Arlene Ang - Bob Chester

 Nate Haken - J. I. Mills

stories from the dream

♥   ♠   ♦   ♣ 

Arlene Ang

Ghostwriting for Old Nick

I. How the Taste Got In

The body of Christ had its own peculiar way when it came to dominating the mouth. Hunger crackled like aluminum foil among the priests. Recently ordained, I came in contact with very little food. And wine, even less. The parish was dying. If you don’t believe this, step into the confessional and you will find yourself in an upright coffin. That was how we met. I was mopping up a child’s vomit in the box, and suddenly Old Nick looked in.

“That’s some fantasy, you got there, son,” he said. “Thought I’d take down Christ’s body from the cross.”

“Jesus!” I stared at the KFC chicken bucket he held in his arms, like a sleeping baby.

“That he is,” he replied cheerily. “Tastes like chicken, too.”

He started laying out some plasticware on one of the pews. With a quick movement, he twisted the left horn on his head downwards and used it to uncork a bottle of Merlot.

“Wait, we can’t eat here,” I said. “Someone’s bound to see us and want a thigh or leg. C’mon, get in. This box is big enough for two.”

He muttered something about being claustrophobic, but shut the door behind him. For a while, we ate in silence.

“So, what’s your business here?” I asked, my mouth still full of chicken.

“I needed a ghostwriter. And you applied for the job.”

“No, I didn’t. I just got—what you’d call—my priest’s license. I have a job.”

“A job that doesn’t allow you the decency to get drunk or grow fat is no job at all,” he passed me a plastic cup of wine.

“Abstinence makes the priest. Otherwise, I’d be just like everyone else.”

“Even though you weren’t aware of it at the time, your application was logged in the moment you started fantasizing about how Christ’s ribs looked good on that cross and how they’d be perfect with your mother’s special barbecue sauce. The fact that you were doing it while saying Mass made me take you seriously.”

“But... I’m no writer.”

“That’s not important. I value your disorderly conduct more when it comes to using prepositions.”

“Does—uh—God know about this?” I asked, wiping the grease off my chin.

“Of course, we saw your food fantasies together. He asked me to get you off-the-air because you were making him hungry. He’s been on a diet, you know, ever since the funeral.” He lowered his voice, “The old gump mistook His son’s body for roast lamb.”


II. Toward the Fulfillment of Hunger

I had to admit that Old Nick lacked imagination when it came to eating. Week after week, we met in the confessional and discussed how to separate his memoir into chapters instead of using road signs to direct the readers where he wanted them to go. And every meal we had together was from either Wendy’s or KFC.

“Haven’t you ever heard of slow food?” I grumbled into my hamburger.

“God does all the cooking,” he shrugged. “Not very good, but it does keep Him happy. Remember that forty-day flood? His first attempt at mass-produced consommé. What a culinary disaster. He made us eat that for breakfast every morning despite the general protest. No wonder some of the angels revolted. It was quite revolting. Believe me, we’re better off with fast food.” He poured more Beaujolais into my cup and began to drink from the bottle as if the memory still made his throat clog up.

“It’s just that... well, I think Father James suspects. He followed me around yesterday and kept saying, ‘I know sins by the smell of their frying oil!’ I’m honestly frightened.”

“Don’t be such a baby. There are no such things as sins.”

“But that’s the foundation of my faith. That they exist. People actually pay us to erase theirs like we’re some fancy salon using some special sin polish remover. They even lie about their sins, which is a sin itself. So there’s really no way out of it. Whatever you do is a sin. Eating too much included... but I make up for it by being kind to the poor.”

“That’s quite a scam you’ve got there. I bet God got a kick out of that as soon as it came out. He became the doting grandparent ever since he saw the kids of Adam and Eve. He thinks you’re all so cute and smart,” he allowed himself a little scoff at the word smart.

Before he could launch into one of his favorite diatribes, I pretended to choke on a spicy chicken nugget.

He gave himself a little shake. The cow bell around his neck made some ploinking sounds. He frowned. “Oh, stop that. My dog plays dead better than you do. C’mon. I want a whole chapel dedicated....”

“Chapter.”

“Yesyes, whatever... dedicated to my invention of prosthetic goat legs and how this brought fashion back to Hell.”


III. Horns and Hooves

“You can’t have my soul.”

For eight grueling months, we worked on Chapter 31: Possession Ethics. It seemed that a single body may house up to three spirits. More than that and it became public disturbance. The idea behind too many cooks spoil the broth stemmed from a particularly unhappy arrangement that ended up with the body bursting into fish food flakes. Old Nick made me write everything down in block letters, but not once asked for my signature. I figured it was time to clear the air.

He stared at me and began to pop his glass eye in and out to annoy me. It was actually a snow globe with the Eiffel Tower—sadly, made in China—drowned inside it. I noticed this the first time I kicked it away when it fell on my foot.

“Now why would I want your soul?” He was irritated by the interruption.

“Isn’t that your business? To harvest souls?”

“I’m not a fucking fisherman, fishboy. Now where were we?”

“But won’t you get my soul once I’m dead?”

“No, God has exclusive rights. Didn’t you understand what I said? Article 26, Section 303, Clause 457: All possessions rightfully revert back to the Creator once the experimental process (i.e. ‘Life’) is finished,” he barked.

“And you were saying this is what happened to the blue cows?”

“Yes! Nobody wanted them. The sky’s already blue, why would anyone want to see blue cows on the ground munching grass? I tell you, He’s got no eye for color. Anyway, He withdrew them from the market and used the cowskin for upholstery... and other things. Blue Moo, He calls it,” Old Nick shuddered.

“Oh. Now I understand the horns,” I grinned, looking first at his head then at his feet, “and the hooves.”

“At least I’m not wearing a frock,” he drawled.

We looked at each other for some time, thinking, and consumed three more bottles of Cabernet Franc.


IV. And Naturally, the Maker

On the seventh year, the confessional door sprang open while Old Nick and I were playing strip blackjack. A large bird poked its large beak in.

“Good God!” I gasped, dropping my shirt.

The furry yellow head turned towards me, “How’d you know?! I’m disguised!”

“Quit it, Sarge,” Old Nick said, “this ain’t the Cold War anymore.”

“I’m still licensed to wear a bird costume. Now, are you finished with this young man?”

“Not yet. We’re still stuck on Chapter 98: The Ultimate Recipe for Devil’s Foot Cake. Thought we’d take a break.”

“Well, I’m tired of waiting,” the fake bird whined.

“You said you’d let me finish this time!” Old Nick growled.

“Keep it down, will you?” I hissed. “If anyone catches us, there’ll be—erm—hell to pay!”

The bird suddenly snapped a fuzzy wing tip. Everything went dark. Looking around, I recognized the Chianti flask and the fact that we were inside it, sitting on a floating cork. The smell of alcohol made me dizzy.

“Happy? So now can we discuss our terms?” The bird made the elaborate gestures of one preaching from a cliff. The movement made me throw up on my side of the cork.

“Great. There goes my $60 wine.”

“Don’t be such a sob sister! I’ll get you another. And if you ask me, this guy isn’t the right one for your book. Look at him for cryin’ out loud. He’s fat. You don’t want him. He stinks, too. You’d be happier without him. And I just happen to need someone to try out my strawberr’ger in blue moo sauce.” God tucked his arm under mine, “We’ll have fun!”

As he led me away, instead of feeling excited about walking on wine, I felt depressed.

“But we haven’t finished the book yet,” I said, struggling to get away from the crazy chicken. I looked back at Old Nick and mouthed, “HELP.”

Old Nick shrugged, his horns and cow ears slumping in defeat. I saw the whole history on his face as it was dragged away—having to start again with a new ghostwriter and the promise of never completely finishing anything.

It was hell. And I forgave him.

Bob Chester

Without a Scratch

“Blood stains are almost impossible to get out,” she said. I remember exactly the way she said that, the casual-matter-of-factness of it, the tone, the I've-seen-some-dirty-loads sincerity. It was like one of those freak little ambushes where you don't know you're hurt until it's over I can still hear her say it. Her words hadn't been aimed at me, or at anyone else. She was just commenting, talking about the normal day-to-day. A child's skinned knee or scraped elbow. Some blue jeans, a stained tee shirt. Nothing serious. Maybe a stained sheet.  

I stood up to get away from her words and remembered. I remembered guys shot right up the front. Stitched, we called it. Little growing red spots from the balls right up. In a second. Dead as dead, but still standing. I remembered. “Blood stains are almost impossible to get out,” she'd said.

I'd left that laundromat on a reflex. Postponement, we used to call it. Like when a mortar hits the spot where you were standing, or when a grenade rolls through the front door and you dive out the back onto your face in the dirt before it goes off. You talk about it for a long time and laugh. Everyone got fuckin' blown away man, you'll say again and again. Everyone. You remember dusting yourself off, you remember thinking you've escaped, you remember shaking your head, you remember laughing. You remember fuck you Charlie, not today. Postponement, we called it. You remember the small fizzle sound a burning cigarette makes when you bleed on it, how heavy a shirt gets when it's soaked red. For the rest of your life you remember how pink and moist intestines look as they drip down metal.   

After the laundromat I had dreams about that woman stuffing me dead into one of the dryers. My permanent press dreams, I called them. Around and around I'd go. Awake, I'd ask myself what she could possibly know about any of it.  

I remember thinking she knew I was watching her. I was tasting her real good with my eyes, loving her, when she said it. “Blood stains are almost impossible to get out.” 

I'd made it home and was having some problems of my own with blood stains. Daily problems. I was handling them. Postponement, I called it. I drank alone in very crowded places. Drank often, drank lots, drank blank. I stayed up late and listened to music. Loud music. I smoked from the two kilos I'd brought back and stayed relaxed. I'd open my eyes in the morning and smoke a little relax. No problem. I didn't talk. I wrote letters and never mailed them. The people I wrote to weren't alive any more. No forwarding address, I'd laugh.  

Also, I washed my hands. Twenty-five, thirty times a day. I'd counted. I'd think about things, and I'd wash my hands. I was fine. I was clean. I was relaxed. Lots of people hurt real bad. Not a scratch on me. 

I was a funny guy then. Civilians would hear my stereo and marvel. I'd play it so loud they could hear it back in the delta and people would smile. It would blow them away, they'd say. I liked that. How much did the stereo cost, they'd ask. A lot, I'd tell them. It was my prize. They'd look at me and I'd tell them again. It was my prize.

Prizes, you know, like at a party. Prizes for everyone. Body bags, wheelchairs, stereos. Prizes. I cranked up the volume. It blew them away. Prizes was pretty funny.  

I went back to the laundromat again a long time later. The night John Lennon was ambushed. I saw pictures of him with all those red spots. Stitched. I stayed there and wrote letters. The clean-up guy told me to go home. Imagine, I thought. Home. Working class heroes. I laughed. I read the news today, oh boy. Go home, he said again. I remembered the song about the war being over. I laughed again. So this is Christmas, I said. The man didn't get it. Imagine.  

I'd been much better about blood stains. I didn't even try to sleep that night. I played music. I pictured myself in a boat on a river. In the morning, I stayed in the shower a long time, washed my hands with a brush. Cut my throat shaving. Christ, you know it ain't easy. Sleepless and bloodshot, I went to the school where I taught and quit my job. I couldn't look at the children is what I told them. No can do, I said. No can do. That was all. No can do.  

People came around. What was I doing they wanted to know, what was wrong? Nothing's wrong, I'd tell them. Everything is the same as always. I went to the laundromat every day. Never saw her. People called. People came by. We're going to do it again, I'd tell them. No. No we're not, they'd tell me. Yes, I'd say to them. Yes we are. The Army sponsors prime time, I'd say. Prime time. Football, basketball, what kids watch. Kids, I'd say. Now that's a killer. People looked at me funny. Guess you had to be there, I'd say.  

The television commercials got to me, that was all. Be all that you can be. Those words. Be all that you can be in the Army. That's what they said. It cracked me up. Nobody got it. Be all that you can be. I remembered what people could be in the Army. Remembered exactly. Every time I heard that be all that you can be - click - I shot - click - mind snap shots - click, click.  

I began to dream about students in my classroom. I saw them all in wheelchairs, in body bags. I saw them in tidy rows, slumped limp in their chairs, blood dripping from red desk tops. I saw dead blank faces. I saw little red spots all over them. I saw them burned, charcoaled, smoking, stiff. I saw bashed skulls oozing thick pink, heard screams, saw faces twisted, heard moans. I saw them stacked like firewood, mouths open, eyes open, eyes shut, arms up, legs bent, legs twisted, white bone showing, saw them split open in places like they'd been dropped or fallen on each other from some very high place.

I stopped sleeping. Stopped answering the phone. Stopped going to the door. Stopped talking. Stopped closing my eyes. I went to the laundromat and pinned a note to the message board. It said, blood stains are almost impossible to get out. I was calm.

I sat there at the laundromat for a long time. I thought about blood stains. About insanity. I wondered what it would be like to be insane. Helter skelter. The old guy who cleaned up at night remembered me. He talked to me. Said he'd had some problems of his own once or twice. Once or twice wouldn't be so bad, I said. He liked that and laughed. He put his hand on my arm and squeezed hard there where he was touching me. Remember, he said, the real killers never touched a gun. Remember that, he said. When you remember, remember that.  

He drove me to the V.A. hospital after he closed that night. We sat on the lawn until morning, talking. He wouldn't walk inside with me, but said that I should come by the laundromat any time. We could talk. Some things are best remembered, he told me.

The first doctor I saw asked me some questions and said that I had very red eyes. That happens, I told him. What was my problem the doctor wanted to know. My memory I told him. What about my memory he asked. Well, I said. I remember.  

I stayed there at the hospital for five weeks. At first I said nothing. Then after a while I talked. I talked about remembering. Then I talked some more. Later, I listened. I go there on Sunday mornings now. I drink coffee, eat donuts. Sometimes I talk. Sometimes I listen to other people talk.  

Nate Haken

The Frigate Bird

Voy rojo! Voy rojo! Voy pintado! Men sat around the periphery of the sunken sandpit waving fists of money shouting, surging forward on the concrete tiers, calling out their bets.  The judge reset the clock as two criadores shook their roosters at each other, hackles flaring, getting ready for the fight.  The roosters good and angry and the clock reset to ten minutes, the judge took a lemon from his pocket.  First he did the red rooster.  A fishbone spur had been fastened to each shank with electrical tape and candle wax. The judge stuck the spur deep into the lemon just in case it was poisoned. He did the same with all the other espuelas, too.  The cridadores took their places, one on each side of the sandpit.  The owner of the spotted bird, an indigenous looking man with long hair tenderly put its head in his mouth to clean it off and smooth down the feathers.  At the judge’s signal, the two men released their roosters and they collided midair in a flash of feathers as the spectators shouted.  “Si, hombre!” the owners grunted, physically willing their birds into contact. The guard who stood at the door waved his gun enthusiastically and grinned.  Someone spilled beer on my seat.

“Voy rojo!” I yelled.  “Vale diez!”  I waved my hand and looked around from face to face.  But no one caught my eye.  “Cinco, pues. Voy pintado! Voy pintado!” But still no one dared to make a bet with the foreigner.  “Come on!” I said.  One guy across the pit met my eyes and smiled a little, embarrassed, then looked away.

Abby was going to laugh at me for sure, when I got home and told her.  She had a real job here in Peru working for a health project.  I just went to cockfights where no one would bet with me, ate ceviche, and played soccer on the weekends.  Sometimes I taught English, but my students were not very dedicated.

“Voy rojo,” I shouted out again out of principle, but it was too late.  At seventeen seconds, a roar went up from the crowd. 

“Pollon!” crooned a voice in falsetto that could not believe his good fortune.  In a flurry three feet above the sand, the spotted rooster had clapped his ankles on the red rooster’s head, piercing its brain.  They both fell to the ground and the red rooster twitched on its side.  The spotted rooster trotted in a little circle, picking at its feathers with his beak.

“Uno, dos, tres,” said the judge.  “Premium!”  The spectators happily passed their money around.  There were spots of blood on the sand as the owners took their roosters from the ring.

Then there was music on the radio and people selling chifle and empenadas.  Some people handed out flyers for upcoming fights at other coliseos, some up in Ecuador, others in Pampa Grande or Talara, while the next two roosters were got ready.
“Hey, you wanna go to Talara?” I asked her.  We were lying in bed, huddled under a sheet.  The window was open and loud music was keeping us awake from the bar across the street.

“Why?” she said.

“Uhm, Hemingway used to go fishing there.”  She loved Hemingway.

“Really?” she said, suspicious.

“Yeah and also there’s a cockfight there this weekend,” I added casually.

“Aha!” she shouted and poked me in the belly with her fist.

“But Hemingway really did used to fish there,” I protested.  “And it’s a beach.  You like the beach.  You do.  Ouch!”

"Sorry,” she said.

The health project had two components, a human health component and a veterinarian component because the disease was passed from humans to pigs to humans.  So you had to cure both the pigs and the humans if you wanted to eradicate the problem.  Even if you cured every single sick person, if you did not also cure the pigs, you’d have just as big of an epidemic on your hands a couple years down the road.

We were at a restaurant one evening with the head veterinarian, Doctor Victor, eating ceviche (raw seafood, onions, and hot peppers soaked in lemon juice, salt, and cilantro) from a common plate in the middle of the table.

“What are you doing for Independence Day, Doctor?” Abby asked.

“I am going back to Guatemala,” he said, spooning out a large piece of squid.

“Me encanta ceviche!” I said, scooping out the contents of an oyster with a fork.  This part of the coastline was famous for their black oysters.

“Me too,” Victor smiled.  “We do not have these at home in Guatemala.”

“Yes, but in Guatemala you have black beans,” Abby said.

“It is not the same.  What are you doing for Independence day?”

“Barry is taking me to a cockfight,” she accused.

“Pelea de gallos,” Victor said with disgust in his voice.  He put down his spoon and looked at me.  “Have you been, yet, to a cockfight?”

“He goes all the time,” Abby said.

I tried to look ashamed.  “Yes, it is an interesting cultural experience,” I said.

“It is very cruel to the animal,” Doctor Victor said.

“Yes, the cruelty is abhorrent,” I said, looking disgusted myself.  “I am disgusted by the practice,” I added for good measure.

“I am taking Abby to see for herself what a disgusting activity it really is, so cruel to the poor animal.”  Victor looked at me for a moment, to judge whether I was making fun of him.  “Me encanta ceviche,” I said again.  He smiled.  We all helped ourselves to more seafood from the plate between us.

“One thing I find interesting is to look at the rooster who has won.  Maybe he is dripping blood.  Or even if he loses an eye, after the fight he walks around…” I stood up and walked in short steps, bobbing my head like a healthy chicken.  “You see?  Like he does not notice any pain.”  I sat back down.

Victor put his spoon down and folded his hands in his lap.  “It is that he is traumatized.  He forgets the chronology of one thing to the next.  He will have bad dreams and be easily alarmed.  He will feel himself unable to make normal connections with others.  After the episode, he does not know anymore who he is.  It is a trauma.”  Victor gazed into space.  I guessed he was probably thinking about coups, death squads, and military dictatorships back home.  That’s the thing with too much abuse.  You can’t enjoy a good cockfight anymore.

“What barbarism,” Abby said, raising her eyebrows at me.

Victor nodded absently.

Saturday evening, we went out to the port in Talara.  Pelicans and frigate birds circled the boats in the dusk, swooping and diving.  Cathedral bells sounded, reverberating on the water.  We passed a bottle of wine back and forth as the sun went down and gradually the birds and the boats disappeared, and then it was just us, sitting on the deserted beach.  Phosphorescent algae churned green in the breakers’ foam.  Ropes of cloud slipped past the moon.  One frigate bird remained in the dark, flying back and forth in the sky.

“It’s not that people are hostile,” she said.

"I know.”

“It just seems like it, sometimes.”

“Language barrier.”

"But verbal and nonverbal.”

“Yeah.”

“It does seem like they’re hostile, though.”

“They won’t even make bets with me at cockfights.”

She laughed halfheartedly.  We huddled together as the cold wind picked up.

Yeah, but it was all hyper-vigilance to notice people looking at us coldly when we said hello or acting annoyed when we failed to understand what they said to us.  Sometimes we laughed too loud or not loud enough, or stood too close or too far, or answered too fast and stumbled over other people’s conversation.  Probably it was all the hypersensitivity of foreigners trying to locate signals by which to navigate.  Like people with no depth perception swinging wildly at a ball.

The next day was the cockfight.  At the door we each paid the five soles and received little green stickers.  I put my sticker on my hat.  Abby put hers on the back of her hand.  We made our way inside and found a seat in the front row.

“I’m the only woman,” Abby whispered to me.

“You sure are,” I said.  “Want a beer?”  I went and bought a liter of beer to share between the two of us.  I came back and squeezed back into my place next to Abby.  On my other side, a kid about 18 years old leaned into my face and shouted over the music.  “I saw you before,” he said.

“Yes?” I said.  “Where?”

“At Zarumilla.  I saw you at Zarumilla last week.”

“Ah, yes.  I remember.  I tried to bet with you but you would not.”

"No, I would not,” he grinned.  I slapped him on the back.  “I would not bet with you,” he repeated, when he saw how funny it was.

We laughed together and I offered him some beer.  Graciously, he held out his glass and I filled it.  He drank that down and handed me his glass to drink from.  I filled it, drank it and passed the glass to Abby.  I knew this procedure because I had been at a bar one time and someone poured himself a glass of beer and handed me the bottle.  Not knowing I was supposed to wait, I started drinking directly from the bottle and everybody laughed and gave me thumbs up.  So I knew now that everyone was supposed to take turns drinking from a single cup, no cheating.

Between the three of us we drank several bottles of beer.  I had a pretty good time, but Abby seemed a little grossed out by the whole scene—the blood and booze and noise.  We stood up to leave.  “You are leaving?” the kid said.  “Me too.  Let us leave together.  You will be safer, anyway.” We were walking down the dirt road with our backpacks towards our posada, which was a couple miles down the coast.  The kid strode beside us, assuring us that he would keep us safe.

“I’m glad I went to the cockfight,” Abby said to me.  “I just don’t need to go to another one now, that’s all.”

This kid knew a lot of people in Talara.  As we walked through the streets, he greeted and was greeted by teenagers of all sizes.  He signaled with his eyes and they came up beside us, talking enthusiastically.  Where are you from?  Are you married?  What manner of birth control do you use?  Do you like cockfights?  Are you very rich?  What do you have in your bags?  Eight or nine teenagers gathered around us, walking and talking and laughing, swinging their arms at their sides.

“Hey, stop here for a moment.  It is a beautiful vista,” the kid said.  He led us across the street.  The whole bunch of us stopped up short at the edge of a cliff overlooking the water.  Down below, the breakers churned the phosphorescent algae in the foam.  Out in the distance, oil tankers blinked on the horizon.  In between, the dark water overlapped itself, pitching back and forth.  Thirty feet below us at the base of the cliff, trash lined foam fizzled in the rocks.

Then one of the kids was saying something important and I did not understand.  They were all looking at me expectantly. “What?” I said.  I looked at Abby but she shook her head.

“You pay us for protection,” he repeated.  “We protect you.”

“Like the Bronx!” said a smaller boy.  Then they all made gang signs and laughed.

“Yeah, the Bronx!” they said, pleased.

I changed the subject.  “Well, it sure has been good talking with you guys.  Thank you for the conversation and the companionship.  We must be going now.”

But then they kind of closed in, restricting our freedom of movement, grinning and tugging on our sleeves.  “Let’s go,” I said firmly to Abby.  We inched back away from the cliff and into the street.

Abby was talking really fast and a little shrill.  “No,” she said.  “First you help us find a taxi, then we pay you.  Compensation for service rendered, understand?  We will pay you, but first help us find a taxi!  Stop it!”  She slapped a hand that tugged on her.  Someone reached out and unclasped my backpack buckle.  I reclasped it and held it together.  Standing in the middle of the street, I tried to wave down cars, but they just swerved around us, accelerated, and disappeared around the corner.

The kid from the cockfight was assigned to me.  He was in my face and grinning.  And he kept fishing in his pocket.  I watched his hand and let him know I was watching his hand.  From the appearance of things, they were focused more on me; I had the bigger bag.  “I want you to get out of here,” I said to Abby.  Maybe they would let her go if she made a run for it.  “I want you to get out of here,” I said again.  But she wouldn’t.  She just kept on talking very fast in Spanish as they tugged and grabbed and grinned.  My blood was pulsing in my ears.

She told me later that the littlest boy grabbed her bag and ran, then tossed it to the kid from the cockfight and they all scattered.  What I remember is thinking GO, and running, my huge backpack weighing me down, then leaping in a flying tackle parallel to the ground as the kid from the cockfight turned eyes wide and saw me bearing down on him.  He collapsed underneath me and I held him pinned, as Abby scooped up the bag he’d dropped.

“You got it?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

"Run!  Run!”  I stood up and took her by the hand and we ran.  Bystanders appeared out of nowhere and ushered us down an alley and into a taxi park.  They looked nervously over their shoulders as they hissed and showed us where we should go.

“Little piranhas,” they muttered like they had seen the whole thing, and ushered us along.  Then we were in a taxi and whisked off to the expensive part of town.

“You stay here.  You stay here,” the taxi driver said, refusing our money.  “You don’t belong back there.  You belong here.  You stay.  Be careful.”  He shook his head, exasperated at our stupidity and drove off, leaving us by the fountain in the Plaza de Armas.

Abby and I didn’t talk to each other for a while after that.  A frigate bird alighted by the fountain.  “You’re bleeding,” Abby said, and took my hand.

J. I. Mills

The Cheesemaker's Son

There was a narrow path that ran through thick woods of hickory and oak.  The path was very old, and wound down from a low hill to the slender bank of a creek that had for longer than any memory cut through the forest bed to the dark slate below.  A shallow channel eased the way for the little creek, ushering the flow far beyond the woods and steadily down toward a broad river.

A cheesemaker lived alone with his son, a bright boy of fourteen.  The wood was the cheesemaker's home, and had been his father's home, and the home of many fathers before that for almost as long as the creek had sought its river—even, it was said, from a time when the slate was flat and the creek flowed blindly without a channel.

The cheesemaker had twelve goats: a buck and buckling, and ten does and doelings.  The goats gave plentiful milk, which the cheesemaker cultured, coagulated, drained, and ripened.  The cheeses were the best in all the land around, and the father, the son, and the goats were content and without great want.

The boy, whose mother was a brief and distant memory, learned the cheesemaker's arts from his father.  But because the father knew that the world was made of more than cheese he hired a tutor who once each week taught the boy numbers, letters, maps, and how to witch water with a peach wood wand.  The boy milked in the morning, studied hard in the afternoon, and near dusk often wandered away from the cheesemaker's cottage, following the bubbling of the creek and the songs of the Northern Mockingbirds that nested in the hickory stands on the rising hills that framed the creek and its dark slate channel.

The boy was called Ball, and at fourteen he was as tall as his father, fairer of hair and skin, and lean, with young muscles that flexed easily when he ran through the woods.  Ball could understand goats and they heard him and obeyed.  The birds, rabbits, and more private creatures of the woods were unafraid of Ball, for he ate no flesh but rather cheese, wild berries, mushrooms, and dark bread that a neighbor bartered for rich milk from the eldest doe.  Ball was a boy still, but at night for some while he had lain awake in the private darkness of his own room and learned slowly the deep feelings of a man.

One dusky evening in the early spring when the blackberries were still bright green Ball went to the creek and barefoot waded up the cold water, away from the distant river and toward the higher place where the wood grew thicker.  The creek was shallower the farther he went, and the woods darker.  Dusk had settled hard and there was no clear clue when moving water became the solid root of a tree, or when a stone became a hole.  Only the foot or ankle knew surely the difference between water, which allowed solid things their own space, and solid things, which gave way only to water.

Ball walked and walked, farther than he had walked before, driven on by the encroaching darkness and a feeling that at fourteen there were things he must know that previously had been avoided.  What he felt as he walked was nothing like fear, which all boys know at times, but a new feeling that called to him with an urgency, as if night must be faced or else day would come no more.

When the owl cried above him from its tall perch Ball stopped and listened for the source of its want.  He heard the owl rustle above, spreading the great wings through branches, but no other sounds came forward save the quiet gurgle of the stream, weak and puny at this place so near to its source. 

Ball listened for sound and also watched for movement in the night.  The air grew cooler, and a faint shiver lifted up from the center of the boy and traveled quickly through his shoulders and down his arms.  His eyes strained to adjust to a darkness of slate and wood, and then he saw the hole.

The hole, which was barely large enough for a boy, angled away from the sky, and its darkness mirrored that of the black slate of the creek bed.  Ball approached, and explored by eye and hand and ear and nose.  His eye registered nothing but the darkness that had a source not of night but of a place deep within the earth.  His hand felt the smooth, old roundness of the earth that framed the void.  A roar, like the sound of the sea when one listens to a seashell, drew his ear close, and then he smelled loam and moss and something like smoke.

Ball turned away from the hole and looked up again toward where the owl had cried and rustled, but that place was quiet now.  Clouds covered all stars and any possible moon.  He wanted to walk away back to his father and their small home, the little fire spitting in the damp wood, the goats bleating nearby.  But there was a hole, and there was much the boy wanted to know about all of the earth and its uncertainty, and he did not think it right that he should turn away.  He bent low and pushed his head inside.

The hole pulled him in, not literally, of course, but nevertheless there was a force less than but as certain as gravity.  Once through the opening a tunnel was revealed, large enough for an upright walk, and only a little farther the wall of the tunnel glowed a pale blue.  Not a bright light, but a faint luminescence that gave soft shape to the contours of the tunnel, allowing the boy to move on without a stumble.

Thinking nothing of what lie ahead Ball walked steadily on, sensing that the tunnel angled slowly but steadily down, deeper and deeper into the earth. The air grew heavier and ever more frequently the boy who was fit and very strong stopped and willed his lungs to fill.  He wanted to rest, but he knew that the soft blue light would wrap him up as cozily as his old blanket, and he could sleep forever.  He wanted to stop, but he continued on, farther and farther down into tunnel.  Now and again dark shadows and shapes leapt from only darkness and darted ahead, always just ahead, but nearer all the time.  Once he saw a spider as large as a collie dog, watching with red eyes. Ball felt no fear of the dog spider, and he wished he could offer a bone.  But he had no bone, and the spider would not wait for the boy's advance, but dashed on, forward, and out of site deeper down into the tunnel.  Ball walked on, always wanting to stop, realizing that he must turn back soon or be late for supper.  He forced himself on until time enough had passed, he thought, for the owl above to have completed her hunt.  Finally he came to the tunnel's end, and there he stopped.

He had been brave on his journey, and now he felt a need for rest.  He sat down on the soft loam of the tunnel's floor and rested his back against the hard surface that marked the end of his passage.  He crossed his arms over his chest—a safe talisman of sorts, a mason's mark that he had seen his father pass on to quiet men who sometimes came to buy cheese and bring wine, who stayed only a while and were soon gone.  Ball thought to say a word, although he did not pray any prayers other than those of his own making.  He wanted to say one word, some comforting word, but before that word formed he fell into the deepest sleep with neither dream nor word to guide him.

Ball woke and found himself beyond the tunnel's end.  He rubbed his eyes and yawned and looked around a great hall beneath the earth, a hall of smooth floor and arched ceiling, excavated deep within the solid rock, illuminated with the light of gems and fire stones, and warmed from no apparent source.  The light within this hall was near to the same pale blue that lit the tunnel, but softer and casting no shadows.  Great tapestries hung from the walls, plain of pattern, delicate, and pearl-like in sheen and color, woven, Ball imagined, from the webs of the dog spiders.  Pillows covered with a similar web-like material lay scattered about the floor.  Ball stretched his legs and arms, yawned, and then looked around and saw her half hidden in the cloud-like pillows, her soft eyes looking as though they had never before seen a human boy—or, perhaps, had seen but nearly forgotten. Ball watched the girl and she him for a time either without measure or as long as a lifetime, with the latter certainly more a measure than no time at all.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I'm Ball,” she said.  “My name is Ball.”

“That is most strange,” said the boy.  “My own name is Ball.”

“Not so strange,” said the girl, sitting up, smoothing her white pinafore over a dress of what appeared to be a kind of wool, but a wool that glowed just perceptibly with its own light, like a glow worm's light, but a shade of darker blue.  “There are many Balls, I should think, although there was, in this world, only one before there were two.”

“Two Balls,” Ball laughed, as if he had made a joke, but he embarrassed himself and looked away from the girl.  He let his eyes look round everywhere, at the many pillows and the tapestries, and the colored gems that twinkled like stars all around the cavern room.

“Are you from the outer world?” the girl asked.

“I am from there,” Ball said, indicating with a look up.  “From where the tunnel begins.”

“Where the tunnel begins is also where it ends,” said the girl.  “It depends.”

“Depends on what?” asked the boy.

“On whether you are coming or going, of course.  But also on whether you want to know or remember.  Down here we remember.  Up there you know.  At least you think you know.”

“My tutor tells me that I am progressing quite well with my numbers and letters,” Ball said,  “and I know my maps as well as anyone.  But to know something you must remember, I think.  Isn't that so?”

“Oh...” began the girl, inching on her knees closer to Ball until he smelled the scent of her, a girl scent, he knew from other girls, but a scent also of earth and sleep and dreams.

“One knows,” she continued, very close to him now, so close indeed that she reached out and brushed one finger slowly down the placket of his shirt, “only what one remembers.  But one remembers much, much more than one ever knows.”

“You say silly things,” said Ball, drawing back a bit, although he found her touch no more objectionable, really, then her scent, and he might have been content, he thought, with more of both.  He thought to tell her so, but he could not quite bring himself to do it.  Instead, he relaxed a bit, and leaned more forward in order to meet rather than withdraw from her finger, which she had kept in a single place, frozen, pointing perhaps at Ball's shirt placket but more likely toward his heart.

“Not silly,” she said, leaning again forward and applying a bit of finger's pressure, and Ball thought a fire arrow was notched and would soon be released and enter him.  “Remembering is the best.”

“What do you remember?” asked Ball, wanting to disarm this strange girl.

“I remember how it feels to touch a boy, for one thing,” she said, pressing her finger harder now, and Ball flinched.  “And I remember rain and the sun and warm baths sprinkled with rose.  But I also remember spankings and peas and fevers.”  She grimaced then, and her finger curled to join her hand, which made a soft fist and flew away like a small bird to the shelter of a deep pocket nearly hidden in the pinafore.  She was quiet for a while, and the glow of both the cave and her dress dimmed and pulsed slowly like weak heart.

Ball looked around the cave, waiting for her to come back to him with her finger or a word, and finally she asked him, pouting a bit, he thought: “And what is it exactly that you think you might know?”

“Oh, lot's, I suppose,” Ball said, knitting his brows in thought.  “I know the value of pi to seven decimal places, and I know that China is not the center of the world.  I know more than you can imagine, I should think, but I can't really remember.  Not now, at least.”

“And so that's why you've come here?  To remember?”

“I don't know.  I don't remember.”

“You must either know or remember,” said the girl a bit impatiently.  “There can be nothing else…except forgetting, and even that you would remember.  You could not know that you forgot unless you remembered.  Everybody knows that.”

“You confuse me,” said Ball.  “I do not know, and I do not remember.  And I do not remember that I forgot.”

“Then tell me, boy,” challenged the girl, moving much closer now and letting the bird of a hand with its talon of a finger fly fiercely back toward Ball's racing heart.  “What would you like to remember?”

“I don't know,” he said.  “My mother, maybe.”  This response was unplanned and a surprise to the boy, and it made him even more fearful.

“Your mother?”

“Yes.”

The girl's hand flew back to its nest, and her eyes flared briefly with such anger that the boy looked away.

“I had forgotten,” the girl said after a long moment's wait while her eyes once again softened.  “Sometimes, if you have not known, you cannot remember.”

“But I have known,” Ball said hopefully, “so I should surely be able to remember,”

“Oh, yes,” said the girl, “and I should surely be able to know.”

“You're crazy,” said Ball, and he leaned a bit forward as if to invite the girl's finger to fly forward again, as if he so wanted to be her good friend, but could not say so, and could only try to will her closer.  But the girl only looked at him, and he saw in her eyes that she was thinking, thinking as hard as he himself thought when he learned his maps and did his numbers.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

She stared harder back again.
 
“I'm thinking…” she said, hesitantly at first, but then most certainly.  “I'm thinking that we should have tea.  A nice tea will be so lovely to remember.  It is getting early here, you know.  Time for tea.  We must say goodbye soon.  It is deepest night in your world, and the way back will be long and dangerous.”

 The girl's voice was suddenly distant, Ball thought.  And her words made him sad and sleepy.  He thought that tea and a biscuit would be nice now, and much nicer than her words.

“Yes, please,” he said.  “Tea.  And biscuits.”

Ball clapped her hands.  From beyond the edge of light scuttled three dog spiders with silver trays saddled to their backs.  One tray held tea, one milk and honey, and the other biscuits, some of which were thickly glazed with chocolate.

Tea was served and the spiders bowed or curtsied, depending of course on whether they were boy or girl spiders, and then hurried back away beyond the edge of blue.

Ball and Ball drank the tea and ate the biscuits, and the boy Ball became drowsy and settled comfortably into the soft warmth of a pillow.  At one point, he woke for an instant and saw the girl watching him, and he reached for her hand as he would his mother's.

The tunnel path away from the deep Earth was barely glowing now, and thousands of eyes beaded through the gloaming.  A purring sound filled the tunnel, and sometimes a sad cry, and all the time a rush of wind moaned from the world above.

The trip was long and would have been endless had it not been for the boundaries of time, and when Ball emerged from the opening at the edge of the little creek, an owl cried, and a cloud broke to reveal the newest of moons.

Ball followed the creek's flow down until the dark line of the path home was just visible.  The path led safely to the cheesemaker's hut, far away from the owl, the creek, the moon, and the hole.  Wood smoke curled slowly through the chimney.  A cozy fire's glow lit a window and bid a welcome from the open door. From beyond the door the cheesemaker's shadow moved about with a heavy load.  When Ball came to the door and entered, the old man turned round and looked.  He placed a round of new white cheese upon the table.  Wiping his hands upon his apron he stepped forward for a closer look.

“Hello?”

“Hello, father.”

“Who are you?” he asked, squinting through his old, round glasses.

“I'm Ball,” the girl said.  “My name is Ball.”