A Good Read

Viet Nam - January 31, 1968

Giving the command to fall back did not stop the escalating body count or the bullets from buzzing around Sergeant Dirk Nyte like a merciless swarm of hornets tearing through the foliage inches overhead. The occasional thud of a slug finding lodging in the trunk of some unnamable jungle flora brought some solace--one less blistering projectile to rip through the body of another of his men like the round that had born the hole in his left arm or the one taking the last gasp from the man lying next to him.

It was the beginning of the second day of a three-day recon mission, the first day of Tet Nguyen Dan, the celebration of the Vietnamese New Year. A two-day ceasefire had been called between North and South Vietnam, and while most of the allied troops had planned a couple days reprieve from the fighting, a few diligent officers wanted eyes and ears on the ground for insurance. Nyte's squad had been one of the chosen, but they had not observed a single confirming slither of enemy movement-until 25 minutes ago.

* * *

The crack of an explosion, like a direct hit on a munitions dump, yanked Sergeant Nyte out of a pleasant dream. Tucked in behind a tree on a small rise just a few meters at the rear of his men, he rolled to his stomach and raised his rifle. Peering through the Starlight night vision scope mounted on the barrel, he pointed it in the direction of the thundering sound still retreating into the distance. The bright green heat signatures showed a half dozen bodies, warm from the life just stolen from them, not thirty meters away. Charlie had hit a tripwire and set off a single M18 Claymore mine planted on the perimeter of their position.

Hoping the blast would be the end of it--just a few ragtag scouts on patrol meeting their fate by accident--he continued to scan the darkness through the scope. Fifty meters across an open field, he saw scores of men crouched and running for cover in a tree line. The dead had been an early warning system for a large flank of the Vietcong army. Feeling a familiar pre-battle throb begin to hammer his temple, he drew several deep breaths of tepid jungle air, allowing the oxygen to replace the adrenaline that had pumped to his system moments before.

During the next two silent minutes, he hoped his squad would remember the mission briefing he had given before they left home base.

"Don't fire unless you're absolutely sure they're shooting at you," he had warned, "and not firing to see if anyone's home. Returning fire opens the door, and then they have to kill you."

His veterans understood the order and knew they were not to engage unless attacked. But those with less time dodging bullets and pungi pits found it difficult to understand the true meaning of "attack" meant the certainty that your position had been compromised.

Nyte, over the last two days, had developed a growing concern for one of his new recruits. Hal had just landed in Southeast Asia three days ago. Now on his first mission, after a day of swatting mosquitoes as big as California condors but not as endangered, learning to burn leeches from his legs with a cigarette, and playing duck and cover with every sound the jungle uttered, Nyte could see that his nerves were as taut as the E string on Jimi Hendrix's Fender Stratocaster.

Using his scope, Nyte scanned the bush in front of him for each of his men. Everyone was hunkered in case a squall of bullets began to rain down. Hal lay curled in a fetal position behind a downed tree with his hands grasping his helmeted head. Well protected, he would be all right if the forces on the other side of the clearing decided to ring the doorbell.

When the first volley erupted, Nyte rolled to a sitting position and rested his back against the tree. With his finger on the trigger of his M16, he rested the butt on his right thigh. After thirty seconds, when the thunderstorm of hot lead stopped tearing through the jungle, Nyte released the breath he had been holding. Then raising his scope, he peered around the trunk looking toward the enemy. Their green glow indicated they were taking cover, waiting for a response. With luck, he thought, they might move on.

Just then, automatic weapon fire erupted to his right. Swinging the scope around to see who had engaged, he found Hal holding his rifle at the hip, John Wayne style, spraying short bursts toward the opposite stand of trees. Proof of life was what Charlie needed, and after only getting three bursts off, Hal sprayed the rest of his magazine in a single stream into the air as he fell backward to the ground dead.

Twenty minutes and countless rounds later, dawn began to paint the black horizon with a deep blue brushstroke. Nyte looked again to the position of each one of those who had trusted him with their life. The carnage he witnessed soured the pit of his stomach. At least five men's confidence had been betrayed.

It was Clive Johnson who had started the moniker tradition in Nyte's squad. One afternoon between missions, he and his buddies were cleaning their weapons after a grisly battle. Sitting on the edge of his rack, without looking up, he said, "Clive doesn't live in this hellhole. He would never do the things to another human being that Uncle Sam demands. From today forward, it's Black Hail out there raining death on those gooks, and if Hail survives ‘til that ride home, Clive will greet him at the airport." Since that day, even those making their final ride home in a box, earned their nickname.

Nyte saw Boomer, the explosive ordnance expert, lying still on the ground with a dark stain pooling his blouse. Next to him, Boa--named after he crept into the enemy's camp one night putting several unsuspecting soldiers into choke holds--reloaded magazines, preparing for the next round. Five meters to Boa's left, Jessop was laying down a line of fire directed toward a muzzle flash on the other side of the clearing. He had not earned a nickname yet, but if he survived today, he was sure to claim the moniker Tarzan. Since the shooting started he had hopped from tree to tree, firing into the flurry of oncoming bullets to give the enemy a false sense of the number and position of their foe.

On the left flank and the farthest forward, Lone Wolf was pinned down but returning fire. From the way he favored his left shoulder, he might have taken a round, but he was a good soldier and knew the fight took precedence over the pain. His nickname came from his preference to keep to himself whether on a mission or back in the barracks. Between Jessop and Lone Wolf, another soldier swapped magazines. Five meters to his right, their communications expert, DJ, lay motionless with his left hand wrapped around the radio, his helmet turned upside down next to him.

While the firefight raged, Nyte had kept vigil on the gathering heat signatures as Vietcong reinforcements drew together from adjoining sectors like hyenas on a blood scent. They seemed to be set on one thing, slaughtering every man on his side of the clearing. And because the morning light threatened to expose to Charlie just how few of Uncle Sam's GIs opposed them, at any moment, Nyte expected to see a wall of pajama-clad AK-47-bearing guerillas swarm from the trees with a frenzy of fire power.

Since no air cover had arrived once the shooting started, Nyte assumed DJ must have been taken out right after Hal. To fulfill their mission, they had to report that Charlie was not on holiday. But with nearly half his men dead, Nyte knew that holding their position for much longer left no hope of anyone's survival. They needed an airstrike and a ride home, and they needed it now. With everyone pinned down, to alert HQ and save what was left of his men, he had to get to the radio.

With his rifle resting in his elbow joints, he slipped out from behind the tree, keeping his belly to the ground. Knowing that each thrust drew him closer to the enemy's crosshairs, he slid down the gentle slope, taking cover under the thick brush. Even though it offered visual obscurity, the growth was no shield from the stray shots piercing the broad leafs just above his head and kicking up dirt all around him.

When he reached the edge of the growth, four exposed meters of hillside still lay between him and DJ's boots. If the enemy saw him, the crossing would make him the main attraction in a turkey shoot. Since DJ's rifle had been silenced for some time, though, Charlie was not wasting ammunition on that position. There was enough lead strafing all around him, however, that he knew attempting to cross the clearing could well be his last act. Praying for enough protection to save what was left of his men, he placed his hand over his left breast pocket where his fiancée Clarissa's last letter stayed tucked close to his heart.

While playing with the survival odds of crossing the seeming massive expanse on a run or on his stomach, a slug whizzed by just inches from his right ear and burrowed into the ground beside him. That was enough motivation, and in a flurry of elbows and knees digging into the carpet of decaying leaves and grass, he low-crawled down the rest of the slope, wriggling to the right side of the remains of the twenty-year-old's days on Earth.

He looked at the radioman and his helmet. A bullet had pierced both, knocking the head protection off and then burrowing into DJ's skull. A moist stream of blood trickled across his forehead just above the "what-the-hell-just-happened" stare in his eyes.

He reached across and slipped the radio from DJ's hand. Rolling to his right side, he clicked the switch and found the radio unharmed. When he raised the instrument to his ear, as if someone had hacked a small tree branch off with a machete, his left hand fell useless to the ground. Making a quick examination of his flaccid limb, he saw that a bullet had torn through his bicep, shattering the bone as it passed through.

With no time to delay, he rolled to his back and, taking the device in his right hand, called HQ.

"Taking heavy fire," he growled into the mouthpiece, "at least five down. We need an airstrike."

"No can do, Sarg. The fly boys are on holiday you know."

"There is no holiday, soldier. Half the damn Vietcong army is on my doorstep."

"It'll be at least forty-five before I can find and suit up a sober pilot."

"Damn it! Find that pilot, then, but get me an evac, now!"

To his right, Jessop was pinned behind another tree, taking heavy fire. Over the fray of automatic weapons, Nyte yelled, "Jessop."

"Yeah, Sarg?"

"‘Dead run,' one klick."

He repeated the order to the soldier on his left and then found a medical kit on DJ's web belt. While he waited for the lull in the storm, he extracted a package of sterile gauze, ripped it open, and wound the white strip tight around his injury to slow the bleeding.

A minute later, the order had spread, and his men stopped shooting. The sounds of enemy shells shredding the leaves, tunneling the earth, and boring into tree trunks continued all around Nyte, though. And then, as expected, they stopped.

Slinging his weapon over his back, Nyte dragged himself, his useless arm in tow, under the brush past Jessop and Hal to where Boa waited. He had good cover in a thick grouping of trees and was lying on his stomach, peering between two trunks toward the enemy's position. Boomer lay a meter away. Nyte slid over to him and put a confirming finger to his neck. When no welcome throb greeted him, he shook his head at the waste of another life and whispered, "They coming?"

"No," Boa replied without turning his head.

Rolling toward Boa, he scooted until he could see across the field through the trees. In the dull morning light, he sensed movement. Charlie had decided to investigate. Raising his field glasses, he watched as a small group of about two dozen, not nearly the entire force, emerged from the tree line. They began a cautious walk across the open field, crouching low with their weapons ready as if they expected resistance.

When they were within 20 meters, Nyte tapped Boa on the helmet, and he squeezed the trigger, setting off the remaining M18s. The explosion sounded like a Fourth of July fireworks finale. Even though the fire, smoke, and dust kicked up by the massive detonation hid the advancing force, the shrieks of the dying as the pellets tore through their flesh told him what he needed to know.

This was the signal his men waited for. They only had a few seconds before the rest of enemy force, disoriented by the blood and horror, ascertained that the blast was not an accidental discharge but a diversion.

He jumped to his feet. After taking two steps to the rear he realized Boa had not moved. Still running, he turned and said in a forced whisper. "Retreat, now."

"Right behind you, Sarg."

Minutes later, Nyte, his left arm swaying without purpose at his side, carried his weapon by the pistol grip in his right hand as he broke through the trees. He had lost track of his men in the jungle, but as he made the clearing, he was relieved to see most of the others racing for the chopper just touching down thirty meters ahead.

As he reached the open bay of the helicopter, winded from the 1,000 meter sprint, M60 machinegun chatter erupted over his head. Turning, he saw dozens of Vietcong soldiers swarming out of the jungle like ants racing from a fast spreading ground fire. Many of them fell victim to the hail of lead being sprayed at them. They were chasing Jessop who loped along with a man on each shoulder, gasping from the heavy burden. While one of the men raced back to take one of Jessop's brothers, anyone who was able crouched at the door or laid on the deck of the Huey giving cover fire until everyone was aboard. The deafening sounds of the rotors and machineguns, and the occasional thunk as rounds passed through the steel body of the chopper were welcome resonance as the bird began to take flight.

Finally, out of range, Nyte made a preliminary assessment of their losses. As expected, Hal, Boomer, and DJ were not present. They were the known dead along with two others. One of the two men Jessop had carried back was found to be DOA and the other had a severe chest wound which one of his men was attempting to treat. Two others were unaccounted for.

* * *

Two days after the retreat, Nyte stood with his left arm in a cast on the landing field near his barracks. Those of his men who were ambulatory waited in a somber vigil with him as the helicopter bearing the bodies of their buddies touched down.

Squinting against the airborne debris kicked up by the chopper's decelerating blades, Nyte watched as the morgue patrol swung the first body bag from the deck to the dirt. A bitter metallic taste spread over his tongue, and his stomach pitched as he rankled at their perfunctory routine. Somehow it lacked the solemn respect due those who had given up everything. But he could no more shift the blame than bring his men back to life. The dead were his responsibility, and he had failed. Giving a mournful sigh, he looked on as the helicopter crew continued mopping up his mess.

As soon as the first one was in place, Jessop unzipped the black bag to reveal the face. Nyte knew what to expect. He had been here before, but some hope challenged him to believe the exposed countenance would be one he did not recognize-someone he would not have to prepare the "With your government's deepest regrets" letter. But as the third bag opened, Jessop gasped. Nyte, standing beside him, peered at the man, and a lump the size of a fist rammed his throat. It was who he had anticipated for the last two days, but the final reckoning dispelled any remnant of hope. Holding back tears, he saw that Boa filled it.

After placing the fourth set of remains on the ground, one of the crewmen said, "That one's a hero," pointing toward Boa's exposed face. "The area around him was littered with grenade pins. Looks like he gave you boys a little insurance before they brought him down."

When the last man came to rest at Nyte's feet, there were six bodies in the row.

"There's one more. You missed one?" he shouted, looking toward the empty helicopter bay. "Where's Wolf?"

"There's no one else, Sarg. If he didn't catch a ride back with us, he's MIA."

"So what's different about me?" Angie leans across our table on the patio so I can get a better look. Why she couldn't ask earlier, before the sun had set and my margarita started to vanish, is beyond me. I examine her face skeptically, but her forever-flawless skin tells no tales.

"Hmm, of course you didn't need to do anything..." My voice trails off as I take a sip of my straw-rita, letting the slivers of ice crackle under my teeth.

"No! I got Botox, and I can't believe you didn't notice." Angie crosses her arms over her chest and sticks out her bottom lip, acting more like my five-year-old daughter than 38-year-old best friend.

I feign surprise. "Show me again!" I demand. Angie leans back over the table, this time bringing her Chardonnay glass with her. I watch as the wine splashes around the rim, threatening to sabotage her cream silk shirt.

Focusing back on Angie, who is now smiling broader than the Joker, I can see her forehead lacks any sort of wrinkle and her eyebrows are completely lifeless. "Yup, I can definitely tell. You look amazing!"

"Well, you know, next time we can go together and share a vile. It will be fun, sort of like our own glamorous girls' night out."

"Uh, I think I'll pass." I lick the sugar from the rim of my drink off my fingertip. Angie is staring at me and doesn't look amused, or maybe she does. The Botox makes it hard to tell.

"What? You know I hate needles." This is a half-truth. The other half is I need a tummy tuck more.

"You can't just assume everything will stay the same. You have to be proactive, trust me, I know." Angie's smile disappears, and the faraway look in her eyes that so often haunts her these days is back. I sigh, knowing we are no longer talking cosmetic surgery.

"I know, and I think you look fabulous, seriously, amazing." I smile, trying to lighten the mood. Sometimes with Angie flattery is the only way out.

The waiter comes with our food, and my mouth salivates at the sight of my greasy enchiladas, smothered in sour cream and cheese. Angie looks at her shrimp salad sans cheese, shell, and bacon, with dressing on the side, with indifference.

"Oh no more for me, thanks." I cover my glass with both hands on the off chance my waiter has had serious head trauma since I saw him last and has forgotten English.

Angie looks at me with huge, green, puppy dog eyes, "Oh come on. You've only had one! Please... one more and then we can drink coffee with dessert?" As if she would be eating dessert. But still it is tempting, and the warm, chocolate brownie sundae has been beckoning me from the dessert menu.

"Yay!" Angie sits up tall in her seat and claps her hands together. "So it doesn't hurt at all. You'll love it, I promise. Besides, we need a girls' night!"

"First of all," I say, blowing steam away from the hunk of cheese that oozed from my fork, "this is a girls' night, remember? You, me, food, drinks, live music..." I look around the patio where we are seated. Where the heck did the band go? And how strong are these margaritas?

"How come we always have to count us grabbing dinner as a girls' night?" Angie asks, stabbing at her salad.

Never mind the fact that Angie insisted we go to the Mexican restaurant on the bay, thirty minutes south of where we live because they have the best shrimp fajitas in town. Then we waited another forty-five minutes because not only did she want to wait for a table on the patio, but she actually picked out the table. Although now that I am sitting next to the misters and cooling fans, directly in front of the band, but not the speakers, I'm happy we waited. After all, sitting patio-side with a cool breeze in July is pretty much unheard of in Houston. But it's now quarter-past nine. I've missed saying goodnight to Janie and cuddling up with Don on the couch watching our favorite shows. I'll be damned if this doesn't count.

"This is a girls' night, because it's just us- out and having fun. And I really don't want Botox." I try to say it as casual as possible.

Angie sighs. "I just feel like we aren't that close anymore. We used to be such great friends, always doing exciting things."

This I decipher as code for "how come you aren't doing what I want," and I try not to fall for it. My entire college career was spent doing what Angie wanted. That stopped when I married Don, but Angie didn't actually notice until her husband walked out six months ago.

"Come on, we're close, and this is fun. And I'm so glad we waited for this table, it's the best one on the patio." I swoop my hand out beside me Vanna-style, so that Angie can get the entire view of what I am trying to sell.

"I guess I just don't understand why you wouldn't want to better yourself? I would think after watching Blake and I go through this..." She pauses, and I know she is hesitant to say divorce. The papers hadn't been served, and if it were up to her, they never would. "...I just think you would try harder to keep up appearances." Angie leans back in her chair, takes the napkin that is in her lap and places it over her uneaten salad.

"I'm all about bettering myself. I'm just not ready for Botox." I smile even though the now somber mood carries the weight of Angie's looming divorce. My drink is melting, and the once bubbly cheese from my enchiladas has thickened into a hardened sea of yellow. I hate when Angie gets like this, and I can't help but wonder if this is why Blake left.

"You know," Angie looks thoughtfully at her drink, "there aren't warning signs... no red lights, no huge blowouts. They just up and leave. It happens everywhere, not just to me." Her eyes meet mine and a chill runs down my arms. Angie's bitterness, that it wasn't Don who left, is apparent.

"It was wrong of Blake to leave the way he did." I choose my words carefully. Angie has already downed more than half a bottle of wine, and her chances of causing a scene are increasing with her every sip.

"I know. And you won't understand until it happens to you." She says it like a predestined event that hovers somewhere in the distance.

Unless it happens to you, I silently correct her. My marriage is fine, I tell myself. However, Angie planted that seed of doubt back in March, and she's been sowing it ever since.

She sits up in her seat and waves our waiter over. I pray she just asks for the check, but she points to the brownie on the dessert menu.

"This is what you wanted, right?" She looks at me, and I wonder if that is disgust I see in her eyes.

"I would like a cup of decaff coffee, please." Angie rolls her eyes and my body stiffens. I'm done, one cup of coffee, and I'm out of here. She must have seen my demeanor change, because she immediately throws on the charm.

"Wait! Please bring us the brownie with ice cream. If she won't eat it, I will!" She laughs, and then as if it was an afterthought, "Oh and I'll have a another..." She taps the side of her wine glass with an impeccable French-manicured nail. The waiter leaves, and I pick at my plate. The enchiladas are still pretty darn good.

"You must think I am such a mess at times." Angie says, tracing her finger along the wooden cracks in our table. The band is back, and I am thankful for their timing. "I'm sorry if I seem obnoxious at times. I just need to find comfort in something, and I'm really scared that I may be alone forever." The band begins tuning their instruments, and I can hear the slow and steady beat of a drum behind me.

"You are the most beautiful, talented person I know. You, my sweet friend, are going to find someone else, someone who deserves you. And you'll be better than before. I promise." My annoyance morphs into sympathy. Angie used to be confident and strong, but ever since Blake left she has been insecure and frightened.

"I think you've used that one on me before." She smiles as the waiter drops off her glass of wine and a slice of heaven smothered in chocolate sauce and fluffy whipped cream.

"It's because I believe it." I cut a sliver of brownie with my fork making sure to drag it over the puddle of chocolate syrup. "Oh Angie, you have to try this. It's decadent."

"Maybe in a few minutes. I'm still a little full." Of course she is, with all that lettuce she moved around her plate.

"I know!" Angie suddenly bounces in her chair with the buoyancy of her new idea, and I'm more than a little scared. "We need to take a trip, a weekend getaway and go somewhere fun!" She raises her voice to compete with the band, and her eyes glisten. "We always talk about it, but we never do it."

Actually, only Angie talks about it and only recently. Before, she vacationed with Blake, and we would meet about once a month to catch up over dinner. I would listen with envy as she told me about the latest restaurants in uptown, the best all-inclusive cruises and their spur-of-the-moment weekends in Cabo. Those days I would go home and try to convince Don we, too, needed a vacation, but nothing ever came of it.

"I would love to take a trip with you, but now is a bad time. Janie is about to start school, and I really don't have the money." I hope that will suffice, but with Angie, money never really was a problem, and I wonder if that will still be the case.

"Pul-eaze, we'll find something super-reasonable. Just think, we can go to the beach, drink Mai Thais in our bikinis all day, dance all night."

I laugh. Did they even make bikinis in my size? My stomach is every bit as pale as my derriére, having not seen sunlight in over a decade. And I hadn't been on an adults-only vacation since before Janie was born. If I were going to go on one now, it would be with my husband, but I keep that tidbit to myself.

"That sounds like fun. Hey, this band is pretty good, and I think the singer was just checking you out." I congratulate myself on my ability to think on my feet and change the subject. Angie's face brightens as she looks over at the clueless singer. She is old enough to be his Mrs. Robinson.

It is well after midnight when I finally pull into Angie's stone-paved driveway and help her out of my car.

"I'm totally OK," she slurs, stumbling up the steps that lead to her immaculate two-story, colonial-style house. I set the parking brake and hurry up after her. She must have drunk an entire bottle of wine by herself, and I literally had to pry her off the amused singer as the restaurant tried to close down.

Taking her house keys from her, I unlock the front door, turn on the hall light, and follow Angie to her room.

Putting up with her digs is the curse. "Call me in the morning," I say, laughing.

"Hey, Nat, I'm sorry I'm always putting you in these situations." This surprises me. In Angie's world, she doesn't do anything to any one. Events just unfold around her in a random state of coincidence. But maybe this is a different level of drunk.

"You don't worry about me." I smile and turn to leave. I'm exhausted, and all I want is my bed.

"I do worry about you, you're my best friend... my Nat." She chuckles and then adds casually, as if it isn't a big deal, "Dr. Lai said that your marriage is as fragile as mine. Divorce is contagious after all. But I told her I want you to be happy. That's why I'm always trying to get you to go out and stuff. If Don leaves you, you'll want a backup plan, trust me."

Dig. Dig. Dig. Little digs that aren't outright mean, but string them together and she is worse than a mother, mother-in-law, and nosy neighbor all in one.

"Angie, I don't know why you would waste good time and money with your therapist, discussing Don and me. We're fine."

"Denial is the first step." Angie closes her eyes. "Besides y'all don't even sleep together."

"Steps are for overcoming addictions." She's drunk, but I feel the need to defend myself, and my marriage. "And Don and I do sleep together in the Biblical sense, just not our eight hours. He snores, remember? But other than that, we're fine."

Angie doesn't respond, and I realize she has passed out. Irritated at myself for letting her get to me, I leave and make the quick drive home to my modest, single story house.

Once there, I am greeted by complete darkness, and I curse Don under my breath for not leaving the porch light on. Before finding the right key, I manage to run into the oversized, metal tongs that dangle below our grill. Clanging together, they mock me as I try to hurry inside my humble abode. A good twenty minutes later, I am finally in bed with a clean face, sparkling teeth, and the world's rattiest pajamas. There is something to be said for ultra-soft cotton and having a king-size bed all to myself.

But even though I am exhausted, my brain seems stuck on Angie's comments while all the sugar I inhaled at dinner pulses through my blood like speed. Angie has no idea what she is talking about, I tell myself. Happy marriages don't just dissolve because of a friend's breakup. Angie's just too full of herself to realize, this was her mess, her problem, not some parasite that damaged her relationship because she drank from the tainted Kool-Aid. Nope, my marriage is good. I roll over and try to get some sleep, but instead battle insomnia and heartburn. By 2am I can't take it any longer and pop antihistamine and antacids. Maybe it's good Don doesn't see my like this. I am pathetic, and the girl he married eight years ago was so much prettier.

In what seems like moments later, I'm back with Angie, sitting in her Mercedes Roadster. We are trying to think of something fun to do. Dinner and a movie is out of the question, and tired after throwing out ideas of bowling, miniature golf, and shopping, I lean back against her tan leather seats, breathe in the remnants of new car smell, and brace myself for Angie's suggestions. Then, one delusional idea at a time, I begin exercising my veto power.

"Fine. Tattoo. Oh, let's get a tattoo!" She looks happy, and I'm too worn-out to object. Minutes later I am sitting in a dingy chair in an even dingier tattoo parlor, in what I'm sure is the dingiest part of town.

I shake my head. It's definitely too big, and besides, I'm not Irish. My heart begins to race, and I feel nauseous. I can't do this.

"This is going to be great." Angie says, calmly flipping through the pages of the tattoo book. "It's really what you and Don need."

"What do you mean?" I'm confused as to how Don benefits from my having a tattoo.

"It's the spice that your relationship needs." Angie isn't looking at me. She's too busy scoping out the tattoo artist, Moe's portfolio of Polaroids. She shows me a colorful butterfly on the small of a girl's back. The torso creeps down by her crack, and I shudder.

"What do you mean, spice?" I ask. Then, before Angie gets any ideas, I add, "I'm not getting anything that is going to draw the eye towards my butt."

Angie shrugs. "I'm just saying this will add some excitement to your relationship. Keep it fresh, keep it alive. That's the object of marriage, Nat. To keep things from getting mundane."

Moe is standing beside her, nodding stoically. The piercings in his face compete with his own tattooed flesh. And as absurd as it is taking marriage advice from a single guy sporting a hot pink Mohawk and a girl that doesn't know why her husband left her, I know they are on to something. A tattoo is rebellious, unexpected, and just the thing to keep my relationship alive.

I flip through the book of tattoo choices until I find the perfect one... a small blue dolphin that will remind Don of our honeymoon in Atlantis.

Moe nods in agreement. It is then I know that however contagious divorce is, I am safe, because I am being proactive. My immunity- a tattoo of beautiful memories that will forever keep our wedding vows in the forefront of his mind, or at least in the soft pudgy area just inside my hip bone.

"Yes." I am excited, nervous, and scared out of my mind all at the same time. I can't remember the last time I felt like this. My entire being radiates with emotions, awakened after a long, boring slumber.

The needle has already started pulsating, and I wonder if he is just trying to distract me from the pain, which is now sharp and persistent.

The stabbing feels like it is now coming from my hip. "Yes, I think his name would be good," I choke on my own breath. The pain is intense, and I focus on not passing out.

"Oh it's perfect! Look Nat!" Angie runs over to where I'm being tortured. Whoever did her tattoo stole away to the back room. As I look down, I see my dolphin, the one I picked out to signify my own marriage, low, to the point of almost obscene, on her stomach. The magical creature is swimming on a sea of toned, tan skin. I try not to think of what mine will be drowning in.

He pushes his wheeled stool away from me and rolls straight into the back room. Before I am able to inspect it, I see a look of confusion sweep over Angie, and I know something is terribly wrong. Looking down at my tattoo, hot tears pierce my eyes, and I struggle to breathe. The tattoo juts out over the fattest part of my hip and extends up to my muffin top. I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them again, I am horrified to see that instead of a cute dolphin, mine has morphed into a killer whale.

"Noooooo..." I scream, and as I do, the letters above the hideous creature become clear, D O N ' S.

"Don's whale? Why would you pick that?" Angie asks, cocking her head to the side as if trying to see it differently. "You know, if you tried, you could lose the weight. It's not permanent, but that tattoo sure is."

"I didn't." The words come out in sputtered little syllables, marked by huge sobs of anguish and deep breaths. How could this happen? Now instead of reminding Don about our honeymoon, nuptials, and all that is sacred, I am telling him, and not so subtly either, that his bride has turned into an monstrous, pasty whale.

I wake up in a pool of sweat, and even though I know it was a nightmare, I yank down my boxer shorts to be sure. I see nothing, just pale, fleshy skin with a visible blue vein or two. Not perfection, but it's mine.

Pulling out my laptop, I Google "divorce contagious," and the results bring me to tears. "Couples are 75% more likely to get divorced when someone close to them does." "Unhappiness is contagious, and divorce opens our eyes to this." "Couples who don't share a room have increased likelihood of 50% of calling it quits." The headlines are nothing short of doom and gloom. I cry, thankful I am alone in my room so as not to disturb Don, but then cry harder because of that.

At 9am I awake to the sweet aroma of pancakes and sausage. I am exhausted from crying and being plagued by nightmares that now in the morning light seem more humorous than scary. "Divorce is contagious," however, still weighs heavy on my heart, and as I make my way to the kitchen, I can't help wondering if my marriage is safe.

I stop short in the doorway when I see Janie and Don fumbling around the kitchen. There is a colossal mess overflowing from the sink, and I know I'll be cleaning it later. But I smile, watching them work together, trying to be quiet, but not coming anywhere close. Janie walks a tall glass of orange juice over to a breakfast tray. The thick liquid splashes everywhere, leaving a sticky, orange trail down the refrigerator door all the way to the counter. Don flips sausages over in the frying pan and grease splatters about, hitting the electric stovetop and tile backsplash.

"I don't even care." I hug him hard, refusing to let go, and I can feel him balancing the tray with one hand as he squeezes me back with the other.

I bend down and give Janie a bear hug while inhaling the sweet, lavender scent of her hair.

"Yah. I just started feeling a little disconnected. I guess with everything Angie is going through."

"Maybe we should plan a family trip or something before Janie starts kindergarten," Don says. He still looks concerned.

Tears pierce my eyes. Only a man who loves me could be able to suggest the one thing I need more than anything.

Taking the tray from Don, I set it back on the counter so we can eat together as a family. Then, I look into Janie's beautiful blue eyes. "Where would you like to go honey?"

Earlier this year, I attended my first writer’s conference and won my first writing contest. This was hook, line, and sinker for me, and I have been both celebrating personal success and collecting rejection letters ever since.

An American car, hopefully fast, was his way out of this scrubby nothing corner of Georgia. Creighton's escape from home, God, all of it. The 10-year-old came this close to hotwiring a blue Buick Skylark after church one fall Sunday in 1969.

"Ho-dangit!" came Papa's shout, Creighton's clumsy scramble from under the dashboard. In a scuff of gravel the kid bolted around the car's trunk for the towering pines as Papa snagged him by a sleeve, jerking the hot day quiet, except for the bugs' drone in the trees. Creighton, slight and blond, getting taller, hung his head. Sighed.

You had to show shame. Papa, breaths heaving, slapped the dust from his clothes with one hand while the other clutched his son's arm like the boy dangled half-off a cliff.

Slim with a bum leg, Papa had crease-hollowed cheeks, brown hair slicked back. Today he wore a brown suit and hat, black tie, cuff links. Slapping his pants. The sun carved the dirt parking lot, pine needles and the cars that were left, with a tapestry of midday shadow. The boy winced as Papa's stinging grip yanked him back toward church.

Creighton knew how to start a car. If only he'd had time to prove it! Now they would emerge. To hurt him. He had to focus on anything, the slightest ironies.

Papa slipped his son an out-of-breath snarl: "Li'l bastard. Y'know that?"

A small, well-dressed group--the grownups who stayed after service to chat while their mostly behaved kids played in the pews--gathered outside the heavy wooden door of the old A-frame church. A shriek, as he'd expected, reverberated off the trees. Mama was working her way around them, hurrying toward her son in her long pink dress and white pumps, look of horror on her narrow, delicately pretty face. She was tall and thin, black hair elegantly upswept, small eyes blossoming with bruise-like mascara.

"Nabbed him," Papa exhaled in a proud frown. "Messin' with Dalton's car."

"Where did you get such a--!" Mama launching into a barrage of baffled fury--"I'm distraught! I'm disgusted! The--the Lord's own parking lot!"--and so on until she had to catch her breath. As Dalton White, with his brown bouffant hair and crinkle-faced frustration, hurried behind her to his Skylark. Nailing the boy with an aggressive glare.

Creighton tried to shut it all out. Direct his darting mind anywhere, Mama starting up again. He didn't look at his audience, the uncertain glances they traded, subtle cues on how to regard this. Watching from the back was Creighton's half-sister Molly, 23, quiet and solemn and thin, almost her own imaginary friend. And Grandma Reba, heavy-cheeked and scowling in pearls, who appraised people with a reluctant sort of expectation. Under layers of age hid a pretty young girl. Sometimes Creighton felt sorry for her, how trapped she was in her big, sad, bulky oldness. Not now, of course.

Mama shook her head, words exhausted, sighing out her soul as behind her a great entity spilled carefully from the church. A fleshy robed eclipse. Grandpa.

Reverend Big John was a massive old fortress of a man, bellowed the Lord's Word at church, trembled with thanks for supper, erupted into volcanoes of praise at picnics. His blustery face was wide and pocked and pale, large pitted pores dimpling a strawberry nose. Small blue eyes glowered under a heavy brow, pupils like diamonds in the topography of his skin. He had a full head of gray-white hair, meticulously combed back. Huge hands curled in wrinkled plumpness like furry sweet rolls. By day's end, his sour musk, the rapturous sweat, had overpowered his aftershave. If it was warranted, he could grin and his bulging jowls would burst into friendliness like a sudden shifting of continents. He was 6-foot-5, maybe 350 pounds. In a single subtle growl the old man could destroy whole days. He was the smug panther who shared Creighton's cage.

At some point the boy had to escape. Maybe by car. Hotwired even.

The old man wore an off-white suit and red tie, deepening dissatisfaction sinking over his lips and chin. "And what, pray tell..." in a low voice, "were you doing, son?"

Creighton could feel electrons dancing on his skin. He swallowed.

Papa's angry elbow shuddered his son. "Speak up when spoken to!"

The boy kept his head down. What the hell were electrons, anyway?

After an eternal instant he cracked the thickness in his throat. "Hotwirin'."

"Hotw...!" Mama gasped as the slightest concerned mumble passed through the others. "What, to, to joyride like, like a hippie, ah, a-negro?" Hands on her hips, she shook her head, mouth-open shocked, glancing back at Grandpa. "I am ashamed."

The hosanna of bugs rose to a mighty hum as looks found Reverend Big John, master of the moment's choreography. He released a gusty, contemplative grumble.

"Hmm."

Three miles in Papa's black Buick, passing the endless streaking pines out the window, was the longest drive home Creighton had endured in some time. No one spoke.

His half-brother Lester sat beside him, guiltily staring out his own window. Here was part of Creighton's present trouble. Lester, 11, was a pudgy kid with a brown buzzcut, too immature for Creighton, who tolerated the animal torture and fart hobbyist.

Creighton had hissed his hotwiring plan to Lester before church in the breakfast alcove behind the stairs as the home echoed and creaked with preparation. "I ain't goin' nowhere," Creighton clarified under his breath. "Yet. Hey, you wanna be lookout?"

Lester's excitement was nearly breathless. At least until it was time to slip out to the parking lot after church, when he instead shrank into a panicked shake of his head no in the pew. Creighton flashed a disappointed scowl and in the thrust of leaving families, he made it out of the Church of the Faithfully Devoted undetected. In the clearing parking lot, he had twenty minutes to hotwire Dalton's Skylark. Real sonofabitch, Dalton.

The Buick pulled into the dirt driveway of their old white two-story with its encircling porch, fresh-painted atop a gently sloping hill among groves of pine and oak.

In the dark wood entry, Papa sent Creighton to his room with a dismissive snap. The boy spent a lot of time here, upstairs, alone in this cell. A dresser, bed, wooden cross overhead, small rectangular window. He shut the door and sank to his bed.

He needed Percy. His only ally now. Creighton's oldest half-brother was 21, currently on break from seminary. He was like the doll version of Reverend Big John: smaller, softer, similarly shaped, robust, same facial features. Except Percy was perfectly harmless. He'd apparently stayed inside the church during the hotwiring interrogation. Creighton didn't begrudge him for this. You didn't stand up to Grandpa. You couldn't.

It was just a few weeks earlier that Percy had talked to Creighton after supper. They were alone on the wide porch, gazing out over the vast yard as the woods trilled.

"Why y'always in trouble, boy?" Percy asked in a tone of curious defeat. "Y'do know he was the Prodigal Son after the fact. C'mon, you got a good heart. You'd never harm a soul!" On his way to becoming a reverend, Percy was honing his dramatics, his inflections and holy references. He lost his stare in the woods. "Just sayin'...be careful."

They looked at the woods. It didn't matter. Creighton knew pain would arrive like a summer thunderstorm, bulging shadowy, inevitable, sky-wide and impossible to stop. When it was over, they'd call it God's Plan. "I'll be better," the boy mumbled.

"Y'ain't just sayin' that now. I got faith in you, I do."

Even though he no longer lived here, Percy knew things. Creighton knew this. He was convinced Percy knew it had gotten worse without his minor but moderating presence. Knew of Papa pushing Creighton out to the porch sometimes after a transgression--a muttered word of defiance, a glance with the wrong smart-mouth slant--and sometimes not. Directing the boy against the white wooden rail. With a broomstick Papa drove hateful home runs into the backs of his son's quivering legs. Grandpa and the rest of the family having migrated tactfully inside. It was Papa's job.

Eyes locked shut, Creighton knew the lashes would stop if he whimpered or gasped. But he couldn't do it too soon. His legs would buckle. A final crack of wood for good measure. Legs and rear stinging, the boy would limp, shakily, to his room. Mama would finally bring him cold grits or oatmeal. He'd scrape the bowl feverishly spotless.

Here, now, as the afternoon grew overcast, coming rain and early dusk, Creighton heard a distant ranting downstairs. Papa. Fred to the boy's half-siblings. Their papa had been a salesman, banished by Reverend Big John for his drinking. It was a whole history not discussed, like the blue-violet welts on the backs of Creighton's legs, Lester's legs.

If it was really bad Reverend Big John administered punishment.

Creighton accepted that he would at least be banished from supper. Such a tragedy, to miss this feast in covered platters, spread across the wooden slab of table like the miniature model of an ancient holy city! Fried chicken, breasts and legs drenched in oily saltiness, bountifully chalky crust dappled with grease, meat soft and hot and leaking broth. Sweet tea with lemon, floating waxy-bright in ice. Green beans and turnip greens and bacon in bacon fat. A starchy mound of potato salad. Plumped corn. Peppered asparagus in delectable bundles. Apple pie. Second helpings if he'd earned them.

The home's walls and floor were burnished wood, a dark, lived-in dust. The dining room's large window faced the wilderness outside. Over the supper table a chandelier dangled low, a suspended crystalline confection, a refuge for bored stares.

At some point there was a faint knock at the boy's door, and Percy slipped inside, casting a gray shadow in the orange night-light's hue. Shutting the door with painstaking quiet, he tiptoed over to the bed. "Lester's thankful you didn't snitch about his part."

"Don't help nothin' if I did." Creighton shrugged grimly. "What're they sayin'?"

"Okay," Percy's tone trying to soften the news. "Fred said sheriff's youth ranch."

It was a vacuum of dread, the notion's horror. A sudden constriction in Creighton's throat. "I don't..." He thought he might cry. "I don't wanna go there."

"I say they won't send you. What's it say about us?" Percy glanced at the door and back, muffled voices seeping upstairs. "I told him--I said school. How 'bout school? What's he got to lose?" He offered a desperate, barely-there shrug. "Maybe he'll listen?"

Creighton considered this. He exhaled into a fragile smile.

Percy said, "Don't you be smilin' if they come tell you, boy."

Creighton shook his head gravely. Percy nodded and slipped back out.

There was another long stretch as Creighton pondered this development. It was a surprise, this idea. School. Equal parts terror of the unknown and relief. It was at least a distraction, a way to not dwell on the past. Or think about the believers, at church, their silence during service. A stray echoing cough from the back, groan of wood as backsides shifted in the pews. The cannon reverberations of Reverend Big John's passion.

His God was an angry God, one who struck and groused and erupted into fissures of rage. "A Christian's a good man," Grandpa said smugly, "but a Big John Christian is best." The non-believers--the negroes, hippies, queers, peaceniks--were doomed. Some would burn, screaming corpses in atomic shockwaves. Some would sit and slowly rot.

Did the believers not see the same person Creighton saw? Was it God's decision? That only the most fearsome could explain the horrifying unexplainable?

The purgatory of not knowing stretched on in the room until finally the stairs rumbled and creaked and heavy footsteps on wood announced the presence, door thrust open, of Papa, Grandpa--huge, imposing, filling the frame. Reverend Big John stepped ponderously over to the bed with his towering scowl, still in his white shirt, sleeves rolled up, red tie undone, matching red suspenders tethered to brown pants.

Creighton could only stare up at him, dumbstruck. As Papa stood sturdy and angry against the wall with folded arms, Grandpa cleared his throat. "I ask once again, boy. Why were you messin' with Dalton's car? Hotwiring? Hmm? Speak up."

Creighton managed the tiniest shrug.

"Need Doc Haswell come take a look at that head of yours? Give you treatment?"

"N-no sir."

"I'm at the end of my rope with you, boy, I am. The Dark One toys with you. He will consume you." A slow, dire shake of his massive head. "We're gonna send you on up to that primary school. I reckon you still gotta come home at the end of the day. You remember who you are, boy. You're smugglin' the Lord in. You're my David, mm? Fightin' Goliath? David wins, yes? Always puts a great rock..."--as his fat, tusk-like index finger pressed a smudge into the boy's forehead--"right through Goliath's skull."

He put his hand down. "You shall not reflect poorly on your family." A grin lifted the craterous sag of his cheeks. "Supper is soon. Join us, mm?" He turned to Papa, who nodded, and the two men left, their groaning footfalls and low chatting in the hall.

Creighton hiccupped in relief. Who had Goliath killed as a boy?

Was Goliath ever a boy to begin with?

The next morning, a Monday, Mama drove Creighton in the green Ford station wagon up to Juliette G. Low Primary. It was a new and boring building, white siding and brown brick. Mama said this wasn't what she wanted for him. They would paddle him, she said, without telling him you had to do something first. She parked beneath the slack flags at school and looked at her son with a curious longing. "Cray, you reflect positive on your family. Say Yes Lord--I will." She said his answer with him, studied his face as if memorizing a map, her lips quivering, hand atop his head.

After signing him in--a tense, clinical moment--Mama left. The principal, a soft-spoken elderly woman, took Creighton without a word down the black-and-white tiled hall, past all the murmuring classroom doors, to room 132. And here they were.

Creighton rippled with an exhilarated dread. Just don't look so new!

The principal turned the squeaking knob, opening the groaning door to reveal an audience of young faces staring back. There was a friendly chattiness between the principal and Ms. Rodney, who wore her gray-streaked blond hair in a pile atop her head, pointy eyeglasses propped halfway down her narrow nose. Who enthusiastically told the class to say hello to their brand new friend. The class offered a dull blaring chorus of hello like it was the routine send-off chant he imagined a sub-par sports team might get.

Ms. Rodney directed Creighton to the back of the room, the only empty desk, near the cubbyholes. So this was public school. This cinderblock-walled room, row of tall windows gazing out at the playground, colorful educational cues on the walls--math tables, the alphabet in cursive, President Nixon's husky grin. Creighton recognized two kids from church. They would know who he was. This did not mean they were friends.

Ms. Rodney was back to talking about the Constitution. Creighton counted eight, nine negroes in class, girls and boys. The room pressed a cool shaft of air over him from a ceiling vent. Not from the kind of metal boxes that crowded windows like gremlins at church and home. This air was like a breathing spotlight. The building's very voice.

At lunch he ate alone, served in the cafeteria line by negro ladies in hair nets who dumped mounds of muck and a cornbread wedge atop his segmented tin tray. This was not supper. It was anti-supper. His isolation continued at recess, walking the chain-link confines. Away from the other kids in their energetic clusters, white kids and black kids.

It was strange, this integration concept, because how much was integrated? They were probably a little closer, Creighton thought. The fall sun blazed down, and the world was awash in cries and noise, shouts and squeaking shoes and the thump of rubber balls.

Arms folded, he watched a girl jumping rope, a negro girl he recognized from class--oval face, pretty smile, upturned eyebrows--as a semicircle audience sat Indian-style, giving each twirl a snap, a meter, locking everything into its own boogie logic. She watched the ground as she jumped, silently mouthing the rhythm, and finally she escaped the spin with a laugh, clapping and pointing with an extra hop to one of her seated friends as another girl leaped into the rope's clicking whir. To his stifled surprise, the girl he recognized walked over to him next and said, nonchalantly, "So, you like it here?"

He shrugged coolly. "Like it better'n bein' stuck up in my house all day."

"I'm Bess. What's your name?"

"Creighton Bower."

"I seen you before," she stated.

Creighton gave her a cockeyed squint. "Where at?"

"My momma useta clean y'all's house," she said passingly. "Long time back."

Wait--her, that girl, little girl from a long time back...? "I remember you too..."

"Y'all still up in that big ol' house? And that church?"

"Yep, we still up there. Ain't seen you in awhile."

"My momma got another job."

"Where at?"

"Woolworth's."

"So you like it here?"

"It's okay. Ms. Rodney's nice."

"She ever take the paddle to anybody?"

"Not that I seen. But Mr. Dodd, he do it a lot. Gotta be careful 'round him."

A whistle pierced and puffed. Creighton and Bess shared a look, something lingering in that look, and they joined the procession of trudging and skipping and horseplay back inside. The world was occupied by someone else, this girl, her smile.

Bess. Here was this person. He thought about her at night, replaying the day's observations. Feeling something quicken. They would talk more at recess, at first making it seem incidental; by Wednesday they were walking the fence together.

She had a cousin in Nashville with a Cadillac coupe. But in Vietnam he stepped on a land mine, his legs blown off, and so he couldn't drive. So now he watched TV all day and drank beer. He used to be funny, she said. A real prankster.

"Shit," Creighton said warily. "I dunno what I'd do if my legs got blowed off."

"I'd get some sticks, stick 'em on and put roller skates on 'em."

"Aw, you could go fast! Course...guess I wouldn't tell your cousin that."

Bess would often start to relate something serious and gradually a smile would overtake her and he wasn't always sure when she was joking or not, and he loved this. He focused on the playful flail of her gestures. She was truly sad about her cousin, though at least her uncle had come back home to him. Bess's papa was also gone; her momma said he was a carouser, too. Creighton wondered if Percy's papa had been a carouser.

In class--when he wasn't thinking about her, three seats over and four seats up--his mind drifted. To home. Church. With its Christians. Hard workers. In the throes of Grandpa's God. Public school was better than being Mama's pupil along with Lester.

__________

The Saxophone

by George Thomas

Two saxophone cases sat on the table. I rushed over and ran my fingers over the case that was clearly the more expensive. When I lifted the cover, I gasped and my mouth went dry. I'd never seen anything so beautiful. The gold-lacquered saxophone, nested in a plush velvet lining, shimmered like a rare jewel. I ached to own it and to run my fingers over the mother-of-pearl finger pads whenever I wanted to. It was a dream. Would it come true?

Earlier that summer, I realized that, because I was entering high school in the fall, I could no longer use Pa's hand-me-down C-Melody saxophone, the instrument I'd learned on and had played for four years. I knew all its quirks and foibles. I didn't want to part with my battered old friend, but marching band music is not written for that instrument.

In my junior high band, I had transposed all the alto sax music up one-and-a-half tones and changed the key signature in order to play it on Pa's sax. I'd wanted to do the same thing in the high school band, but the bandmaster only allowed regulation instruments. The time had come to trade it in on a standard alto or tenor sax. An alto is smaller and cheaper, so it would be an alto. My parents had called Mr. Gershman, and he had brought over two alto saxophones for us to inspect.

The four of us sat around in a circle in the family living room--Ma and Pa, me and Mr. Gershman, who was my music teacher and also owned the music store. Pa had just come in from hoeing corn and hadn't changed from his overalls. They were covered with corn chaff; garden dirt clumped on his boots. I was mortified. He could've at least changed into something clean. I knew he worked hard at the mill and then came home and had to work the farm. But I worked hard that day doing chores, too, and I took the trouble to change. What would Mr. Gershman think?

Ma had changed from her working clothes--the uniform she wore as a short-order cook at the diner. But I could smell the rancid odor of deep-fry grease on her hair and worried that my teacher could, too.

I tested each of the two saxophones the man had brought--the reconditioned silver-plated Pan American and the glowing new golden Buffet. The plain Pan American one was much better than Pa's. I could play all the way up to high F above the staff and down to low B-flat just like any of the other notes. But when my fingers flew through scales and arpeggios on the Buffet, the sound was so much more glorious that Ma and Pa stared at me in astonishment.

As the adults talked about the two instruments, I sensed that they were reaching a frontier and when they crossed it, there would be no turning back. I sat deathly still with my heart in my mouth.

Pa turned to Ma. "What do you think, Grace?"

I could see her glare at him and purse her lips. He always forced Ma to make all the decisions. Why couldn't he speak up for once?

She sighed and smiled brightly at the rotund little man in the thick glasses who had driven from town all the way out to our farm. "I think the Pan American will be just fine. I can't really see any difference in the sound. If he stays with his music, we'll think about trading up to the other one later."

My heart sank. With her, "think about it later" always meant never. And anyone could tell the difference in the sound--Ma wasn't being fair.

My teacher looked at me sympathetically. He must have seen how desperately I wanted the better instrument. He leaned forward in his chair, his forehead perspiring. "I have no doubt, Mrs. Thomas, that he'll continue to play and to make progress. He has a rare gift, and we all know how hard he works to improve. Why, he practices all summer, even harder than the rest of the year, and takes lessons when the other kids take time off." He removed his glasses and mopped his forehead. "You might not think of it this way, but the Buffet is a better investment. He'll move ahead faster on that sax so he can start earning money playing in dance bands, starting in high school." Finished, he sat back.

Looking away from me, Pa shifted uncomfortably in his rocking chair. "Grace is right, Mr. Gershman. We'd better stick with the Pan American for now. It's a good instrument and all we can afford."

So that was that--they'd crossed the frontier.

I bit my lip and blinked back tears; thirteen year old boys don't cry.

If only I could have gotten a real job the last two summers, I'd have earned enough to pay for the difference between the two saxophones. But job pickings were slim with all the World War II vets coming home and needing work. Nobody would hire a twelve or thirteen-year-old to do anything except mow lawns, which barely paid for my music lessons.

Or if only Mr. Gershman had brought just the Pan American for me to try out, I would have been satisfied with the plainer instrument, not knowing any better.

If only, if only . . .

Mr. Gershman rose from his chair. "Well, if that's your final decision . . ." He shut the velvet-lined lid on my dream sax. And something closed inside me.

The little man continued. "He can have the Pan American now, to get used to before school starts. I won't make you wait until you've paid all the installments. I'm sure he'll do well with it. He's my best student, and I expect him to win all the high school music contests."

Pa went to the roll-top desk, got his wallet, and counted out Mr. Gershman's money. There was none left when he finished.

My music teacher turned at the door and looked at me. "I'll see you next Tuesday for your first lesson on your new sax."

* * *

Mr. Gershman had been right; throughout high school, I did win blue ribbons in all the competitions, from the county level right up to the state finals.

By the time I had finished high school and was evaluating college scholarships, I'd earned enough playing in the municipal concert band and in local dance bands to buy that Buffet saxophone.

I brought my dream sax home from Mr. Gershman's music store, placed it on the living room table, and opened the case. Staring at the instrument, I longed to recapture that magic time-- the excitement and enchantment when I'd first seen it, right on that same table. I tugged hard at my memory, knowing that it had been a very special feeling, a very special age. But I couldn't go back. I was no longer a child. I'd crossed a border, into a new place and a new time, never to return.

_______________

The ride along Route 301 takes us past tobacco fields, firework stands and diners that smell of fried eggs and defeat. The rear windows on the ‘62 thrust engine Le Sabre roll all the way down. A third of my father's arm has roasted. My mother's hair is held hostage by a turquoise scarf. "Dame eso," Give me that, he says to her. She's exceeded his time limit for refolding the map. He steers with his knee.

In the back, I am in charge of the cooler. Bottles float and clang. The ice came from a station near a ramp that emptied onto the smoke stacks and refineries of the New Jersey Turnpike. At four in the morning, my father stabbed the block with a pick and then reached for a cigarette. The orange embers glowed in pitch-black. Tonight I will make five trips with the plastic bucket. I've learned not to ask about the air conditioning, "It's a waste of gas," he says Gas that costs thirty- five cents a gallon.

My parents patiently grimace as I dazzle them with my eloquence and read aloud about Pedro's shenanigans all the way to South of the Border. Tires crunch over gravel when my father pulls in the driveway that promises clean, modern comfortably furnished guestrooms with a private bath. The diamond plastic ring has been fearlessly stamped with the room number. No card to swipe. Inside, forest green drapes, mildew on stucco walls and beds dressed in mint chenille. A quarter buys a massage. The door will groan with abandonment when we leave.

I dread brushing my teeth at bedtime. The sulfur makes the tap water stink like rotten eggs. I wade into a rectangular pool after fourteen hours with my thighs stuck to plastic seats. My eyes sting and turn pink.

Later my father orders a T-bone. He's completed a day's driving between Fayetteville and Florence. We are halfway between New York and Miami. Time has an entirely new meaning here. It passes languorously. At the Formica table, I arrange pegs on a triangle and eavesdrop on my parents' conversation.

Tomorrow at this time, we'll be in Miami Beach, the American Riviera for all Cuban families like mine. First, we'll pick up my aunt at the factory. Auburn with soulful coffee eyes, she is damp and dewy in the scent of Tabu. We head to her overgrown house where fallen mangos ripen on a windowsill and then to a hotel across from coconut palms that at night turn incandescent in lime, aqua and cherry. When I pull the lobby door, the cold air shoves me out. The precise molecules that comprise the ocean and sand and salt are propelled into my lungs where they will dwell for the rest of my life. The next day I make deals with a merciless sun and overstay on the beach eating pastelitos and croquetas and persuading my parents of my invincibility. The shower pellets me like hail. The solarcaine stains the unforgiving sheets.

The steak arrives an hour later: overdone and leathery. I use my fork like a plow to push the grits to the edge of my plate. On the walk back to the room, I cry out "Daddy" and clutch his hand. I'm afraid of frogs that will leap out of the bushes and land on my pale northern legs.

To collect a card of the Dixie Dreams Motel, a menu from Rod's grill, a frayed photo of the Sombrero Tower at dusk is to reconstruct a life, card by card. To wage a stake in the struggle between a stony future and a past that has been razed, burnt down, and painted over. By the time he retired, the skyscraper where my father worked had turned silver like him. I remember it shiny and black as his hair.

When I was a teenager and too mature to hold his hand but oh so curious about his job, he let me tag along on snow days. An overnight blizzard had shut down the city but not the banks. Currency transfers in another realm. My father's polished florsheims were protected by totes. My maxi coat skimmed the sidewalk. No pictures of us exist, only the stillness of how we tread beholden to a transformative snow. A ten-minute train ride brought us across the river. In the World Trade Center, he stepped on the escalator first. Their steepness made me dizzy. "Cuidado." Be careful, my father said. He was my protector. Now, both are gone.

Postcards, menus, tickets, ephemera as they are known in the trade are the proof, the evidence, the numbered exhibits in the case against evanescence. Otherwise, who would believe you? How can you convince anyone that something you cannot see can kill you? Or that a pile of rubble can make you cry?

How else to bear the disillusion of a detour off the interstate. "This is it?" my children said as we drove on 301 past boarded buildings and billboards that proclaimed, "When God is not enough call Dr. Womack." Or how to explain that my aunt in the nursing home rolls her fingers forward in little waves because she's still at that phantom sewing machine, attaching zippers, sleeves, and collars?

The quest for place and time is an alchemist's mission. It is the creation of a force more devastating than loss, more enduring than love, more magical than turning metal to gold. It is an equation that can prove places are immortal, a power that can return him to me, and a grace so divine it can restore what we have lost.

I first met Neil not long after my father died. I was living in a big old red-brick Victorian semi in north London with my mother and her vicious cat Sparky, trying and failing to finish a long, learned novel packed tight with the obscure literary allusions and authentic multicultural credentials that the publishers loved in those days, when out of nowhere Neil rode into town, all bravado and muscles and shaved head and mad, staring eyes. He was just a boy, really, but a boy with an ASBO at fourteen, a caution at fifteen, a spell in junior detention centre at sixteen and a boy of his own by seventeen. He was a boy who was wild and dangerous and soft-hearted, a boy who wanted to live more badly than anyone else I knew at that time. Compared to my own sad, shambling existence in the shadows of life, his was a kaleidoscope. I peeped from behind my mother's curtains at the world outside and wrote about people like Neil. I never believed that he really existed until I met him.

Here's how it happened. It was one of those long, cold winter evenings in London, when the streets are slick with a rain you don't recall having fallen and the lights are an orange ball above you in the damp, black chill, fighting feebly against the night. Water hangs in the air with nowhere to go. You brush against these tiny cold needles and they stab your face, making you draw your hood closer about you. Long, dark alleyways harbour thieves and villains, furtive drug-dealers and nervous knife-wielders and young drunk couples rutting. Through it all runs the Holloway Road, a long straight road with dismal shuttered shops on either side, the gloom punctuated at infrequent intervals by the bright lights of a pub, a kebab shop, a curry house, a burger joint. One or two of the old fish and chip shops remain, but they are relics of a time fast being forgotten. A younger crowd roams the streets on these nights, ravenous for real red meat, big slabs of it slathered in ketchup and hot chili sauce. Fish seems strangely genteel for such a crowd. Even an inch of grease and a side order of thick, stodgy chips cannot hide the slight effeminacy of the tender white fish that melts away at the first bite. The crowd on the Holloway Road these days wants meat that you can bite into, gristle that you can chew on, blood that you can wipe off your lower lip. It wants its beer cold, its curry hot, its lights bright and its music loud. Nothing luke-warm, nothing ambiguous for this crowd.

If you follow the long, straight Holloway Road far beyond the neon horizon, you'll end up in Scotland. It's hard to believe, but this drab parade of tawdriness is the Great North Road by another name. Before too long, the Holloway Road becomes Archway Road, then Aylmer Road, Lyttelton Road, Falloden Way, then the Barnet Bypass, and then you're out of the suburbs and into open countryside, speeding up the A1, sometimes calling itself the Great North Road, other times the London Road, depending on the perspective of the locals, and the green fields and hedgerows flash past as you tick off the towns - Stevenage, Letchworth, Peterborough, Newark, Doncaster, Pontefract, Darlington, Durham. Fight your way through the huge smoky grey sprawl of Newcastle and you find yourself speeding up along quiet open roads now, close enough to the sea to smell the salt in the air and hear the seagulls cawing but never quite close enough to see that big grey frigid North Sea until suddenly you're past Berwick-upon Tweed and hopping over the border into Scotland without even realising it, and there is the sea in front of you all craggy crumbling cliffs and white-topped waves, freezing and forbidding, so that after just a few minutes the road turns away in disappointment and heads inland, cutting across open countryside to grand, regal old Edinburgh, with its magical castle suspended in the clouds above the city. You skirt over the top of ancient Holyrood Park, and for the last few hundred yards of its existence the A1 takes on the name of Waterloo Place, as if trying to reassert its Englishness one last time, reminding the burghers of this proud town that this road, the A1, begins on Newgate Street in London, where Rob Roy himself was held in chains.

I was dreaming all these unconnected vague drunken dreams as I sat in a plastic box of light and sound and blood, Donna's Kebabs I think it was called, taking refuge from the oppressive damp mist outside which had, after some time spent walking up and down the Holloway Road looking for some friends I'd misplaced earlier in the evening, pierced the protective film of alcohol and got to my joints, making my elbows and knees ache arthritically. So I sat huddled over a white foam box filled with grey-brown, glistening slices of meat encased in pita bread and doused in hot sauce, ketchup, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, red onion, white onion, cucumber, gherkins and olives. By the time Neil walked in I had left magical castles and folk heroes far behind and was pondering on the olives, a nice touch but not right. I admired the originality, but originality is not what you expect from a kebab house at midnight on the Holloway Road in the middle of November. You want something to fill your stomach with the expected greasy-sweet flavours. The sourness of the olives was unexpected, and left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied. Donna did not have any other customers that night, either: perhaps others felt the same about olives in a kebab. So I was surprised when this big, shaven-headed hulk of a man ignored all the empty tables and eased himself creaking into the little red plastic chair opposite me, his gruff "dja mind?" uttered far too late to admit any response but an impotent shrug.

For long minutes he said nothing, just attacking his extra large kebab as if he hadn't eaten for a month. I sat saying nothing, eating nothing. I couldn't. I got the sensation that was strange to me at the time but would soon become familiar: that Neil was doing enough living for the two of us, and there was nothing left for me to do but watch. Soon he had ketchup and chili sauce all over his stubbly chin, and bits of lettuce had flown all over the table, the floor, his jeans, his T-shirt. Whereas I had been eating my kebab using a small folded piece of pita bread as an ersatz fork, Neil just shoved the whole bundle of meat, salad and sauce into his face and began chomping with his huge strong jaws, slashing the food to pieces and somehow ending up with most of it in his mouth, where he chewed only perfunctorily before gulping it loudly down and setting those chomping blades immediately to work on a new mouthful. The noise was astonishing. The dull beat of the radio, the squealing roar of the traffic on the Holloway Road and the underlying buzz of the slowly rotating lump of grizzly meat in the window were all drowned out by the sound of Neil's bones crashing against each other, his saliva washing around among the sauce and ketchup and meat, his muscles working so hard that his temples pulsed furiously with each pincer-like motion of those powerful jaws. His face, already blood-red, became redder with each mouthful, and just as I was beginning to fear that he would choke, he put the remains of the kebab down, took a big slurp of Coke and belched softly.

"So whatcha doing tonight?" he asked. He looked like a child suddenly, all eager energy and bright eyes, waiting for the next amazing thing to come his way.

"I was looking for my friends," I replied. "I lost them somewhere back there." I gestured vaguely over my shoulder into the misty wet darkness, and Neil's eyes followed my arm faithfully, searching the night for people he'd never seen before.

"Can't you call them?" he asked. "Text them? Page them? Email them? IM them? Photograph yourself holding up a sign saying ‘Where the f--- are you?' and send it to them? I mean, who loses people these days?"

I looked down at my kebab, and picked up a small mouthful with my piece of pita bread. "I don't have a mobile," I said awkwardly. Usually it was a sentence I pronounced with pride, as it comprised one of my few truly distinguishing features. People would draw in their breaths and regard me with awe, as one who had asserted his individuality and resisted the siren call of technology. But suddenly tonight my lack of a mobile phone felt like what it really was, a phoney affectation. To my relief and astonishment, Neil did not pass judgement one way or the other, just accepting it baldly as one more simple fact to add to his growing store of knowledge about the world around him.

"Well, if you can't find them, they've either gone home or gone to a club in the West End or they just don't want to be found," he said after a moment of intense concentration. "So here is what I propose. We'll finish our food here and then go around the corner to the Nag's Head and talk to as many people as we can until we find someone who's going to a party afterwards, and then we tag along and have the time of our lives. How's that sound? By the way, I'm Neil Blake."

"Jack Maertens," I replied, and Neil took that for assent to his plan of action, for he then began attacking the rest of his kebab and motioned for me to do the same, which I did, feeling a little sick as I lurched back out into the dark wet Holloway night and followed Neil to the Nag's Head, a dive of the worst kind, so bad that I didn't want to go in until he told me patiently and seriously, as if talking to a slow child, that he had chosen it precisely for the very reason of its awfulness, which would make anyone in it naturally keen to get out and on to somewhere better. He was soon proved right, too, as after just a half hour or so of working that tight-packed smelly old crowd, he hit upon a group of students who were heading on to a party up in Highgate, and all he had to do was tell them a few jokes and buy a couple of rounds of drinks, which he left me to pay for, and suddenly we were on the night bus chugging up Highgate Hill, where a few hundred years ago Dick Whittington had heard the Bow Bells calling him back to fame and fortune in London, and where today middle-class families drove their huge snorting Landrovers up to huddle together in expensive refuge from the pulsating violent ugliness below. For Neil and me that night, Highgate Hill was a place of cheap wine in plastic cups, vodka in jelly, cheap cigarettes, expensive hashish from a reputable dealer on the Edgware Road, tequila slammers, half-grabbed kisses with a girl on a sofa, loud music and shouting and some attempts to dance.

By the time we left it was already morning and people in suits and raincoats were climbing sourly onto buses. The sun was still not up, though, and neither was my mother when I sneaked in quietly through the sleeping house to my room. Where Neil went after that I don't know, but I know that he must have followed me home because the next day when I woke up, although I hadn't given him my address or phone number and was caught between relief and regret over it, I went downstairs and found him back again, sitting in my mother's living room sipping a cup of tea and chatting amiably with her about the beautiful bright yellow winter jasmine climbing across the walls of her garden. Soon we were out again onto the Holloway Road, dodging cars and buses and mingling with the crazy throngs of shoppers as we hopped from pub to pub, our talk becoming crazier at each place until the orange glow of evening took hold and the shoppers on the street became drunks like us, and after we had hopped from pub to pub for a while Neil was able to finagle us into another party, this time in Hackney.

Almost every night and every day passed this way in the new period of my life in which the morose brooding behind my mother's curtains suddenly gave way to a riotous drunken haze of colour and noise. If I felt any regret it was only because my novel was sitting unwritten on my laptop and by the time I woke up each afternoon it was time to go out again. As well, there was a slight lingering feeling of being a hanger-on. At the parties we went to I knew nobody, and usually Neil didn't either. Yet soon he was virtually playing host, while I felt myself merely being suffered as a necessary side effect of Neil's irrepressible presence. I tried to introduce him to some of my friends, but he quickly tired of them, while they thought he was mad, and we left early from whatever soiree we had ruined. As for his friends, he said he had none. Since leaving Feltham Young Offenders Institution he had drifted from town to town, making deep and intimate connections but not lasting ones. He had more phone numbers than his mobile phone's memory could handle, but each of them was accompanied by a long and extravagant story about why he couldn't call it because he owed the person money or a favour or had slept with his wife or stolen his car. So we sloped around north London from pub to pub and invited ourselves to parties with strangers.

Then, one day, Neil was gone. For several weeks I heard nothing until, just before Christmas, a battered postcard smudged with rain informed me that Cornwall in December was a truly beautiful place, full of crags and rocks and monuments to people and gods nobody can remember any more. He was staying in a friend's old cottage working his way quickly through a dusty old Cornish dictionary, he told me, seeming to remember the ancient words rather than having to learn them anew. He had got as far as "gwreg" (wife), but couldn't find anyone to teach him the correct pronunciations. So he was fumbling through, making up his own sounds as he went on and planning to get all the way through to z by New Year. He signed off "Dha weles" without even putting his name, although who else could it be? The friends with whom I now spent my time, the collection of failed writers and "mature students" who only a few weeks ago had been in my naïve young eyes the height of wit and erudition and wisdom, seemed like shades. None of them could have composed something so spontaneous and true as that smudged, creased old postcard with its spidery black script streaking across the page, winding its way between the lines of the address and spilling over onto the bright yellow sands and blue sea on the other side. I was gripped, and wanted to jump into my old blue-green Nissan Figaro and burn down the M4 to spend Christmas with Neil learning Cornish and drinking whisky in the rickety old fisherman's cottage with the fire crackling and the treacherous winds lashing the windowpanes. But I lacked the heart for it, and instead toasted Christmas with sherry in my mother's living room with some relatives who always made me feel dead.

New Year's Eve came around and I was feeling as lonely as the grave. I had been invited to a couple of parties but knew exactly what they would be like and had no interest in going. I fully intended to see the New Year in with my mother, using my desire for solitude as a pretext to be a good son for once and help her through what my vapid relatives had sententiously predicted would be a ‘difficult time' for her. By ten o'clock, however, the canned laughter from the television was making me perfectly suicidal and I knew that my mother could see it because she offered to turn it off and I hastily declined and she looked relieved as I sped out of the door and into the cold dark night full of animal yelps and whoops. I pulled the top down on my Figaro so that I could hear it all and perhaps let some of it rub off on my lonely soul. I drove down the Hornsey Road into the dark madness of Holloway and all was as I expected but it did nothing for me. After driving up and down for some time looking for something, I parked in a side street and did something truly absurd. I went to Donna's Kebabs, ordered an extra large kebab with hot sauce and chomped down on it, watching the clock tick down to midnight and all the time fully expecting Neil to come crashing in full of ideas and enthusiasm and dragging me out of my solitude into some pulsating pit of desperate young drinkers trying to live just a little more before the end of the year. Of course, nothing happened. Neil was buried in his Cornish dictionary, probably halfway through ‘y' and feverishly fighting his way to the end, and I was left with myself. It was another slow night for Donna's Kebabs: everyone with anywhere to go was somewhere else. Around midnight the spotty young man who had been left in charge shuffled out from behind the counter with two cans of beer and set one before me, saying, "Don't tell anyone, yeah?"

Midnight came and went. We clinked cans. For the kebab boy, the fear of getting caught seemed to outweigh the pleasure of rebelling against Donna, and he looked constantly out of the window for the police, hardly talking to me all the time, and about ten minutes later, with his can still half-full, he went back behind the counter. I was bad company anyway, and to avoid getting Donna's Kebabs closed down over the worst, smallest and most dismal and depressing New Year's party in history, I took my beer out into the street. People were cheering as they swayed past in flush-cheeked groups, arms around each other, and several tried to gather me up and carry me along in their tide of celebration, but I resisted and broke free. Everything felt wrong, and all I could think about was that one more year had passed with my great literary novel still unwritten. I had wasted too many nights on the Holloway Road and too many mornings lying in bed too sick and confused to do anything. My laptop brimmed with half-finished thoughts. Abandoned chapters littered the dark corners of its hard drive. It was taking longer and longer to start up in the mornings, evidence, the shop said, of a virus, but to me it was a symptom of the weight of hackneyed, cliché-ridden prose clogging its arteries. The more I wrote, the slower it ran, as if in protest at the poverty of my writing. A few days later, in a grand New Year experiment, I tried taking a notebook to a café and writing there, as I had on long dreamy university days, but the process now felt foreign. My hand ached quickly, the dull characters in the café distracted me too easily, and writing even the simplest sentence seemed to require far too much effort. I realised that I could never have churned out so many megabytes of dross had I been forced to write longhand, or even to feed paper through an old-fashioned typewriter. At some point my body would have rebelled against the wasted effort, as it rebelled now in those cafés at every trite sentence that my tired brain formed. I went back to my room and let my fingers glide swiftly over the keys. Better to produce garbage than to produce nothing at all, the writing books always said. So for two months I cluttered my hard drive with more megabytes of ponderous, inelegant, pretentiously sententious prose, all the while feeling like more of a fool.

When Neil came racing into my mother's house one bright March morning, then, I embraced him as my saviour. He did look curiously messianic, standing there in the hallway with the bright orange sun flooding in through the open door at his back and making him almost glow around the edges, as his bright brown eyes shone childlike and his thick face smiled broadly but serenely at me. He looked at once like a man who had discovered some important secret and like a child eager to discover a new one. Probably all this was in my head, a product of the months of despair and their sudden end in a blaze of glorious spring light. We hugged like old brothers, and my mother stood watching us in bemusement. She liked Neil for his polite talk of winter jasmine and for the simplicity and kindness that lay beneath all that loud masculine youth and laughter and energy, but she could sense that he was dangerous too. She knew I would leave with him soon and that she couldn't stop me, but she warned me before I left not to follow him everywhere he went.

"Keep your own mind, Jack," she said. "Don't let yourself be led anywhere you don't want to go."

I kissed her and said I'd be fine, and indeed at that time I felt stronger and more independent than at any time in my life, and the idea of going anywhere I didn't want to was ridiculous and slightly hurtful. By that time Neil and I had spent a week or two exploring every pub and bar and club and kebab shop and curry house and chicken shack and burger joint on the Holloway Road, and were thoroughly sick of London and all its grey grimy misery. We'd even taken to trying the pubs around my mother's house in sedate little Crouch End, disturbing the faithful old dogs at the feet of the old men with their crossword in one hand and pipe in the other and their pint of bitter half-drunk on the table in front of them. We decided to cause some havoc in those places just to shake them out of their dead filmy-eyed smiling expressions and get them to put down their pipes and papers and express something, if only anger. But the first place we tried it, a tiny little place with net curtains on the window and a crackling fire and a leafy beer garden out back, nobody rose to the bait. We cursed loudly and danced and shouted and even took a swig of one old man's beer. But nobody said a word. The barman stared at us with an ambiguous expression on his face, and the customers just buried themselves in their crosswords and waited for us to go away and leave them alone, which we soon did, feeling so ashamed of the whole thing that we bought a round of beers for everyone. After that we got a bottle of whisky from an off-licence on the Hornsey Road and went down the hill to dark dirty old Elthorne Park to sit among the sad old winos and drink and smoke. Neither of us said very much, not even Neil, who usually only seemed to stop speaking to eat, sleep or kiss someone. I don't know what he was thinking about, but I was thinking of my father, who had worked all his life in a government office up in the city and travelled home on the same train every night, always stopping on his way back from the station for a quick pint and a chat with his friends before coming home to dinner. I imagined how he would have looked at Neil and me if we'd interrupted his quiet pint one tired evening with foolish attempts to goad him, how he would have told the story later over dinner with a sad shake of his head.

"We must leave tomorrow," Neil said into the night. A couple of winos looked over: we'd been silent so long that they must have forgotten we were there.

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