WE HAVE EXPERIENCED AN AVERAGE SUMMER WITH UNUSUAL FEATURES.

Your ENT is fond of Springsteen (in an average summer.) 

It gets so you can’t hear well enough out of one ear—the radio news, your footsteps in the stairwell, the street traffic, the subway intercom—it gets so you can’t hear very much at all to the left. The stuff you gather as ‘thumps’ are not thumps, you can’t say what they are, because you can’t gather, at all, and besides, what ‘thumps’ anymore to the left? You drink a couple pints of stout at the pub until it’s time for your appointment. It’s a dry sun outside, a fine warm day with people acting reasonably (for a change) in their paces between office and lunch counter. The guy in ragged clothing, rattling coins in a cup, doesn’t say “Help the hummus” but that’s what you hear because, yeah, you can’t hear.

An ear technician, not the doctor, greets you. He’s enthusiastic about aural hygiene and could lead some kind of ear workout on morning television, beside that tae bo fellow. He applies salves and lineaments and solutions. After a spell, he starts working a plug of earwax this way and that, until it pops out with a suction-y “boop” kind of noise. It’s crabapple in size. “I’ve got to fetch the doctor!” he yells. He returns with the doctor and several staffers who ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh.’ “Get a picture!” someone says. “Not so loud!” you say. You can hear again. “Please don’t post that on social media,” you whisper. Even to whisper is loud. Optimism, and its three grand syllables (or four?) appeals of a sudden.

The doctor hangs around. He’s got to probe your nodes and such. “Hum something,” he orders. “Epistrophy” comes to mind. You hum some Monk. The doctor wrinkles his nose. “What’s that?” he says. “Thelonious Monk,” you say. “Who?” he says. You make a “how do I explain” face. “Couldn’t you hum some Springsteen?” It takes you a minute to figure this out. “HUMMM hum-hum-hum-hum HUMMM!” you say. “Was that so hard?” says the ear doctor. You shake your head, lying. “Where’d you hear that?” he says. “Everywhere,” you say, tapping both ears. “That’s good,” he says. “Cured.” He fills your ear full of antibiotic. “But I heard the Monk everywhere, too,” you add, in protest.

You carry your chart to the front desk at the same time as Tom Ridge carries his chart to the front desk. He gets to check-out first, because he’s Tom Ridge. Out in the hallway, the elevator dings, like, really loud. “This way, Mr. Secretary,” you say, giddy with hearing. He squints at you as the doors close. “We rode an airplane together,” he says. He adds, “The writerrr,” meaning you. “I can’t believe you remember that!” you say. “Two years ago!” Tom Ridge taps his temple: “Keeping the Homeland safe.” You reply, in exasperation, “I haven’t done anything to the Homeland!” The doors open. Tom Ridge points his finger at you as he turns the corner to the pharmacy. It’s a zinger, you realize, a zinger.

THE TOP 10 REASONS WHY OTHER WRITERS STEAL FROM ME.

 Hey! Just who is larcenizing what?

10. What I say is unencrypted. I should be cryptic and I’m working that out, in my crypt. Right now, anybody could be cribbing me. Which is cribbage. Goes well with a Mickey Dee’s sandwich, McRibbage. King Tut is also unencrypted. Everyone’s laid bare in the disaster economy!

9. The penalties for theft have gotten lax. You have to take a laxative, which many are taking anyway, voluntarily, at LAX, in the, uh, ‘departure terminal’, wearing sensible slacks, consuming flaxseed among other alternative legumes, super-foods, and avant garde oils.

8. I’m brilliant. I’m the author of The Picture of Dorian Grey’s Anatomy, PJ Harvey’s Bristol Cream, Flotilla the Hun, Junkie in the Trunk, Orson Welles Fargo, and Third Aye Blind, as well as a chapbook, El Pollo Loco Motive, a study of chicken-influenced crimes on the rails.

7. To recapture what I’ve taken from them. Then I steal it back, then they steal it from me, then I steal it back, until we start leaving the writing for each other in the oddest places. In each other’s backpacks. Written in soap on the bathroom mirror. With a deep, penetrating glance.

6. Because the Second World is gone. That is, there are more places to hide. Even if I could find the thieves, what then? Turn them in to the authorities? What authorities? The thieves—are the authorities! They lead a seminar, on their theft. I attend. I eat some Danish. It’s pretty good. (The seminar, not the Danish.) 

5. Both parties love it. I love seeing my words in their paperbacks. I love seeing my words in their blogs. I love seeing my words in their Tweets. I love seeing my words in their thought balloons. Other larcenies are boring! They love it, too. They’re lazy. It nourishes our polemic. It’s a real problem-solver.

4. They have a genetic predisposition. Did they grow up in a tough environment, where plagiarism was the only way out? Heck no. They have a DNA mutiny. They can’t help it. They see my words. They loiter. The next thing you know—they’ve copied and pasted.

Uhhh, okay, Death, you can have my writing.

3. It’s a diversion. This language theft—is a ruse. They’re really coming for something else. My Pilot G-2 Pro? My purple egg? My Max Roach rare OOP? What is it? My Kangol beret? My inflatable comfort mammal? What is it? My renewable social contract?

2. I’m still hot. I keep rebooting the thermometer. Seems like 99.2 is my new normal. Heh heh heh. I plug the thermometer into a USB port, you know, to get the latest update. Thermo 11 point zero zero two. It catches a virus. I catch a virus. I take my temperature. I’m even hotter!

1. I spend too much time in the back room. True, I leave all my syllables unprotected (ripe!) on shelves, in lost and found bins, on coat hangers, on countertops, in manilla folders, on the clothesline, in buckets, all the while I’m in the back … writing … (feverishly!)

8 TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE A GREAT STORY (+1 “OBVI!”) (+1 SOLUTION)

If you must. But no Budweiser!

(1) Don’t describe sex, eh, blow by blow. At the very very most, close the door and talk about the thumping against the headboard or something, but don’t even do that. I once heard a novelist (who had a lisp) read a scene: “He gasthp’t, she gasthp’t!” Enough said.

(2) Don’t say Budweiser ever in a story, especially if the “hero” is drinking it. For that matter, don’t say tall boys, long necks, dead soldiers, Coors or Miller. If you want to say Tuborg Gold—okay, okay, okay, Tuborg Gold.

(3) If you have to have a weeping character, don’t say “the tears rolled down his cheek”. For god’s sakes, man, quantum physics dictates that, in one out of every 100 crying jags, the tears will roll up the cheek. Especially if the dude is bawling upside down.

(4) There’s something in mainstream American fiction about “quiet” stories with vases of flowers on a dinner table. Really? I hereby outlaw flowers, vases, and tables.

(5) Avoid overuse of the verb “to be”. Was this, were that, be this, is that, been who, are what? The sentences start to was, was, was, was, were.

(6) If you’re going to write-in Irish characters, please don’t have them say “fook” or “feck” half the time. I doubt Irish people in general say “fook” or “feck” half the time, but even if they do, it doesn’t automatically make for good fiction.

(7) If something bad happens, say, an assassin hopping out of the curtains, don’t instruct a character to say “Nooooo!” in response. Any of the following—“Huh” or “You don’t say” or “I’ve waited for this all my life”—would be more surprising.

(8) I’m all for odd character names but let’s not get too crazy, okay? A woman named Bubonia or Boeing may be accurate on some level, but will the reader be able to maintain appropriate decorum in the face of such a nom de guerre?

(9) If you don’t have a first sentence that establishes a situation, conflict, or problem, then you don’t have a good first sentence. “Obvi!” 

(10) Okay, so if your story describes two characters having sex in a room filled with Budweiser empties while one character is crying with his tears going up his cheek while a vase of flowers marinates on a table-top—was it? were it?—and the other character said “fook me!”, just before an assassin named Boeing jumps out of the curtains, forcing the other character to say “Nooooo!”, all of this in the very first sentence, then yes, okay, that might make for a good story. Congrats.

A RATIONAL GUIDE TO THE CASE AGAINST INTERVENTION IN SYRIA.

Soldiers take a break during Cromwell's March to Dingle

The problem with waging another war isn’t that we might have ‘boots on the ground’, it isn’t that we might have troops ‘in country’, but that we would have personnel ‘in continent.’ This endeavor might necessitate the invention of a field remedy for gas, bloating, and Diaspora. Reflect, we must, on lessons learned from campaigns in world history, such as Cromwell’s March to Dingle. Cromwell himself ‘devoured the bitter berries of conflict’ and spent many days and nights engaged in situational pinching. Of course, war could radicalize a soldier, a corporal who might author, over some stir-fry takeout, his famous digestive tract, Chicken Lo Mein Kampf. No, these are the iPad Thai Cobb Salad Days of our fighting men and women, who should be enjoying careless activities like taking an unexcused absinthe. Or admiring a motor speedway event like the Envy 500. They should be listening to pop music by a group such as Third Eye Blind, the band-mates of whom must’ve masturbated just a little bit extra—to blind the metaphorical eye, too. A declaration of war requires votes by legislators, and the legislators of one party will say “Chappaquiddick Pro Quo” to the legislators of the other party, when trading votes in a bicameral fashion. If there is a war, there must be a financier, and the leading firm is Don Ho Chi Minh Citibank, with Hawaiian muzak playing the lobby of its Vietnamese HQ. We should make sweet, tender love instead. To wit, half our people should be noting the nearness and farness, the nearness and farness, the nearness and farness of the headboard. What else is there? Oooh, let’s inflate our currency and await further instructions!

MONO DEITY ARBITRATES SPORTING CONTEST.

The 'slap chop' method of putting the shot.

It came to Mono Deity’s attention that two athletes had offered high praise and incantation—“I credit my strength to Mono Deity”, said one, “Mono Deity willing, I’ll prevail”, said the other, the two standing but feet apart, speaking into microphones—the night before a meet. The sport in question amused Mono Deity to no end. “The shot,” explained the Visiting Assistant Deity, “is the heavy little ball. Man tries to ‘put’ the shot, that is, ‘chuck it’, quite far, my Lord, with a sort of shoulder heave.” A cantankerous expression overtook Mono Deity’s features. “The triumphant athlete secures a trunk of gold for this feat?” asked the Supreme Being. “He wins favor with a woman plump to his liking?” The Visiting Assistant Deity clarified that the practice had begun many years before, when the Greeks engaged in Poly Deity worship, and added that the sport, the shot put, was largely ignored by other people, and therefore, the triumphant athlete would only receive a polite round of applause. Mono Deity wasted little time in ordering complete background checks on both competitors. Heaven being Heaven, it still required a modem hookup for Internet service, so in the meantime, Mono Deity—like the enraged conductor of an orchestra—rained vast waves suddenly upon numerous island beach resorts. Many thousands of bikini tops were washed out to sea, amidst cries that bounced like needle sticks in the ears of lunatics. At last the background results came in, but they revealed little advantage for either athlete. Each had engaged in a few indiscreet fornications, requested a few dubious injections, and suffered from wobbly credit ratings owing to frivolous decisions regarding certain debt instruments, but these infractions had transpired, largely, in the past, and Mono Deity noted that both competitors had prayed, of late, at a frequency endorsed by figureheads of their faith. Mono Deity had absorbed these plaintive prayers, of course, as well as all the expressions of human piety, however meek, and shed them, too, in the perspiring ways of the very shot-putters themselves. A cantankerous expression overtook Mono Deity’s features and the Supreme Being vanquished the Visiting Assistant Deity with a howl that frightened buzzards from every gut-cart in the world. The earth revolved a new day into place. With it, came the shot-putting contest. There were inferior competitors who could not put the shot very far, but these were the traditional ‘scrubs’, explained the Visiting Assistant Deity, who had sought to appease Mono Deity by catering their vantage with frankfurters in pretzel buns. “Indeed,” added the Visiting Assistant Deity, “it is great folly for the superior athletes to watch these meek appropriations of the sport,” and the two Deities chuckled heavily at this thought. Late night infomercials came into the mind of Mono Deity, not only the Shamwow and the Slap Chop, but religious ‘scrubs’, too, the meek appropriations of liturgical stewardship. Mono Deity noted what the Visiting Assistant Deity had illuminated, and vowed to consider a promotion, to Assistant Deity, so long as there were more deli products wrapped in pretzel buns. The first of the two superior shot-putters put the shot 22.80 meters, not a record, but a fine put, and then the second shot putter put the shot 22.80 meters, the same put as the first man had put, no difference. The two competitors then traded shot-puts, but after each put, the shot sat exactly the same distance beyond the stop-board, the first man’s heave and the second man’s heave alike. Each man stood on the field, bellying, in his prehistoric unitard. Each man invoked Mono Deity, but Mono Deity could not empower one or the other man, as each had worshipped dutifully, and each had employed ample (and fluctuating) levels of torque. As the final heave of the contest rolled to a halt, the Supreme Being’s thoughts turned to adjudication, to the many instances of malfeasance over the course of centuries, the hardened hearts of some officials or the indifferent decrees of others. “But my Lord!” said the Visiting Assistant Deity, who knew the final puts to be equidistant, “behold the ruckus on the field!” In fact, the two dominant shot-putters were taking turns heaving the shot at one another, while their delegations traded fisticuffs in a haze of chalking lime. Mono Deity touched his powerful fingertip to the forehead of the Visiting Assistant Deity, and the latter came to envision the eventual downfall—drug abuse, incarceration, sex change operation—of the winner, as well as the quiet agrarian future of the loser, including a 403b retirement account tilted toward guaranteed returns. Mono Deity also revealed the possibility of promotion for the Visiting Assistant Deity, before removing his fingertip from the Under Deity’s forehead. The two Beings enjoyed a lengthy chuckle—har, har, har—at the folly of human endeavor, while the contest’s officials drove home in sensible automobiles. “Years from now,” thought the Visiting Assistant Deity, “with me installed as Assistant Deity, a contest such as this one will be, in fairness, declared a draw,” but the Visiting Assistant Deity suspected that Mono Deity knew these thoughts, even as the Supervisor Deity had retired to the divine armchair. Indeed, in order to become a more informed Supreme Being, Mono Deity had begun weighing the afternoon’s reading: either Pontiff / Counter Pontiff or The Habits of Seven Highly Effective Nuns.

GET OUTTA THE WAY!—A STUDY OF 10 COMMON AMERICAN OBSTRUCTIONS.

Same as it ever was.

Who can obstruct, these days, better than Americans? In saying that, I mean the prevention of basic, everyday access to the right of way or the prevention of progress on a sidewalk. “Get outta the way!” you may think (or bellow). Let’s take a look at 10 frequent violations of the kind, in hopes that just one violator will recognize the error of his or her obstructions.

10. You Saw Me Jogging. I know this because our eyes met. Unless you suffer from Oppositional Jogging Perception Disorder, you could’ve concluded that I might like to keep running without breaking stride. Yet you saw fit, at the last moment, to obstruct my path. Not only that, but you unleashed Bitchy-Face. Other than its normal swerve, the earth—didn’t move. It’s called side-walk for a reason. Your side and my side. Eh?

9. The Couple Who Can’t Be Parted. You’re so in love that, to walk single file for three to five seconds, to unglue your hands, would be a violation of everything that Republican Art has taught you. But hey: I’ve got news. Temporary separation will help you prepare for the trauma—should your love crumble. Oh, I don’t mean to suggest that you’ll split up. You might stay together—you, your partner, and your Crumbled Love.

8. Escalator, Part 1: Stopping at Top. Every American should be taught a course in Basic Physics of Everyday Conveyances. The escalator is a Continuous People Delivery Machine. It will continue, that is, to deliver people. So, if you pause at the top (“Gee, where am I, America?”) the escalator will, by the sheer genius of its automated mission, continue to mash people into your dorsum. Can you just take, like, three steps forward?

7. Escalator, Part 2: Standing to the Left. The course in Basic Physics of Everyday Conveyances will also contain a module entitled, Some People Like to Walk Up. These people will pass you, on the left. Unless, of course, you establish yourself on the left, and cannot be budged. What are you doing over there, anyway? Thinking about beef? Beef and cheese? Beef and cheese and bun? You could do that thinking—to the right!

6. Tipping the Scales (Plus). No, really, if people don’t start to demonstrate a little more restraint at the buffet, the economy will slow, and slow, until there is little (if any) commerce. How so? Will anyone be able to get anywhere on time? Will there not be substantial—human—obstacles to ordinary ambulation? “It was not automobile traffic or poor weather or Act of God that made me late for work but Third Party Obesity, again.”

5. Baby Carriages Seating Two Toddlers Abreast. You could’ve chosen double decker bus perambulator, you could’ve chosen stretch limousine perambulator, you could’ve chosen Winnebago perambulator with trailer hitch, you could’ve chosen motorcycle with sidecar perambulator, you could’ve chosen two perambulators and enlisted crony to push one but no, you’ve pinned me between hydrant and tree and dookie of dubious origins!

4. Dog Walker Allowing Loose Leash on Multiple Pooches. Adding yet another canine to the ruckus of canines you already cannot manage just seems like the next logical step in the Choose Your Own Adventure version of your life. In one possible ending, the dogs run circles about you, until you’re bound by yards and yards of gentle leader. In another ending, you must survive, huddled in the gutter, by feeding on a peanut butter Kong.

3. Texting While Walking. Your phone says R U there? It asks Where R U? R, it goes, U 2 biz E? But you’re trying to go three hours, okay, one hour, without texting. Your phone vibrates again, a text, in your pocket. U H8 me, it says. A moment later, you’re not only reading, but twiddling a reassuring answer, when you step into the global warming doggie water bowl set in front of the gelato store. ‘Victim of attack!’ you text the texter.

2. Driver Halfway through Intersection Metered by Stop Sign. Why stop at all? I mean, I get it—you want to act like a thug, at the helm of a 5,000 lb hunk of machinery versus a pedestrian (me) who offers 168 lbs of opposition, even as I have chosen to let you motor on through. The sign shouldn’t say Stop. No, it should read “Go Halfway Then Crawl But Not Before You Project Wimp Menace To People You Have Never Met.” 

[Expletive!]

1. Unnecessary Bicyclist Passing Language. The bicyclist said, “On your left.” Then he said, “No, no, on your right!” Then he said [Expletive] as his bicycle crashed into deep foliage or rocky stream. He was not obstructed. He just couldn’t bike and say “On your left” at the same time, so he created a hindrance, a hindrance of the mind. It’s vaguely amusing that his little dinky bell went “ding ding” as his Schwinn punctured the hedge.

MY TRAVAILS WITH THREE PARTICULAR POPS TO THE CROWN: TWO THAT BUCKLED ME AND ONE THAT PRODUCED THE BLACK LIGHTS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS, BUT IN ALL THREE CASES I DID NOT DROP.

1. Karate Class

My instructor had chosen me, the scrawny teenage equivalent of an Everlast bag, to stand in the middle of the circle. All around me stood my classmates, fifteen men, each the keeper of his secret number. I hopped around, my fists in gloves, the left at my waist, the right thumbing my nose. I hopped and snorted. “Cut it out!” one guy said. “This?” I suggested, thumbing my nose. “Shhh!” my instructor whistled. “He’s making me laugh!” said the guy. “Shhh!” my instructor whistled. “But in a real situation,” I reasoned, “I could do this kind of crap to disorient—like, uh—fifteen guys dressed in karate outfits who’d happened to pick a fight with me.” I caught my instructor; he had dropped his forehead into his palm. A pause ensued that grew ominous. The cloudy day radiated dry dirty light. “Eight!” shouted my instructor. Nobody moved on my periphery. A set of eyes square in front of me betrayed the impending motions of an assailant, number eight, charging toward my back, and as I wheeled to deflect a sure midriff kick, a fist puffy with the foam padding of a red glove divided my face into districts of grief. In time, both eyes would blue-blacken and a piece of my nose would harden into a chipped edge, but at the moment, a classmate (last name S——) had intended to batter the back of my skull, a lunge that had sinister implications. He didn’t high five, didn’t apologize. He’d been a combat veteran in a forgotten war, not a shameful war, but he’d been a veteran of dim, desperate battles which nobody could name. I hadn’t heard this; I’d overheard this. A few weeks later, he broke wind so violently in the lavatory he blew many squares of toilet paper outward from the stall in which he’d been seated—an impossible fart. After tapping out the last of a whiz, and reorienting my protective cup, I asked him whether he’d done a lot of that kind of thing in the army. A few beats expired, he in the stall, me at the sink. “I mean,” I clarified, “delivering a cheap shot during practice.” Two low blows don’t a fair fight make—I know, I know.

2. Florida Ave.

After bidding my chums goodbye, after trouncing down the staircase from the railroad-style jazz flat, high on the free horns of Vandermark and Rempis, I turned toward home on a foggy Sunday night just shy of mild, in February ‘07. The corner of 14th and U glowed with varying levels of intensity: fast food chicken, sneaker emporium, city services shuttered, walkup hookah, gush of white streetlamp, traffic lamp flashing caution, uneven code of bus hydraulics. A block later, the islands at the gas station did modest business and the articulated convenience store did modest business, cab drivers and maybe a single thumping sports utility vehicle. The firehouse slept. The police precinct house slept, ringed by a circle of vacant cop cars. A block later, I cruised beyond one set of basement steps too many, when a large figure—“robust flab”, I want to specify, but a head taller and impossible girth of arms, too—bounded toward me, punching me on the outcropping of bone (or what is that?) behind my right ear. A second night overtook the first night, like a wash of garbled language, darker, but lit, the borders unfocused, but constellated, a level of blackness that implied, perhaps, just one more level of blackness—before dire repose. In this second night, I continued to walk, if staggered. Hands searched inside my bomber jacket, the outer pockets of my bomber jacket, and endlessly, the two back pockets of my dungarees. I instructed my body several times to twist free before I did, delivering a few severe impersonations of competent self-defense which nevertheless broke the fellow’s posture against a brick sidewalk corrupted by decades of anxious tree roots. I bounded into a convenience store, but that wasn’t home. I bounded into a coffee shop, but that wasn’t home. The second darkness dissipated, returning me to a comprehensible position at a cross street near my apartment. Inside, on my couch, I discovered what the mugger could not: my wallet, pocketed in front, the location of which bought precious, revitalizing moments.

3. KIX Concert

I attended a KIX concert years ago in a shopping mall, maybe in a hotel ballroom. At some point, a few hundred colorful balloons fell upon the band, thus the venue had to feature balloon dropping capabilities, even as the rainbow of these festive items choked the lyrics of the power ballad—“…when I go out in the evening / to the night clubs / and I get my head just right…”—that the hair metal singer had been warbling. Yes, I wore a mullet haircut. No, I did not own a Camaro. (I drove a pre-owned red Honda, thank you.) A few weeks earlier, I had performed a valorous act but had injured my good paw, a valorousness which required surgery, and the surgery required a clunky club-like cast that involved most of my arm below the elbow. Then, I’m standing at the bar, drinking from a flagon of flat beer with my off-hand, when a meathead comes up to me, like a meathead outta hell, the hell of the concert. Everything in the world had rejected this dude except the fifty pound Weiders at the gym. “Nobody’s signed your cast,” he said. “I’m waiting for the right person,” I admitted. “Your arm’s not broken,” he alleged, jabbing a finger into my sternum. “In fact,” I added, “it’s under repair.” A vein ticked in the meathead’s neck, choked by the blue band of his t-shirt collar. A syllable like “Roo?” came out of his mouth. He projected the sorrowful hunger of a formidable dog who’d been ordered—by a turtle flute—to bite the air beneath my chin. He clipped me on the button with a slow, muscular uppercut. My entire body jiggled downward, toward the floor, which stopped it, but forced the jiggle to return, my casted arm rattling around, my neck rubbery. A minnow of beer—like a boxer’s mouthpiece—leapt out of the flagon I maintained with my off-hand, but I kept my footing. “Whew,” I huffed. Personnel surrounded us, friends, bouncers, friends of bouncers, until the matter got sorted out, the perpetrator begging forgiveness. “I thought it was a prank,” he said, “like a tough guy contest. Nobody signed his cast!” I waved for a pen. “Here,” I proclaimed. “Be the first.” And he signed it, “K-I-X ass!”, the typo perhaps unintentional, the punch taken.