Ground Control

Miami. South Beach. Back to the beginning.

She brought the car to a stop in front of an arrangement of square boxes with a red tile roofs called the Mallory Seaside Resort. She carefully applied the stage putty to her cheekbones, glued on a bulbous nose, and set a black curly wig on her head. Foundation and blush covered the latex seams, and Jackie Onassis sunglasses finished the ensemble. She looked at herself in the window’s reflection as she got out of the car. She was glamorously mysterious; no one would recognize her now. The image in the window smiled and patted a camel-colored pocket with a heavy bulge.

She threw her shoulders back and walked into the lobby. The mousy receptionist asked her a question, which was only responded to by a wave. Let the staccato of her heels tell everyone she was a woman of purpose. The receptionist reached for a phone, probably calling in a tip to the paparazzi that a celebrity had checked in. After all, what else could she be mistaken for?

She crossed the lobby into a corridor labeled “Pool/Beach access.” She couldn't make out any shapes in the hallway, only the sun’s glare from the glass door ahead. She pushed the portal open and willed two incoming kids out of her way. The parted before her like waves before an ocean liner. One kid shrieked, and they both slap-slapped with wet feet past her, lost to the hotel, and becoming someone else's problem.  

She strode through the pool area, straight to the bar. Stares followed her from the bloated and wrinkled bodies laid out around the pool. Her mouth turned up at the corners – even under the blazing sun, everyone felt her fire. She reached the bar and knocked on the countertop. The bartender glanced up, a perfectly-tanned man with gleaming white teeth dressed in a neon blue- and-white floral print shirt. His smile faded as he looked on her.

“Hello, Gloria,” he said

She laughed, and whipped off her glasses. “You like it, Trent? I got myself all dressed up for you.” It didn't surprise her that he recognized her. Meryl Steep had the same problems hiding her natural beauty too.

“You look like a jaundiced leper," Trent said. "Next time, just use sun block like the rest of us.” He turned around and started rummaging around under the bar.

Her hand dipped inside her coat pocket. “Oh, I’ll keep it in mind”

“Why are you here, Gloria?”

“Oh Baby, I came for you,” she said.

Trent shook his head. “Sorry, Gloria, that’s all over. I’m not interested.”

“Hey lady, you orderin’, or what?" A scratchy voice said. She turned around to see one of the bloated, crammed into his multicolored Speedo, holding the remains of a drink. He was picking his teeth with the end of a toothpick umbrella. He took the umbrella from his mouth and pointed it at her. “If not, some of us only have ten minutes left before daiquiri hour’s over.”

She stretched her face into a grin. “Ordering? Why yes, as a matter of fact I am ordering.” She drew the ebony gun in a single fluid motion and embraced the trigger. The umbrella fell to the ground with its owner. She noticed his hands were clamped just above his knee. The femur, not the kneecap? She would have to put some more time in at the range later. She turned back to the bar as the screams and panic bloomed around the pool. She sat and cradled her chin on her palm while tracing figure eight’s on the countertop with the pistol’s muzzle.

Trent was crouched, looking at her with rounded eyes and mouth, like a tanned bowling ball. She laughed.

“J-Jesus, Gloria!” He said

“Actually, a daiquiri does sound good right now,” She said. “Would you make one for me, Baby?”

Trent didn’t move. She slammed the butt of the pistol on the counter. “Daiquiri!”

Trent scrambled around the bar, fumbling for bottles and ice.

“It’s all your fault, you know,” She said. “that he found out about us. I know you were upset when I left, Baby, but why did you have to tip him off?”

Trent started the blender. “I didn’t say a thing, Gloria. I never even knew you were married until after I called it off! I don’t know what he said to you, but you’ve got to believe me, I-"

The blender exploded, showering Trent with plastic fragments and pink goo. She lowered the pistol, stroking the muzzle like a beloved pet. Her fingers burned on the hot barrel, but that was to be expected. Guns couldn't be expected to act like cats.

“Baby, it doesn’t matter. I want you to know I forgive you.” She sighed as the pistol went off. The bullet took him in the throat, and pushed him over. A crimson spray covered the bar, and she couldn’t taste the difference between Trent and the daiquiri when she licked her lips. She turned and walked back to the lobby entrance, leaving the gurgling and sucking sounds behind.  

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. What a gorgeous day! She was almost past the pool when something cold bit her shoulder. Two thumps in the back followed and she fell.

She rolled, her eyes following a red trail from the bar to the pool side where the man with the broken femur was lying next to a black nylon gym bag. The gun in his hand wavered back and forth, and his teeth clenched as he tried to steady his aim. She brought her gun around and her arm exploded at the elbow, sending the pistol clattering to the ground. The gun's pearlescent grip was now pink and no longer beautiful. She sighed and rolled to her back. Concrete shattered next to her ear. She tasted metal in her mouth. 

Had she fed the cats before she left? What a strange thought. She hoped they were all right. Everybody knew juries were sympathetic to cat people.

The Shrink

By Bettyann Moore

The shrink’s office is pretty fancy: signed and numbered abstract prints on pearl-grey watered silk wall treatments; highly-polished mahogany desk, étagère and bookcases; Turkish carpet on hardwood floors; large, well-placed sculptures, including a hand-carved set of jade miniature figurines – endangered animal species – on the corner of the étagère.

I’ve seen fancier.

A handsome, well-dressed receptionist ushers me into the room where Dr. Jeffrey Young awaits. When he stands to shake my hand, I notice his expensive pinky ring and manicured nails. I’m pretty sure there’s at least one layer of clear polish on those nails. I can’t see his feet behind the desk, but I’m willing to bet they’re clad in Moroccan leather or, worse, alligator.

“Please have a seat, Julie,” he says, waving vaguely in the direction of a corner in which a leather couch and two chairs sit. He will, of course, analyze my seating choice. “You don’t mind me calling you Julie, do you?” I head for one of the chairs.

“It is my name,” I say, settling into the soft leather. “And I’ll call you Jeffrey.”

“As you wish,” he says, taking the chair opposite me. As he crosses his legs at the knees, I note the shoes: alligator-skin loafers.

I hate loafers.

“So,” he says, getting right to it, “what brings you here today?”

“It’s a condition of my parole,” I say, watching his reaction, which is to look down and scribble something in the leather-clad notebook on his knee.

“Yes?” he prompts.

“Yes,” I say, not giving an inch.

There’s an almost imperceptible sigh. I hear it, though.

“Well, let’s start there, then, shall we?” he says, looking up at me.

“Okay.”

“You’re on parole.”

“Yes.”

“I assume, therefore, that you were found guilty of committing a crime.”

“Yes.” You can’t get anything by Dr. Jeffrey Young. He’s sharp.

“And the crime was ...”

I smooth my skirt over my thighs and cross my legs before answering. “I stole a pencil.” Dr. Jeffrey Young is not an eyebrow raiser. If he were, he would have.

“You stole a pencil ...”

“Yes,” I answer, then give him a little more. “From a blind man.”

“And this blind man,” he says, making another notation, “what was he doing with a pencil?”

Whoa! Nice catch there, doc, I think.

“He was selling it. Them, actually. He had more than one. In a cup. On a street corner. Two for 50 cents.”

“And you stole just one?”

“Well, I tookone. But it was for that old lady.”

“Old lady?” Jeffrey asks, cocking his head to one side.

“Yes, she was running down the sidewalk yelling ‘1-2-S-H-H-H!’ over and over again.” I let the shoe on my right foot drop to the floor, ease out of the second and tuck my legs under myself, getting more comfortable.

“1-2-S-H-H? Why?”

“No, 1-2-S-H-H-H. Three H’s. She was trying to remember them. It’s easy to forget that third H.”

“But what were they and why was she trying to remember them?”

“The license plate number,” I say, “of the man who grabbed her purse and took off with it.”

It’s almost like I can see the little light go on over Jeffrey’s head.

“So you took the pencil so you could write down the letters and numbers,” he says, impressing me.

“Oh, no,” I say. “So she could write them down. I try not to get involved in other people’s lives. Besides, I already knew the car belonged to a local librarian. Pretty obvious, when you think about it.”

“And this librarian,” he asks, “you know him?”

“Oh, certainly,” I say, adding, “intimately.”

Jeffrey scribbles furiously on his pad. “Intimately, meaning ...”

“Yes, that,” I answer. “In fact, I had been on my way to meet him at his house when the woman came screaming down the street.”

“So you took the pencil from the blind man and gave it to the woman to write down the number. What then?”

“I hailed a cab. Say, Jeffrey, do you think I could have a glass of water?” I say, nodding to a pitcher and glasses in the corner.

“Certainly, certainly,” he says, rising. He pours me a glass of water and when he returns, I’m settling myself on the couch.

“Thank you so much.” I take a demur sip.

“You’re welcome,” he replies. He sits in the chair I recently vacated as it’s closer to the couch. I sense that he’s a bit surprised, and perhaps a tad uncomfortable, by its warmth. He crosses his legs again, running the razor-sharp crease in his slacks between two fingers.

Razor-sharp creases annoy me.

“And you took the cab to the librarian’s house?” he takes up where I left off.

“Yes.”

“Was he there when you got there?”

“Of course. We had a ‘date’.”

“And did you say anything about the woman, the license plate?”

“Well, I tried, but he just pooh-poohed it, poured us a drink, and then we went to the bedroom.”

“I see.”

“Yes.”

Jeffrey writes some more, frowning ever-so-slightly.

“But I was curious,” I add. “So when he fell asleep, I did a little checking.”

“Checking how?”

“Aside from a few nightlights here and there, the house was pretty dark, but I’d been there before, so I got up and started opening things … drawers, cabinets, closets. His wife keeps things very tidy.”

“His wife.”

“Yes, she was away that night.”

The pen starts scribbling again.

“Down the hall,” I continue, “I opened an enormous closet, one of those kind where the light goes on when you open it, like a refrigerator?”

“Yes?”

“And inside, besides all the coats and shoes, are dozens, maybe hundreds, of purses.”

Jeffrey almost arches an eyebrow.

“So, I slip inside, but I have to keep the door ajar because the light goes out if you shut it.” I stretch my legs out the length of the couch and lean up on one elbow.

“What did you do then?” Jeffrey prompts.

“Well, I opened the first purse I came to and took out the wallet. The picture on the driver’s license was of that old woman.”

“You must have had quite a shock.”

“Not half the shock I got when I looked in a bunch of others and saw that nothing had been taken from them … at least it seemed that way to me. There were keys, wallets, makeup, money, credit cards … if this guy was taking purses, he wasn’t taking them for what was inside, you know?”

The doctor merely nods.

“And since it was obviously his wife’s closet – all the coats and shoes were hers – she had to be in on it, too.

“The biggest shock, though,” I continued, “was when his wife came home.”

“What did you do then?”

“What could I do?” I said, swinging my feet to the floor. “I closed the door and pushed my way to the back of the closet to hide. And I waited.”

“Waited?”

“Yes. Obviously, I needed to get out of there … I was pretty creeped out by what I’d learned about this guy, but I had to hope that he would at least take care of the clothes, to save his own skin.”

“The clothes.”

“Yes, my clothes. They were all over the bedroom. I was naked, after all.”

“I see.” Jeffrey uncrossed his legs and recrossed them again.

“But I guess he didn’t hide them fast enough or something because they had a terrible big row. Seemed to go on for hours. I was freezing, so I grabbed the first coat I could feel, which turned out to be a lovely mink. It felt amazing against my skin.”

“How long did you wait?”

“Hours, I think, until the fighting stopped and they fell asleep or something. When all was quiet, I groped around for some shoes, but all I could find were CFM pumps.”

I could tell that Jeffrey didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t resist.

“CFM pumps?”

“Come Fuck Me pumps,” I said, grinning across at him. “You know, seriously sexy shoes. That’s all the woman had in there, but it was better than going barefoot. I’d be hoofing it, after all. No car.”

“So, at this point you had on nothing but a fur coat and the, uh, shoes.”

“Yes, though for some reason I also grabbed the first purse I’d found, the old lady’s purse.” I didn’t say “the old bag’s bag,” but I thought it. I doubt Jeffrey did.

“Then you left.”

“Yes, then I left. I opened and shut the door as quietly as I could and sneaked down the stairs and out the front door.”

“How were you feeling at this point?”

Oh geez, I thought, analysis time.

“Seriously, Jeffrey, at this point I was so pissed off I could barely see straight. The nerve of that guy! I had a good mind to march back into that bedroom and throw a hissy fit right in front of his wife. It had not been a good day.”

Sometimes, I was a master at understatement.

“So you walked ... in what I surmise are not the most comfortable shoes.” Jeffrey wasn’t bad at understatement himself.

“My dogs were killing me before I’d gone a block!” I said. “And my apartment was a good mile, mile and a half away.”

“Surely you didn’t ...”

“Surely not!” I interrupted. “I got a ride.”

“A friend came by ...?”

“I wish! No, this gorgeous red Porsche pulled up alongside me and this guy – I thought I recognized him, but I didn’t – offered me a ride. I could feel my feet swelling and even in a mink coat, it was none too warm. So I did what anyone would.”

“You took a ride with a complete stranger in the middle of the night.”

Jeffrey could be positively droll sometimes.

“Presumably it all turned out well,” he said, “you’re here now, after all.”

“Yes and no,” I replied. “Yes, I’m here, but as for turning out well … better for me than for him, I can say that at least.”

Jeffrey had long ago dropped any pretense of making notes in his little leather book.

“How so?” he asked, both feet on the floor at this point.

I threw back my hair and slid down the couch, assuming the typical “therapy position,” ankles crossed, hands folded on my stomach.

“The jerk must have thought I was a hooker or something in that get-up I was wearing. He started saying all sorts of crass things and, before I knew it, we were parked in a dark alley somewhere and he was groping me.”

“You must have been extremely frightened.”

“Hell no, I was still mad! Madder! I hauled off and belted him right in the nose!”

“Then you ran away in the, uh, shoes?”

“Not right away,” I said quietly. “He was just a little guy and his nose was gushing blood all over the white upholstery. He was leaning over, holding his hands over his face and I, well, I gave him a karate chop right in the back of the neck. I felt like Bruce Lee or something.”

“And then you ran?”

“No … not yet. I must have hit him in just the right spot and he sort of went limp.”

“He lost consciousness?”

“Yes.”

“So you stayed to help him?”

“Not exactly … in fact just the opposite.” I admitted. “He had this car, see, and my feet hurt so bad! So I went around to his side and pulled him out and rolled him away from the car … so he wouldn’t get hurt when I drove away.”

“Julie, you’re telling me that you knocked a man out, dragged him from his seat and then stole his car?”

“Sort of. See, when I was dragging him away from the car, his shirt rode up and his back was showing. It gave me this idea.”

“Which was?”

“He had some sort of presentation case in the back seat (if you call that a seat, it’s so tiny) and there was one of those big, indelible markers in it. I was worried that he’d wake up, so I popped the trunk and found a couple of those bungee things.”

“You tied him up?”

“Just his hands.”

Jeffrey was too professional to roll his eyes, but I could feel him doing it anyway.

“Then what?”

“Then I wrote a little something on his back. I figured a whole lot of people would see it before he did. His wife, I hoped.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory. Before Jeffrey could ask, I said, “I wrote: ‘I am an evil asshole who thinks he can get away with rape’.”

“Attemptedrape perhaps ...”

“Perhaps, my ass,” I cried, sitting up. “The only reason he didn’t succeed was because I was bigger than him and mad. Besides,” I added, lying back down, “he was a small guy – ‘attempted’ wouldn’t have fit.”

I definitely heard Jeffrey sigh.

“So you took the car, drove home and that was that.”

“I would have been,” I said, “except I remembered that Felix was out of food.”

“Felix?”

“My cat. Trust me, one doesn’t want to let Felix go too long without food and he was plumb out. There’s a convenience store a few blocks from my apartment, so I thought I’d pull around behind the place, duck in and get some kibbles and just leave the car where it was. What could go wrong?”

“Indeed, what could.”

“First of all, there was this crazy old guy buying lottery tickets. He had ‘lucky numbers’ for every single ticket he bought … he couldn’t just let the machine pick for him. Naturally, there was only one checker.”

“Naturally.”

“I have to admit, I thought about just grabbing a can of 9 Lives and shoving it into the old lady’s purse, but I didn’t need that kind of hassle in my life.”

“You still had the old lady’s purse?”

“Of course! Mine was back at the librarian’s house with all my clothes. When I looked in her wallet before, I saw she had a few dollars in there – enough for cat food anyway.”

“So, you bought the food ...”

“Well, I was going to. The old man finally had his last lottery ticket and I stepped up to the counter, reached into the purse and pulled out … a gun.”

“What??”

“I didn’t know it was a gun! I just pulled out the first thing I felt and it was this cute little pistol … you know, an old lady’s gun. It was pink, for cripessake!”

“They still shoot.” Jeffrey’s good at stating the obvious.

“The clerk must have thought the same thing,” I said. “He freaked and threw his hands up in the air and the old guy? He dove for the floor. I figured he’d encountered that sort of thing before.”

“You explained to them ...”

“I tried, really I did! But the clerk kept shouting ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, take the money!’ and the old guy just kept his head covered with his hands. Like that would stop a bullet!”

Jeffrey had gotten up at that point and was pacing.

“The little weasel clerk must have hit a panic button,” I went on, “because pretty soon I could hear sirens. I thought it would be a good idea to get out of there, so I made a run for it out the back.”

“In those shoes?”

“That’s just the thing, Jeffrey! I couldn’t very well run in those shoes, the cops would be looking for someone in a mink coat, and there’s no way I was going to take that car again, so I did what I had to.”

“You didn’t.”

“I had to! I stripped off that coat and those shoes, and left the whole mess in the alley; I didn’t even take the cat food. And I ran.”

“Naked.”

“As a jay bird, though I’ve never understood that saying. What’s so naked about a jay bird anyway?”

“I ...”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, waving him off. “I was just blocks from home, the streets were deserted, so I took my chances.”

Jeffrey stopped pacing and sank into the chair behind his big desk.

“I’m afraid to ask,” he said. “You made it without incident?”

“Almost.”

Poor Jeffrey actually did a face-desk. I almost felt like getting up and patting him on the back.

“It was that pervert’s own fault!” I cried. “He’d still be alive if he wasn’t such a sicko.”

Jeffrey raised his head. “You killed someone?”

“Only indirectly.”

Down went his head again.

“Everyone in the neighborhood knew about him,” I went on. “He liked to peek in windows late at night. Most people just kept their shades pulled. It just happened that he was peeking into Mrs. Shaunnesy’s place on the first floor … I think Mrs. Shaunnesy was soft on him. She always kept one shade up a bit. I don’t think he actually ever saw anything … until he saw me, that is. I think the shock killed him.”

Jeffrey was quiet for a long time.

“Jeffrey?” I said, standing. “Doctor?”

“Go on,” came the muffled reply.

“Oh, I’m done,” I said. “I found my key – good thing I always hide one outside– opened the door on the apartment that Felix had completely torn up, took a shower and went to bed. And here I am.”

“Because you stole a pencil.”

“Yes.”

Jeffrey raised his head and sat back against his chair. For the first time, he looked at his watch.

“Julie, we’ve gone way beyond our 50 minutes. Let’s go back over this from the beginning next time, shall we?”

“Next time?”

“Why, yes! There are several issues I can help you work on. I’m sure that in six, maybe nine months we can have a handle on most of them ...”

“That’s crazy, Jeffrey!” I said, then giggled at the words. “I only have to see a shrink once as a condition of my parole, but it was very nice to meet you.” I reached across the desk and shook his hand, though it was pretty obvious he didn’t want to see me go. I think he had a crush on me. Very unprofessional, if you ask me.

On my way out through the receptionist’s office I heard him tell her to cancel his next appointment. I gave her a little wave, then stuck my hand in my coat pocket; the miniature jade figurine felt cool against my fingers. It was time for lunch; I was starving!

.

William

By Colleen Sutherland

The following is based on the third chapter of the novel I plan to publish by January, 2014. It began as a dream sequence exercise and expanded as I learned more about William Arden IV.

The day passeth, and is almost gone,

I know not well what is to be done.

To whom were I best my complaint to make?

What if I to Fellowship thereof spake?,

And showed him of this sudden chance?

Everyman

William Arden IV caught sight of his face in the mirror behind the Heathrow airport bar where he was drinking coffee and researching morality plays. He teased his neat, white mustache. He trimmed it himself, using a silver mustache trimmer. It was a slow process of snip here, snip there, to prevent mistakes. He should shave the whole thing off or have it trimmed when he got his monthly haircut . . . but he’d read too much medieval history to allow anyone near his throat with a razor. He could think of no way to direct his barber to trim the mustache without getting a shave as well.

He enjoyed his shaves, the ritual of them. He used a porcelain mug his grandfather and great-grandfather had used before him, re-filled with a soap bar purchased on his yearly trips to England. His pride was his brush of badger fur and an Italian polymer handle. He expertly applied the foam to his face is if he were brushing on oils. Then the safety razor, nothing plastic, but safer than a straight razor. He abhorred blood, quite squeamish really. Like Lady MacBeth’s guilt, blood spots wouldn’t wash out. It made him think of death.

He picked up the paper cup with his coffee and left the bar. He had been sitting there for two hours and the bartender was as bored with him as he was with the bartender. But what else should he do? The plane he was waiting for was already three hours late. It had been held up at O'Hare Field in Chicago because of a terrorist threat.

He wandered down the terminal to the place he was to meet the students he was to lead on a tour of England. He found one of the more comfortable chairs and settled in. He put his briefcase on one side and piled some paperwork on the other side to keep people away from him. There weren't that many but he hated making polite conversation with strangers . . . and there were always travelers that wanted to talk.

He held his book on medieval and Tudor drama, and tried to concentrate on Everyman, but distracted by the terminal noise, finally put it down. Surreptitiously, he glanced around and pulled out a popular magazine from his briefcase to read about a current celebrity scandal he had heard about on Entertainment Tonight. A flight arrived with people pouring out of the plane’s silver canister. He hastily dropped the magazine back into his briefcase. No, it was the wrong flight. He watched the passengers pass through, first class, business class, tourist class, finally the people put in wheelchairs, each headed to the luggage area. He fingered the pass that would allow him to join his students there when they arrived, to help them through the process. The arrival board gave no good news. The flight had been delayed another hour.

            He put on his glasses and pulled out his book again to read about the Crucifixion in one of the medieval mystery plays they would see in Lichfield, a village near Birmingham.

My sorrow it is so sad,

No solace may me save;

Mourning makes me mad

No hope of help I have.

           How depressing. He had to bone up on the mystery plays for the upcoming tour but wondered why he bothered. It wasn't like the students would pay that much attention. He glanced at his watch again. What difference did it make, after all? The time wouldn’t make the plane arrive any faster. Soon he would meet the dozen graduate students that he would chaperone in a tour of medieval sites. They had paid a pretty penny for this tour, thus paying for his own trip. All he had to do was get them to the hotel, and next morning, they would all board a bus. The guide would do most of the talking. He merely had to add the informed voice of a history professor to the proceedings from time to time. He intended to take digital photos of the mystery plays at Litchfield to use in his medieval history classes, making the trip not only free but useful. He only took graduate students so he had no worries about their drinking or sexual flings. They were of age so they could do whatever they wanted. This was his fifteenth tour. He had it all down pat.

He stared at the floor myopically. His worsted double-breasted suit was a conservative gray, but the bright tie belied that . . . except that both had been purchased by his mother in 1975. Her taste, not his, and hopelessly out of style, with its gray glen plaid and cuffed trousers. It was getting worn after all these years. The pants were losing some of their shape around the hips, but the jacket covered that. He wriggled in his seat, double checking to see if the wool was holding up. Would he manage to find a duplicate while he was here in London?

He subscribed to GQ for fashion but never was entirely sure when he bought anything. He felt foolish taking a magazine photograph to a store. So he bought the same clothes his mother had selected for him, year after year. Even the underwear was the same and it was probably his imagination that the quality had lessened with the years. He was probably out of style, but conservatism was fine on a college professor. It set him apart from his students.

He straightened his tie while looking at a shiny aluminum trash bin, then turned away. He would make a point of not looking at his reflection again. He had once read a quotation from Yve St. Laurent in GQ: “Isn’t elegance forgetting what one is wearing?” But William couldn’t help himself. He peered into the mirror again and thought that his graying hair made him look distinguished, even if it was combed over in spots. He remembered a bit from Everymanthat told the story of his life.

The time passeth. Lord, help me that all wrought!

For though I mourn it availeth nought.

The day passeth, and is almost gone.

I know not well what is to be done.

Most humans mark their days, weeks, months, years or decades by traumatic events. There were none for William Arden IV until his mother died. She directed his life for the first forty years, deciding everything for him: schools, clothes, holidays, interests and bachelorhood.He became a university professor because his mother had been the daughter of a professor and liked the life of academia. She never finished her own degree, but that was because of William.

William was never certain who his father had been. He was a name on a tombstone in an eastern city. Was there a body there? His mother told him there was and he had believed her. There was a birth certificate, of course, but the doctor who signed it was his mother’s godfather, an old friend of the family, perfectly capable of a falsehood. He had his mother buried beside her “husband” since there was an extra plot there she had purchased forty years before. He was the only person there to see the body put in the ground. It occurred to him that he should have had the gravediggers check to make sure there was another body there but his mother would never have approved.

He never found records of any of the Ardens. Who was William Arden III? Perhaps his mother made the name up, adding the fourth for prestige and authenticity. Likely his father was some pimple faced underclassman who didn’t know of his existence. William never thought about it until she died.

Certainly, there had never been another male in his mother’s life or his, other than the fussy, disapproving grandfather who showed up for Christmas and holidays with checks. When Grandpapa died, he left all his money to William in a trust fund. 

Most humans mark their days, weeks, months, years or decades by traumatic events. There were none for William Arden IV until his mother died. She directed his life for the first forty years, deciding everything for him, schools, clothes, holidays, interests and bachelorhood.

He became a university professor because his mother had been the daughter of a professor and liked the life of academia. She never finished her own degree, but that was because of William.

           William was never certain who his father had been. He was a name on a tombstone in an eastern city. Was there a body there? His mother told him there was and he had believed her. There was a birth certificate, of course, but the doctor who signed it was his mother’s godfather, an old friend of the family, perfectly capable of a falsehood. He had his mother buried beside her “husband” since there was an extra plot there she had purchased forty years before. He was the only person there to see the body put in the ground. It occurred to him that he should have had the gravediggers check to make sure there was another body there but his mother would never have approved.

          He never found records of any of the Ardens. Who was William Arden III? Perhaps his mother made the name up, adding the fourth for prestige and authenticity. Likely his father was some pimple faced underclassman who didn’t know of his existence. William never thought about it until she died. Certainly, there had never been another male in his mother’s life or his, other than the fussy, disapproving grandfather who showed up for Christmas and holidays with checks. When Grandpapa died, he left all his money to William in a trust fund.

          He had his own first sexual experience as an underclassman. A sobbing junior coed, a slight acquaintance, drunkenly crashed into him at the quad. He awkwardly patted her shoulder and by the end of the night, he’d been laid. The next morning he was booted out of her apartment. It was then he discovered John Lennon had died and he had been meant to be a post-death celebration of life. His mother was a wreck, not knowing where he had gone. It would be years before he spent another night away from home.

          What would he have been without his mother’s prodding? She studied with him, and directed every moment of his life. Elementary school led to high school led to a scholarship at the University of Chicago. But he was still not alone. She found an apartment near the south side campus and moved them both there. They worked on each class together. She re-wrote his papers and typed them. She kept him firmly away from campus protests and involvements. He had his career to think of, not politics or sex.

            He majored in medieval history, knowing he couldn’t cope with the complexity of modern times, especially when it involved the complications that arrived with the Industrial Revolution. Parchment manuscripts were better than dealing with the computer age. When he did his overseas doctoral research, he did not notice the change of countries. His mother followed him, found an Americanized apartment in London, and continued to serve the same meals. It was the '60s and he immersed himself in medieval mystery plays and grisly methods of torture, which truly interested him.

            It was not a glorious career but he limped through. Through his grandfather’s connections he found a post at a small Midwest college, the beginning of his career, his mother said. A few years to establish his name and he would go to a big name university. It never happened. Instead he potted on at the little college for a decade, and then his mother died suddenly. He had no friends, no relatives, and There he was with no direction. He was 40 and had never made a decision. Two month’s after his mother’s funeral, he picked the spinster daughter of a fellow professor, looking for someone to lead him. For a while it worked. She decided to do his research for him, and together they could work on the definitive book on mystery plays. The problem was William liked doing the research himself, it was the writing he hated. He had never actually written anything. His mother had led him through his thesis and she was no longer there.

            He installed a small television set in his office and became a TV addict. His remote was always on hand so he could switch to educational channels when his wife came down the hall or the phone rang. His wife became more and more bored with him and his fussy ways. They were stuck in a little college in a small town. He would have been fired, for he was not a researcher, not a writer and a boring teacher, but his grandfather had left him that sizable trust fund and William gave an occasional endowment, thereby saving his job. Eventually, he had tenure. He stayed on and on and on.

            Finally his wife left him while he was watching Saturday Night Live. He didn’t notice. He hired a cleaning woman the next day. His life was simpler now. He used the same lecture notes year after year. He could watch television all night. He had to think very hard to remember his ex-wife's name.

Then one day, he overheard a student refer to him as “that old fag”. That bothered him. When an author came to the campus for a workshop, be began an affair with her. She lived far enough away so that she was not much bother. Every December, Marge came to the campus for the yearly faculty Christmas party and he paraded her around the campus for a week or two, proving his heterosexuality. He occasionally visited her in Wisconsin for a cheap weekend. The relationship suited her, she said.

            Marge would arrive in London the next day to join the tour. She would do book talks in small villages and towns along the way. He had convinced her it would be cheaper for her to travel on the tour bus and do the talks at night. She had her agent arrange her schedule that way and he got an extra credit with the tour company.

            He felt in his pocket for the box that held his mother's engagement ring that she only wore on special occasions. It had been his grandmother's ring, too.  He intended to propose to Marge on this trip. Another marriage though he really thought it more a business merger. His housekeeper/cleaning woman was retiring. He needed someone to manage the house and buy his underwear. Any woman would do and he wouldn't have to pay a wife. Marge's book sales would serve as rent.

            He checked the arrivals board. The flight was delayed again. He would be stuck in Heathrow for another hour. He opened Everyman again and tried to concentrate but his head slumped down over his book. Soon his snores echoed through Heathrow as he slipped into a deep sleep.

            In his dream, his mother came to him silently, reproachfully. She wandered through the house, looking, looking. She picked up a celebrity magazine, and dropped it in the trash. She turned off the television.

           She selected a book on medieval technology and laid it on his lap, smiling. She sat in the wing chair opposite him and plucked some knitting from the air. She turned on the radio on the table between them, the radio he long ago had thrown away and found one of Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos. He cringed. He reached to switch the thing off but she placed a hand over his and smiled and smiled.

            In his dream, he rose to leave but she rose with him and straightened his tie and reached for his discarded jacket and held it out to him. He put it on and it was the smoking jacket they’d bought together in London.                 

            He absently reached for a pipe – a pipe he had given up when she died. It was there beside him and he lit the pipe and sat down again, his throat burning.

            In his dream, she searched the room looking for the knickknacks she’d bought on their travels, and that he had given to the cleaning woman as Christmas gifts over the years. She reached into her knitting bag and pulled them out one by one, the plants in the crystal swans, the porcelain Brittany spaniels. They floated to the fireplace, to the bookshelves. With a wave of her hand the television disappeared and the Bach grew louder and louder.

            No! he screamed, but it was a silent scream and she smiled and patted his hand and smiled until her mouth grew wider and wider and the gold of her fillings gleamed in the firelight and plants grew and grew, covering the walls, smothering him in an avalanche of philodendra.

            “Professor.”

            William blinked. One of his students was shaking him.

            “Professor Arden!”

            “Wh..what?”

            “The rest of the gang is down retrieving the luggage. Where do we go from there?”

            William stood up abruptly, then sat down, still dizzy from the dream. He gathered his books, crammed them into his case and set off to start the tour.

            Something was poking his thigh. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring box. He thought about his mother....and about Marge.

            He shoved the ring back in his pocket. He would put it back in the bank's safe box when he returned.

           And hire a new cleaning woman.

Planned Obsolescence - Part Two

Image by Crispin Semmens via Wikimedia Commons

At his old job, Bay 11's generator, an old methane-powered unit with a dodgy compressor, would have served perfectly. However, that had been scrapped during the plant's retirement. He had a smaller unit in the apartment, a hobbyist's model that just couldn't provide the amperage he needed. The museums had generators, but he doubted he could sneak past the watchmen guarding the mummies, dinosaur bones, and other exhibits. Then he thought of a place with industrial-grade power with next to no security: the zoo.

The city zoo held all manner of mundane animals for citizens to gawk at and marvel over. They would point and laugh, or shake their heads over the human-caused environmental damage such that only in zoos would the elephant, giraffe, and lion have a chance to escape extinction. The Earth's native children were no longer able to compete with their thaumaturgically modified cousins, experimental escapees, and deliberate cast-offs. Though there was some debate over whether this would have happened anyway with the invasive species slipping into Earth's dimension at places like Stonehenge during solstices. Man-made or not, only humans could adapt to the new reality, the creatures could not.

The irony, of course, was that unmodified creatures could not be held back with thaumaturgic fencing like livestock, the exposure to the trans-dimensional radiation would eventually corrupt their DNA. Prohibited from using thaumaturgic devices and power systems, zoos had to rely on the old-fashioned method of electricity for their needs.

Marco didn't visit the zoo proper. His invention filled a backpack, making it appear as if he were preparing for a week's journey. As lax as the zoo's security was, this would not make it past the front gate. Fortunately, the zoo's method of generating power required placing the equipment a few kilometers away from the buildings. As the moon rose, Marco smiled to himself as he made his way to the the fence surrounding the zoo's power and a field of Tesla trees.

The Tesla trees were spindly metallic columns twenty feet tall with smaller silvered branches and filigree drooping to the ground like weeping willows. Blue-white flashes erupted with sharp popping sounds where the trees brushed against each other. The trees swayed not only in the wind but also to magnetic variations, approaching electrical storms, or solar flares. Cables ran from the base of each tree to a small shack set into the corner of the field, just on the other side of the fence. As Marco approached, the hairs on his arms rose and the air held the dry tang of ozone. Signs featuring a stick figure being attacked by red lightning bolts warned him of danger. Marco thought the sign unnecessary. Running through the Tesla trees was like running though a storm cloud waving a ten foot metal pipe while wearing aluminum foil underwear.

Scaling the fence with the awkward bundle on his back had left him winded. Fortunately, the barbed wire on the fence top fell easily to his insulated cutters, and there was a narrow cleared area between the trees and the fence line. The shack was locked, with a numeric keypad entry. Marco pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, ready to pull the unit from the wall and rewire the door lock, but hesitated. On a hunch, he reached out and tapped 1-2-3-4. The door opened.

“Factory defaults,” he said shaking his head, “Amateurs.”

Inside, he found a desk set into the wall with a functional transformer and outlet. He unpacked his box and reassembled the unit. It surely didn't look like much, just an oblong chitin box with a fist-sized opening at one end and a plug at the other. Through the opening, concentric rows of glinting metal points ran like the maw of a lamprey.

Marco plugged in his invention, let out a puff of air, and reached for the switch. Despite checking his design for mistakes and testing all the connections over the past days, he had a flutter in his stomach. Putting power to a device for the first time was known as the smoke test: if it smoked, you failed.

He pushed the switch. The unit hummed without any visible wisps of smoke..

“Good boy,” Marco said, turning the unit off and giving it a pat. “Now let's see if you can actually do anything.”

He reached into a sack and brought out his coffee maker.

“This shouldn't hurt a bit,” he said to it. The coffee maker blinked at him and gurgled. “Really, I wouldn't risk you if I didn't think this would work.” And even if it went spectacularly wrong, the coffee maker's brain was too simple to feel pain anyway. He placed the coffee maker in the metal maw of his invention and flipped the switch.

The coffee maker made a few gurgling sounds before shuddering and collapsing. Marco looked at his diagnostic meter. Total brain shutdown, but still alive, readings perfectly matching up with a state of hibernation.

“Yes!” His heart swelled. This would get him back in the company. Normally, if someone wanted to put a cryptological unit into hibernation to effect repairs, it took a large amounts of drugs or lengthy incantations. On the rare occasions the old beast had been taken down, it had taken days to put the factory to sleep, with great care taken not to accidentally wound or damage with an overdose. But he had just put his coffeemaker to sleep with the flick of a switch. A kill switch that wouldn't kill the unit? It would save thousands of production hours.

Then another thought: why go back to the company? He could patent the device, and find someone willing to reverse-engineer the precious, obsolete components. He would sell the design across the world and then retire with honor. And if a bit of extra cash went along with that honor, well ...

A sizzle brought him out of his thoughts. A thin stream of coffee leaked out from his coffee maker. Marco was half-way to the switch when there came a loud snap followed by a plume of brown smoke.

“Crap!” He yanked the plug and upended the unit. The blackened remains of the coffee maker thumped onto the desk. Loss of muscle control, of course. He should have foreseen that problem. His next iteration would make the internals waterproof. Depending on what was damaged, he might have to take on a partner to finance the replacement components.

But first thing first: he would need a new coffeemaker before morning.

*

Outside the shack, electrical arcs hopscotched from tree to tree and ozone tickled at the back of Marco's throat. The conditions had changed and now the trees and their pretty little arc flashes strayed closer to the fence line where he had entered. He'd have to work his way around to the windward side of the forest and climb the fence there instead. He hitched his backpack up a bit higher and set off, forcing his way into the gusts, blinking back tears as the wind scoured his eyeballs. He watched for signs that a discharge was imminent: hairs raising on end, a tugging at his skin, even gut reactions that would make him pause until the wind died down. Marco was keenly aware that his puny human body generated a magnetic field that might just give the massing electrons the stepping stone they needed to cross the gap between two rival Teslas.

Marco wiped the sweat from brow on the back of his sleeve as he came up to the fence. He cinched the straps of the backpack tighter and began climbing the chain links. He thought about how to present his invention to the corporate investors. They wouldn't go for the prototype as it was; the next version would have to look cutting-edge – that is, organic – to even have a chance. He had hoped by this time in his life to be past appearances, past the corporate politics, and into a comfortable little niche, but that would have to wait a bit longer. His father had often joked about spending his retirement on a park bench, tripping passing joggers with a cane. Marco thought it ridiculously funny at the time, but now he realized that Dad's idea had a more practical appeal every day.

A gust buffeted him, threatening to blow him to the ground, or worse, into a Tesla discharge. Marco clenched with all his strength, chain links digging into his skin, feeling as if they would sever his fingers entirely. Wind howled in his ears, electricity popped behind him. Marco waited for what seemed like minutes before the gust abruptly stopped, slamming his body forward. He unclenched his numb fingers and concentrated on reaching the top. A moment later, the wind picked up and Marco held as hard as he could, with muscles straining and eyes screwed shut. When the gust passed, he wasted no time opening his fingers and reaching for the next link. The backpack seemed heavier, almost trying to pull him down. He eyed the top of the fence, and grunted.

"Just a couple more feet to go. You can rest on the other side," he said to himself.

His hands found the top of the fence, and slipped. Marco threw himself forward, gaining a few precious seconds of balance while he scrabbled for a hold. As he felt himself drift back, his left hand managed to re-grip and steady him. His tingling right hand followed, and soon Marco had managed to throw a leg over the top and rest as his body straddled the fence.

The wind on his face warned him of an approaching gust. Marco pulled his other leg over and started down. Let the gusts come, they could only help his grip from now on. He smiled as he took his first step, only to feel his stomach lurch as his backpack tugged at his shoulders. He looked back to see his pack caught on a twist of metal at the top of the fence.

He was in no condition to slide out of the straps, climb up and release the pack. Neither would he leave it there. He doubted he would be able to move in the morning and besides, someone might see and confiscate his prototype. No, he'd have to force it. He pulled at the straps, with no luck. He leaned and jerked, but couldn't dislodge the pack from its skewer. His shoulders burned, his hands had gone completely numb. He was pretty sure he was going to have a rotten day tomorrow, waking up with an abused body and no coffee maker.

"You dirty son of a..."

Marco threw all his weight behind his shoulder and the backpack ripped free. He enjoyed his accomplishment for a full half second before he realized his numbed hands were no longer holding onto the fence. The crackling and popping of the Tesla trees were only a little louder than the sound of the prototype shattering as Marco crashed.

*

Marco scowled at the doctor's back as he left the ward. He would have to lie in the bed for another hour until the exoskeleton cast around his leg was strong to support his weight while injected symbiotes re-knit the bone. He must have said something out loud because a small wiry lady in the bed next to him turned and spoke.

"You're lucky your company pays for rejuve. All the army gives us are the spares left over from the last war," she held up a scratched and battered metal arm.

Marco sighed. "Gotta stick it to the bastards while I can, I guess. I only have coverage for the next thirty days." He nodded at the arm. "That an IYK-200 model?"

"Yeah. After the amputation, I was hoping they could fit me with something from Preston or Dynapar line, but all they had in my size were these."

"You're better off," Marco said, "the ickies were never flashy, but they're the most reliable I've ever seen."

"You see many?"

"The larger models. I was an industrial cyberneticist."

"Was? What are you now?"

Marco grinned. "Just an old coot with a broken leg, I guess. You?"

She grinned back. “An old soldier trying to make do with what she's got.” She turned, showing a blue bandage at her shoulder where the metal arm met flesh. Faded scars crisscrossed from under the bandage to her tank top. “The arm has never been strong, but it's gotten worse over the last year.”

“You ever get it overhauled?” Marco said.

“Sure, but the VA techs can only download the standard software or do a simple replacement. They've re-downloaded five times now, but it hasn't done anything.”

“Can you get a new one?”

She laughed. “You kidding? The bean counters say it's not broken, so everything is fine – not that any of them have to ever do any heavy lifting for a living. So I tried uploading a mod to the arm's software so I could get more power. It worked fine for a while, then today the damn thing nearly tore out of my shoulder socket.”

“So why are you here and not at the VA?”

“Technically what I did was tampering with government property.”

“Ah. So if it's officially not broken, don't try fixing it?”

She was about to say something when the doctor walked into the ward, wheeling a cart behind him with a portable generator and a cybernetic interface.

"Okay, Miss Julian, now that the muscle is repaired, we can see to the other item. If you're all ready?" The doctor said, pulling a curtain in Marco's face without waiting for a response from the woman.

Marco sat back against the bed, trying not to think about the fact that a thousand worm-like symbiotes were inside him right now, writhing around the broken bone like so many maggots. In a thousand years, they'd dig up his bones and find a black scar around the break, the ossified remains of the creepy-crawlies. Would they wonder at what leechcraft was used on him? Maybe by then his body would be considered primitive. The crypto-geneticists promised eternal youth in the future, a symbiote for every ailment, a cure for aging.

A high-pitched whine erupted from behind the curtain, sending Marco's ears ringing.

"There appears to be a malfunction in the ... prosthetic, Miss Julian," the doctor said.

The woman snorted "You've made it worse, doc."

“Tell you what, let me download the standard software for you and we can see what happens.”

“No, doc, I don't want that. Just undo whatever it is you did.”

"Miss Julian –"

"You've got the integral gain set too high," Marco called over the curtain.

"Thank you, Mister Danosky, that will do," the doctor said.

"Maybe you should listen to him," the woman said.

"I assure you, Miss Julian, I am fully qualified."

"Maybe," the woman said. The curtain swept back to reveal the woman sitting on the bed with her left arm hanging limp in a tangle of wires leading to the doctor's cart. She narrowed her eyes and pointed at the doctor. "How long have you studied cybernetics?"

The doctor sighed and folded his arms. "It was one of my rotations out of med school. I studied for over a year. Now look here, these are you arm's standard parameters from the literature. They should work fine."

Miss Julian looked at Marco and cocked an eyebrow.

"A whole year?" Marco said. "You must be smarter than me. I studied for six years and never got my doctorate in cybernetics, just a master's. Then I wasted thirty years of my life working in the damn field." He shrugged. "I may not know much, but I know an integration whine when I hear it."

The doctor glared at him, perhaps annoyed enough to kick him out of the ER before bollixing the arm. Marco held up his hands. “Look, what they don't teach you in school is that the tuning parameters are more of an educated guess for a generic application, and are more of a starting point for fine-tuning in the field. I'll bet her arm is smaller than the standard the designer had in mind.” He waved at the cart. “Let me see those numbers.”

“I can't let you treat a patient,” the doctor said. “Besides, this is personal medical information.”

“I don't mind,” Miss Julian said, “let the guy look.”

“I don't know,” the doctor said.

“I won't change anything,” Marco said, “You can do all the treating and number entering. I'll just give you a professional opinion on the mechanics.”

“Oh all right,” said the doctor.

Within five minutes, the doctor stopped questioning Marco on the numbers he called out as Miss Julian carefully flexed her shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fingers. Within fifteen minutes, the doctor pushed the cart closer to Marco's bed and let him enter the numbers directly.

"Well, that's a rough first pass," Marco said.

Miss Julian stood and waved her arm as if it were floating in the breeze.

"It's great," she said, "almost like new."

"Give me another hour, and it'll be even better."

The doctor began coiling up the terminal's wires.

"So, doc, do think your outfit could use someone like me?"

"Your leg's exo-skel has set, Mister Danosky," the doctor said. "We can discharge you any time."

"Great," Miss Julian said, "You can sign me out while you're at it."

"I'd recommend staying a while longer while we run some independent tests."

She planted her feet and shook her head. "Nope, everything's fine. I have things to do."

She met the doctor's gaze until he turned away. "Very well." He left, pushing his cart.

*

Outside the hospital pod, Miss Julian shook his hand. "Thanks for the tune-up."

"My pleasure."

"You know, a few buddies of mine could really use your help."

"I don't have the equipment," Marco said, "and I doubt the hospital will let me borrow theirs."

"Yeah," she said with a little head bobble, "But maybe if you applied down at the VA, you could use theirs. It looks like a museum down there, but it's got the same stuff the hospital here does, plus a few more toys I'd expect."

His backpack clanked and tinkled as he shrugged into it. All those components, so much scrap now.

"What's in the bag?" Miss Julian asked.

Marco paused for a moment before answering. "Just scrap and spare parts. You think they'd take me at the VA?"

"In a heartbeat. If they don't, let me know. They think I'm a pain in the ass now, and I'm not even trying that hard."

*

In the end, it hadn't taken a personal intervention from Master Sargent Louise Jillian, though Marco's future boss considered it a plus that Marco had placated the staff's personal boogeyman. They set him up in a basement lab, surrounded by racks of robotic prosthesis, electrical generators, scopes, terminals, and bins of unidentified components and wiring. His prototype sat on a bench, awaiting future tinkering. Marco looked at his coffee maker, and gave it a pat on the head.

“It's a comfortable little niche, isn't it?” he said to the unit. The coffeemaker gurgled and let out an espresso-laced burp.