He tells me he’s been with Lydia, that woman with red hair. She isn’t a petite beauty, Lydia, she’s almost masculine, and it raises some questions in the college circuit—Gay or what? He tells me he’s been with Lydia while we huddle by the bonfire, the big bonfire outside Stables, the nickname for the lacrosse team house. A party is going on and girls are walking in the snow in high heels.
I am floored. Lydia? Lydia, who could carry a sack of potatoes over one arm, carry ten children on her hips, that farm-girl, milk-fed look—that he could have been with her, my thin little friend.
He’s not so physically small, but his carriage, the way he hunches himself over books, the pouting expression as he touch-types on his Tablet.…
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What am I now that I was not before all of this? I am God. Do you think you are reading this because you chose to? You are an abject fool. I created this chain of events. I willed you here to this time and place and these words. Do not for a moment think these words are just any words for any person. I wrote them so that one day you would read them. And now I pity you. I pity your frailty and your stench. Do not look away! Read these words or suffer my suffering. What suffering? How dare you ask. If I were the man I used to be before all of this I would make you pay for such insolence. I am God.…
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“You coming, Schmuck?” The cell phone at his ear, he studied the reflection in the rearview mirror and exaggerated a smile. The front teeth looked good but he needed to fix that rotten molar all the way in the back. “I’m in the parking lot already.”
“Right around the corner, but go on in. I need to make a stop first.”
“You got your camo on, don’t you? Or did you go fancy on me?”
“Nope, ACU all the way.”
“Good. Camo’s more effective. Want me to order something for you?”
“Naw, I’ll get my own. Works better when we’re alone anyway. In a few, Schmuck.”
“Alright, Schmuck.” He put away the phone and got out of the car. The sun hot overhead, he put on a pair of Ray-Bans and strolled across the parking lot.…
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The man stood at the window. The sun was melting crimson onto the tree line, but instead he pecked at his phone with furrowed brow.
The woman sat in a chair, overaggressive springs prodding upward beneath the vinyl. Her soles fused to the floor, tacky and gleaming with disinfectant. She rested her arm on the bedrail and stroked the girl, who was upright and looking far away.
“Mommy?” the girl said.
“Yes, honey,” Sueanne said, paging through the magazine in her lap. ‘Nine tips to a shapelier bottom.’
“What did the doctor say?”
“When?”
“Before. Just before, when he was in the hallway with you and Daddy.”
“Haley honey, I’ve told you, you need to rest and let the grownups worry about doctor things. It’ll only make you feel worse to worry.” …
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Every year in the small town of Jatinga, India, birds fly in from all over the world to kill themselves and tourists come to watch. It’s been going on for a hundred years, scientists say, in the months of September and October when the ground is still moist with little brown puddles from monsoon season. High above the sinking leaves of the jujube trees and damp wooden huts of the village, people line the street like they’re waiting for a parade in the dark. They watch their wrists as time ticks forward, glancing upward until the first bird appears against gray and heavy clouds like a black dot on a dirty canvas. The bird plummets like the first rain drop of a storm before splashing on the ground in a flurry of feathers.…
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Sylvie was barely six when her mother’s hand purposely blocked her face from seeing the horrendous sight of papa being taken away by the police. Through a narrow chink between her mother’s pinky and the ring finger, Sylvie’s questions poured out silently: Where was Papa going? Will he be back to take her for a swim? Mama spoke about it again and again in later years but nothing brought comfort to the question of why Papa was victimized by Stalin. Woolen gloves and eat-treats to Siberia brought no acknowledgement. Could they no longer communicate with Papa? Had he turned into a ghost?
If Sylvie had broken loose towards him would the police have allowed a last hug? Would Papa have said, “Little princess, I will be back for you.”…
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Right now, you’re in India teaching English.
Later, you won’t be.
Last week, he was just another student who didn’t know the difference between us and them and going and gone, until yesterday, when after everyone else left the room, he wrote a Telugu word on the blackboard and looked at you. He had never looked at you that way before. Like a still life with chalk dust in afternoon light. Like a blue flame. As if a swell of water could blush and bite its lip. You asked him what it meant. He said darling and stared past everything that wasn’t you.
Today he’s wearing a pink t-shirt that says, “Enjoy Pussy” in the Coca Cola font and black slacks with no shoes. He’s playing cricket on the hot dust of the school grounds.…
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