Overheard

So you really think she was into me?

Uh... yeah! Do you not remember her sitting on your lap, pouring shots down your throat?

Hmm... Not really. I guess maybe she was.

That Certain Rush

She's standing in her underwear. You didn't mean to just walk in like that, but you couldn't have known. You were gone for only a minute. You feel a certain rush. Like a little kid given a cookie. Like sledding down a hill. Like diving into a cool lake on a hot day. Like jumping off a swingset. You can't help but stare after you avert your eyes.

It doesn't seem to phase her though, her state of dress. She's slipping on a pair of jeans. She does that little jumping shifting dance to pull them over her hips. She turns around and smiles at you. Like an ice cream cone in the summertime. She pulls an old tee shirt over her head. I think that's inside out, you say. She says something you won't hear.

She bends over to tug on her sandals and you watch her hair cascading over her shoulders. Like a hot shower after a long run. She walks towards you, towards the door. Are you ready, she asks. Her palm reaches out and touches your cheek. Like waking up from a Sunday afternoon nap, refreshed, blissful. You just look into her eyes, replaying her routine in your mind. A little show just for you, a wonderful moment in time.

Really, you could not come back and it'd be ok

He had just arrived. I was supposed to make an appearance at a different location fifteen minutes ago. I felt pretty bad about that.

"I'm sorry; I told some people I would go grab dinner with them, but I'll be back. You think you'll be ok?"

He looked around at the table. Eight people. Three were guys and two of them were about to leave. He let out a single laugh.

"Don't worry about me; I think I'll be fine."

So this one time...

I want to have been punched in the face. But I don't want to actually be punched in the face. This is a distinction that many people don't get when I tell them this. The thing I really want is to have a story about the time I was punched in the face.

I fully understand that it would hurt. When I tell someone who has been in a fight, they inevitably say "it really hurts." Yes, I understand this. That's why I don't want to be punched. I want to have been punched in the face.

I've thought about this. A lot. Ideally, it would happen at a bar. Some guy would be drunk and think I was hitting on his girlfriend, and rather than try and resolve the situation civilly he would swing away. I don't want to get into a fight, so I wouldn't try to hit back. Somebody's friends (his or mine) would be there to defuse the situation and it would only result in a story about the time I got punched in the face.

I think this situation would qualify as a "good enough story." Some of my friends volunteer themselves to punch me --some more often than others-- but being hit by a friend just to have been hit doesn't make for a good story. It makes for a terrible story about being punched in the face.

When it happens, I think I'll tell people I fell down a flight of stairs. Then I'll laugh and launch into the fantastic story that I now have. How awesome would that be. I'd call that story The Story About The Time I Got Punched In The Face.

On The Road

As a child I spent a great deal of time, as did many younger siblings of my generation, riding in the backseat of the family car. My parents, in the sensibilities of the liberal middle class of the time, sent my brothers to a school 10 miles away; a school where conferences were held in lieu of report cards, teachers were never Mr. So-and-so or Mrs. Such-and-such but rather “John” or “Linda,” and in addition to the daily 45 minute recesses spent running through the woods there was a 15 minute “fruit break” when students could go outside and eat the fruit, yogurt, or granola snack their mothers had lovingly packed in a reusable lunch bag.

Being the youngest I would, on every carpool day, be strapped into the booster seat in the back of the station wagon and ride the 20 miles to and from my brothers' school. And when, halfway through kindergarten at the local school I threw a fit over coloring books masquerading as mathematics lessons and refused to go anymore, my parents decided I too should attend the same school as my brothers, I found myself in the backseat of the car for 20 miles every day.

And of course there were semi-regular weekend visits to my mother's sister in Washington, DC. The 5 hour car ride became familiar enough that to this day, stopping off I-81 in Woodstock and not going to the Hardee's with Norman Rockwell drawings on the walls for an ice cream cone feels unnatural.

Summer vacations found us packed in the car, driving from Virginia to Chicago to Minnesota. We would split the journey to Illinois into two days, generally stopping outside Columbus at a motel. For long car trips, my mother would bring along a box of toys and puzzles and games, a specially designated box we weren't allowed in but during car rides for fear the toys would loose their appeal through familiarity and the trips would become even longer.

My mom's plan would work for a while, until we started to behave as brothers do, at which point she would use some trick from the mom manual, distracting us until the next rest stop. Sometimes she would read to us, exposing the three of us to the literary classics we would otherwise never read on our own: The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, The Velveteen Rabbit. And some that we would have: The Jungle Book, A Wrinkle in Time, The Call of the Wild.

To this day when we get together, my brothers and I will sit around and reminisce about the times we spent traveling. When one of us discovered McDonald's only served small, large, or extra large drinks but not medium; Dave Barry columns we would read and find hilarious for the rest of the trip (that IS a big suitcase) and indeed the rest of time; the trip where we couldn't find a hotel because of the Little League World Series, so we drove from Chicago to Virginia in one night.

But one of my favorite past times, those times there was only my mother or my father and I got a window seat, was imagining I was a video game character running alongside the car as it sped down the road. Usually I was Mega Man or Mario jumping over signs, running up hills, doing flips in the air, and blasting trees out of the way. Sometimes I was a ninja, clad in white, slicing through entire forests, fighting off the black ninjas who were trying thwart me from my journey. And sometimes I was an adventurer, a la Indiana Jones or that guy from Pitfall, swinging through the air from whips or vines, evading snakes and lions and pumas.

Later in life I was reading a famous book by a famous beat author when one particular passage struck me. The two main characters, one from a privileged East Coast family and the other from a modest Western family, were talking about the time they spent in the car while growing up. The East Coast character told how he would stare out the window and pretend he was riding his horse beside the car, bounding along without restraint. The Western character admitted he did the same thing, running, running, running beside the car, the wind in his hair and freedom at his back.

Jurassic Private Eyes

By Ty & Clint
Narrated by Clint Compsognathus

It all started on a cold snowy day in August. Ty, Matt, and I were checking out a recent crime in our patrol car. The kids were throwing snowballs at us. I was driving, Ty was snoozing, and Matt was drawing on the window. We really are professionals, even though drawing on the windows is one of our favorite past times.

We were on our way to investigate a mystery at 1313 Thirteenth Street. Someone had been robbed. When we got there, I woke Ty up. Then Matt stepped out of the car, and got hit with a snowball. I had to use the bathroom. Ty was throwing snowballs at Matt, and Matt said,
"Of course you know, this means war!"
I quickly scrambled out of the battlefield. I told Matt and Ty to wait for me. I had to find a bathroom.

After using the john, Ty, Matt, and I knocked on 1313's door. To our surprise, the door opened by itself. A voice said:
"We don't want any."
We looked down, and saw an ant dressed as a butler.
"You sure are a skimpy thing," said Ty.
"I'm not skimpy," said the ant. "You're just big." Ty and I looked at eachoter, then at Matt. Matt was preparing a snowball.
"None of that," I said. Wait till we crack the case."
This bug was a real nusiance.
"Squish 'em!" Ty said.
"I'm warning you," said the ant, "I know tae kwon doe!"
"Cool! i know Ty too!!" Matt said.

Just then, the ant came up with a kick that knocked Matt out. Ty and I were furious, so we squished him.

Once in the mansion, we talked to Scott Segisourus, the owner of the mansion. "Good morning, private eyes," said Scott, "This is such a creepy mansion, I'm so glad you're here. I wanted to talk to you about a robbery that happened last night at about 12 am, or midnight, I can't remember which."
"Well, we're here to check it out!" said matt, who had just recovered.

So we all started looking for any signs of a criminal. While passing through the next time zone (Just goes to show how big the mansion was), Matt stopped to set his watch.

"Ah-ha!!!" Ty exclaimed. We all turned to see what it was. Davy Dilophosaur was lying dead in the middle of the platinum-plated gold cigar boxes collection room. Matt said,
"Cool, we can call him dead Davy Dilophosaur!"
Scott, who was searching with us, exclaimed,
"Oh-no!! My nephew's grandfather's brother's aunt's sister's boyfriend's roommate's girlfriend's x-boyfriend's father's best friend has been murdered!" Scott cried like it was his son, not that was to far off. Matt comforted him.
"It's okay, baby. It'll be okay."

After Matt stopped acting like a mommy, we continued our mystery.
"Now, how could Davy jsut die like that?" I wondered. It was clear Davy had met death gruesomely, he had been clawed and bitten.

We called the emergency number, which was 91111111111111111. The cops and ambulances came zooming up the drive.
"Whatza prob? I wuz watchin Barney!!" said one cop.
"Someone's dead! Someone's dead!" Matt cried, jumping up and down, waving his arms.
"Have a doughnut." Ty said giving the cop one.
"Gee, tanks"
"You're welcome."
"TANKS!"
"I said; YOU ARE WELCOME!"
"No, tanks, Army Tanks!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! We all yelled. The tank was about to crush us.

"Look who's driving the tank," said Matt, "It's our old nemesis, Roger Raptor!" Unfortunately, Matt was right.

Scott told security to catch Roger. After they had, we took him to court.

"Order in the court!" yelled the judge.
"Okay," said Matt "I'll have a large coke and medium fries."
"He means be quiet, I said, "He isn't very patient."
"But I want my coke!" whined Matt.
"Okay, okay. After the trial." I replied.

The Jurassic Jury finally came to a conclusion that Roger was guilty of attempted murder and assigned him 20 years in the slammer.

When we got outside, I got Matt his coke. On the way back to the mansion, Matt was burping because he drank too much of it. Ty put on a gas mask.

At the mansion, we searched on with Scott. All of a sudden, Ty exclaimed,

"AH-HA!!!" We all ran over to see what he had found (Yes, again).
"The butler!!!!!!"

I did find something. Roger had tracked mud all over the floor in the room where Davy was killed. There was a bloodstained toenail clipping on the floor. It was Roger's.

Well, Roger got jailed for life, and we had a snowball fight.

That was fiction. It was all fiction. So don't write about it. We already did.
NAHNEE NAHNEE BOO BOO!!!
WE BEATCHA TO IT!!!

THE END


My buddy Clint and I wrote this in the 5th grade. He recently found it, scanned it, and emailed it to me. I think it is awesome. I've tried to preserve the odd formatting we used, along with typos and misspellings. The only thing missing from this reissue is the sweet Jurassic Park font we used while typing it up in WordPerfect.

The Night It Started

The look on B---'s face said “are you fucking kidding me?” The words from B---'s lips said “are you fucking kidding me?” G--- finished passing out the shots and he and T--- stood conspicuously empty handed as their friends glowered. “There's no way I'm doing this shot. First, you're not a chick, and second, you're not hot.”

“Really? That's all it's going to take?” T--- raised his eyebrow. G--- and T--- looked at each other and smirked. “Wait just a second.”

FOUR MINUTES EARLIER

G--- caught the bartender's attention and leaned on the bar. “I need five lemon drops, a glass of water...” He looked at T--- inquisitively. “Water for me.” G--- turned back to the bartender. “Two glasses of water, and whatever those ladies want.” He pointed at two girls standing at the other end of the bar. “What was K---'s friend's name again?” T--- asked as the bartender went about mixing the shots. “I think maybe it was A---?” K--- was a friend of a friend who G--- had met a few weeks prior. K--- and A--- (if that was in fact her name) had just arrived and hadn't made their way to where the group was sitting. G--- and T--- watched as the bartender said something to the girls and pointed their way. K--- looked pleasantly surprised and mouthed thank you across the crowded bar.

“We need your help for just a minute,” T--- explained to the ladies. “Our friends won't do shots and we need you to convince them.” The two girls looked amazingly nonplussed at the request and followed them through the mass of people.

The table looked at their friends –impressed, astonished, puzzled, confused– as they returned with the two unfamiliar and attractive young ladies in tow. The bluff had been called and the table had lost. The shots were resentfully downed and revenge was quietly plotted.

There's Always A Dame.

I looked down through the bottom of my glass at the dingy bar, the grain of the wood distorted by what little whiskey remained. Rolling the coin in my hand over and over, I traced the outline of Washington's head. I could almost count the rivets around the edge of the quarter, if I didn't get distracted by the conversations nearby and the conversation in my head.

"Shit," I mumbled under my breath. I swiveled around in the brown leather covered stool, grasping the cool brass rivets as I pushed myself up and off of my perch. Squinting through the smoky atmosphere of the bar, I looked in the direction where I thought I saw the telephone when I walked in an hour and three Jack Daniels ago.

The black handset felt cool against my ear, flush from the effects of the whiskey. Dial tone. Haven't heard that sound in forever, I thought to myself. I dropped the coin in the slot and punched in the only phone number I'd memorized since high school. One of the characters at the bar stared at me, trying to make it look like he wasn't. I scowled at him and turned towards the wall. The phone rang three times before she picked up.

"Hey, it's me. No, I know. Look, I wouldn't have called if it wasn't... Would you just... I'm in kind of a jam here, I didn't have anyone else to call. What? Yeah, I'm at a bar. I don't know, maybe two. God, why does it matter? Would... Why are you bringing that up? Listen... No, I know... I know that. No. Yes. I need you to listen to me. I need some help."

The whiskey helped dull the feeling of my nose breaking as some thug grabbed my hair and slammed my face into the wall. I stumbled backwards and a fist hit my stomach like a freight train and I buckled over, gasping for breath. I could feel my face swelling and through tearing eyes I could make out the goon's friend grasping the phone, putting it on a collision course with my temple.

I came to in the back of a van, with a bag over my head and a herd of wild animals running through it. My hands were cuffed behind my back and I could hear the rhythmic thump thump of the car driving over a bridge. The van smelled like cigarettes and BO: the scent of two men sitting for hours, waiting.

Waiting for what? For me?

I was in bigger trouble than I had initially thought. She must have something to do with this. Not the one on the phone. She wasn't the type of girl who knew goons like this existed outside the movies. It was the other one. The one who waltzed into my life three days ago. Three days filled with one thing after another, where having my face slammed into a wall and being kidnapped in a van didn't even come as a surprise.

Was she worth it? If I had known the turns my life would take would I have parachuted into that hurricane? Honesty, I probably would. She was one of those girls. One of those girls you'll do anything she says. Dammit.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Midnight Storms

“Goodnight, dear,” she called out into the dusk as she waved goodbye to him. She stood in the doorway watching him leave, still glowing from their final kiss.

When he had disappeared out of sight she closed the door, sighing. She paused for a moment, leaning against the door with her mouth upturned in a slight smile and a look in her eyes as if her mind was far away. A look that conveyed for that instant she was not standing against the door, but instead lying in a green meadow, listening to the wind saunter through trees and the trickling tickling of a nearby creek while she watched the black silhouette of a soaring bird cut through the sparsely clouded blue sky.

The wind howled through an open window, bringing the crimson curtains to life. She regained her physical body as the cardinal wings toppled the vase on the windowsill. The single flower he had brought earlier that evening fell to the floor, water glug glug glugging into a puddle. She moved to the window with feline grace and shut it quickly. Outside the bony hands of the tree beckoned and the wind stumbled past the newly formed leaves as inside she sopped up the mess with an old towel.

As she prepared herself for bed, the rain began to fall. The pitter-pattering on the windowpane smeared the light of the moon as it peered through the gray clouds. She sat in front of the mirror, brushing her silky golden brown hair by the flickering light of a single candle and listening to the rain roll down the roof. She gracefully got up and cleared the several glasses and mugs from her bedside stand. Returning from the kitchen, she climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her shoulders. She blew out the candle and watched the swaying tree shadows cast on the wall by the moonlight before drifting off to sleep.

She dreamt that night. Dreamt for the first time in several weeks. He had died on his way home, held at knifepoint for money and killed when he refused. She saw his lifeless body in a casket, surrounded with white lilies. She leaned over the chest, weeping uncontrollably, crushing the flowers underneath her. The limb of a shadow closed the lid on his casket and placed a hand on her shoulder in comfort. The touch was cold. She raised her head from her damp teary pillow to see the shadow bringing her tea in bed.

The crack of a thunderclap jolted her awake. The storm had not subsided but rather had intensified. Rain was beating against the windowpane. The skritch-scratching of the trees was silenced only by the explosion accompanying the searing flash of light that would momentarily light up the room.

She sat up in her bed, trying to escape from her disturbing vision. She brushed the hair from her forehead and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She went to the window and stood for a few minutes, just looking out at the storm.

Returning to the covers she reached for the cup of tea on her nightstand and sipped the warm liquid, letting the taste linger and savoring the tingling feeling it gave. Before dropping off she thought of his promise of a picnic in the late afternoon and hoped the rain would stop soon so as not to ruin their date.
The next morning the sun shown through her window, creating golden rectangles of light on the wall. Birds sang outside, chipmunks scampered to and fro across the moist green lawn. She lay on the bed, her golden hair flowing across the pillow and sheets.

There was a knock at the front door. Three sharp reports of flesh and bone against wood. The clock in the hallway ticked to break the first moment of silence and tocked to break the second. Tick… tock… tick… tock… tick… tock… Three more knocks at the door, answered only by the steadily swinging beats of the pendulum. The visitor tried the knob, just in case. It turned and the door slowly swung open. He paused, then walked through the doorway. His footsteps echoed slightly in the hallway, not yet accustomed to footfalls as heavy as his.

“Hello?” he called out to the emptiness. When no reply came he continued into the hallway, closing the door behind him. After moving through the kitchen, dining room, and sitting room, he came to her bedroom door. Gently swinging the door open, he saw her lying on the bed, cradled by the white sheets, her eyelids down.

He softly walked across the room to her bed, lovingly gazing at her form, not quite wanting to disturb her respite. Standing over her bed with a smile on his face, he reached for her hand to awaken her. The smile in his eyes faded to concern as his fingers touched her limp, chill hand. The concern spread to the rest of his face as he searched her wrist for signs of a beating heart. With panic coursing through his veins he shook her by the shoulders. Her limp head rolled from side to side at the end of her neck. He let go her body and stepped back from the bed, his hands cradling his face, the sound of sobs escaping through his fingers. He shook his head slightly, taking his hands down, and whispered softly.

“No…no… you just need to sleep a little longer…” he sniffed and wiped his eyes. “I’ll just be in the next room…” As he leaned down to kiss her ruby lips, a tear fell from his eye and rolled down her ashen cheek.

He closed the door to her room and dropped to the floor, his head between his knees, sobbing.

Mondays.

The first time I laid eyes on her I just knew there was somethin about her. It was this feeling I had, somethin indescribable, somethin I could feel from deep down inside me, just cryin out, “She’s not like anyone else. She is different.” I can remember the first time I saw her. It was a Monday morning. Springtime. I can remember because I was having my coffee outside. She was wearing a flower print dress, nothin fancy; she prolly picked it up at one of those discount stores. I looked up from the paper to see her walkin across the street towards me. Not that she was crossing to see me, just that she was comin in my direction. Anyway, she just kept walkin and turned the corner and just kept going.

I don’t know what about her grabbed my attention. She wasn’t that good lookin. It must'a been the way she moved. Some people, when they move, they just seem to glide along. Yeah, that’s it. The funny thing is though, she didn’t even check both ways before crossing. That’s something every American kid learns in elementary school: “Look both ways before crossing the street.” But she jus walked straight on across the road. Anyway, the way she moved… it was amazing. Absolutely captivatin. She must’ve been a dancer or something, I swear.

Like I said, she just walked across the street and onto the sidewalk and turned and kept walking. It was the middle of the block too; I didn’t understand why she didn’t just use the zebra crossing a couple of yards down. I mean, it’s not like she didn’t go by it. It wasn’t out of the way or nothing.

I saw her again the next Monday. And every Monday after that, to be sure. Doing the same thing. Cross the street without lookin, turn up the road when she got to the other side and keep walkin. I got to wondering about where she was going to. It seemed like she had something important to do, that’s why she had that serious look on her face. I thought up a buncha different stories for her. Like, she was going to visit her sick grandmother in the hospital, kinda like Red Riding Hood or somethin. Or maybe she was a war widow goin to visit her husband in the cemetery. Or she was a rich heiress goin to the bank to withdraw from the trust fund her daddy left her. Anyway, I dreamed up all these stupid ideas when I saw her cross that street. It kinda worked its way into a game for me. Each week I’d come up with a new character for her to be, with background and what have you. But I never really knew for sure, I just kept comin up with these ideas.

I suppose I shoulda wrote ‘em down somewhere. I coulda written a book about her with all the ideas I had, I swear. I’m always forgetting things, so I know I should write stuff down, but the thing is, when I do write my ideas down, I forget where I wrote ‘em at. But the thing is, I was only thinkin up stuff; I never knew for sure who she was or where she was goin to. Every week she would just walk across that street with that stone face of hers and then keep on walking.

I tried following her once, when my imagination was runnin like crazy and I just had to know where she was going. She walked a long ways, like four or five blocks, then turned and by the time I rounded the corner too she wasn’t in sight.

Up ‘till yesterday I figured I’d never know her name or where she was goin to or anything like that. I mean, I’m not the type a guy that people just come up to on the street and start telling all about themselves. But then yesterday… man...

I was in the same place that I usually am on Mondays. I saw her across the street, same place she always is on Mondays. She started walkin across, same way she always does on Mondays. But then somethin caught my eye. Somethin out of the corner of my eye, somethin moving. It was a butterfly, floatin along in the air. So peaceful. So beautiful. Just floating along in the air, graceful-like.

Then this guy in a truck lays on the horn. Crazy like. I swear, it really startled me. Anyway, I forget all about the butterfly to see what’s goin on. He’s about to run into her, nothin he can do, he’s right up on top of her. I dunno why he didn’t see her before, not like she wasn’t right out in the open or anything. And she had already crossed the first lane, the truck was up on my side of the street. Anyways, I look at her face, but she’s not at all scared. Like there’s absolutely no emotion there at all. Like she doesn’t even notice. And I swear, she was looking right at me. I could feel her eyes staring at me. You know that feeling when you’re in a crowded room and you know someone’s starin at you and then somehow you look right at that person? Well, that’s how I felt right then. But it was even weirder, because, I mean, she was about to get hit by a truck. Man, those eyes… I’ll never forget that look in her eyes. The way she was starin at me, it was almost like she was tryin to tell me something. Like she had this big secret and she was choosin me out of all the people in the world to tell it to.

Everythin else was a blur, but not those eyes. I hear she got thrown a hundred feet when that truck hit her, and she died just like that. But I swear I could still feel those eyes on me. Even after the ambulance showed up, it was like she was still there starin at me; I hadn’t moved an inch. I guess it was such a shock to see that happen. But it felt like time had stopped just where I was sittin and where she was standin but everything else around had kept goin. I don’t really know how else to describe it.

I’ll never think about Mondays the same way again, I swear.