The TA'CONE

This is my official notice to you, the Public, that I've just birthed the concept that will bankroll any future decades drooling in a convalescent home. I present to you the TA'CONE: a fast food delicacy with the shape and texture of an ice cream cone, but consisting of a crispy fried yellow corn tortilla filled with customizable scoops of such gooey sensations as beans, beef, salsa, guacamole, orange-colored cheese shreds, and sour cream. Mexican/Arctic fusion, yet 100% All American.

To the legions of corporate strategists grasping for new combinations of the same sixteen ingredients that will fatten both the populace and your pocketbooks as quickly and efficiently as possible: eat your hearts out. I thought of this first.

The Security man

If you worked for the Department of Homeland Security, would you walk around wearing all black, with a walkie talkie strapped to your belt, and the logo of the Department of Homeland Security silk-screened in silver on your ball cap, your lapel, your jacket sleeve, and the back of your jacket? When I ask you how's it going, would you reply "Long as things stay quiet tonight, fine"? Is it the Department's strategy to recruit out of shape and slightly overweight people to mosey through their days dressed like a SWAT team, thereby hoodwinking ever-watching enemies into believing that the Homeland is barren of truly scary defenders? Or would this be an impostor, perhaps a white-supremacist militia member, patrolling a grocery store in Montana where almost everyone's white anyway... I want to know, but this is a story I'm not writing. It's one with only empty space where the next words should be.

Millisecond

The first second a person looks at me, there is an instant of honesty before the curtains draw. I see a woman who is sick of life. I see a guy who is ready to fight with his buddy. The girl in a track suit wishes the cake were hers and not the salad. The soul of the staggering man writes novels but can't maneuver a notebook close enough to spill them into. Then the faces register a spectator, the fabric drops over and the polite smile, the harried endurance, are screened over its thick folds.

Residency

I call the university to ask about proving state residency and they direct me to a form on the registrar's website. I go to the registrar's office to pick up a copy but am informed it is available only online. I return home to print it but my printer is out of toner. I go to the library and print the form there. I fill in the form but don't understand some of the questions. I call the registrar's office but they are not open so I leave a message but never get a call back. I call again when they are open and the person who answers transfers me to the woman who handles residency applications. The call goes to voicemail, where her message instructs all students with questions about residency applications to send an email and allow five days for a reply. I send an email with four questions and wait ten days but there is no reply. I go back to the registrar's office and the man there answers some of my questions. When he reaches a question he cannot answer, he directs me to the real registrar's office, the existence of which I was unaware. Until now I had been visiting only an outpost of the real office. I go to the real office and discover that the woman who handles residency applications has a desk there, and office hours, and that, voicemail message to the contrary, the best way to get a question answered about residency is to visit her in person. Her office hours are happening now, but she is with another student and I must leave for work. I return another day and sit with her, and she answers more of my questions. Then she discovers that I am not currently attending class, that I intend to start in the fall. "Oh," she says, "then this is the wrong application for you. You need to go to the admissions office and use their application, because you are still an incoming student." She gives me the name and number of the woman in admissions who handles residency. I leave her office, almost toss the old application into a recycling bin, and go to the admissions office. The woman is at lunch. But it is fortunate that I kept the old application, because it is identical to the new application, save one page. I kneel at the desk and fill out the one page then and there, heedless of the offer of a chair in which to sit while I do so. I reluctantly entrust the paperwork to the receptionist to put into my file for safekeeping until within thirty days of my one-year anniversary of state residency, at which point I will return and officially submit my application to the woman currently at lunch and pray that the receptionist actually saved and correctly filed the copies of my taxes, driver's license, voter registration card, lease, and vehicle registration, which I had collected and copied and had notarized from various offices around the city.

Multiply this by federal taxes, by Montana taxes, by Georgia taxes, and by several other mundane and kafkaesque matters of paperwork that have entered my life. I awaken at 5:38 am to write a blog about it and the server nearly resets my entry to a blank screen when I attempt to publish the paragraph.

And I wonder where my time has gone.

Rain

It crawls over the horizon, sending promising filaments of white into the mountain pines at high altitude, then cedes to an hour of unforecast but familiar sun, which blasts cheerily into the valley. It makes happiness, of course, but buds and roots hunger for the gray edge in the west. Then the wind whips up and the temperature drops off, and the cloud pulls down over the peaks again, rushes down until the mountain is invisible, white only, and the air in the valley crackles with change. People lean into the wind. They walk faster, shop faster. The pace of business quickens as those in the store hurry to finish their missions of resupply, but few new customers come through the doors. Those who do dart through the aisles, hastily plucking three or four things to get them through the short term.

By the time it arrives, the rain finds an empty canvas in the parking lot. It spatters it with tiny uniform dots, testing, testing, then with medium ones, then large, now covers it completely, along with every surface under the sky, the whole valley subject to its brush, then its sponge, then its roller. For the first time in months rain falls in steady constancy, layer upon layer, filling every opening, crowding out air and loosing a smell of freshness, rebirth, ozone, energy, spring. Gravity pulls the rain to earth yet faster, as if water needs encouragement to sink, to penetrate, to fill every gap in concrete, dirt, or skin. The workers idle and watch it come, no longer workers but rainwatchers every one.

Reading

It has been a drought, reading only for information, clicking staring at the Latest Headlines tab from the BBC online, ticking off joyless strips on comics pages under bowls of soup consumed in short breaks in small rooms, reading self-improvement tomes and taking notes, wheedling a stubborn brain to shake free a little insight. There have been instruction manuals, cookbooks and guides to filling out the necessary forms. While striding in place on an elliptical trainer, a parade of vacuous magazines offer cliches and one-page profiles of success-oriented individuals. It's wise to sanitize afterward. A fat book of philosophy by the bedside, excellent but dense as a brick, provides three or four sentences of bushwhacking each night, then the forager falls off the cliff into sleep.

Then a book on the table. Left by a visitor for someone else to read, but after driving home through the rain and eating a long chain of crackers and peanut butter and falling into the couch while the intended someone else programs a computer, the book is there. Opened randomly in the middle, picked up and entered. And it's like diving into the ocean. Doesn't matter which story, which of the seven basic plots, only that it engulfs, eclipses, and one plunges in. Time is gone, and task, and the pages devour the reader and the reader the pages, waves of narrative and motif breaking over not only the brain but the being. Several hours later, much later than advisable for tomorrow's mood, spent but unfinished, rising from the trance, a slumbering thirst has been awakened and for the moment fulfilled. A tired joy endures, of existence beyond what's seen and merely informed.

Parting cloud

A wing unrolled from the cloud. The cloud continued its eastward drift, but its appendage did not. It stretched away from its source, angling toward nothing. The netting of water drops connecting cloud annex to cloud central thinned languidly, strands releasing and parting. The whiteness of connection disappeared bit by bit, though nothing changed: the water, still all there, the wind, still moving, the weight of the air, the sun striking it, the land below. And like that, the wing was off, and then it melted out of visibility entirely. Gone but there; there but gone. And the cloud itself unravelled into sky over the next while, so slowly that it would not be measured in time, only perhaps recorded in an unwritten book of events that are sure to happen nearly unnoticed for no particular reason in a way that changes nothing although afterwards, a very full emptiness drifts on.

Lists 3: Sucked under the belt at the grocery store.

(In order of increasing size.)

Stickers.
Dollar bills.
Deli meal tickets.
Coins.
Arguments made with eyes.
Packets of powdered Emergen-C.
Packets of seeds.
Focus.
Vacuum-packed bacon, 6 oz.
Portion of my palm.
Bunch of green onions in rubber band.
Weeks.

(Cell phones are unfortunately not yet thin enough to be sucked under.)

Sister

My sister is giving birth one thousand miles away. I lie awake, my oven on the self-cleaning cycle, cramps and sleeplessness and too much thought, while her oven has baked its bun brown and ready to pull out with burning hands. She lies awake feeling her insides glow orange and the bread rising, steaming. I bend to one side, hope to melt the cramp, and send my energy to her side. I charge toward sleep, for in dreams they will reach me: the faroff cries of new life.

To let a quiet man be

The man seated in the deli was motionless. There was no plate or cup before him, nor newspaper nor wallet. His head was bowed. I went round with my broom and pan to glance from the corner of my eye, pretending to sweep crumbs. Yes, he is asleep. Sleeping in the deli after sunset on St. Patrick's Day. I should tell a manager, I suppose, and do: "There's a man sleeping in the deli."

I expect action but she says, "Oh yes... he's been there since six, I think." She blinks. "He doesn't seem to be drunk and he isn't noisy, so we will let him stay."

I am glad and tell her. How hard was that? How hard to let a quiet man sleep, here in a place of commerce on a night known for wildness? So easy. An easy kindness. Why not? Who would be hurt? Yet so few I know would let him be.

In the dark before dawn

In the dark before dawn when you roll over in bed and discover that you are mostly awake
There is a space inside where you move about, even as you lie still and hope for more sleep
Sometimes you wander through glens of green flowers with yellow stems
Sometimes you follow the sound of crashing water, knowing once you arrive
You'll dissolve into the falls
But sometimes mind grabs control, and you become instead a dot matrix printer
Grinding out lists and points of contention and important things to remember
And it goes like this, wandering in place, until dawn.

The laugher

He's got the curse of drawing people, the curse of ants to honey, of rubber necks to car wrecks, but his is the smallest and most odd I've seen: it's a monumental laugh. Audible from fifty paces, a series of joyful barks as from a seal with an amp, from an otherwise nondescript man. When he lets loose, one can barely believe the din's coming from him. I admit, sometimes when I see him coming, I ramp up the schtick just to see if I can get him going. Awful, no? Some people attract others not by their real being, but by a surface beauty, or a stockpile of assets, or a viper of fame round their necks, and must filter true friends from the swarm of moths drawn to their flame. This fellow has only to sort out who's goofing him from true camaraderie, and who's goofing just to get their ears blown back.

You're all the ones I've been waiting for

It's you! At last! I've been here all evening, and finally it's you! Let's talk, let's smile, let me look into your eyes while we transact. You're the chosen one, you've won the lottery for delight. What's new with you? Tell me all about your life, then have a good night, a best night if you can. Enjoy your purchase, but don't be surprised that I'm just as excited for the one behind. There's something in my eye, a namaste you might say, so all I see is each chosen one in front of me. By morning it'll wear off, dissolve away, but as long as you're within range of my beaming, caught in this dream, let's laugh. What do you say?

Her companion

The young woman has a limp. Also a wooden staff, ornately burned, which shows that the limp is committed to her and she to it. The staff shines on each end: one rubs the ground and the other her hand. Though indoors, she wears a leather cowboy hat and black sunglasses. A coiled wire figure-eight, or is it a tilted infinity, pins a pair of blue feathers to her hatband. She leans into one bookcase and then the next, going about chores in silence. There is no smile under the hat. The limp has introduced her to many more years than she owns. Still, she is content, and as anyone would, fills her tilted basket full.

Germophilia

"Hope you feel better soon," I tell Imma, handing her a receipt as she leaves. The next lady in line, inches away from releasing her purse onto the counter, suddenly frees herself from gravity and sucks her possessions and facial features upward. She leans away, but hisses with the air of someone leaning in: "Does she have The Flu?"

"Oh no, just a sore throat I think," I reply, from within a mask of cheer.

"Oo. Ooo," she coos, peering at the counter as she would a fresh grave. "I'm a huge germophobe. I think I don't want to set anything down here."

"Well, ah, I'm sure I could wipe it down for you, or would you like some sanitizer?" I reach for my spray bottle and cloth, but her face remains frozen in arches.

"Um, I think I'll just go to another desk."

Her caution has saved her from the plague, she thinks. But who do you think touched the door handle, I want to ask her, or the pens? The delivery confirmation slips? Who stacked the brochures there for you? Who stocked the walls with boxes and stamps? Who coughed in the entry? Who sighed? Her lack of thoroughness in paranoia is disappointing. Why settle for neurosis? If one really wants to be positive of one's hygiene, commit to psychosis. Witness the colorful festival of bacteria dancing on all surfaces, not just toilets and doorknobs. Acknowledge the legion of supremely creative viruses, struggling to evolve as all life forms do, all of us parasites thriving upon other beings to survive. Tremble at the ugly, though incomplete, truth: it's a race to the death, and enemies dwell within necessary oxygen, food and drink, elimination. There is no escape.

The woman has settled at Shanelle's counter. Shanelle hands her a book of stamps, perfectly concealing her sinus headache and congested nasal passages, smiling and nodding. Meanwhile, I greet my next customer, who twiddles his sniffly nose, then reaches forward kindly to shake my hand.

Students at the asylum

She walks us over calm green lawns into the stuccoed belltower building. A fountain bubbles, carved with ample time by long-since-dead artisans in Roosevelt's WPA. It's tiled in yellow and blue ceramic, brightened by a flood of California sun. Once an asylum, today a small public university. Here is her office, admissions, a counseling center. There are now gates in the fences, which were fences built for show, one senses: anyone with a hint of pep and a three-step start could clear them and tackle the foothills beyond. She passes us by the art studio, wide and luxuriantly stocked. Colonial windows bow open to yield summer air, filtered by rising green scribbles of ivy. Students past, among you Charlie Parker, was it too bad a place to be stuck, in either sense of the word? A few say the Eagles wrote Hotel California about the place in its mad days, but only an unrefurbished dormitory makes sinister suggestions: smoke stains, windowless cells. Soon painters will come and leave a cheery white coat. Masons will make holes for the sun, then the new class will arrive.

The voice of Judy Collins

The voice of Judy Collins plain and powerful comes from the tape player across the room while I lay looking at plastic stars taped to the ceiling, glow-in-the-dark. I am in bed, not falling asleep. The voice of Judy Collins sings five songs, then the player clunks and the tape hiss quits. I get out of bed and flip the tape to the other side, six songs. Words I know by heart. I also know most people my age listen to pop from now, not folk from twenty years ago, but I don't feel strange. It is true, but not something I know, that the voice of Judy Collins is what my mother's voice would sound like if she were to sing, if my mother were to stand in front of people and sing from behind long hair and a white dress. Those are the songs she would sing and how she would sing them, if she ever raised her voice.

E1

It was the baby's fault, maybe. "I got to stop somewhere, Mam," I say. "Gini's thirsty."

"Not one of those places," Mami carps as I turn toward a shop. She hates coffee that comes in paper cups and is not Bustelo. But I hold the door open, steadying the stroller with one foot, and she goes in. I leave her at a table by the window, paging through a daily paper.

Twelve minutes later, I come out of the bathroom and if Mam isn't under the table pretending to faint. The newspaper's still on top, fanned open. Lucky for me it's 3 pm and very slow and the coffee servers are busy typing into their phones, not worrying about the lady who slid onto the floor. You couldn't even see her from the street, just a paper on a table with a girl rushing toward it, carrying a baby.

Mam's god is not subtle, that's for sure: right on E1 is the photo of me modeling that ostrich feather stuff of Doro's, with the hat that looks like Rubik's cubes stuffed inside a hen. Leave it to her God to stick that photo under her nose. Leave it to me to forget to hide it. I rub her shoulder, but she ignores me. Gini thinks this is extra fun and crawls onto Mam's neck, squealing. But Mam's staring into the future and sees a teenage Gini begging, or talking to a psychiatrist, or majoring in women's studies or something awful like that. She sees herself in a sweatsuit eating cat food, calling pigeons to her windowsill for company. As if imagination were destiny.

"Mami, get off the floor. If you stay here they'll make you buy something."

"That job will make you famous and you'll leave us. You'll fly off and be flat and cheap like that photo." Perfume rises where Gini tugs the folds of her blouse, making a small atmosphere around us.

"No. I won't. We'll be fine." Is this true? My mother takes five long breaths, staring at the bottom of the table, deciding. She is beautiful there, braid pressed into the floor, baby pawing her brooch of false gold lilies. She feels my eyes on her beauty, the beauty she gave me, copied in papers to sell clothes, that will maybe let my daughter live in beauty too. After the last exhalation, she turns her eyes to mine and, for now, forgives:

"Next time you show me first. There's more rotten pink gum under the tables in these places than a lady should see."

Homecoming

The city is suddenly antiseptic. Sure, I moved to the suburbs to escape the filth, but I'm a little nostalgic for the cocked shoulders of gutter punks, for the rhythmless hippies flogging djembe, for the minor river of paper and dust that teased ankles and eddied down alleys. Mayor Schwarz did a bang-up job, I've got to admit.

I had envisioned a parade of turning heads, old haunts glowing with they-knew-me-when. Instead, newspapers hang open off coffee shop tables, abandoned after the business-lunch rush, their me-centered headlines readerless, unappreciated. This was supposed to be my homecoming.

The cell phone whines in my pocket and I ignore it. No doubt it's Marie wanting an explanation for my lateness to the benefit. I've quit smoking, I decide, except for one more here and now, though I half expect some cop to politely ask me to crush it out. Perhaps it's good to have a disappointing return. Discontent is a great motivator, and if I intend to follow the limelight, I'd better work up a few more stones in my shoes, burrs in my gloves. Nicotine tars my lungs, then disperses tiny clouds of pollution and ego into the neighborhood.

Our sky

We look at the night sky, and what we most want to find are invisible lines between stars that other people have fixed, and named, the shape of a hunter or a woman, a house or a crown or an earth animal. And we like best the brightest ones, the ones closest to us. This way the sky is ours: in our image, members graded by their nearness to our own star. On this planet we are all the dust of stars, clots of aggregate miraculously aware and centered in our own selves. We are all stars. But stargazers remember: stars are not all us.