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[img_assist|nid=912|title=Freaky Deaky by Clifford Ward ©2006|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=150|height=225]Hoffman’s wife, Tookie, died last week. She used to collect loose hair from her brush and comb then burn them in a glass ashtray: this isn’t related to her death, Tookie just had a ritual. She kept the glass ashtray on the porcelain toilet tank under a small Monet.

The bathroom still has a burnt hair stink. Hoffman is touching the ashes; he rubs them between his thumb and forefinger. They feel talcumy.

He once asked his wife why she did it, why she burned her hair. Tookie said she didn’t want people to steal her soul. Indians burned their hair, she said. They didn’t like people snapping their pictures, either. He told her she wasn’t an Indian.

Hoffman is holding a cardboard box filled with Tookie’s things. Her silver brush and comb set. Her plastic shower cap. Her pills and face creams and makeup. It’s her bathroom box. Hoffman also has a bedroom box and a hall closet box.

He killed his wife a week ago Thursday, or it feels like he killed her. They were married only four months. What can you do? He drove his new Jaguar XK into the iron gate of their Bensalem home at 78 m.p.h. They had been drinking martinis with a lemon twist. Tookie broke her neck. Her head plunged forward then snapped backward. Hoffman got a cut on his forehead and a cracked windshield.

Tookie had real looks, black hair, huge brown eyes. A sweetheart, too. He should have seen it coming. She would have been thirty-nine next week, two years younger than him.

What if I make the same promise as Houdini? She had said. When I die, I’ll come back. But instead of Halloween, it’ll be my birthday. She promised this on their honeymoon.

Hoffman first met his bride the night she came to his home with the Vanderlings from Bucks County and the Averys from Connecticut. She was there as a client, one of the hungry babies. This is what Hoffman calls his clients, hungry babies. They have that hungry baby desperation. They salivate to his every word. They hunger for someone or something on the other side to show him-her-it-self.

Clarice Vanderling wanted to know if her departed mother was finally at peace. If so, would she reveal the hiding place of her gold broach with the diamonds? Randolph Vanderling wanted his dead father to give him the okay to buy a new stock. The Averys had similar questions. Estelle Avery’s dead brother hadn’t divulged his Grand Cayman account number. Her husband, Sonny, needed to remind his Aunt Jillian how excluding him from her will was un-Christian and hurtful.

Then Hoffman turned to Tookie. What about you? he said.

I don’t remember my family, Tookie said. I’m not sure who’s dead or alive. I just want to know if there are other things to do after this. It doesn’t have to get better, only different.

On the afternoon of her thirty-ninth birthday, Hoffman goes to his library. It’s mostly brown leather and wood. Books fill the wall shelves. They have a faint mildew odor. Books are also stacked on the oak floor and the coffee table. A dozen track lamps mark the edges of the room in warm yellow light.

Hoffman is now seated at a large round table off to the left, his fingers tapping its green felt top. He is tall and slim and wears a dark suit and tie. Hoffman has the look of a concerned mortician.

His clients are the hungry babies, not him, never him. But tonight he may join the multitude. This thought brings a flush to his neck and cheeks. Wife or no, is he really waiting for a dead person?

Tookie is gone. Tookie is sealed in an 18 gauge A-line steel casket with swing bar hardware and premium white crepe interior. Hoffman paid $1,500.00 extra to have a lighthouse and an ocean airbrushed on the glossy pearl sides and top. Goldstein’s Funeral glued Tookie’s eyes shut and powdered her dead gray skin. Nobody is home. Everything inside the 18 gauge A-line steel casket is going to rot, even her bones. Good-bye and so long, my Tookie. Houdini won’t be stopping in to say hello. Dear Tookie won’t be doing that, either.

This isn’t what the hungry babies want to hear. This isn’t what Hoffman says to them. He didn’t buy his 9,000 square foot home in Bensalem and his Jaguar XK based on the truth as he sees it. His hungry babies aren’t paying top dollar to take a grim peek at Life and Death 101. They want life to have a purpose and suffering to have an end and a reward. Hoffman will always listen to the client’s question to understand how the client wants that question answered.

Is Auntie Polly there with Uncle Joe?

His arm is around her shoulder, Hoffman says. Auntie Polly has her head resting on Joe’s chest. She’s smiling at you and waving, Hoffman says. Can you see her? Close your eyes and see her. They talk about you constantly, did you know that? True as I’m here, Hoffman says. They are impressed with your generosity, your kindness. They like to discuss the sensitive way you treated them during their last days. At the convalescent center. At the hospice. At your house.

What is it like on the other side? Are there trees? Birds? Flowers?

That and more, Hoffman says.

Do they have pets? Dogs? Cats? Fish?

You can bet on it, Hoffman says. Dogs with big watery eyes and cats that curl up on your lap and stay there.

Are there individual homes? Condos? Semi-detached?

More choices than you can imagine, Hoffman says. Something for everyone.

Is there a wooded area with a stream? Uncle Joe loved to fish, they say. Are there bass in the stream? Salmon? Cod? Perch?

Let’s hope you put a fishing rod in Uncle Joe’s casket, Hoffman says.

Everybody laughs. Some of his clients are so relieved they weep.

But what about social activities? Auntie Polly was always a very social person, they say. Are there discussion groups?

Hoffman shuts his eyes.

No groups. No.

They’re dead. Joe and Polly and Tookie, all of them are dead.

His poor Tookie. What is he, a drunken animal? Hoffman’s elbows rest on the large round table. His fingertips press against his forehead. He begins sobbing. Then he uses a white handkerchief to blot the tears from the green felt.

Hoffman should have seen it coming. He is supposed to have a sixth sense about these things. It’s what he does for a living.

Hoffman’s father is a retired orthodontist who lives in West Philadelphia. The grandfather was David Douglas Hoffman. David Douglas was born in Cardiff, Wales.

His parents shipped him off to the mother’s sister in Philadelphia at the age of nine. The mother said her boy’s cradle would rock by itself. She said when David Douglas was four; he accurately predicted the death of a cousin.

The retired orthodontist didn’t understand his father. He can’t understand his son. This doesn’t stop Hoffman from visiting him on Tookie’s birthday.

You’re too thin, the father says. His name is Marv. He is inspecting his son over the rims of his tortoise shell reading glasses. When you’re mother died, may God rest her, I ate like a horse, Marv says. Cherry cheesecake. I ate half a cherry cheesecake a day.

Too much sugar, says Hoffman and makes a face.

What can you do? says the father.

Marv Hoffman has that refugee look. His brown and white striped flannel bathrobe is open at the neck and stops at the knee. It shows a white bony chest and thin white legs. A few long and obstinate strands of graying hair are combed over his freckled head.

Before Hoffman entered the living room, his father was reading the leisure section of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The newspaper is now folded on his lap. Corked-tip cigarette butts fill the ashtray on the end table beside his chair. Along with stale cigarette smoke, the room has a bacon odor, maybe from breakfast, maybe a B.L.T. A brass floor lamp shines its light over the old man’s left shoulder.

I didn’t see it coming, Hoffman says. He slumps onto the beige feather-cushioned sofa across from his father. More stupid tears are coming, he can feel it. Hoffman says, we’d been drinking, Tookie and me. I was tipsy. I admit that, I take full blame. But we’d been tipsy before and nothing happened.

You had bad luck, says his father.

I want to hear her voice one more time, says Hoffman. I sound like my clients. But I want to know everything is all right.

She’s all right, says Marv. She’s dead. You and your grandfather, unbelievable.

What sort of business is dead people? It would be different if you buried them, that’s a nice dollar.

You don’t understand, Hoffman says. You never understood me. You don’t have a clue. For years I’ve wanted to tell my clients how it’s all crap. Everything. Heaven, hell, all of it.

[img_assist|nid=913|title=Yellow ‘Fro Dancer by Clifford Ward.|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=150|height=200]People want to feel someone powerful is watching out for their interest, his father says. They want protection. They’d also like to avoid the box.

That’s it, exactly, says Hoffman. But now I don’t know. I don’t want to think that way. About it being crap, I mean.

You don’t want Tookie to just rot in the box, the father says.

"I can’t bear the thought, Hoffman says. “ Especially today. It’s her birthday, for God-sake.

Marv is nodding and smiling and going uh-huh uh-huh under his breath. He drops the folded Inquirer on the pine wood floor. Marv re-crosses his thin white legs, tucking the hem of the brown and white striped bathrobe under his thigh. He lights himself a king-sized Kool. Smoke and the bacon odor mingle. His long fingers angle the cigarette pack and a yellow Bic lighter next to the ashtray.

You’re like me, says his father. He turns his head and exhales a line of smoke near his left shoulder. It becomes luminous gold under the glow of the floor lamp. His father says, The synagogue was for old farts and kids, that’s what I thought. You couldn’t pay me to go to synagogue. Marv stops and looks down at his cigarette. His fingers have a tremor. He says, Then my Ruthie passes. What can I do? I can’t shut her in a box and walk away. Who can do such a thing?

You got that right, says Hoffman.

His father taps the cigarette on the edge of the amber ashtray. I started going to Shul. Friday night services, his father tells Hoffman. I say a few prayers. I say, how you doing, Ruthie? How’s my sweet girl? I’m good. I hope you’re doing good. Marv’s voice becomes tight. He has to wait a second or two. Then he tells his son, I don’t say these things out loud, of course. I say them to myself. To her. Me and her, talking. Like it’s a phone conversation.

That’s a good idea, Hoffman says.

Not that good, his father says.

What can you do?

It’s late afternoon. Hoffman is on his way home. Even with the top down on the XK, he smells like cigarettes. Overhanging trees along the Schuylkill Expressway run shadows across the XK’s silver hood. The river is to his right, the sun low and reflecting an orange light on the water. A shell boat with a single oarsman keeps a smooth and even pace.

He will give Tookie’s clothes to the D.A.V., maybe the Salvation Army. Tookie has expensive taste. Had. She had expensive taste. Prada bags, some nice Versaces, a Rianne De Witte, nothing cheap. Somebody will be happy. Then Hoffman remembers the ashes from Tookie’s hair. The glass ashtray is still on the porcelain toilet tank. What’s he supposed to do? Does he flush her ashes down the toilet? Does he trap her soul if he stores the ashes in a baggie? He wishes he had Tookie’s advice.

He stops the XK for a red light. The car on his left is a maroon Dodge Caravan. The car to the right is a tan station wagon, maybe a Volvo, maybe a Mercury Sable. He isn’t that familiar with these types of cars. A phone has started ringing. Hoffman hears it but can’t grasp its exact direction. It’s a distant, muted ring. He glances at the woman in the Caravan. She’s thin with thick black glasses. She is staring straight ahead. An older man to his right has an unlighted cigar at the corner of his mouth. He is also watching the red light. Hoffman’s right hand sweeps the glove compartment then beneath his seat. What phone keeps ringing? An unexplainable panic is working him. Did he bring his cell phone? He must answer the phone now. Hoffman knows this better than he knows anything else. He must answer it this moment, or it will never ring again. Ron Savage lived in the Chestnut Hill area of Philly and went to Leeds Junior High and Germantown. He has worked for 27 years as a Senior Psychologist at Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia. His work has appeared in numerous journals.

[img_assist|nid=909|title=Removed Sections, Simona Mihaela Josan © 2006|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=150|height=135]The cops were hungry. They had stopped for salads two hours earlier. Now they were hungry again, so hungry that instead of listening to radio calls or watching what streamed across their computer screen, they were daydreaming food, both of them picturing bags stuffed with burgers and onion rings, flipping the lid on a pizza box and smelling that beautiful grease and cheese.

“I want . . .” Nilda said.

“Don’t even start,” Raymond said.

“What? I can’t even talk about it?”

“I’m not into fantasy. I believe in the real thing. Talk is bogus.”

Nilda snorted.

“Do I talk? Or do I get?” Raymond said.

“Not that I am interested in your sex life. Because I am not. But do blow jobs count as actual real sex? Like in the straight world, it’s like just foreplay. You know?”

“You are too much,” Raymond said.

“What? What? I’m just saying,” Nilda said.

“Always finding fault with me.”

“You big fat baby. Stop whining.”

“Won’t be fat for long. Twenty-two pounds so far this slim-a-thon. Never fear, I will carry our team to ultimate victory, my sister,” Raymond said.

“I’m doing my part. I’m doing really good. It’s not my fault that women can’t lose as fast as men. We’re just built different. Ask anyone. Not one woman in the world can lose as fast as a man,” Nilda said.

“So? What’s the number?”

“None of your business.”

“I’m on your team, Nilda,” Raymond said. “Slim-a-thon team manager. Here to help coach you, get you up to speed.”

[img_assist|nid=910|title=Untitled (Moussio) by Neal Curley © 2006|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=150|height=100]“Speed up, asswipe,” Nilda said. “That call’s for us. Damn it. I hate domestics. I have to be the calming woman cop, take the man outside. Hate that shit. Son of a mother-fucking bitch, I hate that shit.”

“Do you have to use such foul language? I have a college degree. I didn’t become a cop to hear garbage in my ear all day long. I could report you, you know.”

“Go ahead. That would really endear you to your fellow cops, reporting that your partner used a distasteful word in your presence.” Nilda grinned, turning her head so that Raymond couldn’t see her. Men were so easy. And gay men were super easy.

“Have some consideration,” Raymond said. “Please.”

Now he’s begging me, thought Nilda. This guy is too fucking much.

They pulled up to the house. The front door was wide open. They were in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia, an old part of the city where there were big trees and the houses were stately and large, with stone fronts and porches with white columns.

The woman was bleeding from her nose. She sobbed, held a fuzzy pink slipper sock to her nose and never took her eyes off the man. The man was fat, his belly hanging over his belt and his shirt gaping, buttons straining.

“Please come outside now, sir,” Nilda said her hand on her gun. The man scurried outside with her.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” the man said. “I’m just so sick of her putting me down all the time. I can’t do anything right. I lost it. I swear it was a mistake. A one-time thing. I will never, I swear on my mother’s grave, never do that again. Please don’t arrest me. I’m a CPA. I have an MBA.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Nilda said and she arrested him.

“Did you see how fat he was?” Nilda said to Raymond afterwards.

“Why are you always picking on me?”

“What? I’m talking about the man. The man.”

“I know what you’re doing. You never let up. You think I’m as fat as that man. I’m doing everything right now. I’m going to lose this weight.”

“You better. It’s not allowed, is it? To be gay and fat. Isn’t there some kind of oath you guys sign, to stay buff?” Nilda said. She was needling him deliberately. She was hungry and sex-starved and there was nothing she could do about either thing for the next few hours.

Nilda liked to fight with Raymond. They squabbled like brothers and sisters. She thought Raymond was a big faggy baby, sensitive about everything. He looked at Nilda with shiny hurt eyes when she got on his case. It made her want to fight more with him, make him out-and-out bawl. She used to make her brother Nestor cry all the time. She smiled.

“What’s with you? Happy now? Because you made me feel bad?” Raymond said.

“You talk too much,” said Nilda. “There’s something very annoying about a man who talks too much.”

“Sometimes I hate your guts, you know that? You’re a drag.”

“Is that the best you can do?” Jeez, that’s lame, Nilda thought. She wished he were more ruthless. If he really gave it to her, she would be distracted from the gnawing emptiness in her stomach.

“I’m hungry,” Nilda said.

“Do you bring your snack with you?” said Raymond.

“I don’t want a mother-fucking apple,” Nilda said. She found the apple in the glove compartment, opened her window and threw it out. “I want a cheesesteak with fries.”

Raymond took his hands off the wheel and held them over his ears.

“Please,” he said.

“Please nothing. Take me to Cheesesteak Heaven,” she said.

“I will not.”

A call came in for them to respond to a robbery in progress.

“I hate those,” Nilda said. “God, I hate those.”

“What exactly do you like? You hate domestics, you hate robberies. What do you want?”

She thought about it, turned over everything she had done on the job in the past week, month, year. Raymond sped toward the robbery. He was a good fast driver and knew all the shortcuts, so she let him drive.

“I like drunks,” she said.

“You’re kidding me. You never know what they’ll do. They vomit on you, throw punches.”

“Drunks are easy,” she said. Nilda was lazy. She mostly liked riding around in the car.

“Not to me.”

“That’s because you try to talk to them, reason with them. If they give me trouble, I just give them a crack and they lay there like babies.”

Raymond shook his head.

When they pulled up to the liquor store, there were already a bunch of other cops there and the robber was handcuffed and in the car. Nilda and Raymond hung around for a while talking. Nilda took off her hat and undid her ponytail, leaned against the car. Single, single, married, don’t know, married, she them counted off. Finally Nilda and Raymond got back in their car.

“He was cute,” Raymond said.

“Which one?”

“The one you were working it for.” Raymond imitated Nilda tossing her hair around.

Nilda wondered if she had been that obvious. She had been trying hard to open that knot she felt inside since her last husband left. Whenever she thought of his face, she made herself erase it and picture a white rose unfurling slowly inside her heart. I need sex, she thought. If I don’t have sex soon, I am going to die. Love is too much to ask for, but sex is a reasonable request.

“How do I get some?” she asked. “I don’t even know how to get it. You get it all the time. I was married for the last seven years. I forget how to get it. Before him, it used to just come automatically.”

“See how you are? Make fun of me, tease me, curse at me, then you want advice. Now you want me to help you. Why should I?”

Nilda was very hungry. Suddenly she couldn’t think about anything else.

“Pull over,” she said. “I want to drive.” Nilda never wanted to drive.

“What are you talking about?” Raymond asked.

“Take me to Cheesesteak Heaven or I’ll take myself,” Nilda said.

“Think about what you’re doing, Nilda. Is this going to solve anything? Are you going to feel bad later?” Raymond said.

“I have two hungers, Raymond. Two very bad hungers. And yes, it will solve something. It will solve my stomach hunger, Raymond.”

Raymond sighed. Just like riding with a fucking old lady, Nilda thought. She sighed back at him loudly.

He put on the blinker and turned toward Cheesesteak Heaven.

“Look, here’s the deal. If you want sex, you go get sex. If you don’t need it that bad, just wait it out,” Raymond said. “You pay a price either way. Which price do you want to pay?”

She hated him. Mr.Got-It-All-Figured-Out. Mr.Gay Man, Sex-Anytime-He-Wants. Well, plump middle-aged straight women do not have dance clubs to go to where men line up to give them satisfaction, she thought. He got a lot of action because he was a cop. Gay guys loved that cop thing, even if Raymond was fat. She bet he went to the bar in his uniform and that’s how he got so much sex. Men would run the other way if she did that.

“What price do you pay, Raymond?” Nilda could practically taste that cheesesteak now. Her mouth was full of water, waiting.

“Don’t you think it takes a bite out of my soul every time I have sex with someone I don’t love? Don’t you think a little something dies inside?”

“Mother-of-God. Let me out of this car,” Nilda said.

Cheesesteak Heaven was crowded. She stood in the back, reading the menu board over and over, breathing deep. The only choices on the board were the size of the sandwich and the toppings. Do I want hot peppers? Do I dare have a large? A large is very very big, Nilda thought. Can I handle it, after weeks on this stinking diet?

It smelled so good. Everyone was smiling in Cheesesteak Heaven, the cooks slapping the meat around on the grill, the wrapping crew as they squirted cheese stuff on top and rolled the cheesesteaks in tin foil, the cashiers handing over the bags to the customers, bags that were instantly grease-stained and dripping. The customers were the smiliest, though. The ones who just got their bags clutched them to their chests, never mind the mess. The ones perched on the stools hunched over their food, because they couldn’t wait to bring it home and eat at their own kitchen tables, eating with both hands, dripping ketchup and fried onions all over the place. They looked really happy.

“Nilda, come on,” Raymond said. “There’s a fight out in the parking lot.”

“Sure.”

“I swear to God. Come on.”

“If you are just trying to get me out of here, I am going to kick your ass so hard,” Nilda said. He’s probably serious, she thought, he’s too straight-laced to make up anything having to do with work.

They took their time getting to the fight, hoping it would be over by the time they got there. It was two men, rolling around on the concrete, hitting each other with one fist and each holding a bag in their other fist.

Raymond sprang into action, putting himself between them, using recommended moves from police academy classes. Nilda watched him think, set his position, try a move, get knocked over, get up and think, flip a page in the academy training manual and try again. He has the worst instincts in the entire fucking world, she thought.

“Police. Stop. We are the police,” Raymond said. He looked at Nilda.

“Police,” she rolled her eyes and repeated.

“Hey!” Raymond yelled louder at the men, who were rolling more than hitting now.

Nilda stuck her baton hard into one guy’s stomach, snagged the bag from his hand. He gasped, jumped up.

“Thas mine,” he said.

“And how drunk are you, my man?” she said.

“Drunk? Not me. Only had two,” he said. “Then I got hungry and came over here.”

“Two dozen drinks? That’s a lot, my man,” Nilda said.

“Did I say that? I’m tired. I meant to say I didn’t have nothing to drink tonight. Maybe one.Thaas it, one beer.” The man was having a hard time standing up. He swayed a few times, then sat down on the pavement. “Can I have my cheesesteak? I’m feeling faint. I need food.”

“Are you going to fight anymore?” Nilda held the bag over his head. She opened the lip and let out the smells.

“No, ma’am, officer. No no no.”

The other man was holding his head. He lay flat on the ground with his bag squeezed between his knees.

“And you? Are you going to keep fighting?” Nilda said.

“Don’t take my bag. Please don’t take my bag. I’ll be right up.” The other man struggled to sit up. “I’m okay. See I’m fine. I’m just going back to my room and eat my dinner. All quiet.” He clutched his bag under his arm now.

The cops got back in their car. Nilda wanted to go back in and start over, but the sight of the dirty bag between the drunk’s knees turned her stomach.

“Should we have just left them like that? What if one of them had car keys?” Raymond worried.

“Those guys haven’t owned a car for decades,” she said. “Stumblebums. Relax, RayRay.”

“Please call me Raymond.”

“Please call me Raymond,” she mocked him. She was trying to get some friction started, craving a distraction that would kill the last hour of their shift.

He clammed up then, drove without talking for a solid half hour. Be that way, Nilda thought. She laid her head back and closed her eyes. Raymond smelled so good. Say what you will about gay guys, they smell damn good, Nilda thought.

She opened her eyes. “Raymond, this is serious,” she said. “I need to find a man. Tonight. You need to help me. I mean it. This is a truly desperate situation. Do you get it? You are a gay man from birth and you are starting to smell good to me. I need some help here.”

Raymond smiled.

“I am not kidding around. I think I just crossed some kind of sex starvation threshold. When you start thinking about sleeping with a gay man, you are a woman in deep trouble.”

“Seriously? What am I supposed to do? I don’t know anything about where straight women go to get some,” Raymond said.

Nilda stared him down. Raymond got rattled.

“I’ll make some calls. I’ll call my sisters,” he said.

“Forget it. Thanks a lot, dude.”

“What? What? What did I do?” Raymond asked.

“Useless. You are useless to me,” Nilda snarled.

They drove silently back to the station. Their work shift was over. Raymond hesitated getting out of the car.

“Want a hug?” he asked.

“No, Raymond. I don’t want a hug. I want a lot of things, but I do not want a hug from you.” Nilda felt like crying. She felt so needy. “Go home, useless.”

“That’s not nice,” Raymond said. “You know I would help you out if I could.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“Maybe a good dinner will cheer you up. Why don’t you go out and get a nice healthy dinner somewhere? Treat yourself.”

Nilda changed her clothes, got into her car, and drove straight back to Cheesesteak Heaven. “I’ll have a large, with hot peppers,” she ordered. She breathed deep. “It smells so good in here,” she said out loud to no one in particular.

“Isn’t it amazing?” the man next to her said. He smiled.

Nilda smiled back.

“We don’t have cheesesteaks back home in Indiana,” he said. “I can’t wait to rip into one. It smells so darn juicy.”

“I’m Nilda,” she said. “And your cheesesteak is on me. I insist.”Kathy Anderson, a South Jersey resident, was awarded a fellowship for fiction from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

[img_assist|nid=4284|title=The Artist as Vase by Ernest Williamson III © 2006|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=150|height=254]

If summer was breaking plates, what then was spring?

A time to keep moving. One deliberately placed foot at a time. A left step followed by a right. Learning what the phrase “going through the motions” means.

Begin with the occasion. A blue linen cloth covers the table. Your mother ironed and starched the embroidered daisies into submission. The candles flicker. Small, pastel, foil-wrapped eggs are scattered artfully amid the individual saltcellars and pepper shakers, the pot of jonquils, the butter sculpted in the shape of a lamb. I can see now that its peppercorn eyes take it all in. An oversized chocolate rabbit flanks the table setting of each grandchild. Even though they are too old for hunts, there is one for eighteen-year-old Phillip, one for thirteen-year-old Emily. The candy figures are hollow—the chocolate, chalky. Later, they will be discarded.

Happy Easter!

Or should I correct myself—the beginning was Good Friday.

Actually, an interesting day to tell me that you were leaving.

And in the time that it took for Jesus to rise, there I was swallowing bites of glazed ham. Helping myself to spring peas and a dollop of mashed new potatoes. All the while waiting for a plank in the wooden floor to open up, vaudeville style, and drop me out of the scene. For a scene it is. And I am the greatest performer of all. Amazingly—showered, styled, coiffed, even articulate. Chit chatting with your parents. Catching up on the latest family news. Helping in the kitchen. Passing plates of hors d’oeuvres. Sipping white wine.

Now keeping myself upright in the Hitchcock chair, I lean against the painted frame for support. No one sees the slightest crack in my smile. No one hears the slightest cry in my voice. I appear fresh, but on the inside the stain spreads.

You said you were unhappy.

Playing over and over in my head like a classic hit gone wrong. You were going through the motions. Needed to do this. Looking for your own place. But, still, somehow, you didn’t want to throw away almost twenty-seven years.

And how was I feeling?

Too shocked and scared and panicked to have made such a decision. That, indeed, you should stay until Phillip graduates, until Emily and I take our trip to Spain and France, until the season passes for you to leave.

And was there even a spring?

For there must have been daffodils poking through the matted winter mulch in the rock garden. Their thrustings like small fingertips reaching for the warmth, the light.

And what about the lavender curling over the rocks, choking every little plant in its way. A shock of purple, a symphony of bees. That must have been later in May.

Spring was a time of pretending. It was a time when my spirit whispered, barely audibly, all will be well, and all will be well, my chant, and all manner of things shall be well against the sound of your voice droning on and on, gaining strength and momentum about your ever-present unhappiness like so many worker bees.

The vernal equinox must be slightly out of kilter.

The sun sets. Each night I listen to the rhythm of your breath as you sleep. Your eyelids flutter as you plan your move, gather your energy, your resolve, while I grow exhausted, deprived of rest but driven, somehow, to stay awake, to worry, to plot out scenarios.

How exhilarating it would have been to take a rain check on Easter. Bag the singsong greetings, discard the bouquet of tulips, throw out the dessert. For the holiday set the precedent when there should have been an announcement: the spring performance is cancelled due to lack of interest.

And because there is no communication between us, has in fact never been, we busy ourselves planning the menu for the graduation party and painting the sun-porch woodwork. I pull the faxes out of the machine, page by page, of the houses on your list. Shake my head and murmur a wistful no. I do not wish to help you look for a new home even though you respect my opinion.

And so the season, like everything else, passes. We sit in the living room, the children wondering what they did wrong now, when you tell them your news. Your desires. Your needs. Your plans sketched out for them. There is silence and then Emily runs out the front door, slams it shut, to find a friend around the corner while Phillip, on his way out the back, tells me through his tears that everything is going to be all right.

So I return to planting my summer hostas in the bed near the kitchen. I see you standing, watching me, through the den window. The light is fiery and illuminates your figure in the late part of the day.

The children will not return for dinner. As it turns out, it is the last supper of sorts but no one realizes this now. You will be gone in the morning before Phillip and Emily even wake up. I ask if you would like to eat in front of the TV. A sitcom will do the talking in our house tonight.

I prod the pasta salad with my fork. Suddenly, the tomatoes, the black olives, the green peppers confuse me. I rest my fork carefully on the ironstone plate.

“This is very good,” you comment. “You’ll have to give me the recipe when I leave.”

My silent rage grows, spreads, but has nowhere to go.  I pick up my plate. When I open the backdoor, the early evening air washes over me. As I throw the plate against the shed, I imagine the pasta salad scattered amid the ivy and pachysandra. It takes several tries to break the heavy plate, but when I succeed, the smooth, glazed shard reveals its chalky inside.

Betsy L. Haase teaches eighth grade Communications. She is a Teacher-Consultant for the National Writing Project and a candidate in the Master of Arts Writing Program at Rowan University.

[img_assist|nid=4280|title=Red by Ashraf Osman|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=150|height=107]Why did things have to get all retarded when I came out of The Shepard? Why did I have to be the only bull to see those bulls clocking that bull? One stick! Then two! Popping down on Old Man’s dome like me cutting open melons for dessert. Poor homeless fuck. Punk ass with a Kidd jersey’s kicking him under the alley light but it looked like he was just kicking a bunch of tattered rags. Poor emaciated homeless fuck.

I tossed my garbage bag loudly into the dumpster. Gave it a swift boot for a scare. “Hey,” I shouted, my chest puffed all big in case they wanted this shit. “I already called the cops!” That wasn’t true. I hated the fuckin’ Blue and would never call them ever, not since they busted my boy Lou for smoking on the curb in Oak Lane two months back.

Kids took notice and took off, but Kidd Jersey chucked a basketball I didn’t even know he had. Hit Old Man square in his bloody dome. Why aren’t these Kids shooting hoops somewheres instead of stirring the Hill? Why do I gotta go back inside and serve up dessert while they get to chill over at Pastorius and pat Kidd Jersey for bucking Old Man in the dome?

Victorious Kidd Jersey on a park bench, smoking a bowl: All right, we finally beat up the Old Man. “Way to bring him down. Our lives are finally like so complete!”

Poor Old Man, they played knickknack on his dome. Promised myself I’d get a wet rag and go set him straight. But Dickhead Donnie came down in a huff.

“How fucking long does it take to throw out trash, Margaret?”

“I’m sorry, my name is Lee.”

“Excuse me, Leanna, but those fucking people could use some fucking coffee!” Dickhead Donnie’s got a gray Amish beard and nothin’ on top. Yo, J once said it looked like his hair melted, like in Temple of Doom or some shit. Male pattern baldness to the extreme. All he has left is some chin soot.

Dickhead Donnie dumped dollops of cream on some mixed berries. “For everybody else (dollop), this is a fucking job. For me (dollop, dollop), it’s like I’m a culinary Einstein!”

I grabbed a tray with two urns of coffee and a stack of porcelain cups which clanked as I steadied it on my shoulder. “Dickhead Donnie,” I said, leaving out the Dickhead, “when you start splitting atoms instead of artichoke hearts, we’ll fucking talk.”

Right through the double door, smiling. Then I remembered Old Man, streak of blood, broken promise, Super Lee turning all Clark Kent.

J was coming through the other side, and I practically sent his tray of dirty dinner plates airborne.

“Morning Ralph, I said.”

“Morning Sam.”

That’s our Wile E. Coyote thing.

“Yo kid, listen,” I stopped him, “Old Man got bucked in the parking lot by Punks Ass Kids from Pastorius.”

“Damn, really?”

“Yeah, and Dickhead Donnie’s got me serving coffee to these fools.”

Listen. Why were everybody’s eyes on Lee? Why did I have to open my mouth and let out a stench? Why does Groom’s Pops gotta be grinding his teeth over there in the corner? Why couldn’t I be home with J and our favorite Ma watching whatever instead of catering at the Shep?

“Want me to go and help him out?” J’s all concerned, and that’s what I love about him. Had to give him a pat on his free shoulder. Good kid. Loyal as fuck, especially to his Ma. Knows I treat his Ma well too, knows he’s my bull.

Rich Moms turned and raised her coffee cup expectantly, as though I didn’t know where to pour the coffee. Thank you ever so kindly Rich Moms for showing me, I was gonna turn the powdered white creases of your dome into raging rivers of hot coffee. I started pouring—linen napkin on my arm all classy—making sure to give Rich Moms Regular even though she asked for Decaf. She don’t know ‘cause a Bunch of Wasps started chiming their water glasses like a fuckin’ drum line.

Bunch of Wasps: “Speech! Speech!”

Best Man, Thick Boston Accent: “Now, uh…” He’s all red-cheeked and pissed and starts patting his khakis for his notes that he left on the counter in the men’s room that I flushed thinking they were trash. “I’ve known Jason for four years, through most of our time at B.C.”

I’m not even taking orders at the point, just switching back and forth, Regular, Decaf, Regular, Decaf. Yo son, then I got confused ‘cause I was listening to Best Man wax on all eloquently; two Decafs in a row, nobody noticed a change in the flow.

Best Man, TBA: “Anyway, a bunch of us made up a little ditty that best sums up how we feel about this guy right here.” Jason blushed but I’d bet you a nickel it was the Bombay that they had us serve. “It’s pretty easy to follow, so anyone who doesn’t sing will have to do a shot!”

Laughs from Jason’s friends, dirty looks from Jason’s grandparents, coffee from Extra-attentive Lee.

Listen. Best Man jacked himself up on the table, kicking aside dessert plates and half-empty bread baskets that should’ve been removed before but I was outside watching Old Man catch a beat. Yo, work was coming second and I knew it when I saw a couple of rolls bounce on the floor. But I couldn’t help thinking of Old Man. His scruffy bloodstained face, his raggedy coat, his pathetic body trying to prop itself up.

“Jason!” Best Man started droning slowly, then faster and faster: “He’s awesome. He’s studly. He’s the ma-an!”

An immediate crowd pleaser. A new number one on my list of Best Chants I Ever Heard In My Life, replacing the time at the Phillies game with Mary and J last September, when a bunch of true blue fans in front of us starting yelling “ Safety School!” at a herd of Nova freshmen. Listen, them sheep was wearing big royal blue V’s on their tees at a fuckin’ orientation outing and all.

Had to tell J. I dumped my coffee tray on the bar as Groom’s Pops stood to make a speech. Don’t bother Groom’s Pops, nothing’s gonna top Man with two syllables.

Listen, though. In the kitchen, bunch of chefs and waiters were crowded around J, who’s sitting up on the silver counter with his black bowtie undone and the top button of his dress shirt open. Blood’s splattered on his collar like a dessert decorated by Dickhead Donnie. The sinks were filling up fast with suds; a knife was left in the middle of a cake like it was baked that way. Dickhead Donnie dropped the title for a minute and brought J a rag with ice. Fit it on his head like a crooked turban.

“Yo, what happened, J?”

“I was helping the homeless guy,” he winced as a chef blotted the scrape on his chubby cheek, when I got tackled from behind. “They pushed me into the ground. Grabbed my wallet, my tips from tonight, everything.”

Listen. It was enough to shake loose my hair band and make my fro fan out like a black peacock. I was Ragin’ Hulk, Wolfy Berserk, Vigilante Lee.

Donnie went into his office to call the Blue. I grabbed the knife from the cake and shook a glob of chocolate cream to the ground as I headed through the back. Past where Old Man’s dome bled, though there’s just some broken glass and a pile of newspapers now under the light. It was all dark at the Toyota dealership across the street, the red and white flags barely flapping. Yo, even quiet enough on Germantown Ave to hear a car’s tires grind up the cobbles of Chestnut Hill. All the lights were lit-up on Allen Street though. I imagined White People probably watching me from their massive stone homes.

White People, nasally voices: “Oh my gosh, there’s a Black man with a knife walking up to the park. Lock the doors, for Pete’s sake, lock the doors!”

Pitch black at the end of the block, where Pastorius began. Must’ve taken a full minute for my eyes to adjust on the park. But then I saw a flicker across the field, and a couple of red embers floating back and forth like fireflies. Covert Lee ducked behind a nearby Sycamore, thinking out his next move.

Listen, how did my day go from eating Delasandro’s cheesesteaks with Mary and J down on the Art Museum steps to seeing Old Man get bucked, to taking lip from Dickhead Donnie, to Man with two syllables, to J getting bucked when I should’ve been the bull to be bucked, to this vigilante shit? Why’s my ‘stache sweatin’? Why did I once again have to be the only bull to take the only bulls? Why couldn’t I just clean up and go home, but with J’s wallet and our tips?

Punk Ass Kids, in a fair world: “We’re really sorry Lee; we know not what we shit we did. Here, take your wallet back, and take ours too. You can use our parents’ credit cards all you want. They don’t give. And give us a kick in the ass so we learn our lesson.”

“Damn right you’re sorry bitches, but don’t forget Old Man.”

I ran over to the Punk Ass Kids and gave one a Doc Marten to the back. He went down like the shit was a fixed match. The other two jumped backward.

“Whoa, man what the fuck!” I grabbed one around the neck. He smelled like cigarettes and skunk weed. He’s elbowing me in the side and my tux shirt gets all untucked. Kidd Jersey scrambled for the bat.

“Leave it bitch,” I yelled, whipping out the knife from my belt. There isn’t much light on the field, but enough for Kidd Jersey to see me holding it to his bull.

Yo listen, I must’ve looked deranged, in my catering clothes with my hair freaked, holding a knife to Hostage Kid’s throat. Probably the knife that did it; the difference between Good Worker Lee and Vigilante Lee.

“You’re not gonna do nothing, bitch!” Kidd Jersey screamed.

Kicked Kid’s wheezing for air somewhere at my feet, and Hostage Kid’s squirming to make a break. Yo son, Kidd Jersey was right and he knew it, so I squeezed Hostage Kid til he coughed a little. And I cursed.

“You stole my fucking boy’s money, Motherfuck! I want his shit back!” I had to call J my boy, no time to get into the dynamics between Mary and me.

But listen. Blue and red started flashing up Allen, and we all stopped to look, even Kicked Kid, who was faking a lot of the pain ‘cause he was scared of Deranged Lee. Hostage Kid emptied his pockets onto the grass and I let him squirm free. Bulls booked it into the woods toward Millman St., and I grabbed the wads of cash and J’s wallet and split back down the lawn toward Allen.

I could feel my adrenaline pumping the way you feel a glass of ice water. I got back and Donnie’s about to drive off in his van. Didn’t see me stash the knife in my pants though.

“I know you gotta look out for your boy,” he started, back to Dickhead status, but I’m not paying you to go chase after Kids. Do that on your own fuckin’ time. And Lee, don’t forget to lock up.”

No, “Congratulations, Lee?” No, “Way to save the shit, Lee?”

I went back inside and started rearranging the tables and chairs for tomorrow. J mopped the floors quietly.

When we got into the car, I took out the wad of ones and nodded triumphantly to J, who started divvying them up on the dash. Eighty-three each, plus our two hundred flat. Not bad for a night of crime-fighting for Lee, not worth it for J, who’s gonna have to have Mary fussin’ all night.

I started the engine and the lights and radio blared, but then, yo, J hit the dial and nodded out his window.

We both got out of the car, helped Old Man to his feet and walked him up to the back entrance of the Shep, where I slipped a twenty into his tattered overcoat pocket and let him in to lay down on the couch in Dickhead Donnie’s office. Showed him where the fridge was too. Listen. I’d be back in the morning to get him out before Dickhead Donnie showed up. Call time’s always an hour earlier when you gotta set up for a wedding.Zack Pelta-Heller is a non-fiction grad student at The New School. He writes regularly for AlterNet and Zink magazines, and his prose has appeared in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, SuitCase, Slow Trains, and Lilith. Currently, he edits crossword puzzles for a living.