Little Bird

photo by mollycakes.

Sunday morning in the family room. I love my wife and kids dearly, but all I can think to myself right now is “Leave me alone.” I announce that I am going to my den now to write, and I slip away to that corner of the house where the windows are small, where potted palms sit on the floor in what little pools of light gather in this corner of the house. At first, I avoid the typewriter perched on the desk. I still use a typewriter. I am a walking cliché. I smoke a pipe, leaf through nineteenth century novels, scratch notes on scraps of paper, and eventually sneak up on my type writer and settle slowly into the wooden desk chair, careful not to spook it. I stare at the keys for a moment, afraid it is going to burst into a flapping of wings and escape out a window. That’s it. My typewriter on the desk is like a bird trapped in a room, panicked, breast thumping, trying to find a way out. My fingers must be gentle with it. Once it least expects it, I clamp my hands around it so that it can’t get away. I stop typing to scribble this metaphor on another piece of scratch paper for later.

There’s a quiet knock at the door. Must be my son. “Come in.”

“Dad, will you play Chutes and Ladders with me?”

“Not now, Sam. Your Dad’s working. Didn’t Mommy tell you not to bother me when I’m up here?”

“Yes,” he says in that little mouse voice that usually allows him to get his way.

“Why don’t you go play with Elizabeth?”

“She’s over at Jacqueline’s house jumping on the trampoline.”

I pull him up into my lap. He’s still in his pajamas. What time is it, I wonder? Why hasn’t Susan gotten him dressed yet? She’s probably down at the computer, chatting with her sister or with her friends from work. Jesus, she sees them all day during the week; why can’t she give it a break on the weekends to get her children dressed? “Why don’t you go get your big boy clothes on and we’ll play in a little bit. I’ve got to do some stuff yet, and then I’ll come out. Don’t knock though. I’ll come out when I’m ready.”

“Okay,” and he slides off my knee, leaves the room and gently closes the door behind him. I smile at this gesture of his, so careful around me, but then I see how like an invalid I have become, tucked away in a closed room, not to be disturbed. How long have they been tiptoeing around me?

I try to get back to my story, but the characters have wandered off, the backdrops faded, and in the world of my imagination I am losing the light. Damn it. But if it hadn’t been Sam, it would have been something else. A loud truck out in the street. A blue jay flashing by the window. I was able to finish three sentences, though, before the little bird died in my hands. I guess I clutched I clutched it too tightly.

It began with a letter. Ever since I received the envelope addressed to me in a hand faintly familiar, I could never return to the old life I knew. I have since burned that first letter, but it went something like this…

Dialog: Raising Daughters

photo by ifdefelseif.

“When did you come home last night?” he asked.

“I don’t know exactly. Around midnight, maybe?” she replied.

“Who were you out with?”

“James. We went to the Orpheum and saw a show, and afterward drove down to Willow Grove and parked by the pond.”

“I didn’t want that much detail, but thanks for stopping there.”

“You asked.”

“I asked who you went out with, not where you went, or where you parked, or what you talked about, or anything else, for that matter.”

“We didn’t do much talking.”

“See, there. Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to know.”

“You intimated.”

“I did nothing more than provide an example of what I don’t want to hear.”

“Whatever.”

“Intimated. That’s a good word. When did you learn to use words like that?”

“From James.”

“He sounds like a pretty smart boy.”

“He’s thirty-seven.”

One Less

“Hi Missy.”

“Don’t call me Missy.”

“Okay, Melissa. How’ve you been? Have you missed me?”

She looks at me, sideways, like she doesn’t quite trust me, but then she ventures her answer.

“A little.”

“A little? Like you miss my sense of humor? You miss my Yankee charm?”

“I miss kissing you.”

That caught me off guard. “I miss that too,” and I walked over to the kitchen and poured us each a glass of water. I wished it was wine, something to calm my nerves, but she didn’t drink wine. Only water.

“So how’s it going with that ex boyfriend of yours? I can’t remember his name.”

“It’s Tom, and he’s not an ex anymore.”

“I don’t want to know his name. I’ll just forget it again. Do you have sex? Don’t answer that. I suppose you do. You both got HPV. He’s the fucker who gave it to you, so no risk, eh? Not anymore.”

She looked hurt now. “We fuck, yes. Is that what you wanted to hear me say? We fuck, and I’m happy.”

“You could die, you know. I read something about it turning into cervical cancer.”

“That’s the other kind of HPV. I won’t get cancer.”

So you think, I wanted to say, but I knew she was probably right. She was the doctor, and I was just a sales guy. Not a very good one at the moment. “So you want to kiss me again?” I asked.

“No. Not right now, anyway.”

I must have pissed her off more than I intended. I wanted to kiss her again, but then what good was it? What could it lead to? Instead I played her some new music I had found on the internet, talked about her family, about the books she was reading, and it took a good twenty minutes before I could look at her apologetically, and then we kissed awkwardly like kids on the playground.

“I can’t kiss you any more,” she said.

“Any more tonight, or any more ever?”

“Any more ever. We’ll start messing around and then what? You know we can’t ever sleep together.”

“So that’s it? It comes down to sex?”

“It comes down to that fact that Tom is nicer to me.”

“Tom who?”

“I’m leaving.”

First Date Conversations

New 10
photo by ojaipatrick.

“So do you collect anything?”

“Yeah, I collect money.”

“Oh, you mean like foreign currency and things like that?”

“No, I mean actual money. I like to horde it, to withdraw an entire savings account in twenty dollar bills, throw them on the bed, and roll around in it, then deposit it all again the next day.”

“Well what kind of fun is collecting money, over, say, collecting tea pots or baseball cards or—“

“I figure if you collect enough money, you can buy any other guys collection that you want.”

Holy Bondage

Moon Bride
photo by ART NAHPRO.

"What are you doing?" she asked from the living room, amid the clutter of junkmail and newspapers and dishes.

"I'm acting out this age old western ritual called Making the Bed. You should try it sometime."

She gave him the finger and collapsed on the couch. "My back hurts. You expect me to do all this work when I'm in pain?"

He was beginning to know what pain was all about. It was about knowing you were trapped, that this was all there was to life. He wanted something different.

"How about we get flannel sheets, honey?" he asked. Any small change would do.

"I don't want flannel sheets. I'll get too hot."

He tensed up inside by how easily she dismissed him. After he got the bed made his wife decided she needed him to massage her back, so she sprawled her considerable mass across the newly made bed, pulled off her shirt, and handed him the massage oil. He remembered buying the oil on Valentines Day in hopes to spice up the marriage. Now he wanted to spread it all over the kitchen floor in hopes that she would slip and crack open her head.

Lie #1: Wife Kidnaps Iguana

First night in the hotel restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, I take a table by myself. As eyes stray over to my table, I begin to invent my persona. Or maybe, at this point it is more of an erasure of who I have been and who I invent myself to be. I’m now prepared for the next time someone asks me, “So what brings you down to Mexico all by yourself?” Sure enough, within minutes I have my first bite.

“I’m here looking for my wife. She emptied out our bank accounts and ran off with her yoga instructure. He’s originally from Puerto Vallarta. A credit card transaction showed they’d been down here.”

“That’s terrible,” the woman from Arizona says, her face a mask of concern and sympathy. “How are you ever going to find her?”

“I’m not sure, I’ve left flyers at several clubs and yoga studios. My biggest concern is for Lui.”

A sharp intake of breath from the woman, “Your son?”

“No, my pet iguana. I’ve had him for fifteen years.” Choking up, “I mean, she can have the money, that doesn’t matter…but what can she want with my iguana?”

Her husband offers tentatively, “Well, Puerto Vallarta is a natural habitat for iguanas.” I heard a bump under the table and he pursed his lips.

The woman behind the lobby counter was waving towards me. I rose from my chair and lay the napkin on my seat. “Exuse me, just a moment.”

I crossed to the lobby desk where the hotel employee greeted me. “Ola, Senior Wood. Your housekeeper has changed your bed linen. I am so sorry it smelled of smoke. It is a nonsmoking room.”

“Thank you so much.” Feeling the Arizona couple watching me, I reach across the counter and shook her hand vigorously. “Thank you! Gracias! Gracias! Please have a crème brule sent to my room.”

I strode back to my table, the Arizona couple’s expectant faces turned to me. While scrawling my room number on my bill, I said, “They’ve spotted her. They spotted her down at the Happy Frog! I’ve got to go…” As I marched off I heard from behind me the plaintive voice of the woman from Arizona, “Good Luck!”

I walked quickly through the lobby, down the steps to the taxi turnaround, said “Buenos Noches” to the doormen, then slowed my pace as I rounded to the side stairwell, climbed to my fourth floor room, and watched a Mexican soccer match on the television while I used a spoon to tap through the melted sugar crust of my crème brule.

Readers Creepers

Northern fern photo by Ingus.

He saw her come out of the coffee shop, carrying a paper cup of coffee with a little cardboard insulator like a tube top. Her books always had characters drinking tea. Looked like she lied, but isn't that what novelists do? Just because her characters drink tea, did that mean she had to drink tea? Just because her characters engaged in clandestine affairs, did she? Maybe. He quickened his pace to catch up to her.

"Nicole? Nicole Lanser?”

She slowed her pace, looked sideways at him suspiciously. "Yes?"

"I'm reading your latest book. I thought I recognized you from the picture on the back."

"There wasn't a picture on that one."

"Oh yeah, that's right. I know where I recognized you from. It was that article in the Star Tribune about you."

"Oh yes. I liked that picture. There's not many pictures of me that I like, but the photographer on that day caught one of the few." She took a sip of coffee. "Can I help you with something?"

"Oh no," he said. "I just wanted to say hi. And that I like your book. There's some parts I'd like to talk with you about, though. Could I maybe buy you a cup of coffee or something?"

She stopped walking, smirked and held up her paper cup. "I kind of already have one."

"Oh yeah, of course. Well maybe we could--"

"I'm sorry, but I was really headed home." She winced, realizing her mistake.

"Maybe I could walk you home! You live around here? I mean, I know the article said you lived in South Minneapolis, but I didn't know we lived so close to each other."

"I'm not really comfortable with--"

"I knew Owen," he said, and started walking.

She followed to catch up. "Pardon?"

"I traveled around with Owen in '95. Just after you broke up."

"But nobody knew we were going out."

"I did." His brow furrowed, eyes staring hard into the sidewalk as he walked slowly ahead.

"How is he? Does he still write? I've been trying to find him on the internet, but..."

"I don't know how he is." His dark eyes suddenly brightened, and a big fake smile spread on his face. "But I didn't come here to talk about Owen. Got any tea in the house?"

Nicole noticed he turned at the correct corner towards her house. "Coffee?"

"I thought so." He walked to her house, Nicole in tow.


Nicole's living room was decorated as vividly as her books. Dark red walls, a pressed-tin ceiling painted black. Fern bursting green in a bright bay window. Dark wood molding. Shelves of books tattered and worn, bought not for ambience but for reading, tearing into with a writer’s eyes, from which to learn, emulate, pilfer. She handed him a steaming cup of black Columbian. He took a sip, then understood why she went out for coffee.

"Where's your Underwood? I thought you wrote in front of the bay window on an Underwood, at an antique school desk"

"I actually write on a Mac upstairs. Fabrication for the reporter. Sounds a lot more romantic."

"Sells more books."

"Exactly."

"Owen was writing while we traveled. I did the driving most of the time. He wrote in a notepad. First it was love poems. There's nothing I hate more than unrequited love poems. Then we got into Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana. Drove mostly at night. Slept in the car in parking lots during the day."

“Why drive only at night?” she asked.

“Owen didn’t like traveling during the day. He wouldn’t say why. It was like he didn’t want to be recognized, like he was running away from something.”

“From me.”

“Probably.” He set the horrid cup of coffee on the end table and got up, browsed through the room, reading book titles, looking at artwork and photographs hanging on the walls, but really wondering what corner of the house he would find her bedroom.

“What are you laughing at?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he replied. He already knew where it was. Just like he knew what city to find her in, just like he new where she lived, just like he knew where she could find Owen, and it wouldn’t be on the internet.