Act 1, Chapter 2, Part 5: Escapism

Recapitulation: Barry and Jenna’s mock grave robbery has taken them to the funeral of Jimmy Engles, a child suffered of and killed by progeria, an accelerated aging disease. In order to get close enough to the body to steal the items of worth, Jenna set up a situation whereby the assemblage would assume she was an ailing mother, stricken with guilt and torn by the loss of her own son.

***

The burial faced away from the main road, away from human influence, towards the mass of land and trees and grass and sky, revealing some master plan, bereft of humanity. Somehow, if not make them feel better, it would at least ease their mind, not having to think about all the people oblivious to their personal tragedy, continuing to live their lives, unaffected by Jimmy’s transition to another state of being. It was towards this mindset that Barry and Jenna moved, in body and mind, in order to execute their escape route. Only the priest could see them, and his faded brown eyes, like aged parchment left outside too long, scanned the people still there.

“We’re done. Let’s go.” Jenna’s statements weren’t requests.

Barry walked to the driver’s side door. Jenna stood right behind him.

“Will you get out of my way?”

“I thought I’d drive back.”

“I thought you weren’t an asshole. We’re not always right.”

Barry walked around the car to the passenger’s side. No sooner had he gotten in had Jenna fired the car to life and sped out of the graveyard. Barry had to reach out to pull the door shut, nearly taking out a gravestone too close to the road.

“Slow down. I don’t want to die in a graveyard, I just want to be buried in one.” Barry clasped his hand around the passenger’s door handle, then clasped his other hand. He shrank away from Jenna, as if she radiated a blistering heat.

Jenna shifted into third gear. They exploded outward from a side entrance, causing cars coming in both directions to swerve to avoid them.

“Damnit, whatever I did wrong, I’m sorry, just slow down, slow down, slow down!” Barry closed his eyes, better to see the dark than watch the oncoming cars as Jenna veered into oncoming traffic to get around slower moving vehicles.

Jenna popped the clutch, threw the car into fourth. The well-aged frame hiccupped in response, groaned as they flew down thoroughfares and side streets.

In times of stress, individuals discover religious beliefs they never knew they had. Anything to take your mind off of the impending doom. Barry, for example, found himself praying to every deity he could think of. His new polytheistic pleading found little response. What he couldn’t possibly consider traveling at ninety miles an hour past Morton’s Drugstore was that his prayers cancelled each other out. The gods demand unwavering faith, and his muttered prayers evidenced a knee-shaking lack thereof.

“Please, what do you want me to say? I just wanted you to understand what you were doing.”

Jenna yanked on the emergency brake, slammed on the brakes, popping the clutch and downshifting all the way to first in a few well-coordinated motions. They screeched to a dead halt in the middle of White Chapel Avenue, straddling the center line, impeding traffic in both directions. They wouldn’t block it, but there would be a logjam. Barry looked behind them. Twinned rubber streaks stretched out for a quarter mile behind them. Smoke still drifted off tires. He smelled the scorched rubber, wanted to vomit, but he also wanted to kiss it, for fear he’d died and it was just an elaborate hoax perpetrated on him before the death transaction finalized.

“I only ever rob the elderly. They had long lives, whatever they wanted their relatives to have, their relatives already got. I never once stole from kids. What they keep matters a lot more. And I never, ever even thought about messing around with, with that. You sick son of a bitch, I’m disgusted, but if you think that will keep me from robbing that old biddy tomorrow, you’re wrong. You’re helping me with two jobs now, or I’m getting us both sent to jail.” Jenna sat back, crossed her arms, pouting like the child she still was.

Once again, Barry lost what little control he had over the situation. Hands slick with perspiration and fear, he let go of the door handle, then wiped his hands on his slacks. He looked over at Jenna, still frowning and sulking and keeping them from moving.

“Alright, I’m sorry. It was a mistake, and I don’t know what I was thinking. You made a good point about old people, that’s fine. I just wanted to make sure that you understood completely what you were doing. I will help you tomorrow and after that, let’s just get back to my apartment, we’ve had a long day.”

Jenna stayed still, staring out the front window. Aside from the gentle rise of her chest, still not significant even with her arms crossed, and occasional blinking, she didn’t move.

A car swept past them, its driver cursing and shaking his fist.

Act 1, Chapter 2, Part 4: Basic Human Dignity

Recapitulation: In preparation for a grave robbery tomorrow, Barry and Jenna visit the funeral home today to scope out the place. They’ve also been touched and horrified at the young progeria victim. The funeral has concluded, and they’ve traveled en masse to the burial site.

***

A frosty coating of air swirled in Barry’s mouth, flash-freezing his taste buds. He kept huffing it out, watching the vapor crystallize before rising towards heaven and dissipating. Is that what happened to the soul at death? A puff, barely visible for a few seconds, then nothing? Did the soul waft away, or did it have a more concrete idea of where the winds would guide it? Were body and soul intertwined so tight death could not separate the two? He hoped not, that made his job a lot more depressing.

Four little boys and girls bore Jimmy’s casket, flanked in front and behind by stronger adults supporting the majority of the weight. The children had to raise their arms to reach the integrated handles. Toy soldiers all, playing along with this farcical game they’d been drafted for. Still, they marched, they set their round faces in as best a semblance of anger, because that was all they could do to keep from crying and dropping their arms to their sides. Their shorter legs swung twice as fast to keep up with the taller men, thus pacing them at a normal walk. They arrived at the pit, set the casket down on burlap straps stretched taut above it.

A priest, the same one as at the funeral, stood vigiliant at the head of the casket, waiting for the last few vehicles to arrive and disgorge their passengers. Barry couldn’t stare at him, unable to face clergy members since he’d bowled one over in most ignominious fashion. He turned to Jenna, starting to wipe away the crocodile tears from her masked face.

Jenna lifted the tucked handkerchief from Barry’s suit’s breast pocket. “When should I go?” She whispered into his handkerchief, then blew into it for good measure.

“Let him at least get a few words out, give him a minute or so. Are you up to this?”

“You want proof? You’ll get proof.” The time for words passed. Now they were riding a wild white-water river, frothing and straining, belching them towards still waters. To get there, they couldn’t turn away now, couldn’t abandon their ship. This was it, they had to carry it through this their message scriibbled and thrown into a bottle.

When attendees filled the limited seating and most of those that would arrive had gathered around the casket, the priest began thus: “Young Jimmy was taken from us too young. But we are not here to mourn his death, but to celebrate his young life. To recall how youthful and childlike he was, without losing the basic human dignity that lifted him up and made him special. I would ask all of you to never forget that what made him special is within all of you, basic human dignity. If you want to remember and honor Jimmy, never forget about that basic dignity, always celebrate and encourage it, in yourself and others.”

At this, Jenna rushed around from the back row, then started screaming, a high wordless wail. “Mickey, no, no Mickey, no!” She elbowed aside the good father with her sharp elbows, honed by years of high metabolic rate, lifted the cover as easy as thought. She placed her hands on Jimmy’s face, crying out, “Oh my baby boy, my baby boy, please come back to us, oh, baby, baby, do you hear me?” Her hands kept pressing him, as if searching for an on/off switch the morticians involved post-passing as some cruel joke or prophetic statement. As her thin fingers danced across Jimmy Jenna pretended to remove rings from his fingers and slip cheap replacements that somewhat resembled what she’d taken. She palmed a few of the most common color rings, and continued to slip them from her sleeve to her hand, her sleeve to his hand, his hand to her hand, her hand to her sleeve. She continued unabated the wailing for the dead son never hers.

Barry turned his body sideways, knifing through the crowd, parting them like he parted his thinning hair, forcing them to go towards areas of lesser coverage, thinning out the thick tufts. “No, honey, please. That’s not Mikey.” He emphasized the name, putting a slight lilt to the end as if questioning her. Then, he yanked her away from the casket and closed it. “No, dear, that’s Jimmy, that’s not Mikey.”

“No, Mikey, no.” He led her away from the mass of people, crushing in on the two with their confused, angry stares. Even the children, more acclimated to pretending than anyone else there, stared in amazement at the two strange adults. They slunk away, withering beneath the combined firepower of eighty angered people, as the priest continued leading the flock.

Act 1, Chapter 2, Part 3: Internalized

Recapitulation: Barry and Jenna, in preparation for a lucrative grave job, attend the funeral of a young child afflicted with progeria, a rapid aging disease. Jenna has demonstrated a fear of the unfamiliar at this funeral, while Barry continues to hope that this perverse trick he is playing will dissuade Jenna from tomorrow’s run.

***

Funerals celebrate the dead. Funerals are meant for the living. Introspection, reflection, delving into one’s inner self and confronting basic fears of the unknown, all these things trace the pattern of a funeral, the bass and treble lines to a slow song, weaving into one unified melody. That we sing such sad songs to ourselves over and over is no surprise, for it is never the joy and happiness that capture our imagination, but the sorrow and loss.

Though Barry moved the earth to reveal someone’s final resting places, he never felt any connection to them. A last act of kindness, even if bought with life insurance, never meant anything to him. These codas to lives not his paid the bills, and not much else. There were many reasons he wanted to run this plan with Jenna. He really did believe that for something on this order of seriousness, they needed to ensure some practice would keep them out of trouble. He hoped and prayed this would dissuade Jenna from this mad path. But most of all, he didn’t want to go to his first funeral alone.

So it was that, thrown out of his element and submerged into a new one, Barry could keep his charade going for so long. Kept rising when he should have stayed seated. Kept singing a beat too long. Kept on wiping tears away for a person he disrespected by making a mockery of this funeral. When they rose to follow the train off to the burial site, he could not have been any more pleased.

Upon their departure, Jenna scooped a handful of the orange stickers into her bag. The funeral home director gave her a questioning look. She looked up at him with wet eyes. “It’s been a long year.” He nodded at her with a practiced compassion, gathered up a few more of the orange sheets, passing them to her.

Barry waited at the passenger side of Jenna’s Volvo. Dirt clung to its dull white paint job, like iron filings to a magnet. Both the backseat and the trunk she stuffed full of clothing and various accoutrements, most of it black or some similar hue. The steering wheel lacked a small cross-section at four o’clock position, where some wag had cut through in an attempt to de-club the car. He’d then noticed the utter lack of anything within the car of saleable value and left taking the one thing he could sell: the club itself. It smelled like old french fries, consignment stores and grandmothers.

Jenna returned to the car, ready to set forth. They queued up, awaiting the minivans and SUVs, the drivers making a final count to ensure no child was left behind. Their caravan ride ran silent, save the incessant crackling and popping of the ancient engine, much like a sap-filled log thrown into a fire. Barry watched pedestrians grab buttons as they passed.

They descended upon the graveyard, a cast of mourners ready and willing to draw to a close this performance.

Act 1, Chapter 2, Part 2: Cushioning

Recapitulation: Grave digger Barry and grave robber Jenna have teamed up to further Jenna’s cause of self-enrichment. In a lead-up to a lucrative job, Barry has crafted a plan to take a dry run at the funeral home the day before to work out the kinks. However, his main goal is to force Jenna to confront the living as well as the dead, and perhaps change her course of action.

***

Viewed from the front, with naught but the lofty ceiling and wooden pews and the two of them walking slowly down the aisle, they might as well have been participants in a shotgun wedding. Barry half-dragged Jenna forward, her mind and body still trying to stay hidden in the back of the hall. Each laborious step, perhaps anticipating labor in six to seven months, brought them closer and closer to the child-man struck down far too early by fate’s cruel designs.

Viewed from behind, a horrible joke. Never should that many children attend a funeral, especially for a friend. Never should parents have to bury their child, especially a child twice as old as them, but still too young to shave. Never should morticians ply so young a child in order to present serenity to the world. Never, never, never, consigned to the everyday here.

White velvet lined the casket, a plush bedding. Inside, Jimmy lay peacefully, his overlarge eyes closed, sewn shut. They dressed him in a clean white t-shirt and blue jeans that had never seen dirt or stains or any other signs of life. Probably sneakers too, a fresh pair just popped from the box, still unlaced and with that new rubber scent.

“Open your eyes.” Barry nudged Jenna. “Look at him.”

Just because she stole from the dead and cried on command didn’t mean she lacked feelings. Jenna looked down at Jimmy, what used to be Jimmy. His bald head, the thin skin stretched across it, couldn’t hide the tracework veins that pathed across his scalp like a fresh leaf. The mouth, posed on the verge of a smile, shut off-center, a function of missing and malformed teeth. The paper-thin skin about his head and neck had been powdered and puffed by the morticians, working their morbid magics, making him look as if he’d been napping. His avian visage raised a strange longing in Barry’s heart; he knew this was just an empty vessel, yet still lamented that this boy, this child, should suffer misfortunes this severe.

“Let me go.”

“No. We’re going to sit down, sit through the funeral, and go to the burial. We have a test run to complete.” Barry took Jenna, all too willing to be led away from the half-casket. They picked a pew towards the back, so as not to block any of the children. Jenna shook free from Barry and sat down. A loud fart sound erupted outward. Jenna screamed. She reached down, pulled out a whoopee cushion.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” Willa rushed back. “Jimmy wanted me to plant the whoopee cushion, but I lost it. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright.” She handed over the deflated cushion, as flat as her confidence right now.

They sat in silence, waiting until the ceremony started. Barry wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but disrupting her thought process right now might send her into throwing up her shell.

“If you could all take your seats, we’ll begin soon.” Willa spoke at the podium. The children found their parents and sat down, another life’s lesson taught through abject example, seated in pews instead of wooden desks.

Act 1, Chapter 2, Part 1: Trial Run

Recapitulation: Barry aided Jenna in a grave robbery. Jenna bolted and Barry ruined a funeral in the ensuing chase. After receiving a month’s suspension, Barry has decided to throw in with Jenna, at least for one job, in order to avoid being blackmailed for his earlier role as accomplice. After hearing Jenna’s barebones plan for robbing a wealthy (dead) dowager, Barry creates a more detailed plan of his own, in anticipation of the incipient funeral.

They held each other’s hands like they pioneered it, showy and proud, yet restrained and a bit humble, so as not to flaunt it, even as they needed to flaunt it. Barry felt like he was escorting a dribble glass, so copious were Jenna’s tears. Just as fake as a dribble glass, just as many holes in the story. Willow Grove funeral home, like most funeral homes, never carded. They just walked right on in as if they owned the place as absentees, then asked in reverent tones where the Jimmy Engles funeral was. The matron led them into the Wilson Carter Memorial Hall, wherein tens of people congregated, walking around, reminiscing about Jimmy. Lots of high-pitched crying from all the small children, done up in their plain little dresses, their short pants and suits, little adults without the maturity, blessed with naivete in spades.

The Hall’s lofted ceilings tended to make everyone seem shorter. Earthy tones draped the hall, light coffee walls, walnut trim, oaken pews with dark brown padding. Several doors opened up into the Hall, multiple entries and exits into these all-too-brief reminders of the recent deceased. Never dead, for just as this Hall would continue to exist long after these honored guests had come and gone, so too would the recent deceased function in some fashion, whether as a memory or something more. Into this paradigm, clothed in sedate black, Barry and Jenna entered, posing as those that belonged.

“And how is this going to help us tomorrow?” Jenna clamped Barry’s hand, her fingers trying to squeeze the life out of his. His large hand dwarfed hers, so the overall effect resembled that of a child holding her father’s hand.

“We need to learn the layout and the procedures here, and this just happens to be in the same hall. This is going to be our dry run.”

“I could use a drink, all these kids. They’re going to screw it up.”

“Nonsense, now smile honey, but not too much.” They walked forward, as a youngish woman, closer to Barry’s age than Jenna’s, approached them. She wore a dark veil, smart black gloves, daubing tears away with a handkerchief. Her stiletto heels scraped against the carpet, threatening to unthread it with each pass.

“Hello, I’m Willa, Jimmy’s mother.” She held out her left hand, fluttering like an irregular heartbeat.

“Hello, we’re the Parkinsons, Harper and Mabel. We met Jimmy at the hospital when our son Michael, well.” Barry took the hand, trailed off his words.

“I’m sorry, I never saw you there, although David and I, we didn’t notice much, beyond our Jimmy.”

“It’s alright, we don’t have to talk about it, I know how you feel.” Jenna wiped her eye with her index finger, an exaggerated tap against her face. “There were so many nights, so many nights, oh.Mickey.”

“Michael.” Barry nudged her.

“Michael. Oh God.” Jenna folded towards Barry, wept into his shoulder, clawing at his suit jacket, outdated and threadbare, the perfect jacket for a father who’s spent a year’s wages on his progeriatric son.

Barry stroked Jenna’s hair, looking off into the distance. Then, as if waking from a dream, he focused on Willa, as if she’d just resolved from a fog that lifted. “These children, Jimmy’s classmates?”

Willa nodded. “Did Michael ever go to school?”

Barry shook his head. “We just, we couldn’t, the children, they.” Another well-meaning start to an evaporated thought that would never coalesce.

“It was so hard to teach the kids that Jimmy wasn’t a bad kid. Even though he loved to play tricks. I’m sure he had to have tried some on you.” Willa turned about, watched the children coming to grips with the situation, only to fail. “Worst trick of all, he kept telling all of them he’d outlive them all. Even stuck in his hospital bed, when they’d come to visit, we’d peel back the mask, he’d tell the closest person to get closer, and he’d whisper ‘I’ll outlive you all.’ Some of them believed it. After a while, even though we knew it would never happen, we started believing him. And now, and now. Excuse me.” Willa moved towards the short casket, the casket cut in half, some magic trick half-executed and whole in poor taste.

They migrated towards the rear of the Hall. Still ensconced within the crook of Barry’s arm, Jenna half-whispered to Barry.

“If you’re trying to make me give up, its going to take more than a simple funeral.”

“You’ve never been to a funeral have you. You just go to the burials, once they’ve exhausted themselves, once they’ve worn out their emotions. You have no problem dealing with the dead, but the living, whole different issue. And we’re going to go up there and pay our respects to that poor little kid.”

“Hell no. You saw that picture.”

“He’s no longer alive. What are you afraid of? Who knows, you might see something you like.”

When she emerged from the crook, Jenna could have been flushed from intoxication, blushing from embarrassment, raging and furious, sobbing like a child older than his years. “Fine, lead the way.” And they walked hand in hand down the aisle to confront the target of their dry run, Jimmy Engles, age eleventy-seven.

Act 1, Chapter 1, Part 7: Obituarial

Recapitulation: After receiving a month’s suspension from grave digging, Barry returned to his apartment only to find Jenna, the indirect source of his suspension. She established the pecking order, flaunting her ability to cry on command, and Barry has decided to play along with her master plan on grave robbing.

***

Wrinkled newspaper sheets covered the kitchen floor, like the bottom of a bird cage, replete with various droppings everywhere. In the middle of the floor, Barry and Jenna hovered over several of the sheets, thick black markers in hand, circling or crossing out various names in the obituary section. Then, without warning or reason, Jenna would leap up to the kitchen table, now moved into the living room, flip through the open phone book, and cross out another name.

“Do you have to do that?” Barry swiped out another obituary. “There might be people still living there, kids, spouses, friends.”

“And then there might not be. I’m just keeping it up to date.” Jenna tore out a page, crumpled it up, tossed it at Barry.

“Don’t do that, we might need it later.” He unballed the paper, smoothed it out against his leg.

“If we need it later, you’ll know where it is.” She balled one of the random sheets of newspaper, tossed it at him. “Oooh, here we are. Gertrude Wilborough, I think we have something. Old school name, respectable hair, Willow Grove Funeral Home.” Jenna thumbed through the phone book, her fingers caressing the pages. As gently as she would seduce a lock, she tickled down a page in the back of the book. “Oh, oh, here we go.”

“What?”

“Gertrude Wilborough. 41 Walker Avenue.” She reached over for the house locator, nicked from the grocery store. Under normal circumstances, you can’t steal what they give away. So, while Barry went around buying copious amounts of red meat and shredded cheese and bread, Jenna slipped a couple of the thick books down the front of her pants. She did this in plain view of the customer service desk, and they goggled as she held her hand beneath her square crotch. “Fuck me beautiful.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

“Look at this price for 22 Walker Avenue. That’s more zeroes than a Star Trek convention.” She ran over and shoved the book into his face. Barry smacked it out of the way.

“Alright, now what.”

“What now what, we crash the funeral.” She rummaged through her purse, came out with a handful of orange rectangles. “I love these things, if a cop ever stops you, just tell him you got lost and flash your tits. Well, not you.” She flipped one around. A large black “FUNERAL” emblazoned the front. “We wait until everyone leaves, you distract the digger, I go in and get out. Simple.”

Barry laughed. “What if something goes wrong?”

“We improvise. I sure as hell wasn’t planning on you stopping me, now look at you.”

“This couldn’t have gone worse if I got you pregnant.”

“All I’m asking for is one job. We finish this and I’m gone. Simple, husband.”

“Shut up.” Barry got up, looked out the window. “If we do this, we do it right. We need a plan, we need a contingency plan.”

“Rob the grave, fudge it if something changes. Fine.”

Barry looked at her. “The only reason you got away was because I screwed up. We’re not going through that again. Hell, look at this.” He waved his arm at the strewn newspapers, his chaotic apartment. “How many times did you say you did this before?”

“At least twenty. Who can keep track.”

“And you’re living out of your car.”

“No, I’m living out of your apartment.”

“Whatever, we have two days until the sixteenth. We’re going in with more than a rudimentary plan. Clean these papers up.” Barry moved to the table, itching to get it back into the kitchen, lined up with each leg square on a tile. Something felt wrong about this, beyond the fact that he was going to be stealing from a dead woman. “How many funerals have you really attended, as a guest.”

“Does it matter?”

“It will if you want to blend in. You’ve got all the right clothes, you cry all the right tears, but there’s something about you that screams desperation, not the right kind of desperation. You don’t feel like you belong, and I can’t describe why.” He dragged the table back into the kitchen, set it up, repositioned the sole chair. Like a priest at an altar, he brushed off the table, set the phone book and housing periodicals to one side, swept the dirt off, prepared it for consecration. For the next few hours, they sketched out their master plan, mostly Barry throwing down ideas, and Jenna shooting them down. Like any other collaboration, they called it quits having accomplished little. Jenna stole away to the bed when Barry nodded off, leaving him to lay claim to the couch.

He stared without seeing, cloaked in the dark night, the city gasping in the background, hacking, wheezing, crying. She wouldn’t need her jewelry. She wouldn’t miss it, a fact he kept repeating before closing his eyes.

Act 1, Chapter 1, Part 6: Pointed

Recapitulation: Barry has received a one month suspension after chasing grave robber Jenna through Millken Park and disrupting a funeral. He returns to his apartment only to find Jenna has moved in, is passing herself off as his wife, and wants to partner with him to rob graves.

***

Jenna had to be kidding. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Seems to me you’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Because of you!” Barry turned around, stepped back into the kitchen no longer his. Splashed water in his face, felt the frown creasing his features.

“Oh, come on, between my coercion of you, and your willingness to be coerced, we can’t fail.” She yelled out from the bedroom, before walking into the doorframe. Her forearms, thin as reeds, pressed up against the frame. She leaned forward, as if dipping down into a pool, breaking the surface with her face and chest. That’s what this came down to, Barry swimming in his own insulated world, and Jenna intruding, bringing with her a new method of living.

“It’s illegal, it’s wrong, there’s nothing appealing about stealing from dead people.”

“Like they need it.” Then she leaned back. “Wait, you’re not one of those people that thinks dead people are watching us now, are you? Oh no, not the ghosts, they’re watching us!” She curled into a ball on the floor, peeking out from behind her fists. “Go away, do you want the ring back? Will that send you away?” Jenna tossed the ruby ring at Barry. It smacked him in the forehead, clattered onto the linoleum floor, smashing an errant flake left over from Jenna’s exorcism of health food.

“Really, what are they going to do with it? You can’t take it with you.”

Damned if she didn’t have a point. “That’s crap.”

“Oh, excuse me, I forgot, you do this for a living. Tell me, how many dead people got up and walked away during the funeral? No, I’ll be generous, at any time. Go ahead, count it up, hubby.” Now she’d migrated to the chair in the kitchen, the only one in the entire apartment.

“I am not your husband!” He slapped the table.

“Fine wifey, we can play that way too. Where do you keep the strap-on?”

“This, the, that, those!”

“Look, it’s only illegal if we get caught. We got a month to plan it out, you’ve got access to Millken Park, and I’ve got the black dresses and can cry on command. Slap me.”

“What?”

“Slap me.” She stood up out of the chair and brandished her face at him. “Either cheek, it doesn’t matter.”

“Are you insane?”

“I won’t hit you back.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Oh, you’re always concerned with points Barry. Why does everything have to have a point? Just hit me, I know you want to. Either cheek, I don’t care.”

He grew up laboring under the belief that you never hit women, which is why he was so surprised after he slapped her, open handed across her left cheek, then backhanded her across the right cheek. For her part, she cried out loud, clutching at her cheeks. “Why did you do that?”

“You just told me to hit you?”

“Not hard, I was going to show you I can cry on command.” Jenna seemed a little shorter somehow. Strawberry red, her face looked like it was ready to burst. Her cheeks already started to swell, not with pride, but from inflammation. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m so sorry. Please, let me see it.” He reached out for her hands, but she kicked away from the table, sliding backwards on the chair. Now she shivered, but the apartment wasn’t that cool. The thermostat, assuming she hadn’t altered it, regulated the temperature at a moderate 68 degrees.

“Stay away from me.”

“No, please, stop crying, I’m so sorry, please, I’ll do anything, it was a mistake, I didn’t mean it.”

“Anything?” Jenna had her arms raised as if ready to box him, though her thin arms couldn’t punch through cardboard.

“Yes, yes, just stop crying.”

She stopped, shutting it off like her emotions. “We’ve got a month to plan. You’re going to get us some dinner, none of this rabbit food, and we’re going to figure out how this is going to work. Oh, and hand me my ring, will you?”

“Yes dear.”

Act 1, Chapter 1, Part 5: A Flaky Conversation

Recapitulation: Amidst a muddy schoolyard chase, grave digger Barry slipped and rolled down a hill, destroying a funeral. After Sal suspends him for a month, he goes back to his apartment, only to find Jenna already there.

She threw an empty cereal box at him. “By the way, you’re out of corn flakes.”

Barry turned the box upside-down. “You ate an entire box of corn flakes? I just bought it yesterday.”

“No, I threw it away. You need better cereal, something that stains the milk after ten minutes. Something chocolate. Oh, you also need some chocolate milk.”

“You dumped that too? I just bought it.” He ran to the refrigerator.

“Drank it.” She belched, a deep, guttural cry. “Needed something to calm myself down after all that running. I’m going to take a nap now, you can have the couch. Try not to wake me up when you leave tomorrow.” Jenna yawned, then walked into his bedroom. “Night.”

Barry opened up the refrigerator. Half the food no longer occupied its shelving, the other half out of order. He reached for the oranges, came out with butter. The butter tray was stuffed with sliced ham. Even the temperature setting had rotated around to one. One! The coldest, most expensive setting. The, he looked around the kitchen. Dirty plates everywhere, open bags with corn flakes, his whole grain bread smashed and tossed around. At least the sink was clear, so he hoped. Barry turned on the sink, watched the water refuse to drain, watched something blue bubble up, diffuse into the now-standing water.

He marched into the bathroom. Jenna screamed, covered her naked self with her hands. “Don’t you knock before entering a bedroom?” Barry turned and retreated into the kitchen. The bedroom door slammed shut. He then realized it was still his apartment.

The bedroom door flew open. Barry stood in the doorframe, his eyes shut. He pointed a finger forward, somewhere into the bedroom. He figured she’d be in the bed. “Get out, this is my apartment. Put your clothes on, leave whatever else you stole from me, and get the hell out. I never want to see you again.”

The toilet flushed, a thick, wet rush. He heard the bathroom door open. “You pervert, didn’t you already see enough last time?”

“Get out get out get out!” Now he was hopping mad, jumping in the doorway, one hand up to keep himself from jumping into the wood, one finger now waggling in the general direction of the bathroom, his eyes still closed.

“Look, I’m real tired, can we talk about this in the morning?”

“Why are you still here?”

“Boy, maybe you need a nap. Just go to your couch, lie down, close your eyes. Then you can go to work tomorrow all refreshed.”

“No I can’t, I’m suspended for a month because of you!”

Jenna laughed. “Did I tell you to chase me?”

Barry started grinding his teeth. “I don’t even care about the money anymore, I just want you to take your clothes, and your ring, and anything else that’s yours, leave everything I own, and just go. You know what, you need bus fare?” He threw a five into the bedroom. “There, go take the bus, just go.”

“You’re funny, I’m going to like living here.”

Barry opened his eyes. Of course, she’d pocketed the money. She sat on the edge of the bed, wearing his best dress shirt, and apparently nothing else, the way she kept her legs crossed tight.

“Take the shirt, fine, just go.”

“You can’t kick me out, I’m your wife!”

“You’re not my roommate, you’re not my friend, you’re certainly not my wife. I just had one lapse in judgment, and I’m not going to keep compounding it. You got away without getting in trouble, now leave before I call the cops.”

Jenna laughed. “What are you going to tell them, that you helped me steal this ring? Grave robbery carries serious penalties. No, I’ve got a better idea. Ever heard of the saying, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound?’”

Act 1, Chapter 1, Part 4: Upended

Heroes are borne in times of adversity, such as the precarious moments preceding a ruined funeral. Here, we witness a stillbirth. Start blinking and don’t stop until this is over, it makes the scene appear to be from the 1910s, and it slows down the action a little.

Barry’s stumble billowed into a full-blown one-man melee, his fists and feet flying every which way. Mud scrapings spattered against gravestones, disturbing long-untouched resting sites. Despite the admonitions to not raise a ruckus, Barry screamed. He also crashed with each bounce, grunted like an ape, and dented a new casket (aren’t they always? Where do they market used caskets?). This might have been enough on any normal day, but his roll also knocked over the unsuspecting priest and half the assemblage, dark-clad bowling pins screaming at the overall sight.

All he saw was sky and mud and canopy and a frock and grass and the insides of his eyelids. The mud cooled his cheek, inside and out. An angry staccato beat punctuated his eardrums. His heart? No, his heart still telegraphed on a different frequency. What was this, this fading beat? Barry spat the mud out of his mouth, then sat up, only to see people either running around in a controlled, respectful disarray, or sitting in the mud, bewildered and drenched. Jenna had also disappeared.

He looked up at the casket, now upended, its lid gaping open. It had disgorged the quiet passenger inside, now draped awkward and bent like a rag doll. Somehow, the good father had ended up in that man’s arms, and their heads lay close to each others’ crotches. Were the priest so inclined, he could have sucked the sawdust right out, and broken several commandments in the process.

***

“If you were sitting in my chair, which part would you have more trouble believing, the broad daylight grave robber, or the retarded grave digger who crashed a funeral?” Sal threw the file folder down on her desk. “No, wait, don’t answer. I can’t believe I had to ask you that question.” She picked up the file folder, threw it at Barry. Papers whipped around him. “You’re on two weeks probation. Pick those up.” As he gathered up the papers, Sal drummed her fingers. “No, one month. That sounds right. Now give me that file and get the hell out of here.”

Could he fight? Sure. Could he win? No. Barry slumped on the back of the fourteen bus, leaning against a window that countless others had leant their heads upon. He’d had to beg Sal for bus fare, after discovering his wallet had disappeared. Probably got buried. In a month, he’d have to go back and dig up that man, see what was left in his grave.

What went wrong? Well, that encompassed far too much. What went right? At least he got a half day. Hopefully he’d also get paid. They arrived at his apartment, trapped deep within a dilapidated building hidden in the urban thickets. He opened the door, now hanging on one hinge, trudged up squeaky stairs, entered a long hallway that looked to be his universe for the next month. Stopped at his door, unlocked it, stepped in.

“Hi honey.” Jenna stepped out from behind the corner. She tossed him his wallet, conveniently emptied of any and all paper bills. “Your nice landlord let me in after I told him I forgot your keys.” She smiled and held out her left hand, that ruby ring resting loose on her ring finger. “He was so happy to hear you’d gotten engaged.”

Act 1, Chapter 1, Part 3: Slipping Away

Recapitulation: After watching the woman with emerald eyes leap into a grave, Barry decides to throw in with the grave robber, aiding and abetting her thievery of the deceased’s ring.

True to her word, the woman with the emerald eyes possessed the ring. She held it inbetween ragged fingers, gnawed fingernails surrounding the golden ring. The woman held it up to her eye, peered through it as though she could discern Barry’s true nature. He stared back at a very young face, unwrinkled and smooth, yet a very old face, tricky eyes, a knowing smirk hiding just behind her lips. And, of course, since she was looking through the ring like a spyglass, her one open eye resembled a planetary model of a hydrogen atom, save the giant ruby, so massive it threatened to topple the entire construct back into the earth, and take her with it.

The mud entrenched itself within her dress’ velvet fibers. The dress itself hung loose upon her frame, though it would have fit a supermodel’s body just fine. This was the second time an attendee sported more dirt than Barry. The first time, a homeless man stood at a respectful distance from the funeral. He doffed his mangled fedora, clutched it to his breast in a sign of defiant respect, even as he stood a long ways from the rest of them, resplendent in their K mart finery. He stood throughout the entire funeral, even as the rest of them sat, shuffling his feet, shuffling the sacks on his feet, tied with rusty baling wire. Was it they who repelled him, or did his presence repel all of them?

“Do you know how much your fifteen percent will be?” That smirk revealed itself, leaping to the forefront. She reverted to the mischievous pixie. A spin from her left hand, and the ring gyroscoped a few times. “This thing is great!.”

“Fifty, and that’s not the point, uh.” He proffered his hand like a dead squid. “Barry. And, let me guess, Esmerelda?”

Had she not been standing at the edge of an open grave, she would have stepped backwards. “Alright, twenty-five. And its Jenna.” She slapped his hand, then danced around him, now pocketing the ring. “If you give me your address, I’ll mail you your cut.”

“I don’t want it.” Barry stepped out from under the canopy, back into the light rain. Now the mud on both of them ran, staining them, marking them. “I’ll give you my share if you tell me what that was all about.”

“I told you, Grandma gave me that ring, and I lost it.” She gave him a thumbs up, then passed the ring over her thumb, back and forth. It never touched her knuckle.

“What’s Grandma’s name?” He creased his forehead, then reached into his back pocket. As he did this, she bolted. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What was he thinking. He put the paper back and started a light jog. Somewhere along the line, he read that aborigines chasing a cheetah only had to keep the cheetah in eyesight, since they could only sprint for a couple of minutes. Once they tired out, they were ripe for the killing. As he only wanted some answers, this should have been easier. Why couldn’t she be dead? The only time they picked up any speed was on a downhill slope.

The rain softened the underlying ground. Grassroots, interlacing beneath the surface, kept the ground solid, prevented the attendees from sinking too deep with each solemn step. However, they could do little to withstand a young woman tearing across the graves like a beheaded chicken. Even the coffin interment facilitator following in her muddy divots sent dirt splotches flying upwards. Still, he had to remain calm. It wouldn’t do for Sal to catch and reprimand him for committing the cardinal sin, being heard as well as seen. If only Jenna worked here.

Millken Park rolled and heaved, a series of massive hills giving options for valley and hill burials. It also lent an extra edge of privacy whenever anyone came to visit the locations where their loved ones used to be buried, assuming decomposition carried away much of the bodies. Jenna crested hill 32, and disappeared behind it. Barry watched how her tracks never deviated from a straight line, plotted where she would turn up on the other side. Then, as he neared the top, he unfolded the wrinkled guide. Oh no.

Just on the other side, a white-collared priest held his hand over the open casket, chanting a prayer in ye olde Latin. Jenna stood quiet behind the assemblage, managing to blend in, despite the muddiness. Perhaps because she was so muddy, no one dared question her, for fear they might offend her. Barry wondered, why had she slowed down at the top. Maybe it was his mind wandering, or maybe it was the steady pace, or maybe it was the thick rut she’d carved out in trying to stop. Maybe he’d gained weight, maybe he’d lost it. Who knew what the exact cause of his slide was. The salient point, he slid at the apex of the hill, and just as Jenna’s tracks led unerring towards the funeral, so too did Barry’s path intersect with that open casket, and the unsuspecting priest, his back to Barry.

Act 1, Chapter 1, Part 2: Stones

Recapitulation: Millkin Park grave-digger Barry watches the woman with emerald eyes leap into the grave of the recent passing.

***

Barry stepped to the edge of the shallow precipice and peered over. Along the sides of the grave, dirt crumbled downward as the woman continued her tantrum, thrashing against the coffin’s lid. She kept crying out, “No, no, no.” Barry got on his belly, arms dangling into the grave, ready to try to lift her out, when he noticed her fumbling at the lock on the casket, with some sort of metal shim. Up until now, Barry never understood what the point of locking a grave was. Unless you believed in zombies, in which case their increased strength and decreased pain sensation would allow for smashing through the lid anyway, making a lock pointless. Locks kept people in, not out.

The woman banged her fist against the lid, still etching away at the lock. “Miss, this isn’t the way, you’ve got to come out of there.” Slow, even tones, generic phrasing that couldn’t offend anyone, and once he got a grip on her, he’d drag her out like a breech birth.

She turned upwards, looking through Barry. “Look, Grandma’s got something that belongs to me. I dropped my ring in there during the wake, and I didn’t realize it was gone until a few minutes ago. That ring was the last thing she gave me, and she told me to remember her by it. When I was stroking her face and saying goodbye, the ring must have slipped off, it was too big, but I kept wearing it, I couldn’t help it, oh please please let me get that ring back, please, you’ve got to have a key.” Now she wailed, cried, stretched for Barry’s arms, then stretching towards the casket, tossing flowers about like a child with a box of tissues, making a spectacle.

“So, the picklock, was that also to remember her by?” Barry screwed up his face, arms still hanging over the edge, modern day Kilroy.

Those deep green eyes shifted, once warm and inviting as an emerald, now cold and hard as, well, an emerald. She frowned up at him, then tossed the shim. It bounced off his forehead. She scrabbled to the opposite edge of the grave, grabbed the crumbling edge, tried to pull herself out, but fell back in, more of the dirt tumbling after her.

“You’re supposed to leave a piece of your heart, not everything else.” Barry walked around to the other edge, grabbing his shovel and throwing in a nice clod of mushy mud. It splattered against her, cold and wet and dirty he thought. Sounded like a jellyfish hitting a wall.

“You ass.” Now her eyes were fiery and ready to bore holes through him. “Stop throwing that shit at me. If you don’t stop.” Empty warning, as another mud clump sealed her mouth shut and slathered her in a thick crust.

For his part, Barry loved tossing dirt onto a live person, he’d never had the opportunity before, and she gave him such a wonderful reaction. Ambling over to the mud pile, he scooped up another mudball, strolled back over to the new pit. The woman continued scraping earth from her face and her body, her clenched fingers flicking away the mud. Standing, her head peeked just above the surface of the pit. She grasped the felt carpet, gave a second go at trying to get out. Barry wound up and whapped the poor, dirty woman in the face. The load threw her off balance and she fell back into the pit, the casket clacking against her shoes.

“Let me out of here.” Now she sounded just as sad and desperate as before, though for a different reason. Barry chunked his shovel into the ground and leaned on the handle. He crossed his right leg over his left and peered into the depths. Poor woman, her black velvet dress now coated with mud, creating a Rorschach ink blot. Barry just saw more mud. She fumed, ready to blow her top. Her pixie-like brown hair matched the mud.

“Make me laugh. Tell me why I shouldn’t turn you in.” Thing was, even before Barry finished talking, he knew he wouldn’t turn her in. Just scare her, let her go. Life was too short, and was there any real reason why the deceased needed her trappings now? No. At least the woman might learn something. She’d at least broken up his day’s monotony.

“Did you see the rock on that ring? I’ll give you half.” As if that was enough, she scrambled over to the other side, knelt down on the coffin, her hand raised, palm up. “Come on, hand me my pick and let’s do this. We don’t have all day.” Mud-stained, humiliated, lacking any sort of control over the situation, she acted as if she’d been pulling the strings from minute one.

Barry no longer smiled. He stared at the tiny glint of metal, at her hand, calluses flowering all over it, at the walnut coffin with the metal ribs keeping it sturdy. Tilted his head back to allow the rain to trickle into his nostrils, down into his mouth. A hint of tang, wonderful acid rain. What could it matter? What did it matter? Today had already cracked his expectations apart. He let his shovel drop, picked up the shim, ran it through his fingers. Cold and lifeless, just like that coffin, just like that body. Life was for the living.

They didn’t pay him near enough to keep him from placing the shim in the woman’s hand. They only paid him enough to bury the evidence.

Act 1, Chapter 1, Part 1: The Unexpected

After a while, all burials adopted the same pallor as the deceased’s face. Everyone crowded around this boxy hole, and the box suspended above it, while the minister/priest/deacon eulogized the recent deceased. Then, lowering the casket, and some sort of symbolic act, casting roses into the pit, or a handful of dirt. Something to involve the players, besides their token roles as dour choir, chanting the uneven dirge to send whomever it was off to whatever afterlife they believed in. Then, like the closing ceremonies at an awards ceremony, the people would shuffle away, based on proximity, emotional and literal, to the dearly departed. Family, and their memories, lingered about the body, yet also drifted away like smoke. Eventually.

Today was no different. Barry needed a smoke and a piss, but the rules said no. No leaning over onto the shovel, still fresh from his morning clean. Sure, it was just a shovel, but he felt some connection to it, his helper. At the very least, it didn’t give a second thought about these dour proceedings. Whatever, Let the worms feed, bring on the next client.

People tended to make the weather fit their specific day, regardless of the truth that the weather cared not one whit about them. Snowy day, rainy day, matched their mood. Sunny day, breezy day, X would have wanted it this way. It was just weather, and another natural process. Today, drizzle spotted their funereal finery, darkening their clothes, wetting their handkerchiefs. A grey day, a fine day to dig a hole and bury a man. Or a woman. Who was this?

He at least could reference the chart. A deep wrinkled piece of paper in his back pocket listed which plots at what points he was to work on today. Right now, 63-101, and he had ninety minutes until 48-293. As long as the bodies were six feet deep and couldn’t see the skies, Sal didn’t give a damn how he did it. Just had to be respectful and keep a respectful look on his face, show up in his coveralls, and not start until everyone had left.

Oh, this was the big one. Rush the burial and he’d catch hell for it. There was some leeway, depending on how many grieving family members would congregate about the fresh-made grave, as if their love could bring her back. No, really, one elderly woman looked at him and told him that if he would allow her a few more minutes, she thought that he might still return. “Sure, Ma’am.” He even patted her shoulder, leaving behind a dusty handprint. Poor biddy. If she hadn’t died in the interim, she might still believe that. Hell, he, or one of the other day shift, probably buried her. Ironic that her husband looked better than she did; he was dead.

In twos and threes and fives and even an eight, they paced across the bright grass, so green due to the constant influx of nutritious foods and preservatives, entered their wet cars with the bright orange stickers in the windshields, drove off to who knew where. Before you came to Millkin Park, after you left Millkin Park, Barry had no clue what you were up to. Only when you entered his office could he predict you.

And so it was today that one last family member waited under the canopy, daubing her eyes, sobbing every few seconds. Barry stood a respectable distance from the canopy, giving her time to dry out, so she could leave and get wet. He counted to one-eighty in his head, but no change. Stepped beneath the green canopy, upon the green felt carpet, tapped her on the shoulder. “Miss, I’m sorry, but I have to start soon.” She shivered, hands covering her mouth, turned back to look at him. Her emerald green eyes stared back at him. The woman started to say something, then yelled behind her hands, and jumped into the grave. She clawed and ripped at the casket, crushing the pile of carnations beneath her body. Loud, wordless screams emanated from beneath Barry, as if he’d walked into a horror movie. Maybe all funerals weren’t the same.

Prologue: A Kiss Goodbye

Once again, we're switching formats, to a more story arc style. I have no idea how this story is going to go, as my original idea has already changed, and I won't tell you just yet what it is. I'm also not sure if there should be SF elements or if I should just "play it straight." It is a bit morbid, fair warning.

***

Barry turned to Caddy’s dead body, asked her to “Keep watch, tell me if anyone comes.” Her slack jaw, hardly yokel in its rigor mortis, paused mid-chuckle. Once dead, she found everything Barry said funny. This would have chilled her, if she was in any position to care. Caddy rested against the fresh gravestone, customized for “Bernard Di Ciza.” The original plan involved this gravestone guarding Barry’s eternal repose. He’d picked out the plot in a fit of paranoia when power line radiation necessitated making longer-term plans for a shorter-term lifespan. Now, it served to back Caddy as she sat where he’d dropped her, and soon, she’d rest forever under the epitaph, “Here lies an honest man.” Well, zero-for-two ain’t bad.

The waning full moon illumined the graveyard, rows of irregular gravestones like neanderthal teeth, scattered across an ancient verdant plain. Nary a cloud threatened this night’s clarity. Barry somehow hoped for a dull rain to match his mood. Instead, he was stuck with this quite nice weather, cool enough that soon he’d be able to shed his jacket. He looked down at his friend, Ol’ Rusty. Oh, if only Ol’ Rusty could have been useful earlier, maybe this wouldn’t have come about. Barry thunked the old shovel blade-first, the grass parting like lips accepting a cigarette. Soon, the shovel tipped over, levering a thick dirt chunk out of the ground.

He heard the kids coming long before he saw them. “Thanks for the warning Cad.” Teenagers, no respect for the dead. Loud and clumsy and fumbling, and that was just walking into the graveyard. Barry weighed his choices. Not fun. When in Rome. He looked around, saw laughing shadows approach, their hands clasped around bottles of cheap liquor. They wouldn’t understand. Hell, they didn’t even have the taste for good booze.

Barry slipped around behind his own gravestone (was there some sort of penalty for defiling your own grave?), to Caddy’s body, Caddy’s body succumbing to entropy already. Caddy’s trusting face, too trusting. Like an old fish, her cloudy eyes stared off towards the sky, towards the moon, towards wherever her soul looked down on Barry, about to further defile her. Without any hint of desire, he crouched down next to Caddy, whispering to her. “Oh baby.”

His left hand stroked her hair, matted with bits of bone where he’d shot her. He put the right hand up to her mouth, palm to lips, trying to quiet the screams he could already hear from her, feeling her cold lips, like a frozen worm in an ouroboros, forever consuming itself. Thank God, she wasn’t breathing. Oh God, she’s not breathing. Eyes still off somewhere, he tried thinking of baseball, of multiplication tables, of his grandparents, anything to make the moment go by quicker. Then, Barry, in an ironic twist, started to make out with his own hand, rather than the reverse.

His own lips ran cold against the back of his hand. At first, he closed his eyes, but as soon as he envisioned his own grandmother, Barry’s eyes shocked open. Confronted with Caddy, he couldn’t work with that. The next five minutes comprised an awful joke, his hand starting to warm Caddy’s face, even as he could feel the blood drain from his face, his head, far far away where it could ignore what was going on. His own breath, slipping through his nostrils, kept whispering to him, sweet nothings to a sweet nothing.

Their voices receded, much as his own mind seemed far far away. Maybe to the moon. Once he believed they had disappeared, Barry stood up, took several steps, vomited on Wilson Carpenter (1882-1961). He wiped his mouth with the heel of his right palm, looked down, vomited again. “Hope it was good for you baby.” Caddy tasted salty, sweaty, a little sweet even. Still tasted alive.

Barry got down on his knees, supplicant to the dead. Using Ol’ Rusty’s blade, he carved out square sod chunks, placed those aside to replace on top of the dirt later. Six feet deep he’d dig, six feet long, three feet wide. Eighteen sod squares, each about a foot to a side. The earth crumbled between his fingers, almost granular silk. Cool, as cool as Caddy’s lips just now felt. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. What a burial service.

Barry stood up, dusted off his pants, then started digging. Pierce, lift, dump. Pierce, lift, dump. Caddy, back still to him, still sat, he presumed, watching the moon. Barry also looked up, watched, wondered what brought him to this point.

Byte and a Half

The title is a misnomer, as this entry clearly takes up at least tens of bytes, if not more.

Asking pregnant women how they got pregnant, and the intricacies of the process, is more funny than you would expect. However, this takes a certain type of person, both asking and answering, for it to work. Otherwise, I just get slapped. Kudos go out to A.L. And compared to the rest of America, you’re downright lithe.

If you use instant messenger in a classroom and you aren’t sitting in the back row, make sure that the person you are typing to does not type inappropriate messages in bold, twenty-four point font. Even better, make sure I can’t read the words “PENIS” and “ANAL LEAKAGE” off your screen.

Blank stares can often be mistaken for poor math skills. Really, it’s just me wondering how I’m going to complete my financial transaction when you didn’t notice on the deposit slip where I asked for cash back.

Maybe it’s just the grease, but pork plus seafood equals gooey goodness. Or, maybe its just the bacon, plus filler to make you think there is more bacon. I am unsure, and will test this out many more times in the next few minutes.

If a man sits on your lap, you will not be able to get up because he is too heavy .If you are male, your center of gravity will be much too high to allow you to get up anyway. If the man outweighs you by a ten-year old, well. Is that excitement or violation I feel, K.C.? Tell me, oh please tell me.

The worst thing about moving your car is having to go back to class and realize that your day isn’t over. Each step is like stepping in mud.

Is there anyone out there both color-blind and tone deaf? Is their world dull and monotonal like a washed out thirties film? If they went to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, would they walk out before I did? Hell, I want to meet you, if you exist. I suspect that your world may actually be richer, more beautiful, than mine is, since you can filter out a fair amount of the extraneous, the incidental. Or, I could be completely wrong.

According to Professor The Chief, any claim I would make for patenting a Model T Ford would be denied, due to the simple fact it antedates me by at least eighty years. Still, come on now. I could be a mad scientist, really I could.

We tend to form irrational attachments to consistency, such as the same study carrel. These attachments, when denied, will manifest in ultra-violence, my favorite kind. Or, as R.M. was fond of telling us, “I’m going to kill that bitch.” Put the axe away fireman, there ain’t no one here to kill.

Wikipedia won’t be a reliable information source for a long time, if the following excerpt from the entry on nuclear energy is any indication: “Nuclear energy was discovered in 1942 by Spider-Man and the Hulk.” Please. The Hulk discovered gamma radiation, and Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider. Get your facts straight. Also, keep in mind that Capitol Hill internet protocol addresses were banned for a time due to partisan infighting, id est changing articles of other congressmen to emphasize the seedier, licentious sides to their lives, or to outright lie cheat and steal.

I walked to school behind a woman in scrubs, likely a nursing student or a medical student. She sported rather unique tennis shoes; a spring, about as big as a hockey puck, coiled twice, separated the base of her heel from the rest of the shoe. She did not bounce down the street like some Tigger, but walked rather naturally. I missed the front door to the school following in her footsteps.

Life After Football

After two hours, it hits me why I can’t think of anything to write. What is the football equivalent of post-partum depression? Granted, I’ve not recently passed a kidney stone, but there’s a definite letdown now. There’s something about my lust for men crashing into each other that basketball (professional and collegiate) and gay pornography just can’t satisfy. Trust me, I’ve tried, I’ve tried desperately. The groaning and screaming and creams, they do nothing. I already miss football.

But wait, you ask, what about the wonderment and the spectacle of the Pro Bowl? What of it? Fie upon thee I say. You call that football? I call that a waste of time. Sure, a great way to get players to Hawaii, but do I care? Not one whit. There is no cohesion to these all-star units, part of the brilliance of the regular season involves how these teams have played with each other, have gelled, know each others’ tendencies. Tout American football as the ultimate team sport, then throw together individual achievers for a week? I hardly see the point.

Oh right, money.

If you wanted to reward the players, let them go on break. Long season, grinding their bone and muscle into a fine paste, let them recuperate. Don’t continue on, especially when there’s little at stake, besides monetary compensation. Or, increase the bling. Yes, I know there are tens of thousands for each player, but still, if you want this spectacle, make it worthwhile. Put in some crazy incentives for money based on statistical performance, then let them run wild.

The Pro Bowl tends towards excessive scoring, which you would think might entertain. I derive more pleasure out of adding the score in my head than watching it. One of the worst things about the Pro Bowl is watching direct snaps between centers and quarterbacks. You can always count on at least two botched fumbles per side, and quite often more, if the players weren’t on the same team. Familiarity breeds contempt, yes, but it also engenders smooth transitions.

Due to the exacting nature of the football schedule, I know that they could never adopt a National Basketball Association type of All-Star break. Teams loathe offering up their stars for pointless exhibitions; preseason games often limit the quarters, plays that players participate in. Move it to the middle of the season, and not only will some cry foul for those eight teams that garnered what amounts to a two-week bye period, others will refuse to allow their players participation rights. But is it that much better to let them play in some empty shell of a game when people have already stopped caring, now that the Super Bowl has played out?

Hell, you want an All-Star game? Set it up, but make it touch football. Make it a light-hearted event, instead of the mock-serious, full-on joke it is now. Set up rules for either getting the football out after five seconds, or running the ball after five. Make it two hand touch, allow for light blocking, but nothing so serious that the linemen risk injuring each other. Award style points for celebrations on the field, if you must (I call Chad Johnson). Have Al Michaels and John Madden team up as coaches versus Joe Theismann, Paul Maguire and Mike Patrick. Hell, anoint some Pro Bowl cheerleaders to lineup at wideout and pray no one brings a sexual harassment suit.

This would stave off the post-bowl depression, at least for a week. Don’t delude yourselves, and by extension us, into believing that this is a serious engagement. Let it all hang out, go for the gold. If you agree to have some fun and not pretend it is important, I’ll agree to appreciate the crazy scores.

Greyscale

In the aftermath of Super Bowl XL (forty to the uninitiated), the only thing that lived up to the “eXtra-Large” besides the hype was Jerome Bettis’ weight. With what amounted to two underdog teams, those not fans of Pittsburgh or Seattle were left grasping at angles to follow. Even the commercials, for the most part, lacked flair and interest. The only thing we had that drew attention to the game was the officiating. Oh, officiating. The outcome may not have been different, but there were a lot of questionable calls.

Given the way the game has evolved, its no wonder that officiating has become harder and harder. Human growth outstrips the rules’ capability to erect a tidy framework around the game. These players are genetic freaks (or steroid abusers, take your pick), faster, stronger, heavier. The field still measures the same from sideline to sideline and end zone to end zone. Sure, some rules changes concede this growth, such as moving back kickoffs, changing the goalpost location, changing rules on tackling (what is a horse collar again? Why don’t they ever call it?). Many rules remain set in stone, like Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, immutable, stout in the face of withering criticism.

We could alter these rules, but people love history. To paraphrase Art Spiegelman (and apologies, I know sports fans are not comparable to Holocaust survivors, but the turn of the phrase has always touched me), sports fans bleed history. Historians’ “What If?” game tailors itself well towards theoretical past versus present showdowns. One way to enact these comparisons is to compare statistics, always viewed in the light of the times they played in, but still the same rules governed how these stats were compiled. Change the rules too much, however, and all that history is no more than sand scattered across the desert.

So, if you will not change the rules, will you change those that enforce them? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchers? Well, besides fans. And the National Football League. Though the rules are the same across all games, their interpretation is not. How loose or tight do you call the game? For the uninitiated, that is a reference to how strict the referees enforce the rules. Though you hope that each referee will offer the same basic thing every time you watch a game (the McDonalds effect), there’s a broad range of competence (the local small restaurant effect).

A survey on espn.com queried whether National Football League referees should be full-time employees. Though I’d never thought about it, this was something I knew deep down (Every year, I swear that if Ed Hochuli would take me under his wing, I’d move to Arizona and work in his law firm). Refs need to be full-time, though off-season will be a problem. Still, you don’t pay top dollar for a car then skimp on the tires, to strain a comparison. If you want a smooth ride, you have to pay for it.

We also have the advantage of high technology (O High Definition Television please show me your digital signal). When will referees start to resemble gargoyles from Snow Crash, laden down with high tech equipment to allow instant transmission of information? Why can’t a ref, aside from the review team in the booth, be allowed to control the sky cam, and call fouls live? Note that armchair referees upon replay or with their strong camera angles are apt to make all the correct calls. How accurate would they be on the field, live, amidst all the action? They aren’t perfect, but for now, all we’ve got are the zebras.

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There’s a new Nike commercial that focuses on Amare Stoudamire. The background music is a version of Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino Mix) by Rob Dougan. This music was part of the Matrix soundtrack, and was played in the movie when Morpheus is teaching Neo not to trust his eyes, with the woman in the red dress. Fiona Johnson played this woman, the only unique background character (as it turned out, sets of twins and triplets were walking everywhere, to approximate a lazy programmer that didn’t want to code completely unique avatars). From this, are we supposed to take the lesson that Amare is a woman, but when you turn back, he’s suddenly a man? I wasn’t watching the commercial, except to confirm it was the Phoenix Sun, so we’ll have to wait for another run to try and figure out what the commercial means.

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“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” – E.M. Forster

It turns out that the Model Rules of Professional Conduct are more hamstrings to lawyers than help. Here’s the hypothetical: When attempting to create a security interest in collateral (essentially take a loan from a bank), the description of the collateral was never included in the documents. This results in no security interest, thus no valid loan. As the lawyer, we screwed up. You would think to yourself, just attach the description later. Still, this was an ethical violation if you did so, and there is no easy answer.

This led us to wonder. If C.S. murdered someone, I would try to convince him to turn himself in, before turning in the rat bastard myself. Of course, this would douse me in a barbecue sauce of guilt for the rest of my life. However, if I killed someone, so long as it wasn’t someone’s relative or didn’t have a direct impact on his life, C.S. would let me go. Live and let live, or in this case, live and let die?