(I haven't uploaded a 10 minute play for a while... I wrote this back some time ago. Enjoy...)

Buckets and Cans
by
Ché Enrique Muñoz Ramírez
© 2009

Draft: December, 2009

CAST OF CHARACTERS:
(2M)

HEATHCLIFF: 70 years old. New widower.
CHARLIE: Ages 6 to 13. In special education school.

SETTING:
At a bus stop nearby San Jose's Calvary Catholic Cemetery.

Heathcliff and Charlie, dressed in
suits, sit at a bus stop near Calvary
Catholic Cemetery. Charlie struggles to
remove his neck tie.

CHARLIE
Grandpa?
(Grandpa Heathcliff doesn't
respond.)
Grandpa? Grandpa Heefcliff? Grandpa?
(Charlie takes in a breathe of
air.)
Grandpa, grandpa, grandpa, grandpa, grandpa, grandpa,
grandpa, pa, pa, pa, grandpa, grandpa Heefcliff!

HEATHCLIFF
What? What you goddamn bastard!

CHARLIE
(Pulls on necktie.)
Can you take this off!

HEATHCLIFF
For Jesus Christ's sake, boy! Not even that you can do!

CHARLIE
Sorry Grandpa Heefcliff...

HEATHCLIFF
For the millionth time! It's not HEEF-CLIFF. It's pronounced
HEATH-CLIFF! With the tha-tha-tha sound not the fa-fa-fa
sound! Now, enunciate. Heath.

CHARLIE
Heath.

HEATHCLIFF
Cliff.

CHARLIE
Cliff.

HEATHCLIFF
Heathcliff.

CHARLIE
Heefcliff.

HEATHCLIFF
Heathcliff!

CHARLIE
Heefcliff!

HEATHCLIFF
That was some serious smack your goddamn whore of a mother
smoked on the day you were conceived.
(Charlie gives a goofy smile.)
Goddamit Charlie, you're the most retarded person on God's
world right next to your father, I tell you what.

CHARLIE
Grandpa, don't call me retarded.

HEATHCLIFF
Why shouldn't I?

CHARLIE
Cause it's like... Well... My friends said that it's like a
bad word almost like fuck.

HEATHCLIFF
Don't say fuck, Charlie.

CHARLIE
But grandpa. You just said...

HEATHCLIFF
I can say whatever I want. I'm fuzzy-coated-limp-dick dirtyol-
bastard who could say whatever the fuck I want. Do you
understand, Charlie?

CHARLIE
Yeah, grandpa.

HEATHCLIFF
And don't let your other retard friends put anything in that
retarded head of yours that I can't call you retarded. Now, I
don't want you to say fuck ever again.

CHARLIE
Yeah, grandpa. Grandpa, can you now take off my tie now?

HEATHCLIFF
Come here, boy.
Heathcliff removes Charlie's necktie.

CHARLIE
Thanks grandpa. Grandpa, why couldn't I just wear my regular
ol' clothes?

HEATHCLIFF
That wouldn't be respectful to your grandmother.

CHARLIE
But why? Grandma didn't mind how I used to dress before.

HEATHCLIFF
Well I mind.

CHARLIE
But why?

HEATHCLIFF
It's respectful. You dress well and bring some flowers when
you visit someone who's passed.

CHARLIE
Passed by where, grandpa?

HEATHCLIFF
You don't know what passed means?

CHARLIE
Yeah, I know what passed mean. I want to know where she
passed by.

HEATHCLIFF
Oh, Lord. He doesn't know what passed means! When we visit
her... um... We got to nicely dressed, and bring flowers.

CHARLIE
Oh.
(Long pause. Beat.)
Whatcha thinking, grandpa?

HEATHCLIFF
Your grandmother.

CHARLIE
Oh.
(Beat.)
But what are thinking?

HEATHCLIFF
Oh, memories. They just strike me anywhere I go now these
days.

CHARLIE
What do you think about when you're thinking?

HEATHCLIFF
Always on your grandma.

CHARLIE
What were you thinking?

HEATHCLIFF
Just right now, I was thinking about the time when grandma
and me made love for the first time.

CHARLIE
(Covering ears.)
Ewwwwwwwwwwww, grandpa, you're nasty!

HEATHCLIFF
You don't even understand what I mean.

CHARLIE
I know what it means, ma ke love means fuck!

HEATHCLIFF
Clam it, boy!
(Hard stare pause. Charlie
looks down.)
You know, you're not as retarded as I thought you were.
(Beat.)
And what exactly is to fuck?

CHARLIE
It means kissy-kissy-touchy-touchy-chichi-chich i-privateparts
and then Oh-Baby-and-then... A baby.

HEATHCLIFF
(Laughing.)
You're pretty smart right there boy... And don't say the Fword
again. It isn't appropriate for a young boy.

CHARLIE
I'm sorry. But why do you want to even think a thing about
that!

HEATHCLIFF
You're so naive, Charlie. You'll always remember your first.
(Sad beat.)
And your last.

CHARLIE
Your first what, grandpa?

HEATHCLIFF
Your first-first.

CHARLIE
Your first-first of what?

HEATHCLIFF
Your first time to make love!

CHARLIE
Oh.

HEATHCLIFF
Your grandma Victoria had a beautiful bosom and rump in her
youth.

CHARLIE
She had a what?

HEATHCLIFF
Beautful bosom and rump. You know. T and A, boy... Tits and
ass.

CHARLIE
EWWWWW!

HEATHCLIFF
And a beautiful smile. That was, before all her teeth fell
out. But that was fine by me cause she just got better at youknow-
what...

CHARLIE
Know what about what?

HEATHCLIFF
You know.

CHARLIE
Uh... No.

HEATHCLIFF
BJ's, boy.

CHARLIE
Grandpa, what's a BJ?

HEATHCLIFF
Black Jack.

CHARLIE
Oh. Was she good at Black Jack?

HEATHCLIFF
She was the very best at Black Jack.

CHARLIE
And who won the most?

HEATHCLIFF
Me...

CHARLIE
If you won the most, then Grandma Vicky wasn't so good was
she?

HEATHCLIFF
That doesn't mean grandma didn't have a winning hand...
(Laughing. Beat. Heathcliff then sighs.)

CHARLIE
I miss her too, grandpa. She was always so nice.

HEATHCLIFF
I wish we went together.

CHARLIE
Went where, grandpa?

HEATHCLIFF
You know... Went. I wish we went together at the same time.

CHARLIE
To where?

HEATHCLIFF
Charlie, you're just trifling. I wish we went together to,
you know... to kick the bucket.

CHARLIE
Is kicking the bucket like kick the can?

HEATHCLIFF
No. I mean, I wish we would had gone to rest... together.

CHARLIE
I thought you wanted to kick a bucket together.

HEATHCLIFF
No Charlie, not kick a bucket. I wished that we kicked the
bucket together instead of her kicking it alone. Do you
understand now?
(Heathcliff nods yes, and
Charlie nods with him. And
then Charlie nods no.
Heathcliff sighs.)

CHARLIE
But why did she kick a bucket?

HEATHCLIFF
She didn't kick a buck... Charlie, you retard!

CHARLIE
(Giggling.)
Grandpa, you don't make much sense, don't you?

HEATHCLIFF
Don't laugh, Charlie. It's bad in a place of respect just
like this.

CHARLIE
I'm sorry, grandpa. But why is it bad?

HEATHCLIFF
Just because, boy.

CHARLIE
But why?

HEATHCLIFF
Because of this place. It's where people rest.

CHARLIE
Where Grandma Vicky is at?

HEATHCLIFF
Yes. Here she is, resting. Finally, you get it.

CHARLIE
Is she resting because kicking the bucket makes you tired?

HEATHCLIFF
No, she's... "At home."

CHARLIE
No she ain't, grandpa. We would had seen her at home. We saw
her here. Remember?

HEATHCLIFF
No, Charlie, I mean she's at home.

CHARLIE
Nu-uh.

HEATHCLIFF
It's hard to explain.

CHARLIE
If she was at home, she would had been reading books, talking
on the telephone, gardening and whatever. And I would be
there peeling green beans with her cause she loved talking
with me. And we would watch TV together...

HEATHCLIFF
I know, boy.

CHARLIE
And when the Meow Mix commercial was on, we would go
(Sings the Meow Mix Song.)
Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow meow, meow... Meow Mix,
Meow Mix...

HEATHCLIFF
Charlie... Charlie, I get it.
(Charlie keeps singing the Meow
Mix Song.)
No one else knows her absence better than me... CHARLIE,
STOP.

CHARLIE
And when I was sad, she would go to me, hug me and say,
"Meow." That always made me feel better.

HEATHCLIFF
I know Charlie. What I meant is, she is at home with Jesus.

CHARLIE
And Jesus lives home with us?

HEATHCLIFF
I'm talking about Jesus's home, not our home.

CHARLIE
Oh. And soooooooo... This is hard, grandpa.

HEATHCLIFF
Do I really have to say it?

CHARLIE
Say what?

HEATHCLIFF
Charlie!

CHARLIE
What? What did I do!

HEATHCLIFF
Stop being retarded.

CHARLIE
I'm sorry, grandpa, but I can't help being retarded. But,
where is grandma now?

HEATHCLIFF
She's in the cemetery over there.

CHARLIE
But...

HEATHCLIFF
She's gone, Charlie...

CHARLIE
But...

HEATHCLIFF
No, not "gone to the store"... she's "GONE!"

CHARLIE
But...

HEATHCLIFF
SHE IS DEAD AND BURIED, CHARLIE, YOU GODDAMN RETARD! DEAD,
DEAD, DEAD! SHE IS DEAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!

CHARLIE
But...

HEATHCLIFF
DEAD!

CHARLIE
Bu...

HEATHCLIFF
DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEA-YUDDDDD!

CHARLIE
I know grandpa! BUT why didn't you say that before, Grandpa!

HEATHCLIFF
I... I don't know, Charlie.

CHARLIE
(A sad silent pause.)
Grandpa Heefcliff?

HEATHCLIFF
Yes Charlie?

CHARLIE
Are you sad?

HEATHCLIFF
Very much so.

CHARLIE
I didn't mean to.

HEATHCLIFF
It wasn't your fault, boy.

CHARLIE
I'll try to get smarter. I promise.

HEATHCLIFF
No, no. You're lots of smart. You know what? You're right.
Retard is a very bad word. You're smart, you're very smart.
Don't let anyone in the world call you that word... Except
for me. Okay?

CHARLIE
Okay.

HEATHCLIFF
Know what? I don't feel like taking the bus anymore.

CHARLIE
Why, grandpa?

HEATHCLIFF
I feel like walking. Maybe if we find an old can, we could
play kick the can.

CHARLIE
That will be fun.

HEATHCLIFF
Want ice cream?

CHARLIE
Yeah.

HEATHCLIFF
Then it's my treat.

CHARLIE
Grandpa Cliff?

HEATHCLIFF
Yeah?

CHARLIE
Meow.

HEATHCLIFF
Meow...

They hug, and then leave.

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Whitman isn't my most favorite poet, and I don't enjoy his "Pioneers! Oh Pioneers!" But I feel it's soooo wrong to commercialize his poem, and to literally reduce it to a blue jean ad. The recording you hear in the ad is actually Walt Whitman's voice, so it's a very old recording (probably one of the first to exist.). Why not take the time to read the poem? To let it sink in your soul... Please enjoy.

153. Pioneers! O Pioneer!
by Walt Whitman (1819-1892) in Leaves of Grass 1900
1
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!

2
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

3
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!

4
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!

5
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!

6
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!

7
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!

8
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!

9
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers!

10
O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult-I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers!

11
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers!

12
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!

13
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!

14
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd, Pioneers! O pioneers!

15
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers!

16
Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers! O pioneers!

17
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers!

18
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O pioneers!

19
Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers!

20
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers!

21
O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers!

22
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep-you have done your work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers!

23
Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers!

24
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers!

25
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers!

26
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!-swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/ba ker/w3630/edit/pioneers.html

Updated: 11/07/09 9:08 PM 2 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!

Okay...
There is more people taking buses these days because it's cheaper to use public transportation. But I'm sick and tired of the newbies ruining things for frequent public bus users. To make your ride enjoyable, I have several suggestions.

THE BIG ONES:
1.) Don't put your feet on the seats. It's just plain fucking nasty because people track in mud, shit, and anything else that you don't want to sit on.

2.) Don't talk on your cellphone. It's annoying (in any place.) If you want a private conversation, then the bus isn't a place. But if you're talking about anal sex leakage, of course I'm gonna jump right in with a bucket of popcorn and laugh. And don't be indignant if I laugh... you made it public.

3.) SHOWER. BRUSH YOUR TEETH. We're in an enclosed space which recycles its own air half the time. If you wanna be the person that smells like pee, I hope the stigmatization will scar you for life and make you practice good hygiene rituals everyday. Also... be easy on the cologne or perfume.

4.) Don't eat in the bus... especially if it's an ethnic food like Indian food. It may smell appealing to you, but I've been on bus rides that smells overwhelmingly like curry and people have thrown up.

5.) Pick up your trash... if you bring in a newspaper... a newspaper better get out.

Now...
USEFUL SUGGESTIONS

1.) Be ready with your money before the bus comes. The bus is on a schedule, and people are in a rush. Don't make the driver wait for you to count your pennies.

2.) If you see a bus approaching that isn't yours and you're the only person at the bus stop, wave to the bus driver to pass over you. It helps out the driver, and the people, to keep schedule.

3.) Make room. If all the seats are filled, stand in the back. Make space for new passengers.

4.) Be friendly... but keep your personal and give others theirs. I don't mind a chat, but don't delve into a full conversation. People are weird in the bus, and I don't want to reveal details of my life.

FRIENDLY REMINDERS:
1.) Give your seat to the elderly and pregnant women. It's a nice thing to do. As for women... well, I feel this is a patronizing act and antiquated. And sometimes some women take offense to that. But that's your option. But always give your seat to the elderly and pregnant women (and the physically disabled.)

2.) If a strange person, a homeless person, a stinking person enters... ignore them. Crack open a window, breathe through your nose. They have a right to use the bus (though, I wish they didn't use the bus.) So don't go all crazy and act you're better than them, or crack jokes behind their backs. That's cowardly and cruel. At least have the balls to tell them in their face so that they can speak back.

This is just a useful guide if you've never been on the bus but you will go on it. If anything... just practice the first part at least.

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I love Chuck Palahniuk for Fight Club and his other novels, but I am not a fan of his short stories in Haunted... even Guts, which is probably his most famous short story. Guts seems to be his trademark short story, but it seems to me that it was written only to be explicit. The one story I love best is shocking, but it has full of meaning. I downloaded this from Napster when it was illegal, back in in 2001 (I think). This was the only illegal thing I downloaded. But if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have been able to find another copy. And I don't know this short story will be published in an anthology. I've kept it for years to myself, and I think it's time dust it off and show how this story is so much better than any of his short stories in Haunted.

Update: I found out that it's been anthologized in "Stranger Than Fiction"-- I bought the book today online...

Escort
by
Chuck Palahniuk
(from Bikini Magazine)

My first day as an escort, my first "date" had only one leg. He'd gone to a gay bathhouse, to get warm, he told me. Maybe for sex. And he'd fallen asleep in the steam room, too close to the heating element. He'd been unconscious for hours until some one found him. Until the meat of his left thigh was completely and thoroughly cooked.

He couldn't walk, but his mother was coming from Wisconsin to see him, and the hospice needed someone to cart the two of them around to visit the local tourist sights. Go shopping downtown. See the beach. Multnomah Falls. This was all you could do as a volunteer if you weren't a nurse or a cook or doctor.

You were an escort, and this was the place where young people with no insurance went to die. The hospice name, I don't even remember. It wasn't on any signs anywhere, and they asked you to be discreet coming and going because the neighbors didn't know what was going on in the enormous old house on their street, a street with its share of crack houses and drive-by shootings, still nobody wanted to live next door to this: four people dying in the living room, two in the dining room. At least two people lay dying in each upstairs bedroom and there were a lot of bedrooms. At least half these people had AIDS, but the house didn't discriminate. You could come here and die of anything.

The reason I was there was my job. This meant laying on my back on a creeper with a 200-pound class 8 diesel truck driveline laying on my chest and running down between my legs as far as my feet. My job is I had to roll under trucks as they crept down an assembly line, and I installed these drivelines. Twenty-six drivelines every eight hours. Working fast as each truck moved along, pulling me into the huge blazing hot paint ovens just a few feet down the line.

My degree in Journalism couldn't get me more than five dollars an hour. Other guys in the shop had the same degree, and we joked how liberal arts degrees should include welding skills so you'd at least pick up the extra two bucks an hour our shop paid grunts who could weld. Someone invited me to their church, and I was desperate enough to go, and at the church they had a potted ficus they called a Giving Tree, decorated with paper ornaments, each ornament printed with a good deed you could choose. My ornament said: Take a hospice patient on a date.

That was their word, "date." And there was a phone number.

I took the man with one leg, then him and his mother, all over the area, to scenic viewpoints, to museums, his wheel chair folded up in the back of my fifteen-year-old Mercury Bobcat. His mother smoking, silent. Her son was thirty years old, and she had two weeks of vacation. At night, I'd take her back to her TravelLodge next to the freeway, and she'd smoke, sitting on the hood of my car, talking about her son already in the past tense. He could play the piano, she said. In school, he earned a degree in music, but ended up demonstrating electric organs in shopping mall stores.

These were conversations after we had no emotions left.

I was twenty-five years old, and the next day I was back under trucks with maybe three or four hours sleep. Only now my own problems didn't seem very bad. Just looking at my hands and feet, marveling at the weight I could lift, the way I could shout against the pneumatic roar of the shop, my whole life felt like a miracle instead of a mistake.

In two weeks, the mother was gone home. In another three months, her son was gone. Dead, gone.

I drove people with cancer to see the ocean for their last time. I drove people with AIDS to the top of Mount Hood so they could see the whole world while there was still time.

I sat bedside while the nurse told me what to look for at the moment of death, the gasping and unconscious struggle of someone drowning in their sleep as renal failure filled their lungs with water. The monitor would beep every five or ten seconds as it injected morphine into the patient. The patient's eyes would roll back, bulging and entirely white. You held their cold hand for hours, until another escort came to the rescue or until it didn't matter.

The mother in Wisconsin sent me an afghan she'd crocheted, purple and red. Another mother or grandmother I'd escorted sent me an afghan in blue, green and white. Another came in red, white and black. Granny squares, zigzag patterns. They piled up at one end of the couch until my housemates asked if we could store them in the attic.

Just before he'd died, the woman's son, the man with one leg, just before he'd lost consciousness, he'd begged me to go into his old apartment. There was a closet full of sex toys. Magazines. Dildos. Leather wear. It was nothing he wanted his mother to find so I promised to throw it all out. So I went there, to the little studio apartment sealed and stale after months empty. Like a crypt, I'd say, but that's not the right word. It sounds too dramatic. Like cheesy organ music. But in fact, just sad. The sex toys and anal whatnots were just sadder. Orphaned. That's not the right word either, but it's the first word that comes to mind.

The afghans are still boxed and in my attic. Every Christmas a housemate will go look for ornaments and find the afghans, red and black, green and purple, each one a dead person, a son or daughter or grandchild, and whoever finds them will ask if we can use them on our beds or give them to Goodwill. And every Christmas, I'll say, No. I can't say what scares me more, throwing away all these dead children or sleeping with them.

Don't ask me why, I tell people. I refuse to even talk about it. That was all ten years ago. I sold the Bobcat in 1989. I quit being an escort. Maybe because after the man with one leg, after he died, after his sex toys were all garbage bagged, after they were buried in the Dumpster, after the apartment windows were open and the smell of leather and latex and shit was gone, the apartment looked good. The sofa-bed was a tasteful mauve, the walls and carpet, cream. The little kitchen had butcher block counter tops. The bathroom was all white and clean.

I sat there in the tasteful silence. I could've lived there.

Anyone could've lived there.

Updated: 09/16/09 10:28 PM 7 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!

Wow. The times did fly by, really.
I still feel like I'm where I was so many years ago, although lots has changed for me.

On 9-11, I was asleep. My dad called me on my cellphone, and he told me that we had a terrorist attack in New York. I woke up and went to the TV and changed it to the KNTV channel 2 news.

I was shocked. I didn't see the first plane crash, but I saw the camera panning over the rubble and dust. And I distinctively recalling the scene looking red, although-- I never saw it else in other video clips.

I wasn't sure if I should go to school that day. I had some sort of test or an important day on that day, sooooo-- I was conflicted. The attack (the news casters said it was possibly a horrible mistake.) But I was running out of time, and I went to take a really hot and nice shower. I got dressed and went to the bus stop.

The bus driver had a newspaper and I said, "Did you read about the World Trade Centers?" He said no, and I told them that a huge airplane crashed into it and that it was gone.

He didn't believe me because he said he was on those towers before.

I went to school and people seemed okay. Nobody was talking about it. And when I got to school (it took me an hour to get to school. Probably less. I forgot.) The alarm system of the school made a very loud wailing noise, and it stopped. The voice said that school was cancelled and that we were under a terrorist attack, and to go home. And people who didn't have a car to ask for rides.

I didn't have a ride, but I saw my sister and her boyfriend (I used to call him the Horse). He gave me a ride, but only reluctantly. The asshole and I never got along, and my sister would had preferred to stay with me than him if we were under attack.

We took one of my sister's friends too, and I forgot her name. We took not too far from where we live, although I've forgotten the house of my sister's friend.

The Horse left us at our home, and we watched TV. And then, we saw the other plane crash in the second tower.

Then there was something about the news reporters said, that San Jose and San Francisco were possibly targets because of our technology. And I became afraid and told my sister that we should pack our bags with some water, food, clothes, and pictures incase we had to escape.

My neighbor did the same thing, and we never spoke before and we never spoke ever since. He brought his young daughters from school, and he was afraid of an attack. I told him we shouldn't be afraid, but to maybe back a bag incase he needed to leave in a hurry.

And then we heard a loud boom, coming from the direction of Alum Rock and the east hills. We were shocked, and we wondered if we were after being attacked. And I wondered if it was possible that we could have heard the towers crash all the way over from New York to California's Bay Area.

We never found an explanation to that bloom that we heard, but I'm glad that San Jose wasn't attacked.

When my mom and dad came home, we kissed each other and watched the TV in Spanish. All day, we watched TV and we slept. The next day, we saw New York in the morning-- it was creepy because it was barren. That scene reminded me of the Devil's Advocate when Keeanu Reeve's character walks through New York without any people.

And after that, it was history...

The day seemed plain, but that how it was. I read other accounts of that day, they seem to embellish it with dramatic details... about ominous feelings in the air and such. (I remember reading somebody's account of their day, and he or she said that she had a feeling in her gut. Yeah, right...)

Well, to me... 9-11 was a plain day that turned to scary in an instant.

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LEAVES FLY AWAY

by Ché Enrique Muñoz Ramírez

Crisp leaves scented the air and whirled within swirls of trash. The wind captured the leaves and blew them away. Kids flew their kites and played soccer, and they laughed.

Benji stood at the other side of the fence and watched the kids play. His hands gripped on the bars, and a cigarette hung on his lips. Joshua walked next to the old man when a leaf caught on the old man's scarf. Joshua picked it off, and Benji watched it fly away.

"We're done walking." Joshua said. Benji sucked on the cigarette down to the filter, threw the butt to the floor, and puffed the smoke out of his nose.

"I want something hot." Joshua said. "Let's go to the cafe."

Joshua held two coffees in his hands. He then moved one coffee to the old man's hand and wrapped his fingers on it. The old man's eyes were milky colored, and he smelled like dried pee. Spit dried out his lips, cracked the skin of his chin, and formed a crust on his whiskers. Benji tore his napkin in little pieces and pushed them on the table. They flew away in a gust when somebody opened the door.

"You can speak to him." Joshua said. "They say he won't listen, but I think he does." Silence passed between them, and then Joshua said, "You want anything? I can buy you something." Benji nodded his head no, and Joshua said, "Where do you want to go next?"

Benji shrugged his shoulders.

"The park again?"

Benji shrugged his shoulders again.

"Let's go back to the park." Joshua said. "Then we'll go."

Before they went, Joshua wiped the crust off the old man's whiskers, rubbed lip balm on his lips, and covered his face with the red scarf. Benji smoked again and watched kids play soccer in the wind and leaves. Their grandpa watched them at the sidelines, and he laughed and clapped his hands at them. Their grandpa called out for them, and the kids huddled around him. Benji threw his old cigarette and got a new one.

Joshua said, "ouch," and then rubbed his eyes. "Stupid leaves," he said, "they're everywhere." He rubbed his eyes, and they watered. "Take care of him," he said, "I got to use the bathroom to rinse out my eyes."

Benji and the old man sat next to each other. A gust of wind blew the old man's scarf away. The old man drooled all over on his whiskers and chin, and Benji did nothing but watch the wind dry up the spit. Benji took out a new cigarette and placed it on the old man's lips. The cigarette hung on the old man's lips and then fell on the ground. Benji picked it up and put it back in the old man's mouth. The old man began to chew on the cigarette. Benji then stuck his finger in the old man's mouth and pulled out the cigarette and threw it.

Benji's fingers smelled something nasty, something bacterial and putrid. He wiped his finger on his pants. Pieces of tobacco and paper mixed with spit leaked out the old man's mouth. Benji got close to the old man and then wiped his lips and chin with the collar of his shirt. The boy stared into the old man's milky eyes.

Then Benji kissed the old man on the mouth.

The old man's tongue was dry and rough. His spit was sticky, almost like paste, and tasted like something rotten mixed with tobacco. Benji pushed his head forward, and his teeth crashed into the old man's teeth. He glided his tongue around the old man's tongue, around the edges of his teeth, and to the inner corners of his mouth.

Benji lit another cigarette and smoked after he was done. Joshua came back, and his eyes were red and watery. He said to Joshua, "Where's his scarf?"

Benji said nothing and puffed out smoke. Joshua looked for the scarf and saw that the wind blew it far away. It was tangled on the fence with the leaves.

They walked together to the old man's home where his daughter waited for them. She was packing trophies in several boxes.

"I made some hot chocolate," she said. "I got marshmallows if you want any."

"We got to go," Joshua said.

"Please stay," she said, "Let's talk. I think he likes the talk. I'll pay extra if I need to."

"I never did this for money, and I wouldn't accept it now."

"Then I'll give it to Benji," and she slipped two 20-dollar bills in Benji's pocket and then said to him, "Give the other half to Joshua when you can."

They drank chocolate in silence. Several trophies and pictures remained on shelves and walls.

"What time will you be leaving?" Joshua said.

"We would get there around ten in the morning," she said.

"Need help packing?"

"If you two could, please thank you."

"He has so many trophies."

"Yeah, I know. I never realized how many he won."

The old man's daughter grabbed a trophy and polished it with the sleeve of her shirt. She then said, "He said that his real trophies weren't these, but the hearts of everyone he loved. Especially kids. He loved kids. Hey, Joshua, where are they right now?"

"Who?"

"The kids he taught. The kids he loved. You're here and Benji's here, but where are the rest?"

"I don't know. They've grown up. They got their own lives."

The daughter sipped her chocolate, put the trophy in a box, and then said, "Maybe it's better that way. But I wish at least that he knew you two were here. He loved you two the most."

"I think he knows. I know that he feels."

"Why are you sure?"

"He's trapped outside, but he can still feel."

When they finished their chocolates Benji and Joshua packed the old man's trophies in boxes. The daughter went to buy more boxes in the meanwhile. A photo album fell to the ground and Benji picked it up. He flipped a few pages of the album. Then he saw his picture when he was 6 years old. Joshua was next to him too, and both smiled from behind of a trophy. The old man looked younger in the picture and didn't have his cataracts yet, but his hair was white and his skin wrinkly. Nonetheless, he was handsome.

"I remember that," Joshua said. "We won. Do you remember that, Benji?"

Benji nodded his head no.

"You forgot about that."

"Yeah." Benji said, and he took out a cigarette and smoked again.

"Did you forget everything?" Joshua said.
"I remember he said that he loved me. I wish I could forget that." Benji was quiet for a second, took the picture out of the album and slid it in his pocket. He closed the photo album and put it in the box. Then he said, "Joshua, do you forgive him?"

"I do. Now. And you?"

Benji nodded his head no, and said, "Do you actually believe he listens? That he's trapped?"

"Yeah." Joshua said.

They drove the old man and his daughter to the airport early in the morning. She wheeled her father in a wheel chair.

When the daughter heard her plane was boarding, she said goodbye to Benji and Joshua.

"Could we have a minute together, alone?" Joshua said to the daughter. "I know it doesn't make sense, but I want to say goodbye to him. I just want one minute alone."

"Okay," she said, and she stepped off to the side.

Joshua stood in front of the old man, brushed off lint that clung on his sweater, and then said, "Goodbye, coach. Forever."

Benji walked in and stood over the old man. His shadow covered the old man. Then he leaned into the old man and kissed him on the side of the cheek. Then he whispered in the old man's ears, "I. Love. You."

The old man and daughter left afterwards.

Benji and Joshua didn't return home immediately when the old man and the daughter left. Benji wanted to go to the park, and Joshua went with him.

Leaves fell from trees, and the wind swept them away. The kids who played soccer yesterday played again, but this time their grandpa played with them. Benji and Joshua watched them from behind the bars of the fence. He swallowed, took out a cigarette, and tried to light it. The wind kept blowing out his flame. It frustrated him and he threw his cigarette and lighter away. Benji was shaking.

"Are you okay?" Joshua said.

"I just want to smoke, okay," Benji said, and his eyes were watery.

"Are you crying?"

"No. I got something in my eye." Benji said and he tried to walk away. "It's the leaves."

"Benji..." Joshua said, and he tried to touch him, but Benji pushed him away.

"Leave me alone." Benji said, but tears flowed out of his eyes. He held on the bars of the fence, and tried to hide his face. The kids and their grandpa were leaving. "I'm not crying... It's just the leaves."

"I know it is." Joshua said, and a gust of wind blew his scarf away.

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I really liked this article by Elmore Leonard. I like his writing, though the stuff he writes about don't interest me. I've copied and pasted this to my blog for everyone.

Click here for the original link on the New York times

WRITERS ON WRITING; Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle
By ELMORE LEONARD
Published: Monday, July 16, 2001

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather.

If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.

They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ''Sweet Thursday,'' but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: ''I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''

3. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ''she asseverated,'' and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ''said'' . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances ''full of rape and adverbs.''

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words ''suddenly'' or ''all hell broke loose.''

This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ''suddenly'' tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories ''Close Range.''

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's ''Hills Like White Elephants'' what do the ''American and the girl with him'' look like? ''She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.'' That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character -- the one whose view best brings the scene to life -- I'm able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what's going on, and I'm nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in ''Sweet Thursday'' was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. ''Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts'' is one, ''Lousy Wednesday'' another. The third chapter is titled ''Hooptedoodle 1'' and the 38th chapter ''Hooptedoodle 2'' as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: ''Here's where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.''

''Sweet Thursday'' came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I've never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.

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ASSIMILATE OR DIE

1
The Frontier

Benito, Rosa and the rest of the illegals walked through the desert behind their coyote in a single row. They wore long sleeved shirts and bandanas under their caps. Their bag packs held several bottles of water, bags of peanuts, cups of instant noodles and packets of instant coffee. Their shadows twisted around the sand dunes and yellow brush as the sun settled on them. Twilight ebbed to a starry sky but came without the relief of a cool night. The desert hammered thirst in their bodies, but whatever they drank barely slacked their thirst. So they licked the juices from the folds of their foreheads, the salty dew that clung on the hairs of their arms, and sometimes extracted the balmy liquor deep from the wells of their armpits.

Benito and Rosa wondered if they would die in the journey to the Promised Land, leaving their kids-Roberto, Juan and Frida-as orphans at the American side of the border. When their coyote heard this he laughed at them as he flicked the ash off from his cigarette. It was true that people died during the voyage to America but the border town of Jucumba waited at the horizon, and they would have crossed that threshold by tomorrow.

Benito and Rosa said nothing else to the coyote. They did not trust him because some coyotes abandoned illegals right in the middle of the desert, or sold them to kidnappers. Sometimes they abandoned them in the middle of nowhere, packed in trucks and roasted alive until the flesh melted off their faces and piles of meaty pieces pooled on their chests and laps.

Rosa and Benito heard stories like these from their friends and at work. The news also ran pictures of missing people like, Rosa recalled, the girl with pouty ruby lips in the red shirt. The news reported that her coyote sold her to kidnappers who then ransomed her life to her parents. Her parents, who didn't trust the border police, gave their life saving to their daughter's kidnappers, but their daughter never returned. Rosa watched the sun set in the horizon and the twilight fade into night. She hoped that the girl lived.

The coyotes and illegals ate instant noodles and peanuts for dinner. They used the cups from their instant noodles to hold their coffee. Their eyes darted in the dark and at the sand as they watched for snakes and scorpions. They kept the fire from burning too brightly. The illegals barely spoke to each other because they suffered illnesses that came from the heat like exhaustion and fever. When they did talk they complained about being sick or to ask the coyote something.

"When do we get there?" Rosa asked to the coyote.

"Tomorrow," he said, "We'll be free and then someone will take you to San Diego by truck." The coyote then took out a cigarette, light it up with a burning twig from the fire, and smoked as he laid his back on a boulder. He tilted his hat enough to allow him see everyone but also hide from them his face, which was leathery, grimy but angular and handsome at the same time. His cigarette hung on his lips.

"What if we don't survive?" A fat woman asked.

"If the Indians and the Spanish and the Gringos," the coyote said, "could push into the frontier, then we could push in even deeper."

"What are you guys going to do over there?" The fat woman asked everyone. She sipped her coffee. It was slightly salty and tasted like instant noodle. The illegals told of jobs that waited for them, as farm laborers, as janitors, as maids, as construction workers. Then they talked about their family and promised that to return back to their towns with money in their pockets to build their houses and dreams.

"Don't count on that," the fat lady said, "The other side does something to people. You become like a gringo the longer you stay there, especially your children. After a few years, they're almost like White people."

"My kids will never be like gringos," Benito said. "They're dark, short, and love their beans too much for that." The group laughed.

"It's true," the coyote said, not even opening his eyes. "A lot of Mexican kids speak only English. My sister's kids, they don't like speak English, and not even good English. They speak it like the Blacks. They don't want to hear Banda, instead they want to hear Hip-Hop or that puta Britney Spears. And they only want McDonald's and pizza."

"Not my kids," Benito said, "they'll never be like gringos"

"But they'll have to. And all of you too. If you want to live, then you'll need to assimilate with the gringos just a little. Or die." After that nobody in the group said anything else but watched the campfire burn. Then the coyote stood up. His body was spry, and his eyes were alert. He looked something like a coyote in that instant. He kicked dust at the fire, and then the other illegals got up and helped the coyote put it out. They hid in the brush. Several minutes of silence passed, and their hearts pounded in their chests.

"Is it the patrol?" Rosa asked, but the coyote moved a finger to his lips. Rosa held Benito's small and calloused hand. Then they heard something in the desert. A girl moved in the moonlit landscape. The moon illuminated the edges of her body, the border of her thighs, and the fog of wiry hair above her head. Clumps of dried mud clung on her bare legs, her pubic hair, on her genitals. She wore nothing but a red shirt.

"Oh my god, she's been raped," Rosa said, but Benito and the coyote tried to hush her up.
"Over here!" Rosa yelled to the girl and the immigrants tried hush her up. "She's not border patrol. She's lost in the desert. We got to help her!" She then ran to the girl. Benito and some men followed.

The girl in red fell over on Rosa, clung onto her and wouldn't let go. Rosa tried to hold up the girl up. "Don't worry, you're safe," Rosa said, "Your parents are looking for you." Benito took out his bottle of water for the girl. "Drink," he said to her.

The girl wouldn't drink; instead, the girl dug her nails into Rosa. "You're hurting me," Rosa said before screaming as the girl bit into her shoulder and drew blood. Benito then pulled the girl off from Rosa, and threw her into the dust. He flashed his flashlight at the girl's face.

The skin of the girl's face clung tightly to her skull. Her lips, which were supposed to be fleshy and ruby red, were missing from her face and revealed a muzzle of teeth. Underneath her chin was the deep gash of a knife. The jaws of the girl opened wide as she attacked Benito, but he smashed the flashlight against the girl's head. The soft tissue of one of her eyes sunk deep in her skull and viscous juice poured out of her mouth and the slit of her throat. The girl attacked Benito again.

Benito wrestled with the girl, and she bit him on the arms until Rosa bashed a rock against the girl's head. Runny pieces of the girl's brain poured out of her nose and mouth. Benito screamed and threw the girl at a side, and he tried to wipe the brains off his shirt. The coyote then hoisted a large rock and brought it down on her head before the girl could stand up.

The girl's body writhed for several hours with her smashed head under the rock. Benito bandaged Rosa's wounds after he rinsed it out with his supply of water. The immigrants all prayed the Hail Mary and Our Father, except for the coyote. He took out his knife he began cutting the dead girl's limbs and threw them into the fire. Benito also helped too by breaking the limbs in smaller pieces so they could burn better. The fire burned very bright.

The sun was going to rise very soon on them, but never again would the heat of the sun could compare to the heat of that fire.

2
Gringolandia

After they crossed Jacumba, another smuggler brought them to Los Diego where Benito's brother, Carlos, awaited for them. They arrived to San Jose and reunited with their children the next day. The day after that, they searched for work. In a week Benito found work as a janitor at several work sites. Rosa worked at a hotel. Life in San Jose felt like heaven to them. Cleaning restrooms in an air-conditioned business building, no matter how nasty the toilets were, was better than the fields or sweat factories. They never spoke of the girl in the desert.

Their kids struggled in school, and they failed. Benito and Rosa felt happy nevertheless. Eventually the kids would catch up, they believed. Benito reminded them that they had to struggle in school because they left Mexico so they could have a better life. Benito promised to them that if they got A's, he would take them to Disneyland to meet Mickey Mouse.

Within the year, their kids became proficient at English, and sometimes they made honor roll in their schools. That made Benito proud, but at the same time concerned. Benito saw changes in his children that scared him. His kids spoke to each other in English instead of Spanish. They listened music in English, and watched English speaking shows. "They're starting to become gringos," Benito said during dinner while the kids watched Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel.

"That's how it is," Benito's brother, Carlos, said as he pounded on his chest. His heartburn started to become a frequent nuisance. "They got to speak English in order to survive in the world of the gringos-even I have to be a little bit Americanized and speak English." Carlos said to Benito before drinking two Alka-Seltzers in a glass of water.

"Compadre, you should go visit the doctor for that," Rosa said to Carlos, "if your chest hurts that often, you should see the doctors. My uncle once thought he had heartburn, but it was actually a heart attack. It nearly killed him."

"Don't worry about it, comadre," Carlos said, "it's gone."

"But they shouldn't forget about their heritage," Benito took out a cigarette started to smoke. "Do you know how embarrassing it would be for them to speak only English, being so dark and Indian looking? Today I saw a pisa. Dark and short. More Indian looking than me, but he acted exactly like a Gringo."

"But Benito," Carlos says, "do you think the Aztecs spoke Spanish before the Conquest? Five centuries ago, the Aztecs worried about the same thing when their kids were speaking Spanish instead Nauhatl. That's how it is. You need to assimilate a little, you know."
Benito didn't care. They all had to resist, he said.

3
Los Zombis

Nobody knew why it happened or how it occurred, but the dead were rising back again. Benito and Rosa already knew that when they crossed the desert.

Leaders and scientists said that although "Resurrected Being"-that was their term for the zombies, or los zombis, the way Benito and Rosa pronounced it-were gruesome and highly aggressive, they couldn't deal damage because they were too decomposed. In any case, they advised people to not approach zombies because they had diseases.

"They do not eat or sleep, and despite of what you have seen at the movies, being bitten by a resurrected being does not turn you into one," President Obama said on TV, dubbed in Spanish, "unless you die from your wounds." Rosa and Benito touched their shiny bite shaped scars. Then the president said, "We suspect that this may be a new epidemic."

Through out the entire world, people reported of moaning cemeteries, of zombies trying to break out of their burial places. Their moaning and knocking on their coffins drove the living crazy. For Benito, who had to pass by Calvary Catholic Cemetery to and from work at least twice day-once in the morning and again at night-hearing the zombies groan and knock about drove him crazy too. Their coffins were too strong for them. By the time a zombie broke out, it had lost most of its appendages, so they stumbled in the cemeteries stupidly, dripping juices, and dropping maggots and worms. Often times, zombies came out of unexpected places. They came out of sewers, backyards, and from the ocean. In San Francisco, tourists took pictures of the zombies that floated on the beaches, or on the docks.

Extremely decomposed zombies were the least dangerous. The ones that people worried were the zombies of the recently dead. They weren't like the rotting shambles that escaped from their graves. They were strong, fast, and potent.

It didn't take much time before the dead started to outnumber and overwhelm the living. And people had to barricade themselves in their homes. There wasn't anything else they could do but to wait out this plague and hope to survive, or die and stay dead.

3
The Day of the Dead

Zombies showed no conscious, no memory, or no fear. They were like babies, Benito observed. People were safe enough to live in their homes with the doors locked unless they attracted the attention of a zombie. Still, Rosa couldn't feel comfortable knowing that at night, a zombie could enter in their houses as they slept. So she took everyone, and a heavy metal baseball bat, to the loft of Carlos's house at night where no living person or zombie could reach without using a ladder. Even if zombies broke into the house, the family slept in the safety of the loft until morning. For this reason she didn't think much on Carlos' sounds in the early morning. Rosa was a light sleeper, and Carlos woke her up more than a few occasions. His heartburn persisted, and at nights he woke up to drink a glass of water with Alka-Seltzer. She fell back to sleep as soon she heard the sounds of the bloop and the shhh. But this time, she woke up hearing glass shattering on the floor.

"Carlos, what's wrong? Did you break the water glass?" She called in the dark, but Carlos did not answer. Instead, he fell down and made a large thump that woke up everyone. She turned on the light and asked, "What's wrong Carlos?"

Carlos looked up at them from the floor, with unfocused eyes and a pale complexion.

"Carlos?" Rosa said, startled by his listless expression and white face. "You don't look well." As soon she spoke Carlos listless eyes snapped into focus, and his face became something like a predatory animal. Carlos screamed as he pounced on Rosa, pinning her down in her sleeping bag. "No, Carlos, no!" She screamed. Her compadre Carlos, the godfather of her children, tried to bite her face. She pushed against him as she screamed, "Run, kids, run!"

The boys, Roberto and Juan, tried to pull their godfather off from their mom, but Rosa screamed, "Get away from them!" Then Benito pulled Carlos from her, slamming him to the wall. Carlos stood up again, and his unfocused eyes darted on Frida. He bolted to his youngest godchild, and she screamed, "Mommy!"

"No!" Rosa cried, and with all her force swung the metal bat to Carlos' head. His neck cracked, and he fell down to the floor.

"Run, Rosa! Take the kids!" Benito grabbed the metal bat as the zombie of Carlos stood up. Carlos's head dangled on the side. The bones of his neck made an unnatural jagged slope, and the neck bones tried to pierce out the skin. Again Carlos ran to attack Benito, and Benito cried, "No! Stop, brother!"

Carlos screamed but it came out in a loud gurgle as blood spurted out his mouth. Carlos tackled Benito again, but this time biting into his shoulder and then into his neck, close to the jugular vein. Benito pushed Carlos away first with his arms and then with his legs. When Carlos came off him, Benito grabbed the metal bat and swung it at his brother's head.

Carlos fell on the floor, and Benito dropped the bat and begun to cry. Benito should have escaped at that time before Carlos could attack him, but Benito lost a lot of blood and he felt weak. He didn't want to fight Carlos anymore.

Carlos stood up, but his head hung upside down on his chest on an elastic tube of skin filled with broken bones. His face was mangled. Carlos set his unfocused eyes on Benito, and blinked. Benito thought that Carlos would kill him, and he wanted to cry, "No, please, brother." But you can never reason with a zombie. Benito tried to speak, but only a loud burbling moan came out of him.
The zombie of Carlos acknowledged Benito for a few seconds, and then walked away before falling down. It did not attack Benito.

"What happened?" Benito wondered, and then he tried to say something, but instead a loud, "uhhhhhh," came out of him. The zombie moaned in return and did not attack Benito. Carlos bumped into things and wondered around without any direction or concious.

Benito began to walk aimlessly too. He moaned just like a zombie, and Carlos moaned back. Blood spurted out of Carlos's mouth, and Carlos realized something. Zombies could be fooled. Zombies couldn't tell the difference between another zombie from a living person acting like a zombie. Benito spent several minutes acting like a zombie, and he worked his way to the basement door. When Carlos had his back turned, Benito escaped out of the loft. He locked the door shut.

The first thing that Benito did was to push a rag against his neck and shoulder to stop the bleeding. He cried out for Rosa, but she did not answer back. Then he started to panic when she didn't return his call. He wondered if they ran out in the night, out there in the real danger. He decided that she had to be somewhere in the house. He went looking under beds, in closets, and then finally in the shower. His wife and kids screamed when Benito pulled the shower curtain open. Rosa hit him with the broom.

"No, Rosa!" He cried, "I'm alive!" But he fell down. He lost a lot of blood. She started to kiss him, crying at the same time but Benito started to black out. He prayed to God, "Please, don't let me die in the same room with Rosa and the kids," before he blacked out

4
The Man of Mictlan

Benito walked under the shadow of a giant sand-colored temple stained red. Everything looked red, even the sun setting behind the temple. At the very top, somebody banged on the teponaztli, the Aztec dancing drum. Benito wore a loincloth, and a cape adorned in feathers, shells, and gold. He wore a thick gold choker, gold necklaces, and gold rings-so much gold that they weighed him down. He looked up at the temple and saw his wife and kids, crying out to him.

Benito started to climb up the steep steps of the giant temple. Higher he climbed, feeling tired-but he needed to reach to the top because Rosa, and their kids needed his help. Sweat stung his eyes. He ripped the gold chocker and necklaces from his neck, and threw off the heavy cape as he ran up.
There they were, Rosa and their kids, sleeping next to each other, naked and painted green and blue with white stripes. Looking above them was the drummer, who was wearing a green feather headdress. His face was pained like a skull.

Benito cried out to Rosa, but she didn't answer back. He walked closer to her and saw a hole in his wife's chest. The drummer sacrificed her, and his kids too. On a stone offering plate next to the drum were their bloody hearts, piled carefully together like a basket of apples. Benito cried. His tears stung his eyes and face. He turned to the drummer who opened his mouth to reveal a bloody obsidian blade for a tongue. The obsidian tongued drummer then grabbed a mirror that laid next to his drum, its surface smoking and cloudy, which then swirled away to clarity to show Benito's face. Benito's lifted his hand to where his face should have been, and touched the bones instead. His face had been flayed, except the part around his eyes. Gold pieces, jewels, shells and flowers studded the bones of his face. Benito then broke the mirror, and screamed. At the bottom of the temple were the undead who shuffled around in Mictlan, the Land of the Dead, and the drummer was the Lord of Mictlan, who played his drums for his subjects.

"Benito," the Lord of Mictlan said. His blood stained obsidian tongue flicked in his mouth. Benito went to tackle the Lord of the Dead, but the sun settled and covered the world in darkness. Again, Benito heard his name, but in the voice of his wife.

"Benito!" she cried again, and he tried to move, but he couldn't move because he was bound. Rosa said his name one more time, and this time he opened his eyes. She stood next to him, holding a knife. He tried to turn his neck, but it hurt too much. He saw that Rosa tied all his limbs to the bedposts in strips of bed sheets.

"Rosa," he said, "this is so sex." Rosa started to cut his bonds and kiss him when she heard him say those words.

"I didn't know if you were going to live," she said, "so I had to do this. When you were moving around, I thought you died and came back as a zombie."

"And the kids? Where are there?" He said.

"I locked them in Carlos' room, and told them not to leave there for any reason until I told them."

Rosa said the name of Carlos, and Benito tears welled up in his eyes. He began to cry for his brother, who died from a heart attack when he slept. He cried for the man who gave him love and money, the man who was his children's godfather. He cried for the man who believed in the American Dream.

5
The Assimilation

Benito spent several weeks healing in bed and on the couch. Rosa feed him the most food so he could heal. Everyday she changed his bandages and put herbals salves and tinctures derived from plants with long Aztec names. She always lit a candle at night for Carlos.

"Rosa, how are we on food?" He asked her while she fed him beans.

"We'll survive," she said. A loud thump came from the loft, where the zombie of Carlos remained.

"I'm healthy enough. If you keep giving me a lot, we'll run out of food. It's time to ration things out just in case."

The house still had electricity and water, and TV still ran the news and their kid's favorite TV shows. Benito felt happy because of that. TV kept their minds occupied, but Benito believed even those things wouldn't last. "Lets start saving water, just in case," he said. They filled all the containers they could find with water. Rosa found an old gas tank in the garage and she almost emptied it out, but Benito stopped her. He said that they might need it one day.

"We need water, not gas," she said, but Benito took the gas tank and placed in Carlos' closet.

"Just in case," he said.

The news showed pictures and videos of zombies stumbling through neighborhoods, through downtown, and through malls. The news reported that people were starving in their homes, and Benito looked in the refrigerator and pantries. There was enough food to last for a few weeks.
Benito's wounds healed, and a shinny keloid formed on his shoulder and neck. Benito knew that, some how, he needed to bring food from the outside. Grocery stores still probably had cans of food, and he knew that he had to get them before Rosa and the kids starved.

Rosa came in with a can of salve and said, "Time to put on medicine." She scooped some of the oily and fragrant salve on her fingers, and messaged it in his healing wounds.

"We're running out of food, aren't we?" He asked, but Rosa kept her silence in a way that confirmed his fears.

"You're healing up really fine," she said and then kissed his dark brown back. She hugged him around his chest and said, "What would we do with out you?"

"I think my shoulder is good," he said, "and the wound is almost closed. It won't get infected."

"But you're not healed completely yet," and she tried to put more salve on him.

"I keep thinking, Rosa. What's going to happen to us? And I scare myself because I don't know the answer. What if we died? We would attack the kids. And what if they died? They would attack us."
He felt something warm and stinging fall in his wound. Rosa's tears fell in his wound, and he turned around to her to kiss her.

"Zombies are like babies," he said, "we can fool them. I fooled Carlos up there by pretending to be like a zombie and he didn't know any better. When he wasn't looking, I snuck out. Rosa..."

"No." Rosa said.

"I can fool them, I know that I can. Its easy to pretend to be a zombie."

"You'll be killed. Think of our kids."

"I am thinking of the kids," and Benito got up. "I don't want to starve, and I don't want them to see us starving either. Rosa, I think there still may be food in the stores and I can get it. All I have to do is act like a zombie."

"And what if there isn't food out there?" She said.

"There has to be."

"And what if you don't come back?"

"Then the last bit of food will last longer." He rubbed his face with his hands. It was slick, and then he remembered his dream when he looked into the mirror and saw his flayed face.

"And in case if I don't come back," he said, "then I want you to use this." Benito went to the closet and took out the gas can. "Because, I don't want you guys to suffer, and I don't want you guys to come back as zombies if you die."

Rosa stared at the gas can for a second and became angry.

"Do you think I can kill my babies?" Rosa said, and then she threw her fists at him. "I'll never hurt them, ever!"

Benito grabbed her wrists and said, "You got to."

They kissed for a very long time and then he said, "It's time for me to go."

"Do you at least want to say good bye to them?" She said, but he nodded no.

"They would never let me go."

Rosa dressed Benito in the same blood stained clothes on the day when Carlos attacked them. He rubbed dirt on them and tore holes in them to make it look ragged. Benito wanted to look as much like a zombie possible. He found an old bag pack that belonged to Carlos and put it on his back.

"How do I look?" He asked Rosa.

"Like the most handsome zombie in the world," She said. Rosa tried to hold in her tears when she kissed Benito.

Rosa did the sign of the cross on his head, and said the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary. And before Benito snuck out through the patio, he blew her a kiss and mouthed, "I love you," to Rosa before hanging his head low and shuffling away.

He looked for zombies before he unlocked the gate stepped out. He didn't see any zombies in his neighborhood, but he knew that he would see them soon. Then he began to groan like a zombie and shuffle. When he veered into King Street, he saw the zombies. There were many men, women and children in various stages of decomposition. Some zombies looked like they were recently dead. Benito fooled them all.

Benito shuffled to the direction the grocery store. It would take a very long while to get to the store at a zombie's pace. He hoped that he could return home before night, but he knew that wouldn't be possible.

There were many zombies of all ethnicities. The Indian girl zombie wore a bright red sari with a pink edge. She didn't have any wounds. If there was such a thing as a beautiful death, then she had one. A zombie of a Vietnamese girl wore something very pretty, a purple colored ao dai, but it was stained red. It looked like she died from slashing her wrists. Benito thought that had they been alive they would have been beautiful women. Their presence comforted him because they looked like they died in America but not Americanized.

Then he remembered his children, who spoke English most of the times and sometimes they forgot certain words in Spanish. He feared that someday they would lose their heritage and become like Gringos.

Some how, they had to remember where they came from. How could they look so ethnic, but not know how to speak Spanish? But that was possible. So many Latin looking people sometimes only spoke English. Benito called those people pochos, which meant rotten in Spanish. They didn't celebrate the traditions and holidays of their forefathers. But if that Hindu woman could die as a Hindu, and that Vietnamese girl could die and still keep her Viet identity, then why not his children?

Then he remembered something that the coyote said to him in the desert. You either assimilate, or you die.

That meaning suddenly took a different and cynical meaning for Benito. He almost snorted, almost laughed, but he didn't. Had he done that, the zombies would have noticed that he was living. He shuffled to the direction of the grocery store, the sun started to fall into the west. The sky was a bright red.

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: It's even more edited, and more streamlined... although, it's not what I orginally envisioned. But sometimes a story has its own life and it will do whatever it wants to do. October 09, 2009.

THE GLORY HOLE
by Ché Enrique Muñoz Ramírez

I
Gabriel's dad was dying, and that made Gabriel very horny. Before settling on the glory holes at the adult bookstore, Gabriel considered several places. First he decided to use the public library, but he owed books. He then thought about using the cemetery, but he didn't want to get dirty.

Stomach cancer ate at his old man's guts. Doctors diagnosed it terminal and couldn't do anything else for him but manage his pain with morphine. Gabriel's dad was once a boxer who weighed 215 pounds in the peak of his athleticism. But after his long illness, he wasted down to 110 pounds. He taught boxing at his own gym where he displayed all his trophies in a glass case. The men admired the old man's trophies and his skill, but they made fun of his son. Gabriel was effeminate, and the men couldn't refer Gabriel without calling him the faggot.

Gabriel preferred to be called Gaby, said that his favorite color was pink, and pretended to be like Alice in Wonderland. At first his dad tried to overlook his girly ways, but he couldn't. He believed boxing would masculinize him, and so he tried to teach his son the art. But Gabriel didn't want to learn. If he didn't want to learn, the dad thought, then he would have to coax his son to fight.

For years he tried to force the fight out of Gabriel. Then one day the old man caught Gabriel playing hooky from school, sleeping in bed with another man. The man ran away, and the dad strapped on his gloves and threw another pair at his son.

"My son ain't a faggot," he said to Gabriel, "so fight!"

"I don't want to fight you, dad," Gabriel said, and then he cried. In one swift move his dad smashed his fist across Gabriel's face. That punch was lucky for Gabriel because it knocked him out unconscious. He never felt his bones snap, or his skull crack. Gabriel spent weeks in the hospital recuperating, and he never returned home. Gabriel wouldn't even visit his dad in the hospital, but sometimes he imagined his dad lying bed, sometimes gasping for air.

That made Gabriel insufferably horny.

The clouded see-through window shined bright acid green, and then faded blue. Gabriel's dark booth dilated his pupils until they reached the rims of his eyes, and shrunk when somebody entered the next booth. A ray of light passed through the glory hole before disappearing, and a man's shadow lingered behind the cloudy see-through window.

Floppy antennas sprung out of the head of the man's shadow. It didn't matter for Gabriel. He knelt down, looked through the glory hole, and saw no one. The man pressed huge hands on the glass and dragged his long nails down. Gabriel cringed at the scratching sound, and he peered through the glory hole again and saw an empty booth. He then stood up, fed a 5-dollar bill to the arcade, and activated the see-through.

At the other side of the window stood a pink bunny behind the mirror. It grinned with and a jagged brown smile. Its vertical pupils dilated within golden, baseball-sized eyes. A large zipper dashed from its groin to its neck. The big shiny metal tag hung under its chin and shun in the blue tints and the green tones of the booth.

"You're a funny bunny," Gabriel said, "Nice costume. It looks real." The bunny wiggled its nose, blinked, and then lifted both of its pink ears until they brushed the ceiling. Purple and red veins webbed the pale inner ear. The bunny pointed to the glory hole. Gabriel tried to leave, but the door wouldn't open.

The window clouded up again, but no shadow of the bunny lingered behind it. A soft cylinder of daylight streamed through the glory hole, reflecting particles of floating dust. Gabriel peered through the glory hole again.

An old dusty sandlot sprawled at the other side. It was the same one that Gabriel visited as a boy. The sandlot wasn't supposed to exist anymore. The city tore it down to beautify the land with an upper class condominium. At the center of the baseball field laid a baseball in the dust and sand. The bat reminded Gabriel of his favorite baseball bat, the one his dad bought for him for his 6th birthday.

Gabriel closed his eyes, rubbed the warm slick of his palm from his forehead down to his chin, and then laughed. He closed his eyes for several seconds and hoped that the sandlot and baseball bat would disappear. When he opened them, the bunny glared at Gabriel through the glory hole.
The bunny pried its fingers in the glory hole, and begun to stretch it. Gabriel cried for help as he tried to open the door. The bunny stretched the hole large enough to crown its head through and when half of the bunny's body hung over the hole, it grabbed Gabriel

"Let go!" Gabriel screamed, but the bunny pulled him to the other side. He kicked at the bunny until his foot smashed one of its large eyes. The bunny let go, and squealed. Gabriel climbed out of the glory hole and tried to escape, but the bunny latched on to him again. They both fought, thrashing around the booth until Gabriel slammed the bunny at the door. The door swung open and Gabriel tried to escape, but the bunny tackled him down.

Large pink claws chocked his neck, and the bunny pinned him down. Gabriel gasped for air as he fought against the bunny. The edges of his sight darkened, but the zipper tag glinted. His hands shot for the zipper, and he yanked it down. The flaps of his bunny's chest opened, and its heart pumped behind its rib cage.

Gabriel plunged his hands inside the bunny's chest and squeezed its heart. The bunny screamed, but Gabriel squeezed its heart until it stopped beating. When the bunny's body went limp. Gabriel pushed the bunny's body to the side, and started to run out of the adult bookstore. He did not look back to see if the bunny chased him, and he did not looked ahead to see where he ran. Drivers swerved to avoid him, but a car struck him nonetheless.

"I'm being chased." Gabriel tried to tell the people who clamored around him. Blood spread around his body and made a red halo in the road. "Don't let him get me." Then the face of the bunny appeared in the crowd. Its heart beat inside its opened chest. The bunny carried a metal baseball bat that was at the other side of the glory hole, and Gabriel recognized that it belonged to him. The bunny held the bat high into the air with both hands, and it gleamed in front of the sun. The light from the bat blinded Gabriel's eyes. Then the bunny swung it at Gabriel's face, knocking him out.

II

Gabriel spent several days recuperating in the same room where his dad was dying. His mom forced him to share the same room with his dad. Gabriel told her to get him another room because his dad babbled to himself, spat and shat all the time. It grossed Gabriel out. His mom wouldn't listen to him.

He thought about the bunny and wondered if it would come back for him. Gabriel remembered the sandlot and spent much time thinking about it until it bothered him enough to get up from his bed. He sighed, and he wished that he had something to occupy his mind.

A can of Barbasol shaving cream and an old fashioned straight razor sat on the table next to the old man. His mom brought it in so that she could shave him. Gabriel got up and went to grab the blade. His body hurt, but he didn't want to lie in bed anymore. A cloth and leather strop lied next to the Barbasol can. Gabriel took the shaving cream and lathered his dad's face. Gabriel then began to polish and sharpen the blade with the strops, remembering the first time when he saw the straight razor.

When Gabriel was a boy, he learned to shave his legs from watching his mom. It was just an experiment and he only had just a few soft hairs on his legs, but he felt so proud that he went to tell his dad.

"Hey, dad," Gabriel said, "I shaved today, and I think I did a good job."

"You shouldn't be shaving," his dad said, but his tone showed approval as he smiled. He grabbed Gabriel by the chin, and inspected his face and said, "Real men know how to shave, and boy you are a real man, though you didn't start with didn't you."

"No, dad, not there," Gabriel said, and he pulled his pant legs up. "Look! I think I do it better than girls." Gabriel then brought his knee to his face, smelled it, and then said, "Smells pretty." His dad sighed, and closed his eyes. He used the shaving cream in the pink can, the stuff that smelled like lavender, the stuff that all girly girls bought at either boutiques or the girl isle of the grocery store.

"Gabriel, son, don't do that because I don't want people think bad things about you."

"Like what, dad?" he said, "I thought you would be proud of me."

Gabriel's dad then said, "Men only shave their beards and mustaches, or sometimes their heads, and nowhere else. They only use a man's shaving cream with a man's razor, or a straight edge, just like your grandpa's." His dad then took him to his room and showed him the straight edge, safely tucked in his underwear drawer.

"Your grandpa gave this to me," his dad said, "and he was a true man."

"Did he show you how to use it, dad?" Gabriel asked.

"He did, and he taught me how to box too. He was proud of me."

"And are you proud of me, dad?" Gabriel asked, but his dad said nothing at all.

The straight edge made loud scraping noises under his dad's neck. He then pushed it into the doughy neck, and the old man's skin cushioned around the blade. His dad babbled something unintelligible and his drool mixed with the shaving cream.

Sunlight streaming through the window bounced off the blade, and the light shot at Gabriel's eyes. They stung with sweat, but he saw something pink shine in the reflection. The bunny stood behind Gabriel and waved hello to him. It wore a pink colored hospital gown. Blood flowed from its neck and poured down on its chest. Then the bunny's head slid off and dangled on a piece of sinew, and swayed on its zippered bosom. Its gaping mouth revealed a red meaty tongue, which twitched around. The bunny then winked and smiled at Gabriel.

Gabriel spun around but the bunny wasn't there, except in the reflection of the blade where it continued waving hello at him.

"Gabby?" His dad said, "Is that you, Gabby?"

"Yeah, it's me," Gabriel said. He grabbed the towel, wiped the blade with it.

"Hey, Gabby," his dad said. "What's happening?"

"I shaved you," Gabriel said and then covered the towel around the blade before setting it down. His hand shook so much that he clenched them.

"That's nice," and then his dad breathed in deep, taking in the scent of Barbosol before coughing. He touched his face, and said, "Close shave, Gabby."

"The closest, dad."

"Did I tell you that straight edge belong to my dad?"

"Yeah, dad."

"Oh." He said. "I want you to have it when I'm dead."

"Thanks." Gabriel said, and then they didn't speak for a while. The heart monitor beeped, and then his dad spoke, "Gabby, what's heaven like?"

The question shocked Gabriel and his first reaction cynicism, but he didn't say anything. He knew what heaven was like.

"Wonderland just before sunset. The sun just hangs above there, flaring bright orange. Puffs of dust and sand. The grit gets into your eyes but it feels like pure rain. The wind sounds like hummingbirds singing. The air tastes sweet and cold like slightly melted ice cream. Yellow weeds like melted gold. Sunflowers growing from old peanut shells. And always, there is a game."
"It sounds perfect..." the father said, but his words came out drowsily. It seemed he fell asleep.
"He loves you so much," his mom said, who came quietly behind them. "He just didn't know how to say it. He's just too macho."

"I wish things could be different between us," Gabriel said to his mom, "wished that he could say, 'I love you,' or anything to let me know, you know, that he was proud of me."

"Gabby, I don't think he will approve of you. But love, that's something real men can do."

"Yeah right, goddamn bastard," Gabriel said as he wiped the tears out of his eyes. His mom sighed. She grabbed him on the point of his chin, held his face up, and wiped his tears for him with soft fingertips that smelled like lotion.

"He's part of an older time, but that didn't mean he didn't love you," she said. "Gabby, real men love their kids."

"But not proud. Never proud." He began to cry.

"That's where you're wrong again." She said.

"Yeah? Then why did he try to kill me?"

His mom paused, and then went to his dad and wiped shaving cream residue off his face with her hand. Then she said her answer.

"When you were a boy, I used to be upset by how you used to behave. I got over it because it's easier for me to accept, but not for your papa. He worried about you most because he was afraid of the people who lived in our world. He was afraid people would hurt you, and that's why he wanted you to fight. He tried to make you into a fighter because that was his way of showing love, but I think he now realizes that he didn't need to do that because you've always been a fighter. It took him a while to get there, but he's proud of you."

"Very proud, Gabby." His dad said, "Gabby, I'm proud. And you were so good at baseball." Then he began to hum the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," sometimes slurring the lyrics, before he fell unconscious again.

Gabriel cried with his mom.

III

For several hours Gabriel and his mom shared ambivalent silence, hearing his dad's heart monitor beep. Then came the moment when the rhythmic beating of the heart monitor wailed.

"Mom," Gabriel said, but she squeezed his hand

"It will be done soon," she said, "don't fight it."

"Don't fight, mom?" He said again, but she held him as she began to cry.

The nurse and doctor came, but they did nothing for the old man. The doctor checked the dad's body, and made sure he was dead before pronouncing the hour of death to the nurse. The nurse turned off his heart monitor and said sorry to the family for their loss. Gabriel hugged his crying mom.

IV

The funeral was done, and the friends and family were gone.

For the funeral, Gabriel shaved himself with his dad's straight edge. When he was done with it, he saved it in his sock drawer.

Many people came to his dad's funeral, and they were his fans and they spoke of his victories. But Gabriel didn't want to talk with them. He left the funeral parlor to be alone. He returned to the adult bookstore, and went back to the booth with the glory hole. But the owners of the porno shop bolted a heavy metal plate at the glory hole. Gabriel tried to take off the piece of metal, but he couldn't.
He took out a few dollars and fed them to the arcade. The button to activate the window flashed. Gabriel pushed the button.

The old baseball field sprawled at the other side of the see-through mirror, and the bunny stood at the pitcher's mound. It wore a pink colored baseball uniform. The sun hung in the air, and painted the sandlot a bright imperial orange. Gabriel raised his hand and waved hello to the bunny, and the bunny did the same. It wriggled its nose, and a pink ear fell over its giant brown eye. It shook it away from its uncanny face. Gabriel laughed at the bunny, and wondered why he was afraid. It was a funny bunny.

His palms pushed on the see-through, and it flexed. It bent like rubber, but its surface rippled like water. Gabriel pushed one arm through, and the sensation felt like plunging his arm into gelatin. The bunny shook its head and swung back its floppy ears away from its face again. It bade Gabriel to come to him with its clawed fingers, but the gesture didn't frighten Gabriel.
Gabriel pushed his other hand through the see-through, and then plunged his head through the glass. He crawled through the mirror.

Gabriel fell at the other side of the see-through onto the ground. Dust flew up and then fell down. He stood up to see the see-through. The see-through mirror hung in the air, and it showed the booth and the TV on the other side. The TV illuminated the room, made it glow green and blue. He saw his childhood baseball bat on the ground, and he picked it up. He swung the bat at the see-through mirror and smashed it into pieces.

Gabriel turned around and smiled at the bunny, and it grinned in return. The bunny began to unzip its zipper, and its insides showed a man instead of guts.

He began to remove the big fuzzy skin, and it fall into the dust. Then he pulled off its head. The bunny's head blinked several times, the vertical pupils dilated a few times as its tongue lolled in its mouth. The man inside was tall, handsome, and fierce looking but, he was smiling at Gabriel.

"Dad..." Gabriel said.

"You're ready too play, Gabby?" his dad said, holding the bunny head under one arm. He tossed the bunny head away and kicked the suit off the pitcher's mound. He looked young and powerful, but a little unkempt. He had a baseball in his hand and he smacked it inside his glove.

"Yeah, dad!" Gabby said in a young boy's voice. He looked like a small boy, wearing a little leaguer's uniform.

"I'm not going to be easy on you," his dad cried, "you know that, right?"

"Since when were you ever easy on me, dad?" Gabriel said as he swiped at his nose and then smacked the bat at the soles of his feet. His dad tipped his hat and then he threw the baseball. The ball flew at Gabriel, and he swung the bat. The baseball disappeared into the sun, and Gabriel ran to first base-second base-third base-and then... HOME RUN!

"You done real good, Gabby," his dad said, and he picked his boy up over his shoulders. Gabriel clasped his hands under his dad's chin. It felt like he needed a shave.

"That was real good," his dad said, and Gabriel closed his eyes. His hands rubbed the stubble under his dad's chin. He was falling fast asleep on top of his dad's shoulders, and the words came out of his mouth drowsily, "Love you, dad."

Updated: 10/10/09 2:58 AM 3 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!

Oh god, why can't I stop eating frozen blueberries lately?
First thing I do when I wake up is eat a large handful before exercising...

when I'm done exercising, I eat my bowl of oatmeal... chuck full of blueberries.

I want a snake... handful of frozen blueberries. They're like tiny little popsicles, or something.

I want something sweet to drink.
Blend some blueberries in blender with pieces of mango.

Post workout protein drink...
used to drink just the protein with water. Now, I can't stand it without a bunch of blueberries in them.

Dinner today... I ate some chicken with guacamole and salsa, which was spicy and nice but a bit too hot that time. I had blueberries to cool down.

Seriously...
I'm down to two to three big giant bags of a week.

I don't know if there is too much of a good thing when it comes to blueberries, but I hope there isn't.

And the thing is... they got to be frozen. No blueberry muffins or blueberry poptarts.

Meh--

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