Jane hates snow.

 

"Go back up in the sky!"

She is screaming it, standing with her head thrown back and barely visible in the net of snow squalls.

"Back.  Up.  In.  The. SKY."

I don't have time for this today.

"BACK! BACK! GO!"

She's raising her arms, pushing at the air and redirecting a few stray flakes.  It sounds like she might be crying. I can understand why this is bothering her so much.  It's April.  April is supposed to have daffodils and tulips, the Easter Bunny, ladies in straw hats and pastel dresses.  It's warm enough that I'm standing in this flurry wearing jeans and a heavy T-shirt.  The snow is coming in huge dry flakes and skittering around my bare arms.  

"Jane," I say, "D'you think it's pretty?"

She's still hollering, and I put a light hand on her shoulder, repeat myself.  "I think it's really pretty, Jane. Pretty like you."  She turns her gaze to me, and in that moment, the sun breaks the clouds, and for a moment, the snow is blazing around and sitting in her auburn mane, and the sun lights up the world behind her.  Blue sky spreads fast, so I point back up and say "Look. The sun's coming out for spring."

She says, "Yah, it's pretty."

Then she smiles.


The Past :: The Future

 

Mayhem is a truly awesome word, all crazy and exotic and covered in, I dunno, something.

However.

Haywire is exactly like that, but it's more whimsical than dangerous and, okay, still a little bit dangerous, but in such an attractive way.

But the best part? Say them one after another enough, over and over, and they start to mean the same thing.

Mission Accomplished!

Well, many days of planning have led to success in my venture with good friend Chopper to secure possession of the woman who is rightfully my girlfriend. It was not an easy task breaking in to my former friend Dale's house, but Chopper is a whiz in dealing with home security systems, locks and other things that can hinder your progress when you are out to right the wrongs that have been done to you.

After listening to the song Kung Fu Fighting as recorded by international recording star Carl Douglas, we were in the mood to undertake our mission. Chopper and Behr were pumped. Chopper used some sort of bent wire type device to unlock Dale's back door and we were quickly and quietly into his pantry, located at the back of the house. After taking time to enjoy some oatmeal raisin cookies Dale's wife had bought at the supermarket (I plan to force her to do all baking herself), we took off our shoes and socks and padded around Dale's house barefoot. It was an incredible feeling, sneaking around this dullard's home without his knowledge, as any knowledge he might have would bring the law along for a chat with your friend Behr and his friend Chopper, since we were breaking into his house uninvited and Dale has had a restraining order out against Behr since the holidays.

What an adrenaline rush! My heart was beating very fast, and Chopper's heart was beating even faster since he does a lot of amphetamines. I believe he has prescriptions for all of these pills that he gobbles by the handful all day long but have never asked to see the paperwork that accompanies prescriptions, but Chopper is the best friend Behr has ever had so Behr does not bother him about minor details.

Chopper decided that in addition to abducting Dale's wife in order to make her Behr's girlfriend he would also steal a number of valuable things from Dale's house to pay for his miscellaneous amphetamine prescriptions. He had a sack of some kind with him, likely related to his military experience from when he served during the Cold War. I told him not to take any of the jewelry that belonged to Dale's wife as I wanted to dress her up very pretty and so forth once she was my girlfriend. He took other items that appeared to be of value and told me he would hand me the jewelry that belonged to Dale's wife to do with as I pleased. I was very glad for his words at this point as they reassured me.

We padded up the stairs in our bare feet. At this point we heard sounds of stirring from the upstairs bedroom where Dale and his wife (my rightful girlfriend) slept, something I knew from previous visits and times where I cornered Dale's wife in the bedroom and tried to undress her against her will, which started her on playful behavior, playful meaning in this context that when a woman slaps you and kicks you in the groin it is a sign of affection, something I learned from watching my parents as a child.

Chopper stopped briefly on the stairs in order to urinate, something he referred to as his burglary calling card. I laughed like a very excited maniac at this display. Not only were we going to accomplish the important mission of taking Dale's wife away from him and making her be Behr's girlfriend, we were having fun doing it and screwing over bad man and former friend Dale in the process. When a man who you call your friend repeatedly throws you out of his house, tells you to stay away from his wife, disinvites you to his church and then files a restraining order against you, desperate measures must be taken to settle the score.

When we got to the bedroom, Dale was sitting up in bed with his bedside telephone on his lap. He looked like he was about to start dialing the phone, so Chopper jumped on him like a monkey man and knocked him to the floor. As Dale cried for mercy and pleaded with Behr to stop "whatever it is you are doing here," Chopped handcuffed his hands behind his back, broke one of his ankles with a painful stomping motion and then locked him in the closet.

Once Dale was safely out of the way, your friend Behr moved towards the bed and began crawling towards his girlfriend. Behr's smile was wide and unsettling, but Dale's wife was not seduced, at least not yet. She began screaming and telling me I was crazy, which is absurd. Is it crazy to go and get your rightful girlfriend by any means possible? No, crazy is living in a loveless marriage with a horrible man like Dale. Dale's wife was about to improve her state in life, she just didn't know it quite yet.

Chopper got the chloroform rag I insisted we use in the event Dale's wife was uncooperative, which she was being at the moment. I got the idea from reading books about the Hardy Boys. She had more fight in her than wimpy Dale, and we both had to hold her down while she kicked, bit and scratched at us, even spitting in Behr's face at one point. Eventually the choloform did it's work and Chopper put her over his shoulder after handing Behr his sack of goods from the house and we made our escape with Behr's girlfriend secured and in our safe keeping.

I left a CD on the kitchen table with a note to Dale that I wanted him to listen to the song I had recorded on it, that song being Purple Rain by the artist Prince in order to show him that I had no hard feelings towards him for his years of keeping his wife away from my love and affections and that this was just my way of settling up. It's such a shame our friendship had to end (and so forth).

On the way home, we stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken, now apparently going by the letter code of KFC. Dale's wife was still quite out of it and I did not think the time was quite right for us to enjoy our first real date, especially since Chopper was there and he did not have a lady friend and if he did it might have made a wonderful double date but it was too soon to plan matters of these kind. The future I was certain would be filled with many calendar markings of dates with just me and Dale's wife and also double dates involving friend Chopper and a lady friend of his choosing, or perhaps a different friend and their lady friend might be part of such a double date. With Dale's wife now Behr's girlfriend, all things are certainly possible.

At KFC, Chopper ordered a three-piece chicken meal in the original recipe. For sides he chose cole slaw and potato wedges. Your friend and writer Behr ordered the same meal but extra crispy with sides of mashes potatoes and mixed vegetables of one kind or another. I had a Pepsi while Chopper chose to drink only water, but first had to make certain no flouridation plots had been hashed on the KFC water and thankfully none had. We enjoyed our meals with much zest and liveliness, discussing our successful venture and how wonderful things would be now that Behr had a reliable girlfriend. It is important to note that in looking at Chopper's cole slaw, my belief that KFC cole slaw is too watery for my tastes was strongly confirmed. It looked as if a yak had peed in it.

Chopper suggested we keep Dale's wife locked in a room in the basement of my house until she settled down and opened her heart to Behr, which is something she has always wanted to do but been afraid of. Chopper promised to activate his goon squad to harrass and threaten Dale and any associates of Dale who tried to get his wife back before we had finished relaxing her and getting her to accept loving Behr as a better alternative. Chopper had wanted to leave a note for Dale telling him if the police became involved we would do something awful to his wife, but I did not want her harmed and worked hard to convince Chopper that once Dale listened to the song Purple Rain he would understand and accept how things had to be now and perhaps one day he would call Behr friend again.

It was a very long night.

Johnny comes home from school after his first lesson about democracy. His homework is to do a project about how the government works. Sure enough he asks his dad who says, "Well let's use our family as an example to help you get started."

"Let's say I represent capitalism, because I earn the money. Your mother budgets the money, so we'll call her the government. We provide for you, so you'll be the people. Your baby brother will represent the future, and um, the nanny will represent the underclass. Now you think about that for a while, then we'll get started on your project tomorrow."

That night Johnny wakes up to go to the bathroom and hears his brother fussing in the other room, so he goes in and notices he has a poopy diaper. He goes to get his mom, but she is sound asleep, so he decides to tell the nanny. When he peeks in he sees his dad is having sex with her. Shocked, he goes back to his bed.

The next day at the breakfast table Johnny's father asks, "So do you have any ideas for your project?"

...

"Well I learned that while capitalism is screwing the underclass the government sleeps, the people are ignored, and the future is deep in shit."

Now when I was still out looking for you, you were just like happiness, coveted and probably make-believe.

Then I found you, just in the wrong color, and a touch too big. But I made you fit.

I sucked you right up, an oyster still alive, straight into my belly for digestion.

God is looking extra carefully at us all on Good Friday. He wants to see us looking back up with clean faces and industrious hands. I was supposed to be fasting. Technically, the Catholics had done away with fasting as a concept years ago. These days, you're allowed two small meals, I think, but I decided not to eat, and that tonight, it was for God, and not for Ana. You ate a banana in front of me at 7pm and waved it under my nose. I fell from grace at that very whiff.

On Good Friday, God does not want to hear the seratonin strangled voice-boxes of children in new-delight, calling him down, into their nests, into their groins. You and me, we made God angry that night, and God always stays angry. At least until you apologise, one of the two things you would never do. On principal.

You lived in the living room, since the apartment only had two bedrooms between three inhabitants. The only door to the outside world led into this room, so we did a lot ducking under covers to hide our indiscretion. We did a lot of that anyway. I didn't quite understand the appeal of sex then. As far as I could tell, it was just you paying me a lot of attention. This was good. I learned to writhe and make myself pretty for your gaze. I learned sex-whispers. I learned to moan and contract. I learned how to tell when you were about to come, how to scoot out from around you, as you scooted out from within me. I learned how to pray to an angry God. I became a convincing actress. It seemed so real that you swore to that angry God, later, that I had never faked it.

But Leo, those were just my first lessons in lying.

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