reading – Page 27 – three good words

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014

for once

Natural.

More of an
afterthought
than an
endeavour

more of a
f
l
o
w
than a
pu – shing – through

more of a
silent
surprise
than a planned-out event.

More of an
‘Oh… did we just…?’
rather than an
‘Ok, let’s do it.’

October 19, 2014May 16, 2020

She didn’t talk very much, but she always said thank you with a smile. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, after the late-night shift, he would go to the diner, sit at the counter and order the Midnight Menu that was made almost entirely out of fat and cholesterol. It tasted heavenly.

Oliver, or Oil as his colleagues called him – it was that one lunch break where he listed reasons why extra virgin olive oil was healthy that did it. He couldn’t help it, it was the kind of trivia he knew. So, he would walk into the diner at sometime past 2 a.m., sit down at the red-leather stool and start off with a coffee to wake him up, then continue with some nuts or crackers in the small dish someone always set before him, and finally go for the Midnight Menu, greasy and heavy in his stomach, the perfect thing to carry him home and send him to sleep the moment he undressed and hit the pillows.

Sometimes he didn’t undress at all. It all got into a muddle once he passed his door. Somnolence thickened his fatigue halfway up the five floors, and by the time he opened the door, he was sleep-walking. Every now and then he woke up in his shirt and tie, his pants unzipped. He somehow always remembered to remove his shoes, the fruits of rigorous childhood training where one step into the house with muddy shoes was accompanied with the siren-like shriek from his mother. And he always had muddy shoes. Since then it had become almost a reflex to remove his shoes the moment he closed the door. The rest, however… Oliver couldn’t say how often he’d woken up drooling on his jacket, but only ever on Wednesday and Friday mornings, after the late-night shift and endless jokes about olive oil.

There was no reason why he went to the diner so religiously. It had nothing to do with the interior, which looked like a bad copy of a 50s’ family eatery. It wasn’t the music which was always this side of mediocre, let alone the clientele that looked just as half-dead as he usually felt. It was the food at first, greasy and delicious and so unhealthy he ate up with glee. And when she suddenly turned up, he had another reason as well. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she had a nice face, the kind you could watch and watch and watch and not get tired, unless you were drifting off into the land of nowhere like he often was. She moved gracefully, like a dancer, never talked louder than necessary and always said thank you with a smile. He liked her, though all the conversation they had was a hello and goodbye, except his usual order and how she jotted everything down as if she’d heard it for the first time.

He at first thought she was a little slow. He never changed his order, so why all this writing? Then he saw her reading that French woman they’d had in school and changed his mind. He got a little cautious too. She was working the night shift at a slightly seedy dig, looking prim and proper like a neatly trimmed garden, without any sign of unease. The moment he realized this, Oliver got curious. Very quietly, over the space of weeks of Tuesday and Thursday late-night shifts he started wanting to know who she was, why she read that French book on the graveyard shift, and what the rest of her life looked like. She had to have something of a rest of her life. He had a rest of his life, though it didn’t amount to much. If he wasn’t sleeping he was working, if he wasn’t working he was sleeping. Weekends just drifted by, and there was Terry who insisted on drinks on Friday night, usually spent listening to Terry talk about his boring life. He’d had a girl once, ages ago. Pretty thing, bright, with plans for her life that did not entail the likes of him. Oliver didn’t mind. Thinking about her and them and us and everything else had proven to be unnecessarily complicated, he kept on messing up the one steady thing in his life, his job. So he wasn’t too shocked when she called it quits. He hadn’t seriously seen a woman in… years.

There was Stella from down the hall though. He’d found her crying on the stairs one day, crying so hard she could hardly move, so he helped her up, opened her door for her and made her some chamomile tea, why did women always have camomile tea? Then he listened to how she walked in on her boyfriend fucking another woman, got her box of Kleenex for her and hugged her awkwardly across the corner of her kitchen counter. He tucked her into bed fully dressed, except her shoes of course, slipped a tacky white teddy into the crook of her arm, a gift from the man she just fled from. Oliver made sure she was ok, Stella told him twice she was all right, so he left.

A week later, some drab Sunday night, the doorbell rang. Oliver opened it and saw Stella standing there with a bottle of wine, saying she wanted to say thank you. They drank the wine in his kitchen and fucked on his couch, and since then it was kind of an arrangement that he turned up at her place on Sunday evening with a bottle of wine. They rarely drank any of it because Stella was a riot in bed. She knew some surprising things, and liked talking about the men she met while they were fucking. Oliver got to know about a lot of people this way, it was way better than the Sunday night special on TV.

That was his life really, the late-night shift on Tuesday and Thursday, a few drinks with Terry on Friday, maybe a trip to the gym on Saturday, and sex with Stella from down the hall on Sunday evening. It was easy, there were no complications, and Oliver lived rather contentedly this way. He didn’t want anything to change really, though sometimes he did dream of faraway places where he would live a different life altogether, where he might have something close to ambition, but those were just dreams anyway.

October 12, 2014May 17, 2020

chance encounter

Dana has stopped fearing the dark. That woman isn’t about to come tearing into the diner to knife her down. It’s been a while since their last night. Six weeks at least, if not more. Dana forced herself to stop counting. She only managed because she’s seeing someone now. His name is Sean, he works in an office and has a nice apartment not far away from the diner. He’s not bad looking, a bit taller than herself with short dark hair that he takes good care of, and he has very nice, clear blue eyes.

They met at a party Samantha took her to, and he asked her out for a drink after they chatted for a while in a corner of the living room. Dana went because Christie forced her to, and Sean made her laugh more than expected which calmed her down. He was very sweet, asked her to the movies and went out for a nice Italian dinner with her. She waited till the fourth date before she agreed to go to his place for a drink. There they talked for over an hour, drinking Screwdrivers with expensive vodka. Sean kissed her when she came back from using the bathroom. She had learnt that a bathroom said almost everything you needed to know about a guy. Sean’s bathroom was tidy without being freakish, which was a relief.

She came back and sat down, Sean leaned into her and said ‘You’re very beautiful.’ That’s when he kissed her. She enjoyed it and didn’t mind when he stole his hands under her top. Soon enough he grew hasty, but she asked him to slow down, which he did. He smiled sheepishly and took his time. It was nice, she enjoyed it, but she didn’t stay the night. She told him she had some stuff to do the next day, something with Christie. Sean nodded and smiled a that’s-ok smile. He walked her to his door and kissed her again, he was a really good kisser. Then she went home. That was three weeks ago, and they kept on seeing each other about three times a week. It was nice. Dana felt cared for, and she liked that.

The Prince has decided to leave his Kingdom and pay a visit to a dilapidated monk who lies wasted in the arms of an Angel. In His arms a body feels fragile and frail, the movements too quick, the suddenness too hard, yet His smile brings life back again. Questions are asked which are answered accordingly, he doesn’t want her, the sister, the mother, the soul that allowed him to conceive a possibility of rest, he doesn’t want her to feel she has failed. The Prince stays for an evening, eating and drinking, laughing and talking and then in a moment he remembers that last week was the Seventh which explains the sadness in His Highness’ limbs, the weight holding down the light in His royal eyes. He refrains from asking about Her, whom the Prince will never mention, will never acknowledge with a syllable or a sound, only to feel weak with curiosity, buried underneath questions, for they had been marvelous once, but that was in another life, another world, so perfect and terrible it was close to a fairy tale.

While clearing the debris of the evening he cautiously points to the fact of the Seventh looming dark in the past. She smiles sadly and nods saying that it was to be expected. He still loves Her, she says and her eyes say it is a deep love, like those sung in stories, and her body says the Prince is not alone in His misery, but he turns away before he reads the last sentence written on her skin, feeling the tatters of his monk’s habit flail. Even now in her presence it is too much for him, too much to see her honesty, too much to feel the presence of the past between them. For despite all attempts to the contrary, certain words have not yet been said.

On her knees she holds him firmly, gently, tightly, covering him with heat and softness, sucking him in till there’s just blackness and rain turning the ceiling to sleet. In intervals she releases and descends, withholding and repenting, increasing in boldness and subtlety, an ingenious trick that makes his thoughts drop dead and his brain suffer a heart attack. On the plains, outstretched, he is only reaction, a body burnt by the sun, melted to a carnal cry, dark and dissolving in the fading light. When he is alive again she lies next to him, smiling against his skin, kissing away the remnants of his sanity, subjecting him to the loss of will and power, leaving him without direction, a lobster, cooked and roasted, without a shell.

Dana is in the Mall with Sean. It’s Samantha’s birthday soon, and since Sean knows her now, they decided to pick a present together. Neither have a clue what to give her, Sam always has the newest gadgets, and she loves glittery things. Dean takes Dana’s hand and smiles when she smiles at him. They walk on to the next shop but find nothing there and take the escalator to the next floor. It should be something playful, something that makes Samantha laugh. They’re walking past a electronics store when someone walks out and almost into them. He apologizes immediately – ‘Amanda!’

He looks genuinely happy to see her. Dana wants the ground to break open and swallow her whole. She finally remembers Sean and says,

‘Hi. Sean, this is Carmine. Carmine, Sean.’

Both nod at each other. Dana can barely make herself look at Sean.

‘How you been?’ Carmine says. Dana blushes bright red.
‘I’m good. We’re looking for a birthday present for my friend Samantha.’
‘The blonde one?’

The fact that he remembers makes Dana blush even more.

‘Yeah. It’s her birthday this weekend.’
‘Sweet,’ is all he says before looking at Sean and smiling an easy, open, How’s-it-going smile.
‘Well, don’t let me keep you,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you round.’

Next he’s gone and Sean turns to her asking,

‘Who’s that?’ quote 1
‘Oh, just a guy from work,’ Dana says, her ears very hot.

She turns to Sean and forces her whole face to smile. She even goes so far as to kiss Sean, who takes the kiss a little further before he suggests that they check the ticket store, the mall still has one and apparently Sam mentioned something about a band. Dana remembers to nod. They start walking but – What was that? Why was he so happy? Why didn’t he even care?

October 11, 2014May 17, 2020

love, actually

Not PG rated

The sun is milky while she lies sleeping on the cushions. She was reading, the pages lie open on her chest. He carefully picks up the piece, puts it on the table. He sits back on the glass and watches her, the proof that she is real. Some time between the successions of dawn and dusk, pain faded and allowed something else to live between them, opening up the possibility of peace.

There are no sheets. The plains barely clad, cool in their smoothness where dark pillars rise leading down to the source forgotten yet known where he drowns repeatedly tasting the texture of a touch while the heat spreads and silence is no longer a sound.

Under his hands she comes alive reaching under his skin, pulling out the pieces while he looses the last bit of weakness that fills the deep he’s breathing in, steady, steady, in and out, rise and fall, a force of life till time no longer runs and rushes but melts down into heat and darkness filled with light she holds in her hands, pressing the past into his skin, marking his body burning deep past muscle into bone until it comes like fog falling down the mountain before she cries, softly, and the air is free again.

Her body is his blanket, he does not need more against the cold. She has allowed him, released an amnesty for this witching hour where his body felt stripped, without armor, newborn, real. She has turned a blind eye on the truth that they both know for this long moment between night and morning and in her mercy there is no weakness yet he felt no strength of his own.

At a loss now, he searched for paths and ways, roads otherwise traveled that would show him what to do with his life, void and meaningless as it was without her acceptance of those words that made up his apology. The words would need to be said no matter how often he threw them against the walls barbed with silent terror, no matter how often he sent them flying, crashing against the fortress of consequence. Every living thing insisted that they be said, be it just once, otherwise everything worth living for would be dead and what was more sacred than the rise and fall, that steady beat right under the curve of her breast?

‘You haven’t been here yet, have you?’ she asks. I shake my head. We’re at her new place, an apartment she shares with a friend. It looks good, books on the table, some magazines on the easy chair, a couple o’ plants. There’s music coming out of a closed door, she whispers, ‘Eddy’s here,’ grinning like that. Must be her friend’s guy then. She asks me if I’d like some coffee, we almost got caught in the rain. I keep it to, ‘Yeah, why not.’ We talk some about everything while she walks around, those jeans fit her perfect. Like always, I don’t know what to do, exactly. She looks relaxed, she always does, there’s nothing that can really throw Celine. She pours out the coffee into mugs, stirs in milk and sugar and hands me one. She still knows how I take it. Nice.

She’s sitting on her desk chair now, facing me. I’m on her bed, she’s still got the best I’ve ever seen. Probably coz I know she’s usually in it. I’d like to stop this waiting. She finally looks back at me. She stops talking, I don’t know what she just said. She takes a sip of coffee and puts her cup down on her desk. Then she turns back to me, gets up and straddles me slow, pulling off my scull cap just like she used to. Her hands fit light on my head. She says, ‘I really like these studs on you.’ I kiss her before she starts thinking twice about it, it’s happened before. Or worse, back then, way at the beginning. Half the night talking, arguing, fighting until she was crying, shouting, ‘Why don’t you even try to get me! Why won’t you even try to understand!’ She was so pissed… Her eyes all wet, and that look on her face like I was fucking up her life on purpose. That whole weekend was – bad. Just bad. I didn’t know nothin’ then. I don’t want that now. She looks too good now.

She’s smiling when I pull her closer. Her lips are as soft as ever. Just kissing her again is… why’d nobody say you had to know stuff early? That it could happen before graduation? That your girl could just know, really know what was out there? Why’d no one say?

We used to spend whole nights just doing this, hidin’ out in her room, her folks wouldn’t let her stay out after ten, especially with me. Her old man… that guy was tough. So, she’d sneak me in when her folks were sleeping, and then… Learnt to wait with her, wait until she took out one from that pink case in her drawer next to the bed. She got me used to them, she wouldn’t let me otherwise. ‘I love you Alec, but I don’t want your babies just yet.’ She meant it to. We made plans. After, with her all curled up nice, her skin perfect, her heartbeat this steady real thing right under my hand. We’d talk about it, that house, those cars, that pool. Having everyone over for cookouts, getting Nate for the barbecues. We’d had it all planned out. ‘Xcept I thought she was just dreamin’ it up. She meant it from the start.

I remove everything on her after she pulls off my sweater, taking the shirt with it, she always does it like that. She smiles, ‘Still working the gym I see.’ Her hands are warm, perfect, why’s it with her that she just knows? I lay her out on her bed before I go for her breasts. I’ve missed them like nothing else, she’s got the most perfect pair. We both get her out of her jeans, lingerie – holy shit – wait, wait, I wanna see that – fuck… I have to ask,

‘Where’d you get this from.’
‘London.’
‘London? Like, London, England?’ books 2
‘Yeah. We have this mandatory thing where you have to leave the country for at least two weeks. I can’t do a full term so I took the two weeks Literary London. That’s how Professor Bernard calls it.’

Sometimes I just want her life. It’s always just a second, but it keeps on turning up and then I just want that way of being at the right place at the right time. Just knowing how it’s done.

‘When was this?’
‘Two months ago.’
‘How was it?’
‘Really nice. I got to see a lot.’
‘And buy this.’
‘Yeah.’

She smiles there, pulls me down – her lips are still the softest. And she did come back. She always comes back.

I go for what’s waiting between her thighs, smooth, her legs are endless with these tiny feet. There’s nothing like what she tastes like. I stay till she’s there, right there, she’s easy on her voice, her hands on my head, her feet rubbing up and down my back and I want her to black out, make her come so hard she just falls apart. I got her crying once, but now’s not the time. I’ll split open if I don’t do something – that’s new. Probably from over there. Did she –? Now’s not the time. Fits too, and I sure hope she still has a few coz I love being inside this woman. I love fucking her so much I always want to marry her right after. I’d ask her too if I didn’t know she’d just look at me and roll her eyes like I was bullshitting. Or smile that smile from that other world she lives in, which’d be worse, but now’s not the time.

. . .

‘Alec?’
‘Hm.’

That was just too good. Maybe I should move back up here again.

‘Do you still write?’

I kiss her instead of answering, I don’t want to have to explain that. I keep it long, but after I let her go she asks, ‘You still write, don’t you?’ I can’t answer that. She sits up a bit and looks at me. It’s her look, the one only she has, that special mix of anger and disappointment that she tops off with that tone as if she doesn’t know who I am anymore.

‘Why don’t you write anymore? Alec? Why don’t you write anymore?’
‘There’s no point.’
‘Why? You love to write, why’d you stop?’

She’s sitting up straight now, staring at me. If I’d said I’d robbed a place she’d look just the same. I still say it,

‘That’s not me anymore.’
‘Of course it’s you –! Alec, that’s like the one thing – ’
‘Carmine.’
‘What?’
‘Carmine. In the city, people call me Carmine.’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno. Just started.’
‘Carmine?’
‘Yeah. Or Car.’
‘Car? You mean, like, the thing you drive in?’
‘Yeah.’

I can’t help smiling. She looks really surprised.

‘But, Alec, you’re not a machine.’

It’s stuff like that, these things she says that make it so crystal how no matter what I do, I’ll never get her and she’ll never get me. Maybe Nisha’s right and street stays street, no matter what you do to get rid of it. Yeah, it says Alec Bellamy on my license, but that ain’t really me. At least not all me, and Celine here… she never got that. And I don’t think she ever will.

September 12, 2014May 16, 2020

hugh’s corner

It was a warm Saturday morning when Carol Jones knocked on the door of Hugh’s Corner 75. She just flew in from Hawaii and took a cab. Now she was standing in a narrow street, trying to follow the directions her sister Liz had given her over the phone. ‘It’s between Ocean Park and Sea Drive. Just take a cab, the driver should know,’ but the driver did not know.

Liz had never been on the accurate side of things. When she broke off college in her junior year to marry Seth Hayne, all she told Carol and their parents was that Seth came from Chicago and was the sweetest man on earth. She never mentioned he was already an attorney in one of the leading law-firms, and came from what was called old money. Now, ten years later, Liz was Miss Jones again, and all Liz had told Carol so far was that their lifestyles had diverged. Liz liked to use words like that when she didn’t want to tell you anything.

Carol finally found the 75, walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. No answer. She looked at her watch, it said nine thirty five. She tried again.

‘That’s not Red’s boy.’

Saturday afternoon, late, the sky was overcast. There was a haze on the sand in front of Hugh’s Corner 75. Liz Jones was standing with her back against the balcony, smoking, a cup of coffee on the railing next to her.

In the morning, she had opened her front door groggily to incessant knocking. Carol, her sister, stood before her with an overnight bag and a sleeping baby in her arms. She looked exhausted. There had been a brief exchange, nothing important. Liz had pulled out the couch in the spare bedroom and watched her sister and the baby sleep for a while before going back to bed. Now, she was wide awake, wearing her usual frayed shorts and white shirt, waiting for her painted toe nails to dry. Carol was in the kitchen, mashing some bananas for the baby. The baby was only in diapers, sitting on a blanket a step away from Liz’ feet, playing with a toy. Liz had never been the motherly type. She liked watching mothers, and sometimes envied the satisfied laughter of their children, but the moment one started screaming she knew why she’d been careful all these years.

‘What?’ Carol asked, still stirring the mashed bananas in the bowl. She looked haunted in a way, as if she’d seen several ghosts at once. Her dark hair hung in loose curls all the way to her shoulders, making her face look thinner than it actually was. Her eyes were wide, a lighter blue than Liz’, and a little too bright. Liz remembered how readily Carol used to smile, how her face had beamed when she got accepted, and so could head to Berkeley. And how dreamy her voice became when she talked about Red, the often-proclaimed Love Of Her Life. Red, that was Stuart Montgomery, nicknamed Red due to his flaming red hair. He was a History professor who decide midway through his tenure-track that life was too short to waste in between books and classrooms, quit his job and moved to Hawaii. Carol, not exactly his best student, but his most enthusiastic, followed him in a moment of rashness, found him in a cottage on Maui and decided she’d found Heaven.

Liz had smiled when Carol sent her a picture of Red and herself a few weeks later. They were on the beach near their little house, sitting on the sand, Red holding a bottle of beer and smiling at Carol who was adjusting the spangle in his hair. They looked happy, and Liz had felt envious. She never regretted leaving college, but marrying Seth Hayne had proven to be less of the Heaven she had thought it would be. The first two years had been wonderful, but then they bought the House near the Lake, and Seth lost all interest. He held her hand, and kissed her good-morning and good-night, but that was all she ever got. He worked all day and half the night, and was always busy on weekends – if not with work, then with making the House a perfect Nest, as he always called it. And so she didn’t complain. How could she, if he was working his hind legs off to make her life comfortable. He felt guilty enough for having plucked her out of her college life and fairly plunged her into the real world of marriage and responsibilities.

In any case, by the time Carol’s photograph of bliss fluttered into her mailbox, Liz and Seth had already been married seven years. Five of which were long and lonely, though she had a nice life, a perfect life, full of dinners, parties, friends and holiday trips to Europe and Maine. That was her life two years ago. Now she was divorced, living in a small apartment between Ocean Park and Sea Drive, trying to come to terms with the fact that all the while, Seth had not been straight. He had never been, he simply saw her as a fantastic alibi, one his whole family would accept without question. She was ‘steady’ he said, and ‘sensible.’ After the shock and the tears, after the humiliation, Liz had hated him most for that.

‘K.J. no, don’t do that,’ Liz heard Carol say.
‘Why K. J. actually?’ she asked, watching Carol sit down cross-legged on the blanket before lifting the baby onto her lap.
‘Kahoku Jones,’ Carol replied, feeding the baby.
‘Kahoku? You’re kidding.’
‘No. It’s actually Kahoku Manaki Jones, but that’s too long. K.J. suits just fine, don’t you think?’

It was how she said it, defeated. Liz just looked at her sister and wondered what had happened. Carol looked crushed, as if a part of her, a large part, had broken to pieces. And yet, she was very gentle with the baby, absolutely loving, cooing and cajoling, praising the little thing’s success in eating well. Kahoku Manaki Jones. Liz exhaled. She was right. K.J. suited just fine.

‘Is there a meaning to those names?’ Liz asked.
‘Would you mind not smoking while he’s here?’ Carol asked instead.

Liz just shrugged, pinched out the cigarette and flicked it off onto the pavement below. The small street circled Hugh’s Corner, separating the wood from the sand without blocking the ocean view. There was a tall palm tree to the right of the house, but next to a few haphazard azaleas that was the only greenery in sight. Liz didn’t have any patience for plants.

‘So, is there a meaning?’
‘Kahoku means star. Manaki means wind.’
‘Star Wind Jones,’ Liz said laughed. Carol said nothing.
‘Ok. Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry, we won’t be staying long,’ Carol said, speaking to the baby.

Liz felt a sudden pang of guilt. It was probably why she said, ‘We should go to Disneyland then.’‘He’s too young for that,’ Carol said, finally looking up at Liz. She looked close to tears. The guilt grew thicker, stronger. She’d known something wasn’t right for a while now, but she could never put a finger on it, Carol was always so vague. Then again, she didn’t like phones. She preferred letters, but Liz was a bad letter-writer, she always forgot to answer.

‘We can just walk around and enjoy the view,’ Liz said, picked up her cold coffee and walked back in. She had to get away from that cloud of guilt that was growing thicker, darker, on the balcony. Carol looked like she genuinely needed help, only Liz didn’t know what kind. What was she to give a mother and a child? The baby was a sweet thing with black curls and large dark eyes, but that wasn’t what made Liz watch the little thing for so long. It was his face. It had Maui stamped all over it. He definitely wasn’t Red’s child.

* * *

Someone once asked me where I come from and at first I wanted to say L.A. but then I thought that wasn’t enough. Venice Beach was the next option, but that really wasn’t all that right either. I grew up between Ocean Park and Sea Drive, in a small stretch of apartment buildings that’s Hugh’s Corner. Don’t ask me why it’s Hugh’s Corner, and not Paul’s or Andy’s. It’s Hugh’s Corner, a world of its own.

Ok. So, there’s Ma and Q, Ben, of course, Master An, the wise man, Ray the Monk, the Bernardis, Jamie, Little Miss Tinkerbell, Nova, Mac, Molly and Skip, Cappy, oh my Cappy, Tins in No Ming and Miss Liz. That should be it.

Now, if you knew about me, you’d ask: What about K.J.? And a couple of weeks ago, I’d have said: He left some time back. He’s history. But now with Miss Liz in a coma, I can’t say that anymore.

K.J. and Miss Liz are our neighbors. We, that’s Ma, Q and I, live in Hugh’s Corner 73 and 74. We used to live in the Palisades with my Dad, but after the second time Ma found him in bed with another woman, she filed a divorce and started a new life. No Prince of Bel Air for us. Ma gets alimony, but it’s all put into a trust-fund for Q and myself what with college and all.

There was a time when I believed God existed and miracles could happen. I used to sing in our church just a block away from Marina del Ray. I was a ‘mezzosoprano’ and could hold a note long enough to get a satisfied smile from Pastor Williams. Then Patricia, his wonderful daughter, found me kissing Louis DeJean (tenor) in the backroom, and through her lies and Louis and my own shame, Pat convinced Pastor Williams that we were fornicating under the eyes of God. May I add that Pat had been doing exactly that since Louis moved with his Pa from Dallas. All through our trial in Pastor Williams’ office, I prayed to God that He may exercise his omnipotence and make Pastor Williams understand that Louis and I had only succumbed to the heat of the moment, and only kissed, really, truly, honest to God kissed. He did not. I was expelled from the Choir and Louis cancelled from the next Thanksgiving concert. He stayed on though, as Pat somehow managed to weave the Adam and Eve story into her whole web of lies, which made me the sinner and Louis the victim. What hurt most was that Louis never said anything, he just stopped talking to me as if I had a huge A on my chest.

In any case, by my sixteenth birthday, I’d stopped going to church all together and Ma never said a thing. But this is really about K.J., not me, K.J. who’s got the summer triangle inked under his right ear, what’re they called – oh yeah, Vega, Deneb and Altair. He told me that night, Skip’s birthday barbeque, Miss Liz didn’t mind that he got them. Apparently she said his body was his body, as long as he could deal with the consequences. I wish Ma would say stuff like that.

Anyway, K.J.’s on Maui now. People think he’s surfing, I know he’s looking for his Dad. I don’t know if he’s found him yet, nobody here’s seen or talked to him a really long time, but I have to talk to him now. I just can’t find him. I’ve tried everything save flying over, and I can’t fly over, I don’t have the cash ready and Ma won’t budge. Apparently, I’ve gotta finish school first. Ma always calls college school. I still need to do something though. Miss Liz is in a coma and K.J.’s basically fallen off the face of the earth.

Which is why I’m talking to You, yes, You, up there. Bring him back. Whatever it is, do it. If you’re there, this is your chance. Do something. Now. I’m not gonna pray about it, I’m just sayin’ what needs to be done, so do it. Please. K.J. really needs to come back home now. Like, right now. Not in seven days or forty days or forty years or some weird stuff like that. I mean now, ok? Have him come back home now, really, now, coz Asha Carol’s not about to fly out of India soon and do something about it.