Pending resolution. This is an ongoing matter.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
If the devil only knew...
April 23rd, 2008
Rating:
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
This was a finely made, riveting movie. Some reviewers in the NY Times Readers' Reviews say the scene on the porch between father and son didn't add much, or has been done better before, but for this viewer it was a gratifying explication for the motives which began the terrible events here related. This was the kind of thing missing from such highly rated (and Oscar-rewarded) stories as There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men. When those films were over I did leave the theater wondering why such pathological characters were the focus of our current crop of "great story-telling movies." Unexplained motivation leaves me cold.
In Before the Devil... Lumet has not missed a beat. Everything we need to know to be involved in these characters' tales is included. Sterling performances by all in an excellent display of cinematography, from Amy Ryan's few scenes up through the histrionics of Hoffman and Finney. Pooh to anyone who finds fault in this film, and Coen brothers, take a lesson in how to involve your audience in caring about dysfunctional characters. It's not enough to just be quirky and photograph it beautifully. It helps a lot to include even a small scene supplying motivation.
- michaelbrown7
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Last Lesson
Dear Haojun:
Thanks for your nice letter. I can tell from your tone China is very excited about the return of Macao. I hope the transfer is as smooth as that of Hong Kong. You seem all caught up in the festivities and they seem less worrisome than the Y2K business and millennium madness we are experiencing over here. I wonder how you are doing vis-à-vis computer problems. We have not exchanged e-mail in quite some time.
It has been a long time since we last communicated. I know you have been very busy redecorating your new home. It must be coming along beautifully. Perhaps you can send me a photo.
Let me tell you why I have not written. Just as you are trying to improve your English, I have been trying to better my writing abilities in my native language. As I told you before mostly I write fiction. There is much need for improvement if I wish to capture a readership. I wish I had the abilities of our mutual favorite Lu Xun, but that is another story.
I signed up for a six-week online writing course and have made many new friends. Each lesson required us to approach the craft of fiction writing from a specific perspective. One week we had to pretend to be one of our characters so as to introduce ourselves to each other. I found it difficult trying to discover my own personality as if looking at myself from the outside. Another time we had to focus on point of view and how to use it to tell a story. For that one, I wrote the assignment three times before I settled on telling it in the second person. I wrote, "You say..." and "You go..." as if I were telling the character what to do. It was critiqued positively so I guess the rewrites paid off. And once, we had to interview one of the characters we'd created as if he or she were applying for a job in our stories. That piece took me a while before I settled on a magazine type interview wherein I pretended the reporter wanted to speak to "the man on the street" rather than a celebrity.
Each week I struggled along slowly and painstakingly trying to get better at the craft. However, this last lesson I found most difficult of all. It was concerned with conflict, complications and plot. How to build to a crisis and then resolve it. And I was at a loss. My conflict was I could not come up with a plot I liked well enough to post and perhaps develop later as I go into further courses.
My friend John suggested I use the tension filled story I wrote about the boy and the unlocked window, but I had written it so long ago, I found it sophomoric. I really felt uncomfortable using any of my very early writing.
Then he advised me to use two characters who have been floating around in my head for a long time without a story, but as I explained to him, they don’t have a story yet. They are just colorful characters without conflicts of their own. I need to think up some interesting situations to place them in, but for this exercise I was drawing a blank.
I thought of writing to you to ask for help with something that would seem exotic to my friends over here, but there wasn’t enough time and besides, many of the online students are not from America, so if I wrote of something I was unsure of I would just look foolish.
What to do? What to do? Time was running out.
I came up with a plan, which I am not proud to tell you. I cobbled together an unbelievable labyrinthine plot from a book I purchased a very long time ago. It wasn’t much help back then and I should have known better than to try to make it work for me now, but I was desperate to end this course with a completed assignment. I used the book’s suggestion to string together little bits of action that were supposed to coalesce into a complicated tale of vengeance. What I wound up with was a tepid second rate murder mystery and it was so badly put together and underdeveloped, it read more like a summary than a story. As the final day approached and no other ideas were forthcoming, I threw up my hands in exasperation and went ahead and posted my work.
I regretted my action immediately.
As was to be expected, it was met with a lukewarm reception. We critique each other’s work and a few of my fellow students said some kind things, but most, including my mentor, made it clear they did not think it was my best work. They were right.
I was ashamed. It’s only a writing course, you might say, and there is always tomorrow to do better. It’s true, but my pride would not allow me to let this hodgepodge represent me in my final assignment of my freshman course. I was not being true to myself, and so, I deleted it from the postings. Now, I had nothing to represent me.
What to do?
I went out to take a walk to clear my thoughts and saw all the signs of the coming millennium celebration. I also saw a dead pigeon in the street. It made me heartsick to think of how many hours flying the poor useless creature had put in to arrive nowhere, and here it was, a pile of crumpled feathers someone had brushed off the sidewalk into the street.
When I returned to my apartment building, your letter was waiting for me and it made me feel so much better. Every time we communicate, I realize how big this world is and how insignificant some of my “problems” are.
I read your letter and like a flash, I came up with an idea and must run now to re-post my final assignment. I realize where the conflict is and how it could be resolved. I must thank you for writing and unknowingly helping me to see what was under my nose all the time.
Thank you very much for the stamps and the magazine clippings.
Please extend my greetings to your mother and the rest of your family.
I will write to you again soon now that this course is finishing up and I will have some free time.
Your friend,
Michael
Thanks for your nice letter. I can tell from your tone China is very excited about the return of Macao. I hope the transfer is as smooth as that of Hong Kong. You seem all caught up in the festivities and they seem less worrisome than the Y2K business and millennium madness we are experiencing over here. I wonder how you are doing vis-à-vis computer problems. We have not exchanged e-mail in quite some time.
It has been a long time since we last communicated. I know you have been very busy redecorating your new home. It must be coming along beautifully. Perhaps you can send me a photo.
Let me tell you why I have not written. Just as you are trying to improve your English, I have been trying to better my writing abilities in my native language. As I told you before mostly I write fiction. There is much need for improvement if I wish to capture a readership. I wish I had the abilities of our mutual favorite Lu Xun, but that is another story.
I signed up for a six-week online writing course and have made many new friends. Each lesson required us to approach the craft of fiction writing from a specific perspective. One week we had to pretend to be one of our characters so as to introduce ourselves to each other. I found it difficult trying to discover my own personality as if looking at myself from the outside. Another time we had to focus on point of view and how to use it to tell a story. For that one, I wrote the assignment three times before I settled on telling it in the second person. I wrote, "You say..." and "You go..." as if I were telling the character what to do. It was critiqued positively so I guess the rewrites paid off. And once, we had to interview one of the characters we'd created as if he or she were applying for a job in our stories. That piece took me a while before I settled on a magazine type interview wherein I pretended the reporter wanted to speak to "the man on the street" rather than a celebrity.
Each week I struggled along slowly and painstakingly trying to get better at the craft. However, this last lesson I found most difficult of all. It was concerned with conflict, complications and plot. How to build to a crisis and then resolve it. And I was at a loss. My conflict was I could not come up with a plot I liked well enough to post and perhaps develop later as I go into further courses.
My friend John suggested I use the tension filled story I wrote about the boy and the unlocked window, but I had written it so long ago, I found it sophomoric. I really felt uncomfortable using any of my very early writing.
Then he advised me to use two characters who have been floating around in my head for a long time without a story, but as I explained to him, they don’t have a story yet. They are just colorful characters without conflicts of their own. I need to think up some interesting situations to place them in, but for this exercise I was drawing a blank.
I thought of writing to you to ask for help with something that would seem exotic to my friends over here, but there wasn’t enough time and besides, many of the online students are not from America, so if I wrote of something I was unsure of I would just look foolish.
What to do? What to do? Time was running out.
I came up with a plan, which I am not proud to tell you. I cobbled together an unbelievable labyrinthine plot from a book I purchased a very long time ago. It wasn’t much help back then and I should have known better than to try to make it work for me now, but I was desperate to end this course with a completed assignment. I used the book’s suggestion to string together little bits of action that were supposed to coalesce into a complicated tale of vengeance. What I wound up with was a tepid second rate murder mystery and it was so badly put together and underdeveloped, it read more like a summary than a story. As the final day approached and no other ideas were forthcoming, I threw up my hands in exasperation and went ahead and posted my work.
I regretted my action immediately.
As was to be expected, it was met with a lukewarm reception. We critique each other’s work and a few of my fellow students said some kind things, but most, including my mentor, made it clear they did not think it was my best work. They were right.
I was ashamed. It’s only a writing course, you might say, and there is always tomorrow to do better. It’s true, but my pride would not allow me to let this hodgepodge represent me in my final assignment of my freshman course. I was not being true to myself, and so, I deleted it from the postings. Now, I had nothing to represent me.
What to do?
I went out to take a walk to clear my thoughts and saw all the signs of the coming millennium celebration. I also saw a dead pigeon in the street. It made me heartsick to think of how many hours flying the poor useless creature had put in to arrive nowhere, and here it was, a pile of crumpled feathers someone had brushed off the sidewalk into the street.
When I returned to my apartment building, your letter was waiting for me and it made me feel so much better. Every time we communicate, I realize how big this world is and how insignificant some of my “problems” are.
I read your letter and like a flash, I came up with an idea and must run now to re-post my final assignment. I realize where the conflict is and how it could be resolved. I must thank you for writing and unknowingly helping me to see what was under my nose all the time.
Thank you very much for the stamps and the magazine clippings.
Please extend my greetings to your mother and the rest of your family.
I will write to you again soon now that this course is finishing up and I will have some free time.
Your friend,
Michael
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The What-If Factor
Ineradicable cobwebs fill the corners of my life.
The ghosts of things that might have been haunt me though they haven't.
In my dream, we said some terrible things -
No, I take that back,
I said some awful things to you -
Hate-filled words, untake-backable words,
And left you in confusion
Wondering what you'd done.
Then I walked through fire -
Returning to a past which had not, could not happen.
I took the consolation you deserved for myself,
In the arms of someone who no longer was there.
After thinking how good it felt, I realized it could not last.
It was a chimera.
I saw clearly I'd given away the present for a past I could not reclaim
And thus, my future was obliterated.
When you woke me and you were still real,
For a brief moment there was relief,
But then I noticed cobwebs
Constructed of motes of sadness
And felt the heat of the coming fire.
Somewhere in this there's a formula for figuring probability.
Somewhere there's a path to get to the average mean.
There's the murk of the future and the bottleneck of the recent past
And glorious worlds at either end,
But I'm stuck in between.
The ghosts of things that might have been haunt me though they haven't.
In my dream, we said some terrible things -
No, I take that back,
I said some awful things to you -
Hate-filled words, untake-backable words,
And left you in confusion
Wondering what you'd done.
Then I walked through fire -
Returning to a past which had not, could not happen.
I took the consolation you deserved for myself,
In the arms of someone who no longer was there.
After thinking how good it felt, I realized it could not last.
It was a chimera.
I saw clearly I'd given away the present for a past I could not reclaim
And thus, my future was obliterated.
When you woke me and you were still real,
For a brief moment there was relief,
But then I noticed cobwebs
Constructed of motes of sadness
And felt the heat of the coming fire.
Somewhere in this there's a formula for figuring probability.
Somewhere there's a path to get to the average mean.
There's the murk of the future and the bottleneck of the recent past
And glorious worlds at either end,
But I'm stuck in between.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Sally Graham
Five years ago I was intimidated by Sally Graham. Well, I respected her superior intellect. She was almost ready to retire then. I think she told me she was fifty-eight. She's a psychiatrist and a member of the American Philatelic Society and at that time I think her stamp collection numbered in the 60,000s.
The way I met her was I was talking to the doorman and I mentioned I was just renewing my interest in stamp collecting, something I had done when I was a kid. And he told me there was someone in the building who was also a collector and if I wanted he would give her my apartment number. I told him go ahead, why not, I wanted to meet other people who were into it. That evening, she rang my bell. I invited her in and we talked for an hour or so.
She sat on my dining room floor explaining things to me like how I could always tell stamps that belonged to republics of the Soviet Union because they had letters on them in the Cyrillic alphabet that looked like CCCP and NOYTA and how stamps from Taiwan differed from those from mainland China because those from the Peoples Republic had an ideogram resembling a wishbone, and it was the symbol that stood for man. It was pronounced ren, but I only had to concern myself with that on the earlier issues because the later stamps now said China in the English alphabet and the sets were numbered. She was a free spirit and her hair was unkempt and she reminded of nothing so much as a wilted flower child, but she sounded very intelligent.
She told me I should join the APS and I would get circuits on approval. It was a good way to fill up my collection cheaply and it was a very secure procedure.
The difference in our ages precluded becoming very friendly but every once in a while I would see her in the lobby on my way out to work or coming home and I remember when she told me she had officially retired. She was looking forward to more time at home and not having to see patients. They all had so many problems. She said at times she felt like she might bug out.
About a year ago I had a problem with the APS. Someone from the Society called me and told me the next person on the Peoples Republic of China circuit did not receive the booklets I had looked at and sent on. He was a Chinese with a post office box for an address and I had my suspicions. The stamps were valuable. I called Sally and asked her advice, because whenever I received a circuit from PRC she was always the prior recipient and this particular time I had foolishly forgotten to save the priority mail insurance receipt.
She told me in her soft-spoken solicitous way, "It's a test. To teach you to follow the instructions. Why don't you call the APS and tell them the number and maybe they can track it down without the actual receipt?"
"And if they can't?" I asked.
"Well," she said, "It couldn't cost you more than a hundred dollars. That's all it was insured for."
I felt like one of her patients. It was not what I wanted to hear.
I was able to clear my responsibility with the APS with a phone call, but after that I asked them not to send me anymore stamps from China. My collection was pretty full and I didn't want to be responsible for something that expensive again.
As I say, that was a year ago.
This afternoon, in the crisp December weather, I went downstairs to buy some lunch in the new Garden of Eden gourmet food shop that recently opened in our building's ground floor. It is filled with the delicious aromas of all kinds of exotic foods, fruits and baked items, meats and poultry, cooked and ready to go. I bought some three potato salad and some roast beef and when I entered the lobby I ran into Sally Graham. I was a little taken back by how she looked. Her teeth were all discolored and her hair was still unkempt but now it was completely gray. It looked dirty and she had put on quite a bit of weight. She was wearing an ill fitting down jacket with food stains on it.
"You cost me five dollars," she said, and it really sounded like an accusation.
"How's that?" I asked. I really didn't want to stand there and talk. I wanted to come upstairs and have my roast beef.
She went on to explain since I wasn't on the Chinese circuit anymore, she had to walk all the way over to Fourth Avenue to the Post Office to insure her package and send it on to the next person on the list instead of leaving it with the doorman for me.
I asked her how many stamps she had now and she told me she had stopped counting when she went over 100,000.
"How do you catalog them all?" I asked.
"Well, I haven't gotten around to doing that," she said. "They're all in shoeboxes. Some of my friends who are dealers tell me I should, especially if I want to sell them, and I may have to soon. I'm running out of money."
I was surprised and said, "Oh?"
"Yes," she said, "I just paid October's rent."
That really surprised me. It was not the kind of thing I expected from her.
The way I met her was I was talking to the doorman and I mentioned I was just renewing my interest in stamp collecting, something I had done when I was a kid. And he told me there was someone in the building who was also a collector and if I wanted he would give her my apartment number. I told him go ahead, why not, I wanted to meet other people who were into it. That evening, she rang my bell. I invited her in and we talked for an hour or so.
She sat on my dining room floor explaining things to me like how I could always tell stamps that belonged to republics of the Soviet Union because they had letters on them in the Cyrillic alphabet that looked like CCCP and NOYTA and how stamps from Taiwan differed from those from mainland China because those from the Peoples Republic had an ideogram resembling a wishbone, and it was the symbol that stood for man. It was pronounced ren, but I only had to concern myself with that on the earlier issues because the later stamps now said China in the English alphabet and the sets were numbered. She was a free spirit and her hair was unkempt and she reminded of nothing so much as a wilted flower child, but she sounded very intelligent.
She told me I should join the APS and I would get circuits on approval. It was a good way to fill up my collection cheaply and it was a very secure procedure.
The difference in our ages precluded becoming very friendly but every once in a while I would see her in the lobby on my way out to work or coming home and I remember when she told me she had officially retired. She was looking forward to more time at home and not having to see patients. They all had so many problems. She said at times she felt like she might bug out.
About a year ago I had a problem with the APS. Someone from the Society called me and told me the next person on the Peoples Republic of China circuit did not receive the booklets I had looked at and sent on. He was a Chinese with a post office box for an address and I had my suspicions. The stamps were valuable. I called Sally and asked her advice, because whenever I received a circuit from PRC she was always the prior recipient and this particular time I had foolishly forgotten to save the priority mail insurance receipt.
She told me in her soft-spoken solicitous way, "It's a test. To teach you to follow the instructions. Why don't you call the APS and tell them the number and maybe they can track it down without the actual receipt?"
"And if they can't?" I asked.
"Well," she said, "It couldn't cost you more than a hundred dollars. That's all it was insured for."
I felt like one of her patients. It was not what I wanted to hear.
I was able to clear my responsibility with the APS with a phone call, but after that I asked them not to send me anymore stamps from China. My collection was pretty full and I didn't want to be responsible for something that expensive again.
As I say, that was a year ago.
This afternoon, in the crisp December weather, I went downstairs to buy some lunch in the new Garden of Eden gourmet food shop that recently opened in our building's ground floor. It is filled with the delicious aromas of all kinds of exotic foods, fruits and baked items, meats and poultry, cooked and ready to go. I bought some three potato salad and some roast beef and when I entered the lobby I ran into Sally Graham. I was a little taken back by how she looked. Her teeth were all discolored and her hair was still unkempt but now it was completely gray. It looked dirty and she had put on quite a bit of weight. She was wearing an ill fitting down jacket with food stains on it.
"You cost me five dollars," she said, and it really sounded like an accusation.
"How's that?" I asked. I really didn't want to stand there and talk. I wanted to come upstairs and have my roast beef.
She went on to explain since I wasn't on the Chinese circuit anymore, she had to walk all the way over to Fourth Avenue to the Post Office to insure her package and send it on to the next person on the list instead of leaving it with the doorman for me.
I asked her how many stamps she had now and she told me she had stopped counting when she went over 100,000.
"How do you catalog them all?" I asked.
"Well, I haven't gotten around to doing that," she said. "They're all in shoeboxes. Some of my friends who are dealers tell me I should, especially if I want to sell them, and I may have to soon. I'm running out of money."
I was surprised and said, "Oh?"
"Yes," she said, "I just paid October's rent."
That really surprised me. It was not the kind of thing I expected from her.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Views
Two people carry one thing and an argument ensues,
It ends with the big thing left on the street when one of them blows a fuse.
A patient sues his doctor and the lawyer sports new shoes,
The doctor makes excuses, saying, "I'm always the one they accuse!"
Fans at the game are anxious to see the visitors lose,
Though the leading player rolls on the ground and rubs a swelling bruise.
Mom and Dad watch a crime in progress on the local news;
A hateful man in an interview hurts with the words he spews.
Three competing suitors are hoping the beauty will choose
Against a backdrop of music and hearts of pink in varying hues.
The tenants default on their rent with excuses by ones and by twos,
And complain of the neighbor who stinks up the hall with the garbage that he strews.
Robert propounds on Kate's erroneous definition of clerihews;
In order to get her to see the light, he gives her a book to peruse.
The church falls short on worshippers who can't sit in predestined pews,
And Masons turn out their membership for failing to pay their dues.
A husband abandons his wife in aborted attempts to amuse;
Her demeanor is drowned in pot luck casseroles, soups and stews.
A detective sifts through the ashes searching remains for clues;
He's found an earring, a tooth and a nail, but he doesn't know whose.
Teenagers wooing, say they aren't smoking. They are. It's only a ruse.
They're thinking of eloping because her father is turning the screws.
Workers waiting for jobs are standing outside in queues,
While the hardnosed factory owner seeks alternatives to use.
Someone is at the zoo with a child his girlfriend won't let him abuse,
And an old man who's lost a fortune regains it by singing the Blues.
Check out student writing at TEC Inglés.
It ends with the big thing left on the street when one of them blows a fuse.
A patient sues his doctor and the lawyer sports new shoes,
The doctor makes excuses, saying, "I'm always the one they accuse!"
Fans at the game are anxious to see the visitors lose,
Though the leading player rolls on the ground and rubs a swelling bruise.
Mom and Dad watch a crime in progress on the local news;
A hateful man in an interview hurts with the words he spews.
Three competing suitors are hoping the beauty will choose
Against a backdrop of music and hearts of pink in varying hues.
The tenants default on their rent with excuses by ones and by twos,
And complain of the neighbor who stinks up the hall with the garbage that he strews.
Robert propounds on Kate's erroneous definition of clerihews;
In order to get her to see the light, he gives her a book to peruse.
The church falls short on worshippers who can't sit in predestined pews,
And Masons turn out their membership for failing to pay their dues.
A husband abandons his wife in aborted attempts to amuse;
Her demeanor is drowned in pot luck casseroles, soups and stews.
A detective sifts through the ashes searching remains for clues;
He's found an earring, a tooth and a nail, but he doesn't know whose.
Teenagers wooing, say they aren't smoking. They are. It's only a ruse.
They're thinking of eloping because her father is turning the screws.
Workers waiting for jobs are standing outside in queues,
While the hardnosed factory owner seeks alternatives to use.
Someone is at the zoo with a child his girlfriend won't let him abuse,
And an old man who's lost a fortune regains it by singing the Blues.
Check out student writing at TEC Inglés.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
One Wish Left
“What’s that?” Lisa asked, “It looks like one of those genie bottles.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Richard said, “A little six month anniversary gift for you.”
“Oh, Rich, you’re so sweet.” Smoothing out the edge of her black silk negligee, she sat at the vanity and reapplied her make-up. “But it actually looks like a giant phallus. I can’t bring that home. How would I explain it to my husband?”
“Tell him you bought it at a flea market.”
“It’s so large.” She rubbed the gnarled wooden bottle. “I wish you were this big, all the time.” She giggled and aimed it at him like a rifle.
Back at the office, Rich received a telephone call from the ancient sage who sold him the bottle. “I make grave mistake,” said the old man, “I meant to sell you novelty copy of actual bottle. That one contains very powerful magic. You not be able to handle consequences.”
“Well, that’s too bad, pop,” Rich said, “I’ve already given it to my girlfriend as a gift.”
“Please, you must return it to me. I give you copy. She is in grave danger. I'm sorry I make mistake. You must believe me.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see, pop.” Rich hung up the phone while the old man was still protesting.
Twenty minutes later, Rich felt a twitching in his pants. His crotch area became uncomfortable as a certain part of him began to gain about three pounds of flesh. For a moment he thought he had subconsciously recalled his afternoon tryst with Lisa, but then he remembered the wish she made.
He tried calling her at home, which he almost never did. There was no answer.
She was in her white Camaro, stalled in traffic. ‘I hate having to deal with situations like this,’ she thought, ‘I wouldn’t have to if I were a wealthy woman with a chauffeur driven car. I could be in the back of a limousine, eating caviar and drinking champagne.’ “I wish I was rich. Really Rich,” she heard herself saying aloud. Suddenly the gridlock cleared and she zoomed off.
Rich drove toward Lisa’s home, finding it somewhat uncomfortable to fit his newly developed bulk under the steering wheel. She was going to go wild when she saw that. He hoped he could get to her before she wasted her other two wishes.
He had to slow down and stop as he approached the scene of an accident. A white car was badly banged up and wrapped around a divider. Traffic at a standstill, Rich got out of his Lexus and asked one of the attending policemen, "“What the hell happened, officer?"
The cop did a double take as if he recognized him. “Er, uh,” he stammered, “Damn fool guy must have been drunk. Wracked up his vehicle pretty good.”
As they removed the body from the wreck, Rich almost fainted. It could have been his twin. The dead man’s face looked so much like his own. And the guy had a huge bulge in his bloody pants.
The driver’s side door was mangled. It wouldn’t close properly. When the tow truck lifted the Camaro, a gnarled wooden bottle fell out of the car, rolled across the highway and disappeared into the grass.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Richard said, “A little six month anniversary gift for you.”
“Oh, Rich, you’re so sweet.” Smoothing out the edge of her black silk negligee, she sat at the vanity and reapplied her make-up. “But it actually looks like a giant phallus. I can’t bring that home. How would I explain it to my husband?”
“Tell him you bought it at a flea market.”
“It’s so large.” She rubbed the gnarled wooden bottle. “I wish you were this big, all the time.” She giggled and aimed it at him like a rifle.
Back at the office, Rich received a telephone call from the ancient sage who sold him the bottle. “I make grave mistake,” said the old man, “I meant to sell you novelty copy of actual bottle. That one contains very powerful magic. You not be able to handle consequences.”
“Well, that’s too bad, pop,” Rich said, “I’ve already given it to my girlfriend as a gift.”
“Please, you must return it to me. I give you copy. She is in grave danger. I'm sorry I make mistake. You must believe me.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see, pop.” Rich hung up the phone while the old man was still protesting.
Twenty minutes later, Rich felt a twitching in his pants. His crotch area became uncomfortable as a certain part of him began to gain about three pounds of flesh. For a moment he thought he had subconsciously recalled his afternoon tryst with Lisa, but then he remembered the wish she made.
He tried calling her at home, which he almost never did. There was no answer.
She was in her white Camaro, stalled in traffic. ‘I hate having to deal with situations like this,’ she thought, ‘I wouldn’t have to if I were a wealthy woman with a chauffeur driven car. I could be in the back of a limousine, eating caviar and drinking champagne.’ “I wish I was rich. Really Rich,” she heard herself saying aloud. Suddenly the gridlock cleared and she zoomed off.
Rich drove toward Lisa’s home, finding it somewhat uncomfortable to fit his newly developed bulk under the steering wheel. She was going to go wild when she saw that. He hoped he could get to her before she wasted her other two wishes.
He had to slow down and stop as he approached the scene of an accident. A white car was badly banged up and wrapped around a divider. Traffic at a standstill, Rich got out of his Lexus and asked one of the attending policemen, "“What the hell happened, officer?"
The cop did a double take as if he recognized him. “Er, uh,” he stammered, “Damn fool guy must have been drunk. Wracked up his vehicle pretty good.”
As they removed the body from the wreck, Rich almost fainted. It could have been his twin. The dead man’s face looked so much like his own. And the guy had a huge bulge in his bloody pants.
The driver’s side door was mangled. It wouldn’t close properly. When the tow truck lifted the Camaro, a gnarled wooden bottle fell out of the car, rolled across the highway and disappeared into the grass.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Commuters' Rage
It used to be a long comfortable commute on the train from Westchester down to her job on Wall Street during which Alison immersed herself in books from the bestseller list. "I can never find time to read evenings or on weekends, so I always read on the way to work," she told her friend Macy once, before Macy married and moved to an island off the coast of South Carolina. They still compared notes on the latest bestsellers, but not as often. Alison found little time to write letters or e-mail with all the work she brought home to do in the evenings and over weekends. There were so many details. She had to be careful not to leave anything out.
One day, a man ran through the train shooting at people indiscriminately. Alison, looked up from her book at the sound of the first shot and for an elongated moment she could not comprehend what was happening. Then she was hit in the shoulder by one of the bullets, just inches from her heart.
She spent her long recuperation reading accounts of the man's life. Various newspapers told how he had been arrested on burglary and assault charges several times, but had served only two years in prison. He was the son of a teen-aged unwed mother who had died early of a drug overdose. He had been raised by his grandmother who could not understand where he had gone wrong. He was always a good child. She had three other daughters. Each had several children. None had turned out like Vaco. "Vaco's cousins cannot understand this tragedy either," the grandmother said. A photograph showed her crying, next to a photograph of Vaco, with his arm reaching forward, as if to block the photographer's view. From what Alison could see of his face in that picture, he appeared to be smiling. In another, he had a glazed look in his eyes. His defense attorney said Vaco was filled with an uncontrollable rage against society. This rage anesthetized him to the wrongs he commited. The attorney argued, under the powerful grip of such rage, a person, surely, cannot be held completely accountable for how he reacts to the society he feels has wronged him.
Details of Vaco's life filled newspapers for many weeks. Alison read them all. She had plenty of time in her hospital bed and later at home. There was very little written about the sixteen people who were hurt or the man who was killed on the train that day. When she mentioned this to Macy during a phone conversation, Macy said the victims' stories would be related in the soon to be published book about commuters' rage. Alison told her nobody had interviewed her for such a book, and that she thought that was a callous thing to say. After hanging up, she thought it might be a long time before she could speak to Macy again.
Alison went back to work eventually. She still commutes from Westchester, but these days, she never reads on trains no matter how long the ride is.
One day, a man ran through the train shooting at people indiscriminately. Alison, looked up from her book at the sound of the first shot and for an elongated moment she could not comprehend what was happening. Then she was hit in the shoulder by one of the bullets, just inches from her heart.
She spent her long recuperation reading accounts of the man's life. Various newspapers told how he had been arrested on burglary and assault charges several times, but had served only two years in prison. He was the son of a teen-aged unwed mother who had died early of a drug overdose. He had been raised by his grandmother who could not understand where he had gone wrong. He was always a good child. She had three other daughters. Each had several children. None had turned out like Vaco. "Vaco's cousins cannot understand this tragedy either," the grandmother said. A photograph showed her crying, next to a photograph of Vaco, with his arm reaching forward, as if to block the photographer's view. From what Alison could see of his face in that picture, he appeared to be smiling. In another, he had a glazed look in his eyes. His defense attorney said Vaco was filled with an uncontrollable rage against society. This rage anesthetized him to the wrongs he commited. The attorney argued, under the powerful grip of such rage, a person, surely, cannot be held completely accountable for how he reacts to the society he feels has wronged him.
Details of Vaco's life filled newspapers for many weeks. Alison read them all. She had plenty of time in her hospital bed and later at home. There was very little written about the sixteen people who were hurt or the man who was killed on the train that day. When she mentioned this to Macy during a phone conversation, Macy said the victims' stories would be related in the soon to be published book about commuters' rage. Alison told her nobody had interviewed her for such a book, and that she thought that was a callous thing to say. After hanging up, she thought it might be a long time before she could speak to Macy again.
Alison went back to work eventually. She still commutes from Westchester, but these days, she never reads on trains no matter how long the ride is.
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