The Sign

“It’s like an Uncrustable, except it’s a cookie.” “Shut up Jimmy. I wanna go to sleep,” I said, jarred away by the light of the desk lamp. “Some of us have work in the morning.” Jimmy pulled out a butter knife and a Chips-Ahoy to demonstrate his business proposal. “People like cookies, see, but they don’t really like the crusty outer bit. All anybody really wants is the gooey center.” “You’re ruining a perfectly good chocolate chip,” I muttered through my pillow. Jimmy didn’t pay me any mind. I listened to the sounds of frustration as the cookie fell apart in his hand. His was the sort of crazy idea that made me think of Ashley, not that they would’ve ever gotten along. She had once figured out how to hack into this electronic road sign off I-680 but, rather than write about “zombie invasions” (something Jimmy would’ve done) she used it to try and contact the owner of a small yorkie she had found. We fought a lot over those next several weeks. You can’t imagine the kind of people we had stopping by at all hours of the day and night and she refused to take down our address. She did find the owner in the end. She also found a new guy, some athletic trainer, and a new place as well. The last time I saw her was on a bus ride out of the Mission District. She was off to a job interview with some high-profile telecom firm. She didn’t need my sorry ass any more. Jimmy had nearly emptied the box when I realized that sleep simply wasn’t going to come. I heard a squeal of excitement and looked up to see him looking intently at his hand. “Look at this Jake, just look.” I looked at the floor around him. “You know you’re gonna sweep that up.” “Come on Jake, can you just look for a second? I’ve done it. It’s perfect.” I looked at the scanty remains in his hand. “That’s awfully small,” I said. “We can always make the centers larger.” I looked back down at the crumbs and laughed, planting my face again into my pillow. “It sure is nice to think so.”

On Washing and Repairs

Finding tattered clothing fashionable, would-be avant-gardes approach their garments with the giddiness of schoolgirls and a pair of scissors, believing edginess and iceberg theory will imply a narrative more interesting than what a well-worn pair of slacks can provide. Be aware that no one likes a pretentious dresser.

Therapy

I told her how I had rescued my neighbor's cat only to come home and learn that my brother had been killed in action, how it precipitated my parents' divorce. I told her how I had started shooting up on a regular basis, how desperate for a hit I got, how I was discovered and sent to rehab--but not before the resulting effect on my grades got me thrown out of college. She let out a slight gasp (a bit unprofessional but for someone who looked like her I'd let it slide.) She asked in that throaty voice of hers what I sought to gain out of therapy and I said I wanted to find the strength to overcome my weaknesses and insecurities because addicts use substance abuse to communicate a desperate cry for help...right?

Okay. Before I go on any further I should probably tell you that nothing I said was true. See, I answered the want ad to role-play with up-and-coming counselors in short practice sessions figuring it was easy money since all I had to do was sit there and lie my ass off for half an hour. I started watching Real Housewives to get ideas because my story needed to be compelling so that I could convince the hot counselor to go out with me. However, when making up stuff proved to be a full-time job I decided to base my character on my roommate and the shouting matches he often had with his parents over the phone. I'd be trying to think up a good story and he'd be in the other room arguing with his mom about hoes and baby clothes so loudly that I couldn't think. What was I supposed to do? The guy was an absolute pain to live with.

I started engaging him in conversation, pretending to do homework while I actually took notes. "How's it going?" I'd ask. "I heard the fighting the other night." "You, know how parents are sometimes. Not the most accepting." I'd press further, "It sounded pretty heated." "Finances have a way of doing that." I noted that this would be yet another month I covered his rent.

There were a few days when he wouldn't give me very much but for the most part what he had to say was pure gold. I had to change some parts of course to enhance my appeal. Classified ads became the giving away of puppies, blood work became volunteering at a nursing home, nights looking at furniture catalogs became studious work to get back into school. "Poor thing," she said when I told her about getting laid off from from Subway because the boss wanted to hire his kid. She nearly grabbed my hand when I told her how my sister didn't think it was going to work out and I said that it was going to be alright. Her hand totally twitched.

I had the counselor (I don't know if Jeanne was her real name) hanging on my every word--and not just because that was her obligation. She was falling for me, I could tell. My plan was set. I'd tell her how my godfather-instead-of-distant-uncle passed on while I was laboring away at the home and she would start to cry and I would comfort her and take her out to dinner and she'd apologize for how unprofessional everything was and I'd tell her it was alright and we'd go for a walk in the park and kiss under the stars and I'd take her back to my place for a few drinks. I decided I'd omit the part about the inheritance.

Indeed there were a few tears. I pretended to be puzzled as I asked her what was wrong. "I'm sorry," she said, "I know this is unprofessional. It's just my husband recently lost his godfather also." "Would you like to talk about this over dinner or something?" She laughed, "No, that's alight. So, you're godfather passed away. How did that make you feel?" "You have a husband?"

I don't need to go into details about what happened next, how I had forgotten that all these sessions were being videotaped for grading purposes and how I got really angry and had to be dragged out of the room by other staff members--that two-timing...oh, what's the use? My roommate sure was giddy when I finally got back, going on about finding a new place and affording some operation and how things just sometimes work for the best--the hell they do. I was reassigned to a senior male counselor and was forced to do another eight weeks of sessions for free if I wanted to receive any of the money I had previously earned. So here I am. I suppose I should make up another story for you but frankly, I'm tired of all the bullshit.

As a Corollary to Robert Frost

A spider can't see the pallor of its own creation any more than the moth it catches. Each step is an act of faith.

On Proper Ironing

The key is to accept that you will never remove all the creases.

A Portrait of a Vase Seller

I was only a boy when my grandmother first told me that the house was haunted by demons. They were like rats breeding in the cistern of our flooded cellar and at night you could hear them creaking the foundations and rattling the floorboards from below until it finally roused my grandfather from his sleep and he got up, grabbed a belt, cane, whatever he could find, unlocked the door at the end of the hall, and descended down into the darkness to silence them. He always returned battle-worn and carrying a sack of something horribly pungent over his shoulder. He wasn't the kind to talk about it.

I never would have imagined it was a vase.

They didn't keep any in the house but my grandmother had a collection at her flower shop. She told me that every time he managed to catch one of the demons he would seal it within the clay of a hand-crafted vase so that it would no longer be able to terrorize the cellar. She'd take me to the market sometimes to look at vases and would point out which ones held demons and which ones didn't, saying that the chaos of its soul gave the vase a unique kind of luster. But to her, my grandfather's vases were particularly special. "I didn't mean to live in that sty," she once said, "but your grandfather's the type of man who's stubborn about parting with what's his and I had never met anyone whose vases so matched the flowers I grow."

She complained about the house all the time, the parts that were falling off, the fixtures that ceased to work, the many needed repairs that my grandfather was too busy working to keep up with, but somehow she put up with it. She even became less bothered by the possessions that were lost whenever the cellar flooded--"People lose things," she'd say. I remember how she hid her tears when I first left for college. She thought I wasn't watching.

I was working on my thesis when my grandfather passed away, failing to return from his venture into the cellar. My grandmother eventually moved out but she didn't live to see the place condemned. I was there when the wrecking ball came and smashed it down. A large crowd of people--people who had never stopped by during my grandparents' lifetimes--had showed up to watch the demolition. But the thing I'll never forget was when the foreman in charge walked through the wreckage to where the cellar had once been and remarked, "How could anyone have possibly lived here?"

On Skipping Stones

Which one should be cast first? The murky pond has lots. But some of them are duds. My cousin invented a game of striking the water striders. Your stone had to bounce twice or it wasn't official. It was really hard. They were so far away that we couldn't hit anything. My cousin rolled up his church pants and waded in. I laughed at his throw 'cause it was a dud. His next one too. He looked at me. I watched the reflection of the sad trees the clouds and the whole wide universe as his next stone zoomed like a dragonfly. It splashed the strider underwater but it did not hit him so my cousin didn't win even though he laughed at me but then he fell in so I laughed at him. He was so wet. He wanted to hide his clothes and asked me not to tell because Mom would be so mad.

Only later did I realize that water striders don't resurface.