to back up a little. The middle-aged woman behind the screen door asked us to come in. She was about the age of our mothers, the lines on her face revealing doubt and sadness, and crow’s feet on her eyes that betrayed moments of joy. It had been Elder Murello’s turn for the door approach. I lined myself up at the doorknob in a well-practiced maneuver that made Murello the first face to be seen by whoever answered the door.

“Hi! We’re missionaries from Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We have a wonderful message we’d like to share with you about how God has restored Christ’s true church to the earth. We’d love to come in and share this wonderful message with you. Do you have a few minutes now?”

“I’m a witch,” she said, in a conversation-ending tone.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said in his overly folksy, door approach voice that always made me wince. “You seem nice enough to me.”

Then it dawned on me. He thought he was talking to someone with poor self-esteem, or someone warning us to go away or she would be mean to us. Murello was three months out of the missionary training center. That sounds like a short time to you, but it was long enough for him to have at least heard of Wicca, especially in Humboldt County, California. And after all, like Idaho where I’m from, Utah wasn’t entirely Mormon anymore.

I hung my head a little, simultaneously embarrassed that Murello was living up to a stereotype, and amused that he could be so naïve.

But then a strange thing happened. She said, “Come in.”

Murello looked at me. I looked at him, and gestured to the threshold. He was the one doing all the talking here. He could go first. I resigned myself to let him handle it. I’d been out too long, a year and a half, to worry that some soul would be lost forever if a greenie said the wrong thing. It would at least be entertaining.

Still, I wasn’t sorry she asked us in. I wanted to be there for some reason. It wasn’t until well after we’d left that I would know just why.

The place didn’t look like a witch lived there. Nothing inside or outside could possibly be made of candy. Flying-monkey poop was nowhere to be found. Instead there was distressed green shag carpeting, an old television tucked away into a corner, buried under books with titles like “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner,” “Earth, Air, Fire & Water: More Techniques of Natural Magic,” and “Urban Primitive: Paganism in the Concrete Jungle.”

She invited us to sit on the stained beige microfiber couch. We sat on the edge, almost in a squatting position with our elbows resting on our knees. Murello already had out a copy of the Book of Mormon, studiously marked ahead of time for the beginning reader.

Murello’s naivete still had me flabbergasted. “Did you think she said ‘bitch’?” I wanted to ask him. It would wait until later, or until the course of the conversation revealed to him what she had meant in referring to herself as a Witch.

Elder Murello held the slim, but lengthy volume in his hands, sandwiched between them, both withholding it and pushing it towards her; a coy approach to proselytizing.

“Do you believe in God?” he asked her. No pleasantries. A typical greenie blunder. This would be interesting.

“I don’t know if I can answer that question.”

“Why did you invite us in, lady? Can you answer that?” I wanted to say. I was getting impatient after all these months in the field--wary of people wasting our time.

“Well, uh,” I could practically hear the moving parts in Elder Murello’s brain clicking into place to retrieve the memorized presentation. “We believe in God. Most people believe in a supreme being, even though they may call him by different names . . .” and off he went.

I wondered if she would interrupt him at all – stop him with some kind of objection or argument.

She didn’t.

She didn’t ask a question. She didn’t try to get us to follow her down some tangent. She didn’t raise any concerns.

“Building on common beliefs” – that’s what the training manual called it--a shorthand for listening carefully to the beliefs of others, and then capitalizing on similarities to present our own doctrines. That’s what we needed to do here, but I couldn’t imagine how that was supposed to happen. Where would we even begin? That people should be nice to each other? No littering?

Sometimes it was a good thing when they would sit quiet and let us do our spiel. Mostly, it wasn’t.

Elder Murello had reached the end--the time when we would leave the marked book with assigned readings, ideally with the promise that they would pray about what they had read, asking God if it was true.

She took the book when he offered it, and made no explicit promises other than that she would take a look at it. This, in my experience, meant using the book as a coaster or tearing out the pages to roll joints.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Of course,” said Murello, sounding a little relieved. I have to admit that I exhaled too.

“Can you give me a blessing?”

This request should have come from a member of our church; someone who wanted us to lay hands on their head and pray for healing or comfort. That’s what it meant to us. Who knows what it meant to her.

Elder Murello and I looked at each other. Before he had the chance to deliver an insufferably pedantic explanation of the ritual, complete with a quotation from the book of James, I said “Of course.”

A hundred reasons for her request entered and left my brain in rapid-fire succession: she was a former member and had seen the light, she’s just crazy, and (the most unnerving possibility) she was expecting something entirely different than what I was about to give her.

I stood up. Elder Murello followed my lead. She stood and grabbed a chair from the kitchen, placed it roughly in the middle of the room, and sat down—the ideal position for us to stand behind her and place our hands on her head. I was about to suggest it myself, but she beat me to it. She knew the routine!

I asked her full name.

“Patricia Fitzgerald.”

I closed my eyes and placed my hands on her head. Elder Murello placed his big hands over mine, and did the same.

I called her by name and began to speak. Her name, I feared, was the only thing I would get right, sounding like an inept tarot card reader rather than a confident messenger from God’s true church. I tried to let go, trusting that I would know what she needed to hear.

As I spoke, a strange magnetic feeling began to rise in my chest. It wasn’t the warm, familiar feeling I expected, but it wasn’t unpleasant or unwelcome. Whatever help I could get.

I finished, saying “amen,” and lifted my hands from her head.

Elder Murello just looked at me, his mouth agape, his already wide, blue, Disney character eyes the size of quarters. His look made me wonder if I had done something patently unthinkable, like closing in the name of Elvis Presley instead of closing in the name of Jesus.

Patricia was in tears. She hugged us both, smiling and gently cupping our cheeks in her hands.

“We’ll come back sometime soon,” I said, not willing to break the spell of the moment by fumbling with my planner to make another appointment.

As we walked down the long gravel drive, Elder Murello and I were silent. Half way to our apartment, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

His hurt tone annoyed me, but I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“My sister served in Ireland. Why didn’t you ever tell me you spoke Celtic?”

“I don’t,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

“The blessing. What did you say, anyway?”

The gift of tongues, we called it, when God gave you the power to speak a foreign language otherwise unknown to you when someone wouldn’t understand your words otherwise, and you were saying something important and sacred. The term had no sense of the “spiritual” babbling embraced by the local Assembly of God.

I had been the gift of tongues, we were sure, and I determined that it was too sacred to share—something too special to be bragged about. At least, this is what I told him. I expected it was too sensational an event for Murello to keep out of his next letter home, or even in a letter to the church magazine.

But we were half wrong. It was a gift, but it had nothing to do with speaking Gaelic without being aware of it.

I understood this the following Monday, our day off, when we hiked with the rest of the zone missionaries in the redwoods over Fern Canyon. I could hear the whisperings of the trees, and could discern ancient forgotten truths spoken in the rustlings of the small animals, and in the high and gentle singing of the birds.

Molly's Tantrum (PG)

2010-06-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

Something terrible happened to Peter when he fell in love with Molly; he fell even more in love with her mother. He knew it was terrible the way only people who truly are in love can know that it is terrible, and dangerous.

Peter was left there alone with her. No, the "her" was really "them." Tom would be at the station for two more days, and it was almost time for the kids' nap. He sweated inside, and it threatened to escape, trapped as he was between action and agonizing inaction.

He was playing with Molly, and she alternately bossed him into being a dragon and a prince, depending on her whims. It made little difference to him, as long as he could keep the delighted giggles and prattle coming.

Peter had no children, and feared to. He feared for them, the way he feared for Molly. Today she had a friend. Now, he could be that for her. In a few years, he could not, and she would come home from school, when she went to school, and cry as he had used to. She would get over it, as he had. She would learn too, and probably even sooner, that she wasn't bad or stupid, but that her brain simply worked differently than most, better in some ways.

Molly was safe now, though. It made him happy. But he knew the same thing made her mom, Victoria, even happier. It was an opportunity, the kind he had trained himself to see, the kind that hid behind the meanings of spoken words, that flitted mysteriously in gestures, faces, tones of voice--all a foreign language to him that he had recently begun to learn.

Virginia was in and out of the living room. She carried baskets of laundry to and fro, and occasionally skulked into the kitchen to keep tidying dishes and cleaning between loads. She did all this, of course, to the extent that she could do these things and endure little Todd's demanding cries. She never raised her voice to the baby, working with seemingly effortless devotion and patience. None of this diminished her.

The books on the shelves were her's. The home she'd created was safe and beautiful.

She strode in. She strode out. Those legs, he could not but help but notice. Even in sweatpants-

It was like junior high school, feeling the need to hide what he felt, and yet hoping the object of his attention would notice and appreciate it.

"Go in there!" Molly shouted, her white-gold hair, floating wildly, tickling her face as she pointed her chubby little finger at him.

"Okay, okay," he obeyed, scooting deeper into the makeshift cave with walls of felt blanket, tenuously strung over stools, a piano chair, and an end table. The top of his head brushed the ceiling of Princess Molly's living room castle. Molly was not even two, but could speak in sentences and read. What would she be imagining, he mused, when she was twelve, or twenty? Would she survive until then?

"Molly." Virginia's warning voice came from the laundry room. "Didn't we talk about being so bossy?"

Peter heard her coming down the hall. She poked her head around the corner, her pretty brown ponytail brushing down around her chin. Every look he got felt a little like stealing, and so he did what he could not to linger on her eyes, or her hair, or anything else she might notice. He wasn't confident that he could know if he'd been caught.

Molly looked abashed, but only a little. As soon as Mother was safely down the hall, Molly repeated the order, this time more quietly, though he had already obeyed.

"Go in there!"

A washing machine lid closed. Todd began, again, to fuss and gurgle. Virginia muttered gentle words to him. The frustration leaked out, though she was earnest and soothing.

Whatever it was she had said, it wasn't good enough. Todd's noises escalated to wailing, and Virginia's tone grew more discouraged--hopeless, even.

"Please stop," she pled.

"You're in the dungeon!" Molly proclaimed, confident now that Mother was too occupied to notice her relapse into tyranny.

Peter sighed, grateful for a chance to sit still for a second.

"Okay. I'm in prison," he acquiesced, raising his hands. "Can I have visitors?"

"N-n-no!" she barked. She was trying to drop her infantile squeak as low as it would go. A little bigger, a little older, he thought, and she'd be genuinely scary. Not scary enough, he was sure.

Todd was only louder now. Virginia walked out of the back room, striding like she was on her way to halt one of Molly's tantrums. But she was clutching the baby to her shoulder, pacing back and forth. Todd's face was bright red as he wailed.

Her eyes were clamped shut. Her jaw was clenching, grinding.

"Please stop. Please stop."

She sounded defeated.

Now almost a whisper. "Please stop."

"Anything I can do to help?" he tried to say, croaking on nerves. He winced.

"Sorry, what?"

He cleared his throat and tried to be heard over the baby.

"What can I do to help?"

"Umm, look, I don't know. I just-"

A knock came at the door, rhythmic and musical. Todd stopped screaming, gently whimpering now, his attention fixed on the source of the noise.

"Trisha!" Molly screamed. She ran to the door and flung it open.

"Oh, Trish. Hi! You have no idea how glad I am to see you."

Virginia's desperation melted a little.

A girl, around eleven, stood in the doorway, smiling at Molly. In a flash Molly was wrapped around the girl's calf, squeezing tight.

"You can help me decide what to do with my prisoner!"

"Do you think you can just look after these two while Pete and I get some things done around here? I'd really appreciate it."

"Yeah, sure!"

"Really? I'll make it worth your while, honestly. You have no idea what good timing this is."

"Yeah," Trisha said, "I was passing by and it sounded like you could use a little help. She eyed Peter. Probably wondering why I couldn't handle it, he thought. Anticipation, however, throbbed louder in his chest than any resentment ever could.

Trish managed to pry Molly off her, and draped Todd over her shoulder. The boy was quiet now, his contented murmurs threatening to turn into giggles. Trish settled down on the couch and hummed to the baby, squeaking away at him in a high baby talk while Molly waged a ruthless campaign for her attention.

Virginia sighed, long and deep.

"Peter," she said, as though he had just arrived, and couldn't be more relieved to see him. "Can you come on back and help me tackle the mess back here?"

"Sure," he said, trying not to sound too eager.

He followed her back to the laundry room, his eyes eagerly wandering where they would as she strode down the hall in front of him. If only this house had a longer hall, and more hidden corners.

Virginia set-to, wasting no quiet moment. Peter looked around, thinking of what to talk about.

"How can I help?"

Laundry covered the floors, the top of the drier. Some of it was half-heartedly folded. Most of it was part of the mess.

"If you can wear it, fold it. If you can't-I don't know. We'll figure it out later."

Strands of her hair were falling down in her face, coming loose from the ponytail. She wiped beads of sweat off with her sleeve. Certain he might be making a horrible mistake, Peter spoke.

"You know I've been reading some really insightful books lately." Insightful? He prayed he had used the word correctly.

"Really?"

"Yeah. How's that English degree going? You going to graduate soon, or-"

"Oh, I never finished. I want to go back soon, but--."

"That'd be tough, I guess. With the kids and all."

"Tough. That's the word for it. School," she said, wrapping the sleeves of a long-sleeved T around her shoulders, folding the fabric up, meticulous work. "You know how it is, though, I guess, right?" Sure, he knew, having barely graduated himself, single and unattached.

Peter worked absently, his mind turning with what to say next, his palms sweating.

Common ground. That was supposed to be a good place to start.

"So, like I said, I've been reading a lot. If you wanted to, uh, you know, like, get together and talk about books or something-"

A scream came from the living room. Molly was probably just playing. Virginia didn't seem to think so. She moved her head closer to the door.

"Everything okay out there?"

Molly was balling now. He could hear Trish say "I told you that wasn't safe! Oh, you're okay. I think someone needs a time out."

Virginia was already on her way out. She snatched up her child and carried her to the kid's shared bedroom.

She said nothing. Molly protested, screaming all the way. She kissed the bump on the head the way a customs official stamps a passport. In a moment the child was behind a closed door, wailing and pounding on the door in protest. Trish was hushing and calming the baby in the front room. A moment later Molly's fit had faded into the background, and even began to burn out.

Nap time. Compulsory, perhaps, but right on schedule.

Virginia rested herself against the door, her eyes closed. She tried to rub the spreading exhaustion out of her face.

"So, what do you think? You can go ahead and pick the book, if you want, you know, we could read it. And I was thinking we could maybe get some coffee sometime-" Peter rambled, oblivious.

Virginia looked at him blankly, incredulous.

"Coffee," she muttered. "What makes you think I have time for coffee?" She hadn't raised her voice, but it might have been less of a blow to Peter if she had.

He stammered. And then stopped, holding his breath.

"Look, it's cool. Just an idea," barely audible.

He looked away. She studied him for a long moment. He wondered if she was wishing his head to explode, or if she would ask him to leave. He wouldn't know, but neither happened.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"No, I'm sorry," she said, coming to herself. "I shouldn't have-I'm sorry. It sounds good, really. Maybe if I could carve out some time, hire Trish or something. I don't know if it's such a good idea for me right now, though, you know? I mean, I used to go to a book club and all. I just don't have a lot of reading time these days, as you can see."

"Oh, hey, whenever. It's cool."

Peter heard the door open.

"Hey," he heard a male voice in the front room, and his heart almost stopped.

"Tom, hey," Virginia said, her long legs striding out to the tall man in the front room.

Peter almost didn't follow. He didn't know if hiding back there or coming out would look more suspicious.

The tall man hugged Virginia, firemen's arms wrapping down around her little shoulders. She gave him a short kiss, but it bore no resemblance to anything a customs official would do with a stamp.

"Howdy, Pete," Tom said. "What brings you around here?"

Peter swallowed, trying to avoid his brother's cool eyes. "I could ask the same," he said, trying to feel brave.

"They had a mix-up on the schedule at the station. Or I had the mix-up. Anyway, I've got duty tomorrow. Not today."

"Pete was just over to play with the kids. Kinda giving me a break, you know," Virginia said.

Tom eyed Trish playing silly face games with Todd on the couch.

"Look," said Peter. "I gotta go."

"Yeah," said Tom.

"Sure you don't want to stay for dinner or something?"

Dinner. A kaleidoscope of faux pas, discomfort, foot-in-mouth disease, and worst of all, the possibility of awkward, one-sided confrontation. All worth delaying, if not entirely avoiding.

"Nah. Thanks, though." He headed for the door. Not too fast, he hoped. Don't run from dogs or bears, he had been told.

"Thanks Pete," Virginia said.

He turned, and got a last look at Virginia before he waved to them all and left.

He kicked small stones down the sidewalk on the way back to his studio apartment. It'd be best not to go back there for a long while. Cool it off, maybe. Leave it be for a while.

When the kids get a little older, and have school. Firemen work long shifts.

He looked behind him, half afraid Tom would be following him. He feared a knock on the door, or a call.

When he got in the door, his place it was silent and still.

He slumped in a chair, breathing deep, speaking to himself in the language of his own thoughts: the only one in which he was truly fluent. Molly would miss him, and not know the name for what she missed, or remember his face.

He could not go back.

Maturity (PG)

2010-06-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Note: I know some of you have read this one before, but the story I was going to post this week just didn't work out. I can promise new content next week, however. I hope you enjoy it.

***

I took a seat on a bench and fished a treat out of my pocket for Bryce. Stretching my legs, I breathed the crisp air deep. Bryce was pretty naughty that day. The entire jaunt consisted entirely of either pulling me ahead so he could get his nose on some sweet spot on the grass, or holding me back, forcing me to drag him for the same reason. It was irritating, but not really all that unusual for Bryce.

People were out that day, milling around the park on casual strolls, out enjoying the early fall weather just cool enough to promise the last vestiges of comfort before the snow arrived. Anyway, Bryce had plenty of wiggles to get out. I suppose I had a few wiggles of my own. Sitting at a computer five days a week and one builds up a lot of tension. In spite of Bryce being a pill, and the crowds I was breathing deep, feeling the blood flowing, and enjoying one of the last nice days of the year.

Kids were playing on the nearby toys, and I smiled. I won’t deny it had an edge on it. Sandra and I had been trying for about five years with no luck. It didn’t seem to matter how much we tried, or how much money we threw at the problem. I listened anyway, and tried to just enjoy the sound without wondering about whether or not I’d ever have any kids of my own. To me, the screams and prattle were musical. Most of the kids sounded like they were older, maybe ten or so. A few were much younger.

I closed my eyes, listening, and breathed deep. Bryce settled down and finally quit tugging on the leash. After a few deep breaths, I was almost in a meditative state. I focused on the sounds of the children, letting the random shouting and squealing overcome me.

I needed this.

Then there were new voices. Two women had sat down on the bench nearby. They were talking about baby clothes. I tried not to let my concentration slip when I started hearing the coos and gurgles of the infants they had with them. It was more than two babies, though; it was three. One of them had twins.

The three made a beautiful, random chorus of little voices, and song-like vocalizing. I deliberately relaxed my mind. The sounds washed over me as I focused on the noise, tuning out the mom’s chatting. The breeze troubled my hair, and the sun warmed my closed eyes. My mind was clear. I was noticing my sensations, almost as though I wasn’t myself, watching the sensations I felt as though from a great distance.

Then thoughts drifted through my mind. The thoughts weren’t my own. I was reacting to ideas. Then I realized baby’s babblings were babblings no more; they had meaning.

“What do you think? I’m feeling inclined towards accounting, but I’m not sure.”

“Do you think you’ll have the right head for numbers?”

“I really can’t be sure, of course. How sure are any of us. We’re supposed to know though, right? This won’t last forever. Childhood will be here before we know it. The only way to secure anything for sure is to make a firm decision.”

“I know. I just hate the pressure of it all.”

The third spoke up. “We’ll be speaking before you know it. It keeps me up every night.”

The meanings slid through my mind at first. I didn’t add them up. It wasn’t unlike the times my wife goes on and on about the details of her day at work, full of jargon and research terms all of which I tuned out, focusing instead on her feelings, reacting to those rather than the words themselves. Then the babies’ words strung together and I tried to make sense of them.

“Do you think your mom will be a lot of help?”

“I’m concerned she’s a little too rigid. She hasn’t expressed any plans for my future, but dad keeps talking major-league baseball. There might be trouble when I tell him I intend to be a bookstore owner. But you know how it is. You have to pick what’s right for you.”

This coherent idea woke me right up, no longer meditating. How could I help but listen intently to the conversation?

Something had happened in the moments of my reverie, as though I had tapped into something secret. Did all babies plan their own futures like this? Did people plan their lives while they were babies? I certainly can’t remember anything about planning my own future, at least not at that age. If all babies could do this, then there was a secret about human development nobody had yet discovered. I could hear everything they said as clearly as I could hear what their mom’s were saying. I decided to do some casual tests.

Did my hearing them depend on how close I was? I decided to move a little closer. I slid over on the bench about a foot to the right: no change.

I got up, walking further away, trying my hardest not to look like I was listening. Of course, the mom’s would be worrying that I was listening in on their conversation. How would the looks on their faces be if I told them I was actually eavesdropping on what their children were saying? I stopped about seven or eight feet from the bench. Bryce was as confused as anyone looking on would be. I still heard and understood the infants and their conference.

I stepped a few more feet away, hoping Bryce would take the opportunity to take a dump and make me look a little less like a nut. Of course, the little poop wasn’t going to play along. I tried to find something logical for me to look at, looking around at the trees, the leaves on the ground, the cars in the parking lot. Hell, I’d even have taken a good-looking jogger to gawk at. No luck. I had to face the fact that I was acting very strange.

And why shouldn’t I act strange? Something strange was happening. Nobody else seemed to notice that these kids were talking coherently, discussing their future career paths like a pack of overly-serious high school seniors. Why was I the only one that could understand what they were saying?

I walked on another thirty feet or so. Their voices were small, and I could make out very little at that distance, but I could make out a few words. How long would this last? Was it just my meditation? Was I imagining things? Did somebody slip something in my zoloft?

There seemed to be no easy answers. I decided to keep following the direction I had been heading, entertaining the idea of just going home and forgetting about the whole thing. My mind raced with the confusion. I barely noticed Bryce continuing to be a stinker. Bryce has a talent for detecting when I’m distracted or otherwise occupied, taking advantage of any excuse to misbehave and get away with it. Well, that day he could’ve chewed the leash off and I might not have noticed.

What would I tell Sandra? “Hey honey, you wouldn’t believe what the infants in the park were talking about today!” I couldn’t go home now. I needed a little more time.

I decided to do a lap around the park, keeping an eye on the two mom’s and their strollers. Bryce and I crunched through the leaves while I tried to slow my mind down a little, and not look over towards the mom’s and their strollers too often. They seemed to have settled in for a while. I could probably afford to come around them again, listening to see if it still held up. Better yet, I just might run into another babbling baby or two on the way over there.

I turned the corner, trying not to fret too much. If I got over there, and the mom’s had left, ah well: no big deal. I would see what would happen. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear those babies talk again or not. Part of me wanted to have just had a wild flight of imagination, or a misunderstanding. I almost convinced myself that I would pass the babies again -- that they’d babble normally, the way they would if everything was in its right place with the world.

I couldn’t begin to interpret the implications if what I had just heard was real. Maybe these three were all just geniuses, but then other people would be able to hear their conversation too. What if their powers extended beyond communicating with other babies? Was this a new genetic mutation that we should fear? Were there other mutations manifesting themselves in other kids? Were other people’s babies talking to animals, or shooting deadly venom out of their mouths?

There was my imagination running away again. It’s too bad I don’t have a leash for that like I do for Bryce.

Coming out of my reverie I realized Bryce and I were getting near the path the mom’s had been sitting by. I looked over and didn’t seem them. I kept walking down the path, striding faster now.

If I could hear those babies talking again, I could at least confront the problem from there. Having only had that brief moment of attention and listening, it was simply too easy to dismiss it and never mention it to anyone again. I dearly wanted to pretend that nothing had changed with the world, that everything was always as it had been, that babies babbled until their little brains had developed enough to grasp speech.

I lead Bryce down the path towards where the mom’s had been, hoping to get past the line of Maple trees that obscured the view. Getting closer, I realized that the mom’s had left. Part of me didn’t want to believe it, and I looked around hoping to catch them somewhere else.

They were gone. No other babies to eavesdrop on either. In fact, it was getting a little late. I checked my phone and saw that it was about time to grab some dinner. No messages from Sandra, though. That was considerate of her, knowing that I really needed some alone time. She’s always been good about that.

The next morning was Sunday. Sandra and I slept in. She woke bleary, her hair tangled, her smile lazy and pretty. I kissed her good morning. Then I did what I had promised the day before I wouldn’t do; I told her about the talking babies. I chickened out though really, because I told her it was just a weird dream. Part of me knew this was a lie, but it wasn’t a very big part.

Denial: it’s a talent.

She began telling me about her own dream, something to do with her mother and a big railroad car full of donuts. I honestly didn’t listen too carefully. My own denial must’ve been taking too much available RAM. She didn’t seem to notice my distracted state anyway. She gave me another good morning kiss, went into the bathroom and closed the door.

A few minutes later she was still in there. I threw on my robe and grabbed the paper from the doorstep. I started the coffee going, and padded back to bed. I had just winnowed out the sports section and the funnies when the bathroom door opened.

Sandra stood in the doorway and sobbed silently. She smiled through her tears, holding up the small plastic pregnancy test.

The first trimester flew by, and it was already time for the ultrasound. Following the small talk, Doctor Duffy started with the stethoscope on Sandra’s belly. She gazed into space as she listened.

She smiled.

“There it is,” she said. “Good strong heartbeat.” She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised. “You want to hear?”

“Uh . . . yeah! Can I?” I had the awkward-out-of-place-husband-in-the-OB’s-office routine down cold. She sterilized the ear buds and handed it over to me. I put them on as she held the chest piece just so on Sandra’s belly.

And there it was: a healthy, strong little heartbeat. It was unmistakable. I closed my eyes.

“Hello, little one,” I said, my voice low and soft. Then through the stethoscope I heard something else.

“Hey, Dad. Can I have a chemistry set for my birthday?”

I had always pictured the little one following in Sandra’s footsteps.

Naked Hero (PG)

2010-06-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

I had to pick someone to tell. It wasn’t really a tough choice. I’d thought of telling Megan first, my best friend at the time. She had a gossipy streak, though. I needed someone who would keep my secret. I needed Kyle.

My palms were sweating that day as I contemplated my situation. I realized that it could have been much worse. Sweating palms could have turned out to be my power. I could just wipe my palms on the bad guys, greasing their clothes with my repulsive perspiration. I pictured the grizzly no-goodnicks ralfing in some alley after I caught them mugging someone.

I almost smiled at the image. I had just finished junior high school and constant tormenting had exhausted my sense of humor about myself. What would those kids say about me now? When I found out what I could do I felt elated. And it was real, too. My mom’s scream when an empty set of clothes came to the breakfast table served as irrefutable evidence. I could turn invisible. No more problems, right?

But I had seen too many comic book movies, and (I confess) read a few too many actual comics. I couldn’t pretend that this unforeseen left turn in puberty would be simple and fun. Yeah right, I hear you say. The first thing I would do if I found out I could turn invisible is have as much fun as possible. Well, smarty-pants, I did have fun. It was a blast playing around in front of the mirror, giving my dog and my kid brother a scare, but that’s entertaining for only so long. It was day one, after all. I wasn’t too willing to get adventurous with it yet. So I was excited, but that’s not the point.

You see, powers make everything complicated. I could only imagine then how those complications would ripple through my life. The drama with my family had already started. What would happen at school, though? Could I trust my friends anymore? Some of them would surely feel envious. Some just wouldn’t understand. If my secret got out (and I had no doubt in my mind it would have to stay a secret), I had a strong feeling I would have to get used to hearing the word “freak.”

My friends would have to be few and loyal. One comic cliché gave me comfort; y’know, how the hero would have a close-knit posse of one or two compassionate, infinitely understanding non-super friends who closely guarded the secret and helped share the hero’s burden? I knew it was a cliché because it rang true. What else did I have to go on? Anyway, it had to be true if I was going to survive this. I needed a posse, even of just one person. I needed someone who would understand the plight of a pimply fifteen-year-old girl who can turn invisible, and spends her evenings solving mysteries and fighting evil-doers. I would have to rely on the people around me.

I think that scared me more than anything else.

Kyle and I didn’t talk much anymore. Our parents had been friends for years, and we had lived next door to his family before they moved across town. We had last played together at his twelfth birthday party.

The next year he got quiet. That fall when school started I noticed him in the halls. We were friendly with each other --saying hi in the halls, and suchlike-- but we never hung out or anything. I noticed him at lunch eating alone, poring over notebooks, shuffling papers printed off the internet. I basically let him keep to himself, and didn’t intrude. I figured we each had to handle our new adolescent stress in our own ways. He didn’t seem to have too many friends, but at least he had interests. He and I were lab partners one semester, and we worked on a project together at his house one evening. His parents were always nice to me. He was the only boy I felt remotely comfortable being around. If you can’t trust the guy you ran around naked with as a toddler not to betray your secrets in the jungle that is junior high, who can you trust? Besides, he was the quiet type. He always sat in the back of class, and he never seemed to feel like he had to prove anything to anyone: confident, but quiet. He was tall, a little on the chunky side, and cute.

That’s right; I had a crush on him. I wish I could say I didn’t hope me telling him about my power would bring us closer somehow, like MJ and Peter Parker, but I can’t.

So, leave it to me to make a complicated situation absolutely impossible. Not only was I going to have to come up with the guts to tell him about my power, but my fantasies also ran away with me so it felt like I was also about to ask him out.

I rode the bus across town. I remember wishing, for the first of many times, that I could be invisible with clothes on. I didn’t want anyone to see me, look at me, or know that I existed. Anxiety intruded, and rattled my thoughts. Had I gone completely crazy? We hadn’t ever really talked. What if he just called me names, kicked me out, and that was the end of it? What if he exposed me as a circus freak and sold tickets? I tried to calm myself, taking deep breaths, reassuring myself that I could trust Kyle. He’d never betrayed me before, right? Then again, I’d never really given him the opportunity to. Who else did I have, though? Megan blabbed. Kyle had a clean, if short, track record. I was a slave to circumstances. As my mind surrendered itself to complete vulnerability and utter powerlessness, a strange thing happened.

I calmed down. I was fifteen and terminally self-absorbed, so the irony was not lost in me that I should need to discover a super-power to realize just how fragile and powerless I really was. The bus slowed and I checked where we were.

My stop.

I made my way to his street, my heart racing. I tried to will it to slow down. I tried it on my shaking hands, but it didn’t work there either. I wiped my slimy palms on my jeans, swallowed hard, and rang the doorbell. His mom greeted me and asked me in.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

She must have noticed the frantic, constipated look on my face. Apparently the whole “turning invisible” power package didn’t come with the ability to keep my feelings from showing on my face. Superman still had to be Clark Kent. I supposed Invisigirl (or whatever I was going to call myself) still had to be Annie Ludo.

“Can I get you something?”

I politely refused.“Actually, I’m here to talk to Kyle. Is he around?”

“Oh, sure. Let me get him.” She called him down through the house intercom system. A few seconds later he tromped down the stairs. He seemed surprised, but why wouldn’t he be?

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said back. He gave his mom a look, and she discreetly left without saying another word. She didn’t even have a twinkle in her eye. Good lady, I thought. I’d always liked her. I wish I could say I didn’t picture her being my mother-in-law in that moment, but I can’t.

He kept his hands in his pockets. His eyes looked suspicious. “What’s up?”

I checked the doorways into their front room. Sound seemed to carry too well. I got closer to him without getting in his bubble, and lowered my voice, which had to be shaking.

“Um . . . can we go talk someplace? With some, y’know,” I swallowed, “privacy?”

He looked surprised, but nodded. He looked me over, and must have seen my distress. Now he looked worried. It was quite sweet of him; he seemed to be genuinely interested in what was wrong. No backing out now. He would be ready to hear it or he wouldn’t. He would betray me or not.

He led me to the back yard. His mother’s prize-winning garden looked immaculate and manicured. Sorta romantic, I thought. I pushed that idea out of my head and tried to silently rehearse what I would say as we walked to a bench in the corner near a babbling fountain. We sat. I took a deep breath, and felt like I finally had it clear what I would say.

He spoke first.

“So what’s goin’ on? Are you okay?”

“Oh, no -I mean- I’m fine. I think. Just,” and I held up my hand, begging his pardon, and asking for patience.

“It’s alright,” he said. “Take it easy.”

I nodded. I felt more confident than ever that Kyle was the right person to talk to here. I used the silent pause to rally my courage.

“I’ve got something to tell you. But maybe it would be better if I just showed you.” Looking back now, I realize how that must have sounded; he probably thought I would kiss him or something.

I concentrated, flipping that subtle, now familiar mental switch my little magic trick requires. My clothing became an empty shell, barrette and contact lenses hovering over the open neck of my empty t-shirt.

He smiled.

“Well?” I asked nervously. His eyes darted towards the house before checking the perimeter of the yard.

“I’ve got something to show you, too,” he said. He sounded elated. “Take my hand.”

I hesitantly reached out with my invisible, sweating hand and he took it. He looked towards the house, intently focusing on a single spot on the wall facing the garden.

Suddenly, I lost my breath. Stars danced over my eyes and I tried to blink them away. I shook my now-visible head to clear it. I looked around, realizing we were sitting in his bedroom. I had the sudden need to go to the little super-girl’s room. It clicked in my mind what had just happened, and I was hugely relieved. A weight was off, and the adrenaline of anticipation raced through my chest and made me feel warm.

“You mean, you can-“

“Teleport. Yeah. I have to see where I’m going though,” he said, gesturing towards the window that looked out on the bench we had been sitting on a moment before. “But that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve got something else to show you.” He walked past me and opened his closet door wide. He walked in and sat down at the computer desk inside. It looked like some kind of secret cave with gobs of hanging clothes dangling over his slick, new-looking computer. I looked around, and noticed the large box and over-flowing packing material it must have arrived in.

“Come here.” He opened a browser, and entered some passwords. Several windows opened -- video screens. They were the views from security cameras. Some peered behind store check-out counters; some watched over bank tellers, another showed uniformed workers unloading an armored car.

“Until your uh . . . demonstration I wasn’t sure how I would get past security,” he said, looking at me pointedly. He smirked. “We’ll be richer than we ever imagined.”

The warm feeling left. My stomach hit the floor in disappointment and fear. My thoughts began a caffeinated scramble to determine my next step. I knew what I would have to do. The implications—or complications, if you will—came crashing down on me like shelves of painfully heavy books.

I made up a lame excuse and left. When I got home, I started packing. I packed light, because I realized I wouldn’t be wearing clothes a lot. I left my mom and brother a note and hoped they would understand.

So that’s where it started, and that’s why I’ve spent the better part of my life nude and totally invisible.

I’ve since made some friends like Peter Parker did, but only because I chose them a little more carefully than I did with Kyle. I was right about hearing the word “freak” more often.

I wish I could say that I always managed to stop Kyle from doing terrible things. I tried. I wish I could say that I managed to turn him around. I tried there too. I wish I could say that he and I became friends again.

I wish I could say those things, but I can’t.