When it Rains at the Buffalo Colony

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When it rains at the Buffalo Colony, your senses come out.

There’s the sound of it hitting the leaves. Hitting the wood decks. Hitting the bungalows’ gutters. The puddles. The pool. The hollowness from inside the casino.

One is a hard, unrelenting splatter like the first time a man’s piss hits the toilet bowl. The other is like the sizzling of garlic and onion on that first throw into hot olive oil.

It looks like it’ll never stop. It comes down so hard, in sheets, like shooting stars you keep catching a second too late, just looking whole like lines. On the skylights, it’s like watching lottery balls dance and pop like corn. Disco-ball white-light flashing so fast you feel like it’s all in fast-forward.

You smell the tar of the horseshoe, the collective dirt from the gardens, and a bit of someone else’s dinner.

There’s always that forgotten one bicycle. Looking helpless, hapless.

You wear a yellow raincoat. The one you don’t [want to] wear in Brooklyn because you look five in it. The one that can’t be bunched into a ball and thrown, no matter how hard you try to compress it. The one that says FLATOW in sharpie because you packed it your first summer at camp.

It lets up before you’ve had enough of it. Before you can stop imagining what else it resembles, what else it makes you think about.

And then it really stops. And it’s back to the whirling hum of the box fan, the one drip hitting a bucket from somewhere you can’t see, and the birds. Louder than ever.

Screen door slams.

Highway Birthday Party Revisited

Suze’s mother was the bus driver, and so to get to her birthday party all the kids needed to do was stay on the bus. The girls slung their bodies over the leathery seats to talk to one another, their hands near mouths so that secrets looked like secrets while the boys karate-chopped the air, their spitballs flying at the girls’ flat, bedazzled jean butts. Sit your asses down, Suze’s mother barked from under her baseball cap, Or no one gets any pizza. The girls shot all the hate they could muster over at Suze, their beady eyes laser beams of disgust, but Suze sat still in the seat behind her mother, keeping a steady finger rolling beneath each word of her book that she was desperate to finish, desperate to begin again — Shoot! A spitball to the nape of her neck. — Absolutely desperate to dog-ear another attempt for a birthday party no one could really give a crap about.  

Suze’s Uncle Bob, her mother’s brother, was tying balloons to the mailbox, just off the highway, when the bus screeched its halt.  The kids flew off the bus like a sneeze you can see, and raced into the open field by the side of the family’s trailer.  A multicolored string of flags, like the ones new storefronts use to celebrate themselves, hung loosely from one tree to the only other tree until the rest of it just had to be tied to the steering wheel of a broken tyke cozy coupe. The boys cracked their soda cans open and guzzled enough to begin burping competitions while the girls walked around in pairs, sharing Dorito handfuls, their arms linked and looking over shoulders. 

Suze sat Indian-style on the grass with a napkin of chips on her lap.  She unpacked her backpack, called for her dog Bobo, and simultaneously watched both her birthday and the exhaust from barreling trucks dissipate into nothingness. 

Later in Life, Down the Line, Another Time, Some Other Day, Just Not Then.

Only a 16-year old girl would make a decision to cheat on her boyfriend with the 17- year old neighborhood kid who wanted to come in while her parents weren’t home to play Super Nintendo. Only a 16-year old girl would think he just wanted to play Super Nintendo. She liked playing Super Nintendo.

"You have Super Nintendo? I haven’t played on that system in three years. You busy right now?"

Only a 16-year old girl would make a decision to seek out a friend’s older sister’s old paper (but not that old) on The Sound and the Fury and plagiarize the hell out of it. Only a 16-year old girl could sit comfortably in class and think not about the consequences but of what movie to rent this weekend with her boyfriend. 

Only a 16-year old girl would make a decision to get on the F and ride it to 22nd Avenue-Bay Parkway only to wait for the B6 bus long enough to realize that, by now, her parents would be gone for work, and that she should just turn around, walk back up to the elevated train platform, and go back home. Only a 16 year old girl would be excited by Jerry Springer episodes and Chinese combination lunch specials. 

Only a 16-year old girl would make a decision to smoke pot (not just a little, but a lot, and enough to exclaim “i think this is laced!” to the cool Park Slope boys who probably thought she smoked pot on the regular) and then go home to reveal it as her parents draped wet washcloths across her forehead bearing faces she couldn’t read. Only a 16 year old girl would feel innocent in doing so.

Only a 16-year old girl would make a decision to cheat again on her boyfriend with the 17-year old cousin of her long-time family friend at her younger brother’s Bar-Mitzvah under the desk in the Rabbi’s office. Only a 16 year old girl would sneak off, nervously still holding the fork she was eating chicken with when he leaned over and said

"You wanna go somewhere?" 

All were stupid decisions that only a 16-year old girl would make. She thought there was plenty of time to make up for bad decisions with good decisions later in life, down the line,  another time, some other day, just not then.

What I Will Do

I will add more mayonnaise to my tuna because I like it white and smooth and then I will refrigerate it for as long as I can stand being apart from it because I like it cold.  My mother will ask me to bring her the cordless phone so that she can sit in front of the house and make phone calls.  I will not race to do this, but I will do it.  She will ask me again, and I will tell her “Hold on” in a voice that is reserved for her.  I will sit down at the piano and play a little something.  I will play it too fast because it is the only way I will remember how to play it.  I will stop playing and wish I could play by ear.  I will get upset that I can’t do it and go and sit on the couch.  I will leaf through an old photo album.  My mother will pop just her head inside the house and tell me how beautiful it is outside. “There’s a nice bit of shade where I’m sitting,” she will say.  I will nod slowly as if I know even though I didn’t know but it’s something I could have known.  I tell her that I am good.  I will grow impatient for my tuna and will take it out of the fridge.  I will throw away the tinfoil because I will suspect it smells of tuna and will never want to reuse tuna foil.  I will find the crackers and press a forkful of fish onto each one.  I will think about how to make this into a fancier snack.  A sliced cherry tomato?  A bit of dill?  Half an olive?  It is too late.  I have already finished eating.  I will run my hand along the counter to collect crumbs but will not get them all.  Not in my mother’s book. 

English Major Model

At 16 Main Street, above Russell’s Liquors, on the second floor towards the back, there is an art studio where your typical middle-aged Amherst woman comes each Tuesday evening for a drawing class. The ginger tea brews as she rolls up her Lands End sleeves, fiddling with the charcoal pencil set her kids gave her for the holidays. She ties an apron around her back like a smock while speaking softly with four other neighborly women, including the teacher who is dressed like Park Slope, Brooklyn.

"It’s my birthday today so I brought in some banana cake, sliced," one of them extends, the napkins sweetly passing.  

At 5:25 p.m., the English Major Model blows in from the cold, says hello, and grabs the stool by the window, bringing it to the middle. Two heaters warm his knees as he thinks up authentic poses for these women’s pupils to flicker up and down at. Thirty seconds for this one, and thirty seconds for that one. And this one. That one. This one, mistakenly repeated. Twenty minutes in a position he has to fool himself into believing he can do in real life. When he is not on display. 

The 75-minute pose.

He sits there, thinking of everything he will forget to think about during a day. Shadows paint his body like zaps of sun on a cherry wood and floor boards squeak as Park Slope makes her way around the studio, telling each woman little secrets about English Major Model’s form. Measuring him with their short pencils in the air.

Now change, he hears.

No Room

36 hours before I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon, a mean sore throat snuck up from out of nowhere. It had me up during the night when I should have been resting; it had me down during the day when I should have been dancing on tiptoes in anticipation for what would be my longest run to date. The run was trying, and I am proud of myself for running 13.1 mi. Five years ago I could barely run a block. But I am more proud of combating the ailment that, had I let it, could have marred my entire run.

When I ran Prospect Park on Thursday night, my body had begun to slow down, and I had to wrestle the pollen that looked so thickly frozen in time I literally had to push it out of the way. I had a bad tickle in my throat that couldn’t be spit. It seemed like everyone was in the park that night, getting in their final runs before it all went down on Saturday. I felt so sad & weak! I wanted to feel strong again, clearheaded, alert. I jogged to my parents’ that night prepared to do whatever they said I should do to rid this block of physical and mental fuddle. Gargle with warm salt water, they both said practically in unison. Gargling makes me gag, I whined. So what? Do it anyway, they shot. 

I suppose if you want something bad enough, or in my case, you want something to go away bad enough, you do what needs to be done, regardless of whether or not you believe any of it will work to your advantage. When you’re at a disadvantage, it’s hard to trust there’s anything or anyone out there that wants to help you. It’s very easy to sit back and just feel sorry for yourself. I said a few times: This is so unfair. 

So it’s unfair. So what?

I gargled like I’ve never gargled before. I gagged a couple of times, but for the most part, I didn’t gag. I toughened up and added more salt. And then added more salt. And then gargled for longer. I bought fresh ginger root and peeled off little pieces to chew and spit out. I drank bottled water after bottled water, sipped hot ginger tea and slurped soup without spoons. I was never without a lozenge; a co-worker slipped me elderberry tablets (really good for speeding up recovery and nice & high in antioxidants; i was fresh out of blueberries) and let those sit on my tongue a couple of times. I left work early on Friday because I wanted to leave enough time to get uptown to pick up race #s & t-shirts for Max, Michael, and I so that I could also get to Third Street for an early dinner of tortellini. (I hadn’t done a good job of eating throughout the day because I’d been too busy gargling, drinking, and peeing.) I wanted to be asleep by 9pm. Right before bed I prayed to Saint Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo, to fix me and make me well come morning. After all, she’s-a-known-to-make-a-the-miracles. 

That night I dreamt that it was go-time. I was running…but then all of a sudden I wasn’t running. Instead I was sitting in a stale classroom watching a movie. At the beginning of the movie, I thought: Ok, you’ll just watch a little bit of it… because you also have to run… but then before I knew it the movie was over and I could now say that I was a good 3 hours behind race schedule. I was pissed. How could I have let this happen? How could I have settled into watching a movie when I knew there was a race going on? A race that I’d spent much time and energy preparing for? All that work… to watch a movie? 

I think what this dream stood for was the ease in which I will normally allow for and tolerate bad shit. I will slide over and make room for it when I should be actively shooing it away, not unlike the Mad Hatter and March Hare who screamed “No room!” at Alice when there was plenty of it. There was roomfor this sore throat but I didn’t want to make the room this time around and I took it upon myself to do whatever I could to blackball it. (i.e. A Jewish girl praying to an Italian saint? Come on.) Choosing to watch a movie while I knew I should be running? I was herding myself in an opposite direction and it was plain to see how quickly I obliged. I even provided myself with an excuse along the way.  

I woke up Saturday morning feeling 100x better than the day before, already feeling like I’d won something. It was both a great mental and physical boost! I’ll never forget it. 

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What’s Left of the Memory of an Old Conversation

Tony, a boy in my class, compares me to an angel one night.  I’m under the covers in bed, wearing sweatpants and a waffle shirt, drinking the milk my dad just dropped off. 

"Stop gritting your teeth," my dad says before closing the door.

"I’m not," I kind of whine. 

I wait until I can hear his footsteps on the wood floor upstairs, crossing through the living room, past the kitchen, and into the den.  I pull the portable phone out from under my pillow. 

"Hey, sorry," I say.  "My dad is so annoying.” 

Tony laughs. 

My room is dark except for a streetlamp out my window that has been serving as a nightlight for the past ten years.  It’s why I don’t need to keep the bathroom light on. 

Tony compares me to an angel and says “Girl you’re like an angel.” 

I laugh.  “No, I’m not.”  And then - “How?”

"Please, you just are," he says.  "You know you are."

"Oh," I say. 

"Where do you live again?" he asks me. 

"Carroll Gardens." 

"Is that Park Slope?"

"No, it’s Carroll Gardens."

"Your family rich?" 

"Yeah right, I wish," I say.

"You should take the bus with me to my house tomorrow," Tony tells me.  

I don’t want to go to Tony’s house.  I imagine religious figurines in the form of magnets and lots of blessings everywhere. 

"Hm, maybe.  I think I have plans with Leigh tomorrow."

"What’re you ladies doing?"

"Oh I don’t know.  Do you have AOL?  We go on AOL and like screw with people.  It’s so funny."

Tony laughs.  “You’re no angel, you’re a little vixen.”  I don’t know what vixen means but I laugh along with him.

Someone picks up the phone.  They start speaking Spanish really, really fast.  Tony is nice and polite to them.

"I should go," he says.  "My uncle needs to make a call."

"Aw, okay," I say.  "Good night…"

"I wish I could give you a big hug and kiss right now baby," Tony whispers.

"You can do it in the hall tomorrow," I say. 

We hang up.  I think about chocolate donuts and 90210.  I think about who Leigh and I will pretend to be in the chat rooms tomorrow.  I think about pants and how I want new ones. 

"Sylvie?" my younger brother calls out from the next room.

"What?"

"Are you sleeping?"

"No."

"Who were you talking to?"

"No one."

"You shouldn’t call dad annoying," he says.

"I didn’t," I say.  "Shut up, go to sleep." 

Ode to O'Brien

Four-thirty in the morning and he is lost in East New York. That is what he gets for driving high on drugs all the way from Boston. I hold off on telling him that he is in the most dangerous neighborhood out of all the five boroughs and that its murder rate is climbing. I hold off for about a minute and then I break it to him. This will be fun. Seriously, he just needs to head west on Atlantic Avenue. Can you find Atlantic Avenue? I ask him this from the comfort of my couch in lovely Carroll Gardens. I am eating expensive fruit and wearing sweatpants. 

Sylvie, I have drugs in my car.
It’s fine. I’m sure the guy driving behind you has drugs in his car as well. He laughs.

He laughs but he was supposed to be at my apartment by ten o’clock. I stayed in to wait for him. It had been almost a year since seeing him last. One of my best friends from college. Influential in many senses of the word but a real pain in the ass for so many reasons. He does not like to take my advice and so his life is now more his own than ever before. It took a while but I do not feel a responsibility anymore to help him navigate towards a better life aside from

Did you hit Atlantic yet?
Atlantic?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, I’m on it.
Good. Stay on it.

Having listened to my super difficult directions, he finally makes it to my apartment. He rings the downstairs buzzer knowing that I have roommates. I sprint to the kitchen and buzz him in, sprint back to the front door and unlock it. His footsteps are heavy - hearing them gets me all happy though despite how exhausted / angry I am. He is carrying a faded yellow plastic Stop&Shop bag that I am to assume holds not clothes or toiletries but a few Cd’s, a leftover bag of Doritos from the car and, oh, deodorant. Of course. How he believes one can keep clean. He bends down to hug me. Way to get lost in East New York, I say. The story is a good one though, he promises.

As promised, there is a story. The content is not important because it is just another stupid, crazy story that I have heard countless versions of over the years. I am sitting Indian-style on my bed watching his trip finish. The sun is coming up. I am absolutely ready for a paper cup of coffee and only a little bit ready to endure his presence this time around. 

It is a sad thing but a tiny bit beautiful.

Purpose

"If you had to give up your hands or your feet," she asked him, "which would you give up?"

"Hands," he answered. "Hands down, hands."

"That makes sense," she said. 

And without thinking she added,  “Your handwriting is shit.”

And without waiting she said, “I’d give up my feet.”

"Because you write," he said. 

"Because I write," she nodded.

He bought her an electric keyboard when he noticed how often she played air piano when they listened to music together. Her small fingers stretching for the octaves - the correct ones, too - always going so far as to throw in a glissando. She could be such a show-off sometimes. Her lips tucking in, her nose scrunching up, acting like a rocker with an actual fan base.

During her workday, he let himself into her apartment and assembled it.

"You bought me a keyboard."

He shrugged like it was nothing.

"Don’t shrug like it’s nothing," she said.

He shrugged again.

"I should be writing, not playing."

"Do both."

*

She signed up for piano lessons with a woman named Gretchen Hutton. Gretchen lived in a brownstone with tall parlor floor windows and heavy oriental carpets slung over mahogany banisters.  Twin baby grands sat back to back in the middle of the house like they belonged there.  

"For duets," Gretchen said.  "Go on, sit down. This one over here."

Her butt slid on the bench.  It felt slippery and windexed.  

"What do you want from the piano?"

She thought for three seconds.  “To write more.”

Gretchen liked that.  “Play me something.”

She played the first movement of Clementi’s Sonatina in C Major before Gretchen stopped her with a wave of a stubby No.2 pencil. 

"You have very fast fingers," Gretchen commented.

"I know. Thanks," she said.

"You played that very, very fast." 

 Her right foot retracted from the pedals just as her posture dropped.

"Do you understand what you’re playing?" Gretchen asked.

She hesitated.  She wanted to know the answer to this question very badly.

"There is a purpose to music just like there is a purpose to writing."

That seemed correct.  “What is the purpose then?” she asked.

Gretchen didn’t say anything. 

"It’s good that you’re here," she said.  "Now take it from the top."

Handwritten Notes

When she was a teenager, it was nothing out of the ordinary to wake up to the drilling of street construction.  She could never find it once awake (what was being drilled) and so she said her Hi’s and Morning’s in sweatpants and the leftovers of last night’s attitude, the day already feeling confused and hard.

As such, the monotonous sounds of dirty labor always left her reminded of morning.  Morning meant the run of a vacuum.  The bolting and unbolting of the basement door’s lock.  The cleaning out of a closet.  Old board games falling off shelves.  She woke up feeling like things needed to be done, and now.  There was more homework.  More errands.  People to see, and now.  Now.  She did not like it but it was how it went.   

Standing up at the kitchen’s counter top, buttering a toasted bialy while Al Roker got muted on the news, she would get hit with the sun lasers of window light hours after the dog had already been zapped. Taken care of and evenly breathing on a wood floor.  She wanted back to bed, too.  Carrying her bialy on a paper towel, crumbs slipping, stepping softly on wood, no one will know.  They were out getting their things done.

Oh, but a note.  It was handwritten.  Found a great table on Warren Street.  A woman is holding it for me.  Getting an oil change but will be back.  I want to take you there.  Go ahead and unload the dishwasher in the meantime.  Someone called for you.  A boy. 

Peas

Lately she’d been feeling like peas.  Not the juicy, sweet and homegrown kind.  The over-boiled, mushy and yuck kind.  The boring and bland kind.  The ones that she’d dragged through ketchup as a kid to mask that taste of green kind.  Yes, she’d been feeling like peas and, in predictable fashion, she was beginning to come up short for new costume.  

It was the time of the month.  It was the time of the month to pick fights left and right, up and down, or preferably pushing straight through bellies with her double-edged mouth sword.  It also happened to be the day of the week, the one hour at which she normally would’ve been seated uncomfortably, working hard to look relaxed, on one of those futons for low-budget professional people.  A floral one.  Or one with very abstract, pointy shapes.  Squiggles.  A nine year-old’s comforter in the 80’s.  Unisex.  The time of the month, the time in the day.  
She’d quit her therapist almost sixteen days ago.  It was a rash decision on her part, she knew that, but after doing a search for her Chinese therapist’s name on Facebook, after actually finding it, after actually reading it, after actually comparing her “How black are you?” quiz results with hers only to discover the exact same score (Hood Figure), she had to end it.  So she lied and said she was feeling pretty good about life - things were going well! - and also might have to cut back on certain expenses because her rent had just gone up.  Lying just came natural. 

Maybe it was her fault for wanting to know more about this woman - this woman who wore nicer clothes than she did, who preferred cash over checks, who ended each session with “So long!” as the door kind of slammed shut - but it was this woman’s fault for not knowing about privacy settings.  And for sometimes staring at her without blinking. For jotting the wrong details down while she spoke.  Not her fault - her fault.

Peas.

Billy Next Door

Billy had too much gel in his hair when I answered the door.  He was wearing a tie and holding his backpack like a briefcase.  He smelled of Doritos and dirty things, apologized if he was interrupting dinner.

"I’d like a moment with your mother," he said.

"My mom?" I asked. "Why?"

"Or your father," he said. "Whoever is home at the present time."

He was looking over my shoulder. He seemed to be on the clock.
 

I snapped my gum. “Ma!” I yelled, without taking my eyes off him. Then: “Why do you look like that?”


My mom came to the door, sighed hello to Billy, and told me to go finish my math problems. 

"Good evening," he began. "Lovely weather, isn’t it?"

My mom waved to Sam, the old man who sits across the street.  

"Things good?" she called out.

"I’m selling school supplies for school, Mrs. Flatow. Would you care to peruse the catalog?" He was already kneeling down, unzipping his pack. His hair grossly shined.

"Billy, what is this - I’ve got — "

"Mrs. Flatow.  As you know, I am a classmate of your daughter’s.  Additionally, I am someone who sits diagonally across from her desk. I know what she has. I know what she lacks."

My mom turned around to look at me. I pretended to solve problems on scrap paper.

Billy continued in a whisper. 

"Tonight’s homework is all about measuring angles and it is my educated guess that Sylvie has no idea what she is doing because she is without a protractor.  Mrs. Flatow, a protractor is a tool that measures angles. The red and black crossbar need to be lined up with the vertex of the angle. The vertex is the point where the two rays of an angle meet — "

"Are you doing homework without a protractor?" she asked.

"I don’t need one," I replied.  "She needs one," Billy shot.

I watched Billy conduct business with my mother. I watched three dollars leave her front jean pocket and I watched Billy thank her for her time.  

The next day, after my homework was finished, Billy and I sat on the curb’s corner throwing pebbles at pigeons. He had bought us blue raspberry airheads, my favorite. 

His hair was dry and tousled, his fingernails forever dirty.

Every time I got a pigeon to fly away, not just flutter, Billy would look at me and smile. 

"Nice." 

Across the street, Sam would shake his head, not say a word.

Food Issues

Sari and Paige were on gruesome weekday diets. Nothing for breakfast (easy), cigarettes and coffees at 2pm (lunch break), raisin nut bars at 4:30pm (after some serious writing), olive oily, fruit salads for dinner (scarf). One Saturday night, early in the morning, they sat side by side on Paige’s couch witnessing the very worst of infomercials and clenching their tummy fat with even fatter fingers.

"I once ate an entire pizza - in bed - only to reach - eyes closed - for the last slice - forty minutes into a dream. And I knew what I was doing. Did I ever tell you that? I am nasty," Sari said.

"When I have sex with my legs up, I totally gross myself out," Paige offered.

They knew exactly where the closest White Castle was. They were dressed up, having polished off their night’s romp at a friend’s birthday party, club-style. They click-clacked their heels all the way down Atlantic, past chichi bridal shops and African crafts stores, past sweaty men in their wife beaters, sitting on their short steps, liking their asses in Arabic.

The castle’s white and pointy glow sprayed out like an oriental fan as they approached the drive-thru window, slowly, as if they had just been a couple of passers-by.

"One sack."

"Yeah, me too, one sack."

They ordered and the kid behind the window slid their meat under the steel. Then they walked to the curb and sat down like a couple of exhausted hookers, hot grease from the bags’ bottoms shining their knees. Their fatty fingers punctured marshmallow buns. Pickles slipped. Cheese squished. Mustard dripped. Mouths never closing, they breathed in the meatiness and did not look at each other once

The Things He Brought

He brought his food processor to her apartment two months after they started dating. The food processor made her happy. It was a kitchen item she had always needed, always wanted, and this one came to her, for free. He carried it up the stairs with a strong forearm. She liked that he shared his things. He was such a good boy.

Chopping, shredding, and mixing: verbs of her past now, and this certainly was no blender. Interchangeable blades! No liquid necessary! For a while she felt married. Married to this versatile appliance that could do anything to her food, whether she liked it or not. She carried home fruit, just fruit, in brown paper bags - two arms wrapped around the ones she’d always admired but never bought, like mangoes and melons, pineapples and papaya, starfruit and guava - concocting morning juice blends and then keeping them cold in glass pitchers to marvel at its color. Threw wooden spoons in there for effect. Sipping from small cups, saying “Ahhh” to the walls. Soon enough she was real comfortable. She began grinding her meats. Beating her farm eggs. Slapping around cake batter like she was born to do it.

He brought his rice cooker to her apartment four months after they started dating. The rice cooker made her happy. It was a kitchen appliance she always needed, always wanted, and this one came to her, for free. He carried it up the stairs with a strong forearm. She liked that he shared his things. He was such a good boy.

Watching the stove, making sure the rice did not stick, did not burn, and all the rules she’d heard over the years, like “never stir” and “boil the water first.” She threw it out the window. Rice cooker, yo! Never pay attention again. A whopping 95% of Japanese kitchens use them, did she know that? One day she even made a beef stew in her rice cooker. She set it to “warm” and it cooked at 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Thank you to the cookbook he carried in his other hand devoted entirely to dishes prepared in a rice cooker. When the rice was done the cooker would beep like Beep! Smiling through exciting Mets innings on TV. Strike him out, take your time, rice is ready.

He brought his snow cone maker to her apartment six months after they started dating. The snow cone maker made her happy. It was a kitchen appliance she always needed, always wanted, and this one came to her, for free. He carried it up the stairs with a strong forearm. She liked that he shared his things. He was such a good boy.

"Snow cone maker!" she screamed in his ears. "These exist? Like, they make these in real life?" Yes. They sure did. This was no 1979 Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine where one stupid ice cube magically transformed into some Kool-Aid dessert. Oh, no. This was the real thing. Red and retro with a stainless steel blade. No assembly required and scratch resistant. Slushies 24/7 from now on. That was the rule. Bad day? Slushie time. PMS? Have a slushie. Can’t sleep? A slushie is like a glass of warm milk. She promised.

He brought himself over to her apartment eight months after they started dating. He made her happy. He was someone she always needed, always wanted, and this one came to her, for free. He carried himself up the stairs, his strong arms swinging. She liked that he shared his things. He was such a good boy.

Florence on her Elbows

One seasonably warm Saturday night winter, a grandson took his grandmother, Florence, to dinner in Carroll Gardens. He held his phone, not her hand, as they crossed Court Street to the Marco Polo Ristorante. 

Florence had not been there since her downstairs neighbor Rosie’s daughter’s engagement party in early May and had been wanting to go back with her own family. But the late morning phone calls to her children and grandchildren, when she would suggest dinner that night or the next, were rarely received with much enthusiasm or believable regret. Always the tired apology and the empty “wish I coulds.” Busy lives; at times, too busy to ever include Florence in their own plans, like live music at the Brooklyn Museum or a walk to the farmer’s market to touch tomatoes. Even a quick errand to pick up toilet paper, she would settle for with any of them. Rosie’s daughter’s engagement party had been just for her though, and she liked that. She’d felt proud of the few hours spent at the Marco Polo Ristorante that sunny, spring day, in all of its gaudiness and mahogany, chit chatting over sesame bread sticks, unconsciously clearing the crumbs off the white linen into the soft middle of her hand. She’d been served seafood risotto, perfectly cooked and enough for two. With leftovers, though, came reminders of Joey, her late husband. It was not that she didn’t like being reminded but she had never known a leftover anything when he was alive. Whatever she couldn’t finish, he would lick clean. Florence was gracious for the memory, if only for an eye blink. And the bus boy, no more than seventeen, had taken a seat at the piano, wiping his olive oil fingers up his pant legs, and surprising all the pink-cheeked ladies with his Sinatra repertoire. Rosie’s daughter sashayed from one table to the next, thanking everyone for coming and Was everyone enjoying themselves? Oh yes, yes, Florence was enjoying herself. It was so nice to be out of the house, where usually she just sat by the window, on her elbows, drinking milk with a little bit of coffee, counting the joggers, waiting for the next zoom! of the bus.

Tired, Traveling Waitress of a Woman

Ninety-one dollars was the last of the money that went towards the drive to Colorado. All night she had been a tired waitress of a woman delivering french martinis to a professor with a red bow tie who kept asking her for too much, like: Another napkin, or Oh dear! I dropped my fork, or More apple butter if it does not cost extra, please and, of course, her name. While lines of hungry students and their out-of-town parents inched their way up the wheelchair accessible ramp, quickly reaching the trachea of the hostess, Bow tie just sat there looking all academic and pleasant. She felt like saying “Digest your food somewhere else, Professor. We’ve got a line and I want more tables” but her telepathy was not strong enough. He calculated her tip with an actual pocket calculator. Really? He knows what to give. How much she needs. Sir, that tip is paying for motels and tolls. Gas and snacks. Keno games she will play too many of at a bar in Bassett, Nebraska. She is leaving at six o’clock tomorrow morning so she needs slack to be cut, Bow tie. A tired waitress of a woman in a little, old college town is freaking poor. There is a big trip ahead of her. She delivered him so many french martinis. So many. And after each initial sip, he would look up at her and say “Now that’s a drink.” Oh, finish your silly drink already. She needs to clock out. Roll socks. Write a check for August’s rent. Shower, set the alarm, and fall asleep to either the Cosby show or 93.9’s the River.

Scaredy Love Cats

When she calls him up, he is in the bedroom reading The Catcher in the Rye because he has a thing for nostalgia. Her name on his phone is long and hyphenated. He won’t say “at last,” but he’ll think it. He ignores the temptation to think twice. He picks up. He is up for it.

“Well, hey.”

“How ya doin’?”

“I’m good. Good. You?”

It is no prize-winning conversation but it is normal. It helps that he loves her voice. He scoots down the bed and slides down its height, plopping Indian-style onto the wood floor so that he is not too comfortable. Scratches at the remnants of a sticky paper label on an old Poland Spring bottle. Their conversation is quiet now.

“So I’m calling you.”

“Yes. You are. Hi.”

“I take it you’re home?”

“Just rolled in yesterday, yeah.”

She wants to meet up – it is obvious. Why she doesn’t just come out with it was always the issue. Skirting around stuff was her favorite diversion. It used to wind him up. In this moment though, he finds it kind of darling. He can hear her girl-music playing faintly in the background. He bets she is pacing. Wonders what she is wearing.

Twin

As long as he does not have to sit still and think, he feels ridiculous relief. Poor guy who is trapped mainly by wanting things to stay exactly the same, just better, he adds salt to the same old foods when it is not really needed. He thinks the meatballs could use some but he is always wrong. Slowly, without warning, he is tricking himself. Also, there is an ungrateful nature to him. The quiet times in his life, he has no tolerance for, and so he makes sure to bang things together frequently, not paying attention to rhythm. He refuses his own thoughts and denies them like a liar. Treats time like a conspiracy and moves street signs around when no one is looking. Sees a heck of a lot in short moments but will not share a damn thing. Cluttered with too much stuff, he will walk into strange swimming pools to be rid of it all, and then be on his way. He is a hard person to have shared a womb with.

Quickly: Based On My Experience Last Night, The Rules Can Lead To Lovely Things

I followed the rule and did not call my friend’s phone when I could not find the balloon. It was a wonderful thing to practice. My eyes bounced from left to right, right to left like a ping-pong game in slow-motion across thousands of love-birds, families and friends. I walked mindfully across blanket corners, looking lost amongst the incredibly familiar, all because I knew the balloon was out there. I would find it. Spot it in the distance, gotcha!, and walk effortlessly towards it as if seeing it first thing. This was a nice little game. Find the balloon; don’t call the phone. Win a symphonic experience in the middle of July under those two city stars. For bonus points, bet you I can find the stars. I walk, holding my turkey hero with one hand, my shoes with the other, grabbing at the grass with my toes. Giving my heels a good stain. Missing my boyfriend for a moment but refusing to forget about that balloon. A rule is a rule.