speedier than evolution

Autobiography

I was born in soggy Seattle, where no one really minded the rain or getting wet. In third grade I moved to Rome, Italy. In fifth grade I went to Italian school where my teacher was a nun who also doubled as a soccer commentator. One day Daniele Lombardi was teasing me, and I had my automatic umbrella with the duck-head handle in hand so I popped it open in his face. It didn’t hit him, but he told on me anyway and the teacher told the class that I had to kiss him as an apology. I hadn’t quite adapted to my new cultural settings yet, and having to kiss a boy in front of the whole class really freaked me out, especially when every one in the class, including the teacher, started chanting, “Bacio! Bacio!” (Kiss! Kiss!). Since then I have hated umbrellas.

I refused to take cover under one even when I lived in muddy England and had to walk a mile to the nearest grocery store. They aggravated me further when I moved to New York and people would walk down the crowded streets, canopies deployed, unaware of the eye-gouging they were imposing on their fellow pedestrians.

Thus began my campaign for mayor of New York City. My platform was simple: ban umbrellas and feed the pigeons and the squirrels to the homeless. At first I was just going to run for Manhattan Borough President, but my campaign caught on like wildfire, and both the Republicans and the Democrats begged me to put my name on the ballot. The Greens were mixed: they liked a campaign centered around removing barriers between us and the elements, and appreciated the focus on feeding the homeless, but they wanted to see a more veggie friendly approach. The libertarians, on the other hand, were anti-umbrella regulation and while acknowledged the homeless problem, thought a better solution would be to provide the homeless with letters of marque entitling them to hunt the squirrels and pigeons, and to deregulate the parks so that they could cook their catch in park fires.

Alcor Waiting Room

Aside from being excessively white, the room does not look like the kind of place where people wait to die. Even its whiteness is offset by the bean-bag chairs and trimming all in primary colors, which remind her of a Google office reception area. For that matter so do the geeky entertainment choices: a Nintendo 4th Dimension, a coffin-sized chest of legos, some miniature remote-control helicopters WWII vintage, robo-chess, a set of items that look like a cross between evil rabbits and dart guns and then, oddly, a pair of knitting needles and two balls of pastel yarn, whose appearance brings to Dagmar’s mind the scenario that likely resulted in their placement here, namely, whichever lab intern was assigned the task of stocking the waiting room had remembered the female clients, and proudly chose an item for their benefit, like a teenager buying lingerie for his first girlfriend.

She picks up one of the balls of yarn and tosses it through a nearby miniature basketball hoop with a swish, prompting her to launch both fists up in there air and make a “ehhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaay!” sound under her breath that onomatopoeiticizes the sound of the stadium full of people that she has decided are cheering for her athletic feat. She grabs the other ball of yarn and notices underneath it small plush teddy bear that will make a more satisfying projectile, but then also notices that the teddy bear is stuffed into a plastic car that has eyes for headlights and hands for rear-view mirrors. She holds the car up in the flat of her hand to meet its headlight eyes, contemplating that not everyone who comes here comes alone; some people bring their husbands, siblings and children which is both happier and sadder in a way. Then she realizes that not everyone who comes here is grown. They would have child clients too, of course, which is not happier, just sadder.

At that moment, a man who brings to mind the word “technician” enters the room, remembers to smile and says, “right this way, whenever you’re ready.” The embroidery above his lab-coat pocket reads Bobchad. Dagmar tosses the bear through the hoop, gingerly hops to her feet (her knees are less forgiving than they used to be) and victory rallies to the door, high-fiving the lab-coat clad fellow on the hand that’s not holding a digi-pad.

Lunar Exposure (Part I)

The twins leapfrogged up the enclosed sidewalk while Cristina— who, having been born on the moon, was not particularly excited by the low gravitational pull— lackadaisically followed behind them. Aubrey purposely placed her hand too low on Durf’s back as she vaulted over him, so that she would be forced to smack him in the back of his head to make her landing. Durf, in turn, landed a jump kick on her ass, gaining enough height from this maneuver to push his other foot off the lower road barrier and make a two-foot landing on Aubrey’s head. She grabbed at his ankles to throw him to the ground, but he jumped and flipped down before she could grip him.

As he touched down, he shouted, “Run!”

Aubrey, assuming he was trying to ditch the girls, bolted, feeling the whoosh of hovercrafts whipping past her as she pressed up against the sidewalk’s barrier to pass a swaying, sweaty man coming down the narrow path in the other direction.

Behind her she heard Cristina and the stranger exchange a few words before Cristina let out a cry. A second later Cristina was pulling herself in front of Aubrey, running on the lower barricade and using the upper barricade to push herself down so that she could push forward off the lower barricade without waiting on gravity for her descent. Aubrey continued running, incorporating Cristina’s method of using the barricade to increase her speed.

The three of them met breathlessly in front of the twins’ house.

“What the fuck?” asked Aubrey.

“He whipped his dick out,” explained Durf.

“Way to protect me and Cristina, dipshit.”

“I dunno, Cristina seemed kinda into it.”

“Durf! That is so rude! I didn’t see he had his, um, penis out. I thought he was asking me for directions.” She said this whispering the word “penis.”

“To your pants?”

“Durf, you hush,” she blushed.

**

The twins and their friend found the twins’ parents in the gravity chamber doing their exercises to prevent muscular degeneration from the lack of gravity. They all stepped in, and Cristina immediately sat down. She may have been more of a natural at navigating moon gravity, but she couldn’t sustain earth gravity for long.

Durf opened the account of the events with a reassurance that everyone was fine, and omitted the part where he ran ahead before checking to make sure the girls were ok. Aubrey immediately rectified this omission. Their dad’s immediate reaction was to ask “Did you tell him that that looks like a penis only smaller? Or that his time on the moon seems to have affected ALL his muscles?”

Their mom insisted that they report the incident to the police. Cristina was dubious about this course of action, partly out of embarrassment and mostly out of a better intuitive understanding of the lunar criminal justice system.

Creative Process (Part 3)

Murder is never an easy thing to describe. Often when humans kill another human we attribute motives to them, implicitly admitting that to a certain extent we can relate to their actions. When humans kill and animal though, it seems harder to understand. Especially when the human in question is a placid and well-liked private-school boy with a passion for aesthetics.

Hudson was not a sociopath. Nor was he so caught up in his vision that he could not separate it from reality. It was simply one of those things that you do, with the knowledge that its a bad idea, but somehow you don’t fully grock this until you’ve done it. Usually these things are more along the lines pulling someone’s seat out as they try to sit so they fall on their tail-bone, or punching the wall. In these instances a “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking” usually suffices.

Hudson’s kindergarten best-friend Murley had told him that worms had five hearts, so you could cut them up and they would still live. The two of them had decided to conduct an experiment to verify this. They didn’t have a knife or scissors, so they used bark and sticks, producing a science experiment that looked like the worm-version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (another classic Hudson had watched on the old Blue-Ray machine).

What Hudson did now was something closer to that.

He pinched Pocket’s mouth shut to stop the incessant yapping, and began posing him in various positions, trying envision how this creature could become his masterpiece, occasionally glancing in the bathroom mirror for an alternative perspective and to see what he looked like while he worked. The pooch scrambled a bit, but a five pound dog does not provide much resistance. He tried the classic dog sitting, dog lying down, dog shaking, and then went with the more exotic dog looking back over his shoulder. When Hudson snapped his head a little to far to the right, or failed to stop pinching his muzzle, it was not exactly a mistake. There was some noise in the back of the boy’s brain telling him that this was Not Okay, but there were many other noises telling him to try a different angle, to keep the dog from squirming too much, to stop the yapping, and so on. He wasn’t sure whether it was from the snap he heard when going for a more extreme over-the-shoulder angle or from holding his muzzle closed, but Pocket stopped scrambling so much. Or at all. This certainly made Hudson’s work easier. He realized he would have to explain this to the neighbors later, but for now he might as well continue with his project.

Resistance is Futile

Good Evening. I am honored to be here, on this important occasion.

Each year, a select few are inducted into the National Screenwriters Guild of America and take a solemn oath to protect the American Language.

This induction is not taken lightly, for we place in your hands our what differentiates us humans from everything else on this planet: our ability to communicate with one-another.

The tradition of this swearing-in ceremony is a rich and proud one. As you all know, this oath began when the 112th Congress of the United States in America formed the Working Committee on Communication and Popular Culture. This Committee reviewed the effect that popular culture had on language, pinpointing the growth of many popular phrases, gestures and even sounds to their origin on television. Noting particularly regrettable instances in which TV writers had influenced the communication of Americans, such as the “Beavis and Butthead laugh” of the late 1990’s or the catchphrase “Did I do that?” of the late 1980’s, the Committee decided something needed to be done.

to keep and bear arms

I sliced at the screen door with my exacto-knife and bent the flimsy latch, which was kinda tough with dentist gloves on. I tried to keep this part as quiet as I could. You had to time these things just right.

Next, I applied a few cuts to the paint job on the actual door.

My cell was buzzing. I had my landline forwarded so that if anyone called me, I had an alibi. Of course, it wouldn’t take a whole lot of investigating to figure that particular scheme out, but there’s a reason the cops in this town are still cops in this town and it’s not because they’re winning science-fairs. It was ma anyway, and ma would alibi me even if she weren’t calling, so no need to answer.

The next part is crucial. You gotta make enough noise to wake ‘em up— and you got to stick around long enough to make sure they’re awake, but not so long you get caught or shot at.

I smashed the window, no dampener, then listened. No rustling coming from the bedroom yet. I breathed in through my nostrils so hard I practically inhaled my mustache. Step one of throwing your voice: always breathe through your nose.

“Quiet!” I shouted at myself, “You’ll wake ‘em up!”

Light on in the bedroom. Time to bolt. Easy enough not to be seen on foot— you only need a car if you’re actually going to break and enter. Convincing someone that the second amendment is worth protecting requires less of a getaway plan.

Three Girls Walk Into A Bar….

Cindy Shin picked the booth on the main floor of the bar, the one just in front of the corner booth, where she’d be visible but not on display. Her clothes matched this tactic: short denim skirt, boots (no heals), and a tight-fitting v-neck t-shirt that might draw the eye to her more-ample-than-your-average-Asian-chick chest. It was still a little early for anyone of much interest to be out yet.

Her companions Krysta and Cali came back with the beers, Krysta taking a second to sip the two light beers— one was her Bud and the other was Cindy’s Stella. Cali’s was always easy to differentiate— Sam Adams, Guinness or whatever other tar colored draft was available. Cindy suspected Cali didn’t actually enjoy these beers (what girl actually likes dark beer?) but drank them to have something in common with the boys she hoped to meet. Though maybe Cindy was just projecting her own neurotic awareness of image onto her friend. Cindy, after all, was the one who drank Stella because it had the highest alcohol content so she could get the most booze per calorie, even though straight liquor would accomplish this better— beer was a better conversational tool. Also, she’d had a smoothie with a protein booster for dinner not because she was anorexic, but because she was moon-faced and hoped that chewing less would reduce the size of her cheeks. She’d been exploring both her body image issues and her resentment of her friends in her hour-long session with her shrink earlier in the day. Dr. Dannis thought the two might be related.

“My shrink thinks I use boys to boost my self-esteem,” announced Krysta, “so for the next month, I’m here just to be with you guys. No boys. You guys in?”

Hell no. That was at least half the point in coming out and drinking beer and wearing a skirt. “Totally,” Cindy affirmed, “It’s way more fun going out if you don’t have a goal in mind.”

“In and in,” thirded Cali. “My shrink thinks I should resolve my anger with my dad before getting involved with anyone anyway. She says I’m really interesting, that she loves hearing me talk sometimes because I’ve got this whole unique perspective on family and gender, but that we still need to work on my relationship with my father.”

Cindy’s shrink had never even hinted that anything she said was remotely interesting or even engaging. Cali was generally pretty self-aggrandizing though, so who knew with her. It’s not like Cindy didn’t have interesting inter-cultural perspective herself. Her shrink probably just didn’t think she needed coddling the way Cali probably did. She filed Cali’s daddy issues in her head to throw in the mix casually later that night, in case Cali opted to pull her usual interference by pretending to have way more in common with any boy that Cindy was talking to than Cindy did.

Delirium Tremens

At least when they drop you in a cot for the night you know the rats eatin you feet ain’t real. You don’t know, you too fucked up to know anything, but, you know, you know? There gotta be some part of somethin that know rats don’t go with white sheets, and white sheets are real, so rats ain’t. Depends where the cot at maybe. If you in a hospital the smell don’t go with the rats neither, so the rats definitely ain’t real. But if you just in pokey for a night, them white sheets might smell like they burned clean. Not clean like flowers like the ole lady use to like ‘em, but clean like you scare the dirt away but the rest of that place smell like piss, so the rats gonna be more real. You gotta just keep smellin them burn clean sheets.

But when you on the subway there ain’t nothin to say the rats ain’t real. There only so many times a man can survive train rats, real or no. But if they ain’t gonna drop you in a cot, train got seats and heat and the shakin kinda helps. You shakin so much youself it feel good if the train shake for you.

Everywhere.

Tonight’s prospect is gorgeous, petite, curvy, with big teeth, just a little buck. My goal is to reign it in and listen to her throughout; got most of the built-up chattiness out with some friendly folks on the subway. This one gave me her number in my hat, and most of those ones go for me because they want a guy who can shut up and listen, so that’s what I’m doing.

Then I realize I can’t remember if I checked my nostrils. I must have. I always check my nostrils before a date. But I don’t remember doing it. But it’s one of those things like you can’t remember if you turned off your kitchen light or locked the door to your apartment. But now I have it in my head that I forgot to get the paint off the inside of my nostrils, and I can’t listen to what she’s saying. But we’re in the middle of a conversation, or at least she is, and I can’t focus. I need to make an excuse to go to the bathroom, but the timing is all off. So now I either sit here thinking about my nostrils and nodding and smiling, or I awkwardly skirt off to the bathroom. Thank God the waitress comes. A break in the conversation.

I go to the bathroom. It’s a single person one, so I can take my time checking for make-up residue without drawing attention, even though the light is a little dim. No makeup. Though there are a few flakes in my beard under my chin. People are always surprised I keep a beard: more things to itch while I’m in a freeze, more shit to get the makeup stuck in.

*******

It’s going well. We’ve made it up to my apartment (all 5 flights of walk-up), with the excuse that she wants to see how a modern-day mime prepares for a day’s work: stretches, acting exercises, and most importantly costume and make-up. I show her the tubs of gold body and face paint— important to use both. Body paint is cheaper, but use it on your face and you’ll skin will start peeling off in no time. She leans over to smell the tub of body paint and I can see down her shirt a bit… I follow the thought process through until it leads to my bed where it occurs to me that I haven’t changed my sheets in a week, which for a normal person isn’t a big deal, but for a guy who slathers himself in body paint every day, it means that one night of coming home from work too tired to go through the routines and you have a whole lot of laundry to do. That night was the night before last, and my sheets are smeared with gold. It’s gonna take more than a quick trip to the bathroom to fix this one. Fuck.

She’s saying something. Holding the tub of makeup out to me.

“Put it on.”

“Really?”

“Everywhere.”

“Everywhere?”

She cups her fingers into the tub then runs her hand down my jaw and neck into the open collar of my shirt.

“Everywhere.“

Faces-Wash

The parents walked into my office. This time, they promised, they had finally figured out how to commercialize their kid(s) beyond the medical studies.

Dim lights, full screen on the monitor.

[Open scene; a white, naturally lit bathroom; we see a teenage girl standing in profile, looking in the mirror, singing into a toothbrush in the hand closer to the camera, which is slowly circling to a front-view of her face]

“You’re the one thing”

[the camera circles further, revealing that this is not an ordinary girl, but a two-headed boy/girl; he sings]

“I can’t get enough of!”

“I’ll tell you something”

“This could belong because”

[the camera has stopped moving and is focused on their faces in the mirror]

“No, it’s ‘this could be love’”

“It’s ‘this could belong.’”

“Dude. Google it.”

“Finish brushing your teeth first. Actually I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. Gimme the toothbrush.”

“Get your own toothbrush.”

“I threw mine out yesterday, it was all old and gross. We share a body, we can share a toothbrush.”

“Don’t you think sharing a body is enough, now we have to share a toothbrush too? Use the teeth wipes.”

“Tooth wipes”

“Teeth wipes.”

“Whatever, give me the Faces-Wash.”

[the camera cuts to the product]

“I love that stuff, it keeps my skin from drying off and flaking.”

“What are you talking about, it keeps my skin from getting oily and shiny. How could something that keeps my skin oil-free, keep your skin soft?”

[the camera moves again, this time to show their real faces, not their reflection]

“I dunno, but it does.”

“Yea, I guess it does.”

Together: “I guess Faces-Wash is the one thing we can agree on!”