bang

it just couldnt be true-- there was no way that he couldnt remember. candace had allowed herself two possibilities: that she had entered her phone number into his phone wrong, though she couldnt imagine doing that, or he was essentially a bad person and she should be glad that she figured it out early. but he was so precise on saturday, saying he would call on sunday between ten and eleven when he got his schedule, saying he wanted to take her to a movie early in the week. they talked for hours outside of the bar he worked for, their conversation interrupted by him having to check everyones IDs as they filed in. she walked home that night even though it was too late for her to do that, even though it was a very very long walk. she walked home and smiled the whole way, smiling because finally she was getting what she believed she deserved- a guy who made her forget what time it was, a guy who she actually liked who actually liked her back. there was no denying it, she knew he would call and she knew it would be spectacular and she knew already that she liked him so much it could potentially hurt. it was the most raw thing she had felt in months- instead of ignoring the parts that she didnt like about guys who liked her and then feeling relieved when they walked out of bars and never called again, or when they got the picture that she really had no feelings for them besides wanting a warm body and never called again, instead of going through those tired motions she wanted something, she really wanted it and she was near enough to see exactly how it would play out and exactly how satisfied she would be.

her mother was in town with her best friend from college, kitty, a woman candace had grown up with, a woman who defined being alive for her when she was a child, when she watched her dance in her strapless purple dress on her fortieth birthday party. candace's mom threw it for kitty at their home in georgia and candace carried it with her throughout her life- the image of kittys lithe body being dipped by candaces father to "diamonds on the soles of her shoes," her head thrown back and her mascara-ed eyes closed; and later, on the deck in the thick summer air, kitty kissing her boyfriend in the corner, his hands exploring her body like he was blind and she was braile. candace had always, even in her six old mind that night, considered it a preview of what she would experience- purple dresses and mascara and blushing cheeks and songs that make you laugh and being dipped in a crowded living room and men's hands finally being sated. kitty was married now and living in south florida with a husband who it was clear did not deserve her, who though he loved her desparately and couldnt imagine a life without her, was not who we had all envisioned her ending up with. she made him meat loaf every night, because thats what he wanted, and he usually fell asleep at the table before the plates had even been cleared. this trip was a moment of truth for her, she needed to be with her best friend and see candace and remember what it was like when the biggest worry was some bartender calling you back. she needed to put on makeup and call the waiters "sugar."

the three of them went to dinner on sunday night and candace told them that she was expecting a call, that it was a call she had been expecting for a long time now really and that though she didnt want to jump the gun this felt more right than anything had for a long time. and she said she knew that he was a bartender and all of the negative things that come with that but he was different, she absolutely knew it and she had never before been wrong about something she absolutely knew. and they were giddy with excitement for her and everytime she checked her phone they couldnt help but asking "well!?" not yet, she said each time, but it was just now ten and you know guys, they're always late.

he hadnt called by the next night and she was beginning to be worried that he had the wrong number. she imagined him dialing it and getting a wrong number and thinking 'why would she do that?' and then here she was and once they saw each other again they would work it out and it would be a mini pyramus and thisbe and it would just make for a great story. she was thinking that way on monday, and her mom and kitty both said the same thing- he'll call. he will call, he just has to do this for awhile. this man nonsense. and she believed them because every time theyve said it would work out, it has, in an eerily similar manner as how they predicted it would.

but he didnt, and it was thursday and she was getting ready to just go to the bar and see for herself. she and her best friend, the one who warned her from the beginning to not believe a word he says for two reasons- hes too good looking and hes a bartender, and when those things are combined there is very little regard for other people. though she was getting indignant and trying to muster up some anger rather than devastatingly pure disappointment, she knew something had to have happened. they had been flirting for weeks, and that last saturday night had been as close to perfect as she had felt in recent memory, the connection between the two of them, and besides it wasnt like they had hooked up and then he never called again. she could tell he didnt want it to be like that, which is why he wanted to take her on a date, a proper date. he said so himself and she believed him and still did. but when the two of them walked through the front doors and she caught his eye and he didnt change his facial expression or even linger on her face she began to get worried. this was the worst case scenario she had conjured up- this denial that it had ever happened. the two of them walked up to the bar and candace had to hold the ten dollar bill under the counter because her hands were visibly shaking. he looked at her and she smiled but he didnt ask her what she wanted, which he already knew by heart. instead a pallid, gaunt girl with long brown hair that candace had never seen working there before took her order. they sat on bar stools and just said things to each other to make them look busy. candace looked over now and then and he smiled at her once, with the same sort of smile he used to use every time she walked in. she was utterly confused.

halfway through their drinks he left to smoke a cigarette and candace insisted they go outside. her friend thought it was a bad idea but they couldnt sit there all night, just waiting for him. they downed the rest of their cocktails and walked outside, where he was talking to the doorman. she nudged him on the shoulder and said, in the most nonchalant voice she could muster, "hey, what happened?" and he looked at her like he had never seen her before and shrugged his shoulders. she walked over to her friend, lit a cigarette and touched his arm as he was opening the door to go back inside. she didnt say anything this time, she just lifted her hands up a little like i give up, i dont get the rules, just tell me what im supposed to do now and ill do it. he walked through the door and turned around before letting it close and smiled a little bit and said

i dont remember.

she was stunned. what if the whole thing had been a dream? what if she was going crazy and none of it had ever happened? was she dreaming now? he doesnt remember...he doesnt remember.

she walked to the end of the block, her friend saying just keep it in til we turn the corner and then all of the tears in the world will be yours, but when they turned the corner there were no tears there, just terrified confusion and a sufffocating fear that she was going insane. she said she just wanted to go home and began walking the same long walk she had walked the saturday before, after he called her by her last name and said he couldnt wait to be with her somewhere other than this dirty bar.

from her disbelief grew an amorphous mass of paranoia. she was paranoid that she was crazy, that she wasnt really alive, that even being there in new york was a lie that she had told herself. she began to be worried that she was about to be killed by everyone who passed, that cars were going to swerve off houston and flatten her, that every person who passed had a gun in their pocket that they were going to use to kill her dead. she was paranoid that she was destined to live in the cycle of these meaningless interactions with people that never amounted to anything more than a vague memory, a memory that gets quickly pushed aside. that was the worst one, worse than being killed or being delusional- the fear that this is what life is, hollow encounters, and maybe even lies, purposeful lies created by people who tricked you into trusting them.

she was walking through the worst part of her journey home. the darkest stretch, the one that normally made her clutch her purse and quicken her step. but for some reason now the fear had turned into indifference, over the course of just a few blocks, and she felt morbidly excited to be validated by one of those paranoias. and then two men turned the corner and began walking towards her. they were black and big and she had a tendency to fall into these reprodcued notions of what was scary and those two things were to her very scary- big and black. she kept walking towards them and she walked harder becauase normally she hated the sound her heels made, like an unitentional mating call, but tonight she wanted to test it and just see how many holes she could burn into her own self, her own fears, the things that kept her where she was.

the men were looking her up and down and talking to each other and she would have been getting very scared now, scared to the point of coming up with a plan, but tonight she wasnt. she had gone to one limit, and now she was going to the other. obviously she had always been scared of the wrong things- black men and guns and cars hitting her and really, what she needed to be scared of was a beauiful man who said, while she was in the middle of a sentence, 'i think youre pretty,' and then had the potential to tell her he didnt remember. so fuck that, she said to herself, and maybe even out loud. fuck it i had my priorities all wrong and now i know who to fear.

and as they were about to cross each other one of the men grabbed her arm. her heart was racing, hadnt stopped racing since she walked into the bar. she was breathing heavily and looking into his eyes and they were like two cracked eggs, frying in a pan.

"bang bang," he said, and let go of her arm with a violent thrust.

the first right thing

she had known since the first time they ever spoke but the first time that she admitted she knew they were in a hottub in her parents backyard, drinking cheap wine from a bottle so big they had to use both hands to tilt it upwards. it was christian who said it, and he said it with a purpose completely apart from revealing the truth.

william loves you.

the only part of her that was not submerged were her ears and eyes, and she slid like a crocodile over to william and hugged him and he laughed and sighed in one desparate noise and she knew she shouldnt have. he was just wearing underwear, white ones that he was ashamed of, and as she wrapped her arms around his neck and situated herself between his legs she could feel him hardening. their wet cheeks made a doughy sound when she pulled back.

the reason christian said it was because he had just kissed her, when william had gotten up and tactufully ballooned out his shorts before tiptoeing to the bathroom. she was sitting on the ledge with her feet up on either side of her hips and he slid over and without asking or touching her or waiting for a second just to look, put his mouth on hers, open and grasping. it was an urgent kiss, more like an examination or a test drive. there was nothing about like involved, he was doing it because she was pretty and his friend had a crush on her, had had a crush on her since the day she ate a salad with an ice cream scoop at work. she was someone who it would always be acceptable to have a crush on, mainly because she made everyone feel like she had a crush on them, and there was something more attractive about that than anything else in the world. but christian didnt like her, not really, not like william did. and kissing her really wasnt that exciting, in fact he became exponentially more aroused when he saw william's shadow in the door of the porch bathroom and watched, with an eye half open like a blind that almost reaches the windowsill, him descend the stairs and wipe away his droopy brown hair in an awkward attempt to pretend not to notice. it was too easy, see. thats why christian did it.

it was delicious for her that night. it was delicious because she didnt have to really try, she had been doing it for so long that it really did feel natural. there was no part of her that thought, slide like a crocodile, slide slide slide. there was no part of her that thought this right now, my wet body in between his naked legs, must be unbearable to him, it must be nearing misery. when she thought about it later she wished there had been a moment when she did something like that,like the crocodile slide thing, maybe even all the way back in preschool, and thought, "oh, this is the first wrong thing ive ever done, and even though it doesnt feel right it feels good." but if she had known it was wrong it would have been much more transparent, and part of the wrongness of it was that she was totally oblivious.

the first time she was ever made to realize how tragic it was that she had been blind to it all along, was years later when she and william had drinks in the mission after not having seen each other for almost a year, after he told her that yes, indeed he did have feelings for her and it was becoming uncomfortable, this closeness to her, this proximity. they met up for drinks because she insisted on it, like she insisted with every other male friend of hers who had admitted to having romantic feelings for her that it wasnt a big deal, that it was just a phase, that the only reason they liked her was beacuse they loved her so much as a friend. when really the only reason they liked her was because she loved them so much, period. it didnt matter what kind of love it was, if she ever had any intentions of sleeping with them or even holding their hand. she loved them and laughed with them and gave them all of her in every way she could, in every non-body way she could. and that was always the catch, the body part. she dangled it and held it in front of them like a beautiful dress in a window on a perfect size zero mannequin--when you look at the dress you can imagine what you would look like in it, if only you were a size zero mannequin. and then you go to try it on and it just plain doesnt fit or your saddlebags jut out or it makes your breasts look floppy. they imagined themselves as mannequins because she gave them the illusion they were, and then they went to try it on and essentially it had all been a lie.

so they met in the mission at a bar she had never been to and she had four wine spritzers even though she was driving and he drank scotch and they made small talk and never brought up the hottub or the ensuing conversations or where christian was. the weeks following the hottub he had moved back to washington and never returned her emails. william was being recalcitrant in his conversation, purposefully creating silences and answering questions with just a few words. she missed him, she earnestly wanted to hang out with him again, to laugh about work or talk about books or be the only people who follow the rule at costume parties. she kept reaching for those things, she kept trying to make it like it was, and all she got from him was the feeling that this was something he was enduring. but, as is usually the case when someone is enduring something, he seemed to be waiting. like he was waiting on the third person to join them or some game to come on the bar's tv. after they cleared the tab and were sitting in silence with just a few sips left, she did something she had never done with a man who was her friend, who wanted to be her something else. she got the point.

we can never be friends, can we?

will you ever be in love with me, he said, with no question mark.

she gave him a closed lip smile, left a fiver on the table for the tip and walked out into the brisk san francisco night. it was the first right thing she had ever done.

it aint no joke

what do you do, when that happens?

when what happens? people asking for money?

well yeah, or just anything, you know, when they walk up to you with a story. i mean, im just curious to know what other people in this field think, since it directly pertains to us. if theres like, a prevailing theory or something. a perspective a model a hypothesis. one of those.

no, i dont think there is. i think you do what feels right at the time, and if its used for drugs later then it is. and if its used to buy some kid pampers then it is. theres no way to tell and im not even sure if it matters.

is it bad that because im now technically a social worker i feel absolved of guilt? or at least, i feel like i should be. like, hey i wont give you a fucking dollar but im dedicating my life to eliminating this. but sometimes still i have this almost romanticized notion about it, like just walking up to someone and giving them a 20. thats paternalistic is what it is! right? and even worse that i get a rush out of it. that i find it sort of, cinematic or something. i cant believe im actually admitting this.

oh come on crystal everyone does. and who gives a fuck if its because you think its cinematic or not! youre giving them a twenty dollar bill, its probably the most money theyve ever gotten from one person before. thats generous, it doesnt need to have a hypothesis behind it. it helps them.

but does it, i guess is what i was asking originally. does it help them or does it prevent them from helping themselves? is it paternalistic.

i know what you were asking but im sticking to it- it helps them. hell im a social worker too, i obviously dont think that anything significant will ever change if we all just keep walking around giving one in a hundred people who ask twenty bucks. but that being said it does help and it is generous and if you want to do it then its right.

and if you dont want to do it? is that right too?

sure.

they parted ways and he got on the F to brooklyn and she got on the D up to the bronx where she worked at an old age home. on the train she sat next to a young girl reading teen people. there was an article about how many salads kristen dunst eats and covering the page were paparazzi shots of her sitting at outside cafes, eating salads. the girl was studying each picture, which from where crystal was sitting looked identical. the girl glanced up at crystal like a cat, like she caught her. crystal smiled a closed lip smiled and looked forward. she got one of her school books out, in the shadow of the poorhouse, and opened it. it was dry and dense and depressing and she had no idea what to do about it, about the state of social welfare in america. learning about the history of it only made her feel more paralyzed.

"none of the critics of poor relief, it must be stressed, proposed to eliminate poverty."

the train lurched to a stop at 59th street.

"the poor, or so it was assumed, should fend for themselves"

a tall lithe black woman wearing jeans and sweatshirt that read "hot damn here i am" walked onto the train car carring a makeshift drum.

"in the south, distinctions of race ultimately proved more important than those of class."

the woman began her speech about how she was sorry to bother us but she just needed to support her kids.

"poor-relief was supposed to shore up white supremacy by assuring even needy whites a standard of living and work superior to that of blacks."

without any other words she knelt and with a drumstick and her hand began beating out a rhythm.

"even in indigency and unemployment, a distinction had to exist between the white hireling and the black slave if the grand illusion of white supremacy was not to be eroded at its base."

she sang:
it aint no joke
for real im broke.
hey hey no joke.
im broke
broke
broke

red

she herself wasnt affected by it; she didnt even know anyone who was. it would have been strange if she did, actually, given the randomness of it--terrorists leaving bombs on five underground cars. she rode it every day, used the aldgate station in fact, to transfer on her way to class, so maybe it wouldnt have been surprising if it had been she who had died down there rather than that high school girl or that middle aged man who worked at the british library giving tours. it had happened days ago and london was beginning to heal, the color was returning to peoples faces and the city was regaining some of the noise that had been eerily sucked from the streets like milkshake through a straw, every bit of mirth and carelessness just gone, as if this was a routine, as if people were used to things like this happening and knew exactly how to act- stoic. she couldnt stop watching the news, even then, almost a week since people ran to catch the last train in their time frame of not-being-lateness and ended up ashes. she was glued to the tearful faces of the wives who had lost husbands, of the children who had lost parents, of the parents who had lost entire lives-- just like that, no time to say goodbye and it is all gone, all gone forever.

she was fascinated and almost sickened by how one person can become so single and so crucial and so central and how if that one person is gone, just a tangled web of veins and bones and neurons, life becomes utterly meaningless, no matter how many other wonderful people there are around you, no matter how many other wonderful people there are left in the world to discover. no matter what is in store, the fact that so much can live inside of one other person, and that that one other person's welfare is essentially beyond your control, paralyzed her. she wasnt thinking soley of romantic relationships, her one other person was her mother she knew without even asking herself. but part of her did think about that, about finding the love of your life-- and knowing it, knowing it inside you so blankly that there was nothing more true than that-- and then losing them randomly to a bomb in a backpack. because see, and here was the thing that kept her from going to school for the last week and the thing that kept her engrossed in these desparate sorrowful testimonials on the news-- meeting that person, finding that love of your life soul mate, was not random. she simply could not live a happy or satisfied life if she thought otherwise. things are meant to be, and even if there is some rule that states "things are not meant to be," for her, in her life, they were. and it was the reason she kept on living and it was the reason she still had hope and it was the only thing she knew. and therefore because she felt that so deeply and so wholly, people getting killed because someone built a bomb and placed it in the 4th car of the train that came at 7:54 am was so incongruous and so unsettling she was, as literally as is possible, coming unsewn.

as she was watching the evening news the saturday after it happened her friend brian rang and insisted she come out.

"elise this has gone further than is ok. you must come out tonight or i am calling your family and i am telling them that you havent left the flat in a week and are eating a spoonful of peanut butter a day and im telling them that i think you need some serious fucking help. i know youre torn up about this, we all are...its hell, its absolute hell to see this happen to human beings where you live, to see this happen to your home. but you have got to leave the house. youre acting self centered and you arent that. youre stronger and smarter than this."

she was silent. there was a commercial on TV for cadbury chocolate that had two chickens with bunny ears on and she wondered how in the hell they stayed still long enough to allow that to happen to them.

"elise? ill see you at the palace on brick lane alright? we're all meeting there at 8 and then going to that club down the street, remember the one? the one when you danced on the couch and broke the heel off those pink shoes?" she didnt say anything. "ill see you there and im not kidding around if i dont im calling your family."

she waited for him to hang up but he didnt. she could still hear him breathing. the news came back on but the daily coverage of the bombings was over. each day there were less minutes spent talking about it. she wondered how that made people feel, people who had escaped but who had seen body parts littering the seats. people who were left behind, with an empty side of the bed and a half eaten plate of curry in the fridge because his stomach started to ache before he had finished it.

"brian?"

"yeah im still here."

"ok ill see you there then."

"elise thank you. i swear this has to happen. you will get better, we all will."

but she just didnt know if that was true, or even what better was. was better how she felt before all of this? because that wasnt that good, it just wasnt this bad. maybe this is better, maybe this is a necessary step in reaching the best and shes just closer than anyone else.

"alright then, bye."

she put on her favorite red dress, the one that she got at camden market for ten pounds, and a pair of sneakers. there was no way she could prance down the street in heels, click click clicking along. before she left she looked in the mirror for the first time in days and wasnt surprised. she looked like she was in mourning, she looked dishevelled and pallid. so she put on her brightest blood red lipstick and pinched her cheeks and then she walked to meet up with her friends.

she drank wine and ate a meal and she tried to laugh and people were sympathetic, saying things like, i hear youve been taking this whole thing really hard, its so tragic, i couldnt believe my eyes. her friend james who had loved her always and who looked at her with the most searching eyes she had ever seen put his arms around her and said, "i think its so sweet that you got so worked up about this whole thing." and she looked at him and said, "its not sweet james. its fucked up." and crossed her arms and tried not to cry.

they went to the club and the music was louder than she remembered and it wasnt crowded enough for her. suddenly what she wanted was to be crushed by the weight of other people. she wanted to lose everyone she knew or recognized in the vast mass of other people and she wanted to wonder around a maze of strangers for the rest of her life, never resting her eyes on the same person twice. she wanted anonymity and rootlessness. she wanted to never have to explain herself, she wanted to do or say something and have it just exist as it is, without the weight or burden of other peoples expectations or preconceived notions of her blurring the essence of it. she had to leave.

she began walking down brick lane towards mile end road. she hadnt told anyone she was leaving and she hadnt brought her cell phone with her on purpose, so there would no one to answer to, no one taunting her from the zipper compartment of her pocketbook. even though she was still not being crushed by mobs of people, it felt better to be moving, to have no one keeping track of you or wondering why. she kept walking and walking and pretty soon she was nearing central london, making her way further and further west. she got to the kings cross station, which was heavily boarded up and blocked off. there was a giant vigil though, with some people there though it was almost one in the morning. flowers and notes taped to the fence, dolls and books and little offerings to people who no longer exist. people who no longer exist.

she walked up to the fence and read a note. all it said was

this is not happening.

she opened another and it said

dear sweet you. the worst part is, i am reduced to a note taped to a chain fence to tell you things i hope you already knew. its silly isnt it, youre laughing at me now for coming here, for being so maudlin but i always have been. i do not know how i will go on living. the only thing i keep thinking about is that one time. you know the one i mean. i will stay alive if only to remember the way i felt at that moment. i will never love anyone the way i love you.
-gopher
p.s. youve done it, youve died with your shoes on, just like you always said you would.

she read as many as she could find, even though something about it felt very wrong. she cried as she read them, she cried so hard that she was sure the people who came and went thought it was her who was grieving. and then she realized she was, she was grieving on behalf of any human being who has ever grieved. she was grieving for every person who ever lost something or someone and knew that they would never be able to get it back. she sobbed out loud and after she had read almost all of them, she kept walking, just as she was, sobbing out loud and not worrying with wiping the tears. there was a small half moon of tears on the bib part of her red dress.

as she passed by trafalgar square there was a group of three guys sitting on the statue with the stairs, the one that is always drenched in tourists and pigeons. two of them were leaning back and one of them was staring at her, she could tell though she was many many yards away.

they had taken acid seven hours ago, just the three of them, in toph's hotel room. his was a recognizable face now, at least in america, and his popularity as a model was getting increasingly strange. he was only 22, he hadnt finished college, and up until the agency bought him a loft in LA he was still liviing with his family in ohio. when he was told that he was going to london for a fashion shoot that would appear in british elle and that the companys private plane would take him, he told chase and ryan that they were coming with him and they did. they had gone to a party the night before where a beautiful woman asked to kiss toph and afterwards handed him an envelope with enough acid to keep him trippping until he was middle aged. so they took it, for the first time, and wandered around london until they found trafalgar square. they had gotten there hours ago and chase and ryan had immediately fallen asleep. toph wasnt sure if he had, he had been in an odd dreamful waking state, alternating between bouts of bolting straight up and then having to calm his heart down and feeling like syrup being poured through a sifter. he could feel his blood flowing, everything was so slowed down. and it felt good, it felt real, like all this time there had been too much static clouding the truth-- that if you listen close enough you can feel your blood moving--and for an instant the static stopped and he got it. he needed this, this trip with his two best friends. it was hard not to feel like you were living a new life, or in a new dimension. his face was on a billboard in times square and another one on sunset boulevard, right beside the chateau marmont. sometimes he felt like the old him had died, that the funeral had been when he signed the contract with the agency and they clapped and patted him gruffly on the back and shook him hand and pumped it one too many times. the funeral had been when they said, yeah yeah we like this dirty grungy look be sure to not gain any more weight and be sure to -yeah yeah! like that- push your hair to the side of your face but dont tuck it behind your ear. be sure to not get too much sun because we like this pale look, its real marketable, this things gonna sell.

it was nearing dawn. he had just awoken from a dream where he felt like he was leaning back in his chair like he used to in middle school and then he started falling backwards, into an abysss that had no bottom. he sat up with a jerk and looked around. there was no one in sight except for a cab that just passed and a tiny tiny red dot down the street. it was a person, walking towards them.

"whatre you doing man" chase said without opening his eyes. he wrapped his arms more snuggly around his t-shirted torso.

"im in love with her," toph replied, though he wasnt even sure if it was a girl yet.

"whatre you talking about? theres no her here."

ryan sat up slowly. "im still fucked dude"

"tell me about it. why are we even up right now" chase said and blinked his eyes open.

"im in love with her." chase and ryan followed his eyes to see what he was looking at.

"dude toph im not even sure thats a girl. and how do you know you like her so much anyway?" ryan said.

chase lay back down and said, "he likes her because he knows she'll like him."

and it was partially true so no one said anything after that.

elise was approaching trafalgar square and still she was sobbing. as soon as she saw people sitting on the steps of the statue she quieted her sobs, but she didnt wipe her nose or her eyes and the tears were limitless and steady. she could forsee no good reason that they would ever stop, and for the first time that seemed fine to her. she would be like that boy who had the hiccups for 6 months. the girl who always cries. theres enough fodder, isnt there? it really shouldnt be so shocking. more of you should try it, really its a brave and real thing to do. that would be her bi-line. its brave to do what im doing. try it for a fucking second and youll see, you cowards. youll see.

as soon as she walked within the actual sqaure toph could make out her hair color and general features of her face and though he thought it couldnt be true when he first noticed it, she was crying. as soon as it registered, as soon as ryan said "shit man, tell me shes not crying" toph had bounded from the stairs on the pavement and ran towards her.

she wasnt scared, mainly because he was beautiful. but she didnt try to dodge him or avoid his path and she didnt wonder if he was on drugs or if he was going to drug her and kill her or if she would ever see her mother again or what it would feel like to be shot in the stomach or what would it feel like to be thrown to the cement or what would it feel like if this wasnt really happening, if the whole bombing crying peanut butter beautiful man running towards her thing was just a dream, a nightmare with a strange twist at the end. she just kept walking and kept crying, the tears hadnt found the finish line yet, it wasnt even in sight.

he hugged her. he ran to her, barefoot in his dirty white shirt and his truly old jeans the ones from ohio that his mother forbade him to wear in public, and stopped one step in front of the step she was about to take and she pretty much just walked into his arms. and she kept crying while she was there and she hugged him back and he said

"im sorry."

and they looked at each other for a minute before she kept walking west, getting further and further from home.

category five

dinner was almost ready and the table was set. in the new house the den and the dining room were in the same open space, so as she carted food from the kitchen to the table she could see her father watching the news and drinking jack daniels, his right ankle resting on his left knee like a cocked bow. there were noises from the kitchen like oven doors opening and the smack of the refrigerator door as it closed. her nieces had just been over with her older sister and had left a trail of books that talked and naked barbies and crushed cheerios. this was her favorite time of day, this ebb. it had a color to her- the deep brown of the leather couch, the deep brown of the books and the bookshelves and the wood of the floors. it was a quiet color, it was a satisfying color, a color that means your stomach is about to be full and you can curl up on any number of warm surfaces and stay there for as long as you would like because your day is over and there is nothing left to do but that. the windows were open for the first time that summer and the sturdy whrrrl of the air conditioning was replaced with the birds outside, with childrens voices on the street, with cars starting and people coming home from work. it wasnt hot, though before the sun began to set it had been unbearable at times during the day. it wasnt hot but it was thick and she liked that, the weight of the air on her, reminding her that she was back in the south, that she was back home.

her father was watching the news and with each trip from the kitchen she noticed his face getting increasingly layered, like someone was slowly stepping on his foot or twisting his arm and it was growing more and more unpleasant. there had been a hurricane a few days before, it hadnt affected them except for a storm during the night that made the power flicker, but it had been a bad one, a category five, and all she knew was that new orleans was practically submerged in water. she hadnt been watching the news at all since she had been home, preferring to sleep and read and detach herself completely from what she felt was a dependence on entertainment produced for the masses. but by overhearing the news anchor and by seeing the concern on her fathers face she was beginning to understand it was much much worse than she had originally thought.

she sat on the couch beside her father and asked what was happening and, in his typical response, he said nothing. whether it was the trauma of fighting in vietnam or his old age or some other less grave reason, he often did not respond to people's questions and had to be asked multiple times. this had been happening her entire life and thus she had always assumed it was the residual effect of having shot people, of having been shot, of having watched life end over and over and over for reasons beyond his ability to understand. he never talked about it.

she watched the news with him. there were images of utter devastation- water up to people's waists, entire communities reduced to piles of wood, like matchsticks, tiny shards of what once were people's lives. there were fires raging caused by chemicals and electrical explosions. people were looting stores because there was no potable water anywhere in the city, no food for sale anywhere and no food left in anyones houses since most houses were completely annihilated. people started shooting each other, shooting strangers, walking into hospitals and shooting patients. hospitals had no power, nurses were watching patients die because they simply could not keep performing mouth to mouth forever. people were stranded on their roofs, with nothing, waiting for someone to come and lift them away. they were stranded on their roofs with nothing and no means of communication except for desparate pleas of SOS carved into the shingles. there were tens of thousands of people being housed in a convention center with no resources, no help. people were shitting on the floors, people were dying and being covered by shoddy blankets and newspaper, their dead bodies pushed to corners. gravesites were loosening and coffins were floating to the surface; the entire city smelled of death. peoples houses flooded and they tried to claw their way through the roof, out the walls, using whatever they could grab. mothers had to let go of children and watch them literally drown, helpless. husbands were missing wives, with no idea of where they were or how they would ever be reunited again. the images made her stomach sick. her mother had wandered in from the kitchen, her apron still on, and had mumbled dinner was ready before being silenced by the newscaster's endless torrent of tragedy after tragedy. as the broadcast was ending they played "amazing grace" sung by a man who was from new orleans, and showed image after image of the displaced people, the ones who were so poor that many lived with their entire extended families, many had no cars and therefore couldnt leave at all, even if there was another place they could go.

a commercial came on and the three of them stayed in their positions: she and her father on the couch, her mother leaning against it, her apron now balled up in her hand.

"dinner," she said quietly and slowly they walked toward the table and took their assumed seats.

they held hands and bowed their heads like they do before every meal and waited for him to say the prayer but he didnt say anything. they waited, hands holding, the food on the table steaming hot and smelling of beef and butter and garlic and bread. still, he said nothing and still they kept their heads lowered. she had never seen her father cry and she was terrified, paralyzed with fear, that if she opened her eyes she would see his face twisted, she would see tears on his face. she kept her eyes closed and waited.

he sniffed and she knew. as soon as he sniffed it was obvious that he was crying, that his whole body was clutched by the sobs he was refusing to allow out.

her mother immediately said "thank you god" and they each gave each other's hand a tiny squeeze as they do every time they pray, wiped their eyes and began serving themselves.