Yes

"Get him!" a man shouted in French.

The pale man dodged through the back gate of the yard, chugging the beer in his hand as fast as he could. He realized after a moment his life was more important than the alcohol, and with one last swig tossed it aside. As soon as he was sure he was out of sight, he slid behind a wall and pulled a CZ-52 out of his jean jacket. Just as he did two men suddenly came running by. He counted two seconds, then jumped out into the alley, glancing back the way they had come to ensure they were alone.

"Hey!" he cried. They whipped around. One of the men had the good sense to bring his gun around as he turned. He was the first one the man shot. No sense in letting the smart one get the drop on him, and he only needed one mouth; one mouth would talk easier if the other was shut permanently.

"Body armor yah?" the one holding on him said, and he fired. Two 7.62mm rounds went clean through the man's vest, and one caught him in the eye. A halo of blood, and he slumped down, an arrogant expression still on his face.

A man is a fool

A man dies as a fool. In his twenties he's a complete, utter, fucking, king, grade-A prime beef fool. As he ages, he loses adjectives until at last, on his deathbed (or lying in the gutter after being struck by a soccermom in an SUV) he comes to a total understanding of everything he's ever done and experienced, and deicedes that life wasn't all that bad after he figured it out. The problem was that he was figuring it out as his guts were distending from the weight of the Ford Expedition parked on his midsection.

This is how I believe my father felt as he spoke to me from the gutter. Possibly he had meant to call an ambulance, but quick-dialed me by mistake. After a moment's thought, however, I feel he decided that it ws his time and he'd rather speak to his son than a bored 911 operator.

"Son," he said in a labored, wheezing tone, "it's time I told you I'm a fucking idiot."

"Jesus Dad, are you at a brothel again?" I said. He'd called me while he was screwing a whore in Bangkok one time. I'd mistakenly put him on speaker phone while I was at client's restaurant. The worst part was it was an upscale Indonesian joint, and behind my dad's voice I (and the numerous staff of the family owned business) could hear a strongly accented woman's cries of encouragement. I lost the account. They went out of business after a year, but before that happened I didn't talk to my dad for a month.

"Shut up," he said, coughed wetly, then "I want you to live well. Are you? Do you live well?"

"Dad, what's going on?" I could hear excited voices now as well as someone vomitting in the background.

"Just tell me you're happy with your life," he said.

"OK, yes, I'm happy."

"I did you right?"

I was taken aback for a moment. "Yeah, you did fine."

"Good." He hung up at that point. It took twelve hours for the Indiana State Police to send someone over to my house, during which time I was completely oblivious to the fact that my father had died as he hung up on me.

melancholy

There was a gap in the rose bushes. Sandi was aware of it, but she really didn't care anymore. She had spent the first five years of her marriage pruning the damn things, and she was sick of it. So one plant died of rot? Good riddance. She sat on her patio, staring through the hole in the wall of annuals, sipping a coffee with far more Irish Mist than she should have added this early in the morning, and dared the rest of the flowers to wilt before her eyes.

She sipped again. Really, this was more than enough liqueur for a single cup of coffee. Another gulp. Just too much.

As far as she could tell, she finished the cup of coffee/booze around ten. Dan wouldn't be back until six or later. There was the thesis, but Sandi hadn't read a peer-reviewed journal in two months. Hadn't sat at her computer in almost twice that. She'd even glanced at a copy of People in the checkout line last week. And sex? When masturbation's lost it's fun, you're fucking...something.

She giggled a little. The bottle of Irish Mist was sitting on the counter. Another cup of coffee? However, the pot was empty, and it would take five minutes to make another one. Straight Mist it was. She half filled her coffee cup with the liqueur. Here's to you Billie Joe, she thought and took a stiff sip.

"Cough! Ugh." Wow, had she ever drank schnapps straight? When was the last time she'd had actual booze?

The second half cup of alcohol bought her another half an hour. Now I'm done for the day, she thought. Don't want Dan to come home and find me passed out naked on the living room floor with a running vacuum in my hand after a drunken attempt to unpack and clean. She glanced in the pantry, and looked over the stacks of moving boxes still marked with what she was fairly certain was labels from the previous move.

A notice on the dining room table caught her eye as she was pondering whether to unpack or start a fire. She picked it up, and took a sip of the second cup of Irish Mist. God, the home owner's association, she thought as she rolled her eyes. Bunch of bored housewives.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the dining room mirror.

"Fuck you, I'm not that far gone," she said to the empty house.

phone

"You're serious?" Shawna, my cousin, said. "He's in Africa? How did he get there?"

Brad shrugged and stirred his coffee. The barista had slopped it together in a hurry, and the leaf she had tried to create in the froth was misshapen. He hated Starbucks; more because he thought society currently was shifting towards that stance of abstract distrust of corporations that it takes from time when it gets bored than because he actually disliked their coffee. Brad liked Starbucks coffee.

Shawna hated it which is why Brad arranged to meet her there. He loved watching her community-college, populist contempt boil over into her attitude.

"Jesus, that idiot," she mumbled. "Is this because of that one time..?"

"Maybe," Brad said. He raised his eyebrows without looking up from his coffee. "All I know is, he's over there right now. And taking satellite phones off dead guys."

"Jesus."

---

mssgheadng-
to:bradrome@[XXXXXX]
frm:tomtom@[XXXXXX]
Brad,

There's a swamp ahead of us. Not water, but morals. Ethics. We have to do what we need to do to accomplish what we need to accomplish. The means are easily forgotten if the ends are great enough.

curve ball

Harry hands me a new menu; he watches my eyes carefully. I betray nothing. I like my criticism to be a complete surprise to my clients.

"It's good."

"Really?" He seems surprised.

"Yes. Your graphic designer did a really good job on the art highlights and the layout. The narrow format is good for your limited menu too."

"Really. Dristi? Dristi!"

"What?" a young woman's voice calls from the kitchen.

"Come out here." A tall woman (young, early twenties) walks over to the table, spins a chair around, and sits down. I pretend to glance at my vPod to keep from staring slack-jawed; she smiles at me and I smile back.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi, I'm Doug. Did you design this?"

"Yeah, it's good right?" She gives Harry a Look when she says this.

"Yes, it works quite well for what you have here."

Here is "Hari Kari". The only indian restaurant for fifty miles. Harry could crap in the food, and the local college literati would eat it out of desperation. Northwest Ohio is not particularly famous for ethnic food. It is famous for having been a swamp at one time, and corn.

Dristi turns to Harry, and delivers a calm but rather loud tirade with a proud smile on her face, finally slapping her hand on the table at the last few words and storms off back to the kitchen.

I'm in love.

Sunnyvale HOA

This is the third novella

---

there is never a gap when I get up to the stop sign bob randall and dave johns and mike fiztgerald can get up there and go right the hell out of the goddamn street but when I get up there and especially when I'm running late especially when I'm running behind and always on monday and why the hell do I always have to wait for an entire fucking HERD

Dan watched the traffic flood pass him. He pounded his steering wheel. His coffee, which he never let himself sip until he was already on the loop as part of his buddhist studies (denial), was cold, he just knew it. Sandi said it was because he put too much milk (skim) in it, but what the hell did she know. Jake Thompson was behind him, edging up to his bumper. If he "accidentally" hit him again, he was going to "accidentally" tell his wife he wasn't actually going across town to take the babysitter home on friday nights.

Gone, gone, baby it's all gone

Author's note: This is a separate story from the previous two posts.

---

His phone rang. He picked it up, saw an unknown carrier message, and almost killed the call. He took a sip of his coffee, then answered it anyways.

"This is Brad."

"Brad, it's Tom!"

"Who? Shit, Tom? I can barely hear you."

"I know, this fucker's satellite phone is a piece of shit."

"Where the hell are you?"

"Tanroon, it's a small city-state just inside Somalia."

Brad choked on his coffee. "What the fuck are you doing there?" he shouted.

"I can't hear you man, this thing is a piece of shit. I should have left it on the asshole's body. Oh shit; gotta go, there's an air strike coming."

Goodbye summer my old friend

"Hello my buddy!" Harry Handoo pumps my hand not holding my iPod video with great enthusiasm. I like this guy. A lot. There aren't many restaurant managers that I'd help out as often as this guy needs it. There aren't many restaurant managers I'd brake for if I saw them crossing the street.

Owners, sure; I'll kiss their asses all day, and honestly too since they actually write my paychecks. I like owners. Rich people are alright. When your main worry is whether or not your son is going to live up to the family name and make it into harvard (which wouldn't even make a minor dent in your bank accounts), and not whether or not your next paycheck is going to be a week late or a month late, you tend to be a more mellow person.

Anyways, Harry. Hari actually. He's indian. He came here with high hopes (since he was from a lower caste in Indian society), became a citizen, and had those hopes destroyed just like the rest of us natives. He fits in well.

"Sit, sit, sit!" he crows. He waves to the back, his smile stretching from ear to ear across his welcoming, round face. I smile back, he smiles more, and we compete for a few seconds as to who can be happier to see the other. Finally, I concede defeat, and Harry/Hari sits down. He winces for just a brief moment, and I worry for my friend.

Managers work far harder than owners, since the owner is just a guy who happens to have enough money to buy a restaurant and hire people to work in it.

Do you really want to hurt me?

I am Doug, and I am a mediachondriac.

When I wake up, I face one of the three screens in my room: the one on the ceiling, the one to the right of my bed, and the third, obviously, on my left. They are all set to the same station since it doesn't matter what is on so much as that I have some form of non-conceptual input streaming directly into my brain.

(They happen to be set on Telemundo this week. I like the fact that not being able to understand the language isn't a problem for holding off the inevitable anxiety attack that comes after a minute or two of no stimulation.)

I eat in front of the TV for breakfast like I do at every meal when I'm at home. For a change of pace I turn it to Telemundo, and put it on mute. I don't have to hear it if I can see it, and vice versa. However, after a minute I start to feel queasy. I realize that I've been paying more attention to my food than the television since I couldn't hear it. I sigh and change it to APW, the Professional Wrestling channel. All "Sports Entertainment", all the time. On the TV, John Cena is walking around a ring proclaming his greatness. I only know who John Cena is because he has been the most heavily featured "babyface" since Hulk Hogan.

Also, because like most wrestlers he occasionally speaks in the third person.

My faith healer sister tells me I'm nuts, and that I'm making it all up. I tell her she thinks ginko biloba will help her pass the state nursing board without studying (she refuses to study since nearly all the test is about treatments and procedures that go against holistic theory).

I wish I was a pro wrestler, and not a resturant consultant. I'd certainly be a lot less fat.