Sez Me (In which I manage to tick off everyone)

On this crisp December morn—with clouds hovering just above the crest of the Spring Mountains taunting us desert dwellers with the possibility of rain—my mind is awash with many thoughts and emotions in the aftermath of this week’s tragedy in Sandy Hook, CT. It’s all there: anger, confusion, sorrow, righteous indignation; pronouncing curses upon the notorious “they” for what should have/could have been done to avoid such a senseless slaughter of innocents. And yet, doesn't it seem that as a people we seem to express outrage over events such as this only when it suits our political/theological purposes.

You have those ignorant, intolerant and unenlightened right-wingers railing, “Where is your outrage over the millions of innocent babies being slaughtered through abortion?” And on the other side those equally evil, progressive liberals are screaming for gun control and the abolition of the 2^nd amendment while each side ignores the other. What’s a body to do in the face of such impassioned debate?

Well, I for one have chosen to think for myself and not be led blindly down a progressively narrow stream of ideological or sociological thought, regurgitating sad, partisan canards and talking points. It’s not easy. You have to ask a lot of questions, read a lot of articles and listen to points of view that often run directly counter to your core beliefs.

It’s called developing a worldview.

Over the past several days I’ve ingested enough statistics—all of which are designed to support various points of view—to choke the proverbial horse! So I decided to find some statistics of my own just to demonstrate the absolute unreliability of Mark Twain’s least favorite political device:

• According to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services there are approximately 700,000 physicians in the U.S. The average number of accidental deaths per year attributed to physicians is 120,000, which equals 0.171 deaths per physician. 
• There are approximately 80,000,000 gun owners in the US. The average number of accidental deaths per year attributed to gun use—factoring in ALL age groups—is 1500, which works out to 0.000188 deaths per gun owner.  
• So as you can see, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. The only conclusion one may draw is this: Guns don’t kill people...doctors do!

 See what I mean? Ridiculous!

In spite of repeated (and immediately broken) resolves to avoid such useless pursuits, I’ve succumbed to the temptation to engage in several debates, none of which produced the barest scrap of satisfaction! However, while thusly engaged I did happen upon a thread of thought that I will briefly include herein.

As a culture, we love to hawk legislation as a panacea for preventing future recurrences of the Sandy Hook tragedy. We seem to think that if we change the political landscape, change will follow in the hearts and minds of people. We’ve got it backward! If you change the hearts and minds of people, change in the political/social landscape will follow. And dare I mention what I feel quite strongly to be the real problem, which is the inarguable presence of evil in our world?

I had an individual this week inform me quite bluntly that there is no such thing as evil. I respectfully disagree, for I have stared evil in the face and breathed in its sulphurous breath. You don’t have to look very far. Ask the twelve year-old girl who has been raped repeatedly by her father; or the toddler with cigarette burns on the inside of his thighs from his mother’s live-in boyfriend. Ask the families of the victims of the Mexican drug cartels whose loved ones were tortured to death and then mutilated or the approximately twenty-seven million victims of human trafficking. Shall I go on? The citizens of Uganda, Iraq, Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge all of whom endured unspeakable atrocities and wholesale slaughter of their countrymen at the hands of evil despots. No such thing as evil?

You’re probably not going to like hearing this, but we have the America we deserve. The culture created it. Now, we have to live with our creation. Or do we? How about an intelligent, impassioned and yet civil debate on cause and effect?

As usual, I’ve gone on too long, but...sez me.

Conversations With Eddie

Twelve months is a long time to go without seeing your best friend, and seeing Eddie Washington walk through the door of St. Arbuck’s was like, well, seeing Eddie Washington walk through the door...by which I mean that no one can pull it off quite like him.

It’s the entrance, followed by the dramatic pause to survey the landscape—more like surveying his domain, if you want to know the truth—then it’s the slow rhythmic stroll that most people would call a “walk.” However, what Eddie does is more like gliding to a subtle, slow groove that only he can hear.

The occasion of his return was to attend the wedding of a friend. Eddie, being Eddie, found a way to stretch it into a long weekend.

His eyes finally focused on me causing his handsome face to light up in a pure Eddie smile. Now, if you’ve never experienced the full force of an “Eddie smile,” well, let me tell you about it: Guileless, joyful, completely transparent and genuine that carries with it the sense that it’s a smile reserved only for a select few.

“RG,” said he in that deeply burnished urban brogue of his, which, for the record, he turns on and off as the occasion demands.

“Brother,” came my reply as I stood to embrace my friend.

We probably hugged longer than is socially acceptable for two straight males, but we don’t really care about stuff like that.

Let ‘em talk.

Heck, let ‘em eat cake, whatever that means.

“Good to see you, RG.”

“You too, man,” I replied as we sat down at our usual corner table. “It’s been way, way too long.”

“Indeed it has.”

“So,” I said. “What’s new?”

He laughed. “You mean since three days ago?”

It’s not like there was a lot to catch up on, for we talk several times a week, but there’s just something that happens face-to-face that can never happen over the phone or even through video chat.

“Well, yeah.”

A married couple we both knew came in, saw us and came over to offer hugs and greetings, which then led to several minutes of pleasant chatter.

After they left to order their coffee he said, “Dude, I got to tell you about something that happened a few weeks ago on the subway.”

“You get mugged, or something?”

“No, no, no...nothing like that.”

He lives in a really good part of the city, but still...it’s New York! I mean, come on.

He said, “Nah, man. I was taking the subway home after work; it was about two a.m. and, as usual, the train was full. We came to a scheduled stop, the doors opened and this homeless guy got on.”

“That’s unusual?” I inquired.

“By itself, no, because there are thousands of homeless people in the city. But this guy was huge! Like six-five and probably three hundred pounds. And old! Maybe, mid-sixties.”

While I didn’t say it, I thought to myself that someone in his mid-sixties just doesn’t sound that old to me anymore.

“And the strangest thing happened,” he continued. “All the people in his end of the car got up and moved down to the other end where I was sitting.”

“Why? Was he violent or something?”

“No, man. He just...he wasn’t doing anything offensive. All those people were acting like him being alive and breathing was offensive—like he didn’t belong in their world.”

“Man, that’s harsh.”

“Did I mention that it was snowing?”

“No.”

“Yeah, it was snowing. And whenever it rains or snows, homeless people get on the train and ride it out to Coney Island and back, staying on as long as they can until the cops kick them off.”

“And that’s what he was doing?”

He said, “That was my guess. But you have to picture the scene: Here’s this one old, huge homeless guy down at one end of the car and about forty people all crammed together down at the other end and all of them staring at him. It was surreal!”

“He stare back?

“Nah, man. He just kept to himself. Sort of staring at the floor. I looked down at his feet and, dude, he didn’t have any shoes on! Snowing outside and the boy didn’t have shoes!”

“So, he was barefoot?”

“No, he had newspapers wrapped around his feet. And his ankles...it looked like elephant skin; like, I don’t know, maybe something you’d see after frostbite, or something.”

All I could do was shake my head as I tried to picture this man’s condition while imagining all of the thousands of people in this country who would fall into the same category.

He continued, “Eventually everyone got off except me. So there I am at one end, and the dude at the other. So I got up and moved down to his end and sat across from him.”

“And you started up a conversation, didn’t you?”

“You know me well,” he chuckled. “Yeah, man. I just started asking him questions. He was almost, like, I don’t know, either he suffered from some mental handicap or had done a lot of drugs or something. I didn’t learn much about his history because he just wasn’t very conversant. But the more we talked I just couldn’t get past the fact that the man had newspapers wrapped around his feet...and there was snow on the ground! And it just broke my heart.”

“Pretty graphic witness to the strength of the human spirit when it comes to survival. Crazy what people will do.”

He was silent for a minute as if trying to control his emotions. “We were getting close to my stop and I looked at his feet; looked at my feet with my brand new Puma’s that I had looked all over New York City to find; felt my dress shoes in my backpack and asked him what size shoe he wore. He said that he wore a size thirteen. Same size as me.”

“So, you gave him your new shoes?” I said with a knowing smile.

He nodded his head in silence. “I mean, what else could I do? I took them off and told him to try them on. He kind of stared at me like, ‘Really?’ He put them on and they fit. I put my dress shoes on, stood, shook his hand and got off at my stop. When the train left he was kind of turned around staring out the window at me, gave me a little wave and then he was gone.”

“That was an extraordinary thing to do,” I said.

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had an extra pair of shoes in my backpack.”

“So?”

“What if I hadn’t had that extra pair? Would I have still given him my new shoes and walked home in my socks?”

“That doesn’t seem—“

“Relevant?” he said, completing my sentence. “I beg to differ. It is entirely relevant because it’s all about what we’re really willing to give up when faced with overwhelming need.”

I thought about that for a few seconds and realized he was right. Here in the land of plenty, where so many have so much, there are still people, just like this man on the subway, who have little or nothing with absolutely no way to better their situation; desperation and hopelessness their constant companions.

“Still,” I said. “There aren’t many people who would’ve done what you did. I mean, come on, there wasn’t even anyone willing to occupy the same space as the guy.”

“True, true,” he replied slowly. “But I should’ve done more.”

“You did what you could.” Then, after a brief pause I added, “You most likely did more than you knew.”

A couple more friends dropped by to say hi and then Eddie had to go.

As we walked toward the parking lot, making plans to meet up for dinner later on that evening, I thought about what Eddie said about not having done enough. And what is enough? And when is too little? I must confess, I had no answers.

“See you about seven?” I said as we shook hands in parting. I mean, come on, we hugged once. Twice would’ve been pushing it.

“Yeah, man. Looking forward to hanging with you and that pretty lady you live with.”

And it started to rain.

I looked down at Eddie’s feet. He was sporting new Nikes.

I love Nikes.

“Forget it! I ain’t giving you my shoes,” he said with a smile as he turned to go.

“But—“

“No way, Jack!”

Sometimes the man can be downright selfish.

Interrupted Redux

I'm rerunning this post from last year simply because I want to honor my wife on her birthday, and I really don't think I can top this. Hope you enjoy it!

A stippling of sunlight filtered down through the towering redwoods, their pungent scent saturating the intimate campus confines as a warm breeze stirred what was left of my recently shorn locks that early September morn. Seems my new college had a dress code, and long hair was forbidden...as was most everything else commonly enjoyed by those of my generation.

But, that’s another story.

I was already late for class—a reality that would, sadly haunt me throughout my collegiate career. College for me was, well, an interruption. I had things to do if I was going to achieve my goal of being a famous recording artist. And I wasn’t about to let something as trivial as education stand in the way of that!

With a student population of only seven hundred, I had already met many of my new classmates through the orientation process and waved or called out friendly greetings as I jogged past the student center. It seemed only proper to demonstrate a modicum of concern regarding my tardiness even though it was pure pretense.

Nearing the library, located just across from the administration building—which also housed the women’s dorm in its upper floors—my forward motion was suddenly arrested by a sight I will never forget. The term, “came to a screeching halt,” overused and hackneyed as it is, is the only way to truly describe what happened to me. For there, not ten feet away, stood the most beautiful creature my poor, tired eyes had ever seen.

Shoulder-length blonde hair; eyes of cerulean blue set above high cheekbones and made even more stunning by the golden tan dusting her face—a smile that seemed to light up everything around her. I might as well confess that with one glance all thoughts of attending class were waylaid, for I was, in a word...smitten!

I realized, to my horror that I had been staring, my face taking on an expression that fell somewhere in between deranged lunatic and simpleton. This alarming fact was brought to my attention by my brutally honest roommate who had the occasion to be passing by just at that moment—being, as a general rule even more tardy than I—thus, witnessing the entire incident.

Thanking my helpful, if tactless, friend I composed myself and...stood rooted in place! Paralyzed! Immobilized! In the grip of stunned stupefaction! In the meantime, this vision of loveliness was walking away. In the direction of...my class. Could that be?

I finally managed to regain forward mobility and proceeded to stalk her across the campus realizing in the process that she was, indeed, heading directly toward the arts and sciences building which my first period “introduction to philosophy” classroom.

I decided to close the gap so as not to lose sight of her once inside just in case it was not my class that was her final destination. When I say, “close the gap,” I’m talking about sprinting thirty yards to take up a position that was within arm’s reach of her quite lovely back.

I never said I was subtle!

Trailing her into the classroom, I mumbled greetings to a couple of students I knew, stopped by the professor’s desk and found my name on the seating chart, sensing myself nearing cardiac arrest as I realized that we were, as fate would have it, paired at the same table.

Given the perspective afforded by hindsight, I now recall the incident with a mixture of embarrassment and profound sense of awe at my good fortune. I mean, there I was seated right next to the prettiest girl in school. And I didn’t do anything to bring it about.

I was just on my way...to class? Certainly. But in a larger sense, I was on my way to the rest of my life when gracious providence beautifully, blissfully interrupted my progress, knowing that life, as planned, would be incomplete.

That pretty girl became my wife, and we have had many, many adventures over these long years. Her smile can still stop me in my tracks, cause my heart to flutter and render me speechless...no small feat, as my children and close friends will readily attest.

Happy Birthday, baby...my beloved, my bride, my lovely one; owner of my heart; sweetener of my days; wellspring of my joy...I love you today.

Siesta Interruptus

Make it stop!

Please, someone, make that hideous noise stop!

I wake, startled to learn that I am the originator.

Snoring? Well, sort of. More like the plaintive cry of some dread beast in mortal agony.

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it! How is it possible for such a racket to be produced by the human vocal mechanism? And you want to know what the real kicker is? I was on the beach!

Yeah! Out there on the sand.

With the tanned and beautiful.

The young and nubile.

Snoring away in blissful oblivion!

So, I turn my head to the left, checking on a young family of six, sunning not three feet away. But I did it kind of stealth-like. You know what I’m talking about. Where you kind of let your head roll to one side like you have no control over your neck, hoping that should anyone be observing they’d think you were still asleep?

Like that.

Then I opened one eye just a crack to see if anyone was watching. Sound asleep—the whole lot of them.

So far, so good.

I do the same maneuver to the right adding, for the sake of variety, the one-arm-stretch-over-the-head move. I’m actually quite good at it, even if I do say so myself. To my right were two men and a woman of indeterminate age. To my surprise and utter delight the woman had her head tilted back and was emitting what can only be described as full on “snarks!”

If I have to explain that to you, maybe you should stop reading and visit another blog.

My relief was palpable.

It wasn’t me.

It was her!

I could have shouted for joy.

I could have...

“Hey, mister,” came a childish voice from behind me.

I sat up and turned around to identify the source.

A little kid stood there with beach pail and shovel in his hand.

“Yes?” said I.

The young interloper giggled and said, “Did you know you kind of sound like a goat when you snore?” before running off toward the water’s edge laughing hysterically.

And what could I say?

Plunged instantaneously from the heights of relief to the depths of crushing reality, there was nothing left for me to do but make an escape, and that as quickly as decorum would allow.

Just as I was slipping my feet into my battered but comfortable sandals, the snoring woman sat up, shook her mane of brown hair and fixed me with what I took for a baleful gaze.

“Hey!” said she.

“Hey yourself.”

”Did you know you—“

“Sound like a goat when I snore?” I interrupted. “Yes. I’ve already been told, thank-you very much.”

She laughed. “That’s not what I was going to say, but thanks for the warning.”

“You weren’t?”

“No. I was going to ask if you knew that you look a little like Bruce Willis.”

For a moment I was speechless.

“Uh, well, yeah, I’ve been told that a couple of times; I think it's the shaved head thing,” I finally managed.

With that she flopped over onto her stomach turning her head away from me.

I caught sight of the rude young man playing down by the water and watching me carefully.

I wondered how Bruce would handle this.

I stuck my tongue out at him and walked away, my ego temporarily salvaged.

The Spiderman Incident

"And don't forget the flour. Last time you forgot the flour! Sometimes I think you'd forget your head if it wasn't attached."

The young boy listened only partially to his mother's voice which, when she was in a mood like this, took on the qualities of a fork scraped across a dinner plate. He hated that sound. It wasn’t that he disliked his mother—he, in fact, adored her. It was just that being the only child left at home out of a family of six kids, and the only boy at that, he had few options when it came to avoidance. Truthfully, even when his older sisters had been home he had always been the one singled out to run "errands" for his mother. She called them errands but in reality an “errand” was anything she didn't feel like doing. Anything.

"I didn't hear you, James Edward. What did you say?" she hollered from the screened-in porch.

Ten year-old James, or Jimmy to his friends, hadn't said anything. What she wanted was for him to say something like, "All right, mom." Or, "Yes, mother." Something like that just so she'd know he was listening. 

"All right, mom. I won't forget."

He stood in the street outside their simple house under a summer sun that felt as if it were burning his skin through the long-sleeved shirt she always made him wear whenever he went outside. 

"Now you hurry back. I don't want you dawdling." 

He didn't really know what “dawdling” meant but he supposed it had something to do with him stopping at the pharmacy to look at comic books and eat candy. Jimmy loved candy and he especially loved Cherry-a-Let candy bars...but not as much as he loved comic books. He figured he could probably spend an entire day just looking at comics if Ralph, the pharmacy owner, would let him. And he probably would.

A southwest wind sent a flurry of dust devils racing past the wheels of his cart—okay, wagon, but he preferred to think of it as a cart—that he always pulled behind him when going to the market for his mother. It had become an every day thing lately. Sometimes two times a day and one day last week she had made him go three times. Of course that had been the day he had forgotten to get the flour so that third trip technically didn't count. 

At the end of their little street he glanced behind him to see if she was still watching. She usually watched until he got out of sight. Today, however, the porch was empty. Jimmy thought that a bit strange that she wouldn't watch until he turned the corner like she always did. It actually made him feel kind of funny. In fact he almost turned around right there and went back to check up on her, but in the end he decided to just keep going. 

His route took him past the old Wells Fargo Bank; the city water plant; the hardware store where you could buy hay for horses and corn meal for chickens (along with just about every other thing you could ever imagine needing for rural life); past the diner where they served the best root-beer floats he'd ever tasted; past the pharmacy and then the small grocery store where everybody knew his name, where he lived and everything else there was to know about him. 

Some of them even claimed to know where his dad was, which was a sore subject with him because he hated his dad and hoped to never see him ever again. When he asked his mother what had happened to him three years earlier she just said that he'd, "Run off." Sometimes he wondered what a person did when they ran off. Whatever it was, though, he was pretty sure it wasn't good given the looks on the faces of the adults when they talked about it. And they talked about it. He figured small towns didn't get much news and when something like that happened it could keep people going for a while.

With his cart loaded down with everything on his mother's list—and you can bet he'd checked it twice, just like Santa Claus—he started the long trip home dreading the mile and a half walk through the hot sun. 

Passing the pharmacy Jimmy slowed way down and looked through the window at the magazine rack. Right away he could tell that there were a lot of brand new comic books. Comics he hadn't seen. Looking up the street toward the clock tower that was easily the tallest structure in town he realized that if he spent fifteen minutes looking at comic books he could still get home before his mom started fretting. 

He parked the cart where he could see it through the window and went inside, straight up the aisle to where the candy was tantalizingly arrayed and picked out a candy bar after squeezing and hefting a half-dozen or so. You had to be careful with candy; just because it said it was a certain size on the wrapper didn't necessarily mean it was really that size. He had actually proven this to be true with his old friend Bradley. But Bradley's family had moved away last year and there was no one left to corroborate his story. That was okay because he knew it was true.

Ralph, the pharmacy owner peered down at him from behind the counter smiling as if he were genuinely glad to see him. And he was. In fact he and the boy were good friends and Ralph tried to help Jimmy out wherever he could since he didn’t have a dad looking out for him. Like allowing him to read the comics for free. No one else got to do that. No one!

"So, you gonna squeeze in a few minutes at the rack, Jimmy-boy?" he said, winking conspiratorially.

"I thought I would, if that's okay with you," Jimmy said as he handed over the fifteen cents for the candy, which was highway robbery in his book because he could remember when it had only cost a nickel!

"Got a new Spiderman in just this morning," Ralph said in a loud whisper as if it were a secret that only the two of them were supposed to know.

Jimmy's eyes lit up as he hurried toward the rack and immediately searched for the comic finding it in just a few seconds time. Spiderman. Good ol' Spidey. He wondered what sort of evil he'd save the world from this month. But when he opened the book, the first page was torn almost completely away which meant that a good portion of page one AND page two were missing. How in the world was he supposed to know what the story was about with the critical first two pages gone? He grabbed another one—same thing. And another, and another. They were all the same.

He looked around as if to spot a potential culprit, but besides Ralph, he was the only one in the store. 

Jimmy was just about to go and tell Ralph the bad news when he heard a soft knocking coming from the direction of the big plate-glass window. Turning slowly he saw something that made his heart stand still. It was Leroy Marshall, the meanest kid in his school. He stood with his face pressed against the glass grinning from ear to ear, his long, jet-black hair looking as if it had been dipped in motor oil before being slicked back. And in his hand...the torn pages from all ten Spiderman comic books.

Jimmy got really mad. Madder than he'd ever been. All he wanted to do was to take one of the torn pages and stick it in his pocket for safe keeping while he stuffed the rest down Leroy Marshall's throat, which was probably a bit unlikely since Leroy was two years older, at least a foot taller and quite a bit meaner. 

Later on he would wonder why he did what he did, but in that moment there was no room for logical thought, only action. 

He got up and pushed through the front door which dinged pleasantly to let Ralph know that a customer had entered and shouted, "Give me those pages, you creep!"

"Why don't you come and get them," Leroy shouted as he took off running, laughing loudly as if it were just the funniest thing.

Jimmy hesitated, but only for a second and then was in full pursuit, the cart full of groceries and his promise to his mother temporarily forgotten. He surprised himself, and Leroy, by running him down in the space of two blocks, leaping on his back and immediately beginning to yank on his long hair as if pulling on the reins of a wild stallion.

“Ow! Ow, my hair. Le’go my hair, you little punk!” Leroy screamed in a voice drifting perilously and incrementally into a soprano range.

“Give me those pages!” Jimmy hollered in reply. “You should’n’a took those pages, Leroy!”

Jimmy rode him all the way to the ground where Leroy finally relinquished his grip on the precious pages in order to concentrate on beating the stuffing out of Jimmy, which he accomplished in short order.

“And that’s for pulling my hair, lambchop!” he said while delivering a final stinging slap to the back of Jimmy’s head before stalking off, the pages left lying scattered and forgotten on the ground.

Jimmy thought about asking Leroy what he found particularly insulting about the term, “lambchop” that would cause him to employ its usage so regularly, but decided that’d be pushing his luck. As it was he’d gotten off with only a knot on the back of his head, a slightly puffy lip and scraped knees—injuries that were well worth the effort if it meant having the Spiderman pages back.

Crawling in a rough semi-circle he gathered up the ones that hadn’t blown completely away, smoothing out the wrinkles before beginning the walk back toward the pharmacy. It was right about then that he discovered to his utter shock and dismay, that page one and two were not, in fact, related to the current story, but contained advertisements for two new comic books “coming soon.”

He started to get really mad, but decided in the end that the whole thing had been worth it just to hear Leroy Marshall scream like a girl.

Hollow Girl

It was a rare, sun splashed morning in OB, the marine layer having retreated somewhere beyond the blue horizon.

And good riddance!

I mean coming from the desert I haven’t minded the cool, misty mornings, but when the misty mornings turn to misty, windy afternoons for days on end it eventually begins to wear on you.

A four-foot swell had the surfers out in force and the premium spots on the sand were filling rapidly with beachgoers out for a day of fanciful frolic: Families with enough gear to justify a week of camping; groups of young teenaged girls whose every movement was tracked with laser-like intensity by groups of teenaged boys; middle-aged couples lounging under the shade of artfully placed beach umbrellas taking in the unfolding drama with detached amusement.

St. Arbuck’s was packed with patrons, and while the demographic defied categorization there seemed to be an overarching and pervasive spirit of good humor and conviviality in the room.

Except, that is, for one couple.

They sat in stony silence, neither glancing at nor speaking to one another, their expressions reflective of people who didn’t really want to be together.

They were an odd pair.

She: Early thirties with ill-cut, shoulder length, drab, brown hair; large, blue eyes set off by a facial bone structure and clarity of complexion that could have easily been transformed into stunning beauty under the skilled hands of a makeover artist. A gray, below-the-knee shift, that seemed more suited to one forty years her senior, mostly obscured a trim, athletic figure.

He: Fifty, with graying hair that fell in greasy strands to just below his jaw line; overly large, metal-rimmed glasses; mismatched shirt and slacks; sallow, pitted complexion with thin lips that did little to offset his rheumy, gray eyes.

She took a slow sip of her coffee, peered at the ceiling over the rim of the cup, decided that there was nothing there of interest and then looked back at down at the table.

Returning the cup carefully to its saucer, she began to arrange the items on her side of the table—spoon, sugar, creamer, water glass—all placed just so, then rearranged in seeming random order as if desperate for something to occupy her attention.

The man held a flip-top cell phone in front of his face in the manner of one whose vision has deteriorated to the point that even with corrective lenses reading is a challenge, laboriously tapping out what I assumed to be a text message.

I suddenly found myself caught by the woman’s eyes—a gaze uncommonly stark and unwavering in its focus.

I quickly looked away only to glance back a few seconds later to find that she was still staring.

I looked down at my computer screen.

Glanced up again.

Still staring.

Just when I began to get really uncomfortable, I suddenly realized that there was no challenge in her eyes, no seduction, no humor, no interest...just...nothing.

She simply stared.

A bead of perspiration appeared on my forehead, succumbed to gravity and slowly moved downward, slipping past my nose and onto my cheek. I fought the urge to begin waving my hands in an effort to provoke a reaction.

Who were these people, anyway?

It didn’t seem plausible that they were man and wife, but neither was he old enough to be her father. Perhaps she was a younger sister, niece...personal assistant? For some reason I settled on the latter.

She flicked her eyes at the man briefly before returning to the object of her apparent fascination, i.e., me.

I mean, why me? Why not the guy seated at the table next to me? Was she trying to convey to me that I had something on my face, my head, my clothing that needed to be removed in order to save embarrassment? Did she find me attractive; hideous; enthralling?

In the end I dismissed all of the above as I realized that she was merely seeking some form of human contact, for it was abundantly obvious that, whatever their relationship, she had none from the man seated across from her.

Without preamble the man abruptly stood, brushed a few crumbs off of his protuberant belly, turned and headed for the door, pushing through it and walking purposefully toward a large, late model Mercedes leaving the young woman hastily scrambling to gather her things and hurry after.

Pausing just before exiting the store, she glanced briefly in my direction, the depth of despair in her eyes nearly palpable in its intensity.

Then, with head and eyes downcast, she trudged after the man as if walking through a field of quicksand, opened the driver’s door, climbed behind the wheel and drove away.

I stared after the car for a few seconds, pondering the significance of what I had just experienced, indeed, wondering if there was any significance at all or if the entire episode had been a mere random occurrence to be dismissed and quickly forgotten.

“Mate, do you know the password?” said a heavily accented voice off to my left.

Giving my head a quick shake I replied, “I’m sorry?”

“The Internet. Do you know the password to get on the store’s Wi-Fi?” said a twenty-something Australian Hipster.

I gave it to him and discussed briefly how amazing it was to have nearly universal Internet connection before returning to my musing.

Ultimately I decided that it wasn’t the girl’s stare that had left me in such a troubled state, but, rather, what I had seen in the depths of her eyes.

I may never see her again, I will doubtless see others who struggle against the same soul stripping despondency—even in the midst of a busy, bustling, bright and blithesome coffee shop; individuals deserving of my compassion and attention.

“That’s not it, mate!” said the Hipster.

“Excuse me?”

“The password. It’s not bloody working.”

I wrote it out for him on a slip of paper and handed it across the divide between our tables.

He laughed. “Well, then, that explains it. I heard you say something completely different.”

We talked for a few more minutes during which time I learned that he was visiting from Perth and was considering a move to San Diego to attend UCSD’s International House, home to approximately 260 students from more than 30 countries who live and learn together as a community.

Life was good. He, in fact, loved his life—loved everything about it. Wouldn’t trade with anyone.

He was filled with hope.

She was hollow.

The juxtaposition of two such disparate life trajectories was startling in its contrast.

And yet, it doesn’t require a great deal of effort to alter trajectory—ask any sharpshooter or archer.

I bid him a good day, closed my laptop and headed for my giant, red Kronan Swedish Army bike, which I’d left chained to a pole outside having lost all interest in novel writing for the moment.

Hollow girl.

The black Mercedes appeared in the periphery of my vision and then cruised slowly past; the driver’s side window rolled down and the girl gave me a funny little wave.

I waved back.

She smiled.

It transformed her face.

I pedaled slowly homeward.

Birth Control

Honesty compels me to confess that rowdy children in a small, enclosed space like St. Arbuck’s is not one of my favorite things.

Actually, now that I think about it, unruly kids are off-putting regardless of the environment.

And don’t get me started on the topic of inattentive, permissive parental units!

So, there I sat in my favorite coffee bar, doing battle with the bloated monstrosity also known as my current novel when the erstwhile calm was shattered by the arrival of a single dad and three—count ‘em—three young daughters.

Redheads.

Not that hair color has any particular bearing on the propensity of a child toward disruptive behavior, just stating an observational fact.

No, seriously.

How did I know he was a single dad? I think it was his eyes, the way they cast about the room as if seeking rescue, or, perhaps, at the very least understanding and compassion.

The three little darlings—approximate ages 5, 7 and 9—stormed immediately toward the pastry counter shoving and elbowing each other while at the same time shrieking in that frequency of voice that, seemingly, only young girls are capable of emitting.

“I get to order first!”

(Shriek!) “Noooo! You ordered first last time!”

“Me first! MeeeeeeeeFiiiiiiirrrrrrrsssssstttttt!!!” (Shriek! Shriek! Shriek!)

You get the picture.

The littlest one, and obvious, at least to my ringing ears, vocal champ, planted herself squarely in front of the register and refused to be budged by either of her sisters although they had at least a foot in height and twenty pounds body weight on her.

“Daaaaaaaaaddddd!” wailed the eldest. “Mary won’t move out of the way! Daaaaaaaaaddddd!”

The beleaguered father staggered forward as if in a daze, his mouth working wordlessly, arms flapping helplessly at his sides, head pinioning atop his shoulders as he scanned the menu board.

“Mary,” he said softly. “Why don’t you let Siobhan order first this morning?”

“Nooooooooooooo!” Mary shrieked. “Nooooooo! Noooooo! Noooooooooooooooooo!”

This bombast was accompanied by much gesticulation and stomping of her tiny feet.

It became quickly and indisputably clear that wee Mary was the boss in this family.

The middle child chimed in. “Why does she always get what she wants? I never get anything!” Arms crossed; chin tucked against her thin chest; the corners of her cute little mouth turned down in an epic pout.

“Now Bonnie,” reasoned dad, who by now had recovered somewhat from his previous stupor. “You know that Mary doesn’t always get her way.”

“Whatever!” This from Siobhan, with a roll of her piercing blue eyes tossed in for emphasis.

As for what happened next, I couldn’t rightly say for at that moment I had a pressing matter that required my attention, to whit heeding the insistent call of a middle-aged bladder.

I had no sooner turned on the light in the men’s room than I heard a significant ruckus filtering through the wall of the adjoining women’s room.

It seemed that the tiny trio of sisters had all simultaneously sensed the selfsame need as I.

With dad temporarily out of earshot (although I’m convinced anyone within a hundred feet could’ve heard every word clearly) Bonnie and Siobhan seized the opportunity to let Mary have it!

Rather than provide blow-by-blow color commentary, suffice it to say that the tag team diatribe involved derogatory descriptions of their younger sibling shocking to hear spoken from such young and innocent lips.

All of which eventually provoked Mary to explore aural frequencies that I am quite sure were previously unknown to human kind.

Sheer morbid fascination caused me to linger over the sink, washing and rewashing my hands as I listened in rapt attention to the unfolding drama unfolding one wall away.

Suddenly I heard a pounding coming from the hallway: Dad had arrived on the scene, yanked finally and violently from his torpor.

“What. Is. Going. On. In. There?” Followed by more pounding and, “Open this door! Right! Now!”

Now I was stuck. I mean there was no way I was going to walk out and right into the middle of a, well, domestic dispute of some proportions.

So I did what any self-respecting person would’ve done in my spot. I pressed my ear to the wall and listened.

Sadly, the concurrent decibel-intensive and cacophonous mash-up of sound that followed the father’s entrance made it impossible to distinguish much beyond the occasional,

“But Daaaaaaaadddddd!”

“She said...”

“I did not!”

“SHE DID TOO!!!”

And so on, and so on.

Eventually the dad said—in his outside voice, I might add—“That’s it! We’re outta here!” to the apparent chagrin and collective displeasure of the sisterhood of the traveling shrieks.

“Out to the car! All of you! I can’t take you anywhere!” mumble, mumble; wail, wail; shriek, shriek.

And off they went.

When I felt it safe to emerge from my place of refuge, I did so just in time to spy the dad herding them all into the family minivan, wee Mary’s mouth seemingly locked open in perpetual, wailing complaint.

I didn’t envy him the ride home.

Glancing at the barista as I retook my seat she nodded her head slowly while saying, “Birth control!”

“As in, he should’ve practiced it, or that scene was effective birth control for you?”

“Yeah,” she said with a grin. “That’s it.”