story of the week: DON'T KNOW IT'S BAD TIMES TILL AFTERWARDS

"souls" markers on paper

Boer used to lay everything out in a nice spread for his weekly garage sale. It didn't matter much, he found out. People bought shit or they didn't. He just piles it on the lawn. This week he's got an old tricycle, some flimsy old furniture from Scandinavian Design, and some boxes of old "Hustlers," magazines about aircrafts and some thriller Clive Cussler novels. Some weeks he gets ambitious, goes out to the salvage yard and finds all kind of great stuff to sell. This week he didn't get out there.

Cindy's eager to impress him, he finds out. She makes a big show of handling the sale. Tommy comes over and they put the pre-game show on. "Girl's really managing your shit, John." Boer nods. "It's fucking great, man." "Should marry this one." "Gotta divorce the other one first."

Laughing about that, they talk about Peyton Manning. Carlos and Steve come by and bring over a 12-case. Around noon he gets a text message from his wife. "Who's the bitch?" It's getting late to have a sale anyhow, so he goes to the door and yells for Cindy to come inside. It's bright outside, cleared up from the morning clouds, the sunshine is hot like it's already Spring. Inside with the thick cloth curtains and his mom's old dark, dusty antique furniture and her old green-black shag carpet it could've been nighttime out there.

"Didn't sell too much today, hon." She hands him three $10 bills. "Eh. Super Bowl Sunday. Don't know why I put anything out anyhow." "John, look out, bud."

Tommy points out the screen door. "Fiona bringing the kids by today?" "You know better than that." She's out on the lawn, holding Sammy in her arms and Jesse is standing next to her quiet like he has an idea his mom is doing something stupid. "Maybe Jesse wants to watch the game with us." "Yeah, right. Maybe his mom wants to play a game."

"Shut the fuck up, Steve." Why does that son of a bitch come to my house? Boer wonders. Cindy is laughing at something, at something that Carlos said but she's too loud on purpose. Of course the bitch ex-wife doesn't want me to enjoy the game, Boer thinks as he goes out.

"How much you make today, John?" Cold and hard, holding the kid up like a shield. Bitch. "Nothing today, Fiona." "Don't you feel bad?" She's sneering a little. "Living off your mother, while you can't give your own children anything?" "Sorry, Fiona. I don't get to live off my kids' welfare checks, like you do." "You owe me child support, you son of a bitch. You owe me-" "Not when I'm unemployed, bitch." "Oh no. Oh no." She's getting shrill now. "What kind of man do you think you are?" Boer knows he's going to start yelling. He's already been loud enough that the neighbors are going to their doors. To their windows. It's a nice neighborhood.

Tommy goes out and almost has to drag him inside. He gives Fiona some cash and tells her to take the boys out to eat. Boer gets into the beer, hard. At 4 a.m. he wakes up. The house is empty and wrecked. He looks in the bedroom. Cindy must have gone home. He goes out on the porch. Everything is still out there from the garage sale. Some of the magazines are probably ruined, he thinks. It doesn't matter much. The moonlight is good and white and perfect. He shuts his eyes and when he opens them, it's 1985 again and he's 17.

story of the week: THE GOD OF INSIGNIFICANT TIMES

three figures. pen on paper

It got dark early. By the time I'd get off the bus, it'd be night. There was a little park, a half block of eucalptyus trees, oaks, Douglas firs, which I would cut through on the way to my place. Fog clung to my skin, to the trees, invisible except under the streetlights. It drifted like a gauze curtain in the yellow light.

Every night under the streetlight, a small, elderly woman would march past me up the hill, lugging a grocery cart. I never saw her face.

I was living way out near the Richmond District, in an apartment I couldn't really afford. I'd come back from traveling in South America that summer and had been derailed. The trip had ended badly. I'd gotten sick, and it'd lasted for weeks. Long enough that I had to move in with my folks. By the time I recovered, I was so eager to get out of their house and back to the City that I took the apartment before I had heard back from my old boss about work.

After a delirious few days of adjusting my expectations, I finally took a job at the checkout stand at a grocery store. How had things changed so quickly? Maybe it was because of the winter, but my friends seemed scattered and distant. Had they simply grown accustomed to life without me? People had new boyfriends, new girlfriends. Everyone was busy on weekends. It would take time, I figured sadly, for them to take me back.

Every night, the woman with the groceries would march past me. If it was raining, she would have a plastic poncho thrown over her head. No one else was ever in the park.

Never making a noise, never struggling at all with what looked to be an uncomfortably heavy load, she was always there. I tried to see her face a few times. I tried to remember to turn around once I heard the dry scrape of her wheels. I never was fast enough. How was she carrying so much weight, so effortlessly? I didn't think it was possible.

As the weeks went on, things changed. Old friends got used to seeing me around, I guess. Things went back to the way they were. My old boss sent an email letting me know I hadn't been forgotten... a position would likely open up again soon in the office, and I would eventually be invited back. I worked out a deal with my landlord, in which he'd let me out of the lease. It would hurt financially, but I would be free.

Once I knew I was going to leave, I felt a sudden love of the neighborhood, of the park where I walked through each day. I walked slower, taking it all in. But something had changed. At first I couldn't decide what it was, exactly. Then, once I hit on the idea, it was obvious. The old woman with the groceries. I didn't see her anymore.

story of the week: WHAT DO YOU SEE

There's no work in Willits. But the people are good here. The girls at Mama's Rose Café fill up my coffee for free.

In the middle of her shift, Rainy sits next to me and smiles. She's got dark eyes and a wide mouth. She says, Come over tomorrow? I'll cook you dinner. I tell her I will and she hums as she goes back to work.

That night it rains. But when I ring the bell she comes out to the courtyard barefoot, in a summer dress. I say, It must be summer in your apartment.

We can pretend, she says.

I want a bigger place, she says like an apology when we go up. There’s green everywhere, a forest of houseplants. She's set out little candles and lights all around. Dinner settings on the coffee table, pillows to sit on. Take off your boots, she says. Her voice wraps around me.

You're a hippie, I say, smiling.

Everyone's a hippie, she says and goes into the kitchen. I watch her big, good hips go back and forth. She brings out food and a bottle of wine. The prosthetic gives me trouble when I sit on the pillow. She doesn't ask me any questions.

She talks about wild times, being a kid in Willits. I grin and tell her I had wilder times. I tell her some stories, and she laughs.

Ended up in juvenile, I say. Army recruited me there.

She nods and smiles still, and I want to say more. I didn't know there'd be a war when I enlisted, I say. It's funny. It's been ten years. Everyone I knew, I don't know anymore.

Would you still be there, she asks, if you hadn't? She points to the leg.

Yeah, probably, I say. The food is perfect, I say. She refills my wine glass and says, You're hungry.

I didn't know how hungry I was, I say. My wine glass is empty again in minutes.

We should open another bottle, she says, laughing. I'm embarrassed. I've never been so hungry.

In the morning she makes coffee before I'm awake and, naked, she sits next to the sill with the window open a little and smokes a joint daintily. She keeps looking at me.

What do you see? I ask. She laughs. I feel as if she were 10 feet tall. 20 feet tall. What do you see? I ask.

story of the week: THE CREATION OF HUMAN

god and the people. pen on paper

God went down among the people after a long absence and He called to them, cheerfully, "How have you lived, since I left?"

But the people were lethargic and slow to show Him the kingdom they had built. Their ancestors had told them there must be an impressive display, but the people had forgotten.

God was not pleased. "The world you have made was not made for Me, but for you," God said. "So I will show you that this world is not yours."

And then he went to the river and he made a figure from the clay: two arms and two legs, and smooth all over, without fur. God gave the new person His Hands, and then He gave the new person life.

"This is Human," God told the people. "He will be your master, and he will wipe your works from the planet to show my discontent."

But the people laughed. Human was so small! So weak and so ugly! It had no mighty claws like the lion people or the bear people, it had no powerful limbs like the elephant people or the horse people. Not only that, but Human couldn't climb fast like the monkey people. It couldn't fly like the bird people. How would Human stop the hungrier of the people from eating it up? They laughed and believed that God was weak, and that Human was a show of God's weakness. They believed that God had misjudged the people's strength, and that the people had become stronger than God had created them to be.

God turned to Human. He said, "Be fruitful, and multiply."

STORY UP AT FICTION AT WORK

My short short "The winter I was going to meetings" is now live at the wonderful Fiction At Work.

Click here to check it out: "Fiction At Work"

On another note, I need more coffee right now.

story of the week: THE LAST SCENE WITH THE GOLDEN GATE

message. acrylics on paper

The apartment sat on a small hill facing north, so that on a clear, sunny morning like this one Marin and the Golden Gate are visible through the large bay windows. I gaze out at the scene while lying on the couch, dizzy and thirsty. My disorientation is not helped by the wayward angle of the couch, sitting in the middle of the room, diagonal to the window. All the furniture, all of it that's still left in the apartment, has been moved away from the walls and most of it sits, mostly bare, empty, in the middle of the floor. A woman's voice in the bedroom.

It's not a happy tone of voice, and I try to listen. I'm not sure at first, but soon I'm sure: the voice is Rain's. I can hear Peter's voice as well, and he sounds just as angry as she does. The door clicks open, softly, and the girl from last night scurries out and sits next to me on the couch. She's got a blanket wrapped around herself, it seems like she's not wearing anything else. I can hear Peter now. He's murmuring softly... and then I can hear what sounds like Rain crying.

Breathless, the girl collapses on the couch next to me and then looks at me. I look at her and smile politely. She frowns, and she tells me she'd like to put on her clothes.

"Go behind the couch," I tell her. "I'll look out the window."

"I don't care if you look at me," she says, "I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be changing."

She gets up and goes around the other side of the couch, and I sit up and look out the window. There's no fog, no haze at all. It's a perfect, clear, bright winter day.

"It's a nice fucking apartment," she says.

"I bet if I had binoculars, I could see what they're having for breakfast in Sausalito," I say.

"That's funny," she says. She comes around the couch and sits down. She has jeans and a t-shirt on, both ragged and crummy. She's probably 23. Maybe even younger. I smile at her. Now she looks upset. "I'd be so upset if I was her. I'd be so, so upset. If I knew everything last night, I would have told him how it is."

I nod. I look around and think about taking a picture of the apartment, the way it is right now. Peter will get back together with Rain and they'll make it nice again. Or they'll split for good, and he'll eventually meet some other girl and they'll have some other apartment that'll be the same level of nice, or maybe a different level... less nice or nice in a different way, or maybe even more nice than this. But how often does anyone get to see a life, otherwise clean and orderly, all ripped up and thrown apart?

The girl is gone suddenly as if she had never been there at all. I sit for awhile, for longer than I probably should, in case Rain leaves. But they're both crying now, both talking in low voices I can't really hear, so I should go.

I start towards the door, but stand for a minute looking out at the Golden Gate. Then I leave.

friday morning art

story of the week: WAITING FOR

portrait of the king. acrylics on paper

The young man behind the counter came back over to where I stood at the register, and he asked, in a low voice, "Do you need anything else, sir?" I looked down at the cup of coffee that he had placed there a minute earlier, and then up at the man in surprise and muttered that I didn't, thank you. And I took the cup and hurried out, back out to the street and I wondered, what was that all about? Had I been waiting for something? Outside it had started to rain again, the white of the earlier morning now grey, storm clouds now. I pulled my hood up and hurried, head down, towards work.

All day it stayed with me. And I wished I could go back there, back to that moment when I stood at that counter. Maybe somewhere under the surface was the reason that I had stayed waiting there, and if I could know that reason then maybe I could know other important things as well. It could mean something that I was standing there waiting.

All day long it stayed with me.

story of the week: SOMETIMES HIS FOCUS FADES

a man. acrylics on paper

Sometimes thoughts of the future fade from view, and with it goes what he could say was a defining standard, a system of perspective. He takes it for granted his belief and his faith that the world works with a certain order. That the sun will come up after a certain amount of hours. That it'll go down after some more. That there are belongings that belong solely to him, which he has accumulated... ideas and relationships and people and responsibilities. Sometimes his focus on the future slips, and then everything stops making sense.

This happens on a Monday, a holiday from work. It might be Labor Day or President's Day. It doesn't matter. He wakes up a little bit later than he typically does and begins to move around the house. Gradually he realizes that, though he does not have to go to work, he has not made any plans for the day.

He has made it a point to use those three day weekends for out-of-town trips, or for big, personal projects that require an exceptional amount of time to do right. But this weekend he lived like another weekend. He woke up late on Saturday and went to the coffeeshop to take a long breakfast. He went to see his elderly father, and he went to the movies in the evening. On Sunday, he woke up a little less late than the day before and worked on a little bit of office work. He read from his book and watched television. And now it is Monday.

Should he go to the museum? Maybe he could go for a hike? There's nothing he particularly wants to do, and, without any plan or anywhere to go, he goes outside for a walk. This is when it happens. The sense and reason of the world begin to falter. He feels as if he should walk into any of the houses he sees. He feels as if he should strike up a conversation with anyone on the street, as if they were people he should know. He feels as if children he sees with parents are his own children. There isn't, he finds, a feeling of closeness or intimacy associated with these feelings. In fact, feeling closeness with everyone is the same for him as feeling no closeness with anyone. A cloud passes over the sun, a large cloud that makes the world slowly shift to grey, and he feels as if it will continue getting dark forever and that the sun will never return. When it does, he is as surprised as he would have been had it not.

He makes his way home and tries to decide whether or not to watch television or read a book. He doesn't want to do either. But not doing either causes him anxiety. He goes to the window. He sits on his bed. He thinks about writing a letter, but doesn't feel like writing a letter to anyone he knows. He's surprised as he thinks, briefly, about the people he knows. He always felt as if he would meet people he would care about more deeply, someday. Is that day still going to arrive? What is really coming towards him, in the future?

The next morning, the feelings have passed him by like a mid-summer storm, scattering things around, but very soon forgotten.

ART EXPERIMENT

I like some parts of this. I'm working on some new ideas and I thought this one stood out.

I want to try oil paints.