Holding up the bar for over two score, funeral homes have bodies with less chemicals in them.
News from Around the Island
Infamy Card # 1
Adolf Hitler
Führer Brain Cells
The Original Loony Toon
Daffier than any duck and goofier than any dog, this guy takes outlandish behavior to a whole new level. His spastic expressions and incomplete mustache alone should be enough to lift him to the highest echelons of cartoon characters, but this guy thought he could attempt world domination without running into American Might. There is a German clock missing its cuckoo, and The United States is here to put him back where he came from.
The Smell From My Brother’s Room
What is that smell from my brother’s room?
It’s eerie and frightening like impending doom.
What is that smell? What is its host?
Dead leaves, rotten eggs, old cheese, a wet bag?
Whatever it is, it smells gross!
What is that smell from my brother’s room?
Could it be a mutant plant or alien flower in bloom?
What is that stench he has to endure,
a growing disease, or maybe a cure?
What is that smell? I simply must know.
I’ll muster my courage, I’ll muster my strength,
and into my brother’s room I will go.
But wait! I don’t know what’s behind that door.
What if it’s a monster with bad intentions at its core?
I could knock, and then, “Come in,” it might hungrily implore.
Or…
What if it’s a giant dragon in there today,
whose mouth fills up the entire doorway?
I could walk through that door into certain death.
That smell I keep smelling could be its bad breath!
What if it’s a troll looking to deposit
missing kids into my brother’s closet?
I could scream all I wanted, I could cry and stomp all aflutter.
They’d never find me, not in that closet’s clutter.
What is that smell? I’ve got to know.
Is it a body he’s hiding? My brother does like Edgar Allen Poe.
So… Is it a dragon’s bad breath? Or a monster’s BO?
My brother’s untimely death? Ah, that’s wishful thinking, I know.
Is it a flatulent ghost? Or some gobbledy goo?
A diseased host? Wait, don’t vampires smell, too?
That’s it! The suspense has become much too thick!
I’ll just peak in the door. I’ll just look real quick.
Here I go for the doorknob… Did I just hear a clatter?
I’m going to open it… I hope I can hold onto my bladder.
I’m opening the door. Boy, it smells foul!
I’ll slam it shut again, should anything howl.
And there we have it… the source could be no other;
the smell in the room is only my brother.
A Quarter to Stupid
Max Holden sat in the Dutch Horse Pub. He sipped his whiskey and scribbled in a sketchbook. There were two girls sitting next to him, a blond and a brunette. They were not altogether attractive, but not altogether unattractive. They were what Max liked to call “Sobriety Tests.” If these girls started to look good enough to take home, it was time he relinquished his car keys. The blond was telling a story to the brunette about, from what Max could gather, a mutual friend named Stacey.
“Stacey’s good,” the blond told the brunette. “She moved off the island. Living in the city. Her and Brad are finally officially done. She’s trying to get past the pain of it all, and she’s dipping her toe into the dating scene again.”
“How is that going for her?” the brunette said.
“Well…” the blond said, letting the syllable hang in the air a moment.
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
Max glanced at the different faces seated around the bar. At the end of the bar was Fred. Fred was a fixture in the bar since the 1960s. Max had tattooed Fred with countless nicknames over the years, but now, Max just thought of him as “The Embalmed.”
The blond continued her story. “Well, she met this incredible guy. She was out with friends one night, and someone had a friend, who had a friend that knew some guy at the bar.”
“So, in other words, she met a complete stranger?”
“Exactly. But she really hits it off with this stranger. He’s handsome, funny, nice, has a great job—you know, one of those one in a million type guys that you immediately can envision future Christmas card pictures with. So, even though it is completely out of character for her, she goes home with this guy.”
“Good for her. She needed something after that whole Brad thing.”
“Yeah. She needed to get laid. Which this guy did for her. And it was like fantastic. Like toe-curling, bug-eyed orgasm good.”
“This sounds great, so what’s the problem?”
Max shifted his attention to the woman standing beside Fred. Charlene, the waitress, was waiting for a drink order. Charlene had waitressed at the bar since it was known as The Captain’s Quarters. In fact, the only person with more tenure than Charlene in the bar was Fred. Charlene was well into her sixties now, her face showing the creased wear of a woman who had lived the life among alcohol, but her body was still the smooth flawlessness of a woman in her twenties. Max long ago dubbed her: “Geriatric Butterface.”
“Well, the next morning,” the blond said, “the guy needs to head to work. He makes her breakfast in bed, and, with her nursing a hangover, he tells her to relax and sleep in.”
“That’s a problem?”
“No. He kisses her tenderly, tells her to hang out as long she wants, telling her to just make sure she locks the door behind her when she leaves.”
“Oh my god, she left the door unlocked and he gets robbed.”
“No. She relaxes for a couple of hours. Has a cup of coffee and reads the newspaper. But the combination of coffee and breakfast and hangover has now hit her stomach. So she runs to the bathroom and has what she called a Lamaze-inducing movement.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
Max glanced around the bar. He spotted the “Summer’s Eve Gang,”—a group of male twenty-something douchebags standing around the pool table, all of them just starting to reach the tipping-point of sobriety. They would soon be ornery, and challenge other male patrons to bar fights. And then there was “The Cougar Den,”—the pack of forty-something divorcees sitting in the bar’s corner—who were beginning to eye the young pool-shooting douches, which would only add to the surge of testosterone already in the building. Max looked at the clock. 10:45. He wrote, “It’s a quarter to stupid,” in his notebook, and he reached for the money in his pocket.
The brunette said to the blond, “So what? She took a huge crap. The guy wasn’t there. What’s the problem?”
“The toilet wouldn’t flush.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly,” the blond said. “Now she’s panicked, running around the apartment looking for a non-existent plunger, Drano, a fucking shovel, she didn’t know what, just something to make that huge crap go down. There was nothing. So she finds a plastic supermarket bag and she cleans up as if she is a dog owner in a park.”
“Ew.”
“Yes. And now she has no idea what to possibly do with this package. She can’t leave it in the trash, so she’s going to have to carry this shit-filled bag in the elevator, or, down five flights of stairs.”
“Ew.”
Max recognized the coming punch line to the urban legend the girl was recounting, amazed that the girl had the balls to use an actual friend as the stories subject. He glanced to his right. The blonde’s cleavage heaved in her low-cut shirt, her plump, firm breasts causing a stir below Max’s waist. It was definitively time to go.
The blond said, “But she can’t head down the stairs at the moment, because she is currently, pretty much naked. She places the bag on the kitchen counter and goes and gets dressed. She makes the bed, tidies up the bedroom, and sits down to write him a note. She really likes this guy. I mean, aside from having a toilet with a minor plumbing issue, he’s perfect. She definitely wants to go out with him again. So she leaves the note on the table and lets herself out, making sure the door is locked behind her.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“As the door shuts, and she hears the click of the lock catching, she remembers the bag of shit on his kitchen counter.”
“No.”
“Yes. And, of course, she has absolutely no way to let herself back into the apartment. His finding a giant bag of shit in his kitchen was as inevitable as time’s passing. Needless to say, he never called her.”
Max threw a twenty on the bar and took the final swig of whiskey in his glass.
“That is unbelievable. Poor thing.”
“Yup.”
“So what did the note say?”
Max placed his empty glass on the bar and he turned toward the girls about to say, You know that story is bullshit, but instead, he said, “Thanks for fucking the shit out of me.” And he walked out of the bar.
Howdy Neighbor
Bart Robbins’s reaction was a standard physiological response. His blood rushed from his extremities and pooled in his vital organs. His heart pounded. His head felt like an expanding balloon. His adrenal glands released an obscene amount of adrenalin. His thinking reverted to flashes of instinctual impulses. This physiological response is known in the science community as the “fight or flight” instinct. At that moment, Bart could have probably outrun a high school track star or maybe even have throttled a man to death with his bare hands.
Bart Robbins wanted to do the latter.
The Umbrella
Harvey Paine sat at a beat up table in The Captain’s Quarters. He watched Fred stumble from the bathroom and stretch for the bar like a marathon runner for finish tape. “I’ll take anoder one,” Fred demanded, pulling a worn, crumpled dollar bill from his pocket and slapping it on the bar’s top. The television over the bar squawked about the recent assassination attempt on President Reagan. The newscaster’s voice saying, “Once again, President Reagan has been shot. Details are still coming in at this time, but we have reports that the president and two other men, one of which may be James Brady, have been gunned down by an unknown shooter.”
Fred gripped the edge of the bar, closing one eye to get a better look at the television screen. “Good,” he bellowed, “I wisssh they killed the muva Fuga. He’s a actor, not a prez-dent.”
The bartender of the Captain’s Quarters at that time was Gray Lewis. Gray was drying a clean glass with a dirty rag and he didn’t bother to look at the man gripping his bar. Gray said, “Take it easy, Fred.”
Fred, who had complained about four prior presidents while gripping the same bar, pointed at Gray, Fred closing one eye again to get a better view. He said “Look, you led me tell you something about Prezdent Reagan.” Of course, Fred could say all he wanted, Gray wouldn’t bother to hear it.
Charlene, the waitress at The Captain’s Quarters, appeared beside Harvey’s table. “That’s something about the President, huh?” she said.
Harvey flinched. He hadn’t noticed the woman was standing beside him. “What?”
“The President. Getting shot and all. It’s kind of crazy.”
“Oh, the president, yeah.” Harvey didn’t look at the waitress or the newscast on the television, or at Fred any longer, for that matter. He now stared at the untouched beer bottle across the table from him, the bottle a twin of the one in his own hand.
Charlene said, “You want me to put that on ice, hon?”
Harvey regarded the beer for a moment and said, “No, it’s fine, Charlene, its owner should be here any minute.” Harvey reached for a pack of cigarettes sitting in the center of the table, but when he noticed the bar’s front door open and shut, he stopped, pushing the cigarette pack back to the table’s center.
A younger, better-dressed, slighter version of Harvey stepped into the bar. The man scanned the room, his eyes fighting their sudden plunge into the dimness. When the man’s eyes adjusted, he spotted Harvey. The younger, better-dressed, slighter version of Harvey approached the table.
Harvey said to Charlene, “In fact, here he is now.”
Haiku Etched into a Bench at Half Moon
The haiku below is etched into a wooden bench at Half Moon Pond. The people that read it never realize that it was written by a military fugitive, the writer Louis Ting.
Squirrel leaping branches,
Acrobat without a net,
Does not pause for praise.
Earworm: Part 1
Hope
Thursday, September 8, 1994
William Knight
Hope Ferretti sat in her homeroom, her head propped on her hand, propped on her elbow, propped on the desk, wondering why the name,
William Knight,
kept turning in her mind. It was as though she woke with the name nagging her, as if she’d fallen asleep with the radio on and the last song playing before she drifted off to slumber had yet to evacuate her brain. She lifted her head from her hand and said, “Who’s William Knight?”
“William Knight?” Tim Ford said. Tim sat beside Hope in homeroom—one of those people who had to answer a question before anyone else had a chance to. He said, “William Knight is the Indiana Hoosier’s basketball coach. He—”
“That’s Bobby Knight, you idiot,” Joel Fitch said from behind them. When Hope turned to look at him, Joel froze for a moment, her dark eyes locking onto his ice-blue eyes, then he grinned a smile of casual rebellion, although he was far from the rebel type. Joel Fitch was the school’s superstar, the heir apparent to Mystic Island High School’s sports legacy. Joel said to Hope, “I think William Knight’s a student here.” He turned to Tim, saying, “Wasn’t he that new kid in gym yesterday?” Tim shrugged. Joel said to Hope, “Why? What about him?”
“I don’t know, name’s just stuck in my head. It’s like when you can’t get a song out of your mind. You ever had that?”
“An earworm,” Tim said.
“A what?” Hope and Joel said simultaneously.
“An earworm. That’s what that’s called, when you have a song stuck in your head.”
“You don’t know the name of one of the most famous coaches in sports, but you know what it’s called when you have a song stuck in your head?” Joel said to Tim.
“Yeah, well, I’m not really into…” Tim paused. Hope thought she noticed Tim wince. Tim, along with every other wannabe, worshipped Joel, and Tim just almost admitted to not being into sports—a major faux pa in the social hierarchy of the high school male. “…College basketball,” Tim said. “I only like pro ball.”
Joel grinned, about to retort, but he shook his head and turned his attention back to Hope. “Well, whatever it’s called, it looks like you got one of these earbugs.”
“Worms,” Tim said, “Earworms.”
“Still doesn’t help me with who William Knight is,” Hope said. “But thanks for the effort.” She rose from her desk as the bell rang, and the students scattered for first period.
***
Hope sat in her first period math class. The students waited for Ms. Bradford, who had a knack for arriving perfectly synchronized with the late bell.
William Knight.
There was that name again, clicking in her mind like a person keying a ham radio’s handset. But why did the name nag her as if resurrected from some distant memory? As if something of obscure importance?
A few straggling students arrived, and when the bell rang, Ms. Bradford lumbered into the room. She was a short, wide relic with gray-streaked hair and bulging eyes that seemed capable of rotating independent of one another like the eyes of a chameleon. Students of an ancient alumni class had dubbed her the “Bradasaurus,” and like folklore, the name passed from generation to generation by older siblings saying, Oh, I see you got the Bradasaurus this year.The woman dropped a stack of books and papers on the desk with a thud, and, after regarding the class with her rotating eyes, plopped into her seat. The springs of the chair screaming for mercy. Then, seemingly keeping one eye on the class and one eye on the stack of papers, she fished out the attendance list. “Katie Adams,” she wheezed.
“Heee-re,” Katie sang in response.
“John Doherty,” Ms. Bradford said. She paused for the answer. None came. “John Doherty,” Ms. Bradford repeated with more bass resonating in her voice. One of her eyes glaring at John, who was busy mouthing something to his neighbor.
John’s neighbor cleared his throat, gesturing with his eyebrows toward the Bradasaurus. John turned with a stunned look on his face. “Yeah?”
“Are you here, John?”
“Uh…”
“Shouldn’t be a question you need to think about.”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Ms. Bradford said, making an attempt at a smile. After a few more names, Ms. Bradford said, “Hope Ferretti.” Hope was about to answer when she noticed, scrawled on the wood surface of the desk in smudged pencil wisps, the words: Hope Feretey’s got great tits! “Hope Ferretti?” Ms. Bradford repeated.
“Um, yeah, I’m here.”
“Wonderful. I’m so proud that you all are mastering roll call. With a little more practice, I believe you will all have the knack of answering when your name is called.”
Hope shook her head as she erased the smudged sentiment regarding her tits. Gee, who could’ve written that? Only any of the testosterone overdosed males of the eleventh grade. Or she supposed it could have been Melody Belum—whose very public coming-out, when she snuck onto the school’s intercom and proclaimed, “I’m a proud lesbian,” brought raucous cheers from the student body—but Hope figured Melody would have at least spelled Ferretticorrectly. Hope had all but erased her name from the desktop when Ms. Bradford said, “William Knight.” Hope stopped erasing and looked at Ms. Bradford, as if confirming the woman had spoken.
The response came from over Hope’s shoulder. Someone saying, “Here.”
Hope’s head snapped back. In the back corner of the room, scrunched down like a crab trying to bury itself in sand, was the new kid. He was thin, but not sickly—the body of a boy yet to fill out—the thinness bringing out his high cheekbones and hooked nose. A thick nest of black hair fell over his forehead, almost covering his dark, almost black, eyes. Those dark eyes met her gaze for a moment. The kid flinched, looking as if wanting to bury himself a little more. And a strange, convulsive chill raced up Hope’s spine. It was a nondescript feeling of vague association, but association to what, she wasn’t quite sure.
***
Hope was exchanging one book for another in her locker when someone called, “Hope.” She turned and saw Joel running up to her. The late bell was approaching and a few, scattered students dug in cluttered lockers for books, lost pens, pencils, homework assignments crammed into dark corners. But Hope accepted that she would be late. She was always late third period. It was an unspoken rule, Mr. Levin’s class started five minutes later than advertised—a five-minute buffer where students leisurely wandered into the classroom. Mr. Levin liked being the nice guy too much to bag tardiness. As for Joel being late, he had Gym third period, and God help the gym teacher reprimanding the quarterback duringfootball season.
Hope handed Joel a book. “Hold this a minute,” she said as she foraged and reorganized. The late bell rang. Hope shut the locker. She took the book from Joel, pressing it to her chest, and regarded him with a smile that cut dimples into her cheeks. A few seconds of silence passed before she said, “Did you want something?”
“Me? No. Why?”
“Because you ran up to me calling my name.”
“Oh. I was just, you know, saying hi.” He switched his weight from one foot to another and ran his hand through his hair. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” She regarded him a moment longer. “Then, I guess I’ll talk to you later?” she said, turning to walk to class.
“You busy tomorrow night?”
Hope turned to face him. “Tomorrow night?” she said, feigning ignorance.
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?” she said, over-feigning ignorance.
“I was just wondering,” he said with a casual shrug. “Are you?”
“I don’t think so.” She leaned against the lockers, hugging her books to her chest.
“Oh, well, do you think, um, maybe you’d like to do something or something?” He glanced around the hall to make sure they were alone. “You know, with me?”
“Like a date?”
“No,” Joel said. Hope raised her eyebrows. Joel saying, “All right, yeah. I guess.”
“You guess? I’d like to be sure before we went.”
“Yes. I am asking you out on a date, all right?”
“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place? What are you, Danny Zuko?”
“Look, do you want to hang out Friday night or not? You know, maybe we could, like, do something or something—What’s so funny?”
Hope spoke between hitches of laughter, “You. You’re always so confident and sure of yourself, but you suck at asking a girl out. I’ve just never seen you so flustered.”
“It’s just weird. I mean, I’ve known you forever and always wanted to…I mean, we’ve been friends so long, but you were with Sean… Look, do you want to go out with me or not?”
“Well,” Hope rolled her eyes, letting the word hang in the air.
“Uhg.”
“Yes.”
“Really? Good. Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Yeah. It kind of was.”
“Okay, fine, I gotta get going. I’ll see you later, in English” Joel said. He ran off to the end of the hall, waved back at Hope, and then cut down another hall. Hope watched him go, and when he was out of sight, she walked off to Mr. Levin’s class.
***
Hope sat at one of the cafeteria’s tables. The one in the middle. She wasn’t sure who’d originally chosen the center table—probably her friend Tara Larson, now sitting to her right—it’s as if they’d all been drawn to the spot. The center of the room. The center of the school. Hope, would have preferred to sit in one of the corners. The side tables where the outcasts sat. She glanced over at the table toward the back corner of the cafe. Her head caulked, her eyes narrowing a moment. “Who is that kid?” she said.
“What kid?” Tara said, looking up from her lunch and turning to scan the other tables. Tara was a petite girl with auburn hair that hung down her back in spiraling curls.
“The one at that table,” Hope answered, nodding toward William Knight. “See him? The one listening to George Banterman.”
Jennifer Waltson craned her neck to look as well. “Which one?” she said.
“That one, there,” Hope said. “See, he’s looking over here. His name’s William Knight or someth—”
Before Hope could finish, Tara turned toward her with the expression of one discovering something infested with maggots. “Oh, my God, that kid is so fucking creepy,” Tara said. She was capable of slipping the F-word into any conversation—her childlike expressions and tiny voice adding a shock-value to the word that would blush a rap star.
“You don’t know who that is?” Jennifer said, brandishing her knowledge with a self-satisfied flourish in her voice. Jennifer’s mother was the school’s secretary, a woman that lost all tact when speaking around her daughter, facilitating a running encyclopedia about every student in the school—and most of the staff, for that matter—a treasure-trove of gossip on anyone from the principal to the meekest of students. “That’s William Dey…” She paused a moment, just to allow the information to sink in for her tablemates. It didn’t sink in for them, so she added, “The Dey murders? Hello?”
“Really?” Hope gasped.
“You mean that guy that buried his wife’s head in the backyard?” Tara said.
“Yup,” Jennifer said with her air of self-importance.
“I thought the kid was sent away to live somewhere else with family. Why would he come back?” Tara said.
“His stepfather or adopted father or whatever tried to kill him. So they had nowhere to go but back here. They still owned the house. I mean, who would want to buy it?”
“Tried to kill him?” Tara huffed. “A family of fucking psychos, apparently.”
“That’s just what I’ve heard,” Jennifer said—she didn’t need to state her source.
“Why are you asking about him?” Tara asked Hope, peering over her shoulder again at William Knight. “He keep fucking staring at you or something?”
“No,” Hope said. “He’s in my math class. Just wondered who he was.”
***
Hope and Tara walked toward the cafeteria doors. Tara was yapping about how Mandy Bryant said that Donna Marrison called Julie Haggar a slut, just because she slept with half the basketball team, when she knew it was, like, Mandy who said it all along, and really, who is Mandy to—
A lurking form standing before them halted Tara’s story. Hope looked up, her eyes meeting the eyes of William Knight. He then said something so unexpected and random that it stuck with her, a bur in her mind for the rest of the day, into the night, and beyond. He said it so matter-of-factly that it sounded as if it were the revelation to a question she had all her life. He said, “I’mWilliam Knight.” And then he walked away.
Hope and Tara stared at the boy as he disappeared into the crowd.
“What the fuck was that all about?” Tara said.
Hope shrugged.
“Weird,” Tara said before picking up her story where she left off, as if never interrupted in the first place, “…start trouble between Donna and Julie when…”
But Tara’s words went unheard. Hopes thoughts focused only on the boy from her math class, and she couldn’t let go of the words he stopped to tell her. I’m William Knight.
To Be Continued…