Feasts of Reason and Flows of Soul

By Tom McTighe
Illustrated by Xtal Giarth

I'm sure the Sisters of Service have some detractors in town, on account of our founder, Rebecca, who used to be the Dirty Woman, but I'm proud of what we do. I think we help some people. But some people think we're weird, because of Rebecca. See, she's not the Dirty Woman anymore, but she used to be, and she used to be a real crazy sight.

They called her that because she was always about as filthy as a person could get. From head to toe, it looked like she'd never had a bath or seen a bar of soap in her life. Except for the whites of her eyes and her teeth, which were as white as salt, her body was always covered in ash-gray dirt. She was weird, but it got to be kind of special to spot her as I drove around town with my mom. She was something different, alright. On top of being incredibly dirty all the time, she wore some pretty wacky outfits. On a hot summer's day, for instance, she might've worn a one-piece bathing suit with a frilly pink tutu over it. She always turned heads. And when she spoke her face and her voice were very animated. It looked like the faces of my mother's new friends, actually, when they speak to me or my dog. She was always smiling in this exaggerated way, and as she crossed the street she might say to a guy in his car, "What a bright, shiny car! It must go very fast! You must be very happy!" In a way, no one would say that, it was very weird, but in a way, it made sense – she was being like a clown, or like how a teacher is sometimes, playing a part.

I had a few good teachers in school, actually. I got along with them better than most of the kids. I was smart, but not the kind of smart that makes you lots of friends, more like the kind of smart that gets you tripped in the hall. People seemed really bothered when I got an answer right, and it also seemed to bother them that my clothes weren't always brand new. It was when we were shopping for school clothes at the mall that I had my first run-in with Rebecca.

It was winter, and she wore this huge fur coat in winter, but at the mall we'd see her without it on, and I always wondered where she could've stashed it. Then one day I saw a security guard, a round little woman, leading her out of the mall, and Rebecca said in her crazy smiling way, "What? Wait. Where is my coat? Let me get it first, please." Once the lady let go of her arm, she darted up an escalator. I followed at a distance, but lost her, and went into the bathroom. There she was. It was weird seeing someone like that, with the reflections in the mirrors and everything. I passed her and she smiled that strained smile at me. Once in the stall, I paused, hearing the shuffling of paper, and then I came back out to see what she was doing, and found her dragging her big coat out of the trashcan. She looked up at me, afraid, and so I said, "Don't worry. It's Okay. I won't tell," and she looked at me like a cat you don't know does sometimes, like saying, "Can I really trust you?" and then she got out of there. After that I started seeing her around more often.

And then of course came the day at the Y when she walked into the locker room with that huge bag of beauty products from Sav-On: shampoo, conditioner, soap, big sponges, fingernail clippers, fingernail file, cotton swabs, shaving cream, razors – it was hilarious. She got under the water and shouted. And then after a while she started singing:

I'm not the Dirty Woman anymore!
I'm not the Dirty Woman anymore!
I may be old
I may be poor
But I'm not the Dirty Woman anymore!

She asked me to scrub her back and I did it. I wasn't scared or anything. She didn't look at me with that clown face – like my mom's friend Dale, who wears her smile like it's a mask that's hiding a face full of worms – she gave me a smile that made me feel appreciated.

Once I had asked my mom where the Dirty Woman went when we didn't see her, and my mom got a faraway look on her face and said, "Oh, she goes back to her mansion in the woods and gets cleaned up and then spends a few days walking around in a clean white linen dress, sipping a glass of imported water from France, I suppose." But that day in the locker room I found out that she hadn't taken a shower in two whole years.

My mom has always been pretty relaxed, but I knew she wouldn't understand about the Service, so I've never told her. We always got along fine, but she's always smoked a lot of pot – I don't know, I never thought we really bonded like we could have, but we were always friends. We were close, but then not really, too. We'd snuggle up and watch movies together, but I never poured my heart out to her or anything. I guess she got lonely, because she started making friends with the women from work. They'd go out after work, or on the weekends they'd help each other with their landscaping projects. I was happy that she'd found some friendship, I just wished she hadn't had to stretch so far to get it.

After Rebecca got all cleaned up, I gave her my gym clothes to wear home. I know, that sounds gross, but they were a lot nicer than what she had with her. Her hair was a mess, too. We did the best we could with it, but it was a real mess. She ended up going to Cost Cutters in the mall the next day and getting it all cut off, and now she wears it really short and all slicked back – she really looks like a totally different person now. Lots of people don't even know she used to be the Dirty Woman.

Later that week Rebecca started the Sisters of Service, then I joined up. That June I turned sixteen, and I got a job at the Dairy Queen on Broadway. After about three months I was the manager, so when there was an opening I hired Rebecca. There are a couple other part-timers, but we actually work most of the shifts there. After eight hours the day is pretty shot anyway, so you might as well just stay working.

 

It's pretty good there. We get to eat a lot, and we can keep an eye out for anyone who looks like they might need the Service. The Service isn't a religion or anything, it's a service. Some people need the Service, some don't. We don't push it on anyone.

By Tom McTighe
Illustrated by Xtal Giarth

Abel felt bad, but he held the thing with both hands. His fingers could feel its little ribs. Eric tipped the can, spilling some gas. The cat squirmed wildly, and Eric couldn’t get it lit. Then Abel lost it. It darted left and away, slipping under the old Buick. Abel looked at the older boy’s red freckles. “Sorry,” he said.

“Jeez, it’s gone now. What are we supposed to do now?” Eric asked glumly. His face was pinched and severe, like he’d just sucked a lemon. Abel lowered his eyes to the stained cement floor of the garage. He thought the big oil spot looked like a giant lake, but from up in an airplane.

“Hey!” Abel said. “I’ve got my allowance and we could go up to Kapp’s and get some candy?”

“No way,” said Eric. The day was ruined. Eric left and Abel was alone. Abel wondered how fast the Buick used to be. It was a fixture in the garage, covered with out-of-season toys and junk and dust.

It was a windy day. The wind whistled in through a crack in the garage door. Abel found a spider web and went looking for something to put in there. One time he saw a great fight when he’d put a bee in a web. Far away, an ice cream truck played its tune. The cat came out from under the Buick and stood by the door at the back.

His mom called, dragging out his name. Her voice carried over the whole neighborhood. “Yeah?” he said. She lowered her voice. “Come in and eat, honey.”

“I’m not so hungry,” Abel said. He moved slowly toward the cat. The cat’s eyes widened. Her fur was matted and she stank of gasoline.

“Come on in, Abel. I made you a Wimpy--” Abel took up the cat, opened the door, and went around to the side of the house where the hose lay in a tangle. Eric is a jerk, he thought. I should kill him.

By Tom McTighe
Illustrated by Xtal Giarth

Come forth into the light of things
Let Nature be your Teacher
- Wordsworth

Although he was the third-best distance runner on the team, Errol had felt he was a little too smart for track and field. It had always been a great release, and at first he found a reward in working against himself and seeing what he was made of and all that, but then it began to seem senseless. He started to joke with his teammates as they ran their endless laps, yelling out to them, "Where are you going?"

Despite having given up sports, for a few years Errol continued to wear running shoes. They were comfortable, and he loved to travel by foot, and they lasted a long time, and he hated to spend money unnecessarily. One day, however, he found himself in the shoe section of a resale shop, in front of the size elevens, brought to this place by an almost unconscious need for a change. He was about to leave when his eye fell on a pair of brown loafers that looked almost new. He quickly sat down and put them on. They felt good. Just right. These shoes had a purpose. They were literary shoes. A thought shook him: he was through with running. He wasn't a runner. He was a poet! He left his running shoes outside on the lid of a trashcan. They still had some wear left in them, so he thought he might be able to save someone a few dollars, if someone else was through with their old identity and wanted to give running a try.

Errol admired his new shoes as he walked home from the resale shop. They were a color of brown that inspired him. After a mile of reflective walking, he noticed that their wide, flat soles made them slightly more comfortable than his old running shoes, though they hindered his naturally fast stride. At his new, slightly slower pace, he found that his thoughts weren't bent so forcibly inward, and that he could see the world more clearly. Now people seemed to have more distinct features, and all around him the world bloomed with fresh details.

Even so, his new fascination was tempered by his old disgust. He had always resented the ever-present thumbprint of human beings on the world: in popular music, with its torturing repetition, in the sameness of houses and streets, in the predicable plainness of everything manmade. Sometimes he would latch on to something new, a book or a band, and be buoyed up by its creative freshness, only to feel deflated a week later, once he found out what made it tick. He was either too smart or too dumb.

When he woke the next morning, he remembered his new shoes, and they filled him with confidence. On his walk to school his steps felt solid and sure. Throughout the morning he daydreamed about his new literary life. At lunch he found his friends at their usual table, laughing out loud. Donald, the star of the school's production of Our Town, had the floor. He had an expressive face that could pull a laugh out of a dying man, and he was on a roll. "Listen,” he continued over their laughter, “No, listen. I'm not joking! I'm not. They are strange people. You wouldn't believe it. They are odd, and they make me nervous--how could you feel comfortable around someone who puts on a smile like they're putting on a tie? For god's sakes! It's unnatural. And you!" He screeched incredulously, pointing an accusing finger at Phil, "you say you would like to sleep with one of these people? Are you sick? I'd rather go to bed with a corpse than sleep with an actor! Really, they're creepy, believe me--I know."

Errol’s friends were falling off their seats, choking on their lunches, but Errol checked his own laughter. Whenever he heard anyone talk so smoothly, it made him distrustful. Honest thoughts never flowed from his own mouth so easily. They emerged as little bits of speech, just half sentences, and only when they were all mostly out could he begin to summarize them. He felt that anyone who could speak so fluidly must have a kind of internal speech-writer who preprocessed their thoughts and reorganized them before they were spoken. He felt that as the phrasing of a thought was being straightened out there would be an irresistible temptation to polish its sentiments as well, which would, bottom line, distort the truth of what the person felt. Errol knew that he was probably the only one who had picked up on this.

After school, he saw Lokelani, the Hawaiian girl he knew from the track team, and glanced down--and there were the shoes saying Of course you can! He walked right up to the girl, and asked if she'd like to walk home, you know, with him. She was a grade younger, and he thought that she liked him, and all day he had felt like really doing something, and now he had his chance.

"Uh, Okay,” she said, but she seemed a little surprised. As his shoes goaded him on, he put his shoulders back and they headed across Ninth Street. It occurred to him that reality was what you made it, and that he could begin to make the world over as he thought it should be.

But by the time they had reached the far curb she had gently separated from him. "Oh hey, I forgot something. Um, see ya," she said, and she turned and re-crossed the street toward the school. Errol watched her go, only partly let down. Maybe the shoes hadn't given him an absolute free hand in reshaping his life, but in any event they had clearly helped him do something he never would have done on his own. He walked on toward downtown with a sense that more great things were in store.

On the way he passed through a residential neighborhood. There were dark shadows on bright green trees, and waxy, dark green leaves on the shrubs. A tree had fallen over from old age. An old woman said hello as he passed. A strip of tall grass divided two neighbors' manicured lawns. It was pleasant, but like a hospital's waiting room--it was too something--angular, somehow. There was a single-minded geometry to all the streets, the boulevards, the sidewalks, yards, and houses.

At the square in the center of downtown, he sat on a step next to a lone policeman, who silently observed. What did the cop look for when he scanned the clusters of families and the groups of high school and college kids, and the one knot of shirtless tattooed guys at the far end of the courtyard? What did he see?

Errol thought he might pass the time by eavesdropping, but no conversations were distinguishable from where he sat. In the center of the square a hushing waterfall poured out of a sculpture, and the square was suffused by the noise of traffic on three sides. People's voices were lifted away in the wind like abbreviated melodies. A boy and his grandmother passed by. The thin kid ran and jumped on a low wall, but his enthusiasm was only half-hearted. As a group of middle-aged, well-off men walked along talking, their hands made small, empty gestures in the air.

A line of junior high kids sat on a wall with their backs to him. One had bright orange hair, and another wore a backpack designed to look like a pair of folded wings. A woman, by herself. He remembered walking through Grant Park at night as a kid and feeling protective of the women who passed through it alone. The woman photographed the potted plants and wildflowers that had been set out around the waterfall sculpture. Errol thought the plants were nothing special, so why would she bother? Did she work for the paper? Or was she actually using her camera's built-in zoom lens to discretely photograph the people in the square? Errol half-hid his face with his hand as her lens crossed his line of vision.

He heard someone's tiny sneeze, and then it was echoed by a grandiose sneeze of the air brakes of a bus on the street. A man with a yellow and black striped sweater and large black sunglasses moved in and out of a circle of women. A bike messenger ran into an older man who had stepped out into traffic.

Errol got up to go. The square had put him in a bad mood, and he thought about all the things that he didn't like about the world: over-simplifications, assumptions, reproductions, simulations--he looked around him: everything seemed inaccurate, dishonest, and cheap. Disgusted, his mind began to thrash about. Who had created this mess?

He walked quickly out of downtown, avoiding people’s eyes, and eventually came to his own neighborhood. His temper cooled, and his thoughts turned to his newt, and as the sun set, he thought of the ham that would be waiting for him at home. His street had a community garden on the corner, and as he walked by it he saw a man he'd never seen before working inside. The man was below average height, though not quite a dwarf, and had dark sideburns and big ears half-covered with a floppy hat. Leather suspenders held up his work pants, which were cut full to accommodate his huge rear end and thighs. He seemed steady on his legs, though they tapered dramatically toward his feet, where a hoe and a pan of seeds lay on the ground.

The man looked up at Errol and spoke to him. His voice had the quality of dark chocolate. "Hello neighbor. Come and get some flowers for your mother," he said. Errol was hungry, but the man had already stooped to assemble a bouquet, so Errol entered the garden and waited. It felt cooler there. As the man took several halting steps over to another patch of flowers, Errol couldn't help but think of a dog walking on its hind legs. "Dear me, dear me,” said the man, crouching before a lily that had drooped under the weight of its own bloom.

"I'll take that one,” offered Errol, trying to be gracious; but the man scowled over his shoulder, and then stooped, and in a heartbeat he had the flower upright again, gently tied to a stake. He cut a few of the best flowers, added some greens, and then looked thoughtful as he presented the bouquet to Errol.

Suddenly, Errol felt like he had found the solace he'd been searching for his whole life. There it was, right under his nose! He stared, wide-eyed, at the green things around him. They were not over-simplified approximations of beauty; they were alive, like he was! He strained to really see the details before him, awestruck by the complexity of the growing things, especially at their edges, at the ends of branches and in the petals of flowers; in new buds and in leaves and in the way they grew out in a hundred directions, and all toward the sun; and in the way the sun's light and the resulting shadows fell upon each one. He closed his eyes to smell it all, and he noticed the breeze against him--how genuine and inconsistent it was! After some time, Errol remembered his hunger and rose to leave. He turned around to thank the strange man for the bouquet, but he was nowhere to be seen, and so Errol put three dollars into the pan of seeds in a rush, and headed for home.

Down the middle of the street he went, watching the cracks that ran through the asphalt, and he became aware of the Nature that quietly moved in everything--this was the complex truth his mind had craved all these frustrated years. As he looked, he was released into a new reality, one that he felt he could more or less accept. He realized, with smiling shame, that all his life, all this time, he hadn't been too smart or too dumb or too anything--he just hadn't been paying enough attention. The thought filled him with a profound humility, and a gratitude that bordered on joy.

By Tom McTighe
Illustrated by Xtal Giarth

When there was no food, Marta would leave empty boxes and cartons in the fridge and on the shelves so it would look like there was food. When she went down the hall the floor creaked beneath her. The radiator hissed. She stood by the window. There was no moon. She went to the sink, poured and drank three glasses of water, pulled her robe close, and returned to bed.

Wade was awake. She settled into his arms, and he began to kiss her neck and shoulders. Their lovemaking had become noiseless after the baby came. Now any amount of quiet time in the apartment was priceless. Wade was no day at the circus, Marta thought, but the magic wasn’t gone. They moved together with an absolute familiarity, the result of five years of nights together in the same bed. Marta was happy with this kind of slow magic. She loved Wade.

About a month before, though, something had begun to happen whenever they made love. It evolved so slowly, so naturally, that it in no way seemed abnormal to Marta now. As they began, her mind would slowly slip away from Wade, and she would fantasize. It came upon her involuntarily, and she never felt guilty enough to tell Wade about it.

These fantasies always started without detail, just a fuzzy outline of grays. But they soon came into sharp focus. A man. He was usually young and always well-dressed. His shirt was white and crisply ironed, with a smart bow tie knotted tightly beneath his starched collar. Her mind quickly filled in the rest, like a painting in progress--the black pants, the polished patent leather shoes--this part was often the same. The man’s face was never flushed. He was never breathing heavily. He always stood straight and tall, with a capable attentiveness, a pleasant smile animating his pleasant lips. He delivered his words in a clean baritone that made Marta shiver:

“Good evening, Madam. Are you ready to order?”

Now everything sped up. Excitement bubbled through her, sometimes spilling out in an odd giggle that surprised her and Wade both. It was the laugh of a girl without a care. She would pour over the menu while wonderful smells wafted out from the kitchen, and soon the food would be all around her: garden-fresh vegetables in a light vinaigrette, complex sauces, the smoky smell of a grill, of basil, delicate textures, pink and golden, garlic, hash browns with black pepper, caramelized onion, peas, thick wedges of watermelon, juicy pears, tangy pickles ... the waiter brought it all, anything Marta wanted.

Tonight the service was divine. Sometime during the second course, the baby woke up crying. Marta held Wade close and folded her lips in over her teeth and bit them. The waiter had brought the dessert tray. She quickly sampled a little of everything: cupcakes, coconut ice cream, strawberries, carrot cake with white frosting, butterscotch...“Cheesecake!” breathed Marta.

They lay together in the dark vacuum, holding onto the feeling. “What’s that you said?” whispered Wade, after a moment. Marta just opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling. Then she rolled back the covers, went out, and got the baby.

By Tom McTighe
Illustrated by Xtal Giarth

Even in the photograph that they used on the cover, you can see her tensing up, defensive, bracing for the criticism she knew was coming. She shouldn't have worn white. You have to be dark to look good in white, she thought, like that waitress at Peoney's--or like Anne. They said it would bring out the color in her face; well, they were wrong. And the watch--they said the watch would give her an air of authority. That’s me, that’s me, she thought, always watching the clock, always uptight.

In the photograph, one arm, the arm with the watch, is folded protectively over her stomach. Her other arm is bent up, her elbow resting on the watch-arm's closed fist, her hand clutching a couple of wooden spoons--it’s awful, really--she shouldn't have let them pose her like that!

She had felt like a doll, in the worst sense, having them manipulate her limbs like that, and then to have it come out like this, so stiff, so posed. During the shoot she had tried to collect all her discomfort and change it into confidence and beam it out of her eyes and into the camera and on into the world, into all the kitchens of Today's Vegetarians. But they'd done so many poses, she had gotten tired, and now anyone who looked could see it plainly on the book's cover.

Ever since she had decided to write, she had kept a blue notebook with her at all times and prodigiously filled one after another. When she ran out of cookbook material, she’d just write anything at all, believing that if she ever stopped completely she might never start again. Because of this, her notebooks had become littered with diary entries, and so it was often painful, coming across these raw confessions, when it came time to condense her notebooks into manuscript form.

"Where is that girl?” she said out loud, checking her watch. Then she got her notebook, went to the couch, and began scribbling:

Who I am: Carol. I live alone. I wrote a book, the acclaimed author of Today's Vegetarian. Defensive, American. Lots of trouble keeping pets alive. Sick cat, vet said raw hamburger is best. Vegetarianism. The shifting of beliefs. Middle age. Fed cat veg diet--no connection to kitty AIDS. Wondering. No children. Only pets. All died. Of course, of course, but why is it so sad? Cat eats meat now. Now it’s the cat's life vs. the cow's life. Cat is not an herbivore, though, is a descendant of the great cats, the saber-toothed tigers. It’s not my fault he’s sick. He needs positives. Psychology and food, comfort food, the placebo effect. When I was a girl a handful of Cool Whip seemed to break my fever. I got it out of the fridge, it “called” me, my body “craved” it. The body knows what it needs. Colon cleanse. raw foods, blood type diet. In the book, I used milk and cheese, but not eggs. A moral line was drawn, but I always disliked eggs, so can that be claimed as a moral good? Of course not, no. But it worked, in the book, so it was a positive. Cat's body craving its comfort foods, wants milk? Wants meat? Cat's body knows what it needs?  

What is really known about veg? Hindus have been veg forever, but what studies have been done? Can you compare two separate lives? Can you compare a veg with a meat-eater? Too many factors, but what if veg lowers a vital but hard to measure attribute, like the ability to appreciate beauty or to feel love? What if I am missing out? What is important in life? To have a varied experience? Or to live spiritually? Does veg bring you closer to your senses, or maybe detach you from your senses? It’s all up to you what you make of these things. So everything is subjective? No, starving to death is not all in your head. What about the bond between an owner and a pet. Could I have made Jones sick, by being guilty or neurotic or something? Is a cat subjective? Will it react to a placebo? There is a lot we don't understand, there is a lot we know, though. Theories change when new discoveries are made. If a cat reacts to a placebo, does that mean it has a soul? Is it subjective enough to create its own reality? What about kids? Are kids responsible for their own realities? Can we compare people to kids? Some people are immature late into life. Kids to pets? Why not? Could there be many classes of differently evolved people on the earth, only distinguishable on a psychic level? Could there be several levels of cats? Could this psychic evolutionary caste system extend beyond all species, all things? Could there be a person, cat, and rock that are more closely related than that same person, her sister, and their mother? Some say yes, others no. Does it matter what people say about something? Can we really study ourselves objectively? My cat is sick. It will die. They all do, of course. What to do? Cry. Maybe get another. Maybe not get another.

She threw down her pen and glanced across the page. Her writing had a lovely right-leaning slant, she thought. She had always thought so.

Her mind turned back to the book. She hadn’t been ready to let go of the manuscript, had she? Yet she also felt she had done all she could, given the deadline. And now the thing was done, she couldn’t touch it again, people would read it as it was.

The doorbell finally rang. She walked through the kitchen on the way and put on the tea kettle. Soon it will be over, she thought, and she let out a deep breath, and then let Anne in. Anne’s arms were full, and she was out of breath. Carol took the big white dress box from her and left her holding the ground beef. She opened the box and took out a green crushed velvet dress.

This will get me through the evening, she thought. In the elegant dress, along with her rhinestone brooch, it wouldn’t matter if she was pale or tense or old, or heartbroken over her cat or about to throw up. It was a shallow ploy, but it always worked, and she knew it would get her through the book signing. As she put the dress aside, it occurred to her that Anne surely never had to connive like this.

“How is Jones?” asked Anne. “The same,” Carol answered flatly. She was finished being polite to Anne; it was clear that it was a wasted effort. What did she know about life, or about loss? No, she reconsidered, that was all wrong.

“He’s just the same, Dear, just the same,” she said, as a way of starting over, and turned toward the young woman. “He’s at the vet now. He stayed there last night. I wasn’t doing him any good here.”

“Oh, I suppose not,” Anne agreed, but it rubbed Carol the wrong way. Why am I pandering to this idiot? she thought. All she does is torture me with her dark hair and her healthy skin. She turned away, squeezing the dress box, but caught herself. “Would you like some tea, Anne?”

“Oh, I would,” said Anne, “It’s gotten cold,” she swallowed, “out there.”

After Carol changed into the dress, they settled in to drink their tea on the couch. Anne smoothed her skirt. “That green goes great with your eyes. You’re really going to wow them tonight.”

“Oh, let’s not talk about that,” Carol said quickly. They were quiet. Carol leaned nearer, and looked at Anne’s cheekbones. “Anne, can I get your opinion on something?” she asked, confidentially. “I want to know, well, do you think I could have had anything to do with Jones getting sick?”

“Well, no--”

"What I mean is, there’s such a bond between an owner and a pet--you know, maybe I--am too neurotic and he picked up on that or something.”

“But Carol, you’re not neurotic! You’re--”

“Oh, I don’t know, Anne. I’ve had so many pets, and they’ve all died.”

“Yes,” Anne said steadily, touching Carol’s knee with an easy gesture of warmth, “but they all do--they can’t live forever. You know that.”

“I suppose so, Dear,” said Carol, looking away. She caught the dangling brooch. “I fed him only vegetarian food, Anne, his whole life.”

“Well, that was good.”

“No, no, no,” Carol said irritably. “Not good. Cats are not herbivores, Anne, cats are carnivores--didn’t you know that? Descendants of the great cats, the saber-tooth tigers.” Anne’s face began to freeze. “They aren’t meant to eat vegetables, Dear, they want milk. They want meat. That’s why you went all the way to Nature’s to get that hamburger this morning, remember?” Her voice had risen, and Anne began to shrink into the couch. Carol took a breath and lowered her voice, but didn’t let up. “You don’t think much of me, do you, Anne? You don’t think I’m very grounded, do you? A little flaky, huh? All this time,” she parodied Anne’s voice: “‘I work for that author, Carol Combs--she’s a little flaky, but she pays me well.’ Is that it? You think I’m the type of person that would let my cat get sick in the name of some half-baked ideal, don’t you?” Now she half-hollered through her anger, blinking and shaking her head when a word wouldn’t come. “Like I don’t know what’s...natural and what’s...obviously unnatural? Do you think I’m one of those self-righteous...flakes who can’t face up to the way things really are...who would rather let their baby die than get it vaccinated?”

"No,” said Anne, looking down and smoothing her skirt.

Neither of them spoke as Anne drove Carol to the bookstore. Anne dropped Carol off in front, where she found a large crowd waiting for her. She greeted them warmly, said a few words about B vitamins, and then took a few questions. As she signed her books, she was funny, and gracious, and did her best to reach out to those who were nervous, letting them know with a friendly smile or a self-deprecating joke that there was nothing to be nervous about. She had blooms in her cheeks, which made the green of her dress come alive, and occasionally her brooch sparkled, despite the bookstore’s florescent light. Anne, still pale, busily arranged things and greeted Carol’s fans, although she must have guessed that she was fired.

By Tom McTighe
Illustrated by Xtal Giarth

I guess I was a pretty typical high school guy – I didn’t really have any interests, except for girls. Megan Caulley, however, wasn’t typical of the beauties that distracted me from my high school studies. In my daydream world of deified Scandinavian girls, she stood a little shorter than average, with ordinary brown hair. Her face was nothing dramatic, either, but set within it were a pair of eyes that made me curious. They danced with cleverness, cunning, or mischief, depending on the day of the week – scaring off half the guys in school and attracting the rest.

During the first years of high school, she had had a few boyfriends, but as it turned out each of them ran with a different crowd, so she had no reputation. Without rumors or gossip to guide me, I was on my own. I began my investigation in art class one Friday, and we went out for an aimless drive in the country that weekend.

We had been dating a few weeks (well, I’d gotten her out on a handful of dates, although I really wasn’t sure if we were dating – I was too afraid of sounding unsure to actually come out and ask her if we were), before I started to figure her out. Like most people who find themselves blessed (or burdened) with having many prospects to choose from, she had developed a technique for narrowing down her choices, and soon I became well acquainted with this technique.

I might get into her car, for instance, for a day trip to the river, and she’d have the classical station on, and tell me that she only listened to classical now, so we’d listen to classical music all day. I never could tell how much of her was really into classical now, and how much of her just wanted to see if I was flexible enough to put up with it. The next week, she couldn’t stand classical – she said she only listened to classic rock, or country.

In someone else, this behavior would have irritated me, but Megan made it into an all-encompassing joke. Although it was kind of extreme, I didn’t begrudge her the game. She had a fairly large field to narrow, after all, and the harder she was to get along with, the better my chances would be, as fewer and fewer guys would be willing to put up with her.

I felt like I was in on the game, too, as long as I didn’t come out and call it what it was. In a way, our courtship was like a battle of wits, and having always held my own, I intended to hold my own in this case, too, and to do it with style. I began to poke subtle fun at Megan and at the whole game. For instance, after she had bitterly denied that she still liked ice skating, which I knew she still liked, it just so happened that Disney World on Ice came to town. I got tickets to the sold-out show and asked her if she wanted to go. She held out for a while, but then grudgingly agreed to come along, and as the lights went down I saw her forget about her little game and really enjoy herself.

I often wondered, though, what it was, underneath it all, that I was so attracted to. Well, it came down to three things, really: she was sincere, she had a sharp sense of humor, and she was interesting. Moreover, she was a challenge. I felt like I was running in a tough race, competing for a rare prize. After a few weeks, I started to see myself as an early favorite. I had met her parents (who were not very pleasant), and had been invited out to the farm.

It was a hot August day when I went out to help her with the horses. Her family lived on a small farm thirty minutes out of town, and since her older brother Bill had gone off to college, her parents were having a hard time keeping up with the chores. I was no strapping young man – actually I was a rather thin guy, but I shoveled manure for five hours that day, filling a wheelbarrow and then pushing it over to a pile and dumping it.

At one point I saw Megan on the porch with her dad, explaining something to him, and looking out at me. He stood, stocky and compact, with his arms folded over his thick chest, eyes hidden in the shadow of his hat. It dawned on me, from the way they reacted when I waved, that this whole day on the farm was just another kind of trial – she was testing me, as usual, but now she was doing it openly. I got angry, slinging the manure around, talking to myself – I don’t know, I just felt, small – but then I calmed down and realized that she wasn’t just playing with me, like a bug in a glass jar. Her testing meant I was in the running – that I had a chance of being the one she eventually chose – and here I was, out on the farm, and my chances were actually looking pretty good.

After the corrals were cleaned up, I had a snack and then mowed grass for four hours. It took any romantic notions I might have had about owning a farm right out of my head. I finished – sunburned and fed up – but also happy to have cleared another hurdle. Megan brought me a water bottle.

“Here you go, working man.” I had told her that as a kid my sole responsibility was to take out the trash, and that a lot of times I had managed to forget to do even that.

“Thanks,” I gasped, as I drank.

Then she added, “My mom and I are going in to get some movies. We’ll leave you here with dad.” I looked at her. “Don’t worry,” she said, tenderly, “you’ll think of something to talk about - you’re a very clever boy.” It felt like a kiss. “Your other option is to rescue Franz.”

I let my face drop in exasperated disbelief as she proceeded to tell me about a small doll she had as a kid, which her brother had thrown onto the roof of the barn. She pointed to where on the roof she thought the doll might be (most likely lodged in the rain gutter, she said), and then over to the forty-foot aluminum ladder that lay on its side next to the tool shed. Her eyes looked deeply into mine. In the scheme of things, this seemed to be important. But then she added casually, “That was ten years ago, though. He’s probably been carried off by birds by now. I’ll see you soon.”

A big pink dust cloud rose behind her car as she drove toward the highway, cutting in front of the sun. I put the lawnmower back into the tool shed. It was a lie. She had told me a lie. Somehow, though, it didn’t matter. The way she did it, it didn’t seem to be a big deal. Like she thought a lot of me for seeing that it wasn’t a big deal that she’d lied to me and I didn’t call her on it. Like I had gained some ground with her, by not upsetting the game even in the face of a plain lie.

It did bug me, actually, but I put it aside – I would deal with it later. Right now I had a decision to make: was I supposed to get the ladder and try to go up there, following the charade through to its conclusion, or just forget it and go back up to the house and see if her dad wanted to play gin? I stooped and lifted an end of the ladder to test its weight. It was heavy as hell, but I figured that if I tried it from the middle I could haul it over to the barn.

Well, I did that, and after several attempts I got the son-of-a-bitch upright. At its full extension it rested just under the gutter. Forty feet into the sky for a game, I thought. But I would have the opportunity to call her on her lie. That would be worth it.

Halfway up, I noted that my life was in danger, that I could really get hurt if I fell. Why hadn’t I got the old man out here to spot me? The ladder bowed in toward the barn wall, but I had a fairly good footing dug into the sod, so I was pretty sure it wouldn’t slip out from under me. As long as it didn’t tip backward, I’d be fine. But even if I found nothing up there I realized I couldn’t really call Megan on her lie – it had been ten years, after all. Even if the birds hadn’t carried Franz off, he’d most likely have decomposed. But whether or not there was a Franz, either way, she’d know that I had done it – that I’d taken her at her word. And then I’d tell her that I was through with all this nonsense and that she’d have to be straight with me from now on.

I neared the top – my anger had made my body tense – and suddenly I froze up. The ladder wavered under me, and I considered just carefully creeping back down to the ground. But it had become more about overcoming my fear of the climb than anything else, and so I stretched out and got a light grip on the edge of the gutter, then delicately lifted my left foot up to the ladder’s second-highest rung, following it as smoothly as possible with my right.

I was three and a half stories above the ground, easily the highest I’d ever climbed, with my belt buckle just below the level of the flat roof of the barn – and there was Franz! I was surprised to find him so quickly, but under the sludge that filled the wide rain gutter from end to end, I plainly saw a bit of peach-colored rubber that could only be a doll’s head. It hadn’t been a lie! My mind reeled, trying to process this new information, but a sudden breeze made me get my bearings in a hurry.

I steadied myself. Then I reached out for the doll, and dug through the black soil until I had him in my hand. The ladder shifted sickeningly beneath me, as one of its footings sank a little deeper into the grass. My blood went cold, and I pushed up and rolled onto the roof in a panic. I waited to hear the ladder crash to the earth dramatically, but it remained standing, foolishly – and now I was stuck. The fact that the ladder didn’t even reach the gutter, that it was now dark, and that I was no old hand at this anyway, left me stranded up there on the roof.

In a short while the lights of Megan’s car came along the gravel road, and soon she and her parents were gathered below me.

Her dad shouted up, “What are you doing up there?” I explained that it had looked like the gutters needed cleaning, and that I had come up to see, and now I was stuck. They all stood around for a while, quietly arguing about what to do. Mr. Caully re-set the ladder, and I tried approaching it a few times – backwards and on my belly – but it was too scary. After that I just peered down at them, holding Franz behind my back. Over her father’s protest, Megan eventually went in and called the fire department. I empathized with the old man; being a farmer meant doing things yourself, and he was clearly embarrassed by all this.

I had to hide Franz. At first I thought I’d just toss him off the far side of the barn, but then I reconsidered, thinking an animal might carry him off before I got to him. In a flash I decided to hide him up under the back of my T-shirt, which I tucked in. I left my flannel untucked, so it would hang loosely over the little hump. No one would know he was there.

The next time I looked down, Megan and Mrs. Caully were setting up a card table with coffeecake and milk for the firemen. The big hook-and-ladder soon made its appearance on the road, then came on down to the barn. The firemen treated me like a helpless kitten, and wanted to carry me down the ladder like a child, but I insisted that I could make it on my own. On the ground, Megan took me, safe at last, in her arms, and the firemen gathered around the coffeecake. I was humbled. It was clear that I owed her father an apology.

That night, alone in the guest room, I couldn’t sleep, so I switched on the lamp and took Franz out from under the bed. I had cleaned him up some, and he really looked pretty good for all that he’d gone through. Now I would get my reward, I thought. I tore the top off the box of Kleenex that sat on my nightstand, and nestled Franz inside, where the tissues provided a little bed for him. He looked like the precious relic he was. The box had a nice floral pattern, and I was able to fashion a tiny card out of a piece of its top. I found a blue ballpoint pen, and wrote:

Dear Megan,
I missed you.
Love,
Franz

I snuck upstairs without making a sound, but in the hall the floorboards creaked loudly, and downstairs the Caulleys’ old dog let out a single, piercing howl. Knowing Megan’s parents would soon be out of bed to investigate, I hurried into Megan’s room.

“What’s going on?” she murmured.

“I brought you something,” I said, and I motioned for her to conceal the box under her covers. Megan’s parents appeared in the doorway.

“What’s going on?” her mom asked sleepily. The words came to me slowly. I said, “I just felt awful ... for everything, and wanted to apologize ... for everything. And to you two, too.” Megan’s dad cleared his throat and looked down at the floor. “We know you, ah, meant well.”

“We’re just glad you’re safe, Carl,” said her mom.

***

I am now forty-three. Over the years, I have quit smoking, when Megan took up running; I have become a father, soon after she decided she wanted kids. At her urging, I went back to college and got a degree, and now I make pretty good money. We took over the little farm, and I’ve come to like it out here; I’ve learned to draw, to accompany her on the piano, and to like camping; I’ve even sung in public a few times. These days she’s on a health kick, so we do yoga every morning, and eat healthy.

In short, I have passed every test that Megan has come up with over the last 20 years – and with flying colors. And while I know she’s not finished with me yet – and never will be, that’s just Megan – I don’t worry about it anymore. As time has passed, I think I’ve proven that I’m clever enough to handle Megan Caulley.

 

By Tom McTighe
Illustrated by Xtal Giarth

 

Mr. Olson was one of those old, old men who had somehow retained his physical power despite the years. Past eighty, he was still often seen in his driveway, loading or unloading his pickup, or working in the yard with a shovel or a rake. But no one mistook him for a young man: his skin was colorless, his cheeks fell slightly inward, and his head was mostly bald, although it was inevitably covered with a weathered gray fishing hat. 

In contrast to her husband, Mrs. Olson, still youthful at sixty-two, was a small round woman with pink cheeks. The pair would have been cause for comment, had they gone out on the town together or given the occasional dinner party. Looking at them was like seeing two photos side by side – one in black and white, the other in color. 

Now you might think that marrying someone twenty years older would entitle you to no end of stories and advice, based on the collected wisdom of your mate, but Mr. Olson wasn't much of a talker. In fact, for Mrs. Olson this was one of his most attractive qualities, since she came from a fairly quiet family herself. Yet Mr. Olson had a quiet that was deliberate, and bordered on a religious conviction. He thought that speech dishonored thoughts; or rather, that non-verbal communication was a much nobler form of expression. 

Mr. Olson was a man of great emotion, however, and he made Mrs. Olson feel lucky to have him. Without words, and maybe in part due to their absence, he could bring to her that feeling of unconditional acceptance that all lovers crave. He had a way with gestures, both large and small. 

She had a Schnauzer named Clarence that, for the most part, Mr. Olson just tolerated. Last summer, though, when the dog got sick, Mr. Olson spent two sleepless nights worrying and carefully nursing him back to health, and since then she had come home on occasion to find the two of them asleep together on the sofa. The sight always filled her with tenderness. 

On the other hand, having outlived all his friends, Mr. Olson had developed a feeling of correctness that at times seemed like arrogance, as if he felt, "I have survived, so I am right.” It was a quality that sometimes disturbed their happy home.

The two usually spent their Sundays in the park with Clarence. But that spring Mrs. Olson's mother died, and after the funeral, a well-attended gathering of her mother’s dear friends, Mrs. Olson began to dress up and go off by herself on Sunday mornings, to the neighborhood church. She said it was just a way to feel closer to her mother now that she was gone, but in truth she also enjoyed the kind of easy, purposeless talk that always followed mass. Mr. Olson took it poorly – he had no room for religion, having suffered in a Jesuit boarding school in the thirties.

And so Mrs. Olson paid for her new association with the friendship of her husband; not all at once, but gradually. One day she realized that more than a week had gone by without a word passing between them. On its own, this wasn't so odd, but Mr. Olson had begun to deny her his non-verbal kindnesses as well – and it began to hurt Mrs. Olson's heart.

His displeasure was there in his face, a gloomy shadow of his silent responses to her everyday questions. His nod said Yes, but also said, You let me down. His shrug said I don’t know, and also said, I am not happy.

One Sunday morning, convinced that something had to change, Mrs. Olson decided to wear the special dress. The one she made sure she could always fit into. It was hand-embroidered with a beautiful pattern of red roses, which bloomed on an elegant black background. The dress meant a great deal to both of them. She took it off the hanger and put it on. On her way downstairs, she stopped in front of the mirror and toughened up a little to face him.

Downstairs, she found him holding Clarence and looking out the window. He looked over as she walked to the center of the room and raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment of the dress – she hadn't worn it for some time. She turned herself around slowly, and briefly extended her arms, and then she smiled at him and curtsied. Mr. Olson put Clarence down. A bitterness welled up from where his pride lay coiled inside him. He felt it was patronizing the way she thought she could use his heart to change his mind – to hell with that, he thought. He made his face calm, took a step toward her, then shrugged a shrug that answered "I don't give a damn" to every priest anywhere who ever dared to ask “Have you been saved?”

Mrs. Olson was crushed. The dress was them both, was their lives; it was the common face of their union that they showed to the world, and it was above the world, above their individual tastes, their individual concerns, even their individual beliefs. She saw him putting his resentment of the church above their love for each other, and it made her senseless with emotion. The room blurred. She took off the dress. She threw it in the kitchen trash. She went upstairs, put on the first thing she saw and left for church.

The closing door took all the air out of the house. Mr. Olson sat down on the sofa and pulled on his chin numbly; his anger was gone. He couldn't think of what this would all mean. He sat there for some time, and then went out to work, to see if he could begin to regain his balance. He went to the shed in back and got out the mower and wheeled it to the front yard. He bent and yanked the cord, looking forward to the solitude that the hammering engine always provided him. He pulled again. The engine wasn't catching. After a third try he checked the gas and the oil, but both reservoirs were full. The spark plugs were new. It occurred to him that he wasn't pulling hard enough. He bent and yanked the cord again and again, but he could not get the engine to turn over. He felt like a sick man struggling to open a bottle of pills. He sat down where he was in the grass, unbelieving.

Returning from church, Mrs. Olson found him on the front steps. The sight of him made her chest full again, but his peculiar aspect made the feeling less sharp. As she walked up the path, his expression made her stop, and he motioned for her to wait there. He went inside and returned with a large bowl and a clean towel. He led her to the front steps and sat her down there gently, crouching in front of her. He undid the buckles of her shoes, and she smiled, confused. As he tenderly set her feet in the bowl, her smile broadened, and then she gasped as he lifted a large bottle of Chanel No. 5 out of the pocket of his overalls, and poured it over the tops of her feet. She heard the neighbor's rake across the street stop scraping, and then she laughed out loud, as he washed her feet with the perfume.