Boots In The Park Quotes

This place is packed," Vee complained. "Where am I supposed to park?" She steered down an alley and slowed to a stop behind a bookstore. "This looks good. Lots of parking back here." "The sign says employee parking only." "How are they going to know that we aren't employees? The Neon blends right in. All these cars speak low class." "The sign says violators will be towed." "They just say that to scare people like you and me away. It's an empty threat. Nothing to worry about." ....... Vee came to a halt. "What is THAT?" We were standing in the parking lot behind the bookstore, a few feet from the Neon, and we were staring at a large piece of metal attached to the left rear tire. "I think it's a car boot," I said. "I can see that. What's it doing on my car?" "I guess when they say all violators will be towed, they mean it.

I like these boots," I told Vayl. "Do you think they'd sell them to me cheap? I keep ruining mine." "Since when do you fret over money?" he asked with amusement. "I was not even sure you knew what to do with it." I shrugged. "A women has needs." "Still." said Cole. "Gosh, Jaz, why didn't you say something to me? I'd never let you suffer.

You got a problem?" he drawled, obviously expecting me to pee my pants before falling to the ground and groveling like an unworthy subject of the Emperor. And that was all it took. A new, screw-you attitude took precedence, trampling my fear under its boots. A highly dangerous approach, I still found it much easier to bear. "Well it all goes back to my childhood…." I began,

However, the majority of women are neither harlots nor courtesans; nor do they sit clasping pug dogs to dusty velvet all through the summer afternoon. But what do they do then? and there came to my mind’s eye one of those long streets somewhere south of the river whose infinite rows are innumerably populated. With the eye of the imagination I saw a very ancient lady crossing the street on the arm of a middle-aged woman, her daughter, perhaps, both so respectably booted and furred that their dressing in the afternoon must be a ritual, and the clothes themselves put away in cupboards with camphor, year after year, throughout the summer months. They cross the road when the lamps are being lit (for the dusk is their favourite hour), as they must have done year after year. The elder is close on eighty; but if one asked her what her life has meant to her, she would say that she remembered the streets lit for the battle of Balaclava, or had heard the guns fire in Hyde Park for the birth of King Edward the Seventh. And if one asked her, longing to pin down the moment with date and season, but what were you doing on the fifth of April 1868, or the second of November 1875, she would look vague and say that she could remember nothing. For all the dinners are cooked; the plates and cups washed; the children sent to school and gone out into the world. Nothing remains of it all. All has vanished. No biography or history has a word to say about it. And the novels, without meaning to, inevitably lie. All these infinitely obscure lives remain to be recorded, I said, addressing Mary Carmichael as if she were present; and went on in thought through the streets of London feeling in imagination the pressure of dumbness, the accumulation of unrecorded life, whether from the women at the street corners with their arms akimbo, and the rings embedded in their fat swollen fingers, talking with a gesticulation like the swing of Shakespeare’s words; or from the violet-sellers and match-sellers and old crones stationed under doorways; or from drifting girls whose faces, like waves in sun and cloud, signal the coming of men and women and the flickering lights of shop windows. All that you will have to explore, I said to Mary Carmichael, holding your torch firm in your hand.

In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weathermen could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York was in heavy boots. And when something really terrible happened - like a nuclear bomb, or at least a biological weapons attack - an extremely loud siren would go off, telling everyone to get to Central Park to put sandbags around the reservoir.

Pink Balloons My name is Olivia King I am five years old My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist . She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand. "Here Livie, I bought this for you." She called me Livie. I was so happy . I'd never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloon wrapped around other kids wrist in the parking lot of Wal-Mart , but I never dreamed I would have my very own. My very own pink balloon. I was excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! i couldn't believe my mother bought me something! She'd never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours . It was full of helium and it danced and swayed and floated as I drug it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it in the bathroom , the closet , the laundry room , the kitchen , the living room . I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother's bedroom! My mothers Bedroom? Where I wasn't supposed to be? With my pink balloon... I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off her nose! She slapped me across the face as she told me how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never listened! She shoved me into the hallways and slammed the door, locking my pink balloon inside with her. I wanted him back! He was my best friend! Not her! The pink ribbon was still tied around my wrist so I pulled and pulled , trying to get my new best friend away from her. And it popped. My name is Eddie. I'm seventeen years old. My birthday is next week. I'll be big One-Eight. My foster dad is buying me these boots I've been wanting. I'm sure my friends will take me out to eat. My boyfriend will buy me a gift, maybe even take me to a movie. I'll even get a nice little card from my foster care worker, wishing me a happy eighteenth birthday, informing me I've aged out of the system. I'll have a good time. I know I will. But there's one thing I know for sure I better not get any shitty ass pink balloons!

Fulfilment of masculinity is often sold on the strength of peak experiences: winning battles, pulling women, pure adrenaline, moments of ecstasy. But life ain’t like that. We rarely, if ever, take our car (masculinity) on to a racetrack, so maybe we need a version that works doing the everyday things. We need a masculinity that’s easy to park, with a big boot, child seats and low fuel consumption. Men need to learn to equip themselves for peace.

Here's a list of the things you'll need. I jotted it down in the parking lot." Keri unfolded the paper and read the list twice, trying to get a sense of what she was in for. BRING: Bug spray; jeans;T-shirts; several sweatshirts,at least one with a hood; one flannel shirt(mandatory); pajamas(optional); underwear(also optional); bathing suit(preferably skimpy); more bug spray; sneakers; waterproof boots; good socks; sunscreen; two rolls of quarters. DO NOT BRING: Cell phone; blackberry; laptop; camera,either still or video; alarm clock; voice recorder, or any other kind of electronic anything. She had no clue what it meant, other than Joe wanting her half naked and unable to text for help.

The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati turn their trusting faces to the sun say to me care for us nurture us in my dreams I shudder and I run. I am six in a playground of white children Darkie, sing us an Indian song! Eight in a roomful of elders all mock my broken Gujarati English girl! Twelve, I tunnel into books forge an armor of English words. Eighteen, shaved head combat boots - shamed by masis in white saris neon judgments singe my western head. Mother tongue. Matrubhasha tongue of the mother I murder in myself. Through the years I watch Gujarati swell the swaggering egos of men mirror them over and over at twice their natural size. Through the years I watch Gujarati dissolve bones and teeth of women, break them on anvils of duty and service, burn them to skeletal ash. Words that don't exist in Gujarati : Self-expression. Individual. Lesbian. English rises in my throat rapier flashed at yuppie boys who claim their people “civilized” mine. Thunderbolt hurled at cab drivers yelling Dirty black bastard! Force-field against teenage hoods hissing F****ing Paki bitch! Their tongue - or mine? Have I become the enemy? Listen: my father speaks Urdu language of dancing peacocks rosewater fountains even its curses are beautiful. He speaks Hindi suave and melodic earthy Punjabi salty rich as saag paneer coastal Kiswahili laced with Arabic, he speaks Gujarati solid ancestral pride. Five languages five different worlds yet English shrinks him down before white men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality. Words that don't exist in English: Najjar Garba Arati. If we cannot name it does it exist? When we lose language does culture die? What happens to a tongue of milk-heavy cows, earthen pots jingling anklets, temple bells, when its children grow up in Silicon Valley to become programmers? Then there's American: Kin'uh get some service? Dontcha have ice? Not: May I have please? Ben, mane madhath karso? Tafadhali nipe rafiki Donnez-moi, s'il vous plait Puedo tener….. Hello, I said can I get some service?! Like, where's the line for Ay-mericans in this goddamn airport? Words that atomized two hundred thousand Iraqis: Didja see how we kicked some major ass in the Gulf? Lit up Bagdad like the fourth a' July! Whupped those sand-niggers into a parking lot! The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati bright as butter succulent cherries sounds I can paint on the air with my breath dance through like a Sufi mystic words I can weep and howl and devour words I can kiss and taste and dream this tongue I take back.

The point is,” he continued a little roughly, “I learned early on that we create our own narrative. It doesn’t matter what other people say about us as long as we know who and what we are. And here’s the other thing people don’t want you to know: you don’t have to be the same thing all the time. You can wear scuffed work boots one day, a bow tie the next.

Puggle isn’t a word, Bridge.” Letting her down gently had no effect. She stomped a boot on the ground, making the contents of the mystery pink bag rattle in her hand. “It is,” she insisted. “Ask someone.” I looked from left to right, wondering who she was expecting me to stop. As busy as the park was, I couldn’t see a single person who looked knowledgeable in Australian wildlife. “What am I supposed to ask, Bridget?” I asked. “Excuse me ma’am, do you know what a puggle is?” She raised her free hand, bouncing on the spot. “I know! I know!” she squealed. “It’s a baby ’chidna.” I made a mental note to hold off on the sarcasm for a year or two. I decided to dazzle her with science instead. I took my phone from my pocket and Googled it – then had to eat my words because a baby echidna is indeed called a puggle. “How can you possibly know the things you do?” She grinned, reminding me too much of her mom. “I’m a smart girl, Ry.

The town wakes early, like it does every day; small towns need a head start if they’re going to have any chance in the world. The rows of cars in the parking lot outside the factory are already covered with snow; people are standing in silent lines with their eyes half-open and their minds half-closed, waiting for their electronic punch cards to verify their existence to the clocking-in machine. They stamp the slush off their boots with autopilot eyes and answering-machine voices while they wait for their drug of choice—caffeine or nicotine or sugar—to kick in and render their bodies at least tolerably functional until the first break.

When you peel away all the layers of masculinity--the cleverness, power, sarcasm, the strength we built (or faked), the toughness (which is really just quiet suffering), white knuckles, bodies covered in boots and beards, muscles, green ink skulls, arrows, and ghosts, hearts surrounded as if by barbed wire--what you see is a sad boy in the dark afraid that he will always be alone because that is the first thing he ever learned about life.

We entered the cool cave of the practice space with all the long-haired, goateed boys stoned on clouds of pot and playing with power tools. I tossed my fluffy coat into the hollow of my bass drum and lay on the carpet with my worn newspaper. A shirtless boy came in and told us he had to cut the power for a minute, and I thought about being along in the cool black room with Joey. Let's go smoke, she said, and I grabbed the cigarettes off the amp. She started talking to me about Wonder Woman. I feel like something big is happening, but I don't know what to do about it. With The Straight Girl? I asked in the blankest voice possible. With everything. Back in the sun we walked to the edge of the parking lot where a black Impala convertible sat, rusted and rotting, looking like it just got dredged from a swamp. Rainwater pooling on the floor. We climbed up onto it and sat our butts backward on the edge of the windshield, feet stretched into the front seat. Before she even joined the band, I would think of her each time I passed the car, the little round medallions with the red and black racing flags affixed to the dash. On the rusting Chevy, Joey told me about her date the other night with a girl she used to like who she maybe liked again. How her heart was shut off and it felt pretty good. How she just wanted to play around with this girl and that girl and this girl and I smoked my cigarette and went Uh-Huh. The sun made me feel like a restless country girl even though I'd never been on a farm. I knew what I stood for, even if nobody else did. I knew the piece of me on the inside, truer than all the rest, that never comes out. Doesn't everyone have one? Some kind of grand inner princess waiting to toss her hair down, forever waiting at the tower window. Some jungle animal so noble and fierce you had to crawl on your belly through dangerous grasses to get a glimpse. I gave Joey my cigarette so I could unlace the ratty green laces of my boots, pull them off, tug the linty wool tights off my legs. I stretched them pale over the car, the hair springing like weeds and my big toenail looking cracked and ugly. I knew exactly who I was when the sun came back and the air turned warm. Joey climbed over the hood of the car, dusty black, and said Let's lie down, I love lying in the sun, but there wasn't any sun there. We moved across the street onto the shining white sidewalk and she stretched out, eyes closed. I smoked my cigarette, tossed it into the gutter and lay down beside her. She said she was sick of all the people who thought she felt too much, who wanted her to be calm and contained. Who? I asked. All the flowers, the superheroes. I thought about how she had kissed me the other night, quick and hard, before taking off on a date in her leather chaps, hankies flying, and I sat on the couch and cried at everything she didn't know about how much I liked her, and someone put an arm around me and said, You're feeling things, that's good. Yeah, I said to Joey on the sidewalk, I Feel Like I Could Calm Down Some. Awww, you're perfect. She flipped her hand over and touched my head. Listen, we're barely here at all, I wanted to tell her, rolling over, looking into her face, we're barely here at all and everything goes so fast can't you just kiss me? My eyes were shut and the cars sounded close when they passed. The sun was weak but it baked the grime on my skin and made it smell delicious. A little kid smell. We sat up to pop some candy into our mouths, and then Joey lay her head on my lap, spent from sugar and coffee. Her arm curled back around me and my fingers fell into her slippery hair. On the February sidewalk that felt like spring.

Xavier long-ago recognized the power of his looks and commanding presence and had successfully parlayed it to his advantage throughout his career and writing had been very lucrative for him. Then, he met Pilar, his #1 fanatic fan and the game changed. The shit got real.

On the land adjoining La Grenouillère strollers were sauntering under the gigantic trees which help to make this part of the island one of the most delightful parks imaginable. Busty women with peroxided hair and nipped-in waists could be seen, made up to the nines with blood red lips and black-kohled eyes. Tightly laced into their garish dresses they trailed in all their vulgar glory over the fresh green grass. They were accompanied by men whose fashion-plate accessories, light gloves, patent-leather boots, canes as slender as threads and absurd monocles made them look like complete idiots.

Hey!" Eddie said. The baby [T-Rex] lunged forward, and clamped its jaws around the ankle of his boot. He pulled his foot away, dragging the baby, which held its grip tightly. "Hey! Let go!" Eddie lifted his leg up, shook it back and forth, but the baby refused to let go. He pulled for a moment longer, then stopped. Now the baby just lay there on the ground, breathing shallowly, jaws still locked around Eddie's boot. "Jeez," Eddie said. Eddie looked down at the tiny, razor-sharp jaws. They hadn't penetrated the leather. The baby held on firmly. With the butt of his rifle, he poked the infant's head a couple times. It had no effect at all. The baby lay on the ground, breathing shallowly. Its big eyes blinked slowly as they stared up at Eddie, but it did not release its grip.

I would have no problem with you driving my car if you would keep it under ninety." "And I'd have no problem with riding in your car if you'd keep it over geriatric," Ronan replied." It was early November; the trees were handsome; the sky was clear; excitement was in the air. The three brothers debated in a Goodwill parking lot; those entering and leaving stared. they were an eye-catchingly mismatched threesome: Ronan, with his ominous boots and ominous expression; Declan, with his perfectly controlled curls and dutiful gray suit; Matthew, with his outstandingly ugly checked pants and cheerfully blue puffer coat. Ronan continued, "There are stains that spread faster than you drive. If you drive, it'll take fourteen years to get there. Seventeen. Forty. One hundred. We'll be driving to your funeral by the end.

The July sun blazed in the middle of the sky and the atmosphere was gay and carefree, while in the windless air not a leaf stirred in the poplars and willows lining the banks of the river. In the distance ahead, the conspicuous bulk of Mont-Valérien loomed, rearing the ramparts of its fortifications in the glare of the sun. On the right, the gentle slopes of Louveciennes, following the curve of the river, formed a semi-circle within which could be glimpsed, through the dense and shady greenery of their spacious lawns, the white-painted walls of weekend retreats. On the land adjoining La Grenouillère strollers were sauntering under the gigantic trees which help to make this part of the island one of the most delightful parks imaginable. Busty women with peroxided hair and nipped-in waists could be seen, made up to the nines with blood red lips and black-kohled eyes. Tightly laced into their garish dresses they trailed in all their vulgar glory over the fresh green grass. They were accompanied by men whose fashion-plate accessories, light gloves, patent-leather boots, canes as slender as threads and absurd monocles made them look like complete idiots.

small towns need a head start if they’re going to have any chance in the world. The rows of cars in the parking lot outside the factory are already covered with snow; people are standing in silent lines with their eyes half-open and their minds half-closed, waiting for their electronic punch cards to verify their existence to the clocking-in machine. They stamp the slush off their boots with autopilot eyes and answering-machine voices while they wait for their drug of choice—caffeine or nicotine or sugar—to kick in and render their bodies at least tolerably functional until the first break.

It isn't just the idea of a woman in a truck. At this point, they're everywhere. The statisticians tell us today's woman is as likely to buy a truck as a minivan. One cheers the suffrage, but the effect is dilutive. My head doesn't snap around the way it used to. Ignoring for the moment that my head (or the gray hairs upon it) may be the problem, I think it's not about women in trucks, it's about certain women in certain trucks. Not so long ago I was fueling my lame tan sedan at the Gas-N-Go when a woman roared across the lot in a dusty pickup and pulled up to park by the yellow cage in which they lock up the LP bottles. She dismounted wearing scuffed boots and dirty jeans and a T-shirt that was overwashed and faded, and at the very sight of her I made an involuntary noise that went, approximately, ohf...! I suppose ohf...! reflects as poorly on my character as wolf whistle, but I swear it escaped without premeditation. Strictly a spinal reflex. [...] The woman plucking her eyebrows in the vanity mirror of her waxed F-150 Lariat does not elicit the reflex. Even less so if her payload includes soccer gear or nothing at all. That woman at the Gas-N-Go? I checked the back of her truck. Hay bales and a coon dog crate. Ohf...!

I saw her as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. This beautiful woman with a gigantic smile on her face was just about bouncing up and down despite the orthopedic boot she had on her foot as she waved me into a parking space. I felt like I’d been hit in the gut. She took my breath away. She was dressed in workout clothes, her long brown hair softly framing her face, and she just glowed. I composed myself and got out of the car. She was standing with Paul Orr, the radio host I was there to meet. Local press had become fairly routine for me at this point, so I hadn’t really given it much thought when I agreed to be a guest on the afternoon drive-time show for WZZK. But I had no idea I’d meet her.

there is nothing generic about a human life. When I was little, to get to my bus stop, I had to cross a field that had so much snow my parents fitted me with ski pants and knee-high thermal boots that were toasty to forty degrees below zero. I am excellent in the stern of a canoe, but I never got the hang of riding a bike with no hands. I have seen the northern lights because my parents always woke up the whole house when the night sky was painted with color. I love the smell of clover and chamomile because my sister and I used to pick both on the way home from swimming lessons. I spent weeks of my childhood riding around on my bike saving drowning worms after a heavy rain. My hair is my favorite feature even though it’s too heavy for most ponytails, and I still can’t parallel park. There is no life in general. Each day has been a collection of trivial details—little intimacies and jokes and screw-ups and realizations.

He crouched down next to me. I put my hand on the hem of his jeans. It was the first time I'd touched him since that day in the cafeteria line. "I've got so much to tell you," he said, so quietly I almost couldn't hear. "Been thinking about how to even start." "Start anywhere," I whispered. "I just want to know." "I feel like I've already told you everything, in a way. I've been talking to you in my head for eight years, writing epics and sequels to epics, and sequels to the sequels." I let my fingers move down to the laces of his boots, then up to the top of his sock. One more millimeter and my fingertip would be against his skin. I moved it back down, resting on the knob of his ankle. "I'm here now," I said. "You can talk to me, right out loud." Just then, two boys, eight or nine years old, crashed into the grove, leaping over the stream like we had. They froze when they saw us; I jerked my hand away from Cameron's ankle and sat up. "Oh," one boy said, "hi." "Hi," I said. "We were just leaving." I got up without Cameron's help, brushed myself off, and followed him back to the parking lot.

Honest to God, I hadn’t meant to start a bar fight. “So. You’re the famous Jordan Amador.” The demon sitting in front of me looked like someone filled a pig bladder with rotten cottage cheese. He overflowed the bar stool with his gelatinous stomach, just barely contained by a white dress shirt and an oversized leather jacket. Acid-washed jeans clung to his stumpy legs and his boots were at least twice the size of mine. His beady black eyes started at my ankles and dragged upward, past my dark jeans, across my black turtleneck sweater, and over the grey duster around me that was two sizes too big. He finally met my gaze and snorted before continuing. “I was expecting something different. Certainly not a black girl. What’s with the name, girlie?” I shrugged. “My mother was a religious woman.” “Clearly,” the demon said, tucking a fat cigar in one corner of his mouth. He stood up and walked over to the pool table beside him where he and five of his lackeys had gathered. Each of them was over six feet tall and were all muscle where he was all fat. “I could start to examine the literary significance of your name, or I could ask what the hell you’re doing in my bar,” he said after knocking one of the balls into the left corner pocket. “Just here to ask a question, that’s all. I don’t want trouble.” Again, he snorted, but this time smoke shot from his nostrils, which made him look like an albino dragon. “My ass you don’t. This place is for fallen angels only, sweetheart. And we know your reputation.” I held up my hands in supplication. “Honest Abe. Just one question and I’m out of your hair forever.” My gaze lifted to the bald spot at the top of his head surrounded by peroxide blonde locks. “What’s left of it, anyway.” He glared at me. I smiled, batting my eyelashes. He tapped his fingers against the pool cue and then shrugged one shoulder. “Fine. What’s your question?” “Know anybody by the name of Matthias Gruber?” He didn’t even blink. “No.” “Ah. I see. Sorry to have wasted your time.” I turned around, walking back through the bar. I kept a quick, confident stride as I went, ignoring the whispers of the fallen angels in my wake. A couple called out to me, asking if I’d let them have a taste, but I didn’t spare them a glance. Instead, I headed to the ladies’ room. Thankfully, it was empty, so I whipped out my phone and dialed the first number in my Recent Call list. “Hey. He’s here. Yeah, I’m sure it’s him. They’re lousy liars when they’re drunk. Uh-huh. Okay, see you in five.” I hung up and let out a slow breath. Only a couple things left to do. I gathered my shoulder-length black hair into a high ponytail. I looped the loose curls around into a messy bun and made sure they wouldn’t tumble free if I shook my head too hard. I took the leather gloves in the pocket of my duster out and pulled them on. Then, I walked out of the bathroom and back to the front entrance. The coat-check girl gave me a second unfriendly look as I returned with my ticket stub to retrieve my things—three vials of holy water, a black rosary with the beads made of onyx and the cross made of wood, a Smith & Wesson .9mm Glock complete with a full magazine of blessed bullets and a silencer, and a worn out page of the Bible. I held out my hands for the items and she dropped them on the counter with an unapologetic, “Oops.” “Thanks,” I said with a roll of my eyes. I put the Glock back in the hip holster at my side and tucked the rest of the items in the pockets of my duster. The brunette demon crossed her arms under her hilariously oversized fake breasts and sent me a vicious sneer. “The door is that way, Seer. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.” I smiled back. “God bless you.” She let out an ugly hiss between her pearly white teeth. I blew her a kiss and walked out the door. The parking lot was packed outside now that it was half-past midnight. Demons thrived in darkness, so I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I’d been counting on it.

Afterward, we went to grab a bite of dinner. Just like at lunch, we talked forever. We shut that restaurant down. They actually had to tell us to leave because they were closing. So then we stood in the parking lot talking. It was freezing but neither of us wanted to go home. We stood out there so long that the employees of the restaurant had already cleaned up and left. We were completely alone in the lot. Then she did the most adorable thing. I don’t know how the conversation had gone this way but flat feet came up. So all of a sudden she chirped, “I have really flat feet. I’m like a rabbit!” And then, without warning, she whipped off one of her cowboy boots and tapped her foot on the ground really fast. Bump-bump-bump-bump. “I’m like Thumper from Bambi!” she exclaimed. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, This girl is crazy and I absolutely love it. I was laughing, she was laughing, and I decided to go in for the kiss. I leaned in and then she suddenly leaned back. Crap. I was so embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I went in for it, and it wasn’t good.” I hung my head down. “No, no, no, I panicked! Please, try again!” she said. “No, I won’t make a fool of myself twice in one night. We’ll try again another day,” I said and I changed the subject. I was talking about something else for a while and then she whispered, “Just kiss me.” I did and it was incredible. Every moment I spent with this girl, I fell more and more in love with her.

One day the Galloways got a little more excitement than we were prepared for. We moved around a lot and at this point we were living in a trailer park in Auburn, Alabama. Hoss and I were out in the front yard on our regular patrol while my older sister Jennifer and younger sister Sara were playing by themselves. Sara was three years old and I guess she decided she wanted to go for a ride. My dad’s blue truck was out in front of the house and apparently he’d forgotten about the parking brake. The truck was in gear as Sara managed to pull the door open and muscle herself up into the cab. As she climbed in and got situated she kicked the truck out of gear with her tiny sneakered foot. The truck started rolling down the driveway toward a ditch. Jennifer started screaming. Faster than a speeding bullet I leapt into action! I ran toward her, blue cape flying in the wind behind me. I reached the truck. I grabbed on to the door frame of the open passenger side of the truck. I told Sara everything would be okay, and I stuck my heels down in the mud and pulled back with all my might. The mud was spewing from either side of my firmly planted boots as I started to slide along with the truck. I never lost my grip and I am convinced I was able to slow the roll down enough for Mom and Dad to come running out of the house. Dad jumped up into the truck and was able to throw the brake to stop the truck while Mom scooped up Sara. Super Noah saved the day. At least I wanted to believe that.

I saw her as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. This beautiful woman with a gigantic smile on her face was just about bouncing up and down despite the orthopedic boot she had on her foot as she waved me into a parking space. I felt like I’d been hit in the gut. She took my breath away. She was dressed in workout clothes, her long brown hair softly framing her face, and she just glowed. I composed myself and got out of the car. She was standing with Paul Orr, the radio host I was there to meet. Local press had become fairly routine for me at this point, so I hadn’t really given it much thought when I agreed to be a guest on the afternoon drive-time show for WZZK. But I had no idea I’d meet her. Paul reached out his hand and introduced himself. And without waiting to be introduced she whipped out her hand and said, “Hi! I’m Jamie Boyd!” And right away she was talking a mile a minute. She was so chipper I couldn’t help but smile. I was like that little dog in Looney Toons who is always following the big bulldog around shouting, “What are we going to do today, Spike?” She was adorable. She started firing off questions, one of which really caught my attention. “So you were in the Army? What was your MOS?” she asked. Now, MOS is a military term most civilians have never heard. It stands for Military Occupational Specialty. It’s basically military code for “job.” So instead of just asking me what my job was in the Army, she knew enough to specifically ask me what my MOS was. I was impressed. “Eleven Bravo. Were you in?” I replied. “Nope! But I’ve thought about it. I still think one day I will join the Army.” We followed Paul inside and as he set things up and got ready for his show, Jamie and I talked nonstop. She, too, was really into fitness. She was dressed and ready for the gym and told me she was about to leave to get in a quick workout before her shift on-air. “Yeah, I have the shift after Paul Orr. The seven-to-midnight show. I call it the Jammin’ with Jamie Show. People call in and I’ll ask them if they’re cryin’, laughin’, lovin’, or leavin’.” I couldn’t believe how into this girl I was, and we’d only been talking for twenty minutes. I was also dressed in gym clothes, because I’d been to the gym earlier. She looked down and saw the rubber bracelet around my wrist. “Is that an ‘I Am Second’ bracelet? I have one of those!” she said as she held up her wrist with the band that means, “I am second after Jesus.” “No, this is my own bracelet with my motto, ‘Train like a Machine,’ on it. Just my little self-motivator. I have some in my car. I’d love to give you one.” “Well, actually, I am about to leave. I have to go work out before my shift,” she reminded me. “You can have this one. Take it off my wrist. This one will be worth more someday because I’ve been sweating in it,” I joked. She laughed and took it off my wrist. We kept chatting and she told me she had wanted to do an obstacle course race for a long time. Then Paul interrupted our conversation and gently reminded Jamie he had a show to do. He and I needed to start our interview. She laughed some more and smiled her way out the door.

We came to the city because we wished to live haphazardly, to reach for only the least realistic of our desires, and to see if we could not learn what our failures had to teach, and not, when we came to live, discover that we had never died. We wanted to dig deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to be overworked and reduced to our last wit. And if our bosses proved mean, why then we’d evoke their whole and genuine meanness afterward over vodka cranberries and small batch bourbons. And if our drinking companions proved to be sublime then we would stagger home at dawn over the Old City cobblestones, into hot showers and clean shirts, and press onward until dusk fell again. For the rest of the world, it seemed to us, had somewhat hastily concluded that it was the chief end of man to thank God it was Friday and pray that Netflix would never forsake them. Still we lived frantically, like hummingbirds; though our HR departments told us that our commitments were valuable and our feedback was appreciated, our raises would be held back another year. Like gnats we pestered Management— who didn’t know how to use the Internet, whose only use for us was to set up Facebook accounts so they could spy on their children, or to sync their iPhones to their Outlooks, or to explain what tweets were and more importantly, why— which even we didn’t know. Retire! we wanted to shout. We ha Get out of the way with your big thumbs and your senior moments and your nostalgia for 1976! We hated them; we wanted them to love us. We wanted to be them; we wanted to never, ever become them. Complexity, complexity, complexity! We said let our affairs be endless and convoluted; let our bank accounts be overdrawn and our benefits be reduced. Take our Social Security contributions and let it go bankrupt. We’d been bankrupt since we’d left home: we’d secure our own society. Retirement was an afterlife we didn’t believe in and that we expected yesterday. Instead of three meals a day, we’d drink coffee for breakfast and scavenge from empty conference rooms for lunch. We had plans for dinner. We’d go out and buy gummy pad thai and throat-scorching chicken vindaloo and bento boxes in chintzy, dark restaurants that were always about to go out of business. Those who were a little flush would cover those who were a little short, and we would promise them coffees in repayment. We still owed someone for a movie ticket last summer; they hadn’t forgotten. Complexity, complexity. In holiday seasons we gave each other spider plants in badly decoupaged pots and scarves we’d just learned how to knit and cuff links purchased with employee discounts. We followed the instructions on food and wine Web sites, but our soufflés sank and our baked bries burned and our basil ice creams froze solid. We called our mothers to get recipes for old favorites, but they never came out the same. We missed our families; we were sad to be rid of them. Why shouldn’t we live with such hurry and waste of life? We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to decrypt our neighbors’ Wi-Fi passwords and to never turn on the air-conditioning. We vowed to fall in love: headboard-clutching, desperate-texting, hearts-in-esophagi love. On the subways and at the park and on our fire escapes and in the break rooms, we turned pages, resolved to get to the ends of whatever we were reading. A couple of minutes were the day’s most valuable commodity. If only we could make more time, more money, more patience; have better sex, better coffee, boots that didn’t leak, umbrellas that didn’t involute at the slightest gust of wind. We were determined to make stupid bets. We were determined to be promoted or else to set the building on fire on our way out. We were determined to be out of our minds.

Lottie had devised three or four different walks, each lasting approximately an hour. This morning she chose the one that began along Hill Road, crossed through a medieval oak and hazel forest, and passed the source of a local spring called the Wishing Well. It was a cool, damp morning typical of the beginning of May, and Lottie drew in deep breaths of the earth-scented air. Dressed in a gown with loose ankle-lemgth skirts, her feet shod in sturdy mid-calf boots, Lottie trod energetically away from Westcliff Manor. She followed a sandy track that led into the forest, while natterjack toads hopped out of the path of her oncoming boots. The trees rustled overhead, the wind carrying the cries of nuthatches and whitethroats. A huge, ungainly buzzard flapped its way toward the nearby bogs in search of breakfast.

Finally, D pulled into an alley behind a strip mall and parked the car. He reached into the back-seat, pulled a laptop out of his messenger bag and booted up, balancing the thing on his knees. Jack tried to look nonchalant and unconcerned, as if he parked in alleys with hired killers every day of the week and this was nothing new.

There was a bar in a standalone wooden building, with a patch of weedy gravel for parking, and on the gravel were seven Harley-Davidsons, all in a neat line. Possibly not actual Hells Angels as such. Possibly one of many other parallel denominations. Bikers were as split as Baptists. All the same, but different. Apparently these particular guys liked black leather tassels and chromium plating. They liked to lie back and ride with their legs spread wide and their feet sticking out in front of them. Possibly a cooling effect. Perhaps necessary. Generally they wore heavy leather vests. And pants, and boots. All black. Hot, in late summer.

I knew you forever and you were always old, soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold me for sitting up late, reading your letters, as if these foreign postmarks were meant for me. You posted them first in London, wearing furs and a new dress in the winter of eighteen-ninety. I read how London is dull on Lord Mayor's Day, where you guided past groups of robbers, the sad holes of Whitechapel, clutching your pocketbook, on the way to Jack the Ripper dissecting his famous bones. This Wednesday in Berlin, you say, you will go to a bazaar at Bismarck's house. And I see you as a young girl in a good world still, writing three generations before mine. I try to reach into your page and breathe it back… but life is a trick, life is a kitten in a sack. This is the sack of time your death vacates. How distant your are on your nickel-plated skates in the skating park in Berlin, gliding past me with your Count, while a military band plays a Strauss waltz. I loved you last, a pleated old lady with a crooked hand. Once you read Lohengrin and every goose hung high while you practiced castle life in Hanover. Tonight your letters reduce history to a guess. The count had a wife. You were the old maid aunt who lived with us. Tonight I read how the winter howled around the towers of Schloss Schwobber, how the tedious language grew in your jaw, how you loved the sound of the music of the rats tapping on the stone floors. When you were mine you wore an earphone. This is Wednesday, May 9th, near Lucerne, Switzerland, sixty-nine years ago. I learn your first climb up Mount San Salvatore; this is the rocky path, the hole in your shoes, the yankee girl, the iron interior of her sweet body. You let the Count choose your next climb. You went together, armed with alpine stocks, with ham sandwiches and seltzer wasser. You were not alarmed by the thick woods of briars and bushes, nor the rugged cliff, nor the first vertigo up over Lake Lucerne. The Count sweated with his coat off as you waded through top snow. He held your hand and kissed you. You rattled down on the train to catch a steam boat for home; or other postmarks: Paris, verona, Rome. This is Italy. You learn its mother tongue. I read how you walked on the Palatine among the ruins of the palace of the Caesars; alone in the Roman autumn, alone since July. When you were mine they wrapped you out of here with your best hat over your face. I cried because I was seventeen. I am older now. I read how your student ticket admitted you into the private chapel of the Vatican and how you cheered with the others, as we used to do on the fourth of July. One Wednesday in November you watched a balloon, painted like a silver abll, float up over the Forum, up over the lost emperors, to shiver its little modern cage in an occasional breeze. You worked your New England conscience out beside artisans, chestnut vendors and the devout. Tonight I will learn to love you twice; learn your first days, your mid-Victorian face. Tonight I will speak up and interrupt your letters, warning you that wars are coming, that the Count will die, that you will accept your America back to live like a prim thing on the farm in Maine. I tell you, you will come here, to the suburbs of Boston, to see the blue-nose world go drunk each night, to see the handsome children jitterbug, to feel your left ear close one Friday at Symphony. And I tell you, you will tip your boot feet out of that hall, rocking from its sour sound, out onto the crowded street, letting your spectacles fall and your hair net tangle as you stop passers-by to mumble your guilty love while your ears die.

Steve drove us to the airstrip at the ranger station. One of the young rangers there immediately began to bend his ear about a wildlife issue. I took Robert off to pee on a bush before we had to get on the plane. It was just a tiny little prop plane and there would be no restroom until we got to Cairns. When we came back, all the general talk meant that there wasn’t much time left for us to say good-bye. Bindi pressed a note into Steve’s hand and said, “Don’t read this until we’re gone.” I gave Steve a big hug and a kiss. Then I kissed him again. I wanted to warn him to be careful about diving. It was my same old fear and discomfort with all his underwater adventures. A few days earlier, as Steve stepped off a dinghy, his boot had gotten tangled in a rope. “Watch out for that rope,” I said. He shot me a look that said, I’ve just caught forty-nine crocodiles in three weeks, and you’re thinking I’m going to fall over a rope? I laughed sheepishly. It seemed absurd to caution Steve about being careful. Steve was his usual enthusiastic self as we climbed into the plane. We knew we would see each other in less than two weeks. I would head back to the zoo, get some work done, and leave for Tasmania. Steve would do his filming trip. Then we would all be together again. We had arrived at a remarkable place in our relationship. Our trip to Lakefield had been one of the most special months of my entire life. The kids had a great time. We were all in the same place together, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We were all there. The pilot fired up the plane. Robert had a seat belt on and couldn’t see out the window. I couldn’t lift him up without unbuckling him, so he wasn’t able to see his daddy waving good-bye. But Bindi had a clear view of Steve, who had parked his Ute just outside the gable markers and was standing on top of it, legs wide apart, a big smile on his face, waving his hands over his head. I could see Bindi’s note in one of his hands. He had read it and was acknowledging it to Bindi. She waved frantically out the window. As the plane picked up speed, we swept past him and then we were into the sky.

The next morning, Steve took his boat out and saw what had happened. The big male had triggered the trap and was snared in the mesh--sort of. Even though the rectangular-shaped net was the biggest he had, the croc’s tail and back leg stuck out. But the black ghost had finally been caught. At Steve’s approach, the animal thrashed wildly, smashing apart mangrove trees on either side of the trap. Steve tried to top-jaw-rope the croc, but it was fighting too violently. Normally Chilli acted as a distraction, giving Steve the chance to secure the croc. But the dog wanted no part of this. She cowered on the floor of the dinghy, unwilling to face this monstrously large croc. Steve was truly on his own. He finally secured a top-jaw rope and tied the other end to a tree. With a massive “death roll”--a defensive maneuver in which the reptile spins its enormous body--the big croc smashed the tree flat and snapped it off. Steve tried again; the croc thrashed, growling and roaring in protest at the trapper in khaki, lunging again and again to tear Steve apart. Finally, the giant croc death-rolled so violently that he came off the bank and landed in the boat, which immediately sank. Chilli had jumped out and was swimming for shore as Steve worked against time. With the croc underwater, Steve lashed the croc, trap and all, in the dinghy. But moving the waterlogged boat and a ton of crocodile was simply too much. Steve sprinted several miles in the tropical heat to reach a cane farm, where he hoped to get help. The cane farmers were a bit hesitant to lend a hand, so Steve promised them a case of beer, and a deal was made. With a sturdy fishing boat secured to each side of Steve’s dinghy, they managed to tow it downriver where they could winch croc and boat onto dry land to get him into a crate. By this time, a crowd of spectators had gathered. When Steve told me the story of the capture, I got the sense that he felt sorry he had to catch the crocodile at all. “It seemed wrong to remove the king of the river,” Steve said. “That croc had lasted in his territory for decades. Here I was taking him out of it. The local people just seemed relieved, and a couple even joked about how many boots he’d make.” Steve was very clever to include the local people and soon won them over to see just how special this crocodile really was. Just as he was dragged into his crate, the old croc attempted a final act of defiance, a death roll that forced Steve to pin him again. “I whispered to him to calm him down,” Steve said. “What did you say to him?” I asked. “Please don’t die.” The black crocodile didn’t die. Steve brought him back to Beerwah, named him Acco, and gave him a beautiful big pond that Bob had prepared, with plenty of places to hide. We were in the Crocodile Environmental Park at the zoo when Steve first told me the story of Acco’s capture. I just had to revisit him after hearing his story. There he was, the black ghost himself, magnificently sunning on the bank of his billabong.

Once, in the rain, a van turned a corner suddenly at her and she stumbled over her boots into a ditch and then she saw herself clearly: a woman in early middle age wearing rubber boots walking in the dark looking for a white car and now falling into a ditch, prepared to go on walking and to be satisfied with the sight of the man’s car in a parking lot even if the man was somewhere else and with another woman.

I have new words for the dictionary. to knock boots, phr., to have sexual intercourse tracks, n., contract (as in “I got a track to kill him”) to do, v., to fuck to do, v., to kill clean, adj., handsome to Brodie, v., to jump, usually from a building or a bridge; taken from a Mr. Brodie who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge to lash, v., to urinate chronic, n., marijuana, esp. high-quality smudge, n., black person Ape Avenue, n., Eighth Avenue (police slang) puppy, n., handgun (Jamaican word) scrambler, n., low-level runner for a drug dealer cocola, n., black person (Puerto Rican word) spliv, n., black person to be hung like a horse, phr., to have influential connections in the police department; also a guy who is hung like a horse ground ball, phr., something easy or simple to pull a train, v., to have group sex, gang-bang stinger, n., drug dealer to inflash, v., to inform (as in “he inflash me with the bitch’s scenario”) to double, v., to double-park to sleep in a tent, exp., to have a large penis to be built like a tripod, phr., to have a large penis dixie cup, n., a person who is considered disposable her, she, pron., wife

Of all organizations, it was oddly enough Wal-Mart that best recognized the complex nature of the circumstances, according to a case study from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Briefed on what was developing, the giant discount retailer’s chief executive officer, Lee Scott, issued a simple edict. “This company will respond to the level of this disaster,” he was remembered to have said in a meeting with his upper management. “A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level. Make the best decision that you can with the information that’s available to you at the time, and, above all, do the right thing.” As one of the officers at the meeting later recalled, “That was it.” The edict was passed down to store managers and set the tone for how people were expected to react. On the most immediate level, Wal-Mart had 126 stores closed due to damage and power outages. Twenty thousand employees and their family members were displaced. The initial focus was on helping them. And within forty-eight hours, more than half of the damaged stores were up and running again. But according to one executive on the scene, as word of the disaster’s impact on the city’s population began filtering in from Wal-Mart employees on the ground, the priority shifted from reopening stores to “Oh, my God, what can we do to help these people?” Acting on their own authority, Wal-Mart’s store managers began distributing diapers, water, baby formula, and ice to residents. Where FEMA still hadn’t figured out how to requisition supplies, the managers fashioned crude paper-slip credit systems for first responders, providing them with food, sleeping bags, toiletries, and also, where available, rescue equipment like hatchets, ropes, and boots. The assistant manager of a Wal-Mart store engulfed by a thirty-foot storm surge ran a bulldozer through the store, loaded it with any items she could salvage, and gave them all away in the parking lot. When a local hospital told her it was running short of drugs, she went back in and broke into the store’s pharmacy—and was lauded by upper management for it.

I drive fifteen miles, find the house I’m looking for, and drive on by. I wait until I’m parked in an abandoned barn before I put on my gloves, suit, and heavy men’s boots. I also strap on the backpacks weighted down with rocks… One on my back and one on my front.

The boat slid off the trailer into the water. Once the boat was in the water, Aunt Claire and Victor began to unload everything from the van. “Cheri,” Aunt Claire called. “We could use your help.” Cheri frowned. She stepped out of the van and traded her sneakers for an old pair of hip boots as her aunt pulled the van away from the boat launch ramp and parked it up on high ground. Cheri helped her cousin load the boat. When Aunt Claire returned five minutes later she was pleased to see that everything had been loaded into the boat. She handed out life jackets. Once everyone had a life jacket on she said, “All aboard, the water taxi is departing.” Victor eagerly hopped into the boat and claimed the

house. I watched it parallel park, then go silent as the lights switched off. The driver’s side door opened, and my best friend, Matthew, stepped down. His cowboy boots

The Nursing Home This Sunday, I paid a visit to a nursing home and noticed the empty bed in the room adjacent to my mom's. Crisp sheets stood proxy for where her elderly neighbor lay, an unshaven man or a woman with whiskers, I forget which, when I visited last ~ it couldn't have been a month, two at the most. The empty bed's corners were meticulously tucked in, like an army recruit's at boot camp, bleached of any possible embarrassment. After countless episodes of CSI, I cannot hear the word 'bleach' without thinking of incriminating evidence linking a victim to a killer. You must admit an empty bed at a nursing home is creepy; every empty room seems a trap, every lackadaisical nurse an accessory to murder, every administrator a potential Adolf Eichmann facilitating a program of geriatric genocide... Shit, I forgot to validate my parking. "Mom, I'll be right back," I say, with a smile, closing the room with the empty bed, bleaching my head of any possible embarrassment.

Then, impossibly, another figure ran toward her. The sideburns and stiff-collared jacket looked ridiculous out of the context of Pembrook Park, though he’d stuck on a baseball cap and trench coat, trying to blend. His face was flushed from running, and when he saw Jane, he sighed with relief. Jane dropped her jaw. Literally. She had never, even in her most ridiculous daydreaming, imagined that Mr. Nobley would come after her. She took a step back, hit something slick with her boot heel, and tottered almost to the ground. Mr. Nobley caught her and set her back up on her feet. Is this why women wear heels? thought Jane. We hobble ourselves so we can still be rescued by men? She annoyed herself by having enjoyed it. Briefly. “You haven’t left yet,” Nobley said. He seemed reluctant to let go of her, but he did and took a few steps back. “I’ve been panicked that…” He saw Martin. “What are you doing here?” The brunette was watching with hungry intensity, though she kept tapping at a keyboard as though actually very busy at work. “Jane and I got close these past weeks and--” Martin began. “Got close. That’s a load of duff. It’s one thing when you’re toying with the dowagers who guess what you are, but Jane should be off limits.” He took her arm. “You can’t believe a word he says. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier, but you must know now that he’s an actor.” “I know,” Jane said. Nobley blinked. “Oh.” “So, what are you doing here?” She couldn’t help it if her tone sounded a little tired. This was becoming farcical. “I came to tell you that I--” he rushed to speak, then composed himself, looked around, and stepped closer to her so he did not need to raise his voice to be heard. The brunette leaned forward just a tad. “I apologize for having to tell you here, in this busy, dirty…this is not the scene I would set, but you must know that I…” He took off his cap and rubbed his hair ragged. “I’ve been working at Pembrook Park for nearly four years. All the women I see, week after week, they’re the same. Nearly from the first, that morning when we were alone in the park, I guessed that you might be different. You were sincere.” He reached for her hand. He seemed to gain confidence, his lips started to smile, and he looked at her as though he never wished to look away.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Miss Erstwhile,” Martin said. Jane spun around, guilty to have just come from a marriage proposal, ecstatic at her refusal, dispirited by another ending, and surprised to discover Martin was the one person in the world she most wanted to see. “Good evening, Theodore,” she said. “I’m Mr. Bentley now, a man of land and status, hence the fancy garb. They’ll allow me to be gentry tonight because they need the extra bodies, but only so long as I don’t talk too much.” His eyes flicked to a point across the room. Jane followed his glance and saw Mrs. Wattlesbrook wrapped in yards of lace and eyeing them suspiciously. “Let’s not talk, then.” Jane pulled him into the next dance. He stood opposite her, tall and handsome and so real there among all the half-people. They didn’t talk as they paraded and turned and touched hands, wove and skipped and do-si-doed, but they smiled enough to feel silly, their eyes full of a secret joke, their hands reluctant to let go. As the dance finished, Jane noticed Mrs. Wattlesbrook making her determined way toward them. “We should probably…” Martin said. Jane grabbed his hand and ran, fleeing to the rhythm of another dance tune, out the ballroom door and into a side corridor. Behind them, hurried boot heels echoed. They ran through the house and out back, crunching gravel under their feet, making for the dark line of trees around the perimeter of the park. Jane hesitated before the damp grass. “My dress,” she said. Martin threw her over his shoulder, her legs hanging down his front. He ran. Jostled on her stomach, Jane gave out laughter that sounded like hiccups. He weaved his way around hedges and monuments, finally stopping on a dry patch of ground hidden by trees. “Here you are, my lady,” he said, placing her back on her feet. Jane wobbled for a moment before gaining her balance. “So, these are your lands, Mr. Bentley.” “Why, yes. I shape the shrubs myself. Gardeners these days aren’t worth a damn.” “I should be engaged to Mr. Nobley tonight. You know you’ve absolutely ruined this entire experience for me.” “I’m sorry, but I warned you, five minutes with me and you’ll never go back.” “You’re right about that. I’d decided to give up on men entirely, but you made that impossible.” “Listen, I’m not trying to start anything serious. I just--” “Don’t worry.” Jane smiled innocently. “Weird intense Jane gone, new relaxed Jane just happy to see you.” “You do seem different.” He touched her arms, pulled her in closer. “I’m happy to see you too, if you’d know. I think I missed you a bit.” “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.

Why won’t you marry me?” “Gracious, you are persistent.” She patted the bun he’d so expertly fashioned. “Has it occurred to you if I marry you all my wealth and independence would be forfeit?” “If you don’t trust me to leave your fortune in peace, transfer your wealth to your brother’s name. He’ll steward it as you direct.” Gayle would be more conscientious with her money than she was, which was saying something. “And what of my freedom, my independence?” How such a big man could move so quickly was beyond her. One moment Maggie was looking around for her boots and stockings, the next she was flat on her back with fifteen stone of determined earl poised above her. “You call it independence, but you never so much as go for a drive in the park, Maggie Windham. You do not make social calls except on your family members, you do not entertain, and you do not permit yourself even a dog for companionship. As my countess, you’ll have the run of the society functions, your invitations will be accepted by all and sundry, and you will have my charming and devoted company at your beck and call, even and especially in your confinements. Plural, God willing. Marry me.” Devoted

Brie is back in town. She’s with Mike.” “Really?” Mel said, suddenly giving him her attention. She closed the laptop and put it aside. “I haven’t seen her. When I was leaving the bar, her Jeep was parked next to Mike’s car. She came to Mike. Not to us—to Mike.” She shrugged. “Well, that makes sense. He loves her.” “How do you know that?” Jack asked. “How could you not?” she asked. Jack sat back on the couch. “I thought he was just trying to get laid.” “That’s pretty irrelevant,” she said, laughing. “You’re all trying to get laid. Some of you actually love the women you’re trying to get close to.” “You act like we’re all just a bunch of bulls being led around by our dicks.” She laughed at him, gleefully for a woman who was annoyed to be pregnant, and moody to boot. “Do I? I wonder why?” “So you think this makes sense?” “Extraordinary sense. It even makes me nostalgic.” That caused him to smile devilishly. “Nostalgic enough to take me to bed?” “Tell me something—are you letting go of this weird control thing you have over Brie?” “Yeah,” he said, almost tiredly. “It’s not like I haven’t wanted her to have a full life. I thought she was going to have that with Brad, the shit. It was Mike who worried me—he’s been such a frickin’ tomcat.” He glanced at his wife’s disapproving expression. “Yeah, yeah, let’s not go over that again. We all made our rounds.” “I doubt he made any more rounds than you,” she said. “It was just the marriages that got under my skin,” he said. “So help me God, if he marries her and walks away from her, I am going to kill him.” “Looks to me like he’s totally sunk,” she said. “A complete goner.” “Fine,

Eve was talking to the horse in low, earnest tones, and the horse gave every appearance of listening raptly. An image of Mildred Staines flashed in Deene’s mind. He’d seen her riding in the park on a pretty bay mare just a few days previous. Mildred sat a horse competently, but there was nothing pretty about the picture. Her habit was fashionable, her horse tidily turned out, her appointments all coordinated for a smart impression, but… Eve was still wearing Deene’s coat, her skirts were rumpled, her boots dusty, and she sported a few wisps of straw in her hair. She stopped to turn the horse the other direction, pausing to pet the beast on his solid shoulder. I could marry her. The thought appeared in Deene’s brain between one instant and the next, complete and compelling. It rapidly began sprouting roots into his common sense. She was wellborn enough. She was pretty enough. She was passionate enough. She was—he forced himself to list this consideration—well dowered enough. And she charmed King William effortlessly. Why not? Little leaves of possibility began twining upward into Deene’s imagination. He knew her family thoroughly and wouldn’t have to deal with any aunts secreted away in Cumbria. He was friends with her brothers, who did not leave bastards all over the shire. The Windham hadn’t been born who lost control when gambling. And Eve Windham was a delightful kisser. Why the hell not? The longer he thought about it, the more patently right the idea became. Eve

He was her life support and she didn’t want to let go for fear of drowning.

These women, your fans read your books, but they really buy into the fantasy that you sell. Sex. You’re a sweet-talking pimp with a pen, paper and PC minus the loud suit, shoes and matching hat.

work vehicles and a lone motorcycle, her SUV had the road to itself, which meant she would get there faster. Indeed, the familiarity of turning onto Caroline’s street was a lifeline. Once she parked in front of the mint-over-teal Victorian, she put Tad on her hip and hurried up the walk. The squeak of the screen was actually reassuring. And the smell of time when she stepped inside? Heaven. “Mom?” Caroline ran barefoot from the kitchen, stopped short, and put a hand to her heart. “Mother and child,” she breathed and slowly approached. Her hair was a wavy mess, and her face blushed in a way that made her look forty, but her eyes, moist now, held adoration. Wrapping a firm arm around Jamie, she said by her ear, “We will not mention the show. It has no place in this house with us right now, okay?” Jamie hadn’t even thought about the show, and certainly couldn’t think of it with Caroline’s soft, woodsy scent soothing her nerves and giving her strength. “Mom,” she began, drawing back, but Caroline was studying Tad. “Oh my. A real little boy. Hey,” she said softly and touched his hair. Jamie felt the warmth of the touch, but Tad just stared without blinking. “I think I know you. Aren’t you Theodore MacAfee the Second?” Those very big eyes were somber as he shook his head. “Who, then?” “Taddy,” came the baby voice. “The Taddy who likes cats?” Caroline asked, to which he started looking around the floor, “or the Taddy who likes pancakes?” “Pancakes, please,” Jamie inserted. “I promised him we’d eat here. Mom—” She broke off when Master meowed. Setting Tad on the floor, she waited only until he had run after the cat before turning back to her mother and holding out her left hand. Caroline frowned. “You’re shaking.” She had steadied the hand with her own before she finally focused on that bare ring finger. Wide eyes flew to Jamie’s. In that instant, with this first oh-so-important disclosure, it was real. Jamie could barely breathe. “I returned it. Brad and I split.” “What happened?” Caroline whispered, but quickly caught herself. Cupping Jamie’s face, she said, “First things first. I don’t have a booster seat for Tad.” “He’ll kneel on a chair. He looks like Dad. Do you hate him for that?” Tad was on his haunches on the other side of the room, waiting for Master to come out from under the spindle legs of a lamp stand. “I should,” Caroline confessed, “but how to hate a child? He may have Roy’s coloring, but he’ll take on your expressions, and soon enough he’ll look like himself. Besides,” she gave a gritty smirk, “it’s not like your father gets the last laugh. If he thought I was a withered-up old hag—” “He didn’t.” “Yes, he did. Isn’t that what booting me off Gut It! was about?” “You said we weren’t talking about that,” Jamie begged, knowing that despite this nascent reconciliation, Gut It! remained a huge issue. Not talking about it wouldn’t make it go away, but she didn’t want the intrusion of it now. Caroline seemed to agree. She spoke more calmly. “Your father’s opinion of me went way back to our marriage, so this, today, here, now, is satisfying for me. How happy do you think he is looking down from heaven to see his son at my house, chasing my cat and about to eat my grandmother’s pancakes, cooked by me in my kitchen and served on a table I made?” The part of Jamie that resented Roy for what he had made Caroline suffer shared her mother’s satisfaction. She might have said that, if Caroline hadn’t gone from bold to unsure in a breath. “I’m not equipped yet, baby. Does Tad need a bottle for his water?” “No. He’s done with bottles. Just a little water in a cup will do, since I forgot the sippy.” In her rush to get out of the house, she had also left Moose, which meant she would have to go back for him before dropping Tad off, which meant she would be late for her first appointment, which she couldn’t reschedule because she had back-to-backs all day, which meant she would have to postpone to another day, which

GOAT HOUR GOSPEL (SUCH SALVAGE) BY MARK WAGENAAR   Just as the evening’s about to move on, they appear, not as the apparitional deer— here, & gone in the next moment, without a sound—but one by one, bumbling through briar, chewing through poison ivy, sniffing at trees. A slow procession walking beneath elms & birches that hold up the last light. And you’re alone with the traces of things, the news in front of you: the crooked skeleton of Richard III was dug up from a parking lot, humpbacked, once buried in his boots & battlefield wounds. Nearby a lost river has been uncovered, & coughed up its mouthful of Roman skulls. No relic is safe, it seems, from an invisible tide that presses them upward. Sometimes it’s not the loss that hurts but the indignities of the discovery. And yet beside the diggers & builders of new things is this mangy congregation, pushing through the scrub without a trail or blueprint or direction. Their dirty white fur shines a little in this late, lost hour. They bleat as they shamble & piss on each other without warning, or maybe as a warning, or in greeting. They’ll eat anything—tin can, T-shirt, canvas sack, bones of animals & kings, & carry them awhile. And so do we: each night, across the country, people turn up at hospitals unable to speak, for the needle or nail lodged in their throats. They’re unable to explain why, but we know— that desperate mix of need & panic that can drive us to keep something safe for good. These dearest items take your words & leave them luminous, radiolucent, shining on the X-ray, like this swallowed ring: a ghostly eclipse. Small comfort to share an appetite with these goats, this dishevelled lot. But a comfort, too, to know that some things will be saved from the soil, rescued from time’s indignities, if only for a little while, & by these scruffy reliquaries, on the other side of the valley now, flickering slightly as they near the vanishing point of the timberline. And we might call such salvage mercy . And it must be even for the undeserving, for those of us who didn’t live right, or live best. Whatever that means. Mercy will find us, even when we fail to recognize it, when we least expect it.

A truck turned the corner and rumbled its way over to our house. I watched it parallel park, then go silent as the lights switched off. The driver’s side door opened, and my best friend, Matthew, stepped down. His cowboy boots thudded against the asphalt, then crunched across the gravel that covered our front yard. “Howdy,” he said. I

He chuckled and, leaning over to pull off his boots, said, “You’ll get a good night’s sleep now. I’m staying the night.” “Oh,” she said nervously. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea….” “Relax, mija. Don’t I know everything you’re going through trying to get your life back? You can’t honestly think I’d do one thing to make you feel threatened.” “Well…” “Don’t insult me,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of unforgivable things, it’s true, but I’ve never been unkind to a woman. I am a gentleman. And you need sleep.” She thought about it for less than a second. “I know if you go, I’ll crack up. For God’s sake, when does it end?” “I’m not sure, but I know it does. It turns out this is just a little too soon for you. There’s no need for you to feel self-conscious about this. We just won’t mention it. No one watches my comings and goings. No one watches this cabin to see whose car is parked outside.” She gave a sigh and leaned back into the couch cushions. “I hate what this has done to me. I thought I was tougher.” “Jesus, don’t do that to yourself,” he said. “It’s bad enough what’s been done to you without adding that. It’s not a small thing to get over, Brie.” She

When they drove past it on the motorway, he used to fantasise that his parents were about to turn their vehicle towards the car park and surprise him, say the boot was full of secretly packed luggage and they were heading off for a fortnight. When he had kids of his own, he’d told himself, he’d surprise them that way for real.

watched it parallel park, then go silent as the lights switched off. The driver’s side door opened, and my best friend, Matthew, stepped down. His cowboy boots thudded against the asphalt,

Passed the kitchen and noticed the sandwich. It still had huge chunks of moist, tender chicken breast in it. Didn’t want to waste it. Wasn’t hungry either so I booted my laptop and put the remainder of the sandwich up for auction on eBay.

The babau appeared to shrink and solidify, now fitting neatly into the chair. It leaned back, parked its boots on top of the desk, and said in that voice from the tomb: “Might you have any sweets about you, luv?

But who could yearn to be on the wrong end of the knife and fork? That’s his real interest here. They’re out there…and dear god, he finds them. “I’ve always lost myself in other people,” says a nervous young woman in an empty room with peeling windowsills. “It’s never enough. Why not carry it all the way?” A middle-aged man on a park bench leers into the camera, something lascivious in his gaze, as if he’s filming for a dating profile. He squeezes his thigh. “I’m thick. I’m meaty. Juicy. Who wouldn’t want me?” A couple, too. The man looks smaller than the Amazonian woman to begin with, the contrast exaggerated by the way he hunches on the floor beside her wrought iron chair. He strokes the leather of her knee-high boots. She stokes his hair the way she would a favored pet. “I want to be in her belly,” he whispers. “I want to pass through her. I want to become a part of her. Then neither of us will ever have to be lonely again.

Three and a half hours and a lot of curse words and tears later, my hands still ached, my elbows did too, and every step I took hurt the joints in my knees and the painfully stretched skin covering them. If I didn’t have black pants on, I was sure I’d look like I’d gotten into a fight with a bear cub and lost. Bad. Feeling defeated but trying my best not to, I sucked in one breath after another, forcing my feet to keep fucking going until I made it to the stupid-ass parking lot. I’d gone through periods of pure rage toward everything on the way down. Over the trail in the first place. Over doing this. Over the sun being out. At my mom for bamboozling me. I’d even been pissed off at my boots and would have taken them off and thrown them into the trees, but that was considered littering and there were too many rocks. It was the boots’ fault for being slippery, the sons of bitches. I was donating them the first chance I got, I’d decided at least ten times. Maybe I’d burn them. Okay, I wouldn’t because it was bad for the environment and there was still a fire ban in effect, but whatever. Pieces of shit.

Hanawon, located about forty miles south of Seoul, means “House of Unity.” The campus of redbrick buildings and green lawns surrounded by security fences was built in 1999 by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, a cabinet-level agency created to prepare for the day when North and South would somehow be reunited. Its programs are designed to help defectors transition into a modern society—something that will have to happen on a massive scale if North Korea’s 25 million people are ever allowed to join the twenty-first century. The Republic of Korea has evolved separately from the Hermit Kingdom for more than six decades, and even the language is different now. In a way, Hanawon is like a boot camp for time travelers from the Korea of the 1950s and ’60s who grew up in a world without ATMs, shopping malls, credit cards, or the Internet. South Koreans use a lot of unfamiliar slang,

No one told me I’d get an alias. I’ve always wanted a nickname. Squeaky, so named because he had a pair of noisy boots when he started, assumed Tye and Olive were our trail noms de guerre. When asked why, he said Tye looked like he’d be more comfortable in a suit and I was small and round but obviously salty.

it explains how they were brilliant at home, the Jackson 5, the Temptations, and “Tizita” on their lips, a perfect Afro on their heads, bell-bottoms swishing above Double-O-Seven boots, and then the first foothold in America—behind the counter of a 7-Eleven, or breathing carbon monoxide fumes in a Kinney underground parking lot, or behind the counter of an airport newsstand or Marriott gift shop—has turned out to be a cement foot plant, a haven that they are fearful of leaving lest they suffer a fate worse than invisibility, namely extinction.

Jeffrey ran to his car parked outside Mr Roslan's block, not wanting to lose sight of the young man and remembering Faizal's number plate. He found the black Nissan and pursued it from two or three cars away. It had started to drizzle and he almost lost him a few times along the Bukit Timah and Kranji Expressways, but kept a close eye on the back of Faizal's car. For twenty minutes they drove like an invisible convoy, before Faizal turned off the highway into the Lim Chu Kang area. Keeping his distance, Jeffrey saw Faizal stop his car by the main gate of Pusara Abadi, the Muslim cemetery ground. Jeffrey swerved to the side and waited until he saw Faizal getting out of the car empty-handed and entering the cemetery. Then, getting out of his car he pried open the Nissan's boot with an Allan key that he always carried in his pocket. Inside was a black trash bag and a long machete, well-worn and used, crusted along its edges with a dark stain. It was soil, not blood, as he lifted his finger to taste it. Jeffrey put the machete back, closed the boot and went closer into the burial grounds, the long weeds brushing the sides of his trousers. Faizal stood in a far corner of the cemetery. Jeffrey stopped, crouched behind a large tombstone and watched. A darker, smaller man appeared next to Faizal. They talked for a few minutes; several crumpled dollar notes were exchanged. Faizal patted the man's back. The man departed. Then Faizal walked back to his car. Jeffrey continued to watch. Faizal returned with the machete. Taking his time, he hacked away at the overgrown scrub around a blue minaret tombstone. Slow and lethargic like a landscape gardenener, he pulled up the weeds and threw them into a pile at the side. Jeffrey waited until Faizal cleared the vegetation and left the grounds, before inching forward. On the minaret tombstone, he saw the engraved name, 'Rubianah binte Bakar' - she had died eight years ago.

overloaded horses bent backwards by the chisel of the mason who once sculpted an eternal now on the brow of the wingless archangel, time-deformed cherubim and the false protests, overweight bowels fallen from the barracks of the pink house carved with grey rain unfallen, never creaking, never opening door, with the mouth wide, darkened and extinguished like a burning boat floating in a voiceless sea, bottle of rum down threadbare socks, singing from pavement to pavement, bright iridescent flame, "Oh, my Annie, my heart is sore!", slept chin on the curb of the last star, the lintel illuminated the forgotten light cast to a different plane, ah the wick of a celestial candle. The piling up of pigeons, tram lines, the pickpocket boys, the melancholy silver, an ode to Plotinus, the rattle of cattle, the goat in the woods, and the retreat night in the railroad houses, the ghosts of terraces, the wine shakes, the broken pencils, the drunk and wet rags, the eucalyptus and the sky. Impossible eyes, wide avenues, shirt sleeves, time receded, 'now close your eyes, this will not hurt a bit', the rose within the rose, dreaming pale under sheets such brilliance, highlighting unreality of a night that never comes. Toothless Cantineros stomp sad lullabies with sad old boots, turning from star to star, following the trail of the line, from dust, to dust, back to dust, out late, wrapped in a white blanket, top of the world, laughs upturned, belly rumbling by the butchers door, kissing the idol, tracing the balconies, long strings of flowers in the shape of a heart, love rolls and folds, from the Window to Window, afflicting seriousness from one too big and ever-charged soul, consolidating everything to nothing, of a song unsung, the sun soundlessly rising, reducing the majesty of heroic hearts and observing the sad night with watery eyes, everything present, abounding, horses frolic on the high hazy hills, a ships sails into the mist, a baby weeps for mother, windows open, lights behind curtains, the supple avenue swoons in the blissful banality, bells ringing for all yet to come forgotten, of bursting beauty bathing in every bright eternal now, counteract the charge, a last turn, what will it be, flowers by the gate, shoe less in the park, burn a hole in the missionary door, by the moonlit table, reading the decree of the Rose to the Resistance, holding the parchment, once a green tree, sticking out of the recital and the solitaire, unbuttoning her coat sitting for a portrait, uncorking a bottle, her eyes like lead, her loose blouse and petticoat, drying out briefs by the stone belfry and her hair in a photo long ago when, black as a night, a muddy river past the weeds, carrying the leaves, her coffee stained photo blowing down the street. Train by train, all goes slow, mist its the morning of lights, it is the day of the Bull, the fiesta of magic, the castanets never stop, the sound between the ringing of the bells, the long and muted silence of the distant sea, gypsy hands full of rosemary, every sweet, deep blue buckets for eyes, dawn comes, the Brahmanic splendour, sunlit gilt crown capped by clouds, brazen, illuminated, bright be dawn, golden avenues, its top to bottom, green to gold, but the sky and the plaza, blood red like the great bleeding out Bull, and if your quiet enough, you can hear the heart weeping.

My name is Olivia King I am five years old. My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot-pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist. She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand. “Here, Livie, I bought this for you.” She called me Livie. I was so happy. I’d never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloons wrapped around other kids’ wrists in the parking lot of Walmart, but I never dreamed I would have my very own. My very own pink balloon. I was so excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! I couldn’t believe my mother bought me something! She’d never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours. It was full of helium, and it danced and swayed and floated as I pulled it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it into the bathroom, the closet, the laundry room, the kitchen, the living room. I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother’s bedroom! My mother’s Bedroom? Where I wasn’t supposed to be? With my pink balloon… I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off of her nose. She slapped me across the face and reminded me of how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never listened! She shoved me into the hallway and slammed the door, locking my pink balloon inside with her. I wanted him back! He was my best friend! Not hers! The pink ribbon was still tied around my wrist so I pulled and pulled, trying to get my new best friend away from her. And it popped. My name is Eddie. I’m seventeen years old. My birthday is next week. I’ll be the big One-Eight. My foster dad is buying me these boots I’ve been wanting. I’m sure my friends will take me out to eat. My boyfriend will buy me a gift, maybe even take me to a movie. I’ll even get a nice little card from my foster-care worker, wishing me a happy eighteenth birthday, informing me I’ve aged out of the system. I’ll have a good time. I know I will. But there’s one thing I know for sure. I better not get any shitty-ass pink balloons!

All we know is that we go; and while we have some rules of—etiquette, would it be called?—which bear on the subject, that actual moment has a way of catching folks unprepared. People pass away while making love, while standing in elevators, while putting dimes in parking meters. Some go in midsneeze. Some die in restaurants, some in cheap one-night hotels, and a few while sitting on the john. We cannot count on dying in bed or with our boots on. So it would be remarkable indeed if we did not fear death a little.

In view of such an atmosphere, it is strange that when he dressed for the half-hour trip to the center of his forces, Patton chose his “dress,” whipcord riding breeches, a custom-tailored light-khaki shirt and cavalry boots, and carried a candid camera and riding crop. More standard with Patton in combat was an item at his side, gleaming in the searing southern sun: the Colt .45 Single Action, strapped in its mahogany-bay Myres holster. Binoculars completed the showy outfit, together with helmet-liner and an old helmet.

There was so much to think about and so much to do with all this activity and responsibility that he hardly had time to really consider how he missed London, the hum of it, the Brixton roar and the beloved river, the West Indian take aways, the glittering of the tower blocks at night, the mobile phone shacks, the Africans in Peckham, the common proximity of plantain, the stern beauty of church women on Sunday mornings, the West End, the art in the air, the music in the air, the sense of possibility. He missed the tube, the telephone boxes. He even missed, deep down, the wicked parking inspectors and the heartless bus drivers who flew past queues of freezing pedestrians out of spite. He missed riding from Loughborough to Surrey Quays on his bike with the plane trees whizzing by, the sight of some long-weaved woman walking along in tight jeans and a studded belt and look-at-me boots and maybe a little boy holding her hand. The skylines, the alleyways, and yes, the sirens and helicopters and the hit of life, all these things he knew so well. And the fact, most of all, that he belonged there in a way that he would never, could never, belong in Dorking. He was outside, displaced. He was off the A-Z. He felt, in a very fundamental way, that he was living outside of his life, outside of himself. And the problem was, if indeed it was a problem – how could you call something like this a problem when there were bills to pay and children to feed and a house to maintain? – the problem was that he did not know what to do about it, how to get rid of this feeling, how to get to a place where he felt that he was in the right place. And this not being such a serious problem, not really a problem at all, he had suppressed it and accepted things as they were.

One man came racing across the park directly toward Gray. A motorcycle officer saw him and roared after him. He tried desperately to escape, dodging between the trees, but the motorcycle followed every move until the victim tripped and fell. In an instant the policeman in the sidecar was out, kicking his victim brutally as he tried to get up. At last he simply lay on the grass, “trying to cover his head, and crying out as his body recoiled under the heavy boot.” We ask, sometimes, why the German bystanders did not interfere when the Brownshirts beat up the Jews, but deep down we know the answer. As Gray wrote, “I suppose we all had some impulse to intervene, to try to stop this cruel nonsense, but we didn’t. We weren’t after all on the wretched man’s side, except that each of us could feel the boot in his guts. Instead, we turned away sickened as the broken man was stood up and led away for questioning

Holding his hiking boots, he stood by the door and listened. He knew they were in the den, waiting for him to make a move. He gently opened the bedroom door and listened. He took a step into the den, saw their silhouettes on the sofa and in the chair, heard their heavy breathing, and silently walked to the door. At the end of the hallway, he put on his boots and left the building. At the first hint of sunlight, Zola awoke and sat up. Seeing the bedroom door open she jumped to her feet, turned on the lights, and realized Gordy had managed to escape. “He’s not here!” she yelled at Todd. “He’s gone!” Todd scrambled out of the chair and walked past her to the bedroom, a small square space where hiding would be impossible. He poked through the closet, looked in the bathroom, and yelled, “Shit! What happened?” “He got up and left,” she said. They stared at each other in disbelief, then walked over to break the news to Mark. The three hurried down the stairs and along the first-floor hallway to the building’s rear door. There were a dozen cars in the parking lot but none of them belonged

grey, the cold biting. Caroline wore the heather-coloured herringbone wool coat that Florence had found in one of her weekly trawls through the charity shops. It was slightly big on the shoulders, but roomy enough to accommodate her new shape. Around her neck she’d wrapped the cashmere shawl, its softness and warmth a blessing. ‘Be back before you know it,’ Florence said, rubbing condensation from the windscreen with her gloved hand. ‘Three days, two nights. It’ll fly by.’ Caroline doubted that, but she made no reply as they pulled away from the cottage. Outside the station Florence parked in a loading bay, something she did regularly. As far as Caroline knew, she never got a parking ticket. The traffic wardens must recognise the grey van, and decide to leave well enough alone. They walked in. Caroline joined the queue at the ticket desk. ‘Return to Brighton,’ she said to the clerk when her turn came. ‘Change in London,’ he replied, barely glancing at her. Out in the area at the rear, they scanned the parked buses. ‘There’s yours,’ Florence said, pointing. ‘Get on and find a seat before they’re gone.’ They’d exchanged presents the night before, after Caroline’s confession. Florence had given her a jar of hand cream and a pair of fur-lined boots. They’re not new, she’d said of the boots, but they’ll keep you warm. Caroline’s gift to her was a sky blue cashmere wrap that she’d knitted one afternoon when Florence was out at work. Predictably, Florence had tut-tutted at the expense – You have more money than sense – but when Caroline had wrapped

Lake Placid was alive with cars and campers and people. It was still early spring yet it felt like an Ontario tourist town at the height of the season. Traffic barely moved, shoppers wove through the cars as if the street were a parking lot and the stoplights meaningless. It felt like summer to Travis after a winter of heavy boots and thick jackets and shoveling snow.

If land and religion are what people most often kill each other over, then the West is different only in that the land is the religion. As such, the basic struggle is between the West of possibility and the West of possession. On many days it looks as if the possessors have won. Over the past century and a half, it has been the same crew, whether shod in snakeskin boots or tasseled loafers, chipping away at the West. They have tried to tame it, shave it, fence it, cut it, dam it, drain it, nuke it, poison it, pave it, and subdivide it. They use a false view of history to disguise most of what they are up to. They seem to be afraid of the native West—the big, cloud-crushing, prickly place. They cannot stand it that green-eyed wolves are once again staring out from behind aspen groves in Yellowstone National Park. They cannot live with the idea that at least one of the seventeen rivers that dance out of the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada remains undammed. They are disgusted that George Armstrong Custer’s name has been removed from the name of the battlefield memorial, the range of the Sioux and Crow and Arapaho, replaced by a name that gives no special favor to either side: the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Worse, the person now in charge of the memorial is an Indian.

Virgil was a tall man, thin, athletic, with longish blond hair and an easy smile. He was wearing a “got mule?” T-shirt, purchased in the parking lot at a Gov’t Mule show a year earlier in Des Moines, an inky-blue corduroy sport coat, and bootcut blue jeans over cordovan cowboy boots. As an agent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, he should have been wearing a suit with a blue or white oxford cloth shirt, a dull but coordinated nylon necktie, and high-polished black wingtips. What the BCA didn’t know, he figured, couldn’t hurt him.