Jimmy Johnson was born into the cold of a late fall morning, in his single mother's bedroom. Aided by his three aunts, with old rags and a tin bucket of warm water, he opened his eyes to a new world. He, his mother and his aunts all cried, each for different reasons. Thirty four years later, Slimmy J closed his eyes to an old world. Nobody cried.

Leonard sat on the hillside overlooking the park, finishing a half-pint of whiskey in the damp grass. The night was clear, he wished his mind would be that way. He'd come here many times in his years of homelessness. He always came alone--always, and only when he'd lost one of his friends. The park was as empty as Slimmy J's alley. And that's why he came here. He took the last shot of whiskey and, dropping the bottle, laid back waiting for the ghosts to whisper in his ear stories of a life past.

Out of the alcohol, upon the wind they came, and carried him to another hill, in another time.

"Look," Leonard pointed to a dot of star-like light, "it's a satellite."

Lauren looked in the direction of his finger. Her young eyes, much sharper than his.

"See it, moving across the sky there. It looks like a star."

"Oh yeah!"

He loved her enthusiasm. It reminded him of a place he hadn't been since he was a kid. A place where anything was possible, where imagination hadn't been dowsed by commercials, bosses, taxes, products... She lived in a place where dreams were as real as the blades of grass poking them through the blanket.

"What's a satt'ite?"

Leonard cringed. This wasn't going to be easy, "It's a machine that floats around the earth, like the moon."

"Why do they do that?"

He felt himself getting into a quagmire that would make Vietnam look like a lazy day in the park.

"People use them to talk to each other and to figure out where they are."

"How do they do that?"

He pondered a moment.

"Well, hold out your hands. Hold them up in the air."

She lifted her small hands and giggled.

He lightly pinched her left hand, "Imagine this hand is a mountain."

She giggled again.

He pinched her right hand, "Imagine this hand is a person on the other side of the mountain. Now keep holding your hands so they're lined up."

He turned on the flashlight and aimed it at her left hand, "Now imagine this hand," He pinched his left hand holding the flashlight, "is a person that wants to send a message to your hand. See, the mountain is in the way and your person can't see the light."

"Okay."

He held up his can of Coke and held it over her hand, "Now, imagine this is a satellite." He aimed the flashlight at the can, adjusting it until the light reflected onto her right hand, "See, I can bounce the light off the satellite, over the mountain, and your person can see it now."

"OH!" Her eyes lit up in a way the flashlight never could, not even the sun could.

As a teacher, he was happy she understood, but as a father, he was a bit saddened that he had stolen some magic from her.

"Are the stars satellites too?"

"No, those are suns. Some of them are much, much bigger than the sun."

"How come they aren't as bright?"

"Because they're very, very far away. You know how the lights of the city look small and get bigger as we drive closer?"

"Oh."

"If they're suns too, are there people closer to them, like we are to the sun?"

"There are so many stars that there must be other people around some of them. There are more stars than there are blades of grass on all of the earth."

He pulled a blade of grass from the ground, "If I just pull one blade of grass from the ground, there may be a bug on it, but probably not." He showed her the blade, free of any life, then pulled up a handful of grass. A firefly that had been hiding in the clump was startled, lit up and flew away, "But if I pull up a whole bunch of grass, then I probably will get a bug."

"Oh. Who put the stars and people there?"

His brain seized. There was no way he was going to try to explain even his own limited understanding of astrophysics to a five year old. That isn't what she was asking anyway. He contemplated telling her some crap about God or Nyx and the golden egg but decided the truth was always best, "Nobody really knows."

"Oh," she replied, with some disappointment.

"But you can believe whatever you want about that and it's as real as anything else."

Lauren concentrated on the sky. He could see the gears churning in her head. Several minutes passed with nothing but the sound of crickets and the occasional buzz of some winged insect zig-zagging past them. Finally she smiled, and Leonard learned the origin of all the stars.

It seems that a little girl was at a huge pond one night with her dad. She was playing in the mud and decided to make mud-balls for the fireflies to play with. She made many many mud-balls and her father poured honey on them for the fireflies to eat. Soon, all of the mud-balls were covered with an unimaginable number of fireflies and they lit up. The fireflies tried to get away, but were stuck to the honey and the balls ended up rolling into the pond and floating in the sea of night reflected in the water.

Leonard shook away the memory, sent the ghosts away. He gazed up at the night sky. The stars dimmed and brightened like fireflies in the midnight park. He didn't know whether it was real or the whiskey.

He held scant hope that some muddy little girl might be gazing back.

The bedroom was nearly barren, nothing but brown carpet and white walls, with a single night stand. Peepsite didn't care as he lay in bed, settling down into the indent his large body had formed in the mattress over the years. He slipped his headphones on and they instantly filled his head with synthesizer music he'd fished out of some dollar bin at K-Mart. He smiled back at the Panasonic Girl staring at him from atop his cassette player. She was his "guardian angel"--she was the only woman, other than his mother, he really knew. She came from the cardboard backing that packaged his headphones and was as flat as his life.

It was because of a real girl, Wendy, that Peepsite had finally left school. She wasn't the only reason, just the last straw. It was Peepsite's sophomore year of high school. He was much bigger than all of his classmates, but that would have been true even if he hadn't been held back. By junior high, everyone had realized it best to just leave him alone, lest they end up a bloody mess like Danny had that one fateful day in fifth grade. Peepsite generally disliked his classmates, never forgetting the treatment he'd received all through school, and was mostly happy to be left to himself.

Still, he wasn't immune to the effects of loneliness. He was always envious of the guys he passed in the hallway, holding hands with their girlfriends, or guys getting love notes from girls in class. Sometimes he would see couples he knew from school just out at the movies having a good time, while he sat alone in the back, twitching in the flickering dark. Peepsite was a romantic, he might as well have been the Elephant Man.

Continue reading "The Guardian Angel"

Lisa sat at the window, her drawing pad sitting on her lap, softly illuminated by the Hummel lamp her parents had brought back from Germany. She sketched a dandelion with her colored pencils, bright and yellow, while her sisters, nieces and nephews drowned her father in animated noise downstairs. Quiet as she was, she wouldn't silence them for anything, it let her know there was life in the house.

The dandelion reminded her of her best friend Scott, the day they met in the park.

Scott had always been a sensitive boy. His grandparents bought him a plastic swimming pool when he was very young, before he was made to go to school. He never used it. One day, he went out to play, after several days of mostly constant rain. The pool was filled with brownish water and soaked leaves.

Scott found a stick and poked at the vegetation floating in the pool. A drowned mouse drifted out from underneath. With great urgency, he ran inside to the kitchen, to get his mother. He pulled on her dress, crying and pointing at the pool. She ran outside with him.

He pointed at the mouse.

"Oh," She said, thinking he wanted to splash around in the water, "I don't think you should get in the pool. That mouse might have had a disease."

"Get it out!"

His mother still didn't understand, "No honey, it's dead. Stay out of the water."

"Why did it die?"

"Things die, Scott. That's what happens."

Continue reading "Dandelion Wine"

Anthony lay naked in bed, stuffed between the red satin sheets like a bratwurst between two buns. The bedroom had no windows and it was black as pitch. Anthony hated it. It forced him to be alone with his thoughts. He looked at the clock, its faint glowing numbers flickering from being thrown at the wall too many times--4 am. It was a blatant smack in the face. He knew Lynda was cheating on him. He wished he knew with whom, so he could beat the shit out of him.

At some level, it seemed to him that he was possibly being irrational. But he pushed that nagging feeling away, buried it deep down in a pit of anger. That was his mother talking. He knew it, because that's what his father taught him. His father had never made a secret of his many, many mistresses. That's just the way it was. His mother either had to accept it as a fact of life or hit the road. She chose to stay, to raise her sons, to blind herself with a Valium habit, thankful when her husband was home, sitting in the Lazy-boy with a beer, a cigar and a Playboy.

It wasn't really cheating to Anthony when he screwed one of his waitresses in the back room after hours. He was just being a normal guy--just like his dad. The thrill of banging some bitch he barely cared about--tonight was Doreen's lucky turn--far surpassed anything Lynda ever did to him in that bland cave of a bedroom. As he thought about it, it occurred to him that she never did anything to him--it was always him doing it to her. That was part of the problem.

Still, she'd make a good mother and Anthony knew he would have to get her to marry him before he could really do what he wanted. That's why he kept his affairs from her, why he rushed home and was relieved she wasn't there, even though he knew it meant she was probably out with whatever cocksucker she was fucking. And why he jumped in the shower as fast as he could get his pink shirt, black slacks and gold necklace off to wash away the scent of stale cigarettes, beer and dried pussy juice.

Continue reading "Anthony"

Slimmy J awoke from a dream of a time when he was a boy, sitting on the green sofa with his momma, watching the rain fall onto the city. It was the first time he remembered seeing rain and it was like magic, water falling from the sky. It was supposed to be sitting in the tub or sink, the toilet. Ever since that afternoon, he'd been fascinated with water. Walking home from school in the early spring, following rushing streams of melting snow. He liked to put bottle caps or anything else that would float in the streams and follow their path with the water.

As consciousness slowly dissolved into him like a stubborn chunk of snow overcome with water, he realized he was damp. It had probably rained overnight, and that's what caused his dream, he thought. His eyes were still closed, glued shut by discharge. He barely had the strength to get them open. He was starving and his body ached as it consumed itself to provide the energy for him to lift his head a few inches and look around. The alley was dry, he had pissed himself in his sleep again.

He knew he needed food badly, but there was no way he could summon the strength or the will to get it. He'd been in that alley for months, crawling around like a dog crippled by a car. He may not be able to feed his body, but he could still feed his habit. Weakly, he reached into his damp pocket and retrieved his lighter and a small piece of cellophane wrapped around a small rock. He put the rock into a broken light bulb lying in front of him and paused to summon the strength to hold it to his mouth long enough to smoke it. When he finished, what was left of the muscle in his arms gave out and they fell in front of him. As the euphoria took hold of him, tears streamed from his eyes, carrying away the crusted discharge like tiny bottle caps in a snowstream.

He heard footsteps approaching from the distance. It wasn't the crisp tap he associated with cops, cocky and purposeful. It was the slurred crunch of someone dragging the weight of life behind them like a shackled prisoner. Slimmy J tried to moisten his cracked lips, but his tongue was just as dry as they were, "Professor, that you?" He croaked.

Continue reading "A Crack in the Alley"

Peepsite sat in the cafe sipping on his hot chocolate while watching Nikki, one of the lesbian co-owners, prepare his sandwich. Something about her reminded him of a teacher he'd had long ago--Ms. Snodgrass. The mixture of hot cocoa, incense and John Lennon singing "Across the Universe" lulled him into a trance that carried him back in time.

Ms. Snodgrass was the bane of many a fifth-grader, for as long as she had been teaching--however long that was. It was impossible to determine her age. Some of her features, like her hair style, were that of an older woman. She had no wrinkles, but her body was shaped like a wax pear left out in the sun too long. Attributes that might pique interest if they belonged to someone remotely attractive seemed as though they were haphazardly stapled onto Ms. Snodgrass to dangle and jiggle like a cow's udder.

It was difficult for Peepsite to think of Ms. Snodgrass as a woman. And if there was anything Peepsite liked to think of, it was women. Moreso than the other fifth graders, who hadn't been held back a couple of times. As Peepsite watched--but not listened--to her lecture like a drill sergeant, it struck him how her name so matched her person.

"Snot," he thought, "Grass. Grass is green. Green snot."

Peepsite examined the drill sergeant. The way her lower lip protruded made her look as though she were constantly chewing tobacco. Her thin nose slanted down, like a chute aiming for her lip. He imagined her pulling the lip out further and tapping her nose, sending more material oozing down for her to pinch between her lip and gum.

"Peepsite! Pay attention!" She yelled.

Peepsite twitched reflexively. His face contorted into the gnarled mass of nerves that had been responsible for his nickname. All the kids laughed at him.

Danny, sitting next to him, poked him in the ribs, "Why do you do that?"

Peepsite reddened. Even the nerdy misfits were superior to him. The class continued to laugh. Danny, who was in no position to make fun of anyone with a head shaped like Frankenstein's monster, removed his black-framed glasses to wipe the tears from his eyes. Peepsite grew more frantic and the world around him blurred. He caught fragments of different classmates laughing at him. David, whose ability to outrun most anyone made him the most popular kid in class, was laughing. Susan, whose recently-emerging female attributes were the inspiration for much teasing among the boys, was laughing. Even Ms. Snodgrass was taking time out from chewing her salty cud to laugh.

But Susan hurt the most. He had long had a crush on her. Though, deep down, he knew she could never have any interest in the likes of him, she was at least kind to him. A rage ignited in his stomach and burned his chest. He wanted to hit her. How could she be so cruel? But he knew he couldn't hit her, so he hit the next best thing. He grabbed Danny by the neck and threw him backward onto his desk, raised his fist and plunged it into that misshapen Frankenstein head as hard as he could. Then again. And again.

The glasses broke. Danny's nose began to spill blood. His tears of laughter turned to tears of fear and pain.

Peepsite's surroundings had completely vanished now. All he could see was his prey lying there helpless before him. He continued pounding on that ugly head capped with short black hair until Mr. Newman came and dragged him into his office.

Continue reading "Peepsite"

Frankie Ancona shifted his weight onto his good leg. It was more tiring, but less painful and Frankie was determined never to take any sort of pills. They made him lose his edge, and an Italian can't afford to lose his edge. That was even more important than a leg. He lit up a Lucky Strike and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs, hoping it would absorb his worries and carry them away when he exhaled.

It didn't work. A wraith of smoke drifted away, taking nothing with it but a few soft glimmers of moonlight. But Frankie wasn't disappointed--it had never worked. He looked at the cigarette, its tip glowing orange in the night, just a few inches from his fingers. That did calm him. He'd seen what that orange glow could do to a man--a man held in place by a couple of other guys. Now, he was playing with it, in full control. With the flick of a finger, it would be suffocated by the puddle of dog piss ten feet away.

It seemed to be the only thing he had control of. In a half hour, he'd be at home waiting for dinner with the kids and grandkids. Everyone would be screaming as if they were blocks away from each other. The children would be howling with glee as they chased each other around the house. None of them would have any idea of the burden he carried--the burden he carried for them. And it took more and more energy to keep up that wall. If it wasn't for his eldest daughter, Lisa, he didn't know if he could do it at all.

His throat tightened as acid bubbled up from his stomach. Shaking, he took a roll of extra strength Tums from his pocket, peeled away the wrapper and popped four discs into his mouth. He rubbed his chest as he chewed, "That was a bad one."

Lisa had been born prematurely, tiny, weak and blue. Frankie had never experienced fear like he had that early morning when she was born, not even when he lost his leg. The instant he saw her, her life meant more to him than anything--even his edge. The nurses whisked her away. She was silent and her arms and legs moved slowly.

Continue reading "Frankie the Butcher"