California

Rain fell from the thick clouds looming over the desert sky, splashing arbitrarily into the muddy yellow puddles here and there. Rivulets trickled past the entrance of the little cave at the foot of the massive butte, just yards from the highway. The rain fell heavily before, but now tapered off into a slight drizzle. Smoke from the fire wafted across the low roof and then was sucked quickly out into the cool, wet desert night. As the sky grew darker, the cave grew warmer, the small fire throwing dim yellow light. To feel the heat of the flame, the man leaned close as he cooked his food.

He was a young man, early twenties, short-cut black hair, wind-darkened skin. Wearing a worn brown leather jacket, black jeans, scuffed black leather boots, he looked out through the flame, into the darkening desert. His eyes were striking, black against white, calculating. A scar ran across his left temple; he was clean shaven. The smell of cooking bacon in the small black skillet and coffee simmering in a pot, just out of reach of the flames, filled the air, sweetening the musty smell of damp earth clinging in the dim, still cave he had stumbled across a short while ago.

Out in the mist, a gray shape under a tarp stood just outside the cave, a motorcycle cloaked against the wet night. And beyond his bike hunched under its blanket, stretched the road from which he had come. Black and glistening in the failing light, it stretched into a gray haze of rain and steam. Lightning flashed, filling the desert night with a strange brilliance and bringing out the distant mountains covered with the storm's shroud. And as the dark fell back onto the mud and pavement, the young man saw a dot of light appear far down the highway, approaching very fast. By the time the thunder rolled across the desert floor, chasing the long gone flash of lightning, the deep, throaty sound of a Harley Sportster motorcycle filled the small cave.

Not taking his eyes from the new arrival, the young man leaned back, away from the fire's warmth and light; pulling the skillet from the direct flames and balancing it on the rock with one hand, he reached back into the cave into his little pile of possessions with the other, into the brown leather saddlebag, pulling out a small revolver which he tucked into his jacket. Leaning back over the fire, he poked at the bacon, watching the new arrival pull up and dismount.

The other man was older, early fifties. He wore scuffed black square-toed biker boots, faded jeans and an old black poncho. He was soaked. The older man climbed the slight embankment up to the cave and stood hunched at its mouth. His weather worn face was obscured under a few days growth of black and gray hair. He looked in with eyes that were deep chestnut brown, red and tired.

"Mind a little company? Sure looks warm in there."

"Come," said the younger man. "Fire's warm."

"Looks warm... and dry." The older man pulled off his poncho and left it in a pile at the entrance. Under it he wore a black leather vest over a gray tee-shirt. "Won't get much use outta that for a few days." He held his nose and made a face of disgust. "Them Mexicans use some kind of burlap and ox hair blend to twine these things all up. That's what gives 'em that pungent aroma." He smiled down at the young man. "Looks like I caught you at dinner."

The young man showed no expression. "Don't have much, but you're welcome to it."

"Well, I ain't a charity case," the older man smiled. "You just get that fire warmed up and I'll take care of some things." He scooped up his poncho, turned and left the cave. The rain died down to a fine mist. The older man called over his shoulder. "Just so happens I got some vegetables here in my pack, and maybe some bread that ain't too soaked, if we're lucky." He untied a canvas pack from the back of his bike and placed it heavily on a rock nearby. The canvas throw he pulled from his pack was old and covered with smears of paint, unlike the new, fitted throw covering the younger man's bike. After the throw was in place, the man walked around his bike, kicking stones and dirt onto the loose edges to hold it in place. He looked up and smiled as he came back to the cave, carrying his pack. The younger man watched every move.

"She doesn't look too good, but all that paint keeps the water out." Dropping his pack by the fire, he held out his hand. "Nick. All my friends call me Nick."

The younger man reached up and took his hand. "Cal," he said.

"Good to know you," Nick said. "What you got under that fancy tarp out there?"

"Ninja, 900. I bought it on the coast," Cal said.

"I'm just coming in outta California myself." He smiled down at Cal and scratched his belly. His hair was thinning, loose and wispy about the collar of his tee shirt and vest. "Course, you could never get me on one of those rice rockets. I'll take a Harley any day." He reached up and smoothly pulled out a red and white box of cigarettes. Without taking his eyes off Cal, he took out two cigarettes and handed one down to him. The other he popped in his mouth. "I can always tell a smoker by the look in his eye when I go for a smoke. Either you gotta have one or you gotta stop me. There's no in between anymore." Cal smiled. Nick smiled back. He pulled out a stainless steel refillable lighter and, with a ringing clink of the flip top, lit his smoke. The stinging smell of lighter fluid filled the small cave. Nick held the flame down to Cal, but Cal held up his hand and shook his head. "Where you going?" Nick said, clinking his lighter shut.

"East," Cal said, tucking the cigarette behind his ear and throwing some sticks in the fire. He turned and watched Nick move about the small cave. After Nick placed some potatoes and a few handfuls of string beans on a rock near the fire, Cal scooped out three thick slices of bacon, already stiff in the cooling pan, and handed them over to Nick. "They're cooled off a bit, but they'll hit the spot." He took the simmering coffee from its perch and gently poured some into a shallow metal camping mug. "Only one cup, we'll have to take turns, if you want coffee."

Nick sat heavily and shoved a whole piece of bacon into his mouth. "Never touch the stuff. Shacked up with a broad once in New Mexico, a Chicana. She drank two or three pots of it a day. She only slept about an hour a night and got the worst headaches I ever saw if she ever missed her fix of coffee. Swore I'd never get addicted to the stuff." He chewed the bacon recklessly, swallowed and shoved the next piece in. "Damn it is good. Seems like I haven't eaten in days," he mumbled through his bacon. "But I just ate up in Tahoe this morning, and then a sandwich at noon. Riding makes a man hungry.

"Riding does make a man hungry," Cal said. He bit small pieces off his strips of bacon, sucked on them until they were soft and swallowed, barely chewing. He washed down each piece with a sip of hot coffee. "You came out of Tahoe? You live there, or just visiting?"

Nick looked up from licking his fingers and stared closely at Cal. After a moment he said, "Lived there. But I don't live there anymore. Used to live on the South Shore. Lived there a long time. But they threw in the fast food places and casinos and the hotels and the damned tourists and I couldn't take it anymore." He reached down and gave the potatoes a half turn and pulled the hot beans away from the fire. Nick handed roughly half the beans over the fire to his new companion. He blew on them before he popped them whole, one after another, into his mouth.

The light outside had nearly disappeared. The dim, gray canvas shapes stood just the other side of the edge of light, barely perceivable. Cal looked out into the darkness, slid beans into his mouth slowly, biting down half way. When he was done with his beans, he sighed and lifted another strip of bacon out of the skillet. Leaning over the flame with the fork, he slipped the bacon into Nick's waiting hand. As Cal settled back, he stabbed a large potato with the fork and reclined wearily. "Wish we had some butter. These potatoes would be nice with real butter."

"After a while you don't miss butter, as long as you have salt n' pepper." Nick reached in his vest pocket and pulled out a handful of various restaurant brand salts and peppers and dropped them with a smile in a pile next to the fire. "Just set that pan back here on the rocks and dab your potato in it and that'll fix you right up."

Cal tried it and smiled when he did. As they ate the potatoes together, wiping up the last of the bacon grease, Nick watched Cal's face and his obvious pleasure. Nick was done first and leaned back against his wall with a smile. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, wiping his greasy hands on his jeans. In one motion he reached his right hand in his vest and pulled out the box of cigarettes and flipped the top with his thumb while his other hand pulled out the lighter. He shook out a smoke and pulled it from the pack with his mouth. It was lit before he flipped the pack shut with his thumb again. "Nothing like a smoke after food," he sighed. He reclined and held his smoke in the crook of his index and middle finger, his hand hanging limply over his knee. He drew deeply from his cigarette, then blew a thick plume of smoke at the dark roof close over his head and hummed some song.

Cal finished off the coffee, swishing the dregs around in the pot and flinging them across the cave out into the night. The fire cracked weakly among its stones as the two men stared; Nick up, Cal out.

Time passed; it could have been hours that passed instead of only moments. The rain outside started up again; first there was just a fog, then a fine mist giving way to a drizzle. Little torrents poured down from above the cave's mouth, formed little rivulets that hesitated at the edge of the cave's lip before spilling out into the night. Before long the rain drove down heavily and loud on the canvas wraps out in the darkness. The men reclined, each to the quiet comfort of his own thoughts. The rhythm of the rain drumming on the earth, on the canvas out in the dark, mesmerized them, drew the men from their individual postures and shaped them. Soon they sat in the same position, leaning forward, chin in palm, staring out into the flood. Their eyes seemed glassy, spellbound by the ceaseless tumult of falling water through the dim firelight, water falling in little dribbles breaking into streams were interrupted suddenly and replaced by little dribbles and then nothing, strung all across the black opening that held out the night. Patterns emerged, then danced away over the edge that separated order from chaos.

"Whoa," Nick jumped. Cal started from his daze, reached slightly toward the opening of his jacket and glared at Nick. "This is the kind of thing that can make a guy do some pretty strange stuff out on the road," Nick said, thumbing out at the rain. "Probably most every place else, too." Nick glanced at Cal's hand poised above his jacket and smiled slightly. "Calm down kid, it's just a storm."

"I know," said Cal. "I just don't like surprises." Cal sat up uneasily and looked deep into the fire. After a moment, his face became listless and distant. Nick watched.

"Hey, Cal, you look like a pretty decent guy; a little up tight, but decent. This is my first night out on this trip, let's have a little party." He reached into his vest and pulled out his cigarettes again. This time he was more careful as he fished around in the pack, then slowly pulled out an unfiltered smoke that was more wrinkled than a normal cigarette, a fat joint rolled neatly and evenly. He smiled over the pack of smokes, dancing the joint around in the air. "Ta da."

Cal looked at the joint unexcitedly. "Um," he said, "I would, but unfiltered stuff effects my asthma."

"Ah," Nick smiled. "Miasma."

"And I gave up pot a long time ago, when I was in high school." Cal smiled lamely and looked into the flame.

"But go ahead, I don't mind." He didn't look back until Nick had his joint going and was inhaling deeply.

"So you never did say where you were coming from," Nick finally said after several hits. He leaned back and slid slightly down the wall, his eyes softening into red cracks on his face. "You a native Californian out to see the world?"

"No, I wasn't lucky enough to be born there."

Nick reached behind his back into his bindle. After fumbling about he pulled out a pint of Scotch, casually twisted off the top and took a long pull. Nick handed it over to Cal without looking at him. Cal didn't move.

"You don't drink either? This is good stuff. How old did you say you were?" Nick smiled at Cal.

Cal grinned back, "I didn't."

Nick drank long and deep from the bottle, then sighed as he chased down the shot with a hit from his joint. "Ahhh," he said. "So you ain't a citizen of Rome. All those 'Welcome to California, now go home' bumper stickers meant just for you?"

"Not exactly. The people who raised me were native Californians. They got me from New England--"

"New England! What a hell hole! Do you know how hot it gets in New England? And cold?" Nick leaned forward and laughed. "Is that where you're going? Have you ever been there?"

"Not exactly." Cal sat up a little, his eyes narrowing he spoke slowly. "I was born there, but then they sent me to California."

Nick settled back and assumed the deep, confident voice of a man of the world. He drew deep from the joint and let the smoke drift dreamily from his face as he spoke. "I'll tell you, I been there so many times over the past thirty-five years, always looking for work or visiting friends or just having a hell of a time, and I always end up back where I started from. California. The weather there is great! Where else can you walk around in your drawers outside in the dead of winter? You can't beat California for weather." Cal cocked his head and smirked as he listened.

"Ever winter in Tahoe?"

"No, not winter in Tahoe." Nick looked away shaking his head and taking several small puffs from the joint. Both were silent for a minute, then Nick looked back, relaxed and thoughtful. "You know, kid, there's nothing like hot food and a good smoke on the open road. There used to be a time when everyone was on the road coming west." He grinned slightly as he spoke. "Roving with the communes when I was a teenager, getting it on with everybody. Now that was fun." Nick slapped his knee. Cal stared at the flames. "People always love to come west. 'The west is the best,' that's what old Jim Morrison sang. Nowadays you don't find a whole lot of hospitable people on the road. Everyone is too wrapped up with their own fears. With their own hate."

"I'm looking for something, too, I guess," Cal said, his eyes distant in the flame. "I'm looking for something I've never known. I'm looking for commitment that means more than staying with someone only until you come or the sun rises. I'm looking for someplace where the human body is more than just some pleasure machine that's drooled over for its curves and holes. For--"

"Hell, you're chasing dreams, kid." Nick leaned back and took a long haul from his joint. "You're traveling the country looking for all the wrong things. I remember when people looked for something on the roads of America that was worth searching for--self."

Cal squared his shoulders slightly and set his chin. "I'm actually looking someone up. I have a score to settle."

"Oh." Nick looked down into the fire. "A little revenge on the downside of your soul searching?" Cal didn't answer. Nick looked long into the flames as Cal watched him. Sip by sip, Nick finished off his pint, concentrating on Cal the whole time. When Nick was done, he flipped the empty out into the pouring rain. The sudden motion of Nick's arm made Cal look up and watch the bottle flash across the cave in the firelight, disappearing through the curtain of water.

"We should stick these pans and stuff out in the rain," Nick said. "If she holds up long enough you'll have clean stuff to pack in the morning." He reached across the dwindling fire and grabbed the pan and pot lightly by their warm handles. Nick crawled to the opening on his knees and positioned the utensils under a few fairly consistent streams of water, then backed into the cave and settled down on his spot again. "That ought to do 'em."

"So," Cal said casually. "You caught a pretty wet night to start on your first night out. Where you headed?"

"Away!" Nick laughed. "The casinos weren't the only thing making me uncomfortable at home, if you know what I mean." He held up his left hand and pointed to a fleshy, white, untanned ring around his ring finger. "Ever been in love?" he said. "Listen, Cal, here's some free advice from someone that knows, if you ever get married, pass on the kids. They only make the divorce more complicated."

"You've been married?"

"More times than most."

"And you have kids?"

"More than most, and maybe some more on the side here and there." Nick laughed and put both hands up behind his head. "The women are the problem, always getting in the way. But the kids ain't a problem. They're smarter than people give 'em credit for. They're born with instincts that keep 'em going. They're a Hell of a lot tougher than a lot of adults I know. Leave 'em alone and they'll look out for themselves, just pat 'em on the butt and shove 'em out into the real world. Just like the birds. Best advice a man can get." He leaned back toward the fire and tossed a few sticks into the dying flame. He reached back into his vest pocket and pulled out his smokes again. In one motion he lit a cigarette and settled back. "Yup, if you get stuck with kids, just let 'em raise themselves and watch out for your own ass. If everybody 'd do the same the world would balance herself right out."

Cal sat silently, his face expressionless. The whole time Nick spoke, Cal sat motionless, legs out, arms crossed on his stomach, pressing the hard steel into his gut. As Nick spoke, Cal's eyes seemed to come in and out of focus, staring at Nick's smiling mouth, then drifting down into the flames, then out into the dark rain and back to Nick's mouth again. The rain was dying down into a cool fog that drifted into the firelight in wisps.

"You never said who you were looking for back east," Nick said.

"A relative," Cal said quietly. "He's just about your age by now... Maybe its about time for sleep. This mist will probably make us stiff as wood in the morning." He unrolled the brown blanket that was his bindle and covered himself as he lay back along the side of the cave wall. "Good luck sleeping, Nick," he mumbled.

"Oh, I never had trouble sleeping out. I remember one time back east, Massachusetts I think it was, I slept out every night for weeks. I was traveling then, like I am now, on the go...." He talked quietly to Cal in the darkness long after Cal had fallen asleep.

The morning came in a steamy mist and a light drizzle. The cave was dim and smelled of moist earth, as it had when Cal first arrived the night before. He sat up stiffly and rubbed his shoulder; the cave crouched in black and gray, color absorbed by the weak pre-dawn light. Cal coughed and patted himself, then began sweeping the damp coals from the fireplace. Taking a handful of twigs he saved from the previous night, he arranged them into a tent-shaped heap over a ball of paper, lit the fire and sat back. The smoke drifted over into Nick's face, who stirred and looked up at Cal.
"Cool," he said, "breakfast."

"Why don't you reach out there and grab the skillet and cook the last of my bacon," Cal said offhandedly.

Nick stretched and groaned in the dirt. He had fallen asleep where he lay, uncovered and resting his head on his pack. "Ahhh," he groaned louder, then sat up and lunged out to grab the skillet. "Bacon sounds good." He flicked the rainwater out into the mud and tossed the skillet to Cal.

"You got anything to throw in for breakfast?" Cal asked quietly.

"Well, now that you mention it, I think that was the last of my stuff we ate last night."

Cal sat staring into the flames. After a minute he sighed heavily. "Tell you what, let's go into the next town and find ourselves a greasy spoon. I haven't eaten in any restaurant this trip so far. I can't afford to do it more than once or twice. This morning seems as good a time as any."

"A small town diner," Nick said speculatively. "Well, today's a good day as any to die." He looked up from his feet and smiled. "Or at least to give the heart a good coat of grease."

Cal let out a huge yawn, blinking sleepily at the growing fire. "Let's just warm up a bit, have some coffee." He pointed out into the lightening fog at the small pot. Nick reached out again and picked it up lightly. No rainwater spilled this time. "I'll take you up on the fire and the greasy spoon, but I'll pass on the coffee," he said, passing the pan over to Cal and rubbing his hands over the fire.

Cal dumped a fistful of coffee grounds into the water and set it close to the fire to simmer. Each man sat in his own thoughts as they watched the water begin to steam. "I had some weird dreams last night, kid," Nick said suddenly. "I dreamed about a shooting I saw a long time ago, probably before you were born. I dreamed it like a haven't remembered it in a long time." He looked hard at Cal.

"You saw someone get shot?"

"Blew a guy to pieces," Nick said softly. "Wonder why I was dreaming about guns...."

Cal shifted on his seat a little and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Beats me."

Nick rose stiffly and hobbled hunched over out of the cave. Outside he stretched tall, his back making tiny cracking noises. He looked out across the gray desert at the sun breaking over the mountains in the east and the desert colors creeping out of hiding. As Nick watched the gray mud turned a dull gold, all the little pebbles around the mouth of the cave exposed from the dust stripped away from the torrents of the night before. The brush, spiny gray bones in the pre-dawn, displayed tiny green buds coated with shimmering droplets of water in the new sunlight. The canvas coats of the bikes sparkled with a thousand drops of morning dew. Nick lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, then turned and looked back at Cal sipping coffee by the fire.

"It's going to be a beautiful day on the road," he said. Cal swished coffee grounds against the cave wall.

The two men packed their gear quickly as the sun rose, each helping the other remove his canvas and shake free as much dampness as possible before folding up the tarps and stuffing them away. They started their bikes and let them idle while they packed up the last of their things. When everything was all stowed away, the two went back into the cave for a last look before getting on the road.

"Looks pretty clean," Cal remarked as he headed out. The fireplace made a faint hiss and Cal turned back to see Nick standing over the embers, urinating with a big smile on his face.

"Smoky the Bear," Nick laughed. The close cave smelled of burning ammonia, acrid and foul. Cal turned and left the cave. Sidling up to his humming bike, he unlocked his red full-face helmet from the saddle lock-ring, pulled it over his head and cinched the straps tight. Cal reached into one saddlebag and pulled out a pair of brown gloves. He looked at them a moment, glanced up at the sky and inhaled deep]y the clean air, then tossed them absently back into the bag. He threw his leg over his bike and kicked back the stand. Without looking back, Cal pulled on to the road and accelerated. After a few seconds, he looked over and saw that Nick was riding next to him, his hair flipping around his face; he wore no helmet. Cal slowed and flipped up the visor of his helmet.

"So, you want to race, do you?" Nick laughed. "Last one there buys breakfast."

The two bikes rode side by side for a while, slipping easily over the hills that rolled through the desert like swells on a calm sea. The air was crisp and damp and the low-lying fog had burned away, revealing black thunderheads that towered in the sky, preparing to sweep more rain into the desert valley. The riders crested a rise, still side by side. Off in the distance crouched a small town in the thinning haze. Several miles of straight, black road and several tiny red stop lights in the middle distance were all that held them from breakfast and escape from the coming rain. Cal throttled up his bike and leaned down over the gas tank, shooting down the hill ahead of Nick's slower Sportster. Nick leaned back and throttled up, accelerating slowly and steadily.

Cal crossed the desert floor, passed through one green light, then sped up to run a yellow. He was just one light away from the small town when the light, fifty yards ahead, turned from green to yellow. He opened the throttle full and hugged against his gas tank. He passed through the intersection just as the old green station wagon crossed through. The old car's peeling chrome grill shattered as the wagon hit Cal head-on. His leg was nearly torn off by the car's front end, but he flipped free, relatively intact, slid up the dusty hood and smashed into the brown-streaked windshield. His body flipped up onto the roof, the spear of the luggage wrack piercing the face shield of his shiny red helmet. As his body flipped up and around, his head remained stationary. He came to a crushing thud on the roof of the car, his head twisted all the way around backwards.

The woman inside the car never made a sound. She just stared with wild eyes into the furious crash, the splintering windshield, the boom of Cal's body crashing over her head, white-knuckling the steering wheel as the car dragged over Cal's bike, a stream of sparks flying from the bike's chrome grinding across the pavement.

It was very still when Nick rolled through the intersection. Cal lay on the roof of the car, twisted and bleeding in his brown leather, the outlines of bones pressing strange shapes here and there in his clothes. Both of Cal's white hands were raised in the morning sun, limp and lifeless. The woman, older, with blue hair, sat in the driver's seat, staring into space, a grocery bag with a dozen eggs on the seat beside her. Large droplets of rain began to fall as Nick slowed to pass through the intersection. He threw the throttle full-open as he passed through the little town, the throaty roar of his Harley filling the morning air as he siddled down the slick black road.

Migrant

The room is dark, a shaft of white light falling over mounds of little blue books cluttering the dining room table. Except for his scratching pen, and occasional moans over the hiss of the baby monitor, the room is silent. His head pounds; nothing makes it go away, except sleep maybe. Evan smiles at the thought of sleep, tossing Student 87 onto the small pile of corrected finals and pulling Student 114 from the mass of exams left. There is no end to this, no reprieve, no respite. He flips open the cover page and sips coffee, wincing at its coldness. No rest for the worthless, except for the occasional coffee break.

Wandering into the kitchen, he doesn't bother turning on the light. Darkness is good for the eyes, better for the brain. This isn't going well. Why couldn't these people just get it? The final was such a simple question, straight forward, well defined, multi-layered: 'Compare and contrast the theme of alienation in Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Illyich" and Kafka's "The Metamorphosis." How do the main characters anticipate their impending dooms? How are Tolstoy's and Kafka's attitudes towards death representative of their respective ages?' No great feats of thinking required. No great leaps of critical assertion, or (Heaven forbid) thoughtful interpretation. All they had to do was regurgitate class discussion, apply the texts.

The microwave pings, lifting Evan's mind. Coffee steaming, he glances at the glowing time: 2:14. AM. Less than ten hours until grades are due. He drifts back to the pile, ruffles some pages, sighing as he descends on Student 23. Is this all his fault?

"I watched this really cool TV show last year called 'Alien Nation' that I think pretty much sums up how both the arthurs feel about death. It was about these aliens that came to earth because their space ship had engine troubles..." Evan sighs deeply, shifting to correction auto-pilot. Where did the last five weeks go? Five different classes; three different colleges. Faces faces faces. "The aliens burn up in salt water and they get high on stuff that tastes like dish soap!" He reads quickly to the conclusion. "So it just goes to show you, everyone is an alien to someone, whether it's real aliens or Frank Kafka, who turned into a giant bug, or Tolstoy who got tied up in a black bag."

He takes out his red pen and scribbles tiredly on the bottom. "You didn't even mention the texts? It's great you can remember a TV show you watched last year, but what about the story you read last week? What about Samsa and Ivan's alienated relationships with their families? What about their fearful, myopic views of society? Their frustrated feelings about the meaning of their work? What do these authors view as the meaning of life, the significance of suffering, the hope or desperation of facing death? Turn off your television and read a book, you may learn something." He frowns at his tone. Too nasty? Nah, it's just late. On the inside front cover of the exam booklet he writes "D+." Thanks 23, for even showing up at all. On the master sheet he finds 23, jots down the grade, then tosses the booklet aside. Seventy-six to go.

Without thinking, Evan takes another booklet from the pile and flips it open. If he's lucky, he should be able to get another twenty exams done before she wakes up for her three o'clock feeding. Student 108, female; nice handwriting. It is a relief, since most of the females in the class at least made the effort to read the stories.

"I don't really know anything about any war that you say happened like a hundred years ago since that was such a long time ago and how can that even really matter today anyway, so I don't have any opinion on what these writers think about this supposed war or death or anything sick like that, but I do know how I feel about war in general, it's bad..." War? Nice introduction. Big sentence. She's confessed so much with so few words. He reads on for fun, listening to her ranting, young voice, defending her ignorance with righteous indignation. "War sucks... War kills people... We should all be nicer to each other... War is the main reason there's so much alienation in the world." She concludes with a line from Nirvana. "All alone is all we are!"

Evan re-writes 23's comments, same grade. On to Student 27. One week off, on to Summer Session II. One week off to sleep. One week off to read whatever he wants. To sleep. Sleep.

He floats through the exams, one part of his mind correcting, analyzing, another wandering through the familiar thoughts of exhaustion. Ten years of college leads here, the MA, the AM, Higher Education leads here: four summer session classes at $900 each - $3600. Two summer sessions - $7200. No benefits. No security. Good money. Long regular semesters pay only $1500 per. Five classes, four colleges - $7500. $22,200 for the year, 60 hours a week (driving and correcting). Minus taxes is $15,540, minus daycare is $7840. 48 weeks a year, 60 hours a week is 2880 hours at $2.70 an hour. Just a few dollars less than McDonalds. At Student 45 he pauses. What did she say? He rereads her. Oh. Evan re-writes 23's comments, same grade. Moves on. One week off, on to Summer Session II.

Student 61. "Alienation is, among other things, the withdrawal and isolation of self from other." He stops, shocked by the clarity of the thought. "The main contribution of the Industrial Revolution is not measured in terms of political power or financial prosperity, but the increase of personal isolation of self from other." He focuses his mind to a point, listening to this young girl's analysis. On and on she goes, comparing passages from one text to the other, family relationships, the rise of desperation proportional to the lack of familial understanding, the effect of suffering to the individual compared to the group. The abuse of work, useless, unappreciated, powerless work. It is brilliant. Evan reads it again, refreshed by her thinking. "Very good!!!" he writes. "You explored the worlds of each and demonstrated the affected mental states of their authors' brilliantly. A."

He sits back, smiling. Sometimes it's almost worth it. Just as he opens Student 34, the baby moans. Evan tenses. She's early. It's only 2:40. He tries to control his anger. This is the fifth time she's woken, and the pile of exams is getting no smaller. After a long pause, his daughter let's out a horrendous wail and Evan jumps, scooping a bottle of formula from the warmer and racing into her room before the crying wakes Ellen. If Ellen wakes up, she'll never get back to sleep. If she doesn't sleep, hell to pay in the morning, before she goes to work.

The baby is on her back, beet red, sweating, face puckered screaming the shrill wail of hunger. Evan silently lifts her and settles in the rocker, plugging her mouth with the lifeless nipple. It is cool, dark, comfortable. They could sleep there, rocking in the chair, resting together until daylight. He shakes sleep from his mind. Way too many exams left to go.

After finishing her bottle, she thrashes, rejecting binky Evan offers for peace. There's nothing he can do for her now. Sadly, he lays the girl back in her crib, turns down the monitor in the other room and returns to shh her to sleep. She thrashes, waving useless fists angrily, kicking useless feet, screaming as if being forced down a deep, black hole.

Why do you fight? he wonders, watching her kick and scream helplessly. Why do you struggle against what I so desperately want? Why are you so terrified of something so wonderful? The little girl looks up at Evan, hearing the question in the strange way babies do. She breathes heavily, frantically. She has developed an understanding of self, the other voice answers in Evan's mind, The Spirit, just as she wails dolefully. Sleep is a separation of self from other, of baby from dada. Evan caresses her face, but she screams louder. Is this why children fear sleep, is it your first glimpse of death, baby, looming over the helplessly living? Samsa flashes through his mind, a huge, filthy, wasted carcass of clinging vermin. What did you die for, Mr. Samsa? Was there meaning in your end? What is there to fear in death? asks the Other. The fearful, final separation of self from God? Evan sighs. Slowly her screaming fades, rage overtaken by the indomitable force of sleep.

Evan creeps from her room, sliding back into his chair, taking another exam, 99. What did you live for, Mr. Samsa? Was it all worth it, Mr. Ilyich?

Makecity

Road kill.

That was the first thing I thought in my new life; in the anti-life of this after-birth. The first thing I saw, the thing that made me react by thinking, was my own body, cast off and slumping to rest in the cramped, brown and red toilet stall of the FCC.

I knew it used to be me. I am Howard... Howard Hurlothrumbo of the raw head and bloody bones, bete noire, enfante terrible, wearing the favorite cardigan sweater with the top two buttons missing, dark plum with gold piping, bought from Walmart. And I recognized my hands: thick fingers, no rings. Of course, I couldn't see much in the way of face. All that was left after the big move was part of my left cheek, my smiling jaw, my left ear, and a bit of brown hair. And then there was bone, as white and bloodless as eggshell, surrounded by folds of red meat, white skin and yellow fat.

Placental.

I was spread all over the men's room wall; all over the whores' phone numbers and the foul words. I often think of it that way. For some reason a vision flashed through my fresh, new mind. It was a vision of a doe I hit with my truck early one morning, a week before. This doe sprang into the road, glancing over its shoulder at me. The look in the eye, just as I slammed head-on into it, was like I had interrupted it on some inane errand, on its way to a Seven-Eleven for a dozen eggs, or a nice Sunday brunch; cut down on some trivial little task not worth dying for. It seemed surprised. The doe rolled around under my truck for a hundred yards. I pulled over and walked back to check the damage. It looked like a big, brown, hairy ball with bones sticking out, their edges creamy-opaque and bloodless. So the first thing I thought, floating there above the red mess and sexual scrawls, was: Road kill. Wrong place, wrong time.

And as I rose I saw you, Tod, smiling through the hole in the door....

Of course, the last thing I saw in my old life, in the physical world, was the shabby, brown toilet stall door, just a few inches from my numb face. Colitis, you know. I just barely remember the transition now; outside the door your voices were hushed and furious. Intent. And then the explosion of light and sound, a sunburst of little prickles on my face.

Nativity.

I think there was a second in between. Who can be sure? Death was sort of like a hiccup of movement through free-floating, insentient space. And now... I think here, The Fowler Cove Club.

Invaginated.

But that was a long time ago.

That was when I was a small body, a tiny mind, isolated, polarized. Now I am a force, your subconscious. You are my consciousness, owning and ruling the FCC by day, but I rule the night. This building is our head, and we three are centered here.

I am a lover of words. What else do I have? I remember a man I knew in college, a writer, a roommate. He told me he wrote so he wouldn't loose his mind, so the stories that were inside him could flow out and release him if he released them. He went insane anyway. That's why I chatter lipless talk all the time. It hasn't helped me either. If he were me, my old roommate, and he were finger-less in this lucid, typewriter-less world, he would be mad here, too.

I have a story to tell. The story of Howard and Tod and Cal. Our story. Listen closely. I tell it again and again to your sleeping brain, every night. Even now. Here in the ceiling, malignant plum looking down at you asleep there, we are tied. And not just the two of us, there is the third.

Cal.

When I could sleep like you are, safe in my drunken slobber, I sometimes dreamed. When sleep is a deep breathing death, dreams are a flickering hell... My brain used to ferment in a liquor blood soup as I slept in my car after last call, until I was safe to drive. I was like you, except I had a home to go to, when I wanted to.

Dream Tod, let me show you a dream....

A middle aged man, a grinning head wedge of cheese, broad forehead, pointed nose, narrow jaw, dimpled chin, eyes oddly round with long, thick black eyelashes, stands at his urinal. You scowl and grind your teeth up at the sports page hanging over you, behind a sheet of plastic. In the plastic you see your reflected face, bent and fuzzy. You are drunk, invariably oblivious.

"Howard!" a voice whispers to your brain; a tiny voice, quiet. It makes the wedge man jump, makes you look about for the source. You find it. A new face is in the plastic, where your should be. A young man with a flat top crew cut and big flapping ears stares across onto your round little pig-eyes, connectedly laughing across from the dull plastic sheet.

Tod, it is me, I say, Howard. You don't want to see me, do you, Tod? You sneer at the little fool. You don't even really know how it happened. You don't want to know the name Howard? Well, this ought to be fun. I laugh.

I never killed you! you slobber, turning, staggering across the empty men's room to the mirror.

Tod, my old friend, my fine comrade, my Brain! I say, looking out from the shiny glass, join me, won't you? And my head explodes. Blood sprays. Placental brain muck splatters all over the eternal side of the glass. And you pull away, shielding your face as if the same fate might befall you. It does, in its own way. And a smiling jaw says through smears of blood, you can never escape the Censorious.

The mirror vision disappears like a nightdream, leaves nothing but the echoing sounds of dripping, you wonder....

Censorious.

You stumble out, pulling up your fly, move back to the bar. Already my name dissolves in your brain. You stagger behind the bar. Entrepreneurial after hours bartender of one to one, to self. Above serving others. You pour another 151, corrode the past.

Solvency.

Howard! You jump, but you try to ignore me. This happens so often now, every night. I sit Indian-style on our mahogany and marble bar. All the dancers have gone home, all the women, the local pros and the suits. It's play time for us now: Tod and Howard and Cal.

You're getting slow, Tod, I say, you seem to have lost that reflex edge, your trademark, the will to pounce, or duck. Anyone can own a nightclub, but not everyone can duck.

You wave your arm at the antagonistic night, stagger to your place by the gas fire. Slump into your chair and stare into the flames. Stare into your glass. Watch the golden liquid, plasma, swish. Look closely. There, in the ice, see them? Tiny jaws laughing, flapping ears, up and down, lips that say, Howard, Howard. And you raise the glass, never taking your eyes from the ice. You drink.

And I rise in the air, flow through the loft ceiling and the mirrors and the stuffed heads and the couches at the fireplace, the brass gas-fixtures and railings. I am here. I stink with the smell of burning cedar and old leather, low glow mood lighting over our antique back-bar that encloses so many glowing bottles of me, so much rich, knowing blood. My face disappears in the stained glass windows. I am here. The loud speakers creech and moan, wail the song of secret bastard children. I scream the pain of still, trapped death, the tears of ensnared ageless-ness. But it is lost on you. You sit alone at the fireplace, numb on the hearth, a cuckold stump slumped still before the flame. Oblivious to the sunburst you let into my head....

Sunburst.

The dream ends....

You gurgle, ferment, sit up on your sleeping couch, blink at the gas fire. Sleep, Tod. Take a little rest, Tod. Welcome back, there is so much more to see.

I ask you. Why couldn't this have all happened in a building that faces the sun? In a building that has more than two windows and swinging doors neatly covered by a smothering green lattice? I can't remember the last time a ray of real sunshine fell on me....

Sometimes I smash myself up against the inside of our building, in the front room. I pretend the building front is my face. It is nice to have a face again. I sit squat on the sidewalk, my broad double-door nose slit up and open, long eyes on either side, just a little higher, unblinking. Who needs a mouth? A dark green lattice overhangs the front of the building, shading. I must look like some hot, risqué gambler, I imagine sometimes, darkened eyes smoldering like fortuitous black stones beneath a green visor.

And they come in me, the crowd, which I used to be a part of. They pull open my nose, crawl through my face and look out through my eyes and buzz inside and out and never, never suspect that I haunt our head. Except for when there's a full moon. Mix the knowing blood with moonbeams, the moonbeams in their eyes, and that's when some can see me. The full moon mixed with blood makes them demented.

And they crawl around inside our head, worms, maggots, and all I do, all I can do is watch, floating. They swarm over the floor boards and the bar top and the tables and the dance floor and my death womb like a virus, drinking and writhing and vomiting in our head. I can't stop them. I could move a dice cup on the bar inside our new head about as well as I could have clapped my brain hemispheres together in my old head.

Thwop.

My old head was diagnosed as having a tumor, as bad meat, just before you helped in the big move. You removed it. I replaced it.

When the moon is full it is always ominously haruspical and oracularly fatidical, not to mention vaticibnal, prophetic and all around big with the fate of omens and so on and so forth. And somehow the they can always see then. It was full that Friday. There was full moon trouble when you staggered in that Friday night, our special night. Big Daddy, ready to fire the first screw-up. You had an emptiness that hurt. Nick was the cause of your hurt, but you didn't know it yet. I never trusted Nick, but what does it matter now?

Road kill.

Hands are the doers. That is what it amounts to. A brain is a glob of muck in a box that sits jealously conscious of the thrills of the hands. I wish I had hands. Not the nightmare hands that I fondle your dreams with. Real hands. Feeling hands. Feel my shadow-hands, Tod, hands as light as air, lighter than fire, lighter than a hiccup floating in senseless space. Hands tell all, show all. Watch my dream-show hands. Return to our joining day in your dreams....

Nick, the dragon prince of greasy pick-up lines and bondage politics, leather and lace as sharp as tongued scalpels; watch his wide hands probe, watch them know. When he came in that first time they were stuffed in his pockets, remember? He hid his taste for buxom dark brunettes with shapely legs and hourglass curves, for your wife, Joyce. The local women hated him, but she drew naively near. The local women knew his hands, knew how they used and used, plied and tore, bruised thighs. But you knew those hands as something else, short and square and strong and fast bartender hands, they poured drinks and cash into your pockets, they poured 151 down your throat. Watch as they pour pleasure and pain. Watch from the end of the bar that Friday as Joyce leans over and whispers in his ear, offers her cleavage, her full lips wet and whispering as she strokes his fingers....

Epiphany.

A catalyst comes, huge, drunk, college student, Coke machine body lumbering through the door; round, fat fingers full of beer and spit and football. After a while those fat hands give those square fast hands so much cash, and the square fast hands pour so much wet knowledge that the fat hands become thick and loud and stupid. Nick's fists are full of little white pills, fuming, they always are. He follows the big hands out, out of your bar, out of the FCC. They crash together toward the parking lot.

You got-damn hay seed son-of-a-bitch, the college hands say, let me get my friends, let me get my coat.

Nick, in his black leather Harley vest, thick arms, he rips the kid between the legs with his knee, drops the huge kid in the rain. Ryan and Carlos and Big Mike back into the door, protecting Nick, wearing their slate blue jerseys, giant happy laughing door-Smurfs spitting hate and fear as they pull it shut. But that big hands is dense, he rushes the door. Big hands do that kind of stuff. And as soon as he gets his head and shoulders through the door, Nick slams it shut on his face, knocks the wind out of him, breaks his teeth, his nose. The big hands staggers back into the parking lot and Nick follows him out again, to finish him off. Nick likes that.

Don't hurt him, he's just a kid, someone yells. That was me, way in the back of the crowd. I was alive then, but you wouldn't have noticed. No one listened to me. Still no one listens to me.

Thwop.

You think you're bad, lose the muscle, man, come out one on one. Big hands has liquored-up blood all over his face. Come on, leather man, he says. So Nick saunters up, drop kicks him one in the chest.

And Joyce, thin hands cover her mouth, flutter like moths, hungry and vicious. Her eyes gleam as she looks through you, blue-black curls swirling. You are dead then, Tod, to Joyce. Nick kills you with his boot and a sober, artful drop kick on a fat guy's chest. Joyce waves you off with her thin white hands. You are gone. You know it.

But I know a secret. His name is Cal. He is the third. We are all linked, tied.

Triad.

And you try to corner Nick in the john, try to get him alone, try to cut out the disease that is spreading in your staff, in your wife. You follow him into the john and face him down. And I hear you, on the other side of the toilet stall door. And I sit on the dumper, colitis, watching the whores' names blur whirl, nursing my fatty liver and my plum tumor with its gold piping eating up my glob of muck. And I listen to you fighting, accusing. I can imagine your hands, soft and wet, hear them reaching for his throat, I hear you through the door. Screams and a blast of sunshine through my door. You remove my tumor, one of you. And do you know what I think? There she is, my doe pouncing through the dusk twilight into my useless high beams, glancing at me through the windshield like I am some Peeping Tom. And I think: Road kill. Wrong place, wrong time.

And Nick runs for his life, stuffing his hands into his pockets, hiding as he smashes through the door. We haven't seen him since. It's not fair, but he was a wanderer, no good to anybody. And you, you just look in through the hole in the door, smile a big old wedge head smile and laugh and laugh. Peek-a-boo! I often guess the reason you laugh is that our little drama played out in the men's room and Joyce couldn't see, she couldn't be a part of the thing she helped set in motion. She and Nick and Cal. I often think of it that way. And all the dancers go home, all the women, the local pros and the suits. The party's over. It's the three of us: Tod and Howard and Cal. Nick was just passing through, he never counted.

Other hands come along, rubber gloved hands, finger condoms keeping the spatter of suspected AIDS away, wiping death back on the dead. Good Samaritan hands that wipe up drunken blood and muck and eggshell, mop my muck into the same bucket you use to mop up vomit. They take me away in a zip-lock bag and I watch from atop the jukebox. See me there? And you watch from a table, alone, smiles and laughter long gone; I didn't know you well, then. It was before we were a triad.

I lost my family too, Tod, the moment they lost me. Like you, I think of them often, those I can not have.

I was nearly married to a certain miss, her hands hard-grasping, sexless, pulling cruelly, knuckled, grinding lovelessly as a faithful shirt-wringer Doberman. A shadow with the depth and feeling of a paper cut. Oh yes, you're right. I am bitter. I'll be the first to admit it. How she would have gloated now, if she could see me here. How she would have laughed to know how much time I will spend here, after she sermoned her ultimatum on tolerance. It or me! Sit! Stay!
Control.

Her reptilian claws would have reclined so calmly, self-righteously, in her bony lap, motionless stone geckos poised hungrily listening to the derailed blathering of scorned love. But those hands were more quick and sure, adept at child-proof caps and greedy for sleep and revenge. If fate is a dispassionate and forthright and nonpartisan censorious, then my near Mrs. sits even now on her childhood bed, eternal resident of her father's home.

She made her point.

Road kill.

Our women were singularly alike, alike in their compulsive idiosyncraticity. Free-floating atop the fire of obsessive passions and anal fixations, both singularly concerned with the off centered vortex of self. Of that similarity I am sure. Perhaps that is more a similarity between us....

Free-swimming sperm is one side of the equation, the politically incorrect side. A head, one eye atop a squiggling uncommitted curve. Yang. And out there, Yin cruises, polarized, legitimate, absolute, hateful and clinging through the sterile vacuum that joins us in a loveless misogyny.

Too much Yin.

But what of it, I never cared. You don't now. How can Yang ever understand Yin? Especially when Yin's yinfriends keep saying, do what feels good for you you you. Me me me.

Yang.

I miss my hands and fingers flipping quarters' thumping dice boxes and friends' flanneled shoulders, hands thick and smooth rubbing binge whiskers in the spotted death womb's mirror. I miss hot and cold and sweets and stinks and sights of baggy eyes and bushy-brows and frowns in mirrors now vacant of everything but the other side of the room no matter how close I look.

Thwop.

Of course, you never met my bride-to-be, Tod. You never met any of my flock. You hardly knew me, before. But I can show you them, now. I can flaunt them nightly through your captivated subconscious: shadow-puppets prancing around your drunken dreamscape. Shadows only tell of outlines, in every deep a deeper depth....

I am truly sorry you must live here with me, exiled in our head; and Joyce is exiled too. Polarized, at home alone, waiting for her fugitive, raising Nick's oaf daughter in your once-home. Laura, feeling Laura, your daughter, your own flesh and blood, your vicarious link to young youth-now-eternal-victim, she is helpless in her sharing.

Advice: Face destiny head on.

My college writer friend told me a story once. A man hears from a drunk that if he steps on a bus uptown, a chain of events is set in motion; and if he misses that bus, his destiny is forever altered. Suddenly the man's life changes. A specter hangs over him constantly, waiting for the moment to alter his path, to shake his tree. He starts to get strange. He rises to leave a room and then jumps back into his seat and screams, Ha! As time goes by his behavior becomes more and more random, more sporadic, as if he feels he is in control by living in a state of fixed turbulence.

Chaos.

One day he is on a cable car (he lives in the roily city of San Francisco, isn't that convenient?). As the car crests a hill and starts its shaky descent he jumps from the car, fearing the beast destiny. He slips under the sharp, round wheels, which naturally slice his legs clean off above the knees. As he flails around on the ground his severed stumps spray rhythmic streams of blood in the faces of the shocked tourists out for a day on the wharves. His life ends, needless to say, and the chaotic chain of destinuous events comes to a crashing continuance for the tourists, distracted forever on their way to gulp shellfish and pop ogle wax celebrities. The chain has just begun. And who's to blame? A loud mouth drunk! A casual conversation inspired by the flow of hot, knowing blood.

Of course, my writer friend was crazy when he told me this story, sitting on his hospital bed, foaming at the mouth, gaggling and sputtering, looking up at me and saying with absolute conviction and the intense strained concentration of the insane imposed dis-symmetricity over and over. How he loved those words. This was his punch line.

It was just another story that he couldn't get away from, that trapped him as it bubbled through his glob of muck and made him mad mad mad.

Captain's Supplemental: If I had bubbled this story, I would have emphasized self-restraint, not manipulation. Looking into destiny aware aware aware.

Advice: Eat, drink and be watchful, for tomorrow breeds betrayal.

Sin's monogamouscidal penetration.

Cal.

At that, you gurgle, pass a bubble 'tween the cheeks. Yes, very wise.

Soon you will awaken, Tod, drag yourself from your hard place of sleep in front of this warmth-less phony gas-fire. You will lumber down to the little kitchen in the basement of our head. I watch you do this every morning, Tod, a smiling deaf man doing silent food, prayer make it stop make it stop make it stop, starting your morning ritual of blood-purging and muck-ache-repairing with cholesterol and starch. And all around us I will scream the thing I know, the secret of Cal. He is to me what I am to you, triad.

But there is time still tonight, before you awaken. Breathe deeply there before the fire, I will tell you again. I will tell you the thing again, of Cal. Roll into a ball, pull your legs up tight to your chest and we will take another trip. Dream another dream.

That Friday night, the same as any other. I was as sloppy and stupid as the rest of them were, as you were under that big full moon.

Two young men are sitting at the downstairs bar, next to the wall where your office is. One of the men is nicknamed Otis, dressed like a golf pro, big nose huge and dark Italian eyes. He is just divorced, days away from bankruptcy. He slams a dice cup.

The other is a big-eared fool, a face familiar to you now. You flinch in your sleep, good. They are alone, sitting together up against the wall, the other side of which is your office. These men are engrossed, slapping down dice boxes and discussing in low voices the self-induced death of floppy ears' beloved. They're not playing each other for money, just passing the time in an increasingly drunken stupor, forgetting. None of the boys are in yet, none of fishermen or the construction boys, the farm hands or the business men and their women. Your bread and butter, who love to raise a little Hell after work, before going home and single-handedly dealing with their kids. Most are like big nose and floppy ears there; sold the family wagon for drunken, childish freedom on the make, filling some loss or need with knowing blood, being single again after so many years, plastering over new herpes sores, learning the new dangers and relearning how to be sexy, how to bait and capture.

Make City.

The day flirtations are subtle, more complex than the night crowds' drunken thigh-grinding. If a man and a woman want to be alone, they go through complex, enjoyable, levels of flirtation/counter-flirtation, send each other a drink, make remarks to their friends. And before you know it you may have something going where you'd least expect it. That's how this chain of events all started. And that's why I'm here, why Cal's here.

So, through the wall comes this rhythmic screaming and howling. The two men look at each other, smile.

In a ghost voice, deep and fuzzy, big ears grins, That Nick is an animal.

Must be that new waitress, they laugh, rib jab.

And they continue their games; a long time they wait to see who it is Nick is nacking. Finally Nick comes out, nods and smiles at the two young men, bounces up the stairs, little jingle change crib ringling in his pockets. The two laugh and jab rib. A few minutes later, Joyce comes out, your Joyce. She pleat sleeks and gown fangles a hip swish across the room, makes an innocent, arrogant dash for those stairs. She doesn't even look at the young men, who follow her with wide eyes.

I don't know what Nick is thinking, says Otis.

Maybe that he owns the place, says I. Maybe that he owns everything.

A tiny voice screams in the night, screams betrayal just moments before the roar that takes my life. From your desktop this scream ripples through the universe, a tiny glint lost to the passionate grind throbbing of its conceptual cyclops Judas Kiss.

Float with me, Tod, here in Joyce's duskiness. Twist and twirl in her warmth, the real fire, nutrient rich. We are sperm. Swim with me. Swim for her womb, through the black soup. Send us, light one, bright one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us, light one-- Stop! Wombtumor! Wombtumor! Tod, we are not welcome here. This is the enemy's land. Nick's spawn is here. He floats. His seed beat us, contaminates, sucks from the walls all to which you lay claim. Defiled penetration. Damned procreation. Perverted. Nick has faulted her! Your whole family. This stew was once friendly, allied, pure, but now there is this seed, soul-damned bastard. Joyce carries it, a sin bubbling and foaming inside her like a rabies virus. It is deadly. It killed me, all things considered. Laura has a brother, a little Caligula malformed. Caesar Ovarious, I pity you, little Cal, little pestilent dead-womb-invaginated bastard.

Caligula.

Legend has it you buried a baby you personally murderedisfigured under the floor tiles of your father's temple in order to drive him mad mad mad. You were only nine at the time, ambitious youth. But this time around you are more complex, dual, both child monster and buried victim, waiting to bring misery. So much heaped on an innocent head.
Prenatal road kill.

Wrong place, wrong time.

Caligula.

It is done.

We are three. The faulted, the sin, the holey ghost.

Make City Trinity.

I don't want to hurt you, Tod. You are only stupid. A cuckold. But I must protect my subconscious. Of course, he is really mostly idea. I don't know if Joyce is pregnant. Who cares? Tomorrow, I'll change this all around. That doesn't matter. Cal is to me what I am to you. You can never see me, but I am here. I can never see him, but he is here. We all affirm each other. If I didn't exist, what would drive your guilt? If he didn't exist, what would be the point of my existence here?

Reason.

Yes. When Otis and I watched Nick and his goons kick out those football hands, kick him around, and you pushing through the crowd and Joyce afraid for her man, which wasn't you, we knew. We knew. It was all the same day's festivities. Well. All the excitement got to me. The affair and the fight and the crowd milling about seething for blood, it all got to me and my drunken body. My tumored head throbbed and my colitis kicked in and I made a dash for the dumper. You always seem to see things too late.

Do you ever watch the bands or the dancers out on the dance floor? No, you never care about that stuff. Money money money. $. You should. On our full moon Friday Vomit Rush played. They're bad, crazy as nut house rats. I have to admit now, some of the shows are pretty entertaining, now that I have to watch them. You should have spent more time here, watched more. So much might have been avoided. Oh, well. My favorite bands now are out of Newport, Rhode Island: Rat Masochist and Eurorectal Septum and The Fiddle Goobers. I often float behind the drummers and watch the punkers bash into each other, a mass of waving fists sticking out of brown hair and black leather, waves of heat rising steamy above dark glistening leathered bodies, cartoon-cricket-people, hop-writhing victim-youth, one giant mass of sweat and limbs, brown with bones all sticking out waving and waving. If you saw them today, I know what you would say, I know now what you call their green dance--the vermin scurry. I was part of a crowd once, and if I were a tad more tangible, I would have been a part of this one. They remind me of a tale. My grandmother told me this, long before I was a building.

A little boy once lived on an island, far away from cities and people who could make him grow bad. He lived there alone with his father, a tall man with a broad forehead, pointed nose and narrow chin, and his little, bookish brother. At first he was very sad on the island, but as time went by he grew to be contented and confident in his paradisal home. He was a cute little boy, tending his sheep in his bright cotton vest, the outfit of a sheep boy. Finally, he reached the age when he could discard his little vest for boys and wear the clothes of manhood, leather. And as he grew older, he saw the pleasures and possessions of the father and desired them. The father watched his boys and saw a change in the elder. He noticed that the boy stretched the truth and lied, as boys at this age will.

Never fib on this island, little man, the Father told him, for this is a magic place. We are in the realm of the Censorious, and he will come for all the liars and bad boys of his Kingdom and make slaves of them, or worse, kill them.

The little eldest was afraid at first, but after a while he became comfortable again on his island home. The threat of the Censorious became weak and diffused through time. He grew tall and strong and soon thought himself a swagger of a man.

One day, while out on a stroll, he happened across a beautiful woman with ebony hair sitting on the side of a road. He could see she was a woman, for she was very full in figure, with full red lips. She was weeping very sadly next to her carriage and was in need of the boy's help. The young boy did help the woman. He lifted her carriage from the ditch, for he was very strong, and fixed the dented wheels and helped her into the cab.

Lifting her skirts as she climbed in her carriage, she said, Won't you come in so I may give you a ride home, young man? He could see her shapely legs and woman's curves and quickly said yes, for he decided he loved the woman. On the way home she pulled off the road and took the young man to her cottage, for she lived very near to his home. She took him in and showed him a great many things: sweet sins a woman knows of, things a man should only know with his wife.

As time went by, the father noticed that his son was hardly ever around anymore. The sheep would stray all over the mountainsides, and sometimes the boy would be gone for days.

One day at dusk, the boy arrived home late with the woman. He swaggered from the carriage up to the front door and sauntered in. The father and younger brother watched from their chairs and could see the woman watching after him from her carriage as he walked into the house. The Father was a wise old man, he could see that the boy had changed again. He looked over, past his son, at the woman outside in the carriage, and he knew.

Boy, he said, did that woman bring you home?

Yes, the boy said.

Did she bring you straight home, or did she bring you through the forest first? he asked.
We never were in the forest, the boy said.

At that moment the sky exploded in a sunburst of light and sound. From the sky fell a great beast, a fury of brown fur and grasping arms sticking out at all angles. The Censorious rushed up the walkway and pounced on the boy before he had a chance to turn away. Many arms grabbed the boy's head and twisted and tore most of it from his body, only leaving the left ear he should have listened to his kindly old father with. And as the virtuous, if a little slow, old father and the innocent little son watched, the Censorious rushed off into the sky, in search of other pejorative malignancies to remove from his Kingdom.

I think this story illustrates one thing pretty well; my Grandmother was a disturbed, unbalanced old woman. I marvel at the nightmares and horrors inspired by dysfunctional antediluvian authoritarians in the name of moral purity. I offer it to you for one reason; sometimes, in the big cruel world, the criminals and the victims get transposed. We both know who should have been your holey ghost. I offer it to you, Tod, and more. You have enthroned your very own Censorious. Never sleeping, never feeling, never hungering, vigilant. Forever reminding. I will be your Censorious, guardian of your family's sin. Eternally installed in your dreams. I am imprisoned here, tied to you, tied to Cal. And I will be all things here, in my realm; I will oversee the blood that flows, the gold, the melodies and passion, the soul of the FCC living on, persevering through a Hitlerian millennia, timeless.

And if time and the wreckers should come and attack my fortress, my sanctuary, crush our head, I pray they scrape my remains, heap me into large orange trucks and haul me respectfully away, carting the mighty, fallen king off to his tomb; a tomb magnificent, stretching through the hills and mountains, long, black, curvy as sperm. A road, a mountain road, crossed daily by all forms of humanity and life; maniacs and wanderers, doe and gecko, zealots and prostitutes and drunkards and bookkeepers and artists. Humanity with its Caligulas in tow.

Little Caligula.

The sun rises, I see its rays on my neighbors' lucky brick faces, glowing stupidly there across the street. You gurgle, foam. You must rise now, Tod, we are done for tonight. Stagger into my men's room and wash the drool from your face, hide from your employees before they unsuspectingly arrive. No one will find out about our little reality, our little secrets. And as you rinse the slick, dusty cords from your face, I will fade, my voice will dim to just a strange feeling lurking in the quiet recesses of your troubled subconscious. The sum of my existence will be a mere persistence of bad dreams, dull remembrances of some unnamable guilt or pain that bubbles through your glob of muck, doing its damnedest to make you mad mad mad. I will retreat for the day into the liquor, into my blood, where I will not be forgotten, held up in sad toasts by friends who slowly forget my details and hang on to fuzzy outlines. And later, after all the dancers go home, all the women, the local pros and the suits, it's the three of us: Tod and Howard and Cal. You will collapse into the drunken void, where we will be waiting. Once you are breathing deep death-dream, sleep seamless, I will unravel this again, my cryptic triptych. You will have no choice. Trapped, there is only this recurring fate for you. Listen closely...

Road kill.

Murder in the Age of Unmeaning

It starts with a gift.

A wonder. A miracle. No matter where I move my eyes, it follows my gaze, reacts to greet my glance. It's alive. Chewing bits of vegan sausage and imitation egg-food, I smile at the tiny Hoverman teletube following my eyes, its little face scrolling regional temperature variations across the Antarctic ice cap while it's little voice announces "fundamentalist right-wing extremist 'scientists' deny the inevitable..."  Wiping my mouth, I stand.  "Honey, it's the most thoughtful, loving gift a woman ever gave a man."

My wife smiles from inside her favorite tie-dyed t-shirt, middle bulging with baby and Jerry Garcia smiling right from the center of our family.

"Oh really? And what about our baby?" She pulls my hand towards Jerry's grinning face. "Say bye-bye to baby Jerr..."

I pull my hand away. "I don't think so. I'm already... 42 minutes late." I turn for the door. I only felt it once before. She said I felt the "butterfly," the flutterer, but little Jerry felt more of spiders than baby. "Don't wear down the batteries watching soaps," I call out. "There's a documentary on global warming on tonight." I kiss the wife and enter the bowels of the city, words buzzing around in my head like flies. Extremists. Fundamentalist. Right-wing. Easy, enlightened power words I will banter impressively today.

"Morning, Sigmund," I say, flipping a quarter to the old man wearing a fedora, little round spectacles and pointy goatee. He catches it in his pudgy patrimonial, white-male fingers, winking twice, for good measure.

"How's life, Mr. I--?" he asks in his thick, Viennese accent.

"Great. How about a paper?"

"You're in a fine mood, is this the 'Big Day'?"

"It sure is," I say, snapping open my paper with a smirk. "I turned thirty and the Mrs. finally sprang the new Sony 1276-D Hoverman on me just this morning."

Sigmund glances up. "No, no, no. I don't mean your birthday. I mean your son's birthday."

I sigh. "No, Sigmund, not yet. It just sits in there making me wait. Children try my patience."

"Ain't it the truth," he buffs affably. Another fly to add to my brain. Truth. Sigmund snaps furiously at my feet with his righteous shining cloth. "I wonder why it is you never talk about your son?"

"Eh," I shrug, trying to read the funnies.

He keeps shining away. "Then why are you having one?"

"I don't know. A year ago our specialist said I was sterile. Three months later, she's pregnant. It's kind of a miracle, if you believe in that sort of thing."

"Nature is funny. And now you're having a miracle baby. So why the long face?"

Laying down my paper, I give in. "I guess I feel a little guilty, Siggy. She's got this sort of a neo-libidinal minimalist organismic primal celebration of nature thing going on, like this baby will save the world or something. But how can more babies better the environment and relieve human misery? And besides," I lean down, whispering closely into Sigmund's hairy, old ear. "She's lost interest in... well, you know."

Sigmund smiles. "I see," he says, leaning on my knee. "Her celebrating is causing your celebating; the relative sensualist at the mercy of the romantic-fundamentalist--"

"Kill the fundamentalists!" a sultry, whitewomyn hisses, stiletto clicking up to our shoe-shine stand. "They're too extreme." Dressed in a black merry-widow, conical cups and fishnet stockings, she stands defiantly, feet planted wide, hips cocked as she smokes a Churchill cigar. Crossing my legs, folding my arms, I get ready.

"Louise," Sigmund rumbles testily.

"Schlomo," she sneers, turning her attention on me. "Kill them all, I--! They are the toxic slime eating away at the new sexual world order." From her points I see she is liberated.

"Are you saying I should kill my wife?" I ask, stunned by her potency.

"No, you moron. I'm telling you to kill the past. To ignore this elitist pig. His Victorian view is irrelevant.  Order is illusion.  Restraint is for losers.  Morality is meaningless."

"Oh, you're a pistol, Madonna," Sigmund growls, shaking his head slowly. "Those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it..."

"Whatever," she says. "Your past is what needs killing.  You are the Age of One Meaning: dead-male Judeao-Christian 'Values', intellectual cowards raping 99% of the world to stroke your moral imperatives. We are the Age of Unmeaning, defining reality with true compassion and vision to create the best of all possible worlds. What matters is us, here and now, the Nietzchean Superpeople, the Egalitarian Sensualists, masters of reality teaching the first generation capable of understanding the full breadth and width of herstory's meaning--"

"You are the master," Sigmund interrupts. "As long as you define the reality."

"Your whitemale concept of the reality is based on Nineteenth Century gender elitism. None of your heroes were were womyn, therefore they are hateful and meaningless." She smiles, quite pleased with herself. "What lacks meaning is irrelevant."

I sit in wonder, staring down at them. They never make any sense, but they're fun to listen to. "But what should I do about my wife?"

She sizes me up, grinning so the little mole on her check rises and falls. "From each according to her ability," she groans. "To each according to his need."

"But she's not able, and I'm in need."

"Well," she smiles from one side of her mouth, touching to my cheek with her black-laced glove. "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?"

"From the mouths of babes!" I say.

"Hey!" she snaps. "You watch that sexist stuff, mister!" She punches me in the face, then saunters off angrily.

"She's a rocket," Sigmund mutters.

"A real canon," I agree, wondering if she meant her offer. "So the point is mute, since this is a dead-white-male-Eurocentrist-Western-imperialist neo-colonial elitist argument anyway," I say, admiring the wonderful shine of my shoes. "Thanks, Sigmund. Off to work!" I jump down from the seat and amble off towards the long subway car which worms its way into the city, all the while amassing more bugs for my brain bucket: Romantic. Orgasmic.  Organismic. Sensualist. Egalitarian. Superpeople. Morality. Illusion. Compassion. Herstory. Come up and see me sometime. Buzz buzz buzz.

I stand on the platform, humming myself an old television tune, blinking at the dusty breeze from the train just now pulling in.

I enter, smiling at the white faces all around me. "It's a wonderful life!" I blurt, soothed by the smooth, rhythmic pocket-ta pocket-ta pocket-ta of the long mechanical worm pounding deeper and deeper into the bowels of the city. No one replies. Then I notice. All the people in this train look terrible! So thin and filthy, like walking skeletons. Preoccupied, I must have stepped on that train from Auschwitz again. No one speaks, no one utters a sound. They never do. They all just stare, their deep set eyes so baleful, making me feel all unhappy inside. What do they want? My stop comes. I jump from the train, glad to leave. I like to be around happy people, happy like me. Just a block away, now, I hurry to work.

"You're missing the point entirely!" A thickly German voice blurts. I turn abruptly, startled; a hot dog vender with a bushy white mustache and eyebrows, beady little eyes and fatherly paunch waves a foot-long weenie in my face.

"I won't miss it for long if you keep waving that thing around!"

"Never mind the veenie. The point is understanding. You don't have to be Albert Einstein to see that freedom rests not in the right to believe, but in the responsibility to understand. When you replace understanding with pleasure, you eliminate the meaning."

"What's so wrong with that?" I say, annoyed at the persistence of this line of reasoning following me everywhere. "Listen. I have no intention of bickering with you all the way through this fiction!" I turn away from the veenie vender and scurry up the street. I must regain composure. My office building is there, across the way.

I enter the huge, gleaming glass lobby of my building, The Workers Accident Insurance Building, and wave to the newspaper man, flipping him a quarter and nabbing a fresh paper as I cheerfully pass by. I step into the elevator, run by a huge, purple dinosaur. He's been working here since the beginning of time. We are alone, going up.

"Good morning, Barney," I say. "Wonderful day, isn't it?"

He turns to me, waving his paw hello. "Good morning, Mr. I--," he giggles. "I LOVE you."

I sigh; at least one of my acquaintances is normal this morning. My elevator stops at the top floor, I get off, flipping Barney a quarter for his good work. The door slides closed and he ceases to exist.

I step briskly into the office, re-invigorated by Barney's lack of confrontation, and move decisively down the row of desks to my own. I notice immediately my desk is covered with death and dismemberment claims which need processing. Just as I dig into the first case, my supervisor, a six-foot tall, filth covered, festering, dung beetle skittles over to my desk.

"Good morning, Mr. I--," it buzzes in its quiet, insect manner.

"Good morning, Mr. Samsa," I say. "A lovely morning for crunching numbers."

"Indeed it was, ninety-four minutes ago." Six of its legs, all wearing wrist-watches, rise before my eyes. 10:34 AM X 6 - they all agree I am late. "The President is quite concerned that you were in some way... troubled... on the way to work this morning."

"Don't worry, Mr. Samsa," I apologize. "I am not one to be... troubled."

"Oh? Tell me, I--, does it trouble you that you are late every day?"

"Well--" Oh brother. Not again.

It leans over me, stinking of rotten meat, its usual cologne. "You feel no moral responsibility to your job, to the company, to your profession?"

"How can there be morals if moralities are subjective? Besides," I smile slyly, slipping it a twenty. "I come in late because I always go home late." I add two winks, for good measure.

Samsa smiles, winking its hundred little eyes. "And it is much appreciated, Mr. I--. Being enlightened, we must boldly shape the future with the same mettle with which we reshape the past. We are, after all, gods on the temporal plain."

"I prefer Superman to god," I scoff. "'God' seems so... religious."

Mr. Samsa shudders. "Well, I prefer super-freak. 'Man' seems so... human. I have to go now. I have my usual lunch date." It moves off to pester another employee, then leaves the office altogether. I sigh. It's been leaving early everyday for the same long lunch date for over a year, just like a clockwork orange. For the briefest of moments, I wish I was management, then I come to my senses with a shiver and get down to work. Samsa is going to where it belongs, and I am where I belong. As we say in our little utopia, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

I settle in and go over several hundred claims, soothed by the smooth rhythmic pocket-ta pocket-ta pocket-ta of a thousand adding machines humming all around me. This invalid gets a million dollars, this widow gets none. This widow gets a million dollars, this invalid gets none. This goes swimmingly all morning, and just as I rise for lunch, a buzzer buzzes on my desk. I reach down and press the button. "Yes, Mr. President?"

"Mr. I--, come in here. I need you."

I pale, then hurry down the long line of desks to his door. It opens and the President is there, bleary eyed, nervous, his wrinkled face gray, huge nose, wart, black beard dripping nervous sweat.

"Yes, Mr. President?"

"Please, I--, call me Abe," he says, gripping my shoulders. "I'm afraid I have dubious news." Abe takes my arm. "Listen, you better sit down." He sits on the edge of the desk, looking at me with deep, sad eyes. "There's something I have to tell you, and as strange as it will sound, I swear it's the truth?"

"What is truth?" I say jauntily.

"Excuse me?"

"Truth? It's meaningless, right?" I am showing off my mind to the boss.

"Meaningless?"

"Or maybe merely unmeaningful, outside a multicultural context, that is?" He looks at me in dumb wonder, and I pity his 19th century Whitemale simplicity. "Unmeaning means meaning meaning everything, meaning nothing," I say cleverly.

"The arrogant persistence of opinion masquerading as knowledge, a vast dreamscape of hatred pretending enlightenment?"

I smile nervously. "Maybe. Why did you want to see me again?"

"Entropy, I--. Moral entropy."

I smile. "Morality is an illusion, so what's to entrope?"

"Relativist," he smiles sadly. "Subjectivity will make you irrelevant." He shakes his head. "Do you have a picture of your wife in your wallet?"

"Oh no, Abe, that's much too nineteen-fifties. We're Progressives!"

"And proud of it, I see." He shakes his head kindly. "Listen," he says very slowly. "When you define life as mere physical stimulation, driven by repeated orgasm, it becomes the endless pursuit of renewed physical pleasure. Pleasure is finite, but desire becomes infinite, and continued pleasure eclipses the rationality of consequence."

Suspicion glimmers in my head, somewhere down where all those words are crammed in. "Let's be honest, Abe. What has any of this got to do with me and my wife?"

"The ultimate lie is the right of pleasure; the right becomes an addiction, and you assure the addict's continued cooperation by supplying endless pleasure, which reinforces the lie of the right."

I shrug my shoulders. "Whatever, as they say."

"Seduce them. Promise the hope of pleasure over the reality of pain. Immorality over mortality. Tune in; turn on; drop out."

My jaw drops open. Suddenly, I know the consequence of this New World Order. By pursuing only pleasure, society throws off the fetters of suffering and death, leaving people free to love in a utopia of ultimate pleasure, which would replace understanding; truth would be measured by pleasure. Keep them entertained; give them an orgy of joy, even if they have to watch others in the media to keep it going. Humanity would become passive receptors of pleasure. No pain, no worries, no accidents. And me? I would lose my cushy job. My heart jumps. "Tell me, tell me. What must I do?"

The President stands firm, taking my shoulders. "Son, you must make the ultimate sacrifice."

"What?"

"You must go home and... shoot your television."

The horror! The Horror! "A--A--Abe. That would be like shooting my child. It would be... murder!"

"You must. Television is how they deliver on their promises. Pleasure. Stimulation. Gratification. Immediate and effortless, dropped in your lap. They control our way of life... from outer space. Now that you understand, it's your responsibility to end it." Tears begin streaming down my face. The President embraces me. "It's not so difficult, solider. One shot and it's all over." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a .22 caliber nine-shot revolver. "If you run out of bullets, I have more."

"But--but Mr. President! That's a gun!"

"That's right." He tucks it into my pocket.

"The death tools of angry-Whitemen!"

"The only death tool is at your house right now. Go home, son, and shoot it." He opens the door and pushes me out.

"What if I refuse?"

"Then you're fired." He shuts the door.

I sit on the subway, ignoring the witty banter of my fellow citizens as I wind through the dark bowels of the city, going home. Words buzz out of control in my head: Right. Wrong. Truth. Sensualism. Liberal. Television. Murder. Responsibility.

I am home early. The house is quiet. I don't call out. I move into the living room and kneel in front of the television. My friend. My companion. How can I part with you? You are my hope. My salvation. My window on the world. You are Truth. I rise, glance around. The Mrs. should be around here somewhere. I climb the stairs. The house is silent. I come to our bedroom door. There is a noise inside, a television playing softly. It is our newest addition to the family, the little Hoverman. Will I have to shoot that one too!? I hear heavy breathing, a smooth rhythmic pocket-ta pocket-ta pocket-ta emanating from my bedroom. Perhaps my wife is stairwalking, staying in shape for the "big day." I peek inside, but the room seems empty. There, over the bed, hovers my friend, glowing innocently, looking down. I look down. In our bed a huge round shape moves under the covers, rising, falling, rising, falling, pounding machinations rhythmically rattling our anguished bed springs. Perhaps she is giving birth? I step across the room excitedly and whip off the sheets. The Mrs. glances up, half screaming, half laughing. And there, lying on top of her, trembling with pleasure, is Samsa, the dung beetle.

"I--," it shouts. "What are you doing here? I didn't say you could come home early!"

I take the little gun out of my pocket, level it at them. It jumps in my hand, only slightly, as I squeeze off eight rounds, four for her, four for it. They slump convulsively into pools of their joined fluids, lying still in the warm blue glow of the little floating television's impartial eye.

Who's irrelevant now?

I go downstairs, the Hoverman following my movement obediently. I enter the kitchen, pour a cup of coffee, sit by the window, my window to the world. I flip through the channels, 500 of them. I stop at the children's network. I sigh. What about little Jerry? We even fixed up the guest room for him. Oh well, a son is probably out of the question now. I watch five brightly costumed Ninjas beating up some evil looking animal figures. So what will be my legacy, then? This, I suppose. I realize, watching these Ninjas work their cerebral-numbing magic, that I cannot destroy my faithful televisions, job or no job. They are my only loyal friends. They never lie. They never cheat. They never confuse me. And if we continue to pursue this course of immediate pleasure, so what? It's fun. And as long as we're all having fun, what's the cost?

Somehow the time gets away from me. It is dark. I go upstairs, I am tired, but it's a good kind of tired. Sleepily, I enter my room, stop short when I see them there, still in the same position I left them twelve hours before. Not even the sheet has moved. Odd.

I go down the hall, to the nursery. I sit on the edge of the bed, my head spinning with all the words crammed in there, far more than I ever remember cramming in before. Enough of this dreary, depressing meaning. I unlatch the top of my head and flip it open. Bending over, I turn my cranium upside down, spilling on the floor in wet sticky glops the contents of my mind. Out the words fall. Moral. Conscience. Politically Correct. Capitalism. Death. Ethnic Cleansing. Rights. Truth. Evil. White Male Privileged Class. Absolute Relativists. New World Order. Victim. Feminist. Context. Herstory. Humanity. Lies. Good. Bad. Socialism. Fascism. Marxism. Conservative. Liberal. Love. Faith. Television. Responsibility. Marriage. Father. Mother. Child. Liberty. Independence. Freedom. Revolution. Avarice. Anger. Right. Wrong. Murder. Wet and limp they plop between my feet, twitching like maggots in the last seconds of their existence before I ignore them completely. I sit back up with a smile, letting the cap of my skull flip shut with a wonderfully hollow clop! like a big, empty, happy cereal bowl.

I lie back on the narrow little day crib my wife picked out of the send-away catalog, slipping under the cool, clean Speed Racer sheets. Will I sleep well in this cramped little race car bed tonight, after all that's happened today, all that lies cold and stiff down the hall, all that waits looming ahead in the dim, threatening future? I sure hope so. My tee time is seven AM. As I slip into blissful sleep, I begin collecting words for tomorrow.

Fore!