“John Mayer?” I asked.

“Come on!”

“Ben Harper?”

“Now I am really getting pissed off.”

“Justin Bieber?”

“How can you not know this?  Everybody knows this.  It’s Jack Johnson.  J A C K   J O H N S O N.  He is the only person that sounds like Jack Johnson.  You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I’m sorry I don’t particularly like Jack Johnson.”

“I didn’t say you had to like him.  You just have to know who he is.”

We were driving to school and playing Name that Band to pass the time.  I had been listening to music for a lot more years than Ajax, which should have given me a big advantage.  But I still didn’t know Jack Johnson and I didn’t have much interest in learning.

Ajax was thoroughly disgusted with my attitude. “That’s just wrong, Dad.”

There is something about belligerence and disgust in a 12 year old that sets my teeth on edge. I needed to take him down a notch. We turned down the street that we sometimes took to avoid a long line of traffic.  Three quarters of the way down the street there is a little street called Hermit Street that goes around the block and often allowed us to avoid a long wait at the light.  We always took Hermit Street even though it was a small street and the neighbors didn’t like morning commuters.  They put lawn chairs and orange cones in the street to discourage us, but it didn’t work. We just maneuvered around them like I was driving an obstacle course on a car commercial.

We took Hermit Lane pretty much every day.  There is a bend where Hermit Lane overlooks the park.  Ever since I have been driving Ajax to school, when we pass the bend I point down into the ravine below and ask him whether he can see the hermit.  When he was in first and second grade he always said he could.  I would ask him whether the hermit was cooking or doing laundry and he would tell me what he saw.  We kept the joke running for years but now he was in 6^th grade and he was too old and too cool and too belligerent for an old joke with his father.

I tried to divert his attention with a supposed sighting of the hermit but he didn’t glance in that direction. I needed to create some drama to give cover for the next step in my plan. There was on an orange cone in the street ahead. I maneuvered my big boat of an SUV so that I clipped it on the side as we passed.

“Dad, look out! You hit the cone! Jesus! Dad. Watch where you are going.”

“Whoops.”

“Jesus Dad.”

“Ajax. Jump out and put that cone back where it was.”

“You do it, you hit it.”

“Ajax, may I remind you that I am currently driving you to school.”

“You hit it.”

“Taking you to school.”

“Oh fine.”

As he bellyached his way to cone, I surreptitiously switched from the radio station that provided the random songs that were the basis of our Name that Band game to a playlist on my iPhone.

Ajax got back in the car. “Dad, that was stupid. I mean, just saying.”

“Thanks for the input.”

“I mean you have to pay attention when you are driving.”

“Thanks for that tip.”

“You are almost as bad a driver as you are in Name that Band. And Dad, by the way, that’s pretty bad.”

“I am better than you.”

“What?! You didn’t even know Jack Johnson.”

“I can kill you if I put my mind to it.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Kill you.”

“Put money on it?”

“You don’t have any money. You’ll try to get me to give you money so you can pay me.”

“You are my father. That’s your job.”

“Let’s play for something meaningful.”

“Like?”

“If I win, I get your snapback.” Alex was wearing his prized Hartford Whalers cap.

“No Way. Not this one. This is priceless.”

“I thought you were a beast in Name That Band.”

“I am beast, not a beast. Don’t try to talk like you know what you are saying. Cause you don’t.”

“Basically you are scared to go head to head with me in Name that Band.”

“What do I win?”

“What do you want?”

“You buy me any snapback I want.”

“Fine.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“First one to five unless we get to school sooner, then whoever is ahead.”

“Bring it on.”

I flipped the switch on the SUV’s audio system and caught the bridge in the middle of Evil Ways. “Santana!” I shouted. Double points!” We always awarded double points when you guessed the name of the band before any lyrics had played. “2- zero”.

“That’s Bullshit” Ajax yelled, but after the lyrics kicked in there was no way he could dispute the call. He continued to whine until the first chords from Jay-Z’s “Young Forever” played. I sang out Jay-Z before Ajax knew what hit him. He tried to override my call by yelling Jay-Z louder than I did but he couldn’t really make his call go backwards in time to precede mine.

By the way,” I said, “that’s double points too.” Four to zero. Nada. Nothing. Zip.” And then just to rub it in I added, “featuring Mr. Hudson”.

He didn’t like the circumstances, but I had him. He did not want to lose. He leaned forward in his seat and cocked his ear toward the radio to make sure that he had a nano-instant of head start on the next song. However, this was my collection of music.

I liked my odds.

The next song began. Before a bar of music had come forth I knew exactly who it was. Ajax did too, but it took him longer to shout “Kanye!” Than it took me.

“Six to zero, sport. I’ll take the Whaler.”

“No way. That wasn’t fair. Those songs were all your type of songs. I would’ve killed you on my songs. Double or nothing!”

“No way. I want the cap.”

“Come on Dad.” He pleaded.

I held out my hand to take the hat. We had pulled up to parking circle at school. He ducked when I tried to grab the hat. Before I could move, he had pushed open the car door and was out of the car, holding his cap as if it were covering his private parts and laughing hysterically. “Nice try Dad! Better luck next time!”  And he was off, sprinting up the stairs and into the building.

I yelled after him, “six-zero, loser” but he didn’t hear me and even to me it sounded lame. I wasn’t concerned, however.

It took him five minutes to come slinking back to the car. I had locked it and rolled up the windows. I made him knock on the glass for a while before I deigned to notice him. I rolled down the front driver’s side window. He leaned in.

“Hey Dad,” he said. He gave me a big warm smile. “Just wanted to tell you that you are pretty good at Name that Band. For an old guy.”

“I am a beast!”

“I mean, who cares about stinking Jack Johnson.”

“Not me.”

“I never want to hear him again. He is a jackass.”

“Ajax. Time has come. Don’t suck up. Just, give me the cap.”

“No way, Dad.”

“Fair and square.”

“No way. You can’t make me.”

“Actually I can.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I will just wait you out.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Goodbye Ajax.” I started to roll up the window.

“Damn it. You suck.” He scaled the cap into the car. “Totally.”

I grabbed the cap and put it on my head. I gave him a big smile. Then I unlocked the back door and took out the backpack that he had forgotten when he ran off before.

“You suck Dad,” he said one more time as he turned to go to school.

I waited two beats until he was 6 or 8 feet from the car. Then I leaned to the driver’s side window and yelled at him gleefully, “they were all from my playlist! Every one of them! Ha!”

His head swung around. But he didn’t have the look I expected. No anger, no shock. He was smiling. He mouthed something that I didn’t get and then he smiled some more.

I drove off wondering if he was becoming more mature, more good-natured. Maybe these years of belligerence were coming to an end.

I didn’t figure it out until I got home and took off the cap. It wasn’t the Hartford Whalers cap at all. It was one of his old little league caps, a dime a dozen; he’d switched it out on me.

And then it dawned on me what he had mouthed just as I was driving off: “Jack Johnson.”

- Jay Duret

He lifted his duffle bag and walked onto the street.  The green strap of the bag dug into his shoulder.  He stepped over a man sleeping on a hot air vent.  Below him and to the right he could see the river spreading black and unguent in the valley beyond the railroad yard.  His heart quickened in the old way but he made himself think of other things.  He crossed the street, not wanting to go to the river at once, saving that for later the way he had saved a pint bottle of Jack Daniels a year in his footlocker until the night he got out of the hospital and then he drank it slow and steady until it was gone.  The sky was a bruise.

After a while he stopped to rest.  He put his bag on the hood of an abandoned car.  All around the pavement was burned black.  A sign in red spray paint on a boarded up window said “Free Squalor”.  He thought of long ago in another life when he’d been on a three-day pass with the kid Renaldo from San Berdoo and on the last day they found themselves with a big breasted blonde in a bar where the martinis came in big clear glasses and Renaldo said his was as cool and deep as a river.  He picked up his bag and walked on.

It was nearly nightfall before he reached the banks of the river.  He could see the ripples of the carp and garfish as they cruised below the oily surface, big and dark as submarines.  The old excitement was still there.  He had known it would be, even during the worst of it.  He cleared the broken bottles to make his campsite.  Using two abandoned tires he quickly set up his tent and unrolled his bedding.  He filled his plastic jug with water and halazone tablets and he set the freeze-dried stroganoff to soak.  Only then, after he’d made the camp to his liking, did he unpack the dynamite and go down to the river to fish.

- Jay Duret

jayduret@yahoo.com

Max said, “Jason does. Jason tell them the one. Come on Jason!” Max and Jason were brothers who rode in the car pool. Max was in the 4^th grade. Jason was in 6^th and in the same class as my daughter Emmy.

Emmy said,  “it’s going to be a stupid one.”

Jason said, “you are just jealous cause you don’t have any jokes.”

“No, yours are just stupid.”

“Jealous!”

“Stupid!”

“Come on,” I said, “am I going to hear a joke or not? This is boring.”

Jason launched in, “so there is a guy named Bernie and he goes to the grocery store and he sees that dog food is on sale.  He tries to buy like 14 things of it so the store manager thinks he is going to feed it to his kids.  So, the store manager makes Bernie bring his dog back to the store to prove he has a dog and he does and he is allowed to buy the dog food.  The next week Bernie sees that cat food is on sale so he buys another 14 things of cat food and the store manager thinks he is going to feed it to his kids so Bernie has to go get his cat and he does and he buys the cat food.  The next week he comes in with this brown paper bag and he tells the store manager to put his hand in it.  And the store manager puts his hand in it and he takes it right out he screams, “AIIEE! There is poop in there!”  And then Bernie says to the store manager, “I want to buy some toilet paper.”

“Good one,” I said.

Emmy did not agree. “That is so stupid.”

“I have another,” Jason said.

“Lets hear it,” I said.

“Dad no. It will just be stupid.”

“Come on. We need something to liven up this ride.”

“Yeah!” Max said, “let’s hear another joke!” He began to chant, “Another joke! Another joke!” We want another joke!”

Jason began again.  “So a man walks into a bar and he asks for a Bud Light.  While the bartender goes to get the Bud Light the man starts talking on his hand like it is a cell phone.  And the bartender asks what that is about and he is like ‘I was struck by lightning once and ever since then my hand is a phone’.  And then this guy he asks to go to the bathroom.  This guy’s name is Bernie by the way, too, so Bernie goes to the bathroom and these guys come up to the bartender and say, like ‘what was that all about?’  And the bartender is like ‘I’ll show you when he gets back’.  But then like 20, 30 minutes have passed and Bernie still hasn’t gotten back.  So the bartender goes to check on Bernie in the bathroom and the guy is bending over with toilet paper coming out of his butt and he says to the bartender ‘hold on, I am getting a fax!’

“You see,” Emmy said. “That was really stupid. I knew it would be stupid and it was stupid.

Max said, “I have one, I have one.”

“Oh no. This is going to be stupid too. Dad, turn on the radio. Please!”

Max didn’t wait. “So one day Charlie went to the bar after lunch.  And the bartender asked him, “Have you seen Bernie?”  “Yes, I have” said Charlie.  “Where?” And he tells the Bartender the story which is – “I saw him at this morning and Bernie told me to get off my horse but I didn’t want to get off my horse but he had a gun so I got off the horse.  Bernie said to pull down my pants.  I didn’t want to pull down my pants but I had to because he had the gun.  And then Bernie said take a poop.  I didn’t want to take a poop but he had the gun so I squeezed one out.  Bernie said eat the poop.  I didn’t want to eat the poop but I had to because he had the gun.  Then I pulled out my gun and pointed it at Bernie.  I said Bernie get off your horse.  He didn’t want to get off the horse but he had to because I had the gun.  And then I said Bernie pull down your pants.  He didn’t want to pull down his pants but he had to because I had the gun.  Bernie take a poop.  He didn’t want to take a poop but he had to because I had the gun.  Bernie eat the poop.  He didn’t want to eat the poop but he had to because I had the gun.” So after that he told the bartender ‘I had breakfast with Bernie!’

Emmy said,  “I don’t get it.”

Jason said,  “How do you not get it?”

“I get it but it is so stupid I don’t see how it is funny.”

Jason said “Nice one little Bro.”

Emmy said, “What’s wrong with you two? How come every one of your jokes has poop in it? Why is that funny?”

“Are you kidding?”

“It is just stupid.”

“You don’t know what is funny.”

“Yeah!” Max added, “Poop is funny!”

“It is just stupid.”

“Poop is funny! Poop is funny!”

“So stupid.”

- Jay Duret

jayduret@yahoo.com

Bench Press

There were two men by the bench press station. They were taking turns doing sets and talking in the considerable downtime between sets. My trainer, a strong funny woman in her early 40’s who had shaved all the hairs from her arms, pointed them out by gesturing with her chin.

She said, “I don’t know what they do. They have been here for years, since I was here anyway and I think that’s 16 years. They come in every afternoon. There are four of them and they hang around and talk to each other and every so often they will load up the bar with the big plates and groan and then they’ll start the chatting again. It’s like a coffee clatch.”

“There are 4 of them? I only see two?” I said.

“Not every day. But a lot. They really ought to find something to do with themselves.”

One of the two was a striking looking man. He had a deep tan this January day and a face like a Senator.  He wasn’t good looking but he had that cragginess that gave his features a hyper prominence. It was a wind-swept face, with rocky contours. And his hair was like his face, swept back from his forehead and cast with rocky, craggy contours. He was wearing a t-shirt with no sleeves and the word Sweat! in big red letters on his chest. His arms were brimming with tan muscles.

The other man also had no sleeves but he was white and fleshy. He had a pie face and his thin hair didn’t cover the empty patch in the middle of his head. He was in the midst of telling the Senator a story when my trainer and I moved to the calf press machine. We could overhear much of what he was saying, though we missed the first part of the story.

“We were at the house,” the fleshy man said,  “and I just knew she was going to do it again.”

My trainer made me start a set of calf raises but she did it haphazardly, intent on the two men.

“Did she?” The Senator asked.

“She did. She can’t resist.”

“Uh-Oh.”

“No. I mean I knew she was going to do it. So earlier I had been texting with Kitty and I knew that would be right where she’d go, so before I got to the house I just deleted all the texts except for one text I sent Kitty that said ‘Hey, how are you doing? Going anywhere this weekend?’ That’s all I left in the phone.”

The Senator said, “sounds pretty harmless”.

My trainer tried to give me some instructions about the form of my calf raises but I had to shhh her. I wanted to hear what came next. She didn’t resist; she also wanted to hear what came next.

“That’s what I fuckin’ thought! I mean what can she make out of a guy texting his ex-wife about what she is doing over the weekend.”

The Senator gave a rueful, knowing, smile but he didn’t say anything.

My trainer whispered to me, “Big mistake.” She loved this.

“Ssshhhh,” I sushed.

The fleshy guy kept talking, “Anyway, so I go take a shower and when I come out of the bathroom she is sitting on the couch in her robe and drinking a glass of wine.  I could tell right away that things were not good. She looked like she ate a bad pepper.”

“What did she say?”

“She said something really snide like ‘Soooo Johnny, what’s Kitty up to tonite?’”

“Ouch. She looked at your phone.”

“I told you. She can’t help it.”

“What did she say?”

“She must have had a couple of glasses of wine because I didn’t even say anything and she started roaring at me, calling me a fuckin’ this and a fuckin’ that and then she started to throw things. First it was a pillow and then it was a book and then she started to get totally out of control.”

“What did you do?”

“I kicked her ass out, that’s what I did. I kicked her out of the house in her goddamn robe and I let her walk home, the bitch. She can’t come into my house and talk to me that way.”

“After reading the texts on your cell phone.”

“Amen brother, and I knew she’d do it! She couldn’t resist. Good thing I deleted most of the stuff with Kitty.”

The Senator scratched his forehead. He put his foot up on the bench press bench. The fleshy man lay down on the bench and gripped the barbell, but he didn’t take it off the rack.

My trainer whispered to me, “but why didn’t he delete all the texts? Why did he leave part of them?”

The Senator looked down at the fleshy man. “So here is what is confusing me. You knew she was going to look at your phone, right?”

“I told you man, she can’t resist. She is sick.”

“And you deleted almost most of the back and forth with your ex?”

“Exactly.”

“But you left the part about you asking her what she was up to for the weekend.”

“Yeah. It was so nothing, you know?”

“Yeah. Yeah. But… but why did you leave any of it? You could have deleted all of it and then she wouldn’t have known you were still talking with Kitty.”

My trainer gave me a triumphant smile. She had completely forgotten to count my calf raises and I had just gone on and on and now the burn extended from my ankle to my knee.

The Senator continued, “You knew she’d find it.”

“Yeah, she just can’t resist.”

“So why did you leave it?”

“Oh, you know.” The fleshy man looked up at the Senator and gave a half of a shrug.

The Senator didn’t say anything, he just stayed still by the bench, looking grave and senatorial, presiding over the fleshy man’s bench press.

My trainer gave me a wide smile. She silently mouthed the words “because he is a dick…”

The fleshy man shrugged again, “You know, I just wanted to make her crazy. I knew she couldn’t resist. I just knew it.”

“… a real dick…

- Jay Duret

jayduret@yahoo.com

I smiled a big smile and said “Celia, you are breaking my heart” but the reference to Simon & Garfunkel didn’t take even though Celia was also an American of my vintage. She had, Elizabeth told me, been ex-pat for years.

“Nice to meet you,” she said and gave me a dry handshake and a dry smile.

“We’ve been playing Scrabble,” I said as she settled herself and Elizabeth poured her a glass of wine. “Would you like to join in? We’ll give you the average score and you can pick right up.”

Celia gave a dry laugh. “I can’t think of anything I would less like to do. Word games, ughh. Now if you had Sudoku…”

“Oh you are a number person…”

“Well…”

“Would you like to try a new logic puzzle? We were just working it on vacation. I can write it down for you.”

“I would not. I have just driven 7 hours here from Brussels…”

“Oh, I understand.”

“… and I do not want to be tested. I want to relax bit.”

“I understand, must have been a long day. Do you live in Brussels?”

Celia looked at me with studied patience. “We moved into a new house in Brussels on December 19^th and then we got a Christmas tree on December 24^th and I had to drive to Barbizon to get our decorations out of storage.

“I have been to Barbizon. It is in France.”

She looked at me as if I said I had just discovered the Internet. “The kids said ‘just buy new ones’ but I didn’t want to do that and when I got our old ones everyone was happier. And then a family of five arrived to stay with us for a week and I hadn’t even got the boxes unpacked and then I had to take my oldest back to school in London. And the traffic was murder with the end of the holidays.”

‘Why were your decorations in Barbizon?”

“It’s a long story…”

“… Oh …”

“My husband is French and we lived in Barbizon for several years – I used to work in London and he worked in London but then he decided we should move to France – but then the tax stuff started and he decided we had to move out of France because of the tax…”

“Hey, I read about that – didn’t they have a 75% tax that just get struck down by the French courts?”

“Yeah it was a joke, Hollande can’t do anything right. He hates anyone with money.”

“Seventy five percent is a lot. In the States we just about went over the fiscal cliff because of 39%. Seventy five percent? Wow.”

“Yes. Hollande is an idiot.”

“So you guys moved to Brussels?”

“Well our plan was to go there for 6 months and then move back to London. I was dying to move back to London right away but our tax accountant said that we shouldn’t move there straight off because British Revenue might say that we should be taxed in England on some money we made in France but after 6 months we could move back and the risk would be a low risk and so we moved to Brussels for 6 months and we rented a house and put my son in a school in England but then we got a better tax accountant and he said that the risk would not be a low risk even after 6 months, it would be a big risk and it’s our nest egg.”

“I see…”

“And when someone is talking about your nest egg – your whole net worth – you really have to listen.”

“So true…

“And so we bought a house in Brussels…”

“and that’s why you had to retrieve your Christmas decorations from Barbizon.”

“Every one liked having them.”

Elizabeth jumped in, “So much better isn’t it? To have your own.”

“And do you like Brussels?”

“We’ll we don’t have much choice but actually I do like Brussels. There are a lot of mixed couples there. I am American and my husband is French and there are a lot of other couples that are mixed like that and so the community is pretty interesting.

“Is it a transient city?”

“Not really, the people are very interesting. I had wanted to move back to London though.”

“So you have your son here.”

“Yes. I have a seven-hour drive to get him here. But at least I get to see Elizabeth whenever I come over.”

“But you put him in school here cause you were going to move here. That’s got to be a bit irritating.”

Celia didn’t say anything, but she gave me a dry smile.

I charged on, “and then the French court knocked out the tax law that made you move in the first place. You could have just stayed right therein Barbizon. No wonder the drive was so tiring.”

Another couple, Burt and Mary – British friends of Elizabeth – arrived with a great chorus of kisses and hugs and hullos, distracting Celia from a snappy rejoinder.

I had met Burt and Mary before. They owned a sheep farm not far from Elizabeth’s house. They were well fed and had been highly energetic when I met them last. Now they were moving a bit more slowly. Burt had retired from his day job and was busy at the farm and with the task of buying the liquor for his son’s imminent wedding. To that end, he had brought a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Prosecco to dinner and he announced that we would need to sample each and give our opinions.

“I am serious. I want your true opinion. I don’t want you just to say that you like them.”

I asked if I might just try the Prosecco. I said,  “I am not a fan of champagne.”

“Well you should really have the champagne first to give a proper opinion. You see, I am trying to figure out if I can switch from Champagne to Prosecco at some point in the evening and so it’s important what the Prosecco tastes like after you have been drinking Champagne. But if you really want just the Prosecco, I can pour you a glass.”

“Thank you.”

“It just won’t be a proper test.”

“Thank you. I don’t like Champagne. But I like Prosecco. In fact, I have become very fond of Prosecco and Campari. Have you tried that?”

“I have not.”

“It is quite good, you should. Campari by itself is a bit bitter for me; the Prosecco makes it perfect. Just be careful.”

“Why is that?”

“Very powerful.” I said.

“Elizabeth,” Burt called, do you have any Campari?”

“I am sorry my dear. No Campari in this house.”

“Oh well,” I said, “for another day. You’ll have a lot of Prosecco around after the wedding.”

“That’s the issue. I have to get the timing right. I have already bought the Champagne, but I want to switch the crowd over to Prosecco at some point. I am just not sure exactly when and if I get it wrong I am going to have too much Prosecco left on my hands – and worse – they’ll be drinking too much Champagne.”

“Oh I see; you want to wean the guests from Champagne to Prosecco.”

“Oh yes, it is much cheaper.”

“How much cheaper?

“A lot – probably 10 pounds a bottle.”

“Hmm.” I said, “How old are your son’s friends?”

“He is 29, most’ll be around there.”

“Won’t they switch to beer anyway?”

“Don’t suppose so. They aren’t likely to get Champagne every day. I should think they’ll keep drinking Champagne as long as we are pouring.”

“How many guests?”

“We have 170.”

“Maybe you should serve cocktails.” I said. “In the States at a wedding 30-year-olds drink Champagne when they arrive but they’ll switch to mixed drinks or wine after a while…”

Celia, who had shown no interest at all in the discussion up to that point, jumped in, “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to change the entire English drinking culture just for this wedding.”

“Yes,” I said, “I suppose that is true.”

Burt wouldn’t object though. “I could live with that.” He said.  “If they drank spirits, I mean. But In England it’ll mostly be Champagne and then maybe some wine and beer.”

“I like the Prosecco,” I said holding up the glass. “Flavorful. Not too sweet. But then I didn’t have the Champagne.”

“Yes, not a proper test.” Burt paused and rubbed his temples with both hands. “I think I should do it after the second glass. That way they’ll have had a good start…”

“…and maybe they won’t even notice…” I offered.

Burt wouldn’t go that far. “Oh they’ll notice, but maybe at that point they won’t care.”

Elizabeth agreed with that. “And it’s a perfectly lovely Prosecco. They’ll be quite happy with it I should think.”

I couldn’t stay away from the conversation. “Isn’t the problem the toast? Don’t they have to have Champagne for the toast?”

Elizabeth agreed. “Yes that is right. It’ll have to be Champagne for the toast.”

I pressed ahead, “when is the toast? Can you really have the toast just at the beginning when they have only had two drinks?”

“No.” Burt conceded. “It comes later.”

“So you have to switch them to Prosecco and then switch them back to Champagne?”

“Hmm.”

“And then what do you?” I asked, “do you switch them back again to Prosecco a second time?”

“He has a point,” Elizabeth said.

Burt lowered his head and rubbed his temples again.

“I quite like the Prosecco.” I said. “It isn’t too sweet.”

Elizabeth changed the subject. “Jay’s wife, Marty, and I went to France together when we were in college,” Elizabeth said, “and we rented a house in the country and all summer long people stopped by for dinner. It was wonderful.”

“I bet you did all the cooking,” I said.

‘All of it. Marty never cooked. She didn’t really even like food. She’d have her whole dinner just eating off other people’s plates. She is better now.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Now she really likes to cook. Particularly in the summer. And she still likes to set a table. That hasn’t changed.”

Elizabeth explained to Burt and Mary and Celia, “cause she didn’t really cook and she didn’t like to eat, she liked to get the table set. Like a work of art. You have never seen such tables. The plates and glasses and flowers. Really important that the table looked right. She could spend hours getting everything just perfect. It was her way of pitching in.”

Burt said, “yeah, I think the trick will be to switch them over after about an hour. The Prosecco will be just as good and people won’t worry about it.”

Elizabeth said, “yes, it will be brilliant. Just have a lot.”

“You definitely don’t want to run out of liquor. That’s rule number one for weddings.” I added.

“Yes,” Burt said, I think I will go ahead and get the Prosecco.”

“Good call.” I turned to Celia. “Would you like to hear my Barbizon story?”

She gave me a soft but firm “Please.”

I wasn’t sure if the ‘Please’ was the ‘Please’ in ‘Please do’ or the ‘Please’ in ‘Phuleeze’ but I marched forward anyway.

“I was in Barbizon in one of those galleries and I saw the most beautiful bronze sculpture. It was a nude woman with the most exquisite and pensive expression I have ever seen. I really wanted to buy it but it was very expensive and just couldn’t afford it.”

I paused to make sure Celia was with me. She seemed to be following along in her dry way. I continued, “so about 10 years later I was trying to think of a good birthday present for Marty and I thought of the bronze in Barbizon and wished I could get her that. I had more money and this was the era of the Internet so I decided to see if I could find the piece or at least one like it…”

Celia peered at me with her head both tipped forward and slightly cocked to the side as if she were wary that I was going to slip something into her drink.

“… the only problem was that I couldn’t remember the name of the gallery or of the sculptor. I thought I had saved the paperwork, but ten years is a long time and I searched and searched but couldn’t come up with anything other than three digital photos of the sculpture I had taken in the gallery. When I looked at them I could really remember how beautiful it had been.”

“What a shame,” Elizabeth said, “so you never found it?”

“Wait, that’s the story,” I said. “So about three days later I was driving home from work and my mind was wandering.  All of a sudden, it dawned on me that the sculptor might have signed his work. So when I got home I looked at the photos again and in one of them you could see that there was something really small etched into the sculpture at the feet of the nude woman.”

I looked to see if there was a spark of interest in Celia’s hooded eyes. Nope.

“So I blew that part of the photo up and printed it out. You couldn’t read it all but with a magnifying glass you could make out 5 or 6 letters. I made some guesses about the letters that I couldn’t read and started dropping them into Google searches along with ‘Barbizon’ and ‘French’ and ‘Sculptor’.”

“And you found him?” Elizabeth asked.

“Damned if I did not. He was being represented by a big gallery in Paris and they actually had a whole bunch of nudes like the one I had seen. I did some more searching and found the artist’s own website. I actually found the same series of bronzes that I saw ten years before. You could tell they were all of the same woman. They were beautiful.”

“Brilliant!” Elizabeth said, “did you buy one?”

“Sadly, no.”

“Why not?”

“Well they had been too expensive when I first saw them, at least for my wallet at the time, and now it was way worse. The prices were 6 or 8 times higher than when I first saw them.”

“Think of how much you’d have made if you bought then.” Celia said.

“Yeah. It was killer. I really loved those pieces. I should have bought back then. But now the prices were insane and there was also a huge duty and tariff if I had them sent to the States. I mean, trust me, if it had been anywhere close to reality I would have definitely purchased one.”

“You’d have made a killing.” Celia added.

“Maybe now the prices will come down,” Elizabeth offered helpfully, “with the tax stuff.”

“Hollande really hates the rich. He is driving them all out of France.” Celia said.

“To Brussels,” I said.

“And England,” Elizabeth said, “Cameron actually extended the invitation. He said we’d love to have them. Rich French people are welcome in England.”

Burt said, to no one in particular, “I think you are right, I quite like this Prosecco. I think it will do just fine.”

“So you think I should look at again for the bronzes?” I asked.

“Definitely.” Elizabeth said. “You should.”

“I hope I saved the name of the gallery,” I said.

“Its probably in Brussels now.” Elizabeth said.

Celia said. “Well you really should have bought ten years ago. You’d have made a killing. Not much you can do about that now. I am afraid you’ve missed your chance.”

- Jay Duret

jayduret@yahoo.com

So Dad we just finished reading the book Seed Folk and it was all about giving, so we had this assignment and for a project we were supposed to make a secret gift of the Seed Folk book to someone and see what they thought about getting the gift.

Anyone?

Yeah. Anyone. So Erin and I left the book on the hood of a car parked on Valencia Street and then we waited around to see what happened.

What happened?

Well this guy came up to the car and he was in a hurry and he didn’t even notice the book on the car and so he just pulled out and started driving away.

Oh no. Did it fall off?

No it stayed there right on the hood.

Oh too bad. So you never found out what he thought of it.

No we did.

How? I thought he drove off?

We followed him.

How did you do that?

Erin ran and got the car and we sped after him. Erin was great. She was a demon.

Wow. What happened?

Well he just drove along for a while – I think he went four or five blocks and then I guess he finally noticed the book. So he pulled over got out of the car and got out.

What happened then?

Erin and I were really excited cause now that he had found the book he was getting his secret gift and it was going to be really cool.

And?

He grabbed the book and he looked at it a minute and then he just flung it away.

Flung it?

He flung it. And then he got in the car and drove away.

What happened to the book?

It was just lying there on the side of the road.

Did you go get it and try again?

No we just watched it for a while.

You and Erin sat in the car and just watched your old book sitting there in the road?

We did.

I bet that was sort of boring.

No cause this guy came walking along and he picked up the book and read the back page. And then he put it in his back pocket and walked away. He was really cool.

What did it say on the back cover?

I put a note there that said ‘this book is a gift from Emmy; please read and give it to someone else.’

Sounds like a perfect ending, him picking it up and all.

Totally.

Can you tell me about the two guys? What was the first guy like? The one who flung the book away?

He was a mean guy.

And the other guy?

He was cool.

Can you make up a story about each of the guys – you know a backstory about whom they are?

Dad, I am not doing writer’s camp.

This isn’t writer’s camp; this is just a little backstory to make the regular story even better.

I think its pretty good the way it is. And it actually happened.

Fine. Fine. But a little backstory never hurt anybody.

Dad…

Oh Come on. It won’t kill you.

Okay, but you are a weirdo. The first guy is 45 and he is a teacher at Waldorf. He is very mean and strict and he hates the kids he teaches. He went to Cal and he studied business but that didn’t work out. He lives with his mom and dad and is very mean. He got married but they were divorced after three years. He has a child, a girl and she is 27, but he does not see her very often.

What is his name?

Burton.

What do they call him?

Burton.

Nice. What about the other guy? The cool one?

He is 28. He went to Stanford and he studied computers. He graduated from college and got a job in a technology company. He isn’t married but he has a girlfriend. He is very nice. He is called Ben.

I think your school project was pretty cool.

Yeah. It had a happy ending.

What do you suppose Ben did with the book?

He read it obviously. And then I bet he gave it to some one else so they could read it too.

Burton?

Come on Dad. Burton doesn’t get a second chance.

Cause he is mean?

Exactly.

-    Jay Duret

jayduret@yahoo.com

Ordinary Life

The two men were standing by the big mirror in the locker room. The older one was on the way to a workout; the younger one was drenched in sweat.

The older one was wearing a light blue tee shirt on top of a grey tee shirt. He stood slightly off balance and tilted his head as if he wanted to look up at the younger man even though they were the same height.

The younger man was observing himself in the mirror while he listened, politely, to the older man.

“…and that’s the vow I took,” the older man said. I would be an ordinary person and I would live an extraordinary life.”

“Uh huh…”

“That’s the vow I made.”

The young man nodded.

The older man continued, his eyes fixed intently on the younger man’s face. “I would be an ordinary person and live an extraordinary life. But somehow I just got lost in the ordinariness.”

“Uh-huh.” The younger man briefly looked over at the older man. He bobbed his head in sympathy, then returned his eyes to the mirror and continued the inspection of his own face.

“I just didn’t see it coming.” The older man said, shaking his head at the thought. “It just came over me and over me and after a while everything was ordinary and it wasn‘t just me – that would be fine, that was the plan – but my whole life was turning out ordinary.” The older man moved his face forward, closer to the younger man, and looked even more intently into his face.

“Oh.” The young man had found a hair on his eyebrow that wasn’t to his liking and he craned forward to see it more clearly.

“And if I hadn’t done something…,” it seemed as if he was building up to a big point, but he paused and let the suspense dissipate, “well, you know how it is….”

If the younger man knew, it was not obvious. He was trying to pull the hair out of his eyebrow but he was having difficulty getting a good grip. He had screwed up one eye and titled his head so that side of his face was closest to the mirror.

“… I’d have just gone on that way. Flat out ordinary. Nothing special.” The older man shook his head again, ruing the possibility.

“So whaddid you do?” the younger man said. He had scrunched up his face to get at the hair so it seemed as if he were grimacing at the older man’s story.

The older man ignored the question. “I am still baffled by it. It was like a big gray fog of ordinariness had totally covered me over and everything I did was gray just gray like I was inside a cotton ball.”

The younger man picked up a Q-tip and he began to explore his right ear – the ear furthest from the older man.

The older man continued. “I was lost, Mezzi. Really, I was lost.”

Mezzi turned to his full face to the older man, Q-tip now sticking out of his ear like an antenna. “So what did you do?”

The older man smiled in a rueful way, tipping his head to one side again. “I just decided that it couldn’t be. I wouldn’t let it. My life wasn’t meant to be ordinary and I wasn’t going to settle for that.”

Mezzi appeared to have lost track of the fact that he had a Q-tip sticking from his right ear. He inserted another one in his left ear.

The older man noticed, “Mezzi. You have got a Q-tip in your ear.”

“Huh? Oh yeah. Lots of sweat. Everywhere. In my ears. Every time…. So how’d you do it?’

“You sweat in your ears? I never heard of that.”

“Ha Ha. Not in the ears. But its runs in there. Every time. Drives me crazy.”

“Don’t you wear a headband? That’s what I would do. I would wear a headband for sure. I think that would fix the issue. I bet it would.”

“I just use these guys.” Mezzi extracted one Q-tip and then the other. He inspected each carefully and then pitched them one after another towards the hole in the counter in front of the mirror. The first went through nicely but the second hit the edge and stuck there, hanging by a sticky bit of ear wax.

The older man looked at the hanging Q-tip.

“So what’d you do?” Mezzi said, “How did you make it extraordinary??

But the older man was turning away. He didn’t say another word. He just walked away, slightly hunched.

“Hey,” Mezzi called after him, “How did you make it extraordinary? I really want to know?”

The older man just kept walking.

“I am serious”, Mezzi said, “I want to know. I really want to know. How’d it become extraordinary?”

The older man didn’t answer.

Mezzi stared after him for a few seconds. Then he turned back to inspecting his face in the mirror.

- Jay Duret

The terms come in handy for driving in San Francisco.  Pretty much every intersection is a four way stop. And there is not enough parking so there is never ending procession of cars slowly cruising the streets – seriously, it reminds you of American Graffiti – looking for parking spaces. If a driver spies one on the wrong side of the street, it is crucial that he be able to execute a Divisadero before another driver coming the other direction gets to the spot ahead of him.  You really can’t drive in San Francisco if you can’t execute a Divisadero under pressure.

There are different types of Divisaderos.  There is your plain vanilla Divisadero. The driver pulls to the right side of the right lane, pauses for an instant, and then, when oncoming traffic is still blocked by the opposing stop sign, cranks a hard U-turn to the left, skittering around within the intersection so that the oncoming car will have no choice but to hold his ground.  By far a classier move is the so-called “Natural Divisadero” in which the driver executes the same maneuver but without ever stopping.  Done gracefully, the Natural Divisadero blends right into the flow of traffic and almost looks like as if the intersection was designed with that maneuver in mind.  But even the Natural Divisadero pales in comparison to the “Perfect Divisadero” in which the driver not only doesn’t stop but actually maintains the same speed all through the maneuver.

Divisaderos need not be performed on Divisadero Street.  Indeed they are in evidence all over the city.  Sometimes you will see a San Francisco driver attempt a Divisadero when the car is too big or the street is too narrow or the timing is too confused. Then the driver will have no choice but to make an awkward 3-point turn while the cars on the other side of the intersection beam WTF expressions.  We call this maneuver a “Stupidadero.”

*          *          *

I have dinner with a group of expat Philadelphians living in San Francisco. When I get there they are talking about San Francisco drivers.

“Second of all, they are so damn docile. They get on a street that is all backed up and they just sit there, its uncanny. I mean a block away the traffic is zooming along and they just sit where they are. They never just go over a block.”

“Its cause they are too busy texting.”

“You are so right. I am gonna get killed by one of those tech guys writing an algorithm while he is driving.”

“What gets me is that no one blocks the box.”

“So true. What’s up with that?”

“I mean you’ll get a guy ahead of you and there is a green light but he’ll just sit on this side of the intersection and wait to make sure that he doesn’t get caught in the middle when the light changes. And then when he sees some room he scampers across and its always just at that moment that the light does change red and now there’s no time for you to get across. I don’t get it. In Philly we’d both just go ahead – the damn light is green after all – and then it’d sort itself out and you’d have not got stuck at the light.”

“Yeah.”

“In Philly, people love to block the box. Its like an art form.”

“But that’s not even the worst thing about San Francisco drivers.”

“What’s worse?”

“Have you ever noticed that no one flips you the bird?”

“Driving?”

“Yeah. I mean suppose a guy cuts you off at an intersection. Obviously you give him the finger, right?”

“Of course, that’s why the good Lord gave us a middle finger…”

“But they don’t do it here.”

“It’s not like no one ever cuts you off…”

“Oh yeah. That happens all the time but when it does, have you noticed, the driver in the car that gets cuts off will put on one of those WTF faces and then he’ll throw up his hands – palms up – to show just how unbelievable it is that anybody would drive that way and all the while he is looking around for other drivers or pedestrians who saw the cut-off and if he finds one he tries to catch his or her eyes to share the WTF face and the can-you-believe-it gesture because what he really wants at a moment like that is to share a look with some other sympathetic soul who can join into his incredulity that anyone – anyone! – would drive so badly.”

“Its so much easier just to give the guy the finger.”

“Exactly.”

“Its like no one cares about getting even, its this ‘we are in this together’ business.”

“They are just the worst drivers.”

“Yeah. The worst.”

*          *          *

I came across a magazine called San Francisco Haute Living that contained page after boring page of watches selling for impossible prices. Toward the back however I found an ad:

In today’s global marketplace where ultra high net-worth professionals are demanding that their security vehicles not only provide top level armoring, but also include some of the most luxurious interior appointments, they are turning to Conquest Vehicle’s handcrafted KNIGHT XV to achieve this incredible and delicate balance.

The Knight XV is a 400 horsepower beast weighing 13,000 pounds and retailing for $489,000 before optional upgrades. The vehicle shipped with a “ballistic run-flat tire system” to allow continued operation should the tires lose pressure, as they would for example if they were shot out. The manufacturer’s website contained various optional upgrades, including an “external smoke security system,”  “hidden front VIP strobes”, and a cigar humidor. The website summed it up: “we believe that we have created an entirely new niche in the bespoke luxury armored vehicle marketplace

Fine, but can it do a Divisadero?

*          *          *

Indian summer Sunday. I was driving through the Presidio. Crissy field was to my right. Usual weekend collection of bike riders. Long boarders. Runners. Hikers. I was driving with my daughter Emmy and her friend Zinnia. They were twelve years old and they were deep in a conversation about a boy in their class who was captured in an iPhone video falling, hilariously, off a roof.

Coming towards us on the bike path on the left were two women on bikes. They were joking and laughing. There was something odd about the woman on the right. She didn’t seem to be wearing a shirt. That couldn’t be right. Maybe it was just a tan shirt the same color of the woman. Nope. No shirt. She had big breasts, big nipples. Swinging free as she pedaled.

I didn’t say anything. We see naked men in the City from time to time, particularly in the Castro but I didn’t recall any topless women bike-riders before.

I wondered if Emmy and Zinnia would notice. We approached the women bikers. The women were relaxed and laughing as they rode. One was wearing a brassiere, her shirt tied around her waist.  The topless rider was completely matter of fact. Just a woman out for a Sunday bike ride on a glorious Indian summer day, loving the sun on her naked back.

I looked over at Emmy. She had noticed. She said, “is that…?” She bit off the end of the sentence.

I drove past the bikers. Emmy was quiet for about 5 seconds. Then she said to Zinnia, “that’s disturbing.” `

Zinnia answered, “very.”

Then they went back to talking about the boy from their class who fell, hilariously, off the roof.

Meanwhile, on the sidewalk, a Korean boy in a ratty red sweater was bicycling toward the topless biker. As he approached, his mouth fell wide open, his eyes as big as the nipples he was staring at. The women passed him and his head swiveled around to follow them. The motion was too much for the bike and he went into an unbalanced Divisadero. His bike toppled over in the middle of the sidewalk. A classic Stupidadero.

*          *          *

I was driving Emmy to school and on Van Ness we passed a Google Driverless car. The vehicle had a turning radar-like antenna on the roof and was proceeding along perkily next to me. At the stop sign we pulled up next to the car. There was a young man in the driver’s seat. He had a slightly goofy look and he made a fuss showing us that his hands were not being used to drive. “Look Ma, no hands!” There was a sign on the car body announcing that it was a driverless vehicle but as best as we could tell, nobody noticed, nobody cared. Just another driverless car. Ho hum. Not like it was a bespoke vehicle, after all.

-Jay Duret

jayduret@yahoo.com

I was coming up Divisadero when I saw the truck. It was a large United moving van and clearly stuck at the crest of Broadway. I was surprised by the sight. Not because it’s uncommon for trucks to get stuck at this spot, but because the van was heading up Divisadero, not down. I have seen five or six moving vans caught coming down the hill but this was the first one I had seen coming up.

I like to get photos of trucks stuck at the top of the hill and so I pulled my car into Broadway and found a place to park. I walked back to the intersection. I got closer and could see that the tractor had made it up to the level ground at the top of the rise but the underbelly of the truck had run aground before the trailer got two feet further. The van was completely stuck.

I tried to think how someone would get stuck going up the hill. Going down the hill is easy to imagine. The truck driver doesn’t understand or dismisses the warning sign, the trailer starts down the hill and before you know it there is a grinding noise and the truck is stuck and there is no way to back up.

But going up the hill the dynamics all seem wrong. There is a stop sign on Divisadero before the crest on Broadway, so a truck coming up that very steep hill would be stopped at the stop sign and would start up onto the flat ground at the crest of the hill from a low speed. You would think that at the first sign of a grinding noise it would be immediately apparent to the driver that the belly of the truck was on hard pavement and nothing good could happen by going forward. You would think the driver would immediately stop and back down the hill. It would be easy to back down because the truck couldn’t have gotten wedged very thoroughly given its low speed and the fact that it was climbing the hill.

The only way you would  get stuck going up the hill would be if the driver felt the scrape underneath and decided to just muscle his way through the problem and gave more gas and more gas forcing the underbelly of the van further and further onto dry land. That would be macho. That would be stupid. That would be a mistake

I looked around to find the truck driver. He was unmistakable. He was wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt and one of those black and white checked hats that have built in earflaps. He had a microphone that looked like that it was embedded in the hat and he was talking furiously to someone in another location. He was stomping his foot and I could tell he was angry. He was furious.

I walked around the truck taking pictures then, to my delight, a tow truck from Atlas Advanced Towing arrived. I had heard of these tow trucks, big as tugboats, able to winch out even a fully loaded moving van. They specialized in Pacific Heights rescue missions.

The driver of the tow truck was clearly a pro. He was dressed all in black and he moved with the languorousness of expertise that the gravity of the situation demanded. I called out to him and asked how many times he had rescued vans at the top of this hill. He dismissed me with a curt, but professionally knowing, wave that suggested that the number was more than I could imagine. I watched as he drove the tow truck up to the nose of the moving van and then backed up by about ten feet. There he put down sturdy block like stanchions from the front of the tow truck and unrolled three long chains that he hooked to the undercarriage beneath the tractor. Then he began to winch the truck towards him, up the hill.

I couldn’t believe what he was doing. He was doing the same thing the macho driver tried to do, just with more power. He was trying to drag that truck forward up the hill until it got to a place where the back wheels were flat against the top of the hill. He was just going to muscle it through.

I watched him winch the moving van forward. There was a deep grinding noise as the underside of the moving van dragged further across the crest of the hill. Steel squealed. Then there was a popping noise – like rivets exploding from their moorings – and the doors on the compartments on the underside of the moving van bent outwards and blew open. The tow truck moved the truck almost six feet until all progress came to an absolute halt.

I was amazed. The moving van was now completely and thoroughly beached. The back wheels of the trailer were up off the ground. The front wheels were off the ground. The underbelly was embedded in the crest of the hill. The truck was stuck like a whale on a sandbar.

On the top of the hill, cars moved around either side of the van and tow truck. Several stopped and passengers whipped out their iPhones and video cameras to record the events. There was a celebratory atmosphere. Two boys came by on skateboards and joined in the general hilarity. They started doing tricks in front of the truck, much to the annoyance of the Atlas driver. They were pilot fish in front of the whale.

The truck driver yammered at the pro from Atlas Towing. The pro ignored him. The pro took huge slats of wood from the back of his tow truck and then placed them strategically under the truck body of the van.  Then he loosened the tension off the towing cables and unhooked them from the underside of the carriage of the van, leaving the van like a house that has been jacked up from its foundation.

A minute later a man with an Atlas cap and a clipboard showed up and began a hasty and animated conversation with the Atlas driver. The truck driver, excluded from that consultation, walked over to my corner of Divisadero. I asked him what had happened.

He didn’t look at me and started talking on his cell phone. I eavesdropped. “I don’t know what the damn guy was thinking of.” There was a pause. “I can tell you this. It’s God dammed San Francisco and that means its gonna take a long time. I don’t know what this guy thinks he is doing but it’s not happening fast! I’ll tell you that. God dammed San Francisco! God Damn San Francisco!”

I got into my car. I thought about waiting to see how this would work out but there was no resolution in sight and I had that uncomfortable feeling you get when you are invited to dinner and your hosts have a fight in front of you. And so, reluctantly, I left the scene. When I drove by a few hours later, the van was gone.

- Jay Duret

jayduret@yahoo.com

The louder one had blond ringlets that hung down onto her shoulders from under a small black cap. She was wearing a very short skirt and managing the high stool and short skirt required her to squirm.

The one who wasn’t the louder one was still pretty loud because she had to shout over the loud and cheerful bar noise. She had a dark green and blue tattoo sleeve down her shoulder almost to her elbow.

“Mishie”, the louder one said, “I can’t stand the bitch.”

“Oh no. This about your boss again?”

“I can’t believe her.”

“Whaddid she do now?

“So today everyone was running around like crazy cause there was an RFP that was due and no one knew where the appendix was and Kathy was freaked out cause she was responsible and so she loses it, I mean completely loses it, and she starts running around and sticking her head in people’s offices – just charging in even if they were in meetings or on the phone – and accusing people of taking the appendix and then she comes running up to my desk and starts screaming about what did I do with it.”

“Uh-Oh”

“I don’t even work for the bitch any more and I had nothing to do with the appendix.”

“I thought you did work for her.”

“No she had me transferred over to Finance last month which I was more than fine with me – did I mention she was a bitch? – but I still sit outside of her office cause there  wasn’t any space in Finance and so when she wants something she still asks me for it just like I worked for her and I am such a chickenshit that I do it anyway cause I hate it when she starts to scream. She has these little bags of skin on her neck and when her face gets red they get all wobbly and jiggly and it freaks me out.”

“Her neck gets wobbly and jiggly? Did you really just say that?”

“You know what I mean. Like on a turkey.”

“That’s what bothers you?”

“Don’t get all that way on me. She is what bothers me. The bitch. I am just saying that when she starts yelling you don’t want to look her in the eyes or see her big dumbass red face so one time I just looked down a little and that’s when I noticed the neck business. And I wish I never had cause now all I can see is her neck wiggling.”

“I am not sure I need to hear much more about the neck.”

“I know! I wish I had never seen it but now I can’t get it out of mind. Its like one of those stupid songs that get on your mind and you can’t get rid of it.”

The one who was not so loud laughed and said, “the bitch’s neck is Gangnum Style!” Then she crossed her arms at her wrists and pumped them up and down like she was holding the reins of a galloping pony. She laughed at herself but she stopped short when she started to slide off the tall stool.

The louder one said, “Oh you have to see her in action.”

“I will pass.”

“Anyway she is screaming about the damn appendix and her neck is all red and wobbling and I am trying not to look at her but it’s pretty damn hard when she is right in front of me with her nasty neck twitching but then I notice that she has got this batch of papers in her arms and I see that she has the appendix on the bottom of the stack.”

“Hah!”

“I know. What a bitch. How she ever got her job is a mystery to me.”

“So what did she say when you told her?”

The louder one smiled a Cheshire smile. She squirmed about, adjusted her skirt and then took a long sip of her drink. “Who said I told her?”

“You are kidding. You just let her scream at you?”

“I wanted to see what would happen.”

“You are crazy. I could never do that.”

“Turns out I couldn’t for very long, but it was long enough so that pretty much everyone in the office was looking at us.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

“After a minute of two I broke down and reached out and grabbed her stack of papers out of her arms.”

“What did she do?”

“She was surprised. I mean, she was shocked. She even stopped yelling for a minute. But then she started up again even louder. She is saying ‘What do you think you are doing?’”

“And you are still looking at the neck?”

“Trust me, there is no way not to be looking at her neck.”

“So what did you?”

“It was turning into a real scene. Everyone was looking at her screaming at me, though they were pretending not to in case she saw them looking. Finally, I said real loud, ‘will you stop screaming, please’ and she said even louder, ‘I am not screaming!’ and I said ‘excuse me, yes you are’ and she said ‘I need that appendix!’ and I said ‘isn’t this the appendix? You had it in your arms’ and she looked at me like I had slapped her.

“What did she say?”

“She didn’t say anything. She just snatched it from me and stormed off back into her office and she slammed the door.”

“She must have felt like a jerk.”

“So I am sitting there trying to get myself organized when somebody started clapping and the next thing you know everybody in the office is clapping.”

“Whoa! That’s gotta make you feel good.”

“Yeah, I am feeling like I am quite the hero. People are coming up and saying ‘good job’ and that sort of stuff. But after a few minutes I start to get nervous cause I don’t want get canned for making the bitch look bad.”

“She wouldn’t dare after everybody saw what happened?”

“I hope.”

“Yeah.”

“I should have just pointed it out and not made a big deal.”

“You did the right thing.”

“I wonder. I don’t trust that bitch. She can find a dozen ways to get even and no one will ever know.”

“That’s why they have got lawyers.”

“Oh right. That’s going to help me.”

“Izzie in Accounting got herself a lawyer last year when they were about to throw her ass out and she is still there. Maybe you better see if you can get her name.

“Trust me, if I am talking to a lawyer its cause I am going under for the third time.”

“Don’t worry. She won’t even remember. It’s Thanksgiving! Everybody loves Thanksgiving! By the time she gets back, she’ll have forgotten about the whole thing.”

“Mishie, I hope you are right.”

“I am. You’ll see. She’ll forget the whole thing.”

“But how about me?”

“What about you?

“All weekend I am gonna be reminded of her.”

“Why? You aren’t working, are you?”

“No, but its Thanksgiving!”

“So.”

“There will be turkeys everywhere and they all have those necks and whenever I see a turkey and I will be thinking of Kathy yelling at me.”

“Oh. I feel your pain.”

“Damn that neck business. Damn it.”

- Jay Duret

jayduret@yahoo.com