Listen

Photo by David Benbennick

by Bettyann Moore 

The last time any of us saw Minnie Pennywell she was chasing after the 5:10 Greyhound, scrambling and leaping over half-frozen mud holes in her black high-button shoes, skirts hiked high above her knurly knees.

Lockjaw Summers, tipped back on his orange crate on the porch of Meyer's Store, was the last to have words with her. Imagine, Lyle “Lockjaw” Summers – who once spent three hours in the company of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and afterwards when pressed for details replied, "He's a nice enough fella.” – having the last words with Minnie Pennywell! If there was any message for me, any hint that she would be back, Lyle wasn't saying.

Minnie spent a great deal of time in Lockjaw's company in those last few weeks, hunkered down, elbows on her knees, in a cane-backed chair she'd pulled up close to his crate. Those of us who walked by ... and all of us did at one time or another, busily flitting in and out of Meyers' for this and that ... could see Minnie's lips moving with surprising speed. She paused only to take in great gulps of air as she talked to Lyle in a low and hissing voice. Her chair has been put into service propping open Meyers' door in this sweltering heat, but Lyle sits, head cocked at a curious angle as if he is still hearing her, still listening – she would say – as none of us ever did.

In all fairness, to myself and the rest of the good people of Farrell, we tried to listen to Minnie, tried to hear what she was really saying.

"If you would just listen," she bullied us, "you would hear the pain all around you. If you would listen, you would hear your own pain." Well, we were listening, I'm sure, but we heard nothing unusual.

When she said she was lonely, didn't we invite her to sing in the town choir despite her squeaky soprano?

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken," Minnie replied to the invitation, "is sung."

Minnie spouts quotations and wears them like a fine chain around her neck. The people of Farrell would have gladly hung her up by that chain after that remark.

They didn't, of course, but if they did seem to ignore her afterwards, who could fault them? Ignoring her was a luxury I could ill afford, though. The room we shared at Clayton's Boarding House echoed with the distemper of her moods. Overflowing waste cans, great piles of soiled laundry and grey, twisted sheets littered our small domain. Minnie held forth from a cross-legged position upon her unmade bed while I sat perched on the only chair in the room, her captive audience of one.

Often, as I sat there, I tried to imagine her as a young girl. Did she always strut and preen so? What adult in her life taught her to smoke in that way, cigarette dangling from her lips, smoke tearing her right eye? Did the child that she was look into a mirror and say "This face is angry and should be framed in black"?

I made the mistake – which would have been a small one with anyone else – of asking as she paused for breath, "Why do you wear only black?"

She choked on the smoke she'd inhaled, dislodging her cigarette onto her bedspread. She sprang up, pressed her face so close to mine that I could smell her tonsils and hissed, "I'm in mourning, Charlotte. I am in mourning for all the words that have died, spoken like prayers, evaporated into the thick air of indifference."

I would have asked her what she meant by that, but behind her smoke rose from the bed and though the word "indifference" hung between us, I could not be indifferent to the reality of that.

She moved out shortly thereafter and began spending her days with Lockjaw. It was rumored that she took to peeking beneath the bonnets of babies in their carriages to see if they had ears. She was convinced, it was whispered, that people were breeding earless children, so unnecessary those appendages had become.

On the day Minnie left, people tell me that Lockjaw spoke to her. Customers in Meyer's store were struck still by the rusty, whirring sound of his voice. It was too low to hear, but it droned on and on and the people who could see Minnie's face said she sat there slack-jawed, listening. Apparently, though, he said something she didn't want to hear and when the 5:10 bus lumbered past, she jumped up from her chair, shouting, "Stop! Stop!"

The bus driver was not one of us. He heard her. He stopped the bus and it carried her away.

Love in the Fifties

by Colleen Sutherland

(This is a sort of prequel to the previous Love through the Decades stories. I wish it weren't based so much on my own life. CS)

Everyday it's a-gettin' closer
Goin' faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours will surely come my way
A-hey, a-hey-hey

Willard swung her around and headed for the back forty. He drove her across to the corner and made an abrupt left turn under the basketball hoop, shoving his dancing partner backwards as he drove full throttle around the gym floor. He was cutting hay, thinking about summer.

This is what dancing feels like in Alcenora High, Sheila thought. She read that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, only in high heels and backwards. This was the same except Sheila was wearing tennis shoes and being pushed around the gym floor during seventh period physical education class by a farm boy with no sense of rhythm.

That morning, Sheila hoped for a snow day. A February blizzard swept across the Great Plains overnight and should have hit Alcenora, but instead it went south to Milwaukee. All Alcenora got was a dusting of snow, not enough to give her a break.

Oh, how she dreaded each day of high school. Junior year then a full senior year to go.

“God, I hate school,” she said to her mother as she wolfed down a piece of toast standing up. Her starched crinoline slip itched her legs when she sat down. By the end of the day her legs would be rubbed raw in the name of fashion. “Can't I be sick or something?”

“Don't take the name of the Lord in vain,” her mother said. “This should be the best time of your life. What is your problem?”

“If they would just leave me alone to study.”

“The boys?” Her mother was ever hopeful.

“No, the cheerleaders. They got it into their heads that every girl should go to the prom.”

“Well, why not?”

“I don't have a boyfriend.”

“Boys don't like smart girls. I've told you that over and over. It wouldn't hurt you to act dumb.”

Sheila didn't bother to answer. They had this conversation too many times. Her mother and father expected her to fit in with prevailing society. She was supposed to be a good little girl, have a good Lutheran boyfriend, get married and raise lots of good little farm kids after she had worked a few years as a good little secretary. They didn't know that she changed her class schedule to college prep courses every semester, faking their signatures. She stole blank report card forms from teachers' desks and filled them out herself, giving herself mostly B's in secretarial classes. She went down to the barn to have her father sign them because he never asked any questions. It made no difference that they smelled like manure when he was done because those weren't the ones she returned to the school anyhow. She was an expert at forging their names.

Every week she took the $1.25 her mother gave her for lunch money and put it together with any babysitting money into a secret bank account for college. She should be able to get scholarships to make up the rest. She haunted the guidance room during her meal-less lunch hour looking at the shelves of college brochures, hiding her selections in her locker so her mother wouldn't see them.

They would soon find out when she made the National Honor Society. That would be in the newspapers and they would get engraved invitations to the induction ceremony. Maybe she could convince them it was for her grades in in the business classes. She better make her report cards a little better next time. Neither of her parents had gone to high school so it had been so easy to fool them.

Would they be proud of her when she was valedictorian? Probably not, unless she had a boyfriend by then.

The music came to an end. Now she was supposed to make polite conversation with Willard. They both stared at the scoreboard which had the last basketball scores. Neither she nor Willard had been to the game. Apparently Alcenora won.

Mr. Orson, the overweight boys' physical education teacher put another Buddy Holly song on the turntable and yawned, leaning back on the office chair he had dragged into the gym. This was a day off for him. He let Miss Dorsey run the show, teaching the kids dance steps she learned by watching American Bandstand the night before. Most of the girls already knew the dances. Sheila didn't but with Willard as a partner it didn't make much difference.

If you knew Peggy Sue

Then you'd know why I feel blue

Without Peggy, my Peggy Su-u-ue

If only they would let her change partners, but none of the popular girls would have anything to do with

Willard. He grabbed her hand and waist and started pushing her backwards again. All around them couples were swinging to a rock 'n roll beat but Willard didn't know the difference between a waltz and a polka, let alone a modern dance.

“Aaaahhhh.” Sheila crashed into Yvonne when her Jack swung her out directly in the path of Willard's plowed row.

“Sorry,” Sheila said. Willard hadn't noticed. But Sheila wasn't sorry. If she had known Yvonne was back there she would have stomped on her foot for good measure.

Yvonne and her buddies cornered her when she got off the school bus that morning.

“Has Willard asked you to the prom yet?”

“I'm not going, I told you that.”

“Everyone has to go. This will be the best prom ever, you have to be there! It will be something to remember at our 50th reunion.”

“I'm not going to the reunion either.”

She wouldn't either. High school was something to endure until she got to college where she assumed there would be intelligent life. Once out of Alcenora, she was never coming back. She muttered through her French class vocabulary and thought about Paris.

Maybe she would go to her college reunions.

She watched Yvonne and Jack gyrating to the music. They were going steady and Yvonne thought they would be married soon after graduation. Or before. Jack had been overheard telling his friends that a piece of Saran Wrap and a rubberband made a good condom. Sheila knew Jack's father. He was fat. His mother sometimes showed up in the grocery store with bruises. Jack seemed to be heading in the same direction. A little weight was fine on a football star but it would stick. Sheila had seen him yelling at Yvonne when she didn't agree with something he said.

Sheila put her mind elsewhere, on the term paper on Marie Antoinette she was writing for her history class. She was back in the world of Versailles, of gold furniture and great art. The dresses were beautiful, she supposed, but they were the same bulky skirts girls wore in the Fifties. She wondered if Marie Antoinette had legs rubbed raw by starchy petticoats. She dreamed of the Hall of Mirrors as she and Willard did another round under the basketball hoops.

One of the other teachers was in the room talking to Miss Dorsey, whispering something in her ear.

“Noooooooo!” Yvonne overheard and began to wail. “Buddy Holly dead! No, no, no! It can't be true!”

Mr. Orson thought it was a request. He looked down at his stack of 45s and plucked one out but no one was dancing.

Well, that'll be the day
when you say good bye,
yes, that'll be the day,
when you make me cry,
ah, you say you're gonna leave,
you know its a lie,
'cause that'll be the day when i die.
well, when i die.

Buddy Holly was dead. Mr. Orson began to pull his records out of the stack. They wouldn't be played again this year. Sheila smiled. She abruptly turned away from Willard and headed toward her locker to take off her gym shoes.

“Badminton tomorrow,” Miss Dorsey called as the bell rang.

In the End, Love

by Colleen Sutherland 

My friends advised me to find some volunteer work. It would take my mind off my troubles.

“How is volunteering going to help me find a job or a new husband? How is it going to pay for my insurance or pay the bills?”

“It probably won't, but it will give you something to think about while you are looking,” Agnes said. “Look for something close to your apartment so you won't use any money on gas. And you could use the exercise. You're getting a bit plump, dear. Volunteering is better than staying home moping, watching The View and hoping things will get better.”

Instead, I walked down to the Portland shore to watch fishermen and feed the seagulls. I wouldn't be living in that neighborhood much longer. The alimony checks wouldn't be enough to pay for even the cheapest apartment. I might have to leave Portland, Oregon forever and how I loved it.

On the way home, I passed Tendercare, a high end nursing home two blocks away from my condo. Volunteer work, I thought and right over the harbor with a great view. I walked in and asked about volunteering. The next day I was working in activities, with Marsha, the director, telling me what to do.

It wasn't much. All I had to do was push residents around in their wheelchairs and help set up chairs for programs, usually some school kids singing off key, but what can you expect? Sometimes I helped with jigsaw puzzles, read newspapers or books, or just listened to the same stories over and over.

When I was pushing patients, or residents as the staff said I should call them, I noticed a tall old man with a full head of gray hair talking to an old woman, his wife, I thought. Usually they were in the foyer on a love seat, but if the weather was nice, he took her hand and led her out to the flower garden overlooking a grassy slope leading down to the ocean. He reached into the bag he always had with him and pulled out a brush. He undid her long braid and brushed her hair in long strokes. Her face wrinkled up in a smile of pure delight.

“That's my girl,” he said. “That's my sweet girl.”

She never said a word.

They never came into the activities department, so I didn't know much about them but finally I asked whether I should talk to them when a little country and western band came to play without much of an audience. Some of the groups were so bad nursing homes were the only place they could play, and even then, residents would refuse to get out of their beds to listen.

“No, leave them alone,” Marsha, the activity director said. “Aaron and Sheila are in their own little world. Besides, they have problems enough of their own.”

“Problems?”

“Aaron and Sheila aren't married and that created a big kerfluffle when the new CEO started here a month ago.”

“What's the problem?”

When the new director arrived, she went over the paperwork for each resident. Sheila had never signed any authorization for visitors. Not leaving well enough alone, the CEO called the family about Aaron, and asked them to sign a visitor permission slip on her behalf.

“The same rules that apply to gay and lesbian couples applies to people that aren't married. Aaron has no right to see her unless the family says he can."

At first Sheila's son Arthur, who lived in the Midwest, said no visiting rights. Aaron pointed out that he was paying for Sheila's care, not Arthur. Arthur said there were cheaper facilities that Medicare and Medicaid would cover.

The CEO was frantically trying to work something out, knowing that she would have to explain to the board how she lost a high paying resident with a private room. "Aaron is here now, but there's a possibility he won't be able to visit her unless this is worked out.”

As Arthur started to check out other facilities and finding out his mother's bank account was non-existent, he began to realize that it was going to cost him more money than he wanted to spend. Still he caused problems. He said he would take care of things next time he could come to Portland, but that never happened.

“He's just being mean. He doesn't like Aaron and he wants to make him miserable.” Marsha said. The matter dragged on.

Tendercare started a daycare that fall in a vacant wing. I applied for the job and suddenly, everything was better for me. I worked all day as an assistant. From time to time, I brought the pre-schoolers through the nursing home to talk to the “grandmas and grandpas” as I explained to the children so they wouldn't be nervous about people staring blankly at them or worse, grabbing them.

Aaron always had some toys in his bag for them to play with, never anything noisy, just things they could scoot around the floor. Sheila ignored them.

I still volunteered in the activity department on weekends. I began to chat with them then or at least to Aaron. Sheila never said a word. As we talked, Aaron took the barrettes out of her hair and brushed it with gentle hands. “That's my girl,” he said and kissed her cheek. She smiled, a smile that widened until her teeth sparkled. Once they fell out and he carefully replaced them in her mouth for her. “Isn't my girl pretty today?” He patted her hand and held it tight.

The family argument continued, he told me. He couldn't understand it. Even if the family didn't like him, couldn't they do what was good for Sheila? He visited everyday but Arthur lived in the Midwest and almost never came to Portland to see his mother. There were flowers on Mother's Day, a new bathrobe at Christmas and hand lotion for her birthday. If her grandchildren happened to be passing through Portland, there might even be a visit.

Arthur talked about moving her to Milwaukee to “be near her grandchildren.”

“She doesn't even know her grandchildren any more,” Aaron said. “But if they move her, I'll move, too. I'll have to sell up here and sneak into wherever they put her, but I'll be there for her.”

Each day, Aaron was there pampering and petting her. He reminded her of the days they had spent together in a garden much like the one they sat in. He talked to her about trips they had taken, about fishing down at the harbor, about their history together. When I joined them, he told me what a beauty she was when he met her, how full of joy and mischief. He talked about their sex life, and got a bit too explicit for my taste, but I kept coming back. Sheila never said anything.

When he left for the day, he gave her a kiss and said, “Goodbye, my sweet girl,” as if he might never see her again.

The negotiations dragged on, Arthur being mean, Aaron being patient, and Sheila oblivious to it all.

Then I had an inspiration. “Marsha, why not make Aaron a volunteer?”

“That might work,” she said. She talked it over with the CEO who said he would have to work with other residents, too, and she wasn't sure he would be willing to do that. But of course, he was. He wheeled Sheila to the activities department every day and sat there making conversation with the occupants as if Sheila were contributing, too. He included her in any talks about the old days, always rubbing her back or brushing her hair as he talked. I saw them every Saturday and Sunday after that.

Then one warm spring Sunday, he wasn't there.

“Where's Aaron?” I asked.

“He won't be visiting Sheila any more. His landlord called. He died in his sleep,” Marsha said.

Sheila was sitting on an overstuffed couch in the lounge, staring at the wall. Her teeth had fallen out on to her lap. I put them back in her mouth, but I don't think she noticed.

“Then Sheila will be leaving, too, I suppose.” I said.

“She stays. Aaron told me about his will last week. It says that all his money goes to pay for her care here. Anything that's left goes for Alzheimer research.”

The director said Sheila wouldn't notice that he was gone, but there were never any smiles after that.

I've watched royal weddings, romantic movies and young couples walking hand in hand on beaches but I never knew what true love was until I saw an eighty year old man brushing the hair of a woman who didn't know his name.

“That's my girl,” he said.   

Love and the Colonoscopy

by Colleen Sutherland

 (This is the sixth of the Love stories.  There's one more to go before I let go of the subject.   CS) 

How do you know someone loves you?

When Sheila was young, love was the intensity of the sex act. Later on, it had to do with children, paying the mortgage, and having someone reliable to take her to parties. Saying “I love you” and presents were part of the deal. Friendship was part of it, too.

With Aaron, she was never sure. They didn't eat out very often. He preferred her cooking to anything in restaurants, he said. He seemed proud to be seen with her, holding her arm to make sure she didn't trip on sidewalks. She was tripping more these days, part of aging, but he never complained. He didn't bring her flowers, but then they had a garden. His idea of a present was a case of printer paper and some ink cartridges. He never said, “I love you.” She would have liked that.

Bill, her ex-husband, said he loved her. He told her so often. He told everyone he knew that he would die for her, that he adored her. He usually said it when he knew the woman he had just slept with would overhear him saying so, so that she could take the hint and he could get on with his life and his next affair.

That wasn't love, though maybe Bill thought so, in his perverted, twisted mind.

***

After rekindling their romance from the 1960's, Aaron and Sheila were living together in Portland, Oregon, growing old. Not married, of course. They had done that before and didn't want to do it again.

Aaron told their friends they were waiting until the gay and lesbian communities had the benefits of marriage in every state. It looked more and more like he was going to have to think of another excuse. When Sheila's son or grandchildren asked her when they were going to set the date, she told them when she got pregnant.

It made sense to live as they did, but as Sheila once commented to her best friend Elaine, “It's not that I want to be married, but once in a while I should be asked.” Elaine, who never had married, agreed with that. “But put it off until the very end. A hospice wedding would be perfect.”

They each had independent sources of income. Social security funds were deposited in their separate accounts each month. They knew the benefit would be lessened if they were married. Between them, they had enough to live well in the little house they shared. Was it love, or a sensible arrangement?

What's love go to do with it? Tina Turner sang, and Sheila thought that could be the theme of their arrangement.

Sheila felt even older when she got her first Medicare card than she did when she retired from teaching. She ignored her health until her yearly checkups and forgot about it afterward, or tried to. She wondered what Aaron would do if she became seriously ill. “For better or for worse” was part of the marriage ceremony, not shacking up.

Then came Obamacare and one added Medicare benefit. They were now entitled to a yearly colonoscopy.

“Ugh!” Sheila said.

“It's a good idea,” Aaron insisted. “We need to know we're healthy so we can keep going as we are as long as we can.” Was that his way of saying he would stick with her as long as she wasn't an invalid? Sheila didn't know.

Aaron researched the procedure on line. He was fascinated by all things medical. He once planned on being a doctor, but Vietnam, and a side trip to Canada to escape the draft put an end to his plans. He wound up working on a Manitoba ranch until the Carter amnesty was signed. He had his degree in computer technology, but there were always thoughts about what could have been. “Perhaps I should have signed up as a conscientious objector and worked as a medic.”

“You never would have survived,” Sheila said. “You would have been the first to go looking for casualties you could poke at. I know.” He kept track of her blood pressure, watched her diet, and knew more about her body than she did. He had subscriptions to medical journals. Sometimes, he would look up from one and she knew he was wondering if she had some strange disease.

Their physician signed them up for the colonoscopy. Aaron questioned him about the procedure but that was mostly to demonstrate his knowledge, Sheila thought. He liked showing off his knowledge.

“You go first,” he said. “I'll take care of you, then you take care of me.”

Two months before her date, he took her shopping at Walmart, buying laxatives, diet lemonade powder, chicken boullion, and Jello. Everything had to be a light color, no reds. Even greens could louse up the procedure, he noted.

He bought a case of toilet paper. “Be prepared,” he said. He had been an Eagle Scout.

“I don't even want to think about it.”

“I can do the thinking.”

“It's embarrassing.”

“Nothing to it. You open your end and out it goes.” He found the prospect interesting...and amusing. What kind of ghoul was he?

Sheila almost wished she had done this with a girlfriend, but her best friends were in the Midwest. You don't fly your friends to Oregon for a colonoscopy.

Aaron read to her from the brochures which was really not necessary, especially when it came to things that could go wrong.

“There could be bleeding.”

“What! Sounds horrible.”

“Nope, they can go in with a laser probe if that happens.”

“Didn't the Russians use lasers to mess up people's minds in the American embassy?”

“So three decades ago, you ninny. Says here there could be polyps, so you have to give them permission to remove them during the colonoscopy.”

“Then what?”

“They do a biopsy.”

“Cancer? I don't think I even want to do this thing.” Sheila reached for the phone. “I'm canceling.”

“Polyps don't usually mean cancer and besides that, colon cancer is very curable when it's caught early. Besides, you won't know a thing. You'll be drugged.”

“And you figure you'll take advantage of me while I'm out, I suppose."

“After a colonoscopy? With residual crap coming out of you? I think you're safe.”

***

Sheila spent the day before the colonoscopy fasting. All she could eat was the bouillon and the Jello. She had never liked either. At noon, Aaron mixed her a cocktail made of diet lemonade and Metamucil to wash down the laxative tablet. The lemonade didn't really hide the taste, but Sheila had been a third grade teacher who taught her students to follow directions. She would do the same.

She went to the bedroom to watch daytime television so she would be near the bathroom.

By late afternoon, she felt a slight cramping and went to the toilet and let it all out with a “Whoosh!” God, it smelled. One flush didn't do the job properly.

Aaron helped her back to bed, left and came back with scrub brushes and disinfectant. He cleaned after each episode until her intestines were thoroughly clean and nothing was going through but a clear liquid. He swished toilet bowl cleaner around. 

“You don't have to do that,” Sheila said.

“I want to,” he said, as he sprayed the disinfectant.

He eyed the bathroom. “Maybe it's time we think about adding another bathroom,” he said.

“That's two to clean,” Sheila pointed out.

“I wouldn't mind.”

The perfect man was one holding a scrub brush, she thought. He might not love me, but God help me, I adore him.

***

t turned out that the worst part of the procedure was the defecation and the anxiety. Five minutes after they arrived at the clinic, Sheila was drugged and didn't remember anything else. She went home and slept. Afterward, she woke to find Aaron scanning a photo of her colon to attach to e-mails he was sending to their friends.

Clean as a whistle, he wrote. We're ready for old age.

***

Sheila finally read the brochures when it was Aaron's turn. It was just as disgusting as she thought it would be but what could she do? She scrubbed and disinfected and made Jello.

A few days later, she pointed out that a colonoscopy was only good for the colon and large intestine.

“There's still about a mile of small intestines.”

“We'll worry about that when the time comes,” Aaron said. “Eat your salad.”

As she munched on her spinach, Sheila reflected that all the flowers, all the gifts, all the endearments in the world didn't prove love as much as shared colonoscopies.

Last Meal

Whoever said that you can tell a lot about a man by what he wants for his last meal never met Jonsey Patoniak.

"Spaghetti and meatballs? You serious?" Webb said.

"Sure," Jonsey said, "the carbs give you lots of energy, and the tomatoes in the sauce are anti-oxidants."

"What about the meatball?"

Jonsey spit a pistachio shell through the car's open window.

"You don't need any more protein than what comes in a cut about the size of your hand. The number of meatballs you get is just about that."

"I thought you were on one of those low-carb diets."

"Whole-grain pasta and turkey meatballs."

"For your last meal."

"Yup."

"You're a piece of work, Jonsey."

"You should see me in the morning."

"I'll pass."

Jonsey popped another pistachio in his mouth, worked his tongue for a moment, and bit down. A second later, the shell fragments flew out the window. Webb suppressed a shudder as he thought about what that would be doing to Jonsey's teeth, or how his gums would react to a stray piece of shrapnel from a bite-down gone bad.

"Hey, is that our guy?" Jonsey said.

A man wearing a canary yellow and albatross white track suit came out of the government office building and walked across the parking lot in uneven, jerky steps. His head whipped around as he walked, and every few seconds he would crane his neck and jump.

"That'd be him." Webb said.

"Is it too late to leave?" Jonsey said.

"It was too late when we got up this morning."

Jonsey grunted and rolled up his pistachio bag. The crinkling caught the ear of the man making his way across the lot; he changed direction and headed for the car.

“Hey, I'm Roth. You guys my ride?”

“Yeah,” Webb said, “come on in.”

“Awesome,” Roth said. He jerked the back door open and slammed it shut. “Thanks again for getting me out, no other bail bondsman would talk to me.”

“Thank Mister Mortimer for that, when you see him,” Webb said. He grinned until Jonsey shot him a look , where he then tried to suppress it, not succeeding.

“It's what we specialize in, Roth,” Jonsey said.

They drove out of the parking lot. Roth slid from one side of the back seat to the other, looking out of each window for a second before changing views.

“Hey, this isn't the way to my house, guys,” he said.

Jonsey said, “We gotta stop by the office and have you do one more thing before we can take you home.”

Roth scrunched up his face and slapped his forehead. “Aw, come on, guys! I already signed like fifty thousand papers and listened to Mortimer's sermon while I was in lockup.” He rocked forward and poked his head between Jonsey and Webb. “What else I gotta do?”

“Talk to Mister Mortimer about it,” Jonsey said. “We're just the hired help, okay?”

Roth flung himself back and folded his arms.”Fuck.”

Webb glanced back at their charge and turned to Jonsey with a hint of a smile. “We should ask him.”

“No we shouldn't.”

“Ask me what?” Roth said.

Webb raised his eyebrows at Jonsey. Jonsey rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. Jonsey grinned and turned to face Roth.

“Did they feed you in lockup?” Jonsey said.

“Yeah.”

“What was it?”

“I don' t know, some kind of biscuit with a bunch of chicken and gravy on it. Had some nasty carrots and peas floating around too. Like someone fucked up a pot pie and got it inside-out.”

“Was it any good?” Webb said.

“Hell no, I had to dump a bunch of salt and pepper on it to even take a bite.”

“Was that all there was?”

Roth ping-ponged to the other side of the car. “There was some salad shit, but they didn't have French to go with it.”

“Missed out on vitamin E, calcium, some fiber too, probably,” Jonsey said.

“Let the man talk,” said Webb. “Any dessert?”

“In lockup? You kidding?”

“What'd you have to drink?” Webb said.

“Coffee.”

“How much?” Jonsey said.

“A few cups. Why the hell you want to know?”

“You're gonna be dehydrated as all get-out,” Jonsey said.

“Like I care. I'm going to have like a ton of beer as soon as I get home anyway.”

“See, Jonsey, the man has a plan.” Webb said. Jonsey looked at Roth in the rear-view mirror and muttered to himself. Webb grinned. “Jonsey's got a weird sense of what good food is. He thinks whole-grain spaghetti with turkey meatballs can't be beat. He lives in the health food store -- don't ya Jonsey?.”

Roth sniggered.

“I don't live in a health food store, I live above one,” Jonsey said.

“Same difference,” Webb said.

They turned a corner and passed a flashing school zone sign. A group of kids in school uniforms clambered over a jungle gym, swung from chain swings, and chased after each other around the lone adult. Roth slid over to the window and watched the kids on the playground. His body went rock-still save for his head which slowly turned as the car moved on. Then his head whipped around and he pointed at a white truck on the other side of the street.

“The ice cream man! Let's stop.”

“No, Mister Mortimer's expecting you at the office,” Jonsey said.

Webb smiled. “Actually, he doesn't know we're on our way. I could go for an ice cream myself.”

“You know what he's charged with, Webb. No.”

Roth began flopping forward and back in the seat.“Aw, come on, man, I ain't like that! They got nothing on me! Innocent until proven guilty! 'Sides,I just told you that I didn't get no dessert.”

Webb slowed and pulled the car to the side of the street. He turned to Jonsey and arched an eyebrow. “He didn't get his dessert, Jonsey.”

“You are a terrible human being, Webb,” Jonsey said. He turned around to Roth. “All that fat and artificial flavoring wrecks your digestion, don't even get me started on the glucose spike.”

“I'm sure he'll be fine,” Webb said. “You two stay in the car, I'm buying.”

“None for me, thanks,” Jonsey said.

After Webb came back with the ice cream, he sat next to Roth sat on the car's back bumper. Jonsey placed himself between the car and the school. A breeze carried the spicy scent of fresh cedar chips from the playground. Roth bit into his ice cream and made little contented sounds, sending the car bouncing as he chewed.

“I don't know what this stuff is, but it's awesome,” Roth said, “thanks!”

“I thought you might like it,” Webb said, wiping a bit of chocolate shell fragment from his chin and sticking it in his mouth.

“How come you didn't want any?” Roth said to Jonsey.

“Yeah, they had lemon ice,” Webb said.

“High-fructose corn syrup and yellow number three,” Jonsey said. “I'd rather drink bear urine.”

Roth started chocking on his ice cream bar. Webb pounded his back, nearly knocking Roth down. When Roth recovered, he turned to Webb.

“What's his problem?”

“Jonsey lives as if a pissed-off lion is going to jump out of an alley at any given time.”

“Why not buy a gun and eat whatever the hell you want?” Roth said.

“An excellent question! Jonsey?”

“Because you can't take a gun everywhere. The only thing I can count on is what's inside my skin.”

“Be prepared, huh? Like a boy scout?”

Jonsey tilted his head to the side. “You know a lot about boy scouts, Roth?” He smiled, then put his hands out was Roth stood. “No wait, don't answer that.” Jonsey said.

“Fuck you. What about you, Webb?”

“I carry a gun.” He took a last bite from his ice cream and flung the stick into the bushes. “Because I like ice cream. You done, Roth?”

“I could go for some more,” he said looking over Jonsey's shoulder.

Jonsey shifted to block Roth's view. “Forget it,” Jonsey said.

The car ride took another fifteen minutes, passed mostly in silence apart from the whisper of Roth's butt sliding across the seat as he switched windows. They walked Roth to the front door of Mister Mortimer's office and handed him off to a woman dressed in tactical gear as if a riot might break out at any moment..

“Best of luck, Roth,” Webb said.

“Sure thing, man,” Roth said. “And thanks for the ice cream.”

“Least I could do,” Webb said and waved.

As they got back into the car, Jonsey shook his head at Webb.

“That'll be us one day,” Jonsey said, “It's just a matter of time before Mortimer decides to send us in the arena.”

“Yup, and I plan on living as much as I can from now until then. Heck, I may even get lucky and survive.”

“You're a cruel bastard; that ice cream is going to come right up when he hits the floor.”

“What's he going up against, a razor maw?”

“No, a blood maggot.” Jonsey said.

“He's got a chance. They're blind, right?”

“They hunt by sensing motion. The last thing he needed was that ice cream.”

“It was his last meal.”

“It was cappuccino chunk. You may as well have ordered him cyanide surprise.”

Webb shrugged. “Fuck him if he can't take a joke.”

Love in the New Millenium

by Colleen Sutherland

Love came to Sheila Boren by way of Facebook.

Not that she looked at Facebook all that much. She had a few friends she cherished and didn't need to “friend” any others. People that sent her requests only wanted to brag about their hundreds of friends or needed names to fill in some online game they were playing. She was too busy teaching third grade to clutter up her life with people like that. Their requests were easy deletes.

She checked her Facebook account sporadically to look at photos of others people's grandchildren and her own, sent by their mother. She replied with Adorable, So Cute, Lovely, from a list of cliches she had tacked on her bulletin board. Sometimes they were really adorable children, often not. It was drivel. She hated drivel.

Everything changed when she got a friend request from an Aaron somebody. She checked his home page. His profile picture was of him as a teenager and he had no other photos she could go by. Still, he looked familiar. She read his home page and said, “Aha!”

Sheila dated Aaron in Chicago back in the 1960's, two boyfriends before she met Bill, her now ex-husband. Aaron disappeared from the scene just when she thought they were beginning to form a solid relationship. Back in those free and easy days, she and her female friends always said, “Men are like buses, miss one, catch another.” She moved on with barely a whisper of a thought about him.

Now she lived in a small Midwestern town where there was neither a bus service nor attractive men. She could use some servicing, she thought. She felt that old, familiar tickling in her nether regions, just thinking about it.

It had been years since she had had sex, just a couple of disastrous experiments after Bill ran off. Small town sexual encounters soon became grist for the gossip down at the feed mill. It wasn't the Sixties any more. A divorced woman wasn't liberated if she invited a man to stay the night. She was a slut. Sheila had her teaching career to think about, so she gave up on sex, at least with partners. Self-service worked just fine.

She hadn't thought about Aaron for years but apparently, he had thought about her. She hesitated. He had been a good looking man back then, basketball player tall, white blond hair, and really good in bed. Funny, too. She remember Aaron as sweet, though secretive, too, and that was intriguing. Her Man of Mystery was what she called him. Whatever had happened to him?

She checked her own profile photo. It, too, was an old photo of her sitting in a tree, her mini-skirt hiked up to show her legs. She put that on when one of her friends told her she had never been young, so on a whim, she put on a photo Bill took right after they were married. She really should change that. Maybe the next snow day when the schools were closed.

She “friended” Aaron.

A day later, there was an e-mail note telling her she had a message from him on Facebook: That was you! I recognized the photo.

I recognized yours, too! It brought back so many memories.

So it began, a cyberspace courtship that went on for months. He lived in Oregon where he worked on environmental projects around the world, keeping in touch with his clients from his home in Portland.

He had married twice, but never had children. Sheila's son had gifted her with three grandchildren who now lived with their mother in Florida while her son Artie served in the army reserves in Afghanistan. She saw them every other year.

Why did you disappear in the Sixties? Where did you go?

For several days, she waited for a reply.

The draft. I went to Canada. Stayed there until President Carter declared amnesty.

I fought the draft, too, she reminded him.

Times change, I wasn't sure how you would feel about that. Your son is in Afghanistan in his reserve unit.

I'm not particularly happy about that though. Different times, plus he volunteered. It was his choice to a certain extent.

They worked their way through that, establishing they had maintained liberal political beliefs. It was a relief to Sheila. She was one of two or three Democrats in her town.

Each evening, after her school day, Sheila went to the computer, put on her bifocals and read what Aaron had to say. Neither of them changed their profile photos. Neither did they Skype since her dial up connection was way to slow.

They began to talk of meeting. Could she come to Portland? Could he come to Wisconsin? Sheila didn't relish the gossips talking about her having a man stay in her house. Going to Portland was his territory. Memories were one thing, but what if he had murdered his two previous wives?

She decided she had been watching too many crime shows.

Finally, he called her. He sounded like the old Aaron she remembered. He said the same thing about her. They agreed to meet where it had all begun, in Chicago. She would stay with one of her old friends from college, he would stay with an aunt. They would go out for coffee and see where it would go from there.

It was a short spring break to make up for snow days. She had papers to correct, lesson plans to prepare. She suggested they meet when school was out, maybe at the beginning of June. That would give her enough time.

Sheila began a crash diet which made her cranky, but she was determined to fit into her skinny jeans. It was just a matter of losing twenty pounds in two months. Surely she could do that. She blew up her Facebook photo for inspiration and tacked it on the refrigerator. She made an appointment to have her hair colored, to get rid of the blond she had been using for years to cover her gray, and return to the brunette she had been in the Sixties. She began using teeth whiteners. She considered Bot-ox, but she was leery of putting something like that on her face.

Now he was calling her nightly.

She began to wear low heeled pumps instead of Crocs. Aaron had always admired her legs, fondly called her a “leggy broad”. She worked out at the high school fitness center, using the treadmill to shape up. It wasn't enough, she still had a muffin top around her mid-section.

The third graders noticed the change in her, especially when she giggled for no apparent reason. They talked to their parents about it. Some of those parents had been her students. None had ever seen her looking so good. At the final parent-teacher conferences, they asked, “What's going on?”

“Thinking about retirement,” she said. She was, too. After twenty five years of teaching, it was time to consider what she was going to do. Travel? She hadn't been anywhere since college. Should she sell her house? An apartment? Maybe move to Florida to be near the grandchildren? As long as she had her savings, her pension, and her house, she had plenty to live on in old age. She talked about all of that with Aaron, though never suggesting she move west.



Then it was June. She had lost fifteen pounds, still slightly overweight, but she thought she was looking good. Her Chicago friend Elaine told her so but friends lie. She had lied enough to Elaine, after all.

Elaine watched as Sheila dressed for her date. She wore a tied died shirt over the not quite skinny jeans. She curled her now dark hair. She carefully applied makeup as she had learned to do in community theater productions, covering the worse of the wrinkles. She knotted a bandanna around her neck to hide the old lady gizzard look. Elaine looked her over and pronounced her ready just as the phone rang.

“He's changing his mind,” Sheila said. Was that relief she felt?

Elaine laughed and handed her the phone. He was calling for directions.

“No GPS?” she asked.

“Rental car. The GPS doesn't work.” Sheila handed the phone back to Elaine who gave him directions in her sultry voice. She always did that with men. Now Sheila remembered how Elaine flirted with all her boyfriends back in college. She wouldn't want Aaron to go through that.

“Parking is terrible around here. Best I wait at the front door.” She went down to the lobby of the apartment building and paced. The concierge at the desk looked up from his newspaper.

“All right, ma'am?”

“Yes, yes, just stretching my legs.”

“Dick Clark had another stroke,” he told her, returning to his paper.

That didn't bode well, Sheila thought. She had never asked about Aaron's health. What if he had a stroke with all the excitement. What if she did?

She was feeling her pulse as he drove up in a dark sedan, new she thought, but she wasn't wearing her glasses and had never been able to tell one car from another. It didn't matter, it was a rental.

He unwound all six foot six inches out of the car. He was dressed in khakis and a polo shirt. He used to shop at Big and Tall. He probably still did.

She felt overdressed and intimidated by his height. He gave her a hug.

“I would have known you anywhere,” he said. “You haven't changed a bit.”

“You haven't either.” And he hadn't. He was still tall and lanky, his hair the same white blond.

He helped her into the car, in the old fashioned way men did back in the sixties. She hadn't been helped into a car in decades.

They drove off in search of a Starbucks, the radio playing songs from the Sixties on an oldies channel. He kept saying, “I can't get over it. You still look the same.”

They talked and talked about old times. Oops, they'd missed the Starbucks she had marked on the map. Never mind, there would soon be another. She had printed out a list of them.

“Do you remember the peace rallies?” It was how they met.

“Do you remember the Cubs game we went to?” The Cubs lost, of course, but it was such a beautiful day even if they both got bad sunburn there in the bleachers.

“Do you remember Gracie? The one that ran the protests? What happened to her?”

“Didn't you hear? She went conservative and ran for office. Now she runs Tea Party rallies.”

They sang protest songs along with the radio, stumbling over the few lyrics they remembered. When it was a Dylan song, they mumbled along with him. That was the great thing about Dylan, you didn't need to know the words.

They'd passed yet another Starbucks.

On the third try, they found a nondescript coffee shop, the kind they used to go to back in the old days. Chicago still had them, the family restaurant on the corner. They sat at the booth. Sheila thought they looked like a Seinfeld episode, though Aaron was too tall for one of those characters.

“You haven't changed at all,” Aaron marveled again as the waitress brought them menus.

“You haven't either.”

Sheila glanced at the menu and realized it was a blur. She reached into her purse for her bifocals, as Aaron pulled out his from his jacket.

They put on their glasses, looked at the menus and looked up at each other.

With their glasses on, it was obvious to both of them. His hair was not blond, it was white. Her blouse stretched across her belly fat. Both of them had laugh lines and gnarled fingers.

He was pounding the table and she had tears in her eyes before they stopped laughing

They both had changed yet two hours later, after they finished their coffee, ordered lunch, and then dessert, they decided they had changed for the better.

That fall, she was teaching in Oregon.

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