[Fiction] Friday Challenge for May 1, 2009

SPOILER ALERT: If you plan to read my novel, A Bitter Pill to Swallow, don't read this story yet. Wait until you have finished it.


He was going to tell everyone who asked that his name was Arthur. He stood on the side of the road, hoping another car would pass by soon. An Edsel had sputtered past, but the little old lady driving it eyed him suspiciously without so much as slowing down. Could she tell he was from the school? He’d hoped he had put enough distance between himself and the place so that no one would figure out who he was, or who he had been. He hoped the old leather jacket and blue jeans Paul had given him would be an adequate disguise. Paul, his only friend in that strange and terrible place, had given him normal clothes to wear so he’d look like any other 17 year old boy, and his brand new copy of On The Road.

“You should come too!”

“Nah. I’ll be alright. I’m better off here. This place has kept me off the pills, at least.”

Yes, only by substituting them with stronger medicine. All of it made him feel absolutely lousy. Lousy and drowsy. He spent the last couple days only pretending to take his medication, hiding pills under his tongue or between cheek and molar. He secreted them away in his sock drawer. Paul said he could sell them if he wanted. He knew a guy just outside Portland who’d buy them from him. Why anyone would be stupid or desperate enough to buy a pill that had once been inside anyone else’s mouth was completely beyond him. But then again, a lot of things were. And that was why when he was just 8 years old, his parents had sent him away to this school among the pines and the redwoods that stood beneath perpetual rain clouds.

“He’s the cutest little boy. Makes it that much sadder, doesn’t it?” He overheard a relative say of him when they learned of his fate. They had come to say goodbye. It was no ordinary Sunday dinner. They did not know if he would ever come back.

He could overhear them talking late into the night that last time he slept in his own bed. Some said he was too bright. They said that genius could lead to madness. Others said he was too dull. And what kind of a boy still lived in such a fantasy world at his age? He was too big for this, or too little for that, and what would ever become of him? What kind of man would he become? Finally, to shut them out, he shut his eyes and envisioned Camelot. He imagined that he was the boy who could remove the sword from the stone.

The place he went the next morning was not like his school at all. There were so many rules, and punishments far worse than detention or demerits. And he was not allowed to bring his toy soldiers, or his cars, or most of the other treasures of his lonely childhood. So all he had was Camelot. He talked to his doctors, stern-looking men who smoked pipes and wore horn-rimmed glasses, and they looked at him disapprovingly. They were always telling him to stop thinking about knights and castles and being the boy who could remove the sword from the stone. They wanted him to leave the one place that made sense to him, the only place where he felt safe, only to join them in their world of rules and regimens and tapioca pudding. They did their best to pry him away from his world. They used ice water baths and cold sheet packs, insulin shock and electroshock. Each time, he just went further and further into the back alleys of Camelot, hiding behind stables, finding secret passageways, even taking on disguises so that no one would know his true identity.

He wanted to be good, to get better, to make progress. He did what was asked of him. He even kept taking the medication after he realized it was causing him to gain weight at an alarming rate, even though there were no longer clothes that fit him when he finally went home for a weekend when he was twelve and that pretty girl across the street laughed at him when his pants split as he was picking up the morning paper for his father.

“Did you just get back from the funny farm or the fat farm?” The loudmouthed paperboy asked as he sped by.

And the pretty girl didn’t seem so pretty anymore once she started laughing at him.

He dropped the paper, ran inside and up the stairs to his bedroom where he retreated into Camelot, where that afternoon an insolent paperboy was slain by a young knight in training.

That was five years ago. He had not returned home for weekends since. Partly because he didn’t want to go back and face further humiliation, and partly because he had lost the privilege. Now they were calling him delusional. And this meant another round of treatments. They were no longer as terrifying, and he wondered if that meant they were no longer as effective. Finally, last month his parents came to visit him with tears in their eyes.

“They told us of another treatment. It’s a last resort.”
An operation, they said, that was called a lobotomy.

Nobody wanted to tell him much about it. But he had seen the effect of it on some of the other kids. And he couldn’t let it happen to him. And hadn’t he tried to be good? Hadn’t he done what they asked? Wasn’t there some other way? He really did want to get better. He really did want to be normal, and make friends, learn to drive a car, do the things that all the other boys his age did. He did not want to become what those unfortunate few of his classmates had become. The light in their eyes had been extinguished. Paul had called them the pod people.

“Oh I forgot, you haven’t seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” He said, teeth chattering as he shivered under an ice-cold sheet.

The nurses had left them there in beds that were side-by-side. Talking seemed to help distract them from their frigid confinement.

“Yeah we don’t see a lot of movies here. Only once in a while.”

“You gotta get out of here before they do it to you.” Paul whispered.

And that was they night they formulated the plan that had worked so far. Hitching a ride wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped, though. Why did they have to put the school in such an isolated place, so far removed from the rest of the world? As it began to rain, he wished he could have been in a city, near a bus or train station. But now the only way he could get to a station would be with the help of a stranger, and thank goodness a produce truck slowed down and the driver let him in. The trucker didn’t ask many questions, only where he was going, not why and how and what he’d do when he got there. But he’d been coming up with answers anyway.

His parents? They died in a terrible accident. He was on his own now. First name? That was easy. Just call him Arthur.

The money from the pills he sold to Paul’s friend was enough to get him a train ticket out of state. And he needed to get out of state before they found him and sent him back for the dreaded procedure. He worked his way east, taking whatever odd jobs he could. The school had prepared him for little more than a life of light industrial work. The few classes he had taken were too remedial to count for anything. To make up for his shoddy education, he spent his days off reading as much as possible at public libraries.

In one little town he even worked as a busboy at a restaurant that was so empty it must have been a front for something else. And through the owner he met a priest who created a false baptismal record he was able to use to get proper identification so he could finish high school. He found his way to Kansas City where some buddies at his factory job taught him how to drive. He still spent his free time reading, as he tried to find a way to understand all that his doctors had told him. He wanted to heal himself.

By the time he moved to Chicago, he was studying to become a psychiatrist at one of its top universities. And almost 20 years after running away from his own (mis)treatment, Dr. Arthur Lutkin was prescribing treatments of his own at a special school for emotionally disturbed children and teenagers. It was a place of healing, not of punishment, and it looked like an old castle.

for fiction friday: Invent a holiday for which your character is a big fan

Peter sat at his desk, folded his arms, and looked out the window. This was the coveted corner office view he'd always dreamed of. From the ergonomic cocoon of his Herman Miller Aeron chair--a luxury only bestowed upon upper management types--he could gaze down upon the parking lot to see his car in a newly reserved parking space that was much closer to the main entrance. All of this just for speaking up. All he had done was make one small suggestion at a routine weekly meeting.

How could they improve the bottom line? How could they maximize their return on investment? Jennifer had suggested National Landlords Day, but Shelly and Mike disagreed on the gender neutrality of the word "landlord" while Quentin reminded them that in some markets homeowners greatly outnumbered renters and they would not be able to sell as much product as a result. But police officers, he continued, were everywhere so why not launch a Law Enforcement Appreciation day? Jennifer and Shelly, in retribution for the attack on their Landlords Day idea, pointedly asked Quentin if giving gifts to a police officer might constitute a bribe in some areas, and if this was all just part of a scheme to keep his car from getting booted again for excessive outstanding parking tickets.

Finally, Peter spoke up. He had been surreptitiously working on his deep breathing exercises all throughout the meeting, and saying his affirmations in his head. He would be assertive. He would speak up. He would stop being a wallflower.

"How about National Send Someone A Greeting Card Day?" He said.

One of the advantages of always being so quiet was that few the times when he spoke Peter commanded everyone's attention.

One by one, all of them agreed that it was a fantastic idea. Anyone could send a card to anyone else for any reason. It needn't be based on relationships, religions, job titles or the time of year. Recipients could be young or old, married, single, divorced, widowed. It could even get some of those cards that were blank inside off the shelves! And what is a card without flowers or candies or fruit baskets to accompany it? There could be hats, mugs, t-shirts, a website, maybe a television special...

And so, sitting in his new office ready to reap the benefits of all the flowers, candies, fruit baskets, hats, mugs, t-shirts, websites, and a television specials his idea would sell, Peter decided that National Send Someone A Greeting Card Day was his most favorite holiday of all.

Raven's Song excerpts

about Raven’s Song:
Raven’s Song is the story of Raven, a 15-year old girl who has been sent away to a boarding school by her parents in order to safely hide her away from her stalker ex-boyfriend Tiyon. Raven is miserable because she is interested in art and the school she has been sent to specializes in math and science. She also feels ashamed that she ever got involved with Tiyon, who had a long history of emotional problems. One day she discovers that Tiyon has sent her a letter at school. One of her friends had been tricked into giving him her new address. Now realizing her cover is blown but not wanting to transfer schools again, Raven decides to take things into her own hands. She will get revenge. She will stalk him. But will her obsession with getting revenge take over Raven’s life?


Hands


His hands were long with spindly fingers. His arms were gangly and covered in dark circular scars. Burns from the tips of his mother’s cigarettes. Whenever she was angry—because she couldn’t find work, because of rats and roaches in the apartment, because he looked like his father, or just because Tiyon was her son–he became her ashtray. The arms, he thought now, were a good place to burn. They could mostly be covered with sleeves while school was in session. And it kept the caseworkers out of their business most of the time.

He was drawing in his art class. He was no good at it. He told his friend Chanara that the futuristic military base he’d done looked more like a deformed mushroom on a pogo stick. She laughed. He was good at that, making girls laugh. That’s all he ever was to them, a clown. At school, a clown. At home, an ashtray. Never quite human.

She sat across from him. She had small hands, like a little girl. Hands the right size for dressing dolls and petting hamsters. Small, drawing hands with a callous on one finger from years of holding pencils too tight. And that meant one thing: either she liked to write or to draw. Looking at her single-minded concentration and the way she held the thick Ebony pencil in her hand, he figured it must be drawing. But he couldn’t tell, since she sat across from him, whether her picture was good or bad, since it looked upside-down to him. Freshman. Fresh meat. Easy prey. He could tell.

So he got up and went to her side of the table.
“Mind if I have a look?” He asked.
“Well, okay. I mean, I’m not finished yet, but if you want to see it—“
He could tell she was one of those types who could never quite bring themselves to say “no.” He could tell she was his kind of girl.

Raven writes about Tiyon

He was sort of like the character in a movie that none of the other characters seemed to understand. And you want to help them, but you can’t. Nothing you do will ever be able to effect them at all. That was how I felt. And it frustrated me.
“He is not a monster. He is misunderstood.”
That is what I used to tell myself. I read his poems. They were about being lost in a terrible storm with no one to hold his hand and nothing to shelter him. I was so stupid. I fell for it. I drank in all the crazy lies he told me. Even when he said the bomb threat was not his fault. I know he’s crazy. I know he did that for me. And that’s what really made me hate him. I hate him from the bottom of my heart. I don’t care. Nice little church girls can hate people, too. I hate him as much as he thought he loved me. I hate him form the bottom of my heart.



the bomb threat

Our school was on the news that day. He’d called the school and said there was a bomb inside. They made us all stand across the street. My father didn’t want to let me out of the car. He was getting ready to drive away when I saw somebody standing on the roof, waving his arms like he was crazy.

He yelled out my name.

“Raven! Raven! I’m doing this for you!”

Over and over again. My father turned and gave me a look I’ll never forget.
And I heard kids asking each other, “Who’s Raven?”
So now they all knew.

Raven in 3rd person
She wears mostly black, walks alone, with a distant expression on her face. She does not want to he here, but knows she should be grateful. Her old biology teacher has pulled some strings, and now there are strings attached, and so she is all caught up in string. Sometimes she tries to humor herself, pretending she is an undercover agent on a mission, and that’s why she has to check in with the security guards three times a day. It’s a deadly mission, and headquarters has to make sure their spy is still alive. It is a game she can only play with herself about 5 minutes at a time. She cannot get too close to anyone here. She sits at a different lunch table every day. She does not want to make friends here. She feels she can trust no one.

Two months into the term, in October and very close to Halloween, she gets a card in her mailbox with writing on it that is indistinguishably his. Opening it makes her feel sick, but she can’t not open it either. So she does. There is a cartoon drawing of black cats, ravens, and pumpkin heads. It is still addressed “My Dearest Raven,” just like always.



Raven’s Poem about Tiyon:
Elegy for your Memory

I let your memory die
yet your memory
still haunts
the empty chambers
of my mind.

Your memory is embedded
in my mind
like arsenic deposits
in fingernails--
a grave reminder that I
ingested something
poisonous.

And every night
you visit me--
a poltergeist
who rattles my thoughts
like dishes.

You’re mad at me
because I left,
because I let
my feelings for you die
like your memory.

I hardly remember
your voice anymore
and I wonder
if you died
like your memory,
your haunting memory.



©2002 Tiffany Gholar

excerpt from "My Island, Nueva Playa"

Somehow there is a terrible loneliness that comes form knowing that you are in love with a place that no one else can fully comprehend. I want more than anything to go back to my island. So we were saved, we were “rescued” by the Coast Guard. But it feels more to me like I was banished from a magical place. And I must be the only one who remembers taking showers outside in the rain, roasting the fish we caught over open fires, the hot sand feeling like dry, gritty fire under my bare feet until the cool ocean water melted it away. Because my parents have already forgotten. They’re too busy trying to figure out how much they owe to all these bill collectors. And to my brother. . . he’s just glad he’s back here in time to get all the latest video games. I’m the only one who remembers, I’m she only one who misses it, and that’s why I’m completely alone. Leaving Nueva Playa has left me heartbroken and it just might take me a lifetime to recover.

But you can believe I’m not about to find out the hard way. I’m going back there as soon as I can, even if it means swimming out into the ocean. It’s where I belong. It’s the only place where I belong.

©1999 Tiffany Gholar

For Fiction Friday

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key. Had it been Mrs. Hooper, after the developers purchased her late husband’s store in order to convert it into a trendy new Caribbean-Italian-Sushi fusion restaurant called Dine? Or Gordon, after shaking his head and saying farewell to the street here he’d watched his children grow up? The 2 guys in the basement apartment—what were their names?—Bert and Ernie, that’s right. Bert liked to feed the pigeons, before city ordinances were enforced to forbid that sort of thing in this neighborhood. Which was why the big yellow bird was the first one to leave. A psittacosis scare would definitely cause the property values to plummet. And his giant elephantine friend wouldn’t help the situation. So it couldn’t have been either of them who had given Alice the key. They were already gone by the time she arrived with her real estate agent to see the property.

Next to the stoop in front the building was a collection of trash cans. Alice thought she saw someone with bushy eyebrows and beady eyes peering out of one of the garbage cans. There was a lid on his head, and though Alice couldn’t be sure, she was almost certain he was a grungy shade of green. But maybe that’s what years of homelessness had done to him. Well he’d be gone soon enough. On the way into the building, she and the agent passed one of the current tenants, who’d be moving out soon.

“Hi, Bob!” Waved the real estate agent.
But Bob just muttered something about the stress of trying to find another rent-controlled apartment with the same kind of character as the one he was leaving.
“What’s the matter with him?” Asked Alice.
“I don’t know.” The agent replied. “Usually he is so chipper!”

A few weeks later when Alice returned to show the building to her live-in boyfriend, Eddie, a deaf woman who lived on the first floor said something to them in sign language that didn’t look very friendly.

“What’s going on with these people?” Alice asked. “Every time I come here, I get the dirtiest looks from everyone.”

Gordon must have heard her. Leaning from his second floor window, he explained, “things used to be a lot friendlier around here. Until local politicians like The Count started taking bribes from real estate developers. Mr. Hooper didn’t want to sell his store or the rest of his building, but a few months later he died under mysterious circumstances. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

“Gordon? Are you at it again with your conspiracy theories?” Called his wife from somewhere inside the apartment. Then she stuck her head out of the window next to his.
“Don’t believe everything he tells you. From my understanding, what really happened is The Count got some crooked cops to frame this kid Elmo for selling drugs behind Mr. Hooper’s store. And the city was able to use imminent domain because it was considered a drug house.”

“Oh, so my version of it is a conspiracy theory but yours is true?” Asked Gordon. “What about what they said about the Cookie Monster? That he sent Mr. Hooper some macaroons laced with arsenic? You know macaroons were his favorite.”

“Cookie Monster just doesn’t have it in him. He’s not really a monster, you know.” She replied.

The tales of the sinister goings on in this block were not enough to frighten Alice away from the building. The unit she eventually purchased had been gutted and remodeled. It had hardwood floors, exposed brick, and antique crown moldings that had been painstakingly restored. The rusting fire escape in the back had been converted into a beautiful iron balcony that would be perfect for her new Weber grill.

There was something very romantic about this place. And even though she was a stock broker and Eddie was a lawyer, they could live like artists here in this trendy new neighborhood that would soon become the envy of all their friends. She had moved to New York City from England after a bad experience with her crazy ex-boyfriend, an accessories designer who made eccentric hats, and an incident involving his Cheshire cat. She had no intention to leave. Whoever had given her the key to the building, it didn’t matter. The place was hers now.

Moving day had finally arrived. The movers had gone on ahead of her. She was trailing them on her new mountain bike. But somewhere along the way she had gotten turned around, so at a red light she asked the driver of a cab beside her,

“Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?”

A Reason to Die

"Are you sure you’re going to be okay, baby?”

This was it. Devante and his mother had finally arrived at his school. He was surprised to see everything just as it was before. Kids were getting out of their parents’ cars or crossing the overpass above the expressway, coming from the El train station. A few blocks away, the police officers at the police academy were lining up in the parking lot. It was amazing that the lives of those around him continued to go on, although for Devante time seemed to stand still. It seemed as though it would always be 9:25 P.M. the night of Valentine’s Day. That was when he knew Monica was dead.

“Look at me.” His mother urged him. In theses past few weeks, it had become hard for him to make eye contact with anyone, even his own reflection. He hated looking into the mirror and seeing the face of a person who was too powerless to save the life of the girl who could have been his girlfriend. And every time he saw himself, he knew that he had known better than to have gone outside in his neighborhood after dark.

“Look at me,” His mother said again as she put the Mercedes in park and turned his face toward her. His eyelids seemed to weigh a ton. It was as if all the tears he refused to cry had collected in them. But he couldn’t let his mother know how much the events of the past month has affected him.

“I’m fine, Ma. Really I am.” He grabbed his bag quickly and hoped he could get out of the door before his mother realized that everything he had just said was nothing but a lie. He flung the heavy door open and rushed out of it so fast that the cold February air scarcely had time to come in.

Just go, he told himself, rushing forward on the sidewalk. Don’t look back. Don’t even say good-bye.

He heard his mother pulling away and realized that there were only two options for him now. He could no longer sit alone in his room in a state of depressive inertia because he had insisted that he was fine. He didn’t need to see any stupid shrinks, he had told his mother, and definitely did not want her to send him away somewhere. So what if his parents had just divorced, he had moved into a new neighborhood, and his closest friend had just been shot to death? None of that mattered now. He could handle anything.

He had a teen heartthrob face, with thick eyebrows that his doting mother often tried to straighten out and coarse, curly hair that he wore in a style that his strict father disapproved of. Many girls found him attractive. Even at the funeral, a few fast girls in short skirts had switched up to him carrying boxes of Kleenex, but he didn’t pay them any attention. The one girl who had ever mattered to him was gone, but he’d go on pretending.

With slow and measured steps he approached his school. Swarms of kids were beginning to fill the halls and he could see them through the large front windows. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice him. Maybe they would avoid him, just as they had done at the repast after Monica’s funeral.

I can do this, He thought as reached the door to his school, knowing that if he wasn’t strong enough to pretend that he was happy, there was only one other thing he could do. So what if she’s not with me anymore. So what if Monica’s¾

And just then Devante saw a couple walk by, holding hands as if they were the last two people left on earth, or the last ones left at Whitney Park High school, anyway. Their smiles mocked his misery. He and Monica had been like this once. Sauntering through the halls, sharing headphones as they listened to CD’s on his Discman, and probably seeming, just as the couple that he saw through the glass door, as though he and Monica had a feeling that no one else could ever have. Yet this time, Devante knew that his feeling was unique. He had a reason to die.

Run! The urge was raw, primitive, something that was usually aroused in a life-or-death situation. Devante obeyed this instinct. I can do this. I can die. Monica did it.

He had thought about this many times before, yet somewhere in his mind lingered the vague notion that Monica was still alive, just sleeping, that she would suddenly awaken and appear right there at the door. The sound of the ambulance screaming past Devante’s grandmother’s house with its sirens wailing had revived that long-forgotten thought, sending Devante charging down the street after it as he screamed Monica’s name. And old Mrs. Willis down the street telephoned his grandmother from inside, telling her that her grandson had gone and lost his mind. She was too afraid to even come outside and speak to the young man, who collapsed in a crumpled heap on her front yard, weeping bitterly.

I must be losing it. Scared old Mrs. Willis half to death. I don’t care, Monica. I’m gonna see you again.

A year ago, his life hadn’t been this way. Devante was barely fourteen and already nagging his parents about getting a car. The lived in a spacious house at the crest of a hill on Longwood Drive with a crescent shaped driveway and colonnaded entryways. He had just begun to rebel against his conservative father by wearing baggy jeans with his Polo shirts and listening to rap music in his stereo. He even told his parents that he, unlike his older brother, wanted to attend a public high school. His idea only fueled his parents’ bitter arguments. He spent much of his time playing the baby grand piano in the sitting area adjacent to his room, trying to drown out his screaming parents’ voices downstairs.

But what could he do now that the turmoil had entered his mind? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When he moved into his grandmother’s neighborhood, all he saw was Monica. Her personality and charm had drawn him to her. Devante liked the way she said “ax” instead of “ask” and thought it was funny when she talked about going to get her hair “did.” His father, on the other hand, took one look at her and called her “ghetto.” “That girl. That ghetto girl,” his father had always said with such contempt and disgust. He never once referred to Monica by her name. He called her Shaquandah, Safreeta, LaKeisha, or anything else that ended with an “a” that he felt was not a suitable and “respectable” name. His father seemed to think that such girls were destined to become welfare mothers. You never even met her, pops! Devante wanted to say. His father would never know about her beautiful singing, or all the times he and Monica had gone to hear the symphony and see Broadway plays with his mother. He would never know that Monica’s last words were the lyrics of a song from Les Miserables.

Is that Chad and Jerome? Please don’t let that be them! I can’t let them see me!

Devante thought he saw his two friends getting out of Chad’s father’s minivan from across the street. They couldn’t possibly understand what he had been through. How would his friends ever understand his fear of the dark, that the reason he was 15 and wet the bed was because of the horrible nightmares he had? They were unrelenting. Every night he re-experienced the shooting in his sleep or else spent many hours suspended in a purgatorial state between sleep and wakefulness. And early each morning he crept down to the laundry room in the basement to wash his wet sheets before anyone could find out.

In the late hours of the night he kept his lights on to keep away his fear of the darkness that obscured everything. Many times he played mind-numbing computer games like Tetris or even Pac-Man. Anything involving guns or blood immediately brought flashbacks of what had happened on that horrible night just a few weeks ago. It was in the eerie stillness of his room that he had come to realize that there was nothing left for him. He lived in the shadow of a bullet, his existence poisoned by misery, his thoughts contaminated by every memory of Monica. He had played the piano to drown out the sounds of his bickering parents, but what could he do to drown out the memories?

Die.

The word was short, cold, and simple. Simple enough until he thought of all its repercussions.

To die. To sleep no more.

He vaguely remembered the words from a play he had read last semester in freshman English. For the past few days he had considered it carefully. And Devante felt somewhat sedated by the contemplation of the act. He had even eaten breakfast this morning and brushed his hair for the first time in weeks. It would be like music. Taking a ginsu knife to his forearm like a violin bow and playing inaudible music with each stroke of a severed blue vein. Or plunging form the precipitous height of the closest towering vertical structure he could find and lying still, at last, on the sidewalk. But his parents! What would they say? His mother would probably start screaming, “My baby! My baby!” like she had that night, when she saw him standing there on the sidewalk, drenched in Monica’s blood. He tried to force that memory out of his mind. And what about his brother and his father?

I don’t care. He lied to himself. And I don’t care about not caring.

Somehow it had calmed him. And last night, he didn’t even scream at the conclusion of his nightmare; he knew it would be his last.

What’s the point of living? At the funeral they all said, “She’s in a better place now.” So, what’s wrong with dying? I want to be in that better place, away from all the chaos of this world. Any place where a girl with as many hopes and dreams as Monica can be shot down like a dog in the street is not where I want to be.

He looked around and realized that he wasn’t running anymore. He had stopped right at the curb, right across the street from the overpass. All along, his body was following the instinct, though his mind still deliberated in ambivalence.

I should do this. And I can. Why should I go on? It’s all my fault anyway!

There was no hope of revenge because he didn’t know who was responsible for the shooting. He knew only that “They” had done it. They were after a boy whose haircut, shoes, and coat were identical to Devante’s, yet he was unaware of who “They” were. This criminal, pants-sagging, low-riding “They” was responsible, but Devante carried the guilt that should have been theirs.

Your fault. . . your fault. . . His mind taunted as a scene he desperately wanted to forget appeared in is mind. Devante tried to fight it. He wanted to force it into the back of his mind, but the memory overwhelmed him completely. He remembered a sky without stars. A black emptiness. A city sky. And underneath that sky, that canopy, that burial shroud, he sneaked out of the side door with the roses and teddy bear that he was waiting to give to Monica.

And you know you shouldn’t have you knew it would happen! You say you didn’t but you did! Dad warned you about this place. You could have just gone to live in his big condo, but no!

He wanted to express to her his desire to be more than just friends. The only light came from the insides of buildings and the eerie orange street lamps that lined the street. This made the shadows unusually long, ominous, and deep.

And it was dark. It was so dark, a night without stars. But you kept going! You idiot! You went. . .

He walked to Monica's house feeling warm despite the cold that crept through his sagging jeans. The lyrics and melodies of every love song he ever knew were playing in his head as he climbed up the cement steps of Monica's front porch. So what if the moon seemed to be a watchful, ubiquitous eye spying on him from behind. None of that mattered now. He was glad Monica answered when he rang the doorbell.

"Are those for me? Oh, Devante, they're beautiful!" Monica said as she accepted the teddy bear and roses that he had gotten her. But a sudden look of fear erased the smile from her face.

"That driver just slowed down when he saw you." She warned Devante, who had his back to the street.

"What does that mean?" He was new in the neighborhood.

Monica never answered the question. Devante turned around to see the barrel of the gun sticking out of the open passenger side window. Monica screamed "Duck!" and the shot went off¾

She died almost instantly.

And they fired and she said 'Just don't move. Play dead' and I did and I saw the blood. . . everywhere. . . all over the roses and the white teddy bear and the Valentine's card. I killed her! I didn’t pull the trigger, but it didn’t have to happen! I should have known! Only an idiot would go strolling through my neighborhood after dark. But I thought drive-bys only happen to other people. I thought I was invincible.

Invincible. Was he invincible? If he jumped over the side of the overpass, would he die? If he jumped, would anyone notice? Would the drivers stop their cars in horror and cause a fifty car pile-up? If he died, would anyone care?

Serves you right, pops. All you ever do is boss me around and talk about Monica like that. You’ll see. You’ll be sorry.

The Don’t Walk sign went off and Devante ran across the street and skidded to a stop on the other side.

But what about Grandma? What about my mom? What’ll they do? Then again, what use am I to them anyway? I don’t take out the trash. I don’t shovel the snow. I don’t even eat anymore. They’d be better off without me.

The overpass stood before him. The threshold, the boundary between life and death. Before, he had only seen it as a way to get to Burger King during fifth period lunch, but now it had taken on a new meaning. But wait! There was a huge chain-link fence that towered over the guard rail.

That thing must be eighty feet tall. Do I really want to do this?

He did. He hurled his heavy book bag to the ground and began to climb.

I’m not scared. I’ve looked death into the face before, so it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

Yet part of him wanted someone to notice him up there. Part of him wanted someone to tell him to get down from there and show him that he still had a reason to live. And that was when he thought he heard the sirens.

“Hey kid!” A voice called to him.

Try and stop me, pig! All you cops are pigs! Where were you when they shot Monica?

“Get down from there!” Called another voice.

Devante turned around and saw a police academy car screeching to a halt.

They’re just a bunch of toy cops anyway. They can’t do anything.

Yet oddly enough, part of him wanted them to.

Come and save me! Or maybe this is just part of the lessons they teach those toy cops, how to arrest a Black guy for no reason. What’re you gonna do? Arrest me for taking my life?

They were on his side of the street now. Devante still hadn’t moved. He held on to the chain link fence and stared down at the sluggish river of morning rush hour traffic below him.

“We want to help you.” One of the officers said.

“Leave me alone!”

But I don’t know if I want to. I’m scared. I don’t know!

“Come on, kid. You’re too young to just throw your life away.”

Is he right? Will he shoot me?

Devante slowly began to climb down the fence, looking back warily at the two officers in training that stood behind him.

I don’t know! Why am I doing this?

“I don’t want to die.” He answered his own question.

At last, his feet were on the sidewalk again.

©1997 Tiffany Gholar

A Little Fall of Rain

The red Blazer screams off into the darkness and I still can't believe this is happening. Not to me, not on Valentine's Day, not on my front porch. I look up and I see Devante screaming and screaming. What just happened? Not that long ago, we was just chillin' on my porch. So what if it's dark and cold outside? It's Valentine's Day and Devante wanted to make it a happy one for me. He brought me all these roses and this big white bear and I was just so excited I just stood right here on the front porch with no coat on. And then the Blazer just pulls up outta nowhere with no lights on and I know that I shoulda known it was gonna happen and I know that I shoulda known not to be out here. I knew it was a gangsta car, low-riding down the street with gold trim, fat tires, license plate covers, and windows tinted so black that you can’t see the fools inside. But Devante, well you can't expect him to know nothing about that cuz he just moved in here from his boozhy neighborhood where they don’t never get drive-bys. And I still don't want to believe that those were real bullets flyin' at us, and I still don't want to believe that some of them hit me. I just hope Devante okay. And the bear he gave me, its covered in blood! I'm screaming his name but he can't hear me.

“Monica! Monica, you’re gonna be all right. The ambulance is coming!” Devante all frantic now.

I ain't never seen him look so scared in my life. And maybe he can't hear me. He's got blood on him, too! I told him to duck. But since he wasn’t listening, I pushed him down to the ground and fell right on top of him. I just couldn’t let something like this happen to him. And I'm feeling this pain now, but I know this ain't happening. I’ll wake up, and tomorrow I’ll be going to Student Council and track practice. I’ll wake up, and none of this will have happened, I want to tell myself. It's cold, so cold that I think my blood is gonna freeze on the sidewalk. My blood! It can't be real! It can' t be. Okay, Monica, look down. You're just dreaming. Them bullets, they wasn't real. Ain't none of this real. But that's real blood! Oh, God please tell me these bullet holes ain't real! I'm gonna die!

They say your whole life flashes before you, but all I see is what I never did. Like how I never told Devante that I like him. I wonder if he even knows? I remember that day when we stopped at Marshall Field's. We was ‘posed to be heading home from school on the El train, but of course Devante wasn't trying to hear that. And I remember the look on his face when I tried on that long, slinky dress with the skanky slit up the side that I knew Momma would never approve of. But that look on his face. . . never in my life has a brother looked at me that way. And he bought that black and silver Nautica jacket even though I told him not to, not just because it was $150 (can you believe he fifteen and got a credit card?) but because Shorty from up the street, he's got one just like it. And then he bought the new Jordans, too, even though I told him that Shorty got a pair just like 'em. And word on the street is they been looking for Shorty. They think he's been keeping some of that drug money to himself. Devante be trying so hard to fit in with these other brothers, so maybe me telling him about Shorty only made him want the jacket and shoes more. I'm looking up at Devante now, and I see it would be real hard to tell him from Shorty from the back.

And here comes Momma now, just crying. And I want to tell her that it's alright, even though it's not. Kinda like that one Black girl in the play Devante and his momma took me to see about the French people that was having a revolution. They were shooting too, only not over drug money, and ole girl was just caught in the middle. But she told her man not to worry. She didn't feel no pain, and rain would make the flowers grow. . .

Feels like I’ve been layin’ here for twenty years. I keep coming in and out, hearing voices warning Devante not to move me. And I'm just like, where's the ambulance at? If I could talk, I'd remind Devante that 911 is a joke. Poor thing. He never did understand that music video. Maybe now he can.

But it ain't his fault that he just moved here to be with his Grandma since she had a stroke. He coulda gone to live downtown with his father in a fancy apartment, but he said that living here was more fun. Yeah, if you can call living with burglar bars and four locks on the door "fun."

But it used to be fun to live here. Maybe that’s why the old people, like Devante’s grandma, don’t want to move away. They say that the neighborhood has changed a lot since 20 years ago, and I even think that it was different seven years ago when me and Devante was little. I remember when we used to sit here on this porch when we was little kids, drinking Kool-Aid and eating corn chips with hot sauce on ‘em. Every day after school he and his big brother would be at his grandmother’s house, and I liked coming over there to see him. Sometimes we played in his grandmother’s backyard. When it’s warm outside, she got so many sweet potato vines and elephant ears back there that me and Devante played like we was living in a jungle. I wonder if he remember that. But things were changing, even then. One of his parents would roll up in a shiny black Mercedes to pick him up, and he never saw what it was like being here at night. Devante didn’t know about the drug dealers who started hanging out on the corners. He had no idea that by the time they was in sixth grade, a lot of the little boys he used to play with already had rap sheets. Somehow, in the back of his mind Devante thinking that he still living in a boozhy little neighborhood. I guess all them signs that say “Warning: We Call Police” that are up in everybody’s windows never made him realize that.

I still remember they day he moved in here. I saw him out front, cutting his grandma’s grass without a shirt on. He almost had some muscles, with his tall, skinny self. And looking so fine. I think maybe some of the other boys are jealous of him, especially since he got such nice curly hair. But anyway, there he was. And as soon as he saw me coming, he cut off the lawnmower.

“Monica, is that you?” We hadn’t seen each other for a long time. And I guess he was expecting to see me with braids and barrettes in my hair, not like it is now, in a bob that’s stacked in the back. I was surprised to see him, too.

“Devante? What you doing here?”

And that was when he told me all about the divorce and his grandma having a stroke and his momma not wanting to put her away in a home. For a second, I almost thought I saw a tear in his eye. But then he changed the subject. That boy asked me if I wanted to ride bikes with him around the neighborhood. And I told him I’d have to be crazy to do that.

“Why not?” He asked. “I used to ride my bike all the time when I was at my old house.”

“Well, this ain’t your old house!”

And I don’t think I got a chance to finish telling him about how it’s changed around here because his momma came outside after that. Mine did, too. They just kept going on and on about how much older we both looked and how cute we was when we was little kids. It was embarrassing. And then they started talking about how the two of us was just about to start high school, how fast we grew up. I was ready to leave. And just then, Devante momma said something that surprised me: we was both going to the same school. Me and Momma both looked at her funny. And she said it was the best public high school in the city, so of course she’d send him there. Maybe we could carpool, she said.

But my momma’s idea of “carpooling” is for me and Devante to take the CTA buses and El trains together. That was when I realized that if Devante had a lot to learn about the world. The first few times, that goofy boy forgot to get himself a transfer. And he wanted to take his Discman on the train! I told him to hide it inside his coat so that all people could see was his headphones and not the CD player. And I guess I thought he learned.

We spent a lot of time after school together. He plays the piano, and when he plays, when them long, skinny fingers of his touch the keys, it’s like he’s saying something to you that can’t be put in words. His grandma likes listening to Nat King Cole. She used to be a ballroom dancer, but since she can’t do that no more, she just sits and listens. Sometimes Devante be trying to play the songs by ear. And one day, I started singing along. He liked my voice. So, I sang a little louder, but since I’m an alto, I can’t hit really high notes.

“Do you want me to play it in another key?” He asked me.

I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“That’s the difference between singers and musicians. All you guys have to do is just jump up on a stage and go ‘la la la’ and you don’t even know about sharps and flats and major and minor keys!”

But he taught me all that stuff. He’s really good about that. Just like his momma. She grew up here, and always be giving me history lessons on the neighborhood, telling me about the politicians and movie stars and football players who used to live down the street or around the corner. Seems to me like they oughtta come back and see what’s happened since then. And she told me about how all these houses on the block are Chicago style bungalows, that you can find them anywhere in the city. She’s right. I started noticing that on the way to school. Houses just like mine all over the place, but some people still look at this and call it the ghetto.

I remember standing here on the porch the night we had went out to see that play about the French people. Devante and his momma always going to plays and operas and things like that, and every time, he remembers to invite me. I never really got the feeling that they do it because they felt sorry for me or thought they were doing some kinda mission work or doing me a favor.

“I just like being with you, Monica.” Devante said. “And I just want you to see what it’s like on the other side.”

That was when I knew he liked me. And for the whole play, I kept looking at him. I guess somehow I kinda thought he was gonna kiss me, like in a movie or something. And I remember there was this one Black girl in the play, the one who got shot. And I turned to Devante and said, “One day that’s gonna be me!” But I didn’t mean like this.

It's getting colder now. I never thought it would be this way, dying I mean. Actually, I never really knew what it would be like. They never taught us about that kinda thing in school, just like they never taught us what to do if you live where I live. And I don't wanna die. Sometimes, I used to feel like if I died nobody would care at all, but here they all are— Devante and his mother and grandma (she came out here with her walker!) and my parents. And I don't want to do this, but something's pulling me away from them. And I want to tell Devante about the song I wrote for him that I left in my dresser drawer underneath the CD that he bought me. It's the soundtrack to the musical about the French people having a revolution. And I want to tell Momma and Daddy that I'm sorry about all the times I fought with them over stupid stuff like how loud I can play my music. And I want to thank Mrs. Lewis (that's Devante's grandma) for all the times she baked us sweet potato pies and let me and Devante listen to her Nat King Cole records. And I want to thank Ms Lewis for all the plays and operas she took me to see. But most of all I want to thank Devante for just being Devante. Because he played the piano while I sang, because we took the bus to school together sometimes, and because I don't wanna go out like this. And I can't stand to see his face all twisted up in fear.

So now I'm gonna try to sing Devante one last song. They all look so scared, but I ain't scared no more. If I could just get my voice back. . . it's really hard to even breathe now. I'm gon’ try. . . just like that one Black girl in the play . . .

"A little . . .fall of rain . . . can hardly . . .hurt me. . . now. "

Blood all spurting out my mouth. And I hope that he knows what I'm saying. I hope they all know.

"And rain. . . will make the flowers—"

©1997 Tiffany Gholar

Pennymonster

It makes pennies multiply in the dark. It is a close cousin of the paperclip monster. Its arch rival is any machine that can sort, count, wrap, or otherwise organize pennies. When it wants to be especially vile, it will transform half of the pennies from American to Canadian currency, making the coins worth even less, although they look deceptively similar and even weigh about the same. It punishes disobedient pennies by sending them in the direct path of a vacuum cleaner, often rendering the victims deeply scarred and choking the vacuum cleaner at the same time, a double guilty pleasure.

Experts Say It Could Be The Penny Monster

An area man was found buried alive for 48 hours beneath a mountain of pennies. Jeremy Lake of Buffalo Grove lived to tell his story:

“It started out small. I found a few pennies in the backs of drawers, behind the cushions of my car. Then, the other night I went to sleep. I kept hearing this strange jingling sound, like coins. But I ignored it. I thought I was dreaming, but I felt something pushing me in my sleep out of my bed. I ended up in the bathtub, luckily.”

Mr. Lake survived on water he drank straight from the tap. Concerned neighbors called police after they heard a pounding sound coming from the upstairs apartment. That would turn out to be Jeremy banging his fist on the wall of his bathroom. Firefighters excavated the 25-year-old man from the deadly pile of coins with special rescue equipment.

A volunteer bucket brigade helped Jeremy and his rescuers remove the coins from his apartment. The change was dumped into the bed of a neighbor’s pickup truck and was deposited by the bagful into the CoinStar machine of a local Dominick’s supermarket and converted into cash. For all their trouble, Jeremy and his twelve new friends will split exactly $153.79.

There is No Penny Monster, Feds Say

The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve bank deny the existence of the so-called Penny Monster.

©2001 Tiffany Gholar

frustrated screenwriter

I've never used a lighter before and so it takes me many, many, many tries to finally get the little spark and flame. But anyway now it’s out and now I've got my worthless script in the sink. I'm going to burn it. I love the way the charred paper smells. I like watching the pages curl up. Character names and lines of bad dialogue are seared away. And there it goes, such beautiful destruction.

The gesture is more symbolic than anything else, now I think. The ashes are soggy. They will stick to this morning's dishes. The script is still well-preserved in five other places: on my hard drive, and on the Internet, and on a Zip disk at my boyfriend's house, on a disk I gave my friend Lisa, and regrettably on still another disk in the vegetable crisper of my refrigerator. But I at least have hope that it's been ruined by the cold and the dampness.

I am convinced now that they were all right about this story. Nobody wants to read it, and everyone who has says that if I revise it ten more times, maybe just maybe it could be a Lifetime movie of the week. Great. Just like the one about Laurie Dann killing those poor little kids in Winnetka.

Anyway now I'm trying to get the wet ashes to go down the garbage disposal. Now the kitchen has a nice burnt smell. I like the smell of burnt paper. Much better than burnt plastic.

Maybe I'll go do something else with my life. Why be a fabulous screenwriter? Why not just a humble painter? I'll continue to live alone, get into a series of M.F.A. programs and never leave. I'll subsist on loan money and never pay it back because I'll be in school for the rest of my life.

©2001 Tiffany Gholar