Johnny, raised by a single mother in a meat-and-potatoes town, nears the end of his senior year football season to be greeted by  a slew of enticing scholarship offers. In an attempt to win this top athlete, competing universities fly Johnny cross-country for weekends of sex, parties, and a bit of the local flavor. All of this wining and dining presents Johnny with a major dilemma: does he go to state school to be with his girlfriend* and remain true to his values, or does Johnny throw them both away for bigger and better things elsewhere?

*His girlfriend is played by a young Uma Thurman, in what I believe to be her first major role.

Good or bad, Johnny is not my particular focus. Let’s talk RDJ. Apparently, Robert Downey Jr. spent the bulk of the 1980s playing the quirky sidekick, as evidenced yet again by this film. I can only guess that RDJ’s performance must have been severely drug-influenced. There is a level of weirdness and out-of-the-blue dialogue that seems unique to the rest of the film, not to mention the buggy eyes, twitchy gestures, etc. Watch below and see what I mean.

And with that, I shall bit you adieu. See you next week with 1969.

by Alex Hugh Brown

“Beep Beep Beep Beep”

The alarm swelled in volume until a veined spindly hand smacked it off. A moan escaped from underneath the down comforter before the mature woman with the short hair cut emerged from its folds. She wondered if today would be any different from the rest. She tried not to get her hopes up.

She squeezed out the remnants of shampoo from the free sample package and massaged it through her coarse hair. After rubbing the generic beauty bar against her weathered skin, she stood in the shower for longer than necessary. She opened her mouth and let the warm liquid pool in the gaping hole, trickling down her chin and neck. She closed her eyes and thought of New Orleans.

If she could have chosen her ensemble for the day it would have been fabulous. Red sweater, grey slacks, perhaps the gold necklace her ex-husband had given her. But she had to work at the restaurant, so she donned her uniform of black pants, black socks, black shoes, and black shirt with the buffet’s logo plastered on the front. She liked wearing black. Unless it was required.

Her enormous cat mewed at her feet as she applied her face.

“Good morning, Minxie,” she croaked.

In the kitchen she delicately opened a tin of Fancy Feast and scraped it into a dish. She dipped her finger in and then sucked it.

“Well, I’m jealous,” she teased.

She sat before the altar she had constructed in her living room. A silver knife rested on top of a book of spells she purchased after the divorce and before the conversion to Wicca. She lit a white candle and recited a few enchantments. Every day she hoped they would bring her a fraction of what she asked for. She then placed a hex on her dumb, fat, gay manager.

She looked at the clock and realized she was running late again. After her manager had told her she was “on thin ice,” she tried hard to break this ritual. It was proving to be a futile effort. She threw on her precious mink coat, one of the few remnants from her previous life, and dashed out the door.

Her manager paused during the server meeting he was conducting as she walked through the door of the Rocky Mountain Mongolian Barbeque. He then looked at his watch and shook his head.

“You’re seven minutes late, Sylvia,” he said, his voice rising in pitch through the admonishment.

“I’m sorry, Bruce, it’s just that Minxie was throwing up all night so I had to take her to the animal hospital,” she lied. Artificial tears began to well in her eyes.

“Well, next time make sure to call in advance to let me know you’ll be late.”

“Right. I’ll do that. Thanks for understanding”

As Bruce turned back to the meeting, she shot him a look that could freeze hell. She sauntered to the bar and took a vacant stool. She zoned out.

After locking her mink in the office, she checked the tables in her section for the correct amount of silverware, napkins, place mats, salt, pepper, and sugar. She was extremely vigilant in this regard. When the teenage boys who worked at the Rocky Mountain on weekends were clocking out, Sylvia, with a stern eye, would scan every sugar caddy in their sections before releasing them into the wide world with her signature (a cat’s paw). It wasn’t because she gave two shits about the chain of pseudo-Oriental restaurants. She just didn’t want to get stuck doing their dirty work.

Satisfied with the current state of her section, she retreated to the kitchen where the Mexican fry cooks had just whipped up a batch of moo-shu/burrito hybrids. She greeted the staff.

“Meow,” she yowled.

“Hola,” they mumbled back.

She pointed at the steaming bowl and forced her lips to curl as far upward as they could to ask permission. Juan, the one who had made them, nodded.

“Si, si, take,” he said.

“Grassy-ass,” she replied, snatching a moo-shu.

As delicious as the spicy meat and vegetable creation smelled, she knew something that would make it even more enjoyable. She tucked the moo-shu in a to-go box under the server station, looked around for Bruce, and saw him just as he exited to make his daily deposit at the bank. She had fifteen minutes.

She rummaged through her purse for the silver cigarette case, the lighter, and the rose water perfume. She slid them in to her pocket and then waltzed through the kitchen and out the back door to the alley.

She snapped open the case, and pulled out a half-smoked joint. She put it between her haphazardly painted lips. After two failed attempts, the sticky igniter finally gave way. She pulled the smoke deep in to her rattling body. She exhaled. Today was beginning to look up.

Something above caught her eye. A seagull flapped from one rooftop to the next. Sylvia wondered how he had managed to travel so far from the sea. He didn’t belong here.

“You and me both,” she said to the air. She didn’t know why, but she expected some sort of acknowledgement from the bird, perhaps a coo of comradery. It never came.

After smoking it until she burned her finger, she put out the doobie. She doused herself in rose water and returned to the restaurant. She made a bee-line for the trash can on the other side of the kitchen. The journey felt like swimming through jello. As she threw away the roach, more deliberately than necessary, one of the teenage boys saw her. They locked eyes. She feigned surprise. He laughed.

“Shhhhh,” she snickered.

“Oh, Sylvie,” he sighed.

“Sylvia! I didn’t change my name so that people would call me Sylvie,” she sneered.

“Jeez. Sorry.”

She realized that what she had said hadn’t come off as a joke. The teenage boy walked away before she could explain. Not that she necessarily would have.

She retrieved her moo-shu from the to-go box. It was room temperature now. She didn’t care. She stuffed it into her mouth. It tasted better than sex. As she ate, she overheard the assistant manager, a burly man who was a bit slow, describe how he was going to go to a salon in the “gay neighborhood,” to get his back hair sculpted in anticipation of his trip to Mardi Gras. He wanted to get the number 69 shaved out of the matted fur that covered his body.

When he mentioned Mardi Gras, Sylvia’s mind wandered from the dark Rocky Mountain to her sunlit porch in the Big Easy thirty years before. She wore a white eyelet dress and sipped fresh squeezed lemonade from a large glass. She rifled through the papers she was supposed to analyze for her job at a major cosmetics company, but couldn’t seem to focus on the task at hand. She rolled her head back and let out an audible sigh. She combed her fingers through her long, blonde hair and then swept it all so that it laid against her right shoulder. Her husband would be home soon. When he arrived, he would give her a gold necklace, which she said she would wear every day for the rest of her life. The next week, they would go to the doctor, who would tell her she would never conceive.

“Sylvia?” one of the young people asked.

“Ah!” she jerked awake.

“You just got sat at 33.”

“Oh. Great.”

She dragged herself to the table, where a young couple sat.

“Welcome to the Rocky Mountain Mongolian Barbeque my name is Sylvia I’ll be taking care of you today have you dined with us before?”

“No, how does this all work?” the girl chirped.

“Fantastic can I get you started with iced tea lemonade coke diet coke sprite?”

She spent the rest of her shift like this. Not a witch, but a zombie. She daydreamed of life before the spiral into addiction that had ended her marriage.

She smoked another joint when she got home. Minxie sat in her lap as she watched prime time TV and ate Mongolian barbeque. Minxie was a good kitty. She knew when Sylvia was making a joke.

Sylvia thought about apologizing to the teenage boy she snapped at. For what, though? Why? He had probably already forgotten. The events of his life were passing by so quickly, she wondered how he kept anything straight. She envied him. To be young again, knowing what she now knew, to have the chance to do it all over… That would be nice. At one o’clock in the morning, when she realized she was watching the infomercial for the instant rotisserie for the third time, she cradled Minxie, lifted up her tired bones, and trudged to her bedroom. When she released the catatonic beast, it plopped on to the bed and stayed put, like a furry paperweight. Sylvia slid under her down comforter, and wondered if the next day would be any different from the rest. She tried not to get her hopes up.

“Beep Beep Beep Beep”

Originally published July 2009 in glasses glassses’ Nuts & Bolts issue.

Oh, and if you’re interested in writing for us on a more regular basis…we’re looking for that too.

Clay, the protagonist, is played by Andrew McCarthy. Rather than presenting him as the book’s uber-passive/indifferent, drug-obsessed bisexual, the film paints Clay as a straight as can be–straight-edged, straight-laced, and in completely in love with his ex-girlfriend. Given that the novel is defined by the very elements the film eliminates, screenwriter Harley Peyton had quite a story to craft, scrapping the bulk of the plot and using the original character names as he saw fit.

In order for the film to work in accordance with Hollywood norms and to maintain McCarthy’s heartthrob status of ‘87, the storyline is reconfigured around Clay, Blair (Jami Gertz), and Julian (RDJ). After Clay leaves Los Angeles for college in New Hampshire–breaking up the classic triumvirate of boy, his girlfriend, and his best friend–Blair and Julian become entwined in a self-destructive love affair. Clay returns home for Christmas break to discover what has become of his dear friends. While Julian has become an overt crack addict (it’s heroin in the book), Blair simply sticks to her golden coke wand, dipping into her magical powder whenever she needs a boost (she does do coke, but so does Clay’s 15-year-old sister). RDJ spends the majority of the film breaking out in severe sweats, sporting a rabies-like foam on his lips, and sleeping in various public parks. Unconcerned with the unraveling state of his best friend, Clay only cares about trying to convince Blair to relocate to New Hampshire upon his return. (He couldn’t care less what she does.)

In the end, the three come together to try and get everything back on track (Clay checks up on Julian mostly out of sick curiosity). Blair says goodbye to her coke habit and the three take to the road to confront Julian’s drug-dealer/pimp, Rip, in Palm Springs. (Rip was actually Clay’s dealer. Julian had a man of his own named Finn). As Rip doesn’t answer to anything but cash compensation, he sends in his goons to do the “talking.” After a dramatic chase, the threesome speeds through the desert, seemingly to safety. But it’s too late. In the wee hours of the morning, Julian dies of an overdose. (At this point in the book, Clay’s friends are busy gang raping a 12-year-old).

The moral of the film: crack kills. Or more simply: don’t do drugs. The moral of the book? Oh, yeah, the book barely contains the slightest trace of morality.

by Bennett Elliott

The barred glass door swinging back on its hinges as the chimes above it jingled, noon heat poured inside along with the slow bass rattle of a car stereo. Shouting in Spanish, two boys sprinted to the back for cold sodas, flip-flops slapping dirty tiles as they raced. The pair tore past the Korean cashier’s argument with a stooped, sweaty man in his early seventies about the convenience store’s refusal to accept unrolled pennies in the purchase of lottery tickets.

In a wedding dress and veil, flowers in hand, she was nauseous, burning up, suffocating. Heavy and still—the one store fan rotating behind the bulletproof glass—the air in the store would have made the barely dressed light-headed. Slowly curling in it for over a week now, day in and day out, she was used to that, though—the heat wasn’t the explanation for the queasiness. Nonetheless, were she capable of moving, she’d have wiped the moisture from her glossy forehead, eased her posture, thrown down the flowers and dropped the smile, permanent and glowing, from her face.

It was the same with the view in front of her: back-hair sticking out of the old man’s tank-top, ass-crack showing above track-pants, spit firing across resentful, patterned shouts of English and Korean. Taking nothing else into account, that sight could set anyone to gagging in the humidity. Remove all of that, though—the swelter, the ass-crack, the spit and bellow, the abrupt and unidentifiable noises from the street and store—and still she felt sick, felt weak, felt scared.

Nothing could save her. Standing in the heat, dress held in her hands as she bent forward, she knew that someone would come to take her away—she’d seen it happen to many of the others. And when one of them hauled her out, carried her away, she would never be back, would never see him again. That was what left her nauseous: she would never see him, the one thing in her short life that had been kind, again.

The moment the florescent lights blinded her, in her first instant of consciousness, wet and rolling along, gears and wheels clattering a pneumatic racket, there was a cacophony, a terror— to be followed by torture, kidnapping, days of dark in crowded trucks, and endless rough handling by strangers at odd hours. The doors of the truck slamming open, she was pulled from a pile of others and thrown face-first onto the sidewalk, shivering from fear until sunrise, when the cashier dragged her out of the open street, pitching her on the tile and cutting her loose with a knife before situating her on the rack.

Disoriented and fatigued from her ordeal, the cashier smoking a cigarette and shuffling her to the left and right of the others, she immediately saw him. Through the pre-dawn chaos and rising heat, she noticed him over the cashier’s shoulder, sitting sideways on the counter, ashtray on his head. Worn at the edges, he was propped stoically against the cash register, pen beside him—a certain weight, a calm, to his presence.

He was dark yellow, measured about 5×12, and on his spine, cased in a square about the size of her torso, rested a two-floor house with a green, perfectly trimmed yard bearing a sign that read: ‘Jenkins Realty: SOLD”. Confident in a blue blazer, a square jaw and glimmering eyes, a man in his early 30s stood beside the sign. Pictured in silhouette, two inches left of the square, a partially closed hand—index and middle fingers extended like a pair of legs—treaded pages.

Being forty percent type and sixty percent photographs, she could, of course, read. So she knew—long before they brought it up—that what the others said was true. At their different angles on the rack, some of the other women, most of them in bikinis, witnessed her sighing after him those first days and nights. They let it go at first, but felt obligated to help as her pining drug-on.

It’s hopeless, they informed her—magazines went with magazines, stacked in bathrooms or on coffee tables. Phonebooks were solitary figures, lone wolfs locked happily away in drawers or used to prop doors and tables, outmoded dinosaurs. Phonebooks, assured the girl from ‘Maxim’ eternally tugging a bikini-bottom string, are wastes of paper; just forget it.

Setting her mind, silently repeating the other girls’ rationale—though, her position on the rack demanded she face him—she tried. It proved pointless; she was railing against her nature: there are no ‘unromantic’ bridal magazines. Ignoring the other women, some of whom had since been purchased, she made up her mind to try.

Illustration by Bryce Wymer

The night of her third day in-store, she attempted a conversation. Being a phonebook, he didn’t budge: not a word. She tried a variety of topics—the heat, new sodas wheeled in that day, the fistfight between the two teenagers over cigarette money. None of them worked. She had two more nights of trying with the same results. Frustration set in, and hard to get, she thought, might be the way to go.

She began flirting with the basketball players, the movie stars, trying to make him jealous as she chatted them up well into the night. Nothing made him jealous, and the conversation annoyed her, musicians and movie stars all being the same: self-obsessed and shallow, constantly flirting with the nearest woman. Regardless, had they all been wonderful to speak with, she felt there still wouldn’t have been those feelings, that spark. She couldn’t explain it, her attraction to him. Most nights, after hours of attempting to hold a conversation, she would give up, standing on the rack till morning in silent agony, mulling over what made her love such a stupid, standoffish phonebook.

In the wake of the terrifying ordeal that led to the store, she’d wondered about herself, about who she was. Obviously, she was a bridal magazine, but the face, the image seen by a world passing in and out of store-doors, the person on the cover—in her table of contents, that photo, the cover-photo was un-credited. Who am I? The phonebook, he knew exactly who he was, who everyone was; it was all there between the pages.

But then, what did he know of life? She had seen, had stored on her pages, some of the happiest days of people’s lives—gorgeous beaches, vineyards, even a wedding held in an amusement park. He’s never been to an amusement park, she thought, saddened that he had no way of seeing one, nobody to even show him how great amusement parks, beaches and weddings, for that matter, could be.

The cashier slammed his fist down on the counter, shoving a finger in the old man’s face: the old man could call the fucking police, he wouldn’t take goddamned ten dollars in unrolled pennies for lottery tickets; this was America and he didn’t have to put up with this bullshit. Soft-drinks in hand and waiting to pay, bottles already half empty, the boys swore at the old man, in English then Spanish, to get the fuck out of the way. The door opened as the four of them yelled with one another through the heat. A pretty young woman in her early 20s, wearing tights a t-shirt and large belt, walked back and grabbed an energy drink. Glancing at the argument as she walked back to the front, the woman made her way to the magazine rack, giving it a minute before she walked up. Brushing her hair back and shifting on her heels, she made a few passes through the music and fashion magazines.

Each perusal came dangerously close to the bridal magazine’s place on the rack. Her pages sticking in the heat, she panicked; she couldn’t leave now, not now. It was only three nights ago that she had finally gotten him to speak. She’d won him over with a series of questions about names in her pages, saying she was trying to get phone numbers for some of these people, as she had to make a call. This was an obvious lie, and she knew it: magazines don’t make important phone calls, as everyone, especially a phonebook, is well aware. Still—nothing.

Just as she was about to give up, he began to call the names back, phone numbers and addresses following each one. Stunned, she stammered her thanks. He said it was no trouble, and before the conversation could die again, she began talking to him about, well, names and numbers. Leading first with questions, then getting him to talk more about himself, they shouted awkward conversations across the store in that dog-whistle pitch that all print converses. In the next two nights, he read her some of his favorite names and addresses, listed off identities to her, unique names of people and places—some pretty and some ugly, but all interesting. She told him how far in advance you should rent hotels in Montego Bay for your honeymoon and about the new Twister of Fear rollercoaster at Six Flags.

After they had been talking for hours, somewhere in the middle of last night the phonebook—politely though in his normal, rough way—introduced himself as Rob Jenkins, then asked her name. Embarrassed, she admitted she had no idea who she was, and that she thought about that a lot. The phonebook apologized. There was a long pause, an uncomfortable silence that the other magazines (who couldn’t help but eavesdrop) awkwardly filled with chatter.

Alice Posey, she looked up, the magazines falling silent as he called out 212-456-9876/ 207 11^th Street, Brooklyn, NY 1125. When she asked if this was her name, the phonebook nervously repeated himself, the ashtray on his cover shinning in the security light over the counter. When she asked again, he repeated once more, then was silent for the rest of the night. The rest of the night, right into the day, she stared at him, turning that name, that identity—her identity—over and over.

The woman picked Alice up, flipping through a few pages, stopping on the spread about outdoor weddings in Maine. Panic overwhelmed Alice as she turned and walked to the counter with her. It was really happening; Alice would be laid down right beside him.

The cashier screamed for the old man to get the fuck out. Shouting in protest, the old man swept the pennies dumped onto the counter back into his plastic grocery bag, promising to come back in the night and fucking burn the store down. Yelling at the old man, the boys put their money on the counter. The young woman placed her magazine on the counter. Cover facing up, Alice lay less than two inches from him. Literally half her life, and, finally, there she was. Struggling for the words, she tried not to just repeat something romantic straight off one of her pages, working instead to say what Alice Posey, not someone else, really felt.

Thank You—just before the woman reached for Alice, he thanked her. Before she could respond to Rob, the young woman snapped her purse and rolled Alice in her hand, cover facing up.

A blast of heat washed over as the door opened, the sun beating onto her gloss, a ripple of sheen washing from veil to train. Just above Alice, the chimes rattled, a lilt of polished metal casting flashes in the sunlight as she moved out into the heat, the door easing shut behind her with a thump, the bass rattle of music in her ears.

First published in the His & Hers issue of glasses glasses, March 2009.

This week’s viewing of The Pick-up Artist (1987) highlighted a landmark event in Robert Downey Jr.’s career–a leading role. Hold the phones. Stop the press. He’s a sidekick no more.

The Pick-up Artist in a nutshell: RDJ plays the somewhat obnoxious, fast talking, rehearsed-line-dropping Jack Jericho. Between his many attempts to add phone numbers to the crumpled paper in his back pocket (a forgotten relic of the pre-cellphone age), Jack teaches elementary school and tends to his diabetic, live-in grandmother. A womanizer with a heart of gold. Enter the appropriately named Randy (Molly Ringwald)–natural history museum docent who allows RDJ the pleasure of her company one afternoon in Central Park. Too busy struggling to pay off her alcoholic father’s mafia debts while living in squalor on Coney Island, Randy’s interests in RDJ can’t extend much beyond their one-day stand. Her indifference only fuels Jack Jericho’s quest for more.

An early clip of RDJ at work (before the Ringwald Effect takes hold):

The Pick-up Artist from glasses glasses on Vimeo.

Additional highlights:

• Glimpses of 1980s New York grit.
• A surprisingly star-studded cast including Dennis Hopper, Harvey Keitel, Lorraine Bracco, and Vanessa Williams.
• Da Do Ron RonDa Doo Ron R0n by The Ronettes used in the opening title sequence.

Overall rating: Decent enough. I was home sick during this particular viewing session. The film served its purpose–mind you, I did take a three-hour nap midway through.

Next week: Less than Zero. Bring on the wasps!

by Smith S. Smith

She told him all about Harvey Milk; told him how homosexual teens have the highest suicide rates in America; told him how her cousin had been stuffed inside a gymnasium locker and whipped with towels until he bled when he had ‘came out’. These were topics he thought it was a bit weird to broach during intercourse, but the whole thing just went on for so-so-so-so-long that they had to talk about something, he guessed. Mostly he wouldn’t listen. He’d just go on, turning her over, this way or that. She’d never break a sentence for anything other than a coldly placed, “Wait. Okay. Right there. Good.” What did he care anyways? It was actually kind of refreshing to talk to someone, well… listen to someone, at least. He hadn’t talked to a soul since he’d been fired from the pants factory. Not a one unless you count that guy who asked him for directions to the L-train to whom he hadn’t responded. ‘Loneliness’ was not a ‘thing’ to him; he couldn’t understand it. Why did all these people, all crammed together, all busy and angry and hungry and constipated, why did they all have this desperate need for human contact? Hunan interaction? Couldn’t they just exist in their own little atmosphere? They were never really alone anyways. Who knew, he guessed.

She lit another candle while he worked on her from the top. The last one had melted down to the aluminum base, the wax splayed out, not unlike a Rorschach. He considered chapter seven as the new scent crept up his nostrils. Honey jasmine?
Calypso breeze? Tropical rhubarb? He couldn’t tell. But he did know he’d been using way too much punctuation. Way heavy on ellipsis…his favorite, way too much parenthetical commentary (so cliché), too many dashes—that got annoying, way, way way, too, many, commas, and last but not least, rampant use of the most evil punctuation mark ever: the exclamation point!

“And don’t even get me started on the sitch in Botswana,” she remarked as he turned her for a go at it doggy style. He serenely reviewed chapter seven in his head, not sure if it was his book or her vagina that was now keeping him hard. Ugh. He just couldn’t solve it. It was the forty-two-paragraph section about the doppelganger that concerned him most. Was the section too obviously figurative? Or wait, not subtly literal enough? He licked some perspiration from his upper lip. He wasn’t thinking clearly. Perhaps his brain had jostled around too much during this fuck. Maybe he should think about coming. Get this over with, he guessed. He moved her under him and got on top of her, not unlike an oilrig digging for fresh tar.

Illustration by Chad Kouri

“Oh,” she commented. Over their series of encounters she had come to realize that this meant he was nearly there. She shut her yap and concentrated, hoping to squeeze out one more orgasm. Damn that chapter seven. Maybe the problem was relativity. Chapters six and eight were so tight that it was difficult for anything to look good when sandwiched between them. “Tonight would be a seven revision night and that’s final,” he thought. Almost there. She came again. He came.

Rolling off of her, they both lay panting quietly. He turned to the nightstand and retrieved a cigarette. Pall Mall. His brand this month. He grabbed the candle and put the flame to the tip of his Pall, taking a long, slow pull from it. One more and he offered it to her. She was obliged to take three heavy drags.

“Well then… thanks. I’m off,” she said, sitting up and searching the floor for her white, cotton panties. There were no frills here. She found them entangled with her bra and got decent.

“You should really check out that documentary about the state of agricultural production in this country. Honestly, one of the most fucked up docs I’ve seen in a while. We’re living in a goddamn military-state if you ask me—between the republicans, the armed forces, the agricultural industry, ugh… don’t even get me started.”

He wouldn’t, but he almost felt certain she would leave his apartment talking to the wallpaper about it anyways. This bird was a little batty but she sure didn’t mind making intimate for three or four hours. She was no complainer in the bedroom. Well, not on the topic of the intercourse, at least.

Originally published March 2009 in the His & Hers issue of glasses glasses.

By Craig Calhoun

A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. -  Oscar Wilde

The Dad they’d sent me was everything I’d imagined – a pronounced graying at the temples that framed a face which appeared to have only just recently left youth behind.  He had this wide smile that came with a booming laugh you could hear from a mile away.  You could tell from his eyes that if on the rare occasion he might be forced to lose his temper, you would not make the same mistake twice.  The first time he arrived at my door we shook hands, he had these big rough hands, and then he punched me in the shoulder lightly and told me Champ, we weren’t going anywhere until you clean up this apartment.  Yes, sir, I told him and did all my chores.  I wondered, when I considered hiding my dirty clothes in the closet, whether or not his supervisors had given him the authority to ground me.  I hadn’t felt this good in years.  These people were amazing.

This week, my Dad brought a baseball and a couple mitts and we went down to the park.  It was a bright April afternoon and the sun was shining down through the trees and it hit that bright neon green baseball as it arched over the freshly mown grass from my Dad’s hand and into my similarly colored glove.  It made that perfect sound.

“Do you know what, Slugger?”  My Dad waved me over and we sat down side by side on one of the benches near the tall maples near the basketball courts.“I am so proud of you, do you know that?  Just look at you!  A man couldn’t ask for a finer son.”  He slapped my knee and gave me this wide smile that made me want to cry out with a kind of relief that I never even knew existed.  Embarrassed, I nudged him with my elbow.

My Dad squeezed my knee again, “We need to celebrate, Stan!”

“Sam,” I corrected timidly.

His faced somehow turned this patronly kind of don’t-talk-back serious but with that same grin underneath.  He reached over and tussled the hair I still have left on sides of my head (I’d begun to bald in earnest shortly after my thirty-third birthday).  Sam, my boy, times like these call for something refreshing and energizing, like a Catalyst!  My dad reached into a neon green knapsack and pulled out two neon green and lightning bolt-emblazoned cans of Catalyst Energy Fuel Drink and handed me one.  We drank in silence, me and my Dad, watching the other middle-aged men and their neon green Dad’s playing in the park.

There were actually a lot of Dad’s in the park.  A lot of men my age were playing frisbee and fielding grounders with similarly branded Dads and sporting equipment.  While we drank in silence, I even saw a chocolate labrador wearing a Catalyst doggie-sweater who was carrying a neon green stick in its mouth that flew a tiny Catalyst flag flipping in the breeze.  An older Dad near the restrooms was smoking a neon green pipe.  A lot of men my age looked very happy.

Illustration by Rod Hunting

I know what you’re thinking: Why don’t you just pay for the Full Version of the service?  But really, you don’t even really notice the advertisements they put in the Lite Version after a while and at least they make it make some sort of sense.  Last week’s sponsor was Colt Condoms (Birds and the Bees) and before that was a bicycle manufacturer (Learning to Ride).  So, of course, this week (Sports and Roughhousing) is going to be Catalyst.  Plus, it’s like a fifth of the price.

My Dad adjusted his neon green cardigan with a Catalyst logo embroidered on the back.  “Sammy,” his voice, that wonderful voice. “I’ve got something I need to show you.”  I wondered if he had a gift for me.  I got a little excited, actually.

“Actually, Dad, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.  It’s been bugging me for a little while.  Just lately.”

“One second, Buddy!  Then you can talk to me about anything you want.”  He put me in a playful headlock and opened up a little three and a half inch LCD monitor and we watched a commercial showing fit and attractive men and women participating in strenuous outdoor activity in various types of environments and then the same people were enjoying one another’s company in a nightclub.  I will always remember that their drinks were the same green as my Dad’s penny loafers.

Without thinking, I paid my Dad two dollars and ninety-nine cents and he gave me another can of Catalyst.

I drank slowly then said, “Dad, I just wanted to ask you something, actually.”

“Anything, my boy.  You can ask me anything.  I hope you will always remember that.”

“Dad, how come you never told me that you loved me?  How come we never hug?”

He gave me this look and then his voice dropped to a low, quiet monotone.  “Sir,  you will have to upgrade your service to the Full Professional Version if you wish to receive all the benefits of the Father-Son Package.”

“Oh,” I shrugged my shoulders.  “That’s alright.  I’d feel a little silly anyway.  That is pretty cheesy.”

The grin returned right away, “Sure thing, Champ!  Ready for some more catch?” He tossed the neon green and lightning bolt-emblazoned baseball to me.

Later that night, when my wife was safely asleep, I cried for nearly an hour sitting in the dark at the kitchen table.

Originally published June 2009 in glasses glasses’ Cheese & Crackers issue.

By C. Jones

The girl lived on a rock in the middle of the water. Tall buildings rose on the land to one side, and buildings and smokestacks squatted on the other shore. She could see the smokestacks from her bedroom window, and hear the squall of seagulls from time to time. The rock was old, very old, and ran in a long thin strip from north to south. People had buried their dead long ago on the rock, and exiled their paupers, and lepers, and men with the blinding sickness. Now men with no legs roamed the streets, in packs or alone.

Families and young people had begun to live there, for perhaps the first time ever. They had moved for the green spaces, for the open sky above them, for the water. But the water still flowed backwards on some days, from south to north, and the grizzled inhabitants of many decades refused to be displaced. People lived on the island uneasily, nodding stiffly to the men with no legs as they passed them with groceries or children in hand.
There were ruins on the far south end of the island. The stone piles and ragged ivy had been a hospital once. A tall iron gate stretched across that part of the island and was closed shut at night, and locked with a heavy lock. The ruins loomed enticingly, and the girl was curious, and bored, and more than a little lonely. One day, as the sun peaked in the sky, she left her bedroom and walked outside.

She passed under the bridge that had forgotten the island totally, stretching its stone arms from one shore to the other with no thought for the little strip of land that rose up from the water beneath. She passed the men with no legs and smiled politely at them, as she had been taught to do. They smiled back and let her alone. She made her little way down to the ruins, pausing when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small object fall from the sky not far from her. She examined it. It was a dead river crab, its pinkish, translucent shell shattered and tender belly exposed. She looked to the sky, puzzled, and saw seagulls gliding above her head. One of them dove low and came in for a landing by her feet. It pecked at the crab shell and looked at her suspiciously. “Where are you going, girl?”

“I’m just out for a walk,” she said.
“Don’t lie to me, you silly thing,” the gull squawked.

“I’m not lying,” she said.

The bird paused and looked at her, its beady eyes unreadable. “I can see where you’re headed. You seem like a nice enough girl, just as foolish for your age as you should be. Listen to me, and turn around.”

“Really,” she said. “I’m just stretching my legs.”

The gull hopped, as if to shrug, and stabbed at the crab with its beak. “Suit yourself.”

“I think I will,” she said, and left the bird behind.

Illustration by Jason Hoffman

The girl caught sight of the iron fence just a few meters in front of her. It was open, its huge rusty lock unpadlocked and hanging dully from the bars. A fresh wind blew across her face, carrying the smell of the water, and she walked through the gate.

The hospital rose up in her field of vision, huge red-bricked thing with a gaping maw and empty eyes. The wooden doors of the hospital had long since rotted away, the glass of the windows had long since shattered. She could see right through to the innards of the hospital, stone covered in sheets of ivy, stalks of plant life creeping up the walls.

She picked her way slowly across the grass. Low voices were thrumming in her eardrums, punctuated by small sighs and moans. They were the voices of men and women, mostly men, and although she couldn’t quite pick out what they were saying, they didn’t sound angry, or frightened, or bitter. The girl ducked into the dark doorway and waited, blinking, for her eyes to pick out shapes in the darkness. The voices quieted. Shafts of sunlight poured in from the glassless windows, and she focused on these first. Small things, animals, rustled in the darkness and then froze.

She felt the touch of a gentle hand on her shoulder, and turned around.

It was a woman, a tall woman, dressed in a blue dress and white smock. Her yellow hair was held back by a white cap, and a white mask covered her nose and mouth. Only her eyes were visible, and they were kind. Her brow was lined with a touch of sadness and worry. The world around behind the woman began to change. Faint outlines of shapes blossomed and began to fill in, colors and shading as subtle as life. Glass appeared in the windowpanes, the ivy released its hold on the granite walls and dropped off, shriveling and then disappearing completely. A long row of beds appeared, and then men to fill them, and then women to tend the men. The women dressed identically in blue gowns and white smocks. Their mouths and noses were covered, their movements graceful and sweeping.

She followed the woman to a bed positioned by one of the windows. It was night outside, and the window was cracked, and the water-dampened air flowed in through the hospital. A tall, dark man lay in the bed, tangling himself up in the sheets. Stubble covered his face, and his eyes were open but unfocused, darting from one side of his face to the other. The woman reached out her hand, and he blanched at her touch.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked. Her words thudded heavily in the silence. The woman mouthed something to the man, words that quieted him.

The girl began to cast her eyes about, looking for the way she had come in. Edging towards the exit, she found a door where once there had been nothing. She tried it, pushing with all her strength, but the massive and heavy slab of oak would not swing. Soft hands, many of them, took hold of her shoulders and arms in a steely grip and pulled her towards the man in the bed. She could feel a prim admonishment in their touch. Tsk tsk, they seemed to be saying. The woman in the blue dress and white smock gestured for her to come close. The woman reached for her patient’s hand, guiding it toward the girl’s face until it rested across her eyes. The hand was large and hot with fever. It blocked out all the light in the hospital corridor.

The hands pushed her forward. The girl stumbled and pitched into blackness, expecting her knees to scrape the polished floors of the hospital. She was surprised when they met only soft grass. She could feel the heat of the sun on her arms and face, and for a moment she thought she was merely sun blind. She rubbed her eyes, but the darkness stayed, and she realized that she couldn’t see.

Originally published March 2009 in the “His & Hers” issue of glasses glasses.

]]> http://www.glassesglasses.org/2010/02/15/island-story/feed/ 0 http://www.glassesglasses.org/2010/02/14/back-to-school/ http://www.glassesglasses.org/2010/02/14/back-to-school/#comments Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:04:43 +0000 rachel http://www.glassesglasses.org/?p=5800 Robert Downey Jr. took me Back to School (1986) this week. In the film, Thornton Melon (played by Rodney Dangerfield) decides to take a break from his lucrative Tall & Fat clothing enterprise to bond with his nerdy son at college and advance his high-school-level education. Hilarity ensues in a series of one-liners and oh-so-many puns.

Four films into my research, I can categorically say that the 1980s were a very particular time for RDJ–a lot of frilly collars, dyed hair, and over-exaggerated facial expressions. All of these elements remain constant whether he portrays the most popular guy in school or a social outcast, as in this week’s film. At this point, I am ready for some 90s-style developments.

I am going to keep this week’s column short and sweet due to a botched keyboard and a general lack of enthusiasm over RDJ’s annoying character. Watch the following two clips, and you’ll see what I mean.

Until next week, this is the Kich signing off.