A Downey Thanksgiving

It was an old scam. Kathy had seen it many times before.

A nurse or, more likely, a temp agency staffer, learns some randomly interesting facts about someone in a rest home, or an invalid in a private house. Then they use that information to work their way into a deeper friendship with the elder, eventually gaining control of bank accounts or defrauding the courts into giving them a power of attorney.

According to the records that her social services staff had passed up to her, Kathy knew that this woman Key had been perpetrating the fraud for more than three years.

That was unusual; most elder abusers rip off their charges within a matter of weeks and move on before anyone notices.

Kathy surmised that Key’s prolonged presence in the man’s home was brought on by a need for more money. Like many other home health care workers, Key was from southeast Asia, and ripping off elders is an easy way to get money to return home after a failed marriage or just for an extended visit. They use the elder’s home address for a passport and other vital requirements of the trip.

Kathy passed Disneyland as she always does, without even noticing until she saw the “come again soon” signs. She glanced at her route finder; a few more miles to Downey.

She mentally reviewed what she had read in the files. The elder in this case was an 87-year-old partially blind, diabetic man named Robert Horstman, who was supposed to be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Supposed to be, because every case is different and while some can hang on to their mental faculties for years, others can slip into invalid status in a matter of weeks, months at best.

Kathy guessed that Key must have sensed his vulnerability and stayed with him in hopes of a big payoff when he died.

Elder abuse isn’t always physical, Kathy reminded herself. More often it is expressed as misuse of the patient’s property or finances. It’s called abuse because typically, the victims are completely unable to defend themselves or even seek help. Sometimes they don’t even know what is happening around them.

Mr. Horstman had been a resident of Downey for many years. Records indicated that he was born in Trier, Germany, and had a sister named Pauline, but no one was sure where she was. She disappeared sometime during World War II and was never heard from again. So he came to this country, by way of Marrakech Morocco in the 1950s.

A gifted mathematician and scientist, Horstman worked at the Rockwell plant, and later at NASA during the run-up to the Apollo space program. Few people outside of Downey knew that the Apollo program began there, but when it all came to an end, Rockwell and NASA folded up shop, leaving a huge hole in the area’s economy.

Horstman was fortunate enough to transfer his skills to Downey’s other major employer, The Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center, where he applied his electronics knowledge to improving artificial limbs for amputees. He was widely admired for his innovative use of electronics in designing and testing new devices.

Then, in the late 1980s, he suffered a debilitating stroke, and went from employee to patient, learning how to walk, talk and use his arm all over again. He was forced out of the company altogether in 1990 and spent the last two decades living in one of the area’s quaint Gingerbread houses, carefully spending a greatly diminished retirement payout and an even smaller disability check.

Carefully, that is, until the Alzheimer’s set in a few years ago.

His neighbors were the first to notice. He would back his old Chevelle out of his driveway and into the street, and then promptly turn right back in, give a little wave and walk into his house again, forgetting whether he was coming or going. It was a typical symptom of Alzheimer’s, which attacks short term memory first, leaving older memories completely intact.

That’s when Kathy’s social services team first made contact with Mr. Horstman. It wasn’t actually a neighbor who called, but a cashier at the corner market. The cashier said that Uncle Bob – his nickname in the neighborhood – had tried to pay for the same half-gallon of milk three times. Another day, he walked out without taking his groceries. She was afraid he might starve to death if he didn’t take better care of how he spent his meager earnings.

An initial assessment indicated that the cashier may have made the right call. Uncle Bob was having difficulty holding a conversation without slipping into memories of things past, could barely stay on task, and was generally unaware of the date or time. His doctor later confirmed the diagnosis, saying his condition required around the clock care to ensure that he didn’t pose a danger to himself or others.

But without health insurance, Uncle Bob was at the mercy of the social services system, and the best they could do for him was to assign a temporary adult services worker from an agency.

For a while, the arrangement seemed to work. In fact the agency never reported any difficulties at all.

The first real sign of trouble was when a social service worker noticed that the agency stopped reporting on Mr. Horstman’s case. As a contractor to the Adult Services department, they were required to report twice a month on all elders under their care in Los Angeles County.

It took a skilled worker to notice the discrepancy, but there it was, and when she reported this fact to Kathy, the ball was set in motion for renewed engagements with Uncle Bob.

The first contact came in the form of a phone call to Uncle Bob. They phone was answered by a woman who called herself Key Nguyen. She claimed to be an agency worker, but when she couldn’t answer some basic questions about the agency, the social service worker red-flagged the conversation.

Next, a worker went to visit Uncle Bob on a day when the worker should have been there, but only Mr. Horstman was in the home. He sat anxiously in his armchair, unsure of who the social worker was or why she was in his house, while they waited for her to arrive. After 45 minutes, the social worker got up and prepared a glass of milk and a sandwich, placed them on a side table for Uncle Bob, and left. At that point, the case was turned over to Kathy for decisive action.

So now here it was, Thanksgiving day, and Kathy was on the road. The exit into Downey presented Kathy with a bright reminder of the season. Leaves on the great maples and elms were changing color, some yellow, brown or red, creating a colorful tunnel of foliage through the streets ahead.

“Everything changes,” she thought.

It was true of her job, too. Social services is as much art as anything else. While there are plenty of rules and guidelines, in the final analysis, the judgment that a worker makes about a situation can make the difference between a massive intervention and a slap on the wrist. A single worker’s observations or recommendations can mean the removal of a child from a household or an adult from a home. How the worker sees the situation is extremely important.

Kathy made plenty of good decisions, which allowed her to rise to head of the adult services department. But she quietly knew that she had made mistakes, too, and regret ran deep in her bleeding social worker heart. Those difficult lessons taught her to avoid a rush to judgment no matter how obvious the situation seemed at the outset. Still, she thought the case was important enough that she should make a welfare check on this holiday.

Glancing at her direction finder, Kathy knew she was only a couple of blocks away from Mr. Horstman’s home now.

The neighborhood was nice enough: Street after street of orderly, tidy Gingerbread houses, in the neatly arranged style of the 1950s. On one narrow street, every other home sported an ancient Elm; on the next street over, it would be a towering palm. The organization was impeccable, reflective of the caliber of the people who lived there all their lives.

She passed the market where Horstman – Uncle Bob – shopped for his groceries. She was within walking distance of his house now. She felt anxiety rising within her, as it always did when she approached a situation for the first time. Would Uncle Bob be ok? Would she need to call an ambulance? Would the mysterious Key Nguyen be there? Would she be combative or difficult? Infinite possibilities flashed in front of her.

Uncle Bob’s house was a cute little pink place on one of the palm-lined streets. It sported a shared driveway and a modest renovation that made the front only slightly larger than it had been. She passed the place slowly and kept going, craning her neck to see the back, but an old weathered fence blocked her view.

She turned around at the bend in the street and circled back, parking on the street in front of the house.

In cases such as this, the perpetrator could actually be considered a criminal, Kathy thought, and from deeper in her mind came the admonishment, “you should have brought a gun.”

But as a social worker, Kathy had no power to make an arrest. She hoped whoever this Key girl was, she wouldn’t overreact and cause the situation to blow out of control.

Turning off the SUV, her world suddenly became very quiet. She had only her own thoughts and anxieties to deal with.

Pulling out her notebook, she made a note, “12:35, arrived at Robert Horstman residence in Downey.” She put the notebook back in her purse, opened the door and rounded the car to the house.

History came up in her mind. Memories of family members shouting, doors slamming, babies crying. She had been through so many situations in so many neighborhoods, she couldn’t begin to remember them all without slipping them into mental categories like, “disaster,” “abuser,” “cops called,” and more.

But this time the house was quiet. The neighborhood was quiet. Except for the comforting smell of Thanksgiving dinners blowing down the street, nobody seemed to be anywhere. She wondered if this visit would be a miss.

She walked into the tiny doorway, glancing at her reflection in the glass of the door as she rang the bell. Kathy was tall and black, with short wavy hair and elegant long legs. She could have been an executive or a model or anything she wanted to be, she supposed. But something drew her to social services, and her wisdom drew her into management…

The door inched open slowly and an Asian woman’s face peeked around it, eyes wide open.

“Can I help you?” she asked suspiciously.

“My name is Kathy Johnson, I am with Adult Social Services, I am here to check on Mr. Horstman,” said Kathy, as matter-of-factly as she could. “May I come in?”

“But it’s Thanksgiving,” said the woman in her best English. “We’re having dinner.”

“That’s fine,” said Kathy as she stepped forward, “this won’t take long.”

The woman started to protest, but instead stepped back and allowed the door to swing open.

The front room was immaculate. Everything was clean and put away, as if it were a model home. As if no-one lived there.

Kathy turned to question the woman and was momentarily stunned by what she saw.

Key had a prosthetic arm and leg on one side of her body.

“Won’t you come in,” said Key worriedly, motioning forward.

“Thank you,” said Kathy, her mind suddenly dizzy.

Kathy walked ahead, through the small entryway to the kitchen and breakfast nook, which spilled beyond into a living room. The rooms were all brightly lit with light windows and sunroofs. The kitchen was full of Thanksgiving food in various stages of preparation. Key appeared to be making dinner by herself.

Mr. Horstman sat in the living room, watching a television with the volume set low. He didn’t appear to know that Kathy was there.

“I’m making dinner,” said Key, “I hope you excuse me. Uncle Bob – Mr. Horstman – is over there, I can introduce if you wish. He don’t know if you are stranger, he barely remember who I am any minute.”

“And who are you?” asked Kathy, extending her hand. She realized as she did so that she was offering to shake Key’s prosthetic hand, which was just a double hook. She looked awkwardly to Key, but by this time Key had already offered her good hand in return.

“My name it Key,” said the woman. “Mr. Horstman is good friend from many year ago. I come here to pay back, to help him.”

Kathy put her purse on a chair behind the counter and began to take off her jacket.

“You can hang that in the closet over there,” said Key.

“Thank you,” said Kathy, suddenly warming to the familiar Thanksgiving smells in the house. “Can I help you with this?”

“Oh, sure,” said Key, glancing around to see what needed to be done. “You could chop up some celery I think. There knife in that draw.”

“Okay,” said Kathy. She pulled out the knife and set it on a butcher block. She picked up the celery, rinsed them in the sink, and then set them down and began chopping. “Tell me about Uncle Bob,” she said, not looking up from her work. “Is he doing ok?”

“No,” said Key matter-of-factly. “He losing his mind. He don’ remember from one minute to next what he doing. But I remind him. He nice man, never do no wrong, he not in danger.”

Key stopped her work and looked up at Kathy.

“But this not really about Uncle Bob is it?” asked Key. “You not sure what I doing here. You worry about me, right?”

“Well, yes,” said Kathy, setting the knife down and turning to speak directly to Key. “He is supposed to be getting professional care, but we have no record of who you are or who you work for. Are you a professional elder caregiver?”

“No, not me,” said Key, her head dropping down. She wiped her hands with a dishtowel and pushed the hair back from her face.

“I come here to USA in 1974 at end of Viet Nam war. They bring me here to Downey, to the Rehabilitation Center. I was 10 year old. My arm and leg blown off nobody know how,” her face flushed and her brow began to sweat as she spoke. She trembled slightly. “I very scared, not know what happening to me. I have no family, no home, no arm and no leg. I want to run away but I can’t. I cry all day, all night.

“They try to make help for me but I so small they don’t know what to do. SO they make me swim lot but I not know how to swim. I scare more. But I stay, I have no place to go,” she said, looking pleadingly at Kathy. “I have four – five foster family, even more number schools. But they all scare of me. They not like my arm and leg, the way people look at me. They alway give me to another family, another school. The Center my home more than anything else.”

“Then, Uncle Bob come to Center. He big NASA man, everybody love him. He very smart, know very much, but he not know about arms and legs,” she laughed, waiving her arms in the air.

Kathy began chopping the celery again as Key mixed the stuffing in a bowl. She was very skilled even with the prosthetic arm.

“Uncle Bob learn how to make prosthetics working with me and a few others. He make things never been done before. He make them better. Now I can walk, now I can pick up a book, now I can comb my hair,” said Key, smiling at the memory. “No more swimming, no more crying. Uncle Bob make me happy again.”

She took the celery from Kathy and mixed it into the bowl. Kathy leaned against the kitchen counter to listen more.

“I leave the center in 1984, twenty year old. Uncle Bob give me this locket as good-bye gift. I have little job I recondition appliances with mental patient at Salvation Army. But I don’t like after a while and I leave there, I don’t know where I go. I don’t know what I do. I think,” she said, lighting up, “I want to go to New York and make wedding dresses in fashion district. I want to be great designer.”

She chuckled at the thought and then just as quickly her face saddened. She turned and began awkwardly cutting slices of meat from the fully cooked turkey.

“I go to Greyhound bus station and give them all my money, everything I had say, ‘get me as close to New York as this take me,’ but the ticket it say Pittsburgh and I no want to go there, I scared. So I put it in my pocket and cry. I don’t know what to do.”

Tears began to form in Key’s eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her good hand.

“I come back to LA and look for work. I work in back of grocery store for twelve year. I have little apartment, little dog, television, I ok. Thing go ok for a while.”

She looked over at Uncle Bob in the corner, quietly watching the TV.

“One day, neighbor come break into my apartment, take everything I have. They beat me and try take my clothes off. They see I no have arm or leg and call me freak. They take everything and leave me there, stuffed behind my bed again wall. I cry all night. Door open, dog run away he never come back. I alone again.

“Now my leg don’t work right, my hand don’t work right, I have to fix. So I come back to center look for Uncle Bob but he gone, not there no more. They say I need fill paper for help but I don’t know what to do. Then lady tell me Uncle Bob live close by come visit him he might like. So I did.”

Key stopped slicing the turkey and looked at Kathy in the eye, her voice lifting with confidence.

“Uncle Bob remember me. He no remember his own name but he remember me and he remember my arm and leg. He say, ‘come in, come in, I help you’. And he did. He fix my hand, he fix my leg.”

She looked at Uncle Bob again, tears streaming down her face.

“I not able to pay Uncle Bob, I never be able to pay him for all he do for me,” she said. “But I try. I take care of him now, I help him do all he do, I make him breakfast, lun and dinner. I comb his hair,” she laughed through her tears. “I can help him now.” She waved her hands as proof.

Kathy smiled a quivering smile, doing her best to hold back her own emotions.

“How do you pay for Uncle Bob’s food?” she asked.

“Uncle Bob he have severance check from work still and he have some government money. I put it in bank for him, I write him check for him. “ She looked around quickly until she spied her own bag. “I have check book, you wanna see?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Kathy. She took the check book from Key’s hooked hand and scanned it quickly. Everything seemed proper and balanced. She handed it back to Key.

“Does he go to the doctor?” asked Kathy, filling a china gravy boat and setting it on the breakfast table.

“Well I can’t dry car,” said Key. “Uncle Bob he not safe to drive car. I hide his keys, but I know where they are.”

“What do you do when he gets sick?”

“He not get sick, not since I been here.”

“What would you do if he did?” asked Kathy.

“I don’t know,” answered Key, looking at her. “Should I call you?”

“Yes,” said Kathy, “Please call me.” Kathy wiped her hands on a towel and handed Key a card from her purse. Then she slung her purse over her shoulder and started toward the door.

“Don’ you want to talk to Uncle Bob?” said Key. “Come I introduce you.”

She took Kathy by the hand and limped into the living room, calling as she approached the old man.

“Uncle Bob! Uncle Bob! I have new fren for you to meet!”

Uncle Bob slowly raised his eyes from the television to Key. He smiled as she approached.

“Hey!” he said, as if meeting her after many years.

“Hello Uncle Bob!” Key cried, also as if they were meeting for the first time in years. “I have fren come to see you Uncle Bob!” She motioned to Kathy.

Uncle Bob shifted his gaze to Kathy.

“Hello Uncle Bob!” she said, smiling.

“Hey!” he said. “You know my friend Key!”

“Yes,” said Kathy, “I know your friend.”

“Well she is one fine young girl,” said Uncle Bob, smiling. “She came all the way from Viet Nam so we could help her. Do you have your notebook?”

“He think you his assistant at Rehabilitation Center,” said Key.

“Yes Uncle Bob, let me go get my notebook,” said Kathy. She motioned to Key to follow her back to the kitchen.

“Will you stay for Thanksgiving dinner?” asked Key. “I make glutten-free pumpkin pie.” She smiled at her suggestion.

“Thank you,” said Kathy. “But I have to get back to my own family.”

As she buckled her jacket, Kathy noticed a single candle on the breakfast table. She fished in her pocket for a book of matches and lit the wick. Then she turned and looked at Key.

“Do you know who Jacqueline Kennedy was?” Kathy asked, looking back at the flickering candle.

“Yes,” said Key, “She was great lady. Her husband great President.”

“Well her husband got our country into the Viet Nam war,” said Kathy, “But that’s not the point.” She looked back at Key, taking in the full expression of the little woman’s being, her long hair and round eyes, her little nose and sad mouth, her strange prosthetic arm hanging in opposition to the smooth and supple good arm, the metal foot half hidden beneath her oversized cooking bib.

“Jackie Kennedy said, ‘I am a woman above everything else.’”

Key looked down at the floor.

“I not much woman,” she said. “I half a woman.”

Kathy placed her hand warmly on Key’s shoulder, and then cupped her chin and lifted it up gently.

“You are more of a woman than many others will ever be,” said Kathy. “And I want to help you believe that. I will be back next week. Take care of Uncle Bob for me, okay?”

“Yes,” said Key, with a ray of hope in her eyes.

Kathy turned and headed toward the door.

“Thank you Miss Johnson,” said Key, reading quickly from the social worker’s card.

Kathy turned to her and smiled.

“Thank you Miss Nguyen,” she responded. “Have a nice Thanksgiving.”

Author’s note: This story was crowdsourced using nearly two dozen props suggested by Facebook friends.

Tsukumogami

Anthony Okoyama has been my best friend since kindergarten, but lately he’s been acting weird.
I know, some people think nerdy kids who want to be scientists are weird to begin with, but he’s acting weird way beyond that.

Like something really big is about to happen.

I thought it was because we were going to see Captain America last weekend. Anthony loves superheroes and video games, just like me, that’s why we get along so well. And he’s good too – just give him a laptop or an X-Box and he’ll have New York City under his thumb in no time.

But this was different. I could tell by what he asked me as we were washing up in the movie theater bathroom.

“What do you think of witches and stuff?” he asked out of the blue.

“What do you mean?” I asked, shaking my hands dry.

“You know, witches and spells and supernatural stuff. Do you think they are real?”

I looked at him like he had changed brains with some random kid.

“Of course not, duh,” I said. “Do you?”

“I don’t know. I mean, no, of course not,” he said absently. “I mean, there are people who call themselves witches and they practice Wicca and all that, but it’s not like they have supernatural powers like Captain America or the X-Men or something…”

“Dude, are you okay?” I asked, “You’ve been acting really weird.”

Anthony looked at me and laughed loudly, his bright eyes sparkling.

“Yeah, I’m just joking. Just asking.” He slapped me on the shoulder on his way out.

“Whatever,” I said.

And then all this week he has been sort of prancing around, like he’s drinking his parents’ coffee or something. He goes to the library all the time, and he says he’s too busy to play on the X-Box. Excuse me? Too busy for the X-Box? Hello?

And now here it is, Halloween day, and he’s practically beside himself. He can barely keep it together at school.

“Dude, what is going on?” I asked at lunch.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said. “I’ll explain it to you later. I’m sorry if I’m acting all weird, I just found something that could be really cool. I’ll tell you later.”

Our school is the Ports of Los Angeles High School, a private charter school. It’s like maybe six years old or so, practically brand new. They say that before the school was built, they held classes on the beach at a Boy Scout camp not far from here. Everybody is pretty cool here, smart, with an interest in science, oceanography, and maritime studies.

Anthony is here mostly because his dad wants him to be to do better than him, or at least, that’s what Anthony says. I think he’s not very impressed by his dad any more. The guy is an ocularist now – he makes eyeballs for people who have lost theirs for whatever reason. I don’t know what made him decide to do that. Better than being a traveling salesman, I suppose.

Anthony’s family lives in one of the few remaining old Victorian houses in San Pedro. It looks kind of dingy really, not what you would expect him to be living in, but I guess that’s what you get when you are renting. They used to have their own place, a beautiful house overlooking the beach with big windows and a gardener. But the house went into foreclosure after Anthony’s dad lost his job at the shipyard and his mother’s business as a real estate broker tanked.

Now they have a plumber who has to come every week just to fix the pipes.

“Come on in,” said Anthony as we ran up the steps. “Mom’s not back from her cashier job yet. I don’t think Dad is here either.”

Anthony made a beeline for the kitchen, dropping off his backpack at the foot of the couch on the way. I followed suit. Anthony’s mom always had cool snacks for us.

We pulled a couple of bowls from the cabinet and started loading up with food.

“So, what was it you were going to tell me about?” I asked.

“Oh!” said Anthony, his eyes lighting up again, “Wait there, I’ll show you!”

And with that he flung his bowl on the counter, zipped across the room and shot up the stairs as fast as he could go. I think he went right past his room, all the way up to the attic.

He came back a minute later, not quite as excited. I think he was worried that I might not be as exuberant about his discovery as he was.

“This is kinda cool,” he said, “but it would be a lot cooler if it were for real.”

He pulled an old leather-trimmed valise out from behind him. It was a small one, just a bit larger than an attaché case. It had faded seaweed green sides with designs on it like you might see on an oriental rug. He put it on the kitchen table and opened it up.
Inside was a well-worn trumpet with an odd dent on one side.

“Is that it?” I asked, “a trumpet?”

“No,” he said quickly, “look.”

He pulled the trumpet out and set it aside. Then he dug into the bottom and pulled out a leather-encased board – a false bottom.

“Cool!” I said, genuinely pleased. “What’s under it?”

He looked at me carefully, like he wasn’t sure if I should know, or I would understand.

“There’s more to this than meets the eye,”  he said ominously. “This isn’t the whole story.”

“Okay,” I said, “What is it?”

He reached in again and pulled out a strange porcelain creature. It had a head kind of like a lion, with horns and long vampire-like teeth, but it had a rotund body that was half human and half bear, with big paws instead of hands and feet.

“Okay that’s cool,” I said, somewhat disappointed that he held a piece of porcelain in such high regard.

“Like I said,” he reminded me, “there’s more to the story,”

“Like what?” I asked. “Is it worth a lot of money? Is it stolen?”

“I really don’t know how much it is worth, but my grandpa has always told me that there is something very special about this.”

“Like what?” I asked again, feeling like a broken record.

“Well you kind of have to understand Japanese mythology,” he said.

“This is an Oni, or an ogre,” he explained. “There are many statues like this in Japan and even here. But this one is special, because today, after dark, it comes to life.”

“Get out!” I said, incredulous that he would even think to fall for such a crazy story.

“No, it’s true!” he countered. “This Oni statue is a Tsukumogami. It has powers, and it will come to life exactly 100 years after it was made, which is today! My grandfather told me, many years ago, that it would come to life today, and I think it will!”

I looked at him like he just dropped in from another planet.

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked.

“No,” he said emphatically.

“It’s a statue,” I said, rapping the porcelain with my fingernails. “This isn’t any more likely to wake up and walk around than my toilet is.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” said Anthony.

“You’re a fine one to say,” I shot back.

“Whatever,” he said, obviously hurt. I’m going to take it out tonight, somewhere safe, and see what happens.

“Why tonight?” I asked.

“A Tsukumogami wakes after sundown, I guess because the light would hurt there eyes after so long,” he said, looking out beyond the window, at nothing in particular.

“What does it do when in wakes up?” I asked. “Have you thought about that?”

“Good question,” he said. “Grandpa said most of the time they don’t do anything. They just smile or maybe play a prank on you. But if they have been treated badly they can band together and form an angry mob,” he said laughing. When he saw my look of concern he added, “but this is the only Tsukumogami that we have,” he said. “And we have taken great care of him. My grandfather said he used to display him all the time.”

“Why did he stop?” I asked.

“You know,” said Anthony, “I don’t know. Maybe I will ask my Dad when he gets home. Why don’t you stay for dinner and you can find out?”

“Ok, sure!” I said, eager to get to the bottom of this mystery.

We sat on the couch and flipped on the X-Box for a few games while we waited for Anthony’s dad. Business was slow so we weren’t surprised that we didn’t have to wait long.

“Hello, boys,” said Mr. Okayama, passing behind us on his way to the kitchen, briefcase in hand. I wondered what might be in the briefcase, but said nothing. “How was school today?”

“Good,” we both replied.

“Did you get your homework done, Anthony?” asked his Dad. In truth, he really didn’t want to know because Anthony’s studies were already well ahead of his father’s. Anthony’s dad had been a dockworker, which gave him a good income, but he never graduated high school.

“Yeah Dad, don’t worry,” said Anthony, “it’s all done.”

We both looked at each other. Lie. Oh well.

“Hey Dad,” called Anthony, still blasting away at enemy soldiers, “why don’t we ever show that Tsukumogami in the display case any more?”

There was a long silence. We could hear Anthony’s Dad approaching.

“What was that?” He asked, munching on something.

“You know, grandpa’s Tsukumogami statue, the ogre. Why don’t we have it in the display case.”

Anthony’s dad was watching the X-Box screen with obvious pride. “Because your mother doesn’t want it in there,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t even know where it is anymore.”

“I found it,” said Anthony. “in the attic. In a bag. And if I remember right, grandpa said it turns 100 today,”

Anthony’s Dad looked at Anthony and then at me, as if to gauge if we understood the importance of that statement.

“I see,” he said. “So what do you plan to do with it?”

“I dunno,” he answered, finishing off another defender. “I kinda want to see what will happen.”

“Well,” said his Dad, “you kinda need to get your homework done first.”

“It IS done,” Anthony protested. Mr. Okayama looked at me for confirmation, but I couldn’t lie. I just shook my shoulders ever so slightly.

“Let’s see what your mother says,” answered Mr. Okayama.

Mrs. Okayama came in not long after with a store-bought Japanese meal. They did that a lot.

“Dinner’s on, boys,” she called, soon after arriving. We both scampered to the kitchen table.

The food was in opened boxes at the center of the table. Sushi, rice, orange chicken, steamed vegetables, and more. I grabbed a pair of chopsticks like everyone else and started in taking the food from the boxes to my plate.

Anthony was grabbing for an especially good looking piece of sushi so, for fun, I tried to grab it with my sticks.

“Oh! You shouldn’t do that!” said Mrs. Okayama with theatrical shock.

“Why?” I laughed, “So he can have it?” Everyone smiled.

“No,” Anthony said, coming to his mother’s aide. “In Japan, it is not good for two people to hold the same item at the same time with their chop sticks, unless they are picking the bones of dead relatives off the cremation table and putting them into an urn.”

I looked around, horrified at my mistake. Anthony laughed and smacked me on the back. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you are not Nihonjin, you couldn’t know.”

I smiled weakly, which made everyone laugh again.

“Hey mom,” said Anthony, “speaking of Nijon custom, how come you never want grandpa’s Tsukumogami statue displayed in the curio cabinet anymore?

Mrs. Okayama raised her head as if she had heard a ghost. She sat like that for a minute, which almost made me think she was listening for it again.

“It’s been through a very hard time,” she said, lowering her head to eat again. “I’d prefer not to put it out anymore.”

“But it turns 100 today,” said Anthony. “Grandpa always said it would turn 100 today.”

“Just leave it alone,” said Anthony’s mom dismissively.

“Ok,” said Anthony, smiling to me sideways.

It was nearly dark when dinner was over so we excused ourselves, wrapped the Tsukumogami in a towel, stuffed it in Anthony’s backpack and took off.

We weren’t sure where we were going to go so we just turned on to South Grand avenue and kept going. I should have remembered where that would lead us. To the Harbor View Memorial Park … a cemetery.

Harbor View Memorial is a really small cemetery. It’s flat, has only a few trees, and it’s surrounded by apartment complexes. It really doesn’t have a view of the bay at all. People say it’s the oldest cemetery in San Pedro, but that’s silly because they town was established in the 1640s by the Spanish, and Harbor View Memorial has only been around since like the 1860s. Still, there are a lot of old plots on this little piece of land. Most of them date from the late 1800s to the 1950s.

“This is great,” said Anthony.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked incredulously, “This is creepy! And on Halloween even! Can’t we go someplace else?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the Tsukumogami,” said Anthony, smiling.

“Yeah, but – ” I started to protest, but I knew it would be in vain, so I shut up.

“Where should we go?” he asked, walking briskly into the park.

“Here is as good a place as any,” I said, pointing toward an old, twisting Eucaplyptus tree. “It’s nearly dark now.”

Anthony swung the backpack off his shoulder and unwrapped the Tsukumogami from the bath towel. Then he set it down gently at the base of the tree. We both backed off a couple of steps and then just stood there, looking at it.

“Are we supposed to say something?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Anthony. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, we can go trick or treating I suppose.”

For some reason, we didn’t dare take our eyes off the little blue guy. But we did finally crouch down to a sitting position.

“How do you know this is 100 years old?” I asked, mostly just to break the silence. Anthony seemed eager to respond.

“Grandpa said the Tsukumogami was made in the likeness of Yukai from many centuries ago…”

“You said it was an ogre. What is a Yukai?” I asked.

“Yes, the Oni here is an ogre. An ogre is a form of Yukai, or supernatural being.”

“Supernatural being?” I repeated, my voice rising in my throat. “You mean like, super powers?”

“Umm, yeah, I suppose so,” said Anthony, suddenly realizing the importance of what he was saying. “All Tsukumogami are forms of Yukai. Most Tsukumogami are common items like old shoes, mirrors, swords, teacups and stuff. They become shape shifters on their 100th birthday, growing arms and legs, or eyes or teeth. But the Oni are ogres.”

We both looked at the ogre statue again. And as we did so, it seemed to shake.

“Did you see that?” I said, sitting up. Anthony was sitting up, too.

“Yeah,” he said, “it moved.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What should we do?”

“Just watch it, I guess,” I said. “What do we do if it turns bad?”

“There’s not much you can do,” said Anthony. “Its not like it’s under a spell or anything. It just is.”

I glanced at Anthony. He seemed brimming with excitement, and that made me more excited, too.

The ogre shook again, although I couldn’t tell if it was the ogre or the ground that moved. There was an audible rumble underneath us that made my heart jump three beats.

“Wow!” said Anthony, standing. I got up too. But as I got up, the ogre rose too, suddenly expanding in every direction until it was as tall as us but perhaps three times as big. The sound around us was deafening, but we couldn’t have heard ourselves screaming if we wanted to.

Still, we didn’t dare move.

Suddenly, the ogre opened his eyes. They were a pale yellow in his glowing blue skin, making them curiously familiar, like characters I had seen in the movies.
Anthony bowed and said something in Japanese.

The ogre closed his eyes and bowed his head ever so slightly, then opened them and looked at me. I bowed too, and said, “welcome, sir,” in English. I looked at Anthony and shrugged my shoulders as if wondering if that was a really stupid thing to do.

“What now?” I whispered, my knees shaking.

“I don’t know!” whispered Anthony.

The the ogre spoke, his voice deep and low, but with a curiously dumb accent that bordered on humorous.

“What is he saying?” I asked, looking sideways to Anthony, who was nodding his understanding.

“He’s asking what place this is,” said Anthony, with a look of sheer joy on his face. “He knows it is not Japan.”

Anthony responded for a minute in Japanese. The ogre watched Anthony with an emotionless gaze, his eyelids half lowered. He was sitting on one side, with a hand supporting himself, the other massive hand resting on a raised knee. He waved his finger at me and said something to Anthony again. Anthony motioned toward me and answered.

“He was asking who you are, what language you are speaking.” said Anthony, with obvious giddiness in his voice. He asked if this is near San Francisco, he knows of San Francisco!”

“Wow!” I said, as if I was watching a robot come to life.

The ogre looked around slowly, still in his sitting position. He sniffed the air and looked up at the trees. Then he spoke again.
“This is a place of death, he says.”

I suddenly realized the ogre might take great offense to his surroundings. I felt a pang of fear.

The ogre began to rise, slowly, still speaking.

“He says there are almost no Nihonjin here,” said Anthony. “Nihonjin means Japanese.”

The ogre pointed off to a dark corner of the cemetery and grunted.

“Over there,” said Anthony, as if I needed translation.

We walked behind the ogre, who shuffled along with an almost apelike gate, perhaps due to his long period of inactivity. He stopped a couple of times, resting the knuckles of one hand against the ground like a walking stick.

Finally he reached a small black burial stone, barely visible in the grass. He brushed the undergrowth aside. Anthony peered closer to read it.

“Oh my god,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“That’s my family name. There is a husband and wife and a baby buried here. No date though.” He looked up at the Tsukumogami questioningly.

The Tsukumogami was just staring at the gravestone, moving his jaw around as if chewing gum. Then he turned and moved off, beyond the gravesite, into the darkness for a few steps. He stopped and stared into the distance, his shoulders raising as if he were trying to take in more smells.

He mumbled something into the distance.

“Amazing!” said Anthony.

“What?” I asked.

“He says there used to be many more Nihonjin here, thousands, and he is right!”

I looked at Anthony quizzically. “There were?”

“Yes,” he said quickly, “Down there, beyond him, on Terminal Island. Before the second World War thousands of Japanese fisherman and their families lived there. In fact they were on the island for decades, they had their own schools and everything. But they were rounded up right after Pearl Harbor and all their buildings were destroyed and their land taken from them.”

“But why?” I asked.

“Because they were Japanese. And because Terminal Island is right at the entrance to the port. Even back then it was the busiest port on the West Coast. Lots of military vessels. And of course Fort MacArthur was right on the other side. It was the FBI that moved them out. The Japanese on Terminal Island were the first Japanese in America to be relocated. My grandfather -”

Suddenly the ogre became agitated. His body shook and he began jumping up and down, ever so slightly, but with enough impact that we could feel the earth move from where we were standing. His grunt was primordial, disturbed, pained.

He turned suddenly and shuffled toward us. I thought he meant to crush us, but just as he got to the gravesight, he raised his massive fists and slammed them into the ground on either side of the gravestone.

The force lifted our feet off the ground and, to our amazement and horror, lifted the ground in front of the stone as well. The ogre dug his fingers into the ground and lifted it, like a lid, exposing a small box. He lifted it up gently, carefully rubbing the remaining dirt from it.

The ogre waived his hand at Anthony and said something.

“Stay right there!” said Anthony, “I will be right back!”

Before I could say anything, he was gone, running into the darkness. The ogre seemed completely uninterested in my presence, still cleaning the box.

When Anthony returned he had two thin branches in his hands. He put the branches together and then broke them both, right at the midpoint. He handed one set to the ogre and kept the other for himself.

Then the ogre squatted down. We followed suit. He carefully opened the box, breaking decades-old seals and nails in the process.

Inside were three brass urns, carefully fitted in a white felt lining.

The ogre placed the box on the ground and opened the largest urn. Holding the branches like chopsticks, he reached into the urn and produced a small white bone. He held it out toward Anthony, who took the bone in his chopsticks and then laid the bone gently in the overturned box top.

Then the ogre did the same with the other two urns, taking one bone out and giving it to Anthony to place in the box.

When that was done, the ogre closed his eyes and mumbled to himself.

“He’s praying to the Buddha,” said Anthony, a measure of pride in his voice.

With his eyes still closed, the ogre then reached into each of the urns and took a pinch of fine grey powder out, spreading it lightly on top of each bone.

As he chanted, the powder began to swirl around the bone, like a miniature storm, gently pushing each bone in a slow circle. The powder seemed to expand and each of the three little dust storms grew, until they were taller than us.

Then just as quickly, they subsided. As the dust fell, we were shocked to see three people standing inside – a man, a woman, and a baby. The man was very young, only a few years older than Anthony and me. The girl was probably our age, she could have been a classmate. The baby was very small, and sat in mid-air as if it were in an invisible car seat.

The ogre spoke.

“He says to tell them what happened here,” said Anthony, and then, turning to the three figures, he was about to speak when the ogre silenced him with a waive of the hand.

“Oh,” said Anthony, blushing. “He wants them to tell us.”

Without opening his eyes or moving in any other way save his lips, the young man began to speak in Japanese. Anthony translated for me.

“He says there was a great fishing fleet below us, on the island, and there were many families. They worked hard, they built schools, they had their own shops and meeting places. He says there were leaders who wanted to form a union, but some of them were suspected of being communist, so they were driven away. He said when when the war broke out, this was the first place the government came to remove the Japanese and resettle them. He said he and his wife had a little shop in San Pedro and they did not wish to leave. They didn’t consider themselves part of the fishing community. So they lived quietly on Nob Hill. But someone didn’t like them living there and had them killed in a car accident. They were buried here, together, with no dates so no one of our time would ever know for sure where they came from.”

“But they have the same name as you -” I said.

The ogre spoke again.

Anthony looked at me with moist eyes.

“The ogre says this is my great grandfather and his wife. The girl is my grandfather’s little sister. My grandfather was not in the car, they were going to get him from school. That is how the Tsukumogami came to be in his possession.”

Her looked at the Tsukumogami. “That is why I am  – we both are – here today.”

Anthony was clearly moved. Looking at his dead relatives, so young and so hopeless, he began to cry openly. But they could not hear him and they could not see him.

The ogre stood up and moved toward the three. He said something to Anthony, who responded in sobs, his head lowered, tears gently falling into the grass.

The ogre waved his hand at all three of the figures and they fell apart into a million particles of dust, dropping silently, slowly to the ground.

“What is he going to do now?” I asked.

Without looking up, Anthony shook his head and whispered, “I don’t know.”

The ogre picked up the chopsticks and put the bone pieces back into their respective urns, then closed the box lid on all three and placed the urns back into the earth. As he closed the earth back over the box, he let his hands fall into the hole briefly, closing his eyes, swaying slightly.

Then he pulled his fingers out and straightened up, taking in a deep breath as he did so.

He looked straight at Anthony and began speaking again, in his deep, measured voice. Anthony translated for me.

“What happened here is sad,” he said, “but many Nihonjin survived, their families now prosper, including yours – mine. In our homeland, many others did not. Bombs and firestorms killed hundreds of thousands. In many cities, there was nothing left. No homes, no people, no Tsukumogamis.”

He straightened up, and speaking louder, carried on:

“The fractured pieces will wake up in another few decades, millons of them. They will become Yukai. And they will not be happy.”

Anthony looked at me with sadness in his eyes and seriousness in his tone.

“You will not want to be alive when this happens.”

I looked at the Tsukumogami, who never so much as glanced my way.

There was nothing I could possibly say.

Anthony stood, eyes closed, his body wracked with sobs.

The Tsukumogami slowly sat down, shrunk to the size he had been for a hundred years, and solidified into a porcelain statue.

The cemetery was again a ghost town.

If he was right, in another few decades, all of this would be a ghost town.

Bear and the Red Dress

Bear saw the crow fly over his left shoulder and knew things would not go well.

Not because the crow flew over his shoulder…that happened every day, especially given his resting position on the stairs of the old deserted house where he’d taken up residence on this remote desert road.

And it wasn’t because he’d accidentally stabbed himself in the foot with a pitchfork in the barn. Bear was just naturally clumsy so he expected his aches and pains now and again.

What really had him worried was the red dress draped over the chair in the house.

It wasn’t there the night before.

Bear didn’t like sleeping in the house, it was too old and creepy for his taste. He was especially creeped-out by the 100-year-old beetle collection in the cellar. Some of the beetles were so large and so well preserved, they looked like they could take themselves off their pins and walk away at any moment.

Bear preferred to sleep in the wide open barn, with boards so old that he could see between them, even in the dead of night when starlight filtered through, illuminating the entire barn in a cool blue glow.

But this morning, after Bear stabbed himself with the pitchfork, he set his fears aside and went into the house to find something to dress his wound. That’s when he noticed the dress.

The breeze through the open door set the cotton slipover blowing gently on the high-backed chair, giving it a life that dresses simply shouldn’t have. It was a completely new addition to the house; he could smell the owner’s fragrance all over the faded calico pattern.

So rather than foray further into the house, Bear simply turned around and left as swiftly and silently as he could, not even closing the door behind him.

Bear thought about leaving this place entirely, hiking back to the cabin he had occupied all that long winter before. It was on much higher ground, where he could see for miles, but it was considerably colder at night, even in the middle of summer. He really wasn’t anxious to return to that.

So he crawled up to the loft of the barn and sat there, his foot raised on an old straw pile to reduce the swelling. He could see the house clearly through the slats in the barn. He lay there for a while, thinking nothing about nothing, until he dozed off in the cool morning air.

He woke with the hair on the back of his neck shooting up like there was a wolf at his ear. But it wasn’t a wolf, it was the snarling, whining sound of the old water pump down by the house. Bear squinted into the blinding light at the dusty yard below. The red dress was at the water pump, and this time the dress was occupied.

She was a tall Mexican-looking woman, with long wavy brown hair and tanned skin adorning a softly curving, toned body. Her face was at once stunning and earthy, with a strong jaw and a broken nose that attested to a hard life. Her deep cleavage defied the blazing sun as she pumped at the well.

He looked around to see how the woman might have gotten there. There was no car, no horse, not even a recent track in the sand but his own.

And yet she seemed so perfectly at home, like she had been there the whole time.

It was kinda creepy. Bear decided to stay in the loft and watch for more developments.

As the sun rose the temperature in the barn began to soar. He could hear wood expanding and splitting in the heat. But he dared not come down from his vantage point.

For some time now, the woman in the red dress stayed in the house, seemingly cleaning it up. He occasionally heard dishes clanging and chairs scraping across the floor.

When she came out with a bucket for more water, he shifted slightly for a better view. She filled the bucket and then tested the water with her hand, wiping it on her dress. Then she unbuttoned the front of her dress, and crossing her arms, pulled it up slowly over her glorious body, over her perfect face and thick brown hair, and tossed it aside, onto the porch.

Bear inched closer to the barn wall. The woman was gorgeous, in a strong, voluptuous, richly tanned way. He imagined himself lifting her heavy breasts and beautiful brown nipples to his waiting lips…

She dipped her hand into the water bucket and pulled out a smaller cup, which she proceeded to pour over her hair and face, letting the gleaming liquid cascade down the entire length of her body, dripping into little explosions of dust on the parched ground below. She rubbed each cup of the cool water all over herself, caressing with abandon, and then wiped herself dry, though the blazing sun made short work of it.

Walking slowly to the porch, she tossed the steaming towel over a rail, pulled her hair back over her shoulders and slipped the dress back on. It clung to her smouldering body all the way into position, soaking up water and attaching itself to her like an adoring kiss.

She turned around and sat on the porch, where Bear usually sat, and raised her face to the sun. Her full lips and wide face were glorious to Bear.

She sat there humming and swaying gently for a couple of minutes, her dress slowly sliding down her thigh. He dismissed the urge to believe she was baiting him, like a hooker on a Vegas side street.

After a while she stood up and made toward the door of the house. Then she turned around, her upper body blending into the shadows of the porch roof, and said loudly, “Are you gonna stay up there all day or are you gonna come in for a glass of lemonade?”

Bear was stunned. He was sure that she didn’t know he was there. Perhaps she saw his footprints, and realized they were new.

Or maybe she was talking to someone else.

Bear looked around through the walls of the barn. Daylight blasted through every recess, but he could see nothing beyond but the scrub grass of the desert and rocks.

He decided not to respond. It wasn’t like he wasn’t interested in the lady…every muscle in his body wanted to get up and go to her…but he was still unsure of the situation. Was someone else there? Did she have a husband who would be home soon? Where did she come from?

Bear decided he needed answers first. So he sat there, unmoving, as day turned into evening, and evening into night. The woman came out to the porch a couple of times, looking nowhere in particular, at times tugging her dress from her hot body, leaning against the porch upright. Then she sighed and went back into the house.

As night fell, Bear realized that he was hungry enough that he had to do something. He couldn’t stay in the loft and ignore his stomach. He had to get some food.

Rather than go into the house, which was now lit by a single candle in an upstairs bedroom, Bear decided to hunt for food in the desert.

Bear had lived in open country for nearly 20 years, learning survival skills from an old hunter who had lived in the same uncharted territory for many years before him. The man had disappeared several years back. Bear always assumed he slipped into a rockfall in the hills up above, but he never could find him.

Bear went behind the barn and uncovered the shallow hole along the back wall. Inside was a weathered canvas roll, including a compound bow and arrows and a shotgun. Bear took the bow and arrows and an extra bag, leaving the shotgun behind. No sense in waking the desert flower up, he thought warmly. It was the first warm thought he’d had for another person in a very long time.

Bear crept further behind the barn, toward the low foothills, scanning the ground for jackrabbits. It didn’t take long to find one. Bear drew an arrow into the powerful bow and let it fly; it hit the rabbit mid-hop and sent it flipping backwards into the sand.

“Betcha didn’t expect that!” he said to the rabbit, picking it up by the arrow. He kept walking until he was far enough out of range of the house to make a fire without being noticed. He pulled out his old box knife, skinned and gutted the animal, and skewered it over the low fire to slow cook.

“You must be proud of yourself,” called the woman from the darkness behind him. Bear shot to his feet and turned to see her. She was still wearing the red dress, only now her body was glowing golden in the light of the fire. Her huge dark eyes sparkled and her full hair blew back behind her ears, revealing twinkling earings that made her look like a goddess who had just stepped out of a time capsule.

“Umm, yeah,” said Bear, looking down at the rabbit, and then back at her. “Do you want some?” he asked, gesturing toward it.

She laughed in a familiar, welcoming way. “No,” she said, stepping forward carefully, “I don’t like rabbit. Too tough.”

He detected her Spanish roots in her words, which had a noticeable Mexican drawl.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, and then, sighing, he corrected himself. “I’m sorry, is this your land? Do you want me to leave?”

“Well this is as much your land as mine,” she said, with a gleam in her eye and a wide smile. She sat on a log beside him and said nothing for a few minutes.

“I come here sometimes, but not often,” she said finally. ” Did you like what you saw?”

“Pardon me?” he said, blushing in the firelight. She laughed again.

“You saw me washing today. Did you like?”

“Yes,” he stammered, poking at the rabbit with a stick, “yes, I liked that very much. I mean, you are gorgeous.” He didn’t dare look to see her reaction, but at least she didn’t laugh.

“When you are done cooking that rabbit come with me to the house,” she said, standing. “I might have something to complement it.”

He watched her walk into the darkness, her curvy ass and long legs like golden honey.

He finished cooking the rabbit and wrapped it in the canvas bag. Then he set out for the house.

A distant thunder storm sent up brilliant flashes of lightning far beyond the farm, beyond the glaring lights of the dusty old Walmart-infested town that he called Hell, casting the old house in an earie black shadow. It couldn’t have looked creepier if there was a ouiji board sitting on the porch table.

As he approached, the front door opened and the lights came on inside. He had never seen lights on in this house, he had never bothered to turn them on when he went in. But now the house looked suddenly alive, and the music that flowed from the kitchen gave it the feel of a real home.

Bear had long ago dismissed the notion of ever having his own home, or even finding someone who did. He was a loner, a desert drifter. It was his chosen path, but he couldn’t tell you why. He just felt like the desert was home and everything else – the city life, the little desert trailer parks — were just fake, plastic, arranging lost people in little compartments like the beetles in the display cases downstairs.

Bear stepped to the front entry and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” said the woman in a sing-song voice.

Bear walked slowly back toward the kitchen, scanning the house as he stepped forward. There was something oddly different about the place, like it was suddenly newer, cleaner than it had been just the day before. Maybe it was just the light, he thought.

Down the hall, the woman was humming and dishes were softly clattering in the sink. He thought about what he would say. Maybe he would start out with a question, perhaps asking her name, or where she came from, or how she knew of this place…his mind was suddenly a confusion of thoughts, each toppling on top of the last, till he couldn’t figure out what, if anything, he could possibly say.

Reaching the end of the hall, he rounded the corner into the brightly lit kitchen. The woman was still singing and the dishes were still clanking, but he was startled to find that no one was at the sink.

He was scanning the room for her when a powerful blow to the side of his head knocked him across the room. He grabbed the kitchen counter for support and looked back. A large black object popped him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He stumbled to his knees, gasping for breath, reaching for a chair to steady his dizzying senses.

Another sweeping blow from the side sent him crashing through the chair and sliding under the kitchen table.

At this point, Bear felt a moment of protection. Whatever it was that was attacking him, it was much larger than the table, so it couldn’t get underneath with him. But it could take the table -

Just as his mind went there, the table was suddenly swept away and sent crashing into the glass-plated cabinets at the other end of the kitchen. He wondered for a moment where the woman was, why he hadn’t heard her screaming, but he was too busy saving himself to dwell on that for long.

Scrambling on all fours, Bear made a bee-line for the back door of the house.

Suddenly bear felt an intense searing pain jam its way through the center of his body, from back to front. Looking down, he saw a gleaming silver object, dripping with blood, protruding from his stomach. The blow was so forceful that the spear was stuck fast to the floor. The sight was sickening; it made his head dizzy and he felt completely nauseous. He realized that he was impaled by the rod, that he was completely stuck to it. His legs flailed wildly but they weren’t helping him get anywhere.

In a panic, he grabbed for anything he could find. His fingers looped around the handle of a draw so he pulled on it, spilling its contents on to the floor below him. A flashlight, a pair of scissors, tape…nothing. Reaching with all his might, he was able to grab the light, but nothing else. It was futile.

His body slumped pathetically. It was at that point that he heard the lady laughing. He lifted his head to look at her, but she wasn’t there.

“What -?” he started, his voice gurgling through the blood flowing from his mouth.

“Betcha didn’t expect that!” said her voice, but when he looked up again all he could see was a bizarre alien black head with huge eyes, like a giant beetle. The beetle face pushed right up to his face and her laugh emanated earily from it.

“You people creep me out!” said her voice, and the spear suddenly swayed wildly, ripping through his flesh and twisting him around like a stuck bug.

“But,” she continued, “I have a place for you. You won’t be wandering in the desert anymore, I have just the place for you!”

The beetle picked up the spear and carried him deftly through the doorway, like an olive on a swizzle stick. She moved swiftly into the darkness, practically gliding over the sagebrush and desert grass, up the hillside until she came, mercifully, to a stop in front of a small, dark cave, barely visible in the moonlight.

Bleeding profusely and wracked by the pain of broken ribs and shattered nerves, Bear was at the edge of death.

Still the bug moved on, crawling low into the back of the cave, which seemed to open beyond. Then finally, she jammed the spear into the ground and moved off, red and black, swift and silent, into the dark desert night.

Bear realized that he was still holding the flashlight in one hand. He had just enough presence of mind left to turn it on and look around.

There, all around him, were other spears, with other people stuck to them. The old man who had taught him to hunt. A rancher. A couple of kids. Some tourist types, some locals, some Mexicans. All dead, all skewered in neat rows in the ground like a grotesque bug collection.

Bear’s life was fading fast. He watched as his own blood pooled in the cool dark sand at the bottom of the spear. He wondered if there was anything he could do to save himself.

He wondered what he had done that was so wrong as to deserve this. After all, he wasn’t the one who collected the bugs. If it was up to him, he would have taken those bugs off the pins while they were still alive and -

Or would he?

No, he thought dejectedly, I would not have. Bugs creep me out. I would not have let them go.

He looked around one last time at all the other humans on the stick pins. Then he dropped the flashlight and closed his eyes.

“I am the bug,” he sighed, with his last breath.

The Economics of Strategic Despair

Thousands of faces flash through my mind
A million emotions and some not so kind
I remember the shells and the gun in my face
I have no illusions about the hate in this race

See what you look for, find what you pray
Live for your fantasy but not in today
The present is some kind of trick, you will say
This life is a test and you’ve bought all the A’s
Your bumper sticker slogans say ‘Keep the rest down’
Keep the brothers and sisters crawling on the ground
You accuse them abuse them as reluctant trash
Package their morsels and take all their cash
Let the grandmothers raise the babies you say
Lock up the parents no books today
These trash people cut into your profits each time
They come to your business and stand in your line
It’s a wonder they breathe or just get around
You stuff them with neoprene junk that you found
Why is it the babies can’t talk anymore?
Do you really care or is the mama your whore
Your benevolent checks are blood money you ass
To stay away from your home and stay off of your grass
No defense for your economics of strategic despair
It’s a war you are winning so why should you care
You’ve got foot soldiers, dreamers with lotto-glazed minds
Thinking you are the leader of their chosen kind,
The magic threes, twenty sevens and eights
As if you hold success, destiny and fate
But truth is a bitch and she’s PMS on you
Your calculated starvation has pissed more than a few
Your brain twisting greed has you thinking you’re smart
But you’re tearing our lives and our families apart
Don’t think we can’t see your high volume sport
Your stock market scores and security report
When the numbers come in at the end of the day
You’ll be battered and shattered and we won’t go away

Live Like You Were Dying: Hugh’s Story

Normally, this blog is about my own creative writing and life experiences, but today I want to share another story. A friend’s story.

Like everyone else, there is more to my life, and that includes associations with many people from a variety of backgrounds.

Hugh and Michelle Simmons are two of those people. They’re also two of the strongest and most beautiful people I have the honor of knowing.

The video below was made by Michelle, in honor of her husband, who suffered a devastating motorcycle crash just one month after their marriage.

It was also made to honor the trauma teams and orthopedic specialists at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center – the premier emergency care facility in Silicon Valley – as well as for Michelle and Hugh’s many, many friends, of whom I am humbled to call myself one.

The video speaks for itself, so I won’t add anything more about it except to say that I love them both for sharing this with their many friends and family, with the hospital staff, and a special thanks for allowing me to share it with you.

But I would like to add one other thought. Despite a deep economic crisis and loud skepticism targeted at the public health care system in general, San Jose’s Valley Medical Center remains one of the most highly regarded emergency and trauma facilities in the Bay Area. Almost everyone in Silicon Valley knows of someone whose life was saved by the urgent and professional action of the medical teams there, and for that we are all grateful.

So enjoy, and remember to live like you were dying.

Goodbye, Jet

Little Jet was with our family for just a few weeks. Christina and I picked him up at the shelter one day while Emmie and Angie were still in school. We did it on a whim really. If I were really honest, I would say that we did it because I was feeling down about losing the ranch and thought we needed something to keep our spirits up.

He was a quiet and well-behaved looking little guy, not yappy or prone to biting. He had a large Chihuahua build but longish jet-black hair, a furry tail and big fuzzy years, almost as big as his head. In other words he was totally cute.

He was a bit shy at first but took to the girls instantly. That’s the thing about puppies as opposed to cats or horses; they show love unconditionally and uncontrollably. They just wildly, insanely love you. Jet was like that.

Jet loved to tease the girls and the cats into chasing him. His favorite game was catch-me-if-you-can. Nobody could, of course. He was a little black ball of energy in the thick grassy back yard, and it was hilarious to watch him run around.

Also unlike cats, you could take him anywhere. With the fair weather we’ve had lately, he would sleep patiently while we went into a store. But he whined his tiny little whine from the passenger-side window when Christina went to school, and he always curled up for comfort in my lap after we drove away.

Jet was the perfect little dog, but we didn’t get a chance to train him. He didn’t come when you asked him to, nor would he walk well under leash.

He slipped out of his collar and leash, and away from my youngest daughter earlier today. In good spirits, he ran up the driveway and into the street just as a car drove by. Angie ran to the door and yelled for Emmie to come out. A moment later Emmie ran back in, crying loudly, to tell me through tears that Jet had been hit by a car. As I ran out the door and up the driveway I met little Angie with Jet in her arms. I was upset with her for taking him off the road, but quickly got to the business of crating him and getting him to an emergency hospital.

On our way I called their older sister Christina, who had been working with the horse trainer all day. She cried hysterically when she learned what had happened, but did not insist on coming along. She stayed with the horse trainer this evening.

Later, at the hospital, Emmie and Angie said their tearful goodbyes to Jet.  Christina said an emotional goodbye through the cell phone. When it was my turn, I gently rubbed his little head and told him he was a good boy. He looked at me pleadingly and in pain. I wished I could have made him better, but there was nothing I could do. Such a good boy, it was hard to walk away. My lips trembled and I turned away when the doctor looked at us.

A few minutes after that, the nurse came out to the reception room and handed the boxed up little puppy to Emmy. She bravely carried the box to the van; I could tell she felt a mournful pride in the task.

I couldn’t help but break down into tears before we left the parking lot. He was such a good and loving little guy, and if that’s all a little puppy ever does in his life, it’s surely enough. He made a deep and lasting impression on all of my girls. And on me.

The little girls asked me all kinds of questions on the way home. Will he move in the box? Where did his soul go? If his soul is gone, does he still have fur? Does he still have a face? Can we see him before we bury him? Do dogs go to the same heaven people go to?

Sometimes I question the existence of God but the death of a pet is not the time to have that conversation. Jet is in heaven, with my beautiful old Malamute from years back, Sierra Bonita, to keep her company. We will see them too, but not for many, many years.

God, I said, would not separate us from those we love forever. And anyway, they live in our hearts for as long as we keep them there.

The girls cried several times this evening thinking about him. He will be remembered, and mourned, for a long time, as all loving little pets are.

Precious little Jet. Good boy, good boy.

The First Pilgrim: A Thanksgiving Story

On September 6, 1620, after two failed previous attempts to set out for the New World, the Mayflower left Plymouth Steps in England. The ship was loaded with English Dissenters who were quite a bit different in religious doctrine from the Puritans who later made their home just across the bay, in modern-day Boston.

These Separatists had a pre-drawn contract to settle a new stretch of land near the mouth of the Hudson River, in an area that is now New York City, but because of a nasty storm in the North Atlantic, they were thrown off-course and forced to weigh anchor just inside what is now known as Cape Cod.

When they first reached the new Plymouth, the weather was extreme. Snow was everywhere. The Pilgrims foraged along the shore, finding many mounds created by the natives. Some of these mounds contained stores of food. Others were graves which included not just bodies, but clothing, blankets and tools. The Pilgrims didn’t care, they plundered both with equal alacrity.

At one point, they had created enough ill-will with the natives that they were forced back to their ship, where they remained for the rest of the winter.

Half of the Pilgrims and half of the crew died on the ship during that long winter. But one child was born, on the 20th of November 1620 – 390 years ago this month.

His name was Peregrine White. Peregrine means “one who journeys to foreign lands.” It’s synonymous with “Pilgrim.”

Peregrine was the first English person, and the first Pilgrim, born in North America. (Another child had been born en route.)

Among the Pilgrims and crew who died on the Mayflower that winter was Peregrine’s 31-year-old father William White of Devonshire England, who passed about three months after Peregrine was born.  His 27-year old mother Susanna Fuller White of Norfolkshire survived, and quickly re-married with another original settler, Edward Winslow, who took Peregrine and his older brother, Resolved, in as his stepsons and heirs.

The first Mayflower returned to England soon after the Pilgrims disembarked, and was immediately scrapped. It was replaced by a second Mayflower, which was then commissioned to transport more settlers to Plymouth.

Peregrine grew up in a harsh and gritty environment, but religious doctrine held the community together. For the first few years, food was grown and shared by everyone. After a while, a pact was drawn and land was distributed among the settlers, and harvests were then held by individual families.

Thanksgiving feasts were common in the English and native cultures. So the first thanksgiving wasn’t really all that significant in the grand scheme of things. In fact, one of the original settlers wrote in his diary that it was the thanksgiving feast that was held just prior to the third landing of English settlers from a new Mayflower several years later that everyone remembered, since that marked the coming of age of the settlement of Plymouth.

When Peregrine came of age, he volunteered with the Massachusetts Bay Company to fight the Pequot Indians. Among his weapons was a prized Spanish Rapier which Winslow had passed to him. Peregrine later willed this to his own son Peregrine Jr.

After the war, Peregrine was fined for fornicating with his girlfriend Sarah Bell prior to marriage.  (Sarah’s listed father’s name was Bassett, but she was likely raised by a family called Bell.)

From this point, records are very sketchy. Some list Sarah as being five years Peregrine’s senior and dying at the age of 34. There are a number of family lineages which suggest she was born two years after him and lived to age 99, but these documents likely confuse her with one of her daughters.

In any event, Peregrine and Sara were married on December 16, 1646.  They had a grueling but short life together. He toiled as a farmer, and held small civic and military posts.

Sarah bore six children – two who were named Sylvanus, a Jonathan, Mercy, Daniel Peregrine, Sarah, Marcy, and another Daniel. She most likely died in 1651 at the age of 35, her early death no doubt hastened by childbirth.

Peregrine’s last child, Peregrine Jr., was born in 1660. Although records list Sarah as his mother, this was not likely. It’s not clear to me if his mother was even English; he had no given last name, even though all his siblings are listed as Whites.

Peregrine didn’t spend all of his life in Plymouth. At some point, he went to England with Winslow, but he did return later.

He died in a settlement called Marshfield near Plymouth, at the age of 83. He was buried at Plymouth in July 1704.

Peregrine had outlived three of his children, but three more survived well into their seventies. His longest-surviving child, Sara White, lived to the age of 102, passing on August 9, 1755.  At the time of her death, there were 1.5 million Europeans in the 13 original colonies of the United States. (In the same period, the native American population dropped from about 50 million to 8 million, primarily due to exposure to Old World diseases, but also confrontations and massacres.)

Peregrine himself had lived long enough to see the colonies created many thousands of new families arrive. At his death, he was just an ordinary citizen of the New World. Some of his descendants can be found in Massachusetts, while others moved on to Virginia, where they now make up a large percentage of the White lineage. It’s reported that others moved West; at least one of Peregrine’s grandchildren is thought to have ventured and settled as far west as Ohio.

The second Mayflower brought many other settlers to the colonies until 1641, when, loaded with 140 travelers and a full crew, it was mysteriously lost at sea.

Taking Forever

I was sound asleep when my 8 year-old, ball-of-energy daughter came screaming into my room, bounding onto my bed and yelling frantically in my ear.

“There’s a boy in the kitchen with a knife in his mouth!!” she yelled.

“What?” I asked, popping awake.

“There’s a boy…in the kitchen,” she started, and then broke down in tears. As powerful and strong as my little Emmie is, she’s also totally sensitive, and if something touches her heart she falls apart completely.

Something really serious must have happened.

I jumped out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand and, shoving it into my back pocket, started to run out of my room and down the hall. I stopped at the door and Emmie ran into me from behind.

I turned around and crouched down to her face level.

“Stay here,” I said quietly but sternly. “Stay right here, don’t move. I will be right back, I promise.”

Emmie’s little body was trembling and tears were pouring out of her eyes, but she stuck her little fist in her mouth and nodded her head yes from the darkened doorway.

I turned and tip-toed to toward the kitchen. I didn’t know what was up.

It could be a kid or it could be a burglar. We live in a little old ranch house in the country, just me and my three little girls and our horses and cats. The nearest neighbor is just across the road, but there are no streetlights and the way is frequented by poor folk who sometimes steal pets and machinery to make a fast buck.

My hands curled into fists, I could feel my fingers digging into my palms and the muscles in my arms and shoulders tensed in anticipation. If there was a burglar in the house, and he had a knife, he had a distinct advantage over me. My objective was to get him out without any kind of altercation.

The light was on. If I rounded the corner, I would be in the kitchen. I could hear a faint sound like someone breathing quickly.

At the other end of the kitchen was a door that led outside. I wanted desperately to give this person an opportunity to leave that way.

“Get out, or I’ll fire!!” I yelled firmly, in a voice as deep as I could make it, “Vamanos! Pistola!”

Nothing happened.

Emmie walked into the hallway behind me, crying audibly again.

“He’s hurt, Daddy!” she said, and started crying again.

I took a deep breath, crouched down a bit and dashed across the entry to a point behind the kitchen counter, quickly scanning the room as I went.

I was shocked by what I saw.

There, in the middle of the kitchen, stood a slightly pre-teen boy, with tousled blond hair, baseball t-shirt, jeans and red sketchers, eyes wide open and hands flexing wildly at his side. He was shaking like a leaf and I saw a glint of metal in front of his face.

That’s when I realized what my daughter had tried to tell me: This kid had a 12-inch butcher knife stuck solidly in the back of his mouth, which was wide open, twitching from the effort required to keep his tender lips from the searing edge.

“It’s ok,” I said to him as calmly as I could, “I’m not mad at you. You are welcome here. We are going to help you.”

I moved slowly toward him, not wanting him to react in any way. I was terrified that the knife might be stuck in his spinal cord.

The boy dared not move or even utter a response. He just moaned softly and stayed as still as he could, for a kid who was shaking with fear.

Behind me, Emmie began walking down the hall toward me, still crying to the depth of her little soul.  I saw the boy’s frame slump slightly at the sound; he was identifying with her misery.

I looked around quickly, trying to assess what I could do.

“Emmie,” I said, “go wake up Christina.”

At 12 years old, Christina is the oldest of my three daughters. She is smart, very perceptive and, most of the time, pretty cool under pressure. She broke her jaw earlier this year riding her horse in a competition. Except for the initial shock, she didn’t cry at all, even though the surgeons didn’t wire her up for four days.   So I was hopeful that she could help me out here.

As Emmie ran to Christina’s room at the back of the house, I gently touched the boy’s shoulder and talked to him.

“My name is Dan,” I said. “This is my house. You are welcome here. I’m going to help you.”

His shaking slowed slightly and he took a heavy breath. Tears began forming at the edge of his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “We will take care of  you.”

I walked slowly around him, looking him over carefully. He didn’t appear to have any bruises and as best as I could tell, there was no exit wound from the knife at the back of his head. I looked into his mouth; the blade was pointed toward his cheek but the point was embedded straight into the back of his throat. There was a steady trickle of blood running from the wound, and he swallowed involuntarily as it flowed. I had no idea how much blood he was losing, but as small as he was, it had to be a concern.

I grabbed a paper towel and tore a piece off. Folding it up, I placed it gently between the blade of the knife and the boy’s lip, so he could relax his mouth without cutting himself.

Then I gently touched his forehead; it was cold and sweaty. He was in shock.

I stepped back and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I called 9-1-1.

“911 please state your emergency.”

“There is a small child in my house, I don”t know who he is, but he has a knife stuck in his throat.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“San Martin, California.”

“This is your cell phone?”

“Correct.”

“Do you know the address where you are located?”

I gave her my address.

“Is the patient conscious?”

“Yes, he is standing in front of me, he’s in shock. He’s cold and sweaty, shaking. He has a 12-inch knife stuck through his mouth and into his throat.”

“And you say you don’t know who he is?”

“No ma-”  Suddenly Christina yelped behind me.

“Omigod!” she said, in a high, terrified voice. “It’s Jack!!”

“Is this a friend of yours?” I said to Christina, as calmly as I could, hoping to relay useful information to the 911 operator.

“We are sending an ambulance to your location now,” she said.

“Thank you,” I replied. “We may know who this is, hang on.”

“Yes I will,” said the operator, “and please stay on the line until emergency personnel get there. Also you should know this conversation is being recorded for training purposes.”

“It’s Jack,” said Christina at the same time. “He’s a boy in my science class. He goes to my school. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Emmie found him out here. Be gentle, he’s in shock. Don’t move him and don’t say anything upsetting.”

“Jack,” I said to the boy, “An ambulance is on the way, they will bring doctors who can help. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes, the fire station is a couple of miles from here.” I realized after saying so that it was more than 10 miles away.

He opened and closed his fingers in response.

“He’s saying ‘ok’,” said Christina. She moved to him and gently took his hand. He looked sideways at her, and tears began to stream from his eyes.  Christina’s eyes welled up, too, but she smiled a trembling smile and squeezed his hand gently.

“It’s going to be ok,” she said sincerely. “My Dad knows how to help.”

Jack’s knees buckled slightly. His legs wobbled and I saw his eyes start to roll back. Before I could do anything, Christina had slipped behind him and put her arms around his chest. She held him close but not too tight, her face peeking out just above his slumping shoulder.

“I got him,” she said, looking up at me.

“He’s passing out,” I said to the operator.

“Don’t let him do that,” she said. “Talk to him, try to keep him awake. Is he on the floor?”

“No,” I said, “My daughter is holding him up. I don’t think it would be a good idea to move him at all.”

“The ambulance is on its way,” she said. “Can you get a pulse? Do you know how to feel for one?”

“Yes,” I said, hang on. I put my finger on his wrist and felt a weak, rapid pulse. Then I thought again and gently placed a finger to his neck. His pulse was even shallower there.

“He’s weak,” I said, “He has a pulse but it is rapid and fading.”

“Try to keep him warm,” said the operator.

“Emmie,” I said, “go  get a blanket.”  My little motorgirl whirled around and hopped into the living room, coming back momentarily with my favorite gray and black Mexican blanket. I spread it out in my arms and, moving behind Christina, wrapped it around both of them.

The boy suddenly reacted, grabbing the blanket in front of him and holding it close. I could feel their bodies relax in its warmth.

The faint sound of a siren came in through the window. A dog barked on a nearby property. The ambulance had to be at least a couple of miles away still.

“I wonder what he was doing here,” I said to myself.  Nobody had an answer.

“It’s taking forever,” said Emmie, sobbing.

“Naw, it will be here soon,” I said. My eye caught my youngest daughter Angie, standing in the hallway half awake, gazing unknowing at the scene. I stepped in front of the boy and turned to her.

“Angie, why don’t you go find a movie to watch.  Emmie, go help her.”

“I don’t want to,” said Emmie.

“Please,” I said, looking at her firmly. Emmie turned and grabbed Angie’s hand and walked her into the living room.

Behind me, Christina was still holding the boy. Wrapped in the same blanket and with their eyes closed, they almost looked at peace.

I realized I might need more help before the ambulance got here.

“Emmie!” I called.

“Yeah, Daddy?” she answered, running to me.

“Go get Lupita’s Daddy.”

“But it’s dark out!!”

“Oh yeah,” I said, looking out the window. “Never mind, help Angie.”

It occurred to me, duh, that whoever had stabbed this child might still be outside.

“Turn the light on,” I yelled to Emmie. As she did so, the sound of a Disney movie wafted into the kitchen.

I looked back. Christina and Jack were still standing, eyes closed. Their bodies were swaying ever so slightly, together, as if in a slow dance.

“Be careful,” I whispered to Christina.

“I’m not doing anything,” she said, her eyes still closed.

The siren was still way off, but more dogs were barking. I could see lights come on at the neighbor’s house across the street. Then I saw the father step out his front door and look up at the full moon. I skipped to my front door and opened it, flicking the light on at the same time.

“Manuel!” I yelled, “Come here quick, please!! Emergencia!”

He looked my way and waved. He closed the door to his house and trotted toward me.

Manuel is a wonderful man, a landscape architect who sees himself as an artist of sorts. He is a tall man with a soft Mexican accent, wears his gray hair long and sports woven wool Peruvian sweaters. Sometimes I think he is deeply spiritual, although I don’t know what his religious affiliation is. He has lived in this area all his life and once told me that he had wanted to buy my farm, but that I had gotten it first. Looking back, I guess I underestimated how much he wanted it.

But I, too, had wanted to have my own ranch forever, and after saving forever and searching forever, taking my daughters through open house after open house, I was finally able to buy this one and happily moved my little family from Silicon Valley to enjoy a real ranch life.

“What’s up my friend?” he called, as he came near.

“One of Christina’s school friends, he is in my kitchen; why I don’t know. Anyway, he has a knife stuck in his throat. He’s bleeding internally,” I said, opening the front door.

“You called the ambulance?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s them coming,” I said, pointing in the direction of the sound, which was coming nearer.

He swept by me into the house, looked at the scene in the kitchen and almost smiled. He walked lightly forward.  When he reached the pair, he gently touched their shoulders through the blanket and closed his eyes.

“That ambulance is taking forever,” I muttered. The farms were alive now with barking dogs.

He nodded slightly in response, eyes still closed.

I realized I was still holding the phone.

“Sir-?”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m here.”

“Have the emergency vehicles arrived?”

“No,” I said dismally, “They are taking forever.”

“Is the patient responsive?”

“His eyes are closed, but he is awake,” I said, as Jack moved the blanket ever so slightly.

My eyes were distracted by red, yellow and blue flashes on the wall, and then I heard a muffled popping sound coming from where Jack and Christina stood.

I turned in time to see Jack’s knees failing again as an erie squealing sound came out of his mouth. His eyes flew open and then rolled back. He slumped, taking Christina down with him. Manuel’s hands hung empty in the air.

“He’s passing out again!” I said into the phone.

“It’s ok,” said Manuel flatly, “they are here.”  He nodded toward the window, which was now filled with the lights of emergency vehicles.

Emmie flew to the door and opened it. Two sheriffs came through, low, with their guns drawn. They swept Emmie behind them and approached us cautiously.

“Let me see your hands,” said one. Manuel and I held up our hands.

“Daddy – ” cried Christina.

“He’s dying,” I said, “He needs help right away.”

“What happened here?” asked one of the cops, quickly scanning his eyes over to Christina and then Jack, who was lying on his back, the knife protruding horribly from his mouth. Christina looked up at me, shaking her head. He was gone.

I looked up to see emergency technicians coming through the front door with medical equipment in hand.

“Over here!” I said, motioning to where my daughter held the lifeless body. The other cop pointed his gun back at me.

“Don’t move, sir!” he said.

“This is my house,” I said, “I’m Dan, I – “

“He stabbed this boy,” said Manuel calmly. “I saw it from across the street. I guess he thought it was a burglar. But he’s just a boyfriend of the daughter’s.”

“What?” I said incredulously.

“No!” said my daughter, rising with the blanket still around her.

Now both officers were pointing their guns at me. The EMTs stood back, waiting for the opportunity to work on Jack. Another officer took Christina and Emmie by the hand and walked them into the living room where a female officer was already sitting with Angie.

Suddenly, everything became a horrible, dizzy blur of sensory overload. My blood rushed to my head and I felt fuzzy and confused.

“This is just a precaution,” I heard an officer say, as he handcuffed me behind my back.

They walked me out of my house and toward the back of a patrol car. My girls ran out of the house after me, screaming and crying. Emmie, my powerful little one, wrapped me in a full bear hug and wouldn’t let go. Then they were all three wrapped around me, holding onto anything they could, trying desperately to keep me from being taken.

Several officers pulled them firmly away from me and led them to an unmarked van.

As I sat in the patrol car, half listening to someone reading me my rights, numbly staring out at the spectacle of my humble ranch house lit up with the gaudy, flashing lights of the ambulance and patrol cars, I realized that it wasn’t the emergency vehicles that had taken forever.

It was Manuel.

Bianca

The room was half full but deadly silent. She was early, the meeting wouldn’t start for another 20 minutes at least. She shifted in her seat.

“You can’t stick around,” she said to herself. “Nobody wants you here. They don’t care. And if anybody does, they don’t want nobody else to know. It’s the same old fuckin’ story as anywhere else.”

She picked up her purse and stood tall, fully aware of all the stares. She could see them without even looking. More like, she could feel them, like so many stones and arrows.

“Fucking tribes,” she thought as she moved for the door.

She knew they were watching her shoulders and hair, her butt and her legs. The way she walked. Looking for signs, for some obvious giveaway that would confirm their suspicions.

It was difficult enough being black in a room full of white and Latino men. And she was tall, towering over most of the guys there, in her stiletto heels.

Unwilling to give them anything, she walked quickly out the door, her face obscured by her long brown hair.

Outside, the air was quickly cooling in the fading light. Fall was definitely in the air. The thought of being homeless again this winter was so completely depressing that she brushed it aside as quickly as she could.

Still, there wasn’t much to be hopeful about.

No job in almost three years. No car, no home, not much money and even fewer friends. More like customers. Just messed up guys looking for something different before they beat her senseless just for being there. Like everyone else she ever met. Like her family, like the kids at school, like the jerks on the street.

She stopped on the landing and, wrapping her long manicured fingers around the wrought iron rail, looked down at the parking lot three stories below. She felt a rush of emotions. Anger, sadness, frustration, despair all swirled around in her mind like a poison soup.

There was no hope, she realized. She could dress like the prettiest girl in the world and in the end, she was really just an imposter, a pretender, a freak, a monster.

Yes, she was the freak, they all said it, so it must be true.

She was the one all the sick bastards were curious about at night, but afraid to acknowledge in the light of day.

Directly beneath her, a sidewalk from a staircase opened into a brand new parking lot. A streetlight from across the way illuminated the freshly painted parking stripes, creating a vivid contrast with the new black asphalt. She imagined that the blackness was really a deep, dark ocean, calmed by the cool, windless night.

Perhaps she could maintain that illusion all the way down.

“It would be like diving into the sea at night,” she thought.

“Honey you ain’t thinkin’ of climbin’ that rail in that outfit, are you?” asked a woman’s voice.

She looked around, startled out of her focus.

“What?”

“With them heels and that tiny little dress? You’d probably fall on your ass, right here,” said the voice, pointing to the landing between them.

Bianca looked at the girl. She was white, with shoulder-length red hair, big green eyes and large white teeth. She was dressed like a teenager, in skinny jeans and short tube top, but she was more likely in her thirties, curvy, and the same height as Bianca. She smiled broadly, almost like she was projecting good energy in her direction.

Bianca managed a crooked smile.

“I was just lookin’,” she said.

“Yeah, ok,” said the girl, turning shoulder to shoulder beside Bianca and looking out at the city lights.  “You gotta light, please?”  She waved a new cigarette in her fingers.

Bianca fished through her purse, found a lighter, and handed it quickly to the girl. She always felt self-conscious around women, especially white women. She didn’t want this girl to see her hands.

“You want one?” asked the girl, gripping the cigarette in her lips and lighting it at the same time.

“Yes,” said Bianca, “please.”

As the girl lit her cigarette, Bianca searched her eyes for that tell-tale look of surprise, but it didn’t come.  Instead, the girl looked straight back at Bianca, as if finding a small imperfection.

“That’s nice eyeliner,” she said. “I wish I had cash for something like that. These days I just have to let my natural beauty shine.” She laughed at her own joke. Bianca smiled too.

“It’s just guys in there, right?” asked the girl, tipping her head toward the doorway.

“Yeah,” said Bianca.

“That can be intimidating at first, but don’t sweat it. Most of these guys are afraid of their own shadow, let alone us.”

“But I’m not -”

“Oooh you’re not?” asked the girl, mocking surprise. “Well that’s a damn nice fit if you’re not,” she smiled. “I’d give anything to look  that hot.”

Bianca smiled self-consciously and pulled her skirt lower.

“Is this your first meeting?” asked the girl.

“No I – I had to go to the meetings while I was in jail,” said Bianca.

“Yeah, me too,” said the girl. “Kinda sucked. But I kept on coming back anyway, there’s something really comforting and good going on here. It’s  like family after a while. They have a saying, ‘Keep coming back until you want to come back.’ That’s how it’s been for me.”

“I just have to get my card signed,” said Bianca.

“That’s cool,” said the girl, looking into the room. “It’s almost time, let’s go in,” she added.

“Can I sit by you?” asked Bianca.

“Sure,” said the girl. “My name is Carrie.”

“Bianca.”

“Nice to meet you,” said the girl. She stepped forward and gave Bianca a hug. It wasn’t a long hug or especially tight, but Bianca’s senses were alight and she felt every curve in Carrie’s body. She wished she could memorize them all.

“This is what a real woman feels like,” she thought. “God, let me be her for a moment.”

As they separated, Carrie gave Bianca a quick kiss on the cheek and turned to go into the room.

“Carrie,” called Bianca, her voice unexpectedly faltering.

“Yeah?” said Carrie, half over her shoulder. She turned to look at Bianca.  Tears were streaming down the black woman’s pretty face and her full, gorgeous lips were trembling.

“You have to know, you just saved my life,” whispered Bianca, barely audible.  “Thank you.”

“No worries,” said Carrie, taking Bianca’s hand. “You saved mine, too. I was gonna go out and drink if that room was all full of nothin’ but guys.”

They stopped at the threshold, looked at each other, and laughed freely.

Author’s note: This story was written for National Coming Out Day, a celebration of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, curious and straight ally community.

Take Me One

One day, working in a hotel room, Clarissa looks up from the bed she has just made, to see a man going into a room across the hall, where a co-worker is vacuuming the floor.

The man is rough looking but very focused, clearly on a mission.  He takes off his jacket and hangs it in the hallway of the room almost without stopping. She notices he is wearing a harness of some sort across his shoulder.

He sees Clarissa out of the corner of his eye.  As she ducks out of view he turns and pauses for a second, then comes toward her and closes the hotel room door. She hears it lock.

The vacuum cleaner stops and she hears increasingly loud conversation, then screams and shuffling of furniture. She closes her door and locks it, but looks through the fish-eye security viewer.  He emerges from the room across the hall, jacket back on, throwing his hair back with his fingers.  He glances at her door across and moves toward it. He tries the lock.

From the hallway, we see that below eye level, he pulls out a silenced pistol and shoots through the door several times. He puts the pistol back in its shoulder holster and leaves, stone-faced.

Clarissa, who had slipped back to the bathroom doorway, trembles in fear as light from the hallway cascades through the holes in the door to a point across the room. She waits there for a long time before emerging.

When she can move again, she goes to the phone and calls the hotel security guard.

He comes up to the room and opens the door for her.  Seeing that she is clearly terrified he asks what has happened. She points to the room across the way, trembling too much to speak.  He opens the door and finds a bloody mess everywhere, the girl is dead on the bed with multiple gunshot wounds.

“Did you see this happen?” he asks.

“Yes, but I – not really, I-”

“What do you mean? Why didn’t you call me?”

“I – I couldn’t, it happened so fast, and he saw me!” she says.

“Are you sure?”

“I think so, that’s why he shot through my door when he came out, he was trying to kill me too!!” she screams hysterically, trembling and breaking into tears.

Author’s note: This excerpt is from a screenplay that is currently moving to final form. Please vote to let me know what you think of it.   If you are an agent or producer and you’re interested in seeing the draft, drop me a note.