He knew us by scent and decided who he wanted that morning. He awoke at dawn and breathed over our beds, a warm spray of peppery notes that made us sneeze.
I sneezed first, so he chose me.  That morning he took me by the hand led me to the warm water where he bathed me, licked me clean. Then he carried me back lay me back down, the led the other one of us by hand, to begin the same process with the other.

Soaking, he went to McDonald’s for brunch.
“Brunch? At McDonald’s?”
His mouth was too full to answer.

The clothing rack was filled. Coats billowed, people squeezed between the aisles. Somewhere, nearby, an escalator hummed.
Out of nowhere a spice rack smiled, waved to the cashiers.
The cashiers, busy as hell, only heard the humming.

There was no one in the tacqueria; not even waitstaff. The dining room was dark. The lunch hour had never happened. Dinner was a bust.

Flint hung from a surveyor with musty shoes. Outside,the restaurant, former employees picketed, their feet kicking up dust from a nearby construction work, whose jack hammers drowned out their protest, dusted their signs, sent passersby passing by faster than ever.

So surprising that I found a cigarette machine. I had not seen one in decades. Even more shocking that a grade-school kid brought money to the machine, fed it, pulled the little pin and out came a pack of Marlboros.

“Hey,” I said to the kid. “Those aren’t for you.”

The kid looked at me as he tapped the top of the pack against the heel his hand, like an old pro.

“Hey,” I amended. “Can I bum one off of you?” My whole face flushed as I asked. I knew I’d get arrested, even though I was just an innocent bystander, had not even bought the cigarettes. Or had I?

I can see myself not being myself. My voice changes, my posture straightens, my bones scream. But it’s someone else. It’s a little boy named Skip with blond hair who picks his nose and talks of being an astronaut.

I am Mexican and this seems funny that I should see myself this way when I’m fat and fifty-five. I think it’s because I’m reclined on my couch, with my fourth beer and feeling sorry for myself. Pity causes me to change color.

She realized her advancement in career had nothing to do with her skill sets she thought she’d possessed. She learned this from her colleague Kumar who told her it had to with the way she listened to people.
“You have the ability to listen in a way that makes people feel included and special. I wish I could listen like you.”
Mattie disagreed. She was a terrible listener. She wasn’t even listening now. She thought she’d heard Kumar say she’d been advanced in her career. But that was not the case at all. Kumar was in fact breaking up with her and told her still wanted to remain friends.

Inception: February 17, 1967: Shoulders thin, head large and wobbly. Eyesight poor. Wailing.

Deception: February 17, 2019: Shoulders thin, head large and wobbly. Eyesight better but still lacking. No longer wailing. But weeping.

Reception: January 21, 2026: Everyone’s posture has gone south. Heads are hung low. People can see but they are lacking in other ways. Everyone is weeping and wailing.

Coffee is the big lie. Makes me think it will change something. Caffeine whirrs through through my head, like a drone with legs and a smile.

But by the time I get to my desk, I realize I’ve got to pee. This is bad. Peeing provides enough time to think about everything. I mean every thing.

Flushing is useless–it doesn’t snap me out of my now-funk. By the time I get to my office I am in tears, crying caffeine.

Bester Stuster is one of those guys you’d find as a newborn blaring his honker from a dumpster in an ally because he’s covered by red ants after being left abandoned by drug-addicted teenage mother. He survived of course, thanks to the drunken bumbling of a college frat guy who’d accidentally began pissing on him during pledge week at Columbia. But ever since then his life turned out pretty great.

At some point it has to be okay to be an old man.

But before that it has to be okay to be an old woman.

His coordinates along Central Park proved as unpredictable and fast as anything I’d come across. I could never catch up to him, even with a head start. On those rare times I did, he was almost unrecognizable.  Fleetingly presented with a stoic man, a hard, heaving, driving man; sweaty, focused, angling for opportunity, zeroing in on his own state of affairs, deliberating over a burgeoning business, wondering what sort of shower he would step into or would it be a bath he’d take, what body part would he lather first, and how much. And what crevices and opportunities would I discover and grab onto, and if I did, would I be surprised and if so how long would it last before I was pushed away?

“Toast or grits?” the waitress said, having already taken the rest of my breakfast order down.

I put down my glassine-covered menu. I said to her, “One assumes that if one obsesses over someone that hilarity will ensue. Do you agree?”

“Toast or grits,” she repeated impatiently.

“Toast,” I told her. Because that was how I felt.