Carne Fresco

Author's Note: this story features characters and settings from my unpublished urban fantasy novel.


Fast food isn't dangerous because it makes you fat, it's dangerous because everyone eats it. Once you walk through the door, you just gotta accept that your chance of running into someone you can't stand goes up. You hate crying kids? There'll be a busload of 'em inside. You hate lawyers? There's a conference in town. You want a nice quiet lunch? That's when a civilian decides to rob Carne Fresco, a burger joint run by vampires.


The kid, dressed in army surplus fatigues and spotless white basketball shoes, is holding a shotgun that's too big for him. His legs shake as he swings it from cashier to cashier, shouting at them.

"Faster! Just dump it, dump it!"

The wampyr behind the counter do as he says, nervous not from the weapon pointed at them, but the fear of having civilian cops poking around their little operation. If the Wampyr Primero had to step in, or heaven forbid, a full-blood vampire take charge? These guys would be lucky to get out of their coffins by the next ice age. If they stay calm and give the kid what he wants, maybe everyone can get out of here alive. Maybe I can finish my cheeseburgers.

"I say we waste him, Angus" says a voice behind me.

That would be the knife tucked into my back holster, Balance. It's got a big mouth. I'd get rid of it, but there aren't a lot of weapons capable of taking the head off a demon or angel.

"Shut up," I mumble.

"I'm just saying. He looks like the type that would forget the safety's still on."

The barrel of the shotgun swings my way, and I stay very still.

"What'd you say? What? What?" The barrel quivers with each question. Then he looks at the six burgers stacked like a Mayan pyramid at my left, the half-eaten burger in front of me, and a mound of crumpled wrappers to my right.

"Where are your friends?" he says, glancing under the table.

"No friends," I say, "this is all mine."

He laughs like I just said the funniest thing in the world. The gun barrel sketches a quivering circle around my head.

"What, you like training for an eating contest or something?" he says.

I come to Carne Fresco because it's one of the few places I can eat without being gawked at. I contemplate burying Balance in his gullet, and ripping it open to show him what it means to be hypermetabolic. Instead, I shrug.

"Something like that," I say. I decide to leave out that I'll have to eat as much again in three hours, more if I'm hurt.

"Then who were you talking to?" He looks under the table.

"Nobody," I say, "Must have been my cell phone or something."

"Oh yeah? Hand it over."

Crap. I don't really have a cell phone. Most of the shamans, angels, and denizens of the netherworld I know have no use for them. I do have a cell, of course, but I left it at home. I just wanted a quiet dinner.

I start patting my pockets.

"Quit screwing around!" the kid says. He pumps the shotgun, which I imagine was supposed to be a bad-ass move on his part. Instead, one of the shotgun's shells ejects and clatters to the floor. He looks down at it in shock for a second then tries to cover it by rushing toward my booth. The barrel stops inches from my face.

"The phone!" he says. His eyes are almost all white.

Balance starts singing

"Da-da-do-dah, Angus, we can taaake him." It's a fair imitation of a band I heard on the radio the other day. I didn't know my weapon could do impressions.

"Answer it," the kid says.

"All right," I say, "I'm going to move my hands now, is that okay?"

"Do it, just do it! You think I won't shoot?"

If it were a professional behind the trigger I wouldn't mind, but this kid is an amateur, and you can never predict what they'll do. The gun could go off and he wouldn't even realize he had squeezed the trigger. I reach back slowly and grasp Balance by the hilt. I look over the kid's shoulder at the cashiers. One has filled a white paper sack with the money from his till. The other is gathering herself. I shake my head at her, but she just grins as her canines elongate. She knows who I am and she should know better.

The kid glances back just as she leaps the counter. Wampyr are not as fast as full-blood vampires, but faster than your average Olympic medalist. The kid begins to swing the shotgun around though he doesn't have a chance in hell of getting a shot off before she gets to him. I pull Balance with my right hand and grab the shotgun barrel with my left. The gun and would-be robber become lever and fulcrum as I leap over the booth. The shotgun shudders and there's a wet crunch. I bring the knife up under the wampyr's throat, stopping her short.

"You know what this is?" I say to her. She shakes her head.

"I'm the thing that's going to slice your head off if you move," Balance says.

"Hold it, I got this under control," I say.

"Guess again, Angus," Balance says. "Look behind you."

The deal at Carne Fresco is like a co-op for wampyr. You work a shift, you get paid in blood. The farms are certified organic, so the prospective wampyr doesn't have to worry about hormones, antibiotics, or other additives in their food. It's safe, organic, and most of all discrete. The place pays for itself by serving the leftovers to non-bloodsuckers. It's a radical concept in the vampire world, but that's what happens when the Old World vamps move into California and meet New Age Captialism. They were even green before green was cool. Me, I just like the burgers. The hormones in McDonald's burgers don't agree with my metabolism.

So in theory, everyone working tonight should be well-fed.

The kid is trying to hold the shotgun in one hand and has the other trying to hold back the blood streaming from his nose. I glance back at the cashier, who is already staring at the kid with a new look. She's hungry.

"Didn't you eat before you came to work?" I say to her. She just licks her lips.

"You had a knife?" The kid says.

"He's a sharp one, all right," Balance says.

It's like I can hear the kid thinking while I'm holding the struggling wampyr by the neck. He's trying to process a talking knife, a woman who suddenly sprouted fangs, and a nose gushing blood.

"Holy shit," the kid says, and racks the shotgun again. I hear the shell hit the floor. The barrel appears in the corner of my eye, and I think it's aimed at my head.

"Man, kid, you are dumb," Balance says. "Who do you think is saving your life here?"

"Cut it out," I say to the knife. The wampyr tries shooting past me, and she chokes a bit as I tighten my grip. "You too," I say to her. Her name tag reads 'Isabel.'

"She's a …"

"Yup," I say.

"So you're..?"

"No. Human, just like you," I say, which is mostly true.

I call out to the other wampyr. "You got someone that can take her?"

"The manager called in sick today. Isabel's the next dominant."

Meaning that there's no Alpha minding the store to reign in Isabel, and the rest of the staff are powerless against her. Isabel could be feeding from a non-dominant's mother and they wouldn't even clear their throats over it.

"I'm pretty sure that's against code," I say.

"As is not eating before your shift," Balance says.

The other wampyr shrugs. "Sorry." I notice he's sweating. I didn't know wampyr did that. Learn something new every day, I guess. The muscles in my arm start to burn. I wonder how much longer I can hold Isabel. Maybe another two minutes. I turn back to the kid with the shotgun.

"What's your name, kid?" I say.

"Elliot."

"Okay, Elliot, listen to me. You need to get the hell out of here before you become this nice young lady's lunch." The girl snarls and I catch a whiff of garlic, proving you can't trust every legend you hear about.

"You broke my nose," says Elliot. The whine in his voice makes me want to give him a few missing teeth too, but I need all my concentration to hold down the girl.

"Elliot, that's the problem. She thinks you're food. I need you to back away slowly toward the door."

"What about my money?" Elliot says.

"You should let her eat him on general principles," Balance says.

"Forget the money; you get to live. But only if you do exactly what I say."

"Who are you?"

"Your guardian angel, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the monster in your closet, all wrapped up in a second-hand jacket." Balance says, "Geez, just do as he says, kid!"

"Why don't you just kill it?" Elliot says.

For the same reason you don't shoot a diabetic having a seizure, but I doubt that'd convince him.

"Because if I have to kill her, her friends behind the counter will rip you apart."

"Okay," Elliot says, "what do I do?"

My tricep starts cramping up. Isabel paws at my elbow, still gazing at Elliot's bloody face.

"Okay, Elliot, you need to be the Alpha Dog here. Keep eye contact. Back away slowly. Don't for any reason turn your back on her."

I hear him shuffle towards the door. The shotgun rattles in his hands. Then there's a grunt and he falls down. Isabel surges past me. She takes a slice from Balance as she lunges past me. I re-grip on her ankle. There's a flash; a giant explosion goes off next to my ear, and I'm covered in bits of ceiling tile. Giant purple afterimages float in front of me, and it sounds like a bell ringer convention in my ears.

"Oh god, oh god, ohgod ohgod," Elliot says, crab walking away from Isabel's outstretched arm. The blast pockmarked her face, and her lower jaw is partially unhinged. There's a shallow cut from Balance along her carotid artery. Already, the flesh begins to re-knit itself. The cut on her neck does not seal, which is the whole point of putting up with the damn knife. Isabel tries leaping at Elliot, but it brought up short as I yank her back by the ankle.

Elliot racks the shotgun and brings the barrel down. I lunge forward, and snap my arm down. Balance flies from my hand. It does a half-turn and hits the muzzle handle-first. I wrap my arm around Isabel's neck, and we fall to the ground. The gun slews sideways as Elliot pulls the trigger, taking out a plastic flower display and part of a garbage can. I start to reach for the shotgun when someone stabs me in the arm.

Isabel's mouth is latched just above my wrist, her throat working as she slurps away. I try to pull her off by the hair, but it just rips out in bloody clumps and wiggles her fangs in my forearm. Elliot racks the shotgun one more time and I'm staring down the barrel.

"You're almost killed me," he says.

"I'm still keeping you alive. Run," I say, "before she finishes and has you for dessert."

He stands there with the gun at my head. Spots fill my vision as my blood pressure drops. Isabel's head comes up with a hollow gasp as she releases my arm. A wide stripe of blood covers her chin, neck, and chest. Elliot's eyes go wide, and he drops the shotgun. He runs out of the restaurant, into the night.

Isabel's eyes focus, and she looks around in confusion. Her face and neck have completely healed; her hair is thick and photo-perfect, though her uniform is ruined. She takes in the hole in the ceiling, then glances down at me. She recoils.

"You're a Hunter, aren't you?"

I nod. The room seems to waver.

"And I fed from you?"

"You did."

"Oh," she says, and looks down at her uniform. Her head shakes a little from side to side as if she's constantly saying 'no.' I can understand. On top of everything else, assaulting and feeding from a hunter is a capital offense. Period. It's the vampire equivalent of blacking out and finding yourself falling from an airplane you wrecked sans parachute. Into a volcano. On eruption day.

"I'll be dusted, won't I?"

"You came close tonight already." I pointed at Balance. "Recognize that?"

She shuddered. "Yes."

"You could have been beheaded, you weren't. You should have bled out, you didn't. You're still here because you fed from me. Because of that, the idiot you were after got away, and the human cops aren't here right now asking awkward questions. I'd rather just forget about this whole thing."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

I sat up, and the room spun. I braced myself until it settled down.

"But first, I'm going to need a dozen double-doubles with bacon and three large shakes -- vanilla." Hypermetabolism was a bitch, but it did have its advantages. With any luck, I'd be able to walk out of here within the hour.

"Of course," Isabella said, "On the house." She scrambled back to the other wampyr. "Twelve quad bypasses with insurance and three large vanillas, guys. Martin, count out the tills, then grab a broom and clean up back there. I'm going to go change."

I crawl over and retrieve Balance.

"A second-hand jacket?" I say as I put the knife away.

"Angus, if a bum found your jacket laying on the street, the only reason he'd pick it up would be to burn it."

I brace myself against a booth and haul myself up; my table and its burger pyramid isn't that far away. With any luck, I can finish them before the next dozen come out. I decide I'll let Isabella and her crew comp me the food, even though I'm sure there's a rule against it. Man, I love bacon.

Image:  Double burger by Luke

Love in the Nineties

  I slid my hand down her back and drew her crotch to mine. Her eyes opened wide as I rubbed my cock against the black velvet skirt. Whatever she was supposed to say came out as a whispered “Uff ta.” I stroked her hair, took her head in both hands, and lowered my lips to hers, forced her lips opened and stuck my tongue in there. After a moment, she moved her tongue and soon we were twirling tongues and slobbering together for a lot longer than we should have. Then she pushed away, swayed, came to herself, put both hands to my hips, and turned our bodies so no one could see my boner. She held out her hand to mine, and pulled me away from the picnic lunch on the living room floor, away from the wine glasses and sandwiches, away from the candles in their china holders, to the open door leading to the bedroom. We moved slowly looking meaningfully into each others eyes, exactly as we were supposed to. Once through the door, she smashed it shut, nearly tipping the wall over. Then she slapped my face. Hard.

     I could hear her Aunt Agatha shrieking in the audience. “He’s only 19!” I think she was about to faint. My mother was coming up behind the scenery. Fast.
     Wait until the guys hear about this, I thought. I couldn’t wait to start sending out e-mails.


                                                             * * * * *
     The old lady was right. I was only nineteen. My leading lady was forty something. We were on a community theater stage, playing the leads in 6 Rms Rv Vu, a 70’s comedy so out of date it was tragic. I was there because Mom was directing it and couldn’t come up with a guy to play the part of the 30 year old businessman. 

     “Who else is going to be in this thing?” 

     "There’s only three roles. Jacob is going to play the janitor."

     "“He is a janitor, down at the high school.” 

     “Yeah,” she said. “I figure he can handle the part. He only gets five lines.” 

     “Who else?” 

     “Sheila. She’s never been in a play either, so you can be amateurs together.” 

     Sheila was there because Mom who was her best friend was directing. Mom said Sheila needed to get out of herself, whatever that means. She said Sheila hadn't had any fun in her life since her husband left her for another woman. 

     “All she has is her teaching, her garden, her books and an old television. She never goes out. She needs to move on.”
     We were both supposed to be 30 years old in the play, but hey, I’m nineteen, what did those women expect was going to happen? Mom gave me a bunch of bull about Method Acting but I didn’t believe it. You just said the words, that’s all. It wasn’t Broadway or anything. 

      Sheila was always hot, I knew that even when I was eight years old and she was my third grade teacher. I mean, those great tits in the push up bras and the low cut shirts. Those long legs in high cut skirts with slits on the sides. That blond hair. I started thinking of her as hot then, and it didn’t get any better when puberty hit. I figured a blond divorcee must be as frustrated as I was. From what I read on the Internet we were both at our sexual peaks.
     Besides, my mother said to throw myself into the role, and damn, it was easy.
     Sheila wanted it, too. The spit down her silk blouse wasn’t all mine. 

    “What the hell was that all about?” Mom said. 

     “Use your soft words,” I started to say, but she wasn’t yelling at me. She was yelling at Sheila. She was going to blame Sheila, just like she blamed everyone else when I got into trouble. That’s one thing about my mom, you could count on her to get everything wrong.
     I tried to look natural and leaned against the scenery but it swayed. You tend to forget the stuff is not solid. The boards behind the fake living room walls looked stable but they weren’t. They’re just holding everything together. This side of the wall, it was just old paint from an old play, maybe Oklahoma. At least there was an old weeping willow and a hawk up there, something painted by the high school art classes, so it wasn’t all that good. Pretty shitty, actually. Why paint a bird that can’t move on a set? The dried paint was coming off on the sleeve of the tux Mom rented for the part. She’d be pissed about that.
     I straightened up. Maybe she wouldn’t notice and blame it on the costume department, which was Edgar, the French teacher who loved to dress up himself, so when he wasn’t in a play, he dressed everyone else up. He’d measured me for the tux and done the inseam twice. If I got any grief about the paint, I would mention that to my mom. But no, that would get me involved in a court case likely. That happened to a friend of mine, and pretty soon he had a reputation. I would pin the ruined tux on the stage crew. They were all just kids. No one would take that seriously. In our town, nobody ever blamed anything on the kids. That’s why so many wound up in jail . We furnished the county lock up with prisoners and that upped the real estate taxes and that was another thing my mother was pissed about. That would never happen to me, though. I was too smart for that.
     “Hey,” I said. “Isn’t there a third act?” That got Mom off Sheila’s back. We had to change clothes and we only had five minutes.
     It wasn’t like Sheila wasn’t to blame, too. We went through the rehearsals knowing there was going to be a kiss, it said so right in the script. She was nervous about that and I was, too. When you dream about getting into someone’s pants for years, you want to approach it the right way. I practiced in my bedroom. I bet my mother wondered why I was getting so interested in eating such a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, trying to find the exact one that would take my tongue and serve as a surrogate mouth. Mom probably thought I was turning into a vegetarian or vegan, not sure which one, I could never get that straight, you know? Oranges were right for the juice, I thought. If you ate out most of the pulp, shaped the skin in an oval, it seemed pretty good. Just stick your tongue in there and let it slime around.
     We went through rehearsals like that, me wondering when I could try out my technique, God knows what she was thinking. Then one week before the dress rehearsal, she walked into the gym, came right up to me and said, “Sean, make my toes curl!” It was enough to cure my acne. Scared me a little, but we got right to it, got that kiss right out of the way. No tongue that night though, I was saving that for the right time. Even so, I think she liked it.
    Sheila started dressing even sluttier, though maybe that was Edgar and my mom dressing her, I don’t know. They went off to the Salvation Army with her and had her try on clothes. Nothing new, community theater didn’t have that kind of budget. She showed up one night and told Mom she’d had her hair done at the Cutter’s Boutique. It was even blonder than before, and pushed up with pins or something. First time I knew she colored her hair. I didn’t get the rented tux until the dress rehearsal, but Angie wore that cut down blouse every night, said she had to get used to it, but maybe it was the bra she was trying to get used to, a red push up job out of the Victoria’s Secret catalog, I saw it there when I pulled it out to look at it late at night. The winter catalog, with the red bras, you know the one.
     We were both on the stage for the entire play but when we weren’t on the stage she went off and walked around in the back of the gym, muttering to herself, learning her lines, she said, but I think she was getting hot, if you know what I mean. Lines were a problem for me, too. Like the play was a real bore. It wasn’t until three days before the play that I learned them and then we didn’t get it right. For some reason, we messed up a bunch of dialog in the second act, circling around the words and losing them, ten minutes of them. I didn’t see that it made much difference, but Mom kept at it, coaching me and working on it. We finally figured out that Sheila was the one who made the mistake that lost those words. Mom couldn’t figure it out, but I figured that Sheila was in a hurry to get to the end of the scene and the big kiss.
     “I don’t know what the problem is with you two,” Mom said, but I figure she was catching on. “You don’t have to really kiss her on the lips,” she said to me after the tech rehearsal. “Just sort of kiss her on the neck.” Tech rehearsal is when you get the lights and scenery all fixed up. My buddy Eric was on the stage crew and I told him to mess up the end up of Act II a couple of times so we could do the kiss even more.
     “What kind of method acting would that be,” I said. “I don’t think the James Lipton would approve. We have to get it right.” I’d caught Actor’s Studio on cable vision once. The kiss stayed.
     I began to think about going beyond kissing. Like how we would get away from the theater and into her bedroom. Mom started talking about the cast party and I wondered how much booze there would be. Not for me, though I could always steal some or use a fake ID. Just enough to get Sheila all relaxed. Even better, it turned out the cast party would be at Sheila’s. Everyone would bring food and there would be lots of drinking. I knew that because Mom always came home from cast parties all sloshed.
                                                             * * * * *
     The kiss stayed the same with some Frenching, but it was shorter now. We had two more nights and two kisses and that was it. We had the bugs ironed out by night three and had our parts almost perfect. It was the first time that a community play was sold out, Mom said. I think word about The Kiss brought everyone in. I know all my buddies were there plus a bunch of disapproving old broads from the Lutheran church. I'm surprised the cops didn't show up to get us in a morals charge. Geez, it was just a kiss. 

     In the end we got a mostly standing ovation.
     Then it was the cast party. We all piled into vans and cars and drove over to Sheila’s. Her sister was there setting out the food. Sheila’s sister had gray hair and chubby thighs. Older, I thought. Sheila must be the baby of the family. There were gobs of food, but I stuck with Coke and a handful of potato chips. I had other things on my mind. Everyone was excited, talking about the play, about plays they had been in, and plays they would like to be in.
     The three of us in the 6 Rms cast didn’t have much to say. The guy that played the janitor only had five lines, and like Sheila and me, was in his first play. He’d only got through those lines with a lot of whispered promptings from my mother. He was never going to be in another play and he knew it. Sheila didn’t have much to say either. She handed around food, filled glasses and smiled. I offered her a beer. She said no. I poured her some wine. “You shouldn’t be drinking that,” she said and passed it on to the light guy.
     These were community theater people so most of them had jobs to go to the next day. I usually had to go to the gas station to work the midnight shift, but I had arranged for my buddy Chuck to take over for me. I had all the time in the world. I had studied the Joy of Sex I stole from the adult section of the public library and knew it better than the lines from the play. I tore some of the pages but it was in ratty shape already. I wondered what the brown stains were on the pages then thought I didn’t want to know.
     The tech crew in their flannel shirts were watching World Wrestling on the old television set until one of their girlfriends complained and shoved a video tape into the player, a chick flick with Julia Roberts in a blond wig. She kind of looked like Sheila. I stayed away from them. I was wearing the tux from the play and still had stage makeup on. Sophistication, that's what I wanted.
     I let everyone talk and wandered around checking out her house. Geez, she had a lot of books, they were everywhere. You'd think she was teaching lit at the high school instead of teaching snot nosed third graders. She even had her own copy of the Joy of Sex, the Kama Sutra, too. I wanted to take them down but Mom was watching me. I wandered off to the bathroom and by opening a couple of doors, found out where the bedroom was.
     People started peeling off, going home to their boring families and their boring lives. This theater business was all that kept them sane, I thought. When the tech crew left, I turned off the TV and put a cassette tape in the player, something cool and sexy, Celine Dion singing love songs. Sheila’s sister went home, then my mom called to me.
     "I can walk home,” I said. “It’s less than a mile.” 

     “Are you sure?” 

     “Yeah, the night is young. First time I’ve ever done anything like this and I want it to remember it forever.” 

     She thought I was talking about the play. “Well, you’re 19 and not driving,” she said and left.
     Edgar and a friend were still there, still talking about costumes, something about muslin vs. cotton for blouses.
     Sheila was washing dishes in the kitchen.
     “Can I help?” I reached for a dish cloth.
     She raised her head. “Listen,” she said. I couldn’t hear anything.
     She rinsed off her hands, took the towel from me and wiped her hands. “Come on,” she said.
     I followed her through the living room, down the hall and into her bedroom. I was excited. I reached out to rub her back, looking for the bra hook and wondering how to get my pants down quick.
     But she passed the bed and went to a shadowy alcove. She reached down and pulled a baby out of a crib. “Do you remember Artie?” she asked.
     “Well, no.”  Maybe her ex-husband?
     “Artie. You know. My son.”  Oh, she had a kid. Well, I was mature enough to understand that.

     “That’s him?” 

     “No, that’s Artie’s baby. My grandson. I’m watching him this week. Here. Hold him for a minute.” She pushed the kid into my arms. The little rodent was squirming and cooing. Grandson. Sheila was a grandmother?
     Sheila sat down at her night table and reached for a jar. “I can’t wait to get this gunk off my face,” she said. “Theater makeup is horrible, don’t you think so?”
     She swabbed white stuff all over her face . Her blue eyes peered out at me through the mask. “Sean,” she said. “I enjoyed being in the play with you, I want you to know that. And the dialog was so romantic. I even made myself a little in love with you….or at least your character. As old as I am it was nice to have a little magic in my life again. ”
     The baby was spitting up on the tux, but I don’t suppose it made much difference.
     “The play’s over,” Sheila said. With the first damp paper washcloths, she carefully wiped around her eyes and the crows feet around the eyes. The next paper showed the lines around her mouth. Soon the wrinkles on her neck were there.
     “The play’s over,” she said. “This is who I really am. But thanks for the magic. Thanks for the kiss.” She smiled at me as she took the baby and showed me to the front door.
     “You really are the best kisser I’ve ever known,” she said as she closed the door. That was the only time I was in a play

The House that Sang

The only thing worse than coffee breath was cigarette and coffee breath. Johan exhaled slowly through his nose as Mister Banks read over his shoulder. Banks still held the coffee cup in his clammy hand Johan shook at the front door. He took regular slurps as he watched Johan work, leaving only to run to the kitchen and refill. It wasn't right that he had to make house calls, Johan thought, he was a hardware guy, and this was looking like a software problem.

"Mister Banks," Johan said, "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the system."

"Fred, please," Mister Banks said.

He said it like he was a regular person, and not someone who had spent the equivalent of five Johan-years' salary on a system to outfit a mansion. Someone who could afford to make each room in the house look like it was from a magazine or catalog. Someone who had sensors built into each room's furniture, carpeting, lighting, and air registers; all feeding into a computer powerful enough to oversee a factory. Someone who had enough clout to have the VP of sales march an R&D engineer out for a personal service call. Couldn't Johan just troubleshoot the problem from the office? Absolutely not. Not for a customer like Mister Banks.

"I would love to, Mister Banks, but my company demands a certain level of formality." Johan said. I hope it does not inconvenience you."

Mister Bank's puffy eyes drooped. "I guess it's all right, it's just that you talk like her."

Banks nodded at the smooth dark square built into the wall. Geometric shapes in red, blue, and green displayed the maintenance information Johan had called up.

"We are aware of the issue, and working on a solution," Johan said. He chose not to add working on the solution meant a line item at the bottom of someone's five-year to-do list .

"If you like, I could change your home's voice to Robert's," Johan said. Robert being the male counterpart to the system's current voice option, Melissa.

"No. I tried it already, and it made things worse," Banks said.

"If you could be a bit more specific about your house's malfunction, it would help," Johan said.

Banks rubbed at the back of his neck. The house speakers began playing a song that Johan couldn't quite place. Evidently, Mister Banks enjoyed easy listening. Banks closed his eyes and held his breath as his body went rigid. His hand formed a command gesture and the music stopped.

"Sorry," Banks said, "I didn't mean for that to happen." He leaned in with his coffee breath. "Is that normal?"

Johan breathed out through his nose, fighting the urge to gag. Did the company's regular service techs have to deal with this too?

"Your house might have made an association between your body movements and the sound system," Johan said. "I can reset that if you like."

"That'd be great," Banks said. "And then you can look into the other thing."

"The other thing?" Johan said.

Mister Banks nodded, and slurped at his cup.

"I'm having problems sleeping," he said.

"In what way?" Johan said. He tapped an icon labeled "Sleep" on the wall screen, calling up lines of text detailing the bedroom functions.

Mister Banks shrugged and blew out a long breath, wafting sour coffee and powdered creamer odors.

"Is there a problem with the bedroom functions?" Johan asked.

"No, it automatically dims the lights when I get in bed, adjusts the firmness when I roll over, keeps the temperature perfect, just like it's supposed to."

"But you cannot sleep?"

"No"

"Are you suffering from some medical condition perhaps that is not in our records?"

"No, I've been able to sleep a little bit at other places."

"Is it better sleeping on the sofa? The recliner perhaps?"

"No, you don't understand, I can't sleep in the house at all."

"I'm sure I don't understand, Mister Banks. Is the house not performing up to expected standards?"

Mister Banks' hand shook as he took a long drink from his coffee.

"No, no, no. Anything but. When I sit in my favorite chair and merely look at the remote, the TV comes on and the lights dim. If my back begins to ache, the chair reclines and turns on the massage function. "

Banks began pacing.

"When I walk through the house, the lights turn on automatically before me and turn off behind me. When I get ready for a shower, the water's already running and at temperature by the time I walk in the bathroom. Everything was just as advertised once the house learned how to interpret the sensors."

Somewhere in the bowels of the house, the central fan hummed to life. Mister Banks flinched.

"Would it be fair to say," Johan said, "you're suffering from a type of future shock, or you think your house will cause you harm in some way perhaps?"



"No, it's not that. I've been living there for over a year now, and it's been fine. More than fine, actually up until three weeks ago."

"Three weeks?" Johan said. He began pulling up the records on the screen.

"That was when I first noticed it."

"A malfunction?"

"No, more like a… I don't know. I think it all started with the music."

"What music?"

Air currents from the floor register carried the coffee smells away and replaced them with leather and vanilla.

"Normally I like a mix of country, adult contemporary, and Springsteen. I had my custom stations set up just right. But lately, the house has been adjusting the mixes."

"Adjusting? How?"

"Well, it was hardly noticeable at first. Songs came on that I wouldn't have expected."

"Unwelcome songs?"

"No, not actually. They rather fit my mood."

"Well, that's the adaptive algorithms at work then."

"I don't know. It wasn't long after I noticed the songs changing that I noticed the other things."

"Such as?"

"Well, the lighting's been different. Brighter than I would expect in the mornings, dimmer in the evenings, a more gradual transition in the lights as I move about the house."

"All within operating parameters," Johan said, reading the diagnostic log.

"Then my DVR started recording shows for me way outside my normal tastes."

"You didn't like the new shows?"

"No, I did. And I was so comfortable in my chair that I didn't feel like changing the channel or watching anything else."

"It sounds like the house is performing as expected."

"That's what I said."

"So what's the problem?"

Mister Banks licked his lips, and looked away. Johan kept his eyes fixed on his client as the silence stretched out. The house began playing a bossa nova. Banks glared at the speakers.

"I think my house feels sorry for me, and is trying to cheer me up," he said.

"I believe I don't understand you, sir," Johan said.

"My house. It pities me. I can't take it."

"It has no feelings itself, no empathy. Just a program."

"Whether it does or not, the effect is the same. When I feel rotten, it sings to me, tries to brighten my day. "

"It can't sing."

"It can select from a playlist, can't it? Find itself the world's top ten happiest songs? Gauge my reaction and adjust? It pities me."

Johan wondered if he could expense a drink; he was going to need one later. He decided he would send the expense report directly to the VP of Sales.

Johan said, "We could turn that particular aspect of its algorithms off, I suppose. It would be a simple matter."

"I already tried that. Shut the whole thing down. It made it worse."

"How so?"

"Instead of feeling blue with a house trying to cheer me up, I was alone with nothing. It was like the house was giving me the silent treatment."

"So you left?"

"Yes, to a hotel. There I could sleep a little, knowing that nothing in the room was watching me, analyzing me."

"Why didn't you just shut the house computer off? It couldn't watch you then."

"It's not the same thing. It would be like trying to sleep with a corpse staring at me."

Two drinks, Johan decided.

"Would you like the system removed?" Johan asked.

"Maybe. I've thought about it. The hotel is wearing on me too. Hotel sleep comes an hour at a time. There are noises, strange smells, the mattresses are hard. And then there's the feeling that the building is just soulless. Nothing in there cares for me. Why, I could die in that room and the building wouldn't care. It would let me rot in bed until the cleaning lady comes in and calls the cops. If I died at home, would the house call the police?"

"If your biometrics fall within certain patterns, it calls an ambulance automatically."

"See, the house cares for me."

"It's just software. It's not really intelligent."

"Dogs aren't intelligent, are they? But if you're not feeling well, they know it. They can sense it."

"Has your dog been acting up as well?"

"I don't have a dog, I have a goldfish."

"Oh." Johan tried a different approach. "Okay, why should the house pity you? Maybe it's truly concerned."

"Because it just tries things at random. It doesn't really care if I want help or not. It automatically assumes there's something wrong with me."

Banks began pacing the floor again.

"It's superior, even if it doesn’t know it. It doesn’t have to go out there every day and face life. It just needs to sit and perform whatever it is you tell it to do. It will withstand earthquakes, hurricanes, market downturns, divorce, and never have to worry. It will be here long after I'm gone."

Johan , tapped a fingernail against his teeth. The VP of Sales would certainly blame him if Banks decided to remove the whole system. Johan didn't have the programming skills to adapt the system to Banks. If only he could adapt Banks to the program. An idea came to him.

"Rather than thinking it is superior, Mister Banks, I would submit that it is inferior. It knows very little about the world, only interacting through its very rudimentary sensors and simple decision-making ability. Maybe you should think of the house as a child, trying to please its parent. It doesn't know what's wrong exactly, but is trying its best to fix the problem. Rather than resenting the house, perhaps you just need a father's patience. The house will adapt; it can learn but it has a limited vocabulary for understanding you. It will take time."

Mister Banks looked around. His gaze rested on the blinking screen.

"I'm not sure."

"Isn't it better to be needed than pitied?"

"I'm not much of a father."

"If you make a mistake, we can always re-load the initial program and start over."

"I guess," Banks said. He gave a wan smile. "Though I would hate to have to start over after all the things I've taught it so far."

Johan inclined his head. "As you say, Mister Banks."

Johan left the sound of sappy love songs and Mister Bank's voice thundering 'No, no, no, like this!' behind him. He wished the company wouldn't send him out on calls like this. He would much rather work on hardware, not software.


Photo: House of hospitality by Jon Sullivan

Love in the Eighties

by Colleen Sutherland

The organ ground to a halt as the six of us filed into the church, past a handful of friends, and up to the altar where Reverend Peets was waiting.

“Marriage is not meant to be the final step but the beginning of a grand adventure,” Reverend Peets began, looking at a small red book in his hands. It wasn't a Bible and it wasn't the liturgy at the beginning of the hymnal. Marriage renewal vows didn't exactly fit in the theology of the church, but it was a fad that year, so we were all going through it, me with Bill, Vi with Lance, and Poppy with Frank. Reverend Peets found the book of renewal vows at a Christian book store, he said.

It was Bill's idea, of all things. It was his alternative to going to a marriage counselor with me. I threatened him with divorce if he wouldn't go. No, I take that back. I promised to get a divorce and I meant it. He begged me not to and I gave him counseling as a last resort, but he said no, let's just renew our vows.

“Does that mean you plan on behaving yourself?” I asked. “Of course,” he said, but I heard that many times before. His idea of fidelity was getting a vasectomy so Artie would have no half-siblings running around town.

“Bill and Sheila, you have shared the blessings of married life for 16 years,” read Reverend Peets. He was gray and tired. His wife was still down in Florida taking care of her parents, he said. Janey had been there with her kids for six months, and the congregation was starting to doubt him, but pastors don't lie, do they?

“Vi and Lance,” he went on, “Poppy and Frank, you each have endured...” he caught himself, “shared eighteen years together.”

Bill talked Lance and Frank into joining us in this ceremony when they met to watch the Super Bowl on the big television at the Den. In a drunken stupor, they signed a pledge on the back of a bar napkin. Poppy and Vi weren't all that happy in their marriages either. Frank pointed out that this could be an anniversary present. “I never know what to give that bitch anyhow.”

Bill came home all glowing and talking about it. He asked me to set it up with Reverend Peets, whom he didn't know since he hadn't been in a church since he was a kid. Artie and I were sporadic members so Reverend Peets knew us.

So I gave Bill this one last chance. It meant organizing the ceremony and the party after, but Vi and Poppy promised to help. Vi did and Poppy as usual, flitted in and out of our meetings with suggestions but no actual hands on work. She decided there should be music at the ceremony and brought in one outrageous proposal after another. Vi and I rejected “Like a Virgin”, “What's Love Got to Do With It?',

and “Time After Time.”

Reverend Peets informed us that Martha was the only church soloist available and that Gertrude would play the organ. Neither of them knew any rock numbers. We finally let them work it out. “Surprise us,” we said.

Now Martha was enthusiastically singing “I Love You Truly” which didn't seem appropriate, but I didn't much care. Bill was staring at his Guccis. Poppy was giggling. Bill looked over at her and grinned.

“I love you truly, truly, dear. Life with its sorrows, life with its tears.”

One day while we were making heart decorations for the party out of sale items left over from Valentines Day, I asked Vi, “Why are we doing this anyhow? Why are we staying married?”

“For the kids,” she said. “And I took the wedding vows seriously even if he didn't.”

After all these years, why were Bill and I still married? I thought it would be useful to think it through so one night when Bill was snoring on the couch, I scribbled down a list of six things I might have expected from a marriage.

I began with sex, which is what got me into the marriage in the first place. In the early years, that had been exemplary. Any imagination Bill had was channeled into our lovemaking, but after a year or two, we had tried just about everything that two people could do without going to orgies. I put my foot down at that.

Eventually, I had a baby and when Bill didn't have my full attention, he lost interest in me. That would have been OK I suppose, if he had been a good father, item no. 2 on my list, but he ignored Artie, too. When I asked him to do something with the boy, he took him on outings to a local bar and fed him quarters to play the pinball machines while he flirted with women and drank until he was legally over the limit. When Artie was old enough to report back to me, the outings were done. “I'll get to know him when he's 21,” said Bill.

Fidelity was on the list but I'd given up on that years ago.

Love endures and is kind.

Love is not envious or jealous.

Love wants not for itself.

Love is not puffed up, nor does it behave wrongly...

Reverend Peets kept reading from Corinthians, but my mind wandered.

If Bill had been a good provider, that would have counted for something, but he couldn't seem to hold a job for long. I earned enough as a teacher to keep us going.

Then there would be friendship. If Bill and I had anything in common, if we could talk to each other on any subject, that would have been fine, but when he came home, he plopped himself in front of the television and ignored us. When I tried to talk bout my teaching day, he told me “I don't want to hear about it.”

A little respect would have been good, too, but he called me “his old ball and chain,” laughed at my weight, told me I was letting myself go.

Love should have been there somewhere, I suppose, but when the first six on the list weren't in the equation, love was not an option.

“Please join hands.” Reverend Peets had been droning on for a while. I missed what he had to say but now we got to the gist of the thing.

Bill grabbed my hand, smirking under his thick Tom Selleck Magnum PI mustache. He thought of himself as a tough guy, and would have worn shorts except it was too cold on a March day. He settled for fake Gucci loafers worn without socks.

We were all slaves to our favorite television shows. Lance had a bright yellow tee shirt under his suit jacket, Miami Vicethough his beer belly spoiled the Don Johnson effect. Poppy was all Madonna street urchin with a short skirt with turquoise,magenta and purple leggings underneath. The leggings made sense on a cold day but looked odd in a church setting and even odder on a mature woman. I don't know what Frank's mullet was all about. The Dukes of Hazzard maybe? Vi had enormous shoulder pads, so it had to be either Dallas or Dynasty that she'd been watching. Me, I was proud of my delicate shoulders, one of the few things that a woman going on forty could be proud of. Too many wrinkles, a fat bottom, but my shoulders were pretty. It figured that enormous shoulder pads would be in. I covered my thickening ankles with stirrup pants, with a long business jacket top to cover my belly and let it go at that.

“On your wedding day you exchanged rings as symbols of your love,” Revered Peets read. “Now it is appropriate to reconfirm the meaning of the rings you wear.”

Rings? We were supposed to have rings? Bill lost his while water skiing, or so he said. How does one lose a wedding ring water skiing? Dropping it in Shawano Lake is a pretty good way of getting rid of an encumbrance though. Mine was gone a year later when I washed it down the sink right before turning on the garbage disposal. A ring is no insurance of fidelity anyhow, so I didn't think much about it. We'd have to fake the rings. Reverend Peets didn't notice the lack thereof.

“Repeat after me, Bill and Sheila, Lance and Violet, Frank and Poppy. I wear this ring you placed on my hand as a symbol of my love and commitment to you.” I looked up at Bill but he wasn't looking at me. He was grinning at Frank. Poppy wasn't even looking at Frank as she repeated the words. She looked over at Bill and me and winked.

“Live each day with other, giving love, comfort and refuge to one another, in good times and bad. I bind you all as husbands and wives. Please celebrate this renewal of vows with a kiss.”

Bill, Lance and Frank wound up kissing all the wives. Frank even tried sticking his tongue in my mouth. Poppy didn't mind, she said later.

Our renewal party was held at the Den, but I left early to pick Artie up after his basketball game. Bill stayed at the party but was in no condition to drive by then, so Poppy offered to drop him off after she put Frank to bed.

******

It was a year later that I held another party at my house to celebrate my divorce. Bill ran off with Poppy to Hawaii where he still pretends to be Tom Selleck for all I know.

Vi was at my party and so were Lance and Frank. Vi took me aside to ask what divorce lawyer I used. Even Janey was there. She was back in town to pick up the final load of children's clothes from the parsonage and pick up the latest gossip, too. She reported that Martha's divorce would be final the next week. Reverend Peets declined our invitation.

A good marriage is a wonderful thing. A good divorce is even better.