Behemoth Review

He had taken care in writing his full address, in finishing his orange soda to the last slurping drop, in smiling at his wife as she came out of the ladies’ room. Doyle was a man who took care in as many things as he could, never letting anything go to waste. At work he kept track of every paper clip, every stamp, every loose sheath of binding. Recycling was not just a mild concern; for Doyle, it was a way to keep one’s sanity. If a fax didn’t work and a blank page landed in the tray, he would reload the paper into the machine furiously – immediately. The sight of the bare, dead whiteness of a failed fax in his hands repulsed him. He had been saddened when the old MasterFax, where he had worked since age twenty-eight, closed abruptly. The abandoned copy machines, fax machines, computers, shredders, ink and toner cartridges, whiteboards, clipboards, bubble mailers, self-sealing envelopes, self-stick flags, markers in the hundreds, paper clips in the thousands, gallons of corrective fluid: so, so much that would be wasted. But not Doyle! He had been promoted and reassigned to another MasterFax further away from Nashville. He had considered it a validation of his vigilant approach to office care. He found the work dull and mind numbing, just as anyone would, but he never let himself grow sloppy.

Now MasterFax Franklin Road was in an uproar. The customers lingering around the self-serve machines looked up from their photocopying stupors at Anderson, who bird-flapped his arms up and down and shouted for Doyle to make the call, but his voice could barely be heard above Supremo Steve’s.

Doyle D. Pratt, my dear boob-hungry friend, you must call within the hour. I speak of women, beautiful ones, and naked to boot. And when I say naked I do not mean nearly naked. I mean nude. I mean the full Supremo Shebang.

Doyle closed the door to the manager’s office, shutting himself off from the noise. He had kept the room spare—a desk, a telephone, a tasteful calendar with pictures of New York in winter—for just these sorts of occasions. He closed his eyes and saw Florida. White sands. All expenses paid. He and his wife having sex in a white room under the white covers of a four-poster bed. The perfect place to send his sperm energy level through the roof. “Have you considered meditating?” the fertility doctor had asked him. This would be even better, and all expenses paid. Maybe in the midst of such bliss, Doyle and Jules might even reach a sexual accord that went beyond getting pregnant.

“Hello,” he said to the operator who answered Supremo Steve’s phone line. “My name is Doyle D. Pratt. I am the third lucky winner.”

On the other end of the line, the operator sighed. “Can you confirm your address, Mr. Pratt?”

As he told her, a face entered his white bed fantasy: old, weathered, leering. A half-bald man wearing a leather jacket, boxers, flip-flops and nothing else. He was Doyle’s stepfather, Maurice. If Doyle and Jules were to spend a weekend in Florida, something would have to be done about him. Maurice by himself was out of the question. Sometimes, on days when Jules left the house for a few hours, she would come home to Maurice drunk on skunky three-year-old beer from Doyle’s broken basement fridge.

“Would it be possible,” Doyle asked the operator, “for my stepfather to stay in a room of his own. He’s an old man. He can’t take care of himself if I’m away.” This was a lie. Maurice could certainly take care of himself, he just didn’t want to.

The operator sighed again. “You’ve won two tickets, Mr. Pratt. The boobalicious beach package includes airfare and a hotel room for two people only.”

“What if we gave up the plane tickets? We can drive down in seven hours anyway. We’ll give up the tickets for an extra room. That way they won’t be wasted.” The words came out of Doyle’s mouth automatically, and he regretted saying them and thus constructing a vacation with Maurice in tow. But he knew that once he convinced his wife, she would agree that it was the only choice.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the operator said. Doyle saw the vision of his beach dream fading away, the sheets enveloping his wife, sucking her into the whiteness all around them, leaving only Doyle, naked, and his laughing stepfather behind him.

.   .   .

On the morning of July third, Doyle awoke before dawn and loaded his four-door Chevy truck. He and Jules had opted to spend four grand more on a four-door because of the extra room that would be needed for the kids, whenever they materialized. Now, three years later, Doyle detested the idea of packing anything into the bed for a long road trip. The bed was for temporary hauls only. So he stuffed it all into the cabin, behind the front passenger seat: the suitcases, the beach towels, the tennis rackets, the cooler, the canvas bag full of sandwich fixings and sunscreen, everything. Enough space was left behind the driver’s side for Maurice and his skinny legs.

When Doyle was finished, he went back into the house and switched on the percolator. The kitchen was dark and the house was silent. Normally, Doyle would have heard the crackling snores of his stepfather from behind the closed door on the other side of the hallway into the kitchen. The silence probably meant that Maurice was already awake, smoking his first cigarette of the day in bed just as Doyle and Jules had told him not to, again and again. Doyle sighed, and the sound of his breath mixed with the dripping coffee and the stuttering gasps of the refrigerator. It was an old fridge—he’d had it for ten years now, and he feared that soon he would need to start saving for a new model, an efficient sub-zero. Another problem was the fact that Doyle had never disposed of his mother’s fridge, the fridge before the current one, instead letting it slowly die in the basement. Three refrigerators in the same house was too much of a mess for Doyle to ponder.

Standing and waiting for his coffee, Doyle thought of the weary-voiced operator from the Supremo Steve Show. The whole idea of the trip disturbed him, but he was confident that some kind of fate had allowed him this opportunity. Out of thousands and thousands of contest entrants, only he and three others had been chosen.

Jules walked into the kitchen quietly, and she failed to notice Doyle until she had already pulled a coffee mug out of the cabinet. She jumped slightly when she saw him sitting in the dark.

“Well, shoot, look at that,” she said.

Doyle often wondered why his wife had fallen for him in the first place. What had she thought on their first date when Doyle had requested a new order of soup because his bowl was chipped in three spots? What was her opinion of Doyle’s tendency to sit alone and think in the morning rather than read the newspaper or take a walk? What about the fact that he had saved all the miniature bird figurines once owned by his mother, and now displayed them in a glass case in the entry hall? Doyle didn’t want to ask. Over the four years of their marriage they had developed an easy rapport. Doyle: “Darling, I snaked the sink last night, so it should be fine for your mouthwash.” Jules: “Well, look at that.” Of course, there was always Maurice, the elephant in the room. In fact, when Maurice walked in on Doyle and Jules talking quietly together, he liked to declare, “The elephant has entered the room!”

Oh, Jules told Doyle the reasons that she loved him—for his decency, for his patience, for his “wise old eyes.” Yet, for all of her kindness, she had seemed to live a step or two away from him, on the other side of an open door.

“Should I wake him up?” Jules asked. Her eyes were bleary and bloodshot.

“Didn’t you get any sleep? I’m sorry,” Doyle said. He apologized every morning after a night of frustrating sex, because the infertility was on his end. He had accrued the debt. “Have you considered role-playing?” the fertility doctor had asked. “Something easy. Something that will loosen those old boys up, make them sing.”

“Please, forget it,” Jules said. “He ain’t snoring, is he?”

“He’s probably up already. Probably smoking in bed.”

“I can hear you!” Maurice shouted from the bedroom. His voice was slightly muffled but still nasal and sour. “And you’re right on both counts, by the way!”

Maurice had never walked in on Jules and Doyle making love, but Doyle feared for it constantly. Over his twenty years of living with his stepfather after his mother’s death, Doyle had witnessed countless unpleasant and dirt-ridden moments: Maurice bringing home a stripper and ripping off her top in front of him; Maurice breaking the glass-fronted silver cabinet after he had been fired as the shop teacher at Brentwood High; Maurice drunk, every night, watching Braves baseball until he fell asleep on the couch with his greyhound lounging on his feet.

Maurice had acquired the greyhound a few years after Doyle’s mother’s death and had named him Thunderspike. “After your mother,” he said to Doyle at the time, “and the things she did to my heart.”

In those early days, Thunderspike had followed Maurice to school, where he sat under the shop table and let sawdust fall onto his back. Now Thunderspike followed Maurice to the bars and the clubs. The dog was the only company Maurice allowed in the basement on the nights when he got the loud, screaming kind of drunk. Maurice called Thunderspike the oldest dog in the world. Doyle guessed that he was at least sixteen, probably closer to twenty. To let Thunderspike live at this age, it seemed to Doyle, was another unpardonable and selfish offense on Maurice’s part. The old dog had sickly black chunks under his eyes that looked like pieces of soggy vegetables, calcium deposits in his joints, tumors on his hind legs. Thunderspike had lived through three lifetime’s worth of canine misery: Maurice had rescued him from the racetracks only to subject him to hazy late nights and walks down Nashville alleyways riddled with glass shards. On many occasions, Doyle had seen Maurice pour whiskey into the dog’s dish. He secretly hoped that taking Maurice to Florida with him would give Thunderspike the chance to die in a quiet and dignified way, without any pressure from his master.

Jules was in the shower when Maurice opened his door. Maurice typically slept in his jeans, and he entered the kitchen with his right hand stuffed comfortably into his crotch. “How’d the babymaking go last night?” he asked Doyle. He poured himself a cup of coffee with his left hand without extracting his right from its warm nest. Behind him, the greyhound limped robotically into the room. He looked at Maurice with sad, expectant eyes.

Doyle had long ago stopped answering his stepfather’s questions about the babymaking. At first, he had been shocked and defensive. “It’s not as easy as it looks, Maurice. You and Mom never had kids.” But defending himself had forced Doyle to reveal details that involved Jules, and he hated the idea that these details could eventually paint Maurice a mental picture of their intimate life. So he stopped answering, even though Maurice kept right on questioning.

Maurice sat down at the kitchen table and drank a quick gulp of coffee. “Do we have time to stop by the V.A. on the way out of town?” he asked.

“That’s in Nashville. We’re going south. It’s the opposite direction,” Doyle said.

“Well, the thing is, my boy, I’ve got to have me some spending money, and I know I can convince those boners down there to grant me an advance on my benefit check,” Maurice said.

“The trip is all expenses paid,” Doyle said.

Maurice removed his right hand from his pants to scratch the peppery stubble under his chin. He was missing his pinky and ring finger and half of his middle finger—an entire side of the hand itself was now just a smooth half-moon of scar tissue. The fingers had all been obliterated in a grenade accident in Vietnam. As a shop teacher, Maurice had always lied to his students and said that he sawed off a little piece of each finger at the end of the year and gave it to the best student in the class.

“Expenses,” he said, scratching with his working fingers. “Expenses means whatever shitty motel room they’re putting us up in, and maybe about two beers apiece at the beach bash. I’m talking about living money, my boy.”

Doyle had been four years old when his mother married for the first time. His memories of her were splotched and messy, bad prints run through the copy machine a few too many times. He knew that she had loved to drink, that she had met Maurice at a bar, that he had once walked in on the two of them dancing closely to Willie Nelson at three in the morning, several empty liquor bottles on the coffee table. Then there came a few coarser moments: arguments between Maurice and his mother that featured heaving chests and teary outbursts and deep, dark insults; the kind of arguments that Doyle and Jules could never have because they simply did not know how. Doyle remembered nothing of the months of his mother’s cancer, her wasting away, her death. He only remembered a singular moment after the funeral when Maurice had taken Doyle into his arms, hugged him liquor-cigarette breath and all, and Doyle, age seven, had realized: this was it, she was gone.

“I’ll buy your whiskey, Maurice,” Doyle said. “If you give Jules and me some peaceful time, I’ll buy whatever you want.”

Maurice threw up his hands and waved his seven and a half fingers in a surrendering gesture. “I’m just saying, Doyle, that there’s gonna be more than you bargained for on this trip. I have to buy food for Spikey, for one thing.”

So there it was, Doyle thought. He had told Maurice six or seven or eight times that they would be leaving the dog at home, but now the old man was going to pursue the question again, as if it had never before existed, on the morning they were leaving. Doyle closed his eyes. He smelled the coffee and the sweaty alcohol breath of his stepfather. He heard his wife humming loudly in the shower upstairs. Just once in my lifetime, he thought, I would like to feel something that is clean and perfect: a moment in which everything works out simply, ineffably, like a warm and sweet-smelling page of paper straight out of the copy machine. It was easier to let Thunderspike come along, easier not to risk a ribald and bitter Maurice without his beloved dog for a weekend. It was like tossing a piece of garbage into an already overflowing landfill, no harm done.

They left an hour later, as the sun was high enough in the sky to force Doyle to swivel his visor flap to the side window. Thunderspike, cramped like a withered and gigantic pretzel in Maurice’s lap, lost control of his bladder near Huntsville.

“Well there it fucking is,” Maurice said. “I just got pissed on.”

They had been driving in silence—Doyle focused, Jules asleep on a foam pillow that was propped between her head and the window, Maurice inspecting his dog’s haggard grey coat for ticks. The sudden and potent smell of dog urine shocked the car into activity.

“Didn’t he do that before we left?” Doyle asked.

“Jesus,” Jules said, rolling down her window. The July air fell into the car, thick and mucky. “Can’t we put Spikey in the bed?”

“I’d rather get pissed on than watch Spikey roll around in the back and get bruised to death by Doyle and his bad driving habits,” Maurice said. “What about all this damn stuff?” He motioned to the pile of beach equipment stacked on the other side of the back passenger seat. “You guys don’t need six towels just for a little beach sex.”

“That is quite enough, Maurice,” Doyle said. “This is my vacation, and I intend to set the parameters for it. I will not abide putting the towels or any other beach supplies in the bed.”

“Jesus, it smells,” Jules said. “Darling, why don’t we just put the picnic basket and things in my lap?”

Doyle sighed and closed his eyes and nodded. He pulled off to a service station. Maurice opened his small door and Thunderspike bolted out, his legs almost crumpling as he landed in the gravel of the parking lot. He sniffed and walked in circles as Maurice removed his soiled pair of shorts and underwear in plain view of the people at the gas pumps. “They have a bathroom, Maurice,” Jules said.

Maurice looked at her, then at the three people who were ogling him as their cars filled up with gas. He lifted his tee shirt to his chest and waggled his penis at them. One woman in a tank top put her hands over her eyes, and a man in sunglasses next to an SUV laughed deeply.

Doyle pulled a bathing suit out of his stepfather’s tiny duffel bag and flung it at Maurice. “I swear to God, I’ll leave you here with the dog. Here on the side of the road.”

“Sure thing, Big Daddy,” Maurice said as he jerked one skinny, pale leg and then the other into the bathing suit. “Big Sugar Daddy, always knows what’s best for me. I’m going to get some cigs. Don’t let Spikey wander too far, will you?”

He strode off in the direction of the convenience mart. The man in sunglasses and the woman in the tank top had come together to nod and point at Maurice as he swung open the door, which beeped like a loud microwave. Doyle turned to Jules.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She reached across the seat and squeezed his hand. “He’s just Maurice,” she said. “I’m amazed we’ve gotten this far.” She turned her gaze towards Thunderspike. “Although Dr. Vandelman says that having both Maurice and the dog around engages my maternal instincts in healthy ways.”

“Healthy,” Doyle said. He sighed and removed his glasses to wipe the coffee haze from his eyes. When he replaced the glasses, he saw that Thunderspike had ventured out of the parking lot and into the grass that bordered the access road. Doyle entertained a brief image of a semi veering just close enough to the shoulder to clip the greyhound with a slight, merciful blow, thus ending things in a quick and unfettered way.

“Come on Spikey, come on back,” Doyle called, and he clapped his hands. Thunderspike looked up with his deadened eyes, let his tongue hang for a few seconds, and walked back to the truck.

Maurice came out of the convenience mart ten minutes later carrying a carton of Marlboros and a six-pack of tallboys. Jules covered herself with the picnic basket and towels, and stuffed the beach bag under her feet. Doyle had to lift Thunderspike by his haunches into the cabin, and the dog quivered as it struggled to find a comfortable position next to Maurice.

“Good boy, Spikey,” Maurice said, and raised his first beer in a toasting motion towards the dog’s face. Doyle glanced in the rear-view as they rolled away from the gas station. Maurice’s urine-stained shorts and underwear sat abandoned in the gravel of the parking lot, crumpled like road kill. The man in sunglasses waved at the truck as it pulled onto the road. Maurice rolled down his window and stuck out the stump of his middle finger. The man nodded, laughed, and flipped off the truck in return.

.   .   .

Imagine skin. Imagine the perfect bronzed skin of a nude sunbathing beauty. The skin is cool against your hands, my dears. Imagine her perfect D-cups. My lovely listeners, this is what I imagine all the time during my Super Solid Fourth O’ July Beach Bash, and if you can reach Destin by tomorrow night, you too will live the nipple dream. If what I am saying sounds ridiculous, or frightening, or too good to be true, then to you I can only say…come, as quickly as you can! Tickets are only a hundred for every man, fifty for every woah-man…

Doyle had crossed into Florida an hour earlier and Supremo Steve’s melodic baritone flowed smoothly and clearly from the local FM. Maurice and Thunderspike were asleep, both breathing in inconsistent, halting ways, like two broken air conditioners. Jules was awake but silent, knitting something with machine gun speed in her lap. She had begun knitting soon after the fertility issues had appeared. The first fertility doctor had suggested that they both acquire hobbies as a way of taking the pressure off themselves and each other, but this was before he had discovered the extent of Doyle’s problems. The doctor was a small, strangely cheerful man, but he had done his best to put on a stoical face when telling Doyle and Jules that “Mr. Pratt’s sperm count is simply and unalterably hopeless” and gently pushed a packet of adoption brochures across the desk at them. Doyle had tried not to look at his wife’s face for more than a passing glance that day, but when he did, he noticed that there was fear in her eyes. For the first time since he had known her, she looked like someone else.

The next morning, Doyle had left the house early by himself to visit the adoption agency. When he came out an hour later, Jules was leaning against his truck and wearing sunglasses and jean shorts. “You look downright sexy,” he said to her, and they had gone home and made love in a thoughtless way, bumping against each other like bubbles. Then, a week later, Jules reminded Doyle about an appointment with the fertility doctor.

“But he sort of, I don’t know, made it clear to us,” Doyle said.

“Dr. Crowell did, yes, I suppose,” Jules said. “But I got us an appointment with Dr. Vandelman. I’ve heard he has some new and interesting theories about the issue.”

Dr. Vandelman was a long-faced, wide-eyed man who looked younger than thirty and wore his hair in a braided ponytail. “Sperm energy, Mr. Pratt, is a source of power that must be tapped in varied and active ways,” he said to Doyle during their first appointment. “Exercise, nutrition, the right mental attitude? Have you considered yoga?”

“It sounds like you are just telling me to be more healthy,” Doyle said. “And that if I’m healthy, my sperm count will just magically rise.”

“It’s not just health, it’s the quintessence of health, which is energy.” As the doctor said “energy,” he interlocked his fingers and closed them in a tight ball, as if he were harnessing the power of the atom in his hands. He had large hands, hands that could close around a grapefruit.

Jules began saying things during sex that would have made Dr. Vandelman happy. “Energize me, Doyle,” she said, locking her legs tightly around him as he entered her. “You have so much power in you.” Doyle hadn’t been able to look her in the eyes when she spoke this way, and lately he had tried a strategy of breathing very loudly during the actual intercourse to drown out Jules’ whisperings of the mystical fertility aphorisms. Doyle didn’t want to feel the presence of Dr. Vandelman’s gorilla-hands pushing down on him as he climaxed, and he didn’t care about energy, not one bit. It had become such a myth now: the creation, out of thin air, of a human being. The science had run away from him, slowly. Now Doyle felt as though he were feeding paper into a fax machine without seeing it come out again on the other side of the scanner. “Have you considered tea? Have you considered lifting weights? Have you considered holding your breath?”

The sound of Jules’ clicking needles filled the dead air between Supremo Steve’s dramatic pauses. She had shifted the towels and the picnic basket to the space under her legs, so that now her knees were propped nearly as high as the windshield.

“Darling, aren’t you uncomfortable?” Doyle asked her.

She turned and smiled. “It’s soothing to have my legs up. I’ll let you know if it gets bad. But we’re nearly there, aren’t we?”

“We are.”

“How does your energy feel?” she asked.

Doyle smiled to erase the annoyance he felt at her question. “It’s getting there,” he said after a few minutes. Jules stared at him for a long time after he answered, then resumed her needle clicking. Doyle had never seen the ultimate products of her knitting, but he assumed that she had been making hats and sweaters and booties for the kid. He had seen her using pink yarn and blue yarn in equal amounts.

It is a beautiful thing, my lovely listeners, that you know someone like me. Someone with the kind of encyclopedic nipple knowledge to guide all of you, my children, to the promised land. And that is why my Super Solid Beach Bash is not just another flavor-of-the-month display of shebang-worthy females. It is something pure, like a garden. A blooming garden of boobs.

The landscape changed from low, pine tree-lined marshes to wide fields of mini-malls and car dealerships as the truck made its way into the Destin area. Maurice woke up and let Thunderspike crawl on top of him and stick his wrinkled head out of the window. The old greyhound barked in a coughing, stuttering way, and Maurice nodded and said, “That’s right, Spikey. Tell them they can all go to hell.” Doyle studied his directions, printed straight from the Supremo Steve website, and guided the truck down an avenue of palms and tacky souvenir stores with absurd names: Banana Bud’s, Marley Mackle Tie-Dye Factory, In the Company of Clams. They passed a group of shirtless, well-tanned teenage boys huddled in the median. A bottle rocket whooshed from the middle of where they were standing and strafed inches above the front hood of the Chevy. “Hey, that was great, you miserable little dildos!” Maurice shouted. One of the boys blew the truck a kiss.

They reached the Silver Sands Hotel at seven o’clock, as the sun snaked its way between two giant high-rise condo towers on the beach, just beyond the highway. Doyle left Jules and Maurice in the car and walked into the lobby. He felt the humid stickiness leave his body as the sliding glass doors sealed him into the air-conditioning.

“I’m here for the Supremo Steve Bash,” he told the concierge. “I’m a lucky winner.”

“You are indeed,” the man said after checking Doyle’s name from a list. He was tall, overly tanned, and wearing his sunglasses indoors. “I mean, I’m going to be out there tomorrow, serving drinks and all, but that’s work and shit, you know? Nothing beats all expenses paid.”

“Nothing beats it,” Doyle said.

The lobby was full of lingering, middle-aged men in Hawaiian shirts, sipping clear cocktails from little tumblers and loudly expressing their disappointment over the relative lack of females. “The babes,” said the concierge, “they all come out of the woodworks tomorrow morning. I know how sausage it looks like right now, but Supremo Steve doesn’t dick around, if you know what I mean.”

“It’s okay,” Doyle said. “I’m here with my wife.”

“That’s bold, man. Is that why you booked two rooms? Keep the wife in one, the orgy in the other?” The concierge grinned and opened his mouth in an expectant way. He looked like a cartoon of a happy cat.

“The other room is for my stepfather,” Doyle said.

The concierge had no response for this. He followed Doyle out to retrieve the bags and kept his mouth open in the half-smile the whole time. They unloaded the bags, the towels, the picnic basket, the beach supplies, the tennis rackets, the cooler, then Thunderspike and Maurice, and followed a bellhop to two adjoining suites on the beach side of the first floor.

Doyle felt, upon sitting on the soft edge of the bed in his room, a profound release inside him. He let himself fall onto his back, and he drifted to sleep to the sound of Jules unloading her toiletry bag in the bathroom.

.   .   .

It’s strange, the geometry of a beautiful woman. And particular to taste, of course, my lovely listeners. I know that it may seem, given my nippletastic tendencies, given my frequent conjuration of D-cups in my on-air imagery, that Supremo Steve desires only women of a certain shape. I am more open-minded than this, to be sure, but my guidance in these areas is mostly inspired by the fluid attitudes of the moment. And this moment, this golden moment of sun and sand, it calls for women in the shape I describe. You, my lovely listeners, have spoken, in filling out your Beach Bash survey cards, and I aim only to satisfy, satisfy, satisfy…

Doyle awoke with a start. The room was full and bright—the lights on either side of the bed had been turned on. Supremo Steve’s voice blared form the clock radio by the bed, and Doyle slammed his hand against the snooze button to silence it. The sliding door that led to the beach was wide open, and when Steve’s voice disappeared, Doyle heard only the soft noise of the waves. He sat up and looked outside. It was dark, but he could see the shape of his wife from behind. She was hugging herself close and watching the ocean, waiting for him.

He slid to the end of the bed and reached his feet towards the floor. Instead of finding carpet, they found the rough, bony vertebrae of Thunderspike, who had been curled up at the foot of the bed in an apparently soundless sleep. The dog yelped in a throaty way and bolted to his uneasy feet. “My goodness,” Doyle said.

Jules appeared in the room. She wore a white sundress and a pink sweater, and her hair was uncharacteristically down against her shoulders. Doyle felt a sudden urge to stick his fingers into her hair, to feel the smoothness of each fiber and watch as the strands separated into individual lines of color: grey-brown, dirty blonde, yellow. He stood up.

“Someone set the alarm on the radio incorrectly. And the dog is in our room.”

“Maurice came by,” Jules said, “and then he left. He was going to a bar—Oysterman, Oystertown, something or other. He wanted us to watch Spikey. Maurice thinks the travel wore him out.”

Doyle let his arms sag against his body.

“We shouldn’t have brought him. Him or his damned dog.”

“Hey now, hey,” Jules said, and she quickly loosed his belt and tossed it across the bed. “Forget about the dog. Forget about everything.”

Since the day outside the adoption agency, Jules had been leaping into the sex this way. It turned Doyle on immediately, intensely, but he couldn’t help but think that Jules regarded the act in the same way one might regard the pushing of a button.

“Say that this is good,” Jules said into Doyle’s ear. She had pulled her sundress off over her head and was grinding on him in her underwear.

“This is good,” Doyle said.

“Florida has a power that Tennessee doesn’t,” she said.

Yes, Doyle said to himself. The power of clarity and cleanliness. A salty freshness in the air.

“What do you want?” Jules asked. It was a question she liked to ask him.

“I want you,” Doyle said. “I want a baby.” Jules had never offered an indication, in words or gesture, that this was the response she was looking for. Tonight, she simply slid down to the edge of the bed and removed Doyle’s underwear.

He flicked the switch that controlled both lights. The room was gone, drifting away with the sounds of the ocean. He closed his eyes and Thunderspike vanished as well, and all he felt was the touch of his wife’s hair, falling across his chest as she kissed his stomach. He drifted. He thought of himself as a buoy, in constant motion—back and forth—but tethered to the ocean floor. When he came, he felt like he was falling upwards. “Lovely,” Jules said. Doyle opened his eyes, and nodded.

    .   .   .  

The next afternoon, a banner was raised between two gigantic tiki torches on the beach just a few yards from their door. It read, Wet No-Shirt Contest. Through the morning, Doyle and Jules had lounged on the dunes near the hotel, and there had been no sign of Maurice. Now they sat on the plastic chairs in the shade of the porch and watched the Hawaiian-shirted men wander onto the beach and stand dumbly, sipping their cocktails and waiting for the women.

“When does it all start?” Jules asked.

“Pretty soon. Around sundown,” Doyle said.

“It might be fun to go,” Jules said.

Doyle was surprised. Their plan had been to sell their tickets to someone, a horny kid like the concierge, and find a restaurant with fried oyster sandwiches. “Why on earth would you want to go? You’re not a Supremo Steve fan.”

“Well, darling, I just thought that with all that sexual energy in the air, you might, I guess, absorb something.”

This time, Doyle couldn’t hide the expression on his face, so he stood up and walked onto the sand. After a night in which the lovemaking had felt, to Doyle at least, like something apart from babymaking, Jules was right back at it. Waves of super-sperm energy zipping through the air, and what was Doyle supposed to do? Close his eyes—and maybe open his pants—and absorb it all? Had all of this been a part of Jules’ motivation to come on the trip? Had she called Dr. Vandelman beforehand?

Maurice appeared in front of Doyle on the beach, riding on a four-wheeler being driven by a blonde male lifeguard with a dollop of sunscreen punctuating his nose. “I found him passed out between a couple of dunes near Oyster City,” the lifeguard said. “I was worried about crabs.”

“I bet you were, pretty boy,” Maurice said. He jumped off the four-wheeler and opened his arms to Thunderspike, who sauntered up and licked the pink, scar-covered side of Maurice’s right hand. “Spikey likes this climate,” he said, looking at Doyle. “Maybe we’ll just stay down here.”

Maurice seemed oddly comfortable, and his demeanor melted away some of Doyle’s anxieties. Maybe this tranquil, loose Maurice—still drunk and nasty, to be sure, but in a more effortless way—had been the Maurice that Doyle’s mother had fallen for in the first place. Doyle smiled and looked past his stepfather and down the beach, where a stage had been assembled next to the dunes and a crowd was gathering. The cocktail men looked at one another and talked excitedly, then began walking towards the stage. “I guess it’s starting,” Doyle said.

It was almost sundown. The stage was lined with more oversized tiki torches. A background image, identical to the cardboard cutout that had caught Doyle’s eye several months earlier at Pizza Universe, stood behind—seven bikini girls hugging each other in an almost desperate way. Above the backdrop stood gigantic letters made of straw—S,S,S,S,F,J,B,B—that, Doyle assumed, would be lit on fire once the sun went down. Above everything loomed a giant American flag, stuck somewhere deep in the sand. The crowd grew around them as they waited; it was composed almost entirely of men, some younger than the cocktail guys, others older, all of them straining their necks towards the stage, as if it were a magical woman-creating machine.

After almost an hour, during which Maurice polished off, then refilled, a canteen of whiskey and sucked down four cigarettes, a familiar voice rang out from the giant speakers flanking the stage. “Gentleman of the world, the Supremo Steve Super Solid Fourth O’ July Beach Bash…is on fire!” There was a brief and awkward silence before the letters in the sky were set alight by someone that Doyle couldn’t see. The flames burned for only a few brief seconds, then smoldered into thick black bags of smoke.

Supermo Steve, meanwhile, had walked onto the stage. He was short, slightly plump, and as he waved at the ocean and the crowd his oil-black bangs seemed to move in perfect tandem with his arms.  The men cheered in what Doyle thought was a tired, mechanical way. At his feet, Thunderspike had settled to the sand, and rested his head on Maurice’s bare feet. A languid mood had descended on the beach. It reminded Doyle of the long, slow afternoons at MasterFax.

“Dear, dear, beach bashers! Let me hear you speak the words I long to hear!” Supremo Steve shouted. He held his microphone with two hands and widened his eyes with each enunciated word. “Can I hear you say, ‘nude babes?’”

“Nude babes!” shouted several of the cocktail men, a little too loudly.

“There we go! There we go, my dear people. So now, without further anticipation, let’s meet them, my very own Supremo Beach Bunny Firework Nymphs!”

A line of busty, nonchalant women strode onto the stage. They each carried a basket full of rocket-shaped fireworks that covered their breasts. The crowd cheered louder now, and Thunderspike stood up in the excitement. “Crock of shit,” Maurice said, leaning into Doyle with heavy whiskey breath. “Told you this was a crock of shit.”

Jules, standing on the other side of Doyle, laughed and nodded her head.

The firework nymphs flashed uneven, false smiles and raised their baskets into the air. The men around Doyle emitted a simultaneous hoot when they saw what was exposed. “Come on, for God’s sake,” Maurice said. He stumbled and threw his empty whiskey bottle at the stage.

“America’s birthday, lovely listeners,” Supermo Steve said. “This is what it’s all about!”

He passed behind the half-naked firework nymphs, holding a sparkling stick to the bottom of each basket. All at once, rockets blasted from the baskets into the sky above the enormous flag. The men nearest the stage raised their hands above their heads, as if expecting to catch the sparks on the way down. For a few seconds, the deep booms of the fireworks drowned out Supremo Steve, who was still ranting about his nymphs.

As Doyle watched the fireworks vanish into smoky silhouettes, he was overcome with an uncomfortable fear. Something was pulling at his brain from all directions, pecking like a flock of birds. You’re wasting time, he said to himself. You’re wasting time and everything else. Why did you come here?

Then he noticed that Thunderspike was gone. He looked at Jules, who was fumbling through her beach bag, then at Maurice, who still fixed his gaze on the sky. “Where’s the dog?” Doyle said. Maurice blinked and panicked. He crouched low to the ground and peered through the forest of male legs. Doyle did the same.

“There!” Maurice pointed in the direction of the stage.

“Are you sure?” Doyle asked, but Maurice was already pushing his way forward. “Don’t step on my dog. Don’t step on my fucking dog!” he cried. Men without shirts, men in wraparound sunglasses, men in visors: they pushed forward to the stage in a swell. The firework nymphs were pouring champagne on the masses. Doyle turned to Jules and reached out his hand. She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled, and the two of them cut through the pushing bodies like sharp paddles.

After reaching the stage and finding no sign of Thunderspike, they skirted around the crowd, which stretched back into the rising tide of the ocean, and found Maurice sitting alone on the opposite side of the stage, slouched and panting. “I couldn’t find him,” he said. “It was such a mess.”

.   .   .

They split up and searched the beach. Jules asked one of the Supremo Steve organizers if an old dog had wandered backstage, and the woman checked her clipboard, as if the question were a part of the show. Doyle led Maurice three miles down the beach in both directions, but they found nothing in the dark, not even a paw print. Doyle’s heart would leap at each moving shadow he saw in the descending evening. But it was usually just a rambling drunk, or a couple of teenagers making out furiously near a dune. As they moved farther away from the beach bash, Supremo Steve’s narration of the festivities drifted off into the ocean and disappeared. At one point, Doyle thought he heard Steve cry out “Make way! Make way for the Nipplemobile!” Every few minutes came a distant explosion of more fireworks and catcalls, followed by a slight groan from Maurice.

Jules caught up with Doyle and Maurice well after midnight, after both of them had been silent for hours, lost in the task of searching. They sat on a railroad tie near the beachside strip, under the bright purple lights of a monolithic resort tower. Doyle wondered how many layers of garbage had accumulated along this road after so many years of spring breaking teenagers and lonely adults. If one were to peel up all the discarded condoms and soda cans and dead bottle rockets and dirty towels, one would only find more filth underneath. This was the world into which Thunderspike had vanished.

“Maurice,” Jules said. “I’m sorry. I should have been watching him. I was distracted by those stupid firework girls.”

“My fault,” Maurice said. “He gets scared by fireworks.”

Doyle had to be back for work on the sixth, so they put in a few notices and descriptions—“old, skinny, slow”—at the nearby bars and gas stations and left at noon the next day. Jules knitted furiously the whole drive back, as if making up for lost time. Maurice sat quietly, only speaking when he needed to complain about his hangover or request a bathroom break.

Back in Brentwood, Doyle realized that they had left the tennis rackets under the bed in the hotel room. He arrived at MasterFax and sat through an hour of Anderson’s questions about the prevalence of exposed skin at the Beach Bash before getting back to his laminations. It felt soothing to load the paper between the plastic and watch it meld gently between the rollers. The page read: Don’t Get Lost Again in the Ocean of Bad Credit. He thought suddenly of the fact that he and Jules had an appointment with the fertility doctor the next day. Have you considered giving up?

That night, after another round of stilted, robotic sex, Doyle lay awake long after his wife had glided into sleep. His legs felt heavy and cumbersome, so he got out of bed to stretch and walk around. When he came into the kitchen, he found his stepfather sitting alone, his eyes closed, asleep in one of the kitchen chairs.  

Doyle imagined the twenty-year old greyhound summoning enough memory from the darkness of his brain to head north from Florida. He saw Thunderspike arriving at the gas station where they had stopped, sniffing the pile of clothes lying abandoned in the middle of the gravel lot, and recognizing himself in the smell.

“Maurice,” Doyle said. His voice echoed gently, and Maurice did not wake up. He wondered how long Maurice would cling to the thought that Thunderspike would find his way back home. Which would go first, the stepfather or the hope?

He fell into the chair across from Maurice and closed his eyes. There they sat, waiting, for hours, until a groan from the broken refrigerator stunned them both awake.

——-

  We were moving but just barely. Not fast enough to notice ourselves moving. In the natural course of adjusting our feet we were shimmying down the street hour after hour. It was getting hot. My clothes stuck to my skin.

There's no way we're making it to the front before dark, I said.

Have a little faith, Simeon said.

I'm not in the mood for positive thinking.

When you're at the mercy of a line, positive thinking is the only thing you can control.

 I don't think that's true, I said.

I was only being true to how I felt in the moment.

What about them, I said and looked at the line across the street. Do you think they're moving faster than us? 

Could be, Simeon said. Seems like it.

What do you think they're in line for?

No idea.

Do you think they're in line for the same thing as us?

I don't know.

No wonder these lines are so slow. They're serving two lines at once.

Would you rather the lines be twice as long?

I would rather the line be an accurate length.

Maybe they're in line for something else, Simeon said.

I hope so, I said. What if there's not enough for everyone?

That's the risk we're taking, Simeon said.

  It got dark just like I thought it would and we hadn't moved for hours. We were going to spend another night on the street. People were sitting down and leaning back against the wall. The wall was warm. It had been soaking up the sun all day. It would stay warm for hours. All night if we were lucky but probably not. I pulled my knees up to my chest. It was nice out here. Calm. We all knew what we wanted.

  Another thought about Donald Norman's rule that time spent waiting in line must be equal to the value of the thing waited for: Is that rule self-fulfilling? Is it the line itself that gives the thing value?

         There were no streetlights along this street. No lights at all. I could see a lot of stars. Simeon fell asleep. His chin rested against his chest. Dreaming has become synonymous with desire, another way of wanting. "What's your dream" means "what do you want?" When Martin Luther King Jr. said he had a dream, what he meant was that he wanted something. The implication being that the things we want subconsciously are more true than the thing we want consciously, which I'm not sure I agree with. I closed my eyes but didn't fall asleep. At 2 AM the wall was cold.

  //-//

  Waiting in lines goes back thousands of years, the earliest recorded line being the animals boarding Noah's ark. "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two unto Noah into the Ark..." After that, though, things get hazy. "The temporary nature of queues makes it hard to trace their history," Denise Winterman wrote for the BBC. Lines are constantly appearing and disappearing, forming and unforming, a spontaneous organism, their whole point being their eventual dispersal. As the population of the earth grew, lines became more common, but it was during World War II that lines, especially lines in England, took on larger social meaning.

Social Historian Dr. Kate Bradly: "Propaganda at the time was all about doing your duty and taking your turn. It was a way the government tried to control a situation in uncertain times."

Social historian Dr. Joe Moran: "The queue became loaded with meaning, drawing on notions of decency, fair play and democracy."

The question became not whether you would wait in a line, but how you would wait in a line. Lines told us things about who we were. As individuals. As a society. "Perhaps the biggest influence on our feelings about lines, though, has to do with our perception of fairness," Alex Stone wrote in the New York Times. "Like any social system, lines are governed by an implicit set of norms that transcend the individual."

You have to remember. We are not in a line. We are the line.

  //-//

  Something was happening in line behind us. It was still dark and cold. This whole time it hadn't occurred to me to look back. The line behind us was as long as the line ahead. I could see fires glowing. People were shouting, standing up. Word spread up the line like a fuse. Someone had tried to cut. They'd tried to sneak in while everyone was asleep. A ridiculous plan. A mob was forming. I told Simeon to hold our place. Don't go, Simeon said, but I pretended not to hear him. We surrounded around the person who had tried to cut and I could see now that he was just a kid. A teenager. Maybe 16 years old. He was spinning in a circle and his eyes were wide. I think he knew that we were going to kill him. What choice did we have? A line is not only a concentration of our desires, it is also a concentration of our fears. To threaten our place in line is to threaten our place in the universe. Wait, the kid said as the circle tightened around him.

         //-//

  I've spent years spinning my wheels, I told Simeon one day. I've wasted so much energy.

It's impossible to waste energy, Simeon said. Energy is indestructible, a closed loop; it will come back to you.

I thought I would have everything I wanted by the time I was twenty-five, I said, but it's taken me until twenty-seven to even know what I wanted in the first place.

Desire is a tricky thing, Simeon said. On the one hand it can destroy us but on the other hand life would be pointless without it.

Maybe that's always been my problem, I said. I've never wanted anything badly enough.

Until now? Simeon said.

Until now, I said.

         //-//

  Sometimes the line would jump forward but that was only because someone had given up. They walked away and nobody said anything about it. We didn't want to admit that they might be right, that this line might not be worth it. I took one step forward and then I watched the line ripple behind me for miles. Sometimes I imagined there was an elastic band strung through the center of all our chests.

  I've been thinking about the people who have left the line, I said to Simeon in the middle of the night one night. I've been thinking that they got what they came for.

How is that? Simeon said.

What is the difference between satisfying a desire and not having a desire in the first place? The outcome is the same. The goal is to not desire anymore.

You are saying that getting what you want and not getting what you want are the same thing? Simeon said.

I'm saying that getting what you want is the same thing as not wanting it.

You're talking about contentment.

Yes, I said. Contentment.

  //-//

  Wikipedia: "The word queue comes, via French, from the Latin cauda, meaning tail." A Google search for "Longest queue ever" brings up 4,370,000 results because of course everybody who has ever waited in a queue believes they are waiting in the longest queue ever. "It is a common experience that a two minute wait can feel like nothing at all, or can feel like forever," David Maister writes in the original "The Psychology of Waiting in Lines." According to The New York Times the average person over estimates the amount of time they spend waiting in line by 36 percent. In other words time functions differently when you are in a line. Maister again: "The point, of course, is that both the perception and the expectation are psychological phenomena. They are not reality" (emphasis added). Realizing this, companies have started playing tricks on us. For example, how hotels install mirrors next to elevators since time spent looking at ourselves feels like no time at all. Or how airports have increased the distance between the terminal and the baggage claim sometimes six-fold since time spent walking feels faster than time spent standing still. Or how $5.5 billion dollars worth of gum, candy bars, Tic Tacs, et all, are sold in waiting lines at grocery stores every year, since time spent buying moves faster than time spent waiting to buy. Alex Stone in the NY Times: "Americans spend roughly 37 billion hours each year waiting in lines. The dominant cost of waiting is an emotional one: stress, boredom, that nagging sensation that one's life is slipping away." Unless of course the thing you are waiting for is the very thing that will give your life meaning in the first place. Unless the thing you are waiting for is of infinite value to you. Then you will crawl your way forward on your hands and knees.

  //-//

  It had been days or weeks. Had it been months or years? It didn’t matter. How about a little patience? Simeon said. How about a little perseverance? How about a little fortitude? How about a little strength of conviction? At night I pulled my arms inside my sleeves and leaned my head against my knees. I slept well and I didn’t dream. I didn’t have any questions. Sometimes I heard Simeon talking in his sleep but I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

——-

A flock of Pine Siskins landed on the top of a building across the parking lot from where the tour was embarking. Benji explained that the species was prevalent that year due to a bumper crop of cones in the lowland conifer forests of western Washington. “Many of those birds,” he told the group, “are just babies, following their families south for the first time. It’s easy to tell the young ones because their underbellies are still a deep brown.”

The birds didn’t look like much to Robin, who wasn’t able to appreciate the birds in detail because he didn’t have any binoculars to view them with. To him they just looked liked some plain old boring brown birds sitting in a row. He was stunned at how genuinely interested in them the group seemed. Archie Pettibon, one of the avid birders on the tour, described the siskins in great detail to his brother Stan who was recording the sighting in his waterproof log book.

“How sweet,” said Sis. Sis was Robin’s new wife. The two of them settled on a nice long road trip up the West Coast for their honeymoon, and the birding tour was just something that they happened upon while they were passing a few days in the decaying beach town of Ocean Shores, Washington. Going on the tour was Sis’s idea, and Robin was accompanying her under protest. His preference would have been to hang back in their hotel room at the Gray Gull and watch the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Seattle Mariners in an absolutely meaningless late summer baseball game.

“They’re gonna shit on all the cars,” said Robin. After that comment Jane Silver removed her eyes from the cups on her binoculars and craned her neck around to give Robin a nasty glare. When she introduced herself earlier in the hotel lobby, Robin found out she was a professor of biology at San Diego State and a marathon runner. She also mentioned that she had birded on all seven continents, and was a devout member of the Church of the Adventists of the Seventh Day. She clearly didn’t appreciate Robin’s sarcasm or his profanity.

Robin wasn’t quite drunk but he was feeling pretty good from the two whiskey sours he had downed with his lunch. He kept his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans and flipped the black cowlick away from his face while smirking right back at the cranky college professor.

Benji saw that everyone was getting their fill of the siskins and suggested that they all start loading up into vehicles so they could get out to the tour’s destination, which was described to Robin as nothing but a mudflat in the middle of an expanse of beach sand that didn’t even connect to the ocean. Robin loathed the fact that he was being drug out there for the afternoon despite not really having anything better to do. He considered that he might be like the American Robin because he had literally no interest in birds, which he considered to be a common characteristic amongst people. His interest was in a six pack of beer and having sex with Sis after dinner. He was getting even more miffed that Sis was cozying up to the tour leader, asking him all sorts of dumb questions that she was never going to remember the answers to, like how far can they fly before they need to take a nap? She looked good though, thought Robin. He loved it when she wore her hair braided and tucked her tight Jordache jeans into the scallops of her goat-hide ropers.

Robin and Sis loaded up in the back seat of the cobalt blue Ford Focus that was rented by the big German dude named Dolf. Robin didn’t like him much either. He was way too European for Robin’s taste. He spoke English with a weighty accent that had a way of demeaning the language. Robin thought the combination of the man’s great height, thigh-high black leather boots and page boy haircut was some sort of a joke. Plus he could already tell that Dolf was one of those guys who knew everything about everything. He had already overheard the guy trumpeting his accomplishments as an athlete and a chemical engineer to the retired couple from California, the Makungans. Sally and Fred just stood there egging him on about the non-corrosive salt that he developed for melting ice off of pavement. Like that was a big deal. Robin doubted the foreign intruder could switch out a toilet in even half the time it took Robin, who was a third generation plumber.

“How long is this drive going to be?” Robin grumbled.

“Ten minutes as the crow flies; half an hour or so by car,” Robin was annoyed that his question set Benji up for one of his too cute comments about birds which, wound up getting a big laugh out of his wife. Deep down Robin knew it wasn’t really the bird tour that was getting under his skin, it was that Sis told him in bed that morning that she wanted to quit taking her birth control.

The other cars fell in line to caravan to the mudflat. Just behind Dolf’s rental was a full size Chevy pickup that belonged to the Oregon carpenter, Joe Zipperer. Joe struck Robin as out of place on the tour. He wore his work clothes even though it was a Saturday and he kept nervously putting on his hat and then taking it off. He had no woman with him but he had two little kids. The younger of the two was a boy they called Beanie who made freaky intense eye contact and didn’t appear to speak at all. He followed his big sister Alice everywhere she went. Alice was a vehement little kid whose voice boomed loud and clear out of her plump eight-year-old body. She kept Beanie under her wing, and had a prodigious penchant for birds.

Archie and Stan, the two brothers from Baltimore, who had the exact same voices and gestures despite looking sort of mismatched, swung their rented white minivan into the file.

Jane Silver had offered a ride to the Makungans so they could leave their Monaco RV parked at the hotel. The three of them were wildly engaged in a discussion of the extinct California Condor and some of the rare species that Jane had seen on a recent trip to the Aleutian Chain.

The last car to account for was a rusty Chevette that belonged to a local woman named Dotty Campbell. Dotty was a lifer in Ocean Shores. During introductions she told the group that her father was a fisherman, and Dotty had been cleaning and packing fish since she was as young as she could remember. For the past fifteen years she had worked the night shift at a little motel in the middle of town called The Salty. Dotty was in rough shape. She had the look of a lifelong cigarette smoker who had never once even seen a fresh vegetable. Dotty wasn’t actually operating her own car, which may have had something to do with a bandage she wore over her right eye. Behind the wheel was her son Herbie, who didn’t look qualified to drive. And it wasn’t just that Herbie looked young, the bubblegum chewer had a distracted nature that could be disastrous behind the wheel of a car. The windows of the Chevette were down and Dotty could be heard telling Herbie where the turn signals were, and reminding him which pedal was the brake. When he arced the little car out of its parking spot, he went way too fast and stopped just short of plowing into the bumper of Dolf’s car. Everyone inside the vehicle had an endorphin surge and Dolf immediately leapt from the vehicle and lashed out at the new driver.

“Arschgeige! You will pay if you damage this car.” In his opaque driving glasses, the foreigner was intimidating as hell. The kid cowered from the sight of him.

“Dolf, please, he didn’t mean any harm.” Benji was a good mediator. He jumped out of the passenger seat and managed to diffuse the situation by asking Herbie to keep a generous following distance since he was apparently just learning.

It was a tense start to the tour and Robin caught himself chuckling at the angst.

Once they got driving, Sis asked Benji if any of the birds were mating just then. Robin stared out the window and zoned out during Benji’s longwinded response. He sensed Sis was trying to push his buttons about the whole mating business. Robin had told her that there was no way she should be going off birth control for several years. He was pretty sure he was clear about that before the wedding , that he wasn’t ready to be tied down with kids, that he had too much living left to do (which was a crock of shit really because he didn’t like doing much besides drinking with his buddies at the Poggy after work). Robin decided not to worry much about it. He owned Stat Plumbing and a little house on Riviera St. by the casino. Sis was lucky to have landed him.

A message came to Robin’s phone from his aunt Phyllis. She was in her nineties and still living alone. Robin looked after her when they were back home in Nevada. It sounded like the cable TV was on the fritz. He sent a message back promising her that he would look into it.

Half an hour later the train of cars arrived at a dusty parking lot carved out of the dunes with plenty of room for all of the vehicles, plus a Honeybucket outhouse. Herbie carefully nosed into a wide spot just opposite from it. After he shut the Chevette down, Herbie ran across the lot to the Honeybucket, he must have needed desperately to pee. Robin used it to take a leak just after him. It was near full and gross. Guys could stand up and piss into the wall-mounted urinal but the girls had no choice but to lower their pants all the way to the muddy plastic floor of the unit, where there were wads of wet toilet paper on the floor. Some of the wads were brown, and the mound was pretty grim and growing. Robin could see about ten different piles of peoples’ stool. The disinfecting solution of the tank sat just below the rim of the toilet bowl. If it didn’t get emptied soon it would overflow. He breathed through his mouth and made his contribution to the tank. As the urine flowed out of him he studied the sticker on the inside wall of the Joe that detailed the service record. Maintenance had not been performed on the unit for near a month. The last entry was dated July 24th. Someone named Pancho had signed his name. On the inside of the door written in permanent marker was a local phone number accompanied by the words, affordable blowjobs. Robin’s last thought before leaving the Honeybucket was that one of those would be awful nice to get.

Suddenly everyone on the tour appeared to Robin as a blend of anxious and unorganized. They were all in a hurry but had so much to do. The Makungans were smearing spit on their eyeglasses so they wouldn’t fog. Jane was opening and closing all sorts of buttons and zippers as she removed her precious optical equipment from its protective cases. The Pettibon brothers were loaded for bear. The two of them sported matching vests and sun hats with the Eastern Mountain Sports insignia, and slathered themselves with high SPF sunblock even though the sun wasn’t that strong. Both Dotty and Herbie were prepared with low-end but serviceable binoculars. Even Joe’s kids were equipped with Eddie Bauer brand binocs called the Raptor Edition, made specifically for youngsters. Dolf extracted a tripod from the trunk and a spotting scope with eighty times magnification potential. The extremely expensive set up came from the German manufacturer Swarovski, and Dolf slung it over the sturdy shelf of his shoulder once he had it assembled. Only Robin and Sis showed up with nothing but their naked eyes.

The weather was perfect. A moderate system of high pressure was keeping the coast reliably dry and clear. It was sunny with a few scattered clouds, hot but not oppressive. It was great light for observing and photographing birds. Benji kicked off the tour with a spotting of a Savannah Sparrow flitting about in a thicket and everyone dropped what they were doing and trained their lenses on the bush. Robin and Sis could not see the bird, which quickly flew off, or so the group said.

Before leaving the lot the Makungans had to use the Honeybucket also and young Alice kept everyone entertained with a story about her friend Allison’s pet parakeet pooping in the palm of her hand when she was holding it.

“Let’s get going already, the tide is nearly up,” Dolf was looking impatient and frankly didn’t seem to like having to listen to the little kid. Robin wondered if they had kids over in Germany. He was sure they must but he couldn’t picture any.

“It looks like we are all together now,” Benji whispered once the Makungans had finished their business. He didn’t speak too loudly because he didn’t want to scare off any birds. “I am going to lead us down the trail. Be careful climbing over the driftwood. Keep an eye out for wrens and sparrows. Sometimes you see a Western Scrub Jay around here.” The birders were constantly scanning this way and that as they walked, looking for the slightest unnatural movement in the branches, or a flash of color that would alert them to the presence of bird.

The sightings started coming pretty quick. They were making their way through a wind-stunted spruce grove, the understory was comprised of Black Twinberry, California Wax Myrtle and Salal. Benji was knowledgeable, not only about the birds but the landscape as well. There was an endless supply of ripe fruit and an endless coming and going of birds consuming it. The little ecosystem struck Robin as completely non-competitive; there was just so much food to go around. He wasn’t used to nature looking like a smorgasbord and he found that he was at least slightly impressed.

“Overhead!” came a shout from Jane Silver. She had her binocs steadied and she was looking up at a thirty five degree angle, tracking a bird with a huge wingspan, white, with grey undersides. It was flying due west out to sea. Robin and Sis didn’t need binoculars to observe it, the bird was huge.

“That’s an Osprey,” shouted the little girl Alice. “Did you know that Osprey live on all seven continents? My friend Allison told me that.”

“Halt deine fresse. That’s bullshit,” said Dolf.

“Hey, take it easy with the language please, sir. These are kids,” Alice’s dad stuck up to the German. “She may not be exactly right about everything, but she likes birds, give her a break.”

“I am sorry if I offended you,” Dolf was insincere, “but Osprey do not live on all seven continents. The fraülein is distributing false information.”

“Osprey are the world’s most naturally widespread bird, she isn’t far from being right.” Benji, who was completely non-confrontational and an exceptional mediator, offered a statistic to pacify the situation. The quiet kid, Beanie, in an attempt to avenge his big sister, snuck up on Dolf quietly and stomped on his toes. It didn’t have much effect because of Dolf’s knee-high leather boots but it pissed him off.

“Hey, control your children!”

“Sorry,” said Joe, who clearly didn’t have much control over his kids. “Alright, Beanie, come here.” The silent five-year-old planted himself squarely between his sister and Dolf. He was calm and staring. Robin saw a few long-necked birds in a tree and decided to bring it up.

“Hey, what are those?” He pointed to a group of low branches in one of the spruces about forty yards off.

“Good spot,” replied Benji. “It looks like we have got a group of Green Herons roosting in the spruces. That’s very unusual, they don’t often stay in groups like that. And what’s this?”

He trained his binocs on two bird of prey traveling south, fast, toward the same mudflat that Benji was leading the group to. “Peregrine Falcons.”

Everyone was frozen and had binocs to their eyes with the exception of Robin and Sis who squinted to see the birds at all. Even Beanie with his plastic set of binocs was tracking the pair of silver predators as they plunged earthward and out of sight.

“Those birds just killed something. I know it,” said Alice.

“Yeah, that’s how the world works, kid,” said Fred Makungan with his binocs pointed at another part of the sky. “I got something else coming in, I think it’s a Harrier, there are a lot of prey birds around, which means lots of prey. We’ve got to get out to this flat, it’s looking pretty birdy from here.” The group was seized with urgency. There could’ve been birds out at the flat that were going to fly off soon.

Benji had already set the scene for the afternoon back at the hotel. Most of the birds they were going to see were migrating shorebirds who fed in shallow mudflats. Mudflats are all over when the tide is out, but when it is in there are fewer places to eat so the flocks condense around inland brackish pools. By August many of these pools are gone, but the one the tour was heading to that afternoon was still wet and chances were high of there being a big diversity of species around. At least for several hours. They needed to hustle, but the group had some low common denominators when it came to moving over the piles of bleached driftwood and uneven ground. Fred and Sally weren’t that mobile to begin with, and they kept geeking out on the birds instead of watching where they were going. At one point, Fred actually fell off of a slippery log and landed hard on his hip. He said he was alright but he started limping pretty heavily after.

Collected at the forest’s edge, they were looking at a big sandy flat. There was water out in the middle reflecting a perfect image of the sky. It covered at least three acres but it couldn’t have been more than ankle deep because the birds were wading around in it effortlessly.. Robin shook his head and directed a disappointed comment at Sis.

“This is what we came to see?”

She shot him a scathing glare and went to stand near Benji who was orienting everyone to the spot.

“Okay, here we are everybody. Let’s have some fun. Sometimes we see hundreds of birds out here, already we can see terns-”

“There’s a scaup!”

“Greater or Lesser?”

“Greater I think, I’m going to put it in the scope.”

Jane Silver also had one of the tripod scopes along with her. The single lens units were far more powerful than binoculars but hard to hold still enough to look through because of their sensitivity, so they needed to be mounted and set. Once a bird was found and focused in the eyepiece a person could get a real detailed look. Jane set up her scope nice and low so Alice and Beanie could see the scaup. Dolf asked Robin if he would like to view the bird through his scope and Robin thanked him cautiously and said sure. He closed his right eye so no light would interfere with his view and placed his left eye firmly in the cup and allowed his vision to steady. The image was in focus, but there was no bird, only reeds. He wasn’t sure if Dolf was fucking with him or not.

“Did you see it?” asked Dolf, when Robin pulled his head away.

“Yeah, I saw it,” he said.

The group picked up and started moving closer to the water. Benji’s plan was to walk them up to the northwest edge of the flat, so that the light would be behind the group, optimum for viewing and identifying. The Peregrine Falcons were flying low along the dunes again, tracing big arcs and scaring all the little creatures below. The pair of birds was in an obvious attack formation. One of them pulled its wings back and hovered a few feet above the ground for a moment, then dropped and sunk its claws into a plover. The falcon carried its kill to a driftwood stump beached in the center of the pool, where it tore the head off its lunch and sunk its hooked black beak into the plover’s breast. The group was spellbound, they all liked watching the kill.

There was a gang of Brown Pelicans perched on a fallen tree, probably on their way to Santa Monica. Jane Silver loaned Sis a set of binoculars that she wasn’t using and she looked like she was having a great time looking at all the birds. She asked Benji about different types of seagulls and Robin eavesdropped on his overly intimate response. He confessed to the Washington native Glaucous-winged Gull being his favorite gull and he pointed out to her Mew Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, California Gulls, and the Caspian Tern, which – he told her as though it were a secret – is also technically a gull. Robin was getting fed up with the underhanded tour guide who he felt was trying to impress his wife by showing off his disturbing obsession with birds, all of which looked to him like regular old white seagulls.

“Ducks!” shouted Alice, and sure enough, overhead, was a V formation of ducks traveling south along the coast. The flock followed their leader who descended slowly, banked northeast and brought the crew down for some food and a break on their journey to wherever they were going.

“Those are Northern Pintail Ducks,” said Benji, very excited, “they breed in Alaska!”

“My friend Allison has a pet Pintail Duck!” came another strange comment from the enthusiastic Alice.

“She does not. Kid, do you even have a friend named Allison? Or any friends at all?” Dolf made his rude remark out of the side of his mouth without taking his head away from his scope, which was trained on a Hudsonian Godwit, a bird that was rare to the region. He wasn’t sharing the information with anyone.

“Hey mister, why don’t you just enjoy the birds and leave my kid alone?” said Joe, in a sorry display of mock-toughness. Dolf offered another of his insincere apologies and went back to studying the godwit. Like many of the birds at the flat, the godwit was medium-sized and rather nondescript. But it was a worthy traveler and getting to see it was an intersection of fates.

The tour set up base camp along the southwest corner of the oval pond. The light was incredible, the sky was gorgeous, and the birds were more than any of them could have hoped for. Benji, who explained that he was familiar with conducting bird censuses from his research missions to the Galapogos, estimated ten thousand birds at the mudflat. Most of those numbers came from migrating plovers, sandpipers, and dowitchers. Those birds were eating marine worms mostly, and mini-crustaceans, but they had attracted birds that liked eating other birds, and the pelicans and the gulls and the herons and the ducks all seemed to be there, like the birders, in a spectator’s capacity. It was a condensed ecosystem of bird activity and the serious birders in the group were euphoric. Robin was being offered plenty of chances to view birds through the scopes of other group members, and he felt like he was learning some things. He avoided the creepy Dolf, who kept mainly to himself unless the kid spoke up.

Robin assumed that his group were the only nut cases out there looking at birds, but after a while he started noticing two other birders with scopes across the flat. They looked serious.

Sis was using Benji’s good pair of binocs at this point and really soaking up the birding talk from Benji. When Robin tried to get her to step aside and talk to him briefly she said not now. The whiskey buzz was gone and Robin started getting bored. He was also pissed that his wife was giving all of her attention to another guy. Of course he knew it wasn’t just because of what happened in bed that morning. The honeymoon road trip had had its good moments but it had been trying overall. And it was his fault. They stopped off at her parent’s house in Sacramento and he got so drunk on red wine from Napa that he keeled over into their grandfather clock, causing significant damage to the gears and losing one of his front top teeth in the process. He was planning on getting it fixed by his own dentist after they got home and was aware of how much less sexy he must appear with the tooth gone. That wasn’t the only mishap either. In Reno, they got a nice room at the Hilton and had fabulous cuts of porterhouse for dinner. Afterward, Sis wanted to hang out with him on the big round bed but Robin talked her into letting him hit the blackjack tables for half an hour while she took a bath. In the gaming room, Robin had nothing but bad luck. Before he knew it he was down a grand and taking an advance on their credit card. Sis passed out in her red teddy waiting for him to come back. At five AM, she got dressed and went looking for him. She found him in the cocktail lounge lamenting his colossal losses over gin and tonics with a wasted showgirl in a sequined mini-skirt and a white feather boa.

Dotty and Herbie were smoking cigarettes and sitting down. The kid was listening to music on his headphones and his mother looked like she could use an oxygen tank. She looked content enough, though. The weight of the binoculars seemed way too much for her.

Archie and Stan were taking copious notes and high-fiving each other every time they found a new species. It was truly binge birding and it wasn’t an opportunity that came along often, even for Benji.

Sally and Fred Makungan had stopped using scopes and binocs. It wasn’t even necessary with so many birds up so close. They were standing with their feet at the edge of the water just watching the rivers of birds swooping around and landing in ancient formations in front of them. Fred had his arm around Sally. Robin watched Sally drop her hand into Fred’s back pocket and squeeze his rump. 

Jane Silver had eased up on finding birds and was hanging out with the little silent kid and his sister. She was digging in the sand with Beanie and listening to Alice go on and on about nest parasites like the Brown-headed Cowbird. Jane must have already known that the mama Brown-headed Cowbird left her eggs in the nests of other birds, where her babies would hatch and be raised and fed by the parents other species like robins and warblers.

“Did you know that the Brown-headed Cowbird has driven the Kitchin’s Warbler nearly to extinction?” said Alice, “my friend Allison told me that.” Jane pretended it was new information.

The two people that Robin had seen birding across the mudflat were on the move and headed toward the group. Benji broke away from his conversation with Sis to introduce himself. The pair turned out to be a father and son and all of the serious birders flocked as birders do to hear what they have seen, and share in the glory of what was obviously a jackpot day of birding. Archie and Stan touted recording over forty-five species since leaving the parking lot.

The son turned out to be a home-schooled birding prodigy; a lanky thirteen-year-old in a baggie blue hoody named Zanter Golding. Benji recognized the lad’s name immediately and filled the tour group in on all of his accomplishments. He was celebrated that year by the Washington State Ornithological Society for a census that he conducted personally from an ocean front location near his family’s home on Chuckanut Dr., south of Bellingham, Washington. The results of his study were used by conservation groups to protect the coast from development. He was awarded a fifteen thousand dollar scholarship for that year and put the money in a bank account with the scholarship money that he had won the previous year for a paper published in Junior National Geographic on the range of Bald Eagles, which – he very clearly explained in his paper – was longer than most people realized. In some cases, they traveled from Canada, to locations as far south as the Sierra Madre Mountains in northern Mexico.

The kid and his dad had to be carrying five grand in optical equipment. Not only that, they were hauling fold-out stools, a little red cooler, and what looked to be a mandolin case. They explained that they had been at the flat since eight AM. The freckled kid looked exhausted and in need of some nourishment, but he was also hyper. Young Zanter was anxious about a bird called a Hudsonian Godwit, which he had thought he had spotted. He said it would have been a first time sighting for him, and he and his dad were following it when they ran into the group. He asked if anyone had seen it. No one said they did, not even Dolf.

The group started peppering the anxious kid with questions. Instead of getting on with his mission, the polite kid stayed and talked with the tour for a bit. Robin seized upon the moment to pry Sis away from the group and Benji, who was grinding on his sobering nerves. Sis reluctantly agreed to talk to him and they walked downwind to where they couldn’t be easily heard.

“What do you want?”

“Sis, look-”

“Don’t say my name.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Sis, I’m sorry. I know-”

“I said don’t say my name like that.”

Robin was losing track of what he had meant to say. Sissy’s jade eyes were obscured behind the lenses of the cheap shades that she had picked up earlier at the gas station. He had to take a few breaths before talking and he struggled not to use her name when he spoke.

“I know I haven’t been the best since the honeymoon started, but don’t-”

“You know I talked to Maria today? She said I never should have married you.”

Maria was Sissy’s best friend, they worked together at the salon.

“Look at you, Robin. Would it have killed you to wear a clean t-shirt?”

Robin had a mound of hash browns and ketchup slip off of his fork at breakfast and leave a gruesome stain on the front of the white shirt. He was suddenly embarrassed not to have changed.

“So wait. It’s okay for you to use my name?”

“Oh, so now you want to start an argument? And in front of all of these nice people.”

“Is this all about the kid thing? I know I may have said after we were married would be a good time. But I meant a while after-”

“Both of my sisters have kids already, Robin. And Maria and Brad are starting to try-”

“So this is about Maria. You want to be pregnant with Maria.”

“It would be nice if I could have the experience along with my girlfriend, yeah. What’s so wrong with that?”

“Kids are serious work, Sis. And they cost a lot of money.”

“Stop saying my name, Robin. I don’t like it when you use my name like that.” Robin’s temper was starting to flare. His arms and legs shook when he got uncontrollably angry, as if trying desperately to hold back the torrent of frustration he was feeling.

“Look around you, Si-would you look at these kids that are here today. They’re all a wreck.”

“A wreck? Robin, what the hell is the matter with you? These kids are all adorable.”

“Adorable? The fat one won’t shut up, and her little brother just stares at everyone with those beady little eyes of his and doesn’t say a goddamn th-”

“And what about Zanter. Huh, Robin. That boy is a genius. I suppose you think he is a wreck too?”

“I bet you that kid is a social misfit. And he is awfully pretentious about this birding thing.”

There was a whoosh and a shadow crossed their faces. They both looked up to see a mature Bald Eagle flap its wings once and soar north above the mudflat. It had to be a female because it was enormous. There wasn’t any doubt about who was in charge. Even the peregrines roosted in frozen reverence until it disappeared.

“Screw you, Robin.”

Sis turned her back on him and rejoined Benji and the others.

The birding group was getting on the move. Everyone was now on a mission to find the Hudsonian Godwit, led by the promising Zanter, who the birds were putting through college. When Robin, who was seething with anger at that point, caught up with them, Zanter was explaining that the Hudsonian Godwit has long legs like the other godwit species but is differentiated by its long, skinny, pink bill that has an upward curve to it, and that the other godwits have straight bills. The bird nested on the shores of Hudson Bay, Alaska, and traveled all the way to South America for the winter. It would be a very lucky sighting as they were never anything but passing through. Robin lingered at the back of the pack with Herbie who was chain smoking and definitely thinking about something other than birds. Maybe girls. More likely video games.

Zanter would walk a few paces with the group behind him, scanning with his binocs, then he would stop when he thought he saw something and swiftly set up his spotting scope. The group kept bunching up behind him, everyone wanting to be the one to find the godwit. Zanter’s dad was the one who really spotted it. It was on a sandbar in the middle of the pond with three Ruddy Turnstones. He nudged his son and told him where to look. Zanter was then able to announce the sighting and take credit for it. It turned into a big celebration and Robin was absolutely disgusted by it. Especially seeing as the bird looked like a fucking pigeon. They had found the Hudsonian Godwit. All the group’s scopes were trained on the bird. Benji had spotted a vagrant Hudsonian Godwit while birding in Australia in ’82, and Jane Silver had seen one of them in Chile. But up until then, Dolf was the only member of the group who had seen one in the United States. Zanter was emotional and so was his dad. They didn’t cry, but they were on the verge. Robin sulked. Sis admired the bird with Benji’s binoculars. Dolf, once again, offered Robin a chance to look at the bird through his scope.

“I don’t want to look at the stupid fucking bird!” shouted Robin. The group was stunned and an eerie silence ensued. Benji was trying to think of something to say. Sis was shaking her head, looking at her husband as though he didn’t belong to her. It was Joe, the overburdened father, who spoke up first.

“Hey, mister. I would appreciate you not using profanity like that around my kids.”

“Don’t use profanity around your kids? Your fucking kids are annoying. That one won’t talk, and that one won’t shut up, and for some reason they … my wife… When the fuck is this tour going to be over?” It was an awful, embarrassing and stilted speech and Robin was instantly sorry that he opened his mouth. Dolf smiled. He obviously liked watching Robin make an ass of himself.

Suddenly the silent kid stepped forward and erupted.

“Mister, stick a dick in your ass! You eat donkey pussy! You’re a cock sucking butt monkey! You’re a shit smelling, fish licking, moldy piece of poop!”

Then he started listing all the profanity he seemed to know. “Ass, tits, titties, dick, balls, nuts, plums, sex, hairy monster!” The last thing he said was, “Before the cancer, my mommy had huge tits!”

Joe cupped a hand over the boy’s mouth. He picked him up and ran off toward the dunes to comfort him. His big sister Alice flipped Robin the bird and then ran to catch up with her dad and her brother. All of the jubilation from the godwit spotting and the incredible afternoon of birding vanished. Joe started yelling at everyone from the not far off dunes.

“What the hell is the matter with you people? I just wanted to take my kids out to see some birds, because my daughter likes birds. Why the hell are you people so mean?” his voice was shaky. It was very apparent to everyone suddenly that this family was going through hard times, and all of the birders, except Dolf, were suffering and ashamed of Robin’s outburst. Sis, Jane and Benji ran to them to be of some comfort. Benji was determined not to allow the crude behavior of Robin and of Dolf to reflect upon the tour’s sponsors at the Washington State Ornithological Society or the Seattle Audobon Society, or the calm and virtuous activity of admiring native and transient birds.

The young Zanter was Zen after spotting his godwit and approached Robin with a maturity way beyond his years.

“Why don’t you go to your car, sir? So we can all enjoy the birds.”

Robin hung his head. Sis was nowhere in sight and wanted nothing to do with him anyway. He commenced his walk of shame back to the parking lot alone to cool off.

A giant flock of sandpipers escorted Robin along the trail back to the car. The tide was pushing out, and while the area was still choked with birds, some of the species were scattering as other places to feed became available. Robin was feeling ashamed of his behavior and for the first time started really believing that Sis might leave him. They hadn’t known each other all that long. Maybe she would listen to that melodramatic Italian hairdresser friend of hers and leave him if he refused to start a family with her. He began to consider the possibility of children. That Zanter kid sure seemed to be having a nice time with his dad. Robin could see enjoying having a kid like that. He started to fantasize about a boy that he and Sis might have. One that he could teach how to be a plumber. He saw a kid that looked like him, only better built. They were swapping out a hot water heater together. Shortly after that, he imagined the two of them trenching in a sewer line. He would have to give up drinking every night at The Poggy to have a kid. And his dart team would probably take it pretty rough. But they could manage without him in time.

Traveling alone back through the thicket Robin was excited that he found it familiar and still teeming with birds. He thought he may have been a little too hard on the birders. It wasn’t like watching football but it was a decent enough hobby. The whiskey felt finally like it was all the way out of him and his mood was getting better. A black and orange Western Tanager nibbled at the deep purple twinberry fruit to the left of the path. He decided to apologize to the group when they all got back. And later to Sis. Sincerely. They were married and he had been acting like a doofus the entire honeymoon and he knew it. He was going to say he was sorry and tell her that she should go off of birth control if she wanted to. He also figured it was a good way to insure that he would keep getting laid a lot. At least in the short term.        

Robin leaned against the hood of Dolf’s car, thankfully upwind from the awful smelling Honeybucket. Since he had some time to kill, he rung up the cable company back home so he could get aunt Phyllis’s TV back up and running.

The group took forever getting back. By the time they actually showed up, Robin had dealt with the cable guy, thought up a heartfelt apology, rehearsed it, fallen asleep on a patch of gravel in the sun, and woken up bitter again. And parched.

Once the group was back in the lot the tension reappeared. Everyone was afraid to talk. The various groups avoided each other like boats in an ocean. Cars were quietly packed up. Beanie and Alice fell asleep as soon as Joe put them in their car seats in the truck. The exhausted dad half-ass waved at Benji and took off without another word. Fred, Sally and Jane were mostly packed up but they were in no hurry. They were leaning on the hood of Jane’s car, still with their binoculars around their necks, chewing Wheat Thins and casually scanning the skies. They invited Dotty over to share their snack. Archie and Stan bade farewell and drove off muttering something about burgers. Herbie really wanted his mom to hurry up. Fred spotted another Marsh Wren, which couldn’t have been less exciting, but everyone looked at it politely and oohed and aahed.

Robin and Sis were stone silent in the backseat of Dolf’s car, waiting for their driver who had decided at the last second that he needed to relieve himself.

Herbie finally had his mom in the passenger seat, buckled up and ready to go. The impatient kid threw the Chevette into reverse and hit the accelerator so hard that the little car went flying backwards into the Honeybucket.

Dolf was inside pissing when the outhouse door caved in sharply. The unit tipped up from the force of the impact and teetered on its edge. The Honeybucket was bottom heavy but Herbie rammed it so hard with the rear bumper that the displaced contents of the tank came up through the vent pipe like it was the blowhole of a whale. Something about the way Dolf must have been flailing away inside made it eventually go horizontal. On impact the holding tank released the entirety of its contents in a torrent through the lid of the toilet, dousing Dolf in two hundred gallons of shit mixed with tampons, toilet paper, and piss; all dyed blue to mask the unsightliness. The material was seeping rapidly out the Honeybucket’s seems and the stench was unbearable.

From inside Dolf could be heard coming unglued.

“Schise! Schise! Blutige Sau!”

Herbie was outside of the Chevette trembling and clawing at his pimply cheeks. Dotty was the first to come to Dolf’s aid. She pulled at the door of the Honeybucket but it was stuck. Dolf switched to gurgling English.

“Open the fucking door! Open the fucking door!”

Robin couldn’t hold back a laughing fit when he saw the soiled Dolf finally escape from the capsized outhouse and take off sprinting back down the path to the mudflat. Sis walked right up to him and spit in his face.

When an American Robin lit down on the tipped over outhouse, Fred couldn’t help pointing it out.

——-

That last time I saw him, before they took him away, I was in Archie’s Beer Barn, like I said. Archie's real name is Celestino Archueleto and he runs this bar in a metal building out near Cimarron, mostly for us Latinos.  Sometimes Bear would come by.

  Bear, he's white and a guide in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.  Used to be one of the best.  In the old days, we ranged all seasons and all country. We carried pale white men back into the mountains for their moment of glory, their cuento de muerte.  Bear was part of the mountain – he knew where the animals would feed, where the fish would hide, where the turkeys, they would roost. He acted like a bear too – you could never tell what he was thinking by looking at him.

That day in Archie's, Bear wore what he always wore, a big dirty coat made out of an Indian blanket, with jeans and boots. Pushed back on his head he had a sweated-out felt cowboy hat with a snakeskin band – a snake he killed himself, years ago. His big belly hung out and he shuffled along like his back hurt, but he had a wave and a hello for everyone. I had hunkered down with some of my friends in the corner, and Bear stopped to talk for a bit.  He told us he was down to one truck and one tent.

En buenos tiempos, we kept a full camp, horses and a couple of jeeps. It was our job to pick the sportsmen up at the airport, set up their tents, feed them and pour liquor in them. It was our job to throw them up on the horses, take them to the animal, skin and slaughter the animal once it was dead. Nothing in this was a bad thing. Bear, he respected the animal and its death. Also, the kill by the sportsman – en júbilo for the hunter and good to see. Most of these rich white men, they wanted to be Bear’s friend, so that was okay too. I was Bear’s Mexican, there to cook and wrangle horses, but I'm pretty agringado myself, white enough to keep everyone comfortable. The big thing for me? I got to work in la hermosa tierra de mundo.  Until Bear went broke.

  Like an animal, Bear don't live in the past.  So we visited about what he had coming up. Outside of coyotes near his casa, he hadn’t shot anything in months. Still, he thought he'd make an elk hunt in the Fall. He also thought he'd go fishing soon, and we made noises like we would go too. Then he clomped over to the bar to visit with Archie.

Archie’s, it don’t see many outsiders, but every once in a while, guys out on a road trip together pull up. They park their cars or their bikes or their RVs and they stroll in to soak up Archie’s beer. This day, a bunch of Anglo guys out of Albuquerque had drove up in their Corvettes. They must have been in some kind of car club, a club based on how much they could spend on a toy with four big wheels and a cloth roof. They all chose tables way across the room from us and Archie waddled out from behind the bar to take their orders.

Things went fine for a while. There's always un buen tipo who can talk to anybody, and so it was this time. This nice guy in shorts and a big fat nose wanders over and we visit for a while. He was retired, but he used to be in the concrete business, so we talked about that, about pouring foundations in the winter, about how far you can truck a wet load. He visited with Archie too and spoke to Bear. His buddies and him, they milled around for about an hour sloshing down the beer.

But if there's a nice guy in a crowd, there's also someone ugly, who gets uglier when he drinks. These Corvette drivers had a loudmouth in a nylon jacket, dark hair slicked back from his face. He sat there wavin' his hands and talking up his opinions pretty estridente. It turns out he was muncho importante, and of course we wasn’t. He had been in lots of great places, and this wasn’t one of 'em. He drove a great car, and the folks around here, we drove rusty pieces of shit.  He was right – we drive what we drive and we buy what we can afford – old men and old trucks.

So Mr. Slick Jacket trots up to the bar to order another round of beer and he talks to Bear while he’s there. First he calls him Cowboy and then he calls him Old Man. Two other guys amble up and lean on the bar too, one beside Bear and the other near his friend, just to be close to Hombre Muncho Importante.  Mr. Jacket, he asks Bear, “Do you know you look like Santa Claus with a ponytail?”

Bear takes all this real mild, just sits there on the bar stool. Then the stranger starts in on the White Thing. He says, “Do you actually drink with those dirty Mexicans in the corner?” Meaning me y mi amigos.

I thought Bear was an old man, past all this, but once an animal learns something, it must not forget. Bear jabbed out at this pendejo, fast like a snake – he slammed the heel of his hand into the guy’s nose. Then he grabbed him by the back of the neck and threw la cabeza del hombre down onto the bar, uno, dos, tres. Bam bam bam! The guy folded up like a pile of clothes on the floor at Bear’s feet. The other two Anglos, they closed up quick on Bear and he jumped to his feet. He spun on his toes to face the one and then to face the other.

  A long time ago I seen a pack of dogs corner a bear up against a cliff, and it looked just like this. Them hounds would charge in on the bear’s back and he would spin around to try and catch them. This bear grabbed two or three perros and mauled them up quick. This was casi lo mismo, as Bear twisted from one to the other. He held them off with his mal de ojo and his stone face. 

Archie had been caught sleeping, but he hustled out from behind the bar with a baseball bat in his hands. He sidled in between Bear and the other guys at the bar and waved that bat around saying, “Now – Now – Now.” The whole crowd of Anglo guys all jerked up from their tables and come running over. The young ones turned all red-face-angry and the old ones grey-shook-up, but they added up to a pack. We Latinos, we nailed our colillas to the chair.  Bear might have been my boss once, but brown skins don’t have brawls with white skins and get away with it.  I felt real bad about it, but I didn't do nothing dumb.

Archie stuck the bat out to let them know he'd handle things, not them. The friendly gringo we first talked to helped Mr. Jacket to his feet, got him a bar rag to hold on his face. We could all tell this loudmouth needed the medics – he had left a couple of his teeth stuck in the bar. If Mr. Jacket got hauled off to Emergency, there would be a police report. So Bear, he'd have to have a long talk with the Sheriff.

Bear stared at the bloody-faced man, and he smiled like the sun come up. He turns to Archie and says, “After you call the ambulance and the police, maybe I can call my wife? I bet you they send me to County for this one. Jennie will want to know where I am tonight.”

He picked up the phone. A text message from his employer that said, “Drv Nxh,” which he understood to mean “Drive North.”

He lifted the television remote and pressed “power.” The screen snapped and started to glow and then went silent, and the lights went off, and the refrigerator ceased humming, and, in the dark, Henry heard someone stomp across the kitchen and slam the door behind them. A chlorine smell overtook his apartment's bachelor-stink.

Henry was frightened, so, even though it was eight minutes after three in the morning, and even though the place where he lived was in the middle of the biggest snowstorm it had ever seen, and even though he had less than thirty dollars to his name, most of it in the form of sticky change in his car’s cup-holders, Henry put on his coat and groped down the stairs and got in his car and then drove north, as his employer seemed to want.

The side streets were wheel-spinning and treacherous, but once he guided his car around the onramp’s curves, he found the highway heavily salted. He eased behind a snowplow and matched its careful speed.

The car’s radio caught no signal, and columns of fat flakes pounded the windshield, and he stared at the plow’s rear lights until they became the fat red eyes of an electric devil like the fat red numbers on his alarm clock. Soon, his mind drifted from one memory to the next until the projectors in his body cast flickering memories against the inner surfaces of his skin, all scenes playing at once.

He went to his mother’s funeral while a dog chased him home from the bus stop after his first day of second grade while he got drunk on airplane bottles of cognac in his cousin’s tree house while he sat on his couch in his pitch-dark apartment, immobile and helpless as someone who smelled like pool chemicals walked across his kitchen and slammed the door behind them as they left.

For three years, Henry walked home from junior high behind the only Ruth he ever met in his life. Ruth's family had recently arrived from Ireland where she was born, and where she’d been trained as an opera singer. The Irish families in Henry's neighborhood would pay her to sing at their funerals.

Ruth was pretty, but she was unpopular because she was foreign and because she had bad teeth. A licorice-black incisor looked as if the slightest thrust would dislodge it from her gums.

Every day, while walking home from school, Henry observed the soft backs of Ruth's arms. One afternoon, near the end of seventh grade, she spoke to him.

It was a cold spring. The icy mud sucked at their sneakers, exposing the heels of their mud-flecked socks.

“Once, on Easter at Granny’s, I ate all the coins out of a candy-dish where she kept them,” she said. “Like eating an oyster. My uncle and my mom just standing there stunned.”

Henry remembered that she had said “coins.” Everyone he’d known then or since would’ve said “change.”

As a result of her actions, Ruth was told to move her bowels into a plastic bucket until her grandmother was sure that all the coins were out.

She laughed, and Henry laughed too, even though he didn't get the joke. (Ruth's grandmother, a miser, knew the exact sum of coins in that candy-dish and thus could determine when they'd been through Ruth's system). They never spoke again, and Henry nursed a crush on Ruth until the end of twelfth grade, when she was expelled for coming to school drunk and attacked their English teacher during a lesson about The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ruth wore a  sleeveless shirt that day, and when she charged their teacher, her arms spun in their sockets. To Henry, those arms were fragile propellers attached to a decorative plane never meant for flight.

He was so absorbed in remembering those and other events that when he noticed his front bumper was one quarter of an inch away from the snowplow, it was like waking from a dream. He stepped on the brakes for safety, causing the ambulance he did not know was behind him to swerve and then tip into a ditch. Its spinning red and blue lights frenzied the falling snow.

The plow pulled over to help. Henry kept driving.

Five miles later, his car skidded to a stop against a guard rail and then would not move. The snow was up to his thighs, and his phone was still in his apartment.

He walked along the guard rail to a service road, and he followed the service road to a hotel whose cavernous lobby was decorated in the style of a hunting lodge, with abundant taxidermy and overstuffed couches that had camouflage upholstery. Fake oak trees rose from the floor. Forest sound effects came from speakers hidden in the walls.

The front-desk clerk wore damp pajamas. Her hair was dripping wet and she smelled like a public pool.

 Henry started to explain that he didn't have any money but he needed to at least report that his car was stranded on the highway, but the clerk interrupted to say that his employer had already called and arranged a room.

 "My employer," said Henry.

 "Yup," she said. 

"How do you know who I am? How do you know I'm employed?"

"It's the honeymoon suite,” she said. “Whirlpool tub. Full kitchen. Nice."

She handed him a keycard and he said, "Thanks."

Henry found his room, which had neither a whirlpool nor a kitchen. It was not a suite. It did, however, have an overweight pug sleeping on the bed.

Henry sat down next to the pug. It rolled to its back and snuggled against his hip. He scratched its belly. He read the three tags on its collar. One said, "Mrs. Biscuits." The other said, "Property of Henry Streator.” The third one said, "We know this is nonsense but trust us--when this is over you'll see the point."

During the days that followed, he and Mrs. Biscuits watched cooking shows and read complimentary editions of USA Today. They took walks in the hotel's carpeted halls, and Henry drank complimentary tea in the lobby's breakfast nook.

Many days passed and the blizzard never ended. They saw no other guests. Each night, Henry and Mrs. Biscuits climbed the second story hallway and stood at the place where windows looked down on the hotel's indoor pool.

The pool was topped by snow-covered skylights. Under the light of a bright moon, the skylights emitted a dim purple glow that danced on the pool's rippled surface in a way that was the most beautiful thing Henry had ever seen.

He liked to think that Mrs. Biscuits would agree.

He and the dog kept irregular hours, and they frequently lost track of time. On one occasion, Henry woke and took Mrs. Biscuits outside and found himself under what he understood to be an evening sky. He scrambled to a gas station and spent the last of his money on jerky for the dog and a bottle of coconut rum.

Two hours later, with the bottle three-quarters consumed, he realized that it wasn’t evening at all. It was an overcast 9:30am.

Henry stood naked at the foot of the bed. He splashed rum into his mouth.

"When I was in sixth grade," he said. Mrs. Biscuits sprawled on a pillow at the head of the bed, her belly up, her crotch somewhat obscenely displayed. "When I was in fourth grade, Mom made me go to my cousin's high school graduation party."

Mrs. Biscuits snorted, fell asleep for three seconds, and then coughed herself awake.

Henry said it was a backyard party whose guests consisted of his cousin's friends. His mom dropped him off in front of the house.

"Get out," she had said.

He got out and she drove away.

He made his way up the driveway and got into the backyard and approached his cousin, who was sulking on a lawn chair.

His cousin said "Save my seat," so Henry sat there for a long time, and the backyard was carpeted with dandelions he knew he shouldn't pick.

The other guests became increasingly interested in Henry and his off-brand sneakers and the fact that he wore his older-sister's handed-down jeans, complete with girly embroidering on both back pockets. They marveled at his homemade haircut and they made crude and surprisingly accurate conjectures about his daily masturbation routines.

A long-necked girl in camouflage shorts dropped into Henry's lap. The other girls squealed like everyone had accidentally swallowed a worm.

"I think you're sexy," she said. Her smile was mostly gums. “I love you,” she said.

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Then she ran to the bathroom to wash out her mouth, and everyone was impressed that she’d followed through with such a disgusting bet.

That night, instead of watching TV with his mom as he usually did, Henry stayed in his bedroom, playing board games by himself until he went to bed.

Henry finished the story and tried to pour another drink but dropped the bottle, spilling its contents onto the carpet. He staggered to the mirror and said, "But that's fine, and you know why."

Mrs. Biscuits tilted her head as if to say, "Why."

"There’s no difference between pretending to kiss someone and actually kissing them. Once their lips touch yours, you’ve been kissed."

The rum’s fumes made Henry nauseous. He moved toward the bathroom but tripped on the corner of the mattress and landed awkwardly between the bed and the wall.

Mrs. Biscuits hopped off the bed and climbed onto Henry's chest. She licked his ear. He scratched her head. He kissed her forehead.

"Once someone says they love you," he said, "it doesn’t matter if they take it back. You've been loved."

Henry woke in the light of what could have been either the same day or not. Mrs. Biscuits sat three feet away, watching him. He groaned and stood and the room phone rang. He answered and the front desk said, "Ride's here."

Henry said, "My ride."

"Your employer arranged for a ride. They said they're sorry but the whole project fell apart. Everything is canceled. I don't know what that means but they told me to say it, so I said it."

Henry dressed and took Mrs. Biscuits outside. She sniffed along the edge of the building and Henry trudged through the snow to the waiting cab. The driver told him to get in the backseat. Henry started to explain that he's spent the last of his money on jerky and rum, but the driver interrupted to say that his employer had already paid for the ride. The cab was in motion, and Henry was comfortably seated inside but confused and he put his head against the window in an attempt to gather his thoughts. He closed his eyes.

Just as he drifted off, the cab's short-band radio crackled to life. An anxious voice said, "Henry!? Nothing was supposed to... You need to...."

The driver turned off the short-band. He said, "We’ve got a driver named Henry who works for this taxi company. That was for him."

At no point did Henry consider that anything else could be true.

When he woke, it was night and he was alone in the cab, which was parked in front of his apartment. The windows were rolled down and warm air poured in, and from his seat he could see the lights were on in his apartment. The power had been restored.

Henry got out. The cab driver came from behind the building, zipping his fly as he walked.

"What happened to winter?" asked Henry. He was already sweating in his coat.

"Goes from cold to nice and you complain."

"Not complaining," said Henry. "Just asking." But the cab was already gone.

Henry sat on the curb near the building’s front door. He then realized he’d forgotten his dog. He imagined Mrs. Biscuits watching the cab pull away. Only Mrs. Biscuits understood the inextricable selfishness that made it so easy for Henry to accidentally leave her behind. Only she would forgive him. He imagined her alone in the snow and cold.

Someone put her hand on Henry's shoulder and said, "You OK bud?"

Henry said, "My dog.”

She hugged him from behind. That smell of pool chemicals again. Henry gradually leaned back on his heels until she was supporting most of his weight. She hummed a song he hadn't heard since the funeral. Then they were quiet for a long time, and Henry felt sad and happy and he would've thought he was imagining the whole thing if it wasn't for the group of college kids that at one point walked by and made fun.

"If it helps any," she finally said, "you should know that at no point was that actually your dog."

 She patted him on the head, scratched him behind the ear, and left.

——-

You study the topography of the bedroom’s high-pile carpet and weigh the consequences of responding to the text messages versus not responding to them:

  Respond

You will:

a)      Be forced to end the evening early and will be haunted by the thought of all the things that could have happened had you stayed;

OR

b)      Stay, but with the nagging feeling of an invisible leash and collar closing around your neck and pulling you insistently toward the front door.

Don’t Respond

You will:

a)      Return to the apartment to find the lights off;

b)      Be met with a locked bedroom door;

AND

c)      Find a pillow and comforter laid out on the musty old futon, with a glass of water and a bottle of Advil on the coffee table next to it.

  The bedroom door swings open and two gangly guys come in pretending to be velociraptors. They take wide, arcing strides with heads outthrust and lordotic curves to their backs and hands held up in stunted little claws. One of the guys has sideburns that reach his chin, while the other has thick glasses and a mop of hair that looks like an afro that just gave up. The guys scan the room with bulging eyes and emit saurian shrieks. Then they slowly back out of the room and sideburns-guy closes the door after him with his raptor claw. 

Blinking slowly, you look over at Cornelius, who is seated on a folding chair. His face looks exactly how you feel. His mouth is agape and his brow is knitted in some intense combination of confusion and horror.

“What just happened?” you ask.

“Dude.”

“What the fuck just happened?!”

“Dude!”

A laugh erupts from your belly with such force that you double over on your side clutching your gut. Cornelius falls out of his chair with a high, musical laugh. Two others are forced to scoot away to accommodate his splayed form. At over 6’6’’, Cornelius is easily the tallest guy in the room. He’s wearing a purple jacket of crushed velvet, a purple bow tie, and 3D glasses from the movie theater with the lenses popped out. Cornelius has been your closest friend at school since the night he and you got baked and watched Labyrinth whilst sharing the comforter on his bed. It was strictly platonic.

No one else in the room appears to be fazed by the sudden appearance and equally sudden disappearance of the raptor guys, particularly not the Cute Girl, who is looking cute and girlish in a floral-print dress, white stockings, and one of those big floppy knit hats. She has dirty blond hair with eyebrows that are a full shade darker. She could easily pass for a high-schooler.

Normal conversation resumes, and warmth returns to the room. The collective droning of the people in the room recedes to the level of ambient noise. It is a comforting sound. While not a great conversationalist yourself, you are an excellent listener. You like the feeling of being both inside and outside the circle at the same time. You’ve seen the Cute Girl walking around campus, but you’ve never spoken with her. You decide to refer to her as “C.G.” for short.

C.G., who at some point kicked off her blue patent leather ballet flats, announces that she’s going outside for a cigarette and looks for her shoes. One of them rests by Seth’s foot. Just as C.G. reaches for it, he snatches it away and clutches it to his chest.

“Can I have my shoe back, please?” she asks.

Seth shakes his head. “First you have to tell me a story.”

Her thick eyebrows ascend. “What?”

“Entertain me. No story, no shoe.”

C.G. laughs nervously and looks around the room. No one says anything, but everyone looks interested. The moment distends and becomes momentous. You want to come to her aid, but you also really like stories.

She clears her throat and launches into some kind of fable about men living in a cave. She has a pleasant voice, with a distant trace of a southern twang. You forget the entire tale the moment she finishes telling it. You applaud politely along with everyone else.

“Alright, now can I have my shoe back?”

“No deal.”

“But I told you a story.”

“And I didn’t find it very entertaining.”

Seth is stone-faced. C.G. is shocked. Now is your moment to shine.

“Bullshit!” you exclaim, perhaps a bit louder than necessary. “That story was riveting! It stirred something deep inside me.”

“What was it about?” Cornelius asks. His face is impassive; it’s unclear whether he’s busting your balls or has simply forgotten as well.

“That’s not important!” you snap, glaring at him. C.G. is laughing, at least. “What is important…is the shoe.”

“The shoe?” someone says.

“Yes, the shoe,” you say, a thought now coalescing. “It holds the key…to Shoetopia.”

You proceed to elaborate on a sort of paradisiacal nation-state where the entire system of government is based around the alleged magical properties of this shoe—not the pair of shoes, just this one particular shoe. Cornelius, who is majoring in Health Administration and Public Policy, is all too happy to explain Shoetopia’s idealistic yet complex public healthcare system; also, as the self-appointed Most Fashionable Person in the Room (a title no one disputes), he confirms the Shoe’s supernatural powers and says it’s a marvel that it somehow ended up in C.G.’s possession. Some of the people in the room are laughing, some seem fascinated, and the rest look at you like you’re crazy. C.G. stares at you with a raised eyebrow and the barest trace of a smile.

“Clearly, the shoe has chosen her,” you conclude, “and that’s why you have to give it back.”

“Yeah, the shoe chose me,” C.G. says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, I have the shoe now,” Seth says, “so I guess that makes me king.” With that, he gets up and walks out of the room.

You rise to your feet and shout after him, “That’s not how Shoetopia works!”

There is a stomping and groaning as Seth descends the house’s rickety staircase. This house is too large and too old for a bunch of college kids to live here. The stuttering sounds of shitty dubstep and dozens of upraised voices spill into the room as soon as the bedroom door opens.

“That bastard,” you mutter. You turn to Cute Girl. “Whatever it takes, I will get your shoe back for you.”

“Um, thanks?”

“Cornelius, are you coming with me?”

Cornelius, who is busy hitting the green and brown pewter bowl, shakes his head. You wait to accept the bowl and take another hit yourself, holding in the smoke and shifting your weight from foot to foot. You don’t care what strain of weed this is; all that talk about Kush this and Purple that is lost on you. You spend a minute coughing and another minute rubbing your eyes. Finally, you leave the room.

In the hallway, you are startled by another vibration in your pocket. The text messages—you forgot all about them. You still haven’t read any of them. The phone is like an obnoxious bumblebee that lives in your pants. You imagine what it would be like to have an actual pet bumblebee that stays in your pocket. You would name him Mr. Buzz and take him to the park to smell the…she must be furious by now. She will almost certainly cry when you get back. Her mascara will run and her nose will run and you’ll wish you could run, just make a mad dash for the parking lot, get in your car, pick a direction, and drive. You just can’t bring yourself to put the phone on silent.

The staircase turns left abruptly at the bottom and as you round the corner you nearly run face-first into a throng of people gathered in the foyer. You take a step back at the sight of them. The party has evolved into a full-on rager.

Seth stands in a small cluster of guys right by the foot of the stairs. Your stomach unclenches a bit when you realize that you won’t have to navigate the writhing sea of drunks to get to him. A strobe light pulses in the living room. You avoid looking in that direction because strobe lights give you terrible headaches. You take a deep breath and barge right into the middle of the circle. The guys fall silent and look at you expectantly. Seth is still holding the shoe.

“Seth,” you say calmly, “I’m going to need you to return the shoe.”

He looks down with surprise at the girl’s shoe in his left hand. “Oh, I forgot I still had this.” He hands it back to you.

You stand dumbfounded for a moment. The guys resume their conversation, talking around you now. Deflated, you turn on your heel and slowly climb the stairs. The shoe is not leather but in fact cheap plastic.

C.G. puts down the bowl and lighter as you approach. You bow. “Shoetopia shall be restored.”

“Oh, thanks,” she says. She finishes taking her hit and passes the bowl to her left. You watch as she and Cornelius put their shoes on and head out to smoke cigarettes, accompanied by a guy with shaggy hair wearing a Lakers jersey.

You slump on the edge of the bed next to a couple making out, neither of whom was in the circle before. C.G. barely looked at you, like you were some lowly messenger. You took bold and decisive action and marched straight into the lion’s den, and all for her, this girl whose name you cannot for the life of you remember. What did your courage and moral rectitude earn you? Nothing. You expected that she would at least jump up and give you a hug, but no—nothing.

The couple shifts sideways, leaning into you. You sigh and get off the bed. Your vacated territory is immediately annexed. They make wet smacking sounds, like the sound macaroni and cheese makes when it’s being stirred.

You stare at the couple, so oblivious to the rest of the world, and grit your teeth. You will not be overlooked. You are witty and intelligent. You are incredibly high. You will get some.

You don your black and gray sneakers and march downstairs. A song that sounds like a dial-up modem is playing in the living room. A Korean guy whom you vaguely recognize as your TA from Chem 101 performs a keg-stand in the kitchen. In addition to the strobe light, a triad of primary-colored dots traces a random path across the living room ceiling. You must not get distracted. You step outside.

Heavy rain produces a steady drum roll on the roof of the porch. Most of the people from Seth’s room have migrated here. Cornelius is regaling those assembled with an anecdote about a recent conversation with the university president. Everyone is smoking a cigarette except for you.

You don’t belong out here, and besides, you forgot your jacket. You should go back inside. You shiver in the chill November air and rub your arms. You marvel at the novel feeling of goose bumps on your skin and strain to recall exactly why they’re called “goose bumps.”

You spot C.G. sitting on the porch swing, talking to Ellie. Ellie and Seth are like the house mom and dad. The fact that they are the only two out of the six people who live here who have jobs (one of the tenants sells weed in order to pay his rent and another is attempting to grow ‘shrooms in the upstairs bathtub) makes them the de facto authorities.

Ellie’s got long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and she’s wearing black sweatpants and a tie-dyed hoodie. She’s not as cute as C.G. but she’s got a lip ring. She is loud, foul-mouthed, and always smells strongly of cigarettes, but she’s always sweet to you and is quick to offer you weed. Also, she is an accounting major who loves going to raves, which strikes you as endlessly fascinating.

C.G. furrows her brow and gesticulates wildly with her cigarette. Ellie listens and nods her head.

You assume a strategic position by the railing across from them and lean in what you believe to be a cool and casual manner. The raptor guys are standing nearby, so you strike up a conversation with them about video games. They claim to have no recollection of pretending to be dinosaurs when you bring it up, and give you a look like you’ve just grown a second head or something. You continue to rub your eyes at regular intervals. You might have to pee, but you’re not sure. You decide that you’re probably fine for now.

Your attention drifts back to the girls on the porch swing. Ellie says, “Anyway, I think you should just accept that he’s an asshole and he’s not worth your time.”

“I sure hope you’re not talking about me,” you cut in. A warning goes off in your head. What the hell are you doing?

“No, no one you know,” Ellie says. She gestures at you with her thumb. “Now this guy, he’s a pretty good dude. And he’s really smart.”

You tip an imaginary cowboy hat to her. “Why thank you kindly ma’am,” you drawl.

Ellie flicks her cigarette away. “I gotta go take a leak.” As she rises, she asks you, “When are you finally going to come to a rave with me?”

“When the prospect stops filling me with abject terror,” you say.

Ellie shakes her head, laughs, and goes back inside.

You take a seat next to C.G, who is staring off into space. The street is choked with cars, most of them hastily parked. What’s your plan? You don’t even know this girl’s name.

“You’re a really cute girl,” you say.

She smiles, but still does not look at you. “Thanks.”

“Do you want to make out?”

Now she slowly, slowly turns her head to stare at you. The look says so many things but you cannot understand any of them. You can feel your heart’s frantic pounding in your chest. Your face feels hot and your mouth desiccated.

She puts out the cigarette on the arm of the swing, takes a long look at the crowd of people around Cornelius, and says, “Okay.”

Your eyes widen. “Really?”

“Yeah. But not out here. My boyfriend will see us.”

Oh shit. “Your boyfriend.”

“Yeah, he’s standing right there.” She points to the guy in the Lakers jersey, who is part of Cornelius’s devoted audience.

You search for something to say but nothing comes to mind. It’s too late. C.G. has already risen and is walking back inside. You have no choice but to follow her.

She leads you back upstairs and into Seth’s room, which fortunately is empty. She closes the door and locks it. The knit cap is tossed aside. The blue flats are kicked off. She puts her arms around your neck and sticks her tongue in your mouth. You taste the cigarette she just smoked, bitter and stale. This is not about you.

You put your arms around her thin, bony frame. She seems almost insubstantial. She somehow manages to remove your t-shirt without breaking the kiss. You try not to contemplate the mechanics of that. She’s so aggressive. “Tonsil hockey” does not do it justice—this is more like “tonsil rugby.”

She pushes you toward the bed, but you trip over one of her shoes and land on your back. Her hands on your cheeks are icy. Now she’s on top of you and grinding away. It’s not that satisfying—she weighs so little. When a girl is on top of you, you want to feel her weight pressing down on you.

What you feel most right now is the itch of the shag carpeting on your bare back. When it was just the palm of your hand, it was a pleasant tickling sensation; now, with so much more surface area in contact with the carpet, the sensation is unbearable. It’s like sandpaper scraping across your back.

C.G. starts to undo your belt and suddenly you picture another face, a rounder face with green eyes watering and mascara running. You grab C.G.’s hand and say, “Wait. I can’t do this.”

Her eyes narrow. “Why not?”

“Because…because I have to pee.”

She laughs and climbs off of you. “Oh, well hurry up and go pee then.”

You put on your shirt and grab your jacket and go into the hallway. At last you remove your phone from your pocket. You check the recent messages. They are indeed all from her. You steel yourself, preparing to grimace, and open the most recent one. It says:

“God i’m so horny. i want you really bad right now.”

  Outside, the night air is ripe with the scent of rotting leaves. The half-moon’s light is reflected off the street’s slick asphalt and lends shimmering motion to fresh puddles. The post-rain mist looms low over the quiet neighborhood.

You find your car, an old, pockmarked Mazda 626 with severely scratched paint. After making extra special care to buckle your seat belt and check your mirrors, you start her up. There is nothing more stressful than driving while high, not only because it requires leaving the house, but also because it requires quick decisions—and those are two words with which the average pothead is most uncomfortable. The irony is that you drive far more cautiously under the influence of marijuana than you do when you’re sober, the difference being that when you’re high, every single decision (from which road to turn on to precisely what speed to drive) produces stomach-churning anxiety. You are almost surprised that you are going the right way.

Back at campus, you take extra time to ensure that your car is evenly spaced between the white lines. There is a bounce in your step as you stroll from the parking lot to your apartment building. You wave to students walking by, students you don’t know from a hole in the ground, and they wave back. A group of jocks, leaning on each other in that way that only drunken twenty-something males can lean, calls out something unintelligible to you and you return with something equally unintelligible. No words are exchanged, but everyone shares the sentiment.

You enter your apartment up on the fourth floor to find the bright fluorescent lights on and an unfamiliar pop song blasting from the MacBook on the table. There she is, in front of the stove, stirring store-brand mac and cheese with a wooden spoon and singing along with the music. She’s wearing a yellow t-shirt and black gym shorts, the outfit she always wears to bed. Hearing the door open behind her, she turns and you see that her cheeks are flushed and her hair is in a voluminous state of disarray. She has no bra on underneath the shirt.

She smiles and immediately latches on to you with her arms and her lips. She uses a lot more tongue than usual, and this, along with the color in her cheeks, is a sure sign that she is drunk. Her right hand starts to move toward your belt but then she abruptly disengages to go take a bite of mac and cheese from the wooden spoon.

She does not ask where you’ve been, or what you’ve been doing, or even why you did not respond to any of her texts. She instead begins to enlighten you about her own evening, particularly about the cast party she went to after opening night and the many jello shots she consumed. She talks about getting naked, about playing drinking games, and about all the guys and girls she made out with. She talks about fooling around with one of the actors.

“Fooling around.” Now that’s a phrase open to a wide range of interpretations. Your face must be doing something she doesn’t like, because she frowns. She asks if you’re cool with it. She says it was nothing serious. She says they’re just theater people, and they don’t take anything seriously.

You finally tell her that you’re cool with it, and that it sounds like she had quite an evening. Then you ask her about the text message. She’s not sure what you’re referring to, so you show it to her. It turns out it was not all that recent—she sent it over an hour and a half ago. She says she’s still up for it, but she just made mac and cheese. You tell her you’ll go in the bedroom and wait.

You go to the bedroom, lie on your back, and wait. The fitted sheet has popped off the mattress again but you don’t bother to fix it. When she finally comes in, she turns off the light and gets in bed. She yawns, says, “I love you,” and then rolls over on her side. Within moments, she is sleeping peacefully.

“I love you too,” you murmur. You envy her ability to fall asleep almost instantly. Even sober, you’ve always had trouble sleeping. When you close your eyes, you see shoes of all shapes and colors drifting like amoebae in a formless void. So instead you lie awake staring into the empty darkness. You wonder then if you’ve ever said “I love you” and actually meant it.