Reaching
Ben met Donna on the quad at 7 a.m. (his suggestion), and they walked to the SUB to get bagels for breakfast (her suggestion). Donna was acting strangely right from “hello” — really formal and distracted. Out of the blue, she asked how his class was going. Normally they only talked about their classes if they had a gripe or if a professor had told a funny joke or said something weird. Ben felt his brain on hyper drive, and it was possible he was reading too much into such an innocent question, but he didn’t think so. She knew what he had in mind. ...
Read MoreSmoker’s Cross
I was standing in front of the building where I worked, smoking a cigarette and ruminating bitterly over a recent memorandum announcing that soon the front of the building would become a smoke-free zone. It would be the latest conquest in a relentless march of smoke-free zones that had routed me from my office and chased me from the cafeteria and the restroom and, finally, booted me out through the big, glass entrance door to the portico at the front of the building, where I have routinely stood (several times a day), outcast and despised, along with a ragtag group of fellow practitioners,...
Read MoreThe Meet
I would like to hunt down and beat senseless the asshole who wrote “Walking on Sunshine.” That’s what I said to the waitress when she asked if I wanted more coffee. I wasn’t saying it directly to her, nor was I offering it as any kind while I was thinking out loud. I do that a lot. She just looked at me like I was some kind of nut. I get that a lot. I haven’t always been like this. It was good for a while, my life that is. I had a normal childhood, was a mediocre student and grew into a sub-par member of “polite” society. I was truly unremarkable....
Read MoreD&M
Dottie drifted into sleepiness here and there. The bed was comfortable enough. The nurse could have used a little sweetening up, though. A glass of water wasn’t too much to ask. No matter how many times she pressed that silly button, no help arrived. “Excuse me, nurse? I need a glass of water, please. Are you out there? Make sure it doesn’t have any ice. Makes me shiver.” The nurse dropped the powdered donut she had been trying to eat for the last two hours, shook the residue from her hands and presented herself in the old woman’s room. “Mrs. Murchison,...
Read MoreRushing
He looked at his notes. Played 1994-2004 for the Detroit Lions. Only player to rush for over 1,000 yards in every season of his NFL career. Broke 2,000 yards in 1990. MVP the same year. Nine-time Pro Bowl selection. There was no point: he’d already had them memorized before he’d even written them down. There was only one item that he had to make it a point to memorize, one that he had been chanting on the twenty-minute drive from campus down Highway 6 West. Don’t ask about the Super Bowl. Cameron looked up and took a deep breath. “OK,” he said to himself, opened...
Read MoreMeeting Alice Mary
I can recall the moment I passed from childhood into adolescence. I was sitting in my sixth-grade classroom, working on my mathematics drill, when one of those messengers from the office entered the room. She was a student my age, and I noticed something about her. Those excrescences I associated with grown-up women were there and quite prominent. And the mere contemplation of her bodily features was having an odd effect on me. It took me twenty years to realize this was the worst moment of my life — for I had entered a battle of sorts, one I was doomed to loose, even when I thought I was...
Read More